Читать книгу Kiss Your Elbow - Alan Handley - Страница 12

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.