The Man Who Cancelled Himself (44 page)

Tommy’s chalky complexion turned green. He glanced about furtively but no one was within earshot.

Me, I didn’t care if they were or not. “I don’t know why Very’s been doing all of this,” I continued. “I have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Or him. But if I speak to him I’ll tell him that you don’t know anything about Lyle’s arrest or Chad’s murder or any of it. You’re completely innocent. You just happen to have a drinking problem, a dysfunctional marriage, and incredibly skeegee personal habits. Does that about cover it, Tommy?”

Tommy gulped, momentarily speechless. “Well, yeah. That covers it, Hoagmeister.”

“Fine. Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have someone to see. And don’t ever call me Hoagmeister again.”

The main office was crowded with people saying goodbye to one another. I passed through them to the dressing rooms. Very had sealed Chad’s door shut. Fiona’s door had no seal on it, but it was shut, too. I tapped on it and went in before she had a chance to say come in.

Not that she would have said come in. Or get lost. Or anything else, for that matter.

She was sprawled out on the love seat with a throw pillow tossed casually over her face. I removed it. She was staring right at me. Someone had smothered her with the pillow. She wore an oversized linen shirt and a man’s striped necktie. Her tie was askew, but otherwise she looked fine. If you can call dead fine.

I stood there a moment, wondering why she’d wanted to see me. Why it was so important. Why it had cost her her life. Why I hadn’t gotten here ten minutes sooner. Whether she’d still be alive and shuddering if I had. I wondered a lot of things. Then I called Very.

“W
HY DIDN’T THEY KILL
me?!”
moaned Lyle. “Why did they have to kill Fiona?!
Why?”

He was howling hugely and painfully in the corridor outside of her dressing room. The man was distraught, he was grief-stricken, he was terrified.

Marty wept openly. He was so upset he even threw himself into Lyle’s arms. And Lyle was so upset he let him. The two of them hugged each other tightly, tears streaming down their faces.

Very was inside Fiona’s dressing room with the door closed. The rest of the family stood out in the hall, silent and numb with shock. Tommy, Annabelle, and Bobby. Leo. Katrina. Naomi. Amber and The Munchkins, who hadn’t left yet. Everyone was there. Everyone except Marjorie, who wasn’t anywhere.

“There’s no
Uncle Chubby
without Fiona,” Lyle sobbed. “I’m folding the show. We’re history. She
was
the show. I give up. I tell ya, I give up.”

“But we’ve got to do something, Lyle,” protested Marty. “Give her something—a tribute.”

Lyle’s eyes lit up. “A tribute!”

“Her best bits,” suggested Marty.

“Her best bits!” Lyle echoed excitedly. “We’ll give her a special episode. Our way of saying good-bye. Our way of—” He broke off, the grief overtaking him again. He looked around for someone else to hold onto. Both Katrina and Naomi were right there, anxious to offer him comfort. When they weren’t shooting poisonous looks at each other. But it was Leo who he lunged for. “She loved you, Leo!” He wept, hugging her tightly. And surprising the hell out of her—the Sherman behind her ear went flying. “She loved all of us!” Then he released his producer and focused on me. “Why Fiona, Hoagy? I wanna know why!”

“That all depends, Lyle. What did she know?”

He frowned at me, bewildered. “Know about what?”

“She had something she wanted to tell me. Something important. What was it?”

“How the fuck should I know?” he cried. “I’m getting my mind blown here and you’re asking me questions!”

“Because we need answers.”

He started turning red. “This is too much!” he raged. “Way too much. I can’t take anymore of this. I can’t. I just can’t.” He was quivering now, sweat pouring from his face. He looked like he had just before he trashed his bathroom. “I’m gonna blow, I tell ya! I’m gonna blow!”

“You’re
not,
Lyle,” I said, raising my voice at him. “Do you hear me?” He didn’t seem to. His eyes looked right through me. I turned to Katrina and said, “Take him to his office. Try to calm him down.”

She took him by his clenched fist. “C’mon, Pinky,” she squeaked gently. “Come on, honey. Let’s go have some herbal tea, okay?”

He didn’t answer her, but he let her lead him away, like he was a giant, docile child. Naomi, the odd woman out, watched the two of them go, her beady eyes icy with jealousy.

“Have you seen Marjorie?” I asked her.

“She left,” Naomi replied sharply, glaring at me. I’d chosen Katrina over her. She would not forget this when she became queen.

“When did she leave?”

“Right after she was in talking to you.”

“How do you know she was in with me?”

“She doesn’t visit any of the other writers, except for Annabelle. And I can see Annabelle’s door from my desk. She wasn’t in with her.”

