Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 92, No. 3. Whole No. 547, September 1988

A Part in the Picture by Carleton Carpenter

© 1988 by Carleton Carpenter.

“Maybe we could have Ricky Rhinestone play Lillian Russell,” Moses Lightcastle told the studio chief.

Bingham’s face purpled up in fine fashion. “The way things is going today, that ain’t so far out as you think. Jeezus, I wish Alice Faye was thirty years younger. She could do the remake. Where the hell are the Alice Fayes? They don’t make Alice Fayes no more. They make Ricky Rhinestones and all the rest of them dopers. Hash, horse, ludes, coke — this whole town’s nothing but a giant pharmacy. It used to be an orange grove...!”

“To begin with,” Gustave Bingham began, “Cleo don’t sing.”

He stabbed the glowing end of a well chewed cigar in the general direction of the youngish man seated across the desk from him, emphasizing the point.

The young man recoiled. Mentally. He was in no way threatened by the bayonet thrust of the stogy. There was an acre or two of highly polished mahogany between the men. He recrossed his long legs, managing somehow to leave the sharp crease in his grey flannels undisturbed. The permanent half smile beneath his steel-rimmed glasses wavered not a jot. The thick lenses successfully hid the contempt in the pale eyes behind them.

Moses Lightcastle loathed his boss. It was a terrific, wildly pulsating loathing, a thing to nourish and cherish — the dominant force in his life, not only sustaining him on a day-to-day basis, but prodding him on to impossible highs as well as unplumbed hidden reserves of delicious deviousness. A hatred running so deep it was really the ultimate love affair. The Lightcastle Loathing. And with it, he thrived.

“Not a note?” he asked coolly.

Bingham plugged the cigar back into its juicy thick-lipped socket and gave his imitation of a chuckle — a noise constructed unequally of rale, wheeze, and choke. “In a moment of weakness, I thought she did. Retake that. In a moment of strenth, I shoulda said. Great strenth.” (No “g.”) “We were hammering away and she come out with these little musiclike sounds, you know? I thought she was sing-prone, but on recession I think I just hit a lost chord or something she didn’t know she lost. Or should I say mislaid?”

Inside the impeccable blue blazer, Moses squirmed. Oh, Edwin, are you listening? Are you taking this down? Edwin Newman was one of his personal gods.

“We gotta get another broad for the part.” Bingham cradled the Havana in the Steuben ashtray and assumed what Lightcastle termed “that quasi-executive look.”

“Perhaps if we hired a pianist and she auditioned—” Moses began.

“I did. She did. Last week. Right here.” He waved at the Baldwin concert grand in the south forty of the immense office. “She bombed. Made Tony Randall sound like 01’ Blue Eyes. Cleo don’t do-re-mi. No pitch, the key-clubber said. And unexpected timing. You had to be here to believe.”

“I had the week off.”

“Yeah. What do you do for a whole week in La Jolla?”

“I body-surf.”

“Oh.” Bingham never understood the prissy bum. But the sonofabee had taste. He needed the bum’s brain. Sometimes you just gotta put up with.

His hand slid toward the front tail of his raucously printed sport-shirt and tapped the truss beneath it. Sometimes you just gotta put up with.

Why doesn’t he have that hunk of herniated gut tucked back in and sewn up? Moses thought. And why did Moses let it bother him? Everybody had weird quirks and unconscious personal habits. The ring twisters, the nose tweakers, the truss patters, the leg crossers.

Lightcastle uncrossed his legs.

Better than other mannerisms he could think of. Like specialties. David was head of the public-relations staff at the studio. Moses didn’t dislike Bixby, but it was difficult, at best, conversing with someone whose hand was either patting the sparse blond hair on his rapidly balding head or patting the parts below, presumably to make certain they weren’t receding as well. “Couldn’t we get someone to dub for Miss Osprey?” Moses suggested.

Gustave replugged and turned the Havana’s light back on. “Cleo wouldn’t lie still for it. Class she ain’t. Stubborn she is. No, we gotta sign ourselves another Jenny Wren.”

“Lind.”

“Whatever. Damned shame, too. Cleo’s a good little actress.”

Moses cleared his throat. Little? Good lord, Cleo Osprey was nearly as tall as he was and had shoulders above her ample chest any Rams linebacker would be proud to put pads on. Classy she wasn’t. Little she wasn’t. “Couldn’t you try to convince her the part—?”

“Son, you don’t understand.” (Lightcastle really hated it when Bingham called him “son.”) “It ain’t like the old days when you had a whole stableful all under contract. They did what they were told, no back talk. They reported to the set and took their orders like good soldiers. Today it’s a whole new war. And I got no troops. Today they’ve all gone independent. Every damn one of ’em’s a corpafrigginration! The lawyers is running the world and screwing everything up — the picture business and me likewise. I got that one rock star under contract and that’s it. Skinny little shrieker. Nothing to him but a ton of makeup and a carload of curls.” Bingham sighed his corporate-sized sigh. “But the freak sells tickets and records by the trillion. Sometimes you just gotta put up with.”

