Killed on the Ice Page 10

  My next stop was the hospital. Harris Brophy was still in intensive care, and it took some doing for me to get in to see him. In the end, I had to have someone call my friend Cernak so he could vouch for me. I wound up owing Cernak the plot for the next month of “Agony of Love” in return, and I made a note of his home phone number so I could fill him in.

  The nurse outside told me Harris was getting better, but to me he looked dead. The only evidence for his continued existence was the regular jumping of the line on the heart monitor and the fact that Shirley Arnstein wasn’t thrown across Harris’s form, crying.

  Shirley wasn’t, in fact, there at all.

  “I made her go home,” Harris said. It was a monotone croak, issued from the corner of his mouth. “High time you got here, Matt.”

  “How long have you been conscious?”

  “ ’Bout an hour and a half. I figured you’d be here waiting for my eyelids to flutter.” He raised a hand in the direction of his eyelids. They did more than flutter, his eyes popped out like Ping-Pong balls.

  “Jesus Christ, that hurts!” he said. “I think I liked it better unconscious.” His eyes drooped nearly closed again.

  “You were almost permanently unconscious.”

  “I know, I know. Shirley nearly worked herself up into hysterics telling me about it. She hadn’t had any sleep for two days. Nurse told me they couldn’t get her out of here. I made her go home and get some rest. I told her I wasn’t going anywhere.” Harris tried to laugh, but from the corner of his mouth the best he could manage was a feeble “heh, heh.”

  I told him he sounded like somebody from an old Warner Brothers gangster picture.

  “Right down...right down to getting rubbed out on a street corner?”

  “Are they giving you anything for pain?” I didn’t like the effort it cost him to talk.

  “I’m flying, Matt. This is just major league pain. It’s the knee that hurts the most. Did you know the son of a bitch broke my knee?”

  “I knew it. Have the cops spoken to you yet?”

  “No. Shirley wants to be here when they do, so she’s going to call them...call them when she wakes up. Taking care of her little Harris. She’s a great kid. Great kid.”

  A nurse came by and gave Harris a pill and me a dirty look. She’d already told me not to tire him out. I nodded at her and got down to business.

  “Harris, did you see who did this?”

  Harris looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “No, goddammit,” he said at last. “I didn’t see anything, or...or hear anything. I got to the bottom of the stoop...turned to walk uptown, to get a cab to meet those people at the...the hotel, and that’s the last thing I remember until this morning. I’m sorry...feel so stupid...supposed to be a pro...”

  Harris was drifting off, and I was willing to let him go, since I’d learned what I wanted to know, or rather, found out I wasn’t going to learn what I wanted to know. Still, as long as I was there, I thought I’d try one more thing.

  “Harris,” I said. He was still going on about how stupid he felt. “Harris, cut that stuff out and listen to me for a second. What could an eagle mean?”

  I figured this was the kind of question it might be best to put to someone well on his way to medicine-induced slumber. And by God, Harris had an answer for me.

  “Gold,” he said.

  “That’s right, the eagle was gold.” I wondered how he knew about it. Shirley was dedicated to her work, all right, but I didn’t think she’d use Harris’s first moments of consciousness bringing him up to date on the case.

  “U.S. currency,” Harris went on, and I stopped wondering. He was talking numismatics, not murder. “Ten-dollar gold piece. Five dollars...half eagle. Twenty...double eagle...pretty coins...always wanted to get hold of some...”

  I figured that was a healthier topic for him to dwell on as he went to sleep than his own shortcomings. I also wondered how he would take it when he learned his coin collection had been stolen.

  I whispered a good-bye to him, as my beeper went off. I went to the nearest pay phone and checked in. My secretary told me Al St. John had reported in; something had happened, and I was to meet him at the Garden for a full report.

  It was turning out to be one of those days. Al met me in the Network control-room-in-progress, and we talked amid the curses of the technicians in whose way we always seemed to be.

