A Streak of Light

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  Many things seemed in the natural course of things to Faith Claye, Shapiro thought. Having a chauffeur, having houses both in the city and at Bedford Hills, along with a permanent suite at the Plaza. The sort of things, her “of course” implied, that everybody had.

  “Do you mind telling us what this thing that came up was, Mrs. Claye? That made you change your plans and come into town?”

  “Of course not. Why should I? A friend called and said he’d managed to get seats to Roundabout. A play I’ve been simply dying to see. Like everybody else. So the only seats they have are for sometime in December. And dear Brian came up with house seats, Lieutenant. House seats. He’s a playwright himself, of course. But it still seemed like a miracle. So, of course, I came right in. Who wouldn’t have?”

  Shapiro could think of several, including Rose and Nathan Shapiro. What he said was, “This Brian, Mrs. Claye? He was going with you to the theater, I suppose?”

  “Of course. Brian Mead, the playwright. You must have heard of him.”

  Shapiro hadn’t. Tony said, “I have, Mrs. Claye. He has two plays on Broadway just now, sir. Both hits.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm.” He said, “You got a train at White Plains and came into New York to meet Mr. Mead. And met him, I take it. And went to—”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with anything, Lieutenant. With my husband’s death, which you’re investigating.” She added, “You say,” and for the first time her voice sharpened.

  “Nothing, probably,” Shapiro said. “Nothing I can think of, anyway. They want us to get everything tied up. Insist on it, in fact. A nuisance for everybody, but there it is.”

  Nobody has ever asked Nathan Shapiro to identify the “they” to whom he is apt to pass responsibility. Which is perhaps as well.

  “You did meet Mr. Mead, Mrs. Claye? Just for the record.” He looked at Tony Cook, who was taking shorthand notes. Who, anyway, had better be. Not that their combined memories didn’t usually suffice. Tony poised a pencil over folded sheets of paper which served as a notebook.

  “Of course I met him,” Faith Claye said. “At the Algonquin. Where he lives. And we had dinner there and went to see Roundabout. Will they want to know what we had for dinner, Lieutenant? And what I thought of the play?”

  Shapiro smiled to show he realized the questions were rhetorical. He shook his head.

  “I had their roast beef,” Mrs. Claye said. “Rare, and it was very good. And I was a little disappointed in the play, Lieutenant. It’s about a man who thinks he’s a giraffe. And who gets lost in a traffic circle and keeps going round and round. And around. I don’t think you’ll really have to see it, Lieutenant.”

  Shapiro managed another smile. To show he wasn’t missing anything, that he was with it.

  “And after the theater, Mrs. Claye? You weren’t in Bedford last night, I think you said.”

  “That’s right. I’d planned to take the last train back, and Brian and I stopped by the Algonquin for—well, for a nightcap and a bite of supper. Before I caught the train. But then, just as I was ready to leave—was at the doors, actually—this terrible storm started. Came down in sheets, you know. And Terry couldn’t get a taxi. And if Terry can’t get one, nobody can.

  “Terry’s one of the doormen at the Algonquin, sir,” Tony Cook said. “He’s very good at getting cabs.”

  Shapiro said, “Thanks, Cook,” keeping it formal for the woman who seemed so easily distracted from her husband’s violent death.

  “It was quite a storm, Mrs. Claye,” he said. “Ought to have cooled things off, but doesn’t seem to have much. So you missed the last train, Mrs. Claye? And?”

  “Got a room at the hotel, of course. They’re usually booked solid, but I was lucky. Of course, they know Roger. He often goes there for lunch. So they went to some trouble for me.”

  Shapiro said he saw. “Actually, of course, I could have used the suite at the Plaza,” Faith Claye said. “But it was still raining, and there still weren’t any cabs and the Plaza is farther away than Grand Central, you know.”

  Shapiro agreed that the Plaza, on Fifty-ninth Street, is farther from the Algonquin, on Forty-fourth, than the Grand Central Terminal at Forty-second and Lexington is.

  Since she was in the city, had she tried to get in touch with her husband?

  “I tried to reach him on the phone. Here and at the Plaza. He wasn’t either place. I don’t know where he was.”

