High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (6 page)

When I parked and moved toward them, one man separated himself from the pack and strode toward me with a smile. Behind his back he whispered, “Set it up fast, Herman.” The wind had been blowing my way or I wouldn’t have heard him. He was a little taller, a little younger and seemed to be a lot more enthusiastic than I was about life, but then again he was clearly faking.

“I,” he said, holding out a hand, “am Max Gelhorn. Can I be of some service to you?”

Behind him the sweatered crew tied horses to a quickly constructed rail in front of the shack, cowboys checked their guns and the camera was lugged back to take it all in.

“You have a permit to shoot here?” I asked sternly.

“Permit?” Gelhorn looked puzzled. He was wearing a coat over his heavy woolen sweater. His yellow-gray hair was massive and blowing wild. “I checked with Mr. Payson and he said—”

“Payson?” I said suspiciously. “There is no Mr. Payson.”

“Maybe I got the name wrong,” Gelhorn mused, glancing over his shoulder to see how quickly things were being set up.

“You don’t have permission to shoot here, do you?” I said through clenched teeth.

“Well, not exactly,” said Gelhorn, “but well be out of here in an hour at the most and…. Say, how would you like to be in this picture? You’d be perfect Not much, just a small part in this shot holding a horse. Doris,” he shouted, and the girl in the sweater came running. She was a pale, panting, pinched creature with rimless glasses and pigtails. Her age was something between eighteen and thirty. “Doris,” Gelhorn repeated with mock enthusiasm, “I think this gentleman would be perfect as the bandit holding the horses. What do you think?”

“Perfect,” agreed Doris, picking up her cue.

“Well, Mr….” Gelhorn began.

“Peters,” I said. The name killed a birdie in his head but he chalked it up to minor coincidence. I forced the issue. “Toby Peters,” I said.

“Who are you?” Gelhorn demanded, dropping the hand-wringing act and taking on steam without heat.

“Toby Peters, private investigator.”

“You’ve changed in a week,” sneered Gelhorn. “You used to be short, fat, obnoxious and stupid. You are no longer fat.”

“That was my junior partner, using my name while I was on vacation,” I explained. “I’d be careful how you talk about him in his presence. He’s a jujitsu expert.”

“Really,” said Gelhorn. “Well, it has been unpleasant talking to you, but I’ve got to get back to my film.” He turned, and Doris followed, looking back at me with curiosity.

“I had a talk with Mr. Lombardi yesterday,” I said. That stopped Gelhorn so dead in his tracks that he almost toppled over. He turned to me with a quizzical look. “Lombardi? I don’t know any—”

“Of course not,” I said. “You want to talk before I report back to Mr. Cooper that I found you most uncooperative? You don’t want to kill your chances of getting Cooper for
High Midnight.
”

Gelhorn hurried back to me and panted, “Then he
is
considering the offer?”

I shrugged. “Depends on what I tell him.”

“I made a straight offer,” said Gelhorn as blandly as he could.

“What made you think the highest-salaried actor in Hollywood, the actor who is probably going to win his second Academy Award, is going to make a low-budget Western with you? What’s in it for him?”

“That,” said Gelhorn, “is between Mr. Cooper and me.”

“It can’t be that you got the idea of putting pressure on Cooper to come into this?”

From a hot-dog stand on the corner, the sound of music cut through the wind.

“I don’t need Gary Cooper,” Max Gelhorn said, plunging his hands into his pockets.

“Of course not,” I agreed. “I can see that. I’ve seen that plush office of yours, and I can see the epic you’re shooting in an empty lot.”

A whistle blew behind us and drowned out his answer. Seconds later workers from the factory were streaming out and heading for the hot-dog stand for lunch. Some of them glanced at the movie crew and hurried to get their sandwiches so they could spend their break watching.

“Perhaps we could talk after I get this scene,” Gelhorn said, looking anxiously at the workers and probably fearing that a factory foreman would appear to boot him off the vacant lot.

“Okay,” I said.

“We’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said amiably, backing away. “Uh, and how about holding the horse in this shot. We’re a bit short-handed, and you look perfect.”

