Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

Tall Tommy and the Millionaire by S. S. Rafferty

Thank God February has only twenty-eight days because it is the worst month for business at the bistro I own on Third Avenue. Right after the holidays my society swells start their exodus to Palm Springs, the Riviera, or places that are invariably named Costa Del Something and cost del everything. By February first, I could rent the joint out as a warehouse or a branch of Campbell’s Funeral Home. This can be very depressing to a standup comic like me, so in February, I relax the house charge account limit and let my riffraff pals in for the company of it. Costly, but comforting. Without an audience, I veg out.

The only problem is on the first Monday in the month. The assemblage in the bar lounge is paying more attention to Tall Tommy Tanuka than they are to me.

Ingrates.

But who’s to cavil. Tall Tommy is the best in his business, which is being a professional liar. I don’t mean like an ad man or a PR guy — mere pikers. Tall Tommy is world class in mendacity, and he makes one swell living at it, too, which is another reason not to cavil because at least he’s paying cash for his potables.

You see, Tall Tommy Tanuka sells lies to people in tight spots. For instance, let’s say a guy gets lost with a bimbo for a couple of days and wants to go home to wifey. What excuse is he going to use? Most of us would come up with some wimp-type lie that a cloistered nun could see through. But call in Tall Tommy, and man, you’ve got yourself a beauty, a scenario complete with all the trimmings. He is so good that in his presence polygraph machines blow fuses and truth serum curdles.

So it’s around eleven P.M. of this Monday in a dreary February, and Tall Tommy is telling us about a mob type who’s on his deathbed over in Jersey and calls for Tanuka’s services. The hood knows that his minutes are numbered, and he wants a great story to tell St. Peter so he can get inside the gates of heaven. It’s the high point, the apex, of Tall T’s career — he’s going to put one over on God. Now that’s chutzpah; that’s a pro!

His rendition is so terrific it is moving Barry Kantrowitz, my partner (and former agent, when I was working the flat floors on the road) to tears.

“You know, Chick,” Barry says to me, “this is the ligner of ligners. Even God would believe him!”

I didn’t get to answer him because there was someone at my elbow, someone I was glad to see because he is my favorite millionaire and we sorely needed another paying guest. Jay Porter Pemberton is a Wall Street type, old money, stuffy, but a very nice guy. He looked awful.

“Could I speak with you privately, Chick?”

My “sure, Jay Porter,” and his “privately” didn’t make a dent in Barry, who came along with us to the back office. Pemberton didn’t seem to mind, so I let it ride, but I thought he should have stayed. One of these days he’s going to need a plausible fib to tell the Big Booking Agent in the Sky. Boy, does he have things to answer for — like screwing up my career.

I grabbed the chair behind the desk before Barry could get to it. A guy behind a desk is always in control. Barry flopped on the leather couch, but Pemberton preferred to pace up and down like that poor puma I love over in the Central Park Zoo. (I’m going to turn that blue-eyed thing loose someday.)

“Why don’t you take a seat, Jay Porter? The broadloom needs a rest.”

“Chick,” he said nervously, taking one of the Eames chairs facing me, “I came to you because I haven’t any place else to turn. You’re experienced in such matters, and...”

He had taken a paper from his jacket pocket and was waving it about as he rambled on. I reached over and took it from him. Rude, perhaps, but the suspense was becoming too intense. It was a Xerox copy of a letter from a lawyer in Providence, Rhode Island, to someone named Samson Velker on East 89th Street in Manhattan, advising him of a legal strategy. It seems Jay Porter had been playing kissy-kissy with Velker’s wife, Gina. Now I understood the “you’re experienced in such matters” statement. I wasn’t insulted — a guy with three divorces behind him is beyond insults.

Barry gets into the act by coming to the desk and reading over my shoulder. “Having a conversation with a man’s wife is criminal?” he asks. “A million dollar conversation!”

“Criminal conversation is a concept in common law,” Jay Porter explained. “It gives a spouse the exclusive privileges of sexual relations with his partner. I looked it up. Rhode Island is a common law state.”

I re-read the letter. “Jay Porter, this is like an alienation of affections thing, and they never stand up. What you need is a lawyer.”

“No, Chick. Alienation and conversation are two different things. A loss of affection is almost impossible to prove. But that’s not the point. It’s the ensuing publicity that could destroy my name and my marriage. I’m an elder of my church, and my clients are all...”

“Take it easy, pal.”

He didn’t. “...and I can hardly go to a lawyer with a copy of a purloined letter. No ethical attorney would...”

“Jay Porter, STOP!” He did. “Now, slowly and calmly, lay it all out like you would a prospectus on a new stock issue.”

Believe me, if he writes a prospectus in the same garbled, confused way he told me the Velker story, American finance is in big trouble. Somehow I put it all together and shuffled it into a neat pack, with all the suits in the right place. I’ll deal it out to you painlessly.

That afternoon, Jay Porter had received the copy of the letter in the mail, from a girl named Lisa Banks who worked as a secretary in a Providence law office.

“Lisa is the only daughter of an elderly fisherman who did odd jobs up at my summer place in Newport,” Jay Porter explained. “Unfortunately, he was injured in a docking accident, and I covered all his expenses and put him on a retainer and paid Lisa’s way through secretarial school in Boston. The old man died last year, and although the daughter owes me nothing, I guess she felt she was repaying me somehow by sending me a copy of that letter. Of course I appreciate the warning, but she has put herself in legal jeopardy, so I can’t get legal counsel down here until this Providence lawyer, Procutto, contacts me.”

It gets worse, lots worse. Old Jay Porter started down the road to bankruptcy on January 16th, when a severe wind and ice storm decided to raise hell along the New England coast.

“I have a look-in caretaker of sorts, who lives in Newport, but when I called for a report on the storm, he was sick in bed. There’s been a lot of looting up there lately after winter storms, so I told Seth I’d be up myself. When I got there the next morning, it wasn’t all that bad. Part of the wharf and hangar were gone...”

“Hangar!” Barry was impressed. “You keep a plane up there?”

“Heavens, no,” Jay Porter assured him with a millionaire’s aplomb, “the Jet Star is kept at LaGuardia. The ‘hangar’ is really a boathouse, like the winter one at our Little Neck place, but hydroplane people call them hangars. You’ve met my wife Byerle, Chick. She’s a hydroplane enthusiast. Her father was Skip Dorian, who was killed in the World Cup race in ’68 — a terrible tragedy — and to console my wife, I’ve been underwriting Skip’s Sea Dart boat and crew. Lord, I could keep a string of racehorses for what that program costs me. More to the point, however, Byerle was in Jamaica to observe the Carib trials, dash the luck. If she’d been with me, this... this person wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. When I told Byerle on the phone about my trip, she was against it. Should have listened.”

“Bad break, Jay Porter,” I said, “but even more to the point, how’s about Mrs. Gina Velker?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Well, the main house was in fine shape, and since the snow had started again, I decided to spend the night. Around eight o’clock, there was a frantic pounding on the door, and I found this woman standing there freezing to death. Her car had skidded off the main highway, and she saw my lights. She must have walked a mile across open fields to get there, poor thing.”

“She isn’t going to be a poor thing if her hubby gets a million bucks out of you. You said woman, Jay Porter. How old? Looks?”

“Well, she’s in her late twenties, I would estimate, attractive, quite pleasant.”

“And she spent the night, right?”

“Well, actually,” he hesitated, “she spent the weekend. It was late Monday afternoon before the phones went on again and I could get us plowed out.”

“Okay, now the hard part. Did you have a conversation with her?”

“Oh, quite a lot, even though we didn’t have too much in common.”

“Criminal conversation, Jay Porter. Did you shake her bones?”

The elder of the church looked horrified. “Chick, need I remind you that I am a gentleman.”

The poor dope meant it, and I believed him. He is a gentleman with a capital G, a true rarity. Most of my friends can be described with a capital B, but not Jay Porter Pemberton.

The clincher to the whole mess is that, when they got plowed out and got to her car, it had a busted axle, and he drove her back to New York, stopping for lunch and dinner along the way. He had been seen with her by half the people in southern New England, which is one passel of witnesses — garage men, snow plow operators, waitresses, the whole works.

