Terror at the Fair (A Snap Malek Mystery) Read online

  "For you, of course I can. I'll be just outside the door."

  When she came out, I told her I had a favor to ask.

  "Yes, anything I can do for you," she said with a grin.

  "I understand everybody got sketches yesterday of a man who the police are looking for."

  "Oh, we did," she said earnestly. "In fact, a whole pile of them got passed out to us."

  "Did they now?" I answered. "Well, then…here is my favor. As long as there are extras, I'd like to have one of those sketches. I think I may have an idea where this man is."

  Her blue eyes widened. "Really?"

  I nodded. "But please don't say anything about it to anyone."

  "Oh, I won't, Mr. Malek. You know, the man from the police who came in with the pictures asked us not to mention that we had them and should be on the lookout for this person. But I thought it was okay to tell you."

  "It is, Charlene. Do you think you would be able to go in and get the sketch now? Without letting anyone see you?"

  She nodded. "That's easy. There's one in the drawer of my counter that I can slide into my purse. I'll be right back."

  She came out a minute later and sidled up to me conspiratorially. "Here it is," she whispered, slipping it out of her purse and pressing it to my chest. "Someday, I would love to know all about this."

  "Someday I'm sure you will," I promised.

  "And, Mr. Malek?"

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you again for that article and all the extra copies. I know it made the other girls here a little jealous, but it made everyone in my family so proud of me."

  "They should be proud of you," I told her, folding the sheet and putting it in my breast pocket.

  Back in the deserted pressroom, I spread the paper out on my desk, smoothing it. There were two sketches on the page, one head-on, the other a profile. The face looked to be of a man in his mid-to-late-forties, long and narrow, with prominent cheekbones and a cleft chin. The right profile showed a small mole on his cheek, as Fahey had mentioned to me earlier.

  His wore his hair in a flat-top cut, and although the sketches were in black-and-white, the artist had been able to indicate touches of gray at the temples and in the sideburns. His thin mustache also had hints of gray. All in all, the man who called himself Samuel White seemed to be an ordinary-looking specimen, not likely to stand out in a crowd.

  I refolded the paper, returned it to my breast pocket, and dialed the South Side number of Mr. Pickles Podgorny.

  "Damn, Snap, I keep telling you not to call me this early in the day," he groaned.

  "But if I try you later, chances are you'll be out wandering around this great metropolis of ours and finding myriad ways to get into trouble."

  "I won't dignify your comment with a response. I will tell you, however, that when you wake me earlier than is my normal time of arising, it throws off my timing, and my performance with the pasteboards suffers immeasurably."

  "Nonsense, Pickles! I'm convinced you could play for three days nonstop and without sleep and walk away from the table with considerably more greenbacks in your pocket than when you started. So don't give me any crap about needing your beauty sleep. It doesn't wash."

  "Spoken like a man who has absolutely no consideration of others and their needs," Pickles groaned.

  "If we can steer the discussion away from your needs for a moment, have you found anything out about the identity of our Mr. White?"

  That elicited a snort. "What d'you expect, with the flimsy scrap of information you gave me?"

  "One can always hope. Tell you what, to at least partially atone for rousting you out of bed at such an ungodly hour, I'll pop for lunch."

  "Okay, but this time, I'm not coming all the way over to your overblown fair. Now it's your turn to do some traveling. I'll meet you at one o'clock at Jasper's, Thirtieth and Indiana. Best damn ribs in town. A cab'll get you there inside of ten minutes."

  For the first and only time, Pickles got to a restaurant before I did. When I walked into the noisy little rib house at five after one, he had settled into a booth with a beer.

  "Hope you don't mind I started without you, headline hunter," he said, saluting me with his frosty stein.

  "Are you sure the beer won't impair your judgment when you sit down at a game of five-card stud in some secret and shadowy room this evening?"

  "Not a chance," he said, licking his lips. "Ah, here's my old friend Millie–that's short for Millicent, by the way. Let's get our orders in before they run out of food."

