A Fatal Glass of Beer (11 page)

They stood silently, stunned.

“I’m a detective,” I said, feeling more like a half-dressed idiot with a gun in my hand.

“Shots,” said the woman.

“Four,” said one of the men.

“Running down the hall,” said the other man. “Shots woke me up and I heard someone running down the hall and two more shots.”

“Just go back to your rooms,” I said as calmly as I could. “No one’s hurt. Domestic squabble. Got out of hand.”

The trio of guests went reluctantly back to their rooms. We could hear the chains being pulled and the locks snapping into place.

“What’s happening?” asked the girl.

“We’ve got to find Mr. Fields,” I said.

“Make more sense with your pants on,” she said. “Is anything broken?”

“You’ll need a new blanket and pillow,” I said, heading back toward our room. “We’ll pay for it.”

Somewhere below a baby began to cry.

“Bill,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to him. I’m calling Sandy Milch.”

I pulled on a pair of pants. Gunther did the same. I put my gun down just long enough to slip on the shirt I had worn the day before. I didn’t button it. I didn’t stop to pick up my shoes. Gunther buttoned his shirt as I moved to the door.

“Kidnapped?” Gunther asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, leading the way.

I ran down the stairs to the lobby. The night-lights were on and baby Bill was whimpering somewhere in a room behind the counter. We looked around. The restaurant was dark, locked.

It was Gunther who noticed the door of the barbershop across the lobby, slightly ajar. He pointed to it and tugged my sleeve. We moved to the door and I pushed it open. In the dim light of the lobby, we could make out a figure in the single chair. A low growling sound came from the figure. I trained my gun on the chair and Gunther scurried in search of a light switch. He found one.

Fields, wrapped in his robe with the sash neatly tied, lay back in the chair, mouth open, snoring. There were no bullet holes in him.

I moved to the chair and shook him gently. He grunted but remained asleep and snoring. I shook harder and said, “Bill.” Gunther tried. He was firmer about it than I and nearly shouted, “Mr. Fields, we have an emergency. You must awaken.”

Suddenly Fields, his eyes open, sat upright in the chair and shouted, “Two crates of raspberries and one of oranges. You have my solemn word I’ll have them delivered in the morning. Besides, I didn’t know she was married.”

He sat there blinking for a few seconds, rubbed his eyes, and then looked around the small barbershop, first at me and then at Gunther.

“First decent sleep I’ve had in a week,” Fields grumbled, sitting forward. “And you have to wake me to play hide and seek.”

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

“My maiden aunt Calliope could open this door with a paper clip,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep. Came down here. Opened the door and got into the barber chair. A good specimen. About the same vintage as the one I have at home.”

There was some activity in the lobby. I didn’t turn around to look. Gunther was doing that for me.

“You didn’t hear the shots?” I said.

“Shots?” Fields said, rising.

“Someone tried to shoot you in bed,” I said. “Shot a couple of holes in your blanket and pillow. Gunther and I ran into your room. Woloski was there, with a gun. He got away. Dived through a second-story window and ran away.”

“Second floor, eh? Once the show-business training is in your blood, you never forget,” sighed Fields, now standing, if not firmly. “I told you he was in cahoots with Hipnoodle.”

“You did,” I said.

Gunther touched my arm. Two men in brown uniforms with guns in their hands stood in the open door of the barbershop.

“Put the gun down gentle,” said the older man, who had a belly almost as big as Fields’s. “Right on the barber chair’ll be just fine.”

I did as I was told.

“Despite the events of the past half hour or less I was blissfully ensconced in the arms of Morpheus, officers,” said Fields. “You are too late to help and too dangerous to be pointing loaded weapons at innocent people. If either of you is adept at needlepoint or sewing, you might go up to my room and try to repair the damage I understand has resulted in the puncturing of the bedding in my boudoir.”

The older cop with the gut looked puzzled. “We’ll get to all that,” said the skinny younger cop. He looked like he was draft age, though he didn’t weigh in at more than a hundred and twenty. He took a step forward, deciding to take command from his older partner, and I could see it was probably the limp that had earned him a 4F.

“You’re coming with us,” said the young skinny cop.

“We’re coming with you,” I agreed. “Can we go get dressed?”

