A Cat in the Wings: (InterMix) (13 page)

“No problem,” Tony said, a bit relieved.

Brodsky nodded. He reached over then and took my hand in a gallant gesture. “I am more than pleased at the way you constructed and sprang your trap for Mr. Teak,” he said. “Really. Most admirable.”

I nodded silent thanks.

“But,” he went on, “I wonder if now I might be allowed to set a trap of my own, with the able assistance—or indulgence—of Mr. Basillio and yourself.”

Chapter 21

It was just a one-act play. The shortest-running one I’d ever appeared in—only one performance. The lead character was a distinguished attorney, shrewd but kindly, aged but sharp-witted—played by Frank Brodsky.

Appearing as the willowy and mysterious lady private investigator—Miss Alice Nestleton.

Her earthy, wise-cracking, jack-of-all-trades sidekick—Anthony Basillio.

And the villain—or the hero, depending on your degree of affection for the rake Peter Dobrynin—that strangely erudite, campily deranged ex-convict known only by the one name, Basil.

Another able player would be making a brief cameo appearance: Detective Rothwax, member in good standing of the NYPD, playing Detective Rothwax, member in good standing of the NYPD.

There was no script, really, although the program should have featured a line stating, “from a concept by Frank Brodsky.” And even though the players would be performing without benefit of a director, everyone seemed to know exactly what to do.

It was a kind of sublime exercise in improvisation, made possible by the fact that everyone in it knew exactly how it should end. There was plenty of freedom for us to develop our parts, but we had to take advantage of that freedom quickly, because we knew the play was a short one.

Tony and I opened the first little scene by showing up at Basil’s halfway house around twenty minutes before noon. Basil was seated in the television room again, wearing his blue raincoat. He seemed different, more relaxed, as if whatever addictions he was prey to had at least been put on hold. He spoke differently now, too, not by means of that stilted, often cryptic dialogue. He was much more down-to-earth. In fact, when Tony told him we would like to buy him a good lunch with good whiskey accompanying it, Basil smiled and said, “You can do me like that any time. Do me now or do me later.” Then he winked at me and asked, “Right, beautiful woman?”

Off the three of us went, to meet the Wizard, who was seated in a back booth in a very upscale eating and drinking establishment on Broadway. I introduced Basil to Mr. Brodsky and we all sat down.

“What shall I call you?” the lawyer asked. “Is it ‘Mr. Basil,’ or ‘Mr. Basil something else’?”

“Call me anything you want. Call me now or call me later,” he replied. He was smiling. His eyes roved over the inside of the restaurant. Then a waitress appeared. Tony and I ordered Bloody Mary’s. Mr. Brodsky ordered tea. Mr. Basil ordered “rye whiskey.”

I saw Tony look at his watch after the drinks had arrived. It was time for the all-important bit player to make his entrance.

And Rothwax arrived on time, just as he had promised.

“What a pleasant surprise!” he boomed out as he approached the table. “You never know who you’ll meet in a bar!”

I introduced Detective Rothwax to my companions, saying that he was “one of New York’s finest.” Tony faked it—pretended he had never met the detective before. Brodsky said that “any friend of Alice Nestleton’s is surely a friend of mine.”

But Basil said nothing. Rothwax obviously made him uncomfortable—
very
uncomfortable. He sipped at his whiskey slowly, reflectively, staring out over the edge of the glass but not looking at Rothwax at all.

“Won’t you join us, Detective?” Brodsky offered, starting to slide over on the seat to welcome Rothwax.

“Thanks, no,” Rothwax declined. “I’m at the bar. I have to leave shortly.”

He said good-bye and how nice it had been to bump into me, that he’d enjoyed meeting everyone. Then he returned to the bar. From where we sat, his back was clearly visible. The threat was in place, as planned.

The waitress reappeared. Frank Brodsky ordered an omelet. Tony asked for a small Caesar salad. Basil ordered a turkey sandwich. I wasn’t hungry.

