The Fatal Foursome

by Frank Kane

  The girl offered no comment, but watched him with large, deep blue eyes. She tossed off a rye and shuddered slightly.

  “I did come down here on a case,” he admitted after downing his brandy, “but it turns out to be a nursemaid job for a movie drunk.” He growled under his breath. “I guess it’ll wind up with me checking all the tourist cabins in the Valley.”

  The girl opened her large purse, fumbled through the contents for a few moments, then emerged with a pack of cigarettes. She dumped several cigarettes out onto the table, perched one in the corner of her mouth, and applied a match.

  “One of those, eh?” she sympathized. “Who’s it this time?”

  “Harvey Randolph. Know anything about him?”

  The girl inhaled deeply on the cigarette, then exhaled slowly through her nostrils. “That swoon goon? What’s he done?”

  “Disappeared,” Liddell grunted. “The agency caught me at Tucson and shipped me on to look him up and bring him back alive.”

  “Who’d want him back?” the girl asked.

  Johnny Liddell cocked an eyebrow inquiringly. “Who’d want him back? His studio for one. He’s in the middle of a picture and it’s costing them important sugar every day he stays away.”

  Toni Belden knocked the ash from the end of her cigarette into an empty rye glass and shook her head. “That studio don’t give a damn if Randolph never shows up. Not if they’re smart—and nobody ever accused Goodman of being a dope. Randolph’s washed up. Finished.”

  Johnny Liddell let that one sink in. He picked up a cigarette from the table, tapped it on his nail. “Come again, newshawk. I’m not much of a movie fan, but from what I’ve heard that guy could pack Radio City with teen-agers if he was appearing in a travelogue.”

  Toni Belden nodded her agreement. “That’s right. Only he won’t appear in Radio City or any other place in a travelogue or any other picture. The rap is in on him. Undesirable character. Every parent-teacher group in the country would be down Goodman’s neck if he tried to release that picture.” She started to lift the glass of rye to her lips, stopped with it halfway. “Say, who did hire you to find Harvey?”

  Johnny Liddell grinned. “Goodman. What gets me is why the hell he should throw good money after bad by hiring Acme to find him.” He shrugged. “Well, it’s his dough. Let’s spend it.”

  He pounded on the table with the bottom of his glass. The bartender stuck his head in the door and grinned.

  “More of the same, Angelo.”

  They were silent until the bartender placed two brandies and two ryes in front of them. Then, after Angelo had closed the door, the girl lifted her glass. “Something bothering you, Johnny?” she asked.

  Johnny Liddell frowned. “There’s something about this whole case that has the odor of herring,” he admitted, “but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, let’s not worry about that tonight. Tomorrow’ll be a swell day for worrying. To crime.” He tossed off the two brandies one after the other.

  The girl tried to follow suit with her drink, gasped, then shuddered. After a brief coughing spell, she wiped her eyes and grinned. “Angelo doesn’t use as much fusel-oil in his rye as he used to.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE PHONE jangled so hard it practically danced off the stand near the head of the bed. Johnny Liddell groaned, turned over and tried to bury his head in the covers. Undiscouraged, the phone continued to scream at him. A hand stole out, felt blindly for the receiver, dragged it back under the covers where it made contact with the detective’s ear.

  “Yeah?” he growled.

  The receiver spoke back with a metallic click. “That you, Johnny?”

  An irritated consciousness was beginning to wipe the sleep from Liddell’s eyes. “Who the hell did you think would be answering my phone at three in the morning? Who’s this?”

  The receiver laughed at him. “That’s what you get for going to bed so early, Sherlock.” There was a slight pause. “Johnny, this is Toni and I’m down at the morgue.”

  “Purely a social visit, I trust,” he mumbled. “And even so, what kind of an excuse is that for waking me up in the middle of the night? I’m working on a case, and …”

  “You were working on a case,” the girl corrected him. “That’s why I called you. You don’t have to look for Harvey Randolph any more. We’ve got him here on ice for you.”

  “What!” He sat up. “Randolph? A bump-off?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Sherlock. No blood, no murder. Just a plain, every day, drunken driving accident. Tried to make a Buick climb a tree.”

