Murder can be fun aka a.., p.7
Murder Can Be Fun # aka A Plot for Murder, page 7
“It's about radio. Lookit, Mr. Tracy, I — well, I always wondered whether I could get into it someday. Radio acting, I mean. My wife — lots of people tell me I got a good voice. Not for singing, I don't mean; I can't carry a tune any farther'n I could throw a squad car.
“But when I was a kid, I took elocution lessons, and used to be pretty good at reciting stuff. What do you think, Mr. Tracy, is there a chance, I could get a tryout?”
“Well — I don't—”
“Y'see, I wanted to ask you about that — you don't need to answer right away — and then I wanted to ask you about Millie's Millions, too. I was talking to my wife over the phone and she got all excited when she learned I'd met the guy who wrote it. She wanted ,me to pump you what's going to happen about this bank shortage business. And other stuff.”
He grinned suddenly. “That's my excuse for getting home late tonight, if I do. My wife'll think I'm in good company if I'm with you, see? Anyway, if I give her some advance dope on Millie's Millions. That's a swell serial, Mr. Tracy.”
“You listen to it, too?”
“Whenever I can. That's not all the time because I work kind of screwy hours, sometimes all night and then off the next day, so when I'm home at that time of day I listen, if I'm awake. If I miss some days, like today, my wife tells me what happened. What did happen today, by the way?”
“Reggie got laryngitis.”
“The hell,” said Corey. “That's going to complicate things plenty, what with that shortage at the bank. And the examiners coming. How bad's he got it?”
“He'll be all right next week,” Tracy said. “You heard me talking to the doc over the phone from my place. Remember?”
“Huh?”
Tracy laughed. “My fault, Sarge; I was talking about the actor who plays Reggie. He's got a sore throat, and that's why I had to give Reggie Mereton laryngitis in the script. He couldn't talk if the actor who plays the role couldn't, see?”
“Oh, sure. But if he's sick, how's he going to square things at the bank, even if he and Millie can raise the dough to cover it?”
“Well — Say, Sarge, where are we going?”
“I was sort of heading toward Mamie's Place. Nice quiet spot to talk, and the drinks are good. Okay?”
“Mamie's Place it is. Drive on, Macduff.”
“But how's he going to get the dough back into the bank before the examiners come?”
“Confidentially, Sarge, I don't know.”
“You don't know? And you write it? You're kidding me, Mr. Tracy. Say, I bet I know how it is. They're shorthanded at the bank, and Millie offers to help out while Reggie's sick, because she isn't doing anything right now anyway, and she's had experience as a cashier — wasn't that about a year ago? — so she takes over his job there. And she tries to put the money back. And then — say, I'll bet you know what trouble's coming up from that!
“This here other teller — the one Reggie hates — I'll bet he catches Millie at putting the money back or fixing up the books, and he's kind of stuck on Millie, isn't he? So how's this for a guess? He'll try to blackmail Millie into marrying him so he won't give Reggie away and get him sent to jail. So that's how the next trouble Millie's going to be in will start, even before she gets the last one fixed up altogether. Is that a good guess, Mr. Tracy?”
Tracy took a deep breath and le it out slowly. He fumbled out a cigarette and lighted it.
He said, “Sergeant Corey, you are a genius.”
“You're kidding me, Mr. Tracy.”
“Tracy to you; forget this mister business, Sarge. How far to Mamie's Place?”
“Two more blocks is all. We're almost there.”
“Then don't spare the horses. We're in for a large evening. Your wife won't know you when you get home.”
“Swell.”
“Exactly. And I shall hold forth at length on your chances of getting into radio, and how to go about it. And you, Sarge, you keep right on guessing things that are going to happen in Millie's Millions.”
And that was the night of the second day.
The following day was Thursday. Tracy's alarm clock yanked him out at nine o'clock. He groaned and kept his eyes open, knowing that if he closed them again, he was gone. Outside, it was raining hard.
He got to the studio at ten-fifteen, which was pretty good time for the shape he was in.
