working the tightened muscles apart.
“I’ve got two tickets for the Kirov next week. I thought perhaps you and Bernard could use them. I hate for them to go to waste and I hope to get out of town for a few days by then.”
“We’d love them if you’re not going to need them, Alex. That’s very thoughtful. I guested with them once nearly three decades ago. What a priceless week that was.”
“Must have been.”
“Bernard’s dying to know if the police have any leads in the murder case. That you can talk about, of course.”
No wonder the neck massage. You can’t ever get something for nothing, as my grandmother used to say.
“Nothing new.”
“Any rumors that Isabella was gay?”
That was a new one on me. “That’s never come up, as far as I know.”
“Phew. I mean after the furor over Basic Instinct, Bernard thinks the community would go wild if the killer turned out to be some crazed lesbian. Entirely too Hollywood.”
I laughed.
“Tell Bernard to relax. I think we’re safe on this one.”
The dancers were beginning to filter in and warm up alongside us on the floor and at the barre. William went over to turn on his elaborate recording system, and the strong music of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony lifted me back to my feet and into the opening pattern of pli and relev in the standard numbered positions.
By the end of the hour I was physically drained – a perfect complement to my emotional condition. I dragged myself into the dressing room, showered in the tiny stall William had rigged up for his sweaty troupes, and put my business clothes on again to head over to meet Joan for dinner. I checked my answering machine from William’s phone to make sure Joan had not changed or canceled our plans, but there were no messages at all, so I said goodbye to the stragglers and walked out onto the street.
When I reached the curb at the corner of Sixty-fourth Street and Central Park West, I was startled by the approach of a sleek navy limo that must have trailed me for the block and a half from the studio. The rear door opened and Jed stepped toward me, carrying an armload of long-stemmed yellow roses, my favorite.
“Please, Alex, you must let me talk to you. I know you’re meeting Joan – just give me five minutes in the car and I’ll take you wherever you’re going.”
“It’s over, Jed. I’m not interested in a post-mortem. And I’m even less interested in creating a scene on a street corner.“
“Five minutes. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’d like you to hear what I have to say.”
I looked at the driver. It was Luigi, who usually drove Jed around town and who had always been a perfect gentleman to me. I still couldn’t absorb Mike’s theory that Jed was a killer, and I trusted that I was not in mortal danger as on long as Luigi was in earshot. A smile formed on my lips, despite my company, as I toyed with the thought that the only thing Chapman and I hadn’t floated was a conspiracy theory. He’d be livid that I got was in a car with Jed, and ready to commit me if he let his imagination carry him to think that Jed and Luigi had conspired to do Isabella in. I was tired enough to yield to the pressure and I bent to get into the car. Luigi began to draw closed the glass window that separated him from us in the backseat, but I put my hand up to stop him.
“Would you mind taking me to Sixty-fourth and Second, Luigi, to Primola? I’d like you to leave the partition open you might as well hear all this.” I counted on the fact that I could at least embarrass Jed a bit in the process.
Luigi had probably driven him to all his assignations anyway.
Jed grimaced at my suggestion, but was prepared to go ahead. He sat opposite me on the car seat riding backward and trying to look me in the eye.
“I’ve called you dozens of times today and could never get through. Laura wouldn’t take any messages from me, Joan won’t help. I’ve left more on your home machine.”
Bullshit. Start with a lie, that’ll really win me over. I just checked the machine and there was nothing on it, but why give him the satisfaction of knowing I even cared? I stared at the back of Luigi’s head.
“Alex, I want to apologize to you. I have lied to you and I was unfaithful, but I think you’ll understand what happened if you listen to the whole-”
“I’ve heard all I need to hear, Jed. This is one place where the details really don’t interest me. Don’t you see how painful this is for me?“
We were on the Park transverse now, right below the twinkling little white lights of Tavern on the Green, and dusk was fast becoming the darkness of a mild fall evening.
“I want you back, Alexandra Cooper. I love you and I want you back. I made a mistake – a stupid, selfish, pig-headed mistake. Are you so perfect that you’ve never done that in your life?”
“What was your mistake, Jed, betraying me or getting caught at it?”
“You knew Isabella, you knew her far better than I did. She was relentless. She, she-”
”Don’t make me vomit with this stuff. What was it, another stalker, Jed? Did she harass you?”
“You introduced me to her, you were there when-”
“I introduced you to a lot of people. Does that mean you had to play “hide the salami” with all of them?”
“Don’t talk like your cop friends, Alex. It really isn’t very becoming. You sound crass and vulgar.”
“Yeah, but it’s a hell of a lot more direct than the crap you’re trying to peddle.”
“You encouraged me to help her with her financial problems. “Call her,” you said, “do what you can to help her.”
“You helped her all right. You apparently helped her into a shiny white coffin.”
“Stop that, Alex, that’s a goddamn outrage, that kind of accusation. She begged me to come to the Vineyard, claimed she was desperate.”
“Tell it to the cops, Mr. Segal. Does your lawyer know you’re about to incriminate yourself?”
”I’m not interested in the cops or my lawyer. I’m here to plead for your forgiveness. I never intended to get involved with her sexually-‘ “Don’t say the next line, Jed, leave me some piece of you I can still believe in. Luigi, I think he’s about to tell me she raped him. Spare me this garbage, really. Did Isabella ”make“ you get in bed with her, Jed did she really force you to make love to her? Please.”
Jed pounded his hand up against the roof of the car in disgust.
“It’s always wisecracks with you, Alex. You won’t even give me a chance to tell you what was going on, to tell you how I feel about you. Why do you think I’m here, why do you think I’m pursuing you like this?”
“You want to know what I really think? I think you’re here because you’re in a shitload of trouble, and if you align yourself with me, you’re hoping I can convince Chapman that you’re not a killer. You have lain in my arms and lied to me, Jed. You have made love to me after making love to Isabella in my very own bed…”
“That wasn’t making love, with Isabella, that was-‘ ”Oh, forgive me, Jed. You made love to me after you screwed Isabella or f-’ “Alex, give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“I can’t help you, Jed. I don’t want to help you and I won’t help you. I don’t know whether you killed Isabella or not, but you sure as hell killed something inside of me. No life support, no resuscitation it’s dead, and I don’t want to bring it back to life. Luigi, I’ll get out at the light. No more calls, Jed, no more messages. Nothing.” I was a block away from the restaurant when I got out of the car and slammed the door behind me. I stopped at the drugstore for a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol. While I ripped off the plastic seal around the lid and pulled the cotton wad out of the top of the container, I could hear the radio playing from the shelf behind the counterman. The raspy- voiced David Ruffin was leading The Temps through the classic “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” pleading for his sweet darling‘ not to leave him. I swallowed hard and forced the three capsules down my dry throat, hoping they’d have some effect on my throbbing headache.
“Com’estar, Signorina Cooper?” Giuliano greeted me as I entered the door at Primola and scanned the crowd at the bar for Joan Stafford.
“Fine, Giuliano, everything’s fine. Is my friend here yet?”
“Of course, she’s at the table. Follow me, please.”
As he led me to the corner, Joan saw me coming and stood to embrace me.
“No wonder he climbed into bed with a screen goddess. Maybe it takes a good friend to tell you how awful you look.”
“Thanks a million, Joanie. You sound like Mike Chapman.
