AWARD WINNER
Best Suspense & Book of the Year! 2008
ReaderViews Reviewers Choice Awards
“Williams and Wyman have put together a first-rate suspense. They draw the reader in from the first page, and hold them with their vivid descriptions of ritualistic goings-on in this New York theater, even as Lee Fairchild is struggling to keep her dream afloat. This mystery is so character driven that it is easy to suspect any of the theater company...they all have something to hide. But it is Lee’s ultimate struggle with loneliness and an overloaded professional struggle that brings the story to its shocking climax. Don’t start this wonderful story if you have something else to do, because this fantastic plot will win the fight! A big thumbs up!!” --Shelley Glodowski, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“Butcher of Dreams is set in New York’s squalid Hell’s Kitchen. It’s 1985, and a fledgling theater company is trying to get through its first season without going bankrupt... or getting killed. Lee’s call to a temp agency has brought her Michael Day, a smooth-talking young man who insists he has plenty of money to buy her lavish gifts. Is Michael just infatuated, or is he unbalanced? With a whole troupe, there are plenty of suspects. Wyman has a radio and TV background, and Williams is an actress, so the backstage details have authority, and Lee’s story is effectively told.” --Barbara McIntyre, Akron-Beacon-Journal
“The writing is tight and precise. The characters are amazingly detailed and believable, with their back-stories intricately weaving in and out of the main story line. Butcher of Dreams is one of the really thrilling mysteries I’ve read, remaining mysterious to the very end of the book … and scary enough that I did not want to read it when I was alone in the house.” -Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views.com
“I [was] caught up in the plot and chilled by how it unfolded. A very disturbing read indeed.” --Marie Elmvang, ArmchairInterviews.com
“Butcher of Dreams is set in a world that is both real and unreal, tangible and imagined. The 1980s New York setting is well-described, with countless details that evoke the era’s apathy-toward-the-homeless philosophy. Equally interesting are the passages detailing the world of theater, a world that is colorful, gaudy, outrageous, and enticing, yet also menacing for its illusions. One can never be truly sure whether something is artifice or reality, an acting moment or an emotional moment, and this uncertainty keeps the reader as well as the book’s characters off-guard and interested.” --Tory Lowe, The Ashland University Collegian
“Smart, tough, talented, sensitive Lee Fairchild is just the kind of woman who can successfully manage and act in her own off-Broadway theatre. She can cope with the seedy streets of New York in the 1980’s, and can juggle the many needs of her gifted but tormented co-workers with the vision of great shows. But Lee is emotionally vulnerable because of her husband’s recent death and when a ritually mutilated body is found in her theatre she must fight her way through a bewildering mesh of loves, fears, egos, myths, and blood to discover the truth that will save her theatre and herself. Full of authentic gritty detail about off-Broadway in the 1980’s, Butcher of Dreams will keep readers turning pages.” --P.M. Carlson, author of Crossfire
~~~
BUTCHER OF DREAMS
A Suspense Novel
by Kay Williams and Eileen Wyman
Published by Calliope Press at Smashwords
Copyright © 2007 by Kay Williams
~~~
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All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental.
Quality Books, Inc. has established a Cataloging in Publication record for this title.
LCCN 2007927727
Soft Cover ISBN-13: 978-09649241-6-1
EPUB ISBN-13: 978-0964924116
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~~~~
1. Thursday, September 26
2. Friday, September 27
3. Tuesday, October 8
4. Sunday, October 13
5. Several minutes later
6. Monday, October 14
7. Monday, November 4
8. Tuesday, November 5
9. A few minutes later
10. Thursday, November 28
11. Monday, December 2
12. Tuesday, December 3
13. Tuesday, December 17
14. Saturday, December 21
15. Forty minutes later
16. Tuesday, December 24
17. Tuesday, December 31
18. Saturday, January 18
19. Sunday, January 19
20. Sunday, January 19
21. Wednesday, January 22
22. Sunday, February 2
23. An hour later
24. Monday, February 3
25. Tuesday, February 4
26. Forty-five minutes later
27. A few minutes later
28. Wednesday, February 5
29. Sunday, February 23
30. Tuesday, March 3
31. Monday March 9
32. Tuesday, March 24
33. A half hour later
34. Friday, March 27
35. Saturday, March 28
36. Sunday, March 29
37. Monday, March 30
38. Tuesday, March 31
39. Wednesday, April 1
40. Wednesday, April 1
The idea for this book came after we moved into Manhattan Plaza, a housing complex for performing artists in Hell’s Kitchen. The neighborhood was crime-ridden. Live nude shows, erotic bookstores, x-rated movies were just a block away from our apartment complex. Crack cocaine was sold by dealers in the streets. Prostitutes blatantly solicited. In the mid-eighties, 42nd St. between 7th and 8th Avenues was considered one of the worst blocks in the city for crime. By the time we finished the book, the Disney Corporation had renovated the Amsterdam Theater, moved in The Lion King and Hell’s Kitchen was well on its way to being gentrified. Now our area is one of the safest, cleanest neighborhoods in New York City.
Butcher of Dreams is based on our experiences working in off-Broadway and regional repertory theaters around the country. The events are fictional, the theater is fictional, and the characters are fictional. The story takes place in 1985 and 1986—in Hell’s Kitchen as it was then.
Kay Williams
Eileen Wyman
April, 2007
~~~
He saw it gleaming, white, like snow. His hand trembled as he reached for it. A fist struck his outstretched arm. He fell to one knee, his arms above his head. Hands pushed him down. Heavy shoes kicked him in the stomach, the head. He curled into a circle of pain.
He felt first the breeze from the huge wings. Out of the darkness the enormous bird came to him, lifting him away from the pain. He was on the bird. They did figure eights, loop the loops, sharp pulls up into the thinner air. He and the bird blotted out the sun.
People below looked up at them, shouting. He and the bird swooped low, hunting for prey, a giant shadow on the horizon.
He bent his head close to its ear. "Listen," he said. "You can hear the beating of my heart.” He heard two heartbeats, his own strong boom and the other's fragile tic, tic, tic, racing like a clock.
