by Craig Rice
I paused at the first landing and wondered how the papers could have a story about the murder so quickly. The radio I could understand. I fished around in my purse for the heavy key. As I approached the door to my room I saw a thin strip of light. I turned the knob and the door opened. It was unlocked!
“Hello, Gypper.” Dolly was sprawled on my bed. A bottle of rye on my night table was half empty; an ash tray was spilling over on the bedspread.
“I been waitin’ for hours and hours and hours.”
She was very drunk. Her shoes were kicked off, one on the bed, the other across the room. A garter belt hung grotesquely over the upright phone.
“There was something I hadda tell ya, Gypper.” She tried to sit up and fell over. I pushed her over on the bed so she wouldn’t fall off. “S’ank you, Gypper, you’re a pal. Thass what you are, a pal.” She scowled a little when I took the bottle away from her. “Thass no way to act when I got something important to tell you.” She started to cry.
I said, “Nuts!” and began undressing. She would pick a night like this to get drunk, I thought. Take up the whole bed and get the room smelling like a brewery. I pulled my dress over my head.
“It was about the Princess, too.” Dolly yawned. “And now you made me forget what it was.”
By the time I got my head out from under the dress she had passed out. I was on the verge of tears when I picked up the phone. The sleepy voice of the night clerk answered.
“Yes, Miss Lee?”
“I said I want another room,” I shouted. “And the next time you let anybody in my room when I’m not here I’ll …”
Click. He had hung up. In my temper I threw the garter belt across the room. It landed on the sink and it looked so funny I had to laugh. I was still laughing when the clerk came up with another key. He saw Dolly lying across the bed.
“I didn’t let her in, Miss Lee,” he said pompously. “She must have passed me while I was checking the mail or—”
“Or while you were pounding the hay,” I said.
I collected my toothbrush and cleansing cream and followed him down the hall to a room a few doors away. He opened the window, checked the towels, fussed around the desk, turned down the bed, and, after one glimpse at my face, hastily retreated. I fell into bed and slept like a log until twelve-thirty.
Chapter Ten
The insistent ring of the phone awakened me.
“Good morning, Punkin.” It was a very cheerful Biff. “I been trying to get you for a half-hour. The dope at the desk didn’t know you’d changed your room.”
“It’s a long story, honey.” I yawned a little. “Did you call Harrigan?” I asked.
“Didn’t have to; they were all waiting for me when I got to the hotel.”
I was wide awake by then and Biff said: “You were right about Sandra beating me to the punch. Uh … uh-huh … Yeah.”
“Who are you talking to besides me?” I demanded. “And where are you?”
“I’m talking to a couple of cops and I’m in jail.”
“Jail? Oh, honey, what are they doing to you? Why did they put you in jail? They can’t do that, can they?” I was out of bed while I spoke, looking around for my clothes that were in the other room.
“Take it easy, Punkin. I’m all right. They just wanted to ask me some questions and it was so late when they finally decided that I was just an innocent spectator that I slept here.”
It was a moment before I spoke again. Time to sit back on the bed and collect myself.
“You mean to tell me you slept in a jail because you were too lazy to go home?”
“No cracks about this here jail.” The even more cheerful voice of Biff came through the receiver. “It’s a damn sight better than that riding academy you call a hotel.”
I was going to hang up when he lowered his voice.
“Look, the cops just left. They found Louie’s car last night.”
“What?”
“I said they found Louie’s car. Looks like he never got away after all. It was around the corner from the theater. By now, Punkin. My escort just showed up. See you at the theater.”
I jiggled the receiver, but there was no answer.
The phone rang again. It was Dolly, all apologetic.
“Gyp, I feel like a heel,” she said.
“That’s O.K. I mean it’s O.K. about you sleeping in my room, not about you feeling like a heel.”
“I found the coffee and stuff,” she said mournfully. “It’ll be ready in a minute.”
I told her the cups and saucers were in the bottom bureau drawer and that the can of milk was on the window sill.
“Please hurry, Gyp.”
She sounded ill so I made it as quickly as possible. I could smell the coffee as I walked down the hall. It was perking away merrily as I entered the room. Dolly was collapsed in the only good chair. She turned a haggard face to me.
“I feel like I been through a keyhole,” she said. Then she glanced at the bottle on the dresser and made a wry face. “I’m through drinking for good,” she vowed.
I poured the coffee and cut the day-old honey bun in half. Then I stretched out on the bed with my breakfast balanced on my lap. I was going to tell her about Louie’s car being found. Then I thought it might be better if she told me what was on her mind first.
“What were you going to tell me last night?” I asked nonchalantly as I dunked the bun in the coffee.
She stopped blowing on her coffee and her eyes narrowed. “Huh?”
“Something about the Princess,” I said. “You told me it was important.”
“I musta been drunker than I thought I was. Hell, you know as much about it as I do.” She looked at her watch. “Hey! We’re late.” She gulped her coffee and began dressing.
“You told me that you had been waiting for hours,” I insisted. “Was it … ?”
“Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t. And maybe I changed my mind about telling you, too.” She slashed at her mouth with a lipstick, folded the upper lip over the lower one. She looked at me from the mirror and her face softened. “The less you know in a case like this,” she said, “the better off you are.”
