Killed in the Act

by William L. DeAndrea

  “Miss Brockway wanted me to call upstairs when I got here,” Llona told me. “Shall I tell her you’re with me, or do you want to be a surprise?”

  “Tell her,” I said. I figured it would be just as well to keep people happy for as long as possible. I could start barging in where I wasn’t wanted any time.

  The house phones were by the registration desk, across the lobby; in other words, somewhere between here and Cleveland. To pass the time on the walk, Llona and I counted autograph hunters. They were everywhere—lurking behind closet doors, furniture, and potted plants. They were mostly female, anywhere from nine to ninety.

  We stopped counting at thirty-five. I was surprised a tony place like the Brant allowed them to hang around, but Llona explained it was the Network’s idea.

  “The Brant is getting four promotional consideration announcements during the six-hour program,” she said. “So when Sal tells them the Network wants the fans to have a reasonable amount of access to the stars, the hotel management listens.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. The Network was probably giving the Brant something in the way of cash, but the main remittance was to be made in the most precious thing the Network has: air time. Those four plugs, totaling about forty seconds, would have cost the hotel something over a hundred thousand dollars, if it had bought them as commercial time. When you watch a game show and hear the phrase “Prizes and Promotional Consideration furnished by...” you know the same kind of deal has been made, only on a much smaller scale.

  Llona went to make her phone call. I walked to a stand by the desk, and amused myself by comparing credit card applications. Places like the Brant not only honor credit cards, they love and obey them, too. It makes the process of parting with your money less painful if you don’t have to hold it in your hand before you say good-bye to it.

  A giggle drew my attention to a group of leather chairs. Four young girls, say, twelve to fifteen, were sitting there. One of them spotted me, and there was a lot of whispering behind cupped hands. They got off the chairs, and came toward me, kind of shy and tentative. Finally, though, they reached me. They surrounded me, and started to study my face. It wasn’t the first time that kind of thing had happened; there are about five different actors I just miss looking like.

  The leader of the girls, a little olive-skinned gypsy, finally said, “Excuse me, sir, but are you anybody?”

  That wasn’t an easy question. The metaphysical implications alone were staggering. So, I did what I try to do with most difficult questions—I ducked it.

  “Do I look like anybody?”

  Now, the intellectual pressure was on her, and I had to admit, she handled it well. She sized me up for a while, then said, “Nah. Sorry we bothered you, mister.” She led her pals back to the chairs.

  Llona rejoined me. “What was that all about?” she asked. She tilted her head in the direction of the girls.

  “I’ve been weighed in the balance,” I said, shaking my head, “and been found wanting.”

  Llona smiled. “I know the feeling. It may be some consolation to learn that they love you upstairs.”

  “Alice doesn’t mind if I tag along, then?”

  “Said she’d never forgive me if I didn’t bring you.”

  I could hardly wait. We took a wood-paneled elevator to the twelfth floor.

  A Brant Hotel space cadet was knocking on the door of the Shelby suite when Llona and I arrived. On his cart was a silver ice bucket with a green bottle in it, and four crystal glasses.

  “Looks like good news,” I told Llona. “They’ve ordered champagne.”

  “A magnum, no less,” she said, impressed.

  We were right behind room service when Ken Shelby opened the door for him. “Right on time,” he said when he saw us. He smiled happily. Shelby said, “Hi, folks,” and Alice Brockway rushed across yards of luxurious Brant sitting room to take our hands and engulf us with warmth.

  It was hard to believe she was the same woman who had stalked angrily from Studio J the day before. The dark glasses were gone, and I could see happy little sparkles in her eyes. She seemed younger, and even slimmer than she had yesterday, though that part of it could have been an illusion caused by her general air of happiness. As one who had loved her, I was glad to see it. It occurred to me that today, Alice looked like she had spent her whole life in the trouble-free town she’d lived in on “Home and Mother.” She looked great.

  Ken Shelby, meanwhile, was about to tip the bellboy but had a thought with his wallet in mid-air.