The moment our waitress had left, Mr. Brodsky pulled out a photograph and placed it face-up on the center of the table. Basil, who was seated next to the lawyer and across from me, didn’t even look at the picture. He kept sipping methodically at his rye.

“Do you know who this man is, Mr. Basil?”

Basil’s eyes remained on the photo for only a second. “Don’t know him. Don’t want to know him.”

Frank Brodsky tapped the photograph with his finger. “Pictured here, Mr. Basil, is one Vol Teak. We believe he murdered your friend Lenny because Lenny was blackmailing him. We believe also that he hired you to help him with the murder. Which would be an easy thing to do, given the number of times you came into contact with Mr. Teak. After all, it was you who collected those many envelopes from him, in front of the building at 1407 Broadway.”

Brodsky rotated the photograph on the table. “At the very least, you were the one who managed to get into an office at Lincoln Center and secrete a gun beneath a desk there. So now, Mr. Basil, you are going to be given a chance to save your skin. I assure you that if you tell us all you know, things will go a lot easier for you with the police. They want the murderer, not the messenger. Of course, if you yourself pulled the trigger . . . well, that’s another matter altogether. But we don’t think you did. We believe you to be an innocent victim of an evil man.”

The old lawyer actually patted Basil’s arm before adding: “And I think you are very sorry about the part you played in Lenny’s death. I really believe you didn’t understand what Vol Teak was going to do. After all, Mr. Basil, judging from appearances, you seem to be a righteous man.”

We waited. Basil continued to nurse his rye. At last he looked over in silent condemnation of me for having set him up. His eyes traveled slowly over to the bar area, and then back to me.

“Don’t know the man,” Basil said icily. “Don’t know you. Don’t know the beautiful Judas.”

With a sigh, Mr. Brodsky picked up the photo and returned it to his pocket.

The food arrived then. The rest of my party ate slowly, in silence. Basil made no move to go but ate his sandwich fastidiously, albeit with great dispatch. He kept glancing at the bar, where Rothwax was so clearly visible—a threat without being threatening.

Then Brodsky made a deal out of accidentally dropping his fork. When he’d been given a new one, he turned to Basil again and said, “My memory seems to be failing me these days, Mr. Basil. There was one other question I had meant to ask you. A very important question.”

Basil chewed the last bit of his sandwich, not looking at Brodsky.

“My question is,” the attorney went on, “have you ever heard of a man by the name of Kurt van Holsema?”

Still not meeting Brodsky’s look, Basil just shook his head, angry but restrained.

“Well, sir,” Brodsky said, that hint of steel beginning to infuse his voice, “I think you
do
know him. But perhaps not by name. Mr. van Holsema is a Dutch businessman who now lies in Lenox Hill Hospital. His business is diamonds. And a few days ago he was mugged—knifed—after leaving a concert at Lincoln Center. Of course the culprit stole his watch and wallet, credit cards, and things of that nature. But something much more precious than that was taken. A packet of diamonds he was carrying. The man who robbed and stabbed him, Mr. Basil, bore an uncanny resemblance to yourself.”

Basil looked up then.

“Yes, isn’t it an amazing coincidence?” Brodsky said. “He even wore the same sort of coat as you do, and he too has a thin mustache.”

Tony and I stared at each other. Basil gazed down at his now empty plate.

Brodsky moved in for the kill. “Would you do me a favor, Basil? Would you be good enough to reach into your left coat pocket and remove what you find there?”

Basil’s hand went quickly to the pocket. It grasped at something and then pulled it out.

Mr. Brodsky said, “Now put that item on the table, would you please . . .? Good. Now if you would be so kind, please open it. Yes . . . splendid.”

For a few moments we all sat gazing at the sparkling gems as they caught the light.

