Наташа Купер: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 1. Whole No. 767, July 2005

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

In response, she called me a very bad name. Nice girls back home in Balltown weren’t even supposed to know that word, let alone scream it at a man in public. Then the elevator door closed and she was gone.

The two doormen had heard her. Hell, the doormen a half-block away had heard her. “Get you a cab, pally?” one of them asked me sympathetically, gesturing out at the rain. “She’s teeming bricks, like my dear old ma in Far Rockaway used to say.”

“No, thanks. For some reason, I feel like walking.”

Barrymore’s was a good place to get a burger and a beer before a show. Still is. It’s narrow and deep with exposed brick walls, a long bar, and a small dining room off to the left just as you come in the door on West 45th Street. It was a little past noon when I got there. Workers from the nearby Seventh Avenue office towers were chowing down on lunch at a few tables. A handful of drinkers stood at the bar. One of them, a tall, terrific-looking young woman with short black hair, was nursing a cup of coffee and looking very preoccupied and grim.

I sized up the bartenders. One was slightly built, the other taller and much beefier. I moseyed down to his end of the bar and said, “Are you Big Steve?”

“Who wants to know?” he asked me warily.

I pulled the envelope from my pocket. “If you are, I’m supposed to give you this from Mr. Beck.”

“I’m Steve,” he acknowledged, taking it from me.

As I made my way back toward the door, I spotted Big Steve delivering the envelope to that gorgeous brunette at the bar. She had on a turtleneck and a short skirt, and looked vaguely familiar to me. I suddenly realized she was Leigh Grayson, the actress who was playing Sybil in Private Lives — minus the blond hair, which was evidently a wig. So something was going on between her and Anthony Beck. Of course. No way Barbara Darrow would be so upset about him placing a lousy bet.

I went back out in the rain and paused under the awning, trying to decide whether to stop by the news syndicate to collect my weekly batch of mail for Aunt Penny. As I stood there, the door to Barrymore’s swung open and I found myself nose to nose with Leigh Grayson, who had an umbrella in one hand and Beck’s note in the other. She looked tense and fretful. She was nearly as tall as I, with a willowy figure and great legs. She had creamy, flawless skin and startlingly clear, deep blue eyes. Leigh Grayson was not the single most beautiful young woman I’d ever been face-to-face with — a few weeks earlier, I’d interviewed an unknown actress named Jessica Lange who was appearing in a remake of King Kong. But Leigh was the first beautiful woman to walk into my life and immediately make my heart race and my mouth motor. From the first moment I saw her standing there under that awning, I absolutely could not shut up. Because from that first moment I knew she was the woman I had come to New York to meet.

Which explained why I blurted out, “Would you mind telling me what it said?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, her gaze free of guile. “What did you just say?”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily be so nosy, but it just cost me a hundred bucks to deliver that envelope. Actually, a hundred-fifty if you count the money I didn’t take from him. So I feel I’m entitled to at least ask. If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll certainly understand.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” I said, my heart thumping, thumping.

Leigh lowered her eyes. “I don’t care what it says. I haven’t even read it. I won’t.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I shouldn’t have.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lit one. “And I definitely shouldn’t be standing here talking to you.” She started walking toward Broadway.

I stayed with her, which wasn’t easy. Her stride was as long as mine, and she was walking fast. “Where are you headed?”

“The Village.”

“Me too. Want to split a cab?”

“No, I want you to go away.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

I told her.

“Oh, that’s perfect. Just the shot in the arm my career needs.”

“I’m not going to write about this.”

“You don’t have to write about it. All you have to do is call Liz Smith or Cindy Adams or whoever, and in tomorrow’s column it’ll say: ‘Which very married Broadway leading man has gotten involved with which costar right under his wife’s nose?’ Thank you, no thank you.”

“I would never do something like that.”

“Which we’re not,” she pointed out. “Involved, I mean. It’s just a casual fling.”

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“Why, how does it look?”

“Like you’re pretty upset.”

“Well, I’m not. I like Tony. Tony likes me. So why not?” Leigh glanced at me curiously. “Why are you delivering his messages anyway?”

“He asked me to. I’m doing a profile on them for the Sunday arts supplement.”

“And how is that working out?”

“Not real well. She insisted I see the show for a second time tonight before she’ll talk to me.”

“That’s our Barbara. Always testing the little people.”

“For what?”

“She wants you to prove to her that you care. Barbara’s just a real spoiled bitch of a star that way. Everything with her is hard. I thought Morty, our director, was going to slit his wrists during rehearsals. She was always late. Always fighting with him. Always digging in her heels. Always...” Leigh shot a worried look at me. “You did promise not to write any of this, didn’t you?”

“I did. For what it’s worth, she knows about you two. Or at least she knows something is up.”

“Of course she does. Tony tells her everything. They have a really odd marriage. Oddest I’ve ever seen.”

Leigh Grayson seemed incredibly worldly and sophisticated to me that day. She was only twenty-five, a scant year older than I. But she had been a working actress for six years. That meant she had a lot of mileage on her. Me, I was fresh off the showroom floor.

When we reached Broadway I said, “Are you sure you don’t want to split a cab?”

“Oh, all right,” she responded wearily.

I hailed a Checker and we got in and told him where to drop us. Leigh lived two blocks away from me on Bank Street. As we rode she impulsively tore open the envelope and read Beck’s note. It only took her a second. When she was done she exhaled slowly. I could feel her breath on my face, accompanied by a scent of her perfume. I immediately got woozy, as if I’d just stepped off of a roller coaster.

She gazed out the window, her thoughts very far away.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

She turned and looked at me. “Why would I want to do that?”

“We could get some lunch.”

She shook another cigarette out of her pack and lit it. “Look, if it’s dirt you’re trying to get out of me that’s not going to happen.”

“It’s not, and you smoke too much.”

“What do you care?”

“I care because I intend to spend a lot of time with you from now on. I’m hoping you’ll want to, even though I can’t think of a single reason why you would. But hope is one of the things I happen to believe in. After all, where would mankind be without hope? Would we have landed on the moon? Cured polio? Created classic art like Charlie’s Angels ?”

She cocked her head at me curiously. “Do you always talk such nonsense?”

“No, I don’t. You bring it out in me.”

She smiled at me. Leigh Grayson had a very sweet smile. She looked like a happy young girl on Christmas morning. “Now that you mention it, I could eat a little something.”