A Few Minutes Past Midnight

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Fiona Sullivan’s house was not as old as Mrs. Plaut’s and not as big. It was a boxy two-story on a small lot with almost identical houses on either side. There were a few cars on the street, but the houses had small driveways and separate wooden garages that didn’t look big enough for anything much larger than my Crosley. We parked and got out.

  It had turned dark and cloudy. There were lights on in Fiona Sullivan’s. When we stepped closer, I could see that the place needed more than a little work. Dirty white paint was flaking. Beneath the white was a darker color that could have been green.

  Some windows were open and I could hear something classical playing inside.

  “Schubert,” Gunther said. “A bit too melodic for my tastes.”

  I knocked. The door opened.

  The woman who stood there under the porch light was tall, stoop-shouldered, flat-chested, and pale. Her dark hair was tied in a tight bun and she wore round, rimless glasses over narrowed eyes. Her only makeup was a touch of pink in her cheeks that did not become her, and her only touch of near color was a large locket engraved with two silver birds with spread wings that hung from a silver chain around her neck.

  “Mrs. Sullivan?” I asked.

  “Miss,” she corrected, looking down at Gunther, her hand reaching up to touch her silver birds.

  “Miss Sullivan, can I ask you a few questions?”

  “Why?”

  “That is Schubert’s Unfinished,” Gunther said.

  She looked down at Gunther.

  “Yes.”

  “A lovely piece,” Gunther said. “Schubert himself did not particularly care for it.”

  “Do you know Charlie Chaplin?” I asked.

  “Charlie Chaplin? How the hell would I know Charlie Chaplin?” she asked with a snort.

  “Do you know a man about five foot eight, thin hair, maybe wearing glasses, around forty?” I tried.

  “Probably no more than fifteen or twenty,” she said. “Half the men I know probably look like that.”

  “We understand you are contemplating marriage,” Gunther said. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” Fiona Sullivan answered, but she didn’t look particularly happy.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “Not your business,” she said.

  “I’m a private investigator,” I said, taking out my wallet and fumbling for my frayed license.

  She took the wallet, lifted her glasses, and squinted at the license. Then she handed it back.

  “How much you charge?”

  “Depends on what I’m asked to do.”

  “Howard’s missing,” she said. “My fiancé. Come in.” We stepped past her and she continued. “You believe in cards, astrology, the like?”

  Thinking of Juanita, I said, “There’s something to it.”

  “I don’t believe in that stuff. But I believe in fate and your coming to my door when I was thinking about what to do to find Howard, that’s fate.”

  She stepped ahead of us into a living room with dark wooden floors, a faded Navajo carpet, and gray mismatched chairs facing a sofa that strived for gray and came up sun bleached. The walls were lined with black-and-white photographs of women, studio head shots. I looked at them as Fiona Sullivan pointed toward the two chairs.

  “I worked on all those ladies,” she said proudly as I scanned the wall. “Adele Mara, Mary Beth Hughes, Janis Carter, Ann Dvorak, Helen Walker. And over there. That’s Joan Leslie.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “You stopped working.”

  “Arthritis,” she said. “Lost the touch.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Your fiancé …”

  “Howard Sawyer,” she said. “You didn’t tell me what you charge.”

  “Twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses,” I said.

  She sat, knees together, squinting at me.

  “How many days to find him?” she asked.

  “I may do this one for nothing,” I said. “You made a face when I described a man a few minutes ago. That fit your Mr. Sawyer. Right?”

  “What’s he done?” she asked. “You want some peanuts and Pepsi?”

  “I don’t know what he’s done,” I said. “And peanuts and Pepsi would be fine for me.”

  She looked at Gunther.

  “For me, nothing. Thank you.”

  Schubert had stopped. Fiona Sullivan got up, moved to a record player in the corner, lifted the playing arm, and turned off the machine. Then she clumped out of the room.

  “Charming,” Gunther said.

  “The night is young,” I said.

  She was back in the room quickly, holding a glass of Pepsi and a small, half-filled yellow dish of shelled peanuts. She looked around as if she expected something to be missing. Satisfied, she handed me the drink and put the bowl on the small table in front of me next to a pile of Life magazines.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. The Pepsi was room temperature.

  She sat across from me.

  “You have many boarders?” I asked.

  “At the moment, none. I was renovating. Howard was my only boarder for the past two months.”

  “No income then?”

  “I saved my studio money and came into a tidy enough amount when my mother passed on. What’s this got to do with the price of tea in China?”

  “Nothing,” I said, sipping again.

  “So?”

  “Mr. Sawyer’s room. Did he take his things?”

  “I don’t believe he has run away,” she said. “It’s your job to find out what happened to him should I decide to employ you. His room is as it was. His clothes are in the closet and drawers. His desk is untouched. I have changed the linens. Something must have happened to him.”

  I reached for some peanuts and popped them into my mouth. They were too salty. I crunched and nodded.

  “Can we take a look at his room?” I asked.

  She scratched her neck, turned her head, and looked at Gunther.

  “You’re a German,” she said.

  “Swiss,” Gunther corrected.

