The Paperback Show Murders (3 page)

“YOU NAME UH?”

Saturday, March 26

“‘You name Uh?' asked Mr. Fan, the well-known detective from Koreatown.

“‘Yeah,' I growled, scowling up at the dumb copper. ‘Ima Uh.'

“‘You a Uh?' Fan said, squinting down at me.

“‘No,' I said. ‘I'm Uh! Ima Uh!' I thrust my plenteous bosoms up at his face, wriggling them like overripe cantaloupes. ‘See!'

“‘What I said!' Fan dangoed, jumping back from my dangerous dodos. ‘You kill Hu!'

“‘Hu?' I said. ‘Uh, Hu did I kill?'

“‘Hu, Uh,' came the reply.

“I knew I was in a manure pile of trouble. This was beginning to look a lot like a Japanese puzzle box, and unless I moved those wooden slats back and forth in just the right way, I'd never crack this case wide open. And then Hu would Fan arrest but Uh—a damaged dame like me?”

—Insclutable Puzzle Box
,

by Cosmo d'Ombre (1948)

“Let's see, uh, you name, uh…,” Pfisch said, paging through several lists of names. “I know I've got it here somewhere.”

I finally told him who I was, or we would have been sitting there for the rest of the day.

“Oh, yes, here you are”—which I thought was pretty obvious myself. “Where were you after nine o'clock last night?”

“In my room, of course,” I said. “I was reading a book.”

“A
book
? You fellas actually
read
some of these things?”

“Only the cheap ones, Lieutenant. The expensive items, we sell!”

“Of course. Can anyone vouch for your presence there at that time?”

“No,” I said. “I tend to read alone.”

“I hear you were involved in an altercation with Ms. Boaz yesterday.”

I shook my head in an emphatic “No.”

“We all argued with Lissa, most of the time,” I said. “She wasn't the kind of person who gave you the warm and fuzzies, if you know what I mean.” And then I told him about the book.

“You
really
think she was killed over an old paperback?” the policeman asked. “I mean, that sounds a bit far-fetched to me.”

“I heard a story once,” I said. “I don't know if it's true, but I believed it, and so do most of the dealers I know.

“There was a collector named Franky Froggo or something like that—not his real name, of course, but the persona he adopted in public. He was trying to put together a complete mint set of the Dell 10¢ paperbacks—half-sized productions of sixty-four pages, each one stapled through the spine. They did something like thirty-six of them in 1951, including works by major writers that never appeared in that format again. They're very pricey, particularly the unread copies—and assembling a good-quality run of the books is nigh unto impossible these days.

“Well, supposedly he was attending a con in St. Louis, and he and a dealer named Cory Felice happened upon the display at Freddie the Cur's table at the same time, coming from opposite ends, see; and they reached the collision point just where the best stuff was housed under glass. And there was the Robert A. Heinlein ten-center,
Universe
, beckoning to both of them simultaneously.

“Felice knew that he could resell the book for a significant mark-up back in the Big Apple—and poor old Froggo knew that
that
particular item was just what he needed to complete his set. They both shouted ‘It's mine!' at the same time to dear Freddie, who
really
had them by the short hairs: he could start a bidding war, and who knows where it would end!

“But when Froggo saw who his competition was, he realized immediately that he couldn't outbid Felice. So he calmly reached into the backpack he always carried with him, pulled out a petite revolver, and shot him full of holes. Then he politely asked the Cur for his book.

“Freddie assures me this actually happened. So yes, Lieutenant, I do believe that people will kill over such things, particularly when reputations are at stake. Whoever the author is, she's never been willing to emerge from the dark shadows of her past. I don't think she wants to now, either.”

That was the end of our first interview—but it wasn't the last.

“I'LL MAKE YOU
COME TO MAMA!”

Saturday, March 26

“Madame Montragora watched with bright-dark eyes as Filly and Taisy tied the beauteous girl to the old tanning table, hooking each arm and leg to halters that spread her body wide and open. Jezzy was sobbing in terror, begging for a mercy that she knew would never arrive.

“‘Please,' she said. ‘Oh, please. I'll do anything you want.'

“‘Yes, you will,” the mistress of the house stated. ‘Strip her!' she ordered her servants.

“‘But, Ma'am, she's…she's one of the gentry,' Filly said.

“‘Strip her, I say! Slash every last linen and shift from her Satan-infested body. She must be taught a lesson!

“‘I'll make you come to Mama!' she told the wretchedly overendowed governess.”

—The Secret of Castle Dred
,

by Twilla Curtayne (1963)

After grabbing a bite at The Brer Bunny, which featured Samothracian cuisine, Margie and I opened for business once more that afternoon; but the crowds were small, much less than the day before, and the entire atmosphere seemed very subdued.

