A Killing in Comics

by Max Allan Collins

  Even mild Moe Shulman, though he hadn’t risen, was objecting. “Miss Starr, you say Mrs. Harrison had a ‘reason for resenting’ her husband . . . but what you mean is, she had a motive.”

  “Yeah,” Harry blurted, “motive for murder!”

  Maggie was patting the air with gloved hands. “Please. Please, just a moment. Sit, do please sit, and just listen.”

  A frozen, awkward pause followed; but finally Louie Cohn, frowning, sat. So did Krane, after heaving a huge put-upon sigh.

  “Moe,” Maggie said, “Harry . . . you’re quite right. I am talking about murder motives. And each of you has one, at least for Donny.”

  “Aw, come on!” Harry said. “How am I any better off with Donny dead? I still have Louie to deal with! Or did I spike his drink when he wasn’t looking?”

  Louie, who had no sense of humor, frowned and actually pushed away his half-gone gin fizz.

  “Harry,” Maggie said, “again, you’re right. You really don’t have a motive that holds up under scrutiny. And, Moe, you didn’t dislike Donny. You and he shared a debilitating disease. He was just about to pay for a surgical procedure, out of his own pocket. You are off the spot. So relax, and wait for your steaks, boys.”

  Harry made a kind of face, and batted the air, but his relief was apparent; and Moe just leaned back and folded his arms, realizing he was out of danger and enjoying a ringside seat.

  Selma, indignant, her face no longer flushed but her neck red as a fire engine, said, “I loved my husband. I did not murder him. And I wouldn’t risk my life over his, his, his . . . over her.”

  Maggie was nodding. “I don’t think you would. You and Donny had what sophisticated Long Island couples call an understanding. You considered him to be a man of certain needs, some of which you couldn’t, or didn’t care to, fulfill. That he would have that birthday party at Miss Daily’s suite, with you present, shows how confident he was in that understanding. Surely a tactless, thoughtless thing for him to do, even an unforgivable act . . . but probably not one you would murder him over.”

  Air went out of Selma’s indignation; and she, too, seemed to relax.

  “As for you, Louie,” Maggie said, “your motive for wanting Donny out of the way is a strong one. He represented everything about the comics business that was yesterday; and you foresee a lot of profitable tomorrows for Americana.”

  Louie, sitting with his arms tightly folded, quietly indignant, mustache twitching, said, “There are many easier, more preferable ways to remove an unwanted business partner than murder. Within the next two years, I would have been able to offer Donny a retirement plan that would give him more money to stay home than to go to work.”

  Sy Mortimer said, “But Donny loved his work. He lived to work.”

  Louie gave his editor two cold eyes. “Yes, but he was greedy. Something in the inner workings of his little clockwork brain would have chosen in favor of more money for no work. By the time he realized he’d made a mistake, it would be over. The future would be here, and I’d be in charge of it.”

  Selma, aghast, said, “Louie! What a horrible thing to say. . . .”

  Suddenly Louie realized how right she was, and he did something uncharacteristically human—he, too, flushed. Nervously, he said, “Forgive me, Selma. The nature of this . . . this half-baked inquisition is such that a blunt answer seemed called for. You know I loved Donny. Loved him like a brother.”

  Harry said, “Like Cain loved Abel?”

  Louie glared at the freelancer, then settled back in his chair. His eyes went to Maggie. “Do you still think I have a motive?”

  “Frankly I’m not sure,” Maggie said. “You’re right that you had other means to dispose of Donny. But I don’t imagine you have any moral reservations about murder.”

  “That’s too much!” Louie was on his feet again.

  “Sit,” she said, as if to a dog. “You didn’t kill Donny. You’re in the clear, Louie. Just sit and listen. It’s to the benefit of all of us—all but one—to clear this thing up, isn’t it?”

  No one argued with her.

  “Louie,” Maggie said, “what puts you in the clear is the second murder. You’re a lifelong bachelor and have never expressed any interest in women. Where your interests in that department lie, I could not care less. But I don’t see you and Honey Daily being any kind of item. So why on earth would you kill her? You wouldn’t.”

  Louie seemed nervous, suddenly; but he stayed seated, and said nothing.

