“She was young and scared, I suppose. But there’s no use speculating.”
“Sadie, in the back of the 1949 diary are Beth’s appointments. She had two interviews the day she saw the man with the pale eyes. One was with Zane Gerson, who produces those awful South Sea girlie movies — he’s been casting for the past six months. The other one was with Stephen Browne.”
Max Seneca was holding court in Lindy’s, surrounded by a half dozen show girls he left reluctantly when Sadie beckoned. When he slid in the booth beside her, facing Marilu and Carter, and heard about their suspicions, he helped them prepare a plan of action.
Seneca booked a rehearsal hall at Nola Studios on West Fifty-seventh Street every Wednesday from 3:00 to 5:00 P.M. As both Zane Gerson and Stephen Browne were still casting, he would phone to invite them to auditions to be held on the upcoming Wednesday. In order to insure their attendance, he would promise them mention in a column or two — Leonard Lyons and Winchell for sure. Sadie would supply the pretty girls as well as act as accompanist. Carter, an ex-Marine, volunteered to provide muscle in case Marilu’s suspicions were correct and Max offered to borrow a blackjack to supplement the knuckledusters that lived in his jacket pocket.
At 2:50 on Wednesday, Sadie was at Nola Studios seated by the baby grand piano at one end of the 20 x 30’ rehearsal room. Midway toward the other end, a table with four chairs awaited the producers. Carter Harris lounged in the doorway, watching Max fidget. Seven Brownstone girls with nothing better to do that afternoon were scattered around the room, the dancers limbering up at the bar along the mirror wall, the singers, including the flighty Patsy Fisher, humming through their noses and making other noises peculiar to their breed. Marilu stood by the open window clutching Beth’s diary for 1944. As the wall clock approached three, Max once again reminded the girls that they were to leave directly after they had auditioned.
Stephen Browne, casual in seersucker, was followed out of the elevator by Zane Gerson, who wore a collar and tie beneath a navy mohair suit. Both men wore dark glasses, neither of the mirror-lensed variety, during the auditions that began as soon as they sat themselves at the viewing table.
While the singers sang and the dancers danced, Marilu watched the two men with growing doubt that either one could be the man mentioned in Beth’s diary. The chain-smoking Browne looked rumpled and inoffensive. Zane Gerson seemed too self-possessed to place himself in any situation that might require such an extreme measure as murder.
By four o’clock Patsy Fisher and all of the other girls had auditioned and were gone and it was Marilu’s turn. She was rattling with nerves and made two false starts before managing to arrive at the key in which Sadie was playing “Lili Marlene.”
After singing one scene-setting chorus, she began to read from Beth’s diary, beginning where the air-raid siren sounded. As she read, she moved slowly toward the men at the table until, as the pale-eyed Captain was mentioned, her skirt brushed the table edge. For a moment she looked up and, with lashes lowered, she asked, “Why did you kill Marvin Kane, Captain?”
In answer, Zane Gerson swiftly rounded the table and grabbed Marilu backward against himself. A single bound carried Carter from the door to the table. Max felt in his briefcase for the blackjack. “All of you stop where you are,” Gerson said quietly, allowing the revolver that was now pressing into Marilu’s ribs to underline the words. Suddenly the door burst open.
“Max, I’m sorry to bother you, but I forgot what you told us — oh!” Patsy Fisher inadvertently attracted Gerson’s attention away from Marilu long enough for Marilu to drive her heel into his instep. Startled by the pain, he loosened his grip and Carter brought him to the floor with a flying tackle. The gun, released, skittered toward the piano, where Sadie kicked it to Max, who snatched it up.
“Call the police!” Harris said.
As Max ran to a phone, Sadie came away from the piano. “And now, my dear Captain, I think we should have a look at those famous eyes of yours,” she said, and removing Gerson’s dark glasses. The jet-centered irises now revealed were so pale a blue that it was almost impossible to see where the whites of his eyes began.
In Sadie’s room later that night, after hours at the police station, Max, Carter, Marilu, and Sadie rehashed Gerson’s statement.
Both Marvin Kane and Gerson had been captains with Army Special Services when Kane had found out that Gerson was involved in the black market operating in North Africa. The actor threatened to blow the whistle on Gerson and Gerson had agreed to desist — and kept his word until Kane was transferred to Naples a month later. Then Gerson had hitched a ride to Naples on a courier flight, attended to Kane, and was back in Algiers before anyone had noticed he was gone.
The only problem remained the girl who had caught him in the act of dispatching Kane. When she didn’t come forward, Gerson began to forget her and feel reasonably safe. Then, five years later, she had walked into his office. They had talked for a quarter of an hour and he was sure she hadn’t recognized him, but when she returned for her gloves and saw him without his dark glasses, her sudden pallor was a dead giveaway. Because she had been seen coming in, Gerson let her leave, but there was no way he could trust that she would keep silent a second time. A meeting would have to be arranged without involving her agent.
She had mentioned living at Sadie Gold’s Brownstone. Two days later, Gerson had left a message there for her to be at the Empire Theater that afternoon for an audition for a new Vinton Freedley musical.
A few minutes after five, Beth, having found the theater doors locked, stood under the marquee wondering whether to leave. Gerson watched from a distance. Then, swept up in a rush of homeward-bound workers, she was no longer visible to him. He followed the crowd in the direction of Times Square and saw her again. It was difficult to keep her in sight. If the traffic lights hadn’t changed, momentarily clearing the sidewalk, he wouldn’t have seen her descend into the subway.
He raced down the stairs and found change for the turnstile. As she pushed through the crowd waiting for the next train, Beth had kept looking back with terror-filled eyes. A rumbling had sounded in the tunnel. Gerson had to hurry now if he was to reach her in time. But he never caught up with her. Beth had just kept on shoving and glancing back over her shoulder until there was no platform left and she stepped down into the path of the onrushing train.
“That’s his story,” said Max.
“Patsy Fisher probably saved our lives,” Marilu reflected.
“And Gerson’s.” Max was unhappy.
“Not if I can help it,” Sadie assured him. She smiled at Marilu. “Five years probably seems like a long time to you, Marilu, but it isn’t. The United States Army doesn’t forget its men and women and those who put themselves in danger to entertain them. Patsy didn’t save Zane Gerson. You and I and the Army will see to that.”
The will of heaven
by Gary Alexander[6]
The Communists had swallowed Nguyen Van Thanh’s city, but they were unable to digest it. Ho Chi Minh City remained Saigon and the Saigonese remained Saigonese. Wall posters and shortages had not changed that.
Thanh sold food and drink from a wheeled cart, of which he was immensely proud. It was made of hardwood that he polished until it shone like silk. Mounted above to deflect the rains was a scrap-metal canopy, a canopy without a speck of rust. The Americans, in mocking tones, had called his cart a “Howard Johnson.” Thanh was not insulted — he neither knew nor cared what they meant.