The Scarlet Letters

L· M· N·

Ellery did not bother to follow Martha to her rendezvous with Van Harrison at Lewisohn Stadium or at Macy’s — two dates which came only two days apart. They could only prove an alphabetical variation of the same dreary theme.

Dirk made different music.

Dirk was growing difficult again, restless and morose. His progress stuttered, at times stopped altogether. He began once more to notice Martha’s comings and goings, watching her with the telltale quirk of his dark mouth, his glances black and wary. Twice he followed her. The first time Nikki was caught unawares and trailed him frantically herself; but that time it turned out that Martha was merely going to a rehearsal, as she had said, and Dirk returned looking foolish. The second occasion found Nikki prepared with a prearranged standby signal to Ellery. She kept him informed by phone calls along the way, and he caught up within a half-hour to take up the chase. On this occasion, too, Martha’s destination was pure; but the incident made both Ellery and Nikki jumpy, and after that they lived from hour to hour.

“Where the devil is Fields?” This was Ellery’s cry during that time, and he became mentally hoarse repeating it.

Fields returned from Florida on the morning Nikki phoned Ellery that the N message had come.

“Which one is that?” asked Nikki. “I’ve forgotten.”

“Madison Square Garden.”

“But that’s M—”

“New Madison Square Garden, a purism exclusive with the guidebooks. Haven’t you looked at her copy?”

“I don’t dare go near it.”

“When’s it for, tomorrow night?”

“No, tonight. It’s the first time he’s set the date for the night of the same day the letter arrived.”

“Then he wants to see the heavyweight championship fight,” said Ellery. “What’s her alibi this time?”

“She hasn’t made one up yet. I hope I can keep Dirk home! What if he should decide he’d like to see the fight, too?”

“At the least sign of trouble, Nikki, call.”

The columnist phoned two minutes after Ellery hung up.

“Leon!”

“I just flew in from Miami. Do you still want something on Harrison?”

“Hasn’t your girl told you how I’ve hogged your office line?”

“I like it in English.”

“More than ever,” said Ellery, “and twice as fast.”

“Okay.” Fields turned away from his phone; Ellery heard him say something, and a reply in a woman’s voice. “Look, what are you doing tonight?”

“Whatever you are.”

“I’m going to the Garden to catch the fight — that’s what I flew up for. Do you have a ticket?”

“I was going to try to get one this morning.”

“Forget it. I’m arranging for a couple together near the roof, where those little ringside ears can’t reach. I’ll send yours over this afternoon.”

“Right.”

“Be there by nine-thirty. We’ll have to talk before the main go. I’ve got to be on the eleven-thirty plane back to Florida.”

“I’ll be there.”

Ellery hung up, rubbing the back of his neck. It felt sore but free, the weight having been removed.

He was in his seat a half-hour early, armed with his field glasses.

It took him twenty-eight minutes to locate them. They were seated far above the ring, a little below and to one side of him. Martha was dressed like a mouse again, and she displayed a nervousness to match. Her surveys of the vicinity were quick and secretive; between glances she froze to her seat as if to invoke invisibility. Harrison was enjoying himself. The preliminary in the ring was a slam-bang affair of two heavily muscled middleweights giving their all, and the mayhem seemed to his taste — he jumped to his feet at each mix-up shouting and punching the atmosphere. Martha kept plucking surreptitiously at his coattail, and he kept tearing himself free.

When Leon Fields came up the aisle, Ellery slipped the binoculars into the case and eased the case to the floor between his feet.

“Let’s get going on this,” said the columnist, dropping into the empty seat. “I want to catch the big one from ringside. What do you know about Van Harrison?”

Ellery sat still. “Only what’s generally known.”

“Know how he lives?”

“I’ve been to his Darien place. It’s shore property, only a few years old, extensive grounds perfectly kept, a Japanese manservant, luxurious furnishings, he runs a new Caddy convertible... I’d say, according to his lights, he lives very well.”

“What on?”

“Well,” said Ellery slowly, “I know he made a fortune on Broadway and in Hollywood when he was riding high, before the days of the big income taxes. He hasn’t had a play for years, of course, and the only work he’s been doing is an occasional TV or radio job, but I assume that’s because an actor prefers death to obscurity. He must be living on the income of his investments.”

“He has no investments,” said Leon Fields.

“Then what kind of income does he have?”

“He has no income.”

“You mean he’s living off his capital?”

“He has no capital.” Fields’s clownish mouth curved. “He had the last dime of his big dough taken away from him ten years ago when he settled his fourth divorce. Alimony, the races, and his natural inclination to be the world’s biggest sucker for every deadbeat who knew how to butter him up left him flatter than that palooka down there’s going to be in one minute. When he hit the bottle and left Avery Langston holding the bag in midseason — putting himself behind the blackball — he was already in hock for almost a hundred grand.”

“But he can’t be earning much — he hasn’t even had a movie bit for years! What’s he living on, Leon?”

“You got the wrong preposition, bub,” said Fields, his eyes on the ring. “He’s living off. Off women.”

The package... the package Martha had slipped him over the table in Chinatown...

