SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: SWEET CHARLIE

 "Sweet Charlie" by Henry Kane  (first appeared in Manhunt, March 1955; reprinted in Giant Manhunt #6 (1955) and #7 (1957); reprinted in The Phantom Suspense-Mystery Magazine #3 (an Australian reprint magazine which (for this issue anyway) culled stories from four separate issues of Manhunt), 195- [year uncertain]; reprinted in Dames, Danger, Death, edited by Leo Margulies, 1960) 

Private eye Pete chambers has an eye for pulchritude, and his current client is no exception.  "I sneaked a look.  She was even more impressive from the rear."  Her name was Belinda Fear and she was a snake dancer at Club Reno, which meant she danced wearing trained snakes...and nothing else.  Belinda was afraid someone was going to kill her, and (for reasons that made no sense at all) was going to explain all to chambers at her apartment at eight pm that evening.  Then she tossed $10,000 in cash on his desk and left.

There was plenty of time before Chambers was due to meet up with the girl, so he went to his friend, Scoop Conlon for the lowdown.  Scoop was a former P.I., turned successful publicist, more recently turned successful lead investigator for the District Attorney.  Scoop also claimed that Belinda Fear was "his girl."  Two weeks earlier, prominent theatrical producer Anthony Rurok was stabbed to death in his swanky apartment.  The main suspect was C. Charles Applegate, multi-millionaire antiques dealer, whose wife was having an affair with Rurok.  Applegate's wife swore that he had killed Rurok, but nothing could be proved.  Another suspect was Belinda Fear, whose fingerprints were found on the key in the door to Rurok's apartment; she claimed to know nothing about it and said that she did not know Rurok.  There was no real proof about her either, so the cased has remained unsolved over the past to weeks.  Checking on his client further, Chambers interviews Charlene Lopez (she "had a big bosom and most of it kept heaving as she walked the carpet of the spacious room), a beautiful professional photographer and one of Rurok's lovers; she is convinced that Belinda had killed Rurok and has vowed to kill her for that.  He also spoke to nightclub owner Joe Reno a thug who had " a broken nose, and political connections, and a bad reputation, and political connections, and an ugly temper, and political connections, and a good many arrests without convictions), who owned the nightclub where Belinda worked; Reno was also threatening to kill Belinda because she had just walked out on him after he had invested a lot of money remodeling his club to accommodate Belinda's act.

When it was time to meet up with Belinda, Chambers was not the first one to her apartment.  the police were there, along with Belinda's dead body, stabbed with a letter opener, made to look like suicide.  Inn her apartment was $90,000 in cash and a half-finished letter:  "Dear Charlie:  I'm through with the mess.  I'm going to hide out for a while.  somebody's going to take over for me so I can try to get straightened out..."

So who was Charlie?  Was it C. Charles Applegate, or was it Charlene Lopez?  Or was it somebody else?

Not the most logical private eye story I've read, but with a surprise and somewhat complicated solution.

From the Thrilling Detectivewebsite:  "PETER CHAMBERS is swingin' kinda guy, who started life referring to himself as a 'private richard' and ended up as the head detective in a handful of soft porn novels.  What a dick!"  Chamber appeared in more than thirty novels and almost two dozen short stories, and was the subject of a short-lived radios series on NBC in 1954, written, directed, and produced by Henry Kane himself.  There has been some speculation that Chambers was the inspiration for Blake Edwards' Peter Gunn, and when a Peter Gunn paperback tie-in was published in 1960, its author was Henry Kane.

Who was Henry Kane? Kane (1908-1986) was a lawyer who preferred writing.  His first novel about Pete Chambers was the well-received A Halo for Nobody; the same year, Esquire began publishing short stories about the character -- which indicates that Chambers, at least at the beginning was well-thought of.  Critical reaction to Kane's work is mixed.  Gary Warren Niehbuhr wrote, "Henry Kane was a stylist, I just could never figure out what the style was."  And at Scott has written, "The Chambers books can provide enjoyable light entertainment if the reader finds Kane's quirky, playful approach palatable."  If one decides to approach Kane and Peter Chambers, I suggest staying away from the later, oversexed novels during which Kane was trying to salvage Chambers' (and his own) career.

Kane wrote some 60 novels, including ones featuring two other series detectives:  Marla Trent and McGregor.  Kane's books were also published under the pseudonyms Anthony McCall, Kenneth R.  McKay, Mario J. Sagola, and Katherine Stappleton.