The Paperback Show Murders

by Robert Reginald

  —There and Back Again,

  by Reginald Tolstoy (1955)

  An hour or two later, I woke from a deep sleep to the sound of sirens blaring and the flash-flash-flash of red-and-white lights, and rushed to my window. The parking lot was filled with police cars, fire engines, and ambulances. I threw on some clothes, and headed outside.

  When I leaned over the railing of the balcony, I could see a group of uniformed cops and attendants gathered around a prone figure near the foot of the metal-and-concrete bottom steps.

  “What is it?” Margie said behind me.

  I turned and looked at her. She was breathing hard, as if she’d been running. I noticed that she was still fully dressed.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I was, uh, just taking a walk.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was talking to a friend, all right?” she said, “on the other side of the motel.”

  Down below, one of the medical personnel covered the body with a sheet, and then walked away from the corpse. The police formed a perimeter around the scene, pushing all the spectators back. I didn’t have my watch on, but I think it was around one in the morning.

  Margie unlocked the door on her room, and vanished inside. She was back again five minutes later.

  “Kimmy at the desk says it’s Brody Dameen!” she said.

  “I thought it was Karen at the desk,” I said.

  “No, that was last night. Kimmy has the night shift on Saturday.”

  Kimmy, Karen, Denise—it was all the same to me. I mentioned something about the graveyard shift turning into a real horror story, and she just looked at me crooked, like I’d crawled out from under a rock somewhere. Women! They had no sense of humor at all.

  “I wonder if he fell—or was pushed,” I said.

  “You always think the worst of people.”

  “Still….”

  Then I saw Lieutenant Pfisch emerge from a newly-arrived black sedan, and I knew we were in for a long night. After watching him for a few minutes, I returned to my room, and crawled back into bed.

  * * * * * * *

  I was up early the next morning, waking with the sun. After a quick shower, I dressed and went outside again. Dameen’s body was finally gone—I could see the markings where it had fallen. There were a couple of investigators closely examining the first-floor balcony and the stairwell leading up to it. I was so intent on the man and woman conducting the search that I didn’t hear the Lieutenant coming up behind me.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep, eh?”

  I straightened up abruptly. “Not after last night,” I said.

  “Where were you when Brody fell?”

  “Asleep in my bed.”

  “Anyone who can corroborate that?” the cop asked.

  “The bedbugs? Look, Pfisch, I usually sleep alone. I laid down sometime after eleven—didn’t catch the clock, sorry—and the next I knew was when you folks showed up.”

  “What about your girlfriend?”

  “You mean Margie? She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a business partner and friend, but that’s all.” I was getting a bit irritated at all the questions.

  “Oh, because she’s gay?” he said. When he saw the look on my face, he added: “Yeah, I know. In fact, I think it’s pretty common knowledge around here. Where was she?”

  “I have no idea. You’d have to ask her that.”

  “Well, I did,” Pfisch said, “and she was pretty vague in her response. What did you see?”

  “She was out there with me watching the scene early this morning. I don’t know where she was before or after that.”

  “What do you know about Gully Foyle, Dameen’s significant other?” he asked.

  I was about to say something, and then realized that I didn’t really know much at all. She’d shown up with Brody just for this con, and had been introduced to me as his “friend,” but she’d said nothing at all about her background. I told Pfisch that, and he just grunted.

  “Didn’t say much to me either,” he finally said, “but we’re looking into her past.”

  “You think…?”

  “I don’t think anything,” he said. “We’re just doing what we always do: question people, check their stories and alibis, and see what else we can find out about them. The same is true of you.”

  “Me? What do you mean?”

  “You’ve read enough of those paperback novels of yours to know the drill: everyone’s a suspect, at least at first. If Brody was killed—and we’re not sure yet—then almost anyone here could have done it.”

  “You think maybe he just tripped?” I asked.

  “Well, he, uh, did over-imbibe.” That was a word I hadn’t heard in ordinary conversation in a very long time.

