High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) (22 page)

“Ocean Park,” I said. “I’ll meet you on the walk outside the entrance of the Dome Pier. In an hour.”

“Hell, no,” said Hanohyez. I preferred him as Massive Marco, but truth has a way of shoving itself in your face and making your life more difficult. “I can’t get away from these guys now. Lombardi’s crew is having a council. They’re all discombobulated. I just … they’re calling me back. Midnight at that Dome Pier place.”

“Wait …” I said but he had hung up.

Midnight was my deadline for turning myself in to Seidman. If I had anything to sell in my profession it was my silence and my word, but I knew I would have to meet Hanohyez. I knew it was the one thing that might end this whole case.

I called Jeremy Butler with a message and got in my car. I had some time to kill, so I drove to Griffith Park and looked at the chimps. Looking at the chimps always calmed me down. I needed calming down. Then, suddenly, everything made sense. It was a wacky kind of sense, but it was sense. I was listening to my own song. The chimp laughed at me, and I grinned back at him. My grin frightened him and he rolled back into a corner to suck his thumb.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
n 1892 the Santa Fe and Santa Monica Railroad finished a line from Los Angeles to Ocean Park, which was then known as South Santa Monica. The railroad built a station, an amusement pavilion and cement walkways along the beach. Excursions were advertised to the “Coney Island of the Pacific.” It worked, and golf courses and racetracks followed. Between 1909 and 1916, Santa Monica was regularly drawing thousands for the Santa Monica automobile road races.

In the 1920s, lured by sea breezes and commuter trains, movie stars, writers, directors and moguls built summer houses on the beach. The resort image faded a little in the 1930s and 1940s and moved to Venice, Redondo and down the coast, but Santa Monica wouldn’t give up its nickel-and-dime weekend trade. The big industry, however, was the Douglas Aircraft Company, which got to be an even bigger industry when the war began.

In 1942 Ocean Park couldn’t make up its mind what to be or do. The war and invasion fear, which led to blackouts, kept the place operating mostly during the days. Decay threatened to set in, but the arcade and ride owners still found it profitable to keep up with repairs and wait for the next boom.

It was a little before midnight when I turned right off of Fourth and went down Ashland Avenue toward the ocean. I parked in front of the Municipal Auditorium and got out. A night gull soared over the concrete plaza and dive-bombed the bandshell. I didn’t see anybody. I headed toward the walkway, running along the Dome Pier, but I didn’t get more than a dozen feet when the voice came out of the darkness near a stucco-covered pillar.

“Peters, here.”

I looked “here” and saw Hanohyez step out of the shadow. At least it was the shape of Hanohyez. It was difficult to think of him as anything but Massive Marco, but my mind was working hard at it and other things.

“I thought we were supposed to meet on the edge of the pier?” I said aloud.

He stepped toward me, motioning me to be quiet. When he got to my side, he looked around and whispered, “Let’s keep this quiet” He hunched his shoulders up like James Cagney and looked around. “I don’t know if them guys followed me. I don’t think so, but I reconnoitered. Why chance it, you know?”

He guided me into the shadows and toward the shoreline, walking away from the pier.

“I want to show you something,” he said, leading the way. We moved quickly past a hot-dog stand and some game stands, all closed, that urged people to knock Negroes off perches, slam baseballs into dolls that looked Oriental and throw darts at cartoons of Hitler.

“Will you look at that?” Hanohyez marveled, pointing at his discovery. “A little tiny golf course.”

We were standing in front of a pee-wee golf course, and Hanohyez was displaying it to me proudly. “I never played the game,” he said, “but I accompanied the big guy once when he played.”

“Big guy?” I said.

“Capone,” he answered, looking over the course and looking back at me.

“It’s nice,” I said.

“The things they think of,” Hanohyez said, walking reluctantly from the little golf course.

“There’s a fun house over there,” I said, trying to lead him in the opposite direction.

