A Few Minutes Past Midnight Read online

  “Edgar Lee Masters has pneumonia,” he said solemnly.

  “First Fats Waller. Now Edgar Lee Masters,” I said.

  “He’s not dead. You know Spoon River Anthology?” Jeremy asked sitting across from me.

  “You read part of it to me,” I said. “Edgar Lee Masters has pneumonia. Sounds like the start of a good poem.”

  “Perhaps,” said Jeremy, folding his hands in his lap. “You wanted to talk to me.”

  I told him about my visit with Chaplin and showed him my list. He read it carefully.

  “You’d like my help?”

  “Can you spare a few days to keep an eye on Chaplin?” I asked.

  “I’ll consult Alice. She’s a great Chaplin fan. As is most of the world.”

  His wife Alice, formerly Alice Pallice, was always consulted when I asked for Jeremy’s help. She never said “no,” but she made it clear to me when she could that Jeremy was over sixty with a small child, not to mention a wife. If I ever got Jeremy hurt, I would have to face Alice, and Alice was a formidable figure to face. She was almost as big and strong as Jeremy and two decades younger. She was running a small pornography press in the Farraday when Jeremy had uncovered in her a passion for poetry. Most vivid in my memory was the image described to me by Jeremy of Alice picking up her printing press when the police came one Thursday afternoon. She had gone out the window and up the fire escape with the three hundred pounds of dead weight. Jeremy had covered for her and she had promised to marry him and abandon pornography for poetry. The two of them published Jeremy’s and other people’s poetry at a loss, which was covered by Jeremy’s real-estate holdings all over the city.

  We went over the list I had made.

  “Fiona Sullivan and the warning about making the movie about the killer are pursuable,” he said after a few minutes of consideration which including touching his ear. “But the rest is beyond the resources of an entire nation even in peacetime.”

  “So …?”

  “Search where you have light,” he said.

  I agreed.

  “Shall I go to Chaplin’s house if Alice agrees?” he asked.

  “If you would,” I said.

  “I’ve heard that he’s very knowledgeable about poetry.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.

  “And you’ll look for Fiona Sullivan?” he asked.

  “Maybe Gunther will be able to spare some time,” I said. “And if things get tough, I might ask Shelly.”

  Jeremy showed neither approval nor disapproval. He rose.

  “I’ll let you know in a few minutes,” he said as he opened the door and left.

  Shelly was actually singing now. He was much better without the ukulele, but much better only put him in the same choir as a high-pitched Andy Devine.

  I pulled open a deep drawer in my desk and pushed away broken pencils, rubber bands, paper clips, and a small two-year-old appointment book I had never used. The telephone book was in there. I put it on the desk in front of me and opened it, finding the listings for Sullivan.

  It was a start. Fiona Sullivan could be anywhere, but the wet guy had appeared in front of Chaplin’s door in Bel Air and it made sense that if Chaplin was supposed to stay away from her, she would most likely be close enough so that the warning made sense. But then again, the guy might simply be nuts. He could have picked the name out of the air, a radio show, his own life, or a magazine article.

  There were a lot of Sullivans in the Los Angeles telephone directory. Pages of Sullivans. There were three F. Sullivans but no Fionas. I reached for the phone and called the first F. Sullivans.

  “My name is Martin Reilly,” I said to the woman who answered the phone, using my best Irish accent which, compared to my Italian, Greek, and all-purpose Eastern European, wasn’t too bad. “I’m lookin’ for a Fiona Sullivan. Might that by any chance be you?”

  “My name’s Frances,” she said.

  “That’s my misfortune,” I said sadly. “You wouldn’t be knowin’ a Fiona Sullivan, would you now?”

  “No,” she said. “I gotta run.”

  She hung up and I went through the next two F. Sullivans. The second was also a Francis, but this Francis was a man. He knew no Fionas. The third F. Sullivan didn’t answer. He, she, it, or they were probably at work. I’d try later but I had no great hope.

  I looked at the long list in front of me and called the second-floor phone in Mrs. Plaut’s Boardinghouse where I had a room. My prayer was that Mrs. Plaut not answer. She was ancient, stick thin, and almost totally deaf.