  “Yes,” I said, “but he almost never went anywhere without Gully, even when he was drinking.”

  “Well, she claims she was asleep, and didn’t know he was absent from their room.”

  “Then what was he doing out there in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, that’s the pertinent question, isn’t it?” Pfisch said. “By the way, I finished reading that book you sold me. I wondered about something.”

  “Yes?”

  “In the first part of the book, Jezebel comes upon her father slumped in his great-chair. She asks him what’s wrong, and he admits that the imminent defeat of the South in the Civil War will destroy them financially, since the bonds he purchased are now nearly worthless. She climbs onto his lap—this supposed twenty-two-year-old woman—puts her arms around his neck, kisses him, and says that everything will be all right, that she’s been approached several times by Colonel Montragora to work for him as a governess. She says she’ll do anything to save him—anything!

  “Even without a detailed description of what was actually happening, the scene made me very uncomfortable, because it felt to me very much like some of the cases of child abuse that I used to investigate when I served with the Family Services Unit. I think that the author based this particular passage on something that happened to her in real life—it has that immediacy—and I just wondered if you knew anything about it.”

  To tell the truth, I didn’t remember that particular section, so many years after the fact, and I told him so—but I said I’d examine the passage again.

  “I’d appreciate it,” Pfisch said. “Oh, yeah, and I’d prefer you keeping this to yourself.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT”

  Sunday, March 27

  “Consulting detective Émile Friand gazed around at the faces looking up at him. One of these individuals was a cold-blooded killer who’d systematically murdered sixteen members of the University community. He marveled again at the perversity of the human soul. These persons had done bad, bad things to their fellow humans.

  “But who was it? There was the mild-mannered library cataloger, Ms. Figgit, who always appeared uncomfortable in social settings. Next to her sat Dr. Stürn, Professor of Judicial Science, known for his raspy nature and uncompromising standards. On the other side of the librarian was Dr. Holiday, Dean of Humanities; and beyond her Dr. Perryguard, Professor of Anthropography; and then Dr. Krikor, Head of Armenian Studies; and Dr. Offell, Provost of the University. And completing the circle on the other side, he saw Dr. Fribæse, Chair of the Faculty Senate; Dr. Tsingtsong, Chair of Arabian Studies; Mr. Dámaso, Head of Cafeteria Services; and Lieutenant Ynorr, Chief of the Campus Police. Standing behind them all were several of Ynorr’s armed officers.

  “‘You must understand,’ Friand began, ‘that this was a very difficult case; and I do regret the loss of fifteen more lives while I was trying to unravel the first death—of the custodian of the Fifth Floor. As you may recall, Mr. Pëtr was found chopped into pieces and stuffed into his own refuse cart. I initially thought that his death was either an accident or suicide, but was forced to change my mind after the additional bodies began turning up around campus.


  “‘What did these multitudinous victims have in common? Ah, that was the difficulty: to find the missing link, so to speak. I uncovered the key clue on the day when I was forced to eat on campus during an unexpected rainstorm, and found the food utterly disgusting and inedible. When I protested that fact to Mr. Dámaso, he said that I should ‘Go fish!’

  “‘Those were the words written on the wall in ketchup above victim #6, Dr. Quarton—which I originally believed indicated the religious preferences of the killer. Perhaps I should have interpreted the sign more literally.

  “‘Therefore, I can now identify the murderer without any doubt. It was…’—my audience leaned forward expectantly—‘…it was...Lieutenant Ynorr!’

  “‘What?’ the policeman said. ‘You must be crazy.’

  “‘Ah, no, you are the demented one, officer. Only you were available sometime after midnight on each of the days when a victim was killed. Lack of sleep can lead to serious psychological breakdowns—this is a well-known fact. It had to be you!’

