A Fatal Glass of Beer (12 page)

“Right,” said Bobby Milch, limping out the door.

“Virgil,” Sandy Milch said. “You go home, set two alarm clocks for seven, and be at the bank before it opens. Tell Ray that if anyone tries to make a withdrawal from the account of a Melodious Quinch—”

“Melodious Quach,” Fields corrected.

“Quach,” she amended. “He’s to tell you right away and you’re to bring Quach here for questioning.”

“Okay, Sandy,” Virgil said.

“Last thing, and I don’t like saying it in front of strangers,” she said. “You’re a good policeman, probably the best of the four I’ve got, but if I catch you drinking on duty again, you’ll be selling Old Dutch Coffee at Gutterman’s Grocery and tearing out ration stamps.”

Virgil was about to speak but Fields interrupted with, “The officer was not at fault. He showed a sign of momentary weakness and was tempted by me with the offer of a small drink after I took one to calm myself after having barely missed dying in Ohio.”

Sandy Milch nodded to show that she heard Fields’s excuse but didn’t give it much credit.

We sat silently as Chief Sandy Milch examined my gun and then the bullets Virgil had plucked out of Fields’s bed.

“Your gun hasn’t been fired,” she said, looking up. “One point for you. Gun registered?”

“In Los Angeles. I’m a licensed private investigator.”

“Bullets from the bed,” she said, a little puzzled, rolling one of them on her palm. “Different story. What kind of gun you say this Chimp guy had?”

“I think it was a thirty-eight, too,” I said, “but I’m not sure.”

“These bullets came from a big gun,” she said. “Probably made big holes.”

She held up a bullet between her thumb and forefinger for Virgil to examine.

“Big weapon,” Virgil confirmed. “Bigger than a thirty-eight.”

“I’ll let the state police worry about that one,” she said. “I’ll call them when Virgil comes back with your Hipnoodle, providing he shows up. Now, I want to hear whatever you know about William S. Hart.”

“I would be delighted to tell tales about dear old Bill that will make you laugh, sigh, and even bring a tear or two to your eyes,” said Fields, “but I left a thermos of medicinal liquid in my room, and after this encounter with the reaper …”

“Virgil,” Sandy Milch said. “Before you go home would you mind bringing Mr. Fields’s thermos of medicine back here?”

“Sure,” said Virgil.

“Then go,” she said. “And don’t drink any of it.”

Fields began to tell tales of Hart’s wit, honesty, humor, and compassion for children, the aged, and the afflicted. He told of the silent-screen cowboy star’s love of his horse and his mother, not necessarily in that order.

When Virgil came back and placed the thermos before a grateful Fields, there was a brief pause while Fields poured himself a drink and said, “Pineapple juice with a healthy dosage of liquid jumju leaf, a calming concoction that also eases my lumbago.”

Gunther put his head on the table and fell asleep. Gunther was accustomed to taking brief naps during the day and working at his desk during the night. I was accustomed to staying up for a night or two in my car, drinking coffee when I could get it, and watching the house or apartment of someone I was supposed to be protecting or someone I was supposed to be catching in an act of sexual frenzy or bliss, neither of which would please my client. Coffee would help.

Fields went on and on, holding Sandy Milch rapt. She took notes so she could get it all in her next letter to her husband, Henry.

Eventually, light came through the window. Just a little at first and then definite daylight. Bobby Milch appeared with coffee, doughnuts, a couple of caramel rolls, and half-a-dozen slices of pound cake.

“Home now, Bobby,” Sandy said.

“No sign of the guy who looks like a gorilla,” he said.

“A chimp,” Fields corrected. “Entirely different face and carriage.”

“Not one of those either,” Bobby said and left the room.

I nudged Gunther and he awoke almost instantly. Sandy Milch had joined us at the table about an hour earlier. My .38 was now in her desk drawer along with the bullets. She was at the end of the table with her weapon right in front of her.

Gunther ate and drank slowly, delicately. I tried to restrain myself from scooping in everything and finishing my not-particularly-hot coffee in two gulps. Even Fields nibbled at the pound cake, and then took an entire piece.

“Best damn pound cake you ever had?” asked Sandy Milch, leaning forward.

“No doubt,” I said, my mouth full.

“Superior,” said Gunther.

