The Case of the Killer-Diller

Chapter Four Bolero

The new man supplied by the Mad House to take Thatcher’s place was named Cobb. He wouldn’t have been a union-member if he hadn’t known how to handle his instrument, and the tunes were the tunes of the day, familiar to every professional, so it was just a matter of blending him in with the rest of them, smoothing down the rough edges, and memorizing the order in which the numbers came. Even so, Dusty kept them at it until half an hour before it was time to climb on the shell at the Troc. It was, if nothing else, as good a way as any of taking their minds off what had happened.

“We can’t keep it from breaking in the papers,” Dusty told them while they grabbed a quick bite on their way over to work, “because it’s in New York this time and not out in the sticks, but with a little luck we may be able to keep them from digging up about what happened the other two times. Keep your mouths closed now, all of you. Don’t talk to any reporters. The agents’ll all wash their hands of us, and we won’t be able to get a booking for love or money if we once get tagged as a jinx-band. Those things spread around awful quick, and are hard to live down. People don’t want to dance with... with death kind of peering over the musicians’ shoulders at them.” This was said out of earshot of the new man. “And keep quiet about the first two times in front of Cobb.”

The girl just sat there at the end of the counter, sipping her coffee quietly and looking covertly at them one by one. “One of you,” she thought, “sitting so close to me I could reach out and touch you, is a killer. But which one?” It seemed so hard to believe, watching them.

There was the strain of what had happened on all their faces, of course, but there was no private guilt, no furtive remorse, no sign of self-consciousness or wariness. “Maybe,” she thought, “he doesn’t even remember it himself after it happens each time, in which case— Oh Lord, how am I ever going to be able to tell?”

“O.K., ready, folks?” Dusty asked, slipping down from his high stool. “Let’s go over and climb in the box.”

Everyone paid for himself. There was no Frankie to pay for her now, but just as she was opening her pocketbook, Dusty thoughtfully waved her aside and put the money down for her.

“What’d that dick have to say after we left?” he asked her on the way over.

“Oh, nothing. He’s dead sure Frankie did it. Nothing’ll change his mind about that.”

“I know this sounds like hell, but what do you think yourself?”

“I’m afraid he did, Dusty. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. He acted too funny about it from beginning to end.”

He slipped his arm around her waist, tightened it encouragingly for a moment. “Keep your chin up, pal,” he said.

The men climbed right into the box to play for the rather second-rate supper show the Trocadero put on, but Billie, who didn’t have to canary until the straight dance-numbers later on, went down to the dressing-room and dispiritedly changed into evening dress. “If I were only a mind-reader,” she thought. “If I could only see behind their faces. One of them is a mask hiding death!”

There was a perfunctory rap at the door. “They’re starting number one now.” She got up and went upstairs, stood in the entryway to one side of the box, out of sight of the tables in front. Number one was Sing for Your Supper. It looked funny to see Cobb sitting up there in Thatcher’s chair. She watched their faces closely one by one. Nothing showed. Just guys making music.

Dusty looked over to see if she was ready, then they slowed a little to let her come in and pick it up. She stepped out in front of them and a spotlight picked her out.

The phone was ringing when she let herself into her flat at half past three that morning. It was Lindsey. “Did you notice anything?” he asked.

“I couldn’t tell. He’s good, whoever he is.”

“Keep watching. It’s too soon yet. Anyone come back with you?”

“Dusty wanted to bring me home, but I told him I’d be all right.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.” She hung up the phone and suddenly threw her head down and burst into tears.

Lindsey turned away from the window when Billie started to speak. “We’ve got to do something soon, Lindsey,” she said. “It’s six weeks now. Do you know what this is doing to my brother? He’ll be bugs by the time we get him out of there. I saw him yesterday, and he’s ready to fall apart.”

“I know. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and it’s no go,” the detective answered. “I’ve been over those coronary findings until I know them backwards. I’ve communicated with the officials in Michigan and I’ve interviewed the ones down in Atlantic City. They couldn’t help me. I even went over personally and looked at that shack while I was down there. It’s still about the same as when you people used it, but it didn’t tell me a thing.”

She sat down at the piano and started to play aimlessly.

