The Best That Ever Did It Page 9
She stopped crying, was quiet. I began to feel a bit stupid, just sitting there, holding her on my lap as if she was Ruthie getting over a nightmare. “Mrs. Turner, why don't you forget all this? You were married and it didn't jell. That's a common sickness—90 per cent of marriages are two people with hot pants who suddenly find themselves married, and don't know how to get along. Why don't you go home to your folks, for a while?”
“Home?” She seemed to spit out the word and I could feel her body become heavy and tense. “I never had a home. My father is a carpenter, a good one, like his father had been. But he had to be a 'professional' man, didn't have enough money for med school, ended up as a pharmacist. Mama's older sister inherited the one drugstore in this small town when her husband was killed in the First World War. So we moved into her house. Pop has been a clerk ever since and we've been 'guests.' Everything I did always brought a reminder from Mama, 'Now, Betsy, remember we're guests in Aunt Emma's house.' Only time I was ever spanked—and I've never forgotten it—was when Aunt Emma caught me digging in her rubber plants, told my mother I should be punished, and right in front of her, Mama spanked me.”
“But that's over too. You're not a kid any longer.”
“It isn't over. They still are 'guests' in Aunt Emma's house and Pop is still her underpaid clerk. My poor father could have made a good living as a carpenter, but he goes through life as a scrimping clerk. Whenever I needed a winter coat, Pop would do some carpentry on the side, make more in a few nights than he did all week in the drugstore.”
“Well, maybe he was happier as a drug clerk than as a carpenter,” I said, to say something.
“He was miserable. Nobody is happy in that house. Aunt Emma is one of those horrible women, gets a kick out of bossing us all. After a time nobody spoke to the other. Poppa, Emma, and Mom had a fight and for years everything was said to our cat. 'Pussy, tell Mama to kindly pass the butter.' 'Pussy dear, please tell Father to bring home some mineral oil tonight.' Or, 'Pussy, inform Emma the vitamin company insists upon payment of that old bill, and she'd best send them a check.' I couldn't wait to get away from them. Only... living alone, marriage to Ed, didn't turn out much better.”
“Guess you can't go home. Got any friends?”
She tried to shake her head. “No. Not that I see now. And Ed didn't have time for friends; he had to be on the prowl twenty-four hours a day. Once I even took a course in art for a while and met a kid, boy of about nineteen. Sometimes we went around to the museums together. Ed knew about it. It was nothing. But when he saw us on the street, he got insanely jealous and beat the kid up. No, I haven't any friends.”
Her face was near mine and as she talked her hair moved against my chin. I felt so damn sorry for her I almost kissed her, only I didn't want this to end up with my being paid off in kisses. I needed the thirty bucks per day. And at the same time I almost felt as if I was explaining things to Ruthie. I had a pretty clear picture of Betsy, or rather two of them. She was either a slick killer, which I didn't believe, but neither did I completely rule it out—or she was terribly naive.
Everything went by rule with her: you had a neurotic home so you ran away and the first man you saw was Prince Charming and marriage had to be the solution to everything. And you faithfully copied the clothes in Harper's Bazaar and the furniture in Home Beautiful and you tried to take an interest in art, and if your husband's business had a sordid side to it, you simply forgot about that. And when things went wrong, your husband started two-timing you, why it was SOP to try to hit the bottle, be the sophisticated lady lush, the silent drinker. And of course it was also SOP to try your charms on the first guy that came along—me.
Under her smart clothes and beneath the skillful make-up Betsy was just a big Ruthie. Well, maybe not quite, but... She was sure the wrong type for a brash punk like Ed Turner to marry, or had he been a trifle backward under his toughness? I told Betsy, “You're young, attractive. In time you'll find...”
“Do you really consider me attractive, Barney?” The dull tone vanished from her voice.
“Yes, Mrs. Turner.”
“Can't you call me Betsy?”
“Look, Mrs. Turner, most of the time you treat me like a servant or a...”
“I never meant to. It's just my way. I told you I can't make friends easily and of course since Ed's death... I've been so upset, unsure of myself.”
“For now let's keep it Mrs. Turner. Perhaps when the case is over, when I'm not working for you, we'll be friends.”
“What do you mean by friends? That you'll make love to me?” Her body stiffened again and there was a sort of horror in her voice that got me sore.
“Maybe. I might ask you to go to bed with me—sure.” She actually leaped out of my arms and off my lap; stood in front of me and shouted, “Now that I'm a widow I'm supposed to be a pushover!”
“You're a healthy-looking and pretty young woman, Mrs. Turner, and I'd be lying if I said you didn't attract me,” I said patiently, picking my words carefully so I wouldn't talk myself out of the job.
“If you think just because you come here every night that...!”
“I don't think anything. When the case is over, if we want to be friends, then we'll both see how it shapes up—then.”
“I thought you were warm and understanding.... You're just a man.”
“I hope so,” I said like a jerk, not sure what she was saying.
There was a moment of awkward silence, then she asked, “Want a drink?”
