by Craig Rice
“Fingerprints, I suppose?”
“Nope, gloves.”
“How inconvenient,” I said coldly. “For you and the police, I mean. Nice for the murderer.”
“It doesn’t make much difference. We know who done it anyway.” He sat back and relaxed.
I gave him a full minute to tell me. Then I opened the window to the front of the cab. “Pull over here, please,” I said with what I thought was great dignity, “I’m getting out.”
Biff slammed the window on my dignified nose and pulled me back into the seat. “You’re staying right here,” he said firmly.
“I am not!”
“You are, too.”
That could have gone on and on. That is, it could have if I hadn’t thrown a tantrum.
“Mr. Brannigan, take your hands off my arm,” I said.
It was the wrong approach, so I took it an octave higher. “First you leave me alone in the theater with the murderer. Then you tell me I’m not alone. Then you tell me he’s not the murderer. You let me make a damn fool out of myself, asking him what he’s going to do with my corpse. You must have had yourself a swell laugh! Let go of me!”
Biff got way over in the corner of the cab. I had a strange idea he was laughing. Something was making his shoulders move up and down and funny noises were coming from his throat.
“If you’re …” I stopped. If he were, it would be too much. “Cyanide of what?” I asked.
After a coughing fit Biff told me he didn’t know exactly. “Something that works mighty fast.” He said it as though it were explanation enough for one with my limited intelligence.
“And the Chinaman?” I asked, all sweetness and light. “Was he by any chance one of Stachi’s grand-daughters, too?”
Before he had a chance to answer that one the cab stopped. While Biff dug around for the fare I climbed out.
I was half hoping he’d have to ask me for it, but I was deprived of the pleasure of refusing him. He even gave the driver a quarter tip. Before the cab drove away they had decided that “dames are awfully hard to understand.”
What was harder for me to understand was where Biff got the bankroll. It was no Mexican; the twenties went right through to the bottom.
I watched him put it back into his pocket. “Horse come in?” I asked.
Biff eyed me. “Same as,” he said. “Russell paid off the dough he owed me for the last three months.”
Some of the actors standing under the Ringside canopy greeted us. Stinky, the Eltinge comic, was picking his teeth, so I knew he was on the way out.
“Howzit?” I asked.
“For free, it’s good,” he replied.
I imagined he meant the beefsteak. From the satisfied look on his face I also imagined there was nothing left but the gristle.
Biff and I peered through the blinds. “The joint’s packed,” he said. “Let’s go next door for a quick one first.”
“I’d love it,” I said quickly. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen Sugar Bun Kelly or not, but she was draped gracefully on a bar stool near the entrance. She was in black satin and she had a generous look in her eye. I was in no mood for primitive business like fighting over a man—not with that audience, anyway—and I know what black satin does to Biff.
Joe’s place next door was empty. The boss was behind the bar polishing glasses. He seemed surprised to see us.
“I never expect nobody when the Ringside gives with the free beefsteak,” he said rather apologetically.
We didn’t have to order. Joe knew what we wanted, and in a minute the brown boys were in front of us.
I poured my rye into a glass of water and raised it to my lips. For the second time that night someone said something that made me spill my drink in my lap. This time it was Joe.
“No,” he said, “it didn’t surprise me none when I heard that Russell had got La Verne’s dough.”
He went right on talking, but I was sputtering so over my drink that I couldn’t catch all of it, just the end.
“A dame that carries ten thousand bucks around in her G string deserves to be strangled.”
Ignoring me completely, Biff agreed with him. “She was a dope to let him know about it, but he was a bigger dope to flash the roll. He shoulda dug a hole and buried it until the heat was off. Either that, or he shoulda taken the bankbook, too. He mighta known the cops would be lookin at anybody who got rich suddenlike. Ten grand is …”
Joe had just noticed me. “Wassa matter, choke?” he asked.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” I replied. “You boys go right ahead and chat. I do this sort of thing all the time.”