“It’s a sticklech,” Barry says with a yawn from the couch. He was lying down. Jay Porter gives me a quizzical look, since Yiddish is not his long suit.

“Sticklech. A trick — a scam — the old bamboozle.”

“But that’s preposterous, Chick. Gina was a very nice woman. Not refined in the proper sense, but certainly a decent person.”

“Decent, he says!”

“Shut up, Barry,” I snapped. “Jay Porter, you’ve got a hassle and a half on your hands. I still think you should see a lawyer, purloined letter or not. First thing you have to determine is whether it’s a scam or a legit misunderstanding on the husband’s part.”

“If you want to test a lie,” Barry said from flat on his back, “ask a master ligner. Ask Tall Tommy Tanuka.”

My prone partner has an idea, so with Jay Porter’s permission, I invite Tommy T back to the office. While I dealt Tall Tommy the story (burying the identities, of course), the ligner of ligners sat drinking Metaxa and beer, which is a disgusting sight. When I finished, he said, “If it is a scam, the best defense is impotence. I had a client once in Chicago who...”

“We don’t want to allow it to get into court, Tall Tommy. The guy never laid a glove on her, that’s flat.”

“I’m not talking about court, man, I’m talking about defense. If it’s a scam, it busts it sky high. Even if it’s a misunderstanding, it still blows it to hell. Now, this guy in Chicago took my advice and got outa the jam by taking some female hormones on the sly and then he gets himself examined by some sex doctors who pronounce him sexually dead.”

Barry groaned from the couch. “This is a good way to save money?”

“Well, he beat the rap,” Tall T said triumphantly, “only now he’s living with a twenty-year-old boy model in Evanston and his wife is suing him for divorce. I didn’t have to tell you the last part, fellas, but when Tanuka makes a lie, he always tells the truth about it.”

Jay Porter is turning green, so being behind the desk, I exercise control. “You’re missing the point, Tall Tommy. We want to know if the broad showing up at this guy’s Newport house in a snowstorm was sticklech or legit.”

He pondered. “Legit, as far as the snowstorm. Who could make up snow? The busted car, maybe. If it’s a scam it was probably cooked up after the fact. I’ll make a morning line of ten to one the wife showed up three days late and tells the truth to this bozo and it gives him ideas. Now, the nut of the matter is that the mark is going to lose some jack...”

“Money isn’t the problem,” Jay Porter said as aloofly as only a millionaire can, “it’s the publicity. To offer them a bribe wouldn’t solve anything. Blackmailers never stop at one payment.”

Tall Tommy is a little miffed at being interrupted. “As I was about to say, unless he fights fraud with fraud.”

“Lay it out, Tall Tommy.”

“It’s simple, Chick. The bozo is claiming this mark lured his wife into an affair, and that makes the lawyers pant like hounds for a contingency slice. But if the lawyers find out that this dame plays around with more than one guy, they drop the case because they haven’t got one.”

“Why, that’s immoral! You’re suggesting we tarnish this woman’s reputation!”

Tall Tommy gives me a “who’s this hoople” look.

“He’s an elder of his church,” I explain.

“That’s not a very original scheme, Tall Tommy. It used to work in paternity suits before they got those blood tests up to snuff, but this is different.” That’s Barry’s two cents.

“I don’t mean a whole bunch of guys giving phony affidavits; that’s for punks and it’s bad lying. All you need is to have her seen with a guy with a notorious reputation, a real rat with women. Let the bozo’s lawyer get a sniff of that and the ballgame’s over.” He got to his feet. “That’s all I can do for you gents. It’s the impotence dodge, the rat caper, or, well, you could have them knocked off.”

When the door closed behind him, Barry sat up. “I like the Don Juan angle,” he said with a leer, and I know exactly what’s going on in that crafty agent’s brain of his. Come February 28th, we will have to come up with five G’s on the mortgage and another ten to keep us going until the swells come home. He looked at me and then at my millionaire.

“Hell, no!” I shouted.

Operation Gina Velker started two days later (three bars of “Just a Gigolo,” please). Two days, because that’s how long it took Cy Tregannon, a P.I. I know, to put together the stakeout, the movement pattern, and the general poop on the Velkers. Tregannon dished it up with a written report and some fuzzy pix via a telephoto lens. First, the report:

“The Velkers are out to give the impression that Jay Porter has tossed a wrench into their marriage works, so Samson has moved out of the nest into a one room dump on the rim of the barrio several blocks north of the modest digs they used to call home on 89th near the East River. Samson works as a clerk in a local dry cleaners, and all Gina seems to do is shop in neighborhood stores.”

The telephoto pix didn’t meld much excitement to the deal. When Samson Velker’s ma and pa hung that monicker on him, they either had great expectations in genealogy or faith in high protein diets. They lost. He looked like he was put together with only half a box of Tinker Toys — he was thin, knobby-jointed, and fragile. The guy was a mugger’s dream, which wouldn’t hurt his case in a courtroom once the solid, muscle-toned, tanned lecher-millionaire showed up. But, since the entire exercise was to keep it out of court, I concentrated on Gina. Not that Tregannon’s pictures gave me much to concentrate on except the regulation New York woman’s winter wear — bulk. She looked like a sausage in boots.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t plan the strategy myself because my partner Big-mouth Barry had gathered the merry men, who considered themselves responsible for all the aspects of my young life. First and not foremost, Mario Puccini, who runs a limo for hire out of East 76th Street, only I seem to be the only soul who has his phone number. Then, of course, we have the boys from the club staff: Jack McCarthy, my kitchen manager; Guido LaSalle, my chief chef; Cuz D’Amico, the lead barkeep; Ling, the maitre d’; Barry; and one invitee, Tall Tommy Tanuka. Not one of them ever agrees with me except Guido, and he’s usually squiffed.

“I like the supermarket ploy,” says Guido.

“I don’t,” says Barry. “Who’s going to believe Chick even knows what the inside of a supermarket looks like?”

“The broad won’t know that,” Cuz says. I don’t know whether he’s defending me or just the idea. And I do know what the inside of a supermarket looks like, by the way, at least through the windows.

Now Barry gets cute. “Okay, Chick, what’s the first thing you do when you go into a supermarket?”

“You take a number from the ticket machine, wise guy, so you can get faster service.”

“That’s a deli, not a supermarket.”

I looked around at the group. “Well, does anyone know what is the first thing you do in a supermarket? I mean, come on, guys, this has to look natural if she’s going to tumble.”

All I’m getting is dumb looks, which is all you can expect from a bunch of guys who get up at six P.M., live all night in tuxedos, and consider phoning out for chow mein home cooking.

Cuz comes to the rescue. “I guess it’s the same in the city. Over in Jersey, they have these baskets on wheels.”

“Wheels,” I said, getting an idea. “Wheels could set up a collision scene. I crash into this Gina Velker. ‘So sorry,’ I say, ‘how about a drink.’ Zap! I’m on my way.”

“Very bad.”

“Why, Tall Tommy?”

“Because these Velkers love lawsuits. You’re going to end up in court.”

“I told you the supermarket stuff stank.” Barry plays Mr. Paraquat. “Does this broad own a dog? She’s got to own a dog. Everyone in New York owns a dog. I read in the paper that there are more dogs than people here.”

“Someone must have my quota,” I said. “Why a dog, Barry?”

“We get you the same kind of dog and you walk it on her street. It’s a great way to pick up girls.”

“No dog,” Jack Mac reports. “But the supermarket idea would work if Chick let the broad smash into him!”

They all looked at each other in agreement, which was easy for them, since I was the one who had to take the lumps. Besides, I had other qualms: suppose she didn’t like me?

“Boy, if I knew when I left the house this morning,” Gina Velker was saying across the tablecloth, “that I would almost cripple a star and end up playing Florence Nightingale and having lunch at 21 — wow. Is that Tom Brokaw over there?”

“Who?”

“Tom Brokaw. You know, the Today show? Jane Pauley, Gene Shalit?”

I could have told her I’d never seen the Today show, since I usually sleep till noon or better, but not wanting to rock her boat, I glanced at the next table and whispered to her, “That’s ol’ Tommy, all right.”

