Death Dance

37

The two security guards inside the lobby were less than impressed with Mike's gold shield. They kept no sign-in book at this entrance, although there was one on the 56th Street side, where the center's offices were located. And no, they had no idea who any of the women were who had left a short while ago.

One of the men called upstairs to have someone from management escort us inside. While we waited, I stepped back out on the sidewalk to look at the front of the theater. The words Mecca Temple were too many stories above for me to see-as Alden had suggested-but the other Islamic architectural motifs were impossible to mistake.

I noted as if for the first time the arcade of horseshoe arches in the tawny sandstone, the attached columns and capitals framed by the traditional Arabic alfiz, and the colorful glazed tiles that set the building apart from the low brick structures on either side. The massive facade was dotted with lancet windows, again in the Moorish style, which must have provided the only natural light to the areas behind the auditorium seats in the upper balconies.

Inside the foyer, Mike and Mercer's impatience was clear as they paced between the advance ticket sales window and a wall on the far end, postered with coming events.

"Detective Chapman? Ms. Schiller sent me down to answer your questions. My name is Stan," the young man said, extending his hand to each of us. "How can we help?"

"We're investigating the homicide that occurred at the Met ten days ago."

"Miss Galinova, of course."

"We understand that she rented studio space here for class and rehearsal."

"Yes, she did. We were privileged to have her."

"We're going to have to look around. We need to see where she worked, whether she kept a locker here, any record of her comings and goings or who might have visited her. People she mixed with, dancers who might have noticed her guests, men who-"

"Perhaps we can schedule an appropriate time to do this. I hadn't realized how much ground you need to cover." Stan tried to reach an arm out to stop Mike from entering the lobby, but he was too late.

"We might as well get started," Mercer said.

Mike had climbed the six steps that led to the rear of the auditorium, so completely different in style from the Met and other theaters we had seen. Mercer and I stepped up behind him for a look.

I had never seen the old house empty. Tier after tier of red velvet seats spread outward like a great fan, with shiny brass railings that ran along the aisles. The stage with its arched proscenium looked enormous; above and around the ceiling was the lacy grillwork typical of Moorish design-large perforated stars arrayed as cutouts above the orchestra and over the balcony seats-and gleaming ivory paint accented with rich gold metallic trim.

"Coop, take a look at the seats."

Below the armrest of each seat on the aisle was an intricately engraved panel, and in the middle of each one was the letter M.

"Miss Galinova had nothing to do with the auditorium, detective," Stan said, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt to check the time. "I'm leaving for the day at five, but if you'd like me to take you up to the office tower, I can give you an idea of where she worked."

He led us out through the lobby. "If you don't mind walking up a flight, we can actually connect through to the other space from within the theater without going outside to the Fifty-sixth Street entrance."

"We saw a woman leaving as we pulled up," Mike said. "Mona Berk. D'you know her? She have an office here?"

"I have no idea who she is. The name means nothing to me."

I walked beside Stan on the broad staircase as Mike and Mercer hurried ahead. "Very grand looking, isn't it?" I said as we reached the mezzanine.

The wide expanse was unlike the cramped spaces in Broadway theater lobbies, with beautifully stenciled coffered ceilings and thick carpeting.

"When the Shriners built Mecca Temple, this was one of the gentlemen's lounges. It was their smoking lodge, actually. Lots of sofas and sitting chairs, spittoons beside them. Marble floors with Moroccan carpets. The old boys were very interested in their comfort and elegance. Watch your heads, please."

We all stooped to exit the auditorium area and emerged into a dingy hallway that led to the office tower.

"Careful where you walk. This is the only way through to the studios, and it has to be kept unlocked. It's the only fire exit on this side of the building. But it's worth your life to get through here at the moment," Stan said, guiding me around piles of gels and high-top sleeves that once covered the spots from recesses overhead. "We're replacing a lot of the lighting equipment, modernizing to a digital system."

The path was cluttered with all the backstage theatrical magic that brought the stage alive, and Mike was annoyed at me for tiptoeing around the mess and slowing him down.

"Sorry, Mr. Chapman. Mecca was entirely gaslit when it was built in the twenties. Between that and the smoking habits of a lot of the performers and workmen, we've always had to take extraordinary precautions against fire."

A few corridors away we reached a bank of elevators.

