REIGN

By Chet Williamson

First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

Reconstructed from scans and copy-edited by David Dodd

Copyright 2010 by Chet Williamson

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OTHER CROSSROAD TITLES BY CHET WILLIAMSON:

NOVELS:

Ash Wednesday

Soulstorm

Lowland Rider

Second Chance

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As author & Narrator:

Ash Wednesday

Soulstorm

Lowland Rider

Second Chance

As Narrator:

Blood: A Southern Fantasy – by Michael Moorcock

Fabulous Harbours – by Michael Moorcock

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"For Chief and D, and Fred and Lee, and everyone with whom I've walked the boards. And most of all to Laurie, for her incomparable performance in supporting roles through the years."

Of all arts, the most difficult was the art of reigning.

Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition though in hell:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.

Milton, Paradise Lost

In that tyme . . . reygned a grete pestylence.

Caxton's Caton

OVERTURE

Watch, Dennis. Watch.

Dennis Hamilton watched. He had no choice. He was once more a captive of his dream, a slave of the very emperor he had himself been for the last quarter of a century, the character he had created. And now that character came to life before his eyes, stood there grinning as nakedly as if the skin of the face were transparent, revealing the skull beneath.

Watch.

Who, Dennis wondered, would the Emperor kill tonight? Which of the people he loved? His wife? His son? John, his manager, or Marvella, his costumer, or Curt, his stage manager? Night after night, he had taken them all in dreams, killed them all by grasping their necks in his left hand, which seemed as huge and monstrous as the necks seemed thin and frail, and shaking them until those pencil-necks snapped with the sound of cracking twigs, and the bodies had fallen like empty sacks, and the grin had widened until it threatened to raven the world, and Dennis would awake with tears in his eyes, and turn and clutch Robin's warmth, waking her to comfort him.

Who tonight? Who? He saw her then, dimly at first, as through a fog, or a gray-tinted window, but he recognized her immediately. Though twenty-five years had passed, he knew her, for he had never forgotten, never stopped feeling what he had felt when he was so young, when emotions had been taut as wires, sensitive as exposed flesh in winter.

Ann.

She was older, but still as lovely as he remembered. Her honey-blonde hair was shorter than it had been, but still long, falling to her shoulders like a veil. She wore a dress — or was it a gown? — of white. She seemed, Dennis thought at first, dressed for a wedding.

But when the Emperor stepped into the frame of his sight, he knew instead that she was dressed for a sacrifice.

Watch.

Ann's neck did not change, did not diminish and thin as the others had. And the Emperor's hand, when he grasped her, no longer grew in size. A hand it remained, though one with great strength. It squeezed, and Dennis saw Ann's face go white with pain, though there was no fear in her eyes. She looked, not at her attacker, but at him, and in her gaze was mingled a plea and a longing, both emotions mirrored in his own thoughts.

He moved toward her as he had with all the others, to save and to protect. But unlike before, when the thick and fluid bonds of dream held him back, now he flew forward with a dazzling speed that blinded him, and when he could see again, he knew that it was his hand that was clutching Ann's throat, his eyes that were blazing into hers, those green spheres clouded with approaching death.

He gasped, and tried to release his grip, loosen the fingers that dug into the flesh so deeply that the tips were hidden.

He could not. The fingers, his but not his, pressed harder. The eyes refused to obey his demand to close, the mouth, rebel to his will, grinned with teeth he could not see, and Ann faded away as she had on that day long ago, from his sight, from his love, from his life . . .

From life.

Ann.

~ * ~

Dennis Hamilton awoke weeping. His body was slick with sweat, and he felt hot and cold at once.

"Dennis?" Robin's voice, full of love and concern, echoed in the darkness. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"

He grasped at her, and when he felt her arms go around him, he let himself go completely, let the sobs shake his body.

"The dream?" she asked. "The same dream again?"

"Yes," he said. "The same." It had come at irregular intervals, unpredictably and unexpectedly, for nearly a year.

"Who this time?"

He didn't answer right away, and he could sense her curiosity in the dark. To give him time to decide what to say, he reached up and turned on the dim reading light over his side of the bed.

"You're sweating," Robin said. "Do you feel all right?"

He nodded. "It was you," he told her. "I dreamed that he was hurting you . . . choking you."

She looked so young in the rose-colored light. Her dark hair cupped her face like a pair of gentle hands, and the edge of the sheet was draped over her waist, exposing her full, round breasts. Dennis felt desire trying softly to usurp his previous apprehension.

"It's just a dream," she said, reaching out and smoothing the damp hair back from his forehead. "Dreams can't hurt you."

"But it frightens me," he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his cheek. "It seems so real, and I worry about . . . about what it might mean."

"We've talked about this before," she said with a sigh, "and you're not angry at me, darling. You're not angry at any of the people you've seen hurt in your dreams, even if you are the one who's doing the hurting."

"I'm not the one," he said. "It's the Emperor, I told you that. It's him every time, not me."

She touched his cheek. "After tomorrow there won't be any emperor anymore, will there? You can replace him with another dream — a dream you've had for so long. One that's going to come true."

He smiled at her, remembering. "Yes," he said finally. "I guess it will."

"Can you sleep now?" she said. "It's going to be a big day. A very big day. Shall I call Sid? Have him fix some warm milk to help you sleep?"

"No. No thanks. It's all right." He turned off the light and put his head on the pillow. Robin leaned over and kissed him.

"Sleep well," she said. "Sweet dreams now. Or no dreams at all. I love you."

"And I love you," he said, meaning it. But he went back to sleep remembering Ann.

~ * ~

Morning came, and then the night. The last performance was glorious.

~ * ~

He sat before the mirror, gazing at the man within. The face was older now. Nearly twenty-five years had passed since he first saw the Emperor inside him, twenty-five years since that first night, that night in 1966 that set the pattern of his life as firmly as heredity.

Had the audience dozed, had the critics been unkind, had he been in poor voice, or nervous, or forgetful, his life would have been very different. But those things had not happened, and he had been crowned Emperor of the Theatre, and had remained so for a quarter of a century, longer than many real emperors, or kings, or popes. Until tonight. Until this warm April night, on which they roared out their acclaim for a voice still young, still as strong as ever, roared for the full, rich, velvet baritone with which he had enthralled audiences across the country, around the world. His world. His circumscribed and loving world, girdled with his talent, governed by his persona, ruled by the Emperor.

Still, Dennis Hamilton thought, looking into the mirror, it was not the voice that really mattered, was it? It could have been aged and withered, made harsh by the nicotine he never inhaled, pickled by the alcohol he seldom touched, constricted and parched by the cocaine that floated all around the New York theatre scene like a gritty cloud but which he had never even tried. No, it was not the voice, but the presence.

He still had the presence. He could go on. His friends begged him to go on; his fans, who made up much of the civilized world, begged him to go on. To them he was the Emperor, and always would be.

The stance was enough to tell anyone that. The stance at the beginning of Act I, Scene 6, when the change came. The hands locked commandingly behind the back, the thrust of the jaw, lengthened by the beard, that long Ruritanian beard that he had never shaved off, dashed now with specks of gray not yet visible from the audience. He could have dyed it, but that would have been vanity. Besides, they all knew he was no longer twenty, and it would not have diminished their love. No. The world knew that he had based his life on artifice, and the world had made him a rich man because of it.

He heard them outside his dressing room door now. It was late. The show itself ran, as always, three hours with the intermission, and tonight's curtain calls had lasted another half hour. They could have lasted longer, he thought. They could have lasted until morning.

But no, it was good that Curt had brought the curtain down and the house lights up when he did. Always leave them wanting more — the theatre's golden rule.

Dennis smiled at the memory of the applause continuing long after the curtain had come down for the final time and the auditorium was fully lit. Five years ago, three, even six months ago he might have interpreted Curt's ending the curtain call as insolence, and given him a tongue-lashing for it. But tonight he felt not even mild aggravation. Leaving the Emperor behind was indeed, he thought, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

There was a knock on his door, and he heard Robin's voice calling, "Dennis? Dennis, the party?"

"I'll be there," he called back. He had not yet removed his costume or his makeup, and the Emperor still stared at him from the mirror. The medals flashed, the gold braid gleamed like chorus girls' hair. The lines in his face were invisible beneath the makeup and the powder. It was, if not a young man's face, then the face of a man whom the years had touched but lightly. He knew that he could not stay there forever, that people and the rest of his life were waiting for him. The thought made him smile, and he spoke to his image in the glass, encompassed by soft, naked bulbs, "Well, your majesty, it's time to leave you. Leave you for good." He shook his head. "I can't stay here forever."

It was as if the image told him that he could. The carmined lips did not open, but he heard the voice inside his head.

You can, it said.

"What . . ." he whispered so quietly that an ear next to his mouth would not have heard.

You can, it said again, then became silent.

Dennis Hamilton shivered, and the conceit that he had considered, the intention to leave on his costume and makeup, to remain the Emperor for one final night, suddenly oppressed him. He pulled the uniform jacket open so quickly that the snaps seemed to pop simultaneously, and yanked the garment from his body as though it were lined with barbs. Then he reached for the jar of cold cream as a drowning man reaches for a spar, and slathered it over his face, rubbing it in and wiping it away with handfuls of tissue, desperate to escape the Emperor.

And when he looked in the mirror again, the Emperor was gone. In his place, dressed crisply in a dinner jacket, was Dennis Hamilton. The beard, reddish-brown and trimmed to perfection, was the only thing that remained, for the eyes, the brow, the mouth were all gentle, with not a trace of imperiousness in their slants, their turns, their attitudes.

Dennis sighed in relief, walked to the door, grasped the knob, and looked back at the mirror, expecting for a moment to see an image still framed within. But the glass only reflected the silken curtains, the red brocade wallpaper of his dressing room. He looked again, as if some mistake had been made, then turned and opened the door upon the crowd, upon the world. Hands reached out for him, kind words assailed him, and the door closed upon the mirror.

It sat there, blank. And, in a while, an image returned.

ACT I: INTERPRETER

All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Scene 1

Six months after Dennis Hamilton's farewell performance of A Private Empire, on a October night whose chill pushed thin ribbons of cold between the cracks in the casements of the old farmhouse windows, Ann Deems, newly widowed, sat in the large family room and watched Entertainment Tonight on the projection TV. She had been working on the details of the estate all day, and a thick sheaf of papers still lay, awaiting her attention, on the teak coffee table.

She ignored them now, her feet tucked comfortably under her, her gaze fixed loosely on the images that blurringly danced across the giant screen. She made a mental note that one of the first things she would do would be to get rid of the damned thing and buy another regular TV. She hated the way colors bled into each other, the lack of sharp detail that phosphor dots provided. She had complained to Eddie about it time and again, but all he had said was, "You'll get used to it, Annie. I mean, look at the size of it. It's like being in a goddamned theatre, isn't it?"

Yes, she had told him. Yes, I suppose so, thinking all the while that it was like a theatre in which the projectionist was drunk and the lens was smeared with Vaseline. Still, Eddie had loved it. It was his toy, just like all the other toys he had bought and played with and gotten bored with through their twenty-odd years of married life.

She didn't begrudge him the things. After all, he had worked hard for them, had always worked hard since the day he had gotten out of law school and gone into practice with his father's firm. And even if he hadn't worked hard, they still would have had the money. Henry Deems always saw to that. The only son of the senior partner in one of the oldest law firms in Philadelphia would want for nothing, and neither, Ann thought with an odd mixture of satisfaction and distaste, would his widow or his daughter.

She shrugged off the thoughts and tried to turn her attention back to the TV. This kind of empty-headed pseudo-journalism was exactly what she needed now. Mind candy, popcorn for the brain. It seemed as though she had been thinking about Eddie every minute since his death three weeks before. She was afraid she would always think about it.

It left a tremendous void in her life, as though someone had come and pulled up their house in one piece, so that only a pit remained where the basement used to be. If they had been older, it might have been easier to take, even though the ties would have been still deeper with years. But you just don't expect someone to die of a heart attack at forty-four. Cancer maybe, or a car crash, but not a heart attack, not for someone who never smoked, got a lot of exercise, ate right, was a walking public service spot. Not Eddie. And not the way it happened. She wondered if, after everything was over, the estate settled, Eddie's things stored away or distributed among the many charities that Ann did volunteer work for, she could forget that night. She wondered, if she met another man and fell in love with him, if she could ever make love again.

A commercial came on the huge screen, and Ann looked away, closed her eyes, and remembered once more. There was nothing to see, for it had been in darkness. No, there was only the sound and the feeling of him, of Eddie over her, filling her, the two of them pressed together, moving as one toward a climax, and her coming first, the warmth moving up from groin to stomach to breasts, and feeling the spasmodic heat inside her, knowing that Eddie was with her, part of her. And then the horror began.

It was as if someone had struck him with a sledgehammer. He died on top of her, inside her, in an instant. A sharp intake of breath, and the weight of him pressing her down, smothering her, not the weight of passion spent, but the terrible, awesome weight of life fled. Dead weight. Dead.

