Cold Day in Hell

by Richard Hawke

  I locked up the office and headed over to Grand Central, to the food circus downstairs, where I grabbed a couple of slices from Two Boots, after which I spent a few minutes holding up a wall in Vanderbilt Hall, taking in the dim cavernous room and eyeballing the people moving every which way across the marble floor. It doesn’t take much to entertain me. On the news just a few days earlier, I had learned that there was a stretch of now-unused train tracks well below the level where I was standing that had been used in the thirties and early forties to bring Franklin Roosevelt into the city from his home up in Hyde Park. And not just Roosevelt but his car and driver as well. The tracks led right to a specially built freight elevator so the car could be loaded in and brought up to street level; that way the president could make a discreet exit onto Park Avenue, all a part of keeping the public unaware of his inability to move freely without the aid of crutches or a solid elbow nearby. I thought of Charlie. Ten years earlier, a bullet half the size of a thumbnail had nullified his ability to ever walk again. End of story. No secret train tracks and fancy arrangements. Charlie was parked in his wheelchair out in Queens, restless and resigned.

  More snow was threatening as I headed back up Forty-second Street. The gunmetal sky had darkened considerably. I popped into the coffee shop at Coliseum Books and picked up what I still call a medium-size cup of coffee. I have no clue what they call it. The baristas were talking about the Robin Burrell murder. The one serving me-a tall skinny kid with buckshots of acne scars on his cheeks-cracked a joke about it. The kind of crap you hear from people these days, especially kids. His coworker took him on.

  “You better not be saying that. Someone come cut up your throat, how you gonna like it?”

  The kid handed me my change. He was still chuckling at his own joke. “That be all?”

  I felt the lecture rising in my throat, but I swallowed it. What was I going to do, grab this kid by the collar and slap him around like the original Mr. Heavy? For Christ’s sake, I was only here to buy a cup of joe.

  I took my mysterious-size coffee over to Bryant Park, and even though the temperature was hovering near the freezing mark, I fished a newspaper from a trash bin to clear the snow from one of the slatted park chairs and sat down at a metal table. I had the snow-glazed park to myself, no one else in the immediate vicinity being quite so idiotic as yours truly. I recognized that the kid joking behind the counter had affected my heart rate. I could feel the hinges of my jaw holding tight. I looked out over the empty park, trying to spot the snow angels I knew were out there somewhere.

  No luck. No angels.

  I hugged the cardboard cup with both hands and watched the mist of my breath mingling with the steam coming off the brew. They formed their own sifting cloud, and with the peculiar mood I was in, I went easily into the blur.

  8

  ROBIN BURRELL HAD FELT that she needed to justify to me her former involvement with the likes of Marshall Fox. She didn’t need to do anything of the kind, not from my side, anyway, but I guess she’d needed to do it for herself. It was on my second visit to her apartment that she told me the story. A little wine, a little cheese, a little cautionary tale.

  Robin met Marshall Fox the night that Kelly Cole threw the contents of her martini into his face and instructed him to get the hell out of her life. The incident took place on a warm summer evening on a large tiled patio overlooking the yachts of Long Island ’s South Fork. The party was being thrown by Alan Ross and his wife, Gloria, the end-of-summer bacchanalia that the couple threw every September at their sumptuous estate in East Hampton. The Rosses’ annual bash regularly featured among its guests the cream of the entertainment industry’s A-list. Actors. Actresses. Movie and television directors. Supermodels. Writers. Studio heads. The hot bodies. A collection of the shakers and movers and so-called beautiful people kibitzing under the Chinese lanterns, toasting one another in the cool marble salons and occasionally fornicating in the comfortably refurbished boathouse at the edge of the property. Gloria Ross’s talent agency, Argosy, represented nearly half of the party’s attendees, while most who were not on the Argosy client list yearned for inclusion. The affair was unofficially referred to as “the audition,” it being well known in the industry that key calls went out from the Argosy offices both in New York and Los Angeles in the days following the Rosses’ annual party. Other agencies braced for the inevitable raids on their client list. Simply knowing that one of their hot actors or actresses or directors had attended the infamous East Hampton affair was enough to rattle the bladder of the related agent. Gloria Ross’s industry nickname was “the Comanche,” for the ruthlessness of her raiding parties. It was a nickname that brought the head of Argosy no end of delight. She often referred to her new acquisitions as her scalps.

