Things Beyond Midnight Page 3

  As Captain Queeg said, I kid you not. (Ha!)

  So Laurie walks to work on Tuesday. Stepping on morning shadows, which are the same as afternoon shadows, except not as skinny, but all part of the same central day’s primary shadowbody.

  She gets to the bank and goes in and says a mousey good morning and hangs up her skinny sweater (like an afternoon shadow) and sits down at her always neat desk and picks up her account book and begins to do her day’s work with figures. Cool. Logical. Precise. (But she’s losing her senses!)

  At lunchtime she goes out alone across the street to a small coffee shop (Andy’s) and orders an egg salad sandwich on wheat and hot tea to drink (no sugar).

  After lunch she goes back across the street to the bank and works until it closes, then puts on her sweater and walks home to her small apartment.

  Once inside, she goes to the fridge for an apple and some milk.

  Which is when Alan comes in. Bleeding. In white buckskins, with blood staining the shoulder area on the right side.

  “He was fast,” says Alan quietly. “Fast with a gun.”

  “But you killed him?” asks Laurie.

  “Yes, I killed him,” says Alan. And he gives her a tight, humorless smile.

  “That shoulder will need tending,” she said. (I’m changing this to past tense; says to said, does to did.) “It’s beyond my capability. You need a doctor.”

  “A doc won’t help,” he said. “I’ll just ride on through. I can make it.”

  “If you say so.” No argument. Laurie never argued with anybody. Never in her life.

  Alan staggered, fell to his knees in the middle of Laurie’s small living room.

  “Can I help... in anyway at all?”

  He shook his head. (The pain had him and he could no longer talk.)

  “I’m going to the store for milk.” she said. “I have apples here, but no milk.”

  He nodded at this. Blood was flecking his lower lip and he looked gray and gaunt. But he was still very handsome—and, for all Laurie knew, the whole thing could bean act.

  She left him in the apartment and went out, taking the hall elevator down. (Laurie lived on floor three, or did I tell you that already? If I didn’t, now you know.)

  At the bottom ole Humphrey was there. Needed a shave. Wary of eye. Coat tight-buttoned, collar up. Cigarette burning in one corner of his mouth. (Probably a Chesterfield.) Ole Humph.

  “What are you doing here?” Laurie asked.

  “He’s somewhere in this building,” Humph told her. “I know he’s in this building.”

  “You mean the Fat Man?”

  “Yeah,” he said around the cigarette. “He’s on the island. I got the word. I’ll find him.”

  “I’m not involved,” Laurie said.

  “No,” Humph said, smoke curling past his glittery, intense eyes. “You’re not involved.”

  “I’m going after milk,” she said.

  “Nobody’s stopping you.”

  She walked out to the street and headed for the nearest grocer. Block and a half away. Convenient when you needed milk.

  Fay was waiting near the grocer’s in a taxi with the engine running. Coronado Cab Company. (I don’t know what their rates are. You can find that out.)

  “I’m just godawful scared!” Fay said, tears in her eyes. “I have to get across the bridge, but I can’t do it alone.”

  “What do you mean?” Laurie was confused.

  “He’ll drive us,” Fay said, nodding toward the cabbie, who was reading a racing form. (Bored.) “But I need someone with me. Another woman. To keep me from screaming.”

  “That’s an odd thing to be concerned about,” said Laurie. “I never scream in taxis.”

  “I didn’t either—until this whole nightmare happened to me. But now...” Fay’s eyes were wild, desperate-looking. “Will you ride across the bridge with me? I’m sure I’ll be able to make it alone once we’re across the bridge.”

  Fay looked beautiful, but her blonde hair was badly mussed and one shoulder strap of her lacy slip (all she wore!) was missing—revealing the lovely creamed upper slope of her breasts. (And they were lovely.)

  “He’ll be on the island soon,” Fay told Laurie. “He’s about halfway across. I need to double back to lose him.” She smiled. Brave smile. “Believe me, I wouldn’t ask you to be with me if I didn’t need you.”

  “If I go, will you pay my fare back across, including the bridge toll?”

