Ask Not

by Max Allan Collins

  “Ah,” I said.

  “On one anniversary bash, we turned the Black Room into an inferno—simulated, of course—for a ‘Saints and Sinners’ costume party. So many beautiful people, frolicking among the faux fire and brimstone. We had gambling in another room, a small orchestra for dancing downstairs, an arcade with pinball machines, Moviolas playing silent movies. That ebony baby grand over there, top recording talent performed just for the privilege of being part of it all.”

  Probably not Sinatra—he and Flo had carried on a famous feud, her calling him a gangster, him calling her “the chinless wonder.” I’d seen her cry over that.

  Felton was saying, “Guests were challenged to come as their favorite sinners from mythology, literature, history. I left it up to Florrie Mae what sinners to choose for us. You will never guess what she picked.”

  “Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler,” I said.

  He smiled in surprise and really looked at me for the first time. “Flo told you?”

  “No,” I said.

  That stopped his incessant chatter, which was what I’d hoped it would do, whether I’d guessed right or wrong.

  “Frank,” I said, “I know this is difficult. But I want you to tell me what happened, in as much detail as you can manage. As much you can stand.”

  We sat in silence for perhaps thirty seconds.

  “I didn’t really see her the night before,” he said finally, with a frustrated shrug. The dark unblinking eyes took on a desperate cast. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  Felton got up and, moving more side to side than straight ahead, went over to a liquor cabinet converted from an old wooden highboy icebox, painted black, of course. He was perhaps five nine, and looked more bloated than overweight. He poured himself several fingers of Johnnie Walker and returned, not sitting, though, standing before me, feet planted but weaving just slightly.

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Nate,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve stopped drinking since this happened.”

  I didn’t think he’d stopped drinking since 1948, but at least right now he had a damn good excuse to drown himself in booze and sorrow.

  “You were friends with Florrie Mae. You know about … us. Right? Right. You know how we didn’t, well, stand in the way of each other’s extracurricular activities. We just didn’t … flaunt it at each other. Tried not to embarrass each other.”

  “They’re calling it ‘open marriage,’ these days. You were one of the first couples I ever knew who so indulged.”

  His shrug was as overly elaborate as the house. “Well, we were grown-ups, Nate. We still loved each other, we were pals, and we … had our romantic moments, even after things cooled. I mean, we must have loved each other, right? We married each other often enough!”

  “The night before she died, Frank. Tell me about that.”

  “The last time I saw her was with Julian Rusk, her hairdresser—he always comes here Sunday afternoon, to do her hair at home, before the show. Late afternoon. I said … break a leg, and she just … smiled and nodded. I rarely went to the broadcast with her and this was no exception. She and one of her producers went to P.J. Clarke’s for a quick drink, after.”

  “Was that out of the ordinary?”

  “No, no quite the opposite. From there she took her limousine—CBS provided that—to the piano bar at the Regency. Going there for cocktails was also customary—in fact, the show’s staff always invited the contestants to join them and usually some of the stars, depending on who was available or anyway in the mood.”

  “What time did she get home?”

  “I don’t really know, Nate. I was in bed already. No one else was in the house—the servants don’t sleep in, and our kids are in boarding school. Well, they’re home now, but … anyway, she was here at 2:20, that much I can tell you.”

  “Did you check with the limo driver about what time he brought her back?”

  “I did. She sent him home when he dropped her at the Regency.”

  Maybe she had a date.

  “If you didn’t see her, Frank, why are you so sure she was home at 2:20?”

  “She called Western Union at that time and had a messenger come pick up her column. She probably had most of it written already, and made a few finishing touches, after getting back from the Regency bar. Her last column.”

  He sat back down next to me, leaned an elbow on a knee, and covered his face with a hand.

  I gave him a few moments, then asked, “You said you’d already gone to bed. Did she join you, and in the morning, you…?”

