Knife at My Back

by Lawrence Lariar

  “I’ll tell you later, Steve.”

  “When?”

  “In my room. Right after the show.”

  “I’ll be asking a hell of a lot of questions, Grace. I’ll be wanting to know about that gorilla.”

  “Archy?” She laughed softly. “He’s Archy Funk, an old friend of mine.”

  “How do I know you won’t run out on me?”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “There may be other Archy Funks.”

  “I made a mistake asking Archy to take you away,” she whispered. “But that was because I didn’t really know you. We’re friends now, aren’t we, Steve?”

  “Some of my best friends break promises.”

  “Your really close friends?”

  “You’re twisting my arm.”

  “I never break a promise, Steve.”

  She leaned my way again, breathless now. And when I grabbed her she came alive with a fresh and energetic mood, almost kittenish, almost. girlish in her quick kiss. Then she was running across the lawn and up toward the lobby and into the sudden crowd of merrymakers bound for The Champagne Room and the spectacle inside. I saw her circle and weave through the gathering horde, a flitting figure under the lights up there. She moved easily and with such grace that I blinked my eyes and shook my head doubtfully at her. Was it possible that she had danced at the Olympic? Was it possible that she was over thirty-five? I sat there staring at the moon, until the distant blare of the music began, the opening of the show. Then I got up and wandered toward The Montord.

  It would be easier to check her age later.

  In her room.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Champagne Room was loaded.

  Over a thousand customers squeezed and squinted over the tiny tables surrounding the great stage. The place swam with activity, as hectic as anything of this size in the big city, a night club of gigantic proportions, a hive of humming, buzzing guests who sipped their drinks and sat back for the big name entertainment that was part of their stay at The Montord. The room had class and quality, well designed and equipped with the latest ideas from the planning board of Jon Suchon, the leader in such architectural mumbo-jumbo in New York. Suchon had outdone himself here. On the right, the platform before the bar was rimmed with a giant yellow curtain, drawn now to keep out the lobby noises. Behind the last row of tables, a huge glass window revealed the bar, complete with its usual quota of flies, all of whom faced the club and watched the show from back there where a pair of loud speakers brought the music and dialogue to them. Inside The Champagne Room, the band was skimming through a medley of the latest hit parade items, soft and low, like a good recording played under a blanket. Then the house lights were dimmed and a great spotlight hit the mike at the front of the stage, and Manny Erlich walked out and introduced the first act, a magician named Forando, complete with black cape and several decks of cards.

  “Here we go again,” Manny said, joining me in the wings. “This is the show to top them all, Steve. It’ll murder the people.”

  Manny was right. They were eating it up out there. And Manny watched and listened, casing the place with the eye of an expert, cocking his head to catch the depth of the applause, adding it all up and finding the sum satisfying.

  Manny burned with the festering ambition that plagues some small men and drives them onward and upward to the heights. Manny wanted fame. Manny wanted notoriety. He had neither, but his job at The Montord was the first big step up the ladder. He was a short and dapper ex-hoofer who had worked his way through the borscht circuit until he managed to wangle the job of production man at The Montord. Here he would have the chance to show his skill, to prove to the fancy folk who came to The Montord that Manny Erlich had more than enough know-how for Broadway, or television, or even Hollywood.

  I had met Manny in his hungry days, when he prowled the pavements in New York in search of a quick club date or a quicker pastrami sandwich. I saw Manny often when business sidetracked me into the corned beef lanes of Broadway, into the lox and bagel counters and delicatessen hangouts where showfolk came to eat and gossip during the gray hours of the morning; Sam’s, The Stage, Harry the Horse’s Sportsman, and a little known dive run by a middle-aged frump named Tantah Becky. Manny was easy to know, especially around the eateries, where he gouged many a free bagel from his friends. He came from Flatbush and was unashamed of his background and proud of his dancing feet. But his dance routines were earning him bubkehs, and that was why the little man was trying so hard to make good up here.

