Oh, brother, I groaned to myself. Doesn’t her libido ever take a nap?
“Other ways?” I said, widening my eyes in imitation innocence. “What other ways do you mean?” Though I knew all-too-well what Abby was hinting at, I wanted to make her say it. That way, she couldn’t get mad and accuse me of making snide remarks about her sex life.
“Oh, shut up, Paige!” she snapped. “You know exactly what I mean. And your cute little Shirley Temple act is getting on my nerves.”
Curses, foiled again.
“I slept with Gray once or twice,” she went on, “and that’s all there was to it. He was a good lay and a great model. We didn’t stay lovers for long, but we did remain friends. He kept on modeling for me, too.”
“So, Gray wasn’t a homosexual?”
“No way, Doris Day!”
“But he worked here at Stewart’s,” I said, wondering about the coincidence. “And he lived on Christopher Street, too.”
“So what? Not every man who works and lives here is gay. Just some of them are. And you can take it from me, babe, Gray didn’t belong to the club.”
“Then why was your affair with him so brief?” I asked. “Did you dump him for somebody else?” (This wasn’t an impertinent question, I swear. It was fair and perfectly reasonable. Abby was so beautiful and voluptuous and smart, no man ever willingly broke up with her. Whenever there was dumping to be done, she had to be the one to do it.)
“Nobody dumped anybody,” Abby insisted. “Gray simply decided to commit himself to just one of his flames and stop shtupping all the others. I was one of the others.”
“How many of those were there?”
“How the hell should I know? I didn’t ask him for an itemized list!” She was getting touchy again. She ripped her roll apart, swiped a piece of it through the leftover gravy in her otherwise empty plate, then poked the gloppy morsel in her mouth.
I took one taste of my canned fruit and Jell-O mold, then shoved the warm, half-melted mess aside. “Do you know who Gray’s chosen mate was?” I asked. “The one he finally committed himself to, I mean?”
“No,” she said, eyeing the gooey remains of my gelatin salad. “I never met her, and he never told me her real name. I only saw Gray when he was posing for me, you dig, and he didn’t talk about his girlfriend much at all. And the few times that he did bring her up, he just called her Cupcake.” Abby stretched her arm out over the table and picked up the plate of oozing Jell-O. “Are you finished with this?” she asked.
“Unconditionally,” I said. “Have a party.”
While Abby was polishing off whatever edibles were left on the table, I sat back in my chair and smoked a cigarette, silently watching the ghost-white fumes vanish in the gyrating air. I probably looked quite serene and relaxed, but my mind was spinning faster than the ceiling fans above. I smelled something fishy, and I knew it wasn’t just the food.
Chapter 7
“WANT TO GO TO THE MOVIES?” ABBY asked as we stood up from the table and headed for the cafeteria exit. “
Dial M for Murder is still playing at the Waverly. I wouldn’t mind seeing that again.”
I wouldn’t have objected to seeing the clever Hitchcock mystery again, either, but at the moment my thoughts were focused on a different murder. “Two killings in one day?” I said. “That’s two too many for me.”
“I guess you’re right,” Abby said, growing sadder by the second. “I just thought it would take our minds off-”
“Hold on a minute,” I broke in, coming to an abrupt standstill three feet inside door. “I want to talk to the busboys before we leave.” I looked around and saw them standing together near the entrance to the kitchen. “Wait here for me, okay?”
“No! Why should I? What do you want to talk to them about, anyway? If they have anything interesting to say, I want to hear it, too. I’m coming with you!”
“Please don’t, Abby. Please stay here. I just want to ask them a couple of questions about Gray, and I think I’ll get more answers if I talk to them alone. The two of us together might be too overwhelming.”
To my great surprise, she reconsidered and agreed. “Oh, all right!” she huffed, flipping her ponytail off her shoulder and letting it swing down her back. “But you’d better make it quick, Dick. I haven’t got all day.” She made a big production out of looking at her watch and tapping her foot. (In case you haven’t noticed, Abby has the patience of a gnat.)
