Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 6. Whole No. 211, June 1961

Nicholas DiMinno Case of the Night Club Chanteuse

The Lieutenant had never met a more disagreeable little man. A complete and total sourness about life and human motives was in everything the man said, in his expression, even in the way he sat. The man’s name was Allie Parks and he was a night club comedian.

“How well did you know Madeleine?” asked the Lieutenant.

“You mean Sophie,” the little man said dourly.

“Sophie,” said the Lieutenant, thinking the least they could do for Sophie now was to use her professional name. They were in the cubbyhole that passed for Allie Parks’s dressing room. Parks had just described it for the Lieutenant (“Every half hour somebody shoves a broom in”). Some of it had been funny and if the Lieutenant hadn’t been on duty he would have been amused.

“When did you know her as Sophie?”

“Back in Miami. Before she became a chanteuse. Chanteuse,” Parks said acidly. “Someone who’s not French and can’t sing.”

The Lieutenant frowned. “Parks, you don’t seem to understand that this girl is dead.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” sighed Parks, “but I used up all my tears at the track last night.”

The Lieutenant studied him as he picked at a scab on his hand. A real lovable fellow, this Allie Parks. Being sour on everything and everybody was his stock in trade, but you’d think he might suspend that for a couple of minutes when a fellow performer died.

“The last time you spoke to Madeleine, what did you talk about?”

“She was flying. Got this wire from Las Vegas. Stalling next month. Was going to tell the dice players about Paris for a grand a week.”

“Had she ever been to Paris?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Quite a step up for her, wasn’t it? From this?” The Lieutenant indicated the peeling walls and the single unshaded bulb.

“Yah,” said Parks gloomily. “You asked what we talked about. It was a monologue. Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Las Vegas. All I could do was stand there. Real stooge. Like I was working for her.”

“If you knew Madeleine back in Miami you’d be able to tell me something about her family, friends, what she did before she changed her name.”

“She was Sophie Klinger. After I heard that and laughed at it, that was all. Then she shows up here as Madeleine, with an accent you could cut with a knife.”

“Had she changed in other ways? From Miami?”

Parks picked at the scab. “Back there she was a brunette, up here she’s a blonde. But that’s the smallest change. Now she’s high-powered. Asks for a match and makes a big deal of it.”

“And you didn’t like that?”

“Who am I to like?” said Parks. “The customers did. Those dopes like anything.”

“Do they like you?” questioned the Lieutenant.

“If they stop eating their celery long enough,” grumbled Parks.

“I understand the room was quiet when Madeleine sang.”

“Yeah. They were asking themselves, ‘What is it?’”

Parks began to clean his fingers with a tiny penknife. The Lieutenant took out his notebook and eyed the few heiroglyphics there. Madeleine, nee Sophie, a champagne blonde currently masquerading as a chanteuse and doing a good job of it, according to the manager, who’d said that while her French was phony, her humming was sexy and that was the important thing.

Madeleine had died after swallowing an unknown substance. Suicide wasn’t likely. The first thing the Lieutenant had done after learning of the Las Vegas offer was to phone the club in Nevada and ask if they’d withdrawn the offer. They hadn’t. And why would a featherheaded girl like Madeleine commit suicide when she had her own version of the world at her feet?

The coroner estimated the stuff had been in her system for three hours, and three hours prior to her death she’d been doing her turn on the floor. She’d circulated around the tables, throwing roses to visiting firemen, and here and there taking a coquettish sip from a patron’s glass.

Tonight she’d done that only once — taken a sip, that is — from the glass of a distinguished-looking man. According to the manager, the man might have been a Senator. The Lieutenant could see them putting out wanted posters: “Looks like Senator.”

“Did she have any gentleman friends?”

Parks cleaned another fingernail before replying. “No. Around here they were all too small-time for her.”

Was there more than the usual sourness in that, the Lieutenant wondered.

“Did they include you?”

“Me?” Parks laughed mirthlessly. “I didn’t give her a tumble. She was a cow.”

“A cow? I thought she had quite a figure.”

“I mean her mind.”