It seems all my qualms about my appealing to her were for naught. My luncheon guest was a celebrity junkie, a TV addict, and a professional fan. Instead of a brain, she had a cathode ray tube. Her addiction, however, was a Godsend to the plot, because one of the local channels was re-running the hell out of a sci-fi bomb I made ten years ago. She recognized me when I took the dive in the supermarket and “helped” me to Doc Dranger’s office on the West Side, where my ankle was taped and a cane supplied. (Doc Dranger is a friend of Tall Tommy. He is short on ethics and long on whiplash scams and gunshot wounds.)

When we left Dr. Dranger’s, I kept the hustle in motion by offering her lunch at 21. Although she was OD’ing on bliss, it wasn’t a rubberneck’s awe. She seemed to know that you just don’t stroll into 21 at twelve thirty without a reservation and get seated at Table 3.

“The Benchley corner!” she said after Walter had gotten us settled and the drink order was taken. “Did you know Otto Preminger had a fight here over the film rights to In Cold Blood? Chick, you have clout. But how come we didn’t go to your restaurant?”

“Because a lot of people keep coming up to the table for a smooze, and I wouldn’t have a minute to get to know you better.”

She blushed happily. “Tom Brokaw has a high P.Q., you know,” she said. “What’s your P.Q., Chick?”

“P.Q.?”

“Personality Quotient. You know, like I.Q. All stars have P.Q.’s or else they wouldn’t be stars. P.Q.’s are different from R.Q.’s...”

She went on to tell me about Recognition Quotients (mine was high, according to her) and how, despite Brokaw’s likability, the Nielsen ratings hadn’t been tiptop on the Today show.

I sat there going into a reality warp. Here I was, sitting in a restaurant filled with people who made handsome livings in all forms of communications and finance and who spoke their own trade lingos, and this average housewife sounded just like them. Maybe it came through the air and you absorbed it via osmosis. But the main difference between Gina and the media types and moguls surrounding us was that she believed it all without question. The kid was like a comatose patient hooked up to a vital life support system that pumped fantasy and vicarious involvement into her.

The plan called for me to squire her around town and get our names in the columns — a real press agent push. With her addiction, she seemed like a sitting duck, but I had to test her F.Q. (that’s Fidelity Quotient, folks). I dangled a fix before my heavy user.

“Frank Sinatra,” I said, so low it was barely audible. But celebrity freaks have built-in sonar.

“Where?” Her head swiveled a hundred and eighty degrees east and west, and then she turned sideways to sweep north and south. “Where?”

“Where what?”

“Frank Sinatra. You said Frank Sinatra!”

“Oh, I must have mumbled out loud, Gina. Forgive me. I was reminding myself to give him a call about next Tuesday night.”

“You are seeing Frank Sinatra on Tuesday? Really, Chick?”

“On the contrary, Gina. I won’t be seeing Frank on Tuesday. My date wouldn’t want to go to the United Charities Ball with a guy with a gimpy leg.”

It’s working like an ounce of gold in a bear market. She’s drooling. And she was about to have her credibility sullied with the Providence legal eagle.

“You mean to tell me,” Gina is appalled, “that the girls in your set” (set yet!) “would turn down a fellow for a date because he had a limp? A temporary limp, at that?”

“Well, you know how it is, Gina. A lot of these Hollywood types dote on physical perfection...”

“Farrah Fawcett!”

“Where?”

“No, not here, Chick. I mean, that’s your date, right? Don’t bother to deny it. I never liked her. Big deal, she was married to the Six Million Dollar Man for a while...”

It was obvious that Farrah was at the top of Gina’s hate parade at the moment, and Suzanne Somers, Cher, and, for some reason, Penny Marshall were tied for a close second. Listening to Gina was like a trip through the junk tabloids. Finally, she got down to it.

“You know, Chick, I have half a mind to say I’ll go to that ball with you myself, but...”

“I know... I know...” I lowered my eyes woefully (eat your heart out, O’Toole!) “...I noticed the wedding band three hours ago.”

“Oh, Chick,” she bubbled, “you really are shy. Actually, at the moment, I’m estranged. You know, like Burt Bachrach and Angie Dickinson... he lives in L.A. and she’s in Beverly Hills. Just giving each other some space. Same with Samson and me. The reason I’m hesitant about dating you is that I’m bound to bump into Laszlo Milne in your set.”

I had been able to keep up pretty well with her stellar stream of showbiz consciousness. Will Doris Day and Barry Comden have a reswoonion some day... will Sally get Burt... will Sly really stay with Sasha this time... all this I could follow. But a Laszlo Milne? In my set?

“Laszlo Milne, the director of Tomorrow’s Children. If we meet, he’ll probably make a scene.”

I knew that Tomorrow’s Children was a soap opera, and she filled in the rest. She had spotted a continuity booboo on the show — actress walks into elevator wearing scarf, gets off without one — sent it in to one of the tabloid TV blooper columns, and got twenty dollars and a write-up.

“Gina, that’s the continuity girl’s flub. It happens once in a while, and a director could care less. How long have you and your husband been estranged?”

Well, she sure had been chock full of information about Angie and Burt and Doris and Barry and Sly and Sasha, but on Gina and Samson, she was a big “no comment” except to imply that a reswoonion was not imminent. But it gave me a clear shot, and I had started setting up our rendez-woo when I damned near choked on a cherrystone clam.

The geography of the first floor saloon room at 21 puts Benchley’s corner directly in view of the entry from the outer lobby, and what do I see? I see Byerle Dorian Pemberton standing at the reception desk. Panic time for me. Her husband always sits at Number 5, which is directly across from us, or at least he did when I was bopping around town with him. If somewhere out there in the lobby is Jay Porter taking wifey to lunch, and if Byerle gives me a wave and Gina is hip to my knowing the millionaire, it is goodbye mortgage money. It was time to move.

“Where are you going, Chick? Oh, sandbox. Take it easy on the ankle.”

I “painfully” made my way across the saloon and into the foyer.

“Oh, hello. Chick Kelly, isn’t it? Have you had an accident?”

“Sprained ankle,” I said, looking around unsuccessfully for Jay Porter. I turned back to Byerle, which is not too hard to do. The Caribbean sunkiss still clung to her tinted skin, which heightened the blonde in her hair and the famous Dorian good looks. But although old

Skip may have put his physical imprint into this long, lean beauty, his devil-may-care style didn’t take. Byerle Porter was a bit of a stick, and prone to looking down her nose at things; but then, come to think of it, that fitted her husband’s world.

“Jay Porter with you?”

“No, heavens no,” she said, her eyebrows arching. “Not during the Levcott merger.”

“The only reason I’m asking is that the saloon is very noisy today and...”

“...and Jay Porter hates babble,” she interrupted. “I know, that’s why his fascination with your place has always amazed me. I won’t be sitting in the saloon anyway. Mr. Pete has a table for us up in the Bottle Room. We’re meeting Phil Dunn from Sports Illustrated. Oh, here you are, Buzz, late as usual.”

“Sorry, Mrs. P.” The speaker was what my niece would call a blond hunk. He had just brought his tanned face, blond hair, and snow white teeth in from 52nd Street to warm our spirits better than the fireplace crackling in the small lounge area of the lobby.

I guess Byerle felt she had to be polite. “Buzz, meet Chick Kelly.” Then, to me, “Buzz Tierney is the lead driver on the Sea Dart — my father’s hydroplane.”

I shook hands, or rather, I stuck mine out and had it worked over as if it were a bilge pump.

“Hey, Chick,” he said with exuberance, “been to your place a couple of times. Very funny stuff.” He turned to his boss. “Dunn here yet?”

“No, but we’ll go up anyway.” She gave an imperial nod to Harry behind the reservation desk, who rebounded it to Freddie, the stairway escort, and off they started, to my relief. Byerle was almost out of earshot, but I could hear her unladylike response to something Tierney told her. “Damn it, you promised it would work. Suppose Jay Porter finds out.”

That little piece of pattycake was none of my business, so I got back into my act and entered the “sandbox” and gabbed with Otis, the attendant, for a few seconds before heading back to Miss Stars-In-Her-Eyes.

She had a hurt look on her face. “They were nobodies, Gina. I do know some nobodies.”

“That’s all I know...” she smiled “...except for you, Chick.”

That was lunch. By ten o’clock that night, Gina Velker was definitely on her way to becoming a somebody.

