Dead on Your Feet

by Grant Michaels

  The airliner was cruising high over the Atlantic, and I had just taken my first forkful of beef Wellington cooked to order when I realized I had no idea where to find Mireille Rubinskaya in London. Too bad Sharleen McChannel hadn’t provided a more complete itinerary.

  16

  Dance Ballerina Dance

  HAVE YOU EVER BEEN AWAKENED with the smell of French-press coffee, hot buttered crumpets, sliced fresh fruit, and soft breakfast cheese, all while flying at forty-one thousand feet? And with impeccable service, no less? If a first-class flight to Europe was any indication of life on that side of the ocean, I was ready to consider a big move. However, shortly after touchdown—eight a.m. local time—I faced coach-class reality once again. Though I’d flown like royalty, I quickly discovered that a hired car from Heathrow Airport into London would cost the equivalent of half a week’s tips—a good week—which was extravagant even for me. And since I was no longer on Marshall Zander’s dime, down I went into London’s legendary Tube.

  But riding the Underground into town was both enjoyable and instructive, like a free tour of the city’s outskirts. For much of the ride, the train remained on the surface and trundled past backyards and alleys and all the signs of real people’s lives—pale plump women gabbing over fences, their clotheslines hung with laundry swaying in breezy counterpoint to their morning magpie gossip; mechanics in overalls, their twisted bodies half-consumed by the open bonnets of the ailing trucks or cars; and youngsters racing each other on bicycles, or else scuffling hand-to-hand. It was almost like passing through the back lot of a movie set.

  I got off the train at South Kensington and walked the short distance to my hotel. This neighborhood was different from what I’d seen on the train ride into town. Here were rows of Edwardian townhouses, all uniform and tidy and white, bounded by gleaming black wrought-iron railings and distinguished only by their front door treatments and the occasional bed of chaste paperwhites or showy azaleas. It was the kind of stuff you see a lot on Sunday-night public television.

  I found my hotel, complete with its French name. Though all traces of Olde England had been removed by the Greek owners, one thing they hadn’t been able to renovate was the view: My room faced the Victoria and Albert Museum directly across the street. Couldn’t get much more Brit than that.

  It was ten o’clock, not too soon to set about my mission to find Mireille Rubinskaya. And I figured the most direct way to find a prima ballerina was to call the ballet companies. As far as I knew, London had only one major classical company, the Royal Ballet. However it took far more than one telephone call to locate my quarry, for whoever answered would cheerfully give me an alternate number to try. This went on until five attempts later a woman finally said that yes, she could take a message for Miss Rubinskaya, and no, she could not release her address or telephone number to me. I told her it was urgent that I speak with Mireille, and that I was in London as Max Harkey’s representative.

  “I shall give her your message,” said the woman. “And I shall ring you back with her reply.”

  Along with my telephone number, she asked the name of the hotel, which I told her.

  “Don’t forget to mention Max Harkey,” I said.

  “I have made a note of that, Mr. Kraychik. Good-bye.”

  I waited impatiently for her call, which came a half-hour later. She told me that Mireille Rubinskaya would meet me at three o’clock sharp at the Connaught Hotel. A rendezvous there implied that the young ballerina was already an assoluta.

  I took a long hot shower and put on fresh clothes, then set out for my meeting with Mireille. It was early yet, but I decided to walk partway and make a brief shopping tour of London. I bought a map in the hotel lobby, then walked a few blocks along Brompton Road to a cafe, another place with a French name. I ordered a café pressé and a fruit-and-cream pastry, then planned my route to the Connaught Hotel.

  The first stop was Harrods, where I toured the legendary food halls. The main room was a vast tiled chamber, much like an enormous Roman bath. Its glazed walls glistened like white ice with vivid hand-painted borders. Food items exotic and pedestrian were displayed below in sparkling glass cases, lavishly arranged like goods at Cartier. The produce section purveyed fruits from around the world, all clearly labeled by name and country of origin, including Macintosh apples from Maine, U.S.A.—proof that we were still a recognized colony.

