Laurel and Hardy Murders (15 page)

Dutchy’s thinning hair was ruffled and he was wearing an old satin robe, with grease spots on it, a relic from his old days in the ring. As I entered, he grinned at me, one hand absently flipping his protruding earlobe back and forth.

“Great score, ain’t it?” he grinned as I sat down on the picky sofa.

“It’s played slower in the picture, as I recall.”

He nodded his big head sagely. “Yeah, that’s right. But I’ll bet you don’t know where it first appeared.”

I shrugged. “I thought it was part of
The Robe
score.”

Dutchy took a big swallow of coffee. I accepted the cup of plain black instant that I told Isabel it was all right to bring me. He waggled his finger at me, lecturing me on his favorite subject: movie music.

“Newman is very derivative. Or maybe I should call him self-cannibalizing, that’s more accurate. You’ll hear the Demetrius action music, note for note, in
The Rains Came
.”

“You mean
The Rains of Ranchipur
?”

“I
mean
what I said—
The Rains Came
!
Ranchipur
was a remake, for God’s sake!”

“Your wife told me you had a reason for wanting Wayne Poe dead.”

It was an old trick, the accusing
non sequitur
in the middle of an innocent conversation, but Dutchy didn’t even sputter his coffee, the way they always do in movies.

He took a long sip, swallowed, and savored the taste. Then he gestured noncommittally. “Who didn’t want that shmuck dead?”

“What was
your
reason?”

“I wrote a script for him last year.”

I shouldn’t have goggled, but the idea of Dutchy laboring at the typewriter seemed peculiar.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, “I know how to spell and all that stuff. I slapped together a show I thought Wayne could do on Broadway.”

“And what happened?”

“He sat on it for six goddamn months. Finally I asked the maid to send it back to me. It had brown rings all over it when it came in the mail—like he had nothing better to do but use it as a placemat for his coffee cup. Eventually, I began to hear a couple of the gags from it in his club act.”

I didn’t ask him whether they’d gotten any laughs.

Dutchy drained the rest of the beverage and set the cup down. “Y’know, as far as motives are concerned, I think you could find one for practically everybody in the Sons, except maybe O. J. Look at Natie, f’rinstance.”

“Natie?”

“Well, I shouldn’t spread gossip. Never mind. Besides, I understand Natie was right in the middle of the audience when it happened.”

“How about you?”

His smile froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“I saw you sneaking upstairs on the night of the banquet...long before your wife knew you were there. What were you doing up there on the third floor?”

Dutchy glanced nervously over his shoulder in the direction of the door to the room. He crooked a finger at me and waited till I leaned close to him.

“Get out,” he whispered in my ear, “before I punch your face in.”

F
RANK BUTLER GOT BACK
Thursday afternoon. He didn’t want to talk about his troubles, but finally revealed that his brother was still in the hoosegow and his mother was “minding my business, as usual.” The thought of her in his office underwhelmed him. But he perked up when I told him the plan for that evening.

“Hot diggety! We’ll take my car! ’Bout time you learned some real detecting, boy!”

Ever since Hilary sold her Opel, I’d relied on taking cabs, or else walking. I would have shadowed Dutchy in a similar fashion, but Butler was too fat to force him to walk and he was afraid of New York cabs, said they were too dangerous.

Earlier, on the phone with O. J., I’d discovered Dutchy was picking up a good chunk of money writing gags for comics. I also learned he had an office in the West 40s which he secured rent-free so long as he did light secretarial work for the owner for part of each day. From personal recollection, as well as the remarks of his wife at the banquet, I knew Dutchy often “worked late.” That, added to the way he’d acted that morning, plus his behavior the night of Poe’s murder, totaled something that could be proven by watching him carefully for a few days.

I asked the Old Man to stay in the Packard, but he was having walnut withdrawal symptoms and had to duck into a nut shop to get a bag. Naturally, as soon as he left, Dutchy emerged from his office building.

When Butler got back in, I told him he’d lost our quarry.

“Which way’d he go?” He gunned the motor.

“Into the downtown IRT. How are you going to follow him there?”

“Leave it to the Old Man!” He put the car in gear. It lurched forward, just missing a crosstown bus. Butler maneuvered around it and then nosed north into Seventh Avenue.

