by Libby Klein
Mrs. Davis took the client list from me. “What if one of these actors has been trying to hurt Royce so he’d leave Ernie too? Then they’d have another voice in their lawsuit.”
I looked at the list. “Have you happened to see Bette Midler around the Senior Center in the past couple of weeks and not mentioned it?”
Mrs. Davis’s countenance fell. “No, I guess not.”
Aunt Ginny shot a final dirty look at Mother Gibson for starting without them. “I think Ernie has been trying to scare Royce into quitting the show so he’d go back to New York and he could keep skimming from his shows.”
Mother Gibson let the dirty look roll off her back like it didn’t affect her at all. “Maybe he mistook Duke for Royce and scared him so bad, he broke through the catwalk.”
I nodded. “That’s a good theory, but someone sawed the railing. I did find out today that Ernie has been here a lot longer than he led us to believe. Three weeks longer.”
The ladies grabbed on to one another.
Mrs. Davis whispered, “He could be the saboteur.”
Mrs. Dodson held up her hand. “Now we just have to prove it.”
I wanted to call Officer Birkwell and hand everything over to him, but I had learned enough from the past few months to know that it was useless to call the police until I had some hard evidence. I also needed to keep the biddies occupied so they wouldn’t put themselves in a dangerous situation. “Why don’t we do a little more digging . . .”
“Forget that!” Mrs. Davis bobbed her head to the side. “We need to corner Ernie and trick him into confessing.”
Two words came to mind and the second was “no.” “How about instead, I ask Royce a few questions?”
Aunt Ginny shook her head. “No. Royce won’t know anything. And he thinks Ernie is great. He probably has no idea he’s been stealing from him. If we’re going to question anyone, it needs to be Ernie.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll question Ernie, but I need you ladies to stay out of it and let me do it alone. If we’re all there, we’d be sure to spook him.”
The ladies huddled together and whispered to one another.
Neil crackled in my headset, “Poppy, where’s my baby spot for ‘Thank You for the Music’?”
Oh crap. I forgot about this stupid headset. Had Neil heard us talking earlier? “Sorry.” I adjusted the dials until a soft pink glow filled the stage.
The ladies broke from their huddle and Aunt Ginny spoke for them. “You have six hours to question Ernie and get some answers. After that, we initiate Operation Shock and Awe.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Six hours! What am I, a magician?” The last thing I needed was for these ladies to initiate whatever Operation Shock and Awe was supposed to be.
I waited until rehearsal was over. As soon as the seniors finished practicing for their second encore number, which seemed optimistic, I ripped off my headset and went in search of Ernie. He wasn’t in the auditorium. Before I checked the various activity rooms, I ducked out the emergency exit, where he could usually be found up against the wall. Ernie wasn’t outside, but Winky and Finn were. I’d never been this close to them before. One of them had very short-cropped, dark hair on a squarish head and no neck. He was built like a giant, menacing LEGO. The other had a head like a watermelon and wore a gold hoop in one ear. He jumped and had to juggle his cell phone when I flung the heavy metal door open.
“Have you seen Ernie?”
The LEGO recovered first. “No. Who’s looking for him now?”
“I am.”
“Does he owe you money?”
“No.”
“Well, whatever you do . . . don’t lend him any.”
I gave him a nod. “Noted.” I started to shut the door, then paused and opened it again. “Ernie said your names were Finn and Winky.”
They looked at each other. The one who looked like Mr. Clean, if Mr. Clean had had a hard life, said, “I’m Winky. Ernie shouldn’t be so free to pass around our names without giving a proper introduction.”
I looked at the LEGO. “So, you must be Finn.”
The LEGO nodded, which looked hard to do since he had no neck. “That’s right.”
“And you guys are with Bennet and Darcy?”
“Who?”
“How do you guys know Ernie?”
“We’re in the same book club.”
“Uh-huh. And why have you been hanging out here all week?”
Finn answered, “We’re big fans of musical theater.”
“I don’t suppose you work in advertising?”
