by Craig Rice
I thought he was finished so I started upstairs and he stopped me again.
“Wait a minute, Gyp,” he put his hand on my arm and looked around furtively. First Biff with his secrets, now Sammy!
“Look, Sammy,” I said, “if it’s on the Q.T. I don’t want to know about it. I have so damn many secrets in my head now that I’m afraid to open my mouth for fear they’ll fall out.”
“It’s no secret,” he said, but I wasn’t convinced. “It’s about a letter.”
“I don’t want to know.” I pulled my arm away and went up one step. “What kind of a letter?” I couldn’t help asking.
I remembered the letter I had received a week before. It was a very formal business letter, I didn’t pay any attention to it at the time, but it was about my theater stock. Thinking about Moss’ speech I wondered.
“Well, I got this letter today,” Sammy said. “It was from a broker and the idea behind it was, did I want to sell my stock in the Old Opera?”
I had received my letter a week ago, why had Sammy received his so much later? I tried to assume an uninterested air as I waited for him to go on.
“It was full of big words like interest and amortization and crap like that, but they offered me nearly fifty per cent more than I paid for it. I … well, I wondered if you got a letter, too.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said and went upstairs. I don’t know why I lied about it. Perhaps because my letter hadn’t mentioned profit, maybe because I was subconsciously being loyal to Moss, or maybe because Sammy’s furtiveness annoyed me.
As I hurried upstairs and into the room I thought that Sammy was just the type to own a few measly shares in something and do more worrying about it than the president and the board of directors put together.
The party was in full swing; it didn’t surprise me. When there’s only an hour to have fun in, you don’t waste time with preliminaries. Someone shoved a glass of beer in my hand and Biff shouted from across the room.
“Over here, Punkin. I saved a chair for you.”
The room was so smoky, even with the window open, that I could hardly see him. He was sitting at my make-up shelf and the chair he saved for me was my own.
“What kept ya?” he asked as I sat down. “Sammy get you for messing up the scene?”
“No, it was something about a letter … a love note.” I don’t know why I added that, either. I do know that it would have saved an awful lot of trouble if I’d told him then what Sammy’s questions really were.
The room was so noisy that I couldn’t hear what Biff was saying. The quartet at the beer barrel were harmonizing, the victrola was going full blast. Siggy, with his cigarette hanging magically from his lower lip, was singing a solo. His black bag was beside him, in case he could make a sale, I guess. He was a little drunk.
Mandy and Joey were the bartenders. They wore a full make-up for the occasion: white aprons, check shirts and big black mustaches. A stick filled to the top with pretzels was in Joey’s hand.
The room was too full of smoke for me to find everyone. A group had gathered around Alice’s victrola. Some baritone was singing Water Boy to beat hell. Between the corny quartet around the barrel and the victrola, conversation was impossible. Waiters from the restaurant climbed in and out of the windows like in an old two-reel comedy. I couldn’t find the one that gave me the root, but then they all looked pretty much alike.
In the midst of all this Biff suddenly slammed his mug of beer on the shelf. “Say, we gotta get the Hermit.” He started for the door. “Can’t have a party without inviting him.”
Gee Gee waved a hand, a “Go ’way” gesture. “He’ll never come down from that perch of his,” she said. “Not as long as we got another show to do. Once up, once down. That’s his routine.”
“I don’t blame him,” Jannine chimed in. “If I had to climb all those stairs and then scale that wall to get up there, I’d stay, too.”
“He doesn’t scale the wall, you dope,” Gee Gee said. “He’s got a ladder, sort of, iron rungs set in the bricks. I been up there, I know.”
Biff had let them argue it out. He stood on the balcony and called the flyman. “Hey, Hermie. Hermie!”
There was no answer and Gee Gee continued. “Sure I been up there. It was a couple of months ago. I had a snootful and just to be sociable I went up to visit him.”
She took a gulp of her beer and waited for Jannine to ask, “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say nothing. Aside from being mean as hell. Sorta glowered at me and …”
“And what?” Jannine was getting interested. So was I, for that matter.
