The pockmarked guy helped Calabria into his suitcoat, and Big Jim handed him his fedora. Calabria held a hand up to them, indicating they should stay put for a moment, and walked over to me. He took a moment to regally don the hat, then stood right in front of me, a commanding figure, freshly barbered and shaved, looking and smelling like a million legal bucks. He had dark blue eyes with a lot of eyelash, almost feminine, although the unblinking deadness of them was strictly masculine.
Almost whispering, he said, “I would like to go to that funeral. Nobody told me I couldn’t. But I know my attending could be seen as not a positive thing. And I wouldn’t never do that to the grieving widow.”
My barber, upon Calabria approaching, had stopped in mid-shave, so I could risk a nod.
Calabria leaned in so close I could smell the aftershave tonic. Rosewater.
“Kid,” he asked in a near whisper, “do you think you know who did this to Donny?”
“Not yet.” I was keeping my voice down, too.
“But you will?”
“I think so. This homicide dick, Chandler, isn’t stupid, but you should still put your money on me.”
“I’m willing to, kid.”
“. . . Pardon?”
His eyes narrowed and his smile widened. Still in that conspiratorial near-whisper, he asked, “What would you say to ten grand for finding Donny’s killer?”
“I’d say . . . hello.”
He raised a palm, as if half surrendering. “I mean, I understand you already have a client, and I don’t wish to impugn your ethics . . .”
“Impugn away, Frank. I don’t see any conflict of interest here.”
Calabria smiled a deceptively mild-mannered smile. “If I was involved, in this murder? There would be.”
I shrugged. “Then give me the full ten grand up front, which protects me in such a case.”
He chuckled, shook his head, then chuckled some more. “The major would be proud of you, kid. You got a streak of hustle in you, and more guts than sense. You want me to have the check messengered over?”
“Naw, just stick it in the mail. Nice doing business with you, Frank.”
He nodded, his expression avuncular. “Keep in touch, kid. You need anything, just let me know. You have the private number, right?”
“Right,” I said.
Calabria and his entourage trooped out, the two bodyguards apparently unsure whether to nod respectfully or glare at me, and hedged their bet by doing neither.
After the haircut and shave, which Calabria had paid for (I tipped the guy five bucks for preserving both ears), I found my way to a bank of phone booths in the lobby. I spent a nickel and Bryce put me on with Maggie.
“Where are you?” she asked, her concern edged with irritation. “I called downstairs to see if you’d have breakfast with me, but got no answer.”
“I’m at the Waldorf,” I said. “I had breakfast in Honey Daily’s suite. Cooked it for me herself.”
“. . . Are you planning to sleep with all the suspects?”
“No, I thought I’d take the women, and you could start with Spiegel and Shulman.”
I could almost hear her shudder over the line.
“Anything interesting to report?” she asked. “Besides your love life?”
I filled her in about Honey’s take on Rod Krane and Louis Cohn and Will Hander as suspects, as well as Hank Morella dropping by for Donny’s things. And finished up with my close shave with Calabria and company.
“You took him on as a client?” she asked. “Since when are you taking on clients?”
“Since I can pick up an easy ten grand and get Frank Calabria’s cooperation.”
“You think we’ll need it?”
“Maggie, I don’t know. I really don’t. But it’s nice to know Calabria will take my calls. Donny came out of the rackets, and who can say his murder isn’t connected?”
“More hoodlums die by violence,” Maggie said philosophically, “than editors or publishers.”
“Yeah, and more hoodlums die by violence in Americana comic books than in real life. You haven’t changed your mind about attending the funeral, have you?”
“No. No, that’s all yours.”
“You don’t think less of me, do you?”
“For what, Jack?”
“My slumber party with Donny’s girlfriend.”
“That’s right, Jack,” one of the world’s most famous striptease artists said, “I’m shocked by the very notion of sex. I hope you watched those movies about venereal disease when you were in the army.”
“Why, which ones did you star in?”
I could hear her trying not to laugh at that, then she said, “You’ve got the whole morning left—next stop?”
