Seduction of the Innocent (18 page)

“What’s next?”

“I’m heading over to Entertaining Funnies. I called ahead and warned them to stay put—I mean, it’s Friday, they might knock off early for home otherwise.”

“They’re still there?”

“Still there. I’m planning to leave for there as soon as I hang up.”

I thought about that. “Listen, why don’t you find something else to do for half an hour or maybe forty minutes?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to head over myself and talk to Bob Price before you do.”

“Oh, you would?”

“Remember how we’re working together? On separate investigatory tracks, because I’m part of this funny-book world, which gives me access and insights you do not possess?”

“Yeah,” he grumbled, “I remember something like that.”

“Let me talk to Bob and his pal Feldman—Feldman’s still there?”

“I didn’t ask,” Chandler admitted. “It’s Price who’s the suspect, but I did say nobody was to leave.”

“Well, Price and Feldman are tied at the hip. Feldman will likely be on deck. Let me talk to them both. I may get things out of them you can’t. Then you show up, maybe haul them in for a less friendly questioning, and working both ends we might just get somewhere.”

“But you’d like to
clear
Price, wouldn’t you?”

“Not if he’s guilty. What I
want
to ‘clear,’ Captain? Is I want to clear this up. Fast. It’s bad for the comics business overall, and it stinks for the Starr Syndicate.”

“And here I thought you were just being a good citizen,” Chandler said.

“Well?”

“If I let you do this, you can’t let Price or anybody know any details about the crime scene. We’ve kept a lid on that— it’s a ‘suspicious death.’”

“Understood.”

“Nothing about faked suicide or blocks of ice or
anything.
Got it?”

“Got it.”

Another very long sigh. “I have paperwork that could stand doing. I’ll leave here in forty-five minutes. With travel, you should have a good half hour with Price, and Feldman, if he’s there.”

“I appreciate this,” I said.

“Did I mention it was Friday? And that I get off at six? And that you’re adding forty-five minutes to my day?”

“Your good-looking wife will understand.”

“I hope so.”

“She will,” I assured him.

No sarcasm, no wisecracks. Chandler was doing me a favor. And probably himself, but he couldn’t be sure.

I put a blue blazer on over a light blue Banlon shirt and gray slacks, anticipating my night in the Village with Sylvia, grabbed my hat, and headed back down to the street.

No cab this time. I got the convertible out of the parking garage on 44th and headed over to 225 Lafayette Street and the offices of Entertaining Funnies. The outside of the building, a Greek Revival number, was impressive enough, and the gilded, high-ceilinged lobby, too. But the ten floors above were strictly wood-and-glass office space.

I took the elevator to the seventh floor and moved quickly down the long hall to the far-end suite where a pebbled glass door bore the familiar circle logo with EF within, under which were the words
ROBERT PRICE, PUBLISHER
.

The receptionist, Betty, a pretty brunette who was engaged to Bob—a rather more aboveboard arrangement than Ginny’s with her boss Bardwell back at Levinson Publications—sat at a desk in a small undecorated reception area.

She smiled upon seeing me, blurting, “Jack!”

But that smile disappeared and her expression turned glum as I approached her desk. She stood and came around to offer me her hand, which I took. She wore a pale yellow short-sleeve sweater and a dark green skirt.

She said, “We’re all just sick around here about the news.”

“The news?”

“Yes. About Dr. Frederick’s passing.”

She seemed genuinely saddened. You would have thought Frederick was the family doctor or maybe her uncle, not an egotistical bluenose who had made miserable the lives of everyone at Entertaining Funnies. Including and especially her fiancé.

“That’s why I’m here.” I said. “I want to talk to Bob about it. I know this is late on a Friday, and Hal may be gone, but—”

“No, Mr. Feldman is still here. He and Bob are in the lounge. They’re waiting...” She lowered her voice, keeping things confidential though no one else was in the small reception area. “...waiting for the police to come. We had a call. A Captain Chandler is on his way, I guess to question them. It’s so terrible, so disturbing.”

She looked on the verge of tears, but apparently was too professional to succumb.

I gave her a small, encouraging smile. “Chandler’s a good man. Friend of mine. Nothing to worry about. Lounge is through here, right?”

