"Of course, it's easy enough to get in touch with his official associates. Yourself, for example. His wife and daughter. The less public liaisons are no less integral to the man's life and work, but far harder to ferret out."
"Oh, indeed!" Kurtz turned his unfortunate profile to her while he blew out a huff of smoke in an ostentatiously sideways direction.
Temple waited.
Kurtz leaned in, confidential. His raucous baritone voice lowered to Crawford Buchanan-level. "Actually, my dear, poor Darren had one of his exes on the set last week. Slinky number with the IQ of an onion but a plastic surgeon from heaven. Although she is over his age limit now, I was betting on them reviving the embers. So you might want to talk to Savannah Ashleigh."
Temple dutifully wrote the name on a notepad she had extracted from her tote bag immediately upon being informed that she was a producer for a national news show.
"I've heard of her," she murmured.
"Amazing! I'm impressed. Savannah hasn't done anything to hear about since her last face-lift."
"Was there anyone else in his life this past week, or month?"
"Well, we haven't been rehearsing a whole month, dearie!" He was half-talking and half-inhaling on a new cigarette, his lighter flame ebbing and flaring like a candle in the wind. "Oh, the chorus cuties were always around Darren. He radiated charm. Girls seemed to jump into his bed like lemmings into the sea."
"An interesting analogy. Are you implying that getting involved with Darren Cooke was self -
destructive?"
"No! No, no, no. I meant that they had very little concern for their reputations. I suppose he was a fairly major star, and these starry-eyed young things like to say thirty years later when they're knitting booties for the grand brats that they once had an affair with a star. One-night stand usually, with Darren. But nobody ever complained, as far as I knew."
"Really! What a remarkable man." Temple cupped her face in her hand and placed her elbow on the table to lean in closer. "What about women who were strangely . . . unsusceptible to Darren Cooke? Any of them around?"
"Well, nobody really notices the losers . . . but we have a new costumer who seemed quite inoculated against his charm. And Darren's personal assistant is quite a striking creature, yet she broadcasts such an icy air of pure business that I doubt even Darren tried the Romeo act on her."
"Personal assistant," Temple repeated, writing and remembering. "I really should contact her. Where would she be now that he's . . . dea d."
"Why, his office, I expect. Tidying up the files for the widow."
"Office? Where?"
"He appeared here so often that he maintained a small Strip office. Somewhere on Charleston. Surely you have assistants yourself who can look it up."
"That I do." Temple finished her Clamato drink and shut her notebook.
"I'll buy you another Bloody Mary," he said, pointing, obviously uneager for the interview to end.
"Thanks, but I must get to work. I'll just poke around backstage, if you don't mind. Interview the 'little people' who are so often overlooked in media biographies."
"Excellent idea! Our set is just crammed with the little people -- crew and hoofers and floor-sweepers. If you want an overview, don't hesitate to come to me."
"I won't," Temple promised as sincerely as he had offered.
When she rose, Aldo slipped into her seat.
"I would like a Bloody Mary," he told the director, deadpan.
Obviously, Aldo considered his next assignment to be keeping this camera-hound out of her way while she snooped around. Manny Kurtz was in fine (and persistent) Italian hands for at least forty-five minutes.
*******************
Once in the theater itself, Temple mentally changed identities and brought forward a new rank of half-lies.
"Where's the cat?" an idle dancer called as she approached the stage.
"Resting at home like a movie star." She climbed the few steps to the stage. The empty staircase reminded her of Midnight Louie's almost-tumble down those homicidally long risers . .
. could the cat have tripped on something? The next person down that stairway would have been Darren Cooke.
"I've enjoyed watching the company rehearse," she told the marooned dancer, crossing to where he lounged in the wings.
That was an old theater person for you: she "crossed" the stage, didn't "walk."
He nodded. "Would have been a good show with Darren. It'll be great with Caesar."
"Was Mr. Cooke ... uneasy at all before his death? Did the average co-worker have any suspicion about what was coming."
"Co-worker? We were just the chorus. He did seem a little withdrawn for Darren Cooke, the world's first wild and wonderful guy. I noticed that he played footsie with the blond chick with the cat commercial, but he didn't seem too pleased about it."
"Darren Cooke pretending to be interested in women?"
"In that woman, anyway. Hey, she was a silicone babe; I don't blame the guy. You seemed to be more his type."
"Me?" Temple hoped she didn't look as guilty as she felt.
"So how come you're asking about all this?"
She sighed. "I'm helping a friend with a book." True, although in the future. "It looks at true-life situations that end in death." Half-true. "Nobody can figure out why he killed himself. I'm looking for a little insight. And, then, I actually met him during the commercial shoot. I'm an ex-reporter. I guess I'm like everybody else. I want to know why."
"Guy had it all. Model wife. Kid. Money enough for a nanny to look after the kid, which is the best part. His show was going to do well. Gangster's is a great venue. I can't figure it."
"Nobody ever--"
"Ever what?"
"I know you've just been around for this show, but did one of his ex-girlfriends or one-night stands get ugly about her built-in obsolescence?"
"Nobody I ever heard of, and the hoofers hear a lot about the headliners, believe me. Except that Ashleigh bombshell. I saw them coming out of his dressing room, arguing about someone.
Drew, that was it. The name! By God, I remembered it."
The dancer straightened his spine and grew an inch in an automatic physical expression of his psychological exuberance.
"Do you suppose that's important? That he and this Ashleigh woman were arguing about some other woman named Drew. Could be a last name, or a first name. What do you think?"
That everybody thinks he's a detective, Temple told herself sourly.
"Should I tell the police?"
"I doubt it. I'm going to look around during break. Thanks."
She walked backstage, imagining this sudden windfall of information getting to Lieutenant Molina. She imagined Molina finding out that the "Drew" under discussion was "Nancy."
And finally, of course she'd realize, that the person was her, Temple Barr. She couldn't help wincing as she thumped down the narrow backstage stairs to the dressing rooms below.
Chapter 28
Dressing the Part
If Temple knew how to do anything, it was how to schmooze up theater people, especially crucial backstage personnel.
Like support staff in any endeavor, these folks were often taken for granted or even snubbed by visiting stars. For a little attention and commiseration, they could tell a lot about the stellar personalities with whom they had passing, but intimate, contact.
So Temple spent the next hour gossiping with Mike the stage doorman, the janitor, a few more lingering chorus members who weren't needed until the next number and the all-important hairdresser and costumer.
"I had standing instructions to let any pulchritudinous females into Mr. Cooke's dressing room," Mike admitted.
"Pulchritudinous? He really said that?"
"No, I said that."
It soon came out that Mike, at seventy, was studying English at the University of Nevada to make up for a scanted education (in sixth grade he had dropped out to help support his family).