[Celebrity Murder Case 03] - The Tallulah Bankhead Murder Case

by George Baxt

  David Carney was washing his hands for possibly the tenth time that night. The police had held him only a few hours and finally released him when the only two witnesses to the zoo incident who came forward swore, albeit reluctantly, because they were positive Carney should be modeling straitjackets, that he had never laid a hand on Tallulah Bankhead. Bankhead, they were assured by Jacob Singer, would not press charges. Carney was released with a severe reprimand and a warning, and when he got home he washed his hands. Over and over he soaped them and rinsed them and then he’d soap and rinse them again. It was almost a religious ritual, or the action of a surgeon preparing to operate.

  I could kill her. Like I killed the others, I could kill her.

  The phone rang. It was his sister Audrey. “So what trouble did you get into today?” She knew her brother well. He told her about accosting Bankhead “Tallulah Bankhead?”

  “Yes, Tallulah Shithead. I should have killed the bitch, like I killed the others.”

  “That’s right, honey, you go out and kill somebody.” With her hand over the mouthpiece, she said to her husband, a celebrated crooked stockbroker, “Davey’s thinking of another killing spree.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t joke about that,” said her husband. “I wouldn’t put it past that kookieboo.”

  “What was that, Davey dear?”

  “When I kill, I kill to set things right There is so much injustice in this world, so much corruption, I mean somebody’s got to go out there and set things right. Don’t you agree?”

  Audrey said cosily, “Davey, do we ever disagree? Didn’t we both like Sunset Boulevard?”

  “Yes, but that’s because Gloria Swanson was right to shoot her cheating lover.”

  “But she was crazy,” said Audrey, tactfully refraining from adding “too.”

  “I have to hang up, Audrey. I have to go out. There’s someone I’m going to kill tonight.”

  “Well, it’s a nice night, sweetie. Now remember to get something to eat.”

  “Oh. I always eat after I kill. Killing makes me so hungry.”

  “And Davey …”

  What?”

  “Don’t kill anybody nice. Did you get the check we sent you?”

  “Yes, thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Well, like I promised Momma and Poppa on their deathbeds, I’ll always look after you.”

  He broke into a sob. “I didn’t mean to kill them, Audrey, honest I didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t and I’m sure they know you didn’t. Wherever they are. Davey, I’m sure they forgive you.” To her husband, “For God’s sake turn the sound down!” He was fiddling the dial on the television set.

  “I’m glad you think they forgive me. The others won’t forgive me. The one I killed yesterday and the one I killed the day before and the one I’m going to kill tonight …”

  “Davey, do us both a favor. Don’t go to the police and confess. I mean after your incident with Tallulah, they might be a little hard on you. You know what I mean? Maybe you should stay home and write another play.”

  “I will never write another play! Twenty-three unproduced plays is enough! Rejections rejections rejections! God! I must kill George Abbott and Joshua Logan and those schmucks at the Theater Guild! Goodbye, Audrey, don’t ever forget me!”

  When Audrey heard the dial tone, she put the phone down, folded her arms around herself, and sat biting her lower lip.

  “Why do you phone him so often?” whined her husband. “He always depresses you.”

  “I’m not depressed, I’m thinking.”

  “That’s worse.”

  “I’m thinking about all those murders he insists he’s committed. Honey …”

  “What?”

  “Supposing he really did them?”

  “Oh shit, Aud, there you go giving me nightmares again.” She returned to her thoughts when he returned to the television set, and neither one of them was happy.

  Joseph Savage sat in the rear of a Fifth Avenue bus that was heading down to Washington Square. He looked at his wrist-watch. Eleven o’clock. He’d eaten a hearty dinner, in fact he had been unusually ravenous. Tallulah’s check was for an amount larger than he had hoped for. He would deposit it in the morning and maybe treat himself to a new jacket and trousers and a new pair of shoes Most of the department stores were featuring spring sales. It was the first he had thought of himself all night.

