The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 17

Vivian approached the dilapidated building, a coffee in one hand, her phone in the other. She positioned herself across the street and fiddled with her phone. She had some time to kill and standing around staring at a phone screen was the best cover there ever was. Everyone did it.

Today, she intended to talk to the elusive Slade. She’d called a few times, but he hadn’t answered, and he hadn’t responded to the messages she’d left. After that, she’d looked for his address, but he’d moved since Sandra’s death, and nobody knew where. If Iris was right, probably in with his new rich mark.

Vivian had created a fake account on twitter and used it to follow his account. His handle was @sladethemaster, and his profile picture showed a blond man with curly shoulder-length hair and a rugged face. He looked the part of struggling actor or gigolo.

Last night he’d tweeted: auditioning for mercutio send positive vibes

It hadn’t taken much searching on the Internet to find the audition notice for Romeo and Juliet. She’d decided to come and use her negative vibes to get some information out of him.

The call time was for ten on Saturday morning, and men and women with nervous walks showed up about a half hour after Vivian did. They wore a lot of black, a higher than average number of them smoked, and they had very good hair. Actors.

She paced in front of the building across the street. Her coffee cup was long empty, but she held onto it anyway, using it as the prop of an actress too nervous to go inside for her audition. She’d worn black herself — leggings, an oversized black T-shirt, and a battered leather jacket that she’d found at a flea market as a teenager. Her hair wasn’t coiffed up to actress standards, but nobody seemed suspicious. A few women cast pitying glances in her direction, so she reckoned that her disguise was working well enough.

Most everyone was there by 10:30. Still no sign of Slade. Maybe he’d decided to skip the audition after all. His three hundred fifty-seven twitter followers would be so disappointed.

She’d give him until 11:00 and then try to figure out another way to meet him. She didn’t have too much time before she had to be on Katrinka duty.

At 10:49, she spotted him half a block away. He strode along with the graceful swagger of Mercutio, probably already in character. He wore tight brown pants, a blousy white shirt, and a brown leather jacket that hung mid-thigh. Not a bad choice. He’d stand out amongst the other men in black.

Since she knew where he was going, she fell in ahead of him. She reached the building before him, but waited until he was through the doors before pressing the button for the elevator. She got lucky, and they entered an empty elevator together.

He pushed the button for the eighth floor. That didn’t give her much time. She positioned herself with her back to the buttons.

“Here for the audition?” she asked.

He stood straighter. “I am.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “Not effeminate enough to be Romeo. A certain swagger. Mercutio?”

His chest swelled like a courting robin’s. “Who are you going for?”

Vivian’s mind drew a blank. Juliet’s mother? The nurse? Instead of lying, she reached behind her back and pressed the STOP button. The elevator lurched to a halt.

“What the hell?” Slade glared at her as if it was her fault. Which it was.

Vivian waved up toward the ceiling.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting the attention of whoever is watching that camera.” She wasn’t sure there was a camera, but it would make things easier if Slade thought that there was.

Slade smiled up at the camera with practiced charm.

Vivian stifled a smile at his vanity. She spread her legs a little, shook out her shoulders, and dropped her hands to her sides. Slade might not like the next few minutes, and she needed to be on guard. “You’re a hard man to find, Slade.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know my name?”

“Iris Wu mentioned you.”

He looked up at the ceiling, squinting. Probably too vain to wear glasses. “Who the hell is that?”

Either he didn’t remember Wu, or he was a better actor than she’d given him credit for. “She was a friend of Sandra Haines.”

His muscles bunched under his silly white shirt. “She always had it in for me.”

“Iris Wu or Sandra Haines?”

“Iris. I always thought she was a lesbian and was crushing on Sandy. Sandy thought I was nuts.”

“Where were you the night Sandy died?” She didn’t have long before he figured out she’d stopped the elevator.

He glared at her.

“If you don’t tell me, you’ll have to deal with the police,” she said. “They said to report back to them if I turned up anything suspicious, like an ex-boyfriend without an alibi.”

“I have an alibi.” He didn’t offer it up.

“Something legal?”

He growled. “I was on stage.”

“That should be easy enough to verify,” she said. “Where?”

“I was playing Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The company still has photos on their web site. Applebaum Theater.”

That was a big role in a big play. It shouldn’t have been so hard to get out of him. “You’re sure that will check out?”

His shoulders tensed, and Vivian kicked her readiness up a notch. He didn’t look like he had much experience fighting, but you never knew. “Do you think I killed her?”

“Do you think anyone killed her?”

“She didn’t jump in front of that train on her own. Not Sandy. She wasn’t that kind of person.” He glowered down at her.

“Wasn’t what kind of person?” Vivian kept her hands loose, ready to go.

“The kind who goes down into the subway and jumps in front of a train.”

“Why not?”

He clenched and unclenched his jaw like he was chewing a piece of invisible gum while he thought that one over. “She had a freaky childhood. They used to lock her in a root cellar when she was a kid. She couldn’t stand to be confined. Wouldn’t go underground in the subway. Wouldn’t even go into a club that was in the basement. She always had to be on top during sex. You’re probably that way, too.”

That matched up with what Iris Wu had said about her dislike of the subway, although it was sad to think that Sandra had revealed this weakness to Slade, who didn’t seem to care, and kept it from Wu, who did.

Vivian tried a new tack. “I understand that she was upset that night.”

“Iris would say it’s because I dumped her.” He waved up at the camera again. “Sandy was a big girl.”

“Big girl or no, nobody likes having their stuff left with the doorman.”

“It saved me a lot of drama.” He craned his head to see the buttons. “Saved her a lot of drama, too.”

Vivian leaned back against the STOP button. “Why would someone push her in front of a train?”

“Maybe she got drunk and fell in,” he said. “Maybe someone wanted her stuff. She had a nice phone, jewelry, and that handbag that cost more than a car.”

“You think she was mugged.”

“I think you need to get this elevator moving again.” He took a step toward her. “Or else.”

Her first instinct was to accept his challenge and kick his ass. She hated being told what to do, and she hated bullies. On the other hand, she didn’t really have any more questions for him, and it was always best to avoid a fight.

Reason won out, but barely. She pressed the STOP button again, and the elevator resumed its upward course. Slade smiled a mean little smile, very different from the actor smile he’d put on for the camera. Vivian could see why Iris Wu didn’t like him.

Slade swaggered off on his floor, his hand on the hilt of an imaginary sword.

“Good luck!” she called after him, knowing the theater superstition that wishing someone good luck would give them the opposite.

He lifted one hand to shoulder height and flipped her off without turning around. She felt a little better as she punched the button for the lobby. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get the part.

She stared at her reflection in the mirrored metal that surrounded the elevator buttons. What had she learned? Iris Wu and Slade didn’t agree on much, but both of them didn’t believe Sandra Haines had gone into those tunnels on her own. That was significant.

Sandra Haines had gone down into the subway, off the platform, and into the tunnels. That was clear. It wouldn’t have been easy to drag a panicking woman through a subway station without someone noticing. Or even to carry an unconscious one. Maybe no one would have intervened, but someone would have called the cops, maybe filmed it. Despite what the media would have you believe, New Yorkers cared.

If her journey through the station didn’t cause any alarm, that meant someone must have given her so much alcohol or drugs that she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe she’d been under the influence of something, and someone, when she went into those tunnels and stood in front of the train. No matter what the cops thought, in Vivian’s book, that meant murder.