Soap Opera Slaughters (16 page)

She was in an extreme state of agitation that seemed worse in contrast to her usual unflappability. Her was pasty white.

“What’s wrong, Micki?”

She opened her mouth to answer me, but her lips got no further than a ghastly parody of a grin. Her legs gave out and she began to slump to the floor. I ran and caught her. Easing the tiny woman down, I checked her mouth, loosened restraining clothing, monitored her pulse. She was unconscious, but otherwise seemed okay.

Stepping around her, I peeked into Ames’ office. It was a mess. The desk top was swept clean. Trophies, papers and memorabilia were scattered over the floor. Prone on the carpet, one cheek pressed against it, lay Joseph Ames. Blood trickling from a wound behind his left ear stained the rug. A few inches away, its edge smeared red, I saw the Emmy statuette Tommy Franklin had been hefting in the air earlier that afternoon.

I felt for, found an irregular pulse. As I turned, Micki stirred. I got her to a chair, made sure she wouldn’t go into another faint, then handed her the phone and suggested this time she make it an ambulance.

Nevertheless, she dialed Security. She croaked a few sentences into the instrument, then hung up and looked earnestly into my eyes.

“Gene,” Micki said, still hoarse, “I didn’t do it!”

F
OUR HOURS LATER, I
sat in the cool semigloom of Lara’s unlighted penthouse, sipping scotch and feeling sorry for myself. Which isn’t easy when you’re sampling $75-a-bottle Ballantine’s for the first time in your life.

I managed to catch Lara before she left the studio. She turned down my dinner invitation, explaining that she had an unbreakable business appointment with Abel Harrison, but promised to meet me sometime after nine at Florence’s. “Here,” she said, handing me the keys to her apartment, “you can freshen up at my place, love. Help yourself to whatever food you find.” She kissed me good-bye and I hailed a taxi, telling myself not to believe Harry, that if he hadn’t opened his big mouth, I wouldn’t have given Lara’s “business appointment” a second thought.

The doorman accompanied me upstairs to make sure the keys fit, but he recognized me from the morning, anyway. Inside, I opened the parcel of necessaries I’d purchased on Ninth Avenue and went to the bathroom to shower, shave and change clothes.

The styptic Lara loaned me that morning ought to have tipped me off. Women don’t use it that much, I’m told. When I opened her medicine chest, I discovered one whole shelf loaded with men’s toiletry articles.

And what the hell did you expect, Lancelot and Elaine?
I chided myself.
You’ve been in Lara’s life a grand total of two point five days.

True, but why did it have to be that twerp Abel Harrison? A down, a total nebbish, and come to think of it, wasn’t he married?

But Abel handled the casting for “Riverday” and had valuable West Coast contacts, too.

The doorbell rang. I glanced at my watch, squinting in the dimness to see the numbers. Harry was right on time with his report. I flicked on the hall light, put my eye to the peephole—and felt a sudden surge of joy well up within.

She broke the date!

I swung the door wide, stepped onto the threshold and, despite the fact that Lara was carrying a large brown paper bag, threw my arms around her, package and all. Our lips met.

I froze in midkiss.

Taking a backward step, Hilary said matter-of-factly, “You obviously mistook me for Lainie.” Saying nothing, I waited for the inevitable barbed comment, but it didn’t come. She merely apologized for not phoning on ahead, then asked if she could enter with a politeness that held no trace of sarcasm. A bit numb, I stepped aside and she walked in.

She no longer wore a business suit, but instead had on a summery green halter top with slacks of a deeper shade of the same color. Uncustomarily casual for her, but flattering.

She took the paper bag to the dining area, put it on the table and began to remove several white cardboard cartons from it. “Hope you don’t think it’s presumptuous,” she said, “but Harry said you’d be waiting here for him around six, and I’m only too familiar with the usual state of Lainie’s larder. So I took the liberty of picking up dinner from Uncle Wong’s.”

“But where’s Harry?”

“Oh, he couldn’t make it. I promised him I’d relay the information you asked him to root out. Okay?”

It wasn’t really, but I had to admit there was nothing decent in Lara’s refrigerator, and I was hungry. I was also curious to see how long Hilary could keep up the sweetness-and-light bit.

“Okay,” I nodded. “Let’s eat.”

She knew Lara’s kitchen better than I, so Hilary got bowls and spoons and ladled out Winter Melon Soup, my favorite. She sat down and began to talk as we ate.

