Show Business Is Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

them about the mystery man who’d followed Mendy.
    But what did it matter who was following him if Mendy died of a heart attack?
    The words “bitter almonds” caught my ear, reminding me of English murder mysteries set in enormous country houses. What did bitter almonds smell like, anyway, and how were they different from ordinary almonds? For a wild second, I wanted to ask the nearest cop if I could goin and sniff Mendy’s breath so I’d know for good and all.
    I restrained myself. This wasn’t a Dame Agatha story; it was the real death of a real man I’d known and liked.
    Correction: it was the real murder of a man I’d known and liked.
    Because Mendy wasn’t a suicide. This I knew. He’d been wholly alive, not a thought of death in his head. He’d reveled in the discovery that there were people like us out there, people who wanted to hear his stories and relive his Hollywood glory days. People to whom the blacklist was an outrage and he a hero for enduring it.
    Next question: How did you get cyanide—because that was the poison that smelled like bitter almonds—into someone’s coffee? Had Mendy put his cup down somewhere, just long enough for the killer to slip in the poison? Was it liquid or solid? Mrs. Christie’s Sparkling Cyanide made it sound liquid, which would be easier to administer—but wouldn’t it make the coffee taste bad?
    The biggest question of all was why. Why was someone following Mendy? Why would anyone want him dead?
    I went over to one of the cops and told him what I’d seen. The response I got was less than satisfactory.
    How did I know it was Mendy he was following? How did I know he was following anybody at all? Couldn’t he have just been annoyed that Patrick bumped into him?
    It wasn’t just that the police weren’t listening, I realized after a few minutes. They weren’t listening because of who we were. One cop kept looking at Patrick as if viewing a giant cockroach, and his partner asked me several times just how old Birch was. I had a sudden realization that in the eyes of the law, I was taking advantage of a minor.
    I wound up the conversation quickly, leaving the theater dejected because of Mendy’s passing, but also frustrated that the police were going to call it suicide.
    But what could I do about it?
Birch, 1972
    GOING TO RATNER’s was like holding a wake for Mendy. At least, that was how Birch Tate saw it. They were eating Jewish food and talking about the old man and how much they’d liked him and how his death wasn’t suicide, and that was as close to a memorial as they were ever going to get.
    Scotty and Patrick were deep in discussion about how somebody could have slipped poison into Mendy’s coffee when the guy at the counter took out a little pillbox and popped a tiny white pill into his coffee and then stirred. Funny way to take a pill, Birch thought and then realized: saccharin. People put saccharin in coffee when they wanted to lose weight or if they were diabetics or—
    â€œThat’s it,” she said, so loudly that even the man at the counter turned around. “Because you would,” she added, turning to Scotty.
    â€œWould what?”
    â€œTake a saccharin tablet if somebody offered it to you. Just like you’d take a joint. You wouldn’t say, no thanks, and take out your own because that would be rude. Mendy was a diabetic, remember?” Now Birch had Scotty’s attention, and Patrick’s too. “He put saccharin in his coffee the night we talked to him.”
    â€œThat is sheer brilliance,” Patrick said, and Birch blushed.
    â€œThat means the killer was in the theater,” Scotty pointed out. “Mendy always had espresso from the coffee bar.”
    â€œYeah, somebody walked up to him, opened his little pillbox first and offered him one and he said, sure, thanks, and didn’t think twice.”
    â€œWhich means