Ask Not

by Max Allan Collins

  “She was reading.”

  “Was she? That book, Seven Days in May? She read that months ago. She discussed it with me! And it was laid on her lap so perfectly, so you could read the title … only that was upside down—not in the right position for her to be reading it.”

  “Julian, that’s a nice piece of deduction.”

  “Thank you, Nathan. You know, it was cold out that morning—we had a real cold snap. But the air-conditioning in the bedroom was on. Why?”

  “If it was murder, perhaps to delay decomposition. Make the time of death harder to determine.”

  “Well, I guess you put my little deduction to shame, didn’t you, Nathan? Let’s see … is there anything else? The light was on, the overhead light, that is, not the nightstand. There was a water glass at her bedside, and a pill bottle, and her latest drink … but she was positioned in the very middle of that big bed and couldn’t have reached either of them.”

  “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

  “I think that’s about all. Oh, I would say rigor mortis had set in. Anyway, her hands were stiff. And there was lipstick on her sleeve. Why would that be there?”

  “If she still had her makeup on, and someone changed her clothes after her death, her lipstick might have accidently made that transfer.”

  “My, you are a detective.”

  “Julian, you called it murder, right out of the gate. Do you have a suspect?”

  “Just between us, Nathan?”

  “Just between us, Julian.”

  “The best possibility would be the husband—isn’t that always the case? Frank Felton’s been unemployed for some time—his various ventures, from Broadway productions to that failed art gallery, exhausted all of his personal funds. And he was facing the possibility of yet another divorce from Flo—and this time there was a prenuptial agreement.”

  “But if she were to die before divorcing him, Frank would inherit the town house, I suppose.”

  “Oh, yes. And it’s worth three hundred grand easily. Plus, there’s bound to be a big life-insurance policy on a star like Flo—what, another hundred thou or two?”

  “Probably. And retirement funds from the TV show.” I mulled that, then said, “But why the charade, putting her in the master bedroom? Can you see Felton dressing her in her bedclothes and carting her from one floor to another?”

  “You’ve met the man, haven’t you, Nathan? He was a producer. Those parties he mounted were like little Broadway shows, and were far more successful than those he actually tried to mount. Oh, he’s perfectly capable of that kind of drawing-room farce by way of Hitchcock. And the master bedroom, why that’s perfect—he would want the world to think he and Flo were still a couple, still enjoying connubial relations. The only problem is…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s a big one.”

  “Okay.”

  The hairdresser shrugged. “He lacks the balls.”

  “What about this Mark Revell?”

  “He’s a very pretty boy, Nathan. And he certainly has balls.”

  “Are you … implying something?”

  “I am trying to avoid a vulgar term.”

  “What term would that be?”

  “Fag hag. Vulgar and ugly, but I’m afraid it applies to my late client.”

  “How so?”

  “Revell’s in his twenties, he’s very handsome, while Flo, lovely lady though she was, was what … fifty? He’s an entertainment editor at a newspaper in Indianapolis, Indiana—do I have to draw you a picture? And somehow he manages to globe-trot with all kinds of famous larger-than-life females. Maureen O’Sullivan, Myrna Loy, Phyllis Diller, none spring chickens. Then there’s Anna Maria Alberghetti, and Mia Farrow, and—”

  “They’re young.”

  “Yes, but certain women, for various reasons, like to be squired around by handsome, young, non-threatening males.”

  “Not Flo.”

  “No. Not Flo. You’re correct, Nathan. She was a pistol. She liked her men and she liked them between the sheets and lively. She and Revell went on movie junkets together to Rome, Florence, London, and shared lodgings. They met many times right here in this hotel—a suite on the nineteenth floor.”

  Revell was registered at the Regency right now.

  Rusk was saying, “I’m sure she and Revell had a gay old time … in the old-fashioned sense, that is. My sense … if I may be frank? Is that Revell may be a switch-hitter.”

  “Do you have any reason to think he’s bisexual?”

  “Other than instinct? No. But strong show-business women like Flo are often attracted to the type. She dated Johnnie Ray, you know. You were good friends with her, I understand, Nathan.…”

  “Yeah, and I’ve squired around some famous women, too.”

