"Funny, I didn't notice your name on the door," Mike said.

"I'm shy," Kehoe said, the smile disappearing as quickly as it had been flashed.

"How long have you two been partners?"

"Almost a year," Mona said.

"What's your role in the business?"

"Same as mine, detective. We're into production. Legitimate theater. Now what is it that we didn't finish discussing the other night?"

"It seems like after Ms. Cooper and I left the Belasco, you went back upstairs and helped yourself to some of Uncle Joe's property. I got blamed for the snatch and I'm hoping to make good on those monitors."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. What monitors?"

Ross Kehoe folded his arms and waited for Mike to explain.

"So it's going to be like that? You know damn well there were four screens in the bedroom when you stepped off that elevator. Uncle Joe says he's short three."

"Briggs called me on my cell about ten minutes after you left. He told me that by the time he got to the hospital, he found out that his father had been resuscitated and was going to pull through, so he didn't need my help after all. Ross was back at our apartment, so I went right home."

"Which is where?" Mike said.

"SoHo. We have a loft."

"Damn. SoHo, of course. They better send me back to the academy. Can't believe I asked a stupid question like that when you've got 'trendy' written in block letters all across your forehead."

"And what the hell do you think I'd be doing with television monitors?"

"Cleaning up Uncle Joe's clubhouse 'cause your cousin asked you to. Looking around the apartment for things you weren't entitled to see. If it's got something to do with the lawsuit against your uncle, then maybe his attorneys would be interested in knowing about your midnight house call."

Mona Berk glared at Mike. "That lawsuit is nobody else's business but ours. We're a very private family and we intend to stay that way. Stick to dead bodies, Mr. Chapman. Maybe you know something about them that'll keep you occupied in your spare time and out of my hair."

The intercom buzzed and Mona Berk stabbed the button with her forefinger. "Yeah?"

"Your nine thirty's here, Mona."

"You want more of my time, detective, make an appointment."

She walked around the desk to usher us out. She picked up a bound manuscript from the table next to the door. It was entitled Platinum, and beneath that had the words "The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing."

The first person I saw in the reception area was a six-foot-tall blonde, half the age of Natalya Galinova with twice her measurements in all the significant places. Behind the young woman, seated in a chair and flipping through what appeared to be a copy of the same manuscript that Berk had picked up, was Rinaldo Vicci, the agent Talya had fired just before her tragic death.

"Maybe we just ought to go downstairs to the Booth Theater and convene a grand jury, Coop? All the world's a stage and we've got most of the players right here. Mr. Vicci, who's the talent?"

Vicci got to his feet and stammered an answer. "Lucy, meet Detective Chapman. This is Lucy DeVore. Ms. Cooper. That's Ms. Berk, in the doorway, Mr. Kehoe behind her. Your meeting's with them."

"All of them?" The showgirl seemed surprised. "I thought you said-"

"No, no, only Berk and Kehoe. You go on in the office with them and-"

"This could be kind of interesting for me," Mike said. "Just a minute, Ms. DeVore. How long have you been working with Mr. Vicci?"

She looked at Vicci and shook her head. "Maybe a-"

"I don't represent the young lady, detective, if that's what you're thinking. I'm doing a favor for a friend. Lucy, bella-go on inside with Ms. Berk."

Lucy DeVore walked with the grace and attitude of a runway model. Ross Kehoe closed the door behind her so that she and Mona Berk were alone in the office, and he took hold of Vicci's elbow to steer him in the same direction.

"From what I hear, you no longer represented Ms. Galinova either," Mike said. "So it's a bit odd that you were at the Met the night she died."

"You don't know many prima donnas, then, do you?" Vicci said, wiping the sweat off his nose with a monogrammed handkerchief.

"Only one. I take her with me everywhere I go. Keeps me humble."

"Hire, fire-fire, hire-threaten to fire, rehire-rehire, prepare to be fired," the chubby Italian trilled, as if it were a diction lesson. "Talya was famous for it, detective. Of course she wanted me with her that night. She had nobody else to represent her interests."

"How about her patron? How come nobody told us about Hubert Alden?"

"Alden? That whole thing is just a gimmick. The company uses it to raise money."

"How much did Alden contribute to be Talya's patron?" I asked.

"You want to sponsor one of the children in the second row who spends half her life in-how you call it?-a mazurka costume, it's cheap. Primas go for the big bucks," Vicci said. "Five hundred thousand."

"What the hell kind of privileges did that buy him?" Mike asked.

"Prestige-in the dance world, anyway."

"I mean with Galinova. How far did that get him?"

"You're asking me if it was a romance?"

"The hell with romance. For half a million, it must have gotten him under the tutu, no?"

Vicci blotted his forehead and shook loose of Ross Kehoe's grip. "Look, I managed her business, not her social life."

"So if you were doing such a bang-up job as her agent, how come you weren't backing her for the Evelyn Nesbit role in Platinum?"

Vicci looked at Kehoe for help, but there was no response.

"Mr. Kehoe, how well did you know Ms. Galinova? Why does Mr. Vicci think you've got the answer?" Mike asked.

"I never met the lady." Kehoe threw up his hands in the air. His voice was raspy, as though if he were able to clear his throat the harsh edge might disappear.

"Ball's back in your court, Mr. Vicci."

"Look, detective. This wasn't any part for Talya. Maybe Mary Martin could play Peter Pan till she was a hundred and fifty years old, but this is a blockbuster part for new talent. It could put a kid like Lucy into the stratosphere."

"Help me, Coop," Mike said. "Isn't this what they call a conflict of interest?"

Vicci's eyes moved back and forth between us like he was watching a tennis match.

"Could be exactly that. Depends on how Mr. Vicci was dealing with his two clients."

"I told you, Lucy isn't my-"

"Who's got the rights to the show? That's what I want to know," I asked. "If Mona and her uncle have two separate development companies, which one has the property?"

Vicci started to answer but Ross Kehoe cut him off. "That's still being negotiated, Ms. Cooper. Nobody has therights yet. Have you met Mona's cousin?"

"Briggs? No, we haven't."

"They'd like to join forces with each other on this project. Maybe repair some family rifts. Now if you'll let us get on with our meeting," Kehoe said, nudging Rinaldo Vicci, "maybe we'll all have the answers you want."

We made our way back downstairs and around the corner to the car. The sidewalks were as crowded with pedestrians-working, walking, or gawking-as the roadways were with cars, trucks, and buses.

I called Laura while Mike took Broadway north to Lincoln Center. "What's it like down there. Anybody looking for me?"

"Relatively quiet day so far."

"Mike and I are headed for the Met to check on how the interviews are going. Beep if you need me."

The NYPD had taken over the elegant boardrooms above the atrium in the main lobby of the opera house. Normally curtained off from the grand staircase, it was an odd sight to see through the glass walls to the staging area now occupied by the task force, shoulder holsters and cardboard coffee cups replacing evening bags and champagne glasses. Long conference tables had been put together end by end and were loaded with packing boxes that held everything from lists of employees to the growing files of completed interviews. Against the tables leaned blown-up floor plans of the immense complex.