High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (7 page)

I had a wife once. It was seeing me in moments like this that sent her looking for saner pastures. There were other reasons, but this was a big one. Toby Peters, king of the hill, was ready.

I stopped at a drive-in on Buena Vista and munched a burger with fries and a Pepsi.

“Peters,” came a voice near my ear.

Costello was leaning into my window on the left. On the right I could see Marco’s belly. His head and shoulders were above the car.

“I thought Mr. Lombardi told you that Cooper is making that movie,” Costello said. “That’s what he told him, isn’t it, Marco?”

“Assuredly,” came Marco’s voice from above.

“Assuredly,” I agreed with a mouthful of hamburger. “I’m just making that clear to the people involved. You want some fries?”

Costello took some fries.

“Marco had a hell of a time keeping up with you,” Costello said, still leaning over.

“I’ll go slower,” I said. “But someone is trying to kill me, and I won’t want to stay anywhere for too long.”

Costello’s eyes narrowed. “You saying we’re trying to knock you off?” He pointed to Marco’s stomach and to his own chest.

“No,” I said, trying not to drip ketchup on my coat. “Some guy who looks like a two-by-four and very much wants Cooper to make that movie.”

“Mr. Lombardi won’t like that,” said Costello, reaching for more of my fries. “He wants you alive to work on Cooper.”

“Help yourself,” I said, holding out the fries.

“You point out this guy and we’ll see to it he stays out of your way. Right, Marco?”

“We’ll absent him from the scene,” Marco said.

“He shouldn’t be too hard to find,” I said, cleaning my hands on a napkin and gurgling down the last of the Pepsi. “He’ll be the guy behind me with the rifle. Hey, you mind throwing this stuff away so I don’t have to get out of the car?”

Costello took the remains of my lunch. I turned on the ignition and backed away, leaving him holding the bag. I decided to drive slowly to the Big Bear Bar so the gentlemen from Chicago could protect my tail. In an odd way it seemed as if we were on the same side. It didn’t reassure me much, but it didn’t cost anything, either.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
here weren’t any boys whooping it up at the old Big Bear Saloon when I got there a little after one. I turned off Fourth and parked on Noyes in front of a building that shouldn’t have been there. The street was full of residential, one-story homes with front lawns big enough for one medium-sized human to stretch out for a sunbath. But it was too cold for sunbathing.

The Big Bear had either predated or fought the residential zoning. It was a two-story dark brick building with a drawing of a big bear in gold on the picture window. Venetian blinds, probably permanently closed, kept the passersby from looking inside. There were no beer signs on the outside to give away the identity of the place; nothing but a Ballan-tine Ale thermometer next to the entrance.

I tried the door. It opened, and I was into darkness and the sound of a slightly off piano. I stood for a while listening and waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then the piano was joined by the equally off voice of a woman singing “White Cliffs of Dover.” She sang on with determination, challenging the tune, getting it down for a while and then having it slip from her control. By the time she got to the end, I was ready to call it a victory for her and a loss for the song. By that time, too, I could see something of the room. It was small, with six tables and a bar running the width of the place. At the end of the room was a grand piano which took up space that could have been used for another couple of tables. At the piano was a woman, or the shadow of a woman whose head was thrown back.

“What do you think?” she asked, in a throaty voice that might have been a good imitation of Betty Field or Jean Arthur or a bad one of Tallulah Bankhead.

“I liked it,” I lied, sitting at a red leather stool at the bar.

“Bartender won’t be here for a few hours,” she said. I still couldn’t see her face, but the slowness of her words suggested that she had started her day’s sustenance before the barkeep’s arrival.

“No hurry,” I said, taking off my hat and putting it on the bar.

“You selling something?” she said.

“Nope,” I said. “Just looking.”

“For what?”

“You, if you’re Lola Farmer,” said I.

“I’m Lola Farmer,” she said suspiciously, stepping down the bar with a hand on each stool as she moved. She meant it to look elegant. It looked like someone with a few too many trying to keep from falling over. In ten steps she was close enough to see me and to be seen.

Lola Farmer was a blonde. Cooper had told me that, but Lola Farmer, like Tall Mickey Fargo, had gone through some changes. Lola had weathered them better. At least that was my guess. She was no longer thin, but she wasn’t fat either. Lola was a few thousand calories on the good side of pleasingly plump. Her face was pale and there was darkness beneath her eyes that wouldn’t go away with sunlight, but she was a good-looking woman. She had probably started with a lot, and though she looked like she was working to wear it away, she had too much going for her from nature to make the job easy.

“You look like a mug,” she said.

“I am a mug,” I agreed.

“Did he send you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, looking into her eyes, which I guessed were blue.

“What does he want now?” she said, sinking onto the bar stool next to me.

“The same as before,” I answered.

“Tell him the answer’s the same,” she said with a great sigh.

“Suit yourself,” I said, playing with my hat.

We sat in silence for a few minutes while I tried to figure out what we had said and what to say next.

“He tell you I sing here?” she said.

“Yeah.”

She got up and moved back to the piano to collect the drink she had left there. “What’s your name?” she asked, after taking a healthy belt.

“Peters,” I said. “Toby Peters.”

My eyes were pretty used to the lack of light now and I could see that the name was familiar. She was also confused. Now some confused people retreat. Others break down. Lola attacked.

“Who the hell are you? What do you want? He didn’t send you. Get the hell out of here.” She took a few angry steps in my direction and threatened me with a near-empty tumbler.

“Who did you think sent me, Lombardi?”

She took the next four steps in front of me without falling and took a swing with the tumbler, missing by a good foot. I slid off the stool and grabbed her before she went down. She smelled of bourbon and perfume, and she felt properly soft. My face was in her hair and I helped her up slowly.

