by George Baxt
“It’s obvious they knew each other way back when.”
“How way back can when be?” asked Ginger. “Mordecai’s awfully young.”
“Luba isn’t much older,” said Fred. “She’s also in her twenties. Hurok told me. The only one a bit long in the tooth is Nina, but don’t anyone dare tell her.”
“She made a pass at you.” It was Ginger speaking. She hadn’t asked a question, she was making a declaration. Fred’s face reddened and Hazel thought he was even more charming when he blushed. “Well, didn’t she?”
“Well, she sort of did,” Fred admitted sheepishly. Fred was one of the few stars in Hollywood who could never be accused of extramarital affairs.
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?” persisted Ginger.
“All right, she did. She invited me up to her room”—a fast glance at his wristwatch—”any minute now.”
“Well, don’t let us keep you,” said Ginger, snaring a pickle as the waiter placed a bowl on the table.
“Now you cut it out,” warned Fred, “you know I could never cheat on Phyllis. Besides, Nina is so obvious. She’s just looking to add another notch to her belt.”
From the depths of his private dream world, they heard Jim Mallory ask, “Do you suppose I could qualify?”
‘‘Why of course you could, sweetie,” said Ginger. “You’re real cute and I’m sure Nina would go for you unless she’s tough about accepting substitutes.”
“From what I’ve heard,” said Villon, “she’s not tough about accepting anything.”
Ginger said to Hazel, “What idiot said men were not gossips?’
Hazel said to Villon, “Herb, do you really think Malke Movitz might inherit all of Romanov’s estate?’
Ginger said, “Well, if she does, then I think she deserves it. She has devoted her life to him.”
Villon added, “She certainly presented a strong case for her loyalty. What’s bothering you. Hazel?”
“What do you mean?”
“The way your hand is frozen in midair holding that pickle.” Hazel stared at her hand and the pickle. She placed the pickle on her plate and then wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Is it something you suspect the woman of having done?”
“Well actually. Herb, it’s something I suspect her of not having done.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “I don’t think she cried.” They all stared at her, mostly bemused.
“What have her tears got to do with it?” asked Villon.
“It’s her lack of tears. Her face wasn’t tear-stained. Her eyes didn’t well up with tears when she spoke of her beloved Romanov. Her voice didn’t even choke once with all the talking we did about him. Russians are notorious for their emotions.”
Ginger suggested, “Well, maybe she’s not one of your everyday run-of-the-mill Russians. I mean think of her past. She murdered some men. She stood trial. She served time in a prison camp. I should think by now she’s all out of tears.”
Hazel said, “Ginger, you never run out of tears. When I think of Vivien Leigh saying ‘As God is my witness. I’ll never be hungry again,’ I always start to cry.” Her voice choked and a tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away with her napkin.
Mallory said, “Say, Hazel, that was neat, do it again.”
“Oh shut up. Let me tell you, if I was to hear Herb here was dead. I’d cry up a hurricane. I’d blubber up a flood and my eyes would get all puffy…”
“Why Hazel, I’m touched.” Herb bit into his corned beef sandwich.
“Sure, you would be, you bum. Well damn it, that woman’s eyes were not all puffy from crying. Why for crying out loud, when they carried the body out of the room she didn’t even let out a sob.” Hazel paraphrased the famous Rhett Buffer line, “Frankly, my dears, she didn’t seem to give a damn.”
Herb Villon sighed. “Well, I see there’s a lot more on my plate besides the other half of my sandwich. Anybody want it?”
Hazel said with her usual practicality, Tell the waiter to wrap it. I’ll eat it later.”
Around the comer from Caplan’s delicatessen in a run-down apartment house that held two types of Hollywood denizens, those on their way up and those on their way down, one of the apartments was occupied by a middle-aged woman who was neutral. She had no place to go. Her name was Esther Pincus and she sat at her one expensive asset, a grand piano which had belonged to a wealthy aunt in Paris, who had shipped it to her favorite niece shortly before her death. Esther noodled at the piano while thinking over what she had seen on television an hour before, the news of Romanov’s death.