To pull it off, I was calling in a lot of owed favors from news guys, columnists, and PR flacks. Thursday morning’s newspapers carried gossip column items about Chick Kelly’s new heartthrob, and one of the tabloids had a picture of us at Studio 54, non-dancing. Since most of the real celebrities were out of town, I was getting more attention than I actually deserved. By noon, the local TV gossip hens were on the phone, and I gave each of them a little tidbit to nibble on. For instance, my “no comment, give me a break, she’s a married lady” statement got us two whole minutes on the six o’clock news’ “People and Places” segment. I knew we were in clover when the junk tabloids started phoning in for the dirt.

But all this razzmatazz was nothing to what I had planned for Thursday night. It was snowing hard when I rang Gina’s doorbell at eight fifteen. I expected to find a wide-eyed lady who had been stunned by her instant celebrity. Instead, I was the stunned one and she was the stunning. For a second, I didn’t think it was the plain Jane dame I had dragged around town the night before.

“Elizabeth Arden,” she said, touching her perfectly manicured nails to her professionally made up face. Even the mousy off-blonde hair had been touched with soft gold. “Halston,” she went on, as she pirouetted to show me the flare of a sexy crepe outfit.

Damn it, the girl was a knockout, and I found myself wishing she weren’t a crook. But crook she was, at least so my further information from Tregannon, the private investigator, had indicated. It seemed that Samson Velker was so dumb and such a mope that dreaming up the criminal conversation scheme was beyond him, which left only my darling date as the heavy.

“Very nice, Gina,” I said, taking off my topcoat. “Must have cost a quid or two.”

She kissed me on the cheek. “That’s a thank you, not an invitation; at least not yet. Thank you for my chrysalis. I looked it up. It’s a butterfly coming out of the cocoon. I don’t mean just getting gussied up or buying new clothes, either. I got this dress on markdown. I’m a good shopper. Always have been, but until I met you, I never had the courage to buy one. Maybe courage is the wrong word. Confidence? Poise? I don’t know, but I feel like saying to the world, ‘Damn it, look at me!’ That’s always been my problem, Chick. I’ve been too shy. I was a wallflower at dances and a secretarial school dropout because taking dictation embarrassed me. Hell, I only had one real girlfriend in my entire life to share things with. I guess I ended up married to Samson because he posed no threat. Why am I going on like this? I salute you, Chick Kelly, my Pygmalion.”

I was half expecting an orchestra to play “I Could Have Danced All Night,” but the other half of my brain was taking care of business. “You realize that we are what’s known as an item,” I said. I wanted to see if she had gotten any flak from Samson. Obviously she had him on a string because she only kissed me again and said, “Good. I’ve always wanted to be an item. Is that champagne?”

I held up the gaily wrapped bottle and presented it to her. When I had asked Jack Mac to select a bottle from the joint’s wine cellar, I hadn’t realized he was going to make a packaging production out of it. “Ah yes, m’deah, a touch of the bubbly.” I gave her some James Mason.

“It’s like being with ten different people,” she said with childlike glee. Rich Little would have made her blow a fuse. “Let’s not open it now, Chick. I want to save this for a special moment.”

“Okay, then let’s get out our paint set and cover the town.”

We started with blanquette de pecheur at Lutece, some jazz and juleps at Bechets, and on to the eleven thirty show at the Rainbow Room. Later, we hit the Improv (I did six minutes — pro’s privilege) and the disco at Regine’s. Note that here I am trotting all over town when I own my own joint, but Jay Porter is picking up the tab, and besides, I want to spread the “hot item” stuff around.

All of this activity is mere prelude to my blockbuster, which came the next night, or rather at twelve twenty-seven Saturday morning. I know the exact time because that’s what the arresting officer put on the rap sheet when we were hauled into the 19th Precinct with the rest of the high rollers from Monk Doyle’s private gambling den on Third Avenue in the 70’s.

Of course, if Monk ever finds out that I had a hand in tipping the cops to his newest location (and arranging for the press to be on hand), it will be cement shoes and East River time for yours truly, but I never liked Doyle anyway, so I took the chance.

The guys with the flashguns had a ball, and thanks to our previous exposure, Gina and I got all the attention. Somehow or other, my lawyer, Ted Summers, got us out on a legal maneuver and Mario was waiting with his limo to whisk us to the Plaza, where I had reserved a suite.

“But why can’t I go home, Chick? A hotel is silly.”

“You won’t think so when you see the morning papers, Gina. Your phone won’t stop ringing, believe me, and chances are you won’t be able to get your number changed until Monday, so you’re better off at the Plaza.”

“No. I’m going home. I’m sorry, but that’s it. As for the phone, I’ll take it off the hook. Driver...” She gave him the address (which Mario already knew) and there went the frosting on my discredibility cake. She pecked my cheek goodnight at her front steps, said she was tired, and left me standing in a new snowfall.

“Whatcha think, Chick?” Mario says from the driver’s seat as we pull away from the curb. “She could be hip to the plan. Maybe the raid was overkill.”

“I don’t know, Mario. Something spooked her. Maybe it was the sight of all the blue coats and the seven minutes she spent in a cell. That could have put some cold reality into the consequences of breaking the law.”

“It’s early. You want to go to the joint?”

I looked out at the snow still coming down at a good clip and said no, and for the first time in twenty years, I was in bed alone at one o’clock in the morning.

Maybe breaking one lifelong precedent sets you up for another, because I woke up to an insistent buzzing. Half an opened eye told me it was two fifteen and the dark outside told me it was still ante meridian. The world knows that Chick Kelly does not speak on the phone before noon, but I broke another rule and picked up the receiver. Big problem. I’m listening to a dial tone with one ear and hearing the buzzing with the other. It’s the bloody doorbell, and if I don’t speak on the phone before noon, you can bet a bundle that I don’t answer front doors before one.

The buzzing suddenly turned to knuckle rapping, and as I lay there getting the blood reintroduced to my brain, I expected the next noise would be the baboom of a battering ram. Give ’em an inch and, well, you know the rest.

On my way down the hall and across the living room, I’m figuring out ways to kill whoever’s beating the hell out of my door. I know it isn’t the Girl Scouts with cookies because they’re a civil bunch, bill collectors always dun me at the club, and even my ex-wives’ lawyers always send their letters, threatening as they are, via express mail. I figured strangulation or bludgeoning by fist would have to do since I wasn’t carrying a gun but, to my surprise, my early morning caller was.

I don’t have to tell you that my entire attention was on the gun, so a description of its bearer will be scant. He was shortish and probably on the thinnish side under his soiled trench-coat. In spite of the gun, my comedian’s brain was wondering why a guy who works in a dry cleaners walks around with a filthy coat. Samson Velker looked even more haggard in the flesh than he had in Cy Tregannon’s telephoto prints.

“What’s your problem, pal?” I asked as I slowly brought my hand up to the inside doorknob.

Velker may be rated as a dope, but he sees good. “Don’t try to slam it, Kelly. I didn’t come to use it this time, but I can, and I will. This is a warning. Stay away from my wife or I’ll kill you.” His voice sounded shaky and he delivered the threat as if he were doing a bad imitation of Jimmy Cagney. “No more dates, you hear?”

“Anything you say, mister, but would you mind telling me who you are?” This, friends, is not false bravado. Down the hall, I can see an apartment door open a crack, so I know that Mrs. Rosen is on duty as the eleventh floor mensch. I wanted a witness. Velker and I were having our own criminal conversation, and it could include an “assault with a deadly weapon” charge.

“You know goddamned well who I am, Kelly. How many wives are you fooling around with, anyway?”

“Let’s not get personal. Who’s your wife?”

“Gina Velker!” He shouted it loud and clear, which was swell, because now all the neighbors knew. “And if you so much as talk to her on the phone, I’ll put a bullet where you’ll turn soprano.”

With this finally off his chest, he whirled awkwardly on his heels and stalked down the hall to the elevator. I watched his retreat, his meatless stooped shoulders trying to swagger, his old fashioned fedora tilted forward on his head, a hand buried deep in the pocket of his dirty raincoat clutching his courage. Exit the pathetic gunman.

When the elevator doors closed behind him, I stage-whispered down the hall to Mrs. Rosen’s still cracked doorway. “Hey, Mrs. R,” I said, “don’t forget a word of anything you just heard. It’s important. Write it down, even.”

