A Few Minutes Past Midnight (14 page)

“Howard Sawyer is responsible for their deaths,” he said. “We must find him. We must ask him. Though by then it will be too late to do anything but satisfy our curiosity. We must recognize, however, the likelihood that he has no motive.”

“I’ve got a call to make, a shower to take, and Mrs. Plaut to talk to. Can you try to track down Blanche Wiltsey?”

“Of course,” he said.

“She could be anywhere in the world,” I said. “Well, probably anywhere the war isn’t going on, which makes the job a little easier, but not much. You have a nickel?”

Gunther reached into the pocket of his pants and came up with the right coin. He handed it to me, nodded, turned, and strode back to his room.

I stood, mouth partly open, one hand on the wall trying to remember the number I wanted to call. I thought I had it. I’m not great with telephone numbers. I can barely remember the one on whichever phone I’m looking at and sometimes not my own at the Farraday, but I thought I remembered this one.

I dropped the nickel and asked the operator to get the number for me. After six rings, a man answered.

“Woodman.”

“Al, this is Toby Peters. Did I wake you?”

“Been up for hours,” he said. “You get older, you need less sleep, get more reading done, more time to hunt and swim.”

“You hunt?”

“Hell no,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Al Woodman was a retired cop, long retired, long widowed. I didn’t know how old he was, but it had to be close to seventy. Al was usually up for the odd job when it paid cash.

“I’ve got some work if you want it. Couple of days. Usual rate.”

“What is it?”

“Keep an eye on Charlie Chaplin. There’s some nut who may be trying to kill him or just give him trouble.”

“I’m in,” said Woodman. “When?”

“Now. I’ll give you his address. Knock on the door, tell him you’re the one I sent, and just sit in the car, keep an eye on the house, maybe look around once in a while.”

“I’ll need relief. Want me to get Fearaven?”

“He available?”

“I can see,” said Woodman. “Hit the bottle when his boy died in Bataan, but he’s coming back and he’s good.”

“Good. Sorry to take you away from the water.”

“I hate swimming,” he said. “But it keeps me healthy. Anything else?”

“Guy we’re talking about has killed six or seven women,” I said.

“I understand,” Al Woodman said.

Al was short, thin with a Walter Brennan face and sparse white hair. He looked like any other old man, but he wasn’t.

Al Woodman had a reputation. He liked guns, all kinds of guns, all sizes. As a cop he had shot seven people, all justified, though the word was that at least a few of those times he could have shot second and asked questions first. Al had medals. He had a testimonial when he retired. He had a small pension, an aquarium filled with goldfish, and he had very few friends.

I gave him Chaplin’s address, told him to call me if anything happened, and hung up.

I made my way back to my room where Mrs. Plaut had rolled up my mattress and was busily sweeping, brushing, and hanging up the clothes I had thrown around the night before. Dash had wisely left through the window.

“No rain today,” she said.

“No rain,” I agreed gathering my soap, razor, and a towel from my dresser drawer. “You don’t happen to know a Blanche Wiltsey?”

Mrs. Plaut paused and blinked at me.

“Yes,” she said.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“She? Lance Wilson is a man. Druggist at Schrafts.”

“Thanks,” I said, moving to the door.

“The dead woman,” she said. “The one in the car in front of the house.”

I faced her.

“Her name was Elsie Pultman,” I said. “She was murdered by a man whose name may or may not be Howard Sawyer. I don’t know why she was murdered.”

“Too much violence,” she said. “On the radio. In the movies. What’s his name? Robert Mitchum, the one with the sleepy eyes. Every movie. Shooting. Usually Vincent Price gets shot. Too much violence.”

“Then why do you go to movies with Robert Mitchum?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“He looks like my brother Danny’s boy, Ephraim,” she explained. “Though Ephraim is more stupid looking than sleepy looking.”

“I see,” I said. “Now if you …”

“Ration stamps,” she said.

“I’ll pick them up today,” I promised.

She went back to work singing “The Carioca.”

I shaved, showered, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and returned to my room hoping that Mrs. Plaut had left. She had. Gunther was seated at my table near the window, his feet about four inches from the floor.

“I may have found your Blanche Wiltsey,” he said.

“That was fast.”