The cops exchanged looks, examined us, and came to a conclusion. “If you make it fast,” the young one said, moving forward to pick my .38 up from the seat of the barber chair.

We passed the girl with the baby in her arms in the lobby. She looked frightened and confused. Both cops had put their guns away but we were still a strange middle-of-the-night gathering.

“It’ll be fine, Missy,” the older cop told the young woman. “No one’s hurt. Maybe a few people got a little drunk and shot off some firearms. That the way it looks to you, Bobby?”

“I say we leave that to Sandy,” said the younger man as they let us lead the way up the stairway and back to our rooms. The younger one went with me and Gunther. The older one with Fields. We finished first, though Gunther was not at all happy about being urged to hurry.

When we stepped into the hall, Fields and the fat cop still weren’t out of the room. Bobby motioned us toward it; since I was two steps ahead of him and he was limping, I was the first to see the fat cop sitting on the bed. He had a couple of seconds to put down an almost-empty glass before Officer Bobby entered the room. The older cop quickly busied himself examining the wounded bed. Fields, standing nearby, was sipping a martini.

We stepped into the room as the fat cop got up and said, “Two holes in the blanket. Two in the pillow.”

“There were four shots,” I said.

“Four,” Gunther confirmed.

“Two in the blanket. Two in the pillow,” the fat cop repeated.

“I’d say that’s two shots, each went through both the blanket and the pillow,” I said.

“Get the bullets, Virgil,” the young cop said.

The older cop was glad to be active. He pulled back the blanket and pillow and said, “He’s right. Right through the sheet and into the mattress. I can see ’em.”

He pulled out a pocket knife and probed, smiling and showing us each bullet triumphantly as he extracted it from the mattress. “Looks like thirty-eights,” Virgil said, straightening with a bit of difficulty.

“We’ll leave that to Sandy,” Bobby the 4F cop said. “Let’s go.”

The girl and the baby were still in the lobby. She was doing her best to comfort him, rocking him gently, waiting till her family hotel was free of police and gun shooters.

Fields paused in front of her, dug into his right-hand pocket, and came up with a handful of bills. He plucked out three hundreds and handed them to the girl.

“Should cover the damage and maybe a little left over for the little tyke’s defense fund, should he ever run into difficulties with the law,” he said, tipping his hat to her.

Less than five minutes later, after a quiet ride, we stopped in front of the Coshocton Police Headquarters, which took up about a third of a one-story brick building that also housed the library and the office of the mayor.

We all got out quietly. Virgil the fat cop led the way. Bobby the young cop kept up the rear. We entered the door marked
Coshocton Police
and found ourselves in a big room. On the right were two cells, both empty. In front of us was a low railing. Behind the railing were two desks, neat. On the walls were some awards and a large painting of FDR looking serious. Next to FDR was another painting, a chisel-faced man in profile, wearing a cowboy hat.

“William S. Hart,” I said to Gunther, who was looking with some puzzlement at the painting.

“This way,” said Virgil, pushing open a gate in the low fence.

We followed in past the desks to an office door marked
Chief.
Virgil knocked gently. “Come in,” came a woman’s voice.

Virgil opened the door and stood back to let us enter. The room was small, clean, efficient: a table with four chairs, all wood and simple; an almost-matching desk; more awards on the walls and another pair of paintings of FDR and William S. Hart. Behind the desk sat a small woman in a zipper jacket with a badge on it. She was around fifty, dark hair cut short, no makeup, and a no-nonsense look in her dark eyes. She looked tired. I guess we all did, with the exception of Virgil and Bobby, who the woman dismissed with, “Two of you wait outside.”

They left, quickly closing the door behind them, after Bobby placed my .38 and the two bullets from the bed on top of the desk.

“Sandy Milch,” the woman said without rising.

“I’m—” I began, but she cut me off.

“Know who all of you are,” she said, removing a large revolver from her desk drawer and placing it in front of her. “Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“It began in the autumn of nineteen-oh-nine or nineteen-ten,” Fields began, examining the straw hat he had taken from his head and gazing at it as if it were a crystal ball that would bring up essential images from the past.

“Too far back,” Sandy Milch said. “You tell it.” She pointed to me, and Fields let out a small sigh.

I told her the story, everything, and she took notes on a pad of paper. When I was done, she looked up at the three of us. Actually, she looked up at Fields and me and down across at Gunther.

