“Mr. Birdwell. Mr. Hemp. And the
Mike said.
two ushers with the ticket barrel.”
Vee lifted her wrist. “9:32.”
“Both ushers come back out?”
“Yes
sir.”
THE phone rang. Birdwell bobbed around the Leap turned to the other officer. “How
desk, picked it up.
about your aisle?”
“Yes ... this is he ... Oh, thank you
“Nobody came nor went.”
very much.”
“You ushers see anybody strange back
He replaced the receiver. “The usher
stage?”
who was shot. He’s going to pull through, They shook their heads in unison.
they say.”
“Good,” Leap said abstractedly. “Half
THERE was a rap on the door. A policeman a dozen people outside there said this put his head in, looked about, then came happened at 9:05. What say, Miss?”
forward carrying a green steel lockbox about
“It’s just like I said,” she cried. the size of a shoebox.
“Honest.”
“We got this and the car. The car was
“Somebody could have turned off the
just half a block over on the next street from front lights first, and robbed her, then done the the alley it happened in.”
other,” Mike said.
“That’s it,” Hemp said.
“Get those ushers in here. And those
Leap shook it. “It’s empty.” He pulled
cops who guarded the aisles,” Leap told the at the lid. “By Lord, why should it be locked?”
man with the shorthand pad.
“Possibly the money is in it,” Hemp
The strain was heavy in the little office said. “I recall that it felt empty when I was by now. Jill looked about, perplexed. Mike carrying it. May I have your key, Mr.
fingered his tattered uniform, felt the muscle Birdwell?”
and flesh of his body beginning to stiffen with Birdwell’s fingers went mechanically
pain. This looked like a job by somebody who to his vest pocket. “Why—” he said dumbly.
knew the ropes of this show. He wondered
“It’s here. The key.”
about Hemp, such a standoffish, severe fellow.
Leap took the key, watching the
In a moment the officers and three
manager closely. “Yeah, it’s here, all right.”
ushers were herded inside.
He inserted it, and the lid clicked open. “But
“Who guarded the aisle next to the
the money ain’t.”
alley?” Leap said.
He snapped the lid shut again. “It locks
“I did,” one of the police spoke. “I was automatically. That might explain how it got slugged before the lights were turned off.”
locked again. Someone got your key right
“Don’t you take any precautions?”
there on the stage, opened the box and got the
“Of course. Before the picture’s out,
money, then ran.”
we go all over the backstage, seeing there’s no Hemp smiled sourly. “Rather odd to
one there. We check the doors. Then we guard carry the box along.”
the entrances from the aisles, seeing that
“Not the way a level-headed party
Mike Goes to a Movie
7
would do,” Leap acknowledged. “But the First you knocked off the box office—and of whole works sounds like somebody pretty course you’d not slug her, though everybody excited. An amateur. That shooting, for else seemed to get it—you’d been hanging instance, wasn’t necessary or smart.”
around, knew Birdwell’s keys were there. You Mike had been studying the rug slipped the keys to your buddy, who brought thoughtfully. “Where do you keep your car the car around. Then you went calmly about keys, Mr. Birdwell?”
your job, carried the barrel backstage—but
“Tonight I left them with Miss Tansey.
while you were there, you opened the door for My wife phoned she wanted the car. She never your pal. He slipped in and between the pair came though, but then that’s the way with of you, with the lights out and all, and did the women. I always say—”
job. Which one of you fired the gun?”
Leap’s eyes moved coldly to Vee
“Neither one—I mean I don’t know—
Tansey.
Listen—I don’t know anything about any of
“That’s right. They were in the money
it—”
drawer. I forgot to tell you,” she said, her eyes Leap strode to the door, beckoned two
frightened.
officers. “Take the kid and the girl downtown.
Leap pushed out his underlip, watched
We’ll see if we can find out who his buddy her silently.
was, and where the dough and gun are.”
“You know what I think,” he said, as
“BUT darling,” Mike was protesting,
though feeling his way. “The guy who took later. “What can I do—if there’s a mistake, your dough was somebody you know since
they’ll let the kids go—and besides, it coulda you didn’t scream. Somebody soft on you.
been a wild-eyed kid. That shootin’.”
Somebody who wouldn’t want to conk that
“Mike, don’t sit there and ask me what
pretty little head.” Leap let his body turn you can do. You’re a man and you’ve got a effortlessly from the hips, his eyes scanning brain. And y’know that wasn’t no flighty job.
the ushers. He turned back to Vee. “Which It was planned out. And them kids couldn’t ’a one, baby?”
planned it. Just because the feller got upset
“Nobody,” she cried. “Nobody.”
and wild don’t show that it wasn’t plotted
“Pattnick was definitely interested, careful to start.”
however,” Hemp spoke up. “I’ve had to warn him repeatedly against loitering about Miss WHEN the pair of them re-entered the theater Tansey while on duty.”
office, Birdwell looked up from his desk in Pattnick’s freckles leaped alive as the
astonishment. Hemp twisted around from
color left his face. He gaped at Leap, then where he stood at the open drawer of a filing turned hostilely to Hemp.
cabinet.
