by Simon Brett
‘Charles,’ she said, efficient, no-nonsense, businesslike, ‘I’m flying back to the States on tonight’s red eye. I just thought I should tell you we won’t be repeating last night’s experiment.’
‘Oh,’ said Charles, understandably deflated.
‘You’re not what I’m looking for,’ she went on, her words not calculated to do much by way of reinflating him. ‘But I did just want to tell you that I have very good lawyers.’
‘You already told me that. You said they were dealing with the divorce in a way—’
‘I’m not talking about the divorce. I’m talking about the possibility of you going to the press about what happened last night.’
‘What? You mean you think I’m likely to produce a kiss-and-tell memoir?’
‘Someone in my position always has to be wary of that possibility.’
Charles was insulted and let Lilith know he was. ‘Look, it’s a little diminishing for a man to be told he’s an inadequate lover, but—’
‘I didn’t say you were inadequate, just not what I’m looking for.’
‘Well, thank you very much for making that distinction. But what really offends me is that you think I’m the kind of man who would try and sell “My Night of Passion with Lilith Greenstone” stories to the press.’
‘I’m sorry, but I have to take precautions against that kind of thing happening. And all I’m saying is that if you ever change your mind about spilling the beans, my lawyers will leave you so shredded and beat up you’ll wish you’d never been born.’
‘I can assure you,’ said Charles with some hauteur, ‘that the eventuality you describe will never arise.’
‘I’m very glad to hear that, Charles.’ Then she added formally, ‘It was a kinda pleasure to meet you. We won’t meet again.’
‘Oh, before you ring off, there is one thing I want from you.’
‘Oh?’ said Lilith, bridling.
‘I’d be grateful if you could give me Lefty Rubenstein’s mobile – I mean, cellphone number.’
Lilith could see no reason why that was an illegitimate demand, so she gave Charles the number.
No time like the present. He called Lefty straight away.
And his call was answered straight away. No self-identification, just a cautious ‘Hi.’
‘Lefty, it’s Charles Paris.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I just wanted to say I’m very sorry about what happened to Kenny.’
‘Well, that’s very gracious and British of you, but it’s not really necessary. Kenny’s dead, that’s all there is. Kinda life he led it was no big surprise.’
‘Yes, but there’s a lot of discussion in the Cinderella company about what might have happened to him.’
‘I’m sure there is. There’s a lot of discussion in the entire world about what might have happened to him. Kenny Polizzi was an international star. I haven’t dared look at your Sunday papers yet. But you should see the number of tweets there’ve been just this morning.’
Charles did by now know what a ‘tweet’ was. Something to do with Twitter. But he’d never actually seen one. Although he knew most of his fellow professionals were wedded to it, there had yet to be a meaningful interface between Charles Paris and the social media.
‘Well, Lefty, I was wondering if you were clearer than anyone else about what actually happened on Friday night.’
‘Why should I be?’
‘Last time I saw Kenny alive I was drinking with him in the pub by the theatre. He was asking me about drugs and then the phone rang. He saw who was calling and he said it was synchronicity.’
‘So?’
‘The phone call was from you.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘He called you “Lefty”.’
‘So maybe Kenny had a lot of friends called Lefty.’
‘Maybe, but I’d say it was unlikely.’
‘What are you saying, Charles? What’s with this “synchronicity”?’
‘I think you were ringing Kenny to say you’d managed to find some cocaine for him.’
‘Is that what you think?’ said Lefty shortly. ‘We better meet.’
It wasn’t the Grand. Lefty had selected an anonymous modern hotel, a few roads back from the sea front. The bar had as much atmosphere as a bedroom in a private hospital. A premature undecorated Christmas tree did little to cheer the place up. Late on a Sunday afternoon there was no one else there but an older man and a younger woman, clearly too involved in the complications of their extramarital affair to listen to anyone else’s conversation. Even the barman had to be summoned by ringing a bell on the counter. Charles Paris ordered a large Bell’s, Lefty Rubenstein had another of his Diet Cokes, drunk straight out of the bottle.
