Strange Embrace Read online

  He frowned. It wouldn’t work—he couldn’t announce it as a delay or the murderer, whoever he was, would still be out for blood to prevent the show from opening at a later time. And he couldn’t fake it through by announcing that the show was cancelling itself or there would be hell to pay. The backers would demand their cash and the cast would look around for other work. Could he call it a closing while cluing in cast and backers to the truth? No, he couldn’t, he thought. Because he might manage to clue in the murderer in the process.

  “Ito!” he bellowed. The servant came on the run, bowing for Jan’s benefit. “Call the cast,” he said. “We’ll be staying in the city until further notice. I’m busy looking for the right replacement for Elaine James and our opening will probably be postponed two weeks, maybe longer. Everybody should get his lines down pat and do a lot of constructive thinking about his part. Got it?”

  Ito nodded.

  Johnny paced, trying to think straight. “Better call the trade papers, too. Give them the same news but phrase it differently. We’re all broken up over what happened to Elaine and we’re taking a two-week break to honor her memory, or something like that. Everybody will figure out what that means but it looks better in print. Otherwise they’ll think I’m a cold-hearted bastard.”

  Ito nodded again and went looking for a telephone. When they were alone Jan looked at Johnny and smiled grimly. “You,” she said, “are a cold-hearted bastard.”

  “I probably am,” he agreed. He finished the combination of coffee and bourbon and got another cigarette going. His mind was working much better now and his body was not objecting quite so strenuously to the lack of sleep. His body, as a matter of fact, was proving that it was alive. The presence of Jan Vernon was having a disconcerting effect upon him.

  If Jan could project sexiness from the stage to the balcony—and she definitely could—the effect was greatly increased in the privacy of a living room. She did not seem as frightened now as when she had arrived. She was relaxed in her chair, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, and Johnny had trouble keeping his eyes from her limbs.

  They were good limbs and she knew it. There was nothing wrong with the rest of her, either, and she knew this as well. She would not have worn tight sweaters, for example, if she were not thoroughly satisfied with the quality and quantity of her mammary equipment.

  The elaborately rumpled hair and the pouting mouth did not detract either. The play of the breasts within the sweater when she yawned and stretched was no soothing balm. Obviously, Jan’s position in life was basically a horizontal one and Johnny struggled with a strong urge to haul her off to the bedroom and ravish her. He had a hunch she would not mind at all.

  Johnny sighed and switched back to business. “You didn’t tell Haig about the phone calls, did you?”

  “I didn’t think about them. Why?”

  “Just an idea,” he said. “If he ties it to the show none of us will have time to breathe. I’d rather sound out the rest of the cast first and find out who’s been getting the same kind of call, if anyone has. And there’s still the chance that this is a fluke—a sex-killing coincidentally tied in with a not-too-practical joke.”

  She looked at him quizzically. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I don’t know what I believe. I’ll have Ito set up a cast meeting for this evening. Over here, say, at eight o’clock. Just the principal players, plus Ernie—if some joker is trying to stop the show he won’t bother frightening bit players. We can sit around together over a drink or two and get everything out into the open. It’ll clear the air. Because if anybody else has been getting phone calls and hasn’t mentioned it, he’s scared out of his wits.”

  “I know what you mean,” Jan said. “I’m a little steadier now that I told you. Johnny, why don’t we have the meeting at my place? It’s certainly big enough—I’ve been rattling around in it since I got rid of my last husband. And it’s more convenient. Most of the people in the show live downtown.”

  “Well…”

  “And I’m a sissy,” she said, grinning. “The less I go out at night the better I like it.”

  “Good enough. You’re around the corner from Gramercy Park, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Expect company at eight, then. We shouldn’t take too long.”

  “That’s fine,” she told him. “And if you get there a little early, that’s also fine. My coffee is every bit as good as Ito’s, you know. And I may think of something I’ll want to tell you in private.”