With this, her door opened wide enough for her hairnetted head to appear. “You’re a bum, Kelly. That I already knew, a regular Don Juan bummer, and now they come to get you with guns. Good idea you should be a soprano...” the door was closing “...girls coming and going day and night like a harem...” Silence. You will note Mrs. R is not a fan.

The gambling bust happened too late to make the early bird editions, and it was just as well because if, before his visit, Velker had seen what the later morning editions eventually carried, he would have plugged me on the spot. It must have been a slow night for news, for the press pulled out all the stops. Take the headline east SIDE RAID BAGS POSH ROLLERS. This was played off against a four column shot of Gina and me getting into the police van. The cutline read: “COMIC AND CUTIE TO HOOSEGOW AFTER CASINO SWEEP. Chick Kelly, restaurateur/funny man and socialite Gina Velker off to tell it to the judge following gaming bust.”

I thought the socialite bit was over-reach, but at least they spelled her name right and the rest of it was pure gravy. When that Providence lawyer learned that the poor waif of the storm was really a jaded swinger with a rep and a rap against her, my mortgage was secure.

I was reading about my public shame over steak and eggs at Table 36 in my joint’s lower tier dining room at noon. Normally, this area is only open for dinner, but the scandal had filled the two upper rooms and the bar lounge with gawkers. Ah, sweet justice. I nail Gina’s scheme to the floor, land the mortgage dough, get Jay Porter’s undying gratitude and then some, and produce a land office business, despite a mere blizzard.

“It is a classic,” Tall Tommy Tanuka is saying with pride as he slurps a bowl of billi-bi. “Truly a beauty scam, Chick. Only one thing bothers me.”

“Like what, Tall Tommy?”

“When she balked at going to the Plaza.”

“You could look at it in one of two ways. Either she was suddenly hip to our act or, even if she considered me legit, she saw that all the publicity would zonk the criminal conversation charge.”

“Maybe,” Tall Tommy said skeptically, “but I’d like it cleaner, clearer, you know.”

I was about to ask him what the hell he meant by that when Sam, the station captain, brought a phone to the table and plugged in the jack. “Mr. Pemberton for you,” he said.

I didn’t even get past “hello” before he opened up with the panic. “Chick, I have had a wire from Lisa Banks telling me that this Velker fellow is hinting about going to the papers if a settlement can’t be reached.”

“Take it easy, Jay Porter. Haven’t you seen the morning editions?”

“No, I’m calling from Little Neck. We’re snowed in with several houseguests. Getting snowed in is becoming a habit. What’s in them?”

I told him, and he said, “Yes, that is decisive, as far as a court case goes. But he can still smear me in the press.”

“Well, first, Jay Porter, Velker isn’t smart enough for blackmail and his wife may have had the wind taken out of her sails. Why don’t we give it a few days and I’ll negotiate a deal with the lady?”

“I hope you can, Chick. I’m getting a bit desperate.”

I hung up, and Joey, one of the busboys, came to retrieve the phone. He bent down close to my ear and whispered, “Ling says some cops are looking for you up front. Maybe you want to duck out through the kitchen, boss.”

“Don’t sweat it, Joey.” I had half expected some heat over the gambling raid and Ted Summers’ slick moves that got me released. Cops on the public morals squad don’t like slick moves. They like to follow them up with an hour or two at Police Plaza where I’d get my hands slapped, a court visit, and a fine.

I didn’t know the two plainclothes guys who finally worked their way down to Table 36, but they sure knew me.

“Kelly?” the ugly one grunted.

“Mister Kelly.”

“Can it,” he said as he reached over the table and frisked me from the waist up. “On your feet.” I did, and he completed the job from the waist down.

“What the hell is going on?” The less ugly one took out his handcuffs. “Okay, already, I’ll come quietly. Hell, it’s only a gambling charge, fellas.”

“Turn around, Kelly,” the ugly one said, and when I did, I was cuffed. “I don’t know from gambling charges, Mister Kelly.” He turned me about, took out his celluloid Miranda card, and gave me a sardonic grin. “You’re supposed to be a comic, Kelly. Here’s a riddle for you. What’s the sum of murder one plus murder one? It can’t be murder two. Give up? It’s a double life sentence. Okay, you have the right to remain silent...”

Four hours later, Lieutenant Donald Bullethead Jaffee of Homicide was far from silent and getting hoarser by the minute. He seemed to have the persistent notion that I had poisoned Gina and Samson Velker with Jack Mac’s aid and assistance. My kitchen manager had arrived at Police Plaza wearing city bracelets about the same time I did, and was probably going through the same Torquemada drill in some other office on some other floor. I hoped he was playing the same dummy act I was.

“Come on, Kelly,” Jaffee said with false friendship. “She had something on you. Why else would a high roller like you be squiring a working class housewife around town? Kelly, we have the lab reports and the autopsy protocol, and they’ll hang you. The poison was injected by hypodermic through the sealed champagne bottle cork. We can prove that beyond a doubt. Jack McCarthy’s fingerprints are on the bottle’s cardboard half-sleeve, and yours are on the fancy paper it was done up in. You wiped the bottle clean, and either forgot about the bottle’s sleeve or didn’t think it would show prints. We’ve come a long way with computer enhancement of latent prints, chump. Next time you plan a murder, don’t be so sloppy. Remember, you’re killing in the space age. That champagne is an exclusive brand, a Chateau La Codar 1958, stored at your club by a customer, a Mr. Pemberton, Jay Porter Pemberton. Your own wine cellar records prove that.

“You poor bastard, you were caught in the middle. The wife is shaking you down and holding you as a trapped lover, and her old man is jealous as hell and wants to kill you. After that scene at your apartment house with the gun, you had no choice. You got them together for a supposed payoff and brought the wine to seal the deal. It’s widely known that you only drink vodka and tonic, so you let Velker open the champagne and unsuspectingly pour his wife and himself a toast... a toast of freedom for you and death for them. What did she have on you, Kelly?”

On and on he went with his boring fairy tale, while I was trying to think the whole thing through.

Theory #1: Samson Velker killed his wife and then took a suicide sip, but that idea had two flaws. Why go through with the hypodermic jazz with a sealed cork, and if he was so hurt, why didn’t he try to kill me?

But that scenario was more acceptable than Theory #2, which had Jay Porter in the starring role, taking matters into his own hands. True, he keeps his Chateau La Codar at my place, but he must keep some at home, too. He was in a panic, called Gina direct, got her and Velker together for a payoff, and voilà! the poison toast bit. This also had a flaw, mainly that Samson Velker, by Mrs. Rosen’s observation, was alive at two fifteen on my doorstep, and Gina was still breathing when I dropped her off around twelve forty-five. The M.E. fixed their deaths at between four and five A.M. and, due to the baby blizzard, no one, but no one, was able to get from Jay Porter’s manse out at Little Neck, Long Island, to Gina’s place on East 89th Street.

I might add that Mrs. Rosen must have gone off duty after the corridor fracas with my pathetic gunman because she told the cops she couldn’t give me an alibi for four to five o’clock. Of course, for it to have been an ironclad alibi, she would have had to be in bed with me, but the least she could have done was to say she never saw me leave the apartment. Never have a non-fan for a neighbor.

I was still ignoring Jaffee and working on Theory #3 when a uniformed cop stuck his head into the office and said, “He’s here.” Jaffee cocked his bald noggin at me. “Your attorney has finally arrived. We’ve documented that you were allowed to call him five minutes after you arrived.”

Touchy, touchy. The uniform led me to a private room where I expected to find Ted Summers. Instead, who is perched on a chair with all the presence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes? It is none other than Tall Tommy Tanuka, ligner of ligners.

“Thank you, officer, I’ll buzz when we’re through,” he says as he waves me to a chair.

“What in the...”

Tall Tommy gives me a shush sign with fingers to lips as he places a briefcase on the table and takes out a small black oblong box. He flips a few switches and turns a dial as he looks innocently up at the ceiling. As a look of satisfaction crossed his face, I said, “You practice in downtown Moscow, counselor?”

“Better be safe than sorry, Chick. That’s a cardinal rule by me. I’m here because your legal eagle is in Albany or some other place up in Canada, so I decide to jump in with an assist. ’Ja really kill ’em?”