The Lieutenant decided that he’d had enough bitterness for one night. This little guy was beginning to ruin his digestion. He went out and down the narrow hall that smelled of disinfectant. This was where the dreams are made, he thought as a chorus girl shouldered past him. Had he talked to this one? He couldn’t be sure. All these chorus girls looked alike to him. He’d count them later and check them off.

In Madeleine’s room he looked around. Was there any corner, any closet he might have missed? It wasn’t likely. Not that he’d been so thorough. It was a bare little room, pathetic really; you could span it with both arms outstretched. There was a strong odor of cheap pine scent and the walls were mouldy; from here Madeleine had issued radiant to sing of love in Paris. Poor kid.

He thumbed once again through the scrapbook on the table. A good-looking girl with long straight legs. Nice smile. On her way to making a thousand a week singing miserable French to people who didn’t know any French.

But it was more than that. It was something of herself that she was able to give — illusion, glamor, something that people needed the way they needed butter and eggs. He guessed that Sophie Klinger had spent long years in Miami storing up those illusions. Too bad she was gone now before she’d had a chance to cash in.

Joe the bartender was waiting, as the Lieutenant had ordered him to, but he didn’t look happy. He’d hinted more than once that he’d been up all night and would like a little shut-eye, but the Lieutenant had ignored him. Now he went into the same act as the Lieutenant approached, stifling a yawn and glancing at his watch.

“Now about this man who sat at the front table.”

“The one she took the drink off of?”

“Yes. What did he look like again?”

“An important person,” pronounced Joe. “The type that money’s no object. Left me a big tip.”

“Oh, he was at the bar, too?”

“Sure. Sat at the bar for half an hour until that table was empty. Had ten or twelve whiskies. Straight.”

“You’re sure it’s the same one who sat at the front table?”

“Oh, yeah. I asked around, у’know, what’s up, and one of the boys tells me this Madeleine’s waltzing around and picks up the drink of this big shot up front. She drinks it and a couple hours later, whammo. She’s dead. I ask about this big shot naturally, what he looks like, and it’s got to be the guy who had ten whiskies. Or maybe it was twelve.”

“What did he look like, Joe?”

“A six-footer. About fifty-five, I’d say. Two hundred dollar suit. Classy shirt. Everything new. Everything.”

“How about his face?”

“Oh, his face. Red. Good living, y’know. Lots of steaks.”

“What color hair?”

“White. Looked like an alderman.”

The manager had said Senator. They were getting more cautious.

“You’d know him again if you saw him?”

“Sure. Couldn’t miss. Culture. Class,” winked Joe. “What he was doing in this rat-trap I’ll never know. Atmosphere maybe. Slumming, huh?"

“Maybe it was to see Madeleine. Did he talk about her at all?”

Joe considered. “Nope. Talked about a lot of things — walking encyclopedia, for cryin’ out loud — but didn’t mention her. Concentrated on his drinking. Finished ’em as fast as I could set ’em up. Paid up with a big bill and told me to keep the change.”

Joe was definitely in the distinguished gentleman’s corner and his expression show that he thought the Lieutenant was wasting his time in that direction.

“It seems you’re the only one who got a good look at him. The waiters couldn’t see much of him out on the floor and when the lights followed Madeleine around they were purple. He looked like a banker, you’d say?”

“Or a broker. Neat as a pin. Looked like when he wore a shirt once he threw it away. Take his shoes now. Brand-new. Forty or fifty bucks if they cost a dime.”

“How could you tell they were new?”

“When he crossed his legs here on the stool. The part between the sole and heel, y’know? Clean as a whistle.”

The Lieutenant made a note. “Did he seem to have his eye on any particular table?”

“Well, he looked at the floor once or twice. There were a couple open but that type’s got to have one up front. It goes with the upbringing. Y’know, the best of everything. Money no object.”

“And when this front table was empty he took it?”

“That’s right.” Joe smothered another yawn.

