by Barbara Paul
Lieutenant Overbrook laughed. “I forgive you. Frankly, Sergeant, when you first came in here I didn’t think you had a chance in hell of getting a line on these boys. But Captain Murtaugh’s going to be pleased to hear how far you’ve gotten. What are the chances of getting the costumes back?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. My guess is that Ernie Nordstrom hasn’t disposed of them yet—too risky, for one thing. For another, they’ll appreciate in value the longer he holds on to them. All we’re missing to nail this thing down is his address.”
“Okay, so what do you need?”
“I’ll need a bankbook in my name showing over twenty thousand dollars—to convince Kevin Kirby I’m serious about buying what he has for sale. Make it twenty-three thousand.”
“You got it. What else?”
“Lieutenant, I’d like to pay Augie Silver a consultant’s fee. He thinks he’s in this for a percentage, and it was his connections that led me to Kirby in the first place.”
“How much?”
“Couple of hundred should do it.”
“Make out the requisition and I’ll sign it. Anything else?”
“Can’t think of anything.”
Overbrook loosened his tie and ran a finger around inside his collar. “Your meeting’s at six? That’s after your shift, so you’ll be on overtime—and carrying your weapon. I know, Kirby has no history of violence, but what if he shows up with Ernie Nordstrom, hm? That guy is a b-i-i-i-g question mark. I don’t want you taking any chances.”
“All right, Lieutenant, but it’s a low-risk situation. I rather doubt the secretive Mr. Nordstrom is going to put in an appearance at this point.”
They’d said all there was to say, so Marian got up and left. She was rather surprised at the time and attention Midtown South was giving to such a low-priority crime; in the Ninth Precinct, it would have been recorded and forgotten. Of course, Midtown had a “free” investigator—her. But Lieutenant Overbrook was giving her all the support she asked for, and she didn’t even have to fight to get it.
What a pleasant change.
7
Holland had said he might drop by Huey’s, just for kicks; but he wasn’t there when Marian showed up at six on the dot. Neither was Kevin Kirby, a.k.a. Rocky the Bodybuilder. Augie Silver was in the same booth they’d occupied the night before … and one of the Zingone brothers was sitting across from him.
“Where’s the iceberg?” Augie greeted her.
It took her a second to realize he meant Holland. “He’s coming later.” Marian sat down next to him. “Or not.”
Augie gave her a querulous look. “You two fighting?”
“No.” She didn’t elaborate. The Zingone brother across from her wasn’t wearing glasses; not Matthew, then. “Mark?”
“Luke. I hope you don’t mind,” he drawled, “but we thought that if this muscle man you’re calling Rocky does have a pipeline to the Broadhurst loot, one of us ought to check it out. I won’t queer your deal, I promise.”
Marian glanced at Augie, who ducked his head. So he’d worked out something with the Zingones; deals within deals. “I get first claim on the scripts—any and all of them,” she insisted, mostly because Luke seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
“Okay,” Luke agreed. “Ernie Nordstrom knows us. I can ease the way a little.”
“Good.”
Augie cleared his throat. “You really going to buy all that Kelly Ingram stuff? Just to get to Ernie?”
“I’m hoping I won’t have to,” Marian said. “If Rocky can put me in touch with Nordstrom, maybe I can cut through the bullshit and tell him what I really want.” Which is a nice, clean collar.
Augie made a face. “Seems awfully roundabout.”
But Luke was nodding knowingly. “Any hook in a storm.”
Oh, that Zingone. Luke’s presence made it clear that he and his siblings were none too particular about how their items-for-sale came to be for sale in the first place. No telling how much of their inventory was bootleg. Marian wondered just how big a business the collectibles racket was; obviously more was going on than she’d suspected.
Marian found she was expected to buy the beer. No waiters appeared to be in evidence, so she went to the bar. Still no sign of Holland. The bartender gave her a tray to carry everything back to the booth.
