Killed in the Act

by William L. DeAndrea

  I blew up. “Goddam it to hell!” I said. “I can’t stand it!”

  Everyone looked at me as though I were crazy, which I probably was. Lieutenant Martin said, “Now, Matty...”

  “Now, Matty, nothing,” I said. “Will you just look at this guy? Dropping bowling balls! Poisoning guys in their underwear on national TV!” I jumped off my table and started to pace, with my hospital gown flapping behind me.

  “What next?” I wanted to know. “Is he going to fry somebody with a twenty-thousand-volt joy buzzer? Hit someone in the face with a vitriol custard pie? Jesus, I thought murder was supposed to be serious!”

  “It’s serious to me, Matty,” the lieutenant said calmly. “No matter how they do it.”

  I shook a doctor off my shoulder. “You know what I mean,” I told Mr. M. “But I promise you this: whoever this bastard is, he’s going to be as sorry I got into this case as I am.”

  With that, I was all set to storm out of the hospital, but Mr. M. persuaded me to wait until we could send for some clothes.

  “You guys look like hell,” Rivetz informed us when we got back to Studio J. “Carbon tet is no fun, huh?”

  I looked at him. My head still hurt. If I’d had any brains, I would have been lying down somewhere with a cool compress on my forehead instead of trading quips with Rivetz.

  “No, Rivetz,” I quipped, “it’s not exactly a hint of mint.”

  Lieutenant Martin grumbled his agreement.

  The seventh floor of NetHQ was about the same way it had been Friday afternoon, except that the set was in better shape, and the people lined up in the corridor were a lot quieter, a lot grimmer. A lot dryer, too. Cops and lab boys were there in even greater numbers. And making progress, apparently—they’d tabbed the poison for Rivetz.

  “That’s not all they’ve done,” Rivetz said. “Lieutenant, you better see what they found in that cape you took off the body.”

  “Let me guess,” he said bitterly. “Another bowling ball.”

  “That’s not funny, Mr. M.,” I told him. I rubbed my head. “Where’s Brophy?” I asked.

  Rivetz smiled. “Oh, I told him he could go with Gumple and watch our star players; the partner, the wife, the sex bomb, the taco chef—you know who I mean.” He turned to the lieutenant. “That Brophy’s a good man Cobb’s got there. Doesn’t go for bullshit. Could use him on the force.” It hadn’t occurred to me before, but Rivetz and Brophy were kindred spirits. They both thought the human race was totally worthless, and they both thought that was amusing.

  “I hope you’ll be very happy together,” I said.

  “What was in the cape, Rivetz?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Follow me,” the little detective said.

  He led us to the back of the set, where, laid out on a sheet, were men’s wallets. Forty-two of them, neatly arranged seven-by-six. A police expert was checking them one by one for fingerprints while happily humming “Old Dan Tucker” to himself.

  Rivetz spoke to the fingerprint man. “Any change to the pattern?”

  The expert managed to work in his “Nope,” without missing a beat.

  Rivetz explained. “Every one of these things has Green’s fingerprints on them. His and somebody else’s—different somebody else each time. Got to be the real owners, Lieutenant.”

  Mr. M. was scratching his head the same way he use to when he helped his son and me fix up a bicycle or something. “That much makes sense,” he said. “I think it makes sense. I hope it makes sense. But will you tell me why in the name of Booker T. Washington this—this comedian would want to steal forty-two wallets just before somebody bumps him off?”

  It took me exactly one point three seconds to figure it out. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said in disgust.

  “What is it, Matty?” the lieutenant asked.

  I must have mumbled, because Mr. M. said, “What?”

  “The Surprise Ending, dammit. Lenny Green’s big surprise. The stars were supposed to mingle during the show, right? So Lenny mingled. And he picked pockets—if he could lift J. Edgar Hoover’s wallet, he probably would have no trouble with this crowd. I bet the only reason he didn’t pick our pockets as he was going out onstage was that his cape was full.”

  “So he picked pockets,” Rivetz said. “Hot shit. What’s the big surprise about that?”

