The Apostrophe Thief

by Barbara Paul

  “Glad you’re taking this on, Larch,” he said, picking up the lists of missing property she’d collected the night before. “We’re godawful squeezed for manpower here. Any idea what’s behind this?”

  “Three possibilities,” Marian said, getting down to business. “Number one, Abigail James—the playwright—thinks it’s play piracy. Steal copies of a play before it’s published and skip paying the royalties.”

  “Um. Number two?”

  “Souvenir-hunting, plain and simple. As for number three, the stage manager hinted this kind of petty theft was a good way to sabotage a play.”

  “Did it?”

  “No, they went on last night with hastily rented costumes and improvised props. It could be nuisance sabotage, somebody with a grudge against the play who just wants to make a little trouble.”

  “What’s your choice?”

  “We can rule out number one,” Marian said. “I can see a thief coming in to steal the scripts and then picking up a souvenir or two as an afterthought. But all the doors had been pried open with a crowbar and the dressing rooms systematically looted. Whoever did it—and there had to be more than one of them—came prepared to carry away a lot of stuff.”

  Overbrook nodded. “Sounds right. That leaves possibilities two and three.” He leaned forward over the desk, his weight on his forearms. “What does it smell like?”

  Marian grinned. “It smells like souvenir-hunting.”

  “Then start with that. See if there’s a market for things like”—he looked at one of the lists—“Kelly Ingram’s old sneakers.” He raised two shaggy eyebrows.

  “There probably is. Do I get any help?”

  “Sporadically, when it’s available. I can let you have Perlmutter for the rest of the morning, but he’s due in court at two o’clock.” Lieutenant Overbrook heaved his considerable bulk up from the desk and stepped over to the office door. “Perlmutter! In here.”

  Marian looked at her watch: after ten. An undernourished-looking man in his thirties with a nimbus of wiry black hair appeared in the doorway. Overbrook introduced him as Detective Perlmutter, no first name, and brought him up to date. “Sergeant Larch is in charge of the case. You help her whenever you can squeeze out a spare minute.”

  Perlmutter nodded noncommittally at Marian. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to find out how the thieves got into the theater. They used crowbars to break into the dressing rooms but all the outside doors are intact. Check watchmen, people in the box office, whoever.”

  “Okay. Where’ll you be?”

  “I want to talk to the play’s director. Another play he once worked on had all its scripts stolen.”

  Lieutenant Overbrook raised his hands, palms up. “Have fun.”

  Marian and Detective Perlmutter set out to walk the nine short blocks uptown to the Broadhurst Theatre. If the director of The Apostrophe Thief wasn’t there, somebody would have his home address.

  “Where’d you transfer from?” Perlmutter asked.

  “Ninth Precinct, but I’m here for just this one case.”

  Perlmutter made a sound of surprise. “For stolen play-scripts? That’s all?”

  “Costumes, too. And personal belongings.”

  “Still not big enough to import a sergeant for. I don’t get it.”

  “I was on the scene last night,” Marian explained, “and Captain Murtaugh pretty much shanghaied me into taking it on.”

  The other detective laughed. “That sounds like Murtaugh. At least he bucked the case down to Lieutenant Overbrook instead of running it himself.”

  Marian shot him a look. “That’s an advantage? What’s wrong with Murtaugh?”

  “Nothing, really. He’s a good cop, good to work for. But he does have a reputation for being kind of hard on his sergeants.” Perlmutter paused.

  Marian knew a cue when she heard one. “In what way?”

  “Well, a sergeant he was working a case with once took a shotgun blast meant for Murtaugh.”

  “Good god. Did he live?”

  “Yeah, if you call spending the next forty or fifty years in a wheelchair ‘living.’ The blast guaranteed he’d never be a poppa, and a fragment got all the way through to nip the spinal cord. Can’t walk, can’t screw. Can’t bloody do anything. Of course, that was back when Murtaugh was still a lieutenant.” As if that made a difference.

  Marian was silent a moment and then slid her eyes sideways toward her companion. “Is that the story you scare all the new kids with?”

