by Simon Brett
‘How do they explain the body?’
‘No problem as it turns out. The dog-walker says, “Ah. Another young lady had too much at the Atlantis.” I don’t know what he meant.’
‘It’s the nightclub at the end of the pier.’
‘Oh. Anyway, the guy with the dog goes on, “In my young day women used to maintain their dignity.” And he walks off, and the other two get the girl’s body into the car.’
‘Driving seat or passenger?’ asked Charles, a vivid image coming to his mind of how he had found Jasmine del Rio’s corpse.
‘Passenger seat. Then Kenny and the other guy go back down to the beach.’
‘Do you follow them?’
‘No. I wait at street level. I want to see where the car’s going.’
‘Do you have to wait long?’
‘No. The other guy, the guy I don’t recognize, he comes up, gets into the green car with the girl’s body beside him and drives off.’
‘So did you follow the car?’
‘No, I was on foot.’
‘Then how did you know where he’d left the car?’
‘I had no idea where he—’
‘But you sent me an anonymous text.’
‘I sent you two texts saying you shouldn’t take over Kenny’s part – that’s all.’
Charles Paris’s mind was racing with new thoughts, but there were other facts he had to establish first. ‘So, after the car’s been driven off, then you go back down to the beach to see Kenny?’
‘Yes. Then I go back down to the beach and find Kenny dead.’
TWENTY-FIVE
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Now all is clear – so all is fine – To the meanest intellect.
FIRST BROKER’S MAN: But what about mine?
As he left the Danmark B&B, Charles checked his watch. Still not twelve o’clock. Time for a little more investigation before his rehearsal call. Though in fact he was now so caught up in the case, he would have allowed nothing – even his first night as King Lear at the National Theatre – to put him off the chase.
What he had heard from Gloria van der Groot had filled in an enormous number of holes in his reconstruction of the previous Friday night. But there were still important details missing. Details which could only be provided by Kenny Polizzi, Vinnie McCree or Lefty Rubenstein. And of the three, the lawyer had the enormous advantage of still being alive.
Charles rang his cellphone number. And yes, Lefty was at his hotel. And yes, he’d be happy to meet Charles. In the bar, same as on the Sunday.
There were a few more people this time, men and women in business suits drinking coffee, all with ID cards hanging from lanyards round their necks. The hotel was clearly hosting a conference. And all the delegates seemed to be speaking in some lilting Scandinavian language. The Christmas tree was now decorated, but that did little to animate the room.
Lefty was already sitting at a table with the inevitable bottle of Diet Coke in front of him. Because of the conference delegates, there actually was a barmaid in attendance this time. Charles just ordered a double espresso. He wanted to have his wits about him.
‘So what is it, Charles?’ asked Lefty. ‘You reckon you’ve solved Kenny’s murder?’
‘I think I could be closer to a solution.’
‘Great. And, as per our agreement, you’ve come to share your findings with me.’
‘That’s pretty much it, yes.’
‘So can I ask if there was something, some big breakthrough, that made it all clear to you?’
‘There was, I suppose. You know we talked about a woman called Gloria van der Groot?’
‘Sure. Kenny’s Number One Fan.’
‘She’s still here in Eastbourne.’
‘Really? I thought she’d gone back to the States.’
‘Well, she hasn’t.’
‘It’s no surprise she came here, though. Everywhere Kenny went, Gloria van der Groot was not far behind him. But I think she’s harmless. Kenny always said she was harmless.’
‘I wouldn’t be completely convinced about that. Within the last couple of hours she’s pulled a gun on me.’
‘What’d you done to upset her?’
‘Taken over the part of Baron Hardup. Taken over Kenny’s part.’
‘Oh yeah. Well, I guess to someone as unhinged as her that could definitely count as grounds for murder. Congratulations on the fact that she didn’t succeed.’
‘Thank you. But Gloria did have some very interesting stuff to tell me about Friday night.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘She doesn’t like being called a stalker, but what she did on Friday amounted to stalking.’
‘You mean she followed him?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘Most of the evening.’
