The Corpse in the Cabana

by Lawrence Lariar

  “I would have found it, if you hadn’t walked in.”

  “How did you know it would be there?”

  “A girl has ways.”

  “Clever,” I barked at her. “But I haven’t time for smart talk, sister. I’ve got things to do, important things. If there’s anything you’d like to hold from me, it’ll be your funeral. Unless I deliver to Newberry before noon, you’ll be telling it to him. He’ll sweat you out under the lights. He’ll butcher you with his questions. Because you’re marked lousy on his list. Anybody and everybody out at Pazow’s place will be grilled until the gravy pours.”

  “Tell him, honey,” Chuck said.

  Then she told me. She had overheard Gloria and Ziggi discussing the Saxon articles after a rehearsal. She picked up the dialogue while preparing to set her tables in the restaurant. They had mentioned Chuck’s name along with all the others, and she rattled off the others: Pazow, Orlik and a man named Burris, a well-known impresario.

  “She was writing about Chuck,” Jean said. “It was horrible. I could have killed her.”

  “Watch your language,” I said.

  She retreated to the protection of Chuck’s arm, sick about her Freudian slip. She buried her head and wept freely. And while she wept I signaled to get her out of the apartment. He was quick to take my cue.

  When she was gone, I said: “Get your hat. We’re leaving.”

  CHAPTER 22

  10:32 A.M.

  “When he’s crocked,” Chuck said, “he’s paralyzed.”

  “For how long?” I asked.

  “A couple of hours.”

  “You mean perfectly stiff?”

  “Out like a lox,” Chuck said. He stared straight ahead, his mouth tight, his eyes cold with significant memories of Ziggi out of the recent past. He would certainly know Ziggi intimately after more than two weeks of rehearsals at the beach club. He shook his head at a stray thought. “You get to know a man pretty well sometimes from watching him drink, Steve. The Cuban always uses liquor to escape. You know, the old psychiatry guff, the neurotic running from reality. Hell, I know what it means. Some of my best friends in the comedy business lay themselves out that way. You can find them over at Lindy’s every once in a while working the black coffee routine to jerk themselves out of the land of nod. But it never works for them. They must be put to bed for a couple of days so they can sleep it off. It’s exactly that way with Ziggi. He got stinking one night out at the beach club and he was on ice all the next day. You couldn’t have blasted him back to reality with an atom bomb.”

  We found the door open to Ziggi’s nest. Ziggi lay where I had left him a little while ago. His lean frame lay limp on the big bed, his handsome face dead with sleep, mouth open and snoring. I stood there looking down at him, estimating the depth of his slumber.

  “You want proof?” Chuck asked. “Watch this.”

  He leaned over the bed and turned Ziggi’s head at just the right angle for slapping. He jerked the head up and delivered a hard smack to the Cuban’s jaw. The sound of it was flat, loud and sharp. The strength of it slammed the head back against the pillow, bouncing it once. The Cuban only lay there as he had been before, the snores rhythmic and relaxed.

  “I see what you mean,” I said.

  “If you have any doubts, take a poke at him yourself. You can hit him with a Mack truck. You can stab him with knives. Nothing will wake the crud until he sleeps off the last bottle he drank.”

  We left the bedroom. In the small living room, the phone sat on the desk near the window. Chuck was restless, uncomfortable as he surveyed the wreckage there. I sat him down. I told him to relax, to smoke a cigarette, to forget Ziggi.

  “But not completely,” I added. “Concentrate on his voice. You’ve got a job to do.”

  “A job? Here?”

  “Here and now. You know him pretty well, Chuck. Can you give me his voice? Can you imitate him? Impersonate him?”

  “He’s easy. What do I say?”

  “Anything,” I said. “Let me hear a slice of him.”

