Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

"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 family escaped some impoverished upbringing in what looked like a foreign village would be sitting in his duplex apartment above one of the theaters he owned, wearing a smoking jacket and matching green velvet slippers with gold crests on the throat that looked like something the Duke of Windsor might have worn at The Fort.

"We were talking about the argument you had with Ms. Galinova," Mike said.

"Argument? Who told you anything like that?"

"Well, you said she was mad at you, that her temper flared. I'm wondering whether it had to do with any of these professional matters you've been discussing with her or if it was something more personal."

"Personal what?" Berk plunged the tip of his cigarette into the ashtray and ground it down until what remained fell out of the holder.

Mike was getting short with him. "Were you and Miss Galinova having a sexual relationship? Did this start as some kind of tiff that got out of hand?"

"You got no business coming in here and insinuating I had anything to do with whatever happened to Talya. You got no business asking anything about my personal life," Berk said, looping one finger over the belt of his robe and jabbing the other through the air in Mike's direction. "Do you know who you're talking to? Do you know who I am?"

Mike stared back at the red-faced impresario.

"Do you know who I am?" Berk's voice rose louder and louder, each time he asked a question. "Do you know who I am? Do you?"

None of us spoke.

"Do you know… who I am?" Each word spit out at us, spaced to reverberate in the room, underscoring Berk's power and control.

"Yo, Mercer," Mike said, turning to look at us. "Do you know who he is?"

Mercer shrugged and stared at Berk with the same implacable expression Mike had.

Berk seemed ready to explode at my partners. I thought it was time to intervene.

"Look, Mr. Berk," I said. "All we know is that you may have been the last person to see Talya Galinova alive. Why don't you tell us when you left her? The time, the place, who else was around."

Berk started walking back to the bathroom. "Argument? You people are nuts. Like I have to take any kind of crap from an over-the-hill ballerina? Like Joe Berk had the least bit of interest in letting that bitch tell me how to run my operation? I walked out on her screaming just like I'll walk out on you if you don't watch your place."

He was mumbling now as he again made no effort to close the door that separated us. "Talk to my driver. He knows what time I got into the car. Damn, I knew that rotten corva was trouble."

Mike looked at me, puzzled by the word. "Italian?"

"Yiddish. It means 'whore.'" It had been my grandmother's ultimate insult for any woman whose conduct she disdained.

Berk called out to us. "You want to know why Talya couldn't keep her tights on, detective? Talk to Chet Dobbis. He spent way too much time poking around where he shouldn't have been, all in the name of art. Ha! Ask Mr. Dobbis where he was when it came time for last night's curtain call."

We were standing on West 44th Street, under the marquee of the Belasco Theatre, where Joe Berk's duplex apartment sat atop the 1907 neo-Georgian landmark. Diners looking for preshow bargains were jamming the sidewalks as they studied menus in restaurant windows, and scalpers trying to make a score were hawking tickets for tonight's return engagement of Ralph Fiennes's Hamlet at three times the going price.

"You want to try and hit Dobbis with this right now?" Mercer asked.

I looked at my watch. "If we can get to him before the performance starts."

Mike was less than enthusiastic. "Odds are we got a repeat of the first murder at the Met. Somebody who works backstage, maybe even with a rap sheet. Probably intercepted Galinova in a corridor or elevator. She was steaming mad from whatever Joe Berk did to blow her off. Blue-collar guy comes on to her, she freaks out, and so on. The lieutenant will flood the Met with guys from every squad in Manhattan North and he'll have a suspect by the middle of the week."

"You're willing to wait that out, it's okay with me," Mercer said.

"Yeah, we may have latents. Maybe some DNA by then."

"Hey, I understand. You're tired and not ready for the whole routine yet. You go on home. Alex and I'll put in a few more hours."

Mike combed his fingers through his dark hair. He knew Mercer was goading him to get back in the game. "You two'll feed me when we're done?"

"Wine and dine."

Mike had left the car in a "no standing" zone half a block down from the theater. We circled around the one-way streets, passing through the swelling crowds in Times Square, and drove up Tenth Avenue to park behind the Met at 65th Street.

This time we entered the building through the stage door in the rear of the parking garage. Carloads of patrons were beginning to stream in, some to keep their dinner reservations at the Grand Tier restaurant, below one of the colorful Chagalls, others to enjoy the mild spring evening on the plaza with a glass of wine.

The security guard now had the company of two uniformed cops, one of whom recognized Mercer and waved us in.

At a second checkpoint, Mike asked the man inspecting identifications to call Chet Dobbis for us. We were told he wasn't in his office.

"Page him, will you? It's urgent we see him before the show starts."

When the call had not been returned in ten minutes, we became impatient and decided to try to find him in the area around the stage.

Now the hallways were teeming with people. Musicians dressed completely in black so nothing in the orchestra pit distracted from the stage action, carrying instruments of every shape and size, squeezed between the costume trunks and workmen pressing ahead in the opposite direction.

Dancers in the obligatory leg warmers and turned-out foot positions, most carrying bottles of water, practiced their variations or sat along the wall stretching their legs and backs. Carpenters and electricians carried pieces of scenery and props, dangling drills and hammers as they maneuvered the turns of the endless gray walkways.

Mike approached a man who seemed to be a supervisor, calling out instructions to other workmen. "Dobbis. I'm looking for Chet Dobbis."

"Last I saw him he was at the rear wagon." The man pointed in the direction we were headed. "Keep going that way."

"Did you see any wagons this afternoon?" I asked. "Where do you think he means?"

"Must be some part of tonight's show. Let's just get over to the stage and someone will show us."