by Dion Baia
Squirt looked directly at Walter, who wasn’t paying attention. “You got any numbers you wanna play tonight?”
“No thanks, Squirt.” Walt continued to skim through the news headlines and still didn’t look up at him.
“Looks like you got something in your eye, Walt.”
Walter glanced up, and Squirt nonchalantly gestured with his eyes over the detective’s shoulder. “You should check in the mirror.” Squirt removed his round eyeglasses and inspected them for smudges. “You got a piece of fuzz in your eye the size of Johnny Weissmuller over your left shoulder.”
Walt nodded and rubbed his eye as if there was something in it. Squirt put his glasses back on, collected the change from the counter, and went about his business in the little enclosure. Walter used the small rectangular mirror that was tacked to the side of the newsstand window to examine his eye. He glanced at the reflection over his shoulder and identified the individual tailing him. He was a young man in his mid-twenties, white, average height, with the physique of an all-American college boy, and wore the same style suit that his last visitors who sent him to dreamland wore. This all but confirmed that those men, and now this guy, had to work for a government agency, quite possibly the FBI.
That’s just great, Walter thought. It also made him wonder how his partner Jacob was doing up in Connecticut on his marital case. Just maybe Roland had the right idea with creeping around in the bushes.
“Got it, Squirt. You are a lifesaver, thank you.” Walter picked up a newspaper. “I’ll come back later and play some numbers for the week.”
Squirt grinned. “Remember what my favorite philosopher, Charlie Chan, once said: ‘One grain of luck sometimes worth more than whole rice field of wisdom.’”
Walter laughed and nodded in recognition of the advice. “Take it easy.”
Walter put the smokes in his pocket and the paper under his arm. He crossed the Park Avenue traffic heading north along 125th and past the train station. He headed west and crossed the southbound lane of traffic. His shadow followed close behind, the traffic lights working in his favor. Walt entered the Yorkshireman Building on the corner of 125th and Park, going through its revolving door exactly as the lights turned green for the southbound avenue.
The tail quickly rushed to cross the lanes of Park Avenue, trying to beat the drivers who were stepping down on the gas. He threw his hands up in the air to stop the traffic while crossing and received multiple honks from the vehicles in return.
Walter walked through the massive lobby of the creepy Yorkshireman Building and immediately veered left to hide beside the doors. He nodded in acknowledgment to the doorman sitting behind the small desk at the other side of the entrance.
“Ernie, my brotha.”
Ernie gave a quick nod of his head back at the detective but remained looking down at the funny papers. “How goes it, Walt?” he said rhetorically.
Walter’s eyes wandered up to the focal point of the lobby, way up high on the far-end wall by the stairs and steel-cage elevator. There was a huge, forty-year-old mural commemorating the sinking of the PS General Slocum in the middle of the East River back in 1904. The horrendous disaster was depicted in all its brutal, atrocious, and fiery glory, and Walt could only imagine what looking at that grisly painting every day would do to a man’s mind. Most people couldn’t come together to decide what was actually happening in the faded mural for some reason, even though it was just an ordinary, simple, two-dimensional painting. It was as if each individual saw a different picture when they looked at it.
“Must be horrible having to look at that every day, Ernie,” Walt said, gazing up into it.
Ernie didn’t look up as he responded, “It’ll drive a fella mad, Walt.”
“Yep.”
The revolving door began to turn.
Walter nodded goodbye to the man. “Well, then.”
Ernie turned his paper, his eyes focused down. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Walter ducked back into the revolving door, passing his tail who was just stepping out into the lobby. The man registered and did a double take. He quickly jumped back in, right behind Walter. As the detective stepped outside, he pushed the newspaper from under his arm right into the door, jamming and preventing it turning, and trapping the tail within.
As Walter hurried away, the tail yelled and banged on the heavy glass to try to get the door to move, but it didn’t budge. He began to yell even louder. The more he tried to push his way out, the more the door fought back.
Ernie sighed and closed his funny papers. He very slowly got up from behind his desk. “Alright, alright, just give me a minute, fella…I’m an old man, for Christ’s sake.”
Walter ran back across the avenue, down the street, and out of view away from his shadow. He rushed up the steps to the 125th Street train station and headed for the platforms. The train to Grand Central Terminal was just pulling in. When the doors opened, he jumped in. His head was throbbing, and his entire body was sore.
So much for taking it easier, Walt thought.
The train pulled away from the station as the young man was still shouting, stuck in the revolving doorway of the Yorkshireman below. Ernie was up against the door yelling back so the man could hear him. Walter’s tail wasn’t listening.
“I can’t help ya from this side, buddy!” Ernie shouted. “Yeah! You gotta get someone outside to pull the paper loose!”
Chapter 15
MOTTERMAN’S SALT & PRESERVATIVES PRESENT:
JOHNNY FLASH, INTERGALACTIC SPACE MARSHAL
The doorman’s palm needed greasing, and he told Walt to tiptoe as he opened the sarcophagus-like door that led to the cavernous, sealed soundstage. The high walls were lined with a plush crimson-colored tufted material used for luxurious soundproofing. Long and elegant barrel-shaped leko lighting units hung from the ceiling, shooting narrowly focused beams down to the floor that widened as they descended into puddles of spherical yellow light illuminating the room through the thick cigarette smog that hung near the ceiling.
