“There’s a danger of that happening now, don’t you think?” Carella said.
Trying to get Corbin back to the matter at hand. Which was not writing the great American drama, but was instead this investigation into an aberration in the normal orderly flow of events as personified by the body of Michelle Cassidy with its twenty-two stab and slash wounds.
“Do you mean because of the publicity attendant on Michelle’s murder?”
“Yes. Linked with the fact that there’s a stabbing scene in the play itself. Some critics…”
“Fuck the critics,” Corbin said.
Carella blinked.
“I don’t write for critics. I write for myself and for my public. My public will understand that I don’t write cheap mysteries, never have, never will. My public…”
“I understood…”
“Those were not mysteries. Excuse me, were you about to mention Blue Badge and…?”
“Actually, I didn’t know the…”
“Blue Badge and…”
“… titles of…”
“Street Nocturne, yes. The two novels I wrote about New York City cops. But those weren’t mysteries, they were novels about cops.”
“Right, procedur…”
“No!” Corbin shrieked. “Not procedurals. Never procedurals. And not mysteries, either. They were simply novels about cops. The men and women in blue and in mufti, their wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, lovers, children, their head colds, stomachaches, menstrual cycles. Novels. Which, of course, I now recognize as a form inferior to that of the spoken word on the stage.”
“How did you feel when Michelle first got stabbed?” ”
“The first time? In the alley?”
“Yes.
“To be honest?”
“Please.”
“I felt good. Because of the publicity the play was attracting. Mind you, Romance is a wonderful play, but it doesn’t hurt to have all this attention focused on it, does it?”
“According to Johnny Milton…”
“That piece of shit.”
“… the idea was originally Michelle’s.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Very ambitious girl, very opportunistic.”
“How do you feel about her murder?”
“Terribly saddened.”
Carella waited.
“A regrettable occurrence,” Corbin said. “But I must be honest with you. I still feel good about the publicity we’re getting. Unless it turns against us. Unless it makes my play look like a cheap mystery.”
“How well did you know Michelle?”
“I was the one who held out for hiring her — against Ashley’s wishes and Marvin’s, too — but he has no taste at all. Well, I take that back. He did, after all, decide to produce Romance. But Michelle was hired for the role because I insisted on it.”
It occurred to Carella that his question hadn’t been answered. He tried again.
“How well did you know her, Mr. Corbin?”
“Not at all well, I’m sorry to say. One misses life’s little opportunities, doesn’t one? And then it’s all too often too late.”
“Which of life’s little opportunities do you mean?” Carella asked.
“Why, the opportunity to have known her better.”
“How do you feel about the actress replacing her?”
“Josie? I think she’s wonderful. In fact, I have to admit that I may have made a mistake not hiring her in the first place.”
“Feel better with her in the part, do you?”
“Yes, actually. I think our chances are better. Even without the fuss over Michelle’s death, I think we stand a much better chance with Josie in the role.”
“And, of course, if the play turns out to be a tremendous hit…”
“I would be gratified, of course. But the value of the play is intrinsic to the play itself. Ten years from now, a hundred years from now, whatever the critics say, the play will stand on its own.”
“Still, you would enjoy a hit, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.”
“A hit would mean a lot to you moneywise, wouldn’t it?”
“Money’s not the important thing.”
“Six percent of the weekly gross…”
“Yes, but…”
“Capacity gross is estimated at a hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars.”
“If we move downtown.”
“Well, you’ll certainly move downtown if the play is a hit.”
“Yes.”
“So six percent of the gross comes to almost eleven thousand dollars a week.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’ve calculated it?”
“Many times.”
“Close to six hundred thousand a year.”
“Yes.”
“A play like Romance could run for how long?”
“Who knows? If the reviews are raves, and if we move downtown? Five years, six years, who knows?”
“So there’s quite a bit of money involved here. If it’s a hit.”
“Yes.”
“And with Josie Beaks in the starring role, and with all the publicity Michelle’s murder has generated, the likelihood of a hit becomes…”
“I feel I should tell you,” Corbin said, “before you ask… I have no alibi whatsoever for the night Michelle got killed.”
Carella looked at him.
“None,” he said. “I was here alone in the apartment, coincidentally working on the scene where the Actress gets stabbed. The scene in the play. So you see…”
Corbin smiled.
“I’m completely at your mercy.”
They regrouped at three that afternoon.
Carella wasn’t surprised to learn that Andrea’s alibi had checked out. Kling was very surprised to learn that Corbin had no alibi at all.
“Maybe immortal writers don’t need alibis,” Carella said.
Hoping to catch Josie Beales at the theater, they called ahead, but Chuck Madden told them she was already gone for the day.
“You may want to try her at home,” he said. “Though actresses are never home.”
“How do you mean?” Carella asked.
“Auditions, readings, classes, benefits, they’re never home.”
“Did she say she was going to one of those? An audition or…
“I’m just the stage manager,” he said airily, “nobody ever tells me anything.” Carella knew that exactly the opposite was the case. It was part of a stage manager’s job to know where everyone involved with a show could be reached at any given time of the day. “Let me check my book,” he said, “give you her home number, it’s at least worth a shot.” Carella could hear him leafing through pages. “Yeah,” he said at last, “here it is,” and read it off. “Otherwise, you can try the Galloway School later tonight. I see she has a class there on Thursdays.”
“Do you have a number for it?”
“Yeah, right here, it’s on North Loring,” Madden said, and read off the number.
“When’s your next rehearsal?” Carella asked. “In case we miss her.”
“Tomorrow morning at nine.”
They tried Josie at home, and left a message on her answering machine. They called the Galloway School and were told that classes tonight began at eight o’clock and that indeed Josie Beales was enrolled in a class called Advanced Performing Skills.
They’d both been working since eight o’clock this morning.
But they sent out for sandwiches and Cokes, and started typing up their reports, waiting for it to be eight o’clock tonight.
9
THE GALLOWAY SCHOOL — OR MORE ACCURATELY THE GALloway School of Theater Arts, as the sign downstairs announced it — was on the third floor of a building that had once been a hat factory. Kling wanted to know how Carella had known this. Carella said there were just some things a good detective knew, kid. A scene was in progress as they slipped into the vast room. Some thirty or so students sat on folding chairs watching Josie Beales and an older man going through an aria intended to break the heart, Carella figured. In it, the old man was telling his daughter he had cancer and had been given thirty days to live. Josie didn’t seem to have much to do in the scene except listen. She did that very well, brown eyes glistening with tears as the old guy told her about all of life’s little missed opportunities. Carella wondered if Freddie Corbin had written the scene. They stood at the back of the room, listening and watching. On the folding chairs, there was a lot of respectful fidgeting.