  “Marilyn Monroe, according to what I’ve read. Jayne Mansfield. And who’s that old-time bubble dancer?”

  “Sally Rand.” I put my hand on his. “But, Julian? This time? You’ve made the wrong deduction.”

  And I patted him gently on the cheek.

  He smiled and shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said.

  Was it my imagination, or was the English accent gone?

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Mark Revell was sitting across from me in the same booth. I’d called his room from the bar, and he’d immediately recognized my name. Like Rusk, Flo’s protégé knew of both my reputation in the press and my friendship with Flo Kilgore. He was, as advertised, a handsome young man, under thirty, a sturdy six feet, in a muted glen-plaid suit with three-button jacket and matching vest—Cricketeer, I’d guess—with a gold tie with a single thin black stripe. His hair was brown, his look Ivy League, and he might have been a lost Kennedy brother.

  “Yes, I’m an entertainment writer, Mr. Heller, for the Indianapolis News. On extended leave to work with Miss Kilgore … although I guess that’s at an end now, isn’t it?”

  Revell sat with his hands folded and wearing an easy, friendly, rather wide smile. He had ordered a Coke and I’d followed his lead.

  His eyes tightened as he thought back. “I met Flo earlier this year, in June I believe, on a press junket for reporters covering the film industry.”

  “Where was that exactly?”

  His smile broadened and his eyes looked up into the pleasant memory. “We were in Salzburg on the set of The Sound of Music. I caught her arm when she stumbled, getting onto the press bus, and I said, ‘Well, hello!’ You know, in a way that said I recognized her as a celebrity. ‘You know who I am,’ she said. ‘Who are you? Besides my savior.’ We just hit it off like that, joking, giggling. We had drinks that night and the rest is history.”

  “History of what? A love affair?”

  He frowned, shifted in the booth, almost but not quite offended by my bluntness. “Oh, you don’t understand, Mr. Heller. It was definitely not a love affair, or anyway not a physical one. She was just this sweet funny lady, my bestest friend in the world. We talked on the phone every day.”

  Not in Dallas they hadn’t. That was how I’d wound up in bed with her, one last time.

  He was shaking his head slightly. “She was so soft, so romantic. Did you ever see her angry? I never did. I think the only conversations we had that were serious at all were about the Kennedy project.”

  “You knew about the Ruby trip?”

  “Oh, yes. I didn’t know she was planning to meet up with you, though.”

  I didn’t bother explaining the accidental nature of that.

  He was saying, “I know Mr. Felton thinks Flo and I were an item, but really we just liked each other, liked to be together, to ditch the pressures of this crazy old world and just go.”

  “Like to Rome and London.”

  He shifted in his seat, his smile one-sided now. “Mr. Heller, it was strictly platonic. There was a flirty aspect to it, sure, but there was no good-night kiss when I dropped her off. It just wasn’t that kind of relationship. Not even close. I had other girls. She kn
ew that.”

  Did he? I wondered.

  I gestured skyward, to the heaven that was the Regency. “I understood that you and Flo sometimes met in your hotel suite.”

  “No. Maybe briefly for business, but not in the way you mean. After all, we were co-workers, Mr. Heller. I was involved in the Kennedy project, too.”

  “Did you see her the Sunday she died? Did she share any materials with you from the Dallas trip?”

  “I called her in the afternoon. She never said much about the Kennedy investigation on the phone, for obvious reasons. No, I don’t have any idea what happened in Dallas.”

  That last statement tried a little too hard for my taste.

  “I only know bits and pieces,” he said. “I was a sounding board for the Kennedy stories in her column, and also for what she was planning. I don’t know if you know this, Mr. Heller, but she was going to write a book. If she did the story for her paper, she might win acclaim, but she was after more—a big score, big money.”

  “What do you think happened to Flo, Mr. Revell?”

  He shrugged sadly. “It’s likely she accidentally OD’d. Took a little too many pills with just a little too much gin. She wasn’t a big person, you know. Wouldn’t take much to be too much. But … with this Kennedy stuff going on? I’m not an idiot. Of course she could have been murdered.”