  She shook her head in disbelief. “All right,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “Upstairs. First door. Right in front of you. Let’s go. I move slow but I’m coming. I climb the stairs as little as I can. Arthritis.”

  Gunther and I crossed the room with Fiona Sullivan behind us. The stairs were steep, but there weren’t many of them. The second-floor landing was narrow, with three doors. I flipped on the lights and moved to the door in front of us. Inside the door I felt for a switch and found it. Two lamps came on.

  The room wasn’t impressive. It looked a lot like mine at Mrs. Plaut’s, only smaller.

  “Cozy,” I said, looking at the only painting in the room, a large picture of a girl looking down a cliff at the white waves hitting the rocks below her. The tips of the waves seemed to be reaching up for her.

  Without a word Gunther moved to the desk. I moved to the drawers. Fiona Sullivan stood watching us, arms folded. I found clothes, period.

  Gunther found much more. He stood before the desk, carefully going through papers on top of it and in the drawers.

  “Toby,” he said, turning to me with a black-and-white composition book in his small hands. The book was open. “At the bottom of the drawer, under stationery and a box of pencils.

  “What is it?” Fiona Sullivan asked, moving toward me as Gunther handed me the book.

  In neat, black-inked script was a list of names, all women. There were eight names. The first five were crossed out.

  “You recognize any of these names?” I asked her.

  She squinted over my shoulder.

  “Mine,” she said.

  Her name was number six on the list. The name after hers was Elsie Pultman.

  “Any others?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You have friends, relatives you can stay with for a few days?” I asked.

  “In Topeka and Abilene,” she said. “I’m not leaving my home. Why s
hould I? And come to think of it, why did you come to my door and why are you so interested in Howard Sawyer?”

  “Gunther, can you …?”

  He knew what I was going to say and answered, “Yes.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Fiona Sullivan asked.

  “Until we find out why there are lines through the names of these five women, I don’t think you should be alone,” I said.

  “You think Howard …? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I shall need some things,” Gunther said.

  “No,” the woman said firmly. “Howard would not hurt me. You have no reason to think he might. You have an active imagination and a wish for my twenty-five dollars a day.”

  “No charge,” I said. “I’ve got a client.”

  “You are both confidence men,” she said. “A homely confidence man and a tiny confidence man. And I have no confidence in you.”

  “I’ve got a contact in the police department,” I said. “Let Gunther stay for one night.”

  She looked at Gunther and said cautiously, “You like Brahms?”

  “Passionately,” he said, though I was pretty sure he had told me that he didn’t like Brahms any more than he liked Schubert. He was strictly a Mozart, Verdi, Bach, and Beethoven fan.

  “You want to take a ride with us to Mrs. Plaut’s?” I asked.

  “Irene Plaut?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “She said she knows you.”

  “Conversation with Irene Plaut would drive me mad tonight,” she said.

  “She had kind words for you too,” I said. “I’ll wait here while you get some things,” I said to Gunther, handing him my car keys.

  He had his own car with built-up pedals and cushion, but I knew he could handle the Crosley.

  Back in the living room I asked Fiona what she knew about Howard Sawyer. She thought for a few seconds with pursed lips, nodded, and said:

  “A gentleman. Came here from Cleveland, tried to join the army but was turned down for medical reasons.”

  “Medical reasons?”

  “He never said what they were. He is a writer.”

  “What did he write?”

  “I don’t know. He never showed me.”

  “His family?”

  “All alone in the world,” she said with a sigh. “A dear man. I can’t believe he’s done anything wrong. He’s such a gentle man.”

  And Hitler’s a vegetarian, I thought.

  I spent the next thirty minutes eating salty peanuts, drinking warm Pepsi, listening to Brahms, and looking at a stack of photographs of B-movie actresses Fiona Sullivan had worked on. My favorites in her collection were Olga San Juan and a very young Wendy Barrie.

  “Did men too,” she said. “Ron Randell, Steve Brodie, Bob Stack, even Roy Rogers once. He has those Indian eyes. I was the one who figured out how to make them look bigger. I saved careers. Ask June Allyson.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “May I use your phone?”

  “Long distance?”

  “No,” I said.

  “In the hall.”

  I moved into the hall and found the phone on a table next to the stairs. I fished the number Charlie Chaplin had given me from my notebook and dialed.

  “Yes,” Chaplin answered.

  His voice was steady, almost musical.

  “Toby Peters,” I said. “I have a lead.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “And I have a problem. Perhaps it would be best if I let your large and engaging associate tell you.”

  The next voice I heard was Jeremy’s.

  “Toby,” he said calmly. “Someone tried to kill Chaplin.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” I asked, looking at Fiona Sullivan who was examining a peanut between her fingers.

  “We were on a covered porch on the second floor,” Jeremy said. “We were talking about the British war poets when something came out of the darkness, ripped through the screen, and hit a lamp.”

  “Something?”

  “A knife. Actually a small sword.”

  “It is an exceptionally large assigai,” Chaplin said in the background. “A rather dull and unimpressive example of the Indian version of the weapon. I believe it was the weapon my damp visitor had in hand the other night.”