  “Look. Remember how the act was supposed to work? They run back onstage, with Green (who’s disappeared during the act, remember), and they start to take their bows.

  “So when they come back, Green yells to stop the orchestra, and says, ‘Look what I found, while I was in touch with the infinite,’ and takes out Orson Welles’s wallet or something.”

  The fingerprint man was humming “Sweet Betsy from Pike” now. He left off long enough to say, “Second row, third from the right.”

  Rivetz was saying something about stupid, childish, crazy TV people, but I was talking to the fingerprint man. “You mean he actually did get Orson Welles’s wallet?”

  He nodded. “Second row, third from the right.”

  The lieutenant asked if it was okay to handle the wallets. The expert indicated the ones that were already done. Mr. M., Rivetz, and I started looking through them.

  “Look at these names,” I said. “Lenny Green wasn’t stupid. He planned this back when he wanted to get Ken Shelby to get the act back together again. So with this, Shelby and Green are standing up there, and all these big stars get called up one at a time to get their wallets back. It would have been great. In fact, it was even greater for the reformed act. It would have been a short cut to a return to equal footing with the very biggest in the business.”

  “Somebody had other ideas,” Rivetz said.

  “Yeah.” I felt dizzy again. I closed my eyes, and all of a sudden I could hear Lenny thumping those walls again, yelling those oh-so-funny cries for help. I popped my eyes open, and shuddered.

  The fingerprint man finished lifting and labeling the prints from all forty-two wallets, and stowed his gear away to the tune of “Haul Away, Joe.” We checked through the rest of the wallets.

  “My God,” Rivetz said. “Bob Hope.” A few seconds later, he said, “Who the hell is ‘Kenton F. Schnellenbacher’?”

  “Got me,” I told him. “Let me see.” He handed me a piece of folded black leather, undecorated, but one touch was enough to tell me its simplicity was understatement and not economy. There was some money in it—not enough to buy a motorcycle, but plenty for a down payment on one. “Carries a lot of cash,” the lieutenant said.

  Rivetz had unsnapped the card section, and the first thing I saw there was one of those gold-plated Social Security cards, the ones you can buy for a couple of bucks in any novelty store. The engraving on this one said, “KENTON F. SCHNELLENBACHER.” The number was 446-59-0200. I have a good memory. The mystery was solved by a look at the next plastic window, though, since it held a picture of Alice Brockway. The wallet also held some cards that read “Shelby Realty,” and a more recent Social Security card, in the name of Ken Shelby, with a different number.

  “This is Ken Shelby’s wallet,” I told Rivetz. “Obviously, he changed his name before he got famous.”

  “Who can blame him?” Rivetz asked.

  “True,” the lieutenant said, “but—”

  I interrupted him. “Of course Lenny Green would have to lift this wallet. This was for the big big finish. He hands his partner his own wallet back, Shelby does one of his patented reaction takes, and together they walk off happily into the sign-off.”

  “Yeah,” the lieutenant said. “Well, Green signed off, all right. Goddammit, Matty, I have work to do. Harry?”

  The fingerprint man stood up, brushed off his knees. “Yeah?”

  “Get Gumple, print the rightful owners of these wallets, give them a quick check, and hand them back. All we need is to have forty-two big TV stars complaining to the press that the NYPD stole their wallets.”

  “Lieutenant,” Rivetz said. “You sure you wan
t Gumple for this? I mean, I don’t want to talk about a fellow officer, but Gumple wouldn’t know Sidney Poitier from Sidney Greenstreet.”

  “That’s the idea—no favors. Now, Rivetz, I want to talk to Shelby, and Brockway, and Marliss, and Baker.” He looked at me. “Anybody else?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Porter Reigels.”

  “Why him?”

  “Because he saw it happen from twelve angles instead of one. Granted, the box was gimmicked beforehand, but he might have seen something.”

  Mr. M. snorted. “Good luck.” He turned around at a sudden thought. “Rivetz!”

  “Yo!”

  “I want you to get on the horn to Suffolk County and tell them to keep an eye on Wilma Bascombe!”

  “All taken care of,” Rivetz hollered back.