“Well, that don’t mean I did anything,”
“There’s some questions I got,” Mike
he exploded. “Sure, who wouldn’t hang began, without preliminary. “The lieutenant around her except maybe a guy like you!”
may be satisfied, but I’m not.”
“Go for this girl, don’t you?” Leap
Birdwell sat staring at them stonily, his said. He walked over, stood almost toe to toe gelatinous face congealing.
with the frightened youth, slammed the words
“It all figures too pat, Mr. Birdwell.
at him. “The money gave you ideas. What a Let me just spiel off the points: First, it’s your sweet time you could have. How you could car. Next, you’re the man handling the bank blow it on the girl. What a big shot you’d be money. Mr. Hemp remembers the box was
with her. Easy as hell. Just needed one buddy.
empty before the robbery. And it appears to
Mammoth Detective
8
me it would be pretty slick of you—” Mike Hemp, looking at him accusingly.
came to a halt like a high speed motor shoved
“You wanted the money and maybe
into reverse. “What’s your wife’s number?”
the managership here. You heisted the box Birdwell hesitated, then supplied it.
office early, got the key, drove the car to the Mike spun the dial, his brows screwed
stage entrance. Then you came with the
down exaggeratedly, as he felt the ground for money, doused the lights, started attacking in his accusations beginning to slip from under the dark, swinging with your gut butt, I expect him. “Mrs. Birdwell, the car has been waiting
...”
quite a while now. The mister wants to know
“I was a captive of gunmen,” Hemp
if you are going to use it ... Oh ... Oh, all right, cried.
ma’am.”
“Gunmen wouldn’t even have
“Well,” Birdwell said. “I suppose you
bothered with the key to that box,” Mike found out what I would have told you. I talked pointed out. “And if they had, they’d not have to her, and she says she didn’t call for the car planted it back on Birdwell. Because they at all. But Hemp was positive it was she.”
wouldn’t have had a reason for framing him.
“That’s what the girl told me, all right.
You tried in every way to black his eye. Even If it wasn’t Mrs. Birdwell, it was someone to his car,” Mike said hotly. “Everything was who had heard her voice well enough to a deliberate attempt to point the finger at him, imitate it,” Hemp said.
in case the police found it was an inside job.
“Y’know, I came in here with the idea
But you did it, and you did it alone. If you’d that Mr. Birdwell had maybe been triflin’ with had an accomplice, the car wouldn’t have that bank night money, and the money was been left half a block away. You were in it.
short. And I thought what a slick one it would You ran back and joined the excitement
be to have a robbery. But I don’t hardly see without anybody noticing where you’d come the sense in it. In Mr. Birdwell’s place, the from. Where’s the gun? And the money?”
easy and smart thing to do would have been
“Right here,” Hemp said. He lifted the
frame that drawing. Get a stooge to win for a gun out of the file drawer, leveled it at them.
flat fee.”
His eyes were fever bright in the dull
“Mike,” Jill said, her eyes solemn. setting of his face as he came over to
“You’re not backin’ down? I’d not have Birdwell. He set the barrel of the weapon in thought that of you.”
back of the plump man’s neck, and bent over
“No, I’m not backing. Just shifting him. He reached in a desk drawer, withdrew a gears. Birdwell isn’t our man. It’s Hemp. pair of scissors, hastily snipped the phone Hemp hears voices, and he has illusions. He cords.
hears some woman pretending to be Mrs.
“Now, all of you. Into the closet. I’m
Birdwell, so he could get the keys. Then, on getting out of here. It’ll take you quite a little the stage, he thinks he sees two masked men,”
time to break down two doors like these—the Mike said, chuckling.
closet, and the outer door. And that’s all I
“And it fits him like a shroud, Jill,”
want, just a little time,” Hemp snapped.
Mike said. “Remember, we said it was “You’re pretty lucky I don’t plug the bunch of somebody with the sense to plan but not the you.”
guts to carry through without losing his nerve
“I’ll say we are,” Mike said with mock
somewhere along the line.”
humility. Mike stepped to the desk. He began to laugh. “There’s something you could learn MIKE’S humor vanished. His eyes bored into about cutting phone wires, punk.”
Mike Goes to a Movie
9
Hemp sneered cautiously. “What?”
There was a grim satisfaction in
“Why, this,” Mike said, his hand going
Mike’s eyes as he scooted into Birdwell’s to the phone. Then, in a lightning movement, desk chair, pulled the phone to him. He started he snapped up the heavy instrument, brought to dial headquarters.
it crunching under Hemp’s chin. Mike was
“Darling,” Jill said, tapping his
around the desk, as Hemp went slack and
shoulder and pointing to the severed wire.
buckled toward the floor. He snatched the gun
“Oh,” Mike said foolishly, “I guess I
from the man’s relaxing fingers.
forgot.”
Mike Goes to a Movie by Stuart Friedman Page 2