Blood on the Boards

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Fine. But I think Larry’s close to the edge. Aren’t you, Larry?”

  Larry waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I never get obnoxious. I simply go to sleep.” He put a flat hand on the table top. “And dream of Sam’s Shoe Salon.”

  Joe said quietly, “I was thinking of a bigger dream for all of you.”

  Both of them looked at him wonderingly.

  Joe looked at Larry. “A theater of your own, that house you’ve been dreaming of. And a little more. I’d have it converted for you. You’d want a real lighting system with a first-rate switchboard. And a stage you could splash in.”

  Larry was suddenly un-drunk. “God, Joe, don’t take advantage of my drunkenness. This is no gag?”

  Joe shook his head. “I’d want you in charge of it, Larry. No salary, but if you could live on what you pulled out of it, you’re welcome to any profit.”

  Larry’s fists were clenched now on top of the table. “I’ve eaten on four dollars a week, and I can do it again. I don’t understand why you want me, though, Joe.”

  “Because I think you can get along with people at all levels. That much, Sam must have taught you. Here’s a condition of it: there must be room for Alan Dysart and others of that school.”

  Both Norah and Larry looked puzzled.

  Joe said, “I think this Dysart has something to say, if he’d stop talking and start working. I think all the bright ones have. But I don’t want this purely experimental. Because it should be a training ground and some actors are never going to be trained beyond the kind of nothing we put on tonight. I figure you’ve got more balance than anybody else in the group.” Joe smiled. “So there.”

  Larry killed a belch, half-born. “What a bomb to throw at me in this condition. About Alan, Joe; I can get along with him. I can get along with anybody. But could he get along with us? He isn’t the kind who’d stand still for Abie’s Irish Rose. And he’s got enough money now for a theater of his own.”

  “He was just a symbol,” Joe said. “There’ll be other Alans. It was a point I was trying to make.”

  “Oh.” Larry smiled. “You must have talked to him and he drowned you in words you didn’t understand. Let me say quite frankly and without malice, Joe, they were words he didn’t understand, either. But he can read and he can dream. He’s another Dick Metzger.”

  Norah said, “What a rotten remark! You always resented Dick, didn’t you?” She sat rigidly on the bench.

  Larry shook his head. “I felt kind of sorry for him. Until I learned he was a pimp. Grow up, Norah.”

  Joe stopped Norah’s clenched hand before it reached Larry’s face. He stayed there, leaning over the table, while he took her other hand. “Larry wasn’t lying. Dick Metzger dealt in expensive call girls, and the police knew it.”

  Norah was the color of bleached bone. Her gaze moved bleakly over Joe’s face. “You knew it, and didn’t tell me?”

  “Why not? He’s dead, isn’t he? Whatever he was doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. Why should I make you unhappy? I love you too much for that.”

  She was still rigid on the bench but her hands gripped Joe’s tightly and tears moved down her cheeks.

  Larry put both open hands to his face. “I’d better be getting home. Big day at the store tomorrow.”

  Joe said, “You’re in no shape to drive, Larry. Better stay here. And you might as well say good-by to the store now, if you’re accepting my offer. You might as well leave Sam tonight.”

  Larry slid out and stood up. “I’ll sleep here, but set an alarm, will you? I wouldn’t do that to Sam, not on a big day. I owe Sam plenty.”

  Joe grinned. “I’m glad you said that. It’s the kind of talk I can understand. I’ll show you your room.”

  When he came back to the kitchen, Norah was drinking a cup of coffee.

  “That’s stale,” Joe told her. “I could have made some fresh coffee.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I want to get home, Joe, and get some sleep. It’s after two.”

  “Stay here if you want. We’re chaperoned.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve some things to do in the morning, some things to—dispose of.”

  He sat across from her. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

  She faced him candidly. “I’m not. Burning incense is no work for a red-blooded American girl.” She reached over and took his head in both her hands and kissed him.

  From the doorway to the dining-room, Pete Delahunt said, “Is that all you two do? What kind of house is this?”

