Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

Chapter 9

NOT ONLY WERE OUR CLOTHES, MAKEUP, and cover story perfect, but our timing couldn’t have been better. As we rounded the corner and headed across the street for the Morosco, the doors to the theater flew open and the audience began pouring out onto the sidewalk. The matinee was over! We wouldn’t have to search for a back entrance to sneak into, or beg some doubtful stage door custodian to let us inside. All we had to do was push our way through the exiting crowd, slip past the ushers into the slowly emptying theater, and then make our way to the side door we had used the night before-the door that led to the stairs leading up to the dressing rooms.

“We have to stick very close together,” I whispered to Abby as we huddled in the dark, deserted passage just inside the door. “And you’d better let me do all the talking. That way, we won’t tell any conflicting stories or ask any incongruous questions.”

Or attract too much attention, I said to myself-but not to Abby. (I didn’t want to offend my wildly attractive, attention-grabbing friend… or give her any wild ideas.)

“Okay, chief!” Abby said, surprising me with her quick and easy compliance. Was she really deferring to me or just humoring me? There was only one way to find out.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

The scene in the hall outside the dressing rooms was more subdued than it had been the night before. There was a light flurry of activity, but nothing at all like the hullabaloo inspired by Gray’s knockout debut. Some of the children from the play were chasing each other down the hallway, and a few well-dressed people were milling around in the vicinity, smoking and chatting, probably waiting for their friends or family in the cast to change their clothes and join them for an early supper before the next show. But that was the extent of it. There were no gossip columnists and photographers. No shouts and cheers and popping flashbulbs. No champagne, either.

I studied the arena before me (i.e., cased the joint), trying to decide which target to hit first. I knew I didn’t want to talk to any of the show’s main stars. Their status and success would, I figured, make them the candidates least likely to know much about the personal life of a mere understudy. I believed I’d have better luck talking to the more “humble” members of the cast and crew-other understudies, or stagehands, or technical assistants-people who, until last night, were on a parallel professional level with Gray and, therefore, more inclined to know him well.

As Abby and I ambled down the hall, peering through every open door, looking for promising people to question, I saw that several people were looking back at us. They obviously noticed our odd clothes and garish makeup, but seemed to take our appearance for granted. Nobody asked who we were or challenged our right to be there. I felt stronger and safer-and more like a

Bus Stop extra-with every step.

Bypassing all the star dressing rooms, even the communal ones, I led Abby down toward the end of the corridor, to a dim, quiet area that seemed to be abandoned. “I’m looking for the other understudies,” I explained to her, speaking in a very low voice even though we were alone in that part of the hall.

“Why?!” she squawked, totally unmindful of her own noise level. “I want to meet the stars! I caught a glimpse of Ben Gazzara when we passed his dressing room just now, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Oooh, baby, talk about hot! We have to go back and interrogate him. Right this minute, you dig? Before he puts his shirt on.” She turned and bolted in the opposite direction.

“Whoa!” I cried, lunging after her, grabbing hold of her ponytail and reining her back in.

“Ow!” she cried. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You promised to stick close to me, remember?” I snapped. “And we’re not going anywhere near Gazzara’s dressing room! There’s no reason to question him; we have to focus on what’s important. And in case you’ve forgotten what that is,” I said, forcing the words out between clenched teeth, “let me refresh your memory. We’re here to look for a goddamn murderer, not to gawk at an actor’s bare chest. You dig?” (I pronounced those last two words with enough acidic sarcasm to strip the enamel off my firmly clamped molars.)

Abby pouted and stuck out her chin. “Well, that’s not all I wanted to see!” she said, stamping her foot on the bare wood floor. “I was thinking about the murderer, too, you know! So I wanted to see what Gazzara is really like. That could be really important! I mean, is he the jealous type? Does he go crazy when his superiority is threatened? Could Gray’s fantastic performance last night have made him jealous and crazy enough to kill?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me with a smirk that said, So there!

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Only Abby would try to turn a burning sexual impulse into a righteous quest for the truth. “That’s utter nonsense,” I said, “and you know it. Gazzara did not kill Gray. He was in the hospital last night, getting pumped full of fluids and massaged with shaved ice, overcoming his heatstroke and getting in shape for today’s performance. Get real, Abby! Pull yourself together and stop acting like a-”

I was about to say “slut” when the door to my right shot open and a striking young blonde sprang out into the hall. She was about five foot six in her bare feet (I mean that literally, since she didn’t have on any stockings or shoes), and her platinum locks and shapely curves were comparable to those of Marilyn Monroe, whose bombshell image she was obviously trying to ape. Besides her bra and panties (which I assumed were comfortably settled in their proper places), she was wearing nothing but an ivory satin slip.

“Hey, pipe down, willya?” she croaked, giving Abby and me the evil eye. “I’m trying to get some sleep in here!”

“Sorry,” I hurriedly replied, before Abby could get a word in. “We didn’t mean to wake you. We were just looking for a friend from our acting class. Gray Gordon. He’s an understudy in this show. Do you know him?” I watched her face for a revealing reaction.

