Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (33 page)

When he finally concluded his conversation, the clerk smiled at Wetzon politely and took her credit card. The first flight was at six-thirty, he told her, and that had just left. She picked up her bag and followed the gate number directions to the security belt, placing her coat, bag, and purse on it, then passed through the entrance without a problem.

A tacky food service place—the airport equivalent of a greasy spoon—was just on her left. Wetzon ordered a small orange juice, decaf coffee, and a toasted English muffin; flicked a crumpled candy wrapper and assorted crumbs off the seat of a chair; and sat, careful not to touch the table, which was sticky enough to catch flies. The other tables were occupied by a workman in an airport uniform and two elderly women in polyester pantsuits and permed hair that had gone kinky.

Spreading two napkins on the table, she set up her breakfast, taking her vitamins from their tiny Ziploc bag. Her thoughts centered on herself. The dream had shaken her, driven all other thoughts away.

“Leslie, hi! Gosh, I was hoping to run into you.”

Wetzon came jolting out of a near trance. Sunny Browning was standing over her smiling with all those long, white teeth. Would her next words be a neigh?

“Coffee, please,” Sunny told the counterman. She had pulled out a chair and was sitting before Wetzon had a chance to say anything. “Well,” Sunny said, “can you believe all this?”

Wetzon shook her head. “How come you’re going back?”

“Things to do,” Sunny said vaguely. She stood and took the coffee mug from the counterman and sat again. She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn on the plane trip up, black on black, sweater, jacket and boots, but instead of a skirt, black leather pants and a metal and leather chain belt. Her mane of streaked blond hair was caught under the collar of her coat. Before the shooting and her medically inspired haircut, Wetzon had loved the feel of her hair on the back of her neck in the winter. Sunny took a sip of coffee and left a lipstick ring on the cup. “Some odds and ends to tie up.”

“Like?”

Sunny stared at her, green eyes from dead white skin, fingering the strands of pearls that fell to her waist. “So you
are
a spy—”

“A spy? Oh, please. Susan is an old friend. She’s terrified that whoever killed Dilla is going to come after her.”

Sunny snorted. “Isn’t that a little ridiculous?”

“You think Dilla’s murder was a once-only aberration?”

“I’m not saying that, Leslie. It just doesn’t make sense to believe it’s one of us.”

“Then how do you explain Sam?” Sunny played with her pearls, not bothering to respond, and Wetzon added, “Susan thinks someone in the
Hotshot
company killed Dilla and she’s probably right. She also thinks someone is stalking her.”

“Stalking her? She’s crazy.” Sunny took a sip of coffee, her eyes on the counterman, then looked back at Wetzon. “You don’t think it’s me?”

“Is it?” Wetzon pushed her half-eaten muffin away and reached for her mug. Little globules of fat fought for space on the black surface of the coffee.

“God, Leslie, I’ve never seen this side of you.”

“You’ve never seen
any
side of me, Sunny.” She gave Sunny a cynical half-smile.

Sunny sipped her coffee, eyes downward. “Well, I couldn’t care less about Susan.”

“What about Dilla? Did you guys get along?” Wetzon was starting to feel perky again. There’s nothing like a murder investigation to get the blood coursing through your veins, she thought.

Sunny pulled her hair out from her coat. “Sure. She was okay.” She wasn’t very enthusiastic.

“With Dilla out of the way, Mort will be more dependent on you.”

“So? That isn’t enough to kill over. And what about Sam? Why would I ever do that?”

“I think Sam died because he looked like Mort.”

“Well, there you are. I don’t want anything to happen to Mort.” She grinned at Wetzon suddenly. “Yet. And you’re right about one thing, Leslie. With Dilla gone, Mort will depend more and more on me to produce his shows. He has no choice. I’m going to take very good care of Mort.”

“Okay. Do you have any theories about who would want to kill Mort?” Wetzon asked.

Sunny laughed. “How can you ask that with a straight face?”

Now Wetzon laughed, too. “Yeah. I guess the answer to that question is ‘we all did.’”

“I love Mort,” Sunny said, “but he’s selfish, manipulative, egomaniacal, and not a little crazy.”

“How about sadistic?”

“Well, that, too. He does seem to zero in on the very things that people don’t want to face about themselves. He’s very intuitive.”

“He is indeed.”