“Americana Comics,” I said. “That whoosh you’re about to hear is me flying over there.”
CHAPTER SIX FUNNY BOOKS ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER!
The morning was overcast and cool, and the few blocks from the Waldorf over to the editorial offices of Americana Comics on Lexington Avenue made for a pleasant, even bracing walk. The lack of July heat made Manhattan pedestrians less surly than the norm, and I only got sworn at three times and wasn’t spit upon at all. I still would rather have had time to stop at my digs for a shower, but the fresh shave and haircut made me feel human enough to venture into the world. Donny’s funeral would kill the afternoon, so I needed to squeeze some life out of the hours available.
The Americana waiting room on the fourth floor of the Dixon Building on Lexington Avenue might have been any austerely businesslike reception area but for one thing: on the wood-paneled wall behind a good-looking blonde receptionist loomed a huge gold-framed portrait . . . not of the founder of the company (except perhaps figuratively), rather of a muscular figure in a flapping blue cape and red muscleman tights with a white W on his expansive chest, and blue boots. Fists at his waist, smiling confidently, chin up, Wonder Guy stood on an outcropping of rock, poised against a blue sky streaked by white clouds, with a Manhattan skyline faintly discernible at a distant horizon.
The waiting room had half a dozen chairs at left and right, with end tables providing the latest news magazines but no comic books—Americana’s product was for kids, but its offices were for the grown-ups. Closed doors on either side of the reception desk were labeled EDITORIAL and PRODUCTION, respectively.
The blonde guarding the gate wore black-rimmed glasses, as if to mask her beauty—the tactic might have worked for mild-mannered radio reporter Ron Benson, Wonder Guy’s secret identity, but this doll in the well-filled white blouse with lace-filled keyhole neckline needed a better disguise.
She knew me enough to say, “Good morning, Mr. Starr,” though I didn’t remember her name and no nameplate on her desk was there to remind me. I did, however, recall how nice her legs were, having seen her up and out from behind that desk a few times.
And before you label me a shameless ogler of feminine pulchritude, let me defend myself by saying all the distaff staffers at Americana were notoriously good-looking, the best legs and fullest busts on display in any single Manhattan office.
This was yet another part of Donny Harrison’s enduring legacy.
Even Wonder Guy seemed to have a certain leer going in that great big painting. Of course, the portrait—the accomplished oil technique of which was something that would have eluded cartoonist Moe Shulman—was the work of an artist who used to provide raunchy covers to Donny’s old sexy pulp magazines.
Somehow that said it all—that the signature painting of the red-white-and-blue hero of America’s youth had been executed by a guy who more commonly depicted slobbering males (mad scientists, cannibals, Red Indians) in the process of ripping the remaining shreds of clothing off tied-up nubile maidens.
“Isn’t it terrible about Mr. Harrison?” the receptionist said, big brown eyes behind the glasses staring up at me with unblinking insincerity.
“A shame,” I said. “How’s the office holding up?”
“
We’re all too busy to be sad,” she said, even though none of the waiting room chairs was occupied, and her desk—but for an appointment book, intercom box and blotter—was bare as a newborn’s behind. “We have to get a whole day’s work done by noon.”
“Ah. The funeral.”
“Yes.” Then she brightened. “We’re closing early!”
“Are you going?”
“Uh, no. None of us girls are. We were talking and some of us were planning to, but it’s funny . . . Mr. Cohn was quite insistent that this was only for close family and friends.”
She seemed quite befuddled by this exclusion. I, on the other hand, grasped immediately why a full row of busty, leggy secretaries might not be welcome by, say, Mrs. Harrison at her beloved husband’s service. Too bad, since I did have to attend (close friend), and it would have passed the time trying to guess which of the Americana girls Donny had merely pinched, and which he’d bent over a desk for some corporate punishment.
“Speaking of Mr. Cohn,” I said, “I’d like to see him.”
“I think he’s on an important long-distance call, Mr. Starr. But he should be done within half an hour. Would you care to wait?”