They gave me quizzical looks and shook their heads. Then Winky shrugged and said, “But we do send messages. And you really don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of our messages, ya know?”
“Okay. Bye now.” I shut the door and headed up the aisle out of the theater. Ernie lied. The gorillas are lying. The biddies might be right about them being assassins. I want a doughnut.
No Ernie in any of the rooms, but I did run into Blanche standing outside the front lobby in the parking lot. She was pacing back and forth, muttering angrily and smoking a long, golden cigarette that smelled faintly of cherries. She stubbed it out in a hurry when I approached her. “Is the nightmare over for the day?”
“They are just discussing whether or not to run through the big company numbers again.”
“Like it’ll help.”
“Have you seen Ernie?”
“No. But it’s creep agents like him who ruined my career.”
“I thought you said you quit the theater.”
Blanche threw me a look brimming with hostility. “I left because I realized show business was full of manipulators and creeps.”
“Does that include Royce?”
“Royce and I were fabulous together. Everyone on Broadway knew we were a package deal.”
“Then why did you come home?” I thought I saw a flash of annoyance in Blanche’s eyes, and then it was gone.
Blanche rubbed her arm and adjusted her sling. “I started getting offers that Royce wasn’t getting and it put a strain on the partnership. I didn’t want to ruin a friendship, so I took a sabbatical.”
“So, you were planning to return sometime?”
“At first. But then Royce moved to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I fell in love and got married. End of story.”
That last bit was delivered without much conviction. “If you were a package deal, weren’t you upset when Royce left New York to go to London? Do you blame him for killing your acting career?”
Blanche turned on me and spat out the words, “No, I don’t blame Royce. I blame Virginia Frankowski.”
Crap. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Ernie getting into a car and driving off. He must have gone out the emergency exit while I was talking to this hot mess.
Blanche poked me with her good arm, then winced. “This was supposed to be my big comeback and she ruined it for me!”
“Your comeback? From the Senior Center play? How was that gonna happen?”
Blanche sneered. “You’re as stupid as your aunt, you know that. Ernie Frick is a talent agent. He was going to be so impressed watching me perform that he signed me on as a client. But Ginny made sure that wouldn’t happen. I’ll never forgive her for this.” Blanche was wild-eyed by the end of her rant and her nostrils were flaring. “She’s going to get hers, though, don’t you worry about that.” Blanche turned and strode down the sidewalk toward the parked cars, holding her sling with her good arm.
I don’t know which one dodged a bigger bullet. Blanche or Ernie.
“Poppy!”
Oh no. Here came Aunt Ginny and the biddies. Practice must be over.
Mrs. Dodson pointed to the parking lot. “Was that Ernie we saw leaving?!”
“Um . . . yes, I believe it was.”
Mother Gibson gave me a sweet smile. “Did you talk to him?”
I could feel their beady little eyes boring into mine. “I got caught up wit
h another . . . situation.”
Mrs. Davis patted me on the back. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll have a chance to talk to him tomorrow.”
Oh. Okay. This was going much better than I’d expected. “Thank you, ladies, for understanding. It’s not like he’s going anywhere. He’s booked his room until the fifteenth.”
Aunt Ginny grinned at me. “Honey, could you please take us to the drugstore? I need some corn pads and Thelma’s out of denture cream.”
Mrs. Dodson chimed in. “I’d like to pick up some of that Metamucil too.”
“Sure.” They were taking it easy on me, so the least I could do was take them to CVS.
We piled into my car with Mother Gibson in the passenger seat and the other biddies smooshed in the back. They were very quiet; then Aunt Ginny said, “Turn left up here.”
“That’s not the way to CVS.”
“CVS doesn’t carry my brand of denture cream,” Mrs. Davis said.
“And I have a coupon,” Mrs. Dodson added.
I turned left as Aunt Ginny directed. “Which drugstore are we going to, then?”
“I don’t think you know it.” Mother Gibson smiled at me.
I had an uneasy rolling start to form in my stomach.
