Laurel and Hardy Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

dark wood paneling resembled the interior of an Austrian tavern. I never tired of wandering through the restaurant and adjacent bar/game room, reading framed theatrical programs, picking out the faces of character actors, comedians, singers, and dancers of my youth in the fading photographs. At the rear of the bar and beyond it was an immense curved seat capable of holding quite a few people. A great number of caricatures of various Lambs celebrities were suspended above it; the artists were all popular cartoonists of days gone by.
    It was here that the Sons executive committee convened.
    “RACK ’EM!”
    Our own popular cartoonist, Al Kilgore, the satanically bearded co-founder and Grand Sheik of the Sons of the Desert, brandished his pool cue like a weapon and repeated his stentorian suggestion. His powerful voice overrode somebody’s single-fingered piano rendition of Laurel and Hardy’s whimsical motto theme, “The Cuckoo Song,” and also drowned out Phil Faxon’s whiskey-tenor caroling of “Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.” The mirror behind the bar trembled with the force of Kilgore’s outburst.
    The other delegate-at-large, Toby Sanders, a professional clown, took off the jacket of his mocha leisure suit, draped it over a chair, and started assembling the billiard balls in the triangle. Kilgore positioned himself at the other end of the table for the break. They made an interesting contrast: Kilgore, tall, robust, forceful; Toby, diminutive and diffident.
    Across the room, our ex-president, Tye Morrow, head of an important Manhattan tour-guide agency, entered, removed a gold cigarette case from his pocket and took a weed and fitted it into an elegant holder. He nodded hello to Phil Faxon, one of our more impecunious members, and automatically bought him a drink.
    At a small round bar table next to where Phil was sitting, O. J. quietly but determinedly disagreed with our treasurer, Natie, over an expenditure incurred by the vice-president, Hal Fawkes. Our ex-treasurer, Barry Richmond, hung over the back of the chair of his successor and kibitzed the argument.
    Natie Barrows, a short and stocky actor, has wiry hair and too many teeth which are always displayed in a nervous grin. He’s one of those people who wants to be liked even if he disagrees to the point of calling you names. That night, he had on a tweed jacket (a begrudging concession to Lambs’ dress code), but beneath it was his standard mufti, an orange T-shirt on which was emblazoned a picture, I swear, of Mary Tyler Moore, Natie’s belle dame sans merci.
    O. J. was waiting for Hal Fawkes and Dutchy Hovis to arrive before getting under way. Hal, our VP, was actually in the lobby, but he was making his usual series of last-minute phone calls. Dutchy, when he came at all, was invariably late.
    It was five after eight, thirty-five minutes later than announced, and the meeting had not yet begun. Right on time for the executive committee.
    The smoky atmosphere was already starting to tenderize my head for the inevitable dull headache I would walk out with. I carried my Bushmills/rocks and Beck’s chaser to the right end seat of the circular table. It was the best place for me, because I wouldn’t bump anyone with my writing arm when I took minutes. (It wasn’t my job, but the recording secretary—or, to use his official title, The Moving Finger—was a phantom. He never showed. O. J. should have replaced him, but I think I mentioned our chief officer is too benign to kick people in the pants, so we dragged the dead weight of the delinquent’s name along on our letterhead, and I filled in temporarily. O. J. said he was going to nominate me for the post the next time we had an election.) I was just about to sit and take out my notebook when a bellow from the part of the room where the pool tables stood drew my attention.
    “What the holy hell’re you doing ?” Al Kilgore demanded, momentarily stopping all activity in the bar. Heads turned. Necks