Biff took me at my word. He went on talking without so much as slapping me on the back. He did throw me an annoyed glance when I coughed on one of his lines, but that was all.
“Russ was so anxious to get started with that play of his that he don’t wait for nothing. He pays me the C he owes me just to get me to read it. It’s supposed to have a part in it that’s right up my alley; that’s what he tells me. Alley is right. I’ve read stinkers before, but this is the one that does it! Anyway, I take me a look at the script and then I ask him where the money’s coming from. His own dough, he tells me, an inheritance.”
They both found that amusing. “Inheritance is right,” Joe said, and they laughed again.
At that point the door flew open and Mike Brannen made his entrance. He had changed his uniform all right. He wore a pin-stripe number that was enough to frighten even a hardened trouper. If the suit didn’t get you, the tie would. It was like an Easter egg that had gone wrong. The handkerchief sticking out of his pocket was a desert sunset.
I was too blinded for a moment to see the small man who stood next to him. It was the Chinese waiter who had given me the root.
“Well, here we are,” Mike said, as though we could miss seeing him.
Biff got up from the stool and signed the check Joe had given him. “Here we go, Punkin,” he said gravely. “Play dumb. No matter what happens, don’t open your kisser.”
“Play dumb? I’d like to know what else I can do. Am I supposed to …”
Something in Biff’s face stopped me. I smiled. “You’re the doctor,” I said.
No one spoke until we reached the door. Then Joe suddenly whipped out his keys and locked up behind us.
“What the hell,” he said. “I might as well join you. I can’t make a sale with that guy givin’ it away.” He kept up his complaints until we reached the Ringside.
The crowd had thinned a little, but it was still large enough to make Joe remark, “Son of a bitch’s got a gold mine here.” Then he left us to check on the quality of the free food.
Gee Gee was at the end of the bar. She had lost a little of her girlishness and her red hat with the red feather was pushed back on her head. She greeted me uncertainly and looked at Biff.
“Did the big strong man save you from the murderer’s clutches?” she asked.
I know Biff wanted to tap her gently on the head with a beer bottle, but he controlled himself.
“I already told Gyp,” he said quickly. “Look, Gee Gee, I had to do it that way. If she hadn’t been mad at me she never would have stayed, so I …”
“So you made like we were singing baby shoes,” Gee Gee snapped. “You didn’t care if that idiot killed her or not as long as you got your old evidence!”
Biff was unwinding her legs from the bar stool as she talked and, before the waiter had time to take our orders, he was leading both of us to the back of the room.
The orchestra, a piano and an accordion, was playing, When Kansas City Kitty Smiles At Me. The deep sawdust on the floor was mixed with so much beer that walking through it was like plowing through mud.
Sugar Bun Kelly and Joyce Janice were sitting at the Eltinge table, outminking each other. On their arms they wore enough railroad fare home to take care of a stranded Chautauqua. Sugar Bun was too busy telling Rudnick, the manager, about how she broke the Columbus house records to say hello, but Joyce
managed a frigid greeting.
“Cute kids,” Gee Gee remarked as we passed.
“Kids?” I said, with the proper inflection. Biff was smart enough to keep walking.
I was surprised to see Moss sitting at our table, but there he was, cigar and all. He looked very pleased with life in general and, considering everything, I couldn’t blame him.
Sammy, sitting next to him, was trying too hard to enjoy himself. In the time it took us to reach the table, he had downed three straight drinks. His eyes were watering but he kept them on Russell.
So did Dolly. Not only her eyes, but her hands. One held his hand and the other was on his shoulder. She had a ladylike half Nelson on him.
He didn’t appear to be too happy about it. Maybe because it interfered with his drinking; maybe because he didn’t like having the entire burlesque industry know that he was Dolly’s. She isn’t exactly the Sardi type, I thought, while I watched her rub noses with him, but if he thought he was going to get rid of her, he was very much mistaken.
With Mike Brannen and Alice it was different. Alice was being difficult. She didn’t like being left alone so long, she didn’t like the suit, and she wasn’t keeping her dislikes to herself.