“No.” She was back to her play-acting once more.
“You have the manners of a boor, Mr. Harris.” She sat on the other end of the couch and reached down, came up with a pint of Canadian whiskey. She poured herself a small shot, tried to take the warm stuff down without coughing. Her eyes watered, but she lit a cigarette, like a hammy actress, asked in a cold new voice, “You're certain Ed was seeing this dirty whore?”
“I'm not certain she's dirty. She's merely selling what she can.”
“I suppose you got this information as one of her customers!”
“I could easily be one of her customers, Mrs. Turner. You probably can't believe it, but Louise has a great deal of charm. But don't let it worry you, I wouldn't put that on the expense account.”
She got to her feet. “I've had about enough of you, Mr. Harris.”
“Okay. I'll send you the balance of your retainer on Monday.”
“No, I didn't mean that. I want you to continue on the case. Only don't ever bring me any such gossip... this miserable woman with her false stories, her ravings about my...”
“It isn't exactly gossip. She had Mr. Turner's picture in her room—the same photo you have over there on the wall. She also told me about that coconut-tree lamp. Seems Mr. Turner took her money one day to buy the lamp for you—in a fit of remorse, I imagine.”
“Did you find out if she killed Ed, or didn't you have time for that?”
“I don't think she killed Ed. Look, I only told you all this because if you still think Ed was a suicide, then I have to know exactly how things were between you two. There's not even a slight motive that we—the police—can find for either of these murders, but there has to be a motive for suicide.”
“I've told you the truth—except that Ed and I didn't hit it off. It wasn't that we were unhappy, we just weren't happy. Can you understand that?”
“Maybe, after I think about it.” I got up and walked toward the door. “Shall I report tomorrow night? It's Saturday.”
“You work union hours?” she asked harshly. “Another thing, I demand some respect—comb your hair when you come to see me.”
“Don't think I will, Mrs. Turner. That's my hair, and I don't consider combing or not combing my hair having anything to do with respect.”
Her face turned pink with anger and as I opened the door I said, “Sorry I upset you, Mrs. Turner. Only did it as part of my job.” I don't know why I had to say that, almost made me gag.
“Get out.”
SAM LUND was a hustler long before he enlisted. Orphaned when he was six, Sam was raised by an aunt and uncle who had a small hardware store in Boston. They were childless and adored Sam, but when he was thirteen his aunt had a change-of-life baby and after that Sam was merely somebody around the house.
He grew up tall and strong, an all-around athlete with the grace of a dancer. When he was sixteen he hitched a ride to New York City and landed a job as a chorus boy in a Broadway musical that staggered along for five weeks. After that Sam worked at whatever odd jobs would pay for dancing and dramatic lessons and in his off hours made the rounds of casting agents, lived in Times Square drugstores.
By the time he was nineteen he had danced in several shows, had bit parts in off-Broadway little theaters, and was trying to break into radio. Sam was crazy about the “theater,” but it kept him broke. He was lucky to work two or three weeks a year as an actor or chorus boy and his other odd jobs never lasted, for as soon as he heard a show was casting, Sam would drop his bus-boy or stock-clerk job, to try his luck.
One afternoon he was in a dingy rehearsal studio on West Forty-sixth Street reading for a play due to open in the fall— if seventy-five thousand dollars could be raised. The producer was a middle-aged dapper ex-actor whose bleached-blonde wife took an interest in Sam. A day later she offered to set him up in a small Village apartment. Being supported by women wasn't anything new to Sam, but the lady was in her fifties, strapped her flabby body in a strait-jacket corset so she could wear a twelve dress, liked flashy jewels, and when she got drunk she thought it was tremendously funny to suddenly push her upper plate half out of her mouth and yell, “What's cooking, doc?”
Although Sam turned her down he let her buy him supper several times a week. She'd been around the theater all her life and she told Sam to really get among the people, study and understand them, instead of hanging around drugstores... if he was serious about becoming an actor.
He took a summer job as a barker for a sightseeing bus and a week later nearly died from scarlet fever. The fever left him completely bald. At first his bald dome was a great joke, but he soon found bald-headed young men were not considered for juvenile or lead roles, and that a decent toupee cost hundreds of dollars. He decided to take the apartment in the Village—till the play opened.
Sam admits the elderly blonde did a great deal for him. He told a reporter:
She really wasn't a bad sort, when sober. She bought me a remarkable toupee, a really terrific piece of hair, she had a custom tailor outfit me, sent me to a fine dramatic coach. But she would bust into the apartment in the middle of the night, drunk as a goose, then prance around in the nude under the illusion she was still a gay young thing.
Lund couldn't take this, but there was another reading of the play in a ritzy Park Avenue apartment and he was assured of a feature role. By October the show was still thirty-two thousand dollars short and the opening postponed till January. Sam was angry. While he had clothes, hair, and a charge at the corner grocer, he had no money. In November the producer signed to make a quickie picture in Hollywood and the play was postponed again, but Sam didn't mind, for the blonde went to the Coast with her husband and Sam had some peace and sleep. But she sent him a plane ticket, suggested he try the movies, and before Christmas Sam was rooming in a run-down house in Laurel Canyon. There was a vivacious nineteen-year-old red-headed singer also rooming there and Sam began sharing her room.
