Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter

by Tinsley, Theodore A.

“Oh!” She sounded puzzled. “I’ve got it all written out. I’ll read it to you. Can you print it tomorrow?”

  The columnist’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s hear the story.”

  She read off the statement in a stilted tone: “What well-known Broadway comedian is in a tough spot if he doesn’t listen to reason? His first name is Harry but according to the wise gossip his last name is mud.”

  “Who’s the victim?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Sure, I can guess—but I don’t print guesses; I print facts, darling. What’s the dirt on Harry? And what’s his last name?”

  “You’re a wise guy,” said the thin voice in the instrument. “Find out yourself. I’m handing you a hot tip. Does that make you mad?”

  “It makes me curious. Just for the fun of it—where do you check in on this thing?”

  “I don’t,” said the voice. “I check out.”

  The line clicked and Jerry swore softly. A frown gathered on his forehead. He kept the receiver against his ear. Garbo came back.

  “All through, Jerry?”

  “I am not! Listen, honeyball. I want that call traced. If there’s any trouble getting the info, tell McCurdy to put it up to the main squeeze in the front office. I want a name and an address, get me? Buzz me when it’s ready.”

  “I’ll do that little thing. So long, Gable!”

  He grinned at the unseen carrot-top. “Nerts to you, Garbo!” he said and cradled the receiver.

  He got up, lit a butt and walked to the window. He stood there staring down at the helter-skelter of Times Square; at the hats and overcoats shoving north and south like twin currents, boiling into eddies at the crossing. A man with an unwieldy white parcel dodged a truck and dived for the sidewalk—like an ant dragging a captured bread-crumb. Ants. Tracy thought moodily. Out in swarms to beg a dime or chisel a dollar; out to sell a business or see a show or pick up a lady-ant.

  The columnist wondered what new kind of jam Harry Wexler was in. The dame on the phone was right about one thing—Tracy didn’t have to guess much about the victim’s identity. Poor Harry Wexler was a soft mark for anything under twenty-two, with a blonde transformation and syrup eyes. Tracy liked Harry a hell of a lot. What a genius of a comic the guy was! A natural zany. And no baggy pants or funny hats—all in his eyes and the play of his expressive hands and that rolly-bolly voice of his.

  Blackmail, was Tracy’s guess. Someone had the hooks into Harry Wexler and was trying to use the Planet’s gossip column to scare him.

  After a while Garbo reported and Tracy made a notation on a scrap of paper. He sat staring at the scrawl: “Muriel Slade, 902 East 54th Street, 1208.” The name didn’t mean a thing to him. He didn’t worry much about it. He’d attend to that part later.

  He was thinking right now of the Ball and Chain. The Ball and Chain was out in Hollywood, on the Metwyn lot—thank God for that! One more mess like Harry’s last escapade and two damned good troupers would be washed up for keeps. A rotten shame if it ever happened!

  He shoved the scrap of paper into his pocket, put on his hat and the tan overcoat and went outside. Butch said: “Okey, Boss,” in an eager voice and reached for his derby. He moved like a big dog being taken out of his kennel for a run among the cowslips.

  Tracy shook his head. “Nix, Bum. Stick around. I won’t need you.”

  “Okey, Boss.” His eyes looked sorrowful, hurt.

  “I’ll be back later on. Are ya listenin’?”

  “Sure.”

  “Look out for gas inspectors and exterminators with little leather satchels. They might be jewel thieves—see what I mean?”

  “Okey, Boss. I’ll make ’em show their badges.”

  “Attaboy, Butch!”

  Tracy walked out as sober as a judge.

  The very English man-servant with the graying mutton-chops, the correct waistcoat and the decorous and subdued little cough that he had developed in the service of the late Duke of Albermarle, opened the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Tracy. Is Mr. Wexler h’expecting you, sir?”

  “Hello, Bum.” He tossed the servitor his coat and hat. “Is the Marster in bed yet?”

  “H’I—er—h’expect so, sir.”

  “So did I.” He raised his voice in a stentorian yelp. “Hey, Harry! Crawl out, Bum, and take a bow!”

  From the closed bedroom a muffled voice replied thickly: “Hi, Jerry! That you?”

  Bare feet padded to the door and Harry Wexler’s tousled head peered out. “What the hell’s the idea? The house on fire?”