“Excellent,” said Fields. “I’d say it barely inches ahead of the pound cake of Elfreda Labaca Caz in Lima, Peru. Elfreda runs a little café there, cooks and bakes herself. Claims secret ingredients. I’m trying to think if Bill Hart was with me at the time, but it was a long time ago.”

Within the next thirty minutes, things happened fast.

Belcher’s partner Knox called and said that they had investigated a guy named Hipnoodle who was supposedly planning to steal money from a bunch of Fields’s bank accounts. They had gotten a warrant, searched Hipnoodle’s apartment, and came up with nothing.

That much I could get from Sandy Milch’s end of the line.

“So far, so good,” she said. “It looks like the way things happened.”

Almost as soon as she hung up, there was a knock at her door and she told whoever it was to come in. It was Virgil. He had cut himself shaving and had a small dab of toilet paper on the cut. He looked at us, looked at the chief, and turned his cap in his hand.

“Hipnoodle got away,” Sandy Milch said.

“It was all—” Virgil started and looked at FDR and William S. Hart for inspiration. “I was standing next to Dorothy’s desk, you know, sort of out of sight so people coming in wouldn’t see a uniformed police officer.”

“And you couldn’t see them,” Sandy Milch said.

Virgil nodded. “Anyway, I had told Ray, and while I was talking to Dorothy, Ray comes walking up and says one of the tellers is making a withdrawal for Melodious Quach. By the time we get to the teller, which is real fast, she—Wendy Douglas, Archie’s sister-in-law from Massillon—points to a tall guy going out the door. I’m headed right for him. He’s just standing there, looking both ways down the street. ‘Halt,’ I yell, pulling out my weapon. He hears me, turns his head. I can see he’s wearing those old glasses with no rims. He turns right and runs. I go out right behind him, yelling at him to stop, warning that I’ll shoot, which I wouldn’t. He keeps going. I keep following him and with my weight and age on his side, I still start catching up. He’s not fast. Sort of gangly. He turns the corner right in front of Quilly’s Hardware and I’m right behind him, knowing I’ll catch him in a few seconds. And then it happened.”

“It?” asked Sandy Milch.

“Someone hit me from behind,” Virgil said. “God’s truth. Hit me with something to my head. Got the lump right here to prove it. Then he kicked me in the back. I lost my weapon and he hit my head again with his hand. I didn’t know which way was up or what color was blue. Then he stopped. I got my gun and stood up kind of dizzy. Gangly guy from the bank was gone. No sign of the guy who hit me.”

“You get a look at him?” I asked.

“The tall guy, yes. Whoever hit me, no. Sorry, Sandy. I think he was big.”

“Go back to bed, Virgil,” she said. “You did your best.”

Virgil slunk out of the room.

“What now?” I asked.

“Got nothing to hold any of you on or for,” she said, getting up and going to her desk. “I’ll have the state police check the bullets. You’ll have to make a statement, sign a few papers, and then I guess you’ll be leaving town.”

“As quickly as we can,” I said as she handed me my .38.

After she took our statements, Chief Milch herself drove us back to the hotel. Our bags were packed and waiting for us. Fields had already paid the girl with the baby the night before, but she was out watching as Gunther brought the car around.

After we had packed everything in the Caddy and gotten in, I said, “Where now?”

“No idea,” said Fields. “But I want to get that son of a bitch.”

“Ottumwa,” said Gunther. “Iowa. I found this on the windshield, under the wiper.” Gunther reached over his shoulder and handed us a card on which was printed: “Ottumwa. See you there.”

Of all the presidents’ hobbies, I think General Grant’s came nearer to my ideals …

Fields sat in silence, looking out the window, leaning on his cane as Gunther sped up the Interstate on the way to Indianapolis and, beyond that, Ottumwa, Iowa. The cane was a spare he had brought with him and had been pressed into service when whoever had shot at us had cut the other one in two.

Finally, Fields muttered, “There’s more damn corn in this country than there are people. I eat two ears a year and give my neighbor’s dog an additional one or two just to watch him struggle with getting the little bits out from between his teeth. I’ve sent more canines into dental madness than modesty permits me to disclose.”

“Corn is used principally to feed cows, extract oils, and to make alcoholic beverages,” Gunther said seriously from the front seat, where he watched the road carefully and managed to drive just above the posted speed limits.

