“Lotte’s brother, I know.” Sarah looked doubtful. It softened her fat face. “I just don’t understand it. I really don’t. Usually when the rumors are this strong, there’s something to them.”
“Maybe there is something to them,” Bennis suggested. “Maybe Dr. Goldman intends to ask Gregor to consult, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Maybe,” Sarah said, still looking doubtful.
“No matter what anybody intends,” Gregor told them, “I have not as of now been asked and I do not as of now know much of anything about the case. Except that Ms. Gonzalez’s wallet was stolen.”
“What?” Sarah said. “Oh. Yes. Well. Maybe. Maria was always leaving things around places, if you know what I mean.”
“No,” Bennis said.
“She was really terribly disorganized,” Sarah expanded. “I mean, it’s a really bad trait to have in a talent coordinator, but there you are. She was always leaving things around and misplacing files and forgetting to switch on her beeper. It was a constant problem for everyone.”
“I’m surprised she got the job in the first place,” Gregor said. “I’m surprised she kept it.”
“Oh, that.” Sarah waved it all away. “That was just prejudice. Lotte likes to have pretty people around her and Maria was pretty. So is Carmencita. That’s why she got promoted after Maria died.”
“Ah,” Bennis said.
“Carmencita is even worse than Maria was,” Sarah went on. “She forgot to order the local limousines. That’s why Prescott Holloway had to come down and get you this morning, and that meant Prescott wasn’t out getting Lotte, and you can imagine the headaches that caused. Maria would at least have remembered the local limousines.”
“That’s good,” Bennis said.
“This really isn’t a very good place to work if you aren’t physically perfect.” Sarah sniffed. “Look at Max. He’s supposed to do heavy lifting and cart the sets around and all that, and he can barely lift the stuff without giving himself a hernia. But he looks like someone who could have sat for Michelangelo, so there you are.”
“Mmm,” Gregor said.
“I think she’s prejudiced against Americans, too,” Sarah said. “That’s why she hires so many foreigners, right off the boat and everything. It’s very discouraging, working for Lotte. It’s enough to make me depressed.”
“Why don’t you quit?” Bennis took a long drag on her cigarette.
Sarah put the paper doily down and stood up straighter, getting ready to go. “They found Maria’s body in the storeroom at the studio in New York,” she said, “except it didn’t make any sense, because people were going in and out of that storeroom all morning. DeAnna and Carmencita and Max. It wasn’t until it was practically time to tape that anybody found a body.”
“Maybe there wasn’t a body for anybody to find,” Gregor said.
“Maybe. But it’s bothered me ever since. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“No,” Gregor said firmly.
“Listen,” Father Tibor said. “Somebody is screaming.”
“I think it’s just machinery going wrong someplace,” Bennis put in.
But Bennis was wrong. It was a high-pitched piercing wail and it went on and on forever, steadily and without a break, but Gregor had heard screams like it before.
Gregor was pretty good at following sound. He’d had to do it often enough in his life. He’d spent all those years on kidnapping detail. He could tell right away that the sound wasn’t coming from the studio.
The corridor went to the left of this door as well as straight ahead. Gregor went left and listened as he walked, making sure the sound got louder and louder, sharper and sharper. It had begun to waver, but that was to be expected. The human voice can only do so much before it begins to fail. All along the corridor, people had come out of their offices. They stood frozen in their open office doors, not knowing what to do. Gregor went past them without saying a word and came to a stop in front of a door marked “Men.”
“In here,” he told Bennis Hannaford, who had come to a stop behind him. “You stay out.”
“Like hell I will.”
“You can’t go barging into a men’s room.”
Of course, Bennis could most certainly go barging into a men’s room. She’d done it before and she would undoubtedly do it again. Gregor didn’t have the time to argue with her.
He pushed the door open and stepped into a room that seemed to be tiled on the walls, floor, and ceiling. He went around a gray metal privacy barrier and looked into the main room. The first thing he saw was a row of ornately painted urinals taking up one entire wall. The second thing he saw was the body of the boy called Max, spread out under a window at the far end, its face smashed into pulp.