The Man Who Couldn't Miss

by David Handler

  THE BACKSTAGE TAVERN had been situated directly across the street from the stage door to the Sherbourne Playhouse for as long as the Sherbourne Playhouse had been the Sherbourne Playhouse. It was a hybrid townie/summer theater haunt, which meant that hanging from the wall behind the battered hardwood bar, you could find anything from a vintage Carl Yastrzemski jersey to a yellowing lobby poster from an early-1930s production of Forsaking All Others. The Backstage was popular with local landscaping and tree crews, which explained why the sound system immediately assaulted my ears with Van Halen’s “Jump” when I strolled in the door. Van Halen ranked as the preeminent rock band among local workmen who spent significant hours per day in close proximity to leaf blowers and wood chippers. I’m guessing there’s a connection to be found there, but I don’t really feel like committing a lot of time to thinking about it.

  The Backstage’s old plank floorboards smelled like beer. Its illuminated brewery signs advertised lagers that had passed out of existence decades ago. The menu was limited to burgers, chili, fried clams . . . Actually, it was kind of a dump. But it was an authentic dump. Such places are getting harder and harder to find as our world is taken over by the sterile sameness of fast-food franchises. Therefore, I cherish them.

  Marty and Mimi were seated together in a booth looking downcast. She was sipping from a mug of coffee. He was scarfing up a basketful of fragrant onion rings and washing it down with a bottle of Rolling Rock. Otherwise, it was empty in the Backstage at 3:00 P.M.

  I sat down next to Mimi. Lulu started to curl up at my feet but immediately started sneezing again from Mimi’s Obsession and moved across the aisle, settling under another booth.

  Our waitress, a haggard type in her forties with frizzy black hair and a hostile expression on her face, sashayed over to ask me what I wanted. I ordered a Rolling Rock and three anchovies.

  She glared at me. “You just say anchovies?”

  “I did.”

  “How you want them?”

  “On a plate. Cold, if possible. They’re for my short-legged friend over there,” I explained, steering her gaze across the aisle at Lulu.

  “Theater people,” she muttered under her breath as she headed for the kitchen.

  “I don’t think our waitress likes me,” I said.

  “Hoagy, I’ve been coming here for seven years,” Mimi said. “She doesn’t like anyone.”

  “Sabrina was a talented girl,” Marty said mournfully. “She had a real future. This shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have fucking happened.”

  “You’re right, Marty, it shouldn’t have,” Mimi said consolingly, her long, slender fingers stroking his chubby hand.

  The cynic in me wondered if Marty was playing the sympathy card to try to maneuver his way into Mimi’s fancy Park Avenue panties. She was way out of his league, society wise, not to mention six inches taller than he was. But nothing deterred Marty.

  “Why did it happen?” he demanded, his eyes tearing up. “I know she had a history with drugs, but I can’t believe she’d let this thing with Greg hit her that hard unless . . . was she shtupping him?”

  Mimi’s face tightened ever so slightly. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Our waitress brought me my Rolling Rock and Lulu’s anchovies on a small plate, which she set before me with great disdain. I thanked her and slid the plate under the table across the aisle in front of Lulu, who promptly wolfed them down. The waitress watched, shaking her head, before she walked away, muttering some more.

  “I spoke to Sabrina in the rose garden right after I talked to you,” I said to Marty. “She seemed to be doing fine, but smack never lets go. One minute you’re okay, the next minute you’re not.”

  “Hoagy’s right,” Mimi said. “Back when I was modeling I knew three different girls who used heroin to keep their weight down. They thought they could just dabble at it. Chipping, they called it. They were fooling themselves, but they couldn’t fool the camera. Their looks went just like that,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “And then all three of them ended up hopelessly addicted.”

  I sipped my beer. “Do you think she brought it with her from New York or scored it out here?”

  Marty looked at me in disbelief. “In Sherbourne?”

  “There’s heroin in all of these little towns out here.”

  “What’s with this bullshit, Hoagy?” Marty demanded with a sudden burst of anger.

