That night, after a celebratory dinner with friends in the Kirkland Hotel's dining room, Ann and Dennis made love for the first time in many days, and lay afterward in each other's arms.
"You know you can do it now, don't you?" Ann said.
"Yes. It took a long time to get there, but I know I can now." He thought for a moment. "I think I can. Of course I don't know what might happen. I don't know how I'll feel when… if I have to face him."
"Maybe you already have. Maybe today was enough."
"Maybe." He kissed her cheek, and said, after a while, "They planned it, didn't they?"
"Who? Planned what?"
"Quentin and John. I suspect Dex was in on it too."
"Dennis…”
"Why else would John have been there right at the time of Quentin's blowup? And why did he drag you along?"
"He just said he wanted to go down and watch some of the rehearsal, and asked if I wanted to go along."
"Asked?"
"Well, he was pretty insistent."
Dennis chuckled. "It worked. It was shock treatment, all right, damned humiliating, but it did work. I was good, wasn't I?"
"You were wonderful. It was even better than in the film. There was a maturity about it, something born of experience."
"It felt good. I'd forgotten how good it could feel when everything was right, when I was really on. It is like I become the character. Only this time I poured my own emotions into it. It was different." He settled his head down further onto the pillow. "Maybe Sybil Creed's been right all along. Maybe you do have to pull things up from your gut… from your soul."
"Evan was proud of you," Ann said.
"I wish he could've seen it."
"Terri told him all about it." She nestled closer against him. "They've become quite the couple, haven't they?"
"Are they sleeping together?"
He felt her nod. "I'm sure."
"Like father like son."
"Like mother like daughter. We must find you Hamiltons irresistible." She sighed. "I just hope they don't hurt each other. There's so much more to love than just sex." Dennis was silent. "Isn't there?" Still silent. "Dennis?"
He turned in the bed, cupped her breast, and spoke in a comic French dialect. "Actually, madame, not at ze moment."
They laughed together, then kissed, Ann forgetting her daughter, Dennis forgetting his son, forgetting also his true and only son, forgetting the Emperor.
From that day until the day of performance, no one had time to be afraid or be concerned over anything but the show. They rehearsed as long and hard as Actors' Equity would allow. The set began to go up on Wednesday, and all the pieces were in place by Friday, when Evan Hamilton finally decided to return to the theatre.
If, he reasoned, his father could overcome the phobia that had been haunting him, then perhaps he could as well. He would, after all, not be alone. Terri, who had been instrumental in bringing him back to the building, told him that she would not leave his side, nor did she want him to leave hers. Though she had not told him specifically what Dennis's double had done to her, he knew that it was because of their previous confrontation that she too disliked being in less than a crowd in the building.
When he entered the theatre with Terri, they did so from the stage door that opened onto a short stairway. Down the stairs was a small green room. Several doors led to dressing rooms, and a corridor led backstage.
"Are you okay?" Terri asked him, touching his cheek.
"Yeah." He nodded. "I feel fine." He took her hand and led her down the corridor to the stage. The set was erected, hiding the auditorium from view. The crew was practicing scene changes, some on the pin rail, others hauling wagons and turntables. In an effort to keep the budget within limits and also save time, Mack Redcay had made the set pieces work manually.
"Do you want to go out front?" Terri asked.
"Sure."
They made their way through the stage right wings, moving around wagons, over furniture, until they reached the proscenium. From the glow that lit the apron of the stage, Evan knew that the house lights were on, and was glad. He didn't know if he could have walked out there in the darkness.
The auditorium was not as he had last seen it. The only people in the audience were the performers, their legs thrown over seat backs and arms, chatting, studying music or lines. Several of them waved to Terri when they saw her, and she introduced Evan to those with whom she had become friends.
Yet all the time he listened to other people speak, or spoke himself, he was wary. He watched for glimpses of movement in the back, and high up in the darker rows of seats. He scanned the faces of the cast, afraid that they would change, grow eyes the size of cups that would displace their other features, eyes that would stare at him, place the fear in him, cut off his breath for good.
Just the thought of it made his breathing more difficult, and he clutched Terri's hand. She looked at him, knew, said goodbye to her friends, then took him back onto the stage, through the wings, and to the stairway that led to the fourth floor costume shop. It was not until they were there that his grip on her hand weakened.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't help but remember." He shook his head. "I want to see the show. I want to be there when he… when he does the show."
"You will be," she said, speaking softly so the other costumers could not hear. "We'll all be there."
"We'd like to have you there, frankly," John Steinberg told Chief Dan Munro, sitting across from him in his office in the Venetian Theatre. "We're technically sold out, but we always keep a dozen or so house seats. I'll have security people there, but they'll be standing, sitting in the lobby, backstage. I hope you'll be able to bring your wife."
Munro nodded. "I'm sure she'd like to see it, but hey, those tickets…" Steinberg waved his hand. "The least we can do. And, as I say, house seats." Munro felt uncomfortably like a charity case. A pair of these tickets equaled a third of his annual salary. "No, listen, I just volunteered to be there, I don't really need seats. I can stand in the back."
"Please, Chief, not another word. And please bring your wife."
Munro nodded wearily. "All right. All right, thanks. So. How've things been going now you're back?"
"Swimmingly. Dennis is in good spirits, the production is coming together very smoothly, and we've had no… mysterious occurrences."
"Thank God for that."
"Have you gotten anywhere with your investigations? Found out who our stalker is?"
Munro wondered if Steinberg had intended that to sound as sarcastic as it did. "No. The FBI's checked their files for any offenders who might have some connection to this theatre or to Mr. Hamilton, but they came up empty. We even checked on Werton's father, with the idea the first one might have been an accident, and then after he got mad at Hamilton he might have caused the others, but he's got solid alibis. So the only real suspect we've got is still Sidney Harper, but since he was in prison there's no way he could have been responsible for the little girl's murder." Munro rested his arms on the chair and rubbed his fingertips together. "So how about you? Any of your people have any brainstorms while you were away? Remember someone you may have fired, somebody who went away mad?"
"No," Steinberg said. "No one like that. We're very nice. We don't send people away mad."
By the end of the day Friday, Dennis Hamilton was exhausted but happy. His talent had returned to him, he was with the woman he loved, his son was nearby, and the Venetian Theatre seemed beautiful and safe and full of promise for the first time in months.
He and Ann dined together in the Kirkland Inn. A few members of the Private Empire company were at other tables, but Ann and Dennis were isolated enough so that they could talk without being overheard. When the dessert dishes were removed and sherry was served, he took Ann's hand and looked into her eyes in the candlelight. "Do you know how much I love you?" he said.
"I think so."
"You know, a few weeks ago, in New York, I actually thought of.. . of ending it. Of doing away with myself."
"Dennis -"
"And I think I would've. Everything seemed so futile. I couldn't think, couldn't feel, you know I couldn't act… but still, there was you. And I couldn't bring myself to leave you. It was as though. .. as long as you were still there, there was still hope, still something to live for."
"Even if I hadn't been there, Dennis, even if you'd been all alone, you wouldn't have done it. I know you well enough to know that. You're too strong."
"I'm not so sure of that. But you were there. You saved me, Ann, whether you believe me or not. You did save me."
They disengaged their hands and sipped some sherry. "Do you think it's gone? The Emperor?"
Dennis stared into his glass for a long time before he answered. "No. I don't feel him, but I think he's still there. Waiting."
"For what?"
He looked up at her. "For me. For the performance. And it makes me nervous as hell."
"But you're so much better now, your acting's wonderful."
"I can't help but feel that I'm being set up for a fall. I'm still enough of a pessimist to believe that."
"Just do your best. Use what you have. It'll be enough."
He nodded. "I've never been religious, but I've been praying lately. Isn't that funny?"
"No. It's not funny. I think it's fine."
"Well, I figure it can't hurt. I've been praying for their souls too – Robin, Donna, Whitney, all of them – that they'll be at peace." He smiled self-consciously. "There are no atheists in foxholes, huh?"
She smiled too, and repeated his words. "It can't hurt. And it might help. I've always believed it would. Whether you're praying to God or to something inside yourself. Just as long as it's for the good."
"Oh, I'm praying for the good, Ann. If the good is the destruction of the bad, that's what I'm praying for." Then he added softly, "And working for."
Sunday was the final day off before the performance. The weather was glorious, and most of the company drove cars, rented or owned, south to Philadelphia to visit the zoo or watch the Phillies lose again to the Mets, or north to tour the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside of Lancaster County. Terri and Evan went to the baseball game, and invited Ann and Dennis to come along, but Dennis declined. The final four days before the performance would be technical run-throughs and full dress rehearsals with sound, lights, and orchestra, making Sunday the last day he could concentrate purely on his role without technical distractions, the last day he could really work on his character, make sure that everything was just as he wanted it, give it that final polish. Quentin and Dex had agreed to work with him, and the three of them and Ann drove to the theatre after a leisurely brunch at the hotel.
They were the only people in the building. Even Abe Kipp would not stay there alone any more. Still, they were in good spirits and unafraid. They began with Dennis's song in Act I, Scene 3, "Do I Do What's Right?" Halfway through the song he stopped and questioned the motivation for several of the moves.
"This gesture on the line, 'Without a threat of regret I can close my eyes,' Dennis said, throwing his right arm in the air. "It goes with the music, but it doesn't feel right."
"Dennis, you've done that move for years in this song," Quentin said. "It's always worked. It looks fabulous."
"Well, maybe it looks fabulous, but it doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel like something I'd do."
Quentin eyed him curiously. " You'd do? Or the Emperor would do?"
Dennis smiled at him. " I'd do," he said.
"Good Christ, I should've seen this coming," said Quentin, pushing his glasses down onto his nose, glaring over the top of them at Dennis, and shaking his head in mock rue. "Our boy's gone method at last. Call back the cast. Let's reblock the whole damned show…"
They laughed, Dennis hardest of all. "I know," he said, "this is a terrible thing to put you through, Quentin. I know you believe what's set is set. But I'd just like to do… something different, something more real. I'd like to make it fresh."
"Fresh – what are we doing, a show or a salad?" He chuckled. "All right, what would you like to do that feels fresh? Besides accosting Ann, that is?"
They worked on nearly all of Dennis's scenes, Quentin jotting down the changes in the prompt book. There would be time in the next four days to acquaint the other principals with the subtle variations Dennis had made. They all knew there would be more than enough time, while waiting for scene changes, or while lighting cues were being set, or difficulties in quick costume changes were being dealt with. The rehearsals leading up to dress rehearsal were filled with such empty moments, performers waiting impatiently while unseen technicians labored to bring the show's various and unruly parts not only under control, but to the perfect precision of a clockwork.
There was time. There were hours worth of time, in which all the actors who had scenes with Dennis were apprised of his changes, and worked out business of their own to respond in kind. The technical rehearsal days plodded, enlivened only by the presence of the orchestra for several hours of musical rehearsals when the technical work was done for the day.
Although the company did little but stand around from Monday through Wednesday, they went to bed early, exhausted by the frustration of being unable to move, to dance, to act for more than a few minutes at a time before Curt's voice would come over the speaker: "Hold it, please. Have to work out this cue." And five, ten, fifteen minutes would pass before he would say, "Okay, top of the scene, please," and they would start again, ever alert for the next interruption. It was, the actors complained, more like making a movie than a show. There was not an actor alive, it was often claimed, who liked technical rehearsals.
