“See?” Abby said, smirking. “You should have listened to me. If we ever get inside the theater and get to talk to anybody in the show, they’re gonna wonder why the hell we’re dressed like this. Nobody wears capris and halter tops on Broadway! They’ll probably think we’re streetwalkers from 42nd Street, or lowly extras from the Bus Stop cast.”
Bingo.
“Hey, that’s a great idea!” I yelped. “I’ve been wondering what kind of cover we could use—what we could say to make our sudden appearance backstage, plus our nosy fixation on Gray, seem logical and reasonable. And this is it, Ab! It’s like somebody wrote the script just for us. It’s so perfect I’m beginning to believe it myself.”
“Have you flipped your wig, babe?” Abby gaped at me as if I’d just turned into a unicorn. “You think we should pretend to be streetwalkers? Ha! That’s a total crack-up! I could probably carry it off, but you—you look more like a peach-picker than a prostitute.”
“No, you’ve got the wrong idea!” I took her by the arm and pulled her off to the right of the crowded sidewalk, under the overhang of a souvenir shop entryway where we could talk. The Morosco Theatre was just two blocks up and I wanted to get our stories straight before we got there.
“We’re going to be Bus Stop extras!” I crowed, flushed with excitement. “It’s the best of all possible disguises. Thank God you thought of it! Bus Stop is playing at the Music Box Theatre, you know, and that’s right across the street from the Morosco. Did you ever hear anything so ideal in your life? We can say we’re in intermission or between scenes or something, and that we just hopped across the street to see our good friend Gray and congratulate him on his fabulous performance last night.”
Abby frowned, then arched one of her eyebrows to a peak. “I don’t know, Paige. Sounds pretty sticky to me. How do we know the people in the Cat cast don’t know all the people in the Bus cast? And what if they’ve seen each other’s shows? Then the Cat people would know that the outfits we’re wearing aren’t real Bus costumes.”
“So what? The styles are pretty similar, so if anybody wonders about the costumes, we can say we just got new ones. And if anybody questions our place in the cast, we can say we just got hired to replace a couple of extras who just got fired.”
“But if we’re supposed to be Gray’s good friends, how can we go around asking a bunch of questions about him? Won’t that seem just a dinky bit suspicious?”
“Okay, okay!” I said, hooking my arm through Abby’s, tugging her back out to the sidewalk, and urging her onward toward 45th Street. “You’ve got a point,” I admitted, “but it’s really easy to fix. We don’t have to be Gray’s good friends. We can be more like fans, or recent acquaintances from his acting class. That way our curiosity will seem totally natural.” I quickened our pace, but kept on talking. “Don’t you see what a slick strategy this is? It’s so tight it’s right. I’m telling you, Ab, this plan is foolproof!”
“That depends on who the fool is,” she said, still skeptical. “And in this case, it could be you.”
WHEN WE ARRIVED, STILL ARM-IN-ARM, at 45th Street, I tried to pilot Abby around the corner toward the Morosco. But she suddenly started straining in the opposite direction. “Come across the street for a second,” she insisted, charging like a bull for the Loew’s State movie theater and dragging me along with her.
“Stop!” I hollered. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you before—I’m not going to the movies!”
“Don’t be a goose, Paige. This isn’t about that!” she said, steadily pulling me toward the brightly lit marquee. The Seven Year Itch was playing. Even if I hadn’t been able to read the title on the signboard, I would have known what movie it was from the enormous banner hanging above. The four-story-high image of Marilyn Monroe—standing legs apart on the subway grate while a blast of air blows her skirt up past her panties—was a pretty good clue.
Abby drew me into the shade under the movie marquee and then backed me up against the exterior wall of the theater, next to a large glass-enclosed poster display case. Inside the case was another big image of Marilyn. She was wearing a low-cut dress and leaning over in such a way as to expose yet another amazing aspect of her celebrated anatomy.
