High Midnight

CHAPTER TWELVE

In 1892 the Santa Fe and Santa Monica Railroad finished a line from Los Angeles to Ocean Park, which was then known as South Santa Monica. The railroad built a station, an amusement pavilion and cement walkways along the beach. Excursions were advertised to the “Coney Island of the Pacific.” It worked, and golf courses and racetracks followed. Between 1909 and 1916, Santa Monica was regularly drawing thousands for the Santa Monica automobile road races.

In the 1920s, lured by sea breezes and commuter trains, movie stars, writers, directors and moguls built summer houses on the beach. The resort image faded a little in the 1930s and 1940s and moved to Venice, Redondo and down the coast, but Santa Monica wouldn’t give up its nickel-and-dime weekend trade. The big industry, however, was the Douglas Aircraft Company, which got to be an even bigger industry when the war began.

In 1942 Ocean Park couldn’t make up its mind what to be or do. The war and invasion fear, which led to blackouts, kept the place operating mostly during the days. Decay threatened to set in, but the arcade and ride owners still found it profitable to keep up with repairs and wait for the next boom.

It was a little before midnight when I turned right off of Fourth and went down Ashland Avenue toward the ocean. I parked in front of the Municipal Auditorium and got out. A night gull soared over the concrete plaza and dive-bombed the bandshell. I didn’t see anybody. I headed toward the walkway, running along the Dome Pier, but I didn’t get more than a dozen feet when the voice came out of the darkness near a stucco-covered pillar.

“Peters, here.”

I looked “here” and saw Hanohyez step out of the shadow. At least it was the shape of Hanohyez. It was difficult to think of him as anything but Massive Marco, but my mind was working hard at it and other things.

“I thought we were supposed to meet on the edge of the pier?” I said aloud.

He stepped toward me, motioning me to be quiet. When he got to my side, he looked around and whispered, “Let’s keep this quiet” He hunched his shoulders up like James Cagney and looked around. “I don’t know if them guys followed me. I don’t think so, but I reconnoitered. Why chance it, you know?”

He guided me into the shadows and toward the shoreline, walking away from the pier.

“I want to show you something,” he said, leading the way. We moved quickly past a hot-dog stand and some game stands, all closed, that urged people to knock Negroes off perches, slam baseballs into dolls that looked Oriental and throw darts at cartoons of Hitler.

“Will you look at that?” Hanohyez marveled, pointing at his discovery. “A little tiny golf course.”

We were standing in front of a pee-wee golf course, and Hanohyez was displaying it to me proudly. “I never played the game,” he said, “but I accompanied the big guy once when he played.”

“Big guy?” I said.

“Capone,” he answered, looking over the course and looking back at me.

“It’s nice,” I said.

“The things they think of,” Hanohyez said, walking reluctantly from the little golf course.

“There’s a fun house over there,” I said, trying to lead him in the opposite direction.

“Let’s talk,” he said, pausing on the cement promenade and looking out at the ocean for incoming enemy subs. Far down the walk a figure moved slowly. We both kept our eyes on it till it turned inland and disappeared.

“Okay,” I said. “You think you know who killed Lombardi, Tillman and your brother-in-law Larry.”

“I know,” he said, taking a deep breath of air. All I could smell was the dead fish. “That was a sharp trick this afternoon, smart trick. Real prestidigitation. Had those guys fooled. You really did an act, like … like Bogart or one of those guys.”

“Thanks,” I said. “The killer?”

But Hanohyez wanted to engage in a little more admiration of my masquerade. “I coulda swore Lombardi was extent in there,” he said. “Steve did swear it, but I knew he wasn’t.” A cool breeze brought a fresh burst of fish odor.

“You knew he wasn’t alive?” I said with interest.

“Sure, I’d killed him more than an hour before,” he said, without turning to me. “You think that roller coaster is bigger than the Bobs at Riverview?”

“Riverview?” I said, looking for the closest building and wondering if I could get to my gun.