The Lieutenant was getting tired himself. A few hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt, but the trail might get cold. What trail, he asked himself sardonically. He went to the phone and called up the Medical Examiner. Peters answered and said he’d wrapped it up. The stuff had been taken three hours before death and he’d done some sleuthing himself and learned that the deceased had been in the middle of her Rainy Boulevard number when she’d absorbed it. Now all the Lieutenant had to do was find out what she’d been up to during that Rainy Boulevard.

The Lieutenant hung up. It jibed with what he figured. It had been set up deliberately. Joe’s man had ordered a sherry from the waiter — the sort of drink he expected Madeleine wouldn’t pass up. It came in a delicate slender glass and it had appealed to Madeleine. It he’d had a whiskey now, the sophisticated chanteuse would have passed it by. And why would a man who’d downed twelve whiskies like a machine suddenly switch to sherry at the table? Except as a come-on for the chanteuse?

The Lieutenant walked out on the floor, past the plate-sized tables and up the dark stairs to the street. It was light now, with patches of red in the cast. He inhaled deeply and turned to look at the garish signs pasted over the entrance. The Bon Voyage. Dancing. Entertainment. Allie Parks, Straight From Miami. Madeleine, Sophisticated Chanteuse.

He was about to step into his car when he had a thought. Jack Fisher. He’d talk to Jack Fisher. He went back down the stairs and across the echoing floor.

Fisher was still in his office. The Lieutenant could hear him through the thin door. He seemed to be talking to someone in New York and had a real problem on his hands. The Lieutenant entered. Jack Fisher waved and went on talking.

“She was going great, Carl, great. With her it wasn’t a cheap joint, it was artistic. She didn’t look down on the place. Good business, very good business. She’s dead, I'm telling you. How? You wouldn’t believe me. Never mind that, I need a replacement. Sure, a singer. A class singer. I got a comic and a magician and a chorus, I gotta have a singer. What, a girl with a big loud voice? No, that gets people restless and they start fights. You know my clientele. A tough crowd. This dame would sing soft about the Rue de Baloo and they’d hang on it like they were born there too. So try, hard Carl? Try hard.”

He hung up and massaged the back of his neck. His glasses were on the desk and his eyes were red and squinting. He looked like a petulant child.

“Suddenly nobody’s got a singer,” he said. “All my life singers are breaking down my door and suddenly, no singers. Leaves me nowhere. Well, Lieutenant,” he put on his glasses and became a shrewd, watchful businessman again. “What’s the dope on Madeleine?”

“She was murdered.”

“But who’d murder her?” demanded Fisher. “She was a good kid. Had her faults but who doesn’t?”

“What faults did she have?”

“Wanted more money. Wanted a special accompanist — our guy had no feel for her stuff. Wanted more mystery around her act. Didn’t want to have to go through the kitchen to get to her dressing room. You know, stuff like that.”

The Lieutenant guessed it was the plaint of night club managers all over the country — performers who refused to go through the kitchen like the rest of the help.

“So you think this important looking character’s the guy?” said Fisher. “You think he sets it up, sitting there like a king with that glass that he’s put something in and that sweet kid waltzes over with a big smile and drinks it and — Lieutenant, if that’s true, y’know what they ought to do with that guy?”

As Fisher detailed the procedure, slowly, venomously, and with relish, the Lieutenant realized he was hungry. He’d have a bite before going down to the station.

“You never saw the man before?”

Fisher reluctantly left his narrative and said, "Nah. His type don’t come in. We don’t have that kind of reputation. Our club’s for people who’re sick of television but can’t afford much else.”

The Lieutenant couldn’t agree. He had asked about the prices of drinks and a steak sandwich at the Bon Voyage and he knew one thing: he’d never have a steak or drink here. Maybe Fisher wasn’t to blame, what with taxes and rental and cost of entertainment, but that still didn’t explain why a steak sandwich was four-fifty.

“You got a look at this man?”

“Naturally. I spotted him immediately. I think to myself, ‘Good, maybe we’re starting a trend. Maybe Madeleine’s bringing the better element down here.’ Hah,” he muttered. “I’d like to get my hands on that better clement. Kills a sweet kid and leaves me standing high and dry…”

The Lieutenant had had enough of Fisher’s problems and left. It was getting warm outside, as the sun got down to business, and he told Rooney, his driver, to go some place that was air-conditioned. Rooney, looking tired and rumpled, gave him a look that showed he agreed completely.