“He’s pretty good at it, too,” said the columnist. “In fact, in my book Van Harrison takes the blue ribbon in the Fancy Gig class against the field. And believe me, chum, the competition is something fierce. There are gigs with looks, gigs who can dance, gigs who are soft-soap artists, gigs with real European titles — poetry spielers, art lovers, bedroom athletes — there’s a gig for every purpose and a top gig in every class. But Harrison’s got something the rest of the boys can only dream about. When a gal’s got Harrison, she’s got the whole historic tradition of the stage in her arms, from the Greeks on down. What dame who’s beginning to bulge around the ankles, or whose husband lieth down in greener pastures, is going to upstage Romeo? Not an imitation, but the real thing? He makes them all co-stars in a private production, with the heavens for scenery, every night a second-act curtain, and no lousy notices afterward. And all it costs them is money. What’s money to Juliet?”

As Leon Fields talked, a note of passion crept into his voice and the cords of his neck became visible. He stared down at the distant ring as if to look elsewhere would cause him to lose something vital which he was trying desperately to contain. Ellery was very quiet.

“He’s been supported like a king by one woman after another for years. He has real social security, Mr. Harrison has. You were right — he doesn’t have to work. But you were wrong about why he does it. He does it for the same reason he keeps up his Equity and AFRA dues — to protect his professional standing. His women being able to see him once in a while in a public performance appreciate his private ones more. A champ has to have a fight now and then or he loses his fans... They’ll be in the ring any minute now. I better get down to cases.”

Fields looked away from the ring then, and at Ellery. The slender little columnist’s eyes had no humanity in them. They were the eyes of a department-store dummy.

“I’m listening,” said Ellery softly.

But Fields seemed unable to get down to cases. He was being driven by a wind of irresistible force and unknown origin. “Don’t make the mistake of underrating Harrison,” he said, and suddenly Ellery knew that Fields was not speaking from hearsay. “He shoots for the moon. Money is his object, and he finds it where it is — way up there. You won’t believe the women he’s had. And he’s never been in trouble, never been found out, there isn’t another newspaperman in the world knows a damn thing about any of this.”

“Incredible,” murmured Ellery.

“He even makes them like it when he walks out, which is usually when the doughing gets tough or there’s danger of fireworks from the mister. A dream-boat who passed through their lives. They always knew it was too good to be true, so what have they got to kick about when he slaps their fannies and says so-long? They’ve got their memories. I told you he’s big-time. Not one of those women has ever squawked.”

“Then how did you find out, Leon?”

“Do I ask you where you find your plots?” The columnist’s thin lip curled. “But I will tell you how come I’ve never given him the treatment.”

“I’ve been wondering about that.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s like this: If I’d ever printed the name — or even hinted at the identity — of so much as one of those women, he’d have named them all.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me,” said Fields simply. “That makes me a reuben, what? How come Leon Fields takes that kind of horse puff? In fact, why shouldn’t Leon Fields print all those juicy names himself? Fair question, and it deserves a fair answer. The answer is this. I was, am, and always will be in love with one of those women, and I’ll scrub Harrison’s back in that ring down there before I’ll let him ruin her life.”

Fields’s hand groped and disappeared inside his coat. “Queen, I’m hung up. I could spoil his racket tomorrow morning in one column and incidentally put half a dozen saps on his trail who’d break every bone in his body, starting with his famous profile. But he’s got me stymied. I can’t talk, I can’t hint, I can’t even breathe. I’ve even got a vested interest in protecting him. Not long ago I actually covered up for him so a pal of mine, another newspaper guy, would stop nosing around. All I can do is needle the slob when I see him, and I’ve even got to be careful about that. That night at Rose’s...” His lips compressed, and he was silent.

A roar filled the Garden as the challenger climbed through the ropes.

In a sort of reaction, the columnist’s hand came out of his coat with violence, and Ellery saw in it a plain white unmarked envelope.

“This thing has burned a hole in my pocket for a long time. I’ve reached my limit. I can’t take it any more.

“I don’t know what you can do with this, Queen, but I’m going to tell you what you can’t do with it. You can’t let it out of your hands. You can’t let anybody read it — anybody. You can’t repeat its contents. You can’t do a damn thing with it that might wind up in its being printed.”

“That kind of ties me in knots, Leon.”

“That’s right,” nodded Fields, “but not as tight as me. That’s where there may be a glimmer. I don’t say there is. The chances are there isn’t.” He still held on to the envelope. “There’s just one possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“You can try something with this I never could, because you’re not me and Harrison hasn’t got his knee in your crotch. You can go to these women one by one and see if you can’t get one of them to break down, to expose him for the cheap, woman-chiseling he-whore he is. Personally, I don’t think you stand a chance. And, what’s more, you’ve got to play this thousand-to-one shot so that I’m kept out of it. It isn’t enough for Harrison to get his. He’s got to get his and not know where he’s getting it from. If the attack comes from one of the women, and he can only trace it back to you, if he can trace it at all, then it’s okay.

“If you want this on those conditions, it’s yours.”

Ellery put his hand out. Fields looked at him. Then he dropped the envelope into Ellery’s hand and rose.

“Don’t even phone me,” he said, and he turned to go.

“One question, Leon.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you any idea who’s playing Juliet these days?”

There was another, and louder, roar, and in the ring far below the champion made his appearance.

“Are you kidding?” said Leon Fields; and he skipped down the runway.