by Ed Ifkovic
“He does have offices in the Woolworth,” I noted.
“But his heart is here. In theater.”
“A contradiction then, my dear.”
She didn’t answer but scurried out of the room.
When Tommy appeared, he strode past us, settled into a swivel chair, leaned back, unbuttoned the top button of his vest, and opened an enamel Frankart box on his desk and fingered a cigarette. A big man, such a contrast to the miniature and bony Cyrus, Tommy was broad-chested with a florid face and loose jowls, a drinker’s face, and his high forehead gleamed under the overhead light. His salt-and-pepper hair was styled in an expensive cut. An old-fashioned gold watch fob. Although I couldn’t see his legs, I had no doubt he sported Gentleman Jim Dandy spats. Probably four-button mustard yellow. Once a fad among the swell men about town, but the younger crowd sported flannel slacks over pointed Italian shoes.
He offered Noel a cigarette but not me. Noel took one and laboriously inserted it into the ivory holder removed from a pocket. A deliberate performance, so slow and mannered, that Tommy, ready to speak, simply watched, mouth agape, probably waiting for some dramatic finish. Noel waited for Tommy to hand him a lighter. A curious pantomime, the two men, that ended when both men sat back and blew smoke rings into the air. Smoke signals, I thought—yes, it’s time to hear what the woman has to say to us. Let’s listen to her.
I waited.
Finally, Tommy made a clicking sound with his tongue. “I haven’t seen the two of you in a while. A lot has happened.”
“And none of it good.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Is the show closing?” I asked.
He swung his head back and forth. “Not yet. We’re floundering, true. But the loss of Belinda is…lethal. That’s the problem when everything revolves around one star. You take Mary Boland out of Irving’s Face the Music, and the show is crippled. She’d become that show. Same thing here.”
“What will you do?” I asked.
A fatalistic shrug. “Move on. What choice do I have? Hide out in my family’s bank account till the dust of this down turn ends.”
I exchanged a glance with Noel. “We just came from talking to Cyrus Meerdom.”
Before I could finish the sentence, he was chuckling softly, speaking over my words. “That old reprobate. Lord, I still recall that resounding slap Belinda delivered at your killer-diller birthday party, Noel.”
“Yes,” Noel grimaced, “party favors and boogie-woogie floor shows. It beats blowing out the candles on a cake we never got around to slicing.”
“I hear he took Belinda’s death really hard.” Tommy rolled his cigarette between his thumb and index finger.
I shot him a look. “And you didn’t?”
He sat up. “That’s not fair, Miss Ferber. Of course I did. I was shattered by it. And, if you must know, by Dougie’s strange murder. The thought of that boy dying like that—a sleepless night for me.”
“Belinda’s wasn’t strange?”
He hesitated. “Poor choice of words maybe. You’re playing with me, madam. His death seemed to come out of nowhere. But Belinda…the automat. Dougie in a fit of anger…”
“So you also believe Dougie killed her?” Noel questioned.
He nodded. “Sadly, yes. Who else? I’ve actually given it some thought. Of course, who hasn’t? I mean, those of us who knew them. The two of them sniping at each other was famous—maybe I mean infamous—gossip around Schubert Alley. It was only a matter of time before he snapped.”
“Because of her infidelities?” Noel asked.
He squinted at us. “Are you suggesting something about me and her?”
“Yes,” I said, simply. “After all, you took her from Cyrus’ arms.”
Again, the soft, almost inaudible chuckle. “No, Miss Ferber. Lord, you talk like a radio song lyric. The truth of the matter is that Belinda was the unfortunate creation of an avaricious brother, his wonderful molding of an untutored girl into a temptress. I was fond of her, liked her company, enjoyed the game she played with me—the attention, the cooing, the flattery—but no, she practiced those maneuvers with me but I didn’t fall prey to them. I’m surprised you’re saying that to me.” He pushed back his chair, cradled his hands across his big belly.
“Cyrus says she was taken with Dougie from the start.”
“That’s true.”
