Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky

by Johm Howard Reid

  First, I checked the garage. Sure enough, I found a sleek-looking Alfetta sitting in the space that I’d swear was empty last time I looked. Where the hell had it been? Perhaps the cops found it somewhere and brought it home? Anyway, I gave it a quick once-over. I’m no expert on luxury cars, but I wouldn’t have paid $3,000 for it. The tires were new and the body gleamed, but the engine was shot – and no tin lizzie wonder! The speedo showed 257,512 miles! The previous owner must have been a lingerie salesman who burned the car up all over the forty-eight states for ten or twenty years. $13,000 for this heap? Prestigious Mr. Julio could whistle for his money!

  I raided Dune-Harrigan’s pantry and fridge, but he’d obviously not dined much at home. I had to settle for a can of tomato soup with lentils.

  Dune-Harrigan was one crazy old joker, no doubt about it. No matter what drawer I opened – looking for a spoon, a tin opener, a soup bowl or whatever – I was sure to find keys. Not a whole bundle of them on a chain or tied with string or wire, but loose: three in this drawer, four in that, five over there – all shapes, types and sizes. What were they supposed to unlock? Only the front door needed a key – and that one was missing! Even the four capacious drawers in Dune-Harrigan’s study desk had no locks, but they themselves yielded a further fifteen keys!

  But it wasn’t Dune-Harrigan’s varied collections of keys that interested me. Somewhere the good professor must have left some clues to where he’d stashed his Egyptian collection. I knew it existed. So I was looking for storage receipts, bills from forwarding agencies, copies of old Customs Declarations (“3 dozen glass/terra cotta souvenirs”, etc.), travel folders, foreign coins, streetcar tickets – anything! But I found nothing. In fact, I was so engrossed I this search , I almost missed my TV debut. I switched the set on just as Monty’s voice was reaching its final crescendo: “… Alberta, Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, a big hand please for Mr. Don Ellin!”

  29

  Thursday night, I paid a call on Spookie’s apartment co-renter, Sandy. She was taking no chances. I had to prove my identity over one of those security phones outside the front door before she’d even let me into the building. Even when I was outside her apartment, she held the door open on a six-inch chain, “Didn’t you see me on TV last night?” I asked.

  “You don’t look like him.”

  I placed my hands on top of my head.

  “Now you do!” She laughed and unlocked the chain.

  “I’ve seen you before,” I said. “Don’t you work at the markets?”

  “Spookie got me the job. Through Mr. Tunning.”

  “Tunning seems one big-hearted Peter,” I observed.

  “I wanted Spookie’s job.” She shuddered. “At the time. Now I’m glad I didn’t get it.”

  I looked at her more closely. A dark-haired girl with an oddly oval face and bony figure. Moderately attractive all the same. I certainly wouldn’t turn down an invitation. “You’re interested in show business?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Singer?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d guessed right. I’d also spotted the guitar on the sofa and the music sheets.

  “TV’s nothing special,” I declared. “What did you think of my performance?”

  “You were all right, but I prefer Sedge Cornbeck. When’s he coming back? He always acts so confident and so full of zing.”

  “Acts is the operative word. He’s not a bit like that in real life. The dead opposite, in fact. You know: highly strung; nervous; afraid of his own shadow.”

  “So Spookie used to tell me.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be coming back for a while. He took Spookie’s death hard. He found her.”

  She shuddered. “So did all of us.” (She meant took Spookie’s death hard).

  “That’s why I’m here. I know the police have been pretty thorough, but I’m covering a few leads for them myself. Particularly about the boyfriend, Gino Paletti. I gather she met him at the markets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that before of after she started at Kenovarnie’s?”

  “The police have already asked me that. It was around the same time.”

  “Spookie didn’t speak Italian?”

  Sandy smiled. “No.”

  “And you’ve no idea what this Gino looks like?”

  “I have the police a photo.”

  “You what?”

  “A photo. Not a very good photo. But it shows the top half of his head. It was taken at a night club. You know, by one of those photographers who come around to the tables. Gino put his hand up to cover his face. Spookie thought it was all a big joke. She kept the photo for a souvenir. I gave it to the police.”