“You see, Mr. Basil, this packet of diamonds, which has been in your possession, is the one stolen from the poor Dutch gentleman. Why, I saw you remove them from your pocket with my own eyes. And I daresay one wouldn’t be at all surprised to find various other items rightly belonging to Mr. van Holsema, say, in the place where you reside?”

“Ain’t no such thing happened to no Dutchman!” Basil said, seething. “You
know
it ain’t, Nellie!”

“Ah,” Brodsky said sagely. “But there is a Dutchman who will say it did. As will I. Now, doesn’t that amount to the same thing?”

Basil’s head twisted wildly toward the bar then. Rothwax was there, solid as ever, but this time he was looking dead into Basil’s eyes.

“Let me explain something to you, Basil,” the attorney said. “I’ll explain it very carefully, because I don’t want you to have any questions left in your mind. If you describe to us the circumstances that caused you to go to work for Vol Teak, you will serve, at most, a year in prison. I will personally involve myself in your case. This assumes, however, that you didn’t pull the trigger yourself. Now, as you must realize, if you are arrested for the diamond theft and assault—and believe me, you will be—you may never see the light of day again. That’s how deep you’ll be buried in the state prison system.”

Basil looked back down at his plate. I thought his face might literally crack. This was the most effective scam I had ever seen or participated in—and the cruelest. It was ugly beyond belief. I knew there was no diamond merchant, no stolen watch, or any of those other things. I knew that Brodsky had simply slipped the diamonds into Basil’s pocket. I knew that he was brilliantly playing to the eternal paranoia of the street criminal. Did Basil believe he had knifed the merchant? It didn’t matter. He knew what the police would believe. I felt a sudden dreadful shame at playing even a minor role in this whole theatrical piece.

But what if it worked? What if Basil knew a great deal, and would now be willing to talk?
Then
would the end have justified the means? I found I was unable to look at Mr. Brodsky. He knew I wouldn’t interfere. He knew that if push came to shove, I would trade Basil for Lucia. He knew that I would hurt Basil if that hurt would save Lucia. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it.

Basil said, “He paid me.”

“Who paid you?” Brodsky asked, in a tone that sounded almost bored.

“The man.”

“By that do you mean Vol Teak? The man in the photograph I showed you?”

“Him.”

“What did he pay you for?”

“To take Lenny into Lincoln Center on Christmas Eve.”

“And did you do as he asked?”

“Yeah. Christmas Eve. I took him there and left him. He was drunk. We both were. I stole some newspapers and made out we were trying to sell early editions. We went in through the parking garage. I gave the man there twenty bills. I left Lenny there.”

“How much did Teak pay you?”

“A hundred bills.”

“Did you know he meant to kill Lenny?”

“Never figured it. No way. Never figured any of it.”

“Did you supply Teak with the .25-caliber weapon that killed Lenny?”

“No. I told him a while ago where to get guns. There’s this guy works at a hardware store, on Columbus. That’s all I told him.”

“Did you go into an office and plant a gun there—under a desk?”

“Never
saw
any gun, I said. All I did was get Lenny there. And I left him there. Alive.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Basil,” Brodsky said. He removed a small tape recorder from somewhere under the lip of the table, almost in slow motion. This was the old man’s moment of triumph. He had cleared his client.

Then he picked up the diamonds, still nestled in the folded paper, and dropped them one by one into what was left of my Bloody Mary. He smiled broadly. “Fakes,” he noted.

Chapter 22

All charges were dropped against Lucia Maury. The DA’s office began to assemble a case against Vol Teak and Basil, whose real name turned out to be Charles Small and who had a long prison record. The combination of Basil’s confession and the revelation of Teak’s financial relationship with Dobrynin constituted a powerful prima facie case.

There was only one weak link, and that was the gun. Basil had confirmed to the police what he’d told Brodsky—that all he knew about the weapon was that it had probably been obtained by Teak from an illegal gun dealer he, Basil, had recommended. That person, no longer an employee at the hardware store he’d mentioned, could not be located, and Basil’s memory of what he looked like was vague.

