Suspicious Circumstances (17 page)

‘Come,’ she said.

‘But, Anny...’

‘Come.’

And we all three went out of the Mona Lisa Room, through the gambling rooms, out into the foyer, up the elevator to Ronnie’s suite.

Ronnie took the key of the adjoining door out of his pocket. He opened it. We walked through Sylvia’s living room and through Sylvia’s bedroom and into the bathroom.

Sylvia, quite naked, with her eyes open, was lying in the tub. The cord of a green silk bathrobe, which lay on a stool by her side, was trailing in the water. And, beside it, half submerged like a dreadful child’s boat, floated a brassière.

My eyes seemed to be stuck. The bathrobe cord, the brassière, Sylvia La Mann, lying there, looking up at the ceiling. Her hair was wet. It was plastered around her head, showing the shape of her skull. Small, improbably small and oval.

Eat Away Calories, I thought. ‘Every afternoon at five-thirty, as regularly as clockwork, I just slip into a delicious hot bath and wallow…’ Then Mother’s voice, grating and desperate on the phone, ‘Ronnie, Ronnie, we’ve got to do something…’

Something had been done all right. Not just to Sylvia, but to all of us. ‘So Miss La Mann is playing Ninon de Lenclos.’ Once again Inspector Robinson, no longer just a crinkling nonentity, seemed to be standing with me by the grave of Eliza M. Bunthorne. ‘Well, I guess the file on Norma Delanay is closed.’

Closed!

‘How?’ There was something wrong with the bathroom acoustics, and Mother’s hoarse whisper was splintered all around the room. ‘Ronnie, how did it happen?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There are no wounds - nothing like that?’

‘No.’

‘Then it’s the salts, the diet, a heart attack.’

‘But Anny, when this breaks… When the newspapers…’

'I know.’ Mother’s voice was very soft. ‘I know, dear.’

‘Me in the adjoining suite … you here for breakfast… Anny, what are we going to do?’

For several seconds after Ronnie’s voice had stopped, its ghost reverberated around the walls. Then it came again. ‘Anny - the photostat! The original page of the letter!’ Both of them turned simultaneously and were running out into the bedroom. I just stood there alone. Sylvia - the bathrobe cord - the brassière … they didn’t seem real any more, they seemed like things painted on my retinas, things which would, from now on, always be there.

Somehow I forced myself to look away. My eyes, at random, were gazing down at a soiled white bathmat. Tiles stretched to the right, they stretched to the left, they stretched beyond the linen basket, and there, beyond the linen basket. . . .

I went over. I looked down, praying that I’d gone out of my mind. But I hadn’t. There they were in the shadow where someone in a hurry might well have overlooked them.

Four perfectly formed paw-prints.

I’d always known, of course, from the first instant, that I was never going to believe in the salts, the diet, the heart-attack. But there’d still be a chance - an improbable chance which someone else might have believed - that Sylvia had somehow died by accident.

But here was the end of that chance. Paw-prints, a soiled bathmat. Paw-prints which must have been all over the floor but which had been wiped away by the bathmat almost wiped away. Sylvia fainting at the sight of Tray! Sylvia, in her bath, being suddenly confronted by a dog!

Ronnie, we’ve got to do something.

I could hear Mother and Ronnie rushing around the bedroom. I grabbed up the bathmat, dropped on my knees by the linen basket and wiped away every trace of Tray from the tiles.

I put the bath mat down beside the tub. I stood a moment getting back my strength. Then I joined the others in the bedroom. Neither Ronnie nor Mother was searching any more. Ronnie was standing, stoop-shouldered, by the window. Mother was sitting on Sylvia’s bed.

I tried to look at Mother, but I couldn’t. I went over to Ronnie.

‘Did you find them?’

‘They aren’t here.’ He turned jerkily and ran to Mother on the bed. ‘We can’t leave her there. I’ve got to get a doctor, the police. It’s the end, but that’s all there is to it. Get out now, Anny. You and Nickie. I’ll call the desk.’

I stood where Ronnie had stood at the window, looking down on the mammoth swimming-pool. There was a flood light beaming on it, illuminating all the little tables and the big chairs and the phony, landscaped palms. Although I couldn’t look at Mother, the whole room seemed to be filled with her personality. I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. But I heard her pick up the telephone. Then she gave a number.

‘Not you, Anny!’ Ronnie’s voice was almost a scream. ‘For God’s sake, this is my problem. This…’

But Mother’s brisk, normal telephone voice broke in. ‘Mary? … Mary darling, this is Anny. Is Steve there? … Thanks, dear.’

