Hidden in the shadows, he narrowed his eyes and tried to get a better look at what the burglar was making off with. As the dark figure dropped from the final rung to the wet ground, Ben caught a glimpse of Buggsy's red hair. The dummy was tucked up under the intruder's left arm.
Without pausing to contemplate what he was doing, Ben leaped forward and tackled the retreating figure around the lower legs. They both fell, skidding on the wet grass. Ben got a strong, and unexpected, whiff of a sultry floral perfume. He also, as they wrestled over the ground, realized he had tackled a woman.
Be that as it may, he grabbed for the dummy. He got a good grip on him, yanked, and succeeded in tugging him free of the masked woman. Thrusting Buggsy up under his own arm, he swung out with the flashlight in his other hand. It hit the woman in the midsection and she let go of him. He broke free and started running.
"Come back here with that!"
He kept running and made it almost to the flagstone path before he tripped. As he fell, the woman got to her knees and started shooting at him with a handgun.
When she saw the flash of the shots, H.J. sat upright, exclaimed, "Oh, my god!" and turned the key in the ignition. Releasing the brake, she stared out into the rainy night. The windshield was smeared with rain.
"Wipers," she said as she poked at various buttons to the right of the steering wheel. Nothing much happened, and the windshield wipers didn't start functioning.
"Well, screw them." She gunned Ben's car out of its space and into the street. Up ahead she saw somebody come hopping off the curb. She then remembered the headlights and found the right button on the second try.
The beams showed her Ben, with what looked to be Buggsy hugged to his chest, running toward her. Rising up out of the high grass several dozen feet behind him was a masked figure with a gun.
H.J. floored the gas pedal. Hunching low, she swung the car between Ben and the person with the gun. She hit the brake, flung the door open and yelled, "Get your ass in here, Ben!"
He dived inside as she slid clear of the driver's seat.
"We got him." Tossing the dummy in her lap, he grabbed the flapping door shut and sent the car barreling out of there. A parting shot slammed into the rear window, making a loud
thunk
ing, crackling noise and spreading cobwebby lace patterns all across the glass.
"Hell," said Ben, "how am I going to explain that to my insurance people?"
"I
feel like I'm seducing a midget," observed H.J. as she tugged off Buggsy's checkered trousers. The car was now fifteen miles dear of the actors home and no one was following them.
Ben concentrated on driving, but glanced occasionally over at the dummy resting across his ex-wife's lap. "Any sign of a secret compartment?"
She had the lit flashlight resting on the open door of the glove compartment, illuminating the dummy. "Yes, in his right leg here. A section seems to have been cutout and then glued back in. I don't suppose you've got a knife?"
"Nope, I don't. Until you came back into my life I didn't have any need for burglary tools or weapons."
"I'm not talking about a switchblade, Ben, but just a little dinky pocket knife so I can pry . . . Never mind." She commenced searching in her purse. "You're really certain that was a woman who swiped this from McAuliffe's room?"
"I am"
"Does that make sense?"
"As much as our breaking into a mortuary at midnight."
"No, I mean if this is a gang of loan sharks we're competing with, it seems odd. Do they have female loan sharks?"
"H.J., there's a lot more to this mess than Rick Dell's bad debts."
She located the nail file she'd been hunting. "We've missed the last ferry boat across, haven't we?"
"By several hours."
"Want to stay over here in a motel someplace for tonight?"
"I want to get home, so I can be at my place by early morning. Beaujack's sending me copies of the scripts I'll need for the recording session this afternoon."
"It's a long drive, going all the way around the Sound back to Connecticut. You should get some sleep if you're going to be doing your funny voices."
"Even so."
She started working on the dummy's leg with her file. "C'mon, c'mon, pry loose," she urged. "Ah, here we go."
Ben took eyes off the night highway for a few seconds and saw her prying the section off the hollow wooden leg. "What's in there?"
She set the section of leg on the seat beside her. Nose wrinkling slightly, she lifted out something small and dark between thumb and forefinger. "This is it?"
"A roll of 35 millimeter film."
"I know but . . ." She closed her fingers slowly over the roll of film. "People are getting killed. People are getting tortured. We're being shot at. All for this?"
"Must be some important photos," he said. "And that just about proves that Rick Dell was a blackmailer."
"We don't know for certain that this contains blackmail photos." She brought her hand up nearer her face, opened it and studied the spool. "This could just as well be prints of a treasure map."
"It could be the plans for a new Disneyland in Yugoslavia," he said. "But I'm betting it's incriminating photos."
She tapped the undeveloped film on her left knee. "Darn, what an anticlimax."
"The point is, H.J., we've now found what we set out to find. It hasn't led to fame and fortune, but that's the way things go. As soon as we get home to Connecticut we'll turn this over to the police. That should get the hoods off ourâ"
"Bullshit."
"Beg pardon?"
"I'm not quitting this business until I know for sure what's on this roll of film," she told him. "If it is a map or a chart, I don't want a bunch of cops digging up my doubloons."
"So you want to get the pictures developed?"
"I surely do."
"Suppose it's thirty-six shots of a couple committing adultery in a motel? Fotomat's going to frown onâ"
"We'll have to get them developed privately, schmuck," she said. "Hey, Joe Sankowitz is an amateur photographer, isn't he? He used to be when I knew him."
"Joe has his own darkroom, sure. But do you want toâ"
"We can trust him."
"That's not it. I don't know if I want to involve a friend of mine in something crooked."
"Rick may've been crooked, Ben, but we're not."
