Gonzales and Lonahan rose from their chairs and shrugged into their coats.
Detective Sanger kept his seat and crushed an empty paper cup in one hand. “I count four first acts. Does anybody know how this damn play ends?”
“I do.” Charles Butler’s worried eyes were following Mallory’s travels up and down the corridor. “You won’t like the ending.”
And when no more was volunteered, Sanger pointed an accusing finger at Janos. “I know you read it!”
“Oh, let me tell it,” said the grinning drama critic, completely recovered from the distress over Bugsy’s injuries. “It’s all about seduction. That’s the foundation, the—”
“Hey.” Sanger turned his bloodshot eyes to Crippen. “The short version, okay?”
“Yes, of course. In the second act, the twins open the window . . . and you know someone has to go out that window.”
Gonzales and Lonahan sat down.
The critic continued. “The tension is unbearable—a truly frightening scene. The terror builds into the third act. And then it stops. Rollo and Susan turn to each other for comfort, ultimately seeking physical contact and solace. He takes her hands in his, a very tender moment.” Crippen sighed and placed one hand on his breast. “The heart breaks.” Done with heartbreak, he smiled. “Rollo offers Susan the protection of his arms. He won’t let them take her. The moment she climbs onto the bed, he enfolds her in an embrace. They kiss. . . . The heart soars.”
The critic was on his feet, both hands clenched. “And then Rollo shouts, ‘Geronimo!’ The twins rush into the room. They swing the bed around on its wheels and ram it toward the window. Rollo spreads his arms, as if to fly. The bed stops short. Susan flies backward. Out the window she goes. And you hear her scream taper off as she falls to her death. Then Rollo laughs and yells, ‘Bring me another woman!’”
The old man made a deep bow from the waist. “And . . . curtain.”
The detectives stared at him, incredulous, till Sanger said, “That’s it? That’s all?”
“Well, it’s very dark comedy, true,” said Crippen. “But you—”
“I’m outta here,” said Gonzales.
Three detectives rose in unison and filed out of the waiting room.
Leonard Crippen turned from Janos to Riker. “Tough audience. Perhaps they didn’t like the end because the actress looks so much like one of their own.” He turned his eyes to Mallory, who paced the hallway outside the ICU. “They identify with her.”
“Naw, it’s just a crummy ending,” said Riker. “When civilians see the whole play, they won’t like it any better.”
“Oh, but they will.” Crippen waited for Riker to bite—but that was never going to happen. The critic sighed. “You see, Detective Mallory let me read an early version of the ghostwriter’s play, and it had one grave flaw. The role of Susan was originally written for a sympathetic character.”
Down the hall, Mallory caught Riker watching her. She turned her back on him, not inviting any company, and he knew better than to offer it. He had a memory of her when she was ten or eleven, a child-size island in a schoolyard teeming with kids at play. All alone. Always. She was only taller now.
“On opening night, and the next night,” said Crippen, who would not shut up, “the audience liked the character of Susan. When she was struck with a bat in the first act, they were stunned—dead quiet. None of them would’ve applauded her death in the final act. In that version, the ending would never work. But then, along came Detective Mallory.”
The ghostwriter’s muse.
Riker knew what was coming next. Had it already occurred to her? Maybe not. He hoped not, for he was in the camp that believed she could be hurt.
“On the third night,” said Crippen, “when the actress took on the cold, somewhat cruel persona of Detective Mallory, a character no one was rooting for . . . the audience only sympathized with Rollo. That’s why the crowd cheered when he knocked off her head in the first act. Well, now you can see why the ending will work. The audience is going to love it when she—”
“Don’t say it!” Charles Butler, double fisted, stood before the drama critic and leaned down, eye to eye with the old man. “Don’t print it!” And he never had to add the words, I’ll kill you if you do. His face was not so comical right now. Anger looked good on him.
“So, Charles,” said Riker, “wanna borrow my gun?”
