Laurel and Hardy Murders (13 page)

“That’s not official yet.”

Butler bit his lip and worried it for several seconds before replying. “Uh-h-h...I hate t’tell you, boy, but—”

“But what?” I felt suddenly chilly.

“I called your office yesterday. Thought I’d smooth things out for ya.”

“And? What did Hilary say?”

“Didn’t talk t’her. A man answered.”

I digested the barbed bit of information. “Did he sound like he was just visiting?”

“Nope. Gave me the formal secretary business, boy, said she was out and could he take any messages.”

It set my head spinning, the celerity with which I’d been replaced. I reached for the phone, determined to find out who Hilary had hired, but just then the Old Man emitted a dismayed yell. I turned and saw him standing by the door to the stairwell.

“Cripes! It’s the clan!” He ran to his desk, grabbed a false nose and goatee from a drawer, and plastered them on his face. “Lock the door—it’s my sister’s monsters! They’ll expect me to take the whole carload out to eat!”

He ran to a closet, found a strange-looking hat, and jammed it on his head, then made me follow him down the back stairs.

We emerged into a dark alley even narrower than Camac Street. He started one way loping like a hippopotamus in panic, then changed his mind and turned, almost knocking me down.

“They’re too damn smart, they’ll try to head us off that way,” he said. “Go the other direction!”

Just then, there was a chorus of young voices from the end of the alley he’d just turned away from. “Uncle Frank! Uncle Frank!”

“RUN!” he roared. Though I’m in better shape than Butler, he left me far behind, clearing the other end of the long corridor by a good quarter-block before I emerged into the side street.

Butler was way across the street yanking open the door of the Packard. He climbed in, started it with a lurch, zoomed over to the curb, and frantically gesticulated for me to get in. I did, slamming the door hard.

If he’d been on the Le Mans track he yearned for at that moment, he might have established a world record. Next thing I knew, when the scenery stopped blurring, we were on South Street, blocks away from his family.

When I could catch my breath, I asked whether he wasn’t afraid they’d blab to his mother how he’d run out on them.

“You forget, boy,” he chuckled, a sly look on his face, “I’m in disguise. They can’t prove it was me!”

He honestly believed he’d fooled them.

It was his treat. He took me to Levis’, a hot dog emporium that deserves all the reputation that Nathan’s lays claim to.

It was a dingy place, with old wooden chairs and formica-top tables, but the hot dogs were 100 percent beef, the mustard was tangy, and the soda fountain was the original one that had been in operation on the day the store opened back in the latter years of the nineteenth century. Levis’ had a reputation for being open twenty-four hours every day of the year, including holidays. On the wall were huge rosters of names of fifty-year customers of the frankfurter mecca; some of them were from Main Line and Bala Cynwyd social registers.

An elegantly clad young woman stood at the hot dog counter. She fished out some change from a purse and as she did, a dime fell into the immense relish bowl. A big plastic paddle that looked like an oversize doctor’s tongue depressor was in the bowl. She took it and daintily tried to work the coin out, but every time it neared the top edge, it slid back into the condiment.

“Could you help me?” she begged the fat attendant behind the counter, a woman with frizzled hair and a gold tooth in place of one of her incisors.

“Sho’, honey,” she grinned, plunging her sweaty hand into the relish. She brought the dime out surrounded by pickle, and her customer took the coin with a shudder.

I bought two franks, a chocolate soda, and a plate of pickled tomatoes and joined Butler, who munched on a fish cake.

“Now what’re we gonna do,” he asked, “about finding that bird who stabbed Poe and threatened us?”

“I don’t know. Can’t say I really care, either.”

“
I
say we rough ’em all up, till one of them tells us what we want to know!”

“You can’t do that, Old Man.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t bother to lecture him on the dim view the police take concerning assault and battery. I merely pointed out that if he wanted to get some answers, he had to question at least six people.

“It can’t be anybody else,” I explained. “It’s either Natie, Toby, O. J., Hal, Phil, or Dutchy.”

“How come?”

“Because they’re the only ones besides you, me, and Hilary who heard we might be investigating Poe’s death. Of that group, now I think of it, you can eliminate Toby, too.”

“Why?”

