Kiss Your Elbow

by Alan Handley

  “But I thought you knew. You were right there when I did it. Or weren’t you? Anyway, I’m sure I’ve still got it.”

  That was it. The missing page was the missing link. That was why Bobby and Jo-Jo tried to stew me in my own juice. That was why a tombstone in New Jersey read Amos Slattery. And if I could only work it right, that would be why another tombstone would read Bobby LeBranch. That page could set up Bobby for me on my own terms. I started getting all hopped up inside. No more hugging walls in subway stations afraid I’ll be pushed in front of a train. No more chairs under my doorknob. We’d get it settled once and for all. By now I could practically hear background music of the William Tell Overture. I was Popeye after a dose of spinach. I was Dick Tracy in spades. As a matter of fact I was a damn fool, but you don’t always know those things at the time.

  “Maggie. How are you feeling?”

  “I like that. How are you feeling?”

  “Remember a couple of days ago you said that if I ever got anything definite about this murder business, you thought it would be sheer heaven to play cops and robbers?”

  “But, angel, what bliss. Am I to be the bait for your trap?” That jolted me.

  “What trap?”

  “Darling, don’t tell me you haven’t got a trap. That’s ridiculous, you must have a trap. How else can I be the bait? Could you give me time to get my hair pink? Chug-Chug says…”

  “Never mind about Chug-Chug. How are you on adlibbing? Do you have to have your lines written out for you or can you make them up as you go along?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever for?”

  “Because in a few minutes you and I are going to play a scene in front of the whole company.”

  “Wonderful. Are there cocktails in it or do I really get a chance to act?”

  “You get a chance to act. The idea is to bring Bobby over to your house to play by letting him know that you have the missing page to the Youth and Beauty Book.”

  “But what’s the idea? Then Bobby is one of the company? I knew it. Which one? Frobisher, Greg, Showers…? Oh, tell me.”

  “I’m not sure myself yet, but the less you know the safer you’ll be, but I do know that if he isn’t—someone in the company does know him and will pass the word along. I’m going to drop this page from the Burns Mantle Best Plays that you tore out at the library and then you can pick it up and sort of read through the cast aloud…. You know actors always love to talk about old plays, and then when you come to Bobby’s name you can bring it in that you have seen that name before in an engagement book and you just happen to have that page at home, and what a coincidence. You don’t need to mention the Youth and Beauty Book by name. Our pal will know. Then I’ll take it from there. It won’t make much sense to the rest of the people, but we’re only playing to one person—think you can do it?”

  “My God, I certainly have all the exposition in this lousy play. Why don’t I just have a feather duster and say to the butler, ‘I sye, ’ow careless of young Mawster Bobby to leave a page of the Youth and Beauty Book lyin’ around careless like with Poor Miss Nellie not cold in her gryve!’ I hope you’re not planning to put money in this turkey. It doesn’t look to me like it’s got a prayer.”

  But it had to have a prayer. Now or never. Last night proved that. If I didn’t get him—he’d get me. Simple as that.

  “But they were wrong about Tobacco Road.” She sighed. “Okay, what else do I do?”

  “Then you simply go home and lock your door and wait.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Bobby will think I am at the tailor’s, I hope.”

  “And will you be?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” She thought this over for a minute. “And will dreamy Bobby show up?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it sounds like a lively afternoon for me I must say.”

  “Someone may phone you, though. He’ll probably say it’s the wrong number or something, just to see if you’re home. That’s the only reason I’ve got to have you in on this. But don’t worry, he’ll never get as far as your apartment.”

  “Is there going to be a lot of shooting? I should hate that.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Well, you’re sagging like an old woman on your right chest and I’ve certainly seen enough movies to know what that means.” I must have taken my hands out of my pocket without thinking.

  “Do you think any of the rest noticed it?”

  “They’d be pretty damn stupid if they didn’t.” That set me back a bit.

  “Well, it’s too late now. We’ll just have to take a chance. Good luck.”

  “‘Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell,’” she quoted, “‘that summons thee to heaven or to hell.’”