I yelled. “What the hell are you doing?” I pointed to the sign. “
One way
! The other way!”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t notice,” he grinned sheepishly.

But there was no way of getting back, and he had to head up a block, dodging oncoming traffic. The cacophony of automobile horns was louder than Verdi’s Hell.

Somehow, we made it without smashing up. He started to turn the car right. The wrong way again.

“Get onto Broadway!” I ordered him. “Left!” Fortunately it was a very short distance.

When we were back in the mainstream of traffic, I wiped my forehead and asked Butler what the hell he’d been trying to do.

“Just wanted to follow the subway line along,” he explained. “We can wait at every stop and see if Dutchy gets out.”

I closed my eyes. “First of all, you were headed the wrong way. And how in hell are we going to know exactly when he gets a train? He could be ahead of us or behind and we wouldn’t be able to tell.”

“I didn’t think of that, boy,” he admitted.

“Look. Do as I tell you. Head south.”

I had a strong hunch where Dutchy might get off.

We double-parked in Sheridan Square for five minutes. Then, as I expected, Dutchy emerged and strode directly across the street to the Champagne Cellar.

“Want me to park?” Butler asked. “We can follow him right on in.”

“No. We’ll wait. I want to see who he comes out with.”

It was a long watch. A cop came along and made Butler move the car, but I got out and stood on the curb until he joined me again, this time on foot.

“I parked two blocks over at a meter. How’re we gonna follow him if he comes out now?”

“I did some phone work earlier. If O. J.’s right, I’ll bet Dutchy goes to the Firing Squad next, and that’s just up the street.”

“How do you know he’ll do that?”

“Because that’s where Sandy Sable is scheduled to perform at ten.”

Dutchy emerged half an hour later. Sure enough, the diffident comedienne was holding his arm. They walked up Bleecker and turned into an alcove between two buildings. I nodded for Butler to follow with me.

Over the recess, a narrow marquee bore no words, only a picture of Alec Guinness against a wall, blindfolded, cigarette in mouth. It was a still enlarged from the movie
The Captain’s Paradise.

We stumbled through the opening and down two unexpected steps. It was a dark, bullet-gray room, with metal tables, blindfolds for napkins and gunmetal ashtrays. The two waitresses wore lead-hued stockings and matching blouses with the actual noses of two large shells affixed over the breasts. I shuddered to think what Hilary would say if she saw me in there.

Dutchy and Sandy had a ringside table and were watching a young man do card tricks miserably on the raised step that served as a stage. Dutchy had a shot of something tawny in front of him, but Sandy only sipped coke. She was wearing a blue-and-white gingham dress that was deliberately patterned on Judy Garland’s garb in
The Wizard of Oz.
Dutchy was in a light brown business suit and theatrical dark glasses, though the place was dimly lit. He smoked a king-size cigarette in a holder and handled it in the affected manner of Von Stroheim.

There were perhaps a half-dozen other drinkers and diners in the place, a meager audience for the magician. Most of them paid him no mind.

He went on too long, as most “talk” variety acts do, and was followed by a dungaree-clad brunette with long braided hair who strummed an autoharp and wailed that her mother wouldn’t let her wed at the ripe old age of sixteen. When she was done, the small group of listeners applauded inordinately for her tiny talent.

Sandy was on next. She mounted the single step, curtsied to the group, then saw me in the back and flashed a bright smile and waved. Dutchy turned around, spotted me and Butler, and frowned. Then he gestured for us to join him at the table.

“Interesting coincidence,” he remarked as we took our seats.

“We just happened—” the Old Man began to lie, but Dutchy motioned for him to be quiet so he could hear his protégée.

For the next twenty-five minutes, I was treated to a verbatim repetition of every gag Sandy tried out on me the afternoon of the banquet at The Lambs. I was fascinated, though, by the difference in her personality from backstage to spotlight. She showed no trace of shyness as she tossed out one-liners. Her blends while we laughed were executed with the deftness of a juggler.

Her act ended with a few clever impersonations. She retired to sparse but vigorous applause. She sat down next to me and, in the flush of excitement which succeeds a successful performance, felt confident enough to pat my hand.

“Lovely of you to come see me, Jim.”

