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  “Audiences?”

  “Everybody. Other comics. They hated him.”

  “So they hated him?”

  “Some of them did. Some of them just didn’t like him.”

  “So how many of them hated him enough to kill him?”

  “Kill him because he had a big mouth? That’s crazy.”

  “Somebody killed him, Sammy.”

  “Not because he had a big mouth and was shitty. There had to be another reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “I should know? You’re the big-shot detective. Find out.”

  “I want to talk to somebody who was Stan’s friend.”

  “Stanley had one friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Lenny James.”

  I was glad to hear him come up with the same name Andrea had given me.

  “Stan’s agent told me about James. Were he and your nephew close?”

  “Close, shmose, Lenny thought Stan was gonna help him break in.”

  “And was he?’

  “You ask me,” Freed said, “there was something else going on there.”

  “Like what?”

  “I should speak ill of the dead? My sister’s boy?”

  “It might help me, Sammy.”

  Freed looked pained and stole my last french fry. I had wolfed down the sandwich—no pun intended—or he might have gotten a piece of that too.

  “I think maybe my nephew didn’t like women.”

  “What? You mean you think Lenny James and your nephew were—”

  “Funny,” Freed said, cutting me off, “and I don’t mean ‘ha-ha’.”

  I sat back, stunned. I hadn’t gotten a sense of that from Waldrop at all.

  “Did you hear about the two fags who go into a bar together,” Freed said, “the bartender says, ‘I don’t serve fags.’ The first fag says, ‘I’m not a fag, I’m gay.’ The bartender looks at the second guy and asks, ‘What about you?’ The second fag says, ‘I’ll have the same as my gay friend’.”

  He stopped there and I caught myself still waiting for the punch line.

  “See? That was Stan’s.”

  “He wrote that?”

  “Yeah. It’s shit, right? I didn’t do jokes about homosexuals. I never did.”

  “But Stan did.”

  “Stanley did jokes about everything. He thought he was the white—what’s his name? The black guy?”

  “Cosby?”

  “No . . .”

  “Pryor?”

  “No . . .”

  “Eddie Murphy?”

  “That’s him! Eddie Murphy. You know, he might be the only young comic I like, today.”

  “He does gay jokes.”

  “Yeah, but good ones.” He stopped and looked past me. “Cora? Another cup of coffee. You?” he said to me.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Two.”

  Cora came over with a second cup, put it down, and then filled both.

  “So, Sammy, you have no idea who killed your nephew?”

  “I should make a list? It would take forever. These young comics he worked with, they hated him.”

  “Do you know a man named Bill Allegretto?”

  “Never heard of him. Is he a comic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he hated Stanley.”

  “Do you know Stan’s agent?”

  “That big shot with the three-piece suit?”

  “A woman who works for him, Andrea Legend.”

  “Legend? That’s a name? Wait a minute, a pretty girl with dark hair, big bubbies out to here?”

  “That’s her.”

  “She was his agent?”

  “She was handling him, yeah.”

  “Ah, I saw them together once and I hoped I was wrong about—well, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Sure . . . now!

  40

  I felt bad as I left Sammy Freed at Wolf’s. He’d been a lonely man before, spending his afternoons telling jokes to waitresses and busboys at delis, and that was before his nephew—his last living relative—was killed. I wondered what it was like to be Freed’s age and have outlived all your relatives.

  What was I thinking? I was half his age, and I’d already outlived all my relatives.

  Boy, now I was really depressed.

  Lenny James was next. I took a cab down to Nineteenth Street to The Rodeo, which was right down the block from the big Barnes & Noble bookstore. As I got out of the cab I felt sort of guilty that I wasn’t looking for Ray, but I knew Ray Carbone as well as anyone. If he didn’t want to be found, there was little chance that I’d find him. Then again, since I did know him well, if anyone could have found him, it should have been me.

  Well, Lenny James was right in front of me. First things first.

  I went inside and looked around. It was a huge place with enough space between tables to walk a horse. Unusual for a Manhattan restaurant, where they usually crammed tables as close together as possible.

  The lunch rush was over, so only a few tables were taken. This was a good time to go to a restaurant if all you wanted was to talk to one of the waiters.

  “Can I help you?” one asked as I was looking around for someone who matched James’s description.

  He was wearing a cowboy hat and a red bandanna, his only concession to working in a Country and Western restaurant. Other than that he wore a white shirt and black pants he could have worn to any other job. He was average height, blond and very slender, in his twenties.

  “I’m looking for one of your waiters.”

  “Which one?”

  “Lenny.”

  He frowned.

  “We don’t have a waiter named Lenny that I know of.”

  “Big tall guy, lot of hair?”

  “Oh, him.”

  “Lenny, right?”

  “Well, yes, but he’s not a waiter.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s a busboy.”