She had met him in Paris many years ago when she was a hopeful pianist supporting herself playing in a cafe on the Left Bank so as not to depend on her aunt’s largess. The cafe was adjacent to a modest little restaurant where the food was good, cheap, and plentiful. She remembered the ogress who owned it and did all the cooking and serving. She remembered the handsome Russian who ate there as often as she did, possibly more often because Esther only ate there on the nights she worked at the cafe and she only worked at the cafe four nights a week. He sported a monocle occasionally; she’d hoped it wasn’t an affectation and now she would never find out if it was or wasn’t. Occasionally he would chat a bit with her and she found his Russian accent charming.
She learned he too played the piano but no longer played professionally In time she came to fantasize that perhaps he would come to her flat and they would play duets but this was not to be.
The morning after a night she had not dined there, she read in Paris Match that she had missed all the fun. Several German men had been poisoned and the ogress proprietor had been arrested, accused of the crime. The restaurant was closed and Esther would never see Romanov again and also never learn the outcome of the trial as her aunt gifted her with a long-desired trip to the United States. Esther never returned to Paris. She met a violinist who after fiddling around, wooed and won her and spirited her away to Hollywood, where he succumbed to a fatal illness. His young widow soon rallied and found work in the studios as a rehearsal pianist.
For many weeks now, Esther had bemoaned to herself that she had nothing to look forward to, no future worth considering, just the endless drudgery of piano lessons at bargain prices. But today, there suddenly was a future, a gift from heaven, a phone call from the highly respected dance director Hermes Pan. If she was free, he wanted her to be the rehearsal pianist for a television special starring the highly respected Baronovitch ballet company, in which the special guest stars would be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Mr. Pan would be assisting Mr. Astaire in choreographing a ballet for the program.
Gaily and with a joie de vivre long absent from her life, Esther Pincus began pounding out “I Won’t Dance” until the banging on the wall of the opposite apartment was a warning to her to cease and desist—it was past midnight. She left the piano, sank into a lumpy easy chair, lit a cigarette, and poured some wine from a decanter on the end table next to her. It was a red Valpolicella, the wine Malke Movitz. had introduced her to in her Parisian restaurant and which she had occasionally shared with Romanov.
Malke Movitz! Of course! That was the name of the ogress! Now Esther rebuked herself. Not nice referring to Malke as an ogress. That she was so large and so homely was an accident of birth, a cruel stroke of fate. She was always kind to her clientele.
The place was like a clubhouse, a hangout. Herself, Romanov, several cab drivers, some clerks from a nearby department store— and oh yes, that young man, an attractive American who was strangely aloof, joked with Malice Movitz, and was very friendly with Romanov. Esther was never introduced to him, as it seemed to be an unwritten law that his privacy be respected. That was fine by Esther. She recalled the things about him that made her uncomfortable—his forced laughter, his pipe, the way he always made sure he sat with his back to a wall, his furtive glance at the door when someone entered. Subconsciously, Esther stared at her arm where some years earlier she had worn a yellow band signifying she was of the order of an inf
erior race. She had escaped the horror of a concentration camp, again thanks to the aunt who had shipped her the grand piano. Her aunt had friends in high places and cultivated and utilized them ruthlessly. Esther suspected she was somebody s mistress, a powerful somebody this mistress had successfully mastered. Dear Aunt Rosa, a mediocre actress but a brilliant courtesan. Her mother’s sister, her long dead mothers sister.
She poured herself more wine and lit a fresh cigarette with the stub of the one she’d been smoking. She went to the window, which overlooked an alley with its population of garbage cans. She looked at the sky, a typical Hollywood sky filled with stars. She sighed and lowered the shade.
Astaire and Rogers! The big time! And even better yet, a very generous salary. And she would meet Sol Hurok, America’s greatest, most influential, most powerful impresario. The man could move mountains! He would come to rehearsals and admire her virtuosity. He would ask in astonishment, “But why are you hiding your light under a butcher?’
“A bushel,” she would correct him and he would gently tweak her cheek and arrange her debut at Carnegie Hall.
