New, Improved Murder

by Ed Gorman

  She had pulled out the straight-backed desk chair and sat on it rather mannishly, a peroxide blonde with a Kewpie-doll face made even cheekier by bad drinking habits. She had long ago sailed past forty and a lot of makeup and garish clothes were trying to deny the reality of her fifties.

  “You tried to get in last night, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, friend.”

  “I didn’t. You can believe it or not.” I held the back of my head and prepared myself to stand up. It was going to hurt.

  “Don’t move. Not till I tell you.”

  I sighed. Laid my head back down. Carefully. Maybe she was doing me a favor after all.

  “You know about me, don’t you?”

  “I assume you’re Carla Travers, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Boy, you’re a regular goddamn comedian, aren’t you? You trying to say you don’t know about Stephen Elliot and me?” The heat and slur of her words told me she was drunk.

  “That you were lovers, you mean?”

  “Yeah, lovers, that’s it,” she said sarcastically. “Lovers.”

  “I know two things about you and Elliot. One being that you had your picture taken together at some resort and the other that one time he spit in your face.”

  “That wasn’t the only time, you can bet your buns on that.” Then she paused. “Say, you really don’t know anything about us, do you?”

  “No, I don’t, as a matter of fact.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “Right. You tried to bust in here last night.”

  “Can I stand up?”

  “Yeah. But move very slowly and no funny stuff.”

  When I finally got to my feet, when I finally got a look at her, I saw a woman trapped in the high comic style of the local beauty parlor. There was enough brass in her demeanor to bounce quarters off. “She sent you, didn’t she?”

  “She?”

  “Jesus, how long you going to keep this up?”

  I could see what Bryce Hammond had meant about media reps. Real charmers. Here was a bowling queen and stevedore rolled into one, and got up in a kind of sexy pink grandmother slacks-and-blouse set.

  For the first time I saw that she had a silver-plated pistol in her hand. Probably it was more decoration than anything else, but in a room this small it would do the trick.

  “So you didn’t break in here last night, and you don’t know about me and Stephen, and you claim that she didn’t send you.”

  She was making my head hurt even worse, handing me three different mysteries to solve, not one of which I could even guess at.

  I started getting wobbly and worked my way over to the couch and sat down. Gently.

  “I’m a private detective,” I said.

  She frowned. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “You gotta be working for her then.”

  “Who’s ‘her’?”

  She chose not to answer my question. “You tell me who hired you.”

  “Nobody hired me. I volunteered.”

  “Wait a minute, your name wouldn’t be Dwyer, would it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re Jane Branigan’s old boyfriend.”

  I nodded.

  “That bitch.” A look of real misery came into the doll-blue eyes. “She killed Stephen. That bitch.”

  “I don’t think she did.”

  She started to talk, but a cigarette hack got her halfway through the first syllable. Clutching her gun, her fleshy body began doing a grotesque kind of cancer dance right there on the chair as the cough got worse.

  “Shit,” she said as she concluded.

  “At least,” I said.

  She glared at me. “It isn’t funny.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose it isn’t.”

  “So why’d you come here?”

  “I thought maybe you could help me prove that Jane is innocent.”

  “Listen, all the grief that spoiled rich bitch gave Stephen, I wouldn’t help you no matter what.”

  “She didn’t kill him.”

  “That isn’t what the police think.”

  “Police make mistakes.”

  “Not in this case.”

  We took a minute to rest and then we went back at it.

  I started. “Whatever you think of her, she can be a nice woman under the right circumstances.”

  “Christ Almighty,” she said, a malignant gleam in her eye, “your gonads are still in an uproar over her, aren’t they?”

  I could feel myself flush, but more at her delicate use of English than her insight.

  “Hell, no wonder you want me to help you.”

  I didn’t wait. “Why did Elliot spit in your face that night?”

  She was angry. “None of your business.”

  “If I call the police they’ll make it their business.”

  “You go ahead and call the cops if you want. I’ll just tell them how you tried to break in here last night.” We took another rest. Then, “Tell me about Elliot.”

  “He was a classy guy.” She gave me an odd look, one I couldn’t read at all. “At some things.”

  “At creating ads. He was the best, according to everybody in the city.”

  She smirked. “I guess maybe you’ve got more faith in people’s judgment than I do.”

  I was still trying to put her implications together—what the hell was she hinting at?—when the phone on the desk rang.

  She stared at it for a time, as if she didn’t know quite what it was.

  “You want me to answer it?” I said.

  “You just sit there and keep your goddamn mouth shut.”

  The phone continued to ring. Six, seven, eight, nine times.

  Finally she picked it up.

  I could hear a voice buzzing against the receiver. Carla Travers said nothing. Only listened. Then she said, “You know what I want and I better goddamn get it.” With that she slammed the phone.