  He shook his head. “No. At times we didn’t sleep together. I’m afraid I snore, and Florrie Mae worked all hours. I have a bedroom on the fourth floor, Florrie Mae has a little bed in her office on the fifth. But she was found in the bedroom we share, the master bedroom. That’s why I brought you to the Black Room, Nate—not out of any gallows sense of humor … though this is certainly a room where we had wonderful times.” He pointed off to the right. “She was found in the bedroom just off of here.…”

  From the Black Room we entered a blizzard of white—white walls, white furnishings with gold accents and antique brass hardware, though red relieved the white by way of a Florentine design on the spread of the king-sized bed, and a red tufted velvet headboard with matching slipper chair.

  I stepped into the room, but Felton stayed in the doorway, as if the parquet floor was one big trapdoor waiting to be sprung on him.

  He said quietly, “That’s where she was found. Not by me. By Rusk, the hairdresser. He had an appointment to do her hair at nine A.M. She had a TV show to tape at eleven, guesting on To Tell the Truth. She was sitting up, a book in her lap—Seven Days in May—must have fallen asleep reading.”

  “And died in her sleep.”

  “Yes. There was no sign of any kind of disturbance, not even rumpled covers. So it must have been peaceful. She just slipped … slipped away.…”

  “Do we know the cause of death?”

  “It was the booze and pills, Nate. You know that.”

  “Too early for an opinion from the coroner?”

  “Not officially, but Dr. Luke tells me it’s ‘the effects of a combination of alcohol and barbiturates.’”

  Booze and pills.

  I walked to the white nightstand. “Any pill bottles? Any kind of bottles?”

  “Seconal, about half of her prescription still there. A glass of gin and tonic, about … a third of it left. She’d have to get up and go out into the other room for a refill.”

  “Will there be an inquest?”

  “No, thank God. The doctor said Flo’s death will be labeled ‘circumstances undetermined.’”

  “That’s a common enough designation, but it leaves the door open for speculation.”

  “But she wasn’t depressed, Nate!” He was assuming I meant suicide, and indeed there were rumors of that reported in the press.

  “This talk of suicide,” he said in a rush of words, “it pisses me off, really pisses me off royal. She was energized about her book for Bennett, that Kennedy thing, she was happy with her life, she…”

  She had a new man in her life. He had to know that. But couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Show me her office, would you, Frank?”

  On the way up the front stairs, I said, “How much do you know about the Kennedy book?”

  “Just that she felt confident her reporting would make a real difference. She bragged, she was cocky—said she was going to ‘blow the case wide open.’”

  “You didn’t talk specifics?”

  “No. She talked with that young man from Indiana who’s been assisting her. But otherwise she was protective, even … secretive. She said the more I knew, the more dangerous it was for me.”

  “She wasn’t kidding. You did know what we were investigating in Dallas, Frank? The suspicious deaths of assassination witnesses?”

  “That I did gather.”

  Her of
fice on the fifth floor, with its single bed and desk in a corner with a typewriter, looked like the room of a teenaged girl, albeit a wealthy one—floral-brocade wallpaper, chartreuse carpet, embroidered organdy curtains tied back with taffeta bows. The only thing missing was the stuffed animals.

  Frank stood beside me in the surprisingly small space. “This was her sanctuary,” he said. “She called it the Ebb. As in ebb and flow? It’s rare for me to set foot in here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Rare for anyone but her to be in here.”

  The reddish face swung suddenly to me and he was close enough for it to be uncomfortable, his dark glazed eyes locking on me, like tics on a greyhound.

  “Nate, on the phone, you asked about foul play. There were no signs of that downstairs, and nothing disturbed in here or anywhere in the house. But when you start talking about this Kennedy thing, you … well, you’re scaring me, man.”

  I kept my voice calm, but did not duck the subject. “She’s been publishing pieces on the assassination for over six months. Were there any repercussions? Any trouble of any kind?”

