It’s bad business to let the killer get away with it. It’s bad all around.
—Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, 1930
“WHAT’S THAT?” BRAINERT cried, startling me out of my dream.
When my eyes opened, I was no longer in Manhattan’s Little Italy. I was back in Rhode Island, inside a tent pitched in the woods.
Seymour and Brainert were still outside. By the light of the roaring campfire, I could see their silhouettes through the tent’s wall.
“What’s what?” Seymour asked.
“I . . . I thought I saw a light in the woods. Maybe a flashlight . . .”
“Maybe just the lights from the highway,” Seymour countered.
“We’ve been sitting here all night,” Brainert replied, his tone haughty. “Never once did I see lights from the highway. Why should I suddenly see them now? Anyway, the road is a quarter of a mile away, through a stretch of woods. You would need X-ray eyes to see headlights.”
Seymour chuckled, “ ‘X-Ray Eyes.’ Sounds like one of the songs from the musical Kent.”
“Ho, ho, very clever,” Brainert groused. “But I still think I saw a glow in the woods.”
“Okay, okay. Where did you see this mysterious light?”
“Over there, I think. Or maybe it was there—”
“Oh, rats!” Seymour cried. “See what you made me do? My perfectly toasted marshmallow just fell into the fire. Now it’s burning like a heretic at the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Haven’t you had enough?” Brainert cried. “You’ve eaten ten of them—”
“Twelve, Brainiac, but who’s counting?”
“We’re supposed to be standing watch, Seymour.”
“Fine. You watch the woods. I’ll watch my marshmallow.”
The bickering soon subsided, and I heard only the crackling of the fire and Seymour’s tuneless humming.
My eyelids closed once again . . .
“STEP IT UP, Penny. We’re here.”
Jack climbed out of the taxicab and helped me to the curb. He flipped the driver a quarter and told him to keep the change. The brilliant lights of old Times Square gleamed around us, and crowds of suited men and white-gloved women with stylish hats strolled the sidewalks.
We’d arrived at the Martin Beck Theater. The marquee read antony and cleopatra by william shakespeare.
“Shake a leg, doll,” Jack urged. “We’ve got a delivery to make.”
A moment later we were in a narrow alley approaching the backstage doors. The door manager spotted Jack and slid steel gates aside to admit us. He offered Jack a respectful nod as we went by.
Jack guided me through the labyrinthine halls until I spied Charlton Heston’s dressing room, and right beside it, the door marked syble zane.
Jack turned the knob and waltzed inside the cramped room. As I followed him inside he slipped off his fedora and tossed it on a chair.
The detective seemed perfectly comfortable, but the lingering scent of Syble’s perfume made me antsy. Jack checked the Bulova on his wrist.
“Show’s almost over. Miss Zane will be here in a minute or so.”
I shook my head and felt a surge of outrage. “After all the bloodshed, I wonder if Syble Zane really is the legitimate owner of those Tears. I mean, Harry gave them to Thelma Dice, and when she was killed, he sent his secretary, Phyllis Harmon, to get them back. Clearly, Harry Amsterdam was claiming ownership of those jewels.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Jack replied. “But Harry Amsterdam didn’t hire me. Miss Syble Zane did, and she has expectations.”
Then the knob turned, and Syble Zane was standing in the doorway in full Egyptian undress. When she spied us, she stopped dead, her chain-and-metal bikini clanking. She recovered her composure quickly.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Shepard.” Syble’s tone was aloof—a bold attempt to hide her obvious surprise.
“I hope you brought me some good news,” she continued, closing the door behind her.
“Better than that, Miss Zane,” a smiling Jack Shepard replied. He patted the lapel pocket under his jacket. “I brought you the goods.”
Under the Cleopatra eye makeup, Syble raised a brow in genuine surprise. Jack noted the reaction, and his smiled morphed into a smirk.
“Very impressive work, Mr. Shepard,” the actress purred. “Just how did you manage to find the Tears?”
“The same way you almost did. Yet despite pulling the trigger on a helpless woman, you couldn’t quite manage to grab the jewels. But I did.”
“Excuse me?”
“I followed Phyllis Harmon, just like you.”
Syble’s brows knitted in faux confusion and she cocked her head. Her act was strictly B movie and didn’t fool Jack, or me.
“I don’t think I understand your meaning, Mr. Shepard.”
“Sure you do,” Jack insisted. “I kept you apprised of my every move, for expenses’ sake. But that also meant only two people knew Phyllis Harmon was feeding me information. One was Penny here, and the other was you.”
“I hardly paid attention to your reports. I have a career to manage—”
Jack ran right over her words.
“You also knew Phyllis was Harry’s secretary and that she knew where the Broadway producer was, even if you and everyone else didn’t.”
“My interest was in the Tears of Valentino, Mr. Shepard.”
“But you also hired me to find Harry Amsterdam, if you’ll recall. And I did find Harry, but only after you iced him and made it look like a robbery.”
Syble Zane winced as if stung. “Well, I never—”
“Yeah, you did. You followed Phyllis Harmon all the way downtown to Luca’s deli. You jimmied the lock to number 77½ with a hatpin, and when Phyllis came down the stairs you shot her through the left lung.”
