A Few Minutes Past Midnight

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I see,” said Gunther.

  A huge woman with a shopping bag that matched her size stood behind us now, looking at her watch.

  “We’ll call you at home later,” I said to Blanche who beamed at me and Gunther.

  The huge woman moved between us and, in a whisper, said to the girl, “What’s new from Bing Crosby?”

  Gunther and I went back to the car and got in.

  “We shall inform the police?” he asked.

  “About what? We don’t have any witnesses. They’re all dead. So they pick up Sawyer. They have no evidence. I don’t want to bring Chaplin in and even if I did, all he could say was that Sawyer came to his house and threatened him. No murder charge. I could ask Phil to bring him in, push him around, drop him down a flight of stairs, but I don’t think it’d get us anywhere.”

  “So, what shall we do?”

  “We’ll have to stop him ourselves.”

  “And how shall we do that?” asked Gunther as I started the car.

  “Oh, lots of ways,” I answered, creeping past shoppers in the parking lot. “We could kill him.”

  “Which you will not do,” said Gunther.

  “Which I will not do,” I agreed. “We can threaten him.”

  “Which will not work,” said Gunther. “And if it did, it would simply drive him off to commit some foul act against humanity elsewhere.”

  “Which leaves?”

  “We lay a trap,” said Gunther. “Get him to confess his deeds before witnesses.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “And how shall we do that?” Gunther asked reasonably.

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “How much time do we have till noon?”

  “A bit over two hours,” Gunther said, after checking his vest pocket watch.

  “Let’s get some help,” I said.

  CHAPTER

  9

  THE SUNSHINE WAS gone again. The sky was gray. It looked like rain in Pershing Square but the small park was packed with people on benches eating their lunch out of paper bags, strollers, and servicemen on leave wandering through the city. Plus the regulars.

  The regulars were there. Along with those passing out leaflets on everything from the dangers of drinking beer to the need for a wall along the coast to keep the Japanese from landing, they stood on wooden boxes or overturned trash cans. They insulted the crowd or tried to get those gathered around them to accept Jesus, the end of the world, the promise of Communism, the need for universal celibacy, the dangers of Communism, the threat of organized religion, and the necessary preparations for the brave new world coming after the war.

  My favorite over the years had been Gibberish Dave who had come every day for almost two years. Dave had a dark, dirty beard and always wore a ragged suit and a variety of dirt-stained shirts. Dave needed dental work. Shelly had volunteered. I was there. Two years ago.

  “I’ll take care of your teeth for nothing,” Shelly had said. “I’ve got some experimental procedures I’d like to try. What do you say?”

  “I say, I say, I say,” Dave had sputtered and spat. “I say refurbishing is not always the answer. The stars hold the answers, but the stars don’t speak in words. They speak in codes, blinking. Nazi astronomers understand the code. They’re using the code. Notebooks are full of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Pope Leopold the Second and Dennis Day. If we don’t wake up, we’ll all keep sleeping.”

  “And eating,” said Shelly. “But not with those teeth.”

  “Teeth that bite are bilious,” Dave whispered.

  “Here’s my card,” Shelly had said, handing Dave a card. “Come see me.”

  “Soup and steak?” asked Dave.

  “Tuna sandwich and Pepsi,” said Shelly.

  Dave never took Shelly up on his offer, but week after week, Dave kept coming to Pershing, losing a tooth now and then, making less sense each time I heard him until one day, I began to think I understood him. That’s when I stopped listening.

  Now we were back in the park, my team deployed, ready, I hoped, for the moment and the murderer.

  The meeting we had held an hour earlier in Shelly’s office could have gone better. Jeremy stood. Shelly sat in his dental chair slumped forward, head in his hands looking glum and feeling justifiably guilty over the loss of Fiona Sullivan. Gunther sat on Shelly’s rolling stool, and I leaned against the door trying to organize.