She blinked back tears and looked at Eddie's goddamned, mammoth screen again. It was the stuff of stupid, dirty jokes, dying like that, and she felt furious at him for doing it, knowing full well that it had not been his fault, that he did not choose where and when to have his fatal attack. Still, his death had savaged her above and beyond the already harrowing experience of losing a husband, a friend, a man to whom you had given all your love for nearly a quarter of a century. Despite her friends, her family, despite Terri, she felt terribly alone.

“. . . Dennis Hamilton . . .”

The words from the stereo speakers on either side of the screen sent a shot of adrenalin through her, and her head snapped back to the glowing, watery images. One of the show's vapid correspondents, golden-haired and red-lipped, was holding a mike and talking at the camera. Behind her, some twenty yards away, was a wall of gray stone decorated with bas-reliefs. Ann listened.

“. . . who purchased the Venetian Theatre with the intention of making it a showcase for new American musical comedy. Though we were unable to talk to Hamilton himself, we were able to visit with his business manager, John Steinberg."

There was a cut to an interior, and Ann saw a round-faced, balding man in his sixties smile benignly toward where the unseen correspondent stood. "There's a need for it," the man said in a voice that was deep but held effeminate tones. "I mean, just look at the musicals on Broadway — Les Miz, Cats, Phantom, that new one, Rinky-Tink — all of them British.”

"What about Sondheim?" the woman asked.

Steinberg shrugged. "Well, his shows are always interesting, but I haven't found the last few very . . . involving. And, it seems, neither have the critics nor the audiences. Let's face it, American musical theatre just isn't that healthy."

"And Dennis Hamilton wants to change that," the woman said.

"Yes he does. All of us involved with the project do. Dennis believes that there are new Rodgers and Hammersteins and Lerner and Loewes out there."

"What about new Davis and Ensleys?" the woman asked, referring to the long-retired writers of A Private Empire.

Hamilton's manager smiled. "That goes without saying. He would be absolutely delighted to find a team like that. After all, he owes his fame to them."

The camera went back to the woman in front of the building. "So, tonight will see the re-opening party of the Venetian Theatre here in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and Entertainment Tonight wishes Dennis Hamilton well in his effort to restore the status of American musical theatre to the grand old days of Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Back to you, Bob . . ."

Ann picked up the remote and clicked the switch. The picture and sound faded away, leaving the room darker, quieter, an incubator for her thoughts. After a minute, she got up and crossed the room to the cherry-wood shelves, ran her fiver over the black-cased rows of videocassettes, and removed one. She uncased it, put it in the machine (a Panasonic Super-VHS — one more of Eddie's toys), and turned everything on. Then she sat down and watched as the anti-copying message and the Paramount Home Video logo ran their course.

When the overture began over the opening credits, she held her breath, releasing it when his name came up on the screen. She watched the film for fifteen minutes before Terri came into the room.

"Mother?" the girl said, and Ann looked around guiltily. Terri's smile was a bit sad, a bit bitter. "Don't tell me. You were watching ET, right?" Ann nodded, and Terri sat down next to her. Though Ann was tall, Terri was taller still. It was daunting, Ann thought, to try and mother a person taller than you, and nearly an adult in years as well. Maybe that was just one reason she hadn't done a very good job of it lately.

"I just thought it would be . . . fun to look at this again. I haven't seen it for a couple of years." It was a lie. One morning several months before, Ann had watched the film of A Private Empire when the house was empty. She had cried at the end, as she always did, telling herself that it wasn't because of Dennis and what might have been, but because of the sadness and the romance of the plot. "I'll turn it off," Ann said, reaching for the remote.

"You don't have to feel guilty," Terri told her, the tone belying the words.

"I don't feel guilty," Ann said, pressing a button and making the image vanish. "I've never done anything to feel guilty about. Not that way."

Terri raised her eyebrows, as though such an accusation had been the farthest thing from her mind. "You don't have to be defensive about it either. I'm not one to judge. For all I care, you can go visit him at his new theatre. Kirkland's only forty miles away."

"Don't be smart."

"I'm not. I'm serious. Maybe you could use your . . . influence to get me a job with him."

"I don't have any influence with Dennis Hamilton. It's been over twenty years since I've seen him."

"There's no reason you can't pick up where you left off. I hear he's very rich, so you'd have something in common already."

Ann struggled to keep her anger under control. "I've never noticed you complaining about having too much money," she said dryly, and, she hoped, with a trace of humor. She hated to argue with Terri, because even if she was right, she never won. And since Eddie's death, arguing with Terri consisted of talking to her.

" 'Visi d' arte,' " Terri replied. "I live for art."

"I know what it means, thank you."

"But I also live to eat. Are we having dinner tonight?"

"You'd better ask Mary that. She's in charge of the kitchen."

"Mary's in charge of cuisine boring," Terri said with a French accent with a sneer in it.

"Does anything meet with your approval around here?" Ann finally asked. She knew that her irritation was precisely what Terri had hoped to draw out, but she couldn't help herself.

"No, not really. Everything seems weary, stale, flat . . .”

“. . . and unprofitable," Ann finished for her. "I'm not totally illiterate."

"Oh, brav-o," Terri said, getting up and walking to the door. "I'll see you over chow."

What a little bitch, Ann thought as she watched the girl walk out the door. How had Terri turned out like that? What had she or Eddie done wrong? Too much money? Too many privileges? Terri had never had to do an honest day's labor in her life. She had never waited on tables, never washed dishes for money, never peddled anything door to door, had never done any of the hundreds of thankless tasks that kids did growing up that earned them a little money and a lot of humility.

Being a waitress during her college summers had been, Ann thought in retrospect, one of her best learning experiences. She had moaned about it continually at first, because there was no need. Her grandfather, the president of a bank, was paying her tuition, and her father, a doctor, could more than afford her room, board, and expenses. But he had insisted, over the protests of Ann's mother, that she work during the summers. "It might be the only physical labor the girl ever does in her life," he had said.

"Oh, John," her mother had argued, "it's just not necessary. Look at me — I've never worked like that."

"I know," her father replied. "And that's exactly why Ann should." Ann hadn't laughed at the comment then, but did later, many times.

Her father had been right, as usual. Though she had hated that Holiday Inn coffee shop the first few days, she grew to like the job in a grudging way. There was only one other college girl working there, an art major from Penn State who needed the money badly. Of the other women, a few were older married types who wanted the additional luxuries two incomes would provide, while the rest were single girls, most of them high school dropouts. It was a good cross section, and Ann, unfailingly pleasant and a little afraid, got along well with all of them.

The other thing that waiting on tables had done for her was introduce her to Dennis Hamilton, who, with the rest of the company of A Private Empire, was staying at the Holiday Inn in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and would be opening the fledgling production in Kirkland's Venetian Theatre.

Scene 2

The original intention of the producers was to take the show to New Haven, Connecticut for its out-of-town tryout, but no theatre was available at the time. Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, which housed its share of hopefuls, was also booked. But then one of the producers remembered the Venetian Theatre in Kirkland. It had been the home of many touring shows after the death of Vaudeville, but had for some years been only a movie theatre, its former glories masked by dust. Still, it had the necessary facilities, and was close enough to Philadelphia to insure decent audiences, particularly for a new Ensley-Davis show, the same team that had brought the theatre-going public blockbuster musicals ever since the mid-forties.

The Venetian Theatre was over fifty years old in that summer of 1966. Although it was shabby, and the seats were threadbare, there was still much that was majestic about it. But it had never, not even on the night it had opened, looked as sumptuous as it did on the evening of Dennis Hamilton's party, and had certainly never seen such a contingent of the wealthy and famous standing within its marbled grand lobby, flanking its wide, carpeted staircases, chattering on its palatial mezzanine lobby.

The party had begun at nine, and by ten-thirty nearly all two hundred and fifty guests were there. Many had flown from New York and Los Angeles into Philadelphia, and there hired cars to take them the remaining thirty miles to Kirkland. There were actors, directors, musicians, writers, and a smattering of technical people, nearly all of whom knew or had worked with Dennis Hamilton. No one had been invited simply for appearance's sake.

Dennis and Robin stood near the front entrance, greeting the latecomers. Left alone for a rare moment, Robin squeezed his hand gently. "Will the liquor hold out?" she asked him. There were four bars in service, three in the grand lobby, one in the mezzanine lobby, and all were cluttered with humanity.

"So the caterer claims," Dennis said, then grinned. "Of course I don't know if he had this group of alcoholics in mind when he made his plans."

Brian Chaney and Lydia Marks came through the front door, received hugs, compliments on their latest films, and were told where to take their coats. "Lydia looks good," Robin said when the couple were out of earshot.

Dennis nodded. "Amazing what a seventh facelift and a butt-tuck can do, isn't it?"

"Don't knock her. She's still doing nude scenes."

"Last Chance, you mean?" Robin nodded and Dennis shook his head. "Uh-uh. Body double."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Clinton told me. A twenty-two year old porno star."

Robin giggled. "You know, I like this party better than our last one.”

“Closing night? Why? That was a good party."

"I know, but it was sad. It was the end of something, and this is the beginning of something new. Everybody seems happier."

"I don't know, I thought they were pretty happy that they'd never have to see me in Empire again . . . unless they catch it on the late show."

"You know that's not true," Robin said, but the conversation stopped there as Michael Riley came up, bottled beer in hand, to talk to Dennis, and Robin took the opportunity to wander.

She was immediately grabbed by Cissy Morrison, an actress who had started out in the film version of A Private Empire and who now shared her sitcom with another ex-movie queen of the sixties. "Jesus, Robbie," she gushed, "this place is fantastic. I mean it's like the fucking Roxy or something. Of course I never saw the Roxy, but I saw pictures, you know? This place must have cost a mint, huh?"

Robin smiled. "Only about half of your annual share of the residuals on After She's Gone, Cissy."

"My ass. I couldn't touch this place with a ten-foot dick, honey. But of course I didn't have John Steinberg investing my income for the last twenty years.”

“John's good," Robin said.

"Of course John's good," agreed a voice from behind Robin. She felt a hand around her waist and turned to look into the deep green eyes of Steinberg himself. "Good evening, darling," he said, and kissed Robin on the cheek. "Lovely party. And the omnipresent Ms. Morrison. I loved your most recent show, Cissy. I tell all my friends that no one, not even Lucille Ball in her salad days, falls hind-first onto a cherry pie like you do. Sheer artistry."

Cissy Morrison made a face. "You're a cunt, John."

"I wish, my dear." Steinberg turned his attention back to Robin. "You look glassless, love. May I get you something?"

"No thanks, John. I don't want to get too sloshed to be a good hostess.”

“Never happen. You're the perfect hostess, drunk or sober. How's Dennis?”

“He's wonderful. He's just so excited about this."

"Aren't we all."

"About what?" Cissy asked.

"About this theatre, my sitcom queen," Steinberg said. "About the workshop, about the whole project."

"You have any shows yet?"

"It's just been announced," Robin said, "but a few submissions have trickled in already."

Steinberg took a sip of his drink and nodded. "Trunk work, no doubt. But there may be something good in them. If there is, we'll find it." He grinned, showing white, even teeth. "And we'll produce it."

"With whose money?"

"Oh, we have our ways, dear. We have backers in abundance, and expect a multitude more. You, for one."

Cissy squinted her eyes. "Me?"

"Why do you think you were invited here tonight, love?"

"God, John . . ." Robin said, shaking her head.

"Why do you think we paid to fly you across this great, musical-theatre-loving country of ours to wine and dine you and tell you how marvelous your still young-looking hindquarters look encrusted with cherry pie filling?"

Cissy gaped, and Robin giggled. "John, stop it."

"Oh, Robin, it's all right, Cissy knows I have no interest in her hindquarters save from a purely aesthetic point of view, don't you, Cissy?"

"Well sure, I mean I know it's a fund raiser, but . . ."

"Not a fund raiser, Cissy," Robin said. "John's looking for investors, not contributors." She turned a mockingly cold eye on Steinberg. "But I thought the pitch was going to come later."

"I'm sorry, I apologize," John said. "Mea maxima culpa. It's just that, when faced with this woman's residuals, my thoughts turn from her backside to her money."

"Well, honey," Cissy drawled, "if you ever want to see the one, you're gonna have to kiss the other."

Steinberg exploded in sincere laughter. "I love you, Cissy," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "I really do. I only dish it out to you because I know you'll reciprocate."

"Bet your ass, John. Now why don't you go get me a drink."

Steinberg obediently wandered over to the bar. "Is he living down here with you?" Cissy asked Robin.

"Yes. He and Donna Franklin, his secretary, have apartments on the third floor. Dennis and I are there, and Sid, of course. He has a small apartment right next to ours."

"What, you're all on one floor?"

Robin nodded. "Curt's here too."

"Jesus, they must be tiny. How do you stand it?"

"Oh no, our apartment's huge. Twice as big as any of the suites we used to stay in on the road."

"What about the one at the Ritz-Carlton-Boston?"

"By far. And we've got more apartments on the fourth floor for Dex and Quentin when they come down to work a show. Not to mention twenty smaller rooms on the fifth floor."

"What did they use all this space for before?" Cissy asked.

