But the pleasure was all mine. Grey was a sloppy man. He’d done a sloppy job searching Smith’s bungalow, and now he’d done a sloppy job untying me. He’d merely loosened the rope around my hands without bothering to take it away. And when he stuck his big ape head next to mine, it was simplicity itself to take that rope and wrap it around his neck.
It took all my strength to stand and take three steps forward, dragging Grey behind me. He toppled over the back of the chair. The chair pitched forward, and Grey came with it. The chair came down with a crash. Grey came down with a snap. His body went limp.
I turned my attention to Van Dine—but he was gone. For the first time, I got a good look at the room around me. Several black monoliths loomed in the darkness. At first, I thought they were bookshelves. But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could see that they were loaded with bottles, not books. I was in Van Dine’s wine cellar.
I heard a quick shuffle-step behind me. I whirled around just in time to see Van Dine rushing me, a champagne bottle clutched in his hand.
I wanted to meet him on equal terms, but there was no time to go looking for a bottle of vodka. So I ducked. The champagne bottle cut through the air just above my head. Van Dine’s momentum carried him forward, and I gave him a good shove as he moved past. He stumbled, off balance, and slammed into the nearest wine rack. He hit the ground amid a shower of mid-range cabernets.
“Defeated by the trappings of your own decadence,” I said, shaking my head. “Clifford Odets would pay me twenty bucks for a metaphor like this.”
Van Dine groaned from beneath the pile of bottles. I gave him a moment to reflect on his predicament before I grabbed a foot and gave it a twist. Van Dine’s groans turned into a yowl. I pulled the foot—and the rest of the body it was attached to—out to the center of the tiny room.
“I want to thank you, Mr. Van Dine. You’ve given me the perfect set-up.”
I twisted the foot again. Van Dine howled again and kicked at me feebly. I twisted harder, then let go.
“I’ve been tied up. Beaten. Tortured. I’ve got the wounds to prove it.” I walked around Van Dine’s cowering form until I was just a step from his head. I placed the heel of one shoe on his face and gave it just a little bit of pressure. “So anything that happens now is purely self-defense. Because I’ll be the only one left to tell the story. Get me?”
Van Dine was panting so hard I could barely make out his words.
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘I get you,’ ” he rasped.
“Good. Now I want you to tell me what happened to John Smith.” I put just a little more pressure on Van Dine’s face. I could feel the cartilage of his nose bending almost to the snapping point. “And I don’t want any fibs.”
Van Dine talked. When he was through, I slipped the rope from around Son of Kong’s throat. I left Van Dine lying face down, his hands tied behind him, in a puddle of cabernet and champagne. That wasn’t very nice, I know. But if he got depressed waiting for the police to arrive, he could always slurp his cares away. Anyway, I could’ve left him in a puddle of blood.
Upstairs, I ran into Miss Shapely. She gaped at me, stunned, from a sofa. A copy of Film World Exposé slipped through her suddenly slack fingers. I didn’t have to be Criswell the Mind-Reader to know what thoughts were flying through her platinum-plated skull.
“Yeah, that’s right, honey. All that screaming and yelling was your boss, not me.”
“I. . .I. . .I didn’t. . .”
“Save the smooth talk for the cops, glamour-puss.” I went to the nearest phone—one of those old-fashioned gold-leaf and pearl jobs you always see Bette Davis gabbing on in the pictures—and asked the operator to give me police headquarters. Some lucky desk jockey was about to get the anonymous tip of a lifetime.
While I was waiting for the connection to go through, Miss Shapely jumped off the couch and made a beeline for the front door. I took mercy on a poor working girl and let her go.
IT WAS DARK by the time I got back to my office. That was fine. It fit my mood.
I’d been settled behind my desk all of five minutes when my client came through the door. My heart went pitter-pat. My head told my heart to get lost.
She sat down across from me.
“Have you found my brother?”
Oh, that voice. It didn’t purr like a kitten. It didn’t caress me like a silk glove. It chipped away at me like a jackhammer. It was a husky, no-nonsense, “¡Viva la revolucion!” kind of voice. I loved her even more.