  He saw her to the door, then paced the living room. The last bit of byplay had been an open enough invitation, especially in view of the fact that Jan Vernon had done the inviting. Which raised an interesting ethical question. It was bad form for the producer to sleep with his leading lady, true. But what about the second lead?

  He thought of writing to Variety and asking them. He laughed softly, then went to the telephone to get busy calling agents. But he couldn’t get the idea completely out of his mind. Whatever the ethics of the situation, he was sure it would be a pleasant experience to share Jan Vernon’s bed.

  The phone rang harshly. Johnny picked it up in the middle of the first ring and snapped a hello into the mouthpiece.

  “You’re a tough man to get hold of,” Haig barked. “You leave your phone off the hook? I’ve been calling you for the past half hour or so.”

  “I was fighting with agents. Why?”

  “I have the Medical Examiner’s report,” the Homicide lieutenant said. “And we can probably forget the sex-killing theory. At least, it wasn’t rape.”

  “Nobody touched her?”

  “Just with a razor. That’s what it was, incidentally. I didn’t think anybody used a straight razor anymore. I’ve had an electric for the past ten years.”

  “I use a safety razor. I can’t get close enough with an electric.”

  “Now that’s very interesting,” Haig said sarcastically. “I guess that proves you didn’t kill the girl. I’m glad to hear that. You have no idea how glad…”

  “I—”

  “Now do you want to know what we found out or would you like to tell me what soap you use in the shower?”

  Johnny did not say anything.

  Haig said, “Okay—the ME fixed time of death at twelve or twelve-thirty that night. He says the girl wasn’t pregnant, which wasn’t too much of a surprise. He also said she was a virgin, which is. That was your guess, wasn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The lab turned the place upside down. The girl’s prints were all over everything, of course. But there was one other set of prints that turned up on everything that would hold a print. And we identified them.”

  “Who did they belong to?”

  “You,” Haig said.

  “Oh.”

  “We’re in a fairly blind alley,” the cop said. “It could still be sex. The nude body and the razor—they can fit in. Not every pervert is a rapist. Some nut might get his kicks just using his razor.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  Haig’s voice was tired. “I don’t think so. I think somebody didn’t like the girl very much. I think somebody disliked her enough to slit her throat. Now all I have to do is find out who the somebody is. Just routine, ma’am. All we need are the facts.”

  “What facts have you got so far?”

  “I’ve been bothering your cast. One kid was going out with the James girl on a fairly regular basis. What’s-his-name—Stan Harris. The one who plays her older brother.”

  Johnny grunted. He hadn’t known that.

  “There’s a funny bit in there. He was willing to admit that he was dating her. So we asked him if he was sleeping with her and he blushed a little and said that he was. Which was tricky, since the girl was a virgin. We hit him with that one and he blushed a little more and got his tongue tangled up in his teeth.”

  “And?”

  “We put two and two together,” Haig said. “The normal procedu
re. We figured she wouldn’t come across so he killed her. You know what cops are like. Stupid, crude people. No souls. You got any idea how many girls get killed because they won’t come across?”

  Johnny didn’t have an answer to that.

  “So I bothered your actor a little. But he had an alibi and we checked it out and it held up. He was up at his folks’ place in New Rochelle getting some stuff together for the trip. He didn’t get back to the city until two-thirty or so and he was away from dinner-time on. Which probably puts him in the clear.” Haig cleared his throat. “So we’ve got no suspects for the time being. The rest of your cast managed to give a fair accounting of their time. I want ’em all to stay in town.”

  “They will. We’re staying put for the next two weeks at least, so I can find another actress.”

  “Good.” A long sigh came over the phone. “You just have to grind and grind until something gives. You pick up all the bits and pieces and after a while some of them add up to something. I should have been a shoe salesman. It would have been a whole hell of a lot simpler.” Another sigh. “How about you, Johnny? Come up with anything? Remember any little point you didn’t think of last night?”

  Johnny considered. He knew something, all right. And he could probably tell Haig about the conversation with Jan without tipping the whole story to the newspapers. Still, first he wanted to meet with the cast and find out what was going on. If nobody else had gotten a call it might be just a false lead that would tie everybody up, a waste of everybody’s time.