Over his coffee and egg sandwich the Lieutenant tried to piece things together. Madeleine had been led to her death by someone with more than a little imagination. Someone she had rejected? Someone who had hired this Congressman-type to sit up there, his glass pushed to the edge of the table. The way he’d gulped those whiskies smacked of an expense account; he was a hired man, the Lieutenant was sure of it. And Madeleine had shown no particular recognition, according to the violinist who followed in her wake. She drank from the stranger’s glass and looked into his eyes and cradled his chin, but she did that with everybody. It was Routine 3B.

Back in the station he rounded up a squad and told them what he wanted. An affluent-looking man who had entered the Bon Voyage, who looked as if he’d just stepped out of an expensive men’s shop. The man had been hired for a job and he’d had to dress for it. A secretary was typing up a description of this bird, as accurate and complete as they could make it, and they were to scour the town.

Privately the Lieutenant hoped he was right about the expensive shop. There were only hundreds of them. If they got to the inexpensive shops… but he was trusting Joe the bartender. Joe had said it was a two hundred dollar suit and Joe, with his own quietly flashy attire, seemed to know what he was talking about. Anyway it was a start.

He took a nap in the duty room and when he got back to his office several hours later, messages were coming in over the telephones. The boys had covered quite a few shops and rounded up several characters who might have filled the bill. But discreet inquiries had crossed them off. The Lieutenant had warned them to be discreet. None of this bouncing a citizen into a car and hustling him over to the Bon Voyage for the unshaved waiters to have a look. They were dealing with important people, people who patronized expensive shops. They had to be careful or they’d catch hell from downtown.

The club was empty and silent at noon as his heels clacked on the hard wood of the floor. Somewhere a squeegee was operating and a fan blew a strong whiff of disinfectant his way. Nothing was quite so depressing as a cheap night club in the daytime. He found a waiter in the kitchen and asked where was everybody. Asleep, said the waiter. People had to go on sleeping, he intimated, no matter who died.

As the Lieutenant came back through the corridor he noticed a light in Allie Parks’s room. The door was slightly open and he put his head in. Parks was stretched out on a trunk, his arms folded, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful, dead really, but he was only taking a sun bath. A portable sun lamp was hooked over the back of the chair. So that’s how Allie kept his Miami tan. Where else could a man who slept days get it?

“Parks?”

“Um.”

“I thought you might tell me a little more about Madeleine. In the old days.”

“You mean Sophie. Look, Sheriff—”

“Lieutenant.”

“Sorry. I thought I was farther west. These bookings.” Parks shook his head. “All I know is she was a nice girl that couldn’t sing and wasn’t French. And piled the charm on with a trowel. Trowel? A shovel.”

“Did Madeleine have a yen for any particular kind of man? To pull that gay charmer stuff with?”

“Any man who looked like he’d be embarrassed.” Parks barely moved his lips, and his eyes were still closed. “If they were with their wives, you couldn’t keep her away. And characters like this character.”

“The man at the table?”

“Yuh.” Parks opened a jaundiced eye. “You found who killed my pal Sophie?”

“Not yet.”

“Wait’ll the other chanteuses hear about this. It’s taking your life in your hands to move around the tables and be popular. They’re gonna demand hazard pay like paratroops.”

The Lieutenant watched him curiously. Maybe Allie Parks was afraid to show his true feelings. Maybe he was grieving inside and passing it off with a gag. Or he might be nursing a massive hurt that the world or somebody had inflicted on him — by not recognizing his talent, perhaps, and consigning him to dingy basements like this Bon Voyage. Whatever it was, it was an unpleasant mask.

“You think it was something from one of the tables?” Parks said. “That’s what finished her?”

“Looks that way.”

“Well, that’s the tab for freeloading drinks.”

The Lieutenant wasn’t finding him funny this morning. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had much sleep and the nap at the station had left a metallic taste in his mouth. When a waiter came to tell him he was wanted on the phone, he left Parks under the lamp and went out into the dingy corridor again.

