Grief Street

subject of upscale drug addicts in the person of Stuart Godwin, who came sweeping up beside Ruby and introduced himself—to her but not me, even though I was standing right there. He was dressed in loose black silk pants, a maroon velvet smoking jacket with black satin shawl and belt, wing-collar formal shirt, and speckled bow tie. His black hair was combed straight back and brilliantined. He looked like a movie cad, circa 1930. He was only fifty years old or so and would have had to study that 1930s look. His face was powdered and lightly pancaked, and he smelled like a guy who shops at Bijan of Fifth Avenue, by appointment only. Also he was waving around a perfumed cigarette in a tortoiseshell holder, like Noël Coward.
    “Now, you would be our Annie Meath, isn’t that right?” he asked Ruby.
    “And you would be our producer?”
    “Oh, that depends on so many little things.”
    I said to Godwin, “Let me ask you something...”
    “By the way, Mr. Godwin,” Ruby said, “this is my husband, Neil Hockaday.”
    “But of course, the police detective from the tabloids.” Godwin gave me a once-over that lingered more appreciatively than what I got from the blondies in the black dresses. He turned to Ruby, and said, “Call me Stuart.”
    “Listen, Stuart,” I asked, “where’s the playwright?”
    “I’m afraid that’s one of the little things. For all I know, the author could be one of us here in the room. I’m as much in the dark about him as everybody else here. Which of course can’t last forever if I’m going to involve myself as producer.”
    “No, of course not,” Ruby said.
    “All I know is that I received this wonderful script in th6 mail,” Godwin said. “And then a follow-up telephone call-asking if I’d care to host a backers’ audition.”
    “I see you’re happy to oblige,” I said.
    “And why not? I thought perhaps it might flush out our author. It’s all very deliciously mysterious, don’t you think, Detective Hockaday?”
    “Especially the part about people getting murdered.”
    “Well, I don’t know about that...” Godwin puffed furiously on his cigarette.
    “The caller, what did he sound like?”
    “Am I being interrogated, Detective?”
    “If that’s what you want to call it.”
    “Well... He was a mature man, not old but mature. Quite articulate. Elegant, I would say. I had the feeling he was speaking through some sort of material, as if he’d wrapped the telephone in wool, something like that.”
    “Did he have an accent of any sort?”
    “I don’t think so. I really don’t remember. I was just so shocked to be dealing with someone like this.”
    “So, besides asking you to assemble the deep pockets, what else did he have to say?”
    “He kept the conversation short. I don’t think he spoke for more than half a minute. Just enough time to ask me the favor, you see.”
    “I see.”
    Godwin puffed some more. He turned to Ruby. “Do you like my house?”
    “It’s very beautiful, this room.” Ruby took in the salon decor: hand-carved plaster walls painted in creamy yellow tones, black-and-white photo portraits of the New York theatrical world, ceiling rosettes and softly lighted chandeliers, Bokhara rugs, long couches covered in taupe suede, fresh flowers in tall vases everywhere, a regiment of potted palms, a mahogany bar fitted into a corner, and the meticulous garden just a few steps through the leaded-glass doors. There were folding chairs temporarily set up in the corner opposite the bar, grouped in front of stools and music stands; the stools were for the actors, each music stand held a script of Grief Street. Ruby said, “I understand the house "'as owned by the Nixons years ago.”
    ‘Yes, poor Pat and Dick were forced to buy.”
    “Forced?”
    Actually, they preferred the ease of an apartment. They made offers at a number of co-op buildings around town— Beekman Place, Sutton Place, Park Avenue, and so forth. One by one, the co-op boards rejected the Nixons as undesirable neighbors.”
    “Delicious,” Ruby said.
    “Yes. And so it’s how they came to buy this house. It sat empty for nearly a year during the renovation work the Nixons wanted. As well as the Secret Service, I suppose.” Godwin rolled his eyes. He cupped a hand to his mouth confidentially, and asked Ruby, “Would you like to know a little house secret?”
    “Sure.”
    “For the renovations in the master bedroom, Nixon’s contractor hired a Zen Buddhist bathroom