Manhattan Mayhem (22 page)

“If all this had happened, do you think anybody might have found
you out?”

“Not the cops or some true-crime writer, that’s for sure.”

“Somebody closer. Your daughter Eleanor. She’s a Broadway person, too.”

“She’s gone from ingénues to leading ladies to mother parts to old crones, and she’s seen all the theatrical mendacity we did. Good word, mendacity,
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
It wouldn’t have shocked her, and she wouldn’t have given us away. If any of this had happened, you understand. Let me have another glass of that brandy, will you, Seb?”

We parted on friendly terms that day. Had Arthur indirectly confessed to the Broadway Executioner murders, or was this just a game two old codgers had been playing to while away the time? Arthur has since died, too—and he’d seemed so healthy and vigorous that day he came to Plantain Point. So no one at that gathering of Danny’s survives, except me.

If all it amounted to was another way to bond with my favorite great-granddaughter, that was okay with me. Evan developed an interest in the music of long before her birth, started listening to original cast albums on whatever her current listening device was, branched out into big bands, swing music, jazz. That was what I’d really been hoping for when I sent her after those old songs.

Then one morning I read in one of the dwindling print newspapers the obituary of a Wall Street investment banker, Edgerton Makepeace, who had blood all over his hands during the financial crisis but was never prosecuted for anything, of course. Not quite in the Bernie Madoff class, but close. He’d backed some Broadway shows, but, more to the point, some Broadway people had lost a ton of money with him. He’d died by drowning in the East River during a visit to the South Street Seaport, a sort of nineteenth-century nautical theme park with a fleet of historic ships. It crossed my mind that the Executioner might be back at it, next generation this time, the little daughter and memoir collaborator, Eleanor Belasco, maybe with an accomplice of her own. I soon dismissed the idea.

But that very day, Evan showed up for one of her regular visits in a
state of high excitement.

“Gramps,” she said, “it’s gone viral; it’s being tweeted and retweeted in record numbers—”

“Try speaking English,” I said.

“It’s all over the Internet, and nobody knows where it came from.”

“What is?”

“
WHO CARES IF BANKS FAIL IN YONKERS
?”

JON L. BREEN
is the author of eight novels, two of them shortlisted for Dagger Awards, and over one hundred short stories. His most recent book is
The Threat of Nostalgia and Other Stories.
A long-time reviewer and columnist for
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
and
Mystery Scene,
he has won two Edgar Awards for his critical writings. A resident of Southern California, he nevertheless loves New York.

SETTING

Studio L, an unremarkable rehearsal studio in a warren of unremarkable rehearsal studios, collectively known as the Meyers-Pittman Studio Complex, located on the sixteenth floor of a tall nondescript building in Chelsea, a couple blocks south and one long avenue over from Port Authority. The walls are mirrored; the floor is marked with tape; tables and chairs are clustered to represent the location of furniture on the real set.

Downstage right is a props table, laden with all manner of weaponry. The play in rehearsal is the Broadway thriller “Deathtrap” by Ira Levin, and the table displays the full range of weaponry called for in that show, viz., “a collection of guns, handcuffs, maces, broadswords, and battle-axes”

CAST

PATRICK WOLFISH
, the stage manager, wears black boots, black clothes, and a black attitude. He sits scowling with arms crossed, projecting the combination of administrative prowess and social awkwardness that is the hallmark of technical personnel.

ELSIE WOODRUFF
, the director, is young and smart. While others speak, she nods and furrows her brow, as if she’s evaluating their ideas to rate them on a scale of one to four stars. When
she’s
speaking, she gestures a lot, as if she feels she must constantly be directing everything.

LEWIS CANNON
, the fifty-something actor playing Sidney Bruhl, wears sunglasses indoors and has an unlit cigarette behind his ear. He talks slowly, with the pompous self-regard befitting a star much bigger than he is.

MARCUS VOWELL
, the good-looking young actor playing the good-looking young playwright Clifford Anderson, is theatrical, even for a theater person. He is very butch to look at, with well-muscled arms and a prominent jaw, but his affect is high camp, in that way that is utterly delightful for the first thirty seconds or so.

