Stuart Kaminsky - High Midnight

“Cooper’s gone, and there’s a new ball game,” I said, taking Bowie’s idea. “Gelhorn is off the hook if Cooper meets an accident. You don’t have to deliver if your promised actor is dead.”

Fargo touched his chin, and I realized that he looked a little like Pete, the fat evil wolf in Mickey Mouse cartoons. A thought had entered Fargo’s fat head, and I had put it there.

“On the other hand …” I tried, but Fargo had had enough and pushed past me. He headed not for the stadium interior but for an exit. I nodded to Jeremy Butler, who returned the nod, disengaged himself from the hot-dog man and went after Fargo.

The fight was in the third round when I got back, and the black fighter’s eye was pouring blood. He was trying to protect the eye, which reduced his offense to practically nothing. At the bell the referee called the doctor, and the doctor stopped the battle. A blood-spattered Monroe removed his mouthpiece to reveal a nearly toothless grin of triumph.

Bulldog leaned over to me and told me to keep my mouth shut or else. I laughed in his face. This time I talked to Carmen while the crowds rushed out for refreshment and excretion. The lack of kidney retention of the adult fightgoer is a phenomenon worth some study. I got Carmen and the soldier a beer and told them the main fight was a toss-up. The bulldog man, however, was not making the money he expected, and he was hawking it even for Morelia. I didn’t stay while the ringside celebrities were introduced before the main event. This time Carmen grabbed my arm.

“Are you sick or something?” she said.

“Something,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”

Shelly was at the hot-dog stand this time. He waved at me, and I pretended I hadn’t seen him. He was chomping on a hot dog and had his collar turned up like Peter Lorre in a spy movie.

The corridor was empty this time. Everyone was inside for the main event.

Gelhorn’s upper lip was pulled back as he advanced on me, showing even teeth that looked ready to bite. He wore a clean white shirt and carried his coat on his right arm. His right hand was covered and might be carrying something. I resisted the urge to move to the protection of the hot-dog stand. Not long ago on a case in Chicago, I had been shot while eating a hot dog.

“Well?” demanded Gelhora. “What is this all about? And what is that fool doing over there looking at us?”

He pointed at Shelly, who turned his back.

“That is the man who said he was you,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s get to it. You killed a man, maybe two.”

“I direct scenes like this,” said Gelhorn, looking to heaven for deliverance, “I don’t fall for them. I didn’t kill anybody.” Gelhorn put his hands on his hips, cocked his head and looked at me with mock amusement.

“You need some dialogue rewrite,” he said.

“I’ll tell you,” I went on. “If you don’t deliver Cooper on High Midnight , some goons with guns are likely to come from the people who want the Cooper movie made and be really upset with you.”

“Idiot,” sighed Gelhorn, looking at his watch impatiently, his yellow-gray hair bobbing.

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

“I was coming to the fights anyway,” he said. “I like them.”

“Sure,” I returned, “five will get you ten that you can’t tell me who won the first two on the card or who’s in the main event. Why did you kill Tillman?”

Gelhorn took a step toward me. I didn’t like the hand under the coat. A heavy figure lumbered out of the main hall, but I didn’t look at him. My eyes were on Gelhorn’s face, which looked more than a touch wild. I took a step back and glanced at my backup man Shelly. His back was turned.

“I met Mickey outside,” Gelhorn said.

“Coincidence,” I commented.

“Yes,” said Gelhorn, “and he told me about your crazy idea about getting rid of Cooper.”

“That’s not my idea,” I said.

“It’s crazy,” said Gelhorn, looking quite crazy enough to consider it.

“It wouldn’t be much of an idea,” I said. “It wouldn’t work.”

“No,” agreed Gelhorn, without convincing me, “it wouldn’t work.”

I was sure I saw the glint of metal under the coat on Gelhorn’s arm. Maybe it told me he was a killer. Maybe it told me nothing more than that he had brought a gun. His eyes told me that he might be wild enough to use it.

“You have any idea how much this picture means to me?” he said softly. “How long I’ve waited, planned? I’ve been this town twenty-five years and never been offered anything better than second unit on The Cowboy and The Lady. I’m not going to miss this chance. Not you, not Cooper, not anybody is going to take it from me.”

“Why did you kill Tillman?” I asked at the wrong moment.

“I didn’t,” he snarled, letting the gun come out a little further. He might have pulled the trigger. Maybe he was just putting on an act. I never found out. The burly figure that had come out of the stadium rammed into Gelhorn, sending coat and gun to the floor and Gelhorn staggering with his arms out to keep from falling.

“Hey, sorry,” said Babe Ruth, clutching an armful of hot dogs and beer. Ruth winked at me and whispered, “Take care of yourself, Sherlock.” Then Ruth rumbled off on his thin legs to find out what the crowd was roaring about. Gelhorn caught his balance and tried to regain his dignity. He moved for his coat, but I got to it before him and picked it and the gun up. It was a little gun. I quietly removed the bullets and handed it to him.

“The next time you point a gun at me,” I said softly, “you eat it. Now I’m sorry if you don’t like the line, but it’s the best I can do.”

Gelhorn turned and went. I looked at Shelly, whose back was still turned, and walked over to him. When I tapped his shoulder, he almost dropped his hot dog.

“I think he spotted me,” Shelly said.

“You’ve been a big help,” I said. “Do me a favor. Go to aisle 16 and find Carmen. Tell her my kidney gave out and drive her home.”

“Mildred won’t like that,” he said.

“We won’t tell Mildred,” I promised. Shelly agreed and went into the arena.

Lombardi was scheduled to show in five minutes. He didn’t. I waited ten minutes. Still no sausage mogol. In twenty minutes I gave up. I knew what I had to do. I had to find Cooper and warn him that he might be worth more on the slab than on the hoof.

I went for the exit, considering a call to my brother, but realizing that I’d have to do it on my own. At the gate a cop I knew spotted me and started to wave and smile. Then he remembered that there was a price on my head, and the smile faded. He started to stride toward me, with one hand going for his gun. I hurried through the turnstyle and ran down the street. I could hear his feet slapping after me.

My wind was good and the cop was overweight. He could have stopped to take a shot at me, but I didn’t think he would. A lot of my survival lately was based on my judgment of human nature. If the past was any indication, I was living on borrowed time.

There was a character named Moneybags Farrell who ran a newsstand on Highland near Selma. He was called Moneybags not because he was rich but because he never handled his customers’ money. He collected it in a leather bag. You dropped your money into it and he gave you change. Moneybags filled up the bag and took it into the restaurant on the corner every few hours. There he went to the washroom and washed the money before he handled it Moneybags was convinced that money was the prime carrier of disease in the modern world. I told him once that others agreed with him, but he was the only one I knew who took it literally.