by Denise Dietz
Maybe it would help if I helped solve the real Victor Madison’s murder. Which might even help me stay numb.
I remembered one of Jem’s cop shows. I had performed my usual role, standing and looking horrified behind the yellow crime-scene tape. Then, with a gazillion close friends, I’d watched “my” show. Jem had car-chased two suspects, charmed a couple of others, and almost blown one away, before he solved the heinous crime.
The incriminating evidence had been a lighter engraved with the killer’s name.
“Cat,” I said, “did you give Madison his silver lighter, engraved To M, From S? And if you didn’t, do you know who did?”
Chapter Fifty-three
Homicide Detective Armadillo hadn’t knocked on my door.
Unless he’d metamorphosed into a wolf in sheep’s clothing with a chin that boasted designer stubble.
“Hi, Andre,” I said. “I’m a tad busy right now.”
“Frannie, I’ve got to talk to you.”
He walked inside. Then, looming over my two friends, who still sat on the floor, he said, “Hello, Bonnie.”
“Andre,” she said, her voice as frosty as a fudgesicle with freezer burn.
Rising to her feet, Cat said she had to get back to Sol’s room.
“I’ll go with you.” Bonnie rose with a grace that belied her earlier anguish. “Frannie, let’s meet in the lounge as soon as you’re finished.”
She didn’t add with Andre forever, but it hung in the air as she and Cat exited stage left and shut the door.
Reluctantly, I faced my blonde wolf. “How’d you get my room number, Andre?”
“You look cute in that robe, Frannie.”
“I look like a bowl of tapioca pudding. How’d you get my room number?”
He gave me his melt-Oscar grin. “I charmed the girl at the desk.”
“Oh, great. All of a sudden, they know who I am.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Find a chair or a piece of bed and sit down. I have to get dressed.”
“Frannie, I came to apologize. There’s no excuse for my betrayal ‑‑”
“Betrayal, Andre? Try double fuck-up!”
“‑‑ and I miss you.”
“So does my mother.”
“I’m serious. I miss the way you cut the crusts off your bread. I miss the way your nose crinkles when you’re pissed off. I miss the fact that you can never decide what to wear.”
“Andre, you’re paraphrasing Billy Crystal in When Harry Met ‑‑”
“And how you always call our balcony a patio.” He patted his left pec, where everybody thinks the heart is, then extended his arms in the traditional come-to-me-baby. “If I swear Bambi and Fawn will never happen again, can we give ‘us’ another try?”
“No, Andre. There will always be another Bambi and Fawn. It’s in your genes.”
“Low blow.”
“Sorry.”
“But I probably deserve it.” When he realized I hadn’t fallen into his arms, his lowered them. “Frannie, I got the part.”
“What part?”
“The Bus Stop part. The TV adaptation. I didn’t even have to audition. My agent sent them Galveston Dinner Theatre tapes and ‑‑”
“Congratulations.”
“I told them you’d be perfect for the Marilyn Monroe role, and they want you to audition.”
“Thanks, Andre. That was sweet.”
“You don’t sound very excited.”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
He nodded. “Victor Madison. But that’s no big deal, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“From what I’ve heard, everyone’s glad he’s dead.”
“Not Cat, not Bonnie, not me.”
“Another director will probably finish shooting the movie, although they say it’s jinxed.”
“I’m not worried about the movie, and who’s they?”
“The TV reporters.”
“Fuck the TV reporters!”
“Why are you so upset?”
“I’m not upset. I’m angry.”
“Why are you so angry?”
Because I loved Victor, loved his double, and how dare you say it’s no big deal.
“Because I don’t know what to wear. How does one dress for a cop interview? On Jem’s show, suspects always look scruffy, and they say ‘eh’ a lot, as in ‘I didn’t spend last night with Victor Madison, eh?’”
Andre sat on the edge of the mattress. “Did you spent last night with Victor Madison?”
“No.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. The cops will ask you a few questions and ‑‑”
“Right. Except, I found the bodies and there’s this detective who walks as if he has a load in his pants and he hates movie stahs.”
“You found the bodies? God, Frannie, I’m sorry. The TV didn’t identify ‑‑”
“Shit! If the girl at the desk gave you this room number, I’m not Sol anymore, and soon the media will thrust hand-mikes under my nose. I may be wrong, but in my humble opinion, the clerks at this hotel can be bribed with more than a smile. So, for that matter, can the bumper-car maids. What’ll I tell the reporters? They’re sure to ask me why I was in Victor’s room. Will they believe I merely wanted an encore, that I planned to room service him?”
“Frannie, I didn’t understand one word you just said.”
“What didn’t you understand, Andre?” Plunging into the closet, I began to rearrange hangers.