So she wants to play, I thought. Well, let her find out about the car herself. Just to give her something else to think about, I said: “Sandra shot her mouth off to the cops last night.”
Dolly didn’t ask me what Sandra had said but she turned quickly and said, “That’s what I wanted to tell you about.” She began talking faster. “I don’t know why I told her about Biff being out on the roof, but when you and him started lying to me I guess I just got sore.”
“I know exactly how you felt,” I said. “I hate to have people lie to me, too.”
Dolly searched my face for sarcasm and I smiled sweetly.
“We do have to hurry,” I said, still smiling.
After our silent subway trip the deserted theater didn’t help any. For a matinee there are usually a few customers hanging around the box office, but, as Sammy had reminded me, our burlesque patrons didn’t like the idea of raids and then a murder in their favorite theater. I took a quick look inside. Aside from a few people down front, the house was empty.
Walking down the alley, I made a mental note to ask Moss to transfer me to another job. Dolly was probably thinking the same thing.
Stachi helped us open the heavy door. He nodded a cool good morning to me and ignored Dolly completely. Sure enough, on the call board was the week-to-week notice signed by H. I. Moss.
“This is to notify all stagehands, musicians, performers, and chorus that the Old Opera will close a week from Saturday unless you are notified otherwise.”
It didn’t surprise me.
The sight of Jake and three of the stagehands sitting on the floor with a sheet spread out in front of them gave me a jolt, though. The four of them were sitting cross-legged, each at a corner of the sheet. Piled high in the center were the white ostrich fans the dancers used in the ballet. They were soaking wet, the m
ost bedraggled-looking fans I ever saw. The stagehands were trying to curl them.
“In all the excitement last night Minnie had her kittens,” Jake said sadly. “She’s resting comfortably now and the babies are all right, but …” He expertly drew a dull knife across a bunch of feathers and watched them curl tightly. “But, well, dammit all, this is the first time I haven’t been around to console her.”
“Console her hell!” George, the electrician, said. “Once she had ’em in my toolbox. Then she had ’em in Moss’ file case. Now she has to have ’em on feathers, by Gawd!” He took a vicious jab at the plumes with his knife while the other stagehands laughed.
“Miaow. Miaow.” In a box next to him was Minnie with her new family.
George leaned over and gently took off the cover. “Good old Minnie,” he said softly. “Poor old girl. Don’t you fret now. Uncle George sent to Luchow’s for liver for ya. Squeechy, weechy.” He poked at the kittens with a callused hand.
“Hey, don’t touch ’em,” Jake warned. “They ain’t supposed to be handled.”
“Who’s handling them?” George snapped. “Guess I know as much about it as you do. Squeechy, weetchy.”
Dolly and I made a path through the feathers. The orchestra was tuning up in the basement. There was a babble of voices coming from the dancers’ room; the usual noises of a theater a few minutes before curtain time. Dolly pushed ahead of me on the stairs. She was taking off her hat and coat as she hurried. The black satin dress showed every line of her plump body and her back wabbled from side to side. I decided that from the rear she looked a little like a duck.
“Think I’ll move my make-up stuff to La Verne’s place,” she muttered. “Never did like dressing so close to that damn window.”
Sandra yelled a hearty greeting as we entered the room; not a word about tipping off the cops or an apology for being so nasty the night before. Just a gay, girly good morning. I wanted to clunk her but gave her the glad hello instead. I was in no mood for arguments and, anyway, I was late.
While Gee Gee was helping me get into my first costume, I saw the new itinerary over the sink. I noticed that Alice was doing a strip in La Verne’s place. She was rehearsing a lyric and fumbling with a zipper on a pale-green satin skirt.
“If you want to thee a little more of me …” Zip … “Clap your handth like thith.”
I suggested that she talk the song instead of trying to sing it.
“I’m tho nervouth I’ll probably forget the wordth anyway,” she giggled.
She was too excited to hear Jannine say, “As long as you don’t forget to take off the dress, you’ll be all right.”
“If you want to thee my thigh, don’t thigh. Clap your handth!” Alice was out of the skirt by then. Her face was glowing. “Jutht think, Gyp, here I am doing a thtrip!” The magnitude of it nearly threw her. “And in a featured thpot, too!”
It was too much for me. With Dolly cooing over the new dressing shelf and Alice gurgling about her specialty, I was beginning to get a little ill. Gee Gee took one look at me and guessed what the trouble was.
“I don’t blame Dolly,” she said. “If some dame was breaking up my home I’d be singing hallelujah if she got herself strangled.”
“Well, I think she’s overdoing it,” I replied.
Gee Gee was dabbing rouge on her cheeks with an old rabbit’s foot. The bright tangerine was bad with her hair, but I wasn’t thinking of that.
“I’ll be a darn sight more comfortable when they catch him,” I said.
Gee Gee turned around in her chair and leaned her arms on the back. “You know, Gyppy, I don’t give a damn if they catch him or not.” She was silent for a moment; her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown. “I guess it’s awful, but I felt worse when my chameleon died than I do now. Honest.”