After a few seconds he replied, "Okay, we'll stop by Joe's when we get back to Brimstone."
She dropped the roll of film into her purse, deposited Buggsy on the floor. Placing a hand on Ben's arm, she sad, "Once we get a look at these pictures, I'll quit. I promise."
S
ankowitz, left eye narrowed, looked out at him through the narrow opening. "If you want to go running with me, you'll have to wait until. . . But, no. Nobody would want to run in a business suit," he said, opening his front door wider. "Especially a business suit that's apparently been worn wrestling alligators in a swamp."
Ben blinked, then yawned. "Can you do me a favor, Joe?"
"More than likely. What?"
He shifted on the shaggy welcome mat, fished the roll of film out of his coat pocket. "Can you develop this for us?"
His friend looked from the film to his face. "Is this another chapter in your adventures with H.J.?"
"She's waiting in the car."
"You may recall my warning you about taking up again with ladies known to have futzed up your life," Sankowitz reminded him. "This is only a hasty diagnosis, mind you, but I'd guess that your life has been futzed up considerably during the past few hours."
"Somebody did try to shoot me," admitted Ben.
"See?"
"But we got away safely, and we're on the last phase of this business. Once we see what these pictures turn out to be, H.J. is going to turn over everything to the police."
"Things are worse than I suspected, you're back to believing what she tells you. Remember the problems that she caused you during yourâ"
"Contact prints'll do," said Ben, yawning again. "I have to go into the city for that My Man Chumley job this afternoon, but do you think you can have them done by tonight?"
"I only have two finishes to do for
The New Yorker
and a color comp for a Westport ad agency." His friend took the film from his hand. "That's nowhere near as important as this obviously. You be home by eight?"
"I should, and if I'm not, H.J. can let you in."
"She's living with you again?"
"Just for now, because it's safer."
"I'd wish you good luck," said Sankowitz, "but I think it's too late for that."
B
en's agent had gotten him a leading role in a French farce, one of those plays where there are a half-dozen doors that are continually opening and shutting. The problem for Ben was that whenever it was his turn to open a door, a corpse would come falling into the room. They weren't farce corpses either, but realistic ones splattered with blood and gore and sporting repulsive wounds. Taking the job had obviously been a mistake and he decided to quit.
He hadn't been aware that his agent had moved her offices, but here she was doing business in the cemetery on the old Universal set. Her cluttered desk was set up in the middle of a shadowy marble tomb, the fog machines were sending thick, chilly swirls of mist all around Elsie Macklin and her filing cabinets.
Somebody nudged Ben in the back, requesting him to hurry up and pay his last respects to the deceased.
He didn't especially feel like walking up to look into the open coffin, but he knew he'd be embarrassed if he didn't and he'd also disappoint the dozens of mourners who were lined up impatiently behind him. He stepped forward.
"Jesus, you weren't supposed to be home this early." H.J. was lying naked in the coffin, making love to a naked red-haired midget.
"Close the damn lid, will you, buddy," requested the little man.
"I can't even trust you after you're dead, H.J."
Nope, this was definitely not the part for him. He'd have to get hold of Elsie right away to have her break the contract. Maybe if he shouted loudly enough, his agent would hear him and do something.
He started yelling.
"Easy now, Ben."
"Anyway, farce isn't my strong. . . Hum?" He awoke to find his former wife, wearing a faded grey sweatshirt and jeans, sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Do you have nightmares often these days?"
"First one in three years." He sat up, shaking his head.
"You okay?" She put her hand against his forehead.
"Nothing more than a touch of black water fever, old girl," he replied in his Nigel Bruce voice. "No, I'm fine. What time is it?"
"Almost eleven, which is why I popped in to wake you. If you're going to catch the 12:33 from Westport, you'd better start getting ready."
He swung out of bed, then remembered he'd been sleeping in his shorts. "Oops, excuse me."
"I'm family, more or less."
Shrugging, he headed into the bathroom off his master bedroom. "Modern science tells us man can get by with four hours sleep."
"I apologize again for keeping you out all night, Ben," she said. "But I wasn't, you know, anticipating all the complications we ran into over there."
As he plugged in his electric razor; he studied his face in the mirror. "Gosh, I seem to have turned into Spanky McFarland overnight," he said. "I'll join you for coffee in the kitchen in a few minutes, H.J."
She came over to lean in the open doorway. "I do appreciate all the help you've been."
"It's okay, the new stresses you've brought into my dull routine will no doubt make a better person of me."
"But seriously." Leaning in, she kissed him on the cheek.
I
t was a pleasant spring afternoon and Ben didn't encounter anyone he knew on the train platform at Westport. The 12:33 pulled in at 12:31 and he got a window seat by himself. After opening the bottle of passion fruit-pineapple juice he'd bought at the small store across from the station, he took the three My Man Chumley scripts out of his attaché case. Sipping the juice, he read over the scripts again. He was set to play, according to Les Beaujack's cover letter, the part of the First Muffin. A character described as "self-confident Cockney who's justifiably proud of being part of My Man Chumley's New $1.99 Kipper 'N' Muffin Bargain Breakfast."
Using his closed case as a lap table, Ben started marking his scripts with a red Pentel. He underlined all the speeches of the First Muffin. Then, trying out various voices and reading in a faint murmur, he checked the important words in each line of dialogue. The First Muffin carried on conversations with the Second Muffin, a snooty type, rejected by Chumley for lacking crispness, crunchiness and Honest-To-Blighty flavor.
Ben tried his Stanley Holloway voice, then blended in a touch of Roland Young.