Festival of Deaths (18 page)

“Ouch,” he said. It was a very Latin
ouch.

Carmencita Boaz clucked her tongue. “Look at you, Max, you’ve come all apart again. You’re all over the floor.”

She meant the contents of Max’s pockets were on the floor. Gregor leaned over and retrieved three dollar bills, a green card and a plastic wallet calendar with a picture of a naked woman on one side from the floor. He handed them over to Max and thought that the young man looked more than a little hung over.

“There you go,” he said.

“Is this the detective?” Max said. “The one everybody says is going to investigate the death of Maria Gonzalez?”

“What?” Gregor asked.

Max stuffed the things Gregor had given him back into his pockets. “I could use a detective. I could use a very private detective who worked only for me.”

Carmencita Boaz grabbed Gregor firmly by the arm. “No more of that,” she said. “Max had his pocket picked just before we left New York, and he’s been obsessed with it ever since.”

“No,” Max said. “It’s not about that.”

“Mr. Demarkian is due in makeup,” Carmencita said firmly. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking that chair someplace?”

Max looked at the chair for a minute and then picked it up again. “Shelley wants the blue chairs now. Is this believable? They’re all the way downstairs in the truck.”

Max staggered under the weight of the chair one more time and lurched past them out the door of Studio C and toward the elevators. Carmencita kept her hold on Gregor’s arm and steered him—and in consequence Tibor and Bennis—across a floor crisscrossed with cables to another door at the back. It gave Gregor a chance to look at the set, which was nothing more than a platform with a few chairs and a coffee table on it, and a plain Sheetrock back wall holding up a small square painting of water lilies in a blond wood frame. Did it really matter what color the chairs were on a set like this?

The door at the back led to a corridor lined with Sheetrock that looked as if it had never been painted. There were no decorations of any kind hung on it. At the very back was a room with a glass wall looking out on the corridor. Through this glass wall Gregor could see a room furnished with cheap green couches and canvas director’s chairs. Past the bad furniture was another door, also open. Through it, Gregor could see the kind of high-tech padded chair favored by dentists and beauticians.

“Right in here,” Carmencita Boaz said, shooing them in toward the director’s chairs. “You may have makeup put on your face or not, Mr. Demarkian. It is your decision.”

“Not,” Gregor said definitely.

“I do have to tell you that makeup can make a large difference in the way you are perceived by a television audience. If you remember the stories about the presidential race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy—”

“I
voted
in the presidential race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.”

“Yes,” Carmencita said. “Well. I should tell you that other guests may decide to be madeup just as you have decided not to. This decision on their part may have an impact on the way the television audience perceives—”

“—the other guests,” Gregor finished up for her. “I know. Why do you sound like you’re reading me my
Miranda
rights?”

Carmencita looked startled. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, no. I did not mean anything like that. I am very sorry if I have been offensive.”

“You haven’t been offensive,” Gregor said. “It’s just that—”

“Now there are these papers that have to be signed,” Carmencita interrupted him. She seemed to pull the papers out of nowhere, as if she had them up her sleeve. “For legal reasons, as you must understand, we cannot begin taping until we have your permission to tape. If you would sign on the third page and initial in the lower right-hand corner of every previous page.”

“I’ll have to read this,” Gregor said cautiously.

Behind him, Bennis Hannaford snorted. “You’ve already read it,” she said. “You’ve read it three times. I’ve read it twice. If you’d signed the one they sent you at the apartment, you wouldn’t have to go through all this now.”

“Maybe we should talk this over some more.”

Carmencita was holding the papers in the air with one hand and a pen in the air with the other. Bennis grabbed both and held them out to Gregor.

“Sign the stupid thing. You can’t get all the way to this point and back out. I’d kill you.”

“I would also kill you,” Tibor said. “Just before David Goldman killed me.”

“Which would happen just before Rebekkah Goldman killed David. Gregor, you just can’t do these things at the last minute. You just can’t.”

Gregor took the papers and pen out of Bennis’s hands, initialed the lower right-hand corner of each page, signed on the line on the third page, and handed the whole mess back to Carmencita Boaz. She visibly relaxed.

“Well,” she said. “There.”