“He wasn’t feeling well, and left right after the skit that night. He wasn’t there when Poe got killed.”

“Any candidates among the others?” Butler asked. I was amused. For the past two days, he’d taken every opportunity to instruct me on the art of detecting, ignoring the fact I already had my own license. But when it came right down to the brainwork, he wanted my opinion.

I told him about Dutchy sneaking upstairs when he supposedly was not yet in the club.

“Think he could’ve made his voice sound like Poe’s?”

“That’s what bothers me, Old Man. There’s only one good candidate for that.”

He nodded. “I been thinking about Phil Faxon, too.”

“Uh-huh. And he’s got a motive—admittedly an ancient one.” I told Butler about the time Poe got Faxon in trouble with organized crime.

“Okay,” he said, wiping his lips with a paper napkin, “so I’ll beat Phil’s ass around the room till he spills what he knows.”

I shook my head. “There’s two things wrong with him as a candidate.”

“Yeah?”

“First off, why would he wait fifteen years to get even? Second, why would he telephone and imitate Poe’s voice?”

“So’s we wouldn’t know who he was!”

“Uh-uh. Everybody knows Phil is a crackerjack vocal mimic. It’s just too obvious.”

Butler blinked, beyond his depth.

We talked some more about it, but I didn’t give a damn who killed Wayne Poe, and I told Butler as far as I was concerned, the case was his and his alone.

“But I don’t have a New York license,” he complained.

Which was the Empire State’s gain, but I kept my opinion to myself.

Sunday, June 24

I
telephoned Hilary.

A man whose voice sounded very familiar answered and told me Hilary was busy.

I stiffened. “Harry, is that
you
?”

“Gene?”

“What the hell are you doing answering the phone for her?”

“Looks like there’s a new light in the lady’s life, wouldn’t you say?” He gave it a lilt, but then he would, being an actor.

“She hired you?”

“Bingo, brightness.” Her favorite derogatory term sounded quite unpleasant coming from him.

“I want to speak to her.”

“You can’t. She’s questioning somebody.”

“Questioning someone? Who? What for?”

“I don’t know. Some film expert. Look, I’ve got to get off. Come on around some time, would you? I need room for my things in the closet.”

He hung up.

I couldn’t believe she’d make the transfer that fast. A new secretary, all right, but
living space
for Harry, too? But then, why else would he be answering the phone on a Sunday?

Frank Butler walked in. “Hey, boy, glad you’re up. Let’s strap on the feed bag.”

“Old Man,” I said deliberately, “can you come up to New York for a couple of days with me?”

His eyes widened, then gleamed with interest. “You bet your butt I can! What’s up?”

“You and I have got a murder to investigate.”

I
WANTED TO GET
started early Monday, but we didn’t begin the drive to New York till nearly three
P.M.

First, Butler had to arrange for his brother to come in and take care of the office. This was a complicated chore.

“See, Andy don’t stay still long enough to catch ’im at any one phone,” Butler explained. “I gotta keep callin’ till I luck him in.” He pointed to a long list of telephone numbers. “He’s liable t’be at any one of these.”

The calling went on through Sunday and into Monday morning. He finally located him at 11:30, and his brother showed up in the office at a quarter after one, but by then it was too near “Days of Our Lives” time, so we didn’t actually pile into the Packard till mid-afternoon.

Butler sipped Colt 45 and handled the wheel easily and carefully. He was definitely a safer driver when slightly sloshed. I stared moodily at the road ahead and thought about my nemesis, Harry Whelan. I thought that after their mutual trip to Washington (during which Hilary solved the mystery of the Third Murderer in
Macbeth),
she’d dropped the actor from her roster of romantic candidates. What the hell was he doing back in her life?

I also wondered who the “film expert” was she’d been talking to. Surely whatever they’d been discussing related in some way to the Sons of the Desert—how, I had no idea. I wondered, too, if the “expert” was someone on my list of suspects...

What with five o’clock traffic and the late start we got, we didn’t emerge from the Lincoln Tunnel till nearly six. I suggested a small hotel, The Seymour, on West 45th. They put the car away for us, and we sat down to rest for a few minutes before deciding what to do next.