“In Chicago,” Hanohyez said.

“I wouldn’t know,” I replied, trying to inch my hand up to my chest and making it look like a casual gesture.

“You helped me,” he said. “I mean you facilitated things for me. Thanks.”

“Glad to do you a favor,” I said.

My hand was almost at the Napoleon position when Hanohyez withdrew his right mitt filled with a.45. He pointed at my chest. I took my hand out of my coat, and he reached in carefully and took my.38.

As he put it in his pocket, he looked around to be sure we had no company. The mad gull or his cousin came screaming over us.

“We got no birds like that in Chicago,” he said. “It is not an aviarian city.” And then back to business. “Steve and Al and me all found Lombardi together when you went out. Since he was living when you walked in, or so they thought, and dead when you went out …”

“I must have killed him,” I concluded. Hanohyez nodded.

“That won’t hold up,” I said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he shrugged. “It’ll be good enough with Lombardi’s boys, specially if you ain’t around to contradict any other way. Then I can get out of here before the Jap attack. Hell, they’ll even thank me for doing you.”

“You’ll get the pickled tongue of honor,” I said.

“I never thought you was risible,” he said, holding the gun up to my chest.

“You came to Los Angeles to kill Lombardi,” I said.

“Right, me and Larry came because some guys thought Lombardi was making embarrassing noises about making movies and being a big man, and he wouldn’t listen rational. Some guys in New York asked some guys in Chicago to send someone who knew his stuff to Los Angeles to zip Lombardi’s mouth.”

“And he thought you came out to help him start his deli supply boom?”

“On the nose. You got two more queries and quick ones before you expire.”

“You killed Tillman?”

“Tillman?”

“The guy in my room.” I explained.

Hanohyez looked over his shoulder to check again on possible company. He wasn’t going to let this go on long, and I couldn’t see a hopeful direction to jump.

“He killed Larry,” Hanohyez explained. “I was surveillancing your place for you to come back when I saw him going in. I think he was going to work you over or rub you out. My killing him saved you from something.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He nodded. “He turned on Larry outside that bar in Burbank where we tailed you. When I came out that night, I found Larry stabbed leaning on the Packard. I got him in the car, but I could see he was expiring. He was dead in three, maybe four blocks. So I got an idea.”

“You decided to dump his corpse on me and get me off the case, tied up with cops or too busy to be in your way,” I helped.

“Something like that. I lugged Larry’s body to your place. Had a hell of a time conveying him up to your room without getting spotted,” he said proudly.

“You did a fine job, but Larry wasn’t dead.”

Hanohyez looked into my eyes, which were probably in shadow. “I know when a guy is dead,” he said dangerously.

“You put my knife into your brother-in-law, right back in the messy hole Tillman had made but he wasn’t dead when you did it. When I got to my room, he was alive. He told me you killed him.”

“That’s enough horse crap, Peters,” he squealed.

“No horse crap. I thought he was saying no. Yes. I figured he was trying to say Noyes. Hell, I was making it harder than it was. He was just trying to say your name, Hanohyez. He thought you murdered him, and he may have been right.”

“Maybe I made a faux pas,” he said.

“Maybe your last big faux pas,” I answered, watching the barrel of the.45 rise from my chest to my face. My.38 was already in his pocket, and my heart was trying to find a way out of my chest. I sighed, sagging my shoulders, trying to look resigned, smiled and went to one knee, throwing a right at Hanohyez’s stomach. The bullet went where my head had been and a lot of air plushed out of Hanohyez, but he held onto the gun as he went back into the promenade railing and tried to level it at me as he gurgled for air.

I hesitated, unsure of whether to make a try for him or run like hell for the nearest cover. Cover promised the most hope. I got to my feet and ran. The second bullet cried past my head. When Hanohyez caught his breath, he would be shooting straight and painfully.

