False Negative (Hard Case Crime)

by Joseph Koenig

  “We’re working together on some crime stories, but I wouldn’t call Pix my friend. We don’t have the first thing in common.”

  “Oh, you talking about Pix?” she said. “Sure I know him. All the girls do. Small, little fellow, a sissy who don’t even try and hide it. We crazy about him, and he crazy for black women... crazy to take our picture. Like to tell us we all African princesses. Funny guy.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “All the time cracking jokes. Barrel of laughs. Know how to put a girl at ease in front of the camera. Some of the girls, church girls, never been with a man, and Pix such a card they don’t cover up when he come in the dressing room, they half out of their clothes.”

  Jordan looked closely at the pictures of the girls with bats and gloves. “I knew he had a knack with ice cream and corpses, but—”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t know he was this good with beautiful women. I’ll tell him to give you the full treatment.”

  “Gonna want something in return.”

  “He isn’t going to want it from you,” Jordan said.

  Cherise laughed lasciviously. “What you got he wants, Honey?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Jordan said, “he’s looking to do a lot of work for my magazine.”

  “Your magazine?”

  “They offered the editor’s job, and I went for it.”

  “Congratulations. How can you be the editor of a magazine in New York when you’re living in Atlantic City?”

  “I can’t. I’m moving.”

  “When?”

  “Over the weekend.”

  She yanked the album away from him. “Forgot to mention it?”

  “I was going to,” Jordan said, “when I found the right time.”

  “How about after we had our clothes off, and you were laying on top of me. Had my attention then.”

  “You make it difficult—”

  “Didn’t make nothing difficult,” she said. “I remember being agreeable. Anything you were up for, I was game. You didn’t think I’d mind never seeing you again?”

  “Very difficult.”

  “Heard every riff on that tune: Baby, I meant to tell you, I’m going away for good...Sweetie, I got a wife...got kids...got a girlfriend in a family way...We were only having fun, why you being so serious...We were lucky to have each other for one night. Every damn riff, all come down to the same thing—liars out to get what you want.”

  Jordan tried to look injured, but couldn’t pull it off.

  “Didn’t suppose I’d see you down on one knee begging me to become Mrs. Jordan, or even your main squeeze. Was okay if you used me, so long as you kept on with it. Never thought you’d give me the bum’s rush before you could say Jack Robinson, not you.”

  “I’ll be back often,” Jordan said. “We’ll see plenty of each other.”

  “What you’re saying, you’ll come look up your old friends, and when you got nothing left to do, you’ll show me a nice time here in bed. My, my, my, ain’t I the lucky gal being showered in kindness by Prince Charming?”

  “You’ll visit me in New York.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I mean it. Hop on the train whenever you’re in the mood.” He reached for his wallet, but pulled his hand back. He’d hurt her enough without trying to slip her cash before running out.

  “Don’t have your number,” she said.

  “As soon as I have one, I’ll call.”

  “Ain’t holding my breath.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  She shook her head. “When it comes to white men, nothing is.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Jerry Gannon’s calling from West Hollywood with a story he says is going to shake the world,” Mary Glenny said. “Will you accept the charges?”

  Jordan picked up the phone. He signaled Mary to hang up, but she kept the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello, this is Adam Jordan.”

  “Where’s Pelfrey?” Gannon said. “I deal direct with Pelfrey.”

  “Pelfrey died,” Jordan said. “I’m the new editor.”

  “I hadn’t heard,” said Gannon, a fast talker with a mid-Atlantic drawl. “Give my condolences—”

  “What have you got?”

  “You’re not big on sentiment, are you?” Gannon said.

  “We’re talking on Mrs. Bryer’s nickel.”

  “All right. Couple days ago, the body of a blonde wearing gold earrings and nothing else was found in a cabin near Tujunga in the San Gabriel Mountains north of here. Dawn Gayle-with-a-Y Twining, 22, originally from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, was working as a cocktail waitress at the Ambassador Hotel while she tried to land a contract at one of the picture studios. She’d had a line or two in a few oaters on Poverty Row. Couldn’t act a lick, but a kisser that lit up the screen.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She’d been invited to a party in the mountains. Not much of a guest list. Just her and a man. That type of party. They got to boozing, smoking Mary Jane—”

  “How do we know?”