  “Don’t you know better than to do that?” I said angrily.

  “What?”

  “Quoting Macbeth…it’s bad luck.”

  “Oh, nonsense. What a silly lot you actors are. Come on, let’s get started. I can’t wait.” She started back up the stairs. All at once I knew it was no good.

  “Wait a minute, Maggie.”

  She stopped and turned around. “Now what?”

  “The whole thing’s off. It’s folded…closed out of town.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a damn fool to even think of trying to pull a stunt like this. Just forget the whole thing.”

  “But you can’t back out now. I don’t know what it is really, but whatever it is you can’t get me all excited like this and then stop.”

  “Not only can, but have,” I said. “Let’s go back.” I started up the stairs.

  “Now hold on a minute. What’s happened? You were so excited about it a minute ago. What’s changed?”

  “It’s too dangerous, that’s all. I don’t understand enough about these things to take the chance.”

  “Do you know enough to go to Lieutenant Heffran yet?”

  “No.”

  “Are you just going to keep on being beaten up until they finish the job on you?”

  “How did you know I was beaten up? Who told you?”

  “Nobody had to tell me. But you don’t think for a minute I believed that story about you falling down stairs, do you? And you’ve been jittery all day. Don’t forget, Pistol Packin’ Papa, I’ve known you a long time. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me the truth, but when you didn’t I gathered it was because you wanted to spare me the gory details. You weren’t home all last night—I called you a dozen times—and then you turn up this morning looking like Hamburger Heaven…What else could I think? Now if it’s yourself you’re worrying about—okay. Just say so and it’s all off, but if you’re suddenly getting all Galahad and worrying about me—why, forget it. I don’t know anything anybody could get too unhappy about—you’ve seen to that, dammit—so I can’t imagine what could happen to me. If you want me to wait at home for a phone call and that will help any, what are we waiting for? So something should happen…What the hell, I’ve seen everything.” She reached up and touched the bandages on my forehead lightly. “But I’m not going to have people doing things like that to you. I like you the way you are. I didn’t sweat out four years of war waiting for you to come back all in one piece to let anybody try to change you all over to suit them now.” I put my arms around her and kissed her. I could feel her body shiver. She pushed me away, turning her head so I couldn’t see her face and ran up the stairs. But I knew she was crying.

  I waited a minute then slowly followed her. Just as I came out of the ladies’ room, Ted Kent came out of the men’s room. He stared at me.

  “Well, what do you know.” He smiled and shook his head. I didn’t say anything, but walked on up the stairs. He followed me, laughing to himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  AT A QUARTER TO FOUR Maggie was in her apartment and I was downstairs in the hallway inside her front door. Through the glass I could see the line of mailboxes with the buzzers you press and then wait
for the tenant to push the clicker in his apartment to release the front door. I got set beside the stairway by the basement where it was darkest. There were no lights in the hall and what light there was came from Fifth Avenue through the glass in the door. I tested it first from the front. You couldn’t see much in the back if you were out by the buzzers and mailboxes.

  Oh, yes, it had all worked out very cleverly. Our little scene in front of the company went off without a hitch except for the fact that when I started to play drop the handkerchief with the page from Burns Mantle’s Best Plays, ever helpful Ted Kent picked it up before Maggie could get to it, but she snatched it away from him and got on with the plot. I made it quite clear to everyone that I had to go immediately after rehearsal to a fitting at the tailor’s for my new dinner jacket. Of course, if anyone had thought real hard, he would have realized that my chances of getting a dinner jacket built in only a few days were less than negligible, but I had to take a chance on that. Maggie came through with flying colors and everyone else picked up all the cues I had hoped they would. It ended up with Maggie promising to go home and get the page from the engagement book for me and bring it to the rehearsal at Frobisher’s apartment that evening.

  The minute the rehearsal was over I beat it out the door, leaving Maggie and Ted and Margo and Jenny and Libby and the rest of the cast still on the stage. I took up my post in Maggie’s hall and Maggie didn’t even see me when she came in and took the elevator up to her apartment about twenty minutes later.

