The Comedy Club Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  A bell rang behind the bar. Cilla glanced at it and shrugged.

  “The ticket kiosk. Winkle’s such a cheapskate I have to manage the kiosk and the bar. Anyway, looks like there’s another sucker for the show. Got to go.”

  She pushed past the curtain back to the kiosk.

  But it turned out there were two suckers. They came through the door from the foyer a minute later.

  The first was a big guy with a square face and crooked jaw which looked like he’d walked into a brick wall. He had a couple of inches to spare over six feet, broad shoulders, and hands big enough to lift a hippo. He had a tanned face which wouldn’t have come from spending November in Brighton. He was wearing a grey jacket with sleeves that were too short and scrunched under the armpits.

  His companion was the kind of short man who struts around like a bantam cock. His thick black hair was combed back from his forehead. He had thick lips and a bulbous nose with a cleft. He had a barrel chest and a pair of legs which could have supported a grand piano. He was wearing a three-piece suit which must have been made to measure. Tailors simply don’t sell ready-made stuff for people that shape. He swaggered into the room ahead of the bigger guy and surveyed the joint through insolent eyes.

  His gaze reached me and there was a change in his eyes – from relaxed to sharper focus - as though he’d recognised me from somewhere. He realised I’d seen the change. He nodded to me like he was a new guy in town just getting friendly with the locals.

  Cilla reappeared from behind the curtain.

  The short guy ambled over to the bar like he was an old customer. Like he expected the barkeeper to serve up his usual. He chose a stool at the opposite end to me and hoisted himself onto it. The bigger guy moseyed alongside and leant on the bar. The shorter guy crooked a finger at Cilla and she moved up the bar to serve their drinks.

  I took a long pull of my G and T and tried to think what to make of it. They didn’t look like the kind of guys who’d hang out in a downbeat comedy club for fun. They didn’t look like they laughed a lot. They looked like the kind of guys who’d get their entertainment from an evening strangling kittens.

  I mulled this over while I finished my gin and tonic.

  I was going to order another when the lights began to dim. The show was about to start. I moved into the main body of the auditorium and took a seat half way back.

  I glanced behind me. My new friends had taken seats two rows back immediately behind. There weren’t more than twenty people in an auditorium that must hold two hundred. So it wasn’t chance they wanted to sit behind me. They didn’t want me slipping out of their view when the auditorium became dark.

  A spotlight shone on the stage. A pair of loudspeakers started up a tinny version of I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside. The curtain rose on an empty stage. The music ended. An uncomfortable silence descended on the place.

  And then a man staggered onto the stage from the wings. One person clapped. It may have been a mistake.

  The man walked uncertainly down to a microphone centre stage. He grabbed the mic’s stand and swayed a bit. He leered at the audience. If his grin had been any cheesier it would have come with cracker biscuits and a pickled onion. He was a small round man, like a huge beach ball with legs and arms. He had a chubby red face with flabby cheeks and piggy eyes. He had a luxuriant head of hair. But not his own. His wig looked like the kind of cheap novelty you’d pick up in a joke shop. It had slipped slightly to the left so there was a bald patch above his right ear. He was dressed in a long flapping coat made out of material with stripes in bright primary colours. He wore a pair of plus fours tucked into the top of yellow socks.

  He launched in on his act.

  “Thank you, thank you for that warm welcome. After that I feel like I just rubbed up against an Eskimo. I got the cold shoulder. Seriously, I can tell you’re going to be a great audience. You’ll be right behind me. But I’m not worried. I’ll shake you off when I reach the railway station. Anyway, for future reference, the name’s Winkle. I’m the only winkle with its own mussels. Muscles, geddit? But I don’t like to be shellfish.”

  Somewhere in the darkened auditorium a woman tittered.

  “No, lady, none of that. Mind your manners, missus. Keep it clean. What did you think I was going to say? Mind your manners. We all need to mind our manners, don’t we? I mean it was like the time I proposed to my wife. You know what she said. ‘I like the simple things in life – but I don’t want one for a husband.’ I mean I could only say one thing. Mind your manners. That’s what I said. Mind your manners.”