  Marshall Fox was an Argosy client, though Gloria Ross had hardly needed to steal him away from anyone. When Alan and Gloria Ross first came across the brash young wrangler and tour guide during a vacation in the Black Hills, the only organization with any claim on Marshall Fox was Moose River Guest Ranch, where Fox was employed. The story became showbiz legend. Captivated by the wit and easy sex appeal of their talkative guide, the Rosses had devised a plan midway through their weeklong trail ride and proposed it to the cowboy at week’s end. Beaming like a brand-new father, Alan Ross had clapped a hand on Fox’s shoulder. “I’ve been angling all my life to say something this corny. Kid, how’d you like to be a fucking star?”

  ROBIN HADN’T ATTENDED the Rosses’ party as a guest. She was part of the hired help. An acquaintance who ran a catering business had called her at the last minute in a panic: “How would you like to spend the weekend in the Hamptons?” Two of the caterer’s helpers had gone AWOL, and the woman was scrambling to fill their places.

  Robin had been forced to make a real effort not to gape. Celebrities seemed to pour out of the woodwork. Brad. Nicole. Justin. She thought she might weep at the sight of Meryl Streep-a personal favorite-whose simple elegance and wicked little laugh were beyond captivating. Robin trolled the party with a drinks tray, dispensing champagne and martinis. She spotted Marshall Fox soon after he arrived at the party. The popular talk-show host was accompanied by a striking blonde, Kelly Cole, the reporter from Channel 7 News. In her plunging silk blouse and capri pants, Kelly Cole looked anything but the earnest reporter clutching the microphone in front of City Hall. As for Fox, he was sporting a radiant tan fresh from a week in Maui and was-no surprise-the life of the party, charming all comers, passing his celebrated banter around for all to sample. Robin admitted that she had always considered the entertainer deadly handsome. “Disturbingly appealing,” as she would later say on the witness stand. The infectious and exceedingly mischievous smile. The slightly damaged nose. The alert blue eyes. Fox’s lean, muscular frame moved easily in bone-white slacks and a simple gray V-neck sweater. Under a vigorous cross-examination, Robin would confess to having difficulty taking her eyes off the entertainer as he moved about the party.

  At the time, Marshall Fox had been several months into his well-publicized estrangement from his wife, Rosemary, an estrangement that had already seen a number of high-octane if short-lived affairs with women of notorious beauty. The word on Fox was that he was a decidedly passionate and skilled lover. “Voracious,” came the grinning report from a particular Hollywood actress who was not known for suffering klutzes in her bed. Interviewed on one of the entertainment tabloid shows, the actress had looked directly into the camera and pronounced, “Let’s just say this is one hungry cowboy and leave it at that, okay?”

  Robin’s first direct encounter with Fox came midway through the party, when she found herself cornered on the large patio by a large drunken British film director who had snared the last drink from her tray then locked a grip on her free arm as he looked her up and down with red bleary eyes.

  “By fuck, if I couldn’t bend you over this rail right now and give that lovely USDA a proper nailing.”

  In the process of attempting to free herse
lf, Robin lost control of the empty tray, which clattered loudly to the patio floor. The director tightened his grip on her arm. As he moved closer, Robin was treated to a putrid exhaust of Scotch fumes.

  “Let’s have us a fuckin’ kiss. Come here now.”

  “Jeremy!”

  Robin whipped her head around. It was Marshall Fox. As Fox made his way across the patio, he tossed his drink glass into the shrubbery. My God, Robin thought. Cowboy saves the day.

  The Englishman gave Fox a sloppy smile. “Hallo, Marshall. Stinkin’ little bash, in’t it? I take it you’ve seen these lovely appetizers?”