  “Our house,” Norah answered. “We’re going to be married.”

  • • •

  The last guest had gone and the smell of cigarette smoke was heavy in all the rooms they’d used. Joe went around opening windows and picking up glasses. The glasses he stacked on the drainboard of the sink. He emptied the ash trays into the garbage grinder. Then he poured himself another cup of coffee and sat in the nook.

  It had been some day. It seemed like a week ago that he had stood next to his bed looking down at Norah. But that had opened this day.

  Or rather, this yesterday. For it was almost four o’clock.

  It had been a full day and a revealing one. It had been a long day and his eyes were getting heavy. He thought of the theater he planned to give them and the thought was warming. His small sound.

  He had set the alarm in the room Larry occupied; he went to bed without setting his own.

  He didn’t open his eyes until nearly eleven o’clock. He lay a while, stretching, and then went out to put water on to boil.

  By the time he’d finished shaving, the water was boiling and he measured the coffee into the basket. He set the timer and went in to see if Larry had got up in time. He must have; the room was empty.

  His front doorbell rang and he went to find Arty the pigeon standing there.

  “Damn it,” Joe said, “I forgot all about going to the bank yesterday, Arty. A check do it?”

  “Why not?”

  “Come on in. I’m just making breakfast. Could I fix you a couple of eggs?”

  Arty came in and looked around. “Some joint.” He followed Joe to the kitchen. “Nothing to eat, but I could use a cup of coffee. Boy, you hit it, huh, Joe?”

  “I hit it.” Joe nodded toward the breakfast-nook table.

  “What’s new on this Dysart kill?”

  “Nothing.” Joe poured him a cup of coffee. “Do you hear anything about it?”

  Arty shrugged and sat at the table. “Nothing solid. There’s a persistent rumor it could have been political. But not from any sources I give a second thought to. You know, bar talk.” He poured a good helping of cream into his coffee and stirred it thoughtfully. “I did hear you went up against Ray Brennan.”

  “You’ve got big ears, Arty. I’ll get my checkbook.”

  He was going to the bedroom when his phone rang.

  It was Krivick. “Busy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Would you come over to Dysart’s? You know the house?”

  “I know it. What’s happened?” “Alan Dysart’s been murdered.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THERE WERE TWO DEPARTMENT CARS in front of the Dysart house when Joe got there. Neighbors all around were out on their lawns and a knot of kids stood on the sidewalk in front of the house.

  To the uniformed man at the door Joe said, “Sergeant Krivick sent for me. I’m Joe Burke.”

  The man nodded and gestured toward an open, curved staircase. “He’s up in the bedroom.”

  In a huge bedroom the width of the house near the top of the stairs, Krivick stood near a window overlooking the street. One of the technical boys was working with silver nitrate on some water tumblers on the double dresser.

  Krivick turned and stared bleakly at Joe. “Ain’t this just dandy?”

  “How long has he been dead, Ernie?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but it must be five or six hours. He’s stiff.”

  “How was he killed?”


  “Shot through the eye.” Krivick took a breath. “With a .32.”

  Joe looked toward the bed. There was only a mound under the silk comforter; Alan’s face was covered.

  Krivick said, “Won’t the heat be on now! What the hell is it, an epidemic?”

  Joe said, “I just thought of something. Alan was nosing into his uncle’s death.”

  Krivick’s glare was bitter. “Now you thought of it.

  When’d you learn that?”

  “The other day. Smith told me he saw him rummaging through that incinerator at the playground. I asked Alan about it and he said he was looking for the gun, that that seemed a logical place to dispose of it.”

  “An amateur Hawkshaw.” Krivick shook his head. “There’s another angle. Something could have been stolen. Come on down to the study.”

  The study was behind the living-room and a step lower. It was as wide as the living-room, paneled in Philippine mahogany, its entire west wall of glass, overlooking the patio and rear yard.

  Krivick led Joe directly to a desk and pulled out one of the drawers. From the front it had looked like three drawers, but it was actually one.