  I nodded grimly. So Inspector Borne was holding out on me!

  30

  On the Monday the next show was due to be taped, the nightmare began all over. Answering an urgent summons to Mr. Kent’s office, I found another council of war in session. Present were the producer, Monty Fairmont; his director, Ace Jellis; our sponsor, Peter Tunning; and Inspector Borne. This group was huddled around a small pile of letters on Mr. Kent’s desk.

  “Fan mail, already?” I asked.

  “Not one for your scrapbook,” growled Kent.

  “No?”

  “Give Manning his!” Kent directed Peter Tunning. “He may as well die like the rest of us.”

  The dark-suited Italian handed me an envelope addressed to Mr. Don Ellin. Inside was the familiar 2x3 card: You have ignored all my warnings. Now it is too late. You will be next.

  I felt sick. Facing bullets, bayonets, grenades or shells, a soldier is trained to act first, worry later. His gut reaction is immediate self-preservation behind a hill, a tree, a dug-out, a body. But when the missile is a pocket-sized leaf of cardboard, I have no defense, and that piddling note hit me like a karate chop in the belly. I needed to fall down somewhere, but Mr. Kent’s carpeted office provided only a few stiff-backed chairs for his guests – and today they were all occupied. So I made for the wall and leaned close to the swinging door that led to his private wash-room. Nobody paid any further attention to me. They were already back deep in their own conversation.

  “I take it, we still go ahead, inspector?” asked Boss Kent.

  Borne nodded. “With no live audience.”

  “That will make it completely safe,” Kent agreed.

  Why didn’t you think of that before? I reflected bitterly.

  As if in answer to my thought, Monty Fairmont piped up, “I don’t like shooting dead!”

  Director Ace Jellis piped up, “It’s easy. Right as rain. Right as rain! We can dub in all the usual sound effects later. It will be great, I tell you. Awesome in fact.”

  “No live audience! The set full of policemen. This time, we’ve got Mr. Two-by-Three stymied. Really stymied!” Boss Kent was super-confident – and that had me worried!

  So they kept on talking, assuring themselves the situation was well under control – their control!

  At least nobody reminded me that my Dune-Harrigan theory was blown sky high. Hell, the old bastard had admitted sending the first series of notes. So who was copying his idea? And why? For the same purpose, namely to scare us all silly? Or did he have another victim in view? Who? And why send a threat to me? I was just a temporary replacement, not part of the regular crew. I kept turning the little 2x3 card over and over in my hand: You have ignored all my warnings. Now it is too late. You will be next.

  The envelope dropped to the floor. I bent over to pick it up. It was addressed to “Mr. Don Ellin.”

  Hell! Mr. Don Ellin!

  “Inspector, are your men here already?” I asked.

  Borne nodded. “They sure are!” he enthused.

  (On the other hand, Boss Kent scowled. He’d virtually forgotten I even existed.)

  “Would you find out how many didn’t watch our show last Wednesday night?” I asked Borne. “Those who were out on duty,” I added diplomatically for the benefit of Kent, Fairmont and
Jellis.

  Borne nodded.

  “And please bring them up here to Mr. Kent’s office.”

  Without another word, Borne took himself off.

  “What the hell’s got into you?” roared Boss Kent as soon as Borne was out of earshot. “You can’t order Police Inspectors around like commissionaires!”

  Kent had done the same himself, but I didn’t remind him. “He owes me a favor,” I said.

  Boss Kent stared at me in silent amazement for a full minute. Likewise Monty Fairmont and Ace Jellis. It was hard to tell where Peter Tunning was staring with his celebrity dark glasses, but his face was certainly pointed in my direction.

  Suddenly Boss Kent relaxed. “So what’s all the drama this time?” he asked.

  I threw the little envelope on his desk. “What does it say?” I asked.

  “You mean the postmark? Los Angeles Mail Center! Where else would it be?”

  “The name?”

  “Mr. Don Ellin. So?”