“I don’t go to platheth like thith unethcorted,” she said.
The way Mike jealously watched every man who looked at her, she might have tried to enjoy herself while she was still Alice Angel. When she became Mrs. Brannen, I had an idea it was going to be harder.
Moss stood up when we approached the table. It made the other men so uncomfortable that they scrambled to their feet, too.
Mandy almost knocked himself out offering Gee Gee his chair. She stared at him as though he had gone a little soft in the head but she sat down. Joey, not to be outdone, offered me his.
Biff and the Chinese stood at the head of the table with H. I. Moss. If they were self-conscious with all of us looking at them expectantly, they didn’t show it. Biff introduced the waiter.
“Folks, this is Sam Wing.”
The waiter bowed stiffly.
“I’ve asked him to join us tonight because he has something very important to say; something very important to do.”
Mandy started to chuckle. He probably thought it was a gag that Biff was leading up to. Then he realized how quiet everybody was and he lapsed into an embarrassed silence.
Biff waited.
“He’s timing this beautifully,” I thought with a little pride. Then he dropped his bomb.
“Sam Wing is going to point out Lolita La Verne’s murderer!”
Jannine mumbled, “But Stachi …”
Biff heard her. “Stachi didn’t murder La Verne,” he said.
I had wanted to watch everybody when he said that, but Russell got all of my attention. He grabbed Dolly’s hand so tightly that she gasped. His other hand broke the glass he was holding. The liquor spilled on the stained tablecloth and a stream of blood dripped from the cut where the glass had gashed him.
Biff couldn’t have seen him, I thought. He went on talking too calmly.
“You see, the window leading to the roof was open and the murderer was seen. I knew Stachi didn’t kill her because of something that was said during the investigation. Someone at this table said that they saw Gypsy go into that room after everybody had left. They said they were on the stage.
“That was a lie. When someone lies at a time like that they are either lying to save their own skin, or they’re lying to save someone else’s skin. The murderer wasn’t the type to think of any skin but his own!”
I was watching Russell. What I saw in his face surprised me. The nervousness was gone. He was puzzled, then wary.
“But he didn’t see Gypsy,” Biff said in the same low tone. “He couldn’t, because he wasn’t on the stage. He was on the landing outside the men’s dressing room. He was hiding and waiting for a chance to get down the stairs unseen. To be unseen, he had to be unseeing, too.
“Why would he lie? Because he had just poisoned a drink that he handed to La Verne. He made the appointment with her during the matinee. She was to give him the money for his play that night. Her mistake was in wanting to star in the play. Had she been content with just being the angel, she would be alive right now.”
Biff paused for a moment, just long enough to pour a double hooker of rye into a water glass and drink it.
Our table was silent. The noise of the saloon seemed to be coming from a far distance; like listening to the radio when you’re alone in a hotel room.
Russell looked at Biff through half-closed eyes. I couldn’t see what was in them when Biff began to speak again. Russell dabbed at the cut on his hand with an end of the tablecloth.
“He had no intentions of starring La Verne in the play. There wasn’t even a part in it for her. I know because I read it. The lead was a man. Naturally, he’d play it himself. But he wanted the money. Why not get the money and kill her? He had every intention of making it look like a suicide, but he was interrupted. Someone was coming up the stairs. He quickly smashed the glass and left the room.
“The stairway to the men’s floor was dark and he stayed close to the door. It wasn’t Gypsy he heard; it was the doorman. He didn’t know then that Stachi had been in the room. He knew Gypsy was because Mandy and Joey told him how we walked on during their scene and he knew she had to change for the finale.
“He must have been quite surprised when no one screamed that La Verne had been found where he left her; her head on the dressing-table shelf, her body full of poison, and her G string thrown carelessly on the floor after he had taken the money from it.”
Then Biff looked at Russell. “You were surprised, weren’t you?” he asked.
I’d always thought Russell was a bad straight man, but at that moment I changed my opinion. He was an actor. He took the tablecloth from his cut hand and examined the mark carefully. Then he took Dolly’s cigarette from her limp fingers.