  “Empty Jack Daniels bottles all over the cabin.”

  “About the dope.”

  “Cops found half-smoked reefer cigarettes.”

  Jordan glanced out the window. Aside from the view (there was no view; the office looked out on the back of taller buildings) this was how he’d imagined magazine work in New York. His first week at Real Detective he was being offered a story more exciting than any he could expect to have in Atlantic City.

  “Normal sex would have been a problem for her,” Gannon said. “A physical irregularity prevented her from having intercourse with a man. The cops think the couple got stoned, and they got drunk, and when they were in the sack she wouldn’t or couldn’t screw him, and he clubbed her with his fists and a bottle of Jack.”

  “Who’s the suspect?”

  “Paul Lyle Hartnett, 33, a telephone lineman who was stringing wire near the cabin.”

  “Good detective work?”

  “None whatsoever,” Gannon said. “They had him twelve hours later.”

  “You know what Pelfrey would say,” Jordan said. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “Harnett was framed,” Gannon said. “Local cops, sheriff’s deputies, and a gal from the DA’s office told me the charges will be dropped and reinstated against the real killer. It’ll be the biggest scandal to hit Hollywood since Fatty Arbuckle.”

  “Why?” Jordan said.

  “The real killer,” Gannon said, “is Clark Gable.”

  Jordan looked at Mary Glenny, who smiled pertly.

  “The word around town,” Gannon said, “is Gable hasn’t been right since his wife was killed in that plane crash during the war. The King of Hollywood can have any woman, but he’s never found the one he liked? That add up to you? There’s rumors he’s not all man. He’s got into trouble before that’s been hushed up. MGM isn’t about to have its biggest star sent up the river without a fight. But there’s no covering up his involvement in murder. Too many people saw him at the cabin. Act fast, and you can have the exclusive.”

  “Why come to us?” Jordan said. “The glossies can pay a hundred times more than we can.”

  “They’re afraid,” Gannon said. “No one wants to go up against MGM. Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, even Reader’s Digest told me that if they break the story they’ll be dead in Hollywood. Not just at Metro, but with all the influential press agents.”

  “We don’t go to print on rumor. Our legal department wants to see the evidence.”

  “It’s not going to be a problem,” Gannon said. “But I need an advance. I’ve got witnesses to grease, and I need to spread money around the courthouse and police station for transcripts, official reports, and pictures. This isn’t a shoeshine boy getting shot down in the crossfire from zoot-suiters. It’s the most important story Real Detective will ever put into print. It doesn’t come cheap.”

  “You know we don’t give advances.” />
  “For Clark Gable you do,” Gannon said, “or I’ll go to the competition. Are you ready to be the laughingstock who passed up a scoop on the brightest star in the movies nailed in a hideous sex killing?”

  “How much do you need?”

  “Two hundred should cover it,” Gannon said. “You have an hour before I call Front Page Detective. The clock is ticking.”

  Jordan hung up, and said to Mary Glenny, “Is Gannon in his right mind?”

  “Oh, absolutely. He was a top-notch police reporter with the L.A. Examiner forever. Mr. Pelfrey couldn’t wait to get his hands on his copy. He’s fast, and very clean. He doesn’t require much editing.”

  “I mean—?”

  “Is there truth in anything he says?”

  “I mean why’s he coming to me with fiction?”

  “Jerry Gannon is a drunk, a bigamist, a degenerate horse-player. Any money left over from the track goes to shylocks and hookers. Mr. Pelfrey stopped taking his calls after he did a story on a rash of fatal bank robberies in Beverly Hills that had Shirley Temple driving the getaway car. He knows Mr. Pelfrey died. He figures he can put one over on the new editor before the new editor gets wise.”

  “If he’d said Errol Flynn, he might have had me,” Jordan said. “How many of our staffers are like that?”