Gee Gee hesitated before answering, a puzzled look in her face. “I hope I just imagined it, but I thought when I yelled to him to help me get from the rungs to his platform”—she used her hands to describe a distance of a foot or so between the ladder and the flies—“he … well, dammit, I know I was drunk, but I’d swear he tried to push me.”
“You must have been damn drunk,” Jannine replied. “Why, if he pushed you and you really fell you’d smash your brains out.”
“I had to grab the guy ropes …” Gee Gee’s voice trailed off as she buried her face in the beer mug.
I joined Biff on the landing and added my voice to his. “Hey, up there!” The flies were in darkness and there was no answer. Biff yelled again. “Hey, are you all right up there?” A glimmer of light flashed.
“What do you want?” The Hermit’s shadow loomed up and the ropes behind him made a phantomlike scene. The voice seemed to come from far away.
“Where in hell were you?” Biff shouted, and the voice answered, “I was taking a nap. What do you want?” He sounded angry.
Biff went on, “We got a party goin’. Come on down and have a drink.”
The shadow stretched taller and taller but there was no answer.
“He won’t come down,” I told Biff. “Ask him if he wants us to send some beer up to him.”
“If you want some beer send the elevator down,” Biff shouted through his cupped hands. He went into the room to get the bottles and I waited for the elevator to descend. I knew it would, the Hermit didn’t like us but he did like his nips.
“Biff’s gone to get it,” I shouted. Still no answer, but I heard the scraping sound of the elevator hitting against the brick wall.
The elevator was another invention of Jake’s. It was a square box with four ropes that met in the center. They were fastened to a longer rope that worked from the flies on a pulley. When the flyman wanted hot coffee or the papers, he called downstage and asked one of the stagehands to put the things in the box and then he pulled it up.
I had watched the elevator operate a hundred times or more but that night there was something about it that fascinated me. As it passed the upstairs landing I saw something glitter. Then as the box descended through the darkness the shiny thing was gone. I wasn’t sure, but I had an impression that a piece of bead fringe had been hanging from the rope. The kind of fringe Siggy used on his more expensive G strings. At that moment Biff returned with the bottles of beer. After putting them in the box he gave the rope a tug and the Hermit slowly pulled up the elevator.
I hadn’t really forgotten the fringe, I think I would have told Biff about seeing it if it hadn’t been for Louie’s voice coming from the foot of the steps. Biff went into the room and as I started to follow him Louie called to me.
“Didja get the beer and stuff?” he asked. I couldn’t see him very well, just the outline of a short, bull-necked, thick-chested man. The outline was enough to make me feel repugnance. I knew he was waiting for me to ask him up but I couldn’t.
“Yeah, we got it,” I said and went into the room. I couldn’t even say thanks. Invitation or no invitation, I heard his heavy steps on the stairs.
The noise of the room had subsided a bit. Moey was making a speech. In the same tone he used when he made his audience spiel he said, “Friends, we are gathered here tonight to pay homage not to a great man, not
to a great woman, but to a great institution. Plumbing!” Loud cheers followed his speech.
Moey smiled proudly. After all, hadn’t he got it wholesale? “Now this here friend of mine …” he began.
Dolly shushed him. “Get to the point,” she said.
“Well,” Moey went on, “in keeping with the informal spirit of this here unveiling, I suggest that we select a queen. I have here in my hand a handful of straws.”
As he held them up for inspection, Jake moaned, “Me new broom!”
Moey gave him a reproving look. “We all make sacrifices,” he said, “and as I was saying before the vulgar note of selfishness protruded itself, we select this queen in a way that’s new. It’s novel. It’s exciting. We draw straws!”
He walked over to Sandra and with a little bow waited for her to draw a straw. It was a long one and she pouted. Alice and Jannine were next, then I pulled one.
“I vill be next.” The Princess was half hidden by the smoke but the accent came through as clear as a bell. She approached Moey and condescendingly made a choice. I kept my fingers crossed that she’d win. “Princess Nirvena, Queen of the Can.” It would have been wonderful.
