“What’s this all about, Hoag?”
“I found him trying to eat a gun this afternoon.”
Vic’s face darkened. “If he’s having that kind of problem, a supervised environment is what he needs.”
“Tried that. He turned me down. This will have to do, okay?”
“Okay, Hoag,” he said reluctantly. He suspected there was more to it than I was letting on, but didn’t press it. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good man.” I put on my hat and started for the door.
“Oh, hey …” Vic glanced at his watch. “Cassandra is on. Want to see what she’s got?”
I opened the door. “No.” I closed the door. “Yes.”
She was on the TV in the kitchen, where Pam was making a salad to go with the chicken pot pie, which sat bubbling and golden brown on top of the oven.
“Above all, Cassandra, we must not panic,” the mayor was imploring her by live video remote from his office at city hall. “One man cannot hold this great city hostage.”
“Shewa, that’s easy for you to say, Mister Mayor,” Cassandra fired back at him from behind her newsroom anchor desk, which was cluttered with papers and looked just like a real reporter’s desk in a real newsroom. Except the newsroom was a studio, and the hard-working young reporters who were bustling around in the background were in fact hard-working young actors. “You got a full-time police escort and you ain’t no single woman. I’m just a goil from Brooklyn. I’m working the phone. I’m hearing threepeat—he’s just struck again. And that’s confoimed …” Damn, she was a good reporter. “I’m living in Fear City here. What am I supposed to do, huh?”
“Show good common sense, Cassandra. If a man you don’t know approaches you, walk away. If he follows you, go into a place of business and phone the police. Don’t hesitate. Do it. We have a state-of-the-art task force under the personal direction of Inspector Dante Feldman pursuing every possible avenue. We will catch the answer man. I can’t say when, but we will catch him.”
And now she was thanking the mayor very, very much for his time and he was thanking her very, very much for hers and then he went bye-bye and she turned her goggly eyes full on us. “Who is this answer man? When will he strike again? No one knows. No one except maybe his confidante … Stewart Hoag.”
Up flashed my photograph. A particularly awful one that Dick Corkery of the News snapped of me at the height of Merilee’s pregnancy flap. At the time, I was trying to smash his head in with my umbrella, my face drawn back in a tight grimace that resembled the death rictus. I looked like Vincent Price on a bad hair day.
“I spoke to Mr. Hoag, the one-time star novelist, late this afternoon at his luxurious Upper West Side office,” Cassandra went on. “His response, and I quote was: ‘I’m a family man. Me and Charlie Manson.’” She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh. Up swelled her heavy, dramatic sign-off music. “And on that upbeat note, I’m Cassandra Dee, and you’re somethin’ else. G’night, people.”
Pamela flicked the TV off, clucking at the screen angrily. “Someone should give that girl a good, proper spanking.”
“Nice sentiment, Pam,” I said. “But I’m afraid she’d enjoy it way too much.”
MY FIRST STOP WAS Hell’s Kitchen. Or I should say Clinton, which is what they call the Kitchen now, thanks to Yushification. I stopped off there because that’s where the Cupcake Cafe is, and the Cupcake Cafe happens to be the best bakery in the city. I picked up a little something in chocolate in a size 40 long, then steered the Jag on over to the theater district, Lulu riding shotgun. Frozen rain had begun spittering down, melting as soon as it hit the pavement. I ditched the Jag outside the Belasco on West Forty-fourth and went in by way of the stage door. The geezer on the door had been there since Tallulah was an ingénue. He knew me from when Merilee played Desdemona there to Raul Julia’s Othello. She was Joe Papp’s newest, loveliest darling then. But that was another era, gone and forgotten. Papp was dead. Raul Julia was dead. Broadway was dead. These days, the Great White Way was nothing but Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals for the hearing-impaired and Disney spectacles for the young and the dim. Very few dramas opened anymore. Those that did tended to be revivals, most of them showcases for TV brand names in search of a weightier identity. In the case of Wait Until Dark, that brand name was Luke Perry, who was starring opposite Merilee as the malevolent villain Harry Roat, a part originated by Robert Duvall.
