The Old Die Young

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  Nathan said he saw.

  “Mr. Price seems to be doing quite well in the part,” Lord said. “Not the authority Mr. Branson had, of course. But quite adequate, it seems to me. You agree, sir?”

  “Seems all right to me,” Nathan said. “Not that I’m any judge. Not at all my line of country.”

  Lord said, “No, sir,” with what Nathan took to be commiseration in his tone. “Well, I’d better get back to the dressing room. Pick up this package Mr. Price called me about. He’s got a change for the second, but he’s probably made it by now. Got our number somehow.”

  “Package?” Shapiro said.

  “Mr. Branson’s stage makeup, Lieutenant. Left it in Dressing Room One, of course. And Mr. Price is there now.” Lord looked sad. “Mr. Price thought I might as well pick it up. Though I don’t know what to do with it when I do. I don’t suppose the police would want it, would they, sir?”

  “I don’t think so,” Shapiro told him. “Just take it on back to the house. You’re still staying there, Lord?”

  Lord had thought he was supposed to, at least until the police had finished their investigation of Mr. Branson’s sad death.

  The police did expect Lord to stay on in the Murray Hill house, Shapiro told the neatly dressed, spruced-up Edgar Lord. And to keep the police informed of his whereabouts if he left it—as a matter of form only, of course, in case there turned out to be more questions they wanted to ask him. About the Sunday night party, perhaps, at which he had been present for so short a time.

  “I want to explain about that, Lieutenant. I’m afraid I gave you a wrong impression. Mr. Branson did tell me I could retire. That was around eleven, I can’t say to the minute. And I did go up to my room, sir. But—well, I came back down again. To—to help out. There were only two men from the catering place and—well, I felt it was part of my duty to be around to help. Part of my service to Mr. Branson, if you know what I mean. So I came down again. A little before midnight, I should think. And—helped them. Passed drinks. That sort of thing. I’m sorry I didn’t remember to tell you earlier, sir.”

  And hadn’t, Shapiro thought, remembered earlier that the caterer’s men would be likely to mention his helping hands. So—nothing of importance, unless, around midnight, Lord had seen or heard anything which might be of interest to the police. Had he?

  “Oh, no, sir,” Lord said.

  The lights in the lobby dimmed, went up again, and dimmed again and again went up.

  “Second-act warning,” Lord said, as people began to drift toward their seats. “I may as well go get Mr. Branson’s makeup.”

  “The package Mr. Price telephoned you about. This afternoon, that would have been?”

  “About five, sir. I’d just made myself a cup of tea, you know.”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said. “Say where he was calling from?”

  Price had not. And, no, there had been no background sound. Not that he was aware of, anyway. Did it matter?

  “I can’t see how it would,” Shapiro told him, and joined the parade down the aisle. He never had got the cigarette he had come out for. On the other hand, he had got a statement from Lord which cleared up a discrepancy, or appeared to.

  Edgar Lord went out through the lobby, presumably on his way to the stage door and a package in Dressing Room 1.

  The curtain went up. Same set. Only Mrs. Ashley and Carol Ashley Derwent were onstage. Mary Ashley was at the bar, but seemed to be merely leaning against it. Both women were dressed for tennis, Carol in shorts which revealed tanned and graceful legs. Mary wore a short white dress which did not conceal legs of equal grace, if somewhat less tan. For some seconds, neither woman said anything. Nathan looked down at his program. The Derwents’ terrace room. The next afternoon.

  “Well, child, it’s your life,” Mrs. Ashley said to her daughter. “I hope you’ve learned to take care of it, learned that Louis Derwents don’t grow on every tree. It must be hot as hell on the court. I hope the two of them—well, one of them, anyway, doesn’t get—”

  She did not finish. Derwent and Foster appeared on the terrace. Both men carried tennis rackets and were dressed accordingly. Young Foster mopped his face with a small towel. Derwent slid a glass door open, and the two came into the terrace room. Foster said, “Whew!”

  “Spoken for both of us,” Derwent said. “Summer has come most promptly upon its hour. Your turn, ladies.”

  “Mixed doubles?” the older—but just perceptibly older—woman asked.