When they’d all had their first swallow, Marian took out the two hundred dollars Lieutenant Overbrook had approved for payment to Augie as a “consultant” fee. She pushed the money toward him and said, “Augie, I want to put you on retainer.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“You know your way around the collectibles game and I don’t. I need a guide. And if I’m going to take up your time, I want to pay for it.”
“Well, all right!” He scooped up the money and grinned.
Luke looked annoyed, probably thinking he or one of the other Zingones should have been the one she retained. To distract him, she said, “Luke, that Tony statuette you have in your shop—where’d you get that?”
“Pawnshop on the East Side,” he said. “We check ’em out regularly—you can find all sorts of things in those places. I just picked up an Elvis wall clock for Harley Wingfield today.”
Marian groaned. “Harley Wingfield again! Who is this guy?”
“Oh, Harley’s a good old boy from Tennessee,” Luke said. “When he’s not at home, he’s in Vegas or Hollywood—digging up roots, you know? He doesn’t come to New York more than a couple of times a year, but everybody knows Harley.”
“Is he an ‘Elvis lives!’ freak?”
Augie snorted. “Those are the ones he sells to.”
Suddenly Kevin Kirby was standing by the booth, startling Marian with his noiseless approach; she hadn’t even seen him come in. The new arrival stared at Luke. “You’re one of those four in that shop, the Zingone place. What are you doing here?”
“I’m Luke,” Luke said pleasantly. “I’m always on the q.t. for theater items, so I thought I’d come along with Augie … in case you have anything more than a hairbrush for sale. Do you mind? I’ll leave, if you want. I don’t believe in pushing in where you’re not wanted.”
Kirby was silent a moment, probably trying to figure out what Luke meant, but then said, “Naw, that’s all right.” He sat down and looked pointedly at an unopened bottle of beer Marian had bought. She pushed it toward him and watched as he twisted off the top.
Augie cleared his throat. “So, Rocky. Have you seen Vasquez lately?”
Marian clenched her teeth and wished she’d never told Augie he’d make a good detective. Kirby hesitated, and then asked, “You tight with Vasquez?”
“Barely know the dude,” Augie answered breezily. “Friend of mine is looking for him and I said I’d ask around.”
Kirby frowned. “I haven’t seen him for coupla days. But he has a gig at The Esophagus next week.”
Luke made a noise of surprise. “Vasquez is a musician?”
“Isn’t everybody?” Augie asked dryly.
Kirby said, “He’s with some new shock-rock group—can’t remember their name.”
“Shock rock?” Marian asked.
“Yeah, you know. A more pissed-off sound than even speed metal. Wholly salient.”
Salient, huh? “Sounds, ah, cool.”
“Yeah.”
So Vasquez was connected to the rock scene; Marian would have liked to know more but was afraid of making Kirby suspicious. She took out the faked bankbook Lieutenant Overbrook had gotten her and opened it so Kirby could read the balance. “Don’t you have something to tell me about a playscript?”
He glanced at the bankbook balance but then looked uncomfortable. “There’s gonna be a slight delay.”
“What do you mean, a slight delay? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong—it’s just that this guy, the one who has the script? He’s gone to California.”
The other three sighed heavily. “When’s he coming back?” Augie ask
ed.
“Don’t know. Depends on how long it takes him to, uh, to do what he went to California to do.”
Marian smiled. “And what’s that? Or is it a secret?”
“Naw, no secret. He just got a line on the hairy-spider scene from King Kong.”
Both Augie and Luke hooted. Kevin Kirby grinned and shrugged. Marian stared at the three of them. “What hairy-spider scene? I don’t remember any hairy spider in King Kong.”
“Because there never was one,” Augie said.
“Yes, there was,” Luke contradicted. “But the print was destroyed years ago. It’d be worth a mint—anything to do with Kong means money. An original lobby poster sold for fifty-seven thou a couple years back. But the spider scene was shot.”
“Bull,” said Augie.
“What are you talking about?” Marian demanded.