  We gave Millie our requests and I took a sip from the cup of very good coffee she had set before me. "Here's a sketch the police made of our man," I told Pickles, handing the sheet to him.

  "Huh! This is about as helpful as your earlier description, Mr. Tribune."

  "How so?"

  "Oh, for God's sake, there's twenty ways from Sunday this character can change the way he looks and keep walking into the fair, if that's what you think is happening."

  "Oh?"

  "Sure. He can get rid of his cute little mustache, start wearing glasses with window-pane lenses, dye his hair black or shave it off and become a baldy, cover his little mole with makeup, get rid of his mustache, stuff his cheeks with cotton, and on and on."

  "You sound like an expert on disguises."

  "I knew a grifter called 'Faces' Gondorf once. He ran a lot of short-con games around town and seemed to be always one step ahead of the gendarmes. To stay that way, he could change the way he looked to the point where his own mother wouldn't be able to recognize him. He used some sort of clay-like stuff and could give himself a longer nose or ears that stuck out or fatter cheeks, and it looked totally natural. I never saw anything like it. In fact, he claimed one time his aunt, who had helped raise him, passed him on Sixty-third Street in Englewood and had no idea she'd just brushed shoulders with her nephew."

  "So whatever happened to this 'Faces' character?"

  Pickles shook his head. "Sad story, sad, sad story. He got caught in bed with another man's wife. The husband didn't give two hoots who Faces was or what he looked like; he just shot him dead on the spot, right there in the bedroom. Got him through the pump with a single bullet. So the world lost a truly great artist. Faces could have even given lessons to Lon Chaney, the old-time actor they called 'The Man of a Thousand Faces.'"

  "Sad story, indeed," I said as our plates of ribs arrived, along with a bowl full of chubby kosher dills. It seemed clear my dining companion was held in high esteem here at Jasper's.

  "So, Pickles, to sum things up, you think there's no way we will be able to finger this bird?"

  "I didn't say so, but it ain't gonna be easy," he answered between bites of the superb ribs. "I got a few people on it, people who owe me favors."

  "I won't ask what those favors are."

  "That makes us even, because I won't tell you. You pretty sure our man is behind all three deaths out there on the lakefront?"

  "Seems likely to me, although I'll be darned if I can figure out a motive. The three dead men don't seem in any way to be connected, and the shooting is particularly puzzling. How could our man know who was going to get shot, or even if anybody would get shot? Most of those actors aren't used to using a rifle, and some of them seemed like they were just pointing their barrels more or less skyward. Was it pure chance the kid with the live round in his weapon just happened to have been a hunter and knew how to aim?"

  He shrugged. "Beats me."

  "So here we are, with a shooting, a strangling, a poisoning, and a man with a bogus name and a bogus address. Oh, and also, for the record, a bogus Social Security number."

  "Aren't you glad you're not one of the cops?" Pickles asked, biting into a kosher dill.

  "Yeah, although I have to feel for Fahey and his crew. The heat's really on them. But back to basics: I'm curious as to whether you think you can find the mystery man."

  "Like I said, you haven't given me much to go on. I've got some friends poking around, but so far,
nothing."

  "Pickles, level with me. Do you have anything at all to go on?"

  He finished his ribs and swiped a napkin across his mouth. "Maybe. For starters, chances are this guy lives up north, probably in Uptown or Edgewater or Rogers Park. He put down an address on Clarendon, which isn't a long or important a street–a northern extension of Halsted, actually–and folks in other parts of town would likely never have heard of it. Also, most people who use a phony moniker keep their same first name because they react naturally when somebody calls to them."

  "Interesting. I'm fascinated by the way your mind works, Pickles. So, do you figure the police will think the same way?"

  "Maybe, but probably not. But I got something else for you to chew on."

  "Yeah?"

  "Why are you so all-fired sure the kid from Iowa who fired the fatal shot is clean?"

  "What makes you question it?"

  "I been thinking some since our last lunch. This shooter is a would-be actor, right?"

  "Right, he's been in a few plays, small local stuff."