  My prayer was not answered but the phone was—by Mrs. Plaut.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “Mrs. Plaut,” I shouted. “It’s me. Toby Peters.”

  “Mr. Peelers is not here,” she said. “You can leave him a message.”

  “No, I’m Mr. Peters,” I shouted louder, pointing at my chest as if she could see me over the telephone.

  “Good. I’ve been looking for you this a.m.,” she said.

  “I’ve been working.”

  “Bugs?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, though I should have said “yes.”

  Mrs. Plaut was under the impression that I was an exterminator. I do not know where she got this impression. She may have mis-overheard a conversation or misheard a word. When she had an ant problem or a rat problem, she assumed I would take care of it. Somehow, Mrs. Plaut also thought that I was a book editor. The origins of this idea were rooted even deeper into Mrs. Plaut’s imagination than the bug theory. And she saw no contradiction or clash between what she saw as my two professions.

  Mrs. Plaut had been writing her family history for almost two decades. Every week or so she gave me ten or so neatly printed pages. I paid my rent, took care of her infestations, and read her ever-growing, rambling epic.

  “Is Gunther there?” I shouted.

  “Mr. Wherthman?” she asked.

  “How many Gunthers do you have?” I asked.

  “At the moment, only one. I’ll get him. Oh, I finished another chapter. I’ll put it in your room. Please read it promptly. You took too long last time and I’m getting no younger.”

  “Which of us is?” I responded, but she had already gone in search of Gunther.

  I listened to Shelly humming the Maine fight song (trying for the Rudy Vallee nasal twang), looked at the blades of the fan, flipped the pages of the phone book, and scribbled some names, numbers, and addresses in my notebook while I waited.

  “Toby?” came Gunther’s voice.

  I imagined Gunther standing on his tiptoes and holding his head up to speak into the receiver. Gunther is a midget. Pardon me. He’s a little person, a very little person, perfectly proportioned, slim, always well groomed, usually wearing a suit and tie, often with a vest. He slept in a nightshirt.

  Gunther lived in the room next to mine at Mrs. Plaut’s. He had gotten me to move in more than three years ago after I helped him beat a murder charge.

  Gunther was Swiss. He could read and speak a bunch of languages, which was how he made a living. He did translations of books and articles from almost anything into English and occasionally from English into Hungarian or whatever was required. He worked in his room at a normal-sized chair at a normal-sized desk.

  “Gunther, how busy are you?”

  “Nothing that cannot wait if you have need for my services,” he said.

  “What do you think of Charlie Chaplin?”

  “As a comic actor he brings great humor and pathos to his film roles. I would rank him as a genius. He writes, directs, produces, and stars in his own films and he creates the music. His musical scores are …”

  “As a man,” I said.

  “Indiscretion sometimes results from the hubris of the very famous,” he said with a sigh. “It happened to the ancients, to great military leaders, musicians, artists, and to actors who believe they will be loved in spite of that which they might say or do. Mr. Chaplin is a victim of such indi
scretion in his public utterances and, if the newspapers are to be believed, in his private affairs.”

  “I’m working for him,” I said. “Someone came to his door and threatened to kill him. I’ve got a few million suspects and one or two leads. The best one is a woman named Fiona Sullivan. I want to find her.”

  “You would like me to search for her?”

  “I would,” I said. “You might start with the Los Angeles phone book. There are a lot of Sullivans. I struck out on the first two F. Sullivans. The third doesn’t answer.”

  “You wish me simply to locate a woman named Fiona Sullivan?”

  “It may not be simple. If you’re lucky, it’ll just be boring.”

  “I will, of course, be pleased to help.”

  Gunther figured he owed his freedom, maybe his life to me. He had been accused of several murders, particularly the murder of another little person who had been in The Wizard of Oz as Gunther had. Gunther hadn’t been much of a suspect but he had been handy. He had an accent that sounded German, and he wore a little toothbrush mustache. He looked like a small Adolph or a tiny version of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp if you were feeling charitable. Gunther had shaved off his mustache after he was cleared of the murder charge.

