Bowman on Broadway

By Hartley Howard

Pull up a chair and relax.

We'd like you to meet Glenn Bowman, one of the toughest-and smartest- private eyes in New York.

This time he's got himself involved in trying to keep alive the current heart-throb of Broadway-Pierre Dupray.

Dupray is so certain that he's going to be bumped off between cocktail time and the time he boards the night plane for Hollywood that he is paying Bowman 2,000 dollars to keep him breathing.

First published in 1954, this is a tough, rough story with the inimitable Bowman on top of his form in one of the grimmest assignments of his career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448204670

Hartley Howard

Leo Ognall (1908-1979), who wrote several novels under the pseudonyms Harry Carmichael and Hartley Howard, was born in Montreal and worked as a journalist before starting his fiction career. He wrote over ninety novels before his death in 1979.Harry Carmichael's primary series, written from 1952-1978, The Piper and Quinn series included characters such as John Piper (an insurance assessor) and Quinn, a crime reporter.His other works include: The Glenn Bowman series, 1951-1979; The Philip Scott series, 1964-1967.

Book preview

Bowman on Broadway

HARTLEY HOWARD

Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter I

One of these days I’m going to get out of this racket. So far as I can see, there’s no future in it. When a guy has kissed his thirty-seventh birthday good-bye, it’s time he learned enough sense to realise that you can’t mix sentiment and business—especially my kind of business. Not that sentiment isn’t all right in its place. Take any of the big Wall Street operators. Soon’s they’ve garnered a stack of dough as high as the Empire State, they start splashing the dollars around—stained-glass windows for the church they haven’t been inside in a quarter of a century, a new extension for the hospital that carried out running repairs on their ulcers, a string of orphanages for the kids whose fathers they probably drove into early graves.

Call it conscience or anything else you like. All I know is that there are a lot of rich guys enjoying a helluva good time building a paper highway to the Pearly Gates. None of them appears to have read that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a guy who’s loaded with dollar bills to enter the celestial academy of music.

With me it’s different. I’ve never had a yen to learn to play the harp. But if I keep on sticking my neck out like a sentimental sucker, I’d better begin taking lessons. Might as well have at least one qualification when St. Peter asks me, "Where do you think you’re going?"

And that brings me to the character who was the cause of all the trouble. He didn’t call himself Peter but his name was near enough. Pierre, Pierre Dupray. Maybe you remember him? Most people do. Four million of you paid to see him play the male lead in Mrs. Milford’s Morals. It ran for two thousand, one hundred and ninety-six performances according to the score-board outside the Horizon Theatre on Broadway. And every night, a flock of floodlights beat down on a twenty-foot high painting of the most famous face in show business mounted above the entrance.

It was a distinguished face—firm chin, expressive mouth, well-shaped nose, and a pair of eyes with more magnetism than Valentino. Those eyes had stared out of the pages of all the glossy supplements week after week for the best part of eight years since he had swept from one-night stands to the pinnacle of his profession. Among teenagers, his picture rivalled the engraving of Uncle Sam as gilt-edged currency. And not only teenagers—sober, middle-aged dames who had washed away romance in a generation of diapers went all misty-eyed when anyone mentioned the magic name. I’d like a dime for every respectably-married female who went to bed with Pierre Dupray each time she slept with her legal spouse.

Funny the effect that guy had on women … well, funny so long as they didn’t join the ranks of his conquests, anyway. There wasn’t much fun left for those who fell for his wistful smile and the caressing voice that packed them in the aisles from coast to coast. Yet … come to think of it, maybe they didn’t care. When their brief trip to paradise was over, they always had a memory that wrapped the mantle of Dupray around the party who sat on the other side of the breakfast table. I’ll lay five to four that Pierre would have made the world’s finest diplomat—he could take something and act like he was giving it away.

I met him only once. And it wasn’t due to any matinée-idol worship on my part that we met at all; he sent for me. It also wasn’t his fault that we didn’t repeat the experience—it was mine. I’m not sorry now, although by rights I ought to be. Which all goes to prove that sentiment should have no place in the affairs of a private investigator.

Perhaps he picked my name out of the phone book, perhaps he had heard someone mentioning me as the best lightning-conductor for trouble in all New York. It doesn’t matter now. All I know is that the bell rang in my ten-by-eight office one afternoon in … let me see … June and July, half the southern states had been belly-aching about drought. Came early August, the White House proclaimed everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line as disaster areas because of widespread floods. … I remember now—August seventeenth it was.