“It won’t work, old man. Sorry.” He inhaled deeply on the cigarette. “I wasn’t in that room until her body was found and I can prove it. I was in the Princess’ room.”
“And you can prove it by her?” Biff asked. His smile matched Russell’s.
“Certainly not. I know who poisoned La Verne. I’ve always known.”
Biff turned to the Chinese waiter, who was living up to the Oriental reputation of stoicism. He hadn’t moved or changed his facial expression.
“Can you point out the man who dropped the poison in the glass?” Biff asked.
The Chinese faced Russell. “He did,” he said, pointing a finger at the straight man.
Russell started to rise. Then he seemed to realize where he was and who he was. He sank back in his chair with his hands holding the curved back.
Mike Brannen walked over to him and put his huge body between the chair and the exit. “Shall we talk this over outside?” he asked. One hand held a pair of handcuffs. Even in the loud suit, he looked like a policeman.
“We’ll talk it over here,” Russell said evenly. “I said that I knew who killed La Verne, and I do. It’s true that I was in the basement room. I was alone, though. The Princess was with La Verne. I heard their voices through the ventilating pipe. They were playing a blackmail scene, only this time La Verne was doing the threatening. She was threatening to …”
Russell stopped and looked at Moss.
“Go on,” Moss said quietly. He puffed on his cigar and took a sip of his drink.
“They were talking about you. La Verne knew who the Princess was getting her money from and she wanted some of it. She was trying to blackmail a blackmailer. My play or my name wasn’t mentioned once. The Princess knew La Verne had ten grand and she knew her racket with Moss was up. But she was clever and she played her cards well.”
A respectful note had crept into Russell’s voice.
“Instead of fighting with La Verne, she shook hands with her. She said that they would get together on it. ‘Plenty for both of us,’ she said. ‘Let’s hav
e a drink on our partnership.’ I heard her get up. I knew she got the glasses because her voice became louder; she was closer to the pipe. Then they clicked glasses and La Verne laughed.
“Then I heard a gasp, the sound of breaking glass, and hurried footsteps leaving the room. The Princess didn’t come downstairs. I waited, but she didn’t come. Someone else entered the upstairs room. I heard them moving around, the sound of something being dragged. It was probably Stachi. I left the room and stood on the stage. That was when I saw Gypsy go upstairs. She brushed past the Princess, who was on her way down.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s true. I remember.” I looked at Biff and he grinned at me. I felt a sudden wave of nausea. How could he smile at me when I had forgotten a thing like that?
It was Russell he was smiling at.
Russell stared at him. Then, slowly, he understood. “You tricked me, you dirty rat,” he said.
“Now, Russell,” Biff said. “You know damn well you wouldn’t have admitted all that if it hadn’t been to save your own hide. You knew you’d lose the money, too, if it got out that it was La Verne’s. The Princess might even have accused you of being an accessory after the fact.”
In my dumb amazement and more than dumb pride, I hardly noticed that Biff was using legal phrases and big words. It sounded quite natural to me.
“When the autopsy showed poison I thought right away that it was a murderess, not a murderer. I suspected Dolly. She had the motive, and the Princess had said that she was in the room.”
Dolly didn’t even look up when her name was mentioned. Her hands were lying palm up on the table and she stared vacantly across the room. I had a sudden urge to put my arm around her, to tell her that nothing was worth the pain she was suffering. Then I realized that she would always suffer, that nothing I could say would change that.
Biff went on. “The old cut on the Princess’ hand made me change my mind. She could have cut herself when she broke the glass. The money could have been a motive. She wanted to do a show. If Moss wouldn’t put it on for her, why not Russell? Jake told me that he followed them to her hotel one night. Couldn’t Russell have sold her the idea of the play then? Little by little the whole thing put itself together. She wore long, black gloves in her number. She could have given Russell the money. She was blackmailing Moss. Would she kill to protect that income? Then, when I found the torn glove, I knew.”
