The Screaming Mimi

by Fredric Brown

  “She have a family, back in Des Moines?”

  “Her parents were dead, she said once. If she had any other relatives anywhere she never talked about them. I don’t guess she had any she was close to.”

  “The address on West Madison where she lived. That would be about three blocks from here, wouldn’t it? What is it, a hotel or rooming house?”

  “A hotel, the Claremore. It’s a dive. Can I have another drink?”

  Sweeney crooked a finger at the bartender. He said, “Mine, too, this time.”

  He shoved his Panama back on his head. “Look, Tess, you’ve told me what she looked like, what she did. But what was she? What made her tick? What did she want?” The girl in the red dress picked up her glass and stared into it. She looked at Sweeney, then, squarely for the first time. She said, “You’re a funny kind of guy. I think I could like you.”

  “That’s swell,” said Sweeney.

  “I even like the way you said that. Sarcastic as hell, but – I don’t know what I mean. You meet all kinds of guys in a business like this, and–” She laughed a little and emptied her glass. She said, “I suppose if I got myself killed by a ripper, you’d be interested in finding out what made me tick, what I really wanted. You’d – Oh, hell.”

  “You’re a big girl now,” Sweeney said. “Don’t let it get you down. I do like you.”

  “Sure. Sure. I know what I am. So let’s skip it. I’ll tell you what Stella wanted. A beauty shop. In a little town somewhere, a long way from Chicago. Go ahead and laugh. But that’s what she was saving up her money for. That’s what she wanted. She saved her money, working as a waitress, and then got sick and it went. She didn’t like this racket any more than the rest of us, but she’d been at it a year and in another year she’d’ve had enough saved up to make a break for herself.”

  “She had money saved up then. Who gets it?” The girl shrugged. “Nobody, I guess, unless some relative shows up. Say, I just remembered something. Stella had a girl friend who’s a waitress near where she was killed. An all-night restaurant on State just north of Chicago Avenue. And she nearly always had something to eat after she got off at two. I told the cops maybe she went from here to that restaurant for a sandwich before she kept her date with the mooch. Or maybe she met him at the restaurant instead of at his hotel room or whatever.”

  “You don’t know the waitress’ name, do you?”

  Tess shook her head. “But I know the restaurant. It’s the third or fourth door north of Chicago Avenue, on the west side of State.”

  Sweeney said, “Thanks, Tess. I’d better push along.” He glanced at the money on the bar, three singles and some change left out of the ten he’d put there. “Put it under the mattress. Be seeing you.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “Wait. Do you mean it? Will you come back?”

  “Maybe.”

  Tess sighed, and dropped her hand. “All right, then, you won’t. I know. The nice guys never do.” When Sweeney stepped out to the sidewalk, the impact of the heat was almost like a blow. He hesitated a moment and then walked west.

  The Claremore Hotel, from the street, was just a sign and an uninviting stairway. Sweeney trudged up the steps to a tiny lobby on the second floor.

  A swarthy, stocky man who hadn’t shaved for at least two days was sorting mail behind a short counter. He glanced at Sweeney and said, “Filled up.” He looked down at the mail again.

  Sweeney leaned against the counter and waited.

  Finally the stocky man looked up again.

  “Stella Gaylord lived here,” Sweeney said.

  “Jesus God, another cop or a reporter. Yeah, she lived here. So what?”

  “So nothing,” said Sweeney.

  He turned and looked down the dim corridor of doors with peeling paint, at the uncarpeted stairs leading to the floor above. He sniffed the musty air. Stella Gaylord, he thought, must have wanted that beauty shop pretty bad to have lived in a hole like this.

  He looked back at the stocky man to ask a question and then decided, to hell with it.

  He turned and walked down the stairs to the street.

  The clock in the window of a cheap jewelry store next door told him he still had over an hour before his appointment with Greene and Yolanda Lang at El Madhouse.

  It also reminded him that he still didn’t have a watch, and he went in and bought one.

  Putting change back in his wallet, he asked the jeweler, “Did you know Stella Gaylord?”

  “Who?”