But the DA’s office was confident. I had supplied them with a statement describing my Anna Pavlova Smith trap and recounting, to the best of my ability, Teak’s confession of how he had obtained money from various ballet company officials in exchange for his help in getting Louis Beasley’s endorsement of them. And of course I told them about Dobrynin’s blackmail scheme.

Given all this, no wonder Lucia and her attorney were holding what could only be described as a victory party in her apartment that brutally cold Sunday afternoon. Tony had decided not to accompany me, on the grounds that, one, he had had his fill of ballet folks, and two, he really no longer liked Frank Brodsky. So I went unescorted.

The apartment was already crowded when I arrived. There were large quantities of hastily obtained food and drink. It looked as if dozens of small neighborhood stores had been contacted at the last moment, for the buzzer kept ringing as delivery boys brought up new packages of edibles. There was Italian food, there was Jewish delicatessen, there were savory Indian and Mexican treats.

Lucia looked tired but happy, and she embraced me with such fervor and determination that she nearly choked me. Her aged parents, who had come up from Delaware, thanked me profusely for all my efforts in Lucia’s behalf. There were warm embraces and tears all around.

I disengaged myself from the Maury family and went over to one of the tables laden with food. I spread a tantalizing dip on a strange-looking little cracker. Just as I was about to bite into the canapé I saw Frank Brodsky, alone on the sofa with a martini in hand, looking at me. I put the cracker down and smiled pleasantly at him. He returned the smile and lowered his head in a courtly little nod. I turned away from the food table then and started across the room to join a group of Lucia’s dancer friends I hadn’t seen in years.

“Alice Nestleton! Hello, Alice!” I heard my name being called above the din. I saw a woman waving at me a bit wildly. It was the dance critic Betty Ann Ellenville. She started to wave me toward her. I allowed myself to be reeled in. When I reached her she grabbed my arm and asked: “Can we go somewhere to talk? Maybe into the bedroom?”

“Sure,” I said, and allowed myself to be guided into the bedroom, where coats and scarves and sweaters seemed to cover every surface.

“It’s a little too noisy to talk out there,” Betty Ann said apologetically.

“Have you been here long?”

“For weeks, it feels like. But I’m not complaining. It’s nice to see so many old acquaintances, and to see Lucia on her feet again. In fact, it sort of reminds me of the party scene in
Laura.
I’ve always loved that film. But listen, Alice, I have a great favor to ask of you. A pretty big one.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She squeezed my arm then. “I had a long conversation the other day with Melissa Taniment.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. We’ve been in touch lately, because I’ve finally decided to write the book I’ve always wanted to write—about the life and times of Peter Dobrynin. Melissa’s not only agreed to cooperate and tell me about her part in his life, but she’s giving me a great deal of important information about Peter when he was a very young dancer, about his first roles, about how they fell in love . . . oh, lots of things.” She paused, looking rather sheepish, and then said: “Melissa told me about Peter’s secret apartment. And about the tape you found.”

“You can tell her to relax. I destroyed the tape just the other day.”

“Melissa suggested that I go over to the apartment. She says she thinks I might be able to find some notes and scores that could be very helpful to me in doing the book.”

“Are you sure that’s all she suggested you look for?” I asked cynically.

Betty Ellen laughed. “Well, no. She was quite honest with me. She told me about the long, crippling affair she’s had with Dobrynin these last few years. She says she’s still fearful there are other things in the place that might possibly compromise her. She asked me, if I go there, to destroy anything like that, so her husband never finds out. I agreed, of course. She suggested that I ask you to take me over there.”

There was an awkward silence. It was the kind of request I hadn’t anticipated anyone making. The case was closed. The videotape had been destroyed. That’s all, folks. But I liked Betty Ann, and she had been helpful to me when I needed information.

