Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (32 page)

“Got it!” Walt shouted, gathering a small crowd around him and the computer.

“Oh, shit,” someone said.

“Look.”

On the screen across the lighting plot was a white band on which were typed the words:

MURDER: THE MUSICAL.

“I know it was someone’s weird idea of humor ... but—” With the tip of her finger Wetzon drew a
W
on the frosty glass. She twirled the glass and watched her initial moisturize and drip onto the linen tablecloth.

Carlos was on his second martini when their grilled tuna arrived. Tremont Street, outside Hamersley’s Bistro, still had car traffic though it was moving slowly in the aftermath of the snowstorm. In his open kitchen Gordon Hamersley, wearing his ubiquitous Red Sox cap, was fielding the last of his entrees.

Gideon had stood on stage for an hour taking the show apart while Mort and Carlos steamed. “We absolutely must bring in Glenn Close. You can’t do this type of material without a star. I know Glenn would love it.”

“How the fuck do you know?” Mort demanded.

“Well ...” Gideon tried to look modest but failed. “I took it on myself to call her during intermission. And we’ll bring Guare in to come up with a little wit. This one has a lead ass.”

“Over my dead body.” Aline’s face was livid. No doubt John Guare’s days would be numbered if he turned up in Boston to work on the book.

Gideon smiled. “Darling, anything can be arranged.”

“Wake me when it’s over,” Carlos announced, and whisked Wetzon away to Hamersley’s, where he pleaded with Gordon to feed them even though it was late.

Now, an hour later, Wetzon looked across the table at Carlos. “You’re getting very drunk.”

“You bet your ass I am.” He ordered up his third double martini.

“Tough about the show,” the waiter said.

“Good news
do
travel fast.” Carlos oozed frigid charm, but the waiter didn’t get it.

“The lady sitting over there. She told me the first act was great, but too long. She told me to tell you to cut the number about revolvers.”

Carlos saluted the white-haired lady, who beamed at him.

“Oh, Lord.” Wetzon raised her eyes to the ceiling.

“I wish I were going with you tomorrow.” Then softly, “Birdie, darling, stay in New York. Don’t come back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think it’s safe. That stupid Susan may be able to write a wonderful lyric, but she didn’t do you a favor with those anonymous letters. Oh, yes, I heard all about them. Needless to say, it’s on everyone’s lips. I think whoever killed Dilla also got Sam.”

“Why do I not get my back up when you tell me to go home, but when Silvestri says it ...”

“I take it the flatfoot ordered you home.” He laughed.

“I hate a sloppy drunk.”

“Don’t worry about me. Arthur will be up tomorrow.”

“What if I can’t get Susan to come back?”

“Oh, dear heart, not to worry. We’ll manage. You saw the first act. It’s all there, no matter what Gideon says. And if it turns out he’s going to reconceive the show, I’ll be home in a New York minute.”

The cabdriver who took them back to the Ritz recognized Carlos and told him that the lyrics were hard to understand. Get the actors to enunciate, he urged Carlos.

Everyone’s a critic, Wetzon thought, as she paid the driver and pushed Carlos out of the cab because he was doubled over. “Nerves,” she told the driver.

When she slammed the cab door she saw Carlos was tilting badly.

“Oh, Mr. Prince,” the doorman said, following them into the hotel. “Excuse me for saying ... I thought you might want to know—”

Carlos looked at him as if he had two heads, which, to Carlos’s inebriated eyes, he probably did. “Speak up, my man.”

The doorman touched his shiny black hat. “My cousin Sean saw your show tonight.”

“Oh, goody. And what advice does Cousin Sean have for me?”

Wetzon gave Carlos a bit of elbow.

“He thinks you can make it better by switching the number you end the first act with to the opening of the second.”

“Deliver me,” Carlos groaned, and kept walking. “It’s started, Birdie. Every porter, cabdriver, waiter, and his cousins are going to give me notes on the show.”

“Thank you very much and good night,” Wetzon told the doorman, running to keep up with Carlos.

He rested his arm on her shoulder and leaned into her, spraying her with gin fumes. “Please take me away from all this.”

They had the elevator to themselves, which was a good thing considering Carlos’s condition. “If only I could. Funny, how I’ve never seen it before. You’re all killing each other bit by bit. Every day a little death.”

“Oh, pet, you’re so clever. You and Sondheim.”

