The Old Die Young

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  Tony said, “Yeah. You say she used to come in here with an older man. Remember his name, Joe?”

  “No. Never heard it. Say, what are you, Mac? Cop or something?”

  “Or something,” Tony said. “Just interested in a pretty girl. As who isn’t, pal?”

  “Me,” Joe said. “Oh, there was a time I was. Not much, nowadays, you could say. Leave that to the youngsters, like you, Mac.”

  Tony said, “Thanks, Joe,” and joined Shapiro.

  “Used to come in with an older man,” he told Shapiro. “Not so often with Askew. With this older man when, he thinks, they were rehearsing what he thinks is called Summer Success. And they’re busy here in the evenings. During intermissions.”

  “Figures,” Shapiro said. “Guess we’ll be going around to see Mrs. Abel for a few minutes, Tony. I gave her a ring, so she’ll be expecting us this time. She can’t imagine what more she can tell us, and did someone really kill dear Clive? I told her we think somebody did. With a barbiturate, according to the autopsy.”

  “In an amount which probably wouldn’t have killed most people,” Tony said.

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell her that.”

  “Because maybe she knows, Nate?”

  “Well,” Shapiro said, “looks as if somebody did, wouldn’t you say?”

  7

  The pretty young receptionist lifted the telephone on her desk when she saw Shapiro and Cook come into the outer office of Martha Abel Associates. She pressed a button in the phone’s base and spoke into the phone. They were at her desk by then and could hear her say, “Those policemen are here, Mrs. Abel.” There was a rustling sound from the receiver, and the receptionist said, “Yes, Mrs. Abel.” She looked up at Shapiro then and said, “You can go right in.”

  Shapiro rapped on the door to the inner office and Martha Abel said, “Oh, come on in,” as if she had been waiting a long time for them. To Shapiro she looked alert, almost to the point of impatience. She raised groomed eyebrows toward him. Then she said, “Well, you’re back. I suppose that means”—she paused—“something,” she said.

  “Autopsy report,” Shapiro said. “Preliminary, anyway. Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yes?”

  “Apparently,” Shapiro said, “Mr. Branson took an overdose of one of the barbiturates. Easy to do when you’ve been drinking. And a bad idea when you’ve been drinking. You say he seemed in good spirits at the party. Not depressed or anything.”

  “I told you that. Are you trying to suggest Clive took this overdose you call it on purpose? To kill himself? You couldn’t be more wrong, Lieutenant. What reason would he have had? Anyway …” She left the “anyway” hanging.

  “No, Mrs. Abel. I’m not suggesting anything. Anyway what?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know what I was going to say.”

  “Perhaps that Mr. Branson never took sleeping medicine? Not barbiturates, anyway? And so wouldn’t have had them around to take?”

  “Who told you that? That Clive had low tolerance for barbiturates? Almost no tolerance at all, from what he said.”

  “His dresser, Mrs. Abel. Man named Lord.”

  “Poor dear Edgar. Devoted to Clive. Hard to imagine what he’ll do now, after so many years. He told you about Clive and sleeping pills?”

  “Yes, and I take it he’d know after, as you say, so many years. How did you know, Mrs. Abel?”

  “Clive told me. Oh, just in passing. I’d said something about having trouble sleeping. It was just after”—she paused—“well, it was just after my husband took off. I was a little upset for a while. Had trouble sleeping. I happened to mention it to Clive, who’d rallied around like the sweet man he is—I mean was, don’t I? I told him I was taking sleeping pills and that they seemed to be working. Capsules, actually. Nembutal. Prescription. And he said I was lucky to be able to and that he envied me. Because he couldn’t. Was—oh, allergic to them or something. He said, ‘What gives most people a few hours of sleep puts me out for weeks—could be even for good,’ and that he’d fortunately learned that the first time he ever took a barbiturate.”

  “Do you know whether he told other people that, Mrs. Abel? About this overreaction?”

  She had no idea. She supposed he might have, although he wasn’t one of those who went around talking about their health.

  “Nembutal,” Shapiro said, his tone thoughtful, as if the word had prompted memories. “What my wife took a while back. When she was going up for her oral and—well, found it a little difficult to sleep.”

  “Oral?”

