by Janice Weber
Across the room, the servicee broke into girlish laughter. It was the same frequency as that laugh I had heard over the Watergate fountain the other night. Was I denying the simple, obvious possibility that this woman had fallen in love with Duncan? I was a possessive woman, even when I didn’t own the gentleman in question. “I hope he’s got enough energy to rehearse this afternoon.”
“If he’s been screwing Justine, he won’t need to sleep for a week.” Fausto waved to Aurilla Perle as she cruised to the coffee urn. “The first week, anyway. Incidentally, my friend Bendix is most taken with you. Are you seriously involved with anyone, darling?”
I daubed my lips with a napkin, wondering why this did not feel like an incidental change of subject. “I’m a serious girl.”
Fausto extended a hand as Senator Perle and her slave Wallace approached. “Good morning, ladies. You’re looking lovely today, Aurilla.”
Lovely was stretching it, but the VP-in-waiting had spent the night with a grenade named Gretchen. I now understood why no one was invited to her home. “Thank you for listening to my daughter,” Aurilla said to me. “You must come back again. She has two new pieces prepared.”
A pall asphyxiated the table. I finally caved. “How’s four this afternoon?”
“Perfect. Thank you.”
Wallace wrote it down then caught up with her idol across the room. Deep in thought, Fausto watched Aurilla snare a senator. “How is the girl? Last time we met she tried to kick me.”
“She’s still kicking.”
“What a waste of your time. No reason for it.” Fausto looked at me slyly. “What does Aurilla think you can do for her?”
“I was hoping you might answer that.” No way, of course. “Maybe she’s more of a stage mother than you think.”
“Darling, Aurilla hasn’t given that girl ten minutes since the day she was born.” He lit a cigarette. “The little monster has become a major political liability. If Aurilla had half a brain, she’d get her out of the country.”
Across the room, Justine broke into that irritating, silvery laughter once too often. I stood to leave. “I’m not about to adopt her. Thanks for breakfast.”
Fausto bobbed to his feet. En route to the door, he steered me within slapping distance of Duncan’s inamorata. “How is the water in that fountain, Justine? Warm or cold? I’ve always wondered.”
“Warm,” she replied.
“How unlike the president to give you the night off,” he continued. “And how unlike you to take it. However did Bobby pass the time without you?”
“He watched football.” Justine pointedly resumed her conversation with the speechwriter at her side.
“Poor thing,” Fausto muttered as we headed for the door. “Whatever she’s swallowed, it’s clouded her judgment. I hope she doesn’t drag your pianist to too many coke parties.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Afraid I am. Justine’s been high on one substance or another for the past thirty years. I was there when she discovered LSD.”
And what had Fausto been discovering? The twenty-third Psalm? “You go back a long way.”
“We met at one of my recitals in London.”
“She’s a music lover?” I couldn’t picture Justine in the same room with the Waldstein sonata.
“She attended the concert with a friend of mine. It was a night to remember.” Naturally Fausto supplied no further details. At the door, he kissed my hand. “I’m so glad you practice here. It’s delicious to have music in the house again.”
We both smiled, honoring the lie. “Will you be playing Scrabble with Bendix this afternoon?”
“No. He’s going with Aurilla to visit Jojo. They’ve got to rehearse looking sad.”
“Fausto! There you are!” Vicky Chickering lumbered down the hall. “Paula wants to thank you for the fantastic ointment. Wherever did you get it?”
“Can’t tell you, Chickie. You know it’s not FDA approved.”
As Chickie brought Fausto up-to-date on the First Lady’s arthritis, I thumbed through his guest book. Polly Mason had signed in, loud and clear, the day she died and the six mornings before that. So Bobby had told the truth: Barnard had indeed connected with Fausto, prince of another sort.
Chickering eventually returned to the dining room. “She didn’t even say hello to you,” Fausto remarked.
“Why should she? I’m a lowly fiddle player.” That earned an amused silence until I hit the ignition. “Let’s play together sometime.”
“Definitely.” Fausto’s mouth turned grim as he watched me drive away.
