High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) Read Online Free PDF

me?”
    “Simple. What do you want me to do?”
    “I guess the same thing I told the little bald fella. Find out who the guy who looks like a brick is, stop him from bothering me and maybe find out where he got all that information on me.”
    The sky was now dark, but not from the clouds. Night had come. I glanced at my watch. It said six o’clock but it seldom told me the truth. No amount of fixing had ever done it any good. It had been left to me by my father along with a pile of debts back in ’32. I had never learned not to count on the old man, and now it was hard to stop counting on that watch.
    “And there’s no chance that you’d do the picture for Gelhorn?” I asked, following his directions to his house.
    “Nope,” he said. “I’m under contract to Goldwyn and I don’t want to do the picture. I’m sorry about Lombardi’s threat to you, but …”
    “That’s all right,” I said, pulling into his driveway. “It’s part of the job.”
    “I’m going to be taking a few days off for some hunting with a friend in Utah before we start shooting,” he said, shaking my hand. “If you have to reach me, call this number.” He pulled out a card and handed it to me. “Now about money …”
    “I don’t have a card, at least not one with my real name on it,” I said. “How about thirty dollars a day and expenses?”
    “The fat fella got forty dollars,” Cooper said, working his brittle body out of the Buick.
    “Figures,” I said. “I’ll get the rest of the information I need from him.”
    Cooper fished a wallet from his finely tailored suit and handed me three twenties.
    “I’ll give you a detailed accounting when the job ends,” I said.
    “Good enough,” he said and turned to walk to his door. My napkins had not quite done their job. A distinct ameba-shaped grease spot stood out on the rear of Cooper’s expensive coat. Lombardi had managed to stain the perfect image by proxy.
    I looked at the sixty bucks, examined the autographs of the Yankees and headed into the night. I had to deal with the fake Toby Peters, but that could wait till the morning.
    With sixty bucks in my pocket, I went home and called Carmen, the cashier at Levy’s Restaurant. Carmen and I had been sparring for nearly three years, and I was determined to move up the pace. After all, Marco from Chicago might be right. The Japanese might land any minute, and even if they didn’t, I might be a few dozen kosher-style hot dogs in the near future. The time was now. I invited her to go to the Hitching Post on Hollywood and Vine to see Johnny Mack Brown in West of Carson City. She said she wanted to go to the Olympic and see I Take This Woman with Spencer Tracy. For some reason Ginger Rogers and George Brent were going to be there in person. We compromised and agreed to go to the Biltmore Bowl to hear Phil Harris and his orchestra and play a little gin rummy.
    I was supposed to pick her up at nine. It would have been a fine evening. My assault on the widow Carmen was well planned. I shaved carefully with my Gillette Blue Blade and bathed languidly with my Swan soap. I ignored the pounding of Mr. Hill, the retired accountant, by humming “This Love of Mine” to drown out his passionate plea for the toilet.
    I put on my clean suit and headed into the night, managing to avoid Mrs. Plaut. I did not, however, manage to avoid the fist of the man who came up to me as I opened my car door. The first punch to my stomach doubled me over. My face hit the top of the car. The second punch, also delivered to my midsection, had me kissing my knees. I sank to the street. A car passed by. Its headlights spotted my face, but it didn’t slow down.
    I turned to look at my mugger while gasping to pull in air. There wasn’t much I could see from the ground, but his shape was clear. Cooper had been right. He looked like a giant brick.
    “You hear me,” he said in a high voice that seemed to come from someone else, definitely not from the cement