“But why all the fireworks?” I asked. “Your husband is doing very well in real estate, and Lenny Green was always working, in Las Vegas or somewhere else.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand how important it was for them to get back together. You can’t really appreciate how wonderful today is.
“Separately, both of them are fine at what they do, but together, they’re the best. Don’t you agree?”
“They’re among them,” I conceded.
“Ken loves show business,” she went on. “I called him an egomaniac yesterday—I suppose it’s true. He’s a brilliant man, you know. If you can get Lenny serious for a moment, he’ll tell you Ken is a comedy genius in the tradition of Chaplin, Keaton, and Laurel. The only trouble is, Ken isn’t funny—he’s too serious-looking, too handsome. That’s why the public and press gave most of the credit to Lenny.
“Lenny is funny—he’s a natural clown, and a great interpreter of material. He spotted Ken’s genius the minute he laid eyes on him. At least that’s what he says. It didn’t take him long to see it, in any case.”
“This happened when Ken was working as a director for the Network?”
“Yes, it did. Did you know that before he met Len, Ken had never even been out of New York? Lenny was born in Chicago, but of course in vaudeville he’d been all over. I met him on the Coast.
“He talked Ken into forming the act. It’s never been widely publicized, but it was Ken who developed the characters in the act—Lenny as the magical imp, and Ken flustered and embarrassed. Ken created most of the bits, too. Lenny loved doing them on stage.
“Of course, Lenny was responsible for the magic. That’s how he started in the business. Ken was a fast learner though. He still has the quickest mind of anyone I know. So besides a great comedy team, they were a great magic team.”
“Aha!” I said.
“What’s the matter?” Alice asked anxiously.
“Excuse me for interrupting, but I think I just fulfilled a challenge. That night the Great Man’s drawers fell down, it was Ken that did it, right? Lenny got the belt and walked away, but Ken had learned enough light-fingered technique to get the fly open and give the waist a little tug while engaging the Great Man in conversation. Then Lenny holds up the belt on the other side of the stage, and everyone wonders how he did it. Terrific.”
Alice smiled again, and agreed with me. “They really were. That’s the reason, you know, that they never said anything to contradict the idea that the stage image was the way things were in real life—it made the comedy better if people thought Ken was really as horrified as he acted, and it made the magic easier, too; everyone, as you said, was watching Len, while Ken made the trick work.”
“I’m going to look over some of their old shows again,” I said. I was rather pleased with myself. I’d have to tell Melanie Marliss I was as smart as she thought I was.
The feeling lasted about three seconds. Determining the cause of the descent of someone’s trousers was a pretty piddling thing to be proud of when Jerry de Loon’s murderer was still running around. I took a sip of champagne, and told myself to concentrate on business.
“Still,” I said, “all good things come to an end. Why was it so important they get back together?”
Alice took something more than a sip, and said, “For one thing, Matt, Lenny Green is an old and dear friend of mine, and I’d hate to have his suicide on my conscience.”
“Are you telling me that’s why your husband gave in? Green threatened to kill himself?”
“No, no!” she snapped. “Lenny wouldn’t do anything like that! But he talked about killing himself—not to Ken, or me, but to other people.
“Lenny is broke, Matt. That Utopia Uranium thing wasn’t his last bad investment, not by quite a few. He’s one of the legendary soft touches for friends, and, like a lot of entertainers in Las Vegas find, a good part of the money they pay him never gets past the casino.”
“Declaring bankruptcy is not the disgrace it once was, Alice,” I told her. “And it’s a lot less permanent than suicide.”
She took my hand with both of hers. It took will power not to pull away. This situation was getting out of control. Her hands were very warm. “I guess you can’t understand unless you’ve been there, but I’ll try to explain. Lenny can’t stand not being a star any more. With Ken, he was one of the biggest. Now, he does old jokes and magic tricks, and not even in the main room, either. They still call him a star, but there’s a definite caste system involved—you know that yourself—and Lenny is now strictly second class.
“When he broke his leg, it seemed to be the last straw. He was laid up for months, lost what work he did have. And he thought too much. And you know, Matt, his heart isn’t too strong. He had a mild heart attack while he was in the hospital with his leg. He was brooding all the time.
“I could see the only one who could help him was Ken.”
“And Ken didn’t want to,” I said.
“That’s just the point—he did want to. That’s what used to make me so furious. Ken is so proud! After they had that fight about the money, and that Ollie McHarg ran away, totally ruining the plans for the movie, Ken said he’d never work with Lenny again. In fact—”
“Hold it,” I said. “What movie are you talking about?”
Alice looked surprised. “Oh,” she said. “I’d forgotten you didn’t know. There’s something about you that makes a person feel you know all about them. Of course, I have to explain about the movie.” She gave my hand a little squeeze.
“In addition to everything else, Ken, as you found out tonight, worked as business manager and agent for the team. He had a natural talent for business just as he had a natural talent for comedy.
“Ken was very jealous of the act. He wanted it to be just the two of them in control of their career. Lenny wanted to make a movie. I mean, the television show was going well, but Lenny wanted to make a movie. He wanted to direct. He always had ideas going for it.