The call was from Regan. They had a hot tip. Foster Bentley’s on the East Side had rigged up a gent two days ago. A rush job. The guy’d come in looking like a prospector from Death Valley and they’d fitted him out in everything. From hat to shoes. He was a tall man, corpulent, white hair, red face. In his fifties…

He got over to Foster Bentley’s fast. They gave him the same information there, only with an Ivy League accent. At first they’d had doubts about doing business with the man but he’d pulled out a roll and they’d decided to go ahead. Gave his name as Smith. Said he was passing through. Looked like he was passing through on a freight. But they weren’t moralists and his money was good and…

“Did he leave his old clothes here?”

“Yes.” The salesman winced. “They’re now cinders in our furnace.”

“Will you check?"

The salesman consented icily and within ten minutes was back with a bundle. He looked crestfallen. “We usually burn this sort of thing immediately,” he apologized.

The clothes were a collection of patches — old gray jacket, faded blue trousers, and what had once been a white shirt. The shoes were held together by twine. The Lieutenant didn’t blame Foster Bentley for almost showing their owner the door. He bet they had rushed him into a dressing room away from prying eyes as soon as he waved the roll.

“Could you tell anything about him from these?” he asked.

The salesman sniffed. “Evidently he won a sweepstakes and wanted to see what good clothing was like. We get that sort now and then.”

“Was he drunk?”

“No,” said the salesman after a moment.

“Did he look like a thief or someone who’d gotten the money dishonestly?”

“No,” conceded the salesman. “He spoke rather well. Sounded like there had once been good stuff in him. Got into some kind of trouble, evidently. Happens to lots of them.”

The Lieutenant agreed, but couldn’t help noting that the salesman disapproved of people who let troubles happen to them. They weren’t Foster Bentley people.

He asked for a phone and called up the station. The boys were to forget expensive shops and hit the dives. Cheap bar, thirty-cent diners, Skid Row. They were to look for the same man, the big shot, but in a different setting. If he was among his peers he should stick out like a sore thumb, a banker among bums. It would be easy to spot him. Or he might be lying in some gutter, sleeping off a drunk. They would also check with clerks at hotels that had names like The Ace, The Elite, and The Star.

On the street he handed Rooney the bundle and told him to run it down to the lab. There might be traces of something and it was time those lazies down at the lab did some work.

Rooney drove off and the Lieutenant began to pound pavements. Along the river, east and west, he crossed and crisscrossed, through dingy alleys and deserted streets, poking through basements and old warehouses, searching cheap bars and cafeterias.

This was police work, he thought — not the dames or the dough or even the bullets, but just plain pounding the streets. Every half hour he called the station but nothing had come in. The other men were doing their own pounding and feeling their own frustrations.

Along about five he was good and tired and heading east. There was a Skid Row of sorts two blocks away; it was just beginning and only a few of the cognoscenti had drifted over. Stepping over planks and cobbles, he came into a dark gutted street that held only two brave bars and a flophouse called The Diamond.

He tried the bar first. Just bums, sprawled over the chairs watching television. No one who looked capable of going into the Bon Voyage and earning Joe’s admiration as “class, culture.”

He went down through the puddles and timbers to the other bar. It was misty and smoky but he saw his man almost immediately. His suit stood out like a stop sign; it was conservative, charcoal-colored, and discreetly tailored. The tie was understated, and the shirt, which was stained now, had been subdued and correct a few days ago. If this wasn’t his Foster Bentley, the Lieutenant thought, he would eat that thirty-dollar hat.

He brushed through the idly moving bums and went up to the man, who was rambling loudly and vaguely. As he talked, the Lieutenant noted his beet-red face — it didn’t mean good steaks, as Joe the barman thought, as much as it did grain spirits — and the area of one shoe between the sole and heel. Spotted, but not two days ago.

The man kept on talking to two derelicts sprawled against the far end of the booth. He was saying that there would always be rebels like themselves; there had been rebels in Greece, there had been rebels in Rome, but the world of antiquity treated its rebels better, much better. Here they were shunted in vile dens like this one… the Lieutenant tapped him on the shoulder.