  “Now can we talk about Elliot?”

  She sighed. “You’re kind of a pain in the ass, anybody ever tell you that?”

  “No more than three, four thousand people a week.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet that’s true, too.”

  “So what about Elliot?”

  “He was a good little boy.”

  “Care to elaborate on that?”

  “He had all these young women chasing after him--your girlfriend was one of them—but that isn’t what he was really interested in.”

  “What was he really interested in?”

  She paused, opened one of the desk drawers, and pulled out a new pint of Seagram’s. With a thumbnail, she expertly slit the paper banding the neck. “I don’t suppose this is very ladylike,” she said. She took a sailor’s swig of the stuff, flinched as if she’d been shot in some vital place, and then closed the bottle and put it back in the drawer.

  I could see her letting the stuff take effect, the way a junkie lets the smack flow all the way to the Amazon before moving, her eyes getting dreamy, her nerves steadier. If she lived long enough she’d wind up in a detox clinic.

  She said, “I told him about my abortion one night when we were over here drinking and having a good time, and you know what he did?”

  “What?”

  “He cried. He took my hand and he held it and he cried right along with me.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “This was back in the early fifties, when I had my abortion, I mean. I even told him about the night it happened. Over a tavern. This medical student. The song ‘Wheel of Fortune’ kept coming up through the floor from below, and the sounds of the TV set above the bar. Goddamn ‘Life of Riley’ was on. I was cryin’ and this bloody thing was bein’ ripped out of me, and all I could hear was this laugh track for ‘Life of Riley,’ all these people pretending to laugh. The kid with the knife screwed me up but good. I never could have kids again so I didn�
��t see any reason to get married. I started selling TV time and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.” She shook her head. “One of the boys, that’s what happened to me. You remember the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’? That gal named Rose Marie? That’s how I always thought of myself. One of the goddamned boys, whether I liked it or not.”

  She fingered the silver pistol in her lap. “Anyway, I told Stephen about my abortion, and he cried. He said it hurt him too.”

  This was the guy who had stolen my woman. Sympathy from such a creep was impossible for me to imagine.

  “Of course, he changed when your girl came along. She was the first young one he ever got serious about.” She patted with surprising delicacy at her cotton-candy hair. “He spit in my face because of your girlfriend. I told him I wanted him to stop seeing her, that she was messing up the friendship him and me had.”

  “Did he stop?”

  Nastily, she said, “She dumped you, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like he stopped, does it?”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  By now I could see that she was drowsy even though it was early morning. She said she’d been up all night. With her pistol and her Seagram’s, no doubt.

  “Earlier you said she sent me. Who’s she?”

  She laughed. “I had to find out for myself. You have to find out for yourself.”

  “Thanks for the help.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t even be healthy for you to know.”

  “Or maybe it would help me prove that Jane didn’t kill Elliot.”

  She touched a hand wearily to her head. “At least I know it wasn’t you who broke in here last night.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Somebody who finally figured a few things out.”

  “Maybe you should call the police.”

  She glared at me with tiny, boozy, ugly eyes. “Yeah, I’m in some goddamn position to call in the frigging police, all right.” She waved a drunken hand in the direction of the door. “Why don’t you get out of here before you really start giving me a pain in the buns?”

  I stood up, holding the back of my head every inch of the way. “You need help, Carla.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Elliot’s dead. He couldn’t handle it.”

  “He was a little boy. He couldn’t handle it, but I can.”

  I stared at her. She looked up, and for a moment we didn’t dislike each other quite as much as we had for the past fifteen minutes.

  “You really sound like you could use some help, Carla.”

  She smiled sadly. “Yeah. But then, I’ve been needing help most of my life and never got it, so why start now?”

  I left her there, slipping out before the full weight of her bleakness and chaos could overwhelm me.

  Chapter 9

  Donna Harris was sitting in her car outside my apartment house when I got back. I pulled in behind her, got out, and strolled up to her car as if I were about to issue a ticket.

  For all that my head hurt, for all that I was still trying to figure out Carla Travers’s confusing story—and who, exactly, she had been talking to on the phone—I felt happier than I should have about Donna Harris being here.

  In the daylight I saw that her redheaded beauty was more delicate than I’d first noticed—slight features and eyes that looked as if they expected pain at any moment.

  She saw me touching the back of my head. “Boy, what happened?”

  “Somebody hit me.”

  “You’re kidding!” In her world people didn’t go around hitting people. I wanted to live in her world.

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “Who hit you? Boy, are you all right?”

  “Boy,” I said, “I’m all right. And boy, I’m not going to tell you who hit me.”

  “I guess I do kinda say boy a lot, don’t I?”

  “Boy, do you.”