Luke explained. “Remember the part on Skull Island where Kong has just taken Fay Wray … and the men from the ship are following them through the jungle? They come to this gorge or gullet or something, and the only way across is this huge old dead tree that’s fallen over the opening. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“I’m with you—go on.”
“Well, the men start across, but then Kong comes back. The hero gets away … what’s his name?”
“Bruce Cabot,” said Augie.
“Right. Bruce Cabot makes it to the other side, but the rest of the men are still crawling across when Kong picks up one end of the tree and starts rotorating it, back and forth, back and forth.”
“And the men all fall off,” Marian said in an attempt to hurry him along.
“That’s a great scene,” Kirby announced feelingly.
“But,” Luke went on, his eyes gleaming, “that’s the point where Cooper shot another scene. Merian Cooper, he directed. The scene showed that one of the men survives the fall, for all the good it does him. Because down at the bottom of the gorge is this hugemongous hairy spider, big as a two-story building—and the spider has the survivor for lunch. But Cooper himself cut the scene from the final version. Claimed it was too frightening.”
“Wow,” Marian said appreciatively.
Augie gave a sarcastic little laugh. “Yeah, it makes a good story. But it never happened.”
“Yes, it did, Augie,” Luke said testily. “It’s been documentaried. The only print was thrown away back in thirty-two, thirty-three, whenever the hell it was. But it’s been documentaried.”
“Documented, not documentaried,” Augie snapped, getting a little testy himself.
“Whatever. But you can check it out.”
“The point is,” Augie said to Marian, “that no print exists now. Ernie’s a dreamer. Chasing off to California after a nonexistent scene? Sheesh.”
Marian kept a poker face and prayed that Kevin Kirby hadn’t caught it. But while he was slow, he wasn’t that slow. “Ernie?” He looked from Augie to Luke to Marian and back to Augie again. “Who said anything about Ernie?”
The color drained out of Augie’s face when he realized his gaffe. “Why, uh, you did, Rocky. You said somebody named Ernie had a line on the hairy-spider scene and—”
Kirby’s handsome face had tightened. “I did not. I didn’t mention any names at all. What the hell’s going on here?”
Marian made an attempt to save the situation. “Yes, you did say ‘Ernie’—I heard you. Didn’t you hear him, Luke?”
Kirby jumped up. “First Vasquez, and now Ernie! What the hell?” He jerked away from the booth and hurried out of the bar.
Luke sighed. “Nice going, Augie.”
Aaarrrrrghh! Marian screamed mentally. But she said nothing; it was a risk you ran when you worked with civilians.
“Oh jeez, I’m sorry!” Augie whacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
Luke nodded solemnly. “You should have been more precautious.”
“Me and my big mouth! Marian, I’m sorry. Look, let me out—maybe I can catch him.”
Marian slid out of the booth and let Augie go, knowing Kevin Kirby was already out of reach. Luke mumbled something about helping Augie and followed him. When they were both gone, she sat back down and stared disconsolately at the empty beer bottles.
“Well, that was an invigorating exercise in futility,” said a familiar voice. “One Augie Silver needs a few lessons in discretionary interrogation techniques, wouldn’t you say?”
Marian leaned around the end of her seat to look into the next booth. “Oh, that’s cute. What did you think you could learn by eavesdropping that you couldn’t hear sitting with us?”
“Nothing.” Holland got up and joined Marian in her booth. “But maintaining my role of naysayer while you were moving in for the kill would have put undue strain on the negotiations. By the way, where did your friend Luke learn to speak English—Albania? Too bad Rocky got away. I assume you have his real name and address?”
Marian said yes. “But there’s no point in bringing him in—we couldn’t hold him. And I can’t even take him in for questioning. He’d get spooked and warn the other two.”
“And Ernie Nordstrom’s off in California looking for hairy spiders.” A mocking laugh. “You were right. These people do love what they’re doing. And they’re thoroughly convinced of its importance. Shock rock, ancient movies, and Elvis. God bless America.”
