The Fatal Foursome Read online

  Goodman followed him to the door and waved for Liddell to come in.

  While the detective settled into a large armchair, the producer waddled around the desk and plumped himself into his swivel chair.

  In the early morning light that streamed through a window near the desk, Goodman’s pink skin had a greenish tinge. His little black eyes were red-rimmed as though from lack of sleep. He jumped at every muffled noise from the street below.

  Goodman pulled a large white handkerchief from his breast pocket, and blew his nose noisily. “Like I started to tell you last night at the club,” he began, “Harvey Randolph has disappeared. I want you to find him, and I don’t want no publicity on it.”

  Liddell settled back in his chair and waited. Randolph’s disappearance might call for the presence of an Acme operative, but it didn’t explain the need for the slate-eyed bodyguard with his bulging shoulders, or the green tinge in Goodman’s face.

  “There ain’t much use for you to go digging around in the kid’s past,” the producer continued. “I picked him up about a year ago after he clicked in Forgotten Faces. Since then he got in the big time. We started shooting on his latest flicker two months ago, and we’re right in the middle of it when he takes off. Like I said, maybe he’s got himself a floozie and is off on a little trip. You know how it is. But then, maybe …”

  His voice trailed off. Johnny watched with interest while the producer dug into a lower drawer and came up with a bottle and two glasses. His hand shook as he poured out two stiff pegs. Without waiting for Liddell to take his, he downed the rye with a gulp.

  “I’m a little worried about that kid,” Goodman resumed. “You got him wrong with that Pretty Boy stuff. Way wrong. He’s an East Side kid; his real tag is Angie Petrillo. Grew up tough and got into a couple of small jams while he’s still a punk. Served time on one of them….”

  Liddell downed his rye. It was better than the other stuff he’d had since he hit town.

  “Then he came out here as an extra.” The producer’s voice quavered just a trifle as he spoke. “Got himself a couple of spots by playing up to that hag, Daisy Downs.”

  “She the one who writes that syndicated column?”

  Goodman sneered. “Yeah. On the make for every new kid that comes out here. Randolph’s good-looking and he’s smart. He plays his angles, and the first thing you know he’s riding high.”

  The sharp peal of the telephone interrupted him. He grabbed the receiver from the hook and jabbed it against his ear.

  “Yeah?” he snapped.

  Liddell fancied he could see the green tinge seep upward. The pinkness left the fat man’s face, leaving it a muddy white.

  “I told you I’d make it right, didn’t I?” he snarled into the mouthpiece. “You’ll have to wait. I’ll get back to you later. I got somebody with me now.”

  He dropped the receiver back on the hook with a hamlike hand that shook visibly and poured himself another stiff hooker. He downed it neat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the palm of his hand, and made a forced effort to compose himself.

  “Damned directors,” he growled. “Always trying to run the show.” He poured another drink, drank it more slowly. “To get back to Randolph,” he said, “I want him found as soon as possible. We’re holding up production on a picture that’s costing us millions.”

  Liddell leaned forward. “Do I get to ask any questions?”

  The producer leaned back in his chair. His breath was coming more evenly. “Depends on what questions you ask.”

  “What happens to the picture if Randolph don’t get himself found pronto?”

  The fat man’s marblelike eyes receded even farther behind their pouches. “We shelve it.”

  Liddell’s voice was careless. “That sounds expensive. Don’t somebody take an awful shellacking on the dough already spent?”

  Goodman waved his hand to indicate that the interview was at an end. “You know all you gotta know. Find Randolph and find him fast. If you need dough, contact my girl. She signs the checks. Anything else you want, ask her. And on your way out, send that gorilla in that’s waiting out there.”

  Liddell shrugged, dragged himself to his feet. Mentally he cursed the tough break that had him in the west when the call came through for an Acme man to report in Hollywood. Playing nursemaid to a movie star!

  The bodyguard was sitting in the chair by the table. He looked up from the picture magazine he was reading when Liddell came out of the door marked Private.

  “Goodman wants you, bud,” Johnny told him.

