Show No Mercy — 'Star'
I was downtown in Harry’s Bar on the trail of a snitch named Benny the Weasel. Just that morning we’d found the landlord of a rundown rooming house with his brains all over his pillow, one eye staring at the ceiling, the other turned to jelly by hot lead. I figured if anyone knew who done it, Benny did.
I’d barely started pressing Harry’s usual selection of drunks and deadbeats for Benny’s current whereabouts when the bartender shouted across the room to catch my attention.
‘Hey, McGraw. Phone.’ He waved the receiver then put it on the bar top and got on with polishing glasses.
I walked over and picked it up, one eye still scoping the bar in case the Weasel popped out of a hole somewhere. ‘McGraw.’
It was the station house. Turned out a couple of flatfoots had got lucky and figured they already had the landlord’s killer bang to rights, sweating over his relationship with his maker in a holding cell.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked, flicking a match with my free hand and putting the flame to a smoke.
I heard the desk sergeant chuckle. ‘Miss Celeste Aubuchon, if you please,’ he said. ‘Scumbag Sammy got iced by a dame.’
Thirty minutes later and I’m back at the station house, gulping down a mug of stewed coffee while Byrne fills me in on the details.
‘We was questioning the people that live in the rooming house. Asked ’em all straight out did they do it, thinking we might see somebody start to sweat. We never expected nothing from her, but we ask her anyway and she says ‘yes’, calm as you like and goes and gets the gun. Apparently she can kill a guy, but telling lies is a bad thing, she can’t do it.’
‘No kidding.’
‘And McGraw, you wanna see this broad. Looks like a goddamn movie star.’
She sounded like quite a piece of work. I could hardly wait to see her for myself. I had her moved from the cell to the interview room while I finished my coffee, then I headed off to question the city’s latest stone cold killer.
Byrne had told me she was a swell looking dame, but she still took my breath away. She was standing when I went into the room, her back to me, and I got the chance to take in her shape: she had curves in all the right places, topped off with a platinum blonde hairdo. When she turned, I gawped. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, sleepy brown eyes and blood red lips, cheekbones you could cut a finger on and that goddamn hair shining like a halo in the light of the caged bulb above. She was smoking a cigarette in a holder, and when she saw me, she took it from her lips and stepped forward.
‘Hello, sir, I’m Celeste Aubuchon,’ she said, holding out her hand in a formal greeting.
‘McGraw,’ I said, shaking her hand, careful not to squeeze too hard. For all the poise and polish, the dame looked fragile. ‘Please, Miss Aubuchon, won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you, Mr McGraw,’ she said, taking her seat at the table.
‘Just McGraw.’ I sat opposite, her perfume wrapping me in its heady sweetness and drawing me in.
‘Call me Celeste,’ she said, smoothing the skirt of her emerald green suit over her thighs.
‘So, Celeste, what’s the story?’ I asked, as I tried to keep my eyes off her lips and my mind on the job.
‘I killed a man,’ she told me. ‘But he was a bad man and I’m not sorry.’
‘I see. Want to tell me how it all went down?’
Celeste took the cigarette from the holder and tamped it out in the ashtray, put the holder on the table in front of her. ‘It all started last year,’ she told me. ‘I packed my good shoes, my best lipstick and all my dreams into a cardboard suitcase and headed west to seek fame and fortune. I’m a star, McGraw. I wanted the world to know.’
‘How do you make that out?’ I asked, struggling to recall where I had seen this dame before.
‘When did you know you were a cop?’ she asked me.
‘Gee, I always wanted to be a cop, right from when I was a kid. I was born to do this job.’
She shrugged. ‘Same here. I was born to be a star.’
‘You and a few hundred other dreamers,’ I muttered, thinking how many times I’d heard that line or one like it. I was surrounded by stars. They shined my shoes, gassed up my car and packed my groceries. ‘So, what happened to turn you from a star into a killer?’
‘My looks got in the way.’
‘Forgive me for saying so, but I would have thought your looks would pave the way.’
She nodded an assent. ‘Up to a point, for sure. Looks and talent got me parts in a couple of B-movies. Then I had a screen test for a real peachy role. The studio wanted to make me their newest starlet. There was just one problem.’
‘Which was?’
‘The casting couch. I was expected to … earn my opportunity, shall we say.’
‘I’m guessing you decided not to.’
‘I wanted to be a starlet, not a harlot. The studio head was old, fat, bald and married. I was saving myself for the right guy. I said ‘No’, another girl said ‘Yes’, and that was it: I wasn’t even on the B-movie roster anymore.’
‘Tough break.’
‘I picked up a job singing a few nights a week in a club, Santini’s on Fifth and Main.’
Bingo. That’s where I’d seen her, singing sad songs in a voice like liquid gold, half-glimpsed through a smoky haze as I sipped bourbon and tried to forget the sights I’d seen that day. Celeste was right: she was a star.
‘I was sharing a nice apartment with three other actresses, but even with the pay and the tips from Santini’s, I could no longer afford my share of the rent. So I had to pack up my little suitcase again and find somewhere cheaper.’
