Hot Ticket

by Janice Weber

  “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that.”

  “You got a boyfriend? Shee-it. What’s his name?”

  Dropped another hundred into Jason’s lap. “Benjamin Franklin.” Jumped into a cab that had just discharged someone’s unlucky mother at the entrance. “Take me to the Mall,” I said, blowing a kiss as we rolled away.

  Risky calling Berlin from downtown, but I found a phone at the end of the Reflecting Pool. Tourists had bagged it for the day, and bureaucrats were beginning to stray into the sweltering outdoors, walking as if they had diaper rash. “Did Osman deliver?” Maxine asked.

  “Perfectly. I’m back in Washington. Bailey was removed from the D.C. jail to Lorton less than a day after his arrival. What’s the drill here.”

  No use crying over spilled milk so the Queen said, “One, the warden either thinks Bailey is a danger to the other inmates, or he thinks Bailey’s in danger himself and sends him to a more secure facility. Two, the warden receives an order from Justice or Corrections or some heavy to move the prisoner. I’d say the latter since Bailey was trying to lie low. I don’t think he’d cause much trouble.”

  “How soon can you find out?”

  “Half an hour.”

  While Maxine was fishing, I walked to the Lincoln Memorial. Inside, teachers were trying to explain to the young what Honest Abe had done to earn such a big statue. I called her back from a different phone. “Figgis Cole was transferred to Lorton due to overcrowded conditions in D.C.,” she said.

  “Transferring one prisoner to maximum security at Lorton relieved the crowding? Give me a break. Someone got to the warden.”

  “He must have left a paper trail.” Signatures and seals proving he had just been following orders, he didn’t know anything, it wasn’t his fault, please guys don’t take my pension away. “He just hired a new assistant named Betty-Lou Beasley. Divorced with two kids. She’s ten grand into her credit cards.” Maxine gave me address, car license, description.

  “This is a long shot, Maxine.”

  “You getting into the warden’s office is an even longer one.”

  I returned to jail. In the parking lot I found Betty-Lou’s dented red Honda, its back seat a sty of Tupperware, Wendy’s bags, cheap toys. On the dashboard lay three parking tickets: things were looking up. Around five o’clock a white woman, thirtyish and going downhill fast, headed toward the car. Her hair was dyed the color of a trombone. Blondes had more fun? Not this one. “Betty-Lou Beasley?” I asked.

  “Speak to my lawyer.” She jumped into her car then noticed the green bills tucked behind the windshield wipers. Down rolled her window. “What do you want?”

  “Two minutes of your time. I’m not from any lawyer. I have nothing to do with your divorce or your credit cards.” I peeled the bills free. “I need your help.”

  She stared at the possibility of nice birthday parties, new school clothes. “You’re not going to kill me or anything, are you? I have two girls.”

  “I don’t kill people.” Not on purpose.

  “Okay. Get in.” Betty-Lou drove straight into a traffic jam on Independence Avenue. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me your name.”

  I gave her the money. “I work for a government agency. We’re interested in a prisoner who was transferred from D.C. to Lorton on September sixth. All we need to know is who ordered the move. Your boss the warden certainly has the papers. We just want a copy. He won’t get into any trouble.”

  “Is this like a turf war between the CIA and the FBI?”

  “The information is worth two thousand dollars to us. No one’s going to get hurt. Your boss was just following orders.”

  “What about me? Can I get into trouble?”

  “Not if you’re careful. Two thousand dollars is a lot of money. Tax-free. Three thousand if you get me the information by tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Betty-Lou whined, almost rear-ending the car ahead of us. “I have to think about it.”

  “Think about it all you want. Just don’t think out loud. That could be dangerous.” In a few seconds Betty-Lou realized that once she had let me into her car, she was in quicksand up to her three chins. “Drop me behind that bus. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Patted her arm. “Trust me.”

  My head felt as if I had just stuck it down the barrel of a circus cannon. I just had to keep reminding myself of Betty-Lou’s credit problem and hope she had watched enough television to persuade herself that a mother’s first responsibility was to keep her daughters in designer jeans. Screw national security. Back at the hotel, I called Fausto again: still no answer. Duncan was correct: I had been dropped like a hot potato.