“No, ’ju?”

“Hey, Chick, serious up. This is a twenty-to-life we’re talking. If you didn’t knock them off, we have to find out who did. Okay? Okay! Ever read a detective story?”

“There are times, Tall Tommy, when I believe I’m living in one.”

“Then you know that one of the sure-fire ways to catch the culprit is to detect a flaw... a lie... in his alibi.”

“Sure, Tommy,” my mouth is saying, but my mind is wondering when in hell Summers is coming back from Albany. “Tommy, I appreciate your help, but, man, I need a lawyer, not a liar.”

“What’s the dif? Come on, Chick, all the details.”

All things considered, sitting there talking with Tommy was more pleasant than going back to Jaffee’s harangue, so I humored him with all the details from the supermarket spill to 21 and on until the gaming bust.

“The gee’s wife, this Byerle, maybe has something going with the boat jockey?” he asked when I reported the overheard “suppose Jay Porter finds out” bit between Tierney and Byerle when they were going up to the Bottle Room.

“Maybe, but that’s got nothing to do with the Velker deaths.” Even as I said it, my mind must have put a checkmark next to the thought, because it surfaced again within the next forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, Tall Tommy is up on the ankles, as he put it.

“Sit tight and hang tough, Chick. I’m on a quest.”

“What’s the quest?”

“The truth about the matter at hand.”

“Tommy, you’re a lie expert, remember?”

“Takes one to know one,” he says, and he’s off.

Like I said, forty-eight hours later, a thought popped out of my memory bank and took on interesting dimensions. It had zoomed through my head while I was talking to Ted Summers, who had finally gotten Albany back into the union and had time for my problem. I had been in the Tombs prison for two days, having been sent there because a judge felt I was a poor bail risk. By the way, I can tell you this: one does not need electronic devices to keep one’s conversation private in the visitation pens. In fact, the only device you need is a hearing aid to overcome the din in that zoo of babble.

“You realize, Chick,” Ted was saying — shouting, “that it’s a pretty thin argument, and I don’t think the D.A. will buck Jay Porter Pemberton just to satisfy the questions you’re raising. Hell, I’m ninety percent convinced we can go to trial and beat this thing. All the state has is circumstantial crap, and the D.A. knows it’s full of holes. But we can make a strong emotional case for a husband who was a loser and a psycho, committing murder and suicide in a jealous rage. You get a little dirt on you, but...”

“How much did he offer you, Ted?”

“Ten thou. Fifty more if you’ll go along.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something? Jay Porter is scared, my friend.”

“Of course he is. He has a reputation to protect.”

“And the old bum of the month here doesn’t.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it. The public expects a touch of scandal from showbiz types. Besides, if you introduce the stuff about your scam to neutralize the criminal conversation action, you’ll look like a real bum, the bum of the century, never mind the month. The papers would tear you apart and you might just put yourself in jeopardy of a conspiracy charge.”

“What are you trying to do, Ted, scare me?”

“If Velker couldn’t with a gun, how can I with logic? If you want me to bring the Pembertons into this, Chick, I’ll do it, but at least let me do it my way. Or rather, the diplomatic way, so you have a bridge to retreat over just in case you’re wrong.” Ted leaned closer to the divider screen between us. “Chick, just tell me why you won’t take the easy way out. You’re losing your mortgage, the sixty G’s, and the backing of a very powerful man. Irish pride?”

“No, it’s because of something Tanuka asked me several days ago, about Gina Velker’s shying away from the Plaza setup. I think I have the answer now.”

“So be mysterious,” Ted was getting to his feet, “and remember, I promise nothing regarding the D.A.’s reaction to your proposal.”

I had to yell over the din, “We can but try,” to which a woman visiting a prisoner in the stall next to mine responded, “A-men, brother, a-men!”

That “amen” was the only response I got over the next three days. No D.A. response, no Ted Summers response. Jack Mac and I played every two-handed card game known to man during “in cell” hours and every horse race in America in “out cell” time. One thing you can do at the Tombs is use the pay phones to make bets and, for the first time in years, I was ahead on the ponies, so prison has its mind-sharpening aspects. Finally, on a dismal, cold morning, a screw (see how I’ve warped) rattles our cage and tells me, “Ya goin’ ta Leonard.”

“S’bout time,” says this hardened case.

After a short ride, I found Ted waiting for me on the main floor at the 155 Leonard Street building where the Manhattan D.A. hangs his hat.

“What in the hell is this about?” Summers asks the two delivery guards. He was agitated because my escort had me in hand and ankle manacles complete with lead chain. I looked like Houdini about to jump into a river.

“He’s a murder one, max security,” the guard on my left informed Ted, the elevator starter, and sundry loiterers in the lobby. I recommend this kind of announcement to anyone who wants an elevator to himself because, as we approached a waiting car, its passengers decided to get out and wait for a safer ride.

The manacles didn’t come off until we were in a small waiting room somewhere on an upper floor. The guards left and Ted filled me in.

“It wasn’t easy, Chick. The D.A. is leery, but he knows that, if you’re right, he has a job to do, embarrassing as it might be. He’s playing it cosy just the same. He won’t be here. A young A.D.A. named Ruker will run the show. Mrs. Pemberton and the boat racer, Tierney, think they’re here because they met you at 21 the day you were there with Gina Velker. Jay Porter raised hell and his lawyer doubled it, but the D.A. stood firm, so the lawyer and Jay Porter decided to be here, too.”

“Jay Porter sniffs a rodent, no doubt.”

“And it isn’t Mickey Mouse, my friend. However, the fact that Dunn from Sports Illustrated is here bolsters the supposed focus on the 21 meeting, so they might be off center.”

“How about the Rhode Island lawyer, Procutto?”

“He’s coming down by plane this morning with Tommy Tanuka.”

“Tall Tommy! What’s he doing in this?”

“Like everybody else, he wanted to help, so I put him to work. He’s a very intelligent man and I felt Procutto would be more cooperative if we approached him on a personal basis. Tanuka’s been up there for two days, so I guess it took a lot of convincing.”

“How about the surprise guy?”

“He’s here. You’ll see him in the hall as we go into the hearing room. He’s not in uniform, but you’ll recognize the weatherbeaten face.”

“That’s the cast of characters, then.”

“Except for Jaffee from Homicide... best described as the wounded bull. He tried to talk the D.A. out of the setup, and hasn’t knocked himself out with cooperation. That’s it, Chick, my boy. Now, as they say, ‘break a leg.’ ”

Man, I’ve worked some tough audiences, but this crowd was grim. The minute I entered the room, a whitehaired guy was on his feet saying, “Mr. Ruker, we were not told that this man would be present.”

The ink on Ruker’s law degree might still be damp, but he was no slouch at confrere counterpunching. “Mr. Dins-more, let me make it clear at the outset that this is not, repeat, not, a forum. It was explained to you all that you were here by invitation, and invitations can be refused. You all accepted yours, and clearly, Mr. Kelly accepted his.”

“Mr. Ruker,” Dinsmore, obviously Jay Porter’s attorney, was about to play the Grand Old Man of Law to this kid behind the desk. “It was my understanding that Mrs. Pemberton and Mr. Tierney were called — sorry, invited — to substantiate that Mr. Kelly was at the 21 Club at a given time. It seems the district attorney’s office has abandoned more efficient means of fact-finding such as the affidavit.”

Nice try, but he still hadn’t fazed this kid juris doctor. “Mr. Dinsmore, we can spend the entire day in colloquy or we can clear this up...”

“There, you see,” Dinsmore interrupted, “you use the term ‘clear’...”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Charlie,” Byerle snapped, “let’s get on with it.”

“Yes, Charles,” Jay Porter agreed, “let’s hear what he has to say.”

Dinsmore sat down, making no attempt to hide his irritation.

“Now, Mrs. Pemberton,” Ruker said, “tell us of your meeting with Mr. Kelly at 21.”

“I wouldn’t say it was a meeting. I merely said hello in passing.”

“Just hello?”

“We discussed his ankle briefly. He walked with the aid of a cane.”

“How long were you in the restaurant before Mr. Kelly approached you?”

“A few seconds or so.”