  Manny stood beside me now, grinning through the gloom in the wings, smiling out at the brilliantly lit stage and smacking his lips at Forando as the famous magician killed the audience with his cigarette tricks. Then the drums rolled and the cymbals crashed and Forando bowed and stepped off, rocking the house with applause.

  Manny winked as the magician passed toward the dressing room.

  “Great, Steve?”

  “Forando is terrific,” I said. “Top talent, Manny.”

  “You think he’s good, wait’ll you see the rest of my bill. Can you imagine how this crowd will eat up Margo Lewis?”

  “She’ll kill them.”

  “And Buddy Binns, what’ll he do to them?”

  “Not Buddy Binns, too?” Manny was leaning into me and chuckling and clucking his satisfaction at the news he had handed me. Buddy Binns was incredible at The Montord. I could see one star like Margo Lewis on the bill, a doll who would get the top rates for the one night stand in this neck of the woods. But Buddy Binns! Buddy was the biggest name in comedy these days, the number one boy on television and radio and the movies. His meteoric rise had startled the old-line comics and rocked Broadway last year, when he jumped into prominence after a few guest spots on television. Buddy Binns would paralyze this crowd, and Manny Erlich knew it and was letting me in on the big surprise.

  “Buddy Binns, in person,” Manny said, and rubbed his hands with delight. “Tonight only.”

  “How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you seduce the big ones up here, Manny?”

  “Old friends,” Manny grinned. “Pals of mine.”

  “Is there anybody in show business you don’t know?”

  “Not breathing, there isn’t. But don’t say I seduce them, Steve. That word has a dirty smell. You take Margo, for instance. She’s a doll who’s on the way up, all the way to the top. This fall, Hollywood. But do you know why she comes here?”

  “The loot?”

  “Money is only money,” he laughed. “But Margo don’t operate strictly for the pocketbook, because she’s got Don Trask handling her. A man with vision. Don knows that the people in this audience made Margo.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s another wren who got her start on the borscht?”

  “I was referring to television,” Manny explained. He stepped nimbly to one side, to make room for the dancing Chukas, who skipped before us and hit the stage in time for the vamp from the orchestra. “Margo got her start a year ago, in television, on a show called The Band Stand, remember? It was a local deal, strictly for the New Yorkers. Well, who are the New York televiewers, I ask you? These people up here are the set owners, Steve. They’re the ones who wrote her the fan mail and built her into a celebrity. That’s the reason Don Trask gave me for booking her here. Smart?”

  “It smells from herring,” I said.

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “Frankly—no.”

  Then Manny eyed me with his professionally frigid stare, the look he reserved for small-time acts who wanted booking up here. But the grimace died and his leathery face broke into an uncontrollable burst of laughter. He pulled me gently off to the side into the shadows. He jerked his head this way and that in an exaggerated gesture, indicating that what he had to say was confidential. Then he leaned my way and said, “You and me both, Steve. I didn’t believe it either
. I got the surprise of my life when Don Trask offered to bring Margo up here for this weekend. She could have had any club date in the country. Instead, she comes up here to me. I admit I’m a smart operator, Steve. I can work a deal as sharp and coy as the next Broadway bum. But this deal is really for the birds. I got Margo, but the real surprise came a day later when Buddy Binns told me he was coming up here with her.”

  “You stepped into it, Manny,” I told him. “If you were walking in a cow pasture, you’d step only on the buttercups.”

  Manny laughed, “I guess you’re right. You know why I got so lucky?”

  “Is it something new?”

  “I mean to get Buddy Binns with her.” Manny licked his lips and readied his mobile face for another of his deep and stirring secrets. “It’s because Buddy’s rubbing knees with her this season. He’s off his rocker about that doll, believe me. He’d follow her anywhere, even to Grossinger’s, they tell me.”