  “More than there were before an outsider was brought in to run the magazines.”

  This wasn’t Atlantic City where no one ever tried to hoax the boss. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. A reporter with a shameless disregard for journalistic ethics had fobbed off an account of a speech by Congressman Theodore Garabedian at a time Garabedian’s corpse was growing cold. When you got down to it magazine journalism as practiced in New York wasn’t very different from newspapering in Atlantic City.

  Jordan felt like a fraud. On his desk was the current Real Detective with ART COPY scribbled on the cover in red crayon. He didn’t know what an art copy was, or what to do with one. Mary would tell him if he asked. But he could turn to her just so many times before she decided that he was helpless without her, and he knew where that would lead. How the hell was he going to put out four titles a month while avoiding sharks like Jerry Gannon when he didn’t know the first thing about magazines?

  That didn’t stop him from making plans. He wanted to go to press on heavier paper with thicker cover stock that would give the feel of quality publications. More photos would open the cramped layouts that had been standard since the 1930s. He was full of ideas, but Mrs. Bryer wouldn’t hear them. She had courted him aggressively. Now she avoided him. It drove him crazy that he could make the magazines better and no one cared.

  Mary poked her head in. “Manny Rothstein is here to see you,” she said. “He’s a homicide detective.”

  Jordan shook hands with a man half a head shorter than Mary, who was chatting with her like an old friend.

  “Which murder do you need to talk about?” Jordan said to him.

  Rothstein moved an unlit cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Yours.”

  “You’re ahead of yourself.”

  “Not by much,” Rothstein said. “We still don’t know who killed Pelfrey. If he’s holding a grudge against the magazine, you’re the obvious target. Is there anyone, anyone in particular, who’d want the new editor of Real Detective dead?”

  Jordan gestured toward a card file on Mary’s desk. “Take your pick.”

  “What’s this?”

  “An index of ten thousand killers,” Jordan said. “Not one was happy to see his name in print.”

  Rothstein slid open the A’s, fanned the yellowing cards. He looked around the office, and Jordan saw his gaze caught by red spatters near a ceiling fixture.

  “The investigators who worked the initial attack on Pelfrey weren’t surprised he was killed,” Rothstein said. “They warned him to keep his eyes open. My advice for you is to do the same.”

  “A lot of good it did Pelfrey,” Jordan said.

  “Let’s see how it works for you.”

  In the afternoon Jordan held interviews for managing and associate editor. The applicants were not promising. Choice talent went to the glossies. A 37-year old copy boy at the World Telegram & Sun was explaining an eight-year gap in his employment record when Mary called Jordan away. “Sam Orr’s on the line from Virginia Beach.”

  “Who’s Sam Orr?”

  “Our man in the Tidewater. He’s got a story he promises is going to set you back on your heels.”

  “Like Jerry Gannon’s?”

  “Sam’s one hundred percent trustworthy. He’s just—you’ll find out.”

  Jordan took the call at Mary’s desk. Orr said, “Hello, you the new fellow? I’m Sam...” A coastal twang thickened by an early cocktail hour made it hard for Jordan to understand him.

  “Best damn case ever,” he seemed to be saying, “and I was writing for dick books when Pelfrey was a pup.”

  Jordan said, “I’ve got someone waiting—”

  “Don’t rush me, you’ll confound the facts. Ever try the banana puddin’ at Mackie’s by the shore? Hardly lived till you had it after a plate of single-fried oysters.”

  Jordan watched the 37-year old copy boy pick up several magazines and study the girls on the cover. “What about the murder?”

  “Get this: Friday night, after the kitchen shut down, and the staff was sent home, fellow put an ice pick in the owner’s ear, and scooted out of Mackie’s with close to six hundred dollars.”

  “Hell of a way to do a robbery,” Jordan said.

  “Gonna let me tell it?” Orr said. “Or tryin’ to improve it before I even set it down in black and white.”

  “Go ahead,” Jordan said.

