Fountain of Death(74)

“The Fountain of Youth Work-Out Studio,” he was saying, “is becoming a Fountain of Death for the people who work there.”

Gregor started to wince, but he felt his own arm grabbed and he was dragged, stumbling, to Tony Bandero’s side. Tony threw an arm around his shoulders—a good trick, since Gregor was half a foot taller than he was—and grinned for the cameras.

“And here’s Mr. Gregor Demarkian, our expert consultant on this case, to give you a few of the details.”

At any other time, Gregor would have bitten Tony Bandero’s hand for pulling something like that on him. Now, he almost didn’t care. For it had suddenly come to him.

He knew where he had heard that sound before. He knew what had made it. He knew who had killed Tim Bradbury and Stella Mortimer and tried to kill Traci Cardinale. He even knew why somebody thought Tim and Stella and Traci had to die.

Now all he had to do was prove it.





TWO


1


GRETA BELLAMY HAD TO wait until after ten o’clock to find Gregor Demarkian, and by then she was frantic. It didn’t help that Christie Mulligan and her two friends hadn’t shown up for class. More and more people were dropping out, disappearing, not even saying good-bye. It made Greta feel immeasurably sad. This had been, in spite of the murder, one of the best weeks she could remember in her life. Everybody here was exactly the way she had expected them to be, and it was true what they said in all those lectures about self-esteem. If you really went to work on yourself, you could change the way you looked in the mirror. Lately, Greta had been looking a lot taller, and stronger, and smarter to herself than she had before. Once or twice, she had even looked like somebody who might have a master’s degree. It was an interesting thought. It wiped whatever nostalgic feeling she had left for Chick right out of her brain. Greta didn’t think she was ever going to see the inside of a roadhouse again. What she wanted now was a full-time membership to the Fountain of Youth Work-Out Studio, so that she could come up here every other night or so on her way home from work. Chick could marry Marsha Caventello if he wanted to. Kathy could adopt Marsha as her best friend. There were at least three women in this class Greta liked better than Kathy. One of them, Dessa Carter was even trying to stay on at Fountain of Youth after the end of the week, just like Greta herself.

Greta and Dessa and a tall, pale woman named Cindi were sitting together during the break, working out the ways in which Dessa could find the money for a Fountain of Youth membership, when Greta saw Gregor Demarkian come in with a man she didn’t know.

“What you’ve got to do,” Cindi was saying, “is go to a doctor and get him to say that you have to have the membership for health reasons. It’s got to be a prescription, like medicine.”

“They’re going to take a health club membership for a medicine?” Dessa asked.

“Or a treatment, yes,” Cindi said. “For your weight. There’s not a health insurance claims adjuster alive who knows the difference between correlation and causality, they all operate on voodoo, so what you do is—”

Greta and Dessa and Cindi were sitting on the second-floor balcony overlooking the foyer. Gregor Demarkian came in with his coat already open and his face red with cold. Greta stood up and leaned over the balcony railing. She wished they would get it fixed. It was the one wrong note in the Fountain of Youth symphony. It was even worse than the murder, because it was out in front, calling attention to itself all the time. Greta took her terry cloth sweatband off her forehead and bit her lip. Maybe it was just as well that Bennis Hannaford wasn’t with Demarkian. What would a woman like Bennis Hannaford think of someone like Greta, in a leotard?

“Mr. Demarkian?” Greta called.

Dessa and Cindi were bent over together, going through the ways in which Dessa might convince her company to pay for Fountain of Youth. Greta had never before known how many different ways there were to get something like this paid for.

Gregor Demarkian stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked up. The man he was with stopped with him. Greta Bellamy blushed.

“Oh,” she said. “Mr. Demarkian. Um. Could I come down and talk to you a minute?”

“Of course.”

Greta’s blush seemed to be getting worse, if that was possible. Dessa and Cindi were looking up at her curiously. So were Gregor Demarkian and his friend. Greta rubbed her palms on the sides of her leotard and took a deep breath.

“Just a minute,” she said.

Dessa and Cindi seemed to lose interest. Greta ran down the curving balcony stair and arrived panting at the bottom, feeling foolish.

“Oh,” she said. “Excuse me. It probably isn’t even important.”