  “Well, whatever he is, can I talk to him?”

  “I’ll get him. You wanna sit?”

  “Sure.”

  “Take any table.”

  I sat down and waited. Before long the waiter returned with a tall man in tow. Andrea’s description of James was right on the money, as had been the case with Sammy Freed. This guy looked like a tall, skinny Larry Fine. He wasn’t wearing a bandanna or a hat, but then he wasn’t a waiter. He had on jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Can I help you?” James asked.

  I thanked the waiter and he faded away.

  “You can if your name is Lenny James.”

  “That’s me. You an agent?”

  “What?”

  “An agent, a talent agent?”

  “No, Lenny, my name is Miles Jacoby. I’m a private investigator.”

  “Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “I thought maybe you caught my act last night.”

  “No. I’m working for Stan Waldrop.”

  Now he frowned. “Stan’s dead.”

  “He hired me before he died. Listen, why don’t you sit down?”

  He looked around a little nervously, maybe afraid he’d get fired.

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “Well, okay,” he said, “but you better buy something.”

  “I’ll have a beer.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Have a Lone Star.”

  “Fine.”

  James waved the waiter back over and ordered.

  “What did Stan hire you to do?”

  “He said somebody stole his jokes.”

  “His jokes?”

  I nodded. “Out of his computer.”

  “He did that?”

  “What?”

  “He told me he was gonna put all his jokes on computer. I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “He could lose them that way.”

  “I guess he did.”

  “No, I didn’t mean stolen,
I meant that they could be wiped out. I told him to keep a hard copy, but he thought that could be stolen.”

  Hard copy. I knew what that meant, this time.

  “Why was he worried about somebody stealing his jokes?”

  “I don’t know. He was paranoid. He always thought somebody was going to steal his act and make it big with it.”

  “Was his act good?”

  “It’s okay—I mean, it was okay.”

  “I heard you and him were good friends.” I watched his face carefully.

  “Yeah, we were tight.”

  The waiter came with my beer; I declined a glass and took the cold bottle from him.

  “You know anybody who might want to kill him?”

  James chose that moment to look at everything in the place but me.

  “Lenny?”

  “Stan . . . he wasn’t a really nice man, you know?”

  “I heard.”

  “So a lot of people probably wanted to kill him.”

  “Did he have a girl?” I watched him carefully again as I asked him this.

  “No . . . no, Stan didn’t have a girl.”

  “Nobody? Not even an ex-girlfriend?”

  “Well . . . there might have been somebody, but she wasn’t his girl, or anything.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. He just mentioned that he was . . . getting some from a pretty hot woman, but he never told me who she was.”

  “But she wasn’t his girl?”

  “He said she wasn’t anybody’s girl, that she was all for herself.”

  I wondered if he had been talking about Andrea Legend, or if there was a new player in the game.

  I studied Lenny James as we talked, looking for signs that he might be gay. Nothing jumped out and waved at me.

  “Lenny, because I’m working on Stan’s case I want to ask you something. Don’t get angry.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Somebody told me they thought Stan might be . . . gay.”

  James made a disgusted sound.

  “You been talkin’ to his uncle, the old has-been. He sees gays in every corner.”

  “So Stan wasn’t gay?”

  “No . . . I am, but Stan wasn’t. His uncle probably thought . . . but Stan never cared what his uncle thought.”

  “I thought Stan loved his uncle, wanted to be like him.”

  “Like Sammy Freed? Stan was better than that, Mr. Jacoby. Oh, maybe he saw his uncle on stage when he was a kid and that made him want to be a comic, but that was it. There was no way Stan wanted to be like his uncle.”

  “I’m going to ask you another personal question.”

  He looked sick but said, “Go ahead.”

  “If nobody liked Stan, why were you and he friends?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “We just were. I can’t explain it. He wasn’t gay, and he was a lot smarter than me . . . I don’t know.”

  “Was he helping you with your act?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why would he help you and suspect everyone else of wanting to steal from him?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.” He was becoming agitated, so I decided to let him go for now.

  “Okay, Lenny. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”

  “Sure.”

  We both stood up. The waiter came over and I paid for the beer.

  “Where do you live, Lenny?”

  “I’m . . . stayin’ with somebody right now. I don’t have my own place.”

  “Well, if I wanted to ask you some more questions I guess I could find you here.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.”

  “Thanks again.”

  I walked out of The Rodeo convinced that Lenny James was worried about more than being fired. He was too nervous to be telling the whole truth.

  41

  Now I had a problem. I wanted to check back at Packy’s with Marty to see if he had found anything, but I also wanted to follow Lenny James. On the way out of the restaurant, I checked their hours and saw that they closed at eleven on weeknights, one A.M. on weekends. This was a Thursday.

  I found a pay phone on the corner by the bookstore and called Packy’s. Geneva answered.

