“You’re the biggest phony in the world, Martha,” I said.
“Jon!” She squeezed her eyes shut in mock, amused shock. “Really now!”
“Luckily, you’ve got the equipment.” I paused. “You really want to have a few drinks with me, Martha?”
“I’d love to,” she said earnestly, eagerly.
“Even when I tell you I’ve quit Rocketeers and won’t be doing the scripts anymore?”
Martha’s eyelashes batted in honest amazement. “You... you quit?”
“Yes, dearest.”
“I... see.” It took Martha only a moment to regain her composure, and then the shrewdly calculating mind beneath the softly shrewd exterior shoved through again. “Do you have any idea who’ll be taking over, Jon?”
I patted Martha on her well-shaped knee. “No, darling. I don’t. But about those drinks...”
“I think Dave is calling Richie now,” she said, standing and smiling and sucking in a deep dress-filling breath all at the same time. “You will excuse me, won’t you, Jon?”
She swiveled off before I could answer, and I chuckled secretly, wandering just who would fill in the script-writing gap I’d be leaving. And then I started wondering just why I was leaving. Now that Cynthia was dead, there would be no arguments over the quality level of the scripts. I could go right on writing adventurous space opera, providing the next producer of Rocketeers wasn’t as equally eager-beaverish as Cynthia had been.
This was a point worth considering. If I was relieved — and I must admit I felt no guilt about the feeling of relief — imagine how the murderer felt! Assuming, of course, that the murderer had also been harassed by Cynthia, plagued as it were into finally killing her. But assuming this, it simply remained a job of finding whom Cynthia had been riding hardest.
Dave Halliday? True, as director of the show he’d had to take an unwarranted amount of lip garbage from his ex-wife, a fact he’d skillfully concealed until just today. But considering the fact that she was his ex-wife... Or had Dave planted that bit of information purposely? Had he mentioned it to throw suspicion off himself? The possibility was worth a second thought.
Stu Shaughnessy? Again, he’d taken his share of abuse from Cynthia Finch. No part of a show she produced was immune to her probing, correcting eye. Stu was the kind of workman who took pride in everything he did, and if Cynthia possessed any one outstanding quality, it was the ability to demolish a man’s pride.
Felix Nechler? The old man had come back to ask Cynthia for a job, or so he said. Perhaps he’d come back to do her out of a job, leaving the old producing spot open again. Who’d he better qualified for the vacant position than a man who’d produced the show before? And it was certainly not news that Felix Nechler was not exactly in love with Cynthia.
Marauder? Somehow, I couldn’t picture Fred Folsom as a murderer. Besides, if Andy’s phone-call story were to be taken into account, both Folsom and young Cadet were out of the picture. Neither of the two had seen her or spoken to her on the day of Cynthia’s death.
That left Artie Schaefer, who’d dated Cynthia and who seemed extremely fond of her. It also left anyone else who’d been lurking around the studio unseen.
It left a lot.
Just before show time that afternoon, Dave dumped a fat prop problem in Stu Shaughnessy’s lap, and Stu was busy right up to ON THE AIR, trying to rig a weird looking Martian animal that would run across the stage apparently on its own power. It kept him hopping, but he came up with a papier-mâché horror propelled by wheels and wires, and Dave was beaming happily just before Rocketeers hit the screen. I didn’t stay for the show. I never did. Rehearsals always knocked hell out of me, and I’m not the type who gets any particular enjoyment out of watching my own work — especially when it’s been changed so much by viewing time that it hardly resembles the original.
I stopped at Hutton’s for a few martinis and a couple of broiled pork chops, and then drifted up toward Fifth Avenue, watching the pretty ladies in their pretty mink stoles. I walked on Fifth for a while, dismayed when I realized I’d never find a phone booth among the jewelry shops and clothing stores. I turned up 47th Street and then walked up to Sixth, stopping in the first cigar store I found.
I dialed Andy’s number and let the phone ring eight times. When she didn’t answer, I figured she was in the shower, and I debated whether or not I should hop a cab over and surprise her. I decided against it. I hung up, walked to Broadway, and stopped in one of the penny arcades, trying my luck with the skill-testing machines. I scored three runs at baseball, shot down 39 enemy bombers and got a fortune teller’s card reading You are good with your hands and should concentrate your activities on manual skills. I chuckled a little and then watched the guy behind the phony newspaper concession. I finally had him print a headline which read ANDREA MANN ASSAULT VICTIM, paid him, and took the newspaper outside, matching it to a same-sized tabloid I found at the nearest newsstand. I slipped the first page onto the tabloid, and then found another phone and dialed Andy’s number again.
This time I let it ring for long after I ran out of fingers on both hands. Andy’s a very quick girl in the shower, and I began to wonder just where the hell she was, or what the hell she was doing. I folded the tabloid, put it under my arm, and caught a cab. When I reached her brownstone on East 68th Street, I paid and tipped the cabbie, and then climbed the steps rapidly. I didn’t bother ringing the downstairs bell, I went straight up to the third floor, knocked on the door, and waited.
I knocked again.
“Andy!” I yelled.
I pounded on the door this time, using a closed fist, and then I tried the knob. The door opened easily, and that was when I felt the first touch of panic. In all the time I’d known Andrea Mann, she’d never left her door unlocked, even when someone was in the apartment with her.
The living room was empty. A desolate-looking, pom-pommed house-slipper lay on its side near the television console. The set was still tuned to the channel that carried Rocketeers earlier that evening, but the name comedian who filled the screen was playing to an empty house. I looked into the kitchen and found a cork-tipped cigarette burnt down to an ash in the tray where Andy had left it. That was when I ran into the bedroom.
8.
It was empty, as empty as a tilted beer keg at two in the morning. The bedcovers were pulled back neatly, and I figured Andy had been watching television for a while, planning to hit the sack early. A closed book rested on the night table alongside the bed.
The closet door was open, and something — probably an overcoat — had been ripped so violently from its hanger that the surrounding garments were all lying in a disconsolate heap on the closet floor.
Andy’s slip, brassiere, panties, and stockings were draped over the back of a chair near the closet wall. Her purse was on the dresser. I knew then that she’d been taken from the apartment, and hadn’t left of her own accord. She’d probably been in pajamas or a night gown, and her abductor had thrown her into an overcoat and then forced her to accompany him. I didn’t waste any more time theorizing.
I went back into the living room and quickly dialed Homicide, and when Detective-Sergeant Hilton came on the wire, I told him what I’d found.
“All right,” he said, “don’t get excited. I’ll get an APB out on this right away, and we may be able to pick them up before they get very far. In the meantime, this may be the best break we’ve had yet.”