“Ken suggested, and Lenny agreed—at first—that they’d produce the picture themselves, to retain complete control. Ken set up a fund, and for several years, they put a portion of all the act’s earnings in it. Ken’s plan was to have two million dollars put aside. He didn’t plan to use it, but when he went to money men to put together the package for the movie, he knew that massive a cash reserve would force them to take him seriously.”
“But it was taking too long, right?” I suggested. “Lenny got impatient.”
Alice nodded sadly. “The fund was about halfway there, and Ken figured they’d be able to make the movie in another three or four years. Then Lenny came in contact with McHarg. Lenny is a child, really, and he believed McHarg’s ridiculous promise to double his money in a year with an investment in uranium.”
“Who brought them in contact?” I asked.
“Some cheap, bovine, little tramp that Lenny was seeing at the time.”
“You sound bitter,” I said.
She let go of my hand momentarily and had some more champagne. “I am, a little. Indirectly, she was responsible for breaking them up, after all. Lenny’s judgment is so bad, I can’t really hold him responsible.”
I made encouraging noises, but her words and voice seemed to me to be inspired by a warmer emotion than just concern for a friend. I asked Alice what happened next.
“It was silly,” she said, shaking her head. “The whole thing was silly. Lenny told Ken about McHarg’s promises, how excited he was about them. Ken shouldn’t have laughed at him, but he did. After that...”
After that, it followed a pattern familiar to anyone who’s ever gone overboard in an argument. Alice lined it out for me. Lenny said he was trying to help get the picture started before he was too old and too blind to see it. Ken said that if all Lenny’s ideas were as bad as investing in uranium, it probably wouldn’t be worth making the picture. Lenny, hurt, had said, “Well, let me invest my share of the money.” Now Ken was hurt. To him, there w
ere no shares—it had always been our money. “I thought we were a team,” he said. Lenny said he had always thought so too, but now that it had crossed his mind, wasn’t Shelby hogging all the comedy writing, and making all the business decisions as if he were a single act?
After that, it degenerated rapidly. They swapped accusations of wanting to break up the act. They insulted each other.
“They...I mean, Ken even threw it up to Lenny about me and him—before I met Ken, when Len’s wife was sick. I took a long time to forgive him for that.” Alice finished her drink, and poured another.
“That was the climax, naturally,” she said. I was surprised to see her smiling quite beautifully at me. “Lenny was going to storm from the house, but Ken got very dramatic.
“He issued a challenge. He said to Lenny, ‘I’ll play it your way. Tomorrow, I’ll get that money, and give it to McHarg, and at the end of a year, if we even break even, I’ll apologize on the air. But if we lose even a penny, we split whatever’s left, and you and I are through. Is that agreeable?’
“And Lenny said, ‘You’re damn right it’s agreeable!’ I tried to talk them out of it, but I couldn’t.”
Alice looked soulfully at me. She may have been talking about Shelby and Green, but the messages from her eyes were just for me. Dammit, I thought, why couldn’t this have happened when I was fourteen?
“Of course you know the end of the story,” Alice went on. “The TV show was on summer hiatus, and Ken and Lenny were booked for a month of state fairs. It only lasted two weeks, because two weeks after Ken handed over the money, the scandal broke, and McHarg was gone, with all the money—Lenny’s and Ken’s, and everyone else’s.”
She put her glass down. “So Ken, with all his pride, held to the bargain, and walked out right in the middle of the tour.
“He’s never said so, but he’s regretted it ever since. That act was his creation, but he couldn’t do it alone—not even an inferior act, the way Lenny was able to do—he couldn’t sing, he had no interest in straight acting, and he wouldn’t hear of working with a new partner.”
“So he went into real estate,” I said.
“Yes, he did.” She picked up the glass, and started swirling it around again. “Made a success of it, too. But he misses show business so much. Ken has to have the spotlight. He misses the excitement of being in front of an audience. Even if somebody else gets the acclaim, Ken has to be in something that will...well, that will dazzle people.
“He tries to do it in real estate, you know. He’s always working on these big, spectacular deals for vast developments, but it’s not the same for him.
“These two men, Matt, have wasted ten years—more than that. That’s why I have to ask you what I’m going to ask you.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I want you to stop asking about that reporter.”
CHAPTER 14
“There’s always room for one more!”
—THEME SONG, “ROOM FOR ONE MORE,” ABC
I LOOKED AT HER. Her eyes were very clear, very sincere. “You do, huh?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is this just a whim of yours? Or do you have a reason?”
“I told you the reason.”
“I must be slow. Tell me again.”
Her face said she was vulnerable and helpless. I hated myself.
“Matt,” she said, “when Ken finally relented enough to agree to appear on ‘Sight, Sound, & Celebration,’ I was almost deliriously happy. I thought if everything went well, Shelby and Green would be back together. Then, when we found the body in the pool, everything started to go wrong. Ken was interrupted at an important point in his business in Arizona, and he stayed angry during the entire time the police kept after us.
“Now, in spite of everything, he’s made up with Lenny, and possibly saved both their lives—”
“Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said soberly. “They’re like brothers, really. That’s why their feud lasted so long. It was more a family thing than anything else. You’ve never seen them apart. It was awful.
