The Man Who Loved Women to Death (17 page)

“See, I told you you’d know when I did it.”

“Chill out, dude,” Very ordered me. “You sound like you’re buggin’.”

“Do I, Lieutenant? I think I’m holding up rather well under the circumstances.”

“Look, this is a tense situation for everyone,” Feldman conceded, his manner softening. “I appreciate the position you’ve been put in, Hoagy. I know it’s not a comfortable one. If you feel the need for counseling I’ll be happy to recommend someone.”

“Thank you, Inspector. I have someone I can talk to.”

She came waddling in now, as if on cue. Tracy did, after all, have acting in her blood. And she did waddle, somewhat like a drunken sailor on a slippery deck. She plopped down on the floor next to the settee and began to play with her Tiny Touch phone, which had numbered buttons that played different melodies. So far her overwhelming favorite seemed to be number three, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” which I had begun to hate almost as much as I hate Glenn Close, the friend of Merilee’s who’d sent it. I will pay that bitch back someday if it’s the last thing I do.

Very sat there watching her with a goofy grin on his face. She does that to some people. The inspector acted as if she wasn’t there at all, although the sound track was hard to ignore.

Vic came lumbering in to retrieve her. “Sorry, Hoag. She’s really starting to motor. One minute she’s there, next minute she’s gone.”

“She’s fine,” I said, pulling her up into my lap. And away from her baby boom box.

Feldman got to his feet, studying Vic in the doorway. “And you are …?”

“Vic Early,” I answered. “He helps out around here.”

“Ever been on the job, Early?” Feldman asked, smelling pro on him.

“He’s a celebrity bodyguard, Inspector,” said Very, who had encountered Vic before. “Whazzup, Early?”

“Can’t complain, Lieutenant,” Vic replied.

I said, “May I ask you a stupid question, Inspector?”

“What is it, Hoagy?” Feldman asked wearily.

“He brought Diane home with him, but not Laurie or Bridget. Why?”

“Easier that way. He didn’t have to worry about dumping their bodies. All he had to do was split.”

“That makes you right again, I guess.”

“How so?”

“He’s getting better at it as he goes along.”

No one particularly wanted to touch that one, so we started for the front door in silence, me cradling Tracy in my arms. Lulu voted for the comfort of the settee. She’s partial to the oak tree herself, especially when it’s been upholstered. They fetched their coats from the closet and pulled them on. I opened the front door and they went out in the hall and pushed the button for the elevator.

“Do we still do Barney Greengrass in the morning?” I asked.

“We do,” Feldman said.

“Will I be wearing a wire?”

“The table will be wired. Do you need a dummy run?”

“Generally. But I’m prepared to make an exception in this case.”

Feldman muttered something under his breath at Very. I’m probably better off that I didn’t hear what it was. I’m certain that Tracy was. And then the elevator doors closed and they were gone.

I shut the front door and put Tracy down. I got my coat and hat and driving gloves out of the closet. “I have a job for you, Vic. It’s Tuttle Cash. He’ll be at King Tut’s until around two. I want you to babysit him. Without him knowing it, of course.”

“That’s no problem,” Vic assured me. “Plenty of old jocks hang out at the bar there. I’ll fit right in.”

“Take the Rover. If he leaves anytime before two, tail him. And keep me informed. I want to know every move he makes.” We had cellular phones in every car now, even the battered old ’62 Land Rover. They came with the baby, for some reason. “I’ll take over for you after two. I should be free by then.”

“What’s this all about, Hoag?”

“I found him trying to eat a gun this afternoon.”

Vic’s face darkened. “If he’s having that kind of problem, a supervised environment is what he needs.”

“Tried that. He turned me down. This will have to do, okay?”

“Okay, Hoag,” he said reluctantly. He suspected there was more to it than I was letting on, but didn’t press it. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Good man.” I put on my hat and started for the door.

“Oh, hey …” Vic glanced at his watch. “Cassandra is on. Want to see what she’s got?”

I opened the door. “No.” I closed the door. “Yes.”

She was on the TV in the kitchen, where Pam was making a salad to go with the chicken pot pie, which sat bubbling and golden brown on top of the oven.

“Above all, Cassandra, we must not panic,” the mayor was imploring her by live video remote from his office at city hall. “One man cannot hold this great city hostage.”