“Damn and blast!” I said. “It's just not fair. We spend the entire year getting ready for this event, and it's being ruined by someone pursuing a private vendetta. I mean, it's like a bad paperback novel.”

“You don't know that,” she said. “Maybe Lissa threatened the writer with exposure, when she couldn't pay the price she was asking. Somebody like Freddie the Cur could outbid anyone if he saw a buck to be made down the line. You know that.”

“Yeah, but…like I said, it's not fair that we're the ones being made to pay the piper here—
all of us
. Not right at all.”

“I'm not disagreeing with you,” she said, “I'm really not. But there's nothing we can do about it until the cops catch the killer.”

She rose from her seat and turned to help someone whom I couldn't see, but then I had a customer too, so we finally sold a few books. We had a long way to go, though, just to break even.

Then I saw the lanky form of Lieutenant Pfisch approaching, and I whispered, “Here comes da fuzz!”—to which Margie said, “Stop that!”

He halted in front of our table, and said: “You know, I was thinking about what you said last night, and I thought I'd better take a look at that novel you mentioned. You know,
Castle
, uh….”

“
Castle Dred
,” I said. “I think we've got one or two somewhere. Not a prime copy, you understand: ‘spine intact, but some creases,' as Vanis Victoroff would say.”

“I just want to read it to see if anything there gives me an idea or two.”

“Margie! You know where that book went?” I was plowing through the Ace “K” series, looking for the worn copy of K-99 that I knew we had in stock.

“Here it is!” she said, holding up the item I was seeking.

“What's it doing over
there
?” I asked. “Somebody must have moved it while pawing through our table. Here you go, Lieutenant—it's on the house!”

“No, sir, I can't do that, thank you just the same,” the policeman said. “I'll pay my way with the legal tender of the land. Let me give me the total, please.”

I charged him ten bucks, which was a fair price, considering the less-than-ideal condition of the volume. But the pages were intact, so he could read to his heart's delight.

Oh, I remembered
Castle Dred
, all right; I recalled the plot very well indeed, since it was so over-the-top.

Jezebel Langtree's father is left penniless in the aftermath of the Civil War, when his massive investment in Confederate War Bonds suddenly turns into worthless paper. Jezzy, the twenty-two-year-old eldest child, whose beau had been killed in the Pickett line at Gettysburg, is forced to take a job as governess to the children of the House of Montragora, located a few miles outside the small county seat of Georgeville, Virginia.

Col. Phibeas Montragora had maintained his fortune by selling horses, food, and stock to both sides in the War Between the States, and now has become the largest land owner in Rapunzel County, buying estates cheaply as the proprietors default on their loans. He has his greedy eyes firmly fixed on Hilldale, the Langtree farm, which lies astride a major highway into the new state of West Virginia. He wants to build an, uh, special “inn” there for the weary business travelers that he knows are coming.

Madame Lucrezia Montragora runs her household like a petty tyrant, insisting on having her way in everything; and her two young daughters, Hannabelle and Sarralee, follow their mother's lead. Jezzy's life at Montragore House becomes a living hell, a game of bait-and-switch that she can never win. And yet she has no choice but to continue: her regular income, small as it is, is the only thing that is keeping her family solvent.

But there's something very strange about the Montragoras, Jezzy discovers, something that they're hiding from the outside world. Other than the old patriarch, who's always away on business somewhere, the mansion contains no men—all of the servants, all of the near relations, are female.

One day she uncovers the family Bible, with its record of births, deaths, and marriages; and finds, much to her surprise, that it does include the names of numerous male offspring, but that none of them ever seem to carry on the line. Indeed, most die soon after reaching the age of fourteen or fifteen. And then comes the greatest shock of all: the marriage record of Lucrezia Montragora with Phibeas Van Damm! He's not a Montragora by blood!

When Madame Montragora enters the room and discovers Jezzy holding the book, she yells to the servants for help, and before the governess can do anything to save herself, has her tied and bound in a subterranean room deep beneath the old structure. Then she strips away the young woman's clothes, and begins a very strange torture session, caressing her with feathered boas. “I'll make you come to Mama!” she says. “You'll confess everything before you're through!”

All seems lost until the Colonel returns from his latest venture, and frees Jezzy from her bonds, wrapping her in his great-cloak. As she flees from the mansion in the night, she can hear the two adults shouting at each other—and then she sees the flames spitting from the windows, as Montragore House finally meets its ugly fate, taking with it the perverted women who've inhabited its walls.

I could see why there'd never been a sequel.

“HOW'S IT HANGIN'?”

Saturday, March 26

“Jackson rode into town on his albino palomino, settin' high in the saddle and looking for b'ar.