  “Okay,” I had said. “You know where to go, which benches to cover, where I’ll be. You spot a man with a white box in his lap come and get me. You spot a woman with a white box in her lap come and get me. You spot a trained seal with a box in its lap come and get me. Don’t grab the person with the box. We do that together.”

  “You don’t need me,” said Shelly, moving his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “I’ll mess it up. I got Fiona Sullivan killed. I’ll get someone else killed. Let’s face it. I’m not a detective. I’m a dentist.”

  His conclusion was debatable, but I didn’t have the time.

  “We need you,” I said.

  “Call in the police,” he grumbled.

  “I told you why we couldn’t,” I said.

  “We need your help, Dr. Minck,” Gunther said solemnly.

  I don’t think Jeremy was so sure about Shelly’s potential contribution, but he said, “Sheldon, rise above your guilt.”

  Shelly shook his head and sighed deeply.

  “All right,” he said.

  Gunther and I had guns, but neither of us planned to use them for anything other than pointing at Sawyer. The likely result of my firing at any target in Pershing Square would be the death or wounding of relatively innocent bystanders. Gunther would probably hit him, but without evidence the little man would find himself up on an assault or murder charge.

  The idea was simple. Hide as well as we could—which was not easy for this quartet, especially Gunther and Jeremy—and then converge on Sawyer when he was spotted. Surround him, bring him in. Get him to talk. Hope for the best. One of my better plans.

  We separated. I joined a group gathered around a malnourished skeleton of man standing on a rock. His bony arms jutted out of his too-short jacket, and his voice rattled as he waved his arms in the air and told the crowd:

  “Money is corruption. Barter is salvation. Work for your daily bread, not the money to buy your daily bread, for as sure as the rain will come, someone will gather your coins, your dollars, and buy you. Look at yourselves. You’re already bought. Throw your money away and be free. Look.”

  He emptied his pockets. Nothing but lint.

  People drifted away. The crowd was small. I tried to hide inside it while keeping an eye on three benches. There were people sitting on them, but none with white boxes and none that looked like Chaplin’s description of Sawyer.

  I drifted out of the crowd and moved toward Gunther’s benches. I couldn’t see him, but I was sure he was there, probably behind a tree.

  Jeremy was standing right in front of a man on a wooden box, a fat man with a red nose who was telling the amused men and women that touching even one drop of alcohol was the same as turning one’s soul over to the devil.

  The trouble started when I moved toward Shelly’s two benches. I didn’t see him. I didn’t see anyone on the benches who might be Sawyer. And then I heard it, Shelly’s voice in the bushes.

  “No,” he whined.

  I ran in the direction of his voice pushing through a group of sailors, running around some high bushes. I found Shelly facing a policeman, a grizzled older guy in uniform holding a billy club.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” Shelly said.

  “You’re hiding in the bushes. What are you doin’ hiding in the bushes?”

  “I’m a dentist,” Shelly explained, adjusting his glasses.

  “You were looking at those kids.”

  “No,” Shelly said. “I … Toby, tell him.”

  The cop turned to me, warily.

  “He’s a dentist,” I confirmed.
/>   “And what the hell’s that got to do with anything?” asked the cop. “I’ve seen perverts in this park who were brain surgeons, congressmen, and army colonels.”

  “I lost a gold filling back here this morning,” I said. “Dr. Minck came to help me find it.”

  “Special filling,” said Shelly. “Experimental. Very valuable. Must find it.”

  “And what,” asked the cop, “were you doin’ back here when you lost your fillin’?”

  “I confess,” I said. “I was … you know.”

  “Pissing in the park,” the cop said.

  Now I placed him. He looked like Edgar Kennedy about to do his famous slow burn.

  “I couldn’t wait,” I said. “Weak bladder.”

  That was the moment Gunther came running through the bushes toward us saying, “Man with a white box on his lap. This way.”

  “Who the devil are you?” asked the cop. “What the hell is this about a white box?”

  “We think the man with the white box has my filling,” I said. “Someone saw a man with a white box back here a little while ago.”