Two plates of noodle soup and an underdone steak were digesting peaceably under my belt as I slouched in my swivel-chair and watched the rain beating against the window. Through the golden haze of my favourite bourbon I was strenuously occupied in thinking about nothing, a pastime in which I’d been indulging for the past two-three weeks. Time was when my conscience would have given me hell for eating the bread of idleness, but it doesn’t trouble me any more. I found out that conscience is only the still small voice that tells you that you can’t get away with it. That’s until you get married; you don’t need a conscience after that—the little woman will see you don’t get away with anything not strictly kosher. Me, I’m not married. I prefer to be a bachelor and have only myself to blame. It’s a good life and I’m going to encourage my children to do the same.

The voice on the phone wasn’t exactly still but it was certainly very small. I got the idea that the guy at the other end was talking with the mouthpiece under his chin. Is that Mr. Bowman? he asked. Mr. Glenn Bowman in person?

It cost me nothing to admit it, so I told him it was. He made a little affected noise in his throat and gave me the benefit of his Harvard accent. This is Philip Bayer, he said. I am Mr. Pierre Dupray’s private secretary.

To this day I don’t know whether he expected me to throw a fit or shed my skin in a burst of effulgence. That’s the worst of these ginks who work for celebrities. They always use their boss’s name as though it had some kind of cabalistic power. To say, So what? didn’t strike me as the type of response he anticipated and he was waiting patiently like he knew I had been rendered speechless. When I’d swallowed the last half-inch of bourbon, I said, "Do you mean—the Mr. Dupray, the celebrated actor?"

He said, Precisely, which I’ve always thought is a silly expression. But then he sounded like a dope anyway. "The Mr. Dupray, he repeated for good measure. He requested me to call you, Mr. Bowman, and express his wish to have the pleasure of your company at a cocktail party between four and five o’clock this afternoon. I trust you have no prior engagement?" From the tone he used, he’d have dropped dead if I’d said I had.

Perhaps you’ll hold the line, I suggested, while I consult my appointment book?

After a slight hesitation, he said he would. I laid the receiver on my dog-eared blotter, lit a cigarette, and let Doreen laugh at me from the framed picture on the wall beside the door. Nice girl, Doreen. Never went to school and thinks inhibitions are places you go to when you want to look at rude statues. But she’s got the kind of figure that’s done more for low blood-pressure than all the doctors in America. When a dame inflates her clothes in the right areas, she doesn’t need brains. Never knew a guy yet who yearned to go to bed with Einstein, have you? That’s where Doreen has the edge on Einstein….

Where was I …? Oh, yes, I was sitting listening to the rain, thinking Category A thoughts, and wondering at the same time if my best suit was fit to be worn in the presence of royalty. It’s not usually the sort of thing that worries me. I find that it’s easier to be happy when you have no standards to live up to. But this was different. The Great Dupray didn’t issue invitations to dead-beats like me without a darn good reason and that reason wasn’t likely to be a desire to see me drink his liquor. I could smell a job of work in the offing. And that was mildly puzzling. Pierre had as big a retinue as the President, ready and eager to do all his chores. If he didn’t want to use one of his hangers-on, the job must be very confidential … or maybe, a trifle dirty. Knowing his reputation, I guessed it was a trifle dirty.

I’d got to that stage when the phone began to get impatient. I picked it up and said, According to the book, I should be free around four o’clock. Where is Mr. Dupray throwing this party?

At his Long Island residence. You know the address, of course? Bayer got rid of another frog and went on smoothly, As you are aware, Mr. Bowman, he is leaving town this evening and will be very busy after five, so please don’t be late if you want to have a chat with him. You understand, don’t you?

Since I understood as much as you do, I was tempted to tell him that I no more wanted a chat with Pierre Dupray than I wanted a hole in the head. But I didn’t. Whatever game Pierre was playing, he was evidently playing it close to the chest. And if he wasn’t anxious to confide in his secretary, why should I? The set-up was making me somewhat curious. Apparently I was supposed to know more about his future activities than I did. He had let Bayer assume that we were acquainted. Ergo—I was being invited as a guest and not as a professional snooper. All of which added up to the fact that the business he was going to discuss was very, very private. But why had he left the discussion so late? And why complicate matters with a cocktail party? It was going to be interesting to find out.