Mildly distracted from murdering the critic, Charles was now watching Mallory in the hallway, where she stood deep in conversation with an ICU nurse. She turned her head, surprised to see him standing there. He raised both hands, silently wondering if she needed anything. And she responded with a tilt of her head to ask, Why are you still here?
The elevator doors opened. Mrs. Rains stepped out on the run, coattail flapping, hair flying, hurrying toward the doors of the ICU, where Mallory held up both hands, a traffic cop’s warning to stop. And Bugsy’s mother did stop. She stood a bit off balance, listening with a slow shake of the head.
Riker could not hear the words, but he knew all the signs of denial: Hands rising. No, it can’t be! One hand to the breast. Not my child! Tight fists. You’re wrong!
Then Mrs. Rains doubled over, as though she had taken a sucker punch to the gut. Mallory raised her up by the shoulders, and the older woman flung her arms around the young cop’s neck. Holding on tight, Mallory broke the mother’s slow slide to the floor.
SUSAN: Listen.
ROLLO: I hear it. . . . They’re coming.
—The Brass Bed, Act III
Assigning blame for tragedy was blood sport in New York City.
Reporters were gathered outside the SoHo station house, lying in wait to ambush the detectives of Special Crimes. Tomorrow the bloodletting would escalate when Dr. Slope officially released his finding of murder in the deaths of Dickie Wyatt and Peter Beck. The news media would scream incompetence for allowing the play to go on, and they would demand a head on a spike or, at the very least, a public flogging.
The watchers’ room was now a midnight war room of visiting VIPs, the politicians who had botched this night. They were laying schemes to get clean away with it, and Mallory knew that her boss would be their chosen sacrifice—the sin eater.
She ended her cell-phone conversation with the lieutenant as she walked down the hospital corridor alongside her partner. “The stagehands won’t stop talking, and the DA’s sweetening their deal every six minutes. Coffey says they know who killed Peter Beck.”
“Good. So . . . where to now?”
“The station house,” said Mallory. “And then we go shopping. We need a sin eater.”
Riker only nodded, as if this might make sense to him—eventually.
Janos was waiting for them at the end of the hallway. He volunteered to stay behind for updates on Alma’s condition. “And I might have another go at the twins, maybe tweak their statements a little.”
As Mallory followed Riker into the elevator, Janos leaned in to startle her with a parting gift—a tissue. Was this a joke or an insult? The tissue was withdrawn as the sliding doors were closing. Mallory raised one hand to her cheek. It was wet. She had splashed cold water on her face in the ladies’ room.
And Janos had taken tap water for tears.
Apparently, so had Riker. The elevator began its slow descent, and his voice was gentle when he said, “No, you can’t go back up there and shoot the witness.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s late, kid. Sanger’s gone home, and Clara Loman’s workin’ solo tonight. Wanna call her off?”
“No, she’d keep going anyway—just to make the point that she doesn’t work for us.”
• • •
Detective Sanger had ruled out this area of TriBeCa as a likely place for Dickie Wyatt’s last meal, arguing that an addict only days out of rehab would not go near an old drug buddy. Even a stroll through Axel Clayborne’s neighborhood might have triggered a relapse. Sanger’s logic had been unassailable, born of his years in Narcotics.
However, C
lara Loman was not hampered by that detective tonight.
She sat in the studio apartment of a young man who lived within walking distance of his job in a local restaurant. The hour was late, but the waiter was still wearing his work clothes, dark pants and a white shirt stained with chili.
He was so young. So stupid. Though she had shown him her badge, he had invited her in, confident that his air-freshener of canned pine trees masked the aroma of cannabis. An underlying scent was the insect spray that seemed to have no effect on cockroaches. Bugs scattered as she spread her expanded photo array on his rickety coffee table. The waiter looked at each picture carefully, taking his time. He did everything slowly.
He was stoned.
Yet he had no trouble identifying Dickie Wyatt’s dinner companion.
• • •
The two detectives stood by the lobby doors. Beyond the dark expanse of theater seats, a bright bulb, caged in wire, hung down to light up the center of the stage—and the man sprawled out on the brass bed.