  “I think we should all take a walk to the call box and call for a ride to the station,” he said.

  The cop was facing me and Gunther, his back to Shelly. Shelly rushed forward, bumped into the cop, and sent him forward on his face.

  “Go,” shouted Shelly, whose glasses had flown off. “Get him. Leave me. Save yourself.”

  He had the overdramatic quiver of bad actor delivering a cliché with all that he could give to it. Gunther and I ran through the bushes, into the crowd, and along the walk.

  “There,” said Gunther.

  There were three people on the bench. A soldier in uniform with his cap tilted back and a young girl holding his arm were feeding peanuts to a squirrel. Next to them sat a fat young man with a large white box in his lap. The fat man was biting his lower lip.

  “It’s not him,” I said.

  “But he has a box. Perhaps he is the accomplice of this murderer?”

  The fat man who wore fat pants and a fat sweater kept one hand on the box and the other hand busy mopping his brow.

  “Sawyer may be watching,” I said.

  We looked around. There was no one who resembled Sawyer, but he might be wearing some kind of disguise. He could be a hundred feet away in the trees with binoculars.

  The fat man sat.

  “Let’s ask him,” I finally said.

  We moved forward toward the man who saw us approaching. He seemed especially interested in Gunther. The fat man looked as if he were going to get up but sat back as we stepped in front of him.

  “What’s in the box?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” asked the fat man.

  I glanced at the soldier and the girl; they smiled at us, got up, and moved away hand in hand.

  “We are two guys with guns,” I said opening my jacket to show the .38 in my holster. Gunther opened his suit jacket.

  The fat guy was sweating.

  “I don’t know. I’m supposed to give it to someone,” he said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “A girl or a guy. Girl’s name’s Blanche.”

  “And the guy’s name?”

  “Toby,” he said.

  Gunther looked up at me.

  “I’m Toby,” I said.

  “And I’m Charlie Chaplin,” said the fat man. “You’re two robbers.”

  He started to get up. I opened my jacket and reached for the .38, hoping no one but he would see it. He sat again. I pulled out my wallet and flipped it open to my California Private Investigator’s card. The fat guy squinted at it.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the box.

  “Who gave it to you?” I asked.

  He started to get up again. This time he made it. He was a lot bigger standing than I thought he’d be.

  “I’m getting out of here,” he said.

  Gunther stood in his way. The fat man reached over and grabbed Gunther by the neck. I started to reach for the man’s arm, but, before I could grab it, the man groaned and rose a foot in the air.

  Behind him Jeremy had managed a bear hug. The man let go of Gunther who dropped to his feet rubbing his throat. The fat man’s face was turning red. People were gathering to watch. Things like this happened in Pershing Square.

  “He’s having a heart attack,” I told the crowd. “Give us room. I’m a doctor.”

  Jeremy let the fat man down. I moved close and said, “Who gave you the box?”

  “Just a guy, here about an hour ago. Gave me the box, ten bucks, and told me what to do. I swear.”

  “What did this guy look like?”

  “I don’t know. Regular. About as big as you. Younger than you, I think. Almost skinny. Just a guy.”

  “Let him go, Jeremy,” I said.

  Jeremy released him.

  “He’ll be fine,” I told the crowd. “False alarm. Just had a bunch of jujubes stuck in his throat.

  The three of us moved down the path with our package. When we got to the street, I told Jeremy and Gunther to look around and see if anyone was watching us. Then I opened the package.

  There was nothing in it but a note and a locket, a locket with two silver birds in flight. Fiona Sullivan’s locket.

  I read the note:

  “Blanche, if you have received this, keep the locket but please call a Mr. Toby Peters whose phone number appears on the back of this note. Mr. Peters, if you are the recipient, you may keep this locket kindly given to me by Miss Sullivan. Inform your client that I am by no means finished with him.”

  There was no signature. I looked at the box. It told me nothing. I pocketed the note and locket and stood for a few seconds before it hit me.

