Seduction of the Innocent (23 page)

“Figure of speech,” I muttered, in answer to Sylvia’s remark about Maggie’s lack of sleeves.

She glanced around her. “You say Maggie invited all these familiar faces.”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t they...suspects?”

“That’s right.”

“All
of the suspects?”

“Well, most of them. Several couldn’t attend. Ennis Williams’ mother wouldn’t let him come, even if she accompanied him. Even if we sent a car.”

Sylvia shrugged. “Well, it is a school night.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t want to be tardy to the Blackboard Jungle. Anyway, I’ll bet his mama lets him stay up to watch the show.”

She frowned as she continued slowly scanning the moodily illuminated restaurant. “Who else is missing?”

“Well, a gentleman in the newsstand distribution business, a certain Vincent Sarola, is in the hospital in traction.”

The dark blue eyes swung my way. “That’s the man who...”

“Who apparently had a bad fall at home.”

“How bad?”

“Broke his collarbone, his left arm and his right leg.
He’ll
probably be watching, too, on the television in his private room.... Those waitresses are never going to get to us in time. What would you like?”

She wanted a Manhattan, and I took orders from Chandler and his good-looking wife Marge, then left the couple chatting with Sylvia. At the bar, I ordered up drinks for everybody, gentleman that I am.

The show would go on in less than ten minutes, but the crew guys and gals from WNBC were still checking cables and microphones, a clunky trio of which again sat on the linen-covered table of the booth where Barray was already in position, getting his makeup checked, Maggie and Lehman already seated as well. Right now the room was noisy as half a dozen of Maggie’s burlesque queen waitresses in their white shirts, black ties and tuxedo pants threaded through the packed tables taking and delivering final drink orders—no service during the show.

“Jack, I wanted to apologize,” somebody said.

I looked to one side, but had to tilt my eyes down some, to see the face that went with the voice.

Diminutive Pete Pine, hair combed, freshly shaved, in a black-flecked tan sport coat and darker brown slacks, was barely recognizable as my stairwell brawler. He’d covered a few bruises with shaving powder, but then so had I. He cleaned up surprisingly well.

“Hi, Pete,” I said. “Maggie appreciates you coming.”

He looked like he might cry; so many sober drunks do. “You’ve always been a decent guy to me, Jack. And Maggie’s been great. Means a lot to a comic-book hack to land a syndicated strip.”

“Crime Fighter
strip’s doing fine. We’ll see if this bad publicity hurts us.”

“Yeah. But I’m...really sorry about the other day. Hey, you used to be a drinker, right? Maybe you let things get out of hand a time or two, yourself, huh? Maybe you can understand, and cut me some slack, just this once?”

And he held out his hand.

I shook his hand, but then I held onto it, tightening the grip. “We got no problem, Pete. Not unless I hear you’re beating up on Lyla again.”

I let go.

He shook his head. “Won’t happen. I got on my hands and knees and promised her I’d never lay another angry hand on her. I cried my damn eyes out, like a little kid. Man, when I sobered up I felt
terrible
about it. What kind of guy hits a dame, anyway?”

“My point precisely.”

Then Bardwell, who’d been watching Pine and me talk, got up from their table and made his way over with the kind of big grin a used car salesman gives you when you walk onto the lot. The six-four artist/editor, in a maroon sport coat with a gray shirt and darker gray tie, loomed over his little pal— all he lacked was the organ grinder’s box.

“Hope you two boys are gettin’ along famously now,” Bardwell said, placing a hand on his cohort’s shoulder.

Pine nodded, smiled nervously.

“Jack, Pete here felt like hell about your little...misunderstanding. When I heard you two guys got into a dust-up, hell, I was beside myself.”

I said to Pine, “Give me a second with Charley, would you?”

Pine nodded and, tail tucked between his legs, went back to sit with Lyla.

Bardwell’s big toothy smile seemed vaguely threatening. “Did you want something, Jack?”

I didn’t smile. “Charley, I know you’re the one who sicced Sarola and his goons on me the other day. I left your office and you called him.”

“Jack, that’s crazy.”

“No, it’s exactly what you’d do. It’s exactly what you
did.
Now here’s how it’s gonna be, Charley. Starr will keep doing business with you as long as the
Crime Fighter
strip holds its list of papers. The second it drops off,
it
gets dropped.”