“May I speak to you?”

The man looked at him and his face became stern. You could see why he would be mistaken for a Senator.

“You may not, sir. Can’t you see I’m discussing a matter of some importance with my friends?”

The Lieutenant showed his credentials, pulled a chair over, and sat down, blocking off the two derelicts. In answer to the Lieutenant’s question, the man said his name was Ferriston and he was a law-abiding citizen and taxpayer. “Where did you get this suit?”

The man sighed, opened his jacket, and tried to peer at the label.

The Lieutenant did it for him and announced, “Foster Bentley.”

“Attractive store. Personnel a bit distant though.”

His head was beginning to nod and his eyelids looked heavy. He was going to go to sleep soon and for a long time and the Lieutenant couldn’t wait.

“Who gave you the money to buy this?”

“Estimable gentleman,” said the other foggily.

“Why?”

“Why?” Ferriston shrugged. “Goodness of heart.” He reached for his glass but the Lieutenant pushed it away.

“That wasn’t it. He had you dress up for a purpose and you’re going to tell me about it before you have another drink.”

“Purpose, purpose?” Ferriston looked at him owlishly. Then he brightened. “Oh, yes! I was to take part in a practical joke. Did, as a matter of fact. Went о ff rather well, if I say so myself.”

“What kind of a practical joke?” the Lieutenant said.

“Very funny joke. Priceless. This singer, you see — lovely child, charms the birds out of the trees — well, she’s a great practical joker and we thought—”

“Who’s we?”

Ferriston blinked. “Did I say 'we’? I meant he thought — this man, the one who gave me the money…”

“Yes, what did he think?” snapped the Lieutenant.

“That it would be paying her back in her own coin, so to speak, to — to…” His eyes glazed over as his head swayed closer to the table.

“What was the joke?” the Lieutenant said harshly.

“That I was to go into this night club and sit down and order sherry — horrible stuff — and Little Miss Personality would skip over and sip from my glass. She was a sweet thing too.” Ferriston was mournful now. “But knew no more French than a cat. I taught French, you know, a million years ago—”

“She took your drink? That's all? Where’s the joke?”

“In her drink,” Ferriston said wanly. “I put the pill.”

“What was the pill supposed to do?”

“Put her to sleep, wake her up — I don’t remember.”

“Was it poison?”

Ferriston’s head came up with an effort. “No. No! Put her to sleep, I think it was. Yes, that was it. Very funny, don’t you see? Drinking from my glass without so much as a by-your-leave and then falling sound asleep…"

“Who gave you this pill? Was it the same man who gave you the money for new clothes?”

Ferriston nodded.

“What did he look like?”

Ferriston’s eyes were glazing again and the Lieutenant shook him hard, back and forth, until a flicker returned.

“Tall fellow. Young.”

The head dropped with a thud, and the Lieutenant winced. Ferriston was out for good, and he would be out for a long time.

When the patrol car answered his call ten minutes later, the Lieutenant gave instructions. Ferriston was to be shipped to the hospital and sobered up. He was to be called when the man could talk coherently.

Tall and young, he thought as he headed back to the west side. Who in this picture was tall and young? None that he could think of. Of course Ferriston might give more details when he woke up, but if it was someone totally new — he’d been hoping that it would be one of the Bon Voyage bunch.

Who else had beer, close enough to her to want her murdered? A stage-door Johnny whom she had told to go peddle his papers? If so, they’d be looking the rest of their lives.

Rooney was parked in front of the night club when he got there. He had nothing to report and there had been no calls on the radio.

It’s all up to me, thought the Lieutenant. That’s the damn trouble with this department. He’d love someday while plugging away, while ruining shoe leather, to get it over the radio that his job had been done, that some eager beaver had come up with something. But the men on his squad — where you left them, that where you found them.

Clumping down the stairs, he guessed he was in a lousy mood. Tired. Not enough sleep.

