Kiss Your Elbow (4 page)

S
ARDI'S RESTAURANT IS REALLY
just one big room divided by some chest-high partitions with benches or, in the chi-chier places, I expect they would be called banquettes. All the woodwork is dark brown and the chairs and benches are covered with dark leather and the walls are shingled with caricatures of well-known theatrical people. Needless to say, one of me is not included. New ones are added from time to time, I suppose, though I don't know where they find the room to hang them, unless it's the ladies' room.

It was almost empty when Maggie and I came in. Just a few people were scattered around starting the five o'clock jump a little early. Just like we had been doing all day. We sat down and ordered drinks. Maggie shed her mink and pulled off her hat. I lit her a cigarette. She took a deep drag, blew it out and slumped back against the wall. I was slumping some, too; I was feeling definitely let down and very, very tired.

“Anyway it was fun while it lasted.” Maggie smiled at me. “You know I feel kind of sorry for the old gal. Heart failure. I didn't know she had a weak heart. I didn't even suspect she had a heart for that matter.”

“I don't think it was heart failure.”

“Oh, Timmy, now don't start that murder game again. You'd think someone had broken your bicycle or something. So you're not a wanted man…you're still young…there's still something to live for…if you're real good and eat your broccoli you may find another body one day.”

“All the same, did you ever step on a nail when you were a kid?”

“No, I've never enjoyed that sort of thing.”

“Well, I have lots of times, and with my full weight on it it didn't go in even an inch.”

“You can scarcely compare the bottom of your foot with Nellie's right mammary gland, after all.”

“There's not that much difference.”

“Well, dear, you ought to know.”

“Oh, shut up.” Then I remembered what Ted Kent had said. “Still, one way to find out—I might ask Libby Drew what the police thought when they found Nellie.”

“Knowing Libby, if it would help get her picture in the paper, I'm surprised she didn't confess to doing in Nellie herself.”

I nudged Maggie as the front door swung open and Henry Frobisher walked in. We watched him as he slowly came across the room and sat down at a wall table, two away from us. I'd been wondering about him, off and on, all afternoon. Frobisher had billing in the Youth and Beauty Book, too. An appointment with Nellie at three-thirty this afternoon. It was now about four-thirty and had Nellie been alive, he would have been just coming from it.

I'd put Frobisher at around fifty-five and, although it had started creeping back, he was by no means a scratch-bait boy yet. Maybe it was the sunlamp tan, or, maybe, his eyebrows bleached out more than his brown hair, which was graying at the proper places; anyway, his eyebrows blended strangely into his high forehead and made his face look naked.

His newest show,
A Kiss Thrown In,
starring Louise Randall, had been in rehearsal for two weeks and I couldn't tell whether it was going badly, or whether Nellie's death had upset him. No matter what caused it, I have never seen a man look so tired and still move. He sat back, ordered a drink and looked around the room. His gaze finally hit us and he gave us a vague smile. But I wasn't going to waste any chances to talk to any producers, even if he didn't have anything for me in his show….

“Wasn't that awful about Nellie?” I said across two tables.

“Yes, tragic, tragic.” He seemed to be looking right through me.

“I didn't know she had a weak heart, did you?”

“No. No, I didn't.” He looked at Maggie. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lanson.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Frobisher. How's the show going?”

“Still pretty rough. We're doing a bit of rewriting.” Maggie didn't need a job and I did. I wanted to be in on the conversation.

“Mr. Frobisher, you knew Nellie pretty well, didn't you? I mean, she cast most of your shows and all that.”

“Yes, I've known Nellie for a good many years, fine woman.”

“Well then.” I leaned toward him. “Can you think of any enemies she might have had?”

“Enemies?” He looked a little startled at that, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes were almost green. “Good heavens no, what makes you ask that?”

“Don't mind him, Mr. Frobisher.” Maggie pulled me gently back against the wall. “He's been in so many mysteries, he's trying to make one out of this.”

Mr. Frobisher picked up his drink and came over and sat down on the bench next to me.

