Killed in the Act Page 4

  “Well,” I demanded, “what was it?”

  “The bowling ball,” Llona said.

  I was dripping on Jane Sloan’s carpet. A cool October breeze was blowing in through the window and giving me chilblains. I had a frisky white dog with a silly grin on his face trying to make a game out of snatching the towel off me.

  “The bowling ball?” I tried very hard to keep my voice from cracking, the way it often does in times of stress. “The bowling ball?”

  “Yup,” she said sadly.

  Llona was a beautiful girl, but enough was enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” I yelled.

  “Melanie Marliss’s bowling ball, Matt!” There was a note of impatience in her voice, as though she thought I should have realized it all along. She was probably right.

  “Oh,” I said. “That one.” I looked at my wrist, called myself an idiot for expecting to see my watch there after I had just come out of the shower, then looked at the wall clock. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Hurry, Matt.”

  “Yeah, good-bye.”

  “Wait, Matt! I forgot to tell you. They also stole 1952.”

  “What?”

  “Have to go now, I think the ambulance is here.”

  “What?”

  She hung up on me. That girl certainly knew how to pique my interest. I rushed to get dressed.

  What had been stolen (along, I reminded myself through tight lips, with 1952) was more than just your average bowling ball. It was nothing less than a show-business legend.

  “Harriet Gunner” hadn’t been too big a success its first season on the air—in fact, it was just barely renewed. For the following season, it was decided to make some changes to round out the character. They gave Harriet a hobby. Making that hobby bowling had been Melanie’s own idea. Not only did it pick up a lot of viewers in places like Buffalo and Cleveland, where bowling is the national sport, it gave the producers an excuse to have Melanie hang those incredible legs out of one of those short skirts women bowlers wear, and show them to the drooling public.

  The rest, as they say, is history. “Harriet Gunner” ’s ratings went through the roof, and Melanie Marliss became the Big Star she is today.

  Melanie never forgot what (she felt) that maroon sphere had done for her. It became her good luck charm, her talisman. You couldn’t read a story about her that didn’t mention it. She hauled it with her all over the world, even on location in places they’d never even heard of bowling. It had been loaned (with great publicity) to the Network to join the throat spray and stun gun on the wall of relics I mentioned before.

  Given Melanie’s devotion to the thing, and her famous tantrums, this had the earmarks of a real migraine for all concerned, especially me.

  I put on my jacket, checked to see if my fly was up. I had decided to skip the vest and tie in the interest of speed. “Come on, Spot,” I said.

  The Samoyed pricked up his pointy ears and looked at me as though he wondered if I really meant it.

  “No kidding,” I told him. “Come on, this is going to be a real treat.”

  The quickest way from Rick and Jane’s apartment to the Network is to cut the southwest corner off Central Park, coming out at the top of Sixth Avenue, then dashing down a block or so to the Tower of Babble. But I wasn’t about to go dashing through the park alone at nine-thirty at night, not even if somebody had made off with Tom Falzet’s truss.

  So I brought Spot with me for protection. Spot is a friendly little cuss, and his natural inclination would be to prance up to you and lick your face. He has been trained, however, at a word from me (or Rick, or Jane), to jump on you and rip out your throat.

  He likes to run, too, and living in a big city high-rise, he doesn’t get enough of that to suit him. He was making up for it now, though. I just held the leash and ran along behind.

  When we got to NetHQ, I paused in the lobby for a few seconds to catch my breath. It doesn’t look right to respond to an emergency looking like a man who has just missed drowning.

  Lenny Green came into the lobby. “What’s going on, Matt?” he asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” I told him. “Where are you coming from? I thought you’d still be rehearsing.”

  “Broke up about thirty minutes ago,” he said. “I walked Alice back to the hotel, and I’m going to meet Ken in there for a drink.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the Network Lounge, the classy restaurant in the lobby.

  I figured he might be a witness to whatever it was that had gone on up there, so I asked him to come up with me. He didn’t ask why; just shrugged and smiled, and said sure, but he ought to tell Ken, since he, Lenny, was late already. A quick check of the Lounge, though, showed us Shelby wasn’t there, so we went to the elevator bank, where, conveniently, a car was waiting for us.