  “Chaplin,” I said.

  We ran out of the park in search of a phone and found a booth. I pulled out coins while Gunther and Jeremy stood in the open door.

  There was no answer at the Chaplin number. I let it keep ringing. Then Chaplin’s voice came on.

  “It’s Peters,” I said. “Did Woodman get there?”

  “The old gentleman with the large gun,” he said. “Yes.”

  “There’s a chance Sawyer may be back to see you,” I said. “There’s a good chance,” I went on, touching the locket in my pocket, “he’s murdered Fiona Sullivan.”

  “I see,” Chaplin said. “And what is it you wish me to do?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay where you are until we find him.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said with a deep sigh. “It certainly isn’t safe here.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What happened?”

  “Your Mr. Woodman almost accomplished what our Mr. Sawyer has been unable or unwilling to do. He came very close to killing me.”

  “Killing you?”

  “Yes. My houseboy was about to clean one of the downstairs windows. He was on the outside. I was on the inside, trying to help him open the window. My houseboy, whose name is Ernest Wang, had a scraper in his hand. Apparently your Mr. Woodman thought he was an intruder bent on my destruction. He fired a shot, which shattered the window, thus making its cleaning no longer necessary. The shot came within a foot or so of hitting me. The bullet continued across the room and destroyed an expensive lamp.”

  “Is he there?”

  “Woodman?” asked Chaplin, still very calm. “Here he is.”

  Woodman’s voice was apologetic.

  “Toby, it looked like a Jap with a gun was trying to break in. Listen, we all make mistakes.”

  I remembered that Woodman had made several mistakes in the past that had left a trail of dead and wounded felons. I wondered how many of them might have been carrying cleaning implements that looked like guns.

  “We all make mistakes,” I agreed. Woodman had been one of them. “Fearaven with you?”

  “No, couldn’t make it. I’m on my own.”

  “Everything’s taken care of now,” I said. “You can go back home. I’ll send you a check
for the day.”

  “Hell,” he said. “Okay. But listen. People make mistakes.”

  “I know,” I said. “Let me talk to Chaplin.”

  Someone hit a horn driving past us as Chaplin returned to the phone.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “A window, a valuable lamp, a frightened houseboy, and an actor now considering the frailty of human existence,” he said. “All with a single tiny projectile. One learns life’s lessons in unexpected ways.”

  “One does,” I said. “Will you move out again?”

  “I will not,” he said. “Welles is coming by in an hour to discuss Lady Killer. Then I have a meeting with a potential backer of the film upon which I am working. Besides, I do not share your belief that I may be in danger from our elusive Mr. Sawyer.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not quite sure yet. Intuition, perhaps. I want to discuss the entire scenario with Welles. I shall continue to calm my houseboy, have someone call a glazier, lament the passing of my lamp, and get back to work. It may be time, I fear, to call in the police.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “I’ve withstood so much negative publicity that this situation might well be only a dip in the road, dangerous but transitory. Now, if you will excuse me.”

  He hung up and so did I. I looked at Gunther and Jeremy and tried to come up with a plan.

  “Perhaps we, Jeremy and I, should keep watch on Blanche Wiltsey,” Gunther suggested.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “I suggest we approach her directly and give her some idea of our concern without providing information on the potential gravity of the situation,” said Jeremy.

  Sounded like the only way to handle it. There was no chance that the massive ex-wrestler and the tiny ex-circus performer could hide in a crowd.

  “I’ll try to find out what happened to Shelly,” I said.

  We had come to the Square in two cars, me and Gunther in my Crosley, Jeremy and Shelly in Shelly’s 1938 Chevy. Jeremy and Gunther decided to take a cab to Coulter’s. I headed back into the Square in search of Shelly and the cop. I couldn’t find them. Shelly’s car was still where he had parked it.

  I went back to the phone booth and called my brother. He wasn’t in but the desk sergeant, Marty Francesco, who picked up the call, recognized my voice.