“But he’s always sorry after one of his tantrums.”

“And he never apologizes, does he? He always gets other people to do it. That way he never has to admit he’s wrong.”

Sunny looked at Wetzon thoughtfully. “You’re right. One of the things I’m going to do in New York is get Phil to come back.”

“You mean Phil’s already left Boston?”

“No one seems to know where he is. They must have gone back last night.”

“They?”

“Edna. His mother.”

“I feel sorry for Phil,” Wetzon said, standing. “He’s young and eager. Mort has been pretty rough on him, and Mort usually likes young men.”

“Leslie—”

“How do you know he’ll come back?”

“He will. Phil knows that the play is the most important thing. He comes from a theatre family.”

“You mean, his mother, the treasurer?”

“In a way. You remember Lenny Kaufer, don’t you? Well, Phil is Lenny’s grandson.”

With an enormous sense of relief, Wetzon watched the city of Boston recede as the plane lifted off and climbed into the snow-clouded sky. Escape. Freedom. Whatever you called it, she felt she was home free.

In truth, nastiness and backstabbing were not confined to the theatre, but there was something about this small, glittering world that made it particularly poisonous. She had always carried a deep nostalgia for her life in the Theatre, but now she saw with awesome clarity that it was mean, meaner than Wall Street could ever be. The Theatre was a faithless mistress. She seduced your heart and soul, then made a beggar of you and gave nothing whatsoever in return, but only seemed to because it was all artiface. Maybe, somewhere deep inside, Wetzon had always thought she might go back. But there was nothing to go back to. The Theatre was her past. She would never —could never—go back.

“If Phil is Lenny Kaufer’s grandson, then Edna Terrace must be—”

“Do you want a beverage?” The steward handed them small packages of salted nuts.

“I’m coffee’d out,” Sunny said.

Wetzon declined as well.

“Edna Terrace?” Wetzon prompted. She broke open the bag of nuts with her teeth. Salt, sweet salt.

Sunny nodded. “Yeah, Edna’s Lenny Kaufer’s daughter. I never knew Lenny. He was gone before I got into the Theatre. But everyone knows about him. He’s some sort of legend.”

Sunny was looking at her expectantly, so Wetzon said, “I didn’t know him. He didn’t seem to ever work for any of the producers I worked for, like Papp or Hal Prince or Stu Ostrow. Women liked him and men liked him. Every show he managed paid back its investment. I think I’d already left the Theatre when he died. Edna and Phil must be fixed.”

“I don’t know. Edna always looks frayed and frumpy. She doesn’t dress or act as if she has money. I heard the treasurers’ union gave her a card without the usual apprenticeship, because of Lenny.”

Wetzon considered the massive yellow gemstone Edna had been wearing when Phil introduced them. It didn’t go with the picture everyone was drawing of her. “Did you get a look at that ring she was wearing?”

“Noooo. What about it?” Sunny was fiddling with some papers in her handbag and didn’t look at Wetzon.

Wetzon had the distinct feeling Sunny was lying. You couldn’t miss that ring. “It looked like the one you and Carlos described to me, the one Dilla was wearing.”

Sunny smiled at her. “Oh, you must be mistaken, Leslie.”

The plane climbed into another flight path above the clouds and dazzling sun streamed through the small window. The sky was a frosty blue.

“What’s in all this for you, Sunny?” Wetzon demanded. It came out harsher than she’d meant it to.

But Sunny didn’t take offense. “You mean, how long am I going to hang out in Mort’s shadow?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been planning this for years, Leslie. I’m going to produce musicals with and without Mort. I’ve got two properties under option.
Hotshot
is the last show I work on as Mort’s assistant.”

“Oh, when did you tell Mort?”

“Leslie, I’m sure you know damn well I haven’t told him anything. I don’t need grief.” She grinned at Wetzon. “I’ve already talked to Carlos about directing and choreographing one of the shows.”

“You did? That devil didn’t breathe a word.”

“I left the book with him. It’s about relationships between the sexes.” She crossed one leathered leg over the other and the leather squeaked. “I’ll send you a copy. You might help convince him—”

“I’m happy for both of you if it works out, but Carlos doesn’t listen to me.”

“False modesty.”

“Maybe. What about Mort? He’s still got a lot to say.”

