High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Authors: Stuart M. Kaminsky
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two miles from my room, but I had things to think about. I found an all-night grill I knew and ate a couple of bowls of Wheaties with a cup of coffee.
The grill always had a rear table full of guys who looked like truck drivers, but I had never seen any trucks parked on the street. Their conversation was usually about the war, food and the movie industry.
While I downed the dregs of my bowl and considered ordering another, a guy who looked and sounded like Lionel Stander shouted angrily at another mug, “What are you talking about? Bette Davis can act rings around her, rings around her. Joan Crawford got no range, no reserves of emotion to draw on, you moron.”
The Joan Crawford advocate rose to the occasion and clenched his fists, countering, “Is that so? Crawford in Rain was superb, projected brass and pathos at the same time.”
The two critics snarled at each other, and I got out before a brawl developed. My vote was for Olivia DeHavilland, but her name hadn’t entered the conversation.
CHAPTER SIX
T he body was gone when I got back to my room. I saw a few bloodstains, but I was too tired to tidy up. Mrs. Plaut had trapped me briefly. She wanted to know if I needed a new knife. I told her I would make do with my remaining sharp one.
I didn’t bother to look in the mirror. I could feel the stubble on my chin and I knew it would be gray-brown and that I’d look like an overdone makeup job for a Warner Brothers gangster. I threw my coat on the sofa, kicked off my shoes, took off my shirt, wiggled my toes and plopped on the mattress.
When I woke up, I tried to hold onto a piece of dream, to pull it by the tail so I could see the whole thing. It had something to do with baseballs, and I think there were horses in it, but I couldn’t rope it and it rode or flew away. It was nearly noon. My tabletop Arvin told me Japan had almost won in Java and Burma, but that we had retaliated by having the FBI arrest three Japanese in Sacramento. Supposedly the three Japanese had weapons and uniforms and were ready to attack the state capitol. John Barrymore had just turned sixty, and Ava Gardner was in Hollywood Hospital for an emergency appendectomy, with husband Mickey Rooney at her side.
I called the number Cooper had given me and got a woman who didn’t identify herself. Cooper was out, and she didn’t want to tell me where he was. I said it was a matter of life and death, mine and possibly his. I suggested she call him, get his okay and let me call her back.
Fifteen minutes later, after discovering that Gunther had gone out to visit a publisher, I washed, shaved, dressed, and consumed a Spam sandwich, and then I called them back. The woman told me Cooper was at Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood, having lunch with his mother.
Ten minutes later I was in the semi-darkness of Don the Beachcomber’s, which had opened in 1933 and seemed to be decorated for a Paramount South Sea Island picture. I told the waiter who I was and whom I was looking for and was escorted through the crowd. Cornel Wilde was talking intensely to a thin, dark man who had paused with his fork up to listen. I caught Wilde’s voice saying, “So what choice do we have?” and was led beyond to a dark corner booth.
“Mr. Peters,” Cooper said, gulping down a glob of lobster and half-rising, with his huge right hand out. I took his hand, and he said, “This is my mother.”
“Mrs. Cooper,” I said politely, taking the seat offered to me.
“Alice,” she said. “Are you joining us for lunch, Mr. Petersr?”
There was a touch of English accent in Alice Cooper and more than a touch of maternal watchfulness. For the first time since I had met him, the shy screen Cooper appeared with an almost bashful look at his mother and at me. She was in her sixties and bore little resemblance to her famous son, but son he was, and forty or not, she watched him eat as if she were ready to tell him to switch the fork to the other hand or chew more
The grill always had a rear table full of guys who looked like truck drivers, but I had never seen any trucks parked on the street. Their conversation was usually about the war, food and the movie industry.
While I downed the dregs of my bowl and considered ordering another, a guy who looked and sounded like Lionel Stander shouted angrily at another mug, “What are you talking about? Bette Davis can act rings around her, rings around her. Joan Crawford got no range, no reserves of emotion to draw on, you moron.”
The Joan Crawford advocate rose to the occasion and clenched his fists, countering, “Is that so? Crawford in Rain was superb, projected brass and pathos at the same time.”
The two critics snarled at each other, and I got out before a brawl developed. My vote was for Olivia DeHavilland, but her name hadn’t entered the conversation.
CHAPTER SIX
T he body was gone when I got back to my room. I saw a few bloodstains, but I was too tired to tidy up. Mrs. Plaut had trapped me briefly. She wanted to know if I needed a new knife. I told her I would make do with my remaining sharp one.
I didn’t bother to look in the mirror. I could feel the stubble on my chin and I knew it would be gray-brown and that I’d look like an overdone makeup job for a Warner Brothers gangster. I threw my coat on the sofa, kicked off my shoes, took off my shirt, wiggled my toes and plopped on the mattress.
When I woke up, I tried to hold onto a piece of dream, to pull it by the tail so I could see the whole thing. It had something to do with baseballs, and I think there were horses in it, but I couldn’t rope it and it rode or flew away. It was nearly noon. My tabletop Arvin told me Japan had almost won in Java and Burma, but that we had retaliated by having the FBI arrest three Japanese in Sacramento. Supposedly the three Japanese had weapons and uniforms and were ready to attack the state capitol. John Barrymore had just turned sixty, and Ava Gardner was in Hollywood Hospital for an emergency appendectomy, with husband Mickey Rooney at her side.
I called the number Cooper had given me and got a woman who didn’t identify herself. Cooper was out, and she didn’t want to tell me where he was. I said it was a matter of life and death, mine and possibly his. I suggested she call him, get his okay and let me call her back.
Fifteen minutes later, after discovering that Gunther had gone out to visit a publisher, I washed, shaved, dressed, and consumed a Spam sandwich, and then I called them back. The woman told me Cooper was at Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood, having lunch with his mother.
Ten minutes later I was in the semi-darkness of Don the Beachcomber’s, which had opened in 1933 and seemed to be decorated for a Paramount South Sea Island picture. I told the waiter who I was and whom I was looking for and was escorted through the crowd. Cornel Wilde was talking intensely to a thin, dark man who had paused with his fork up to listen. I caught Wilde’s voice saying, “So what choice do we have?” and was led beyond to a dark corner booth.
“Mr. Peters,” Cooper said, gulping down a glob of lobster and half-rising, with his huge right hand out. I took his hand, and he said, “This is my mother.”
“Mrs. Cooper,” I said politely, taking the seat offered to me.
“Alice,” she said. “Are you joining us for lunch, Mr. Petersr?”
There was a touch of English accent in Alice Cooper and more than a touch of maternal watchfulness. For the first time since I had met him, the shy screen Cooper appeared with an almost bashful look at his mother and at me. She was in her sixties and bore little resemblance to her famous son, but son he was, and forty or not, she watched him eat as if she were ready to tell him to switch the fork to the other hand or chew more
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