  He continued to chatter, but he only held my ear now. My eyes were skidding and skimming over the audience, at the interesting tableau near the ringside tables. Grace Lasker was sitting up front, and her face seemed suddenly old and tired as she watched the dancing Chukas. She was sitting with Buddy Binns, turning to him and talking to him, but getting nowhere with him Nowhere at all. Buddy was giving her the side of his fat head. Buddy Binns was a caricature of an egomaniac, a violation of all the laws of comedy and good humor. Off the stage, his features were perpetually set in a deadpan mask of open boredom, as stimulating as a dirge—and twice as mournful. He had a fine and open disdain for humanity when he was out of the spotlight and among his admirers. Even now, surrounded by gaping, adoring worshipers, Buddy neither laughed nor blinked. He drifted on his personal cloud, somewhere high in the stratosphere, above the common herd. Mrs. Lasker sat close to him and reached for his arm and touched it. But he did not seem to be listening to her.

  I tugged at Manny’s sleeve. “Who’s the broad talking to Buddy?”

  “Never saw her before.”

  “She seems to know Buddy pretty well.”

  “Buddy knows a million of them.” Manny grunted and sniffed at the table where the great comic sat. “But this doll is new to me, Steve.”

  “Her name is Grace Lasker. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Lasker? Lasker? Isn’t there a big ladies’ underwear Lasker in New York?”

  “She’s his wife. Does that mean anything?”

  Manny Ehrlich’s face wasn’t designed for serious or intricate thought. He sucked at his lower lip and made feeble fumblings into his memory. He shook his head and gave me nothing.

  “Never saw her before in my life, Steve.”

  Over his shoulder, I watched Buddy Binns and Grace Lasker. She was getting nowhere with him—but fast. He got up suddenly and threaded his way quickly to the right of the room, toward the bar, where he disappeared behind the great curtain. His sudden leave-taking seemed to shock her. She lifted her glass and gulped the drink, waved to the waiter and began a nervous finger-tapping until he brought her a fresh glassful. She finished this one with the same purposeful speed and left the table, walking in the direction Buddy Binns had taken. Before the yellow curtain, Don Trask met her and she paused to talk to him. Was she sobbing as he led her away? I stared hard over the heads of the audience and picked the two of them up again, seated at the bar now, where Don Trask went through the motions of ordering still another drink for her. They were a clearly defined couple through the brightly lit glass that separated the bar from The Champagne Room. Don Trask leaned close to her as she moved her pretty mouth in animated conversation. Then she left him. She said a word or two and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and walked slowly toward the door to the lobby. What was she sobbing about? The urge to follow her and perhaps comfort her gnawed at me. But you don’t just stroll away from Manny Erlich. He had my arm and he had my ear and he was jerking me around so that I could catch the approach of Margo Lewis.

  And she was worth waiting for.

  She crossed the rear of the backstage area and walked our way. Beautiful? This doll was something out of a good dream, complete with technicolor. There are all kinds of broads in the Broadway lexicon, the cheap and the hard, the varnished and the virginal. Margo Lewis didn’t fit into any of the usual categories. She was high voltage. She wore a red evening gown, cut low where the cut did good, and the dress was something poured around her lush figure, so that the highlights glistened and burned with every step she took. She had a classic head, a little on the dark side, burning eyes and raven hair. Her lips were full and ripe and she seemed to pout perpetually. But when she smiled, it was like fifty million volts over Broadway.

  And she was smiling at me and saying, “A real live detective, Manny?”

  “One of the best,” Manny said, giving me his usual buildup, complete with the theatrical pounding on the back. “Steve Conacher is the champ, for my dough.”

  She shook my hand. “I’d love to talk to you, Steve. I read a murder novel every other night.”

  “Better stick to the fiction,” I told her. “In real life, it’s just bread and butter, a way to earn a fast buck.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she laughed. “You detectives are all modest that way. I’ll bet you’ve got lots of swell stories.” She eyed the stage, watching the dancing Chukas break into their final frantic leaps before their exit. She smoothed her dress and patted her hair and went through the usual nervous gestures most stars suffer before taking the first step on to the stage. But she had good control. She managed a provocative little laugh and gave me her eyes again. “Maybe we can talk—after the show?”

