Strange Embrace Read online

  Johnny was starving. Moe, the headwaiter who had been a permanent fixture at the restaurant longer than Johnny had been alive, gave him a smile and a handshake and a table. The waiter brought him, in turn, a double bourbon and a thick blood-rare sirloin with a baked Idaho to keep it company. As far as one Johnny Lane was concerned, there was nothing in the world like steak to take your mind off your troubles. There was a bad moment at the beginning when the knife blade cutting easily through the tender meat reminded him of a razor blade slipping through a tender throat, and that was almost enough to make him lose his appetite. Almost but not quite.

  He dug in. And a whole host of problems ceased to exist for the time being. Elaine James was forgotten, threatening phone calls were forgotten, life glowed magnificently. Soon the steak and potato had vanished. The waiter, a master at guessing a customer’s wants, came around with a snifter of brandy and a tray of cigars. Johnny inhaled the warm aroma of the brandy, bit off the end of a cigar and lit it with a wooden match. He sat back and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pewter coffeepot on the table.

  He was a picture of genteel satisfaction. His suit was sharp enough for Broadway and refined enough for Sutton Place. His shoes were shined, his tie knotted neatly, his hair combed. With the cigar between thumb and forefinger of one hand, the brandy snifter in the other, and the steaming coffee at his elbow, he looked as though he had just stepped out of an advertisement for a brand of expensive liquor.

  “I was hoping you’d be here, Lane.”

  He looked up at Carter Tracy and the mood of contentment shattered like a pane of glass during a bomb test. In slow, measured syllables he damned Ito to eternal hell.

  “Don’t blame your butler,” Tracy said. “He wouldn’t tell me a thing. I don’t think the fool speaks enough English or has enough brains to tell anybody anything, as far as that goes. No, I came out hunting for you on my own. You’re a creature of habit. There are only a few restaurants you go to regularly and this is one of them. That’s all.”

  That, Johnny thought, was all. Silently he forgave Ito and transferred the sum total of his anger to the aging star. The interruption was bad enough, especially when it was by a man you didn’t like. But when the guy had the nerve to boast of his skill in lousing up your dinner…

  “I had to see you,” Carter Tracy went on. “It’s this messy business about Elaine.”

  Messy was the word, all right.

  “I’m in trouble,” Tracy said. “Bad trouble. That’s why I had to see you.”

  “You got a phone call?”

  The actor was momentarily startled. “Call? No. Why?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “This is hard to begin. Let me just plunge into the middle of it, Lane. I was with the girl last night. With Elaine.”

  Johnny’s mouth dropped open.

  “No, I didn’t kill her,” Tracy said quickly. “God, I hadn’t the slightest interest in hurting her. Quite the opposite—she was so good she virtually assured the play’s success. And you know how important that is to me. I didn’t sign for this show because of a monumental attraction for the bright lights of Broadway. I’m not interested in legitimate theater, Lane. I’m using Squalor to improve my potential in Hollywood. You understand that.”

  “Then why tell me all over again? You made your point when you signed for the role.”

  Tracy lowered his eyes. “I saw her last night. I was with her from nine until eleven. It was so innocent it was disgusting, Lane. We just ran through some lines together, got a little of the feel of our parts. That’s all.”

  “If you got out of there by eleven you should be clear. The autopsy placed the time of death between twelve and twelve-thirty. That gets you off the hook, doesn’t it?”

  “It would if I had an alibi.” The actor grinned mirthlessly. “I was in a variety of bars. I went from one to the next and I got a heavy load on. I don’t remember the names of the damned bars and I’m sure no one remembers me. So that puts me right back on the hook again, doesn’t it?”

  Johnny frowned. “Wait a minute. Haig told me he talked to the whole cast and everybody had an alibi. If you—”

  “I fed him a line. I told him I was at a party with some friends, then called up the friends and fabricated a party. If he checks carefully the whole story collapses.”

