by George Baxt
“Jacob, Zang has a very ugly scar on his left cheek.”
Not all that much on impulse, Singer kissed her.
“You may want to take that kiss back, dahling.”
“Why?”
“Because it suddenly occurs to me, Mitchell might be a bit too old to be the Walsh boy.”
“Maybe he just looks that way. He’s led a pretty hard life doing all that servicing.”
“Tell me, Jacob, and be honest. Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings Do I have the makings of a good detective?”
Tallulah, you could be the best of anything you make up your mind to be.”
“Really, dahling!” She was terribly pleased. She might have just heard she was to replace Bette Davis in her next picture. “So how come I’m still single?”
Five minutes later, Singer was on his way back to his precinct, albeit reluctant to leave Tallulah unescorted on a street in Hell’s Kitchen. She waved away his fears with the excuse that it was such a stunning day, she would take a walk. Luckily he didn’t know her well enough to realize that walking was something she did only under threat. Tallulah found a phone booth in a grocery store and looked up an address The address she sought was in the neighborhood, and a few minutes later she stood in front of a brownstone building on Tenth Avenue, just a few years away from becoming a derelict. A crudely painted sign under the doorbells said bells out of order. She found the name she was looking for and went in. As she twisted the knob of the door, she saw the lock was broken. She wondered how people could live in these impoverished circumstances. It never occurred to her to contemplate offering a donation.
She confronted a flight of wooden stairs. The hallway was badly lighted by a single overhead bulb of minimum wattage. The offensive odor almost discouraged her ascent, but she rummaged in her handbag, found a vial of perfume, twisted the cap, and sniffed. Freshly heartened, she began her ascent. She found the door she wanted and knocked. She waited. She knocked again. She could hear the shuffle of feet within. “Hello?” she called out. The door opened a crack. Tallulah mustered her most charming smile. “Oliver Sholom?”
The door opened wider. If this was Oliver Sholom, he was a good deal older than she thought She was facing a wizened little old man wearing a yarmulke on his head, a tape measure hanging around his neck, a thimble on a finger of his right hand He was stooped with age and probably a lifetime of disappointment, had probably a week’s growth of beard, and was squinting at her through spectacles that were perched precariously at the tip of his nose Beyond him, she saw a sewing machine, a work table, the accoutrements of a tailor. On the wall, she saw portraits of Lenin and Stalin and Karl Marx. All this while waiting for the.man to respond.
He finally spoke. “I am not Oliver Sholom. I am Herbert Sholom, the anarchist. On the next floor in the rear apartment you will find my nephew Oliver Sholom, the informer.” He quietly withdrew and shut the door.
I must be mad, thought Tallulah, absolutely mad. What am I doing here? This is hardly wonderland, dahling, but it’s where Alice belongs, not Tallulah Bankhead. Do I have the makings of a good detective? She could hear Singer’s generous reply and it filled her with fresh courage and resolve. She ascended to the next floor, crossed to the door of the rear apartment, and hoped that her efforts would be rewarded She should have phoned ahead. What if Sholom isn’t in? She could certainly never come back to this place again, From behind the door she heard a Chopin etude. The melody was repeating itself. The record was obviously cracked. The needle was stuck. She knocked at the door
“Who is it?” came a cry from behind the door “It’s Tallulah Bankhead!”
“Oh fuck off!”
Her leonine laugh was unmistakable. Sholom opened the door.
EIGHT
“May I come in?” The apartment couldn’t be any worse than the hallway, but it wasn’t much of an improvement. He stood to one side as she entered, his eyes blinking like semaphores running amok. Tallulah cased the shabbiness in one sweeping look and commented dryly, “Charming.”
“It’s only temporary. My uncle owns the building. He’s letting me use this place until I can find something really suitable.”
“You don’t have to put on an act for me, Mr. Sholom. I know you’re having a bad time of it workwise.”
“Lifewise, too.” He indicated a straight-back chair. “Please sit. This is the most comfortable one.”
“Would you for crying out loud do something about that stuck needle, dahling?”
