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  Larry Kent was on the trail of a master blackmailer. Whoever he was, he was making a fortune from his victims’ misery. One of those victims was a friend of Larry’s, so that made it personal. It also made him determined to find the blackmailer and deal with him by any means necessary, legal or otherwise …

  But first he had to find his man – always assuming it was a man he was after. There were plenty of women in the frame, too, from the cold-hearted secretary, Lisa Crane, to the dope-addled good-time girl, Jane Davis. Then there was Ralph Harlowe, the actor who’d hit hard times, Denison, the financier who doubled as an amateur hypnotist, and even the one person who should have been above any suspicion at all … a tough cop called Kruger!

  LARRY KENT SIDEWALK EMPIRE

  No. 750

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Piccadilly Publishing

  First Digital Edition: July 2019

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book - Series Editor: David Whitehead

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  Chapter 1 … the dirtiest game …

  I stood at the window in my office seven floors above the 42nd Street canyon, and looked down at the Sidewalk Empire. There they were, the people trying to get an edge. Some were satisfied to keep just ahead of circumstances, but others had greed and hunger prodding them on. That negro kid with the transistor radio pressed against his ear; he could wind up a musician, or maybe a boxer, or a thief. That sharp-looking character leaning against the window in the store front. He could be a pusher waiting for a client; he could be a cop, pimp, finger man, anything. Or he could be a blackmailer, the lowest of the low.

  I turned away from the window. Blackmail had entered my mind because of a phone call I’d received that morning. My caller was Eileen Strauss, producer of TV shows. I’d met her about a year back and had seen her at a few showbiz parties since, so we were on a first-name basis.

  “Larry,” she’d said to me over the phone, “I’m in trouble. I’m being blackmailed. I’d like to see you today.”

  So I’d arranged to pay her a visit, and now it was time to go. I went down to the street and hailed a cab. My Corvette was in the parking lot beside the office buildings, but R and R Productions, where Eileen Strauss worked, was downtown in an area where parking space was about as common as water buffalo.

  R and R Productions was housed in what had been an office building. The place had a make-do air about it. The reception office, where an organization should show its best face, seemed like it was getting ready for a complete renovation. The three girls, all young, pretty and well put together, wandered around like they were in the wrong office.

  “Eileen Strauss?” repeated the dizzy-looking blonde, blinking huge blue eyes. “Hazel, do you know anybody here named Eileen Strauss?”

  “She’s the one with the hard mouth,” the girl named Hazel said. “You know, the one who snapped pieces out of you the other day for getting her a wrong number.”

  “Oh, that one. She’s with that soap opera,” the blonde informed me. “Produces or directs or writes or something. Studio A. Just follow the arrows.”

  So I followed the arrows to Studio A. The red light was on. Through the glass I could see two women on the set. A scene was being shot.

  There was a tap on my shoulder. It was a skinny fellow with earphones on. He pointed upwards. I turned and saw Eileen Strauss looking down at me from the control gallery, behind a sheet of glass. She beckoned me to her and I crossed over, climbed the stairs, and entered the control room. Eileen planted a kiss on my cheek. She smelled of expensive perfume. Slim and tall, she was groomed to perfection in a green suit that highlighted the emerald green of her eyes and the red of her hair.

  “Sorry, darling,” she said. “One of our actresses got sick and we’ve had to write around her and we’re awfully behind. But there’s just this last scene and then I’ll be free. Make yourself comfortable.” She leaned closer. “And don’t let anyone know you’re a private detective.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Eileen took the middle chair of five facing TV monitors. Three of the monitors showed the two actresses from different angles.

  “React, damn you,” Eileen said. “React!” As though listening to her, the oldest of the two actresses smiled. Eileen punched a button. “Sound,” she said. “Let’s get that damn phone in!”

  A pimply faced kid pushed a button and the phone on the set rang. The younger actress got to her feet and crossed the set to a phone table. She picked up the phone.

  “Yes?” She smiled. “Oh, David! Yes, dear, I’m fine.” Her smile faded. “Oh, what a shame. And I made your favorite casserole. No. I understand, darling. I’ll be all right. Yes, darling. ’Bye.”

  She put down the phone and walked back to her chair, her face thoughtful. Eileen pushed a button and caught her in close-up.

  “Fine,” Eileen said, “fine.”

  “David will be working late tonight,” the younger actress said. “Ruth, you said you saw Marlene just before you came here. Your office is near David’s. Ruth, was Marlene with David? I ... I have the strangest feeling that you’re keeping something from me. Are you? Tell me, Ruth—are you?”

  “Music,” Eileen said, and a slim girl seated to her left began to fiddle with knobs, fading in music. “Up slowly …” she punched a button, “… and hold. That’s it. Reaction from Ruth. Good, good. All right. Fade to black. We’ll use the twenty-second credit tag for this one.” She picked up a microphone. “Thank you, my dears, thank you. That was fine.”

