Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

“I should have known it was too good to last,” Alice said. “That miserable—” She realized she was doing more than thinking the thoughts to herself and quit. She seemed to withdraw for several seconds into her memory before declaring, “It’s over, Mickey. No tour, no anything. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Thank you, but no. I’ll call him, Smitty, to tell him I won’t go forward with this and to send you back your money. Every penny. Thank you, Mickey. Now, go. Please leave. I need you to go.”

Instead, Mickey moved back to the couch and landed with a resolve that said he had no intention of leaving. “Not so fast or so easy, Al. Spill it. I want the story on this guy and what it is freaking you out.”

Alice crisscrossed the room, unable to settle down anywhere until, out of frustration, she picked a director’s chair next to the hallway, Diana Demarest’s name silk-screened in white block letters on the black leather backing.

“His name’s McCracken,” she said, her voice breaking on his name. “Murphy McCracken. I thought I’d lost him years ago, that he had quit hunting me in the hopes I’d lead him to Diana.”

“A stalker.”

“A nut case. Letters. Phone calls all hours of the day and night. Everywhere I turned until, finally, I managed to sneak out of New York. That was three years ago, three years after he first started coming around.”

“You never called the cops? Got a restraining order against this yutz?”

“Both. You see how much good—” Her voice sank into tears. She buried her face in her hands. “You have to go and I have to get moving again,” she said.

Before Mickey could tell her he had no intention of leaving without the answer he’d come for, somebody else was saying, “Too late this time. I’m here already.”

Mickey edged around to see they were being confronted by a man who fit Pop’s description of the gent who had sold him the autograph book, from his yellow-tinted shades to the tassels on his glistening loafers.

“The front door was unlocked, so I didn’t bother to knock,” he said, a smile in his voice, like a next-door neighbor who had dropped by to borrow two eggs. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Never wouldn’t be long enough, you dreadful, distasteful excuse for a human being,” she said, spitting the words at him.

He smiled as if he had just been knighted by the queen and said, “I’m fine,” then to Mickey, “I’m Murphy McCracken, by the way, Mr. Barnum, but my friends call me Murf. Thank you so very much for making this occasion possible.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mickey said, Alice asking the same question with an angry look.

“Just when I thought I’d never find her again—” He pointed at Alice. “The answer came to me at one of your Absolutely Live in Person shows. The ones back in June, the Starlight Theater in Philly honoring—”

“Laura Dane. Six nights, all SRO.”

“Right,” Murf said, tapping his nose. “I was there for all the shows. Laura Dane is my second favorite actress of all time, right behind Diana. A real hummer she is. You know, Laura once tried to get me into the sack? Nothing Laura said, but I could tell by the way she cast her eyes on me. Undressing me. Made me break out into a real sweat.” He rolled his eyes. “I was showing her how well I could sign her signature, and that’s when it came to me, the idea, because I can do Diana’s signature even better, so letter perfect after doing it all these years that nobody has ever spotted it for a forgery. It’s how I make any extra dollars I sometimes need, like for those Laura Dane tickets or this trip to L.A.”

“The autograph in the book you sold to my father—”

McCracken tapped his nose, then his temple. “My handiwork. The solution I hatched for finding Diana. I remembered reading once in Autograph Monthly how nothing can ever get by the great Murray Barnum. How you were his son. Get Murray Barnum involved could get you involved, I figured. With a little luck, get you interested in doing one of your Absolutely Lives for Diana. How that could open a new trail right up to the doorstep of—”

He smiled and bobbed his head at Alice, who responded with a venomous sound.

“I’m always picking up old autograph books at the collector shows and conventions. I put a Diana Demarest in one of them and took it to your father. To be certain it got Murray’s attention, hopefully get him to mention it to you—”

“You put the Ds of her name at odds with the dates in the autograph book.”