The Prima - Chapter Two
Dan strolled into the White Plains Theatre the following day. He recognized the strains “Dance of the Cygnets”of Swan Lake as he opened the doors to main auditorium. He slipped in and took a seat near the back so as to not disturb the rehearsal. There was zero security to stop him or ask questions. Zilch. Nada. Not even a young, pimple-faced rent-a-cop. If the bord was so worried about security for their prima, he thought there might be at least a rent-a-cop skulking around.
Stretching out his long legs and resting his feet up on the empty seat in front of him, he watched the girls in white practice tutus whirling around, as the lone male danced with the lead. He took the time to study his new client. He knew enough about Swan Lake to realize who the main dancers were.
Built like a typical dancer, the woman was tall, with slender hips, long, thin limbs, and a small chest. Her pale hair was up in a standard dancer’s bun, with the fluffy white headpiece vibrant under the stage lights. Dan couldn’t recall all the fancy names for the moves but he occasionally enjoyed the ballet. Every now and then Honey needed an escort for some social function, and if she was without a suitor at the time, she called Dan to step in. He kept his tux clean and ready to go. Honey had insisted on buying him on the first time, and it was custom made to his lean frame. Dan enjoyed wearing it, it made him feel like James Bond.
The strains of the music faded down and the dancers slowed to their final pose.
“And down comes the curtain!” a voice called. Dan watched a short, wiry man rise up from the third row. That had to be Pierre Léontard, the director.
The prima ballerina, Dan presumed since she was in the lead role, spun on her male partner. He was tall and solid, with a relatively muscular chest and strong thighs. His dark hair made his pale face stand out at the distance and under the harsh lights.
“You clumsy oaf!” Katarina Rosalova yelled. “You almost dropped me twice!”
“You weren’t in position!” the man snapped back.
“You were too slow! I was exactly where I needed to be! You just can’t keep up!”
“Maybe you should skip a few meals so I can lift you properly!”
Katarina slapped him across the face. “I refuse to deal with this klutz of a monkey!”
“And I won’t work with this cow!” he shouted, grabbing his cheek.
Dan watched to see if the man’s fist raised in response, but it didn’t.
Katarina strode away, jumping off the stage and charging up the aisle. Dan wondered why she didn’t go backstage.
She paused when she him, and turned back to the director, waving her hand. “Frances!” she shrieked. “Frances, what is this? There’s a man here peeping on us!”
Damn, she’s shrill, Dan thought. He got to his feet.
“I’m—”
But she woman started screaming. “Oh my God, he’s going to attack me! Frances! Frances, do something!”
“No, I’m not, I’m—”
Then she flew at him, small fists starting to pummel him. “Security! Security!” she screamed.
“Stop it!” Dan finally managed to catch her wrists. He didn’t want to hurt her.
A second man, average height, with thinning, mouse brown hair and a paunchy stomach raced up the aisle. Dan noted her male lead, whom he believed to Rick Schwartz, stood on the stage, watching with a smirk.
“Christ, lady, I am your security!” Dan shouted over her, trying to keep her fists from hitting him and not hurt her at the same time.
Katarina froze. “You’re the new bodyguard?”
“Yes,” he answered, exasperated. “Please stop hitting me!”
The prima ballerina pulled away. “I didn’t realize,” she said stiffly. “Typically, my bodyguards stay close to me, and don’t skulk in the shadows like some creepy perv.”
“I was just watching. I didn’t want to interrupt,” Dan said, trying not to grind his teeth. He already knew he’d never get a ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ out of this woman.
“Then start earning your check,” she snapped, “and you can stand outside my room while I change!”
Dan raised one eyebrow.
“Katarina, we need to do a cool down,” Rick said lazily, having walked up the aisle.
“Cool yourself off,” she snarled, stomping off.
Dan turned to Frances and held out his ID. “Dan Mangan, Belden-Mangan Investigations.”
“Oh, thank God. I need to give you some information but please follow her. After the accidents, I don’t want her alone at any time.”
Dan nodded. The case was to not only to provide protection to the prima ballerina but to investigate the accidents that had been taking place around her.
“Rick will show you to her room,” Frances said, mopping his brow with a white handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. It was crumpled as he clutched it tightly. Dan noticed the man was sweating as much as his dancers. It seemed to Dan the man was the sort to constantly sweat, whether he was under duress or not.
“Me?” Rick demanded.
“Yes, now go, before something happens.”
The man rolled his eyes and walked past Dan, who followed.
“You’re going to have your hands full with that bitch,” Rick said to Dan.
“I take it you don’t get along,” Dan replied.
