Crazy Like a Fox: The Classic Comedy Collection

Somewhere a Roscoe . . .

This is the story of a mind that found itself. About two years ago I was moody, discontented, restless, almost a character in a Russian novel. I used to lie on my bed for days drinking tea out of a glass (I was one of the first in this country to drink tea out of a glass; at that time fashionable people drank from their cupped hands). Underneath, I was still a lively, fun-­loving American boy who liked nothing better than to fish with a bent pin. In short, I had become a remarkable combination of Raskolnikov and Mark Tidd.

One day I realized how introspective I had grown and decided to talk to myself like a Dutch uncle. Luik here, Mynheer, I began (I won’t give you the accent, but honestly it was a riot), you’ve overtrained. You’re stale. Open up a few new vistas—go out and get some fresh air! Well, I bustled about, threw some things into a bag—orange peels, apple cores and the like—and went out for a walk. A few minutes later I picked up from a park bench a tattered pulp magazine called Spicy Detective. . . . Talk about your turning points!

I hope nobody minds my making love in public, but if Culture Publications, Inc., of 900 Market Street, Wilmington, Delaware, will have me, I’d like to marry them. Yes, I know—call it a school-­boy crush, puppy love, the senseless infatuation of a callow youth for a middle-­aged, worldly-­wise publishing house; I still don’t care. I love them because they are the publishers of not only Spicy Detective but also Spicy Western, Spicy Mystery and Spicy Adventure. And I love them most because their prose is so soft and warm.

Arms and the man I sing, sang Vergil some twenty centuries ago, preparing to celebrate the wanderings of Aeneas. If ever a motto was tailormade for the masthead of Culture Publications, Inc., it is Arms and the Woman, for in Spicy Detective they have achieved the sauciest blend of libido and murder this side of Gilles de Rais. They have juxtaposed the steely automatic and the frilly pantie and found that it pays off. Above all, they have given the world Dan Turner, the apotheosis of all private detectives. Out of Ma Barker by Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, let him characterize himself in the opening paragraph of Corpse in the Closet, from the July, 1937, issue:

I opened my bedroom closet. A half-­dressed feminine corpse sagged into my arms. . . . It’s a damned screwy feeling to reach for pajamas and find a cadaver instead.

Mr. Turner, you will perceive, is a man of sentiment, and it occasionally gets him into a tight corner. For example, in Killer’s Harvest (July, 1938) he is retained to escort a young matron home from the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles:

Zarah Trenwick was a wow in a gown of silver lamé that stuck to her lush curves like a coating of varnish. Her makeup was perfect; her strapless dress displayed plenty of evidence that she still owned a cargo of lure. Her bare shoulders were snowy, dimpled. The upper slopes of her breast were squeezed upward and partly overflowed the tight bodice, like whipped cream.

To put it mildly, Dan cannot resist the appeal of a pretty foot, and disposing of Zarah’s drunken husband (I clipped him on the button. His hip pockets bounced on the floor), he takes this charlotte russe to her apartment. Alone with her, the policeman in him succumbs to the man, and she fed me a kiss that throbbed all the way down my fallen arches, when suddenly:

From the doorway a roscoe said Kachow! and a slug creased the side of my noggin. Neon lights exploded inside my think-­tank . . . She was as dead as a stuffed mongoose . . . I wasn’t badly hurt. But I don’t like to be shot at. I don’t like dames to be rubbed out when I’m flinging woo at them.

With an irritable shrug, Dan phones the homicide detail and reports Zarah’s passing in this tender obituary: Zarah Trenwick just got blasted to hellangone in her tepee at the Gayboy. Drag your underwear over here—and bring a meat-­wagon. Then he goes in search of the offender:

I drove over to Argyle; parked in front of Fane Trenwick’s modest stash . . . I thumbed the bell. The door opened. A Chink house-­boy gave me the slant-­eyed focus. Missa Tlen­wick, him sleep. You go way, come tomollow. Too late fo’ vlisito’. I said Nerts to you, Confucius, and gave him a shove on the beezer.

