Better Dead

by Max Allan Collins

  Julius went quick.

  Ethel didn’t.

  After the standard three jolts, one short, two long, she was still alive. Two more shocks were required. It took her four minutes and fifty seconds to die.

  In Chicago, outside city hall, crowds celebrated, and upraised placards pronounced “DEATH TO THE COMMIE RATS” and other stirring sentiments. According to the papers, similar anti-Rosenberg demonstrators mobbed the sidewalks outside the White House, and in cities and towns coast to coast, including liberal California, where pro-Rosenberg picketers were chased from the streets and beaten.

  Like a last-minute confession from Julius or Ethel, a public outcry over the injustice done them just didn’t happen. Instead, the court of public opinion handed them another guilty verdict, endorsing a show trial worthy of Old Joe Stalin himself.

  BOOK TWO

  DEEP CREEK

  CHAPTER

  14

  In lacy black two-piece lingerie, the beautiful girl was sprawled on her back on the floor, her long black hair flowing around her chin-tilted head in a terrible blossom, her eyebrows high over slits of terror, a ball gag in her mouth, her shapely black-seamed silk-stockinged legs up in the air, wrists tied behind her upraised thighs keeping the uplifted limbs in place, ankles cinched by rope that angled past impossible high heels to the mercy of an unseen captor.

  I flipped to the next 8-by-10.

  The same beauty was in the out-of-doors now, tied between two trees, legs spread apart, dressed only in a leopard-skin bikini and thigh-high hose. Here her hair was a perfect shoulder-length pageboy, but her eyes again showed fear approaching tears, the ball gag strapped once more into her mouth.

  I flipped to the next photo. An almost attractive blonde in bra, panties, and hose had a paddle raised above the very shapely bottom of our same black-haired beauty, also in bra and panties and hose, tied facedown into a barber’s chair with clothesline, glancing back at us in pretty distress. Next: the beauty on her back in black bikini lingerie and stockings and heels with wrists and ankles tied to the legs of an ottoman, mouth wide in a silent scream, eyes wide in horror. Then: leopard bikini, heels, sheer black stockings, wrists and ankles hooked up to a pulley contraption that seemed intent on drawing and quartering the beauty, her eyes showing lots of white in wide-open terror.

  “I sense a theme,” I said.

  I was sitting in my seldom-used, barely furnished office at the A-1 Detective Agency’s Manhattan branch on the forty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building. Out the window was a mid-November morning, with a very gray fall out there clawing into winter. This was my first day in the big town for at least a week of interviewing prospective A-1 operatives to fill the desks and the office next door that we’d taken over.

  Moon-faced, bow-tied Bob Hasty, sitting across from me in the client’s chair, said, “They’re called bondage photos.”

  “I’ve seen this kind of thing,” I said with a shrug. “Not a kink that draws me in, but I know there’s an underground market for the stuff.”

  “Recognize the girl?”

  “The doll with the pageboy? Yeah. She’s in all the girlie magazines. Bettie Page.”

  A smile blossomed between pink cheeks. “Ah, so you’re a fan.”

  “No, she’s got a pageboy and her name is Page and it kind of sticks.”

  He pawed the air. “You don’t have to make excuses for me, Nate. I know it gets lonely on the road.”

  I grinned at him. “Fuck you, Bob. What does this have to do with hiring operatives? Not that she wouldn’t be ideal for undercover work.”

  Too easy, but I said it.

  He sat forward and got serious. “She needs help. The government’s been on her ass, not that I blame them. But the guy who takes these bondage photos is a client of Mendelson’s.”

  Mendelson of Mendelson, Mendelson, and Mendelson. Remember the old joke? “May I speak to Mendelson?” “Mr. Mendelson has retired.” “Then may I speak to Mendelson?” “Mr. Mendelson is in court today.” “Then can you put me through to Mendelson?” “Speaking.” Anyway, the youngest Mendelson was an attorney here in the building who did criminal defense. The A-1 was handling his investigations.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “The government’s after Bondage Boy for using the U.S. mails to distribute pornography.”

  Bob looked hurt. “Nate, this stuff isn’t pornographic.”