“Oh Christ!” she cried to the ceiling, “why is there no fairy godmother for someone like me?” Her French accent echoed across the room, the accent that Romanov had told her was sweetly charming. And for about the two-hundredth time she regretted not having gone to bed with him when he asked her to. She stared into the mirror that hung above the piano. Not bad, not bad at all. Esther Pincus was still an attractive woman despite the gray hairs, the lines under her eyes, the heavy eyebrows. Tomorrow, she promised herself, I will make an appointment with Fairfax Avenues most popular crazy beautician and hairdresser, Mr. Eloise. Walking past his establishment earlier in the day she had been transfixed by a woman emerging from Mr. Eloise s establishment, her hair so flaming red it looked like a conflagration. Esther Pincus admired that woman. Her courage to dare to venture out in public with that hair, her devil-may-care attitude as she smiled at the world—that hair obviously made her feel good, and feeling good was all that mattered.
She raised her glass of wine in a silent, lonely, but very sincere toast. She drank to Hermes Pan, to Astaire and Rogers, to the memory of Igor Romanov, and to Sol Hurok, and then flopped backward onto her couch and passed out.
Gregor Sukov sat up in the bed in Nina Valgorski’s suite and asked the reclining ballerina, who was also not asleep, “Why does making love to you always make me thirsty?”
Nina was lighting a cigarette as Sukov got out of bed and found one of the several bottles of champagne he and Nina had retrieved from the ballroom. He poured himself a glass as Nina said, “Pour me one too.”
Gregor said, “Its warm,” and made a face.
“Warm it works quicker,” said Nina.
He poured the second drink and carefully brought them back to the bed. “It’s late,” said Gregor, his eye catching the attractive timepiece on the desk.
“It is always late,” said Nina darkly. She took a glass from Sukov and sipped and made a face and then sipped again. She shrugged. One always gets used to champagne, warm or cold. “Champers,” she said.
“Champers? What is champers?’
‘The British call champagne champers. In many ways, though both countries speak English, British English is very different from American English.”
Gregor was back under the covers with Nina, who wished he’d go back to his own suite. She was tired and he was hyperathletic and she knew he would soon expect an encore of the sexual act they had just completed, which, because of the hullabaloo caused by Romanov’s death, they had found hard to give their best performance.
“Who do you suspect?”
Nina groaned. “I told you, no one in particular.”
“You don’t have to be particular. Just speak a name.”
“Gregor Sukov.”
He boomed in Russian, “We are not amused!”
His speech was still as guttural as when she had first met him some ten years earlier. How fortunate he was blessed with the body of Adonis and the face of an angel, a magical combination he dissipated by opening his mouth.
“Gregor, leave me alone,” she said wearily. “I must get some rest if I’m to look my best for the photographer’s tomorrow.”
“You are dismissing me?” He was indignant.
“We have a long tour ahead of us. Don’t expect to accomplish in one night….”
He slammed his glass down on a night table and leapt out of the bed. She had insulted him and his manhood and if she was a man he’d challenge her to a duel. Nina yawned lavishly as he struggled into his clothes. The tirade in Russian continued but fell on deaf ears. Her mind was on Villon, who she thought suspected her and several others of espionage. There was Don Magrew to think about. Several times she danced with him and he was quite good. For a brief moment she wished Gregor Sukov would turn into Don Magrew and she scrubbed that, preferring to wish Sukov would turn into a pizza, an American delicacy she had come to adore the past six weeks of the tour.
The door slammed behind Sukov.
Nina exhaled and sat up. “Who do you suspect?” The fool. The bloody fool. She got out of bed and went to the bathroom and bravely took a cold shower. As she rubbed her body with a large raw sponge, she berated herself in a variety of languages for not having married years ago when she had many opportunities, given birth to at least three children . . . Three children … my God! Think of what that would have done to my gorgeous figure.
“For crying out loud, Hazel,” muttered Herb Villon, “will you please go to sleep. It’s almost daybreak.”
Hazel tugged at the blanket ferociously.