  The actresses on the set smiled. The slim girl and the pimply-faced kid leaned back in their chairs.

  “Larry,” Eileen said, flicking a hand towards the girl. “My assistant, Rose Thompson. And this is Barry Thornton.”

  We exchanged hellos. I took note of the fact that Eileen hadn’t mentioned my surname. She didn’t want her colleagues to start guessing about a visit from a private investigator.

  “Take me out for a drink, dear,” Eileen said.

  “Sure thing.”

  She took my arm as we left the control room, then she steered me to an exit door at the side of the building.

  “There’s a nice bar just around the corner,” she said as we walked up the alley beside the building.

  Kenny’s Bar and Grill was about as dark as a bear’s den. Fat colored candles flickering on the tables did little to relieve the Stygian gloom. We felt our way to a table, sat down, and ordered drinks from a waitress I could barely see.

  “How did you like what you saw of the show?” Eileen asked.

  “I’m not qualified to give an opinion on a soap opera,” I said.

  “‘World Without End’ is rated number one, you know.”

  “That should be good for you,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m riding high.” She smiled and I could just see the shine of her lips in the flickering light; it was a thin smile that had no humor at all in it. “I’ll be producing a new serial next month. Ten half-hours a week. Five hundred dollars per half-hour. You tote it up.”

  “More than a quarter-million a year,” I said.

  “About a hundred thousand after tax.”

  Our drinks came. A scotch on the rocks for me, a double martini for Eileen. Eileen sipped. I waited for her to put the glass down.

  “You mentioned blackmail,” I said in a low voice.

  “A man phoned,” she said, her voice cool. “He thought he had a great sense of humor. He called himself Mr. Nameless.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “He wants ten thousand dollars.”

  “For what?”

  “Photographs and negatives.”

  “What’s on the photographs, Eileen?”

  Her hand found mine across the table. I squeezed it. “Larry, before I met you, I was a writer. Things weren’t going very well for me. I lived from week to week, check to check. Then, quite suddenly, I had two steady assignments and the money began to pour in. The strain of meeting deadlines was pretty heavy, I can tell you. At the time I was sharing a flat with two other girls. One of them was on drugs.”

  “What kind?”

  “Morphine.”

  “That’s about as heavy as you can get. Morphine is only one step removed from heroin.”

  “I discovered that, Larry.”

  “You went to heroin?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you must have beaten it, Eileen. I can tell an addict at a glance.”

  “Yes, darling, I beat it. I went to a sanitarium and dried out. It was seven weeks of sheer hell.”

  “Good girl.” I gave her hand another squeeze. “Now, those photos ...”

  She shivered and I could feel it through her hand. “We—we had some wild parties. You can guess what the photographs show. Men and women—naked ... I—I don’t have to say any more, do I?”

  “Not another word. This Mr. Nameless, Eileen. You say he spoke to you over the phone?”

  “ Yes.”

  “Did he sound as though he was disguising his voice?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I work with voices, darling. Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Then he’s someone you’ve never met. All right. He called you and he wants ten thousand dollars for photos and negatives. It’s not going to end there, you know. Even if you get all the negatives, he could have hundreds of photos in his possession. You could be paying this man for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m aware of that, darling. That’s why I contacted you. I want you to be there when I meet this man.”

  “And where will that be?”

  “The bus terminal in the Port Authority Building. I’m to walk up and down on the ground floor. In my right hand will be an envelope containing ten thousand dollars. But you’ll have to be careful, darling; he’ll be watching.”

  “Is he supposed to give you the blackmail material then and there?”

  “If he’s sure he’s not being watched, yes.”

  “I don’t like it, Eileen.”

  “Do you think I do?”

  “It’s all his way, honey. You know, the only way to work on a blackmail deal is to get to the source of the thing. And the source in this case is those photos. You say you shared an apartment with two girls. I take it they’re in the photos?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know this Mr. Nameless has the photos?”

  “He—he sent me one. There was just the photograph in the envelope.”

  “And what did you do with the photo?”

  “I destroyed it. Larry, it—it was dreadful. I can’t imagine how I ever got mixed up in something so awful, so degrading.”

  “It happens, honey. Who took the pictures?”

  “Flo.”

  “One of the girls you shared the apartment with?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you and Flo get along together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she the one who was on drugs?”

  “All three of us were.”

  “I want the names, the full names, of both girls, Eileen. I also want their addresses and anything you can tell me about them.”

  “That won’t do you any good in Flo Templeton’s case, Larry.”

  “Why not?”

  “Her address is Fair Lawn Cemetery. She took an overdose of heroin, six months ago.”

  “There’s still the other one.”

