Double Booked for Death

TWENTY-SIX

“THIS IS HILLARY GABLES.”

Darla’s jaw sagged as she heard the agent repeat her greeting in a sharper tone. Then came a small gasp, and the speakerphone voice demanded, “Morris, is that you? Damn it, don’t play games with me. I’ve got caller ID. I recognize your number.”

Getting no response, Hillary stormed on, “Don’t think you can threaten me, you son of a bitch! I’m not afraid of you. I can take you down with what I know. So if you want to keep our little secret between us, I suggest you quit the harassment and bring the money to the club tonight like we agreed.”

In the good old days, Darla irrelevantly thought, they would have heard the receiver slam down as Hillary ended the call. But since the agent was either on a cell phone or a cordless, the conversation ended with a barely audible click as she cut the connection. Jake hung up the speakerphone with the same one-touch efficiency and then turned to meet Darla’s gaze.

“I guess he really did kill Valerie,” Darla said, “and Hillary knows all about it. And now she’s blackmailing him.” She heard the disappointment in her own voice and realized that, despite her suspicions, she really had believed James’s theory about twins being unable to murder their siblings. But apparently even the esteemed Professor James James could be wrong on occasion, as Hillary’s tirade seemingly had proved.

Jake, however, put up a restraining hand.

“Jump to conclusions much, kid? While I agree this is all pretty damn interesting, for all we know Hillary found out something else—like our theory that he wrote the books instead of Valerie—and is blackmailing him over that.”

“Maybe.” But Darla felt the venom in the agent’s words had hinted at something more than a simple case of ghostwriting. “I guess we need to tell Reese what we found out.”

“And what do you suggest we tell him? That we broke into Morris’s private office, autodialed Hillary Gables, and heard her say something about money? Remember what I said about thin? Well, we’re talking tissue paper here.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to find this club Hillary was talking abou—oh no!”

Darla had glanced at the window in time to see Morris on the sidewalk below, having just exited a cab. Now, she pointed frantically in that direction.

“He’s here. Morris is here,” she exclaimed with a panicked look back at Jake. “What if he catches us in here?”

“He won’t if we get the hell out right now,” Jake replied with a swift look around the apartment. “Okay, everything looks in order, so let’s head up to the third floor to visit with Mr. Clean for a bit. Once Morris is safely in the apartment, we’ll make our escape.”

They slipped out the door, and Jake paused long enough to twist the thumb lock on the inner knob before shutting the door behind them.

“Maybe he’ll think he locked the wrong lock last time,” she whispered as the sound of the front door opening drifted up to them. She jabbed a finger in the direction of the third floor, and Darla made a swift if silent beeline for the stairs. Over the frantic beating of her heart, she could hear the faint sounds of metal on metal from the lobby, and she guessed Morris was checking his mail, giving them a few extra seconds.

As they reached the third-floor landing, they heard him starting up the steps. Darla shrank back against the far wall and reflexively counted the footfalls, holding her breath when they stopped. Then she heard a key scrape in the lock, followed by a pause, and the sound of a knob jiggling. She could almost hear the question mark in his thoughts as he apparently found the dead bolt open and the twist lock on the knob locked instead. Did he suspect anything other than his own memory?

“Hey! Hey, there!”

The raspy female voice made both her and Jake jump. Darla gazed wildly about for its source and then recognized the voice as belonging to the first woman whom they’d randomly buzzed while trying to get in. As the woman continued to speak, she realized in relief that the sound was coming from the second floor.

“—was real sorry to hear about your other sister,” the unseen woman was saying, the words obviously directed at Morris. “I’d of made up a casserole to send around, except I didn’t know where to bring it.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Gleason,” she heard Morris reply. “Kind thoughts are as filling as food in such situations.”

“Well, you just let me know if you need anything, Morrie,” Mrs. Gleason said with a comforting click of her tongue. “Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about coming around to see that play you told me about. You think maybe Mavis can get me backstage? I’d love to meet that actor fellow who plays Othello. I just love him on that cop show on Tuesday nights.”

