The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,65
fifty pounds, was perhaps five-eight, had greasy black hair, bulging cow eyes, yellow crooked teeth, and cheeks and chin so blue with the need for a shave that it was safe to say the ladies did not have an eye for him.
Descriptions of Balanchine and the three thugs also fell on deaf ears.
Gibson, smoking his umpteenth Camel, had a stray thought. “Louis, are you the only janitor on duty?”
“One and only.”
“When did you come on?”
“Around one P.M.”
“You know Mr. Houseman?”
“Sure.”
“You loaned him your passkey, right?”
“Sure.”
Well, that was a dead end.
But Gibson pressed on: “And he returned it?”
“Sure. First thing.”
Gibson asked a few more questions, then hitched a ride with Leo back to the twenty-second floor.
In the lobby, where security guard Williams remained seated at his desk, Miss Holliday—the shapely, sturdy girl was in a blue dress with white polka dots and white collar—stood waiting to catch the elevator.
“Miss Holliday—hello.”
She flashed her infectious smile. “Hello, Mr. Gibson.”
“Got a minute?”
“Sure. I was just heading over to the theater, to get things ready.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah.... There’s a Danton’s Death rehearsal right after the broadcast.”
“Ah. A few questions?”
“Shoot.”
“Let’s sit...”
They took two chairs in the reception area. Williams was within earshot, but it didn’t seem to matter to Gibson, who asked Miss Holliday about Virginia Welles and George Balanchine, who she too had not seen around here today...“though I’ve been in and out, back and forth, ’tween here and the theater, running errands, ya know?”
But the three thugs, strangely enough, got Miss Holliday’s pretty brow furrowing.
“Describe them again,” she said. “In more detail.”
Gibson did, best he could.
“Those sound like actors.”
Gibson frowned. “Actors?”
“Yeah—spear-carrier types. Mr. Welles uses them in crowd scenes, sometimes.”
“You’re sure?”
She made a funny smirk. “No, I’m not sure—you don’t have a picture to show me, right? But your descriptions are good—you’re a writer, aren’t you? And those three goon types sound like minor actors Mr. Welles uses, from time to time.”
“Thank you, Miss Holliday.”
“You can call me Judy.”
He walked her to the elevator, his mind abuzz.
Finally he had clues—but what he’d learned from the janitor seemed to contradict the direction Judy Holliday’s information indicated....
Quiet as a mouse, heedful but not halted by the bold ON THE AIR sign over the door, the writer slipped into Studio One, passing through the vestibule, into the live broadcast, and padding carefully up the short flight of stairs into the control booth.
Kenny Delmar was being introduced as “the Secretary of the Interior,” but the voice he did was a dead-on impression of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Citizens of the nation—I shall not try to conceal the gravity of the situation that confronts the country, nor the concern of your government in protecting the lives and property of its people. However, I wish to impress upon you—private citizens and public officials, all of you, the urgent need of calm and resourceful action.”
On his podium, Welles was grinning like a big gleeful baby.
Delmar continued: “Fortunately, this formidable enemy is still confined to a comparatively small area, and we may place our faith in the military forces to keep them there.”
Gibson had paused in the sub-control booth, and CBS executive Dave Taylor was shaking his head, sighing—Welles had been told not to invoke the president, and (technically) he hadn’t; and yet of course he had.
Delmar was wrapping up: “In the meantime, placing our faith in God, we must continue the performance of our duties, each and every one of us, so that we may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united, courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human supremacy on this earth.”
Delmar took a dramatic pause, then: “I thank you.”
The bulletins continued at breakneck speed: from Langham Field, scout planes reported a trio of Martian machines visible above the trees, heading north; in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, a second cylinder had been found and the army was rushing to blow it up before it opened; in the Watchung Mountains, the 22nd Field Artillery closed in on the enemy, but poisonous black smoke dispatched by the invaders wiped out the battery.
Eight bombers were set on fire by the tripods in a flash of green. More of the lethal black smoke was leaching in from the Jersey marshes, and gas masks were of no use, the populace urged to make for open spaces.
Recommended routes of escape were shared with listeners.
When the phone rang, the Dorn sisters—kneeling before their living-room radio as if taking communion—yelped in surprise and fear.
Miss Jane rose, patted her sister’s shoulder, and went to answer it, in the nearby hallway.