“The person at the reservations desk remembers it as a much longer period, long enough for you to make a phone call.”

“Oh yes, I was calling Mr. Tierney to find out why he wasn’t there, and got no answer. He arrived shortly after.”

“During the time you entered 21 and prior to making the phone call, did you notice Mr. Kelly and his companion at Table 3?”

“I am not in the habit of rubbernecking, Mr. Ruker.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you were, madam, but since Table 3 is in direct line of sight with the reservations desk, you could hardly miss recognizing a familiar face. In fact, I am given to understand that many celebrities like that table for its high visibility.”

“I am not familiar with the tribal beliefs of celebrities, Mr. Ruker. If all these questions are to establish that Mr. Kelly was with the woman who was killed, I am of no help to you at all. The first time I noticed him was when he came up to me. I don’t know if that helps or hurts his case, but it is the truth.”

“You can include me in that, too,” Buzz Tierney chimed in. “Kelly was with By... Mrs. Pemberton when I came into the lobby, so I couldn’t know where he was sitting.”

“If that’s why you got me down here,” it was Phil Dunn the sportswriter’s turn, “I arrived late and was taken immediately upstairs to the Bottle Room.”

“Well, that seems to settle that,” Dinsmore said with a sigh of relief. “I can appreciate the district attorney’s office wanting to be thorough, but since we can be of no assistance...”

“Mrs. Pemberton,” Ruker played right through the exit speech, “when you were going upstairs, you said to Mr. Tierney, ‘You promised it would work,’ and then you added, ‘Suppose Jay Porter finds out.’ ”

They couldn’t help it. Byerle and Buzz exchanged furtive glances, which we all caught, no one more acutely than Jay Porter.

“I don’t remember making any such statement,” Byerle said gamely.

Ruker gave her a sharp jab to set her up for a one-two combination. “Others do remember, and will swear to it. Your statement was remembered verbatim. So what was it that your husband wasn’t supposed to know, or find out?”

“Don’t answer that, Byerle,” Dinsmore was on his feet and angry as hell. “And I want you to listen to me, Jay Porter and Buzz Tierney as well. It’s preposterous, but there’s the thread of an implication here that Mrs. Pemberton is somehow involved in the death of Gina Velker. All this jabberwocky about being invited here for a chat about meeting Kelly was a ruse, and believe you me, Mr. Ruker, the D.A. will rue this action, if indeed it had his sanction at all.”

I wasn’t listening to Dinsmore’s harangue. I was looking at Jay Porter’s face. He stared fixedly at the wall behind Ruker’s desk, and I could sense the thought pattern emerging from his brain the same way it had in mine, which went like this:

Tierney and Byerle would like to make permanent whoopee, and they concoct the criminal conversation plot. Byerle would then have grounds for a beautiful divorce settlement plus a cut of Gina’s take. Poor Jay Porter’s brain was putting together the pieces, and his ever-tightening mouth showed he didn’t like it.

Byerle had known he was going to Newport the evening of the storm. She knew he was too much the gentleman to turn Gina out. His own weekend conversations with Gina had told him she wasn’t smart enough to dream up the caper, but Byerle and Buzz were. Oh yes, I thought, you’re getting the message, Mr. Millionaire.

“You promised me it would work,” she had said, and when she saw Gina with me, a pal of her husband, she knew it was trouble. Then, when it started to fall apart, the publicity had turned Gina into a romantic rebel and Gina’s husband into bitterness and vengeance, both too dangerous to be alive.

While I’m watching Jay Porter, Ruker had somehow quieted Dinsmore down with a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo and the attorney was saying, “Of course we will answer any question that’s germane to the case. Ask if you’ve got one.”

“Mr. Pemberton, you keep a supply of a champagne labeled ‘Chateau La Codar 1958’ stored at Mr. Kelly’s nightclub.”

“Yes, I do. It’s a private label bottled for me exclusively at my place in France.”

“Is your entire stock kept at Mr. Kelly’s?”

“Oh no, I keep some at 21, a few down at Burning Tree, and of course, a case or so at our various pieds-à-terre.”

“Which do you consider your residence of record, sir?”

“Legally, I suppose it’s split between the apartment on Fifth Avenue and the house in Little Neck on the Island. Summers, of course, at Newport, and sometimes the Palm Beach place in winter.”

“And you keep La Codar at all these homes?”

“Yes, I don’t drink much, but when I do, it’s always La Codar so I like to have it available. Oh yes, if it’s pertinent, there are always a few bottles on my jet.”

“Thank you, sir. And are these bottles numbered sequentially?”

“No. There’s no need. I don’t inventory it, although Mike at 21 keeps meticulous records, as does Jack McCarthy at Chick Kelly’s.”

“You understand, Mr. Pemberton,” Ruker said, “that a bottle of La Codar carried the poison that killed the Velkers?”

“So I am told. I guess that’s why Mr. Kelly is suspect. Something about fingerprints?”

“Yes, that’s correct. On the bottle’s cardboard sleeve and the wrapping paper, but not on the bottle itself. On the night of the Velker deaths, you were having a Sea Dart party, as I understand it. Is it possible that one of your guests could have taken a bottle of La Codar with him when he left?”

“I should say quite impossible, Mr. Ruker, because no one left. If you recall, that was the night of the second blizzard, and nothing was moving on Long Island. We simply put everyone up for the night: Mr. Tierney, the boat crew, and a few fellows from the press, like Mr. Dunn here.”

“You know, Mr. Ruker,” Dinsmore was at it again, “it seems to me that, as a prosecutor, your approach is a bit confused. Mr. Kelly is in custody because of his liaison with the deceased woman, and a bottle of poisoned champagne taken from his own cellar is the vessel of death. Why, then, are we dwelling on a party of people who had no connection with the case, and who, even if they had, could not possibly have gotten to the scene of the crime unless they had wings? I believe that even the gulls were walking that night.”

Well, folks, there you have it, and if you missed the essential element that’s going to hang Lady Byerle and Buzz Tierney, it will be clear when you hear what my surprise guy waiting outside has to say. Oh, why make you wait. The surprise guy is Lieutenant Commander Paul Dirinkus of the U.S. Coast Guard, and he is prepared to show on a map that, on the night of the Velker deaths, you could get a bottle of poisoned Chateau La Codar from Little Neck, Long Island, on Long Island Sound to 89th Street on the East River by the smoothest, fastest means on earth, a hydroplane. His map shows that the East River is actually a tidal basin for Long Island Sound, on which Little Neck is located.

So, as they say in the detective stories, Tierney had the means, a spare bottle of exclusive champagne, which he or Byerle poisoned; motive, millions in a divorce settlement; and opportunity, a lightning-speed boat piloted by a pro. He docks the Sea Dart at the foot of 89th Street, and goes to the meeting with the Velkers, and gets them to drink the wine he brought with him. Then, to his surprise, he finds my bottle unopened. Byerle probably told him her husband kept Codar ’58 at my joint, so he’s got one beauty way to hang it on me. Wearing gloves, he just switches the cardboard sleeve, leaves my wrapping paper behind, and takes the unopened bottle with him, either dumping it on the return trip to Little Neck or putting it into the manse’s cellar stock.

Great plan, Byerle! Slick work, Tierney! Too bad you had to bump into Chick Kelly. Ruker was preparing for the coup de grace and I was savoring it.

“I know it’s a touchy subject, Mr. Dinsmore, but I would still like to know from Mrs. Pemberton what she meant when she said, ‘You said it would work... Suppose Jay Porter finds out.’ I believe Mr. Summers is prepared to ask her under oath in an open courtroom unless we can find out here and now.”

“For God’s sake, Buzz,” Phil Dunn said, shaking his head, “why don’t you put Mr. Pemberton out of his misery. It will be public knowledge when next week’s edition comes out. I went down to the Sea Dart hangar at Little Neck that night of the blizzard and saw for myself.”

Ah, glory. Ah, sweet corroboration. An eyewitness to Tierney’s death mission departure. ‘Tis the luck of the Kellys.

“What is going to be public knowledge?” Jay Porter is incensed. “Buzz, what is this man talking about?”

Buzz looked for help from Byerle and got none. Then he looked at Dunn, and got more than he asked for.