“All right. I’ll take you there,” I said. “Just call me at home when—”

She interrupted. “I thought maybe, since this party’s so noisy and the food is so bad, maybe we could go there now.”

“Now?”

“Yes! We can get a cab and just go!” she replied enthusiastically, as if she were going off to plunder the riches of some historical treasure house.

Her enthusiasm was catching. “Why not?” was all I could think to say. We began searching for our coats.

***

The moment the taxi had dropped us in front of the building on West One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Street, I knew something was wrong. There was a huge dumpster out in front, filled to the brim with the residue of either construction or deconstruction: pipes, sheets of soiled fiberglass, ruined carpeting, broken wood. We went into the lobby. It was filled with stacks of paneling that had been ripped from the walls. There were puddles of water and shards of glass all over the floor.

“We came just in time, I think,” said Betty Ann, looking around bewilderedly. “The building may not be here tomorrow.”

I called out, “Hello! Hello!” But there was no answer. There seemed to be no one in the building—neither tenants nor workers nor the superintendent, whose name I couldn’t recall, who had let Tony and me into the apartment. But all the doors were open. It would be easy to get into Dobrynin’s place.

We inched along the wall and up the stairs. Footing was difficult and slippery; all heating seemed to have been turned off, and there were cold drafts whistling through the building. I stopped once during the ascent and asked Betty Ann, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes, yes! Go ahead.”

We reached Peter Dobrynin’s hideaway. Not only was it open, but the steel entry door had been completely removed. What a mess we found inside! The ceiling had been ripped out, as had most of the plumbing. The glass mirror was still there, but the practice barre had been dismantled.

In the center of the large room was a tarpaulin, and onto it the wreckers had dumped all of Dobrynin’s possessions—records, clothing, posters, everything.

We approached the pile. The objects were thoroughly soaked from dripping water. If there was anything of value in the pile, it was so no longer. All of it had turned into a large glob, particularly anything made of paper.

Betty Ann stared morosely at the mess. Her descent from joy to misery had been a swift one. She took my arm and we wandered about the ruined space, looking for something, anything that might have been left unspoiled. We peered into the small bathroom. The sink was still intact, but all the floor tiles had been removed.

We reached the small galley kitchen. “Well,” Betty Ann noted wryly, “at least Melissa doesn’t have to worry about anything incriminating being found in
here
!”

The stove had been disconnected, the gas obviously having been shut off. The wall behind the kitchen had been broken through, and it was obvious that the renovation included the removal of all walls on the lower floors.

Only the small refrigerator was functioning. I realized why as soon as I opened it—the workmen were keeping their six-packs in there. The top of the refrigerator was covered in candy wrappers.

“What’s that?” Betty Ann asked, pointing to a small shelf about three feet over the refrigerator. I was just tall enough to reach the three old-fashioned cookie jars that had been miraculously spared from the devastation.

One jar was empty. The second held twistums and a few small pencils. The third jar contained some stale candy.

I brought the last jar down and shook a few of the candies into my palm. “I guess Dobrynin liked M & Ms,” I said, displaying the candy to Betty Ann.

She stared closely at the little candy pieces. “Alice,” she said at last, “those aren’t M & Ms.”

She plucked one of the tablets out of my hand and held it close to one of the wall lights. “What are they, then?”

“Medicine,” she said. “Haldol. A stabilizing medicine for psychotics. And a very heavy-duty one, at that. They use it in mental hospitals. My mother was on Haldol for many years.”

I took one of the pills and twirled it between my fingers. Betty Ann had spoken with authority about the medicine, and I believed her. As I looked closer at the tiny print on the tablet, I could see that it did not say “M & M.”

“Was Peter in a mental hospital, Alice?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How else can you explain these?”

“Maybe they’re Basil’s.”

“Who?”

“The black man who implicated Vol Teak in Peter’s death. Basil stayed here sometimes, from what I gathered.”