A third shot chucked splinters out of the cotton-candy stand I had ducked around. He had started stumbling after me, and he’d soon be running. His legs were big and heavy, but he had a lot of need and a gun on his side. I wondered how long it would take for someone to call the cops when they heard the gunshots. I wondered if anyone actually heard the shots. I wondered if the photograph on my office wall would go to my brother or my ex-wife if Hanohyez put a good one through my spine.

I had someplace to get to, but getting there was not a sure thing. A dash across an open walk brought me to the struts of a roller coaster. I climbed over the low wooden fence and went for the darkness of the steel framework. Over my shoulder I could see Hanohyez coming in my direction. He had spotted me.

On my knees in shadow I let myself pant, then took a few deep breaths and held the last one as I saw his big body, gun in hand, come over the small fence. He did the right thing. Instead of plunging into the darkness after me, he stood and waited till he caught his breath, and then he listened.

I had to breathe finally, and his head cocked in my direction. The fourth bullet hit a metal bar in front of my eyes and sent out a spark of light. I wasn’t counting the bullets, waiting for them to run out. He didn’t have a six-shooter and this wasn’t a Western. Maybe I was counting to see how much beyond reason I was surviving.

Hanohyez was about twenty yards behind me when I vaulted the fence and found myself near a dip in the roller-coaster track. I could have gone over the other side and made a dash across an open square, where I’d be a great target, or I could climb up the track. If I made it to the first turn on the track and he followed me, I’d have a chance. I didn’t figure him to be a climber. I scrambled up, grabbing chain and track, and got to the first curve as Hanohyez spotted me and sent a hasty shot in my direction. It dug into the wood near my shoulder with a sickly thunk.

If Hanohyez were a reasonable man, he wouldn’t have followed me. He would have gone ahead of me on the ground and waited. I couldn’t hide very well on top of a roller-coaster track. If he went ahead he could pluck me off. But he didn’t know when company might come, and the straightest route seemed best. He came up the track. I could hear him cursing, but I also knew that to climb, he’d have to put the.45 in his holster. I peered back over the curve and saw him coming on. There was nothing to throw at him. I considered rolling myself down on him, but the chances of either of us surviving were small. So I went on, scrambling down a dip and climbing up an even higher incline than the first. Over my right shoulder I had a beautiful view of Santa Monica. The Douglas plant was belching fire from its chimneys to turn out planes. Over my left shoulder the moon sent out a white sheet over the ocean. Behind me, Hanohyez stood at the top of the lower incline and took careful aim in my direction.

This bullet tore hair and skin from my neck. It was the scratch of a wild witch and gave me a push over the top and down the other side.

I nearly lost my grip going down, and I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t hear Hanohyez resolutely coming after me. Another idea must have entered his head, a good idea. When I got to the bottom of the dip, I was about a dozen feet from the ground. I hung over the side and let myself drop. I hit dirt, stumbled back and banged against a white picket fence designed to keep the curious away from danger.

My neck wound pulsed. I touched it and asked it to be patient for the sake of all my body parts and functions. Hanohyez wasn’t in sight. I looked again and took off in the direction of the Dome Pier. He spotted me when I had almost made it across Pier Avenue. His footsteps echoed through the “Fun Zone” of concession booths and cafes, but he didn’t shoot. He could see that I wasn’t going for the street but heading for the ocean. Maybe he could even see that I was trapping myself.

My footsteps grew louder and joined my heart in “When the Saints Go Marching In” as I went on. I was tired, but there wasn’t much further to go. At the end of the pier, I turned left on the walkway and moved more slowly. Behind me I could hear Hanohyez’s heavier tramping on the wooden walk. I stopped at the railing and looked back as his footsteps grew louder. And then he turned the corner with his gun raised.

“Okay,” I panted, standing in the shadow about thirty yards from him. “I quit. Just make it as painless as possible.”

Hanohyez walked forward, gun out slowly. “Like hell,” he said.

“One last question,” I said, stepping out into the light. “Did you enjoy killing Lombardi or Tillman? How about Larry?”

