Soap Opera Slaughters (15 page)

“You were saying something about somebody else?”

“Y-yes. Somebody else asked me the same thing.”

“About having heart trouble?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Who?

But she was too groggy to bring it to mind.

Manny was already waiting for us at Polyclinic. With flowers for Joanne. She disappeared into another section of the Emergency ward, and the three of us—me, Manny and Harry-waited in tense silence in the visiting area. After what seemed like hours, a burly giant with bristling black beard and mustache stepped into the room and introduced himself as the resident on duty. He seemed slightly amused when three whey-faced young men converged on him.

“All of you relax,” the physician told us, “we’ve got the reaction under control, Ms. Carpenter’s going to be fine. Fortunately, she’s got a good, strong physique.”

Clutching his bouquet, Manny asked hopefully whether he could see her for a minute.

“Better make it this evening,” the resident smiled, “she’s already asleep. An attack like this usually exhausts the patient You could leave the flowers with the nurse on duty.”

I asked whether they’d have to monitor Joanne’s condition, just in case.

“As a matter of course, certainly, but there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll keep her here overnight, and she should be able to go home tomorrow.” Up to that moment, the physician exuded absolute confidence, but a sudden change came over his and he seemed all at once unsure of himself. “There’s just one thing—” he began, then hesitated, afraid to continue.

“What?” Manny anxiously asked.

“When she’s feeling better...do you think she’d mind signing a few autographs?”

W
E PARTED AT NINTH
Avenue, Manny continuing west on Fiftieth, while Harry and I walked past the decaying storefronts and sun-flaked churches and
cantinas
lining Ninth. After I made a brief stop in a Woolworth’s to pick up a few articles of clothing, a toothbrush and shaving things (in case I spent another night at Lara’s), we entered a coffee shop a few blocks further north.

While we waited for our sandwiches, I told Harry about
DB
supposedly seeing Kit Yerby meddling with the medicine. “It probably wasn’t her,” I observed, “but she should be spoken with, anyway. Want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Talk to Kit for me?”

He gave me a sharp look. “Since when do I have
your
vote of confidence?”

I shrugged. “You’ve worked with Hilary long enough to pick up on some of her techniques. I assume you know her fairly well by now.”

“Not half as well as you seem to think.”

“Really? How about that time in Washington?”

“Oh, Christ, are you still brooding about that?” He sucked in enough air to declaim thirty lines of Shakespeare on one breath, but the arrival of the waitress with our food deflated him.

The Washington incident occurred during our investigation of a murder at Felt Forum. During a dress rehearsal of
Macbeth,
the actor playing Banquo was shot by the one portraying the infamous Third Murderer, an actor whose identity was being kept secret by the director—who, unfortunately, was the same man playing Banquo.

Our investigation took two directions. I chased down the facts related to the actual shooting, but Hilary turned scholar and solved the problem simultaneously by examining the three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old dispute over Shakespeare’s mysterious Third Murderer. Her researches took her to The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. She never told me her intentions, though, and when I saw Harry making tracks for Amtrak, my eyebrows and suspicions rose, since he was a suspect. I tailed him all the way to D.C. and out of Union Station diagonally across the street to the Commodore Hotel.

The waitress left Harry continued in a lower key.

“Truth time, Gene. I would have liked it to be more than a business trip, but the only reason Hilary asked me along was to speed the research at the Folger.”

“Hard to believe,” I said, biting into my BLT. “Especially since the two of you spent the night together at the Commodore.”

He gaped at me. “Where’d you come up with that idiotic notion?”

I didn’t tell him I listened at the door of his room. “I called her long distance, Harry, and she wasn’t registered, but when I phoned
your
room, guess who answered?”

“Because we were busy discussing strategy for the next day, that’s all.”

“At eleven o’clock at night? Doesn’t the library close around five or six?”

“Gene, we had dinner, we went to a show afterwards. As
friends.”

“Friends
and
roommates.”

“No! Damn it, Gene,
I
was staying at the Commodore, but Hilary wasn’t. A friend of hers at the Folger got her into the docent dormitory for the night If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself!”

Feeling sheepish and more than a bit ashamed, I apologized to Harry.