  From Harrods I took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus. To get to the train I had to go down, down, down numerous escalators. A mile below the earth’s crust, or so it felt, I waited for the train, which arrived in minutes—an unlikely event in New World Boston. Once the doors slid shut, the train accelerated to a raucous velocity that verged on self-destruction. Yet the sturdy coaches tolerated the abuse very well, had obviously done so for many years, and probably would continue for many more—much like myself, I thought.

  The chaos and excitement of Piccadilly Circus—which is actually a gigantic traffic rotary, and not a performance arena per se—caused me to exclaim aloud, “I’m in London.”

  On my walk up Piccadilly toward the Connaught Hotel I stopped at Fortnum & Mason. If Harrods was luxurious, Fortnum & Mason was regal. I half expected the security guard to ask for my pedigree documents. But the place was well attended by people from other countries, and not everyone looked like royal blood. I decided to buy some violet- and rose-flavored chocolate creams for Rafik, something to renew the romance of our love, at least for myself. The clerk rang up the sale—a huge sum until I realized that it was in mere pounds sterling, and that my cost in dollars would be even more. Ah, what price romance? Just then an East Indian princess wafted by in a billowing silk sari, oblivious to the luxury around her. When I saw her eyes I was stunned, for they were too familiar. They were the eyes of Sharleen McChannel. How was it possible? I wondered. How could she be here in London as well? Had she been on the same flight? And why was she no longer posing as La Duchessa? I was about to approach her, but she had vanished. Perhaps it had been a jet-lag hallucination.

  At the Burlington Arcade I bought Nicole a cigarette holder. If she was trying to smoke less, she might as well play the grande dame while she did. And finally, at Maitland’s Chemists I found a small green bottle of balsam cologne that rekindled a distant memory of my first meeting with Lieutenant Branco. I bought it, not certain whether I would keep it for myself or present it to him, since he was almost part of the family now.

  It was exactly three o’clock when I walked through the flower-bordered entrance to the Connaught Hotel, a red brick building on Carlos Place, just off Grosvenor Square. Though warm and inviting, the hotel also had the sacrosanct air of a museum, a living testament to the zenith of late nineteenth-century refinement. The wood-panelled lobby resembled a gentleman’s private study more than a common egress for the guests. And if I was thinking in words like that, the Victorian energy was clearly still present and affecting.

  I’d paused to admire an arrangement of tiny white lilies and fresh-cut fuchsia when a slender young man in dark vest and striped pants approached me.

  “May I be of assistance?” he said, which I interpreted as “Who are you and what are you doing here?” I told him my name and he said, “Ah, yes, Mr. Kraychick,” with perfect Czech vowels and consonants. “Mademoiselle Rubinskaya apologizes. She will be detained, and suggests you should await her in the lounge.” He directed me there.

  In the lounge the bar waiter escorted me to a reserved table set within a bay window that faced the bar on the opposite side of the room. I settled myself into a heavy tub-back armchair upholstered in dark leather, and ordered a martini. The lounge reflected the same past glory as the hotel lobby: walls panelled in chocolate brown oak; a brass chandelier with faceted glass shades; a pair of mounted deer heads; numerous paintings of hunting dogs; a huge portrait of Charles II, and another of an anonymous lady whose billowing salmon-pink skirt matched exactly the color on some of the pillows on the scallop-backed sofa directly below it. The carpet t
hroughout had a muted red lozenge pattern, and was reassuringly worn.

  The bar itself had no rail for standing, so it was an open stage for the bartender—in British, the barman—to ply his art. Against the backdrop of a wall-sized mirror and shelves full of Victorian glass decanters and vases, the barman, dressed in his white tunic coat, gathered the makings for my cocktail. He conferred on the bar tools and the liquors the same reverence a Shakespearean actor allows to spoken syllables. He prepared the drink on a small raised section at the center of the bar. All was accomplished quietly, within the shadows of sound. Even the tinkle of ice swirling against the long glass stirring rod was muted. Meanwhile the bar waiter re-entered the lounge from a swinging door off to one side, carrying on his tray a porcelain bowl filled with—good lord! Potato chips? Then in one long, continuous, graceful phrase worthy of a danseur noble, he swept my cocktail from the bar, placed it upon his tray, glided to my table, and delivered both drink and comestible to me, all with the most liquid movement and the barest hush of sound. I restrained myself from applauding him.