I tugged at my ear. “You don’t miss much, do you?” I observed, eyeing her.

She eyed me back. “I try not to.”

Fiona’s door opened. A most grim Very motioned for me to join him in were. I did. He wasn’t alone. Fiona was still there on the love seat, staring. Someone from the Medical Examiner’s office was there taking pictures of her. They’re always taking pictures. The plainclothesman who’d been parked outside of Lyle’s office door was there, too, looking real unhappy. He closed the door behind me.

“Yo, this is not cool, dude,” Very muttered, jaw working his gum. “This place is a war zone.”

I gazed down at her. She looked so frail and tiny, almost childlike. But people, like mice and cockroaches, always look smaller when they’re dead. “Did she put up any kind of a fight?”

“Not so you’d notice.” He shot a look down at the coffee table, which was neatly piled with magazines and scripts. “Nothing strewn around. Nothing kicked on the floor. Her clothes aren’t torn. No visible scratches.” He took one of her lifeless hands in his and examined it. “Chewed her nails down to the quick, so I doubt we’ll find much under them, if anything.” He dropped it, nodding to himself rhythmically. “My guess is it was over in a flash—the lady got overpowered.”

“Meaning we’re talking about someone strong?”

He looked her over, his right knee quaking. “She weighed ninety, ninety-five pounds, tops. Any dude in the place would have the power.”

“Would a strong woman?”

“Yeah. A strong woman could have done it.”

“Not much flair to it,” I observed.

“Flair?” Very stuck his chin out at me. “What the fuck you talking about, flair? Dead is dead.”

“Lieutenant, Chad’s murder had a certain dash to it. This was just quiet and brutal.”

“So?” he demanded impatiently.

I shrugged. “So nothing. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“No offense, dude, but I think better out loud when you don’t.
Motherfucker!”
He slammed his fist into his palm. “We even had a man here!”

“I was assigned to watch Hudnut, Lieutenant,” said the plainclothesman, hanging his head in shame. “Not her.”

“I know that, dammit,” Very told him.

“He was in his office, so that’s where I was,” he persisted stubbornly.

“I know. I’m not blaming you, okay? But I’m still gonna get toasted over this. The papers will smoke me! I’ll be directing traffic outside of the Holland Tunnel by the time this is over.”

I nodded sympathetically. Cops worry about critics just as much as writers do. And hate them even more. “You didn’t notice anyone heading in this direction?” I asked the plainclothesman.

“There was millions of people coming and going,” he answered gruffly. “No way I could keep track of all of ’em. Even if I was trying to. And I wasn’t.”

“Pretty cheeky, if you think about it.”

“What’s cheeky?” snapped Very, with mounting annoyance.

“Coming in here and murdering Fiona while a policeman’s parked right out there in the office. That takes guts.”

“Yeah, well, your average psycho killer is not, as a rule, short on guts, dude,” Very fumed disgustedly. “Just social fucking correctness.” He puffed out his cheeks with exasperation. He started to say something more, but he stopped himself. And we went to lunch.

“Why Fiona, dude?”

We ate around on Twenty-ninth Street at Vernon’s Jerk Paradise, a Jamaican barbecue place. We both had the jerked pork, and washed it down with glass after glass of Vernon’s own tropical fruit punch. Jerk is so highly spiced it makes your forehead bead up with sweat and your lips burn. But it’s well worth it. You’ll just have to take my word.

“She knew something, Lieutenant. Something she wanted to tell me.”

“And who knew that?”

“Leo did. She’s the one who passed me the message.”

“Uh-huh. Anyone else?”

“I have no idea.”

“What happens to the show without her?”

“Nothing good. At least not as far as Lyle is concerned. He’s already on thin ice with the network. He and Fiona were still a strong unit together, the core of the show, the franchise. Without her, he’s even more vulnerable. There’s no telling what the network will decide to do now. They could recast Deirdre. They could revamp the show. They could cancel it outright. It’s anybody’s guess.”

“Yo, what’s
your
guess?” he growled impatiently. Possibly, his incision was itching again.

I answered, “We’re talking about show business, Lieutenant. If you can imagine it happening, if it makes sound, rational sense and it’s good for all parties concerned, then that’s not what’s going to happen.” I sipped my fruit punch. “Only God knows what will happen.”

“Which God are we talking about here?” Very asked.

“The one who wears tasseled loafers.”

“I see,” he said glumly. “You got anything for me, dude? Anything at all?”

“A string of denials, mostly.” I told him what Annabelle, Bobby, and Tommy had asked me to tell him. “And you, Lieutenant? What have you got?”