  “Oh, you know—quiz by learned professors for her doctorate. She’s a schoolteacher, Mrs. Abel. Principal, now. Since she’s Doctor Shapiro. Took the stuff for two or three weeks along then. A hundred mgs at bedtime. ‘As needed for sleep,’ the prescription read. Yes, that was it, a hundred mgs. Sound right to you?”

  “Comes in capsules,” she said. “Fifties and one-hundreds, I think. Mine were the hundreds. I didn’t use up the bottle. Probably kicking around somewhere. Bottle had one of those child-proof caps. Damn near me-proof too, come to that.”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said, “the way my wife’s came. I had to help her get the cap off. Hers are probably kicking around somewhere, too. Mg—milligram—that’s a thousandth of a gram, isn’t it? So ten capsules would add up to a gram.”

  “And a gram has been known to be fatal,” Martha Abel said. “Even to people with normal tolerance. And it would be easy to cut a capsule open. Cut ten capsules open, and put the powder in—oh, in a twist of paper. Ready to spill into somebody’s drink. Only—I didn’t, Lieutenant. So you didn’t need to use this story about this mythical wife of yours.”

  “All right,” Shapiro said. “Only my wife isn’t mythical. Dr. Rose Shapiro, principal of Clayton High School, down in the Village.”

  “So,” she said. “I had means and opportunity. That’s the way it’s phrased, isn’t it? But not sole opportunity, you’ll have to admit. And how about motive, Lieutenant? Clive Branson had been a friend of mine for years. He was also a client—a very valuable client. Worth—oh, thousands a year in commissions—while he was alive. Dead, worth nothing. Just a longtime friend gone. Don’t you have to warn me, or something, Lieutenant Shapiro?”

  “Only if I charge you with something. Which I’m not doing, you see. I suppose you don’t know who else at this party last night might be taking barbiturates?”

  “I’ve no idea. Any of them might be. Theater people—well, they can be a nervy lot. It’s a trying trade, Lieutenant. Or profession. Actors like to call it an art. They—”

  The telephone on her desk interrupted her. She said, “Yes?” and then, “Well, if he is, you can’t stop him, can you?” And then the door of her office opened with something like violence, and Kenneth Price came in and said “Darling!” and, seeing Cook and Shapiro in the room, stopped with that.

  “Yes, dear,” Martha Abel said. “Gracie could have told you I wasn’t free. If you’d given her a chance, that is.”

  “All right, sweetheart, sorry. Entertaining the police again? They do get around, don’t they? If they’re all that important to us, O.K. Anyway, I’ve talked to the grand mogul and—well, well, we’re in. I thought you might like to know.”

  “You talked to Mr. Simon?”

  “What I just said, dear. I go on tomorrow night. Oh, another run-through tonight. With Arlene. But Kirby seems to be satisfied. Says I’m ‘shaping up.’ Simon passed that along. Said you can get in touch with him anytime about a new contract.”

  “Good. I’ll do that, Ken. You didn’t—anyway, I hope you didn’t—try to set anything up yourself? Like run of the play?”

  “You ought to know better, lover. Like they say about lawyers. Same with agents. I do know that.”

  “Yes. It is pretty much the same. ‘A fool for a client.’ Which did originate with lawyers, of course. So run along, sonny.”

  Kenneth Price said, “O.K., Marty. We ought to break maybe around ten. After that b
e all right?”

  “Call me when you break. But so far as I know, yes. Although you ought to be getting up on the part.”

  “I am now. Told you that, didn’t I?”

  She said, “All right. Give me a ring. And we’ll talk about what to hold out for with Simon.”

  Price said, “See you, dear,” and went out of the office.

  Shapiro stood up. He said, “Maybe we’ve bothered Mrs. Abel enough for now, Tony. And—thank you, Mrs. Abel.”

  “I’m not under arrest?” The pretty white-haired woman smiled when she said it. Shapiro shook his head. He did smile back at her.

  Outside the offices of Martha Abel Associates, in the elevator going down, Shapiro said, “Well, Tony? More than agent-client relationship? Or just the way theater people talk? All the ‘darlings’ and ‘sweethearts’?

  “And,” Tony said, “apparently they have a date for tonight. At her place, at a guess.”

  “My guess too,” Shapiro said. “Not entirely a business date, I’d think. She’s an attractive woman, Tony, white hair or not. Although it does make her look older than she is, of course.”

