Hot Ticket (3 page)

Counted to ten, willing strength to my dead arms. Mind gradually won over matter and I began to swing back and forth, finally
gaining enough momentum to curl knees to chest, then clamp the ankles around a balcony post. One last pull and I lay gasping,
threatening as a squid, behind Barnard’s azaleas. Acrid fumes of hundred-fifty-proof sweat rose from every pore, evaporating
along with my energy. Eventually I dragged an ear to the sliding door: Ella still sang the blues. I went back inside.

Dim light played evenly over Barnard’s bed. Her body was gone. So was the answering machine. In the living room, paintings
had been slashed, pillows disemboweled. Even the oranges in the fruit bowl had been sliced and squeezed into grotesque parabolas.
Maximum damage in minimum time, yet they had overlooked the dead weight hanging off the balcony: amateurs? Worse: zealots?
I doubted they had found what they were looking for. You had to know Barnard, and Maxine, for that.

Found the crème de menthe at the back of the liquor cabinet, where one would normally keep the more repellent
digestifs.
Although the bottle looked and felt full, few would be tempted to decant the sticky emerald liquid. Just as well, because
it wasn’t alcohol, and that wasn’t really a bottle. Snapped off its neck, took a few scraps of paper from its belly. On the
way out I noticed deep, fresh dents in the door frame, paint on the floor: Barnard hadn’t been hauled out of here in a rug.
Near the Arlington Bridge I got to a phone. “I found her, Maxine.”

After ten years reading tone of voice, the Queen didn’t even sigh: six of the Seven Sisters confirmed dead, and the violinist
had outlived them all. Unbelievable. “How bad?” she asked.

“Naked in bed with a tampon down her throat.”

A moment of silence as Maxine considered the mechanics of that. “Barnard could have fought off three men with one hand.”

“Puncture on her neck. I got some blood.” The second tampon lay stiff as a finger in my pocket. “They took the body away in
something big.” I sighed: how banal.

“Where were you, hiding behind the shower curtain?”

“No, under the bed with a teddy bear. You would have preferred casualties?”

Her silence shouted
yes.
“Who were they?”

“Couldn’t tell you. I was hanging off the balcony. My arms are a lot longer than they were an hour ago.” That got no sympathy
whatever. “I found a theater ticket in her bottle. Show’s tomorrow night.”

“What’s playing?”

“
La Ronde.
The ticket cost a thousand bucks. Fund-raiser for endangered species.”

“Bizarre.”

So was Schnitzler in English. I felt for my knife as a man in tennis whites sauntered by. When he wandered around the bend,
I squinted at the little slip of paper that had been in Barnard’s bottle with the ticket. “‘Yvette Tatal. Saint Elizabeth’s,’”
I read. “Mean anything to you?”

“No.” Heavy breathing on Maxine’s end. “Why didn’t they find you hanging off the balcony?”

“Amateurs in a rush.”

“They kill a pro, toss the apartment, take the body, and
miss you?
”

I had never heard the Queen raise her voice before. Her fear galloped through my blood. “Maybe I got lucky.”

Maxine only chortled. “Look for me after the play.”

I returned to the Watergate complex, circled a few times but saw no large, clunky objects leaving the premises. Nothing emerged
but toilers and spoilers, all alive. Each time I passed the triple fountain, I listened for that soft, knowing laughter, proof
that another woman, drunk with love, had defied the gods. But the sound had vanished with Barnard. I went back to my hotel.
Same doorman: damn, he had seen me go and come. I entered the elevator with a Korean whose eyes crawled torpidly over the
curves in my black leather. Left that poor sod on the third floor and unlocked my door. My white concert gown still draped
a chair. Bed looked wide and barren as Antarctica, with two silly chocolates on the pillow now. I stashed the bloody tampon,
all I had left of Barnard, in the minibar. As I grabbed a beer, the phone rang.

“How’d it go?” Curtis asked.

“Better than last time.” I could hear eggs and sausage crackling on my manager’s end of the line. Sunshine would just be warming
the violets on the kitchen sill. Home, Curtis, safety: all a fantasy now. He listened to “My Night at the White House,” aware
that the pull in my voice had nothing to do with Brahms. “I might stay here a few days,” I said finally.

“What about Duncan?”

“I left him dancing with a few menopausal Cinderellas. He’s probably booked for lunch until Thanksgiving.”

“Leave yourselves a little time to practice. Carnegie Hall on Saturday, remember.”

