The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery (23 page)

My phone, of course, was ringing by the time I reached the office. I knew the ringing wouldn’t let up, so I took my sweet time unlocking the inner office door and casually tossed my hat on the moose head.

Lee Factor was practically incoherent.

“LeVine? LeVine?”

“LeVine here.”

“Is this possible, this nonsense I just got in an envelope. How dumb can you be? How dumb can any human … to think that a half-assed stunt like.… Listen, who do you think you’re dealing with here—answer me—some guy from the sticks, somebody you caught fucking a chicken? Listen to me. Savage on the radio telling America his daughter made blue movies in Holl.… Listen to me. It’s a joke. I almost feel sorry and that’s the truth. I almost feel sor …”

“Why don’t you take a cold shower, Lee? I can’t make out a word you’re saying.”

I hung up and picked my teeth until the phone rang again.

“What’s the meaning of hanging up on me? What’s.… I represent the president of the United States of America.”

“Remind me to change my citizenship.”

“What’s the meaning of that? What’s this press release? What is it?”

“Read it.”

“I’ve read it a lot. Savage is making a ridiculous speech over nationwide radio.”

“Correct. Return the prints and negatives and he won’t. Don’t and he will. It’s as clear and simple as the blue, blue sky.”

“Don’t talk cutesy with me, LeVine. It doesn’t become you, not a bit. And neither does this release. I thought you had brains. I thought you had guts. But this dumbass …”

I had had enough.

“Quit wasting my time! If you think the release is a fake call up EAF and ask them what’s on their log for July 4th at ten. Why should we bluff if we’ve got you by the nuts?”

“That’s very funny, LeVine. Very, very funny, in fact. Savage’s entire reputation is at stake, his vast apparatus shaken by a slimy scandal like this, and you’ve got
us
by the nuts? You’re a comedian.”

“Fine. I’m a comedian. He’ll go on the radio, admit to an indiscretion on the part of his young daughter, since reformed, and indict the Democratic party to such an extent that FDR couldn’t carry the Bronx against Hitler. Your neck’s in a noose, Factor, so don’t bore me with threats to Savage’s reputation. It’s the bunk. Return those films and save yourself a lot of heartache. Be thankful you have an out.”

His voice went weird.

“Thankful,” he whispered. “You’ll never have the satisfaction. The films stay with me. There’s no radio show. You understand?”

He hung up. Straitjacket City and I didn’t like it at all. Factor was crazy enough to hold on to the films at all costs. “You’ll never have the satisfaction.” Like a bank robber trapped on a rooftop, or a captain standing with his arms folded as his ship checks out for keeps. Factor was capable of ripping up the release and telling no one about it. I called the Waldorf and asked if General Redlin was still there. They put me through to his suite. A lady answered. Some lady.

“Yes?” she sang. The voice was the richest honey of the brightest Southern flower.

“Hi, honey. Is General Redlin there?” She giggled girlishly and put her hand over the mouthpiece. When she spoke, she was still giggling. “He’s indisposed.”

“I can imagine. Tell him to get his pants on and come to the phone. It’s Jack LeVine.”

She wasn’t offended in the least, not this tootsie.

“I should say you’ve got quite a nerve but you sound like a perfect darling,” she crooned. Then she called over to Redlin. “General, it’s someone named Jack Levine.”

“LeVine,” I told her. “Like Hollywood and Vine.”

“You from Hollywood, honey?”

Redlin grabbed the phone.

“Hello, LeVine?” he barked.

“Who’s she, the third front?”

“You call to be smutty?”

“I called to do you a favor. I think Factor’s brains are turning to applesauce.”

“He’s high-strung.”

“Is that what they call it in the army? Yesterday he took a shot at me.”

“WHAT?” Redlin’s teeth practically came through the mouthpiece.

“He missed by a mile but it’s the thought that counts. Today I sent him a press release concerning Eli Savage’s radio speech and he went flat crazy over the phone.”

“Radio speech? LeVine, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Savage is going to tell the whole story over a national hook-up unless the films are returned by July 4th. Factor didn’t tell you?”

“No he didn’t.”

“That figures. You have a courier at your disposal, I trust?”

“Naturally.”

“Send him to my office. 1651 Broadway. I’ll give him a copy of the release.”

The courier, a ramrod-straight lad of about twenty, arrived within ten minutes. He knocked twice, walked in and stood at attention before my desk. He saluted.

“At ease,” I told him. “It’s on the desk.”

He clicked his heels and picked the envelope off the desk, then saluted again, turned on his heels and exited. I laughed out loud and began my wait for a response.

It turned out to be a very long wait.

T
HURSDAY PASSED BY
soundlessly. I tried Redlin late in the afternoon and was told he was in conference. I called Quaker National in Philly and informed Miss Durham that she could tell her boss the situation was unchanged. I asked her how Anne was. She told me that Anne was on a slow train to the Savage mountain retreat in Aspen, Colorado, where she would remain for the rest of the summer.