Wilkins looked worried. “I just called your number, Tracy. When nobody answered I hoped you were on your way.”
Tracy said, “There's plenty of time. Got a swell idea, Mr. Wilkins — even if it wasn't my own. A friend of mine suggested it last night. Listen.” He gave a quick outline of Corey's guess as to what was going to happen.
Wilkins took off his pince-nez glasses and polished them thoughtfully. Then he said, “I'm afraid not. We can't use it, Mr. Tracy.”
“What? Why not?”
“Millie is our heroine. She can't commit an illegal act, like finagling with the money and the accounts at a bank. It makes her an — ah — accessory to the crime her brother committed. Our sponsor would not like it.”
“That's silly. She's putting the money back; she isn't swiping it.”
“But she'd have to tamper with the accounts. You've already revealed that Reggie falsified some of them to cover his — ah — peculation temporarily. Putting the money back would be futile unless she tampered with the accounts also. And the heroine of a serial can't do that, of course. By the way, what happened to your chin?”
Tracy said bitterly, “I ran into a Pole. The hell with my chin, Wilkins. I think you're wrong on this. Hell, isn't Millie involved just the same if she raises the money for Reggie to put back? She knows he did it; that makes her an accomplice anyway. It's just a matter of degree, dammit.”
“Of course, but degree can be important There isn't any such thing as absolute perfection, of course, but a serial's heroine must come as near to it as is practicable. Nothing — be perfect.”
“Except our sponsor s product.
“I'm serious, Mr. Tracy. Now take the biological urge—”
“Huh?” Tracy opened his eyes a little wider to stare at the program manager. He hadn't thought Wilkins would know a biological urge from an opium yen. In fact, if there were any little Wilkinses — which, as far as he knew, there weren't — Tracy would have suspected parthenogenesis. “The what?”
“The biological urge,” Wilkins repeated firmly. “I mean, of course, in the broader sense, and applied to radio serial heroines, to illustrate what I meant about things being a matter of degree. What I started out to say was that kissing a man and — ah — having more intimate relations with him is also only a matter of degree.”
“Quite a few degrees.”
“Yet both are manifestations of the — ah — biological urge and the heroine can do one but not the other.”
Tracy grinned. “Even if she's married?”
“In that case,” Wilkins explained seriously, “the more intimate relations could be assumed, but not — ah — put on the air.”
“I suppose not. But what's that got to do with the bank business?”
“Purely an analogy, Mr. Tracy. If you'd been less interested in being facetious, you'd have seen the point. Raising money to give Reggie is one thing; attempting to forge entries in bank accounts is another. Don't you see the difference in degree?”
Tracy sighed. “I see what you mean, but I can't say I agree. Can't we put it up to our sponsor?”
“I fear not; he's on a hunting trip in Maine. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it.”
Tracy sighed again. He said, “You're the boss. Okay, so we'll have to go back to doctoring up the current scripts and stalling things along till Dick gets back. I'll have to have the bank examiners postpone their visit — which is strictly an act-of-God gimmick and I hate it. But today's script will be easy, anyway.”
“Of course. And what is your next sequence going to be, after the bank business is cleared up?”
“I haven't an idea. I'll put one on the fire to simmer, as soon as today's script is out of the way. Maybe I can work the blackmail idea just the same if the villainous teller catches Reggie in the act instead of Millie. Won't be as strong, though. By the . way, when is Dineen's funeral?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. From his home in Queens. You know where it is?”
“Yes, I was out there once. I'm going to try to make the funeral. By the way, is Dotty around? Might as well get today's script over with.”
Dotty was ready and waiting. Tracy took her to the same office they'd used the day before, and got to work.
Revamping the script wasn't as easy as he figured it would be, but there wasn't quite such a rush this time, so it didn't matter so much.
On a few doubtful points, Dotty made suggestions. They were intelligent ones. After about the third of these, Tracy looked at her in surprise.
He said, “Wilkins said you wanted to write. But he didn't tell me you really could. Can you?”