“Leslie, wake up and smell the roses. Mort’s old hat. If it weren’t for Carlos, there’d be no
Hotshot.
Frank Rich won’t pull any punches. Mort will be lucky if he comes out of this alive, let alone with the reviews in his pocket. And the way he and Poppy live, they’ll both end up in the Actors’ Home in Englewood. Do you know she had a limo drive her back to New York last night after the preview so she could get her hair done for the opening?”

Wetzon giggled. She could think of no worse fate than to end up in the Actors’ Home, having to listen to actors puffing up their careers. There was no retirement home for Wall Streeters. Too bad. Traders were infinitely more amusing than actors.

“The captain asks that you take your seats and fasten your seat belts. We are going into our landing pattern for LaGuardia and beginning our descent.” The plane dipped and banked, immediately clogging Wetzon’s ears. She opened her mouth and rotated her jaw, and then they were on the ground.

It had taken less than forty-five minutes. A line of travelers was waiting for the next shuttle to Boston. Her peripheral vision caught a figure going into the men’s room. A slope of shoulder, the rolling gimp, something reminded her of Fran Burke. “Is Fran in New York?”

“Not that I know of.”

Short of running into the men’s room on a wild-goose chase, Wetzon chalked it up to the nervous aftermath of her dream. The individual had passed so quickly out of her line of sight, she wasn’t sure she’d seen anything at all.

“Where are you headed?” Wetzon asked. They followed the signs that said
Ground Transportation.

“Times Square. I’ve got an appointment with TDF about getting unsold
Hotshot
preview tickets to the TKTS booth. We’ll give them some to sell but they’re asking for more than we want to give them. You know how it is. Everything’s a negotiation.”

“Life is.” Wetzon shifted her suitcase to her other hand. “I always thought the TKTS Booth was a rip-off.”

“Why?”

“I’m convinced the producers overprice their tickets so they can cut them in half and sell them at the Booth. I bet if there were no discount Ticket Booth on Forty-seventh Street, ticket prices would drop by at least a third.”

“You’re not the first person to say that, but I’m not at all certain it’s true.”

“It’s obscene to charge sixty-five dollars for anywhere in the orchestra or front mez. I wish, if you’re going to produce, you would look into a new ticket pricing policy.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Sunny said cheerfully. “So can I drop you?”

“No, thanks. I’m headed home.”

“What flight are you taking back?”

Wetzon had no intention of returning. “I haven’t decided. I want to talk to Susan first.”

Cabs were lined up bumper to bumper at the cab stand. They separated with a wave.

It was a gray and overcast New York that Wetzon came home to, but there was no snow or rain. It looked as if it had rained hard overnight. The sides of the road and some of the dips were puddled.

She was afraid for Smitty. Smitty. The name he had given himself seemed more macho than Mark. He was trying so hard to be grown up. He’d found out somehow that Dilla was using him for her own purposes. But was that motive enough for killing her? Hell, Sunny Browning had more motive.

The cabdriver was Indian or Pakistani and knew what he was doing. He tore through Queens, only skidding once on the slippery steel patches of the Triborough Bridge. Except for the usual backup at the bridge tollgates, the road was clear. Even the FDR Drive, with its alternately closed lanes in constant repair, had moving traffic. To her left, the towers on Roosevelt Island looked like a cardboard mockup floating in the middle of the East River.

A gigantic moving van was parked in front of Wetzon’s building, and a shouting argument was in progress among an ape-size truck driver, a tearful young woman with a baby hanging from a front satchel across her breast, and Roger Levine, the president of Wetzon’s co-op board. It appeared that a new tenant wanted to move in, but because of the strike, it was not going to be allowed. Wetzon had forgotten entirely about the strike.

Jorge, the weekend doorman, in jeans and a heavy sweater, was standing out front carrying a placard that said 32B 32 J BUILDING WORKERS STRIKE. He seemed more interested in the argument than in picketing. He had waxed the ends of his mustache so they curled up stiffly like rat tails.

Using her outside door key, Wetzon let herself into the building. Grace Elman, a retired schoolteacher whose interest in the building bordered on obsession, was sitting at a small table in the lobby. A long white florist box lay on the floor at her feet. “Hello, Leslie.” She looked at the suitcase. “I realize you’re a very busy person, but I hope we can count on you to fill in on guard duty while the strike is on. The times available are posted in the elevator, and you can just sign up.”