  “If you hold out for them,” Louis Derwent told his mother-in-law. “I was rather thinking of a cold shower. However—”

  “I don’t hold out,” Mrs. Ashley told him. “A long cold drink will do as well. But … the children?”

  “Having just been given a tennis lesson,” young Foster said, “I can skip—unless you want to rally a bit, Carol?”

  “For about five minutes,” Carol Derwent said. “If it’s as hot as you two look.”

  She went to one of the chairs and picked up a tennis racket lying on it. Foster held the door open for her and followed her out to the terrace. They went right, out of view.

  “Youth will be served heat prostration,” Price, speaking as Louis Derwent, said. There was something intended in his tone, Shapiro thought. Envy? Perhaps wistfulness?

  “And welcome to it, Louis,” Mary Ashley said. “Come off it, dear. Fix us both gin and tonics, why don’t you?”

  Derwent was putting ice into tall glasses and reaching for a bottle when there was a tap on Shapiro’s shoulder. The tapper was a uniformed patrolman. He bent down to say something, but Nathan Shapiro stood and went up the aisle, the patrolman following him. In the lobby, Shapiro stopped and said, “Yes?” to the patrolman.

  “Probably just a mugging,” the patrolman said. “But seeing he worked for this Branson guy, the sergeant thought we’d better—”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said. “He was quite right. How bad is it, officer?”

  “Head wound, Lieutenant. Taking him to Bellevue. He was wearing a derby hat, for God’s sake.”

  The victim had been identified by the stage doorman as Edgar Lord, dresser to Clive Branson. The attack had been made just outside the stage door, which was in an alleyway between the theater and the building next to it. The alleyway was well lighted; it was not much frequented when a performance was going on. It provided seclusion of sorts for a mugger but, Shapiro thought, a scarcity of prey.

  Tony Cook came out into the lobby. Nathan told him what had happened, and about the derby hat. Tony said, “Jesus Christ!” and added, “My father used to wear them. When I was just a small boy. They were going out of style even then. Before all hats pretty much did.”

  “I know,” Shapiro said. “See what you can get from Bellevue, Tony. I’ll see what we can pick up here. Though chances are it was just a mugging. Only—” He let it hang there and went out of the lobby and down the alleyway to the stage door. There were a couple more uniformed men there, one of them a sergeant. The sergeant was talking to a civilian in his sixties. Nathan showed the police sergeant his shield. The sergeant said, “Figured you’d want in on it, Lieutenant. This is Brian O’Leary, sir. Identified the victim for us.”

  “Ed Lord it was, Lieutenant. Was Mr. Branson’s dresser, you know.”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said. “You let him in this evening, I take it.”

  “Saw him go in’s more like it,” O’Leary said. “Came in and out a lot, way dressers do. Went into Dressing Room One, the room Mr. Branson used to use. Too bad about Branson. He was a pretty famous guy. In the profession, I mean.”

  Shapiro agreed it was too bad about Clive Branson. He said, “You saw Lord go into this dressing room. Did you see him come out again? And was he carrying anything?”

  O’Leary had not seen Lord come out of the dressing room. The next he had seen of Lord, he was lying on the pavement just outside the stage door.

  “That hat he wore was all smashed in,” O’Leary said. “And he was bleeding pretty bad aroun
d the head. I said something—‘You all right, Mr. Lord?’ or something, though I could see he sure as hell wasn’t all right. He didn’t say anything, so I went back in and called the cops. The police I mean, Lieutenant. They came real quick and then the ambulance came. Didn’t use the siren much, I’ll say that for the ambulance guys. Not enough to be heard inside, I guess. By the audience, I mean.”

  “This was after the second act had started?” Shapiro asked the doorman.

  It had been. Maybe five minutes after the curtain had gone up.

  “There wasn’t a package beside Mr. Lord? As if he had been carrying it when he was attacked?”

  There hadn’t been.

  “What’s this about a package?” the sergeant asked.

  “Lord had come to pick up a package from Branson’s—or what was Branson’s—dressing room,” Shapiro said. “What Lord told me, anyway.”

  “No package when we got here, Lieutenant. The mugger probably took it. He emptied the guy’s pockets. Would there have been anything valuable in this package?”