“I don't understand what you mean. Do you think she was killed? Murdered?”

I had been thinking that to myself ever since I had found her, but now that someone else said it it sounded a little foolish. Something in Frobisher's manner of asking it, his soft, rather clipped voice, seemed to make my even having thought it vulgar and very corny.

“No, I guess not,” I finally admitted. “But did you ever step on a nail when you were a kid?”

The moment I said it I felt ridiculous.

“No, I don't believe I ever did. I may have, though it's been a long time since I was a kid.”
Wistful
is the word, I think, for the smile that followed. “But what has my not having stepped on a nail got to do with Nellie?”

“Well, you know that thing she fell on, the desk spindle…it wasn't much larger than a good-size nail.”

“You seem to know a good deal about it.” I could feel
my face starting to redden, so I took a quick gulp of my old-fashioned.

“Oh, I've been going to see Nellie for about ten years, and that office hasn't changed a speck of dust in all that time.”

“But I still don't see why you think she was murdered.”

Maggie was getting bored and she started shrugging on her coat. Frobisher and I helped her.

“It's pure frustration, Mr. Frobisher. Nellie called him in about a job this morning, and he thinks it's very inconsiderate of her to die before he got it. Which reminds me. We ought to send flowers. Do you know where the funeral's going to be?”

“Why yes, I find myself rather in charge. Tomorrow, three o'clock, the Henderson Funeral Home.” He turned to me. “I'd appreciate it if you would be a pallbearer and help get the casket to the station. Her niece is coming up from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to take the body back there for burial.”

I said I'd be glad to. As a matter of fact, I was very flattered that he had asked me.

“If you were a friend of hers, Mrs. Lanson, perhaps you'd like to come, too?”

“Thank you,” said Maggie. “I would, very much.” She stood up. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Frobisher, and good luck on your show.”

I left money for the drinks and a tip on the table, making a mental note to nail Maggie for her share. Mr. Frobisher stood up with us.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Lanson, and thank you.” He looked
at me. “Goodbye.” I got my hat and coat from Renee and it wasn't till we got out on Forty-fourth Street that I realized that in spite of my blue-shirt lead performance, Mr. Frobisher didn't even know my name.

M
AGGIE REALLY NEEDN'T
have been in such a hurry to leave even if her plaster was itching. After all, it wasn't every day I got the chance to have a drink with a producer and she shouldn't have blatted out that I had an appointment with Nellie that morning and I told her so.

“I'm dreadfully sorry, angel, but you were rather tiresome about it. All that nail rigmarole. Besides, my bottom hurts like blazes.”

We started walking toward Broadway, and I began to feel ashamed of myself. Actually, what difference did it make to me? I had missed out on a job. That's happened before. But, nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling there was something fishy about it. It must have been all because of that damned Bobby LeB. I tried to explain this to Maggie.

“Then for heaven's sake find him and get it out of your system. You won't be happy till you do. It oughtn't to be too difficult. Equity could tell you how many LeB.'s there are—if he's an actor, and I can't imagine anyone willingly setting foot in Nellie's rats' nest unless he were. Incidentally, with all your starry-eye-making at Frobisher, we forgot to eat. Let's go into Walgreen's.”

As we tried to weave through the mob of bobby-sox autograph hunters waiting for the Paramount performers to come out of the stage door, one of the more unappetizing ones disengaged herself from the rest of the covey, sauntered over, and stood right in front of me shoving a grimy autograph book and pen in my face. She wore the usual year-round uniform: saddle shoes, plaid skirt and sweater.

“Sign here, will you?” she commanded. “And make it ‘To Bertha Oliphant with love.'”

“Why do you want my autograph?” I asked. “I'm not famous.”

“You're an actor, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. Sign here.” Pleased, I signed with protestations of undying love to Bertha Oliphant.

“Jeez, thanks,” she said when she read my love note. “That's swell.” She started to go back.

“Don't you want mine, too?” asked Maggie.

“What for?” asked Bertha.

“I'm an actress,” said Maggie.

