Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

The auditorium was to the left. A little sign outside it announced that a rehearsal was in progress. I slipped in quietly and joined a handful of people seated in the house. Onstage someone was clapping her hands and calling for quiet.

“We’ll take it from the scherzo entrance again. Karl, you’re coming in a second behind the beat. And, Paige, you want to stay downstage until the grand jete . Places, please.”

The dancers wore a motley collection of garments, their legs covered with heavy warmers to prevent muscle cramps. Paige had on a bronze leotard with matching leg warmers. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail. She looked about sixteen from where I sat.

Someone operated a fancy tape deck in front of the stage. The music began. The piece was a jarring modern one and the choreography matched it, a dance on the depravity of modern urban life. Karl, entering on time in what was apparently the scherzo movement-hard to tell amidst all the wailing and jangling-seemed to be dying of a heroin overdose. Paige arrived on the scene seconds ahead of the narc squad, watched him die, and departed. I didn’t pick all that up right away, but I got to see the thing six times before the director was satisfied with it.

A little after five the director dismissed the troupe, reminding them that they had a rehearsal at ten in the morning and a performance at eight the next night. I moved up front with the other members of the audience. We followed the dancers backstage; no one questioned our right to be there.

Following the sound of voices, I stuck my head into a dressing room. A young woman pulling a leotard from her freckled body asked me what I wanted. I told her I was looking for Paige.

“Oh, Paige… She’s in the soloists’ dressing-room-three doors down on your left.”

The soloists’ dressing-room door was shut. I knocked and entered. Two women were there. One of them told me Paige was taking a shower and asked me to wait in the hall-there wasn’t an inch of extra room in the place.

Presently Paige herself came down the hall from the shower, muffled in a white terry-cloth robe with a large white towel wrapped around her head.

“Vic! What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Paige. I came to talk to you. When you’re dressed I’ll take you out for coffee or gin or whatever you drink this time of day.”

The honey-colored eyes widened slightly: she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of orders, even when given in a subtle way. “I’m not sure I have time.”

“Then I’ll talk to you while you get dressed.”

“Is it that important?”

“It’s extremely important.”

She shrugged. “Wait for me here. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

The few minutes stretched into forty before she reappeared. The other two women came out together, carrying on a vigorous conversation about someone named Larry. They glanced at me and one of them broke off to say, “She’s about halfway through her makeup” as they passed.

Paige presently emerged in a gold silk shirt and white full skirt. She wore a couple of thin gold chains at her throat with little diamond chips in them. Her makeup was perfect-rusty tones that looked like the delicate flush of Mother Nature-and her hair framed her face in a smooth pageboy.

“Sorry to keep you waiting-it always takes longer than I think it will-and the more I try to hurry the longer it seems to take.”

“You people work up a good sweat. What was that you were rehearsing this afternoon? It looked pretty grim.”

“It’s one of Ann’s flights-Ann Bidermyer, the director, you know. Pavane for a Dope Dealer . Not in the best taste but it’s a good role. For Karl too. Gives us both a great chance to show off. We open with it tomorrow. Want to see it? I’ll get them to leave a ticket for you at the box office.”

“Thanks… Anyplace around here to talk, or do we need to head farther south?”

She considered. “There’s a little coffee shop around the corner on Victoria. It’s a hole in the wall but they have good cappuccino.”

We went out into the brisk spring evening. The coffee shop seated only six people at tiny round tables on spindly cast-iron chairs. They sold fresh coffee beans, a vast assortment of tea, and a few homemade pastries. I ordered espresso and Paige had English Breakfast tea. Both came in heavy porcelain mugs.

“What were you looking for in my cousin’s apartment?”

Paige drew herself up in her chair. “My letters, Vic. I told you that.”

“You’re not the kind of person who embarrasses easily-I just can’t picture you getting that worked up about some letters, even if they are personal… Come to think of it, why would two people in the same city write each other anyway?”

She flushed below the rouge. “We were on tour.”

“How did you meet Boom Boom?”

“At a party. A man I know was thinking about buying a share in the Black Hawks and Guy Odinflute invited some of the players. Boom Boom came.” Her voice was cold.

Odinflute was a North Shore tycoon with a flair for business matchmaking. He’d be the ideal person to bring together buyers and sellers of the Black Hawks.

“When was that?”

“At Christmas, Vic, if you must know.”

I’d seen Boom Boom a couple of times during the winter and he’d never mentioned Paige. But was that so strange? I never told him who I was dating either. When he got married, at twenty-four, I first met his wife a few weeks before the wedding. That was a little different-he’d been slightly ashamed to introduce me to Connie. When she left him three weeks later and received an annulment, he’d gotten gloriously drunk with me, but still hadn’t really talked about it. He kept his private life emphatically private.

“What are you thinking, Vic? You look very hostile, and I resent it.”

“Do you? Henry Kelvin was killed last night when some people broke into Boom Boom’s place. They tore it apart. I want to know if they were looking for the same thing you were. And if so, what?”

“Henry? The night watchman? Oh, I’m so sorry, Vic. Sorry to get mad at you, too. If you’d only told me, instead of playing games with me… Was anything stolen? Could it have been a robbery?”

“Nothing was taken, but the place was sure chewed up pretty thoroughly. I think I saw everything Boom Boom had in his files and I can’t imagine what value any of it would have to anyone besides a hockey memorabilia collector.”

She shook her head, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know either. Unless it was a robbery. I know he kept some share certificates there, even though I kept telling him to put them in a safe deposit box. He just couldn’t be bothered with stuff like that. Were those gone?”

“I didn’t see them when I was there on Tuesday. Maybe he did take them to a bank.” Another point to check with the lawyer Simonds.

“They were probably the most valuable things in the place, barring that antique chest in the dining room. Why don’t you try to locate them?” She put her hand on my arm. “I know it sounds crazy about the letters. But it’s true. In fact I’ll show you the one your cousin wrote me while we were away, if that’s what it will take to convince you.” She rummaged in her large handbag and unzipped a side compartment. She pulled out a letter, still in its typed envelope, addressed to her at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Paige unfolded the letter. I recognized my cousin’s tiny, careful handwriting at once. It began, “Beautiful Paige.” I didn’t think I should read the rest.

“I see,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

The honey-colored eyes looked at me reproachfully and with a hint of coldness. “I’m sorry, too. Sorry that you couldn’t trust what I said to you.”