The confidence had gone out of that smile, like air from a punctured tire. “Well, there’s
always
ebb and flow with a comic strip....”

“Maggie and I’ll make a reasonable decision about it. We won’t go off half-cocked. But if Vince Sarola or any of his boys look at me cross-eyed, I will not only deal with
them,
Charley, I will come find
you.”

“Is that right?”

I unbuttoned the navy suit coat, which hung open just enough to reveal the .45 in the shoulder holster. “And, Charley, I just
might
go off half-cocked.”

His smile had turned sick. He wasn’t at all sure of himself as he said, “You don’t scare me, Jack. You’re no tough guy.”

A hand settled on his shoulder, and Captain Chandler said, “I’d be careful if I were you, Charley. Jack won a Silver Star in the war, y’know. I doubt he’d have much compunction about punching a round or two into you.”

Bardwell, who’d been questioned by Chandler about the Frederick killing, knew just who the captain was. And all the bluster drained out of him. So did the blood from his face. He swallowed, nodded, and got back to the Levinson table.

“Compunction, huh?” I said. “Pretty big word for somebody who flunked the inspector exam.”

“I liked how I followed it up with ‘punching.’ Nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Thanks for not mentioning I won the Silver Star stateside.”

I’d got it as an M.P. when there had been a break-out at the P.O.W. camp in Oklahoma where I was stationed.

“The Nazis didn’t make it past Tulsa, as I recall,” Chandler said.

We had our backs to the bar, watching the final frantic preparations being made for the broadcast.

He asked, “Were you going to tell me about Sarola?”

“Tell you what?”

“Vince claims he fell off his roof putting up a TV antenna.”

I laughed. “Maybe he did.”

“Word on the street is you dropped a ton of funny books on his ass.”

“You always hear about this ‘word on the street,’ but where does it come from, anyway?”

“In this instance, Jack, I would guess from one of the two bozos you beat to shit telling some goombah buddy, and word got around.”

“On the street.”

“Yeah. On the street.”

“Never.”

“What?”

“That’s when I was going to tell you.”

The drinks were ready and I let Chandler convey them back to the waiting women, so I could make a stop at the Entertaining Funnies table.

“Thanks for coming,” I said, leaning in between Price and Feldman. “Should be as entertaining as one of your funnies.”

Price gazed up at me, eyes wide behind his dark-rimmed glasses, his manner animated. “Maggie’s
up
to something, isn’t she? Hal and I were talking, and we figure—”

“Yeah,” Feldman said, talking over Price, “we figure that—”

I raised a hand to shush them. “Boys, thanks, but no spring-boarding is needed. Maggie writes her own stuff. With maybe a little help from me.”

Will Allison, no motorcycle leathers this time, just a light-blue suit and tie, touched my coat sleeve as I was about to go. His dark eyes were painfully earnest as he stared up at me. “Mr. Starr?”

“Hiya, Will.”

“I know you put a good word in for me with Captain Chandler. I just wanted to thank you. I hated what Dr. Frederick stood for, but I didn’t have anything to do with his...with what happened. I hope you
know
that.”

I patted his shoulder. “Will, this’ll all be over soon.”

“That sounds a little ominous.”

“It may be for somebody.”

His grin was shy. “Anyway, thanks. Let me know if there’s something I can do to repay you.”

“Well, there’s two things. First, you can make an appointment to see us next week so we can discuss doing a strip with you.”

“What! You’re kidding....”

“No, come see us. And the other thing you can do?”

“Yeah?”

“I collect comic art. Pick me out a nice EF page.”

“Gee, Mr. Starr, I can’t do that.”

He really did say “gee.”

“Why’s that, Will?”

He nodded toward the plump bespectacled publisher. “Mr. Price keeps all the original art. He says he paid for it and he’s keeping it—we don’t get it back. But I tell you what—if I wind up doing a strip for Starr, you can have the first Sunday page.”

I laughed. “That’s the best bribe I’ve had since...” Well, since Lyla Lamont pranced around in a red beret and the altogether otherwise, but we didn’t need to get into that. “...in some time.”

A floor director in a headset called for quiet, waving around a clipboard like he was guiding a plane in. Rather than push through the crowd to get to my chair next to Sylvia, I returned to the nearby bar, where a stool at the end waited. Anyway, it gave me a great view past the big blocky camera.