“Turn right!” Mrs. Dodson practically shouted from the back seat.
I jerked the wheel to the right and the car screeched into the turn. “Okay, a little more notice next time, please.” We drove a few more minutes and I kept glancing in the rearview mirror. “What are you all doing back there? Playing a game?” Aunt Ginny was huddled over a cell phone and Mrs. Dodson and Mrs. Davis were scrunched up next to her.
“Take this left! Take it now!” Aunt Ginny was waving her arm madly.
I slammed on the brakes and waited for an oncoming truck to pass us. Mother Gibson was holding on to her purse as if it were an airbag. I turned left down a gravel road, and at the next driveway, Mrs. Dodson said, “Stop! This is it.”
We were at a long, brown building with a flat roof. There were only a couple of windows, one on either end, and they were covered in blackout paper. Next to the front door there was a neon sign for Coors that was flickering like a bug zapper in a swamp. “Whaaaat? Where are we, ladies? No way this is your drugstore.”
I looked in the rearview mirror and Aunt Ginny gave me a toothy grin. “You can wait in the car if you want.”
Two Harleys pulled into the gravel lot and parked next to the row of chrome hogs. The bikes rocked side to side as their leather-clad drivers dismounted and took off their helmets. “You’re going in there?” I asked the biddies incredulously.
They all nodded, straight-faced.
“For what?”
“To question Ernie.” Aunt Ginny spoke like she was telling a five-year-old to wash their hands for dinner.”
“Ernie?”
Mrs. Dodson took a breath. “It’s time for guerrilla tactics, Poppy.”
Mrs. Davis gave me a sweet smile. “You failed in your mission to talk to him, dear. This is Operation Shock and Awe.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Okay. I didn’t realize I was the one to be shocked and awed or I would have devised a contingency plan. Or at least bought a milkshake to buck up my nerves.
I looked around the car. Mother Gibson shrugged and tipped her head, like I should have known this was going to happen.
“How do you even know Ernie’s here?” I asked them.
Aunt Ginny held up her cell phone. “Because while he was in the men’s room we installed a Friend Finder app on his phone. We’ve been tracking him.”
Her phone showed a GPS map with a blinking red light in our location. I felt myself starting toward hysteria. “You can’t go in there, ladies. It looks like a seedy dive bar. People aren’t in there drinking tea and knitting.”
“We know that.” Mrs. Davis shook her head.
“We aren’t afraid,” Mrs. Dodson added.
“That’s what has me the most worried. You probably should be afraid.”
Aunt Ginny reached across Mrs. Dodson. “Well, I’m going in there. I didn’t come all this way to sit in the car and moan about it.”
“Stop.” I held up my hand.
Aunt Ginny looked at me expectantly.
Why, why, why? “I’ll go. If you all promise to stay here until I get back. I’ll see if I can find Ernie and ask him some questions.”
The ladies consulted one another and agreed that I could go in—but “only if you leave the channels of communication open,” Mrs. Dodson said.
“How do you expect me to do that?”
Aunt Ginny held up her phone. “Call me. Then put your phone on Speaker. I’ll mute mine.”
Mrs. Davis pointed at my phone. “But don’t shove your phone down your pants or we won’t be able to hear anything.”
I looked from one face to another. “Where did you all learn to be this devious?”
Mrs. Dodson answered. “Honey, we’ve lived through the fear of being bombed by the Russians, race riots, Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, and Bill Clinton.”
Mrs. Davis added, “But mostly from Murder, She Wrote.”
The biddies all nodded in agreement. So I called Aunt Ginny’s phone, then I personally put it on mute because, fool me once . . . and I steeled myself to enter the biker bar.
The room was dark, loud, and full of bad decisions and future regrets. Two pool tables sat in a large area on the left. They were currently occupied with a burly contingent of bikers. A stage with a live band was on the right. They weren’t the worst I’d ever heard, but I suspected their secret was they sounded better closer to last call. Straight ahead of me through copious amounts of smoke, some of it not yet legal in New Jersey, was a very busy bar with several flat-screen TVs on the back wall. They were showing a football game, a hockey game, horse racing, and a rerun of Friends.