  “Why, you fool!” Johnny stared, unable to believe what Tracy was telling him. “You’re cutting your own throat. The cops wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect you. You’re not the first guy who can’t prove on the morning after where he was the night before. But now you’re setting yourself up for a murder charge.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t I?”

  Tracy shook his head. “That’s not how they’ll see it. I have a reputation for seduction, Lane. I’m not boasting. I didn’t ask for the damned label. Well, here’s this sweet and simple young thing who’s playing opposite me. I tried to get her into the sack and she wouldn’t cooperate. Maybe she teased me along, then changed her mind. So I killed her.”

  “That’s fine. Except it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why not?”

  Johnny sighed impatiently. “Because that’s an impulse killing. And who the hell carries a straight razor on impulse? I’m sure you don’t and I’m sure you didn’t pick one up from a bedside table because I don’t think Our Girl Sunday kept one handy so that her boyfriends could slit her throat. So—”

  “What did I know about a razor, for God’s sake?” Tracy was practically shouting. He closed his eyes, controlling himself, and went on at a lower pitch. “Your cop friend told me she was dead. That was all. Then he asked me where I’d been. I didn’t know how the hell she died. For all I knew she’d been beaten to death with a tent stake and I was Suspect Number One. I picked the nearest alibi out of the nearest hat and handed it to him.”

  Johnny thought about that. It made sense. Tracy’s reaction, he supposed, was a logical one—even if it was going to make things rough for him now. Johnny looked at his watch and stood up, stopping to put bills on the table to cover check and tip.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’ve got a date,” he told Tracy. “There’s a little party over at Jan’s apartment. It’s called for eight and it’s a few minutes after eight already. We’d better get over there as fast as we can. It doesn’t do to keep a lady waiting.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  Johnny stood watching Tracy’s face turn slowly purple. The sight was an enjoyable one. He wondered just how purple the face would get before it split open. It would be interesting to watch. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

  “Lane—”

  Johnny smiled. “Something the matter?”

  “You can’t leave me in the middle of the air, damn you! I won’t let you.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Johnny said. “I’m taking you with me. Shake a leg, will you?”

  “Do you actually think I’ve got time for a damned meeting with the police ready to look for me any minute? You can take your silly meeting and—”

  It had gone far enough. “Relax,” Johnny told him. “Relax before you die of a stroke. You’re not as young as you used to be, you know. Quit worrying about the police. I know damned well you didn’t kill Elaine. They’ll know, too, as soon as I tell them. So don’t worry about it.”

  Tracy’s eyes widened. “But—”

  “And this meeting is important,” Johnny went on. “The son of a bitch who killed Elaine isn’t through. He’s giving the cast a whole lot of trouble. Unless we get organized he may kill another one of us, or two or three.” He smiled pleasantly. “Last night it was the female lead,” he went on. “You’re the male lead. I suppose that puts you next on his list. Coming, Tracy?”

  Chapter Five

  THERE IS ONE DEFINITE ADVANTAGE in arriving late at a gathering, Johnny Lane told himself. Instead of waiting for people, you let the
m wait for you. You don’t waste your time—they waste theirs, which is fine. Thus did he rationalize the fact that the entire group was suffering from the jitters by the time he arrived with Carter Tracy at Jan’s apartment.

  Stan Harris and Reuben Flood sat on a low-slung modernistic divan set along the far wall of the living room, with Harris looking lost and Flood looking unhappy. Johnny guessed that the little interlude with the police had done nothing to set Stan at ease. As for Flood, his unhappiness was a predictable sort of thing. He was a good, overtly friendly man, a man who felt things deeply. Anyone’s death disturbed him profoundly. When a beautiful young girl was murdered, a girl in the same play, you could not expect him to bounce around giggling like an imbecile.