  “Only Branson’s stage makeup, way I got it,” Shapiro said. No kind of haul for a mugger, which probably the attacker was. Probably just a mugger. Then, presumably, just a coincidence. Nathan Shapiro does not like coincidences. They get in the way.

  Shapiro said, “Get anything, Tony?” without needing to look at Tony Cook.

  15

  Tony had got what Bellevue had, which was nothing conclusive. Edgar Lord was still alive. He was in surgery, his condition critical. He had a fractured skull. If he survived, it probably would be thanks to the derby hat he was wearing. The antique hat, the “bowler.” Part of the proper costume of a dresser? A gentleman’s valet?

  Lord had been hit from behind, apparently with a narrow metal rod or something of the kind. The rod had crushed the derby hat and laid Lord’s head open. It had also cracked his skull. They might be able to put a plate in. Time, and surgical skill, and luck, would show. At best, it would be several weeks before Lord could tell them anything. If he remembered anything, which most probably he would not.

  “Price telephoned him this afternoon,” Shapiro said. “About five o’clock, Lord told me. Asked him to come and pick up Branson’s makeup from the dressing room. The room Price is using now.”

  Shapiro stopped speaking. His forehead wrinkled slightly. Tony, who is familiar with the Shapiro expressions, waited.

  “Just remembered something,” Nathan said. “Didn’t think anything about it when Lord said it. He said Price had got hold of the number ‘somehow.’”

  “The telephone number, I suppose,” Tony said. “An unlisted number, you think he meant? One Price wouldn’t be able to look up? And hadn’t been given?”

  “Could be, couldn’t it?” Shapiro said. “Just could be, Tony. With Price maybe not one of the privileged ones, far as Lord knew. We’d better check it out, hadn’t we?”

  There was a telephone booth backstage, O’Leary told them. Near the stage door, sure. He’d show them.

  He did. It was complete with Manhattan directory.

  There were quite a few Bransons with Manhattan telephone numbers. But none of them was named Clive and none lived in the Murray Hill area.

  Tony used the phone to find out that, yes, the number for Clive Branson, at the address he gave in Murray Hill, was unlisted.

  “We’ll ask Price about it after the show,” Shapiro said. “And whether it was actually he who called Lord.”

  “You think it wasn’t?”

  Shapiro didn’t know. Lord apparently had had no doubts. The caller evidently had identified himself as Kenneth Price. Perhaps Lord had recognized his voice. But they couldn’t ask Edgar Lord about that. Not now and perhaps not ever. So—who would know Branson’s unlisted number?

  Rolf Simon, probably. Martha Abel, almost certainly, since Branson had been her client. Bret Askew? They’d have to ask him.

  “He’s in the theater,” Tony said. “Standing behind the orchestra section. Saw him as I came out.”

  “Wants to see how it’s going,” Shapiro said. “Means a lot to him, of course. And a lot to Mr. Simon. See him around now, Tony?”

  Tony did not, which meant nothing. Almost certainly he had been around, if only to see whether the reviewers had decided to cover this reopening. As the man from the Chronicle had. “Came back for the second act, too,” Tony said. “And Mrs. Abel’s here,” Tony added. “To see how her boy’s making out.”

  On the chance it hadn’t been Price who had telephoned Lord, making sure that Lord would be in the stage-door alleyway at a time convenient for a “mugger,” they had better ask around about Branson’s unlisted telephone number. Find out how widely it had been circulated.

  “Seen Mr. Simon around this evening?” Shapiro asked O’Leary, who was just inside the stage door, taking everything in.

  O’Leary sure as hell had. Mr. Simon had been backstage during the first act. “Likes to keep an eye on things, Mr. Simon does. Him and Kirby—the director, you know. Far’s I know, Mr. Simon’s still around somewhere. Could be—oh.”

  “What’s going on here?” Rolf Simon wanted to know as he came into the corridor which led from backstage to the stage door. “Oh, it’s you, Lieutenant. Still hanging around?”

  “Still,” Shapiro agreed, and told Simon what was going on, what had gone on.

  To which Simon said, “Jeez—there’s a jinx on this thing. But the Chronicle guy did show. And came back for Act Two, believe it or not.” Simon stepped out into the alleyway and lighted a cigarette. “Not that it isn’t too bad about old Lord,” he said. “Been around a long time, the old boy had. What was he doing here tonight?”