“Mr. Pemberton,” Dunn said, “the big secret these two have kept from the hydroplane racing world is that the Sea Dart, into which you have poured a fortune, is a lemon.”

“That’s a lie,” Byerle screeched. “Daddy’s designs will work if we can get the engineering right...”

“Mrs. Pemberton, no one had more respect for Skip Dorian as a racer than I did,” Dunn said sincerely, “but as a designer, he was out of his depth. Hell, Buzz, your uncle was killed in a death trap of his own design, and here you two cousins are trying to make a shrine out of a concept that doesn’t, and never can, work.

“After the party broke up that night, I went down to the Sea Dart hangar and tried to turn the motors over. You’ve been taking the boat to all the races and then bowing out with breakdown excuses when all the time the dumb thing doesn’t work.”

Byerle started to sob and her husband went to comfort her. Inside, I am also sobbing, and not a comforting hand in sight. What is this? Cousins! Well, goodbye, love affair, and my motive theory. A boat that doesn’t work! Goodbye, opportunity. Now, if I only had a bottle of the means, I could take a slug and be out of my misery. Ted was squirming in his seat, saying nothing.

From the look I’m getting from Ruker, I can see it’s manacle time again, but suddenly there is a commotion at the door and who is it but Tall Tommy. He is accompanied by a dapper dude with a bandit mustache and another guy in a kind of Forest Ranger outfit. Attached to the ranger is a chunky, darkhaired girl who obviously doesn’t like handcuffs any more than I did.

Ted was on his feet and so was Ruker, who said, “What’s the meaning of all this?” and Ted is saying, “Attorney Procutto?” and Dinsmore is saying, “What kind of a circus is going on here?”

The dapper one responded to Ted. “Yes, Blaise Procutto, attorney-at-law, with offices in Providence, Rhode Island. Are you Attorney Summers?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid you’ve made a trip for nothing. You see... oh, this is Assistant District Attorney Ruker.”

“How are you, Ruker,” Procutto said, shaking his hand. “Did some D.A. time myself once. Well, there she is, and here’s the confession, and I wish they had had detectives on the Providence force as sharp as Sergeant Thomas Tanuka when I was with the prosecutor’s staff. This fella not only wraps it up, he practically writes your summation to the jury for you.”

“Sergeant Tanuka?” Jaffee moves menacingly toward Tall Tommy. “Sergeant of what?”

Meanwhile, Ruker, who had been reading the document that Procutto had handed him, looks up and says, “Later, Lieutenant Jaffee. Attorney Procutto, this is a very detailed statement Miss Banks has made.”

“And all of it checks out. This trooper is Lieutenant Matti of the Rhode Island State Police, who worked with Sergeant Tanuka on the investigation. I was instrumental in getting both law agencies together since my offices were used by Miss Banks in her scheme. I’m only sorry that I failed to see through her plot to bilk Mr. Pemberton.”

“Lisa?” Jay Porter said to the woman. For the first time since she entered the room, she raised her head. When she did, we could see how her black eyes crackled with emotion.

“What do you think you ever did for me, you wealthy pig? Pay for the care of a fine man crippled by the bad boat handling of your stupid wife. Guilt money, that’s what it was. All you goddamn Newport rich men are the same. So you cripple some poor handyman: toss him a bone. Send his daughter to secretarial school so she can support his pain-wracked body. That’s not even charity, it’s an insult. When he is dying, the doctors say he has no spirit to live. She took that spirit,” her finger pointed to Byerle, “because she is reckless with a boat, and I decided to pay you back for my father after his death. He made me swear revenge. I would have had it, too, if that fool Gina hadn’t lost her head to high society.”

It was almost ten o’clock before Ruker was through with me, Jack Mac, Ted, and Tall Tommy. He went over the Banks confession point by point, with Tommy filling in his end of it. “The one thing that bugged me all along was that this Gina dame supposedly had the smarts enough to dream up a big-time complicated con, and then kisses it off for Chick. No offense, amigo, but a crafty mind does not work in such a manner. So I figure she’s a dupe, but whose dupe? The mark’s wife? How does she find this dupe, then, want ads? No, there has got to be some connection on the same social level. On my first visit to Procutto’s office, I’m struck by this savvy little secretary who hipped the mark to the con in the first place. Not being without charm, I take her to dinner and find out she went to business school in Boston. Chick had mentioned that Gina was a secretarial school dropout, so I hustle to Boston and find a Gina Tobin who was a classmate of Lisa Banks, and one of the teachers I.D.’s the Gina Velker in a news photo as Gina Tobin.

“With this connection, I am on my way. Banks is a local girl and she keeps close tabs on the caretaker at the mark’s house in Newport. She learns the gee is coming up for an inspection. I figure a quick call to New York, a fast shuttle flight and a waiting car, and you have Gina coming in from the snow. The Rhode Island state cops checked the car out. It was rented on Lisa Banks’s credit card in Boston. So Chick’s hustle turns the dupe’s head, and she calls Banks and wants out and threatens to blow the whistle to Pemberton. It’s murder time! Banks could have gotten the bottle of champagne from the Newport house or maybe her old man stole it, but she knew it was exclusively Porter’s so she does the poison injection trick. I’ll bet she nearly died herself when she found another bottle of Codar ’58 unopened as she was cleaning things up after killing the Velkers. That’s where her lack of social class comes in. What’s a small town secretary know about private stock being kept at restaurants? She must have thought it was given to Gina when she was snowed in.

“Her original plan had been to wipe the poisoned bottle clean of her prints and leave it behind, hoping to implicate Pemberton when the cops traced the private label back to him. Now she thinks she’s in clover with a set of his prints on another bottle.”

“So why did she just switch the sleeves instead of opening the new bottle, emptying it, and pouring in the remainder of the poisoned wine?”

“But she did change the bottles, Chick!”

“The hell you say, Tall Tommy. There were no prints on the bottle the cops found.”

Tall Tommy grins me a cat’s whisker-licking grin. “And what does a good wine steward do when he takes a bottle out of storage for presentation?”

I looked over at Jack Mac. “You wiped the bottle clean?”

“Just to get rid of the dust, Chick,” he said sheepishly. Now he tells me!

“And being so neat, you only held it by the sleeve while wrapping it. So the bottle and sleeve found by the cops were from my cellar, and Lisa took the original with her...”

“Leaving the hypo-injected cork behind her, of course, to make it complete.”

“How did you figure it out, Tall Tommy?”

“You just have to understand a liar’s mentality, Chick.”

It was a few days later — the day the mortgage payment was due — when I sat in the bar lounge waiting for Jay Porter to return any of my many phone calls.

“He won’t call,” Barry grumped.

“Why not? I kept my end of the deal.”

“The hell you did. You tried to pin a murder rap on his wife and her cousin. You’re some genius.”

“Before Ruker could get to mention the criminal conversation scheme, Dunn blew up all the evidence with the damn boat being a lemon. It was Tall Tommy bringing in the confession that opened up the fact that Gina spent a weekend with Jay Porter.”

“Which Mrs. P. couldn’t blame him for. It was a scheme. He won’t call because he smelled a rat.”

A voice says to Cuz, “Metaxa and beer,” and I turn to Tall Tommy climbing onto the stool next to mine.

“Hello, Sergeant Tanuka,” I said.

“You know, this Jaffee character is still making noise over that. I am on a mission, Chick.” He places an envelope on the bar. “It was no easy task, but I got ten iron men for you out of J. P. Pemberton. Five for your mortgage, five for your trouble. Also, stop calling him, he does not like you henceforth.”

“La-dee-dah. What did he lay on you for all that detective work, sarge?”

“You are looking at an executive of Pemberton Enterprises.”

“Security.”

“Hell, no. I’m director of public relations.”

“It figures, for a ligner of ligners,” moans Barry.

“So I’m really on the list, huh?”

“I’d give it a double yes, Chick. Well, I’ve got to be on the amble, friends. The public needs relating. By the way, Chick, did you figure out why I was bothered about Gina’s not spending the weekend at the Plaza? If she had, by the way, she might still be alive.”

“Yeah, I figured maybe she didn’t want to cheapen our relationship with a quick shack-up. Sort of old fashioned morality, Tall Tommy, but to tell you the truth, it might have been a lie.”

“See, Chick, you’re learning all the time.” He ankled.