High Midnight

water.

He was back in two minutes or less, full of Western hospitality.

“What can I offer you and what can I do for you?” he said, easing into the chair opposite me.

“Nothing, thanks,” I said. “You can talk to me about High Midnight.”

“Mind if I get a drink?” he said, grunting out of the chair and limping to a decrepit refrigerator in the corner. I wondered what the cowboy heroes looking down thought of the sagging furniture in the single room of their former nemesis. Fargo came back with a glass of something that could have been wine, rot-gut or flat Coke.

“Now,” he said, settling in.

“You think you can sit still long enough for us to get through this conversation?” I asked, amiable. “I’ve got an appointment I’ve got to get to by next Wednesday.”

A flash of red crept into Fargo’s eyes. Maybe it had been there all the time, but it caught something of his old screen villainy. I didn’t think he was capable of holding it for a whole scene. I was right. The effort of looking angry took too much out of him. His face twitched, gave in and sagged.

“You’ve got no call coming in here and talking like this,” he said, sipping his drink.

“You’re right. I’ve been rude. I apologize. Did you pay someone to try to force Gary Cooper to take the High Midnight role?” I said, being even more rude.

Fargo could take it as well as he had taken a fake punch from Tom Mix. He just sipped his drink and shrugged.

“Why would I do that?” he said.

“Because you want this movie, and there isn’t going to be a movie without Cooper,” I explained.

“Look around you,” he said, waving his drink at the furniture. “Does it look like I could afford to hire anybody to do something like that?”

“A friend, maybe,” I tried.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” he said, considering an indignant rise from his seat.

I went through the whole explanation about Shelly impersonating me and Cooper getting threatened and Costello getting killed.

“I want the picture,” said Fargo. “That’s a fact, but I’m not about to do anyone in for it, and if I was I wouldn’t have to do any hiring. I’d do it myself. I’ve put on a few pounds, but I can still use my hands, and I can still shoot. I remember one time Tom Tyler and I had-”

“Why does Gelhorn want you in High Midnight?” I interrupted.

Fargo took another drink and looked off into the corner for another excuse to leave and gather what passed for thoughts. “We go way back, Max and me,” he said. “I respect him as a director, and he respects me as an actor. He knows I can take off fifteen, twenty pounds, get in shape for this.”

It would have taken more like forty pounds to make Tail Mickey Fargo look tall again, and I just didn’t think the mass in front of me had the will to do it. Fargo couldn’t handle either of the two major roles in the film. He might make it as the friendly blacksmith in one scene, but that wasn’t what he was talking about.

“What have you got on Gelhorn or whoever is backing Gelhorn?” I said.

“That’ll just about do it,” he said, working his way to a standing position. “You got ten seconds to get out of here and stay out.”

I had expected something more colorful from an old Western villain, something like, this closet isn’t big enough for both of us. There was no way Fargo could have thrown me out of the room, but I had no reason to humiliate him. My goal had been to provoke him a little and get a feeling about him. I had provoked him, but I wasn’t sure of the feeling.

“I’m going, partner,” I said, taking a quick step to the door so he wouldn’t have to be forced to try to throw me out. “Just think about what I said. I’ll be back.”

My next stop was Max Gelhorn’s office. It was getting a little late in the day, but I didn’t want another shot fired at me if I could head it off.

The chunky girl with the running nose and box of Kleenex looked up at me suspiciously when I went through the door of Max Gelhorn Productions.

“You are not Mr. Fligdish of the Fourth Commercial Bank,” she said accusingly.

“I am not,” I confessed. “I’m a pederast.”

She looked at me, puzzled, with bulbous cheeks that seemed to be concealing apples.

Gelhorn was watching the exchange from inside his office. He stood up behind his desk and shouted, “What the hell do you want? Didn’t you do enough yesterday?”

“Hey,” I said in as friendly a manner as I could, “remember I’m the one who works for Gary Cooper and you’re the one who wants him.”

“There are limits,” shouted Gelhorn, rubbing his cheek.

“Are there?”

“Come in,” Gelhorn grumbled, sitting again. I went around the secretary’s desk. She tried to muster a sneeze to aim in my direction but it didn’t come. I squeezed into Gelhorn’s office, past piles of scripts and stacks of trade papers. His desk was cluttered with photographs, more scripts and assorted props.

“Have a seat,” he said. He bobbed nervously behind his desk, touched a script, straightened it out and looked at me. I sat.

“Well?” he said.

“Not very,” said I.

“Hey, I can do without this dialogue. It’s bad enough I have to direct it. I don’t have to listen to this crap in my own office. Just talk straight and back to business.”

I took my time and admired a poster on the wall of an old Western that Gelhorn had produced and directed. The star was Kermit Maynard, and Tall Mickey Fargo was about the fifth name down the cast list. Kermit was pointing a gun out of the poster in my general direction. Kermit’s face was a silly pink.

“Where in your wildest dreams did you get the idea that Gary Cooper would agree to make High Midnight with you?” I said.

Gelhorn rose and pointed the closest thing he could find at me. It was a reel of film. The tail of the film unraveled and dribbled onto the floor.

“Look, you,” said Gelhorn, High Midnight is a good script and …”

“… and the only way you stood a rat’s chance of getting Cooper was if you scared or blackmailed him into it,” I finished.

“No,” he said, trying to gain his composure and rewind the film, which was unraveling at a wild pace. He dropped the whole mess on the floor. “I had Lola Farmer’s assurance that she could talk Cooper into it, that they were old friends. I had a good script. I had good money behind it, enough to make Cooper a good offer. He won’t be sorry if he makes this picture.”

“Max,” I sighed, “you know this business well enough to know that Cooper is under contract to Goldwyn.”

“He can get out for a picture if he wants to,” Gelhorn said, sitting and starting to sulk. “He’s gotten his way before, getting conveniently sick to raise his salary or get out of a picture he didn’t like.”

“But he doesn’t want to do High Midnight,” I repeated slowly, as if I were talking to an idiot.

Gelhorn didn’t hear or didn’t want to hear. A plea entered his voice. “Some people behind this aren’t happy with Cooper.”

“So they tried to kill me and maybe got rid of someone who was protecting me or looked as if he was. All a little warning to Cooper to give in.”

“For Christ’s sake,” laughed Gelhorn in hysteria. “Killing people to make a movie? Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s been done,” I said, looking at Kermit Maynard for support.

“I didn’t kill anyone or have anyone killed or order anyone to kill or …”

“You know a squat guy with a high voice?” I said.

“Lots of them. Casting books full of them,” he said. “You making a movie?”

“No, looking for a killer.” I got up. “How’s the horse?”

“He’ll recover, thank God. I think our interview is over,” said Gelhorn. “Miss Lloyd, please show Mr. Peters the