Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky (16 page)

    “That’s an odd co-incidence. That’s the very same firm…”

    Borne raised his voice in mournful disapproval. “As far as I’m aware, Miss Williams left no will. She didn’t expect to die. Why should she?” 

19

Despite Borne’s order to the rest of the company to remain on the set, the sponsor, Peter Tunning, had asked Sergeant Huggins to excuse him for a few minutes and had not yet returned. We found him fast asleep, curled up in the darkest corner of Sedge’s dressing room. Needless to say, he still wore his wraparound, celebrity dark glasses. I darted forward to shake him awake before Borne and Huggins touched him and discovered his secret. “Wake up, Peter! Wake up! You’ve missed all the excitement,” I grumbled.

    He stretched his arms and made an effort to stand upright. “What is happening?” he asked, as I pulled him to his feet.

    I nodded to Borne. “Tell them all about the will.”

    Borne did so.

    “Do you know what I think?” Peter Tunning asked as soon as Borne had brought us all up to date. “I have been thinking here alone, and working it all out in my mind. In my mind! It must be one of three people who kill my lovely friend. One of three who kill my really beautiful friend, Kathie Williams.”

    “Kathie?” asked Borne.

    “She was Kathie before she became Spookie. Silly name! Silly! She tell me all her secrets. And it is I who recommend her for this job. And now she is dead! It is Gino! Gino who kill my Kathie! If it is not Gino, if Gino is already dead, it is whoever kill Gino who kill my Kathie, and if it is not whoever kill Gino, it is one of three who have designs on my Kathie and cannot stand what you call it? Humiliation – the humiliation of her rejection. And there are three of them, that she reject, Kathie tell me: Cornbeck! Kent! And Manning!”

    “That makes five,” said Borne in a surprisingly easy manner. “Since you’ve finally decided to lay your cards on the table, Mr. Tunning, I’ll do the same. I tend to agree with your list, but there is one very important person you’ve left out.”

    “Mr. Kent? Mr. Kent? It could not be him. Just take my word for it! But it could not be Mr. Kent.”

    “I agree,” said Borne.

    “But who is left? Who is left?”

    “You, Mr. Tunning. You!”

    Peter doubled over as just about everyone but me moved in for the kill.

    “It could not possibly be me! Mr. Manning! Mr. Manning, you search me? I have no weapons of any kind. You search me. No! Only Mr. Manning search me!”

     Borne stepped back three or four paces. “What the bloody hell is he going on about?” Borne whispered.

    “He can prove he didn’t murder anyone,” I whispered back. “But I wish to bloody hell that he doesn’t try!”

    “Either proceed to search him, Manning, or I’ll do it myself.”

    “You’ll regret this the rest of your life. He suffers from a rare disease called nyctalopia.”

    “Never heard of it!”

    “Unknown in America, but there are cases in Europe, mostly caused by generations of inbreeding.”

    “Get on with it! If you don’t examine him, I will. As far as I’m concerned, right here’s our number two suspect.”

    “Number
two
?”

    “Gino is number one. But Gino is possibly dead. I’m not going to look a gift confession in the mouth. Get on with it!”

    I stepped forward, partly because I wanted to exonerate myself, mostly because Inspector Borne actually pushed me!

    “I know what you’re going to do,” I whispered to Tunning. “Don’t do it! It’s not worth the pain.”

    “I must prove my innocence, Mr. Manning. I’ve no choice!” Peter announced.

    “I’ll try to get them to turn off all the lights, but the one in the corridor.”

    But Borne was not agreeable. “Tunning asked for this demonstration, but now he doesn’t want to go through with it.”

    “He’s a nyctalopist, I told you.”

    “A what?”

    “He has nyctalopia. He can see in the dark.”

    “If that’s the case, it makes him more suspicious than ever!”

    I tried to drum some sense into Borne’s thick head.

    “Peter asked for this demonstration,” Borne insisted. “Now he doesn’t want to go through with it.”

    “I’m the one who doesn’t want him to go through with it! Can’t you understand that his eyes can’t stand light – even the dimmest light of any kind?”