  “My mother,” Tony Cook said, “had completely white hair when she was twenty-five or thereabouts. What my father told me, anyway. But she’s got a point about no motive, Nate. Get her boyfriend a better part, sure—but lose a better client. She’s a businesswoman, Nate. In what I’d guess is a pretty competitive business. Thousands well lost for love?”

  Shapiro said he didn’t know; that it was one of the things they’d have to try to find out. Then he said, “Actors have some sort of union, don’t they?”

  “Actors Equity,” Shapiro repeated. “And didn’t you tell me a while back that your Rachel has joined it?”

  “Had to, Nate. Cost her a bit, she says. But somebody’d offered her a part. She’s always wanted to be an actor, but she’s too tall for it—or thought she was. Apparently there are parts for tall girls nowadays. She says it’s because everybody’s getting taller. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Go up to the Metropolitan sometime, Tony. They’ve got some suits of armor there, suits knights wore. Very short knights—under the department’s minimum. Do you suppose this Equity recommends agents to its members?”

  Tony Cook didn’t know. He rather doubted it. He said, “You want Rachel to—”

  “It might help, if she doesn’t mind.”

  Shapiro looked at his watch. It was well after four o’clock—after the end of their tour of duty. Not that duty ended on any hour.

  “Tell you what,” he said, “why don’t you go down and ask her? If you think she’ll be home. Anything she can pick up about Martha Abel Associates. Its—oh, standing in the community, as they say. How lucrative it is. Anything other actors can guess about. Could be Miss Rachel Farmer is looking for an agent herself, couldn’t it?”

  Tony said that that would be O.K., would be fine. But he couldn’t be sure Rachel would be in her apartment on Gay Street, the apartment directly below Tony’s own. He had a feeling she was posing for a painter. Still—well, the light would be paling out, maybe. Of course, he could try to get her on the phone.

  “Better if you see her,” Shapiro said. “Use your power of persuasion. Maybe she won’t want to be a cop. And then call it a day, Tony. I’ll check you out.”

  Tony said, “Sir,” in his most official tone. He added, “And you, Nate?” Which rather diminished formality.

  “Home to Brooklyn,” Nathan Shapiro said. “Oh, check in first, of course. I may stop by the library. Have a look at back issues of the Chronicle. And the Sentinel too.”

  “At the theater pages?”

  “At the theater pages. Get along, Tony. And if your Rachel comes up with anything, try me at the squad. If it’s anything hot, pass it along to the cap—no, to the inspector. Have to get used to that, won’t we?”

  “Will Deputy Inspector Weigand be transferred, Nate?”

  “Probably. He expects it.”

  “Too damn bad,” Tony said.

  They walked to Sixth Avenue, and Tony went into the nearest entrance to the Sixth Avenue subway, on the downtown side. He did not have to wait long for a local, which was not inordinately crowded. It was only a few minutes to the West Fourth Street station, which is the nearest to Gay Street.

  Shapiro walked to Fifth Avenue and down it to Forty-second Street. They had washed the library lions, which Shapiro thought rather a pity. He did not go between the now-pallid lions, but used the Forty-second Street entrance. In the newspaper room, papers from a good many American cities were spread out on high, sloping counters. He found the spread of the New York Chronicle for September 11. He found the theater page and “The New Play” by Thorsten McClay. He read:

  “Summer Solstice,” a comedy by Bret Askew which opened last night at the Rolf Simon Theater, is frisky and witty and recalls, without in any sense imitating, the comedies some decades ago of S. N. Behrman. And some may be reminded of Noel Coward at his most lighthearted. It also is a vehicle for the return to Broadway of Clive Branson, after some years of exile in Hollywood.

  It should be a cause for rejoicing. That this is only partly so is, I’m afraid, because Mr. Branson, for all his competence, is still too heavy for the vehicle Rolf Simon has selected for his return. If the vehicle does not collapse under his weight, it does seem to me to stagger somewhat.

  The play has to do with a well-off Long Island couple whose chief problem is the disparity of age. Carol Derwent is twenty. Her husband, Louis, is twice her age—twice and six months. We meet them on Louis’s birthday, which, by one of those coincidences of which playwrights are fond, occurs on June twenty-first. Hence, of course, the title of the play.