  “There was a mess at Brother’s office,” Al said.

  “It figures. What happened?”

  “Good Lord! What didn’t happen? For one thing, Miss Ichimi’s mother returned from upstate and tried to fire Max Brother as Miss Ichimi’s agent.”

  “Stepmother,” I said.

  “Of course. Sony. Anyway, she was there when I arrived with Miss Ichimi. I wanted to wait in the outer office or something, but they all wanted me to stay.”

  “All? Who constituted all?”

  “I was getting to that. Miss Ichimi—she seemed to see me as your deputy, and she wanted me to be around for that reason.” Al cleared his throat. “Matt, let me know if I’m out of line about this, but is there anything I should know about you and Miss Ichimi?”

  I grinned at him. “Just that a good executive sometimes can’t help getting involved with his work.” I felt the grin fade. “But she’s been tense over the whole situation. How did she take this latest noise?”

  “She was furious with her mother—stepmother. Told her to mind her own business.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Danov. Then Caria Dinkover showed up.”

  “What?”

  “Stormed right past the receptionist, said she had an appointment. Claimed Brother had called her and asked her to come. He supposedly had something to tell her.”

  To hear Al tell it, there had been quite a scene. I was glad I missed it. Wendy had been near hysterics and had stormed out, leaving a bunch of angry and bewildered people behind her. A check back with Brother’s office reassured him the incident had blown over, but he still thought I ought to know about it.

  “Thanks,” I said. I remembered Shirley’s advice and told him what a good job I thought he was doing.

  “What should I do now?”

  “Didn’t you work the graveyard shift last night? Then come right from the Tower to my place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, take the rest of the day off, for God’s sake. I’m going to want you around this ice skating business whenever I can’t be there. I’ll call you tonight or tomorrow morning to tell you where I want you. Does that sound all right?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Good Lord, I’ve been hoping for more responsibility, all along. I know you depend on Harris and Shirley, and I’m sorry this had to happen...”

  “But you’re glad for the opportunity. I understand. Just one thing, Al.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t forget to carry your beeper.” No smile from him. I went on before he could tell me he always carried his beeper, and I had to explain it was a joke. “Where’s Wendy?”

  “In her dressing room, with a Garden security guard outside. I had to convince her it was a good idea. Even at that, she stood outside on the street for ten minutes, signing autographs. I almost had to pull her away.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Now you get out of here.”

  Before heading down to Wendy’s dressing room, I stepped into the arena to take a look at the show (it was Bea Dunney in the melodrama again) and to think about that business in Brother’s office.

  What the hell had been going on with Mrs. Dinkover? If she dreamed up that plan herself, she should be ashamed of herself. What could she have expected to accomplish, besides getting people upset? The only person who seemed to benefit by the whole thing was Brother, whose firing (if firing there was to be; I’d have to ask Wendy about that) had been delayed by the distraction. But if he had really made that phone call, he was playing a real long shot. What if Mrs. Dinkover didn’t show up? What if her arrival hadn’t worked
?

  No, what it looked like was someone out to make trouble for Mrs. Dinkover and for Wendy and company. Somebody very good at it, too.

  There was a noise from the crowd that made me look up, something between a gasp and a moan. It’s the universal cry of concern from that collective being a sports audience becomes. It means something has happened to one of the athletes.

  Bea Dunney was sitting on the ice, legs splayed ungracefully before her. She was supporting herself with her hands and shaking her head. It really was one of those days. I walked over to the nearest spectator, a young mother with two kids, and asked her what happened.

  “She spilled grape drink on herself, that’s what happened!” She indicated a little girl about three years old who had a purple mustache and goatee and a broad, irregular purple blotch down the front of her yellow jumper. The mother was dabbing at it ineffectually with a paper towel.

  “I swear,” she said. “I think they always ask for grape because it makes the worst stain. Do you have a handkerchief? A Wash’n Dri?”