     Before I could stop him, Peter said, “You argue too much,” and threw off his dark glasses. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

20

“I do not wish to cancel the show,” Peter Tunning insisted, late next morning. “I do not wish it, but now we have a good excuse. A very good excuse!” Peter repeated. “Police brutality! Tomorrow’s newspapers will all crucify these stupid police and leave us free to cancel the show.”

    “Cancel the show?” producer Monty Fairmont cried.

    “Cancel the show?” echoed the studio’s big boss, Mr. Art Kent. “Must we go through all that again? Thanks to you, the ratings are now set to go through the roof! Right through the roof! Congratulations! You did it! You’re a wonder!”

    “You tell the press?” cried Peter.

    “Of course, I tell the press – I mean, I told the press. Nobody orders me around in my own studio, thank God. Nobody but nobody!” And with these self-comforting words, Boss Kent stalked off.

    “It is very sad.” Director Ace Jellis made an effort to soften the hard facts. “But publicity is publicity is
real big
publicity.”

    “Too right!” agreed Ace’s pal, producer Monty Fairmont. “Publicity – any publicity – makes one hell of a difference to the ratings, Peter. You ought to know that!”

    “This is my first show.”

    “Well, Ace Jellis and I have been in the business twenty years and I can tell you that whatever Ace says is right from the horse’s mouth. Without publicity, a show is dead, dead, dead!”

    “You remember how old Bluey Whittaker got his divorce papers right in the middle of the fifth season of
Cuddles, the Koala
?” interposed Jellis hastily.

    “Do I? How he got caught in bed with those two redheads? Front page on every paper in the country! We were knocking back offers right, left and center. Made him a real big star. And would you believe, he tried to break his contract with us? Even took us to court.
We
, that made him a star! Said we had no business to air his private life to the press. But of course it’s our business. Who cares if his old lady kicked him out of the house? Who wants the stupid, old bag anyhow? Did we force him into bed with the redheads? Of course, we did kind of put them in Bluey’s way. Paid them two hundred grand each too. But he didn’t have to accept their offer of free entertainment. It was
his
choice, not ours.”

    “Speaking of Bluey, his ratings have now slipped to
hell
,” complained Jellis. “Looks like we’ll have to give him the
boot
next year.”

    “Yeah, that’s the trouble with this business. People forget.”

    “You’ve sure got to keep
reminding
them all the bloody time,” Jellis agreed.

    “And while we’re about it, Ace, let’s made a mental note to get shot of this bastard, Kent. The sooner I can snap my fingers in his ugly old face and tell him we’ve got a contract with CBS or NBC, the happier I’ll be!”

    “That goes
double
for me too!”

    Despite my presence – and that of Peter Tunning – Monty and Ace were now speaking free and easy. They’d dropped their usual accents and it suddenly dawned on me: “You’re not Americans! You’re Australians!”

    “Congratulations, mate! Took you a hell of a long time!”

    “But better late than never!” added Ace Jellis.

    “Now, Spookie, on the other hand, she tumbled to us straight away!”

    “Sure she did!” agreed Jellis. “You couldn’t put
anything
past Spookie. Not a
thing
!”

    “Naturally, we wouldn’t expect Roman Peter here to give us a tumble, but a smart ex-copper all the way from Miami… Grab all the publicity you can, while you can – that’s my motto!”

    “A good motto too! Solid! True blue!” agreed Jellis.

    “Sure, our lovely Spookie Williams was one hell of a nice girl. Our Mr. Kent even propositioned her more than once or twice. So did Sedge. But where did it get them? A nice big stab in the heart and a real big pain in the you-know-where!”

    “Sedge was
very
upset! Quite put out in fact,” added Jellis. “He doesn’t take
rejection
kindly at all.”

    “Who does?” I asked.

    “We bloody do!” they said together.

    I clapped my hands. “Of course! You guys don’t mind rejection from the girls. In fact, you want to get rejected.”

    “Takes him a long time, doesn’t it?” asked Monty.

    “Has
anyone
ever heard of a
speedy
detective?” asked Jellis. 

    “All the same, it’s not going to help Spookie any if I say to the press, ‘Let’s soft-pedal this, eh, boys?’ ”

    “That’s just
so
right!” Jellis agreed.