  “I’m sorry, son, but another friend has arrived, so you’ll have to get us another glass.”

  “It’s not necessary,” I said. I usually stay away from alcohol while the sun is out.

  Shelby wouldn’t hear of it. “Nonsense, Matt,” he said.

  Lenny Green said, “Damn right! We’re celebrating, and you’re going to join us!”

  “In that case, sure,” I said. It was easier to drink champagne than argue.

  “What are we celebrating?” Llona wanted to know.

  “Something the world—and I—have been waiting for for over ten years.” Lenny Green was being serious. That was a sight very few people had ever seen. He wiped his eyes with the side of, a finger, and didn’t quite sniffle. He got up and walked over to his former partner and put his arm around his shoulders.

  “Ken and I are getting the act together again.”

  “That’s great!” Llona said. “And you want me to arrange for the announcement? You want the Network PR department to handle it?”

  “We didn’t want to impose on you,” Alice began.

  “Impose? This is fantastic. My boss might even smile! This will get a lot of coverage.”

  “ ‘NETWORK REUNITES COMEDY GREATS.’ ” I set the headline in the air with my hand.

  “Exactly,” Llona said. “Can I use your phone?”

  “You have to ask?” Lenny Green made a noise. “The Network’s paying for it, right?”

  Llona looked at her watch. “Damn, past five-thirty. Too late for the six o’clock news. I’ll shoot to break the story in time for the elevens, then set you up with interviews tomorrow.”

  “Reigels is going to love that,” I said. “Dress rehearsal is tomorrow.”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “He can work around it,” she said. That was the unofficial motto of all Public Relations departments everywhere.

  Just then, the bellboy returned with my champagne glass. He brought it on the cart, untouched by human hands. This hotel was ridiculous.

  Shelby picked up the glass, handed it to me, and told Green to open the champagne. Then he reached for his pocket to give the boy his delayed tip, and Green started to laugh.

  We all looked at him, to see him holding a wallet aloft. It was official. Shelby and Green were back in business.

  “Didn’t waste a second, did you, Len?” Shelby said. Everyone laughed. The wallet was restored to its owner, the bellboy was taken care of, the champagne was poured, and we drank to success and happiness.

  After that, Llona reached into her purse for her little black book, and picked up the phone to spread the good news, first to Ritafio, then to the various media. No one had to remind her to tell Network News, Channel 10, and our two radio stations first. That was basic.

  While she was doing that, I grilled Alice Brockway and the newly reunited comedy team. I got about the same results as I would have had grilling an ice cube—no special results, just a dwindling of the material I was working on.

  I did manage to learn that Lieutenant Martin had stopped by earlier in the day. Mr. M. had made a wonderful impression on them, but I didn’t think they had made such a great one on him; at least, if they gave him the same answers they gave me, they hadn’t.

  Not that it couldn’t be true, just that it was so goddam depressing. They just added to all the negatives the L.A. police had gotten during the initial Jim Bevic investigation. They professed total ignorance about Jerry de Loon;
they’d only met him once. About possible motives for an attack on him or for the theft of the bowling ball or the kines—and about any connection between any of those things and the death of Jim Bevic—they claimed complete bafflement.

  “The police told me about your connection with the case,” I told them. “Why you were late coming here.”

  Alice was irritated. “Awfully nice of them,” she said sarcastically.

  “They were doing the Network a favor—or, rather, they were doing one for me. Lieutenant Martin is an old friend of mine. He knows the Network doesn’t want that kind of publicity for you any more than you do, and he knows I have more leverage in the industry to keep things quiet than he does.”

  Shelby scratched his head. “I have to agree with my wife. The fewer people who know about it, the better.”

  Green sighed. “Well, what are we gonna do? Sew up his mouth? He knows. We’ll just have to go along with him. Jerry seemed like a good kid when we met him.”