~~~
Chapter One
Thursday, September 26
In the theater’s darkened auditorium, Lee Fairchild wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. Her heart was pounding wildly. She'd have to cut down on the coffee or she'd never survive the season. From her third row seat, she watched Ernst Kromer cross the stage.
The harsh, bright rehearsal lights were unkind to Kromer, exaggerating the sallowness of his face. He looked almost menacing as he swung his bad leg forward. The thick built-up shoe with its metal brace clumped on the wooden stage, loud and final, like a judge's gavel.
She told herself not to be so hard on him. He had every right to stop the rehearsal. After all, he was the director. If only he knew how to handle American actors.
Kromer stood before Barry Blackwell, sighed. "I vill show you—"
Why was Kromer riding Barry so hard? He was terrific, the best actor of the bunch.
Kromer took Barry's script. He dabbed at his eyes, a father mourning the death of his sixteen- year-old daughter. He began Barry's opening monologue, using grimaces and outsized gestures to show his grief. Indicating was what the American acting schools would call it. Barry couldn't play the part that way. He'd be a laughing stock.
Barry's ferocious scowl would have unnerved most people, but Kromer, oblivious, continued. He was going to show Barry how to do the entire monologue, Lee realized. The other performers stood there bracing themselves, dreading when it would be their turn.
Despite the largeness of Kromer's acting style, his belief was contagious. Against her will, Lee felt herself being drawn into the speech. Was that a tear, a real tear, creeping from his eye? As he wiped it away, he seemed shaken. His grief changed to anger. His chest swelled, his face reddened. He suddenly squatted, his face in his hands, howling out his grief and anger. Lee felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
When he finished, the silence was deafening. "You see?" Kromer asked Barry.
Barry nodded, his mouth tight.
"Ve'll try it again at tomorrow's rehearsal." Kromer moved on to the others, methodically dissecting the roles, male and female—acting out key elements of each part in his exaggerated way. Barry watched from the wings, his face dusky red. The other actors were white-faced, as if all the blood had been beaten out of them.
Lee slumped down in her seat. Kromer wanted puppets, not flesh and blood actors. If the first show was a flop, to attract audiences for the rest of their season they'd have to do "The Last Supper" with the original cast. If this first season was a flop, there'd be no next year. She looked at her watch. It was after six. Everyone was exhausted. "This has got to stop." Her voice came out too loud. Her actor's control was shot to hell.
"Great line reading." Barry gave a half-salute from the stage.
Kromer squinted into the dim auditorium.
"Ernst, everyone has worked through the dinner hour." Alan Dunbar's voice boomed out. He was artistic director of the company and had ultimate artistic control of all productions. She was sure he was as concerned as she was. "We'll have sick actors. We'll have the union on our necks."
Lee could hear Alan straining to keep his voice smooth, low-keyed. She wondered how long he'd been watching from the back of the room.
Kromer threw up his hands in exasperation.
The actors milled about, made motions of leaving the stage.
"You vill vait, please." It was said politely, but it was an order.
Barry clicked his heels together. "Ja, Herr Kromer."
Kromer tensed. A hush descended over the cast. Lee waited for the explosion, but Kromer simply ran a hand over his eyes. He limped to the side of the stage and sat heavily in an empty chair. "Ve must do the blocking of the nightmare scene.” He signaled the stage manager, Harry O'Brien. "You vill go out for coffee?" Kromer searched in his pants pocket and handed him some bills. "Cakes too."
Harry jammed his blue watch cap on his head, his gray eyes neutral behind wire-rimmed spectacles, and hurried up the aisle.
Alan slid into the seat next to Lee.
“The critics will have a field day," she said to him in a low voice. “He’s killing the actors, sucking the juice out of them.” She was beginning to have doubts about the play too, a heavy European piece about a girl who died and came back to life. She sighed. "I can’t believe we’ll be stuck with Kromer for the next eight months.
Alan squeezed her shoulder. “Without him on the masthead, we’d have no grant, no theater. Look, love, we’ve got our dream. Hang tough.”
Her eyes roamed the renovated auditorium. They’d worked hard. They'd scoured out the muck. They'd built a new stage to replace the rotting one, hung black drapes, put down padded theater seats. All they needed was a fantastic opening show and hordes of warm bodies passing up the glitzy Broadway musicals in favor of ensemble theater on the fringes.
"Actors. Look alive," Kromer called. "The door to the courtyard bursts open. Ve see lightning. The townspeople swirl through in a drunken celebration. They begin a dance around the old witch." Kromer blocked the scene. The actors walked through it twice.
"Now, ve play it with the masks." Kromer disappeared into the wings and returned with a large green garbage bag. He reached into the bag, and handed Barry a mask, an idiot's face, red lips slack, one eye drooping. Barry smiled ruefully, giving Kromer the finger when he turned his back to distribute masks to the other actors. Kromer gave masks to everyone but to Blandine, the dying girl, and the old witch who held her, and then took his seat in the front row of the auditorium.
He leaned forward, his voice urgent, hypnotic. "Good and evil battle for the soul of Blandine Jairus, who has died once and now must die again." His voice rose. "Carnival. Everything allowed till midnight.” The townspeople surged from the wings.
At the head of the crowd was a monk with a torch. Behind him was the red death, outlined with little tinkling bells. Then came a ragged angel with horns, Barry in the drooling idiot's face, tarred and covered with feathers, a leering hunchback on a stick, a serpent devouring a baby. The line of seven actors danced and weaved, doubled back on themselves, broke apart, re-formed. They seemed to be a mob, anonymous and threatening, their mask faces frozen in grimaces of good and evil.
The monk cried out, "To the executioner." The mob, uttering grunts and moans, surged closer to Blandine. The idiot peered into her face. The red death beckoned. The old witch shrieked.
It was a powerful and chilling scene. Lee felt a thrill. If only the rest of the production worked this well. The actors too seemed excited by it.