  He looked like the comedy husband in a black-out sketch. His graying hair was a rumpled bird’s-nest; the comic door-knob eyes were red-rimmed and sleepy. He wore Russian Cossack pajamas with a black sash and an embroidered double-eagle on the pocket. He caught Jerry’s amused grin and went instantly into an effortless pantomime, with the doorway framing him like a proscenium arch.

  “Clowning,” Tracy thought. “Harry would clown in his own casket, the little mug!”

  Wexler cocked a bleared eye at the polite man-servant. He made gestures of dismissal.

  “Okey, Cornwallis. Whaddye standin’ there for? Mix us up a couple of factory whistles.”

  “That’s out!” Tracy snapped. “Get him a glass of water and an aspirin.”

  The servant looked wooden and departed.

  Wexler said: “Wait a second, Jerry,” and reappeared in a moment with a futuristic bed-quilt draped about him. He padded into the living-room with the quilt trailing behind him like a bishop’s train. He flopped into a wide chair, swathed himself like a mummy and lit a cigarette with a shaky hand.

  He grumbled: “What’s new, you hellion?”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” Tracy replied easily. “What’s new, yourself?”

  “Haven’t got a thing for you, kid. We throw it down the incinerator as fast as it collects. If you hurry you might catch the wagon.”

  The butler came in with a glass of water and a folded dressing-gown. Wexler said, irritably: “Go ’way, Burgoyne, and surrender somewhere,” but he took the two aspirins and washed them down with a grimace.

  Tracy said: “Know any women, Harry?”

  The quilt slid away from the comedian’s shoulders and he made no effort to pull it back. His mouth quivered at the corners.

  “Cut out the kiddin’, Jerry. I’m jumpy.”

  Looking keenly at him the newspaper man saw that worry and not booze had rimmed Harry’s eyes with red. Worry was making the bare toes curl on the rug. Behind the expressive face of the comedian apprehension was running riot. It made him appear oddly juvenile, appealing. He looked like a small boy with painted wrinkles and a gray wig—a small boy on the way to the woodshed and scared stiff.

  “Whaddye mean, women?” he blustered.

  Tracy got up and walked over to his friend. He pressed the nose and chin together with his thumb and forefinger. Then he sat down again.

  He said, with a faint smile: “I thought I’d drop in and cut your throat, Harry.”

  “Thanks, pal, thanks,” Wexler grinned.

  The tension went out of the comedian’s eyes. It was as though, under the surface of their talk, they had just sworn fealty to each other. Or rather, renewed it—because on Broadway, when you talked about Jerry Tracy and Harry Wexler, you held up two parallel fingers and said: “Just like that!”

  “Who’s this Muriel Slade child?” Tracy asked him.

  The round eyes bulged. “Oh. Lord!” he groaned. “Is it in print? Is it out on the street already?”

  “East 54th Street. Apartment Twelve O Eight.”

  “Jerry, it’s a frame! I can talk about it to you—we know each other. She wants ten grand. But I’m paying it—I promised her. I told the little rat I’d pay!”

  “Yeah? Figure this, Harry—she called up the column this morning. She thought I’d print a squib and scare the hell out of you so you’d hurry the check along. That’s what brought me over. What’s she like?”


  Wexler grinned foolishly. “You know, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I know. Blonde, shy, nice eyes and an outcurve like Lefty Gomez throws. What happened?”

  “Not a thing, Jerry. I’ve been on the absolute up-and-up ever since—”

  He was silent and they both thought of the same thing: the Ball and Chain. The greatest old character actress in shoe leather. The amply built mother of the seven little Wexlers. Out on the Metwyn lot in Hollywood, making the callous electricians and prop men invent excuses to sneak around the set and watch her sure-fire art in “Gum Drop Sadie.” A grand old trouper, the lighthouse in the gray-haired comic’s existence. A year ago she had blown up plenty. Tracy was the only outsider present when they patched things up. He had seen the tears in both their eyes. Gray-haired and pathetic children, both of them. He had heard the ultimatum.

  Tracy said tonelessly: “What’s the plot? The blonde trying to queer you with the Ball and Chain? One of those pay or ‘else’ things?”

  Wexler nodded miserably.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I dunno. Believe it or not—laugh if you want to, Jerry—you remember what I promised? Well, I kept my word and I’m still straight.”