  Johnny Liddell swung his legs out of bed, started to fumble into his trousers. “When and where?”

  “Last night on the Montebello Parkway. Highway patrol saw the flames and got there in time to pull out enough of him to identify.” She sounded slightly ill. “He’s not very pretty now, Johnny.”

  Johnny shrugged into a shirt. “I can imagine. Doc Morrissey handling the details?”

  The girl told him yes.

  “Good. I’ll be right over. Wait for me.” As an afterthought he added, “You sound like a drink would be in order.”

  “You’re not kidding, Johnny. Only, this is California and after midnight you’re likely to stay dryer than the Sahara, particularly out in this neck of the woods.”

  Johnny grinned. “Maybe so. But have you tried the bottom right-hand drawer in Doc Morrissey’s office? I understand it has an all-night license.”

  The morgue was in the basement of City Hospital. The thin, bald man at the desk looked up hopefully at the detective’s approach.

  “I’m Johnny Liddell. Doc Morrissey expects me.”

  The little bald man nodded with a smile. “Right this way, sir, right this way.” He led the way to a large white door set in the rear wall. “Terrible about that young movie actor, wasn’t it?” he gloated. “You should see him. The flames sure did things to that profile of his. Just goes to show we’re all human, all right.”

  He pushed open the heavy door. A blast of hot, carbolic-laden air came out to envelop them. The little bald-headed man led the way to the rear of the windowless room where a small group huddled around one of several white enamel examining tables.

  As Johnny Liddell came up to it, he could see that the table was covered with a canvas sheet which bulged in a manner suggestive of a body. He looked around the group, nodded to Doc Morrissey and fixed questioning eyes on Julian Goodman. The fat man’s face glowed wetly under the light of the single high-powered bulb in the enameled reflector above the body.

  “Randolph?” Johnny Liddell indicated the bulging canvas.

  Goodman nodded. “Crazy fool. Drove his car into a tree.”

  “Mind if I take a look, Doc?” Johnny Liddell asked the coroner.

  A white-dressed attendant caught a corner of the canvas, dragged it back. Johnny Liddell saw the charred, blackened remains of what had been a face. The hair was singed almost completely off it, white teeth gleamed whitely through what once were lips. No one had bothered to close the eyes, if there were any lids left, and the whites showed as they stared upward into the light.

  “Not very pretty, is he?” Goodman’s voice sounded more choked than ever.

  Johnny Liddell nodded to the attendant who dragged the sheet back over the face. “Sure did a job on him,” he assented. “It’s Randolph, all right?”

  Morrissey nodded. “His personal papers, wallet, keys and jewelry weren’t touched.” He turned to the white-garbed attendant. “I’ve got somebody coming down from his dentist’s office with a dental chart just to make sure. Take care of him.”

  The attendant nodded.

  “Well, I guess that does it,” Doc Morrissey announced. “You fellows are welcome to a drink if you’d like to come upstairs.”

  Julian Goodman shook his head. “I’ve had enough of this place for one night,” he blubbered. “I’m going on home.” He turned to Johnny Liddell. “Drop by the office in the morning. I’ll make out a check.” He tr
ied a feeble attempt at a grin that fell flat. “I guess we won’t need any private ops to keep tabs on him now.” He nodded his good-bys, and waddled through the door.

  “Long as you’re awake, Johnny,” Morrissey suggested, “how about a nightcap?”

  Johnny grinned. “You got any liquor up in that padded cell of yours?” he asked.

  The coroner turned to stare at him. “Hell, you know I have. Damn good liquor, too.”

  “You mean you had,” Liddell corrected. “Right now Toni Belden is up there, and if I know that little newshawk, she’s put a fair-sized slug on that hoard of yours.”

  Doc Morrissey shook his head sadly. “That’s what I get for letting an unethical ghoul like you know my innermost secrets. Oh, well.” He led the way into an inner vault where cold, damp air clung clammily to their faces. A long row of oversized drawers lined the far wall. Doc Morrissey tugged at the bottom drawer in the second row. It came out with a screeching protest.