“I’m sure she can arrange it. Not tonight, but maybe for next Sunday’s performance.”

“That would be great. I’m going to go call for a ticket right now.”

A door closed, and then a second one opened and closed. Mrs. Gleason and Morris both were safely in their apartments, Darla assumed. But Jake gave a warning shake of her head and leaned carefully over the railing to take another look.

Sure enough, a door on the second floor opened again, and Darla heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. “Hey, Morrie,” Mrs. Gleason yelled, “which one, three o’clock show or eight o’clock show?”

“Eight o’clock, Mrs. Gleason,” Morris patiently called through his closed door. “The understudy will be playing Othello at the three o’clock performance.”

“Eight o’clock it is.”

The woman shuffled back into her apartment, the door slamming behind her again. Jake peered over the railing for a few more moments and then gestured to Darla, murmuring, “Come on, kid, let’s get out of here.”

They made their way down the two flights in silent haste, fortunately not encountering either Mrs. Gleason or Morris on the way. But Darla didn’t breathe easy again until they’d made it out onto the street and were a good two blocks back in the direction of Crawford Avenue.

“I’m too old for this sort of thing,” she declared with a sigh.

Jake shook her frizzy head and laughed. “Come on, kid, don’t be such a cliché. A little bit of adrenaline rush is good for the heart.”

“Well, then my heart is good for the next twenty years or so,” Darla replied, though this time with a grudging smile. The smile faded, however, as she asked, “So what are we going to do about Morris and Hillary?”

“I was thinking we track them down tonight and see about witnessing this little exchange they’ve got planned. Now that I know what’s going on, no way am I going to let Hillary face off against Morris by herself. It might only be blackmail over a writing credit, but you never know how these things might go down.”

Jake’s amused expression evaporated as she spoke, and her fixed gaze momentarily reminded Darla of the look she had turned on the three young thugs. As for the unsaid sentiment it reflected, she knew it was Not again, not on my watch.

“I see where you’re coming from,” Darla ventured, “but how do we figure out what club Hillary was talking about?”

“We can do it the hard way”—Jake slanted a look at her over her sunglasses—“which would be to tail her or Morris all day and hope we don’t get spotted before we figure out where they’re headed. Or, we can do it the easy way.”

“I’ll put in my vote for the easy way.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

She refused to elaborate, however, until they arrived back at the brownstone.

Once back in the store, Jake picked up one of the free newspapers that Hamlet had kicked aside earlier, and thumbed through it while Darla went to wait on the customer who had followed them into the store as she was unlocking the door. Once assured that her assistance wasn’t needed, she casually sidled over to Jake and addressed her in a low tone.

“Okay, spill it. What’s the easy way of figuring out which of a few hundred clubs around town is the one where Morris and Hillary will be?”

By way of answer, Jake folded back the paper so that a single large notice was visible. “My money’s on this one,” she said and tapped her finger on the banner headline.

Eyes wide, Darla began reading the advertisement aloud. “The Club Theater Presents Othello by William Shakespeare, Starring DeWayne Jones and Harry Delacourt.”

Jake nodded. “As soon as good old Mrs. Gleason mentioned her cop show, I remembered seeing this same ad in last week’s throwaway. DeWayne Jones is the hunky guy who stars in that show.”

“And Hillary said she was going to meet Morris at the club . . . which must be the Club Theater,” Darla finished for her.

Jake gave a small, satisfied smile. “We have a winner. So, what do you say, kid, you want to take in an off-Broadway show tonight?”

AS SHE STRUGGLED TO KEEP UP WITH JAKE’S LONG STRIDES DOWN THE sidewalk, Darla—her own feet pinching uncomfortably in the same heels she’d worn to Valerie’s funeral—reflected on all the ground they’d traversed the past few days. At least this time, they’d taken the subway part of the way. Even so, she wondered how Jake’s bum leg was holding out after their twenty-block walk to Morris’s place and back that morning.