  “You watched the broadcast on Wednesday night?”

  “Along with around five million other viewers.” Despite the growl, there was more than a touch of pride in Kent’s voice. Kenovarnie’s had never before enjoyed anything like a quarter of one per cent of such ratings. Of course, the figures were still unofficial.

  “You’ve got a VCR here. Ask someone to send up a tape of the show while Borne’s rounding up his men.”

  “If there is a tape,” grumbled Kent. “If Monty hasn’t wiped it clean.”

  Monty Fairmont was indignant. “That wasn’t our doing! Some Shylock in your own organization – ”

  “Gentlemen! Let’s not fight about trifles! I’m sure Monty has a tape himself and Kenovarnie’s a dozen copies.”

  Kent backed down. “Okay, I’ve got one right here. So what?”

  I put my finger to my lips. “Can’t tell you right now. I want to try a little experiment.”

  “This better be the goddamn real McCoy, Manning!” Kent rasped. “Now what?”

  “We wait for the inspector.”

  Borne finally returned. “Six of my best men are outside.”

  “Mr. Kent, would you kindly put the tape in your machine and ask Mr. Fairmont and Mr. Jellis to locate the segment in which I am introduced as guest quizmaster and so on.”

  It took them three minutes, but they finally had it set.

  “Inspector, could I invite your men in now?”

  Borne nodded.

  I armed myself with pens and paper and opened the door. “Come in, please. With Inspector Borne’s permission, I’m giving you all pens and paper and I want you all to listen very carefully to the following TV announcement.”

  “Our guest quizmaster for the show tonight has come all the way from Alberta, Canada, Ladies and gentlemen, a big hand please for Mr. Don Ellin!”

  I stopped the tape. “I want you to write down exactly that intro you just hard. As near as you can remember it.”

  “Could you play it again? I thought that was just the beginning.”

  I smiled at the detective. He was beefy. He was overweight. And he was not over-bright. “I’m sorry. Do the best you can, this time. And then we’ll play it again and you’ll all have a second go.

  “Right? All finished? Put your names on the slips and the inspector will collect them… Right, second go. No need to tell you this time to listen carefully.”

  “… a big hand please for Mr. Don Ellin!”

  “What are we looking for?” growled Boss Kent, staring with his usual expression of mild distaste at the two piles of notepaper on his desk.

  “One thing only: How did they spell my name?”

  Inspector Borne, Boss Kent, Monty Fairmont, Ace Jellis and even Peter Tunning bent close.

  “The first pile: Don Allan; Don Alan; Don Allen; Dom Allum; Don Alan; and one blank. The second pile: The same, except that the blank is filled in with Don Alland… Not one Don Ellin among the lot of them!”

  “Very fascinating, I’m sure!” barked Boss Kent. “But what does it prove? Nothing! A big fat nothing!”

  “It proves that the man we’re looking for is possibly in this very room,” corrected Inspector Borne. “Excluding the police, myself and Mr. Manning, it proves that the author of all the threatening little two-by-three notes is possibly either Mr. Kent, Mr. Fairmont, Mr. Jellis or Mr. Tunning.”

  “How in hell do you make that out?”

  “I selected the name deliberately, just in case something like this happened.” I smiled, even though my triumph was hollow. “I always suspected the menacing little notes were an inside job. I think we can now take that fact as proven. You, Mr. Kent, and you, Monty, Ace and Peter, were the only people who saw the name written down. You were the only ones who knew how to spell it. None of our cosy viewers – or even members of the audience – could possibly pick it up! And it was not printed in the end credits and was deliberately omitted from the Press Release. You four were the only ones – ”

  “I’ve got bad news for you,” Boss Kent interrupted. “I sent a memo to other important members of our staff including my secretaries – plus Bingo Frobisher, Sedge Cornbeck, Trevor Holden, and Oscar Varnie (of course). And no doubt people like Oscar circulated their own list holders! I also told Publicity.”

  “I took care of that one,” I interrupted. “I told them to file it.”

  “You had no right to do that!”

