Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

"I've never come this far. Nobody's been there since this place was built."

"Been where?" I asked, the words catching in my throat.

"Forget fucking carpentry. I figured that one out feist. I watched my old man's thumb get ripped to shreds by a saw while he was building a set for some bullshit play that didn't even stay open for two weeks. Tore the bone off down to the joint. Too much back-breaking work, and you're sucking in the sawdust all day long. It was the lights I liked. I liked controlling the whole operation with the flick of one switch. All the juice was in my hands and even old Joe Berk thought I was a genius."

Another pitch-black chamber, this one hung with row upon row of faded costumes.

Royal robes and ballgowns, tutus and tulle skirts of every length, outfits for soldiers and cowboys and chorus girls and cancan dancers.

Dobbis leaned over and half crawled up another set of stairs. "Joe Berk's jack-of-all-trades. You did all his dirty work for him."

"You don't know half of what that old bastard was up to," Kehoe said, waiting for me to follow Dobbis.

"Is this it?" Dobbis asked.

"Open the door."

Chet Dobbis turned his shoulder to the black steel frame and pushed but nothing moved.

Kehoe removed a small silver gadget, the size of a can opener, from his left pocket. He pressed a button on it and the door slid to the side, allowing a slice of light from within to streak down the painted black cement steps.

"It's the dome of the old mosque, Alex. We're going into the dome."

One more long wooden staircase, its steps embedded with a row of tiny lights like the pathways that illuminate on airplanes to show the way to the exits in case of emergency.

At the top of the flight, awaiting our arrival, stood Mona Berk.

"Shit," she said to Kehoe. "What are you doing with her, too?"

"I didn't expect the cops to show up in the middle of this. I had to think fast."

"Not your strong suit. Let's figure this out."

Dobbis went first, and despite the danger to both of us, seemed to stand in place and look all around the room, taking in everything he could see.

Ross ordered him to move and when I reached the top of the landing, I understood what had stopped Dobbis in his tracks.

Overhead, in the center of the massive circular structure, was a large skylight. Through it streaked moonbeams from the cloudless April night. Adjacent buildings-large hotels, offices, and high-priced apartments that overlooked the vast space of the mosque dome- also cast down an eerie neon night-light.

And high above me, suspended from the rounded ceiling on lengths of shiny brass chain links, was a red velvet swing-the kind that sixteen-year-old Evelyn Nesbit swung on naked to amuse her paramour, the great Stanford White, and the kind of swing from which Lucy DeVore dropped, likely to die, the day Ross Kehoe walked her backstage for her audition.

"Over there, Chet," Kehoe said, directing him to a sofa in a corner of the great dome that had been furnished to look like a hidden bordello.

When Dobbis took his seat, Ross passed the gun to Mona and told her to keep it on me while he tied Dobbis's hands behind his back with some strips of cloth that looked ready-made for the occasion.

I studied him now, out from behind me for the first time since he'd accosted me. He was edgier still, pushing Dobbis's limbs when the captive director didn't comply fast enough, licking his lips constantly and sucking in more air.

I tried to scope the rest of the room, not wanting to take my eyes off the handgun for many seconds. There was a bed, to the side of the swing, that was dressed in the lavish style of the linens in Joe Berk's room and had the same crest and monogrammed initials; an antique brass clothing stand from which hung a variety of lingerie and robes; a well-stocked bar with liquors, wines, and crystal glasses of every shape and size.

I started to walk back the cat. "Where's the camera?"

"What?" Mona asked.

"That's what you did for Joe, isn't it?" I said to Kehoe, ignoring Mona Berk. "You wired up places for Joe Berk. You're the electrical specialist-that's what you did in theaters, isn't it? You built him an entertainment system that let him watch anybody he wanted-women in dressing rooms, bedrooms, showers-and whatever the hell was going on here, in this… this playground you created for him."

"Whatever turned him on, Alex. That's what he paid me for. Got to the age where Joe wasn't always able to do an evening performance after his matinee. Sometimes he just liked to watch."

Kehoe walked toward me and motioned me back to an area with chairs and a sofa. "You're next, Ms. DA. Pick a seat. Make yourself comfortable."

I didn't move.

"The bitch is so used to telling people what they're supposed to do, I don't think she takes orders well," Mona said. "Ross told you to get over there."

I didn't know whether fear or exhaustion had the tighter hold on me. I was sweating and breathing heavily, but chilled as well and shivering from that. My head throbbed and my neck ached from Kehoe's angry grip.

As I sat on a straight-backed chair, Kehoe looked around the room for something with which to restrain me. Near the seat of the swing was a length of thick rope, wrapped in a coil, like a cobra waiting to strike. It reminded me of the cables used to hold weights attached to the fly gallery that dropped the scenery onto the stage.

For some reason, Kehoe stepped around that rope and walked instead to the clothing rack. He removed a silk wrap from one of the robes and came back to us, this time taking my hands and tying them tightly behind me. He must have had another plan for the big rope.

There were no windows in the giant circular dome, no way to communicate with the world outside. I guessed there was a hole in the skylight overhead, because a draft of cold, fresh air blew down occasionally, rippling through me with another chill.

Kehoe had taken the gun back from Mona and they had walked a distance away from us to have a conversation.

"Don't you think someone will look up here?" I asked Chet Dobbis. "What did you mean that nobody's ever been in this place? Why?"

"There was never anything up here when the mosque was built but an antiquated ventilation system. All the smoke, all the stale air-it was sucked up here by a behemoth of a fan and dispersed. By the 1940s the whole process had changed and that form of exhaust was replaced with more modern ducts that were installed downstairs. The dome? This has never been used for anything. It's- it's just ornamental."

"Can we get out of here, Chet? Isn't there any way out?"

He had seemed resigned from the beginning to some kind of dreadful fate, timidly following Kehoe's directions, while now I could focus on nothing but finding a way to escape.

Dobbis shook his head and stared down at the floor. "After I left my job here, Kehoe must have done this."

"Done what?"

"There was a renovation of this cupola-first time ever-in 2003. Opened it up so they could get to the outside skin of the dome and replace the old Spanish tiles that had been part of the original installation. Arlette, the woman who replaced me as the center's director, told me they basically swept the place clean and shut it up again."

"So Kehoe knew this whole space was vestigial, was of no use to anyone, and he engineered a way in for himself. With Joe Berk's money, and with access to all the nubile bodies Joe was willing to pay to perform for him." And access, I thought, to the top of the dome, to install an antenna to transmit video images.

"Looks like he managed to do that. Who the hell would even find a way back here? And how? There's no way to open that door except electronically, Alex. He's got some kind of control, some electrical device that he pressed to let us in."