  They stood up, and Shapiro thanked Mrs. Claye for help and expressed his sympathy and, again, their regret at having had to bother her at such a bad time. She accepted the apology with grace and lowered eyes.

  Probably they would have to be in touch with her again, Shapiro told her. Or somebody would. Would she be here, at West Eleventh Street, or did she plan to go back to Bedford Hills?

  “Not here,” she said. “It’s so empty here, without the staff or anything. I think I’ll have them come in and get things ready, you know. Yes, that’s what I think I’ll do. And stay up at the Plaza until I do. Anyway, I’ll—I’ll have to get some suitable clothes, won’t I? And, I suppose people will be calling. And there may be newspaper people. At the Plaza they can—well, arrange things.”

  Shapiro thought that would be an excellent idea, and that he would tell “them” where she could be reached, if reaching her became necessary.

  They left her sitting on the sofa in the empty room of the empty house and walked over to Sixth Avenue.

  “Taking it well, isn’t she?” Tony said. “After, how many years have they been married, Nate?”

  “Quite a while,” Shapiro said. “Married in sixty-two, according to Who’s Who. Yes, she seems to be bearing up very well, Tony.”

  “Too well?”

  “It’s hard to tell about things like that,” Shapiro said. “People react differently. Because people are different, of course. I think you’d better go up to the Algonquin, don’t you? While I go back and fill Bill in.”

  “Yeah,” Cook said. “I’ll see what’s going on at the Algonquin. What went on last night, anyway. Not much to fill the captain in with, is there?”

  “Not yet,” Shapiro agreed, and flagged down a taxi. They both got in. Tony dropped Shapiro near the headquarters office of Manhattan South, and the cab went back to Sixth Avenue and uptown to Forty-fourth Street. It was well after eleven when Tony went into the Algonquin lobby. A few people were still having breakfast in the Rose Room—not many. Few of the Algonquin’s guests are breakfast eaters; most of those who are use room service.

  The doorman he passed going into the hotel was not Terry. Terry would not be on until four, and probably wouldn’t remember much anyway. Terry would have been busy at around midnight the night before, particularly since it had been raining around midnight.

  The desk clerk was a man Tony did not know. He and Rachel have dinner often at the Algonquin, particularly since Charles French Restaurant, such an easy walk from Gay Street, no longer exists. They have never checked in at the Algonquin. There has always been Rachel’s Gay Street apartment; and now there is Tony’s, one floor above.

  Tony explained who he was and what he wanted. The clerk wasn’t sure he ought to. Tony showed the gold shield. The clerk guessed maybe it would be all right. Mrs. Claye? The name sounded familiar, somehow. It would become more familiar, Tony thought. He said, “Yes, Mrs. Roger Claye. She may have registered as Faith Claye, I suppose.”

  The clerk would look it up. He did look it up, going out of sight to do so. Probably, Tony thought, to get an assistant manager’s O.K.

  He was more affable when he returned. Yes, Mrs. Roger Claye had checked in at twelve fourteen that morning. They had found her a room, although he gathered it had been difficult. “We’re usually booked solid, Mr. Cook. Particularly at this time of year, with people coming back to town.” But they had found Mrs. Claye a nice corner room on the fourth floor. She had signed out at a little after nine this morning.

  Cook thanked him. “Wasn’t it a Roger Claye
got killed last night?” the clerk said. “A newspaperman of some kind?” Tony Cook agreed that a man named Roger Claye had been killed the night before and that he had been a newspaperman of some sort, then he said, “By the way, is a man named Brian Mead registered here?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Mead lives here. Has for more than a year. He has a suite here. The fourth-floor suite. Very famous man, Mr. Mead is. Writes plays, you know. Many of our guests are theater people, you know. It’s a tradition, you know.”

  Tony did know. All three times.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if Mr. Mead had supper here last night? After the theater?”

  “I understand he often does,” the clerk said. “I wouldn’t really know about last night. I’m on days this week.”

  “If he did have, he’d probably have signed the check,” Tony said. “Since he’s a guest here. Could you find out for me?”

  Well, the clerk supposed he could. If it was important.

  “Just something we’d like to know,” Tony told him.

  Well, the clerk supposed it would be all right.

