Play It Again

by Stephen Humphrey Bogart

  No wedding or engagement ring, but that didn’t mean much these days. Nails long and tapered, painted with clear polish. He liked that.

  “Take off your coat. Sit down,” she said, and then her manner softened. “I’m sorry about your mother. I didn’t know her well, but I liked her. I think we might have become friends.”

  “I didn’t even know she was in town.”

  “There’s a lot you didn’t know about her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She ignored the question. “I know why you’re here. The tapes. I’ve been looking for you because you play a role in the piece I’ve been working on. We need to understand each other.”

  “You don’t beat around the bush.”

  She looked at her watch. “And I don’t like to waste time.”

  “Fair enough. Your tapes might answer some crucial questions about my mother’s death. I need anything you’ve got about her last few weeks. When did she come here? Why? Where did she go? Who did she see? What were her plans?”

  “The sort of things most sons might already know about their mothers.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t think you’ve got me figured out too easily, Wingate.”

  She sat on a corner of the desk, pressing the file against her chest and swinging her foot. “Oh, I think I understand you, Mr. Brooks. For a public figure, Belle was amazingly candid, and my research has been as thorough as time and money permit. But I’m always ready to learn more. And I’m willing to be proved wrong.”

  He sat forward on the edge of his chair. “Then let’s get to work. When can I see some film?”

  “I’m not sure you can.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’ve made a deal with the studio. They were financing the project. My boss might object.”

  “Then get him in here. Who is he, what’s his name?”

  A man’s nasal voice said, “Pike. His name is Colin Pike.”

  R.J. turned to find a lump of dough standing in the doorway wearing a pair of white jeans and a USC sweatshirt.

  “My boss,” said Casey Wingate. R.J. got the impression she was not too happy about the situation. He knew one thing at a glance, though: They weren’t involved, as the saying goes. For some reason, he was glad.

  “I know what you want, and you can’t have them,” Pike said, like a petulant child. R.J. stood up and Pike held his ground. “The police have already been here, asking for them. I told them to come back with a warrant. I’m telling you the same thing.”

  “You bastard. Those tapes might help solve a murder.”

  “What do you care? From what I hear you didn’t even like her.”

  R.J. clenched his fist, and Casey stepped between them. But Pike had already scuttled into the hall and summoned a nearby security guard. “Put this guy outta here,” he told the guard, a muscular black man. “And I want you in my office now, Wingate.”

  Pike rolled back along the hall like an underdone muffin on skates. Casey went with R.J. and the guard to the elevator.

  “It’s been…interesting,” she said.

  They didn’t shake hands; they didn’t need to. When she had brushed past him to stop him from decking Pike, accidentally touching him, he had felt a jolt of electricity. He could see she was feeling it too, even without physical contact.

  “I’ll see you again,” he told her, tossing his coat over his shoulder.

  “Count on it,” she said.

  The elevator door slid shut between them.

  R.J. let out a long breath. So did the guard. “You lucky, mister. You got out without being skinned alive. That woman is one tough honky.”

  R.J. grinned. “You can play that again, Sam.”

  “Say what?” said the guard.

  “Skip it.”

  CHAPTER 10

  There were a lot of Wingates in the Manhattan book. There was no listing for a Casey but R.J. found a K.C. Wingate on Houston Street in the Village. Close enough, he thought. Probably hates the name Katherine. It had to be Katherine.

  Just to be sure he called the receptionist at Independent Productions. “Hi, this is personnel services,” he said in a light and breezy voice. “We’re updating the files. Can you confirm the current home address of your K.C. Wingate? At 159 Houston Street?”

  “One moment please,” the cool British voice said. A moment later the Muzak clicked off and the Brit said, “That is the correct address.”

  “Thanks. Bye!” said R.J. and hung up.

  He figured she was the type to work late, but he’d been wrong before. So he had her doorway staked out by four o’clock. At eight-thirty he was still there.

  He’d been propositioned three times, twice by men and once by a woman who should have been working the docks, with her tiny tube top and tight black skirt. She looked almost blue in the cold, so thin a good wind would blow her across the river to Jersey.

  He’d seen eleven people walking dogs. Thirty-two kids went by, nineteen of them with a parent or nanny.

  One time, at about a quarter of eight, a drunk stepped into the doorway where R.J. was standing. The man unzipped his fly before he saw R.J. Then he stood there with his hand in his pants, blinking stupidly.

  “Sorry,” R.J. told him. “This stall is in use.”

  The drunk staggered backward and disappeared down the sidewalk, hand still in his pants.

  R.J. sympathized with the man. He had to pee so bad his ears were ringing, and he was about to give up the whole thing as a bad idea at a quarter to nine, when a taxi stopped in front of her door and Casey got out. As she paid the driver, R.J. crossed the street and stepped over beside her.

  “Where in hell have you been?” he asked her.

  She gave a little jump, then turned to face him. “Looking for you,” she said coolly.

  R.J. was startled, but he believed she was telling the truth and not just smart-mouthing him. This woman had a lot of moxie.