‘The rooming house.’
She nodded. ‘I cut back, tried doing without things, but I couldn’t do without enough of them to make ends meet. There’s been some weeks over the last few months I’ve had to pay my rent on my back.’
I took out two cigarettes and lit them, offered one to Celeste. She took it and met my eyes while she put it to her lips and drew. I felt sorry for the dame. She had turned down a studio chief and a shot at stardom, preferring to wait for her one true love, then had to give it up for Scumbag Sammy.
‘The last few weeks I’ve made the rent,’ she told me, ‘but this week when he came knocking, I couldn’t cover it. I’d had a cold, I couldn’t sing. I had half and I promised to pay him the other half in two days’ time. I would have, too, but he wouldn’t agree. He told me to take what I had and buy something nice for myself, and to go to his room that night wearing it.’
‘But you bought a gun instead.’
She nodded.
‘Who sold you the gun?’
‘I don’t know his name. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. No questions asked, you know the score.’
I sure did. It was an old song she was singing. ‘You took the gun to Sammy’s room.’
‘The door was on the latch. I went in and he was lying there, waiting for me. I … I couldn’t take it no more, McGraw. This isn’t how I came out here to live.’
‘So you shot him.’
‘Yes, I did. I aimed right between his eyes, but my hands were shaking.’
‘Still, it did the job.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you run? Or lie?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, McGraw. Maybe I just wanted to be little Jenny Brown one more time. Tell the truth and shame the devil, that’s what Momma always said to me.’
The trial was an open and shut case. Took but a couple of days to sentence Celeste to the chair.
I visited Celeste every week in prison, took her smokes, powder, lipstick, the bare essentials, while a bunch of appeals tried and failed to keep her alive.
‘This isn’t living, McGraw,’ she’d drawl at me through a cloud of smoke. ‘They might as well flick the switch. I’m already dead.’
I still had a foolish dream that she’d get out one day, come to me and let me look after her like the gal deserved. My dream got the same treatment hers had, however, and so on one cold, dank morning in December, just a week before the holidays, I got to say goodbye to Celeste for the last time.
‘Don’t be sad, McGraw,’ she said to me, when she saw my face. ‘How else was this movie ever going to end?’
My last view of her was when she was led into the chamber by the guards, shaven-headed, her platinum locks all gone, but still beautiful. She would always be beautiful. There was hardly a dry eye in the house as Celeste and I locked eyes for the last time and the hood was placed carefully over her head. The guard who did it brushed his cheeks with the back of his hand when he was done. My girl was brave right to the end.
As they pulled the switch, I recalled her last words to me: ‘Look out for me, McGraw. I’ll be shining down on you every night from the heavens, the brightest star you ever saw in your life.’
I’d barely started pressing Harry’s usual selection of drunks and deadbeats for Benny’s current whereabouts when the bartender shouted across the room to catch my attention.
‘Hey, McGraw. Phone.’ He waved the receiver then put it on the bar top and got on with polishing glasses.
I walked over and picked it up, one eye still scoping the bar in case the Weasel popped out of a hole somewhere. ‘McGraw.’
It was the station house. Turned out a couple of flatfoots had got lucky and figured they already had the landlord’s killer bang to rights, sweating over his relationship with his maker in a holding cell.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked, flicking a match with my free hand and putting the flame to a smoke.
I heard the desk sergeant chuckle. ‘Miss Celeste Aubuchon, if you please,’ he said. ‘Scumbag Sammy got iced by a dame.’
Thirty minutes later and I’m back at the station house, gulping down a mug of stewed coffee while Byrne fills me in on the details.
‘We was questioning the people that live in the rooming house. Asked ’em all straight out did they do it, thinking we might see somebody start to sweat. We never expected nothing from her, but we ask her anyway and she says ‘yes’, calm as you like and goes and gets the gun. Apparently she can kill a guy, but telling lies is a bad thing, she can’t do it.’
‘No kidding.’
‘And McGraw, you wanna see this broad. Looks like a goddamn movie star.’
She sounded like quite a piece of work. I could hardly wait to see her for myself. I had her moved from the cell to the interview room while I finished my coffee, then I headed off to question the city’s latest stone cold killer.
Byrne had told me she was a swell looking dame, but she still took my breath away. She was standing when I went into the room, her back to me, and I got the chance to take in her shape: she had curves in all the right places, topped off with a platinum blonde hairdo. When she turned, I gawped. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, sleepy brown eyes and blood red lips, cheekbones you could cut a finger on and that goddamn hair shining like a halo in the light of the caged bulb above. She was smoking a cigarette in a holder, and when she saw me, she took it from her lips and stepped forward.
‘Hello, sir, I’m Celeste Aubuchon,’ she said, holding out her hand in a formal greeting.
‘McGraw,’ I said, shaking her hand, careful not to squeeze too hard. For all the poise and polish, the dame looked fragile. ‘Please, Miss Aubuchon, won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you, Mr McGraw,’ she said, taking her seat at the table.
‘Just McGraw.’ I sat opposite, her perfume wrapping me in its heady sweetness and drawing me in.