  The comedian clenched his two fists and stood up in his rumpled Cossack suit. There was dignity and sincerity in his shaking voice.

  “Before —— Jerry, it’s a frame.”

  “All right, kid. That makes it more pleasant for me. How did the blonde twist work the scheme?”

  “I met her in a speake. Somebody or other introduced her. … ——! what a sap I’ve been! I don’t mean no harm—I can’t keep away from ’em. The Ball and Chain knows what I’m up against. I got used to it when I worked for poor Ziggy. … I like to listen to the baby voices, watch their eyelashes, have ’em sway close and tell me what a grand comic I am. You get used to it, to their vampy ways and their perfume. It’s like incense, Jerry. I—I can’t explain, I guess.”

  “Go ahead. Stick to the plot.”

  “Well, we were kidding about that damned English butler of mine. I’ve been using him a lot for radio gags on my Cocoa Hour.”

  “Air-Tight Cocoa,” Tracy said dryly. “Brought to you in sealed tins by fast airplane from the certified cocoa tree. Every tree dated or your money back. … Talk blackmail; I haven’t got all morning, Harry.”

  “So I took her home. We both wanted a decent drink.”

  “Whose home?”

  “Here.”

  “You—dope!”

  The comedian looked foolish. “Don’t I know it! She ribbed me up that she wanted a drink of the McCoy mixed by a real English butler. And the next day she called up and said ten grand.”

  “Why did she say ten grand?”

  “Because the slick little blonde —— went into the bedroom to primp up before she left, and she walked out with the Ball and Chain’s diamond earrings. Took ’em out of the bureau. Proof she’d been nice to me, see? She’s got ’em, all right I looked and they’re gone.” Jerry grinned sarcastically. “Doesn’t that put little Muriel Slade in a tough spot? I mean you could send her to jail for theft.”

  The comedian swore in a high-pitched voice.

  “Don’t kid, Jerry! What the hell do I care about jail? She’s got me, don’t you see? The old lady wouldn’t listen to me or you—she’d look at the earrings and she’d know where they came from and she’d—”

  His head dropped into his hands.

  “Jerry, if the old Ball and Chain gets hep and quits on me, I might just as well walk down the nearest sewer-hole and die. I’d be washed up—drowned.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. You couldn’t, Jerry. We grew up in the same tenement in Rivington Street. She married me when I didn’t have a dime. We worked hard; batted all over the country in old-fashioned tank-town vaudeville. Got any idea what I’m talking about? You couldn’t know—you weren’t born.

  “We usta lay in bed in some lousy hick hotel and talk quiet together in the dark about how we’d build up the act. You could hear the switch-engine snorting over by the freight depot. The wife always fell asleep first, and then I’d lean over and kiss her easy so’s not to wake her, and I’d whisper in her ear: ‘Sarah, old kid, you’re the best —— —— little trouper in the world!’ She gave me seven kids, Jerry. … That’s my Ball and Chain.”

  He made a harsh, jerky noise in his throat. Tracy looked away, fiddled with his cigarette case, lit a butt and laid the burned match carefully in a tray.

  “I think I’ll go over and say hello to Muriel,” he said in a brief, manicured voice.

  “I’ll pay her the ten grand. Make her see that, Jerry! Tell her I won’t make trouble—she’ll get the dough. Only for ——’s sake, get those earrings!”

  “I’ll say hello to her, anyway,” Tracy muttered.

  He walked out to the foyer. Wexler followed him in his bare feet. Tracy took his hat and coat from the stolid butler.

  Wexler’s voice sounded fuzzy. “We don’t have to talk, Jerry. This is friendship.”

  “We don’t have to talk,” Jerry agreed.

  He leaned suddenly and slapped the comedian briskly with a flat smack of his palm.

  “Go on back to bed, dope, before you catch cold!”

  He said to the butler: “The king, God bless him!” replaced the derby he had lifted reverently from his head, and went out.

  The man behind the desk said: “Who did you say sir?”

  “The name is Wexler,” Tracy smiled. “Tell her it’s Mr. Wexler, on business.”

  “Thank you,” he said with more interest.

  He spoke into the phone, glanced side-wise for a dubious second, and said: “Just Mr. Wexler, ma’am. No; no one else. … Very well.”