He crossed to the phonograph, an antique upright, and switched it off “This is a family heirloom.”
“If it’s worth anything, why don’t you hock it, dahling?” She was rooting in her handbag for the necessary Craven A. Now that she was here, she was battling a bad case of nerves. It was worse than opening night five minutes before the curtain would rise. This man was obviously hoping she was here to offer him a job, not digging for information. Now he was holding a match to the cigarette and his hand was trembling. She inhaled, exhaled, said, “Thank you, dahling,” and then took the plunge. “Actually, dahling, I’m here hoping you can give me some information I’m after.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and stood staring down at her. “What kind of information? I’m cleared. I can work again, if only someone would offer me a job. I mean, come on. Miss Bankhead, Gadge Kazan and Cliff Odets sang their arias for the committee and they’re working. I mean I’m not kidding myself, I never do, I never had a reputation like Kazan’s professionally, but my track record’s good. I’ve had a good share of successes. Miss Bankhead, all I need is one break.” He ran a hand through his shaggy mop of hair. “You don’t know what it’s like sitting around here all day waiting for the phone to ring. I can’t afford an answering service, so all day long, from nine to six, office hours everywhere else, you know, I sit here waiting for the phone to ring, a job offer, anything. I know I’m not alone. The others who recanted, well, a lot of them can’t get work too. But that’s their problem.”
Dear God, Tallulah was thinking, compared to this man, Raskolnikov was a laugh riot. She thought it wiser not to interrupt his monologue, let him get it off his chest. Surprisingly, she was not unsympathetic.
“And if you could just let me do one show for you, just one show, then I know other doors would start opening for me. “ He lowered himself onto a footstool, sitting splay-footed with his hands clenched between his legs, looking like a naughty child suffering punishment.
How do I get out of here, Tallulah wondered, then reminded herself she was here as a detective. She was here to find information. “You were once very close to Abner and Martha Walsh, weren’t you? Didn’t we meet a long time ago in that cold-water flat they were living in in the Village. A rent party?”
She was sounding so friendly, so cozy, he was beginning to feel toasty warm. It was her performance from her Philip Barry flop, Foolish Notion. “Yes, of course,” he responded eagerly, “how could I forget that?” Now they had something in common, why, they were old friends enjoying a reunion after all these centuries. Of course she was here to rescue him, offer him a job.
“I wonder, Mr. Sholom…”
“Please call me Oliverl” He was groveling, pawing the ground, anxious to be thrown a sweet, he was desperate.
“And you call me Miss Bankhead, dahling.” The dart sped past him without leaving a mark. His ears were tuned in only to the promise of a job. “I wonder,” she resumed, “whatever’s become of their son?”
“Who? Whose son?”
“The Walshes, dahling. Leo. Wasn’t that his name, Leo?”
“What’s that got to do with what we’re talking about now?”
“Dahling, let me explain.” She decided to lie through her teeth. “I’m the executor of Abner’s estate. Leo’s his heir.”
“Lucky Leo.”
“Lucky Leo indeed, if he can be located. I met somebody last night, perhaps you know him, he’s an agent, George, uh uh … Baxt, he suggested you might know Leo’s wher
eabouts.”
Sholom leapt to his feet. “I don’t give a shit about Leo’s whereabouts!” he shouted, and Tallulah wondered how she would defend herself if he came at her with his fists. The only beatings she’d ever experienced in her life had been administered by critics. “Leo Walsh! That’s not what he calls himself today!”
He knows him, she thought triumphantly, he knows where Leo is. Jacob Singer will be so proud of me. “What does he call himself?”
Sholom came nearer to her, stooped, and leered into her face. “I’ll trade you, Miss Bankhead.” She didn’t enjoy the sneer in his voice when he spoke her name.
“Trade me for what?”
“I’ll give you information in return for an assignment.”
“I don’t do the hiring on my show, Oliver, Mr. Sholom, whatever.”
“You’re the star A very big star You have influence.”
“I could certainly mention it to my producer.”
