Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

up. And finally, more than I had hoped for.
    “Theo Fowler, born Franklin Theodore Peach in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1952, moved to New York City in 1971 where he began his career with small dance parts in Broadway and Off Broadway productions as well as character parts on stage, screen and television.”
    I looked back at the contact sheets. The makeup was so good he could have been all of the men, the one on the corner, the one outside the run, the one who appeared to be bumming a cigarette from Ms. Peach earlier that day. Or none of them. But whatever role he needed to play, he would have played it with everything he had, including his ability to disguise himself from head to toe, everything except the tell, a dancer’s carriage, the precise way he moved and stood still as if he were posing. And those feet, as if he’d gotten so used to first position, it had become his default mode.
    Ted, of all people. He’d been Sally’s savior for a time, the person who offered her respite from her brooding husband and her demanding child. Now, it seemed, he was willing to let Sally’s kid go down for a crime he committed. The cooperative neighbor, chatting me up to see what I knew, to find out if he was in danger, not once but twice.
    I sat back and rethought the whole thing. Ms. Peach’s younger brother. Or an older brother’s son? His idea or hers?
    His. Sally had told him Celia was leaving what seemed like the perfect job. Isn’t that what Ted told me the first time we’d met? What was it Sally had said? Something about access to the doctor’s drug samples, something about never having to feel your pain.
    Where had Peach been working, I wondered, or had she been between jobs when Ted called her with his great idea, a good job for her, Oxycontin samples for him? And then what?
    Had they hatched the rest together one night over drinks, Ted complaining about the diminishing roles available to an over-fifty second-rate dancer, Peach saying, you think you’ve got problems, wait until you hear what the doctor has gotten himself into, the woman who had the job before me, pregnant with his kid and having it, too. He not only needs money, she might have told him, going on about how it was worse than that, saying the money had to be cash, go solve that one. And so they did.
    A perfect role for Ted. He could sell drugs on the set when he had a small part or a role in a commercial. He could sell in the park when he wasn’t working. And when he showed up at this drugstore or that to fill a prescription for his daughter or his sister’s kid or his niece or nephew, dressed for the part and playing the part, no problem. He might have told a story as he slid a prescription across the counter. “Poor kid, migraines,” he could have said. “I didn’t even know kids got them.” Shaking his head at the unfairness of it all. The man loved to talk. You had to give him that. And expressing sympathy so believably would make him seem more like family. Who would question him, tears in his eyes, his voice breaking?
    I could just picture the pharmacist leaning over the counter and saying, “Do you want to come back for this?” And Ted dipping his head, “No, I’ll wait. Kid needs it ASAP.” He might have worn a mustache and glasses one time, a wig with male-pattern balding the next. He might have dressed as a woman sometimes, carried a cane and limped at others. A different person each time, his singular talent.
    But then a hard question came to mind. Why kill the goose that was laying the golden egg?
    There was only one way to find out. I pulled out my cell phone. The doctor answered on the second ring.
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Rachel. Mission accomplished?”
    “Thanks to you.”
    “Now I need a favor,” I told her. “I need you to make a phone call for me.”
    I told her what I needed, then went upstairs to get ready for my own next role, grabbed Dashiell’s leash and headed out.

Chapter 34

    There was no answer when I rang the bell. Even better. I waited for someone to come out, pretending to be searching for my key and having the door held open for me, security be damned. When I was inside, I walked down the hall to the right, to Ted’s apartment, rang the bell on his door just to make sure, then proceeded to pick his lock, discovering that he was much less paranoid than most. Only one out of two had actually been locked. What arrogance. Did he think he was the only felon in town?
    When I got inside, I let Dashiell off