Jack’s laugh was harsh, and there was no humor in it.
“You thought poor Phyllis had already delivered the goods when you plugged her. But you were wrong. You even forced Harry at gunpoint to open the safe and prove he didn’t have the diamonds; then you had to kill him to protect your identity.”
Jack made a victory sign. “That’s two premeditated murders. Enough to send you to the state pen for life. And you didn’t even get the jewels. Of course, that wasn’t your motive for killing Harry Amsterdam, was it?”
“I was his mistress,” Syble fired back, her eyes as wide as a cornered animal’s. “Why would I want him dead?”
“Because he held you by the neck with a contract you couldn’t break.” Jack scowled. “Yeah, I spoke with Johnny Palermo from the Broadway Guild. He told me all about Amsterdam’s lousy exclusive contracts, and about how you’ve been making noise for months about wanting to break free and rush off to Hollywood, where the real money is.”
“Fascinating story, Mr. Shepard. But you forget, I was onstage last night—”
“You weren’t,” Jack cut in. “I spoke with Miss Ingham—”
“Who?” Syble’s eyes flashed.
“Cora,” Jack shot back. “That sweet young production assistant you call a freak. Cora told me you ducked last night’s performance. An understudy took your role. And I have proof you were at the scene of the crime.”
Jack held up the shiny object I’d found—a tiny gold scarab. That little Egyptian beetle Cora had delivered to Syble Zane’s dressing room the night we met her, the one that kept falling out of her earring. The earring Cora had mentioned Syble liked to wear outside the theater.
Now Syble Zane clutched her ear, feeling the indentation where the little gold ornament went missing, and the color went out of her. For the first time since I’d met her, the actress was speechless.
“You shouldn’t be surprised that I figured it all out, Miss Zane,” Jack continued with a wink my way. “I have a lot of connections and pumped a good bit of information out of them. It was easy to fit all the little pieces together into a neat story that pins the guilt on you.”
In the silent moment that followed, Syble reached for her powder blue robe and slipped it over her skimpy costume. When she faced us again, her expression was composed, her eyes cool and calculating.
“So, what’s it going to be, Mr. Shepard? A little bit of blackmail?”
Jack’s reply was icy. “More than a little bit.”
She tossed her head. “You want it all, then?”
“I want what’s coming . . .”
She smiled. “Why don’t you keep the Tears of Valentino, then? They’re worth far more than the money I was going to pay you. You keep the jewels, and you keep your mouth shut.”
“About the murders?”
“Yes!” she cried. “About the murders. Harry had it coming, anyway. It felt good to kill him. If I lose the Tears, so be it. I consider getting rid of Harry Amsterdam worth the cost.”
Jack’s smile was cold. “I hope you feel that way two minutes from now.”
With that, Jack balled his fist and pounded on the dressing room wall. The door burst open seconds later, and two uniformed police officers entered.
Without a word, and without Mirandizing her, one of the officers seized Syble Zane’s arms and cuffed the struggling woman’s wrists.
“What’s . . . What’s happening?” the arrogant actress cried.
“We’re arresting you for murder,” the grizzled older officer replied. Then a voice boomed from the hallway.
“Take her to the station, boys. I’ll be right behind you.”
A police lieutenant pushed past the arresting officers and entered the dressing room. Roughly the size of a heavyweight pugilist, the man clapped Jack on the back so hard I thought the detective was going to hit the floor.
“Three murders solved, and a con artist headed to the slammer. You’re a fine upstanding citizen, Jack Shepard, that’s what you are.”
“Penny,” Jack said. “I want you to meet Lieutenant Sean Patrick Flynn of New York’s Finest.”
“Pleased,” he said with a short bow.
“Did you hear everything Miss Zane said?” Jack asked.
“Oh yes, Mr. Heston was most cooperative in lending us his dressing room—ah, and here he is now.”
Young Charlton Heston stepped into the dressing room and looked around.
“Is it over?” he asked in a voice familiar to (future) fans of everything from the Old Testament to Soylent Green.
“It surely is over, Mr. Heston,” the lieutenant replied. “And we thank you for your cooperation.”
As I watched them go, I considered all the real tears that had been shed over the Tears of Valentino, along with the tragic fates of Thelma Dice, Billy Bastogne, Phyllis Harmon, Harry Amsterdam, and finally, Syble Zane herself.
If there was any silver lining to this terribly dark cloud, I couldn’t see it, though (in the end) Jack did.
“That was a neat trap you set, Jack. I’m going to file that away for future reference. Shall we go? You do owe me a dinner at Sardi’s.”
“One thing first,” Jack replied. He pulled the tobacco pouch out of his lapel pocket and shook it. I could hear the Tears rattling inside. He set the bag on the dressing table and added a neatly folded note addressed to Cora Ingham.
Take this pouch to Johnny Palermo at the Broadway Guild. Tell him I sent you, and he should line you up with a loan, using these rocks as collateral. With that, you can afford to start your own theater company, one that values a girl with a few scars and a lot of Broadway experience.
Break a leg, toots!
Jack Shepard