  Johnny watched Jan disappear with his and Tracy’s coats, her pert little behind twitching impressively, her hips rolling like a boat in rough water with every step she took. His eyes followed that happy sight as long as they could, then veered to study Ernest Buell, who was advancing on him with a drink in his hand and an expression of total annoyance on his face.

  “You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” Buell snapped. “Waste my time with a meeting, then waste more of it by showing up late. I need this show like I need a third head, Lane. I—”

  “Take it easy, Ernie,” Johnny snapped. “You’re just sore that you weren’t the last guest to arrive. Now sit down and cool off. Everybody sit down. This is important.”

  Johnny paced the floor in the middle of the room, studying all of them, looking from face to face. Ernie Buell remained belligerent, Flood sad, Stan Harris bewildered. Jan was curled up in a chair, her legs crossed, her eyes dancing. She seemed pleased that she knew more about what was going on than the rest of the cast. She was still wearing the tight black sweater he had seen her in that morning, but she had abandoned the skirt for a pair of skin-tight pants the color of a fire engine. They fulfilled their function, fitting her like her own skin—which, obviously, fitted her very well.

  Tony Foy sat alone, eyes bright and alert. Carter Tracy leaned against a doorway and Johnny was willing to bet that the doorway led to a bedroom. Tracy was the type to pick a bedroom door when he wanted a place to lean.

  The stage was set. “Okay,” Johnny said. “Last night Elaine James got it in the neck, and literally. Somebody slit her throat with a razor. I was the first person to find the body and she didn’t look very pretty.”

  “If I wanted to know that I’d have read the papers, Lane.”

  Johnny’s eyes told Buell to shut up. Then he went on. “What you wouldn’t read in the papers is a little more important. It looks as though Elaine was killed for a reason. The reason concerns every person in this room. She was killed because she was in this show. In A Touch of Squalor.”

  He took out a cigarette and lit it, watching the reactions. Foy and Harris remained expressionless. Reuben Flood started, then got control of himself. Ernie Buell’s face dropped.

  “Anybody get a phone call today?”

  Buell and Flood reacted again.

  “A special sort of phone call, I mean. One telling you to get out of the show or get your head handed to you. A threat, that is.”

  “I did,” Flood said.

  “Today?”

  “Early this morning. Somebody whispering. The call came before—before the police told me about Elaine. I didn’t know what to make of it. I—I still don’t.”

  “Neither do I, Ruby. Jan’s been getting calls like that lately. And it looks as though Elaine was getting the same kind of calls—before she was murdered.”

  Ernie Buell got to his feet slowly. “God in heaven,” he said, reverently. “I’m sorry, Lane. I got called twice this afternoon. I figured it was some clown who read about Elaine and who decided to have a little fun with me. I thought, hell, it’s not enough I have to take some quickie replacement and make an actress out of her, I also have to have a pest on my neck. So I took it out on you. But it looks as if this is more than a pest.”

  Johnny dropped out of the discussion while the rest of them worked over the same mental ground he had already covered. Obviously they were all scared silly, and they fought their fear by all talking at once. In not too long they managed to establish that (1) they were all in danger, (2) there was no telling who was next on the murderer’s list, and (3) it was absolutely incomprehensible that anyone would commit murder to keep A Touch of Squalor from opening, or even to want very much to keep it from opening. By the time they reached the point that nothing made much sense—Johnny’s conclusions give or take an inch—the room had calmed down a good deal. Johnny took over again.

  “This is the way it looks now,” he said evenly. “We’re in a hot spot. We have a few choices. None of them look too good from here.”

  “We can’t close the show,” Ernie Buell snapped.

  “Can’t we?”

  The director shook his head, shortly and decisively. “We’ve got the right talent here. We’ve got a package that moves perfectly. If we set it on the shelf now we are very literally burying a play. Burying it! Put Squalor aside now and we’ll never pick it up again. This is a hell of a play—you all know that, any of you with enough brains to read English. We can’t bury a play like this!”

