Show Business Is Murder (20 page)

WIDEN

{—Kagen shows no reaction as he samples more of his whiskey.}

KAGEN:
Good kid. He's got a kind of De Niro–Pacino thing going for him.

MONK:
And I bet he's scared shitless, Walsh, wherever you got him stashed. I suppose your lawyer will argue in court that he never meant to set Ross afire. That like the other one you hired to chuck a Molotov at you, Tucco was supposed to miss. But Ross charged him when he was about to throw the Molotov and it shook him.

{Kagen calmly cuts a piece of his steak.}

KAGEN:
That's good, I'll have to remember that.

{He eats
.
}

MONK:
You like to gamble, Walsh, you once got a two picture deal in a poker game against a producer with a hand of trip kings.

KAGEN:
I play the odds, Ivan.

MONK:
Fake the attacks to build up interest in the property, and hire me to show you're still a player. But how the hell did you think engineering all this bullshit was going to get you a deal, Walsh? Nearly killing someone is a hell of a way to entice future prospects.

{Kagen has another piece of his steak and cleans his pallet with another swig of whiskey. He then clears his throat.}

KAGEN:
Nobody was ever going to make
Bring Me the Head of Osama bin Laden,
Ivan.

MONK (pointing):
But the attacks and the aftermath would generate coverage, you'd be the controversial writer-director on people's lips like you once were when you did
One Deadly Night
.

KAGEN (misty-eyed):
How many times have you seen it, Ivan?

MONK:
At least four. The scene where Hack has been beaten by the guards and pieces of glass ground into his face and he just grins and tells them, “The thieves and junkies will always be on my side.” (
shakes his head
) Yeah, Walsh, you had it, man. (
beat
) Of course you've guessed when I got up to use the bathroom earlier, I placed a call to the cops.

{Walsh finishes his drink and dabs his mouth with his cloth napkin.}

MONK (cont'd):
It wasn't the potential money you could make, was it, Walsh?

KAGEN:
The magic, Ivan, I missed the magic.

Kagen places the napkin gently on the table.

KAGEN (cont'd):
Let's have some dessert and coffee. The carrot cake's great here.

FADE OUT.

PARNELL HALL

FLETCHER GREENGRASS HANDED
me the silver samovar and fell over dead.

I must say I resented it. That was the cue for my big speech, I'd been working on it all week, I was really looking forward to it, and I wanted to do it right.

Now, don't judge me too harshly. You gotta understand. I was nervous about my performance. For one thing, I hadn't acted in years. When I had it was in summer stock, at an Equity theater, where the actors got paid. I'd also appeared in movies, granted only fleetingly, but still enough to hold a Screen Actors Guild card. All of which made me a professional. And this was community theater. Amateur theater. And as a professional acting in amateur theater, I was
expected
to be good.

I had a lot to prove.

Which, if the truth be known, I probably wasn't capable of. Because if I'd been any good as an actor, I'd still be doing it, instead of working as a P.I.

I also didn't
know
he was dead. Because Fletcher Greengrass was one of the hammiest actors I'd ever met, and when he fell over on his face, I, like everyone else in the cast, assumed he was pulling another one of his outrageous stunts
just to upstage me, and undercut my big speech. So I was justifiably pissed.

It was near the end of act two. I was alone on stage, awaiting the object of my affections, the virginal Emily, when young Mr. Greengrass emerged from her room instead.

“Surprised?” he inquired in an exaggerated mocking tone. “I don't know why. These thing happen, don't they? How do you like it? So I got to her first, what's the big deal?”

He put his hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off.

“Remember what you said? About women being like trophies?” He snatched up the samovar, held it out to me. “Here's the award for the world's worst ladies' man. I think this belongs to you.”

His delivery was so over the top that when he proceeded to take a nose dive, I naturally figured he was clowning.

So did the director. A little man with no hair, except on his chin, he was given to histrionics, whether in an attempt to match Fletcher Greengrass's tone, or because he had seen a director portrayed that way on TV, I couldn't say. At any rate, he vaulted up onto the stage, which was at the far end of the Ridgewood High basketball court, to tell Fletcher Greengrass off.

“Fletcher,” he declared. “That's the last straw. You cooperate, or you're out of the play. You think I can't replace you, well I can. I'll play the part myself, if I have to, rather than put up with this.”