She didn’t seem to be listening to me. She had started to pace, agitated, playing with a handful of the pills.

“Why has this upset you so?” I asked. “What does it matter if Dobrynin was in a mental hospital? We know who killed him now, and why. And it had nothing to do with anyone’s mental health.”

She made a disparaging gesture with her hand, as if I just didn’t understand the situation. “Don’t you see, Alice? How can one write a true history of Peter Dobrynin if one doesn’t even know whether he was clinically insane? How can you understand his genius if you don’t understand the source of it?”

It was much too cold and wet to stay there listening to Betty Ann’s intellectual problems. I agreed that it was an important thing to know, I even promised to help her find out. But first I wanted to get both of us out of that creepy building.

***

The next morning, Monday, I called Rothwax and asked the detective for yet another favor. I was becoming a nuisance to him, but for some odd reason he didn’t even protest this time. He didn’t even engage in any of his usual banter. Maybe being assigned to OC cases had affected his personality. He promised to get back to me in a few hours.

In fact, I heard from him in less than two. He told me that according to the computer there had been no hospital admissions of any kind for either Peter Dobrynin or Charles Small (Basil’s real name) in the state of New York over the past three years.

I relayed that information to Betty Ann by phone. She was unhappy to receive it. “You don’t understand, Alice. No one just
prescribes
Haldol. It’s a major anti-psychotic drug. It’s used in hospitals alone, or in the out-patient clinics connected to them.” I took a few minutes to sympathize with the problem all this posed for the biography, but there was nothing further that I could do.

***

Tuesday was a warmish day. Tony and I decided to have our own victory celebration. After all, while it was Brodsky who had put the final nail in Teak’s coffin by cagily obtaining Basil’s confession, it was Tony and I who had uncovered the extortion that had opened up the whole case and led inexorably to the dropping of all charges against Lucia. Yes, we deserved a celebration, too, and we financed it with the leftover money from the expense account Brodsky had set up for us.

We got into our winter finery and lunched at the Plaza. Then we took in a movie. Then on to Bloomingdale’s, where each of us purchased something frivolous—Tony an expensive sweatshirt, and I a very long scarf made in India. We had coffee and brandy at The Sign of the Dove. Then we went back to the Pickwick Arms, to Tony’s room, and made love.

When I finally stole a glance at the clock it was seven in the evening, and I knew it was time to get back to my apartment. I had all kinds of work to catch up on at home. But it really had been a wonderful day, and I simply didn’t feel like leaving yet. Tony was still lying naked on the bed. As I sat in the easy chair I told Tony for the first time all about the Haldol we had found, and about Betty Ann’s belief that Dobrynin had been hospitalized. I also told him that Rothwax had run a check and found no admission for Dobrynin.

“Betty Ann’s writing a book about Dobrynin, so she’s anxious to find out just how disturbed he was.”

“She’d have to go a long way to find someone as crazy,” Tony judged.

“Well, she’s talking about the clinical kind of craziness.”

“You mean she wants to see it in black and white that someone in a hospital wrote down that he was a paranoid schizo, or whatever?”

“Yes, I suppose it’s something like that. If she’s going to write a book about the successor to Nijinsky, she’ll have to have insanity in the plot.”

“I hope there’ll also be some
humor
in the plot.”

“Was there anything funny about Peter Dobrynin?”

“What, are you kidding? I mean, when you get right down to it, that vaudeville team of derelicts—Lenny and Basil—was pretty damn funny. Here they go—feeding stray cats chicken Kiev. There they go—getting ready to dance
Giselle
in the nude. Come on, Swede, face facts. If someone was going to make a movie about that duo it would be a comedy, and Robin Williams would play Lenny. Richard Pryor would be Basil.”

I found his comments oddly disquieting. No, I had never thought that Dobrynin and his companion were funny. Not at all. How strange that Tony should envisage them as a vaudeville team—Lenny and Basil.