“Right. And Alexander Luccan decides not to press any charges whatsoever. End of story.”
“Was Dobrynin’s name ever mentioned?”
“No,” Tony said emphatically. “Not in connection with the beating. Only the expected stuff about his appearance with the company. Which you know about from Melissa.” He finished his brandy, looked at me with imploring eyes, and then pushed the glass toward the edge of the bar so that the bartender would refill, which he did.
“So, Swede, there you have it. A cover-up. It was probably Dobrynin who gave Luccan that beating, during which he dislocated a finger. But what I don’t understand is why they covered it up. I mean, why not say Dobrynin did it? I thought when there’s a scandal involving a celebrity that it’s good for ticket sales, not to mention newspaper sales.”
I didn’t respond. The importance of the information that Tony had brought back from Winnipeg was beginning to overwhelm me. His findings had created the possibility of a number of wholly new scenarios. It was now conceivable that the murder of Dobrynin had not necessarily been about his personality or his erotic adventures or his persistent betrayals of those who loved him. It could very well have been about the dancer’s place in the world of international ballet—a world of glamour and rivalry and big money and constant deception at all levels. A world that had created the very concept of an international star. A world that has always been marked by financial chicanery—since no ballet company in the history of the world has ever turned a profit.
“Did you hear me, Swede? Why would they cover up?”
I answered him this time. “Alexander Luccan would cover it up if the fight was not about alcohol or sexual jealousy or career problems.”
“Okay. So what was it about?”
“How about extortion? Or blackmail. Or revenge. Or torture.”
“Torture!”
“I mean, if Luccan was beaten because Dobrynin was trying to extract information from him.”
“Information about what? This is starting to sound like an espionage plot.”
“Oh no, Tony. I don’t think it was that simple.” He allowed his head to fall heavily into his hands.
“Where do we go from here?” he moaned. “Will you be sending me to Timbuktu—for the waters?”
“Follow the honey to the hive,” I said. A strange turn of folksy speech, I realized, but it had just popped out.
“I hope that’s your grandmother talking, and not you,” Tony said, laughing. “Tell me, where’s the honey? And who’s the hive?” He found his own question even funnier. “God, now I’m doing it, too!” he chortled. “That misanthropic old bat gets under your skin, doesn’t she?”
I raised a fist to him.
“Just kidding, Swede, just kidding.”
“What I was trying to say, Tony, is that the only logical thing to do—the only way to unravel all these knots—is to find the young woman who was paying Lenny to keep quiet.”
Tony slammed his palm down on the bar. “Sold!” he said lustily. “Agreed! We follow the money trail; we find the blackmail victim—the blackmailee, I guess; we find the killer. But how?”
“A trap,” I replied. “Baited with lots of sticky sweet honey.” I stood up and paid the bartender.
“Where to now, madame?”
“Not to worry, Basillio. You’re not going to Timbuktu. Only as far as the post office on Twenty-third Street.”
“That I can handle,” he said, and gallantly took my arm.
Once inside the bustling post office, I bought three prestamped postcards and carried them over to a counter, to which several cheap ballpoint pens had been chained. One of them actually worked.
I printed the name LOUIS BEASLEY on the front of one card, then his address, then consulted the monstrously big, well-thumbed directory, also riveted to the counter, to obtain his zip code.
The next card I addressed to Betty Ann Ellenville.
The final one was going to Melissa Taniment.
“Okay, Tony,” I said, passing the pen on its chain and the postcards over to him. “Your turn now.”
“My turn for what?”
“Write exactly what I tell you on the back of each card. You have such a wonderful hand.” This was true—Tony has studied calligraphy. I love the bold, beautiful script he writes in.
He waited for my instructions, pen in hand.
“Anna Pavlova Smith,” I said.
“Come again? That’s what you want me to say?”
“Correct. Write the same thing on the back of all three.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. Want me to spell it for you?”