  No, he would not tell Haig. Not yet. Nothing would be lost by waiting, and in the meantime Haig might find the killer on his own.

  “Johnny? You still there?”

  “Uh-huh. I was trying to think. Nothing new as far as I know. I’ve been either sleeping or on the phone since I saw you.” He drew on a cigarette. “And I only had five hours sleep,” he went on, “so I’m not functioning properly yet.”

  “I feel sorry for you,” Haig said. “Only five hours. I haven’t been to bed yet. Cops have a soft life, Johnny. And they’re all overpaid. The Harris kid gave us a vague line on a few of Elaine’s friends. She hangs out—hung out—with a pretty strange crew of Village types. Girls who don’t comb their hair and boys who don’t shave. I think they call them beatniks this year. Every year there’s a new word.”

  “She would have outgrown it. She was young.”

  “Yeah. But she didn’t get the chance. Anyway, we know who a few of her friends are. A girl named Sin Cardamine. It’s supposed to be short for Cynthia, I think. Boys named Jerry Linden and Lee Sandow. I should be out looking for them right now, asking pertinent questions, figuring all angles. But you know what I’m going to do instead?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to sleep,” Sam Haig said. “I’m going back to my place and I’m going to sleep. Cops are lazy bastards, Johnny. I’ve only been up for twenty-six hours. They ought to throw me off the force.”

  Chapter Four

  AT THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon, Ernie Buell called. He wanted to know why in hell they had to have a stupid meeting that night and why in hell the damned show was being delayed and why in hell some girl wasn’t being auditioned for Elaine James’ role. Johnny counted to ten twice, reminding himself that the director was a genius and had to be tolerated, before explaining gently that he would get the answers at the meeting. Buell was not mollified, but careful verbal handling managed to soothe his pride a bit—at least long enough for Johnny to get rid of him.

  At three-thirty Carter Tracy called. The actor’s voice was firm but Johnny could detect suppressed urgency behind the words.

  “I have to talk to you,” Tracy said. “A few problems have arisen lately, Lane. I’d like to give you a run-down on them and I don’t want to go into detail over the phone.”

  “Something to do with Susie?” Johnny asked. Susie was the character Elaine James had been scheduled to play. If Tracy had anything to say that could not go over the phone, that would simplify things.

  “More or less.”

  “Can you save it for the meeting?” Johnny asked. “There may be a few developments tonight.”

  “I wouldn’t want to raise the point at the meeting.”

  “Then we can get together afterward,” Johnny said smoothly. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “I guess so,” the leading man said dubiously. “It’s at eight tonight at Jan’s place, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Want the address?”

  “I’ve been there,” Tracy said.

  After he had hung up, Johnny mulled over Tracy’s last line. He had sounded a bit smug about it, Johnny thought. And he didn’t really have much right to. One hell of a lot of men had been to Jan’s apartment.

  Johnny frowned. This should have made her less desirable, he thought. When a girl has been had by half the world—the male half—it’s no great source of triumph to get her into the rack. But somehow Jan seemed more desirable than ever, at least to him, no matter how much mileage she had on her.

  Maybe it was the fascination of a mechanic for a highly complex and inordinately efficient piece of machinery. He wasn’t sure. But he had a strong hunch that the sensuous brunette was going to be on his mind for quite a while. If on nothing else.

  The other telephone call came at a quarter to five.

  Ito was near the phone when it rang. He picked it up and Johnny waited patiently while his face took on a puzzled cast. Then Ito covered the mouthpiece with one hand and turned to him.

  “It’s for you,” he said. “But I don’t know who it is. Whoever it is, they aren’t saying.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Neither,” Ito said unhappily. “Or either. The caller whispers softly and strangely. Are you out?”

