Kiss Your Elbow (9 page)

T
HE REHEARSAL THAT NIGHT
was very elegant and I felt terribly, terribly.

Frobisher's Sutton Place apartment was a duplex and the two-storey living room seemed almost as big as the Lyceum stage. Greg had already pulled the furniture around to make the set. The room was all very
Town and Country,
gray-green walls and lots of heavy goldish drapes. The original of the Birnbaum cartoon of Frobisher from the
New Yorker
profile was keeping company on the walls with two Degas and a Lautrec. The cartoon was an uncanny likeness with just a few wirelike lines—the naked-face look with no eyebrows. I should think Birnbaum would be very pleased if he knew.

One end of the room had a terrace overlooking the East River and when they weren't on, most of the cast spent the evening standing out there. It should have been chilly in February, but with the big glass doors open, enough heat came out so that it was as warm as the living room. Little tugs glided by and the great bridge loomed and winked its lights. The Sunshine Biscuit sign was even pretty. Maggie and I, who were
out there first, played a little game—seeing how many of the cast within a count of ten after they stepped on the terrace
didn't
say when they saw the view, “Why it looks just like a backdrop.”

Not one of them missed.

The living room itself had a “done” look as though some scene designer like Jones or Chaney was responsible for it. Maybe this was some of Jenny's fine Italian hand. Effective and comfortable, but you had a feeling that if you went through one of the doors and turned around, the wall would be plain canvas flats with lashed-together wooden battens on the back.

After rehearsal, a butler straight from Lonsdale appeared with drinks and we all sat around for an hour and gossiped about the funeral, other plays, performances and people. It was extremely pleasant. Frobisher was a good host and Miss Randall was amusing about Hollywood and everyone was in a glow of well-being when we got ready to leave. Maggie left with Miss Randall, who would share her cab as far as the Gotham where she was stopping. I told them to go on. I was going to take the subway to the Village. I had left my coat and hat on an enormous flat-topped desk that took up one corner of the living room and I went to pick it up. It was certainly an impressive desk. Hollywood couldn't do much better. Lots of tooled leather things, blotters and penholders and a matching leather frame of a photograph. I picked up the photograph and looked at it. It was of a woman, hair parted in the middle and
drawn severely back over the ears, dark shining eyes in a strong face.

“My wife,” said a voice over my shoulder. I turned and Mr. Frobisher himself was standing beside me, smiling at me.

“She's very lovely. I think I must have seen her on the stage.”

“No. My wife was never on the stage.”

“Really? But I'm sure I've seen her somewhere.”

“I think that's hardly possible. She died thirty years ago in California.”

“I'm sorry, sir, I didn't know.” Mr. Frobisher took the photograph from me and stared at it for a few moments then put it gently back on the desk. The breeze from the open terrace windows ruffled some papers while I was putting on my coat and Mr. Frobisher set a gold paper weight on top of them. I was struck by the curious design. “Do you mind if I look at that, sir?”

“Not at all.” He handed it to me. Wrought in gold and exact in every detail was a miniature stage door. Accurate even to the electric light hooking out at the top. On the base was inscribed: “To Henry Frobisher in grateful appreciation—The Stage Door Canteen.”

“I know it's a little late, sir, but I'd like to add my appreciation for what you did with the Canteen. It was a wonderful thing.”

“That's very kind of you, Tim. I'm grateful you feel that way.”

“And I can't tell you, sir, how sorry I was when I heard you lost your son.” It didn't seem possible that
pain could surge into a face so quickly. I could have kicked myself for opening my big mouth. Christ. Will I ever learn? But no. I have to be the one to rub it in. I have to put in my two cents' worth. I have to stand in front of him with all my arms and legs and tell him what a pity it was that his son got blown to bits in Normandy. I might just as well have kicked him in the teeth and been done with it.

I clumsily tried to apologize, but I don't think he even knew when I left. He just stood there, staring at his dead wife's picture.

 

It was a little after eleven when I, thoroughly ashamed of myself, unlocked the door to the Casbah.

There was a message from Kendall in my box to be sure and drop in and see him when I got home. Jan wasn't at his usual post on the stairs. Helga must be taking a night off to catch up on her beauty sleep. I climbed the three flights to my room and then decided to see Kendall first. I wasn't particularly sleepy and wanted someone to talk to, and also to chew him out for his disgraceful drunken episode this afternoon.

