He grabbed the stake and mallet, thrusting them toward me. “Don't let me die locked up, cowering from the daylight, while I'm laughed at and scorned.” His desperate eyes searched mine for his salvation. “Give me my freedom, Alice. End my suffering."
I pulled him close, feeling him tremble against me. “I want to help you, Eduardo. I do."
Police sirens suddenly screamed outside, causing him to pull away and prick up his ears. He climbed onto the long table, lying faceup, and tore open his shirt to bare his chest. When he placed my hand over his heart, I could feel its rapid beating. His pleading eyes were locked on mine, holding me transfixed, the way he'd held me so many nights on the dance floor, giving me the comfort I'd needed, reigniting the flame inside me that had nearly sputtered out.
"Do you love me, Alice?"
"More than anything."
"Then do this for me. I beg you."
Tires squealed as police vehicles turned into the narrow alley. The sound of their sirens pounded against the close walls. Eduardo pressed the tools into my hands and blew out the candle. I heard Jack Riordan's voice calling my name, police boots thundering down the steps, the rustle of bulletproof vests as guns were raised and aimed into the darkness. Flashlights illuminated the room, searching wildly.
Eduardo closed his eyes. “Quickly, Alice. Do it now."
I touched his face, kissed him on the lips. Then, in no more time than it takes to draw a breath, or lose one's mind, I drove the stake deep into his heart with a single blow. In that terrible moment, Eduardo's insanity became my own. A brief but hideous scream erupted from him, filling the room, filling my head, shattering what was left of the fragile structure of my self that I'd always thought was so strong and indestructible.
I hear it still, all these years later. It echoes through my waking dreams, along with the bittersweet strains of the bandoneon and the cries and curses of the other mental patients around me that punctuate my long and sleepless nights, as I pray for rest.
Copyright © 2009 John Morgan Wilson
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Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen
While quite a few police officers have written mystery fiction, real-life private eyes turned authors are somewhat rarer. The most famous, of course, was Dashiell Hammett, who drew on his experiences as a Pinkerton operative for many of his 1920s pulp stories and later novels. Allan Pinkerton's own 19th-century books were ghost-written and ostensibly nonfiction. Some contemporary fiction-writing P.I.s include Jerry Kennealy, Parnell Hall, and the first two writers considered in our round-up of historical mysteries.
**** Joe Gores: Spade & Archer, Knopf, $24. It was inevitable someone would do a prequel to Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, so be glad it's Gores, the best possible candidate for the job. He is a master of Hammett's purely objective narrative style, and even if you don't automatically picture Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco private eye Sam Spade, you will by the top of page 8. The episodic novel describes connected cases from 1921, 1925, and 1928, provides the back story for Spade's relationship with his short-lived partner, not to mention his partner's wife, and ends with Brigid O'Shaughnessy in the outer office and Sam telling Effie Perine, “Shoo her in.” A masterful job of plotting, writing, and extrapolation.
*** Dick Stodghill: The Case Files of Crimestopper Jack Eddy, volume 2, JLT-Charatan, $15.95. Jack Eddy, who runs the Akron office of a large detective agency much like Pinkerton's, is enough of a publicity hound to use newspaper crime reporter Bram Geary as a sometimes reluctant Watson. Sports historian and World War II combat memoirist Stodghill has done both their jobs in his time, and brings a wealth of bittersweet Depression-era detail to these eight stories, all from AHMM between 1994 and 2008. His special technique is to take a dramatic sit-uation (using colorful titles like “Nightmare on North Hill,” “The Phantom of Johnnycake Lock,” and “Panic on Portage Path") and undercut it with a dose of mundane reality. Cultural references from 1937 and ‘38 (how many remember Kenny Baker, the Hupmobile, Lifebuoy, Don Budge, and Ernie Pyle?) are liberally provided by one who was there.
**** Margaret Lawrence: Roanoke, Delacorte, $24. The Edgar-nominated author whose Hannah Trevor series established her as one of the best American historical practitioners here turns to espionage and adventure in Elizabethan England and colonial America of the late 1500s. Gabriel North, who foiled one of several assassination attempts on the queen by supporters of her sister Mary, Queen of Scots, travels to the New World, where he falls in love with a Native American queen and becomes a puzzle piece in an enduring mystery: What happened to the vanished English settlers on Roanoke Island? Lawrence provides a possible solution plus a valuable author's note separating fact from fiction.