‘Call me Celeste,’ she said, smoothing the skirt of her emerald green suit over her thighs.
‘So, Celeste, what’s the story?’ I asked, as I tried to keep my eyes off her lips and my mind on the job.
‘I killed a man,’ she told me. ‘But he was a bad man and I’m not sorry.’
‘I see. Want to tell me how it all went down?’
Celeste took the cigarette from the holder and tamped it out in the ashtray, put the holder on the table in front of her. ‘It all started last year,’ she told me. ‘I packed my good shoes, my best lipstick and all my dreams into a cardboard suitcase and headed west to seek fame and fortune. I’m a star, McGraw. I wanted the world to know.’
‘How do you make that out?’ I asked, struggling to recall where I had seen this dame before.
‘When did you know you were a cop?’ she asked me.
‘Gee, I always wanted to be a cop, right from when I was a kid. I was born to do this job.’
She shrugged. ‘Same here. I was born to be a star.’
‘You and a few hundred other dreamers,’ I muttered, thinking how many times I’d heard that line or one like it. I was surrounded by stars. They shined my shoes, gassed up my car and packed my groceries. ‘So, what happened to turn you from a star into a killer?’
‘My looks got in the way.’
‘Forgive me for saying so, but I would have thought your looks would pave the way.’
She nodded an assent. ‘Up to a point, for sure. Looks and talent got me parts in a couple of B-movies. Then I had a screen test for a real peachy role. The studio wanted to make me their newest starlet. There was just one problem.’
‘Which was?’
‘The casting couch. I was expected to … earn my opportunity, shall we say.’
‘I’m guessing you decided not to.’
‘I wanted to be a starlet, not a harlot. The studio head was old, fat, bald and married. I was saving myself for the right guy. I said ‘No’, another girl said ‘Yes’, and that was it: I wasn’t even on the B-movie roster anymore.’
‘Tough break.’
‘I picked up a job singing a few nights a week in a club, Santini’s on Fifth and Main.’
Bingo. That’s where I’d seen her, singing sad songs in a voice like liquid gold, half-glimpsed through a smoky haze as I sipped bourbon and tried to forget the sights I’d seen that day. Celeste was right: she was a star.
‘I was sharing a nice apartment with three other actresses, but even with the pay and the tips from Santini’s, I could no longer afford my share of the rent. So I had to pack up my little suitcase again and find somewhere cheaper.’
‘The rooming house.’
She nodded. ‘I cut back, tried doing without things, but I couldn’t do without enough of them to make ends meet. There’s been some weeks over the last few months I’ve had to pay my rent on my back.’
I took out two cigarettes and lit them, offered one to Celeste. She took it and met my eyes while she put it to her lips and drew. I felt sorry for the dame. She had turned down a studio chief and a shot at stardom, preferring to wait for her one true love, then had to give it up for Scumbag Sammy.
‘The last few weeks I’ve made the rent,’ she told me, ‘but this week when he came knocking, I couldn’t cover it. I’d had a cold, I couldn’t sing. I had half and I promised to pay him the other half in two days’ time. I would have, too, but he wouldn’t agree. He told me to take what I had and buy something nice for myself, and to go to his room that night wearing it.’
‘But you bought a gun instead.’
She nodded.
‘Who sold you the gun?’
‘I don’t know his name. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. No questions asked, you know the score.’
I sure did. It was an old song she was singing. ‘You took the gun to Sammy’s room.’
‘The door was on the latch. I went in and he was lying there, waiting for me. I … I couldn’t take it no more, McGraw. This isn’t how I came out here to live.’
‘So you shot him.’
‘Yes, I did. I aimed right between his eyes, but my hands were shaking.’
‘Still, it did the job.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you run? Or lie?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, McGraw. Maybe I just wanted to be little Jenny Brown one more time. Tell the truth and shame the devil, that’s what Momma always said to me.’
The trial was an open and shut case. Took but a couple of days to sentence Celeste to the chair.
I visited Celeste every week in prison, took her smokes, powder, lipstick, the bare essentials, while a bunch of appeals tried and failed to keep her alive.
‘This isn’t living, McGraw,’ she’d drawl at me through a cloud of smoke. ‘They might as well flick the switch. I’m already dead.’
I still had a foolish dream that she’d get out one day, come to me and let me look after her like the gal deserved. My dream got the same treatment hers had, however, and so on one cold, dank morning in December, just a week before the holidays, I got to say goodbye to Celeste for the last time.
‘Don’t be sad, McGraw,’ she said to me, when she saw my face. ‘How else was this movie ever going to end?’
My last view of her was when she was led into the chamber by the guards, shaven-headed, her platinum locks all gone, but still beautiful. She would always be beautiful. There was hardly a dry eye in the house as Celeste and I locked eyes for the last time and the hood was placed carefully over her head. The guard who did it brushed his cheeks with the back of his hand when he was done. My girl was brave right to the end.
As they pulled the switch, I recalled her last words to me: ‘Look out for me, McGraw. I’ll be shining down on you every night from the heavens, the brightest star you ever saw in your life.’