  “Sy,” she said, “you got yourself in a jam over the Wonder Boy fiasco—”

  “I did no such thing!” Mortimer yammered.

  “Oh,” Harry said, “can it, Sy! You know you blew it.”

  Maggie said, “Whether you blew it or not, Sy, getting rid of Donny still left you with Louie to deal with . . . and you have a reputation in the business for being a first-rate editor. Everybody makes mistakes, and Wonder Boy may be your big one, but I don’t think you’ll get fired; and I don’t think you’d compound that mistake by making the bigger one of committing murder.”

  “Yes,” Mortimer said, shifting in his seat embarrassedly, “well.”

  “And you have absolutely no connection to Honey Daily,” Maggie said.

  Harry said, “Maybe she saw Sy doctoring Donny’s insulin bottle, before the party!”

  “Shut up, you pipsqueak!” Mortimer said, half out of his chair and leaning across the table across a centerpiece.

  I got off my stool. “Sit down, Sy! Now.”

  Mortimer looked over at me, and sat.

  Maggie said, “Thank you, Jack. And for those of you tonight, who are going to be cleared, I’d like to remind you that the actual detective work was done by my stepson. It’s probably too much to ask you to give him a hand, but I just thought I would point that out.”

  I gave her a little salute and a smile. For some reason, though, nobody applauded.

  Maggie said, “Will, I have to admit I really only asked you here tonight to make sure you got a good, substantial meal. Things have been tough on you, lately, but I don’t think you blamed Donny for that . . . or if you did, you talked yourself out of it. You’re a guy with a wife and a kid that you’re hoping to get back in the good graces of . . . killing your boss, and fooling around with your boss’s mistress, neither of those would aid you in that effort.”

  Will Hander smiled, nodded and said, “Wrap it up, would you, Maggie? The smell of that steak is making my stomach growl.”

  “I’ll do my best, Will,” she said with a sparkling smile. “But I do admit you have a motive for murder . . . just not either of the murders that have been committed, so far. But if anyone ever bumps Rod, here, off, well, Will—I will send Jack looking for you.”

  Krane was on his feet again. “Maggie, this is over the line. Really outrageous. What kind of—”

  “What kind of man cheats his partner out of his share? Why, I don’t know, Rod. Do you?”

  Rod pointed to himself with a thumb. “I sleep good at night. I treat Will just fine, he makes top freelancer dollar . . . doesn’t he, Sy? . . . And what any of that has to do with Donny’s murder, I haven’t the foggiest.”

  I got up and went over and put a gentle hand on Krane’s shoulder. “Be a good boy, Rod. Sit down. Take your medicine. It’ll be over soon.”

  He gave me a look and so I gave him one.

  He sat down.

  Tell you the truth, everybody knew I was in a mood, and nobody wanted to fool with me. I hadn’t been sleeping so good since Honey was killed, and I guess it showed on my face.

  I was back on my barstool when Maggie said, “You’re quite right, Rod. These murders have nothing to do with comics. The only killing in comic books going on at this table is the money Americana is making, hand over fist, sometimes at the expense of its talent.”

  Louie Cohn glowered, but stayed mute.

  “But you, Rod,” she said, and her smile clearly unsettled the Batwing creator, “you are mixed up in these murders . .
. or at least one of them.”

  The fine nostrils flared. “No! You’re out of your redheaded mind! I didn’t kill Donny, and I was crazy about Honey!”

  Grinning, Harry said, “Crazy enough to kill her?”

  Rod swung his head Harry’s way. “You shut up, you midget moron! You don’t know a goddamn thing about it!”

  “None of us,” Maggie said, “have known much of anything about Donny’s murder, because a basic assumption of ours . . . and of the police . . . has been wrong.” She cast a sunny look my way and gestured to me, like a car show model indicating a ’49 Jaguar. “Jack—this was your discovery. Would you care to share it?”

  All faces went to me, heads swiveling on the near side of the table to do so.

  I stayed perched on my stool, but spoke up. “The cops weren’t interested in the stain on Miss Daily’s carpet, a stain as big as Donny himself. But I had a few carpet fibers analyzed. They were heavily doused with poison, that organophosphate Captain Chandler’s been talking about.”

  Harry said, “Yeah, well, why wouldn’t it be? You know what a sweating pig Donny was . . . sorry, Selma.”

