Death Dance (16 page)

She turned the knob and a door marked exit opened. This time,
the light switch panel was on the wall and she illuminated the front
orchestra of the fan-shaped auditorium. We followed her in and she
lowered herself into one of the plush gray seats in the first row.

"Pretty spectacular, isn't it?" Berk said, looking up at the
brilliantly painted murals that lined the proscenium and arched over
the boxes on stage right and left. "Can you see?"

Mike and I leaned our heads back and studied the ceiling.

"Each portrait is a tribute to one of the great
dramatists—Goethe, Moliere, Shakespeare. Those figures over
the stage? They're all allegorical. Everett Shinn, the Ash Can
School—he was the painter," she said, pointing at the nudes
represented against the lush green-and-gold background. "That's Mother
Love, sheltering Innocence, and the other? It's Devotion dispelling
Grief with a kiss."

That was her only reference to grief since we'd encountered
her.

"You know this place well," I said.

"You can't imagine how many hours I spent in Broadway
theaters, waiting for my father while he made deals with other
producers or tried to sweet-talk actors into coming to work for him.
Going to rehearsals and openings, going back again whenever there was a
cast change to see if the understudy could handle the part. Going a
third or fourth time if a new song was added or a dance number cut. I
could probably draw the interior of every one of them from memory."

"Would you mind giving me your number, in case we need to talk
with you again?"

"Sure. My cell's the best." She smiled at Mike as she gave it
to him.

"Can we see you out?" Mike asked.

"I'm just going to sit here for a while. I think it's my
favorite place to be—an empty theater at night. All the
artifice is gone, all the things that directors impose on our
imaginations. Now it's just a stage that's full of possibilities. We'll
hang out—just me and Belasco's ghost."

Mike started for the door ahead of me.

"Hey, Mike," Mona said, "I'll give you something to tell those
dancers over at the Met. They know about ghosts?"

Mike wasn't amused.

Mona got up from the seat and walked to the edge of the stage,
boosting herself up to sit on it. "Every theater has a ghost. Ask
anyone who's ever worked on Broadway. There's a ghost in every house.
And now that someone's been murdered there—at the
Met—they'll never get rid of it."

It's not the first time, I started to say, but she wasn't
playing to me in any event.

"Maybe Joe threatened Galinova. Maybe it's another Belasco
trait he tried to imitate."

"What are you talking about, Mona?" Mike asked.

"The theater world thrives on superstition and legend. You
won't get anywhere if you don't understand that. Belasco fell in love
with one of his actresses. Carter—I think her name was Leslie
Carter. He was a total control freak, just like Uncle Joe. Starred her
in a lot of plays but wanted complete control of her life, even though
he continued to have other mistresses."

Mona went on. "She surprised Belasco by getting married to
another man, and he went completely berserk. He forbid her to ever
enter this theater again. There was a big row, and she ended it by
placing a curse on him—a curse against his vindictiveness."

"Yeah?"

"You ought to find out if Galinova had another lover, Mike.
Jealousy—there's something to enrage my uncle, I can promise
you that."

"What about the ghost?"

"I'll let you know tomorrow, detective. Rumor has it that all
throughout the night you can hear the bloodcurdling screams of
Belasco's ghost echoing in this theater," she said, winking at Mike.
"I'm just praying I don't have to listen to Joe Berk screaming, too. I
spent enough of my life doing that."

"
Aha
! What's the matter with you two? You
look like you've seen a ghost," Joe Berk said, propped up against the
pillows in his private room at Roosevelt Hospital. "
Cats
was the longest-running show on Broadway. Fifty million people around
the world saw it and what? You jerks didn't make it? Couldn't buy a
ticket? Nine lives, baby— just like a cat—and Joe
Berk still has five or six to go."

Mike had called me at five in the morning to tell me that the
paramedics had revived the self-proclaimed wizard in the ambulance on
the way to the emergency room. The cops who had originally notified
Mike of Berk's collapse on the street had gone off duty an hour later
and never learned that the EMTs had saved the man's life minutes after
picking him up. It was only after we'd been home a couple of hours that
Mike—struggling with insomnia since Val's death—
heard the news story about Joe Berk's rescue on the radio.

Dr. Lin-So Wong, who admitted Berk to the hospital, was
standing with us at his bedside at seven a.m. on Monday, explaining to
us the effects of electrocution as his patient listened intently. Wong
patted the older man's hand and checked the readings of his pulse and
blood pressure.

"Mr. Berk is quite fortunate not to have suffered very severe
burns. It's the vital organs that are so susceptible to disruption by
the flow of the electric current."

"So how come he's alive?" Mike asked.

"Because the EMTs had just finished their pizza in one of
those joints on Broadway," Dr. Wong said, pursing his lips into a
smile. "Because they were there within ninety seconds after he went
down, and they had a defibrillator on board. A minute more without
oxygen to the brain and we'd have a different result."