I’d be lucky if circulation returned to my fingers by Christmas! “Yes, Mother.”

Took a bath, thinking about Barnard, whom I had last seen eight years ago. Camp Maxine had just opened for business and the
Queen was intent on exterminating the weaklings in the bunch. She’d almost succeeded with me: I was the drinkin’, smokin’
musician, unused to sleep-outs and twenty-mile hikes before breakfast. Barnard thrived on such abuse. She was also off-the-charts
smart, a fatal attribute in a beautiful female—but the perfect requisites for Maxine, who had managed to find seven of us
with that peculiar nimiety. Barnard could play Texas bimbo, Swedish hippie, frigid WASP, to perfection. I wondered which persona
she had used last. Whatever the pose, Barnard could enslave a man in fifteen seconds. Ordinary women hated her. Sad that she
and I had not become closer as our sisters fell. Not smart, but sad just the same. After Wellesley turned up—in two pieces—in
Johannesburg, Barnard had called me. “Looks like you and I are holding the fort, Smithy. Care to place your bets?”

“Fifty thousand bucks.”

“Son of a bitch! On you or me?”

“I bury you, babe.”

“I’ll use it for violin lessons,” Barnard had snorted.

“I’ll spend it on push-up bras.” Now I was fifty thousand, plus interest, richer: Smith’s survival bonus. Maybe I’d donate
it to Maxine.

At precisely ten the next morning, Duncan Zadinsky knocked. My accompanist liked to breakfast with me after a concert to discuss
all the mistakes we had made the previous evening. Sometimes I think he enjoyed the postmortem more than he did the performance.
Today, however, music was not uppermost in his mind. “You missed the party of the century,” he crowed, seating himself at
the trolley a steward had just wheeled in. “I was dancing till dawn.”

“Four-fifteen, dear. I heard you come in with a few elephants.”

Duncan constructed a meticulous still life of granola and prunes before submerging it in tomato juice. He had read somewhere
that this alleviated baldness. “Paula’s one hell of a dancer. She’s got hips like butter. Feet like feathers.”

Brain like Iago. Bobby was just her Moor. “I’m sure you swept her away.”

Duncan tucked half a muffin into his mouth. “After our dance, she left. Why settle for second best?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but she had a staff meeting. Whom did you ravish next?”

“Justine Cortot. A very attractive woman, believe me.”

No kidding: White House press secretary. She and Bobby had graduated from the same high school in backwater Kentucky. Both
had gone to the same Ivy League law school, but only Justine had won the Rhodes Scholarship. While she was in England, Bobby
had married Paula. “I hear she shot Marvel a long time ago. Missed his balls by inches. He was gentleman enough to call it
a hunting accident.”

“That’s absurd! Where’d you hear that?”

Maxine had sent an unexpurgated bio of Bobby Marvel along with my ticket to the White House. Great bedtime reading, if you
were a satyr. “Don’t remember.”

Done with the prunes, Duncan attacked a mound of beignets. Maybe they cured impotence. “I’m surprised you believe rumors,”
he chomped. “Of all people.”

A dank wind, heavy with ghosts, blew by. “So what did you think of the concert?”

He launched into a note-by-note recap of our horror show: twangy piano, poor lighting, cold audience, mushy acoustics, jet
lag, insufficient rehearsal … obviously my accompanist was a saint. Never in our years together had we performed under humane
conditions. “We’ve got to work our asses off before New York,” Duncan concluded. “We’ve been out of action for months. Playing
live upsets me now.”

It upset me, too; I just didn’t let anyone know how much. I went to the window. Outside the hotel, a sheik deboarded from
a stretch limousine. All that white hurt my eyes. “How about staying in Washington a few days instead of going to New York?”

“Don’t tell me you hooked up with that marine at the White House!”

On the pavement, three veiled women followed their leader into the hotel. I wondered if they fought for his attention or jeered
at him behind his back. “There are a couple new exhibitions in town.”

“I suppose I could do some research at the Library of Congress.” Duncan speared a sausage. “Meet Justine for lunch. She’d
be delighted if I changed my mind.”

“Cortot invited you out?”

“For God’s sake! Am I a leper?”

Not completely. Duncan was just a fidgety old maid whose idea of an orgasm was playing Chopin’s
Minute Waltz
in fifty-eight seconds. What could Justine possibly want with him? “She’s probably tired of senators,” I said. “Wants to
try her luck with a piano player.”

“Aren’t you catty this morning! Justine’s a lovely girl.”

