dutiful if not inspired dick, I searched the house, knowing full well that I wouldn’t find the films. Those cartons Mrs. Rogers had seen her neighbor carry out weren’t filled with linen and silver service, that was for goddamn sure. But I looked anyway. I swept the peanut shells from the couch cover and its corduroy folds yielded the empty foils of a condom. At least the guy had some company. There were Clark bar wrappers in the fireplace and also a ball of paper which turned out to be an envelope addressed to someone named Al Rubine. The name didn’t mean a thing to me.
My search of the “master” bedroom, a twelve-by-eighteen box which had once been painted coral, uncovered nothing. There was a rocking chair with a torn undershirt draped across one of its arms. When I touched the arm, it fell right off. An empty condom box—my respect for this guy was steadily increasing—lay under the bed. I opened the closet and found a half-dozen empty wire hangers. Then I went into the kitchen.
On the kitchen floor I found Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
He was neatly clipped and trimmed, and I found him shaking hands with a banker named Eli W. Savage. The newspaper photo was resting under a chair leg and it struck me as the second interesting discovery of the afternoon, the first being “Friend of the Arts’” no show. I couldn’t tell what newspaper it was from, although Philly seemed a good enough bet. There was a fat caption which read: “New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was greeted at the Philadelphia Bankers Association dinner last night by Quaker National Bank prexy Eli W. Savage, chairman of the association. Savage is being mentioned as a contender for a spot in Dewey’s Cabinet, should the Republican hopeful go to the White House. The governor stressed the invaluable contribution the banking community has made to the war effort.” Amen. If they stopped bothering me about my bum checks, they could all be canonized as saints. Bastards.
I sat down on a kitchen chair and looked the clipping over carefully, checking both sides to see if there were any markings or notes. There weren’t. On the back of the clipping was half an advertisement for a sporting goods store—“Tennis Racket Bazaar”—but I somehow didn’t think that tennis was the clue. It was this picture of Dewey and a banker and it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense any way you figured it. Except maybe one way, and that meant somebody was playing a very high-stakes blackmail game, maybe with a banker, big enough to pull him away from a ten-grand date with Warren Butler. It didn’t seem like a very satisfactory way for this case to stand right now, but as long as the somebody had his Kerry Lane film stashed away in those cartons of shakedown bait, he could always call us again, on a rainy day.
There was a phone in the kitchen. I picked it up and was delighted to find it was still connected, so I dialed the operator and got her to connect me with Warren Butler’s office.
“Warren Butler Productions,” came eight syllables of careful modulation. Sitting in this Smithtown dump, I felt like I was calling Hollywood.
“Eileen, fire of my loins, tell Mr. Butler that Jack LeVine is on the line.”
“Oh yes, Mr. LeVine. Mr. Butler told me that if you called, I should ask you to come directly to his office. He doesn’t wish to discuss any aspect of this matter over the telephone.”
“Tell him if he doesn’t come to the phone, he’ll never see me in that office again. This isn’t the goddamn movies.”
“You don’t have to berate me, Mr. LeVine. I merely told you what Mr. Butler’s request was.” Eileen sounded a little hurt. Just a little.
“I’m not blaming you, dear. Just put him on.”
There was a pause, while I hung suspended in the limbo of “hold,” on the borderline between communication and extinction. I listened to a dull kind of hum. As long as it was on “Friend of the Arts’” tab, I could wait for a while.
Butler
My search of the “master” bedroom, a twelve-by-eighteen box which had once been painted coral, uncovered nothing. There was a rocking chair with a torn undershirt draped across one of its arms. When I touched the arm, it fell right off. An empty condom box—my respect for this guy was steadily increasing—lay under the bed. I opened the closet and found a half-dozen empty wire hangers. Then I went into the kitchen.
On the kitchen floor I found Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
He was neatly clipped and trimmed, and I found him shaking hands with a banker named Eli W. Savage. The newspaper photo was resting under a chair leg and it struck me as the second interesting discovery of the afternoon, the first being “Friend of the Arts’” no show. I couldn’t tell what newspaper it was from, although Philly seemed a good enough bet. There was a fat caption which read: “New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was greeted at the Philadelphia Bankers Association dinner last night by Quaker National Bank prexy Eli W. Savage, chairman of the association. Savage is being mentioned as a contender for a spot in Dewey’s Cabinet, should the Republican hopeful go to the White House. The governor stressed the invaluable contribution the banking community has made to the war effort.” Amen. If they stopped bothering me about my bum checks, they could all be canonized as saints. Bastards.
I sat down on a kitchen chair and looked the clipping over carefully, checking both sides to see if there were any markings or notes. There weren’t. On the back of the clipping was half an advertisement for a sporting goods store—“Tennis Racket Bazaar”—but I somehow didn’t think that tennis was the clue. It was this picture of Dewey and a banker and it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense any way you figured it. Except maybe one way, and that meant somebody was playing a very high-stakes blackmail game, maybe with a banker, big enough to pull him away from a ten-grand date with Warren Butler. It didn’t seem like a very satisfactory way for this case to stand right now, but as long as the somebody had his Kerry Lane film stashed away in those cartons of shakedown bait, he could always call us again, on a rainy day.
There was a phone in the kitchen. I picked it up and was delighted to find it was still connected, so I dialed the operator and got her to connect me with Warren Butler’s office.
“Warren Butler Productions,” came eight syllables of careful modulation. Sitting in this Smithtown dump, I felt like I was calling Hollywood.
“Eileen, fire of my loins, tell Mr. Butler that Jack LeVine is on the line.”
“Oh yes, Mr. LeVine. Mr. Butler told me that if you called, I should ask you to come directly to his office. He doesn’t wish to discuss any aspect of this matter over the telephone.”
“Tell him if he doesn’t come to the phone, he’ll never see me in that office again. This isn’t the goddamn movies.”
“You don’t have to berate me, Mr. LeVine. I merely told you what Mr. Butler’s request was.” Eileen sounded a little hurt. Just a little.
“I’m not blaming you, dear. Just put him on.”
There was a pause, while I hung suspended in the limbo of “hold,” on the borderline between communication and extinction. I listened to a dull kind of hum. As long as it was on “Friend of the Arts’” tab, I could wait for a while.
Butler
Similar Books
