Strip for Murder

by Max Allan Collins

  She was shaking her head slowly and firmly. “No. It wasn’t that way. Hal was with me—he didn’t leave that suite, not for even one second.”

  She was convincing; of course, Misty and Hal had had plenty of time last night, and today, to get their stories straight.

  Standing, she said, “You mind if I get myself some more wine?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “You need that Coke freshened?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t gone long; she curled up under herself next to me and sipped wine and appeared far more casual than was humanly possible in her situation.

  I said, “A couple other things I need to ask you about.”

  “All right.”

  “What was Sam’s working relationship like with Murray Coe?”

  She shrugged. “It was friendly. Sam valued the little guy, and paid him well.”

  “So you don’t think Murray would make a good suspect in the murder?”

  “No.” She laughed; she might have been just a touch tipsy. “Are you kidding? Sam was his meal ticket. And, you know, they really did get along, those two. Murray looks up to Sam. Looked up.”

  I didn’t mention that any affection Sam had for his trusted, valued assistant might have faded had the cartoonist learned that Murray was also working for Rapp.

  “Misty, can you think of anybody beside Rapp who might hate Sam enough to kill him? Or who would have some other kind of motive, financial or otherwise?”

  “Not really,” she said, shaking her head. She sipped at her wine, then shrugged. “Some people liked Sam, others didn’t—he was a blowhard, and conceited, although secretly he felt inferior. Many was the night I held that big slob in my arms and soothed him, patted him like a damn baby. . . . Well. That was more than I meant to share!”

  “What about these gamblers he owed money to?”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve heard about Sam’s gambling, but it’s all new to me. He never was a gambler to speak of, while we were married—far too cheap for that. But I heard from mutual friends that lately he was betting on prizefights and horse races, and even his weekly poker party got out of hand— high-roller stakes, not penny ante.”

  I leaned forward. “He used to bet penny ante?”

  “Oh yes. This big-money gambling is something that was never a part of Sam’s life when we lived together.”

  “When did it start, do you suppose?”

  A funny little half smile formed on the full, scarlet mouth. “Well, I may be the root of this evil. . . .”

  “How so?”

  “From what I understand, Sam started this throw-caution-to-the-wind gambling not long after I left him.”

  “So you leaving him hit him hard?”

  “Apparently. The last five or six months, he wasn’t himself. Or maybe I should say he was too much himself—the feud with Hal, for instance, Sam went into high gear on that. Do you know about this campaign he started waging, against Hal and the supposed smut smuggled into Tall Paul?”

  “Yes.” I shrugged. “Of course, obviously the strip is sexy. And it seems like he might be sneaking little dirty private jokes in, here and there.”

  “Yeah!” She laughed. “All this ‘sixty-nine’ stuff. Schoolboy silliness.”

  “Right.” I shifted on the couch. “But I don’t think Hal ever really put, well, pornographic material in Tall Paul. How would it ever have got past the censors?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I asked Hal about this last night. Asked him if that was what Sam ‘had’ on him, the dirty stuff in Tall Paul”

  “And what did he say?”

  She sighed, shook her head. “Nothing, really. Just shrugged it off.”

  “Shrugged it off like it was nothing? Or like it was something, something he didn’t want to talk about?”

  “I really don’t know.” She sipped wine. “I was pretty worked up last night, worried about this divorce and Hal being named correspondent and all.”

  “Understandable. You know, Sam was threatening another plagiarism suit against Tall Paul, specifically the musical.”

  “I know!” Her smile said how ridiculous she thought this concept was. “Mel was actually pretty worried about it, though I don’t know why.”

  Mel was Mel Norman, the director/producer of the musical—I hoped to be talking to him soon.

  “Tall Paul is as much an American fixture now as Mug O’Malley,” I said. “You’d think twenty years later would be a little late in the game to be claiming plagiarism.”

  “You’d think.”