“No, I can manage the spelling,” he said, but he didn’t begin to write. He simply looked at me, waiting for my explanation.
“Listen, Basillio. If you had been the victim of Dobrynin’s blackmail in the past, and you received a postcard with nothing written on it but ‘Anna Pavlova Smith,’ how would you react?”
“I’d be confused—because I’d know that he was dead. And I’d probably be pretty scared as well.”
“Um-hum,” I said, nodding. “And why would you be so scared?”
“Because I’d thought the threat had vanished. While he was blackmailing me, this was the contact signal he used. Now he’s dead. So where’s the signal coming from?
Somebody else may be planning to pick up where he left off.”
“Very good,” I said. “You get this card. You’re pretty shaken up. What would you do next?”
“I’d probably haul ass over to 1407 Broadway. To check if the old handwriting was on the wall again. Because if it is, I’m in trouble—again.”
“Brilliant, Mr. Basillio.”
“No, it is you who is brilliant, Miss Nestleton.”
“No, you, Mr. Basillio.”
“No. I insist, Miss Nestleton.” Tony gave me a courtly bow. “’Tis you. In fact,” he said admiringly, “you sometimes partake of that soufflé called genius.”
Chapter 20
Tony and I were at the window counter of the twenty-four-hour coffee shop on Seventh Avenue. From where we sat we had an unobstructed view of the downtown face of 1407 Broadway. After nine P.M. the streets began to empty. As the evening wears on, the stretch between the shopping area at Thirty-fourth Street and the wild Forty-second Street entertainment strip becomes just a windy valley quickly traversed by hurrying souls. The colder the night the more quickly they move. And it was a very cold night.
“Are you confident, Swede?” Tony asked, pulling his woolen cap down on his forehead and pouring the usual vast quantities of ugly white sugar into his coffee.
“As long as the mailman didn’t let me down,” I said, “I’m confident. If they all got those postcards, she’s got to show up.”
Tony looked around. “Wonder how long they’ll let us sit here before they start thinking we’re drug dealers.”
“I think as long as we keep buying coffee, they won’t care who we are.”
“But how many more containers can we drink?’”
Rather than answer, I simply pointed to the large plastic-lined garbage pail set only a few feet away from us, near the door. Tony nodded his understanding; buy a container, take a few sips, dump the rest.
The chill wind blew in right through the window, but we had dressed for the long, cold haul. In fact it was oddly relaxing to be sitting there, drinking bad coffee, staring at that monolith of a building that occupied the entire city block.
As always, Tony was full of reminiscences: about us . . . then . . . “the old days,” as he called them. When we were aspiring . . . arrogant . . . knew what it was all about . . . truth and beauty and Tennessee Williams. I didn’t talk much, mostly listened and nodded. Nostalgia is harmless as long as it doesn’t determine
future actions. As Simone Signoret has said, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
It was ten sixteen P.M.—according to the ghastly old fly-specked clock with the Budweiser logo—when we saw a sleek black Lincoln Towncar turn off Broadway onto the downtown side of the street in front of the building. Tony and I were not only awash in coffee but had gone through at least two packets of something called “Yankee Doodles.”
We exchanged quick glances, half-frightened, half-anticipatory, ready to move. But the car just kept moving, and soon was out of sight.
But five minutes later it was back.
This time it parked across the street from Basil’s writing wall. And it just sat there, idling like a huge, humming bug, its parking lights lit. The windows were of tinted smoke. The payoff car was just as Basil had described it. The white lady, as he’d called her, ought to be sitting in back, waiting.
Basillio and I jumped off our stools. “Just one minute!” He jerked me back. “Exactly what do we do now?”
“Now we flush her out of that car . . . make her commit herself,” I said, shaking him off and at the same time withdrawing a new can of spray paint from the pocket of my parka.
“What the hell is that? What are you going to do?”
“Listen carefully, Tony. I’m going to cross to the other side of the street and start writing. You stay back. Play it by ear.”