But . . . There’s always a but when you’re a private dick. And my but was as big as they come.
“I’ve found John Smith,” I said. “Up until this evening, he was in a flower bed at the home of a movie producer named Dominic Van Dine.” I glanced at my watch. “By now, I’d bet he’s on his way to the Los Angeles County morgue.”
I watched her for a reaction. She didn’t disappointment me. She didn’t have one. No false hysterics. No crocodile tears. Just a cocked eyebrow and a single word.
“Explain.”
I obliged.
“Van Dine knew about Smith’s ties to the Communist Party. That’s why he hired him to work on a script. Not because Van Dine’s some kind of sympathizer. He’s just greedy. Smith’s past made him vulnerable: It meant he’d work cheap. But when the House Committee on Un-American Activities started tossing around subpoenas, Van Dine got nervous. If it came out that he’d knowingly hired a Red, he’d be finished in this town. So he sent a musclebound messenger boy out to collect Smith and his script. Smith told Van Dine he wanted to appear before the committee. He wanted to . . . how did you put it this morning? ‘Throw their fascist grandstanding back in their fat faces’? But Van Dine couldn’t have that. He’s not one of those studio producers. He’s an independent. He has to finance his projects himself. He already had a small bundle tied up in his next picture, and a small bundle’s more than a guy like that can afford to lose. So he convinced Smith not to testify—convinced him with a piece of rope wrapped around his neck.”
My client’s grey eyes didn’t fill with tears. Sobs didn’t erupt from her thin, colorless lips. Such displays would be beneath her—beneath us. Because we were both players on the same team. Maybe you’ve heard of us. The Los Angeles Reds.
“And the script?” she said.
I nodded. “Yes. The script. That’s what you’re really interested in, isn’t it, comrade? Smith wasn’t your brother. He was your stooge. And you need to get that script back to cover your tracks.”
I finally saw her smile. It broke up the marble smoothness of her face, revealing the animal cunning beneath. “Yes, comrade. You recovered the copy from Van Dine’s residence?”
I nodded again. “I had time to do a little nosing around before the cops showed up. I found it.”
“Good. Give it to me and our work will be done.”
No more nodding for me. I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Not until I get an explanation.”
Her face turned to stone again. “If you are a true revolutionary, you will give the script to me.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that? Now tell me—what’s in that script that’s so important?”
She shrugged with a nonchalance so transparent you’d have to call it outright chalance. “Nothing. As you said, I’m just trying to tie up loose ends.”
I grunted unhappily. I don’t like being lied to, even by women I’d like to run off and make little proles with. “Then why is it written in code?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A deep, sad sigh rose and fell in my chest. “Nobody in this town writes dialogue that bad on purpose—not unless they’ve got a hidden agenda. Or maybe a contract with Universal. I spent quite a few hours on buses today, so I had plenty of time to work out Smith’s system. Take the first letter of each word of dialogue, add them together and voila, it’s Western Union time. But I still don’t know what it all means. ‘Rosenberg says no.’ ‘The fluori
dation is working.’ ‘The Roswell prisoners are ill.’ It’s all Greek to me.”
As Spymaster Mary listened to my little speech, the smile I’d seen earlier started to return. I was hoping it would be a warmer smile, a more human smile, a throw-herself-into-my-arms-and-declare-her-undying-love kind of smile. But it was none of the above. It was a smug smile.
“And it will stay Greek, for the good of the cause,” she told me. “All I can tell you is this: That screenplay is the key to America’s greatest secrets. It represents the accumulated work of our entire spy network here. How fitting it would have been to deliver it to our comrades overseas in the form of a Hollywood film—the ultimate symbol of Western foolishness. That can’t happen now. But the script can still be smuggled abroad. With the information it holds, the Soviet Union will finally crush the United States like an insect.”
Under different circumstances, I would have swooned. Mary Smith—real name Maria Smithostovovich or some such thing—really knew how to get a red-blooded Red worked into a lather. But I’m not just Red. I hate to admit it, but under the surface I’m white and blue, too.