  Carol, deftly played by Arlene Collins, a very charming young actress almost as new to Broadway as is Mr. Askew, whose first Broadway production this is, was born on December twenty-first, twenty years earlier—twenty years and six months, to be exact, as Mr. Askew carefully is.

  From the day she was born, as the author points out, the days began to grow longer; from that of his advent, the days in an idiom of my ancestors, began to “draw in.” Both the protagonists are witty about this, Louis somewhat ruefully so.

  Two of the characters present in the Long Island manor provide the perhaps obvious plot—Carol’s mother, who is only a few years older than her son-in-law, and a man in his twenties, Ronald Foster, who offers triangular complications. If indeed obvious, the play remains gay and lighthearted. A problem racehorse adds to the fun.

  Nevertheless, to put it bluntly, Mr. Branson is slightly miscast, which Mr. Simon, usually astute in such matters, should have noticed. Mr. Branson will undoubtedly prove a drawing card. His reputation, so well earned over the years, will attract many to “Summer Solstice.” But “over the years” is, I’m afraid, the crux of the matter. Mr. Branson could be more appropriately cast as Miss Collins’s father. It all seems rather a pity.

  Kenneth Price is at least adequate in the somewhat minor part of Ronald Foster and Helen Barnes is excellent as Carol’s haughty and rather bewildered mother.

  The play opens—

  Shapiro stopped reading as McClay approached a summary of the plot.

  Not, certainly, a rave. Except, perhaps, the playwright’s contribution.

  The Sentinel was occupied by a man who, apparently, was checking up on the stock market. The Sentinel was the other paper that mattered to the fate of a Broadway play. Among the magazines, Manhattan also mattered, if to a lesser degree. But Manhattan would be in the periodical room downstairs. Shapiro waited for the stock investor, who didn’t look much like one, to finish catching up on the prices. He was writing numbers down in pencil on a pad. He was taking his time about it. He did not look particularly happy.

  Finally, he finished. Shapiro took his place and turned to the September 11 issue and to its theater page. The Sentinel’s reviewer, who turned out to be a woman, was not one to mince words. The headline above her review read:

  MISCAS
TING MARS NEW COMEDY. Under it, By Phyllis Drummond:

  The Broadway debut of Bret Askew, the author of two pleasant off-Broadway comedies, must be written off as a disappointment. Not that “Summer Solstice,” which opened last night at the Rolf Simon, is less witty and amusing than Mr. Askew’s earlier plays. As far as one can tell from last night’s production, it is basically as sharp and diverting as its predecessors. Now and then the writing glints through the generally laborious performance. But it is only now and then.

  Mr. Simon, the producer, has cast the veteran star Clive Branson in the pivotal role of the mature husband of a bright young wife, pleasantly played by a newcomer named Arlene Collins, an extremely pretty young woman and a fairly adept actress—perhaps, under circumstances more fortunate than those in which she finds herself on the Rolf Simon stage, an actress of marked promise. But Branson’s labored acting infects Miss Collins’s, as it infects the play.

  I have termed Branson a veteran and indeed he is—far too veteran for the part of a man of forty, his role in “Summer Solstice.” Branson was no tyro when, years ago, he played Hamlet to the esteem of London critics. How many years ago? It would be unkind to remember, or even to speculate. Since those days, he has usually acted in motion pictures, and mostly in comedy roles. And with considerable success.

  It is as a movie star that Mr. Simon has returned him to the legitimate stage. And, to put it abruptly, he is some years too old for the role of Louis Derwent in “Summer Solstice.” Unfortunately, the author is very precise about the ages of his protagonists. The slight plot turns on these ages. And Mr. Branson is miscast—miscast by ten years, at the very least.

  The action, which is primarily reaction, concerns the age-mismated Derwents, Carol Derwent’s mother, and another house guest, one Ronald Foster, who is much closer to Carol Derwent’s age and aspires to closeness in other aspects. So, the familiar triangle, complicated by a mother who appears to be about the age of her son-in-law. It is one of the problems of the casting that she actually appears several years younger. The triangle thus becomes a quadrangle, and the interplay is wittily exploited in the text of the play, however much it is fumbled on the stage of the Rolf Simon.