“It’s doing better than that,” I said honestly. She smiled with a nice set of teeth and reached over the bar to touch my cheek. The other hand held tightly to her amber tumbler.
“That’s sweet,” she said.
“Lombardi,” I said, and her hand moved away slowly. “Why does he want you to make the picture?”
“My suggestion to you is to stay away from Mr. Lombardi if you want to hold onto what remains of your appeal,” she said. “He can be an unkind man.”
I stood up. “He’s not giving me a choice.”
“Mr. Lombardi thinks he owes me something, and he wants to be a West Coast big shot,” she explained. “He wants to make movies and sell cheese.”
“Hot dogs,” I corrected. “He has a hot-dog factory.”
She laughed. “His old man had a hot-dog stand on Coney Island,” she said.
“Funny,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll see you around.”
Before I hit the door, her voice caught me.
“I’m through here at eleven,” she said. “If you want to come back, I’ll buy you a Pepsi.”
“Eleven,” I said, without looking back, and I went out into the light. If it had been a sunny day, I would have been as helpless as a Universal Studio vampire. As it was, I had to stand still for a few seconds. The piano tinkled an off-beat version of Blues in the Night, and I hurried away before Lola started to sing.
I drove through the hills and out of the valley with the down-and-out image of Lola Farmer. I wasn’t sure what there was about her that got to me. It was something distant and sad, something I wanted to find and examine. I didn’t quite feel sorry for her, but there was something about her that was comforting, like sinking into a hot bath and losing yourself.
The area of Los Angeles I drove to brought me back to reality. Clapboard houses and dark brick churches looked pretty good on a clear day, but a day like this showed the neighborhood for what it was, a ghetto of out-of-work losers even at a time when jobs were easy to get and men were scarce. The kids in the street and little parks wore someone else’s coat. Weary wives with handkerchiefs on their heads carried packages and clinging kids.
Curtis Bowie’s house was easy to find. It was just off Sixty-fifth, a very small wooden house painted white but showing rotting wood underneath. There was no room for the house to breathe. It was almost flush with twin houses on both sides.
I parked, locked the Buick and went up to the screen door. My knock rattled the screen, which looked ready to fall out and had so many holes it couldn’t have discouraged an eagle, let alone a fly.
“Anyone home?” I asked, peering through the screen and seeing a living room of gray furniture. I knocked again and opened the door. One of the hinges was completely off. I caught the door in time and carefully replaced it behind me as I walked in. The living room was small and decorated in fake Victorian decay. The sofa had a spot so worn the round outline of the springs was clear. A newspaper was on the floor, as if someone had been reading it when he was called away by the phone, bodily needs or food boiling over.
“Mister Bowie?” I called. “Are you here?”
No answer. I walked through the living room and found myself in the kitchen, where a man was seated at a small wooden table, his head down and his hands at his side.
“Mister Bowie?” I said, and the body stirred.
“Who?” said Bowie, lifting his head to look at his dish-filled sink instead of at me.
“I’m over here,” I said, and his eyes turned in the right direction and tried to focus on me. He was a lean man, a leathery lean man with a slightly silly smile and a head of curly gray hair. He wore a pair of work pants, a flannel shirt and suspenders. His sleeves were rolled up as if he were about to work on something electrical or mechanical. Beneath him on the table I could see sheets of notebook paper with scribbles and crossed-out words.
“Tomorrow for sure,” he said, standing with a yawn. “I’m picking up a check this morning and I’ll pay you tomorrow after I cash it at the bank.”
“It’s afternoon now, Mr. Bowie,” I said.
He was waking up now and looked over at me to be sure which debtor I was. He didn’t recognize me. To help his memory he walked to the sink, pushed over a pile of fly-attracting dishes and turned on the cold water. He cupped his hands, filled them with water, plunged his face into his palms and said, “Buggggle, plluble.”
He stood up and stretched.
“Now,” he said amiably in an accent that touched of the Southwest, “how can I help you?”
“My name is Toby Peters,” I said, holding out my hand to shake.
He took it and said, “No it’s not.”
“Yes it is,” I insisted with a false little laugh. “The fellow who told you he was me was a dentist who wanted to play detective while I was busy on another case.”
“You mind if I use that?” he said, reaching for his pencil on the table and pulling a sheet of paper in front of him. “A dentist pretending to be a detective. I thought there was something funny about him. Now that I think of it he did say something about my jaw protruding, said I should see an oral surgeon.”
“Can I ask you a few questions, Bowie?”
“Sure,” said Bowie, “have a seat. Like some coffee?”
I tried not to look around at the sink and the fly convention on the nearby cabinets as I declined.
“I do not get a lot of visitors,” Bowie explained as we both sat. “A writer often leads a solitary life.”
“High Midnight,” I said, taking off my hat and unbuttoning my coat.
“High Midnight,” Bowie sighed, playing with his suspenders. “Best thing I’ve ever done. Took me three, four years on and off. Wrote it with Gary Cooper in mind. Little fat fella who said he was you told me he was working for Cooper.”
“Right,” I said. “I’m working for Cooper, trying to find out who’s putting some ugly pressure on him to make High Midnight.”
“I’d like him to make it,” said Bowie through his smile. “That’s a fact. Max Gelhorn told me he had Cooper all lined up. I’ve got no advance on this project, Peters, not a wooden dime. I’m just sitting here and waiting.”
“Any idea who might be willing to buy some muscle and dirt to put pressure on Cooper?” I asked, watching Bowie snap his suspenders.
“I might,” said Bowie, “but I couldn’t buy the services of a blind pickpocket. I am down to my last two bucks.”
“That could make a man desperate,” I said, looking into his eyes.
“It can make a man hungry,” replied Bowie. “You think there’s any chance of Cooper making the movie?”