I looked at Noel. “So…”
“So,” Noel finished, pointing a finger at me, “you and I were watching a different play, Edna.”
I frowned. “It seems lots of folks were watching that play. And perhaps they were also writing the script for it.”
“What are you two talking about?”asked Tommy.
For a while I said nothing, my eyes focused on a line of glass-framed stage posters behind him. Helen Hayes in The Lilac Garden. Ruby Keeler in Red Shoes. None, I noted, of Belinda in Tommy’s Temptations. Somehow that bothered me.
“You know, I’m getting a different picture of Belinda now. Yes, a woman who was a driving woman, really, her sights set on money, perhaps prodded by her brother. But I met her after she was already taken with Dougie. Before that…”
He held up his hand. “All true, I’m afraid. When I first met her, on the arm of Cyrus, in fact, her eyes screamed greed. A look I’m familiar with in this business. It was uncanny. She was robotic, I thought. Take this step, now take that one.”
“But that changed?”
He pulled out his watch and checked the time. He tapped a sheet of paper on his desk, puffed out his lips and made a we-have-to-make-this-fast gesture. “That’s what was strange. You know, I’d locked her into some ironclad image, and found it amusing. Like at your party, Noel. A diversion. Lord, how many times have I seen it in this world! Step your way to the top. But one day, talking with her about something, some new arrangement for one of the numbers in the show, I looked into her face. And there it was.” He stopped, his eyes wide.
Noel leaned forward in his seat. “What?”
Tommy closed his eyes for a second, then popped them open. “Weakness. That’s the word. She always had this…this hardness about her, steely, fierce, even a little unnerving. But one day it was gone.”
I sat back. “Dougie?”
Tommy suddenly looked very melancholy. “Yeah, Dougie.”
He pointed to his gold watch, straightened up, and said, “I’m sorry, but I have to end this.”
“Thank you,” I said to him as I stood up.
Standing in the lobby, I looked at the giant poster of Tommy’s Temptations dominating the wall. There was Belinda Ross, gorgeous, a siren with a come-hither look in her eyes, that beautiful smile on her face. Her name in bold letters.
“The Newest Light on Broadway.”
A run of critical quotations.
“The surprise of the season is the joy of the season.” —F.P.A. in “The Conning Tower.”
“Jazz baby comes alive. Oh you kid me not!”
—Walter Winchell in the Mirror.
“Stop, look and listen—and dance the night away.” —Brooks Atkinson in the Times.
“This can only be the art of something great!”
—Dorothy Kilgallen.
I shivered.
Noel cradled my elbow, a worried look on his face. “Edna,” he began, “tell me your thinking.”
“Noel,” I said quietly, “we’ve been lied to. I’ve been a foolish—and not a very good reporter. Our view of that pair was filtered through others’ prisms. I asked all the wrong questions.”
He got defensive. “There was no reason for us to question the stories. What I saw when I returned to New York was a full-blown romance, though a shaky one. Those outbursts colored a lot of my thinking. We simply saw Dougie fretting and worrying. We accepted his doubt as fact.”
“And believ
ed it all.” I slammed my fist into my palm. “How could I be so stupid!”
He spoke bitterly. “Corey Boynton and Kitty Baker.”
“Exactly.”
“They produced a scenario that served no one but…”
“Themselves.” I stressed the word. “Lord, Noel. Jealousy. Manipulation. Falsehood. All to the end of ruining lives they envied, coveted. Or simply because it was fun to play games. The face of false friendship. Kitty and her stories of other loves. She was the one who kept bringing up Wallace Benton and that darn skyscraper. Corey and his whispering in Dougie’s ear. ‘She’s leaving you.’ Lies.” I shook. “A game to them.”
“A deadly game.”
“I don’t like being so foolish, Noel.”
“But none of this leads to murder, does it?” He looked worried.
“Of course it does, Noel.” I stared at the poster of Belinda. Dead now. Dougie, dead. “The end result was the death of two love-struck souls.”
“They lied to us, Edna.”