“I’ve been in this business longer than her and she thinks we should bow down to her,” he said to her angrily. “I don’t know why we don’t rate the Gladys Theatre but this was the best booking we got. It’s insulting but she has earned a reputation as hard to handle so the theatres are reluctant to book her!”
Dan had a feeling Katarina Rosalava wasn’t the only difficult one in the dance company.
“We’re the third largest company in the country, we deserve better!”
They stopped at a door with Katarina Rosalava on the paper nameplate. “They don’t even provide proper names on the door! Look at that! Paper!”
Dan knocked on the door. “Miss Rosalava?”
Rick snorted. “She’ll love that, being called ‘Miss’. Wait till she turns you into her errand boy.”
The door opened and Dan faced the angry ballerina. She was pretty in normal lighting, he realized. Without the harsh lights and stark stage makeup, she might be a knockout. Slightly angular features in an oval face but striking, bright blue eyes blazing. She had pulled on a long robe, Dan guessed to keep her muscles from getting too cold too fast.
“Where have you been? I could have been kidnapped because you’re too slow and lazy!”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you shouldn’t take off and expect the world to revolve around you,” he said coolly.
Rick sniggered but Dan ignored him.
“I am the prima ballerina!” she hissed.
“You’re a prima pain in the ass,” Dan snapped back, shoving the door open and barging into her room. He shut the door behind him. “You should have waited for me to sweep the room. Anyone could have been in here.”
“Proving my point that you’re too slow! I want someone else! Who else is at your agency?”
“My partner Trixie, and trust me, you don’t want her.”
“What kind of name is Trixie? It sounds like a stripper!”
Dan knew exactly how Trixie reacted to that comment. “It’s her nickname.”
“Is she better than you? Faster? More alert?”
“She’s on another case.”
“Well, you’re not going to suffice!”
“All right,” Dan shrugged. “We’re done here.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“We’re done. You’re a stuck-up little brat and I’m not getting paid enough to put up with your bullshit. See ya later, Prima Pain In The Ass.”
Dan turned to go and reached for the door handle.
“Wait!”
He smirked to himself, then turned back around and gave her a cool glance. “What?”
“Please don’t leave. I’m sorry. I’m just scared!”
Dan watched for her tell, not trusting her sudden tears. He had known too many women who could shift gears like this, turning on the waterworks when it suited them, only to bring out the claws seconds later. They were usually manipulative, petty women he wanted nothing to do with.
“Frances insisted I get personal security after a couple of minor incidents and I know the company board is worried.”
Dan knew it was the head of that board that had hired them. The man was also a friend of Matthew Wheeler.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “But you have to stop acting like a whiny brat and listen to me. Insulting me and treating me like crap won’t work and I will walk without hesitation. I’m paid to be security while I investigate, not be your verbal punching bag. Or your physical one either,” he added.
She nodded. “I…overreacted earlier. Really overreacted. I am sorry about that. Please, help find out who’s doing this to me.”
Dan nodded. “I will.”
“I need to clean up and relax a little before tonight’s show. Would you mind staying with me?”
“Not at all. But I want to sweep the room, make sure everything is safe.”
She nodded. “I’m going to take a quick shower. I have a private bathroom.”
Dan nodded, as he prowled around the room, checking for booby traps. His head came up as he realized what she said. “Katarina, wait!”
She let out a bloodcurdling scream from the other room. He bolted for it, pulling her out of the bathroom and behind her.
In the tiny shower lay a snake.
“Don’t move,” Dan ordered. “It’s a copperhead and it’s venomous.”
Katarina let out a sob behind him. “Shoot it!”
Dan backed up slowly. The snake didn’t move. He wasn’t about to open fire on it in this small space if he didn’t have to. “Do you have any kind of long pole?” he asked her.
She shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
“Give me something to throw.”
“You’re going to antagonize it?” she squeaked.
“Just a bit,” he answered. Since it hadn’t moved already, he wasn’t sure it was alive. What would a live copperhead be doing in a bathroom in the middle of winter?
When he felt something press into his hand, he looked down. It was an empty makeup case. Stepping back further, one hand on the door in case it lunged, he tossed the case at it. It hit the snake, and the snake slid back from the force, but didn’t move.
“I think it’s dead.”
“You think?” her voice was higher than normal.
“Back out of the room quickly and quietly,” he told her. She might be young with so much cortisol pumping through her from this constant, near-hysteria, She'd stroke out before she was thirty, he thought.
She did so, opening the door to find a frantic Frances, arm raised, about to pound on the door.
“There’s a snake in my shower!” she gasped.
“Get me a bag or something,” Dan called over his shoulder, taking out his phone and snapping a few pictures. “It’s dead, I’ll dispose of it.”
