The 125th Street theater that had a white-only admissions policy when it opened as a burlesque house in 1914 was renamed the Apollo twenty years later. A great showplace for black entertainers, it had headlined Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight. The two houses could not have looked more dissimilar.

"And this apartment?"

"A few years after the theater opened, Belasco built this ten-room duplex on top for himself to live in. That dome?" Mona said, pointing above us to the rich tones of the stained glass. "It's by Tiffany. That chair in Joe's office? It's a pew from the church where Shakespeare worshiped in Stratford. Belasco was over the top. He collected all this, but it was mostly broken up after he died. A lot of the antique furniture was bought by Sardi's, to make a private dining room."

"Berk bought it back?" Mike asked.

"First Uncle Joe bought the theater itself from the Shubert Organization. You don't even want to know what he paid them for it. Then he hunted down all the trophies-the artwork, the furniture, the library."

"But why this theater? There's bigger ones in town. Aren't they more profitable?"

"Joe fancied himself a great showman, just like Belasco. And a ladies' man, too," Mona said, looking at me, maybe for the first time. "The baby pink spotlight? Belasco invented it. Made all his girls look good onstage. The first dimmers on a theatrical stage? Again, David's idea to flatter the babes. Meanwhile, he paraded around town in a bishop's robe and white collar. That's all he ever wore."

"Because he was religious?"

Mona dismissed me with a sneer. "Please. His father was Jewish and his mother was a Gypsy from Spain. You can't see Joe's inspiration? Here's Belasco-a guy who came from nothing, yet he was the man who discovered Mary Pickford, Jeanne Eagels and Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Katharine Cornell. He starred Humphrey Bog-art in a Broadway play in 1929. You wanted to know how I came in without using the front elevator that brought you upstairs?"

"Yeah."

"Belasco had that small lift installed after he moved in. While the performances were going on in the theater, he'd send for his favorite showgirl of the moment-sneak her up by this private elevator-so he could ply her with oysters and champagne in his bedroom and make love to her during the evening. Uncle Joe? Loved that contraption. He's been doing the same thing right up until he croaked, only he was too damn cheap to pay to oil the cables. Everybody backstage knew exactly when he was getting serviced. The code on the keypad never changed. Hit J-O-E and you wind up right in Joe Berk's bed. Impresario and lecher. Lovely legacy for the family, don't you think, Mr. Chapman?"

Mona Berk continued to descend the staircase. "Why don't you throw on some lights?"

"If I knew where they were," Mike answered, following her down the steps, "I'd be happy to."

"That makes two of us," she said, turning to face Mike and putting her hands on her hips. "Now you can probably think like Joe Berk. It's kind of a guy thing. Some sort of gadget, some flashy device that would do the trick more dramatically than an ordinary switch."

"When was the last time you were here?" Mike asked, sensing that Mona's visit was as exploratory as our own.

"It's been years. Since my father died, more than five years ago," she said, pushing aside the folders on the desktop that we had been looking through. "Ah, the Empress Josephine."

She held up a small statuette of Napoleon's consort that was in a cradle next to the telephone. "I'm betting it's her breasts, detective, what do you think?"

Mona Berk pressed on Josephine's chest and the lights went on in wall sconces all around the room. She swiveled the nipples and they dimmed. "At least Uncle Joe was consistent. He never let propriety stand in the way of a quick feel."

"If you're so close to your relatives, why haven't you been here in that long?"

"Close to my cousin, Mr. Chapman. As you can cell from my profound lack of sympathy for the dearly departed, I' didn't have a lot to do with my uncle."

"The business Joe Berk ran, isn't it a family enterprise?" I asked.

"I'm sorry. Did you say your name was Alice?"

"Alexandra Cooper. Alex."

Mona Berk was saving all her charm for Mike. A few months ago it would have worked well for her, but now he wasn't in the mood to respond.

"Family? Don't make me laugh. We're not exactly cut out of the pages of a Louisa May Alcott story," she said, parking herself in her uncle's desk chair. "But that's probably more than you need to know. You want to leave one of your cards for me, Mike? I'll call you if there's any way you can be helpful. Maybe some security for the funeral. That's going to be a mob scene."

"I don't do funerals, Ms. Berk. I'm a homicide cop."

He had Mona's attention now. "Homicide? Briggs told me this was an accident. You said you were here for a routine notification. What are you?"

"The investigation your uncle was helping us with is actually a murder case. Maybe you heard about it on the news today."

"I don't listen to the news. It's too depressing. Who died?"

I looked at Mona Berk, slumped back in the oversize chair, a ribbed turtleneck clinging to the outline of her well-toned body. The bottom of the sweater didn't meet the top of her jeans, and she rubbed the exposed crescent of her flat abdomen with her left hand. The only thing that distracted me from the petulant expression on her face was the large sapphire she sported on her ring finger.

"A dancer. Galinova. She was killed at the Metropolitan Opera House."

"And what does that have to do with Uncle Joe?"

Mike sat on the edge of the desk. "First of all, Ms. Berk, have you ever heard of Galinova?"

"You don't need to be all 'Ms. Berk.' I'm Mona, you're Mike, she's Alice."

"Okay, Mona. Did you ever-"

"Talya? Is that the one they call Talya?"

"Have you ever met her?"

"Nope." Berk was pulling open desk drawers and flipping through piles of paper, fidgeting mostly, rather than examining them like Mike and I wanted to do.

"Did you know anything about her relationship with your uncle?"

"Professional? I didn't think he was into dance."

"How about personal?"

She grimaced. "Spare me the details. A classical ballerina falling for his shtick? So how did she die?"

"She was accosted by someone backstage who got her to a remote hallway upstairs. Tied her hands behind her back and threw her headfirst down an air shaft."

"Awful," she said, covering her mouth with her hand. "That's really awful. Joe had something to do with her?"

"I think she wanted to be in one of his shows," Mike said.

"Which one?"

"See, Mona? We ask you a few simple questions about the family business and you're ready to show me to the door, but now you want answers from us." Mike stood up and motioned me toward the elevator door.

"Okay. The Berk Organization. The most dysfunctional family to hit the boards since the Sopranos. What interests you about us?"

"I'm looking for links between your uncle and Galinova. He was with her at the Met just a short time before she died, and witnesses tell us they were arguing. It might have had something to do with a plan she had to work with Joe," Mike said. "Maybe it's my own ignorance about the theater. I always thought that producers were responsible for the creative oversight of a show, and that the rich backers were like silent partners. They didn't really have any influence on the creative side."

"Angels, Mike. You're thinking about angels."

"Well, what was your uncle's role?"

Mona played with the dimmers on Josephine's chest and laughed. "The last thing I'd call Joe is an angel. Not even a dead angel. Anyway, Broadway has changed a lot. The angels are the producers. It's all economics, Mike. It's become so prohibitively expensive to stage a show-millions of dollars in most cases-that raising the money has become a huge burden."