Kiss Your Elbow

“Let’s have a drink before I vomit.” I took Maggie’s arm and led her into Sardi’s.

CHAPTER FIVE

SARDI’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.

CHAPTER SIX

MAGGIE 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 perfectly 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!

CHAPTER SEVEN

IN WALGREEN’S THERE WAS just the usual crowd of civilians. It was way past even the most leisurely lunchtime for actors. No matter how good you were at it, you couldn’t nurse an egg-salad sandwich and chocolate malted till almost four-thirty.

I ordered a ham and cheese and coffee, and Maggie had a tuna-fish salad and coffee. We just sat there until the plates came sliding up. I always meant to find out how they manage to get two slices out of one leaf of lettuce. It wasn’t till I started eating that I realized how hungry I was so I ordered another of the same. After we finished I reached for a cigarette and felt the tickets that Nick Stein had given me.

“Would you like to go to the theater tonight?” I asked Maggie.

“Is it a real show or some more of your passes?” She’d been with me before and was naturally a little suspicious.

“That new Lucille Blake thing. Not supposed to be too bad.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not tonight. I still feel a little strange and you must admit that this has been a rather hectic day. First that damn doorknob and then you rushing in and confessing to a murder. Why don’t you ask your precious Bobby LeB. to go?”

“Not a bad idea if I knew where to find him. Might take Libby Drew and find out what she knows.”

“She’d be thrilled to death. Which reminds me I didn’t pay for the drinks.”

She reached into her purse and put some money in my hand. I didn’t see how much it was. “Here, take this and pay for them, will you? You can pay me back from the reward.”

“What reward?”

“Why else are you so intent on playing Dick Tracy?”

“I still owe you some.” But I didn’t try to give it back.

“Yes, dear, I know, but don’t let it keep you awake nights. It doesn’t me. Call me in the morning and let me know what Libby does for you…in solving your precious little mystery, I mean.” She patted my cheek. “But don’t forget Nellie’s funeral in the afternoon. She’ll give a better show dead than Lucille Blake alive.”

And knowing an exit line when she says one, Maggie walked out of the drugstore pulling on her gloves. A nice girl. Has sense, too, though you generally overlook it when she starts being vague; but this afternoon she wasn’t vague at all. I knew she was right. It was silly, I suppose, getting myself mixed up in this Nellie thing. Maybe I was just bored. I felt bored a lot since I got out of the army, but who didn’t. Hell, I might as well finish it up now that I had started. Call up Libby and see if she wanted to go to the theater tonight. I gathered the checks and walked over to the cashiers. It was then that I looked at the money Maggie had put in my hand. Two fifty-dollar bills…enough to last me for a month, if I was very careful. The cashier gave me some nickels with the change, so I went down to the deserted basement and telephoned Libby. She was delighted to go to the theater with me and would meet me at Louis Bergen’s bar at eight-fifteen, and I’d better get the Bronx Home News or some such paper tomorrow, she might have her picture in it. I told her I would and hung up.

The clock on the wall said it was only about ten minutes to five…a lot sure had happened in one day. That’s what comes of getting up before noon.

If I hurried I might have time to get over to Equity before it closed. Then I could ride home on the Fifth Avenue bus and maybe catch a nap before meeting Libby.

The old brownstone on West Forty-seventh Street where Equity has its offices is something right out of Charles Addams and the only reason I ever go there is to advise them of a change in my address or see if the bond is posted for that turkey I may get a walk-on in.

I climbed the creaky stairs up to the third floor information section where they have all the addresses. The fussy little old lady in charge behind the wire fence was just getting ready to go. She was alone—her handmaidens must have jumped the gun. With a great deal of pursing of lips, she finally consented to ask me what I wanted.

“Yiss? And what is it you require?”

“It’s kind of silly,” I said. “But I’m trying to locate someone, but I only know his first name and last initial.” I gave her the teeth, but she was having none of it.

“Are you an Equity member?”

“Yes, for eight years. My name is Tim Briscoe.” This seemed to mean something to her.

“Briscoe…Briscoe? Oh, yes. Someone just asked for your address and phone number not half an hour ago.”

“Who was it? Do you remember?”

“Certainly. It was dear Henry Frobisher. Such a fine man, a real gentleman. I was with him in Bless You, Darling. Perhaps you saw it?” I hadn’t. She preened herself and patted her hair back in place. “Of course, it was just a tiny part, the party scene in the second act. I wore purple and ecru lace. Dear Henry was so kind about the part being so small, but I do think it better to have a small part with a first-rate management than a lead with some fly-by-night, don’t you?” I heartily agreed. She rambled on.

Why would Frobisher want to see me? And I thought he didn’t even know my name. I wondered if it was too late to call him. No, he didn’t look like he was going back to his office when we left him. Anyway, Kendall Thayer was at the Casbah and he was pretty good about taking messages for me.

“And wasn’t that tragic about his son?” Purple and Ecru Lace was still rolling along.

“His son?” I wasn’t paying much attention, trying to puzzle out why he should want my phone number.

“Being killed in the war. Such a blow to dear Mr. Frobisher. An only son, too. I met him once, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.” And I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get Bobby’s address and beat it home and find out if Frobisher had called and if so why. But Tootsie, here, was determined to take me down Memory Lane, willy-nilly. “Such a lovely boy, too. So well mannered. Mr. Frobisher brought him to rehearsal. Such a tragedy. Were you in the service, too?” I admitted I was. “Mr. Frobisher’s son was killed in action. In Normandy, I believe,” she said accusingly. Well, my God, Tootsie, I’m sorry. I apologize. I did not mean to offend you. I know I’m not lovely or very well mannered, and my father can’t give you a job in purple and ecru lace, but please don’t make me feel guilty just being alive.

“I’m sorry, Mrs…. Mrs….”

“Tuckerman. Mrs. Tuckerman. Of course, my stage name was Marianne Rice, but then…”

“Yes, well, Mrs. Tuckerman, I’m really in rather a hurry….”

“Oh, yiss, of course,” she said coldly, all efficiency again. “Now who was it you wanted to locate? It’s really past hours, you know.” I told her what I knew and she flew to the files.

“We have a Robert LeBor, but he is in Hollywood now. Would he be the one?”

“No, I shouldn’t think so. Any others?”

“There’s a Robin LeBaron…but of course he’s dead, poor soul, so I should scarcely think he would be the one you are after, would you?”

“Scarcely. Is that all?”

“Yiss, that is all. Are you quite sure he is a member of Actors’ Equity?”

“No…not exactly.”

“Well, really, Mr. Briscoe.” Angrily she took her coat from a cupboard and started to put it on.

“Can you suggest any other place I might look? You’ve been so kind and helpful perhaps you might know some other place.” That thawed her out a little. She paused for a second.

“Is your friend a member of the profession?”

“I’m almost positive of that.”

“There are still, you know, other organizations. Professional organizations—AFRA, Screen Actors Guild, Chorus Equity and, I believe, those night club entertainers have some sort of an organization, too.” I hadn’t thought of that possibility. My thanks were slightly overdone, but she must receive a kind word so seldom that by the time I had escorted her down to the street and said goodbye I was pretty sure I could play gin rummy with those address cards from now on.

There must be someone I knew who was a member of those other unions, and I could get them to check for me. It was such a long shot that there didn’t seem to be any particular need for secrecy. And if questioned, I could always say I found a watch or a ring with an inscription. “Ever thine, Bobby LeB.,” or some such.

And Mr. Frobisher wanted my phone number. Money in my pocket and a phone call from a top-flight producer. What more could I ask?

Things were certainly looking up.

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