So, on Thursday at eight o'clock, when the overture played and the curtain rose, revealing the kitchen of the castle of the Emperor of Waldmont, everyone was bursting with unreleased energies. John Steinberg, Ann Deems, and Evan Hamilton sat together half way back in the auditorium, Ann's hand nervously clutching Steinberg's arm. She was tired, happy, and excited. Twelve hours of work a day for the last week had barely been sufficient to make all the preparations needed, even after hiring three temps. They booked hotels in Philadelphia for the guests, rented a fleet of limousines to transport the rich, famous, and infamous to the theatre, hired ushers, ticket takers, and parking lot attendants, and, most time-consuming of all, handled the financial paperwork for a cast of fifty, a crew of fifteen, costumers, designers, and a sixteen-piece orchestra.
Still, the possibility that Ann Deems would drift off to sleep during the rehearsal was unimaginable. It seemed to her that she was to watch her future unfolding tonight on that stage in the form of Dennis's performance. If he was good, if he fulfilled the promise of the past few days, that future could be filled with wonder. But if not …
The curtain went up, and the time for worrying was past.
The cast seemed electric, the music crisp, the dialogue as involving and witty as it had ever been, and when, in Scene 2, the set revolved, revealing Dennis as the Emperor Frederick, she knew that everything would be all right. He was strong, thoroughly in command of his lines, his movement, his voice, and before long she was not aware that she was watching a show that starred her lover. Instead she was caught up in a musical romance of royal intrigue, love, and honor, caught in the web of words and music, lost in the reality of the performances and the emotions that poured in waves over the stage, into her empathetic soul.
Her responses were so intense that she was almost relieved when the curtain fell on the first act. She relaxed in her seat, and turned to John. "That was… wonderful," she said.
He nodded. "It was indeed. I've never seen Dennis better. Or a better production, for that matter. Extraordinary what can be done in a limited amount of time on an unlimited budget."
"You know what they say," Evan said, "about a good dress rehearsal."
Ann looked at him and thought the boy's face looked just like Dennis's when he was teasing. "That it means a bad opening? And vice versa?"
"That's one of the most absurd theatrical superstitions of all," said Steinberg. "In all my years in the theatre, the only thing that I've seen a bad dress rehearsal mean was an even worse performance and an extremely short run. I don't know where that one ever came from. It's completely illogical."
"Probably from the same people," said Ann, "who believe it's bad luck to say 'good luck' to an actor before a performance instead of 'break a leg.' I did that one time to a cast in my little theatre, and you'd have thought I cursed them all."
"Actors are not cattle, as Hitchcock once said, but children, and it's not only their egos that make them that way. They're even more superstitious than baseball players. Things they have to carry on stage with them, the way they leave their dressing rooms. To say nothing of the ghosts and creepy crawlies that have supposedly haunted every damned theatre I've ever been in."
"You don't believe any of it, John?" Ann asked.
"My dear," and he gave one of his rare smiles, "I've been involved in theatre since you were a toddler, and I have never seen a thing that could not be explained by perfectly natural means."
"Which helps to explain why you were so scornful of our psychic."
"Yes. That and the fact that it surprised me that Dennis would engage someone like that. It's a coastal snobbery of mine."
"Coastal?"
"I've always been an east coast person. Rational and clear headed. I feel the west coast entertainment establishment, with few exceptions, is made up of bubbleheads who live to channel, cross their legs in uncomfortable but trendy positions, and watch Shirley MacLaine pretend to be something other than a very limited actress. Then, bolstered by their newly found spiritual inner strengths, they feed the American public with television and films that everyone has seen before and which they feel quite comfortable in producing again. They're a bunch of clucks whose souls come out of weekend psychic seminars, and I hate to see Dennis fall victim to them."
"Why, John," Ann said, "I've never seen you this worked up."
"I always get this way when I see something… as damned wonderful as what's happening on this stage tonight. It's live theatre, it happens new every night, it's real, it's felt, it makes me feel, and it's more spiritual than all the third-rate drivel coming out of cameras." He shook his head. "I'm proud of him, Ann. He looks good up there. And he's going to be even better tomorrow." He stood up. "And if that damned psychic helped, all right then, put the bitch on the payroll."
He gave a final humph, and walked up the aisle.
Ann turned to Evan, who was laughing beside her. "He's amazing, isn't he?" Evan said. "Everybody should have a John Steinberg to run their lives." His laughter subsided, and he looked up at the stage, the heads of the orchestra members visible in the pit as they stood and stretched after their long incarceration, then disappeared through the tunnel to backstage. "He was good, wasn't he… is good, I mean."
"He's wonderful."
Evan nodded. "Seeing what he does… it makes me feel better. About being here. Like I'm not scared."
"What about tomorrow? When the place is filled."
"I'll be one of the audience, that's all. I won't be up there. It'll be all right." All around them came sounds that would be unheard the following night with the audience in attendance – people talking, laughing backstage, Linda Oliver, the sound designer, calling from the rear of the theatre to her onstage technicians, Curt Wynn shouting down to Dex from the booth.
"You know I love him, Ann," Evan said, not looking at her.
"I know you do. And he loves you too."
"I was angry at him for so long. Half my life. But I think things are going to be better now."
"Good," she said. "That's good."
The intermission was twenty minutes long, and they sat together, not talking, not saying what they both were wondering, not until the orchestra reassembled, the heads and the tips of instruments bobbed up over the brass rail holding the red velvet curtains that hid the pit. Evan was the one to voice it.
"I wonder where he is."
Ann wondered too, but to say so, to reveal to Evan that she knew who he was talking about, would have been too much of an invitation, as though thought alone could produce him. And Ann knew that that was precisely what could happen and what had, that Dennis Hamilton's creative thought had brought him, or it, into being. "Who?" she asked. "Where who is?"
The smile he gave her was thin and hard, and told her he knew the question was unnecessary. "The Emperor," he said. "The one who calls himself the Emperor."
"I don't know," she said, and the music started, and John Steinberg returned, and she turned her attention to the stage and tried to lose herself again in the marvelous story that continued before her.
But she could not. As she watched Dennis sing and act and take on the character of the Emperor, she wondered who was on that stage, if what had been the Emperor had gone back inside of Dennis. And if so, had it gone involuntarily, weakened by Dennis's power, to stay forever? Or had it gone of its free will, because it would be safe there until…
Until the performance.
The thought gave her such a fit of trembling that both John and Evan turned to look at her. She made herself calm, gave them both smiles, and concentrated on the story unfolding so perfectly in front of her, finally drawing to a close with Frederick's discovery of Kronstein's imposture (it was remarkable, she thought, how closely Wallace Drummond resembled Dennis), the final duel in which Frederick runs Kronstein through, and Frederick's final speech to the people, telling them that if he is killed leading his army against Wohlstein, the people will be his heirs, and democracy reign.
Then came the reprise of the song, "A Private Empire." Dennis's voice, expression, movements all blended together to break Ann's heart as he sang of his lost love, and how he would soon be with her again, and the two of them would dwell forever in an empire of their own making, a realm of transcendent love. As the strings faded away on the last line, the trumpets entered, blaring martially, and Dennis straightened, blinked away tears, and marched upstage, his back to the audience, to lead his army into glory and to meet his own dearly sought for death.
The curtain fell, the music ended, and Ann thought she had never before heard such an absolute silence in an occupied theatre. Then the applause began, from the dozens of technicians and costume people who, no longer needed at the show's end, had come into the auditorium to watch the final scene. The curtain opened, the orchestra played the bows music, and the curtain call began, the chorus and dancers entering first, the secondary principals coming out in pairs or alone, and finally Dennis, striding through the great door center stage, sweeping imperially downstage, the company bursting into a tremendous ovation at the miracle they had seen occur over the last week, Dennis bowing low, accepting the applause as his due, but finding Ann's eye and smiling at her, letting her know that the imperiousness was an act, but that he could and was by God acting it.
Then he dropped the character of the Emperor like an old cloak, and beamed at the company, embracing them in turn, causing Steinberg to mutter, "I hope he remembers that the performance is tomorrow night …”
"It was hard just getting here, John," Ann said. "Let him enjoy it, can't you?"
Steinberg nodded grudgingly. "All right. But I'd rather he waited until tomorrow to congratulate himself."
Everyone got out of their costumes, then came down into the auditorium for the notes that followed every run-through. Quentin pointed out a few dance errors, and Dex cautioned the chorus about a certain vocal entrance that was less than sharp. Finally Quentin nodded and smiled. "I think we've got a very nice show here, ladies and gentlemen. But the proof of that will be tomorrow night. We'll have a full house, all paying a pretty penny. And there will be dozens of press people here as well. As we've discussed before, feel free to talk to them, but have no comment about any of the… tragedies that occurred here, or any disquieting feelings you might have about working here. I think your performances tonight proved that there's certainly no curse on this place.
"But don't relax. Stay sharp. I liked what I saw tonight, and I think we'll knock everyone's socks off tomorrow. Go home, get some rest, do something lovely and relaxing tomorrow during the day, think pleasant thoughts, and show up at… Curt?"
"Seven o'clock call," Curt said.
"Fine. Dennis? Anything you'd like to add?"
Dennis stood up and faced the company. "I'd just like to thank you all. You've done a wonderful job in a very short time. You've given up some shows that might have advanced your careers in order to do this. ..” He chuckled. “… extremely short run…”
The company laughed, and one wag called out, "You paid for it, Dennis!" making them laugh again.
"I guess I did," he said, and the look on his face ended the laughter. "But thank you all anyway. I appreciate it. I'm sure tomorrow night will be fine. Thank you all, and break a leg."
On their way to the car, Ann clutched his arm, grateful for the nearness of him, happy for his success. "You must be tired," she said.
"No. Surprisingly enough, I'm not. I feel good. I feel so good I'm almost afraid of it."
"Don't be. You were wonderful tonight, and you'll only be better tomorrow.”
“I'll try," he said, and suddenly she was afraid, hearing his own fear, and wished the next night had already come and gone.
Scene 8
Abe Kipp had found God again. He had forsaken Him in Europe, after he had seen his friends die, seen what war did to people. After the Big One, he had wanted nothing more to do with God.
But now Abe had changed his mind. He had been raised Roman Catholic, but had never been serious enough about the faith to seriously become a practitioner of the art of guilt. Only the aftermath of Harry Ruhl's death had done that for him, and he went to confession after several weeks of self-condemnation, entering the booth as though it were a euthanasia chamber.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." He remembered the words, not from experience, but from the movies.
"How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"
That was a toughie. He quickly subtracted in his head. "Thirty-five… no, make that forty-five years, Father."
There was a short silence from the other side of the screen. "Forty-five years, my son?"
Abe thought for a moment, and gave the church the full truth. "Actually nearer fifty, Father." A half century of absolution, thought Abe. By the time I'm done, I could be dead of old age.
But Abe didn't let the time element stop him. He told the priest everything he could remember, fifty years worth of sins, ending with the tormenting that had driven Harry Ruhl to his death.
The priest gave him absolution. Though Abe didn't see how a few spoken words on the priest's part and a few more spoken on his own could save his soul from hell, he was quite willing to go along with the deal, and felt much better as he left the church.
He felt better for all of three hours, until he tried to go to sleep, and the guilt came back to torture him again, robbing him of sleep, making his stomach feel cold with a coldness that neither whiskey nor tea could warm.
After he found Cristina dead, he thought that might be the end of it, that it might have been God's way of punishing him, by taking one of the only things that he loved and killing it. But after a while, he didn't think that God would really do that, especially if the priest said that he was forgiven.
Abe enjoyed the time away from the Venetian Theatre, after Mr. Hamilton had decided to close the place up and go back to New York. He watched a lot of television and read some books, since when he did those things he couldn't think about what had happened at the theatre. When Mrs. Deems called and told him when they would be coming back, he discovered that he did not want to return to the theatre, because, as he had learned to believe in God again, so he had also learned to believe in the existence of something else supernatural, the very things with which he had teased Harry Ruhl.