  “Hell, I might as well take it.” He walked to the phone and took the receiver from Ito, held it to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Lane?” The voice was a whisper, a whisper that seemed to be coming through a handkerchief stretched over the mouthpiece of the phone. It was impossible to tell anything about the caller from the voice.

  “Who’s this?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” the voice hissed, sounding like a snake moving quickly through tall dry grass. “You should abandon plans to produce A Touch of Squalor. Drop it cold. The James broad got killed because she wouldn’t take a hint. The same thing could happen to the rest of the cast. It could happen to you.”

  There was a click and the line was dead.

  Johnny stood staring at the phone for a long moment, then slammed the receiver into the cradle. Ito looked at him, saw the expression of fury on his face, and quietly left the living room. Johnny paced the floor, his hands plunged deep into his pants pockets, his head down and his eyes blazing.

  The nerve of the bastard! Or of the bitch—it could have been either a man or a woman on the phone. The whisperer, whoever he or she was, had done a good job of camouflaging his or her voice.

  Johnny lit a cigarette, took two hurried drags, then stabbed it out in an ashtray. It certainly looked as though Jan was right. Somebody wanted to bury the show before it got going. Somebody who cared enough about it to kill.

  But who, for the love of God? And why?

  He threw himself down into a chair, lit another cigarette and tried to concentrate. What kind of person would want to stop a show?

  Backers, of course—if they were convinced their investment was a bad one and wanted to salvage as much as they could. But no one backer of A Touch of Squalor had enough money in the show to drive him to such desperate measures, it seemed to Johnny. Besides, the show was a sure-fire moneymaker. And he knew each of the major backers personally, which killed that possibility as sure as Cain killed Abel. And as surely as somebody killed Elaine James.

  Johnny took a deep breath. An actor might want to get out of a play under certain conditions. If he had a better offer, a shot at a high-paying Hollywood contract or something of the sort. Or if he had a chance
to grab a better play with a probable longer run.

  But that did not fit here, Johnny was sure. If any of the cast members wanted out, all they had to do was say so, and they knew it. And nobody in the world was enough of a damn fool to commit murder in order to break a contract. Breach of contract was simple enough in the theatrical world. An actor asked to be released. If refused, he walked through the part like a zombie until the producer had enough sense to fire him and find somebody else to take his place.

  And besides the entire cast was excited about the show. Or at least they had been—until the murder. God knows how they feel now, Johnny thought. They were probably scared witless. And he didn’t blame them a bit.

  He gave up. There wasn’t much point to worrying about it anymore. All he was proving to himself was that there was not a single reason in the world for anyone wanting to stop the show.

  Yet somebody did.

  “I’m going to have dinner out,” he told Ito. “Then there’s the cast meeting at Jan Vernon’s apartment. I’ll be eating at McNair’s. The number there and Jan’s number are both in my book. If anybody calls, you don’t know where I am, you’re just the properly inscrutable creature of the mysterious East.”

  “Master Johnny-san out. Not tell miserable servant where. Then I call you and tell you what’s up.”

  “Look, if you’ve got anything doing you can take the night off and I’ll let the answering service play my games for me.”

  “I’d rather have tomorrow off,” Ito said. “I’ve got a tentative date with a Japanese exchange student at Columbia. I was going to impress her with my command of the English tongue.” His leer was not remotely inscrutable.

  “Besides,” he added, “there’s a Charlie Chan movie on the late show. It ought to be good for a laugh.”

  McNair’s was an anachronism. A carry-over from the days when Broadway was a grande dame instead of a tarnished neon whore, the ancient restaurant looked all the better for the patina the years had left on her. McNair’s was a man’s restaurant; the steaks and chops were man-sized and the chef did not waste his time on fancy salads or elaborate desserts. Soft-spoken old waiters in neat dinner jackets padded silently on the plush carpet. Beer was served in pewter mugs, drinks in heavy glasses. Tables were set far apart and high ceilings let conversational noise drift away from one’s ears. A man came to McNair’s not to mix or mingle, not to see or be seen. He came because he wanted a good hunk of meat cooked properly.