“I rubbed them out because I had to. It’s my vocation. I ain’t no nut who likes killing. But I’ll make an exception in your case.”

The gun was leveled at my chest, and the shot was loud and close, a crack and a boom like a bullwhip.

Hanohyez looked at his gun and then looked at me and said, “I’m terminated.” He put the gun back in his holster and toppled forward like Jimmy Cagney at the end of Public Enemy. I imagined the splinters hitting his face, and I felt sick.

Phil stepped out of the shadows where I had been and moved down the walkway with his gun drawn and extended. Seidman moved to the other side of the railing, behind me, with his gun out. They were both pointing the weapons at the prone Hanohyez, who wasn’t quite dead. They were taking no chances. Both of them and I had seen more than one Lazarus rise from the dead to take another shot at an unwary cop.

Seidman moved ahead and kicked Hanohyez with his toe while Phil covered him. Hanohyez groaned.

“You heard?” I said, hearing the distant scream of the mad gull of Ocean Park.

“We heard,” said Seidman. “Full confession.”

I had asked Jeremy Butler to call Phil and have him hide at the corner of the pier while I brought the killer to him for a confession. Hanohyez had had other ideas, however, and those other ideas had almost cost me my plan and my life.

Phil put his pistol away and strode back toward me.

“You bagged another bad guy,” I said, waving. Phil swayed before my eyes, moonlight behind him. My vision was hazy, and he seemed to rise slowly from the pier like Harry Blackstone’s assistant.

“All a joke to you,” he said, standing in front of me. I must have grinned because he put a broad hand on my neck to squeeze or shake a little brotherly sense into me, but his hand felt blood and came away quickly.

“You’re hurt,” he said, grabbing my arm.

“Hell,” I laughed, “it takes a silver bullet to kill me.”

When I woke up a few hours later with Koko the Clown urging me off the air mattress and into the ocean, a rush of white made me wince and I closed my eyes again. I opened them slowly and realized I was in a Los Angeles County hospital.

Phil was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He ran his hand through his hair, sighed and shook his head. “At least this time, no one used your head for a coconut,” he said.

I sat up, feeling dizzy. My neck was stiff and I reached for it. A bandage held it in place.

“Keep your hands off,” Phil said, stepping forward to whack my hand away. I almost fell off the table.

“Marco?” I said.

“Still alive,” said Phil.

“And what happened to Fargo and Gelhorn?” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Let them go,” he said.

“Let them go?”

“I can’t hold them if there are no charges. You want to place charges? You think charges from you will hold up?” Phil was getting angry again, and I was in no condition to deal with his fists.

“What about Cooper and Hemingway?” I tried. “They wouldn’t press charges?”

“No,” he said. “Cooper said as far as he was concerned, it was all over, and he didn’t want any publicity. Had to let them go, but I had a nice talk with Gelhorn before he saw the door.”

Phil’s eyes glinted with satisfaction, and I imagined Gelhorn’s little talk with him. It would be a talk that would have made Tony Galento want to stay away from further discussion.

“We’ve got no charges on you,” Phil said, keeping his hands folded as I stood on wobbly legs. “You can’t drive. Come back to my place. Ruth wants to be sure you’re all right.”

I didn’t argue. To argue meant I might win. Then I’d have to get a ride to Ocean Park, drive back to Hollywood and face the possibility of Mrs. Plaut before I could make it to bed. It was easier to nod and let Phil lead the way to his car.

We didn’t talk on the way through Laurel Canyon and into North Hollywood. I kept dozing and clutched the bottle of white pills the nurse had given me for pain. Phil had told me that my.38 would be returned after a full investigation. I was in no hurry to get it back.

When we got to his house, we woke up Ruth and my nephews Dave and Nate. They thanked me for Babe Ruth’s autograph and admired my wound. I almost told them their old man had drilled a bad guy, but I changed my mind. I had said too many wrong things in front of them in the past. The noise of a two A.M. family get-together woke the baby, Lucy, who wondered why I had a diaper on my neck.