She dimpled at him. “I hope so, Mr. Tracy. It's my real ambition, to write radio scripts. It's why I got a job here, so I could be near real writers, like you, and learn from them. I wonder if sometime you'd like to look over some of the scripts I've tried on my own, and if you'd tell me what you think of them?”
Tracy, of course, said he'd be glad to.
There is one thing to be said about all male writers — at least those under eighty — whether they write fiction, fact, continuity, or what have you. They are always willing to extend a helping hand to the neophyte — if the neophyte is of the opposite gender and looks as though she belongs in the front row of the Follies.
And Tracy, being no exception to the rule, found himself with a date for the following evening, and with a slight ringing sensation inside his head that he might have interpreted as a warning gong, but didn't.
They finished a little after eleven-thirty, and Tracy took the script into Wilkins' office.
Wilkins skimmed through it hastily. When he finished, he nodded.
“It's fine,” he said. “Did Dotty — ah — make any suggestions? Good ones, I mean.”
“Yes,” Tracy told him. “She made several, and they were all good. Maybe she really can write. Have you seen anything she's done?”
“No, but Mr. Dineen told me that she has sold a few short stories — I believe he said it was to the love pulp magazines. So she must have some ability. It will be mostly a matter, for her, of learning radio technique. The tricks of the trade, as it were.”
“I'll do my best,” Tracy told him. He turned to go.
“Ah — just a moment, Mr. Tracy. There is one thing you undoubtedly know, but I hope you will forgive me for reminding you of it.”
“I'll do my best. What do I forgive?”
“KRBY is very strict about — ah — one thing. We do not approve of any official or actor or writer taking advantage — ah — socially — of any contacts he may make at the studio.”
For a second Tracy didn't get it. Then he said, “I take it, Mr. Wilkins, that you refer to the biological urge? I can assure you Mr. Wilkins, that no character in any radio program I write would think of doing such a thing.”
He closed the door gently but firmly behind him.
CHAPTER 6
TRACY STOPPED in the washroom to straighten his tie and comb his hair before he went back to the office where he'd left Dotty.
“Mr. Wilkins like it?” she asked him.
Tracy held up his hand, thumb and forefinger forming a circle. “On the beam,” he said. “What are you typing now?”
“I hope you won't mind, Mr. Tracy. I thought I'd start — just tentatively — a rewrite of tomorrow's script. Even if I do it wrong, it might help a little. And then when you do it, I can see what's wrong with mine. Do you mind?”
“Go right ahead,” Tracy told her. “Will it make you nervous if I watch over your shoulder?”
“Not at all. You're awfully kind, Mr. Tracy.”
“I'm swell,” he admitted. “But leave off the mister, huh? Tracy, to you.”
He pulled up a chair behind hers. He watched the paper in the typewriter for a while, and then things began to distract him. Dotty's perfume, for one thing. Her left ear, for another. It was a beautiful, tender-looking little ear that peeped out coyly below her soft blonde hair. As he sat there with his chin just behind her shoulder, the ear was only a few inches from his face and he wanted, very badly, to lean forward a few inches and kiss it. Or better still, to nibble on it gently.
But that would hardly do. Ear-nibbling, even ear-kissing, is a rather advanced step for the first pass one makes at a girl. But a kiss on the soft nape of her neck — maybe he could get away with that. Nothing like finding out, anyway. And nothing like establishing their friendship on a firm non-Platonic basis at the first reasonable opportunity.
Yes, he'd chance it. Right there where the soft little golden tendrils of hair started to sweep upward.
Dotty didn't duck, nor did she turn around. She said, “What do you think we should do with this line, where Millie says to her mother, 'There goes Dale,' and then yells out the window for Dale to come in. Don't you think it's out of character for Millie to yell?”
“Huh?” said Tracy. It took him seconds to get his mind back on the script, and when it did get there, it refused to give him an answer to the question.
He said, “What would you do, if you were writing it?”
