by Frank Kane
Morrissey shrugged. “Oh, then it would be just too bad. You see, plastic alterations are usually done with wax …” He stopped to adjust a meter on the side of the lamp.
“Well? Well?” Perspiration was flowing in little rivulets down the side of the man’s face and dripping off onto his collar.
“Well,” the coroner continued with deliberation, “you know wax has a low melting point. In that case, the terrific heat of these lamps would melt the wax. It would seep into the healthy tissue. Now when you correct a plastic, all you do is scrape out the wax, but when it’s run through a lot of healthy tissue, it’s so scattered that no can do.”
He turned on the lamps. The man in the chair jerked back his head when the glare hit him. He tried to turn his face out of its way. Suddenly the other lamp spat its brilliance at him.
“Let me out of here,” he screamed. “You’ll never get away with this.”
There was no answer, only the odd crackling noise of the lamps.
The man in the chair twisted and squirmed. Suddenly from somewhere beyond the white blistering heat, a voice said, “Holy socks, Doc. Look at his face! It’s just dripping down.”
“That’s just the wax in his phony nose melting,” Doc’s voice explained. “Just watch when those built-up eyebrows start melting down in his eyes.”
“Won’t that blind him?” Devlin’s voice was thick, as though he were laughing.
“Maybe.”
The man in the chair seemed to have passed out. But the searing of the big lamps brought him back. The sweat ran down his features. He seemed in the grip of a new and sudden fear.
“My face!” he screamed. “Turn them off! Turn them off! I’ll talk.”
Darkness followed. The man in the chair roused, squinted in an effort to locate the spotlights, and failed. Slowly a hideous conviction seemed to take form.
“I can’t see! I can’t see! You’ve blinded me!”
The doctor’s fingers pulled down an eyelid with a light, professional touch. “Just as I feared. That wax has run into the eye tissue. Only an operation can save his sight.”
“Then operate, damn you, operate.” The high note of hysteria had entered the bound man’s voice. He struggled futilely to free his arms. “I’m blind! Can’t you understand? Blind?”
The doctor’s voice was maddeningly low. “I can’t operate unless I have a signed release from my patient. Now if you really are Harvey Randolph …”
“I am. I am,” the voice groaned. “Operate. Operate. I’ll sign. I’ll sign anything.”
The man’s right hand was unbound. Another hand guided his to a table. A pen was placed in his fingers, then guided to the paper.
“Okay, Randolph.” Doc Morrissey’s voice sounded choked. “Sign right there.”
The man in the chair hesitated for a second, groaned, then scribbled, Harvey Randolph.
Inspector Devlin seized the paper, scanned it eagerly.
“Liddell. You’ve done it again. It’s Randolph’s signature all right.”
An hour later, in the outer office, Doc Morrissey wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand, leaned back and lifted his feet up onto the secretary’s desk. Devlin had removed Harvey Randolph, Mushky had gone, and he was alone with Johnny Liddell.
“I still don’t know how you did it, Doc,” the detective said, “but it sure worked like a charm.”
The coroner nodded. “I’ll never again call that psychology course I took in medical school a waste of time.” He put a cigarette into his mouth, lighted it and inhaled gratefully. “Those baby spots sure pulled our fat out of the fire.”
Liddell hoisted a hip onto the corner of the desk. “I’m still in a fog about the whole thing, Doc,” he complained. “What was the gag about his face caving in under the lights? I didn’t see it cave except where you clouted him.”
Morrissey grinned. “It didn’t. That’s the trick. You see, I knew that he knew that all that built-up job on his face was done with wax. So I figured that if I could turn enough heat on him, he might fall for the gag that the wax was melting.”
“Well, why didn’t it?”
“It couldn’t. Not in a million years. We couldn’t get up enough heat with any lamp to melt something under the skin. It might blister and burn the skin, but it’d never change the temperature inside the body.”
“The old psychology, eh?”