Zarah’s husband, wrenched out of bed without the silly formality of a search warrant, establishes an alibi depending upon one Nadine Wendell. In a trice Dan crosses the city and makes his gentle way into the lady’s boudoir, only to discover again what a frail vessel he is au fond:

The fragrant scent of her red hair tickled my smeller; the warmth of her slim young form set fire to my arterial system. After all, I’m as human as the next gazabo.

The next gazabo must be all too human, because Dan betrays first Nadine and then her secret; namely, that she pistolled Zarah Trenwick for reasons too numerous to mention. If you feel you must know them, they appear on page 110, cheek by jowl with some fascinating advertisements for loaded dice and wealthy sweethearts, either of which will be sent you in plain wrapper if you’ll forward a dollar to the Majestic Novelty Company of Janesville, Wisconsin.

The deeper one goes into the Dan Turner saga, the more one is struck by the similarity between the case confronting Dan in the current issue and those in the past. The murders follow an exact, rigid pattern almost like the ritual of a bullfight or a classic Chinese play. Take Veiled Lady, in the October, 1937, number of Spicy Detective. Dan is flinging some woo at a Mrs. Brantham in her apartment at the exclusive Gayboy Arms, which apparently excludes everybody but assassins:

From behind me a roscoe belched Chow-­chow! A pair of slugs buzzed past my left ear, almost nicked my cranium. Mrs. Brantham sagged back against the pillow of the lounge . . . She was as dead as an iced catfish.

Or this vignette from Falling Star, out of the September, 1936, issue:

The roscoe said Chow! and spat a streak of flame past my shoulder . . . The Filipino cutie was lying where I’d last seen her. She was as dead as a smoked herring.

And again, from Dark Star of Death, January, 1938:

From a bedroom a roscoe said: Whr-­r-­rang! and a lead pill split the ozone past my noggin . . . Kane Fewster was on the floor. There was a bullet hole through his think-­tank. He was as dead as a fried oyster.

And still again, from Brunette Bump-­off, May, 1938:

And then, from an open window beyond the bed, a roscoe coughed Ka-­chow! . . . I said, What the hell—! and hit the floor with my smeller . . . A brunette jane was lying there, half out of the mussed covers. . . . She was as dead as vaudeville.

The next phase in each of these dramas follows with all the cold beauty and inevitability of a legal brief. The roscoe has hardly spoken, coughed, or belched before Dan is off through the canebrake, his nostrils filled with the heavy scent of Nuit de Noël. Somewhere, in some dimly lit boudoir, waits a voluptuous parcel of womanhood who knows all about the horrid deed. Even if she doesn’t, Dan makes a routine check anyway. The premises are invariably guarded by an Oriental whom Dan is obliged to expunge. Compare the scene at Fane Trenwick’s modest stash with this one from Find That Corpse (November, 1937):

A sleepy Chink maid in pajamas answered my ring. She was a cute little slant-­eyed number. I said Is Mr. Polznak home? She shook her head. Him up on location in Flesno. Been gone two week. I said Thanks. I’ll have a gander for myself. I pushed past her. She started to yip . . . Shut up! I growled. She kept on trying to make a noise. So I popped her on the button. She dropped.

It is a fairly safe bet that Mr. Polznak has forgotten the adage that a watched pot never boils and has left behind a dewy-­eyed coryphée clad in the minimum of chiffon demanded by the postal authorities. The poet in Dan ineluctably vanquishes the flatfoot (Dark Star of Death): I glued my glims on her blond loveliness; couldn’t help myself. The covers had skidded down from her gorgeous, dimpled shoulders; I could see plenty of delishful, she-­male epidermis. The trumpets blare again; some expert capework by our torero, and Brunette Bump-­off): Then she fed me a kiss that sent a charge of steam past my gozzle . . . Well, I’m as human as the next gink.

From then on, the author’s typewriter keys infallibly fuse in a lump of hot metal and it’s all over but the shouting of the culprit and "Look, Men: One Hundred Breezy Fotos!" Back in his stash, his roscoe safely within reach, Dan Turner lays his weary noggin on a pillow, resting up for the November issue. And unless you’re going to need me for something this afternoon, I intend to do the same. I’m bushed.

Waiting for Santy

a christmas playlet

(With a Bow to Mr. Clifford Odets)

Scene: The sweatshop of S. Claus, a manufacturer of children’s toys, on North Pole Street. Time: The night before Christmas.