I hurried over to where the two busboys were standing and gave them both a cursory once-over. One was young, tall, thin, and had shoe-polish black hair. The other was young, tall, thin, and had peroxide blond hair. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their identical white uniforms, they looked like a matched pair of salt and pepper shakers.
“Hello, boys!” I said, baring my teeth in a huge Dinah Shore smile. “Enjoying the heat wave?”
“Not much, ma’am,” the blond one said, in a sincere, awshucks kind of way. “Guess we better get used to it, though. Radio says it’s gonna last another week.”
“I may not live that long,” I said.
Blondie smiled; Blackie scowled.
Okay, that was enough small talk. “Hey, do either of you guys know Gray Gordon?” I blurted. “He’s a busboy here, too. I was hoping to see him here today, but I guess this isn’t his shift. Do you know if he’ll be working tonight?”
“No he won’t, ma’am,” Blondie said. “Not tonight or any other day or night.”
The hair on the back of my neck bristled. Did Blondie know that Gray was dead? “Gee, why not?” I asked, flapping my lashes in imitation innocence. “Is he on vacation or something? Gosh, I hope he’s not sick!”
Blondie smiled again and shook his head. “No, ma’am. He’s not sick. He just quit this job and took a better one. He’s in a play on Broadway now.”
“What?!” I exclaimed, agape, agog, and aghast. “I don’t believe it! I knew he wanted to be an actor, but I never dreamed… Broadway, you say? Wow! When did this happen?”
“About four months ago,” Blondie answered. “Sometime in March. Gray was supposed to work the lunch shift with me one day, but he marched in and quit instead. Right on the spot. Said he got a job as an understudy in a play on Broadway, and if the play was a hit, he wasn’t ever coming back. I haven’t laid eyes on him since.”
“I guess the play was a hit,” I mused.
“Sure was,” Blondie said. “
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. You must’ve heard of it. Everybody’s talking about it… or at least whispering about it.”
“Whispering?” I coaxed. “Why are they whispering?”
Blondie gave me another smile, but this one was kind of crooked. “I haven’t seen the play myself, but a lot of the customers here have, and they’re all excited and hopped-up about it. They say it has something to do with a man being in love with another man, and-”
“Shut your trap!” Blackie cut in, jabbing Blondie in the ribs with his elbow. “You shouldn’t be telling her what Stew-art’s customers do and say. It’s against the rules. And it’s none of her business.”
Blondie stared at Blackie for a couple of seconds, then turned his eyes back to me. “He’s not very polite, ma’am, but he’s right. I’ve got a big mouth sometimes. But you don’t need me to tell you about Gray Gordon or the play he’s in. You can read all about it in today’s Times. They say the star of the show got sick last night, and Gray had to step in and play the lead, and he was so good he’s now the toast of the town. They put his picture in the paper and everything.”
“Really?” I said. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll pick up a paper as soon as I leave. But before I go, may I ask if either one of you knows where Gray lives? I’m an old friend of his from Brooklyn, and I haven’t seen him in quite some time, and I sure would love to pay him a surprise visit and congratulate him on his success.” I wasn’t fishing for an address, you realize (the location of Gray’s apartment was permanently-and painfully-fixed in my brain). I was just trying to f
ind out if either Blondie or Blackie was privy to that information.
“Yeah, I know where he lives,” Blondie replied. “His pad is right down the-”
Blackie jabbed him in the ribs again.
There was no point in continuing my little charade. Blackie was determined to keep Blondie from revealing any significant information, and Abby was so restless she was having an all-out nervous breakdown (a detail I discovered when I glanced over in her direction and saw that her face was turning blue). I took a deep breath, thanked the busboys for their time, and made a beeline for the door.
ABBY STARTED COMPLAINING THE VERY second we hit the sidewalk. “You sure took your own sweet time!” she croaked. “How could you keep me standing there like that? I almost fainted dead away from the heat.”
“I’m sure you never fainted in your life,” I replied. “You aren’t the swooning type.”
She gave me a dirty look. “There’s always the first time, you know!”
“Yeah, but this wasn’t it.” I wasn’t in the mood for Abby’s fiery histrionics; I had more burning issues on my mind.