“For starters, the encore bit. Does that mean you fucked Madison? Please step out of that closet and answer me.”
“Cat’s jeans will do nicely,” I said from the depths of the closet, which was actually pretty shallow. “They’re designer scruffy, just like your chin. Where’s my new top? Here it is. Shows my belly-button. Can’t get much scruffier than that, eh?”
“Frannie, are you going crazy again?”
“Again? When did I go crazy before?”
“All that demon talk.”
“There was no demon.”
Briefly, I wondered if I should tell him it was a doppelganger. Nah. Why bother?
“Frannie, did you or did you not sleep with Victor Madison?”
Fully clothed, I stepped out of the closet, then slid my feet into a pair of sandals. “Andre, I’ve got to meet Bonnie. If it makes you feel better, I haven’t slept with another human being since the day we met. In fact, long before that. Despite your snotty comments, Samson and I never screwed around, not even when I shared his loft. Oh my God! Holy shit!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Mickey. Mickey Mouse.”
Chapter Fifty-four
Had I raced Bonnie to the lounge, I would have won.
Because she wasn’t there yet.
The bar opened for drinks at noon, so the lounge was empty.
Except for John the Bartender, who was working the day shift.
Right now, he held a phone to his ear.
Straddling a bar stool, I let my thoughts meander.
Stevie Eisenberg’s death and Victor Madison’s death were linked, but I couldn’t figure out how.
Shelve that one, Frannie.
Tenia had argued with Madison, even slapped his face, but she’d never stab him. She’d stick pins in a voodoo doll. Or send an e-mail to Satan.
Sol hated Madison, but he’d been given the green light as far as Peggy was concerned, so his impetus would be a tad un-kosher.
Apart from Sol’s she-never-lies assertion, Peggy could have killed Stevie Eisenberg. And once the sleeping pill wore off…half a sleeping pill…Peggy could have killed her brother. But why kill Dawn?
I refused to believe Cat and Bonnie had anything to do with the murders.
Sheldon Giglia was the most logical suspect. Sheldon Giglia had threatened to kill Madison, and Sheldon Giglia had been in the lounge, sitting at Jem’s table when Dawn accepted Madison’s crude invitation.
Mary-Magdalene had been at Jem’s table, too, bu
t I didn’t think there was any connection between Mary-Mag and Madison. Unless she was Tenia’s instrument of destruction.
Shortly after Andre had knocked on my door, Cat had said she didn’t know the name of the person who’d given the silver lighter to Victor. It had been a gift from an extra who appeared in his first movie, Cat said. Victor said the extra described him as having eyes that flashed like black lightning. Victor loved that phrase, Cat said.
Eyes that flashed like black lightning.
In my humble opinion, the S on Victor’s lighter was none other than Samson, and the Mickey who’d been responsible for Madison’s rage and Cat’s rape had not been Mickey Mouse.
Samson had said he was leaving for L.A., but he might have stuck around. Samson had become agitated when he believed I had Madison’s room key in my purse. Samson could have obsessed over Madison for years, the reason why I never saw him with a lover ‑‑ man or woman ‑‑ while sharing his loft. And hadn’t his loft included a Victor Madison dart board?
Calm down, I told myself. Except for Coffee Shop scuttlebutt and the medical examiner’s time guesstimation, you don’t know shit. The cops could have found fingerprints, a bloody shoe print, the murder weapon. At which point they’d say, “Aha! It was a Crime of Passion, and Sheldon Giglia, ass director, dropped his Rolex.”
Staring at shelves filled with liquor bottles, I tried to write a cop-show script. How much harder could it be than rap lyrics?
PAN CAMERA across Victor Madison’s hotel suite. ANGLE ON a five-foot-two (and a half) ecktriss/stah, hidden behind bedroom drapes. No. Behind a closet door, slightly ajar.
ANGLE ON killer…
Not Giglia.
Not Sol.
Not Bonnie, Cat, or Peggy.
Not Tenia or Mary-Mag.
Who, then?
Mickey Samson Roebuck.
Jeremy Glenn, supercop, would say, “Mickey Mouse and the lighter are circumstantial. They’ll never hold up in court.”
His partner, Francine Rose, might agree. But then, in a burst of brilliance worthy of Sherlock Holmes (or Kinsey Millhone), Frannie would remember that Samson had said something…something important…the last time she saw him.
Forsaking the mental script, my mind, like a tape recorder, rewound and played. Sol had said, “It’s hard to forget a six-foot-four Texan with hair down to his butt.” Samson had said, “It wasn’t quite that long. If I had cut it, Victor would have given me a speaking part.”
