Let's All Kill Constance (Crumley Mysteries 3)

“I know, I know,” Crumley growled.

In half an hour we had thirty years of Academy annuals paper-clipped.

“Ethel, Carlotta, Suzanne, Clara, Helen,” I read.

“Constance can’t hate them all.”

“Chances are,” said Henry. “What else she got in her bookshelves?”

An hour later we found some actors’ reference albums, crammed with pictures, going way back. One with a legend up front giving the name J. Wallington Bradford. I read, “A.k.a. Tallullah Two, a.k.a. Swanson, Gloria in Excelsius, a.k.a. Funny Face.”

A quiet bell sounded in the back of my head.

I opened another album and read: “Alberto Quickly. Fast flimflammery. Plays all parts Great Expectations. Acts A Christmas Carol, Christmas Carol’s Scrooge, Marley, Three Christmases, Fezziwig. Saint Joan, unburned. Alberto Quickly. Quick Change. Born: 1895. At liberty.” The quiet bell sounded again.

“Hold on,” I said. I felt myself murmuring. “Pictures, mirrors, and now here’s a guy, Bradford, who is all women. And then here’s another guy, Quickly, who is all men, every man.” The bell faded. “Did Constance know them?”

Like a sleepwalker I moved to pick up Constance’s Book of the Dead.

There it was.

Bradford on one page, near the beginning of the book.

Quickly toward the end.

“But no red circles around the names. So? Are they alive or dead?”

“Why not go see,” said Henry.

Lightning struck. The lights failed again.

In the dark, Henry said, “Don’t tell me, let me guess.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Crumley dropped us by the old apartment house and ran.

“Now,” said Henry, “what are we doing here?”

Inside, I glanced up the three-story stairwell. “Searching for Marlene Dietrich alive and well.”

Before I even knocked on the door, I caught the perfume through the paneling. I sneezed and knocked.

“Dear God,” a voice said. “I haven’t a thing to wear.”

The door opened and a billowing butterfly kimono stood there with a Victorian relic inside, squirming to make it fit. It stopped squirming and tape-measured my shoes, my knee bones, my shoulders, and finally eye to eye.

“J. Wallington Bradford?” I cleared my throat. “Mr. Bradford?”

“Who’s asking?” the creature in the doorway wondered. “Jesus. Come in. Come in. And who’s this other thing?”

“I’m the boy’s Seeing Eye.” Henry probed the air. “That a chair? Think I’ll sit. Sure smells strong in here. Nothing personal.”

The kimono let loose a blizzard of confetti in its lungs and waved us in with a grand sweep of its sleeve. “I hope it isn’t business that brings you here. Sit, while Mama pours gin. Big or small?”

Before I could speak he had filled a big glass with clear Bombay blue crystal liquor. I sipped.

“That’s a good boy,” said Bradford. “You staying five minutes or the night? My God, he’s blushing. Is this about Rattigan?”