Free Death Dance by Linda Fairstein Page B

been involved in
some kind of scandal, but couldn't bring it to mind. Mike answered.
"Harry Thaw. Stanford White. The old Madison Square Garden. Sex,
infidelity, money, murder—the story's got it all."
    "Bravo, detective. Opening-night seats for you, sir, on the
aisle. Murder, Miss Cooper. A good old-fashioned Manhattan murder. Your
detective friend clearly knows his true-crime stories. He'll tell you
later. Otherwise you'll have to buy tickets. You," Berk said, winking
at me, "I might invite you myself. Leave the coppers home."
    Mike had majored in history at Fordham College. There was
nothing he didn't know about military history—foreign and
American—and his congenital fascination with the world of
policing made him an expert on New York's darkest deeds.
    "It's a Broadway show?" Mike asked. "A homicide case that's a
hundred years old?"
    "Eighteen, twenty months down the road I expect it will be. A
blockbuster musical. You're too young to remember
Sweeney
Todd
. Hey, look at
Chicago
. The
Weisslers, now they're fucking geniuses. Came to me with the idea to do
a show for Broadway about a dame who shoots her lover and I turned them
down flat. How many years running and nine touring companies abroad?
Forget about what the movie did to keep the show alive and kicking. The
Shuberts had more goddamn sense than I did, for once. What the hell was
I thinking? Murder set to music sells great."
    Berk flicked his ashes. "I've got Elton John doing the score,
Santo Loquasto on the costumes—gowns, furs, that famous
bearskin rug— and the swing will be gaudier than the bullshit
chandelier they're building for
Phantom
in Vegas,
How does that song go? All I need now is the girl."
    "Talya Galinova?" I asked.
    "Ask Mr. Chapman to fill you in on the story, Miss Cooper.
Evelyn Nesbit was one of the most gorgeous dames of her day. But she
was only sixteen years old when all of this happened. Great role for an
ingenue. Talya? She would have been a bit too long in the tooth by the
time we launch this production. Give me nubile."
    "Did she know that?" Or could it have been what they fought
about in the dressing room?
    "It doesn't matter if she knew it. I certainly did."
    "And Miss Galinova, she was glad to see you last night?" Mike
asked.
    "They really sweat, you aware of that? You think it's all
floating around on your toes and flapping your wings out there onstage,
but those girls do some kind of workout. She came in all sweaty and
hot, dripping with perspiration. And very pissed off that I'd missed
the show. What a temper," Berk said, walking away from us and untying
the belt on his robe as he opened a door and turned on a light.
    He had entered a bathroom, leaving the door ajar behind him
and continuing to talk to us as he urinated. "You can hear me, right?"
    "A little too well. The city doesn't pay me enough for this,"
I whispered to Mike. "Remind me to tell Battaglia he owes me." I was
scoping the top of Berk's desk and the area of floor around my chair,
hoping to see a stray piece of his hair.
    "Talya let me have it, unloaded on me like a shrew. Jeez, she
should have saved some of her strength for the guy who attacked her."
    He was washing his hands now and I stood up to walk behind his
lounge chair to look at some photographs on the wall, thinking there
might be a few white hairs on the headrest that I could pocket for a
comparison to the ones Kestenbaum found with Talya's body.
    When Berk emerged from the bathroom, he was still knotting the
robe around his thick waist. "You like that picture? It's me. You'd
never guess from that one, would you?"
    The faded black-and-white image was of a toddler in knee
pants, holding his mother's hand, her dreary housedress blending into
the backdrop of their small, dreary house,
    "Little Yussel Berkowitz. Taken more than seventy years ago,
back in Russia," he said, patting his hands against his bloated
abdomen. "It's been quite a ride, folks."
    I could never have imagined that the child whose