The victim was a thirty-three-year-old bachelor, an advertising copywriter named Bart Ailburg. His one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a brownstone half a block from Central Park featured a pleasant large living room with windows overlooking back gardens featuring plane trees.
Much could be gathered about Ailburg from his home. The excessive masculinity of his imitation lion-skin bed throw and all those hoofs and horns scattered about as paperweights, ashtrays, lamps and general decoration, combined with the sloppy pile of male physique magazines under the bed, suggested rather strongly a homosexual tendency. The travel posters on the walls, the two shelves of travel reference books handy to his desk, and the small souvenirs grouped on the mantle over the nonfunctional fireplace indicated that his job was connected with travel advertising. And the three locks on his front door, taken with the fact that he had medicine chests in the bathroom, both crammed with prescription bottles and all kinds of patent medicines, suggested a timid hypochondriac, a cautious unassertive sort of man.
Staples reconstructed the crime for me. This living room was rectangular, with sofa, TV and so on at the end near the kitchen and with the desk and bookcase at the end by the windows. The desk was centered in front of the windows, and Ailburg had been sitting at it, facing the room, working. Doing a travel ad, in fact, writing out a draft in pencil on a lined yellow legal pad; his writing was spidery, neat, rather small. The killer had picked up a bone-handled letter opener from the desk and had stabbed Ailburg six times in the neck and back. Ailburg, bleeding a terrific amount, had fallen forward onto the desk and had shortly afterward died, leaving most of the desk drenched in blood except for the legal pad, which had been under him.
Judging from stains on the bathroom floor, the killer had become smeared with blood and had next taken a bath. Since it had been necessary for him to take a bath rather than merely wash at the sink, it was a reasonable presumption that he had been naked when he’d done the killing.
The apartment had not been ransacked, nothing appeared to have been stolen.
The ad Ailburg had been working on had been due this morning, for a deadline later today. When Ailburg, invariably a prompt and reliable worker, had failed to show up and also failed to answer his phone, one of the partners in the ad agency sent a messenger, who persuaded the building’s superintendent to enter the apartment. They discovered first that only the door’s regular lock was fastened, leaving both the chainlock and the police lock undone, and then they discovered Ailburg himself.
The report had reached Staples and Bray shortly after ten this morning. All of the normal things had been done, neighbors questioned, movements checked, and nothing interesting had turned up. Ailburg, a man of regular habits, had apparently come home directly from the office yesterday, had spent a quiet evening at home, and had then been murdered sometime between midnight and three in the morning.
“Al Bray,” Staples finished, “is ready to put it down to one of your fag murders. Rough trade. You know, where a fellow goes cruising in Central Park and comes back with some tough young stud who bumps him off.”
“No,” I said. “Not this time.”
Staples grinned at me. “That’s what I say, too.”
“In the first place,” I said, “Ailburg might have gone cruising, but he wouldn’t come back with anybody tough. That wasn’t his style.”
“Well, you can’t say that for sure,” Staples said. “When you get into people’s sex lives, it’s hard to make predictions.”
“Ailburg had a deadline this morning,” I said. “If he was such a conscientious type, he might go out looking for a friend after he got the work done, but not before.”
“There I agree with you,” Staples said. “That was my point exactly with Al.”
“Also,” I said, “a cautious man wouldn’t let a stranger behind him with a sharp letter opener.”
“No, he wouldn’t. But the killer was probably naked, don’t forget that.”
“A lover,” I said. “But someone Ailburg knew, not some pick-up. You don’t go get yourself a brand new sex partner and then sit down calmly to do some work while this new body prances around naked.”
Staples said, “That’s right. The feeling I had in this room was that it was somebody Ailburg was comfortable with, somebody he didn’t have to play host to.”
I said, “I don’t see the problem. It was one of Ailburg’s boyfriends. How many did he have?”