  “No, sorry. I meant to ask what happened on the ice.”

  “With these two, I don’t have time to see anything.”

  The other child, a boy about eight, whose hair and clothes were inhumanly neat for a kid that age, piped up with, “I saw it!”

  “Okay, what happened?”

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  “If I saw it, I wouldn’t have to ask you, would I?”

  “Well, I thought this was like a quiz. To see if I understood, you know?”

  “Okay, let’s call it a quiz. What happened?”

  “Well,” the kid began. He sounded exactly like President Reagan. “The villain was holding her over his head. He was going to tie her to the railroad tracks. She was struggling, and he stumbled and then he dropped her. I thought it was part of the show, but Lily got scared and spilled her drink. But I think the lady hurt her leg.”

  That apparently was the case, because just as the kid finished filling me in, Bea Dunney rose to her skates to the applause of the crowd. She skated in a circle, then again in the other direction, picked up her left leg and rotated the ankle a few times, then nodded to her co-stars, and the show went on. More applause. She seemed okay, so I left the stands and made my way down to Wendy’s dressing room.

  Wendy was the only person in the Ice-Travaganza to rate a personal dressing room—the other skaters used locker rooms, one for males, the other for females. There was a short route to Wendy’s dressing room through the girls’ locker room, but I didn’t want to abuse my carte blanche. Instead, I took the long way round.

  I met the guard at the door (there was a star on it, by the way—Max Brother’s idea, Wendy told me later) and told him Miss Ichimi was expecting me. He maintained a just-short-of-hostile skepticism it was a pleasure to see. Everything personal aside, the Network had a big investment in Wendy’s well-being.

  The guard knocked on the door and announced me. A few seconds later, the door opened, and Wendy took my hand and led me inside. The guard took it all in with big eyes.

  “Hello,” I said after a welcoming kiss. “Far be it from me to lecture you about your image, but that guard is going to tell people about this.”

  Wendy was wearing her white outfit but had yet to put on her socks and skates. She twirled around in front of the mirror, making her skirt flare prettily.

  “It’s all a plan,” she said. “I’m changing my image.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “Listen, my dear. What happened last night was wonderful, but I don’t think I’m too crazy about the idea of being used as an image warper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if the idea behind all this if for you to get it into the gossip columns that you’re sleeping with somebody, maybe we ought to move our relationship back to strictly business.”

  Her dark eyes were puzzled. “How can you say that? Didn’t you hear me talk to you last night? I was only joking—God, Matt, I never thought you’d...”

  There you go, Cobb, I told myself, you’ve done it again. This relationship was shaping up as a series of misunderstandings.

  “All right,” I said, “I’m sorry. This time I overreacted. It’s just that macho mythology to the contrary, guys do care why women want to sleep with them.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Boy, are you touchy today.”

  “Preemptive strike,” I said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “After the scene in Max Brother’s office this morning, I figured you’d be on edge. That made me nervous, and I wound up snapping at you. It seems to have worked,” I added. “Neither one of us is climbing a wall at the moment.”

  “I’ve decided not to let it get to me,” she said.

  “That’s healthy.” I didn’t tell her that things have a way of getting to you whether you plan to let them or not.

  She seemed to hear it, anyway. “I mean it,” she said. “There’s no reason I have to be crazy because people around me are. Cautious maybe, but not crazy.”

  “Good for you,” I said, and meant it. Part of Wendy’s problem, it seemed to me, was that she had spent too much time taking advice.

  “Listen, Wendy, do you know anybody who collects coins?”

  “Coins? Why?”

  “Specifically United States gold pieces? They were called eagles.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Ohhh. Still chasing that one down, huh?”

  “Compulsive,” I said.

  “I wish I knew what I meant when I said that. You, too, I bet. No, Matt, I don’t know anybody who collects that sort of eagle.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the more I think about it, the less I think it means. Maybe I just have a thing about eag—”

  There was a knock on the door. “Miss Dunney,” the guard said.