  The one thing that worried me was that Maggie would be all alone. However, I was determined Bobby wouldn’t get past the front hall. I had a pretty good idea of what he must look like and there wouldn’t be many people coming in this time of day who didn’t live in the apartment house. He certainly wouldn’t have a key. If I had guessed right he wouldn’t know that Maggie had anything to do with my chase until this afternoon. So he would have to push the buzzer. No little Jan lived here.

  He might do the old trick of pushing someone else’s buzzer to get the door open, but I figured that any guy that pushed would be a likely candidate and I’d have a little talk with each one before he got in the elevator or set foot on the stairs under which I was hidden. When I spotted him for sure, it was just a question of sticking my gun in his ribs and leading him to the nearest cop and then on to smarty-pants Heffran. If he wanted to get tough, the customary thing is, I believe, a slap across the chops with the pistol. If he brought any of his playmates with him—old Jo-Jo the rubber, or Peters, the dancing boy—so much the better. I’d shoot them if I had to and explain it later. Humphrey Bogart was a sissy compared to me. I was taking no chances this time.

  I stood there and smoked like a chimney trying to keep calm. Each time I lit a cigarette I ducked my head behind the stairs so the flare of the lighter wouldn’t be seen from the door. After fifteen of the longest minutes on record, the mailman came and unlocked all the little boxes and put some letters in them and locked them up again and left. I waited some more.

  After another couple of years, a dumpy middle-aged woman in a squashed brown hat and a squashed brown coat appeared on the other side of the glass and pushed a buzzer. Almost immediately the clicker clicked. She opened the door and instead of taking the elevator walked up the stairs. When she reached the second floor I could hear her being greeted and a door slam. In a few minutes another woman, dressed for the street, walked down the stairs, opened the door, unlocked the mailbox, took out a letter, locked the box again and walked off. There didn’t seem to be much doubt that she had been relieved by the babysitter and was off to wherever it is that women go at four o’clock in the afternoon.

  There was another lull during which I looked at my watch every second on the second. My palms kept dripping and I kept wiping them off on my trousers. Another woman appeared on the other side of the door and pushed a button. Presently the clicker clicked and she came in and started walking up the stairs, too. I should look into this babysitting racket…maybe I’d been wasting my time in the theater.

  Suddenly the door behind me opened and a man came out of the basement. He was silhouetted against the light and I couldn’t see his face. I jumped back and grabbed on to the gun in my pocket. He stood facing me. Very carefully he reached inside the door he had just come out of and switched off the basement light. I could see his face better. He wore a hat and coat. He closed the door behind him. And then I recognized him. It was the building superintendent. He knew who I was, too, and smiled.

  “How you been?” he said.

  “Oh, fine, fine,” I replied. I certainly didn’t want to get into a great conversation with him at this point. “I’m waiting for Mrs. Lanson.”

  “She gotten locked in any more bathrooms?” He gave me an enormous wink.

  “Not that I know of.” I tried to keep one eye on the front door.

  “Well, take care of yourself,” he said and went on upstairs.

  I mopped my hands and forehead.

  Then I had an idea. What if Mr. LeB. was waiting outside to see who came in. Maybe he’d seen me, but I didn’t think my timing could be that far off. I was the first one to leave the Lyceum. Anyway, I might as well have a look around.

  I started toward the door, but before my hand touched the doorknob, the clicker started clicking. It startled me like an electric shock. I sprang back and almost yelled. It clicked again. There was no one by the buzzers and I hadn’t taken my eyes from them even while I was talking to the superintendent.

  I heard a door open upstairs and someone call down.

  “Who is it?” I didn’t say anything. The voice called again. “Is that you, Madge?” It was a woman’s voice. She started walking down the stairs still calling “What do you want?” getting more and more peevish as she got near the bottom. She came all the way down and looked out through the door then turned around and saw me standing there looking as foolish as I felt. “Did you ring my buzzer just now, 3-D?” she demanded. I said I hadn’t. “Well, how long have you been here?” I told her a few minutes. “Then did you see anyone ring my buzzer?”

