by Cathy Ace
Svetlana sweeps in riding a giant, heaving piano keyboard as though it’s a bird, the black and white keys flapping like scale-playing wings. She’s wearing a flowing black cape and a white dress, cawing and laughing, waving a flag bearing the red-and-gold Tsar! Casino logo above her head in one hand, a magnificently wrought silver cake slicer of massive proportions in her other. She doesn’t seem to need to hold on to the bucking piano keys. The sound of the piano is hurting my ears, I thrash at it, trying to make it stop. I notice that Jimmy is running along the ground beneath the Diva, throwing money into the air, trying to attract her attention.
Miss Shirley reappears, dressed as Mary Poppins, with a crocodile of children following her two by two. But they aren’t children, they are all the people who sat down to eat dinner together—Ian, Bud, and myself included. We’re all wearing little suits with giant shoulder pads. We look as though we’re in a black-and-white movie. Clemence isn’t part of the crocodile. He’s straggling along by himself, holding what I know is a battered brass trumpet, even though it’s hidden inside a red leather case. His eyes are bandaged and he’s crying, tears streaming down his face from beneath the white bindings. “Can I join in?” he calls. He has the voice of a small child.
Miss Shirley turns, now she’s become a very curvaceous, alluring Marilyn Monroe, and she throws him a giant slice of white chocolate bread pudding.
Clemence rips off his blindfold but his eyes have disappeared. “My eyes!” he calls, then he falls to the ground and begins to search for the pudding, but he is squashed by a huge ball bearing that rolls over him, cracking him like a nut. The ball bearing having passed, all the children gather about him and put him back together again. They dance off, shooting popguns they’ve taken from their pockets into the air.
Everything goes black. I smell Bud. I smell oil. I smell alcohol. I smell soap. I smell a gun that’s been fired. I know I am inside a woman’s purse. I feel the satin lining and try to climb up, but it’s slippery, so I keep sliding back down.
“La Gazza Ladra,” shouts Svetlana in the dark.
“The Silken Ladder,” replies Jimmy. Then he whispers in my ear, “Othello knew the truth about reputation. A handkerchief killed Desdemona. La Gazza Ladra must not kill Madame.” He is gone.
Now I am inside a hospital room. Miss Shirley, Jack Bullock, Tanya Willis, and Julie Pool are lying side by side in four beds. Each has a plastic tube in their arm. The tubes are connected to huge syringes, which are actually champagne bottles. Clemence runs through the room wielding a silver sword, severing the plastic tubes as he goes. He’s still crying, “My eyes!” but now his voice is my grandmother’s voice.
Bud steps into the room and begins to wave a metal detector wand over me. I beep constantly. It is alarming. “What do we ’ave here now then, missus?” he says in a cockney accent. He pulls a huge gun from the tiny evening purse I have under my arm. “Can’t be ’aving this sort of thing available for all the baddies to get their ’ands on, now can we? Best give it to me, missus. I’m a copper, I am, I knows just what to do with it.” He holds the gun aloft, shoots it into the air, and millions of shards of pottery fall from what is now the enclosed glass roof of the egg. The bullet ricochets around the glass, cracking every pane. As the glass falls away I can see a giant mushroom cloud on the horizon.
“Great sight, eh?” says Tom to my right. He is in full chef whites, wearing a necklace of corkscrews. “It’s all for love, you know?” he says sadly.
“No, it’s not, it’s hate,” says a snake with Jack Bullock’s face, slithering out of an air vent in the floor.
“Follow your nose,” calls Julie Pool as she falls from the sky, applying lipstick.
“Follow your heart,” shouts Bud, no longer a cockney copper, but now dressed in a vicar’s garb.
“Listen to me,” shouts my sister. “Listen to me!” I turn to look at her as she bounces around me in circles, like a kangaroo. “Remember Mum as Adele in Die Fledermaus? Remember the story—revenge, borrowed clothes, masks, one person is two things? Remember what I told you about La Gazza Ladra and the magpie? It’s all music, Cait. Trust me, I’m your sister.” Then she hops away.
“ARE YOU ALRIGHT, CAIT?”