  That put me in a ruthless mood for Happy Hour with Bendix. I met him in a Dupont Circle bistro impressive less for its food than its absurd prices. The only people stupid enough to pay them appeared to be lobbyists and Asian tourists. “Hot out there,” I said, slithering into my seat.

  Bendix looked fresh as a scoop of sherbet. “Thanks for seeing me. I was afraid you might have gone back to Berlin.”

  “I’m having too much fun here.” Flagged a waiter and ordered alcohol in slush. “But all good things come to an end. I listened to your cassette. It’s brilliant. Why’d you stop? You could have been on your ninth symphony by now.”

  Bendix was speechless. He had probably planned to round the conversation to this intimate topic after five long cocktails. “You liked it?”

  “Loved it. So cleverly written for the piano. Such original thematic development. Fausto turned in a great performance, but the piece stands on its own.” I stared him deep in the id. “How’d you get into composing?”

  I finally got the hidden history of Bendix Kaar. One day misfit teenager, thinking he’s about to hear a Beatles album, drops the needle on his mother’s beloved recording of Romeo & Juliet. The skies open and he resolves to become the next Tchaikovsky. Learns violin well enough to earn scholarship to B+ conservatory. Transfers to the Royal College because he hates the humiliation of playing in an orchestra and no one in America wants to perform his music. Lo and behold, he has as much difficulty getting a hearing in London as he did in Cincinnati. Life becomes hell.

  I swallowed half my drink. “Didn’t you tell me you wrote an opera? That got performed, didn’t it?”

  The composer downshifted from fifth to neutral. “Yes. But not without help. Fausto paid for the whole thing.”

  “Nothing wrong with a patron, is there? How’d it go?”

  Neutral to reverse. “I was booed.”

  “So what? So was Stravinsky.”

  “Stravinsky must have had a stronger stomach. I didn’t leave my bed for two weeks.” Bendix blacked out on the review and his catharsis on Golders Hill. “I decided to abandon music.”

  “That must have been incredibly painful.”

  “Amputation beats gangrene. I charted my ship on another course and never looked back—until I heard you and Fausto play my sonata the other night. God, it was good! Stunning, really. I haven’t been able to sleep since.”

  A Japanese woman approached the table. “May I have autograph, Miss Frost?”

  I scribbled on her menu. “Composers don’t succeed until they’re dead. I think you took the right course. Look at all the good you’ve done the world.”

  “The world?” he croaked. “What about me?”

  Ah, if only Fausto could see this. “You can always go back to composing.”

  “But will I have anything to say?” Bendix took a long pull at his vodka tonic. “I may have exhausted all my creative juices in Washington. I’m not a kid bursting with ideas and idealism anymore.”

  Next he’d want his head in my lap. I was suddenly tired of playing confessor to men who felt lonely at the top. Barnard was dead and one of these miserable wretches had killed her. “Why don’t you try writing an hour a day? If Fausto could throw together a recital in a week, you could toss off a two-part invention.”

  “I’ve got
a lot more on my plate than Fausto.” Bendix ordered another round. “He’s become quite a good friend of yours, I notice.”

  “He’s an unusual man.” How smoothly Bendix had usurped the reins of conversation. Instead of cantering with him, I asked, “How’s Jojo Bailey? He’s quite a friend of yours, I notice.”

  “One of my oldest. Goes back to my London days. What’s happened to him is horrible beyond words. I wouldn’t wish a death like that on my worst enemy.”

  “Does he recognize you?”

  “He’s in a coma. Aurilla and I can barely bring ourselves to visit him. I can’t stand the sight of blood.” Unless it was issuing from a music critic’s eye sockets, of course. “Jojo was doing so much good work.”

  “I don’t think the two of you will have to visit him much longer.”

  Bendix looked sharply at me. “Who told you that? Fausto?”

  “Everyone knows he’s fading fast. And everyone says Aurilla’s a shoo-in to replace him.”

  “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings. Who knows what tricks Bobby and Paula might have up their sleeves.”