“Shewa, that’s easy for you to say, Mister Mayor,” Cassandra fired back at him from behind her newsroom anchor desk, which was cluttered with papers and looked just like a real reporter’s desk in a real newsroom. Except the newsroom was a studio, and the hard-working young reporters who were bustling around in the background were in fact hard-working young actors. “You got a full-time police escort and you ain’t no single woman. I’m just a goil from Brooklyn. I’m working the phone. I’m hearing threepeat—he’s just struck again. And that’s confoimed …” Damn, she was a good reporter. “I’m living in Fear City here. What am
I
supposed to do, huh?”

“Show good common sense, Cassandra. If a man you don’t know approaches you, walk away. If he follows you, go into a place of business and phone the police. Don’t hesitate. Do it. We have a state-of-the-art task force under the personal direction of Inspector Dante Feldman pursuing every possible avenue. We
will
catch the answer man. I can’t say when, but we
will
catch him.”

And now she was thanking the mayor very, very much for his time and he was thanking her very, very much for hers and then he went bye-bye and she turned her goggly eyes full on us. “Who is this answer man? When will he strike again? No one knows. No one except maybe his confidante … Stewart Hoag.”

Up flashed my photograph. A particularly awful one that Dick Corkery of the
News
snapped of me at the height of Merilee’s pregnancy flap. At the time, I was trying to smash his head in with my umbrella, my face drawn back in a tight grimace that resembled the death rictus. I looked like Vincent Price on a bad hair day.

“I spoke to Mr. Hoag, the one-time star novelist, late this afternoon at his luxurious Upper West Side office,” Cassandra went on. “His response, and I quote was: ‘I’m a family man. Me and Charlie Manson.’” She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh. Up swelled her heavy, dramatic sign-off music. “And on that upbeat note, I’m Cassandra Dee, and you’re somethin’ else. G’night, people.”

Pamela flicked the TV off, clucking at the screen angrily. “Someone should give that girl a good, proper spanking.”

“Nice sentiment, Pam,” I said. “But I’m afraid she’d enjoy it way too much.”

MY FIRST STOP WAS
Hell’s Kitchen. Or I should say Clinton, which is what they call the Kitchen now, thanks to Yushification. I stopped off there because that’s where the Cupcake Cafe is, and the Cupcake Cafe happens to be the best bakery in the city. I picked up a little something in chocolate in a size 40 long, then steered the Jag on over to the theater district, Lulu riding shotgun. Frozen rain had begun spittering down, melting as soon as it hit the pavement. I ditched the Jag outside the Belasco on West Forty-fourth and went in by way of the stage door. The geezer on the door had been there since Tallulah was an ingénue. He knew me from when Merilee played Desdemona there to Raul Julia’s Othello. She was Joe Papp’s newest, loveliest darling then. But that was another era, gone and forgotten. Papp was dead. Raul Julia was dead. Broadway was dead. These days, the Great White Way was nothing but Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals for the hearing-impaired and Disney spectacles for the young and the dim. Very few dramas opened anymore. Those that did tended to be revivals, most of them showcases for TV brand names in search of a weightier identity. In the case of
Wait Until Dark,
that brand name was Luke Perry, who was starring opposite Merilee as the malevolent villain Harry Roat, a part originated by Robert Duvall.

I sat up in the balcony with Lulu. I munched. I watched. They were rehearsing the climax, where the evil Roat has the blind Susy trapped in her apartment, defenseless. Roat torments her by pouring gasoline on the stairs and threatening to light it with a match. Susy evens the score by killing the lights on him. A terrifying game of cat-and-mouse ensues, much of it played out in utter darkness. I watched in awe. Not just because the last scene of
Wait Until Dark
happens to be one of the scariest in the history of modern theater, but because I knew Merilee. And yet I didn’t know
this
Merilee at all. She was totally convincing now as Susy. Vulnerable and frightened in the light. Resourceful and brave in the dark. I don’t think I’ll ever get over how she can turn herself into someone else. It’s like magic. Of course, as a wise old director once told me, that
is
why they call them actors.