  “Oh, good work then.” To me, the lieutenant said, “Gonna be one long night, Matty.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “How do you plan to handle the little meeting?”

  “Well,” he said, scratching at his white hair again, “I plan to act like we know what the hell we’re doing around here.”

  I didn’t say anything, but it seemed to me that would take one hell of a lot of acting.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Sure you have a headache. You’re tense, irritable—but don’t take it out on them.”

  —ANACIN COMMERCIAL

  AS IT TURNED OUT, I didn’t have to do any acting in that particular scene until later. Harris Brophy met me in the hall with a big smile on his face. That always means bad news.

  “Oh, Matt. Glad you’re back. Falzet wants to see you.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” I said. The president would not be pleased, to put it mildly, and a meeting with him now would be less than fun. “That’s another one I owe our friend the Phantom,” I said.

  Harris laughed. “Still, you have to admit there’s a certain fiendish ingenuity about the fellow that your average ax murderer can’t match.”

  “You’re starting to get on my nerves again, Harris,” I said. “How are the ex-partner and friends taking it?”

  “Can you imagine zombies on amphetamines? It’s like they’re all not saying or doing anything, and they’re not doing it as fast as they can. I can tell you this: nobody in that room is about to turn his back on anybody else.”

  Suddenly he dropped his smile from his handsome face and looked at me. “Say, Matt? Are you feeling all right? You look awful.”

  “Only awful?” I felt worse. “Look, Harris, I want you to get in touch with a few of your devoted secretary friends in the government. As soon as you can. I want to know what the FCC is going to do about this before they do.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll get on it right away.” I wanted to hug him. You can forgive a lot in a man who says things like that, especially when he usually delivers on his promises.

  Falzet must have been really eager to see me, because the guard at the door to his office (no one was going to kill Tom Falzet, by God) just waved me by.

  The walk across that office is especially impressive at night. The president sits in front of the window, and lit-up Manhattan behind him makes him look like he’s throwing off multicolored sparks of pure power.

  Falzet didn’t rise to greet me (he never did) but he did wave me to a chair. He was writing something on the Class A memo pad—the one with the Network’s logo embossed on it in gold. I snuck a peek before I sat down and found he was doodling sharks. It suited him.

  “That was a catastrophe tonight, Cobb,” he said. “I wanted to speak with you about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Are we waiting for Colonel Coyle?”

  Falzet snapped his pencil. “No, we are not waiting for Colonel Coyle. I have already spoken with Colonel Coyle. Colonel Coyle has been terminated.”

  I was in no mood for Corporation Newspeak. “Terminated?” I made my eyes wide. “You mean you killed him?”

  “No, goddammit, Cobb, I fired him!”

  I smiled. I always get a perverse pleasure from irritating Falzet. It’s a flaw in my character. “Oh,” I said. “Now I understand. If you’ll excuse me for saying so, sir, that really stinks.”

  He pushed his sharks away from him and drew himself up in his chair. “I didn’t summon you to come here to hear your opinions on how I go about my duties.”

  I’d figured that much. “Why did you summon me?”

  He slammed an open hand on the desk. “Dammit, Cobb, do you realize what this incident tonight means? What it’s going to do to the Network?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said grimly. “I know. By tomorrow afternoon, six well-known child psychologists are going to say we destroyed the mind and morals of any child who happened to be watching when we callously allowed a man to be murdered on the air. They will call for censorship. Then six more equally eminent child psychologists will say that the only reason anybody is ever murdered is because we’ve been polluting minds and morals for years with violent TV. Somebody will ask that the FCC take away the Network’s license. The FCC will announce hearings, and never mention the fact that networks don’t have licenses, only local stations do. A congressman who has been justifiably unknown until now will call for hearings and a special prosecutor, and the Anchorman will interview him on the Evening News. I won’t even talk about the day after tomorrow.

  “But there is no way on God’s green earth you can hold Coyle responsible for any of it!”

  “Well, I do hold him responsible. And I hold you responsible as well!”

  This was the ancient TV game of Find the Scapegoat. My policy is I won’t play, and I especially won’t be “it.”