But it was a long one, too. The Princess shrugged her shoulders and went back to her chair. She sat there as though she were inspecting the czar’s summer stables on a very hot day.
It was a tossup between Dolly and Gee Gee until the straws were measured more carefully. I was glad when Gee Gee won. Dolly had been sulking all evening and with that bleary look in her eye she wouldn’t have been convincing in the part.
Gee Gee’s eyes sparkled when Moey put the cardboard crown on her head and the bottle of beer in her hand.
“When I count to ten,” he said, “you break this on the doorknob, see?”
With the crown on her head and the bottle in her hand she reminded me of a beauty-contest winner made up to represent “Miss Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” The horseshoe behind her and the laurel leaves framing the door were like the float.
“One, two, three.” Moey counted slowly and Mandy knelt at her feet with his hat in front of him to catch the overflow when the bottle broke.
“Look at me,” he said. “Hebe, the cupbearer!”
“Looks like you’re doing the gladiator bit,” Moey said. Then, “Seven, eight.” Gee Gee suddenly got the giggles and Moey waited for her to stop. “Eight,” he repeated, “nine, ten!”
Crash! the beer splashed in all directions, all over Mandy and the laurel leaves, even a little on Biff, who stood behind the horseshoe. Jake quickly took the broken bottle from Gee Gee so she could open the door.
She turned the knob and pulled. The door wouldn’t budge. She pulled again and Jake jumped in to help. He took a screw driver out of a pocket in his overalls and began chipping away at a spot of something on the door.
“What are you doing?” Gee Gee asked. Her big moment was spoiled and there was a trace of annoyance in her voice.
“On account of snoopers,” Jake explained, “to keep ’em out until the unveiling, I sealed the door.” Jake grinned with satisfaction as he worked.
So that’s what had intrigued me so while I was changing for the finale, I thought, sealing wax. And I thought it was paint.
The wax chipped off easily enough and Jake stood aside for Gee Gee to try again. She turned the knob slowly. Just before she opened the door, the sound of music came from the closet. A tinkling sound of Whistle While You Work. Her hand relaxed for a second, a puzzled look on her face. Then she threw open the door.
The cheers died in our throats. A sudden silence fell over the room. There in a huddle on the floor was La Verne! She was stark naked, her hair falling all over her face.
“Stop clowning,” someone said. “Put your clothes on.” It was Sammy, but his voice was weak and quivery. He knew she wasn’t clowning. Her body was too white and too twisted. He set his jaw to keep it from shaking up and down. “Someone get Doc Mitchell,” he said, “and help me get her outta here.”
We all knew she was dead, even before they picked her up and carried her out to the light. The victrola was running down. The baritone was getting lower and lower.
No singer can hit such low notes, I thought. It was like a boot scraping on a wooden floor. He wasn’t singing, I thought. He’s scraping his boot on the floor and La Verne is dead and I am dizzy and sick.
“Look! Look!” Did I say it or did I just think I had spoken? “Around her neck.” No one saw it. No one listened to me. “It’s her G string. It’s choking her to death. No. It can’t do that. It can’t hurt her because she’s already dead.”
The victrola stopped suddenly.
Chapter Seven
When I came to, the room was full of cops. At first I thought we had been pinched again. Then I remembered. I was lying on the floor. Jiggers, the cop, was kneeling beside me.
“Nice thing, a big horse like you fainting,” he said.
My eyes burned and my face was wet. I saw the towel in his hand. “If you had to hit me in the face with a towel,” I told him, “you could at least have found a clean one.”
He looked apologetically at the cloth smeared with grease paint and threw it in a corner. “Jees, I’m sorry, Gyp.” Then his expression changed. He was a minion of the law when he added quickly, “Come on. The Sergeant’s asking a few questions and he wants to see you in particular.”
There was a decidedly unfriendy ring to his voice. His eyes left me and went to the far end of the room. I saw then what he was looking at. Three men in plain clothes were silently spraying powder on the door of the toilet, a fourth flashed a picture of the doorknob. Then they took a thing that looked like a magnifying glass and peered through it at the door.
