A Killing in Comics (8 page)

I drew a deep breath and rolled my eyes. “Well, I wish you good luck and lots of patience. How many interviews does that bode?”

Chandler shrugged. “Eight Waldorf employees. Not so bad. But we have sixty-two at the party, and twenty-seven at Americana, and five at Harrison’s home.”

“Lucky you. You say, Harrison’s diabetes was well known by friends and associates?”

His brow tightened. “I wouldn’t say ‘well known’—you were in his life, to some extent anyway, Jack, and you weren’t aware . . . . Speaking of which, see if your stepmother knew about the condition, would you?”

“Glad to. But the people in Donny’s daily life were all cognizant of his medical problem?”

“Yes.”

“Hell, a Waldorf staffer wouldn’t be.”

“No, Jack, but someone who
was
could have hired one of them to do it.”

“A catered poisoning?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

I smirked. “Yeah, this is New York. Stranger things have probably happened since we sat down here. But where do I come in?”

He jabbed a forefinger my way. “You were the first to get to the body. You turned him over. Can you think of anything significant you might have noticed?”

“Yeah,” I said, shifting in my chair, “I noticed the sweaty slob had a big significant knife in his heart. I’m a trained investigator myself, Captain. I wasn’t about to miss that.”

He grunted a small laugh. “Okay, smart-ass comedy aside . . . was there anything unusual?”

How was I supposed to avoid smart-ass comedy when this captain of homicide was asking me if there was anything unusual about a fat guy in a Wonder Guy costume with a cake knife in his chest?

“Well, there were no famous last words.” I turned my hands palms up. “The guy was dead. Knife or poison, he was blue in the face and smiling up at God. Let’s just hope nobody upstairs ever had a look at the Americana ledgers.”

An eyebrow rose. “Speaking of which . . . among the guests were Harold Spiegel and Morris Shulman.”

The hairs at the back of my neck did a tingly little dance. “They’re the creators of Americana’s top property. Why shouldn’t they be there?”

He let out a short expulsion of air that was a sort of laugh. “Jack, I’ve been on this case exactly one morning . . . it’s only been a
case
exactly one morning . . . and yet I already know that there’s incredible animosity between Spiegel and Shulman and their late, I would guess, unlamented publisher.”

I gave him a one-shoulder shrug. “Donny made a lot of friends. He was a guy who thought it was appropriate to throw himself a birthday party at his mistress’s place and then invite the wife. Real prince of a guy. Prince as in the name of a dog, as in real son of a bitch.”

“So you’re saying Mrs. Harrison did it?”

“I’m not saying anything! I’m saying of the going-on one hundred names on the list of people you need to interview, probably half of them had a reason, if not a full-fledged motive, to push Donny off a high building and see if his Wonder Guy outfit could help him fly.”

He inhaled. He exhaled. “I’ve already been told by four reliable sources that Harry Spiegel is an excitable, resentful little man.”

“If you’d created
Wonder Guy
, and got half of one hundred thirty dollars for your trouble, wouldn’t you be?”

“So you consider him, and his partner Shulman, credible suspects?”

“Harry Spiegel is an irritating, sweet little Jewish fourteen-year-old from Des Moines, Iowa, who never grew up. He is about as dangerous as a gumdrop. His partner is a quiet, unassuming, half-blind character who would give a mouse the cheese and toss the trap in the garbage. Get a grip, Captain.”

His eyes were locked on mine. “You said it yourself—you were a cop, Jack. Trained investigator. Who do
you
like for the murder?”

I shoved back in the chair and it screamed a little on the wooden floor. Got to my feet, stuck my hat on my head and said, “Nice meeting you, Captain. We simply must get together again soon to swap old war stories.”

He rose. “If I need to contact you . . .”

I got my billfold out of my hip pocket and found him a business card. “The top number is my office, the second one is my apartment. . . . If you want to buy nude photos of my stepmother, give me a ring.”

He gave me one more smile, but you know what? This one looked forced.

 
 
Around quarter to four, I was back at the Starr Building, where Bryce informed me that Maggie was in the gym and that I was to join her there.

“Should I change into my gym shorts?”

Bryce’s white teeth blossomed in the midst of the dark beard. “That’s optional.”

I laughed and said, “Shut up,” and went through Maggie’s office on into the gym, which was an even larger room, though a wall of mirrors along the left wall, cut by a ballet bar, exaggerated that.

Much of the floor was covered by tumbling mats, and an impressive array of the latest exercise equipment lined the wall opposite the mirror—a rowing machine, a stationary bicycle, a pulley with weights and (her latest addition) a treadmill—apparently riding on a bike to nowhere wasn’t enough: she had to be able to walk nowhere, just as fast.

Some of these gizmos weren’t even in the big-time commercial gyms yet: Maggie had charmed herself onto the testing lists of several top manufacturers. That treadmill had been developed in medical research, for instance.

Beyond the gym was a small sauna and two small dressing rooms with separate showers, one for her and one for me, since she generously made the gym available to her lowly stepson. Proof of this was over in the far right corner, a hanging punching bag that I pretended kept me in shape but in reality just helped vent my frustrations.

When I entered, Maggie—in black leotards that revealed a curvaceous figure most women would have killed for, rather than turned reclusive over—was on a slant board doing sit-ups.

I sat on the nearby bike, not pedaling, and waited for her to take a break. I don’t know how many sit-ups she did before I got there, but I counted twenty-seven before she rolled off, grabbed a towel, patted down her face and said to me, “Well?”

I gave her a full rundown on what Captain Chandler had asked, and what I had answered—not word for word, but my memory is one of the most reliable things about me. She jumped rope through most of it and I was exhausted by the time she and I had finished.