I thought for a moment that I was still in a semitrance, but it was the real Bud gently touching my real shoulder.
I opened my eyes. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“You’re sweating,” he said, sounding concerned. “Do you want a drink, or don’t you trust the water?”
“I trust the water, Bud, and I’d love some.” I pressed my fingers against my eyes. I couldn’t possibly have any makeup left on them, so it hardly mattered if I rubbed them raw.
Bud returned with a glass of water, which I gulped down.
“Anything?” he asked.
“A lot,” I replied, “but I still need to check a few things to make sure I’m not making connections where none exist.”
Bud bent very close to me, and I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead he whispered, “What can I do to help?” Then he gave me a quick peck.
“Keep everyone where they are while I have a swift poke about? And I need you to do your own bit of recollection, please.”
“Sure,” he replied, standing to his full height.
“You hum,” observed Svetlana. “Not bad voice.” She was addressing me.
“Well, I’m Welsh, you see, Svetlana, and we Welsh do love our music so. Which I believe, on this occasion, might be very useful.”
“How is useful?” she barked.
“Well, for one thing, I know the alternative name for La Gazza Ladra. My sister once told me. And, luckily for me, as it turns out, your laugh is just like Adele’s in Die Fledermaus.”
Svetlana looked horrified. And that was just for starters.
Third Intermezzo
“I TOLD YOU SHE WAS just like Rain Man,” said Jimmy angrily. “Goes off on one and wakes up making wild accusations.”
Art looked puzzled. “What accusations? I didn’t hear her make any accusations.” He looked around bewildered. “What did I miss? Anyone?”
Carl shrugged. “Load of nonsense if you ask me.”
“We’ll see if it’s nonsense,” I replied. “Bud’s going to make sure everyone stays exactly where they are while I check out a few things, right?”
Svetlana looked petrified. Only her eyes moved, darting to the table where she’d been sitting before she’d adopted her defensive position against the outer wall. “Is not good here now. Too hot. I move to table,” she said, with what was clearly forced bravado.
“You can stay where you are, if you prefer,” said Jimmy. “It’s hot here at the table too.” His eyes widened as he spoke, and Svetlana threw him a coquettish smile.
“Very good. I stay,” she said. “You are good man, Jimmy.”
I suspected she hadn’t paid him too many compliments over the years, and I could see a spark of delight, and maybe hope, in Jimmy’s eyes as he smiled reassuringly in her direction.
I now had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but I had to be sure. “I have to do a few things and ask a few questions, and I hope everyone answers me honestly,” I said in my most professorial tones.
Ian looked taken aback, Art and Carl shrugged, Svetlana threw me a triumphant look, Jimmy sighed, and Tom didn’t seem to be taking notice of anything much.
“Tom?” I called. His tear-stained face finally turned toward me.
“Uh huh?” He was exhausted, physically and emotionally.
“Did you, at any point this evening, carry Tanya’s purse?”
“What is it with you and Tanya’s purse?” asked Tom. It seemed I’d just deposited the final straw upon this particular camel’s back. “I’m sick of it. She’s dead. Right, I get it. One day I’ll love again. I get it. You all look at me and don’t know what to say. I get that too. Why are you going on and on about her purse?”
“Because there’s a gun in it,” I said.
Svetlana paled. “G
un? She has gun? Why she has gun? Where is gun now?”
“I have it, here.” I patted Tanya’s purse on my shoulder.
“Why would Tanya have a gun?” asked Tom, stunned.
“How would she get one in here? That’s the question,” said Carl.
“Yes, we all endured the metal detector,” said Art. “Wretched thing goes off every time I go through it.” He noticed the alarmed looks around the room. “New hip,” he added, by way of explanation.
“If Tanya had a gun, which I don’t believe for one minute by the way, why didn’t she shoot whoever killed her?” Tom had asked a very good question.
“Yeah, why didn’t she?” Ian sounded well and truly puzzled. “I would have.” As soon as he’d spoken, he blushed.
Bud gave me a look that communicated, “What are you getting at?”