“Don’t you want it for evidence?” Frances demanded, mopping his face.
“For what? We’re not going to get fingerprints off it. It’s a copperhead, native to New York, though generally not in the city. Whoever did this would have used a snake pole. Even stone cold killers tend to be reluctant to handle these.”
“I can’t go on like this!” Katarina moaned.
“That’s why I’m here,” Dan said calmly, “to figure it out.”
“I can’t stay in this dressing room!”
Dan glanced at Frances. The nervous man hesitated. “I…let me see if we can switch the rooms.”
Ten minutes later, Dan checked Ric’s room and had Katarina lay down on the sofa to calm down. Standing outside the room with the door shut, he faced Frances.
“I’ve got the written report,” he said. “But it appears it wasn’t complete so I need all the details and facts, now.”
The manager mopped at his face. “It started a couple weeks ago, once we came back to the States. Minor accidents, at least, we thought they were accidents. Sticky or slippery spots on the floor where she would be during solos. Lights moving at a moment that risked Katarina falling off the stage. A loose sandbag that fell and almost hit her. Food poisoning from a sandwich that should have gone to Katarina but was eaten by someone else by mistake. But it wasn’t till one of our corps dancers was killed that we began to believe it was serious.”
“Your report didn’t mention anyone dying.”
“She just passed the other day. She lingered in a coma while I was putting together the file and sending it to you.”
“What happened to her?” That definitely hadn’t been in the details.
“Her cab was broadsided.”
“How does that tie in?” Dan asked. “Car accidents happen every day.”
“Because Katarina was supposed to be in that cab.”
Dan raised one eyebrow.
“She had hailed the cab but at the last minute, decided she didn’t like the smell so she waited for another. Krissi took it instead.”
“Still could’ve been an accident.”
“They were dressed very similarly and from a distance, could be mistaken for each other. That’s when we knew for sure all of the accidents centered around Katarina, and we decided to bring in outside help to investigate and protect her.”
Dan rubbed his jaw. “I need your complete itinerary for the last month. Make sure it includes a list off all of your hotels, cabbies, and food sources.”
Frances’ mouth dropped open. “But that will take ages!”
“Then get an assistant on it,” Dan shrugged. “I need to be able to back trace everything. Include any sort of delivery, flowers, food, dry cleaners. I need a timeline of all the incidents, and who was around at each.”
Frances whimpered.
“You need answers, and I need all of the information available to find them.”
Frances sighed.
***
Katarina poked her head out of the room an hour later to find Dan standing there, leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone.
“You’re still here.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I figured you would be off trying to track down whoever is trying to murder me!”
Dan rolled his eyes mentally. “I’m standing guard out here so no one tries to get to you. Frances is digging up some information for me.”
“Frances,” she sniffed. “That odious little man. He thinks he can control me and that nasty Pierre thinks he can direct me around that stage!”
“Isn’t that his job?” Dan asked.
“Frances is just a bean counter,” she sniffed. “And Pierre’s job is to direct the ballet, not me!”
Dan didn’t see a difference, especially since the ballet did center around her. But he wasn’t in the mood to argue with Prima PITA, as he mentally had been calling her. It was a good thing Trixie didn’t take this job. She wouldn’t have been able to put up with the ballerina as well as Dan was, and that was a pretty low bar.
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” he asked
“It’s time to go warm up for tonight’s performance,” she snarled.
“Let’s go.” He slid his phone into his pocket.
Dan followed her down the hallway to the rehearsal room. He knew the backstage area would be cramped, but here, the dancers were stretching and warming their muscles. He caught a couple of women admiring him. Too bad he didn’t have time to fool around, he thought. He hadn’t been exaggerating to Trixie that the ballerina he had dated had been limber.
Once Katarina started her warmup routine, Dan prowled the room, looking up in particular at things that might fall. Feeling Katarina was safe surrounded by her troupe, he checked out the layout of the stage. its side wings, and the entry points to the theatre, and grimaced as he realized the number of entry points that could be easily accessed by the perpetrator.
Whipping out his phone he shot off a quick text. Busy tonight?
Hot date with Ben & Jerry.
Put them back in the freezer. I need back up; too much area to cover. Wear all black, I’ll tell them to expect you.
There was no way he and Trixie could cover every entry point, but they could at least cover the two backstage. He would stick to Katarina like glue when she wasn’t onstage, and Trixie would be his sweeper.
The company was only performing three nights, tonight being the first night, before they moved onto Washington D.C. That gave them basically three nights to find whoever was causing the accidents.
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Author’s Notes
- HUGE thanks to Trish taking this on to edit!
- Word Count, 2,771
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