  He said, “Some fresh crisps for you.”

  And I couldn’t help remarking, “You move beautifully.”

  He replied with a modest nod. “Kind of you, sir.”

  And I’d guessed right about the snack. It was potato chips—or more correctly, crisps—but I’d not expected them to be made especially for me and my cocktail at that moment. The only problem facing me was in the serenity of the Connaught Lounge, how was I supposed to enjoy those warm, crunchy wafers of flash-fried potato? Was it some kind of test? Was this what finally separated the aristocracy from the commoners? The mastery of silent mastication?

  I chose a small crisp from the top of the mound, one that might fit completely into my big mouth and be suitably muffled. Yet in that microsecond of temporo-mandibular activity, when the bespoke potato crisp was about to be shattered between my Slavic chops, that was precisely when all the whisperings of conversation throughout the lounge arrived simultaneously at a hiatus, just in time for the big crunch!

  A confounded silence followed. But within those dazed moments, as after any epiphany, when the other guests began to comprehend what had transpired, what they had witnessed firsthand in the sanctum sanctorum of the Connaught lounge—that someone had actually eaten a crisp—then, one by one, at various tables, people began to try the forbidden wafers themselves, until finally the lounge itself, that bastion of late Victorian high manners, resounded with a well-tempered fugue of crunching and noshing. The barman caught my eye and gave a quick wink.

  Then entered Mireille Rubinskaya, limping on crutches and looking like a wounded swan, ethereal and pale. She was extremely small and fragile, but had enormous sad eyes, dark convincing eyes, eyes suitable for the great tragic roles, just like her great-aunt back in Boston, the venerable Madame Rubinskaya herself. Despite the crutches, Mireille moved like a graceful apparition, a lost being from the spirit world of romantic ballet who had taken on a mortal form for these few hours. Her long black hair only enhanced her pallor. She embodied the Old World artist, too sensitive and too vulnerable to hardship, not like her counterparts in Boston, who were of the earth: evolved, improved, and tough.

  I stood up to greet her. She balanced herself on one crutch and proffered a lovely pale hand.

  “You’ve brought news of Max, then?” she said eagerly, dispensing with formalities.

  “News?” I replied. “Don’t you know?”

  “That he’s dead? Of course!”

  She pulled her hand away abruptly, then lowered herself into her chair and laid the crutches next to her.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience,” I said, eyeing the crutches. I had completely forgotten about her injury, which Max Harkey had described to us the night of his dinner. “We could have met upstairs in your room.”

  She smiled politely. “One does not live at the Connaught,” she said, correcting my gaffe with the grace of a sledgehammer. How was I supposed to know what one did and did not do at the Connaught? “But I couldn’t very well see you in my flat,” she continued, “since I have no idea who you are, except that you claim to be Max’s representative here from the States.”

  “That’s true to a degree.”

  “And what exactly is that degree?” she asked with chilly reserve.

  “I’m not officially connected to Max,” I said, “but I had to convince you to see me.”

  “Bravo then, Mr. Kraychik. Your ruse worked. But what is so urgent that you must lie in order to see me?”

  “I’m trying to find Max’s killer.”

  Mireille’s strong dramatic features seemed to dissolve as her jaw fell open. “Are you saying he was murdered, then?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  At that moment the bar waiter appeared with a tray bearing a complete tea service that included exquisite porcelain pieces containing the tea, milk, and sugar, along with a tiered plate of sterling silver arranged with puff-pastry savories, finger sandwiches, miniature scones, petit fours, and fresh berries. On the bottom tier were numerous small bowls of assorted marmalades, and two larger ones mounded with Devon cream that looked deliciously firm and spreadable. But the kaleidoscope of treats now before us did nothing to ease Mireille’s shock at hearing the fact that Max Harkey had not died naturally but had been killed.