“It’s Hilary you ought to be telling this,” he grumped, sipping his soda. “Mirabell and Millamant. Die before either one will be the first to say ‘I love you’ to the other...

“Drop it, Harry. It’s already done with.
Ausgespielt.”

“Why? Because Hilary didn’t phone immediately when I quit?”

“Partly.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that the lady just needs some time alone? That she might be a bit scared?”

“Are we talking about the same woman?”

“Yes, smartass! The same Hilary whose daddy dumped her when she was a little girl. Is it any wonder she’s afraid to trust—”

“Spare me the simplistics,” I interrupted. “The time comes when you have to start making your own choices. Hilary’s old enough and sure as hell smart enough to write her own scenario by now.”

“Uh-huh. But what about Lara?”

I glared. “What about her?”

“What kind of script do you suppose is unreeling in
her
head?”

“You tell me.”

“Wouldn’t it come better from Lara? Or Hilary, since they seem to share secrets? Just ask them about Cousin Lainie’s involvement with Abel Harrison.”

“Abel—
” I nearly choked on my food. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Why? Because Abe’s a comical geek and you’re Prince Charming from Central Casting? You’d be surprised how much power that shrimp’s got over who’s hired and fired on ‘Riverday.’”

“Harry, Lara didn’t audition on a casting couch. Abel owed Hilary a favor.”

“Undisputed. But not too long ago, Hilary found out there’d be a new male role opening up on the show. Whether you care to believe it or not, she wanted me out and you back. But she’d already called in her marker with Abe on her cousin’s behalf. So she talked to Lara and asked her to pull some strings so I’d get a sympathetic reading for the role of Todd Jennett. Which Lara did.
PDQ
.”

“That’s it, Harry? Pretty inconclusive evidence.”

I agree.” He drained his glass. “We might as well change the subject What do you want me to do this afternoon?”

Damn
Harry! I pushed away my plate, no longer in any mood to finish eating. I spent the next few minutes briefing hi
m
and trying to quiet my stomach.

“M
ANHATTAN SOUTH, SERGEANT FRANCIS.”

‘Inspector Betterman, please.”

A lengthy pause. I identified myself for Fat Lou’s secretary, waited a while longer, then was greeted by the police inspector’s familiar flat, slightly nasal tones.

“Gene, good to hear from you. Still in Philly with that clown Butler?”

“Yes. Got a favor to ask. Will it cost, or can you bill me?”

“Depends.
Zug mir.”

“Information. The
WBS
leaper.”

“Classified.”

“Might be able to help.”

His friendly tone frosted over. “You back with Hilary?” Though he was her family friend since girlhood, he still resented the time she’d held back data so a murderer she pitied could slip out of town. I reassured him I was no longer with her.

“Nu,
so come on over. You’ll talk. I’ll talk. Maybe.”

“I’m not in town,” I lied.

“You’re not?”

“No. I’ll have to send a messenger.”

“Who?”

“Harry Whelan.”

“Say, what are you trying to pull?” he groused. “You and Whelan, and you expect me to believe Hilary’s not involved, too?”

“Honest to god, Lou, she isn’t. Trust me.”

“Sure, sure,” he said with exaggerated courtesy. “Why not? You’ve always been straight with me, haven’t you? Okay, send Whelan over. I won’t promise anything, though, till I hear the questions,
f’shtay?’

“Copacetic.”

“Now pay attention—your ass is in hock if you don’t give me something back on this one.”

“Lou, I’ll do what I can.”

“Do better,
T.M
. I expect. Period.”

I had no idea what he meant by “T.M.,” but he hung up before I could ask.

“Ryan’s Hope,” the soap Kit Yerby now worked on, tapes in an
ABC
studio within walking distance of
WBS
and less than a block away from the coffee shop where Harry and I stopped for lunch.

I escorted Harry to the door of the studio, prompting him on the way as he played back his instructions for questioning Kit Yerby and Fat Lou. The small building looked more like a warehouse than a temple of dreams. I told Harry when and where to get in touch, then left him and continued west till I reached Eleventh Avenue. I turned there and soon found myself back on the block where
WBS
was situated.

