“No.”
“And a big public company. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with lots of widows and orphans doing very nicely with our stock.”
“Lots of widows and orphans,” Frost said, “but you were smart enough to keep control.”
“Yes—and am I glad. If I didn’t own sixty percent of the stock, I’d have even more investment bankers hanging around, telling me how to keep ABC from getting gobbled up.”
“Indeed. I sometimes think that’s become a full-time job for a lot of corporate executives. Trying to protect themselves from being taken over, instead of figuring out how to compete with the Japanese,” Frost said.
“I know. I see it here. I’m on the board of an outfit here in town that spends all its time adopting gimmicks—‘poison pills,’ staggered terms for directors, loan agreements that go in default if control of the company changes. Endless. But a five-year research plan? Or even a sales plan? Forget it. Worry about the raider, who’s probably never going to materialize anyway.”
The waiter returned to take their order. Frost knew that Ambler would urge the salmon on him—which he did. But that was all right. Pacific Northwest salmon was delicious, and the restaurant prepared it very simply (no goat cheese).
“What do you want first, Reuben?” Ambler asked.
“I’m going to pass. Don’t want to eat too much,” Frost replied.
Ambler seemed disappointed, but did not order a first course himself. He did ask for the wine list.
“Reuben, I’ve got two choices about the wine. I can be a good local booster and offer you one of our local vintages—wine’s big business up here these days. Or we can have a modest, overly priced Pouilly-Fuissé.”
“The latter,” Frost said.
“I knew it. But please bear in mind that we now have some pretty darn good local wines here.”
Frost kept cagily silent as Ambler ordered the Pouilly-Fuissé.
“One thing I’m curious about, Earle,” Frost asked, as they waited for their fish. “You’ve made a helluva lot of money. What are you going to do with it?”
“Well, one thing, I’m giving a big fund to the University of Oregon. That’s where I went, you know. I was on full scholarship, and I’m going to pay them back. Sarah and I started a scholarship fund there some years ago, and I’m going to add to it. Then—this will knock you off your chair, Reuben—I’m giving some to Columbia and your alma mater, Princeton.”
“Princeton? How come?” Frost asked incredulously.
“Well, we’re such a big and fashionable company now, we recruit our people nationwide. And the very best people we’ve gotten have been from Princeton—what do they call it? the Woodrow Wilson School?—and the journalism school and the business school at Columbia. So I want to reward them.”
“That’s wonderful, Earle. Very generous. On behalf of Princeton, I thank you in advance,” Frost said.
“Then there’s the local art museum. Handsome place, and they do the best they can with what they’ve got. But what they’ve got is a miscellaneous collection of things left when people died. Everything from kayaks to Tiffany glass. Pathetic. I’m going to set up a modern-art fund—a real modern-art fund—so that we don’t have to be ashamed any longer. I mean, it won’t be like the Getty money, or anything like that, but it will be substantial.”
The two men argued about modern art and which painters they liked—and disliked—as their dinner was served. They were in surprising agreement, though Frost had reservations about Jennifer Bartlett, for whom Ambler expressed great admiration.
“Maybe you could have her do one of her boat scenes with one of those surplus kayaks you’ve got at your museum,” Frost said.
“Now, Reuben, don’t be provincial. She’s a fine artist. I’ll probably be dead before the museum buys one, but I’m sure they will.”
“This salmon is excellent, as always,” Frost said.
“Good; I’m glad you like it. There’s nothing as good anywhere else.”
Both men finished their salmon and declined dessert. Frost glanced at his watch; it was well before nine.
“How about a brandy with your coffee?” Ambler asked.
“Fine.”
“That we do not make locally. Have to go all the way to France for it.”
“Good.”
The two men sipped their brandy slowly when it was served. Both were quiet and reflective, when suddenly Ambler came to life once again.
“Oh, say, Reuben, there’s something I wanted to tell you that I almost forgot,” Ambler said.
“Yes?”
“You’re still involved with Cynthia’s ballet company, aren’t you?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Good. That’s how I first met Cynthia, you know, when she was here on tour.”
“I know. And chased after her until she married me.”
“Not quite—until I married Sarah.”
“Be that as it may. The answer is, I’m still involved with NatBallet.”
“My story is kind of complicated. You’ve heard of the Pacific Northwest Ballet?”
“Yes,” Frost said. “I’ve heard good things about it. And Cynthia has said good things too.”
“Well, anyway, they had a big benefit performance here a week ago, week ago Monday. One of my widow friends asked me to go—performance, big black-tie dinner dance afterwards, all that. So I did. And one of the people on the program was one of your dancers, appearing as a guest. Fellow named Gerald Hazard. Redhead.”
“Yes. He’s a very good dancer. One of our best,” Frost said. “He’s never been promoted to principal, but lots of us think he should be.”
“He did that Tchaikovsky thing—the pas de deux—with one of the Pacific Northwest girls.”
“That’s their big number on tour,” Frost said. “Short and showy.”
“Right. Well, to get to the point, I went to this big party afterwards. A real dance crowd, and a lot of them were talking about your choreographer, the fellow who got murdered.”
