by Sam Toperoff
When Lillian entered, the music jumped to “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp.” Applause built to a rumble. There were loud shouts of “Bravo” and “Author.” Lilly raised an arm above her head like Jack Dempsey, her face beaming. She was pleasantly surprised and a bit undone by the welcome. These were believers who really had no idea what was coming in just a couple of hours. She picked out the older actors—the “players,” as Hammett called them—and was again touched by the courage of their choice of lives, their Broadway commitment. She remembered Ned Wever, Joe Sweeney, and Don Smith from some failed Hollywood projects and felt a new responsibility to get them more work. The younger ones—Florence Eldridge in particular—caught her eye; they couldn’t be happier. Here they were, on Broadway actually living their dreams.
As Lillian passed through the room kissing and being kissed, hugging and being hugged, complimenting and being complimented back, wisecracking and laughing and sipping and smoking and performing beautifully, she began to take heart. This was the world of the theater; this was her dream world too. It had its own atmosphere, its own gravity, its own inhabitants. It was, she realized, populated with people she admired. This was exactly where she wanted to be this night.
She was on her second martini when she finally got to Florence Eldridge, who called her “Miss Hellman.”
“Miss Hellman? I’m not the schoolmarm, dear. Lilly.”
“I just wanted to tell you, Miss Hellman, what a privilege it was to be allowed to be your ‘Julie’ and to …”
“And I just want to tell you, Miss Eldridge, what a brilliant future you have on the …”
It was now impossible to be heard amid the noise in the room, which was growing to a roar, but the two women had indeed said what they had to. The boisterous crowd was overflowing with freeloaders and awash in hubbub.
After one a.m., though, the crowd had thinned considerably, even some of the backers and cast members had left. The musicians were packing. Smoke clouded the ceiling. A few gray heads rested on scattered tables.
Twelve reviewers, one from each of the daily newspapers, the same bunch that had given her ten thumbs up for The Children’s Hour, would again be calling the tune. The bar would be set higher for this one because the author would be expected to outdo herself, having already proven her bona fides as a Broadway playwright. Also because a second success is more deeply resented than a first.
Four of the reviews mattered more than the others—the Times, the Herald Tribune, the Daily News, the Mirror—morning papers that would hit the streets in a matter of hours and set the tone. The Times and the Trib were most important because some of the people who read their reviews actually bought theater tickets.
The Mirror review arrived at Sardi’s first, around two-thirty. The kid who ran it over might have read it in the cab but he knew enough to deadpan it as he handed a warm tabloid to Herman Shumlin.
Shumlin opened it to the exact page and began reading aloud: “Blah, blah, blah, ah, here … which opened at the Vanderbilt Theatre … blah, blah, blah … Just to relieve the suspense immediately: No, dear reader, it did not—lightning rarely does—and it certainly did not strike a second time on Broadway last night, even though all the ballyhoo for Days to Come promised thunder and lightning. Unfortunately for theatergoers that rare atmospheric phenomenon did not occur on the stage where playwright Lillian Hellman and director Herman Shumlin attempted to repeat the crashing success they created on Broadway two years ago with The Children’s Hour …” Shumlin stopped, took off his glasses, and pinched his eyes.
Lillian took the review from him and continued: “… the play’s main action—none of which we ever get to see—takes place offstage and attempts to capture the human suffering and strife created during a labor dispute at an Ohio manufacturing plant. Bravely, the highly accomplished cast—let me single out the fine Ned Wever as Henry Elliot and lovely Florence Eldridge as Julie Rodman as just two among an excellent ensemble. No, we cannot blame the actors for this …” Lillian looked up and said, “Thanks from the bottom of my heart to all and each of you. You were the lightning tonight.”