No one on our set called Madison “Victor” ‑‑ not Cat, not Bonnie, not even Jem. Outside the high school cafeteria, Madison (and I was now fairly certain it was Madison, not his double) had said, “You can call me Victor, only not in front of the cast and crew.”
Mickey Samson Roebuck had been an extra in D-Train to Hell. Had Madison allowed his cast to call him “Victor” way back then?
Once again, I rewound and played.
A&E’s Biography. Comments by D-Train’s cinematographer and the girl with the Mouseketeer ears and an extra who’d become a superstar. All of them had referred to Victor Madison as “Madison”…even the superstar.
“Would you like a Coke, Frannie?”
Startled, my gaze shifted to John. “Coffee, please,” I said. “I need to kill this hangover, stay focused.”
“You got yourself a hangover from one margarita?”
“Long story. But I need you to do me one hell of a big favor.”
“Anything.”
“Find a room number for me.”
“Anything but that. I’ll get my ass fired.”
“John, let’s say a guest ran up a big tab. He charged it to his room and signed his name, but didn’t put the room number down. Couldn’t you check with the desk?”
“No. My manager would. Unless he wasn’t here.”
“Is he?”
“Not until later. I called for back-up. The press is all over the place, and soon they’ll invade ‑‑”
“Would you check a room number for me, John? Please?”
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“You bet.”
“Okay. What’s the name?”
“Mickey Roebuck. R-o-e-b-u-c-k. If it’s not under that, check Samson Roebuck.”
Drumming my fingers on the bar, I waited for John’s return. It didn’t take long. “One of the girls at the desk couldn’t find anything under Roebuck,” he said. “So I asked her to look up Samson. She found an M. Samson, Room 1030. But he’s already checked out.”
“When?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Did she see him leave the hotel?”
“No. He might still be in his room, Frannie. He called the desk and asked for someone to pick up his luggage.”
“They would have collected it within twenty minutes.”
“Not really. It’s a mess out there, because of the murders.”
“God, you’re clever.”
“God, you’re beautiful. Don’t forget dinner.”
“I won’t. One more favor, John, this one legal. Bonnie should be here any minute. You know Bonnie, right?”
“I’ve never met her, but I know what she looks like.”
“Okay. Please give her the room number, 1030, and tell her I think maybe Samson killed Madison. Then ask her ‑‑”
“What did you say?”
“Please ask Bonnie ‑‑”
“Who killed Madison?”
“Mickey Samson Roebuck. Please ask Bonnie to find some cops and ‑‑”
“Frannie, I’ll get you cops! Stay right here! That’s an order.”
“No, John. If Samson’s about to leave, I’ve got to hurry. Explaining everything to the cops would take a gazillion hours. Anyway, Bonnie’s more credible and she’s due any minute. Also, see if you can get through to Sol Aarons.”
“Please, Frannie, at least let me go with you.”
“No. I need you for Bonnie and Sol. Whoa…you don’t have Sol’s room number, and the desk might patch you through to my room.”
“Actually, I do have his room number. He’s always buying drinks for people and must have signed a…what’s your word?…a gazillion tabs.”
“Damn, you’re smart!”
“Frannie, don’t go to that guy’s room.”
“You’re supposed to say damn-you’re-beautiful.”
“Frannie, please.”
“I’ll be okay. Samson wouldn’t hurt me. He treats me like one of his stray cats. Anyway, there’s no reason for him to hurt me. If I’m right, everybody will know, including you, Bonnie, Sol and the cops.”
John pointed toward the blackboard, where bartenders chalked the daily drink specials. The blackboard was at the entrance, near a host podium.
“I’ll try Aarons,” he said, “and if Bonnie’s still not here, I’ll leave her a note on the board, where she can’t miss it. In fact, nobody’ll miss it. Then I’ll find a gazillion cops.”
“Deal,” I said, and headed for the elevators.
Chapter Fifty-five
Waiting for an elevator, leaning against the wall, I had an off-the-wall thought.
Would I see my own doppelganger inside the elevator?
If I did, I’d return to the lounge and let the cops confront Samson.
Yeah, sure. Could one truly change one’s fate?
Fata viam invenient. The fates will find a way.
An elevator opened its doors and a family stepped out, dressed for the pool. They were followed by a Japanese businessman and a woman who looked as if she suffered from nicotine deprivation. I nodded, smiled, said hello three times, and stepped inside.
No luminescent double lurked…a good sign.
Samson won’t hurt me, I kept thinking. I also kind of hoped he wouldn’t be there.
His door was open. I said, “Samson?”
“Frannie, is that you? Come in.”
Said the spider to the fly.
Now for a fib that sounded plausible. You’re an ecktriss, I told mysel
f, so act like one.