  “Donny was prone to perspire,” I said, demonstrating my delicacy. “And everybody who knew him knew that. I spoke to Captain Chandler yesterday afternoon, about my theory; he called this afternoon and the forensics experts have confirmed it.”

  Krane, scowling, demanded, “Confirmed what in hell?”

  “Confirmed that Donny wasn’t poisoned by his insulin being doctored—he wasn’t poisoned by injection: he absorbed the poison through his skin . . . from the Wonder Guy costume he was wearing.”

  Big eyes and murmuring transpired, and Maggie shushed them, then waved a hand to me, to go on.

  I did. “As Mrs. Harrison has told us, there was only one Wonder Guy costume, which Donny kept in his possession, for special occasions, parties, conventions, sales conferences. Donny must have announced his intention to those around him that he would be wearing the Wonder Guy suit to his birthday party. Someone in possession of that knowledge took advantage and soaked that super suit in poison.”

  Moe asked, “Is that possible?”

  “Yes.” I raised an eyebrow. “And the coroner’s office had retained the costume, which had been cut off Donny prior to his autopsy . . . and the police lab now says the material is permeated with that organophosphate.”

  “The poison,” Harry said, with a nod and a shrug. “But what is it exactly?”

  “Pesticide.” I turned toward the man sitting next to me. “The kind of thing a trusted family retainer, who among other things acted as yard boy, would have easy access to. Just as the servant who picked up the family dry cleaning would have easy access to the Wonder Guy costume, as well as the knowledge that Donny planned to wear it to the party.”

  Hank Morella, in his gray chauffeur’s livery, looked pretty gray himself. “That’s stupid. I liked Donny. Hell, I loved the guy. Why would I—”

  Over at the table, Selma Harrison was insisting, “Jack, you can’t be serious! Hank’s like a member of the family! He’s as loyal as—”

  “A family dog?” I suggested. I grinned at Morella, probably not the most attractive grin I ever summoned up. “You were the loyal family chauffeur, the fall guy who years ago took the pornography rap for Donny, and won a menial job for life. Might have seemed like a good deal in the Depression, but it must’ve lost its luster along the way.”

  Gray though he was, Morella seemed calm; he remained perched on the stool, an elbow leaning casually on the bar.

  “I had no motive,” he said. “None. What if you’re right . . . and you’re not . . . that I resented Mr. Harrison, had a grudge against Donny? Why in God’s name would I kill him?”

  “Not in God’s name,” I said. “In Honey Daily’s.”

  Now even the gray left, with only white remaining, the same kind of white as the dead skin of a blister.

  “I do blame myself,” I admitted. “I was slow on the uptake from the start. You dropped by Honey’s suite unannounced that morning and said you were stopping by for Donny’s things, implying Mrs. Harrison sent you. . . . Selma, did you?”

  “Why . . . no. No, of course not. I had no idea Donny kept any, any ‘things’ at that awful woman’s place.”

  Morella said nothing. Just stared at me, unblinking, and white.

  “You were just covering for yourself,” I said. “You were there to see Honey. And she seemed irritated to see you. Meantime, you were shocked to see me, and not at all happy . . . since I’d obviously spent the night. You were another one of the men in Honey’s life, Hank . . . only you thought you were the only man . . . the only man beside Donny, that is. You remove him, you kill this disgusting beast, knowing that Honey will remain on the Americana payroll for years to come, clearing the way for youself. You loved her, didn’t you?”

  Morella swallowed.

  “You just didn’t know you were one of several men she juggled at a time.” I grunted a laugh. “You didn’t even know about Rod, did you?” I spoke to Krane without taking my eyes off the chauffeur. “Rod, you might have been a murder victim, at that, if the cards had fallen differently. But you knew about Hank, here, didn’t you? That he was another of the men in Honey’s little black book?”

  Krane’s voice was small and pitiful, a bleat: “Y-yes.”

  “And Rod,” I said, still looking at Morella, “you even told me about him, didn’t you? But you were too cute about it and I was too dumb—you said Honey was involved with ‘maybe the most powerful man’ at Americana. You didn’t mean a bigwig, like I assumed, Rod—you meant literally powerful, like Mr. Beefcake of 1943, here.”

