The Paperback Show Murders (5 page)

“HE WAS NEVER A FRIEND TO ANYONE”

Saturday, March 26

“I turned the corner at Orzechówka Street, and crept like a rat between the shadows, watching for any movement up ahead, my hand firmly clasped around my
strzelbą dwururka
. You could have cut the smog with a stainless steel carving knife—but at least the damp air muffled the passage of my iron-toed leather boots. Swish, swish, swish they went, as I moved slowly and carefully from doorway to doorway, waiting for the bullet that never came.

“We were two hunters stalking our prey—one another—with an intensity that belied the coldness of the silent war we fought—just two hunters bent upon the destruction of the living symbol of a political system, one red, the other red, white, and blue. Which swatch would survive unstitched remained to be seen.

“‘Blat,' I heard, and instinctively ducked—not that it would have done me much good—as a chip of pink brick scoured a furrow up one cheek. I wiped the blood away.

“‘Not quite “Gut Enuff,” Comrade!' I chirped into the night, zipping a taut little package right back at my enemy. His name was Colonel Å»yleniec, but I called him Å»ylak, or ‘Varicose Vein,' which I knew infuriated him. We'd played this game many times before over the past two decades, sometimes on my turf, and now on his. But I had a feeling that this would be our last bout upon the chessboard of life.

“‘You von't escape me this time!' he yelled back, sending another bullet my way. ‘Blat,' ‘blip,' ‘blink' went our mini-missiles hurling back and forth, forth and back. Finally, I could stand the strain no more, and I stepped out in the middle of the street, right where the trolley tracks cut their twin furrows through the cobblestones—and Å»ylak followed suit. We would finally resolve our issues like the iron-nosed men we were.

“We fired simultaneously, but I think my second barrel must have tipped the balance, for the Polish Colonel slumped down on his knees to the wet pavement, staining his one good western suit, and dropping his fuming
fuzja
right there on the bricks.

“‘I die,' he said, coughing up gouts of pink-hinged blood (still a diehard Commie). ‘I die, but you and I, ve vere the same! The same to the very end!'

“‘No,' I said out loud, ‘we were never the same, Comrade.'

“You see, I was a friend to mankind and my dog; but that Å»ylak, he was never a friend to anyone!”

—Incident at Czyścimnie
,

by Donnie Grollman Opdyke (1967)

We finally shooed away the last lookie-loo of the afternoon, packed up the primo pbs and covered the rest with a cloth, and got out just as Tomás and the security guards were locking up the place. We were both exhausted, for more reasons than one. I saw what appeared to be a plainclothes policeman watching us as we headed towards our van.

I locked the carton of quality books in the safe box in the vehicle, and then we drove the few blocks to Restaurant Row on the other side of the freeway. I suggested the Jade Tiger, the best Chinese restaurant in town, and Margie just nodded—I don't think she really cared at that point.

I ordered some hot-and-sour soup and a platter of Shanghai dumplings, and we munched away in silence—or at least I did—while contemplating the day's events.

“I just can't believe she's gone,” Margie finally said.

“You mean Lissa?”

“She may have been a nasty piece of work, but she was alive, you know what I mean? The bristles were real. She didn't deserve to die—not over some fading pages slapped between cheap cover art. I mean, Ace never spent that much money on
anything
. My friend was paid just $500 for
Castle Dred
. Of course, she was only nineteen at the time.”

“I remember Don Wollheim telling me once how he had to scrimp on everything, while his boss lived in this grandiose place out on Long Island. But why did he publish
that
book?” I said. “I mean, it was pretty bad, even by Ace's standards.”

“Yeah, it was no classic, that's for sure,” Margie said, “although at the time, we both thought it was a real lark. Like mine, her novel satirized some of the ‘in' people in town. I had the impression that she knew somebody who worked for the company, and Wollheim was ordered to buy it by someone further up the chain.”

“Really! That's very interesting.”

“It is, but like so much of this, it's old history. Who cares now?”

“Somebody cares, that's for sure,” I said. “Somebody cares a great deal. Did your friend come from a prominent family?”

“I always thought so,” she said. “She lived in a big house just outside of town, and they always drove the newest cars, and went on vacations to exotic places. But now that I think about it, I don't really know what her father did. He was away a lot, and I rarely saw him in person. She never talked about him much; I had the impression they weren't very close. He was a banker or real estate investor or something like that—maybe. She married one of his friends, someone much older. She wasn't too happy about it, but she told me at the time that she had no choice, that if she came to New York to live, her father would find her and drag her back again.”

“How utterly medieval,” I said. “I mean, you can't do things like that these days.”

