High Midnight

while. Now it’s starting to be one of the things I like least. Toby, I don’t hate you. You went out of my life five years ago.”

“Four years,” I corrected.

“I don’t care if it’s only ten minutes,” she said. “It seems like five years. Just turn around and go away. Don’t cry, lie or ask for a drink of water. Don’t threaten, beg or tell me about the afternoon we fell in the pond in MacArthur Park. Just go.”

“Isn’t your life just a little boring?” I said, stepping toward her and glancing into her room enough to see that it was still decorated in unwelcoming browns and whites.

“No,” she said. “It is peaceful, and you are not part of it.”

“Are you going to stop calling yourself Peters when you marry Waldo?”

“Toby, you know damn well his name is Ralph,” she said wearily. “Now leave. I’ll stop calling myself Peters when I marry Ralph.”

“What’s Ralph’s last name?” I asked, clinging to the conversation.

“No, you might just decide to make a pest of yourself.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Ann. I just want to know. Besides, I’m a detective. I can find Ralph’s last name without any trouble. I won’t feel right if you wind up with some name like Reed or Brown. Ann Brown sounds like a character in Brenda Starr, for God’s sake.”

She didn’t even bother to answer. Instead she looked at her watch, which was working. Then she looked at me as if to say, “Is there anything more to this act?”

I shrugged, defeated again.

“I’m going in now,” she said, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “Don’t knock. Don’t ring and please don’t return. Just go play with your guns and dentists and midgets. Go play cops and robbers, and once and for all get out of my life.”

There was a touch of hope in her blast-at least it was a blast with emotion. But the door slammed in my face, and I was standing there alone.

“Don’t knock,” she said through the door as I raised my hand. “I’m going to turn on the water and take a long bath. Don’t be here when I get out or I’ll call the police again.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Mrs. Plaut wasn’t home. If she had been, I probably would have strangled her. I was in no mood for tolerance. I decided to offer Gunther an apple, but he was out. So I sat in my room for about fifteen minutes, still wondering what Ralph’s last name was. Smiler? Johnson? Stoneworthy? Ann probably picked him for his name. This was getting me nowhere, and I had gone through four apples. I grabbed Curtis Bowie’s manuscript of High Midnight and took a long bath.

Since it took a millennium for the bathtub to dribble to half-capacity, I was well into the script by the time I turned off the water. A bird chirped outside, and I decided High Midnight wasn’t so bad. I finished it forty minutes later and ran some more hot water for an extra shave.

High Midnight was about a middle-aged former sheriff who shoots his wife and her lover and then holes up on a hill at the far end of town with his dog. Angered because no one told him what was going on behind his back, the former sheriff keeps the town pinned down. The easygoing present sheriff tries everything he can think of to get the old sheriff down. He sends an Indian killer, mounts a charge and when the town begins to talk about getting rid of him, the new sheriff offers to meet the old sheriff in a shoot-out, though the old sheriff is a former gunfighter and the present one an inexperienced novice. Before the shoot-out takes place, the old sheriff accuses the new one of having been one of those his wife had taken up with. The new sheriff says yes, but adds that he was just one of many. In the shoot-out the old sheriff, who has been suffering from a wound from one of the attacks on him, misses and is killed though he wounds the new sheriff, who in a final speech says the old boy was wrong but he stuck by his principles. The new sheriff then throws down his badge because the town has not supported him and rides wounded out of town.

I wasn’t sure whether Cooper was going to be the old or the new sheriff. It was a cinch Tall Mickey Fargo would be a joke in either role, and the only thing for Lola was the part of the wife, who gets killed at the beginning of the picture but who appears in some flashbacks.

Withered and dry, I went to my room, pulled the mattress from my bed, lay on my back and fell asleep. I dreamed, as I frequently do, of Cincinnati, where I have never been. Nothing much ever happens to me in Cincinnati. I wander empty neighborhoods and feel lonely. Gradually I feel scared and wonder where the people are. Then a crane with a demolition ball comes down the street, and I hide in an empty building. It isn’t a pleasant dream. My pleasant dreams are about Koko the Clown, but Koko won’t come when bidden. He reserves his dream appearance for times of crisis.

When I woke up, the room was dark. I sat up, staggered to the lamp, turned it on and checked my watch. The hour hand hung limp. The minute hand said it was fifteen minutes to something. My Beech-nut clock said nine- fifty and my Arvin radio picked up the tail end of Bob Burns on KNX, so I knew it was almost ten. Putting on my suit and a clean but frayed shirt with a tie which my nephews had given me for my birthday, I sneaked down the stairs, trying to avoid Mrs. Plaut. I failed. She caught me at the door.

“Mr. Peelers, Mr. Peelers,” she cried, hurrying to me with short little steps and her hands up. “You had a call. Carole Lombard called and said to tell you to remember to tell Cary Grant to be reasonable.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Plaut,” I said.

“I will,” she said with a smile, turning back into her parlor.

My decoding of the message was that Lombardi had called or had someone call to remind me to be sure Cooper agreed to make the picture. He was certainly determined.

It was almost eleven when I parked in front of the Big Bear Bar in Burbank. The street was quiet. A few lights were on in the nearby houses, and the lawns were creaking with crickets. Three cars were parked in front of or near the bar, and I thought I recognized one of them. When I got to the door, I could hear Lola Farmer belting “Rosie the Riveter.” She should have stuck to ballads. I waited till she was finished before stepping in.

There was a bartender with the face of an orangutan serving a customer with the body of a chimp. At one of the tables a couple sat arguing in low voices. At another table sat someone I wasn’t looking for, the squat man with the high voice who had laid me out in front of Mrs. Plaut’s. At the table next to him sat the person I wanted, Shelly Minck. His back was to me, but I couldn’t mistake that shape, that bald head and the cigar smoke. Lola was clinking the keys to think up another song. She looked about the same as she had in the afternoon, which was fine with me.

“Requests?” she asked.

“The Man I Love,” I said, and she looked up and gave me a smile of agony.

Shelly turned as quickly as he could at hearing my voice. He started to rise, but I got to him before he could get up and put my hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not polite to leave when the lady starts a song,” I whispered.

“I can explain,” he said.

I winked at the squat man, who drank his beer and pretended not to see me.

“After the song,” I told Shelly.

Lola did a reasonable job, considering the state of the piano and the limits of her voice. There was something so damned sad about her singing that I was beginning to like it.

I applauded and so did Shelly and the chimp at the bar. The arguing couple was too busy and the squat muscleman was still pretending not to be there. I waved to him to catch his attention, which caused him to rise, pay his bill and leave. His place was taken by the two men who had come through the door, Costello and Marco, both looking as if they could use the sleep I had taken.

“Talk, Shelly,” I said, before Lola could start another song.

“It’s like this …” he began, but I had had enough.

“No, on second thought don’t talk. Just pay for your drink and get out, and stay out of this case.”

“But …”