“Let’s talk,” he said, pausing on the cement promenade and looking out at the ocean for incoming enemy subs. Far down the walk a figure moved slowly. We both kept our eyes on it till it turned inland and disappeared.

“Okay,” I said. “You think you know who killed Lombardi, Tillman and your brother-in-law Larry.”

“I know,” he said, taking a deep breath of air. All I could smell was the dead fish. “That was a sharp trick this afternoon, smart trick. Real prestidigitation. Had those guys fooled. You really did an act, like … like Bogart or one of those guys.”

“Thanks,” I said. “The killer?”

But Hanohyez wanted to engage in a little more admiration of my masquerade. “I coulda swore Lombardi was extent in there,” he said. “Steve did swear it, but I knew he wasn’t.” A cool breeze brought a fresh burst of fish odor.

“You knew he wasn’t alive?” I said with interest.

“Sure, I’d killed him more than an hour before,” he said, without turning to me. “You think that roller coaster is bigger than the Bobs at Riverview?”

“Riverview?” I said, looking for the closest building and wondering if I could get to my gun.

“In Chicago,” Hanohyez said.

“I wouldn’t know,” I replied, trying to inch my hand up to my chest and making it look like a casual gesture.

“You helped me,” he said. “I mean you facilitated things for me. Thanks.”

“Glad to do you a favor,” I said.

My hand was almost at the Napoleon position when Hanohyez withdrew his right mitt filled with a .45. He pointed at my chest. I took my hand out of my coat, and he reached in carefully and took my .38.

As he put it in his pocket, he looked around to be sure we had no company. The mad gull or his cousin came screaming over us.

“We got no birds like that in Chicago,” he said. “It is not an aviarian city.” And then back to business. “Steve and Al and me all found Lombardi together when you went out. Since he was living when you walked in, or so they thought, and dead when you went out …”

“I must have killed him,” I concluded. Hanohyez nodded.

“That won’t hold up,” I said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he shrugged. “It’ll be good enough with Lombardi’s boys, specially if you ain’t around to contradict any other way. Then I can get out of here before the Jap attack. Hell, they’ll even thank me for doing you.”

“You’ll get the pickled tongue of honor,” I said.

“I never thought you was risible,” he said, holding the gun up to my chest.

“You came to Los Angeles to kill Lombardi,” I said.

“Right, me and Larry came because some guys thought Lombardi was making embarrassing noises about making movies and being a big man, and he wouldn’t listen rational. Some guys in New York asked some guys in Chicago to send someone who knew his stuff to Los Angeles to zip Lombardi’s mouth.”

“And he thought you came out to help him start his deli supply boom?”

“On the nose. You got two more queries and quick ones before you expire.”

“You killed Tillman?”

“Tillman?”

“The guy in my room.” I explained.

Hanohyez looked over his shoulder to check again on possible company. He wasn’t going to let this go on long, and I couldn’t see a hopeful direction to jump.

“He killed Larry,” Hanohyez explained. “I was surveillancing your place for you to come back when I saw him going in. I think he was going to work you over or rub you out. My killing him saved you from something.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He nodded. “He turned on Larry outside that bar in Burbank where we tailed you. When I came out that night, I found Larry stabbed leaning on the Packard. I got him in the car, but I could see he was expiring. He was dead in three, maybe four blocks. So I got an idea.”

“You decided to dump his corpse on me and get me off the case, tied up with cops or too busy to be in your way,” I helped.

“Something like that. I lugged Larry’s body to your place. Had a hell of a time conveying him up to your room without getting spotted,” he said proudly.

“You did a fine job, but Larry wasn’t dead.”

Hanohyez looked into my eyes, which were probably in shadow. “I know when a guy is dead,” he said dangerously.

“You put my knife into your brother-in-law, right back in the messy hole Tillman had made but he wasn’t dead when you did it. When I got to my room, he was alive. He told me you killed him.”

“That’s enough horse crap, Peters,” he squealed.

