Speak of the Devil

7

TIMES SQUARE NEVER TAKES A NIGHT OFF. THE ELECTRONIC BILLBOARDS and the zippers and the commercials being projected onto the sides of the glass buildings were all flashing and moving and blinking at their usual epileptic-seizure-inducing speed. The funnel where Broadway and Seventh Avenue merge was clogged with yellow taxis trying to get downtown, any random thirty of which were unleashing their horns for no apparent reason. I spotted one double-decker tourist bus. There was a lone inhabitant on the exposed upper level, wrapped in an Eskimo-like parka, twisting this way and that, a camcorder pressed to his face. As I crossed Broadway, the steam pouring forth from the Cup O’ Noodles billboard looked particularly inviting.

For all the dazzle and noise, the sidewalks were noticeably less packed than usual. A clown sat on the large sidewalk space in front of the Viacom Building, smoking a cigarette. His unicycle lay on the pavement next to him. His bucket was empty.

At the last minute Margo had opted out of joining me. The look of relief on her mother’s face when Margo announced she’d be staying over with them for the night told me that it was the right decision.

“Now I can go spring that Swedish honey I’ve had stashed away,” I’d told Margo. “Show her a swell time on the old town at last.”

A look of alarm had leaped to Margo’s mother’s face. “He’s kidding, isn’t he?”

“He’s kidding or he’s dead,” Margo answered. “The choice is completely his.”

THE THEATER WAS NOT FILLED TO CAPACITY. THE SEAT TO MY RIGHT, the one that would have been Margo’s, remained unoccupied. To my left was a geriatric couple who looked to have been lifted intact from another era and deposited into G-12 and G-13. He was a frail man in a three-piece brown wool suit and red bow tie, with a fine shiny cane. She was in something vaguely deco and pale. Her hair was like blue spun sugar. They leaned shoulder to shoulder to read the program together.

The show was the most ridiculous thing imaginable. In between numbers, there were a lot of slamming doors and fast entrances and exits, loud declarations intended to shove forward the so-called plot, a handful of huffy hands-on-hips speeches, would-be lovers misinterpreting mixed signals and one ham-it-up actor portraying a waiter who wrapped the audience around his finger from his very first entrance and made off with every scene he was in. The couple next to me loved him. Every time the waiter appeared onstage, the old man pointed his bony finger and announced loudly to his sweetheart, “There he is!”

With Rebecca Gilpin’s first entrance, you’d have thought we were greeting the woman who had cured cancer. The audience leaped to their feet, applauding the skin right off their palms and calling out hoorays and bravos. A man seated in front of me-now standing in front of me-put his fingers to his mouth and sent out a series of whistles so piercing that I nervously eyeballed the old chandelier dangling from the theater’s ceiling.

Everyone eventually settled down, and the actors, who had frozen into a tableau while riding out the spontaneous outpouring, swung back into action. Gilpin, making a comely dazzle out of her vintage frills, glided like a ballerina to center stage, where she delivered her first line in a voice that was somewhat huskier than I’d have expected.

“All I can say is, whoever called this a pleasure cruise doesn’t know the gee-dee meaning of the word ‘pleasure.’ ”

Right, I thought. This is definitely worth the risk of being shot at for the second time in one day. I checked my watch and settled in.

After the show, I headed backstage. As with most Broadway theaters, I had to go outside and enter a narrow walkway that led to the stage-door area. The union man at the door wasn’t letting anybody in. He didn’t even have a clipboard of names to consult.

“No chance, Mac. Not tonight. You gotta wait.”

I showed him my PI license. He reached out and patted me on the accomplice. He shook his head. “You wait.”

Good man. Exactly what I wanted to hear.

Some of the chorus members had already left the theater. I backed off to the far side of the alleyway to let them pass with as much flamboyance as they required. After about fifteen minutes, Rebecca Gilpin appeared. She was accompanied by the actor who’d played the waiter. I shoved myself off the wall and approached the stage door. The actress was giving the union man instructions.

“You’re going to have to just wait, that’s all. A car should be here any minute. Do you have any idea how many flowers I’ve got up there tonight?”

The union man scratched his freckled scalp. “Yeah, I do, in fact. Who do you think took them in?”

“Well, thank you. And now, if you’ll just wait, it won’t be more than a half hour, tops. They’ll be going off to the hospitals for all those people who were shot this morning. Am I asking a huge favor?”

I stepped forward. “Miss Gilpin? I’m Fritz Malone. Mayor Leavitt told you about me.”

She looked at me a moment with some confusion. Up close, her face was a series of sharp points. Nose, chin, even her eyebrows. Her ginger-red hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail. Her eyes were large, beautiful and unfriendly. She was wearing a silver fur coat that might have fed and housed a family of five for a year.

“You’re the detective.”

“We’re going to need about twenty minutes,” I said.