  “Of course it isn’t, but tell it to the bluenose judge. So—what are we supposed to do for Miss Page?”

  “Like I say, we’re doing this for Mendelson, who represents the bondage photographer guy, whose name is Irving Klaw.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “As far as I know,” Bob said, turning up both palms, neither of which was hairy, “that’s his real name. Klaw’s had a movie-photo and book store for years on Fourteenth Street in the Village. Stumbled onto this bondage racket when his male clients kept buying movie stills that showed actresses tied up. Didn’t matter whether they were stars or nobodies, just so they were female and gagged or bound or whatever. So Klaw starts shooting his own photos, some of it made-to-order for his clients. His mail-order business takes off. And, Nate, this stuff with Bettie and the other girls, it really isn’t pornographic—no nudity, no men in the shots. This is outright harassment.”

  “Well,” I said, “remember—the government has a responsibility to keep its citizens from having any fun. If you haven’t been paying attention, Bob, sex these days is strictly for making babies.”

  He smirked at me. “I’ll write that down. Anyway, she’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  “Who will?”

  “Bettie Page! I’m going to let her fill you in on the details.”

  “The details of what? Look, I appreciate you trying to fix me up with pinup girls, Bob, but—”

  “Nate, for months you have been more like a monk than the poon hound we all know and love.”

  I winced. “I can’t believe I actually hired a guy to represent my agency in the big city who says ‘poon hound.’”

  “Do I lie?”

  Really, he didn’t. Since that business with Natalie Ash, I had been uncharacteristically chaste, doing no chasing, and had been accused by my Chicago partner, Lou Sapperstein, of becoming “dour,” which I had to look up.

  So I agreed to take the meeting, and when Bettie Page was shown in to my office by a smiling, twinkly-eyed Bob Hasty, I found myself staring, and not at him. Not hardly.

  The beauty with the shoulder-brushing black hair in the pageboy cut was both exactly what I expected and not at all. Her face was perfectly framed by black locks, her make-up surprisingly light though the dark red lipstick brought Natalie Ash unsettlingly to mind.

  But this was no Bohemian, nor a wicked girl into sadomasochistic fun and games. Her quality was more girl-next-door, if you were that lucky a bastard, with a wholesomeness and a winning personality that leapt at you like a friendly tiger. She wore a pink short-sleeved sweater tight enough that the white bra beneath bled through, with a dark brown leather belt cinching a wasp waist above a tan skirt that hit just under her knees. Her nylons were beige, not dark black, and her high heels were low-slung, not sky-high. Subtracting the heels, I made her as five foot five, and despite a towering personality, she seemed almost petite. The scent of Ivory soap wafted.

  I stood behind the desk, while I could still risk it, and offered my hand. “Miss Page. I’m Nathan Heller.”

  “Oh, Mis-tuh Heller,” she said, and smiled like a cheerleader, her Southern accent honeying her sultry second soprano, “ah would know you anywhere. Ah’ve seen you in the magazines.”

  Wasn’t that my line?

  Bob held her chair for her and she sat and he went out, grinning like a goofus, shutting us in.

  “There was that nice spread in Lawf,” she said, meaning Life, moving her head just enough for the black tresses to swing a little, “and so many stories in the detective magazines. Ah’ve posed for a few covers of those mah-self, you know
… not of any with stories about you, but…” She noted the photos spread out on my desktop like a bizarre hand of cards. “… they like to tie you up for those shots, too.”

  “I’m familiar with your work, Miss Page.”

  “You’re a Chicago boy,” she reminded me. “Well, ah’ve been there and done some sessions. Maybe you saw me in Modern Man or Figure?”

  “I try to support local publishing,” I said.

  She had a little black purse in her lap, both hands clasping it, like a fig leaf that might slip. “Ah’m a little embarrassed comin’ to the Private Eye to the Stars with such a piddly little problem.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You know,” she said, with a raised eyebrow and a confidential air, “ah had a screen test mah-self once. Way back in ’44.”

  I’d figured her for mid-twenties, but studying her, and doing the math, thirty seemed more like it.