  “I’ll give you this ten-carat diamond I found in the jungle,” said the distraught blonde, dropping the perfect stone into the palm of Laurie’s right hand. “It’s worth ten times the price of this cab!”

  “How do I know it’s real?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  Laurie held up the stone. It rayed light on her serious face. She nodded. “All right, I’ll go.”

  And she climbed into the cab.

  “Holiday Inn, San Diego,” Fay said to the bored driver. “Quickly. Every second counts.”

  “They got speed limits, lady,” the cabbie told her in a scratchy voice. “And I don’t break speed limits. If that don’t suit you, get out and walk.” Fay said nothing more to him. He grunted sourly and put the car in gear.

  They’d reached the exact middle of the long blue bridge when they saw him. Even the driver saw him. He stopped the cab. “Ho-ly shit,” he said quietly. “Will you look at that?”

  Laurie gasped. She knew he’d be big, but the actual sight of him shocked and amazed her.

  Fay ducked down, pressing close to the floor between seats. “Has he seen me?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Laurie. “He’s still heading toward the island.”

  “Then go on!” Fay agonized to the cabbie. “Keep driving!”

  “Okay, lady,” said the cabbie. “But if he’s after you, I’d say you got no more chance than snow in a furnace.”

  Laurie could still see him when they reached the other side of the bridge. He was just coming out of the water on the island side. A little Coronado crowd had gathered to watch him, and he stepped on several of them getting ashore.

  “You know how to find the Holiday Inn?” Fay asked the driver. “Hell, lady, if I don’t know where the Holiday is I should be in the back and you should be drivin this lousy tub!”

  So he took them straight there.

  In front of the Holiday Inn, Fay scrambled out, said nothing, and ran inside.

  “Who pays me?” asked the cabbie.

  “I suppose I’m elected,” said Laurie. She dropped the jungle diamond into his hand. He looked carefully at it.

  “This’ll do.” He grinned for the first time (maybe in years). He juggled the stone in his hand. “It’s the real McCoy.”

  “I’m glad,” said Laurie.

  “You want to go back across?”

  Laurie looked pensive. “I thought I did. But now I’ve changed my mind. Screw the bank! Take me downtown.”

  And they headed for—Wait a minute. I’m messing this up. I’m sure Laurie didn’t say, “Screw the bank.” She just wouldn’t phrase it that way. Ernest would say, “Screw the bank,” but not Laurie. And Ernest wasn’t in the cab. I’m sure of that. Besides, she was finished at the bank for the day, wasn’t she? So the whole—wait! I’ve got this part all wrong.

  Let’s just pick it up with her, with Laurie, at the curb in front of the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego, buying a paper from a dwarf who sold them because he couldn’t do anything else for a living.

  Gary walked up to her as she fumbled in her purse for change. He waited until she’d paid the dwarf before asking, “Do you have a gun?”

  “Not in my purse,” she said.

  “Where then?”

  “My brother carries one. Ernest has a gun. He’s a police officer here in the city.”

  “He with you?”

  “No. He’s on duty. Somewhere in the greater San Diego area. I wouldn’t know how to contact him. And, frankly, I very much doubt th
at he’d hand his gun over to a stranger.”

  “I’m no stranger,” said Gary. “You both know me.”

  She stared at him. “That’s true,” she said. “But still...”

  “Forget it,” he said, looking weary. “A policeman’s handgun is no good. I need a machine gun. With a tripod and full belts. That’s what I really need to hold them off with.”

  “There’s an Army Surplus store farther down Broadway,” she told him. “They might have what you need.”

  “Yep. Might.”

  “Who are you fighting?”

  “Franco’s troops. They’re holding a position on the bridge.”

  “That’s funny,” she said. “I just came off the bridge and I didn’t see any troops.”

  “Did you take the Downtown or the South 5 off-ramp?”

  “Downtown.”

  “That explains it. They’re on the South 5 side.”

  He looked tan and very lean, wearing his scuffed leather jacket and the down-brim felt hat. A tall man. Raw-boned. With a good honest American face. A lot of people loved him.

  “Good luck,” she said to him. “I hope you find what you’re after.”

