Samuel Holt - The Fourth Dimension is Death

The plot construction of this trash was based on the known prejudices of the potential audience, which would mostly be middle-aged theater parties from Connecticut. These people liked stories of extramarital titillation, particularly among people of power or glamour — a United States senator, a television news anchor — but they didn’t like stories that doubted the essential correctness of the social order. The situation at the beginning of the story could include adultery and a ménage à trois, but by the end the characters must have rearranged themselves into traditional couples. (Since most of the audience would themselves have gone through at least one divorce, the traditional couple no longer needed to be the first-time couple.)

Rita Colby didn’t want me to have a copy of the script, since protocol required the other principals be consulted first, but she described it rather extensively, quoting — very well, in fact — some of her own better lines. Partway through this exercise, Kay Henry plaintively said, “Rita, darling, I really do have other things to do. Must you take over my office like this?”

“Oh, all right,” she agreed, without fuss, and got to her feet, saying, “We’ll go up front, then.” To me, she said, “Do you have time for this?”

“I sure do,” I told her, grinning and grinning. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” And here was a point where Ed Dante and I converged and became one.

After thanking Kay Henry for all his help, shaking his hand a little too fervently and grinning all over him, I followed Rita Colby back down the hall and through the door into the waiting area, where her presence caused a little flurry among the campers and Miss Colinville briefly lifted an ironic eyebrow before deciding to ignore me. It was nearly five by now, so fewer people were hanging around, but the cozy clubby atmosphere remained the same.

We crossed the waiting room, Rita Colby opened the door that had so interested me before, and I followed her into a neat but impersonal studio apartment; with, as I’d guessed, windows overlooking the street. The place looked like an upscale hotel room, with a kitchenette in one corner. A kingsize bed dominated the right side of the room, a seating area with couch and two armchairs grouped around a glass coffee table filled the left. Traffic noise was suddenly audible.

Closing the door after us, Rita Colby said, “Do you want a Coke? Perrier?”

“Terrier would be good,” I said, dropping out of character — though not badly — while I looked around the room. “What is this place?”

On her way to the kitchenette, opening the low refrigerator — well-stocked with snack foods and nonalcoholic beverages — she said, “A kind of crash pad, really. Kay lives upstate. If he stays in town, for a show or anything, he’ll sleep over here. And the same thing if one of his clients needs a place.”

I said, “Do all of his clients get that privilege?”

She gave me a knowing smile, neither of us looking toward the door and the chattering fellas and gals outside. “Not all,” she said. “Here’s your Perrier.”

“Thanks.” I took the bottle and glass from her hands.

She stood looking at me, a can of Diet Coke now in her hand. “You’re not quite what you seem, are you?” she asked.

Whoops. Time to get back in character: grinning my awful grin, I said, “I’m a man of parts, I am. And a man of mystery. And here’s looking at you, kid.” I clinked my glass against the Diet Coke can and slugged back some of the Perrier, managing to make a little noise while I did it.

When next I looked at Rita Colby, that little moment of interest had come to an end; she was turning away, toward the sofa and chairs. “Come sit down,” she said. “Where was I in the story?”

“The wife has decided to kill me.”

“Oh, yes. Come sit down.”

So then she told me the rest of the story, and explained my part in it: “The thing is, he’s this younger guy that both women fall in love with, so he should be a hunk, and when the audience first sees him they should think that’s all there is to him. But then , for the wife to credibly go off with him at the end, we have to see there’s more to the guy than that. Dale Wormley would have done it very well, he would have brought that edge of his to the part. You didn’t know him, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” I offered my dopey grin again. “Julie Kaplan thinks he was a terrific guy.”

“Not exactly,” she said. “He was pretty sour, in fact, but he could use that anger in his work, it could make him seem as though there were depths there.” With a small smile and a dismissive shrug, she said, “For all I know, there were depths there.” Then, studying me critically, she said, “You know, you really should get rid of that moustache.”

“Really?” I made myself sound sad at the prospect. “Some women tell me they like it,” I said, and sparkled a bit.

“Some women like beehive hairdos, Ed.” She shook her head, continuing to study me. “You know, without the moustache, and if you did something about your hair—”

“I’m not gonna shave my head! ” I exclaimed, doing a big show of mock-fear.

“We’ll get a makeup man on you, don’t you worry,” she told me. “You know, you look like Dale a bit. You don’t have that anger he had, but the features are rather similar. In fact, with just a few changes, you could look like...I’ll tell you who you could look like,” she decided. “Like that television actor Dale did the takeoff on.

Feeling very nervous, I said, “Sam Holt, you mean?”

“That’s the one.”

“Somebody told me he’s the guy that killed Dale Wormley.”

She reared back, frowning at me in astonishment. “For what earthly reason?”

“I guess, because of those supermarket commercials.”

“Because of a parody? ” Rita Colby emphatically shook her head. “That’s ridiculous,” she assured me. “Somebody mugged poor Dale because he was out on the street in the middle of the night, when he had no reason to be out there except that anger of his.”

“So it isn’t a murder mystery.”

She thought about that. “Well, it isn’t solved ,” she said. “But murders in the street don’t get solved, do they?”

In this case, I thought, that would be very bad news; for me at least. Aloud, I said, “I guess they don’t. It was just something that somebody told me.”

“Rumor,” she said, with contempt. “There was probably something in the National Enquirer .” Then she became brisk, saying, “Well, that’s the whole story of Four Square , anyway. Kay knows how to get in touch with you?”

“Sure.” This was dismissal, but rather than accept it I slouched lower in the chair, my legs stretched out, one arm flung over the chairback. Grinning lazily at Rita Colby, I said, “You know, I think you and I could be really great together, if you get what I mean.”

She was amused by me, but distantly. “I think probably I do,” she said. “Forgive me, I have another appointment.”

“That’s too bad.” I beamed my rays of sunshine into her skeptical eyes. “I thought, we’re nice and cozy here, we might get a little better acquainted.”

She nodded slowly, thinking that over, and then she gave me a level look and said, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Ed, but if you’re going to be offered the part of Clint, and if you’re going to take it, we really should understand one another.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” I told her, cheerful as a puppy.

“I’m glad you agree.”

I played dumb, spreading my hands, saying, “So what’s the point?”