‘Ah.’ The reaction was light, but Charles reckoned it signalled a new wariness in Lefty’s manner. ‘What did she see?’
‘She saw Kenny get into Jasmine del Rio’s car.’
‘This would be early on. Before he took up his pitch under the boardwalk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Presumably Gloria couldn’t overhear the conversation Kenny and Jasmine had inside the car?’
‘No. But I have a pretty good idea of what they discussed.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘Jasmine was blackmailing Kenny. You’d paid her off in LA when she threatened to spill the beans about him screwing her when she was under-age. She reckoned, now their paths had crossed again, there was more money where that came from.’
‘You’re right. And her rates had certainly gone up. She was asking for fifty thousand pounds, “for starters”.’
‘And did Kenny ask you to get the money together that evening?’
‘No, no, Charles. Miracle worker I may be, but there are limits. My advice was we play it cool. Set up a meeting for the three of us the next day, work out some kinda compromise. Negotiate.’
‘But Kenny was in no mood to negotiate?’
‘I found that out later. For that evening I reckoned my work was done. I’d organized the cocaine he’d asked for, set up this old creep to hand the stuff over to him under the pier and advised him about Jasmine del Rio. I reckoned I deserved an early night.’
‘But you didn’t get one?’
‘No. Not as things turned out.’
It was suddenly quiet in the bar. The Scandinavians’ coffee break was over and they’d returned to another session of their conference. The barmaid had gone too.
‘Kenny called you later?’
‘Yes. He was kinda hysterical … you know, with the booze and the coke, but there was also something gleeful in his manner. Gleeful like he was proud of himself, like he’d done something very clever.’
‘What exactly did he say?’
‘He said he’d sorted out “that little blackmail problem”. Then he told me how he’d done it.’
‘By shooting Jasmine del Rio?’
‘Yup. And then he says I’ve got to go and tidy up for him. He actually said to me, “You’ve always been good as a Pooper-Scooper, Lefty.”’ He tensed, clearly loathing the expression.
‘He was asking you to clear up the body after he’d committed a murder?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what he was doing. Kenny thought he was above the law. Any scrape he got into, he only had to pick up the phone, call Lefty. Lefty’d tidy things up. Lefty’d see to it no unpleasantness might attach to Kenny Polizzi. God, I was used to it. That was the way he’d treated me right through our professional relationship. But what got to me was … he couldn’t see the fact that murder was on a different scale from all his other misdemeanours.’
‘So you worked out how you were going to get rid of Jasmine’s body?’
‘Yes. To set it up to look like suicide seemed to me the easiest way. I mean it’s not like Eastbourne’s a town I know well. Back in LA, I got contacts. I could find people with experience of that kind of work. But I reckoned putting the bo
dy in the car and leaving it someplace was going to be the best way. It was just sheer luck that I found that lock-up to put the car in. I was never reckoning it’d be a long time before the body was found. And when I felt the police were being a bit slow, I decided to give them a nudge.’
‘The anonymous text sent to my mobile. The one that mentioned Ranleigh Road. At first I thought that must have come from Gloria. Now I realize it was you.’
‘Yes, I sent it. I knew you were a keen sleuth hound, Charles. You’d be on to it straight away. You’d find the body. And you’d probably read the clues I’d left and come to a private verdict of suicide.’
‘Of course what’s odd, though, Lefty, is the reason why she appeared to have killed herself. It was out of remorse for having killed Kenny Polizzi. And yet at the time her body was being put into her car to be driven away, Kenny was still very much alive.’
Lefty swallowed down the last of his Coke and looked with annoyance towards the unmanned bar. Then he said, ‘You’ve worked it out, haven’t you, Charles?’
‘It’s the only solution that fits the facts. You shot Kenny Polizzi, didn’t you, Lefty?’
The lawyer let out a long sigh. Then he brushed a rueful hand across his comb-over. ‘Yes, I did. All my working life Kenny had been piling more and more straws on me. That was the one that broke my back. Asking me to tidy up after a murder … no, I couldn’t do it. And all of the humiliations that had been building up over the years … it’s like they all came rushing back into my memory, and at that moment I hated Kenny. Hated him more than I had ever hated anyone in my life.