  He frowned but the wide eyes didn’t narrow. “Well, after she started publishing that Warren Commission material, about that Ruby character? We had FBI agents crawling all over the place.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “They had a search warrant, but didn’t find anything. They interrogated her down in the Black Room, like a suspect in a crime. They badgered her about the identity of her source and she told them…” His complexion paled to pink. “… told them she would rather ‘die than betray a source.’”

  I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He swallowed. Closed his eyes.

  I removed the hand and said, “Tell me about this young man assisting her. Would he have ever worked with her here in the Ebb?”

  “Oh, yes. When I said no one was ever in here but Florrie Mae, I don’t mean people assisting her. She had a number of protégés over the years. This one’s name is Mark Revell. He’s an entertainment writer for a paper in Indianapolis, Indiana, of all places. She met him on a movie junket of some kind and took him under her wing.”

  “Was it serious?”

  “No.” His smile was melancholy. “She was a romantic, Nate. Do I have to tell you that? That’s the bad side of having an open relationship with a woman. A man can go from this one to that one, and it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just physical. She had to be in love … at least at the moment.”

  “Is Revell in Indianapolis now?”

  “No, I believe he’s staying over for the funeral. He’s at the Regency.”

  So was I—the hotel was at Park Avenue and Sixty-first and an easy walk to Flo’s town house off Park and Sixty-eighth.

  “What about the hairdresser?”

  “Julian Rusk? He lives in the Village. I’ll get you his phone number.”

  “Thanks.”

  Now, finally, his frown was deep enough to make the eyes narrow. “Nate, you can’t think Flo was a murder victim…”

  “Circumstances undetermined, remember? The CIA has its own in-house Dr. Feelbad who can use drugs to simulate heart attacks or accidental deaths or you name it.”

  “You’re saying someone came in, with me in the house, and did that, without my knowing?”

  “It’s five floors and a lot of rooms, Frank. You have that back entrance for the servants, with a stairwell giving access to everything. These spooks have pulled off much more complicated stuff.”

  “I can’t believe it. No. That’s far too Ian Fleming. That’s as crazy as suicide!”

  “You’re not against me looking into it a little, are you, Frank?”

  He flinched, as if I’d raised a hand to strike him. “No. Not in the least. Oh, those tapes and notes you mentioned?”

  “Yes?”

  “No sign of anything.”

  He showed me the top right-hand desk drawer that she kept locked—using a key from her center drawer to open it (not the greatest security)—and revealed it as empty. Had the Ruby tape been in there? If so, someone knew about the handy key, because the drawer showed no jimmy marks.

  “Now,” he said, “she might have hidden them away in one of her filing cabinets—there’s a separate room for those, ten four-drawer files. It would take hours to go through them.”

  “Would you mind if I did that?”

  “Could it wait till after the services?”

  “No,” I said. “I need this done as soon as possible. I’ll make a call and have a man or two join me, from our Manhattan branch. In the meantime, if you’ll show me to the file cabinets, I’d like to get started.”

  “Well, then, uh … I guess it’ll be all right. There’s family coming in, as you might imagine, and … but all right. Those tapes are Flo’s legacy of sorts, and if you find them, that will be a good thing.”

  “If they are here,” I said, “everyone in the house will be better off having them removed.”

  The puffy reddish face went blank with thought. Then he said, “Look—if you do find the tapes and notes, promise you won’t give them to that kid Revell. He’d write his own book. When the time comes, maybe you can give that material to Flo’s friend Bennett Cerf, and he can assign some real writer to it.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  * * *

  But the two A-1 agents and I did not find the Dallas tapes or notes. The cabinets were brimming with publicity releases and 8-by-10’s, as well as clippings of Flo’s columns carefully arranged by month and year, and coverage by other journalists of her own celebrity. It was not dull—“Hey, Mr. Heller … take a look at this Marilyn shot! Miss Cheesecake 1951!”—but it was also not fruitful.