  I patted his arm. “You’re just feeling a little stage fright.”

  Bendix finished his drink. “Maybe. Aurilla and I have worked years to get where we are. Her career started rather unexpectedly, do you know? Her husband died in a plane crash. She finished his term and never looked back.”

  “Fate.”

  “You make your own fate. He was a nothing. Aurilla was better off without him.” A strange glow, somewhere between an alcohol buzz and a demented ecstasy, suffused Bendix’s face. “She’d be a fantastic president.” He caught himself. “Vice president. Does Fausto think she’s going to make it?”

  “We haven’t talked about it.”

  “Right! You two just concentrate on music!” Bendix tried not to snarl. “What does Bobby say about her?”

  Cool it, Smith. No secrets in this town. “We haven’t really discussed Aurilla. Bobby’s been preoccupied with Jojo. He’s pretty upset at losing him.”

  “He should be. Jojo was his favorite drinking partner.” A strange remark about the statesman whose impending departure had so pained Bendix just a moment ago. “Does either of those two ever mention Jojo’s brother Louis?”

  “Louis the doctor? I thought he was lost in the jungle. That’s what Myrna said at your dinner the other night.”

  “What did Fausto have to say about that?”

  “He said he hadn’t heard from Louis in months.”

  Crunch went the ice cube between Bendix’s teeth. When he smiled, I recoiled: his eyes looked exactly like Aurilla’s. “I suppose you find Fausto fascinating,” he said.

  “Fausto’s got a brain.”

  “A devious one,” Bendix retorted. “He likes nothing better than putting his old friends in their places. It’s his way of compensating for his own failure.”

  Gee, Fausto had said more or less the same thing about Bendix. Bobby had said more or less the same thing about Fausto. My stomach turned: had Barnard been caught in nothing more than a monstrous case of sibling rivalry? “I think I can handle him.”

  “If I were you, I’d go with Bobby. You won’t get quite as hurt.”

  That soulless smile was beginning to unnerve me. Finished my drink. “How’s Gretchen?”

  “Making life intolerable for her mother, as usual.”

  “She seems to dislike you.”

  “Of course she does. I made her practice violin two hours a day. Thought it would straighten her out.” Total backfire. “She’s going to school in Switzerland next week.”

  “Is she excited?”

  “She doesn’t know it yet.” Bendix floated a fifty-dollar bill to the table. “May I drop you at the hotel?”

  I opted to walk. Outside, the heat devoured us. “Give my best to Aurilla.”

  “I’ll be seeing her in New York tonight.”

  “Nice of her to let Bobby and me use her summer house.”

  Bendix barely missed a step. “He needs an escape from that virago of a wife.”

  I kissed the composer’s mouth, which was about as responsive as a nose. “Send me your first invention?”

  “If I write it.” He squeezed my hand a little too hard. “Thanks for your support.”

  Thanks for the advice to the lovelorn. I ate dinner alone, haunted by the gleam in Bendix’s eye as he talked about Aurilla’s glorious future. The evening news was all about defunct Jojo. I thought about driving to Lorton and dropping in on Louis. Instead I called Gretchen, a younger prisoner. “How’d you like to go out for a little ice cream?”

  “I can’t. It’s a school night.”

  “Why don’t I bring some over then?”

  “That would be okay. I like chocolate-chip mint.”

  Aurilla’s mansion loomed dark and empty now that her party had ended. Between curb and doorbell, I passed five bananas in pink saucers. “I’m Gretchen’s friend,” I smiled at the woman who opened the door. Each time I came here, a different maid answered, looking more frazzled than her predecessor. “Brought some ice cream.”

  A volleyball struck the maid in the back. “Get out of the way!” my playmate shouted.

  “We’ll be in the kitchen,” I told the woman, grabbing Gretchen by the wrist. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  “Ow! You’re hurting me!”

  Pulled her through the empty banquet hall to the kitchen. Not quite as impressive as Fausto’s galley, but Aurilla entertained less. I stuffed Gretchen in a chair and got two spoons from a drawer. “How’s school?”

  “I hate it.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Dug into the ice cream. “Guess Herman hasn’t come back, eh?”

