The savage salome

by Brown, Carter, 1923-1985

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  Chapter One

  SHE didn't look LIKE A SOPRANO, BUT

  maybe the heavy tweed suit had me fooled and underneath was the generously curved torso of a prima donna.

  "Yes?" she asked breathlessly.

  There was a twitch in her voice as well as in her eyes. She held the door tight, ready to slam it in my face if I moved an eyeUd.

  "I'm Danny Boyd," I told her. Then I turned my head a little so she got the full impact of the right profile—that way she could make her own comparison with Adonis coming out the loser like always.

  "Who?"

  I figured the blue-framed glasses should have told me she was myopic enough to miss the profile at close range even. The heavy lenses magnified her eyes like two muddy pools where something unspeakable lurked just beneath the surface.

  "I have got the right suite?" I asked doubtfully. "I'm looking for Donna Alberta."

  "Oh, yes!" She nodded vigorously. "I'm Helen Mills— her secretary."

  "She called me an hour back," I said patiendy, "and asked me to come right over."

  Helen Mills looked undecided like she couldn't make up her mind if it was the truth, or more probably I was a rapist out for my morning's exercise.

  "I'U find out," she said. "Wait here."

  The door slammed in my face and for a few seconds I figured the heU with it, I'd had my own traumas already yet and more from Helen Mills I didn't need. Then sud-

  denly the door was open again and the change of expression on her face told me my references were O.K. even though I wasn't a member of her club.

  "Miss Alberta is waiting for you, Mr. Boyd," she said in the same breathless voice. "Come right in."

  Inside, I looked around with the eager appreciation of the typical American boy who knows he's got the same chance as anyone else of making a suite in the Waldorf Towers. The suite was everything I imagined and the only jarring notes were the two people who occupied the living room. The dame was crying noisily and from the look on the guy's face, misery was a do-it-yourself project with him.

  I tabbed the dame with the thick silver-blonde hair as Donna Alberta. She wore a heavy silk shirt, the color of gunmetal, and it stretched tight across the thrusting Olympian peaks of her magnificently developed breasts. I figured if this was the result of singing opera then all girls should be made to sing a couple of hours a day from an early age.

  A tight red belt cinched her fragile waist, and tighter, lollipop-pink matador pants encased her generous hips and long legs all the interesting way down to her ankles. Even in the rarefied atmosphere of the Towers she looked like the ultimate in room service.

  "Mr. Boyd," she sobbed in two octaves, "this is Mr. Kasplin—my manager."

  Mr. Kasplin was only a little taller than a midget. He sat in an armchair with his legs together and his feet danghng above the carpet—not even a broad with a frustrated maternal instinct would have called him cute.

  His head was out of proportion to the rest of him, and startlingly handsome—a perfect symmetry of features— surmounted by gleaming black hair combed straight back from the wide forehead to take every advantage of the natural wave. There was a pinched look about the mouth and his eyes held a Lilliputian distaste for the world of moronic giants he was forced to inhabit.

  "Sit down, Mr. Boyd," he said in a birdhke voice. "You must be curious to know why Miss Alberta sent for you."

  I sat on the couch facing them while Helen Mills hovered, ghostlike, in back of Donna Alberta's chair.

  "Boyd Enterprises will handle anything," I told him, "if the price is right—but I've got a lousy voice."

  Kasplin took a silver box from his pocket and flicked open the lid, showing a gray powder inside. His thumb and index finger took a dainty pinch of the powder and held it to each nostril in turn, while he sniffed delicately. With his head cocked to one side he looked like a surprised bird of prey the moment the buckshot hit.

  "Snuff, Mr. Boyd," he said blandly in answer to my unspoken question. "I find it consoles the nerves."

  "KaspHn!" Donna Alberta's rich soprano burst into full flood. "Don't waste time—tell him about Niki."

  "Of course," he said tartly. "But first, Mr. Boyd, you must understand that this is highly confidential."

  "Sure," I nodded.

  "Niki," Donna Alberta sobbed. "My poor darling Niki!"

  "He was kidnaped two days back," Kasplin said tautly.