“Fascinating,” said Fields, putting down his morning drink. “Pull over, we just crossed into Indiana.”

Gunther pulled over. Cars zipped by us as Fields got out of the car and moved to the driver’s window.

“Out,” he ordered, opening the door.

Gunther looked back at me and I shrugged. Gunther got out and Fields leaned over to remove the straps on the pedals and shove the padded seat over to the passenger side. Then he got in. Gunther stood next to the car with some bewilderment.

“I,” said Fields, “will show you how to get to Iowa faster than it takes a man I once knew named Whalebait to down half a pint of distinctly inferior whiskey.”

Gunther looked at me. I shrugged and opened the rear door. Gunther got in. No sooner had he closed the door than Fields took off, tires screaming, almost hitting a truck that had “Royalist Cigars” painted on the side, along with a large picture of a cigar and smoke curling up.

“Should look where he’s going,” Fields muttered as he glanced back in his rearview mirror at the truck and its badly shaken driver. “Did you know that eighty-three percent of the women of these United States put out ashtrays the size of thimbles, designed to embarrass the cigar smoker whose ash, of necessity, falls on the table or arm of the divan?”

Neither Gunther nor I answered. Fields gathered speed. Over the course of the next four hours we had six near collisions, were almost hit by a train, and came close to a fistfight with the driver of an A & P truck who Fields had forced partly off the road and very nearly into the Vermilion River just past the Illinois border.

Fields reached back through the open sliding window from time to time for a glass of liquid from his thermos. He didn’t trust Gunther or me to mix a martini for him.

“Drinking and driving is the only reasonable thing to do,” he said, passing a trio of cars on a two-lane highway and coming within a dozen yards of a collision with an oncoming Oldsmobile before scooting back into our own lane, almost toppling the Cadillac.

Gunther was pale and gripping the armrests. I was preparing for my death somewhere between Danville and Davenport. Fields had made it clear that there would be stops for bladder relief only. He had allowed us to pause before we got out of Indiana for a stack of sandwiches, some bottles of Pepsi, and some ice, which Fields said we could keep in his backseat cooler. Neither Gunther nor I felt much like eating or drinking.

At least a dozen times, Fields drove partly off the side of the road, sometimes hitting small stones that flew up and pinged off the windows or spitting up dirt and mud that made it hard to see.

“If he can beat us to Ottumwa,” Fields muttered at one point, “the bastard must be part eagle.”

Finally, I tried to eat a sandwich, ham and cheese, while we drove. It wasn’t easy getting it to my mouth. Gunther opened a sandwich and daintily took small pieces of meat and cheese. I spilled some Pepsi on the seat, looked up to see if Fields had noticed, and then managed to drink.

“Keep the upholstery clean,” Fields shouted. “Never know when I might entertain a studio executive or his secretary back there.”

Fields flipped on the radio, carefully zipping past anything that sounded like music. We heard from a serious-sounding man with a deep voice that General Patton had wept after his aide, Captain Richard Jenon, twenty-seven, was killed. The announcer said Jenon was from Pasadena.

Fields listened attentively, barely managing to avoid collision with the rear of a small pickup truck full of crates of chickens.

The newscaster added that Rommel was still on the run, that Dorothy Lamour had married Captain William Ross II, and that Beau Jack had won a decision to keep his lightweight crown. The announcer said that the crowd had almost unanimously booed the decision. Once again I had lost to Violet Gonsenelli, girl handicapper.

“Pugilism,” Fields pontificated, “is the sport of men, ancient, honorable. I once went three rounds with Jack Dempsey. Just a lark. Got him good and drunk before I stepped into the ring. Managed to elude the staggering champion and engage in several pirouettes and entrechats in the process. He never laid a glove on me. Never caught me. I, being a gentleman, did not lay a glove on him. The newspapers called it a joke. I called it a draw.”

“We’re going to go through that red light,” I said as calmly as I could.

“It’s yellow,” said Fields calmly.

“It’s turning red right now,” I said.

Gunther was attempting to speak but nothing was coming out.

Fields ran the light, missing a green Chevrolet by no more than a few inches. Fields opened his window and shouted at the bewildered man, who had pulled to the side of the road.

“Go to a decent driving school,” Fields yelled. “Or buy a bicycle.” Satisfied, Fields closed the window.

“You want to go home when we hit Ottumwa?” I asked Gunther quietly.