*** Jason Goodwin: The Bellini Card, Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $25.00. In 1840 Istanbul, the new young sultan expresses to his on-call detective, the eunuch Yashim, his wish to acquire a portrait of ancestor Mehmet the Conqueror by the great Bellini which is rumored to have turned up in Venice. While Yashim's friend Palewski, ambassador from a currently nonexistent Poland, does not narrate the case, Yashim employs him as Watson in a familiar way, dispatching him in his place to the city of canals, gondolas, and a series of murders. The historical detail and eloquent prose suggest why the first novel in the series, The Janissary Tree (2006), won an Edgar for best novel.
*** Michael Jecks: The King of Thieves, Headline/Trafalgar, $24.95. In 1325, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and Simon Puttock are sent to France as guards for King Edward II's son, a precocious (by present-day standards) pre-teen, charged with saving his father the embarrassment of paying homage to France's King Charles IV. This is a typical entry in a reliable series: complicated, well-populated, written with cross-cutting gusto, and accompanied by scholarly extras: glossary, cast list, author's note, and map.
*** P. C. Doherty: A Haunt of Murder, Minotaur, $24.95. As Chaucer's pilgrims continue toward Canterbury, they pause in an eerie Kentish copse to hear the Clerk of Oxford's tale, both whodunit and ghost story, beginning on May Day 1381 and centered on Ravenscroft Castle, site of the haunted Midnight Tower. The sixth in this inventive series is most unusual, effectively written, and appropriately creepy. (Doherty's characters continue to murmur and hiss a lot.)
** Alice Duncan: Angel's Flight, Five Star, $25.99. In 1926—the news of Rudolph Valentino's death pinpoints the year—Mercy Allcutt, unworldly but ambitious secretary to Los Angeles private eye Ernie Templeton, launches her own investigation into a pair of phony spiritualists while avoiding her proper Bostonian mother, in town for the apparent purpose of making her daughters’ lives miserable. Slang, attitudes, and manners are appropriate to the period, but the pad-ding and repetition are excessive even by present-day standards. Humor is the saving grace.
** L. Ron Hubbard: Cargo of Coffins, Galaxy, $9.99. This novella by the pulp master is not technically a historical, since it was contemporary when published in a 1937 issue of Argosy. Lars Marlin, recently escaped from Devil's Island, encounters the man who framed him for smuggling, the charming and devious Paco Corvino, now playing steward to a party of rich twits on a luxury yacht. When the yacht's captain is murdered, Lars takes the job, while wondering what Paco is up to and how he can get his revenge. Not Hubbard's best—the surprise twist is lifted from O. Henry—but typically lively, vividly written, and action-packed.
(Like other titles in this series, it's available at the same price in either an illustrated book version or a fully-cast audio reading.)
Fans of Golden Age-style detection and radio drama will want to seek out the second volume of Hilary Caine Mysteries (Jim French Productions, $12.95), two new cases, one a clever locked room puzzle, for M. J. Elliott's 1930s British amateur detective. The following will test your tolerance for a character some may find more irritating than charming: complaining about the inconsistencies in King Kong, Hilary wonders how Edgar Wallace could have his name connected to it. Reminded that Edgar Wallace is dead, she remarks, “He's cert
ainly kept that quiet."
Copyright © 2009 Jon L. Breen
ELLERY QUEEN
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Fiction: THE MAD HATTER'S RIDDLE by Dale C. Andrews
Dale Andrews returns this month with his second Ellery Queen pastiche. His first, “The Book Case,” which he co-authored with Kurt Sercu, was published in our Department of First Stories in May, 2007, won second place in the Readers Award competi-tion for that year, and was nominated for the 2008 Barry Award for Best Short Story. Mr. Andrews describes himself as a “recovering attorney,” having recently retired from the United States Department of Transportation, where he was Deputy Assistant General Counsel.
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Art by Laurie Harden
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"But I don't want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that,” said the Cat; “we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?” said Alice.
"You must be,” said the Cat, “or you would not have come here."