“Thanks,” she said, forgetting her anger for a second. I held her hand to steady her. There was a lot left to Lola of whatever it was that had attracted Cooper and Lombardi. “Now get out.”

“A few questions first,” I said, letting go of her hand. “I’m not looking for trouble.”

She shrugged and went around the bar looking for a fresh tumbler. “You want a drink?” she offered.

“A Pepsi if you have one,” I grinned.

“You a boxer?” she said, looking at me with a little interest.

“No,” I said, “but I’ve been a punching bag.”

“Me too,” she said, handing me a bottle of Pepsi with a puffing out of her cheeks. “Cheers.”

“You got a bottle opener back there or should I bite off the top with my teeth?”

She took the bottle back and opened it. I accepted and took a drink. The Pepsi was warm.

“You talk first,” she said.

“My name is Toby Peters. The man who talked to you was my assistant, who took on a little too much when I was away on a big assignment. I’m on the case now, and I need some answers.”

She shrugged, so I went on after another gulp of warm Pepsi.

“Someone is putting pressure on Gary Cooper to be in
High Midnight
, using threats and blackmail involving you. Someone hired an unpleasant character with fists like steam radiators to see to it that Cooper takes the
High Midnight
job. My assistant talked to four people about the project. All four want the film made with Cooper. After he talked to them, the unpleasant character I mentioned showed up and told me to mind my own business. He even tried to put a bullet or two through me less than an hour ago to make his meaning clear.”

“You know, Daisy Mae is missing,” Lola said, chewing at her upper lip and examining her drink. “You’re a detective. Maybe you can help Li’l Abner find her.”

“Put it back in the bottle, Lola,” I said softly. “You’re not that shellacked.”

The anger started to come to her eyes again, but she controlled it and looked at me.

“There’s you,” I said. “There’s Max Gelhorn, Tall Mickey Fargo and Curtis Bowie, the writer. You want Cooper in on this project. How badly?”

Lola laughed, a nice deep laugh. “Badly,” she said, losing about fifty percent of her drunkenness. “Max is in debt to whoever he got to back the film. He promised to deliver Cooper, and if he can’t deliver on the promise, he has big trouble. The man with the money will be very angry. Max got me in on this for two reasons.
A
, I gave him my few dollars in savings, and
B
, he had heard that I knew Cooper. I went to Cooper and offered myself and a memory of old times, but he said no. He turned me down. Lola has lost it.”

“Not quite,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re pretty cute too in a grotesque sort of way.”

“And …”

“And,” she continued after taking another drink, “Gelhorn is in trouble, and I am out my money and a last chance to make it in the movies. Tall Mickey is a loser who goes way back with Gelhorn. He had no money to lose. He’s living on dreams and the hope of a comeback, but—between us—Tall Mickey had nothing to come back to or from. He was never more than a face in the barroom crowd.”

“Bowie?” I said, draining my Pepsi and examining the bubbles on the bottom.

“Kicking around for years,” she said. “Wrote a few dime Westerns. Did a Wheeler and Woolsey script.
High Midnight
is his big project. Been working years at it. It’s not bad, but what the hell do I know. I think Bowie is screwy enough to kill to get the picture made with Cooper. I guess we’re all screwy enough. That what you wanted?”

The last question had a touch of something in it. Maybe it was an invitation. It might even have been sarcasm. I have discovered through the many hard years that I am a rotten judge of the motives of women.

“Did you hire the muscle?” I asked.

She shook her head no and said, almost to herself, “I used my ammunition on Cooper. I haven’t got much, but I’ve got some pride. It’s barely holding me together.”

“It’s doing better than that,” I said honestly. She smiled with a nice set of teeth and reached over the bar to touch my cheek. The other hand held tightly to her amber tumbler.

“That’s sweet,” she said.

“Lombardi,” I said, and her hand moved away slowly. “Why does he want you to make the picture?”

“My suggestion to you is to stay away from Mr. Lombardi if you want to hold onto what remains of your appeal,” she said. “He can be an unkind man.”

I stood up. “He’s not giving me a choice.”

“Mr. Lombardi thinks he owes me something, and he wants to be a West Coast big shot,” she explained. “He wants to make movies and sell cheese.”

“Hot dogs,” I corrected. “He has a hot-dog factory.”

She laughed. “His old man had a hot-dog stand on Coney Island,” she said.

“Funny,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll see you around.”

Before I hit the door, her voice caught me.

“I’m through here at eleven,” she said. “If you want to come back, I’ll buy you a Pepsi.”

“Eleven,” I said, without looking back, and I went out into the light. If it had been a sunny day, I would have been as helpless as a Universal Studio vampire. As it was, I had to stand still for a few seconds. The piano tinkled an off-beat version of
Blues in the Night
, and I hurried away before Lola started to sing.

I drove through the hills and out of the valley with the down-and-out image of Lola Farmer. I wasn’t sure what there was about her that got to me. It was something distant and sad, something I wanted to find and examine. I didn’t quite feel sorry for her, but there was something about her that was comforting, like sinking into a hot bath and losing yourself.

The area of Los Angeles I drove to brought me back to reality. Clapboard houses and dark brick churches looked pretty good on a clear day, but a day like this showed the neighborhood for what it was, a ghetto of out-of-work losers even at a time when jobs were easy to get and men were scarce. The kids in the street and little parks wore someone else’s coat. Weary wives with handkerchiefs on their heads carried packages and clinging kids.

Curtis Bowie’s house was easy to find. It was just off Sixty-fifth, a very small wooden house painted white but showing rotting wood underneath. There was no room for the house to breathe. It was almost flush with twin houses on both sides.