A Cruel Season for Dying

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by Harker Moore


  In the mirror he saw that Hanae had awakened and was smiling. “You look like a cat with a belly full of cream.”

  “I am satisfied.”

  He walked toward the bed, climbing back under the covers. “And why are you so satisfied, Wife?”

  She reached up and pulled his face close to hers. “Because my husband is such a good lover.”

  He laughed. “You’re a wicked woman.”

  “The alarm has not gone off.”

  “I shut it off. It’s already after six.”

  Her lips closed over his, her tongue slipping easily inside his mouth. “My husband will be late this morning.”

  The apartment in SoHo was tiny. Detective Walter Talbot sat forward on the lumpy sofa, trying to visualize that the person standing in front of him had killed two men. But the image wouldn’t hold. In part because the twentysomething dancer had sad, innocent eyes. But mostly because he had a reasonable alibi.

  Philippe Lambert, who shared this dinky walk-up with three other dancers, claimed to have stayed late in the theater after a performance on the night Carrera had died; he returned to his apartment with two of his roommates immediately afterward. Of course, it was a fool who said you could tell a killer by his eyes. And alibis, like promises, were made to be broken.

  “I want to help,” the dancer was saying. He was pacing in the small space that served as living room and kitchen. “It’s just that I answered all these questions in my statement.”

  “As I explained on the phone, Mr. Lambert, jurisdiction in this case has been transferred to a Special Homicide Unit. We’re reinterviewing everybody involved in this case.”

  Some of the tension seemed to drain out of the dancer. He sat down in a peeling chair. One of two that matched the table. A fifties dinette set in gray and blue. On top sat a carved jack-o’-lantern.

  “Let me summarize,” Talbot picked up the thread. “You said Mr. Carrera had not felt well, that he called Thursday morning to say he wouldn’t be coming in to the studio, or attending the performance that evening. Then when you couldn’t reach him all the next day, you went to check at his apartment.”

  The brown eyes closed shut. “It was horrible.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “I have a key.”

  “You found no evidence of forced entry?”

  “No.” The eyes went wide.

  “That suggests that Mr. Carrera knew his killer, or invited him in. Do you have any idea if he might have been expecting anyone that Friday?”

  “No. Most everybody was at the performance.”

  “Who was he seeing socially?”

  “You mean, who was he sleeping with?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was sleeping with me.”

  “Only with you?” He watched carefully for the reaction.

  “I believe so,” Lambert said easily enough. “Luis was not promiscuous.”

  “Does the name David Milne mean anything to you?”

  “I don’t think so…. Is he a dancer?”

  “Mr. Milne owned an art gallery in the East Village.”

  “You’re talking about that other guy who was murdered?” Lambert caught on quick. “Are you saying he was killed … like Luis?”

  “I haven’t said that at all, Mr. Lambert. And repeating that kind of rumor could be considered interference with a police investigation. You understand?”

  “Sure.” The eyes said he was shaken.

  “You have no idea who killed Mr. Carrera?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t mention anyone new? Someone he’d just met, perhaps?”

  “No, he didn’t. The truth is, Luis was becoming more and more isolated.”

  “Why was that?”

  “He could get pretty depressed. Luis was a huge star before he injured his back. You know his history?”

  “I know he defected from Cuba.”

  “Luis came here as part of an international troupe—the hottest thing going in the Cuban National Ballet. Castro caused a big stink when the State Department gave him asylum. Luis had been trained by the Russians. Was supposed to be the next Baryshnikov.”

  “And was he?”

  “Yes, until the injury. Lumbar compression. He couldn’t do the lifts. Of course, the good side of his not being able to dance the major roles was that he threw himself into teaching the younger dancers in the company. Helping people like me.”

  “So, he was liked by the younger dancers.”

  “By everyone in the company. And that’s really saying something.”

  “Why?”

  “The company is a very small world, Detective Talbot. You’re together all the time. There are a lot of petty jealousies.”

  “But not with Mr. Carrera?”

  “I guess there might have been a lot of envy at the beginning. But not later.”

  “Still, he must have had some enemies.”

  Lambert sighed. “Well, there was one person that Luis had a problem with. You could almost call it a feud. But it wasn’t serious.”

  “I’d still like to hear about it.”

  “At the end of last season”—Lambert relaxed in the chair—“I got my first solo. I think Luis was more excited than I was. He wanted everything to be perfect.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “Andrea … she’s one of the wardrobe assistants. Sometimes she likes to monkey around with the costumes. Just some little change here or there. Nobody cares that much. But it always drove Luis crazy, her ‘fixing’ things in the middle of a run. It was a superstition with him. He thought it was bad luck.”

  “And this Andrea ‘fixed’ something during your performance?”

  “Opening night. She changed the drape on my tunic. There was so much tension already. Luis chewed her out good. He could have a real Latin temper sometimes. But by the next day, he’d always forget he’d been angry.”

  “But this time was different?”

  “Not for Luis,” Lambert said, “but Andrea got into a real snit. She put a dead chicken in his dressing room.”

  “Are you talking voodoo?”

  “Santeria. Andrea liked to rag Luis about being Latino … a peasant. Andrea claims she’s descended from the czars.”