Just as Blandine rose up, as though electrified, and fell back dead, Harry hurried down the aisle with refreshments. Blandine's mother moaned. The house lights came on.
For a split second, the actors were frozen, stunned by reality, then surrounded Harry at the apron of the stage, snapping lids off coffees and tearing cellophane off doughnuts. After they ate, without a murmur, they went through the scene a second time. Harry collected the masks as Kromer gave notes.
"Ve vill meet again tomorrow—" Kromer paused for emphasis “—at noon." The actors, stunned to silence by the lateness of the next day's rehearsal, finally managed weak whoops of joy. Kromer limped tiredly off the stage, pulling his coat from a front row seat, struggling into it as he went up the aisle.
Lee and Alan followed him out into the theater lobby. "Ernst, got a minute?" Lee asked.
The actors trickled through the side door of the lobby into the adjoining hallway and out the front door.
"Look, the nightmare scene is great." Lee took a breath. "But the leads haven't a clue about characterization."
Alan continued, "American actors aren't like European actors. They can't be shown a gesture, a facial expression and deliver instant results."
"A professional is a professional," Kromer said tersely.
"Give them a chance to bloom," Lee said. The actors weren't names, but they were talented. The core of the repertory, Barry included, were selected from over 800 resumes, many auditions, actors chosen for their skill and versatility who would play a variety of roles and styles, ages and types, before the season was out.
Kromer sighed. "This is a complicated show. Ve have only two weeks more." He walked past Lee and Alan into the hallway.
Lee followed. "American actors need psychology, motivation."
Mumbling something about the foundation getting him involved with amateurs, Kromer pushed open the front door.
The cool air felt good. It damped down the hotness in Lee's face. Tomorrow after they'd all had a good night's sleep, she'd talk with Kromer again.
She watched him make his laborious way down the steps. He limped toward the subway, looking lonely and frail, not at all like the ogre who'd hounded the actors for hours.
Dark shadows stirred in darker doorways. It was almost time for the people of the night to come out, the pimps and prostitutes, transvestites, drug dealers, the sad homeless wandering like nomads through the city.
Alan, at her side, shut the door with a chipper smile. "Don’t fret. The critics will love the theatricality of Miss Jairus. They'll be snowed by Kromer's reputation. They'll fawn all over us."
Kromer's reputation was why he was here. He'd been a director with the famous Berliner Ensemble. "The critics may love Kromer. It's the actors I'm worried about," Lee said.
"We're trying to mix oil and water. Kromer is an outside-in director. American actors work inside-out." Alan frowned. "Instead of human beings onstage, we may have 15 clones of Kromer."
They both stood glumly in the hallway, imagining 15 Kromers stomping around the stage, declaiming lines in a thick accent.
"It might work for the nightmare scene," Lee said. They both laughed.
"I can't meddle with another director's work. But . . ." Alan flashed her a smile. "Maybe I can interpret him to the cast. So they can please him and protect themselves."
"If Kromer sniffs out that you’re going behind his back . . ." Lee warned.
He struggled into his black leather jacket, waving her worries away. He wrapped his aviator scarf around his neck, an affectation in anyone else, but endearing to Lee. They'd been friends for a long time.
"Let me walk you to your car," he said.
She shook her head. "Scads of unfinished work is piled on my desk. And around it and under it.”
He frowned. "Sleeping over?"
"Not tonight. Probably every other night this week." In the small room upstairs next to her office was a pullout couch, a small dresser where she kept a few pieces of clothing. A perfect setup for the workaholic she'd become. "We lost Jean today." Jean had been her assistant. "And our second call for subscriptions hasn't been mailed out yet."
"What happened?"
"She got a job in dinner theater. Remind me not to hire another actor for her job. They have the morals of an alley cat." Her voice was sharp. She saw Alan's look of surprise. I'm losing my identity, she thought, turning into a producer.
"If Jean left this morning, who got my lunch from the carryout?" asked Alan.
"Me.” She smiled brightly, playing her martyr role to the hilt. Was it St. Eulalie whose breasts lay steaming on a platter? Well, she wasn't about to go that far. She rattled on, eager to get everything off her chest. "And Actors Equity called to say we can use only four non-professionals in Miss Jairus. So we'll have to cut back on the crowd scenes. Kromer will have another tantrum about that."
Alan clumsily put his arms around her. "What a terrible day."
"I wasn't going to dump on you like this. It's my job. To administrate. Your job is to create. And you do it brilliantly."
His sharp eyes fastened on her. "Patience, dear heart. You'll be trodding the boards again soon."
She'd have the lead in the fourth play of the season, Irma, in The Balcony. "It seems a long way off." She smiled wanly. He smiled back. Alan could read her at a glance. They were simpatico. That's why they'd always worked so well together. In San Francisco where they met. Then St. Louis, where she was his leading lady in eight shows. It was a golden time. Before she was married. Before Alan became the artistic director of the Beach Theater in L.A., a plum job, a definite upswing in his career.
"Here we are, Dunbar and Fairchild, together again in the Big Apple." Alan's eyes were bright, a transparent blue made brighter in contrast with his pupils, large and round and dark. He stuck his nose in the air, his nostrils quivered. "In the role of Irma, madam of the whore house . . ." he made a double chin and jowls “. . . Lee Fairchild delivers a mesmerizing tour de force."
Lee smiled. He was doing Win Sloat, theater critic for Channel Ten.
Alan waggled his jowls. "I particularly liked the symbolism of the ladder left onstage throughout."
"By a careless stagehand," Lee murmured.
Alan continued solemnly. “Omnipresent yet unobtrusive, stark and simple, it conveyed beautifully the essence of the main characters, where they had been and where they would have to go." He threw his head back and let loose with his laugh, loon-like, but infectious.
"And was a sly reference to the play's title, The Balcony." Laughter bubbled through her lips. She relaxed into it, let it build. "I haven't laughed like this," she gasped, "not since Richard and I got drunk on champagne the day the grant came through for us.” Her laughter broke. Tears filled her eyes.
Alan fumbled through a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Sorry." She took a deep breath.
