A Fatal Glass of Beer by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page A

Plaut said.
    Fields took a flask from his back pocket and poured a generous amount into his glass, and Mrs. Plaut’s.
    I stood in the doorway, waiting. They drank.
    “Exhilarating,” she said with a smile, and emptied the glass.
    “Not bad,” Fields agreed.
    “I’ll give you a bottle to take with you,” she said, getting up and moving past me.
    “Admirable female,” Fields said, finishing his drink. “Little twig of a thing should be staggering around the room, unable to locate a saft bottle or firm furniture.”
    “She comes from hardy stock,” I said as Mrs. Plaut returned with an unopened bottle of saft and handed it to Fields, who had risen.
    He took the bottle, stood back a few feet, threw the bottle in the air and, as it came down, took off his hat and threw that in the air.
    “Good high ceiling,” he said, juggling the hat, bottle, and the empty glass from which Mrs. Plaut had downed her saft and gin.
    “Time was,” he mumbled as the bottle went back in the air, “I could keep five separate items afloat and every so often pretend one of them was getting away from me. Now …”
    He gathered the bottle, glass, and hat in, placed the hat on his head and the bottle and glass on the table, and bowed to Mrs. Plaut, who clapped.
    “I take it then,” he shouted, “that you have continued to be a loyal fan.”
    “No,” said Mrs. Plaut. “I don’t go to your movies. I don’t see anything funny about them. You should go back to juggling.”
    Fields’s smile froze as he strode past Mrs. Plaut and motioned for me to follow him. I did. When we got out on the porch, I told him the car was taken care of and would meet us in Philadelphia. Fields turned toward the door.
    “Should have bashed the old bat with this bottle of elderberry saft ,” he growled.
    “I just got a call,” I said.
    “Strangling her might be called for,” he mumbled.
    “Caller said he’d kill us if we went after Hipnoodle,” I said.
    “Probably thinks Chaplin’s funny,” he said.
    “Did you hear me?” I said. “Someone just called me and threatened to kill us if we go after Hipnoodle.”
    Fields went down the stairs. I followed, my, fathers suitcase in hand.
    “If I counted all the times I’ve been threatened with murderous mayhem,” he said, “I’d need all my fingers and thumbs and most of yours. Let’s go, Peters. The game’s afoot.”
    The Chimp drove the car to the airport, looking at us sullenly in the rearview mirror.
    “He wants to drive the Caddy to Philadelphia,” Fields explained. “I barely trust him to ferry me within the confines of Los Angeles County.”
    The plane ride to Philadelphia, with a changeover in Chicago, was reasonably uneventful—as uneventful, I discovered, as any trip with Fields. I sat by the window. He sat next to me on the aisle. I don’t like airplanes. They crash and kill people. I like trains, buses, and cars. They crash and kill people too, but I feel some sense of control and connection to the earth. A crash on the ground is fast. Split second. No time to think. You lose control or get blind-sided and you’re dead or in the hospital. In a plane you have all the time it takes from the moment you know you’re going to crash till you hit the ground. I was miserable, but I kept my mouth shut and looked out of the window when Fields wasn’t talking.
    He had brought a huge thermos with him. “Filled with pineapple juice,” he confided. “Only thing I drink when I’m making a movie or chasing thieves.”
    The thermos was filled with martinis. I knew it and everyone on the plane who knew who he was probably strongly suspected it. People came for autographs, which Fields generously gave, juggling a cup of his “pineapple juice” in one hand as he signed everything from autograph books to airline-ticket envelopes. One man in a business suit, at whom the great man beamed with pleasure as the plane suddenly and loudly dropped a few feet and I closed my eyes, actually had a copy