Moses added a tad to his half smile. “Maybe we could have Ricky Rhinestone play Lillian Russell.”

“The way things is going today, that ain’t so far out as you think. Jeezus, I wish Alice Faye was thirty years younger. She could do the remake. Where the hell are the Alice Fayes? They don’t make Alice Fayes no more. They make Ricky Rhinestones and all the rest of them dopers. Hash, horse, ludes, coke — this whole town’s nothing but a giant pharmacy. It used to be an orange grove!” Lightcastle watched Bingham’s massive face purple up in fine fashion. His boss was warming to a familiar diatribe.

A rude buzz cut the sermon midmount.

Gustave grabbed the phone receiver and barked something only Miss Kathy, his secretary, could interpret as hello.

After a moment, during which his facial hue slowly returned to its normal murk, he said: “Then please send them in, Miss Kathy.” As far as Moses knew, the only person in the world Bingham was polite to was the wraithlike relic in his outer office.

The towering oak door eased open, pushed by the fragile hand of Miss Kathy. A mysterious feat unto itself. Bingham’s ancient aide couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds wearing deep-sea diving boots. A regular road-company Estelle Winwood.

“Please go right in,” she chirped. Her British voice tinkled clearly across the miles of high-pile carpeting before the heavy door closed silently behind David Bixby, Bingham’s public-relations chief, and a stunningly beautiful brunette.

Bingham, near-sighted — 20/40 at least — sprang to his feet. Moses Lightcastle unfolded from his chair — and as the couple drew within the range of his limited vision, his permanent half smile faded. The luscious brunette was the same young lady whose warm bed he had left less than fourteen hours earlier.

If the scene were being filmed, the camera would zoom in to an extreme closeup of Lightcastle’s face and reveal, beneath the forced calm tightly stretched across his features, the war raging within the man.

Tiny bits of the battle showed through the pale eyes, but they were diffused and hidden from the others by the thick lenses of the glasses he wore.

Introductions were being made. Moses fought to focus on the moment at hand, but his mind kept dissolving back to the night before.

Now the beautiful brunette was smiling at him — as if he were a complete stranger. And offering her hand, for godsake! He was losing the fight — the dissolve was taking over. A voice — was it Bixby’s? — sounded hollow and distant as it said, “I want you to meet Dannelle Driscoll.”

Dannelle? What happened to Betty?

And the dissolve to flashback was complete.

“Hello.” The brunette was smiling as she swiveled the bar stool around to face him. “I’m Betty. Not overly liberated or anything — I simply feel it’s foolish to waste time being reticent and coy when one could be happily conversing.”

“I agree.” Moses returned the smile and self-consciously adjusted the steel-rims. “My name’s Moses.”

“I know. I heard the bartender before.” She crossed fantasy-length legs. “You come here a lot?”

“When I can. Not as often as I’d like.”

Her eyes were friendly — dark and direct. “Afraid of sharks?”

“Are you a shark?” His half smile slid into place.

“I hope not.” Her laugh was full and dead-ahead. “I mean all the hoopla about the shark scare this afternoon.”

“Happens once in a while here at Emerald Bay. For the most part, I don’t believe them.”

“Cleared the cove,” she said. “Cut your body-surfing session short.”

“You saw me?”

“Umm.” She grinned and lifted her Dewars-on-the-rocks.

“I didn’t see you.”

“You weren’t wearing your glasses.”

“I am now. Would you like another Scotch?”

“I wouldn’t say no.” Their eyes locked, stocked, and barreled. “Nor would I,” said Moses. He knew the pickup had been completed but wasn’t exactly sure how much of a hand he had had in it.

Now her hand was in his — firm and friendly but totally a stranger’s. This lady was good. The complete actress.

“You’re meeting the new Lillian Russell,” David Bixby was telling them as he sneaked a minor adjustment and then smoothed the already smooth blond sparseness.

Moses watched the woman with renewed fascination.

No thirty ways about it, Gustave Bingham was bowled over. Dannelle Driscoll had scored three strikes in a row with him. His cigar sat forgotten in the Steuben as his hard-poached eyes watched her, agoggle. “How’s the singing?” he asked, husky, hoarse, and subtle as a bus wreck.

“Incredible!” Bixby chimed in like a regular William Morris.

“Wasn’t Lillian Russell a blonde?” Dannelle/Betty asked quietly.

“Who cares?” gurgled the gone Bingham. “Who remembers?”

