"I didn't do it," Bert repeated as he cringed on the floor, as his blood continued to turn the carpeting purple.
"Oh man," muttered Buddy, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "She told me the name, but I couldn't get the address out of her. I made her spell it for me, for Christ's sake." Dropping the wallet on the floor, he balled his hands into very tight fists. "I had to find the address in the phone book. I saw 'Bert' and I saw 'Delisky'...but it must've been 'Delinsky.'"
Bertram heard this much, but it only made him sob more energetically.
"I got the wrong guy," Buddy said soberly. "I was so pissed-off...I got the wrong one."
For a while, Buddy was silent. The only sounds in the room were Bert's moans and the ticking of the antique clock underneath his nose. Bert's blood didn't make any sound as it seeped from his body and soaked the shag fibers.
Finally, Buddy walked into the kitchen and yanked the telephone cord out of the wall. He didn't bother looking for more telephones upstairs; if there was a phone up there, Bert would never be able to get to it.
Actually, in his present condition, Bert probably wouldn't have been able to get to the phone in the kitchen, either.
Next, Buddy turned off all the lights in the kitchen and living room. He didn't want the lights to remain on all night, and attract worried neighbors to Bert's house. Buddy wanted Bert to have a little privacy that night--just that one night. He didn't want anyone to stop by and save Bert's life; he didn't want Bert to give anyone a clue as to what Buddy's plans for the rest of the night might be.
Buddy planned to find Bert Delisky and murder him. Then, he would go home and kill Debby, too.
After that, he would suck on his shotgun and pull the trigger.
"Sorry," Buddy said to Bertram Delinsky. "I'm really sorry," he admitted sincerely before hitting the last light switch and leaving the house.
Bertram didn't live to ring in his thirty-fifth birthday. He didn't have enough blood left in his body to last until midnight, or even another twenty minutes.
Things were definitely looking up for Bert, however. After he bled to death, he became a celebrity.
As is often the case with particularly bizarre and grisly murders, both the victims and the killer became rather famous. The facts of the horrible crime were laid out in a detailed suicide note written by Buddy Weems before he French kissed his shotgun. Eager to publicize sensational stories about death, the newspapers and TV networks presented grim retellings of the Weems murder-suicide, using Buddy's note as their source of information. The reporters almost always referred to Bertram's death as "a tragic case of mistaken identity." The TV reporters took turns being videotaped in Bertram's living room; they wore dark trenchcoats and stony expressions, and they spoke very slowly as they described how Bert's life had ended. The newspaper and TV reporters were all secretly hoping that their audience and colleagues would applaud their fine coverage of the story, so they could get raises and more influential jobs; in several cases, this was exactly what happened.
The people who read the newspapers and watched the TV news couldn't seem to hear enough about Bertram's murder. They all felt sorry for him, and they were all scared because he had died from such a simple mistake and it could happen to them, too.
A newspaper reporter quickly wrote a book about the deaths of Bertram Delinsky, Albert Delisky, and Buddy and Debby Weems. The book became an instant best-seller, because everyone felt so badly about Bertram's misfortune. The author of the book made lots of money, and was given many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize.
The book was eventually adapted into a motion picture, which everyone went to see. Since it was topical, and very dramatic, the motion picture also made lots of money and was given many awards. It earned several Academy Awards, including "Best Actor," which was given to the actor who played Bertram Delinsky.
Pretty soon, virtually everyone in the world had heard about Bertram Delinsky, and felt very kindly toward him.
In the end, Bert got many of the things which he had worried about not having on the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday. Not only did he make some friends, he made friends all over the world. He not only made some money, he made millions of dollars. He had worried about dying unnoticed, without making any kind of mark in the great story of humanity; now, his death had certainly been noticed, and he had earned a footnote in the annals of history.
Perhaps, if he had known about this impending success before he had died, Bert wouldn't have fretted quite so much about turning thirty-five. Maybe he would have felt a little better about being stabbed or having his nose sliced off and placed on his antique clock.