“So, what do you want to do now?” she asked, abandoning her temper fit as soon as she realized it wasn’t having the desired effect. “I know! Let’s walk over to Washington Square Park. It’ll be a lot cooler there. We can sit in the shade under the trees, eat ice cream, and dig the folksingers at the fountain.”
Folksingers, my foot. What she really wanted to do was look for Jimmy Birmingham. I knew from Abby’s and my talk earlier that morning that she was missing Jimmy (or rather, missing sex with Jimmy) like crazy, and I also knew there was a very good chance he’d be at the park that afternoon, reciting one or two of his preposterously silly poems at the fountain. So, it didn’t take me more than a split second to deduce why Abby wanted to go there… and why I didn’t.
“You can go to the park if you want to,” I said, “but I’ve got other plans.”
“Huh? What plans?”
“I’m going to
Times Square, not Washington Square.”
“What the hell for? Don’t tell me you’re still craving a Nedick’s hot dog.”
I snorted and shook my head. “No, I’m going back to the Morosco Theatre. I want to see if I can talk to some of Gray’s fellow cast members and friends.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she cried, looking as if she might fly into another fury. “That’s the craziest idea I ever heard in my life! The lead actor must’ve recovered from his heatstroke by now, so he and the rest of the cast are kind of busy on stage at the moment, you dig? The matinee performance is in full swing! And they’ll never let you inside without a ticket. And just look at what you’re wearing! You’re dressed for a goddamn hayride, not a Broadway show!” (That’s Abby for you. Always concerned about the clothes. She’s a regular Coco Chanel-or Edith Head, take your pick.)
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” I sputtered, about to fly into a fury of my own. “I’m not going to sit in the theater and watch the damn show! I’m going to look for a back door and try to sneak backstage. I don’t have to be all dolled up for that.”
Abby gave me the kind of look Dan would’ve given me if he’d gotten wind of what I was up to. “
Now I get the picture,” she said, one eyebrow arched to the limit, dark eyes boring into mine. “You’re angling for another big fat news flash-another sensational exclusive inside story. You think you’re gonna ace-out the whole Homicide force and find Gray’s killer all by yourself. Oy vey iz mir! You’re cruisin’ for another bruisin’, Paige, and if I know you, you’re gonna get it. You won’t stop snooping until you’re dead yourself.”
“Thanks, Ab. Your encouragement and support mean a lot to me.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” she screeched. “Knit you a sweater? Send you off to battle with a fresh-baked batch of cookies in your duffle bag? Pray night and day for your immortal soul, and then-when the unimaginable but inevitable finale occurs-praise God that you didn’t die in vain?” Gasping for air, Abby wiped the perspiration off her forehead with her hand and then wiped her hand on her hip. “Sorry, Laurie,” she said, voice cracking with emotion, “but that’s not the way this cookie crumbles.”
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the shade under the awning of the candy store next door to Stewart’s. “Jeez, Ab, you’d better calm down or you’ll catch a case of heatstroke yourself. You’re getting all worked up over nothing.”
“Nothing?!” she shrieked, stamping her foot on the cement. “A good friend of mine was just murdered! You call that nothing? And now my best friend in the whole world is about to run off half-cocked looking for the killer, putting herself in so much danger she’ll probably get slashed to ribbons, too. If that’s nothing, then I hope to high heaven I never find out what something is!”
“I’m sorry, Ab. You’re upset about what happened to Gray and I understand that. You wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t wigged out about it. But there’s no reason on earth for you to be so wigged out about me. I won’t be putting myself in any danger today at all. I swear! I just want to sniff around a little bit, get the lay of the land. And it’s important that I do this right away, before the news about the murder gets out. It’s a cinch that Flannagan hasn’t notified the show’s cast and crew yet, so they won’t be suspicious or try to hide anything from me. They don’t even know that Gray is dead.”
“The murderer knows,” she said.