  “Is Marty back yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  I looked at my watch and saw that it was a quarter after five. He might still be working at Waldrop’s, or he could be on the way back. If he was going to be late back to Packy’s, though, he would have called Geneva. If I called him at Waldrop’s, would he answer the phone?

  “Boss, you had a message.”

  “What message?”

  “It was a man, and he said he was Ray Carbone.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “He wants you to meet him—wait, I’ve got it written down—at his place. You know the address?”

  “I know it.”

  “He wants you there at midnight.”

  What was this all about? First he wanted me out of it, and now he wanted to meet me? Well, I knew he was going to continue to be hard to find. Maybe this would be the only way to do it.

  “Is that it? No phone number?”

  “No.”

  “Gen, did it sound like Ray?”

  “I haven’t talked to him often enough to know.”

  “Okay, thanks, Gen.”

  “When do you think Marty will be back? We’re gettin’ busy.”

  “I’m going to check right now.”

  “Boss?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You gonna keep this meetin’?”

  “I’ve got to.”

  “Be careful, huh?”

  “I’ll see you before then.”

  I hung up and dialed Stan Waldrop’s number. There was no answer. That was when I remembered that I had his answering machine tape. I hung up and looked around for a cab. I forgot about following Lenny James for the moment.

  I went to put the key in the lock of Waldrop’s apartment door, but there was no need. It was unlocked. I put the key away and wished I had a gun on me, but it was at home. I had practiced and practiced with the thing until I’d gotten pretty good at firing it, but I still didn’t carry it around with me. The occasions when I wished I did were few and far between, but this was one of them.

  I pushed the door open and went in slowly. On the off chance that Marty had gone out and left it unlocked when he returned, I called out to him.

  “Marty!”

  No answer:

  He could have gone back to Packy’s and left it unlocked.

  Of course, there could have been someone else inside, and calling out would have alerted them, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  The living room was a mess. There had either been a fight, or somebody had tossed it looking for something.

  “Shit.”

  The kitchen was the same. As I passed it, I could see that the cabinets were open and the contents were all over the place.

  I rushed to the bedroom, which was also a shambles. In the center of the mess was Marty, lying on his stomach. There was blood around his head on the rug.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, and went to check him.

  42

  You finally hit the jackpot,” Hocus said, “and I’m the prize.”

  We were in New York Hospital, on York Avenue in the sixties. He was referring to the fact that I’d finally found a body in his precinct.

  Only it wasn’t a body. Marty was still alive.

  Once I discovered that Marty still had a pulse, I called an ambulance. They had the option of driving downtown to St. Vincent’s, in the West Village, or across town to New York Hospital. I left the choice up to them. I just wanted to get him to the hospital.

  From there I called Hocus and told him what had happened.

  “I’ll have a car go over there,” he said. “You wait at the hospital for me.”

  When he arrived, I still had no word on Marty’s condition.

  “Okay, tell me what happened.”
/>
  I gave it to him in a nutshell, even told him what I’d been doing while Marty was in Waldrop’s apartment.

  “I hope you had a key to that place.”

  “I did.”

  “What else does this have to do with?”

  “Huh?”

  “Which of the other bodies is this involved with?”

  “Stan Waldrop, the stand-up comic who was killed in his dressing room the other night.”

  “Nothing to do with Ray’s girlfriend?”

  I shook my head.

  “Different case.”

  “Okay, tell me about the comic.”

  I explained to Hocus why I’d been hired, and why I was continuing to work even though my client was dead.

  “What was Marty looking for?”

  “We didn’t know. I just wanted him to get into the computer and look around.”

  ‘‘What happened to the computer?”

  “It was on the floor when I got there. Probably got knocked over in a struggle.”

  “Where was Marty hit?”

  “It looked like he was hit from behind, like Waldrop was.”

  “Then there couldn’t have been a struggle, could there?”

  “I guess not.”

  “That means whoever hit him meant to damage the computer so nobody could find what they were looking for.”

  “Yeah, but did they find what they were looking for?”

  “What’s Marty’s condition?”

  “I don’t know yet. Why don’t you flash your badge and go in and find out.”

  “Good idea. Wait here.”

  Instead of waiting right there I found a pay phone and called Geneva.

  “Marty’s not back yet, Boss, and I’m up to my pretty black ass in—”

  “Marty’s in the hospital, Gen.”

  “What? What happened?”

  I explained about finding him and suggested she call Ed to cover.

  “Either that or grab a regular and stick him behind the bar.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. You just take care of Marty.”

  “Okay.”

  “And let me know how he is?”

  “I will.”

  I hung up and went back to the waiting room. Hocus appeared a few minutes later.

  “How is he?”

  “He needed a bunch of stitches to close a gash in the back of his head, and he has a concussion, but no fractures. He’s gonna be okay.”