  Perlmutter grinned. “Yeah, but it’s true just the same. Just thought you ought to know, you bein’ a sergeant and all.” His tone changed. “Look, I can give you only a few hours today—I have to be in court by two.”

  “The lieutenant told me.”

  At the Broadhurst, one of the two people in the box office said that John Reddick, the play’s director, was backstage. Perlmutter lingered to interview the box office crew while Marian made her way through the auditorium. The curtain was open; the stage set loomed dim and shadowy under the minimum-wattage work lights. The place was utterly silent.

  Reddick’s office was a windowless cubicle next to the prop room. The director was on the phone when Marian stepped into the doorway, in the midst of trying to soothe whoever was on the other end of the line. “Relax, Gene, it’s under control. Most of the new costumes have been promised for four o’clock—that leaves time for fittings and whatever small adjustments have to be made. And the rest of the costumes will be ready by tomorrow. It’s all taken care of.” He held the receiver away from his ears and rolled his eyes; a man’s voice chattered unheeded from the receiver.

  Marian cleared her throat and held up her badge.

  Reddick’s reaction was one she’d never run into before; he positively beamed at her. “Gene, I’ve got to go—the police are here. Catch you later.” He hung up with a sigh of relief. “Producer,” he said to Marian with a scowl. “He’s supposed to take care of this kind of thing, but I end up doing it and he bugs me about it.” Reddick tried to peer around Marian. “Should I have said the police is here?”

  “My partner’s out front. I’m Sergeant Larch, and I want to ask you about a play called Three Rings.”

  “Ah, somebody told you about that. Have a seat, Sergeant. Yeah, those scripts were stolen too, but that’s all. No costumes or anything.”

  “Did you ever get them back?”

  “Nope.”

  The only other chair in the office was piled high with bound papers; she picked them up and put them on the corner of Reddick’s desk—and then realized what they were. “New copies of the script?”

  “They just came in. Some actors get panicky if they don’t have scripts, even after a play’s opened. Security blanket.”

  Marian sat down. “Why were the originals stolen, do you think?”

  “Oh, they’ll be worth a few bucks on the black market. People will steal anything—hell, people will buy anything, anything at all connected with show biz.”

  “Even though they’re so easily replaced?”

  Reddick shifted his weight. “Well, you see, the originals are all marked up. A script with Ian Cavanaugh’s stage directions written throughout in his own hand has value to collectors of stuff like that.” He gestured toward the new scripts on the corner of his desk. “Now those, without anything written on them, aren’t worth anything.” He grinned. “Don’t tell Abby James I said that. I meant they wouldn’t bring anything on the collectors’ market.”

  “And that was why the personal stuff was taken too?”

  “Absolutely. That old shaving mug of Ian’s wouldn’t be worth two cents if it belonged to Joe Blow.”

  Marian thought back. “You didn’t lose anything, did you?”

  “No, they didn’t even bother breaking in here.” He laughed. “I feel insulted—they didn’t think I was worth stealing from.”

  A small, elderly safe was sitting in one corner of the room, doing double duty as a table
. Marian pointed to it. “What about that?”

  “Empty,” Reddick said. “Besides, I can’t even get into the damned thing. Our producer is the only one who ever thought to write down the combination. That old safe has been here so long I doubt if even the theater owners remember how to open it.”

  When Marian asked who actually dealt with stolen theater memorabilia, Reddick couldn’t help her. He pointed out that the legally owned material was sold through legitimate auction houses. Sotheby’s, for instance, wouldn’t touch one of the stolen copies of The Apostrophe Thief.

  “And none of the old copies of Three Rings has surfaced?” she asked.

  “Not that I know of. But it’s been only a couple of years. Someone’s probably sitting on them, to increase the value a little more.”

  Just then Perlmutter stuck his head in through the door. “Sergeant?”

  Marian thanked John Reddick for his help and stepped out of his office. “Something?”

  “They came in with the cleaning crew,” Perlmutter said. “Three of them. The crew thought they were stagehands—one was carrying a tool box and the other two were pushing a laundry cart, one of those big ones like they use in hotels. That’s how they got the stuff out.”