She bit her lower lip and nodded. “Right.”

Cute kid. Busty blonde Ginny had her points, and so did Lyla Lamont for that matter; but give me a smart cookie like Betty any day.

Bob Price and Hal Feldman were sitting on a secondhand couch in the small lounge. Both were smoking. Paper cups of coffee shared space with overflowing ashtrays on the scarred-up coffee table before them. The room was a warm, friendly, funky space, with racy, unprintable in-house cartoons plastered to the wall, all caricaturing Price, Feldman and their regular artists. On the wall behind the couch was a big blow-up of a
Craze
cover. A life-size poster of Marilyn Monroe spilling from a bikini was nailed up with a caricature of artist Craig Johnson peeking over her shoulder lasciviously. Several wire racks of the latest EF Comics were here and there, as was lots of secondhand furniture. What came to mind immediately was a faculty lounge at a smalltown junior college.

And once-and-maybe-future science teacher Bob Price, in a white short-sleeve shirt with bow tie and baggy brown trousers, looked like the students had been giving him a particularly bad day.

“Jack,” Feldman said, smiling, putting out his cigarette in an ashtray despite its overflow. “Nice to see you. Come in. Sit down!”

Price’s second-in-command was snappily dressed as usual, gray suit with flecks of black, black-and-white-and-gray patterned tie. He was the kind of guy who’d be jaunty on the deck of a sinking ship, helping the women and children into the lifeboats.

I sank into a comfy if threadbare armchair facing them. “Betty says you fellas know about Dr. Frederick.”

Feldman said, “Just that he’s dead. That he died under suspicious circumstances.”

“Newscaster said,” Price put in, “it might be suicide. God, I don’t even know what to think.”

“You don’t?”

He gestured with open hands. “Is this a good thing for us? Or a bad thing?”

“Well, it’s a bad thing for Frederick.”

“It’s not good for anybody,” Feldman said gravely. “Frederick’s already done his damage. That
Ravage the Lambs
is a nasty genie that won’t go back in the bottle. And hell, maybe he’ll be a martyr now.”

“I don’t mean to callous,” Price said, “but he was an awful man. A real enemy to everybody here at EF. When somebody tries to put you out of business, you don’t have much sympathy for his problems.”

“He doesn’t have any more problems, Bob.”

He swallowed thickly. He looked pale except for his five o’clock shadow. He looked lousy actually, like he hadn’t been sleeping. Had he been up doing a project last night? Working on a story with Feldman, or maybe a solo effort, a typical
Suspense Crime Stories
yarn with a snap ending, maybe? Like the one about the shrink who said everybody was sick sick sick, then hanged himself?

“Maggie’s having me look into this,” I said.

Feldman was smiling, he almost always was, but his eyes weren’t. “Isn’t that the police’s job, Jack?”

“They’re on their way here now!” Price blurted. He seemed damn near as nervous as he had testifying.

“Betty told me,” I said with a nod. “The captain of Homicide is a decent guy. His name’s Chandler.”

“Like Raymond,” Feldman said.

“Like Raymond, only not like the corrupt cops in those private eye novels of his.
This
Chandler’s a good man, fair as they come—you’re gonna want to be straight with him.”

Feldman asked, “Does he know
you’re
looking into this?”

I thought about dodging that, but said, “Yes. He knows I’m in the business and that I know the players. He thinks I may be able to help. Hope I can.”

Price asked, “Are there any suspects?”

I just looked at him.

Feldman did the same.

“Well,” I said, “they picked up Pete Pine today. He’s been going around town bragging about how he was going to strangle Frederick. But they haven’t interrogated him, because they dumped his ass in Bellevue, to dry him out. He’s been on a two- or three-day binge.”

“Imagine that,” Feldman said with a smirk.

“Who else do they suspect?” Price asked.

I laughed, shook my head. “You do remember, don’t you, Bob, threatening to kill Frederick in front of a bunch of reporters?”

His smile was sickly, his eyes glazed behind the black-rimmed glasses. “Nobody took that seriously! That’s just an expression. A figure of speech.”

“Not when the guy you said it about is murdered the next day, it isn’t.”

Price and Feldman exchanged worried expressions. Had they discussed the probability of Price being targeted by the cops for this? Had Price been disingenuous when he asked about who the suspects might be?