One man turned to Jiggers. “Until I can examine this at the laboratory,” he said, “I’d say that they were identical.” He nodded importantly to the man at his left who scratched his chin and nodded back at him. When they had nodded themselves dizzy, they turned to me, not saying anything, just glancing at me and then to Jiggers.
Suddenly I felt something sticky on my fingers and I knew what was on their minds. I put my hand up to my eyes. There was ink, black ink, on every finger! They were comparing my prints to those on the door. Suddenly it became funny to me. These silly men taking pictures of my fingerprints, Jiggers being so limb-of-the-law-like, and me on the floor with a dirty, wet face. The picture of La Verne’s face was in my mind, too. The horrible face with the split lip and blue color. I laughed and laughed until Jiggers began shaking me.
“Stop it,” he said. “Stop it, or I’ll have to hit you.” I stopped but my teeth were still chattering. He pulled me to my feet. My legs were weak as I followed him upstairs.
The men’s dressing room smelled of dirty comedy clothes and sweat. It was full of people and in the stale smoke-filled air their faces were dim and blurred. I felt a warm hand grab mine. It was Biff’s. He gave me one of those “I’ll stick to you” looks and squeezed my hand tightly.
I saw Sandra. She was leaning on the messy shelf. She greeted me with a sickly smile before she turned her head away.
“Just like you said, Sergeant.” Jiggers was still holding my arm as he spoke. “They tally all right.”
The man he spoke to was seated at a table near the window. He had a lot of papers in front of him which he kept his eyes on as though something very important were written there. A broken glass and several pencils were pushed to one side. Without looking at me he asked me to sit down.
“Are you feeling well enough to answer a few questions, Miss …” he consulted one of the papers, “Miss Lee?” His voice was soft and smooth. He reminded me a little of my grandfather; the same iron-gray hair and the same twinkling eyes.
“Yes, Sergeant,” I replied, “I am. It was silly of me to faint. First time I ever did. I hope it didn’t hold up the investigation.”
“Not at all, not at all,” he assured me.
What a darling he is, I thought, and so much like Grandpa. “
You see,” I continued, “I had never seen a dead—that is, a corpse, before and …”
“And the sight unnerved you?”
“Yes. When I saw the G string I … I …”
“You what, Miss Lee?” He leaned forward when he prompted me. His mouth seemed to harden a little.
“Well, I fainted, I guess. Maybe it was because the room was so close and stuffy. So many people, you know.” Someone snickered when I said that, not a friendly snicker. It was the Princess. She sat just behind Gee Gee. “And of course I had been drinking a lot of beer,” I added quickly for her benefit.
The Sergeant was silent for a moment. He was looking at my right hand. At the ink or at the tight little wad of Kleenex I had rolled? “You are very nervous, aren’t you?” he finally said.
I dropped the Kleenex in my lap. His voice had suddenly become less soft. The blueness was leaving his eyes and they seemed to be turning gray, icy gray. He wasn’t at all like Grandpa, I decided.
“Not exactly nervous,” I replied a little stiffly. “Only I do think the police could wait until I was conscious to take my fingerprints. There’s some law about that, I believe.”
The Sergeant raised one shaggy eyebrow. “Oh, a legal mind, eh?” He smiled with absolutely no humor. “Well, it just happens that at the time your prints were taken you appeared to be very much conscious. At least from the things you said we believed you to be, shall I say, aware?”
“That’s right, Gypper,” Gee Gee added. “You were talking to beat all hell.” Her eyes were wide and glittery. She was trying to tell me something with them.
The Sergeant turned to her and shook his head. “Please wait until I speak, Miss Graham.”
Gee Gee glared at him and by then I was angry, too. “Look, if all this dialogue is about my fingerprints on the sealing wax, you’re out of your mind.” The Sergeant made a clucking noise with his teeth that made me more angry. “I don’t give a damn if I was conscious or not when they took ’em. As for them being the same as on the door, that’s simple. I was curious and I touched it.”
“Why?”