  Lulu let out a low growl from across the aisle.

  I told her to let me handle it. “Bullshit as in . . . ?”

  “You and I both know that R. J. Romero has been circling around us for days. So do the police. Why are they even bothering to talk to anyone else? It’s R.J. who killed Greg. That smug son of a bitch always had it in for him. Thought Greg was a total stiff. Yet it was Greg who got the career, the fame, the Oscar—everything that R.J. thought he deserved. I guarantee you he did it. And I’ll bet you he shot up Sabrina, too. She must have seen him slipping out of our dressing room. So he snuck into the inn and shot her up. Or held a knife to her throat and made her shoot herself up. Whatever it took. He wouldn’t care. The bastard has no conscience. Why aren’t the police going after him, huh?”

  “He has an alibi for last evening when Greg was murdered. He was getting loaded at a shooting gallery in an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Three different people saw him there.”

  “You mean three different junkies saw him there. That’s no alibi.”

  “He’s also on ice.”

  “What does that mean?” Mimi asked me.

  “It means that the state police arrested him late last night for stealing a truckload of Marvin windows and he’s currently in their custody. He couldn’t have killed Sabrina.”

  Marty looked across the table at me in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Lieutenant Tedone is trying to keep it under wraps.”

  “Why?”

  “For a reason that has nothing to do with Greg, Sabrina or any of this.”

  “Yet you know about it. How come?”

  “See above, re: for a reason that has nothing to do with Greg, Sabrina or any of this.”

  “In other words you’re not going to tell us. Whatever.” Marty popped the last of the onion rings in his mouth and took a swallow of Rolling Rock, belching loudly. “All I know is that this whole thing sucks. We cleared our schedules and came out here to give a little something back. Everyone in the theater world was behind us. They all showed up. Mimi, you did an amazing job of putting it together. And look what happens. We end up with two cast members dead.”

  “You know what I feel like doing?” Mimi fumed. “Telling the town of Sherbourne to just go ahead and tear the damned playhouse down. I don’t care anymore. For me, that dear, sweet little place will never be the same. I’m quitting as director, that’s for damned sure.”

  “You can’t quit,” I said. “You just staged a major fund-raiser. What will happen to all of the money you raked in last night?”

  “Someone else can take over,” she said brusquely. “I’m done.”

  Marty lit a Lucky Strike, dragging on it deeply. “I’m done, too. I want to go home. When will they let us leave?”

  “As soon as they figure out what happened.”

  “But that could take weeks,” he protested.

  “Nope, don’t think so. Mimi, you got Dini a room at the Sherbourne Inn yesterday afternoon so that she could take a nap before the performance. Would you happen to remember what floor it was on?”

  “The third floor, I think. I’m not positive.”

  “I am,” Marty said. “She was right across the hall from me on the third floor. So what?”

  “Does she still have her room key?”

  “I have no idea,” Mimi said. “They’d know at the front desk.”

  The tavern’s door opened now and in walked Merilee with Dini, who looked ashen-faced and devastated.

  Marty’s face immediately crumpled at the sight of her, his eye
s moistening. He went to Dini and gave her a bear hug. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m hanging in,” she answered softly.

  “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the beach with the kids?”

  “Lieutenant Tedone asked me to come. He wants to see me at the theater.”

  “All of us,” Merilee said. “Cast, crew, everyone.”

  “What for?”

  “He wants to conduct a reenactment of the intermission,” she explained. “Nail down exactly where everyone was when Greg was murdered, what they were doing and who they were doing it with.”

  “Whose dumb-ass idea is this?” Marty wondered.

  “Probably some crazy fool who was exposed to too much radiation as a child,” I said.

  “Eugene’s walking the dogs on the green,” Dini said. “My mother and the girls are there, too. Do we have time for a cup of tea?”

  “Of course,” Merilee said.

  “Have a seat right here,” Mimi said, sliding out of the booth. “I have to go back to my office.”

  “And I have to head back to the inn to take a humongous dump,” Marty said. “Those onion rings went right through me.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with us, Marty,” I said.