“Girl? She’s ten years older than you. And she’s a politician. Don’t ever forget it.”

“I’m forty-one! I’ll forget what I like!”

Give up, Frost. I returned to the table. Duncan had left me five prunes. “Great weather. Maybe I’ll rent a Harley for the
afternoon.”

“Eh? I thought you wanted to see some exhibitions.”

A knock interrupted further pleasantries. In the hallway stood a porter burdened with deep purple orchids. He smiled, my pulse
tottered: just a few hours ago I had seen an identical arrangement in Barnard’s apartment. As the fellow sashayed to a sideboard,
Duncan snatched the envelope. Intercepting notes on my bouquets was one of his professional duties, right up there with frowning
at my apparel and passing judgment on my boyfriends.

“Orchids,” he sniffed with the usual disdain. “How decadent. ‘
A cliff-banging performance.’”
Tossed the card away. “Who’s your admirer this time?”

“No idea.”

I spent the afternoon riding through the Virginia hills, inhaling the first delicate scents of autumn, wondering who could
have seen me dangling from Barnard’s balcony last night. Duncan was half ah hour late for our rehearsal at five. He played
beautifully, mysteriously, like someone in love. Neither of us mentioned his lunch with Justine.

T
HE DOORMAN BEAMED
as I left the hotel: I was in silk and diamonds again. No violin tonight, though. Just a little of Barnard’s blood in my
purse. “Cab, Miss Frost?”

“Thank you.” Heat rose from the asphalt, pressed down from the clouds, wilting humans in a moist, invisible sandwich. “Ford’s
Theatre, please,” I told the driver.

“I won’t be able to drop you outside,” he said, pulling onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Why not?”

“Bomb threats. We’re supposed to avoid the area.”

Great. As predicted, traffic stalled five blocks from destination. I joined those abandoning their vehicles and walked the
rest of the way to Tenth Street, wondering why Barnard had bought a thousand-buck ticket to an outdated play. Maybe someone
else had blown the grand for the opportunity to sit next to her. Blind date? I was suddenly nervous, unprepared to step into
her shoes. Totally unprepared to swallow a tampon. However, curious little gambler that I am, I crossed the police line outside
Ford’s Theatre. Sailed by the metal detector in the foyer as an attendant fished through the pile of platinum I had dropped
onto his plate. “Enjoy the show,” was all he said.

Ford’s Theatre looked much the way it had in April 1865, when Lincoln had taken a bullet in the head. Heavy green curtains
framed a modest stage; the audience sat on barely cushioned chairs. Slender beams supported two shallow balconies. Despite
the crowd and the lights, my heart skipped upon entering this place: it felt the residual evil lurking here. I walked quickly
along the rear wall, checking exits, aisles, faces. Everyone looked rich and terribly important, or attached to such a person.
Finally I headed toward second row center: typical Barnard. She had probably planned to arrive three seconds before opening
curtain so that no one could miss her entrance.

Three chairs in the second row remained empty. Left of them loomed the immense Vicky Chickering. Seeing me, she broke off
speaking with a younger woman at her side. For just a wee moment, disbelief grayed her face. But recovery was swift. “Leslie!”
She ooched over a few inches to make room. “I thought you left town last night!”

Had I told her that? “I make exceptions for Schnitzler.” I wedged into the three-quarter space she had left me. “So you’re
a fan of endangered species?”

“As is the First Lady.” Vicky’s eyes leapt to a more strategic beast behind me. She not only stood up for this one, but pronounced
her name in French. “Justine!”

Egad, Duncan’s dancing partner. Looking right through me, Justine Cortot began wedging down the row as a man in bow tie and
Fu Manchu glasses followed closely behind. Very hard to believe she was twenty years my senior. She looked more thirty than
fifty. Cortot had packed her ninety-eight pounds into a white Lycra sheath that stretched to the max at bust and butt. Lipstick
matched the stiletto heels and her blondish hair had been poufed into an enormous French twist. Her cubic zirconia jewelry
glared in the yellow light. This lady was pedal-to-the-metal competing: she had expected to be seated next to Barnard. What
a pathetic contest that would have been. It was still pathetic.

I pretended to read the program so that Justine and Vicky could exchange public intimacies like “Did you get my memo?” and
“We’re confirmed for next Friday.” Justine’s acquired Etonian accent grated on my nerves. Twice I caught her date looking
down my décolletage. Justine noticed me not. She only had eyes for Vicky, and vice versa; if either of them had come to hear
Schnitzler, I’d eat my diamonds.