Dead on Your Feet

by Grant Michaels

  Mireille sighed. “I’ve told no one,” she said. “But yes, I did read his diary. I think he wanted me to, since he always left it where I was sure to find it. I read it every day until he returned to Boston. I told myself it was the only way to be sure of his love for me.”

  “Had he proposed to you then?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But he never knew about the child. I suffered vertigo and fell during rehearsal. The ballet company was concerned only about my knee and saw the accident as a tragedy. But to me it was a small price for carrying Max’s child.”

  “So you loved him?”

  “All my life. But it had been so complicated. He was always like part of the family, yet I had always loved him more than I should have. All my youth I dreamed of our love but never believed it could happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m so much younger.”

  “Sometimes that doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Mireille Rubinskaya looked at me as though I was the stupidest boy on a grade-school field trip.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “My great-aunt loved him too.”

  Oh dear, I thought.

  Mireille went on. “Aunt Rubi raised me after I’d lost my parents. I was only twelve, but I was already dancing seriously, preparing for a career. The timing couldn’t have been more propitious for a young girl to face the first great love in her life. Living with my aunt I saw Max Harkey often, perhaps too often. And as much as I tried to avoid Max, I felt destined to fall in love with him. And I could never tell my aunt about it for fear of her wrath. I may have been young, but I sensed her feelings for Max, and they were exactly like mine.”

  “Did he know how you felt back then?”

  “I was precocious enough to know not to tell him, but I’m sure my eyes and my body gave me away. Whenever he came to visit, I had to make excuses to run away. I’m sure Aunt Rubi knew as well. There were awful scenes between us, though nothing explicit was ever said. It was obvious to me that we both wanted the same man, and one of us was too old and the other too young. So I sacrificed myself to ballet. The pursuit of art became my whole life. It was the easiest solution.”

  Whew! I thought.

  Mireille continued, “And the last time Max was in London, all those years of denial between us finally culminated in a single night. What had preceded that moment no longer had any meaning, for we knew that we would spend the rest of our lives together, or else die.” Strong stuff, I thought, thankful for my martini.

  Mireille said, “It sounds melodramatic, but there wasn’t a moment’s doubt for either of us.”

  “Except that you had to read Max Harkey’s diary to be sure.”

  Mireille’s face colored slightly.

  I said, “How much of this does your great-aunt know?”

  “Max promised to tell her everything when he returned to Boston, but I don’t know if he got the chance. When Aunt Rubi called me after Max’s death, we spoke only about him and about my injury. Nothing else.”

  “So as far as you know …” I said.

  Mireille completed my sentence. “My dear Aunt Rubi knows nothing about the baby.”

  “Unless she’s got that diary,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” said Mireille with alarm.

  “It’s disappeared. The police never found it among Max’s possessions.”

  “Then how did you know about it?”

  “Max’s houseboy mentioned it to me, then got killed shortly after.”

  “No!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said sadly. “Now can you tell me what was in it?”

  Mireille still resisted. I promised her I’d keep whatever she told me confidential, unless it would guarantee finding Max’s killer. That seemed to unlock her rigid secrecy.

  She began, “Max was a marvelous journalist. He wrote about everything.”

  “I only want to hear about the people in his life. Did he say anything about Alissa Kortland?”

  “My other rival,” replied Mireille with a small laugh. “Yes, Max had had relations with her. But you see, they had no past together, not the way Max and I did. Max didn’t love her. He barely knew her. His life could go on easily without her, despite any momentary passions they’d shared.”

  “Is that what he said?” I asked.

  “I’m paraphrasing it, of course. The details were much more lurid. Apparently she is a nymphomaniac, and quite good at it.”

  “Did that disturb you?”

  “Why should it? My connection with Max … You don’t quite understand how a woman can feel, do you?”

  “Sometimes,” I said ruefully.

  Mireille explained it simply. “Alissa was like a decoration for Max. A toy.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I was Max’s future,” she said confidently.

  Heady stuff, but I wanted to know what else was in that diary. Then it occurred to me to ask her directly. “Do you have the diary now?”

  She stared at me with her big, sad, brown eyes—what had those eyes seen that she wasn’t telling me?—and she said, “Max took it back to Boston with him.”

  “You’re certain?”

  She spoke somewhat sharply. “If I had the diary and I thought it would help you, I would show it to you. As it is, you probably know more about me now than anyone else, other than Max. Perhaps because you’re a total stranger, yet you seem compassionate.

  Which one of us was acting out a role now? Was I an objective bystander honestly relating to this beautiful if wounded young creature? Or was she an elusive sprite telling fabulous lies to please me?

  “Did Max write anything about Toni di Natale? I asked.

  “The conductor?”

  I nodded.

  Mireille said, “Max knew that she desired him, but he never encouraged her. Apparently she is a real talent, and Max didn’t want to risk her musical assistance for the sake of a quick toss. He respected her work.”

  “How noble,” I said.

  “It’s true.”

  “Then what about his feelings for your aunt? Did he write about Madame Rubinskaya?”

  Mireille said, “More than anyone else.”

  “Including you?”

