A Few Minutes Past Midnight by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

series of muggings.
    “Need some help here, Luke?” she asked.
    “Mr. Douglas is interested in joining us,” he said.
    She looked at me with suspicion.
    “Good,” she said.
    “He’s particularly interested in the Charlie Chaplin situation,” the blind man said.
    The woman’s look of suspicion had turned to distrust.
    “You don’t like Chaplin?” she asked, staying a safe three feet from me.
    “His movies,” I said. “His views.” Here I shrugged noncommittally. “I want to know more.”
    “We want him deported,” Lucas said.
    “We want him tried in court,” the woman said.
    “And some people probably want him dead,” I added.
    “If that is your view, I suggest this is not the organization for you, Mr …?” she said.
    “Douglas,” I supplied.
    “We’re not in the business of creating martyrs,” said Lucas Rolle. “We just want him to go away, to be quiet and go away.”
    “But there are some …” I persisted.
    “If you are looking for a violent path,” said the woman, “you’ve taken the wrong first step in coming here.”
    “Fiona Sullivan sent me,” I said.
    “Who is Fiona Sullivan?” the woman said.
    “She said she was one of your supporters,” I said.
    “No,” said Lucas Rolle. “I don’t think so.”
    “We don’t disclose the names or the number of our members but it exceeds two thousand,” the woman said. “Luke knows every name. If he says she is not one of us, she isn’t.”
    “I don’t understand,” I said trying to sound puzzled. “She and this man, thin, about forty, were talking to me at a bar and they sounded ready to lynch Chaplin.”
    “Then they should be found and stopped,” Lucas said. “And if you share their feelings …”
    “I don’t,” I said. “I share their indignation but that’s it. Is there some group where I might find them?”
    Lucas Rolle shook his head sadly. The woman looked at him.
    “There are a few but they are hard to find and quite small,” the woman said. “And frankly, Mr. Douglas, we would not help you find them even if we could. We are opposed to violence. I lost my husband at Pearl Harbor. I don’t want other women to lose their husbands helping Russian Communists. You should also know that I also intend to report this visit to the authorities.”
    A door opened behind Lucas Rolle and a burly man with a mop of white hair stepped out of an office and stood facing me. He had a folder in his hand. I recognized his face, but couldn’t remember his name. He was a U.S. congressman who stood out in a crowd in photographs, a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Our eyes met. I turned to leave.
    “Peters,” he called.
    I stopped and turned around. He strode toward me, his hand extended.
    “Congressman,” I said with a smile, putting my hand into his pulpy grip, trying to remember his name.
    “He said his name is Douglas,” the woman said.
    “Working on something?” the congressman said softly as the chatter went on around him.
    “I’m not at liberty to talk about it,” I said even more softly.
    The congressman put a hand on my arm and nodded knowingly.
    “The Rutledge business,” he said.
    “Maybe,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.
    “Our Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge bears watching,” he said. “What was it he said a few months ago? ‘Democracy is a perpetual compromise.’ Peters, we can’t compromise where our very existence, the existence of democracy, is at stake. I have an idea. We need more investigators for the Committee. Someone with your knowledge of the film industry could be very valuable.”
    “Let me get back to you on that,” I said.
    He nodded and escorted me toward the door. When I was gone, Lucas and the dumpy lady would tell him about my interest in Chaplin. A visit from the F.B.I. might be next.
    “You don’t remember, do you?” he asked, opening the outer door for me. “Jeremy Butler’s, two years ago. A poetry reading in his apartment. I