I spun around from the window.

‘Steve?’ said Mother into the phone. ‘Oh, Steve dear, could you please come? The Tamberlaine. … Suite Number Thirty-Two … Yes, dear. At once. Alone.’ She put down the receiver.

‘Mother …’, I said.

‘No, Nickie dear, please. This is a terrible thing, but she’s dead. There’s nothing we can do for her. We’ve got to think of us.’ The ‘musing’ furrow was rippling her brow. ‘Just sit quietly, dear. You, too, Ronnie.’

So we just sat quietly. In about fifteen minutes there was a knock on the door. Mother got up and opened it and Steve Adriano came in. He was wearing a tuxedo, but the old casual tweedy pipe-smoking well-bred personality was still going full blast.

‘Anny, I didn’t get a chance to come round and congratulate you. You were sensational. You, too, Nickie. The whole show’s fine. Of course, the girl’s a bit corny, but she’s pretty. It doesn’t really matter. Anny, you’re the biggest thing that’s ever hit Las Vegas.’

‘Thank you, dear.’ Mother’s smile was almost her normal ‘Aren’t they sweet to like me?’ smile. ‘But, Steve, something’s happened — something quite, quite terrible. And since this is your hotel I’m sure it’s right for you to be the first to know.’

She started to explain then, and it was fantastic what the ‘musing’ brow had been able to think up in those ‘quiet’ moments when both Ronnie and I had been in a state of collapse. With just the right combination of distraction and calm, Mother announced that Sylvia and Ronnie had flown up for the opening. (‘Such old, old friends. They couldn’t possibly miss it.’) We’d all had a late breakfast together and Sylvia had seemed radiant, absolutely radiant. (‘Didn’t she, Nickie? And so sensationally thin — a new diet.’) Then, after the late breakfast, Mother had been selfish — (‘tragically selfish as it turned out’) — and had insisted on Ronnie’s putting on his tuxedo right there and then so he could come over and stay with us up to the last minute, giving Mother his professional opinion of various small points in the act. When we’d left Sylvia, it had all been arranged for her to meet Ronnie in the Mona Lisa Room just before the show, but she hadn’t appeared. After the act, Ronnie had rushed back stage in a frenzy of worry. We’d all three hurried over to Sylvia’s suite. And there — (‘Steve, it’s beyond words’) there had been poor Sylvia, lying in her tub, dead.

‘It’s the diet, of course. Starving herself, and some sort of terrible bath salts that were meant to eat away fat. Steve, don’t you remember Maria Montez and her bath? The reducing salts, the hot, hot water, the strain on the heart? I should have realized how dangerous it was. I should have warned her. I’ll never forgive myself.’

All this time Steve had been standing there watching Mother and his blond hair very blond and his blue eyes very blue and his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo jacket.

At this moment, while Ronnie and I were just existing, Mother put a light hand on Steve’s arm and drew him towards the bathroom. They remained inside for a minute. Then they came out again.

‘So, Steve, you do see. It’s a ghastly tragedy, but there’s Ronnie to consider too. You know about Norma, of course. Only a few weeks ago. Poor Norma falling down the stairs and then Sylvia getting her part. Oh, Steve, think of all the dreadful gossip. Ronnie and Sylvia in adjoining suites. It was all innocent, of course, perfectly innocent, but you know what terrible minds people have. Scandal — so soon after Norma’s death. And then there’s Ronnie’s movie. Six million dollars invested in it, and you know how stuffy some banks can be …’

Steve Adriano suddenly took one hand out of a pocket and ran it lightly over the blond hair.

‘Okay, Anny. I get the set-up. What do you want?’

‘Well, I don’t exactly know. I …’

‘What about switching her to one of the other hotels?’ That staggered me. I even think it staggered Mother.

‘Switch …?’

‘What about The Hopi? Like to have her discovered there — tomorrow morning, maybe? That’ll give the boys a chance to make the switch later on when the streets are quiet.’ Steve was looking faintly reflective. ‘Yep. We’ll have her discovered tomorrow morning by a maid at The Hopi. Doctor Woodside can make the diagnosis and I’ll see that Inspector O'Malley handles it with kid gloves.’

He turned to Ronnie then with a boyish, almost apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be quite a bit of publicity even so, Mr Light. We can’t stop that — Sylvia La Mann being a star and cast for your movie and everything. But you’ll be here at the Tamberlaine and she’ll be at The Hopi. Even if you did fly up together, it’s reasonable enough that you went to separate hotels. Reservations are plenty tough, thanks to Anny. So don’t worry. We won’t let there be any serious damage.’