  I sensed her pulling back.

  “I’d rather not discuss that part of it.”

  “But just minutes ago you offered to show me the diary if you had it.”

  “But I don’t have it,” she said. “And if I did, perhaps I’d change my mind now.”

  “Does it incriminate your great-aunt?”

  “Haven’t you asked enough questions?” she said. Then she closed her eyes and complained, “I’m feeling tired.” That talent for quick-change emotions seemed to run in the family. Mireille signaled for the bar waiter and asked him to call a cab for her.

  While we waited, I asked if there was anything in Max Harkey’s diary about Scott Molloy. She reluctantly told me that Max had felt protective toward Scott.

  “No sex, then?” I asked bluntly.

  “Max had stopped all that back in his early teens.”

  I suppose that made him a rare model of psychosexual health, except perhaps for impregnating his mentor’s grand-niece, a woman young enough to be his daughter.

  I begged one more question of Mireille.

  “I must go,” she protested.

  “Think of Max’s killer,” I said.

  She replied, “You’re making me wish I’d never admitted looking at that diary. It is personal, you know.”

  “Please,” I begged. “You’re the only one who can tell me, now that the diary has vanished.”

  Finally she acquiesced, and I asked about Marshall Zander.

  “As far as I know,” she said, “Max and he were once best friends. Apparently back then Marshall had hoped that Max would be more than that to him. That’s probably why he gave all that money to Max’s ballet company.”

  “That’s all?”

  Mireille added, almost regretfully, “It
wasn’t in the diary, but I know that Max was plagued by it, by the idea that Marshall’s hope of love never died.”

  Her cab arrived. She pulled herself up onto her crutches.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you a lift,” she said courteously, yet unable to contain her eagerness to escape. One emotion had been honest, at least.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” I said.

  She smiled wanly. “Find Max’s killer. That’s enough.”

  The doorman escorted her out to her cab, and she was gone. Too late I realized that I’d forgotten to ask her if Max had ever mentioned Rafik. It would have been a choice tidbit to offer him on my return, the secret truths from Max Harkey’s diary.

  I asked the bar waiter for our bill.

  With a beneficent smile he said, “I’ve taken care of it.”

  “Really? That’s extremely kind of you.”

  “The Connaught is proud of its service.”

  I offered him a generous tip, but he politely refused it, claiming that gratuities weren’t customary there. I thanked him again and headed back to my hotel, quite pleased to have received such hospitality.

  Back at my hotel I confirmed my return flight for the next morning, then called Rafik to tell him what time I’d be arriving in Boston. He wasn’t home, so I left a forlorn message on his answering machine. Then I called Nicole at the shop to give her the same message, but Ramon told me that she had left early that day. Thus defeated and alone, feeling abandoned by my nearest and dearest, I took myself to supper and then to the theater. I chose a popular and long-running comedy, a murder mystery highly recommended by the hotel staff. Trouble was, it had been on the boards so long that the actors and actresses were robots, nothing at all like the evasive and ephemeral characters in the drama of my private life.

  When I checked out of my hotel the next morning I faced an astronomical bill, even though Hanni my travel agent had prepaid the room. A huge charge had been added by the Connaught Hotel—the bar tab for the afternoon I’d spent with Mireille Rubinskaya. When I asked the clerk how that charge had got on my room bill, he explained that the secretary from the Royal Ballet had given the Connaught my name and my hotel, and that as a trade courtesy a few of the most reputable hotels throughout London still accepted the charges incurred by their guests at other fine places like the Connaught—adding their own service charges, of course. I guessed I was supposed to be grateful for the favor. But after the previous day’s carefree shopping spree for my friends in Boston, I prayed that my plastic would handle the unexpected hotel bill. Fortunately the gods of credit were watching over me, for my charge limit had been miraculously increased overnight. Apparently the purchases I’d made in the various London shops had tripped a computer flag on my account and marked me as an international big-time spender. Accordingly, up went the limit.

  Later at the airport I got through immigration without a hitch. The flight departed on time, and six first-class hours later I was safely taxiing on Boston tarmac. No one met me at the airport, and after the cab ride home no cat greeted me at the door. Two telephone calls, one to Rafik and one to Nicole, yielded nothing, and no messages had been left on my machine. Taped to the refrigerator door—a guarantee that I would see it—was a hastily written note from Rafik explaining that he had taken Sugar Baby to his apartment. Abduct me, abduct my cat.

  I poured myself a shot of bourbon and toasted my own homecoming.

  “Welcome home,” I said to the empty rooms. “We all missed you terribly.”

  Among the mail was an envelope addressed in handwriting I didn’t recognize. I opened it and a key fell out. The note inside read, “They wouldn’t make a copy, so this is the original one. Give it back before Mr. Zander finds out I took it. Beijos, Rico.”

  Getting the key for me had been Rico’s last gesture of goodwill, and I couldn’t even thank him for it. I put the key in my pants pocket, and lay down on the sofa to plan my next move. If nothing else, that afternoon I would ransom my cat from my lover.

  But instead I found myself weeping for my tesão, now dead and gone.

