“Please hurry, Vance. I’ve never been in a mess like this before!”
“We-e-e-ellll,” I said smugly, “the wages of sin . . . ”
“Oh, please, Vance! Don’t! I’m so worried. Tell me what to do.”
“Just sit tight. Leave it to me. I think I can get Boxx to ease up on the pressure. But it’ll take time.”
“How much time?”
“I should be able to get him tomorrow morning.” I figured a night in jail would be good for Hector’s soul. “But right now I’m very busy, Marcy.”
“All right Vance.” She was satisfactorily meek and grateful. “I’ll call you again in the morning.”
I hung up the phone and went back up to the dress rehearsal. The curtain was just going down on the first act. I stood in the wings as the actors came offstage.
“How was it?” They clustered around me.
“Terrific. Keep up the pace.” Hell, I was the director. I couldn’t admit I hadn’t seen any of it.
“You must stopping Will mug so much!” Wanda Humphrey demanded.
“What are you talking about? That’s the only laugh we got!” Will protested.
“Not comedy! You please making this clear to him, Vance. Dramatic impacting he’s murder!”
“You think you’re so smart!” Will lost his temper. “Just because you were a two-bit hoofer in Europe.”
“Two-bit hoof-hoof!” Wanda sputtered. “All over the Continent they knowing me! Ignorantus! I so famous they having me speak to International Conference of Little Theatre Groups meeting of amateurs like you only better from all over nations!”
That clicked! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Wanda had been a performer in Europe. That made her the natural one for Fink to have dealt with regarding American participation in the Conference. Was she the one he’d given the fifty grand to? She might be! She just might be!
From there my mind veered off to the manner of Sy Lenzio’s death. Where had Wanda been in relation to the switch activating the electric saw which killed him? I couldn’t remember.
As I was thinking of Lenzio, Cass Novak stepped into my line of vision. I remembered the fight he’d had with the mime that night. And I remembered what Will had said about Cass having had an affair with Zelda Lenzio. If Zelda thought Sy had been holding out money on her, might not she have connived with Cass to kill him? She could have figured she’d claim whatever assets Sy had. And if Sy had the CIA’s fifty Gs, or Zelda thought he had it, that would be an added motive for her to try to get Cass to kill him.
Still, there was no sign that either Cass or Zelda had come into any money. If money was the clue, then the evidence pointed at two other people: Phil Anders, with his lavish gifts to Cleo Taurus; and Rusty Roundheels, who’d been splurging on redecorating her house.
I found myself staring at Rusty speculatively. She was coming on strong with the Scoutmaster, who’d wandered backstage. Rusty had him backed into a corner and was toying with his orange neckerchief as she spoke.
“Of course I take a little kidding about it,” she was saying. “But actually the name ‘Roundheels’ has a very honorable historical background. It goes all the way back to a Dutch ancestor of Roger’s who was one of the first settlers in America. She was one of those indomitable widow-ladies, you know? Used to sit on a rocking chair on the front porch of her log cabin with a flintlock in her lap and pick off marauding Indians. The Indians gained a healthy respect for her marksmanship and because of the rocking chair-they’d never seen one before—they called her ‘Roundheels.’ And the name stuck.”
My attention was distracted from the discomfiture of the Scoutmaster at the way Rusty kept raking him with her breasts by Nicholas Taurus tugging at my arm. “Listen, Powers,” he said, “there was nothing in that first act to justify that tape. Are you trying to cover up for my wife and Anders? What’s the big idea? Do you maybe have something going with her yourself? Now just listen to this!” He dragged the tape recorder over.
“No time now,” I told him. “But believe me, Nick, it’s all in your imagination. I promise you I’ll straighten it out later. But right now We’ve got to do the second act.” I ushered him off the stage. “Places everyone!” I called. “Quiet now. We’re ready for Act Two.”
I’d just gotten the curtain up when this angry-looking, blustery businessman type confronted me. “You in charge here?” he demanded.
“Shh!” I hissed at him. “There’s a show on.”
“That’s just what I want to talk about.” He was just as loud as before. “Are you in charge?”
“I guess I am,” I admitted.
“Well what I want to know is—-”
“Quiet!” I dragged him out the back exit. “All right, we can talk here,” I told him. “But please keep your voice down. Now, what’s the trouble?” ’
“My narne’s Judge Kirby. I’m president of the local Kiwanis club. We’re supposed to have this hall at nine tonight. Lucky thing I got here early. You people will have to clear off and get that stage and scenery out of our way.”
“Now wait a minute, Judge Kirby. There’s been a foul-up!”
“I’ll say there has!”
“It’s our fault, but this is a dress rehearsal,” I told him. “Tomorrow this show has to be put on. Couldn’t your group possibly use one of the smaller rooms downstairs for tonight?”
“Do you realize our membership is composed of some of the most influential businessmen in the community? I can’t ask these men to huddle in some tiny room. We’ve already had one foul-up tonight, and now this!”
“What was the foul-up?” I was stalling for time.
“A top executive from the Long Island Railroad was supposed to come down and speak to us on how to maintain good labor-management relations. But now he can’t make it.”
“Why not?”
“He couldn’t get transportation. Haven’t you heard? The L.I.R.R. trainmen are out on strike. So our speaker had no way to get here.”
“I see.”
“So now we’ll have to have a business meeting. And for that we need the main hall.”
“Wait a minute.” I kept stalling. “Do you mean if you had a speaker you could meet in one of the other rooms?”
“‘I suppose we could. If we had a speaker. But we don’t.”
“Well how about just getting another speaker?”
“There isn’t time. And we can’t have a business meeting in a small room. Those meetings get pretty rugged. The fellows get hot under the collar. At close quarters it just might end in a brawl.”
“What do they get mad about?”
“The druggist gets mad about the supermarket carrying toothpaste. The candy store owner gets mad at the druggist peddling ice cream. The stationery store proprietor gets mad at the candy store stocking notebooks. That sort of thing. In a small room it can be murder.”
“Still, if you had a speaker—”
“All right. You get us a speaker, we won’t ask you to clear out.”
“Okay. Then you’ve got one,” I told him.
“Who?”
“Me.” I was desperate.
“You? What are you going to talk about?”
“The importance to the Pine Glen business community of the performing arts.”
And that’s how, some ten minutes later, I found myself wedged into a roomful of Kiwanis-ites, or Kiwanians, or whatever the hell you call them, giving an extemporaneous talk. “Little Theatre is good for business,” I began improvising. “It’s good for the liquor stores because amateur acting creates tensions which are frequently relieved by imbibing. It’s good for pharmacies because the proximity of amateur acting spreads germs requiring medicinal treatment. It’s good for lawyers because Little Theatre activities frequently strain marriages to the breaking point and create divorce actions. It’s good for . . .”