Unfortunately, though, he hadn't known, and his success didn't do him much good. He couldn't meet any of his new friends, and he couldn't read the book or see the movie which they had made to remember him. Though millions of dollars had been generated by the story of his death, Bertram Delinsky wouldn't get a single payment from the people who had capitalized on his name. This rather unfair payment scheme was the result of an unfortunate Law of Nature:
Dead men get no royalties.
*****
Crimes in the Key of Murder
Just as Carver Moreau finished playing "Caravan" on the piano, someone hoisted him off his bench. Someone, no doubt, who didn't realize they'd bitten off more than they could chew.
Because Carver was a world-class hand-to-hand fighter in the employ of none other than Sister Mayhem, bane of the underworld.
As powerful hands held Carver aloft, two men lunged from the shadows of the smoke-filled Kansas City dance hall. Both men wore pink tuxedos with white carnations in the lapels--the trademark attire of the Dreamboats, the big band for which Carver had been auditioning.
Lashing out with his legs, Carver kicked one of the men--the bald one with the black goatee--in the chest, knocking him down. The other man, however, landed a two-fisted blow in Carver's stomach.
Before the second man could hit him again, Carver pumped a knee into his side. As the man cried out and spun away, Carver swung both legs back hard, cracking his Oxfords into the shins of whoever was holding him.
The strong hands gripping his upper arms let go, and Carver dropped to the floor. Pivoting, he saw a man with shaggy blond hair and the brawn of a gorilla.
Before the gorilla-like goon could recover, Carver--trained in hand-to-hand combat by Sister Mayhem herself--belted him square in the jaw. As the gorilla-man went down, Carver whirled, expecting an attack from another direction. Instead, he heard someone clapping beyond the spotlit stage.
Carver shaded his eyes from the spotlight with one caramel-brown hand. Squinting at the shadowy tables, he saw that one woman was doing the clapping...and he recognized her. As she rose from her seat, the folds of her red satin dress draped over her voluptuous body, highlighting every curve. Her long red hair seemed to catch fire when she glided into the blazing spotlight.
Her name was Sheila Venus, and she was the leader of the Dreamboats. She was the one Carver had been playing piano for when the three men had attacked him.
"Congratulations," she said in a throaty, sultry voice. "You passed the audition."
Carver looked around at the three men scattered on the dirty dance hall floor. "That was part of the audition?" "I don't want another piano player who gets himself killed," said Sheila.
Carver nodded. He knew all about the piano player who had gotten himself killed. That man was the whole reason Carver was here, undercover, using his classical piano training to win a spot in a crooked big band.
That man, the dead piano player, had been Carver's brother, Lee.
*****
"Hello, Bud," said Trudy Moreau as she shook her husband Carver's hand. "It's very nice to meet you."
"Likewise, Tanya." Carver smiled and made a little bow. While working undercover to infiltrate the Dreamboats, Mr. and Mrs. Carver Moreau--both agents in the secret crimefighting Order of Sister Mayhem--were going by the names "Bud Gulliver" and "Tanya Hamilton."
Carver nodded. "Good luck," he said, and then he sat down at the piano and played the song she'd requested.
Trudy cleared her throat, smoothed her white dress, and started to sing. Beyond the rim of the dance hall spotlight, Sheila Venus sat at a table, smoking, drinking, and listening.
As Carver's fingers caressed the chipped piano keys, he looked around the smoky hall. He felt strange being there in his brother Lee's place, playing the same song Lee must have played hundreds of times.
This was how it must have looked to Lee--same piano, same smoke, same Sheila--but Carver knew there was more beneath the surface. He wondered what lurked there, just beyond the spotlight, just out of sight. He wondered what had taken his brother's life.
*****
"Let me help you with your bags, sir." The man from the Dreamboats' road crew reached for Carver's suitcases. "This way to the bus, if you please."