“And — heavier?” Dannelle’s hands were on the slim hips aimed squarely at Bingham.

“So now she’s skinnier.” Gustave sprang back to life. “What’re ya trying to do? Talk me out of ya? The part’s yours. I made up my mind. Now don’t unmake me. Who’s your agent? Call him and tell him we got us a new star if he makes me the right deal. What I ain’t got is all the money in the world, like Bank Americard.”

“I don’t have an agent, Mr. Bingham. I make my own deals.”

Moses watched for a tiny look in his direction from her. It didn’t come.

“Bixby—” Bingham picked up the dead cigar and poked it at him “—where’d you find her? How long have—? Why didn’t you—? Have you been holding out on me?”

“G.B.,” David beamed, “I brought her here to you, didn’t I? I’m a company man, you know that. Dannelle’s an old friend. You needed a new Russell, I brought her to you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, company man, clear out now. You, too, Lightcastle.”

“Should I arrange the test?” Moses asked.

“Test, shmest! Waste of film stock! I’m made up. Now clear out. This lady and me’s got a deal to digress!”

Moses followed Bixby to the door. Before pulling the door shut behind him, he looked quickly back to the desk.

Betty’s back was solidly to him. There had been no gesture. No look. Nothing.

“Hey, Mr. Johnson! That’s fantastic! You merge with a bigger agency or something?” Bucky could almost taste his big break exploding at last.

“Even better,” Johnson said. “I’ve quit the agency business.”

Serving up the overgenerous Chivas Regal, Bucky’s smile slid sideways but quickly recovered.

“Flesh-peddling’s no job for a gentleman,” Johnson explained, sipping deeply. “Who needs that crap?”

“Right,” said Bucky, desperately trying to hold onto his grin.

“A lot of hard creative work for a bunch of hard unappreciative no-talents. What’s the percentage?”

Ten off the top, Bucky told himself. “Right, Mr. J.,” he said.

“As of today,” Johnson was saying, “I’m a studio man.”

“Fantastic!” Bucky’s eternal hope-spring nearly busted.

“Nothing big,” Johnson said.

“Fantastic!” Bucky repeated. He leaned across the bar. “The Chevas is on me, babe. Congratulations!”

The following morning at eleven — practically the middle of the night for him — Ricky Rhinestone whooshed, unannounced, through Bingham’s oak door, planting his long thin legs firmly into the deep carpet. “How dare you!” he screamed.

Gustave looked up wearily from the contract on the desk in front of him. “Rickela baby.” He spread open hands at the apparition across from him. “What have I done now?” Fatherly, like Flanagan.

“That’s my part!” Ricky shrieked.

“What part?” Bingham asked calmly.

“Lillian Russell, that’s what part! I thought you bought that property from Fox for me. It would be the sensation of the century. Rhinestone as Russell! We’d all clean up. You, the studio, the banks, me. Those old numbers of hers are perfect for me. It could turn my image completely around. From punk rock to purest crystal camp. Platinum album! Can’t you see it, for crissakes? Can’t you for once see farther than the end of that filthy cigar?” Rhinestone quivered with absolute fury.

“What are you on?” Bingham asked, blinking.

“I’ll tell you what you’re on, Buster. Borrowed time!”

Bingham let a loose smile curl up the lambchop lips. “You gotta be high as Wilt Chamberlain’s armpits to stand there yelling at me because I don’t picture you as Lillian Russell. Alice Faye you ain’t!”

With that, Ricky Rhinestone burst forth with a full-throated chorus of “After the Ball Is Over.”

Gus Bingham sat there at his desk, staring stonily at the rock star, mesmerized as a cobra frozen by a flute. Honestly entranced. Jeezus, he thought, the kid’s terrific. Have I goofed again? Was I too hasty signing whatsername yesterday? He really is sensational! If the public would accept — godamighty, what an incredible idea! I can see it now. Put him in a skirt with a big bustle, stick a big stick in his hand—

Cleo Osprey, lounging on the nine-foot down-pillowed sofa in the den of her hideaway high above the Sunset Strip and sipping a virgin mary, read the announcement in Hollywood Reporter. She gagged on the drink, hurled the glass into the fireplace — smashing it against the cast-iron logs with the gas jets — threw the Reporter toward the opposite side of the room, and scooped up the princess telephone.

The phone trembled as she furiously push-buttoned the private number, stabbing a fake fingernail clear off. The oath that followed was loud, inventive, and sailorworthy.

As soon as the number stopped ringing and the receiver was lifted, before a “hello” even, Cleo spoke. Her naturally low-pitched voice assumed basso profundo proportions. “Okay, Gussie,” she said, “you undersized overtrussed turkey, what’s all this about some floozie named Dannelle Driscoll!”