  He’d been dwelling on murder. On murder involving Tallulah. It was the idea for the play for her he’d been mulling in his mind after leaving her. He had walked and walked and it wasn’t long before he found himself on the Upper East Side, standing outside Barry Wren’s town house and contemplating murder. Lester Miroff was dead and Oliver Sholom had been knocked off, and why not Barry Wren? He was one of the worst of the lot. He was rich, Joseph knew that. He owned a town house and a house on Fire Island and he got lots of offers.

  Joseph had salvaged very little from the recent unpleasantness. He didn’t have all that much in the first place, but at least there’d been some script offers for television. Dottie Parker had urged him to come to Hollywood, where she was positive he’d do well, but now that was all cloud-cuckoo-land for him, for her, Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, so many fine talents condemned to oblivion by former friends and associates. Joseph and just about everybody else knew that the FBI had a list of informers supplying them with names. Mostly actors and actresses and writers and directors who had never made it big or were no longer in demand and jealous of those who were. Everyone knew for sure that Ronald Reagan and that miserable bitch columnist Hedda Hopper cooperated with the FBI and turned in names. Here in New York a gang of vindictive has-beens were behind the publication of Aware!—a tipsheet that named names of supposed communists. It was a disgrace and a dishonor and it had brought about betrayals and deceptions and murder.

  Murder.

  Yes, Joseph was now positive, Barry Wren should be the next victim. And why not? Show business deaths always happen in threes. One, Lester Miroff, two, Oliver Sholom, three, Barry Wren.

  And now in the bus, well-fed and self-satisfied, he couldn’t wait to get home and commit his idea to paper. Tallulah as an amateur detective solving the murders of three jackals. He was positive she’d be pleased.

  Tallulah was humming along with Mabel Mercer, who was pleading in song to be flown to the moon. It was her second encore, and the elderly singer was anxious to call it a night and get home to the man with whom she shared her life. After all these decades of singing abroad and at home, the voice had gotten a bit shaky. She had trouble with her top notes and at the other end of the scale had perfected a sort of melodious growl that helped her slide over difficult passages. Yet she remained a nonpareil, a brilliant stylist. Strangely enough, this late in life and in her career, she’d become a best-seller on record albums for the connoisseur. There was even a spillover beginning, with her albums now appearing in stores other than the specialty shops. Tonight she was pleased there were a number of celebrities in the club. It helped future business if word got around that Tallulah Bankhead and Dorothy Parker had been in, and George Baxt had been bringing in some of his better-known clients such as Oscar Homolka and Signe Hasso Several of the other agents were doing the same, and Tony Soma was delighted that Mabel continued to be a successful money spinner. Tony’s was one of the few clubs in New York that now attracted gays and straights in equal numbers and everyone got along just fine.

  Mabel was finished wanting to fly to the moon and live among the stars, and she was regally walking from the spotlight to her dressing room behind the bar. Tallulah was standing and clapping her hands, shouting, “Brava! Brava! More, dahling, just one more, dahling Oh, Mabel, do do ‘Run Into the Roundhouse, Nellie, He Can’t Corner You There!’” Tallulah was always lavishly generous with praise for those chosen few she genuinely admired. “Isn’t she marvelous, Dottie? Dottie, drop that knife!”

  “I’m only going to butter a biscuit,” said Dottie, positive her voice
wasn’t cutting through the din. She liked Mabel Mercer’s singing but she wished she’d go away. Always leave them hungry, Mabel, a philosophy she’d learned to practice in her numerous affairs.

  Mabel didn’t return. She too was a practitioner of the don’t-give-them-too-much school. The uproar in the club settled down to a din and eventually became a hum, and Tallulah and Mrs. Parker picked up the conversation they had put on hold when Miss Mercer had come out to sing.

  “What’s with Joseph Savage?” Tallulah asked Mrs. Parker.

  “Didn’t you see him today?”

  “Of course I did. And I like him very much. I gave him a retainer to write me a play.”

  “Now, Tallulah, that’s really nice! That’s really really nice! You’ve saved his life.”

  “Perhaps, dahling. Do you think he’s capable of taking any?”