“How about Sy Mortimer? Is he in?”
“He is. Would you like me to buzz him?”
“Yes.”
She did, and Sy would see me—seventh office on the right.
Before I headed through the EDITORIAL door, however, I said to her, “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Daisy.”
“Daisy, would you be sure to let Mr. Cohn know that I’m here, and that I’d like to see him?”
“Certainly, Mr. Starr. Should I ring you in Mr. Mortimer’s office, when Mr. Cohn is available?”
“Would you?”
The EDITORIAL and PRODUCTION doors opened onto the same hallway, but to the right the hall emptied out into a big bullpen of artists. Death comes to us all, but life and commerce go on, as even now a dozen cartoonists, behind a battery of drawing boards, were at work on comic-book pages under a cloud of tobacco smoke. Some of these men in their twenties and thirties—shirtsleeves rolled up, ties loosened—would be penciling pages, others inking them, still more doing lettering, both the dialogue balloons and the explosive sound effects—BAM!, POW!, ZAP!, WHAM!
The smoky chamber was oddly joyless, and at least as silent as Donny Harrison’s funeral would be, each artist deep in his work, the only sounds the soft dissonant symphony of scratching pen tips and rubbing of pencil lead and rubber eraser against the tooth of bristol board, with an occasional grunt or groan providing percussion.
Attitudes toward their late publisher would be mixed among these men (female cartoonists were rare if not unknown in the comic-book business), as Donny had been renowned for paying freelancers well for the initial work, but retaining all rights.
And these men were freelancers, not employees, given space to work in out of the generosity of Americana’s heart, but without the benefits a company employee might expect or at least lobby for.
None of these fellows were creators of properties; you would rarely if ever find Rod Krane or Moe Shulman here (they had their own studios). This was the anonymous army of funny-book artists who drew various second-string superheroes and backup features and covers and occasionally Wonder Guy and Batwing stories, when the Krane and Shulman crews were unable to fill the need. Wonder Guy, after all, appeared in his own book as well as Active Comics and World’s Strongest Heroes; Batwing appeared in his own book, and Detection Comics as well as World’s Strongest.
Hundreds of pages a month had to be churned out to keep all that newsprint chugging along in four colors, to keep kids of all ages trading in their dimes for comic books.
A few faces looked up at me as I took in this factory of creativity, and the ones that recognized me and nodded, I nodded back at.
Then I headed left, down the carpeted hall. At right were editors’ offices—wood-and-glass fronted, providing no privacy (but evidence to bosses Donny and Louis that their people were hard at work). Some offices had double occupancy, but most were solo, the desks big and wooden and formidable, providing plenty of space for the oversize comic-page original art the editors would have to deal with.
Every single office had the cluttered look of ongoing, even frantic work, typical in a deadline-driven business like the comics. Cover proofs, some in black-and-white, others watercolored as printer’s guides, plus full-color printer’s proofs, were tacked on bulletin boards and sometimes Scotch-taped to walls; file cabinets were piled with papers and portfolios and original art and printed comic books.
At left I initially passed a long, narrow glass-and-wood fronted office filled with smaller wooden desks with typing stands. This was the secretarial pool, and a group of lovely young women who rivaled the Copacabana chorus line were machine-gunning along on their Smith Coronas.
The next room on the left was an open break area, half a dozen tables with two walls filled by counters and cupboards with a coffeemaker and all the trimmings. The other wall was home to a humming Coca-Cola machine and a refrigerator. Nobody was on break, so I slipped in and had a look inside the fridge.
Wax-wrapped sandwiches, some small individual bottles of milk and a few candy bars were about it—no insulin vials, although this was undoubtedly where Donny had kept them . . . meaning dozens of people at Americana had easy access to same.
Back in the hall, along the left wall—on the other side of which was the boardroom—were lined framed one-sheet posters of movie productions of Americana properties: the Republic Wonder Guy and Batwing serials, several of the Wonder Guy animated cartoons from MGM. A few industry magazine advertisements for the Wonder Guy radio show were also on display, and another frame showed off Wonder Guy and Batwing candy bar wrappers.
