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The Blue Movie Murders

MysteriousPress.com

Tuesday, May 11

McCall didn't get invited to many social gatherings in the state capital. As the Assistant to the Governor for Special Affairs, he was too well-known to those who worked and lobbied among the legislators, and to many people that simply meant trouble. A popular hostess had once told him, "Mike, if I want prestige, I invite Governor Holland himself. If I want trouble, I invite you. And nobody wants trouble."

He didn't really care that much, because the capital cocktail circuit was Washington in miniature. When the legislature was in session, during the early months of each year, there were likely to be parties somewhere in town almost every night. That was too much for any man to take, and he was thankful that his position as Sam Holland's trouble-shooter often took him away from the capital, to odd corners of the state where the residents were more interested in the latest school-tax hike than in the guest list for the next party.

But Dora Pringle's party was one McCall couldn't side-step. He'd known Dora since he first came to the capital to help Sam Holland solve the murder of a state legislator. Holland was not yet governor then, and he'd introduced McCall to the parties at Dora's massive town house with a promise that the contacts made there would serve him well in the future.

Dora herself was a handsome woman in her early forties, with a sly smile that often made McCall wish he'd known her twenty years earlier. She greeted him now with a tug at the arm and a quick sisterly kiss. "Mike McCall! I didn't think you'd come!"

"I don't get invited to many capital parties these days, Dora. Hostesses think I make the other guests uncomfortable."

She gave him that sly smile. "You'd make any woman uncomfortable, Mike." Then, tugging at his arm, she asked, "Have you circulated yet?"

"I've had two of these," he told her, holding up his glass. "Is that circulating?"

"You can't hide out here by the bar. You have to meet people!"

"What people?"

"Cynthia Rhodes, for one."

McCall was surprised. "The women's liberation gal? I didn't even know she was in town."

"Oh, she's here, all right. You and Sam Holland will know that soon enough."

"And what's that remark supposed to mean?"

She steered him through the maze of guests towards the centre of the room. "I'll let Cynthia tell you herself. She's very good at speaking her mind."

McCall followed, keeping a good grip on his drink. The glitter of Dora's sequined dress around her hips caught his eye, and he wished again that he'd known her in her younger days. In his job sex was irrelevant, but it was still nice at times.

The object of their weaving journey through the crowd proved to be a slinky girl in black pants and black shirt who suddenly materialized in their path. On the shirt was pinned a scratched red button with white lettering reading Cynthia's Raiders. "Great party, Dora," the girl said, speaking over the rim of her highball glass.

"Cynthia, I want you to meet Micah McCall."

Cynthia pushed the long dark hair out of her eyes and inspected him openly. He'd never been looked at by a woman in exactly that way. "What sort of name is Micah, for God's sake?"

"You don't know your Bible. He was a minor prophet in the eighth century B.C."

"You're right," she agreed. "I don't know my Bible. And I sure don't have time for minor anythings."

"Then call me Mike, if that pleases you." Dora had been pulled away before completing the introduction, so McCall took it from there. "You're Cynthia Rhodes, the writer, aren't you?"

"Somebody's been telling." She tossed her head, clearing the hair from her eyes once more.

"I've read some of your magazine pieces, and one of your books, though I can't say I agree with all your ideas."

"A typical male chauvinist!"

"Not at all. I'll go along with equal pay and equal job opportunities for women, but not with some of the other things you preach."

"My, my! You really must be a politician, Mr. McCall, to go on like that!"

"Not exactly. I do work for Governor Holland, though, only on special assignments."

Her brown eyes hardened for an instant. "Mike McCall. ... You're not Holland's troubleshooter, are you? The one who goes around the state tackling the newest crises?"

"Guilty. But we've talked enough about me, and you're standing there with an empty glass."

"I get my own drinks, thanks," she said as he reached for the glass.

"Well! You're as liberated in the flesh as you are in print!"

She gave him a hard-eyed smile and went off to the bar where Dora's hired butler served her another highball. McCall guessed he'd seen the last of her and started scanning the crowd for familiar faces. He said a few words to a man from the motor vehicle bureau, and then moved off towards a group that had collected around a short, grey-haired man. He seemed to be somebody important, but he didn't look political to McCall's experienced eye.

"Trying to get away?" a voice behind him asked, and he turned to see that Cynthia Rhodes had come back.

"Not really. I thought you'd deserted me."

She shook her head, and he could see that the time for light conversation had passed. "How much do you know about women's liberation, Mr. McCall?"

He shrugged. "The usual things — day-care centres, free abortions, equal pay, husbands who help with the housework."

"And burning our bras? You forgot that one, Mr. McCall."