  "Have you contacted the F.B.I.?" I asked.

  "No—" he shook his head. "Miss Alberta didn't like to bother them under the circumstances."

  "Didn't like to bother them?" I repeated wonderingly.

  There was a malicious glint in his eyes for a moment, then it was gone. "I guess I should explain," he said softly, "Niki is a Pekingese."

  "A dog?" I gurgled.

  "A dog," he agreed.

  "That's very funny," I snarled as I stood up. "I'll bUl you for my time you've wasted."

  "Sit down!" Kasplin said sharply. "It isn't funny at all, Mr. Boyd. Niki was returned this morning in a gift-wrapped package—dead. Someone with a surgeon's gift for using a knife had done a very neat job of disemboweling."

  I sat in silence for a few seconds, listening to the muted, musical waU of Donna Alberta fill the room.

  "A practical joke for strong stomachs, Mr. Boyd," Kasplin said finally. "Unfortunately Miss Alberta doesn't have one where Niki is concerned—as you can see. We wish you to investigate the matter and discover the murderer."

  "Investigate the death of a pooch?" I gaped at him. "You have any idea how much it will cost?"

  "Whatever your fees. Miss Alberta will pay them," he snapped. "Money is of no consideration in this matter!"

  Right then they began to sound hke my kind of chents so I relaxed and Ut a cigarette which KaspUn stared at like it was a personal insult.

  "Was it the dog they hated—or Miss Alberta?" I asked.

  "That is precisely why Miss Alberta called you, Boyd," he said acidly, "to find out. She has enough problems already with the opening only four nights away—and there is still a certain amount of risk involved even with Earl Harvey—"

  "Earl Harvey?" I said blankly.

  "The impresario." A look of sheer disbelief showed in his eyes for a moment. "You mean you've never heard of him?"

  "He should say the promoter, not the impresario!" Donna Alberta interrupted violently.

  "I've heard of Harvey, O.K.," I said, "but I never figured him for a runner in the culture stakes."

  "Hah!" Donna Alberta jumped to her feet, her face set in a mask of tragedy. "You see, Kasplin? Even the private detective recoils at the mention of his name! And this is the man you dared to associate with the deathless lyric soprano voice of Donna Alberta!"

  "Now—" KaspHn started.

  "What am I?" she demanded of the ceiling in a fury of despair. "Am I a snake-charmer?—a rock-and-writher?" She wriggled her hips suddenly in imitation of a teen-age idol, and for a moment there it was like burlesque was big-time again.

  "Donna, please!" KaspHn made a faint, restraining gesture with one hand, then closed his eyes wearily. "We have been through all this before. Earl Harvey is paying the salary your magnificent voice commands and also fifteen per cent of the gross. When did the Metropolitan ever pay the prima donna a percentage?"

  It was painfully obvious the prima donna didn't give a damn for logic—she was lashing herself into the kind of primitive violence usually found off the Florida coast.

  "You would compare that smelly pigpen on Second Avenue with the Met?" she screamed wildly at her manager's bowed head. "Are you insane, Kasplin, that you

  not only insult me but also the home, the birthp
lace, and the font of opera in this country?"

  Kasplin opened one beady eye and stared at me dully. "This may take a Uttle time," he said, oblivious to the full-throated fury that sounded like it would move the Towers a couple of inches off their foundations.

  "Fll wait," I said loudly to make myself heard. "You're paying for my time."

  "This is one of her bad days," he said, and glanced at his watch. "Maybe it would be better if I saw you in my office—say in two hours from now?"

  "Sure," I nodded and stood up.

  Kasplin handed me an engraved card, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes again. Donna Alberta's voice—agitato and fortissimo—shd up the scale another fraction, steadily developing power and resonance all the way. I got out of the suite maybe a couple of seconds before the pictures bounced off the walls.

  Halfway to the elevator a nervous touch on my elbow made me stop and turn around. Helen Mills stood there, blinking at me from behind those enormous lenses.

  "You mustn't mind Donna Alberta, Mr. Boyd," she said breathlessly. "Remember she is a great artiste and it's Kasplin—the brute—^who insisted she do the whole dreadful thing!"