Back at the hotel, I could hear Duncan snoring regularly as a metronome on the other side of the wall. Inspired, I practiced mechanically for a few hours, exercising fingers as the brain grazed over craggier terrain. What had Barnard been doing at Fausto’s? Was he aware that she had been bathing with the president? I wondered if Fausto already knew about Marvel and me and how he would amuse himself with that information. What was Bobby after, flesh or information? I didn’t think I was worth killing yet, but my perspective was stunningly myopic. As Maxine had said, nothing in this town was real. Everything had happened too fast. And where the hell was Louis Bailey?
Around one, when Duncan began a major flood in his bathtub, I checked my e-mail. Surprise, a reply from the Royal College of Music: Bendix Kaar, composition major, had left school a semester after Fausto. Never graduated. I laughed: a failed composer? Bad news. The worst, in fact.
All this ruptured music made me curious, so I went to the Library of Congress and sifted through old microfilm of the London Times. Maybe a critic had gone to Fausto’s last concert. I began looking about thirty years ago, when recitals dispelled, rather than induced, depression. Came across a review of my husband Hugo, who had not conducted Mahler properly. What a joke: even now, this critic was still trashing heterosexuals. I hadn’t gotten a good word out of him ever. Duncan usually received honorable mention since his sexual persuasion was titillatingly ambiguous.
Fausto had gotten a rave from our friend. The artiste was thoughtful, brilliant, daring … unbelievable. I couldn’t take the notice at face value, not from that critic, not about Fausto. Cut to the Observer for a second opinion.
VIOLIN SINKS. At first I thought it was a review.
Five partygoers aboard a cruise boat jumped into the Thames in an attempt to rescue a priceless violin which had fallen into the water. Mr Richard Poore, a tugboat captain, apparently saved the lives of Mr Fausto Kiss, his mother Ethel, Mr Louis Bailey, Mr Bendix Kaar, and Miss Justine Cortot by repeatedly tossing a life preserver into the current. “Silly fools,” Poore said. “I nearly rammed the London Bridge.” The violin was not recovered. Police are investigating the incident, which occurred shortly before dawn.
Louis Bailey? I read the article again: as Fausto had said, a night to remember. Five people overboard? Whose violin? I inched through several more newspapers but saw no further details of the episode. There were two more reviews of the recital, both excellent. Apparently Fausto was best with the hard, fast stuff. I could understand his jumping afterward into a filthy river. But Justine in her perfect makeup? Fausto’s mother?
Almost four o’clock: time for Gretchen’s music lesson. I drove to Aurilla Perle’s house. No Secret Service today, thank God. A maid answered the door. She had the despairing look of an un-ransomed hostage. “I’m Leslie Frost,” I said. “Gretchen’s expecting me.”
This time the little vixen charged from the right. I caught her foot inches from my shin. “Hey! Nice to see you!” I cried, lifting her ankle high in the air, forcing her into a lopsided reverse. “Love your boots.”
“Let go! That hurts!” she screamed.
I took her arm, swung her in a wide arc, let her fly into a divan. “Next time you go through the window,” I smiled.
For a few seconds the only sound in the foyer was that of the grandfather clock striking four. “I hate you!” Gretchen shrieked, stomping upstairs.
I
turned to the terrified maid. “Is Senator Perle home?”
Of course not. She was at the vice president’s bedside, pretending she’d rather hear Jojo rave about whales than hear herself taking the oath of office. “Please wait here,” the maid said. “I’ll bring Gretchen down.”
“Don’t bother,” I replied, mounting the wide stairs. “I’ll find her.”
Peered into an airy room with paisley curtains, canopied bed, four television sets: Aurilla’s mission control. Passed a gym, again with four TVs, then a pair of guest rooms with less media presence but more canopied beds. I would not be able to sleep with all that lace hanging over my head. No sign of the girl so I climbed another round of stairs. “Gretchen?”
Her room looked like FAO Schwarz after a cyclone. Maybe she had used the walls for batting practice. Gretchen sat on yet another canopied bed fit for a czarina. She appeared to be reading a book. “Get out of my room,” she said, not looking up.