“Clifton Holt.”
“Right. It had been on the news that night, and most everybody there either knew him or knew of him.”
“Yes?”
“Anyway, your Mr. Hazard had not heard about it, and when he was told, he behaved in a very odd way.”
“What did he do?”
“He got roaring drunk. Not out of grief, mind you, but seemingly out of unbounded joy. I’ve never seen anybody dance on someone’s grave the way he did.”
“Oh, dear. Did he say anything?”
“No, he just got exuberantly plastered. Didn’t say anything bad, didn’t say anything good. But he sure as hell seemed happy. Everybody was a little upset. Didn’t know what to make of it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to make of it either,” Frost said. He was lying. Ambler’s news was most disturbing. God knows everyone connected with NatBallet knew that Hazard was discontented with Holt, impatient at not being promoted, worried about supporting his wife and two children. But this kind of reaction—did it not betray a deeper hatred, a hatred Hazard could flaunt unobserved in a city so far from New York? A hatred deep enough to result in a murder for hire?
Frost was suddenly weary. It had been a long day, complicated by a three-hour time loss. And now this, an unneeded twist to the riddle of Holt’s murder.
“Earle, this meal was delicious,” Frost said to his host. “But I’m afraid I’m getting tired.”
“I understand. Sure you won’t have another brandy?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Then I guess we should call it a night. Unless you want to go over to the Prima Donna,” Ambler said, laughing.
“Next time. Next time when I bring out my troops to do your LBO.”
Ambler paid the check and drove Frost back to the hotel.
“I hope you sleep well,” he said.
“I will,” Frost answered.
“I guess we’ve tired the sun with talking,” Ambler s
aid.
“Callimachus,” Frost replied.
“Right,” Ambler agreed.
“We certainly tried, Earle. Good night.”
16
LADIES’ DAY
Cynthia Frost left home minutes after Reuben’s departure for the airport. She looked forward to a calm day, after the inevitable tension involved in Clifton Holt’s memorial. She was off to class, but then anticipated a quiet afternoon and a low-key evening with Arne Petersen, attending a private screening of Glory Days, the new movie starring Petersen’s girlfriend, Vivian Brooks.
As her taxi inched its way through the traffic on Central Park South, she thought again, as she had constantly over the last ten days, of Holt’s murder. At first her thoughts had been conflicted—shock at the sordid death of her long-time colleague yet, at the same time, guilt because she did not feel any overwhelming grief. She felt herself ungenerous for not sifting out her memories so that only the good ones remained—the recollections of their triumphs together in forming and building NatBallet. But the other memories, of an often quixotic and mean man, of his sexual excesses and his cruelty to wife and dancers alike, persisted and would not go away.
Then the focus had changed, with Bautista’s shocking announcement that the murder had not been what it seemed. Her thoughts had been obsessed since then with identifying the true murderer, the one who had used Jimmy Wilson as a pawn. Bautista had said that it was inevitable that the press would find out the true circumstances of Holt’s murder. When that happened, all hell would surely erupt within the NatBallet family. Suspicion would be rampant, morale would sink and the Company would be distracted—perhaps fatally—from its basic mission of performing with excellence.
Cynthia reviewed the possible suspects in her mind, discouraged to realize that they did not constitute a complete list, the number of Holt’s enemies being as vast as it was. Perhaps there was some jilted lover of Holt’s out there with nothing to do with NatBallet. Or a disgruntled dancer who had failed to get into the Company. Or an old enemy from Hollywood. But more than likely the NatBallet family was involved. All the people the Frosts had discussed with Bautista had been more or less from the family, other than Arthur Mattison. In a way she wished he were the guilty one, not because of his antipathy to the Brigham Foundation, she told herself, but because he was the most remote from the Company. But as much as she wished to believe it—God knows he had the motive—her instincts told her sadly that someone closer to NatBallet, someone more directly and openly hurt by Holt’s nastiness, was more likely.
Who? She could not (or would not) speculate. But she had resolved to observe things as sharply as she could when around the Zacklin. (She liked Luis Bautista very much; he seemed very competent as a detective and he certainly had become a good friend. But she didn’t think his money-tracing scheme sounded very promising, especially since nothing had happened in the days since Bautista had been on the case. And as for Reuben, he now fancied himself a great detective after he and Bautista had cracked the Graham Donovan murder together. But for all his good sense and shrewdness, could he be expected to come up with the solution? Maybe the two of them would do it again; but a third pair of eyes and ears certainly wouldn’t hurt, even though the night before they had acted as if they regarded tracking down Holt’s murderer as men’s work.)
This was Cynthia’s frame of mind as she entered the main rehearsal studio at the Zacklin. Veronica Maywood was conducting the day’s class. This had happened occasionally in the past, but more frequently in recent months. It was most unusual for a leading ballerina to conduct class; even more unusual for one to want to, as she apparently did. Cynthia had been surprised at Veronica’s interest in teaching; she decided that she must find out what had prompted it.