"It wasn't just a theatre," Robin explained. "The theatre only takes up a little more than a third of the floor plan. This was a whole community building that David Kirk built for the town of Kirkland. He was quite the philanthropist — really a very generous man. The third and fourth floors were a school for orphan children. The third was classrooms, the fourth was the dormitory, and on the fifth floor there was a hospital for the people of the town."

"Speaking of hospitals, here's the perfect medicine," Steinberg interrupted, returning with Cissy's drink. "Explaining the history of the estate, Robin?" He handed the cocktail to Cissy.

"Who was this Kirk guy anyway?" Cissy asked.

"A philanthropist, a humanitarian, and a supreme quack," Steinberg said. "He made his first money at the turn of the century when he found a mineral spring on his parents' farm near here. Instead of remaining a starving farmer, he became a master marketer. Began to bottle the water, added some herbs to it, printed a bunch of labels, and purveyed the stuff as 'Dr. Kirk's Medicinal Tonic.' People were suckers for patent medicines back then, so he expanded his line, wrote a book called Physical Culture: Wellspring of a Healthy Society, and did very well indeed. Well enough to build Kirkland Springs Sanitorium near his spring, become a multi-millionaire, and turn the little village of Farmers' Corners into the company town of Kirkland."

"You're making him sound like a rotten man, John," Robin said. "He did a lot for the people of this town. Like this community center. There was no profit involved there."

"No," Steinberg agreed. "Just an attempt to make himself more godlike. The Great White Father dispensing blessings on his children, just like he dispensed his little pills and nostrums that would cure everything from hernias to cancer. He was a fraud, pure and simple."

"But he built this place for the people of the town — and the school, and the hospital," Cissy said.

"Showing off, that's all. You think the people who worked in his factories cared whether or not he used Carrara marble here in the lobby? You think they cared that those murals are by Winter? As long as they had a place to see their vaudeville — and later to watch movies — you think they cared? Kirk did it for his rich friends from Philadelphia and environs, to show them how goddamned rich he was. As for the school and hospital, maybe it was his way of buying off his guilt for all the harm he did with his useless potions."

"You know, John," Cissy said, "I like you, but the thing I don't like about you is that you think that anytime anybody does something nice they've got an ulterior motive."

"I believe in the innate selfishness of man, darling. It's that simple."

"What about Gandhi?" Cissy said. "Or someone like that guy in A Tale of Two Cities? Or Jesus, for crissake?"

"To take them in order, I'm sure that Gandhi got a great deal of inner pleasure from the sacrifices he made; Sidney Carton is a fictional character, but I suspect that his real-life counterpart would have been suicidal; and as for Jesus . . . well, I'm afraid that my own socio-religious background precludes serious consideration of him. However, I'd hazard a guess that a death by crucifixion was precisely what he wanted. It seems to have worked out for all concerned, doesn't it?"

Cissy cast a dry look at Robin. "And Dennis has put up with this guy for twenty years?"

Steinberg leaned forward and kissed Cissy on the cheek. "He pays for my economic savvy, dear, not my spiritual philosophies."

"Thank God," said Robin.

Any further conversation was halted by the little black girl who pushed herself between Steinberg and Robin. "Hello, Aunt Robin. Hi, Uncle John." She looked up at them with bright eyes. Her hair was corn-rowed to perfection, and she wore a spotless yellow dress with red stitching.

"Hey, sweet pea," Steinberg said, hoisting her aloft. "My God, Whitney, you're getting heavier every day. Why aren't you in bed?"

"I was, but I wanted to come to the party so much that Sid brought me down. Just for a while, he said. I haven't seen Grandma yet." The girl looked around cautiously. "Is she here?"

"She's somewhere," Robin said. "And you'd better hope you spot her first, young lady."

Cissy cleared her throat. "I don't think we've been introduced, John."

"Sorry. Cissy, this is Whitney Johnson, Marvella's granddaughter, and Whitney —"

"I know who you are," the girl interrupted. "You're Mona, and you're on Mona and Me. I watch it every week. My grandma made costumes for you once, didn't she?"

Cissy laughed, and shook the girl's hand. "She sure did. A long time ago. But Mona is just a character I play. My real name's Cissy."

Whitney nodded sagely. "I knew that, but I forgot. It says it at the start of the show. In the credits." She seemed proud to know the term.

"So are you visiting with your grandma down here?"

"I'm living with her for a while. My mom and dad are breaking up."

"Well now," Steinberg said gently, "you don't know that for sure. They might get back together."

"Grandma says fat chance." The girl gave an exaggerated sigh. "Grandma's nearly always right."

"What are you doing up?" came a voice from behind Steinberg. They all turned to see Marvella Johnson, all one hundred and sixty pounds of her, glowering in pretended ferocity at her granddaughter. "Didn't I say no party?"

"Sid brought me down," said Whitney, still in Steinberg's arms.

"Maybe I'll have to whup Sid and you both then."

The girl smiled. "You won't whup me, Grandma."

Marvella's huge chuckle sounded like tin cans rattling in a silo. "No, I guess I won't. C'mere, you stinker." She took the girl easily from Steinberg's arms and hugged her. "All right, a half hour. And at eleven o'clock I take your little bones back upstairs." She stifled a yawn. "And maybe I'll go with you. I'm not used to these late nights."

"You still a morning person, Marvella?" Cissy asked. "God, I remember those eight o'clock costume calls. I honestly believe you meant to kill us."

"Lazy show people." Marvella shook her massive head. "Get them up before noon and they're nothing but a pain in the . . .” She glanced at her granddaughter. “. . . in the posterior." She gave the little girl a squeeze. "Come on, honey, let's meet some more stars, what do you say? Excuse us?" She sashayed off into the crowd, bearing her granddaughter in one arm as lightly as a purse.

"She's part of your entourage too?" Cissy asked Robin.

"Mmm-hmm. Sort of a permanent wardrobe mistress."

"I thought she retired."

"She did," Steinberg said, "but when Dennis came up with this whole idea and asked her to work with us, she jumped at the chance. Her husband died last year, and I think she realized she would have been bored out of her skull just sitting around the city."

"And she's living here too?"

Robin nodded. "On the fourth floor. We wanted her on the third with the rest of us, but she wanted to be right next to the wardrobe room. Pretty lonely up there, though."

"Oh, she's not all alone," Steinberg said. "She does have Whitney."

"Just until Janice — that's Marvella's daughter — can find a place of her own," said Robin.

"And of course there's always Kitty," Steinberg said dryly.

“Kitty?”

"Our resident pussycat. Or the little bitch, as I like to call her, although her name's Cristina."

"A theatre cat?" Cissy said. "Oh, that's cute."

"You haven't seen her," said Robin. "She likes Abe Kipp, the head custodian, and that's about it. She tolerates me and absolutely hates Dennis."

"The poor man tried to pet her the first time he saw her," Steinberg said. "Bit him right to the bone."

Cissy gave a little snort. "Well, now that I know who all is down here, my next question is what do you do all day. Watch Kirkland Springs flow to the sea?"

"Kirkland Springs," Steinberg said, "dried up back in the late thirties, along with David Kirk's fortune, right around the time the FDA started getting serious about the patent medicine business. But there's plenty to do nevertheless. This was, after all, a community building. In the basement, we have a lovely pool, a small gymnasium —"

"Don't tell me, John," Cissy said. "Show me. If you want my investment, I have to observe the kind of lifestyle that I'll be supporting."

Robin bristled. "The backers will be supporting production costs alone, Cissy, that's all. Dennis bought this building, and he'll donate the space. And his own time." She smiled. "That said, I'd be glad to show you our underground pleasure palace. Shall we?"

"Why not?" said Cissy, mildly drunk. "But could the toady here get me another drink first?"

"The toady," Steinberg said, bowing, "would be honored. Would your highness prefer the usual Ripple on the rocks?"

~ * ~

Dennis Hamilton was bored. He had lost count of how many times he had discussed acting styles with Sybil Creed, but knew that the number guaranteed that neither one of them would at this point proselytize the other. Still, he nodded politely at her as they stood together on the mezzanine lobby, looking down through the marble arches at the guests below. He let her words bounce off him, and concentrated instead on the vista behind her.

The paintings and bas-reliefs clinging to the canvas of the lobby's curved and segmented ceiling were a hodge-podge of mythological and historical themes. Here a Babylonian war chariot raced toward a covey of cherubim, their piggish little mouths open in some hymn to . . . was it Apollo floating there? Yes, Dennis thought. It must be — there was the lyre . . .

“. . . liar, that's all you are, all anyone is who thinks that way."

He drew his attention back to the gray-haired woman whose black, shining dress seemed to be sprayed on her whip-thin body. "I'm sorry, Sybil? Think what way?"

"There! Concentration! Or the lack of it — that's the problem with all of you technical actors. Staring at the goddamned ceiling when you should be listening and martialing your resources."

"But it's a beautiful ceiling."

"Oh God, Dennis, how like you. It's the coward's way out, changing the subject like that."

"Now I'm a coward instead of a liar?"

"You've been both in your performances throughout your whole life."

"The critics seem to have liked my performances. And I won't mention the public."

"Why not?" Sybil said. "They're one and the same, aren't they? Both easily fooled. But not me, Dennis. You have always been an outward actor, never inward. And it is only the inward actor, the one who creates his performance from within, who gives a true performance."

"Using your own past experiences isn't creating, Sybil, it's interpreting. To me, real creativity is forming a character out of whole cloth." He shrugged. "And anyway, it doesn't matter whether a performance is true or not, as you put it. What matters is the impact it has on the audience."

"That's fraudulent."

"It's not fraudulent. You're an elitist, Sybil — you think that the only valid style of acting is when you use your own memories and responses. But how can you call any actor who touches an audience — who makes them laugh or cry or just, for Christ's sake, feel — fraudulent?"

"What else can you call someone who wears a mask? Honest?"

"What do you mean, a mask? That's a character, Sybil. The character takes over. That's where the creative act comes in."

"But in letting the character take over, you deny the reality of yourself.”

“Oh Christ . . .”

"Are you denying that, Dennis? You've done it all your life, you know, protected yourself from the truth about yourself. You're the most consistent mask-wearer I know."

"And what is the truth about myself, Sybil?"

"I don't know. Because you're so damned good at protecting it."

"Bullshit."

"Why are you so afraid to allow your real emotions to show through — your emotions, not the emotions of a character?"

"Sybil, you've baited me like this ever since I walked out of your acting class twenty years ago because I didn't want to be a tree."

Sybil's nostrils flared, and her mouth became a thin line as she bit off each word. "You would have learned a hell of a lot about acting from trying to be a tree, to use what was inside you to do it —"

"And blow in the wind like the rest of those pretentious little twits? 'Oooh, I feel the birds nesting in my branches . . .' Wonderful," he finished dryly.

"Jesus, what's this?" said Sidney Harper, coming up to the squabbling pair and placing a hand on Dennis's shoulder. "Our traditional battle royal?"

"Oh, go to hell, Sid," Dennis snapped, then grinned at the man.

"There," Sybil said. The words spilled out, not giving Dennis a chance to interrupt. "There you are, that's precisely what I mean, that grin. You really are angry at Sid. You really mean to tell him to go to hell, and you do, but then you cover up your anger with a false smile."

"It's a real smile," Dennis said, putting his arm around Sid. "I love Sid.”

“Yassah," Sid said, nodding crookedly. "Massah Dennis love this po' ol' white boy, cuz Sid, he wuk so hand fo' Massah Dennis."

"Can the crap, Sid." Sybil lit a cigarette, and blew a shaft of smoke in Sid's direction. "You're just as bad as Dennis. You hide what you feel with bullshit. But you were never as good at bullshitting as Dennis, and that's why you got out of acting."

"Whoo." Sid shook his head. "Isn't it awfully early in the evening to get so viperous, Sybil?"

"Excuse me," Dennis said, still smiling, "but this conversation's made me dry as hell. I need another drink." He walked away, toward the bar.

~ * ~

Sid set his drink on the wide balcony rail and crossed his well-muscled arms. He had to look up at Sybil, but the disparity in height didn't bother him. Sid could hold his own. "Why do you do that, Sybil?" he asked with a sigh.

"Do what?"

"You know — try and bust his hump like that."

"I couldn't have a few years ago. He would have argued with me for hours, or, more likely, called me a silly bitch. What's wrong with him?"

"Wrong?"

"He's not the same man, Sid. There's a weakness in him. He was always so imperial before, you couldn't tell the difference between him and the Emperor. But now . . ." She trailed off with a shrug.

"Yeah, he's changed, but I don't necessarily think it's for the worst," Sid said, leaning on the railing. "I like to think he's just mellowing. Easing out. The show's had a lot to do with it. I think he's been bored the last few years."

"His performances would indicate that."

"Come on, Sybil —"

"You know I'm right, Sid. Most people didn't notice it. The great unwashed who make up his audience, and of course the critics. But there's been a flatness to it.”

“Except . . ." Sid paused.

"What?"

"Well, basically I think you're right. And I think that Dennis realizes it too. But I saw almost every damn performance, and every once in a while, in the past year or so, he gave one that was just electric. A real killer, better than I'd ever seen him, even when it was all fresh and new in the sixties. And afterwards he would be just drained, totally exhausted." Sid's face grew thoughtful. "Sometimes he said . . ."