  Wendy looked a question at me; I looked ignorance back at her. Wendy shrugged again and said, “Come in, Bea.”

  The door opened, and Bea Dunney came in, also barefoot, with her skates slung over her shoulder. I remember thinking that if athlete’s foot ever got introduced among this gang, it would reach epidemic proportions in no time.

  The blond skater was apologetic. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Wendy. It’s just that I twisted my ankle out there. I guess I jinxed myself yesterday, Matt, when I told you I never got hurt. Anyway, it’s not broken or anything, but it hurts, and I’d rather not miss my spot in the finale. I’m going to have Jackie tape it, but first, if it’s okay, I’d like to borrow your stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “You know. The illegal stuff. DMSO, is it?”

  “Oh, sure,” Wendy said. “Let me get it for you.” Wendy bent over her gym bag (an incredibly sexy cheesecake pose, by the way) and pulled out the brown glass jar.

  She held it up to the light and squinted at it. “Sure, go ahead and use it—I’ve got a lot more left than I thought.”

  She handed over the jar. Bea said, “Thanks,” and “Nice to see you again, Matt,” and went to leave. Wendy said, “Wait,” and handed her a couple of cotton balls. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the remainder of a roll of Wint-O-Green Life Savers and handed them over, too.

  “What are these for?” Bea wanted to know.

  “Cover up the taste.”

  Bea smiled. “Such good friends,” she said with friendly sarcasm, and then she was gone.

  “She’ll talk about us,” I told Wendy.

  “So she’ll talk about us. Big deal. You sound like you’re ashamed of me or something.”

  “I’m not ashamed of you.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t think I’m worth blowing your image over.”

  “To hell with my image! How many times do I have to say that?”

  “Also, you’re very young.”

  “I’m what? Eight years younger than you are?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Matt, that’s nothing. Look, I’m free, yellow, and twenty-one,
and I make my own decisions, all right?”

  “Very funny,” I said. “But yes, message received.”

  “Good,” Wendy said. “Besides, if she says too much about us, I can tell people a lot about her and Max Brother.”

  I raised a brow. “Oh? I saw her taking off somewhere last night. Did this get started before or after the movie part came up?”

  Wendy shrugged, then looked at the clock. “I’ve got to get ready,” she said and began to pull on her socks. I asked her how her knee was.

  “Fine, so far. You learn fast. And well. I haven’t even had to use the DMSO again.”

  “You’re a good teacher. You make learning fun.”

  She smiled. “I do my best.” The smile turned into a puzzled frown. “It’s funny, though,” Wendy said. “Last night at your place, when I did my knee, I could have sworn that the jar of DMSO was more than half empty.”

  It occurred to me that Wendy was a pessimist; an optimist would have said “almost half full.”

  “But when I gave it to Bea,” Wendy went on, “it was almost filled up. I have to get my eyes checked or something. Did you ever see anyone skate from ice level?” Wendy asked.

  “No, I haven’t,” I said. It took me a few seconds to answer; my brain was flashing a big sign that said, STANDBY. It had noticed something my consciousness hadn’t caught up with yet.

  “Come with me out to the ice; I’ll tell the show manager, he’ll let you stand there. It’s interesting. You can tell a lot more from there. How high we get on jumps. How well we hold an edge. In competitions, the judges always sit at ice level. Are you listening to me?”

  “The judges sit at ice level,” I mumbled. “Of course I’m listening.”

  “You don’t act like it. What’s the matter, Matt?”

  My subconscious finally let my brain in on the secret. Jar—last night, half empty. Today almost full. Had someone filled it up? If so, with what? More DMSO? Or...”

  “Matt!” Wendy told my back. I paid her no attention. I pulled the door open. The guard tried to stop me, adding a rhetorical “What the hell?” to the proceedings, but I planted the heel of my hand on his sternum and pushed him aside like another door. I sprinted for the girls’ locker room.