Expanded Universe (23 page)

Run, do not walk, to the nearest Western Union, and telegraph your congressman to get off the dime and get on with the difficult business of forming an honest-to-goodness world union, with no jokers about Big Five vetoes or national armaments . . . to get on with it promptly, while there is still time, before Washington, D.C., is reduced to radioactive dust—and he with it, poor devil!

While I was failing at World-Saving, I was beginning to achieve my second objective: to spread out, not limit myself to pulp science fiction. "They Do It With Mirrors" was my first attempt in the crime-mystery field, and from it I learned three things: a) whodunits are fairly easy to write and easy to sell; b) I was no threat to Raymond Chandler or Rex Stout as the genre didn't interest me that much; and c) Crime Does Not Pay—Enough (the motto of the Mystery Writers of America).
It may amuse you to know that this story was considered to be (in 1945) too risqué; the magazine editor laundered it before publication. You are seeing the original "dirty" version; try to find in it anything at all that could bring a blush to the cheek of your maiden aunt.
In late 1945 this magic mirror existed in a bar at (as I recall) the corner of Hollywood and Gower Gulch; the rest is fiction. 
 

I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.

I climbed on a stool at the end of the bar in Jack Joy's Joint and spoke to Jack himself, who was busy setting up two old-fashioneds. "Make it three," I said. "No, make it four and have one with me. What's the pitch, Jack? I hear you set up a peep show for the suckers."

"Hi, Ed. Nope, it's not a peep show—it's Art."

"What's the difference?"

"If they hold still, it's Art. If they wiggle around, it's illegal. That's the ruling. Here." He handed me a program.

It read:

THE JOY CLUB
PRESENTS
The Magic Mirror
 

Beautiful Models in a series of Entertaining
and Artistic Pageants

10 p.m. "Aphrodite" — Estelle
11 p.m. "Sacrifice to the Sun" — Estelle and Hazel
12 p.m. "The High Priestess" — Hazel
1 a.m. "The Altar Victim" — Estelle
2 a.m. "Invocation to Pan" — Estelle and Hazel

(Guests are requested to refrain stomping, whistling, or otherwise disturbing the artistic serenity of the presentations)

The last was a giggle. Jack's place was strictly a joint. But on the other side of the program I saw a new schedule of prices which informed me that the drink in my hand was going to cost me just twice what I had figured. And the place was jammed. By suckers—including me.

I was about to speak to Jack, in a kindly way, promising to keep my eyes closed during the show and then pay the old price for my drink, when I heard two sharp
beeps!
—a high tension buzzer sound, like radio code—from a spot back of the bar. Jack turned away from me, explaining, "That's the eleven o'clock show." He busied himself underneath the bar.

Being at the end of the bar I could see under the long side somewhat. He had enough electrical gear there to make a happy Christmas for a Boy Scout—switches, a rheostat dingus, a turntable for recordings, and a hand microphone. I leaned over and sized it up. I have a weakness for gadgets, from my old man. He named me Thomas Alva Edison Hill in hopes that I would emulate his idol. I disappointed him—I didn't invent the atom bomb, but I do sometimes try to repair my own typewriter.

Jack flipped a switch and picked up the hand mike. His voice came out of the juke box: "We now present the Magic Mirror." Then the turntable picked up with
Hymn to the Sun
from
Coq d'Or,
and he started turning the rheostat slowly.

The lights went down in the joint and came up slowly in the Magic Mirror. The "Mirror" was actually a sheet of glass about ten feet wide and eight high which shut off a little balcony stage. When the house lights were on bright and the stage was dark, you could not see through the glass at all; it looked like a mirror. As the house lights went out and the stage lights came on, you could see through the glass and a picture slowly built up in the "Mirror."

Jack had a single bright light under the bar which lighted him and the controls and which did not go out with the house lights. Because of my position at the end of the bar it hit me square in the eye. I had to block it with my hand to see the stage.

It was something to see.

Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. A sort of altar or table, with the blonde sprawled across it, volup'. The brunette standing at the end of the altar, grabbing the blonde by the hair with one hand while holding a fancy dagger upraised with the other. There was a backdrop in gold and dark blue—a sunburst in a phony Aztec or Egyptian design, but nobody was looking at it; they were looking at the girls.