That question was partially answered as the ex-cop strode ahead of her, and she saw peeking out from beneath the woman’s full-length black leather duster a pair of calf-high, patent leather Doc Martens in canary yellow. Jake glanced over in time to catch her bemused look, and grinned. “Remember how I told you that sitting on your ass is one of the first things they teach you at the academy? Well, so is always wearing a pair of shoes you can run in without falling over and breaking an ankle.”

“I’ll remember that next time,” came Darla’s rueful reply as she skipped a little to keep up with her longer-legged and more sensibly shod friend.

Reaching their destination, they stepped through the main double glass doors and into a small lobby already swarming with playgoers. Despite the seriousness of their mission, Darla couldn’t help a feeling of excitement at the prospect of seeing live theater. This would be the first theatrical production that she’d attended in New York City. Of course, when various touring companies came through Dallas she had managed to take in a few major musicals—Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables—and she was a devoted Shakespeare in the Park fan, but the remainder of her experience with plays had been limited to a brief stint in her high school drama club.

Knowing this, James had once felt the need to enlighten her on the seemingly confusing difference between Broadway and Off-Broadway shows.

“It is not so much where the theater itself is located,” he had explained, “as it is the size of the house. Anything under five hundred seats but more than one hundred falls into the Off-Broadway category, but the primary qualifier is whether or not the shows are mounted by companies working under an Equity contract.”

This place was definitely Off-Broadway. The Club Theater was a notorious former 1980s nightspot that had started life as a warehouse, and whose latest incarnation was as a trendy three-hundred-forty-seat venue. The new owners apparently had left much of the club’s original—and now cringe-worthy—décor intact. The old aluminum-and-mirror bar had literally been divided in two, with half now peddling drinks to customers on one side of the lobby, and the rest serving as a box office on the other. A lighted alcove near the ticket booth led to another pair of doors, both of which were marked “Private.”

The “Let’s Get Physical” vibe continued with the lobby’s shiny black walls, mirrored columns, and large-can track lighting that zipped along the ceiling. A pair of sculptures, each consisting of three giant aluminum cubes piled haphazardly atop one another, flanked the double doors leading into the main theater.

“All that’s missing is the disco ball,” Jake observed as she shed her long black leather coat and took a look around.

Used as she was to seeing her friend in her usual uniform of jeans, sweater, and boots, Darla had not been prepared for the sight of Jake in a clingy, off-the-shoulder leopard print dress that accentuated her lean body and stopped short of her knees by several inches. Combined with the yellow Docs, the outfit screamed “bad-girl chic” and was drawing more than one admiring set of male eyes in the ex-cop’s direction. She was also wearing lipstick, probably the clandestine purchase she had made at Great Scentsations, Darla realized.

Catching Darla staring at her a second time, Jake demanded, “What?”

“Nothing,” Darla exclaimed, sadly aware she’d never be able to pull off the same sexy, rough-and-tumble look. “It’s just that you look really great tonight.”

“You think? I had this in the back of my closet and just threw it on.”

She said it with a careless shrug, but Darla could tell she was pleased with the compliment. “Of course, I could have really rocked that red satin number of Morris’s, but I figured he probably would have missed it if I’d swiped it.” Then, returning the praise, she added, “You clean up pretty good yourself. I didn’t think with your hair you could wear red, but it really works on you.”

Darla had made do with the same black wrap dress—minus the picture hat—that she’d worn for Valerie Baylor’s memorial service. She had vamped it up, however, with a kitschy red velvet rose that she pinned to its neckline and then topped it with a matching red velvet stole, both items that she’d found in Mary Ann’s shop. Darla hoped that all her recent purchases there had more than made up for the loan of the vintage cigarette lighter. With her hair pulled back into a loose chignon, she felt like she’d stepped out of an old Katharine Hepburn film.

“Okay, enough with the mutual admiration society,” Jake decreed while Darla preened just a little. “We need to get the lay of the land before we take our seats. I’ll get the tickets and poke around a little bit. You go find a potted plant or something to hide behind and keep an eye out for Hillary. We need to know where she is sitting in the theater so we can follow her when she gets up to make the exchange.”

“How do you know it hasn’t happened already?”

“Trust me.”

