Stuart Kaminsky - High Midnight

“You don’t have to,” she said, leaning into me as we walked, avoiding battle flotsam.

“I need a place to think,” I said, supporting her through the door.

The bedroom was little more than a large closet. I eased her into the bed and onto the pillow. She kept her arm around my neck and looked into my eyes.

“You are a homely creature,” she said, “but there’s something in those eyes.”

“Murine,” I said.

“Don’t wisecrack when the going gets serious,” she said, pulling me closer. “You’re a soft touch.”

Maybe she was right. I gave her a friendly good morning kiss, expecting her to lie back and dream, but she turned the kiss into something serious, opened up and held on till I eased next to her.

“Well?” she said, wavering between a confidence she once had with men and a quiver that said I might reject her for something she had become. What she didn’t know was that it was what she had become that brought me on the bed, not the tough girl that had started the whole thing.

Lola was warm and soft and tired. She was a wave, a soft wet wave and I floated on and in her. She was almost asleep when I finished but she managed a smile before she closed her eyes. I got up, covered her with a blue blanket and put my clothes on. Lola’s snoring didn’t bother me. In fact, I liked it. It was ironic. Lola had dreams of being a movie fantasy, a white-toothed, platinum creature with the sun behind her and Wolfgang Korngold music welling from the screen. She wanted to be a perfect fake. She was much more satisfying as an imperfect woman.

Since Lola was going to skip out on the apartment anyway, I didn’t think there would be anything wrong in my making a few phone calls. My first call was to my brother at the Wilshire station. They put me right through to him.

“Toby, you asshole,” he said, almost crushing his teeth. “Where are you?”

“Phil, let’s talk sense and talk fast. You having Seidman trace this call?”

“What do you think?” he said.

“You’re a cop,” I answered, trying to straighten up the room as I cradled the phone on my shoulder. “I didn’t kill that guy.”

“Which one?” he said wearily.

“The second one, both of them,” I said, looking around for a wastebasket and spotting a small one in the corner.

“I believe you,” Phil said. “Now, what do you want? I’m a cop, not God. I can’t say let’s just forget the whole thing and go out for chop suey.”

“Who was the guy?” I asked, trying to stretch the phone far enough for me to reach the wastebasket. I couldn’t, so I tried pitching smaller pieces of garbage into it.

I knew Phil would talk just to keep me on the line to trace the call. I also knew it would take at least five minutes for a trace, and Phil and I both knew that I wouldn’t be on long enough to allow that, but we had roles to play out.

“His name was Tom Tillman-small-timer, couple of arrests for extortion, one suspicion of murder,” Phil said. “A local. You didn’t know any of this?”

“No,” I said honestly, trying not to cut myself on slivers of mirror.

“You think you might come in here and explain the whole thing to me,” he said slowly, “so we can get working on it? The longer you stay out there, the worse it looks for you.”

“You mean if I come in with my hands up, you promise me a fair trial?”

“Jerk,” he hissed.

“And my old pal John Cawelti. You think he might get up a lynch party and rush the jail at night to string me up?”

“This isn’t Tombstone,” Phil shouted, finally losing what little temper he had left.

“Maybe it is,” I said over his heavy breathing.

“Get your ass in here now,” he shouted. I could imagine his face going to a purple-red like my father’s used to do in his infrequent rages. It was a rage like that that finally made his heart say the hell with it. I always thought it was ironic that a gentle man like my father should lose his life in a moment of anger. Maybe anger needs practice. It couldn’t just come once in a while. If that was true, Phil would live long.

“Phil …” I said, but he hung up. He had broken the rules. I considered calling him back. He had actually kept me on the phone for longer than I had planned, and I had almost forgotten the time. He wasn’t supposed to get angry and hang up. I was supposed to do it with a flourish.

With a patient operator and a lot of time, I made seven phone calls.

First, I reached Carmen at Levy’s and told her that I would pick her up at seven-thirty for the fights at the Hollywood Legion. I told her to come outside, where I’d pick her up. I didn’t think Phil knew about me and Carmen. Actually, there was nothing to know. If they wanted me badly enough, the police would eventually make the connection, but by the time they did that, I’d either have some answers or be wrapped up and ready for delivery to them.

Then I called Lombardi, Mickey Fargo, Gelhorn and Bowie, accused the first three of killing Tom Tillman and Bowie of knowing more than he’d told me. I insisted that they meet me at the Hollywood Legion at staggered intervals of fifteen minutes, starting at eight. It was worth a shot. My last calls were to Jeremy Butler, Gunther Wherthman and Shelly Minck. I asked each to be at the Hollywood Legion, to stay out of sight and to watch for me. At a signal each was to step out and be a witness when I confronted the confessed killer. None had a gun, but I didn’t think a killer would start blasting away in a crowded stadium.

There was no problem convincing Gunther. He simply said he would be there and asked no questions. Jeremy questioned the wisdom of the whole plan, reminding me of times in the past when my traps had turned into near-disasters for me.

“I know what I’m doing, Jeremy,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed, “you are trying to get yourself killed. I’ll be there.”

Shelly was the toughest to convince. His excuses included: “Mildred wants me home to fix the oven”; “I have a sore toe”; and “My glasses are broken.” The thrill of playing detective had faded with the first corpse, but Shelly rose to the occasion and finally agreed when I threatened to turn him in to the dental society for malpractice.

There was a lot of time, and Lola was snoring pleasantly in the next room. I cleaned up, found some Quaker Puffed Rice and coconut juice. There was no milk so I poured the coconut juice on the cereal. It tasted pretty good. I ate and read the few pages of Lola’s newspaper that hadn’t been chewed up by massive Marco and me. The Japanese had bombed an Australian naval base, someone had caught a four-ton shark and the Frankie Carbo jury was deadlocked. Carbo was on trial for the killing of Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg. More important than all of this was the fact that Sugar Ray Robinson had TKO’ed Maxie Berger in the second round of their fight in Madison Square Garden in New York. Somehow that reassured me that the world was still sane.

With a few hours to go, I looked in on Lola, who snored away. I found a razor in her bathroom, shaved and washed up. I looked presentable if I kept my jacket buttoned to hide the torn shirt.

I read a few pages of Lola’s copy of Saratoga Trunk , didn’t like it and turned on the radio. When Lola still wasn’t up at six-thirty, I kissed her forehead and went out.

Carmen was as reliable as California rain. Al Pearce was just coming on when she stepped out of Levy’s, her coat drawn around her shoulders. She looked big and strong and sure, even after a day of work; the reverse of Lola Farmer. I pulled up and got out of the car, looking around for cops, robbers, cowboys or Indians. The sun was dropping toward San Pedro when I opened the car door for Carmen.