She went back to the newspaper and found her place: “… accomplished cast struggled mightily to make believable a Midwestern world which Miss Hellman, who is from New Orleans, clearly knows absolutely nothing about.” Here Lillian raised her eyes and addressed her small audience. She put on a British upper-class accent: “Notice, students, I chose to end that previous sentence with a preposition. I could have said, ‘… about which the author, from New Orleans, knows absolutely nothing,’ but that would smack a bit too much of erudition, too much of the Times. It would be, in fact, highly literate. So, no, no, no, we must say ‘absolutely nothing about.’ Next thing you know I’ll be dangling my fucking modifier for everyone to see …”
She continued reading with the same strained accent: “This, of course, is the sort of artificial drama that is produced when the playwright’s politics and not her artistry—which we suspect she may possess—determine her narrative and characterization. All the characters in Days to Come are moved around like checker pieces, mostly red ones, wooden and circumscribed”—she read it as circumsized—“by ideology, unfortunately not their own but Miss Hellman’s. This work is yet another example of the political claptrap we are beginning to see too often on Broadway these days. When Odets offers it up, we invest ourselves even if we feel a bit uncomfortable. Miss Hellman, on the other hand, had better quickly return to a world she knows, and that is most assuredly not small-town Ohio.
“If these are indeed ‘The Days to Come,’ I’d suggest you sleep through them. That is, as a matter of fact, what I saw a number of audience members doing …” Lillian stopped and spoke softly, normally: “There’s more, folks, and it’s not funny anymore. I let you all down. I’m very sorry.” Then she stood and said over her shoulder, “Forgive me if I don’t wait around for the rest of them.”
As she neared the steps, Ned Wever called out, “We love you to pieces, Lilly.”
She was crying when the cold air on Forty-fifth Street struck her face. She didn’t remember Arthur being there when she left; she didn’t remember him saying goodbye either. Why was she thinking of Kober—spineless, irrelevant Arthur—when the events of the evening were so painful?
Lilly intended to call Hammett from her bed in her hotel room after a long bath, but she fell asleep in the tub. She awoke to Manhattan’s thin, spare sunlight. I’m not dead was her first thought. I didn’t dream it either, was her second.
Days to Come played seven performances.
. 8 .
Working Detective
HAMMETT HAD BEEN AWAKENED from a stupefying sleep that could only have been—he tried to see the clock—a couple of hours. “Dash. It’s Myra.”
“Myra?” His voice didn’t work right.
“Ewbank.”
“Of course. Myra.”
“I’m really sorry to bother you like this …”
“Just tell me.” He masked impatience with concern.
“I got a call from Phil. A friend of ours is dead. Phil wonders if you’d come down and look things over.” There was a pause on the line, which Hammett heard as a plea.
“Sure. Give me the information.”
The essential information came from Myra as this: Jerry Waxman, mid-fifties. Staying at the Regency Arms, 450 West Figeroa, Apartment 10-B. Hammett said the information back slowly to Myra Ewbank and she confirmed it. Phil Edmunds would be there waiting for him.
“What day is this?”
“Sunday.”
“I’ll have to double my expenses.” Death had for so long been a commonplace in his life that Hammett did not give it the weight other people did. He sensed Myra’s irritation and said, “Sorry.”
There were two police cars parked on Figeroa. Hammett put the Packard a block away and walked through the bungalow complex. Day was breaking and warming. He saw Phil Edmunds talking to an older cop in front of 10-B. Hammett caught his eye an
d shook his head, indicating he did not want to be recognized by or introduced to the policeman. Edmunds nodded and let Hammett walk behind him up to an open door barred by an even older cop. Two men appeared to be moving about inside the darkened apartment. Hammett ambled up to the guard, flipped his wallet, and said, “Hammond, L.A. Times.”
“Go chase stray dogs.”
“Why? When I have me a homicide scoop right here.”
“Homicide? Some guy kicks off getting it off. And not even working too hard at it ’cause she’s sitting on top. That’s no homicide.”
Hammett crossed himself: “Let’s hope his eyes were watching God, bless him. Still, of all the ways to go …”
“You got that right.”
“Body still in there?”
“Gone hours ago”
“That fast? Still, can I get a look around inside?”
The cop’s face reflected just how preposterous the request was.
“Who’s in charge?”
“Lieutenant Donegan.”
