Stuart Kaminsky - Midnight Pass

He held the phone out for me. I took it.

“I believe him,” she said, her voice quivering, about to crack.

“You believe him?”

“Yes,” she said, having trouble getting the single word out. “Bill should stay there. He’s being well cared for.”

“I think your doctor-“

She hung up. I handed Hoffmann the phone. He hung it up and started to open the box of candy. I watched him.

“Some people can be threatened,” I said.

“Most. A Whitman sampler,” he said, holding the box open and reaching over with it to offer me first choice. “In your position, I would have brought Ghirardelli or at the least Frango mints. When’s your birthday?”

“September twenty-ninth,” I said, taking what looked like a chocolate-covered cherry.

“If you’re around in September, I’ll have a large box of assorted Ghirardelli chocolates delivered to you.”

“Aren’t you going to write the date?” I asked.

“I’ll remember,” he said, “if you are around.”

He put the top back on and handed the box to me.

“Give it to someone who likes carbohydrates and cheap chocolate,” he said.

I took the box.

“Good night, Mr. Fonesca, and don’t even consider returning here. You won’t be welcome.”

Stanley led me out through the house and down to the gate.

“Got a last name, Stanley?” I asked.

“LaPrince,” he said.

He put his hand in his pocket and the gate opened.

“Any suggestions about what I should do next?” I asked.

He thought for a beat and said, “Who brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Ezra Pound,” he said.

I got into the Nissan as the gate closed. Darkness had come. Darkness and wet heat. I started the engine and turned on the air conditioner. Stanley stood behind the closed gate, watching me as I drove away.

Roberta Trasker wasn’t my client. My client was the Reverend Fernando Wilkens. I went back to my office and called the number Wilkens had given me. It was a little after ten. I got his deep bass voice on the answering machine: “You have reached the home of Reverend Wilkens. Please leave a message. May the Lord grant you peace.”

After the tone I asked Wilkens to call me in the morning. Then I went across the street to the Crisp Dollar Bill, the box of chocolates under my arm.

There were seven people at the bar and people at two of the booths. Teresa Brewer was just finishing “Till I Waltz Again With You.” By the time I got to the back booth, Chet Baker was playing “You Don’t Know What Love Is” on the coronet and singing. He sounded as if he knew what he was singing about.

The bartender and owner Billy Hopsman’s taste in music had no bounds. He was a lean creature with hair a little too long, nose a little too large, taste in music a lot too broad. Regulars were used to stepping into cool air, comforting darkness, and anything from Maria Callas to Pat Boone or “The Pizzicato Polka.”

Billy called to me, asking what I wanted. I ordered a glass of the coldest beer he had and a steak sandwich with a side of potato salad.

“Coleslaw,” he called back. “Out of potato salad.”

I told him that was fine. I knew fries came with the sandwich. Maybe I’d talk to Ann about my diet again, ask her if she thought I was subtly and slowly eating myself to death on unhealthy food. If I were, so were millions of others. An epidemic. Maybe eating anything but fish and green vegetables should be declared a health hazard. Maybe I was babbling nonsense to myself.

I got the beer first. It was cold. I didn’t ask what kind it was. I gave Billy the box of chocolates and told him to pass it around.

“Birthday present,” I said.

“Your birthday?”

“No. I gave it to someone. He didn’t want it. I think he’s on some kind of diet and didn’t want to be tempted.”

“He should have taken it,” Billy said. “Just to be polite.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Well,” said Billy, picking out what looked like a peanut cluster. “His loss is your gain.”

“That’s the way I look at it. What do you know about Midnight Pass?” I asked Billy when he brought my steak sandwich with a pile of fries and a bowl of coleslaw.

“Jack shit,” he said. “You know who that is singing now?”

Chet Baker had finished. I heard a woman’s deep voice with strings behind her.

“Sarah Vaughn,” I said.

“Right, ‘Make Yourself Comfortable,’” he said, and strode back toward the bar where he offered the box of candy to a guy with a biker’s body, beard, and fisherman’s hat.

The biker, his mouth full of chocolate candy, said, “Hey, Billy, you settle this for us. Ace says that’s Ella Fitzgerald. I say it’s Peggy Lee.”

I didn’t hear Billy’s answer.

I worked at my sandwich. It was overdone but hot. Just the way I like it. The onions were undergrilled but hot. Just the way I like them. The coleslaw was too sweet, just the way I like it. A feel-good meal as a reward for a job badly done.

“Saw your car in the lot, the one you’re renting,” came the voice across the table.

Digger was sitting there in a white shirt, a wide red tie, and a blue jacket at least one size too large. His face was pink and clean-shaven. He didn’t look happy.

“Didn’t get the job?”

“I got it. You should have seen me. It all came back. Kept my back straight, led like George Raft, didn’t miss a beat, smiled like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Even tested me on the bolero. I think maybe I was a professional dancer or something when I was younger. Can’t remember, but you should have seen me, Fonesca. I almost had them clapping their hands.”

“Then why don’t you look happy?” I said with a mouthful of steak sandwich.

“You don’t look happy either. But you never do. When you see that guy in the mirror, don’t you ever tell him something to pep him up?”

“So, you didn’t take the job.”

“I took it,” Digger said. “By God, I took it and I’ll be there on Friday and I will dance with old ladies and I will smile and I will drink unspiked punch and eat little sandwiches and collect my fifteen dollars for just showing up, an additional five if I do a good job. I’ve taken the first small step back to respectability and I don’t think I like it much.”

“Give it a chance,” I said.

“I will. But I don’t know if my brain can take it. You gonna eat all those fries?”

“Half of them.”

He reached over and took three at a time. I asked what he wanted to drink.

“A beer, like you.”

“I thought you didn’t drink?”

“A beer ain’t drinking,” Digger said, reaching for more fries.

I ordered him a beer and handed Billy a five-dollar bill when he brought it over.

“I’ve got three bucks left of the money you gave me this morning,” Digger said. “Mind if I spend it on a place to flop tonight?”

“No.”

“One more favor. Can I hang my jacket, shirt, tie, and the rest in your place? Want them clean for Friday.”

“Sure.”

“This morning as I recall you asked me for a joke. I think I told you one. You want to hear another?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve had enough fun for one day.”

The next day was even more fun. The phone woke me at six in the morning. I ignored it but couldn’t get back to sleep. I looked at the ceiling, mouth dry, trying to focus on nothing. That usually worked. It didn’t this time.

The phone rang again at six-twenty and at ten to seven. I got up. I was wearing a pair of faded black boxer shorts with a pattern of white airplanes. I knew I needed a shave. I always need a shave. Maybe I’d grow a beard. I remembered my grandfather Tony when he had a beard. He kept it trim, made him look wise, but he told me once that it was harder to keep it looking good than it was to shave.