Eighty Million Eyes

2

There were two squad cars and an ambulance parked in the middle of the street when Detective Meyer Meyer pulled up in front of the loft. Five patrolmen were standing before the single entrance to the building, trying valiantly to keep back the crowd of reporters, photographers, and just plain sightseers who thronged the sidewalk. The newspapermen were making most of the noise, shouting some choice Anglo-Saxon phrases at the policemen who had heard it all already and who refused to budge an inch. Meyer got out of the car and looked for Patrolman Genero, who had called the squadroom not five minutes before. He spotted him almost at once, and then elbowed his way through the crowd, squeezing past an old lady who had thrown a bathrobe over her nightgown, “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” and then shoving aside a fat man smoking a cigar, “Would you mind getting the hell out of my way?” and finally reaching Genero, who looked pale and tired as he stood guarding the entrance doorway.

“Boy, am I glad to see you!” Genero said.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Meyer answered. “Did you let anyone get by?”

“Only Gifford's doctor and the people from the hospital.”

“Who do I talk to in there?”

“The producer of the show. His name's David Krantz. Meyer, it's bedlam in there. You’d think God dropped dead.”

“Maybe he did,” Meyer said patiently, and he entered the building.

The promised bedlam started almost at once. There were people on the iron-runged stairways, and people in the corridor, and they all seemed to be talking at once, and they all seemed to be saying exactly the same thing. Meyer cornered a bright-eyed young man wearing thick-lensed spectacles and said, “Where do I find David Krantz?”

“Who wants to know?” the young man answered.

“Police,” Meyer said wearily.

“Oh. Oh! He's upstairs. Third floor.”

“Thanks,” Meyer said. He began climbing the steps. On the third floor, he stopped a girl in a black leotard and said, “I’m looking for David Krantz.”

“Straight ahead,” the girl answered. “The man with the mustache.”

The man with the mustache was in the center of a circle of people standing under a bank of hanging lights. At least five other girls in black leotards, a dozen or so more in red spangled dresses, and a variety of men in suits, sweaters, and work clothes were standing in small clusters around the wide expanse of the studio floor. The floor itself was covered with the debris of television production: cables, cameras, hanging mikes, booms, dollies, cue cards, crawls, props, and painted scenery. Beyond the girls, and beyond the knot of men surrounding the man with the mustache, Meyer could see a hospital intern in white talking to a tall man in a business suit. He debated looking at the body first, decided it would be best to talk to the head man, and broke into the circle.

“Mr. Krantz?”

Krantz turned with an economy and swiftness of movement that was a little startling. “Yes, what is it?” he said, snapping the words like a whip. He was dressed smartly, quietly, neatly. His mustache was narrow and thin. He gave an immediate impression of wastelessness in a vast wasteland.

Meyer, who was pretty quick on the draw himself, immediately flipped open his wallet to his shield. “Detective Meyer, 87th Squad,” he said. “I understand you’re the producer.”

“That's right,” Krantz answered. “What now?”

“What do you mean what now, Mr. Krantz?”

“I mean what are the police doing here?”

“Just a routine check,” Meyer said.

“For a man who died of an obvious heart attack?”

“Well, I didn’t know you were a doctor, Mr. Krantz.”

“I’m not. But any fool—”

“Mr. Krantz, it's very hot in here, and I’ve been working all day, and I’m tired, you know? Don’t start bugging me right off the bat. From what I understand—”

“Here we go,” Krantz said to the circle of people around him.

“Here we go where?” Meyer said.

“If a maiden lady dies of old age in her own bed, every cop in the city is convinced it's homicide.”

“Oh? Who told you that, Mr. Krantz?”

“I used to produce a half-hour mystery show. I’m familiar with the routine.”

“And what's the routine?”

“Look, Detective Meyer, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to cut it out, first of all. I’m trying to ask some pretty simple questions about what seems to be an accidental—”

“Seems? See what I mean?” he said to the crowd.

“Yeah, seems, Mr. Krantz. And you’re making it pretty difficult. Now if you’d like me to get a subpoena for your arrest, we can talk it over at the station house. It's up to you.”

“Now you’re kidding, Detective Meyer. You’ve got no grounds for arresting me.”

“Try Section 1851 of the Penal Law,” Meyer said flatly. “Resisting public officer in the discharge of his duty: A person who, in any case or under any circumstances not otherwise specially provided for, willfully resists, delays, or obstructs a public officer in dis—”

“All right, all right,” Krantz said. “You’ve made your point.”