  Without a word he got up, brushed past Liddell and went into the office.

  The blonde in the green sweater was polishing her nails.

  “Nice talkative guy, isn’t he?” Johnny commented.

  She raised her eyes for a moment, then dropped them back to her nails. “Maybe he didn’t have anything to say.”

  The detective pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He stripped off the cellophane and tore open the tinfoil.

  “Smoke?” he asked. The girl shook her head. “Goodman told me if there was anything I wanted you’d get it for me.”

  She continued to polish her nails.

  “In that case, I can’t think of anything I want more right now than that Mona Varden baby. Got her number?”

  The girl hesitated for a minute, looked up at him as if to determine whether or not he was fooling. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she started to dial. She listened, and handed the receiver over.

  “ ‘Allo!” a voice on the other end responded.

  “Hello. This is Johnny Liddell. Remember last night I decided when it was time for you to powder your nose?”

  The voice on the other end was silent as though its owner was busy remembering. When it was heard again it was thick with accent. “But of course. Las’ night at the Clover Club eet was. The beeg fello wit’ the wild ‘air. How clevaire to find my numbaire so queeck….”

  Johnny grimaced. “How about my dropping by for a drink if I bring the drink?” he asked. “I want to talk.”

  “Eet ees not usual for me to entertain here.” The voice seemed dubious beneath the accent. “But eef you care to come een half hour, I expec’ to be free then.”

  “It’s a date, beautiful. How do I get there?”

  He copied down the address on the back of an old envelope, then handed the receiver back to the no longer bored blonde.

  “Good hunting,” she called after him as he started through the door.

  The Alvarado Arms was an ornate apartment house boasting a doorman dripping braid in the naval manner and a receptionist in the lobby. The elevator boys looked more like movie juveniles than most movie juveniles.

  Mona Varden answered his knock herself. Her thick black hair was caught just above the ears, by a gaily colored ribbon, then cascaded down onto her shoulders. A silk blouse accentuated her shapeliness and the prominence of her breasts, while her carefully tailored slacks gave evidence of being well filled.

  “You are mos’ prompt.” She smiled. “Eet is not more than half hour seence you call.”

  Once again Liddell tried to place the accent, and failed. She took his hat, dropped it on a table in the foyer and led the way through a slightly over-furnished living room, out onto a sun porch that was hung perilously from the side of the house, with no apparent support from below.

  She dropped onto a large couch set against the wall of the building and drew her knees up under her. Liddell drew a bottle from his pocket and placed it on the table near the couch.

  “Best cognac I could buy,” he commented. “Since the war, they get your right eye and a mortgage on your right arm for the stuff. Any glasses around?”

  She pointed to a small barrel-shaped table in the center of the porch.

  “Eet’s a small bar. You’ll find glasses and ice.”

  He was acutely conscious of the fact that her eyes were sizing him up as he brought two glasses out and placed them on top of the
table. He poured three fingers of cognac into each glass.

  “Any soda?”

  “No, thank you.” She smiled. “Jus’ cognac.”

  He brought over her glass and slid onto the couch next to her.

  “You came here to talk, no?” She smiled.

  “Believe it or not, unlike Marc Antony and the millions of plagiarists who’ve been getting giggles on his best line, I did come here to talk.” He raised his glass and clicked it against hers. “To our conversation.”

  “To our conversation, may eet be mutually profitable.”

  He nodded and they drank to it.

  “There are a couple of things that’ve been tickling my curiosity. For instance, I’m curious to know more about Julian Goodman and Harvey Randolph.”

  Her eyes, when they met his, were wide. “Ees there anything to know?”

  “Yeah. I’m curious to know why Harvey Randolph cut loose from Daisy Downs’ stable to run under the Goodman colors. Daisy could have put him in the big time while Goodman’s definitely bush league for this territory.”

  The girl warmed her glass with the palms of her hands and inhaled the bouquet of the cognac.

  “How curious deed you say you were?” she asked.

  The detective shrugged. “Say about five hundred dollars’ worth.”

  Mona Varden laughed. “You’re not very curious, are you? I thought you were at least twice that curious.”