It was a full house with almost a hundred people in the audience, fans who’d mailed away for tickets weeks in advance for tonight’s performance. Behind the audience and in the aisle along the back wall were a few studio executives giving a tour to a large group of network sponsors, vying for the best view to watch tonight’s performance.
Up front to the right of the audience area was a two-foot riser, and on that stage, this week’s live performance episode of the Johnny Flash, Intergalactic Space Marshal radio program was in progress. To the left of the stage a full orchestra was seated slightly higher on their own platform. In the center of the main stage the host and seven other actors gathered holding wrinkled, marked-up copies of tonight’s script. They stood in pairs in front of three tall steel stands with gold cardioid microphones on top, suspended by delicate springs within a large metallic ring.
The male actors were dressed in regular everyday suits, a couple of them had their jackets off, and the two female players were in smart dresses.
Between the stage and the audience on the far wall were the sound effects and Foley artists. Spread out around them on top of two tables were an assortment of eclectic items for making all kinds of sounds. The technicians stood at the ready, following their own scripts, positioned in front of an assortment of kinds of microphones.
Walter gestured to the usher inside to indicate the direction he was headed. He turned to his immediate right and opened a door leading to the control room.
The first door opened, and he entered into a tiny, padded vestibule; Walter waited until the door behind him on its delayed hinge shut completely. Only then did he carefully push open the control room door, making sure no one was standing on the other side. He entered the soundproofed studio control room where the producers, radio technicians, and the director sat behind their consoles, producing the show.
&nb
sp; Walter nodded to a producer who glanced over and smiled at the young, attractive script runner waiting to be called into action. He shut the door behind him and positioned himself in the corner out of the way. When he looked through the control room window out at the stage, his eyes focused on his friend and fill-in secretary, Tatum Marie Sullivan. She stepped up to the microphone in a controlled motion and cocked her head awkwardly to the side to produce a kind of vacuous speech, adding an inflection onto her tone.
“Johnny…the ropes are too tight!” she said with more force than her body and demeanor would suggest. Her voice had the stereotypical New York accent. Tatum rocked her head back and forth near the microphone. “I can’t wiggle loose!”
Sharing the mic with Tatum was a large, burly gentleman who pulled a cigarette from his mouth and said, “Try harder, Zallerilla!” All the actors onstage flipped to the next page in unison. Tatum and her costar twisted their body away enough to cautiously turn their pages away from the sensitive microphone. He seamlessly continued, “We have to escape evil Von Baron Rothchild’s castle. He must be stopped from turning the Earth into mindless zombies!” He remonstrated enthusiastically, in a voice from deep within his chest.
“I’m trying!” Tatum yelled back, her body arching toward the ceiling.
Walter approached and knelt down next to an audio technician, named Russell Chamberlain, who was sitting in front of a large electronic soundboard with numerous dials, switches, and knobs. He was monitoring the different microphone levels and tweaking the final show mix being piped out over the airwaves. He noticed Walt out of the corner of his eye but kept his gaze firmly focused on the actors and musicians onstage, following the script while simultaneously listening to the director seated next to him in the booth. Russell slid his headphone earmuff off so he could hear the detective.
“My man.” Russell smirked with one side of his mouth. “Whadda ya hear, whadda ya say? I haven’t seen you since that night at Small’s Paradise with Bugs Morganfield playing. Here to flirt with Tatum?”
Walter raised an eyebrow and smiled. “No, Russell, my man. I’m just livin’ and loafin’, livin’ and loafin’. Actually, I’m on the clock.” He paused while Russell tracked up a microphone that was positioned over by the Foley guys. The sound of a ray gun was being produced by a small electrical current arching between two steel rods that were being held close to the microphone then taken abruptly away, creating an electric, pulsating sound.
Russell brought the fader back down, cutting the microphone. He checked a few other knobs then shot a brief look at Walter to continue.
“Let me ask you a question,” Walt began. “You’re pretty familiar with most of the musicians that play in the city? I’m looking to see if you know an ivory player—name’s Laszlo Strozek.”
“Who doesn’t know him would be a much better question. Foreign guy, right?” Russell stole a glance at Walt while keeping a steady eye on the performance onstage.
“Yep, that’s the one. He got a yarn?”
Russell turned the page of the script over in unison with everyone else and nodded at Walter. “German, I think. One hell of a player.”
The director turned to Russell and said into his headset microphone for all to hear, “Cue sound effect.”
Russell repeated, “Cue effect,” and faded up a microphone.
A sound effects man offstage fiddled with a doorknob next to a microphone then quickly replaced it with a squeaky hinge that he creaked open next to the microphone.
Tatum frantically shouted, “Johnny, the door’s opening!”
Russell looked at Walt. “I’ve worked with him on a few other shows here, and at CBS and NBC. He’s a session guy for gigs like this and the big ballroom stuff, but he also plays uptown in Harlem at the colored clubs. He’s so good.”