At rise, seven gnomes, Rankin, Panken, Rivkin, Riskin, Ruskin, Briskin, and Praskin, are discovered working furiously to fill orders piling up at stage right. The whir of lathes, the hum of motors, and the hiss of drying lacquer are so deafening that at times the dialogue cannot be heard, which is very vexing if you vex easily. (Note: The parts of Rankin, Panken, Rivkin, Riskin, Ruskin, Briskin, and Praskin are interchangeable, and may be secured directly from your dealer or the factory.)

Riskin (filing a Meccano girder, bitterly)—A parasite, a leech, a bloodsucker—altogether a five-­star nogoodnick! Starvation wages we get so he can ride around in a red team with reindeers!

Ruskin (jeering)—Hey, Karl Marx, whyn’tcha hire a hall?

Riskin (sneering)—Scab! Stool pigeon! Company spy! (They tangle and rain blows on each other. While waiting for these to dry, each returns to his respective task.)

Briskin (sadly, to Panken)—All day long I’m painting Snow Queen on these Flexible Flyers and my little Irving lays in a cold tenement with the gout.

Panken—You said before it was the mumps.

Briskin (with a fatalistic shrug)—The mumps—the gout—go argue with City Hall.

Panken (kindly, passing him a bowl)—Here, take a piece fruit.

Briskin (chewing)—It ain’t bad, for wax fruit.

Panken (with pride)—I painted it myself.

Briskin (rejecting the fruit)—Ptoo! Slave psychology!

Rivkin (suddenly, half to himself, half to the Party)—I got a belly full of stars, baby. You make me feel like I swallowed a Roman candle.

Praskin (curiously)—What’s wrong with the kid?

Riskin—What’s wrong with all of us? The system! Two years he and Claus’s daughter’s been making googoo eyes behind the old man’s back.

Praskin—So what?

Riskin (scornfully)—So what? Economic determinism! What do you think the kid’s name is—J. Pierpont Rivkin? He ain’t even got for a bottle Dr. Brown’s Celery Tonic. I tell you, it’s like gall in my mouth two young people shouldn’t have a room where they could make great music.

Rankin (warningly)—Shhh! Here she comes now! (Stella Claus enters, carrying a portable phonograph. She and Rivkin embrace, place a record on the turntable, and begin a very slow waltz, unmindful that the phonograph is playing Cohen on the Telephone.)

Stella (dreamily)—Love me, sugar?

Rivkin—I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, that’s how I love you. You’re a double malted with two scoops of whipped cream; you’re the moon rising over Mosholu Parkway; you’re a two weeks’ vacation at Camp Nitgedaiget! I’d pull down the Chrysler Building to make a bobbie pin for your hair!

Stella—I’ve got a stomach full of anguish. Oh, Rivvy, what’ll we do?

Panken (sympathetically)—Here, try a piece fruit.

Rivkin (fiercely)—Wax fruit—that’s been my whole life! Imitations! Substitutes! Well, I’m through! Stella, tonight I’m telling your old man. He can’t play mumblety-­peg with two human beings! (The tinkle of sleigh bells is heard offstage, followed by a voice shouting, Whoa, Dasher! Whoa, Dancer! A moment later S. Claus enters in a gust of mock snow. He is a pompous bourgeois of sixty-­five who affects a white beard and a false air of benevolence. But tonight the ruddy color is missing from his cheeks, his step falters, and he moves heavily. The gnomes hastily replace the marzipan they have been filching.)

Stella (anxiously)—Papa! What did the specialist say to you?

Claus (brokenly)—The biggest professor in the country . . . the best cardiac man that money could buy. . . . I tell you I was like a wild man.

Stella—Pull yourself together, Sam!

Claus—It’s no use. Adhesions, diabetes, sleeping sickness, decalcomania—oh, my God! I got to cut out climbing in chimneys, he says—me, Sanford Claus, the biggest toy concern in the world!

Stella (soothingly)—After all, it’s only one man’s opinion.

Claus—No, no, he cooked my goose. I’m like a broken uke after a Yosian picnic. Rivkin!

Rivkin—Yes, Sam.

Claus—My boy, I had my eye on you for a long time. You and Stella thought you were too foxy for an old man, didn’t you? Well, let bygones be bygones. Stella, do you love this gnome?

