Kiss Your Elbow. Alan Handley

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t even know who he is much less where he lives.”

      “Then maybe it’s all in the Youth and Beauty Book. Practically everything else is, God knows. Get it up!”

      I got it up. The dried blood didn’t make the job any more appetizing. Nellie had not been the most efficient person in the world, and the book had, on the whole, somewhat the aspect of a sheaf of used Kleenex.

      Slips of paper with phone numbers and random addresses were stuck all through, as well as some empty envelopes and dull-looking bills, even her bank book.

      After a couple of hours we had to give up the search for Bobby LeB.’s address. Though, as Maggie pointed out, we certainly discovered a lot of unmarried actors and actresses whom we never suspected before, answering to the same phone numbers. The only information we could discover about Mr. LeB. was that the last year he had several appointments with Nellie, but not at any regular intervals and he was always entered only as Bobby LeB. or once or twice simply B. B., which we took to mean our boy.

      I got interested in her bank book. Nellie was doing a great deal better financially than either of us would have imagined. You would have gathered from her books that what money she did have she made selling shoestrings and gum, along with Apple Annie, in theater lobbies. But according to her bank book she was almost in the surtax brackets. Every month for the last year there was a five-hundred-dollar lump deposit in addition to littler ones during the month. My nose began to twitch as I pointed this out to Maggie.

      “Obviously blackmail.”

      She was not impressed.

      “Oh, really! It was a sad day for the world when you discovered circulating libraries.”

      “But how else can you explain it? You know she didn’t cast that many shows.”

      “Maybe she had an income. Maybe she had property. People do get five hundred dollars a month without resorting to blackmail.”

      “But that would explain everything. Why she was murdered.”

      “Here we go again. Timmy, look me in the eye.” I did. “Do you really believe all that junk?”

      “No, I guess not. Not really.”

      “Then that’s all right. Otherwise I might start worrying.” I stuffed the bank book back in the Youth and Beauty Book and tossed it on the floor.

      “Well, what do we do now?”

      “I know a man who used to be in naval intelligence during the war. I’ll bet he could help us. We could certainly use a little intelligence around here. Do you want me to call him up?”

      “Let me try first before we send for the fleet,” I said.

      “Well, I only wanted to be helpful. Have you eaten?”

      “No. Have you?”

      “I’m starved. Let’s go to Sardi’s for lunch.”

      “Oh, no we won’t,” I said.

      “The murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.”

      “My pal!”

      “Well, why not? You’ve done all the wrong things so far. One more couldn’t make much difference. We can drop in at Nellie’s office casual-like and you can get a quick swipe at that doorknob, and we can pitch that damned book in a corner of her office and just forget all about it.”

      I helped her up off the floor.

      “Okay. What can we lose?”

      She went into the bedroom to dress while I had another drink, but it didn’t help much. I started to get depressed all over again. I took my drink and leaned against the bedroom door.

      “You know, Maggie, if you cut down on your drinking and got more sleep you’d be a good-looking girl. Somebody might even marry you again.”

      “Why, thank you, darling. But who? And why the overwhelming flattery? What have I done to deserve it?” She stopped brushing her hair and looked at me in the mirror. For some reason I felt a little embarrassed.

      “It just seems kind of pointless all this nipping about, frittering around in the theater. Where does it get you?” She swiveled around from her dressing table.

      “What about you?”

      “Never mind me. Besides, I can’t do anything else. The theater’s all I know.”

      “You did all right in the army. People told me. I asked.”

      “Oh, the army. That’s different. Latch on to a good sergeant and you can’t miss.”

      “It’s none of my business, I know,” Maggie said earnestly. “But do you mean to just keep on like this…you know what I mean…sort of…I mean, not ever…well, you know what I mean…” She finished lamely, strangely shy for her.

      Yes, of course, I knew what she meant. And no, of course I didn’t mean to keep on like this. I was a man with a plan. A three-year plan. Operation Hollywood. I wanted to be an actor! So I made a bargain with myself while waiting in a cigarette camp near Le Havre to be shipped home. Three years to get a good part on Broadway or back to the salt mines.

      It all seemed so simple—in Le Havre.

      Who gets all the best parts in New York? Movie actors. Okay, so get to be a movie actor. How? Well, first you’ve got to be seen in the right places, get a little publicity. That’s the magic—publicity. And in the right places you’ll meet the right people who’ll maybe give you a small part and then maybe your picture in the paper and bingo!—a screen test and a contract. Six months on the coast and six months in New York for a play. Then every day is Christmas and you even plan whose stocking will be hanging up beside yours.

      That was thirty-five months ago and gives you a rough idea how punchy you can get after four years in the army.

      Four weeks more and Operation Hollywood would end with a whimper and with it my chance for the big money. But a bargain’s a bargain. I hope I hadn’t forgotten how to pilot a bulldozer.

      There was no point in telling all this to Maggie—now. If things had only worked out differently…

      “Timmy, what is the matter with you?”

      “What? Oh, nothing. Just indulging in a little wishful thinking.”

      “What about?”

      “Hoping I’m not going to spend the rest of my all-too-brief life running away from a murder rap.”

      “Oh.” Maggie turned back to the mirror and finished her face. I went over to the closet and got out her mink coat and helped her on with it. I wrapped my arms around her and stood that way for a moment. I needed someone to hang on to. I buried my face in the shoulder of her coat. It was cool and faintly perfumed. She reached up and patted my cheek.

      “Now stop worrying. Everything’s going to be all right.”

      While I СКАЧАТЬ