  “Thanks,” he said, giving her a weary grin. Tired boy in a man’s body.

  “Maybe it’s death you’re really after,” she said. “I think you ought to consider that as a subliminal motivation.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure, I’ll consider it.” And he took off in a long, loping stride—leaving her with the dwarf who’d overheard their entire conversation but had no comments to make.

  “Please, would you help me?” Little girl voice. A dazzle of blonde-white. Hair like white fire. White dress and white shoes. It was Norma Jean. Looking shattered. Broken. Eyes all red in the corners. Veined, exhausted eyes.

  “But what can I do?” Laurie asked.

  Norma Jean shook her blonde head slowly. Confused. Little girl lost. “They’re honest-to-Christ trying to kill me,” she said. “No one believes that.”

  “I believe it,” said Laurie.

  “Thanks.” Wan smile. “They think I know stuff... ever since Jack and I... The sex thing, I mean.”

  “You went to bed with Jack Kennedy?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! And that started them after me. Dumb, huh? Now they’re very close and I need help. I don’t know where to run anymore. Can you help me?”

  “No,” said Laurie. “If people are determined to kill you they will. They really will.”

  Norma Jean nodded. “Yeah. Sure. I guess they will okay. I mean, Jeez! Who can stop them?”

  “Ever kick a man in the balls?” Laurie asked. (Hell of a thing to ask!) “Not really. I sort of tried once.”

  “Well, just wait for them. And when they show up you kick ’em in the balls. All right?”

  “Yes, yes, in the balls! I’ll do it!” She was suddenly shiny-bright with blonde happiness. A white dazzle of dress and hair and teeth.

  Laurie was glad, because you couldn’t help liking Norma Jean. She thought about food. She was hungry. Time for din-din. She entered the coffee shop inside the lobby of the Grant (Carl’s Quickbites), picked out a stool near the end of the counter, sat down with her paper.

  She was reading about the ape when Clark came in, wearing a long frock coat and flowing tie. His vest was red velvet. He walked up to the counter, snatched her paper, riffled hastily through the pages.

  “Nothing in here about the renegades,” he growled. “Guess nobody cares how many boats get through. An outright shame, I say!”

  “I’m sorry you’re disturbed,” she said. “May I have my paper back?”

  “Sure.” And he gave her a crooked smile of apology. Utterly charming. A rogue to the tips of his polished boots. Dashing. Full of vigor.

  “What do you plan to do now?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn who wins the war! Blue or Gray. I just care about living through it.” He scowled. “Still—when a bunch of scurvy renegades come gunrunning by night... well, I just get a little upset about it. Where are the patrol boats?”

  She smiled faintly. “I don’t know a thing about patrol boats.”

  “No, I guess you don’t, pretty lady.” And he kissed her cheek.

  “Your mustache tickles,” she said. “And you have bad breath.”

  This amused him. “So I’ve been told!”

  After he left, the waitress came to take her order. “Is the sea bass fresh?”

  “You bet.”

  Laurie ordered sea bass. “Dinner, or a la carte?” asked the waitress. She was chewing gum in a steady, circular rhythm.

  “Dinner. Thousand on the salad. Baked potato. Chives, but no sour cream.”

  “We got just butter.”

  “Butter will be fine,” said Laurie. “And ice tea to drink. Without lemon.”

  “Gotcha,” said the waitress.

  Laurie was reading the paper again when a man in forest green sat down on the stool directly next to her. His mustache was smaller than Clark’s. Thinner and smaller, but it looked very correct on him.

  “This seat taken?” he asked.

  “No, I’m quite alone.”

  “King Richards alone,” he said bitterly. “In Leopold’s bloody hands, somewhere in Austria. Chained to a castle wall like an animal! I could find him, but I don’t have enough men to attempt a rescue. I’d give my sword arm to free him!”

  “They call him the Lion-Hearted, don’t they?”

  The man in green nodded. He wore a feather in his cap, and had a longbow slung across his chest. “That’s because he has the heart of a lion. There’s not a man in the kingdom with half his courage.”

  “What about you?”

