Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (19 page)

Mort bought into the Sturm und Drang style of directing. He was notorious for keeping everyone on the edge of hysteria with him. Just so long as he got it together first. Which meant ulcers, rashes, diarrhea, migraines, and tears for everyone around him. He was part of a whole slew of theatre people who actually believed creativity came out of mean, nasty turmoil.

Lordy, lordy, fess up, Wetzon. You don’t miss one minute of that.

She put on her boots and her coat, gathered gloves and beret, slung her purse over her shoulder, and left the room with all the lights blazing. A warm den to come back to. These days she put a lot of faith in lights.

In the lobby she joined the line at the front desk to leave a message for Carlos, just in case he called. Two women stood ahead of her asking the clerk to recommend a restaurant. When it was Wetzon’s turn, she gave the clerk her room number and asked him to tell Carlos Prince, if he called, that she was heading over to the theatre.

“Oh, Ms. Wetzon,” the desk clerk said, his voice low and discreet. “Someone was asking for you. He’s in the bar.”

“Oh, good. Then never mind the message for Mr. Prince.”

“It’s not Mr. Prince,” the clerk said, “It’s—” A low cry came from behind her; the desk clerk’s eyes left Wetzon’s and focused on something over her shoulder.

Wetzon turned. An elderly woman lay on the carpet in front of one of the elevator cars, her walker toppled beside her.

“Oh, dear, Mrs. Kennedy.” All of the clerks were suddenly distracted.

A man in a chauffeur’s uniform and a tall middle-aged woman were helping Mrs. Kennedy up on her feet. Mrs. Kennedy adjusted her black cloche hat, which was tilting precariously over one ear. She was smiling and seemed unhurt.

Wetzon walked into the bar. What a splendid way to distract attention. She would have to remember that.

The lights in the bar were dim, dimmer than anywhere else in the hotel, the lighting enhanced by the flaring flames in the fireplace. Several of the small tables were occupied. The bartender was pouring manhattans into two glasses. Manhattans? Who drank manhattans anymore?

She did a quick look-around, seeing no one she recognized. Maybe the clerk had misunderstood. Her stomach emitted a low rumble; she’d better eat soon.

Near the entrance to the bar on a glossy walnut table was a gigantic bowl of fresh flowers, so colorful and springlike that Wetzon stopped to touch a rosy tulip. It was real all right.

Someone was staring at her. She could feel eyes boring into her back. Turning quickly, she saw a grotesque figure sitting in the shadows. He was beckoning to her with his cane.

“What the hell?” Wetzon pushed the cane out of her way and glared down at the man who’d used it. “Mort, goddammit, couldn’t you just say, ‘Hey, Leslie,’ like a normal person?”

Mort’s right arm was in a sling and he wore a cervical collar around his neck. An ugly scrape covered the right side of his face from his forehead to where his beard began; his eyes had the glaze of too many painkillers. Under his cable-knit cashmere a bandage of some sort made his shoulder a bulky mound. He looked like Quasimoto in a cap, and he was drinking double martinis.

Wetzon immediately felt remorseful. “Good God, Mort, I’m sorry.”

With the cane, he pointed to the empty chair next to him, then waved to the waiter with his good hand. Still shocked by his battered condition, Wetzon sat.

“Amstel Light,” Wetzon said, surprised at how fast the waiter had appeared, but then, Mort was a celebrity. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. “And some munchies, like cheese or crackers, please.”

Mort made a refill gesture to his own glass. Was he unable to talk? Had the attack damaged his vocal cords?

“Carlos told me you were mugged, but I had no idea—”

“Mugged—” It was a derisive croak, and Wetzon realized he could only open his mouth fractionally, because of the swelling. He took her hand and squeezed it so hard she winced. “You’f gotha help me, Leshlie.”

“Me?” She stared at the line of foam rising in the glass as the waiter poured. “What can I do?”

“Ish wash one of dem. Firsh Dilla. Now me.”

Mort’s ego was such that he would want to believe he was a potential murder victim rather than the victim of a random mugging. Wetzon took a sip of beer and sliced off a small chunk of stilton cheese. “Ah, Mort, maybe you’re just being a wee bit melodramatic?” Then, because she couldn’t resist, “You’re such a nice guy, why would anyone want to kill you?”

