“One of the things I can’t figure --” Archie was talking to himself, but he spoke aloud. “— is who called up Helen here and Helen Dawes and pretended to be Professor Beaumarchais.”
“Don’t let that bother you.” Valenti chuckled. “That was me. I followed you after you left my Helen’s, and later, after I found out about the Beaumarchais murder, I called up and pretended to be him to see if I could get a line on you. just routine detective work, that’s all,” he said modestly. “But how did you know to call me?” Helen Steinberg wondered. “You had no way of knowing Archie was in my apartment.”
“Got a lead on that through a stoolie,” Valenti told her as a cop ushered Strom Huntly into the room.
“A stoolie?” Helen’s tone changed to bitterness. “And I’ll bet I know who it was, too! ”
“Who?” Archie asked her.
“My rotten goyisha brother! ”
“That’s right,” Valenti admitted.
“But why would he stool to the cops?” Archie wondered.
“For his own nefarious purposes,” Helen Steinberg said. “To throw them off the track. To distract them while he went after the formula himself.”
“But why would he want the formula? How did he even know there was one? Is he an agent, too? And for whom?” The questions came, tripping oil Archie’s tongue.
“He knew about the formula because he read my correspondence with the professor. I caught him at it. And he is an agent. It breaks my heart to admit it, but he’s an agent for the Arabs no less. The Egyptians! Well, what could you expect from an anti-Semite like him?”
“The Arabs are Semites, too,” Archie reminded her.
“It’s not the same thing! When did you ever see an Arab eating a pastrami sandwich? Anyway, I just got wind of what he was doing tonight. I overheard him on the phone. And when he took down this address, I came here to thwart his plans, he shouldn’t bring any more shame on the family than he already has. But the no good never even showed up here. Why? is a mystery to me."
“I can tell you why.” Strom Huntley spoke for the first time. “Because a couple of our boys intercepted him, that’s why. They had a very interesting little chat with your brother. And then some checking was done. Your brother turned out to be the one thing any self-respecting spy detests more than anything else!”
“I’m not too fond of him myself," Helen Steinberg confessed. “So what did you learn about the no-good-nik?”
“He’s a double agent!” Huntley told her, his voice heavy with contempt. “He was supposed to be acting for the Egyptians, but the truth is he was double-crossing them and reporting everything back to the Zionists. If he'd gotten that formula, it would have ended up in Tel Aviv, not Cairo."
“Ooh! Wait ’til I tell Mama and Papa!” Helen Steinberg was ecstatic. “He's been a good haimisha boy all along. He was only pretending so he could help Zionism. And all the time we blame him for clinging so stubbornly to his Puritan heritage! And now I’m so proud! Wait ’til the neighbors hear! ”
“All’s well that ends well,” Archie reflected.
“All’s well that ends well,” the shrink would echo to Archie during his next visit. “But what we really have to consider is how to do-neuroticize your libido after that trauma of having your love-object drop dead on you just prior to consummation. Somehow your subconscious must become convinced that sex will not always have such fatal results.”
“It’s convinced,” Archie told him. “Believe me, it’s not a problem any more. It‘s all taken care of.”
“It is? What do you mean?”
“Well, a few nights after we got the Beaumarchais case all unscrarnbled,” Archie said, “I was just leaving a hootenanny down in the Village when who should I bump into but-—”
“Helen Giammori!" Archie greeted her. “How’s tricks?”
“Not so loud! ” She looked around her nervously. “There’s vice cops everywhere.” She looked at the instrument strung around his neck. “What’s with the banjo?”
“It’s a guitar. I play it. Protest songs. Want to hear?”
“Sure. But not here. Come on up to my place and play me a few numbers.”
Looking at her lush body and remembering, Archie didn't demur. He hailed a cab and gave the driver her address. A few moments later they were alone together in her apartment. A few moments after that they were half out of their clothes. And a few moments after that there was a pounding at the door.
“Vito!” Helen gasped. “Quick! Into the closet!”
“Oh, no,” Archie groaned. “Not again!” But nevertheless he grabbed up his clothes and his guitar and hid in the closet.
He watched as Vito came in with Squint and Batman. He watched as they set up their equipment and Batman and Helen got into costume. He watched as Vito took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and then walked straight toward the closet in which Archie was hiding to hang up his jacket. He watched the closet door open.
“What the hell! ” Vito exclaimed.
“Vito, honey, I can explain,” Helen wailed.
“Never mind!” Vito shouted. “Never mind the explanations! Never mind anything! I gotta inspiration.” He pulled Archie out of the closet. “Can you play that thing?” he demanded.
“Y-Yeah,” Archie admitted.
“Great! Boys!” Vito turned to Squint and Batman. “We are gonna do something new in pornographic pictures! We are gonna come up with a innovation that’ll revolutionize the field! Boys, we are gonna make the first pornographic musical!”
“Who’s he think he is? Busby Berkeley?" Squint muttered.
Vito ignored him. He was too busy issuing directions. He turned into a living burst of machine gun fire. He positioned Helen. Then Batman. Then Archie. Then he went into a conference with Squint concerning camera angles. Finally he was ready. “Roll ’em!” he shouted.
“Gonna ma-a-ake it with my woo-oo-man toni-i-i-ight,” Archie sang.
A few moments later the blonde stretched out on the bed and wriggled her hips invitingly. The nervous youth fell on top of her and —
BANG!
Which is the way the story began; which is the way the story ends. . . .
Notes
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Barbara Fritchie (née Hauer) (December 3, 1766 – December 18, 1862), also known as Barbara Frietchie, and sometimes spelled Frietschie, was a Unionist during the Civil War. She became part of American folklore in part due to a popular poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, in which she pleads with an occupying Confederate general to "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country's flag."
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