  “Yes, thank you, Marty,” Merilee said. “You’re a dear.”

  He took Dini’s hands in his and squeezed them, gazing at her with deep concern. “Will you be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Dini assured him. “See you in a little while.”

  Marty and Mimi paid their checks at the cash register and took off. Merilee and Dini sat in the booth with me. Lulu joined us now that Mimi and her Obsession were gone, curling up at Merilee’s feet.

  The frizzy-haired waitress bustled over, her sour face filling with sorrow. “What can I get you, hon?” she asked Dini in a kindly voice. “On the house.”

  Dini smiled faintly. “Could I have a cup of hot tea, please?”

  “You got it. How about you, Miss Nash?”

  “An iced tea, please.”

  “Another Rolling Rock?” she asked, glaring at me.

  “You talked me into it.”

  “And how about your little friend? Three more anchovies?”

  Lulu let out a whimper from under the table.

  “That would be a yes. And also a bowl of water, please.”

  “The anchovies aren’t on the menu. I don’t know what to charge you.”

  “Why don’t you just charge me for two extra Rolling Rocks?”

  She mulled this over before she said, “I can live with that.” Then she went off to fill our orders.

  “I still say she doesn’t like me.”

  “What have they found out about Sabrina?” Merilee asked me.

  “Lieutenant Tedone is trying to convince himself that she was so distraught over Greg’s death that she injected herself with a fatal dose of ‘Tango and Cash.’”

  “I take it you’re not buying that.”

  “Sabrina was clean and together. She had everything to live for.”

  “Everything,” Merilee acknowledged. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think she accidentally saw what happened and that Greg’s murderer wasn’t taking any chances. So he—or she—visited Sabrina in her room at the inn and took care of her. That’s how I see it, and Lulu’s backing me up.”

  Dini frowned at me. “How is she doing that?”

  “We have our methods.”

  Merilee smiled. “Hence the anchovies?”

  “Hence the anchovies.”

  The waitress brought us our orders, plopping Lulu’s plate and water bowl in front of me. I slid them under the table.

  “You want anything else just say so, hon,” she told Dini in a kindly voice before she walked away.

  I watched Dini sip her tea. “Seriously, how are you?”

  She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Busy. There’s a lot to take care of. I spoke to our lawyer about Greg’s financial affairs, his estate, all those sorts of things, cold as it sounds. And I’ve asked Eugene to look for another job. The girls will miss him. They adore Eugene. Hell, even I like the two-timing gay bastard.”

  I exchanged a look with Merilee before I said, “You knew about the two of them?”

  Dini nodded glumly. “But only after being completely in the dark for months. God, I’m such a clueless idiot. And now . . . now I’ve got a great big HIV-positive stamp on my forehead. No one will ever hire me again.”

  “That’s not true,” Merilee said.

  “And no man will ever want to make love to me.”

  “Also not true.”

  “Get real, Merilee,” she said heatedly. “I’m about to become America’s most famous leper. I may as well go home to Siler City with Mom and raise the girls there, assuming they don’t set up a roadblock at the Chatham County line to keep us out.”

  “I can’t even imagine how devastated you must be feeling right now,” Merilee conceded gently. “But it’s not 1983 anymore. They’ve made amazing strides in treating HIV patients. And everything’s changed since Magic Johnson went public two years ago. What he did was huge. People are so much more educated and aware now.”

  “Did your mom know about Greg and Eugene?” I asked Dini.

  Dini’s pale blue eyes studied me. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Because she shot some pretty chilly looks at Eugene when he showed up with the dogs today. She’s also no fool, I’ve noticed.”

  Dini didn’t give me an answer. Just sat there in tight-lipped silence.

  I tried a different approach. “There was tension between you and Greg during rehearsals. Was that because you’d found out about Eugene?”