  “There was a woman who did ring for someone about a minute ago, but she went upstairs.”

  “Did she have white hair with a green dress?”

  “I didn’t notice her face.”

  “Well, you can remember if she had on a green dress and coat, can’t you?”

  “No, I think she had on a fur coat and her dress was a sort of red.” I couldn’t remember it clearly. The light was behind people coming in the door.

  “You’re sure it wasn’t a green dress? Madge might have worn her fur coat but she told me definitely she would wear her green. You’re sure?” I tried to remember exactly. Yes, I was sure.

  “I’m sure it was a red dress. I noticed it when she started up the stairs. Sort of a funny color red.”

  “Oh bother,” said the woman. “I’m going to speak to the superintendent. You never can tell who’s running around this place. I never did approve of those buzzers anyway. They ought to have a doorman…the rent they charge.” She grumbled to herself all the way back to the elevator and up and out of sight. I went back to my post and lit another cigarette. I was getting disgusted with myself. I thought I’d been so smart—that it couldn’t fail, but it looked like it had.

  And then, of course, it hit me. The original slow-take kid, that’s me. I was the smart one…old J. Edgar Briscoe. I didn’t even have sense enough to realize what had happened. It was like the Life Saver business at the bath. The funny-color red dress and the clicking buzzer—but for the wrong apartment. I finally caught on and dashed upstairs. What a fool I’d been. By God if something had happened to Maggie…

  I was completely bushed when I made the fifth floor and pounded on Maggie’s door. There was no answer. I pounded again and again no answer. I still had a key so I unlocked the door and kicked it open. All the blinds were down and I couldn’t see anything. I called out for Maggie but nothing happened. She couldn’t have left. I had the pistol
in my hand and very carefully entered the foyer. I kept calling…still no answer.

  He must have been hiding in the coat closet in the foyer. He simply waited for me to walk past, then sneaked up behind me and with an umbrella from the closet neatly sliced me across the wrist of the hand holding the pistol. While I was doubled up in pain, he picked up the gun.

  In the dimness, I first saw the gleam of the muzzle. No matter how dark it is you can always see a gun that’s pointed at you. Through the red mist of pain from my wrist, I gradually made out what was behind the gun. A mink coat open at the front now showing a dirty magenta dress—unmistakably Ernie’s creation. A thin white face with a red square mouth. Black eyes shining in the faint reflected light. A mink hat with black hair showing underneath. One gloved hand still holding the umbrella—the other the gun. It was Libby’s stage-struck friend, square-mouth Margo—the gal I’d just given five dollars to a few hours earlier. It was also, I realized now, too late, the guy I’d been looking high and low for—Mr. Bobby LeBranch.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  WITHOUT TAKING HIS EYES or gun from me, he reached behind him and closed the front door very softly, then nodded me toward the living room.

  “Okay, Puss. In there. Get going.” The pistol moved closer.

  “What have you done with Maggie?” He didn’t say anything. Pistol or no pistol I ran into the living room.

  Maggie was lying on the couch. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing heavily. I knelt down beside her and gently felt the back of her head. She moaned softly as I touched the bump that was forming. I whirled around. He was standing in the door across the room, watching, smiling.

  “By God, if you’ve…”

  “Just what will you do, Timmy?” It gave me gooseflesh to hear him call me Timmy now. It was futile to threaten him. I was helpless. I knew it and he knew it. The whiskey decanter was on the table by the couch. I poured some into a glass and forced a few drops between Maggie’s lips. She coughed and rolled her face away from me. I began to rub her wrists. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but whatever it was—and I had to do something—I didn’t want Maggie unconscious when I did it. But what? Oh, I knew what you were supposed to do in these scenes. You kept the murderer talking and then somebody came in and killed him and then the curtain came down and you had your bows and then you took your makeup off and went over to Sardi’s. Well, it looked like the curtain was going to come down, all right, but I was going to be in no condition to take any bows. Keep him talking. For what? Who was going to come?