“I’ve even dropped in at the Troc more times than you know, watching them while they didn’t know it.”

“You have?” she said in surprise. “I didn’t see you.”

“I had a get-up on. I couldn’t detect a sign of anything on any one of them. It must be so damn deep, so latent, that he doesn’t know he’s got it himself.”

She went ahead playing. “Then what good is it trying to find it? It may never come out again.”

He started pacing back and forth. “It’s got to, it always does.”

“What makes you so restless, Lindsey?” she asked over her notes. “You’re as bad as one of us jitter-bugs. Sit down and relax.”

He sank into a chair, immediately got up again, began parading around some more. “It’s got my goat!” he seethed. “I know I’ve got it figured right, I’m dead sure of it, but I’ve got to sit back with my hands folded until he’s good and ready to give himself away again!”

He took out a cigarette, lit it, raised his hand at full arm’s length above his head and banged it down on the floor a moment afterwards. Then he took a kick at the chair he’d just been in, so that it swung around in a half-circle.

“Lindsey, this is my flat you’re in, not the back room at headquarters,” she remonstrated mildly. “I never saw you like this before, what’s the matter with you?”

He trod out the sparks on the rug. “I don’t know myself,” he grunted. “I felt all right until a few minutes ago. I’ve been plugging away too hard, not getting enough sleep, I guess. I’ve got a pip of a peeve on right now. I feel like busting someone in the face!”

“Not me, I hope.” She smiled as her fingers continued traveling over the keys.

He was stalking around the room behind her with his locked hands draped across the back of his neck. He looked over at her a couple of times, started to say something, clamped his mouth shut as though thinking better of it. Finally it got away from him. His voice exploded in an ungovernable shout that nearly hoisted her clear of the bench. “For Pete’s sake, can’t you quit playing that damn piano for a minute! It’s got me on edge, I can’t stand it any more!”

She turned and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. There was a sudden silence in the room.

He was already ashamed of the outburst. “Or at least play something else. What is that screwy thing anyway?”

“Ravel’s Bolero. It’s a long-hair number but we swing it once in awhile.”

“I didn’t think I could stand it for another minute.”

“It is a monotonous sort of thing,” she agreed. “The same theme over and over and over. You just change keys.”

“It sure is an irritant, I know that much! I’m sorry, Billie,” he apologized. “I didn’t know a little thing like that could get me that way. Shows you how jumpy I must be.” He grabbed for his hat. “I better get out of here before I put my foot in it any deeper, get some sleep. This case has me down. I guess. See you tomorrow,” he called back from the door.

She stared after him with a puzzled frown on her face. Then she struck three random notes of what she’d just been playing, with one finger. Suddenly the piano-bench toppled over and she was flying toward the door he’d just closed behind him. She tore it open. Luckily he hadn’t gone down yet, was still out there waiting for the elevator.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” she shrieked, as though she herself had gone insane. “Come back here!”

He came inside again. “What the hell—”

She was too excited to explain. “Have you got a gun?” she asked breathlessly, closing the door after him.

“Sure, I always carry one,” he said, mystified.

“Good! You’re going to need one if this works out the way I think it may.”

She’d taken him into the bedroom. “Here, get into this closet and keep your eyes open. Can you see me at the piano from in here?”

“No, it’s not in a straight line with the door.”

“Well, we’ll shove it over further. I want to make sure your eyes are on me every minute of the time, through the crack of this closet-door, or it’s going to be just too bad for me!”

They shifted the piano, then she jumped up on a chair, unslung a heavy framed mirror from the opposite wall. “Hang this from the molding over the piano, Lindsey. It’ll give you a view of the rest of the room, from in there. Now get back in there, leave the door open a crack, and have your gun ready. You’re going to have to listen to that thing steadily for the next few hours. Can you stand it? Your own nerves were pretty much on edge just now. Better take a good stiff drink before you get in there.”

He got what she was driving at finally. “You mean — that piece? You think—”

“I’m sure of it, and this’ll prove it. That’s our link, our impetus. We jammed it that night. I think we must have the other two times, too, although I can’t remember for sure now any more. We never play it for general dancing. You saw what it did to you just now, just from lack of sleep. It’s monotonous, insistent, frays the nerves the way it slowly builds to a climax, the same arrangement of notes over and over and over. And he’s off-balance to begin with. Conceivably it topples him over completely each time he hears it, starts the wheels going.”