"Thanks," said Carver. "What did you say your name was?"
"Leonard." The man smiled. He had a face like a horse--long skull, sunken eyes and high cheekbones, teeth like flagstones. His hair was jet black, and his nose was cut in a sharp crescent wedge like the blade of a hatchet.
To Carver, there was just one thing that revealed him as anything other than a complete stranger: the tiny, cross-shaped birthmark at the corner of his left eye.
Leonard was far more than a lowly laborer. In fact, he was not even a man.
Underneath the elaborate costume--the putty and makeup and hair dye and padding--Leonard was a woman. Carver was actually talking to Kay Swann, the undercover crimefighter who called herself Sister Mayhem.
Kay was a master of disguise--also a master of investigation and gamesmanship and justice. She commanded a crackerjack network of like-minded knights called the Order of No Mercy, a network that included Carver and Trudy.
Within the Order, Kay went by the name Sister Mayhem. It suited her, as she had once been a nun; the execution of the Sisters in her convent by cold-blooded criminals had set her feet on the path of justice in the first place.
Outside the Order, however, her deeds were credited to Mister Mayhem. Kay thought she could create more fear among her enemies if the criminal world believed she was a man.
With a suitcase in each hand, Kay led Carver out of the dance hall to the parking lot. Two pink buses sat end to end at the far side of the lot, one for the band members and one for their instruments and equipment.
"You'll ride with the band," said Kay, reverting to her normal voice but keeping it low. "No segregation on the bus. Might be the Dreamboats' only redeeming quality."
Like Kay, Carver spoke softly. "Have you heard anything about Lee? Do you have any leads?"
"Maybe tomorrow," said Kay. "We'll be in St. Louis."
Carver felt a surge of grief and anger. St. Louis was where Lee had been murdered--beaten and strangled to death in a seedy tenement room.
"We'll check out the crime scene," said Carver. "The police might have missed something."
"You'll take the night off from the Dreamboats. Tell Sheila you're sick," said Kay. "Trudy will stay with the band, with Jack and Lillian as backup."
"Okay." Carver nodded and stared into space.
Kay's icy gaze flashed upon him. "Are you sure you want to see the crime scene? I can take Jack instead."
Carver looked him in the eye with a steady certainty that he didn't feel under the surface. "I'll be fine."
*****
The next night, in St. Louis, the Dreamboats got a warm reception. The band drew a large crowd to the downtown dance hall, and the show was a huge hit.
Though Trudy knew that the band was crooked, she couldn't help getting caught up in the excitement. The Dreamboats were master showmen and cast a spell on the audience from the first note they played to the last.
Couples hurtled across the dance floor, spinning and whooping for every fast number...slow dancing lovingly for every ballad. The applause was thunderous for every song. Whenever the musicians took a break, the crowd chanted and clapped and stomped its feet until they finally started playing again.
Sheila Venus was at the center of it all, showing off her knockout body and natural gift for bandleading. Her pink chiffon dress and white gloves suggested dainty femininity, but her fierce, precise gestures to the band revealed the absolute command of a general at war.
The Dreamboats' performance was something to behold...and yet, it was only a warmup for the show that came after.
When the band had finished its third encore, and the crowd had filtered through the front doors into the night, the lights dimmed...and a new audience filtered in through the back door.
This bunch was different than the fun-loving young people had been--for the most part older and seedier. There were hawk-nosed gangsters in dark suits, side by side with tattered, rough-and-tumble hoods, shifty-eyed addicts, rumpled salesmen...and rich-looking kick-seekers in tuxedos and furs.
There were also two familiar faces, which Trudy made it a point not to look at too long for fear of giving them away. In among the lowlifes and high rollers, her backup agents mingled--Jack and Lillian, dressed in streetlife rags, huddled off to one side.