"What? What did he say?"

He looked at Sybil and found her too interested, too expectant, found himself on the verge of divulging things that Dennis would consider secret. "Nothing. Nothing important. Excuse me, Sybil."

Sid Harper took his glass from the balcony rail and walked into the oak-paneled men's lounge, where he sat alone on one of the renaissance-styled chairs and finished his drink. He thought about Dennis Hamilton, the man who had been his employer and friend for over twenty years, and thought about how glad he was that Dennis had left A Private Empire behind him. The show had made Dennis a fortune, it was true, but it had also cost him much.

~ * ~

There had been, first and foremost, the problem of identity. To the world at large, Dennis Hamilton was the Emperor Frederick, and vice versa, from the time he was nineteen years old, the star of A Private Empire and the newest enfant terrible of Broadway. The show had run on the street for five years, and Dennis had been with it for every performance, except for a five-month hiatus in 1968 in which he went to Hollywood to star in the film version. After the show closed, he accepted a number of movie offers, but the films, unlike the cinematic A Private Empire, were less than huge successes, both critically and at the box offices.

Dennis Hamilton was Emperor Frederick as surely as George Reeves had been Superman and Bela Lugosi Dracula, and neither his private detective in The Crystal .45, his beleaguered deputy in The Battle for Tombstone, nor his baffled college student in Up Against It won him attention. Only the rock musical, Sparks, made any money, and that was because Dennis's co-star was Bette Barton, whose rock album went platinum just before the film's release. Most of the critics observed rightly that Dennis's trained lyric baritone wasn't right for the role, and his vocal coach's attempts to turn him into an R&B belter were strained at best, laughable at worst.

After Sparks, the only offers of movie roles his agent was able to get were leads in low-budget films, which Dennis turned down. Instead he recorded albums of standards which sold slowly but steadily, appeared on TV variety shows, and performed in solo concerts around the country and occasionally in Vegas. Although films would have been more lucrative, Dennis had no need of money. Back in 1968, when he received a large amount from both his contract renewal and his film performance of Emperor Frederick, he had been lucky enough to fall into the hands of John Steinberg, an experienced financial manager who took the young man and his investments under his wing.

Steinberg guided Dennis through both his career and his private life, which included a marriage in 1969 to Natalie Pierce, a well-known stage actress a few years older than Dennis, the birth of their son Evan in 1970, and their divorce in 1971. Natalie got custody of the baby, which was, in retrospect, a mistake of the court, considering her suicide less than a year after the divorce was final. Evan then came to live with his father, whose career was scudding along more lethargically than the one that had driven Natalie Pierce to wash down fifty-seven sleeping pills with a bottle of Drambuie.

But because of John Steinberg's expertise with a dollar, Dennis Hamilton was able to bide his time and still live like the emperor he had created on the stage. Steinberg bought penny stocks that quickly grew to dollar ones. He invested in real estate like a wizard, purchasing apparently worthless lots that in a few years grew to be ideal places to build shopping malls, housing developments, and industrial parks. With those profits he bought song catalogues and invested in well-chosen films and theatrical productions, a dangerous game, but one which Steinberg loved to play, and played properly. Of seventeen such investments made from 1975 to 1978, only one failed to show a profit, and by 1978, Dennis Hamilton was worth in excess of fifty million dollars.

That year, Dennis was offered a lead in a TV series, a sitcom about a teacher at a military academy, and he accepted it against Steinberg's advice. Twelve episodes of Up in Arms were made, but critical response was so negative and viewer disinterest so high that only seven were aired.

Three more years of gradually declining album sales and less well attended concerts followed. Television variety shows were dead, and from 1978 to 1981 Dennis's television exposure consisted of eight appearances with Mery Griffin, and his annual appearance on the Muscular Dystrophy telethon, which had begun in 1972. Then, in 1981, Irwin Richards decided to stage a revival of A Private Empire, and asked Dennis if he would repeat his role of Emperor Frederick.

At first, Dennis was hesitant. "I've done it, John," he told Steinberg. "I mean, it's a part of my career that's behind me now."

"And what's ahead is so wonderful?" Steinberg asked. "You're only thirty-four years old, Dennis. You're a rich man, and your being rich has made me rich too, but except for A Private Empire, your life is notable only for the remarkable string of failures you've been able to pack into such an abbreviated career. No offense."

"Do I ever take any from you? If I did, we wouldn't have lasted a month together."

"My point is," Steinberg went on, "that like it or not, that show was the high point of your career. You are still a young man, and since you look far younger than you really are, you could still play the role to perfection. There has never been a better male part written in American musical theatre, as far as I'm concerned, and if you're still unconvinced, let me just whisper two little words to you."

"What?"

"Yul Brynner."

"Yul Brynner," Dennis repeated.

"Do you know what The King and I revival did for his career? And he'd been working steadily for nearly three decades anyway. You, on the other hand. . . Well, if you do this show, it should be even more impressive than Brynner's return to the stage, because, unlike him, you have barely been seen for ten years. You would be like a phoenix rising from the conflagration of a, shall we say, less than splendid career? It would be as though no time has passed since today and 1966."

"You think I should do it."

"No, of course not, I just love to hear myself talk.”

“I don't know, John . . ."

"My dear boy," Steinberg said without a smile, "may I be blunt?”

“Blunter than usual?"

"Yes. It won't be easy to hear, but it's necessary if you want to do more than merely be a wealthy man."

"All right," Dennis said after a pause. "Shoot."

"I will. You are not a marketable commodity in the eighties, Dennis. You have a spectacular musical comedy voice, your acting is solid if not on the level of Olivier, your dancing is less than splendid, due to those same flat feet that kept you from military service and, you being the klutz you are, no doubt saved your life. You are a creature of the musical theatre. And I have urged you time and again to return to the stage, perhaps in some vehicles that, true, were not worthy of your participation, but you have always refused, feeling that a return to Broadway was a step backwards. But on screen and television, except for the film version of Empire, you have only a string of failures behind you, and as far as recording goes, your once a year albums no longer sell enough to warrant their creation, as you have no doubt been able to tell by RCA's lack of enthusiasm over your latest proposed project. Are you with me so far?"

"I'm listening."

"Don't hold it back, boy. The truth hurts, and I'm sure that you're very pissed off at me for telling it."

"You're fucking right."

"Why? Because I'm blunt, or because I'm right?"

"Both. You prick."

"That's more like it — a little righteous indignation. But now I'll tell you the good part."

"I can hardly wait."

"I love you, Dennis. Like a son. And I've helped to make you very rich. Now it's time to make you a star. Again. And a revival of Empire will do that, I promise you. I swear to you. Have I ever been wrong? Wait, don't answer that, it doesn't matter. Because this time I'm right."

"John, they're offering scale, for God's sake."

"What do you care about money? Do it for nothing if you have to, but do it.”

“But Richards is a two bit producer, he won't be able to stage it on the scale that it was done in '66—"

"The hell with Richards. We back him, become the biggest investor, get 51 percent — you know Richards never has enough investors — then take it over. We'll get the best designer, choreographer, costumer —"

"Now wait, John, I don't want this to be a vanity production."

"It won't be. No one will know we've backed it until much, much later, after all the reviews are in and the tickets sold months in advance. And when it's a hit — note the word when, not if — Richards will sell out the rest to us." Steinberg paused for a moment, then smiled. "There's another reason to do it, Dennis."

"What?"

"Richards will do the show whether you take the role or not. Do you really want someone else to be thought of as the Emperor? Do you really want to be replaced? Or perhaps I should say usurped?" Steinberg chuckled. "Don't bother to answer —I can see the very thought annoys you. Good. That's good. That's what the Emperor should be like. That character was you, you know. It was the best thing you ever did. You can bring him back to life again. And you should. If for no other reason than to prove you can. And I think proving that will prove a great many other things to you as well, things you may have forgotten about yourself."

Dennis Hamilton then left Evan in Sid Harper's capable hands and flew off to Switzerland, where he thought about the offer for three days and nights, both on the slopes and in a Zermatt lodge. He came to realize that Steinberg was right, that there was nothing new awaiting him, that at an age where most performers are beginning to make names for themselves, he had been a has-been for many years. It was time to start again, to become someone again.

The deal went pretty much as Steinberg had planned. Irwin Richards, sensing a coup along the lines of The King and I revival, was more resistant to a friendly takeover than Steinberg had expected, but a five per cent chunk of the show added to the rest of the money finally persuaded him to bow out. He told friends later that it was the best deal he ever made — a two million dollar return on a $75,000 investment. John Steinberg knew the bragging was nothing but sour grapes. Although it was a remarkable return, had Richards successfully fought the takeover, he would have realized ten times that amount over the next decade. Indeed, it made Dennis Hamilton rich all over again. It also made him famous once more.

It made something else too, something that Dennis Hamilton would not become aware of until much later.

Scene 3

In the inner lobby, under the Byzantine vaulting of blue and gold mosaic that had taken three Italian craftsmen two years to create, Dennis Hamilton, having escaped from Sybil Creed's tiresome and guilt-inducing theories of performance, spoke of ghosts. It was a much more welcome topic to him than acting, for he had no personal stake in ghosts.

"I've never seen one, Ally," he said.

Ally Terrazin rolled her eyes upward, toward the gleaming gold leaf a few feet above their heads. "God, Dennis, you've been in the theatre all your life, and you've never even seen one?"

"That doesn't mean I don't believe in them — I've just never been lucky.”

“Ranthu says there are ghosts in every theatre if you know how to look for them.”

“Ranthu?" Dennis asked.

"My channel."

"Aw, Ally . . .” Dennis smiled and shook his head. "You're into that stuff now? You need to get away from the coast. It's Cloud-Cuckooland out there."

She rolled her big, blue eyes again, and Dennis laughed. She still made him laugh as much as she had when he first met her.

His friend, Ric Terrazin, the comedian, had introduced Dennis to his daughter in 1979, when she was eighteen, and Dennis had had an affair with her shortly afterward, and still had, as Ally well knew, a warm spot for her. She was an actress now, and was always working, mostly in supporting roles in low-budget teen comedies and slasher movies, genres she felt that she was getting too old for. Producers and audiences disagreed, however, and she continued to bare her breasts in a half dozen features a year.

"Ranthu is serious business, Dennis," she said, shaking her head so that her long blonde hair whispered over her bare shoulders. "A lot of these guys are fake, sure, but I check them out pretty good. Ranthu's for real."

"And what's Ranthu say about ghosts?"

"He says that all theatres are haunted."

"By what?"

"By psychic residue."

"Uh-huh. You mean like cosmic dung?"

"It's not funny. I mean like psychic residues of mass emotions. Okay, okay, look. When people come to see a play, it's like the old Greeks, right? Like catharsis? Like your emotions get really out in the open and stretched and exposed and all?”

“With Neil Simon?"

"Don't be a smartass. You know what I mean. Especially in live theatre. There's this psychic link between the performers and the audience? And some of that psychic . . .” — she searched for the word — "stuff hangs around. And people who are in here, like alone at night or something — or even in the daytime, because it's always dark anyway — their suggestibility is heightened. And they start to see things."

"Wait a minute," Dennis said. "You say suggestibility. So does that mean that they make these things up? That they're hallucinations?"

"Well, maybe sometimes. But sometimes they're real too."

"Ally, you're a flake, but I love you." He smiled and kissed her cheek. "And if there are any ghosts in my theatre, I hope you'll be the first to find them."

She grinned. "I don't. Ghosts scare the shit out of me. You remember that movie I made last year, The Ouija Man?"

"The one where you took the shower?"

She pursed her lips. "That's the part you remembered, huh? Well, when we were fucking around with the Ouija board in rehearsals, I really got freaked out.”

“Why? What did it say?"

"It spoke to me."

"Spoke?"

"Oh, you know, it spelled to me, okay? Spelled my name. And then it said, 'See me die.'"

"See you die?"

"No. 'Me.' It spelled M-E. Like I was supposed to see it die, you know? And we asked it when, and it said soon, and we asked where, and it said, 'Theatre.'“

“Just theatre? Didn't say which one?"

"Uh-uh. I didn't want to ask it anymore. It was just too weird."

"So what's the end of the story?"

"Huh?"

"So did you see someone die in a theatre?"

"Well, no."

"Then doesn't that prove it was bullshit? I mean, it said soon, didn't it?"

"Oh yeah, but what's soon to us may not be soon to the entities. I mean, Ranthu thinks in terms of epochs."

"Great, Ally. So if somebody dies in a theatre you're in within the next epoch, that means the Ouija board's real?"

"You don't believe in anything, do you, Dennis?"

"Nothing that originates on the west coast, no."

Before Ally could reply, Tommy Werton came up to them, a bottle of Budweiser dangling from one hammy fist. His smile was almost lost in the thicket of black beard that climbed nearly to his eyes. "’Scuse me, Dennis. Robin asked me to remind you it's almost eleven. Time to start the show."

"Oh, right. Tommy, you know Ally Terrazin? Ally, this is Tommy Werton, our ASM."

"ASM?" Ally repeated.