“Since you put it like that, it’s no dice, sister.” I wanted to bite my tongue off with every word. Somehow I managed to keep going. “I’m a traitor to my class, but not my country. I’m not giving you that script.”
I didn’t even get a raised eyebrow out of her, let alone a wistful tear. She simply pulled a revolver from her jacket and leveled it at me. My heart was broken. And in a second, it was going to be filled with hot lead.
“Now hold on. We can still talk this out, comrade.”
“You are no comrade of mine,” she hissed back at me. “You call yourself a Communist, yet you let nationalist loyalties come between you and your duty to the revolution. I should shoot you down like a dog.”
“But then you wouldn’t get the other copy of the script.”
“Other copy?” The barrel of the gun wavered just a bit—from my heart to my gut. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy.
“When a typewriter key hits the ribbon, it leaves an impression. And I’ve got the ribbon from John Smith’s typewriter. Or, to be more exact, a friend of mine has the ribbon. A blind friend. I gave it to him this afternoon after I left Smith’s bungalow. He’s had plenty of time to go over it. I’m sure he’s got the whole script transcribed by now.”
It looked like my little visit to Barney the Bat was going to pay off for the second time today. Looked like that for about two seconds, that is.
“But as you pointed out, it’s written in code. He won’t know what it means or who to take it to—if you’re dead.”
What could I say? “Good point”?
She cocked her revolver. “Now give me Van Dine’s copy of the script.”
“Like I said, no dice. And if you shoot me, you’ll never find it. Looks like we’ve got us a stalemate.”
She waved the gun at a corner of my desk. “But isn’t that the script sitting right there?” She sounded amused. At last, I’d gotten a little warmth out of her. It didn’t help me feel any better.
“Well, I guess that was the dumbest bluff I ever tried to put over.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that, Mr. Menace.” The barrel moved again. Now it was pointed squarely at my forehead. “Das vedanya.”
I sighed again. “Yeah, O.K. So long, sister. Tell the boys in the Kremlin I said—”
A shot rang out before I could finish. I thought that was pretty rude. Not only does she kill me, but she’s got to interrupt me, too. Some people ain’t got no manners.
Then an amazing thing happened: The woman who just killed me toppled off her chair. The back of her head looked like a lasagna. Even more shocking—I was alive.
“Boy, am I gonna regret that in the mornin’,” a familiar voice said.
FBI special agent Mike Sickles was standing in the doorway of my office, his gun in his hand. He was shaking his big, bald head.
“If I’d just waited two more seconds—bang. You’d have been out of my hair forever, Menace.”
I wanted to say something like “What hair, cueball?” But I wasn’t about to push my luck. He could still change his mind and let her shoot me retroactively. It was just a matter of how he wanted to write it up in his report.
Sickles stepped into the room and bent down over Mary Smith. He was followed quickly by the lackey I’d seen him with earlier in the day. At least it looked like the same guy from the shins down.
“She dead, Mike?” Sickles’ partner asked.
“Nah, she’s just hibernatin’. Now call the meatwagon, knucklehead.”
Knucklehead scooped up the phone off my desk and asked the operator for the coroner’s office.
Sickles waved his meaty hand back and forth before my eyes. “Hey, anybody home? Snap out of it, Menace. She scare you to death or somethin’?”
I blinked, maybe for the first time in a good minute. “Thanks,” I said.
Sickles grimaced. “Don’t thank me. I handed you a break because you wouldn’t give the broad the script. Next time I might not feel so merciful.”
“How long were you there in the doorway?”
“Not long. I only moseyed over when things started to heat up.”
“Moseyed over?”
“Sure. Knucklehead and me, we were next door listening to the whole conversation. It was mighty entertainin’, too. Like The Bickersons and Suspense rolled into one.”
“You’ve got my place bugged?”
Sickles cocked his head and gave me a don’t-ask-stupid-questions frown. “Course not. We had tin cans pressed up against the wall.”
