Free A Few Minutes Past Midnight by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

slowly out the door and into the night.
    I knocked at Mrs. Plaut’s door. Westinghouse, her bird, went wild. It sounded as if he were saying something, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
    “I believe someone is at the door,” I heard Chaplin say.
    “It’s Westinghouse,” she said. “The bird. He is given to fits of inexplicable frenzy. It comes from feeding him pine nuts.”
    “I see,” said Chaplin pleasantly, his voice audible over the chattering of the bird. “But someone is knocking at the door.”
    I heard Mrs. Plaut move across the room to the door pausing to “hush” the squawking animal. Then she opened the door and looked up at me.
    “Mr. Peelers,” she said. “You should be asleep or reading the very important section I gave you.”
    “I’ve had a long day,” I said.
    “I’m sorry someone gave you the wrong pay, but we must all make it through life in the face of adversity. We have a new roomer. You may come in, say hello, and depart.”
    She stepped back to let me in, closed the door, and led me to the dining-room table where Charlie Chaplin was sitting with a tea cup in his hand.
    “This is Mr. Voodoo,” she said.
    “Verdon,” Chaplin corrected.
    “Mr. Voodoo is a bouncer,” she explained.
    “An announcer,” Chaplin corrected patiently.
    “I have been telling him that being a bouncer is dangerous work,” she said. “Especially for a little fellow like him. He is a little long in the tooth for such work. And he is not getting younger. No one is getting younger. There was talk in my family when I was a young girl that my father’s cousin Orton actually got younger when he fell in a vat of tar and almost died, but my mother would have none of it.”
    “Illuminating,” Chaplin said, sipping his tea and beaming at Mrs. Plaut.
    “I’m sorry,” I said as Mrs. Plaut took a seat across from Chaplin.
    “For what? This woman is a nonstop fountain of ideas. And she and her house could well be models for the film I’m working on.”
    “Mr. Peelers,” Mrs. Plaut said, “is an exterminator.”
    “Really?” said Chaplin with interest.
    “And an editor of books,” she added.
    “A unique combination,” Chaplin said with a laugh.
    “Howard Sawyer and Fiona Sullivan,” I said. “Their names don’t ring any bells?”
    “None,” said Chaplin.
    “Elsie Pultman?”
    “No,” said Chaplin after a moment of thought.
    “Jenny Malcom, Elizabeth Gornashuski, May Kelly, Donna Curtain, Zoe Fried?”
    “No, I don’t believe so,” said Chaplin. “What do they have in common?”
    “I think they’re all dead. I think Howard Sawyer may have killed them. I think maybe Howard Sawyer was the one who knocked at your door.”
    “Why?” asked Chaplin.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Why are you two discussing gardening?” Mrs. Plaut said. “Mr. Voodoo and I were having a delightful conversation about history.”
    Chaplin crossed his legs and nodded to Mrs. Plaut.
    “Mrs. Plaut’s great-great-grandfather almost killed George Washington,” Chaplin said.
    “That’s in the pages awaiting you in your room,” she said.
    “I can’t wait to read about it,” I said.
    “You’ll find the tale fascinating,” Chaplin said.
    “You know,” Mrs. Plaut injected, squinting at Chaplin, “you look like someone.”
    “We all do,” Chaplin said with a tolerant smile.
    “A person in the moving pictures,” she said.
    “Thank you,” he said, nodding his head and putting his right hand to his chest with a small bow.
    Mrs. Plaut pondered. We waited. And then it hit her.
    “He has a mustache,” she said. “That funny man, Charlie …”
    I was working fast on an answer.
    “Charlie Chase,” she said with satisfaction, sitting back. “But he’s taller and he doesn’t have curly hair. It’s brushed straight back. And his face is pinched.”
    “Then the resemblance is quite superficial if flattering,” said Chaplin.
    “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said. “Your room all