I bent and pecked him on the cheek. “Stick close to Tom, Bud. This is all going to be very tough for him when I get going. I’m not sure how he’ll react when he finds out who killed Tanya, and why.”
“Okay. Done. Though I’m not sure how I’ll react, either,” said Bud, thereby confirming to me he didn’t know what had been going on.
The tension in the room was as thick as the air, which was now becoming fetid.
“Before I get going, I’m just going to see if there’s any pudding left. Now where’s that big old silver cake slicer gone . . . ?”
The faces in the room told me I’d done something inappropriate. I didn’t care—I had to take care of first things first.
Cavatina
UPON FURTHER INVESTIGATION I SAW there was no bread pudding remaining, so I picked up a tangerine and ripped off its delicate skin. At least the aroma was fresher than our surroundings. I tried to look as casual as I could while I was doing it, though I felt anything but calm. Once I knew the answers to a few more questions, I’d be able to put the whole thing together to my own satisfaction—if the answers were the ones I expected. I’d need Bud’s help.
As I munched and enjoyed the sharpness of the citrus, I managed to speak to Bud without dribbling. “I’ll stay here, because I don’t want to mess up the washrooms more than I have already, but I could do with a few things, and your help, please, Bud.”
“He not leave us,” shouted Svetlana. It seemed she’d decided that Bud was her guardian.
I noticed that Jimmy looked disappointed.
“I can watch over you,” the young man said tenderly, looking over at the woman for whom he clearly had very deep feelings.
I watched intently, savoring the fruit, as Svetlana made an assessment of the situation. She looked more serious, contemplative, and older than she’d appeared since we arrived. I thought I caught a glimpse of the girl who’d navigated the wilds of the USSR with nothing but a voice to allow her to clamber from abject poverty to a jet-setting life of glamor and adulation.
I noticed her finally settling her shoulders. She’d made a decision. “Is good. Jimmy look after me. Jimmy is good young man. I not young now. I need young man’s blood so I am full of passion.”
Her comments put me in mind of a blood-sucking vampire feasting on an unsuspecting youth, but the expression on Jimmy’s face, as he lit up from inside, told me that even if she were about to sally forth on a relationship for her own reasons, he’d be a willing victim. An accomplice, even. Yes, accomplices.
I turned to Bud. “See, it’s okay—Svetlana says you may leave.” I winked and I even managed to draw a faint, wry smile from Art.
“What do you need me to do, Cait?” Endearingly, Bud stood to attention.
“I need Julie’s purse from the men’s room counter, please.”
Bud knew I was finished for a moment, so he took a look around the room, letting everyone know he’d be as good as with them while he was away, and made off to the men’s room.
I addressed the rest of the room’s occupants. “I’m also going to need Miss Shirley’s purse, the red crystal Tsar! purse we saw earlier. I don’t know where it’s got to in all the confusion. I know that we found it on the floor, thanks to Svetlana’s eagle eye, and that Julie put it on the bar at one point, but I rather seem to have lost track of it after that . . .” I looked around the room with a dithery expression and scratched my head. “It’s okay, you can all stay where you are, but I really need it, so I’m going to poke about a bit.”
I did just that. I didn’t talk, and none of the other people in the room seemed ready to speak either.
“Here’s Julie’s purse,” said Bud, emerging from the washroom. “Where do you want it?”
There wasn’t anyone sitting at the bar, so I said, “On the bar for now, please, Bud.”
“I need to see how Clemence is doing,” Bud replied as he deposited the purse, and he did just that. Luckily it meant that everyone’s attention turned to that side of the room.
While all eyes looked toward Bud and poor Clemence, I lifted the tablecloth surrounding the dessert table. Nothing. I checked under the table at which Art, Carl, and Ian now sat. Nothing. I gave Svetlana a sideways glance as I passed her, then lifted the cloth surrounding the table where Jimmy was seated.
“Ah, there it is!” I reached down and pulled the glittering red purse from the floor beneath Jimmy’s table. “It’s right beside Svetlana’s purse, on the floor.”
Jimmy reddened a little. “I didn’t know it was there. It must have been there before I sat down. Besides—it’s just a purse. I mean, I know it’s Miss Shirley’s, but still, it’s just a purse.”