  “He’s a bad monkey. I want an alligator now.”

  “Where’d you get him anyway?”

  “In that country Uncle Bendix took me to. Belize.”

  “You were in Belize?” I tried to choke down the cold stuff. “That’s pretty exciting. Better than Disneyland, I bet.”

  “No it wasn’t. The air-conditioning didn’t work.”

  “Were you on vacation?”

  “No! Mom was at a conference. Uncle Bendix made me play the violin there. I didn’t want to. He promised me a monkey, so I did.”

  “What did you play?”

  “A Bach suite.”

  Bendix and Aurilla haul Gretchen the Untouchable to Belize to perform Bach during an environmental conference? Something wacko here. “Who’d you play for?”

  “People in a hospital. It was too hot and I couldn’t stay in tune. I thought Uncle Bendix would hit me. But he clapped afterward. Then he said I could go home.” She licked her spoon.

  “I flew back in a private plane with Uncle Fausto. It was lots of fun. Herman came with me in a little box.”

  I nearly gagged. “So you went to a hot country, played a concert, and left? That sounds like something I would do.”

  “It wasn’t much fun.”

  No kidding. “I’m sure the audience loved it.”

  “They weren’t even listening! They were all in bed sleeping. They looked horrible. I brought some nice toys and they didn’t even want them.”

  “I’m sure your mother was very proud of you.”

  “She didn’t come to the concert,” Gretchen scoffed. “Only Uncle Bendix. And Dr. Tatal. She gave me a doll.”

  We concentrated on the ice cream for a while. “So have you been practicing?” I asked.

  For once, Gretchen looked sheepish. “I broke my violin. I was angry that Uncle Bendix took Herman away.”

  One hundred grand in splinters: that had probably earned her banishment to Switzerland. “Can you get it fixed?”

  “Mom says no more violin. When can we go shopping for alligators?”

  “Why don’t you get a dog instead? They’re a lot more fun to play with.”

  “I want the alligator to eat Uncle Bendix.”

  This was the second time Gretchen had mentioned killing him. Maybe she was the reinc
arnation of the murdered music critic. “Why do you hate him?”

  “Because he doesn’t like me. He just likes Mom.”

  The maid anxiously peeped in. “How’s everything?”

  Fubar. I put my spoon in the sink. “Back to your homework, Gretchen. I’ll come by soon.”

  I wandered around Georgetown until nightfall. Then I crawled into my little hole in the zoo and, just to torment myself, hooked into the airline files. Yep, Gretchen and Bendix had flown to Belize on August 15. No record of her return, but that was because she had come back in Uncle Fausto’s plane. I took a deep breath and cut to Fausto’s phone tap. Again, not many calls, but the ones that did get through wrapped my gut in knots. The first was from James in Belize. “Eh Fausto, I’ve got a bit of bad news.”

  “What’s that,” Fausto answered dully, as if he already knew.

  “They found Simon in the Macal. Not much left of him, poor bugger. No signs of violence on the bits still intact. Maybe he hit his head on a rock and drowned.”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  “Did you need him for anything? I’d be happy to step in.”

  “Possibly.” Signal flat, weak, emanating from another planet. “I’ll let you know.”

  The next call was from Vicky Chickering. “I hear your little pickup trio was a roaring success. Is Rhoby over there now, by chance?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t seem to find her. I called Frost’s hotel but she’s not in, either. You don’t suppose they’re out somewhere, do you?”

  “Vicky darling, I’m not the vice squad.”

  “Tell me something. What do you think Leslie Frost is doing here?”

  A pause. Then, tonelessly, “Enjoying the scenery. Why?”

  “I know you’re fond of her, but something’s not on the level with that bitch. I’ve thought so since the night I saw her at Ford’s Theatre. She said someone just sent her a ticket. And she used it! That’s not normal, is it?”

  “I’m afraid she’s that type of girl.”

  “Well, where does she go all day? She’s never in her hotel.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I have my sources. Where is she now?”

  Fortunately, Fausto didn’t suggest that I was in London with his old piano teacher. “She’s going back to Berlin in a day or two. Then your worries will be over.”