“Not mention it, Miss Bankhead, demand it!” He looked like a revolutionary out to spill the Czar’s blood. “Demand it.”
“Now you see here, Oliver, do you know the penalty for obstructing justice?” She certainly didn’t.
“I don’t give a shit for justice, lady. I got convinced to betray myself and my friends for justice and look how I got paid off!” He made a sweeping gesture. “Tell me, Miss Bankhead, have you ever enjoyed the luxury of poverty? Do you know what it is to cadge quarters from an uncle who despises you? Do you know what it is to have your ego trampled in the mud, completely destroyed?”
“Yes, dahling, when I did Shakespeare’s Cleopatra …” She stopped. Jocularity was wrong The man was crying.
“Go away, Miss Bankhead. Go away. I’m a dead man. Dead men are no help to anybody. You want Leo Walsh? You go find him. He’s out there.” He took a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “You think maybe Leo killed Lester Miroff? How do you know it wasn’t me?” She had stood up and was walking to the door, but he hurried ahead of her and barred her way. “I was the last person with him, do you know that? I didn’t tell that to the police. Screw the police. I was with him in his apartment before he went out to cruise the steam bath. Think about that, Miss Bankhead I might have followed him. I might have followed him and killed him.”
Tallulah spoke, but she didn’t recognize her own voice. “You should have told that to Detective Singer.”
“Oh, do you know Detective Singer?”
“Why, yes, of course. I just had lunch with him.”
“And did he send you here? Did he think you could lure information out of me by kidding me into thinking you could get me a job?”
“Why, yes, yes. He knows I’m here right now.” She was terrified. How in God’s name did tamers survive in a lion’s cage?
He said softly, “He knows you’re here right now, does he? You’re his stoolie, eh. Miss Bankhead? Well,” he said magnificently, “that gives us something else in common! We’re both stoolies! I’ll bet he doesn’t know you’re here. I’ll bet you’re doing this on your own. You’ve never played detective before, have you, Miss Bankhead?”
“Well, actually no, dahling. Now get out of my way. Detective Singer is—”
“Balls, Miss Bankhead, balls!” He moved away from the door. “I hope you’re not expecting me to ask for your autograph.”
She fled. As she raced down the stairs, she could hear him hurling things around the room. Glass crashing against walls, furniture tumbling over, accompanied by a most hideous wailing, a noise so ghastly she’d heard nothing like it since Judith Anderson’s Medea. Herbert Sholom was standing at the bottom of the landing.
“What’s he doing up there? Has he gone crazy?”
“He’s a bit upset, dahling.” She was not about to stop for a chat. She hurried out of the building, flagged a taxi, sank into the seat with a sigh of relief, and sought the comfort of a cigarette
“Where to, lady?”
“Sanctuary.”
Oliver Sholom leaned against the door, exhausted. He was crying again. His uncle had been pounding on the door and Oliver shouted for him to go away. The old man looked up to where there was rumored to be a God he didn’t believe in, shook his head sadly, wearily, and descended to his own shabby world. Oliver went to the phonograph and, through tear-bleared eyes, searched in the record cabinet and selected a Brahms rhapsody The turntable revolved, the music soared forth, a melodious balm for his shattered nerves, and he went to the kitchen to seek the solace promised by a half-empty pint bottle of rye. He downed what was left in one long sloppy swig, some of the liquor slopping down onto his chin. A fit of nausea attacked him and he stood over the sink, gagging.
The blow to his head was strong and well-aimed. The person who delivered it had quietly selected the poker from some instruments lying near the unused fireplace. The blow broke skin and cracked skull; blood rivuleted from the wound as Oliver began sinking to the floor. The person struck him again and again until there was little else to strike except bloody pulp. He laid the poker across Sholom’s chest as though it were a lily. He examined himself for bloodstains and was satisfied there were none. He returned to the living room, examined his face in the mirror over the fireplace, moistened his lips, and then crossed to the door. He opened it an inch and looked out; the coast was clear. He quietly descended the stairs, past Herbert Sholom’s door, from behind which he could hear the whirr of a sewing machine, then down the next flight of stairs and cautiously into the street, where he knew he’d be safely lost in his anonymity.