"Poor girl's never been in live theatre, Tommy," Dennis said smiling. "Had to start out in movies."

"It's short for assistant stage manager," Tommy said. "I do all the stuff Curt doesn't want to."

"In short," Dennis added, "Tommy does almost everything that requires getting your hands dirty. So. We've got the multitudes all ready?"

Tommy nodded. "Robin and Sid rounded 'em up. Let 'em in?"

"Is Curt in the booth?" Dennis asked.

"Yeah. Spot's warming up."

Dennis turned back to Ally. "Ready to see the show?"

"You mean there's more?"

"Sure. I've only shown you where we keep our ghost, right here in the inner lobby. And only because you asked. I wouldn't have done this for just anyone." She smiled. "Only west coast flakes."

"You got it. Open the doors, Tommy."

Tommy did as he was ordered, then quickly walked down the left-hand aisle toward the stage, avoiding the surge of drink-laden guests pouring through the inner lobby and then into the theatre proper, after having dutifully oooed and ahhhed at the complexity and beauty of the mosaics.

Curt had, Dennis thought, done a marvelous job with the lighting. It was too dim to make out any details of the theatre, just bright enough so that you could find a seat. Above, the flat dome of sky was dark in the center, except for the dozens of stars (really 10 and 25 watt bulbs) that peeked through the scudding clouds provided by two half-century old stereopticon machines. Yet a hazy pinkness bloomed on the right side of the ceiling, as though the artificial sky was on the verge of a burgeoning sunrise. The audible responses ranged from the expected "Gorgeous . . .” and "Incredible . . .” to the equally anticipated "I can't see a fucking thing!" from a number of the more tiddly guests.

"It looks terrific," Dennis heard Robin say, and felt her hand slip into his. He turned and kissed her lightly. "Here's Mister Microphone." She handed him a Shure wireless. "Just flick the switch when you're ready. Curt's got the power on."

"Thanks. You're throwing a wonderful party, love." He squinted across the thirty-four rows of seats toward the stage. "Can you see anything up there?”

“No. Just darkness."

"Good," he said. "That's how we want it. When that fire curtain comes down, they are going to love it."

The fire curtain was planned to be the crowning touch to Dennis's spotlight tour of the theatre. The painting that covered it had been done in 1923, and filled nearly the entire proscenium with a scene depicting a ball in the Duke of Venice's palazzo, complete with orchestra, masked dancers and celebrants, and, in the lower stage right section, a wine barrel whose contents poured copiously into the goblet of a laughing, drunken courtier. Decades of lights shining on it had faded it somewhat, and those same years had seen it fall victim to minor staining as well, but it was still a remarkable work.

"Come on, come on, down here." Dennis heard John Steinberg's voice haranguing the guests into sitting down. He and his secretary, Donna Franklin, a tall, bird-like woman in her forties, gathered the guests like mother hens, seating them, as Dennis had requested, in the center of the huge space.

Dennis smiled. John could be a tremendous bitch, but the bitchiness was always leavened with a wry sense of humor, and that was precisely why everyone loved him. Dennis had once met Truman Capote at a party before the writer's death, and had discovered him to be a vicious and far less macho version of Steinberg. While Capote's friends seemed to be cast in the roles of apologists for the man's shortcomings, no one had to apologize for Steinberg.

"For God's sake, Henry, there's a seat here, come on . . . Alice, Peter, don't sit so close, you're too close, come back here . . ."

When all two hundred and fifty were seated, Dennis flicked the switch on his mike and walked down the left center aisle, stopping at the first inhabited row, row K. As he turned toward the crowd, a pin spot caught him perfectly, the light white and blazing in his eyes. Years of experience kept him from squinting, and he smiled at the rows of people he could no longer see.

"I'd like to thank you all for making the effort to be here tonight," he said. "I hope that this evening will mark not only the rebirth of the Venetian Theatre, but the birth of a new era of American musical theatre. Now I suppose we've kept you in the dark — both figuratively and literally — long enough. New American musical theatre, both the people who write it and the people who perform in it, have needed a showcase for a long time, a place that does no revivals, but new works exclusively, seeking out excellent shows and producing them, not on a shoestring, but as they deserve to be produced, with adequate budgets, fine casts, and the best production people and facilities available. Tonight you'll have the opportunity to be part of this project.

"But let me make one thing clear. We're not asking for charity. We're asking for investors, for people who spend their money wisely. And I don't think I exaggerate when I say that you stand a far better chance to earn a profit here than you do on Wall Street."

There was polite laughter, and Dennis went on.

~ * ~

I will take the boy when he comes on the stage. The curtain will come down. Yes, the final curtain. I'll call him there, call him out. Drop the curtain. And drop him as well.

The first. He will be the first. What an honor. To die for his Emperor . . .

~ * ~

". . . you've seen the lobbies, and you've seen as much of the theatre itself as we have permitted you. Some of you may remember it from a quarter century ago — if you're willing to admit to it. It was dusty and abused even then, but, as you'll recall, its true beauty shone through nonetheless. Recently, we've given it the cleaning and the tender loving care it deserves. The Venetian Theatre is a revival house only in the sense that it has itself been revived. It's become, we feel, a fitting showcase for the gems we want to display. And we hope that you'll agree."

That was the cue, and Curt, high up in the projection booth, slowly brought up the house lights until the stars and clouds on the ceiling above were invisible, and the interior of the theatre was lit as richly as if by an Italian sun. Balconies, backed by woven tapestries that hid organ pipes and speakers, hung gracefully over the side walls, and castellated towers above glowed warmly. Over the proscenium arched a span of columns reminiscent of an ornate canal bridge, and just below, at the apex of the arch, was mounted a large, golden face of Apollo, whose wide eyes stared out across the auditorium, focused on the top rows of the balcony.

"The Venetian Theatre," Dennis went on, when the appreciative applause finally died down. "Designed by Jonathan Underwood and built by David Kirk. Kirk loved Venice, as you can easily see, and to give you further proof of that, I'd like to draw your attention to the red act curtain . . ."

The heavy red curtain covered the whole of the proscenium. It was in two pieces, a valance that covered the top third of the opening, and a main curtain that hid the rest, both of them fringed at the bottoms with gold tassels. As Dennis spoke, those curtains slowly lifted, opened by Tommy Werton's mighty hands on the pin rail, showing only darkness behind.

Then something happened to the lights. All over the house, they flickered, dimmed, brightened again, not at all in unison, but seemingly independently. The lanterns of the huge sconces, the painted glass lights of the beamed balcony ceiling, the rows of bulbs hidden by the overhang of roof and walls — all were blinking randomly, crazily.

Dennis started to speak into the microphone, but found that its power was affected as well, so that only every third word boomed over the speakers. "Excuse me!" he shouted to the audience. "You know opening nights!" He gave a shrug, walked quickly back to the inner lobby, and began the long climb up the flights of stairs to the booth. As he turned a corner of the grand staircase, he saw that Robin had preceded him, and was now passing through the door that led to another series of stairs that eventually reached the booth.

Dennis gripped the useless microphone like a club, and followed her.

~ * ~

"Tommy!"

The voice from the speakers was so loud and abrupt that everyone in the audience jerked. Ally Terrazin turned to her date, a film director who had worked as an assistant on Dennis's Up Against It, and had directed Ally in Terror Night, and gripped his arm. "Dennis sounds pissed," she said.

"Tommy Werton?" said the voice again, while the lights continued to flicker. "On stage please!"

Tommy's head appeared from behind the stage right wings. He looked around as if trying to find where Dennis's disembodied voice was coming from. "On stage, Tommy," said the voice.

Tommy came out tentatively. He was a backstage person, not used to being in the spotlight, and he looked nervously vulnerable standing in front of two hundred and fifty of the best-known personalities of stage, screen, and television. "Here, Dennis," he said softly, so that only Ally and the others in the first few rows of people heard him.

"A little further on, Tommy. Go ahead."

Tommy waved and sidestepped so that he was a yard further on stage. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked down at the wooden floor, as if waiting for further instructions. Then something offstage seemed to catch his attention. He turned, lowered his head, and stared into the shadows of the stage right wings.

"Dennis?" he said.

Suddenly the lights all went black, except for the beam of a follow spot that struck Tommy full in the face. He threw his head up and back, away from the blinding light. At that exact moment, the fire curtain fell.

The curtain, with its lushly painted scene, was engineered, in the event of fire, to drop instantly to a height of six feet. It did this. Unfortunately, Tommy Werton stood six feet four inches in the cowboy boots he was wearing. The bottom of the five ton curtain struck him soundly on the top of the head with a crack that echoed through the acoustically perfect theatre, and he slumped to the floor.

The same designers who had determined the efficacy of the fire curtain's initial drop then planned for the curtain to fall the rest of the way more slowly, giving people trapped on stage just enough time to run beneath the ever diminishing opening until they were free of the threatening backstage conflagration, and could join in the panic of the audience. They would have been proud of their work this night. The curtain worked precisely as it had been intended to. At the rate of six inches per second, it sank toward the floor, heedless of the people pushing their way over seats, running down the aisles toward the steps to the stage, heedless of Tommy Werton lying unconscious on the floor, his head toward the audience, his heels toward the back wall, his neck at the precise spot where the fire curtain was inexorably descending.

It did its job, falling, falling, until all five tons of it rested firmly against the stage floor, ignoring what had tried to come between it and its goal, crushing the frail interloper of flesh, bone, and muscle. On the painting, the wine barrel soaked up a new, deeper vintage, and the drunken courtier grinned.

Scene 4

Ally Terrazin sat speechless, her mouth open, her eyes fixed on Tommy Werton's own open mouth, round and gaping like a beached fish gasping for air. But Tommy Werton's mouth was no longer connected in any way to his lungs. His mouth was separated, along with the rest of his head, from the torso that lay jerking on the other side of the fire curtain.

"See me die," Ally finally whispered.

Her date, half crouching at his seat, looked at her. She saw the horror in his eyes. "What?" he said harshly.

"Nothing . . . nothing."

Few people seemed to know what to do. Several men and women had tried to get to the stage in time to pull Tommy's body out of the way before the curtain fell, but only Cissy Morrison and Sid, who had been sitting together on the aisle, had even gotten as far as the marble steps that led to the stage when the fire curtain reached the floor. Sid had frozen for a moment, then twisted his head away, but Cissy, her gown hiked up to her knees, grasped the base of the curtain and vainly tried to pull it up. Immediately she ran behind the curtain, out of sight of the others. Sid shook his head and joined her.

By then, others had come to the stage, and a few ran toward the lobby in search of a telephone. Marvella Johnson sat, her dark complexion turned ashy-gray, and held her granddaughter Whitney's head against her massive breast. "Grandma, what was that? What happened?" the girl asked. Marvella, her throat awash with grief, could not reply. She could only sit and wish that she had sent Whitney upstairs as she had first intended.

No one knew what to do. They sat or stood in the theatre, sweating, mumbling, a few running out to the rest rooms as their stomachs rebelled against what they had seen. Sid found a drop cloth backstage and came onto the stage with it. Cissy, her arms crossed as if holding herself, frowned at him.

"What's that for?"

"I'm going to cover him up."

"The police or the coroner or whoever won't want anything touched," Cissy said.

"The hell with them. We've got two hundred people out there watching.”

“And you're concerned with their sensibilities," she said dryly.

"I'm concerned with Tommy's memory. Okay?" Without another word, Sid covered Tommy's head with the cloth as gingerly as possible, trying not to change the position of the grisly artifact.

"I'm sorry, Sid," Cissy whispered as he returned to her side.

"It's okay." Sid shook his head. "Jesus. Oh Jesus, what happened?" He squinted toward the booth high above. "And where the hell's Dennis?"

~ * ~

When Dennis pushed open the door of the booth, he saw both Curt and Robin looking wide-eyed out the narrow slits of windows to the stage far below. "What is it?" he said.

Robin turned her head in slow jerks, as if unwilling to look away from the stage. "Did you . . .” Her voice was harsh and breathless. "Did you call him?”

“Call . . . who?"

In reply, Robin gestured toward the window. Dennis came over and looked. Even though the distance to the stage was a hundred and fifty feet, he could easily make out the head and the splash of blood on the fire curtain. His legs trembled, and he would have fallen if Curt had not grabbed his arm. "Tommy . . . oh my God, Tommy . . . what happened," he husked out. "Curt, what happened?"

"The fire curtain fell," Curt said, his voice soft but, as always, in control. "Tommy was under it."

"We heard you on the speakers," said Robin. "You called him, didn't you? To the stage?"

"No, no . . . the mike doesn't work. It stopped down there. Oh Jesus, how could this have happened? Tommy . . .”

Curt reached out and took the microphone from Dennis. He flicked a switch, and a red light glowed on the object's base. "It's working now," he said, then put the mike down on a table, reached for the wall phone, and dialed 911.

~ * ~

Dennis, Robin, and Curt waited by the lobby doors for the police and an ambulance to arrive. The guests were packed in the lobby once more, with only Sid and Cissy remaining in the theatre proper. The police got there first, since the station house was only a few blocks away from the complex that housed the Venetian Theatre.