“Yes, but we can live with that. You. Me. What is worse is that they lied to Belinda and Dougie. Kitty with her hints and rumors, Corey with his frat-buddy confidences.”
“But what does it tell us about their murders?”
“It tells me who killed Belinda.”
Chapter Twenty
Lady Maud couldn’t disguise her anger at me. She stood by a window on the fourth floor of her mansion, her back to the splendid view of Central Park, and glowered. I’d disturbed her, but worse—I’d barged in uninvited, the ragtag usurper of her serene afternoon. I’d rung the bell downstairs, waited an untoward amount of time, bothered the maid who answered and then hastily dismissed me, a look of wonder in her face that told me no one dared step into Lady Maud’s fiefdom so brazenly. But I persisted. No, I would not leave. Sorry, she was spending her afternoon writing notes to friends and others. Doubtless thank-yous for condolences, for flowers, for sympathy. The proper response. Black-lined stationary. The death of my dear son…Thank you for your…
“Tell her I’m here.”
The maid, stymied, headed to another room and left me standing in the front room under a French rock crystal chandelier. I expected it to fall on me, triggered by a butler in Lady Maud’s Satanic kitchen.
Lady Maud was not “at home,” I was told. “Lunch at the St. Regis with friends.”
“Of course, she is,” I demanded. “You just told me she’s writing notes. Which is it?” My voice echoed back at me in the high-ceiling foyer.
A guttural voice erupted from behind the trembling young woman. A social secretary, I assumed. A ghoulish horse-faced woman in a schoolmarm’s smock, though she’d accented it with a single strand of pearls and a rhinestone clip in her graying hair. “Good afternoon, Miss Ferber.”
Not happy, but then neither was I.
Upstairs Lady Maud sat at a tiny writing desk by the rear window, her face turned away from the doorway, her hand clutching a fountain pen. A stack of envelopes and cards spread before her.
I cleared my throat. “Lady Maud.”
She turned quickly, her face set in anger, her eyes stony. “You do not take no for an answer, do you, Miss Ferber?”
“I try not to.”
“Manners learned in a hen house?” She sucked in her cheeks.
“Actually no manners at all. A lesson learned from my days as a reporter in Milwaukee as I hounded folks who refused to talk to me.”
“I’m not surprised.” She stood and walked to a window, turned to face me.
She was not dressed for entertaining. A deep black silk wraparound housecoat over a loose charcoal-tinted morning gown. A thin trim of ermine around the collar. Japanese sandals speckled with green and blue bamboo reeds. A run of jangling bracelets on one arm. One simple ring, a wedding band. Gone the ostentatious array of rings she’d worn before. A little self-conscious, her hand fumbled with her hair, pulled up and tucked casually under a lace bonnet. She looked grandmotherly. Or, I supposed, a Robber Baron matron from an era when James Garfield assumed the presidency. She saw me surveying her clothing.
“I’m not dressed for company.”
“No matter.”
Idly, stepping away from the window, she glanced down on the writing desk, her fingers grazing the stack of sealed envelopes. “I’m busy.”
“I’ll take as little time as I need to.”
A flash of fear in her eyes. “What does that mean, Miss Ferber? What do you want from me?”
“Answers.”
“And I have them?”
“I believe you do.”
She sighed, glanced back out the window. She searched the room, as if her possessions were new to her, alien. Her eyes drifted to an overgrown spider fern in a huge Chinese urn. Red lettering against a soft brown glaze. Tendrils of pale green and white vine spun out, cascaded over the sides. She took a step forward and her fingers clipped off a yellow leaf, crumbled it between her fingers. Then another. Another. She muttered to herself, “Everything dies in this room. There is no morning light.”
“Lady Maud,” I began, “you have to understand that I liked your son.” I started to say, but stopped—she crushed a brown leaf and let the pieces fall onto the carpet, trickling from between her fingers.
Her fierce look stopped me. “You’ll not let me grieve in peace, will you?”
I said quietly, “There has to be an end to this story, no? Two murders.”