  “Ah was so turr-ible,” she said, and shivered. “They did my hair up like Joan Crawford, up off this high forehead of mine? And this Southern accent that ah simply cannot shake, no matter how many classes ah take, well … it did not go over good, and so, here ah am.”

  “You’re a very popular model, Miss Page.”

  “Yes, of a certain type. You know, when ah first come to town, ah went to Eileen Ford? And she threw me out on mah fanny. Mah hips were too darn big, she said, and ah was way too short. But Mr. Klaw, oh a wonderful man, he’s put me in a movie. Ah just finished shootin’ it. Striporama—keep an eye out. So maybe ah do have a right to your attention.”

  Did she always rattle on so? Or did she know how charming she was, and what an effect she might have on a miserable pile of male protoplasm like Nathan Heller?

  “You have it, Miss Page,” I said. “My attention, I mean. But first, let me guess—Mr. Klaw is in trouble with the United States Postal Service, and because you’re his top model … Again, I’m guessing, but you are?”

  She nodded, still clasping her purse.

  “Because you’re his top model, you’re afraid it might come back on you.”

  She made a limp-wristed gesture. “Oh, but it already has, sugar.… Sorry. Mis-tuh Heller. It’s just that … ah just feel so very … comfortable with you.”

  “Call me Nate then.”

  “Ah will if you’ll call me Bettie, or Betts. Some of my friends prefer the latter.”

  “I’ll stick with Bettie. You said it’s already come back on you, the photos Mr. Klaw sells?”

  She nodded and the bangs bounced. “Two investigators came to see me last week. Knocked right on my apartment door. They had credentials but not any badges. They weren’t FBI or Treasury or anything. They had private investigator licenses, though, and they were from Washington, D.C., all right.”

  I frowned. “Well, sometimes congressional committees use private investigators. I’ve been hired that way myself. What did they want?”

  “They said ah could get a clean bill of health if ah’d just testify against Mr. Klaw. Ah said ah didn’t have anything bad to say about Mr. Klaw, and they said, don’t worry about that, sweetie—sweetie, they call me!—we’ll let you know what to say.”

  “Were you told to report anywhere? Here or in D.C.?”

  She shook her head, tossing her tresses. “No, sir. They just said ah’d be hearin’ from ’em, and not to leave the country. Ah’ve never even been out of the country! Well, Mexico. Does that count?”

  “Bettie,” I said, “what would you like me to do?”

  Her red mouth pursed into a kissy smile. Her eyes were a blue I hadn’t seen since the ocean in Nassau. “Sugah, ah haven’t been just entirely forthcomin’. Ah know that you’re an important man and don’t take on just any ol’ case. Like ah said, ah read about you in Life and True Detective.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Wasn’t too long ago, was it, that you did some investigatin’ yourself for Senator Kefauver? Right there in Chicago? Helped the man expose some of the mobsters and gangsters and such that are so prevalent in your community?”

  Now I followed. This was seduction, and I was the seductee—only not in the fun way I might hope.

  I said, “The investigators from Washington who called on you … they were working for the Kefauver Committee?”

  “Yes, sir, the committee lookin’ into juvenile delinquency and comic books and dirty magazines and how the last two are responsible for the first. And isn’t that just about the dumbest thing you ever heard?”

  “Just about,” I admitted.

  She sat forward; the breasts in that pink sweater came right along with her. She and they stared at me.

  “Mr. Heller … Nathan … sugah … ah’m a Tennessee gal myself. Why, when ah go back home, ah’m one of the senator’s constituents! Couldn’t you go and talk to him a little bit for me? Convince the man to give a hometown girl a pass on this silliness? Ah wouldn’t hurt Mr. Klaw for the world.”

  “I couldn’t guarantee anything, Miss Page. Bettie.”

  “Well, your partner, Mis-tuh Hasty?” she said, reminding me who my partner was, in case her pink sweater had given me amnesia. “When we first talked last week, he happened to mention that you’re headin’ to Washington later this week, on other business? Couldn’t you just work this in for me? Drop in on Senator Kefauver, your old boss man? Maybe he owes you for helpin’ him out in Chicago.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  She frowned. She could do that without wrinkling her face. It was the goddamnest thing.