I went to the closet, picked out a shirt that looked reasonably clean, and reached for my Big Yank pants.

“Luck,” said Gunther. “A stroke of good fortune. I recalled a Wiltsey Bookstore where I have on occasion located a reference work. It is on Whittier. I called. The proprietor was in early. I asked if he had a relative named Blanche.”

“And he does?”

“Yes, a niece.”

“Niece? How old is she?” I asked, pulling on my pants.

“I asked that question,” Gunther said. “She is twenty years old and about to marry a United States sailor she has known since kindergarten.”

“Her family has money?”

“Her father is a plumber.”

“She doesn’t fit, Gunther,” I said. “Profile is all wrong. Name is right, but …”

“I called Miss Wiltsey’s home. The bookstore owner gave me the number. A woman, Blanche Wiltsey’s mother answered. I said I was looking for a man named Howard Sawyer and wondered if she knew the man. And she said that a person of that name had called yesterday and spoken to Blanche.”

“What did he say to her?”

“The mother did not know and the daughter has already departed for work. The mother assumed Sawyer was someone at her daughter’s place of employment.”

“Where does the girl work?”

I was dressed now and making a decision.

“Coulter’s Department store. Music department.”

I knew Coulter’s. I had passed it twice the day before. It was on the Miracle Mile, Wilshire between La Brea and Fairfax, right next to Citizen’s National Trust and Savings Bank, where my former wife Ann and I once had an account. The area was called Miracle Mile by the developers who had bought the land so cheaply and made so much fast money that they had declared it a miracle.

“Shall we go?” asked Gunther.

“Let’s do it,” I said, going to the shelf in my closet, reaching up behind a battered fedora, and pulling down a cigar box with my .38 inside it.

“Shall I get my weapon?” he asked.

“Why not? If we run into Sawyer, then at least one of us will be able to shoot him.”

It was early. Coulter’s wouldn’t be open for over an hour. We stopped for breakfast at a busy restaurant called William & Mary’s, two blocks from the department store.

The place was crowded, the eggs hard, the conversation impossible because of the noise. People ate fast, paid, and ran. We ate slowly and drank coffee.

Just before nine, according to Gunther’s watch, we got up and drove to Coulter’s. From the parking lot behind the modern, curved-style five-story building, you could enter through a door that opened automatically. We joined the early morning crowd and went looking for the music department.

The store wasn’t crowded and finding the music department wasn’t hard. Two girls, both about twenty, stood behind the counter of glass cases filled with records. Next to the counter was a stand with a poster on it announcing that Tex Beneke and the Modernaires would be coming in to sign photographs and record jackets of their hit “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.” There was a picture of Beneke and the Modernaires on the poster. Beneke had a big toothy grin.

We moved to the first girl, who beamed at us. She was a redhead with short curly hair, freckles, and a well-developed body and smile.

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking at me and then at Gunther. She grinned at Gunther. He smiled back.

“What’s big?” I asked.

“You mean what’s hot? Vocal? ‘Straighten Up and Fly Right,’ Nat King Cole. Groovy. ‘I’ve Heard That Song Before,’ Helen Forrest. She’s also doing great with ‘He’s My Guy.’ Hoggy Charmichael’s ‘Rockin’ Chair.’”

“Classical,” said Gunther.

“Longhair? You’ll have to talk to Sandra when she comes in.”

“Are you Blanche Wiltsey?” Gunther asked.

“Yes,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “Why?”

“My name is Peters. This is my associate Mr. Wherthman. We’re investigators.” I didn’t give her time to ask what kind of investigators we were. “We’re trying to find a man named Howard Sawyer. We understand you spoke to him on the phone yesterday.”

“Yes, I did.”

She should have said “how do you know,” but I had the feeling Blanche had a bubbly personality, a good figure, but a poor shot of ever getting on the
Quiz Kids.

“Mind telling us how you know Sawyer and what he told you?”

“I don’t know him,” she said. “He told me he’d met me a few weeks ago at a dance. I asked him some questions. He wasn’t much for giving information, if you know what I mean. Said he’d like to see me again. I told him I was engaged to a sailor. He said he’d still like to get together. I said I couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t give up easy. Smitten, I guess.”