  “Well, then,” I said. “The answer is simple, isn’t it? Terminate me, and hire God in my place. Because He’s the only one who could have prevented it.”

  Falzet was steaming. It was better for him than a physical exam—if there had been anything wrong with him, holding that explosion of temper in the way he did would have killed him.

  I admit I enjoyed it. He was afraid to fire me, because he knew that if he did, I could use my influence with Roxanne Schick as a lever and have him fired right back. I say he “knew” it because no other possibility would ever suggest itself to him. That’s what he would do. My personal position is that I’d work as a taste tester in a poison factory before I resorted to something like that to keep one crumby job.

  So he backed down. I assured him that Special Projects was already at work to lessen the ill effects of the murder, and told him that if it was all the same to him, I’d like to get back to work.

  I was in worse shape than I thought—I fell asleep in the elevator on the way to the seventh floor. One second, I was feeling sorry for Coyle, trying to think of a way to get him his job back without anyone losing face, and the next thing I knew, the bell went off to announce my arrival on the seventh floor. It woke me up.

  Various detectives were still at the interrogation assembly line, interviewing people who’d been in the studio. This, I reflected, was only the beginning of the fun. Since the booby trap had been set Saturday, cops would have to be sent to Boston, D.C., Chicago, and L.A., to talk to the extra help that had been flown in to replace the set, and ask them if they’d seen anything. Which they probably hadn’t.

  Detective Gumple had squinty eyes, bucked teeth, and slumped shoulders, which made him look like a gopher. He directed me to one of the conference rooms, where the lieutenant had gathered his audience, and handed me Ken Shelby’s wallet. It checked out, Gumple informed me, because the fingerprint man had compared it with the prints he’d taken from Shelby after the bowling ball incident, but he, Gumple, hadn’t had a chance to give the wallet back, and would I please do it, because I had an in with the lieutenant and he, Gumple, didn’t want to go barging in on an important—

  “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” I said. “Give me the wallet.”

  The conference room was two doors down from the J. V. Hewlen Kinescope Library, and it looked as if the two rooms were about to have v
iolence in common, as well as design and color scheme. The scene I walked in on would never be mistaken for a poster for National Brotherhood Week.

  It had come out in conversation that Porter Reigels had been carrying a gun, and Lieutenant Martin had ordered him to give it up.

  Reigels wasn’t happy about the idea. He stood up to his full Texas height, and threw his hands violently over his head. He also knocked a fiberboard ceiling panel from its support and into the empty space above in the process.

  Something like a quick bass note thumped in my brain. It was a feeling I’d had before, a maddening sensation that I ought to be thinking of something, or worse, that I had thought of something, but it had gone through my brain too fast for me to recognize what it was.

  “Shoot!” Porter Reigels said. I almost ducked for cover, until I recognized the word for an expletive and not a command. “There’s a maniac running around this place, Lieutenant,” the director said, “and if I run into him, I don’t aim to kiss him on the cheek if you know what I mean.”

  “No,” I said, “you’re going to call him out into Sixth Avenue at the stroke of high noon, right?” I was very sarcastic. I was irritated at not being able to pin down my inspiration.

  It was the first anyone had noticed me. “Welcome to the party, Matty,” the lieutenant said. He spoke to Reigels. “Look, we’ll forget the law for now. Just give me the gun, and tomorrow you can see about getting a permit for it.”

  Reigels sighed, pulled out the little pistol, emptied it, and handed it along with the bullets to Lieutenant Martin. “Never mind about the permit,” Reigels said. “I’m getting out as soon as I can, anyway.”

  Ken Shelby was draped over a black plastic chair. “Out of here? I’ll go with you, Porter. Lieutenant, don’t you think we’ve been here long enough?”

  “You still haven’t answered my question about what McHarg said, Mr. Shelby.”

  “What would you expect me to say? What do you expect McHarg to say? If I were a thief, I wouldn’t want to be involved with this, either. And if other people McHarg had swindled were involved in some kind of mess, he would probably deny he ever had anything to do with them as well. That’s what I say.”