“Why not,” I said with a grin that never looked like a grin.

Doris fished out a cowboy hat and vest and took my coat and jacket Gelhorn told me to stand on the far side of the horses so my pants and shoes wouldn’t show on camera. Then Gelhorn went mad with activity. The cameraman, a little guy with a heavy German accent began arguing with him about how little space there was to shoot.

“You want the cowboys should ride behind a hot-dog stand?” he squeaked. “Or up the hill to that garage?”

“I know it’s tight, Hugo, but that’s what we’ve got. Just do it. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee after.”

An overweight actor in a cowboy suit lumbered up to Gelhorn, waving a script “Max,” he cried, “how the hell am I supposed to do this? You said you’d get a stunt man. I can’t—”

“Mickey,” whispered Gelhorn, “a stunt man is at least twenty bucks, even a lousy stuntman. You’ve done harder than this before. I’ll give you an extra te … five.”

I adjusted my cowboy hat and stepped out from behind the horses to get a better look at Tall Mickey Fargo. It was the same man whose picture I had in my pocket, but someone had put a balloon inside him and blown it up. He was a bloated caricature. I couldn’t imagine him getting on a horse, let alone doing a stunt, but the five dollars proved too much for him, and he agreed.

It was cold without my coat, so I huddled back among the horses. One of them tried to nuzzle me. I’ve got nothing against animals as long as they leave me alone. I think human responsibilities are too much and I never understood why anyone would choose to take on responsibility for an animal. Unfortunately, all animals love me. Maybe I just smell from salty sweat. A factory worker with a bottle of Nehi and a sandwich came up to me and asked what we were shooting.

“A Hoot Gibson movie,” I said. “Hoot’s not in this shot.”

Gelhorn had backed off with Hugo and the camera and waved wildly for the factory worker to get out of the shot. The factory worker, a stocky guy with black curly hair, raised his fist at Gelhorn and laughed before backing away.

“No sound in this shot,” shouted Gelhorn over the music from the hot-dog stand and the laughs and conversation of factory workers. “Remember, Mickey, you’ve set a dynamite charge in the shack, and you want to get away fast. You come out of the door, go for your horse, get shot and tumble down. Then you look back at the shack in fear. You know it is going to blow any second and you’re not sure you can get away. You with the horses,” Gelhorn shouted, seemingly forgetting who I was in the heat of shooting, “get in the shot.” I moved forward.

“Okay,” shouted Gelhorn, his voice cracking. “We have to shoot this tight, Mickey, one take, not much room up and down. Do it right the first time.”

Mickey nodded, went over to check his horse and waddled to the shack.

“Camera ready,” shouted Gelhorn.

“Ready,” grunted Hugo.

“Camera rolling,” shouted Gelhorn.

“Rolling,” said Hugo.

“Action,” said Gelhorn. “Doris, action, get the damn sticks in there.”

Doris ran out in front of the camera with the clapboards.

“You don’t have to clap them,” Gelhorn screamed. “We’re not rolling sound. Just get out of there.” Doris looked hurt as she scrambled behind the camera with the crew and other extras.

“All right, Mickey, for God’s sake,” screamed Gelhorn, “get your ass out there! We’re wasting film.”

Fargo came scurrying out of the cabin, looked back at it with fear worthy of Emil Jannings and went for his horse. It took him two tries to make it onto the horse. Then Gelhorn shouted, “Now, Mickey, now. You’ve been shot.” And the sound of a gunshot cut through the music and noise. Mickey went down off the horse with a grunt and the horse next to me also went down, almost toppling over on me. I jumped out of the way and saw the spot of blood on the horse’s shoulder. Then a second shot came and dug dirt a foot away from me. The shots were coming from the top of the hill. No one else seemed to notice them, but then everyone was watching Mickey Fargo try to lift his fallen girth for a look at the shack.

I thought I saw the glint of something metal on the hilltop. My choices weren’t many. I could stand still and watch the guy with the gun pick off me and the remaining horses. I could run across the open field and hope to survive, or I could do the stupid thing I did. Maybe it was the costume or the scene or the audience. I got on the nearest horse, remembering vaguely that you mount on the left, and urged the animal forward by whacking its rump. It laughed at me, or made a sound like laughter, and took off running right in front of the camera.