  “And how did Mr. Carrera react … to the chicken?”

  “He said he’d left Cuba to get away from that shit. Told her to leave him alone.”

  “Was that the end of it?”

  Lambert shook his head. “Andrea was enjoying it too much. She made a sort of altar near the dressing rooms—candles and stuff, scraps of fabric that could have been from Luis’s old costumes. She was playing with his head.”

  “And Luis?”

  “He made a point of ignoring it. But I know it got under his skin. He didn’t need any more bad luck. He seemed more depressed after that.”

  “Because of what she was doing?”

  Lambert sighed. “No. I think it just finally came home to him that his back wasn’t going to get any better. That he was never going to make it back to the top.” He looked away for a moment. “To tell you the truth, Detective Talbot,” he said finally, “when Luis didn’t answer the phone that day, I was afraid he might have killed himself.”

  Talbot walked up a back stairway to an old section of the building. The floorboards cracked under his feet like kindling. It seemed the annex was not used much except for storage. Perfect domain for the colorful costume mistress to hold court in its dingy corridors. Philippe Lambert had told him the woman’s eccentricities were tolerated because she was one of the best in the business.

  He knocked on the door. From inside he could hear music. Something sultry and thrumming. He knew enough to tell that the lyrics were in Portuguese. He knocked again. Harder. The singer sang on. He reached and twisted the doorknob.

  The room was a carnival sideshow. Christmas lights were strung across the ceiling and along the seams of the walls. An assortment of old dolls crowded the seat of a battered wicker chair. The mumm
ified remains of a small monkey swung from a tasseled cord; he thought of Sunset Boulevard and Gloria Swanson. The monkey shivered at the end of the rope, and the Portuguese chanteuse sang on.

  “Like Latin music?” The voice was deep.

  He turned. She was at least six feet tall and too old to have blond pageboy hair. This time Veronica Lake came to mind. The hair, not the face. This face was hard and almost ugly. One hand was on a hip; the other rested on a chaise. It was an orchestrated pose.

  “I don’t know much about it.” He drew out his detective’s shield.

  “I could teach you.” She smiled, showing off remarkably pretty teeth, taking his badge into a large hand with bloodred nails. She dropped her eyes and examined his identification. The false eyelashes were impossibly long. She glanced up. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “I’m investigating the death of Luis Carrera.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Sad thing about our little Cuban.”

  “I’ve been told that you and Mr. Carrera had difficulties.”

  She laughed. Too loud. “That’s a nice way to put it. He hated me. Though, I rather liked Luis. Despite his age, he still had the tightest ass in the company.”

  She moved for the first time and he noticed she walked with a limp. She bent, tossing several pillows off the chaise. “Here, take a load off your feet,” she said, heading for the straight-back chair in front of a vanity table, settling in her length. “Got that thing for looks. If I get in, I can’t get out.”

  He obliged her, sitting on the edge of the lounger. “What was the nature of the problem between you and Mr. Carrera?”

  “Mr. Carrera?” She laughed, checking herself in the mirror. She turned back around. “Fidel had a fit when the Pope visited Cuba. He hates the Church. Doesn’t like competition from God. Or his saints.” She winked. “Ever hear of Santeria? It’s a mix of voodoo and Catholic.”

  “I’ve read something about it.” He played along.

  “I’ll bet you do a lot of reading, Detective Talbot. You look like the studious type.”

  This time he smiled.

  “A lot of Cubans practice Santeria. But the way I see it, if it worked, they’d have gotten rid of Castro’s ass.”

  “Did Luis practice Santeria?”

  “Fuck no. Luis didn’t believe in anything but ballet. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun with him.” She took up one of the bottles from the dressing table.

  “Luis had a boy toy. His protégé.” She arched her penciled brows. “After the back trouble, Luis took Philippe Lambert under his wing.” She winked again. “And bingo, Philippe gets to solo one night last season. I don’t even think it was a full ballet. I can’t remember anymore. But the upshot was that Philippe had a less than stellar performance, and Luis had to blame somebody. He picked moi. Claimed I screwed up Philippe’s costume.”

  “I’ve heard you like to make certain creative alterations.”

  “I’m a frustrated costume designer. But blaming me for Philippe’s crappy debut was a crock. The kid was just plain scared. And it wasn’t like his career was ruined.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was halfway pissed and decided to play a little joke on Luis. I put a dead chicken in his dressing room. I didn’t know he’d go ballistic.” She looked down at her hand still holding the perfume bottle, twisted a ring on an index finger. “I didn’t know he was going to turn up dead.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  She shook her head and lifted her long skirt. There was no attempt at realism. The knee joint and calf were no more than metal braces, nuts, and bolts, adjoined to a laced-up orthopedic shoe. The whole device was attached to the stump of a thigh by leather straps. “I don’t do much dancing myself.” The laughter was false.

  He waited a moment and forced his eyes away from the thickly muscled good leg. He noticed it was shaved clean under the sheer stocking. “Where were you the night Luis was murdered?”

  She turned to a CD player in the corner. The music had stopped. “An alibi?” She met his eyes. “After the performance I went out with a couple of friends. Drank some red wine, smoked a little dope. I didn’t get home till almost four in the morning. I can give you names.”