‘So have the police talked to you, Charles?’ he asked. He looked sweaty and uncomfortable, his bulbous body barely contained by his crumpled suit, the comb-over uneven across his head.
‘Yes. And presumably to you?’
‘Of course. I’m Kenny’s attorney. Not to mention his agent and everything else.’
‘And did you get any impression of the direction in which the police’s investigations were heading?’
‘Surely even British cops wouldn’t be stupid enough to let anyone know that.’
Charles felt duly put down by the response. ‘No. You’re right.’
‘When you rang me on my cell you talked about drugs and the idea that I might have obtained cocaine for Kenny …’
‘Yes.’
‘You have any reason for thinking I did that?’
‘Just what he said about synchronicity.’
‘Hm.’ Lefty took a moment to assess that response. Then he asked, ‘Did you say anything to the police about this “synchronicity”?’
Charles was able to reply an honest, ‘No.’
‘So when you talked to the police drugs weren’t mentioned?’
‘Yes, they were. Detective Inspector Malik – did you meet her?’
‘Sure I did.’
‘She was the one who raised the subject of drugs with me. I got the impression Lilith Greenstone had told her that Kenny tended to fancy some cocaine every time he started drinking again.’
Lefty nodded ruefully. ‘That figures. Lilith would have said that. The bitch.’
‘She also,’ Charles began cautiously, ‘suggested that on occasion you sourced cocaine for Kenny.’
The lawyer looked horrified. ‘She said that to the cops?’
‘No. Not so far as I know. She said that to me.’
‘Ah.’ Lefty smiled a crooked smile. ‘You been spending a bit of time with the lovely Lilith?’ Charles found himself blushing. ‘Yeah, that figures. She always liked variety.’ Then he became serious. ‘Listen, Charles, this situation I’m in is a real shithole. My responsibilities don’t stop with Kenny’s death. I’ve managed the guy’s image for years, and I reckon that job’s just got harder. While he was alive and he did something stupid, we could always limit the damage. Get him to own up, go on some chat show, be all contrition. We could work it out. Protecting his image without him there is going to be one hell of a lot trickier.’
‘But why do you need to manage his image now he’s dead?’
‘Hell, don’t you know anything about showbiz, Charles? Kenny Polizzi is still one hell of a big star. The media’ll be all over the story. Possibly dead he’ll be a bigger star than ever. Remember the line about Elvis – dying was “a good career move”. You see the same thing with Michael Jackson. The Dwight House is still being repeated round the world. There’s a lot invested in seeing that the image of Kenny Polizzi doesn’t get tarnished.’
‘Why does it matter so much to you, Lefty?’
‘It matters so much to me,’ he replied, ‘because I’m on a percentage of everything that comes in. I may not be that sentimental about people, but I’m sure as hell sentimental about money.’
Lefty swallowed down the last of his Diet Coke, jumped up to the bar and bange
d on the bell to be supplied with another one. Just to be sociable, Charles ordered a second large Bell’s.
While the barman was getting their drinks, Charles noticed that the woman of the extramarital couple was crying. The man’s guilt must have been clicking in, now he was preparing to go back home to his wife and children. The lie about ‘a conference in Eastbourne’ felt pretty shabby to him now. Satiated with sex, he had no doubt just told the girl the thing had to end (as he no doubt would on many more occasions). To Charles the whole scenario had an uncomfortable familiarity.
Lefty once again sat down opposite him. ‘Listen, keep it the way it is with the cops. If they ask you more about Kenny and drugs, act dumb. You know nothing. And if they should happen to ask you if you’d ever heard of me procuring coke for Kenny, you know even less. Got that?’
‘Sure thing,’ said Charles, taking on the actor’s habit of beginning to talk like the person he was with. ‘But there are things about Friday night I still want to know.’