  “What do you mean? Was he particularly vindictive about his situation? I’d be surprised if he was. Joe’s kept a low profile about the lousy spot he’s in. He never discusses it. He keeps it all inside.”

  “That’s far from admirable, dahling. One of these days hell explode and then watch out!”

  “Maybe. What makes you think so?”

  She told Mrs. Parker of Savage’s comment about not having killed Miroff and Sholom but being sorry he hadn’t, or, as Tallulah said, words more or less to that effect.

  “Well, come to think of it, Tallulah, I frequently of late think of committing a few homicides. It’s lucky Moses isn’t around today, the committee would be after him for parting the Red Sea.”

  “Did you ever have an affair with Jacob Singer?” The busboy was clearing the table and hooked by the question. He worked slowly so he could hear as much of their conversation as possible He was hoping some day to write a celebrity expose.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “He never interested me sexually. Does he interest you?”

  “Well, dahling,” replied Tallulah with a wicked smile, “there’s not too much of that kind of traffic threatening me these days.” To the dawdling busboy she said, “Would you care to join us, dahling, because if you do, it’ll be separate checks.” He hurried away. “Waiter! Dahling.” The waiter arrived. “Coffee and brandies. Will that be all right, Dottie?”

  “A B&B for me,” she said.

  “Make mine Cointreau, dahling. Make them both doubles. Christ, all this awful cigarette smoke,” she said as she lit a Craven A. Then, What do you think of my death threat?”

  “What does Jacob think of your death threat?”

  “He’s assigned me a bodyguard.”

  “That’s what I think of your death threat.”

  “In fact, I think I’ve got more than one. The one who rescued me at the zoo from that madman whatsisname Carney seems to have been replaced by another who resembles Jack Oakie.”

  Mrs. Parker was repairing her face and stopped to ask Tallulah, “Carney? David Carney?”

  “You know him?”

  “I know about him.”

  “You sound morbid. You’re about to tell me something I’m going to regret hearing. Tell me.”

  “It was in all the papers about five or six years ago.”

  “I rarely read the papers, dahling, you know that. I mean I occasionally check the sports section to see how my favorite ball team is doing and God knows I refuse to read my notices unless I’m told they’re superlative tell me about Carney.”

  “I knew his mother and father, Elsa and Isaac They were hard-core communists back in the good old days when communism was fun and games and a threat to nobody but the communists themselves. They had two kids. The oldest, a girl, I forget her name, married young and remained in the background. David is the youngest. He was brilliant. A genius. He wrote like a dream.”

  “He doesn’t anymore, according to Patsy. She read the play he wanted me to do and said it was a bummer.”

  “How can you trust the judgment of anyone who starred in Hal Roach comedies?”

  “Believe me, Dottie, Patsy’s not the fool she makes herself out to be. Her still waters run deep.”

  “I wouldn’t care to go wading in them.” The waiter served the coffee and brandies and Tallulah waved him away impatiently. “Anyway, back to David Carney. He was about twenty or so when he was published in Esquire.”

  “Really?”

  “Then he began being published all over the place. Hollywood was after him. Elsa and Isaac were against Hollywood, they said it would corrupt him. David was devoted to his parents. He worshiped Elsa. Then David had some kind of accident, I’m not sure what it was. It brought about a personality change. It seems there’d been another accident in which he’d been badly banged up when he was a kid.” She had Tallulah’s undivided attention. “No comment on his being accident- prone.”

  “No, I want to hear the rest. What about the personality change? Did it turn him into a Jekyll and Hyde.”

  “Whose story is this?” It was a rare and treasured moment in which Bankhead said nothing. “It turned him into a Jekyll and Hyde. He started writing plays And Patsy’s right, they were perfectly awful. There was no sign of his earlier genius. It was gone. Then one day the sister got sore at him, something like that, I’m not sure. She told him he’d been adopted.” Tallulah was leaning on the table, fascinated, her hands propping up her head, ashes from the cigarette in her mouth dropping onto the tablecloth. “He went berserk.”