  A few seconds after the elevator had started, Green said, “Look at that!” and pointed to the floor-indicator lights over the door. Without thinking, I looked, but I didn’t see anything surprising. I did, however, feel something in the region of my right hip pocket. I shot my right hand around my back, and caught him by the wrist.

  I turned to see the famous boyish grin. “Reflexes like lightning,” he said. “I once got away with picking J. Edgar Hoover’s pocket on national TV, you know. This is one of the few times I’ve ever been caught.”

  I felt pleased with myself. The old basketball reflexes were still good—good enough for me to catch the man who had made a fine performing art (as had Harpo Marx before him) of picking pockets.

  I told Lenny Green that I had been watching the night he lifted J. Edgar’s wallet, and we talked about it. Then, just before the elevator stopped on the seventh floor, he said, “Here, Matt.”

  “What’s this?” I asked him. He had something in his hand.

  He opened the hand to show me my own watch. “I took it off your other wrist when I let you catch me in your pocket,” he chuckled. “Sorry, I just can’t help myself.”

  I was embarrassed, but I didn’t get a chance to get as embarrassed as I might have, because the elevator stopped, and the doors opened on madness.

  Broadcasting is, as anyone who works in it can tell you, a crazy business, but we generally don’t pay much attention to that part of it—we get used to it, the same way, I suppose, a fish doesn’t pay much attention to the fact that water is wet. Sometimes, though, like during a tidal wave, for instance, the water that surrounds him is brought forcibly to the fish’s attention.

  There was a tidal wave of craziness sweeping down the hallway toward me.

  The first wave was the stretcher. Two guys in white suits, no doubt the crew of the ambulance Llona had mentioned, were scooting a wheeled stretcher down the corridor as though they were warming up for the Indy 500 time trials. Lenny Green and I had to jump out of the way to avoid becoming statistics ourselves, though I admit the guy in front of the stretcher was mumbling, “ ’Scuse me, ’scuse me, ’scuse me,” as they barreled along.

  Then, when they were in the elevator, just before the doors closed, the patient sat up on the stretcher. It was Jerry de Loon. He had a bandage on his head, and a worried look on his face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cobb,” he said, with great sincerity. The door closed before I could ask him what for.

  Next, Llona came running down the hall, saying, “It’s all a mistake!” until she saw who it was. “Oh, Matt,” she said, “thank God it’s you! I was afraid it was the fire department!”

  That set Lenny Green off. “There’s a fire here? What are you, crazy?” He raised his hoarse voice to a bellow. “Evacuate the building!”

  “No, no, no!” Llona screamed. “There’s no fire, it’s all a mistake! Go see for yourself.” Llona let out an enormous gust of air that blew one of her bangs askew, and she brushed it back into place with her hand. “Honest. Colonel Coyle is there, he’ll tell you there’s no fire.” Coyle was the man in charge of Building Security.

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to see for mys
elf,” the comedian said, and off he went.

  “This is impossible,” Llona said.

  I wasn’t about to argue the question. I didn’t even know what it was yet, but it looked impossible to me, too. Carefully, I formulated a series of simple questions, and much to my surprise, got a series of intelligible answers that enabled me to get an idea of what had happened.

  “Okay,” I said, and Spot cocked his head to listen. “Let me see if I’ve gotten this straight. Porter Reigels had a bunch of people here, doing read-throughs for some of the sketches for Sunday’s show—the Shelby-Green people and who else?”

  “Some real old-timers from the radio days took a separate room to rehearse the reenactment they’re doing of ‘The Theodore Farnsworth Show.’ ”

  “Right. Now, the Shelby and Green thing broke up at nine o’clock or shortly after, and everybody went home, right? Or to the bar downstairs, or whatever.”

  “Right, except Porter Reigels went to his office upstairs.”

  Yeah, I said in disgust, but its not going to be a whole lot or help, since according to you, everybody has gravitated back up here.”