  “Such is fame,” Sweeney said. “Skip it.” Outside, he flagged a cab and rode to State and Chicago. The waitress who had been Stella’s friend wouldn’t be on duty now, but maybe he could get her address, and maybe he could learn something anyway.

  The restaurant was called the Dinner Gong. Two waitresses were working behind the counter and a man in shirt sleeves, who looked as though he might be the proprietor, was behind the cash register on the cigar counter.

  Sweeney bought cigarettes. He said, “I’m from the Blade. You have a waitress here who was a friend of Stella Gaylord. Is she still on the night shift?”

  “You mean Thelma Smith. She quit over a week ago. Scared stiff to work in this neighborhood, after what happened to the Gaylord girl.”

  “You have her address? Thelma’s, I mean?”

  “No. She was going out of town; that’s all I know. She’d been talking about going to New York, so maybe that’s where.”

  Sweeney said, “Stella was in here that night, wasn’t she?”

  “Sure. I wasn’t on then, but I was here while the police were talking to Thelma. She said Stella came here a little after two o’clock and had a sandwich and coffee and then left.”

  “She didn’t say anything to Thelma about where she was going?”

  The proprietor shook his head. “But it was probably somewhere near here, or she wouldn’t have come way up here from Madison for a sandwich. She was a chippie; the cops figure it she had a hotel-room date somewhere around here after she got through at the bar she worked at.”

  Sweeney thanked him and went out. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t pay to try to trace Thelma Smith; the police had already talked to her. And if there’d been anything suspicious about her leaving town, they’d be doing the tracing.

  While he was waiting for a chance to get across the traffic on Chicago Avenue, he remembered something he’d forgotten to ask Tess. When he got across the street he phoned Susie’s Cue from the corner drugstore and asked for her.

  “This is the guy you were talking to half an hour ago, Tess,” he told her. “Just remembered something. Did Stella ever say anything about a statuette – a little black statuette of a woman, about ten inches high?”

  “No. Where are you?”

  “I’m lost in a fog,” Sweeney said. “Were you ever up to Stella’s room?”

  “Yes, once just a few days before she – before she died.”

  “She didn’t have a statuette like that?”

  “No. She had a little white statuette on her dresser, though. A Madonna. She’d had it a long time, I remember her saying. Why? What gives about a statuette?”

  “Probably nothing. Tess, does ‘Screaming Mimi’ mean anything to you?”

  “I’ve had ‘em. What is this, a gag?”

  “No, but I can’t tell you about it. Thanks, anyway. I’ll be seeing you sometime.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  When he left the drugstore he walked west to Clark Street and south to El Madhouse.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She looked just like the picture of her that had been in Sweeney’s mind, except, of course, that she wore clothes.

  Sweeney smiled at her and she smiled back and Doc Greene said, “You’ll remember her, Sweeney. You’ve been staring ever since you sat down.”

  Yolanda said, “Pay no attention to him, Mr. Sweeney. His bark is worse than his bite.”

  Greene chuckled. “Don’t give Sweeney an opening like that, my sweet. He already suspects t
hat I have canine ancestry.” He stared at Sweeney through the thick glasses.

  He spoke softly: “I do bite.”

  “At least,” said Sweeney to Yolanda, “he nips at my heels. I don’t like him.”

  “Doc’s all right, Mr. Sweeney. He grows on you.”

  “He’d better not try to grow on me. Doc, do you shave with a straight-edge razor?”

  “As it happens, yes.”

  “Your own, or do you borrow other people’s?” Behind the heavy lenses, Doc Greene’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Someone has borrowed yours?” Sweeney nodded. “Again your perspicacity mystifies me. Yes, someone has borrowed mine. And a small knife as well. The only two keen-edged tools in the place.”

  “Not counting your brain, Sweeney. He left you that. Or was it there at the time of the theft?”

  “I doubt it seriously. It must have been in the evening while I was out rather than while I was sleeping. I deduce that from the fact that, when I looked in the mirror this morning, there was no fine red line across my throat.” Greene shook his head slowly. “You looked in the wrong place, Sweeney. Our friend the Ripper has a strong predilection for abdomens. Did you look there?”