DETECTIVE MA WONG
works homicide for the New York City Police Department. Her manner is no-nonsense, in sharp contrast to the abundant nonsense all around her.

At rise,
DETECTIVE WONG
is standing thoughtfully beside the props table, turning a page in her notebook. After a moment, a second pool of light opens far upstage right, discovering
PATRICK WOLFISH
seated in a chair, his crossed arms signaling irritation and displeasure. Their conversation has an impressionistic feel, as both speak directly to the audience.

WONG
: “Deathtrap.” That’s a play?

PATRICK
: Yes. It’s a play. About a murder. Actually, it’s a play about
a play about a murder. “A young playwright sends his first play to an older playwright who conducted a seminar that the young playwright attended.” That’s the description of the play within a play, but it’s the same as the play. Both plays are called “Deathtrap.” Very meta. The twist—actually, the first of the twists—

WONG
:
(raises her hand)
I just wanted to confirm that it’s a play.

PATRICK
: Yes. It’s a play.

WONG
: So that explains the weapons.

PATRICK
: Yeah. It’s in the stage directions. “The room is decorated with framed theatrical window cards and a collection of guns, handcuffs, maces, broadswords, and battle-axes.”

WONG
: Can you quote the whole play?

PATRICK
: It’s my job.

WONG
: You’re the stage manager?

PATRICK
: Yes. It’s my job to know the script. Also to organize and manage rehearsals, to ensure a safe and productive working environment, to—

WONG
:
(raises her hand)
I just wanted to confirm that you’re the stage manager.

PATRICK
: Yes.

WONG
: And you’ve worked with the producer Otto Klein in the past?

PATRICK
: Nine shows and counting.

WONG
: Well, just nine. Mr. Klein has been beaten to death, remember, Mr. Wolfish? His body was found this morning stuffed between the snack machine and the … 
(She refers to her notes.)
The Dr. Pepper machine.

PATRICK
: Right. Yeah. I know.

(
WONG
fishes in her pocket and holds up a cell phone.)

WONG
: And do you know what this is?

PATRICK
: It’s a phone.

WONG
: It’s Mr. Klein’s phone. Would you read this text, please?

(She holds it higher;
PATRICK
leans forward and squints, reading the tiny screen.)

PATRICK
: But—but I didn’t send this. Why would I send this?

WONG
: I had the exact same question.

PATRICK
: But I didn’t send it. Seriously. I lost my phone yesterday.

WONG
: Where?

PATRICK
: Here. During rehearsal!

WONG
: So. Someone with your phone texted Mr. Klein, asking him to arrive an hour early this morning, and then when he did, that person bludgeoned him to death and left his body slumped behind the Dr. Pepper machine. But it wasn’t you, because
(making a big show of checking her notes)
you lost your phone. Yesterday.

PATRICK
:
(standing up)
Yes. Yes! Well, obviously I
didn’t
lose it. Obviously, someone stole it. The murderer!

WONG
: Would you sit down, please?

PATRICK
:
(still standing)
Ask my husband. Ask Peter! When I got home from rehearsal last night, I was looking all over for my damn phone. Ask him!

WONG
: Great idea. Where is he right now?

PATRICK
. Right now? He’s working. He’s an actor.

WONG
: Is he in a rehearsal?

PATRICK
: No, no. He’s—he’s not in a show right now. He was up for a swing in
Honeymoon in Vegas,
but the choreographer on that hates him.

WONG
: So, where is he?

PATRICK
: He’s busking. Riding the A/C train, singing Gilbert and Sullivan.

WONG
: All right. I’ll send someone out to find him, and we can get this thing cleared up.
(She takes out her phone to make a call.)

PATRICK
: Look. Detective. Detective. I’ve never killed anyone in my life.

WONG
: In that case, you’re free to go.

PATRICK
: Really?

WONG
: Sit down, please.

The lights dim on
PATRICK
as he reluctantly sits, but stay illuminated on
WONG
, who, after murmuring instructions into her phone, shifts attention to upstage left, where a new pool of light finds
MARCUS VOWELL
, overwrought and overemoting.