Scandal Sheet Page #4

Hey, that's off a Lonely Hearts badge!

Yeah. How many pictures

did you and the boys take at the ball?

Three, maybe four hundred. I don't know.

Rush the print of Miss Bathtub

through the lab.

Then check it against the others.

- See if you can match them up, okay?

- Sure.

- Shouldn't take more than a week.

- Yeah, but I want it done in an hour.

- I'll see you at the office.

- Where are you going?

I'm gonna hitch a ride to the morgue.

If you match them, call me.

How about a ride to the morgue, Pete?

Hey, Needle Nellie, anybody home?

Hey, handsome.

- How you doing, sweetheart?

- Doing all right, handsome.

Come here and give us a kiss.

- How's business at the morgue, Nellie?

- Dead.

Business is dead.

- It's good to see you, handsome.

- Likewise, sweetheart.

A long time between dates.

But right now,

I come seeking your expert female advice.

Anybody that's lived as long as me

can give it. Shoot.

Nellie, if you had just one dress

to your name

and you'd fastened something onto it

with a safety pin,

and maybe you were in a hurry,

would you take time to undo the pin,

or would you rip the whole thing off?

- This is a riddle?

- No, seriously.

Well, if I had 10 dresses and the house

was burning down, I'd still undo the pin.

Any lady would.

That's what I figured.

I just wanted a woman to confirm it.

I love you, Nellie. I love you.

- Where you going, handsome?

- I gotta see the doc.

Maybe I can get you some business, Nellie.

Did you get those ringside ducats

I sent you?

Steve! Yeah, it was a great fight.

Mishke really tore that Haybelly apart,

didn't he?

Had so much blood spattered on my glasses,

I missed the knockout punch.

Look, Doc,

they just brought in an accidental death.

- They're putting her in the freezer right now.

- So?

So, I'd like you to give her

the onceover for me. An autopsy.

Accidents are out of my province.

You know that, Steve.

It's going to be

a great World Series this year.

Yeah, that it is.

I don't suppose you'd be interested

in viewing the festivities from a box seat?

Are you trying to bribe a city official?

Right behind first base, Doc.

Yeah. Yeah, get some prints ready.

I think we've got our front page.

Well, this is your lucky day. Drop back,

I want you to mark my racing form.

Get the door, will you?

Yeah, and don't forget, I smoke cigars.

- Hey, Steve, let me wipe those off a little.

- Wipe them tomorrow.

Will you smile again

if I take you to dinner tonight?

- A little celebration coming up.

- What's the celebration?

Another McCleary scoop.

Getting monotonous, isn't it?

That dinner. A two-party celebration,

or are you bringing a friend?

Just you and me alone.

I'll smile again.

What are the fragile treasures?

Very rare items.

Pictures of a dame with her mouth shut.

- Joey, catch the door, will you?

- All right.

I've been waiting a long time

for a chance to say this.

- Stop the presses!

- Did you get a morning-after story

on any of those couples

we married last night?

I got a story from one

of the Lonely Heart Ball guests, all right.

But she didn't get married last night.

She got murdered!

- Who is she?

- A Jane Doe. Nobody knows her real name.

The police think she slipped in the bathtub

and bashed her head in,

- or they did until a little while ago.

- But you knew better all the time?

After Doc O'Hanlon got through

cutting her up for me.

She died between 9:00 and 12:00 last night,

before she went under in the tub.

No water in her lungs.

Did he find anything else?

Yeah, her killer was a man, middle-aged,

fair complexion. Had brown hair.

O'Hanlon found that

in scraping under her fingernails.

You ran into this

just by playing a hunch, huh?

A string from a Lonely Heart badge

was on her dress in the closet.

The badge had been torn off.

I followed through from there.

Well, is this a story,

this Lonely Heart murdered after the ball?

Can you sell papers with this?

Baxter, Jordan, Allison,

get in here right away.

They didn't know her name, you said?

Well, she called herself Jane Jones.

How phony can you get?

We've just been struck by lightning.

It's a great follow-up

for the Lonely Hearts Ball.

Tell them about it, Steve.

We'll call her Miss Lonely Heart,

no other name. Alone in the city, friendless.

She went to our shindig last night,

hunting for a soul mate.

Maybe she found one, the wrong one.

Anyway, she left early,

and sometime before midnight

she was beaten to death in her room

by a brown-haired, middle-aged man

of fair complexion.

A smash follow-up is right.

The killer had a head full of brains.

Good nerves.

He lugged her to the bathroom,

stripped her, tossed the body in the tub.

No. No, he stood the body in the tub.

Aimed, let go!

Bang, her head cracks the faucet.

Almost perfect crime. Ordinary accident.

He's working smartly,

a guy with imagination.

He takes her slip, stockings,

washes them, hangs them up to dry.

He wipes his prints off everywhere.

He starts getting rid of anything

that could identify her.

He took a ring off her,

probably a wedding or engagement ring.

- How do you know that?

- Whitish circle, third finger, left hand.

- O'Hanlon spotted it at the morgue.

- All right, go on, go on.

Well, he grabs any other personal items

that might identify her

and throws them in her suitcase and blows.

- How do you know she's got a suitcase?

- Every dame's got a suitcase.

But there wasn't one

in Miss Lonely Heart's room.

This'll kick up the circulation.

We can make the 5:00 edition exclusive.

Steve can do the lead story.

Jordan, I want three column cuts

of the dame's picture at the ball

and the murder photo.

Allison, write me a sob story,

"Miss Lonely Heart

won't be Ionely anymore."

Fine job, Steve.

Sure, it's a great job,

but we're gonna top it.

How?

- Bury her.

- Bury her?

The best story I ever dug up, and he tops it.

By 5:
00 tonight, Miss Lonely Heart

will be selling newspapers for us

on every street corner in Manhattan.

Now, go on, get going.

Be seeing you, Humpty.

Look, I've shown you everything in the shop.

That's the last one I've got!

Mark!

- Mark, old boy!

- How are you, Charlie.

What distasteful mission brings you to this

unholy neighborhood, Mark, my friend?

I'm just looking around.

I like to keep my hand in,

even though I am strapped

to a desk right now.

You wouldn't mean you're keeping

your hand in by working

on this Lonely Heart murder,

would you, now, Mark?

I've got a staff to take care of that for me.

You can't kid an old newshound

like me, Mark.

Still following our old formula,

first check the hock shops for a clue?

Didn't wanna tip your hand

to those cops in there, did you?

I tell you I'm not down here on business.

Now stop playing hawkshaw!

Let me show you Charlie Barnes

still has the master's touch

- when it comes to following up a lead, Mark.

- Tell me about it later, will you,

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