  He disappeared again and was gone for several minutes. Tony lighted a cigarette and waited. People were drifting into the lobby now, finding seats near small tables. A bell tinkled on one of the tables where two men were sitting. One of the men was trim in a blue suit; the other was notable chiefly for the plenitude of his beard. But they were, evidently, alike in being early drinkers.

  The desk clerk returned. Yes, Mr. Mead had signed supper checks the night before. A bar check for three Irish coffees. A restaurant check for a lobster thermidor and one for cold roast beef, garni.

  The number of the room assigned Mrs. Claye? Yes, he knew she had checked out of it. Four twelve? Thank you. And of Mr. Mead’s suite? Suite Four A? Thanks again.

  He might as well, Tony thought. Sometimes you don’t realize there are gaps until you try to fill them in. He found a house phone. He got Suite Four A, which consisted of “Yeah?” All right, sure this was Brian Mead. And who, at such an ungodly hour, was this? Almost noon did not seem so ungodly an hour to Tony Cook, but he did not debate the matter. He was Detective Anthony Cook, New York Police Department, and he would appreciate a few minutes of Mr. Mead’s time. Oh, just to check up on a couple of routine matters. Well, connected with the death of one Roger Claye.

  What the hell was Brian Mead supposed to know about that? Probably nothing, of course. Entirely routine. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes or so. “Thanks, Mr. Mead. We appreciate it.”

  Mead was quick to open the door of Suite A on the fourth floor of the Hotel Algonquin. Mead was about five feet eight and probably in his early thirties and wore a pair of shorts. Period. He was broad-shouldered and muscular. He looked, to Tony, more like a welterweight fighter than a playwright.

  The suite was of two rooms. The room beyond that into which Mead led Tony Cook had an unmade double bed in it and, next to the bed, a chair with clothing tossed on it. Mead didn’t, evidently, care much about preserving the creases in his trousers.

  There was a breakfast tray on a table in front of a small sofa in the sitting room of the suite. Mead said, “Well,” and went to sit on the sofa and to pour coffee from a silvery pot. Tony said, “Good morning, Mr. Mead. I—”

  “Is it?” Mead said. “I wouldn’t know. Mornings are lousy, mostly. Get on with it, why don’t you? Oh, sit down, if you want to. Hell, if you want to, get a glass out of the bathroom and have some coffee. If there’s any left.” He swirled the pot and liquid swished in it.

  Tony said, “No, thanks.”

  Mead said, “Okay, get on with it, then.”

  “Last night,” Tony said, “you and Mrs. Roger Claye had dinner here and then went to the theater. That right?”

  “Sure. And last night Faith’s husband got himself shot to death. So?”

  “Early this morning, actually,” Tony said. “Down at the Sentinel Building. After he had told his wife he wouldn’t make it up to Bedford Hills until today. And Mrs. Claye agreed to come in to town and go to the theater with you. Right so far? And you and Mrs. Claye are good friends, I take it?”

  “Not all that good,” Mead said, answering, Tony thought, a question which had not been asked. “For the rest, yes. Anyway, she told me Claye had called and said he couldn’t make it to the country. Why he couldn’t, or said he couldn’t, you’ll have to ask her.”

  Tony realized that. He merely wondered if, during the evening, Mrs. Claye had tried to get in touch with her husband. To tell him she was in town, perhaps. Perhaps to suggest he might join them for dinner. Perhaps for the theater?

  “While we were having cocktails,” Mead said, “she tried to reach him by telephone. What she told me, anyway. Tried the Plaza, where he sometimes stays, and then this house of theirs downtown. No soap either time. What she told me, anyway. When she came back from the phone booth. Wouldn’t have asked him to go to the theater, because I only had two seats and she knew it, because I’d told her I’d only got them by a fluke. Sold out into January, Roundabout is. And Jimmy Brownley’s a lucky bastard, for my money.”

  “Brownley?”

  “Wrote the damn thing. And I do mean the damn thing. Giraffe lost in a traffic circle, for Christ’s sake. Not that I’m not all for Jimmy’s making a wad. But for this tripe—Jesus!”

  “You’ve had some hits yourself, from what we hear, Mr. Mead.”

