Slugfest

cleavage.” His face turned as red as the dress, but the bartender did as he was told and left.

“You trying to impress me, knowing shady characters, drinking from the bottle like one of the masses?”

“The beer stays colder this way. Who do you think I am? I live in Connecticut. Doesn’t make me Caroline Kennedy.” I took a long pull on the frosty bottle. “So how was your day, honey?”

“By the time I got to the members’ lounge, a swarm of people had gathered, getting in the way and probably contaminating a crime scene. Allegra Douglas was rallying the troops, saying we’d all be bloodied and battered before the show ended.” Vandalism was outrageous enough but personal violence was unspeakable. That didn’t, however, keep Allegra from speaking. Nothing and no one could.

“She went on about the old days and how management had sold out and she practically accused that Ms. Peete and her students of vandalizing the show and attacking Nikki. That teacher stayed cool, but I could tell she was still shaken up at having found the body.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked. Rolanda gave it some thought but came up empty, shaking her head.

“I’ll tell you what didn’t happen. Some high school kid followed a woman into the toilet just to knock her on the head. No rape. No robbery. No personal connection or grievance. What the hell for? Now if someone had bashed Ms. Douglas on the head, I could understand it.” She sipped her drink, pinky up. She talked to Brian over my head. “Less ice next time, baby.”

Rolanda was right. There were probably a lot of people who wouldn’t mind taking a whack at Allegra, and that number was rising. But why Nikki? What was the motive? Rolanda said she’d been found fully clothed, her handbag untouched, and still wearing an expensive watch.

That was all the news either of us had and I didn’t know how we’d get any more. The hospital was only likely to give relatives information over the telephone, and I didn’t really feel like schlepping downtown to the hospital to ask in person. But who did she have? No kids and no family here, as far as I knew, just an unhappy husband, who had had a few too many and, depending how long Nikki had been lying there, could have been the head basher.

Thirty-four

Rolanda and I stared at each other until she broke into a smile. “You want to be her sister? I gots an accent, sho ’nuff they won’t believe me.”

It was worth a phone call. “Please … I can pretend to have an accent, too. Can’t I be her cousin?” Not sure why I thought that was an easier lie to tell, but I did.

“Stay on the safe side. Immediate family always gets you in. You just found out and you’re calling from out of town—that’s why you’re not at the hospital. That’s one of the good things about cell phones. Caller ID can’t instantly give your location away. You can call in sick and be partying in Rio.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. They can do amazing things with cell phone technology these days.”

“Yeah, but that’s not till way later. Besides, you’re just making a phone call. It’s not a congressional hearing.”

The call went better than expected. I lied through my teeth, and my tentative delivery worked to my advantage, making me sound even more concerned than I was.

Nikki had regained consciousness but was being kept in the hospital overnight for observation. After much prodding, the staff nurse told me she’d overheard snippets of Nikki’s statement to the police. Nikki claimed she wasn’t struck, she simply fell off the toilet seat and hit her head. The nurse was a little fuzzy on what Nikki was doing balanced precariously on the rim of the toilet when the blackout occurred.

“Can I talk to her?” I asked.

“It’s late and she’s very groggy.”

“Daddy would be so relieved to know I was able to speak with her—even briefly. He’s ninety-one and in assisted living but still sharp as a tack.” I hated that expression but other people seemed to love it. Rolanda gave me a thumbs-up. I was getting comfortable in my role as Nikki’s concerned sister. The “daddy” part worked. I felt guilty deceiving the kindhearted nurse, but she agreed to put the call through and I could almost see her carefully holding the phone to Nikki’s ear as we spoke.

Before I said a word, Nikki croaked out some words.

“Show … Mrs. Mofffff—”

“Don’t worry, Sis. The booth was fine. We made a few sales.” She groaned.

“Sarc—sarc…” It sounded as if she were hiccuping or about to throw up.

“The sarcophagus? Fingers crossed, Mrs. M. might be interested. Jensen came sniffing around again.”

Rolanda pulled at her chin as if scratching an imaginary beard. I didn’t know what she meant until she mouthed the word daddy.

“And daddy says he loves you.”

“Whaaa…?”

The line went dead and I assumed Nikki had fallen asleep and the nurse had replaced the phone in its cradle.

“At least she’s all right,” I said.

“You’ve got a future as an actress. Daddy? Where’d that come from?”

“Lord knows. I didn’t want to upset her by mentioning her husband and I couldn’t say Mommy without cracking up.” I twisted in my seat and held up my empty beer bottle to get the bartender’s attention. There was that picture of Otis Randolph again, in a dark blue suit, probably the one he was wearing now in the back of a Baptist church. One person falls and it’s the punch line to an amusing anecdote. Another falls and winds up dead.

The excitement and concern when Otis’s body was found had vanished like a puff of smoke and been replaced by other dramas. If it hadn’t been for the mention of the out-of-service escalator, most people wouldn’t have known that someone who’d spent the last thirty-six years changing lightbulbs at the Wagner Center and putting down rubber mats when it rained was gone. He was removed from the building like a begonia with aphids.

The unspoken assumption was still that Otis Randolph had gotten drunk on the job and collapsed, falling down the escalator steps, after which, injured, he crawled off to a prefab, fake Amish shed where he lost consciousness and died.

“They said he reeked of Scotch, but I never knew him to overdo it, especially when he was working.”

Even though I’d just gotten a refill, Rolanda called for another round. El Quixote was filling up; this time she walked to the bar to pick up our drinks.

The bartender got our order, and over his shoulder Rolanda saw the picture of Otis. “Brian, you ever know Otis to get loaded on his way to work?”

“Otis could put away a few. Sometimes he was pretty happy when he left here, but only after he knocked off. Never going in.” He straightened Otis’s picture and took a heavy breath. “I heard you mention Scotch, though. He was a gin drinker. Said the ladies liked it because it didn’t smell nasty when he kissed them. He was a pistol, even at his age.”

Drinking and flirting. At least Otis went out on an upswing. Rolanda rejoined me at the table.

“I don’t mean to sound clinical or harsh,” I said, “but people don’t usually drop dead from a fall and a knock on the head, do they?”

“That’s a fact. I was shopping in Sally Army once and a sofa fell on my head. Hurt like hell but didn’t kill me. It’s true. It was hooked to the wall. Fell and hit me on the back of my head. Didn’t even get me a discount.” She sucked down her rum and Coke and rubbed the back of her head as if looking for the bump. “But didn’t I read in People about some actress who died after she hit her head?” she said.

“That was a skiing accident. Very unusual. I understand falls from a standing position are rarely fatal. Think about it. The skull is pretty hard.”

“How do you know that? That what you ladies who lunch talk about? How to crack your husbands over the head so it looks like an accident?” Rolanda’s notions of suburban life weren’t much different from what mine had been before I moved to one.