"I wish you'd call me Mike." He glanced down at her tight black shirt. "I see you've already burnt yours."

She sighed and took a long swallow of her drink. She handled it like a man, but he didn't tell her that. "I'm not playing games with you, Mr. McCall. Since you're so full of jokes about women's liberation, let's try another topic. Pornographic movies."

"I haven't seen a good one in years."

"There are five of them playing within a mile of the Governor's mansion right now. Do you want the titles? Streamlined Swappers, Lust Lodge, Midnight Cowgirl, It Pays to Swap, and Beauties in Bondage."

"They're a little out of my line," McCall admitted.

"Well, they're very much in my line these days! Under the relaxed obscenity laws this sort of thing is flooding every city in the state."

He could see she was serious, but he hadn't yet decided exactly how to cope with her outburst. "Don't tell me women's lib has come out against sex!" he said at last.

"We're not against sex, but we are against the degradation of women. Those films, and most of your men's magazines, view women only as a sexual object, something put on this earth for the pleasure and convenience of men. We're more than that, Mr. McCall, and it's time the male population began to realize it."

"I see. And is that what brought you to our fair capital city?"

"It is."

"Wouldn't you do better in New York, along 42nd Street?"

"Picketing in New York is like trying to catch the wind. We've come here because it's a place where we can make ourselves heard, and perhaps achieve something."

"You've come here to picket those movie theatres?"

"No, Mr. McCall. We've come here to picket Governor Holland's mansion."

McCall chewed at the lining of his cheek and considered that bit of information. He'd found most of the activities of the women's lib people to be ineffectual, but he suspected that this time might be different. In a city like this, during the political season, no one was going to laugh too hard at women picketing against blue movies. In fact, there was a strong possibility that Cynthia Rhodes and her followers might even gain the support of civic and church groups. Governor Holland could hardly denounce them, and yet he would be powerless to do much that was really effective against the sex films.

"What's the Governor supposed to do about it?" he asked finally. "You know he's helpless."

"He may be helpless, but we're not. Tomorrow morning we plan to be at the mansion with our signs. Perhaps I'll even see you there, if the Governor uses his trouble shooter to chase away pickets."

McCall was about to reply when Dora Pringle reappeared, her sequins flying. "How are you two getting along? Need another drink, Mike?"

"I'm fine, Dora." When he saw she was joining them for a few moments he added, "Did you know this young lady is planning to picket the Governor's mansion tomorrow morning?"

Dora Pringle grinned impishly. "I'd heard something about it. That's why I thought you two might find something in common to chat about."

McCall frowned.

Quick to sense his growing irritation, Dora shifted gears. "But you still haven't met my guest of honour, Mike. I'm sure he knows more about sex films than even Cynthia does."

Her words were spoken just loudly enough to catch the ear of the grey-haired little man whom McCall had already noticed. He remembered vaguely that Dora's invitation had spoken of a film producer, and now as the man turned to them, he recognized the face from numerous newspaper and magazine articles over the years. Dora's guest was Ben Sloane.

Sloane had come up the easy way during the final flush days of Hollywood glory, but he'd managed to stay on top the hard way. In an era when studios were going broke and the old hands were falling by the wayside, Sloane had been one of the first to spot the trends that still paid off at the box office. He'd made a few of the early youth-oriented films, before the public soured on them, and he'd collected a couple of Academy Awards for pictures produced by his own studio.

Dora made the introductions, and the short man ran gnarled fingers through his grizzled hair. "Pleased to meet you, McCall. Governor Holland does a fine job running this state. Sometimes out west they talk about him for President."

McCall grinned and gave the stock answer. "Sam Holland has no aspiration to higher office. He's quite content right here."

The film producer nodded sagely. "But when Miss Rhodes and her feminists finish their little demonstration tomorrow, he might very well change his mind. Washington could look like a relatively safe place."

"What brings you to our city?" McCall asked, pointedly changing the subject. He'd never felt qualified to discuss the Governor's political plans.

"Just passing through, and I wanted to look up my old friend Dora. But I certainly didn't expect a party like this!"

Dora Pringle grinned. "Any excuse is good enough when the legislature is in session. I told you I'd have interesting people for you to meet, didn't I?"

"Interesting and charming both," Ben Sloane said, directing his remark at Cynthia. "I'll never again say that feminists are a bunch of man-hating misfits. There's nothing misfitting about you at all, young lady."

"I don't ask for compliments and I don't welcome them when they come," Cynthia told him. "Some of your films haven't been a great deal better than the ones we're protesting, Mr. Sloane."

"Oh?" The smile faded from his face. "Would you care to be more specific?"

