Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

Chapter 29

WE ARRIVED AT THE RENOWNED RESTAURANT at 11:20 and took a table in the darkest reaches of the plush dining room, away from the lights and the action. Since the Broadway stars all came to Sardi’s to be seen, and the celebrity-gawkers all came to see them, the tables tucked against the walls in the back were usually the last to be filled. (I picked this little tidbit up from Ed Sullivan’s column in the

Daily News.) Figuring that the Hot Tin Roof clan would be sitting at one of the large reserved tables in the very middle of the room, I sat down in the chair that offered the best view of that area.

As I was basking in the glorious air-conditioning and glancing around at the hundreds of framed and autographed caricatures covering the bright red walls, a waiter materialized, handed us menus, and asked what we wanted to drink. I was about to order a Dr Pepper when Willy jumped in and ordered a round of champagne cocktails.

“Jeez, Willy, that’ll be really expensive!” I said, as soon as the waiter walked away. “And I don’t have that much money on me. We should have gotten a pitcher of beer.”

Abby laughed. “We’re in Sardi’s, Paige, not the San Remo.”

“Don’t worry about the cost,” Willy said. “I’m picking up the tab tonight. I’ve been saving up for a Fire Island vacation, but I think finding the murderer is a better investment for my future. You can’t frolic on Fire Island when you’re in jail.”

“Gee, thanks, Willy!” Abby said, patting him on one chubby cheek. She stuck a Pall Mall in the tip of her long cigarette holder and leaned toward him for a light. “You’re the best kind of man there is-a

gentleman.” Once lit, she sat back in her chair and put on a big smoking show, waving her thin white holder around in the air like an orchestra conductor’s baton.

The restaurant wasn’t crowded yet, but it would soon be packed. All the shows were ending. Large groups of people were pouring out of the theaters and surging straight into Sardi’s-spreading, like waves on the shore, throughout the vast dining room. I kept my eyes glued to the entrance, watching for Baldy and Binky (and Rhonda, too, though she was not one of my prime suspects). When the waiter set my champagne cocktail down in front of me, I picked it up and took a few sips, never changing the direction of my gaze.

So when Elia Kazan entered the restaurant with his two lead stars in tow (Barbara Bel Geddes and Ben Gazzara, in case you’ve forgotten), I perked up and took notice. Smiling and chatting continuously, they followed the maitre d’ to their table (yep!-one of the ones in the middle) and sat down next to each other, facing the entrance. Baldy and Rhonda came in two minutes later and sat opposite them, facing me. I couldn’t hear what anybody was saying, of course (I was seated a good forty feet away), but I could see that all five were engaged in lively conversation.

Binky was fashionably late. He arrived around 11:45 and, holding his head high and his shoulders erect, searched the room till he spotted his party. Then, looking very cool and composed in his pinstriped suit and paisley tie, he slowly made his way to the center of the now crowded dining room and stood next to his empty chair, waiting for Baldy to introduce him to the others. There was a cocky smile on his lean, clean-shaven face.

“That’s Binky,” I said to Abby and Willy, “also known as Barnabas Kapinsky, the soon-to-be lead understudy in Broadway’s hottest drama. What do you think? Does he look like a killer to you?”

Willy shuddered and rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes!” he squeaked. “He really does!”

Abby wasn’t so quick to judge. “Gee, I don’t know, Flo,” she said. “I think he’s kind of cute. And if he’s as good an actor as you say he is, it’ll be hard to determine his true personality. Maybe I should ask him to model for me so I can do an up close and personal study of his character.”

“You mean his anatomy,” I scoffed, trying not to lose my temper. Couldn’t Abby control her libido for a single second? “What about Baldy?” I probed. “Don’t you think he looks deadly?”

“He’s so big!” Willy sputtered. “And so bald! He terrifies me. He could play the lead in a monster movie.”

“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” Abby teased. “I’ll bet he’s gay.”

“You can be gay and still be monstrous,” Willy said, with a sniff.