I sat up in the balcony with Lulu. I munched. I watched. They were rehearsing the climax, where the evil Roat has the blind Susy trapped in her apartment, defenseless. Roat torments her by pouring gasoline on the stairs and threatening to light it with a match. Susy evens the score by killing the lights on him. A terrifying game of cat-and-mouse ensues, much of it played out in utter darkness. I watched in awe. Not just because the last scene of Wait Until Dark happens to be one of the scariest in the history of modern theater, but because I knew Merilee. And yet I didn’t know this Merilee at all. She was totally convincing now as Susy. Vulnerable and frightened in the light. Resourceful and brave in the dark. I don’t think I’ll ever get over how she can turn herself into someone else. It’s like magic. Of course, as a wise old director once told me, that is why they call them actors.
A skinny kid in a T-shirt and jeans jumped on stage full of snide put-downs. A skinny kid in a T-shirt and jeans who I realized was the director. And then they were on a ten-minute break and Merilee disappeared backstage. I’d left word that I was there. A moment later she appeared in the aisle next to me, looking exhilarated but tired, her long golden hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a baby-blue cashmere turtleneck that had once belonged to me, jeans and Tanino Crisci ankle boots. Lulu moaned, tail thumping. Her way of saying hello.
Merilee’s way was to exclaim, “My Lord, darling. That’s the gaudiest, most obscene-looking chocolate thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” She flopped down in the seat beside mine. “Give me some.”
I did better than that. I gave her her very own.
“How does it play?” she wondered, taking a starved, grateful bite.
It played a bit ragged, especially so close to previews. But she knew that—she didn’t need to hear it from me. “Not terribly,” I replied.
“Luke’s growing into it,” she said tactfully, draping her long legs over the seat in front of her.
“So what did you tell them, Merilee?”
“Tell who, darling?”
“The Brad Pitt movie.”
“That I’ll do their nude scene. And I will not use a body double. I want to make a statement. I want to show America that women who are forty are beautiful.”
“I’m proud of you, Merilee. You’re a pioneer.”
“You bet your sweet patootie I am. Besides, darling, it’s now or never. In another year there won’t be a single person left on the planet who will even want to look at me naked, let alone pay eight dollars and fifty cents for the privilege. We start filming on location in the spring.”
“Where?”
“The former Soviet Union.”
“Which part?”
“Sarajevo.”
“That should make for a nice, relaxing change of pace.”
She finished off her chocolate thing, studying me with her shimmering green eyes. “You got another one, didn’t you? He wrote you again.”
“How did you know?”
“You only go to the Cupcake Cafe when you’re extremely up or extremely down. I can see your face, darling. You’re not extremely up.”
“The press are on to it. And me. They’re camped out in front of our building.”
“Oh, dear.”
“I may not be home for a day or two, Merilee. I wanted to let you know. Tracy’s fine. She’s with Pam.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I didn’t think I should take her with me.”
“I meant you not being home for a day or two.”
Down on stage, the prop men were moving everything back into position. The better to
start all over again.
“Have you spoken to Tansy lately?”
Merilee furrowed her brow at me. “Why, no. Not for months and months. She’s, you know, pulled away from people. And her work takes her out of the city a lot.”
“She still living in the same place?”
“As far as I know.” Merilee raised an eyebrow at me. “Why, are you planning to run off with her?”
“Who, Tansy?”
“You always said she was great-looking.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Did, too. At our first New Year’s party. I distinctly remember it.”
“I said she was a great catch.”
“You’ve never said that about any of my other friends.”
“Your other friends are all actresses.” Somehow, my left shoulder ran into her bunched fist. “Ow, that hurt.”
“It was supposed to, mister.”
