That left only Louis Ching, the Chinese photographer, He was nowhere in sight; he was the only one of the group unaccounted for. Was he Castor Oil, then? And which of the rest of them was Ex-Lax? Which of them faced death any second?
The answer to the last question came almost as the thought entered my mind. There was a sudden sharp crackling of electricity. A small puff of smoke rose over one of the chairs at the table. The victim shot straight up in the air and then slumped over the table, face purple, mouth open, eyes staring.
The electrocution was over. The victim was quite dead!
CHAPTER, SEVEN
“IT’s the Prince!"
April Wilder’s voice was the one which emerged clearly from the hubbub in the wake of the shocked silence that followed the murder. April was sitting to my right, even farther removed from the death seat than I was. Her view was more obscured than mine, or any of the others, So the identification she made was more a matter of having known who was sitting on the hot spot than of actually being able to see the victim.
I could see a little more, but not much. Like April, I knew the Prince had been sitting there. And the little more I could see looked decidedly Oriental, so I leaped to the same conclusion.
But we were both wrong. Prince Juv Satir was not the victim. As I rose up and got a clearer view of the purple, staring face, I saw that for myself. The dead man was Louis Ching!
The ensuing hubbub was frantic. The telethon was ended, of course. I don’t know how the network filled the time. I didn’t have much time to wonder about it what with cops crawling out of the woodwork and turning the studio into a homicidal quiz show.
The big question in my mind was how come Louis Ching had been sitting in Prince Juv Satir’s chair when the frying took place. The cops elicited an answer of sorts to that one. Coincidence, according to the Prince, and the network man and a couple of the technicians who’d been standing in the wings backed him up. It seems nature had called just a moment before the murder and the Prince had found it necessary to leave his telephone post. He’d signaled his need to the network man, who had asked Louis Ching to fill in for a couple of minutes because Louis was the only one around who hadn’t been busy with anything else. Louis had obliged—and it had been the death of him!
Now his corpse lay stretched out with the coroner bending over it. The electricity had done terrible things to his face, contorted and mottled it and turned it a greenish shade of purple. The cynical thought crossed my mind that he looked like the worst acne victim possible, and I wondered how come the programming vultures hadn't thought to capitalize on it. If I'd been an acne researcher, the appearance of the corpse would have made me pause and ponder the possibility of electricity as a cause for the disease.
I realized my mind was concerning itself with irrelevancies because the events were dizzying. I made myself stop and take a look at the implications. The victim was to have been Ex-Lax. I wasn’t positive of that, but it seemed a reasonable assumption. The timing of the murder, therefore, raised some doubts. Had the murderer been waiting for Louis Ching to sit in the death seat because Louis was Ex-Lax? Had there been a slip-up, and was Prince Juv Satir really the intended victim? In which case was the Prince really Ex-Lax? Or could the Prince be the murderer—either Castor Oil, or a henchman of Castor Oil’s—who had set up Louis Ching (Ex-Lax?) for the killing? Or was one of my other “friends” behind it?
The police found no trace of the death-button or of the wires which must have led from it to the chair. Evidently it had been connected very loosely and disconnected by simply yanking it after the crime was committed. I couldn't help wondering what would have happened if I’d pressed the button. I wouldn’t have known how to disconnect it. Would I then have been the patsy with the evidence pointing straight at me? Or would my unknown “colla- borator” have removed the evidence?
The next day and a half provided no answers to any of these questions. They were still buzzing around my mind on the sunshiny morning I set out to attend the funeral and burial services for Louis Ching. The rites were to take place at that funeral park; even if you don't live in Los Angeles, I'm sure you know the one.
It’s the John Birchy burial grounds where super-patriotic murals combine with some of the worst religious art ever created to make an atmosphere where “death” is a dirty word and “Eternal Life” may be purchased on the installment plan. The statuary strewn about the funeral park, the architecture of its mausoleums, crypts, and more commercial buildings, is so literally designed as to allow only the most hidebound Fundamentalist to R.I.P. But worse than that is the deliberate aura hanging over the grounds which negates even the act of dying—those being interred haven't “died”; they have only “passed away"; indeed, if they happen to have been old soldiers on the right side of the Right, they haven't even “passed away,” but only “faded away,” as befits those who “never die.” It’s unsettling in this atmosphere where “death” has been semanticized into “sleep” ‘to reflect that one such old soldier might waken and carry through his once-famous boast of “I shall return!”
Of course that particular old soldier isn’t buried in this particular cemetery. I only make the connection to demonstrate the feelings engendered by the place. Such feelings spring naturally from coming up against a philosophy which is right-wing and religiously rigid and anti-life, pro-death. The combination seems all too natural. One almost expects to see “Bomb Hanoi!” signs floating over the graves.
The cab dropped me right smack in front of a bit of Colonial America. This was the administration building, angel-white, portico-plump and pilloried with pillars. It was just the spot for Ol’ Massa to have his mint julep while his happy, carefree cotton-pickers hummed a carefree, happy spiritual in the fields of the plantation. But there was no mint julep-liquor wasn't allowed on the premises—and the cotton fields were all plowed under with cadavers, and the pickers were the wrong shade to be allowed to fertilize them. (Indeed, Louis Ching was almost the wrong hue, but not quite.) The fact was that the Early American style of the building was simply in keeping with the unchanging philosophy of the place; death, it seemed to say, is eternal and eternally the same, and unless you’re some kinda Commie beatnik or something, so are politics.
I went inside. The musty aroma confirmed the dedication to what passed for tradition here. But the man who came up to greet me didn't quite make it.
His conservative dress and professionally sorrowful demeanor fit in all right, but his manner was more Chamber of Commerce than Sons of Liberty. Like the place itself, he’d managed to rationalize a two-hundred-year-old status quo viewpoint with the go-getter techniques of modern American business. He came on like a Babbitty Paul Revere, and as he spoke a small, sticky pool of sympathy began to form at his feet.
“Howdy-do,” he murmured. “Have you come to consult about a resting place?”
“No. I’m here to attend a funeral.”
“Ahh. My condolences. But remember that your loss is the dear departed’s eternal gain. The one who passed over—is it someone very close to you?” he asked delicately.
“Not really. A friend. Louis Ching. Can you tell me where the services are being held?”
“Louis Ching? Ah, yes. You’re early.” It was a gentle rebuke. “That would be the Chinese gentleman.” His voice oozed tolerance; the tone said he was willing to be big about it and overlook his disapproval of allowing “the Chinese gentleman” to be buried here. “Services will be held in the East Chapel, but I’m afraid they won’t begin for another twenty minutes. The dear departed is not quite ready to be viewed yet. While you're waiting, why don’t you let me arrange a consultation for you with one if of our interment experts?”