“No horse crap. I thought he was saying no. Yes. I figured he was trying to say Noyes. Hell, I was making it harder than it was. He was just trying to say your name, Hanohyez. He thought you murdered him, and he may have been right.”

“Maybe I made a faux pas,” he said.

“Maybe your last big faux pas,” I answered, watching the barrel of the .45 rise from my chest to my face. My .38 was already in his pocket, and my heart was trying to find a way out of my chest. I sighed, sagging my shoulders, trying to look resigned, smiled and went to one knee, throwing a right at Hanohyez’s stomach. The bullet went where my head had been and a lot of air plushed out of Hanohyez, but he held onto the gun as he went back into the promenade railing and tried to level it at me as he gurgled for air.

I hesitated, unsure of whether to make a try for him or run like hell for the nearest cover. Cover promised the most hope. I got to my feet and ran. The second bullet cried past my head. When Hanohyez caught his breath, he would be shooting straight and painfully.

A third shot chucked splinters out of the cotton-candy stand I had ducked around. He had started stumbling after me, and he’d soon be running. His legs were big and heavy, but he had a lot of need and a gun on his side. I wondered how long it would take for someone to call the cops when they heard the gunshots. I wondered if anyone actually heard the shots. I wondered if the photograph on my office wall would go to my brother or my ex-wife if Hanohyez put a good one through my spine.

I had someplace to get to, but getting there was not a sure thing. A dash across an open walk brought me to the struts of a roller coaster. I climbed over the low wooden fence and went for the darkness of the steel framework. Over my shoulder I could see Hanohyez coming in my direction. He had spotted me.

On my knees in shadow I let myself pant, then took a few deep breaths and held the last one as I saw his big body, gun in hand, come over the small fence. He did the right thing. Instead of plunging into the darkness after me, he stood and waited till he caught his breath, and then he listened.

I had to breathe finally, and his head cocked in my direction. The fourth bullet hit a metal bar in front of my eyes and sent out a spark of light. I wasn’t counting the bullets, waiting for them to run out. He didn’t have a six-shooter and this wasn’t a Western. Maybe I was counting to see how much beyond reason I was surviving.

Hanohyez was about twenty yards behind me when I vaulted the fence and found myself near a dip in the roller-coaster track. I could have gone over the other side and made a dash across an open square, where I’d be a great target, or I could climb up the track. If I made it to the first turn on the track and he followed me, I’d have a chance. I didn’t figure him to be a climber. I scrambled up, grabbing chain and track, and got to the first curve as Hanohyez spotted me and sent a hasty shot in my direction. It dug into the wood near my shoulder with a sickly thunk.

If Hanohyez were a reasonable man, he wouldn’t have followed me. He would have gone ahead of me on the ground and waited. I couldn’t hide very well on top of a roller-coaster track. If he went ahead he could pluck me off. But he didn’t know when company might come, and the straightest route seemed best. He came up the track. I could hear him cursing, but I also knew that to climb, he’d have to put the .45 in his holster. I peered back over the curve and saw him coming on. There was nothing to throw at him. I considered rolling myself down on him, but the chances of either of us surviving were small. So I went on, scrambling down a dip and climbing up an even higher incline than the first. Over my right shoulder I had a beautiful view of Santa Monica. The Douglas plant was belching fire from its chimneys to turn out planes. Over my left shoulder the moon sent out a white sheet over the ocean. Behind me, Hanohyez stood at the top of the lower incline and took careful aim in my direction.

This bullet tore hair and skin from my neck. It was the scratch of a wild witch and gave me a push over the top and down the other side.

I nearly lost my grip going down, and I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t hear Hanohyez resolutely coming after me. Another idea must have entered his head, a good idea. When I got to the bottom of the dip, I was about a dozen feet from the ground. I hung over the side and let myself drop. I hit dirt, stumbled back and banged against a white picket fence designed to keep the curious away from danger.