Murder on Location (9 page)

“Jim, I think we'd better be on our way.”

“Oh, I guess so.” He took a last sip of Jack Daniels and let out an exaggerated sigh of pleasure. He got to his feet a second or two behind a relieved Furlong. “This is my party, Ben. The waiter knows. Good night, my dear. See you in the mornin'.” He bussed Peggy and walked off tall and without a sign of a stagger after Neil Furlong.

I watched them for a couple of seconds as they made their way among the tables and had just turned back to Peggy O'Toole when I heard a woman scream and glass break. Suddenly flashbulbs were popping and whole rolls of film were squeezed off in seconds. With everybody else in the room, I got up and looked in the direction the noise came from. All I saw were backs of people, some
moving away from and some getting closer to the action. Above it all there was Jim Sayre's big head, looking calm but looking down toward the floor. As I came closer I could see that he was reaching down into the gloom of the rug-covered floor for Neil Furlong's hand. Furlong was sprawled on his back with one leg straddling an overturned pedestal table. Ice cubes caught the light, what there was of it. Sayre helped him to his feet. He dusted himself off and rubbed his jaw.

The bartender arrived about then and told everybody to sit down, but he might have as effectively written a letter. Everybody was looking at the little, fat red-faced man in the brown sports-coat, the one three men were holding back.

“Let go, you guys. I won't hit the bastard again.” He pulled himself free, picked up a drink and hurled it at Furlong, who managed to escape most of it. The little man was grabbed again and dragged toward the door by his friends.

“Remember me, Furlong? Remember Harve Osborne? Remember us? That's just to show you that we remember you, you son of a bitch!” His friends were urging him away before a cop came. Around me everybody was talking at once, while Furlong rubbed his jaw.

“He just stood up and let him have it.”

“He moved like a boxer, I never saw anything so fast.”

“What happened?”

“ A guy just hit a guy that's all.”

“We were sitting right beside him, and he up and bopped that guy right there.”

“Why do I always miss everything?” Lynn and Nicole were standing on the edge of the gathering crowd like two black birds in their dark glasses. I moved closer to Furlong.

“Who was he?” I asked.

“Never saw him before. Some crank, I guess.”

“Jaw hurt bad?”

“He didn't get a direct hit. I'd better get out of here before we attract a crowd. Shit,” he said, feeling his chin.

“I never saw a fellow's face turn from white to red so fast. Just a little fat hombre,” Sayre was saying to no one in particular. He took Furlong's arm and led him toward the door which he managed without further incident. The bartender picked up the fallen table and I returned to mine with Peggy O'Toole, who hadn't even got up to watch. My blood was thumping in my arteries even though I hadn't fired a shot. Peggy's face was placid.

“Was he hurt?” she asked.

“Not bad. He'll have a sore face in the morning.”

“It gives me goose-bumps, “ she said and hugged herself. “I hate violence.”

“What do you think brought it on?”

“How should I know? Maybe it was a member of the crew who didn't get a T-shirt. People in crowds can love you and tear you to pieces at the same time. You have to figure out every move ahead of time.”

“If it had been Jim not Furlong that had been slugged, would that have excited you more?” I asked.

“I guess so,” she said after thinking it over. “But nobody's big enough to hit Mr. Sayre. Not even Hamp.”

“Hamp?” She looked at me over the top of her glass.

“Fisher,” she said, naming the newspaper tycoon as though his only test of strength was the preservation of peace and a woman's fair name. Hampton Fisher was the latest of a wild and wealthy family to try to keep the Fisher chain of papers going. Besides being rich, Fisher was an eccentric food faddist, adventurer, health nut and crank, but easily the most eligible bachelor in North America. He was possibly too fastidious to share a bathroom, and two years ago the papers, at least the non-Fisher papers, were full of the story of his breaking off an engagement to some writer when he learned that she'd been living with a poet when she was in university.

“Does Hampton Fisher usually look out for you?” I asked.

“I can see you don't read the gossip columns.”

“Not when there's a Corn Flakes box handy.”