Finally I arrived at managing editor Sy Mortimer’s space, the last of the glass/wood-fronted offices, the next two—Donny Harrison’s and Louis Cohn’s—being larger and private. Donny, in particular, had not wanted to be disturbed while he was working, perhaps when he was giving dictation to one of those showgirl-worthy secretaries.
Sy Mortimer, ironically, had been a part of the circle of science-fiction fans in the ’30s that had included Harry Spiegel and Moe Shulman. Though Mortimer was from the Bronx and the boys from Des Moines, they had met through the mail and joined forces in the so-called fanzines that they self-published, a form invented by Harry Spiegel—cartoons and book and movie reviews and science fiction created by teenaged enthusiasts for others like them.
Mortimer had parlayed this amateur work into editing pulp magazines for Donny Harrison, then became a literary agent for science-fiction writers he’d met as a fan and editor, and at the same time began writing comic-book scripts for Americana, creating two of their most unmemorable superheroes, the Blue Barracuda and the Red Archer.
Mortimer’s desk was as work-laden as any of the others, and glass-and-wood wall or not, the plump, round-faced, bald-on-top editor in shirtsleeves and loosened Wonder Guy tie, hunkered over a big piece of comic art with a blue pencil in his fist, didn’t spot me till I knocked. Then he brightened as if we were old buddies—we really weren’t, though we knew each other to speak to—and waved me on in, grinning.
“Morning, Sy,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me. I know this has to be a hard day for you.”
He wiped the grin off and worked up a solemn expression. “Yes, Jack, it really is.” He had a big, booming voice that damn near made the window glass rattle. He gesticulated a lot and, despite his unimpressive appearance, had a commanding manner. “But work is a solace. And Donny would’ve wanted us to stay in the saddle.”
“With such attractive female help as additional solace,” I said, and smiled, “I’m sure he would want you to . . . stay in the saddle. Mind if I sit?”
His expression curdled as he decided whether to acknowledge my sarcasm or not. “No. No, please do, Jack. But I do have several issues to get out to the printers today, and an abb
reviated time span to do it in—”
I took the visitor’s chair opposite him, and rested an ankle on a knee. “Funny you should say that, ’cause somebody must’ve had an issue with Donny, too . . . and abbreviated his time span . . . right?”
“Right.” He shook his head, tossed the blue pencil on the artwork, an Amazonia page rife with underclad women running and jumping. “I thought it was a heart attack or something, or maybe Donny just got weak-headed from his condition and all, and passed out on that knife.”
“So did I.”
His eyebrows rose—they had plenty of room. “Yes, and thank God that’s how it wound up in the papers—a weird accident.”
“Well, they’ll get the real story sooner or later, Sy, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope they don’t. With Louis’s connections, who knows? Maybe the cops’ll keep it under wraps. That captain who dropped around, first thing this morning, he seemed okay enough.”
“He collected Donny’s insulin, right?”
“Right.” Mortimer shifted in his seat, sat forward. “What’s your interest in this, Jack? I mean, no offense, I get that Americana and the Starr Syndicate do business. But I never had the feeling that Donny Harrison was your favorite person in the world.”
“He wasn’t. The major was fond of him, though.”
Sy nodded; the overhead florescent lights, buzzing like mosquitoes, reflected on his bald pate. “A lot of people were fond of Donny, me included. He could be a hell of a lot of fun—nobody ever had a better way with the ol’ rack jobbers out in the hinterlands.”
“Cigars and booze and broads make a lot of friends.”
He pawed the air. “You make it sound cheap and sleazy. He was a fun-loving guy who liked people and people liked him. Donny would take doughnuts and coffee to the truckers loading up bundles of comics. He would—”
“Treat you like crap, Sy?”
That froze him. The fat little man with the booming big voice was reduced to whispering: “Why . . . why do you say that?”
A Killing in Comics Page 10