A Motive For Murder (9 page)

“And I bet she has a few in mind,” Jerry added with
his by-now-familiar knack of not actually revealing the entire
story yet managing to besmirch his subject with unspoken
accusations.

Auntie Lil pondered this latest slur. She remembered
that fidelity had been long rumored to be a problem in the Martinez
marriage. She had always assumed it was Raoul who was the cause.
Now she was not so sure.

“I’d talk to Emili Vladimir if I were you,” Paulette
offered suddenly.

“Who in the world is that?” Auntie Lil asked.

“Rudy Vladimir’s mother,” Jerry explained. “The young
boy who got bounced from his role so Mikey Morgan could take
over.”

“I know Rudy,” Auntie Lil said. “One can hardly fail
to notice him at rehearsals. He stands out, wouldn’t you say?”

“He is as nice as he is talented,” Paulette admitted
in an uncharacteristic burst of generosity toward a fellow human
being. “Obedient, very hardworking, very respectful of my authority
and abilities.”

“Too bad you can’t say the same about his mother,”
Jerry said, smiling innocently.

Paulette glared at him.

“What?” Auntie Lil demanded.

“Jerry is under the misconception that I am jealous
of Rudy’s mother,” Paulette said coolly. “That was all many years
ago.”

“Hah!” Jerry demolished his fried flounder with
unrestrained glee, spreading half an inch of tartar sauce on top of
it first.

“How do you know her?” Auntie Lil asked, hoping to
get at the truth somehow.

“She defected to the States in the late seventies
when the Kirov Ballet was touring Canada,” Jerry explained
helpfully, ignoring his companion’s warning stare. “Baryshnikov did
the same thing. She didn’t make such a big splash, of course. She
wasn’t that big of a star. But she did manage to displace a few
well-known American dancers when Balanchine took her under his
wing.”

“Because he was infatuated with her!” Paulette spit
out. “It was always the same story with him.”

In other words, Auntie Lil surmised, Paulette
Puccinni’s legendary tiff with Balanchine had probably been over
his decision to replace her in some role with a relatively unknown
Russian ballerina named Emili Vladimir.

“What happened to her?” Auntie Lil asked. “Why
haven’t we heard more about her?”

Jerry shrugged. “She was a purist about the Kirov’s
ballet techniques. Refused to adapt to ABT’s quicker style. Opened
her own school downtown. After she had the kid.”

“The kid?” Auntie Lil said.

“Rudy,” Paulette explained. “She was pregnant when
she defected.” She smiled in remembered satisfaction. “Old George
only got a few months’ worth of dancing out of her. After the baby,
she drifted into modern dance. One of those.”

“Her husband’s death may have had something to do
with it,” Jerry added. “He was supposed to join them here in
America. I don’t know what happened.” He shrugged. “He got killed
by the KGB or disappeared into Siberia or something. He was a
dancer, too. Some people say she never had the heart to dance a
pas de deux
after he died.”

“Romantic nonsense,” Paulette countered. “Having a
baby rained her body, that’s all.”

Auntie Lil fervently hoped that Herbert was listening
carefully. These two collected grudges the way other people
collected stamps. “But you didn’t actually see anyone suspicious or
anything odd the night Morgan was killed?” Auntie Lil asked.
“Nothing that could help us?”

“I wasn’t even there,” Jerry said. “I prefer playing
at rehearsal rather than performances.” In other words, he had not
been chosen as principal pianist for this run of
The
Nutcracker.

“I was too busy trying to supervise all those damn
children,” Paulette said with a sigh. “I don’t know what possessed
Raoul this time around. I didn’t have time to see anything.
Besides, Morgan was on the opposite side of the stage from me. Not
many dancers are on that side at that point in the performance.
Most have just exited stage left. There are just a handful of
technical crew stage right, actually, at the Act One break.”

“If you talk to the tech staff, be careful,” Jerry
offered. He pantomimed taking a slug from an imaginary bottle. “If
you know what I mean.”

Auntie Lil stared first at him and then Paulette.
“No, I do not know what you mean,” she said firmly.

“They drink,” Paulette explained. “Our tech crew is
wetter than the Mississippi. Someone could have dissected Morgan
under their noses and they wouldn’t have noticed unless the killer
called for a spotlight first. Too busy trying to hit their cues
while under the influence.”

“They incriminated everyone but Mother Teresa,”
Auntie Lil explained when she reached T.S. by phone an hour later.
And that’s only because she was in Calcutta the night Bobby Morgan
was killed.”