  “You know how news shoots through this place,” she said.

  “I know. It’s just that this is going to be an alibi-busting exercise. Even if it was someone from outside, not connected with the Network, the police are going to have to ask everybody in the building where they were, and who saw them, and all that crap. Or I’ll have to do it.” I sighed. This was going to be a mess. “Tell me about the actual robbery again, Llona.”

  She told me. “Somebody came into the Kinescope Library, knocked Jerry out, or something, and made off with all the kines from 1952. I don’t even know if Jerry knows what’s happened. He was in a lot of pain.

  “Anyway, when he came to, just a few minutes later, apparently, he staggered out into the hallway, and rang the fire alarm to get help.”

  The alarm had brought Coyle to the scene, of course, from his office in the basement. When he discovered the theft of the film, he immediately summoned more guards, for a quick check on what else might be missing—that was when Melanie’s ball was discovered to be gone.

  It occurred to me that the Network was blessed with dedicated employees—Jerry, Llona, and Colonel Coyle, all working late.

  Anyway, in all the excitement, everyone had forgotten that the alarms in this building were also on a direct line to the firehouse.

  “Now that we remember,” I said as calmly as I could, “why don’t we call them on the phone and tell them they don’t have to bother?”

  Llona looked thoughtful. “Good idea. I’ll do it right away.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “do that.” She nodded briskly, then took off for the nearest phone.

  She was just about to disappear around the bend, when a bloodcurdling scream of “I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch who’s responsible for this!” came from the other direction, and froze her in her tracks.

  My brain chose that moment to remind me that a noted movie critic had described the owner of that voice as “the epitome of gentle, yet healthy feminine radiance.”

  “Melanie just found out, I take it,” I said to Llona.

  “I suppose so. Coyle had one of the guards go to the Brant to get her.”

  “Wonderful. Are you sure there’s nothing else you haven’t told me? We’re not under attack by the FALN or anything?”

  Llona had a small smile for me. “Not yet.”

  By now, Spot, who hates to be left out, was pulling at his leash in an attempt to see what all the shouting was about. “Okay, boy, let’s go,” I said. He shook his head to make his silver collar jingle, then, hanging his tongue jauntily from the side of his snout, he led me down the hall to Melanie.

  For the second time that day, I came within touching distance of Melanie Marliss. If anything, she was even more beautiful than she had been before. Her face was hot and flushed, her delicate nostrils flared, her sensuous lips parted, her green eyes flashing. Her honey-colored hair was in disarray, and her chest under her tight sweater was heaving with passion, which was no inconsiderable heave, believe me.

  My luck, it was the wrong kind of passion. She brought the world’s most photographed face two inches from mine, and said, “Are you in charge here, Cobb?”

  My luck again, I had to tell her I was.

  “Aha!” You would have thought she’d proven some great point. “This guy Coyle tells me you’re the one that’s going to get my bowling ball back!”

  Thanks a heap, Coyle, I thought. They steal it from under your nose, then you set me up to take the rap. Nice.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I told Melanie.

  “You’d just better find that bastard, fast!” said the epitome of gentle, yet healthy feminine radiance. “Or I’ll sue this Network for everything it’s got! How can you be so stupid! This is an inside job, I swear it! I—”

  “Calm down, Melanie,” Lorenzo Baker said, stroking her shoulder. “You don’t want to say anything that would prejudice your case do you?”

  I hadn’t even noticed he was there—Melanie Marliss’s primal fury had drowned him right out. Still, I was glad to see him. I wasn’t too crazy about the sentiment, but his words did seem to be having a calming effect on her. America’s sex symbol had left off slander, and was now contenting herself with describing what she would do when she got her hands on the thief. If the Marquis de Sade had been around, he would have been jotting down notes.

  Then, out of a knot of people huddled a few dozen yards down the corridor that included a whole bunch of former radio and TV greats (including Shelby and Green, but not, I noticed, Alice Brockway), trouble came striding in the form of Colonel Jasper Coyle.