  Johnny nodded in affirmation. “I agree with Ernie,” he said. “We can’t kill the play. We can’t get ourselves killed either.” He looked at the others. Here and there someone nodded agreement. “I have not mentioned the phone calls to the police. For one thing, I want to keep down the publicity. That’s relatively minor. I was primarily concerned with keeping the police off until we made sure the phone calls were really important. I called this meeting when Jan was the only person who had definitely gotten a phone call—as far as I knew. It looks as though Elaine had been called. We can’t be sure, but it looks probable. I myself have had a call, and I’ve found out about two other calls. Even if the caller is a joker, it’s time to find out who he is and what he’s trying to prove.”

  “It couldn’t be a joker,” Reuben Flood said. “Because he knew about Elaine early in the morning. He must have been the murderer.”

  “That’s a point. Anyway, here’s my notion. We keep the show alive by means of rehearsals but postpone opening until this bastard gets caught. In the meantime we cooperate with the police. I’ll tell Haig about the calls as soon as I get home. He may be able to coordinate the information with something he already knows. At any rate he’ll have more to work with and a better chance of getting somewhere.”

  “So he works on the case while we wait to get our heads cut off?” Tony Foy was standing now, his eyes defiant. “I don’t like that, Mr. Lane.”

  “Got a better idea?”

  “Junk the show. Forget it until something breaks. In the meantime, to hell with it.”

  “And let the mystery voice get what he wants? Just hand it to him on a platter? He’ll never get caught that way.”

  Foy’s voice was firm. “I don’t care what he wants, Mr. Lane. I don’t care whether he gets caught. I just care whether I get killed or not. I say we should put Squalor on the shelf. The nearest shelf. It will still be there if we ever want to take it down again.”

  Johnny listened. There was a hum in the room, a hum like that of an audience after an unexpected speech. He let it ride itself out. Then he said: “You can have back your contract, Tony.”

  The actor stared.

  “You’re just a bit in this play, you goddamn fool. You’ve got a few dozen lines and you want to burn a script because you’re afraid there’s a guy with a razor behind every parked car. You think he’d waste his time cutting your precious throat? Why, I can walk down any street in the Village and find fifteen guys willing and able to play that part. He wouldn’t bother with you.” Johnny lowered his voice. “But you can have your contract back. Yeah, I mean it. You’ll get it in the mail in a day or two along with a check for what you’ve got coming. Now get the hell out of here, will you? I have enough trouble already.”

  There was a silenc
e.

  Then: “Mr. Lane…”

  Johnny looked at Foy. He seemed younger now. The defiance was gone. The mouth hung weakly, the eyes were unsure of themselves.

  “Mr. Lane, may I say that I’m sorry. I talked out of turn, Mr. Lane. I said things I shouldn’t have said.” Foy forced a grin. “I never thought about getting murdered before. So I overreacted. I want to stay in the show, Mr. Lane.”

  Johnny nodded to signify acceptance of the apology, wondering as he did so whether both the defiance and the apology had been acts. Tony Foy was a good actor, and most good actors had a tendency to do as much acting off-stage as on. Johnny decided that it did not much matter. The kid had served his purpose. His rebellion and subsequent court-martial had tempered the cast’s nerve. They were determined now. The play was to be saved, the police to be consulted, the devil to be given his due.

  And on that happy note the meeting ended.

  “You cheated me,” Jan said.

  He had gone to the bathroom, and on the way back she was waiting for him, blocking his path neatly and nicely. She moved forward and let her body lean a little against his. Her head came just an inch or so past his shoulder. He could smell the clean fresh smell of her hair, could feel the warmth of her body.

  “You were supposed to come early,” she said. “To spend some time with me. Instead you were the last one here. That wasn’t very nice of you, Johnny.”

  “I got tied up.”

  Her arms went around him and she pressed her body firmly against his. Her breasts were drilling holes in his chest and her mouth was busy at the side of his throat.