“Stand still,” Abby ordered, opening her purse and taking out a tube of lipstick. “If you’re going to pass for a Bus Stop extra, you have to wear a hell of a lot more makeup than you’ve got on. You need some greasepaint, baby!” She mashed her fingers against my face and began smearing a thick coat of red lipstick on my stretched-out lips.
“Ith thith reewy nethethary?” I whined—well, tried to, anyway. (I’m not a big fan of heavy cosmetics. And I didn’t like the way people were gawking at us.)
“Of course it’s necessary,” Abby insisted. “Now, shut up! Stop moving your lips.” She finished applying the lipstick and then started to work on my eyes, slathering the lids with bright blue shadow and blackening the lashes with gobs of mascara. After that came the eyebrow pencil and the face powder and the rouge. And when she was through with me, she added a few finishing touches to her own makeup.
“There!” she said, dropping the last weapon in her arsenal of cosmetics back into her purse and snapping the clasp closed. “All done. Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Ugh,” I said, checking my reflection in the glass of the poster display case. “I look like a clown.”
“Better to look like a clown than to be one,” Abby huffed. “Trust me. If you tried to masquerade as a showgirl with that schoolgirl face of yours, they’d kick you in the seat of the pants and then shoot you out of a cannon.”
Chapter 9
NOT ONLY WERE OUR CLOTHES, MAKEUP, and cover story perfect, but our timing couldn’t have been better. As we rounded the corner and headed across the street for the Morosco, the doors to the theater flew open and the audience began pouring out onto the sidewalk. The matinee was over! We wouldn’t have to search for a back entrance to sneak into, or beg some doubtful stage door custodian to let us inside. All we had to do was push our way through the exiting crowd, slip past the ushers into the slowly emptying theater, and then make our way to the side door we had used the night before—the door that led to the stairs leading up to the dressing rooms.
“We have to stick very close together,” I whispered to Abby as we huddled in the dark, deserted passage just inside the door. “And you’d better let me do all the talking. That way, we won’t tell any conflicting stories or ask any incongruous questions.” Or attract too much attention, I said to myself—but not to Abby. (I didn’t want to offend my wildly attractive, attention-grabbing friend . . . or give her any wild ideas.)
“Okay, chief!” Abby said, surprising me with her quick and easy compliance. Was she really deferring to me or just humoring me? There was only one way to find out.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
The scene in the hall outside the dressing rooms was more subdued than it had been the night before. There was a light flurry of activity, but nothing at all like the hullabaloo inspired by Gray’s knockout debut. Some of the children from the play were chasing each other down the hallway, and a few well-dressed people were milling around in the vicinity, smoking and chatting, probably waiting for their friends or family in the cast to change their clothes and join them for an early supper before the next show. But that was the extent of it. There were no gossip columnists and photographers. No shouts and cheers and popping flashbulbs. No champagne, either.
I studied the arena before me (i.e., cased the joint), trying to decide which target to hit first. I knew I didn’t want to talk to any of the show’s main stars. Their status and success would, I figured, make them the candidates least likely to know much about the personal life of a mere understudy. I believed I’d have better luck talking to the more “humble” members of the cast and crew—other understudies, or stagehands, or technical assistants—people who, until last night, were on a parallel professional level with Gray and
, therefore, more inclined to know him well.
As Abby and I ambled down the hall, peering through every open door, looking for promising people to question, I saw that several people were looking back at us. They obviously noticed our odd clothes and garish makeup, but seemed to take our appearance for granted. Nobody asked who we were or challenged our right to be there. I felt stronger and safer—and more like a Bus Stop extra—with every step.
Bypassing all the star dressing rooms, even the communal ones, I led Abby down toward the end of the corridor, to a dim, quiet area that seemed to be abandoned. “I’m looking for the other understudies,” I explained to her, speaking in a very low voice even though we were alone in that part of the hall.