  “Two on now, yeah. Hayride’s pretty solid. Place Your Bets slowing down a bit. Only, neither of them’s about a giraffe. Not that Jimmy isn’t a grand guy. Salt of the earth, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

  “All right. And after the play, you came back here for a nightcap. Before Mrs. Claye went to catch her train. Tried to, anyway. And couldn’t get a cab and checked in here instead. While you were having your nightcaps, did Mrs. Claye try again to get in touch with her husband? At the Plaza, or their town house? Or, maybe, his office?”

  “After we’d ordered,” Mead said, “she said she’d give Roger one more try. Came back and said it was no soap again, either at the hotel or the house. She did say that maybe he’d gone down to the Sentinel, but that there was no use trying him there because the switchboard would have closed down for the night, and that if they were plugged through to anyplace it would be to the city desk, and he’d never hear it ring from his office.”

  “She did think he might have gone down there, though?”

  “Said he did now and then. To look things up. Hell, he may have gone to the theater, and gone down to blast somebody else’s play.”

  Tony hadn’t gathered that Claye reviewed plays. He said so.

  “No. Now and then he goes out of his way to savage one. For what he calls ‘almost criminal permissiveness, and dangerous contributions to the breakdown of our social system.’ And probably threats to national security and perhaps Communist-inspired. International communism, you understand.”

  Tony said he understood. He said, “It sounds a little as if you were speaking from personal experience, Mr. Mead.”

  Mead lifted his coffee cup and looked into it. He appeared to find it empty and put it down again. He lighted a cigarette and regarded the lighted end for some seconds. Then he nodded his head.

  “All right,” he said, “maybe I led with my chin. But you can always look it up, can’t you? In the files. All right, pretty much what he said about Place Your Bets after it opened last spring. Didn’t do it any good, probably. Some right-wing cranks take what he says for gospel. What he says and what the sons of Birchites say. ‘Sons of Birchites’ is pretty good, don’t you think? Wish I’d thought of it first. An editorial writer on some small-town paper in Connecticut came up with it. Paper in Fairfield County, for God’s sake. Lost advertisers, probably, for saying it. And proved that not all newspapers are as moribund as the Sentinel. Didn’t know he was spiting his face, feet of Claye didn’t.”

  Tony Cook raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  “Mrs. Claye was one of the backers of P
lace Your Bets,” Mead said. “About a ten percent interest. And is doing damn well out of it, in spite of her husband’s blast. Cutting off his nose is what Mr. Claye was doing, and probably didn’t know it.”

  “Didn’t know his wife had invested in this play of yours, you mean?”

  “Maybe didn’t. Anyway, it’s her money, all the millions of it. What Claye made—whatever it was—was just petty cash to Faith.”

  “She often back plays, do you know?”

  “I don’t know about often. Money in Place Your Bets and in a new one of mine that’s coming in in November, if it doesn’t fall apart.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. “As it probably will,” he said.

  He lifted his coffee cup again. It was still empty.

  5

  Not much from that, Tony thought, riding down from the fourth floor to the Algonquin’s lobby. Mrs. Claye had thought, or implied she thought, her husband went more frequently to his office at the Sentinel than others thought he had. Since offices at the Sentinel were presumably empty in the middle of the night, there would be few, if any, there to check on Roger Claye’s nocturnal use of his office. So Mrs. Claye might know best. Which didn’t narrow things down; which opened them up.

  Faith Claye’s room at the hotel the night before had been on the same floor as Brian Mead’s suite. Probably coincidence; obviously convenient, if convenience was wanted. Mead had been quick to deny any close friendship with Faith Claye; had answered a question not asked. So? Claye had written derogatory things about one of Mead’s plays, but apparently without interfering too much with its success. So?

  The Algonquin’s pleasant lounge was almost full, although it was only a few minutes after noon. Drinks were being served at the small tables. Two long-haired young men were at the table Rachel and Tony tried to get when they came early for dinner, as they sometimes did.

  The Oak Room was almost empty. In an hour it would be jammed. I ought to go downtown, Tony thought. Nate will, about now, be showing up at the lunch joint. Get a hamburger and a beer and, if Nate’s there, fill him in. Cheaper by a lot than eating here. Still, I like it here. Even alone, I like it here. Tony went into the Oak Room. There was no problem about a table for one.