The good side of Mort’s face reddened. He looked at Wetzon suspiciously. She smiled her sweetest smile at him. “Gideon Winkler?” she prompted, knowing that the play doctor had to have been invited up to see the show by Mort. It was not something that just happened casually. There was a protocol to all this.

“Leshlie, you could nefer hide what you think from me. I trush you. Now I shee you’re like the resh.” Tears actually welled up in his eyes; Wetzon felt terrible. “Dey’re all againsh me.”

“Oh, now, Mort. Don’t do that.” He was such a shit; he hurt so many people, and here she was feeling sorry for him.

“And now Poppy’sh dook Shmitty away from me.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks into his beard. He tried to put his head in his hands, but it wasn’t easy with the collar.

Oh, dear God, Wetzon thought, how in heaven’s name do I get out of this? Was this Shmitty, the young man Carlos was interested in, the one that Mrs. Mort—Poppy—had taken up to Boston with her in the limo?

“Mort, why aren’t you at the tech? Where is everybody? You can’t just sit here drinking gin and feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got a show to get on. There are a lot of people depending on you.” She rose and did a shuffle step. “Come on, boyo. Get your act together.” She grabbed the navy duffle coat, which was lying on an empty chair, holding it for him while he laboriously signed the check, then when he stood, placing it over his shoulders. Her long scarf went twice around her neck, and she pulled the lavender beret down over forehead and ears. Boston winters were no joke.

Outside, the doorman offered them a cab, but Mort waved him away, and they walked the short distance to Boylston Street and the Colonial Theatre. She saw at once that Mort didn’t really need the cane. He was using it as a prop to kindle sympathy and misplaced guilt in the people he verbally abused.

She almost walked past the theatre. Where was the old marquee? Gone, replaced by what seemed a ledge. “How would anybody know it was a theatre without the marquee?” she asked Mort, who grunted.

But obviously, people did. There was a line of eight at the box office window. The sight made Mort brighten considerably.

A tall man in a plaid sport jacket held the door for them. Mort gestured at Wetzon. “Thish ish Bob.”

“Bob Foley,” the man said. “House manager.” He offered his hand to Wetzon.

She took it. “Leslie Wetzon. What happened to the old square marquee?”

“A truck backed in under it and pulled it down.”

“What a pity.”

“Under the old one, though, was a fabulous antique marquee with scallops, but it was replaced because it was fragile and could have been a hazard.”

Wetzon saw Mort’s eyes cross; without a word he went inside. She shrugged at Foley and followed Mort.

Almost a century old, the Colonial Theatre was a beauty. Wetzon remembered hearing that Ziegfeld had originated his
Follies
here years ago. Like the Imperial in New York, the mezzanine of the Colonial had an exquisite—but even more lyrical—curve. The first boxes were lush and at stage level. The Colonial was an aging beauty, a courtesan, still sumptuous from her boxes to her proscenium. It was rococo splendor: satinwood paneling, gold-leafed carving, a painted frieze in the dome of the house, murals. It was by far, Wetzon thought, the most beautiful old theatre in the United States.

Inside, the house was dark except for the small orchestra lights, the light from the technical board set up on wooden planks, huge across a couple of rows center-front orchestra, and, of course, the stage lights. The atmosphere was chaotic.

Wetzon waited to let her eyes acclimate to the darkness. Even after all these years she felt the same thrilling tingle on seeing the set on stage for the first time, seeing a show begin to breathe. And on the stage was a particularly beautiful, painted and constructed set with walkways and struts, a fractionalized stage floor, each raked at different angles. Horrible to dance on, but a joy to look at.

At the planked table on which two computers were spinning magic, several figures wearing earphones sat with clipboards and pages of script. They were calling cues. The table was a riot of coffee containers, half-eaten food, crumpled paper bags, and napkins. Lighting equipment and cables lay strewn in the aisles.

Carlos was standing near the orchestra pit, watching the actors in full costume sing and dance their way through a number Wetzon remembered from the demo Carlos had played for her as the first act finale.

Mort thrust his cane at her and she took it. He went right down the aisle, gestured to the people at the computer and joined Carlos gazing up at the stage from front orchestra. From where Wetzon stood in the back of the house, she saw Mort pat Carlos on the back, and Carlos nod.