“Back then, in a small town, if you were connected—yes, you could, and everyone in authority would back you up too.”

Then I heard a loud voice raised in anger, and I looked over at the high booth across the room from us. Brody Dameen was arguing with someone sitting back in the shadows. Suddenly, his opposite number leaned forward into the light, and I recognized the fat face of Freddie the Cur, as he stuffed another wonton into his mouth.

Freddie was a big man in every sense of the word: tall and long and round and ugly, like the girl from Ipanema blown inside out. He must have weighed at least three hundred pounds, but you could section that lard piece by piece, if you dared, and never find a heart. If he'd ever had one, he'd fried it in grease and eaten it a long time ago.

“Don't you threaten me, you tipsy little turd!” I heard him tell the “O-Man.” “I'll crush you like the bug you are.”

“But I have it!”
Dameen said, and then dropped his voice, and I couldn't make out anything else that they said to each other, except,
“I do!”

“What was
that
all about?” Margie asked.

But before I could respond, Gully Foyle, Brody's “significant other,” stormed into the room, and halted right in front of the two men. She was a blonde woman of perhaps forty, well-dressed and well-apportioned, if you know what I mean.

“What are
you
doing here, Freddie?” she hissed—just loud enough so we could hear. “Leave him alone. He never did anything to you.”

“But, I…uh, I…,” Brody said.

“And
you
! What's the matter with you, dealing with the likes of him? You know what kind of person he is.”

“But….”

“Come with me, now, Dearie. It's time we got back to our room.
Iron Chef
'll be on soon, and I know you like that.” Then she looked at the book dealer again, and almost spit at him. “
You
can pick up the tab, you asshole!”

She eased Dameen out of the booth, and carefully supported him as he wobbled from the room, dragging our eyes with them.

But when I looked back across the restaurant, all I saw were the beady little orbs of Freddie the Cur staring right at me. He stuck out his pasty slug of a tongue, and wiped his bottom lip with it, left to right, like a dog cleaning his chops. He might as well have shouted to the patrons, “I
see
you,
old friend
, and we'll take care of business later.”

Yet he was never a friend to anyone, not even to himself.

“GOODBYE! GOOD LUCK!”

Saturday, March 26

“What can you say about a fifty-four-year-old girl who died?

“Septuagenarian bestselling writer Julius Manderley sat upright on his horse, Daisy Bell, the very beast who'd kicked his beloved to death after she'd tried to force just one more beet into her spayed jaws, while he pondered the strange vicissitudes of life.

“Theirs had been a whirlwind, twenty-four-day romance, beginning at his hospital bed, where he'd been recovering from near-fatal biblio-spasms to his fingers and arms. Writhing in agony, unable to find relief, he suddenly discovered his pain-wracked wrist being massaged by the twinkling toes of the overendowed Nurse Judi Bell, and was immediately captivated.

“Then followed a gusto of events that he could scarcely recall to mind, being somewhat alzheimeristically compromised—of motocross excursions into the Oregon mountains, of long rides on Daisy Bell and Tinkle Bell on the still longer, dusty trails to nowhere, of moonlit nights trying to find their way back home again—always with his beloved Judi Bell at his side, massaging him with those terrific toenails!

“Ah, such ecstasy!

“But all things do finally peter out, and when the veginarian Judi Bell tried to ‘beet' poor Daisy Bell one time too many, the placid palomino turned on her owner, and kicked her kaput with one mighty blow.

“And now—poor Julius was left all alone once again, with just his fractured memories and his meaningless millions to keep him company—although he did still have the undying love of his two horsies!

“‘Love means never having to say you're hoary,' he said to no one in particular. ‘Goodbye! Good luck!'”

—Love, Love, Love!

by Hyacinth Peppercorn (1963)

Lieutenant Pfisch was waiting for us back at the motel, with several men in blue, and informed Margie that she was under arrest for the murder of Lissa Boaz. “Or should I say ‘Margaret Storm,' Ms. Brittleback?” he said. “Turns out you have a record under that name. Why am I not surprised that you told me nothing about this in our little interview this afternoon?”

“You didn't ask,” she said.

“What record?”
I asked.

“She was convicted of dealing drugs in New York back in the 1970s,” Pfisch said. “Served a year, too, before being released on good behavior.”

“It was all a mistake,” she said, shaking her head. “And I
wasn't
dealing. I just bought some pot for my own use.”

“That's what they all say. You can explain that to the judge when the time comes.”

Then he read her her rights and handcuffed her. Margie turned to me and said: “Call my attorney! His number's 909-555-2212. Leave a message. I'll be at….” She looked at the Lieutenant.