  Husband and wife supposed he was right, but their faces said they hoped they could trust me. I was glad they didn’t ask me straight out, because I wouldn’t have known what to tell them. As far as priorities went, it was a dead heat between the Network and the law, with the human race third.

  “There’s something I ought to tell you, before someone thinks of it and comes to arrest me,” Shelby said. He was very urbane, very civilized. We could have been at the Club, discussing the rules of a squash tournament.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Do you have a list of the stolen shows?”

  I gave it to him from memory. “Episodes of ‘Coony Island,’ ‘Saturday Afternoon Sundae,’ ‘Dr. Wonder,’ ‘Horsin’ Around,’ and ‘The Dandy Donny Daniels Show’; one half-hour of a cooking show called ‘Gone to Pot’; and one complete copy of ‘Be Still My Heart.’ All from 1952. I can’t give you exact air dates, or casts and crews, because Jerry hadn’t gotten around to cataloguing that stuff before he died.”

  “Well,” Ken Shelby said, “I directed all those shows, one time or another, except for ‘Coony Island’—that was Gene Kassos’s baby all the way—and, of course, ‘Be Still My Heart.’ The only thing I ever directed in prime time was game shows. I was the regular director for ‘Dr. Wonder,’ and ‘Dandy Donny Daniels.’ ”

  “Have you told that to the police?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  His handsome face took on just the slightest tinge of pink. “It means it doesn’t mean a damn thing! That I directed these shows, I mean. I was a staff director for the Network, of course I directed the Saturday afternoon schlock! I directed ‘Day on Trial’ and the ‘Endless Road’ soap opera, too. One week I directed fifty-nine-and-a-half hours of programming. There was a flu epidemic.”

  Lenny Green said, “Jesus, when we met up and took the act on the road, it must have been like a prison break for you.”

  “A vacation, at least,” Shelby said. He turned back to me. “The point I was trying to make is that the whole staff of us was switching around from show to show. Ask Porter Reigels. He was with the Network then. He was the regular director for ‘Horsin’ Around,’ but I’ll bet he did most of the other shows, too. I know he took over ‘Dr. Wonder’ when I left to form the act with Lenny.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I found that little tidbit of information very interesting, too. I’d have to have a talk with the Texan as soon as I got a chance.

  I changed the subject. “Did any of you know that Wilma Bascombe was in California when Jim Bevic was killed?”

  From across the room, I saw Llona look away from the phone at me, with her mouth pursed and her eyebrows raised. She wasn’t missing a word.

  “Did she have anything to do with anything?” Green asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Did the police ask you about her?”

  The police hadn’t. Smooth move, Cobb, I told myself. The lieutenant was going to have remarks to make about my letting them in on this.

  Oh well, too late to worry about it now. I pressed on. “Can any of you tell me anything that would help us be sure about her one way or the other?”

  It was back to blank stares again. Alice Brockway admitted after I had repeated the question a few times that one of her first jobs as a child actress had been a bit part as a third-grade student in Miss Teasdale’s Romance, a Wilma Bascombe vehicle of the mid-forties.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you for your patience. If you think of something, the Network (meaning me) would appreciate it if you’d let me know.”

  I suppressed a sigh as I took a mental inventory of the conversation. Two new facts—one and a half. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had probably known that Porter Reigels had been a Network staff director. Alice’s work in that movie, I hadn’t known. It was tempting to think one or both of these facts would mean something, but I resisted the temptation.

  Broadcasting is a very inbred industry. Four networks, working primarily in just two cities. A handful of motion picture companies are also centered in the same two cities, heavily involved in TV production. People change jobs often. That makes for a situation in which everybody knows everybody, especially everybody that does the same kind of work. In this business, the only surprising reaction to the mention of a name is “Never heard of him.”

  Llona had finished her phone calls, and came back to join our cozy little group. “I don’t want to do anything more until I talk to your agent,” she told Shelby and Green.

  “That’s the point,” Shelby said. “We don’t have an agent. It’s something we have to talk about.”