“Take a break, why don’t you?” I said. “You’re killing me.”

“Sissy,” she said, and went over to a thermos and poured herself some ice water. “Want a sip?”

“No. Let’s sit down, though.”

A bench on the back wall, between the doors to the men’s and women’s dressing rooms, was our only option other than the floor. She sat with her hands on her knees and breathed deeply, but honestly she didn’t seem winded or anything.

“So how’s the weight?”

“One thirty-two,” she said. “Miles to go before I sleep.”

“Well, just the same, you need to come out of hibernation. Donny’s funeral is tomorrow, you know. You should be there.”

She shook her head and the red curls flicked sweat on me. “
You
can represent the company.”

“Like hell.” I took the towel from her and wiped her sweat off me.

“That’s what vice presidents do, Jack: attend funerals.”

“Swell. What else do vice presidents do?”

Her head swiveled and the green eyes fixed on me, unblinkingly; that pale, lightly freckled face of hers was intimidating in its beauty, and she hadn’t a speck of makeup on. She looked young. About twelve.

But she sounded eternal as she asked, “What do
you
think a vice president in your situation should do?”

I took a deep breath. I looked anywhere but at her. I let the breath out.

“I’m afraid,” I said, “a vice president in my situation ought to look into this goddamned murder.”

“Why?” Nothing accusatory or argumentative—just
why
.

I shook my head wearily. “Chandler is looking hard at Harry Spiegel and Moe Shulman. If the boys did this, we ought to know about it as soon as possible, before we sign a new contract with them on that new strip. And if they didn’t do this, we ought to help ’em out of this jam.”

“That’s noble.”

“You know me, Maggie. Nobility is my middle name.”

“Your middle name is Thomas. And I suspect ‘Doubting’ is squeezed in after the John . . .
But
—I agree with you.”

Now I looked at her, only she was studying the matted floor. “Really,” I said. “What in the hell’s got into you, agreeing with me?”

“It’s not nobility. The Starr Syndicate is in a spot. Two of our top talents are key murder suspects—if they did it, we have a publicity nightmare, at least a temporary one.”

I snorted a laugh. “Not that temporary. Months. Well into next year. A trial and, God help us, executions. ‘Wonder Guys Go to the Chair.’ How many papers do you think the strip will be in after that?”

She sighed. “I could use a smoke.”

“I thought you quit.”

“I did. I don’t want one. I could just use one.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you ever want a drink?”

“No more often than you want a smoke. Maggie, did you know Donny was diabetic?”

“Sure.”

“. . . I hate it when I’m the last to know.”

The green eyes locked onto me again. “Jack, if the boys didn’t do it, but are arrested, and sit in stir for weeks and maybe months, they’ll look guilty enough for papers all over America to drop the
Wonder Guy
strip like a bad habit.”

“Like smoking?”

“Not to mention, the longer this drags on, with all its connections to us—Americana and their employees and Rod Krane and that goofy guy writing
Amazonia
, and maybe the mob connections getting dredged up—we’ll be the focus of ridicule and criticism and, well, nothing good.”

“I agree,” I said.

She frowned so hard a small crease revealed itself between her eyes. “What do you think of Chandler?”

“He seems fairly sharp. There’s a lot that the Homicide Bureau and the New York City police department can accomplish that I can’t—including interview all damn-near one hundred pertinent people . . . suspects and witnesses and what have you. And it’s not like I have pathologists at my fingertips.”

She put a hand on my shoulder; she rarely touched me, so I knew this was a big deal. “Maybe so, Jack, but you know the key players . . . and you know most of them personally, and can ask questions and get at things and places that the police can’t.”

“I agree with that, too. I think I see where you’re going.”

She stood, let out a deep breath, and walked to the rowing machine and climbed in. I followed along.

As she rowed, she said, “If . . . you . . . can . . . solve . . . this . . . thing . . .
fast
. . .”

“That would minimize the publicity damage,” I said. “Even if Harry and/or Moe did do this thing . . . but, come on, Maggie—you can’t really believe there’s a chance either one of those tortured but gentle souls is capable of murder.”

“There . . . must . . . be . . . one . . . other . . . thing . . .
I
. . . know . . . that . . .
you
. . . don’t . . .”

“Such as?”

She stopped rowing and reached for her towel. She actually had worked up a sweat and gulped for wind a short while before answering.

“Such as Moe Shulman is a diabetic, too,” she said. “Why the hell do you think he’s going blind?”

CHAPTER FOUR WILL YOU RESPECT ME IN THE MOURNING?

Late that same afternoon, I passed through the mosaic-tiled foyer of the Waldorf and up the stairs into the lobby and past its imposing marble columns and formidable bronze lamps. On my way, mingling with the well-dressed mob as though I belonged, I glimpsed in at the elegant blue-and-white Wedgewood Room, from which emanated string-quartet supper music (“Laura,” at the moment) that provided an inoffensively melodic counterpoint to the percussive hum of the bustling hotel.

What really caught my attention, however, were a couple of overstuffed goons in overstuffed chairs between potted plants with more personality and intelligence than either chair occupant. A pockmarked, putty-faced guy in a green fedora, brown tie with blue amoeba blobs, and double-breasted brown suit—whose jacket was even more oversize than its owner, to disguise the rod under his arm—was reading
Variety
; maybe that rumored Damon Runyon musical was casting. This specimen I’d never seen before, but the ferret-faced character beside him, in a white fedora and floral tie and cream-color summer suit whose underarm jacket bulge was undisguised, I knew just enough to wish I didn’t.

Legs crossed to show off the black socks that clashed with his white shoes, Big Jim—an oddity whose skinny face belied his full-back’s form—was reading
The Racing News
. I knew him a little—he was Frank Calabria’s number one bagman.