  Liddell pulled a worn wallet from an inside pocket. “At that, it’d be worth a grand not to go through life wondering.”

  The girl carefully folded the ten crisp century notes and pushed them into the pocket of her slacks. She held her glass out for more cognac, and Liddell filled both glasses. He was beginning to feel his blood pounding a steady beat in his ears.

  “How about it, baby?” he asked. “Why is Goodman scared skinny of Pretty Boy Randolph?”

  “Goodman has enough on Randolph to run him back to the sticks if he doesn’t play ball. I think he’s half scared Randolph will take a crack at clearing the slate … for good.” She said it as casually as if she had asked for a cigarette.

  It took a moment or two for it to sink in. Could that have been where the call in Goodman’s office came from?

  “That Lacy Pants,” Liddell snorted. “He’d shudder before killing a fly.”

  The girl laughed again, harshly. “Don’t let that baby face fool you,” she warned. “He was doing time in reform, school before he was fifteen.”

  “What for?”

  “Stabbed some kid in an argument. After he got out, he ran around with a tough mob and just missed a real jolt by being in the can on a disorderly conduct rap the night some of his playmates stuck up a garage and killed the attendant.”

  The girl lighted a cigarette and flipped the match out over the edge of the porch.

  “That what Goodman’s been holding over the kid’s head?” Liddell asked.

  “Part of it,” the girl admitted.

  “Incidentally, what’s happened to the accent?”

  She pulled a pillow up behind her head and settled back comfortably. “That’s just for the tourist trade,” she answered glibly. “Any guy that’s carrying around a grand for loose change isn’t exactly a tourist in my book.”

  Liddell grunted. “I was wondering what kind of an accent it was.”

  “Brooklyn.” The girl grinned. “Williamsburg to be exact.”

  Johnny fumbled for a minute before finding his cigarettes. “Well, what about Lacy Pants?”

  “Goodman knew all about the trouble back in the Big Town, knew that Harvey had served time. After Forgotten Faces was previewed, it was a cinch that Harvey Randolph was headed for the big dough.”

  “Sure, sure.” Liddell’s eyes were closed, his voice was dreamy. “But how’d he persuade the kid to cut loose from that old barnacle who was building him into a real star with her column and let himself be farmed out to the Goodman stable?”

  The girl flicked her cigarette up into the air. It made a wide arc upward, rising slowly to its peak, turning in the air, then increasing in its speed downward until it hit the floor with a force that sent sparks scattering in all directions.

  “That’s Hollywood,” she said. “It’s a long, hard grind up, but when you’re on your way down, you go like a bat out of hell, and when you hit bottom …!”

  She took a deep swallow out of her glass. There was a new color in her cheeks, a sparkle in her eyes.

  “Right after Forgotten Faces the studio tossed a big party in Harvey’s honor. He got himself stinko for fair. Goodman’s been looking for a chance to get at him, so he hires a good-looking doll to make a play for the kid. Harvey goes for this dame in a big way, and they manage to skip plenty early. Next thing Harvey knows, he wakes up the next morning and this babe is Standing there with nothing on but an appendix scar and there’s a copper with her. She’s yelling like hell that she’s only sixteen….”

  “Oh, oh.” The detective clucked sympathetically without opening his eyes.

  “Well, the copper shakes Randolph and drags him into the bathroom and sticks his head under the shower. He tells the kid that it’s a tough rap and does he know anybody who can put in the fix for him. The kid thinks as hard as his hangover’ll let him and says no.”

  The girl paused and leaned over to add a little soda to her glass. Johnny Liddell sighed and enjoyed the effect.

  “Well,” she continued, entirely oblivious of the stare, “this copper who’s in on the con with Goodman and the dame, tells the kid he knows Goodman the producer and that Goodman can make it straight. The kid thinks of his record back east, knows what’ll happen if the tabloids get their teeth into the story and gives the copper the office to put in the fix.”

  “Sounds like a nice picture with a frame to match,” the detective grunted. “Then?”