“I'd have her say, There goes Dale. I wonder if — ' And then, 'Oh, good; he's looking this way.' Then the sound effect of a window being raised, and then, faintly, his footsteps as he comes up closer, to where she can call to him without yelling, 'Dale, can you come in a minute? We want to talk to you.'“
“Not bad,” Tracy said. “Go ahead.”
“I think I can improve the wording a little. Like this—”
The typewriter keys clicked under her fingers, and Tracy read the result. He said, “That's got it. Fine.”
He walked over to the window and stood looking out. Dammit, just by ignoring that kiss on the back of her neck, Dotty had won the round more effectively than if she'd turned around and slapped his face. Hell's bells, he hadn't even taken her mind off the script. And as far as he could see, she was doing a good job on that script; not that he could get his mind on it enough to be sure.
But, of course, it wasn't creative writing. She might be terrible at that, even though she was picking up the minor mechanics fast.
An hour later, he read the finished script, penciled in a few minor changes and improvements, and said it was okay. And thank God he was now free — for a day or so anyway — to quit worrying about the current script rehashes and see if he could get an idea Wilkins, damn him, would think acceptable for the next mess Millie would find herself in.
He took Dotty to lunch and suggested a show. But she had to get back to the studio, she said. He took her back, and then stopped in the bar downstairs for a quick one before going home.
Jerry Evers — who was currently playing the head teller at the bank, and who played a lot of other minor roles — was at the bar. Tracy liked Jerry, who was the best actor of the bunch. Maybe the only real all-round actor on the program; Jerry had years of the legit back of him — minor and character roles. He'd never hit the top, and never would. His appearance was against him on the stage, and his voice was against him on the radio. Not that either was bad; but neither had the quality that makes women sigh and dream. He could act, sure. He could be convincing in any role except a star one, a romantic lead.
Tracy bought him a drink. Jerry Evers bought back, and then they decided to shake for one. After all, Tracy thought, if he didn't get home early, there'd be tonight and tomorrow morning to think about getting Millie Mereton into a new jam.
He lifted his third drink. “To crime,” he said.
Jerry clicked glasses. “To murder, Tracy.”
“Huh?”
Jerry grinned at him. A funny kind of grin. He said, “And may you always find it fun.”
Tracy hadn't been set for it, and he dropped his glass.
The crash of it on the bar made Jerry Evers jump and slosh out part of his own drink. He said, “What the hell, Tracy?”
Tracy said, “Sorry, Jerry. I'm jittery as the devil. But where'd you learn about that?”
“About your Murder Can Be Pun?” Evers looked at him incredulously. “The papers, of course. I was reading it just before you came in. Mean you didn't give them the story?”
Jerry's paper was lying on the bar, just beyond him. He picked it up and handed it to Tracy, and then while Tracy read, he signaled to the bartender for repairs and replacements.
Tracy groaned aloud as he read. Inspector Bates had given the whole story to the papers, and the papers were really making a play of it. Anyway, the Blade was.
The two-column head was:
DID RADIO WRITER SCRIPT TWO MURDERS?
Radio Scripts May
Connect Dineen and
Hrdlicka Cases
And the story started:
William Tracy, radio writer under contract to Station KRBY, claims to have written crime scripts which accurately predicted the methods used in the murder Tuesday morning of Arthur D. Dineen, program manager of KRBY, and the murder early yesterday of Frank Hrdlicka, janitor at the Smith Arms, where Mr. Tracy lives, police revealed today.
The scripts, according to Inspector Bates of the Homicide Bureau, were part of a projected series of crime stories under the title Murder Can Be Fun, and were written independently of Mr. Tracy's contractual obligations to the station.
This startling development, Inspector Bates said, seems to indicate a connection between two crimes hitherto considered... .
Tracy read it through twice. It was, he had to admit, a fair statement. There was no implication — outwardly, at any rate — that Tracy himself was suspected of any connection with the crimes. And Millie Wheeler's name was not mentioned.
Best of all, there was no mention whatsoever of the angle which made the whole thing so incredible — the fact that Tracy had shown none of the scripts to anyone until after the murders, and had written one of them less than a day before the crime which followed it was committed.