  “Let her go, Jeremy,” Fox said evenly. His voice held a low, liquid menace.

  The director scoffed, “Fuck all, Marshall. Don’t be a prig.”

  Fox glanced at Robin, then addressed the director. “Jeremy…old chap. How about for just one moment you pretend you’re not an asshole. Hmm? I know it’s hard, old chap. None of the rest of us have ever been able to do it. But why don’t you give it a try?”

  Without warning, Fox’s left arm shot out, his open hand catching the Englishman square in the chest. As the director went tumbling into a deck chair, Fox grabbed Robin’s other arm and yanked her free. She stumbled up against him. Fox grinned and took a chivalrous step backward.

  “I apologize for Jeremy. We don’t know who it was that let him off his leash.”

  Still muttering, the director attempted to rise from the deck chair, but Fox placed a foot on the arm of the chair and succeeded in toppling it. The Englishman tumbled onto the tiles and went silent. Fox bent down and retrieved the tray that Robin had dropped and handed it to her. “It’s so hard to get good guests these days.”

  He squeezed off another smile and left the patio by a nearby set of winding stairs, rejoining Kelly Cole, who was standing barefoot down on the grass, tolerating the stories of two overexcited young screenwriters. Robin had a sense that the entertainer knew full well she was watching him.

  It wasn’t long after midnight that Kelly Cole lifted a martini from Robin’s tray, instructed Marshall Fox to get the hell out of her life immediately and then proceeded to launch the contents of her martini glass at him. The reporter’s aim was perfect, and the drink landed squarely in Fox’s face, the olive bouncing off his cheek. Robin had never seen a face as red with fury as Kelly Cole’s. The reporter’s expression was volcanic. For his part, Fox took a beat, then reached down to pick up the olive off the ground and blithely handed it over to his infuriated date. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I think this fell out of your ass.”

  Cole’s slap seemed to echo back all the way from the boathouse. She stormed into the mansion. Fox produced a handkerchief and dabbed at his face and the front of his shirt. Conversation in the immediate vicinity had stopped, and Fox shared a bemused expression with astonished faces.

  “Favor? The next time Ms. Cole orders herself a martini, could someone please ask the bartender if he can’t make it really, really, really dry?”

  Soon afterward, Robin was down on the lawn, taking a moment to look out at the moon-blue water and the several boats that were anchored just offshore, when she became aware of a couple tangled together in a nearby hammock. Just as Robin realized that the couple were doing exactly what it sounded like they were doing, someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind.

  “Hello there.”

  Robin wheeled around. It was Marshall Fox. He offered his hand.

  “The name’s Fox.”

  Robin realized she was blushing mightily. She hoped it didn’t show in the moonlight. Fox made a show of guiding her hand into his and giving it a small squeeze.

  “This is where you tell me your name. My name, your name. Then we’ve had what is called a communication.”

  Robin withdrew her hand. “I’m…My name’s Robin Burrell.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Miss Burrell. Though I feel like we’re old friends at this point, don’t you?”

  “I meant to thank you before.” She indicated the patio.

  “Jeremy? Hell, don’t mention it. By tomorrow that gin sponge won’t even remember it happened. He won’t remember a damn thing about the entire party. Which, now that I think of it, might not actually be such a bad thing. Tell me the truth, hasn’t this party been boring the pants off you? I’m dead serious, I can think of three thousand places I’d rather be. I love Gloria and Alan and all that, but this just ain’t really my kind of orgy.”

  “I’ve never been to one of these parties,” Robin stammered.

  “Well, you don’t want to make a habit of it, trust me.”

  “People seem to be enjoying themselves.”

  As if on cue, low moans rose from the couple in the hammock. Fox’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose they are. It’s a regular bunny farm around here, isn’t it? How about you? Are you enjoying yourself?”

  Robin felt the color rising again to her cheeks. “I’m not supposed to enjoy myself,” she said. “I’m the hired help.”

  Fox asked, “So where do you hail from, Miss Burrell?”