Abe Kipp had learned to believe in ghosts.
It made no difference that he had been working in the Venetian Theatre for decades and had never seen a trace of evidence of the reality of spirits. That was then and this was now, and Abe, his shell of materialism cracked by Harry Ruhl's death and his resultant reacceptance of his childhood faith, felt the same fear at being alone in the theatre as he had forty years before when Billy Potts had told him the ghost stories for the first time…
They'll come ta getcha, Abe, don'tcha turn yer back. They'll getcha sure you don't watch out and be careful and say yer prayers and carry a cross…
And he had carried a cross, in spite of his disbelief after the war, a little gold one that had belonged to his mother. And each time he went into the theatre alone he had said prayers to a god in whom he did not believe, and looked over his shoulder a thousand times a day, looked for the Big Swede…
His head 'n chest's all messed up, crunched by that sandbag 'at kilt 'im. He got jes half a face, I seen it oncet, and the half thet's left smiles at ya when he tries to push ya offa the flies down onta the stage where he died…
… looked for the Blue Darling…
She's so damn pretty you think it's a little girl got lost and is lookin' for her mama, wears a pretty blue dress and got pretty blue eyes, and she reaches out to take yer hand, but don't you let her. She touched me oncet, and her hand was jes's cold as the grave cuz' at's where she's from, come to see aVaudeville ' n fell offa the balcony. ..
… looked, especially, for Mad Mary, the worst of all…
Just lookin' at her makes ya half crazy yerself. She was a actress whose boyfriend left her 'n she found out about it here in this theatre 'n she waited after the show till everyone else left and then she hanged herself offa the balcony where them flats are. I knew the guy who found her, an' he said her hair'd turned all white and her eyes were poppin' out and even though she was dead she still looked crazier 'n hell, 'n all she wants ta do is get revenge on the man who left her, but she's so crazy she thinks any man is the one. So watch out fer her sure, cuz she's the only one who can really scare ya t' death…
They were ghost stories, just the kind of ghost stories that get told in any old theatre. And for a while, before he found out what a rummy and a horse's ass Billy Potts was, Abe had believed them. But after a few months of getting to know both Billy and the theatre, he realized that the horrors of Anzio had been far greater than any ghosts of little girls or crazy ladies or stagehands who had been dumb enough to hang themselves over some man, or fall off a balcony, or get themselves under a falling sandbag at just the wrong moment. A bunch of dopes, that was all those ghosts were, and he had stopped believing in them.
Until forty years later, when he started to believe, not only in them, but in Harry Ruhl's ghost as well.
Ghosts came back for good reasons, didn't they? That's what all the stories said. And no ghost could have had a better reason for coming back than Harry's. Abe had been the one who had driven Harry to his death. He had died aching and in torment, and it followed that his spirit must be restless, still floating or walking or however the hell ghosts got around, near the place it had died.
And why was it still here? Because, Abe thought, it wanted to get him, to haunt him, scare him, maybe even scare him to death, Abe's life for his own.
Now the damn thing was, Abe told himself, that he should just stay out of the theatre from now on. But he couldn't. He had paid back God for his sins with his Hail Marys and acts of contrition, and it had gotten rid of some of the guilt. But not all. The only way he was going to get rid of the rest of it was to pay back Harry Ruhl. And the only way to do that was to be where Harry Ruhl could…
Not get a hold of him. Abe hated the sound of that. Get in contact was better. Maybe if Abe saw Harry's ghost, he could tell Harry how sorry he was, and maybe Harry would go away, get out of Abe's head, leave him the hell alone. Abe couldn't live with the bad thoughts and dreams any more. He had to do something, had to tell Harry how sorry he was. And the only way he could do that, he thought, was to be where Harry had died.
He didn't go up to the old operating room. That was one thing he couldn't do. He knew he'd start to blubber and cry and break down before he got within fifty feet of the place. But he could be in the theatre. He could do that much. And if Harry wanted to see him – or have him see Harry – well then he could.
Abe constantly looked for Harry when he was alone in the place, which wasn't too often. Mrs. Deems had hired two temporary custodians to help Abe. They were young fellows, one of them a college graduate who hadn't been able to find a teaching job, and the other a kid who reminded Abe of himself when he had started, just out of the service. They were nice and considerate, always asking him what he would like them to do next after finishing a job, instead of goofing off somewhere. Abe felt pretty sure that Harry Ruhl wouldn't show up as long as they were around.
So he went off by himself on solitary jobs, going in to the once hated restrooms, cleaning their stark surfaces, bare tiles, a deed that was a subconscious penance for what he had done. Harry Ruhl had spent many hours, and, amazingly enough, happy ones in these toilets, polishing, wiping chrome until it gleamed. The rooms were filled with reflections, and often Abe fancied that he saw the image of movement behind him, but when he turned around, nothing was there except his own face, gawking at him from the mirrors, or curved and distorted by the plumbing fixtures.
Once, when he was using a urinal, he was looking at the chrome collar atop the porcelain, amused by his face as seen through a fish eye, when suddenly he saw another face over his shoulder and twisted his head around, dribbling the final droplets of urine on the side of the receptacle, the wall, and his pants leg.
No one was there.
He cleaned up the urine, cursing, then asking God to forgive him for cursing. All the rest of the day, he felt as though he was being followed by a playful child, remaining perfectly behind him, turning when he turned, dodging out of sight in mirror-like synchronization with every rearward motion he made, until he began to whisper, "C'mon, Harry, stop fu… messin' around…” After that, the sensation was gone.
And now here they were, Abe and his two helpers, the night before the performance, with everyone else gone home, cleaning up the backstage area, emptying the wastebaskets, cleaning the toilets, picking up the tissues thick with cold cream. Abe had seen several actors removing their makeup with the tissues, and thought it seemed like wiping off your face, an image that made him distinctly uncomfortable, as did the mirrors on both sides of the dressing rooms, mirrors that he feared to glance into as he cleaned up the mess, thinking that somewhere in those long rows that stretched to infinity, there was Harry Ruhl and the Blue Darling and the Big Swede and Mad Mary, and if he looked down those rows of reflections long enough, they would slowly stick out their heads, and their bodies would follow, and they would walk impossibly down those rows toward him, and if he turned his head the other way they would still be there in the other mirror, and there would be no escape, nowhere he could look where he would not see them.
"Shit," he murmured. "Oh, shit…” He gazed into the mirrors as if willing them to cast forth their shadowy occupants, but saw nothing. He finished his cleaning, said good night to his helpers, then put on his jacket and went out the stage door. As it closed behind him, he stopped, turned around, and looked up at the massive stone wall looming over him.
"What are you waiting for, Harry?" he asked the theatre, asked the night. "What are you waiting for? Judgment day?"
Scene 9
Friday, the day of the performance, began bright and clear, but slowly darkened outside as well as in as it became a logistical nightmare for Ann Deems and her temporary staff. Flights were delayed, throwing off the limousine schedule and necessitating the launch of more of the ungainly but luxurious vehicles. Several well-heeled investor/attendees showed up at their hotels with additional guests, who had not only to be found lodging, but seating where there were no seats available. Fortunately the last minute cancellations balanced the newcomers, who were only too happy to invest the required five thousand dollars per ticket.
Attending the performance had become a badge of honor among both the cognoscenti and the sensation seekers, and once the word had spread that tickets were available, they were sold out in less than a week. Many of the investors in Craddock, having been the first to be informed, were the first to buy tickets and thus invest in the following show. Many new investors were added, and over one hundred seats were sold to media representatives, among them all of the major tabloids. Even Larry Peach of the Weekly Probe would be there. His paper's headlines this week included, "CURTAIN UP ON NIGHTMARE!" and proceeded to review in as gory detail as was known the series of recent deaths at the theatre, along with the suggestion that there would be more to come, and if it did, their reporter would be on the spot for the next decapitation.
Dennis slept late and spent most of the day in his suite at the Kirkland Hotel. He worked out in the exercise room, along with Quentin and Dex, and afterward the three of them went back to Dennis's suite, where they had a drink and reminisced.
"I don't mind telling you, Dennis," Quentin said, setting his Campari on the coffee table, "I was a little hesitant about working for you back in '81."
"My reputation preceded me?"
"Yes – your reputation for gay-bashing."
"You talking about Dennis?" said Dex in disbelief.
"I don't know what you mean, Quent," Dennis said.
Quentin laughed. "Oh, that reputation wasn't universal, and it probably wasn't well-deserved. I just heard the Ricky Scaratucci story."
"Ricky Scaratucci…”Dennis repeated, and after a moment his face lit with understanding. "Oh God, the guy in the original company!" He laughed and covered his face in embarrassment.
Quentin nodded. "He came on to you and you slugged him?"
"Yes, yes, it wasn't really a slug, more of a little jab to the midsection. But I didn't slug him because he was gay, or even because he came on to me, I slugged him because he was a sonovabitch who was busting my balls every chance he got. He was one of those bastards who really wanted to see me flop."
"Jealous," Dex said.
Dennis nodded. "He'd been working in shows for twenty years and never got any further than the chorus. Then here I came along and got the lead without paying my dues, and he… didn't like that. So he tried to make my life as miserable as possible, all in the guise of 'jokes.' Sand in my cold cream jar, Coke in my street shoes, sly, witty little things your everyday sadist enjoys." He took a sip of Perrier. "Then one day – right back there in the Venetian Theatre dressing room – I was getting out of my costume, just had on a shirt and my jock, and he grabbed my ass. I don't mean just a pinch, I mean he grabbed it, almost pornographically. I jumped a mile. I was already furious, and when I saw who it was I just… let him have it. He collapsed like a gas bag, fell down and hit his head on the side of the sink. He was probably out five minutes, while everybody ran around and tried to get doctors."
"And what did you do all this while?" Quentin asked with the self-aplomb of one who knew.
"I was pretty nasty. I think my exact words were, 'Let him fucking die.'“
“That's what I heard," said Quentin.
"Truth to tell, I was terrified I had really hurt him. I was more scared than angry. The gruffness was a put-on. He came out of it, thank God, with no permanent damage done." Dennis laughed. "Hell, even if I would have killed him, all they would have had to do was examine his fingernails to see that it was justifiable homicide."
"Still," Quentin said, "it earned you a reputation. And it put me off."
"Until you learned that I was a pussycat?"
"Until I learned that you were just a normal person, with fears and concerns like anyone else, and not really the Emperor Frederick."
"He's a part of you, though," Dex said.
"As any character is a part of a good actor," Quentin added.
Dennis only smiled, and changed the subject. "You're too sensitive to gay-bashing to begin with, Quent. I think you'd have gotten over that by now."
Quentin looked down at the coffee table and picked up his drink. "Early scars cut deep, my friend. It's not the easiest thing in the world to be."
"That's true," Dex said. "I was gay once, I know."
"You asshole!" Quentin laughed, and Dennis joined in, sharing the knowledge of Dex Colangelo's sexuality. "Dex, you don't have a homosexual bone in your body.”
“That's because I never bend over when you're around."
They laughed again, old friends who could tease each other and come away unscathed. Quentin felt comfortable and at peace, certain that the good feelings would last into the night, that the performance would be everything that he had hoped.
