“Can’t they get somebody else?”
Jane looked as incredulous as any girl can at five in the morning after a tough night’s performance and a questioning by the police. “You don’t seem to realize that this is the oldest ballet company in the world and that it has to have a prima ballerina assoluta and there’s only a half dozen of those in the world and they’re all engaged like Markova, Fonteyn, Danilova, Toumanova, Alonso … or else too expensive for Mr. Washburn,” she added, deflating somewhat the pretensions of the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet. I knew already, from personal experience, that Mr. Washburn was a tight man with a dollar.
“So Eglanova might have cut that cable?” The memory of those shears still bothered me; I tried to think of something else … I had not yet mentioned finding them to the police … or to anyone.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Jane. But she had no other comment to make about this theory.
“She must’ve been awfully ambitious,” I said sleepily; my eyes beginning to twitch with fatigue.
“Ella? Oh, I’ll say she was. She wanted to do Swan Lake at the Met on opening night … instead of on Wednesday matinees and every night in all cities with a population under a hundred thousand. And she would’ve too.”
“Was she that good?” It was hopeless to ask one dancer about the talents of another but I was thinking of something else now. I paid no attention to what we were saying. My hand was now on top of hers and I was so close to her that I could feel through my own body the quickened beating of her heart.
Jane told me very seriously that Ella had been a good actress and a good technician but that she had always been remarkably unmusical and that if she had not been married to the conductor she would probably never have become a star.
“Did she get on with Louis?” I asked, my lips so close to her cheek that I could feel the warmth of my own breath come back to me.
“I don’t think he ever let her get away with anything. He’s just as vain as she was only in a nice way. Everybody likes Louis. He pads, you know.”
“He what?”
“You know … like a falsie: well, they say he wears one, too, when he’s in tights.”
“Oh, no, he doesn’t,” I said, remembering my little tussle with the ballet’s glamour boy.
“You, too?” She sat bolt upright.
“Me too what?”
“He didn’t … go after you, too, did he?”
“Well as a matter of fact he did but I fought him off.” And I told her the story of how I had saved my honor.
She was very skeptical. “He’s had every boy in the company … even the ones who like girls … I expect he’s irresistible.”
“I resisted.”
“Well …” And then it began.
5
“Jane.” There was no answer. Light streamed into the room but she wore a black mask over her eyes, and nothing else … the sheets lay tangled in a heap upon the floor beside the bed. It was another hot day I could tell. Yawning, I sat up and looked at my watch which I had placed on the night table; I’ve always taken it off, ever since a girl from Vassar complained that it scratched. Ten-thirty.
I lit a cigarette and studied the body sprawled next to me in a position which, in any other woman, would have been unattractive. In her case, however, she could be suspended from a chandelier and she would look good enough to take home right then and there.
I leaned over and tickled her smooth belly, like pink alabaster, to become lyric, warm pink alabaster, gently curved, with hips strong and fatless and lovely breasts tilted neither up nor down nor sagging, but properly centered, the work of a first-rate architect: not one of those slapdash jobs you come across so often in this life. She sighed and moved away, not yet awake. I then tickled the breast nearest me and she said, very clearly, “You cut that out.”
“That’s not a very romantic way to begin the morning,” I said.
She pulled off her mask and scowled in the sunlight which streamed into the high-ceilinged dusty room. Then she smiled when she saw me. “I forgot,” she said. She stretched.
“I’m scared to look at the papers,” I said.
She groaned. “And I thought it was going to be such a perfect day. It’s so hot,” she added irrelevantly, sitting up. I admired her nonchalance. She was the first girl I had ever known who had been agreeable and affectionate without ever once speaking of love. I decided that I was going to like ballet very much.
“I have a headache,” she announced, blinking her eyes and pressing her temples with her hands.
“I got just the cure for it,” I said, rolling toward her.
She took one look and said, “Not now. It’s too hot.” But her voice lacked conviction and our bodies met as we repeated with even greater intensity the act of the night before, our breath coming in short gasps until, at the climax, there was no one else in the whole world but the two of us on that bed, the sunlight streaming in the window and the springs creaking, our bodies making funny wet noises as the bellies pushed one against the other.
When it was over, Jane went into the bathroom and I lay with my eyes shut, the sweat drying on my body, as blissfully relaxed as that young man in the painting by Michelangelo. But then, in the midst of this euphoria, I decided that I should call Mr. Washburn and get my orders for the day. It was early of course for our business and, in ordinary times, no one would be stirring at this hour during the season but today with a murder on our hands … a murder.… It wasn’t until that moment, lying contented and exhausted on a strange girl’s bed that I realized the significance of what had happened, of what the sudden death of Ella Sutton might mean to all of us, including me, the newcomer, the fool who had found a pair of shears and.…
I got Mr. Washburn on the line. “Been trying to locate you,” he said and I could tell from his voice that he was worried. “Get over to the Met at eleven, will you? The police are going to talk to us, to the principals.”
“I’ll be there, sir.”
“Did you see the papers this morning?”
“Quite something, weren’t they?” I said, implying I had read them which I had not.
“Made the front page … even of the Times,” said my employer in a voice which sounded almost joyous. “We’ll have to change our strategy … but I’ll go into all that when I see you.”
I then called Miss Flynn at my own office.
“I tried to reach you at your home, Mr. Sargeant, but there was no answer.” Miss Flynn is the only human being I have ever known who could talk not only in italics but, on occasion, could make her silences sound as meaningful as asterisks.
“I was busy all night … working,” I said lamely.
“I hope you will try and get some rest today, Mr. Sargeant.”
“I hope so, too. But you know what happened …”
“Yes, I saw some mention of it in the Times. One of those dancers was murdered.”
“Yes, and we’re all being questioned. It’s going to be quite a public relations job.”
“* * * * * * *”
“I probably won’t get to the office today … so refer any calls to me at the office of the ballet.”
“Yes, Mr. Sargeant.”
I then gave her some instructions about the night school, the hat company and the television actress who had just been voted Miss Tangerine of Central California by an old buddy of mine who lived out there and was a member of the Chamber of Commerce of Marysville.
Jane was dressed by the time I had finished … like all girls connected with the theater she could be a quick changer if she wanted. I told her that I had to join Washburn and the principals at the opera house. While I dressed it was agreed that we meet after tonight’s performance and come directly here … presuming, of course, that there would be a performance. I had no idea of what the police attitude would be.