“I am sorry I missed seeing you in tights,” T.S. told
her. “You said exercise class, not ballet.”

“Same thing,” she said, changing the subject. “Meet
me and Herbert in midtown. I need your help.”

“Where?” T.S. had spent the last few days reviewing
back issues of
Sports Illustrated
and was no closer to
understanding America’s fascination with sports than he had been to
under–standing downtown’s fascination with modern dance. He was
getting bored and ready to toss prudence to the winds. He suspected
Auntie Lil was out somewhere in New York City having fun and now he
wanted a piece of the action.

“Meet me and Herbert at the Museum of Radio and
Television Broadcasting,” she said. “We’re going to take a trip
down Memory Lane.”

“Thank you for coming. There are over one hundred
episodes of
Mike and Me,”
Auntie Lil explained. “I can’t
possibly watch them all.”

“Why are we watching them in the first place?” T.S.
asked, rather sensibly, he thought.

“I can’t quite explain it,” Auntie Lil admitted. They
were waiting at the counter of the museum’s archives while the
clerk located the requested tapes. “It’s the way Morgan was pushed
center stage after being killed. It was such a mocking gesture. I
thought perhaps we might get a clue to his character if we looked
at the tapes.”

“If you want a clue to Bobby Morgan’s character,”
T.S. said, “consider the fact that he named his son after his own
fictional character. I think that’s creepy. Think of the pressure
that went with the name.”

“Yes,” Auntie Lil agreed. “That’s why everything
begins with this. It formed the basis for Bobby Morgan’s
personality for the rest of his life. Besides, I don’t know what
else to do. We can’t question anyone at the Metro today. There’s no
one there.”

T.S. nodded agreeably. This would be better than
football, at any rate. “Talked to Lilah about the murder?” he asked
casually.

“No, dear. I told you, she’s been busy in
meetings.”

The old familiar doubt gnawed at the edge of his
stomach. How could one person have so many meetings? Was she
avoiding him? He looked up to find Herbert watching him quietly, as
if he could read his mind.

“I have a plan,” he whispered to T.S. “I will tell
you later.”

T.S. nodded, mystified.

“Here you go—six years of
Mike and Me.
Enjoy.”
The clerk pushed a stack of videotapes over the counter and nodded
to a bank of carrels against one wall, each equipped with a
combination television and VCR. Auntie Lil divided the stack and
they headed off to review their assigned episodes.

Compared to his son, Bobby Morgan had been an
unlikely-looking child star. Part of this may have been due to his
career’s time period. The early seventies had been an odd time for
American style. In episode after episode, Bobby Morgan had been
plagued alternately with a shag haircut, bushy Afro, improbable
sideburns, and, finally, a disco do that made him look positively
ludicrous. His clothes were even less attractive, though no
different from his cast mates’: bell bottoms, tight knit shirts,
circus stripes, suspenders, floppy hats, and platform shoes. But
not all of his awkward appearance could be attributed to the
costuming. Bobby Morgan had evolved undeniably from an appealing
child in the very early episodes into a gawky, acne-plagued
teenager desperately trying to be cute by the final shows. It was
easy to see why his popularity had faded. It was even possible to
feel sorry for him and to sympathize with his attempts to relive
his child-star days through his son.

The plots were no different from those offered by
more modern sitcoms. Bobby Morgan’s character had been called Mike,
the later inspiration for his real son’s name. The fictional Mike
lived in a modest middle-class home in Brooklyn with his
Irish-butcher father, ditzy Italian mother, bullying older brother,
and adorable little sister. Each week the show was told from a
different character’s viewpoint, using a voice-over technique to
explore that character’s relationship with Mike. Most of the shows
revolved around Mike’s propensity to get into trouble: Mike tying
his scoutmaster to a chair while trying out knots during a Boy
Scout meeting then accidentally locking him in a closet as a fire
broke out; Mike sneaking into the circus because he had no money
for a ticket and inadvertently being swept into center ring with
the clowns during a routine; Mike pretending to drive his family’s
parked car and releasing the parking brake, triggering a
preposterous ride downhill through what seemed to be nearly all of
Brooklyn.

Everyone watching the well-preserved tapes had
different reactions to these situations. Auntie Lil was irritated
by the canned laughter and renewed her vow never to watch
television. T.S. was annoyed by the precociousness of all the child
actors and embarrassed because he had actually dressed in pants
approaching bell-bottoms during those same years. Herbert was
scientific about his observations and scrutinized the interplay
between the fictional family members in an attempt to pick up clues
about Bobby Morgan’s real personality. In the end, no one had the
stomach even to contemplate watching all of the episodes in
order.     

