Death Dance (19 page)

I was at my desk at eight the next morning, structuring a
grand jury presentation on the drug-facilitated-rape case in hopes I'd
have the toxicology results before my witnesses got restless and bolted
home to Canada.

By eight thirty, Mike was standing in my doorway, looking more
together than he had last evening, now dressed in a navy blazer, pink
oxford-cloth shirt, and neatly creased chinos.

"Have I forgotten that we were supposed to meet?"

He walked to my desk, took my unopened second cup of coffee,
and began to drink. "Won't be the last time I take a bullet for you,
kid."

"What now?"

"I got a call from the PC in the middle of the night. Had to
be in his office at seven. And no, it wasn't for a promotion," he said,
sitting opposite me and stretching his legs out in front of him.

"Something on the case?"

"Can you believe this dirtbag, Joe Berk? Gets his personal
physician to check him out of the hospital around dinnertime and send
him home with private-duty nurses. Calls the precinct and reports a
theft from the apartment. Says the thief is either the niece, or more
likely, whichever member of the department was present."

I thought of all the valuable artworks and antiques that
filled the duplex. "What'd he say was stolen?"

Mike smiled as he answered me. "Three television sets from his
bedroom."

"The monitors he had hooked up so he could watch women
undressing?"

"Not the way he tells it. Just his entertainment center. Any
theatrical mogul would have multiple screens to watch different
presentations simultaneously. He didn't happen to mention that they
were wired into somebody's bathroom."

"So how about Mona? Didn't you tell the commissioner we left
before she did?"

"Mona denies ever being inside the apartment. LAB goes to
interview her at midnight," Mike said, referring to the Internal
Affairs Bureau detectives who would have been assigned to a complaint
of official misconduct. "They pry her out of bed, away from her
boy-friend. She says she was stopped at the door by me when she showed
up at Uncle Joe's home to help her cousin through the
night—and that I was inside with another woman, going through
the place. Never let her inside."

"Tell Joe to check the nipples of that little device that
dimmed the lights if he wants a few of Mona's skin cells." I kicked
back my chair from the desk. "Were the monitors really gone? Did
someone take them out after we left and before Berk got out of the
hospital?"

"IAB searched the apartment. No sign of them."

"Well, I'll certainly tell the commissioner—"

"Your name never came into this. You were right about Mona
paying no attention to you at all. She assumed you were another
detective."

"I'll let Battaglia know as soon as he gets in."

"Let it go. Don't you see what Berk's trying to do? He just
wants to jam it down my throat that he knows we're on to the concealed
cameras. It's a great big 'fuck you' he's sending me, telling me to
keep away from his private perversions. He could have said I took ten
thousand bucks in cash from the apartment or some other valuable
object. This is mainly to stick me under the PC's nose and remind me
that Berk can play rough any time he wants to."

"And the PC?"

"C'mon, Coop. The commish had to stroke the old bird but he
knows I'm not rolling over for a few lousy television sets. He just
wanted to know how I got into the apartment and make sure my ass was
covered on that."

The phone rang. "Alexandra? Dr. Kestenbaum here. I'm looking
for a little legal guidance, if you don't mind. It's on Galinova."

"Sure. What's come up?"

"There's a gentleman who called last evening. He says he's
cleared it with her estranged husband and he's going to claim the body
and take it home to London for burial. I'm going to have written
confirmation from the husband later today, but I just wanted to make
sure it's okay with you and the police that I release the remains."

"Who is he? What's he to—"

"His name is Hubert Alden. I don't know much about the ballet,
but this guy claims to be Galinova's patron. Does that mean anything to
you?"

"Yeah. I'd like to talk to him before you sign off on it. Do
you have a way for us to contact him?"

Kestenbaum gave me the number. "He's flying in on the shuttle
this morning. He's got some meeting to attend today. You'll be able to
reach him at his office after five."

I repeated the news to Mike. "What do you mean, patron?" he
asked.