The intense work of the past few weeks had been good for him. He had been able to forget, at least for most of the time, the plague that was feeding upon his friends and haunting his dreams. AIDS was the worst thing ever to strike the gay community, and Quentin's negative test results did nothing to ease the pain of his friends' and former lovers' loss. Though he had had an exclusive partner for the last three years, and they were careful to use condoms for anal intercourse (a procedure Quentin had practiced ever since a tour of The Student Prince, when nearly every man in the company had come down with hepatitis, closing the show), Quentin still lived in fear of the disease, and was dismayed by the social stigma that followed after it like vultures after a plague.
There had been a glorious time in the seventies when it was fun to be gay, when the health concerns of herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea were thought of as heterosexual problems. One of his friends had sadly joked of those days that the only problem gays had was what to wear with rust. But now, what with the problems the "Gay Plague," as it was infuriatingly known, had caused, along with what Quentin viewed as the politically motivated swing back to so-called family values, it seemed to him that gays had become second class citizens again. In spite of the Rock Hudson inspired gala fund raisers, the massive quilts, the calls by government officials for more AIDS research funding, Quentin felt he and his brothers were feared at best, hated at worst by the public at large.
He had truly felt that hatred a few months before, when he and Ken, his lover, were walking hand in hand in the village and were passed by four young men who they had seen before in the area. As they walked by, one of the men cupped his genitals and called out, "Hey, faggots, eat me!" to which his friends responded by laughing as though it was the wittiest remark any of them had ever heard, and continued up the street, laughing. It was the first time in years that Quentin had been mocked in that way. But it was not that in itself that disturbed him as much as his hearing one of them say, "Eat me… they gonna get eaten, man, by that AIDS…” and the others laugh in reply.
And the thought had gone through his mind with the heat and savagery of the virus itself. They want me dead. They want all of us dead.
That night he had dreamed of their faces, white, hard, and cruel. And the faces of those ignorant, unthinking, and evil men grew larger and larger until their mouths were a foot across, snapping at him with sharp teeth, and he ran, but the heads rolled after him, and he knew they were not heads of men at all, but the cells of the virus, and once one pair of those sharp teeth had him, he would fall, and they would be on him, and he would be a dead man, having to watch while those ugly mouths ate him alive, leaving his own head for last, so that his eyes would watch and his mind would know and his nerves would feel everything as they slowly devoured him.
Ken shook him into a partial wakefulness, and Quentin, eyes pressed closed, sweated and sobbed and clutched at his lover, wanting to banish the nightmare vision, but hesitant to leave the reality of his dream for the true reality of waking, which could, he thought in the warped logic of dream, be even worse. It was not until Ken whispered over and over again, "Shhh, just a dream, come on, wake up, just a dream…” that Quentin forced his eyes open and saw the familiar glow of the city's lights at the windows. The dream had stayed with him ever since, the dream and the stupid laughter that had caused it.
So he had been grateful for the show, glad to immerse himself in his old friend Dennis Hamilton's real problems instead of his own fantasized ones. It had helped him to drive his phobia into the back of his mind. Like his mother had said, the best way to forget your own problems is to help other people. And God knows Dennis had needed help.
He had been absolutely dreadful in New York. More than simply embarrassing, his performance had been humiliating, nothing but rote memorization, and even that was done poorly, with Dennis dropping lines right and left, leaving the other principals nothing to do but trip on them. It had taken an outburst to make Dennis come to his senses, and Quentin was proud of the way he had handled it. True, it was John Steinberg's idea, but it had taken Quentin (who fancied himself still a decent actor) to bring it off. And true also, he had been shouted at by Dennis in front of the entire company, but he was sure they understood why he had driven Dennis to it. They had seen the remarkable change the outburst had caused.
It had turned the hesitant and sickly actor into the Emperor once again. It had restored the majesty not only to the character but to the man. In just a few short days, Dennis seemed to regain weight, his color had become ruddily healthy, and his voice filled the theatre as surely as his acting did the heart.
And tonight, with the audience, Dennis could only be better. Quentin had never seen a performer respond to an audience as much as Dennis Hamilton did.
Yes, he thought as he picked up his drink and drew his attention back to Dex and Dennis, tonight would be a performance to remember.
The limos started to arrive after seven-thirty, when all the company was safely within the theatre. The ticket takers had been cautioned to look for counterfeit tickets, and found several, although one holder of a counterfeit was actually seated before the ruse was discovered. The seat happened to belong to Cissy Morrison, who, when the usher showed her to an already occupied seat, raised such a fuss that tickets were compared and the man's was found to be wanting embossing. He turned out to be a reporter for one of the shabbier tabloids whose editors had not felt the five thousand dollar investment was worthwhile.
A few people complained about the metal detectors they had to pass through after their tickets were taken, but most went through with good will, even Dan Munro, who first showed his I.D. and then checked his service revolver with the guards. "Just like Dodge City," he told Patty. "Check your guns when you come into town."
An exception to the general cooperation was Willard Prescott, who had produced the film, Sweet Jesus, two years earlier, and had lived in fear of his life ever since a Christian militant organization had sent him a decapitated skunk in the mail, packaged in an Omaha Steaks box. Ever since that day, Prescott had carried a small. 32 caliber pistol in a shoulder holster. He did not, however, have a permit for the county of which Kirkland was a part, and the security guards, who had been warned of the possibility of someone smuggling a firearm into the theatre, patted and then threw Prescott down, removing his weapon while he howled in protest. It took John Steinberg's irked intervention to get Prescott released, although his pistol was unloaded and kept by the guards.
The other smuggler was Larry Peach of the Probe, who tried to carry in a small camera under his sport coat. He set up a howl greater than Prescott's, about freedom of the press and the rights of the public to be informed, but the guards were adamant, even more so when the squabble drew the doubly annoyed John Steinberg back to their sides.
"These bastards won't give me my camera," said Peach.
"When you receive your playbill," Steinberg said smoothly, "you'll find that the taking of photographs is strictly prohibited."
"Not when it's news, pal – or when it turns out to be news, and I got every indication that that's what just might happen tonight. You don't let a reporter photograph news, that's censorship, that's restraint of free trade!"
"And that's enough," Steinberg said, taking a checkbook from the pocket of his dinner jacket and writing in it with a gold fountain pen.
"What are you doing?" Peach asked, still restrained by the security guards.
Steinberg signed with a flourish, tore out a check, and stuffed it into Peach's breast pocket. "That is a check from The New American Musical Theatre Project for five thousand dollars. You are a nuisance, and are hereby ejected from the premises, but with a full refund. See the gentleman out, please."
" Hey! " Peach screamed as the guards half pushed, half dragged him to the doors. "You can't do this! Hey!" He saw a familiar face in the crowd. "Geraldo! Hey, lookit this, man! Freedom of the press! You believe this!… Hey, Geraldo, where you goin'?… Hey, man, this is a story!… Yo! Oprah! "
The security people guarding the stage door were even more vigilant than those in the front of the house. Every member of the company had been patted down for weapons, and every dance bag thoroughly checked. No one complained, as they had all been informed beforehand of the procedures. "It's for your own safety," Curt had told them, "and the safety of everyone in the theatre." He had been about to say, and no one has a thing to worry about, but couldn't get the words out honestly, so left them unsaid.
Curt was worried, in spite of himself. He had been to the bathroom every twenty minutes, knowing that the pressure in his bladder was due to nerves, but that knowledge did nothing to relieve it. It had all gone too easy in the last week.
Dennis had taken a turn for the brilliant, and while it had initially delighted Curt, it now disquieted him. It had been too instantaneous, too abrupt, like a switch in Dennis's brain had been turned on. And Curt knew all too well from working with electrics that what could be turned on could also be turned off. He could handle nearly anything technical that happened on or off the stage, but he couldn't do a thing about the vagaries of the actors' performances except spoon-feed lines, and lower the curtain if things got too bad.
He still didn't really know why Dennis wanted to reprise the role of the Emperor one final time, but he suspected that it had something to do with what everyone discreetly referred to as "the tragedies." Whether or not it symbolized (along with his infatuation with Ann Deems) a return to happier times for Dennis, a time before the accidents and suicides and murders, Curt didn't know. There seemed to be more to it than that. There was an intensity in Dennis that Curt had not seen for a long time, almost a need to prove something to himself.
But what? That he could still act? He had finally proven that in the past week of rehearsals, though it had been touch and go until the outburst at Quentin. Curt had been startled by it and amazed at the results of it. Yet, even with the remarkable change in Dennis's acting, Curt felt as though there was still something missing, and he didn't know why, or what, beyond the feeling that it still seemed like artifice, no matter how precisely presented, like a photo-realistic painting masquerading as a photograph, or a brilliantly conceived and built robot aping real life.
Whatever it was, it felt fragile, like a house of cards about to tumble. Curt hoped it wouldn't take the rest of the theatre along with it.
He walked to the call board to make certain that everyone in the company had checked in. They had. Everyone was there.
Everyone.
The air of backstage was filled with vocalizations, notes both high and low. They came from every dressing room, from Dennis's, closest to the stage, all the way up to those of the chorus members unlucky enough to have to tread the wooden steps to the fifth floor. The intercoms, or "squawk boxes," in each dressing room were checked to make sure that the company would be able to receive their calls several minutes before they were due on stage for their various scenes. Hair was put into place and sprayed heavily. Faces were twisted and distorted to ease the application of makeup. These things accomplished, costumes were donned, muscles stretched, hands shaken, prayers said, dozens of simple and arcane ceremonies observed. Those who were ready queued up to read the telegrams and mailgrams that strewed the bulletin board, hiding the call sheets and the boilerplate Equity notices no one had read in the first place. They remarked over names, laughed over witty messages, had cups of coffee, waited.
Evan Hamilton imagined that he smelled the audience shortly before he heard it, long before he saw it. Even over the heavily cosmetic scent of foundation makeup, the biting sting of spirit gum, and the vomitous reek of liquid latex, he could sense the eternal smell of the theatre. It was the scent of many people gathered under one roof, a clean scent of freshly washed and perfumed bodies, the smell of people ready for pleasure.
But there was something else, a headier aroma, a ripeness of anticipation. It must have been such an odor, Evan fancied, that hung about the perfumed citizens of Rome as they waited for the circus to begin, for blood to flow.
Now he heard it through the thickness of the curtain, heard the sound of the audience, the low, dull buzzing of the faceless mass, like a hive of threatening bees. This sound, which he had heard and which had frightened him when he was a child, was like no other, and affected him like no other, and he closed his eyes as he felt the channels through which blessed air came in and out of his body begin to constrict, and he whispered a curse in his head, and felt like dying, and someone took his hand.
He opened his eyes and saw that Terri had come out of Kelly Sears's dressing room and was with him again. "Are you all right?" she asked.
He nodded, took a deep breath. "The crowd. I was remembering."
"Don't," she said. "Forget it. It can't hurt you. Everyone's here. How could anyone hurt you?" She smiled and gave him a kiss. "Let's see if Dennis is all right."
They walked across to stage right, down the short flight of stairs to Dennis's door, behind which they heard him singing his first song, "The Awful Thing About a King." They listened for a moment. His voice sounded full and strong, and even in the warm-up, the mocking humor of the lyrics shone through. When he finished the first chorus, Terri knocked, and Ann opened the door.
"Hi, mother. Is everything all right? Dennis's costume all set?"
"It's wonderful, Terri," Dennis said, getting up from his chair in front of the mirror. "Frankly, I'm glad the original one got lost. This costume feels fresh and new and ready." He laughed and put an arm around Ann. "Just like me. Reborn. You've really done a wonderful job. And of course," he added slyly, "the fact that I had the best dresser in the business helped…"
He stepped aside, and behind him Terri and Evan saw Marvella Johnson standing in the corner. She smiled at Terri dryly. "You did okay, girl," she said in her low, rumbling voice.