  “Great,” I said. “Call me in the office if you find her. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll check in when I get back to the house.”

  “And so it shall be,” he said formally. “Toby, I just finished translating an article for The Atlantic Monthly. By a Czech scientist. He says the Nazis are working on a super weapon. He is convinced.”

  “I’ll check it out with Juanita,” I said, looking up as the door opened and Juanita came in with a brown paper bag in her hand. “Talk to you later, Gunther.”

  “Check what out with Juanita?” she asked, putting the bag down in front of me and sitting.

  “You’re the fortune-teller,” I said, reaching into the bag for a warm, greasy taco.

  She put her hands behind her head and looked up at the ceiling while I ate.

  “Nothing comes,” she said.

  “Think big Nazi super weapon,” I said, with a mouthful of food.

  “Oh, you mean the bomb. Supposed to be a super bomb they’ll stick on the front of their rockets and drop on London. They’re losing, but they think they’ll have us begging when we see the damage.”

  “What else do you see about it?”

  “I don’t see anything,” she said. “I’ve got a client, Lars Kirkenbard. You know, the big Dane with the glasses.”

  I didn’t know.

  “Well, Lars told me about the bomb,” she said. “Everybody knows about the bomb. We’re working on one of our own.”

  “Lars told you?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I saw it in a vision. Boom, great big explosion, big enough to knock a hole in the ground the size of Zeus’s ass. Yeah, he told me. How’s the taco?”

  “Good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Juanita closed her eyes. I didn’t like it when Juanita closed her eyes. When they opened, she looked straight at me and said,

  “Five are gone,” she said. “I saw names, five had lines through them. You have a list of names?”

  “No,” I said, wolfing down my second taco.

  “You will,” she said, getting up. “I got my Greek waiting. I better go.”

  I grunted and waved what remained of my second taco and Juanita closed the door behind her. I could hear her say something and Shelly shout and then she was gone. A second or two later Shelly came wobbling through my door, his glasses slipping, a narrow bloody metal instrument in his right hand.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked pointing to my door. “That Brooklyn gypsy. You hear what she said?”

  “No.”

  “She told my patient to get out or risk an infection she might not recover from. That’s what she said. And my patient pulled off her towel and went out the door. I don’t want that woman in these offices again, Toby.”

  “The patient or Juanita?”

  “Juanita,” he said. “The patient’ll come back. I’ve got her purse. She never liked me. Juanita.”

  “You ever work on her teeth?”

  “No,” he said. “I offered once. She laughed. Then she told me Mildred was going to leave me. And you know what happened.”

  It wasn’t a question. His wife, Mildred, had left him or, more accurately, Mildred had found a good lawyer, kicked Shelly out, and kept everything. Shelly had lived in nearby hotels for a few months and then considered moving into Mrs. Plaut’s, a consideration I discouraged. Now he had a two-room apartment a few blocks off Melrose in a four-story courtyard building. It was my opinion that Sheldon was far better off without Mildred, but my opinion was colored by the fact that Mildred hated me. Actually, Mildred hated almost everyone. It was her nature to get mixed up with con men, shady real-estate salesmen, has-been and never-was actors, and almost any man who showed interest in her and could wring her for some of the money Shelly had provided for her.

  Shelly did not share my opinion of Mildred, who had bullied, berated, and blasted him since he had married her. Mildred, who reminded me of a cross between Gale Sondergaard and Margaret Hamilton, was the love of Sheldon Minck’s life. Losing her had created in Shelly a relentless desire to invent something that would make him millions and bring Mildred back to him.

  The phone rang. I picked it up.

  “Toby,” said Jeremy. “I can give you three days.”

  “I’ll take ’em,” I said. “I’ll call Chaplin and tell him you’re on the way. Thanks, Jeremy.”

  “I’m going to write the Edgar Lee Masters poem,” he said. “Thank you for the idea.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and gave him Chaplin’s address.

  He hung up.

  “Chaplin has little teeth,” said Shelly. “Makes them look bigger when he smiles and shows gum, but they’re little. I could do a lot with Chaplin’s teeth.”