Walter nodded.
Tatum moved her head back and Johnny Flash leaned into the microphone. “Ahhh!”
The director raised his hand and said into his headset mic, “Okay…cue Vinny!”
A suave-looking gentleman with a pencil-thin mustache playing the role of Doctor Von Baron Rothchild strode up to his microphone and spoke with a thick German accent. “Not so fast, Herr Flash!” He threw a finger up with his free hand. “My hydrogen ray gun will stop you in your tracks!”
Russell leaned back so Walt could hear him, and they both watched the stage. “I think the story is that he was a classically trained guy and was forced to come to the States before the war broke out, with that wave who came over in ’37 and ’38. Then he got into jazz.” Russ shrugged. “It’s a living. One hell of a piano player.”
Tatum screamed, “Johnny, look out!”
The director said, “Cue Larry.”
Johnny Flash put his free hand up to his forehead. “Ahhh!”
The cast all turned to the next page.
Russell turned up a knob on the board in front of him and there was another kind of ray gun sound. The director raised his voice and lifted an arm, “Cue orchestra.” The music swelled into a crescendo then abrupt silence.
Walter’s gaze shifted back to Russell. “Do you or anyone in the band know where I might find him play here in Midtown?”
The director pointed toward the stage, “Cue Don!”
The master of ceremonies, a rotund gentleman with a kind face who also doubled as the show’s announcer, passed by the performers and headed up to a microphone to read from his script, injecting a dramatic inflection to heighten the suspense. “Will Johnny Flash and Zallerilla get away from the eeevil, sinister, and insidious Von Baron Rothchild in time to stop him from turning the Earth into mindless voodoo zombies? Will the courageous Sergeant Blaze and his GIs find the Von Barren Castle in time?” The music steadily rose to underscore the peril.
Russell shifted in the chair and moved his head closer to Walter. “Yeah, Rudy might. He plays the circuit. I can bring you over to him and to Tatum when we’re off air.”
The music swelled.
Don Wilson, the MC, continued, “Tune in next week for another electrifying episode of…Johnny Flash, Intergalactic Space Marshal with special guest Sergeant Blaze. Also, joining the show next week will be our special guests Vincent Price on loan from Twentieth Century Fox and RKO’s very own Joseph Cotten.”
Russell, who was a little more at ease now that the show was wrapping up, looked over at Walter for the first time and smiled. “People pay top dollar to see your man Laszlo chase the devil’s tail.”
The music reached its climax then a soft, heavenly melody started to play. The acting troupe put their scripts down on the music stands and began to quietly exit the platform. Don continued while a lone man walked onto the stage and approached him. “But first, here’s Bob Stark, spokesman for Motterman’s Salt and Preservatives.”
Bob Stark stepped up to Don’s microphone and began his pitch. “Hello, fellow Space Marshals. Have you gotten your de-coder rings yet out of your mother’s Motterman’s Preservatives XL Soapbox? Well, here we go. Get ready to decode the newest message.”
Everyone in the control room began to take off their headsets, light up cigarettes, and exchange farewells.
While the audience was filing out, Russell walked Walter over to the orchestra area to Rudy Spears, a light-skinned vibraphone player who occasionally performed out at Jones Beach with Russell in Guy Lombardo’s orchestra. After introductions, Walter questioned Rudy about Laszlo.
He was packing up his equipment along with the rest of the band. Walt got right to the point.
“You know how I can find him?”
“Well, he plays in the big band at Whalley’s on Saturday nights. Fancy joint.”
“Whalley’s? On Fifty-Second Street? That’s a top-hat-and-tails place.”
Rudy nodded. “He’s there tonight, I believe. That’s when he’s not up in Harlem, or at the Gramatan Hotel up in Westchester.”
Rudy finished boxing his vibes. “Yeah, he might have dated a girl from Westchester, colored girl, if I remember right. Don’t know her name. I only recall ’cause she was a real fine sister.”
Walter pulled out Caldonia’s photo and showed it to him. Rudy nodded. “That’s her.”
“Thank you, Rudy.”
Tatum made her way over to Walter. They shook hands and she stood on her toes so Walter could kiss her cheek. “It’s a shame you missed the beginning.”
“Well, from the sounds of it, as per usual, Johnny was in a hell of a pickle with Zersinda.” Walter grinned.
Tatum rolled her eyes. “Zallerilla, Mister Morris.” She smirked, took a sip of water, then cleared her throat. “So, are you here to decode the secret message?”
Walter led her away from Rudy and Russell. The audience had cleared out and the band and technicians were wrapped up. “What are ya doin’ tonight?”
“Well Sebastian and I just made up, and he asked me if—”
Walter’s grin faded, and it was replaced by a look of disapproval. “Sebastian? Jeez…. Okay, pick out a swell dress. I’m gonna take you to a real fancy place.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
Walter winked. “Whalley’s.”
The smile on Tatum’s face was quickly replaced with a frown. She put a hand on her hip with the realization. “Whalley’s, really? This a case?”
Walter hesitated then nodded, trying to look as innocent as he could.
“Maybe….”
Chapter 16