Murder on the Aisle

8

10:46 P.M.

“He wasn’t going to sign the contract, was he?”

“Apparently not.”

“And if he didn’t the show wouldn’t be nearly as strong, would it?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been.”

“In fact, Mr. Tobin, without him, there might not have been any show at all, would there?”

“I can’t say. It’d be too speculative.”

“And that’s why you hit him last night, wasn’t it?”

“ ‘Hit’ him is too strong. I swung at him. Brushed him, more than anything.”

“And then again tonight — while your show was taping — even then you couldn’t restrain your anger. You got into it again.”

“If you got your facts correct, you’d know he started it.”

“But you didn’t try to stop it. You got down there on the floor and started punching back.”

“I was angry.”

“Obviously.”

“But not angry enough to kill him.”

“Let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Gee, thanks a lot.”

“Understand one thing here, Mr. Tobin. I take shit from only two people — my captain and my wife. You don’t happen to be either of them.”

“All right.”

“So let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say that last night was a fluke and that tonight was all Dunphy’s fault. Let’s say you’re just a sweet little altar boy wandering around in a world of wolves. Let’s say all these things.”

“All right. Let’s say them.”

“There’s still one thing that bothers me a great deal.”

“What’s that?”

“Jane. His wife.”

“What about her?”

“What about her? Jesus Christ, are you kidding me, what about her?”

“No, I’m not kidding you.”

“The way she was kissing you when I walked up? You’ve got to be kidding me, Mr. Tobin. You’re having an affair with her.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Of course you are, and I’m going to prove it. You ready for a refill?”

When their cups were full again with strong black coffee, they went back to the table in the lunchroom where they’d been sitting and started talking again. Studio people — grips, lighting men, a makeup man or two — drifted in and out, and each of them, whether they got soda pop or coffee or a candy bar, each of them did the same thing.

Stared in a certain special way at Tobin.

A way that seemed to say, You’re a nice guy, my friend, but your ass is grass.

“So here you are sitting quietly in your dressing room, minding your own business, probably rereading the Constitution or something like that, when there’s a knock on your door and gosh darn if it isn’t your old buddy Richard Dunphy, who just happens to have a knife sticking out of his back. Put there, of course, by person or persons unknown.”

“That’s what happened, yes.”

But Huggins kept right on talking. “And then, almost as if he’s trying to get even with you for taking a swing at him the night before, not to mention having some good times with his wife on the sly — he falls through your door and onto your floor just in time for his protégée — a Miss Sarah Nichols — and his manager to step up and find you kneeling over his dead body.”

“That’s the way it happened. Yes.”

“That’s the way it happened? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Huggins stirred the sugar in his coffee. He’d used several packets of the stuff. He’d torn so many of the things open, he’d probably managed to build up his biceps in the process. “How many movies a year do you think you see?”

“Pardon me?”

“How many movies a year do you think you see?”

“Couple hundred, probably. Why?”

“Well, think about everything you’ve just told me in terms of a movie script.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Say they based a movie on your alibi — that you were just sitting quietly in your dressing room and Dunphy came through the door — would that make a good movie?”

“Life isn’t like the movies.”

The smirk again. “Apparently not.” Some more stirring. Some more looking around the big plastic room with its lumbering armies of vending machines. Some more nods to police people who went in and out getting coffee for themselves. Then he looked back at Tobin. “Yosemite Sam, huh?”

Tobin frowned. “When I was younger, I was a bit wild.”

“Three wives?”

“Four.”

“You once drove a motorcycle across a midtown-Manhattan bar, right?”

“Right.”

“And you once slugged a critic who called a certain actress ugly, right?”

“Yes. We don’t have any right to say things like that. It’s not her fault she’s not beautiful.”

“But there didn’t seem to be any other way of making your point?”

“Other than slugging him, you mean?”

“Right. Other than slugging him.”

“Not at that moment.”

He opened some more packets of sugar. It was a goddamn Niagara Falls of white granules. “You ever watch Perry Mason?”

“The ones with Raymond Burr?”

“Right.”

“Sure.”

“You like them?”

“Some of them were very good, in fact. Why?”

“You know how the jury always gasped a little bit every time there was a revelation?”

“Right.”

“Well, think of how a jury would gasp when they heard some of the things we’ve talked about tonight. Driving his motorcycle across a bar — gasp. Punching out a fellow film critic — gasp. Taking a swing at his partner in a downtown bar — gasp.” He was good at this stuff, and so of course he saved his best for last. “Having an affair with his partner’s wife — gasp.”

“I see your point.”

“I assumed you would.”

“So you’re arresting me?”

Huggins shook his head. “It’s a funny thing, the way the world works.”

“How’s that?”

“Say you were a bus driver.”

“All right. Say I was a bus driver.”

“If you were a bus driver and two eyewitnesses walked in and found you kneeling over a dead man you’d recently had an argument with — you’d be on your way to lockup right now. But...”

“But?”

“But you’re not a bus driver. You’ve got a newspaper column and you’ve got a TV show. And you’ve got a lot of friends. So you’re not on your way to the lockup, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“But that doesn’t mean that you won’t be real soon now, Mr. Tobin.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You took a swing at him last night.”

“That doesn’t mean I killed him.”

“You got into a fight with him on stage tonight.”

“I still didn’t kill him.”

“And you and his wife are having an affair.”

“That’s just an assumption on your part.”

Huggins stood up. He looked at the pink plastic bowl where the sugar packets had been stored. Empty. “You’re our boy, Mr. Tobin.”

“I’m not. Goddamn, you’ve got to believe me, I’m not.”

Then he saw the smile and he knew instantly what had inspired it and he also knew what Huggins had been wanting all along.

Tobin’s tone had just become frantic — pleading — the way it was back in the eighth grade, when Frog Face had hidden his new Schwinn.

Huggins had gotten just what he wanted. He put the bowl down and said, “See you soon, Mr. Tobin.”

Then he was gone.