“She was a great catch,” I pointed out. “That was why I put the two of them together.”
Merilee’s mouth tightened. She said nothing. She did not like to discuss Tuttle with me. She was still too angry.
“I think he’s our man, by the way.”
“Our man, darling?”
“I think Tuttle is the answer man.”
She stared at me. “Tuttle Cash? Now, that would surprise me.”
“Would it? Why?”
“Because he hasn’t the nerve to pull this off,” she replied. “Or the discipline to cover his tracks. Or the talent to write about it so well. Face it, Hoagy, Tuttle Cash is a conceited, spoiled, self-indulgent pain in the Aunt Fanny. Plus he’s a coward. Only a coward beats up a woman that way.”
I let her have this. She wasn’t wrong, after all.
“Why do you think he’s the answer man?” Merilee wanted to know.
“I have my reasons. But I want to be sure. And until I am, well, I owe Tuttle that much. I do have a sample from his old typewriter—an expert would be able to tell in a flash if it matches the answer man’s. But that would mean enlisting Very, and Very’s got Feldman breathing down his neck.”
“Feldman?”
“The inspector who’s in charge. A fan. He’s a huge one.”
“Ah. And what is this huge fan like?”
“Professional. Competent. Hard-nosed.”
“You don’t like him.”
“And here I thought I was hiding it so well.” I glanced over at her. “I’m not a team player, by the way.”
“Thank God for that. I wouldn’t get weak in the knees every time you kiss me if you were. Darling, I’m going to get serious for a moment. You do value me for my truth telling, don’t you?”
“Only when you tell me what I want to hear.”
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, I do not happen to have a penis …”
“I have noticed that, Merilee. I myself am not prejudiced, but I know this makes my parents very happy.”
“Hush. As a consequence, I have never fully understood why you look up to Tuttle. Why you are so proud to be his friend. You have no big brother. Maybe he’s like a big brother to you. I don’t know. But what I do know is that you can’t let your relationship cloud your judgment.”
I pondered this a moment. “In other words, you think I should turn him in.”
“No, I think you shouldn’t. Because if he were any other celebrity you wouldn’t. Not until you were sure. Believe me, I’d just as soon see Tuttle Cash put away for a long time in a small cell with a mean, mean cellmate. But, darling, you make your living these days working with celebrities. And when it comes to ghosting, you’re always sure. That’s why you’re better at it than anyone else.”
“What are you saying, Merilee?”
“I’m saying you should do what you always do—collaborate. Treat this like you would any other project. Because if you do, then you’ll end up doing the right thing, and if you don’t, you’ll end up losing your way. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that, Merilee?”
“Promise me you won’t try to be a hero.”
“Heroism is not something I know much about.”
“Promise me,” she insisted.
“I so promise.” I sat there gazing at her. “You’re not the worst, Merilee.”
“You say it but you don’t show it,” she said softly, her eyes twinkling at me.
“Why, Miss Nash, what are you getting at?”
Now she gave me her up-from-under look, the one that makes my knees weak.
“But Merilee, the cast and crew are right down there on stage. Luke is down there.”
“I don’t care,” she said, running her hand up my thigh. “I want you this minute. Now, Hoagy.”
And so we, well, we stopped talking for a while. I won’t bother you with the details, except to tell you that what began in my seat ended up in the aisle, rows one through four, and that I ended up with some rather wicked second-degree rug burns on my knees. Lulu stood guard over us, aghast but loyal to the end.
Afterward, we lay there on the balcony floor.
“Merilee, what’s gotten into you lately?”
“Why, whatever do you mean, darling?” she wondered, all wide-eyed innocence.
“I mean this new … amorousness.”
“Merciful heavens, Hoagy, you make it sound like I belong on the cover of Time.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“Bother you much?”
“Not even a little. In fact, I’m ready to stand up and salute you.”
“I believe that’s what you just did, sir.”
The stage manager was calling for her now. “Miss Nash? We’re ready for you onstage! Miss Naaaash?”