  The girl pulled another cigarette from the pack, lighted it and inhaled deeply. “So that’s how Goodman got Randolph’s name on the dotted line. He pays the kid practically peanuts, lends him out to other studios for ten times what he pays him.” She exhaled two feathery blue tendrils of smoke. “That’s okay until a couple of weeks ago. Then one night Harvey’s playing house with Goodman’s wife and she lets slip to Randolph that the fat boy had done a job on him. That’s all Randolph had to hear. He does a little checking around and finds out that the dame was a plant and could have played the grandmother in Birth of a Nation without makeup. He went on a two-week toot and at the end of it tried to take fat boy apart.”

  “That would take a lot of doing, baby.”

  Mona Varden grinned lazily. “Just the same, Goodman got himself a good scare. He must still be scared. The last day or so I’ve seen him with a gorilla who never gets farther away from him than a two-way stretch.”

  “The guy with the tin ear? I saw him today in the office.”

  “Yeah. But it doesn’t look like he’ll be needing him. For my dough, Randolph’s off on another toot.” She shrugged. “He’ll show up as soon as his money runs out. He’ll come back nice and tame.”

  Liddell reached across the girl for the bottle, turned it up and half filled his glass. “Empty already?” he growled. “You don’t get your money’s worth in this town.”

  The girl poured half of her glass into his, moved a little closer. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “You haven’t really tried.”

  It was just a few minutes after deadline when Johnny Liddell strolled through the city room of the Dispatch. The jangling of phones and the angry chatter of typewriters had stopped, and the reporters were enjoying a last minute smoke.

  Toni Belden was listening to an argument between the political editor and the City Hall man on the probable outcome of the next election, when she caught sight of the detective making his way across the paper-littered floor.

  “Well, look who’s here! Johnny Liddell, the answer to a sob sister’s prayer.”

  Johnny grinned. “Hi, beautiful. How is the sob sister business these
days?”

  The girl smiled. “Should be picking up with Johnny Liddell in town.”

  Johnny made a grimace and rubbed his chin. “Seems to me the last time I was in town I turned up two cold-blooded murderers, if I ever saw two, and by the time Toni Belden was through finding all their hidden virtues, I practically got run out of town.”

  “That was last time, Johnny. What’s cooking this time?”

  “Nothing startling, gorgeous. Thought maybe you could do with a drink for old times’ sake. Angelo’s still in business, isn’t he?”

  Toni Belden ran her fingers over the thick, black mass of her curls, dexterously tucked in a runaway curl, picked up a hat from the corner of her desk. She opened the oversized handbag, quickly applied lipstick, and got up.

  “Angelo is still in business, I’m dryer than a censored cablegram from Moscow, and I’m dying with curiosity to know what you’re trying to pump out of me now.”

  Johnny Liddell grinned. “That’s hardly fair,” he protested.

  Outside the building, they walked down what looked like an alley, and went in a green door set in the red brick rear wall of a building. They found themselves in a bar room where half a dozen men were drinking. Toni exchanged greetings with the bartender and they passed on into an inner room where there were cloth-covered tables.

  The bartender followed them in and helped Toni into a chair. “Same like in the old days, Mr. Liddell?” he asked, rubbing his palms together.

  Johnny nodded. “Double brandy for me, Angelo, and a whisky straight for Miss Belden. Just keep them coming until she yells for mercy.”

  Toni Belden took off her hat, fluffed the blue-black hair and looked at Johnny Liddell expectantly. “I’d like to believe it was these baby eyes that brought you scampering back, Johnny, but something my mamma done tole me tells me better. What’s on the menu?”

  Johnny Liddell scowled and was silent for a moment. Angelo returned with two double brandies and two ryes on a tray. He bared two gleaming rows of teeth in an apologetic grin. “Excuse, please. I get busy outside, Mr. Liddell, so I bring them two at a time to save time.”

  Johnny Liddell watched the bartender’s departing back until it had disappeared through the unpainted door, then picked up one of the double brandies and tilted his chair. “Your mammy was a very suspicious old gal,” he chided. “Matter of fact, I’m not so sure that I know what I am looking for.”