A finely etched eyebrow rose, but it wasn’t Rebecca Gilpin’s. It was the eyebrow of the actor who had played the waiter. I braced for the inevitable.

“Honey, if I were you, I’d take that deal,” he said.

I ignored him: the cruelest punishment. I addressed the actress. “Is there a place you’d like to go? We have to talk. I need to explain how I operate.” I conceded a sarcastic smile to the actor.

“Why don’t we go to Barrymore’s?” she said.

The actor piped up. “Or Joe Allen’s.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But Miss Gilpin and I need to talk alone.”

The actor quipped, “Detective? Let’s see some ID.” He snapped his fingers rapidly five or six times as he said it. He thought he was being cute. I sent a silent appeal to Rebecca.

“Okay, Stephen,” she said. “I’m going with Mr. Malone. Thank you for the backrub, sweetie.”

I watched a half-dozen zingers die on the vine. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I waited until he was several steps down the walkway. “I thought you were great tonight,” I called out.

A hand rose. A frozen backward wave.

Rebecca Gilpin pointed her face at me. “Stephen is a laugh whore.”

“Forget about Stephen. Let’s go to Barrymore’s.”

The actress instructed the union man one more time. “Just please wait. I don’t want to see those flowers when I come in tomorrow.”

He and I traded a look. I didn’t think that last request was going to be a problem.

I FELT LIKE I WAS LIFTING A SMALL BEAR FROM THE WOMAN’S SHOULDERS. I handed it to the woman in the coat-check closet, who smiled broadly at me. She was of Asian descent and wearing a red beret. She handed me a plastic stub. Number 101.

“I take it you’re not a PETA person,” I said to Rebecca Gilpin.

“Jack Nicholson gave me that coat. Who says no to Jack?”

“I hope when I’m balding and hiding the bags under my eyes behind tinted glasses that attractive women won’t be able to say no to me.”

“Give them a seventy-five-thousand-dollar coat and see what happens.”

“So that’s how he does it?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

The hostess started to seat us at a table near the front of the restaurant, next to the window.

“We’d like a table in the back, please,” I said.

“Follow me.”

She planted us all the way in the back of the restaurant, next to the restrooms. Rebecca started for the chair against the wall. I stopped her. “That’s mine.”

She said nothing, but she made a major show of settling into the chair opposite me. Our waitress came over. I ordered a seltzer with lime. Rebecca asked for a glass of chardonnay.

“Let me guess,” she said after the waitress had left. “You take the seat against the wall so you can keep an eye on the entire restaurant.”

“Elementary,” I answered.

“Everything I learned about law and order, I learned on my TV show.”

I couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke. And if you can’t tell, it’s not much of a joke.

“Fritz Malone,” she said. “What is that?”

“That’s me.”

“I know it’s you. I mean, it’s a funny name.”

“It’s German-Irish. I’m a melting pot.”

“You must drink a lot of beer. The Germans and the Irish.”

“What’s Gilpin?” I asked.

“English.”

“And may I say, you speak it well.”

“Oh, I see. He’s charming, too.”

I got down to it. “Mayor Leavitt is very concerned for your safety.”

The actress had pulled out a compact and checked in the little mirror to see if she was still there. She seemed satisfied that she was. She clicked it closed. “The police killed that monster who murdered all those people.”

Leavitt and Carroll had told me that Rebecca Gilpin was not being let in on the fact that Roberto Diaz had not been acting alone. She was under the impression that it was the concern over a copycatter that was the reason for my being hired.

“This town is full of kooks,” I said.

She was studying me. “You’re that man, aren’t you? I just recognized you. You’re the one who yelled up at me this morning just before the shooting started. You threw something at me.”

“Bagels.”

“Were you already protecting me? Did Marty hire you to keep an eye on me during the parade?”

I ignored the question. I had one of my own that needed answering. “Did Mayor Leavitt talk to you about canceling your appearance in the parade today?”

“Yes.”

“Did he explain why?”

“He said his police commissioner had made the request. It’s because Marty and I have been seeing each other. The commissioner just thought it would be a good idea if I kept a low profile. Hello? It’s called show business?”

Our drinks arrived. The waitress fawned over Rebecca. She mentioned that she had tickets to see the show. My guess was that the waitress was an actress herself. Waitress? This part of town? Not exactly an Olympian deduction on my part.

Rebecca lifted her glass. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of the show.”

“I don’t see a lot of musicals.”

“So you didn’t like it.”

“They’re not my flavor.”

“You can say it, you know. I won’t be offended.”

“I didn’t like it.”

“None of it?”

“I enjoyed the intermission.”

She paused with the glass near her lips. “That’s cold.”

She took the sip. She was dressed in a black sweater with a plunging neckline. Probably cashmere. It brought out the extraordinary alabaster of her skin.