“In any case, now that they’re back together, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to jeopardize everything by continuing to plague us with questions about something that’s only an unfortunate coincidence!”
I finished my champagne. I did not feel lightheaded at all. I looked at Alice.
“Ma-att,” she chided gently, “don’t just stare at me.”
“Sony,” I said. My voice sounded funny. It was coming home to me that this woman next to me with her legs folded under her, with her hand resting innocently on my thigh, was my lifelong fantasy, the one that had shaped my ideas of everything that was worth wanting in a woman.
“Sorry,” I said again. “But did it ever occur to you that the body’s being found in your pool wasn’t a coincidence?”
Alice’s eyes opened wide. “Matt!” she breathed. “You’re not accusing...”
“No, that’s not what I meant at all. It just occurred to me that it was in all the papers and on the air that Shelby and Green were getting back together for this show. Maybe someone put the body in the pool hoping that when it was discovered the publicity, or maybe the police would keep that from happening.”
Alice shook her head. “Who...who would want to do that?”
“I don’t know. You’d know who your enemies are better than I would. I mean, Lenny Green’s enemies. Your husband’s enemies.”
“We don’t have any enemies.” She snuggled up to me. “You’re frightening me, Matt.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. Well, maybe it was a silly idea anyhow.”
Alice said, “Not silly,” and leaned over and kissed me, for real.
I am not proud of what happened during the next several minutes, but by God, I don’t regret it either. Apparently somewhere along the line, Alice had managed to plug into a few of my other fantasies. And even while I knew how stupid this all was, I was feeling things that made me think I was going to catch fire, or maybe melt.
It was a suitable place for an adolescent fantasy—in the equivalent of the family parlor, on a sofa. I was fourteen again, and Alice was Alice, but we both knew what we were doing.
Alice pulled me down on top of her, according to the script. I knew it was time for me to be gallant. “What about your husband?” I said.
She looked at me through half-closed eyes, raised her head, and bit my nose. “He doesn’t mind,” she said.
That’s when I got a look at myself and woke up. I sighed and cursed, got up and started adjusting my clothes.
“What’s the matter?” Alice wanted to know.
“I’m sorry, Alice.” An understatement. “But I guess I do mind.”
She laughed. More bubbles. “Don’t be so juvenile,” she said. “Ken understands.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I felt guilty; this was the friendliest I had ever gotten with a married woman still living with her husband. I felt horny, frustrated; it was easy to see Alice would have been very good. I felt betrayed; there hadn’t been any husbands lurking around in my fantasies, whether they minded or not. I felt square; it looked like I cared more about Mr. and Mrs. Shelby’s marriage than they did. And I felt totally and irredeemably stupid for letting it go so far in the first place.
Alice couldn’t believe it. “Where did you get these ideas?” She was still laughing when I left her.
I walked home—I needed the air.
While my supper was getting ready, Spot and I played fetch. He had the game down pat, except for one little thing. He’d sit patiently at my feet, like a little white altar boy, waiting for me to throw the tennis ball. After I threw it, he’d yip happily, and chase it around the apartment, then bring it back. What I hadn’t been able to get through to him was after he did that, he was supposed to let go of it. It made a whole different game of it when, each time, I had to reach into his mouth and fight him for a soggy, disgust
ing tennis ball. Knowing him, it was probably his favorite part of the game.
After supper, I took Spot for his evening walk, came back home and watched TV for a while, read for a while, then went to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. I tried not to worry about what would happen the next time I saw Alice.
It also turned out to be a short night. At 5 A.M., Shorty Stack called. “Matt, baby, did I wake you up?”
I’d like to be able to say I gave that question the kind of answer it deserved, but what I said was more like, “Mmrf pfrx.”
It didn’t faze Shorty. “You won’t mind when you hear what I’ve got to tell you,” he said. I expressed skepticism, but after he told me, I was forced to admit he was right.
“Not bad for ten hours’ work, huh, kid?” he demanded. “Worth calling you at home, right?”
“Absolutely,” I said around a yawn. “I think this ought to take care of Lorenzo Baker. Thanks, Shorty.”
“Piece of cake. Old friend in the Treasury Department,” he said. Shorty’s old friends tended to be people he has embarrassing photographs of.
I said good night and hung up, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. After a while, I said to hell with it, got up and sang the National Anthem with the sign-on show, then had my soul uplifted by “Sermonette,” and my brain improved by two segments of “Sunrise Semester.” This country probably has the best-educated insomniacs in the world.
Finally, halfway through the morning news, I decided it was late enough to go to work. I dropped my coat off in the office, and just wandered around the building a little. The place seemed deserted, even forsaken, but that was an illusion. It was only the executive and production floors that were empty. For the News Department, it was one of the busiest times of the day, and the local TV and radio stations would be going full steam.
On a whim, I went down to the seventh floor, and took a walk to the J. V. Hewlen Kinescope Library. I tried to go in, but the door was locked. By God, nobody else was going to get killed in that converted conference room; not if Colonel Jasper Coyle had anything to say about it.
Killed in the Act Page 12