"One of the more controversial subjects in the refined world
of the dance. There's very little public funding of the arts these
days, so some ballet companies are offering this kind of sponsorship as
a way to raise money."

"I don't get it."

"American Ballet Theater, the Atlanta Ballet, the other
companies that do this, they actually hold auctions. For the right
price—"

"How much?"

"For a regional company, maybe ten or twenty thousand. For a
prima ballerina at ABT, maybe one hundred thousand or more. We can get
a copy of last week's program. It'll have a photo of Talya and say
something like 'the artistry of Natalya Galinova is supported
by'"—I looked at the name I had scribbled on
myPost-it-—
" 'Hubert Alden.' "

"So Mr. Alden, he
owned
her?"

"I think the dancers would tell you no. But that's what makes
the whole concept so awkward. Most of the companies claim they urge
distance between the patron and the artist, but other directors want
them to bond with each other. They want them to hang out so that the
rich donor can introduce his or her friends to the dancers and hope
they want to jump on the same bandwagon."

"So Alden after five? Then you can take a ride with me right
now."

Mike was much more animated now than he had been at dinner
last evening. Berk's antics had goosed him and he was getting back into
the chase.

"I'd like to polish up this presentation. Where are you going?"

"To drop in on Mona Berk. Leave a note for Laura. Tell her
you're in the field."

Laura would find assistants to cover the walk-ins who appeared
on my doorstep when they were apprehensive about calling the police to
report a crime. There was nothing on my desktop that couldn't wait
until the afternoon.

We drove to midtown in Mike's department car, littered with
empty soda cans, packs of red licorice twizzlers, and a stack of the
weekend's tabloids announcing Talya's death.

Mike's NYPD laminated parking plaque allowed us to leave the
ear just off Times Square in a loading zone on the already
double-parked length of West 45th Street. The first of the tour buses
was beginning to disgorge passengers into the eclectic canyon that
remained the cross—roads of the city, if not the world. Above
the tacky billboards rose the gleaming profiles of the Conde Nast and
Reuters buildings, new entries in the booming and gentrified district.

The army recruiting station was already open and operating at
Duffy Square, tourists were lining up for the evening's half-price
seats at the TKTS booth, a palm reader was reaching for my arm and
urging me to come upstairs for holistic healing and advice on all
matters of mind and spirit, and a street missionary was handing out
cards that told me exactly what I could do and how much it would cost
to save my soul.

The electrified morning headlines were crawling around the
ledges on several of the skyscrapers that had revitalized a
neighborhood which had boasted little more than XXX-rated movie houses
when I first started working in the prosecutor's office. Galinova's
death and the fact that it was being mourned by balletomanes all over
the world ran fifth behind the dismantling of a terrorist cell and a
political scandal in New Jersey.

"You know what that's called?"

I looked up at the moving signage. "No idea."

"It's a Motogram. First one in the world was here, running on
the old New York Times Tower, starting with the presidential election
returns in 1928. Used fifteen thousand lightbulbs to wiggle the news
around four sides of the building."

"Your dad?" Mike's father had filled the boy's head with
stories of every corner of the city's history.

"Nope. This one's my mother. You know her postcard
collection," he said, referring to the vintage photographs she had
saved since childhood. He pointed at the giant Barbie billboard display
that now garishly controlled the airspace in Times Square. "In the
1930s, there was a forty-two-foot-long angelfish advertising Wrigley's
Spearmint gum. In the forties, there was a thirty-foot-high waterfall
with a gargantuan woman—like an Amazon—draped in a
Grecian toga. In the fifties it was a huge Pepsi bottle, which gave way
to pouring Gordon's Gin a decade later. First one I remember is that
giant Camel cigarette ad—don't you?—with the huge
smoke ring blowing out of it. Those images are all
classics—it's the most monumental advertising arena in the
world."

Broadway was a throwback to another age. The business center
of the theater world, its gilt-and-marble lobby had been refurbished to
reflect its century-old splendor. The directory of offices listed on
the wall reflected a warren of cubbyholes in which production deals and
partnerships were made, and wannabes hitched their wagons to star
vehicles.