I knew Las Vegas was Las Vegas. Of course I knew it. And I knew Las Vegas was mostly Steve Adriano. But it seemed so wild — so wonderfully but so impossibly wild — that I had to make sure it wasn’t all going on inside my fevered brain.

‘But, Steve,’ I said, ‘what about the diagnosis? What … what if it wasn’t a heart attack?’

Steve blinked.

‘But, Nickie, kid, your Mother says it’s a heart attack.’

And he glanced at Mother and Mother glanced at him and I’ll never forget that glance because it was the glance of Like to Like. Between them, Mother and Steve Adriano could have ruled the world.

Ronnie had sat down on the bed. Steve stood for a moment with his hands back in his tuxedo pockets. Then he looked at his watch.

‘Anny, it’s close on ten. You’d better get back for the second show. There isn’t much time. Oh, by the way, Mary’s throwing a big party for you at The Hopi after the show. It was meant to be a surprise, but I think it’s better you should know. I think you ought to be there, all of you. Mr Light, too. It’ll look better. Okay, Mr Light, get back in your own suite. Just relax. Anny, kid, snap into it. Wow ‘em again the way you wowed ‘em at the dinner show. Be seeing you.’

The hand went over the blond hair, then it waved and the blue eyes and the boyish mouth smiled. He moved to the door, then he turned.

‘You wouldn’t feel like staying on another three weeks, would you, Anny? I’d jack up the ante. Fifty-five thousand. Maybe sixty … But I’m not going to push you. You just do what you feel like doing. But whenever you need it — remember, Las Vegas is always waiting for you.’

He went away then. Ronnie just sat on the bed, shivering. Very gently, Mother helped him up, guided him back into his suite and locked the adjoining door. She made him lie down on his bed.

‘There, dear. You see? It’s going to be all right. Now just relax the way Steve said. Nickie and I have to go. It’s almost time for the second show.’

So there were Mother and me going back to our dressing-rooms with Mother just as unruffled as if we’d been having a refreshing little nap. From the elevator, we slipped outdoors and went around the side way so Mother wouldn’t be mobbed.

‘Nickie dear, I don’t think we’ll tell the others. Not yet. Not till tomorrow, when it’s all settled. The poor dears, they’ve had enough to worry them and we do want them to give their All again, don’t we?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘And, oh yes, Nickie — you heard what Steve said about Delight. It’s true, you know. It’s terrible the way she just won’t listen. I’ve told her a dozen times that if she wants to make the stage her career, She’s got to realize that the whole secret of an act like this is balance. You know, dear, I’m quite worried about her anyway. There’s something — something I never noticed at the beginning. A hard, steely quality. Nickie dear, I do hope you’re not getting too involved.’

‘Mother!’ I said.

‘But, darling, you’re so young, so easily influenced. It would break my heart if I thought you were letting an ambitious little…’

That was all I could stand. I broke into a sprint and ran on ahead of her and, as I ran, I was thinking: I hate her. She’s a monster. I’m the son of the One, the Only, the Incomparable Monster.

Somehow I got through the second show. It was, if possible, a greater triumph than the dinner show and almost all the celebrities were back watching Mother again. After that we went to Mary Adriano’s party. Pam and Uncle Hans and Gino and Delight — particularly Delight — were bubbling over with excitement, being Conquering Heroes at their Conquering Hero reception. Their exuberance was so appalling to me that I managed to hide away from them. But even so I didn’t know how I was going to get through the party. Mother had no trouble, of course. No one had ever been more full on. She sang for hours and then Judy Garland sang for hours and then Frank Sinatra sang for hours and then Fred Astaire danced and sang for hours, while somewhere, presumably, out there in the real Las Vegas-sy Las Vegas, swift silent minions were carrying Sylvia down in a private elevator, into a private limousine, up in a private elevator. And then there was something else. Even though Mother seemed to have forgotten, I was remembering the photostat and the original page. ‘I’ve got it where no one will ever, ever find it.’ That’s what Sylvia had said, but what if Sylvia, being Sylvia, had left instructions, with Mr Denker or someone, in case of her death, to look …

But why did I care? For pity’s sake, what did it matter? How warped could I be still to be worrying about Mother?

I realized then that Delight was performing. I didn’t know how it started because I hadn’t noticed. But there she was, surrounded by indulgent celebrities, dancing and singing away like mad. In my sourest of sour moods, I found myself thinking: Is Mother right again as usual? Is that dancing, singing, red-headed dynamo, screaming for attention, the real — as it is laughingly called — Delight Schmidt?