  Winkle ploughed on with his witless patter for another half hour. Now and then there was a snigger. Now and then a yawn. Towards the end I found my head nodding forward.

  And then a reprise of I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside blasted over the loudspeakers

  Winkle was waving at the audience. “That’s it for now. Thank you for your warmth and your laughter. Stay on for the late show in an hour’s time.”

  And with that, he staggered towards the wings and the curtain fell.

  I glanced behind to see what my two watchers had made of it all.

  Their seats were empty. As the house lights came up, I looked around the auditorium.

  They had vanished.

  Chapter 7

  At first, I felt relief – and then doubts crept in.

  The pair had looked like trouble from the moment they’d swaggered into the club. Trouble for me. The short guy knew who I was and had given himself away when he’d looked at me. They’d made a point of sitting behind me.

  And then they’d vanished.

  Did that mean their job was over?

  Or did it mean it would start up again another time?

  And what the hell was their job? I had no idea.

  But, I reminded myself, I had a job of my own. I had some pointed questions for Ernie Winkle.

  The few punters had drifted to the bar at the back of the auditorium. Cilla was busy dispensing the drinks. I decided to slip backstage while everyone was otherwise engaged.

  There was a door to the right of the stage. A sign on it read: Private Strictly No Admittance.

  To a journalist, that’s a bit like saying, “Come in, but wipe your feet.”

  I stepped smartly up to the door and opened it. I took a quick peak to make sure no-one was looking. Then I slipped inside.

  I closed the door behind me and looked around. I was in a small room with black walls. A thin weaselly little man was sitting behind a control panel twiddling the knobs. He was bald apart from a single strand of hair which he’d wrapped around the edge of his pate.

  He looked up as I stepped into the room and said: “If you’re looking for the lavs, it’s the door on the other side of the auditorium. Use at your own risk – the porcelain’s cracked, the taps don’t work, and the cleaner hasn’t been in there for three weeks.”

  I said: “I’m looking for a different dirty joke.”

  The bloke nodded. “He’s back there. Dressing room number one. You can’t miss it. There’s only one dressing room anyway.”

  I left him turning his knobs and headed behind the stage.

  I found dressing room number one – yes, it had a star on the door – next to a pile of old usherette ice-cream trays. They had a little light to illuminate the ices and a strap which the girls looped round their necks. Years ago, when the place was a cinema, the girls would have held the trays as they walked backwards down the aisles. Now they were covered in a thick film of dust – I mean the trays, not the usherettes. I wondered why Winkle hadn’t thrown them out. No, not the usherettes, the trays.

  I knocked on the dressing room door.

  A voice within shouted: “Bugger off, unless you’ve brought my whisky.”

  I opened the door. Winkle was sitting on a stool in front of his dressing mirror. He turned as I entered the room. He screwed up his eyes and scowled at me.

  I said: “How much do you want for the ice-cream trays?”

/>   Winkle looked at me as though I’d just asked him to shoot his grandmother. His mind had jumbled with different thoughts. Who was I? Why did I want the trays? And was I a sucker he could make some easy money from? For the moment, he’d forgotten about the whisky.

  He said: “Thirty quid. Or, if it’s a cash deal, twenty-five. They’re worth double that.”

  I said: “I’ll think about it. While I’m doing so, could we talk about something else?”

  “What?”

  “Max Miller’s Blue Book.”

  “I haven’t got that. And if I had, it wouldn’t be for sale. Not for a pony. Not even for a monkey.”

  “I hear there was once a time when you thought you’d inherit the Blue Book.”

  Winkle shrugged. Out of the stage lights, his face was like a grotesque mask. His cheeks were whitened with cream and he had thick black liner under his eyes. His lips had been painted carmine. His wig was still crooked.

  “Yeah. There was a time when Max said he’d pass the book on to me, but that never happened. And, anyway, who the hell are you to ask me these questions?”