“Then get rid of your yes-men, and let's talk.”

The crowd disappeared without a word. In the distance, Meyer could see the tall man arguing violently with the intern in white. He turned his full attention to Krantz and said, “I thought the show had a studio audience.”

“It does.”

“Well, where are they?”

“We put them all upstairs. Your patrolman said to hold them.”

“I want one of your people to take all their names and tell them to go home.”

“Can’t the police take—”

“I’ve got a madhouse in the street outside, and only five men to take care of it. Would you mind helping me, Mr. Krantz? I didn’t want him dead any more than you did.”

“All right, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks. Now, what happened?”

“He died of a heart attack.”

“How do you know? Had he ever had one before this?”

“Not that I know of, but—”

“Then let's leave that open for the time begin, okay? What time was it when he collapsed?”

“I can get that for you. Somebody was probably keeping a timetable. Hold it a second. George! Hey, George!”

A man wearing a cardigan sweater and talking to one of the dancers turned abruptly at the sound of his name. He peered around owlishly for a moment, obviously annoyed, trying to locate the person who’d called him. Krantz raised his hand in signal, and the man picked up a battery-powered megaphone from the seat of the chair beside him and, still annoyed, walked toward the two men.

“This is George Cooper, our assistant director,” Krantz said. “Detective Meyer.”

Cooper extended his hand cautiously. Meyer realized all at once that the scowl on Cooper's face was a perpetual one, a mixed look of terrible inconvenience and unspeakable injury, as if he were a man trying to think in the midst of a revolution.

“How do you do?” he said.

“Mr. Meyer wants to know what time Stan collapsed.”

“What do you mean?” Cooper said, making the sentence sound like a challenge to a duel. “It was after the folk singers went off.”

“Yes, but what time? Did anybody keep a record?”

“I can run the tape,” Cooper said grudgingly. “Do you want me to do that?”

“Please,” Meyer said.

“What happened?” Cooper asked. “Is it a heart attack?”

“We don’t—”

“What else could it be?” Krantz interrupted.

“Well, I’ll run the tape,” Cooper said. “You going to be around?”

“I’ll be here,” Meyer assured him.

Cooper nodded once, briefly, and walked away scowling.

“Who's that arguing with the intern over there?” Meyer asked.

“Carl Nelson,” Krantz replied. “Stan's doctor.”

“Was he here all night?”

“No. I reached him at home and told him to come over here in a hurry. That was after I’d called the ambulance.”

“Get him over here, will you?”

“Sure,” Krantz said. He raised his arm and shouted, “Carl? Have you got a minute?”

Nelson broke away from the intern, turned back to hurl a last word at him, and then walked briskly to where Meyer and Krantz were waiting. He was broad as well as tall, with thick black hair graying at the temples. There was a serious expression on his face as he approached, and a high color in his cheeks. His lips were pressed firmly together, as if he had made a secret decision and was now ready to defend it against all comers.

“That idiot wants to move the body,” he said immediately. “I told him I’d report him to the AMA if he did. What do you want, Dave?”

“This is Detective Meyer. Dr. Nelson.”

Nelson shook hands briefly and firmly. “Are you getting the medical examiner to perform an autopsy?” he asked.

“Do you think I should, Dr. Nelson?”

“Didn’t you see the way Stan died?”

“No. How did he die?”

“It was a heart attack, wasn’t it?” Krantz said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Stan's heart was in excellent condition. When I arrived here at about nine o’clock, he was experiencing a wide range of symptoms. Labored respiration, rapid pulse, nausea, vomiting. We tried a stomach pump, but that didn’t help at all. He went into convulsion at about nine-fifteen. The third convulsion killed him at nine-thirty.”

“What are you suggesting, Dr. Nelson?”

“I’m suggesting he was poisoned,” Nelson said flatly.

In the phone booth on the third-floor landing, Meyer deposited his dime and then dialed the home number of Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. The booth was hot and smelly. He waited while the phone rang on the other end. Byrnes himself answered, his voice sounding fuzzy with sleep.

“Pete, this is Meyer.”

“What time is it?” Byrnes asked.

“I don’t know. Ten-thirty, eleven o’clock.”

“I must have dozed off. Harriet went to a movie. What's the matter?”

“Pete, I’m investigating this Stan Gifford thing, and I thought I ought to—”

“What Stan Gifford thing?”

“The television guy. He dropped dead tonight, and—”

“What television guy?”