He was confounded. “Play it by . . . Swede, I wonder if you’ve thought this thing out.”
“Thought it out? I’m brilliant, remember? Besides, do you have a better idea?”
He puffed out his cheeks and blew out air slowly, all the while watching the long black car.
Yes, I was frightened. But I was also exhilarated—high as the proverbial kite.
We were out on the pavement by then. I squeezed his arm as I moved off. “Stay close,” I cautioned.
I crossed the street rapidly and walked along the building line. The side street was deserted. The wind picked up newspapers, empty cans, all the waste of the day, and blew it around my ankles. I stopped abruptly a few feet from the car, and very deliberately turned to face the wall. Then, with an absurdly grandiloquent gesture I began to write, in letters as large and high as my reach could command.
I had started the second N in ANNA when someone knocked the can from my hand with such force that I fell against the building. Someone was screaming in my ear: “You stupid bitch! What are you doing?” I whirled around and saw a young woman dressed in a ski parka hovering over me.
She had raised her arm as if to strike me. But then I saw another arm—Tony’s—enveloping her from behind. The two struggled, and when my heartbeat had slowed a bit I tried to assist Tony in restraining her.
“Stop fighting!” I heard Tony yell at her. “Stay still and you won’t get hurt!”
At last, she ceased struggling. But the fight had taken a weird sort of toll on her. There was something grotesque hanging from the left side of her skull. A wig.
I found myself staring into the face of Vol Teak.
I was trembling so hard I could barely muster the breath to tell Tony who “the white lady” was—not a lady at all, but Louis Beasley’s companion.
I heard Basillio tell him: “We’re all going to walk calmly over to your car together, like The Three Musketeers, and get into the backseat. Then we’ll all go for a short drive.”
Vol surprised us both with a very colorful expletive.
“Wow,” Tony said. “And I’d heard you weren’t too bright.”
“I’ll go nowhere with you people,” Teak reiterated.
I recovered, “Perhaps you’d like me to call Louis Beasley for you.”
Fear came into his eyes at the mention of Beasley.
“Perhaps,” I continued, “he would be curious about where you got all that money to pay Dobrynin off. He might even be curious as to why you were paying him off.”
The three of us climbed into the back of the car. I directed the driver uptown.
***
Frank Brodsky answered the door fully dressed, tasteful as ever. I’d outlined the trap to him earlier in the day, so he’d been waiting up eagerly to hear from us. As he led us into the office, I thought I caught a faint whiff of Scotch on his breath.
In fact there was a cut-glass decanter of what very well might have been Scotch on the table near the club chair where we settled Vol. There was also a pot of coffee, a few other bottles, and a variety of glasses and cups. Tony sat down on the sofa, coat still on, and began to smoke furiously. When it was offered, he hungrily accepted a brandy, I asked for a tonic. Brodsky stood erect near the fireplace. Vol sat with his head in his hands.
We made quite a tableau. A rehearsal for a tried-and-true melodrama? If so, the rehearsal wasn’t going very well. For the longest time, no one dared to try out a line.
It was Mr. Brodsky who ultimately broke the silence, using his kindliest voice.
“Mr. . . . Teak, is it? Mr. Teak, you seem to hold the key to a great many questions my colleagues and I have been pondering. I wonder if you’d care to elaborate on tonight’s events? We’d all be so grateful.”
Vol laughed in a short, staccato burst. Then he stared glumly at the ceiling. The silence returned.
With a great sigh, Brodsky walked over to the high-gloss desk and picked up the receiver of the extension phone that sat there. “Ah, yes,” we heard him say. “Will you please give me . . .” He looked over at Vol then. “Whom shall it be first, Mr. Teak? Your friend Mr. Beasley, or one of the police detectives handling the Dobrynin murder?”