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“Mr. Savage would like you to be his guest there at the conclusion of this case.”

“The successful conclusion.”

“We trust it will be successful.”

“Can I bring a friend?”

“Of course.” Then she surprised me. “If you had no friend, the president would have provided one.”

“At what interest?”

You’ll love her comeback. “I’ll give the president your message.”

That was Thursday.

Friday morning was spent going through my files, chuckling over old reports, looking at my watch and staring at the phone. It sat on my desk as silently as a brick. Around noon I broke down and tried Redlin, only to be again told that he was tied up in meetings.

Friday afternoon. My office was so dead the moose head must have thought it was midnight. Savage called once, less than delighted over developments. I told him to sit tight.

The weekend was the long Independence Day break, a four-day affair. Kitty and I went to Rockaway on Saturday, along with everybody else, and managed to find a postage stamp of beach on which to place our folding chairs. We held hands and went into the water. It was pretty cold; Kitty squealed prettily and I hopped up and down, and was glad to get out again. Teenagers played “running bases” in the sand, we laughed at the fat men in their droopy trunks, and a handful of bathing beauties showed off their bodies, making their boyfriends very proud. There were lots of children shrieking and weeping, a lot of parents cupping their hands around their mouths and shouting names. We ate hot dogs and our soft drinks spilled noiselessly into the sand. Gulls flapped about and the waves made that noise that makes you feel so small. America. Rockaway. Fourth of July. You know all about it, that mixture of ease and pain. You try to relax completely but your failures infiltrate the heat and the blue sky. Past mistakes and dead relatives share your blanket.

In the evening, Kitty and I went to see an okay movie with Red Skelton and Esther Williams. We sat in the balcony and necked, then went home and made a lot of love.

“You need a woman’s touch in this house, LeVine,” Kitty told me. I covered her mouth with a kiss, and we laughed and rolled over again.

I managed to keep the case out of mind while listening to the Yankee-White Sox doubleheader on Sunday. Kitty read the paper, did the crossword, listened to the phonograph. We found ourselves retiring to the bedroom once more.

“This is starting to get interesting, shamus,” she whispered into my ear.

“You are good company,” I told her. “You’d probably always be good company.”

Then the phone rang and the holiday was over.

“LeVine?” It was Factor. His voice was unmistakable, despite a loud humming over the line.

“Where are you calling from, Factor? This is a terrible connection.”

“It’s not important.” He sounded tenser than ever. “Listen, I understand you attempted to contact General Redlin on two occasions Friday.”

I said nothing.

“Is that true?”

“A bookie friend asked me to call him and get odds on the battle for Minsk.”

“Redlin’s out of the picture, LeVine.”

“What means ‘out’?”

“‘Out’ means the South Pacific. He and General Watts were ordered back there yesterday.”

“Is that why you called, to clear the order with me?”

“I’m laughing, LeVine. I am on the floor. I called to relay that information because I suspected you figured Redlin to be the weak link in the operation, the man whose fears you could play upon. And you figured right, LeVine. Your instincts were correct. He is a military man, not a politician. He does things precisely, he plays the percentages, he stays away from high risks.”

“Not like you.”

“Goddamn right not like me. I’m in this for keeps.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, I can’t see how a couple of stag movies are worth giving the election away. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes sense because there won’t be any speech.”

“Factor, I cannot believe you are serious. This is absolute insanity on your part.”

He gave me a nasty little laugh.

“You’ll see how serious I am, LeVine. By the way, your friend Warren Butler took a slow boat to Paraguay last night. He’s going to be an ambassador. You see what executive power means? What you can do?”

“It’s marvelous. I hope the young men of Paraguay have been forewarned. Sodomy should make great advances down there.”

“You know what you are, LeVine? A goddamn moralist. All you private dicks are the same: tough talk and bullshit on the outside. Inside, you’re a bunch of old ladies.”

“You’re a crazy man,” I said.

“Good night” was what he said.

T
UESDAY NIGHT
at eight o’clock, Savage sat in my office, ashen with worry. It was the Fourth of July.

“I knew this would happen. They’ve got us with our pants down.”

He was sitting in the overstuffed client’s chair that faces my desk. When he lit up a pipe, I could see how very shaky he was. I thought of Kerry Lane’s first visit, ages ago. We had come full circle.

“And you’re definitely unwilling to spill the beans tonight?”

The remaining color drained from his face. Even his hair seemed to turn whiter.

“But we don’t really have the air time.”

“We could still take it.”

He thought that one over. “Do we have the evidence to make it stick? Hard evidence?”

That was the show-stopper: there were no letters, nothing signed, nothing deposited.