“He peed on his neck,” said Dave, giggling. Nate hit him, and Phil rapped Nate on the head.

Ruth, looking thin, her hair in a puffy pink bag, hugged herself against the cold that wasn’t there and offered me something to drink. Before I could get the drink she went for, I was asleep in a chair.

On Sunday morning I woke up, unable to move my neck. Phil was gone, on duty. Ruth and the kids had waited around to be sure I was alive before they went to Ruth’s mother in Pasadena for the day.

“How come you always get blasted. Uncle Tobe?” asked Nate.

“You should see the other guy?” countered Dave.

I was glad they didn’t see the other guy. They might be able to sleep a few more nights without the things that had crept into my dreams.

We good-byed for about five minutes, and Lucy managed to sneak up behind me and wallop me with the padlock from Dave’s bike. She laughed. I declined breakfast from Ruth, waved them away, took a pain pill, called a Yellow Cab and sat rigid-necked all the way to Ocean Park.

Receipt in hand from the cab, I drove slowly to the Farraday Building, trying to ignore the parking ticket that clung to my windshield wiper. I hoped the wind would grab it and take it for a ride. I wanted to ignore it.

There wasn’t much traffic on Hoover. I parked near the office and went in.

Somewhere in the heights or depths of the building, someone was drunkenly singing “Side by Side.” By the time I got to my office, the double-echoed voice had gone through the song twice and was bellowing “Maybe we’re ragged and funny.”

The door was locked and I let myself in. Sunday or no, my case was closed, and I had a bill to make out. I sat in my office listening to a guy with a sugar voice read the funny papers on the radio while I transferred costs from my notebook to my bill. Should I charge Cooper for bullets? Yes. How about the cost of the High Midnight script? Why not? I pulled the script from my desk drawer and added the cost of hot dogs, a shin, tacos, gas, a motel bill, sundry items and emergency medical treatment.

I didn’t hear the door to the outer office open. I was having enough trouble juggling my accounts and trying to find out from the guy reading the funnies if Tiny Tim was going to get out of the bottle he was trapped in.

When my door opened, I was aware of two bodies standing in it but I couldn’t place the faces for an instant. That was because I had never seen them in suits before; only in white smocks at Lombardi’s.

“No office hours on Sunday,” I said, leaning back to look at them since I couldn’t lift my head. “Come back to-morrow.”

Steve didn’t answer and Al stepped to one side of the door. Their hands were in their pockets,

“You don’t know when to give up, do you?” Steve said.

“Come on,” I said wearily. “I didn’t kill Lombardi. Hanohyez did. He came here from Chicago to kill Lombardi. He was sent. If he hadn’t got nailed by the cops last night, he’d probably be out today mopping up loose ends, like you two.”

“It won’t do,” Steve said, hesitating.

“It won’t do what?” I said. “Be my guest.” I picked up the phone and handed it to him. “Call Chicago or New York or wherever you call and take a chance with your life. You can either say Lombardi’s dead and you’re going to find who did it and settle the score, or you can say Hanohyez got killed but you helped him dump Lombardi before he went. Try it. You tell the first tale and I give you a week to ten days. You tell the second tale and you inherit a sausage factory.”

I gave him the phone. “I’ll even give you the nickels,” I said.

Steve looked at Al, who looked at Steve, who looked at me.

“We’re going to think about it,” he said. “If you turned us wrong on this, we’ll be back.”

“Why not kill him just to be sure?” Al tried. I turned my body toward him so I could see him and show my annoyance.

“We’re not killing him if we don’t have to. The less killing you do, the fewer raps can come back to haunt you,” Steve said, waving Al out the door. Al gave me a sneer and went for the outer office.

Steve stayed behind for a few seconds to stare me down. It was hard to keep my eyes on him without hurting my neck, but it was his game. In thirty seconds he had had enough and went out, closing the door behind him. I popped a pain pill, touched my neck carefully and put my hand over my mouth. In a few minutes I was ready to get back to my bill. Twenty minutes later I had it finished and ready for delivery.