Hammett saluted and sauntered around the grounds, eventually making his way to the rear, where access was undeterred. Through the bathroom window he saw clearly into the lighted bedroom, to the rumpled unmade bed, to the night table still illuminated. The table held some books, two drink glasses, an ashtray, fountain pen, eyeglasses, a hairbrush, the normal stuff of a man on an out-of-town stopover. On a second bed, still made, there was a suitcase opened and neatly packed. A lipstick case sat on a wallet near the pillow. The lipstick and the wallet seemed to confirm the cop’s tale of a dalliance and a payment.
Hammett had seen enough to tell him something here was not right. A talk with Donegan, if possible; a longer talk with Phil Edmunds on Waxman’s background and he might be able to tell where the not right feeling was coming from. And, of course, if he could get to the girl. The French had it right in situations like this. Cherchez la femme.
He waited at the front door for Lieutenant Donegan and one of the medical examiners to emerge. He waited quite a while. He smoked and offered one to the cop. “The girl, she’s in custody?”
“No reason. No homicide.”
“When did soliciting stop being a crime in L.A.?”
“Come on.”
“Donegan take her story?”
“Hers and everyone else’s.”
Lieutenant Donegan then came out of 10-B, a chunky fullback of a man in a brown suit with a matching brown crew cut. Donegan remembered Hammett from a police testimonial dinner and seemed flattered by meeting him again. Hammett remembered the lieutenant.
Donegan extended his hand: “… seeing you here. Did you know the guy?”
“Friend of a friend.”
“Well. Looks straightforward enough. I’ve got this Waxman picking up a girl downtown in a cab. The cabdriver checked out. They come back here. They conduct their business. He starts gasping, then kicks off. She’s scared shitless and calls the front desk. The desk calls us. We take everyone’s story. Everything checks out. Like I said, straightforward.”
“The girl. You know her?”
“Why? You think there’s something here?”
“No, no, I’m sure it’s like you said.”
“Yeah, I do know her. Pretty good kid.”
“In the old days at Pinkerton, I had dozens of these things. We used to call them ‘dicker-tickers.’ ” He let Donegan smile. “Personally, all I ever cared about was, Did the girl get her money before the geezer checked out?”
“Angel is a true pro. Does all her business right up front.”
Hammett extended his hand now. “Thanks, Lieutenant. See you in the funny papers.” They were already walking toward their respective cars. “Will there be an autopsy?”
“Doubt it. The examiner thought he saw enough back there.”
“The family might want one.”
“That’s their business, isn’t it? He’s from back East, right? New York?”
“Think so.”
LATER, AT A BREAKFAST SHOP on Flower Street, Hammett asked Phil Edmunds to tell him everything he knew about Jerry Waxman. This is what struck Hammett as important about Phil’s report: Jewish guy. Brooklyn. Tough as nails. Vice-president Northeast Electrical Workers Union. Yes, mid-fifties, but in great shape, beat me two sets of tennis yesterday at my place. Single. Dynamic sort of guy. Obsessed … labor organizing was his whole life. I knew him back in New York from his organizing electricians on Broadway. He was amazing at what he did …
Phil was getting off track. Hammett brought him back: “Myra and I invited him out for a week and set up all sorts of meetings with people who are interested in maybe getting some of the writers organized out here. You remember, what we talked about. He was going to sit down with guys from different studios …”
“Which ones?”
“M-G-M, Paramount, Warners, RKO, Universal, all of them. Myra knows the specifics, dates, places, et cetera. Anyway, we wanted him to stay with us at our place. He said he needed to be on his own, he had preparations. I found that apartment for him. I reserved last week and dropped him off last night.”
“What time?”
“Early, before eight. He said he had work to do. I believe he did. Those meetings, lots of them, lined up all week. Jerry was a pretty serious guy.”
“Did he smoke?”
“Never.”
“Would you say he was a vain man?”
“Vain? Yes. Very. Why?”
“Any idea where he might have found that woman? How she got there?”
“None whatsoever, but knowing Jerry as I do something about this is just not right. I feel it. So does Myra.”