  One small piece of luck came my way when I got back to the Regency around eight P.M. The red-vested bartender in the hotel’s chichi red-and-brown basement piano bar had been on duty Sunday night when Flo stopped in for that after-TV-show drink. She’d seemed cheery and “maybe a little high,” he said, and had joined a nice-looking younger man in a dark-corner banquette (her regular spot), drinking gin and tonic, staying around till almost two A.M.

  “Did you recognize this younger man?”

  Bald, bulky, the bartender in his forty or so years had seen it all. “The gentleman had been in here before with Miss Kilgore, yes.”

  “Was he a hotel guest? Did he sign the tab to his room?”

  “Miss Kilgore was paying, sir.”

  I made my way through the layers of subdued lighting and drifting cigarette smoke to a Negro piano player in a tux, noodling Cole Porter with a nice jazzy edge. He’d also been there Sunday night. Had Flo met a date at the club? Of course, man! Real lady like Miss Kilgore wouldn’t come listen to me play by herself. Was Miss Kilgore’s date a regular? Couldn’t say, man, couldn’t say.

  Apparently all ofays looked alike.

  Soon I was sitting in Flo’s favorite booth with a nice-looking younger man of my own. He wore a collarless black suit with a gray button-down shirt, no tie—apparently he was in mourning, too—and his black hair was Afro-style, though this was apparently a perm, since he was white. Hell, he was pale. A slender five ten, he had the finely carved features of a male fashion model.

  “I appreciate you coming up here to talk to me, Mr. Rusk,” I said.

  “Julian, please,” the hairdresser said, with an English accent that might have been real. “And do you prefer Nate or Nathan?”

  “Either is fine,” I said. “Something to drink?”

  He liked that idea, and I waved a waitress over. He ordered a gin and tonic (“In honor of my late and very much lamented client”), and I had a vodka gimlet. On the phone, he’d known immediately who I was—familiar with my minor celebrity courtesy of magazines and tabloids, and aware that I was a good friend of Flo’s.

  Despite the possibly faked English accent, there was nothing effeminate about him—he was as masculine as Rock Hudson. But it was clear he was gay—something undeniably flirtatious flickered in his manner.
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  His eyes, which were a dark green, flashed and he smiled just a little. “Are you looking into her murder? I hope.”

  “Murder? My understanding is the coroner leans more toward accidental death.”

  “He didn’t find the body, did he?” Rusk sipped his drink. “I could have told you my story on the phone, couldn’t I? But you wanted to talk to me in person. Why? So you could look at me when I answered your questions. To what end? So you can size me up as a witness, or possibly a suspect.”

  I laughed just a little. “So far you’re just answering your own questions.”

  “Touché. All right—do you want to grill me, or should I just tell my tale?”

  “Go ahead and start. I’ll jump in as need be.”

  He sighed grandly. “Well, I let myself in around eight forty-five that morning. Came up the same back staircase used by the servants.”

  “You had a key?”

  “Yes. Not many did, but I fixed Flo’s hair on a more-or-less daily basis. Not always so early, mind you—she had a television taping at eleven. Her dressing room is on the third floor, near that hideous Black Room, off the master bedroom—that’s where she always had her hair done. I turned on my curling irons, and just idly walked into the bedroom, never thinking for a moment she would be there.”

  “Why? She shared it with her husband, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, she hadn’t slept there for years, Nathan. They slept apart, Frank and Flo—don’t let their breakfast broadcasts fool you.” He shook his head. “I knew she was dead, right away.”

  “Just with a glance?”

  “That’s all it took. She was sitting up in bed, propped up with a pillow against the red headboard. The bed was spotless, as if she’d slipped under the covers and never moved an inch. She was dressed … very peculiarly.”

  “Be specific, Julian, please.”

  “All right. Well, normally she’d sleep in pajamas and old socks and her makeup would be off and her hair would be washed and just a mess, waiting for my rescue.”

  “I see.”

  “But she was dressed almost as if she were going out—hair in place, makeup on right down to her false eyelashes. She was in a blue matching peignoir and robe—nothing she would ever wear to bed.”