The local police chief introduced himself as Dan Munro. He was a stocky, pockmarked man in his late forties, with a perpetually frowning mouth under a bushy moustache. His gray suit fit him as well as any suit would that had not been tailor-made to his bulky form. He seemed more gruff than necessary, perhaps in an effort not to be intimidated by celebrity. His companion, a young, uniformed patrolman named Davis, stood a deferential yard behind his boss, looking tense.

"Did anybody leave yet?" Munro asked.

"Just a few," Robin said. "We asked people to stay until the police came, but some were just so sick and upset . . .”

"That's okay. We'll catch up with them later. Bill," Munro said, turning to the patrolman, "you stay at the front doors. I don't want anybody else leaving."

"I have a complete list of the guests I can give you," Robin said. "That way we don't have to keep them here."

Munro smiled tightly. "I'm afraid we do have to keep them here, Mrs. Hamilton. At least till the state police come and decide whether to let them go or question them first. They're in charge in a case like this."

"A case," Curt said softly. "But it was an accident."

"I'm sure it was. But they have to make sure of that. Now, if you'll take me to the body . . ."

Dennis led the way through the white-faced mob of celebrities. When he turned to make sure Munro was with him, he noticed that the man's gaze was darting here and there, lighting with recognition on one person, then another. Dennis felt no pleasure in the awe in which Munro involuntarily held his guests and, most likely, himself. He had long since ceased to be titillated by the ardor of fans. Besides, now was hardly the time for vanity.

~ * ~

Sid and Cissy, sitting in the fifth row, turned at the footsteps. Dennis made brief introductions, and Sid led Munro to the stage, where Munro knelt and gingerly pulled back the drop cloth. He cleared his throat, then let the cloth fall back over Tommy's severed head. "You put the cloth on?" he asked Sid.

"Yes."

"Move anything? Touch anything?"

"No. Nothing."

Munro pushed himself to his feet with a sigh. "Let's see the other side. You know how things work back here? The curtains and all?"

"A little, but Curt's the real specialist."

Munro looked down at the house. "Mr. Wynn? Would you come up here with us, please?"

The three men went behind the fire curtain and looked at the torso. "Curtain must be pretty heavy," Munro observed.

Curt nodded. "Heavy enough."

"Where's it drop from?"

"The pin rail. Over here." Curt led the way stage right.

"Anybody touch anything here?" Munro asked.

"No," Sid answered.

"This is the one." Curt pointed to a place on a long, heavy beam that ran the depth of the stage. A series of wooden pins the size of policemen's billies were placed vertically in the beam every twelve inches. Ropes were twisted around them, both above and below the rail. "That's the one that held up the fire curtain," Curt told the policeman.

Munro knelt and examined the wooden pin that lay on the floor. "So somebody pulls this pin, the curtain falls down?"

"Yes. With the other pins, you're really not supposed to pull them. You just loosen the rope until you can bring it down easily. But with this fire curtain, you want it to come down as fast as possible." He went on to explain the mechanics of the curtain to Munro, who nodded.

"So all somebody had to do was wait until this gentleman was out on the stage in the right . . . or the wrong place, and pull the pin."

"That's right," Curt said, "except that there was nobody back here but Tommy.”

“How could it have happened then?"

Curt took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "What could have happened was that he was getting ready to drop it — that's what was supposed to happen next — and maybe he pulled it out partway. Then he heard Dennis, came out onto the stage, and the pressure on the rope yanked it out the rest of the way."

"Wouldn't that have been kind of careless?" Munro asked, and Curt nodded. "You think Mister Werton would've done something like that?"

Curt thought for a second, then shook his head. "No. I don't. Tommy Werton was one of the most efficient techies I ever knew. He wasn't afraid of anything, but that was because he always did everything safely."

"Techies?" Munro asked.

"Technical people. Backstage types."

Munro nodded. "So the only way that curtain would've dropped is if somebody pulled the pin."

"Or," Sid put in, "if it was defective in some way." He looked at Curt. "Couldn't that be? A rope broke or something?"

"Doubtful," said Curt. "If it broke up above there'd still be rope around the pin, and the pin would still be in the rail. But we can check it."

"We'll take care of that," Munro said. "Now, you say the victim came out on stage when he heard Mr. Hamilton?"

Curt nodded. "Through the speakers."

"What did he want?"

"You'll have to ask him that."

"There was something peculiar about that," Sid said. "It was Dennis's voice . . . I think. But I don't think it was coming from the speakers."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, the speakers are fairly primitive in terms of placement. You can hear the directionality real easy, can point above to where the sound's coming from. It sounds artificial, as though it's not really from the stage. It's so bad Dennis is going to have a new system installed. But when I heard that voice calling Tommy on stage, it sounded . . . better somehow, like we already had a new system in, and the sound was coming from the front." Sid smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I don't know what that means, but it just struck me as odd."

"Okay," Munro said. "Fine. Now, where was everybody when this happened?”

“Everybody was sitting down front," Curt said, "except for me and Tommy. He was backstage, and I was up in the projection booth."

"At the time the curtain fell? Everybody was down in the seats?"

Curt frowned. "No . . . I'm not sure. The power started going crazy, the lights and sound system went on and off — at random, it seemed."

"Why?”

"I have no idea. I couldn't do a damn thing about it up there. I was checking connections as fast as I could, and then everything went off but a follow spot.”

“What's that?"

"A big spotlight up in the booth. It went on by itself. Next thing I knew the curtain had fallen, and when I looked down . . .” he shook his head. ". . . I saw Tommy.”

“Then what happened?" Munro asked.

"Robin came into the booth."

"What was she doing there?"

"She came up when the lights started going crazy."

"Anybody else?"

"Yes. Dennis came up too."

"How much later?"

"I don't know. A minute or two? Time seemed to do funny things. I guess it was a minute."

"After Mrs. Hamilton got there?"

"I guess. Maybe. I'm not really sure."

Munro turned to Sid. "Mr. Harper, you were in the audience when Mr. Hamilton left to go upstairs?"

"Yeah."

"How much time passed between the time he left and the time the curtain fell?”

“Oh Jesus . . . not long. Maybe a minute or two, like Curt says."

"Could've been two minutes?"

Sid frowned in concentration. "After Dennis ran out, the lights kept flashing on and off for maybe another minute. Then we heard the voice calling for Tommy.”

“What did he say exactly?"

"Something like . . . 'Tommy? Tommy Werton on stage . . . on stage . . . a little further . . .'"

"He directed him?" Munro said sharply.

"I . . . that's what he said, I think. You know, you might ask some of the performer types who were in the audience. I mean, a few of them have total recall.”

“Cissy does," Curt said.

Munro crossed his arms. "Would you get her, please?"

A moment later, Cissy Morrison was backstage with the three men. "'Tommy,'" she said to Munro. "'Tommy Werton, on stage please. On stage, Tommy. A little further on, Tommy. Go ahead.' That was it," she concluded.

"All right," Munro said. "Thank you. You've all been helpful." They started to walk back down into the auditorium, but Munro stopped Curt and asked in a low voice, "Is there any way to get from the back of the auditorium to the stage without being seen?"

"Well, around the outside, or through the basement. Other than that, the only way is to go above the ceiling."

"Could any of those be done in two minutes? I mean, there and back again?”

“Not by me," Curt said.

Munro nodded and walked down the stairs to where Dennis and Robin waited, their faces turned away from the stage and what lay there. "Mr. Hamilton," Munro said. "May I speak with you for a moment? And if the rest of you would please go out to the lobby?"

~ * ~

Munro led the way to the back of the theatre, where he sat on an aisle seat. Dennis sat in the row ahead of him and turned his head to see the policeman. "Why did you call Mr. Werton onto the stage?" Munro asked.

"I didn't."

"I have two hundred witnesses who'll say you did."

"I don't care if you have two thousand." Dennis felt too weary and full of grief to argue, but tried his best. "I didn't call Tommy on stage."

"Miss Morrison quoted you."

"It wasn't me. When I was going up the stairs to the booth, I heard something through the speakers, but I thought it was Curt."

"All right," Munro said. "I'd like everybody to leave this area now until —"

Munro was interrupted by the entrance through the rear doors of three state policemen, a pair of orderlies with a stretcher, and a man with a black bag. He stood up, went over and talked to them for several minutes. Dennis could not hear the words, but Munro gestured toward the stage, and once toward Dennis. Then two of the policemen and the medical people walked toward the stage, and Munro brought the third trooper over to Dennis.

"Mr. Hamilton, this is Trooper Pierce. He'll want to ask you some questions," he said, and without another word Munro joined the men on the stage.

The trooper, a tall blond man with a surprisingly gentle manner, asked Dennis to tell what he had done that evening, and Dennis did. When the trooper asked him about calling to Tommy over the speakers, Dennis once more denied it, and was permitted to rejoin his friends in the lobby, where another trooper was asking questions of a number of guests. Dennis had just seen Robin on the other side of the lobby and was moving toward her, when he felt a hand on his arm. Turning, he looked into the pale and lovely face of Ally Terrazin. She whispered something to him, but he could not quite make out what it was.

"I'm sorry, Ally. What?"

"There's something here, Dennis," she said louder. "I felt it. Jesus, I can still feel it."

"Something . . . Ally, I'm in no mood for this sort of thing. Now what are you talking about?"

"A presence. Don't you feel it?"

"Ally dear, all I feel right now is terribly, terribly sick. What happened to Tommy, my God . . .”

"But that's what it's about."

He gave a shuddering sigh. "Ally, it was an accident, that's all — a terrible accident."

Ally shook her head with a sharp snap. "No accident, Dennis. It wasn't an accident."

"What are you saying, it was murder?"

She looked puzzled for a moment. "No . . . not murder. Not an accident, and not murder. Something . . . else."

Dennis put a hand on her shoulder, and she recoiled at the dampness of it. He turned away from her and made his way through the crowd toward where he had seen Robin. His friends looked at him, gave sickly smiles, quick little shakes of the head, tentative pats on the back that were meant to convey sympathy, so it was a surprise when a hand gripped his shoulder firmly enough to cause a twinge of pain.

"Fucking hell," John Steinberg breathed in his ear, "when are these uniformed pharaohs going to let my people go? I've been entertaining the troops for half an hour now, and it's no small feat to keep people amused who have just witnessed a decapitation."

"Have you asked the police?" Dennis said.

"I try to, but they start giving me the third degree, as if I have something to hide. Really, Dennis, I don't think this party is going to go down as one of the most successful we've ever thrown."

For an instant a dark rage rose up in Dennis, a fury that Steinberg would treat Tommy's death no more seriously than a fly in the punch bowl. But the feeling washed over him as quickly as it had come, leaving him sad, weary, and only mildly disgusted with his manager's insensitivity. "We'll have to inform his family."

"Already done. I had Donna pull his file and call his parents. There are going to be enough other problems to take care of."

Most of the time Dennis was astonished at Steinberg's efficiency. Tonight he was appalled by it. So it was with relief that he finally found Robin, who handed him a glass of scotch neat, which he downed in one searing gulp. Then they said nothing, and merely stood with their arms around each other for several minutes. At last the troopers came out the door to the auditorium, and Trooper Pierce announced that everyone was free to go. As the guests filed out, Dan Munro came up to Dennis and Robin, who had been joined by Steinberg.

"They've got just about everything they need, Mr. Hamilton," Munro said. "The boys took the body out the backstage door. The rope didn't break. It was released at the pin somehow. There'll have to be a hearing, but since no one else was back there at the time of the accident, they'll probably call it death by misadventure, which basically means we won't ever know what happened." Munro cleared his throat. "As a formality, I'd like to fingerprint anyone who wasn't in the audience at the time of the accident — that means you, your wife, and Mr. Wynn. The lab may get some latent prints from the wooden pin. Would any of you have had cause to touch it?"

"My wife and I, no. But Curt probably would have at some point. Though when people work the rail, they generally use gloves."

"All right. I'll send Davis over to do the printing tomorrow. I'm sure you folks don't need any more of this tonight. In the morning around ten okay?" Dennis nodded. "Thanks for your cooperation, and I'm very sorry about your friend." Munro started toward the door and turned back. "Oh, by the way — you can go ahead and have the stage . . . cleaned up if you like. We've got our photographs and everything else we need. Goodnight."

"Cleaned up . . .” Steinberg mused. "Lovely conceit."

Robin whirled on him. "Oh, John, shut up! Just shut the hell up!" She stormed off across the lobby toward the elevator to the suites above.

Steinberg blushed, just a bit. "I'm sorry, Dennis, if I seem to be rather callous about all this. I do not like death, and therefore, I try to make fun of it as often as I can. Sometimes, I regret to say, with less than acute timing. Would you extend my apologies to your wife?"

"Sure."

"In the meantime, I'll check with Curt and make certain the storm troops will be here to . . . rectify the situation on stage. No trace will remain by morning, believe me." Steinberg folded his arms and looked down at the carpet. "And believe me also when I say that I liked that young man very much. As much as I regret his passing. You go up to bed now. Curt and I will see to things down here."