  She smiled her lopsided smile. The warmth of it helped considerably.

  “Maybe I’ve found out some things you should know about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Feel like having breakfast?”

  “No, but some black coffee sounds great.”

  “Get in.”

  The hardwood floor of the Iron Skillet was dappled with sunlight, like a Rembrandt painting, as we found a booth.

  Donna Harris ordered pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

  Her six feet showed not an ounce of fat. She was one of those, eat all she wanted and metabolize it off.

  “I found out something about you.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “You’re an actor.”

  “Sort of.”

  “No, a friend of mine who works in a talent agency downtown says he’s seen your stuff. Says you’re very good.”

  “Tell him to send me some work.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah. Whenever I can get work.”

  “Boy, that’s neat. Acting, I mean.”

  “Boy, is it.”

  She laughed. “I’m starting again, aren’t I?”

  I smiled. “I should tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve had a tough couple of days and it’s nice to see you.”

  “It’s nice to see you too. I thought about you a lot.”

  “Probably because you didn’t have anything else to do.”

  “You want a compliment, don’t you?”

  “I could use one about now.”

  She smiled. “People in hell want ice water, Dwyer.”

  While the waitress brought out food I watched Donna Harris got ready to eat. She did everything except rub her hands together. She was very different from the nervous woman I’d first met the other night.

  I liked her self-confidence now.

  She managed to put food in her mouth, chew it, and talk all at the same time, and still look fetching.

  “I’ve really been checking into Elliot’s background,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And he doesn’t seem to have one.”

  “I’m not tracking.”

  “I keep asking people where he worked before and they don’t seem to know. Apparently he showed up in the city several years back, bought himself the mansion on the edge of the city, and proceeded to become a fixture of the ad world here.”

  “Where did he work previously?”

  “That’s just it. Nobody seems to know.”

  I thought about that a minute. “What about the funeral home? What do they know about it?”

  She snapped her fingers. “Boy, I should’ve thought about that.” She smiled at me. “You were a cop once, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No wonder.”

  While she did unspeakable things to the rest of her food I went in the back and called the funeral home where I knew the body was being handled.

  The man I spoke with had a very masculine, articulate voice and was pleasant in what seemed a genuine way. I explained that I was trying to find some things out about the dead man and wondered if he could help me.

  “That’s the curious thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The other day I received a cashier’s check for five thousand dollars and instructions that I should arrange everything.”

  “Nothing else in the note?”

  “No.”

  “Have any relatives contacted you?”

  “None. I’ve asked everybody who visited the body. They’re all from local advertising agencies.”

  “Do you happen to remember what bank the check was drawn on?”

  “First Federal, I believe.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  When I got back to the booth the big, beautiful, animal part of Donna Harris was wiping her face with the satisfied aplomb of a small child.

  “Wow,” she said, “that was great.”

  I told her what I’d found out and then said, “
So how about you checking First Federal? Give them your journalist story.”

  She eyed me levelly. “There was kind of a smile in your voice when you said ‘journalist.’”

  “I’m glad you’re not paranoid.”

  “You really think I can make it as a journalist?”

  “I would think that anybody who could put food away the way you do is capable of anything.”

  “Very funny.” Pause. “Do I eat like a pig, or what?”

  She was getting self-conscious again, her self-confidence waning. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “The other day you said you weren’t going to work with me. How come you changed your mind?”

  “Now you’re fishing for compliments.”

  “No. I’m just curious. Really.”

  “You want me to tell you that I found you fascinating and couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

  “That would be nice, but that really isn’t what I’m after. I just want to know why you changed your mind.”

  I smiled. “Because I like you. Because it’ll be a good excuse to see you again. Is that better?”

  “Much better.” She sipped coffee. “Say, why don’t you go to the bank with me?”

  “I’ve got to do something.”

  “What?”

  “Gee, I’m glad you’re not a busybody.”

  “Sorry. That’s a tendency of mine. I tend to be curious about everything—and very jealous.”

  “Fair warning, I guess, huh?”

  “So what’re you going to do?”

  “I have an audition.”

  She started—surprised and apparently delighted.

  “Really? What’s the part?”

  “An auto mechanic.”

  “Boy, that sounds great.”

  “It pays scale and it’ll be a good credit. But I probably won’t get it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I average about one part out of every eight or nine I go up for.”

  “You’ll get it, Dwyer. I can feel it.”

  “In your bones?”

  “In my bones, in my stomach, everywhere.”

  As a prognosticator, she left a bit to be desired.

  Chapter 10

  Just the way he looked at me, I knew I wasn’t going to get the part. I was sitting in a straight-backed chair in a rehearsal hall along with maybe fifteen other actors of roughly my own age when the guy from the agency came in and started sizing us up.