  “Not specifically, Doc. But I think I would have noticed when I took a shower.”

  Yolanda Lang shuddered a little and pushed her chair back. “I’m afraid I must run along, Mr. Sweeney. I’ve got to talk to the maestro about a new number. You’ll come to see me dance tonight? The first number is at ten.” She held out her hand and smiled at him. Sweeney took the hand and returned the smile. He said, “Wild horses and so forth, Yo. Or may I call you Yolanda?” She laughed. “I think I prefer it. You say it as though you meant it.”

  She walked toward the archway leading from the tavern to the night club at the rear. The dog, which had been lying beside her chair, followed her. So did the two detectives who had been sitting at the next table.

  “Makes quite a parade,” Doc Greene said.

  Sweeney sat down again and made circles on the table with the bottom of his glass. After a minute he looked up. He said, “Hello, Doc. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Getting anywhere, Sweeney? Got a lead?”

  “No.”

  Greene sighed deeply. “My bosom enemy, I’m afraid you don’t trust me.”

  “Should I?”

  “To an extent. And to what extent? To the extent that I tell you you can. That means as far as finding the Ripper is concerned.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “As concerns Yolanda, no. As concerns yourself, no. As concerns money, no – although that shall have no reason to arise between us. But as concerns the Ripper, yes. I shall worry about Yolanda until he is caught. I would even prefer that he is killed rather than caught, because he presumed to touch her.”

  “With a cold blade,” said Sweeney. “Not with a hot hand.”

  “With anything. But that is past. It’s the future that worries me. Right now there are two detectives guarding Yo all the time; three eight-hour shifts of them. But the police won’t do that forever. Find me the Ripper, Sweeney.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, the hell with you.”

  “Thank you, Doc. The only trouble is that you’re so completely honest that I distrust you.” Greene sighed again. “Sweeney,” he said. “I don’t want you to waste time suspecting me. The police got that little idea yesterday because I couldn’t account for where I was when the Ripper attacked Yolanda. I don’t know where I was either, except that it was on the South Side. I was with a client – a singer at the Club Cairo – until midnight and I got pretty stinking. I got home, but I can’t prove when, and I don’t even know when.”

  “That happens,” Sweeney said. “But why should I believe it?”

  “For the same reason the police did, you should. Because it happens I have solid alibis on two of the other three attacks. I checked back, and the police checked back on what I told them.

  “Not on the Lola Brent one, two months ago; that’s too far back and I couldn’t figure out where I was. But they told me the second one– What was her name?”

  “Stella Gaylord.”

  “–was the night of July 27th, and I was in New York on business. I was there from the 25th through the 30th, and on the night of the 27th I was – luckily – with some damned respectable people from dinner time until three in the morning. Don’t waste time or distract me by asking what I was doing with respectable people. That’s irrelevant. The police have checked it. Ask Captain Bline.

  “And on the first of August, last week, at the moment this secretary, Dorothy Lee, was killed, I was here in Chicago, but it just happens I was in court testifying on a breach of contract suit against a theater manager. Judge Goerring and the bailiff and the court clerk and three lawyers – one of them mine and two of them the theater’s – are all the alibi I’ve got on that one.

  “Now if you want to believe I’m half a ripper, working the first and fourth cases with a stand-in filling in for the second and third, you’re welcome. But you aren’t that much of a damn fool.”

  “You’ve got something there,” Sweeney admitted. He took a folded piece of blank copy paper and a pencil from his pockets. “I’ll even settle for one alibi, if it’s the real McCoy. Judge Goerring’s court, you say? When to when?”

  “Case was called at three o’clock and ran till a little after four. Before it was called, I was in conference with all three lawyers for a good half-hour in an anteroom of the court. According to the newspapers, the Lee girl left her office alive at a quarter of three to go home. She was found dead in her apartment at five and they thought she’d been dead an hour. Hell, Sweeney, I couldn’t have planned a better alibi. She was killed right while I was on the witness stand, two miles away. Will you buy it?”

  “I’ll buy it,” Sweeney said. “What were the lawyers’ names?”