The lobby was almost empty. Only Steinberg, Dennis, and Curt remained. Dennis moved toward the elevator at the far end of the lobby, but instead of pushing the button, he glanced in the direction of the others. Seeing that their attention was occupied, he stepped to the door of the theatre, pushed it open, and entered.

The lights were still on, and Dennis walked gently, as if afraid of being heard, across the inner lobby until he could see the stage. The curtain had been pulled back to its former position high up in the flies, and was no longer visible, but he could see the dark stain on the stage floor, and his lips went tight with the memory of what had caused it.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something move in the shadows of the stage right wing, and felt fear bolt through him, remembering for the first time what Ally Terrazin had told him in the lobby — a presence, she had said. Dennis had never been superstitious, but Tommy's death had shaken him terribly, and he realized that his unease had made him susceptible to those vestiges of irrational fear that remained in the human mind from the dark times before history.

Susceptible.

That was the word, wasn't it? That explained it all, explained why he had seen something move where there was nothing living. He looked again, but all was still.

Just as he was about to turn around and go upstairs to bed, he saw the movement again, felt the fear like a knife, and then was embraced by blessed relief as he saw that it was only the cat, that damned bitch of a cat that hated him all other times, and had terrified him now.

Cristina. He would never forget her name, just as he would never forget the vicious way she had sunk her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand the first time he had tried to pet her. Dennis had kept cats as pets in the past, and they usually liked him, but it seemed as though Cristina had instantly abhorred him. In fact, she loathed everyone but Abe Kipp, the older of the two custodians whose sole domain was the Venetian Theatre and environs, and only because he had raised her from a kitten and fed her every day.

Dennis watched her now as she regally stepped onto the stage like a diva in a curtain call, stretched luxuriously, and padded silently over to the spot where Tommy had died. She sat, curled her tail around her, and gazed down at the damp stain on the wooden stage floor. Then, having come to some feral conclusion, she uncoiled her tail, lowered her head, and began, ever so daintily, to lick the sodden boards.

Dennis turned away, a bitter lump rising in his throat. He swallowed heavily and closed his eyes, trying to erase the sight of the cat.

"Dennis? Are you okay?"

He opened his eyes. Sid was standing inside the door to the inner lobby. "I'm fine. I . . . just . . . wanted to see, wanted to think about it, about what could have happened."

"I know. It was danm strange." Sid frowned, as his gaze swept past Dennis up onto the stage. "Jesus, what's that cat doing?" He turned toward the open lobby door. "Abe!" he called. "Get that cat out of here, will you?"

In through the door walked Abe Kipp. The gray coveralls he was dressed in were a shade darker than his hair, which framed a face fissured with wrinkles. He looked at Sid through round, owlish glasses with the kind of superior, appraising look mechanics give you when they tell you a part you've never heard of needs to be replaced. "What's she doin' now?" he drawled.

"See for yourself," Sid said, and took Dennis by the arm. "Come on, Dennis. Let's get some sleep."

~ * ~

Abe Kipp walked up to the marble divider that separated the seats from the inner lobby, leaned on it, and looked at the stage. "Goddam," he said softly, a sour smile twisting his mouth. "Fuckin' cat . . .”

"Yo, Abe!" a voice called from behind him. He turned and saw Harry Ruhl's bushy head poking through the door, slowly and fearfully joined by the rest of him. As usual, Harry wore his Kirkland High jacket, though it had been a dozen years since he had somehow managed to graduate from the school. Harry was borderline-retarded, and had graduated, so the drinkers down at Morrie's had it, only because he was the best fucking guard the football team ever had. In fact, Harry Ruhl had been threatened by his teammates whenever he so much as thought about dropping out and getting the exact kind of janitorial job he now had, even with his diploma.

"Come in here, Harry," Abe called, hiding his smirk from the larger, younger man. "Lookit that." He put his arm around Harry's shoulder and pointed to the stage. "Crissie's lapping up the goddam blood."

"Ohmigosh. Ohmigosh, Abe! That's that guy's blood? That Tommy guy?”

“That's right. That's what's left over from the accident. And what she don't lick up, we gotta clean up."

"Who? You mean me?" The hefty shoulder trembled under Abe's spidery hand.

"Well, sure, Harry. I mean, you just can't leave a big blood stain right there in the middle of the floor, can you? Hell, the folks in the balcony and the mezzanine would see it sure, and Mr. Hamilton couldn't have that in his theatre, now could he?"

"Nope, I . . . I guess not."

"You wouldn't want to get Mr. Hamilton mad, would you?"

"Nope. I wouldn't . . .”

"All right then, let's get backstage and get to work."

Abe had learned that the easiest way to get Harry to do what he wanted was to keep asking him questions, questions whose logic, right or wrong, demanded from Harry the kind of answer that Abe wanted. And if Harry said it himself, well then, he most likely would do what he himself had said.

Abe led the way down the aisle and onto the stage, where he went over to the gray cat and picked her up. Harry stayed near the wings, looking with a mixture of fear and awe at the dark stain on the blond wood.

"Whatsa matter, girl?" Abe said. "Isn't old Abe feedin' you enough? Gotta eat up other people's leavin's?" He rubbed his bulbous nose against her moist black one. She purred.

"Geez, Abe," Harry said. "Geez . . ."

"Okay, you little cannibal," Abe said, setting the cat back on the floor and pushing her in the direction of the wings, "go catch yourself a mouse or eat your Purina or something. We gotta clean this crap up. Let's get a bucket, Harry."

"Aw, geez, Abe. I mean, couldn't I do something else?"

"What, you're afraid of a little blood? Come on, Harry, be a man. It's a good thing you was never in the service. I fought in Europe when I was a helluva lot younger than you, kid. I seen my share of blood. Guts too." Abe put a fatherly arm around Harry and led him offstage into the scene shop that also housed the janitors' closet. "My buddy — name of Ikey, Jew boy from New York City, but he was okay — he took a bullet right in the head at Anzio — you know where Anzio is?"

"Uh-uh."

"Italy. You know where Italy is?"

"Uh . . . Europe? Where you fought?"

"That's right. Europe. Anyway, Ikey's head just went ka-pow, like you put a cherry bomb in a melon. Blood? There was blood all over, but that wasn't the worst — there was brains, too, like white-gray oatmeal, stuck all over my uniform, splashed all over my face —"

"Aw, come on, Abe," Harry said, shaking his head and pulling a large bucket and a wet-mop out of the closet, "I don't like to hear talk about —"

"And a eyeball," Abe proudly announced. "This eyeball just popped right out of his head, and it's layin' there on the goddam sand, and you know what, Harry?"

Harry looked up tentatively from his mop and bucket. "What?"

"It winked at me."

"No!" The tone was properly awestruck.

"Hell if it didn't — just layin' there, and it winked." Abe could see from the way Harry's expression was changing from amazement to puzzlement that he was not too far from asking how an eyeball could wink without having an eyelid attached, so he changed the subject. "So you ain't too fond of cleanin' up blood, are you?"

"Well . . . no. No, Abe."

"Scared of ghosts?"

Harry snorted disgustedly. "Aw, come on now, you said you wouldn't talk about ghosts anymore."

"Well, hell, they can't hurt you, Harry. Now you know we've had them, and you know they've never hurt you, don't you?"

"Well . . .”

"Come on, you've worked here what, eight years? Have you ever been hurt in here?"

"No, no . . ."

"Well, then, what are you scared of them for? Get that bucket filled, huh?"

Harry took the bucket over to the large sink, put it in, and turned on the hot water. "I just don't like 'em, that's all. They're creepy."

"Honest to God, Harry, sometimes I think you're a pussy boy, you're so damn afraid of everything."

"I'm not a pussy boy, Abe." Harry stared down glumly at the water filling the dingy gray bucket.

"You sure act like it. And I never see you with girls."

"I like girls fine," Harry said, then added softly, "but not too many of them like me. Hey!" he said, as though he had just thought of something. "What about you, Abe? You're not married. Don't you like girls?"

Harry had brought up that point many times before when Abe had accused him of being a pussy boy, but had, as usual, forgotten that he had and forgotten Abe's response as well. Abe grinned and answered. "I like girls fine, Harry. In fact I screw 'em every chance I get. I like 'em so much I pay for 'em, and then I can get 'em to do just whatever I want."

Harry's eyes widened. "Whatever you want? What kinda things, Abe?”

“Nothin' you'd understand. And I thought we were talkin' about ghosts."

"You were talkin' about ghosts," Harry said, twisting the spigot handle and hauling the full bucket from the sink.

"Ghosts come outta bloodstains, y'know. Did you know that?" Without waiting for an answer, Abe went on. "Y'ever see that stain up in the costume loft?"

"What stain?" Harry asked, pausing with the mop over his shoulder.

"Hell, you know. That dark spot at the top of the stairs to the loft. Back when they were doin' little theatre here one season, this older woman who was doin' costumes had a heart attack or a stroke or somethin' and fell down, hit her head, and died up there in the loft, and some blood came outta her mouth and stained the boards up there. It wouldn't come out no matter how hard we scrubbed. Now you gotta understand that she was a real nasty woman, what you'd call an old bitch. But the one good thing about her was that she loved her son, who was one of the actors in the theatre.

"The first time somebody was up in that costume room alone after this woman died, she heard somethin' up in the loft and thought it was a friend of hers, so she calls and there's no answer. Now she thinks maybe her friend's up there and playin' a joke on her, so she sneaks up the steps to the loft, thinkin' of goin' boo herself. But it ain't her friend up there." Abe paused, knowing that Harry was bound to ask what happened next. He wasn't disappointed.

"Who . . . who was it?" Harry said in the manner of a patient anxious to hear even a doctor's negative prognosis.

A sharp smile creased Abe's face. "It was the dead woman. She was standin' right where she fell, and right where her son's costumes were hanging. Had on the same dress as on the day she died. A red dress, Harry, dark red — like blood — and she just looked at that other woman, just stood there and looked at her, and the woman said later it was like all the blood in her turned to ice water. But it didn't all freeze, 'cause she wet herself — I know, I cleaned it up afterwards." Abe chuckled.

"What . . ." Harry cleared his throat. "Did she say what she looked like?"

"Sure did. This old bitch had gray hair before, but now it was white, and her face was white too, and the woman said it was like she didn't have any eyes, just black holes in her white face, but there was red lights back in them holes, and that's what she was lookin' at the woman with, them lights."

"Did it . . . do anything?"

"I'll say it did — it started comin' toward her, closer and closer, and it reached out its hands for her, like it wanted to take her back to the land of the dead where it came from." Abe paused and shook his head.

"So what happened?" Harry nearly wailed.

"The woman closed her eyes. She couldn't stand to look at it any more. And she waited to feel this thing's cold claws — 'cause that's what they were, she said, claws — reach out and grab her or choke her or something. But nothing touched her, and when she got enough guts back to open her eyes again, the thing was gone."

"My gosh . . . my gosh," Harry said solemnly. "Anybody ever see it since?"

Abe had told Harry the story at least once a month since they had begun to work together years before, and Harry always forgot it by the next time Abe told it. "They sure did. Lotsa people seen it, and always up in the costume loft. That's why hardly nobody goes up there alone."

Harry's eyes widened in sudden realization. "I been up there alone!"

"And nothin' ever got you, did it? Nothin' ever hurt you." The younger man shook his head slowly. "And nothin's gonna hurt you if you clean up that blood, is it?”

“I really don't want to, Abe."

"All right then, tell you what — you do the johns, and I'll take care of the blood. Fair?"

Harry nodded quickly. "You bet it is. I'll do the restrooms, you take care of the blood."

Abe nodded too, nodded and smiled as he watched Harry scurry up the aisle toward the janitor's closet in the mezzanine. It was what Abe had planned all along. He hated doing the restrooms. He didn't mind the rest of custodial work, but the idea of his cleaning up where somebody had pissed and shit drove him half nuts. He'd had enough of that back in the war when he was assigned to latrine duty. Honeydippin', that's what they had called it, taking buckets and hauling the waste up out of the pit holes. And the stink! Jesus, it had been awful. He had actually fallen in one of the pits when he was put on duty while still drunk on some cheap Italian wine, though he never told Harry that war story. He had never told anybody that one.

The Venetian Theatre latrines, as he still thought of them, had never been that bad. At least people aimed. But sometimes some asshole would miss the urinal, and there would be a goddam puddle he'd have to mop up. And always those fucking yellow stains — somebody else's piss — not to mention the bitches who dropped their used plugs in the waste cans rather than flushing them. If you didn't empty the can that very night, you got a real whiffy surprise in the morning. No, Abe would much rather have risked his life climbing around dusting the goddam ceiling than clean up the johns.

He poured some cleanser into the bucket, then carried the mixture and mop onto the stage, wet the mop, and began to scrub. He felt a little strange about cleaning up a dead man's blood all alone at midnight, but it didn't bother him too much. He'd gotten used to the theatre, and used to death. When he first started working at the Venetian back in the fifties, he had thought that there wasn't anything as eerie as being alone there after dark, especially after the stories that old Billy Potts had poured into his head. The deaths, the ghosts, the weird happenings — Mad Mary, who was supposed to haunt the mezzanine and balcony; the Big Swede, a ghost of a stagehand who had been crushed by a sandbag in the twenties, and showed up in the flies at inopportune moments; the Blue Darling, a little girl's spirit that was supposed to be a harbinger of death.