  “It was easy. I said I’d give them an exclusive story after the broadcast.”

  “And have you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re fired!”

  “You can’t fire me! I have a contract, remember!”

  “Which forbids you from talking to the press without authorization.”

  “I haven’t talked to the press.”

  “What do you think our Publicity department is? A collection of dentists or philatelists?”

  “Gentlemen, you are all suspects in my book!” Borne declared. “Until proved otherwise! And that lets Mr. Kent out. He was definitely at home the night of the broadcast. His daughters, his wife and two family friends confirm it.”

  “Thanks a lot, inspector!”

  “So what?” Monty screamed. “It’s where Mr. Kent was when we were cutting the tape that counts, not where he was for the bloody broadcast! So if you’re thinking of pinning the murder on me, think again! I was in the control booth the whole time. Ace and Peter are my witnesses – plus every man jack on the set. I was with Ace and Peter the whole bloody time!”

  “No-one’s accusing you, Mr. Fairmont,” interposed Inspector Borne. “Mr. Manning has pointed out what seems to me a very salient fact. Let’s examine it calmly. His envelope is addressed to Mr. Don Ellin. The only people who know how to spell this name are: One, Mr. Manning himself, who has no alibi at all for the crime – ”

  “What the hell’s going on inside your thick head?” I yelled. “I’ve told you twenty million times that after leaving wardrobe, I went straight to the set. I never went near Sedge’s bloody dressing room.”

  “One, Mr. Manning himself,” resumed Borne, “who has no alibi at all for the crime – which incidentally was not committed in Mr. Cornbeck’s dressing room, but in the corridor.”

  “I wondered what all those forensic people were checking out,” Boss Kent interrupted.

  “Two, Mr. Arthur Kent – ”

  “Just a goddamn minute there, inspector!”

  “Kent is alibied by his wife and daughter – not a strong alibi but better than none. Three, Mr. Montgomery Fairmont, alibied by Mr. Moonbeam and Mr. Fabbro.”

  “What moonbeam?” I asked.

  “Mr. Aloysius Moonbeam, a.k.a. Ace Jellis, alibied by Mr. Fairmont and Mr. Fabbro. Five, Mr. Sergio Fabbro, a.k.a. Peter Faber, alibied by Mr. Moonbeam and Mr. Fairmont. That seems to be it. Five who knew how to spell Ellin.”

  “Peter wasn’t with us in wardrobe,” I pointed out. “But Trev Lynn was. You’re forgetting him.”

  “But according
to you, Mr. Manning, he wasn’t present when you chose your name.”

  “I told Trev,” said Monty. “I even wrote it down for him so that he could introduce Manning to the contestants at the rehearsal.”

  “Six, Mr. Trevor Holden, alibied by Mr. Fairmont and Mr. Moonbeam. Is that it?”

  “I said Peter wasn’t with us in wardrobe. He wasn’t with us in Sedge’s dressing room either,” I remembered. “In fact, I never saw him until after the show.”

  “That is right,” confirmed Faber, his dark glasses glittering with reflected light. “When I arrive, I go straight to the control room. I have told the inspector.”

  Borne nodded. “Mr. Faber arrived on the set about twenty to thirty minutes before time and went to the control booth. Both cameramen saw him.”

  “I say hello,” explained Peter.

  “That narrows the range,” I began, staring hard at Monty Fairmont and Ace Jellis. With Faber eliminated, they were now only alibiing each other.

  “I’ve got bad news for you boys,” growled Boss Kent. “I told one other person.”

  My heart missed a beat.

  “I was in the hospital, visiting Sedge. Trying to persuade him to come back to the show, pronto! We need him.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence!” I exclaimed.

  “We’re getting into the final countdown,” Boss Kent explained. “You’re in the semi-finals. You’ve got to win that, if you can!”

  “I thought I lose?”

  “The semi-finals, you win.”

  “How come?”

  “Don’t you read the rules? In the semi-final, you’re part of a team. The team that wins, each man goes into the final – where it’s every man for himself.”

  “How much do I get if I win?”