  “You’re a hard man, Sweeney. Why suspect me, anyway, any more than Joe Blow up there at the bar, or the guy next to him?”

  “Because my room was entered last night. Only a razor and a knife were taken, and razors and knives tie up with the Ripper. Up to last night damn few people knew I had any interest in the Ripper. You’re one of them.”

  Greene laughed. “And how did I find out? By reading that eyewitness story you wrote for the Blade. What’s the circulation of the Blade? Half a million?”

  Sweeney said, “Excuse me for living. I’ll buy you a drink on that, Doc.”

  “Bourbon straight. Now, have you got a lead to the Ripper yet?”

  Sweeney signaled the waiter and ordered, then answered. “Not a lead,” he said. “What were the names of the lawyers, Doc?” He poised the pencil over the copy paper.

  “I thought you were mostly Airedale, Sweeney, but you’re half bulldog. My lawyer’s Hymie Fieman, in the Central Building. The opposition was Raenough, Dane & Howell. Dane – Carl Dane, I think it is – and a young neophyte named Brady, who works for them but isn’t a member of the firm yet, were the two who were in conference and present at the hearing. And the judge was Goerring. G-o-e-r-r-i-n-g. He’s a Republican, so he wouldn’t alibi a Ripper.”

  Sweeney nodded moodily. He said, “Wish I could snap out of this hangover and think straight. I’m as nervous as a cat.”

  He unfolded the sheet of copy paper and smoothed it fiat. Then he held out his right hand, back up and fingers spread wide, and put the piece of paper on it. The slight trembling, magnified, vibrated the edges of the paper.

  “Not as bad as I thought,” he said. “Bet you can’t do any better.” He looked at Greene. “In fact, five bucks you can’t.”

  Greene said, “I should never bet a man at his own game, and I’ve never tried that, but you’re on. You’re a wreck, and I’ve got nerves like a rock.” Greene picked up the paper and balanced it flat on the back of his hand. The edges vibrated slightly, but noticeably less than they had on Sweeney’s hand.

  Sweeney watched the paper very closely. He asked,

 
“Doc, did you ever hear of the Screaming Mimi?” The rate of vibration of the edges of the paper didn’t change at all. Watching them, Greene said, “Guess I win, Sweeney. Concede the bet?”

  There’d been no reaction, but Sweeney cussed himself silently. The man who’d bought that statuette wouldn’t have known the company’s nickname for it; Lola Brent, as a new employee, wouldn’t have known it to tell him.

  Sweeney said, “A small black statuette of a woman screaming.”

  Doc Greene looked up from the paper, but the vibration of the edges – Sweeney’s eyes stayed on the paper – didn’t change.

  Greene lowered his hand to the table. He said, “What is this? A gag?”

  “It was, Doc. But you win the bet.” Sweeney handed over the fin. “It’s worth it. You answered my questions so I can believe you – for sure.”

  “You mean the Screaming Mimi and the black statuette? No, I never heard of either, Sweeney. A statuette of a woman screaming? One and the same thing? The statuette is called Screaming Mimi? M-i-m-i?”

  “Right. And you never heard of either. I don’t necessarily believe your saying so, Doc, but I do believe the edges of that piece of paper.”

  “Clever, Sweeney. A homemade lie detec– No, not that; a reaction indicator. I’ll keep your five, but I’ll buy you a drink out of it. Same?”

  Sweeney nodded. Doc signaled.

  Doc put his elbows on the table. He said, “Then you were lying. You have got a lead. Tell Papa. Papa might help.”

  “Baby doesn’t want help, from Papa. Papa is too anxious to get Baby cut up with a sharp shiv.”

  “You underrate me, Sweeney. I think I can get it without your help. And I’m curious, now. I will if I have to.”

  “Prove it.”

  “All right.” Doc Greene’s eyes looked enormous, hypnotic, through the lenses of his glasses. “A small black statuette called the Screaming Mimi. Most statuettes are sold in art and gift shops. One of the girls attacked worked, for one day – the day of her murder – in an art and gift shop. I forgot where, but the newspapers would tell me. If I look up the proprietor and ask him if he ever heard of Screaming Mimi, would it get me anywhere?”