“Yes, but he doesn’t know that
I know. And who says he’ll be there anyway? The killer may have nothing whatsoever to do with the theater. Maybe he’s a member of Gray’s family, or one of his old friends or enemies from Brooklyn-in which case I won’t be running into him today. And besides, the chances that I’ll actually be able to get inside the theater and talk to anybody who was closely connected with Gray are practically nil. See? What I said before is true, Ab. You really are getting worked up over nothing.”
“But I worry about you, you know!” she whined. (Which prompts me to point out something else I’ve learned about Abby during our tight three-year friendship: As bold and brazen a sexpot as she most assuredly is, she is also, at heart, a ranting, raving-i.e., loving-Jewish mother. But please don’t tell her I said so!)
“Gosh and golly, Polly-what’s gotten into you?” I said, chuckling and nudging her with my elbow, trying to cheer her up and make light of the situation. “You used to egg me on and call me a sissy. You said if I had any chutzpah, I’d live up to my absurd name and go after the big, sensational stories. You told me if I was going to write for a magazine called Daring Detective, I should have the balls to become one myself. Remember?”
“Yeah, well, that was before,” she muttered.
“Before what?”
“Before you were nearly raped and strangled on the stairs at your office… before you were almost thrown to your death over a mezzanine railing… before I saw you shot and bleeding on your kitchen floor.”
“Oh,” I said, staring down at the sidewalk, unable to dispute those disturbing particulars.
A heavyset woman in a flowered sundress came out of the candy shop, peeling the wrapper off a large Hershey Bar. She had a copy of
Confidential magazine tucked under arm. Abby and I moved aside to let her pass by, then waited for her to walk a few yards down the block before continuing our conversation.
“Look, Ab, I know some awful things have happened in the past,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean something awful’s going to happen today. If anything, today will be the safest time of all to snoop around. That’s why I’m so anxious to get going. Maybe I can pick up a few clues to deliver to Flannagan tomorrow-something that will help him in his investigation, and also help me get over my embarrassing and incompetent behavior at the crime scene this morning. Most importantly, I want to do whatever I can to make sure the sick monster who killed Gray is caught as soon as possible.”
“Okay, you convinced me,” she said, changing her attitude i
n a snap. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Chapter 8
I REALLY DIDN’T WANT ABBY TAGGING along. I was afraid she would complicate my undercover (and hopefully inconspicuous) investigation with her passionate and unpredictable antics. But I didn’t bother to protest. I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I could see that invincible, uncompromising, stubborn-as-a-mule look in her eye. She was coming with me, and that was all there was to it.
“Hold your horses, Ab,” I said, with a plaintive sigh. “I want to get a couple of newspapers before we go.” I turned and stepped toward the open door to the candy store. “You want anything?”
“That’s a definite yes, Bess!” she whooped, following close on my heels as I entered the tiny shop. “I want a Tootsie Roll. A great big one!”
Abby headed straight for the candy counter while I checked out the news rack. I picked up the last copy of the
New York Times, and also a copy of the Journal American, thinking Dorothy Kilgallen had probably written something about Gray in her daily column, “The Voice of Broadway.” I would have grabbed the New York Daily News as well-just to take a look at Ed Sullivan’s “The Toast of the Town” column-but there weren’t any left.
Abby and I reconnected at the cash register and paid for our items. Her giant-sized Tootsie Roll was half-eaten already. I folded the newspapers, cradled them in the crook of my elbow, and led the way out of the store. Abby joined me on the sidewalk, then we strolled in total silence around the corner and up the block toward the Sheridan Square subway stop. It was too hot to walk fast, and Abby was too busy chewing to chat.
It was a bit cooler underground and the train came almost immediately. We got on, sat down, and I handed Abby the
Journal American, telling her to search for write-ups about Gray. I opened the Times and looked for the article Blondie had mentioned.
I found it in the middle of the second section, near the theater listings and movie ads. There, under the headline A STAR IS BORN, was a short article by Brooks Atkinson, and a small photo of Gray. It was an extreme close-up, and the rapturous, ecstatic smile on Gray’s face led me to believe that the picture had been taken just the night before, in the star dressing room, while the very much alive, but unsuspecting, understudy was reveling in the triumph of his stellar Broadway debut.
Murder on a Hot Tin Roof Page 6