  “‘No, no, no!’ Dámaso shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘You don’t understand! I was a culinary genius—and none of you, not one, recognized my talent. You pooh-poohed my deviled tripe, you turned your collective noses down at my curried chicken tartare, you thought my fried and powdered road kill helper was poopeepie. Well, I showed you, didn’t I? The dish I served today, my Bon Homme Richard Appétit, represents new heights of culinary delight. Ha, ha, ha—and you thought it was pork! Ha, ha, ha.’

  “‘Anyway, it was a good theory,’ Friand said. ‘I will send you my bill in the morning.’

  “And with that, the petit little French Guyanan made a formal bow, and exited stage left.”

  —The Case of the Curious Cuisine,

  by Stanley Earl Silverstein (1958)

  Margie and I usually met over an early breakfast at the Eatery, before going into the exhibit hall, but she didn’t make an appearance that morning; and I was sitting there sipping my cup of hot tea and picking at my toast when Freddie the Cur plopped down across from me, along with the old paperback hacks, Ferdinand Bartholomew and Kitty Gaylord. Ferd had written a hundred novels for Dell, Belmont, Beeline, and several other houses, and Kitty had done “nursies” and other romances for Ace, Harlequin, and Popular Library.

  “What a shame,” Freddie said, after being served a stack of hotcakes, three eggs, bacon and sausage, and biscuits and gravy. The other two ordered more reasonable portions.

  “You mean about Brody?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Poor guy really had a problem.”

  “You two ever resolve your, uh, business arrangement?” I said.

  “Oh, sure,” he said, “I took care of that last night.”

  “I thought he didn’t have what you wanted.”

  “Well, he found it again,” Freddie said. “We met next door at the Drinkery, late.”

  “How late?”

  He looked at me with his small reptilian eyes, and squinted: “I’ve already been through this with Pfisch, and I don’t really want to ruin my first meal of the day. It’s what gets me going, you know? So let it lay! We did a deal, I’ve got the book, he got the money, and that’s that, honey. You can ask Daryl M. next door, and he’ll tell you that Brody paid off his tab last night.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes, he did seem quite happy when he left the bar,” Kitty said. She was a woman in her sixties, with gray hair and jowls.

  “I saw him too,” Bartholomew said. He and Kitty often palled around together. “He did pay his bill, just like Freddie said. That was before he left.”

  “Did he show the book to you?” I asked.

  “Nah,” Ferdinand said, “he just told me that he’d forgotten where he’d put it, but Gully had found it for him, and it was quite rare, ‘worth a lot of dough,’ as he so quaintly put it. He was rushing off to meet the buyer.”

  “Just a minute,” I said. “He indicated to you that he was leaving the Drinkery to make the sale?”

  “Yeah,” both Ferd and Kitty said.

  “Well, that just isn’t the way it happened,” Freddie the Cur said. “We did our deal earlier in the evening, and I paid him several thousand cash money too. It was a good clean copy.”

  “A good clean copy of what?” I asked.

  “I’ll have it on display at my table when we open,” he said. “You’re welcome to come by and make a bid.”

  “Maybe I will.” I turned back to the two writers: “So, who was this other buyer, and what was Brody selling?”

  “He didn’t say,” Kitty indicated.

  Bartholomew just shrugged his shoulders. He was engrossed in dipping his toast into the runny parts of his eggs, and slurping up the remains. Finally, he looked up and said: “I didn’t know about the other book, whatever it was. Brody was always surprisingly cagey about such things. But he had a knack for finding stuff, that’s for sure. Hey, Kitty, remember that boondoggled photo-illustrated edition of Forever Amber? Man, now that was really something!”

  “What time did Brody leave?” I asked.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know,” Bartholomew said. “I mean, we were drinking ourselves, you know?”

  “Sometime after midnight,” Kitty said. “I remember, because we made a joke about the day, and that it was now Sunday.”

  “So, not long before Dameen took his tumble,” I said.

  “I suppose not. I don’t know when he died,” she said.

  “Well, it was about one when the commotion woke me up,” I said. “So, it had to be before that.”