“Harry says Kit Yerby was taping all morning at ‘Ryan’s Hope’ and has witnesses to prove it. On Saturday, when Niven died, she was at a soap opera festival, just like me and Lara, so you can totally write off Kit”

“Okay,” I said, sipping soup, “now how’d Harry do with Lou Betterman?”

“Remarkably well.” She patted her lips with a napkin, then ticked off points on her fingers. “First, the reason they know Niven fell from the roof, not out of a window, is that they found tar on his feet and matching gouges on the roof. Second, Florence, Joanne Carpenter and Ira Powell have no verifiable alibis.”

“I think, just the same, Gene, I’d count out Powell. I can’t picture him in drag fixing Joanne’s medicine.” A suggestion spoken without the least condescension. She was beginning to make me nervous. I wasn’t used to Hilary this way.

“Okay,” I prompted, “go on. Anything else?”

“Yes. Saturday, Tommy Franklin was home working on the ‘Riverday’ ‘Bible’ he gave to Ames in synopsized form this afternoon. He’s been updating it constantly for months.”

“Is his alibi tight?”

“Seems to be. While he was working there was a friend in the other room watching TV. Umberto, the show’s hair stylist. You’ve met him?”

“Sure have. Is that the lot?”

“No.” She held up a hand to put the conversation on standby while she opened a container of spring rolls. After they were distributed and condiments put on the table, Hilary produced two bottles of Kirin, removed their caps and poured, adjusting the beads to the heights we each preferred. She was taking too long, so I knew her next item was important. Another time, I might’ve nagged her to get to it, but if she chose not to be her usual smug, didactic self, out of respect for the effort at self-control, the least I could do was keep my mouth in neutral.

After a long swallow of beer, Hilary said, “Lou found Niven’s clothes at the studio over the weekend. A bloody shirt, slacks, socks, a pair of shoes. The forensic team’s picking the stuff to pieces.”

“Where’d his men uncover the things?”

“In Joanne Carpenter’s dressing room.”

I put down my chopsticks. I was upset So that was where Flo hid Niven’s clothing.

I said, “Then I imagine Joanne is now Lou’s prime suspect.”

Hilary nodded. “He told Harry he was having her tailed. Lou was curious where you and Harry and she rode off to when she was wearing nothing but briefs and a hospital gown.”

Uh-oh.
Trouble. I’d told Lou I wasn’t in New York, and he already knew I was lying. But how? A plainclothesman watching Joanne wouldn’t necessarily have recognized me. Then I remembered the young “fan” with the camera slung around his neck who’d been waiting in front of
WBS
at an astonishingly early hour. He took a photo of me and Lara, and I signed ‘Tom Mason’ in his autograph book. That’s what Fat Lou must’ve meant when he called me “
T.M
.” on the phone.

“What’s the matter?” Hilary asked. “You looked worried.”

“I am. I just realized I could lose my license.”

She didn’t comment just served the Scallops and Straw Mushrooms—bland, delicious and light enough to keep us from feeling bloated all evening. Pushing away the empty carton, she rested a hand on mine for a moment.

“Gene, what can I do to help?”

“Short of solving this mess, nothing much. I lied to Lou, and now I have to come up with something for him, or else. Trouble is, the only things I can hand him are exactly what I’m trying to find alternatives for, but can’t.”

She looked as if she might say something, but changed her mind. Lowering her eyes, she paid attention to her dinner. I ate some, drank beer, thought things over yet again. I wanted to lay out what I’d uncovered for Hilary, see what her opinion was, but I was afraid she’d concur on the obvious. Also, I wasn’t positive whether I really wanted Hilary’s help, or just sought an excuse to close the gap between the two of us, and if that was the case, forget it, it wasn’t fair to Lara. On the other hand, my inclination to bring her into it might be nothing more than force of habit.

I chewed on the problem along with my dinner, decided at length that there was no harm, at least, in telling her about the most recent development. She’d get wind of it at
WBS
, anyway.

“Do you know what happened to Ames after I saw you?”

“No.”

I told her.

“There does seem to be an epidemic of violence around
WBS
,” Hilary remarked. “How badly is he hurt?”

“He’ll pull through.”

“Figures. Producers have thick skulls.”

A touch of vintage Hilary. I knew she couldn’t keep up the act forever. I told her I was with Ames up to the time he was put in the limo for Polyclinic. “He came around for a few minutes. Says he walked into his office, bent down to tie his shoe when someone crouching behind his desk tipped it over on him. Before he could get free, he was knocked behind the ear with his Emmy.”