  “I’m sure you could,” I said, picking up the phone and dialing the number Chaplin had given me.

  I let it ring twelve times. A woman answered. I asked her to tell Chaplin that a Mr. Jeremy Butler was on the way from Mr. Peters.

  She repeated the message and I hung up.

  Shelly showed no signs of moving.

  “My stocks are up,” he said. “DuPont’s at forty-two and a half. GE is at thirty-seven and an eighth and Woolworth has thirty-six and a quarter. Mildred doesn’t know about the stock.”

  “I’m happy for you, Shelly.”

  “I feel guilty,” he said, removing the cigar from his mouth. “Maybe I should tell her.”

  “Maybe you should,” I said. “It’ll bring her running back to you.”

  “You really think so?” he said.

  “No. You tell her and she’ll get it and give it to …”

  “I don’t want to hear about Donaldo,” he said, rising.

  “Who’s Donaldo?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about him,” Sheldon said, backing to the door, his hand out behind him reaching for the knob. “She wants to be with a … a priest, it’s her … I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “A priest?”

  “Well, a reverend, minister. Holy Church of Divine Sublimation in the valley.”

  “Near your apartment,” I said.

  “As it happens, coincidentally,” he said, opening the door.

  “I’d stay with DuPont and Woolworth,” I said. “Stay away from Mildred and the ukulele.”

  He was gone.

  I tried the third F. Sullivan in the directory. This time I got an answer. The man said he was Fahid Sullivan. I asked him if he was related to or knew a Fiona Sullivan.

  “My real name is Fahid Suliman,” he answered in a heavy Turkish accent. “I use the name Sullivan only for my business.”

  “Which is?”

  “I paint signs, store window signs, apartment for rent, dog for sale, and things of that nature. I know no Sullivans.”

&nbs
p; He asked me if I needed a sign.

  One good one from heaven would be nice, I thought, but I said no thanks and hung up. I cleaned stray pieces of taco meat and flour off my desk into the wastebasket, turned off the fan, and headed for the door.

  The phone rang. I went back for it.

  “Tobias,” came Anita’s voice. “Potatoes.”

  “How can I resist?” I asked. “How late will you be there?”

  “Seven,” she said.

  “I’ll be there before seven.”

  “The Roxy’s showing The Fallen Sparrow,” she said.

  “I’ve got a job,” I said. “How about Tuesday?”

  “You’re turning down me and Maureen O’Hara?” she said.

  “And John Garfield,” I reminded her. “You can’t forget John Garfield.”

  “You’re right. I can’t,” she said with a laugh. “See you later.”

  I had taken Anita Maloney to our high school prom in Glendale. I hadn’t seen or really thought about her in thirty years until a few months earlier. I had run into her where she worked, behind the grill counter at Mack’s Pharmacy on Melrose. She had a bad marriage behind her. I had a marriage behind me. We had been listening to each other’s stories for a few months.

  Working at Mack’s, Anita had access to food without the need of ration stamps. When she had more than she needed of something extra for the grill—tomatoes, potatoes, cheese, or hot dogs—she gave me a call so that I could pick it up and bring in tribute to Mrs. Plaut along with my own food stamps. In exchange, she gave me her gas ration coupons.

  Shelly was plunking away at his ukulele, his legs crossed, trying to sound like Gene Austin singing “Lady Play Your Mandolin.”

  “You’re getting there, Shel,” I said.

  “Think so?” he asked brightly.

  I nodded. I didn’t tell him where I thought he was getting. My guess was somewhere south of a purgatory reserved for people with bad voices who insisted on playing instruments they couldn’t control or understand. The next level down was sinners who had to listen to them.

  “How can you stand it?” I asked Violet, who was writing out bills.

  “I’ve heard worse,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll tell you between you and me. Rocky loves to sing. Old songs in Italian. Loves it. But my Rocky can’t carry a tune. Can’t even drag it across the floor, but does he know it? No. I tell him he sounds like Frank Sinatra. Makes him happy to sing. Makes me happy too. Change of subject. I’ll give you six to four on the Maldinado fight next Saturday.”