“Good gravy.” She lunged for her jeans and did her best to wrestle them back on. I did my best to not help her. “Mr. Hoagy!” she objected primly. “Behave yourself. I have a show to rehearse.”
And with that she gathered up her debauched self and marched out the exit for the stage, her chin held high.
Lulu, she stared at me with withering disapproval.
Me, I drove to Scarsdale.
Eight
I ONCE ASKED AN old-time cab driver what was the fastest way to get out of Manhattan. He told me the fastest way to get out of Manhattan was whichever way out of Manhattan youse happened to be closest to. I happened to be closest to the West Side Highway. After a while they start calling it the Henry Hudson Parkway, and then you’re in Yonkers, where I caught the Cross County, which merges into the Hutch, which runs through Pelham and then New Rochelle, where the Petries, Rob and Laura and Ritchie, once lived. From there it’s on to Scarsdale, the buttoned-up little burb where the diet doctor Herman Tarnower used to live. Until Jean Harris murdered him, that is.
It was colder north of the city. The frozen rain was a steady snowfall, and there were patches of ice on the shoulder of the road. I kept the speedometer under 65 and my eyes peeled for those cretins who believe the TV commercials and actually think that their four-wheel-drive rolling cushioned shoeboxes make them invincible on slippery roads. They scare me, those people. They have children and the right to vote. Lulu shivered next to me under the ragtop. I wrapped my cashmere scarf around her. She snuggled into it gratefully. She likes cashmere. She likes being warm.
I listened to 1010 WINS news radio while I drove. They were giving out Bridget’s identity now. They were comparing him with Son of Sam out loud now.
If you absolutely must live in a suburb, Scarsdale is not the absolutely worst around. It’s less than an hour from the city. The homes are older and well built, the plantings mature. There’s some semblance of a village. Yes, you can do quite well for yourself in Scarsdale if you have, say, $800,000. But as I worked the Jag through its tidy streets, the place still gave me the creeps. I always get them on those rare occasions when I find myself in a suburb. Any suburb. After the bright lights and the tumult of Gotham, the darkness and calm seem unnatural to me. It’s
as if everyone for miles around has just been wiped out by ethnic cleansing. I should also explain that I hold to the perfectly rational belief that people who move to the suburbs gradually grow old, lose their teeth and die. And people who live in the city don’t do any of those things.
My cell phone beeped. It was Vic, checking in from King Tut’s. “The party’s still going on,” he reported, which was his way of saying Tuttle was still in the house.
I thanked him and hung up. It immediately beeped again.
“Hiya, cookie,” that familiar voice brayed in my ear. “How ya doing? Whattaya doing? Who are ya doing?”
“Hello, Cassandra. Fine. Nothing. Nobody.”
“Oh yeah? Then why are you in Scarsdale?”
“How did you know I’m in—?”
“Hoagy, you got no secrets from me. C’mon, what’s her name? She married? She swallow it?”
“Thank you large for the Charlie Manson quote. It made my day.”
“Hey, you said it, not me.”
“And what’s with that ‘one-time star novelist’ thing? I do happen to have a manuscript going around.”
“Like I didn’t offer to help you. Gimme something and I’ll plug it to death for you.” She was wheeling and dealing now. And even more bare-knuckle than she used to be. The stakes were higher. “Gimme a taste—something, anything—and I’ll have twenty publishers wet for it. So is it true what I hear?”
“I doubt it. Why, what do you hear?”
“That the police bungled the intercept of Chapter Three. That the Bridget Colleen Healey murder could have been prevented.”
“No, that’s not true. It couldn’t have been prevented. At least, not by them.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It was just something to say.”
“Honey, cookie, sweetie, you never say anything just to say it.
“You don’t say.”
“Can I get real here a sec?”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“I need this story. My ratings have hit a wall.”
The Man Who Loved Women to Death Page 14