Staples held up a well-thumbed black address book. “There are over sixty men’s names in here,” he said. “Homosexuals still tend to be pretty secretive about who their lovers are. We’ve got no fingerprints, no witnesses, no clues, nothing. It would be a long, hard, dull job to check out every one of these guys, and we could still never come up with the right one.”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s why Bray’s content to think it’s a pick-up killing.”
“Sure,” Staples said. “If the job’s tough, we have to do it, but if it’s impossible we can forget it.”
Walking around the room, I said, “I suppose you’ve looked for letters, anything that could give you specific names of boyfriends.”
“Nothing,” Staples said.
I’d been avoiding the desk, which was still smeared with caked brown blood. The rough outline of Ailburg’s torso and arms was clear in the center, with the pencil and the legal pad. Going over at last to that part of the room, I saw that both windows were securely locked, that there was no fire escape here, and that we were too high for anyone to have climbed in from the back. Finally I turned my reluctant attention to the desk.
Other than the bloodstains, it was neat, the work space of a methodical man. A small Olympia portable typewriter was pushed to one side, near the beige telephone. And on the legal pad was written:
“ST. MARTIN!
Carefree days, exotic nights!
The peace of the beaches, the thrill of the casinos!
And only a mile and a half away, the charming
capital city of Antigua.”
“A very rough draft, apparently,” I said. “There weren’t any other worksheets around?”
Staples shook his head. “From the looks of things, he’d just started to work when he was killed.”
I said, “Which was sometime between midnight and three in the morning. That wasn’t in character for the man, not to start work until so late at night on something that was supposed to be turned in the next morning.”
“That bothered me, too,” Staples said. “But I’m not sure what it means.”
“An argument,” I suggested. “The killer came here probably in the early evening, and they had one of those droning dragged-out arguments that lovers get into.”
“Most lovers,” Staples said, with a big smile, suggesting that he and his Patricia should be exempted.
“Certainly,” I said. “Anyway, Ailburg had this work to do, so finally he just told his boyfriend, ‘I’m going to work,’ and he sat down here and started writing. And not doing very well, either, probably because he was still troubled about the fight. I mean, ‘The peace of the beaches,’ that’s a terrible line.”
“It does sound funny,” Staples said.
“Now, the boyfriend,” I went on, “got really mad when Ailburg started to ignore him. The fight wasn’t settled, and there Ailburg was at his desk, writing away just as though nothing had happened. So the boyfriend came over, in a rage, and let him have it.”
“Fine.” Staples waved the address book again. “Which one?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
We spent another five minutes looking at the place, but there was nothing left to see. Staples, who’d been expecting me to come up with another of my little magic turns, watched me with fading hope, but I knew I wasn’t going to repeat my success. Finally I said, “I guess the Wicker case was just beginner’s luck.”
“I knew this was a tough one,” Staples said, with a game smile, “that’s why I called you.”
“Sorry I couldn
’t—” Then I stopped, and frowned over at the desk.
Staples was saying, “Oh, come on, Carey, if I can’t do my job there’s no reason you should—What’s up?”
“There’s something wrong,” I said. “Just a minute.”
I went back to the desk, Staples following me, and frowned again at that bit of copywriting. “That isn’t right,” I said.
“What isn’t right?”
“I’ve been to the Caribbean, and Antigua isn’t that close to St. Martin. Not at all. Wait, hold on.”
Sitting at Ailburg’s desk, forgetting for the moment any squeamishness I might have felt, I looked through his reference books for an atlas. Finding one, I turned to a map of the Caribbean and said, “See? Here’s St. Martin, and here’s Antigua way down here.”
Staples touched the map with a blunt finger. “What’s that little island there? The one by St. Martin.”
When he removed his finger, I bent to read the lettering: “Anguilla.”
“Anguilla, Antigua.” Staples shrugged, saying, “He was upset from the argument, that’s all, he just got mixed up.”
