“People who go to movies don’t care,” I said.
“I care,” said Lefty, pointing to himself. “Say, listen, Cooper is a good guy. He’s trying, but this is baseball we’re talking.”
Five minutes later Cooper was back, but it was a different Cooper. He was wearing a body-tailored pinstripe suit, a spotlessly clean camel’s hair coat and a white fedora.
“If you can give me a ride, Mr. Peters, we can talk on my way home,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lefty.”
Lefty said good-bye and ambled away, and I agreed to drive Cooper home.
“I didn’t want to do this baseball picture,” Cooper explained, getting into the Buick. I managed to slide a few napkins from my pocket under him before his camel’s hair coat hit the grease spot where the cold-cut bag had been.
I pulled into the street, and he kept talking.
“Baseball’s my father’s game, not mine,” he said softly. “About a month ago the Judge, my father, was hit by a car. He’s 76.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“It was the Judge’s idea for me to play Gehrig. My games are fast cars and good hunting, and my weakness is young ladies.”
“I see,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” he said, still softly. “When you mentioned Mr. Lombardi’s name back there,” he said, pointing his thumb behind us, “it reminded me of a certain young lady. She was, she said, a fan. This was back about six, seven years ago, maybe longer-a pretty blonde thing, a little on the thin side. The ones who want to get into the movies usually are. We were friendly for a few months, and then I found out she had been a friend of Lombardi’s and that he was looking for her. She packed up and went, and that was the end of it.”
“And now?” I urged him on.
“Now I’m interested in keeping my wife and daughter safe and getting on with my work.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“About a month ago, just before I called you,” he said, looking out the window, “a man came up to me, tough-looking gent about your size, built like a giant brick. He gave me a list of reasons why I should make a movie for a third-rate producer-director named Max Gelhorn. That list included a reminder of Lola …”
“The thin blonde …”
“Right,” said Cooper, “and a few other things which seemed much more substantial and which I’d rather not go into with you if I don’t have to.”
“You might have to at some point,” I said.
“If it comes to that, I’ll decide. Now I’d like to say I punched out that man and laid him flat like one of the characters I play, but to tell it straight, Mr. Peters …”
“Toby …”
“Toby,” he went on, “I’m no fighter. I’m an actor. I’ve been mended and patched up, but I have more wounds than a war veteran. My pelvis was broken when I was a kid. It never mended. I can’t sit on a horse straight. I have about half my hearing. A bomb went off too close to my ear one day about ten years back when I was doing a war picture with Fay Wray. My stomach is bad, my arms are weak from too many movie falls and to put it straight, I don’t think I could give your sister a good tussle.”
“I don’t have a sister,” I said.
“Wishful thinking,” said Cooper with a big grin. “What else do you need from 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 truck that had me doubled over in the street. “Cooper does the picture or I’ll turn you into hamburger.”
In spite of the pain I managed a laugh, but it must have sounded like a mad gasp. The brick backed away. If Cooper didn’t do the picture, Lombardi would turn my hand into hot dogs and my mugger would turn the rest of me into hamburger. I wondered what my cost per pound was on the open market.
“You nuts bastard,” he spat, leaning over me, “you keep your nose out or you disappear, you got it?” He gave me a little kick in the kidney to be sure he had my attention. “You got it?”
“Got it,” I said, and he vanished.
I got to my feet and staggered back, almost falling into a passing car. My clothes were dirty and my shirt torn. I managed to find some smog-filled air and enough pride to stand reasonably straight. I made my way back to Mrs. Plaut’s porch and up the stairs, fighting back nausea.