"Marvella!" Terri pushed past an amused Dennis and ran to her mentor, who held out her arms for an embrace. "You came!"
"How could I miss your professional debut?" Marvella said, nearly crushing the girl with a bear hug. "And how could I miss the boss's last star turn?" She held Terri at arm's length, and her smile faded, her mouth straightening into sadness. "But I'll just stay down here. I won't go upstairs at all. I'll just stay in the audience and watch. I've been backstage too many years."
"All right, Marvella," Dennis said. "For tonight anyway. But as for the future, I still want you to be part of it."
"We'll see, Dennis," she said, and Evan thought his father would have his work cut out for him if he wanted Marvella to resume her old position.
"Half hour, Dennis," came Curt's voice over the squawk box.
Dennis pushed a button. "Thanks, Curt."
"Well," said Marvella, "I'm gonna head out front. See who I can meet."
Dennis kissed her cheek. "I'm glad you came. Thank you."
"I'm glad too, Dennis. Love you, as always." She gave Evan a peck on her way out, and he felt a tremendous wave of love and sympathy for this woman who had always treated him so kindly, starting when he was a lonely little boy roaming his father's theatre, for back then every theatre Dennis Hamilton played was his theatre.
He turned and looked at his father, and it seemed that time had turned backward. Dennis looked tall and strong, young and handsome. The last time he looked like that, Evan had felt only a little love, and a great deal of fear. Now those emotions were reversed, for while he loved the man, he felt a bit of fear as well. Though he knew that it had not been his father who had actually threatened him with death, it had been his near double, and the two were hard to separate in his mind. Still, they were separate, and he took his father by the hand.
"Break a leg, Dad. I know you'll do great."
Dennis's features quivered with emotion, and he drew Evan to him so that the boy could no longer see the man's face. "Do you know," Dennis whispered, "how proud I am of you?"
He pushed Evan back then, and blinked tears away. "What's this? Can't have my makeup ruined, can I?" He laughed. "Save my emotions for the stage, yes?"
Evan smiled and nodded. "Yeah, sure. You go get 'em, huh?"
"I'll do my best."
He looked at Ann. "You staying backstage?" She nodded. "Well, take care of my old man."
"I will." She smiled so serenely, seemed so calm and confident, that Evan thought her own acting ability might outstrip his father's.
"Come on," Terri said to Evan. "I'll walk you out to the lobby."
"I'll go out with you," Ann said, "and see how John's bearing up. Oh, here's your ticket, Evan." She handed it to him. "You're sitting with Cissy Morrison."
"Oh no," Evan said, partly dismayed and partly delighted. "That woman treats me like I was her dear little nephew."
"Her date for the evening got stuck in L.A. editing his new film," Ann said. "We thought you'd be a perfect replacement."
"Only don't sit too close," Terri warned him. "That woman's not much on youth, but she's got money."
They all laughed, Terri took Evan's arm, and they and Ann left the dressing room, moving past the guards at the stage door, outside, around the front of the building, and into the lobby, where Ann bade them goodbye and searched for Steinberg.
"You'll be okay?" Terri asked Evan.
"I'll be fine." He heard the sound of the audience inside the auditorium, but it was all right. He was one of them now, and he would be with a friend. He would not be up there on the stage again. It was his father's turn tonight, and he prayed that Dennis would get through it, that the killer who had haunted the theatre would stay far away. "But, Terri," he said, "keep an eye out for Dad, will you?"
Can you feel me?
It is, Dennis Hamilton thought, sitting alone in his dressing room, the loneliest and most frightening thing in the world.
When I'm on that stage, in front of the audience, there is no turning back. No one can help me if my strength begins to fail, if I forget my lines. Jam, while surrounded by people, completely alone. Only I can do what has to be done. Only I.
A writer can get up from his typewriter, walk around the room, come back, begin again, and no one ever knows how many pauses, how many thousands of disparate thoughts separate the words and chapters. A film actor can call for a break while he puts his thoughts back together, draws up the emotions from wherever he will, and then begin again, and have his errors, those tentative and failed attempts, eradicated in the editing rooms. An artist paints out his weaknesses, a sculptor destroys his with a swing of his mallet.
But I am naked and alone, and what I create is seen as I create it, and as the world sees my triumphs, it can just as easily witness my failures.
Dennis bit back the fear, looked in the mirror, and saw only himself, Dennis Hamilton, in the guise of the Emperor Frederick. And that, damn it, was who the audience was going to see tonight. Dennis Hamilton as the Emperor, no one else, and they would see him more clearly than he had ever been seen before.
And what of that impostor, that bastard who had stolen away the Emperor for a time? Dennis hoped that he was gone. He wanted to believe it with all his heart. But as long as his fear was there, as long as the thoughts of the mere possibility of failure existed, he could not help but feel that the creature was still alive, no matter how fragile and transitory that life might be. The only thing that would kill it, that would end its feeble existence once and for all, was for Dennis to play his role on his stage tonight as he had never played it before. Then and only then would he be truly restored to his throne.
He looked into the mirror again, almost in fear. But still he saw only his own face.
Can you feel me, Dennis? Can you hear me coming? My footsteps are light, but soon they will shake your world.
By eight-fifteen over two-thirds of the theatre's seats were filled. Most of the musicians were in the pit, having come up from the stairway beneath the stage, and were adding to the din. The brass players warmed up their horns and lips with triple tonguing exercises; the strings limbered their bowing arms, or attacked the many pizzicato passages in the score; the woodwinds wet their precisely shaven reeds, fit them into ligatures, played scales and arpeggios so rapidly the individual notes became part of a savage blaze of woodgrained sound; and the percussionists tuned tympani, examined their drums, and set in place blocks, gongs, temple bells, and triangles, all of which were used in Dex Colangelo's rich and varied orchestrations. To those used to such sounds before a musical performance, it sounded perfectly normal.
But to Abe Kipp, sitting below the stage in one of the little havens he had long ago made for himself, it sounded like all the demons of hell were bebopping over his head.
While the acoustics of the Venetian Theatre were nearly perfect for the audience, they were notoriously quirky in the rest of the house. An entire orchestra playing at top volume could not be heard in the second floor dressing rooms, but individual instruments could be picked out from the dressing rooms on the floor above. And where Abe Kipp sat seemed to be the locus of sound from the orchestra pit.
Abe was on call that evening in case of emergency cleanups, and John Steinberg had actually given him a beeper for the occasion. "You can watch the show if you like, Abe," Steinberg had said, "or just hole up somewhere. If we need you, I'll give you a beep and you can come to the lobby."
Abe didn't expect to be needed. Everything backstage would be taken care of by the crew people, so the only way Abe was going to have something to do was if the toilets overflowed or some rich theatre-goer threw up in the lobby. So he sat and relaxed in a small room next to the orchestra members' green room. It had a worn sofa that some prop department years before had decided to discard, and a rickety desk whose drawers held an assortment of girlie magazines and the sexier varieties of the spy paperbacks of the sixties. It was one of these, an opus called Fraulein Spy, that Abe now perused as he put his feet up and tried to ignore the cacophony over, around, and in his head.
After a few minutes, he heard the clash of instruments die down. Applause followed, and when it ended, the music began again, but this time it was no warm-up, no frenzied assortment of tuning. This time it was music that Abe had heard a quarter century before, sitting in the same room. He had not known Dennis Hamilton then. He had only seen him rehearsing, and never exchanged a word with the boy who seemed to have such a sense of quiet command for a person so young. He had watched the show one time, from the last row of the balcony, during one of the few matinee performances that had not sold out, and even at that great height he had felt the dramatic power of that young man who played the Emperor.
Now, as he heard the music, the years seemed to vanish, and he closed his eyes and remembered what it had been like before all the deaths had come, before he himself had been responsible for one of them, in the days when, though cruel, he was still innocent of blood on his hands.
At last the music ended, the audience applauded, and the music began again. He heard singing now, but where he sat it was greatly overwhelmed by the orchestra. For a while he struggled to make out the words, but could not, and turned back to his book.
The musical numbers passed in quick succession, and Abe thought the applause was as loud and strong as any he had ever heard from this particular hiding place. He recognized some of the songs that had become standards, particularly "Someone Like You," which had been a Barbra Streisand single in 1968, and hummed along with it. He sat there for a long time, trying to read, stopping, listening to the music, trying to read again, dozing off from time to time.
When music woke him up again, he looked at his watch, saw that it was nearly ten o'clock, and thought that the first act must almost be over. He licked his dry lips with a furred tongue, and decided to go get a drink of water. There was a fountain in the green room the musicians used, but there were always some of them in there, and Abe was uncomfortable around them. Part of it was the contrast he felt between their full dress and his own dark green work clothes, and the rest was the cool attitude with which most of them viewed him, as though he were an interloper in the halls of the Muses. No, better to go through the cellar and into the lower level lobby. No one would be there while the show was going on except for maybe some security people, and they knew who he was.
Abe stood up, stretched, heard, very dimly, voices speaking on the stage above him, and walked to the door that opened onto the long corridor that led to the lower lobby. He opened it, stepped through, and flicked on the light switch, illuminating the dank passage through which he would have to walk.
Though Abe had traversed that damp, dirt-floored corridor a thousand times, the shadowy bays whose contents Curt and Evan had catalogued now seemed to Abe like alcoves in some carnival house of horrors from which people dressed as monsters would jump and yell boo, or like tunnels opening into haunted caverns…
Yeah, he thought. Haunted.
Harry? He thought the word, then spoke it. "Harry?" Frightened, but needing to know, he stepped onto the dirt floor and closed the door behind him. The voices were still audible, but even more faraway now, as in a dream. And as in a dream Abe began to walk down the corridor, fearing to look to either side or in back of him.
Quentin Margolis stood at the rear of the Venetian Theatre and watched the show. The standing wearied him not at all, for the strength of the performance that Dennis Hamilton was giving gave him strength as well.
Dennis was, Quentin thought, nothing short of wonderful tonight. Every word, every note, every gesture was so unmistakably right that it seemed sacrilege that he had ever done the role any other way. All the tenderness, all the passion, all the boyish exuberance was there, along with subtleties of which youth was not yet capable. And they were not lost on the audience either. The mass seemed to hang on Dennis's every move. Nothing escaped them, because his artistry was such that he did not allow it. It was the most brilliant, yet the most spontaneous performance Quentin had ever seen, the only one in which not a line seemed written or thought out ahead, but rather sprang from the mind of the Emperor Frederick as they all watched, as though the role Dennis Hamilton was creating was creating itself, as though they watched, not artifice, but life.
And then something went wrong.
It was minor, but because of the perfection of Dennis's performance up to that point it stood out all the more rawly, like a sudden slash of blinding white on a dark, brooding Rembrandt. The scene was Act I, Scene 6, where Frederick tells Count Rinehart that he may send troops to assist the peasant revolt against the brutal usurper, King Andrei of Wohlstein. It was intended as the turning point, the first moment in the play that Frederick steps unmistakably into his position as Emperor.
Franklin Stern, as Rinehart, laughed bitterly and gave his line, "'Oh, of course. And I suppose before too long you'll grant your own people democracy.”
Dennis rose from his chair, clasped his hands behind his back, became Frederick becoming the Emperor Frederick, fixed Stern with a look that would have made lesser actors quail, and began his line – Better rule by the people… than rule by a fool, Rinehart! – but did not finish it.
"'Better rule by the people… than rule by -'" Dennis choked off, went pale, seemed to sway for a moment, then caught himself on the arm of the chair.