“Does that make sense?” I studied Ailburg’s writing again, shaking my head. “No, it doesn’t. This was his job, he knew what island was where. And look how he broke that sentence, starting a new line after the word ‘charming.’ It looks awkward.”
Staples said, “I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
I was sitting now where Ailburg had been, and I rested my forearms on a blood-free part of the desk. “Ailburg is sitting here,” I said. “The boyfriend comes around behind him, Ailburg sees him pick up the letter opener. He isn’t sure what’s happening, but he’s afraid. And he quick starts a new line of copy, telling us who the boyfriend is.”
Staples leaned over my shoulder to read aloud. “‘Capital city of Antigua.’ You mean that’s supposed to be a message?”
“Let’s see.” Back to the atlas I went. “The capital city of Antigua is St. John. Is there anybody named St. John in that address book?”
Staples, obviously unsure whether I was a genius or a lunatic, leafed through the address book, ran his finger down a column, and gave me a slow smile. “How about Jack St. Pierre?”
“That’s your man,” I said. “It’s up to you to prove it, but he’s the guy to concentrate on.”
FIVE
The Footprints in the Snow
Staples drove me home, and on the way we discussed the murder that had first brought us together. All of Laura’s male friends and acquaintances had been interviewed by now, several had been eliminated via unassailable alibis, and the active list had been reduced to five; not including, I was happy to see, Laura’s father.
But farther reduction from five was proving difficult, if not impossible. No one of the suspects was more or less likely to be the elusive secret boyfriend, none would admit to any but the most casual relationship with Laura, and unfortunately this victim had not left behind a clue to the boyfriend’s identity. (Using Ailburg as an example, Laura might have been found, for instance, clutching a publicity still of Cary Grant. Or Harry Carey. Or perhaps a tattered paperback copy of Herself Surprised.)
In any event, the investigation was currently at a standstill. “But that doesn’t mean we’ve given up,” Staples assured me. “Whenever you’ve got a good-looking career girl murdered, there’s always a lot of media pressure to keep the case alive. Channel Five won’t even mention Bart Ailburg, but they still talk about Laura Penney on the news every night.”
“From my point of view, of course,” I said, “I’m glad to hear that. That’s one killer I really want found.”
“Well, I told you our five suspects,” he said, and reeled off the names again. (There’s no point my giving the list; the killer’s name wasn’t on it.) “If you could come up with another of your brilliant deductions,” Staples told me, “we could really use it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Shortly thereafter he dropped me at my apartment, and went on to pick up Al Bray and go question Jack St. Pierre. It was still daylight, though rapidly growing dark with heavy clouds and the threat of impending snow, and no one was lurking for me in the vestibule. I let myself into the building, climbed the stairs, unlocked my apartment door, and entered to find Edgarson sitting in my leather director’s chair, reading this afternoon’s Post. “Well, there you are,” he said, folded his paper, and got to his feet.
I went down the steps three at a time, out the front door, and directly into a passing cab.
* * *
I spent the night at Kit’s place on East 19th Street. We awoke late—it was Saturday, so Kit didn’t have to work—and found that the promised snowstorm had indeed arrived, creating a cold slushy world of difficulty and discomfort. Fat white flakes were still drifting endlessly downward from a dirty gray sky, the radio weather forecast spoke of “gradual clearing”—by April, probably—and Kit had decided she had the flu.
Which created an additional complication. Like most independent people, minor illness made Kit bad-tempered, and I soon realized she wanted me the hell out of there so she could snuffle in peace.
But where would I go? Was Edgarson still in my apartment? I dialed my number, but only heard my own confident voice on the machine. I left me no message.
Then I remembered Big John Brant, the movie director. He was in town, and I was supposed to phone him this morning about our interview. So I called the Sherry-Netherland, and soon had Brant on the line sounding gruff but friendly. I identified myself, and reminded him of the interview, and he said, “Well, what about right now?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m downtown.”
“Then come uptown,” he said, and chuckled, and broke the connection.