  I studied her, not hiding it. The conversation had turned her into a human being—not a perfect one, by any means (you know—like me). But her features seemed real now—genuinely pretty, not cartoonish; and I had to wonder if she wouldn’t have been happier staying in Bear Springs and marrying a druggist and starring in lots of community theater.

  Then she leaned over and kissed me on the mouth—a wet, warm and very promising kiss. She drew back just a little and smiled wickedly, having left about half of that lipstick on my puss.

  “Any more questions, Jack?”

  “Uh . . . I can’t think of any.”

  Maybe that Bear Springs druggist option wouldn’t have panned out, at that.

  She tilted her head and gazed at me; now I got why that war had been fought over Helen of Troy. “You will let me know, Jack, if anything comes up?”

  “You’ll be the first. Or anyway, the second.”

  She played with my hair. “You know, it’s Sunday. You’ve been working awfully hard for a Sunday. What do you have planned for this evening?”

  “Bible study class starts at seven.”

  “Does it? Here I was hoping you might take me out to eat. I know a nice little Italian place, walking distance. You wouldn’t even have to put any miles on that cute little convertible of yours.”

  “Well . . . okay. Kinda early to eat, isn’t it?”

  She unbelted the robe and leaned in and kissed me again; this lasted twice as long as before and had four times the effect—approximately. I didn’t have any wires hooked up to me or anything.

  “Maybe we’ll think of something to kill the time,” she said, and got up from the couch, slipped out of the robe, letting it puddle at her red-toenailed feet, and just stood there and let me gawk at her and her hourglass figure, which I did, believe me I did, and then she exited, theatrically, hips swaying, all that well-toned dancer’s flesh inviting me to follow her wherever she was going.

  But you know me well enough by now to know I’m not so easily manipulated. This was a woman accustomed to using men for her own selfish devices, who probably didn’t care for me as much as she did the milkman (lucky milkman) or paperboy (lucky paperboy!), and I hope you know what a man of my moral fiber would do in such a situation.

  Don’t you?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MY HUSBAND WOULD’VE KILLED HIM!

  The St. John Theatre, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, dated back to the late twenties, a typical Mainstem legiter with Moorish revival touches and a vertical sign above the marquee, which bore the familiar Tall Paul lettering right out of the Sunday funnies. Only one performer was billed above the title: Candy Cain, who played Paul’s long-unrequited love, Sunflower Sue. Under the Tall Paul logo was one more credit: PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY MEL NORMAN.

  Monday morning, around ten thirty, I ambled down the slant of a side aisle looking for Maggie. Not a hard task: the house lights were on, and a few key players and other personnel could be spotted here and there in the fifteen-hundred-plus seater.

  Down in the orchestra pit, the only musician currently in residence was banging anonymously away at a piano, as chorus girls and boys in the colorful rags of Catfish Holler residents were about midway through the Batch’ul Catch’ul Ballet against cutout backdrops of trees and cabins that were willfully reminiscent of Hal Rapp’s artwork. I’d been to rehearsals enough to know where they were, in this fun, turkey-in-
the-straw-type dance number that combined athletic balletics with sight gags right out of Buster Keaton.

  Maggie had a couple of bits in the ballet—hip-swaying nonchalantly across the stage in red gown and a fur wrap, powdering her nose or filing her nails, an unconcerned blase participant in the midst of the hillbilly hysteria of these girls-chase-boys proceedings. She and several other of the main characters, who similarly had walk-ons in the elaborate number, were sidelined while the choreographer worked out the kinks and the changes with the main dancers.

  About a third of the way down the aisle and seated center row, was Maggie, again in the low-cut fire-engine red gown identified with her character, Libidia Von Stackpole, mistress of evil capitalist Admiral Bullfrog. In the musical, Libidia has been dispatched to Catfish Holler to catch and marry Tall Paul in the yearly “nuptulizing” chase for nefarious purposes too complicated to explain in the context of a mere murder mystery.