Hammett lit another cigarette and tapped his coffee cup signaling for a refill. “I don’t know how involved you want to get, Phil, but the important thing now is to pressure the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy, and do it fast. I have a strong feeling they won’t want to do it, so you might have to bring some real pressure to bear with his family …”
“An autopsy? You suspect something?”
“I’m in no position to get involved myself but …” Even as he said this, Hammett knew he was already involved simply by letting his identity become known to police at what he now believed to be the scene of a murder. “You have to move very quickly because if you wait and the official judgment is death by natural causes, you may have to try to prove a negative. So get the jump on it. A reliable, independent autopsy and, almost as important, the girl’s statement. You’ll probably have to get the newspapers involved. Even if the prosecutor is reluctant, bang the drums loud enough to get a grand jury impaneled. This might get pretty messy. Not to mention costly.”
“You think someone may have killed him?”
“A distinct possibility.”
“Why would anyone …? For trying to organize? Jesus.”
Hammett now got to play the Op or Spade or even Nick Charles, explaining how a “dicker-ticker” could be a murder: “In the ashtray next to the deathbed were two cigarettes, each lying on opposite sides of the tray, whose long ash revealed they had been lighted but neither of them had been smoked, simply allowed to burn themselves away. Even though her lipstick case was prominent, there wasn’t lipstick on either cigarette. And then you tell me your man Waxman didn’t smoke, well then …
“Secondly, if the cash deal between Jerry and Angel had been completed before any sexual activity began, why would his wallet be on the pillow of the other bed rather than on the night table, the bureau, or in his pants pocket? Possible but unlikely. And why was her lipstick case on top of the wallet? How did it get over there? He pays her, puts the wallet down on the far pillow, then she does her lips and puts her lipstick on top of his wallet? Strange.
“Third, and most important, on the bathroom sink, a set of dentures. Jerry’s. With a whore in his room, Jerry, vain Jerry, as you tell me, pulls out his teeth and puts them on the bathroom sink? That’s the sort of thing a guy like Jerry does when he’s alone and thinks he’s going to sleep. T
hese things have to be explained because right now none of them add up.” Hammett was proud of himself.
Edmunds whistled. “My god, someone killed him. How?”
Hammett didn’t explain and pushed his coffee cup away from him. “We need a working photographer right away. Let me call a friend at Pinkerton. This might cost. Are you willing to spring?’
“Whatever it costs. It’s the least …”
On the way back to the Regency apartments, Edmunds said, “How much? Approximately?”
“Depends on what’s needed, how far we have to go with this. It’s a Sunday. The pictures should cost no more than fifty or so.”
The photographer, a scarecrow in a suit and bow tie, met them at the Regency. He had done lots of Pinkerton work and knew of Hammett through his Continental Op stories in Black Mask. In fact, he’d submitted a few stories there himself. One, he told Hammett, got an encouraging, handwritten rejection letter. Hammett clapped him on the shoulder. The cameraman used a Silvestri Flexicam with a large flash, exactly the right equipment for the job at hand. Hammett appreciated a pro.
The door to 10-B was closed now but the old cop, sitting on the steps and smoking as they sauntered up, was still on guard.
Hammett flipped his wallet again: “Hammond. Times. Remember?”
“You’re still not getting in there.”
“There’s a news story here. You can’t keep us out.”
“Don’t like it, talk to Donegan.”
“How about we just peek in this window right here.”
“How about you just get the hell back in your car.”
Which is what they did, or appeared to do, making sure the cop saw them make their way to their car out on Figeroa.
A block away they parked, circled around the apartment complex, and made their way to the rear bathroom window of Jerry Waxman’s rooms. The bathroom window was left exactly as Hammett remembered it. Hammett peered in the window. “Son of a bitch.”
No dentures on the bathroom sink. No towels tossed carelessly on the floor near the shower. Even though the lights were turned off in 10-B now there was enough sunlight coming through the front windows to see that the room had been cleaned up. Hammett looked at his watch; it had been barely an hour. Both beds were now made. There was no suitcase, no wallet, no lipstick. The night table had been stripped clean, only a darkened lamp, no glasses or books or papers, no hairbrush, and certainly no ashtray.