That was a brave boast. Fletcher Greengrass was our leading man, our young love interest, the one enamored of both Emily and Charlotte, the two young women in the piece. I say Emily and Charlotte—that's their stage names. Emily was actually a young housewife whose name I didn't know. Charlotte was Shirley something or other, a voluptuous young woman with auburn hair and a most remarkable collection of shirts, sweaters, and pullovers, none of which ever seemed to be hiding a bra.

But I digress.

Anyway, the director descended on the fallen body of Fletcher Greengrass like Washington marching on Richmond, (if that's where he marched; as I grow older, my American history fades with everything else).

“Get up and stop screwing around,” he ordered.

Fletcher Greengrass had stopped screwing around, but he didn't get up. He just lay there, doing a marvelous impression of a dead man.

The aforementioned Emily and Charlotte crept out of the wings, where they had been waiting to enter after I had delivered my big speech. Also from the wings crept the other actor in the piece, whose name I couldn't remember, though his name in the play was Ralph.

The stage manager also poked his head out from behind the curtain. An elderly, often befuddled man, he inquired, “Where do you want to take it from?” a totally inappropriate comment, even if one of the actors hadn't been dead.

“Fletcher, get up now or you're replaced.”

“Now, now, I want him in the show,” Barnaby Farnsworth declared.

Mr. Farnsworth was the playwright, and I only knew his name because it appeared in huge letters on the front of every script. A balding, middle-aged man, with pudgy features and twinkling eyes, Barnaby Farnsworth was a bit of a joke to the actors in the cast. The joke was that his play,
Ride the Wild Elephant,
was largely autobiographical, and that the part of Brad, modeled after him, was the one played by young, handsome, studly Fletcher Greengrass.

Emily and Charlotte repressed giggles when Barnaby declared he wanted Fletcher in the play.

“Yes, I know you want him in the play,” the director said. “But he can only
be
in the play if he stands up. I cannot direct an actor who takes naps in the middle of scenes.”

The director placed his toe in Fletcher Greengrass's ribs. He pushed, not gently. His eyes widened.

I followed his gaze.

The director was staring at the white froth dribbling from the corner of Fletcher Greengrass's mouth.

I FELT SORRY
for the cop. As the local chief of a small town in Westchester county, the poor man couldn't have had much experience with murders. Not to mention on-stage murders involving a full cast of characters and a silver samovar. While this was his jurisdiction, still I wondered how long it would be before a homicide sergeant arrived to relieve him.

“So,” he said. “Who saw what happened?”

Everyone began talking at once. The actors, director, playwright, stage manager. Even the light man, who had climbed down from his booth when it was clear something was wrong.

The cop put up his hand. A large, overweight man, he was sweating profusely in his uniform. It was mid-July, and the gym was not air-conditioned. “One at a time, please. Who's in charge here?”

The stage manager attempted to assert his authority, but was quickly shouted down.

“I'm in charge,” the director said.

“And you would be?”

“Morton Wainwright.”

“Splendid. And where were you when it happened?'

“In the audience.” He grimaced, shrugged. “I mean on the basketball court. Right here, watching the action on the stage.”

Our eyes were drawn to the current action on the stage, which consisted of a doctor examining the body, while two EMS workers stood by with a gurney waiting to take it away. There was a crime scene ribbon up, and a police detective
was searching the stage for evidence. Frankly, I had my doubts.

The cop cleared his throat for attention. “Who was on the stage at the time?”

“Just the two of them,” the director said.

“The two of who?”

“Him and the other actor. Stanley Hastings.”

The cop looked me over. I tried not to look guilty. Try that some time. It's like trying not to think of an elephant.

The cop didn't seem convinced. He grunted the police equivalent of
harumph,
and turned back to the director. “What were they doing?”

“They were playing a scene. They were doing okay. Not great, but okay. This was the first rehearsal off book—that means without scripts—and they had to be prompted a few times. No more than average, still it's hard to get any pace going when you keep blowing the lines.”

“That's a fascinating inside look at theater,” the cop said dryly. “But I have this dead body.”

The director flushed. “Yes, of course. Anyway, they got to the point where Fletcher hands Stanley the silver samovar and he keeled over dead.”

“You say he handed Stanley the whatjamacallit?”

“Samovar. Yes, sir.”

“And that would be this gentleman here?” He fixed me with a steely gaze.