“So that’s a ghost light.” Riker kept his voice low, minding the acoustics that allowed sound to travel everywhere. “How long has this been goin’ on?”
“He’s been sleeping here since his friend died,” said Mallory. “Bugsy never saw him, but he heard the footsteps every night, every morning.”
This might be her most subtle punch line. So that was how she knew Dickie Wyatt had died in Axel Clayborne’s apartment. The actor could not bear to sleep there anymore. Her other clue had been the dead man’s suit, the one worn at the wake, and Riker thought he might figure that one out, too.
They walked down the aisle and parted ways at the front row. While Mallory climbed the steps to the stage, Riker chose a seat in the audience. Before sitting down, he donned his bifocals, and now he could clearly see the bedside table laid out with the makings of a private party: a wine bottle, half full, no glass, and small, plastic pharmacy containers.
Was every man, woman and child in this town on drugs?
Riker held up a palm-size device and a small microphone for the actor to see. “We gotta record the interview. Okay by you?”
“Fine, whatever you need.” Axel Clayborne propped himself up on one elbow and smiled to see Mallory walk out of the shadows to stand beneath the ghost light. “Hello.”
She held up a Miranda card and read the first line of the actor’s constitutional rights. “You have the right to remain silent.”
“Allow me,” he said. “I’ve played a lot of cops. I can also have an attorney during questioning. And, if I don’t keep my mouth shut, anything I say can be used to savage me in court. Did I miss something?”
“No, that’s the gist of it.” Mallory placed the card on the table and handed him a pen. “Just sign at the bottom to waive the attorney . . . unless—”
“Anything for you.” Clayborne swung his legs over the side of the bed and signed away all his rights with a flourish and a smile.
That was way too easy. How wasted could this man be? Riker hit the recorder’s rewind button to play back the last few words, but Clayborne’s voice betrayed no slurs of booze or drugs to taint the interview. The detective relaxed into a slouch. On with the show. Soon the actor would forget that he was being taped. Even hard-core felons tended to forget—when there was no lawyer around to remind them.
Clayborne pulled up his legs to sit yoga style. “So this is about the Rinaldi twins. You’re pissed off, right? Sorry about the carnage. Well, I kept my word. I took that old script and their notes to the station house after—”
“I know.” Mallory sat down in the only chair, the wheelchair. “Thanks.”
He smoothed back his hair, primping for her. “Will I be a witness in court?”
“For the massacre? No, that won’t go to trial.” Her hands worked the wheels, and she rolled the chair back and forth. “A Nebraska sheriff is on his way home with three confessions.”
“Three?” His head turned to follow the slow progress of the chair wheeling to the other side of the bed.
“The twins did all the slaughtering,” she said on the roll, “but the massacre was planned by an older kid . . . an invalid. That would be your character, the one you made up for the play. He was a cousin, not a brother, but you were close.” She wheeled the chair behind the bed and into the shadows beyond the glow of the ghost light.
Clayborne twisted around to grip the brass bars at the head of the bed frame. “A third survivor.”
“Just like your play.” She piloted the wheelchair back into the light.
“Art inadvertently imitating life.” He turned around again to face her. “So I was—”
“Another killer . . . playing a killer.” She rolled up close to the bed.
He lost his smile.
She rolled back and away.
Axel Clayborne rose from the mattress and followed her across the stage.
Riker wished the recorder could catch this. It was almost like slow dancing.
“You think I murdered Peter?”
“The twins didn’t do it.” Mallory turned the chair in his direction. “Those freaks only know one way to kill. It has to be brutal. It has to be fun.” Spinning the wheels, she circled around him. “Beck’s murder was quick. No fear, no pain. Not their style.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.” The actor slowly revolved to watch her as she wheeled around and around him in a widening orbit. Now he stood still, eyes focused on nothing. He snapped his fingers. “It had to be Alma.” He turned to the wheelchair—the empty chair.
Mallory stood in deep shadow. “Alma? A junkie with split-second timing?”