A skinny kid in a T-shirt and jeans jumped on stage full of snide put-downs. A skinny kid in a T-shirt and jeans who I realized was the director. And then they were on a ten-minute break and Merilee disappeared backstage. I’d left word that I was there. A moment later she appeared in the aisle next to me, looking exhilarated but tired, her long golden hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a baby-blue cashmere turtleneck that had once belonged to me, jeans and Tanino Crisci ankle boots. Lulu moaned, tail thumping. Her way of saying hello.

Merilee’s way was to exclaim, “My Lord, darling. That’s the gaudiest, most obscene-looking chocolate thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” She flopped down in the seat beside mine. “Give me some.”

I did better than that. I gave her her very own.

“How does it play?” she wondered, taking a starved, grateful bite.

It played a bit ragged, especially so close to previews. But she knew that—she didn’t need to hear it from me. “Not terribly,” I replied.

“Luke’s growing into it,” she said tactfully, draping her long legs over the seat in front of her.

“So what did you tell them, Merilee?”

“Tell who, darling?”

“The Brad Pitt movie.”

“That I’ll do their nude scene. And I will
not
use a body double. I want to make a statement. I want to show America that women who are forty
are
beautiful.”

“I’m proud of you, Merilee. You’re a pioneer.”

“You bet your sweet patootie I am. Besides, darling, it’s now or never. In another year there won’t be a single person left on the planet who will even
want
to look at me naked, let alone pay eight dollars and fifty cents for the privilege. We start filming on location in the spring.”

“Where?”

“The former Soviet Union.”

“Which part?”

“Sarajevo.”

“That should make for a nice, relaxing change of pace.”

She finished off her chocolate thing, studying me with her shimmering green eyes. “You got another one, didn’t you? He wrote you again.”

“How did you know?”

“You only go to the Cupcake Cafe when you’re extremely up or extremely down. I can see your face, darling. You’re not extremely up.”

“The press are on to it. And me. They’re camped out in front of our building.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I may not be home for a day or two, Merilee. I wanted to let you know. Tracy’s fine. She’s with Pam.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I didn’t think I should take her with me.”

“I meant you not being home for a day or two.”

Down on stage, the prop men were moving everything back into position. The better to start all over again.

“Have you spoken to Tansy lately?”

Merilee furrowed her brow at me. “Why, no. Not for months and months. She’s, you know, pulled away from people. And her work takes her out of the city a lot.”

“She still living in the same place?”

“As far as I know.” Merilee raised an eyebrow at me. “Why, are you planning to run off with her?”

“Who, Tansy?”

“You always said she was great-looking.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Did, too. At our first New Year’s party. I distinctly remember it.”

“I said she was a great catch.”

“You’ve never said that about any of my other friends.”

“Your other friends are all actresses.” Somehow, my left shoulder ran into her bunched fist. “Ow, that hurt.”

“It was supposed to, mister.”

“She
was
a great catch,” I pointed out. “That was why I put the two of them together.”

Merilee’s mouth tightened. She said nothing. She did not like to discuss Tuttle with me. She was still too angry.

“I think he’s our man, by the way.”

“Our man, darling?”

“I think Tuttle is the answer man.”

She stared at me. “Tuttle Cash? Now, that would surprise me.”

“Would it? Why?”

“Because he hasn’t the nerve to pull this off,” she replied. “Or the discipline to cover his tracks. Or the talent to write about it so well. Face it, Hoagy, Tuttle Cash is a conceited, spoiled, self-indulgent pain in the Aunt Fanny. Plus he’s a coward. Only a coward beats up a woman that way.”

I let her have this. She wasn’t wrong, after all.

“Why do you think he’s the answer man?” Merilee wanted to know.

“I have my reasons. But I want to be sure. And until I am, well, I owe Tuttle that much. I do have a sample from his old typewriter—an expert would be able to tell in a flash if it matches the answer man’s. But that would mean enlisting Very, and Very’s got Feldman breathing down his neck.”

“Feldman?”

“The inspector who’s in charge. A fan. He’s a huge one.”

“Ah. And what is this huge fan like?”

“Professional. Competent. Hard-nosed.”

“You don’t like him.”

“And here I thought I was hiding it so well.” I glanced over at her. “I’m not a team player, by the way.”

“Thank God for that. I wouldn’t get weak in the knees every time you kiss me if you were. Darling, I’m going to get serious for a moment. You do value me for my truth telling, don’t you?”