With Darla looking over Jake’s shoulder, the older woman flipped through the program she’d picked up just inside the door. She paused at the page headed “Meet the Production Staff” and ran a finger down the alphabetized names. Near the bottom, along with the biographies and photos of the rest of the stage and behind-the-scenes crew, was a listing for one Mavis Vickson.

“Hair and makeup design,” Jake read aloud. “Mavis Vickson has been with the Club Theater since its opening three years ago. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree in theater from Boston University, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.”

Tucking the program into her bag—like Darla, she had prudently opted for a small clutch with a long strap that she wore crosswise over her chest—Jake went on, “Mavis is probably in the dressing room right now finishing up the cast’s makeup. She’ll be tied up until the curtain rises, but then should have some free time until the intermission. If I had to guess, she’ll want to do this while everyone is onstage or else watching the action, so chances are Hillary will get up sometime during the first act to go meet her.”

“That makes sense,” Darla agreed. “Do you think they’ll stay inside the building or run out to the alley?”

“Inside. This is Mavis’s turf. She’ll want to control the meeting and make sure there are no witnesses. In a place like this, especially one that’s been remodeled a couple of times, you’ve always got a rabbit warren of hallways and back rooms. That’s why it’s critical to spot Hillary before the lights go down, so we can tail her.”

“Got it.”

Leaving Jake to her own devices, Darla eased her way toward the bar. It was situated near another alcove, above which a garish neon arrow flashed the word “Restrooms.” Darla gave a satisfied nod. Everyone hits the bar or the head eventually, she told herself. If she kept an eye on both, surely she’d spy Hillary among the other theater patrons.

The crush at the bar had eased for the moment, so she stepped up and ordered herself a club soda with a slice of lime; then, drink in hand, she took up position by one of the mirrored columns kitty-corner to both her targets. She couldn’t help but be proud of her undercover skills. Once she spotted the agent, she could turn her back and pretend to use the mirrored column to check her makeup, but she’d still have an eagle-eyed view of the woman’s every move.

A few minutes passed, however, and Jake had not returned. Nor had Hillary made an appearance. Darla frowned and glanced at the rectangular aluminum clock posted prominently over the bar. Quarter to eight. The play would be starting soon, and even the drinkers were now abandoning the lobby for the theater. Was it possible that Hillary had arrived there before them and was already in her seat?

Uneasy now, Darla left her post and hurried over to the growing crowd at the double doors. When she reached the front of the line, a smiling young woman in a man’s tuxedo held out a gloved hand and said, “Ticket?”

Ticket?

Darla muttered a couple of bad words. Jake had picked up both their admissions from the box office but had neglected to bring one of the tickets back to Darla before heading off who knew where. Doubtless, Jake would show back up eventually, but in the meantime she needed that look around the theater in case Hillary was already sitting down. Trying to spy the agent among the other patrons after the house lights went down would be difficult at best, and a fruitless exercise at worst.

“I’m sorry, my friend is holding my ticket for me,” she explained to the usher, trying for what she hoped was a guileless look. “Maybe I can just step inside and see if I see her.”

“Sorry,” the usher echoed, still smiling. “You have to have a ticket to get in. Why don’t you wait for your friend in the lobby so you’re not blocking the way?”

“But if she’s already inside . . .”

Darla trailed off as the usher shook her head and made a polite little shooing motion with one gloved hand. Grimacing, Darla stepped aside, even as she reminded herself that she’d gotten past Everest when she’d been denied entry to the church. If she could manage to dodge a professional like him, she darn well could manage a perky little usherette! All she needed was another shield like Morris had been. She had just turned to scout out a potential unwitting cohort when she was all but knocked off her feet by a brunette wearing a pale pink satin pantsuit and matching pink-framed eyeglasses.

“’Scuse me,” the woman muttered, not bothering to look Darla’s way as she shoved on past her and handed over her ticket to the usher before vanishing into the theater.

Talk about pushy New Yorkers, was Darla’s first indignant thought as she stared after the woman. Then she gasped as recognition abruptly dawned, and she realized that the aggressive female had been none other than Hillary Gables.