Herb sat up. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You’re hogging the blanket. Look at my skin! Gooseflesh!”
“Very becoming,” he said and fell back on the pillow.
“Okay, okay,” exasperated, “you weren’t asleep. You’ve got someone on your mind.”
“I’ve got a lot of someones on my mind. They’re all in a jumble.”
“So just line them up in a row and let’s take them one at a time. Malke Movitz comes first.”
“You’re so sure.” He sat up and lit a cigarette.
“Light one for me too,” she said cozily, “like Paul Henreid did for himself and Bette Davis in Now, Voyager. “
He placed two cigarettes in his mouth, inhaled, and almost choked on tire smoke. “Christ, Henreid must have had a double.”
“He had no double. It’s just that you’re not suave and smooth. You got no class, Herb.”
He let that one pass. He could have challenged her remark with a snappy line about her phony red hair, but he preferred to keep the peace and discuss the murder. “Hazel,” he said.
“What?”
“Malke Movitz is waiting.”
“For what?”
‘To be discussed. You wanted her first on line, she’s first on line.”
Hazel puffed her cigarette. “Why wasn’t she shattered by Romanov’s death?”
“Maybe because someone her size doesn’t shatter easily. Okay, so no puffy eyes or cheeks, the look most women get when they’re peeling onions. Hazel, she wouldn’t decide on her own to kill him”
“Why not?”
“Why yes? She’s been away from Russia over fifteen years. On the surface she no longer has an allegiance to Mother Russia.”
“Never trust what’s on the surface. Look beneath! Dig.”
“For what am I digging? Look, I think the woman is involved in Romanov’s murder, but she wasn’t the only one with access to him. There’s the nurse and the nephew.”
“Mordecai’s not very bright.”
“You don’t need brains to poison anyone. All you need is poison. And Ginger just about bust a gut giving us the layout of Romanov’s house, leading up to the potting shed and the weed killer to be found there. And for weed killer read cyanide, which is very, very popular in certain circles. What I think is that Romanov managed to keep his double-cross
of the Russians quiet for a long, long time until he slipped up someplace and the KGB in Moscow decided he needed to be eliminated, but subtly, slowly, not all at once the way she did in those Germans in Paris. Neither side has any use for moles but somehow they keep turning up.”
“Who’s next in line’?” She stubbed out her cigarette.
“Alida Rimsky, or Varonsky, if those two are really married.”
Hazels eyes widened. “You have your doubts?”
“I always have doubts, you know that. Just because they say they’re married doesn’t mean it’s so. They haven’t shown us a marriage certificate, have they?”
“I doubt if they carry it on them,” said Hazel. ‘Though I would keep mine close to my heart forever.”
He ignored the remark. “What bothers me are the two versions of Mrs. Romanov’s death. Varonsky and Malke are at variance there. Somehow Malke sounds like the most likely.” He stared at her. “Now where are you?”
“I’m in the ballroom where Varonsky and Alida were dancing and you remarked they looked like an old married couple.”
“Well, they did! Looks can be deceiving.” He frowned. ‘They seemed pretty devoted back at Romanov’s. Oh the hell with it. Whether they’re married or not won’t deliver me Romanov’s killer.”
“Or killers,” said Hazel. ‘This could have been a group enterprise. You know”—she addressed imaginary suspects—”‘I’ll give him a dose now. In a couple of days you give him one and then a few day’s later you take a hand in it.
“Oh shut up. If Varonsky and Alida aren’t deeply in love, then they’re superb actors.”
“You don’t have to be married to be deeply in love.”
Villon again sidestepped Hazels implication by saying, “Alida could have been sent here by the KGB to either assist Romanov or ride herd on him.”
“Maybe she unmasked him as a two-header.”
“Possible.”
“And maybe the Baronovitch tour was really arranged to get more spies into the country. Set up a network with fresh blood. Herb, the Russians are very clever with that sort of thing. Remember the circus they sent here a couple of years ago where one of the great routines consisted of a boy or girl disappearing from one side of the ring in a puff of smoke and only seconds later reappearing at the other end of the ring in another puff of smoke.”