Her sleepy scowl turned into a creepy smile. “Sure, I know him,” she said. “Gray and I are just like this.” She held up two closely joined fingers. “We’re Lunt and Fontaine. Romeo and Juliet. Ozzie and Harriet. Get the idea?”

She was either claiming to be Gray’s girlfriend, or telling us that she was his closest castmate-i.e., the play’s female lead understudy. Either way, I wanted to know more.

“You must be the stand-in for Maggie the Cat,” I ventured, figuring her scantily clad presence backstage made that answer the right one. (I’m so clever sometimes, it kills me.)

“Well, whaddaya know,” she said, sneering, looking me over from head to toe. “It has a brain.”

Uh oh. I had no idea why the young actress was being so rude to me, but I knew I had to pacify her immediately. Otherwise, Abby would leap to my defense and start telling her off-or, gasp, beating her up!-and that would bring a sure end to the interview. And I couldn’t afford to let that to happen. I had to get on the boorish blonde’s good side. Fast.

“So you’re Rhonda Blake!” I blurted, grinning from ear to ear (and giving myself a silent cheer for remembering her name from the Playbill). “Gray has told us so much about you! He says you’re such a wonderful actress you’re going to be famous someday.” I batted my lashes, shuffled my feet, and let out a fawning gasp of delight. “I’m so thrilled to meet you! May I please have your autograph?”

Mission accomplished.

“Why, of course you can!” she said, brown eyes beaming with vanity and pride. Her mood had turned on a dime. “Got anything to write with?”

I opened my purse and shuffled through the contents, deliberately ignoring the pad and pencil I carry with me always. “Oh, no!” I wailed, doing a swell imitation of Anna Karenina right before she throws herself in front of a train. “I must have left my pen at home!”

“Oh, that’s okay, sweetie,” Rhonda cooed. “We have one in the lounge. Some paper, too.” She turned and wiggled her happy, ivory satin-sheathed hips back through the door she’d just exited, motioning for us to follow.

THE “LOUNGE,” AS RHONDA HAD CALLED it, was nothing but a windowless room furnished with one dressing table, a few chairs, and three folding cots. One of the cots was open and sloppily covered with a white sheet; the other two were closed and rolled against one wall. There were several floor lamps in the room, but only one was turned on, giving off a dim yellow light that made everything look murky. Clothes, underwear, towels, magazines, full ashtrays, and dirty coffee cups were scattered all over the place. The room was cool, praise the Lord (or, rather, the saint who invented air-conditioning), yet the smell of sweat was strong.

Rhonda walked over to the dressing table and started rummaging through the stuff that littered its surface. “Cripes! There was a pen here just this morning,” she said, sweeping makeup sponges, eyebrow pencils, combs, brushes, lipsticks, and dirty Q-Tips from one place to another. “Where the hell did it disappear to? I used it to write down a slew of phone messages for Gray, and I… Oh, here it is!” she squeaked, “hiding behind the cold cream!”

She snatched up the pen, then bent over and grabbed a tablet of paper off the floor. “What’s your name, honey?” she asked, walking toward the middle of the room where I was standing, flipping over several pages of scribbles (

Gray’s phone messages? I wondered) to get to a clean sheet. “You want this made out to you, right?”

“Uh… yes… that would be nice, please.” I was so focused on watching the action unfold I almost forgot what I was supposed to be there for. “You can make it out to Phoebe Starr,” I said, dredging up an old alias I’d used several times before. (My ridiculous real name was hardly well-known, but it was entirely too memorable to mention. And I was in no mood to be laughed at.) “That’s Starr,” I repeated, “with two r’s.”

“Got it,” Rhonda said, sticking the tip of her tongue between (and quite a bit beyond) her lips as she wrote. Then she signed her name with a flourish, ripped the whole sheet off the pad, and handed it to me. “And what about you, sister?” she said to Abby. “You want one, too?”

I froze. What would Abby do now? Would she be a good girl and accept Rhonda’s offer of an autograph, or would her true personality break loose and blow our carefully planned cover to smithereens?

“Yes, please,” Abby said, fluttering her lashes and panting like an overheated sheepdog. “I’d simply love to have your signature. Just your name will do. It would make my pitiful, lonely, and hopeless life complete.”

I cringed. Would Rhonda pick up on the contempt in Abby’s voice? Would Abby’s belligerent, legs-apart, arms-folded posture lead Rhonda to realize that we were both just blowing air up her skirt?

Nope. Looking as satisfied as a cat with a saucer of cream, Rhonda blithely signed her name to the paper, tore the sheet off the tablet, and handed it over it to Abby. “It’s all yours, sis,” she said, tossing the pen and the pad down on the mattress of the open cot. “Better keep it in a safe place. It’ll be worth big money someday.”

“Oh, I know right where I’m going to put it,” Abby said, curling her lips in a nasty smile. She didn’t actually say the words “trash can,” but you could tell that was what she was thinking.