I didn’t push it. Besides, I had other questions on my mind. I nodded at Mary Smith’s body without letting my eyes move that way.
“So what’s her real name, anyway?”
Sickles ran his hands over his smooth, sweaty skull. He was obviously trying to decide whether or not to tell me the truth. The truth won out. What a day for sworn enemies. Around the world, cats and dogs stopped fighting and kissed each other on both cheeks.
“Beats me, Menace,” Sickles said. “I didn’t even know she existed until she walked in here and started gabbin’ with you.”
He saw my confusion and went on. “You were the one we were following. Ever since we walked in on you at John Smith’s place.” He cracked a cock-eyed smile. “You were hidden O.K., but that beer you were guzzling wasn’t. It was still cold when we came in. All the windows were closed and bolted, so I knew somebody was still in there somewhere. I dropped a little hint about Dominic Van Dine—the next stop on my hunt for Smith—then stepped back to see what happened.”
I grunted with grudging admiration. “You amaze me, Sickles. You played this one better than Machiavelli himself.”
Sickles glared at me. “He some kinda Commie?”
I shook my head.
He allowed himself a half-smile. “Yeah, well, maybe. Only if I’m so smart, how come I’ve got boils on my butt the size of grapefruit from all the hours I spent sittin’ in the car today? I tell ya’, Menace, tailin’ you is like getting in a high-speed chase with a three-legged turtle.”
What a charming development. Sickles and I were so thoroughly bonded now he felt free to tell me about his carbuncles. I stifled a sigh.
My eyes drifted back to the body of Miss X, the Unknown Communist. I hadn’t killed her, but I hadn’t helped her, either.
What kind of revolutionary was I? What kind of detective was I? What kind of man was I?
“All that is solid melts into air,” Marx wrote. That was me alright. Fred Menace, the Red Detective, had melted. I’m just vapor now, part of the smog that chokes L.A.
I still charge thirty dollars a day plus expenses, though. Even vapor’s gotta make a living.
The Dying Artist
SHELLEY FREYDONT
EVERYONE LOVED WATCHING George MacCready die. His dying was unparalleled. No one could clutch at his throat quite lik
e George MacCready. No one’s knees buckled with the gusto of George MacCready’s. Nor could they sprawl ontheir backs, legs quivering ever so slightly, as they gasped their final breath. Only for him would the ermine trim of a velvet tunic kiss the floor as he fell, then twine about his outstretched legs like fingers of a foggy night.
No one could die quite like George MacCready. And no one enjoyed watching him die more than I.
For you see, George MacCready learned how to die from life. Not his life, for that would have been pointless—to die in order to perfect the business of dying. George MacCready learned by watching others die.
The first time I saw him watching death was after a performance of Macbeth. I left my seat in the stalls and hurried outside to wait for the great expirer at the stage door. MacCready had just exited the theatre when a cry rose up from the street behind us. MacCready lifted his head, listening. Then he strode down the alley, brushing away his admirers as if they were mere coal dust. I joined the others who followed in his wake.
When next I spotted him, he was standing among a crowd that had gathered to watch two constables pull a boy from beneath a hansom’s wheels. His body was mangled and crushed. A strange gurgling sound arose from within him. His head rolled and spurted blood with equal abandon. But his legs. Ah. His legs hopped around much in the same manner of that other great expirer, Edwin Forrest.
It seems only fitting that EF would pattern his death scenes after the snuffing out of a lower class soul. EF was all blast and bombast in his dying. His whole body would spasm and his arms shoot heavenward. Then he would fall and roll along the floor, his legs kicking out with as much grace as that poor urchin who lay in the street. EF didn’t understand finesse in dying.
I watched MacCready study that poor boy—draw closer and peer over him until the constable eased him aside. And all the while, I watched him watching. I could tell the moment when he dismissed the boy’s demise as beneath his study.
After a time, he sauntered away and I sauntered after him. Watched him walk along the cobbled street, opening and closing his fist just as the boy had done.
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