The new crowd strolled and shuffled and slithered into the dance hall, taking care to avoid each other's gazes in the dim light. They gathered on the floor, mumbling and snickering and scuffing their feet.
Meanwhile, the Dreamboats left the stage and set up tables around the hall. They dragged musical instrument cases from backstage and arranged them on the tables, flicking open the latches but leaving the lids closed.
As Trudy watched, wondering what would happen next, Sheila drifted over and whispered in her ear. "Watch and learn, Tanya," she said. "Welcome to the late show."
"Late show?" said Trudy.
"Late as in after the first show," said Sheila. "And late as in you'll be the late Tanya Hamilton if you ever rat to the cops about it."
Before Trudy could say another word, Sheila was gone, vanished into the crowd.
As Trudy turned in a circle, looking for Sheila, Lillian caught her eye and bobbed her head toward the stage. Sure enough, Sheila was already there, grabbing the microphone from its stand.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" The microphone carried her amplified voice around the room. "Welcome to the Black Bazaar!"
As the audience clapped and cheered, Sheila swept an arm in front of her, taking in the entire hall. It was a signal.
All at once, the Dreamboats flung open the instrument cases on the tables, exposing their contents: glittering jewelry; stacks of money; heaps of coins; knives of all sorts; guns and ammunition; plastic bags filled with white powder; vials of liquid; and pornographic magazines.
"Whatever you're looking for, we have it here," said Sheila. "The finest illegal everything from across the country, gathered in one place for your buying pleasure. Go get it!"
The crowd fanned out across the room, swarming around the tables to bargain with the Dreamboats who manned them.
"Drugs, weapons, poison, gold, pornography!" Sheila paced the stage and gestured dramatically as she spoke. "Counterfeit money! Murder contracts! We have it all!"
The place was a madhouse. The level of excitement was much higher than it had ever been during the band's performance.
Trudy stood in the middle of it all and let the chaos swirl around her. Whatever doubts she might have had about the Dreamboats being involved in Carver's brother's murder, they melted away.
And whatever admiration she might have had for those musicians and their leader, it melted away, too.
"Don't forget our return policy," said Sheila. "That is, if you try to return something, we'll return you to your family--one piece at a time!"
So this was how the Dreamboats made the real money. They traveled the country, buying and selling illegal goods and services on tour.
It was brilliant. The Dreamboats had mobility, accessibility, and plausib
ility. Who would suspect a traveling big band, let alone a band with a girl for a leader?
Little did they know that the Order of No Mercy was next on their dance card.
*****
Harsh red neon lit Lee's old room, blazing through the window from the flashing sign on a barroom across the street.
The smell of sweat and excrement filled the cramped room. Carver heard a scampering sound and spotted the pink tail of a rat disappearing through a hole in the baseboard.
So this was where Lee had been living. So this was where he had died.
As Carver pushed the door shut, Sister Mayhem--still disguised as Leonard--stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle.
"The place has been well-cleaned," said Kay, "but no cleanup is ever perfect, is it?"
Carver pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and tugged them on with a snap. "If they missed anything, we'll find it."
With that, the two investigative talents went to work. As Kay carefully searched the window sills and frames, Carver lifted the stained, filthy mattress from the bed and set it aside. Next, he overturned the box spring and searched the frame...but found nothing.
As Kay moved on to take apart the overhead light fixture, Carver searched the medicine cabinet. Then, he dropped to the floor, looking under the sink and all around the rusty, sweating pipes.
While Carver was hunkered down under the sink, the rat hole in the baseboard caught his eye, and he had an idea.
Untwisting a wire clothes hanger from the closet, Carver pushed the hooked end into the hole and fished around until he felt it snag something. When he drew the hanger out, it brought a half-chewed wad of paper with it.
Smoothing out the paper, Carver saw that he had indeed found a trace of his brother--part of a note in Lee's chicken-scratch handwriting. It was a gnawed fragment, ragged and smudged, but at least it was something.
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