The G-String Murders
Page 21
Russell looked up quickly. “She told me she destroyed them,” he said.
“She was new in this theater or she would have known better than to flush them down the toilet. Our plumbing isn’t that good. That’s what she was doing upstairs in the men’s dressing room. When the Sergeant said the murderer had worn gloves, I wondered what they’d do to get rid of them quickly. Naturally the toilet! If she hadn’t gone upstairs she wouldn’t have bumped into Gypsy. She wouldn’t have passed the room while Stachi was supposedly strangling La Verne. She’d be alive today, in fact, if it hadn’t been for the toilet.”
Russell shuddered. I know he was thinking more of losing La Verne’s money than anything else. I wondered a little about it myself. With Stachi dead, who would get the money? Who would get her shares of stock?
Stock! I suddenly remembered the picture and the frame with the hollow back.
“Did Stachi take the picture?” I asked.
Moss spoke up. “Yes. It was found on him. A will, too,” he said. “Is that what you were thinking about?”
I felt a little ashamed to be thinking about money and stocks at a time like that, but I said yes. “I was really wondering about the scrap of paper, though. I thought it might have been the share of stock that you had given her.”
“It was. The other stocks she kept in a vault, but I guess she didn’t have time to put that one away. Stachi got everything legally because he was her only relation. He left everything to Daryimple and the Hermit in his will. That is legal, too. Daryimple told him about the value of the stock. His own realestate firm was buying it. That’s why Stachi wanted the theater closed.
“He didn’t want to make just a small profit on it. There was a chance to make thousands. He probably hoped to buy everyone out. Once the theater was shuttered, well, your stock wouldn’t be worth a thing. If he offered you what you paid for it, you’d sell it in a minute. Then he in turn would sell it to Daryimple. He was damn smart. There was only one weak spot in his make-up. Burlesque!
“I don’t doubt for a minute that he was crazy when he decided to kill La Verne; not when he killed the Princess—that was for protection, but with La Verne he must have gone non compos mentis, when he realized that one of the people whose guts he hated was his own granddaughter.”
I remembered the look on his face when the fight between Dolly and La Verne took place. Yes, I decided, he was capable of murdering her, and for that reason, too.
Russell broke the silence that followed.
“I’ll fight it,” he said suddenly. “That money was given to me and I won’t give it up.” He was breathing heavily and his fists were clenched. “I’ll fight it.”
“After me,” Biff said. “First of all we’re taking a trip to an alley and I’m going to beat the damned stuffin’ outa you. Not only because you caused me a hell of a lot of extra work by keeping your mouth shut; not only because you put the G string in my pocket, but because you’re a yellow-bellied rat!”
Russell grinned. Then he saw Mike and his mouth trembled. I wondered if he thought the law was on his side. I didn’t have a chance to find out.
Dolly suddenly went into action. I knew what was coming; I could tell from the two splotches on her cheeks. They warned me in time to save Biff from the fast one she gave out with.
But there was no way to shut her mouth.
“You keep your name calling to yourself,” she shouted. “If you so much as lift a finger, I’ll tear you apart. You—you stage wait between strip teasers.”
The orchestra had stopped playing. A sudden lull fell over the room. A good fight comes first in any saloon and the Ringside was no exception.
Sammy materialized through the smoke and helped me hold Dolly. Then Russell jumped in. He put one arm around her waist and his hand on her mouth.
“Rudnick, the boss of the Eltinge, is here,” he whispered. “If he hears a brawl like this, we won’t get the job.”
Magic words! Dolly’s eyes lost their fire and a calculating gleam filled them. Russell broke his hold on her and the two of them sailed out of the saloon arm in arm, two lovebirds on their way to a four-week guarantee on Forty-second Street.
Mike followed them at a respectful distance.
I asked Moss if Russell could be arrested and he shrugged his shoulders.
Biff sat back in his chair with a serves-me-right look on his face. “That’s the kind of loyalty I expect from you when we’re married,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I understood him. “I got the words, but I didn’t catch the music.”
“Aren’t you ever gonna get smartened up?” Biff asked. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
Before I blurted out a too hasty yes, I thought of the theaters I’d be playing for the rest of my life. Four shows a day; the drugstore food; the second-rate hotels, and the seltzer water in the pants.
Then I said it! Instead of just saying yes, I said, “Yes, darling.”
Biff took my hand and whispered, “Punkin,” very softly. “Mrs. Gypsy Punkin Rose Lee Brannigan.”
I forgot we were at the Ringside, even forgot that we weren’t alone. The orchestra playing the “Wedding March.” Moss’ congratulations brought me back.
Alice was crying softly. “I’th tho romantic. I can’t help it,” she sobbed.
It was romantic. I got goose pimples all over. Everyone in the saloon was kissing me on the head and slapping Biff on the back. Gee Gee was even planning on what she’d wear to the wedding and then Sandra whispered in my ear.
“There was nothing to that romance between Biff and me,” she said; “it was really all on my side.”
I pretended that I believed her, but knowing Biff, I decided to keep a weather eye on him in the future. Then I sneaked a little peek at him.
He was taking bows already, as though he were the first comic to make an honest woman out of a strip teaser.
Siggy, the G string man, was making a speech. It was all about wishing us happiness and how lucky Biff was. Then he put his black suitcase on the table and opened it. He brought out a box, one of those that he keeps the best items in, and held up a ruby-studded G string.
“My wedding present to the bride,” he said importantly.
I was beginning to murmur the conventional, “Just what I needed,” when Biff made a dive for Siggy.
He grabbed the G string salesman’s arm with one hand and snapped the fingers of the other. “By golly, I just thought of something,” he said. “Yep, I got it!”
He was so intense that Siggy got a little nervous. “You got what?” he asked suspiciously.
“Did you send anything up to the Hermit the night La Verne was murdered?”
Siggy tried to back away, but Biff held the lapels of his coat.
“Did you send him coffee or papers, or anything at all?”
“Well, yes, I did,” Siggy admitted reluctantly. “But that’s nothing; I do it all the time, whenever he asks me. All I done was to send him some chewing tobacco, and it couldn’t have had anything to do with her because she was alive then.”
Biff let go of his coat lapels and kissed him on both cheeks.
“I love ya, Siggy. You cleaned up the one thing that bothered me. That damn fringe on the elevator! It musta been hangin’ on you, or maybe hangin’ outa the bag. Did you have the bag with you?”
Siggy was still being careful. I could hardly blame him.
“I don’t let that bag outa my sight,” the G string man said. “Even when I sleep, it’s under me bed.”
Biff roared with laughter. We all laughed; everything seemed very funny.
Siggy took one of his hand-rolled cigarettes from his pocket and lit it. Then he reached for Biff’s drink.
“For a minute there you sure scared me,” he said. He drank the rye and looked around to see if everyone could hear him. Satisfied that he was the center of attraction, he said: “I was worried right along about the police suspecting me of those murders. You know, me bein’ in the G string business. I was afr
aid the cops’d think I done it for the publicity.”
About the Author
Craig Rice (1908–1957), born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, was an American author of mystery novels and short stories described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” In 1946, she became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Best known for her character John J. Malone, a rumpled Chicago lawyer, Rice’s writing style was both gritty and humorous. She also collaborated with mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories, as well as with Ed McBain on the novel The April Robin Murders.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1941 by Simon and Schuster, Inc
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5175-0
This 2018 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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CRAIG RICE
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