Death Dance (25 page)

The life of the dazzling golden girl on the flying
trapeze—Lucy DeVore, or whoever she really was—was
entirely contained in a single wheeling bag that lay open in a corner
on the floor and accessories scattered around the room. Most of her
wardrobe was black—cheap cotton blouses and sweaters, jeans
and slacks that were folded neatly on top of each other. Some dresses
hung in the closet, short-skirted off-the-shoulder types that would
have showed her off to great advantage. Three pairs of shoes and one
pair of high-heeled boots were alongside the bed.

There was a table with two drawers that she had used as a
dresser. On top of it was a plastic cosmetics kit—buy two
lipsticks, get one free—that Lucy had probably used this
morning to get ready for her walk-through. It was crammed with a
variety of stage makeup— powders, mascara, liners and
shadows, and a range of lip colors from palest pink to burgundy. Beside
that were her toothpaste and tooth—brush and a dish with a
bar of soap.

On the bedside table was a small folder with photographs in
it. Lucy as Mother Courage, as Joan of Arc, as Blanche Dubois, as
Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, and as Nellie Forbush, washing her
man right out of her hair. In some of the pictures she looked like she
was fifteen, while in others old enough to handle the mature roles. The
stage was every high school or amateur community play—house
in a small town in America, and if her family had attended her
performances, there was no sign of it in this keepsake album. It
probably wasn't meant to be sentimental, but rather to show her range
of roles to the people in the business whose attention she tried to get.

The last photo seemed to be the most recent. In it, Lucy was
dressed in a black leotard and tights, wearing a scarlet felt hat with
white sequins and a long black tassel that fell onto her face, covering
her right eye. It was a tarboosh, the Moroccan cap originally worn by
students at the University of Fez that had long been regarded as a
symbol of knowledge and integrity. I brought the picture closer and
looked for any sign of where
it
had been taken.
She was leaning against a door, bracing herself with her hand on the
large steel knob. Around its hexagonal perimeter, engraved in the
metal, was a word— perhaps the name of the theater or
building in which the photo had been taken. Lucy's hand covered
everything except the first letter, which was M.

I showed it to Mike. "See that M? Think this could have been
taken at the Met?"

He studied the image of the unusual doorknob. "The design
looks too stylized. From an older period, I'd guess. How many theater
names are there in town that begin with the letter M?"

"The Music Box. The Majestic…"

"I'll get a list."

I put the small album in my pocket to take along, hoping
some—thing in it would be a help in finding Lucy's home.

Mike picked up the pillow and ran his hand under the bed
covers. "You live in a flophouse like this, you gotta have some place
to keep a few valuables, no? Where could she have put them? People
break into these rooms all the time. She would have looked like she had
extra bucks to satisfy a night's habit for one of her neighbors."

"I've had prostitutes who worked out of places in this area.
Some of them paid for lockers up the street at the bus terminal fast
for that reason."

There was no flight tag attached to Lucy's suitcase. If she
had arrived in New York by bus, she would have probably been familiar
with the Port Authority station.

I went back through the clothing again, looking in every
pocket for another key or an address book or any connection to a human
being.

I picked up the faux snakeskin boots and turned them upside
down, shaking them as I did. Something fluttered to the floor. I
unfolded the tightly wrapped paper—a one-hundred-dollar bill.
In neat handwriting, on the cream-colored border of the money, was a
telephone number, and after it the name Joe Berk.

A secretary opened the door to Joe Berk's apartment and
reluctantly led us up the staircase to his bedroom.

I had called Maxine after leaving the Elk, and learned that
Lucy was still in surgery. She had suffered a concussion and had not
regained consciousness before they took her into the operating room.
She had fractured both hips, multiple bones in both legs, and one of
her elbows, but other than a few vertebrae that had cracked, there was
no threat of paralysis or spinal cord injury.

Berk was propped up in his bed, watching an old movie on the
single television screen on the far wall. A nurse sat on the sofa,
trying to occupy herself with something to read as we began to talk to
her patient.

"Heard you caught the matinee today, Mr. Chapman. How's the
girl?"

"I thought you and your niece weren't on speaking terms."

"I got friends, detective. Joe Berk has friends everywhere.
The girl gonna live?"

"Looks good. The resilience of youth, I guess."

"What do you mean 'resilience'? She bounced?" He looked to the
nurse for a laugh but didn't get one. "Maybe it's my timing. You know,
detective, I never saw a bad-looking nurse until today. Check out the
sour puss on this one. The doctors didn't want me to have any
palpitations, lemme tell you they found the right girl for the job. The
one nurse I wouldn't want to play with, they book her double-time. You
two here because of your great concern for me?"

"We're here to talk about Lucy DeVore."

"What's a Lucy DeVore?"

"The girl you just asked me about. The girl who was hurt at
the Imperial today."