Quentin's breath locked in his throat, and he felt the sweat of fear suddenly moist on his face and chest. "Oh God," he whispered, as he watched Dennis struggle. "Oh dear God, please…”
The change was so abrupt that the audience could not help but notice, and in that instant Quentin saw hundreds of heads come together, and heard the static of whispers fill the air of the theatre like an audible cloud.
"Than rule by what, your majesty?" Franklin Stem none too gracefully fed Dennis.
Even from the rear of the auditorium, Quentin could see Dennis press his eyes closed, trying to bring back the character who had seemingly evacuated his body.
"'Than rule by… a fool!'"Dennis shouted, the outburst totally out of character. They were words said in desperation by a faltering actor, rather than from the strength and emotion of character, and Quentin 's heart sank. What had been there in all its glory was now lost, although he hoped not irretrievably. He felt like the handler of a prize fighter who was staggering and bloodied, praying he would get through the round and come back to his comer so he could tell him to…
What? Keep up his left? Jab? Keep moving? If Dennis was able to get to the intermission through this scene and the song and quintet that followed, what in God's name would Quentin tell him? It was only Dennis, Dennis alone, who could save himself now.
The scene went on, but instead of the Emperor Frederick revealing his soul, it was now Dennis Hamilton who read lines.
And Dennis Hamilton had faltered at the exact moment Abe Kipp had seen the first ghost in the cellar.
He had walked halfway down the dusty corridor when she stepped out of one of the bays, just a few yards away from him. At first he was startled, and his heart pounded hard, but then he saw that it was just a little girl, with empty blue eyes that looked lost, and he thought for a moment that she must have gone to the men's room in the lower level by mistake, then found the door to the tunnel and gone exploring. But as she walked trustingly toward him, as though he was the only one in the world who could help her, he saw that not only her eyes were blue. So was her dress. And her lips.
He knew now that he was seeing the Blue Darling. When she reached out her hand and put it in his, the coldness of it only reinforced his knowledge. Abe felt as though branches of ice had been placed in his hand, and that if he squeezed the fingers they would shatter.
He tried to jerk his hand back, but his fingers stuck to hers as tightly as his lips had stuck to the spout of his grandmother's pump one winter when he had been a boy. But now there was no grandma to come out with a kettle full of warm water to save him. The Blue Darling smiled at him then, and her blue lips cracked and showed teeth as sharp and pointed as icicles, and words came out, words in Harry Ruhl's voice that struck his ears like pellets of cold.
"Payback time, Abe…"
The Blue Darling grasped his other hand, lifted him up, impossibly, above her head, and dashed him to the ground. Though he fell less than four feet, the power with which he was hurled splintered bones and bruised muscles, and Abe cried out, and remembered what Billy Potts had said – come to see a Vaudeville 'n fell offa the balcony…
Abe whined and twisted his body around, the pain shooting through him like fire now, not ice, and as he put his hands up to ward her off, he saw his left hand hang limp and knew his wrist was broken even before he felt the pain there.
The little girl was gone, fled back, Abe thought, to whatever cold hell she came from, and he sobbed and tried to stand up, but his left leg would not hold him, sliding out from under him whenever he tried to put any weight on it. Blubbering, he began to scuttle down the corridor back toward the stage, pushing with his right leg, dragging himself with his right arm. He had gone only a few feet when he heard laughter, deep and booming, from above. It was a voice he had never heard before, and it could almost have come from the stage above and ahead.
Abe automatically looked up, and his neck and spine throbbed with the agony. Directly above him he saw, clinging from one arm to the top of one of the stanchions that made up the bays, a huge creature that looked more like an ape than a man. What he could see of its hair was blond and clotted with blood. Half of its face was a gray-red ruin, but the half that was left grinned down with splintered teeth. Its free arm held a hundred-pound sandbag such as had not been used in the Venetian Theatre for many years. It held it right above Abe Kipp's upturned face.
"Payback time, Abe…" said the Big Swede with Harry Ruhl's soft and gentle voice, and dropped the sandbag.
Abe threw his body to the side with all the power left in him, so that even ripped muscles helped shriekingly to drag him away from the plummeting weight.
The bag hit him in the back of the right shoulder, crushing every bone it contacted, and driving sharp splinters into Abe's right lung, although his heart was not pierced. He tried to scream, but the spray of blood from his windpipe choked his mouth, and he could only lay and pant for breath.
"Harry," at last he bubbled through his blood. "Harry, please.. ."
Then he felt what seemed like fingers of fire grasp his crushed shoulder and turn him over. The pain was too great to be voiced, and he kept it inside him, letting it scream within. It kept screaming when he opened his eyes and saw Mad Mary bending over him, an open noose in her clawed hand, her white hair shading her face like a filthy, tattered veil. It was only when she put her head back that he saw the face, and then, in the split second before he lost his sanity, burned to a crisp by the fires in her bulging eyes, he remembered – she's the only one who can really scare ya t'death…
Abe Kipp didn't see her put the noose around his neck, didn't see her haul on the other end of the rope until he stood on the dirt floor, only his toes against the dust, barely felt himself slowly strangling. He didn't see Mad Mary whisper "Payback time, Abe…" in Harry Ruhl's voice, didn't see Mad Mary melt into Harry just as he looked when they found him dead, but now holding his imitation Swiss Army knife. He didn't hear Harry whisper the words one last time, or make the first cut. He felt the knife go in, but to Abe, nearly dead, it felt like a warm finger across his flesh, it felt good, because everything else was growing so cold…
And he didn't see, as he hung from the rope and his life finally leaked away, Harry Ruhl's face change into a face he would have recognized as only Dennis Hamilton's.
"Not bad for a pussy boy," the face said, and smiled. "Was it, Abe?"
Scene 10
"I just felt… like I was lost somehow," Dennis said.
He, Quentin, and Ann were in his dressing room at intermission. Quentin had placed a guard at the door with orders to allow no one else to enter or even knock.
"Yes, but you recovered," Quentin said. "The quintet… the quintet was good."
"It wasn't good, Quent. It was passable. Which was more than I can say for my scene with Kelly." Dennis shook his head and drank half a glass of water. "It was like I was sleepwalking through it."
"But you recovered," Quentin said again. "You got through it, you got your head together, and you got back into the role. Jesus, Dennis, up till then it was brilliant, you know it was, wasn't it, Ann?"
Ann nodded. "Yes. It was perfect."
"Now you just stay here and you rest. You've got twenty minutes. Rest for as long as you need – we can hold the curtain a little longer – and use the rest of the time to work yourself back into that role. Come on, Dennis, be the Emperor again."
Dennis smiled. Ann thought it looked forced. "I will," he said. "I will, Quent. Leave me alone with Ann for a minute, will you?"
"Of course." He gave Dennis a gentle embrace, as though he were afraid he might hurt him. "Do it, my friend. You go out there and do it."
When they were alone, Ann looked into Dennis's eyes and saw the tenor there. "He's back," Dennis said, his voice shaking.
"I know."
"I felt him. I felt him draw strength from me like he was ripping out pieces of my flesh." Dennis's lips drew back, his teeth clenched, and he began to shudder as tears came to his eyes. "I thought he was gone. I really did. I thought and I prayed so hard that he was gone."
"But he's not," Ann said firmly, refusing to break down as well. She wanted to.
She wanted to run sobbing out the stage door and get into a car and just keep driving into the night until she was as far away from the Venetian Theatre as she could possibly be.
But that meant that she would have to flee Dennis Hamilton too, and she would not, could not do that.
"He's still here, Dennis. And you came back thinking that he would still be here. If he was, if you had known it right away, you would have stayed just the same. You would have stayed and fought him." She put a hand on his arm to give him strength. "That's why we came back – to fight him. He let us think he was already beat, and we let down our guard. We wanted to believe he was dead – or dying. And he wanted us to believe it too. We played right into his hands. That was our mistake.
"But he's not infallible, Dennis. As powerful as he is, he's got a plan of some kind. And if he's got a plan, we can ruin it. We just have to figure out how."
Dennis peered into the mirror, as if trying to find the secret in the lineaments of his own, and the Emperor's, face. "I have to be strong." he said slowly. "Even when he tries to draw strength from me, I have to… to feel so much that it doesn't diminish me. I have to be stronger than he is. That's the only way I'll be rid of him. The only way to get back what I need… is to take it back." He looked away from his face now, and into hers. "And I will. I will, Ann."
She put her arms around his neck and drew him to her. "I know you will, Dennis. I believe you." She held him for a time, then drew back and looked at him. His expression was firm, the tears were gone. "Forget the audience," she told him. "Forget everything else but you and him. And me," she added. "Remember how much I love you. I'll be here, backstage, whenever you need me."
~* ~
And backstage the word was passed from mouth to mouth -"Dennis is slipping. Be ready to carry him." The performers consulted their scripts as they drank their intermission coffee or smoked their cigarettes, going over their lines with the Emperor, trying to figure out ways to save the scene, steer the dialogue to the required end, should Dennis forget or "go up" on his lines to them.
Wallace Drummond felt most affected of all. His final scene, the climactic duel with the Emperor, was the final scene of the show, and Drummond, shaken from the feeble caliber of the work Dennis had evinced in the first act finale quintet with him, pored over his lines, trying to prepare himself for any eventuality. His usual levity was nowhere in evidence as he discarded his set of sides and buried his head in a full script, trying to memorize those few of Dennis's lines that did not cue his own. When the five minute bell rang, he jumped, then relaxed. His first scene was with Lise and Kruger, so at least that would go well. And there were six long scenes before he and Dennis appeared on stage together. Six scenes were surely enough for Dennis to reclaim his lost character, he thought, and did a few minutes of deep breathing exercises to relax him. Only this time, they did not work.
Out in the lobby, the air was filled with the kind of chatter that goes on, not at theatrical intermissions, but in air terminals after plane crashes. Talk was subdued but animated, and there were lines of reporters seven deep for the two phone booths situated on the stairway to the lower lobby. Several television personalities had gone outside to join their remote crews and report on the first act. A bespectacled blonde with a talk show out of L.A. made a particularly pithy comment – "The last scene has been like watching a beautiful train derail."
Cissy Morrison had clutched Evan's hand tightly when Dennis had gone up on his line, and they had come into the lobby with a pall hanging over them. Evan felt more sympathy for his father than he ever had before. The look of sudden terror on the man's face convinced Evan that his father was finally feeling what Evan had felt, seeing what he had seen – the true face of the audience, that snarling mob with one pair of hungry eyes, yearning to see failure in whatever form it might present itself. He prayed his father could survive the knowledge of twenty-five years of self-delusion revealed in one night.
After Quentin left Dennis backstage, John Steinberg cornered him in the lobby. "Can he finish?" he asked, his face pale.
"He can finish."
"Should I go back? Talk to him?"
"No. He just needs to be left alone right now. To get into character."
Steinberg patted his brow with an immaculately pressed and pristinely white handkerchief. "He never had to get into character before, Quentin."
"Well, he does tonight. He's got to work it out."
"Let's hope he does so in ten minutes or less. I hate giving refunds on five thousand dollar tickets."
Quentin looked around the crowded lobby and thought that he had never seen such a lively crowd. "I think they're getting their money's worth," he said bitterly. "The only thing better would be if we sacrificed a few Christians." Then he pressed a smile from his tight lips. "But don't worry, John. Dennis will be all right."
High up in the production booth, Curtis Wynn had little time to worry. He was too busy preparing for the second act. Still, he could not escape the memory of that terrible moment when Dennis had not only gone up, but totally stepped out of character and pretty much stayed there until the curtain. No one could blame Curt, of course, but he wanted, as always, a show that was perfect, nothing less, and he had been getting it right up to the point that Dennis had floated away into Cloud-Cuckooland. What the hell had happened? Had he seen something? Maybe this purported stalker flitting around in the wings like some latterday Phantom of the Opera?