Abby scowled and blew a perfect smoke ring. “As far as I’m concerned, the only monster at that table is Rhonda Blake.” She punctuated her statement by punching her cigarette holder, like an exclamation point, straight up in the air. “By the way, Paige,” she added, “you haven’t mentioned Cupcake in a while. Are you still looking for her, or have you finally come to agree with me that the mysterious Cupcake is none other than the bitchy Miss Blake?”

“I think Cupcake is a he, not a she,” I said.

“What?!” Abby exclaimed. “You’re crazy! Cupcake was Gray’s

girlfriend, remember? He stopped seeing me so he could spend all his time with her!”

“Or so you assumed,” I said. “But now I’ve come to a very different conclusion.”

“Oh, really!” she huffed. “And what conclusion is that, Pat?”

I drank the rest of my cocktail and set the empty glass down on the table. “I believe Gray was a homosexual,” I said, looking her straight in the eye (or, rather, straight in the sunglasses). “I know he slept with you a couple of times, Ab, and I’m sure you both enjoyed the experience enormously, but I’m convinced that Gray loved men a whole lot more than he did women. I believe he broke it off with you so he could commit himself to a special boyfriend, not girlfriend-that Cupcake is, therefore, a man.”

Abby tilted her head down, lowered her dark specs, and stared at me over their silver frames. “I don’t believe it! It can’t be true! Gray was so gorgeous, so masculine, so sexy!”

“All the best fairies are,” Willy said, smirking.

“So who do you think Cupcake is?” Abby demanded, snorting smoke out of her nostrils like a cartoon bull. “He must be really fabulous if Gray left

me for him.”

I smiled. (If Abby had a sense of humility, she never let it show.) “I don’t have a scrap of evidence,” I confessed, “but I

do have a very strong feeling that Cupcake and Aunt Doobie are one and the same.”

OUR CONVERSATION CAME TO A SUDDEN halt when the waiter reappeared at our table and asked if we were ready to order dinner.

Dinner? At midnight? Not only was it past my dinnertime, it was past my bedtime, too. I was kind of hungry, though…

“Yes, we’re ready,” Willy said, assuming a very masculine tone, taking complete control of the situation. “We’ll each have the filet mignon, medium rare, with roasted potatoes and asparagus hollandaise. And another round of champagne cocktails, please.”

Abby and I glanced at each other and grinned.

As the waiter wrote down our order and began collecting our empty glasses, I took another long hard look at the

Hot Tin Roof table. Everybody was chatting and laughing and eating and drinking-enjoying themselves to the hilt. Baldy and Binky were laughing the hardest. I was dying to find out what they thought was so funny, but how was I supposed to do that? Walk over and stand by their table till they let me in on the joke?

That was when the realization hit me. Rita Hayworth disguise aside, I probably wasn’t going to learn a darn thing about the murder tonight! How could I? I wasn’t able to hear a word the suspects were saying. And even if I

could pick up on their discussion, and even if they did happen to talk about the murder of Gray Gordon, what difference would that make? They’d just be saying things like, “It’s so horrible!” and “What a shame!” and “Tut tut tut.” Not much to be learned from that. The stakeout of Sardi’s, I sadly admitted to myself, had been a stupid idea. It seemed all I would be able to do was just sit there and watch the suspects have a good time.

“So what makes you think Aunt Doobie is Cupcake?” Abby asked, as soon as the waiter disappeared.

“Yeah, Paige!” Willy echoed. “You’d better fill us in.”

“Oh, it’s pretty simple, really,” I said, keeping an eye on the suspects while I talked to my sidekicks. “First, there’s the use of the word ‘Aunt,’ which Willy says is a term of endearment between homosexuals, and then there’s the fact that Aunt Doobie left a hotel room number in his phone message to Gray. That’s a pretty clear indication that he expected Gray to meet him there, wouldn’t you say? Add to that the fact that Aunt Doobie was at a party for homosexuals only at the Keller Hotel, and that his virility, youth, and gorgeous good looks were a perfect match for Gray’s… you see what I mean? All these little clues suggest that Gray and Aunt Doobie were lovers. And since Gray called his lover Cupcake… well, you get the connection.”