So instead of opening my big mouth, I said, Thank Mr. Dupray for me and advise him that I’ll be there as early as I can make it. Good-bye.

Bayer echoed my good-bye in a gentle, courteous voice and the line went dead. I cradled the receiver, disposed of the bourbon in the bottom drawer of my desk, and went over to the window to take a closer look at the rain.

Water was oozing through a loose pane and forming a pool on the sill. Across the alley, the roof-tops were shrouded in a wet mist that fuzzed the outlines against a grey sodden sky. From a broken fall-pipe opposite, a miniature Niagara cascaded in a curving stream and splashed noisily on the sidewalk below. Above the sounds of traffic and hurrying feet lay the steady monotonous drumming of the rain. It was just one of those days.

I remember that I stuffed the morning paper in the waste-basket and started to put on my coat just before the phone rang for the second time. With one arm jammed in the sleeve I reached over the desk and used the cord of the instrument to pull it towards me.

Funny thing about telephones. The bell is generally a more exciting sound than the voice that follows. This one was no exception—it was a wet voice that matched the drip of water from the window-sill. Before I had time to give out anything more than my name, it said flatly, Don’t talk, Bowman—just listen. You’re a nice guy and I got a piece of advice for you. Wherever you think you’re going—forget it. In nasty weather like this you should consider your health and stop indoors. It’s too damp for drinking cocktails; they’ll only rust your inside. Savvy?

Who is this? I asked.

Your fairy godmother. He didn’t sound like he’d said anything facetious as he went on, I know what I’m talking about and so do you. That should be enough. If it isn’t, I’ll spell it out for you—lay off Dupray, or else.

Or else what?

Or else you’ll be laid out nice and pretty in the morgue. On the other hand, play ball and there’ll be five C’s in your mail-box to-morrow morning. Then you can buy your girl-friend a bouquet instead of getting a wreath yourself. The way he spoke, he might have been reading from a script like some ham actor. His tone hadn’t changed once. A wise shamus knows how to keep his nose clean, he ended. Depends how wise he is, of course.

You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you? It was a bum line straight out of the movies, but I wanted to make him go on talking so that the next time we met I’d be able to recognise his voice. If there was a next time, it might not do me any good even at that. He didn’t sound as if he was kidding.

It’s not a threat, fella, he told me. Consider it a promise. Can I take it that you’re going to put your feet up and relax for the rest of the day?

Go and get lost, I said.

He called me something that should never appear in print—one of those expressions from novels on army life that publishers describe as being written with power and sincerity; which is only another way of saying that they’re all about obscenity with the lid off. In the same breath he added three words that classified me as a biological freak. Then he broke the line and I was left staring at the picture on the wall and feeling embarrassed for Doreen’s sake.

As I went out, I had an idea she had something new to smile about.

Chapter II

Pierre Dupray didn’t live in any tumbledown shack. Five Cedars was a one-storied house nearly as long as a city block with several acres of lawn and ornamental garden stretching down to the beach. Behind the house grew the trees that gave it its name. I counted them. There were five all right, their dark-green heads accentuating the multi-coloured tiles of the roof and the red sandstone walls.

I expect he had a swimming-pool in the grounds that lay to the rear. For all I know, he could’ve had a baseball field and a pony track as well. What was there to stop him? Money might not be everything, but what it isn’t—it can buy. They say a guy’s a success when he can make more dough than his women-folk can spend. Pierre had had plenty of women in his time but he could still live like Farouk. I guess he was a success.

It hadn’t stopped throwing down the rain when the hack crunched up the drive and swung in close to the wide entrance. I paid off the jockey and sprinted into the shelter of the porch so as not to spoil the crease in my best pair of pants. Then I waited until he had rolled his heap down the second leg of the horse-shoe carriageway and out of the gates before I leaned on the bell-push. I wasn’t in a hurry. My wrist-watch said it was barely a quarter after four.

Under the porch there were damp footprints on the large square paving tiles. Half a dozen cars lined the edge of a narrower drive that wound past the end of the house to the right. I saw a Cadillac, an Oldsmobile, and a customs-built job that did everything but sneer at a two-year-old Lincoln parked in front of it. At the head of the line cringed an elderly Dodge badly needing a repaint. I felt a warm affection for that Dodge. It stopped me feeling too much like the poor relation. Evidently I wasn’t the only caller who couldn’t afford to light five-dollar cigars with ten dollar bills.