His room is on the same floor and just around the corner from mine. I knocked, but there wasn't any answer. I tried the door. It was open, and when I stuck my head in the light was on but the room was empty. Oh, well, he'd probably forgotten all about his note to me and was out trying to promote another drink. Evidently it had been a fairly profitable night in the radio business. His bed had two or three cartons of soap and
some breakfast foods on it. I closed the door and walked around the corner to my own room. While I was putting the key in the lock, the door swung partway open. It made me mad, for I distinctly remembered locking it when I left that morning. But something was against it. I shoved it harder and forced it open. I switched on the lights and looked to see what had been holding the door. I took one look and just made the bathroom.

Sprawled on the floor, lying on his back, was a man's body. A shiny pool of blood was seeping under his head. His eyes were closed, but his face was mottled red like a bad birthmark, almost as though he had spilled ketchup on it. Near one of his outflung hands was a brown bottle with a bright yellow label and in spite of the bile still in my nose my room smelled like a subway toilet.

The body belonged to Kendall Thayer.

Y
OU'D THINK BY THIS
time I would be used to opening doors and finding bodies, but maybe it's something you never get used to, like opening night. The smell was the main thing that got me and as I knelt down to take Kendall's pulse I saw the odor was caused by what had been in the brown bottle—Lysol. There was a faint pulse.

What I did from then on is still rather vague. I must have yelled or pounded on the door, for a lot of people, including Helga, who was wearing a mud pack and curlers, came running. All the denizens of the Casbah must have heard me. Almost immediately the hall was filled with craning people and a great deal of shoving about. I don't know yet who sent for the ambulance and the police. Helga must have done it as soon as she looked in and saw that face. She pushed the rest of them away and shut my door. I managed to pull myself together and between us we picked Kendall up and put him on my bed. I loosened his collar and Helga got a towel and some water from the bathroom and bathed his face. The blotches had been caused by the Lysol. It was all over his face and neck and the skin was red and raw.
Mercifully, Kendall was still unconscious. He came to just before the ambulance arrived. I was reading the label on the Lysol bottle trying to find out what you did for the burns, when he started to move. He tried to claw at his face, but Helga and I held his hands down. He started thrashing his body back and forth and moaned. I couldn't make out at first what he was saying, but it got louder and louder.

“My eyes. Oh God, my eyes. My eyes.” He was screaming when the doctor pounded on the door. I opened it and led him in. There was also a medic with a stretcher and a couple of policemen shooing away the crowd. The doctor took one look at Kendall and without a word opened his bag and gave him an injection. The few minutes we waited for the dope to take effect, all three of us had to hold Kendall down to keep him from clawing out his eyes and throwing himself off the bed. His eyes were open and had a milky look, like cataracts.

Gradually he quieted down and soon he was lying still, his breath whistling through his swollen lips. The doctor called in the medic and they started spreading some stuff on Kendall's face. I felt I was going to be sick again so I opened the window and leaned out, sucking in fresh air. After a while I felt that maybe I was all right and pulled my head back in the room. They had loaded him on the stretcher and were carrying him out the door. A policeman was talking to Helga. With her curlers shaking and the mud on her face already starting to crack, she looked like a badly made-up alien. The cop had a notebook and was taking down her name and
story. When I heard his voice I was surprised that it wasn't Irish. It should have been with his red face and hamlike hands wrestling with the pencil. He looked very tired and his mouth was small and pursy. His voice had a whine in it.

“Someone pound on my door and say come quick something happened to Mr. Thayer in Mr. Briscoe's room,” Helga was saying. “So I come quick.”

The cop looked at me. “You Mr. Briscoe?”

I said I was. He asked for my full name and I gave it to him. I caught myself almost giving him my rank and army serial number, too.

“Well, go on, Mrs. Sorenson.” He glanced at his book for the last name. “Then what did you do?”

“I come running up here. I was in bed already. There was poor Mr. Thayer lying on the floor. We picked him up and put him on the bed and I told another tenant to call police and ambulance.” It seemed to me that the policeman ought to begin with me if he was going to question people. After all, it was my room and I had found Kendall, but it seemed to be one person at a time. “He had that Lysol stuff all over his face and I got some water and tried to wipe it off. I hope it was the right thing. And then they come and take him away.”