I sat on the edge of my stool, sipping at a rum and Coke (minus the rum), as Harry Barray welcomed his audience at home and here at the Strip Joint. Then the big blond puffy-featured disc jockey began with a brief editorial, directed at the camera.

“Last week we discussed the comic-book controversy that has been sweeping the land,” he said, his voice amplified in the room, giving his words extra weight. “Parents are concerned about the violence and horror that drench the pages of these oh-so-unfunny funny books. Churches, schools and PTAs have burned heaps of this trash, which even now litters our nation’s newsstands, drugstores and candy shops. On last week’s
Soiree,
I suggested that ‘adults only’ tags might be affixed to these tasteless periodicals.”

By the way, Barray was wearing a red-and-black plaid blazer that was at least as tasteless as any comic book I ever saw.

“Such labeling would be a sensible first step in the battle to safeguard the innocence of our children. This past week, two events occurred that have brought this battle to a boil.”

Can you boil a battle?

“A patriotic group of Congressmen,” Barray was saying, “held a hearing in our city and exposed the shallow, venal, corrupt attitudes and practices of those whose business it is publishing this trash.”

I glanced at Price and Feldman, the former reddening, the latter scowling. At the Levinson table, Charley Bardwell was whispering in the call girl’s ear and Lyla Lamont was playing with Pete Pine’s hair.

“Perhaps the star of that hearing,” Barray went on, “was the psychiatrist who brought the comic-book problem to the attention of American moms and dads, pastors and teachers. With his book on the subject about to be published, Dr. Werner Frederick is rightly the hero of the hour. But he cannot enjoy that status—late last week, as many of you know, he was
murdered
... in a wicked attempt to make it appear he’d taken his own life. Though the police have withheld key aspects of their investigation, inside sources indicate that the very murder itself imitated a violent act depicted in a comic book.”

Now, finally, Barray turned to his guests. “We’ve asked back two experts with opposing views on the subject of comic-book violence—Maggie Starr, the President of the Starr Syndicate...which distributes comic-strip versions of several popular comic-book heroes...and Garson Lehman, noted critic of comic books in his own pioneering book,
The Velvet Fist.
Garson, thank you for again taking part in the
Soiree
.”

“My pleasure, Harry.” The little man’s mouth twitched a smile under his mustache. He wore another tweedy jacket with a sweater and shirt beneath, his hair in its typical winged formation.

“You were a colleague of Dr. Frederick’s, I believe,” the D.J. said. “In fact, you helped research
Ravage the Lambs.”

“I did indeed. If I am not being too bold, I would say I contributed mightily to that work, and with the doctor now a martyr to this cause, I am prepared to step in and step up and continue the good fight.”

Maggie said, “You’re much too modest, Mr. Lehman.”

Barray’s frown was almost imperceptible—Maggie was supposed to wait for his prompting, for her
turn,
not just jump in as if this were a real conversation and not a staged one.

“Well,” Lehman said, smiling uneasily, “that’s
kind
of you, Miss Starr...Maggie...and please, we’re friends here, I hope —I’m ‘Garson.’”

“Thank you, Garson,” she said with a nod and a smile.

“But,” he went on in his pinched nasal way, “I would never try to claim credit from Dr. Frederick. He’s the man the world associates with the anti-comic-book cause, and I am happy to be his standard bearer.”

“In my view,” Maggie said, touching a breast where pink flesh met green satin, “you deserve much more credit. It’s true, isn’t it, that Dr. Frederick—while an articulate speaker, and a dogged researcher—was not much of a wordsmith?”

Lehman smiled again, still uneasy. “Well, perhaps. And I
did
help him assemble his book. After all, he did credit me in his acknowledgments. Going so far as to thank me, saying, ‘without whom this book would not have been possible.’”

“And it wouldn’t have,” Maggie said, “because you wrote it.”

Lehman looked as if she had slapped him. Barray’s slack-lipped gaping stare spoke wordlessly for itself.

She said,
“Ravage the Lambs
was an expansion of an article about Frederick’s research and theories that you wrote for
Collier’s
under your own name. You ‘ghosted’ Dr. Frederick’s book, as we say in the business.”

Finally Barray managed, “Miss Starr, this is a
serious
accusation...”