The following evening, a little before six, the body was discovered by one of the new studio guards just prior to shift change. He left it undisturbed where it lay, on the bare floor of the empty sound stage, and walked the short distance to the front gate to report the crime.

The L.A.P.D. called and crews dispatched, the guard quickly returned and posted himself just outside Stage Two. He had happily volunteered to stay on duty at double time. If he had to stay, with a little luck, beyond midnight, he would earn triple. He smiled in spite of himself. Everyone was entitled to his cut, right?

He shivered in the late-day heat.

Shortly before midnight, Inspector Seward, that quizzical little bald-headed gnome of the Los Angeles Police, had gathered together quite a group. They had arranged themselves in a loose semicircle in front of Gustave Bingham’s immense desk, at which the Inspector now sat. He looked from one face to the next, referring to the scraps of paper he held with names and notations he had made during individual and private questioning.

Moses Lightcastle, Bingham’s right-hand man. David Bixby, his press agent. Cleo Osprey, his — as Seward had delicately scribbled — lady friend. Ricky Rhinestone, his star moneymaker. Katherine Primscott, his personal secretary. And Gustave Bingham himself, who had insisted — uncharacteristically, Seward guessed — that Seward use his chair.

Dannelle Driscoll, nee Betty Dysart, the right-on lady, was missing from the group. At this moment she was in a drawer at the city morgue. No longer dead-ahead — just dead, with a tag hanging from a pretty toe.

Seward scanned his notes again, scrubbing his thumb and index finger on the slight whisker-stubble of his chin. They presented a formidable picture — full, juicy, but incomplete. Something, some one ingredient, was missing. Each of them, in his or her own way, had managed to incriminate another. Like a round sung at summer camp, once started it was hard to conclude. There were motives galore — all hinging, one way or another, on the remake of Lillian Russell.

Cleo Osprey and Rhinestone both wanted the role that the deceased had been signed to portray. Cleo, tall as the victim and probably stronger, could easily have struck the lethal blows delivered with the murder instrument — a heavy brace, normally used to secure the set backing to the stage floor, found beside the body and wiped clean of prints and probably blood and skin tissue. Miss Primscott, who looked too frail to hold a full cup of tea, could have wielded the weapon, considering the way she managed heavy oak doors. Bingham and she obviously had some special rapport. And it was fairly well established that some kind of dalliance — Inspector Seward’s translation — had occurred in this office just prior to the contract-signing on Monday between Dannelle and Bingham. Bingham had admitted to Seward that his secretary had been in love with him for years. Even setting Bingham’s giant ego aside, there was probably some truth in it.

Rhinestone had said that Bingham admitted making a mistake in signing Driscoll too soon, and that there was no way to break a very expensive contract. Again more ego — but, again, another possible motive.

Moses Lightcastle had volunteered to Seward the fact of his meeting on Sunday in La Jolla with Betty/Dannelle. Why would he want to incriminate himself? Who would have known? Was he making points for himself in case some bellhop or barkeep should turn up later to incriminate him? His hatred for Bingham was thick enough to cut with an overripe zucchini, although the trim gentleman did his utmost to conceal it. Another massive ego. But so badly bruised it had moved the self-composed executive assistant to sudden murder?

Then there was this bundle of energy with the quick smile and sparse blond hair, David Bixby. He had brought Dannelle to Bingham — and had been fingered by at least three others in the group as the lover, or at least former lover, of the deceased. However, during his private interrogation of Bixby, Seward discovered that had nothing to do with the price of eggs. Dannelle had been the child bride of Bixby. The alimony payments had been crushing him for years now and they had, Seward learned, come to an agreement: if Bixby could sell her to Bingham, she’d cancel all future payments due and wipe clean the past-due slate as well. Had she reneged on her promise? And had Bixby overreacted?

A pounding on the oak door roused Seward from his notes.

“What’s going on out there?” he asked, as one of his men pushed open the door.

“Excuse me, Inspector,” the sergeant said, “but this guard here wonders if you’re finished with him now?”

All eyes were on the door to Miss Kathy’s office.

“I believe I am,” Seward said.

“Thank you.” The guard who had discovered the body appeared briefly in the door frame. He looked tired but pleased. He was on triple time. He nodded to the Inspector and turned to leave.

“But that’s Jeff Johnson—” David Bixby started. “He used to be Dannelle’s agent.”

“I still am!” Johnson cried, trying to wrench himself free of the sergeant’s sudden grasp. “I got a signed contract!”

“Better bring him in here,” Seward said quietly.

“I’ve got my rights!” the ex-agent shouted. “She was dealing herself! Dealing me out! That isn’t done! I have my rights!”

“And now,” Seward said, “you have some more. Read them to him, Sergeant.”