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
"It is a well known fact that anyone exposed to Hollywood longer than six weeks goes suddenly and incurably mad."
Ellery Queen, The Four of Hearts
Hollywood, California, September 21, 1975
NBC Neither King nor Queen on Thursdays
by Paula Paris
The latest Nielsens confirm a continuing slide in NBC's Thursday-night ratings. Particularly troubling to the Peacock brass are the numbers for the Ellery Queen skein anchoring the 9:00 hour. While the Queen pilot played well last spring, the weekly outings debuted middle of the pack in September and have been sliding a bit deeper every week. The detective opus, presented as a throwback set in the late 1940s, met with good reviews but is still searching for an audience.
Now Universal reports that the series is about to get a jolt of some nostalgia caffeine. In a planned up-coming episode, based on an actual Queenshort story, “The Mad Tea Party,” Hollywood legends Bonnie Stuart and Ty Royle have been cast in leading roles. This will be the first time intwenty-five years that the once-married duo has appeared at all, let alone together. Bonnie, an inveterate recluse, rarely leaves her mountainretreat. And Ty, somewhat of a hermithimself, swore years ago, after severalnotably uneven productions, that he would rather die than return to acting.
"The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party,” originally written by Ellery Queen in 1934 and derived from the work of Lewis Carroll, is one of the author's most popular stories. What a vehicle to reunite these fabled stars of yesteryear!
Upon later reflection, Ellery Queen would think of 1975 as a transitional year. The national disruption of Watergate had receded; Viet Nam, with the fall of Saigon, was unalterably behind us. Rex Stout, P.G. Wodehouse, and Thornton Wilder would leave us behind forever. And in a year of changes, the twentieth century, three-quarters through, would pause for a quick breath as it prepared for the final twenty-five-year dash to the millennium.
But such historical ruminations were for later. On a Thursday morning in early October, Mr. Queen was grappling with more fundamental concerns. The cross-country flight west to Los Angeles had been bumpy, particularly over the Rockies, and he had been bone-weary when the cab deposited him at a Beverly Hills address, where someone from Universal Studios (and Ellery could not even remember who) had shouldered his bag and showed him to the room where he had finally stumbled into bed. But his sleep had been fitful, and by morning he still found himself more than a little disoriented in time, thick of tongue, and feeling every bit of his seventy years. Mr. Queen lamented the loss of the leisurely cross-country Pullman trips of yore and grumbled, not for the first time, how flying so unforgivably takes the travel out of travel.
It was the smell of coffee, and the promise of its alchemy, that finally drew Ellery out of his room and down the long hall to the kitchen. A slender figure looked up from the table as Ellery entered. Recognition dawned, but slowly. As Hollywood had changed since the nineteen thirties, so too had Jacques Butcher, who now bore little resemblance to the young producer who, thirty-five years before, had been the boy wonder of Magna Studios. While still lithe, Butcher, attired in jeans and a Western shirt, now sported a shock of snow-white hair and a cracked and ruddy complexion that bore witness to decades of the relentless California sun. Ellery offered his hand, but was instead engulfed in a bear hug.
"The Boy Wonder!” Ellery smiled, pushing himself back to at least arm's length. “Hollywood is still treating you well, Jack."
Butcher snorted. “Hollywood has nothing to do with it. I've been shed of this town since Magna Studios got swallowed in the takeover bid and I retreated to my grape arbors.” Jacques Butcher appraised Ellery. “And you, El, are also looking fit. Still writing those convoluted whodunits?"
"No. I gave up writing detective stories about four years ago. I still edit the magazine. I guess it's my vineyard."
"And the inspector?"
"Dad's fine. He wanted to be here for the filming, but I had to put my foot down. He's far too frail for coast-to-coast jumps. He's still grousing over the fact that in the series David Wayne is playing him without a moustache.” The Boy Wonder smiled as Ellery continued, “So filming the ‘Mad Tea Party’ episode is what finally dragged you back to a studio?"