I got up and said I didn’t know. Bowie got up too.
“I do have coffee,” he said. “I mean if you had said you wanted a cup. I even have sugar.”
“I never doubted it,” I said, returning his grin. “What do you think of Lola Farmer and Mickey Fargo?”
“Never met them,” said Bowie, running his hand through his hair. “I know they’re supposed to be in the picture, but nothing’s gone far enough for us to meet.”
“You have a copy of High Midnight around I could read?” I asked, making a step toward the living room.
“Sure,” he said, moving ahead of me into the room. “Read it and tell me what you think. Maybe you can put in a good word for it with Mr. Cooper if you like it.”
Bowie ambled to a bookcase in the corner and found the script at the top of a pile of what looked like typed scripts.
“I’ve only got two left,” he explained, handing it to me and nearly getting his feet tangled in the newspaper on the floor.
“Hey,” I said, pulling out my wallet “I’m not asking for a free copy.”
“No,” he said, rubbing his hands on the back of his pants.
“I’m on an expense account,” I explained. “Will five bucks cover it?”
“Cover it fine,” Bowie said.
He ushered me to the door and gently opened it so it wouldn’t fall.
&
nbsp; “I’ve been meaning to fix that,” he said.
We shook hands, and I went into the street with a wave back at Bowie, who returned the wave. I hoped he didn’t turn out to be the one I was looking for.
There was no traffic on the small street, so I had no trouble spotting Marco and Costello in the Packard behind me. I drove back to my old neighborhood in Hollywood, where Costello and Marco waited outside while I went into Ralph’s and bought two pounds of Washington Delicious apples for 14 cents. There was a phone at the exit of the grocery, and I had a dime in my change. I put down my small package, found a number in my phone book and called Ann Peters, to whom I had been married for five painful years.
“TWA, Miss Peters, can I help you?”
“Mitzenmacher,” I corrected. “Your name is Mitzenmacher. I got my name back when we were divorced.”
“Toby, are you drunk?”
“No, and you can keep on using my name. It’s the only worthwhile thing I gave you.”
“Toby,” she said, whispering so someone on her end couldn’t hear. “I’m busy.” I imagined her long dark hair and full figure in a well-tailored suit.
“I’m at Ralph’s buying groceries, and I thought about your boyfriend Ralph, and then I thought about you,” I said.
“Very romantic,” she said. “I’m hanging up and going home. Don’t call again.”
“Wait,” I shouted and a lady going past me gave me a dirty look. “I’m sorry. How about dinner tonight? Ozzie Nelson’s at the Florentine Gardens.”
“I thought you weren’t going to bother me anymore.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea,” I said. “Tonight, just to talk over good times?”
“There were no good times,” she whispered. “Now I’m hanging up.”
“I’ll just call back. I’ve got a lot of dimes.”
“Toby, please …”
“If you don’t see me, you’ll drive me into the arms of a boozy singer.”
“I’m going to marry Ralph,” she said. “In March.”
I said nothing.
“Toby? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m going to hang up. Don’t call back.”
“I won’t,” I said, and she hung up while I gagged on something gracious to say.
I went out into the parking lot and took my package to Costello and Marco’s car. “You guys want an apple?”
Marco took one. Costello declined.
“Women,” I said, taking an apple for myself. “Never marry them.”
“My old man never took nuptials,” said Marco sympathetically.
“I’m going home for dinner,” I said. “If you guys want to take a break, I’ll be there for a few hours at least, maybe for the night.”
I was feeling sorry for myself and conjuring disaster and death for Ann’s Ralph. I had seen Ralph once in the hall of her apartment in Culver City. He was everything I wasn’t: prosperous, tall, handsome, a great head of distinguished gray hair, tan. Maybe a TWA plane would run over him before March. He was too old to be drafted.
The hell with it. I told the car not to do it, but it was possessed. I gave it its own head like Tony in a Tom Mix picture from when I was a kid. My faithful Buick took me to Culver City.
The game had turned more serious with each assault on the stronghold of Ann Mitzenmacher Peters. Weeping, lies, tears, pain, reminders of the bad old days and rolls in the bed which she had rudely forgotten or pretended to forget, had all failed. Threats had made her laugh. The worst part about it, I thought as I went into the small, clean lobby of the long, recently built white building was that Ann seemed to be beyond the point of even getting angry with me. What is the worth of a man when he can’t even draw blood or anger, let alone passion or sympathy?
I rang the bell and dashed up to the second floor when she responded with a ring. Ann stood in the hall, one hand on a hip, her hair long and dark, her figure full at forty. In the last few years I had seen her nowhere but in this hall or apartment, and I didn’t much care for the apartment.
“I can’t stay. I’m going,” I said before she could speak. I hurried up to her, looking at my watch.
“That watch doesn’t work, Toby,” she said, “and generally, neither do you. Out.”
“What have I done to deserve insults?” I said. “Goodbye.” I kissed her on the cheek and stood back. “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to show I had no hard feelings, that I really wish you and Rollo well.”
“Ralph,” she corrected emotionlessly.
“Ralph,” I said. “I’d like to come to the wedding. I would …”
Her head nodding no. She had no right to stand there in a yellow suit looking as good as she looked.
“I have about ten minutes,” I said. “Want to invite me in?”
Her head said no, and she folded her arms patiently.
“I’m working for Gary Cooper,” I said with a shake of my head. “He …”
She shook her head no again.
“Was I really such a bad guy, Ann?” I said.
“No,” she said. “And you don’t give up easily. That was one of the things I liked about you, at least for a 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 shootout, though the old sheriff is a former gunfighter and the present one an inexperienced novice. Before the shootout 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 shootout 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.
High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) Page 6