  "And the guy he shot?"

  "Also what you'd call an aspiring actor."

  "In the same kinds of theaters?"

  "I suppose, little troupes in storefronts, lucky to get two dozen customers."

  "Don't you find that interesting?"

  "Look, Pickles, a majority of the cast members in the pageant probably have done some acting at one level or another."

  He sipped coffee and made a face. "Okay, but still, doesn't it strike you as more than a coincidence that somehow, the only one who had firearms experience just happens to get the only weapon with a live round, and he just happens to shoot, and kill, another actor who's about his same age?"

  "Your point being?"

  "One, maybe our lad from Muscatine loaded the live round himself. Two, maybe, just maybe, he and the poor sap who's now pushing up posies competed for the same role or roles in some plays being cast around town."

  "That's preposterous!"

  "Why?"

  "I met the shooter, Pickles. He seemed terribly shaken."

  "For Christ's sake, mister hard-bitten reporter who sometimes acts like a babe-in-the-woods, he's an actor. Please don't tell me he fooled you."

  "Pickles, even if these two were in competition for parts in local plays, it's hardly motive enough for murder. Most of the roles they'd be likely to get at this stage of their careers would barely pay the rent."

  "Actors are a strange lot, some of them downright looney. Hell, I knew of a guy years back named Mahaffey, if I remember right. I only ran into him two or three times, which was enough to mark him as real screwy–"

  "Hardly a scientific study."

  "I'm not done yet," Pickles said, holding up a palm. "This puffed-up ham got himself a part in some sort of neighborhood theater production out along Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side of the city, real amateur stuff. A reviewer for the local weekly paper panned his acting, and the self-styled thespian threw a fit. He barged into the newspaper office where the reviewer worked and brandished a sword he had used in the play, Hamlet, I think. He swung it at the poor bastard, who was sitting at his typewriter, and damned near cut off his ear before some others in the office wrestled the sword away from him."

  "I have a vague memory of reading about it at the time." I chuckled.

  "It was no laughing matter," Pickles snapped. "He tried to kill the reporter, plain and simple. You of all people should sit up and take notice. But my point here is actors are a high-strung and unpredictable bunch."

  "Okay, even assuming the boy from Muscatine might–and I say might–have planned the shooting, how do you explain the other two deaths? Why would the kid have killed them, if he was even still in town?"

  "I dunno. I'm just pointing out that you've always got to look at a lot of different angles."

  "I appreciate the thought, and I may try to find out if these two actors had been in competition for a role. But I think we should concentrate on our 'Mr. White.'"

  Pickles nodded grimly. "All right," he said, but there wasn't much conviction behind it.

  "What's the next step?"

  He scowled. "For the pittance you've given me, I should give away all my secrets to you?"

  "Not necessarily. But let's see if I can think like you do. You–or somebody you know–walks into various bars in Uptown and Edgewater and asks if 'Sam' has been around. How am I doing?"

  "Fair, although part of the secret is knowing just which saloons among the many up that way are the most likely spots to find our man. That's where some of my acquaintances can be helpful."

  "And if you do find him?"

  "We'll play that by ear, and very, very carefully," Pickles said. "And I know you, being an honorable man, will make it worth our while."

  I smiled but said nothing, wondering just how much cash my bosses would let me dole out to informants in quest of a scoop.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Days went by with no word from Pickles, but I was hardly surprised. I had given him a near-impossible task, one not likely to smoke out "Samuel White." On a positive note, days also went by without another violent death on the fairgrounds.

  I continued to dig up feature stories at the fair, with more than a little help from Fred Metzger and his eager-to-please intern, Rob Taylor. The two of them kept the master schedule of visiting dignitaries and gave me first crack at these so-called luminaries before alerting other newspapers, first the Chicago dailies, then papers in nearby cities like Milwaukee, Springfield, Rockford, Gary, and Aurora.