"I'm walking across the street with my kid, going up to
Baldoria for something to eat," Berk said, giving his own version of
the events. "You know that scene in the Frankenstein movie where they
juice up the monster? You see those lightning bolts flashing when they
bring him to life? Lemme tell you, I saw stars when I landed on that
manhole cover. I take a few steps, I think to myself, No way Joe Berk
is gonna die by frying on top of a goddamn sewer. I deserve better than
that."

Mike asked the doctor, "He really kept walking? I thought
they'd declared him dead at the scene."

"Very common reaction for an electrocution victim to keep
moving for several seconds. Yes, his son said he actually walked a few
feet farther and then collapsed. Apparently he'd sustained ventricular
fibrillation and went into cardiac arrest. The paramedics were right to
think he was dead. If it weren't for the defibrillator on the
ambulance, well—"

"Finish the sentence, doc. The lights would be dimmed all up
and down the Great White Way tonight, no? Banner headlines everywhere."

Berk looked paler and weaker than he had on Saturday, but
hadn't lost much of his moxie.

"He'll be staying with us awhile. He's not out of the woods
yet."

"Now they'll really try to kill me. Hospital food."

"What's the danger?" I whispered to the doctor, taking him
away from the bedside while Mike looked at Berk's medical chart,
copying down his date of birth and some of the legible medical
notations.

"Blood offers less resistance to the electrical current than
other body tissues. Usually there's a large amount of current that
flows through blood vessels, and that can cause damage to the lining.
Increases the risk of thrombosis. Stroke is always possible."

"What's your guess? How long will you keep him in?"

"If he doesn't fight it, I'd like him here for the rest of the
week."

Wong walked back to Berk's bedside. "I don't want him
agitated, detective. He needs plenty of rest."

"Agitate me? What do they care, doc? They're looking to beat
up on an old man, they came to the wrong place."

"We're not here to do that," I said, stepping closer to calm
Berk, knowing Mike would want to ask a few questions and hoping he
would ease his way into them. "It's a good thing your son was with you
last night."

"Thank God for Briggs is damn right. You meet him? He still
hanging around?"

"No. No, we haven't met him yet."

"Handsome kid. Takes after his mother. But I'm the one who
gave him the name. Briggsley."

"That's his real name?" Mike asked.

"Briggsley Berk. Found it in a book, something about the
peerage. Imagine what a favor I did him. Yussel Berkowitz. Try growing
up here with a name like that."

"Does Briggs work for you?" I asked.

"So I go to court, here in Manhattan. Supreme Court. Must have
been the late fifties," Berk said, not interested in paying attention
tome. "I made an application to change my name. Who's the judge? You're
a lawyer, listen to this. You ever know Judge Schmuck?"

I laughed. "Before my time, but I've heard of him."

"Why should I grant your motion? the guy asks me. What's wrong
with being Yussel Berkowitz? he wants to know. What's wrong? I hated
the damn name. I wanted to sound like I was an American, not some
hustling immigrant. The judge, he says to me, 'You know what my name
is? I'm Peter J. Schmuck. My father was a Schmuck, my grandfather was a
Schmuck, and I've lived all my life being a Schmuck.' Bang! He slammed
down the gavel and kicked me out of the courtroom."

"So you waited a bit and went back to a different judge
another day."

"Waited, my ass. I asked around, found a friendly clerk who
liked the color of my money, and next thing you know I'm Joe Berk.
Whole thing took five minutes. Figure the one sure thing I could do for
my kids was give them good old Anglo-Saxon names."

"How many children do you have?"

"Five. You really interested in this personal stuff about me
or you still nosing around where you don't belong? You catch whoever
killed Natalya?"

"Not yet."

"You do, I got a manhole cover you could sit him on."

"Does Briggs work with you?"

"Nobody works with me. They work
for
me.
They'd all be living in a trailer park somewhere if I didn't put this
empire together for them."

My elbows were resting on the metal railing on the side of the
bed. Berk lifted his arm, which seemed to be trembling, and took one of
my hands in his.

"All by yourself?"

"Me and my brother. Izzy, he was my older brother. Smartest
man I ever knew." His eyes were closed now and he seemed overwhelmed by
the realization of how he had escaped death so narrowly.

I looked to Mike and he cupped his hands, waving his fingers
toward himself. He wanted me to keep Joe Berk talking.

"Did Talya tell you that she was going to be leaving her
husband?" I asked.

"What? You don't want to know about Izzy? You just asked me
whether I built the business myself. You know what we got?" He was
patting my hand now, anxious to show off. "Real estate. We own more
commercial real estate than there are square acres in the state of
Rhode Island. It's true. Don't look at me like that, young lady. I'm
telling you the truth. You like hotels? The Berkleigh chain. Makes the
Hyatts look like they ran out of properties on a Monopoly board. Jet
plane leasing? BerkAir's got the biggest private fleet in the world."