  “I am certain that you are lying to me. I don’t know what you want, Mr. Kraychik, but your cruelty in saying that Max—”

  “I’m sorry you learned it this way,” I said.

  “Why didn’t my aunt tell me about it, then?”

  Mireille had raised her voice. I remained quiet. She continued rather loudly, “Aunt Rubi told me that Max had suffered a heart attack and had died instantly. But now, here you are with an absurd story about a murder.”

  “I’m really sorry. I thought you knew. Surely the newspapers—”

  “No, Mr. Kraychik. I did not know. I haven’t been well and I haven’t been reading newspapers either.”

  Boorishly self-conscious, I took a slug of my martini.

  Then, as if to nullify our bad start, Mireille exercised consummate British decorum and proceeded with her tea. “They are so kind to remember the extra cream for me,” she said vapidly. “I am supposed to be gaining weight.” She pressed a chunk of heavy Devon cream and a spoonful of rose-petal marmalade onto a tiny scone and placed it in her mouth. Then she closed her eyes and let the morsel soften and crumble within. A glow rose in her pale cheeks. She dispatched her heavenly tidbit with a delicate swallow, then opened her eyes.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied.

  “Can you tell me about your relationship to Max Harkey?”

  “There isn’t much to tell you,” she said in a vain attempt to shrug off my question. But her large eyes failed her. She avoided my gaze and looked toward her teacup as she poured. She seemed to address the teacup instead of me. “I suspected that something horrible had happened. My dear aunt seemed to be protecting me again. I just never thought … Mireille then put her hand to her throat and gasped softly. Once again her complexion became ashen, and she slumped back into her chair.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She held up her other hand as if to ward me off, then closed her eyes and became extremely quiet, almost not breathing. I caught the eye of the bar waiter, who was already heading toward our table.

  “May I assist you?” he said to her.

  She opened her eyes to him and said, “I’m fine, thank you. It always happens after the first bit of food, but it passes quickly.”

  Thus dismissed, the bar waiter left us alone.

  Mireille looked at me with her big sad eyes.

  “You see,” she said in a whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

  “Ah,” was all I could manage while my mind raced to the most obvious conclusion. I reached quickly for my cocktail, but the glass arrived at my lips empty.

  “It’s made me quite sick,” sh
e said. “Between that and my injury, I couldn’t possibly travel. Otherwise I would have come to Boston immediately after Max’s death.”

  “You look so thin to be pregnant,” I said stupidly.

  “I know. I was concerned about that too, but the doctors tell me that everything is fine now. I should start gaining weight soon. I may even have breasts.”

  Her directness unnerved me a bit. Then our eyes met, and my instinct told me that my first guess had been right, but still I had to say it, to confirm it with her. My whisper seemed loud enough for the entire lounge to hear.

  “Is it Max’s child?”

  Mireille nodded vigorously, and for a moment her tired eyes glistened with pure joy. We had a common bond with her love for Max Harkey and my pursuit of his killer.

  I said, “Did you know Max kept a diary?”

  “Of course,” she answered, proving the existence of the mysterious missing diary.

  “Had you ever read it?”

  “I’m sure it was private,” she said quickly.

  I pressed her. “But had you read it?” To my mind Mireille Rubinskaya had already played her trump card by telling me that she was carrying Max Harkey’s child. So why was she pretending to be so moral about reading his personal diary? I said, “It may hold the answer to Max’s murder.”

  “How?”

  “He may have written about his relationships with other people.”

  “I’m certain that he did,” she said.

  “And with brutal candor,” I added.

  Mireille hesitated. It’s never easy to confess that you’ve casually rummaged through someone else’s most private affairs, even your lover’s.

  I said, “Do you want his killer to go free?”

  “Of course not!” she said quickly.

  Just then the bar waiter reappeared with a fresh cocktail for me. He quickly surveyed the table, and then, psychic to the core, asked nothing before vanishing again.