Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

I’d noticed nothing familiar about her face when it had first flashed on the wall, but now I began to have the uneasy feeling that I’d seen it before.

Then, the next time she turned full face to the camera, and I had a long look at the tilted, almost Oriental eyes, I realized who she was.

“June Courtney,” I said aloud as the film ended and the empty reel whirred noisily in the projector.

“What?” Stan said, switching on the overhead light.

“Honey,” I said. “Her real name’s June Courtney. It was that long blonde hair that threw me. She’s a brunette now, with short hair and bangs.”

“I know I’ve heard that name before,” Stan said. “But I can’t remember where.”

“I told you about her when I called you from Reba Daniels’ apartment,” I said. “She’s the one who’s producing the stage show Larry Yeager was going to have a part in.”

“Oh, sure,” Stan said. “I remember now. She’s the one that said Yeager’s getting murdered was the best thing that could have happened.”

“Yes,” I said, “and with a big, loud second from Warren Eads, the guy that wrote the show.”

“Didn’t you say June and Eads had real big eyes for each other?”

“Real big.”

“Well, well,” Stan said. “And she’s a girl with an outsize bank account, too, as I remember.”

“Probably so. In any case, her father has one.” I switched the reels on the projector and started the motor to rewind the film. “Neither June nor Eads made any bones about how much they hated Yeager, and they both said he was lousing up the show. But when I asked them why they’d hired him in the first place, and why they’d given him a run-of-the-show contract, they didn’t have a whole lot to say.”

Stan grinned. “Sounds almost as if Yeager might’ve had some kind of club over their heads, doesn’t it?” he said. “A little round club like — well, say like a can of movie film, for example.” His grin widened. “And with a club like that, why stop with blackmailing yourself into a stage show? Why not cut yourself in for a little cash money to go along with it?”

I turned off the projector, took out the reel of film, and replaced it in its can. “I think it’s time somebody paid another call on June Courtney,” I said.

“And on Warren Eads, too,” Stan said. “After all, Yeager wasn’t only blackmailing his girl, he was ruining his play.”

IX

June Courtney lived at “824 Fifth Avenue,” one of those stately, elderly apartment houses whose street addresses are also their names.

She opened the door for us herself. Which surprised me. I’d expected a butler, or at least a maid.

“Well, goodness me,” she said, her tilted brown eyes smiling at me from beneath the dark, ragged bangs. “If it isn’t Detective Selby. And he’s brought a friend! How nice.”

She was wearing a sleeveless jersey blouse and taut, candy-striped stretch pants, and from the slightly disheveled hair and the bruised-looking lips, I had a strong feeling she had not been spending the last few minutes alone.

“This is my precinct partner, Mr. Rayder,” I said.

“Oh, really? That is nice. Please come in.”

We followed her down the long entrance hall and turned left into a, large living room, one entire wall of which was a paneled glass window overlooking Central Park.

Warren Eads was sitting in the middle of a long, low couch in front of the window, a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, his pink moon face sheened with sweat and one red-fuzz eyebrow arched quizzically.

“You remember Mr. Selby, baby,” June Courtney said to him. “This other gentleman is his partner, Mr. Rayder.”

“Hello,” Stan said.

Eads swirled the ice cubes around in his drink and said nothing.

Miss Courtney sat down beside Eads and motioned Stan and me to chairs. “It’s so nice of you to call,” she said with mock graciousness. “Incidentally, why have you?”

“Mr. Rayder and I have just seen a rather unusual movie, Miss Courtney,” I said. “It was one made about ten years ago.”

“Now that is interesting,” she said, turning toward Eads. “Warren, baby, Mr. Selby and Mr. Rayder have just seen a movie made ten years ago!”

“Incredible,” Eads said.

“So was the fact that Miss Courtney was the star performer, so to speak,” Stan said.

June shrugged prettily. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“We thought the film might have had something to do with your giving Larry Yeager an important part in your show,” I said.

“Oh, really, now,” she said. “After all, I—”

“After all,” a man’s voice boomed from the doorway to the left, “how much longer are we going to be such cowards?”

“Father!” June exclaimed, rising quickly and half running toward him. “You know what Doctor said. You’re not supposed to get out of bed for anything.”

“To hell with what Doctor said,” the man said, looking coolly at Stan and me. “I’ve been listening to this conversation ever since it began.”

He was about sixty, but built like a fire hydrant, a totally bald man with a lot of gold teeth and a jaw like a clenched fist. With his bull neck and blocky shoulders, and wearing a blue silk bathrobe, he might have been an aging wrestler coming into a ring.