  He sat there closing his eyes to build whatever memory pictures he needed. He moved his lips tentatively, saying nothing, only mouthing a few quiet words. But something was happening to his face. His eyebrows adjusted themselves to a new routine. The line of his lips was altered into the crooked curve that was a caricature of the Cuban spouting dialogue. Chuck’s face had changed. This would be an important part of his stage mimicry. This would be the visual spark to ignite the laughter, as soon as the words came. He held the expression for a tick of time. Then he opened his eyes.

  “What you want me to speak?” he asked. His voice had climbed the scale a bit, the words slightly nasal now, the accent completely Ziggi.

  I gave him my back. “Say it again, Chuck.”

  “What you want me to speak?”

  “Give me another line. You’re talking to Mari now, understand? She’s asking you how you feel.”

  “Okay, baby. How’s my doll? You feeling okay, too?”

  “Perfect,” I said. “You’ll sell her easily, Chuck.”

  “Sell her? What am I selling?”

  “You’re phoning her. Now. You’ve got to take a deep breath and do the best impersonation of your career. You’ve got to tell her that you’ll meet her out at the beach club at eleven-thirty this morning. You’ve got to ad lib it so that she buys the routine.”

  “Why?” he asked, confused. “Why do I want her out there?”

  “She’ll know.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then you lose your temper,” I said. “Then you lay it on heavy, bark at her, whip up impatience with her. But she’ll know. She’ll jump the way we want her. Let me hear a few angry words. Give me Ziggi in a screaming rage. Maybe a little drunk, but loaded with anger.”

  He adjusted himself for the switch in mood. He began to shout at me. The performance was something for an audience, a gut-buckling impression of the Cuban in a fit of Latin fury. He had caught Ziggi perfectly, the voice a masterpiece of mimicry. When it was all over his brow was wet with the sweat of his efforts. I sat him down and let him relax for a few minutes, until the tension had lessened and he told me he was ready.

  Then he made the phone call.

  “Hello, doll,” he said. “Am I feeling okay? Listen, doll, I’m feeling hunky-dory.” He waited in the pause, listening to her, licking his lips to prepare himself for the next line. When it came the words snapped from his lips. “You and me, we got stuff to do, doll. That’s right, this morning. You go out to the beach club right away, one hour I’ll meet you. You heard me, doll. Listen, I’ll tell you later, we’ve got no time now for talking. Half past eleven, you hear, doll? Adios.”

  He hung up, mopping his brow. His hand was shaking on a fresh cigarette.

  I said: “Terrific, Chuck. You sold her.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the heaves.”

  “Not yet. Relax.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  The telephone bell answered his question.

  “That’ll be Mari,” I said, “calling back to check. She’s nobody’s fool. This time let her have it, but good.”

  He picked up the phone and screamed into it.

  “What’s the matter, you crazy?” he barked. “You don’t understand English, maybe? Do like I said, you hear? I got no time for more questions!”

  He slapped the phone down and started for the door. But I held him for another gap of time. We stood there staring at the telephone like a couple of fools. But it didn’t ring again.

  “She won’t call back,” I said. “You sold her a bill of goods.”

  “And now?” Chuck asked. He was tight with worry, as nervous as I had ever seen him. “What’s next Steve?”

  “You and I are taking a ride.”

 
CHAPTER 23

  10:45 A.M.

  The routes to Long Island are varied and devious. Winter and summer, fair weather or foul, a thousand-thousand gasoline demons glut the roads. It was a hot morning and the summer sun had already sucked a caravan of beach-goers into the Long Island arteries. We took the short way, through the tunnel and down the broad Belt Parkway to the flatlands bordering Canarsie Bay.

  Chuck said little on the way out, caught up in the heat of his worry, eating one cigarette after another. He had begun to shake after the phone call to Mari. His guts would bounce from here on out. I made idle chatter for the last few miles but when we reached the shore road to East Beach he exploded.

  “When do you tell me the gimmick, Steve?” he asked. “When do you let me in the front door?”

  “When I can open it.”

  “This morning?”