Somewhere down front, a flashbulb went off, then another. Dress rehearsal—called “the dress” by theatre people everywhere—was always the best time to get scene shots to use for publicity. Wetzon scanned the front rows looking for the photographer, wondering if Irwin Rodgers was still Broadway’s photographer of choice. Irwin would be in his sixties now, and was probably still wearing the bad toupe, which never lay flat, always tilting at an off-angle over one ear.

JoJo stopped the orchestra in mid-strings. It took several more seconds for the company on stage to come to a halt, sort of like a clock alarm winding down. Calling out something about not listening and coming in too soon, JoJo turned and spoke to Carlos and Mort. Carlos veered left of the orchestra and came to the apron of the stage. Talking with his hands, he made some indication about combinations that Wetzon couldn’t hear. Then JoJo raised his arm and the orchestra and the actors began again. JoJo had grown a spacious rump and rolls of fat, which crept out from under his short T-shirt, as well as a Mort-inspired gray beard.

Wetzon sighed. It would be a long night. This was a tech and a dress combined. She looked down at the cane in her hand. Dammit, Mort had parked the cane with her as if she still worked for him. She was hooking the cane on the handle of the door to the lobby when a woman in shapeless brown pants and a man’s beige safari shirt with thousands of pockets came down the stairs from the mezzanine, followed by a younger woman in jeans carrying a lighted clipboard. Kay Lewis, legendary lighting designer. Kay had worked with all the great musical directors: Jerry Robbins, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion.

“Hi, Kay.”

Kay squinted bleary eyes at Wetzon. Her face was an intricate system of lines, beautiful in their symmetry; her hair was short and chopped straight around her cheekbones.

“Christ, you look like that little dancer, Leslie something or other.” Her voice was deep and scratchy.

“Wetzon. And no, I’m not back in show biz, Kay. I’m here as Carlos’s buddy.”

“Well, aren’t you the lucky one.”

“I guess Mort has been—”

“Mort!” Kay spat the name. “For beginnings, I’ve got a boil on my ass and I can’t sit down, and Mort has outdone himself. This is my last show with him. I’m finished. I don’t care if he’s the only director left. I’ll die before I work with him again.” She motioned to her assistant. “Come on, Nomi.”

The two women headed down the aisle, expertly sidestepping the tangle of cables to the computer board, when a loud whooshing noise stopped them in their tracks. The stage was suddenly bathed in an eerie blue light. “Those goddam, fucking color changers!” Kay flung her clipboard down in disgust.

Mort started screaming.
“Sixty
color changers!
Sixty
, for Chrissakes.”

“You got what you asked for,” Kay snapped.

Wetzon leaned her arms on the standing room ledge behind the side orchestra seats and looked around. Two stagehands came from the wings and were looking upward.

She caught sight then of Twoey sitting with Sunny Browning on the left aisle, midsection. A few rows behind Carlos and Mort were Aline and her young man, Edward. And Sam Meidner, in a cap similar to Mort’s, was off to the right, leaning against a column.

“Okay, let’s go,” JoJo ordered. “Once through, then we’ll break for twenty minutes.” JoJo raised his baton and the light caught the conch belt on his low-slung jeans.

Whispering was coming from somewhere near Wetzon, and then an odd sound, like water slushing, almost like that of a dog slurping. The orchestra started playing and drowned out whatever it was. Curious, Wetzon walked along to where the side aisle dipped inward two rows.

An ample woman with a mass of wild red hair sat in the last seat, all the way left, her back to Wetzon. Poppy Hornberg’s hair was unmistakable. As Wetzon came closer, she saw Poppy was holding the face of someone squatting on the floor in the side aisle, and lathering it with kisses. Smitty, for it had to be Smitty, moved his head a fraction.

Wetzon gasped and clutched at the ledge. She could almost feel the floor rocking under her feet.

The man—only it wasn’t a man, it was a boy—looked up. His eyes met Wetzon’s and registered horror. Poppy continued to devour him, covering his face with sloppy wet kisses.

Wetzon fled. Smitty was Mark, Smith’s son.

“Whoa, there, girl—”

She’d run smack into Fran Burke for the second time in two days, this time almost knocking the wind out of both of them. His falling cane slammed into the wall with an explosive crack, filling the sudden void left by the silence from the orchestra pit.

“Oh God, I’m sorry, Fran.” She felt sick to her stomach. All she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears.

“Overpaid!” Mort shrieked, behind them. “You’re all over
paid!
If I stop directing,
none
of you will ever work again!” He was having a major tantrum, which was over the top, even for him.