Pfisch told me where they were taking her.

“Find the real killer! That's the
only
thing you can do to help.”

Then they hauled her across the lot to the police car, stuffed her in the back seat, and drove away.

I was stunned by the turn of events, although I'd been half-expecting this. I couldn't decide what to do. Then I thought about the conversation that we'd overheard in the restaurant—and what Brody had told me earlier in the day—and I decided that I needed to see the “O-Man” one more time.

I phoned the attorney that Margie had mentioned, and then later headed for the motel. Brody and Gully were staying on the back side of the Royal Crest, in Room 1333. I took the elevator to the thirteenth floor, went out to the external balcony that fronted on all of the rooms, and had to walk almost to the end of the row.

I pounded on their door until Gully finally cracked it open.

“What do you want?” she asked. I could barely hear her.

“I need to talk to Brody,” I said.

“He's sick.”

“He's drunk,” I said, “but that's nothing new. I still need to talk to him. Or would you rather that I told the cops about the little scene that I witnessed at the Jade Tiger a few hours ago.”

“No, don't do that!” she said. “All right, but keep it short, OK?”

Brody was propped up in front of the TV set, watching a guest chef trying to overcome the Italian Iron Chef—I forget his name—the plump one who always wore shorts. The secret ingredient was crickets.

He looked over at me. “Oh, it's, uh, you,” he said.

“Yeah, it's me again. You never did sign those books for us.”

“Maybe tomorrow. I'll, uh, I'll come by your table tomorrow.”

“So,” I said, “you have it!”

“Yes”—and then, realizing what he'd just said—“Uh, no! Uh, have what?”

“The book, I presume.”

“How, uh, how did you know?”

“Why else would you be dickering with Freddie the Cur? The only question I have is this: how did you get it?”

“What do you, uh, mean?” Brody asked.

“Well, if you killed Lissa for it, you know, I could understand. She was a nasty little woman. But….”

“I didn't kill her! I didn't.”

“Then you must have seen who did,” I said.

“It was, uh, it was your Margie,” he said.

“I don't think so.”

“But, but, she was the last one to leave the room.”

“Then who was the first one?”
I asked. “Obviously, you must have seen something, Brody. Otherwise, you wouldn't be drinking yourself to death.”

He looked around the room until his eyes fixated on Foyle. “What do I, uh, say, Gully?
What do I say
?”

“Leave him alone!” she said, stepping forward and putting her arms around him. She cradled his head on her breasts. “He's had quite enough. Can't you see that he's so scared that he's cracking up? He's afraid of Freddie and he's afraid of the person he saw.

“Yes, there was someone else who visited Lissa last evening. He saw them leave, but he didn't recognize who it was, or even get more than a glimpse of an outline—just enough to tell that somebody was there.”

“Then how did he wind up with the book?”

“She left it with him for safekeeping.”

“Lissa?” I asked.

“She figured that if she kept it in her room, it could easily be stolen from her. Brody was innocuous. Everyone knew he was flat broke. So, she offered to pay for his room and for all the booze he drank while he was here, if he kept the book safe. That was fine with him.”

“So, where is it now?”

“We, uh, gave it to that Lieutenant when he interviewed us earlier today.”

“And he bought your story?”

“It's the truth.”

I looked straight into her cold, blue eyes. “Everyone lies,” I said. “Little kids aged two, they lie. Old men in their nineties, they lie. Priests lie, and so do cops and judges and pillars of society. Men and women and children and, I suspect, even hermaphrodites. They all lie. It's just a question of when and how much and why.

“My bullshitometer just started ringing its fool head off, lady. I think
you're
lying—I'm not sure about what, and I'm not certain what your motives are, but something here just doesn't add up. I'm going to find out what it is, and when I do, we'll know the real truth, won't we?”

She didn't flinch, didn't move an inch. “Even
you
lie, you and that old lesbian bitch of yours.
You don't scare me.
Brody's done nothing wrong. I'll give you a truth straight up, if you want one: you hurt him, and I'll hurt you. Got it? Let this go. Just walk away.”

“I can't do that,” I said. “Margie's a friend. She doesn't deserve to be unjustly accused by the cops of something she didn't do. I'll keep on digging until I find the real dirt. And I don't care whether you or Brody or anyone else gets nicked in the process.”

“Then to hell with you! To hell with you all!” she said.

“What's, uh, the matter, Gully?” Brody asked.

“Nothing, my dear boy, nothing you need to worry yourself over. Your, uh, friend was just leaving.”

“Goodbye,” he said, “good luck!” He raised a bottle of beer in my direction.

That was the last time I ever saw him.