Darla froze for a moment, unable to believe she’d avoided disaster in this encounter. Now, she had to get into the theater to see where Hillary took a seat.

But barely had she tried to follow after the agent when a restraining hand clamped onto her arm. Darla swung about, ready to loudly protest to the usherette, when she found herself face-to-face with Jake.

“You’re gonna need one of these,” Jake said with a wry look as she held out a ticket. Then, apparently recognizing Darla’s dismay, she demanded, “What’s wrong?”

“Quick, Hillary just went inside! Pink pantsuit, pink glasses.”

Jake didn’t ask any further questions. Handing over the tickets, she snatched the stubs back from the usher and then hustled Darla into the theater.

Immediately before them was a freestanding wall that created a hallway effect and was designed to shield the actors onstage from the patrons’ comings and goings to and from the theater. They could turn either right or left as they entered. And so, with a gesture from Jake, the pair split up.

As she peeked around her side of the wall, Darla saw that the layout before her was similar to the older-style movie theaters: an orchestra section only, with the floor sloping toward the raised, curtained stage. The slick black walls of the lobby remained here as well, and the disco balls that Jake jokingly had mentioned hung above them like a dozen mirrored clouds. A broad center block of rows seated the majority of the playgoers, with the rest settled into two narrow sections separated from the main block by aisles.

The houselights began a slow dim as Darla frantically scanned the place. How could Hillary have eluded them in such a relatively small venue? Then a flash of pastel color caught her eye, and she gave a relieved sigh. Joining Jake on her side of the wall, she whispered, “There, about halfway down the center, aisle seat on the left-hand side.”

Jake followed her pointing finger and nodded as she, too, gained their target. Pretending to confer over their ticket stubs, they clandestinely watched as Hillary settled into her chair. Once seated, the woman glanced about a couple of times, the glow from the remaining houselights glinting off her glasses.

“We’d better sit down, too, before she notices us,” Jake softly told her. “Our seats are right here, best in the house.”

She indicated the aisle seat and one next to it in the final row, just a few feet from where they stood. The show wasn’t quite sold out, and Darla saw that several choicer spots still remained open.

“Hope you got us a discount,” Darla muttered back as they took their places. “I guess I should be glad we’re not stuck behind a column.”

“Hey, kid, we’re not actually here for the show,” Jake reminded her as the last of the houselights flickered out.

The green velvet curtains parted to a polite rumble of applause, revealing a stark stage setting of scaffolding and gilded columns meant to represent a Renaissance Venice canal front. Roderigo and Iago took the stage, and the action commenced.

Darla was oblivious to what happened next onstage, her attention held by the solitary figure seated twelve rows down from them. Whether she liked the woman or not, Darla knew they couldn’t let Hillary come to any harm this night. She only wished she could ask Jake what, if anything, she had learned as she prowled about the theater before the show had started. Unfortunately, sound carried readily there, so she didn’t even dare strike up a whispered conversation.

She did, however, turn her attention to the stage at the second scene of Act I long enough to discover the reason why Mrs. Gleason enjoyed her Tuesday night cop show so much. DeWayne Jones, the actor portraying Othello, had been costumed to show off his muscular chest and arms to advantage. Darla hadn’t paid enough attention to judge how good an actor the man was, but she could honestly report back that he looked damn good on stage.

Act I became Act II, and Hillary still remained in her seat. Darla shifted impatiently in her own chair and gave Jake an anxious look.

What’s taking so long? she mouthed, getting a headshake back in return. By now, Iago had begun his soliloquy that would conclude the first scene of the second act. Despite herself, Darla kept one ear cocked toward the spoken lines, for she knew this portion of the play. Here, Iago revealed his perfidy, though his motives were still hazy, even in his own mind.

‘Tis here, but yet confused: Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used.

She wondered if that was how it was with Morris, and if that meant that she and Jake still might be able to stop whatever plan would be carried out this night.

As she pondered this, Iago’s final words died away, replaced by the sound of polite applause as he exited the stage . . . which was when Hillary Gables abruptly rose from her seat and started toward the back of the theater.