Gregor wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t signed, but in a way he knew the answer to that question, so he didn’t have to ask it. Tibor would stop speaking to him. Bennis would start yelling at him. Women up and down Cavanaugh Street would knock on his door for weeks, wanting to know why he had disappointed them in this terrible way for no reason at all. He doubted if
The Lotte Goldman Show
would have folded or that Carmencita Boaz would have lost her job, but he wasn’t unaware that the suggestion that both things might happen if he did not cooperate had been floating in the air since he first shook hands with Ms. Boaz. He didn’t really mind. Carmencita was undoubtedly paid to suggest such things.

“Well,” she was saying again. “I will have some food sent down for you. Some coffee and some fruit. One of you would prefer tea?”

“I would prefer tea,” Tibor said.

“Fine. That is fine. Some fruit and some tea and some pastry, then. We will need Mr. Demarkian on stage in about fifteen minutes, for lighting. That will be Mr. Demarkian alone.”

“Of course it will,” Bennis said. “I’m not going on television.”

“I mean Mr. Demarkian without Dr. Goldman or the other guest,” Carmencita corrected. “We will light again with all of you together in half an hour.”

“Wait,” Gregor said. “What other guest?”

Carmencita was backing toward the door. “Fifteen minutes,” she repeated. “Only fifteen minutes. There’s nothing to worry about at all.”

“I’m not—” Gregor said.

Carmencita was already out the door. As her heels hit the hard floor of the corridor she began to move faster, so that she looked a little like those backup reels the silent movies had used to buy cheap laughs in the days before all that audiences wanted to see was one more bucket of blood in
Rambo LXVII.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said again.

Then she turned on her heel and ran down the rest of the corridor to the studio door.

T
HE FOOD CAME JUST
as Carmencita Boaz said it would, in less than five minutes, on a big silver cart, with Tibor’s tea in an elegant pewter pot nestled in a tiny electric blanket. The problem was that it was brought in by the sourest young woman Gregor had ever met, who introduced herself as Sarah Meyer and made it clear that bringing tea and oranges was far more menial work than anything she should have been doing. Her body language was so explicit it practically screamed. When it wasn’t shouting about how shamefully she was underemployed, it was shrieking her dislike of Bennis Hannaford. Even Tibor noticed that, which meant it must have been blatant indeed. Gregor noticed that Bennis didn’t seem to mind. It occurred to him that Bennis must have elicited a fair number of such responses in her time.

Bennis poured Tibor a cup of tea and handed it to him. It was black and evil looking and made Tibor smile. Then she poured Gregor a cup of coffee and handed it to him. What she got for herself was another cigarette, long and slim and taken from the sterling-silver Tiffany cigarette case her brother Chris had given her for her birthday a few years back. Bennis never took cigarettes from that case. She had a crumpled paper pack of Benson & Hedges Menthols in the pocket of her skirt. Gregor could only conclude that she had taken a dislike to Sarah Meyer equal to the one Sarah had taken to her. Bennis was pulling out all the stops.

If Sarah Meyer had noticed the bit with the cigarette case, she gave no indication. She was looking over the fruit on the cart and fiddling with a grapefruit knife. She fiddled long enough for Tibor to finish his cup of tea and hand the empty china back to Bennis for a refill. She fiddled long enough for Tibor to get his refilled cup and for Bennis to finish smoking. Then she put the grapefruit knife down on a butter dish and said to Gregor, “Look. I know I’m not supposed to bother you. I’m only a secretary. I’m not supposed to bother anybody. But I want to.”

“Bother me?” Gregor asked, confused.

“Ask you some questions. Necessary questions. Like about what you’re doing here.”

“I’m appearing on a television show about serial killers.”

Sarah Meyer looked disgusted. Don’t hand me this sort of crap, her look said. People have been handing me this sort of crap for all my life. Gregor saw Bennis get out another cigarette—from her regular pack this time—and begin to look thoughtful.

Sarah Meyer had gone back to fiddling. She had a white paper doily this time. “Everybody around here is saying you’ve been hired to look into the murder of Maria Gonzalez. Is that true?”

Gregor shook his head. “You can’t hire me to look into anything. Nobody can. I don’t hire.”

“He doesn’t investigate crimes for money,” Bennis explained.