“Has he been your tenant long, Mrs. Sorenson? This Thayer person.”

“Three…four years.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Sorenson.” He turned to me. “Now, Mr….” He consulted his book again. “Briscoe. How did you happen to find him?”

“Well,” I began. “This is my room and I unlocked the door, only it wasn't locked.”

“You unlocked the door only it wasn't locked. Now just how did you do that?” I could feel myself getting more and more angry. That seemed ridiculous quibbling to me. He must have known what I meant.

“I simply mean I put my key in to unlock it but it was already open and swung in a little way and stopped when it hit Kendall's body. I pushed it open enough to get through and turned on the lights and saw him lying there. I thought at first he was dead.”

“Why did you think he was dead?”

“I don't know, but he was so still and all, and then that smell…”

“The Lysol, you mean?”

“Yes. The bottle was lying on the floor,” I said. “I'm afraid I got sick.” He gave me an irritating smile. “When I got through being sick I came back and took his pulse and found out he was alive. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I must have yelled. Anyway, I got all those people outside the door up. Then Helga came and we did what she said and they came and took him away and that's all.”

“Any idea how it happened?”

“No. I can't understand what he was doing in my room in the first place. I remembered locking my door this morning.”

“Mr. Briscoe always keeps his door locked.” Helga nodded a grotesque agreement to my statement. “Very particular…”

“Where was he when you found him?”

I pointed out the exact place. “His head was in the bloody place there.”

“It wasn't a bad wound,” said Helga. “I bathed it, too. It was just in the back of the head. Not much blood. Almost stopped bleeding.”

“Now, how could he have got that?” The policeman looked around the room and his eyes fastened on my dresser. The dresser is about waist-high and has a plate-glass top that covers it completely. He examined the top of it very carefully and then pointed to one corner above where Kendall had been lying. “Yeah, you can see some blood there.” We looked and there was a little blood on the corner and what looked like a few bits of Kendall's hair and skin. “This man Thayer drink much?”

“All the time.” Helga was very definite about that. “All the time he drink, drink, drink. He owe me for the rent. He go hungry, but he drink.”

“Well, I guess that's enough.” The policeman put away his pencil and notebook. “The way I see it, he must have staggered and fallen against that dresser glass and spilled the open bottle of Lysol on himself when he fell.” He was very pleased with this bit of deducting.

“But what was he doing carrying an open bottle of Lysol? I keep it in the bathroom.”

“Oh, so you admit it's yours?” I said I did. “How the hell should I know what he was doing with it. Maybe he was thirsty and wanted a drink. Some of the smoke these bums drink isn't much better.”

“He wasn't a bum.” I don't know why I felt called upon to defend what good name Kendall may have had left.

“Okay, what do
you
call it?”

“He was an actor.”

“An actor, huh? What's the difference?” I let that one pass.

“How did he get in my room, then?”

“You left the door open. The cleaning woman left the door open. How in hell should I know?”

“I never did,” said Helga indignantly.

“There, you see?”

“Look, Mac. What are you trying to make out of this, a murder? The guy ain't even dead. They took him to St. Vincent's on Eleventh. I'm just trying to get enough dope for a routine report. Why don't you go ask
him
how he got in your room?” He opened the door. Some of the crowd was still hanging around out in the hall. “Okay, break it up. All over, just a little accident. Break it up.” He went on downstairs. Helga followed him. A couple of the people in the hall wanted to come into my room and hear all about it, but I told them I was sick and shut the door in their faces.

I
was
sick, too. For a minute I thought of going around to St. Vincent's and seeing Kendall and getting it all straightened out, but they had given him dope and he would probably be asleep. The best thing to do would be to run down during the lunch break tomorrow. He'd be awake then and feeling a lot better and maybe I would, too.

I mopped up the blood on the floor. The bedspread also
had blood on it. I put that in the laundry bag. I even wiped off the dresser corner where he had hit his head, then I undressed and got in bed, but I didn't sleep very well.

All night long I kept waking up, hearing Kendall screaming, “My eyes…Oh God, my eyes.” And I could see them, white in the red sockets, staring out at me in the dark.