  Coyle was a ramrod-straight retired army man. As a soldier, it was his first instinct to meet force with force. I didn’t especially need somebody to come and yell at Melanie Marliss and set her off again.

  Spot came to the rescue. Melanie was saying, “...and another thing, eeee! What the hell...?”

  The Samoyed was licking on one of the famous knees. She looked down at him. Spot looked back, in that cute little insouciant way of his. Perfect beauty (woman) gazed on perfect beauty (canine). Melanie was almost as famous as an animal lover as she was as an actress. Spot was an easy animal to love. Immediately, she squatted and hugged the dog’s fluffy neck.

  “Hel-lo, poochie,” she cooed. “Did Mellie scare you with her yelling? I’m sor-ree.”

  What a trooper that mutt was. Normally, that kind of fawning made him as sick as it did me, but he stood there and took it, even taking an occasional slurp at Melanie’s face for good measure.

  She gave me a long hard squint. Obviously, if I owned such a terrific dog, I couldn’t be such a louse. “This your dog?” she demanded.

  “We live together.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Here we go again, I thought. “Spot.”

  “Spot?” She was obviously puzzled.

  “Yes,” I said wearily. It got tiresome explaining Rick Sloan’s little joke all the time. “He’s named for the gigantic white spot that covers his entire body.”

  “That’s cute,” Melanie said, and kissed him on the muzzle.

  So Spot had achieved a détente before the Army even arrived. “Hello, Colonel,” I said.

  “Hello, Cobb,” he said coldly. It should have been Mister Cobb, since I was a vice-president, in charge of my own department, and he was merely a supervisor, answering to the Director of Building Services, and the vice-president in charge of Network Operations, but I didn’t make a point of it. It would only upset him. He couldn’t get over the idea that a man who had been a colonel in the MP’s should “mister” someone who had been a mere sergeant.

  “Have you met Miss Marliss and Mr. Baker?”

  “I have just recently had that pleasure,” he said, and bowed to Melanie. The old fossil had style, anyway. Melanie appeared to like it.

  He turned to me. “It was bound to happen, you know,” he
grumbled. “Wouldn’t have if they’d listened to me. Told them the place was vulnerable.” If Coyle had his way, we’d broadcast from a cave.

  Not wanting to give Melanie a chance to gather more ammunition for that lawsuit, I suggested she go have a seat somewhere until the police came. It was a pleasant surprise when she actually did.

  “Well, Colonel,” I said when she and Baker had left, “how, specifically, is this module of the Tower susceptible to infiltration?”

  I was kidding him, but only partly. Coyle didn’t think you meant it until you gave it to him in his native tongue: Pompous Bullshit.

  “It’s possible someone could have gained entrance as part of a tour group, then broke ranks and concealed himself in the latrine. Then he could have breeched Studio J—the entrance to which is not locked, despite my recommendations—stolen the material, and escaped down the fire stairs.”

  “Isn’t the opening of one of the outside doors of the fire stairs supposed to set off the alarm system?”

  He gave me a superior smile. “The alarm,” he oozed, “had already been activated. Remember? I’ll know more about the situation after I debrief the de Lune boy.”

  “That’s pronounced de Loan,” I corrected him irritably, “and I’ll do the debriefing around here. You call the police.”

  “Do we need the police?” Another superior smile was on Coyle’s face, but the tone of his voice would have gone better with a contemptuous sneer.

  My patience snapped. “Why is Jerry in the hospital, Colonel? He came down with a sudden attack of aggravated assault, right? That is a crime, no? Now, I realize it would be swell for the glory of the outfit if we could solve this all by ourselves, but we have a catch-22 in civilian life, too, Colonel: If you don’t tell the police about a crime, that is also a crime. So call them.”

  His teeth were clenched, and his fists were, too. His face got very red, but all he said was, “As you say, sir.” He stalked off.

  Llona came back. “I called the fire department,” she said.

  “And?”

  “They didn’t believe me.”

  It figured. The NYFD answers more false alarms than any other fire department in the world. They’ve come to expect them. Naturally, when somebody calls to tell them they’re not needed, they’re going to be suspicious.