"In 1965 you produced a film called Native Daughter, in which a black woman is shown selling herself as a prostitute to support the man she loves. The clear implication of the film was that the female occupies a secondary position in society."

"Oh, come now! I think you're exaggerating the point."

"Am I? In 1959 you produced and directed something called Story of a Marriage. In this one a husband is shown to be justified when he murders his wife for having an affair with another man."

"That's hardly the interpretation I intended."

"But that's the one a good many of the critics drew from the picture. It's always the same — double standard, down-grade the female, keep her barefoot and pregnant."

Ben Sloane's face was now flushed, but he kept his voice under control. "There are a number of things you should understand, young lady. I hadn't meant to get into this at a social gathering, but you leave me no alternative. First of all, I've never made a film which was consciously anti-feminine. And my films are hardly to be compared with the pornography you oppose so vocally. Secondly, even that pornography can have some merit at times. Did you ever consider the fact that even in so-called degradation the woman can exhibit strength and love and beauty?"

"I doubt that very much. Not, certainly, in any film ever produced by a male."

"No?" Sloane pressed his attack, his face only inches from hers as McCall looked on. "Have you ever heard of a film director named Sol Dahlman? He made one feature film, twenty years ago, then vanished from sight. It was a classic then and it's a classic now — perhaps the finest pornographic film ever produced in this country."

"That's impossible," Cynthia Rhodes replied. "You'll never convince me that a piece of pure filth that degrades the human female can ever be considered a work of art."

"What's the name of this amazing film?" McCall asked.

"The Wild Nymph. Dahlman filmed it on a limited budget right here in this state, using unknown actors. It had two performances at a Manhattan art theatre before the place was raided — yes, they still raided theatres in those days. Anyway, since that time the film has been pretty much confined to the smoker circuit in this country, although it's had some theatrical distribution overseas."

"You seem to know a lot about it," McCall observed.

"I should. It's that film, and its director, that has brought me here. In fact, my secretary and I are on our way upstate to try and get a line on him."

"You want to find this man?" Cynthia Rhodes asked. "What in God's name for? To give him an Oscar?"

"No, to give him a contract. Pornography may be unpopular with a large segment of the public, but these are permissive times. The man who made a film with the sheer genius of The Wild Nymph is capable of great things. I want to talk to him about a new film, and about releasing The Wild Nymph in a few selected art theatres. I'm convinced its time has come. Sol Dahlman's time has come."

"How do you know he's still alive?" Dora asked.

"I don't. But I intend to find out. I believe that The Wild Nymph was filmed in Rockview, a small city upstate, and that's where I'm headed. Someone there might remember him, or might be able to give me a lead to the actors in the film. As with most of these things, they're not identified in the screen credits."

"Well, you find this Sol Dahlman," Cynthia told him. "You find him and his movie and you show it and we'll have a hundred pickets outside the theatre the day it opens."

"Please don't judge it until you've seen it, my dear. Movies are my life. I've seen a great many of them, and I tell you The Wild Nymph is a classic."

"You certainly make me want to see it," McCall remarked.

"Maybe I can arrange it sometime. I own one of the few prints in existence."

A slim woman with a rounded face appeared out of the crowd to join them. "We should be leaving, Mr. Sloane. It's a long drive up there."

"You're right," the producer said. "Mr. McCall and ladies, my secretary — Susanne Walsh."

There were greetings all around, but it was obvious that Suzanne Walsh was much too efficient a secretary to be put off the track. She'd interrupted to spur Sloane on his way, and in another five minutes they were gone.

"I have to be going too," McCall told his hostess.

"So soon, Mike?"

"Afraid so." He turned to Cynthia Rhodes. "Can I drop you anywhere?"

"I get around on my own, Mr. McCall."

"Sorry. I forgot. Will I be seeing you again?"

She tossed her head to get the hair out of her eyes. "Probably sooner than you'd like. Tomorrow morning, bright and early. In front of the Governor's mansion."

Wednesday, May 12

When McCall arrived at the Governor's mansion in the morning, he found the main entrance already blocked by a lengthening serpentine queue of female demonstrators. Cynthia Rhodes was in the lead, wearing her familiar black slacks and shirt, followed by a dozen or so ardent supporters who'd apparently made the trip with her.

It was obvious at once that the demonstration was well organized, and even as McCall watched, the line of marchers grew longer. Cynthia's hard-core followers were being joined in a steady flow by local women, many of them carrying handprinted signs that lacked the professional neatness of their leaders' placards but still got their message across.

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Excerpted from The Blue Movie Murders by Ellery Queen. Copyright © 1972 Ellery Queen. Excerpted by permission of MysteriousPress.com.
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