  “Why don’t you call your old agent?” I asked.

  “We never had an agent,” Green told me. “Ken handled all that stuff. The boy was a genius.” Shelby gave him a curious look.

  “I can’t do that kind of thing any more,” the tall man with the glasses said. “Not only is show business more complicated these days, but now I have my real estate to look after.”

  “Don’t you have an agent, Len?” I asked the redhead.

  He made a noise. “I had one, the same one Alice uses. We fired each other after I broke my leg. He was a thief anyway, although Alice seems happy enough with him.”

  “I don’t ask much of him,” Alice said. She sounded almost apologetic.

  “What’s the big deal?” Green said, walking to the phone. “We get somebody new. I’ll call William Morris. I like guys who’ll look up to me.”

  Green made the call, and had some late-working flesh-peddler interested within seven minutes. “...No, I’m not kidding. Yeah. Right. We’ll hop a cab and be there in no time.” Grinning, he faced the rest of us.

  “First crack out of the box, huh, partner? They want to talk to us right away.”

  Shelby smiled. “Well, what are we waiting for, partner?”

  Shelby got his coat from the closet while Green went down the hall to get his.

  “Want to come along, dear?” Shelby asked his wife. “You’ve been looking forward to this as much as Len has.”

  “No, I’d be useless at a business discussion. I’ll wait here.”

  “I think I’d better go along, though,” Llona said. “I’ll fill them in on publicity so far.” She turned to me. “See you tomorrow, Matt.”

  “The elevator’s here!” Lenny Green’s voice came in a bellow from down the hall. Raise it a couple of octaves, and it could have been a kid calling to the other neighborhood kids that the Good Humor Man had arrived—a sound of combined joy and urgency. There was no doubt how he felt about the reunion.

  Llona and Ken Shelby exchanged grins. Shelby kissed his wife’s cheek, and he and Llona rushed to join Green before the elevator got away.

  “This is nice for the Network,” I told Alice Brockway. “Nice for all their fans, too, including me. I’m glad I was able to be here, and I’m glad I finally got a chance to meet all of you. I’ll probably see you tomorrow at the dress rehearsal...” I was m
aking polite noises on my way to the door, but just as I was about to reach for the knob, I heard, “Please don’t go, Matt,” and I turned around to see Alice Brockway smiling coquettishly at me.

  CHAPTER 13

  “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

  —JACK WEBB, “DRAGNET,” NBC

  I HAVE A HARD time thinking of myself as irresistible, so I wondered what Alice was up to. Then I decided I was flattering myself. I had merely been fooled by the contrast between yesterday’s Alice and today’s. After yesterday’s fire-breathing act, any sort of smile would seem like a special favor, and common friendliness would look like bait.

  I had to admit, though, that she didn’t make it seem any less of a come-on when she sat on the crushed brown velvet of the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

  I was wary. “What about?”

  “A lot of things. Come on, Matt, I don’t bite.”

  I decided to take her word for it, and sat down by her.

  “What can I do for you, Alice?” I asked. Her smile got broader, and I decided it had been a poor choice of words. I tried again. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Well,” she began, “do you remember the terrible way I carried on at the Network building yesterday.”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  She tossed her yellow hair and laughed like little bubbles. I’d always loved the way she did that. Alice Brockway said, “Anyone who can lie that well should be a producer. Such a straight face, too.”

  “I get a lot of practice,” I told her.

  Alice poured us some more champagne.

  “Well, it’s certainly been effective. Of course, you do remember, and so does everyone else, to my everlasting shame. I want to apologize.”

  “Jet lag,” I said. “A tense week with the police after having found a body in your swimming pool. It’s understandable you’d be a little out of sorts.”

  “You’re very kind, but there’s more to it than that. I blew up because yesterday, I despaired of Ken and Len getting the act together again. Ken has been putting Lenny off for years, but when he agreed to appear on this show, I thought he’d give in, at least enough to do a college concert tour; Len would have settled for that.”