‘So when we’d got the girl’s body in the car we went to the beach again to check whether anything of hers had been left down there, and Kenny just stood there grinning at me. Grinning. I’d done everything and he was the one who seemed to think himself clever. He also didn’t seem to see that shooting that girl was different from anything he’d done before. “Oh dear, I’ve managed to do something stupid. Never mind, Lefty Rubenstein will come and clear up after me. He always does. That’s what I pay him for.”
‘When Kenny’d finished wiping the pistol with a handkerchief to remove any traces of his fingerprints, he was still grinning.
‘And then he handed the gun across to me, and as he did so, he said, “Where would I be without my Pooper-Scooper?” And I don’t know, I’ve always hated being called that. Lots of other insulting things he’d called me over the years, they didn’t worry me. But that … And I suddenly saw how logical it would be, how many of my hassles and aggravations would be solved by the one simple act. I raised the pistol until the end of the barrel was resting against his forehead.
‘Kenny was still grinning when I pulled the trigger.’
There was a long silence. ‘And after that,’ said Charles, ‘you set up Jasmine’s supposed suicide and turned all the suspicion on her?’
‘Uhuh. I had been walking round earlier in the week and I found the empty lock-up. I always look out for stuff like that – never know when you’re going to need it. And it was a good place because I knew her body would be discovered pretty soon. All very easy … well, except for managing the gear stick on that little toy car of hers. Why you Brits don’t come into the twenty-first century and have automatics I’ll never know.
‘But my disposal of the girl’s body was quite neat, I thought, even though I say it myself. Kinda thing you learn how to do if you’re raised on the back streets of LA. And of course if you’ve trained as a lawyer.’
After this little half-joke, Lefty suddenly stood up, crossed to the bar and banged the bell for service. When the barmaid appeared he ordered another Diet Coke. ‘Another coffee, Charles?’
‘I think I’ll go for a large Bell’s this time. Just with ice.’
When Lefty was back sitting down, Charles asked, ‘And how do you feel now?’
The lawyer opened his hands in a gesture of non-commitment. ‘How should I feel?’
‘Did it work? Once Kenny was dead, did you really find all your hassles and aggravations had been resolved?’
‘For a time I did feel that, yes. When I’d sorted out the girl in the car, I felt a kind of closure. I’d discharged my last duty for the bastard. Never again would I have to clean up one of Kenny Polizzi’s messes. It was over. At last I could get on with my own life.’
‘But you don’t still feel that, do you, Lefty?’
The lawyer looked straight into Charles’s eye. ‘You’re not a bad psychologist. Maybe you should give up this acting game and put up your shingle as a shrink.’
‘Might not work. There’s a big difference between being a good psychologist and a good psychiatrist.’
‘Yup, you’re right.’ Charles allowed the silence to flow before Lefty said, ‘I was, like, euphoric after I’d done it. I’d got rid of Kenny. Finally the monkey was off my back.’
‘But the euphoria didn’t last …?’
‘No. No, it didn’t.’
‘Are you worried about being investigated by the police, Lefty?’
‘No way. With the girl’s suicide and the note on her cellphone, they’re not going to be looking a lot further. If there’s one thing police like all over the world it’s an open-and-shut case.’
‘But suppose there was a witness, suppose someone did see you actually shooting Kenny?’
‘Why, was there a witness?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘Not so far as I know.’
‘Good.’
‘But the police have other resources. How would you feel if they did actually nail you for the crime?’
Lefty looked out of the window, towards the thin rectangle of sea visible between buildings. ‘Do you know, Charles, I wouldn’t mind that much. It wouldn’t be such a big deal for me. OK, professional pride hurt a bit, because I’d’ve failed to set up the perfect murder … but otherwise … no, if they nailed me, full marks to the police.’
‘Presumably, with your legal expertise, you’d mount a pretty good defence?’