She gasped. “I lost my only son.” She banged the side of the urn.
“And,” I stressed, “don’t you want to know what happened?”
Distracted, she circled the urn, but then she sank back into her chair and folded her hands into her lap. “You know this house is so still now. The servants tiptoe around me like I’m a museum piece. But their whispering is so loud it echoes off the ceiling. I can’t escape it.”
“No family to visit?” I asked softly.
She swung her head to the side. “Distant cousins from Chicago. In town for the funeral. Annoying people. My husband’s family. I don’t want to be with them. They reek of disaster—and hunger.”
“I’m so sorry. So you’re alone.”
“And will be from this point on.” A bitter smile. “Dougie and I talked. At least we did before his world spiraled madly out of control. Sunday mornings in this room, in fact. A house of twenty or so rooms, echo chambers. Fifth Avenue out there. At night the gear-grinding taxis startle me awake. The backfire of trucks. Each time I think—gunfire. Dead.” She pointed. “Here—silence. This room. Tea in the afternoon. Confidences. A young boy, fifteen or sixteen, home from boarding school, wanting to be with me.” Her voice sailed over the room. “Mommy.” She closed her eyes. “This room is my tomb now.”
“Lady Maud.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. It’s the way I want it, Miss Ferber. Don’t you understand? This is the only room that will allow me the memories I demand.” Her eyes shot to the fern. The crumbled dead leaves. “I hate that plant.”
I didn’t know what to say so I waited. As quietly as I could, I sat down in a chair across from her. She’d not invited me to sit.
“Dougie’s chair. His favorite. Mornings.” She glared at me. “Why are you here?” she asked bluntly. “Why won’t you tell me?”
A horn sounded from the street. She jumped and swallowed a sob.
“Because I suddenly realized I didn’t know who Dougie was. Dougie and Belinda—their life together.”
That confused her, though she bristled at Belinda’s name. “No.” One word, meaningless.
“Nobody believes that I had a life before this.” I repeated the line from the homeless man on the street. Lady Maud’s eyes got wide, startled. I rushed on. “A dreadful line I heard recently. It got me thinking—so easy to create someone else’s life in your head, a life that perhaps has no
thing to do with the life actually led.”
Her eyes got cloudy. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry. What I mean is—Dougie and Belinda had a different life from the one everyone talked of. Convinced me of. The life we saw, for one. Negative, harsh. A gold-digger, a Broadway jazz baby seducing your inviolable boy. That life. But that wasn’t true.” She started to interrupt but I said quickly, “A life so many of us came to believe was written in stone.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Only this—we didn’t allow them the life they wanted.”
I watched Lady Maud shift in her seat, twist toward the Chinese urn. She stood up and plucked another dead leaf and crumbled it between her fingers. The brown bits fell onto the black-lacquered teak table. For a moment she looked out the window, but then, undecided, sank back into her chair.
“Lady Maud. I’ve come to realize how unfair the world was to Dougie and Belinda.”
She half-rose from her chair. “To them? To them? Honestly, Miss Ferber, your choice of words. Unfair is hardly…”
I locked eyes with hers. “They loved each other.”
She gasped. “For heaven’s sake. Nonsense. Do you hear yourself?”
“Let me finish,” I insisted. “That’s my horrible conclusion because it’s a conclusion that brings a dreadful ending to this play. I think it was a surprise for both of them, this unplanned love. Oddly, Dougie came into his own as a young man, something that, despite his financial wizardry, you suppressed. He could no longer be the prep school boy on his mother’s arm at high tea at the Ritz.”
She stormed, “How dare you!” Her fingers curled around the fountain pen on her desk.
I went on. “Belinda, for Dougie, was liberation. Yes, a showgirl with all kinds of fireworks blazing. But Dougie fell in love with her. Crazily so. Hopelessly. Yes, he may not have understood what that meant, so new an experience for him, but no matter—intoxicated, driven, swept off his feet. He was too old for the novelty of it all. Perhaps he was happy for the first time in his life.”