They fast-forwarded through many of them and, after
four hours of nonstop watching, finally threw in the towel.

“Anything interesting?” T.S. asked, bleary-eyed, as
they rode the elevator down to Broadway.

“The actor who played his older brother on the show
looks familiar,” Herbert offered. “Andrew Perkins. Did he go on to
movies?”

T.S. shook his head. “I didn’t recognize him.”

“I did,” Auntie Lil agreed. “He must have grown up to
be someone.”

“Unlike Bobby Morgan,” T.S. offered.

Auntie Lil nodded in agreement. “His son looks
nothing at all like him,” she said. “The boy must take after his
mother.”

“Good point,” T.S. said. “And where is his mother
anyway?”

“The funeral is Wednesday,” Auntie Lil explained.
“She’ll be there with her children, I am sure.”

“That’s a whole day and a half away,” T.S. joked.
“What are you going to do until then?”

“Go see Myron Silverstein,” Auntie Lil said
promptly.

“Who is Myron Silverstein?” T.S. asked, knowing he
was taking the bait.

“Bobby Morgan’s old agent,” Auntie Lil explained.
“The one who got him the job on that wretched show. While you were
fast-forwarding, I was reading the credits. I am not content to let
bygones be bygones just yet.”

The next morning, Auntie Lil could rouse neither
Theodore nor Herbert by telephone, a most unusual situation that
triggered a suspicion that they were up to something. But she
pushed this thought aside in favor of finding Bobby Morgan’s former
agent. Six phone calls later, she located the right Myron
Silverstein. His office was on Fifty-seventh Street around the
corner from the
Stage Deli.

The address sounded better than it looked. Myron
Silverstein may have made a fortune off Bobby Morgan in his gravy
days, but he was coping with hard times now. His office was barely
bigger than a pantry and smelled of bourbon and kitty litter.

Silverstein was only slightly more uplifting. He was
a pudgy man, well into his sixties, with the desperately weary air
of someone who has not yet begun to save for retirement—or even his
quarterly estimated tax payments. His few remaining strands of gray
hair were combed across his mottled scalp in an ineffectual attempt
to hide widespread baldness. He wore a blue suit and a green tie
that featured an embroidered version of a moth-eaten Oscar
statuette. The top of the statue’s head was ragged where he had
rubbed it. Small threads of gold sprouted from its scalp like a
cowlick, making the icon look more like Alfalfa than Oscar.

“What can I do for you?” he asked Auntie Lil in a
gravelly voice, eyeing her as if she were an actress at an
audition. “I handle mostly kids, you know.”

She carefully averted her eyes from a mangled cigar
that poked from the ashtray like an enormous leech. “I understand
you used to handle Bobby Morgan,” she said, after explaining who
she was and why she was there.

“That was a long time ago,” Silverstein explained.
“He was my last big meal ticket, if it isn’t obvious from this dump
I’m in.”

“It’s very cozy,” Auntie Lil said, fooling neither
one of them with her bravado. “You heard the details about his
murder?”

The old man nodded. “Sure. Didn’t everyone? Talk
about going out in style. Sad ending, to what would have been an
entire sad story. Except for all the money he made off his kid, of
course. Would have liked to have had a piece of that action.” He
fiddled despondently with a pencil, daydreaming of far more
successful days.

“How long were you his agent, Mr. Silverstein?”

His face scrunched into a ball, as if the
concentration required to think that far back in time was
excruciating. “About four years,” he finally said. “I discovered
him back in 1969, in some crappy production the Metro was giving.
We found a lot of our kids in the performing arts in those days.
It’s still a good training ground for a professional career, though
the parents don’t have the patience to let their kids wait that
long anymore. They drag them in my office at two years old these
days. Can’t talk, can’t read, can’t hardly walk, but they’re gonna
be a star. At least the parents think so.” He shook his head in
disgust. “Bobby Morgan wasn’t as good-looking as your typical kid
star, but he had confidence. Plus it turned out that he could learn
lines just by looking at them. He had a photographic memory—the
real thing. Amazing, really. He didn’t get the part right away
though. Almost lost it to another kid. But in the end, they gave
him the part because he was could learn lines faster and was easier
to work with plus they decided the other kid was too old. Wrote the
other kid in as the older brother instead.”