  “Didn’t I say?” I pulled out a card and handed it to Winkle. “Colin Crampton, Evening Chronicle.”

  “A reporter.”

  “Didn’t think I’d fool a sharp cookie like you.”

  “So why did you ask me about those frigging trays?”

  “Got you talking and stopped you throwing me out. By now, we’re almost old friends.”

  Winkle grinned. “Clever bugger, aren’t you?”

  “If I ever need a testimonial, I’ll ask you to put that in writing.”

  Winkle’s dressing table was littered with jars of cream and tubes of make-up. Over the other side of the room, a rail held jackets and trousers. The place had a sweet cloying aroma but with a sharpness behind it. As though someone had dropped a whisky bottle in a perfume factory.

  Winkle glanced in the mirror. He was thinking about what to do next.

  He turned back to me. “Anyway, you may be clever, but you’ve wasted your time. I’m not talking about Max Miller or the Blue Book.”

  I pulled up a spare chair and sat down.

  “Is that because you feel cheated out of it?” I asked.

  “Max would have wanted me to have it,” Winkle said. “He just never made that clear in his will.”

  “And then Daniel Bernstein got the book almost by accident.”

  “Yeah! It just fell into his lap. Like those girls who used to beg him to get them jobs as dancers.”

  That was something nobody had mentioned about Bernstein. He had a casting couch. But didn’t most theatrical agents?

  I said: “How well did you know Danny Bernstein?”

  “He was my agent from before the Flood.”

  “You look older than that. Or is it the make-up?”

  “I’m supposed to be the funny man around here. But, you’re right, it was back in the ‘thirties when Max Miller’s career started to take off. I’d got to know Max and he asked Danny to take me on. Said he’d like me to appear in his shows.”

  “And Bernstein agreed?”

  “He’d do anything for Miller. Max was the only headliner he had on his books. But Danny was jealous of me, right from the start. I toured with Max week after week. We got to know each other like a pair of brothers. The kind of digs we’d stay in. The breakfast we’d eat. The drinks we’d have before a show. The girls we’d take out afterwards. Danny didn’t like that. He knew I didn’t like him. And I knew he didn’t like me. But we both relied on Max for our success. All the while we lapped up that success, we kept the lid on our mutual dislike. But we knew that if Max’s career went into a slide, that hatred would boil over.”

  “Did it?”

  Winkle looked at me through weary eyes. He’d spent a lifetime trying to be funny. Perhaps it had only just dawned on him that he wasn’t.

  “You know it did,” he said. “That’s why you’re here. You think I killed Bernstein. But I didn’t. I couldn’t – I don’t have the guts for it.”

  “But when Bernstein refused to give you the Blue Book, you said you’d do anything to get it.”

  “I was angry. I didn’t mean murder.” He looked in the mirror again.

  “Do you have any idea who did?”

  “If I did, I’d have sent them a bouquet.”

  “Did you ever see Max’s Blue Book?” I asked.

  “Of course. He brought it out on stage most nights.”

  “But did you ever get to read its contents?”

  Winkle shot a quick glance at the mirror. He turned back to me. I’d touched a raw nerve.

  “Max guarded the contents, like it was the secret of eternal life. For his career, it pretty much was.”

  “And Bernstein never offered to show it to you when he got the book?”

  Winkle looked into the mirror again. But this time longer.

  “Bernstein wouldn’t show me the way to my own grave,” he said.

  He glanced at his watch. “And now I need to prepare for the next show. And I haven’t even drunk the first double yet.”

  I stood up, moved towards the door, and opened it. I glanced back.

  Winkle had reached into a cupboard underneath the dressing table. He brought out a bottle of scotch.

  “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But if I drink enough before I go on, at least I can believe I’m funny.”

  I nodded at him, stepped outside, and closed the door behind me.

  Back in the auditorium, most of the punters had bailed out.

  They hadn’t been tempted to stay on for Winkle’s second show of the night.