  Johnny Liddell had only a quick glimpse of a portion of putty white flesh, a shock of ragged, dirty white hair, a mask of a face fixed in a horrible grin. He saw Doc Morrissey fumble at the flaccid side of the corpse, and come up with a bottle.

  “Always like to keep a bottle in reserve,” he grinned. “Old John Doe here’ll be going out tomorrow so I’d have to move it anyway.”

  Toni Belden was sitting in the heavy leather overstuffed chair in Doc Morrissey’s office as they walked in. She held up the empty bottle, tragically tilted it to show its condition.

  “You got here just a minute too late, Doctor,” she said. “The patient just passed away.”

  The coroner grinned. “I’m sure you did everything you could to make his last moments happy ones.” He placed the new bottle on his desk. “I never liked our friend down there.” He sighed. “He always typified everything I detest in Hollywood. Just the same, it’s a tough way for him to go out.”

  Toni Belden shrugged. “Maybe it’s a break. If he had enough of a face left, Goodman would insist on putting him on display and that teen-aged following of his would be taking the contact lenses right out of his eyes for souvenirs.”

  Johnny Liddell watched the coroner approximate a double shot in each of two lily cups. “So Glamour Pants wore contact lenses? Too conceited to wear glasses, the lug.”

  Morrissey handed one of the cups to Johnny, took the other himself. He grinned at Toni. “Too much of a good thing robs it of its value. You’ve had enough for now, newshound.” He held the glass up in silent toast, drank it down.

  Johnny Liddell emptied his cup, reached over on the desk and helped himself to a cigarette. “What happens to those contact lenses in a fire? They’re plastic, aren’t they, Doc?”

  The coroner nodded. “I imagine nothing would happen to them.” He hung a cigarette from the corner of his mouth, accepted a light.

  The private detective looked up in surprise. “What do you mean, you imagine? What happened to the ones Randolph was wearing?”

  “Randolph wasn’t wearing any,” the coroner growled. “You saw his eyes. They were perfectly clear of any kind of lenses.”

  Toni Belden pursed her lips. “Could they have burned or melted or something?”

  “Not a chance, Toni. If they’d burned, they would have seared the eyeball so badly it would be immediately apparent. The eyeballs weren’t seared at all. As for melting, that’s ridiculous.”

  Toni Belden sighed, leaned back. “I might have known that as soon as Johnny Liddell hit town, things would start popping.”

  Johnny Liddell grunted. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that Harvey Randolph, the Swoon Goon of the Nation, was murdered.” The girl calmly contemplated the effect of her announcement. “I’m positive Randolph was nearly blind without those contact lenses and wouldn’t take a step without them.”

  Johnny Liddell allowed that to sink in. “Maybe he was stewed to the skin and forgot to put them on. That might explain how he managed to find that tree in the dark.” He turned to the coroner. “Any idea of how snooted he really was, Doc?”

  Doc Morrissey shook his head. “Not yet,” he said, “but I’ve got a couple of the boys down the lab doing blood analysis and stuff. Is it important?”

  Toni Belden stared. “You kidding? Is it important that Harvey Randolph was murdered? It would just about break a scare headline in every paper in the country.” She examined her nails for a second, then looked up. “You know, it would make my editor very happy if we were to break this story.”

  Johnny Liddell shook his head vigorously. “That would kick the whole deal over. In the first place, we’re just guessing. And if you run that story now, it would give the killer a chance to cover up his tracks.”

  The coroner nodded his confirmation.

  “Okay,” Toni Belden agreed, “I’ll make a deal with you. Our last edition is already on the street. We don’t come out again until late tomorrow. If I phoned in now we’d put out an extra, but if I have your word that nobody else gets it, I’ll hold off until the late afternoon edition.”

  Morrissey looked worried. “You really sound as though you believe it’s murder, Toni.”

  The girl reporter nodded. “I don’t believe it—I know it!”

  “Call the lab and see what they say, Doc?” Johnny Liddell suggested. “This screwball sounds like she’s on the hop, but there’s just a possibility that she’s got something.”