“Gin with it, and a few puffs of weed,” he suggested, “to give it the same priming as at the jam-sessions.”

“There must be a couple of Frankie’s muggles still around the place somewhere. I’m going to test them out one at a time, to make sure they don’t show any inhibitions. I’ll be supposedly alone up here. For heaven’s sake, Lindsey, jump out as soon as you see anything. Don’t let anything happen to me. It’s going to be an awful feeling to sit here at the piano without being able to turn around, not knowing when I’ll feel a knife between my shoulders, or a pair of hands around my neck.”

“I’ll be watching, I’ll be on the job, just keep steady.”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

She dialed a number on the phone. The closet door ebbed noiselessly back into its frame, without completely meeting it, in the darkened bedroom beyond.

“Hello, Armstrong? This is Billie. Doing anything?... Neither am I. I feel kind of lonely. No one to talk to. Why don’t you drop over for a few minutes, see if you can cheer me up. Don’t bring anyone else, I don’t want a mob around me.”

Armstrong said: “Yeah, and do you remember that time we were playing that cruise ship, and ran into a norther down in the Gulf, and had to play fastened to our chairs by our belts, so we wouldn’t come flying down out of the box on top of the dancers’ heads every time she tipped over?”

“What about me? I wasn’t attached to anything. Right in the middle of the second chorus of I Married an Angel I go shooting across the ballroom-floor and land square in the fat purser’s lap. What a night that was! Have another drink?”

“I’ve had two already.”

She sat down at the keyboard, lightly began the querulous opening measures of the Bolero. He was sprawled out in an easy-chair with his back to the bedroom doorway, drink in one hand, half-smoked reefer in the other. He fell silent, listening.

She changed keys. It began to come in a little heavier now, but the same torturing sequence of notes, on and on and on. She glanced furtively up into the mirror on the wall before her. She could see him in it. He’d let his eyelids droop dosed, but he wasn’t asleep, she could tell that. Just listening. He lifted his glass to his mouth, drank, lowered it again, all without opening his eyes. The closet door, dimly discernible in the shadowy interior of the next room, was slanting outward at more of an angle now. Lindsey probably had his gun out in his hand. Wouldn’t it be a joke if it got him on edge quicker than the suspect they were both testing? It wouldn’t, though, now that he was on guard against it.

The strain on her was terrific. She forced herself to keep her eyes down on the keyboard. She had to go on playing, just stealing an occasional glance upward. But any minute she might see a reared shadow loom on the wall and feel—

It was thundering toward its climax now. It was a good thing this place had thick soundproof walls, especially meant for musicians and vocalists. She stole another look via the glass. Eyes still closed. Wide awake though. He’d finished the marihuana cigarette and ditched it. Did she imagine it or had his hand twitched just then on the arm of the chair? No, there it came again. He’d given it a little spasmodic jerk, sort of shot his cuff back.

Her breath started to come faster. There was moisture seeping through the light dusting of powder on her forehead. She tried not to get tense, to keep her playing even. Was he the one? It was nearing the end now. Was he going to be able to hold out, or would he suddenly spring up and across at her?

She went into the last stretch, fortissimo, mounted to the almost unbearable climax, when — if you were like him — every nerve must be crying out, maddened beyond endurance.

It burst like shrapnel, and then there was sudden deafening silence in the room, and she just sat there limp, nearly prostrated herself.

He moved, opened his mouth and took a yawn that seemed to stretch from his eyebrows to his chin. “Gee, that was swell,” he said lazily. “I guess I’ll shove off now. There was a gnat or something bothering me the whole time you were playing.” He slapped the back of his own hand viciously. “Got it!”

When she’d closed the door after him, she turned and faced Lindsey, who’d come out. “Whew!” was all she said.

“Whew, is right!” he agreed. “But we’ve got something there and we’re not giving up yet. That thing nearly drives you nuts, especially when you’ve got to stand still in a closet listening to it.”

“Stretch your legs a minute while you’ve got the chance. Here goes for number two.” She started to dial again.