  “It strikes me as a particularly inefficient attempt to commit murder,” Jeremy said. “A heavy, dull knife hurled through a second-floor screen.”

  “Another warning?”

  “Perhaps,” said Jeremy.

  “We are dealing with a lunatic,” I could hear Chaplin say firmly from the background.

  “Ask Chaplin if he knows the name Howard Sawyer.”

  Jeremy asked.

  “He doesn’t,” said Jeremy.

  “You think you could persuade him to pack a bag and move someplace safe for a few days?”

  “I will try.”

  “Thanks, Jeremy. I think he should stay away from hotels, friends, places he might be recognized.”

  “You have a place in mind,” Jeremy said.

  “Mrs. Plaut’s. I’ll head over there now and prepare her for a new short-term boarder. I think he should give a false name.”

  “Might she not recognize him?” asked Jeremy.

  “Without the mustache, costume, and dark hair? I doubt it. I think I hear Gunther coming back. Convince him, Jeremy.”

  “I will do my best.”

  I hung up and turned to Fiona.

  “Was that about Howard?” she asked.

  “Did he own any knives, swords?”

  “Knives? I don’t know.” She stood up, a palm full of peanuts in her hand.

  There was a lot this woman didn’t know about the man she had planned to marry.

  “One last question,” I said, waiting for Gunther’s knock. “You said you had some money, this property. Anything else?”

  She popped a peanut in her mouth.

  “My assets are … I am comfortable. You are implying the possibility that my fiancé may have been thinking of marrying me, doing me in, and collecting my small holdings.”

  “Something like that,” I said. “You have life insurance?”

  “Both Howard and I have policies,” she said. “We are each other’s beneficiary. I would have as much reason to want to do him in as he would me, if I were so inclined.”

  “How big are the policies?”

  “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she said, “but Howard has a large inheritance.”

  And that, I thought, was why he was living in a dark Los Angeles boardinghouse with peeling paint.

  The knock came.

  “The little man?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She went to answer the door. Gunther entered with a leather suitcase. I looked at the suitcase and he looked at me. I knew there was a small but efficient pistol inside it that Gunther knew how to use.

  When I left the two of them and walked back to the Crosley, I could hear music coming from the house. It was classical. It was serious. I was glad I didn’t have to stay and listen to it.

  There were voices coming from Mrs. Plaut’s apartment when I stepped as quietly as I could into the house. It was after eleven. I was drained. A session with Mrs. Plaut might well bring me to tears. I started up the stairs listening to Mrs. Plaut, whose voice carried as far north as Santa Barbara and as far east as the Arizona border.

  “It is pure fact, Mr. Voodoo,” she said.

  “And I believe it,” came Charlie Chaplin’s voice in answer.

  I had reached the stairs. I turned and found myself facing Jeremy Butler.

  “Would you like me to return in the morning?” he asked.

  “Does anyone else know he’s here?”

  “No,” said Jeremy. “He simply called his wife and told her he was doing research for the movie he was planning.”

  “Lady Killer,” I said.

  “Lady Killer,” Jeremy confirmed. “Toby, he is a bitter man.”

&n
bsp; “Did he complain about coming here?”

  “He sighed. I think he welcomed the opportunity to get away from phone calls and reporters.”

  “And let’s not forget lunatic assassins,” I said. “I think he is safe here from everything but Mrs. Plaut. Thanks, Jeremy.”

  “It was interesting,” he said. “I finished my Edgar Lee Masters poem. I want to work on it a bit. Perhaps I’ll read it to you tomorrow.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I said.

  “No, I don’t believe you are, but exposure to any poetry lightens the soul and touches the mind.”

  “I can use both,” I said.

  He nodded and moved slowly out the door and into the night.

  I knocked at Mrs. Plaut’s door. Westinghouse, her bird, went wild. It sounded as if he were saying something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “I believe someone is at the door,” I heard Chaplin say.

  “It’s Westinghouse,” she said. “The bird. He is given to fits of inexplicable frenzy. It comes from feeding him pine nuts.”

  “I see,” said Chaplin pleasantly, his voice audible over the chattering of the bird. “But someone is knocking at the door.”

  I heard Mrs. Plaut move across the room to the door pausing to “hush” the squawking animal. Then she opened the door and looked up at me.

  “Mr. Peelers,” she said. “You should be asleep or reading the very important section I gave you.”

  “I’ve had a long day,” I said.

  “I’m sorry someone gave you the wrong pay, but we must all make it through life in the face of adversity. We have a new roomer. You may come in, say hello, and depart.”

  She stepped back to let me in, closed the door, and led me to the dining-room table where Charlie Chaplin was sitting with a tea cup in his hand.

  “This is Mr. Voodoo,” she said.

  “Verdon,” Chaplin corrected.

  “Mr. Voodoo is a bouncer,” she explained.

  “An announcer,” Chaplin corrected patiently.

  “I have been telling him that being a bouncer is dangerous work,” she said. “Especially for a little fellow like him. He is a little long in the tooth for such work. And he is not getting younger. No one is getting younger. There was talk in my family when I was a young girl that my father’s cousin Orton actually got younger when he fell in a vat of tar and almost died, but my mother would have none of it.”