“Your mother said you wanted to play a few things for me.”
“I don’t want to play anything. Go away.”
Couldn’t do that so I waited as Gretchen nonchalantly turned a few pages. Then the phone next to her bed rang. “I’m sure it’s for you,” she said.
“No one knows I’m here.”
“He knows.”
The phone stopped midring. Gretchen kept turning pages. After a few moments we heard footsteps on the stairs. “Miss Frost?” the maid called. “For you.”
Gretchen suddenly lunged at the phone. “Don’t answer,” she whispered, clutching it to her chest. “He’ll take you away. Like Polly.”
I tried to smile. “Who’s Polly?”
“My friend.”
“She came here to your house?”
“Yes. She was prettier than you.”
“Miss Frost?” the maid called anxiously.
“Give me the phone,” I told Gretchen. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes you will! I know it!”
“I’m counting to three then I’m picking up downstairs. One. Two.” Gretchen threw the phone at me and buried her face in the pillows. “Yes?” I snapped into the receiver.
“Aurilla mentioned you’d be with her daughter today,” said Bobby Marvel. “How’s it going over there?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“I enjoyed our talk last night. You’re a fascinating woman.”
“Could we pick this up some other time? I’ve got my hands full here.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have your hands full of me?”
Wasn’t this idiot supposed to be running the country? I hung up. “Did you hear that, Gretchen? I’m not going anywhere.” Her face peeped from the pillows as I sat at the foot of the bed. “Tell me about Polly.”
“She helped with my science homework. I liked her a lot. She played in the backyard with me and Wallace and Herman.”
Wallace was the gofer. “Who’s Herman?”
“My friend.”
I kept smiling. “How do you know Polly’s not coming back?”
“Because Mom couldn’t find her anymore.”
I sat miserably through an hour of Gypsy dances. No visitors and Gretchen refused to talk further about her friends Polly and Herman. When I returned to the hotel, a fresh bouquet of purple orchids waited on the dresser. See you soon. Bobby? Louis? My message light was blinking: Justine Cortot commanding me to call the White House at once and Bendix Kaar wondering if I were free that evening. Rather than disappoint either of them, I flew to New York. Too damn muggy down here.
My accompanist blew backstage at Carnegie Hall about four minutes before show time. “Traffic was unbelievable,” Duncan cried, heaving his garment bag over the dressing table. He began stripping. “Grab my shirt, would you?”
I stared a moment at his pink string bikini. In ten years I had never seen Duncan in anything but voluminous boxer shorts. Fingernails had recently raked three delicate, parallel lines between his nipples. “Wildcat attack?” I asked, handing over his pants.
“Where the hell are my cuff links?”
A knock: Justine, tousled and radiant, with Duncan’s patent-leather shoes. “You left these under the bed,” she chided.
“Oh my God! Thanks, doll!”
“And take this for your nerves.” She tucked a few pills into his palm.
Duncan had told her about his stage fright? That was one of his deep, dark secrets, buried far back in the closet along with fantasies of becoming the next Horowitz. “Right!” he cried, sweeping into the bathroom. Within seconds the sounds of violent intestinal disruption blurted through the green room.
I tuned my violin and ran over a few scales. “He won’t be out for a while,” I said, glancing at Justine in the mirror. She was repairing a few minor wrinkles around her mouth. “Why don’t you go find your seat.”
Instead she inspected my gown. Moss green, clinging to all the best places. Soon two thousand people would be staring at it, mesmerized. That was too much for Justine to stomach. “You shouldn’t have ignored my message.”
“Sorry.” I fixed my lipstick. “I find Bobby Marvel quite unattractive.”
“What you find him is irrelevant.” After I laughed, Justine tried the confidante angle. “You’ve only met once.”
“Three times. He didn’t get any better.”
Her eyes flared: panic? “Let me give you some good advice. Next time the president asks for you, move your ass.”
“Let’s make a deal. You drop my pianist, I screw your boss.”
She mulled that over for three seconds. “You screw Bobby Marvel,” Justine decided, heading for the door. “Period.”