The brunette was wearing a high show-girl head dress, silver sandals, and a G-string in glass jewels. Nothing more. No sign of a brassiere. The blonde was naked as an oyster, with her downstage knee drawn up just enough to get past sufficiently broad-minded censors.

But I was not looking at the naked blonde; I was looking at the brunette.

It was not just the two fine upstanding breasts nor the long graceful legs nor the shape of her hips and thighs; it was the overall effect. She was so beautiful it hurt. I heard somebody say, "Great jumping jeepers!" and was about to shush him when I realized it was me.

Then the lights went down and I remembered to breathe.

I paid the clip price for my drink without a quiver and Jack assured me: "They are hostesses between shows." When they showed up at the stairway leading down from the balcony he signalled them to come over and then introduced me.

"Hazel Dorn, Estelle d'Arcy—meet Eddie Hill."

Hazel, the brunette, said, "How do you do?" but the blonde said,

"Oh, I've met the Ghost before. How's business? Rattled any chains lately?"

I said, "Good enough," and let it pass. I knew her all right—but as Audrey Johnson, not as Estelle d'Arcy. She had been a steno at the City Hall when I was doing an autobiography of the Chief of Police. I had not liked her much; she had an instinct for finding a sore point and picking at it.

I am not ashamed of being a ghost writer, nor is it a secret. You will find my name on the title page of
Forty Years a Cop
as well as the name of the Chief—in small print but it is there: "with Edison Hill."

"How did you like the show?" Hazel asked, when I had ordered a round.

"I liked
you,
" I said, softly enough to keep it private. "I can't wait for the next show to see more of you."

"You'll see more," she admitted and changed the subject. I gathered an impression that she was proud of her figure and liked to be told she was beautiful but was not entirely callused about exhibiting it in public.

Estelle leaned across the bar to Jack. "Jackie Boy," she said in sweetly reasonable tones, "you held the lights too long again. It doesn't matter to me in that pose, but you had poor old Hazel trembling like a leaf before you doused the glim."

Jack set a three-minute egg timer, like a little hourglass on the bar. "Three minutes it says—three minutes you did."

"I don't think it was more than three minutes," Hazel objected. "I wasn't tired."

"You were trembling, dear. I saw you. You mustn't tire yourself—it makes lines. Anyhow," she added, "I'll just keep this," and she put the egg timer in her purse. "We'll time it ourselves."

"It was three minutes," Jack insisted.

"Never mind," she answered. "From now on it'll be three minutes, or mamma will have to lock Jackie in the dark closet."

Jack started to answer, thought better of it, then walked away to the other end of the bar. Estelle shrugged, then threw down the rest of her drink and left us. I saw her speak to Jack again, then join some customers at one of the tables.

Hazel looked at her as she walked away. "I'd paddle that chippie's pants," she muttered, "if she wore any."

"A bum beef?"

"Not exactly. Maybe Jack is a friend of yours—"

"Just an acquaintance."

"Well . . . I've had worse bosses—but he is a bit of a jerk. Maybe he doesn't stretch the poses just out of meanness—I've never timed him—but some of those poses are too long for three minutes. Take Estelle's Aphrodite pose—you saw it?"

"No."

"She balances on the ball of one foot, no costume at all, but with one leg raised enough to furnish a fig leaf. Jack's got a blackout switch to cover her if she breaks, but, just the same, it's a strain."

"To cover himself with the cops, you mean."

"Well, yes. Jack wants us to make it just as strong as the vice squad will stand for."

"You ought not to be in a dive like this. You ought to have a movie contract."

She laughed without mirth. "Eddie, did you ever try to get a movie contract? I've tried."

"Just the same—oh, well! But why are you sore at Estelle? What you told me doesn't seem to cover it."

"She— Skip it. She probably means well."

"You mean she shouldn't have dragged you into it?"

"Partly."

"What else?"

"Oh, nothing—look, do you think I need any wrinkle remover?" I examined her quite closely, until she actually blushed a little, then assured her that she did not.