I pocketed half a dozen of Kit’s Valiums, my own supply being in captured territory. “Get well soon,” I told Kit, and kissed her irritable cold cheek, and went out into the disgusting world.
* * *
Q: “In your film, Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow, what is the symbolism of the repeated appearance of the small black dog in the background of so many of the shots?”
A: “Oh, yeah, that damn dog. Well, I’ll tell you, that’s a funny story. That was Sassi’s dog, you know. Wha’d she call that damn thing? Rudolph, that was it. Anyway, that was her third—no, second—her second feature with American Artists. She was shacked up with Kleinberg then, you know, so he’d give her anything she wanted. She wasn’t even supposed to be in that picture, only Kate said she wouldn’t work for Kleinberg for any amount of money, and Kleinberg left the script around in the bathroom or some damn place, and Sassi read it and said, I wanna do that picture. So we were stuck with her. And she had this shitty little dog, Rudolph, and that dog wasn’t trained at all. Run around, you couldn’t control it, and finally I just said shit, I said, let the damn little thing stay in there, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Just so it doesn’t get in the airplane sequence, that’s all, and you know, it damn near did. Just about the end of the picture, the shitty little thing got itself run over by an Oregon state trooper. Sassi tried to get the fellow fired, but Kleinberg didn’t run Oregon, so that was that.”
The interview was not going at all well. I suppose it was mostly my fault, since I was distracted by the problem of Edgarson, but Big John Brant wasn’t helping very much. No matter what I asked him, from the broadest possible questions about thematic undercurrents to the narrowest points of technique, all I got back were these rambling reminiscences about nothing in particular. Scatology and gossip seemed to be his only subjects.
And I’d spent sixty dollars on a cassette recorder to preserve this tripe. It wasn’t until after I’d left Kit’s place that I’d realized I was carrying none of my normal interviewing tools, so when I’d reached midtown I’d bought a pen and a pad and this cheap little recorder, and all I was recording so far was sex and shit.
Nevertheless, it’s my own conviction that a bad interview is never really the interviewee’s fault. The
re are two participants in an interview, but only one of them is supposed to be professional. I’ve interviewed actors with an IQ of seven and managed to make them sound at least competent, if not brilliant. It was the Edgarson business that was clouding my mind, with the result that I was permitting Brant to maunder along with virtually no guidance at all.
The setting also encouraged this feckless informality. Brant had a high-floor suite here at the Sherry-Netherland, with windows overlooking Central Park and the Plaza, where the still-falling snow made the world look like a Currier & Ives Christmas card that had inadvertently gone through the washing machine. A tall and slender and mind-crunchingly beautiful girl came into the room from time to time to add another couple of logs to the fire. Brant and I both sipped bourbon over ice as we sat before the crackling flames, and the contrast between this warm beautiful room and the cold snowy aspect of Central Park almost demanded a discursive droning conversational style, in which nothing could get accomplished.
Brant, too, was a problem. An old man now, with liver spots on hands and forehead, with great knobby knuckles and wrists, with that old man’s style of sitting as though he were a sack of rusty machine parts, his best work was behind him and he no longer kept his brain tuned to the sharp clarity that had given the world such films as Meet The Gobs, All These Forgotten and Caper. He was garrulous and relaxed and perfectly content to bend a young stranger’s ear for an hour or so while the snow fell outside and the beautiful girl performed her function of keeping his old body warm.
But something had to be done, if any useful material at all were to come out of this meeting, so finally, after the memoir of the dog Rudolph, I decided my only choice, since Edgarson persisted in distracting me from my job, was bring him into the interview. Maybe he would help us get moving in a more useful direction.
Q: “I’d like to ask you now a more or less specific question of technique, based on a film other than one of yours.”
A: “Somebody else’s picture?”
Q: “Yes. This is a work in progress being done by a young filmmaker here in New York. I’ve seen the completed portion, and I’d like to ask you how you would handle the problem this young filmmaker has set for himself.”
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