“Thank you so much, Rhonda!” I jumped in, hoping she wouldn’t notice Abby’s scornful expression. (She didn’t. Instead of looking at Abby, she was looking at herself in the mirror.) “We really do appreciate this! And we can’t wait to tell Gray we met you. Is he here now? Can you tell us where to find him? We want to congratulate him on his fab performance last night.”

“Yeah, you and everybody else, honey,” she grumbled, sitting down at the dressing table and looking at me in the mirror’s reflection. “The phone at the end of the hall’s been ringing off the hook all day. And I had to go out and answer it, and take down all of Gray’s messages, because he never bothered to show up! If you don’t believe me, take a look in the men’s lounge next door. He’s not there! He didn’t even call in. Can you believe that? One stupid night on stage and he’s acting like a freaking superstar!” Rhonda snatched up a hairbrush and started yanking it through her platinum fluff.

“You know what else?” she rattled on. “He didn’t come in for Thursday’s show, either. And that was before his goddamn dazzling debut. I had to take down a bunch of messages for him that night, too. What am I, his freaking secretary?”

“Well, it’s very nice of you to do that for Gray,” I said, just to keep the ball rolling. “I’m sure he’s very grateful.”

“Ha!” she scoffed. “That’s a laugh and a half. He was so busy taking bows last night, he never even looked at the messages to see who called. That’s how grateful he is!” She angrily tossed the hairbrush back down on the cluttered table. “And I’ll tell you something else. If our director, Mr. Kazan, ever finds out Gray wasn’t here Thursday or for the matinee today, he’ll fire him on the spot. An understudy has to be in the house for every single performance, no matter what!”

Even if he’s dead? I muttered to myself.

“Gray better show up for tonight’s show,” Rhonda went on, “or I’m going to report him myself. He can’t disappear whenever he feels like it. It’s not fair!” She spun around on her stool and then suddenly, out of the blue, took a long, cold, appraising look at both Abby and me. “Hey, what are you two pretending to be? What’s with the makeup and the sporty little outfits? Is your acting class working on a scene from

Picnic?”

“Good guess,” I replied, “but actually we’re crowd scene extras in

Bus Stop. It’s playing right across the street. We dashed over here the minute the matinee ended, hoping to catch Gray before he left the theater. That’s why we’re still in costume-we didn’t have time to change.”

“What a crock!” Rhonda said. “You’re really asking for it, you know!”

“For what?” I asked, getting nervous.

“For trouble, sister. And I mean big trouble.”

“Why? What are you talking about?” I was on the verge of panic now. Had Rhonda heard me and Abby arguing-and discussing the murder-out in the hall before? Did she know that everything we’d said and done since then had been a big fat act? Had she guessed our real reason for being there, and then put on a big fat act of her own?

“Don’t play the ingenue with me, honey!” Rhonda exclaimed. “You know darn well that all cast members of all Broadway shows are forbidden to wear their costumes in the street. That’s totally against the rules! And don’t say you didn’t have time to change, either. That’s a complete crock. You’re supposed to make the time, no matter what. So, you know what I say? I say you and your sour-faced sidekick over there have broken one of the most basic laws of Broadway-and you ought to be fired for it!”

Whew. Is that all? For a lowly understudy, Rhonda sure took her job (and everybody else’s!) seriously. I was staring at the floor, trying to think up a good excuse for Abby’s and my bad Broadway behavior, when a very soft, muted tinkling sound seeped into the lounge and captured my attention.

“Hey, what’s that?” I asked. “Do you hear a bell or something?”

“Cripes! It’s the goddamn phone again!” Rhonda snapped. “They keep it muffled in case it rings while the show is on.”

“Do you have to answer it?” I asked, hoping she would.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, wearily rising to her bare feet and padding toward the door to the hall. “You and Tonto have to leave now, anyway,” she added, shooting us a snotty glance over her shoulder. “I’m going back to sleep, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll run back across the street and take off your goddamn costumes.”

“Oh, we will!” I assured her, as she sashayed out the door and disappeared down the hall to the right. “And thanks for the autographs!” I called out, even though I knew she wasn’t listening. (I can be-and often am-polite to the puking point. Abby swears I’m related to Emily Post.)

Abby erupted as soon as Rhonda was gone. “What a bitch!” she spluttered, looking as if the top of her head would blow off. (Considering the pressure that had surely been building up in her stubborn, short-tempered skull, such an event wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.) “I never met such a sniveling, pretentious, big-mouthed broad in my life! She’s a tattletale and a tramp. And I bet she’s a murderer, too. She probably killed Gray for taking too long for lunch!”

“Shhhhhh!” I cautioned, holding a silencing finger up to my lips and tiptoeing over to the cot where Rhonda had tossed the pad and the pen. Glad she hadn’t taken the message pad with her to the phone, I promptly snatched up the tablet full of scribbles, hid it under my purse, and scrambled for the door. Abby scrambled right along with me and-fleeing down the hall to the left like Bonnie and Clyde (or, more precisely, Lucy and Ethel)-we made a clean getaway.