The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah? Like what?’
‘You did meet up with Kenny, didn’t you?’
‘Why should I tell you whether I did or not?’
He didn’t like doing it, but Charles was so intrigued by the puzzle of Kenny Polizzi’s murder that he said, ‘To ensure I don’t forget what you just told me and happen to mention to Detective Inspector Malik that you have on occasion sourced coke for him.’
He’d feared this would prompt an outburst, but in fact Lefty took it very calmly. Maybe, as a lawyer, he was used to negotiation. He was used to a world where information was just another bargaining counter.
‘OK.’ He nodded. ‘That’s your pitch. And you put me in the kind of bind – which I’m sure was exactly what you intended to do. If I don’t tell you more about Friday night, you’re threatening to spill the beans to Malik about me sourcing coke for Kenny. If I do tell you, you then have more beans to spill, should you change your mind about staying shtum.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Your word is your bond? Very British, Charles Paris. Hm.’ Lefty was silent for a moment. He took a long swig from his Diet Coke and swept his sweaty comb-over back across his head. ‘As it happens, I am inclined to tell you more, and that’s for one simple reason.’
‘What?’
‘Because I’m as keen as you are to find out what actually happened to Kenny on Friday evening.’
‘Who killed him, you mean?’
‘Exactly that. If the two of us pool our information, maybe we have a better chance of reaching a solution.’
Charles liked the way the conversation was heading. He already had the feeling that he’d embarked on an investigation. To have Lefty Rubenstein, with all his knowledge of Kenny Polizzi’s past history, on his side would be a considerable bonus.
‘Sounds good to me, Lefty. If you answer a few questions for me I’ll tell you anything I know – though I’m afraid that probably isn’t much.’
‘You say that, Charles, but you were the one who actually found Kenny’s body.’
‘Yes, but I don’t know if I was the first person to find it.’
‘Well, let’s assume for the time being that you were. So how long would you say it took from you getting the call from Kenny’s cell and arriving at the pier?’
‘Half an hour tops. I’d have been there quicker if I hadn’t forgotten my coat and gone back to the digs to get it. I still feel guilty about that.’
‘Don’t think about it. Guilt is one of the most wasteful of all human emotions.’ Given its source, Charles found this an unexpectedly philosophical observation. ‘And you didn’t see anyone other than Kenny when you got under the pier?’
‘No.’
‘No one hurrying away?’
Charles shook his head. ‘I mean, obviously I had no suspicions at the time, so it’s not as if I was looking out for anyone, but my recollection is of not seeing a soul, even thinking to myself what a sedate place Eastbourne was, with all its inhabitants tucked up in bed by two o’clock in the morning.’
Lefty nodded thoughtfully. ‘And you saw no sign of the murder weapon?’
‘No. Detective Inspector Malik was of the view that it had probably been thrown into the sea, and that the chances of recovering it were minimal.’
‘Oh?’
‘Something to do with the tides round Eastbourne, I don’t know.’ Another nod from the lawyer. ‘Lefty, I have to ask you … did you find cocaine for Kenny that evening?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘How did you know where to look?’
‘Kind of thing you pick up if you’re raised on the back streets of LA.’
‘You found the stuff very quickly. Presumably you only started looking after Kenny had started drinking and contacted you?’
‘Yes, but I’d done my research beforehand. You’d be amazed at the network of contacts lawyers have. In LA, of course, I deal through respectable sources. Getting drugs there is like any other service. You pay the right amount of money, you get the right amount of discretion. Here I had to take more risks. New place, you don’t know quite who you’ll be dealing with. But my contacts came up with the goods. Got me a few useful names and numbers here in Eastbourne. Individuals, pubs they might frequent, that kinda stuff.’
‘Why did you do that, Lefty? Why did you think you’d need drugs here?’
‘Because I’d seen Kenny fall off the wagon many times before. And this was the longest time he’d been sober for a while. I knew it couldn’t last. And I always like to be prepared for every eventuality.’