Cynthia did not fault Maywood as a teacher. She was quite good, and put her subjects through a grueling regimen. And Cynthia, while she often prudently “marked” the more difficult passages when others ran the class, now found herself straining to execute each new command Maywood called out. Did competition among ballerinas never end, even for one as long retired as Cynthia?
By the end of the hour, Cynthia was short of breath. As she stood leaning on the barre, she spoke to Maywood as she passed by.
“That was quite a session, Veronica,” she said.
“But you did splendidly, Cynthia,” the ballerina answered. “I watched you through the whole class—”
“—I know—”
“—and you were amazing. Perhaps you should come out of retirement.”
Cynthia only laughed at such an absurd idea. Then she had an inspiration. Why not ask Veronica Maywood, leading ballerina and possible felon, to lunch? Maywood seemed surprised at the invitation, but accepted without hesitation.
“I usually don’t, you know. I mostly have Fritos and Pepsi, like the kids. Keeps the weight down. But as it happens, I don’t have any rehearsals this afternoon, so why not?”
The two women reassembled at the stage door, dressed in street clothes and carrying their dance bags. (If “street clothes” could be said to characterize Veronica Maywood’s outfit. Glorious and elegant on stage, her shimmering beauty a pleasure to see, she now did all she could to conceal that beauty. She was wearing a revoltingly gaudy sweat shirt that read “Mykonos” and tight slacks one would be more likely to see on a woman soliciting afternoon tricks a few blocks from the Zacklin.)
“That’s quite a shirt,” Cynthia said. “Have you been to Mykonos?”
“No, I haven’t. I hope you’re not offended. One of the boys in the corps gave it to me. It’s a popular vacation spot with some of them.”
“I’m sure it is,” Cynthia said. “Offended? Not at all. It’s … very colorful. Where shall we go?”
“Luigi’s?”
“Fine.”
Luigi’s was a theatre-district bar with passable food. The charm was not in the food, however, but—assuming there was any charm at all—in Luigi himself, a confirmed show-biz addict who treated any entertainer, famous or not, as a valued customer, as did the young unemployed actors and dancers who waited on table there.
The two women walked the three blocks to the restaurant and were greeted on arrival by Luigi himself.
“Ah! La prima ballerina assoluta! E l’altra prima ballerina assoluta!” the restaurateur called out, noisily kissing both women on both cheeks. Although as American as Cynthia, he persisted in speaking fractured Italian, perhaps thereby creating an Italianate ambience that would not otherwise be divined from the humdrum decor of his restaurant.
“Oh, Luigi, cut it out,” Cynthia said. “You know very well there can only be one prima ballerina assoluta at a time, and you’ll make us both very angry if you suggest there can be two.”
“Ah, signore, belle signore, let an old man indulge his whims! In my restaurant there can be two.”
He showed them to a quiet table in the back, strewing compliments as he went.
Cynthia ordered a Campari and soda, Veronica a Bloody Mary.
“This is a real rarity for me, having a drink at lunch,” Veronica said, as she lit a cigarette. “I don’t usually break training this way.”
“How about the smoking?” Cynthia said, with a slight air of disapproval. (She knew that many dancers smoked heavily, although she never had. The reason always given was that it cut down on appetite, but she had always thought the real motivation was that a dancer, restricted by the rigors of training and performance, had to show defiance in some way, and smoking was as good as any. It was much like otherwise model adolescents who brandish cigarettes in front of their parents.)
“I’ve tried to stop, Cynthia, I really have. But I love it too much. My addictive personality, I guess.”
“Well, you’re not the first dancer to do it, and certainly not the last. So I won’t lecture you.”
“Thank God. What are you going to have?”
Cynthia ordered a low-calorie hamburger (no roll, no French fries) and Veronica a chef’s salad.
“I’m surprised restaurants put up with the likes of us,” Veronica said. “They certainly don’t make money off us.”
“Don’t be silly. Luigi is delighted to have us. And at six ninety-five for a hamburger he won’t exactly starve.”
The two women laughed and continued drinking.
“I thought you were splendid in Requiem last night,” Cynthia said.
“Thank you. I wasn’t sure I could get through it. My head was absolutely dizzy.”
“Why?”
“Thinking about Clifton,” she replied. “My thoughts are so complicated about that man I can’t tell you.”
“I’m sure they are. I think everyone’s are.”
“Did you ever love and hate a man at the same time?”
“No, I don’t think I ever did,” Cynthia answered. “But I think I can understand the feeling.”
“It’s happened to me twice. Certainly I felt about Clifton that way. On the one hand, he took me to the heights—all those beautiful ballets he made on me. That part was wonderful, and I loved him for it. But then there were the personal things. He was unspeakably cruel—ridiculing any idea you might have had, alternating between wild affection and cold avoidance. I never could love him for that.”
“You two were very close at one time,” Cynthia said noncommittally.
“Oh, yes. We were going to be married! He moved out on Teresa and moved in with me. Years ago now. He was going to get divorced and marry me. I was young and stupid and didn’t know any better. And what could be greater for a ballerina than to be Mrs. Clifton Holt? To have the great American choreographer at work and in bed as well?” The ballerina paused to dig into her chef’s salad.
Murder Takes a Partner Page 16