"I miss Richard too." Alan awkwardly patted her on the arm. "How's the kid? Surviving her first week of college?"
"Better than me." She wrinkled her nose.
He gave her an impulsive hug. "Hey, I almost forgot. I have good news, for a change. Blithe Spirit is cast."
"Great!" He'd been reading people for the last three days, determined to get the right chemistry for their second show, their upbeat show for the holidays.
“And—” the shadow of a dimple quivered in his cheek “—we’ve got Violet Butterworth for Madame Arcati. I spoke to her agent a couple of hours ago.”
“That’s fantastic. She’ll work for minimum? You asked, didn’t you?
“Oh, yes. Eager to get the job” He winced. “There’s a rumor around that she’s been having trouble remembering lines.” He pulled his fingers excitedly through the sparse stubble that dotted his scalp.
“Well, she has lots of charisma and a huge following.”
Alan yelped and jerked his hand off his head. "Can't endanger my fragile roots with sweaty fingers. "His dimple flickered. "My vanity is costing me. Would you believe this puny lot has cost $2,500 so far?"
Lee grunted. It looked like a burnt out cornfield to her. She gave Alan a grimace meant as a smile, ruminating over Violet Butterworth’s frailties. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Thank God, the show is Coward, not Shakespeare. If she has to ad-lib, at least she won’t have to do it in blank verse. I’ll get the contract to her agent first thing Monday morning.” Having a “name” like Butterworth, even with its downside, would be a real magnet for audiences.
Alan's kind eyes locked into hers. "Not to worry. I predict Miss Jairus will be a hit. And next year—” he searched for a consoling thought to offer her “—we'll have money, enough to hire a fulltime administrator so you can be a fulltime actor."
She smiled. "Who says we can't dream?" It had been a wonderful bit of luck running into Alan again three years ago at that open call. He'd cast her in his show, which had a modest run off-Broadway. And they'd put together the package for the Collyer Foundation. She'd lost track of him after he left the Beach Theater. But it was as if they'd just parted yesterday, that 15 years hadn't gone by.
Alan was still a handsome man, a bit blurred around the edges but that gave him an air of kindness that was missing when he was younger.
She felt very blurred herself tonight. It had been a long day. It would be even longer by the time she finished the work piled on her desk upstairs.
"Bye, love." Alan pulled open the door to the street. Something soft and heavy toppled in, nearly hitting her legs. She looked down at the still heap of rags. It was a man, wrapped in several layers of blankets, a hole cut in the center for the head. The smell of sweat, urine and mildew made her eyes water.
Alan bent over the shape, who groaned something that sounded like "malc" or "milk." The man stumbled to his feet and leaned against the doorjamb, blocking their way. He chugged from a pint bottle. He was tall, with a dark beard, bushy hair, matted now.
Lee remembered seeing him around the neighborhood, talking to himself, asking for money. She'd seen sores on his bare ankles. Once he'd gotten into the theater—people didn't always lock the door behind them—and disturbed one of Kromer's rehearsals.
His eyes, bloodshot, darted from her to Alan. Then he mumbled to himself, retreating down the front steps. He headed left, toward the abandoned buildings by the river. All at once, he stopped and looked back at them. "Malc," he shouted, "Maaalc."
Alan's face was drawn and sad. "I'll buy him coffee," he said suddenly to Lee. He ran to catch up.
"Be careful," Lee called. Street people were unpredictable, docile one moment, violent the next. Alan had been the one to coax him out of Kromer’s rehearsal by offering him money.
The man was waiting for Alan to join him. Almost tenderly he held out an arm and allowed himself to be led toward the corner coffee shop. Alan disappeared inside. The man, a tent-like figure, waited motionless under the outside canopy.
Lee hesitated, then closed the theater door and bolted it. Alan knew how to handle him.
She was shivering, she realized, as she trudged up the stairs to her office on the second floor. The building was a barn of a place, expensive to heat, but rent was a pittance. It had been a burlesque house, vacant for years.
When she first saw the space, newspapers, bottles, beer cans, ragged bits of clothing were strewn over the floors helter-skelter, trapped in layers of filth. The Homeless Hotel, Alan called it. As she and the others cleaned and scrubbed, chaos and despair seemed to rise up with the dust, settle over her in a fine mist.
One end of the third floor, where the costume alcove was now, had been especially bad, filled with feathers and small bones. Images of Satanic rites, the biting off of pigeons' heads, the drinking of blood ran through her mind. Then she'd reined in her galloping imagination and decided that the dozens of transient inhabitants of the building, hungry and without money, had grabbed a meal where they could.
At the second floor landing, she opened the door, fumbled along the wall, found the switch, feeling less edgy as the lights came on, illuminating the reception area, with its faded blue couch and matching chairs, the wooden desk, massive, old-fashioned and scarred, too large for the corner it sat in. Reassuring solidity in an ephemeral world.
She went down the hall to her office. She flicked on the light switch, sat down at her desk, opened the budget folder for the umpteenth time. Costs had doubled since she and Alan had submitted their grant proposal to the Collyer Foundation.
She poked at her calculator. What else could she cut? Five shows to be done between now and May. Then all five would be repeated in repertory during the summer. A monumental task.
What about next year? The neighborhood was being gentrified. Property values could go sky high. So could their rent.
In the corner the donated copier hummed and gurgled, slurping up toner at $5 a bottle.
Anyway, they'd lucked out on theater seats and drop curtains, had gotten a terrific deal, thanks to Richard. She stumbled over his name. She tried to force her mind past Richard, willed herself to concentrate on the numbers. But her eyes were pulled to the photo on the desk, as they were a hundred times a day. She stared at the three of them, Richard, Heather, and her, tanned and laughing, hair blown by the wind, white sails, blue sky and water. Richard's captain's cap was tilted back. He seemed about to burst with pride and joy. Heather, leggy in her cut-off jeans, looked 12 instead of 16. She had an arm around each of them. The perfect family. Only two years ago. It seemed like yesterday. Or light years ago. The picture blurred and wavered.