Stella (simply)—He’s the whole stage show at the Music Hall, Papa; he’s Toscanini conducting Beethoven’s Fifth; he’s—

Claus (curtly)—Enough already. Take him. From now on he’s a partner in the firm. (As all exclaim, Claus holds up his hand for silence.) And tonight he can take my route and make the deliveries. It’s the least I could do for my own flesh and blood. (As the happy couple kiss, Claus wipes away a suspicious moisture and turns to the other gnomes.) Boys, do you know what day tomorrow is?

Gnomes (crowding around expectantly)—Christmas!

Claus—Correct. When you look in your envelopes tonight, you’ll find a little present from me—a forty-­percent pay cut. And the first one who opens his trap—gets this. (As he holds up a tear-­gas bomb and beams at them, the gnomes utter cries of joy, join hands, and dance around him shouting exultantly. All except Riskin and Briskin, that is, who exchange a quick glance and go underground.)

curtain

The Idol’s Eye

I had been week-­ending with Gabriel Snubbers at his villa, The Acacias, on the edge of the Downs. Gabriel isn’t seen about as much as he used to be; one hears that an eccentric aunt left him a tidy little sum and the lazy beggar refuses to leave his native haunts. Four of us had cycled down from London together: Gossip Gabrilowitsch, the Polish pianist; Downey Couch, the Irish tenor; Frank Falcovsky, the Jewish prowler, and myself, Clay Modelling. Snubbers, his face beaming, met us at the keeper’s lodge. His eyes were set in deep rolls of fat for our arrival, and I couldn’t help thinking how well they looked. I wondered whether it was because his daring farce, Mrs. Stebbins’ Step-­Ins, had been doing so well at the Haymarket.

Deuced decent of you chaps to make this filthy trip, he told us, leading us up the great avenue of two stately alms toward the house. Rum place, this. A surprise awaited us when we reached the house, for the entire left wing had just burned down. Snubbers, poor fellow, stared at it a bit ruefully, I thought.

Just as well. It was only a plague-­spot, sympathized Falcovsky. Snubbers was thoughtful.

D’ye know, you chaps, he said suddenly, I could swear an aunt of mine was staying in that wing. Falcovsky stirred the ashes with his stick and uncovered a pair of knitting needles and a half-­charred corset.

No, it must have been the other wing, dismissed Snubbers. How about a spot of whisky and soda? We entered and Littlejohn, Snubbers’ man, brought in a spot of whisky on a piece of paper which we all examined with interest. A splendid fire was already roaring in the middle of the floor to drive out the warmth.

Soda? offered Snubbers. I took it to please him, for Gabriel’s cellar was reputedly excellent. A second later I wished that I had drunk the cellar instead. Baking soda is hardly the thing after a three-­hour bicycle trip.

You drank that like a little soldier, he complimented, his little button eyes fastened on me. I was about to remark that I had never drunk a little soldier, when I noticed Littlejohn hovering in the doorway.

Yes, that will be all, Snubbers waved, and, oh, by the way, send up to London tomorrow for a new wing, will you? Littlejohn bowed and left, silently, sleekly Oriental.

Queer cove, Littlejohn, commented Snubbers. Shall I tell you a story? He did, and it was one of the dullest I have ever heard. At the end of it Falcovsky grunted. Snubbers surveyed him suspiciously.

Why, what’s up, old man? he queried.

What’s up? Nothing’s up, snarled Falcovsky. Can’t a man grunt in front of an open fire if he wants to?

But . . . began Snubbers.

But nothing, Falcovsky grated. You haven’t lived till you’ve grunted in front of an open fire. Just for that—grunt, grunt, grunt, and he grunted several times out of sheer spite. The baking soda was beginning to tell on Snubbers.

Remarkable thing happened the other day, he began. I was pottering about in the garden . . .

Why must one always potter around in a garden? demanded Couch. Can’t you potter around in an armchair just as well?

I did once, confessed Snubbers moodily, revealing a whitish scar on his chin. Gad, sir, what a wildcat she was! He chewed his wad of carbon paper reminiscently. Oh, well, never mind. But as I was saying—I was going through some of my great-­grandfather’s things the other day . . .