  “I’m from Pennsylvania originally. New Hope. But I’ve lived in Manhattan the last six years.”

  “Do tell. What part?”

  “ Upper West Side.”

  “Jews and Commies, I know it well. Which are you? Are you a Commie?”

  “Me?” She laughed. “No.”

  “Jew?”

  “I’m a Quaker.”

  “Quaker? Good Lord woman. I love thou people’s oatmeal. Upper West Side, huh? Ever since I hit town I’ve been an Upper East Sider myself, though the fact is I ran away from home a few months ago. Maybe you heard. You probably have. My so-called private life seems to have taken up residence on Page Six these days. Now I guess I’m a Jew and a Commie.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “ Upper West Side. I’m holing up on Central Park West.”

  “I’m on Seventy-first,” Robin said. “About halfway down from the park.”

  “You don’t say.” Fox touched her lightly on the arm. Robin could have sworn she felt a tiny electric shock. “How sweet is this? You’re practically the girl next door. You and I should meet up in the park sometime and walk our dogs together.”

  “I don’t have a dog.”

  Fox made a face. “I thought all of Manhattan ’s beautiful women had dogs. We’ll have to do something about that. I’ll tell you what, New Hope. May I call you New Hope?”

  Robin laughed. “If you want.”

  “I want. Listen, New Hope. Maybe I can come by your place sometime and you can take me out for a walk. How does that sound? Forget the dog. Walk the Fox. What do you say?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you-”

  Fox clapped his hands together. “Good. Excellent. I like this. This is good. You know, I’ve been hanging out with the wrong sort of people long enough. This will be good. So when are you free?”

  “I’m not sure if-”

  “Tuesday?” He put a hand to his ear. “Is that what you said? Good Lord, I’m free Tuesday, too! What are the chances? Now, please don’t go getting yourself another dog between now and then, dear New Hope. I happen to be well trained, but I do still bite. Sometimes. Maybe you can do something about that for me. We’ll have to see.”

  Up on the patio, one of the guests let out a peal of laughter that sounded exactly like that of the Wicked Witch of the West. Fox glanced over his shoulder then turned back to Robin. His voice lowered, as did his manic energy. He leaned closer. “Whatever you’ve heard about me, New Hope, I want you to know that only half of it’s true. Swear to God.”

  In the wee hours of the morning, as Robin bunched her pillow under her chin and opened herself to the oncoming sleep, a voice in the deep recesses of her mind thought to ask the right question.

  Which half?

  9

  THE COFFEE WAS COLD long before it was gone. I poured the final inch onto the snow. A squirrel that had been clinging stock-still to a nearby tree scampered down to investigate. He sni
ffed at the mocha snow then looked up sharply at me. With attitude. That’s your New York squirrel.

  A light snow had started to fall. I was halfway across the park when my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket.

  “Where are you?” It was Charlie Burke.

  “You’ll never guess. You caught me on a beach in Tahiti. I wish the girls back home would take up this whole grass-skirt thing. It’s a winner.”

  “You wish. Come on, where are you?” He sounded urgent.

  “I’m in Bryant Park.”

  “Well, you want to get up to Central Park right away. To the Boathouse.”

  “And why do I want to do this, Charlie?”

  “I spoke with Margo earlier today. She told me you’ve been helping that girl that got killed last night.” He paused, and I expected him to say that Margo had also told him we’d had an argument about it, but he didn’t go there. “She says you’re nosing around in the girl’s murder.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Right. Margo mentioned that, too. But she can tell. My kid’s got good instincts, Fritz. Besides, you don’t always hide things too good.”

  “There are people who might consider that a virtue,” I said. “So what’s happening at the park?”

  “I’ve been monitoring.” Ever since losing the use of his legs, Charlie had transformed the office in his house into what his wife called the House of Wires. Charlie was more up to speed on computers and the Internet than I’d ever be. He also had two television sets; he kept one tuned to NY1 and used the other for channel surfing. Plus, he monitored the police and fire department frequencies religiously. He went on, “Your girl with the cut throat? Looks like she’s got company.”