"Thanks," she said. "Estelle evidently thinks so. She's been advising me to take care of myself lately and has been bringing me little presents of beauty preparations. I thank her for them and it appears to be sheer friendliness on her part . . . but it makes me squirm."

I nodded and changed the subject. I did not want to talk about Estelle; I wanted to talk about
her
—and me. I mentioned an agent I knew (my own) who could help her and that got her really interested, if not in me, at least in what I was saying.

Presently she glanced at the clock back of the bar and squealed. "I've got to peel for the customers. 'Bye now!" It was five minutes to twelve. I shifted from the end of the bar to the long side, just opposite Jack's Magic Mirror controls. I did not want that bright light of his interfering with me seeing Hazel.

It was just about twelve straight up when Jack came up from the rear of the joint, elbowed his other barman out of the way, and took his place near the controls. "Just about that time," he said to me. "Has she rung the buzzer?"

"Not a buzz."

"Okay, then." He cleared dirty glasses off the top of the bar while we waited, changed the platter on the turntable, and generally messed around. I kept my eyes on the mirror.

I heard the two
beeps!
sharp and clear. When he did not announce the show at once, I glanced around and saw that, while he had the mike in his hand, he was staring past it at the door, and looking considerably upset.

There were two cops just inside the door, Hannegan and Feinstein, both off the beat. I supposed he was afraid of a raid, which was silly. Pavement pounders don't pull raids. I knew what they were there for, even before Hannegan gave Jack a broad grin and waved him the okay sign—they had just slipped in for a free gander at the flesh under the excuse of watching the public morals.

"We now present the Magic Mirror," said Jack's voice out of the juke box. Somebody climbed on the stool beside me and slipped a hand under my arm. I looked around. It was Hazel.

"You're not here; you're up there," I said foolishly.

"Huh-uh. Estelle said— I'll tell you after the show."

The lights were coming up in the Mirror and the juke box was cranking out
Valse Triste.
The altar was in this scene, too, and Estelle was sprawled over it much as she had been before. As it got lighter you could see a red stain down her side and the prop dagger. Hazel had told me what each of the acts were; this was the one called "The Altar Victim," scheduled for the one o'clock show.

I was disappointed not to be seeing Hazel, but I had to admit it was good—good theater, of the nasty sort, sadism and sex combined. The red stuff—catsup I guessed—trickling down her bare side and the handle of the prop dagger sticking up as if she had been stabbed through—the customers liked it. It was a natural follow-up to the "Sacrifice to the Sun."

Hazel screamed in my ear.

Her first scream was solo. The next thing I can recall it seemed as if every woman in the place was screaming—soprano, alto, and some tenor, but mostly screeching soprano. Through it came the bull voice of Hannegan. "Keep your seats, folks! Somebody turn on the lights!"

I grabbed Hazel by the shoulders and shook her. "What's the matter? What's up?"

She looked dazed, then pointed at the Mirror. "She's dead . . . she's dead . . . she's dead!" she chanted. She scrambled down from the stool and took out for the back of the house. I started after her. The house lights came on abruptly, leaving the Mirror lights still on.

We finished one, two, three, up the stairway, through a little dressing room, and onto the stage. I almost caught up with Hazel, and Feinstein was close on my heels.

We stood there, jammed in the door, blinking at the flood lights, and not liking what we saw under them. She was dead all right. The dagger, which should have been faked between her arm and her breast with catsup spilled around to maintain the illusion—this prop dagger, this slender steel blade, was three inches closer to her breastbone than it should have been. It had been stabbed straight into her heart.

On the floor at the side of the altar away from the audience, close enough to Estelle to reach it, was the egg timer. As I looked at it the last of the sand ran out.

I caught Hazel as she fell—she was a big armful—and spread her on the couch. "Eddie," said Feinstein, "call the Station for me. Tell Hannegan not to let anyone out. I'm staying here." I called the station but did not have to tell Hannegan anything. He had them all seated again and was jollying them along. Jack was still standing back of the bar, shock on his face, and the bright light at the control board making him look like a death's head.