‘Yes, I suppose I might. Then again I might not. I really don’t care any more. You see, I’ve got Kenny out of my life, and that should have solved all of my problems. Because without Kenny’s constant unreasonable demands, I can go back to being Lefty Rubenstein. Running my legal practice for me, like I did before I ever got involved with Kenny Polizzi. I should be happy about that.
‘But I’m not. After a couple of days of feeling good – yeah, like I said, the euphoria – I woke up on Monday morning and I thought: what the hell am I going to do? How’m I going to fill the day? And the next day? And all the days after that?
‘I realize that without Kenny hassling me, I have no motivation to do anything. He’d kinda consumed me. There wasn’t any of the original Lefty Rubenstein left. Yes, Kenny drove me mad, but without him, I’m on my way to getting madder. And it’s more than that … I actually miss the guy.
‘You know, Charles,’ said Lefty, his eye still locked on its glimpse of the sea, ‘I think, in my own strange way, I actually loved Kenny.’
Charles Paris was of the view that he didn’t need to share Lefty’s confession with Detective Inspector Malik. He felt sure the police would get there in their own time. Detailed forensic examination of Jasmine’s Figaro was bound to punch great holes in the theory that she had committed suicide. And once that was out of the way, there was no longer any logical reason to finger her as Kenny Polizzi’s murderer.
As it worked out, the official police investigation received a boost from further events of that afternoon. Unbeknown to Charles, after he had left the Danmark Bed & Breakfast, Danny had returned from his shopping. Gloria had got into conversation with her host about Kenny and his entourage. Danny had spoken of Lefty and his description of the agent made Gloria sure that he had been the unknown man who had joined Kenny under the pier.
Danny had left a copy of the Cinderella stage management’s contact sheet around. Lefty was listed there, along with most of the artistes’ agents. It also gave the number of
the hotel where he was staying.
Gloria, saying she felt better and must really organize her return flight to the States, packed, paid Danny what she owed him and, as agreed, was allowed to take her automatic pistol from the safe.
Once out of the Danmark Bed & Breakfast, she walked briskly along Seaside Road until she arrived at Lefty’s hotel. She sat quietly in the foyer until, mid-afternoon, he emerged from the lift.
Then Gloria van der Groot shot him dead.
TWENTY-SIX
AT THE END OF THE WALKDOWN, CINDERELLA AND PRINCE CHARMING ENTER IN THEIR WEDDING CLOTHES.
PRINCE CHARMING: So all is well, and naught’s alarming …
CINDERELLA: Now Cinderella’s wed Prince Charming!
The Tech for Cinderella overran horribly, as Techs will, and the proposed two dress rehearsals on the Thursday ended up being reduced to one. There is an old adage, much believed among theatricals, that ‘a bad dress rehearsal presages a good opening’, but at the end of the Thursday evening most of the Cinderella company were agreed that a dress rehearsal that bad must presage a seriously shitty opening.
Charles wasn’t quite so pessimistic. As a punter, he would have come to see the show for Danny Fitz and Arthur Bodimeade’s routines alone. He loved participating in the ones which involved Baron Hardup and the ones where he wasn’t onstage he watched avidly from the wings.
But lack of rehearsal – apart from other stresses of the previous few days – meant that on the Friday he woke early and twitchy. He knew from experience that doing one’s first performance to a horde of screaming kiddies was a mixed blessing. They might not be as aware of onstage cock-ups as adults, but they had a distressing variety of reactions to demonstrate that they were bored. Charles had spent more than one children’s matinee being pelted with salted peanuts.
(Other missiles were popular too. There used to be a pantomime tradition that at a given point in every performance ‘sweeties’ were thrown out into the auditorium to be grabbed for by overenthusiastic children. But as they have to so many sources of innocent pleasure, Health and Safety put a stop to that. Charles Paris didn’t mind, actually. He remembered one schools matinee of Little Red Riding Hood when the audience, not liking the ‘sweeties’ that they were being offered, started throwing them back at the cast. With remarkable power and accuracy. Charles had had to play the rest of the run with a black eye.)