“He's a big comic.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Anyway, his doctor thinks we ought to have an autopsy done right away. Because he had a convulsion, and—”

“Strychnine?” Byrnes asked immediately.

“I doubt it. He was vomiting before he went into convulsion.”

“Arsenic?”

“Could be. Anyway, I think the autopsy's a good idea.”

“Go ahead, ask the ME to do it.”

“Also, I’m going to need some help on this. I’ve got some more questions to ask here, and I thought we might get somebody over to the hospital right way. To be there when the body arrives, you see? Get a little action from them.”

“That's a good idea.”

“Yeah, well, Cotton's out on a plant, and Bert was just answering a squeal when I left the office. Could you call Steve for me?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, that's all. I’ll ring you later if it's not too late.”

“What time did you say it was?”

Meyer looked at his watch. “Ten-forty-five.”

“I must have dozed off,” Byrnes said wonderingly, and then hung up.

George Cooper was waiting for Meyer when he came out of the booth. The same look was on his face, as if he had swallowed something thoroughly distasteful and was allowing his anger to feed his nausea.

“I ran that tape,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I timed the second half with a stop watch. What do you want to know?”

“When he collapsed.”

Cooper looked sourly at the pad in his hand and said, “The folk singers went off at eight-thirty-seven. Stan came on immediately afterwards. He was on camera with that Hollywood ham for two minutes and twelve seconds. When the guest went off to change, Stan did the coffee commercial. He ran a little over the paid-for minute, actually a minute and forty seconds. He started his pantomime at eight-forty-one prime fifty-two. He was two minutes and fifty-five seconds into it when he collapsed. That means he was on camera for a total time of seven minutes and seventeen seconds. He collapsed at eight-forty-four prime seventeen.”

“Thanks,” Meyer said. “I appreciate your help.” He started walking toward the door leading to the studio floor. Cooper stepped into his path. His eyes met Meyer's, and he stared into them searchingly.

“Somebody poisoned him, huh?” he said.

“What makes you think that, Mr. Cooper?”

“They’re all talking about it out there.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make it true, does it?”

“Dr. Nelson says you’ll be asking for an autopsy.”

“That's right.”

“Then you do think he was poisoned.”

Meyer shrugged. “I don’t think anything yet, Mr. Cooper.”

“Listen,” Cooper said, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Listen, I…I don’t want to get anybody in trouble but…before the show tonight, when we were rehearsing—” He stopped abruptly. He glanced into the studio. A man in a sports jacket was approaching the hallway, reaching for the package of cigarettes in his pocket.

“Go ahead, Mr. Cooper,” Meyer said.

“Skip it,” Cooper answered and walked away quickly. The man in the sports jacket came into the hallway. He nodded briefly to Meyer, put the cigarette into his mouth, leaned against the wall, and struck a match. Meyer took out a cigarette of his own, and then said, “Excuse me. Do you have a light?”

“Sure,” the man said. He was a small man, with piercing blue eyes and crew-cut hair that gave his face a sharp triangular shape. He struck a match for Meyer, shook it out, and then leaned back against the wall again.

“Thanks,” Meyer said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Meyer walked to where Krantz was standing with Nelson and the hospital intern. The intern was plainly confused. He had answered an emergency call, and now no one seemed to know what they wanted him to do with the body. He turned to Meyer pleadingly, hoping for someone who would forcefully take command of the situation.

“You can move the body,” Meyer said. “Take it to the morgue for autopsy. Tell your man one of our detectives’ll be down there soon. Carella's his name.”

The intern left quickly, before anybody could change his mind. Meyer glanced casually toward the corridor, where the man in the sports jacket was still leaning against the wall, smoking.

“Who's that in the hallway?” he asked.

“Art Wetherley,” Krantz answered. “One of our writers.”

“Was he here tonight?”

“Sure,” Krantz said.

“All right, who else is connected with the show?”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“I want to know who was here tonight, that's all.”

“Why?”

“Oh, Mr. Krantz, please. Gifford could have died from the noise alone in this place, but there's a possibility he was poisoned. Now who was here tonight?”

“All right, I was here. And my secretary. And my associate producer and his secretary. And the unit manager and his secretary. And the—”

“Does everybody have a secretary?”

“Not everybody.”

“Let me hear the rest.”