Mona Berk's company was on the eighth floor. The old
wrought-iron elevators still required a manual operator, who knew the
stops of all his regulars and punched them into the keyboard.

We got off the elevator and found the entrance to 807, the
corner suite. The secretary, who didn't appear to be more than
eighteen, looked up from her fashion magazine as we entered the
reception area.

"Mona Berk, please? We're here to see Ms. Berk," Mike said.

She scanned her appointment book. "She expecting you?"

"More or less."

"She'll be here any minute. She's already got a nine thirty,
though."

"We'll be quick."

She picked up her pencil to make a notation in the book.
"
Is
it about a property? Would you mind giving me your names?"

"Yeah. I'm Jack Webb. It's about a musical version of
Dragnet.""

"Cool. Have a seat, Mr. Webb. And you are?"

"Alice. She just knows me as Alice."

Ten minutes later, Mona Berk walked in the door, laughing and
talking to the man who accompanied her. She pulled up short when she
saw both of us.

"Well, good morning. It's
detective—detective…"

"Chapman. Mike Chapman. This is Ms. Cooper, from the District
Attorney's Office. Mind if we come in for a few minutes?"

"Does this mean you haven't solved that murder case yet?" Mona
said, turning to her companion to explain who we were. "These are the
officers who were figuring poor Uncle Joe had taken enough Viagra last
week to attack that poor ballerina."

She picked up her mail from the in-box and motioned us to
follow her into her office.

The man held the door open for us.

"And how about that encore performance for your uncle? That
must have made you and your cousin very happy," Mike said, taking a
seat in a black leather armchair and pulling one up beside it for me.

"Hallelujah! Joe Berk lives another day to screw some other
sucker out of his hard-earned cash. What can I help you with now?"

"Would you mind if we spoke to you alone?"

"Frankly, I would. This is Ross Kehoe. I'd like him to be
here. He's my business partner and my fiance."

Kehoe shook hands with Mike and me, and remained standing,
perched on the windowsill over Mona's shoulder. He was about forty
years old, six feet tall and solidly built, with sharp-featured good
looks and teeth that had been recently whitened to show off his broadly
artificial smile. His European-cut shirt and tight jeans were the
perfect complement to Mona's black twinset, cigarette-leg slacks, and
two-inch slides that clicked as she crossed the floor.

"Funny, I didn't notice your name on the door," Mike said.

"I'm shy," Kehoe said, the smile disappearing as quickly as it
had been flashed.

"How long have you two been partners?"

"Almost a year," Mona said.

"What's your role in the business?"

"Same as mine, detective. We're into production. Legitimate
theater. Now what is it that we didn't finish discussing the other
night?"

"It seems like after Ms. Cooper and I left the Belasco, you
went back upstairs and helped yourself to some of Uncle Joe's property.
I got blamed for the snatch and I'm hoping to make good on those
monitors."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. What
monitors?"

Ross Kehoe folded his arms and waited for Mike to explain.

"So it's going to be like that? You know damn well there were
four screens in the bedroom when you stepped off that elevator. Uncle
Joe says he's short three."

"Briggs called me on my cell about ten minutes after you left.
He told me that by the time he got to the hospital, he found out that
his father had been resuscitated and was going to pull through, so he
didn't need my help after all. Ross was back at our apartment, so I
went right home."

"Which is where?" Mike said.

"SoHo. We have a loft."

"Damn. SoHo, of course. They better send me back to the
academy. Can't believe I asked a stupid question like that when you've
got 'trendy' written in block letters all across your forehead."

"And what the hell do you think I'd be doing with television
monitors?"

"Cleaning up Uncle Joe's clubhouse 'cause your cousin asked
you to. Looking around the apartment for things you weren't entitled to
see. If it's got something to do with the lawsuit against your uncle,
then maybe his attorneys would be interested in knowing about your
midnight house call."