I called the number Cooper had given me, not expecting an answer. I imagined Hemingway and Cooper back in the hills firing madly at scampering, oinking wild pigs that Luis Felipe Castelli was flushing out with his ax. Between the shots the good old boys were swapping lies about women.

I was wrong. Cooper answered. “Thought you might be calling,” he said. “Can I meet you someplace?”

“I can come over there,” I said, “but if you feel like a Sunday out, you can come to my office. I’ve had a little scratch.”

I gave him directions to the Farraday and told him to follow the sound of the drunk singing “Side by Side.” Hell, since I was pushing, I asked him to bring me a sandwich and a Pepsi. He gave me a clipped yes and hung up.

Maybe the pills got to me or the pain or the image of Hanohyez lying on the pier, but I found myself passing the time by arguing with a Sunday-morning radio Evangelist who kept telling me where my soul was going if I didn’t straighten up. I stopped talking when I heard the outer door open and Cooper’s voice.

“Peters?” he said.

“In here,” I answered, and he followed my voice into the small office. He had a bag in hand and a Coke. I was sure I had said Pepsi, but this was no time for a culinary argument.

Cooper looked ready to meet royalty. He wore a dark suit with wide lapels and dark stripes. A little handkerchief peeked out of his left breast pocket.

“Have a seat,” I said, holding the package up to remove a sandwich.

He sat and put his hands on his knees. “What happened to you?” he said.

I told him as I ate, and then I countered, “Why didn’t you let the cops hold Fargo and Gelhorn?”

Cooper shrugged. “Why? It’s all over, isn’t it? Besides, Fargo and Gelhorn know about Luis. Papa and I decided to call it square. Big cop with gray hair and mean eyes said he’d talk to them and show them the error of their ways.”

I handed Cooper my bill, and he dug into his pocket, pulled out a wallet and counted off four one-hundred-dollar bills.

“You did swell,” he said. “I wish I could have helped you more.”

“My job,” I said. “You stick to acting and I’ll stick to getting my head pummeled.”

“It’s a deal,” he smiled. He wanted to go, and I guess I wanted him to go, but we didn’t know quite how to end it. I asked him a question about his suit, and he told me tales of learning how to dress from some countess in Europe.

“I think Papa’s sorry about you and him not hitting it off,” Cooper said, standing.

“I never met your old man,” I said, trying not to count the money again in front of him.

“No,” he laughed, “Hemingway-friends call him Papa. I think there’s too much of what he admires in you. It challenged him. Next step is for him to declare undying friendship.”

“You are a philosopher, Coop,” I said, getting up and putting out my hand. He took it firmly.

“You know,” he said, “that High Midnight script isn’t bad at all.” He pointed at the script on my desk. “Title’s good. Too bad.”

We walked to the door and into the hall, where he told me I didn’t have to go down with him.

“See you around,” he said, waving at me.

“See you around,” I said, waving back. All he needed was a horse and some reasonable background music, but there was no horse, only the drunk who had gone from “Side by Side” to “We’re in the Money.”

I closed up, packed my money and went home. Gunther was there, and I invited him out for Sunday dinner. It took Gunther twenty minutes to dress, though he had already looked ready for a banquet when I walked in.

Over egg foo yung and pressed duck at Jee Gong Law’s on Alameda, Gunther displayed his knowledge of Chinese and I ate, stiff-necked and with wild abandon. We toasted Gary Cooper, Luis Felipe Castelli, Ernest Hemingway and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Something had ended, and I had that nagging fear that nothing else was ready to begin. I washed away visions of filling in for Jack Ellis at the Ocean Palms with tea, beer and talk.

“I think it is now time to go home,” Gunther said finally.

I was about to argue with him, but realized he was right. I called for the check, overtipped and wondered on the way home if Mrs. Plaut would take kindly to my having a dog-maybe a dog who looked like my old beagle Kaiser Wilhelm.