Duncan, pale and quivering, emerged from the bathroom. “Where’s Justine?” he wailed.
“Finding her seat.”
“My head’s killing me,” he moaned, dropping to the couch. Before I could stop him, he ate Justine’s pills.
“Do you have any idea what you just swallowed?”
“Beta-blockers. I think they’re from Sweden. Justine’s an expert on that stuff.”
I tugged him to his feet as the stage manager knocked. As always, my accompanist died many deaths ’twixt green room and stage door. He cursed me for dragging him into an arcane profession that gave him nothing but an inferiority complex. “Looks full,” I said, peering into the auditorium.
The stage manager motioned expectantly at the two of us. For a second, terror ran wild from head to foot: I wanted to be anywhere on earth but that stage. Then another beast, a larger one, engorged my fright. That was the demon who lived in the shadows of the blood, who pushed me in front of orchestras and off balconies because it knew that life was sweetest when oblivion was just a breath away. I felt my brain lock on to a violin, music: for the next two hours I would be a supercomputer with fingers. “Try not to step on my gown, would you, Duncan,” I said, walking onstage.
Applause, warmth. The auditorium looked smaller than I remembered. Duncan managed to locate the piano bench without passing out. I waited as he twirled the knobs a few dozen times, fussed with his music, his handkerchief: poor sod, Carnegie Hall was no place for mere humans. Finally his eyes met mine. I smiled the secret smile that only Duncan saw. He began to play.
We got off to a better start than we had at the White House: here I wasn’t distracted by a pair of jesters in the front row and Duncan played with the acuity of the profoundly afraid. After a few minutes, however, we began to drift. Didn’t sound bad, but it wasn’t what we had rehearsed. Slower, fatter.… Brahms over, Duncan bowed dreamily. I walked offstage.
“That was very nice,” he said.
“Come here.” Held his face under a light: pupils dilated, slight flush. His skin felt cold. “How are you feeling?”
“I told you. Very nice.”
“Tired?”
“A little.” Yawning, Duncan turned to the stage manager. “Could you turn up the heat?”
“You mean turn down the air-conditioning, sir?”
He frowned. “W
hatever makes it cold.”
“Get some coffee,” I told the man. “Duncan, drink it before I get back.”
“You know I never touch caffeine after breakfast!”
Into the auditorium for solo Bach. When I returned backstage, Duncan was puking into a garbage can.
“What are we going to do?” the stage manager whispered.
I lifted Duncan’s head. “Feeling better?”
“I think so.” He wiped his mouth. “Let’s go.”
We ended the first half with a sonata that had recently won a Pulitzer Prize. Fortunately, few people in the audience knew the piece and it was the sort of music that sounded incorrect anyway. The composer had just died, so everyone clapped appreciatively afterward. Duncan went straight to the couch in the green room. Justine barged in almost immediately.
“Zadinsky, that was superb,” she cried, beelining for the cadaver, pressing his hand to her cheek. Between Brahms and intermission she had turned pinker, faster: chemical assistance. “Worn out, poor thing?”
He smiled weakly. “Just getting my second wind.”
“Got any more of those pills?” I asked. “Duncan really enjoyed his first dose.”
She ignored me. “Save some energy for me, tiger.” After many kisses, she left.
Long, testy silence. Duncan finally opened his eyes. “She was only trying to help.” When that got no sympathy, he added, “Justine’s had a hard life.”
Who the hell hadn’t? As I was trying to focus on the second half, someone knocked. Enter Bendix Kaar, confident and sinister in a double-breasted suit. His eyes lingered on my naked shoulders. Maybe he was just counting moles and diamonds. This being our third meeting, he kissed my mouth.
Duncan squinted at him. “You’re the guy with the Corvette?”
“No, that’s Fausto.”
“Ah, how could I forget! He invited us to a three-way bath.” After ten years backstage with me, my accompanist was expert at distinguishing musical admirers from sexual predators. He usually got the admirers, I the predators. “We don’t like visitors at intermission,” he sniffed, as if Justine hadn’t exited minutes before.