Alan Handley - Kiss Your Elbow

“Why yes, I find myself rather in charge. Tomorrow, three o’clock, the Henderson Funeral Home.” He turned to me. “I’d appreciate it if you would be a pallbearer and help get the casket to the station. Her niece is coming up from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to take the body back there for burial.”

I said I’d be glad to. As a matter of fact, I was very flattered that he had asked me.

“If you were a friend of hers, Mrs. Lanson, perhaps you’d like to come, too?”

“Thank you,” said Maggie. “I would, very much.” She stood up. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Frobisher, and good luck on your show.”

I left money for the drinks and a tip on the table, making a mental note to nail Maggie for her share. Mr. Frobisher stood up with us.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Lanson, and thank you.” He looked at me. “Goodbye.” I got my hat and coat from Renee and it wasn’t till we got out on Forty-fourth Street that I realized that in spite of my blue-shirt lead performance, Mr. Frobisher didn’t even know my name.

MAGGIE REALLY NEEDN’T have been in such a hurry to leave even if her plaster was itching. After all, it wasn’t every day I got the chance to have a drink with a producer and she shouldn’t have blatted out that I had an appointment with Nellie that morning and I told her so.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, angel, but you were rather tiresome about it. All that nail rigmarole. Besides, my bottom hurts like blazes.”

We started walking toward Broadway, and I began to feel ashamed of myself. Actually, what difference did it make to me? I had missed out on a job. That’s happened before. But, nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling there was something fishy about it. It must have been all because of that damned Bobby LeB. I tried to explain this to Maggie.

“Then for heaven’s sake find him and get it out of your system. You won’t be happy till you do. It oughtn’t to be too difficult. Equity could tell you how many LeB.’s there are—if he’s an actor, and I can’t imagine anyone willingly setting foot in Nellie’s rats’ nest unless he were. Incidentally, with all your starry-eye-making at Frobisher, we forgot to eat. Let’s go into Walgreen’s.”

As we tried to weave through the mob of bobby-sox autograph hunters waiting for the Paramount performers to come out of the stage door, one of the more unappetizing ones disengaged herself from the rest of the covey, sauntered over, and stood right in front of me shoving a grimy autograph book and pen in my face. She wore the usual year-round uniform: saddle shoes, plaid skirt and sweater.

“Sign here, will you?” she commanded. “And make it ‘To Bertha Oliphant with love.’”

“Why do you want my autograph?” I asked. “I’m not famous.”

“You’re an actor, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Sign here.” Pleased, I signed with protestations of undying love to Bertha Oliphant.

“Jeez, thanks,” she said when she read my love note. “That’s swell.” She started to go back.

“Don’t you want mine, too?” asked Maggie.

“What for?” asked Bertha.

“I’m an actress,” said Maggie.

“Don’t give me that stuff, lady. And paper costs money.”

“What makes you think I’m not an actress?”

“Listen, lady,” said Bertha patiently, “it’s the mink. If you’re an actress and got a mink coat, I know you. And I don’t know you.” This put Maggie in her place.

“But why did you want my autograph?” I asked. “You don’t know me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m different, see. I’m what you might call a speculator. Them other jerks over there—” she tossed her head in the direction of the other autograph hounds “—they just get people already famous.” She sniffed contemptuously. “I think you gotta look ahead. How do I know, someday you might amount to something.”

“Do you stop everybody that comes along this street?” I asked her. I was starting to get an idea.

“Of course not. Only people who look like they’re gonna be something.”

“Thank you, I’m sure,” said Maggie.

“You’re doin’ all right, kid,” said Bertha, eyeing the mink.

“Were you here this morning?” I asked her.

“Sure I was.”

“Could you let me see the ones you collected this morning?”

“What for?” Bertha asked suspiciously. “You want to buy some? If you’re in the market I got some exclusives, home.”

“I want to see if somebody passed by about eleven o’clock.”

“What’s the name? Lots of people passed here.”

“Bobby LeB.,” I said, “I don’t know his last name, just LeB.”

“Why, Timmy, aren’t you clever,” said Maggie.

“It’s just a chance.” But Bertha squelched it.

“Nope. No Bobby LeB.’s this morning. Never heard of him.”

“Can I see your book anyway?”

“I tell you I ain’t got no Bobby LeB., or whatever the hell his name is, so you’re just wasting my time.” It took a dollar to persuade her. “Okay. This part here’s the ones I got this morning.”

There were only about seven, and I was disgusted to see that just before mine was Ted Kent’s. The third sheet down, however, was blank with an inky smear across it as though a pen had been dug into it. I asked Bertha what that was for.

“Oh, that lousy rat. Damn near ruined my fountain pen. New one, too.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he got snotty when I asked him to sign. Wish I’d belted him.” She looked like she was just the girl that could do it.

“Do you remember what he looked like?” I practically had on my two-visored cap and a meerschaum.

“Sure I do. Never forget him. Had on them dark glasses, kinda peaky. You know.”

“Harlequin…Yes, go on.”

“Yeah, well he had on a pair of them harlequin gimmicks and a polo coat, and he was carrying a box. A big one. He jabbed me with it while I was holding up my book and new pen. Ruined the whole sheet.”

“Why did you ask him to sign in the first place? Did he look important?”

“Well, not important, maybe. Different sort of.”

“How different?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Just different. You have to know about things like that. I can’t tell you exactly. Oh—oh…here comes Charlie.” She snatched back the book and was off in hot pursuit. We started again for Walgreen’s. Perhaps I was getting somewhere. The time was right….

“Honestly, Tim.” Maggie looked at me admiringly. “You amaze me.”

“I amaze myself, sometimes,” I said modestly for what I considered a tasty bit of sleuthing. A murderer would be nasty about signing his name.

“But it’s so silly. In the first place this Bobby may not look like an actor at all.”

“He’d have to with that name.”

“It’s perfectly asinine to expect that rude little girl would ask him for his autograph.”

“Just because she didn’t want yours is no reason…”

“What’s more, there are at least three other ways he could have gone—west toward Eighth Avenue, through Shubert Alley and on the other side of this street. For that matter he might have taken a taxi.” I wasn’t feeling quite so pleased with myself now.

“Maggie, do you honestly believe it is all as simple as they say? Heart failure?”

“I don’t believe anything about it, one way or the other. It’s none of my affair nor, actually, is it yours, now. I always thought playing Private Eye would be sheer heaven. But you know how silly the whole idea is. You’re just getting out of character, darling. Stick to your top hat and cigarettes and don’t try making with the derby and cigars. Go ahead, try and find your Bobby LeB., if it’s going to keep you awake nights. That’s perfectly harmless, but leave that other stuff to the boys who can’t dance divinely, or you’ll get in trouble.”