She tore her eyes away. Stacks of papers, piled up on the desk, the floor, the corner chair, surrounded her. Maybe it was too soon to get involved in all this. She'd be wearing two hats. Administrator, for the first time in her life. And actress, after a gap of two years. It could break her in two.
~~~
He pushed his hand inside his jacket and drew out the trembling body. He untied the feet, then unwrapped the cord that bound its wings. It made small noises, whimpering sounds. "Shhh, my friend," he whispered. "She'll hear us." The beady eyes glittered as if it understood but suddenly its wings flapped and it dug its claws into his hand. He clamped both hands over the wings, holding them down. The bird twisted, struggling to get away. He held it tighter, feeling the bones beneath his fingers. He squeezed until the bird stopped moving.
He stood very still, trying to quiet his breathing. He heard her call, “Alan.” He looked for a place to hide, saw the rack of costumes, and pushed into the middle of them, breathing in the dust, trying not to sneeze. Sweat rolled off his face, down his neck into his shirt collar. He wouldn't panic this time. Do something dumb.
~~~
Lee turned off the copier. "Alan, are you back?” She looked out her office door, to her left, down the hall toward reception. Empty. To her right, the rehearsal room door was open. She walked down the hall and peered in. Over to the right against the wall, what was that? She turned on the light. Only a clump of costumes on the rack along the wall, brought down from upstairs storage. The building, full of sighs and groans, had a life of its own.
Something silver glinted on the floor. She bent to pick it up. A feather. Weird—she’d just been thinking of feathers.
She threw it in the trashcan just inside the rehearsal room. It could have been tracked in by anyone. Hordes of actors had been by today for Alan's auditions.
Back in her office, she pawed through the budget pages scattered across her desk. She couldn't concentrate. She realized she was still listening for whatever it was she thought she'd heard. She got up, grabbed her coat from the back of the door.
Her eyes fell on the brochures stacked around the office, on the floor, on the extra chair. The second mailing announcing their season should have gone out days ago. Now with Jean gone . . .She flipped through her rolodex, dialed the 24-hour temp service and put in her order for someone for tomorrow. Then she gathered up her things and locked her office door.
Outside, a cold drizzle was falling. She hurried past the dance studio, rounded the corner, and headed toward the parking lot at the back of the building, where she kept her car. When she unlocked the gate, she noticed the third floor, the floor above her office, where the scenery was constructed and stored, was blazing with lights. The crew must have left without turning them off. There went the electric bill. She should go back inside, climb up to three, and douse the lights. She didn't want to. She told herself it was because she was tired.
The image of that first day, the feathers and bones scattered in the corner of the third floor, slid again into her mind. She saw a manic dance, a voodoo ritual, a horror show out of Stephen King. She gave her head a sharp shake. When she wasn't acting, her imagination sometimes went a little haywire. A build-up of fantasy juice.
A figure moved into the third floor window. Good. The crew must still be working. She wouldn't have to unlock the doors and climb all those steps. Lee tooted the horn. The figure waved. Was it Harry? He was boss of the crew as well as stage manager.
She backed the Toyota out onto the street, relocked the fence and climbed back into her car. When she glanced up at the window again, it was dark. Whoever it was must have decided to call it a night.
Overripe, that's what Richard always said about her imagination. They'd had more than a few fights about it—how she couldn't take anything at face value, was always reading into things more than was there, making them more dramatic. "I'm sorry,” he'd say gently afterwards. "I'm glad you make me see things differently. I could never live without you." "Me, too," she'd say.
It wasn't the third floor of the theater that spooked her. Nor the job, administrator of a low budget off-Broadway repertory company. It was Richard—she was scared of going on without him. Tears came to her eyes. She rubbed them away with the palm of her hand. She started the car, ground the gears. The car lurched forward.
Life could be such a kick in the face. It was always changing. Not like theater, where you had a script and you rehearsed it until you got it right.
~~~
He stood by the window, between the bolt of muslin and the lumber, and watched her drive away. He was smarter than anyone. He was a shadow, an invisible man.
He lit a candle. Around him, the other shadows moved, broke apart, re-formed into different shapes and sizes.
They surged forward the—the shadow people. The skull was first, grinning and humming its high-pitched song. The angel with horns paired off with the madman, tarred and feathered.
They all belonged to him. "Everything allowed ‘till midnight," he whispered.
He turned, surprised to see the hunchback, arms outstretched, weaving toward him. "You're just in time," he said.
~~~
Chapter 2
Friday, Sept. 27
Eight o'clock the next morning, Lee unlocked the front door that led to the offices above the theater. She noticed the alarm was off. Who was in so early? She stepped into the hall. "Lee," Alan called down to her. He was on the landing outside the second floor.
"Kromer in yet?" she asked, climbing the stairs to meet him.
He shook his head.
"Good.” She and Alan would have a chance before the morning meeting to map out a strategy about Kromer and his treatment of the actors.
Close-up, Alan's face was white.
"What's up?" she asked.
He pointed down the hall. Her office door was standing open. Grim-faced, he led the way.
The middle drawer of her desk had been pulled out, its contents dumped on the desktop. The worn brown petty cash envelope was flat. "$500 was in that envelope last night," she said, feeling sick. "I always lock that drawer.” She was the only one with a key.
Alan shook his head slowly.
"There are scratches around the lock," she said. "The drawer was jimmied open.” Her eyes darted around the small room. Everything else seemed intact, the file cabinet, where the checkbooks were kept, still secured. "The door downstairs—it was locked when you arrived?"
He nodded.
"We should call the police."
"We call the police—they won’t bother for $500. Look," he said with a too bright smile, "I'll turn my checks back until the money is covered. That way we won't have to put the loss in the books."
"Alan, that's—" she spluttered, looking for words. "Why should you?"
He took off his jacket and flung it into the extra chair.
A button was missing from the middle of his gray cardigan and the pocket of his shirt was torn. "It's a legitimate theft," she said.