Marian grinned at him. “Oh, I don’t know. I’d kind of like to see that hairy-spider scene myself.”
“Sometimes you worry me. What are you going to do now?”
“Well, I lost the hunk, so I guess I’ll go after the ponytail. At The Esophagus next week, whatever The Esophagus is.”
“Probably an East Village rat hole,” Holland said. “Does this mean you’ll be taking the weekend off, just like normal people?”
“Looks like it.” She smiled at the thought. “Like normal people.”
The Saturday night audience in the Broadhurst Theatre was utterly, pin-drop silent for about ten seconds—and then came an explosion of applause and cheering that rocked the rafters. It went on and on, as if the members of the audience couldn’t say loudly enough how much they liked the play. The same thing had happened the other time Marian saw The Apostrophe Thief, on opening night. It had been exciting then; it was exciting now.
Even poker-faced Holland was clapping his hands. When the curtain calls were over and the hubbub began to die down, he turned to Marian and said, “I want to meet Abigail James.”
Not a word about Kelly. “If she’s here,” Marian said. “Let’s go backstage and see.”
The play had been running only a little more than a week, so there was no noticeable lessening in the crowd of well-wishers backstage; the only difference was that camera crews no longer prowled about looking for celebrities. Kelly’s dressing room was packed, as was Ian Cavanaugh’s. Abigail James was there, standing off to the side and talking to two earnest interviewers, both of whom were thrusting microphones into her face.
“… he was partially right,” the playwright was saying. “It’s when we allow the minutiae of life to be stolen from us—and what could be more minute than an apostrophe?—that we lose control over the quality of life in general. But I meant the title in a literal sense as well … in the area of language, that is. The degeneration of language is typically a good indicator of the erosion of standards in other areas of life. For example, the word ‘Halloween’ used to have an apostrophe in it. What happened to that apostrophe? Where did it go? Carelessness concerning the use of apostrophes just happened to be the example I fixed on, but it could be anything.”
“Would you say the degeneration of language is an omen of erosion to come in the rest of life?”
Abigail James appeared to think. “No, I would say it follows. The erosion has already begun.”
“Can we stop this degeneration of language?”
“I doubt it. All we can do is warn each other. I know no way to enforce linguistic vigilance.”
“But if there were a way, would the effect be retroactive? Could restoring linguistic standards lead to the restoration of other, unrelated life-quality standards?”
The playwright’s eyes glazed over. Then she turned and looked directly at Marian. “Sergeant Larch! How delightful you could come!” To the interviewers: “You’ll have to excuse me. An old friend.” The two turned off their tape recorders, murmured their thanks, and went hunting for other game. Abigail James looked at Marian contritely. “Please forgive me for using you to end that farce, Sergeant. I don’t know how much longer I could have kept a straight face.”
Marian shook her head in mock disapproval. “Is this the same Abigail James who once told me she paired the words ‘apostrophe’ and ‘thief’ for the sole reason that she liked the way they sounded together? That the title of the play has absolutely no meaning at all?”
The other woman laughed, and even looked a little embarrassed. “Did you happen to see the Friday Times? Some idiot wrote a piece about how the apostrophe is the most microcosmic of microcosms, and ‘thief’ is a metaphor for anything or anyone who destroys by means of attrition. The piece was pompous and pretentious and utterly nuts. I thought it was hilarious. But all day today I’ve had people like those two seriously questioning me about it. And no matter what nonsense I spout, they tape it or write it down as if it were Holy Writ.”
Holland spoke up. “And some earnest theater student in west Texas will read those very words … and make them the basis of a graduate thesis.”
“Alas. And that’s my contribution to knowledge.”
“No. That’s your contribution to education.”
“Ah. They aren’t the same, are they? Sergeant, introduce me to this man.”
Marian did; soon Holland and the playwright were deep in a discussion of the latter’s use of minor characters to “shadow” the major conflict of the play. Marian left them to it and tried working her way toward Kelly’s dressing room. She got as far as the door but had to stop; no room inside.