Gelhorn screamed, “Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.”

I tugged the reins to the left toward the hill, and the horse, much to my surprise, turned left. The crowd of factory workers cheered. In about thirty yards I pulled back on the reins and the horse came to an abrupt stop. My arms grabbed the saddle, and I eased myself down as quickly as I could, tossing the cowboy hat away as I scrambled for the cover of bushes and trees. Another shot hit behind me. I went up the hill slowly without looking back, but I could hear Gelhorn’s crazed voice behind me coming closer, shouting “Madman.”

No more shots came as I worked my way up slowly. From behind a tree I estimated where the rifleman had been and worked behind the spot. A car started not far away, and I jumped from behind the tree to see a Ford coupe pull away with a screech. I barely caught the square shape in the driver’s seat. With less caution I went to the spot from where the gun had been fired.

Gelhorn had scrambled up the hill behind me and was advancing, ready to beat me with the clapboard he had probably ripped from the hand of timid Doris.

“You crazy son of a bitch,” he screamed. “You know what you cost me? You ruined the shot.”

“At least the one someone took at me,” I said, kneeling down to pick up some still warm, spent cartridges. I held one up for him to see.

“Bull,” he said, moving clapboard-armed on me.

“Go tell the horse that got shot,” I said.

Gelhorn stopped. “Horse, shot?” He groaned. “Is it dead?”

“I don’t think so. It looked as if the shot barely caught him on the shoulder.” I put the shells in my pocket.

“Do you know what I had to do to get those horses?” Gelhorn wailed. “I can’t afford to pay for a goddamn horse. It’s either horses or cars no matter what you do.”

“I appreciate your sympathy,” I said, moving back toward the slope of the hill.

“Sympathy?” asked Gelhorn.

“Someone tried to kill me, not ruin your shot,” I reminded him.

“Oh, yes,” he said, tucking the clapboard under his arm. “I’m sorry about…. Maybe we can put a piece of tape over the horse’s wound and paint over it. What color is the horse?”

“Black, I think.”

“We have black paint,” Gelhorn mused to himself.

I outdistanced Gelhorn down the hill and made directly for Mickey Fargo. Tall Mickey, who was now Fat Mickey, had managed with some help to get off the ground.

“Maybe we can match it,” he was telling Doris. “Then I won’t have to take that fall again. Goddamn horse.”

“Mr. Fargo,” I said, looking back over my shoulder to see how far Gelhorn was behind me. “Sorry about that. Max will explain when he gets here. I’m a great fan of yours, and I’d like to talk to you at your place later about the Gary Cooper movie.”

He turned his chunky bulldog face to me suspiciously. “I don’t have …” he began.

“I work for Mr. Cooper,” I said quickly.

His rheumy eyes opened as wide as his heavy lids would allow, and a grin appeared, revealing remarkably perfect teeth, almost certainly false. “Right,” he said. “Catch me later.”

I was at my car before Gelhorn could reach me, but I didn’t have to hurry. He had zipped past Fargo and his crew and was in a dead run for the fallen horse. He was already calling for a bandage and water colors.

Since I was close, I headed for the Big Bear Bar in Burbank. Maybe I could convince Lola Farmer to change her name to Barbara Banks, then I could say I had seen Barbara Banks at the Big Bear Bar in Burbank. Maybe I could pass the joke on to my nephews. But maybe at twelve and ten, Nate and Dave were already too old for it.

The squat man who was trying to pressure Cooper into making
High Midnight
was obviously not fooling around. Not even Sergeant York could shoot from that range and purposely miss me by a foot. No, no, my friends, this was a fresh message from Lombardi or a new player that I should keep what remained of my nose outside of the business of Gary Cooper. I should have been scared, and I was, but just a little. Another part of me was happy as a dung beetle with a fresh find. This was it. This was the tingling feeling that made me drunk and powerful. I had to ride it while I felt it or fear would take over, but right now I was immortal.