Aside from working in two mob scenes, nothing happened in Hollywood and Sam didn't care much for the place. He was glad to follow the producer and his wife back to New York in February, where he lucked up on a steady part in a daily radio soap opera. The play seemed almost certain to start rehearsals any day and things were breaking for Sam—especially when the redhead came East for night-club work.
But there was trouble finding a theater and in April the main backer switched his money to another play; the producer lost his option and announced the whole deal was off. The redhead was going to a Baltimore night spot and asked Sam to come along. The radio soap opera having folded weeks before, he was flat broke. When she was drunk the old blonde was careless with her jewelry, would often phone Sam the next day and ask him to look for a ring or pin she'd left in his place. So Sam hocked her earrings for two hundred and sixty dollars and went to Baltimore, where two detectives picked him up the following day.
Sam wasn't too alarmed. He begged the wife not to press charges, then threatened her with publicity about their affair. The lady merely stuck her false teeth out at him, said her analyst had told her that sort of publicity bolstered her ego. There was a line about the robbery in one of the columns, and Sam's picture made the tenth page of a tabloid when a judge gave Sam two to five years.
In the beginning prison drove Sam crazy, but for the first time in his life he read a lot, studied the men around him, and knew he'd really be an actor when he was released. Sam was finishing his twenty-second month in prison when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Several months later, when he came up for parole, he was told he would be set free if he enlisted.
After prison life the army was a snap for Lund, although the army didn't know exactly what to do with an actor. He was sent to a motion unit at Wright Field which was soon disbanded. Then Lund was assigned to special services and spent several months taking tickets at a Topeka air base theater. From there he was sent to England where he did guard duty, permanent K.P., and drove a truck. Lund spent some time with a touring G.I. show, asked to be made an aerial gunner and was turned down for some unknown reason.
Toward the end of the war Sam was working behind a PX counter at a bomber base in France. It was easy to smuggle out a few cartons of cigarettes now and then and he began doing some minor black-marketing. However, when the war in Europe was over and the bomber outfits were being rushed back to the States, on their way to the Pacific, the bookkeeping was snafued in the general confusion and Lund sold cigarette cartons by the case. At his trial Lund admitted once selling an entire truckload of supplies, working with the driver and another soldier. Lund was fast becoming an “operator.”
There wasn't anything waiting for him in the States, so Sam signed up for the army of occupation, went to Germany. Here he put on camp shows and engaged in various “deals.”
The new soldiers arriving in Germany were mostly kids, [Lund stated], all of them eighteen or nineteen years old. They thought it was a big deal to sleep with a Fraulein for a pack of butts. Me, I was now an “old army man.” I didn't bother much with those kids. I put on a lot of corny shows—any blue line or raw joke had them in the aisles with laughter. I had plenty of time to look around. There were plenty of things worth looking into in Germany then, the black market was amazing, wide open, everybody was hustling. It was sensational.
He worked his angles carefully and when he suspected things were getting too warm, Staff Sergeant Sam Lund took his discharge in 1950 and headed for Paris. He had a new Dodge car, five thousand dollars in cash, and some jewelry said to be worth fifteen thousand dollars and which he was only able to sell for nineteen hundred dollars. Sam also had three cans of film he had stumbled upon in a bombed film office in Bavaria. He had vague plans about using the reels as the core of a full-length adventure picture about an OSS man parachuted into Germany during the war—the main role to be played by Sam Lund, of course. He felt this would not only make money but establish him as an international actor.
During his first week in Paris Sam stopped at the George V Hotel, went to Maxim's, the Lido, and Monseigneur nightly-only to find at the end of the week that he had spent eight hundred dollars. He quietly moved to a small hotel in the Pigalle section, where he met Gabby.
Gabby was twenty-two, small and trim, with a cute face and a jutting bosom. She was a movie actress, but her only roles were those of an artist's model, a native girl, or
any brief part featuring nude breasts. She thought Sam the greatest man in the world: he was handsome and tall, considerate of her, and he had money and an American car. Sam liked her because she worshiped him and because she was a part of the French movie crowd. Only, as he soon found out, acting jobs were few and the unions strong, and it was impossible for him to get a work card—a role—although as a result of living with Gabby he soon spoke French like a native.
One evening, after he had been in Paris four months, Gabby introduced to him another American, a quiet-spoken fellow named Martin Pearson, and his horse-faced girl, Therese. Sam was suspicious of Martin, couldn't see the percentage in letting anybody else in on the picture deal. But Martin was helpful. When Sam told him, “My ninety-day tourist stay is running out and I'm having trouble getting a carte d'identite. How have you worked it all these years?”
Martin told him, “Go to a school, under the G.I. Bill, then you'll get a student identity card. Be careful with this identity-card business. You may think the French police are slow, but they're good and they're sharp.”