The guard was Barry Lorie. We had both worked security at Warner Brothers. Good man, bad legs.
“Someone’s trying to kill Astaire,” I said.
“Shit you say.”
“Straight up, Barry. You see a thin, good-looking dark woman back here, all in black?”
“Lots of ’em,” said Barry. “In black, white, pink, red. You name it.”
Astaire and Rita Hayworth were in the wings no more than a dozen feet from me. People were scurrying around. A guy with a clipboard was looking at his watch and doing a countdown. Astaire was in a tux and a toupee. Hayworth was in something black and frilly, her red hair billowed soft.
“Fred,” I called in a loud whisper.
“Keep it down, Toby,” Barry said.
I looked for Phil and Steve and couldn’t find them.
Astaire turned when I called again. He saw me and said, “Toby?”
Rita Hayworth turned toward me, teeth white, lips red, puzzled. The orchestra began to play “Lovely to Look At.”
“Carlotta Forbes did it,” I said. “She’s here tonight. She’s after. .” but Astaire couldn’t hear me over the music.
“Now,” said the guy with the clipboard.
And Hayworth and Astaire flowed onto the stage to wild applause.
“Barry?” I asked.
He nodded and let me pass.
I pushed my way through dancers, comics, and novelty acts, all waiting, all trying to be quiet. No Carlotta. I looked onto the stage where Astaire and Hayworth seemed to float about an inch off the floor. And then I saw her. Carlotta was in the wings on the other side of the stage. She had a big purse in her hand and her hand in the purse.
“I’ve got to get to the other side,” I whispered to an old guy in a cap who was working on the rigging. “Fast.”
“Flat goes clear to the back wall,” he said. “Either go out and around, or you go right across the stage. Lots of people out there.”
Carlotta’s hand was slowly coming out of her purse. I was pretty sure of what was in that hand. I looked around for Phil. Nothing.
I tore off my jacket and tapped the shoulder of a curly-haired guy just about my size. He was whispering to a pretty blonde in a big purple-and-white turban. The guy turned to me. It was Cornel Wilde.
“I need your jacket,” I said.
“My. .”
“Police,” I said, pointing to my empty holster. “Hurry.”
Wilde looked at the blonde and then turned to me, taking off his jacket.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.
“Pray,” I said, putting on the jacket and taking the hand of the blonde girl.
“Wait,” she squealed as I pulled her toward the stage.
“We’re gonna dance across that stage,” I said. “We’re gonna save Fred Astaire’s life.”
The blonde turned to Wilde, who said, “Do it.”
I pushed past the guy with the clipboard, took a deep breath, and danced the blonde out onto the stage, doing my best to imagine I was Fred Astaire.
There was a rumble of confused conversation in the audience.
Astaire and Hayworth swirled around and Astaire gave me a questioning look. I nodded toward the far wing and he turned his eyes toward Carlotta, who was definitely taking something out of her purse. I kept dancing. The look on Carlotta’s face might have said a lot of things. I thought it said, “This is my lucky night. I’ve got them both out there.”
But it was hard to imagine what Carlotta was thinking. She was about to murder a movie star on stage, in front of a few thousand people, to cover up another murder. There was no chance of her getting away with this. And then I realized what she was doing. It was her relationship to Luna Martin she was covering. She didn’t care if she was dragged away in cuffs as long as no one could suggest a relationship to Luna.
I turned, more or less to the music, and the blonde beamed at the audience and guided me through the couple of dozen feet across the stage.
“Light and lead me,” she whispered like a ventriloquist through clenched teeth.
I nodded and looked at her.
I was dancing with Betty Grable.
We had almost made it across the stage when Carlotta, her back to the people in the wing, came out with the gun. Almost, but not quite. I wasn’t going to get to her in time. My best bet was to get Astaire and Hayworth down and hope Carlotta missed. I danced toward them and was about to throw myself onto Astaire and Hayworth when I heard a scuffling over the music and saw my brother grab Carlotta’s wrist, pull the gun from her hand, and pull her back into the shadows.
I was in the middle of the stage now, with Betty Grable in my arms. The lights were in my eyes but I could feel the people out there. Suddenly, somehow, Astaire and Hayworth orchestrated a partner-change and I found Rita Hayworth in my arms. She smelled like the few good memories of my battered life.
The audience went wild with applause. Astaire and Betty Grable went twirling past us.
“You’d better have a goddamn good explanation for this,” Hayworth said with an enormous smile. “And don’t step on my toes.”
I don’t know what I did for the next minute or so. I know I didn’t step on Rita Hayworth’s toes. Then, mercifully, the music stopped. She led me to the front of the stage. Astaire and Grable were there. We all joined hands and bowed. The audience went wild.
The lights were coming up as the curtain slowly lowered in front of us. I looked for Guiseppi Cortona. His seat was empty.
“Explain,” said Rita Hayworth, her hands on her hips when the curtain was all the way down.
The crowd was still applauding wildly and asking for more.
“Toby is more or less my bodyguard,” Astaire explained. “I think he just saved my life.”
Betty Grable took my hand and said, “I’ve got to get ready for my number. I don’t know what this was all about, but I think it was fun.”
And she was gone.
“Mr. Astaire, Miss Hayworth, please clear the stage for the next number,” the guy with the clipboard said, looking at me.
We moved off stage and as I passed Cornel Wilde I handed him his jacket. He patted my shoulder and moved onto the stage.
“Rita,” Astaire said, taking one of her hands in both of his, “trust me.”
She looked at me, shook her head, and said, “Well, it was an experience I haven’t had before.”
And she was gone.
The orchestra had already started its next number.
“Best dancer I’ve ever worked with,” Astaire said, hands in his pockets as we watched her move away through the backstage crowd. And then he turned to me: “Toby, is it over?”
“Almost,” I said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send you a bill.”
“You were pretty good out there,” he said.
“I had a great teacher,” I answered and moved past Barry Lorie and the other guard.
I went through the stage-door exit, down an alley, and back to Wilshire. I didn’t want to run into Phil. He’d want me to give a statement and help make sense out of what Carlotta might be telling him.
If he got her talking, there was one big piece of the puzzle she couldn’t help him with. Carlotta had murdered Willie Talbott and her husband, but she hadn’t killed Luna Martin.
I was hungry. I was tired. I had just danced with Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth on the stage of the Wiltern Theater and I was on my way to do something I didn’t want to do.