He tried to shake away the thoughts and doubts, warned the crew to prepare for the early cues of Act II, Scene 1, gave the cue for the two minute bell to signal the dawdlers to return to their seats, and looked down at the huge red curtain that covered the stage, at the orchestra members all sitting in the pit, ready to begin the entr'acte, which would start in exactly 120 seconds. Despite everything, the show would go on.
~* ~
Quentin Margolis stood at the back of the rear orchestra section and watched the first scene with tension in his stomach. He thought it would go well, and it did. Kelly Sears as Lise, Dan Marks as Kruger, and Wallace Drummond as Kronstein all played the scene to near perfection. Quentin detected slight nervousness on Drummond's part, though nothing that was noticeable by the audience.
The scene between Dennis and Steven Peters as the peasant spy followed. It was weak, if not pitiful, and Quentin ached inside for Dennis. He had no doubt his friend would get through the rest of the performance, but he would be ending his acting career on the lowest note possible.
He could watch no more. He turned and quietly walked through the inner foyer, thinking that he might sit in the lobby. But through the curtained glass he saw the dim, hulking shapes of security guards there, and went down the curving staircase instead to the lower lounge. The large room, filled with easy chairs and couches less opulent and far more comfortable than those of the lobby or the mezzanine lobby, was unoccupied, and Quentin eased himself onto a couch, put his head back, and closed his eyes to try and quell the headache that had begun to throb at his temples. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked around the room.
A door across the room and to his right went to the ladies' lounge and rest rooms, that on his left to the men's. Directly ahead of him was a closed cloakroom, and to the left a false fireplace with a black marble fireback and mantel. The mantel was beautifully carved with entwining vines and the figure of a faun in the center, its curled beard roiling downward into its triangular torso, which became lost in the vines at its navel. Looking at the erotic figure, Quentin wished he could get his own waist that slim.
When he put his head back again and looked up he saw the bas-reliefs on the ceiling. Though they, like the furniture, were not as grand as those of the more open areas off the main lobby, they were nicely rendered – white, cherubic faces ringing the baroque molding, with larger heads puffing plaster clouds at each of the room's four corners. The four winds, Quentin thought, and he smiled. Blow me out of here.
He closed his eyes again and entered a state of semi-consciousness that was not quite sleep, for he remained aware of where he was and what was happening on the stage. From far away he heard the Prime Minister Basil's solo, "Only for the Crown," in which Basil regrets the machinations he is forced to use to bring about the betrothal of Frederick and Maria, and knew that Scene 4, in which Frederick learns of Lise's death, would follow.
Quentin did not want to see it. He kept his eyes closed, remaining in his self-induced trance, until he heard a sound he did not recognize. It was a grinding noise, as if stone teeth were gnashing. At first he thought it was part of his dream, which he would be glad to leave anyway, for he was remembering the faces that had come after him in that other dream, those AIDS-inspired faces, the white, hideous faces of the virus that had no other wish than to…
"Eat me." He jerked his head forward, opened his eyes, and saw that the marble carving of the face of the faun was moving.
It grinned.
"Eat me," it said again, and began to pull itself from the marble vines that imprisoned it. Its arms came out first, and it reached up, grasped the edge of the mantel, and, like an athlete chinning himself, dragged the lower part of its body from the marble foliage, revealing its erect phallus, small in reality but obscenely large in proportion to the carving's body.
The faun hung now, a black and shining figure nearly two feet tall, from the mantel. Then it dropped to the floor with a clatter of marble hooves, grinned its grin that showed teeth like little black razor blades, and walked with sharp clicks toward Quentin.
And then the faces of the cherubs and the winds began to move, and fell from the ceiling like ripe, white fruits.
"'She is… dead?'" Dennis asked Linda Bartholomew as Gretl, Lise's friend. He had been gradually feeling his strength and the strength of his performance return. He had been weak at the beginning of Scene 2, but had improved by the end, and now felt as if he had captured the character once again. When he heard that Lise has been murdered, he felt the Emperor's grief, felt it as deeply as he had when he stood over Robin's body.
He stood for a long moment, letting the emotion wash over him even as he was aware of the sympathetic response of the audience. He could feel them feeling his own emotion, and knew that if it would continue, he would triumph.
"'I thank you,'" he said, "'for bringing me word.'" He slowly raised his hand and gently gestured her out, then turned to Bill Miley as Rolf. "'Tell Basil I wish him to come to me immediately.’” Rolf bowed and exited, and Dennis walked slowly to the throne and sat down.
At this point he was to reach into his uniform tunic and take from it a pressed flower that Lise had given to him at their first meeting. He started the move, but as he slid his hand into the tunic, something shook his soul with the power of a stroke. He gasped for air once, twice, three times, and his hand fell to his side on the throne.
He sat there like a machine that had stopped, and the audience stirred. Was this part of the show, an unexpected emotional response to show how much Lise's death had devastated Frederick? Or were they witnessing the further collapse of Dennis Hamilton, the actor?
Alan Singleton, who played Basil, entered, and his poorly concealed discomfort was all the hint the audience needed. Something else had gone wrong. Dennis Hamilton was falling apart before them.
"'Majesty,'" Singleton declaimed in a voice that shook with more than practiced emotion, "`How may I be of service?'"
Dennis looked at him slowly, knowing the move with the flower was irretrievably lost, and wondering what else was lost as well.
You feel me now, Dennis. You feel me coming, and growing strong, taking your strength. One final performance, Dennis. Just what I needed. Just what we both needed.
I will see you soon. Very soon. I'm practicing now. Honing my skills. Like you, I've been in retirement for far too long.
Can you imagine that I even have to audition in order to appear with you?
Even now I am in the midst of my final audition.
For your director.
Some of the cherub heads broke when they struck the lounge floor, but reformed immediately. Several of them landed on the sofa next to Quentin, and either flopped end over end toward him, or rolled on edge. He jumped up, looking around in panic for a way to escape, but the fat little faces came at him from every direction, and the black faun was closing in fast, less than six feet away from him now.
He cried wordlessly, turning about, looking for a breach in the nightmarish line. He could have jumped over them, but his legs were trembling so much that he knew he dared not try it, lest he trip and fall among them. Then he saw a break in the direction of the men's lounge, and in a moment he was through it, racing across the tile floor, and now he was in the small chamber, and there were two doors – the open one into the lavatory itself, which would give no means of escape, and a closed one. He grasped the knob and turned it, but it was locked. Screaming with rage and fear, he kicked it with his dancer's legs, felt the frame give, looked behind and saw the faun and the cherubs in the doorway behind him, kicked again, harder. The door flew open, and Quentin saw, several yards away down four wooden steps and a long, dirt-floored tunnel, the hanging, eviscerated corpse of Abe Kipp.
The sight made him stagger back, and his heel caught one of the rolling faces. He tripped, fell, felt them bumping against him, then felt the pain of the black faun's teeth as it buried them in his ankle. Screaming, he batted away the faces and crab-walked into the lavatory. He wrenched the doorstop up and tried to push the door closed against the creatures, but its pneumatics made it close slowly, and several of the things rolled through. The faun got an arm and a cloven foot into the crack, and although Quentin pressed as hard as he could, battering the door with his shoulder, the marble would not shatter. The gap grew wider, allowing more of the white faces to enter, and Quentin, as he moved further away from the door, saw to his greater horror that now the cupid mouths were opening wider than he would have thought possible, showing teeth within. The little round chins dropped, and the jaws snapped as they clattered toward him. One was larger than the others, and he knew that it must be one of the four corner winds.
Now the faun was inside, phallus rampant, teeth gnashing, scuttling toward him, its shoulders swinging with each step, and Quentin retreated further, crawled into the end booth, shot the bolt even as he realized the futility of it. He climbed onto the seat, grasped the top of the partition for balance, watched as the cherub heads, their mouths chattering like wind-up teeth, rolled under and into his booth and rattled like saucers as they toppled over and came to rest, glaring up at him with white plaster eyes. They kept rolling in, dozens of them, clattering next to each other until they overlapped, hiding the tile floor, their baby mouths with predators' teeth still working.
Then everything was quiet. Quentin hung on, balanced on the toilet, panting, bleeding from his ankle where the faun's teeth had raked him.
The faun…
" Eat me! " grated a voice next to his ear, and pain ran red through his hand. The faun had climbed up the other side of the partition and was shredding his fingers like a hulling machine strips corn.
Quentin screamed and let go. His left foot plunged down into the bowl, and his head struck the wall.
It was a great mercy that he was unconscious when he fell among the white faces.
"'There will be no marriage, Prime Minister. Not ever.'"
The lines were as listlessly given as those of a weary conductor calling station stops.
"'But, Majesty,'" a jittery Alan Singleton replied, "`Your responsibility – to your throne – to your people!'"
Ann Deems watched from the wings, her heart filled with fear and love, and she thought, If only I could give him what I feel now. If only I could give him what he needs…
The show went on. And the audience remained in their seats. Not one left for a cigarette, or a breath of fresh air, or a visit to the rest room. They sat there as repelled and fascinated as a crowd at an execution.
Dennis's singing "All My Life to Grieve" was almost drowned out by the orchestra, in spite of Dex Colangelo's noble efforts to pull the orchestral volume down as low as possible. The next two scenes were without the Emperor, and the other performers gave their all – some felt too much – to counterbalance Dennis's lack of fire. In the following scene where Rolf tells Inga that the Emperor is behaving like perfect royalty, there were audible if uncomfortable chuckles from the audience, appreciative not only of the absurdity of the line in context, but of Bill Miley's zeal in its delivery, as if saying a thing strongly enough would make it so.
Then came Scene 6, in which the plan evolves to have Kronstein disguise himself as Frederick to announce the marriage to Maria, which will unite Waldmont and Borovnia, and turn Kronstein, who has taken Maria as a mistress, into a power behind the throne. Wallace Drummond nervously chewed the scenery so thoroughly that most in the audience despaired of any return to balance for the remainder of the show.
And while Wallace Drummond was singlehandedly attempting to provide thespian pyrotechnics enough for two, Ann was in Dennis's dressing room, standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders as he looked wearily into the mirror. "You have to bring it out, Dennis. It's there – you just have to reach down deep enough."
"I'm trying," he said, his voice hollow as an empty stage where the echoes of past performances have long since died away. "I reach, but there's nothing there. I can't feel, and I can't pretend to feel – it's too late for that. It has to be real. And it won't come."
She steeled herself. The last thing she wanted to do was to humiliate him, but she had no choice. "Can you think of how you look to the audience then? Does that make you feel? Feel… ashamed, even. If you do, maybe that's a place to start."
"Of course I feel ashamed. But it's not enough. It's just not enough. So much of it is knowing that he's here – and not being able to do anything about it – not being able to confront him – that makes it worse."
"Dennis," came Curt's soft and steady voice over the squawk box, "fifteen minutes."
Dennis pressed the red button on the top to acknowledge the call. "The last scene," he said. Ann leaned down, put her cheek against his, looked at the reflection of his empty eyes. "Find it, Dennis. Make it live.
"And make him die."
Several minutes later, Wallace Drummond looked at his own face in the mirror, and wondered if he had gone too far in that last song. He had always prided himself on being a very natural actor, but in "Take What Is Mine," he thought he might have gone just a tad overboard. Dan Marks's eyes had widened a bit as Drummond sang the song to him, but maybe it was just something new that Dan was doing as Kruger, trying a little bit harder to make up for what was happening to Dennis.