  “And the stage doorkeeper didn’t notice anything funny?”

  “He wasn’t on duty yet. They all came in the front way—the guy getting ready to open the box office thought they were stagehands too.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Around nine, in the ay em.”

  “Description?”

  “One middle-aged man and two younger ones. The older man was short, stocky, and wheezed when he talked. One of the younger men was tall, dark hair worn in a ponytail, didn’t talk much.”

  “And the other?”

  Perlmutter grinned. “A hunk,’ unquote.”

  “Okay, it’s a start,” Marian said. “We’ll have to get the cleaning crew to look at mug shots—you can start picking out possibles. Mind if I use your phone while you’re in court this afternoon?”

  “Help yourself.”

  They stopped for greaseburgers and coffee before going back to the station. Then Marian spent the afternoon calling auction houses as well as all the listings under “Collectibles” in the yellow pages. No one had ever seen a Three Rings script offered for sale, and no one could (or would) give her a name of someone even remotely associated with the black market in souvenirs; most of those she spoke to got huffy when she asked. A touchy subject, evidently. Shortly after four she called it a day.

  When she got home, Marian tapped out the number Holland had given her. It turned out to be a voice-mail service; she left a message saying there was a play she wanted him to see Saturday night.

  5

  The next day Marian went to an auction.

  An auction house in Sheridan Square was advertising a collection of “cinema and stage treasures”; the pièce de résistance was to be one of Madonna’s girdles. Marian took the subway and arrived just as the doors were opening.

  Inside, she paid a fee and received a printed program listing the items to be auctioned. Marian had decided not to flash her badge; she’d probably get a better reception if she posed as a collector. But she didn’t see any playscripts listed and wondered if she was wasting her time.

  Rows of padded folding chairs were set up facing the auctioneer’s desk, currently unattended. Marian sat down near two not particularly well-dressed women. The woman closest to her had a beaked nose and bulging eyes, giving her an avaricious look. “What’s your field?” the woman asked unexpectedly.

  “Uh, playscripts. I’m looking for a copy of Three Rings.”

  “Huh. You won’t find it here.”

  The other woman, a plump blonde, leaned around the beak-nosed one and said, “What do you want that one for? Three Rings flopped, didn’t it?”

  “Actually, it’s the director’s copy I’m looking for,” Marian improvised. “I collect John Reddick.”

  That made sense to the two women; specialists were commonplace. “Scripts run high,” the woman with the nose said. “Personally, I don’t bother with paper.”

  “Paper?”

  “Scripts, posters, play programs, autographs … you know, paper. I think personal items are so much nicer. The last thing I got was Tyne Daly’s travel alarm clock. From when she was touring Gypsy? I just loved her in Cagney and Lacey.”

  “I collect stage props,” the blonde said happily. “Last month I got the original spear Raul Julia carried in Man of La Mancha.”

  “It’s a repro,” the first woman muttered.

  “It is not. I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  Feeling the conversation slipping away from her, Marian interposed, “You know what I’d like to get my hands on? John Reddick’s copy of The Apostrophe Thief.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, that won’t be around yet. The play just opened last week, didn’t it?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Marian leaned forward in her best conspiratorial manner. “Someone got into the Broadhurst and took all the scripts!”

  “No!” Both women looked shocked/delighted. “Did they get anything else?” the blonde wanted to know.

  “Costumes, some props, and personal items as well. Kelly Ingram’s hairbrush, Ian Cavanaugh’s shaving mug—”

  “How do you know all this?” the first woman asked suspiciously.

  “I know a cop who works out of Midtown South,” Marian said blandly. “What bugs me is that a friend of mine ran into a fellow who said he had a line on the scripts—but she didn’t get his name! I could kill her.”

  “She say what he looks like?”

  Marian put on a trying-to-remember face. “Short, middle-aged, wheezes when he talks.”

  “That sounds like Harley Wingfield,” the blonde said, “but he collects Elvis.”