Charles was once again surprised at the breadth of the job description for acting as Kenny Polizzi’s lawyer and agent. ‘And would you be prepared,’ he asked, ‘to let me have those contact details?’
‘I thought you said you’d never done drugs? Strange time of life to change something like that.’
‘No, I don’t want the drugs for myself. I just thought it might be useful for me to know for the next stage of our investigation.’
Lefty didn’t look convinced. ‘I got all the information we need about that. No need for you to start poking a stick in a hornets’ nest. Drug trade here in Eastbourne – like everywhere else in the world – involves some seriously unwholesome characters.’
‘OK,’ said Charles lightly, reminding himself that he and Lefty had just agreed to work on the investigation together. If that partnership worked out, then fine. If not, Charles might have to start exploring the Eastbourne drug trade on his own.
There was a sudden commotion the other side of the bar. The weeping girl pushed her chair back and ran out of the room. The man looked embarrassed with relief. He rang for the barman and ordered a double gin and tonic. And prepared himself for a virtuous return to the wife who’d never known of the other woman’s existence.
‘Lefty, does the name Marybeth Docker mean anything to you?’
Suspicion returned to the dark eyes. ‘In what context?’
‘In the context of Kenny Polizzi. In the context of a girl he might have met some years back in LA?’
‘Kenny met a lot of girls back in LA.’
‘He might have had a sexual relationship with this Marybeth Docker.’
‘Kenny had sexual relationships with a lot of girls back in LA.’
‘This one is in the Cinderella company. Now under the name of Jasmine del Rio.’
Lefty Rubenstein shook his head. ‘Neither name means anything to me.’
‘Because I was wondering whether Jasmine offered some kind of threat to Kenny.’ And Charles described the encounter between the two of them that he’d witnessed in the rehearsal room.
But his narrative only prompted another shake of the head. ‘Though I may be like Kenny’s nursemaid, I don’t have a record of every woman he screwed. Particularly not if we’re going back to before the Dwight House days.’
‘Oh well, if you do hear anything about a woman with either of those names, let me know.’
‘Sure wil
l.’ Lefty seemed more relaxed as he took another long swig from his bottle. That finished the contents, so he rang the bell on the bar for a refill. Still being sociable, Charles ordered another large Bell’s.
The other drinker in the bar downed the remains of his gin and tonic and walked out, back to his unsuspecting wife with a step that was almost jaunty.
‘How long are you going to stay in England?’ asked Charles once they were again seated.
‘A little while yet, I think. Need to be near the police investigation, be one of the first to know when there’s any progress. My staff back in LA can handle the US media. Besides, given the scale of Kenny’s name, a lot of the papers and TV companies will probably be sending their news teams over here – if they haven’t arrived already. I need to be around here to manage how they report the story.’
‘I can see that.’
Lefty looked at his watch. ‘I gotta get back up to my room. Lotta emails to do.’
‘Well, it’s been good to see you.’ Charles reached across the table to shake the lawyer’s hand. ‘And we’re agreed – any useful information either of us gets on the investigation – we share it.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Lefty.
Charles held on to the man’s hand. ‘And I think that should include you telling me who the contact was in Eastbourne through whom you got the cocaine for Kenny.’
There was only a token remonstrance before Lefty gave in. He gave the name of a pub and the name of a man to ask for there.
‘But be careful, Charles,’ was his parting shot. ‘People who deal drugs are rarely the nice guys.’
THIRTEEN
BUTTONS: But will you love me in the end?
CINDERELLA: No, but I’ll always be your friend.
There were two pieces of news at the start of rehearsals on the Monday morning. One was about recasting. The elevation of Charles Paris to the role of Baron Hardup had left the production one Broker’s Man short. And following the bizarre process that goes under the name of ‘celebrity casting’ in pantomimes, it had been decided that Mick ‘The Cobra’ Mesquito should be paired up with another boxer.