Vol moved with deliberation from his chair to the desk. He ripped the receiver from Brodsky’s hand and slammed it down loudly in its cradle. I caught only the tail end of the name he called the old attorney, who merely raised an eyebrow.
Then Vol stepped back and shouted to all three of us: “I know who you people are! And I know what you’re trying to do! You’re trying to implicate me in Peter’s murder! You’ll do anything to keep Lucia from going to trial! Do you think I’m a fool?”
Frank Brodsky didn’t answer right away. He ambled over to a chair and sat down. “Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Teak? Please?”
Vol threw a sullen look at the lawyer, but came back to his chair.
“Now,” Brodsky continued, “as you have so perceptively pointed out, we are vitally concerned with preventing Miss Maury’s indictment. And while I have no wish to falsely accuse you of Mr. Dobrynin’s murder, please understand that I mean to know all about this . . . arrangement . . . this partnership you carried on with him.”
Vol shivered once, as if he had been touched by some slimy presence, and then his handsome mouth began to spit out words.
“He was blackmailing me.”
When Vol halted there, Frank Brodsky shook his head slowly and said, not very patiently, “Yes, yes, Mr. Teak. So we gathered. But I’m afraid that isn’t enough. You’re going to have to trust the three of us with your secrets. Please be specific.”
“Dobrynin was bleeding me,” Teak finally went on. “He found out I was getting finder’s fees from ballet directors I introduced to Louis. They all need Louis. He’s the one they turn to when they need financing. He’s gotten seed money for dozens of companies.
“I never got a lot of money from any of them. A few thousand from each one he helped. Louis never knew. No one did, I thought. But somehow that sonuvabitch Dobrynin found out. And he verified it by beating that Canadian director half to death.”
“Alex Luccan,” Basillio supplied.
“Yes,” Teak said bitterly. “He was one of my ‘clients.’”
He buried his head in his hands for a moment, then slammed his fist down on the table and exploded: “Dobrynin was a bloodsucker—a monster! He always wanted more . . . always more. He’d always say this one was going to be t
he last payment, but then he’d come back for more. And the stupid games he played! Like that nonsense of painting Anna Pavlova’s name on the building. He had me patrolling that vile neighborhood like a common hooker.
“I started borrowing . . . stealing . . . from Louis. That was the worst part. And when I asked Peter why, why he needed the money—after all, he was living the life of a hobo—he only laughed and said he had to take care of all the lost souls . . . so many forgotten, sick things, he said . . . all the ‘lost and hungry ones.’
“And when I threatened to confess everything to Louis, Peter said he’d tell him . . . about us. Something that happened long ago. But he said he’d see that Louis turned me out, prosecuted me for embezzlement. He would have, too. Dobrynin was evil. The crudest man I’ve ever known.
“I’m glad he’s dead, and I have no apologies to make for feeling that way,” Vol said coolly, drawing himself up. “I’m glad! But that doesn’t mean I killed him! Because I didn’t!”
His outburst had been so pained, so vivid, that it left us all feeling drained.
Then Frank Brodsky broke the silence. “Mr. Teak, why did you need the money you took from those company directors? Those ‘fees,’ as you euphemistically called them. Isn’t your companion a wealthy man?”
Vol now seemed close to breaking down completely. His eyes filled with tears. “Louis has always, given me what I’ve needed. He’s hardly the most generous man in the world, but he’s taken care of me. I didn’t want to use him, though. And I never meant to betray him. I just wanted something of my own. I had to feel . . . independent. I was a dancer, you know. I had two seasons with the Royal.”
He looked at the lawyer, as if this characterization of himself as a fine dancer explained everything in the world.
“I suppose, Mr. Teak, that you can account for your whereabouts on the night Peter Dobrynin died?” Brodsky asked mildly.
“I was with a friend,” he said quickly.
“Just visiting?”
“I can produce his name if the police demand it!” Vol said defiantly. “But not before.”
A Cat in the Wings: (InterMix) Page 12