  “Nate,” she said, “there is one other little thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Ah’m not a rich girl. Ah understand the per-day rate around here is one hundred fifty dollars, but ah’m guessing you as the big chief must get more than the little injuns. Could we work somethin’ out?”

  There was absolutely no hint of sexual favors in her tone or her expression. I swear to you. No kidding.

  But a man can hope.

  “Bettie, let’s see first if I can accomplish anything for you. Since I am heading to D.C. anyway, there’s no harm in me trying. Then we’ll talk remuneration.”

  That smile dazzled. “Sounds fair, sugah. But either way, when you get back to town? Ah’d like to take you out to dinner. Mah treat. Some real fun spots down in the Village.”

  “That’s where you live?”

  She nodded. “You familiar with that part of town?”

  “Somewhat,” I said.

  * * *

  After the televised organized crime hearings made its committee chair a household name, Senator Estes Kefauver seemed a shoo-in for the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination. His New Hampshire primary win shoved sitting President Truman out of the race, with the Tennessee lawmaker going on to win all but three primaries. Campaigning in a coonskin hat and oozing folksiness, Kefauver seemed to have the nod in the bag … until the smoking-room boys chose Adlai Stevenson instead.

  There was always 1956, and toward that end the publicity-seeking senator had gone the committee route again, his target this time not crime but juvenile delinquency, which was caused (or so the specious assumption went) by violent TV and movies, comic books, and pornography.

  Kefauver’s walls in his inner sanctum at the Senate Office Building were as full of framed celebrity photos, awards, proclamations, magazine covers, and newspaper headlines as Joe McCarthy’s were vacant. Like McCarthy, however, the senator sat behind a big standard-issue government desk, which was stacked with papers and file folders. In white shirtsleeves, red suspenders, and red-and-white striped tie, this modern-day Ichabod Crane had sharp eyes that lurked behind round-framed tortoiseshell glasses, his beaky nose giving him a hawklike visage.

  The busy man did not rise to his full six four, merely stuck his hand out for me to reach across the desk and shake, which I did. I’d been told the senator would only have a few minutes for me, but that was all I’d need. This would work or it wouldn’t.

  “Nathan,” he said, in an easy, soft-spoken d
rawl, “it’s been some while. I see from the press that your business is flourishing. Coast to coast now. My congratulations. How can I be of help?”

  I gave him half a smile with just the right hint of smart-ass in it, and in my tone. “I understand you’ve moved on from grown-up crime to the juvenile variety.”

  A hint of irritation tensed the eyes.

  “Our research indicates,” he said with a hint of archness, “that juvenile offenders often grow up to be full-fledged adult lawbreakers.”

  I put in more than a hint of archness. “So then you’re looking into improving the reform school system, to nip this kind of thing in the bud.”

  He leaned back and chuckled. “I think you know what we’re looking into.”

  I opened my hands, as if showing I had no weapon. “Juvenile delinquency—it’s all the rage. But you’re going after the root cause—funny books and under-the-counter brown-wrapper smut. And supposedly movies and TV, but Hollywood polices that themselves pretty thoroughly. That’s a twin-bed world, and the bullets never make you bleed.”

  “Nathan—I made time for you today. Don’t make me sorry.”

  I sat forward. “Senator, you don’t really believe you can prove a cause-and-effect relationship between cheap entertainment and juvenile delinquency.”

  “It’s doubtful,” he admitted, “but we’ll listen to the testimony and examine the evidence.”

  “You mean a parade of witnesses will come in, experts with their b.s. and scared-shitless publishers and creative types. Some defensive, others apologetic, some both. Along the way, you’ll showcase all kinds of racy, tasteless exhibits and you’ll be all over the TV again. More power to you.”

  He sighed, tossing his glasses on the desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Nathan, I know you’re a cynic, and as worldly as they come. You know damn well, as do I, that my crime committee didn’t put any gangsters away. But we lifted the rock and showed America the squirmy things down under there. I hope to do the same thing this time around. Expose this trash so popular with youngsters. Warn parents and educators. Juvenile delinquency is just a symptom of a greater weakness in our land, in our whole moral and social fabric.”