  Morella’s eyes tightened, just barely.

  “And when I told you that,” I said to the chauffeur, “when I casually referred to Rod and all the various men in Honey’s life, you went a little crazy, didn’t you, big fella?”

  “You should stop now,” Morella said quietly.

  “First you called some old friends of yours, back when you were connected to the mob, like your benefactor Donny was once upon a time. Guys who, like you, used to work for Frank Calabria. You told them to tail me, and work me over, and warn me off. But, damnit, I didn’t pay attention to their warning—if I was being strong-armed off the case, why would these goons tell me to ‘Stay away from her!’ Only . . . I wasn’t just looking into the case, and maybe targeting your behind for Old Sparky at Sing Sing . . . no, I was another of the men you didn’t want in Honey’s life.”

  “That’s enough,” he said.

  “And then, with the gears in your noggin still not meshing right, you went over to the Waldorf, to her suite, and of course you got right in . . . and you confronted her about it, about all these men, and she probably said it was none of your damn business, and maybe finally you told her what you’d done for her, but she wasn’t impressed, was she? Or, anyway, not in the way you’d hoped she’d be. And she disappointed you. Disappointed you so bad that you took her not in your arms but in your hands, and squeezed the life out of that funny, sad, smart, beautiful woman.”

  “I thought she was wonderful,” he said softly, through clenched teeth. “But she was a tramp! A filthy whore. My only regret is . . . I can’t kill her again. And again! And again!”

  “Once was enough,” I said.

  And my remark was enough, too, because he did just what I was hoping he’d do: jump at me.

  I couldn’t kill him. I promised Maggie no vigilante nonsense. But I owed Honey this much: I broke that square superhero jaw with one sharp, hard swing.

  The roll of quarters helped.

  He fell to the floor by the bar, not unconscious, but out of commission. And then he did the damnedest thing: he started to cry.

  And for a small, very infinitesimal slice of a second, I did the damnedest thing: I felt sorry for him.

  But it passed so quick I barely noticed, and then Chandler was by my side, come up from the back where he’d been running the three tape recorde
rs he’d set up this afternoon, two hidden mikes at the table, one at the bar.

  “Get what you need?” I asked him.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, with a nasty grin, hauling Morella up off the floor. Another plainclothes dick, a colored guy, was pulling the chauffeur’s hands behind him, to properly cuff him.

  As they dragged the murderer out—they forgot his chauffeur’s cap, and I kept it as a souvenir—I headed over to the banquet-style table where all eyes were large and all jaws were gaping, like something out of the damn comics . . . except for Maggie’s. She was hooded-eyed and beautiful and gently smiling; at some point in my part of the proceedings, she’d sat herself down.

  “Well done, Jack,” she said, and touched my sleeve. “Well done.”

  “Christ, I hope not,” I said. “I want mine with some juice in it—medium rare, at least. . . . Let’s eat.”

  And everybody except Louis Cohn stayed for the free feed-sack. He could afford to pay, and preferred to pick his own company.

  I wish I could report happy endings all around, but the Funny Guy strip bombed, the comic book, too. And, after a bunch of strained courtroom claptrap, on the advice of their lawyer, Spiegel and Shulman settled for one hundred grand, most of which Bert Zelman’s fees ate up, and Americana did not offer them a new contract. Wonder Guy flew on without them.

  Funny thing—within the year, attorney Zelman set himself up as a Hollywood producer; he did a bunch of Mamie Van Doren pictures, all rotten (I know—I saw every one). Where Zelman got the kind of dough to produce movies, only God knows, or maybe Louie Cohn. What would it have been worth, under the table, do you suppose, to make the Wonder Guy boys disappear?

  Meanwhile, as we say in the funnies, Rod Krane’s underage ploy worked, and he got a big fat contract and continual solo byline credit, while Will Hander went on freelancing for small change. The ’60s Batwing TV show made Krane very wealthy, and he exhibited pop art paintings that were probably ghosted, though they were lousy enough to be his. The campy TV show based many of its episodes on Will Hander scripts, without credit or compensation. He died broke, without his family, and probably drunk. Comics historians consider him the co-creator of the famous caped crimefighter, but Rod, who died rich and somewhat famous, still gets the official credit.