“He drew his six-shooter and fired a shot straight up at the sky—and then heard it plunk right down again, through the top of the tin water tower, the one with Alab-ster whitewashed across the pale, faded top of the tank. Water began drippin' out the bottom.

“Several townsfolk wandered out onto the dusty main street of Alabaster, Kansas (not far from Dodge City), but only one person really welcomed him—Mr. Josiah Murdo, the mortician.

“‘How's it hangin'?' the embalmer asked. Jackson was always good for business.

“‘Got me a wanted poster for One-Eye Dick,' the gunman said, whippin' it out and wavin' it 'round and 'round in the bright noonday sun. ‘They said he was lurkin' here somewheres.'

“‘Seen him down in the saloon jus' this mornin',' Murdo said. ‘Looked to be sailin' at half-mast.'

“‘He'll be all-busted-up by the time I'm through with him,' Jackson said. Just then the doors of the Lucky Gal slammed open, and Dick himself came wobblin' out, ramblin' back and forth while he tried to pull himself together.

“‘I sees you, Dick,' Jackson said, hoppin' down from his paley pony. He wiped his hands on his flannel shirt, and unbuttoned the straps over his guns. ‘Prepare to die, you dog!' he shouted.

“But Dick was already pullin' out his massive weapon, and levelin' it right at the bounty hunter's heart. ‘Gotcha!' he said.

“Jackson did a tumbly to his left, yankin' out his one-eyed monster at the same time, and firin' from a prone position right behind the water trough that his palomino was sippin' from. One-Eye Dick's shot plonked a hole in the wood next to his head—but Jackson's didn't miss his target.

“‘Too bad!' he yelled, as his opponent dropped dead-first into the dust. ‘Ya had a big one, all right, but ya jus' couldn't get it in play, could ya?

“Now, that's a truth that every gunslinger knows: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

—Not Far from Dodge City
,

by Brody Dameen (1959)

The horror writer Brody Richard Dameen was about fifty-five years of age, but he looked at least eighty, as he staggered over to signing area “D” at three o'clock, a couple of tables down from ours. He'd obviously been sipping the breakfast of champions again—bourbon
sans
the rocks.

Dameen had started his career writing westerns for Star Books and porn for Bee-Line, and then had tried spy spoofs in the 1960s, and moved to horror in the '70s. His one big claim to fame was the bestselling paperback,
The O-Man
(Pinochle Books), the tale of a demon-fighting action hero infused with not-so-delicate shades of both James Bond and
The Exorcist
, which had spawned twenty-seven really bad sequels, and an equally popular yet despicable motion picture starring a very young Brucie Campo (plus a dozen slimy straight-to-video offspring).

Of late, however, “The O-Man,” as he was fond of calling himself, had fallen on hard times, and was now reduced to peddling his memoirs,
Five Decades of Pornorror
, and endless analyses of how his better-selling competitors had ripped him off.

The line of fans waiting patiently to receive his precious signature was not nearly as long as that for the next writer, Van Cott, who was hovering above one of his books, trying to remember what his name was.

I asked Margie to watch our table, and moseyed on over. “How's it hangin', Brody?” I asked.

He grimaced a bit, and then sipped from the pink straw sticking through the top of the plastic cup in front of him. “Man, it's, uh, tough out there today,” he said, “but things're, uh, looking up. I've got a deal working that should, uh, should, uh….”

He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs, but it obviously didn't work this time, so he said again, “It should, uh, really….”

“Yeah, I understand,” I said. “When you're done, Brody, could you sign the copies we have of your books?”

“Sure, man, anything for a friend. Hey, when I'm, uh, back on Park Place again, I'm going to, uh, to—I'll remember the people who, uh, helped me, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'll count on it.”

I was shaking my head when I sat down again.

“Still in bad shape?” Margie asked.

“Worse than ever. Now he says he's got a deal going.”

“He's been saying that for the last decade.”

I'd just sold a copy of a mint-condition Pony Book from the postwar period when I saw Lieutenant Pfisch and Sergeant Hamm coming our way.

“They're baaack!”
I hissed at my partner, nodding down the aisle.

“I wonder what they want,” she said.

“Ms. Brittleback,” the Lieutenant said, “I wonder if we could have a word with you again. In private, please.”

“What's this all about?” I asked.

“We have some more questions for her,” Hamm said.

“About what?”

“I think that's a matter of police business,” Pfisch said. “Will you come with us, please?” he added, nodding at Margie.

“What should I do?” she asked, turning to me, fear etched in her eyes.

The room around us had gotten very quiet all of a sudden.

“Are you charging her with anything, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“Not at this time,” he said.

“And if she refuses?”

“I wouldn't recommend that,” the policeman said. “You see, sir, we have a witness who can place her outside Ms. Boaz's room at nine o'clock last night. We want to know what she was doing there!”