“Why?!” she squawked, totally unmindful of her own noise level. “I want to meet the stars! I caught a glimpse of Ben Gazzara when we passed his dressing room just now, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Oooh, baby, talk about hot! We have to go back and interrogate him. Right this minute, you dig? Before he puts his shirt on.” She turned and bolted in the opposite direction.
“Whoa!” I cried, lunging after her, grabbing hold of her ponytail and reining her back in.
“Ow!” she cried. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You promised to stick close to me, remember?” I snapped. “And we’re not going anywhere near Gazzara’s dressing room! There’s no reason to question him; we have to focus on what’s important. And in case you’ve forgotten what that is,” I said, forcing the words out between clenched teeth, “let me refresh your memory. We’re here to look for a goddamn murderer, not to gawk at an actor’s bare chest. You dig?” (I pronounced those last two words with enough acidic sarcasm to strip the enamel off my firmly clamped molars.)
Abby pouted and stuck out her chin. “Well, that’s not all I wanted to see!” she said, stamping her foot on the bare wood floor. “I was thinking about the murderer, too, you know! So I wanted to see what Gazzara is really like. That could be really important! I mean, is he the jealous type? Does he go crazy when his superiority is threatened? Could Gray’s fantastic performance last night have made him jealous and crazy enough to kill?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me with a smirk that said, So there!
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Only Abby would try to turn a burning sexual impulse into a righteous quest for the truth. “That’s utter nonsense,” I said, “and you know it. Gazzara did not kill Gray. He was in the hospital last night, getting pumped full of fluids and massaged with shaved ice, overcoming his heatstroke and getting in shape for today’s performance. Get real, Abby! Pull yourself together and stop acting like a—”
I was about to say “slut” when the door to my right shot open and a striking young blonde sprang out into the hall. She was about five foot six in her bare feet (I mean that literally, since she didn’t have on any stockings or shoes), and her platinum locks and shapely curves were comparable to those of Marilyn Monroe, whose bombshell image she was obviously trying to ape. Besides her bra and panties (which I assumed were comfortably settled in their proper places), she was wearing nothing but an ivory satin slip.
“Hey, pipe down, willya?” she croaked, giving Abby and me the evil eye. “I’m trying to get some sleep in here!”
“Sorry,” I hurriedly replied, before Abby could get a word in. “We didn’t mean to wake you. We were just looking for a friend from our acting class. Gray Gordon. He’s an understudy in this show. Do you know him?” I watched her face for a revealing reaction.
Her sleepy scowl turned into a creepy smile. “Sure, I know him,” she said. “Gray and I are just like this.” She held up two closely joined fingers. “We’re Lunt and Fontaine. Romeo and Juliet. Ozzie and Harriet. Get the idea?”
She was either claiming to be Gray’s girlfriend, or telling us that she was his closest castmate—i.e., the play’s female lead understudy. Either way, I wanted to know more.
“You must be the stand-in for Maggie the Cat,” I ventured, figuring her scantily clad presence backstage made that answer the right one. (I’m so clever sometimes, it kills me.)
“Well, whaddaya know,” she said, sneering, looking me over from head to toe. “It has a brain.”
Uh oh. I had no idea why the young actress was being so rude to me, but I knew I had to pacify her immediately. Otherwise, Abby would leap to my defense and start telling her off—or, gasp, beating her up!—and that would bring a sure end to the interview. And I couldn’t afford to let that to happen. I had to get on the boorish blonde’s good side. Fast.
“So you’re Rhonda Blake!” I blurted, grinning from ear to ear (and giving myself a silent cheer for remembering her name from the Playbill). “Gray has told us so much about you! He says you’re such a wonderful actress you’re going to be famous someday.” I batted my lashes, shuffled my feet, and let out a fawning gasp of delight. “I’m so thrilled to meet you! May I please have your autograph?”
Mission accomplished.
“Why, of course you can!” she said, brown eyes beaming with vanity and pride. Her mood had turned on a dime. “Got anything to write with?”
