“Oh, my god, Abby!” I cried, pulse quickening. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Mouth agape and eyes bulging, Abby was standing right in front of me, staring straight in my direction. But her gaze wasn’t focused on me. It was aimed, instead, at something above and
beyond me. I whipped my head around to see what she was looking at and found myself peering into the open closet.
“What is it, Abby?” I begged. “What do you see?”
“It
is a ghost,” she whispered. “The ghost of Gray Gordon.”
“Oh, come on, Ab!” I twisted back around to face her.
“That’s not funny. Stop fooling around. Now’s not the time to-”
“Hush, Paige!” she snapped, still staring straight ahead. “I’m not fooling around. I
have seen a ghost and, you won’t believe this, but he just brought us the physical evidence we’ve been looking for.” Abby stepped over to the closet and scraped some hangers to one side of the metal bar. Then she removed the hanger holding the maroon shirt with the yellow birds and palm trees and thrust it forward.
“This was Gray’s favorite shirt,” she said, looking sad and excited at the same time. “I saw him wear it lots of times. And I can prove it, too! I
painted him in this shirt when he modeled for an illustration I did for All Man magazine. The picture appeared-in full color-in the March 1955 edition.”
I thought my heart was going to leap right out of my chest. “Oh, my god, Abby! Is that true? Are you sure it’s the same shirt?”
“Of course it’s the same one. It’s a really weird print in a kooky color combination. How many like this could there be?” She took the shirt off the hanger and handed it to me. As she was putting the hanger back in the closet, she looked down at the floor and gasped, “
Oy vey iz mir! These belonged to Gray, too.” She picked up the cowboy boots and held them out at arm’s length. “He really loved these boots. He wore them all the time.”
I suddenly felt a little sick to my stomach. “So these must be the clothes Binky changed into after the murder,” I said, “after he’d stripped off his own bloody clothes and shoes and taken a shower.”
“Right,” Abby said, tenderly laying the boots down on the foot of the bed.
Every emotion known to man was churning in my chest. Fury, shock, pride, disgust, despair, relief, elation, horror-I was reeling with the intensity and insanity of it all. “There’s no shadow of a doubt now,” I said, voice quivering. “Barnabas Kapinsky murdered Gray Gordon.”
“And we can damn well prove it!” Abby added, all smiles.
“Should we take the evidence to Flannagan now?” I asked, still in shock that we’d solved the case and unsure what our next move should be.
“You bet your sweet tushy!” Abby crowed. “I can’t wait to see his face. Come on! Let’s stash Gray’s stuff in the bike basket and I’ll pedal straight over to the station. You can ride on the back.”
I WAS GATHERING THE SHIRT AND BOOTS together in my arms (and wondering how the heck I was supposed to straddle a bicycle in my extra-tight skirt and ultrahigh heels), when I heard Abby gasp again. Thinking she’d found another article of Gray’s clothing-a pair of pants, perhaps, or a belt-I turned around to see what had caused her sudden intake of air.
And then
I was the one who was gasping.
Binky was standing tall in the bedroom doorway with his left forearm clenched like a vise around Abby’s neck, and the fingers of his right hand wrapped so tight around the handle of the kitchen butcher knife that his knuckles were white. He was holding the knife up high, within slashing distance of Abby’s throat, and the expression on his face was so psychotic it made my blood run cold.
“You fucking, lying, scheming bitch!” he yelled at me. “How did you get into my apartment? I have to kill you now, you know! And your sexy little girlfriend, too!” He jerked his arm even tighter around Abby’s neck and stepped backward, cutting off her air supply and dragging her with him into the living room. Abby’s eyes popped wide in panic as she struggled in vain to pull his arm away from her wind-pipe.
“Wait, Binky! Stop!” I cried, dropping Gray’s shirt and boots on the floor and hurtling myself through the bedroom door after them. I wanted to kick him in the stomach and knee him in the groin and yank his arm away from Abby’s neck, but I didn’t dare try. The knife was too close to Abby’s throat. One wrong move and-
“Hold it right there!” Binky roared. “If you come any closer I’m going to slice your friend wide open. That’s what the slut deserves! Isn’t that right, baby?” he said to Abby, turning his head and biting her on the cheek. Hard. “You were a bad, bad girl in Sardi’s last night. Rubbing your leg up against mine and pretending to be somebody you’re not. I’ll have to punish you for that.”
Binky’s threats were both horrifying and offensive, but they actually served a worthy purpose. They distracted him for a few brief but essential seconds, causing him to loosen his clutch on Abby’s neck. Not by much, but enough for her to start breathing again.
“But you should punish me instead of her!” I blustered, hoping to distract Binky further-a whole lot further. “I’m the one who got her into this mess! I talked her into going to Sardi’s with me, and I sent her to your table to spy on you.”
Binky looked as though he might explode. “You’re gonna pay for that, you whore!” he seethed. “I can’t believe I trusted you. You said you wanted to be an actress, but all you really wanted to do was wreck
my career. And I know why! It’s because I’ve got talent! And you can’t handle it, can you? You’re just like all the other Studio shitheads-James Dean, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Gray Gordon! You’re all so fucking selfish and jealous and resentful you just can’t stand to see a fellow acting student succeed!”
Every cell in my body was screaming, but I kept my speaking voice down to a soothing purr. “You’ve got me all wrong, Binky,” I said, giving him the sweetest smile my trembling lips could form. “I think you’re a wonderful actor who deserves to be a big, big star. I watched you audition for Elia Kazan, remember, and I thought you were fabulous in the
Hot Tin Roof role. Much better than Ben Gazzara or Gray Gordon ever dreamed of being.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, wild eyes gleaming. “If Kazan had half a brain he would’ve given me the understudy role in the first place! I’ve got more talent in the wart on my little toe than Gray had in his whole stupid body. The only reason Gray got the job instead of me was because he was so goddamn handsome. Kazan figured his sexy good looks would make him a hit with the broads in the audience-which is pretty goddamn funny since Gray was as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“Really?” I said, putting on a big show of surprise. “I didn’t think Gray was gay!” I wasn’t trying to squelch any rumors or change any minds, I just wanted to keep Binky talking, no matter what the subject happened to be (as long as it wasn’t murder). “In fact, I thought he had a steady girlfriend,” I stumbled on. “Somebody he really cared about. He bragged about her a lot, and he always called her Cupcake.”
Binky gave me a crooked grin. “Ha! If that pansy had a fucking girlfriend, she must have been a fairy!” Delighted by his own ugly joke, he threw his head back and laughed out loud.
And that was when I made my move.
Shooting Abby a quick wink of warning, I leapt forward and grabbed hold of Binky’s right arm with both hands, pulling it and the knife outward (i.e., away from Abby’s throat) with all my might. But all my might wasn’t enough. I was able to hold onto Binky’s arm for no more than two seconds before he shook me off, pushed me away, and-with a single squeeze of his powerful biceps-snapped the knife back into slashing position.