  It held a wire recorder.

  Krivick said, “Someone who didn’t know how to do it right took a spool off of there and ruined the spindle. Like a person would who meant to get the spool in a hurry and who didn’t give a damn about the machine.”

  Joe frowned. “Sounds kind of phony to me, Ernie.”

  “Sure, sure. But this was a phony guy, this young Dysart. See the microphone here, hidden in this lamp? Right out of a B picture. How phony can you get?”

  “I’m not following you, Ernie.”

  “Well, first of all, he was investigating the murder, wasn’t he?”

  “Maybe. He was looking through that incinerator.”

  “Okay. Just a theory, then. The killer was here, say this afternoon. At Dysart’s request. The kid accuses him, taking the conversation down. Maybe the killer admits it, maybe not. But the kid’s accusations are here, on the wire. If the killer learned that, wouldn’t he come back?”

  Joe studied the spindle. “Anybody with any sense would see in a second how to take that spool off without wrecking the spindle. You’re really reaching, Ernie.”

  “Maybe. I’m trying to locate one of Bruce Dysart’s former servants now. I’ll find out if Bruce wired that recorder that way, or if it was done since the kid moved in.”

  Joe asked, “Why do you figure there’s a lapse of time between this theoretical accusation and the kill?”

  “The kid was killed in bed, in his pajamas. It doesn’t figure he’d accuse the killer and then go to bed while he was still in the house.”

  Joe shook his head. “If there’s been an accusation. Anyone in the neighborhood hear the shot?”

  “I’ve got men out checking on that now. There’s something else missing, Joe.” He went over to push back a sliding door and reveal a wall of shelves. Cans of film were stacked solid here, except for a gap on the second row. The gap was just wide enough for one can.

  “Take a look at this dust on the edge of the second shelf,” Krivick said.

  There was a clean spot on the shelf where one of the heavy cans had obviously been dragged out.

  Krivick said, “That’s been done since Bruce Dysart’s death.”

  “Maybe Alan took it out.”

  “A good guess. But where is it now?”

  Joe shrugged and went back to the wire recorder. “Kid stuff, right out of a private-eye movie. I can see him sitting here, Ernie, matching his superior brain against the killer’s solving this simple murder for the dumb cops. Big hero.”

  “Dead hero. You beginning to believe my way, Joe?”

  “I said I could picture it. It makes a good picture. But you don’t take mental pictures into court. If the kid sat here, who sat on the other side of the desk?”

  “Whoever’s got that can and that spool of wire. They aren’t so easy to get rid of. You can’t just dump ‘em; they have to be destroyed. Or hidden.”

  “Film would be easy to destroy. And to destroy what’s on that wire, you could run it on another player. The new sound erases the old.”

  “Does the killer know that? A killer who doesn’t even know how to take off the spool?”

  “An amateur killer,” Joe added, “who probably used the same gun twice. Can you check that?”

  “I don’t think so. This slug’s all right. Went into the pillow. But that first one was battered. I’ll get a report from ballistics when I go back to the station. If you wanted to get rid of that wire, what would you do, Joe?”

  “I’d take it off the spool and put it in an empty, closed coffee can. I’d drive to where there was a can collection and dump it in some citizen’s box.”

  “Would you? No. Somebody could be watching, and wouldn’t they wonder about a stranger adding a can to their collection? And the can the film was in, how about that?”

  “Once the film is burned, the can can be dumped anywhere.”

  “Unless it’s labeled. And labeled with a metal tag, riveted on, as a lot of these are.”

  Joe said nothing. Ernie looked too hopeful. It wasn’t a time to remind him how big this town was, and how many hiding places it held. Or how easily that metal tag could be removed.

  Krivick said, “Maybe this second killing is a break. For everybody but young Dysart and the killer.”

  “I hope so,” Joe told him. “Most of the gang were at my house last night, Ernie. I threw a party.”

  “You figure out when they left, as best you can, huh? The ones you don’t know about, ask somebody else. Would you do that for me, Joe?”