I rang up O. J. at home to tell him I was back in town, and to ask if I needed to know anything regarding board meetings or the rapidly approaching Philadelphia-New York get-together.

“Everything is fine,” he said. “Jerry Freundlich and I just spoke to each other and he says the Two Tars have it all under control. Natie’s gotten us a good deal on chartering a bus, one is all we’ll need. I hope you and Frank Butler have dropped the crazy idea about prying into the business of Sons members.”

“I’m afraid we haven’t. In fact—”

“You know I’m very much against this, Gene.”

“I know, but we feel we
have
to start asking a few people some questions. Board members, to begin with.”

There was a long silence.

“O. J., you still there?”

“Well,” he said at last, “I’ve made
my
wishes clear. I wash my hands of any responsibility.”

He hung up before I could say anything else.

The next order of business was to toss a coin and see who would concentrate on whom. Butler drew Phil Faxon, and I got Dutchy. We called both, but no one answered at either number.

The rest of Monday we did nothing more constructive than eat at the Ceylon India and kill a few dollars in a pinball emporium where Butler trimmed me of the cost of a six-pack of Colt 45.

When we got back to the hotel, the contents of the Packard were resting on a table: half a dozen bottles of gin, a large bag of walnuts, and two boxes of twists. Butler took some of each, plopped onto one of the beds, and told me to tune in the wrestling matches.

I did, then tried Phil’s number again. No answer. I left a message with his answering device to tell him where we were so he could get in touch. Next I tried Dutchy’s house. His wife answered. She told me he wasn’t in. Very abruptly. I left a message with her, too.

That ended my sleuthing efforts for the day. I asked Butler to hold down the noise and, if possible, to stop hurling walnut shells at the screen whenever he got mad at the referee. Then I took a shower, thought briefly about calling Hilary, rejected the notion, and went to bed.

W
HEN I ROSE TUESDAY
morning, Butler was snoring like a buzz saw. I washed and got dressed. Then I noticed a corner of white protruding beneath the door.

There was no writing on the outside of the envelope. Inside, a single sheet of cheap scratch paper from a note pad bore a typed message. It was difficult to read. The ribbon should have been changed months earlier.

THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. STAY OUT OF IT. OR SOMEBODY MAY GET HURT.

I roused Butler and stuck it under his nose. He hopped out of bed and starting pulling on his clothes, swearing all during the process.

I asked the desk clerk whether anyone had inquired about our room number during the night. He said we’d have to ask Mr. Arteseros, who returned to duty at 6
P.M.

After brunch, Butler and I decided to split up, tackle our respective quarries, and meet later in the afternoon. I went to a phone booth and called the Hovis number again. Dutchy was not in. I asked Isabel if she’d mind if I stopped over for a few minutes to ask her something. She wanted to know why I couldn’t do it on the phone. I couldn’t very well tell her I wanted to watch her face while she was answering, so I made up some lame excuse and she finally gave me a half-hearted invitation to hurry over because she could spare only a few minutes.

The Hovis apartment was in a brownstone on West 26th. A steep set of street-level stairs and four inner flights left me winded. I staggered through the door she opened and dropped onto the nearest chair in the hallway.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she warned me, “I’m about to go out. “ She was adjusting a small decorative pin on the jacket of her tailored suit, stopping intermittently to make an assortment of moues in the mirror to check her lipstick.

Her makeup did not offset the effect of the deep wrinkles creasing her cheeks and brow; she looked as if she knew firsthand every shoddy trick the world had to offer.

“I won’t take a minute,” I said, getting my breathing under control. “I want to know when Dutchy showed up at the Sons banquet.”

“After the murder. Anything else?”

She was in no mood to be expansive.

“You mean you didn’t see him till after Poe was killed?”

I didn’t think it possible for her to frown further, but she managed it. An additional cleft appeared between her brows. “I believe,” she said with some asperity, “that is what I said. What else did you come to ask?”

“Did Dutchy have a grudge against Wayne Poe?”

She laughed, a short, ugly snort. “Who didn’t?”

“What, specifically?”

She clamped her jaw shut. “That’s something you will have to ask my husband.” She flicked off the light switch. “I have to go. Good-bye.”