  “Thank you. Mackie Parsons crawled outside onto the sidewalk, where one of his busboys found him. Before he expired he said the man that killed him was—” Sam Orr stopped. Jordan heard a match strike, and Orr taking in smoke, and the smoke expelled in a phlegmy cough. “Buster Clarence Calvert, 28, of Nassawadox, that’s a fishing village on the Delmarva Peninsula. Calvert worked as a liquor distributor makin’ occasional rounds by Parsons, whose wife, I should point out, he was occasionally tossing it to.”

  “What made him think he could get away with it?”

  “There you go again,” Orr said, “tellin’ it your way. Calvert was deep in the hole to various bookies for large amounts. If he could pick up some quick cash, and knock off his major love rival in the bargain, he’d be hittin’ the daily double. Thing is, he needed thousands. Six-hundred was about enough to put distance between himself and his troubles. Hello—?”

  “I’m listening,” Jordan said as the copy boy opened the current Fascinating Detective.

  “After the murder Calvert made a beeline for the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge, which is generally deserted on account of all the mosquitoes and biting bugs. No one was there to see him strip off his duds, put on a new suit and shoes, and leave the old clothes with his watch and wallet on the sand. Nice Bulova watch. Couple days later, the chief of police received a handwritten letter from Calvert apologizing for killing Parsons. His conscience was eating at him so bad, he made up his mind to throw himself in the ocean. By the time the chief had the letter he’d be dead. Still with me?”

  “Still,” Jordan said.

  “From the refuge Calvert drove to Chesapeake, and checked into the Dunroaming Motel on Route 17 under the name Bill Black, and proceeded to lose most of the six hundred in a rigged poker game. He liked to look on the bright side, though. The bookies, the cops didn’t know he was alive. He didn’t have a care till he sent out for burgers and the papers, and the deliveryman ran out without waitin’ for a tip.”

  Jordan glanced again at the copy boy, who was having a second look at the cover girls.

  “Ever know a deliveryman not to stick around to have his palm greased? Gave Calvert the willies, like a black cat cut across his path. It got worse when he looked at the papers. His kisser was splashed over all the front pages abov
e the caption: Wanted For Murder. Took the lead right out of his pencil. He called the cops on himself.”

  “What gave him away?” Jordan said.

  “Was an ivory-billed woodpecker. You didn’t hear about one peckin’ holes in the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge last week? Nobody’s seen an ivorybill in thirty, forty years. The birdwatchers poured in from as far off as Florida. One of them stumbled on Calvert’s clothes so soon after he left them there that the cops had them before his letter reached the chief, even before the postmark was stamped on the envelope. Calvert ain’t explained yet why he’d leave his clothes on the shore and walk into town buck naked to drop his letter in the mailbox, and then walk back to the beach to throw himself in the ocean. The indictment came down this morning. They’re still looking for the bird.”

  “Give me five thousand words, and all the photos you can scrape up.”

  “Have to do without artwork. I burned all my picture contacts.”

  “I need photos,” Jordan said.

  “You want the story, or don’t you?”

  Jordan said that he did, and hung up. “Orr’s got an early load on,” he said to Mary.

  “He’s one of our most productive writers,” she said, “but Mr. Pelfrey wouldn’t accept his calls after the cocktail hour.”

  Jordan went back to his desk. “How do you like the magazines?”

  The copy boy, Arnold Glass, said, “They’re written by idiots for bigger idiots.”

  “Do you also have an opinion about our covers?”

  “Not really. I wouldn’t give these girls a tumble.”

  “Managing editor pays seventy a week. Associate pays sixty.”

  “You’re offering a job? Knowing what I think?”

  “Everyone’s too smart for the pulps,” Jordan said, “till they get serious about them. You have an idea about women. The rest you’ll learn. Tell me where you were those eight years.”

  Mary went home at five o’clock. Jordan closed the door, and pulled a story from the manuscript pile. It was badly typed. The pages were coffee-stained, and required so much editing that he was rewriting word for word between the lines. The byline read Sam Orr. He rolled the paper into his typewriter, and started over on page one.