“Some info on that cab tried to run you down last night—which may cut our man Lorenzo a little slack. Not that he’s off the hook, mind you. Cab was stolen, like I sorta figured.” He glanced through his notepad. “Got jacked from outside a twenty-four-hour bagel place on Houston Street and West Broadway. Cabbie haunt. Dude double-parked out front, ran in to pick up a coffee to go. Was in there thirty seconds, tops. Came back out, it was gone. Not that this means we’re looking for some prime-time jackboy. Bozo left the engine running, on account of he had the air-conditioning on. Counterman said a lot of ’em do that, because they’re in and out so fast, and because they’re fleet drivers and they don’t give a fuck what happens to the cab.”

“Did anyone see who took it?”

Very shook his head. “Not the cabbie, not the counterman, not nobody.”

“And what time did this happen?”

“A little before ten.”

Very and I had separated outside The Blue Mill around ten. Our killer must have tailed me to the restaurant from my apartment, then walked over to Houston Street and stolen the cab while we ate. Then he—or she—followed me home, angling for a good, clean shot. No witnesses. Possibly I’d have been murdered in my bed if I hadn’t come back out and headed over to the Carlyle to see Bobby Short. After which that good, clean shot did present itself. Almost.

“We know Katrina Tingle stayed home all evening,” Very revealed. “On account of we had a man parked outside Hudnut’s suite at the Essex House. She never went out. Hudnut neither—man took a hot bath and sacked out early. We also know that Marty Muck was home with his wife. So was Tommy Meyer.”

“Tommy was with Marty’s wife, too?”

Very sighed. “With his own, in the ’burbs. I think we maybe shamed the dude into going home. We’re still trying to nail down the whereabouts of the others when it happened.” He drained his fruit punch, pushed his plate away, and took out a fresh stick of gum. “Yo, dig on this, dude.” He chomped thoughtfully. “Somebody tries to kill you—to shut you up, most likely. Fails, goes after Fiona Shrike. And succeeds. Could be the two of you struck the same nerve, and that’s why she got it and you almost did.”

“What’s your point, Lieutenant?”

“Maybe you already know what she knew. Could be you have the key to this whole fucking thing, and you just don’t realize it.”

I tugged at my ear. “That may be true, Lieutenant. But I have no idea what it is.”

“Our perp don’t know that,” Very pointed out.

“Meaning I’m still in danger?”

He nodded. “Afraid so, dude. I’m putting somebody on you tonight.”

“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, it is. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Why, Lieutenant. I’m touched.”

“Don’t be. My interest in you is strictly professional. You’re my best hope for a break—which I sure as hell could use right about now.” He knuckled his eyes wearily. “I’m a hurting puppy here. Got bits and pieces all over the place. Got a list of suspects as long as my arm. Bottom line—I got bubkes. I need a break, dude. A pry bar to wedge this sucker open. I need somebody, something,
anything.”
He shook his head. “No way I been able to keep up my end of our bargain, which I apologize for. I was hoping to sweat Merilee’s doorman a little, but I haven’t had the time.”

“I understand. It’s quite all right.”

He leaned forward over the table, wincing slightly. “So how did it work out last night?” he asked, lowering his voice. “You and Marjorie Daw. She help you forget?”

“I’m afraid all she did was help me remember.”

His brow creased with concern. “Geez, dude. You got it bad.”

“Lieutenant, I’ve got it terminal.”

I didn’t go straight back to the laugh factory. I strolled uptown on Eighth Avenue to Forty-second Street instead. Took the walk that Lyle took that fateful afternoon last spring when he felt trapped. When it all came crashing down around him. I strolled. It wasn’t far. Nothing in Manhattan is. It was hot and sticky out. The humidity was back, the air thick and gray, the street tar soft under my feet. Rain was in the forecast. A tropical depression, Marjorie would no doubt call it. I wondered if I would always think of Marjorie when it got hot and sticky. Or it rained. Or got cold. Or would she merely recede into the back of my mind like they all did, compared to Merilee. I strolled. At Thirty-first I hit the vast backside of Penn Station, one of the two great buttholes of modern American architecture. The other, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, was on my left up at Fortieth Street. In between there were pawnshops and discount stores selling boom boxes and beepers and sneakers and more sneakers. Guys were unloading trucks everywhere. Sidewalk peddlers were selling stolen jewelry, toasters, toys, bootlegged videotapes. Music was playing. Calypso music, Indian music, rap music. Vendors sold greasy meat pies. Incense was burning. Men sat on folding chairs smoking cigarettes and sucking from tall cans of Bud with straws, killing the summer afternoon. At Forty-second Street I made a right, heading east.