“Just a purse” didn’t come close. It was quite something, and I could see why it would have cost many thousands of dollars to create. While it was true that the entire construction was a metal box, hinged so it could open like a clamshell, the corners were rounded so that the crystals didn’t cut into the hand of the person carrying it, and it was surprisingly lightweight. A metal box covered in precious crystals should, surely, weigh more than that? Still, it felt bulky in my small hand. Miss Shirley had been a smaller woman than me, so her hands must have found it difficult to grasp. I wondered if there was a carrying strap inside, so I opened it to take a look. The clasp unhooked easily, but there was no strap, no decorative chain hidden deep in the folds of gold silk-satin that lined the inside. There was a lipstick, a couple of credit cards, and a key card rattling around in the expansive interior. That was it. But there was also a smell. A smell that I recalled had made Julie Pool wrinkle her nose when she’d opened the purse to retrieve the photograph of Clemence, Miss Shirley, and her children. Even though I’d wiped my hands with a damp napkin, I still caught the sharp notes of tangerine as I sniffed the interior of Miss Shirley’s purse.
“She smells for killer,” said Svetlana.
I allowed myself a very significant arch of my eyebrow. “You’re not wrong.”
Svetlana looked surprised. As did everyone else.
I placed Miss Shirley’s purse on the bar, next to Julie’s, which I picked up. I was disappointed by what I saw inside it. A credit card, a parking pass, a security badge on a lariat, a thin wad of cash.
“I left the lipstick where it was, on the counter,” said Bud. “That’s okay, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s fine. The lipstick’s already told me all it can.”
Bud made an almost comical face that told me he had no idea what I was talking about. It was the sort of face he often makes when trying to communicate with his gloriously affectionate black Labrador, Marty. I hope he loves me as much as he loves Marty.
“Could I get a glass of water, please?” asked Jimmy in a small boy’s voice. I was surprised he hadn’t raised his hand.
“There’s a jug on the table,” said Carl dismissively. “Though you won’t catch me drinking from it.”
“Exactly,” replied Jimmy. “I thought I’d just wash out this glass and pour some water from the tap right into it?” He held a used glass toward me, then Bud, clearly indicating he thought we both had some say in the matter.
“There’s any
number of clean glasses behind the bar,” said Ian, speaking to Jimmy as though he were a very stupid little boy.
“I’m sure there are,” replied Jimmy testily. “But this one will do just fine, thanks.” He stood and made his way toward the end of the bar nearest the dessert table. He’d only walked a few steps when he tripped and fell, coming down with a thump, grabbing onto a bar stool as he collapsed.
Svetlana leapt to her feet, leaving her precious chair for an instant. “Jimmy!”
Jimmy looked up from his prone position. “Stay where you are, Svetlana, I’m fine. I can clear all this up.”
“Broke your precious glass?” asked Ian, somewhat spitefully I thought. “I’ll get you another.” He rose from his seat and made toward the end of the bar that was free from broken glass.
“I’ll get one,” said Jimmy forcefully. “I—I don’t want you touching anything else I drink from, thanks. Not that I don’t trust you . . . I just want to do it myself.”
Ian gave Jimmy a wide-eyed, dismissive look. “Suit yourself.” He returned to his seat.
“Hey, come on, boys,” said Art, which struck me as ironic, given the playground animosity that had sparked between him and Carl all night.
Jimmy bent to pick up the larger pieces of glass.
“Be careful, Jimmy,” I called. “I cut myself on that broken urn earlier on. That glass will be even sharper. Use a napkin to wrap it. But don’t put it in the bin behind the bar yet.”
I turned to Bud. “I’m going to need the broken urn out here on the floor, please. Could you fetch the cloth we wrapped it in so I can open it up and take another look at it?”
“If you promise to be more careful with it this time, yes,” replied Bud, sighing.
When Bud went behind the bar to retrieve the shards of the broken urn, Jimmy was already there, dithering about with broken glass wrapped in a napkin. “Not sure where to put it, if not in this bin,” he said.