  She nodded her head ever so slightly. “A few days before we came out here to start rehearsals a friend of ours called me one afternoon and mentioned that she’d just seen Greg and Eugene coming out of Eugene’s apartment on Bank Street in the West Village, which I thought was kind of strange because Greg was supposed to be at his dermatologist on Madison Avenue in midtown. I called the dermatologist’s office. The receptionist said that Greg had called that morning to reschedule the appointment. When he got home later that afternoon I asked him how his appointment had gone. He said it went fine. He flat out lied to me, Hoagy. That was something he’d never, ever done before,” Dini recalled, her eyes flashing with anger. “And I didn’t let him get away with it. I told him that he and Eugene had been seen together coming out of Eugene’s apartment. I demanded to know what was going on.”

  I leaned forward slightly. “And . . . ?”

  “He came clean. Said that he’d never loved a man before but that he loved Eugene ‘body, mind and soul’ and that Eugene loved him, too. I was so-so flattened that I seriously considered pulling us out of Private Lives. But we’d made a commitment to Merilee. We couldn’t bail on her at the last minute. Who would she get to replace us, Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal?” Dini paused to sip her tea. “And my mother did know, in answer to your question. She caught them hugging in the den one morning a couple of months ago. They weren’t aware that she saw them, and she didn’t tell me about it. Not until today.”

  Merilee frowned at Dini. “Why didn’t she tell you at the time?”

  “She didn’t think I could handle it emotionally. That I’d shatter into a million pieces.” Dini’s voice was weary with resignation. “She thinks I’m a delicate porcelain child, as you may have noticed.” She looked across the table at me. “Eugene told me that you and he had a serious talk on the beach. Tell me what you honestly think. Was he aware that he was carrying the virus?”

  “I don’t think so. He fell to his knees in genuine shock when I told him about the M.E.’s findings. And swore to me up, down and sideways that he’d never have had unprotected sex with Greg if he’d known.”

  “And do you believe him?”

  “I do.”

  “I feel the same way about Greg. He wouldn’t have had unprotected sex with me if he’d known h
e was carrying it. He wasn’t capable of doing something that evil. He wasn’t a bad person. He was just . . .” She broke off into hopeless silence for a moment. “Greg was a mess. He thought of himself as a good husband, which he wasn’t. He was a cheat, and all torn up inside about it. He also knew perfectly well that he and Eugene could never come out as a couple. So, for the sake of his career, and for the twins, he told me he thought we should stay together. And he actually expected me to go along with the idea. He even said that I could see someone else if I wanted to. ‘How big of you, you piece of shit!’ I screamed at him. I told him I wanted a divorce right away. I promised him I’d keep quiet about why we were splitting up. And I would have, too. As far as I was concerned it was nobody else’s business that I’d lost him to Eugene.”

  “You couldn’t have kept a lid on it,” I told her. “The instant you filed for a divorce the tabloids would have dug and dug until they found Eugene’s ex-lover, Marc, down in Miami and dumped a pile of cash in his lap.”

  “I know,” Dini acknowledged bitterly.

  “And now every dirty detail is guaranteed to come out. Face it, Dini, this is going to be even bigger than Magic Johnson. After all, no one on the Lakers ever drowned in the basement of the Fabulous Forum. Or at least not that we’re aware of.”

  “I know that, too. Same as I know that being HIV-positive isn’t a death sentence. I can continue to work. I can even be in a loving relationship with another man. My life isn’t over.”

  “That’s all true,” Merilee said to her encouragingly.

  “So why does it feel like it is?” Dini wondered, choking back tears.

  Merilee took her hand and gripped it, her own eyes brimming with tears.

  The tavern door opened now and Glenda came bustling in with Durango and Cheyenne.

  “Ah, here’s Mommy,” she exclaimed with forced gaiety. “I told you we’d find her.”

  The girls ran to her. Dini put her arms around them and hugged them tightly.

  “Eugene has driven back to the beach house with the dogs to wait for us,” Glenda informed Dini in a cool voice.

  “Thank you, Mother. Would you like to sit down?”

  Glenda didn’t budge. Just stood there staring at me with an extremely guarded expression on her jowly face. “Lieutenant Tedone asked me to deliver a message to you.”