I opened my purse and shuffled through the contents, deliberately ignoring the pad and pencil I carry with me always. “Oh, no!” I wailed, doing a swell imitation of Anna Karenina right before she throws herself in front of a train. “I must have left my pen at home!”
“Oh, that’s okay, sweetie,” Rhonda cooed. “We have one in the lounge. Some paper, too.” She turned and wiggled her happy, ivory satin-sheathed hips back through the door she’d just exited, motioning for us to follow.
THE “LOUNGE,” AS RHONDA HAD CALLED it, was nothing but a windowless room furnished with one dressing table, a few chairs, and three folding cots. One of the cots was open and sloppily covered with a white sheet; the other two were closed and rolled against one wall. There were several floor lamps in the room, but only one was turned on, giving off a dim yellow light that made everything look murky. Clothes, underwear, towels, magazines, full ashtrays, and dirty coffee cups were scattered all over the place. The room was cool, praise the Lord (or, rather, the saint who invented air-conditioning), yet the smell of sweat was strong.
Rhonda walked over to the dressing table and started rummaging through the stuff that littered its surface. “Cripes! There was a pen here just this morning,” she said, sweeping makeup sponges, eyebrow pencils, combs, brushes, lipsticks, and dirty Q-Tips from one place to another. “Where the hell did it disappear to? I used it to write down a slew of phone messages for Gray, and I . . . Oh, here it is!” she squeaked, “hiding behind the cold cream!”
She snatched up the pen, then bent over and grabbed a tablet of paper off the floor. “What’s your name, honey?” she asked, walking toward the middle of the room where I was standing, flipping over several pages of scribbles (Gray’s phone messages? I wondered) to get to a clean sheet. “You want this made out to you, right?”
“Uh . . . yes . . . that would be nice, please.” I was so focused on watching the action unfold I almost forgot what I was supposed to be there for. “You can make it out to Phoebe Starr,” I said, dredging up an old alias I’d used several times before. (My ridiculous real name was hardly well-known, but it was entirely too memorable to mention. And I was in no mood to be laughed at.) “That’s Starr,” I repeated, “with two r’s.”
“Got it,” Rhonda said, sticking the tip of her tongue between (and quite a bit beyond) her lips as she wrote. Then she signed her name with a flourish, ripped the whole sheet off the pad, and handed it to me. “And what about you, sister?” she said to Abby. “You want one, too?”
I froze. What would Abby do now? Would she be a good girl and accept Rhonda’s offer of an autograph, or would her true personality break loose and blow our carefully planned cover to smithereens?
“Yes, please,” Abby said, fluttering her lashes and panting like an overheated sheepdog. “I’d simply love to have your signature. Just your name will do. It would make my pi
tiful, lonely, and hopeless life complete.”
I cringed. Would Rhonda pick up on the contempt in Abby’s voice? Would Abby’s belligerent, legs-apart, arms-folded posture lead Rhonda to realize that we were both just blowing air up her skirt?
Nope. Looking as satisfied as a cat with a saucer of cream, Rhonda blithely signed her name to the paper, tore the sheet off the tablet, and handed it over it to Abby. “It’s all yours, sis,” she said, tossing the pen and the pad down on the mattress of the open cot. “Better keep it in a safe place. It’ll be worth big money someday.”
“Oh, I know right where I’m going to put it,” Abby said, curling her lips in a nasty smile. She didn’t actually say the words “trash can,” but you could tell that was what she was thinking.
“Thank you so much, Rhonda!” I jumped in, hoping she wouldn’t notice Abby’s scornful expression. (She didn’t. Instead of looking at Abby, she was looking at herself in the mirror.) “We really do appreciate this! And we can’t wait to tell Gray we met you. Is he here now? Can you tell us where to find him? We want to congratulate him on his fab performance last night.”
Murder on a Hot Tin Roof Page 8