Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

None of this was decided in an afternoon, of course. Laszlo sent off a string of cables from French Willow to report the problems. We had to make our afternoon date in Woodridge, where we found cables waiting for us. These were not in answer to Laszlo’s laments, though. We found out what they were when the show was over and men started taking the train apart. Mammoth Titan had made a deal with Schukraft-Mauro, a slightly larger competitor, to combine resources and maybe extend the bond drive as far as Rockford, Illinois, maybe even Chicago. Half the Mammoth Titan people would be going east on this patriotic caravan; the rest would hook up to some freight cars headed back to California.

I was grateful for the freight cars. Without them, I’d’ve had to walk home. The half headed east was the marketable half: Bevis, Lorenzo, Jewell, and, of course, Baby Eloise. We ornaments were expendable. Schukraft-Mauro, having specialized in B musicals, had more of them, with better wardrobes.

“Don’t worry,” Jim told me. “You took out a Nazi spy! You’ll see; they’ll use this to lever you into the female lead in Night of Dr. Jekyll.”

“Ya eedmo Ob-Ararat,” I said. Jim had perfect faith in my agent. So had I. In Cal’s hands, the whole business would probably lever me into a role as fifth girl on the right, second row back, in Andy Hardy’s English class.

Jewell was so giddy at finding herself on the credit side of the ledger that she tried a little joke on Sissy. “Knock knock.”

Sissy blinked, thought about it, and remembered to say, “Who’s there?”

“Toodle,” said Jewell.

Sissy blinked again. “Toodle who?”

Jewell kissed her on one cheek. “Toodle-oo to you, too, darling. See you around.”

Sissy kissed her back but frowned. “Yes, goodbye. But weren’t you going to do a joke?”

I saw Lorenzo hug Olivia goodbye. He should have. He’d talked her into joining the poker game and now owed her four hundred thousand dollars, which, even in stage money, amounted to something. (Velvet had joined the game, too, trying desperately to lose to Bevis, but it hadn’t worked out.)

In the midst of all these touching fadeouts, we heard applause: Laszlo, as it turned out. “Come on, people,” he yelled, banging his hands together some more. “Let’s move it out. You and you and you: you packed? Okay, you know where your car is. Let’s go. Let’s go.” He had to do this before his counterparts from Schukraft-Mauro showed up and opened up a competing shop.

I started to haul my suitcase back to the car I’d started this trip on. I passed Baby Eloise on the way: she was sitting on a bench, leafing through a sheaf of paper. A couple of cables sat on her lap; they’d been waiting for her, along with the paper. I’d heard a little of what was in them. A new relative, a Miss Marr this time, was coming to take up the vacancy as Baby Eloise’s mother.

“Know her?” I’d asked, after Laszlo broke the news.

“A little,” Baby Eloise had told me, face perfectly still. “She uses her hand.”

I paused in front of her now until she looked up from the pages she was skimming. When I raised an eyebrow to inquire, she said, “Script. They want me to be ready to start a new project when I get back. Baby Eloise and O’Toole over Tokyo.”

“That’ll go over big,” I told her. “Who’s O’Toole?”

“Mr. Flint.”

I glanced back to where Bevis was posing for a couple of photographers, a girl wrapped around each arm. “Bevis?” I said. “What will you do?”

She gave me that same look I got when I failed to whack her with the bath brush. “What they tell me to do,” she said.

I reached out and patted one little hand. She didn’t know what to make of that.

“I’ll write you,” I promised.

I did, too. Not fan mail, you understand, because she couldn’t ever be The Child Star to me now. She was one of us.

The Cardinal’s Cross by Mary Amlaw

It was the smooth way the long black car closed in on the little priest that scared Zebulon. Two muscular men in dark business suits stepped from the vehicle and neatly put the priest between them. Undaunted by the retreatants spilling onto the narrow sidewalk through the gates of the convent of the Daughters of Elias, the two men swept their startled prey into the rear of the car and drove off toward Washington Street. Before they turned the corner, something arced from the limo’s window and glittered briefly in the afternoon sun on its trip to the gutter.

A pickup in broad daylight, and the innocents who had just come from their prayers at the convent didn’t even realize it.

Zebulon realized only too well. Life in a high-crime area taught its survival skills even to nine-year-olds, and Zebulon was a fast study. He clung to his perch in the maple that overlooked the convent grounds and considered his options.