Feldman asked, quietly, “Is it murder, Jack?”

I leaned back in the comfy chair. “I’m not in a position to go into detail. I’ve been asked by Captain Chandler to keep what I know to myself, for now. But I was at the scene.”

Price’s black eyebrows were standing damn near straight up, like India-ink exclamation points. “This Captain Chandler, he called you to the scene?”

“No. I found the body.”

They didn’t know what to say. Price stubbed out a cigarette and got a new one going. Feldman just leaned back, folded his arms, and watched me like I was a news commentator on TV with an important breaking story.

“I can tell you it was murder,” I said. “Of that I have no doubt. And I can tell you he was likely killed sometime between midnight last night and seven this morning.”

“We were together last night,” Feldman said quickly.

Price had no expression at all, though his mouth hung open a little, making him look vaguely idiotic, like the caricatures of him that appeared in
Craze
and in the in-house ones taped to the walls.

“Be more specific,” I said.

Feldman continued to take the lead. “We were working on springboards till the wee hours, part of it in Bob’s office, part right here in the lounge. Take a look at the ashtray, if you want evidence.”

I didn’t comment on the quality of that evidence. I asked, “What’s a springboard?”

“Oh. It’s basically an idea for a story.”

“A plot?”

“Not that detailed. We just come up with a premise and a surprise ending. Some ironic way for the villain to get his.”

Like the one about the shrink who said everybody was sick sick sick, then hanged himself
....

“You didn’t work on ‘springboards’ all night, did you? You surely went home at some point.”

Feldman said, “My apartment’s only a few blocks from here. When we work late, we go over there and sort of collapse. I’ve got a couch that Bob’s spent more time on than I have.”

“You’re not married, are you, Hal?”

“No. Why?”

“So there’s no little woman to confirm this. Did anybody see you? Getting home at, what time?”

“Probably three
A.M
. I guess not.”

“Anyone else working here at the office last night? Any artist or writer?”

Feldman shook his head.

“Did you take a coffee break and maybe hit the all-night deli down the block? Or have anything delivered?”

“No,” Feldman said. He pointed to an old refrigerator, chugging in the corner. “We ate here.”

Price finally said something: “Are we in trouble, Jack?”

Are
we
in trouble...not, Am
I
in trouble...

“It would be nice if you had any kind of witness,” I said, “to this after-hours story session. Or to getting home afterward. You guys are not just partners, but close friends. Somebody’s gonna say one of you is covering for the other.”

Softly Price said, “You think Hal’s covering for me?”

“No.”

Feldman asked, “Or vice versa?”

“No.”

Neither guy had the makings of a murderer, not in my book. My only hesitation was the cute, clever nature of the killing—either one or both were the only suspects so far who seemed capable of coming up with such a wacky murder scheme.

“There’s a better suspect than Bob,” Feldman offered.

I was thinking,
You mean, you?

But I said, “Love to hear it.”

“Vince Sarola.”

Sarola was the owner of Independent Newsstand Services, one of the two major comic-book distributors. He had mob ties, although not to Frank Calabria, who was connected to the rival Newsstand Distribution, Inc. Americana Comics was aligned with the latter, while Entertaining Funnies and Levinson Publications had distribution through the former.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Feldman’s grin was sly. “You don’t think Sarola has a motive? Our sales are down, thanks to Dr. Frederick. And I hear Lev’s titles really took a tumble. Down from three million copies for their top titles to under two.”

“No,” I said. “This wasn’t a mob hit.”

Price asked, “What makes you say that?”

“None of the earmarks.”

Feldman frowned. “How so?”

Well, of course, I couldn’t answer him without getting into the killing itself, and I was trying to find a way around that when Betty stuck her head in.

The pretty brunette looked frazzled. “Bob...Hal. Excuse me. But I have Will Allison out here. He’s very upset. Wants to see you.”

Bob seemed about to grant permission when Allison came pushing by Betty, saying he was sorry but almost knocking her over. She rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her.

The kid was in his
Wild One
get-up, black leather jacket, t-shirt, jeans. His narrow handsome face was overwhelmed by that massive, greasy duck’s-ass haircut.