They got off the elevator. Wetzon followed Carlos, who was doing drunken leaps down the corridor. At any moment, he would fall on his face. The door to Wetzon’s room was standing open; Smith’s makeup case and overnighter were in the hall.

“I have a fairy godmother after all,” Wetzon murmured.

“Of course you do, dear heart, and her name is Carlos Prince.”

“That does it. Go to your room.”

“Come over and tuck me in, Birdie. There’s a little something I need to talk about.”

Wetzon stopped in front of her open door. Dick Hartmann was helping a radiant Smith on with her coat.

“Oh, here’s Little Miss Wetzon,” Hartmann said. The attorney had a focus problem with one eye, so you always felt he was talking to someone next to or behind you.

“Sweetie! I’m so glad to see you. I was just about to leave you a note.”

“Oh, shucks, are you moving out, Smith?”

“Dickie has a suite at the Four Seasons.”

“How lovely,
Dickie
. Smith, I’m going back tomorrow. Artie Agron’s manager is on to him. B.B. and I are going to help him clear out and copy his books.”

“Well, of course, business comes first. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“I’ll live.”

Smith pursed her lips. “My baby is on his way home.”

“To New York?”

“Yes. Mort insisted on it, and rightfully so, I think. Don’t you, sugar?” She looked at Hartmann, whose nod was imperceptible. “Mark didn’t tell the truth about his age, and Mort was extremely concerned. Joel had his limo take Mark to Logan for the last shuttle.” She sighed and fluffed her hair, stepping past Wetzon into the corridor. “Joel is such a dear.”

“Yes, he is. And he’s absolutely crazy about you.” Hartmann flashed Wetzon a nasty look, which flew over her shoulder. “You should have seen him, Dickie. He couldn’t do enough for Smith. ‘Night, y’all.” She closed the door, smiling, then surveyed the room. It looked as if a cyclone hit it. “But, sweetie pie,” Wetzon said aloud, “it’s all yours.”

She gave her coat a shock by hanging it on a real hanger instead of over the back of the chair. Picking up all the towels, she piled them on what had been Smith’s bed. The white terry robe she laid across hers. She had the overwhelming urge to lie down with it.

“Not tempted to do anything foolish, are we?”

She hadn’t heard the key in the lock, and when she spun around, there was Hartmann standing near the door. He made a gun of his forefinger and thumb and cocked it at her. His floating eye was disconcerting, and she wanted to laugh at the melodrama, but she knew his connections were dangerous.

She gave him her most guileless smile. “You’ve heard of the To-Be-Opened-in-the-Event-of-My-Death letter, haven’t you, dearie? Well, we have one.”

His lean face froze. “You’re out of your league,” he said. The door closed behind him.

“Soon,” she murmured. “Soon.” She waited until she was sure Smith and Hartmann were gone, then stepped out in the hall. Pocketing her key, she made sure the door was locked, then walked over to Carlos’s room and rapped on the door.

Carlos let her in, whispering, “I’m on with Mort.” He looked pleased but laid a warning finger across his mouth.

Yawning, Wetzon sat on the edge of his bed.

“Sure, Mort.... No, you’re right. ... I know. Uh huh. Tighten the second act. Oh? Good. Yeah, see you tomorrow.” He hung up and did a jeté. “Yeow!”

“What? What?”

“Mort threw Gideon out of the theatre and fired Joel. I’m going to fire Joel myself. For once, the Barracuda is absolutely right.” He grinned at her, caught her up in his arms and waltzed her around the room. “My darling Birdie,” he said, when he came to a stop. “So much joy. So much sorrow. Do you not think we live life full out?”

“In technicolor.”

“Yeah, well....” His mood deflated.

“Smith is moving into Hartmann’s suite at the Four Seasons.”

“Good for her. Better for you.” Head inclined, he studied her.

She knew him so well, as if their nerve ends were connected. He was trying to get her to read his mind so he wouldn’t have to tell her what he wanted to tell her. “Mort sent Smitty away. I guess he was keeping his promise to me.... Joel’s limo took him out to the airport tonight.”

“Away from all this. That’s good.” He sat down on the bed and looked at his watch, sighed, looked at Wetzon.

“I’m off, dearie.” Wetzon opened the door.

“Wait, Birdie.” He stood up, reached behind her and closed the door. “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”

“Oh?”