  "By me, a theater on Second Avenue is fine," I assured her. "I've got nothing against an off-Broadway production. I'm a democrat myself—five on Central Park West."

  "She's halfway out of her mind right now," Helen Mills went on determinedly, "and you can't blame the poor darling. I mean, with Niki returned to her in—^in a package! Then the opening night's so close and there's that ghastly dance—"

  "Dance?"

  "Of course she must do the dance—you know—the Seven Veils? That—that voyeur—^Earl Harvey insists she drop the whole seven."

  Suddenly I felt simpatico with Kasplin as my eyes shut tight.

  "Is something the matter, Mr. Boyd?" she asked anxiously.

  "Drop the whole seven?" I echoed feebly.

  "Oh!" There was a dull edge of contempt to her voice. **You didn't know it was SalomeV

  "Oscar Wilde's SalomeT

  "The opera was written by Richard Strauss,"—her voice got colder with each word—"based on Wilde's play."

  "With Donna Alberta singing Salome and dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils?" My eyes opened wide again, and I guessed it must have been the gleam in them that made Helen Mills back off quickly.

  "Where can I get tickets?" I asked feverishly. "Lots of tickets—Uke for the run of the opera?"

  "Mr Boyd!" Her nostrils quivered deUcately—"I think you're disgusting!"

  She scuttled back down the corridor toward the suite and somehow, with all that tweed, she managed to look the same going as she had coming—it was a crying shame.

  I drank a couple of Martinis in the intimate seclusion of a Madison Avenue bar and brooded awhile. Every time I closed my eyes I could see myself investigating the death of a Pekingese—someplace on Fifth Avenue, down on my hands and knees, barking questions at a female Great Dane Uke, "When was the last time you saw Nik the Peke?"

  Then every time I was about to grab the nearest phone and tell Donna Alberta the hell with it and for her to go find another boy, I got a mental picture of the last veil fluttering slowly down from that magnificent torso—and I knew I was hooked.

  So I walked into Kasplin's office exactly two hours after I'd left the suite in the Waldorf Towers. He had a receptionist or maybe a secretary or maybe both—she was big enough to cope with two jobs at the one time. A statuesque redhead who must have stood close to six feet tall in her nylons and built like maybe she had a good singing voice too—^from the way the sweater stretched taut around her echo chamber.

  "I have an appointment to see Mr. Kasplin," I told her. "The name is Boyd."

  She consulted a deskpad, then shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry,"—^her voice was definitely contralto—"but I don't have it written down."

  *'Im sorry, too," I said sincerely. "It makes like ships in the night and all that jazz. If you'd only had my name —Danny Boyd—written down we might have made a big thing out of it."

  I leered at the projecting sweater. "Did anyone ever tell you, kid, you should be singing in opera?"

  "I guess I should have recognized the profile right away," she said, looking at me thoughtfully. "Didn't you carry a spear at the Met last season?"

  "Only the opening night," I admitted. "Came the first curtain call and I bowed at the same time that the prima donna in front of me bowed—^the spear came forward and she came backward."

  I shrugged expansively. "You know how prima donnas are built."

  "Turn around," she suggested. "Maybe the booby hatch sewed on a tag with the return address?"

  "Do I get to see Kasphn?" I had a quick inspiration— "Or would you rather I wrestle my way in?"

  It was her turn to shrug, and it was like the first earthquake tremor when suddenly you got new mountains where there were only molehills before. Then she picked up the phone and talked to Kasplin for a few seconds. Another shrug, and I nearly burst into applause.

  "Maybe it's the time of the year," she said. "Everybody's got bugs in the attic—^he says for you to go right on in."

  Kasplin was sitting behind an enormous desk with a bare black ebony top, like a general who had his battlefield all laid out ready when some pentagon slob shipped the troops to the wrong continent.

  "Sit down, Boyd," he piped. "I'm glad you're punctual."

  "I'm glad you're glad," I said brightly as I sat down. "It's httle things like that—^well—they make all the difference in a dog investigator's Mfe!"