"Have to keep the peace with Collyer and the foundation." He ran his palm over a small prickly patch of hair near the front of his scalp. "I can forego a couple of transplant sessions. Have to wait until this heals anyway." With a grin, he ducked his head and showed her the tiny scabs dotting his scalp.
"A police report will prove it’s a theft to anyone who doubts, the Foundation included.” To whom they had to account for every penny. Lee examined her office door. It hadn't been forced. "Someone used a key.” Only she, Alan and Kromer had keys to her office. "Whoever it was got through the locked front door, the locked door at the second floor landing, and then into my locked office."
He took a deep breath. "Look—after I left you here last night . . . Well, I had to come back—to check a phone number from your rolodex.” His words came out in fits and starts. "Everything was okay. No sign of a break-in.” He looked shame-faced, then blurted out. "When I finished, I may have forgotten to lock your office door."
So that was it. He felt responsible. She felt like a rat but she had to ask it. "The door to the second floor too?"
Alan nodded glumly.
"No big deal. It could have been worse.” She patted his shoulder. "Last week there was a couple of thousand here in petty cash."
Alan smiled gloomily.
"But still," she mused, "someone would have had to get through the locked front door—"
“Definitely—I locked that!” His face was red. "And turned on the alarm."
"Oh, Alan," she said softly, "it never entered my mind that you didn’t." She thought for a moment, remembering when she'd left last night, her feeling that something wasn't right. "Someone—I thought it was one of the crew—waved to me from the third floor window as I drove away. Then the lights went out."
Alan frowned, rubbed his chin.
"The thief could be one of us, someone from the crew,” she continued. “Even one of the actors might have gravitated up to the third floor after rehearsal, waited till the place was empty and then came downstairs, tried the landing door and found it open, found my office open—” Someone sneaking around—a thief in the company—a depressing thought. They were a carefully chosen group, a family almost, who'd be bound together for at least a year. "So there was nothing unusual when you came back last night?"
He shook his head.
"What time was it?"
"Ten?” A muscle twitched in his cheek.
She shook her head. "I was here until ten."
"You're right. More like ten-thirty. I only stayed a few minutes."
She put her hand on the phone. His hand covered hers. It felt icy.
"Theft is a way of life in this neighborhood," Alan said. "The police have bigger things to investigate than petty thievery at an off-Broadway theater." He licked his lips. "We don't need bad publicity. The Foundation won't like it."
"A $500 theft won't get us two lines on a back page," Lee said. "You know that as wellas I.”
The phone rang. They both jumped.
Kromer's voice was syrupy. "Iss Harry there?”
Lee cradled the receiver between her neck and shoulder. “I don’t know.” Harry might have come in while she and Alan were talking, gone up to the third floor without stopping by the office.
Harry would have some answers. At least he could tell her if he or any of the crew was still here working when she left last night.
“Harry promised my door unit would be ready today. Vill you check, please?" Kromer asked. "And call me back."
“Now? Aren't you coming in for our morning meeting?"
"Of course. But I would like to know now, if you vill be so kind. It vill affect my rehearsal plans for the day. I vill vait for your call.”
Delivered unctuously, but still an order. She felt like telling him to sit on it. "Of course, Ernst," she said sweetly and hung up. "I have to check on Kromer's door unit," she said to Alan, who sat hunched over, staring into space. He seemed really ragged today, preoccupied, seemingly unaware of his torn shirt and missing button. She finally put two and two together. "Fight with Walter?"
He nodded.
Walter was his psychiatrist. And his lover. Alan said once that Walter had saved his life, but the way the two men fought, Lee wondered if Walter saved his life so he could destroy it his way. She waited by the door for Alan to say more, but he smiled sadly and waved her on.
Lee climbed the steps to the third floor landing. The door was unlocked, ajar. “Harry?” No answer. Harry must have been here early, working on the set, and now was out for breakfast.
She hoped Kromer's door unit was finished. For Harry's sake.
What was that smell—like mice decomposing or rotting fish? It was the fish glue, she decided, used in building flats. How could the crew stand smelling that stuff all day?
The room was very cold, dark, more unsettling than ever with the set for Jairus stacked about. Pale light filtered through the grimy window directly to the right of where she stood. To her left, the view was obstructed by a line of metal shelving, filled with paint cans, small tools, boxes of nails and screws, and props from Jairus. The shelves divided the room into two sections, the storage area, where she was standing, and the construction area. She flicked the lights on, walked past the coffin, Blandine's, soon to be used in Jairus, veered left, through the narrow aisle between the first and second metal shelf unit. The new lumber was stacked in front of the back windows—they were grimy too—and a rudimentary beginning to what looked like a door unit lay beside it.
She heard a small sound. “Harry?” she called out. No answer. The sound came again, behind her—like a tinkling of bells. Spooked, she resisted the urge to hurry back to the safety of her office.
She backtracked through the aisle to the storage side, and stopped abruptly. On the shelves beside the costume alcove were the angel's face with horns, the tarred face of the idiot covered in feathers, a lion mask, a laughing hyena, all from the nightmare scene of Jairus. The masks had been on the prop table in the theater last night after rehearsal. Why would anyone have brought them over here? Come on, Lee, she told herself, get a grip. She could hear Richard laughing about her overactive imagination. Perspiration dotted her upper lip.
Next to the angel, the mask of red death was frozen in a dissolute smile. Then the bells stitched around its mouth shook. The tinkle, thin and petulant, came again. The red death grinned at her, its mouth slack and trembly. She pulled her eyes away, noticed the far window was open. The breeze was rustling the bells. She marched over to the window and slammed it shut.
As she locked it, a movement behind her was reflected in the glass.
She turned around. The gigantic papier mache hunchback leered down at her from a nail on the wall outside the costume alcove, alongside other papier mache shapes used in the carnival scene.
She started toward the array of giant figures covering the wall, skeletons, the serpent devouring a baby—all of them had been taken from the theater and brought over here. What was going on?
Behind the hunchback, in the costume nook, the long black heavy robes from the Jairus processional were swinging. Goosebumps rose on her arms.