One of the show girls took a pair of silver shoes from La Verne’s shoe bag. “She owed me a buck,” was her comment. We watched her while she tried them on.
“That’s what I mean,” Gee Gee said. “Nobody cares. It’s like opening a window and letting clean air in. Look at Dolly, for instance.”
She and Jannine were leaving the room. They had their arms around each other. Dolly laughed softly at something Jannine said.
“You can’t go by that,” I told Gee Gee. “You should have seen her this morning. She certainly wasn’t laughing then. She’s like a—like your chameleon. One minute she’s suspecting everybody of the worst; the next minute she’s all sunshine and light. Like when we were leaving the theater last night, and even when we were arrested. First she’s scared to death the matron will recognize her. Then when her right name is all over the papers she’s delighted.”
“Maybe someone told her the case was dismissed,” Gee Gee said casually.
“Dismissed?” No one had told me that. I must have sounded surprised.
Gee Gee looked at me strangely. “Sure. It was thrown out before it ever got in,” she said.
“But they told Dolly she couldn’t work in the city. She was really afraid that the matron would recognize her.”
Gee Gee laughed. “As Moss would say, do you think you’re working for a loony? He’s got pull, honey. How do you think we keep right on working after what’s happened? The cops were all for closing the theater, until he started his ball rolling.”
We were talking so softly I didn’t think anyone could overhear us. Sandra’s voice really startled me.
“We won’t be working for long if the business stays like it is today.”
Gee Gee glanced at her. “Bad, huh?” she asked.
“Not good,” Sandra replied. She pulled up a chair and joined us. Gee Gee offered her a cigarette and she took it, but she kept an eye on me.
I knew she wanted to apologize for last night but I certainly wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
She puffed on her cigarette and put her feet on the shelf. “I had half a bun on last night,” she said idly, flicking her cigarette.
I just looked at her. Gee Gee picked an imaginary something from a tooth.
“Sure. You don’t think I would have told the cops about Biff finding the G string on the roof if I was sober, do you?”
She was talking a little too fast. I knew she was uncomfortable and I didn’t feel at all sorry for her.
“It’s just that I got sore, that’s all. At Biff, I mean.”
I let her suffer for a minute or two. Then I got up and left the room. Gee Gee could handle it from there, I thought. On the way downstairs I heard Sandra still protesting. I hoped my pal would keep the beady eye on her until she learned her lesson.
Russell was sitting on a prop tree stump under the stairs. When I passed him, he tried to smile.
The effect was ghastly. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, a cigarette dangled from his nicotinestained fingers.
I was going to say something to cheer him, but it suddenly struck me that he was acting. That look of dejection, the sad, slow smile; it was all part of a very bad performance.
“Don’t go, Gyp.” He put a trembling hand on my arm. “Please sit down and talk to me. I’m going out of my mind, I tell you. This thing has knocked me out.”
I sat down, but if he expected sympathy he was going to be a very disappointed actor.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Got a hangover?” I gave him the same look I’d given Sandra, but he ignored it. He was going to finish his act if it killed him.
He flicked ashes into the cuff of his trousers and stared across the stage. “Like a candle …”
He decided to switch it, so he started over again. “In the prime of her life, she’s snuffed out like a candle.”
If he wanted corn I decided to give it to him. “Yes,” I agreed, “and she had so much to live for.” My sigh matched his, only I managed a convulsive sob for a finish.
I might have known he’d try to top me, but when he hung his head and started to moan, it was almost too much.
Russell threw my hand off his shoulder. “Don’t touch me!” he cried. “You’re cold, heartless. You’d never know how I feel.” He buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
For a moment I believed him. I almost felt that I was heartless and cold. Then he looked up and I saw that his eyes were dry. He’d played his scene and it was as though the curtain had closed in.
I was prepared for anything. Anything, that is, but his next words.
“I’ll bet she left a lot of dough. Besides making a good salary, Louie gave her plenty, and you know how she was with a nickel.”
I was too staggered to answer. Dolly as a chameleon was strictly small time in comparison to Russell.
“It puts me in a hell of a spot.” Russell’s voice had lost the note of respect it held when he spoke of La Verne’s assets. He was plainly worried. “She was putting up the money for my play, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” I said as I jumped up, “and what’s more, I don’t want to know. If your play is anything like you, it’ll stink.” There was a lot more I wanted to say but Biff’s voice called me.
He was standing in the wings with a heavy jowled man whom I’d never seen before. On the way over to them I shouted, “Keep me away from that Rogers guy. He gives me a song and dance about his broken heart, and before I snap my fingers he’s told me the story of his downfall. La Verne’s dough is …”
Biff put his arm around me. “I want you to meet Mike Brannen,” he said quickly. “Homicide Squad. A good guy to know.”
The man put a hand out and I offered mine. While he pumped it, Biff told him what a good-natured kid I was.
“Always clowning,” he said.
I gave the policeman a frozen grin and pulled my hand away. I wasn’t sure that I liked the way Biff was explaining me to the long arm of the law and I definitely didn’t like his prop laugh that followed. It was about as subtle as H. I. Moss asking an act to take a salary cut.