“That’s it,” Morrissey answered. “It’s always been my contention that these movie glamour boys are all conceit. Their pretty pans are more important to them than life. I saw that panicky look in Randolph’s eyes when I told him that flattened cheekbone would mar him permanently. I thought I had him then, but it wasn’t enough. So I decided to really throw a scare.”
Johnny tapped a cigarette on the end of the desk. “He couldn’t really get blinded by that stuff, could he?”
The coroner laughed. “He was no more blind than you are. You try looking into a couple of hundred watt lamps for ten or fifteen minutes, and see how well you can see. Then, after he passed out, I turned out the lights so that when he came to he was convinced he was blind. That was the clincher.”
Liddell wet the end of the cigarette with the tip of his tongue, then stuck it between his lips. He scratched a long wooden match on the under side of the desk. “That’s a stunt a stenographer taught me back in Brooklyn.” He grinned. “They never polish the under side of a desk, and if you did happen to scratch it, who’d see it anyhow?” He smoked for a second. “And there’s another thing I don’t savvy. What’s the good of that damn release you made him sign?”
“That’s our out, Sherlock. Suppose I didn’t have it, just had his verbal confession that he’s Harvey Randolph. We drag him into the corner police station, say he’s Randolph. He laughs at us and says we’re cracked. Then where are we?” Morrissey grinned. “Well, this way I’ve got his signed permission to perform a plastic surgery on him and remove all traces of the previous plastic.”
Liddell was unimpressed. “Who’d have stopped us from doing it anyhow? We could’ve just tied the rat down on the desk and done it.”
“Not legally we couldn’t, Johnny. Even if it did turn out like we thought it would, and we made him look like Randolph again, we could be held. This way, we haven’t done anything illegal. At least, not very much.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE MAN BEHIND THE BAR had just finished pouring when Toni Belden walked in. She stood in the doorway, spotted Johnny Liddell, and started across the room.
He saw her when she was halfway down the bar.
“Better make it a rye straight coming up, too,” Johnny told the bartender.
Toni slipped onto the stool at his side. “I could kiss you, Johnny,” she said. “We beat the opposition to the street with the story by hours. Did you know that Randolph has confessed?”
“Good.” Johnny nodded. “Doc Morrissey did the operation, didn’t he?”
The girl smelled her drink, nodded happily. “I had the beat on that, too. Gave all the gory details of how he worked up the image from wax, nabbed Randolph from the picture. We did a big feature on how he did the operation in reverse, just doing the opposite of what Doc Maurer had done in the first place. We took pictures before the operation when he was Marty Mann and we’ve got a man waiting for the bandages to come off so we can shoot him as Harvey Randolph.” She rubbed her hands, gulped her drink, and sighed. “One thing that bothers me, though. What happened to the real Marty Mann? The extra who came from Detroit?”
Johnny drew designs with his fingers on the bar. “He was the body they fixed up to be identified as Harvey Randolph. Harvey got to know him during the filming of his last picture. Marty Mann was a guy who had few, if any, friends in town. So, when he disappeared, hardly anybody paid any attention. Randolph took over as Marty Mann and that was that. Goodman hired him as a bodyguard so he wouldn’t have to go back to the studio. Besides, it gave Randolph a chance to keep his eyes on Goodman, too.”
&nb
sp; Toni nodded, signaled to the bartender for a refill. When Johnny Liddell fished in his pocket, she stopped him. “Nothing doing.” She grinned. “This is on the Dispatch. Orders of the editor. And all on the expense account.” She fumbled in her bag, came up with a five-spot, dropped it on the bar. “Keep hitting it until it can’t hit back,” she told the barkeep.
“How’d you know Randolph was behind these killings in the first place, Johnny?” she asked after a while.
“Well, it stood to reason there was a pattern to them. I sat back and tried to figure out who stood to gain. Obviously Mrs. Goodman would inherit any money that came to Goodman. But why Varden and Moreno? So there it was—a case of protecting someone, getting rid of people who knew too much. I was pretty lead-pipe sure that Goodman’s killer was behind the other two killings, too.”
He waited while the bartender filled his glass, stopped him before he could carry off the bottle.