  “It had damn well better be this morning,” I said. “Before noon, before our contract with George Newberry runs out. George drives a hard bargain. He’ll be licking his chops over this one, waiting for the chance to open his fat kisser for the reporters so that, he can make a hero of himself.”

  “And if you miss?”

  “We’ll discuss that later,” I lied. It would be useless to try any optimistic double talk on Chuck. He knew what would happen if I failed. He would be hiring legal talent. In a hurry.

  The East Beach police station sat in the dead center of town, encircled by the usual crop of Main Street merchants: Luncheonettes and delicatessens, markets and supermarkets.

  I pulled up alongside a dump labeled: Happy Max—Delicatessen and Appetizing.

  Chuck said: “No pastrami for me, Steve. Not on an empty stomach.”

  “We’re not after pastrami. We’re going inside for baloney.”

  The desk sergeant was a square-headed stiff who scowled down at us with the innocent air of a mastiff about to devour a Persian.

  “Newberry ain’t in,” the intellectual said.

  “Get him,” I said.

  He rolled a lazy eye at the wall clock. “You crazy or something? Newberry never gets in before noon.”

  “He will today.”

  “Who’s making him?”

  “Tell him Steve Gant is asking for him,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “A picnic,” I said. “Tell him I’m running a barbecue over at Pazow’s Beach club. Tell him I’m serving broiled buffalo. Tell him anything you like, but get him over there quick.”

  “Oh sure,” laughed the police dog. “I can just see Newberry hopping out of the hay because you’re whistling at him mister.”

  “Are you calling him?” I yelled. “Or do you want me to save you the dime?”

  “Temper, temper,” commented the man at the desk. He picked up the phone daintily and began to dial. I could hear the busy signal. He hung up and sighed at me.

  “Newberry’s wife,” he clucked. “That dame can keep a phone busy for five hours at a time.”

  I jerked Chuck out to the street.

  “Go get him,” I said. “Grab a cab and bring him to the beach club. It’s a must. I can’t hang around with you.”

  CHAPTER 24

  11:18 A.M.

  I pulled into the four acre parking lot beyond the entrance to The Glades. Only a few dozen cars sat in the shadows near the main gate. These would belong to the staff members readying the place for the formal opening of the beach area in the afternoon. A crew-cut college youth met me at the first turn, bright-eyed with anxiety to park my crate and give me a sampling of Glades service.

  “The beach doesn’t open until three,” he said.

  “They can stuff the beach, son. I’m here on business. Has Pazow arrived?”

  “Of course, sir. He came early. But I wouldn’t disturb him if I were you. The luncheon, you know. M. Pazow says it’s more important than last night’s show. A big press party, for reporters and special people. We’re all excited about it. Expect a lot of celebrities. People like Earl Wilson, Winchell, you know, the real big shots.”

  “Any of them here yet?”

  “Oh yes, sir.” He wrinkled his collegiate brow and plucked some names out of his memory box. “There’s Mr. Orlik. You know him? The millionaire?”

  “We’re buddies,” I said. “Who else?”

  “Mr. Saxon, the famous magazine publisher.”

  “I asked for celebrities, not vermin.”

  “Gigi Chalmers, Don Gordon, Jack Drake,” he rattled on. “George Simon, Mimi Duvernois …”

  “And how about Mari?” I asked. “Mari Beranville?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Gosh. Is she coming too? She sure is beautiful, isn’t she? My favorite …”

  I didn’t wait to hear his boyish blather. I crossed the lush terrace alongside the entrance to the restaurant. In there the tables were sparsely filled with over-anxious free-loaders. The bar was servicing them with the preliminary shot in the stomach before the hors d’oeuvres and the vichyssoise. I paused outside the big picture window. Pazow stood at the bar, his face alive with conviviality. He leaned close to Max Orlik. The jeweler seemed lost in a deep despond. In the quick tableau he was in congruous among the merry-makers. In the next second my eye was lured back to the restaurant by the pleasing rear view of Jean Russicoff on her way to the customers with a trayful of drinks.