“Well, the columns have had Hamp and me eloping to Mexico, flying to Nantucket, and absconding to Nice three or four times. He's a nice man: a little boy all wrapped up in a grown-up physique. He's so shy you wouldn't believe it.”

“Especially shy of germs, I hear.”

“You mean the way he always bundles up? He just gets chills more easily than most people. That doesn't
stop him going through the ice at the North Pole. He flew down to see me in his own plane. He's a typical Capricorn. He's wonderfully sad sometimes, and oh, you should see him when he doesn't get his own way. What sign are you, Benny?”

“Pistachio.”

“Another cynic. Honestly. A lot of world leaders were Capricorns.” She pulled at my wrist and read the time. “I've got an early call,” she said, sighing through a sad smile.

I offered to walk her back to her hotel after we finished our drinks. In spite of her threat to drink green stingers, she'd only managed to finish one. Peggy talked a good drunk, but wasn't going to embarrass the bartender's supply of
crême de menthe
. She did know about how to slice through crowds, though. Like the Hollywood veteran she was, she led the way to the freight elevator, and then through the kitchen of the Colonel John, which backs on the Tudor's rear door.

“I hate it when those men claw at one another. It's usually over money, or billing or something. Why do people have agents if they still want to mess in all those details just for the sake of a wrangle. It's stupid. I wish Mr. Sayre would stay out of it. I wish he wouldn't drink so much.” When we got to her door, she patted my cheek. “When's your birthday, Pistachio?”

“Won't give up, will you? March first.”

“Pisces, the fish. I'm Sagittarius. I think we'll get along. I think you're sweet, Pistachio.” And Peggy
O'Toole kissed me good night. That's what you get for being good.

SEVEN

The highway was nearly deserted as I sailed back to Grantham and my bed at the City House. I dropped at once into a dream written and directed by a maker of Technicolor musicals. Peggy O'Toole was my leading lady and Neil Furlong was my best friend. From time to time Jim Sayre had a scene in which he told me what it was like in the big world outside.

When I woke, I thought of prolonging the night artificially by rolling over away from the light, but I knew I was still on Lowell Mason's payroll. With any luck I was going to see Billie at five, but I decided the first thing was to beard David Hayes again when he was sober and not on his guard. I got showered and dressed and launched again onto the open road before my eyes were completely open. I was still carrying a key to Hayes' room, which was giving me ideas as I parked my car. But I wasn't Superman. I needed coffee first. As I came in, Marvin Raxlin came out. He was in a hurry and looked like grim death. The cheekbone on the left side of his face was bruised. I decided then and there that there were easier things to be than a Hollywood producer.

On my way up to the seventeenth floor, I wondered whether it was Sayre or Furlong who'd hit him. Sayre looked like he sat on a large temper which sometimes got away from him. Furlong didn't strike me as the violent type at all, but he came from Port and that counted against him. I knocked on Hayes' door. It was a replay of the day before. I thought of problems hearing the door from the shower and the same other thoughts from twenty-four hours ago. I decided to edit out a loop and used the key faster than I had last time. I opened the door of Room 1738, and found myself looking straight into the big face of Staff-Sergeant Chris Savas of the Niagara Regional Police. Savas was a friend of mine, but not what I expected. Beyond him I could see David Hayes lying on the bed. He wasn't in the shower after all. In fact, he would never stand in the shower again. The next wash he would get would be the kind they give you on marble slabs in the morgue.

I considered turning around and walking back to my car. There was still a lingering smell of vomit in the room, but it was overlaid with the more lethal smell of cordite. Savas' eyes widened for a fraction of a second and he slipped a tight smile on for size. “Join us,” he said, moving back from the door.

I didn't like looking at dead people. The shine had gone off Hayes' surprised open eyes. Apart from the stains on his shirt and bedclothes, he looked a lot like the drunk I'd put to bed on Tuesday night. That was the hard part, and that's when I had to beat it to the bathroom. I
parted a couple of fingerprint men bending over the toilet, and they got out of the way not a second too soon. One of them frowned when I washed my face and dried it on what they were treating as evidence. I returned to the bedroom with my face stinging from cold water and a too-vigorous rub. Savas was waiting for me.