  “Was it true or was she being bitchy the way only a sibling can be bitchy like when my darling sister Eugenia uses me for dart practice?”

  “No, it was true And what’s more, she told him both parents had incurable cancers.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me, don’t tell me. I know what’s coming. I can’t stand it. Well, tell me!”

  “He killed them. Poison. He said they asked him to. Are you sure you haven’t heard about this before?”

  “Oh God, dahling, I hear so much, how do you expect me to retain it all and juggle a lover and learn my lines at the same time! How did he get away with it?”

  “He didn’t. He was judged insane and put away.”

  “Well, he’s loose now. Say, wait a minute, does Jacob Singer know all this?”

  “I should think so. Why?”

  “He told me not to press charges against him. That madman might have killed me!”

  “He’s harmless.”

  Tallulah leaned forward and said with intensity, “Dahling, I have seen your harmless Mr. Carney in a rage, and let me tell you, I haven’t seen such an unpleasant sight since I saw Kate Smith stripping in her dressing room. Hmmm,”

  “What?”

  “I wonder, I just wonder. Adopted, you say? It isn’t likely the Walshes would have put their son Leo up for adoption at some point, is it?”

  “Only if they found him unpleasant, I should think. You knew them better than I did.”

  “Yes, but you find out more about people than I do.”

  “Jacob’s much better at it than I am.”

  “Well, that’s part of his profession to find out things other people don’t find out What’s he told you he hasn’t told me now come on out with it when did you see Jacob?”

  “This afternoon, before he dropped in on you.”

  “And was that what made you feel suicidal?”

  “No, dear, it was just my bi-monthly attack of the gloms. What have I done with my life, it’s too late to improve it, old age is just around the corner and leering—”

  “Stop that, Dottie, you’re depressing me. What has Jacob told you that he hasn’t told me and why?”

  “Because he wants you to stop this amateur sleuthing. That phone threat has him really worried.”

  “If he’s all that worried, why doesn’t he confine me to quarters?”

  “Because he knows there’s no confining you to anything.”

  “For God’s sake, weren’t you in danger when you worked with him on that Lacey something business?”

  “Oh yes, I thought Lacey w
as going to dump me out of his private plane at one point. But the hell with Lacey, he’s dead.”

  “So’s the theater.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing some theater in town. What’s on that’s good?”

  “There’s supposed to be a rather good revival of Coriolanus.”

  “I said theater, not Shakespeare.”

  “Dottie, you have deliberately changed the subject. You learned something about the Walshes from Jacob Singer. Waiter! Two brandy stingers! And were not parting company tonight until I’ve heard every last word.”

  Mrs. Parker sighed the sigh she reserved for times of total defeat and reluctant capitulation. “What Jacob’s dug up was some interesting information about Martha Walsh and the boy.”

  “He works fast, doesn’t he?” Tallulah’s admiration pleased Mrs. Parker. She had great respect for Jacob Singer.

  “That’s why he’s one of the best. Tallulah, you remember shortly after you met them at that rent party, Abner scraped together enough cash to get him to Hollywood to try his luck in pictures. Musicals were coming back thanks to the success of that campy Forty-Second Street and just about anybody who could carry a tune or do a time step was in demand. Abner had some luck and sent for Martha and the boy. There was that awful train crash. Somehow, Martha survived with minor injuries, but the boy was almost killed.” The waiter served their stingers and Mrs. Parker thanked her rescuer, her throat was that parched. After a healthy swallow, she continued. It wasn’t often that anyone had Tallulah Bankhead mesmerized, and Mrs. Parker was never one to relax her grip on an opportunity.

  “Just about every bone in his poor little body was broken. And his face was mangled, that on top of that awful scar.”

  “The poor little bugger.”

  “Financially, of course, Abner now has his back against the wall and the miracle happens, he gets a recording deal. Then a radio show, some guest shots in the movies, you know, the usual B-movie routine that almost plunged Universal Pictures into bankruptcy Abner and Martha place the boy into some rehabilitation center in Arizona. His bones mend, his by then very disturbed mind tries tomend—”