  Then somebody came out of the shadows inside, another woman, this one more important to me. She was standing at the side of the restaurant, a few yards beyond me. I tapped on the window. She turned her pretty head and smiled at me.

  She came out at once, surprised when I pulled her into the edge of the terrace.

  “The crazy little man,” she said. “Why the cloak and dagger routine?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” I said. “I’m not here. If anybody should ask you.”

  “I can take a hint,” she smiled. “You look green, lover. No sleep?”

  “Not yet. Get me a pair of swimming drawers.”

  “Oh, please,” she giggled. “You’re not going swimming with that face? You’ll frighten the fish.”

  “No jokes.” I tugged her away from the big window toward the cherry sapling fence. She came willingly, but she threw a long and worried look over her shoulder. She would be missed in there. “I’ll let you return to the lunch,” I told her. “In a little while.”

  “I wasn’t worried about the lunch. Pazow won’t miss me, Steve. Listen, I don’t like the idea of you going into the water now. Not the way you look.”

  “It’ll do me good. I haven’t skin-dived in a full season.”

  “Louder and funnier,” she said. “You, too?”

  “You don’t think I’m the type?”

  “You can sell me anything, little man.”

  “The suit,” I said. “Trunks and goggles and a pair of flippers.”

  She ducked into a cabin and came out with the skin diving equipment. She faded into another and produced a pair of black trunks. She would have followed me into Chuck’s cabana, but I brushed her away.

  “Where will you be?” she asked. “I may join you in a little while.”

  “Out beyond the jetty, in deep water.”

  “Be careful,” she warned. “The waves smack you pretty hard out there.”

  “I need a good smacking,” I said, and closed the door in her pretty face. Then I stood there, listening to the sound of her heels clicking off toward the restaurant. Through the south window, the beach lay clear and crisp in the morning sun. A few hundred yards to the East, a long black pile of rocks stretched into the sea, a thin finger of barnacled stone rubble. Out there at the very end thin flecks of foam sprayed high into the wind, pounded the big boulders as the ocean roared its way, down to the sand. It would be rough out there, wind-swept and bouncy in the deep water. It would be rough enough for trouble.

/>   I got into the trunks and found a bottle in Chuck’s desk and fortified myself with a long swallow of scotch. I opened the door and stared down the concrete walk, both ways. Empty. I ran out to the left and ducked behind the rim of the building line. As soon as I left the protective corridor between the cabanas, the wind hit me. And running across the beach, it slapped hard at my face, a strong and steady blast of air from the South-east, strangely chilling despite the strong sun.

  There was no time for slipping and scrambling along the rocks. Instead, I put on the fins and pushed myself into the surf, fighting against the immediate chill of the water pounding my sluggish corpuscles. Now I was moving behind the protection of the jetty, out of sight of anybody at The Glades. I would remain invisible all the way to the end of the rock pile.

  In deeper water, the surf boiled into high breakers, rolling and thumping against me as the waves surged and broke and steamed against the shore. The wind whipped the water savagely, sending the spume at me, pushing and shoving me with a steady strength. The seas slowed me and weakened me. But I’d have time for rest out there, at the edge of the last big rocks on the jetty. I slid in behind the protection of a giant boulder and jerked myself out of the water, cursing the sucking trough of the marauding breakers.

  Once on the top, I squirmed to the right. From here, the entire beach lay open to me. On a straight line from the jetty, the cabanas and main building of the Glades. To the left, a vast stretch of unbroken beach and dunes between the Glades and The Saxon Club, a half mile down the shore. I sat there, shivering and staring. Only a pair of casual gulls saw me, wheeling and screaming above.

  The minutes ticked by. Five?

  My eyes glazed with the effort of squinting and studying the empty beach. Could I be wrong about my calculations? Was I taking this spray bath for nothing? My mind backtracked through the hectic pace of the last dozen hours, struggling for logic. I retraced my steps, reviewed my theories, slapping myself with a regular beat to kill the cold bite of the wind.