Stuart Kaminsky - High Midnight

If I could have carried him, I might have lugged him to my car and dropped him in Barnsdall Park under an olive tree. I might get caught, but it would have been better than having the police find me here with my second body in as many days. It was then that the knock came at the door. I had been too busy trying to get some information out of the corpse by simply staring at him to hear the footsteps.

“I’m sick,” I said. “Come back later.”

“It’s the police, Peters,” came the unpleasant but familiar voice of Officer Cawelti.

“My clothes are off,” I said.

“Open the damn door,” he shouted, “or we’ll kick it in.”

“You have a warrant?” I said, considering someplace to hide a big body in a small room.

“I don’t need a warrant,” he yelled. “I have reason to believe a felony is in progress in there.”

“You got a friendly phone call,” I said, walking to the door. He was already pushing at it when I removed the chair. Cawelti came skidding in, his gun out. An old cop in uniform was right behind him with his gun out.

“Aha!” Cawelti grinned evilly, spotting the corpse.

“Very good,” I said. “You spotted him right away. Excellent police work.”

“Make jokes, you son of a bitch,” he said as he laughed with dancing eyes. “Now I’ve got you. You’re running a goddamn butcher shop and your brother isn’t going to get you out of this one.”

“You want a confession?” I said. The uniformed cop had crossed over to the squat man to be sure he was dead. He nodded to Cawelti.

“You want to confess?” Cawelti said, a bead of joyful sweat forming on his brow.

“Come on, I didn’t kill him. Who do you think called you?”

“A citizen doing his duty. Maybe your accomplice, who had a rush of guilty conscience. I don’t give a turkey’s toe,” gloated Cawelti, indicating with his gun that he wanted me to turn around. I turned around and I knew he was pulling out his handcuffs.

“Hands behind your back,” he said.

The old cop was going through the corpse’s pockets. I knew Cawelti had to be looking at my wrists. I turned as fast as I could, chopping at his left arm in the hope that he had shifted the gun so he could put the cuffs on with his right hand. I was right. The gun sailed across the room and hit the old cop. I shoved Cawelti back, and he tumbled over my mattress on the floor.

“Now hold it,” ordered the old cop, reaching for the gun he had put away, but I went for the door and was out with no shot behind me. I could hear them scrambling as I went down the stairs three at a time. Mrs. Plaut was on the porch, looking up at the sky.

“Beautiful crisp night,” she said.

“Beautiful,” I said, dashing down the stairs into it.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Peelers?” she shouted as I ran down the street I could hear Cawelti thunder onto the steps behind me.

“Stop,” he shouted, which struck me as a stupid thing to say, but what choice did he have. I didn’t stop. I got to my car and pulled away just as Cawelti, his plastered hair hanging over his eyes, raised his gun and took a shot at me. The bullet hit the top of the Buick and raced into the early evening. He shouldn’t have been shooting at me on a residential street, but he didn’t care. For all I know, the next shot probably killed an innocent stroller. I went around the comer and headed for Melrose Avenue.

I had to admire whoever was knocking off the hoodlums in Los Angeles. I didn’t think they were doing it as a civic duty, but they were managing quite a bit, including getting me in boiling oil over my not-too-tall head. They or he or she had also taken away my best suspect and reduced my culinary wares.

Now the police were after me. A killer might still be after me. It was like Robert Donat in The 39 Steps. All I needed was Alfred Hitchcock behind me to tell me what to do. Without Hitchcock, all I could think of was to drive fast, drive far and think about it later. A nagging voice that may have been my old man’s was whispering somewhere, saying, “Call your brother.” I didn’t want to hear that voice. I preferred the other voice that said, “You have to find the killer now and prove your innocence.”

Yep, that was the voice I would listen to, the Hitchcock voice; but the question was how was I going to do it. What I needed was a friend. I also needed a couple of tacos to settle my stomach. I stopped for the tacos, found a dime and made a phone call.

“It’s me,” I said.

“No,” said Ann.

“I’m in trouble,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re always in trouble. You like to be in trouble.” She hung up. I knew she would. I drove to Burbank and parked a block away from the Big Bear Bar with my lights out. I slumped down. The street was clear. I got out and walked past with my collar up. I could hear Lola’s off-key sad voice inside, so I kept walking, went all the way around the block and got back in the car after I put a little mud on the plates. I could have used a cup of coffee or a good pillow or a new brain.

Darkness had come. I curled out of sight, determined to keep an alert watch for Lola. Vigilance was my watchword. I fell asleep almost instantly.

The cop was rapping at my car window with white knuckles, and the sunlight of morning crept around him. I had slept through the night and missed Lola’s exit. I rolled down my window.

“What are you doing here, fella?” he said softly.

I sat up, tried to force my eyes open wide and touched my chin, which bristled for a shave I couldn’t give it.

“My wife,” I said, trying to find a sob. “I followed her and my best friend to that bar last night. I was waiting for them to come out. Must have fallen asleep.”

“What were you planning to do when your wife and friend came out?” the cop said, examining the interior of the car.

“Follow them,” I said. “Confront them. I don’tknow.” I looked up at the sun through my dingy windshield and squinted. A tear of pain formed in my right eye. I closed my eyes tightly so it would touch my lower lid. I looked at the cop without blinking.

“You live in Burbank?” the cop said with a touch of sympathy.

“No,” I said, “Pasadena.” It didn’t matter what I told him. If he looked at my identification carefully, I was in trouble. I beat him to it by pulling out my wallet and digging out one of the dozen business cards I had picked up in my travels. I handed him the card and he read it.

“Well, Mr. Dubliclay,” he said, handing the card back, “I suggest you go back to Pasadena and have a nice quiet talk with your wife. She probably went straight back home last night.”

Translated, this meant if you want to blow the head off your wife and best friend, get the hell out of Burbank to do it.

“Thanks, officer,” I said, wondering if he would ever know how close he came to capturing public enemy number one.

I drove to Lola’s apartment and made my way up the stairs without thinking about what I was going to tell her. No one answered my first knock. I tried again harder and Lola’s voice said, “Just a second.”

In just a second the door flew open and I found myself looking at Marco, who was pointing his hefty pistol at my chest.

“In,” he grunted, motioning me in with his free hand. I stepped in, and he moved behind me to kick the door shut.

The room was small, hard and not inviting. The sofa and two chairs looked uncomfortable but durable, the way furnished-apartment furniture always looked. Sitting in one of the armchairs, Lola looked uncomfortable, too, but I couldn’t vouch for her durability. She was curled up in a ball, one arm hugging her knees, the other one holding her hair back to look at me. She was wearing pink two-piece pajamas that made her look like what she wasn’t, an innocent little girl. There was a fear in her eyes, too, that little girls only had when they woke up from nightmares.