  “In that case, would you suspect someone involved in the assassination? Spooks or gangsters or Cubans?”

  Oh my.

  “I couldn’t say, Mr. Heller. It’s too terrible to think that that sweet woman, with so much talent and energy in her, could be gone. But I suppose…”

  “You suppose?”

  “Mr. Felton does have a lot to gain.”

  Could it be that simple? A jealous husband killing a rich wife to trade her faithlessness in on a pile of money? Did Florence Kilgore’s passing have nothing to do with either Jack—Kennedy or Ruby?

  Or had I run into that most unlikely of circumstances in this lunatic case—a genuinely accidental death?

  CHAPTER

  17

  By day, the French Quarter—north of Canal Street, in the so-called “downtown” section of New Orleans—provided a quaint paradise for tourists. Awaiting them were cast-iron vines, flowers, cupids, and fruits adorning tall, cement-covered brick structures painted in light shades but with splashes of bright green via shutters and woodwork. Narrow streets were there to stroll, arrayed with antiques shops, tearooms, and art studios. Best of all, world-famous restaurants often served up their exquisite cuisine in courtyards amid banana trees, palms, and other semitropical flora, their shade still soothing in September temperatures in the 80s.

  But at night, this heaven was replaced by an even more seductive hell. Those fabled restaurants—Antoine’s, Brennan’s, Arnaud’s, the Two Sisters, and the rest—closed up early, as if New Orleans were some small roll-up-the-sidewalks Midwestern town; getting a real meal after nine P.M. was a trick here, but few cared. Tourists venturing into this friendly neon Hades were after the jazz, the booze, the girls; were eager to bump into gamblers and preachers, debutantes and streetwalkers, sailors and artists, bums and entrepreneurs.

  From riverboat days on, the Vieux Carré had been a fever dream of throbbing rhythm, exotic color, and authentic Dixieland. Bourbon Street in particular remained a glimmering, cocksure concourse, where “No cover, no minimum” was the rule—that and minimum cover on the strippers at such flesh palaces as Casino Royale, Gunga Den, Club Slipper, and Von Ray’s Texas Tornado.

  The most popular and notorious such address was 228 Bourbon, between Bienville and Conti—the Sho-Bar, open twenty-four hours with the strippers absent only in the afternoon and early evening, replaced by a piano-accompanied girl singer. The modest three-story brick structure, with typical wrought-iron balconies on its upper floors (hotel rooms, often occupied by strippers during Sho-Bar engagements), shared the block with standbys like the Old Absinthe House and the 500 Club and new kids like the Hotsy Totsy and Bikini A Go Go, similar establishments all, but none offering the celebrated likes of Candy Barr, Sally Rand, Blaze Starr, and (this week’s headliner) Jada of Carousel Club infamy.

  Outside, pulsating neon beckoned and a canopied entrance bragged up star strippers, but the Sho-Bar interior disappointed. This drab, unimpressively appointed chapel of sleaze was crammed with postage-stamp plastic-top tables facing a modest stage with faded red curtains and a tarnished brass guardrail to keep back overenthusiastic ringsiders. Latin dance teams, tap dancers, and blue comedians were among the uninspiring “incidental acts,” strictly Ed Sullivan Show rejects. What prevented a riot among customers was the girls, who delivered.

  Right now a busty beehive blonde called Nikki Corvette, statuesque in a sheer black nightie over pasties and G-string, was displaying herself in various interesting ways on a red divan—allow that in a furniture store and you’d sell a shitload of divans. The four-man tuxedoed combo up there, taking up as little real estate as possible, was playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Even in Beatlemania days, most of these clubs stuck with the area’s traditional Dixieland.

  The Colony back in Dallas kicked this place’s ass, but the reputation and charisma of the French Quarter—and that name stripper talent—got them by.

  The bar, with a few booths, was tucked under the balcony. I ordered a rum-and-Coke, and gave the bartender a five to let Janet know I was here. In five minutes, she was sitting with me in the farthest-back booth. She was in full stage makeup but still in street clothes—jeans and a bandana-style blue-and-white short-sleeve blouse with only her white high-heel pumps to give her away.

