High Midnight

something he saw. I didn’t outsqueeze him, but I held my own.

“Did some fighting, didn’t you?” Hemingway said with interest.

“Not with gloves on,” I said.

“I think I like him,” Hemingway said with a friendly smile to Cooper.

I was hot and getting irritable and I didn’t give a turkey’s tassel what Hemingway thought of me. No one had asked me what I thought of Hemingway.

Cooper looked out the window and moved to one of the chairs, which he sat in slowly, cocking his head with his good ear in my direction.

“Hemingstein here,” he said pointing a finger at Hemingway, “wanted to get away quietly. Buddy Da Silva is trying to get him to look over the screenplay of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the Great White Hunter is not ready to make any decisions.”

“So it’s better to hide here than in Cuba?” I said, letting everyone know that I too knew who Hemingway was.

Cooper shrugged.

“Good hunting around here,” he said. “Wild pigs. Some deer, even a cougar or two.”

“Snakes,” said Castelli with a distinct Spanish accent. “Rattlesnakes. Lots of them.”

“Right,” said Cooper, unperturbed.

“I’ve got reason to believe that one or more of the people on the High Midnight project might want to do you in,” I said.

“Do me …” began Cooper.

“In,” I repeated. “Shoot you, push you over a mountain or put one of my kitchen knives in your back.”

He asked why and I explained; at least I explained everything but the possibility that I might be the one who planted the idea in the not terribly fertile minds of Fargo and Gelhorn. I also told him about the Ford coupe I had lost on the road.

Castelli leaped from his chair and went to the window with clenched teeth.

“The Fascisti,” he said.

Hemingway went to the window and put his hand on Castelli’s shoulder. “No, why would they follow Mr. Peepers?” he said.

“No, Mr. Heminghill,” I said, looking around the room casually, “they just want to kill Gary Cooper.”

Hemingway turned from the window, unsure of whether to smile or tear me off at the neck. “Your friend has a sense of humor,” Hemingway said to Cooper.

“Every crowd should have at least one person with a sense of humor,” I said over my shoulder.

“Meaning I don’t,” Hemingway said, moving toward me with clenched fists.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I don’t know you well enough, and I haven’t read much of your work, but I’ve seen the movies.”

“The movies of my work are crap,” he growled.

“I like them,” I said, “but what do I know?”

“Hold on,” said Cooper, stepping between us. “Let’s just figure out what to do while we have some lunch.” Everyone agreed to that, and Castelli and Hemingway brought out bread, sliced chicken and beer.

“I think a man needs good hot mustard to tell him he’s alive,” said Hemingway, passing the mustard to me.

I turned it down. “Do you think you might tell me what’s going on now?” I said to Cooper between bites and gulps.

“I’ve got to tell him,” Cooper said to Hemingway. Both men had downed three sandwiches to my one. Castelli had been at about my pace. Hemingway agreed reluctantly.

“Luis here is in the country illegally,” said Cooper. “He was a Loyalist, even though his family was nobility.”

“I am a Loyalist,” Castelli corrected. “The battle is not over. It is only delayed.”

“Which,” jumped in Hemingway, “may be why the Spanish Fascists have tracked him across Europe and up South America. I got him out of Mexico one fart ahead of a trio of killers.”

“They tried to split my head,” Castelli said with a wild grin, “but they cannot kill me so easily.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, to stay on his good side.

“The American government isn’t exactly looking for Luis,” Cooper explained, “but they aren’t exactly welcoming him either. Franco says he’s an international criminal and demands that he be found and sent back. Just to make sure, he’s sent some people to try to get rid of him.”

“And Tillman threatened to expose your part in this?” I said.

“Tillman?” asked Cooper, pausing in his consumption of sandwich to look puzzled.

“The number-two corpse in my room. The guy who looked like a brick.”

“Right,” Cooper said. “That, the business with Lola Farmer and a few other things that would not only embarrass me but my friends, particularly Hemingstein over here, who has committed a few indiscretions in his day.”

Hemingway laughed, and the laugh made it clear that he and pal Coop were talking about wild sex and uncontrolled orgies, or at least hinting at them.

“The guy accused Coop of being a homosexual,” Hemingway chuckled.

Cooper grinned and looked sheepish again.

I had fallen in with a den of boy scouts tittering about girls and bodily functions on their annual outing. I didn’t laugh. Hemingway didn’t seem to like the fact that I didn’t laugh. He didn’t mind that Castelli didn’t laugh, but then again it was clear to all of us that the whack in the face that Castelli had sustained had done his brain no great good.

I finished my beer, and Hemingway finished his second or third. His hands were flat on the table, and he was considering something.

“What do you propose I do, Peters?” Cooper said, pursing his lips.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Probably stay here for a while, while I try to defuse the whole thing and find the killer. The police think I did it. I don’t think you can stay here long, though. They might not be able to get the location from your mother, but one of you hunters must have left a trail here through a friend or a note or something. I’ll stick around for a while to be sure the guys on the road don’t double back and figure out where we are. I doubt it, but it might happen.”

“Fair enough,” agreed Cooper.

“How many of them are there?” Hemingway asked, touching his beard.

“Two,” I said.

“There are four of us,” he said. “Are we four grown men hiding from two guys?”

“I think it would be a good idea,” I said. “They’re after Coop, not the other way around.”

“In the jungles of Africa, the countryside of Spain and China, I learned the hard way that the best way to keep from getting killed is to attack the animal, not give him a chance to go for you,” Hemingway challenged.

“In the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, I learned that people with guns and knives and cars can hide anywhere and come at you when you least expect them,” I answered. “It’s the trouble with city living; the animals don’t know the rules.”

“Ever been in a war, Peters?” Hemingway said evenly.

“No, not the kind where they choose up sides,” I said just as evenly.

“I almost lost a leg in Italy,” said Hemingway. “Torn to pieces. I carried a man a mile with my leg mangled.”

“I understand,” I said. “You don’t like to talk about it.”

In a minute we would be one-upping each other with bullet wounds. I probably had Hemingway beat, but from the look of Castelli, he was the all-around winner. The man’s face showed more defeat and dignity then any I’d ever seen. It was also touched with madness.

Castelli and I cleaned off the table while Cooper watched the windows, at my suggestion.

“How about a little exercise to get rid of some of this beer?” Hemingway said playfully.

“I can do without exercise today,” I said.