“The night Dilla died ... I told you Smitty came to me for help ...”

“Yes?”

“He said he’d tried to break up a fight between two bums and one had cut the other with a broken bottle.”

“Oh, God, Carlos.” She leaned against the door.

“Well, he was some mess. His clothes were torn and he was covered with blood.”

The explosion, when it came, did not bring with it the expected, now intimate smell of cordite. Oh, she was on to it, though. She knew its tricks. This time she wasn’t going to let it run away with her. She would catch it, hold it, and make it go away for good.

But it fooled her.

She was outside her body, floating. The sky was ink-dark. Below her a car was traveling down Route 9 toward Claytonia, toward the farm, toward home.

No! She tried to cry out, break the dream. Instead, she spun ahead. A car was coming from the opposite direction at full speed. In the wrong lane.

“Daddy, watch it!” She was crying.

For a nine-second freeze frame, she saw the startled faces of her parents through the windshield glass.

The explosion brought with it a fierce yellow flame and then the suffocating odor of gasoline.

No! No! No!

She awoke uncovered, in a raging sweat, her arms over her eyes, rocking from side to side, shaking. The covers were on the floor. She pulled them up and hid under them, shivering. How could they die like that? She was only twenty. Didn’t they know they were abandoning her when she most needed them?

Rolling over on her stomach, she buried her head in the pillow to stifle her sobs.

This is what a breakdown is like, she thought. You lose control. Her parents had been dead almost twenty years, killed by a drunken driver in a fiery crash only three miles from their home. Why now? In the depths of her being she knew she had blocked it away, and kept it away. But not any more.

When the fear subsided, the pain—a dull, raw ache under her breasts—remained. Was this what Sonya had referred to? Was this the other trauma that had to be dealt with? It didn’t take a shrink to translate the meaning of her dream.

Wetzon dried her eyes on the pillowcase and groped for her watch, then the light. She was in Boston at the Ritz. It was still as death. Her watch said five o’clock. She was out of breath as if she’d tapped through the entire “Mirror Number” from
Follies
without taking a breath.

The room pressed in on her. The ceiling seemed to inch down as in the Wilkie Collins story about the traveler in the strange bed. When she got out of bed, a cramp shot through her left calf, sending spasms of pain from calf to foot to thigh.

What was happening to her? In agony, she hobbled to the bathtub and ran the water icy cold, massaging her calf.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Thrusting her foot into the cold water, groaning, she flexed and massaged the cramp away. Her right ankle was black and blue and tender. She was falling apart.
Get dressed, pack up, and check out, Wetzon.

In less than an hour, she was showered, dressed, made up and packed. She carried her own bag to the elevator. The hotel was just waking up. It was Saturday, after a snowstorm. No rush to go anywhere.

When she got on the elevator, not expecting to see anyone she knew at that hour—theatre people were not morning people as a rule—she plowed into Joclyn, who was getting off.

“I’m sorry. I thought this was the lobby.” The actress’s face was streaked with tears and mascara clung to the little creases under her eyes. Her flirtation with JoJo didn’t seem to be making her very happy. She turned away from Wetzon.

“Joclyn, is there anything I can do?”

‘You?”
It was an accusation.

“Yes. I’ve been there, you know.”

“Oh, have you really?”

Shut up, Wetzon, she thought. You’re going to come out of this bruised. “I mean, I’m a gypsy still.”

Joclyn seemed to be giving that some thought. When the door opened to the lobby, she walked out, then turned. “You’re not one of us anymore. You’re one of them.”

The words were a stinging slap. They rolled around in Wetzon’s head as she waited for a cab. Joclyn was right about one thing. Wetzon was not a gypsy anymore. She was a neurotic woman, pushing forty,
who had never had a decent relationship with anyone.

The author of those words was getting out of a cab in front of the hotel. “Leslie, darling!” Mort greeted her with a wet kiss. “You’re off? Do well by us.”

She got into his cab. “Where did you just come from?” she asked the driver.

“Logan.”

“Logan?” What the hell had Mort been doing at the airport? “Well, that’s where we’re going.”

The ticket clerk at the USAir shuttle counter was talking to a cohort who had just handed him a cardboard container of coffee. Because Wetzon was the only customer, he was taking his time. Why shouldn’t he? After all, it was Wetzon who wanted to get out of town in a hurry. She would have sprouted wings and flown if she could.