  “A shaving mug belonging to Ian Cavanaugh,” the hook-nosed woman said dreamily. “God, I’d leave my husband for that man! No electric razor—a real, live shaving mug. And he used it before every performance, I bet.”

  The blonde had been thinking. “Lenora, what about that guy who’s allergic to stage dust? Has some sort of attack every time he goes backstage. He’s short and middle-aged.”

  Lenora came back from dreaming about the shaving mug and said, “Oh, yeah, I know who you mean. What’s his name?” Neither one of them could think of it.

  “Is he a collector?” Marian asked. “Or a dealer?”

  “Both,” the blonde said. “Deals out of his apartment, I think. Most of them do.”

  “And you can’t remember his name?”

  Lenora jabbed Marian’s arm with a long bony finger. “There’s somebody who can tell you. See the guy in the yellow shirt? He knows him.”

  “That’s right, Augie knows him,” the blonde echoed.

  “Augie, huh?” The fellow they’d indicated was in his late twenties, stoop-shouldered, wearing glasses. Marian stood up. “I’ll give him a try. Thanks a lot.”

  “Good luck,” they called after her.

  The folding chairs were filling up fast. Marian walked down a few rows and found a seat behind Augie; she tapped him on his yellow shoulder. “Augie? My name’s Marian. Lenora says you can help me find someone I’m looking for.”

  Augie turned a bespectacled face toward her and smiled, lots of teeth. “Hel-lo, Marian. Delighted to help, if I can. Whom seek ye?” His speech was pure Bronx, nasal and loud.

  “I don’t know his name.” Once again she described the man seen by the cleaning crew at the Broadhurst.

  “Harley Wingfield,” Augie said promptly. “You’re into Elvis?”

  “Not Harley Wingfield, and I’m looking for playscripts. This man I’m trying to find, he’s supposed to be allergic to stage dust and—”

  “Oh, you must mean Ernie Nordstrom. Stage dust does make him wheeze when he talks. Ernie deals everything he can lay his hands on, not just playscripts.”

  “Nordstrom, huh? Is he here?”


  “I haven’t seen him … oh good! They’re ready to start.”

  “Where can I reach him?”

  But Augie just said Shh and gave his full attention to the auctioneer. Marian waited impatiently until the first item was sold, a pair of somewhat tattered tragedy masks from an Off-Off Broadway production of the Oresteia. Then she leaned over Augie’s shoulder and repeated her question.

  He turned around and looked at her. “Marian, you seem like a nice lady, so I’m going to tell you straight. You don’t want to deal with Ernie Nordstrom. He’s not too particular about authenticating his stuff, you know what I mean? I don’t think he actually manufactures fakes, but you can’t take his word about what he’s got.” Augie sighed. “Sometimes he latches on to a genuine piece, but I’ve heard too many people grumbling about Ernie to put much trust in him.”

  “He’s the only lead I’ve got,” Marian persisted. “Where can I find him? Do you know?”

  “I don’t know where he lives, but you could always try the Zingones.”

  Marian blinked. “What are Zingones?”

  Augie gave her his big-toothed smile. “You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

  “Brand new. I need all the help I can get.”

  “Buy me lunch and I’ll take you there.”

  “You’re on.”

  But they couldn’t leave yet. Augie had come to bid on a costume from A Chorus Line and wouldn’t budge until it came up to the auctioneer’s desk. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of the bidding; the costume went to a mustachioed man who’d seemed willing to pay any amount to walk away with the glittery outfit.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get your costume,” Marian said as they left.

  “Oh, I didn’t want it. The seller is a friend, and I was just bidding the price up. Collectors help each other out when we can.”

  They went to a place called Alpha House, one of those thousands of Manhattan restaurants that will never play host to the dining critic of the New York Times. Augie’s last name was Silver, and he worked as a tailor for a theatrical costuming company. “Mostly we do rentals,” he said around a mouthful of salad that seemed to be mostly iceberg lettuce. “Amateur productions, low-budget Off-Broadway, like that. Costume parties. We get a lot of out-of-town business—high schools and universities.”