Stuart Kaminsky - High Midnight

“Money?” I asked. “What money?”

“The money Max Gelhorn promised me,” Bowie went on, scratching his stomach and turning his head at another echoing groan from the crowd. He spotted Gunther and was fascinated by the sight.

“Gelhorn paid you to do it?”

“Of course. Well, he didn’t pay me but the guarantee was there,” said Bowie, unable to take his eyes from Gunther and return them to me.

“So you killed Tillman and Larry from Chicago because Max Gelhorn paid you?”

“Killed?” said Bowie, forcing his attention from Gunther. “I didn’t kill anybody. I was talking about the High Midnight script.”

“If you didn’t kill anybody, why did you come here tonight?” I said.

“Fargo killed him,” said Bowie with a smile.

“Killed who?”

“Whoever got killed,” explained Bowie. For a writer, he was having a hell of a time making things clear.

“Why?” I asked checking the clock. I had another possible appointment in a few minutes.

“A lot of hate in him,” said Bowie confidentially, “and a lot of need. I can’t see him being in the picture, but he’d do anything to get it off the ground, even more than I’d do. He’d kill for it. He said he’d kill to get this picture.”

Gunther finally turned a page in the paper.

“You see that little guy?” asked Bowie, pointing to Gunther.

“Little guy?” I asked, looking around. “What little guy?”

Gunther packed up his newspaper and moved slowly away. Bowie shook his head in wonder, and the crowd roared again.

“Mickey would kill me, you or Cooper to get the picture done,” Bowie said, watching Gunther walk slowly and reluctantly toward the men’s room.

“You think he can reach the toilet?” Bowie asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. The bell rang inside the stadium, and crowd sounds swelled. “Why would he want to kill Cooper? He’s the goose with the golden face.”

Bowie nodded and dropped his grin a bit.

“What happens if Copper gets killed?” he said.

“The picture deal is off,” I tried.

The fight had obviously ended. People streamed out into the corridor, hurrying for the toilet and the hot-dog stand.

“Maybe not,” said Bowie. “Maybe Mr. Gelhorn’s backer lets Gelhorn go ahead with someone else. If someone kills Cooper, Fargo and Gelhorn aren’t responsible for delivering him on the picture.”

“You have a devious mind and a deceptive exterior,” I said as a sailor jostled me.

“I’m a writer,” explained Bowie proudly.

“How much did it cost you to get in here?” I said.

“Cheap seats, a buck,” he said.

I pulled out a couple of bucks and said, “It’s on Gary Cooper.”

Bowie looked at the two bucks, was tempted, but plunged his hands deeper into his pockets to resist temptation.

“Nope,” he said. “I like the fights, and maybe I’ll pick up some material for a script.”

Sometimes you make a mistake. My sometimes came more often than those of other people. I tried to restore some of the pride I had shot away by returning his status as a murder suspect.

“If Cooper got killed, the chances of your script being shot would go up,” I said seriously. “Your motives might be the same as Mickey Fargo’s.”

Suspect Curtis Bowie straightened up and grinned at me. “Could be,” he said and walked into the oncoming crowd.

Gunther hustled up to me and whispered while pas-sersby watched us. “Shall I follow him?” said Gunther.

“Right,” I said, resisting the urge to tell him to be inconspicuous. “Stay with him, and thanks, Gunther.” Gunther disappeared into the crowd, and I went back to my seat.

Bulldog was counting his money and explaining the finer points of boxing to Carmen, who wasn’t paying attention.

“You missed the knockout,” Carmen said sadly. “Black Lightning electrocuted the army.”

“Very colorful,” chortled Bulldog.

“You get a jolt out of taking candy from soldiers who don’t know the game,” I said irritably.

Bulldog gave me a smirk and went back to counting his cash. There were guys like bulldog all over the stadium, guys who made their living knowing the fighters and the odds and playing on sentiment. Sometimes they lost, but usually they won.

In about three minutes the next preliminary bout was ready to go. Again one fighter was white and the other black, but this time they were welterweights, and both looked tough, and both looked like they were beyond maximum draft age. The white guy had a face even more mushed in than mine. The black guy had a double dark line under his right eye. The white guy had been around long enough to spot an old scar and work on it. If the black guy didn’t nail him in the first round, the white guy would probably open the cut and work on it.

“I’m feeling sentimental,” sighed the bulldog, talking over me at the soldier and then over his shoulder at anyone in the crowd who wanted to hear. “I take even money and take Monroe.” Monroe was the white fighter.

The soldier next to me looked in his wallet and hesitated. He looked at me, and I shook my head no.

“I’ve got ten says Harkins goes for the knockout in the first. If he gets it, I win. If he misses, I’ll go with the sentiment and take Monroe. I’m a sucker too,” I said.

The bulldog leaned over and whispered to me, “Go work another area, you clown. This is my section.”

When the fighters touched gloves, I whispered to the soldier to watch for a cut under Harkins’s eye. If it opened a little, he should push for a bet and take Monroe. The soldier looked at my battered face, took me for an ex-pug and said thanks.

“I gotta go,” I told Carmen. “Be right back.”

“You have a kidney disease or something?” she said, still looking for another glimpse of Ann Sheridan but also taking some interest in the fight.

Tall Mickey was waiting for me when I arrived at the stairwell. He was holding his coat open to reveal a jacket with buckskin trim, enough to suggest that he had something to do with horses. He looked even puffier than he had the day before, and he was worried.

Jeremy Butler was engaged in conversation with the hot-dog man. His eyes kept darting to me and Fargo, but he put up a good act. He wasn’t as conspicuous as Gunther, but at six-four and almost three hundred pounds, he wasn’t quite invisible either.

“Big bastard, isn’t he?” remarked Fargo, nodding at Jeremy as I approached.

“Yeah,” I agreed casually, “I think he used to be a pro wrestler. Can’t remember his name.”

“Talk,” said Fargo, smoothing his mustache with a careful finger.

“You killed a man named Tom Tillman, a man you hired to force Cooper to make High Midnight ,” I said smiling. “I’ve got proof.”

“You got no proof,” said Fargo, shaking his head.

“Then what are you doing here?” I said.

“I know who killed the Tillman character-the one who was trying to put the pressure on Cooper,” said Fargo with an evil smile I recognized from moments on the screen just before Bob Steele wiped it from his face.

“Okay, who?”

“Gelhorn,” said Fargo. “Son of a bitch probably hired the guy and wanted him to ambush you because you were getting in the way. Tillman fella probably objected, so Max and his temper took over.”

“Gelhorn tell you that?”

“Max and I go way back,” said Fargo. “Way back. I know how his mind works when the screws aren’t too loose.”

“And Cooper?” I said.

“What about him?” Fargo said, glancing again at Jeremy.

“Gelhorn’s planning to get rid of Cooper,” I said, looking directly into Fargo’s eyes.

“What the hell for?” he said in surprise.