Fisher, the manager, was in his office, still trying to get a singer to fly up right away. He was in such a spot that he could use almost any singer, but he preferred one with class, real class. The Lieutenant sat through a few minutes of it, then waved him to put the receiver down. With a final “And hurry up, Carl”, Fisher hung up.

“I’d like all personnel who work here now to report in an hour. And I’ll want the job records of everybody who’s worked here in the last two years.”

“Job records?” Fisher laughed gutturally. “This isn’t U.S. Steel, Lieutenant. I mean, they come and they go. Who keeps records?”

“How’s your memory then?” barked the Lieutenant.

“My memory’s great, great,” Fisher said hastily.

“Any tall young fellow work here the last few years?”

Fisher swiveled back in his creaky chair. “Lemme see, there were tall ones and young ones, but tall young ones?”

“How about customers of that description?”

“That’s a big order. We get a couple hundred different people every week and some of them have to be tall and young. Law of averages—”

“Did you notice anyone in particular? Someone who made a commotion? Who got funny with Madeleine?” He was snapping the words like whips.

“Nope,” said Fisher. “She knew how to handle men — never had a bit of trouble.”

Maybe Ferriston was all wet. He hadn’t been sober in years, probably, and if he was lying in an alley and a midget came up to him he’d think it was a tall man. Oh, the people you met in this game!

“Well, tell them to stand by. Everybody who works here. Waiters, musicians — everybody.” Then he had a thought. “How tall are you?”

“Shrimp. No bigger than Allie Parks.” The chair creaked as Fisher stood up. “That reminds me, you see Allie’s boy?”

“Allie’s son?”

“No, no, just hangs around Allie. Number One fan, messenger boy, yes-man, et cetera.”

“No, what’s he look like?”

“Well, he’s tall and young,” offered Fisher. “Kind of drippy if you ask me. Wants to be a comic. Allie keeps him around for laughs.”

“How come I didn’t see him?” demanded the Lieutenant.

“Well, hell, he don’t work here,” said Fisher defensively. “I try to keep him out of the way. Gets underfoot, fools around with the girls, and so forth.”

“Where’s he live?”

“Must be in Allie’s hotel. Allie’s paying his bills, that I know.”

The Lieutenant got the name of the hotel and left in a hurry. It was only a short distance away, a squat brick building with a canopied entrance. Inside, it had the institutional air usually found in places catering to transients, but the clerk behind the desk tried a smile to make it all seem homelike.

“Mr. Allie Parks?”

The clerk nodded.

“Is his assistant here too? Tall young fellow?”

“That would be…" The clerk consulted a card file. “Yes, Mr. Howard. But I see he checked out two hours ago.”

The Lieutenant asked if Mr. Howard had said where he was going and the clerk wondered aloud why he was answering all these questions. The Lieutenant flashed the tin and the questioning proceeded. Mr. Howard was tall, thin, about twenty-five, and was wearing a sports shirt and slacks when he checked out. He’d taken a cab at the stand outside. He had mentioned he wasn’t taking a plane; he didn’t like to fly.

The Lieutenant went to the phone. He put two men on the trail of young Howard — to trace him, if possible, to his destination. If he took a train there was a chance they could pick up someone waiting to meet him.

The thing now was to get a warrant to search the rooms of Allie and his Number One fan. There was no point in secrecy any more. The probing operation was over — it was time now to get in with both feet.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” said Rooney when he got back to the car. “Something just came over.”

“Spill it.”

“That drunk in the gin mill?”

The Lieutenant felt a chill. “He died?”

“No, no. They woke him up quick down there and he’s been talking a blue streak. Says the fella who hired him called somebody on the phone and said, like, ‘I made the deal. Yeah, he knows the one. There’ll be no mistake. She’s the chanteuse that ain’t French and can’t sing.’ ”

The girl that wasn’t French and couldn’t sing. Allie’s sour line.

“All right, back to the club. So, hold it.”

Allie Parks was approaching. He wore a chocolate-brown shirt and tan slacks, and the dark glasses made him look like a huge beetle. The Lieutenant stepped into his path.

“Going back for a nap, Mr. Parks?”