She kicked something. It scudded across the floor. She followed it and bent to look more closely. It was a candle. It lay beside a pile of rags, pushed against the wall. She wanted to run. Instead, her hand reached out in slow motion, touched the green blanket bunched over the rags. What was her blanket doing here? It belonged in the dresser in the small room next to her office.
She lifted it with two fingers, gagging at the smell. Underneath was a still body, the face framed by matted hair, a dark, bushy beard. The derelict. He'd been with Alan last night. Now he was here, still as death, his blue eyes wide open as if he'd seen something frightful. Her bones felt hollow, as if they would crumble, but somehow she left the room, floated out, disembodied, propelled by the roaring in her head. Halfway down the stairs, she heard a steady high-pitched sound and realized she was screaming for Alan.
~~~
"Sweet Jesus." Alan's face collapsed. He knelt by the man's side, held his wrist in an almost tender way and felt for his pulse. "Dead," he said, more to himself than to Lee.
A thick cigarette butt wrapped in black and orange leopard skin paper lay beside the body.
Alan sucked in his breath. But he seemed less horrified than thoughtful.
Next to the gaudy cigarette butt was an empty coffee container, an unwrapped half-eaten sandwich. The sight of the food combined with the atrocious smell nearly made her gag. "How did he get here?"
"I don't know," Alan mumbled. He brushed his hand over the dead man's staring eyes, closing them. He picked up the black and orange roach and slowly rotated it between thumb and forefinger.
She thought he was going to put it in his pocket. "He's not—he wasn't just someone you've given a couple of handouts to. Am I right?”
Alan didn't answer. He put the roach back on the floor.
"What happened, Alan?"
He gave her a hollow-eyed look. She thought she was going to hear a terrible story. "I bought him a sandwich and coffee, I went home.”
"So that's all of it?"
"That's all of it," he glared.
"You said you came back here—to the theater."
Alan's face reddened. "I gave him the meal, went home, remembered I needed a phone number from your office, and came back.” He added before she asked. "Barry's phone number. I wanted to give him some pointers for his opening monologue. One actor to another."
There was a soft whump. They both turned, startled, toward the door to the stairs. They had left it open. Now it was shut. "Let's get out of here," she said.
~~~
Lee tried to look at the man in the trench coat who stood above the body but her eyes kept sliding down to the heap on the floor, covered, save for the face, by her green blanket. The stench clogged her nostrils, was giving her a headache. She breathed shallowly through her mouth.
"You say you found this window raised?” Detective Green asked Lee. His khaki coat hung open. He wore wide blue suspenders. "And you shut it?”
Lee nodded. Who did he remind her of? He was tall, tall as Alan, angular, hollow- cheeked with a full head of dark hair, graying at the edges. His ears were too big for his head. He was nice looking in a homely sort of way.
He pulled on latex gloves, went to the far window and lifted it. It slid up as easily as if it were oiled. "The dead guy could have come off the roof next door," he said. "What’s next door?
"Dance studio," Alan said.
"And got in using the flagpole as a hoist. If the window was open."
Lee went over to the window and looked out. The pole was attached to the side of their building quite close to and parallel with the window. It looked as if it could be grabbed from the roof of the dance studio. The theater flag, emblazoned with 42nd Street Repertory, was supposed to hang from it—when they got the money. "Would he have been strong enough for that?" she asked. "To swing in that way?” This man had been malnourished, ill from drugs and alcohol.
The detective gave Lee a bland smile. His cheeks were pitted as if he'd had a bad case of acne as an adolescent.
"Otherwise," Green said, "he'd have to have a key. Or someone would have had to let him in."
Lee threw a quick look at Alan, who avoided meeting her eyes.
Green bent over the dead man, pushing aside the blankets. The smell of decay, dark and secret, was laced with the high plaintive smell of the man's filthy clothes. "Do you mind if I open another window?" she asked.
"No," Green said, covering his nose with a handkerchief, "I'd appreciate it.”
She opened the window and took in deep breaths of the cool air. She was shivering all over, despite her thick wool turtleneck. Alan took off his cardigan and draped it over her shoulders. "Thanks," she said. His eyes met hers, then fell away.
The detective gingerly slipped a hand into the dead man's pants pocket. He pulled out a small object—it looked like a large vitamin capsule—and a pocketknife and put them on the floor beside the roach in the leopard skin paper. The man's other pockets were empty. No money, Lee noticed. If he'd taken the $500, it wasn't there now.
The detective squatted beside the body. "Who was here last night?” His voice was muffled by the handkerchief.
"The cast were rehearsing in the theater. Me. Alan, Kromer, I'm not sure who else," Lee said. "I mean I'm not sure how late the crew worked. I saw lights on up here as I drove away last night about ten.”
Detective Green gave her a curt nod. "You were here?" he asked Alan.
"Yes, Lee and I both watched rehearsal. I left before she did—nine o’clock or thereabouts."
"Anything unusual happen while you were here?" he asked Alan. "I'm sorry what's your name again?"
"Alan Dunbar," he answered. "No, nothing was unusual.” He flushed, stammering, "I didn't come up to three. Downstairs—over in the theater—everything was fine."
Evidently Alan wasn't going to mention he'd returned to get a phone number from her office. Lee felt Green watching her.
"Mrs. Fairchild, you said as you drove away last night you saw someone up here working?” Green asked.
Lee nodded. "I saw a figure at the window. He waved. I thought it was Harry, our construction boss."
Green took the handkerchief away from his nose and stuffed it in his trench coat pocket. He picked up the capsule-like object from the floor, twisted it open and shook out its contents, several small beige chunks, into his hand. "Crack," he muttered. He put the chunks, the roach and the pocketknife into plastic baggies.
Then he lifted the moldy blankets, found the man's arm and pushed up his shirt. "Dirt tracks. An addict. Seen him before?”
Alan cleared his throat. "He sometimes slept in the doorway here."
Lee added, "One day he got inside. Broke up another director's rehearsal in the theater downstairs.”
The detective played with a book of matches, opening and shutting the cover. "The man was sleeping in the doorway when you left last night?"