Holy hell, Drummond thought for the hundredth time that evening, what was wrong with him? Drummond had acted with stiffs before, but the caliber of Dennis's performance wouldn't have been acceptable in a bad high school production of Bye Bye Birdie. He had heard of actors getting burned out from playing a role too long, but this was more than burnout, it was mind-rot.
Drummond couldn't help feeling sorry for Dennis. He seemed like a nice enough guy, a little distracted maybe, but Drummond had noticed that a lot of people with a lot of money got distracted easily. He hoped that when he finally made it he'd have sense enough not to let the money run his life.
Okay, he thought, forget it. Think about the show now.
He could hear the chorus singing, and knew that he had about five minutes before he had to go on for the final scene with Dennis. Dan, with whom he shared his dressing room, was singing his solo now, haranguing the crowd on the necessity for an imperial heir, goading them to call on the Emperor to set a wedding date. Drummond rattled through his lines and Dennis's, and thanked God that there weren't a lot of them before they got into the duel and he was slain. It would be a mercy, he thought, not to have to do any more lines with Dennis. "Kill me now, Lord," he whispered, stood up, and looked in the full-length mirror that hung on the bathroom door.
The imperial uniform hung well, and the false beard and moustache that made him resemble Dennis seemed secure and straight. Surely a mob of peasants and merchants far below would not notice the imposture, he thought, beginning to slip into character. It looked better than ever before.
Damned, he thought as Wallace Drummond, if it didn't look better, and he blinked his eyes in confusion. If he hadn't known it was him, he would have sworn that there was a doorway there instead of a mirror, and in it stood Dennis Hamilton in full regalia as the Emperor Frederick. There were the blue eyes, painful in their intensity, the jutting chin, the imperious stance. Drummond had resembled Dennis somewhat, but never before like this, and, curious and amazed, he stepped closer to the mirror.
The glass shattered as the Emperor's hands came through it, impossibly strong hands which grasped the front of Wallace Drummond's jacket and pulled him into the mirror. The broken shards tore through Drummond's high collar and licked his throat until the blood came.
~* ~
(THE EMPEROR drops the lifeless body, takes a paper towel, and daintily wipes a spot of blood from the back of his hand. Then he turns and looks at what he can see of his reflection in the broken glass.)
THE EMPEROR
(In his own voice) "You've returned too early, Frederick." No. Not quite it. Let me see… (In Wallace Drummond's voice) "You've returned too early, Frederick." (He smiles in satisfaction.) Much more like it.
CURT
(On squawk box) Five minutes, Drummy.
THE EMPEROR
(Holds the button and speaks in Drummond's voice) Thank you, Curt. I'll be there. (He releases the button, then takes Wallace Drummond's saber from the dressing table and draws it from its scabbard. He goes into the en garde stance, and thrusts it into what is left of the mirror. The glass breaks and rains down on the body of Wallace Drummond, as THE EMPEROR salutes .)
Scene 11
The last scene. The last time he would appear on stage.
The last chance.
Dennis Hamilton stood in the stage right wings, clutched the hilt of his saber, and waited for the music to end, for the darkness to come, that deep smothering darkness of a black stage, relieved only by the scantiest exit lights, that darkness in which the chorus would scurry off stage, Dan Marks would come past him and around onto the stage again, Wallace Drummond would ascend to the center stage balcony from which the disguised Kronstein would lie to the people…
Lie to the people.
It was, Dennis thought, all he had ever done, and now, when he wanted to show the truth, he was unable.
And he knew why. The Emperor. The Emperor was there somewhere, hiding, but able all the same to draw his strength, his emotions.
"Where are you?" he whispered into the darkness that suddenly surrounded him. "Where are you?" he said again, with as much bitterness as he could summon.
Bodies moved past him, brushed against his, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the human flood to ebb, for the lights to come up, waited for his final entrance.
Why did the Emperor not show himself? Was he scared?
Scared. That was absurd, wasn't it? Scared of Dennis? Scared of a man who could not even feel anger for having his soul stolen away?
The lights came up, the scene went on, Kruger telling Kronstein of his triumph with the mob. "`They're hungry for a wedding,'" Dan Marks said, "`absolutely starving for one!'"
"'Then,'" Dennis heard Wallace Drummond's voice proclaim, "`we shall give them one.'"
It was Dennis's cue, and he strode on stage, glanced up toward where Kronstein was supposed to be standing, but his energy level was so low that he could scarcely lift his head that high. Somehow he got out his line, "`What in God's name are you about?'"The delivery was pitiful.
Still, Marks gave his reply. "`About to announce your future, your majesty.'“
“You've returned… just in time, Frederick," said the voice of Wallace Drummond.
"'Just in time?' Oh shit," whispered Curt Wynn, high overhead in the control booth, to the electrician running the light board. "Now Drummond's going up on his fucking lines. This show ends without a major disaster, it'll be a miracle."
Dennis knew the line was wrong, but did not have the presence of mind to tailor his response to the error. "'And you've gone too far, Kronstein.'" The words came out automatically. "'Get away from that balcony.'"
Kronstein's next line was Stop him, Kruger. Don't harm him, but stop him. But that was not what came out.
"Get through Kruger, my friend. And then I'll deal with you," said Wallace Drummond's voice.
"Kronstein mustn't like the show," whispered Cissy Morrison to Evan. "He's rewriting it."
Dan Marks had given his last line, and all that was on his mind now was how to get off the damned stage as quickly as possible. The way Dennis Hamilton was acting, Marks didn't trust him to do any of the moves that Quentin had choreographed, and the saber points and edges were sharp enough to hurt if someone made a wrong move.
Marks carried Dennis through the duel, and easily saw that he was in no condition to administer the final thrust. If Marks was to die, it would have to be offstage. To perish in agony from the kind of halfhearted swipes Dennis was making would bring forth nothing but hoots of laughter from the audience. And to lie supposedly dead on the stage, even if behind a divan, for the rest of the scene would be true agony.
So, thinking more of himself than of the intended impact of the duel's climax, he began to back up stage right, as if forced to do so by Dennis, who had no choice but to follow him, as if pressing him into the stage right wings. When he was out of the audience's sight lines, he said sharply to Dennis, "Now lunge!"
Dennis did as he was ordered, with more force than Marks had expected. Perhaps the surprise and spontaneity of Marks's moves and command had touched something within Dennis. At any rate, Marks thought the movement would read well from the audience, gave a strangled cry, turned, and walked back toward the backstage coffee machine, wishing that it was a whiskey machine instead. If there was actually a curtain call after this fiasco, he decided he would not join in.
Dennis Hamilton did not know what to do. He wanted nothing more than to leave the stage himself as Dan Marks had done, to go back and sit in his dressing room and forget about everything else, just go back and lie down and sleep a dreamless sleep.
But he remembered that there was still an audience out there, still a show that needed to be finished. He needed to duel with Wallace Drummond, he needed to give a final speech, sing a final song to end this dull nightmare. As he hung there, suspended on his doubts and responsibilities halfway between the stage and the wings, he heard a voice calling him from the stage.
"Come back, your majesty," it said. "You don't escape as easily as that."
He knew that the voice was not Wallace Drummond's, but it seemed chillingly familiar just the same. When he turned and looked at the man wearing Drummond's costume, a perfect match for his own, he knew why. He knew as soon as he saw the face with a real beard and not crepe hair, saw the eyes that he had seen before only in the mirror or in the mirror image face of…
The Emperor.
"What the hell. " Curt said, adjusting his headset. "Did Dennis give that line?" The electrician shrugged.
THE EMPEROR
I'm here, Dennis. You knew I would be.
DENNIS
I hear you, but you're not speaking.
THE EMPEROR
Now we speak as fast as thought, with no tongues nor lips to slow us. While those who watch us try to rise, we may speak volumes. And why not? Are not our minds one? Am I not the character, you the actor? Prove it, Dennis… give a line. Give a line.
"'Move away from the balcony… Now!'"
The power of his delivery amazed Dennis, and he felt an unexpected surge run through him. The Emperor's face seemed to quiver for the slimmest part of a instant, and Dennis spoke again.
"` I'm giving the orders… Kronstein.'"
THE EMPEROR
Call me Kronstein now with a sneer in your voice, Dennis. They'll all call me Emperor soon enough. I take you now. All of you. And then you die.
DENNIS
Why not before? Why did you wait until now?
THE EMPEROR
Because I needed the strength that came from one last performance – your strength and mine. Your strength become mine. Now you die – you, the imposter, the madman – and I become you. I become Dennis Hamilton. The actor became the character, and now the character becomes the actor. Artistic perfection. You should be very proud.
"'You shall not let me make my announcement?'"
To the audience and Curt Wynn in his aerie, Kronstein's line came only a second upon the heels of Dennis's. "They're picking it up," Curt said. "Thank God they're actually picking it up."
"'If you were to make it looking like that, I should be the one bound to it.'“
“Enough talk." Curt thought he saw Wallace Drummond's mouth move, but it was Dennis's voice he heard. "We end it now."
"That's not the line," Curt moaned, his legendary calm at the breaking point. "And who the hell said it?" He pressed his face to the glass as he saw what Kronstein did next. "He's drawing his saber. His goddamned saber! And so's Dennis! They're going to start the duel early!" With a sigh of frustration, Curt dropped into his chair. "What about Kronstein and Kruger killing Maria? Where did the plot go?" He turned to the electrician. "Did we have a plot here somewhere?"
The electrician shrugged, and in another moment Curt was relieved to hear a close approximation of one of the original lines.
"'Pray to your God. From this day on, I am the Emperor.'"
"God damn," Curt whispered, finally beginning to be scared. "Which one of them said that?"
~* ~
Dex Colangelo gave the downbeat to the orchestra when he saw the sabers cross. He didn't know what else to do. At least with the music under way he would be kept busy, and if Dennis and Wallace Drummond wanted to just keep improvising, Dex could have the orchestra play repeat after repeat. Hell, they could play all night if they had to, until somebody finally extemporized an exit line.
~* ~
Cissy Morrison had a grip of iron on Evan's arm. She was not the first to whisper, "That's not Dennis," but her surprise at that conclusion was as great as anyone's. "Evan, that's your dad! He's playing Kronstein! Is this a trick or what?"
Evan leaned forward, looked closely at the two men dueling with sabers on the stage. He had been paying such close attention to Dennis and his condition that he had glanced at Kronstein only once, and marveled at how close the resemblance was before he had turned his attention back to Dennis. Now, as he examined both men, he realized that they were identical, perfectly identical, and, with a shock, he knew who was playing Kronstein.
"The Emperor," he said, his eyes wide enough to still Cissy Morrison. "It's him."
What ran through Evan then was that he should push himself to his feet, run up onto the stage, and aid his father in any way he could, but when he thought of standing alone in front of all those thousands of people, a vicious jolt of fear shot through him. It weakened his legs, set him sweating, constricted the muscles of his throat, and he knew that even if the Emperor were to slice his father apart, he could do nothing but watch.
"The Emperor," Cissy repeated, and looked back to the stage. "It is. Dennis is the Emperor. But that Kronstein… oh my God… how can they both be Dennis?"
~* ~
The sabers were out now, and both Dennis and the Emperor went into an en garde stance. The Emperor advanced first, a furious attack that drove Dennis up right to the back flat, so that he bumped against it, making the canvas ripple.
The thought struck Dennis that it was a revelation of artifice to the audience, and he was surprised to find that it angered him. To an audience, the theatre should be real.
At the Emperor's next attack, Dennis parried weakly but effectively, gaining his freedom so that he and the creature now stood parallel to the line of the proscenium. They stood there for only a moment.
~* ~