    “That reminds me… Peter, wake up!” Monty ordered. “The bastard has fallen asleep on us!”

    I jumped to Tunning’s defense. “I’m not surprised – after last night’s little adventures.”

    “Peter! Wake up! Wake up!”

    “Give him a decent
shake
, Manning!”

    “I don’t like to – after last night’s ordeal.”

    Peter stirred. “It is all right. I am awake.”

    “Peter, while I think of it, you sure you got no more pictures?”

    “We need
fresh
photos,” Jellis added.

    “Fresh photos?” I asked.

    “Spookie used to work for Peter before she came to us,” Monty confirmed.

    “That’s why
he’s
so upset,” Jellis explained.

    This was news to me. I tried to remember what Spookie told me. I’d always assumed she met Tunning during the course of her work with Monty Fairmont Productions.

    “She not work for me,” Peter protested. “Miss Williams work for Total Service.”

    “That’s you,” I argued.

    Peter laughed. “You do not know business, Mr. Manning. If I own Total Service, I am millionaire. But I do not own Total Service. Total Service owns me.”

    Business semantics! “So Total Service is the millionaire?” I asked.

    Another laugh. “Total Service is in debt. To start the business, to expand the business, Total Service borrows money. Sometimes is hard to pay.”

    “The interest is hard to pay?” I love the way these big business tycoons are always crying poor. “So you float another loan?”

    “Si. We float another loan. But the money is not important. What is important: we are not people at the graveyard, feasting at the death of this poor girl. We cancel the show.”

   
“Cancel the show?”

   
“Like hell you do!” screamed Monty. “We’ve got a contract, remember! Nobody but nobody reneges on a Monty Fairmont Production. Nobody!”

    “So help me! If you ever so much as
hint
you might be closing down, we’ll have you thrown into
jail
so fast, you won’t even have time to pack a
toothbrush
!”

21

Inspector Borne cancelled the meeting at Winninghan, Bryde and Wingate. “Just tell them something else has arisen. We’ll try to make it tomorrow. Or next day. Or day after!”

    Well, that suited me fine.

    Total Service always stayed open till late, so I waited all day and then some, before I entered the rickety old elevator that rattled me up to the top floor. I wanted to tackle Peter alone, if possible. But there was still one girl staffing the switchboard, and Peter himself had a couple of late-night visitors. The door of his office was closed, but it was not soundproofed, and I could hear a few angry exchanges in Italian:

    “Pay up – or we repossess your car!”

    “
Si
, we repossess the car.” 

    Tunning’s voice: “What use is the car without a driver? I cannot drive myself. I depend on you, Mr. Julio.”

    “We repossess the car!”

    “You are welcome to take it right now. It is useless to me without a driver. Here are the keys.”

    “You still owe me nearly a thousand dollars.”

    “For what?”

    “Rental.”

    “I’m just through telling you. I’ve not used the car in nearly three weeks. Without a driver, it is useless. Totally useless! Why should I pay for something I have not used and cannot use? Our contract calls for you to supply a driver.”

    “At reasonable times for reasonable hours! Not from midnight to dawn or sunset to sunrise!”

    A few minutes of rapid but indecipherable whispering later, Peter opened the door. He was still wearing the wraparound celebrity dark glasses. I wondered if Mr. Julio knew why.

    Peter continued to talk in Italian: “You will see, Mr. Julio. It will all turn out for the best. For both of us. You will see.”

    Mr. Julio was a dapper, sharp-faced man, dressed in nifty, dark blue overalls. He had the aura of a well-heeled mechanic or garage proprietor. His companion, a tall, broad-shouldered Italian with curly hair, was possibly a bodyguard.

    “It is nice to have dreams, my friend,” Mr. Julio said in English, possibly for my benefit. He shrugged his shoulders dramatically. “
Hanno la vita brevissima
.” (But they have a very short life).

    Peter waved me into his office. “He is trying to sell me a car,” he explained, “but people like Mr. Julio don’t realize that a car is useless to me unless they also supply a driver. The two go together. One is useless without the other.”

    “I quite understand your problem, Peter. But Mr. Julio obviously feels that someone who can afford to underwrite a TV show is made of money.”