  The folks I did stories on included a U.S. senator from Kansas (blowhard), a way-over-the-hill Hollywood leading man whose principal claim to fame was seven marriages (egomaniac), a family of Austrian acrobats who performed in the Special Events Arena on the lakefront (difficult to communicate with), and a fifty-seven-year-old farmer (aw-shucks homespun variety) who had ridden a bicycle to the fair all the way from his hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, "because I love trains. After all this darn pedaling, I'm going to ride one all the way back home. As for my bicycle, it can ride in the baggage car while I eat steaks and drink good wine in the diner."

  At about the time I had gotten my fill of grinding out pieces with all the substance of cotton candy, a legitimate personality loomed on the fair's horizon.

  "It is official," Fred Metzger said as he toddled into the pressroom one Monday morning, followed by Rob. "Walt Disney himself is en route to Chicago on the Super Chief from California and will be arriving here tomorrow afternoon. According to the schedule we received from his studio, he will be at the fair all day Wednesday, and maybe Thursday, as well. He is traveling with one of his movie animators, a fellow named Kimball, who I understand to be famous in his own right."

  "I seem to recall that way back when I first arrived here, you promised me the first opportunity to interview the legendary Mr. Disney," I told Metzger.

  "Yes, I did, and it still holds," he bubbled. "After all, you are the only full-time reporter here, and you are most definitely entitled to first crack. I thought maybe we could set up a lunch for you and Mr. Disney, and perhaps his sidekick as well. I would suggest the Chessie Club, which is the best restaurant on the grounds. But please don't quote me–I can't show even the least little bit of favoritism, and of course there are a lot of excellent eating places at the fair."

  "Of course there are. Don't worry, my lips are sealed."

  "Good, good. I'll be happy to make a reservation for Wednesday. Okay with you?"

  "Hey, if it's okay with the one and only Walt Disney, then I'd have to say it's certainly fine by me as well," I told him.

  At noon on Wednesday, I sat at a table for four in the elegant dining car operated by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and named for "Chessie," a cat used in the line's advertising. I had been there about five minutes when the white-jacketed steward brought two men over to me.

  "Hi, I'm Walt Disney," said a smiling, dark-haired man in his forties who might
have passed for an aging matinee idol, with his slicked-back dark hair, thin mustache, and chiseled profile. We shook hands as he gestured to his companion.

  "This, Mr. Malek, is the great Ward Kimball, beyond question the finest, most creative animator in our business. Without Ward, there would have been no Pinocchio, no Dumbo or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or…well, I believe you get the idea. The man is an unquestioned genius, the likes of which the motion picture world will never again see."

  Kimball, a full-faced fellow who I soon learned wore a perpetual grin, reddened slightly at the praise from his boss but made no effort to contradict him.

  "Please sit down, both of you," I said. "This is, so I have been told, the best dining spot at the fair, although I have not tried it yet."

  "Seems nice to me," Disney said, nodding and looking around. "So, Mr. Malek, I understand you are a reporter with the Chicago Tribune."

  "Guilty as charged," I replied as a waiter took our cocktail orders.

  "Well, I grew up on the Tribune," he said. "As you may know, I spent a lot of time in Chicago in my early years."

  "He sure did," Kimball chimed in. "After we left the fair last night, I wanted to visit some of your great jazz clubs, but Walt here insisted on showing me the Elevated lines he rode way back when, including the station near his home where he boarded the trains."

  Disney chuckled. "Yes, I'm afraid I took him away from his beloved jazz. But for all of Ward's complaining, he really didn't mind all that much. He's a railroad buff, like me."

  "On the subject of trains, how are both of you enjoying the fair?"

  Disney started to reply but Kimball waved him off. "Let me tell you, Walt has been in hog heaven ever since we got here. They even let him drive one of the oldest locomotives in the pageant this morning. They dressed him up in a frock coat and a top hat and away he went. He looked like he fit right in!"

  "Ward's been having just as much fun as me, and they dressed him up in period clothes, too," Disney said as I scribbled some notes. "He loves trains so much he's got an outdoor railroad running all around his property back home in California, and it has inspired me to build one, too, as soon as I can talk my wife into the idea."