“That's right.”

“Then you must have been rather close to him.” He tried to say it casually, without insinuation.

“I was standing right next to him.”

“And you two were the only ones on stage?” This time, the insinuation crept in.

“Were you thinking of fitting me for handcuffs?”

“This is no laughing matter, Mr. Hastings.”

“Yes, I know.” I tried to appear properly grave. Still, with the officer regarding me seriously as a suspect, it was all I could do to keep from giggling.

“Stanley wouldn't do anything like that,” the actress playing Emily said. I found myself more favorably disposed toward her, wished I knew her name. The actress playing Charlotte, whose name I did know, said nothing. Emily was looking better, bra or no bra.

The author chimed in. “What's going to happen to my play?” he wailed.

I was pleased. It distracted the officer from me. He wheeled on the unfortunate man like an elephant about to crush a bug. “That remains to be seen,” he said ominously.

THE COP COMMANDEERED
the boys' locker room and proceeded to interrogate us one by one. First up was the playwright, probably, it occurred to me, just to teach him to keep his mouth shut.

As soon as the cop was gone, all of the actors huddled together, as no one had been assigned to ride herd over us.

“What do we do now? What do we do now?” Charlotte shrieked. I found my opinion of her plummeting, even though her agitated state was causing her chest to rise and fall in a most appealing manner.

“Yeah,” the director put in. “You're the big P.I., aren't you? Why don't you tell us what to do?”

I found the big P.I. remark uncalled for. If I had mentioned casually during some rehearsal or other that I worked as a private investigator, I am sure it was only in response to some direct question by someone in the production, and not an attempt to influence anyone with the fact I had an interesting job.

It annoyed me that I had to keep making such self-assurances.

The stage manager, as he was wont to do, totally misunderstood the director's statement. “That's right,” he said. “You're a professional actor. How does something like this affect the show?”

The question was greeted with audible groans. Luckily, I don't think the old boy's hearing was keen enough to notice.

Up on stage, the doctor finished with the corpse, and nodded to the EMS crew to wheel him out.

I excused myself from the actors, hurried across the basketball court, and caught up with the doctor.

I reached in my jacket pocket, pulled out my I.D., flipped it open. “One minute, doc. You got a preliminary cause of death?”

The medical examiner was a thin man with a trim moustache and a languid look. He regarded me with amused eyes. “Nice try. Is that a real I.D., or did you make it yourself?”

“Very funny.” I pointed to the boys' locker room. “The chief's in there conducting interviews. It would probably help him a lot to know how the guy died.”

“Thanks for the hint.”

The doctor went out the gym door, following the gurney.

“So, what did you learn?” the director demanded as I rejoined the theater group.

I shook my head. “Doc's not talking.”

“What does that mean?” Charlotte cried. She seemed particularly concerned.

“It means he doesn't feel we have a right to know.” I shrugged. “In this assumption he is entirely correct.”

“Oh, hell,” the director sighed.

Charlotte was bouncing up and down in her pullover again. “What are the police gonna ask us? What do we have to say?”

I shrugged. “No big deal. Just tell the truth.”

“About what?”

“Whatever they ask you. Most likely, what were you
doing when the guy dropped dead? Were you watching? What did you see?”

“Nothing personal?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Charlotte had her face twisted up into a particularly unappealing knot. “I mean, like, you know. Relationships.”

Oh.

I must say it should have occurred to me. That the studly what's-his-name and the curvacious Charlotte had been an item. I guess I'd chosen not to see it. Hadn't wanted to acknowledge the fact that Fletcher was still a ladies' man, while I was an old married fogey, a noncombatant, totally out of the running.

“If they ask you about relationships, tell them,” I said. “Don't volunteer anything, but don't hold anything back. And, for goodness sakes, don't lie.”

“Even about something like that?” Emily said. “What difference could it make?”

“Police mentality,” I explained. “If they catch you in a lie, they'll think you committed the crime.”

“Oh,” Emily said. She didn't look pleased.

I blinked. Good lord. Emily, too? Wasn't she married? I was almost sure she was married.

At a rumble of voices off to my left, I turned to find the director and playwright arguing hotly. The bone of contention was obviously the play, though what the dispute was I couldn't imagine. It was, of course, recasting. The only reason I didn't think of it was I was so caught up in the homicide.