Read Online Taking the Fifth by J. A. Jance - Free Book Online

up with one of the surviving big bands. It’s taken a while, but she’s gradually making the switch to pop, singing a lot of old-time songs from the thirties, forties, and fifties, cashing in on the baby-boomer nostalgia trip.”
    “And she’s doing all right at it?”
    Osgood shrugged, a noncommittal gesture that didn’t quite measure up to his public-relations position. I rephrased the question.
    “How are ticket sales?” I asked.
    “So-so,” he replied glumly.
    “Not that great?”
    He nodded. “I told ’em they’d be better off doing one show on Friday night, but nobody ever listens to me. They insisted on two shows or nothing.” He looked at me and brightened. “I could give you a couple of comps,” he added. “Great seats. Front row center.”
    Osgood took two tickets out of his top drawer and pushed them across the desk toward me. I looked at them without picking them up.
    “This couldn’t possibly be construed as a bribe, could it, Mr. Osgood?”
    His jaw dropped. “Detective Beaumont, of course not! My job is public relations. I mean, you’re going to be there, aren’t you, talking to people?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “I just thought it would be easier if you had tickets. That way, you could come and go as you pleased.”
    “You mean without having to show my badge.”
    He shrugged. “Well, actually, that’s right. It would create less of a disturbance.”
    I couldn’t argue with his premise. Having Homicide cops wandering in and out of any event does tend to put a damper on people having fun. I picked up the tickets and shoved them into my jacket pocket.
    “All right,” I said.
    “But you’ll keep a low profile during the performance, won’t you?” Osgood insisted. “You know, we’ve got another show tomorrow night, and if there’s any trouble…”
    I put up a hand to silence him. “Trust me,” I said. “There won’t be any trouble. Now take me to see that carpenter guy—what’s his name?”
    “Dale. Alan Dale.”
    Osgood led me through a rabbit warren of stairs and hallways, getting us back to the theater without ever leaving the building or having to walk past the crabby lady in the ticket booth. We entered through a door just off stage right.
    The Fifth Avenue was originally one of those huge old movie houses that flourished in the days of studio-held theaters. Over the years it had fallen into disrepair and had been scheduled for demolition until a group of civic- and arts-minded types had gotten together under the banner of saving and refurbishing it. The interior is done in a garish Chinese style complete with huge gilt dragons, equally huge crystal chandeliers, and plush red carpets and seats. If I had gone to all that trouble to decorate in such an overblown, nostalgic style, I wouldn’t have wanted to book a show that remotely resembled a rock concert either.
    All the theater except the stage itself was shrouded in darkness. On stage, an almost transparent piece of material with a cityscape painted on it hung halfway to the floor. A man stood underneath, peering up into the cavern above and behind the heavy red curtain, shading his eyes from the bare bulb glare of overhead stage lights. At the front of the stage, several people were busy working on what seemed to be a raised platform built over the stage itself, covering the front of it with pieces of gold foil material.
    “Can you get it?” The man in the middle of the stage was speaking into the air above him to someone we couldn’t see.
    “Almost. Almost. Give me a break,” a voice answered.
    As we stepped up onto the stage, I, too, peered through the glare of lights to see where the voice was coming from. A man clung to a truss some twenty feet above us. With one hand he held himself in place while with the other he struggled with a complex rope connection of some kind.
    “That’s Ray Holman, the flyman,” Osgood explained to me, pointing to the man on the truss. All the word “flyman” did for me