  The cab pulled away and Casey looked him in the eye. “Well?” she said.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what did you have in mind?”

  A raindrop hit R.J.’s forehead. He glanced up. There were plenty more where that one came from. “Listen, can we talk someplace? This is about to get a little wetter than I like it.” He meant the rain, but if he didn’t find a bathroom soon it would be even wetter.

  She looked at him hard for a moment. “All right. Come on up.” She turned toward the door, pulling a large key ring out of her shoulder bag.

  Casey’s apartment was on the third floor at the back. It had a lot of space for a New York apartment, but not much view. R.J. could just make out a warehouse about eight feet away through the only window he could see.

  There were a couple of very nice prints on the wall; a little too modern for R.J.’s taste, but good stuff.

  He got Casey’s permission to use her bathroom, and he barely managed not to run down the short hall. He came back feeling a great deal better.

  “What do you want to talk about?” she asked him.

  R.J. looked over the sparsely furnished open room. A few small rugs were scattered on the hardwood floor, and there was a large bookcase with very few open spaces on it.

  “Were you really looking for me?”

  “I said I was.”

  R.J. spotted a canvas-backed director’s chair and sank into it. “Why?”

  Casey tossed her shoulder bag onto a low black couch with a steel frame and started to shrug out of her raincoat. “Same reason you were looking for me, I’m sure.”

  “Sure, I like that. And what would that be?”

  She blew out a long breath and planted herself in front of him. “Can we cut the crap, Brooks? I’ve got something you want, and I want something from you too. That’s a pretty good starting place. Instead of dicking around, we could be working it out already.”

  R.J. had never liked aggressive women, but he was ready to make an exception. “What did you have in mind?”

 
; She moved over and hung herself on the couch, smoothing her skirt down over her long legs. The sharp angle of the couch showed them off to real advantage. “The piece I was doing on your mother. It’s more important than ever now. And just so all my cards are on the table, I am not exaggerating when I say this story could really make my career. So you know what’s in it for me, okay? It’s a very hot story.”

  “Nothing like a little murder to raise interest in a fading star.”

  She looked annoyed, but she went on. “The fact is, she was in the middle of a comeback. I think my piece would have helped. About halfway through, I realized I wanted it to help.” Casey gave him a very small smile. “I guess I lost my objectivity. I liked your mother. She was very easy to talk to.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Maybe you never gave her a chance.”

  “Yeah. That must have been it. Maybe I should have opened up to her, in between the boarding schools and the summer camps, and really let her into my life in the three days a year she could put up with me. We could have had some great talks, maybe for the full five minutes at a time she could focus on something besides her career. I should have tried harder. I feel like a jerk.”

  He was surprised at how the words all came out like that. Casey really knew how to get to him, and she had.

  She looked at him without blinking for a long minute. He couldn’t read her expression. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said finally.

  “Sweetheart, so am I.”

  “People change, you know.”

  “I know, I’ve done it myself.”

  “It may be that your mother hit a certain age and looked back and didn’t like what she saw. She might have been trying to reach out to you.”

  “She had a funny way of reaching out. I didn’t even know she was in town. Maybe if I had a press card, she would have sent a release, let me know she was coming.”

  Casey gave him that long stare again, the one he couldn’t read. Finally she shook her head. “She’s dead, R.J. Can’t you like her even a little bit?”

  “No, I can’t,” he snarled. He got up and stepped over to the couch, glaring down at her. “I can’t like her at all. Not that it’s any of your business. I never could like her. Only a camera could like that woman. But I loved her. She was my mother. I loved her—not some character she played, and not a sob sister attitude she was trying out on some soggy reporter. I loved my mother, Miss Wingate, and I am mad as hell that she’s gone, and that somebody killed her like that, and whoever it is I’m going to find them, and I may or may not turn ’em over to the cops when I do, all right? Now quit fishing for a story and show me the goddamn tapes before you have me chewing up your furniture.”

  Something finally showed in her eyes. Approval? Amusement? He couldn’t tell. “All right, R.J.,” she said and stood up smoothly. “Just so we understand each other. You’re after a killer, I’m after a story. I’ll show you the tapes—but you’ve got to help me out too. Deal?”

  She held out a hand. He looked at her, and the elegant hand, for a long moment. Then he laughed.

  “What the hell,” he said. “Deal.” He took her hand. The electricity was still there, maybe stronger. Casey pulled her hand back with a slightly startled look.

  “Good,” she said, already smoothing over any sign that she had felt anything she didn’t want to feel. “Do you have any ideas yet about the murder?”

  He shook his head. “Not a clue. I guess it could be one of those star stalker things—but it could be a lot of other things too. She was no angel, and she stepped hard on a lot of people.”

  “So you think it was someone from her past?”

  R.J. shook his head. “I didn’t say that. But it could have been, sure. Something’s been bothering me, something I saw on a piece of your film.”

  “What was it?”

  R.J. turned away. The view out the window hadn’t changed. “I don’t know. It’s not even a hunch yet. Just—something doesn’t look quite right. I can’t tell you any more.”

  “Can’t—or won’t?” There was a cool challenge in her voice. He turned back to face her.

