Death Dance

9

"Dewar's on the rocks for the blonde. No fruit. You have Grey Goose?"

The bartender set up the glasses and took Mike's drink orders. We three were alone in the lobby of the Met, at the foot of the grand staircase, while all the balletomanes were in their seats for the performance.

The added police presence at entrances and doorways leading behind the stage hadn't seemed off-putting to most spectators, who would not know about Natalya Galinova's death until they heard the late news or read the morning paper.

We sipped our drinks and talked through the forty-minute first act of Coppelia, Mercer and I both trying unsuccessfully to draw out Mike. It was clear to me that he wasn't ready to expose the emotional upheaval he had suffered after Val's death, and he didn't even bother to feign interest in Mercer's stories about Vickee and their baby boy.

When the doors from the auditorium swung open and the crowd emptied the rows for the intermission, Mike stepped around the corner and fought his way to the director's booth. As I followed behind him, I could see that his instinct had been right. Chet Dobbis was walking briskly toward the front of the house, against the flow of the people, as though he was trying to distance himself from us.

Mike called out to him, but Dobbis didn't turn his head. I was zigzagging through the lines of annoyed patrons, as I slowed their efforts to get their plastic glasses of champagne or stand on the endless lines for the restrooms.

Mercer was more direct. He scooted across a row of seats that was empty but for one elderly couple, and then he vaulted over the chairs in front, beating Dobbis to the exit that was closest to the backstage door.

"You know how this one ends or you just trying to catch an early train?" Mike asked.

The angled nail was again twisting between the director's thumb and forefinger. "I've got to talk to the stage manager, detective. Our lead dancer has missed half of his cues and his performance is entirely off."

"Why don't you let the ballet mistress take care of that?" Mike said, backing out the door with his hand on Dobbis's elbow. "This will only cost you a few minutes."

The usher saw Dobbis coming toward him and opened the door to the backstage area that said no entrance. Once inside, the three of us stopped, surrounding the director before he could go any farther.

"Am I making you nervous, buddy?" Mike asked.

"Not at all. I'm sure you don't like being interrupted when you're doing something important at a crime scene, and I'm asking the same respect for the business at hand tonight. I'm in the middle of a major production."

"What a coincidence. This is the middle of my crime scene, Mr. Dobbis. You wanna watch out for that nail you got? I'd hate to lose you to a bad case of tetanus before we even get to talk."

Dobbis opened his palm and looked down, as though he'd surprised even himself by the discovery that he was holding something. "This? Not nerves at all, detective. Just for good luck," he said, pocketing the black nail.

"How so?"

"Something I picked up in the days Pavarotti sang here. Luciano Pavarotti?"

"Yeah. The fat man."

"Hardly a distinction among tenors, detective. Pavarotti was wildly superstitious, did you know that, Ms. Cooper?"

"Why does everybody ask her the culture questions? She didn't know it-trust me on that-and neither did Mercer. What about it?"

"It got so Luciano wouldn't go onstage until he picked up a bent twenty. He found one, just by chance, the very first time he did Tosca here. A tremendous ovation and sixty Toscas later it remained his personal good luck charm. They actually had to have a pocket sewn into every one of his costumes to conceal a nail. He'd spend the last few seconds before his entrance scouring the floor for these," Dobbis said, showing it off to us again. "I got in the habit of carrying one around just so that I could hand it to him if he couldn't find any."

"Some habits die hard," Mike said. "Didn't he retire a few years back?"

"His superstition must have rubbed off on me. I still think it's a charm."

"Not so lucky last night, was it? Or maybe you dropped it?"

"They're all over the place, Mr. Chapman, as I'm sure you've seen. Are you here to talk hardware or something more serious? There's a second act to stage."

Mercer had walked a few feet away and turned his back to us, making it seem as though Dobbis could reveal any secrets he had only to Mike and me.

"Ms. Cooper and I are easily confused, Mr. Dobbis, so maybe you could straighten this out for us. You were quick to point the finger at Joe Berk and his relationship with Talya, and in the meantime, Berk says that you've been scoring with her, too."

"Such a way with words, detective. But Joe Berk is wrong."

"I'm gonna let you be the guy to tell him that. Do you know who he is, Mr. Dobbis?"

Dobbis didn't appreciate Mike's effort at humor. "Who he is, or who he thinks he is?"

He adjusted his tie and the collar of his shirt before speaking again. "Talya and I had an affair ten years ago, maybe more. Long before either one of us was married. Neither she nor I had any reason to hide it. It drained me of a fortune in yellow roses every time she curtsied to the crowd and caused an ulcer I'm still nursing today. When Talya decided to end the whole thing, it was actually a blessing."