“Don't give me that stuff, lady. And paper costs money.”

“What makes you think I'm not an actress?”

“Listen, lady,” said Bertha patiently, “it's the mink. If you're an actress and got a mink coat, I know you. And I don't know you.” This put Maggie in her place.

“But why did you want my autograph?” I asked. “You don't know me.”

“Well, I'll tell you, I'm different, see. I'm what you
might call a speculator. Them other jerks over there—” she tossed her head in the direction of the other autograph hounds “—they just get people already famous.” She sniffed contemptuously. “I think you gotta look ahead. How do I know, someday you might amount to something.”

“Do you stop everybody that comes along this street?” I asked her. I was starting to get an idea.

“Of course not. Only people who look like they're gonna be something.”

“Thank you, I'm sure,” said Maggie.

“You're doin' all right, kid,” said Bertha, eyeing the mink.

“Were you here this morning?” I asked her.

“Sure I was.”

“Could you let me see the ones you collected this morning?”

“What for?” Bertha asked suspiciously. “You want to buy some? If you're in the market I got some exclusives, home.”

“I want to see if somebody passed by about eleven o'clock.”

“What's the name? Lots of people passed here.”

“Bobby LeB.,” I said, “I don't know his last name, just LeB.”

“Why, Timmy, aren't you clever,” said Maggie.

“It's just a chance.” But Bertha squelched it.

“Nope. No Bobby LeB.'s this morning. Never heard of him.”

“Can I see your book anyway?”

“I tell you I ain't got no Bobby LeB., or whatever the hell his name is, so you're just wasting my time.” It took a dollar to persuade her. “Okay. This part here's the ones I got this morning.”

There were only about seven, and I was disgusted to see that just before mine was Ted Kent's. The third sheet down, however, was blank with an inky smear across it as though a pen had been dug into it. I asked Bertha what that was for.

“Oh, that lousy rat. Damn near ruined my fountain pen. New one, too.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he got snotty when I asked him to sign. Wish I'd belted him.” She looked like she was just the girl that could do it.

“Do you remember what he looked like?” I practically had on my two-visored cap and a meerschaum.

“Sure I do. Never forget him. Had on them dark glasses, kinda peaky. You know.”

“Harlequin…Yes, go on.”

“Yeah, well he had on a pair of them harlequin gimmicks and a polo coat, and he was carrying a box. A big one. He jabbed me with it while I was holding up my book and new pen. Ruined the whole sheet.”

“Why did you ask him to sign in the first place? Did he look important?”

“Well, not important, maybe. Different sort of.”

“How different?”

“Jeez, I don't know. Just different. You have to know about things like that. I can't tell you exactly. Oh—
oh…here comes Charlie.” She snatched back the book and was off in hot pursuit. We started again for Walgreen's. Perhaps I was getting somewhere. The time was right….

“Honestly, Tim.” Maggie looked at me admiringly. “You amaze me.”

“I amaze myself, sometimes,” I said modestly for what I considered a tasty bit of sleuthing. A murderer
would
be nasty about signing his name.

“But it's so silly. In the first place this Bobby may not look like an actor at all.”

“He'd have to with that name.”

“It's perfectly asinine to expect that rude little girl would ask him for his autograph.”

“Just because she didn't want yours is no reason…”

“What's more, there are at least three other ways he could have gone—west toward Eighth Avenue, through Shubert Alley and on the other side of this street. For that matter he might have taken a taxi.” I wasn't feeling quite so pleased with myself now.

“Maggie, do you honestly believe it is all as simple as they say? Heart failure?”

“I don't believe anything about it, one way or the other. It's none of my affair nor, actually, is it yours, now. I always thought playing Private Eye would be sheer heaven. But you know how silly the whole idea is. You're just getting out of character, darling. Stick to your top hat and cigarettes and don't try making with the derby and cigars. Go ahead, try and find your Bobby LeB., if it's going to keep you awake nights. That's per
fectly harmless, but leave that other stuff to the boys who can't dance divinely, or you'll get in trouble.”

And she was so right!