Danny had retired from the stage, but he was still doing occasional TV, on videotape now, when he died in 1978, right around the time they were turning his beloved Hotel McAlpin into an apartment building. At least he wasn’t around to see the Marine Grill torn up and replaced by a Gap store a dozen years later. In one of our last conversations, Danny noted that Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’s The Producers could have been inspired by Ned Spurlock, though much more amusing and less villainous. Danny never lived to see the stage musical with Nathan Lane, but he loved the movie with Zero Mostel.
Life went on, and for years I didn’t think much about the Broadway Executioner. Lots was happening. My eighties may have been busier than my seventies. It was only a couple years ago, a happy centenarian living out my days at Plantain Point, that I thought about the mutual interest Danny and I had in those killings, and I considered taking a crack at solving them, just as an intellectual exercise, of course. And so I did, after a fashion.
I’d put together certain clues and got a very rickety theory that sounded good to me, but it might not convince anybody else—and certainly wouldn’t fly in a court of law. Besides, all my suspects from that long-ago New York cocktail party were dead. Weren’t they? Well, not quite. Arthur Belasco, Elmer’s son, had put together quite a career as a Broadway producer—an honest one, I should add—in the last quarter of my century. He was still working and still vigorous, as why shouldn’t a young man barely in his eighties be, and he’d come to California on a book tour, promoting his newly published memoirs. Plantain Point has a lot of showbiz residents, and I suggested to our energetic young program director, always looking for diversions for her geriatric charges, that she call Arthur’s people and arrange for him to drop in during his California visit, give a little talk maybe, sell and sign some books. Once he was in town, I called his hotel and invited him to pay me a little visit while he was here.
Some people change less than others with the years, and I could see in Arthur’s wrinkled face the brash twenty-two-year-old I’d met back in 1946. He remembered me, too, though we hadn’t seen each other since. He glanced around at all the entertainment memorabilia in my living room and said it brought back memories. I wanted to bring back one particular memory over a glass of Remy Martin XO.
When he noted a signed photo of Danny Crenshaw in my rogues’ gallery, I said casually, “I guess you remember that get-together at Danny’s place, back in 1946?”
“Vividly. Hotel McAlpin. It’s now called the Herald Towers. They tore out those incredible murals in the basement restaurant. I think they’re in a subway station now. Can’t argue with progress, can we?”
“We can, but progress won’t listen. Did you put anything in your memoirs about that day?”
“No, there was nowhere to go with it, so it wound up on the cutting room floor, as you Hollywood types might put it. We did write it up, though. My daughter Eleanor helped with the book, and that day was so imprinted on my memory that I was able to reconstruct it pretty much word for word onto a tape recorder. Didn’t miss a thing.”
“As I remember, Eleanor was just a baby at the time. But she joined the family business, too, didn’t she?”
“In a big way. She’s a better actor than her old man, as my father constantly reminded me. Does plenty of TV, plays, pictures.”
“But about that day in Danny’s apartment. I know you have a great memory, but I doubt if you can remember every conversation you’ve had and every social event you’ve been at since World War II.”
“No, but that one was unforgettable. Especially a little colloquy between Danny and his wife and Jerry Cordova about an old Gershwin song. Eleanor really enjoyed that part.”
“Any chance you or she could send me a transcript of your notes on that party? I might have a use for it.”
“Sure. Be happy to. Why the special interest, Seb?”
“I think that was when you and your dad hatched the Broadway Executioner murders.”
Arthur Belasco’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He looked around for a moment like a hunted animal. Then he intoned, his voice dripping with menace, “Seb, I don’t know what you think you know or how you know it. But if you hope to still be breathing when I leave, we need to come to an understanding.” His hand had moved to a bulge in his jacket pocket.
“You can’t get away with it,” I said. “You’re not going to shoot me in my own apartment.”
“There are other ways,” he said, a gleam of madness in his eyes. “I’m an expert at that, aren’t I?”
I’d kept a straight face as long as I could. I laughed at him. “Your dad was right. You are a lousy actor.”
Then he laughed, too, and pulled out a pipe. “I had you for a second, though, didn’t I?”
“Maybe for a second,” I agreed.