“You get a lot of that?” I asked.

She beamed.

“I guess. Some. My fiancé says I’ve got lots of pep. Guys like that. Some guys.”

“Where did you leave it with Sawyer?”

“Told him I had to go. He says he has something for me and then he won’t bother me again. What’ve I got to lose? So I say, ‘Bring it by the store.’ And he says, ‘Can’t do it. Can I meet him in Pershing Square on my lunch break? So I say it’s kind of far and I don’t like using the gas. I’m not exactly overpaid. I’m not complaining, but listen, a guy on the phone? You know what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Gunther.

Blanche rewarded him with a smile.

“Where in Pershing Square?” I asked.

“Bench under a big palm. Said he’d be the guy in a blue suit with a big white gift box in his lap.”

“And?” I prompted.

“Said I’d be there and told him no strings or forget it. He said fine. I don’t think I’m going. I just wanted to get off the phone.”

The other young woman behind the counter was waiting on a pair of women. The young woman turned and put a record on the player behind her.

“
Bolero
,” said Gunther.

“I like it,” Blanche said.

“Same passage repeated seventeen times, faster and faster, emphasis on different instruments. A brilliant tour de force.”

“It’s neat,” Blanche said as the music played.

“It’s not a good idea to have assignations with strange men in the park or anywhere else,” said Gunther.

I think the word “assignations” threw her. She looked at Gunther and said, “Don’t I know it?”

“Howard Sawyer is a dangerous man,” I said.

“You mean a nut case?” she asked.

“The cashew of nut cases,” I said.

“So he doesn’t even have a gift for me?”

“Not one you would wish to have,” said Gunther as
Bolero
grew louder.

“So, what should I do?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“He’ll call me again,” she said with a sigh but no sign of fear.

“We don’t think you’ll ever hear from him again,” I said. “But if you do, tell him Mr. Peters will be seeing him and hang up.”

“Mr. Peters?”

“Me.”

“And what kind of music do you like?” Gunther asked.

“Swing. Goodman, Dorsey, Hawkins,” she said.

“I see,” said Gunther.

A huge woman with a shopping bag that matched her size stood behind us now, looking at her watch.

“We’ll call you at home later,” I said to Blanche who beamed at me and Gunther.

The huge woman moved between us and, in a whisper, said to the girl, “What’s new from Bing Crosby?”

Gunther and I went back to the car and got in.

“We shall inform the police?” he asked.

“About what? We don’t have any witnesses. They’re all dead. So they pick up Sawyer. They have no evidence. I don’t want to bring Chaplin in and even if I did, all he could say was that Sawyer came to his house and threatened him. No murder charge. I could ask Phil to bring him in, push him around, drop him down a flight of stairs, but I don’t think it’d get us anywhere.”

“So, what shall we do?”

“We’ll have to stop him ourselves.”

“And how shall we do that?” asked Gunther as I started the car.

“Oh, lots of ways,” I answered, creeping past shoppers in the parking lot. “We could kill him.”

“Which you will not do,” said Gunther.

“Which I will not do,” I agreed. “We can threaten him.”

“Which will not work,” said Gunther. “And if it did, it would simply drive him off to commit some foul act against humanity elsewhere.”

“Which leaves?”

“We lay a trap,” said Gunther. “Get him to confess his deeds before witnesses.”

“Right,” I said.

“And how shall we do that?” Gunther asked reasonably.

“I’m working on it,” I said. “How much time do we have till noon?”

“A bit over two hours,” Gunther said, after checking his vest pocket watch.

“Let’s get some help,” I said.

CHAPTER

9

T
HE SUNSHINE WAS
gone again. The sky was gray. It looked like rain in Pershing Square but the small park was packed with people on benches eating their lunch out of paper bags, strollers, and servicemen on leave wandering through the city. Plus the regulars.

The regulars were there. Along with those passing out leaflets on everything from the dangers of drinking beer to the need for a wall along the coast to keep the Japanese from landing, they stood on wooden boxes or overturned trash cans. They insulted the crowd or tried to get those gathered around them to accept Jesus, the end of the world, the promise of Communism, the need for universal celibacy, the dangers of Communism, the threat of organized religion, and the necessary preparations for the brave new world coming after the war.