  The coroner nodded. He took the receiver from the house phone, punched a button on the board. After a moment, “Brewster? This is Morrissey. Finished with the Randolph analysis? Oh, I see. Well, just let me have the essentials on the alcohol concentration.” He scribbled a few notes on a sheet of paper. “You’re sure about the stomach content? Okay. I’d like a detailed report first thing in the morning.”

  Johnny Liddell watched wordlessly as the older man ran his stubby fingers through the gray thatch and studied his notes. Then he looked up.

  “Concentration of alcohol in the blood .009. Stomach analysis shows no food, six ounces of alcohol,” he announced. His forehead was ridged in an effort at concentration.

  “Something screwy, Doc?”

  Morrissey nodded. “I think so.” He leaned back. “You see, alcohol is absorbed directly into the blood from the stomach and the small intestine. It isn’t digested like other foods. The maximum concentration of alcohol occurs in the blood from twenty minutes to two hours after it’s been consumed.”

  Johnny Liddell flipped his butt in the direction of the wastebasket. “Depending on what, Doc?”

  The coroner pursed his lips. “Several factors. For instance, how much food is in the stomach. If he’d just had a large meal the alcohol would take that much longer to be absorbed. Or if it were diluted—that slows up absorption, too.”

  “But his stomach was empty?” Toni Belden asked.

  “Empty except for six ounces of alcohol, Toni,” Doc Morrissey pointed out. “And as for the concentration of alcohol, there wasn’t enough to have any effect whatsoever. Less than one per cent concentration does not interfere in any way with the functioning of the mind or body. So, our little friend was not drunk.”

  Johnny Liddell rubbed the back of his hand across his chin. “That six ounces in his stomach, Doc. What’s that mean?”

  “That’s what bothers me, Johnny. His stomach had no food, so that alcohol should have been absorbed in no more than a half hour. He cracked up at least thirty miles from the closest place he could have gotten that alcohol.”

  “Any sign of a bottle in the car?”

  The coroner shook his head. “No. I suppose he could have thrown it out, but I doubt it. You see, Johnny, if he was drinking as he drove alone, he must have drunk those six ounces fast. In that case, absorption would have been speeded up to a point where there’d be very little alcohol left in the stomach.”

  Liddell nodded. “I get it, Doc. That gives this whole business a very fishy odor.” He turned to the girl. “That, plus the contact lenses. How sure are you
about the lenses, Toni?”

  “Positive, Johnny,” she assured him. “I remember the fuss it kicked up when one of the contact lens outfits used his picture in connection with an ad. The studio thought it hurt his glamour appeal—something like being bald or having flat feet.” She shrugged. “You don’t have to take my word for it, Sherlock. It’s in the files at the office.”

  “Why don’t we just drop down there and have a look at it?” Johnny Liddell suggested. “Maybe it’ll give us some ideas.”

  The coroner held up a warning finger. “Look, you two. No funny business. Remember, it’s my office takes the licking on these cases. I’ve already got one headache in the Maurer killing without having another one in this one.”

  Johnny Liddell nodded. “Don’t worry, Doc. We won’t do a thing without keeping you informed.”

  The Dispatch morgue was a metal-drawered mausoleum presided over by Pop Michaels, veteran of the city room for over forty years, and now relegated to charge of the files and the occasional pounding out of death notices.

  He took the charred briar from between his teeth and wheezed a welcome to the detective.

  “Hello, Johnny. Don’t tell me they’ve farmed you out to the obit beat, too?” He winked at Toni Beiden. “If not, this is sure a late hour to read your press clippings.”

  Liddell shook the old man’s hand. “Nothing like that, Pop,” he said. “Just came by to say hello.”

  The old man jammed the briar back between his teeth and ran his hand over the silver bristles on his chin. “Now that’s a tough one for an old feller to swallow, Johnny. You sure it wasn’t because you’re after information of some kind?”

  Johnny grinned. “Come to think of it, I could use some, Pop.” He parked himself on the edge of the shabby desk. “Getting giddy in my old age. I wanted to read up a bit on this movie glamour boy, Harvey Randolph.”