“You investigate crimes,” Sarah Meyer insisted. “I’ve seen the magazine articles. You investigate crimes a lot.”

Gregor nodded. “I do some consulting, that’s true. But I don’t charge for it. I’m not a professional.”

“Are you doing some consulting here, about Maria?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t understand.”

Gregor’s coffee was gone. He got up and poured himself another cup. “Nobody,” he said carefully, “in any way connected to the death of Maria Gonzalez or to the investigation into the death of Maria Gonzalez, has asked me to consult with the investigation.”

“But you know about it,” Sarah insisted.

“I know about it.”

“Did you read about it in the papers?”

“No,” Gregor said. “I was informed about it first by an acquaintance, and I have heard a fair amount about it from Father Tibor here and from Rabbi David Goldman, who is—”

“Lotte’s brother, I know.” Sarah looked doubtful. It softened her fat face. “I just don’t understand it. I really don’t. Usually when the rumors are this strong, there’s something to them.”

“Maybe there is something to them,” Bennis suggested. “Maybe Dr. Goldman intends to ask Gregor to consult, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said, still looking doubtful.

“No matter what anybody intends,” Gregor told them, “I have not as of now been asked and I do not as of now know much of anything about the case. Except that Ms. Gonzalez’s wallet was stolen.”

“What?” Sarah said. “Oh. Yes. Well. Maybe. Maria was always leaving things around places, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” Bennis said.

“She was really terribly disorganized,” Sarah expanded. “I mean, it’s a really bad trait to have in a talent coordinator, but there you are. She was always leaving things around and misplacing files and forgetting to switch on her beeper. It was a constant problem for everyone.”

“I’m surprised she got the job in the first place,” Gregor said. “I’m surprised she kept it.”

“Oh, that.” Sarah waved it all away. “That was just prejudice. Lotte likes to have pretty people around her and Maria was pretty. So is Carmencita. That’s why she got promoted after Maria died.”

“Ah,” Bennis said.

“Carmencita is even worse than Maria was,” Sarah went on. “She forgot to order the local limousines. That’s why Prescott Holloway had to come down and get you this morning, and that meant Prescott wasn’t out getting Lotte, and you can imagine the headaches that caused. Maria would at least have remembered the local limousines.”

“That’s good,” Bennis said.

“This really isn’t a very good place to work if you aren’t physically perfect.” Sarah sniffed. “Look at Max. He’s supposed to do heavy lifting and cart the sets around and all that, and he can barely lift the stuff without giving himself a hernia. But he looks like someone who could have sat for Michelangelo, so there you are.”

“Mmm,” Gregor said.

“I think she’s prejudiced against Americans, too,” Sarah said. “That’s why she hires so many foreigners, right off the boat and everything. It’s very discouraging, working for Lotte. It’s enough to make me depressed.”

“Why don’t you quit?” Bennis took a long drag on her cigarette.

Sarah put the paper doily down and stood up straighter, getting ready to go. “They found Maria’s body in the storeroom at the studio in New York,” she said, “except it didn’t make any sense, because people were going in and out of that storeroom all morning. DeAnna and Carmencita and Max. It wasn’t until it was practically time to tape that anybody found a body.”

“Maybe there wasn’t a body for anybody to find,” Gregor said.

“Maybe. But it’s bothered me ever since. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“No,” Gregor said firmly.

“Listen,” Father Tibor said. “Somebody is screaming.”

“I think it’s just machinery going wrong someplace,” Bennis put in.

But Bennis was wrong. It was a high-pitched piercing wail and it went on and on forever, steadily and without a break, but Gregor had heard screams like it before.

Gregor was pretty good at following sound. He’d had to do it often enough in his life. He’d spent all those years on kidnapping detail. He could tell right away that the sound wasn’t coming from the studio.

The corridor went to the left of this door as well as straight ahead. Gregor went left and listened as he walked, making sure the sound got louder and louder, sharper and sharper. It had begun to waver, but that was to be expected. The human voice can only do so much before it begins to fail. All along the corridor, people had come out of their offices. They stood frozen in their open office doors, not knowing what to do. Gregor went past them without saying a word and came to a stop in front of a door marked “Men.”