"Never got the urge to revisit the territory?"

"Not even to look at the map, detective."

"Artistic differences? Anything to squabble about?"

"Of course we had those. She wanted things to be all Talya all the time. She liked a good fight, and the older she got, the more unwelcoming she was to the young dancers who were getting the starred reviews. I spend an inordinate amount of time juggling personalities instead of directing talent."

Dobbis tried to walk around me, but Mike didn't give up. "Last night, did you see Talya after Joe Berk left the dressing room?"

"I had a third act to worry about, Mr. Chapman. The scene with the golden idol from Bayadere. Major set changes with the destruction of the temple, two primas and two male leads onstage as well. It wouldn't have mattered to me if Talya had decided to dance naked in the fountain on the plaza. I had to be in my booth making every second of that performance look seamless. May I?"

I stepped back to let Dobbis pass through and walk away.

"I'm beginning to agree with Mike," I said to Mercer. "Let's knock it off for the night. Maybe we'll have some preliminary findings from the autopsy tomorrow that will jumpstart the conversation."

"You up to going?" Mercer asked Mike. It was part of his duty as the homicide detective who caught the case to attend the autopsy. This would be the first time he'd have to view one since Val's accident.

"You two are spending way too much time psychoanalyzing me. I didn't know this Talya broad. Sorry she's dead but I'm not about to throw myself on top of her grave. The way you look at me, you act like I should be in a transfer to the Auto Theft Squad. C'mon. I haven't had a decent meal in weeks."

"Now that's what I like to hear. Any cravings?"

"Nothing that you could satisfy, Coop. I'm thinking pasta."

"I can't tell you how lonely it's been without your insults. Here you go, putting me down, and I'm smiling about it like you just asked me to the prom," I said, looping my arm in Mike's. "I'll call Primola."

We had to make our way to the front of the opera house and walk around the entire complex to get to where we'd left the car. We drove through the transverse in Central Park and across 65 th Street to one of our favorite watering holes on Second Avenue.

Giuliano hadn't seen Mike in two months. He embraced him enthusiastically and led us to the first table in the corner, ignoring all the couples with nine o'clock reservations who were piled deep at the bar.

Adolfo took the drink order and uncorked a bottle of Tignanello that Giuliano sent over with his compliments. Each of us was familiar with the sophisticated menu that was the restaurant's famous fare but opted for the delicious comfort food that was Primola's Saturday-night special-an appetizer portion of fried zucchini along with three orders of spaghetti and meatballs.

No matter how tired I was from the work of the last twenty-four hours, I could feel myself come alive again in the reuniting of our trio. Family and close friends have provided my emotional sanctuary during years of prosecuting intimate violence for which no formal education could have prepared me. The women I had lived with at Wellesley, my study group from law school at the University of Virginia, and the colleagues with whom I stood shoulder to shoulder in the trenches of the criminal courthouse at 100 Centre Street all played a role in maintaining my faith in the goodness of humankind.

But no professional relationship had been forged that compared to my friendship with Mike and Mercer. They had seen the darkest side of man's nature, regularly witnessing the taking of lives by killers motivated by greed, lust, and every other deadly sin. They had helped nourish victims back to stability after the trauma of the most personally invasive violence imaginable. And they understood the meaning of loyalty in ways I had trouble expressing to people who couldn't fathom why each one of us derived such satisfaction in restoring dignity to those who'd been attacked or to their survivors.

Mercer's beeper went off while we were gnawing on thin strips of zucchini and enjoying our wine. He stepped out on the sidewalk to return the call.

"If you're gonna try to ruin my dinner with new business," Mike said when he sat down again, "get yourselves another table for two."

Mercer smiled at me and lifted his glass. "We're one step closer to nailing the Riverside rapist."

"Another attack?"

Joggers who ran the pathway in the slice of parkland along Riverside Drive had been battling an assailant who hid himself in the thick bushes that had started to bloom in March, lying in wait for women who exercised alone. Police expected that the man had some kind of sexual dysfunction, since he had not ejaculated in any of the cases. Lacking a ANA profile of the attacker, we had been unable to search databanks for convicted offenders or links to other unsolved crimes.

"Not quite," Mercer said. "This one was running with her dog, a small mixed-breed special she rescued from the pound. The perp tackled her to the ground and started to tear off her shorts but the mutt wrapped his mouth around the guy's wrist till he pulled free. I've got to go over to the hospital to interview her."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Stay here with Mike. This one will be easy."

"Your man get away again?"

Mercer smiled. "For the moment. But they've got the dog down at the ME's office. Docs are swabbing his teeth. There's still enough of the perp's blood on his canines for a DNA profile this time."