  Shapiro told him what Lord had been doing, or had said he’d been doing. And about the telephone call which had brought him there.

  Simon said, “Mmm.” He added, “Didn’t know Price had the Branson telephone number. Didn’t spread it around much, the old boy didn’t. Didn’t want fans bothering him, way he put it. And he did have fans, Lieutenant. Maybe not as many as he thought he had, but he had them. Reason Askew was so set on our getting him for the show. Not that I didn’t agree. I’m not saying I didn’t. Or that his name didn’t help the advance.”

  Asked, he said sure he had Branson’s unlisted number. He supposed Mrs. Abel had it, since she was his agent. Askew?

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Wait a minute. When I was trying to buy up Branson’s contract at a decent figure, Askew offered to help persuade the old boy. Said he’d give him a ring and got his number from me. Thing is, those damned reviews scared our playwright. Scared me too, come to that. And I ought to have had more sense. Spotted it in the rehearsals, instead of keeping on thinking maybe he’d shape up when there was an audience out front. After all, the old boy was a pro. Thing is, after a point you’re stuck with it. See what I mean?”

  A little vaguely, Shapiro did see.

  “It was different when we had out-of-town tryouts,” Simon said. “You could cut your losses and not bring it in. Now, like I said, you get stuck with it. Lot of money tied up in it. Get what I mean?”

  Shapiro said he did, he guessed. “Mr. Askew agreed with you in the end?” he asked. “That Branson was miscast for the part?”

  “He sure did. Did a complete turnabout. Hell, he even offered to put up part of the money to buy up Branson’s contract. If we could persuade the old boy that run-of-the-play didn’t mean forever.”

  “Askew was ready to chip in? I take it he had the money?”

  “Rolling in it, Lieutenant. The Askew Foundation, that’s his family.”

  “Then the success of Summer Solstice didn’t mean all that much to him, I suppose?”

  Simon looked at him with apparent astonishment, mixed with pity. “Man,” he said, “you don’t know them, do you? Writers, particularly those who write plays—hell, man, they’re nuts. Even the best of them. There’s a saying that only a fool writes, except for money. Partly, it’s true, I suppose, but only partly. Thing is, they�
��re an egotistical bunch. Want to be well thought of. Want to be famous. ‘Not the Mr. Jones!’ Or Mr. Askew. Oh, we’ve got to have them in my business, I’ll give you that. Just like we have to have actors. But, by and large, they’re all bats—writers and actors. Been driving me nuts for years.”

  Neither Cook nor Shapiro said anything to that.

  Simon closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, “All right, maybe I’m not fair to them. Maybe it’s not just the acclaim they’re looking for. Maybe it’s something inside them. Pride, maybe. Just doing a job and knowing you’ve done it well. It could be that way with Bret Askew. Not that he’ll turn down the money, you understand. Takes his royalty cut, all right. And, with luck, it’ll be plenty—if it catches on, like maybe it will with Price playing the lead. And if the Chronicle guy comes through. And he did come back for the second act, didn’t he?”

  “Tell me more about Askew, Mr. Simon.”

  “What’s more to tell? Nice enough kid. And he can write. Two or three off-Broadway things got good enough notices. This is his first big one. Means a lot to him. Does to me too, of course. But—well, I’ve had my share of hits. Been at it long enough, God knows. Askew, he hasn’t. Needs one to—to lift him up. And I’ll say this for the kid, he could have put it on himself, put up the money; wouldn’t have noticed it with what he’s probably got. I asked him once why he’d brought the script to me instead of producing it himself. And, mmm, he said a lot of nice things about me, how he’d always admired what I’d done, that sort of thing. Then he said, ‘Ever hear of vanity press, Mr. Simon?’ I said yes, I had, but that was used by people who write novels, who pay to have their books published. A racket, mostly, I’d think. But then I pretty much knew what he was going to say next. And he said it—said that putting on your own play was pretty much the same thing and would be something only amateurs would do. And he was right, wasn’t he? For that matter, it has happened in the theater—not often, and years ago—but plays, one or two anyway, have been subsidized by their authors. By amateurs, like he said.”