Krantz folded his arms, and then began reciting by rote. “The director, and the assistant director. The two Hollywood stars, and the folk singers. Two scenic designers, a costume designer, the booking agent, the choral director, the chorus—seventeen people in it—the orchestra conductor, two arrangers, thirty-three musicians, five writers, four librarians and copyists, the music contractor, the dance accompanist, the choreographer, six dancers, the rehearsal pianist, the lighting director, the audio man, two stage managers, twenty-nine engineers, twenty-seven electricians and stagehands, three network policemen, thirty-five pages, three makeup men, a hair stylist, nine wardrobe people, four sponsors’ men, and six guests.” Krantz nodded in quiet triumph. “That's who was here tonight.”

“What were you trying to do?” Meyer asked. “Start World War III?”

Paul Blaney, the assistant medical examiner, had never performed an autopsy on a celebrity before. The tag on the corpse's wrist told him, as if he had not already been told by Carella and Meyer, who were waiting outside in the corridor, that the man lying on the stainless-steel table was Stan Gifford, the television comedian. Blaney shrugged. A corpse was a corpse, and he was only thankful that this one hadn’t been mangled in an automobile accident. He never watched television, anyway. Violence upset him.

He picked up his scalpel.

He didn’t like the idea of two detectives waiting outside while he worked. The next thing you knew, they’d be coming into the autopsy room with him and giving their opinions on the proper way to hold a forceps. Besides, he rather resented the notion that a corpse, simply because it was a celebrity corpse, was entitled to preferential treatment—like calling a man in the middle of the goddamn night to make an examination. Oh, sure, Meyer had patiently explained that this was an unusual case and likely to attract a great deal of publicity. And yes, the symptoms certainly seemed to indicate poisoning of some sort, but still Blaney didn’t like it.

It smacked of pressure. A man should be allowed to remove a liver or a set of kidneys in a calm, unhurried way. Not with anxious policemen breathing down his neck. The usual routine was to perform the autopsy, prepare the report, and then send it on to the investigating team of detectives. If a homicide was indicated, it was sometimes necessary to prepare additional reports, which Blaney did whenever he felt like it, more often not. These were sent to Homicide North or South, the chief of police, the commander of the detective division, the district commander, and the technical police laboratory. Sometimes, and only when Blaney was feeling in a particularly generous mood, he would call the investigating precinct detective and give him a verbal necropsy report over the phone. But he had never had cops waiting in the corridor before. He didn’t like the idea. He didn’t like it at all.

Viciously, he made his incision.

In the corridor outside, Meyer sat on a bench alongside one green-tinted wall and watched Carella, who paced back and forth before him like an expectant father. Patiently, Meyer turned his head in a slow cycle, following Carella's movement to the end of the short corridor and back again. He was almost as tall as Carella, but more heavily built, so that he seemed squat and burly, especially when he was sitting.

“How’d Mrs. Gifford take it?” Carella asked.

“Nobody likes the idea of an autopsy,” Meyer said. “But I drove out to her house, and told her why we were going ahead, and she agreed it seemed necessary.”

“What kind of a woman?”

“Why?”

“If someone poisoned him…”

“She's about thirty-eight or thirty-nine, tall, attractive, I guess. It was a little hard to tell. Her mascara was running all over her face.” Meyer paused. “Besides, she wasn’t at the studio, if that means anything.”

“Who was at the studio?” Carella asked.

“I had Genero take down all their names before they were released.” Meyer paused. “I’ll tell you the truth, Steve, I hope this autopsy comes up with a natural cause of death.”

“How many people were in the studio?” Carella said.

“Well, I think we can safely discount the studio audience, don’t you?”

“I guess so. How many were in the studio audience?”

“Five hundred sixty.”

“All right, let's safely discount them.”

“So that leaves everyone who was connected with the show, and present tonight.”

“And how many is that?” Carella asked. “A couple of dozen?”

“Two hundred twelve people,” Meyer said.

The door to the autopsy room opened, and Paul Blaney stepped into the corridor, pulling off a rubber glove the way he had seen doctors do in the movies. He looked at Meyer and Carella sourly, greatly resenting their presence, and then said, “Well, what is it you’d like to know?”

“Cause of death,” Meyer said.

“Acute poisoning,” Blaney answered flatly.

“Which poison?”

“Did the man have a history of cardiac ailments?”

“Not according to his doctor.”

“Mmmmm,” Blaney said.

“Well?” Carella said.

“That's very funny because…well, the poison was strophanthin. I recovered it in the small intestine, and I automatically assumed—”

“What's strophanthin?”

“It's a drug similar to digitalis, but much more powerful.”

“Why’d you ask about a possible cardiac ailment?”