I found Ernie wedged in between a very heavy man with quite a bit of plumber’s crack showing, and an older woman in a tight red dress who was either very drunk or very cheap. I put my cell phone in the front pocket of my plaid fleece and said, “I’ve got him. I’m going in.”
A chair flew by my head halfway up to the bar and a woman yelled, “Sorry!”
“Ernie Frick?”
Ernie’s grin finally disappeared. He blinked at me a couple of times while formulating a cover story. “Hey, Poppy. Fancy meeting you here. I just found this little place today on Yelp. They are supposed to have great wings.”
The bartender slapped a receipt on the counter in front of Ernie. “You’re paying up front tonight, Frick.”
Ernie gave me a hollow smile and pulled out a credit card. I noticed he had a racing form in front of him. “Do you follow the horses?”
He shrugged. “No, not really. Just a little vacation fun.”
I believed that as much as I believed that credit card was going to go through. “Do you have a minute? I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions. Could we sit?” I pointed to an empty table.
Ernie looked at the television. “I don’t really have the time right now.”
The bartender gave me a chin nod. “There’s a two-drink minimum, ma’am.”
Ma’am. What the crap? I pulled out a twenty and looked at Ernie. “I only came in for a couple of minutes to talk to my friend and buy him a drink or two, but if he’s too busy, I’ll just go.”
Ernie’s eyes lit up and he hopped off his barstool, which was kind of a long way down for him. “Poppy, what’s the rush? Come, let’s sit.” He took the twenty and slapped it on the counter. “Two scotch and sodas, please.”
“I don’t really drink, Ernie.”
“That’s okay, they’re both for me.”
We found a table and Ernie pulled out a seat with a prime view of the horse race. I sat across from him with my back to the bar and hoped I could lure his interest away from the television. He checked his watch. “Okay, what’s up?”
“Remember when you told me you were very busy with clients?”
I pulled the magazine column out of my back pocket and unfolded it. “This fell into my hands today. This says your clients have all left you and some of them are bringing lawsuits. Ernie, you’re broke. Why did you lie to me?”
Ernie took a swig of the scotch the bartender placed in front of him. I noticed no change made its way back to me. “It’s a setback. A misunderstanding. You know how celebrities can be. They live in a bubble where everyone loves them. They don’t understand how much work goes into keeping them relevant. A little sexual misconduct or racist Twitter rant and they become unemployable. Then they want to blame the agent because they aren’t getting the roles they want.”
The door opened, and four little biddies entered the bar with Agent Rooster in the lead.
Ernie cocked his head again. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Just a little pain.”
Ernie was leaning to look around me to watch the television. I tried to match his lean to bring his focus back to me. “Some people are worried that you’re putting Royce in danger. He doesn’t appear to be entirely well.”
Ernie cocked his head to the side like a bullfrog who had just spotted a tasty fly. “I would never do anything to put Royce in danger. He’s my best client.”
What in the world? The biddies were chatting up the bikers. They were picking up pool sticks, and Mrs. Davis threw a stack of money on the table. Mrs. Dodson was rubbing one of their tattooed biceps. I had to get them out of here quickly. “I think you mean Royce is your only client, and I thought he just retired. Is that why you’ve been pushing him to go back to New York for a one-man show. Is it the money?”
Ernie finished his scotch and picked up mine. I felt the fumes burn my eyes. “Royce is very talented. I hate to see a talent like that go to waste.”
“What about the flask I keep seeing you pass to Royce? His sister says he’s on medication and shouldn’t be drinking alcohol.”
Ernie was watching the television now. His eyes were bulging and he had that faraway tone to his voice. “Royce is a grown man. He can make his own decisions. He’s gotten along all these years without his sister dictating his every move.” He started whispering to himself and I could hear other bar patrons joining in. “Come on . . . come on . . . You can do it, baby . . . Yes!”