What things? demanded Falcovsky.

His bones, if you must know, Snubbers said coldly. You know, Great-­grandfather died under strange circumstances. He opened a vein in his bath.

I never knew baths had veins, protested Gabrilowitsch.

I never knew his great-­grandfather had a ba— began Falcovsky derisively. With a shout Snubbers threw himself on Falcovsky. It was the signal for Pandemonium, the upstairs girl, to enter and throw herself with a shout on Couch. The outcome of the necking bee was as follows: Canadians 12, Visitors 9. Krebs and Vronsky played footie, subbing for Gerber and Weinwald, who were disabled by flying antipasto.

We were silent after Snubbers had spoken; men who have wandered in far places have an innate delicacy about their great-­grandfathers’ bones. Snubbers’ face was a mask, his voice a harsh whip of pain in the stillness when he spoke again.

I fancy none of you knew my great-­grandfather, he said slowly. "Before your time, I daresay. A rare giant of a man with quizzical eyes and a great shock of wiry red hair, he had come through the Peninsular Wars without a scratch. Women loved this impetual Irish adventurer who would rather fight than eat and vice versa. The wars over, he turned toward cookery, planning to devote his failing years to the perfection of the welsh rarebit, a dish he loved. One night he was chafing at The Bit, a tavern in Portsmouth, when he overheard a chance remark from a brawny gunner’s mate in his cups. In Calcutta the man had heard native tales of a mysterious idol, whose single eye was a flawless ruby.

" ‘Topscuttle my bamberger, it’s the size of a bloomin’ pigeon’s egg!’ spat the salt, shifting his quid to his other cheek. ‘A bloomin’ rajah’s ransom and ye may lay to that, mateys!’

"The following morning the Maid of Hull, a frigate of the line mounting thirty-­six guns, out of Bath and into bed in a twinkling, dropped downstream on the tide, bound out for Bombay, object matrimony. On her as passenger went my great-­grandfather, an extra pair of nankeen pants and a dirk his only baggage. Fifty-­three days later in Poona, he was heading for the interior of one of the Northern states. Living almost entirely on cameo brooches and the few ptarmigan which fell to the ptrigger of his pfowlingpiece, he at last sighted the towers of Ishpeming, the Holy City of the Surds and Cosines, fanatic Mohammedan warrior sects. He disguised himself as a beggar and entered the gates.

"For weeks my great-­grandfather awaited his chance to enter the temple of the idol. They were changing the guard one evening when he saw it. One of the native janissaries dropped his knife. My great-­grandfather leaped forward with cringing servility and returned it to him, in the small of his back. Donning the soldier’s turban, he quickly slipped into his place. Midnight found him within ten feet of his prize. Now came the final test. He furtively drew from the folds of his robes a plate of curry, a dish much prized by Indians, and set it in a far corner. The guards rushed upon it with bulging squeals of delight. A twist of his wrist and the gem was his. With an elaborately stifled yawn, my great-­grandfather left under pretense of going out for a glass of water. The soldiers winked slyly but when he did not return after two hours, their suspicions were aroused. They hastily made a canvass of the places where water was served and their worst fears were realized. The ruby in his burnoose, Great-­grandfather was escaping by fast elephant over the Khyber Pass. Dockside loungers in Yarmouth forty days later stared curiously at a mammoth of a man with flaming red hair striding toward the Bull and Bloater Tavern. Under his belt, did they but only know it, lay the Ruby Eye.

"Ten years to that night had passed, and my great-­grandfather, in seclusion under this very roof, had almost forgotten his daring escapade. Smoking by the fireplace, he listened to the roar of the wind and reviewed his campaigns. Suddenly he leaped to his feet—a dark face had vanished from the window. Too late my great-­grandfather snatched up powder and ball and sent a charge hurtling into the night. The note pinned to the window drained the blood from his face.

"It was the first of a series. Overnight his hair turned from rose-­red to snow-­white. And finally, when it seemed as though madness were to rob them of their revenge, they came."

Snubbers stopped, his eyes those of a man who had looked beyond life and had seen things best left hidden from mortal orbs. Falcovsky’s hand was trembling as he pressed a pinch of snuff against his gums.

You—you mean? he