    “That is not true. Mr. Kent is paying for the show. I am paying out only the prize money. But now I wish I had not agreed to do that. Mr. Monty did not explain how the prizes would double and how they would – what is the word?”

    “Accumulate?”

    “Yes – get bigger and bigger! In real life there is a limit to how much people will pay, and when you reach that point you cannot make a profit if you double your expenses.”

    “Unless you also double your sales,” I suggested.

    “That is not always possible. If you own a plot with twenty cabins, twenty cabins is all you can sell.”

    “Unless you double your prices!”

    “But then people go someplace else. People will drive twenty miles to avoid paying an extra ten dollars! Even an extra five. I know!”

    “A businessman is always under pressure,” I suggested. “His solution is to expand – and keep on expanding – or die!”

    “
Buona notte, Signor Fabbro
.”

    “
Buona notte, Maria
.”

    The girl went out, leaving the door to the landing open. We heard the sound of the elevator.

    “One of my best girls,” said Peter. “It is time to close up.”

    “Are you married, Peter?”

    “A wife? Who would marry Peter? His face is not his fortune. Besides, I am too busy for a wife.”

    “You’re married to Total Service?” I suggested.

    “No. Total Service is my child. And that is why I will protect him.”

    His guard was as down as it would ever be, “How well did you know Kathie Williams?” I shot at him.

    But he was unfazed. “As well as I know all my girls. I am like a father to them.”

    I couldn’t help smiling. He saw me. “I know what you think,” he said. “But it is not like that. It is not like that at all.”

    “Where do you live, Peter?”

    He misunderstood me. “I had my mother. She is one of the first I bring out from the old country. Now she is dead. My brothers, they stay in the old country. They are farmers. They love to watch things grow. I cannot see such things. They are not interested in Total Service, but they do not return any of the gifts I send them.”

    He had ushered me out into the corridor, where I waited while he locked up Total Service for the night.

    I pressed the button to summon the ancient elevator.

    Nothing happened!

    “Maria must left the door open,” I said. “The elevator’s not coming.”

    He grabbed my shoulder. “Shhh! You hear something?”

    “That’s just what I’m telling you. I hear nothing.”

    Quick as a flash, a stiletto literally jumped into Peter’s right hand.

    “What are you playing at?”

    “I have enemies,” he whispered. “Speak out loud.” Then raising his voice: “You have a pistol, Mr. Manning? You are a policeman?”

    I caught on. “Yes, I’ve got my pistol right here,” I shouted. “Never go home without it!”

    “Try the lift now,” he whispered.

    I assumed he meant the elevator. I pressed the button. To my relief, there was an answering rattle from the bottom of the shaft. The elevator was on its way up.

    “What was all that about?”

    “Thieves! There are many thieves who gather around the markets downstairs. They are not still trading but they are open all night for deliveries. The thieves see Total Service is still open too. So they wait in the shadows. But they are frightened now. They will run away.”

    “I’ve got to hand it to you, Peter. You sure believe in living dangerously.”

    “It does not happen often.” Peter smiled grimly. “But I am always prepared.”

22

The days have long gone when a lawyer’s office looked like something out of Charles Dickens. Winninghan, Bryde and Wingate occupied a large and airy suite in the heart of the city’s legal district. Normally, the ceiling to floor windows would offer dizzying views of the city and other contiguous skyscrapers, but the vertical shades in the head partner’s office had been drawn against the mid-day sun.

    Mr. Winninghan chose not to use a desk. Nor did he force his clients to relate to the usual sterile office furnishings. Receptive sofas aligned against three of the walls, plus a generous assortment of poufs, cushions and padded stools, provided enough seating for twenty people. A few low tables discreetly supported pens and paper, while framed prints by the likes of Streeton, McCubbin and Fox lent the high-ceilinged room a further atmosphere of tone and class. The implication was plain but circumspect. Winninghan, Bryde and Wingate were most assuredly gentlemen of culture and discretion, fit custodians of scarcely breathed scandals and family secrets, silent keepers of a thousand keys and confidences, trusted, unimpeachable counselors in all matters of legal binding and loosening.