  I settled in beside her. The piano kept tearing along on its Broadway-ized hillbilly way, and beautiful girls and beautiful boys, who didn’t care about the beautiful girls, were leaping and pinwheeling and creeping and crawling and twirling and careening and much more, while their gifted young choreographer, Richard Childe, stalked the periphery of the proceedings like a hunter with a squirrel gun, waiting for just the right shot.

  Periodically Childe would scream, “No!” or “Hell, no!” or “Jesus Christ, you people!” and other constructively critical comments, bringing the dancers and the pianist to rude standstills. He would then berate and gesticulate and demonstrate, then ambulate back to the sidelines while the dedicated kids had another try. It reminded me of boot camp with brighter colors. And girls.

  While Maggie and I chatted, this sadomasochistic exercise in modern dance continued on; we both were used to it by now. We spoke sotto voce and occasionally had to pause when Childe was yelling.

  “No orchestra yet?” I asked.

  Maggie glanced sideways at me and gave me the tiny almost smile that was her hello. “Not till Wednesday. Richard’s still fine-tuning.”

  “He’s a tough little taskmaster.”

  “He’ll win the Tony.”

  (She was right. He did.)

  “You gonna have to get up there and strut across the stage?” I asked.

  “Eventually. Why?”

  I shrugged. “Hoping we can talk awhile, and catch up. I haven’t see you since Saturday night.”

  Her red hair was piled up in its now-familiar tower; her eyes were on the stage. “Actually, that was Sunday morning.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Her hands—in the pink evening gloves—were folded in her lap. “Thought I might hear from you last night.”

  Making it sound as casual as I could, I said, “I got the chance to interview Misty Winters yesterday evening.”

  Another sideways glance, complete with a mildly arched eyebrow. “Interview?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her unblinking green eyes drilled holes in my head. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with the widow of the murder victim.”

  I looked toward the stage as if choreography suddenly fascinated me. “That’s a little personal, isn’t it?”

  “Very. Sleeping with the widow of the murder victim is about as personal as it gets.” She gave me a smile that would have curdled rattlesnake milk. “The last murder you investigated, didn’t you do the same?”

  “I mean, if you’re gonna keep score . . . Look, I talked to Rapp, too.” I looked right at her, met the unblinking green eyes with my blinking dark blue ones. “And I promise I didn’t sleep with the son of a bitch. See, that’s where I ran into Misty Winters—at Rapp’s place.”

  Another sideways look; another arched eyebrow.

  “She stayed overnight at Rapp’s,” I said, “but claims she spent it on the couch. She just flopped there exhausted—cops didn’t leave till the wee hours.”

  “Fill me in.”

  I did.

  I gave her all the new info I’d garnered from Rapp, in some depth. I have a near-photographic memory, which is how I can write these detailed case accounts down for your edification and reading pleasure, with an assurance that you’re getting the straight dope from a straight dope. That ability also allowed me to give Maggie all the detail she wanted, and she wanted it all.

  She was half turned in her seat, her arms folded across the cupping bodice of that distracting gown. “Do you think Rapp did this thing?”

  I made a face. “Stage a suicide? If he had, he’d have done it better. But I had to pry a lot of this stuff out of Hal—that Murray Coe’s been secretly assisting him, too, for example—and at first Hal tried to hide that Misty was there. In fact, she came sashaying out of the bedroom under her own steam. Hal would never have told me she was there, otherwise.”

  She was doing that magical frown of hers that didn’t wrinkle her brow. “So you figure Hal may still be holding out on us?”

  “I do. Misty, on the other hand, was more forthcoming.”

  Maggie glanced toward the stage, where Misty was among the frenzied dancers, and deadpanned, “I’ll bet she was.”

  I ignored that. I was sideways in my seat now, studying Maggie, whose facial expressions were usually about as illuminating as a mug shot of the Sphinx. This morning was no exception.

  “So,” I said, “what do you make of all this? Fizer inviting Rapp down to see him, hours before Fizer’s death—how strange is that?”

  “Strange enough.” Now she frowned so hard, one tiny line asserted itself halfway down her forehead. “And this sudden streak of high-stakes gambling—that just doesn’t seem characteristic of Sam.”

