Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

A middle-aged man with thin lips and eyes that seemed to have just come from an ice-cube tray, stepped up and said, “Now wait a minute! I don’t know these ladies, but I believe in helping my fellow man or woman, and how do they know they’re ever going to get those pictures they already paid for?”

Bingo said suavely, “If you’ll kindly look at the business address printed on each card—”

It was not just the Beverly Hills address, but the firm name, International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America, which seemed to do the trick. The man with the iceberg eyes retreated a little.

A plump woman in a gaudy slack suit pushed a gangling teenager forward and said, “Go on; Harvey, right up by the doorway. This’ll be a nice picture to send your father.”

“Right on the very spot!” Bingo said. “Right in front of the mystery mansion!”

A couple who looked like vacationers moved forward, the man muttering under his breath, “This seems silly to me, Helen, but if you insist upon it—”

Bingo turned to Handsome and said, “Get a really good picture of these two honeymooners!” He flashed a smile at the man and said, “Turn your head a little — so! Get your profile just right!” He waited till he knew Handsome was through, and then said to the man, “Haven’t I seen you on the screen?”

The man coughed, said, “Guess not. I’m in the wholesale hardware business, back in Bloomington, Illinois.” He coughed again, this time with even more embarrassment, and said, “And this isn’t exactly a honeymoon. Helen and me, we were married twenty-six years ago next May 10th.”

Helen bridled a little and said, “And it seems like yesterday!”

“Believe me,” Bingo said, “you look as though it has been only yesterday! Let’s get one more picture of you, gazing into each other’s eyes!”

A dozen customers later, Bingo began looking for a place to put the quarters. He solved it by slinging the camera case over his shoulder.

“You may never have an opportunity like this again—”

The cold-eyed man returned and said, “Look-a-here, boys, I don’t want to seem unpleasant. But isn’t this trespassing or something? These here people don’t have a right to be here, and you don’t have a right to be taking pictures—”

“Mister,” Bingo said, “I have a paper in my pocket giving us the right to occupy and use this property. Anyone here now I consider my guest.” He suddenly remembered that the paper was in the hands of a police handwriting expert at the moment. He said quickly, “If you’d like to step inside and use our telephone and call Mr. Victor Budlong, of Budlong and Dollinger” — he rolled out the syllables mellifluously — “he’ll put you right.”

“There’s been a murder here,” the man said. “Maybe the cops won’t like—”

“My good friend,” Bingo said, “use that same telephone and call Detective Hendenfelder.”

The heckler muttered something Bingo didn’t catch, and drifted away, not — Bingo noticed with a few thanks to his lucky stars — in the direction of the telephone.

Then there was someone who asked, breathlessly, “Does anyone have any idea where that Mrs. Lattimer buried poor Mr. Lattimer?”

Bingo gestured and said, “There’s a lot of lawn and garden, ma’am. If you’d like to borrow a shovel—”

And someone else who asked, “Which is the window of the room where the last murder was committed, and could I get a picture—?”

Inevitably, the cars parked along Damascus Drive attracted other cars, and the curious people moving up the driveway drew others to follow them. A small boy pushing a bike shoved up close to Bingo and whispered that for five bucks, cash on the line, he could really mess up traffic on Sunset Boulevard and divert it up Damascus Drive. Bingo gave him two, wished him luck, and hoped Handsome wouldn’t run out of film.

The afternoon wore on, little by little the crowd drifted away until there was no one left but the cold-eyed heckler.

“You boys have a nice racket here,” he commented. “Sorry I don’t want a picture taken,”

“You’re in the Industry?” Bingo asked. He’d learned to use the sonorous and almost reverential tone he’d heard earlier in the day from Victor Budlong.

“Well, in a way, yes, and in a way, no,” the man said. He seemed to be thawing a little. “I train birds.” The startled looks on the faces of Bingo and Handsome were obviously nothing new to him. “I also rent out reptiles. Snakes, turtles, horned toads. Any time a studio needs to rent a reptile, they call on me.”

You never could tell when you might need a friend, Bingo reminded himself. Or when you might want to rent a rattlesnake. “Let’s get a good picture of you, right here in the entrance. No charge. A gift from us.”

“No, thanks,” the man said. “I don’t need any pictures of me. And I don’t want one taken of me right here.” He glanced up at the house. “Especially not here.” He seemed to be saying it to himself.

Bingo looked at him closely. No, he didn’t fit any of the descriptions of Julien Lattimer. He was too tall, too sharp-faced, his hair was somewhere between blond and gray.

“I would like to look around a little, though,” the man said. He came close to smiling. “My name is William Willis.”

“And you train birds,” Bingo said, “and rent reptiles. We’re Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, and we take pictures. And we’d enjoy having you look around some other time. But right now my partner and I need to print up a batch of pictures.”

William Willis moved his thin lips into another smile and said, “I’ll come back.”

They watched him march down the driveway, and Bingo said, “I’ve felt warmer weather in January.”

“If he’d said his name was William Willis in the first place,” Handsome said, “I’d’ve remembered him right away. He does a night-club act with his trained birds. Not the snakes, just the birds. There was a story about him in the Journal, because of his having had his birds in a New York night club for a record-breaking run. Two and a half months. There was a picture of the birds, right next to a picture of Christine Jorgensen coming home from Europe. She had on a mink coat.”

Bingo sorted that out carefully in his mind and said, “Maybe if he’d had his birds along, he’d’ve had a picture taken. And let’s get to work and—” He remembered suddenly. “And call up Hendenfelder. To ask about Pearl Durzy.”

A cheerful voice called, “Yoo-hoo!” from the far side of the garden wall. It was Mrs. Waldo Hibbing, waving at them cordially. Bingo walked over to the wall, wondering how long she’d been watching.

“Well!” she said. “Gracious! For newcomers, you two boys certainly have a lot of visitors!”

“We were taking pictures,” Bingo said. From where she’d been, she couldn’t have seen money and cards changing hands. “We collect faces. Interesting faces. And while we’re getting established here, we’re collecting as many faces as we can.” It sounded lame even to him, but it was the best he could do in a hurry. He handed her one of their business cards and said, “We found our office space today. Lovely little building in Beverly Hills.”

She looked at the card and said, “My!” Then she flashed a toothy smile at him. “Maybe you could get me taken on a studio tour sometime! I’ve wanted to go on one ever since I came to Hollywood!”

“Gladly,” Bingo said, wondering just how it could be done. That, and TV show tickets for the man in the Hawaiian shirt. “Of course, right now we’re pretty rushed—”

“I can see you are!” she said. “And heavens! I saw the papers this morning! Imagine a thing like that happening right after you moved in here!”