“I do now,” Abby said. “And everything you said makes perfect sense. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” asked Willy.

“Since we don’t know who Aunt Doobie is,” Abby answered, “we don’t know who Cupcake is either.”

“Right,” I said. “I wanted to go back to the Mayflower Hotel to look for him again, but I couldn’t find the time. And he’s probably checked out by now. I told Flannagan about him, and gave him his hotel room number, but who knows if the not-so-diligent dick ever did anything about it. I’ll call him at the station tomorrow and see what I can find out.”

“You should have sent

me to the Mayflower,” Abby whined. “I bet I could have dug up some answers!”

“Yes, but to which questions?” I said. “We don’t need to know if Aunt Doobie can be seduced by a woman, or how good he is in bed. That information isn’t germane to the case.”

“Oh, shut up, Paige!” Abby snapped. “I would have found out more than that!” She thrust her now cigaretteless holder, like a sword, in my direction.

“Girls! Girls!” Willy cried, patting us each on our arms to steady us. “Behave yourselves! You’re in Sardi’s, for heaven’s sake. You’re supposed to act like ladies.”

I was about to apologize to Abby for my rude remark when I saw Rhonda Blake and Barbara Bel Geddes stand up from their table. They said a few words to the men, picked up their purses, and began to walk, arm-in-arm, toward the far corner of the dining room.

“Look!” I yelped. “Rhonda and Barbara are going to the ladies’ room together!” I scooted my chair away from the table. “I’m going to follow them in there, see what they have to they say to each other.”

“I’ll go with you,” Abby said, jumping to her feet like a jackrabbit.

“No!” I said, standing to face her. “Rhonda will recognize you-if not from your looks, then definitely from your personality. She’ll never even notice me. But here’s what you

can do. While the ladies and I are in the bathroom, you can hop over to their table and work your magic on the men. Not one of them has ever seen you before. I’m guessing you’ll be able to direct the scene and find out anything you want to know.”

“Good idea,” she said, shooting me a devilish look. “Maybe they’ll tell me when the hell James Dean is going to show up.”

AS SOON AS ABBY BEGAN MAKING HER way toward the other table, I gave Willy a cagey nod and struck off for the ladies’ lounge. I was excited and energized. Maybe our Sardi’s expedition wouldn’t be a total bust after all. Maybe I’d be able to pick up some tiny yet valuable clue that would lead us, if not directly to the murderer, then at least in the right direction.

If I knew Abby, she would come back loaded with information. Way too much information, probably, but some of it could turn out to be useful. If she would just focus her attentions on Baldy and Binky instead of Gazarra and Kazan (which, I realized, was a very big if!), she might gain some important insights (i.e., killer insights). I just hoped she wouldn’t make too big a show of herself-give away more information than she took in.

These were the thoughts that were spinning around in my head as I hurried toward the ladies’ room. All of my other concerns about the case, including the grave danger it posed to my own personal life and safety, had been shoved to the back burner. I was concentrating on more productive things, primarily the successful execution of my clue-hunting-hopefully fact-finding-excursion to the lavatory.

So when I turned the corner near the bar and caught sight of an amorous couple embracing in the darkened hallway outside the ladies’ room, I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t fully understand what my eyes were seeing. It took several seconds for the unexpected and oh-so-intimate image to take shape in my brain. Even then, the picture was fuzzy and incomplete.

I had no idea who the woman was, but I could see that she was young and beautiful, and that her arms were locked around the neck of a very handsome man. I could tell that her body was pressed so tight against his there wasn’t a single molecule of light or air between them. I could see that she was drawing his face closer and closer to hers, and I had no trouble detecting the very moment their mouths came together in a deep, greedy, soul-rocking kiss.

What I

couldn’t so easily perceive or comprehend was the mind-shattering, heart-wrenching fact that the man being kissed-the man so eagerly engaged in enjoying and returning the passionate embrace-was Dan.