  His smile dazzled. “Me? Why, mum, I’m just a poor archer. From the king’s forest.”

  She looked pensive. “I’d say you were a bit more than that.”

  “Perhaps.” His eyes twinkled merrily. “A bit more.”

  “Are you going to order?” she asked. “They have fresh sea bass.”

  “Red meat’s what I need. Burger. Blood-rare.”

  The waitress, taking his order, frowned at him. “I’m sorry, mister, but you’ll have to hang that thing over there.” She pointed to a clothes rack. “We don’t allow longbows at the counter.”

  He complied with the request, returning to wolf down his Carl-burger while Laurie nibbled delicately at her fish. He finished long before she did, flipped a tip to the counter from a coinsack at his waist.

  “I must away,” he told Laurie. And he kissed her hand. Nice gesture. Very typical of him.

  The waitress was pleased with the tip: a gold piece from the British Isles. “Some of these bums really stiff you,” she said, pocketing the coin. “They come in, order half the menu, end up leaving me a lousy dime! Hell, I couldn’t make it at this lousy job without decent tips. Couldn’t make the rent. I’d have my rosy rear kicked out.” She noticed that Laurie flushed at this.

  On the street, which was Broadway, outside the U.S. Grant, Laurie thought she might as well take in a flick. They had a neat new cop-killer thing with Clint Eastwood playing half a block down. Violent, but done with lots of style. Eastwood directing himself. She could take a cab back to Coronado after seeing the flick.

  It was dark now. Tuesday’s shadow had retired for the week.

  The movie cost five dollars for one adult. But Laurie didn’t mind. She never regretted money spent on films. Never.

  Marl was in the lobby, looking sullen when Laurie came in. He was wearing a frayed black turtleneck sweater, standing by the popcorn machine, with his hair thinning and his waist thick and swollen over his belt. He looked seedy.

  “You should reduce,” she told him.

  “Let ‘em use a double for the long shots,” he said. “Just shoot my face in close-up.”

  “Even your face is puffy. You’ve developed jowls.”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “I admire your talent. Respect y
ou. I hate to see you waste your natural resources.”

  “What do you know about natural resources?” he growled. “You’re just a dumb broad.”

  “And you are crude,” she said tightly.

  “Nobody asked you to tell me I should reduce. Nobody.”

  “It’s a plain fact. I’m stating the obvious.”

  “Did you ever work the docks?” he asked her.

  “Hardly.” She sniffed.

  “Well, lady, crude is what you get twenty-four hours out of twenty-four when you’re on the docks. And I been there. Or the police barracks. Ever been in the police barracks?”

  “My brother has, but I have not.”

  “Piss on your brother!”

  “Fine.” She nodded. “Be crude. Be sullen. Be overweight. You’ll simply lose your audience.”

  “My audience can go to hell,” he said.

  She wanted no more to do with him, and entered the theater. It was intermission. The overheads were on.

  How many carpeted theater aisles had she walked down in her life? Thousands. Literally thousands. It was always a heady feeling, walking down the long aisle between rows, with the carpet soft and reassuring beneath her shoes. Toward a seat that promised adventure. It never failed to stir her soul, this magic moment of anticipation. Just before the lights dimmed and the curtains slipped whispering back from the big white screen.

  Laurie took a seat on the aisle. No one next to her. Most of the row empty. She always sat on the aisle down close. Most people like being farther back. Close, she could be swept into the screen, actually be part of the gleaming, glowing action.

  A really large man seated himself next to her. Weathered face under a wide Stetson. Wide jaw. Wide chest. He took off the Stetson and the corners of his eyes were sun-wrinkled. His voice was a rasp.

  “I like to watch ole Clint,” he said. “Ole Clint don’t monkey around with a lot of fancy-antsy trick shots and up-your-nostril angles. Just does it straight and mean.”

  “I agree,” she said. “But I call it art. A basic, primary art.”

  “Well, missy,” said the big, wide-chested man,“I been in this game a lotta years, and art is a word I kinda like to avoid. Fairies use it a lot. When a man goes after art up there on the screen he usually comes up with horse shit.” He grunted. “And I know a lot about horse shit.”