“Look, please, I’m in no mood to go into Sophie’s childhood,” said the comedian irritably. “Later maybe.”

The Lieutenant took his arm and half pulled him toward the car. Rooney flung the rear door open and the Lieutenant edged Parks inside.

“What’s this, a snatch?” Parks said angrily, making room for the Lieutenant.

“We’ve got a line on your boy, Parks.”

Parks gave him a hooded stare. “What does that make me?”

“It makes you the guy that got him to hire some bum to work that little trick.”

“Me?” Parks gave a nasty laugh. “Who told you? Howard that ain’t here? Or a bum that’s floating in alky?”

“He’s a pretty durable bum. Talks thirteen to the dozen. And your boy Howard will talk too. Even if he’s your Number One fan, he’s not going to carry the ball alone. No matter how much he wants to be a comic.”

Parks’s lip curled. “You ought to be a detective.”

“Maybe you had a reason,” the Lieutenant suggested. “Maybe there was more to this than met the eye.” Parks was silent. His bronzed face behind the dark glasses was expressionless. It seemed carved out of stone.

“I knew she couldn’t be as sweet as all that,” the Lieutenant said. “Nobody could be.”

He waited.

“She was Sophie Klinger,” Parks said now, tonelessly. “I made her Madeleine. She was a cow. I taught her to think different, to act different, to be different. But when it came right down to it, she stayed a cow.”

“How’s that, Allie?”

“Five long years I work with her. I spend time, I spend money, I send her to coaches, I fix her teeth, I give her class. It’s like a goal I got. My own career I forget. I’m smalltime, granted, but I could make a buck if I gave a damn. I didn’t give a damn. Not for myself. So I train her and coach her and bring her along and get her this job — and she falls in love with my pal." His mouth twisted.

“You didn’t like that,” ventured the Lieutenant.

“I’m peculiar that way,” said Parks. “Especially now that she don’t need me any more. She had the wings I made for her, she could fly by herself. And the grand a week she was going to make in Vegas, that was going to build up this jerk I was keeping from starvation. My pal, my buddy.” He spat the words.

“So I put it to him one night. Was he double-crossing me, making a play for this dame I staked out for myself? And was he using my own dough to do it? Because even the clothes he had on his back were mine. He said no, somebody gave me a wrong steer. His loyalty was to me, to my career. When I clicked big I’d pull him up with me. The dame meant nothing to him, he said. So I said fine, then let’s have a laugh. I told him what to do, it would be a howl. Madeleine would drink this stuff and it would have alum or something that would make her pucker up so she wouldn’t look so sophisticated. While she sang about Paris. He had to admit it was funny, but his heart wasn’t in it. But he couldn’t look me in the face and say no. So he does it.”

“And you gave him a poison instead?”

Parks nodded. “I thought that was kind of cute. That way I got even with both double-crossers.”

“What did he say when he heard she was dead?”

“It was like a kick in the belly. But I told him I had evidence she was two-timing me with some guy, after the five years I put in for her, and he didn’t let out a peep.” Parks shrugged contemptuously. “Imagine, I get him to kill the dame he’s romancing and he just sits there.”

Calmly he sat back and lit a cigarette. “So I confessed. Where does that leave you, Sheriff or Marshal or whatever you are? Put that drunk on a stand and even a shyster lawyer would murder him. And Howie won’t talk. I do the thinking for both of us.” He laughed. “Howie never had an original idea in his life. He’s a copycat. Takes my style, my delivery, finally my dame. A couple hours ago I told him to clear out for a few months and I’d tell him when to come back. I promised him his old job of going for cigarettes. We drank on it.”

He sat up suddenly, made a noise, then his head fall back. A bubbling sound came from him and the Lieutenant yanked the dark glasses off. Parks’s eyes were wide and staring and his breath was coming in gasps. His hands clawed at the upholstery, digging into the leather; then, slowly, he relaxed. The Lieutenant felt for a pulse.

After a while Rooney said, “That guy’s dead.”

“Howie’s a copycat, all right,” the Lieutenant said. “Let’s find him before he gets any original ideas.”