“So a man named Albert Woloski, also known as the Chimp, and another one named Hipnoodle, are trying to tease you into following them while they steal your money. They are also trying to kill you and warning you not to follow them?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Makes no damn sense,” she said.

“We agree,” I said.

“You can check the Hipnoodle part with a detective in Philadelphia,” I said. “Gus Belcher. I’ve got his number in my notebook.”

“Take it out careful,” Chief Milch said.

“Never met a lady police chief before,” said Fields politely. “Refreshing change.”

“Husband was the chief,” she said. “He’s a colonel in the Big Red One. I’m holding down the job till he gets back. I used to be the dispatcher. Bobby, the one with the limp?”

I nodded.

“He’s our son,” she said. “Good boy. Bad motorcycle spill when he was fifteen. Lost control. Went right through Andy Morrison’s barn wall. Almost lost his leg.”

I gave her the number for Gus Belcher in Philadelphia. She looked at it for a few seconds and then up at Fields.

“My Henry, the soldier, thinks you’re funny,” she said. “I don’t see it.”

“Bill Hart,” Fields said, gesturing to the painting on the wall.

“Henry’s and my favorite,” she said, looking up at it.

“Had the pleasure of meeting Bill on several occasions,” said Fields. “Trained Shakespearean. Shy man but he could be brought out with the right coaxing and he had some good stories.”

“You know William S. Hart?” Sandy Milch said, sitting up.

“Acquaintances,” Fields said. “We had much in common. I liked the man. Knew the Bard as well as I know Charles Dickens.”

“I’ll be damned,” Sandy Milch said. “Was he like he was in the movies?”

“Simply played himself to perfection, and did his own stunts,” said Fields with a small smile that suggested he was recalling an especially intimate moment in one of his meetings with the cowboy star.

Sandy Milch sat silently looking at Fields, unsure of whether to believe him. The silence lasted an instant or two and then she said, “I’ll call Belcher. Probably won’t be there at four in the morning, but I can leave a message.”

She placed the call and waved at the table and chairs, a suggestion that we take a seat. We did.

“Detective Belcher,” she said. “This is Chief Milch in Coshocton, Ohio, and I don’t have much of a budget for long-distance calls so I want to make it quick … right … okay … I understand. He have a partner who might know about his cases?… Knox? Got it. Mickey Knox. And he’ll be on day shift in three hours. Can you have him call me when he gets in?”

She gave her number and hung up. Then she looked down at her pad and over at us.

“Hipnoodle?” she said, shaking her head at the lunacy of the whole thing.

“Yes,” I said.

“Detective Belcher is off tomorrow,” she said. “Fishing with his kids. His partner’ll call me back in three hours.”

“Meanwhile?” I said.

“We sit, have some coffee, maybe a couple of doughnuts or pound cake from Aggie’s down the street, and we go over all this slow and careful, maybe leaving us a little time to talk about William S. Hart.”

“The bank opens at nine,” Fields said.

“If we’re not done, Virgil will be there, and if Hipnoodle—that’s one crazy damn name—if Hipnoodle shows up, Virgil brings him in and we all have another talk.”

“Account’s in the name of Melodious Quach,” said Fields.

“And Hipnoodle has your bankbook and can forge your signature and your handwriting?” Sandy Milch said.

“Apparently with great skill and aplomb,” said Fields, tapping the top of his straw hat resting on the table before him.

“Virgil, Bobby,” she shouted.

The two policemen who had been waiting outside the door came in instantly.

“Bobby,” she said to her son. “Drive around a little and see if you can find this acrobat who looks like an ape. If you find him, be careful. According to our guests, he’s got a record and tried to kill Mr. Fields tonight.”

“I’ll be careful, Mom,” he said.

“As soon as Aggie opens, I want you to pick up coffees all around, some doughnuts, and pound cake.” She handed Bobby a couple of dollars and said to us, “Aggie makes the best damn pound cake in Ohio.”

Bobby pocketed the money.

“After you bring the coffee and cake, go home and get some sleep. Give Jimmy a call and tell him to come in an hour early. He’s gonna ask about getting paid an hour overtime. Tell him we can’t afford it. He won’t curse me to you. Call Frankie Tolliver. Tell him to come in an hour early too. Frankie won’t complain.”