  He hung up with a brisk click. “Twelve O Eight.”

  “Thanks. I know.” Tracy smiled dimly and slouched into the elevator. Wexler seemed to be welcome so long as he came alone. The little lady upstairs must be worried. A friend with Wexler might be a private cop, a cop with a warrant, a strong-arm thug—anything. Tracy’s smile widened. Uncertainty upstairs didn’t make him mad.

  When the door of the suite opened he shoved hard and walked in.

  She was a little taller than he had pictured—closer to show-girl than pony. An orchid child in a lovely negligée with wide sleeves and a loose sport-collar effect at the throat that hinted, rather than disclosed, the creamy cleft of her bosom. Her eyes were unblinking and steady but her hand flew tremulously to her mouth.

  “All in the spirit of clean fun, sister,” he said. “Just a prank. I wanted to see you. The name is Tracy.”

  He folded his coat on the back of a chair and crowned it with his hat.

  She said, carefully: “Tracy? You don’t mean Mr. Jerry Tracy by any chance?”

  “None other, child. Just a good egg with a nose for news. Call me Jerry and I’ll love it.”

  “Why did you lie your way in here, Mr. Tracy?” Very upstage. Very regal.

  “Scandal items, beautiful. I print ’em before they happen. You’ve got something on Harry Wexler. You called me up—remember? I want to run that squib you telephoned in—but I can’t print it unless I know exactly why Harry’s got the arrow in his back.”

  “Aren’t you a friend of his?”

  He gave her the musical note. “I’m a friend of the circulation manager of the Daily Planet. Catch wise?” The mirth went out of his eyes. They were level, boring. “There’s a brain behind that lovely pan of yours, or I’m all wrong. Listen—if you’ve got a juicy item for my column, Harry Wexler’s out of luck. Or anybody else.”

  She digested that for a while. Her eyes stayed on his. “Will you run the item in tomorrow’s paper—I mean if I explain to you about the arrow? It’s in his back, all right.” She laughed shortly. “Up to the feather!”

  “Then the blue-print reads as follows—or am I wet? You get dough, lovely; the column gets the squib; the customers get a dirty laugh—and the roof f
alls in on Harry Wexler if he don’t give. Am I right?”

  “That’s the scenario, boy friend. And if you have any idea of double-crossing us—”

  “Us, sweetheart?”

  “Me and Frankie Stork.” She stared at him with hard eyes.

  “Frankie Stork?” He whistled softly.

  “Yeah. Frankie Stork. He’s the partner—I thought you might like to know.”

  Tracy swallowed a moment. He said, faintly: “Now I’ll tell one.”

  She groped down the front of her negligée, fished out a locket, snapped it open, held it below his eyes. He looked at the tiny photo. At the glossy hair, pinched nose; the sallow face with the skin taut over the cheekbones like the covering on a drum. Frankie Stork, all right! Even in this tiny replica of the gunman’s face the eyes showed the flick of killer’s insolence, the assassin’s smile.

  She snapped the locket shut and Tracy said: “Nice picture.”

  “Nice guy, too. … All right, now, listen!”

  About what he had figured, it turned out. The Ball and Chain was the threat to pry the dough out of Harry Wexler. Actually, it would never get that far—Harry would squeal at the thought and disgorge. The tip in the column was to show him that they meant business.

  Tracy nodded to the girl with the creamy skin, the candid throat and the hard eyes.

  “It sounds negotiable, Muriel.”

  “How about tomorrow morning for the squib?”

  He looked innocent and thought fast. Today was Friday.

  “Capital N—. Capital O. No.”

  “Why not?” Like a machine-gun.

  “Libel laws, darling. Do you think the Planet prints everything I toss carelessly over my shoulder? Come, come. You know better than that. My columns get looked at by a brace of high-priced Planet lawyers before the customers stand in line with their two cents. It takes time, darling, and I write ’em ahead. Tomorrow’s is locked, sealed and delivered. How about Monday?”

  “No later.”

  “Then it’s settled. Goody, goody. Shake?”

  He grinned as he squeezed her hand The predatory glance he gave her was subtle with flattery. She smiled back and allowed him to retain the hand.

  “Care for a drink?”

  “No hurry, beautiful.”