  17

  Just Face the Music and Dance

  I’D DOZED OFF, AND THE SOUND of the telephone woke me at four o’clock. It was Marshall Zander.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  “How did you know I was back?”

  “I called the airline and checked all their passenger lists.”

  That sounded like an exercise in grim determination.

  “You didn’t call me,” he said. “I wanted to pick you up.”

  “I guess I misplaced your card.”

  “What are you doing now?” he asked.

  I felt my defenses rising fast. I’d been hoping to hear from Rafik or Nicole, not this guy.

  “I’m resting,” I said. “It was a long flight.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can’t you guess?” he said with a nervous laugh. “How would you like to go for a nice relaxing ride?”

  I hedged. “Maybe another time.”

  “It’s no trouble,” he said. “I’m downstairs right now.”

  Damn car phones.

  He added, “The passenger seat looks so lonely without you.” Was “passenger seat” a euphemism for his lap?

  “I paid your way to London,” he said “Now, won’t you let me take you for a ride? Please?” He verged on whining.

  What price gratitude? I told him I’d be down shortly. Perhaps I could finagle a lift to Rafik’s place to pick up Sugar Baby. And the short jaunt to my lover’s apartment might remind Marshall Zander that, conjugally speaking at least, I was not available.

  When I got downstairs I found Marshall waiting in his sporty car. He’d removed the hard top for his late afternoon cruise, and he looked almost appealing behind the wheel. Maybe my eyes were dazzled by the red lacquer paint gleaming in the setting sunlight, or perhaps my nose was distracted by the heady scent of the plump leather seats. But, no, something had changed about the man himself. There was some brighter aspect in his face, his eyes maybe. Yes. That was it. Marshall Zander’s eyes were now lit with a new look of desire. And sitting in his car like that, all decked out with money and power, he appeared almost handsome, at least from the shoulders up. Fact is, I knew that the remaining ninety percent of his body was a mess.

  I got in the car and was fastening my seat belt when I felt his rough dry hand grab onto mine.

  “What are you doing?” I said and tried to pull my hand from his.

  “Just saying hello.”

  His eyes were full of lust. I stared back coldly until he released my hand. He put the car in gear and started to drive.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked eagerly.

  No secluded groves, that was for sure. I quickly defused any romantic ideas by telling him I was meeting Rafik at his place.

  “Sure,” he said. But then, as if to bolster his own confidence in the face of rejection, he said cheerily, “How was London?”

  “What little I saw was wonderful.”

  “I know the city well. I’d like to show it to you sometime.”

  I left his offer open and replied with a jab of reality.

  “Mireille Rubinskaya told me that you were in love with Max Harkey.”

  The traffic light turned red and he rolled to a smooth stop. He turned to me with mournful eyes.

  “Is that a crime?” he said, almost accusingly. “Is it wrong to love someone and hope that they might return the feeling? I can’t help it that I don’t look like Max’s beautiful dancers. But my feelings are just as strong as a beautiful person’s, perhaps even more so.”

  The light turned green and we were moving again.

  “The trouble with Max,” he continued, “was that he never had to love anyone back. He was always desirable. Just seeing him, people became infatuated with him, threw themselves at him.”

  “Did you?”

  “Never.”

 
“Wasn’t all the money you gave him just a substitute for the love he wouldn’t accept?”

  “You make it sound dirty,” he said.

  “A lot of people say that about the truth.”

  “I know the truth. I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved Max. But it wasn’t for his body.”

  I directed him to Rafik’s apartment, where he double-parked the car. I thanked him and was about to get out when he held onto my arm. The car was idling quietly but his pleading eyes were in overdrive.

  “I like you a lot,” he said.

  “I’m with Rafik.”

  “That didn’t stop you with Rico,” he said sharply.

  His remark left me speechless. I felt the key to Max Harkey’s apartment in my pants pocket—the key that Rico had risked his safety to get for me. Its point was stabbing my hip.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Marshall Zander. “Casual sex doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve come up with an idea that might interest you. I’d like to make you an offer— actually to both you and Rafik.”

  No three-ways, pal. Sooner Toni di Natale than you.

  Marshall said, “I hope you’ll take it in the right spirit. It’s the only way I can show you how much I like you.”

  Still unable to speak, I stared at him.

  He went on. “Since Max’s death and Rico’s death I’ve been extremely lonely. I need companionship, male companionship. And now I’ve met you, and I like you a lot. You’re not the kind of person who uses other people. I can trust you. So if you would be willing to be my friend—just friends—I’m sure I could influence the board of directors to appoint Rafik as the new artistic director of the Boston City Ballet.”

  Preposterous, I thought, yet he went on.

  “I make a very good friend.”

  And some people make a very good apple pandowdy.

  He continued, “I will always be there for you. I’m not the kind of person who lets people down. I’m just like you.”

  The only sounds I heard for the next few seconds were the ticking of the dashboard clock and murmur of the powerful engine.

  Finally I spoke. “Forgive me,” I said with a shaking voice, “but you sound desperate for sex.” And no one on the face of the earth understood that syndrome better than I.