“Mona Varden had told me that Randolph favored the knife. So, when I saw that she had been knifed, I began to wonder if it weren’t possible that Randolph was behind this. Then finding out that Randolph was alive clinched it.”
“So what it actually boiled down to was an insurance fraud plus a double cross?”
“Right,” Liddell agreed. “Goodman knew that he stood to be wiped out financially because of the mess Randolph had gotten himself into. So he figured out this stunt to separate the insurance companies from a quarter of a million, and made the proposition to Randolph.”
“Was Goodman in on the Doc Maurer killing?”
“Must have been. It was his idea that Harvey get a temporary plastic so that there would be no slip-up. Harvey saw to it that nobody would know by getting rid of the doctor who did the job. The night that the body was identified as Randolph’s, he didn’t need Goodman any more, so Goodman died.”
The girl reporter found two cigarettes, lighted both and put one in the detective’s mouth. “How about Mrs. Goodman?”
Liddell shook his head. “I don’t think she was in on it at all. She hated her husband, and was grateful to Randolph for playing around with her. But I don’t think she knew that Randolph was Marty Mann.”
“But she could have killed Mona Varden. In fact, you found her right at the scene.”
Johnny drained his glass. “That particular job was just an example of what a smart hombre this Randolph baby is. He knew that he had been seen going into the building and that the witness would remember him. So, he went back to Goodman’s, got Mrs. Goodman and took her back there so that when the witness described him to the police as being there, he’d have the answer that he was there after the murder.”
“Pretty cute.”
Liddell nodded. “Damn cute. After we handed Randolph over to the cops, Devlin sent for the witness who had described Marty Mann. When he asked him what time he saw him, the witness set the time almost an hour before he walked in on me.”
Toni helped him to more cognac. “Why did he kill Mona at all?”
“She was putting the black on him. Goodman spilled the details of the plot to her. She called me and half a dozen other people and was going to sell the information out to the highest bidder. He refused to be blackmailed, that’s all!”
Johnny Liddell kept consulting his watch as he talked.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” Toni demanded. “Got a date?”
“In about five minutes.”
“Who with?”
“The blonde who used to work in Goodman’s office. It’s sort of a rain check. Besides, there’s some unfinished business I want to attend to.”
Toni Belden wrinkled her nose. “Unfinished business! Monkey business, you mean,” she snorted. “You’re no match for that female, Johnny,” she said. “I’m going to repay you the favor you did me. I’m going along to protect your interests.”
Good as her word, less than ten minutes later, Toni Belden squeezed into the cab with Johnny Liddell. They jumped two lights on Sunset Boulevard, veered east at Vine and kept weaving east.
The cab skidded to a stop in front of an ornate canopy that announced Denton Towers. Johnny Liddell slid out, handed the driver a bill.
“Is this where we’re going?” Toni peered up at the apparently endless tiers of windows stretching skyward.
“This is where I’m going,” Johnny corrected her. “You’re going home.”
“Nothing doing. Something’s cooking and I’ve got a hunch it’s you. I’m coming.”
“Give me a couple of hours to clear up this unfinished business and I’ll help you write one last exclusive on this case.” Liddell put his hand gently on her shoulder and pushed her back into the seat. “The Dispatch,” he told the driver, “and don’t spare the horses.”
She didn’t even look around at him as the cab pulled away.
The blonde secretary opened the door. She had on another silk dressing gown, this one more revealing than the last. As he came in, she wrapped her arms around his neck, sought his lips with hers. He kissed back, shoved the door shut with his heel.
“You said you’d be back, but you didn’t say you were going to stay away this long,” she pouted.
Liddell followed her into the living room. She had the scotch and bourbon, a dish of ice and some glasses on a table at the head of the couch.
“That was pretty fancy sleuthing, running Randolph down like that, Johnny,” she praised, filling his glass with ice and pouring a stiff peg of bourbon. “You sure created a sensation in this town.”