  He nodded.

  “The truth is, Detective Talbot, the only thing I ever wanted to do to Luis Carrera was fuck him. But you can see I have another problem.” She raised the knit skirt higher so that he could see the outline of a penis, a spongy sac of testicles beneath sheer panties. “Since the accident the dick doesn’t work much better than the leg.”

  The damp October wind sneaked in every time the doors of St. Sebastian’s parish hall were opened, sending shivers up and down everyone’s spine, teasing the Japanese lanterns into a ghostly dance. An unplanned, though not an entirely unwelcome, effect at a Halloween party.

  Trick-or-treating wasn’t what it used to be, and most of the parishioners had jumped at Father Graff’s suggestion that the parish host an old-fashioned party to keep the kids off the streets. It was the priest’s favorite holiday, he had to admit, after Christmas, of course. In a frenzy of activity, he had resurrected some vintage decorations from an old storeroom—papier-mâché jack-o’-lanterns, die-cut witches on brooms, grinning black cats with honeycomb legs, and yards of crepe paper streamers—conceding to the giddy ladies who’d helped him that everything was a bit faded and ruined. But didn’t it all contribute to the general atmosphere of spookiness?

  A couple of galvanized tubs of water held crisp red apples ready for bobbing, and a huge, jaunty scarecrow admonished all who entered:

  Quickly don your mummer’s suit

  When the horned owl begins to hoot.

  Steal softly out and don’t be late

  For Hallowe’en seals your fate.

  Father Kellog lifted his smiling devil’s mask to the top of his head. The mask, his singular concession to wearing a costume, somehow didn’t seem incompatible with his long black cassock. He glanced around the hall. There were more parishioners here than he’d seen at Mass in months. He checked his watch.

  “Did you expect him to be on time?” Agnes Tuminello had come up beside him and set down a tray of sandwiches. She noted the dripping candles and decided the plastic tablecloth would have to be sacrificed after tonight.

  “Yes, I did expect him to be on time.” He fought to keep an edge of anger out of his voice. “This Halloween party was his idea.”

  “I’m sure he’s at His Eminence’s kissing his ring.”

  His instincts told him Graff was more than likely kissing something else of the Cardinal’s. “He better show. I’m too old for this sort of thing.”

  The housekeeper rolled her kohl-lined eyes. Mrs. Tuminello had grudgingly settled on a fortune teller’s disguise, but was now pulling off one of her gold-coin earrings. The costume was for the children, not for Graff, she reminded herself again. “Have you eaten?”

  “Not hungry,” he said, distracted by a small scene playing itself out in one of the ancient hall’s dark corners. The usually reserved Dominick Mancuso appeared to be arguing with his wife. His arm rose and fell in a kind of restrained anger, his head shaking in mute protest. It was a strangely cinematic moment.

  Eight-year-old Lucia Mancuso threw back her head provocatively and laughed. The sound of a tiny crystal bell. She struck another pose and the camera clicked. Magic child. He breathed the words to himself. Magic child… The flash exploded, bleaching the tableau for an instant of all color.

  Outside the lens she fell in and out of focus, and Tony Paladino felt faintly light-headed, a fire growing in his belly as if he’d taken a shot of whiskey. He grasped the edge of a folding chair, fighting the electric buzz in his ears. There was an astringent taste at the back of his throat.

  Lucia was moving again, coquettishly twisting her body in her bright red-and-black ladybug costume. Her homemade antennae waved like small arms from atop her dark head.

  “Like this, Uncle Tony?�


  “What?”

  She put her hands on her hips and scowled. “You weren’t paying any attention.”

  “Yes, I was, Lucia. Do just what you were doing.”

  She gave him an exasperated look, then struck her pose.

  “Good girl.” Click.

  “You know, Uncle Tony, Daddy says I’m not supposed to be alone with you. Or let you touch me.”

  He lowered the camera. “Your father never liked me, Lucia. He never wanted me to marry your aunt Barbara. I wasn’t good enough for his baby sister.”

  “But I like you, Uncle Tony.”

  He smiled. “And I like you, Lucia.”

  He began raising his camera again, but didn’t complete the motion. An iron hand grasped his shoulder, pulling him away from Lucia, out of the church hall, down the steps, onto the street.

  In the haze of moonlight, Dominick Mancuso looked ugly. Bigger than he was. Less human. In fact, there was a rawness about everything. When Tony reached to unlock his brother-in-law’s grip, he half expected to encounter a large hairy paw. He felt flesh.

  “You”—the hand that had been on his shoulder now pointed a finger at him—“do not touch my Lucia.”

  “For God’s sake, I was taking her picture.”

  “I don’t want you near her or Celia. Capisce, Antonio?”

  “I capisce.” He shook his head, walked a few paces away so that he stood directly under one of the streetlamps. “Barbara is crazy. And if you and Sophia believe that shit she told you, you’re crazy too.”

  “Just stay away from my girls.”

  “I’m still married to your sister.”

  “That I don’t understand.”

  He laughed. “She can’t get enough of my cock.”

 

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