  “I guess it was, then,” Ferd said. “Well, it’s just too damned…you know. Brody went through spells when he was sober, and he told me a few weeks ago that his new girlfriend, Gilly or whatever her name is, she’d really helped clean up his act.”

  “Then why was he back on the sauce?” I asked.

  “Who the hell gives a fuck?” Freddie the Cur said. He was shoveling the end of an apple sausage down his gullet, and the act was so disgusting that I had to look away. I wondered if I’d ever be able to eat one again myself. He belched out loud. “He was just a poor drunk, OK, who couldn’t help himself. Yeah, he could be fun at times, and I’ve seen him mean as a skunk, too. He used to beat his wife back in the old days. I bet that Gully didn’t let him do that.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “I heard her telling him off yesterday,” he said, burping again, and shifting his ass to exhale a fragrant cloud. “He was begging her to forgive him—again. She really had the man pussy-whipped, if you know what I mean. He would have done anything for that dame.”

  “What did she say, specifically?” I pressed.

  “Oh, just that if someone was still alive—I didn’t catch the name—she’d take care of him all right, just like she’d done to someone else. She was just reaming him out, man, right and left—and I could see that he was terrified that she’d leave him. I had the impression that they hadn’t been together more than a month or two. Finally, they made up, she kissed him lightly on the cheek, and told him to go do what she’d said—and I don’t know what that was. That was right after we’d finished our business in the Drinkery. She’d been hiding in a booth to one side.”

  “She was waiting for you to finish the transaction.”

  “That’s what I said. What a wimpy little twerp he was—no balls at all. Didn’t used to be that way. That’s what drink’ll do to you.” Then he glanced down at his watch. “Jeezus, it’s later than I thought. Gotta go meet somebody before I open up.

  “You’ll take care of this, right?” he said, nodding at me. “Thanks!” He was up and gone before I could reply, surprisingly fast for an oversized tank. I never saw him alive again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “YOU’RE NOT MY HUSBAND”

  Sunday, March 27

  “‘You’re not my husband,’ Cissy Malaparte, the Head of Procurement, said. ‘However, you’ll do in a, uh, pinch’—and with that she leaned over, grabbed Craig’s double
chin, and squeezed—hard!

  “‘Ouch!’ he said. ‘Miss Malaparte, this isn’t really kosher. I mean….’

  “‘Oh, common, Craigie, I’m just looking for a little fun here.’

  “‘But I already have a friend,’ he said. ‘This just isn’t right.’

  “‘No, but it sure would feel good, wouldn’t it?’ She stroked the pointed auburn sideburn snaking down the left side of his cheek. ‘Oh, my!’

  “She got up from behind her desk, walked over to the door, and locked it from inside. Then she unfastened the top button on her blouse, and moistened her lips.

  “‘Don’t you find me just a little sexy?’ the sixty-year-old executive asked.

  “‘Uh, well, uh, of course, but….’

  “‘But what, Craigie?’

  “‘But, Miss Malaparte, you’re not my husband!’

  “‘Huh?’ Then she looked at him more carefully, noticed the way he dressed and handled himself, and finally said, ‘Oh.’

  “‘The heart is a lonely hunter,’ she muttered, motioning him to leave.

  “That was just the way the fortune cookie crumbled sometimes, on the other side of...The Plastic Ceiling!”

  —The Plastic Ceiling,

  by Demeter S. Runnin (1965)

  When I got back to the exhibit area, and showed security my pass, I saw that Margie was already setting up for the morning.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I had stuff to do,” she said.

  When I looked at her sideways, she straightened up and said: “What! Look, I’m under a lot of stress. You’re not my husband; you’re not even my boyfriend, as if I’d want such a thing. We’re in business together, that’s it. I don’t have to account to you for my time.”

  “No,” I said, “you don’t, but I did think you were a friend.”

  “You…I…you are! You’re still my friend. It’s just that this has been a really lousy con, and I’m, well, I’m afraid! I didn’t do what the police think I did, but I have no way of proving it. And you haven’t gotten any further yourself, have you?”