Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

Kasch turned out to be a stocky young guy with woolly black hair and a pipe. He acted a little nervous at the prospect of talking to a private detective. I promised to make it quick.

He held up his hand. “Please, Mr. Fowler,” he said, seriously, “take as long as you want.”

Then in the same gesture he picked up his phone and told dream boat to get him some casting director or other. He turned to me and smiled: “That’s the agency business, Mr. Fowler. Never a moment to myself. You were Saying, Mr. Fowler?”

It looked as if I should have brought Iggy along to talk to this character. However, I gave it to him fast. I wanted to know if there had been talk of cancelling Maxine’s contract.

The phone cut me off. Kasch excused himself and helloed into it. I gathered he was talking to some executive’s secretary, and was pitching her to let him talk to the boss. He finally broke her down. The boss came on the line. Kasch asked him one question and got a “No!” shouted at him I could hear across the room.

Kasch hung up, smiled sheepishly at me, buzzed his girl again and gave her another call. He turned to me. “A devil of a way to make a living, Mr. Fowler.”

I repeated my question about Maxine’s contract — apparently a tender spot with Kasch.

“Definitely not,” he assured me. “There wasn’t a whisper of breaking the contract.”

I asked him if it wasn’t a little unusual. It was my understanding that producers fought shy of people with a rep for boozing.

The telephone again, and Kasch lost another skirmish. This was obviously one of his bad days. He put in another call and came back to me. “Where was I, Mr. Fowler?”

I told him he was about to explain why the manager of this road company was willing to take a chance on Maxine.

“You’ve got me, Mr. Fowler,” he admitted. “To be honest with you, when the call came in, I was so glad to make a deal for her I didn’t hand them no argument. But they knew about her drinking, because they asked me if I thought she could pull herself together and do the part. I said I personally guaranteed she would.”

I asked him if he didn’t think he was taking a chance making such a guarantee.

He laughed. “Just a figure of speech, Mr. Fowler. Just a figure of speech.”

Between telephone conversations, I managed to satisfy myself that Kasch knew very little about his client’s personal life and even less about her past. He had, he explained, only been her agent for about six months.

“That’s this business,” Kasch remarked sadly as I stood up to leave. “They come to me when they’re flat. I get them a break, and look what happens!”

The telephone buzzed again and he reached for it with one hand, extending his other to me. He was deep in his line when he nodded goodbye.

I went out and sat in my car. This round would have to go to the gin bottle. I had kicked the props out from under my pat little assumption of Maxine’s motive for taking her life. So what? She probably had a dozen better reasons.

Besides, what was this getting me? Suppose this hunch was on the level and Maxine wasn’t a suicide, but a smart piece of murder. What business was it of mine? I wasn’t on the city payroll. I was working for a guy named Fowler, who could spend all the dough I could make for him.

I drove down to my office and started to put in a dishonest day’s work. I dictated about a dozen letters, read off a client who wanted me to suppress some dope he’d paid me to dig up on his wife, and in general gave everyone a bad time. I was feeling pretty rugged — a setup, to get bumped.

My girl announced there was a Mr. Clark to see me, and I told her to let him wait. She said yes sir, and broke the bad news.

The door to my office was closed, but I could tell it hadn’t gone over with Mr. Clark. He let out a roar, and I heard Miss Wheeler squeal: “Mr. Clark, please! I said he would...”

The door crashed open, and Clark thundered in with Miss Wheeler hanging on his coat. “Fowler,” he roared. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are...” He turned on the terrified girl, jerking at his coat. “Let go of me!”

I nodded and she retired, looking as if she were about to cry. I switched my attention to Clark, and wished for the ninety pounds I would have to spot him if I tried to heave him out. “Don’t you think you’re a little big to be pushing secretaries around?” I demanded.

He took off his coat deliberately, folded it, tossed his hat on top of it, then leaned on my desk with a pair of hairy fists. “Fowler, I didn’t come up here to trade wisecracks with you, or sit in your outer office while you play hard to get.”

I picked up his coat and hat and threw them at him. “I don’t know who you are, or what’s on your mind, but you’re wasting our time. Get out.”

He lateraled the coat and hat to a chair behind him. “Just like that, he tells me: ‘Get out.’ ” He cooed: “Aren’t we being a little hasty, chum?”

He grabbed me by the lapels and tossed me into my chair. “I said I wanted to talk to you. Now where’s your manners?”