  She reached across the table and clasped my hands with both of hers. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you, baby. I’ve missed you.”

  “You look great. Doing all right? Any … problems?”

  She shook her head and the tower of red hair bobbled just a little; her makeup was typically over the top, green eye shadow, heavy eyebrows, lipstick as red as a candied apple—she was everything a man could want, but would never admit.

  “You’re carrying your little .22 in your purse?”

  She nodded. “There hasn’t been anything like trouble, Nate. Uncle Carlos was in a few nights ago and he talked to me, so friendly and sweet. You know I’m staying upstairs, right? I probably shouldn’t. I mean, I’m sleeping with that little rod under my pillow.”

  “Rod” was such a silly old term. Yet there was nothing at all silly about her concern.

  Her lips smiled, her eyes begged. “Why don’t you bunk with me while you’re in town, Nate?”

  “What, two rods can live safer than one?”

  “Don’t make light.”

  “Why don’t you come stay at the Roosevelt with me? That’s one joint Marcello doesn’t own.”

  She looked past me. “When I think of poor Rose, her … her skull crushed like a fuckin’ melon. Jesus!” She shuddered.

  Her hands were still clasping mine. I moved my hands around so I was clasping hers, and I squeezed. “Rose was a loose cannon, honey. She was a junkie and a flake. They know you have your head on your shoulders.”

  Her chin crinkled. “Well, it could be on the shoulder of a road getting squished, you know. And Flo Kilgore, she was no junkie whore.”

  “Not a whore, but maybe a … junkie of sorts.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was addicted to pills and she drank too much. It may have been accidental. And that was Manhattan—all the other deaths have been in Texas, and maybe a couple in Louisiana. I’m going to look into those.”

  She gave me a smirk of a half smile. “You don’t think Uncle Carlos has friends in New York?”

  I didn’t want to tell her that if Flo had been murdered, those responsible were likely CIA, not mob. That would spook her … so to speak.

  “Flo may have been murdered,” I said with a nod. “But there’s no question that Rose was killed.”

  She shivered. “And I set up that interview
with her for you and Miss Kilgore. Nate, you gotta do something about this. You have got to stop these fuckers.”

  I shifted subjects, slightly. “What about your friend Dave Ferrie? Is he coming tonight?”

  She nodded. “I set it up for nine—it’s almost that now. Like I said on the phone the other day, he’s in here half the evenings anyway. Uncle Carlos lets him run a tab. And he can buy sailors drinks and try to get lucky. Rest of the time he’s over at Dixie’s Bar. That’s for the gay set.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Just that you were a friend of mine who asked to meet him. I told him you and Guy Banister were buddies back in Chicago, like you said.”

  Ferrie had worked for Banister, according to a reporter friend of mine on the Times-Picayune. Truth was, I’d always despised Banister, a toad of a man who had been Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago FBI office through much of the ’40s and early ’50s. But he’d been a heavy drinker whose erratic behavior got him fired. He’d gone on to be the New Orleans chief of police till he got bounced for the same reasons five or six years ago. In recent years he’d been running a PI agency.

  “Listen,” she said, pulling her hands gently free, “I have to get backstage to get ready. I’ll spend a night or two with you at the Roosevelt, if you like. They got room service and my dump upstairs don’t.”

  I smiled. “I’d like that. When do you get off? I’ll take you out for something to eat.”

  “In this wacky town? Anyway, I got sets damn near all night. If you’re an early riser in your old age, you could pick me up at five A.M. We could go to the poor boy stand on St. Claude—they’re open twenty-four hours—or maybe beignets and café au lait at Café Du Monde?”

  “That’s worth a wake-up call. When’s your last set?”

  “Four.”

  “I’ll come watch and then we’ll go have poor boys or doughnuts or some damn thing. Then I’ll take you back to the Roosevelt and sleep all day.”

  “Well,” she said with a wicked glistening red smile, “we’ll stay in bed all day, anyway.… There he is. There’s your man.”