“I’d call it poetic justice,” she said, “except that dramatic justice seems more appropriate.”

Hilary was sounding more and more like her old self.
Good.
When she turned on me, I was all ready to bring up “Galahad in galoshes.”

“Did you find Ames, Gene?”

“No, Micki Lipscomb did. I arrived right afterwards and caught her when she collapsed.” The latter detail frankly was to set her up; I was sure Hilary couldn’t resist such a gambit. But she didn’t utter a syllable. (I wondered whether she realized how effectively she was getting on my nerves by not getting on my nerves.) “Anyway,” I added, “Ames is recuperating now at Polyclinic.”

“Any theories, Gene?”

“Why he was attacked? Yes. Remember the proposed ’Bible’ Tommy Franklin handed him earlier? Last I saw of it, Ames had it spread out on his desk, but after they took him to the hospital I made Micki root through his things, and guess what?”

“No ’Bible.’”

“Correct.”

“Well” Hilary shrugged, “that in itself doesn’t prove much, though—”

Lara’s intercom interrupted her. I went to the button, pressed and told the doorman to send up the man in the lobby. Hilary raised an eyebrow, but I’d allowed her to play her own pregnant pause, so now it was her turn to wait.

A moment later, the doorbell rang. I opened it. In came Willie Frost, Hilary’s personal attorney. A short, slightly paunchy man in his forties, Willie had on his usual three-piece ensemble, despite the warm weather. His brown hair, once crew cut, now was stylishly long, and he’d given up his old clean-shaven appearance for a mustache, close-trimmed beard and side whiskers.

“Gene, Hilary, good to see you both again.”

“It’s been a while,” I said. “Still making it hot for Ma Bell?” Willie had a personal vendetta against the telephone company, and did lots of little things to drive its people crazy.

“I’m taking it easy on them lately,” he replied, smiling like a slightly bored Olympian. “It’s
such
an unfair fight” His lofty tone left no doubt whose side held the short odds.

“Willie, hello,” said Hilary, rising to shake his hand. “What brings you here?”

“I did,” I told her, deliberately dangling insult bait.

Her mouth opened, but shut again. A two-beat pause before she trusted herself to ask me, a bit too sweetly, whether I’d care to enlighten her. I could practically taste the sardonic “brightness” she swallowed unspoken.

“Willie’s a kind of favor to Lara,” I stated. “I’ve got to take him to Brooklyn Heights now. Care to come along?”

Hilary nodded her head grimly.

W
E TOOK MY CAR
. I drove slowly, since we were early. On the way, I gave Willie the details. Hilary occasionally asked me a question, but mostly she remained silent.

It was too early to visit Florence. Lara wouldn’t arrive till after nine, and her presence was a precondition, so we parked on a side street near Montague and walked to the business thoroughfare of “the Heights.” The three of us spent about thirty minutes in a bistro with brandy and coffee. Willie entertained us with tales of his early exploits as an insurance attorney, and Hilary told about the time she investigated an alleged case of arson in the Christmas decorations industry, an exploit that took place before I’d begun working for her.

After we’d been gabbing for a while, I remembered that Donald Bannister’s bookshop was on Montague Street. I got out the card he gave me and checked. He was open that evening. I mentioned it and Hilary immediately was interested, which came as no surprise. No matter what else she might be doing, Ms. Quayle never can resist a secondhand bookstore.

The Night Owl was two blocks away, a street-level establishment with an overhead sign of a bespectacled owl poring over a book with the title, “I Don’t Give a Hoot!” There was an outside table loaded with miscellaneous volumes, all priced at 50¢ each. The inside of the shop was narrow, dimly lit and crammed with warped, canted bookshelves, some fashioned from orange crates. Books of varying sizes and thicknesses, hardbound, paperback, were assorted by subject, but otherwise followed no consistent arrangement. The optimum browsing mode, according to Hilary. The back wall, partly visible down the uneven aisles, was entirely devoted to the lively arts. This was also good form, so far as Hilary thought A good used book dealer always has a specialty.

At the moment, there were no customers. Donald Bannister sat alone at the front of the store, eyes half-closed, pipe in mouth. The frantic day at the studio took its toll. His jowls seemed deeper, his forehead more severely creased with worry lines. But when he saw us, his grew more animated. He waved at us to come in.