Johnny shrugged. “He left a trail broad enough to drive a truck down once we stumbled on it. I guess Pretty Boy wasn’t so smart.”
The girl handed him his drink, sat down on the couch beside him. “I wish you’d tell me the whole story. I don’t know it too well. The papers were pretty sketchy.”
Liddell took a drink of his bourbon, settled back. “You know how Goodman got in a hole on Randolph’s new picture and decided to bail himself out by pretending that Harvey was dead? Well, he got over that hump and was ready to sit back and collect, but he didn’t reckon with one thing. Harvey hated his insides and couldn’t see any reason why Goodman should enjoy any of that money, so Goodman had to go.”
The girl stirred the ice around in her glass. “But Randolph wouldn’t get the money.”
“That’s right. It would go to Mrs. Goodman, your sister. But Harvey already had her under his finger. He’d take her away with him some place and in due time he’d get his hands on the money.”
The girl didn’t look up. “But he was home at Goodman’s house when I called. My sister swears that he was there from the time he first arrived, several hours before Goodman was killed, until I called.”
Johnny drained his glass, put it on the floor. “I know. And it’s true. Devlin has testimony from the employees in Mrs. Goodman’s apartment to back that alibi up.”
“But—” the blonde started to protest.
Liddell waved her to silence. “He got to Mona Varden when she made it evident that she knew what was going on and was prepared to talk.”
“Okay, okay.” The blonde was impatient. “But if Harvey was at my sister’s house when Goodman was killed, who killed Goodman?”
“You did,” Johnny Liddell said casually. “You got a call from Randolph when he left Goodman at the office. He told you he was going home to establish an alibi, told you to go up the back stairway and do the job. Of all the suspects in the case—Cookie Russo, Randolph, Sal Moreno—you were the only one that Goodman would let get close enough to do the job.”
The girl’s mouth fell open. “But why should I? Why should I kill him?”
“To get the money. You only told me half the truth last time. You told me you came on here because you wanted to protect your sister against her husband. That was only half of it—the more important reason was that you were blindly infatuated with Harvey Randolph.”
The girl’s hand shook as she refilled her glass with scotch. “I hope you’re trying to be funny,” she said.
“When Goodman first got this idea, he outlined it to you. You saw a golden opportunity. You brought Harvey and your sister together, knowing that she would be flattered by his attentions and would fall heavily.” Liddell’s eyes were half closed. “Then, after the framed accident, you set up an alibi for Harvey that couldn’t be shaken—and you did the job on Goodman.”
The blonde made no comment.
“It was you and not Harvey Randolph that Mona Varden called. She told you she knew the whole story, that she was getting ready to sell it out to me. You sent Harvey there to shut her up. He doesn’t like a gun, so he used a knife as he always has ever since he was a kid.”
The girl slid her hand down the side of the pillow, came up with a .38 which she trained on the detective. “Go on,” she said.
“You got worried about Sal Moreno and decided to tell him that I was on the trail and seemed to be getting hot. You went up to his apartment, heard him talking to me, heard him say he’d tell everything. You shot him and ran.”
“You’re cleverer than I thought, Liddell,” the girl acknowledged. “I underestimated you. But how could you be so sure it was me?”
Johnny grinned. “You’re clever, too, Blondie. Maybe just a little too clever. Remember the gun in your desk? You told me you had used it to scare Goodman off several weeks before. But when I checked the serial number, I found it had only been bought two days previously. So there was another gun. Besides, when you told me about that little incident, you let slip the fact that you had the key to that back entrance when you told me that you went up that way—only to find Goodman gone.”
“Cookie Russo could fit that picture just as well as I do.” she pointed out. “He had the key to the back door. He could have walked in on Goodman just as easily as me.”
Liddell shook his head. “No. Cookie didn’t fit from the start. In the first place, an experienced gunman like Cookie would use a .45 instead of a .38. A lot surer and quicker. Second, he wouldn’t have killed Goodman with him owing him fifty grand. That way he was making sure he’d never get his dough. And third, Goodman would never let Cookie get behind him. He was too afraid of him.”
