Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

“Everybody except us,” Bingo growled. He glanced again at the New Visitor’s Guide and read aloud, “‘Here you will see celebrities, beautiful girls, Hollywood characters—’”

“None of them seem to want to have their picture taken,” Handsome said.

Bingo drew a long breath and said, “Maybe we just picked a bad time of day, Handsome.” He glanced down Vine Street. His eyes narrowed and he said, “I see a bunch of tourist-looking people standing still.” He took one more quick look at the guidebook. “‘The Brown Derby, favorite rendezvous of stage, screen and television stars.’” He stuck the book in his pocket and said, “Sure, Handsome, those people are hanging around there hoping somebody will come out that they can get an autograph off of. That’s the place for us to go into business.”

He took a few steps, paused, looked at Handsome and said, “I’ll take the cards, I talk faster. You take the camera, you make better pictures. But every time you snap one of a lady, give her a big wistful smile like you wished you knew her better.” He added, “And when they smile back, I hand out the card.”

It began well. With a few nudges from Bingo, Handsome singled out a pair of near-middle-aged women in print dresses; an obviously married couple, he in a Hawaiian print sports shirt (Bingo immediately resolved never to wear one again), she in a powder-blue traveling suit and flowered hat; and a blissful-eyed, hand-holding honeymoon pair.

“A newsreel-type picture of you has just been taken—” Bingo began. He greeted the two women — schoolteachers on vacation, he guessed — with, “You’ll want to take home a picture of yourself, snapped right in front of the famous Brown Derby, favorite rendezvous of stars—” They took a card. He noticed the admiring glance the woman in the traveling suit was giving Handsome, and said, “Send some pictures to the friends back home — show them how you look in the heart of Hollywood—” To the honeymoon couple he said warmly, “What a wonderful souvenir of the happiest days of your life—” and followed it up with congratulations to the groom and felicitations to the bride.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt, who had taken a card, said, “Hey, bud, you know your way around this town. How can me and the wife get tickets to some TV shows?”

“Nothing to it,” Bingo said, “I’ll be glad to help you out. When you send in that card, put in a note of what shows you’d like to see, and I’ll get tickets for you. And don’t forget, if you like the picture, we’ll happily make an enlargement for you, practically at cost — say, how about my partner catching a couple more of you, right in front of the door—”

Two pictures later, though, he felt suddenly as though the glacial cap had moved down from the North Pole. He shoved the cards hastily in his pocket, and turned his head to signal Handsome.

Pushing through the crowd, and unnoticed by it, were Leo Henkin and Rex Strober.

It was too late to catch Handsome, who went right on taking pictures.

“Well!” Bingo said. “Here we meet again!” He saw Leo Henkin’s eyes rake over Handsome with the camera. Rex Strober was looking at nothing but his watch.

“Taking pictures?” Leo Henkin asked, implying that they could be two boy scouts with a Brownie camera.

“Of course!” Bingo said, marshaling up all the enthusiasm he could. “We’re always taking pictures. For background ideas! And people! What is a picture without people? Clothes! Mannerisms! Above all, faces!” He drew himself up to his full five foot five and said, “Faces! Above all, faces!”

“You hear that?” Leo Henkin said to Rex Strober. “These boys are artists!”

Rex Strober was busy opening a package of cigarettes and paying no attention.

Handsome said solemnly, “‘Some faces are books in which not a line is written, except a date.’”

“Boy,” Leo Henkin said. “What a line! Original?”

“Longfellow,” Handsome said. “It was the caption under a picture in the—”

“Except a date!” Leo Henkin said. “You listening, Rex?” Rex Strober was now looking for matches.

“These boys have a great property,” Leo Henkin said as he and Rex Strober left. “And Leo Henkin has the inside track on it—” They disappeared into the Derby.

Bingo looked after them wistfully. “Handsome,” he said, “let’s move on. There’s no telling who we might run into here, and let’s not take chances with our dignity.” He led the way back toward Hollywood Boulevard.

“There were more people there,” Handsome said, a little wistfully. “And more coming.”

“Another time,” Bingo said. “And at some other place.” At the moment he was tempted to add, “And in some other world.”

They walked in silence to the corner of Hollywood and Vine. At the corner a newsdealer spotted the camera still hanging around Handsome’s neck, smirked and said, “I let’cha take my pitcher for a quarter.”

Bingo came back with a startling jolt into the world he lived in, looked through narrowed eyelids at the dealer and said, “It’s a sale. But only if you give us three papers for free.”

After a brief argument, money changed hands, a picture was taken, and copies of the Examiner, the Mirror and the Herald Express were tucked under Bingo’s arm.

“And if you’d like some postcard pictures of yourself to send to your many out-of-town customers—” Bingo began.

“Buster,” the newsdealer said, “you just take your own side of the street, and we’ll get along fine.”

Bingo decided it was not the time for discussion. “Maybe we could sell him the negative,” he muttered to Handsome as they headed for the parking lot. He paused to cast a last look at Hollywood and Vine, half closed his eyes and pictured Columbus Circle in a dreary February rain, lower Broadway in a sleet storm, and 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue in the hottest July in the history of the weather bureau. He wished he were in any one of those dreamed-of scenes. Indeed, at the moment he wished he were anywhere else in the world, including a small igloo on the fringe of the polar cap.

Handsome nudged him and said, “Hey! Isn’t that June Melrose?”

Bingo left the polar ice cap, took a quick look, shook his head and said, “Looks like her. But most of these beautiful thirty-six by twenty-four by thirty-six blondes look so alike. Especially in those jersey slacks.” He added wistfully, “I really would like to get a look at June Melrose sometime!”

Then suddenly it came back to him, like an unexpected and wayward sunbeam popping out through a rift in what had been darkly threatening clouds.

This, he reminded himself, was Hollywood. This was where he and Handsome had come to get rich and famous. A few temporary setbacks were certainly not going to stop them now!

He slid into the car and said, “Wait a minute. Let’s us take one more look in the guidebook.” He thumbed through it. “Olivera Street.” He shook his head. “Too far from here, right now. La Brea Tar Pits. No profit for us in a batch of prehistoric animals that didn’t have any more sense than to go and get stuck in some place they didn’t have any business getting into in the first place.”

Handsome didn’t say, “Like us.” He just went on wiping the windshield.

“Gilmore Stadium,” Bingo read on. “Nothing doing there at this hour of the day. Greek Theatre.” His face darkened. “Closed this time of year. Griffith Planetarium. Wrong kind of stars for us, right now. Hey!” He beamed at Handsome. “Grauman’s Chinese Theatre! That’s where we should’ve headed for in the first place!”

Handsome started the car and began feeling the way out of the parking lot.