  “Why don’t we look at the tapes, and I’ll let you know?”

  She studied him briefly, then nodded. “All right. I have them right here.” She pulled open her shoulder bag and took out four plain videocassettes.

  Casey crossed to the far side of the room and R.J. followed. She had a twenty-seven-inch Sony monitor set up there and a rack of VTRs: two three-quarter-inch, one VHS, even a Beta. There was a joystick editing panel mounted on a small counter, two smaller monitors, and some other equipment for film as well as video.

  “Quite a setup,” R.J. said.

  She shrugged. “Not really. It’s kind of primitive. But it lets me do some of the rough cuts here, without that asshole Pike reaching for my knee in the dark editing bay.”

  R.J. snorted. “Should’ve known he was a knee-grabber. Few more years, he’ll probably be a Shriner.”

  She put in the first tape and started to rewind it.

  “You haven’t told me yet what you think about my mother’s murder.”

  She didn’t look up. “I don’t think it was a mob hit or anything like that. Too pretty. And I don’t think it was a jealous wife, for the same reason.”

  “Pretty?” R.J. snarled. “What the hell was pretty about it?”

  The tape made a snapping sound and popped out of the machine. She pushed it back in. “Have you seen pictures of the crime scene?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Whoever it was didn’t just come in, shoot them, and go out. Whoever did this, they spent a lot of time composing the picture they would leave behind. I’ve been in this business awhile, and I can tell a pro at work when I see one. This guy was a pro.”

  “What, you mean a pro killer?”

  She shook her head. “I mean show business,” she said. R.J. blinked hard as she went on. “Everything was just so, just like somebody was setting up models for a picture. A very startling and unusual picture.” Now she looked up at him. “That’s why I brought these other tapes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the last eighteen months there have been other unsolved murders where the crime scene was arranged the same way.”

  R J. felt for his cigar and stuck it into his face. He bit down hard. “Do the cops know about this?”

  Her eyes gleamed. “They have the same information I have, R.J.”

  He barked out a short laugh. “But they don’t have your brains, right? You’re okay, kid.” He sank into the other chair beside her. “All right. Let’s take a look.”

  Casey leaned forward and grabbed the joystick. “This is the first one,” she said, leaning the stick forward. She wound quickly past some standard-looking interview footage, a few exterior shots, and then: “There.” She stopped the tape.

  The camera was looking down on the back of a nude body, male, middle-aged. The guy would never have made anybody’s pin-up calendar alive, and dead he was far beyond a little unsightly.

  A pool of blood spread out around the body, although no marks were visible on the man’s back.

  Just out of reach of his outstretched hand was a battered ukulele.

  R.J. frowned and leaned closer. “What’s that?” He pointed at the screen. Something was barely visible, tucked in between the cheeks of the body’s naked buttocks.

  Casey gave him a grimace. “It’s a spread of pictures. Polaroids. Cops wouldn’t let me see ’em. Said they were too gruesome.”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Cause of death?”

  She was already rewinding the second tape. “The closest they could come was to say either shock from multiple injuries or loss of blood. They said it looked like some kind of crazy surgery, where the doctor didn’t really know what he was looking for, but he kept looking anyway.”

  She stopped and once again ran the tape ahead with the joystick. The same kind of stuff: same crime-scene crew. Then she stopped the tape again. “Number
two.”

  There was a woman wired to a straight-backed chair. At least, R.J. was pretty sure it had been a woman. It looked like her lips, and most of her face, had been eaten away by acid. In her hand was a cheap Japanese fan.

  “Were there Polaroids at this one?”

  Casey nodded and hit rewind. “At all of them. But the police—it was a Lieutenant Kates in particular, do you know him?”

  R.J. nodded. His lips moved away from his teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. “I know Freddy.”

  “Well, he felt that the way each victim was killed was so different they couldn’t be connected. The Polaroids had to be coincidence.”

  “He also feels he doesn’t want the blowdries from the evening news on his ass about a serial killer,” said R.J. “But maybe he’s right. What makes you think they are connected?”

  She looked him square in the eye. “When I was a freshman in college the girls on my floor played a game. It was called Date Lit 101. The others would pick a character from fiction and you had to tell what a first date with that character would be like.”

  “Who did you get?” he asked her with a wolfish grin.

  “Stephen Dedalus, from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”

  “Sounds like a pretty dull date.”

  “The point is, you had to get inside the head of these characters, the books. It was always you, but the experience was different.

  “That’s what the killer is doing.”

  R.J. blinked. “I must have missed something there.”

  She sighed at him impatiently. “You had to think like the character, then set up a date the way he would have done it. The killer is doing the same thing. He’s committing each murder like he’s playing a different part—a different character is committing each murder, but it’s the same actor, don’t you see?”

  R.J. whistled. No wonder Kates was skeptical. “I guess I don’t. How can you tell?”

  She shrugged. “At the moment, it’s just a feeling I’ve got,” she said, and then seeing his expression she added, “What, you never get hunches?”

  “I’ve got one right now. Roll that tape forward.”