  “I’d be glad to, Ernie. I’ll do more than that, if you want: some unofficial investigating. If I stick my neck out, would you back me up?”

  Krivick nodded. “But if you’ve an idea on it, I’m listening,

  Joe.”

  “If I had an idea, I’d tell you. See you, Ernie.”

  Joe didn’t go down to his car immediately; he walked the fifty feet to the entrance to the playground tennis courts at the bottom of the slope. There was another, smaller parking area down here, probably for the use of the tennis players.

  From Dysart’s house a person could walk to the clubhouse without being in view of any of the homes after the first fifty feet of the trip. The road was below the level of the lots around it and all the rear yards were surrounded by high fences.

  He was just getting into his car when Leonard Smith came along the sidewalk.

  Leonard looked haggard. “What’s all the rumpus at Dysart’s?”

  “Alan’s dead.”

  Smith stared at him quietly.

  “Murdered,” Joe added.

  Smith looked past Joe, at the Dysart home. “God—Who can it be, Joe?” “I don’t know.”

  The round face of Leonard Smith seemed gray and dead. “Alan—” He shook his head. “Oh, God— The man had so much—oh, fire and dedication. He was such an uncompromising punk, it was refreshing to know there were young people with— I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.” He stared at Joe. “I must be off my nut. The arguments I’ve had with that kid, and now it’s like I’ve lost a son.”

  Joe nodded. “Maybe his uncle felt that way about him, too.”

  “He did,” Smith said. “I’m sure he did. If Alan had ever steadied down to the groove he was destined for, he—Well, what the hell difference does it make? He’s dead.”

  “Simmer down, Leonard. You look sick.”

  “I am.”

  Joe hesitated and then said, “I wonder if you remember what time the various guests left my party last night?”

  “I don’t even remember what time I left. Joe, do the police think one of us is the—” He broke off.

  “They think of the possibility,” Joe answered quietly. “Leonard, what’s the matter?” He put a hand on Smith’s shoulder.

  Smith’s eyes were closed and he seemed to waver on his feet
. He reached out and took hold of Joe’s arm. “A little heart flutter. Nothing to get panicky about”—he opened his eyes—“I like to believe. I guess it was the shock, a delayed reaction.”

  Something flickered in Joe’s mind and went away. It was the same kind of mind murmur he’d had when he’d found the open window in his living-room. But nothing definite came through to his conscious mind.

  He asked, “Want to sit in the car for a minute, Leonard?”

  Smith shook his head. “I’m all right now. It was only that Alan wasn’t the sort of person I can picture as dead. He was so alive, so—aware.”

  “I know.” Joe climbed into his car. “I’ll be seeing you, Leonard. Take it easy.”

  Driving off, he reflected that the advice was unnecessary; Leonard had been taking it easy for quite a while.

  At the Point Realty Company the office girl informed Joe that Norah hadn’t come in yet but was expected any minute.

  Joe drove out Sunset toward her apartment. Ahead of him a huge truck was picking up the cans; receptacles lined the street all the way to the bend at Marquez.

  These were mostly apartment buildings along here and Krivick was wrong in thinking the addition of one can would invoke neighborhood interest. Especially if a person picked the collection in front of one of the larger buildings. What apartment dweller was familiar with all his neighbors?

  Norah’s car was at the curb. Joe parked behind it and went along the walk that led to the rear apartments. The building was constructed in a narrow U. Norah was on the second-floor balcony, drying her hair.

  “Hide the bleach,” Joe called out. “I’m coming up.”

  She made a face at him. “You would. No make-up on and my hair all over the place.”

  He came up the wooden steps that led to the balcony and stopped at her open door for a moment to peer in. “Cozy place you have.”

  She smiled at him, running a comb through her fine, bright hair. “I’m thinking of moving to a big place overlooking the ocean. Kiss me.”

  He leaned over to kiss her, and then moved a box of curlers from a low redwood bench so he could sit down. “I’ve bad news, Norah.”

  She stopped combing to look at him anxiously.