“The name’s Gene.”

“Of course it is!” She smiled. “And just because you couldn’t catch me at The Lambs! Isn’t that right?” She meant it.

Dutchy interrupted. “I think he came to see me, too, Sandy.” The ominous undertone forced her to turn. Her smile changed to an anxious look. She seemed afraid of Dutchy. Her shoulders drooped and some of her poise sloughed off.

“Okay,” Dutchy said to me, ignoring Butler, “so now you know.”

“Uh-huh. I figured you were headed upstairs to see Sandy that night. It explained why you were so nervous this morning.”

“So what are you going to do with the information?” he asked, the hint of a threat in his voice.

“Not a damn thing, Dutchy. Unless I find out that Poe and Sandy were thick, there’s no problem. I just wanted to make sure you had a legitimate reason for sneaking around at The Lambs, and also for wanting to keep it quiet.”

“What does ‘thick’ mean?” Sandy asked, sipping her Coca-Cola. “Like making it with each other?”

“That’s it, hon,” said Dutchy.

She twisted her mouth in distaste. “Imagine wanting to sleep with
him
. Ugh! He was a miserable—” and she added an adjective and noun unique in the annals of vulgarity. But she looked as sweet and vulnerable as before. I wondered where she’d ever heard such an inventive phrase.

Turning to me, she surreptitiously put her hand on my knee and told me Wayne Poe stole some of her best jokes when she was just beginning. She smiled at Dutchy, but maintained her contact on my leg. “That was before you began writing my material, angel...”

“
Ah-hah
!” Frank Butler suddenly blurted out. “So you got a motive, too, blondie!”

She looked at him, puzzled.

“What the hell are you talking about, Butler?” Dutchy snapped. “You think Sandy could hurt
anyone
?”

“Well,” she said soberly, squeezing my leg, “if I did feel like doing away with a rival, it would have certainly been Wayne! He almost cheated me out of a job last—”

“Come on,” said Dutchy, rising, “we have to get over to the Improv.”

She rose at his command. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Gene, would you like to come along?”

Much to Dutchy’s annoyance, I accepted.

On the way out, she informed me that she did three or four showcases each night, seven nights a week. I wondered whether Dutchy was supporting her, and if so, how. Most showcases pay the performers nothing.

I also got her to finish her interrupted sentence while Dutchy stood in the street hailing a cab.

“Wayne and I were competing for the same voice-over TV ad,” she explained. “He went in for his interview first, and the account executive, when he saw me, tried to suggest all sorts of lewd things. I can imagine what Wayne told him about me!”

“What happened? Who got the job?”

“I did...
after
they heard Wayne was dead.”

W
E NEVER MADE IT T
o the Improv in time.

We got into the Packard and Butler slowed to make the turn into Sixth when there was a slight jolt which threw me forward.

“You stupid clown!” Butler yelled out the window. “Who the hell ever taught you how to drive?” He pulled in his head and viciously jabbed the stick into drive.

At the next light, we were bumped again...not too hard, but certainly deliberately. Butler howled out the window twice as loud as before.

I turned around. There was a Chevy behind us. The driver wore a floppy hat pulled over his ears. His face was covered by a translucent mask, one of those bizarre contraptions that take on the skin tone of the wearer while unrecognizably altering the features.

“Old Man,” I said softly, “pull out, but drive slowly. Stop at the next light and see if he tries it again.”

He did as he was told and the car behind us slammed us once more, a little harder than before.

“I’ll fix that cruddy bum!” Butler snarled, opening his door.

“NO! STAY IN THE CAR!”

He paid no attention. Uttering a curse of my own, I scrambled out and rounded the car, hugging the side. Butler was nearing the door of the other vehicle when the driver shoved it into reverse gear and zoomed back several feet, paused...

“GET ON THE SIDEWALK!” I yelled.

We both hit the curb at the same time. I yanked Butler’s arm, pulling him farther back. The other car sped forward, then stopped and went into reverse once more.

“He was probably bumping us so we
would
get out!” I panted.

“Izzat him? I’ll fix his lights!” I thought it was a figure of speech—until the Old Man shot the glass out of one of our assailant’s headlights with his .45.

An immense cloud of white smoke choked us both.