"The Imperial. Lemme tell you something else about that. You
know the Shuberts built that one themselves, 1922? Not these guys today
who run the organization. The originals—J.J. and Lee. Nobody
like 'em." Berk was brilliant at sidetracking the conversation when it
wasn't going his way.

"I read the plaque. Let's get back to Lucy—"

"Me, I just buy up the theaters. Those guys built 'em.
Fifteen, twenty, thirty—the most beautiful and elaborate
showcases in the world. The reason we still have legitimate theater
today, despite all the movie houses and home videos, is because of J.J.
and Lee Shu-bert. I can't remember how many of those gorgeous stages
they're responsible for, but there was a time when Broadway theater was
the most popular form of entertainment in the city. It's coming back,
detective, and it's Joe Berk who's keeping it alive."

"You're doing a bang-up job, Joe. I'm more interested in how
come Lucy D—"

"And you know who their architect was, the Shuberts? A guy
with the godawful name of Herbert Krapp is the one who designed these
dream palaces."

"Mr. Berk—"

"Krapp. Can you imagine it? Talk about a boy who should have
changed his name. Forget Yussel Berkowitz. Forget Peter J. Schmuck.
'Hey there, it's me—Krapp.' 'How do you do, ma'am, I'm Mr.
Krapp.' What do you say to your family? 'Don't worry about your future,
kids, I'm doing business with Krapp.'"

The nurse picked up her magazine and chose this moment to take
a break, walking out of the bedroom to the staircase.

Mike stood next to Berk's side and shouted in his face, "Cut
it out, Berk. End of the road. Lucy DeVore says you're the man."

"What are you talking about? My guys tell me she wasn't even
conscious. Don't bullshit me, detective, or next time I call the
commissioner, I won't be such a prince. You'll be working security down
in Macy's basement."

"She was talking plenty at the hospital, before they wheeled
her into surgery. Told me about the money you gave her. Told the nurse
taking her history you were her next of kin and gave this number as the
phone to call. Am I close?"

Mike held out the hundred-dollar bill to show Berk, then
picked up the receiver next to the bed to see whether the digits on it
matched the private telephone number on the portable plastic handpiece.
He gave me a thumbs-up to tell me they did.

Berk threw back the covers and sat on the side of the bed. He
was wearing nile green satin pajamas, the bottoms drooping below his
hips. He screamed for the nurse as loud as he could. "You wanna be
responsible for my goddamn blood pressure? Get Florence Nightingale
back up here before I bust my gut. I don't know any Lucy DeVore and I
never did. You know how many people have Joe Berk's phone number?
Sweetheart, you mind handing me the bedpan?"

"Hold that thought, Joe. Ms. Cooper hasn't played doctor with
anyone in longer than I can remember, and she won't be starting with
you if I have anything to say about it," Mike said, pushing me away. "I
don't buy your antics, I don't buy your sudden urge to relieve
yourself, and I don't buy your denials. Lucy DeVore."

"Shove it, detective."

Mike took out the phony driver's license and held the girl's
picture under his nose. "Look at her, Joe. This kid is living in a
rathole on Ninth Avenue, and the only thread that seems to link her to
the Great White Way has your name on it and a direct line to your
boudoir."

Again Joe yelled out the nurse's name.

Mike reached for the brown alligator wallet on the nightstand.
He opened the billfold and removed a wad of cash, spreading it in his
hand like a deck of cards. "All hundreds, Joe. Ben Franklins, every one
of them. Want me to start checking serial numbers against the bill we
found in Lucy's room, see if I get a run of 'em? This how you pay off
your girls?"

Mike was wilder than I'd ever seen him before in such tame
circumstances—not a street chase, not a shoot-out, not a
dangerous confrontation with a violent perp. I knew he was angry and
unhappy, but he was doing things he would never have done on the job
before Val's death. Playing with a rich man's money never had a happy
ending on a police blotter. I tried to take his arm to get him to put
down the cash. Instead, he threw the fanlike fistful of money onto the
floor, watching it scatter around the room.

"You're a real tough guy, Mr. Chapman. You think the
commissioner won't take my call? You think he won't do what Joe Berk
tells him to do with some dumb mick cop? Get that nurse up here to pick
up my money."

"Tell me how you met that girl. Don't you understand I'm not
getting out of here until you've done that?"

Berk held on to his pajama bottoms and reached over for the
portable phone. Mike got to it first and tossed it out of the room onto
the top of the stairs, listening to it bounce to the bottom and settle
on the floor.

"Say you got to the phone and let's pretend you dialed nine
one-one. I'm what you got, Joe. I'm the friendly neighborhood guy on
the beat. You're off the hook on the age thing, Joe. Nothing to worry
about there. Lucy gave it up to the doctor. She was nineteen last
winter. She's over the age of consent."

Berk picked up his head and looked at the expression on Mike's
face. Mike's bluff seemed to have found its mark.

"Who's nineteen? That—that kid today—the
one you call Lucy?"