  I shrugged. “Hey, a guy who’s gaga over a gal like Misty could do any number of nutty things.”

  She arched her other eyebrow; she was ambidextrous that way. “Your expert opinion?”

  “Is my sex life troubling you? ‘Cause I know you’re real delicate where stuff like that goes, since you after all only started peeling for the raincoat crowd when you were what, fifteen?”

  She returned her gaze to the stage, where Broadway hillbillies were leaping. “Sixteen, and I have about as much interest in your sex life as I do the sex life of a hermit crab.”

  I frowned. “What is the sex of a hermit crab?”

  “You’re the detective—check it out, after you solve this murder.” She gazed at me again, or at least in my direction, her eyes narrowed. “I can’t say I’m shocked to hear what Miss Winters said about Hal hounding the girls in the Tall Paul chorus.”

  “He even put his hand on your leg, as I recall.”

  “A lot of men have . . . or have tried to, anyway.” She offered a bare-shouldered shrug. “I’ve always known Hal was a horny toad. But if he’s seduced underage girls in the cast, and Fizer had proof of that, well. . . he’s finished. Nobody would syndicate him, us included.”

  I frowned, making plenty of wrinkles. “Well, I’m gathering that Fizer really had something on Rapp. And I gotta say, Maggie, that’s what bothers me most.”

  “What is?”

  “Both Fizer and Rapp seemed dead certain that each had the other one snookered. What did Fizer have on Rapp—this sleazy sexual behavior, possibly with teenage girls? And what did Rapp have on Fizer, other than maybe a plan to kill the SOB and fake a suicide?”

  She mulled that. Then she asked, “When did you last talk to Captain Chandler?”

  “Not since Sunday. How much of this stuff should I tell him?”

  She mulled some more; up on stage, Childe was screaming and jumping up and down—I wasn’t sure if he was showing them a new step or having a tantrum.

  Finally she said, “You have no responsibility to share with Captain Chandler anything that Hal told you . . . or, for that matter, anything Misty Winters told you. He’s already interviewed them once, and he’ll undoubtedly interview them again. Let him do his job. Besides, you work for me, not him.”

  “Agreed.”

 
Her eyes locked with mine. “But do call Chandler and make one request.”

  “Which is?”

  “If they’ve already done their postmortem on Rapp, which they probably have, looking at his stomach contents, to check for that sedative-style Mickey Finn? Strongly advise our friend the captain to have the coroner’s office perform a full autopsy.”

  I cocked my head, as if I wasn’t sure I’d heard this right. “Well, they’ll autopsy him, routinely . . .”

  The green eyes flared. “I don’t want a routine autopsy—left to their own devices, Captain Chandler and the coroner will cut open Sam Fizer just enough, and in only the limited number of places, where it will benefit their take on the case. Which is to say, that Fizer was doped and murdered.”

  My expression was probably dumber than Tall Paul’s. “Well, Fizer was doped and murdered . . . wasn’t he?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  “Then why. . . ?”

  Her smile barely qualified as one. “Call it a hunch. But tell Chandler in no uncertain terms to have the coroner do a thorough job of it.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Listen, is Mel Norman around? He’s next on my interview list.”

  Mel Norman was the director, co-writer and producer of the musical; he usually stepped out of the theater whenever he turned the reins over to choreographer Childe.

  “He’s around,” Maggie confirmed. “I’m surprised you didn’t stumble over him coming through the lobby—he’s usually pacing out there, smoking, or is inside the box office using the phone to check on half a dozen Hollywood projects.”

  From the stage came Childe’s voice: “All right, Miss Starr! We need you to wiggle your lovely fanny across the stage for us!”

  She stood, smoothed the gown with her pink-gloved hands and said, “The fine arts call.”

  As I edged out of the row of seats, with her following me, I said, “You know, that gown you’re spilling out of, that’s the only thing I’ve seen you in for days and days. It makes a good costume for you. You should stick with it, like Wonder Guy and his colored long Johns, and a fireman and his hat.”