  Behind the bar, Cilla perched on a stool and flipped the pages of Tit-Bits.

  I walked up, nodded at the magazine, and said: “Anything interesting?”

  “Nah! Not unless you’re a fan of Alma Cogan.”

  “That’s the singer they call the ‘girl with a giggle in her voice.’”

  “Did you dig her take on Tennessee Waltz?”

  “Not really. Sounds like she’s singing in the bath. With a sponge in her mouth.”

  Cilla gave me a sharp look. “Are you going to order a drink or just run down popular singers?”

  “Actually, I wondered whether you’d noticed what happened to those two blokes who came in after me?”

  “The Yanks?”

  “They were Americans?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “They spoke with Yankee accents. The small one called me ‘honey’. Of course, they could’ve come from Haywards Heath and be putting it on. Nothing would surprise me here. But they left half way through Winkle’s show. I suppose that’s why Americans get on in this world. They don’t sit around listening to crap.”

  “Did you catch their names?” I asked.

  Cilla thought about that for a moment. “The small one called the big one Willis. I think the small one said his name was Gino. I think he hoped he’d pick me up. Like I’d be seen with a ball of grease.”

  So Gino and Willis had left. But why?

  That was the question that was pounding in my mind. I was certain that they’d come into the club because they’d been following me. How long for I didn’t know. But wait a minute. When I’d questioned the copper on the door at Bernstein’s office, he’d said there’d been the usual rubberneckers. But a short guy with an American accent had claimed he had business in the place. The cop’s description sounded like Gino. The cop had sent him on his way.

  Could he have hung around and seen me go into the building later? But why should he be following me? If he’d had a cor blimey accent, I’d have him down as a reporter on one of the tabloids. He’d be using me as the pilot fish to guide him to the story. It had happened before. But never with an American. And I couldn’t see the Yankee papers being interested in a murder in Brighton. At least, not being hot enough for the story to have me followed.

  Anyway, the pair had cleared off. So, presumably, they’d finished t
heir surveillance for the day. No point in worrying about that now. I’d pick it up in the morning. And I’d keep a close watch for anyone on my tail.

  Cilla looked like she wanted to go back to her paper.

  I said: “I think I’ll skip Winkle’s second show.”

  Cilla said: “With judgement like that, you’ll go far.”

  “Tell that to Frank Figgis.”

  Cilla looked puzzled. So I headed for the door, passed through the foyer, and stepped into the street.

  A white van had parked on the edge of the narrow footpath. The front of the van faced away from me, so I couldn’t see whether there was anyone in the driver’s seat. But the oaf who drove the thing had left less than a couple of feet between the van and the club’s iron railings. These fenced off a flight of steps that led down to the club’s basement. A gate opened onto the steps.

  As I squeezed between the van and the railings the van’s front door swung open blocking my way. I glanced around. The van’s back door had been opened so it closed off my retreat.

  Gino climbed out of the front seat. He was carrying a baseball bat.

  Willis emerged around the back door. He wasn’t wearing a pitcher’s mitt. But with hands that size, he didn’t need one. They probably didn’t make them that big.

  I said to Gino: “You have me at a disadvantage. I left my cricket bat at home.”

  Gino said in a New York drawl: “You won’t need it. In this ball game, we’re using your head for practice.”

  He stepped forward and swung the baseball bat at me. I jumped back. And felt Willis behind me grab my shoulders. I lifted my right leg and stamped down on his foot. Nothing too serious. Just enough to make his toes rattle around in his socks like bones in a butcher’s bag.

  Willis yelped like a hound dog in a trap. He let go my arms and staggered to one side. I turned and tried to push past him. But his floundering body and the van’s back door blocked my escape.

  Behind me, I sensed Gino advance with the baseball bat. I turned to face him. I needed a plan to get out of this. The only one I could think of was to duck.

  Gino swung the bat at my head.

  I ducked.

  I made a good job of it. But the bat ruffled my hair as it missed the crown of my head by all of a millimetre.