Chapter 7

“WANT TO GO TO THE MOVIES?” ABBY asked as we stood up from the table and headed for the cafeteria exit. “

Dial M for Murder is still playing at the Waverly. I wouldn’t mind seeing that again.”

I wouldn’t have objected to seeing the clever Hitchcock mystery again, either, but at the moment my thoughts were focused on a different murder. “Two killings in one day?” I said. “That’s two too many for me.”

“I guess you’re right,” Abby said, growing sadder by the second. “I just thought it would take our minds off-”

“Hold on a minute,” I broke in, coming to an abrupt standstill three feet inside door. “I want to talk to the busboys before we leave.” I looked around and saw them standing together near the entrance to the kitchen. “Wait here for me, okay?”

“No! Why should I? What do you want to talk to them about, anyway? If they have anything interesting to say, I want to hear it, too. I’m coming with you!”

“Please don’t, Abby. Please stay here. I just want to ask them a couple of questions about Gray, and I think I’ll get more answers if I talk to them alone. The two of us together might be too overwhelming.”

To my great surprise, she reconsidered and agreed. “Oh, all right!” she huffed, flipping her ponytail off her shoulder and letting it swing down her back. “But you’d better make it quick, Dick. I haven’t got all day.” She made a big production out of looking at her watch and tapping her foot. (In case you haven’t noticed, Abby has the patience of a gnat.)

I hurried over to where the two busboys were standing and gave them both a cursory once-over. One was young, tall, thin, and had shoe-polish black hair. The other was young, tall, thin, and had peroxide blond hair. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their identical white uniforms, they looked like a matched pair of salt and pepper shakers.

“Hello, boys!” I said, baring my teeth in a huge Dinah Shore smile. “Enjoying the heat wave?”

“Not much, ma’am,” the blond one said, in a sincere, awshucks kind of way. “Guess we better get used to it, though. Radio says it’s gonna last another week.”

“I may not live that long,” I said.

Blondie smiled; Blackie scowled.

Okay, that was enough small talk. “Hey, do either of you guys know Gray Gordon?” I blurted. “He’s a busboy here, too. I was hoping to see him here today, but I guess this isn’t his shift. Do you know if he’ll be working tonight?”

“No he won’t, ma’am,” Blondie said. “Not tonight or any other day or night.”

The hair on the back of my neck bristled. Did Blondie know that Gray was dead? “Gee, why not?” I asked, flapping my lashes in imitation innocence. “Is he on vacation or something? Gosh, I hope he’s not sick!”

Blondie smiled again and shook his head. “No, ma’am. He’s not sick. He just quit this job and took a better one. He’s in a play on Broadway now.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, agape, agog, and aghast. “I don’t believe it! I knew he wanted to be an actor, but I never dreamed… Broadway, you say? Wow! When did this happen?”

“About four months ago,” Blondie answered. “Sometime in March. Gray was supposed to work the lunch shift with me one day, but he marched in and quit instead. Right on the spot. Said he got a job as an understudy in a play on Broadway, and if the play was a hit, he wasn’t ever coming back. I haven’t laid eyes on him since.”

“I guess the play was a hit,” I mused.

“Sure was,” Blondie said. “

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. You must’ve heard of it. Everybody’s talking about it… or at least whispering about it.”

“Whispering?” I coaxed. “Why are they whispering?”

Blondie gave me another smile, but this one was kind of crooked. “I haven’t seen the play myself, but a lot of the customers here have, and they’re all excited and hopped-up about it. They say it has something to do with a man being in love with another man, and-”

“Shut your trap!” Blackie cut in, jabbing Blondie in the ribs with his elbow. “You shouldn’t be telling her what Stew-art’s customers do and say. It’s against the rules. And it’s none of her business.”

Blondie stared at Blackie for a couple of seconds, then turned his eyes back to me. “He’s not very polite, ma’am, but he’s right. I’ve got a big mouth sometimes. But you don’t need me to tell you about Gray Gordon or the play he’s in. You can read all about it in today’s Times. They say the star of the show got sick last night, and Gray had to step in and play the lead, and he was so good he’s now the toast of the town. They put his picture in the paper and everything.”

“Really?” I said. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll pick up a paper as soon as I leave. But before I go, may I ask if either one of you knows where Gray lives? I’m an old friend of his from Brooklyn, and I haven’t seen him in quite some time, and I sure would love to pay him a surprise visit and congratulate him on his success.” I wasn’t fishing for an address, you realize (the location of Gray’s apartment was permanently-and painfully-fixed in my brain). I was just trying to find out if either Blondie or Blackie was privy to that information.

“Yeah, I know where he lives,” Blondie replied. “His pad is right down the-”

Blackie jabbed him in the ribs again.

There was no point in continuing my little charade. Blackie was determined to keep Blondie from revealing any significant information, and Abby was so restless she was having an all-out nervous breakdown (a detail I discovered when I glanced over in her direction and saw that her face was turning blue). I took a deep breath, thanked the busboys for their time, and made a beeline for the door.

ABBY STARTED COMPLAINING THE VERY second we hit the sidewalk. “You sure took your own sweet time!” she croaked. “How could you keep me standing there like that? I almost fainted dead away from the heat.”

“I’m sure you never fainted in your life,” I replied. “You aren’t the swooning type.”

She gave me a dirty look. “There’s always the first time, you know!”

“Yeah, but this wasn’t it.” I wasn’t in the mood for Abby’s fiery histrionics; I had more burning issues on my mind.

“So, what do you want to do now?” she asked, abandoning her temper fit as soon as she realized it wasn’t having the desired effect. “I know! Let’s walk over to Washington Square Park. It’ll be a lot cooler there. We can sit in the shade under the trees, eat ice cream, and dig the folksingers at the fountain.”

Folksingers, my foot. What she really wanted to do was look for Jimmy Birmingham. I knew from Abby’s and my talk earlier that morning that she was missing Jimmy (or rather, missing sex with Jimmy) like crazy, and I also knew there was a very good chance he’d be at the park that afternoon, reciting one or two of his preposterously silly poems at the fountain. So, it didn’t take me more than a split second to deduce why Abby wanted to go there… and why I didn’t.

“You can go to the park if you want to,” I said, “but I’ve got other plans.”

“Huh? What plans?”

“I’m going to

Times Square, not Washington Square.”

“What the hell for? Don’t tell me you’re still craving a Nedick’s hot dog.”

I snorted and shook my head. “No, I’m going back to the Morosco Theatre. I want to see if I can talk to some of Gray’s fellow cast members and friends.”

“Are you out of your mind?” she cried, looking as if she might fly into another fury. “That’s the craziest idea I ever heard in my life! The lead actor must’ve recovered from his heatstroke by now, so he and the rest of the cast are kind of busy on stage at the moment, you dig? The matinee performance is in full swing! And they’ll never let you inside without a ticket. And just look at what you’re wearing! You’re dressed for a goddamn hayride, not a Broadway show!” (That’s Abby for you. Always concerned about the clothes. She’s a regular Coco Chanel-or Edith Head, take your pick.)