“Well, both drugs are used therapeutically in the treatment of cardiac cases. Digitalis by infusion, usually, and strophanthin intravenously or intramuscularly. The normal dose is very small.”

“Of strophanthin, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Is it ever given by pill or capsule?”

“I doubt it. It may have been produced as a pill years ago, but it's been replaced by other drugs today. As a matter of fact, I don’t know any doctors who’d normally prescribe it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, whenever there's a rhythmical disturbance or a structural lesion, digitalis is the more commonly prescribed stimulant. But strophanthin…” Blaney shook his head.

“Why not strophanthin?”

“I’m not saying it's never used, don’t misunderstand me. I’m saying it's rarely used. A hospital pharmacy may get a call for it once in five years. A doctor would prescribe it only if he wanted immediate results. It acts much faster than digitalis.” Blaney paused. “Are you sure this man didn’t have a cardiac history?”

“Positive.” Carella hesitated a moment and then said, “Well, what form does it come in today?”

“An ampule, usually.”

“Liquid?”

“Yes, ready for injection. You’ve seen ampules of penicillin, haven’t you? Similar to that.”

“Does it come in powder form?”

“It could, yes.”

“What kind of powder?”

“A white crystalline. But I doubt if any pharmacy, even a hospital pharmacy, would stock the powder. Oh, you might find one or two, but it's rare.”

“What's the lethal dose?” Carella asked.

“Anything over a milligram is considered dangerous. That's one one-thousandth of a gram. Compare that to the fatal dose of digitalis, which is about two and a half grams, and you’ll understand what I mean about power.”

“How large a dose did Gifford have?”

“I couldn’t say exactly. Most of it, of course, had already been absorbed, or he wouldn’t have died. It's not easy to recover strophanthin from the organs, you know. It's very rapidly absorbed, and very easily destroyed. Do you want me to guess?”

“Please,” Meyer said.

“Judging from the results of my quantitative analysis, I’d say he ingested at least two full grains.”

“Is that a lot?” Meyer asked.

“It's about a hundred thirty times the lethal dose.”

“What!”

“Symptoms would have been immediate,” Blaney said. “Nausea, vomiting, eventual convulsion.”

The corridor was silent for several moments. Then Carella said, “What do you mean by immediate?”

Blaney looked surprised. “Immediate,” he answered. “What else does immediate mean but immediate? Assuming the poison was injected—”

“He was out there for maybe ten minutes,” Carella said, “with the camera on him every second. He certainly didn’t—”

“It was exactly seven minutes and seventeen seconds,” Meyer corrected.

“Whatever it was, he didn’t take an injection of strophanthin.”

Blaney shrugged. “Then maybe the poison was administered orally.”

“How?”

“Well…” Blaney hesitated. “I suppose he could have broken open one of the ampules and swallowed the contents.”

“He didn’t. He was on camera. You said the dose was enough to bring on immediate symptoms.”

“Perhaps not so immediate if the drug were taken orally. We really don’t know very much about the oral dose. In tests with rabbits, forty times the normal intramuscular dose and eighty times the normal intravenous dose proved fatal when taken by mouth. Rabbits aren’t humans.”

“But you said Gifford probably had a hundred thirty times the normal dose.”

“That's my estimate.”

“How long would that have taken to bring on symptoms?”

“Minutes.”

“How many minutes?”

“Five minutes perhaps. I couldn’t say exactly.”

“And he was on camera for more than seven minutes. So the poison must have got into him just before he came on.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“What about this ampule?” Meyer said. “Could it have been dumped into something he drank?”

“Yes, it could have.”

“Any other way he could have taken the drug?”

“Well,” Blaney said, “if he’d got hold of the drug in powder form somehow, I suppose two grains could have been placed in a gelatin capsule.”

“What's a gelatin capsule?” Meyer asked.

“You’ve seen them,” Blaney said. “Vitamins, tranquilizers, stimulants…many pharmaceuticals are packaged in gelatin capsules.”

“Let's get back to ‘immediate’ again,” Carella said.

“Are we still—”

“How long does it take for a gelatin capsule to dissolve in the body?”

“I have no idea. Several minutes, I would imagine. Why?”

“Well, the capsule would have had to dissolve before any poison could be released, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So immediate doesn’t always mean immediate, does it? In this case, immediate means after the capsule dissolves.”

“I just told you it would have dissolved within minutes.”

“How many minutes?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to check that with the lab.”

“We will,” Carella said.