“She managed that kind of timing in every performance. Speed was never her problem. Her cocaine was probably laced with speed.”
“It was. . . . You should know.” The young cop walked into the pool of light. “You’re the reason Alma took all those drugs. Hiding in the walls, scratching on the blackboard. Threatening her—torturing her.” Grabbing the back of the wheelchair, Mallory aimed it at him and gave it a shove. “Was that fun for you?”
Clayborne never tried to get out of the way. Riker glanced at the bedside table and its stash of drink and drugs enough to dull the reflexes. Was this why his partner had wanted audio only, no video tonight? Had she paid a visit to the actor’s neighborhood pharmacy—and maybe a few liquor stores as well? Riker could never ask. Plausible deniability was his mantra now.
The empty wheelchair rolled to a stop a bare inch short of touching the actor, who was acting sober when he said, “Alma’s the logical choice.”
Mallory sank down on the edge of the mattress. “And you know that because . . . you played cops in the movies.” She thumped the table with her hand. Once, twice, three times.
Riker smiled. Cats did that with their tails. First, this warning. Then the claws. The teeth.
The actor, obviously unacquainted with any cats, stepped up to the other side of the brass bed, so confident when he spoke to her back. “Peter ordered Alma to walk out on the play. He told her to do it on opening night.”
“Yeah, right,” said Mallory, all but yawning.
“I was hiding in the wall. I heard everything—well, Alma’s end of it. She was on the phone with Peter—hysterical—and with good reason. She’d never get another shot at a Broadway play. No talent. And the little dummy’s just barely bright enough to understand that. But her boyfriend was hell-bent on shutting us down.”
“Was he?” Rising from the bed, Mallory pretended interest in the wine bottle’s label. “All Beck had to do was bow out. Without his name on the contract, the Chicago investors would’ve shut you down—and sued you. They financed his play, not yours. Who throws money at hack amateurs?”
Struck dumb, Axel Clayborne mimed the word, WHAT?
Charles Butler had made the right call: This actor was a flaming narcissist with an ego that had no boundaries. So the loss of financing had never occurred to Clayborne. How could the backers fail to fall in love with the ghostwriter’s pl
ay? And Riker could see the man had it in mind to challenge Mallory on that account.
But now Clayborne shrugged off her insult. “Peter threatened to blow up his contract twice a day. Ask anyone. He had this little bit of power, but he could only use it once.”
“It kept him in the game,” said Mallory. “He was fighting for his play.”
“No, no, no.” The actor shook his head, as if saddened by this foolish child—who carried a gun. “You miss the point. Peter was torturing Alma, extorting her. And when she didn’t walk out on opening night, she knew he’d— Oh, wait! Here’s another motive—she’s in Peter’s will.”
“I don’t think that’ll work, either.” Mallory’s smile said it better: You lose. “Peter Beck’s lawyer got the revised will today. He would’ve had it sooner, but the snowstorm backed up mail delivery. The man left everything to his favorite bartender.”
“But Alma didn’t know that.”
“She was damn sure he wrote her out of the will. We’ve got her sworn statement. Alma even got the date right for the new will.”
“Well, that was smart. She probably goaded him into it. She was laying plans to—”
“Alma’s smart or she’s dumb,” said Mallory. “Pick one. Stick with it.”
“I didn’t murder Peter.”
“You murdered Alma,” said Mallory, as if she might be correcting him on a matter as small as the time of day. “She’s brain-dead. We’re waiting for her parents to fly in from Ohio and pull the plug on her respirator. Five minutes later, we charge you with—”
“She fried her own brain with drugs! You were there!”
Riker’s eyes darted from one to the other, keeping up with the volley of salvos flying across the brass bed.
“It would’ve been kinder to slit her throat,” said Mallory. “You just had to drag it out.”
“What p-possible reason—”
“Your best friend wanted her out of the play. There’s a reason. I know he was on her back every day in rehearsals. Dickie Wyatt put her through hell.”
It Happens in the Dark - M11 Page 34