  “I don’t know where she is. After I left the sanitarium, I didn’t go near that apartment. I didn’t trust myself. Even now I sometimes feel the urge for just one fix ... one little fix ...”

  “One is never enough, honey.”

  “I know that. I know it well.”

  “The other girl, Eileen ...”

  “Her name is Jane Davis.”

  “Address?”

  “I don’t know, darling. I do know that she doesn’t live in the apartment we shared.”

  “Do you have a photo of her?”

  “No.”

  “Then I want a description and everything you know about her. Everything.”

  Jane Davis was dark, petite, pretty. When Eileen had shared the apartment with Jane and Flo, Jane had danced for a living; nightclub stuff with a little stripping and belly dancing thrown in when decent jobs were hard to get. She’d brought a succession of men to the apartment, but Eileen couldn’t remember them.

  “Except Ralph Harlowe,” she told me. “He’s an actor I used in some episodes of ‘World Without End’. I didn’t recognize him when he came to me for an audition, but he told me that he’d been to the apartment on two occasions with Jane.”

  “Do you think he appeared in any of the photographs?”

  “I have no way of knowing, Larry. But …”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know. It may not be anything.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, when we had a talk before the audition, there was a strange expression on his face.”

  “Strange in what way?”

  “It seemed to me that he may have been enjoying a private joke.”

  “Did he use any kind of coercion to get the job?”

  “No. He was actually very good, and he happened to suit the role. Then, after I told him that he had the job, he smiled. I can describe it only as a knowing smile.”

  “Like he expected to get the role whether he was good or not?”

  Eileen was quiet for a moment, then she said, “It could have been that.”

  “I might have a talk with this guy,” I said. “Can you get his address for me?”

  “All the information you’ll need is in our casting file.”

  “Good.”

  “We’ll have to get moving very soon, Larry. We have just enough time to get to the Port Authority Building.”

  Mr. Nameless had picked a good time for the meeting. The rush hour had started and the main floor of the Port Authority was crowded with commuters heading for buses on the various levels. I entered the place some fifty or sixty feet behind Eileen. There was a tall feather in her green hat, making it easy for me to follow her. In her left hand was her purse, in her right an envelope containing the ten thousand dollars.

  Eileen walked under the big clock, stood there for a moment and then worked her way through people turning this way and that. Suddenly a group of musicians pushed their way through the crowd carrying instruments. A huge bass drum hid Eileen from my sight. I walked faster to look at her from another angle, then heard her cry out.

  I shoved people out of the way to get to her.

  “Somebody just snatched it away!” she said, showing me her empty right hand.

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  “No. I’m not even sure it was a man.”

  “I’ll look around,” I said. “Meet you at the main doorway of the restaurant.”

  It was useless. All the person who’d taken the envelope had to do was fold it and put it in pocket or purse, then amble away. I met Eileen at the door of the restaurant and took her inside. We went to the far end of the bar. I ordered drinks.

  “Obviously,” I said, “the blackmailer isn’t prepared to give you anything for your money.”

  She pushed at a bar coaster with her long fingers. “I imagine I’ll be hearing from Mr. Nameless again.”

  “Without the slightest doubt in the world.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” she breathed.

  Eileen sipped at her martini and sighed.

  I said, “Why not let him do what he likes with the photos?”

  She gave a small laugh and there was no humor at all in the sound. “Larry,” she said, “how much do you know about the soap opera business?”

  “Just about nothing.”

  “Our main sponsor is Radiant Soap. The sponsor of the new show will be Universal Products; they deal mainly in breakfast foods. You just can’t imagine what stuffed-shirts these people are. Let me give you an example. About eight months ago one of those weekly newspapers that deal in sensational dirt ran a story about Barbara Zale, who was playing one of the main roles in ‘World Without End’. The story told how Barbara had had an abortion. It happened ten years ago when she was only sixteen. The sponsor insisted that we write her out of the serial—immediately. At that time the plot revolved around her, but we had to scrap about twenty episodes and start from scratch. The character she played was killed in an auto accident. We were so pressed for time that we broadcast that episode live. And we weren’t permitted to mention the name of the character again in the show.”

  I said, “But you’re the producer, Eileen.”

  “My name appears in the credits. That’s more than enough. Look. If the blackmailer circulated some of those photos to just five or six people, I’d be dead in the business within twelve hours.” She shook her head. “I—I just can’t let it happen, Larry. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.”

  “Then go back to writing.”

  “I’d still have to see people to sell my stuff. No, darling; I’d be blackballed and that would be that.”

  “But this blackmailer will bleed you dry. You don’t think ten thousand dollars is going to satisfy him, do you?”

  “I’m not naive enough to think that.”

  “How far are you prepared to go?”

  “I’ll ... I’ll just have to see, won’t I?”

  “How much money do you have?”

 

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