“Do you have any reason to think that someone might want to hurt you?” I asked. “I don’t mean because you’re involved with the mayor. I mean because you’re you. Have you gotten crank letters in the past? Any problems with fans? Stalkers, that kind of thing?”

“I was on a popular television show for five years. I played the bad girl. I got letters from people who loved me and people who hated me.”

“The ones who hated you-any in particular who wrote you more than once?”

“I’m sure there were. You’d have to ask my publicist. I receive far more letters than I’ve got time to answer. Between the regular letters and the e-mail, we’re talking in the thousands.”

“That’s a lot of fans.”

“My character was extremely popular. Did you ever see the show?”

“I’m not big on television.”

“I’m getting the idea that you’re not big on entertainment in general.”

“That would be the wrong idea.”

She poked her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “What, then? I don’t see you as the go-to-poetry-readings type.”

“I pop up in all sorts of peculiar places,” I said. “That’s one of the great things about this town. More peculiar places than anywhere on earth.” I took a sip of my seltzer. “Okay. Here’s how it works. I’m going to be your shadow for at least the next couple of days. This means I’m in the lobby of your building when you leave in the morning, or whenever it is you leave. I’m there to wish you night-night. If you’re going night-night someplace other than your apartment, then I’m there as well. Not to be personal, but I’m guessing this would be Gracie Mansion. In which case I’ll pass you off to Martin Leavitt’s people. When you travel, I’m in your taxi. No subways or buses, but I suspect that’s not really a problem for you. If you go shopping, lucky me. I go, too. We don’t have to be together. If you’re having lunch with someone, I don’t have to be at the table. But you’re not out of my sight. And I’m going to give you a cell-phone number to call if you see or hear or taste anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. Anything. And I don’t want you opening your mail. Don’t even take it out of your mailbox. I’ll do that. We might suspend delivery and keep it down at the post office. The same with packages. Especially packages. I’ll have your doorman hold all deliveries. This guy Diaz worked for a messenger service. Nice way to deliver bad news, yes? And no takeout, obviously. If someone you know is coming to visit you, tell them to wait for you in the lobby. That’s where I’ll be. You’ll phone me on my cell and let me know and I’ll escort them up to you. I would prefer if you kept the number of people who know you’re under my protection to an absolute minimum. What people like to call a need-to-know basis. Certainly don’t tell the media. If I had my way, I’d have you stop doing your show for the time being, but I already know I’m not having my way. When you go places, don’t pause in doorways. Get in, get out. If you want to take a car service, I arrange for it, you don’t. During your show, I’ll be all over that theater, backstage and out front. I’d prefer if you didn’t go out for drinks after the show, but I’ll let you arm-wrestle me on that one if you’d like.” I gave her a smile. “Finally, don’t accept candy from strangers and don’t take any wooden nickels.”

“Will you be by my side to help me brush my teeth?”

“No, ma’am. But keep the bathroom door closed and locked when you’re doing it.”

She gave me an appraising look. “That was quite a monologue. Have you ever thought about taking up acting?”

“I can’t guarantee your safety, Miss Gilpin. But I can guarantee that anyone with an idea of wanting to harm you is going to have to work pretty hard to do it.”

“Rebecca,” she said.

The sound of the explosion came a half second behind the bright flash. It came in two stages, the second almost instantly atop the first. The first was like a large growl. A rumble. With the flash, I sprang to my feet and had already launched across the small table when the second sound arrived, and with it the bursting of wood and metal and glass.

Rebecca and I hit the floor together. I managed to slip my hand behind her head as we hit, giving it at least a little cushioning. Dishes and glass and wood and food and silverware rocketed over us. We were pelted, me more than her, as I had landed fairly square on top of her. A piece of the ceiling landed next to my head in a plume of plaster dust. I felt a sharp jolt to the small of my back, near my shoulder. At the same time, the roar was replaced by an anguished female scream from somewhere near the front of the restaurant. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

The sound of a wailing car alarm was coming in from where the restaurant’s front window had been. My eyes stung from the plaster dust, but I opened them anyway. Rebecca’s face was inches away. There was a hook-shaped gash on her cheek and a nasty split in her lower lip. Her face was covered by a film of plaster dust.

Her eyes were not open.

A droplet of some sort plunked abruptly onto her cheek, followed by another, then another. The plaster dust absorbed the water where it hit and then began to streak in globby trails along her face. It was water from the sprinkler system. I twisted my head to see a pipe dangling from the ceiling. I also saw utter destruction up at the front of the restaurant. There was a big empty nothing where the coat-check closet had been.

I started to move, and pain shot through my left shoulder. I flinched. Water from the sprinkler was falling like mist from a fountain. Below me, Rebecca’s eyes fluttered open. I should have been relieved. Not to say I wasn’t on some level. But a mantra was already going through my head, which was beginning to feel like it had exploded.

Margo is safe. Margo is safe. Margo is safe…