"Yeah, but it's temporary. The episode has to be ready to air in six weeks, and that's the limit of my contract and my attention span. When it's a wrap I'm headed back to the hills. The producers twisted my arm when they had the brainstorm of casting Ty and Bonnie as Spencer and Laura Lockridge in the episode. They said they needed me on board if they had any hope of roping in those two characters, and they kept hounding me until I caved. I have to say, they also tempted me by promising that you would be on board as a consultant for the episode. That sort of clinched it for me.” Butcher's smile cracked his leather face into a thousand lines. “We had some great fun last time around, didn't we?"
"That we did.” Ellery smiled back. “But this time let's go a little easier on the cognac.” Turning serious, Ellery continued, “The Ty and Bonnie deal surprised me. The Spencer Lockridge part is a pretty small role for him."
Butcher grimaced. “I'm afraid Ty's part can't be small enough. Not to put too fine a point on it, Ty's deep into the bottle. Remember lines? He's lucky to remember where he is. He retired from pictures only when he became unemployable. Those last films, particularly that beach-blanket vampire thing, were embarrassments. After those, he sulked off to his Arizona ranch."
Ellery's pain was visible. “And Bonnie?"
Jacques Butcher brightened. “Bonnie's great; always has been, always will be."
"Still carrying a torch, Jack?"
"What? After thirty-five years? Anyway, she's a pillar of strength. It showed in every part she ever played. Bonnie turned her back on Hollywood at the top of her game, and she left her public clamoring for more. Basically, Bonnie can do anything that she sets her mind to. Hell, she's the only reason the marriage to Ty lasted ten years. So once she settled into her hermit phase she reinvented herself as an investment manager. She resisted all overtures for a comeback, but that didn't stop NBC. The ratings for any show that manages to reunite those two will go through the roof. That's the challenge that Universal dropped into my lap."
"A tall order even for the Boy Wonder,” Ellery chided.
"Too tall. You know what they say, wolves hunt in packs. So this had to be a team effort. I was in on the hunt, but so was Rand Canyon. You would have been, too, if you had been out here two weeks earlier."
Ellery raised an eyebrow. “Who is Rand Canyon, and why is it that people with names like that always seem to end up in this crazy town?"
"Actually,” Butcher replied, “the people usually precede the names. ‘Starring Archibald Leach, Leroy Scherer, and Doris Von Kappelhoff’ doesn't ring like ‘starring Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, and Doris Day.’ And Rand Canyon sounds a hell of a lot better on a playbil
l than Beryl Snatt, which is how Momma Snatt originally sent her little boy off into the world. When Rand hit Hollywood in the nineteen forties he picked a name to fit his craggy aspirations, even though the aspirations proved to be a bit north of the reality. Rand landed some ‘best buddy’ parts in a couple of horse-opera serials, but that was it. Lucky for him, though, he hit it big in real estate. Before he retired he spent decades moving property between rising and falling stars with enviable finesse. And now he helps Bonnie manage her property. Lives up there at her estate, too, although my understanding is that they are completely platonic. As I said, Rand's forte has always been the ‘best buddy.’”
"So were the two of you also tasked with securing Ty's agreement?” Ellery asked.
Butcher snorted and shook his head. “No, Ty and I lost track of each other years ago, and Rand and he never saw eye-to-eye. Luckily for us, once Bonnie was on board, Ty fell into place like a domino. As I said, he left Hollywood much more reluctantly than she did. But even at that it was damned difficult getting them all here and under one roof."
Ellery raised an eyebrow. “So Bonnie and Ty are staying here also? Universal sent me an address to give to the cabbie but nothing else."
Jacques Butcher smiled back. “Yep, we've got a full house here. Ty and Bonnie had all sorts of demands that would have made more sense in the forties than in the seventies. The house is part of that. They originally wanted bungalows on the Universal lot. We explained that there's nothing like that on Hollywood lots anymore. Bonnie's ensemble wouldn't have fit in a bungalow anyway. So we scouted around and Rand eventually suggested this place. It's for sale, Rand knows the realtor, and it's huge. Plus it's furnished—the owner removed the personal items, wall hangings and bric-a-brac stuff, but the furniture was left to help the place look good to prospects. We put Ty in the smaller wing, Bonnie and her folks are in the larger one. Universal agreed to rent the place for six weeks, and there was plenty of extra room for Rand and me to bunk here as well. And that's why you're here and not at the Beverly Wilshire."
EQMM, September-October 2009 Page 14