"I said he sometimes does," Alan broke in truculently.
The two men were eye-to-eye, glaring at each other.
Green had a very commanding manner. He could eat Alan alive. Lee felt protective. “The green blanket on the floor there,” she said hastily, “the one that covered his body. It’s—it was mine. It was taken from my room. He must have been wandering all over the building.”
Green’s eyes slid over to her. His smile said, You’re trying to change the subject.
She went on defiantly, “I have a studio couch in the room next to my office and a few things here, in case I decide to stay over.”
The detective reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a pair of half glasses, which he pushed on his face. They looked wispy, incongruous against his strong features. "So this guy hung around here a lot?"
"Squatters lived here--before the theater came in," Lee said. "Maybe we took away his home.”
Green smiled sardonically. "Or maybe he had drugs to offer interested parties.” He drew out a pen and wrote something on the inside cover of the matchbook. Then he folded it shut, put it and his pen back in his pocket. He gave them a baleful look over his half glasses. "Who has keys to the complex?”
"Me. Alan, as artistic director, has a set. So does Ernst Kromer, another director. Harry, in charge of set construction, also has a set—”
“What do you mean by set?”
“Keys to both outside entrances—the office/storage area and the theater itself. Keys to the second floor reception area, where my office and our rehearsal space are, and to the third floor storage and set construction area. Only Alan, Kromer, and I have keys to my office.”
The detective wrote again in his matchbook.
He must use a secret code, Lee thought, where a dot equals a word. How else could he put anything significant into that little space? "I wonder where the money is," Lee murmured, "the missing $500."
The detective knelt beside the body and picked up a hand. "Probably the same place as his finger."
The dead man's left ring finger was missing, cut off where it joined the hand. Lee felt coffee, toast and bile rise in her throat. She glanced at Alan. He had a glazed look, a little like a sleepwalker.
"A fresh cut. Not much blood. Hacked off after he was dead.” Detective Green carefully lowered the man's hand to the floor. "Maybe there was a fight. His buddy left with the money, drugs—if any were left—and the finger.”
"Why the finger?" Alan asked.
"Could be he was wearing a ring someone wanted."
Lee could still smell the rotten smell. It clung to the underside of the cold air that filtered through the window. Hung on by its fingernails. She felt it would cling just as tightly to her until she could strip, wash her clothes, take a bath. "How did he die?"
Green shook his head. "Have to wait until the autopsy.” He turned to Alan. "In a fight?" he asked, staring at Alan's torn shirt pocket.
Alan mumbled no.
"I thought I saw the black robes move,” Lee pointed toward the costume alcove. “I think someone was hiding there when I found the dead man."
Green's brows rose.
"I went downstairs to get Alan, and as we stood here beside the body, we heard the door to the stairwell close.”
“That’s when he left,” Alan muttered.
“Who?” Green asked.
“The Shadow,” Alan said. “The invisible man.”
“The dead man's buddy," Lee said slowly, "must have stayed behind after the man died.”
Green had his matches out again, opening and shutting the cover, flicking the cardboard against his fingernail. "I gather," he said looking at the shelves filled with tools, paint cans and boxes of nails, "this floor is—” he appeared to read the inside of the matchbook “—Harry's bailiwick."
"Yes," Lee said.
He ambled over to the shelves nearest the costume alcove, peered at the masks, and seemed particularly fascinated by the hunchback skewered to the wall by a nail, arms and legs akimbo, lips curled in a sneer.
"Someone after last night's rehearsal in the theater,” Lee said, “carried those masks and props over here. Out of the theater, through the lobby and up three flights of stairs.”
"Vat iss this?" Lee heard behind her. She turned to see Kromer in his long brown overcoat arguing with the policeman who stood guard at the third floor entrance. "Mrs. Fairchild,” Kromer called out. “They told me downstairs you vere here. Vy all the police? Vy is this man guarding the door?”
"That's Ernst Kromer," Lee said to Green. "One of our directors."
"Let him in," Green told the cop.
Kromer's heavy, uneven footsteps sounded on the wooden floor. "No one has been answering the phone," he admonished Lee. Suddenly, he put his hand over his nose. "Vat is that smell?”
Behind Kromer, a second plainclothesman, younger, rather good-looking, appeared in the open doorway. He had a crisp look, tucked in, like a well-made bed. "There's a fire escape up the other side of the dance studio," he said to Green. "He could have come across the roof."
Two attendants pushed through the door with a body bag and headed toward the corpse. Kromer followed them with his eyes, finally catching on. He limped over to the dead man and peered down with drooping, heavy lids.
“You recognize him?” Green asked.
“I have seen him around.” Kromer darted a quick glance at Alan.
Green saw the look. "How well did you know the dead man?" he asked Alan, his eyes gray and icy as a winter sea.
“Vell enough to give him money," Kromer said.
“Alan gave him money," Lee broke in, "to get him out of the theater so Ernst could go on with rehearsal.”
Green nodded coolly. “How did you get that torn shirt?” he growled at Alan.
Alan's face was tight. "It's old. I grabbed it from the drawer by mistake.”
Harry arrived just as the body was being carried down to the waiting emergency van. "You work last night?" Green asked him.
"Yeah," Harry said, "I came up after rehearsal. We worked till about nine-thirty."
"We?" Green asked.
"Me and Carl.” Harry turned to Lee.
"She says the lights were still burning up here at ten. Someone was standing in the window."
Harry frowned, shook his head.
The detective turned to Lee. "Maybe the dead man was already inside by then. Maybe it was him you saw."
"Wrong shape.” Lee pantomimed the bulky shape of the multi-blanketed derelict.
Green's eyes flicked back to Alan before he turned suddenly to Harry. "Who does the monsters?"
"They're Carl's." Harry pushed off his blue stocking cap. His hair stood up. He combed it with his fingers. "Carl does the art work."
"Harry," Lee asked, "did you bring the masks up here last night after rehearsal?"
"No way.” He shook his head. "I'd only have to cart them back down again for today's run-through."