"I'll take you up to seven. That's where Ms. Galinova liked to work."

The age of the old theater showed itself far less gracefully in the areas out of public view. Walls were in bad need of a paint job, occasional corners graffitied in bright colored markers by members of visiting dance companies whose signatures provided a riotous splash of color against the drab beige paint.

"Did she have a dressing room?" Mike asked. "A place where she could be alone?"

" City Center isn't like the Met. We don't have a star system here. There are changing rooms, certainly, but nothing with Galinova's name on it. Is it possible she found an empty office to park herself in? Well, just try a few of the doors-there's always something available. Dusty but available."

Dancers-women and men-brushed by us as they passed out of a class. They all looked like teenagers-perfectly toned bodies, unlined skin covered with sweat, most of them in black leotards and tights topped by colorful woolen leg warmers.

"This is Julio Bocca's Argentine company. Fabulously talented young people. I think the oldest member of the corps is seventeen."

Stan said, waiting until they cleared through. The accompanist was still working on the timing of a tango and the music drifted into the corridor and followed the dancers down the hall.

We walked into the studio they had just vacated and I was aghast at its dimensions and decor. "This is fabulous," I said to Stan. "I've never seen rehearsal space like this in the city."

"Do you dance?"

"No, no. But I've studied ballet for years, taken lots of classes."

The room was unusually large, in length and depth. The painted ceilings and even the door frame were rich in architectural detail and color. What was most unique for a Manhattan rehearsal studio was that there were no columns at all, a completely open space in which the dancers could stage numbers as they would be performed in a theater.

Mike wasn't listening. He headed directly to the far end of the room and climbed a few steps, seating himself in an oversize wooden chair, carved with elaborate stars and crescents that I recognized now as symbols of the Middle Eastern influence.

"What about this?"

"The potentate's throne, detective. It was in these old lodge rooms that many of the secret rituals of the Shriners were conducted. In almost every one of these studios, there's an altar or shrine that played some part in the daily life of the members. I don't have a clue what went on in here, but most of us are just grateful that all this rich detail survived what the city did to the rest of the common space," Stan said, gesturing back to the hallway.

Mike was down the steps and back to the door. "Where else did Ms. Galinova spend time?"

Stan passed him and retraced his steps in the hallway. "This dressing room is for the women. I suppose that's the one she had to use." He looked over his shoulder at me. "Although I can't imagine for a minute that a prima like Galinova enjoyed sharing it with anyone else."

From within we could hear the voices of the dancers, speaking in Spanish, and the sound of the running water from the shower.

Mike nodded at me. "Your territory, Coop. Check front."

I pushed open the door and entered the room.

The first area had been converted into a small lounge. Several sofas and chairs were against the wall, and three of the dancers-barefoot and robed, waiting their turn for the shower-were curled up and chatting with one another.

I passed by them to another section of the room. Instead of lockers, there were only open cubbies for their belongings and a coatrack on which their clothing hung.

The last chamber was the bathroom area: several toilet stalls, a row of sinks, and one entire wall that was mirrored. There were backpacks on the floor, magazines and iPods stacked beside them, and makeup on every flat surface.

One of the girls emerged from the shower, wrapped in a bath sheet with her head turbaned in a towel. She excused herself as she slid in front of me, and I pressed my back to the wall to let her pass.

My hands were flat against the surface, a smooth, glazed tile that was cold to the touch. I looked around and noticed the same old ceramic squares-undoubtedly the original 1920s design-covering the wall opposite the showers and creating a border along the ceiling edge and floor.

I walked to the empty shower stall, which was also elaborately tiled, then turned to study the dark blue and pale green of the mosaics worked into a white ground. What had Hubert Alden called the typically Islamic motifs? A foliate design, he had said.

I ran my fingers over the beautiful image. The flowers looked familiar to me-their shape and colors-and I tried to recall where I had seen something like them.

Foliate, of course. Beautiful flowers. They were tulips, Arabic style, created specially for the Mecca Temple. And the other time I had seen them was on the monitor in Joe Berk's bedroom.

The images we suspected Berk of watching-of stealing for some personal perversion by means of a hidden surveillance system-must have come to him from a camera that had been surreptitiously installed here in the dressing room used by many of the dancers who rehearsed at City Center, including Lucy DeVore and the late Natalya Galinova.