In the front lobby, the burly guard with the red hailed me and asked how Joanne Carpenter was. I reassured him she’d be all right.

“Got something to ask you,” I said. “Mind?”

“Naw,” the guard replied. “Gaw ‘head.”

“You told me before that a guard got fired after what happened Saturday.”

“Yeah. Woody.”

“Old guy with goggly eyes?”

“Right” He nodded. “Wears thick glasses. He stopped by earlier.”

“Why?”

“T’ show off, I guess.” An envious grin. “Brand-new sports coat ‘n’ stuff, y’ know? Must’ve saved a lot of money over the years, now I guess he’s gonna start spending on himself. Why not? He ain’t got family.”

“Why was Woody fired?”

“Those bastards upstairs wanted to shake up the rest of the staff, I guess.” His indrawn breath hissed between clenched teeth. “He was on duty when Niven creamed himself on the sidewalk. Woody’s mistake was to tell a Channel 14 newsman that Niven must’ve sneaked into the building. He might as well’ve yelled, ‘C’mon on over and rip us off So they shitcanned Woody the next morning with only a year to retirement.”

I well remembered the late telecast that shook me out of my goldfish-gawking reverie, and I also recalled feeling sorry for the elderly security guard on it whose big mouth probably bought himself a pink slip. That was Woody, and I saw him twice since that evening, though I didn’t quite recognize him the first time. His didn’t register in its proper context till, noticing him walking up the front steps of
WBS
, I asked Joanne if she knew his name.

Woody was the shabby derelict I’d seen sitting on a park bench Monday evening on the Brooklyn Heights promenade, his back to the river, his owlish eyes gaping up at the great lighted picture window at the back of Florence McKinley’s apartment

T
HERE WAS LESS CHAOS
on the sound stage than I’d expected The cameras were taping and Tommy Franklin sat at a writing table on one of the vacant sets scribbling furiously on a lined paper tablet while a production assistant stood by to snatch the finished sheets of dialogue as soon as Franklin was done with them.

Florence and Lara saw me first and hurried over. I said Joanne Carpenter would survive. Lara was relieved, of course, and Florence did her best to conceal her disappointment

“Will you be home this evening?” I asked the older actress.

“Certainly.” She frowned. “Why?”

“I may stop by to report” I paused while she chewed on it before I added
the
codicil. “If I do, I’ll have a friend with me.”

“Who? I don’t permit strangers in my home.”

“This is one time you’re going to have to break the rule.”

I hadn’t expected her to accept it easily. We wrangled, but I wouldn’t budge or explain, so Florence, consumed with curiosity, or perhaps anxiety, consented on the condition that Lara be there as a witness.

Lara nodded, but a sudden thought made her frown. “Can you not make it too early, Gene? I’ve got a—” She stopped abruptly.

“What?”

“A business appointment” Lara mumbled, avoiding my eyes. Florence suddenly declared that she felt chilly. Lara seized
the
opportunity to volunteer to fetch her friend a sweater.

It was a ruse, of course. When Lara was gone, Florence drew me aside. We stepped onto a dusty, seldom-used patio set, where the actress began to pester me for details.

I hedged. “I don’t have all the facts yet. By tonight, I may.”

“Good,” she said smugly. “The sooner you expose that bitch, the better.”

“Who? Joanne?”

“Who
else?”
she shrilled, momentarily forgetting where she was. Someone shushed her, and she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Joanne murdered my Eddie, then tried to blame it on me by putting his clothes in my dressing room. When that didn’t work, she poisoned herself today so
that’d
look like
my
fault, too!”

It took an effort of will not to walk away from her, but I didn’t have to endure Florence for long. Discovering that I was in the studio, Mack Joel, the floor director, hurried over to find out Joanne’s condition. When I told him, he seemed genuinely relieved.

“She’s the sweetest gal in the whole cast,” the stocky director asserted. “Do me a favor, will you? Take the news up to Micki Lipscomb in the ‘Riverday’ office? She’ll have to work out the revised taping run for the next few days.”

“Sure,” I agreed, glad of a reason to get away from Florence McKinley.

The business office was empty. I walked in and was about to call to see if anyone was there when the door to Ames’ private sanctum opened. Micki Lipscomb came out