  “Fine,” Manny said. “I’m going to have a place reserved for the whole gang, just the people in the show, Margo. Over in the summer house, near the lake. Buddy’s idea.”

  “Wonderful,” Margo said. She was talking to me with her eyes. “See you later, Steve?”

  “I’ll be around.”

  “In the summer house?”

  “Of course Steve’ll be there,” Manny said quickly. “You didn’t think I’d leave him out?”

  “I want him to be there,” Margo said.

  The band ripped into the finale for the Chukas, and then they were galloping off and returning for a bow and backing off again, sweating and puffing. Margo set herself and waited. The band rolled into a slow and simple rhythm and she walked on and brought a tidal wave of applause from the expectant audience. She began to sing. She used her body, accented by a bright spotlight, moving her hips in a dignified grind that matched the mood of the torchy ballad she was giving them. And when she moved, it was magic out there. She had a deep and throaty voice and the combination of song and gesture reached out and grabbed at the people. She was a living symbol of the seductress, the sultan’s favorite, a modern temptress. She was sex and music in one impossible package, so potent and thrilling that even the hard and cynical eyes of Manny Erlich went damp and bright as he watched her. She had him tied in knots and I could feel the strong impact of her lustful voice pounding my blood and doing strange things to my libido. And then Manny’s hand was on my arm.

  “Did you ever hear anything like her, Steve?”

  “She’s dynamite,” I said. “She’ll blow Hollywood wide open.”

  “That’s what the wise dough is saying.”

  “And what is Buddy Binns saying?”

  “She’ll drop him,” Manny said, with a shrug. “She’s major league stuff. Buddy won’t be able to hold her long.”

  “Who could? She’s Tallulah Bankhead with a voice.”

  “And a body.”

  “I thought she and Buddy were getting married,” I said. “Read it in Variety a few weeks ago.”

  “Never,” Manny said, with a grunt. “Buddy gave that item out himself, by way of his own press agent. When Don Trask saw it in print he almost blew a gasket.” Manny nudged me
and gave me a significant wink. “After all, Don had ideas of his own. Don figured maybe he was making time with Margo.”

  “And was he?”

  “Who knows? Margo has other boyfriends, too. You want a list of them, you’d better get a pad and pencil and ask Margo. She likes the boys.” And he laughed out loud. “All the boys, Steve. You understand what I mean?”

  I withheld my comment. From behind us, through the door on the right, Buddy Binns walked our way. He moved with a brisk and bouncy rhythm. His dumpy frame stooped a bit and he buried his hands in his pants, looking for all the world like a worried clothier from the garment district, complete with a scowl and the appropriate corrugations above the eyebrows. Funny? He was as funny as the proverbial crutch, including the dialogue he spouted as soon as he came to rest beside us.

  “Conacher,” he said flatly. “The poor man’s Humphrey Bogart. What are you doing up here? Looking for the lost chord?”

  “You guessed it, Buddy. And when I find it, I’ll skip rope with it. Funny?”

  “My aching back, Conacher.” He turned away from me as though I had just confessed owning the bubonic plague. He riveted his gimlet eyes on Margo and glared and glimmered at her hungrily. He had a surly lip, perpetually pouting and unpleasant when off the stage and among the common people. But the way he looked at Margo added a fresh bright light to his face, making him seem suddenly human. If anybody had told him that he was chewing her up with his eyes, he would have laughed his snotty laugh and denied it. He was not the type to expose himself emotionally, unless a few bright spotlights were beamed at him and he was up there on the stage going through his zany routine. Broadway had murmured in the recent past when Buddy Binns told an early morning disc jockey interviewer the surprising fact that he yearned to do dramatic bits. The wise crowd laughed Buddy out of his secret ambition. But they might have been doing him a great disservice. Buddy needed a steady out for his simmering, deep-seated anxieties. He was fruit for a couch and a long session of analysis. He was as ingrown as a festered hair.