That sounds kind of cynical, doesn’t it? Well, don’t get me wrong; I’m no Communist. Just give me good health, fifty grand, and my book of phone numbers—I’ll get by.

However … there I was standing alternately on each leg and using the back of my socks to remove rain-spots from the toecaps of my shoes while I listened to the threshing of the downpour and the slapping of the tide against Pierre’s little private jetty. From the lavish flower-beds came the scent of larkspur and stocks and late roses all playing tag with the aroma of wet grass. Everything smelled just beautiful—except the job I had a hunch Dupray was going to offer me. Not that I needed to take it. After all, I could always stop eating when the last of my dough ran out and … oh, you’re thinking about the five C’s that guy on the phone had dangled under my nose? Not a chance. I might not be overburdened with scruples but I haven’t started taking bribes yet. I like to earn my money the hard way. Sure I’m a sucker. But I agree with Queen Victoria—anyone who believes in expediency could never have learned the difference between right and wrong.

At that point, the door opened and a funereal guy with a sour puss said, Good afternoon, sir. Will you come right in? He was wearing a black coat, grey-striped pants, and a hallelujah wing collar. His black four-in-hand necktie was picked out with large white spots that looked like the pigeons had been roosting on the crag of skin and bone he called a nose. Someone had dipped his eyes in vinegar and his wrinkled features were no ad for the laundry that had starched them and sent them back badly creased.

When he had closed the door as quietly as if he were afraid of letting anyone know he was still alive, he put the tips of his fingers together in an attitude of prayer and bent his head gravely. May I have your name, sir? From the tone of his voice I might have been calling to view the body.

I told him who I was and he nodded with as much expression as Hu Flung Chop Suey. Ah, yes, Mr. Dupray is expecting you, sir. If you will give me your coat and hat …? In the half light of the big panelled hall I couldn’t tell whether he was taking stock of me or communing with his innermost thoughts.

While I waited, he hung my things in an oaken closet that stood alongside an imitation coal fire. All his movements were precise and studied and he made a lot more fuss than was necessary. In any other house but Pierre’s I’d have suspected that he was frisking my pockets.

Then he dusted his hands and nodded again. Please to follow me, sir.

We went through a door on the left and along a carpeted corridor with rooms on either side. The high ceiling was roofed with frosted glass that amplified the drumming of the rain and let in a cold grey light. Apart from the rain and the brush of our feet on the carpet there was no other sound until we arrived at the far end where a double door lead into a cosy room the size of Carnegie Hall. It had a baby grand piano, a movie outfit, three or four rows of club chairs facing a whale of a T.V. set, a well-stocked bar in one corner, and an opulent aroma of matured Havana. All that was missing was a piece of bare floor for the dancing maidens.

Directly opposite there was another pair of heavy doors. From beyond them I could hear the drone of voices and intermittent bursts of laughter. Sour Puss’s shining black oxfords went hen-toed ahead of me and he knocked discreetly. Then he glanced at me over his shoulder as he turned the knob to go in. This way, sir. I checked to make sure I hadn’t left any buttons undone and followed him.

All of fifty people had taken time out from their daily labours to speed their parting host and there wasn’t enough space in the room to swing a jive chicken. The atmosphere was fuggy with tobacco smoke, mixed liquor, and Nuit d’Amour, and diamond bracelets were talking louder than the guests. Half the dames gathered inside those four walls were carrying enough collateral to pay off the National Debt. Any guy who suffered from photophobia would’ve needed to wear dark glasses.

Most of the chatter died away as we went in and a lot of heads turned in my direction. I felt like a stiff on the dissection slab and I wondered if I’d managed to remove all the soup stains from my lapels. That’s the great thing about American democracy—the poorest bum is on level terms with the millionaire so long as he can spend a month’s pay on a Palm Beach suit every week.

In a near-silence that you could’ve cut into cubes and served with mint julep, Sour Puss announced me like I was the Emperor of China Olivasholem. With his back as stiff as an Englishman’s upper-lip, he called out loudly, Mr. Glenn Bowman.

As if that explained everything, he left me standing like a shmoe with an empty grin on my face and he repeated that quiet trick with the door behind me. What I was supposed to do next was anybody’s guess. If you’ve ever been unloaded into a roomful of ritzy strangers you’ll know how I felt.

A couple of seconds later I stopped being the