  "You find the dog's death and disembowelment amusing?" he asked bleakly.

  "I'm not real sure yet," I said. "Tell me some more about it."

  "There isn't much I can tell you," he said in a tired voice. "It happened in the afternoon—^the Mills girl was in the suite and received a caU, supposedly from the

  doorkeeper at the theater where Miss Alberta was rehearsing. The man said Miss Alberta wanted Niki at the theater with her and was sending a man over to collect him. About a half-hour later a man appeared and collected the dog. He wore a messenger's uniform and Helen gave him the dog. She doesn't even remember what he looked like."

  "That's a big help," I said glumly. "Anything else?"

  "I checked with all the messenger services, naturally," he said. "None of them had any record of the supposed service—so I presume the uniform was a fake."

  The silver box appeared in his hands and I waited while he sniffed his way through the snuff-taking routine.

  "What worries me, Boyd," he continued slowly, "is whether the faintly repulsive incident of the dog is only a prelude to something worse.'*

  "Like maybe whoever killed the dog might try killing a human being next?"

  "Precisely!" He nodded, his too large head jerking as if pulled by invisible strings. "There are strong—and sometimes odd—^passions within an opera company, Boyd!"

  "It figures," I agreed blandly.

  "I want you to meet the principal people concerned in the opera company, Boyd," he went on. "Paul Kendall, the producer, is throwing a party tonight and they'll all be there—so you're invited."

  "Thanks," I said. "Does Kendall know?"

  "He won't mind," Kasplin said confidently. "The party is due to start at eleven—^Paul made a special point about the time so don't be late. I'll give you the address." He used a gold pencil to scribble it on a pad, then tore off the sheet and threw it across the vast expanse of black ebony toward me.

  "I don't think there's anything to discuss at the moment, Boyd," he said. "I'd prefer to see you again in the morning—after you've met the others—and get your impressions then."

  "O.K.," I said. "FU caU you."

  "Be here at eleven," he said curtly.

  On my way out I stopped off at the statuesque redhead's desk for a couple of moments. She looked up at me with

  remote interest like I was something the plumber left the last time he came to fix the pipes.

  "You wanted somet
hing?" she asked in that throaty contralto.

  "Just because I don't sing in key," I said brightly, giving her the profile treatment de luxe, "is no good reason why we can't make beautiful music together, is it?"

  "I need your kind of music like rocks in the ear," she snapped. "Beat it—^big man!"

  I stepped out of the office block into the nice crisp air of midday autumn in New York. It was bracing, Hke I could almost smell the tang of burning pinewood on the breeze and see the leaves fluttering gently onto the sidewalks—like I was a backwoods boy again and hungry for some plain home cooking—like I had a simple httle Chateaubriand for lunch at Monsignore to sustain the nostalgic mood.

  Chapter Two

  THE PRODUCER, PAUL KENDALL, HAD A

  penthouse on Sutton Place and a new line in butlers— feminine, brunette, and gorgeous. She opened the door and just stood there, proving dreams can come true if you concentrate hard enough and ignore the Freudian overtones.

  Her hair had been teased out into a fluff of silken strands that accentuated the gamin quality of her hollow cheeks and uptilted nose. She wore a sleeveless black crepe top that fitted tight over the small, high-pointed breasts, and a white organdy skirt overlaid with big black dots. Her earrings were fat clusters of pearls and a matching necklace looped three strands around her neck. There was a wicked gleam in her huge dark eyes as she smiled at me.

  "Are you selling something?" she asked in a vibrant voice.

  "Butlers aren't supposed to ask questions," I said, "just announce the guests."

  "You're a guest?" She had no trouble making the question an insult.

  "I'm a guest of a guest," I answered cautiously. "Kasplin said Paul Kendall would love to have me along at his party."

  "I guess it's O.K. then," she said easily. "Come on in."

  I stepped into the entrance hall while she closed the door, then turned to take a second look at me.

  "I'm Danny Boyd," I told her. "You can ask for my phone number if you like."

  "I'm curious," she said evenly. "I didn't know Kasplin had a friend."