Chris is a massive man who just made it to the required height with no change to spare. His big hands were dangling from thumbs tucked in his belt, and his steely eyes were focussed on me. He was one of the best policemen in the business, a complete professional. We'd crossed paths before and we both had a fair idea of how the other's mind worked. I counted four uniformed men in the room and two others in shirt-sleeves going through drawers.

“Benny, why didn't you tell me you were branching out? Since when are you working so far from home? I assume you are working. Is that right?” Chris turned his eyes towards the bed for a second. “Was that the client? Or are you taking in the natural beauty of the falls?” There was no malice intended, it was just professional banter. I'd get the same thing if I called around at his office to borrow a cigarette. When Savas got rough, you didn't just prickle from the indignity of it all. Sometimes he had the warmth of a Sunday roast of beef in his face, and sometimes all you could see were those eyes like steel ball-bearings.

I tried to answer the question I knew was on Savas' mind. “I don't know who would want to bump Hayes. I
can't think of any reason for taking a swing at him. He was an ambitious kid who thought he was going to remake the world.” Savas lifted a bushy eyebrow. “No, Chris, it wasn't political. It's just when he got drunk he cried out about how we were all going down the drain. He was more interested in theatre. He was trying to get into the movie,
Ice Bridge
. He was a serious actor; quit his job at the
Beacon
where he was freelancing up until last week.”

“How come you know so much? You handing out with the post-graduate crowd, Benny?”

“I was talking to him in the upstairs bar Tuesday night. Ask the bartender. He helped me carry him down and tuck him in.”

“That's when you forgot to return the key. Just slipped your mind. Come on Benny, don't ration it. You're not exacting feeding the multitude with information.”

“Well, if you don't believe me, and you don't want to bother the bartender, ask Dawson Williams.”

“Dawson Williams! Was he there?”

“Yeah, big as CinemaScope and cutting up with the swordplay.”

“Cu the bull. Where was he?”

“Sitting behind us. Hayes was getting a little loud, and Williams thought it was funny. Hayes turned around, made a little speech about how we are all heading for hell in a handcart, and puked on Williams' table. Williams was with three other guys. It's easy to check.”

“Cooperman, when you tell me something's easy to check, I know I've been asking the wrong questions. How'd you run into Hayes in the first place?”

“He played Mitch in
A Streetcar Name Desire
at the Legion Hall in Grantham a few months ago. Terrible place to hear a play.”

“Go on, Benny. You think I'm some kind of whisky cop can't remember I'm not in uniform anymore? Who is this Hayes and what's your interest in him?”

“It's business, Chris. I'm looking for somebody and I heard that maybe Hayes knew where this somebody went. That's all I'm saying. I'm nearly one hundred per cent certain that this somebody had nothing to do with Hayes getting knocked off, because I know that this unnamed person had a date to meet Hayes later today. I'm not stringing you, Chris. There's an outside chance that the person making the date wasn't who I think it was, but it's an outside chance. I'll eat your shirt at the end of your shift if this somebody's involved.”

“I don't give a sweet and sour rib what you think. I'm running this investigation, not you. I'll decide what's good goods and what's garbage. Now, I want you to open up on this.”

“I can't help you, Chris. Not about that. Anything else including my right arm, you can have.”

“You know what you can do with that. Shit, Ben, you're a bloody marvel. I got a murder on my hands and you're protecting some woman who maybe killed this guy.”

“You think I haven't thought of that? Besides, who says it's a woman?”

“All those somebodies and unnamed persons always point to a woman. Besides, we've a witness who says he saw a woman leaving this room around the time of the murder.” Savas looked like a cat lapping cream I'd paid for.

“He saw a woman, not necessarily the someone I'm looking for.”

“I'll be glad to check that out for you.”

“Damn it, Chris, you know I can check out an alibi as well as anybody. If there's anything fishy about it, you'll be the first to hear.”

“You're goddamned right, and the time has come.”