Back at the Elysee, where Patsy Kelly and Estelle Winwood awaited her like faithful pets, Tallulah surrounded a very dry gin martini and then attacked. She then phoned Singer but he wasn’t in, so she left a message embroidered with some chatty banter with the desk sergeant she’d met earlier. She told the ladies of her terribly unpleasant encounter with Oliver Sholom, and Estelle said something about one of these days Tallulah might learn to mind her own business. Tallulah told Estelle to do something that was physically impossible and Estelle suggested Tallulah’s mouth needed washing out with soap. Patsy waved a play script at Tallulah.
“What in God’s name is that?”
“That play by David Carney.”
“What play by David Who?”
“Carney. It’s called Empty Gestures.”
“My life’s been full of those. Who’s David Carney?”
“For crying out loud, Tallulah, he called this morning and asked you to read the play, and you said I should tell him to leave it at the desk, which he did and I just finished reading it.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about a famous stage star who’s all washed up and can’t get a job no place, so she accepts a tour in a bus-and-truck company of Streetcar”
“Sounds loathsome, dahling.”
Patsy ploughed onward. “She falls in love with her leading man, who’s thirty years younger—”
“Thirty!”
“—but he rejects her—”
“How dare he!”
“—because she’s much too old for him.”
“Nonsense! He’s undoubtedly gay.”
“No, he ain’t gay.”
“He has to be, dahling, if he’s touring in a bus-and-truck company.”
“Do you want to hear the rest of this?”
Estelle was playing solitaire and wondering how one goes about becoming a mass murderer.
“Is it any good?”
“It’s absolutely awful. I wouldn’t wrap fish in it.”
“Is there a phone number for this person?”
“A phone number and a note saying only you can play this part, and if you don’t he’ll kill himself.”
“How thoughtful “ She was mixing herself another martini.
Estelle said, “The poor boy must be mad, sending a play about an aging actress to an aging actress.”
“Put a note in it suggesting he get it to Miriam Hopkins. I hear all she’s getting these days are th
reatening letters from her butcher.” She sipped. “Be a dear, Patsy, and leave it for him at the desk.”
When Jacob Singer returned to the precinct, he found waiting for him Tallulah’s message and Mitchell Zang.
“Are you Singer? I’m Mitchell Zang.”
“Come on into my office.”
Zang followed him, twisting his beret nervously.
“Sit down,” said Singer. “I’ll be with you in a minute” He dialed the Elysee and was put through to Tallulah immediately.
“Dahling, you’ll never guess what I’ve been up to.”
“I’m not good at guessing games, Tallulah.”
“I’ve been playing detective!” Patsy shot her a look as she left for the lobby to deposit the Carney script at the desk. He’d been most unpleasant when she’d phoned to say Tallulah wasn’t interested.
“One doesn’t play detective, Tallulah. What have you been up to?”
She told him in detail, while Singer’s hold on the phone tightened and the veins stood out on his head and his blood simmered and he did his best not to shout at her. When she got to the part about Sholom barring her exit while he continued to harangue her, Singer exploded.
“You damn fool, he could have taken a poke at you!”
“Now really, dahling, that’s hardly an excuse to call me a damn fool. At least I got out of him he does know Leo Walsh and probably knows where he is! Now all you have to do is bring him in and hit him with a rubber hose, dahling “ Silence. “Jacob, are you there, dahling?” She didn’t wait for a reply. She knew he hadn’t hung up on her because she didn’t hear a dial tone “Well, at least he did admit to me he was with Miroff before he went off to be killed. You could at least thank me for that. Why, for crying out loud, dahling, he might well be the murderer.”
“And if he is, you’re lucky he didn’t add you to his list of victims while he so conveniently had you in his own apartment”
“Oh “ Her voice rose an octave “Oh! That never occurred to me. Oh well, what the hell, dahling, he didn’t murder me and here I am safe and sound, so tell me you’re not mad at me. Now come on, Jacob, I was only trying to help.”