Festival of Deaths(47)
She made her way around a large potted plant and up to the table where Shelley was still hunched over her notes, oblivious. When Carmencita sat down, Shelley looked up and blinked.
“Oh,” she said. “There you are. I have this almost worked out, I think.”
“Good,” Carmencita said, “one less thing to worry about. I have been upstairs, pacing back and forth, worrying that I have forgotten something.”
“All you have to remember is to get Mr. Demarkian on the set on time. Do you have the permissions yet?”
“No, I don’t have the permissions. There is a great deal wrong with this plan, Shelley, if you ask me. Things that should have been worked out back in New York have not been worked out. As far as I can tell, this Mr. Demarkian isn’t even sure if he wants to go on.”
“Rebekkah said he’d go on,” Shelly pointed out. “Rebekkah is never wrong.”
“You’re probably right.” Carmencita sighed. “Still. I sometimes think I should not be doing this job. Someone with experience should be doing this job. I should be doing the job I was hired to do originally.”
Shelley cocked her head. “DeAnna was going to make a suggestion to you. Did she make it?”
“About what?”
“About making Sarah Meyer your assistant. That still wouldn’t get you back to doing the job you were hired to do, as you put it, but Sarah’s been around for quite a while. She might know things that could help you.”
“If she did, she wouldn’t tell me,” Carmencita said sourly.
“There is that.”
“When Itzaak and I talk about who might have murdered Maria Gonzalez, who might have had a motive, the only one we can come up with is Sarah Meyer. She didn’t like Maria. And she doesn’t like me.”
“She’s just jealous, that’s all.” Shelley waved this off. “I don’t know what to do about Sarah. Lotte doesn’t know what to do about her, either. How do you tell a person that she’s killing herself with her own attitude?”
“I don’t tell her anything,” Carmencita said. “She snaps at me, and I’m half out of my mind all the time now as it is. Not that I don’t appreciate the vote of confidence. Not that I don’t appreciate the promotion, either. But even so.”
“You’re doing a fine job. A better job than Maria was doing, if you want to know the truth. At least you don’t turn off your beeper every time you have a date.”
“Mmm,” Carmencita said.
“What’s that mmm supposed to mean?”
Carmencita shrugged. “Maria always said she didn’t turn off her beeper. Not on purpose, at any rate. I don’t think she was trying to put herself out of reach. I think she was just bad with machines.”
“Maybe. And, of course, that last night—” Shelley shuddered. “That last night. Do you think Gregor Demarkian will agree to put on his suit of armor and ride to the rescue?”
“I don’t see how he could,” Carmencita said reasonably. “Maria was murdered there, and we’re here.”
“I know. But anything would be better than that police detective. Or whatever he is. That awful man.”
Carmencita agreed that he was an awful man. “He bothers Itzaak all the time, and it’s just not right. Itzaak has his head full of images of the old Soviet union and the secret police. He can’t handle it.”
“I don’t think our friend Chickie likes Jews.”
“Whatever it is he doesn’t like, he ought to keep a better lid on it. It’s bad enough having the police around every minute of the day, and Maria dead.”
“And the one time something happens that we need the police for, they’re not there.” Shelley laughed. “Poor Max and his wallet.”
Carmencita dismissed Max and his wallet. She dismissed Itzaak, too, in her mind, because if she started thinking about Itzaak she would never get anything done. She was feeling very guilty about Itzaak right now. He had asked her to have dinner with him on the bus, and he had been very insistent. She had already agreed to have dinner with Shelley, and it was a dinner to work, so she said no, but she wished she hadn’t had to. When Itzaak got that insistent, he always had something to tell her that he considered important.
She had brought her briefcase down with her from her room. It was not a very good briefcase. She had picked it up cheap in a pawn shop on the edge of Harlem, but it had been cheap even when new. She got out the file she’d labeled “Demarkian—Details.” Before she’d taken over Maria’s job, she’d had no idea how many particulars there were to gather on every invited guest. What Lotte didn’t need, Shelley did, and what Shelley didn’t need, Itzaak did. Carmencita kept expecting to see someone rush into her office, waving papers in the air and declaring an emergency, demanding to have the guest’s blood type the day before yesterday. It would have made as much sense as some of the things people did ask for.