The tales had scared the hell out of Abe for the first few days he worked there, but as time went by he discovered that Billy Potts was as big a bullshitter about everything else as he was about ghosts, and Abe quickly learned that the stories were just Billy's way of having fun, the same way he had fun telling the old stories to Harry Ruhl. The only difference was that Harry never was able to figure out that Abe was as big a bullshitter as old Billy Potts had been.

Hell, some of the stories were true, in a manner of speaking. The ghost in the costume room had supposedly been seen. The woman who had reported the story said she saw the woman, who turned and looked at her, and then disappeared. That was all. The hollow eye sockets and the claws were nothing but Abe's embellishments, and the "blood stain" was only a darkening of the wood where he had spilled a bit of solvent back in 1967.

But still, someone had reported seeing the woman, just as others had actually believed they had seen Mad Mary, the Big Swede, and the Blue Darling. Abe Kipp, however, having worked at the Venetian Theatre for the past forty years, and having explored every dark nook and cranny at every time of day or night, had never seen a thing even suggestive of the supernatural. No, the Venetian was his second home, more of a home than the three room apartment where he slept and kept the accumulation of a wifeless and childless life. He had a number of cubbyholes with mattresses and cots on long-term loan from the storage area beneath the stage, as well as an assortment of skin mags dating back to the early sixties. Many was the time he would take a little nap or have a little read during working hours, with not a fear of being discovered. There were many places Harry didn't like to go, and those were the places Abe had his havens.

No, he thought as the blood came easily off the floorboards, the Venetian was a pretty good place to work. All except for the latrines.

~ * ~

While Abe Kipp detested cleaning toilets, Harry Ruhl loved it. It gave him a feeling of accomplishment, of seeing a job through to its end. With fabrics and draperies and carpets you couldn't really see where you had cleaned. But you could with tile. You could with porcelain. You could with mirrors and marble and metal. You could wipe them and rub them until they sparkled and shone so brightly you could see your face in them, not blurred and indistinct, but sharp and clear. You grinned and the face in that smooth surface grinned back at you as if to say good job, something that Abe hardly ever said, even though Harry knew he did do a good job, because if he didn't he wouldn't be working there at the Venetian Theatre.

Harry liked the Venetian Theatre just as much as Abe did, but in a different way. The theatre scared Harry sometimes, especially after the stories Abe told. And now this guy getting his head cut off by the fire curtain . . .

Harry tried to drive the thought out of his mind and think about the good times he had at the theatre when he was a kid, when the theatre was showing movies, and his dad took him on a Saturday night. The theatre, even before it had been refurbished, had always been a magic place to Harry, with its marble walls and rails, the mosaics and bas-reliefs all over the lobby ceilings, and especially the sky ceiling inside the theatre itself. Sometimes when the movie was boring he would lean back and look up at the stars and the clouds rolling by, and pretend that he was outside.

It wasn't hard for Harry to pretend. Even though his mind wasn't quick, he had a vivid imagination, as his 11th grade English teacher, Miss Tyson, had put it. Too vivid. Sometimes he wished he was just dull all around so that he could stop thinking about and believing in ghosts and all. Not that he had ever seen any, but doggone it, this theatre could be plain scary, especially at night. That was another reason he didn't mind cleaning the rest rooms. There was nothing scary about rest rooms, as long as they didn't have showers. Showers were scary because of that Psycho movie he saw on TV. But just rest rooms with stalls and urinals and sinks, well, they were okay.

Harry made a last swipe with his polishing cloth, and stepped into the men's lounge, where he emptied the ash trays and cleaned the water fountain. Then he took a long drink, and sat in one of the chairs, running his hands across the smooth wood of the arms. The chair was Louie-something, Abe had told him. Harry had never known that furniture had names before he came to work in the Venetian.

The ladies' room was next, so Harry got up, went into the mezzanine lobby, and walked to the ladies' lounge. He paused at the door, knocked on the frame, and called, "Hello?" He had done this ever since 1985, when he had interrupted a woman who was still in a stall. He went through the usual routine of listening for an answer, and, as he expected, received none. But as he listened, he heard something else.

It was music, faint but distinct. For a second he assumed that Abe had brought his radio along and was playing it on the stage, but he quickly realized that it had none of the cramped tinniness of Abe's flea market special. It sounded much fuller, as though there was a real orchestra playing on the Venetian Theatre's stage. It was somehow familiar, and Harry frowned, trying to push back the thick curtains that so often obscured his memory. He had heard that music before, he knew he had, but he just couldn't remember what it was. Maybe something from a movie he had seen.

He followed the sound across the mezzanine lobby, up the steps to the entrance to the mezzanine, where it grew louder. But as he stepped through the doors and started up the ramp, the music suddenly stopped, leaving not even an echo behind.

Harry stopped too. It was strange. Sound just didn't work like that in this theatre. It was as if not only whatever had been making the music, but also the air of the theatre itself, had been smothered under cork. He walked up to where he could see the stage.

It was empty. Abe's scrubbing had removed the blood, leaving only a spot shiny with dampness. Harry heard footsteps, and saw Abe come back onto the stage, a bunch of rags in his hand.

"Abe!" Harry called. "Hey, Abe?"

Abe looked up, squinting until he made out Harry's form among the shadows above. "What?"

"Were you playing your radio just now?"

"Naw. Why?"

"Thought I heard some music."

"Not from me. You're hearin' things, Harry." He knelt and began to sponge up the water from his mopping.

"No, I really heard it — it sounded like, like . . .” Frustrated by his inability to describe musical styles, he began to sing in an untrained but surprisingly pure and melodious voice a few bars of the theme he had heard. "What the heck is that?" he asked Abe.

"Aw, you musta heard it through the water pipes from the suites upstairs — the boss must be playin' his old tunes."

"Huh?"

"Goddam it," Abe shouted, as if angry at holding the conversation at such long distance, "that's from that show of his . . . of Hamilton's."

"Show?" It was beginning to come back to Harry now — some king dressed up like a soldier or something.

"You know," Abe called. "That show of his, that, uh . . . The Private Empire . . ."

~ * ~

"A" Private Empire. "A," not "The." Stupid fools. The one stupid as an ox, the other stupid as a child. Which dies first?

~ * ~

Dennis awoke. His leg had jerked violently in some dream, although he was unable to remember what the dream had been about. A pill had finally put him to sleep, and now, his breathing still quick and shallow from the activity of the dream he could not recall, he looked at the bedside clock, which read 1:30. Dear God, he had only been sleeping for a half hour.

Careful not to awaken Robin, he slid from between the sheets, stepped into the bathroom, and closed the door before he turned on the light. The sudden flare of brightness made him squeeze his eyes shut, but not before he saw his face in the mirror.

Or was it his face? It seemed, in that split second before the light blinded him, that it was someone different, that the features he knew so well had been remolded into a cruel parody of himself. The feeling terrified him. He blinked in panic, forced open his eyes against the harsh glare, and peered into the glass.

No, it was him all right, only him, Dennis Hamilton, looking into his own eyes, seeing his own face there in the mirror. Despite his fancies, he knew he was all alone in his aching, weary soul.

He splashed his face with water and thought about Tommy Werton again. Then he turned out the light, left the bathroom, slipped on a robe, and went into the library, where he poured himself a glass of sherry and sat in a leather chair. He was still there when morning came.

Scene 5

The following Tuesday one hundred and fifty-three people attended Tommy Werton's funeral in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the majority of them from the New York theatre crowd. The fact that the drive from Manhattan was less than an hour increased the attendance, as did the fact that the funeral was held on a Tuesday afternoon. Had it been held on the day of a matinee, the crowd would have been halved.

There was no viewing, the condition of the body having proven an insurmountable obstacle to The Johnson Funeral Home's finest craftsmen. The service was held in the sanctuary of the First United Presbyterian Church. The casket was closed, and a picture of a smiling Tommy Werton sat on top of the lid. It had been taken ten years before. The gaze was directed upward and to the right, and the Tommy of the picture wore a brown suit coat and a subtly hued tie. As they filed past the casket, those guests who supposed it was a college graduation picture were correct.

Ten minutes before the service was about to begin, two men stood outside the rear of the church waiting for Dennis and Robin Hamilton. The older of the pair, Quentin Margolis, was tall and graying sedately at the temples, a human counterpart to the church itself. He wore an elegantly cut car coat and a fedora against the chill October drizzle that had caused the other man, Dexter Colangelo, to open his black Totes umbrella. Dexter, or Dex, as everyone called him who had known him for longer than two minutes, seemed as nervous as Quentin seemed calm, which seemed only fair, as the two men were the yin and yang of a large number of productions that had graced the stages of the country, including the now vanished Morosco, which had seen the revival of A Private Empire. Quentin had directed and choreographed, and Dex had been the musical director.

The original show in 1966 had been very much a product of its time in terms of production. The orchestrations had been a trendy cross between Man of La Mancha and British rock in an attempt to be all things to all people, while the choreography was rather uncharitably described by one critic as "Hullabaloo out of Agnes de Mille," a strange and anachronistic pedigree indeed for a Ruritanian romance. Still, the strategy had worked. That, and the tremendous presence of Dennis Hamilton as the young emperor. Not since Barbra Streisand had starred in that other less-than-perfect musical, Funny Girl, had a single personality had such a powerful effect on the box office. Still, it was not until 1981 that A Private Empire was seen as its creators, Charles Ensley and Robert Davis, had intended, due in large part to that other team, Margolis and Colangelo.

Dex had completely reorchestrated the score, restoring the style to that of the grand musicals of the fifties while retaining a contemporary sound through the careful use of synthesizers, while Quentin had completely removed the Hullabaloo origins of the original choreography, and come up with a terpsichorean style that blended nineteenth century European court dance with the acrobatic athleticism of the eighties to create something altogether new.

The music and the dancing, along with Michael Klein's epic set designs and Marvella Johnson's flamboyant costumes, provided the perfect embellishments for Dennis Hamilton's extraordinary portrayal that made him the first performer in Broadway history to win two Tony Awards for the same performance, albeit sixteen years apart. It made him not merely a star, but a superstar. The success had rapidly accelerated Quentin's and Dex's already burgeoning careers as well, and, in their gratitude, they remained with the revival when it ended its first Broadway run and went on national tour. Dex actually accompanied it as conductor, and Quentin flew to every new city, every new stage, to make sure the cast and show was as razor sharp as Dennis demanded.

"Every single person in that audience has got to believe that they're seeing opening night on Broadway," Dennis had told Quentin over and over again. "That's how crisp, how clean, how fresh this has to be."

And it was. Not a single critic, either in New York or in any of the major cities A Private Empire toured, accused Dennis or the show of flatness or predictability. At least not until the last year, when a few of the more perceptive reviewers suggested that earlier tours had been somewhat more exciting.

Dex stepped off the curb and looked down the alley behind the church once more. "Not yet," he murmured, stepping back. "Jesus, they better get here soon or they'll miss it."

"They'll be here," Quentin said. "I just hope they'll make it before those brilliant investigative reporters realize that this church has a back door."

There had been five reporters out front when they arrived, one local, three others from the New York City papers, and a fifth from WINS-TV. They were told immediately that no one would have any comments to make, but they stayed nonetheless.

The sound of a car engine induced Dex to step out again. "They're coming," he said. Quentin leaned out and looked. A black BMW sedan was moving slowly down the narrow alley, John Steinberg behind the wheel, Donna Franklin at his side. The two shadowy figures in the back seat, Quentin knew, had to be Dennis and Robin. Steinberg pulled the car to the side just enough so that any others could pass, and parked. When Dennis climbed out, Quentin was astonished at how bad he looked.

AIDS. Even though he knew Dennis was neither gay nor a drug user, it was the first thing to go through Quentin's mind. Dennis's skin was sallow, his cheeks were sunken, he looked as though he had lost weight since Quentin had last seen him. AIDS had claimed a dozen of Quentin's friends since the plague began, and three times as many acquaintances. The most recent had been a dancer with whom Quentin had had a brief affair four years earlier. Though Quentin's AIDS tests continued to come back negative, he still lived in fear.

Dex kissed Robin and hugged Dennis, then did the same to Steinberg and Donna Franklin. Quentin advanced slowly and reached out a hand to Dennis, which was grasped weakly, without fire. "How are you, Dennis?" Quentin asked.

"I've been better." The response was flat, without a trace of humor.

"Hello, Robin," Quentin said in greeting. "Nice to see you again, only not under these circumstances."

"Hello, Quentin," she said, and kissed his cheek.

"We'd better go in," Dex said briskly and with a quick smile, as though a game of tennis and not a funeral was awaiting them. "It's almost time."

"Hey hey!"

They all turned at the voice behind them, and were startled by the brilliance of an electronic flash exploding in their eyes. "Okay, one more," the voice cautioned, and the flash spat again. A heavyset man in a trench coat walked up to Dennis and stuck out a meaty hand. "Larry Peach, Mr. Hamilton. The Probe."

A sick look came over Dennis's face, and he leaned away from Peach. Quentin had seen the latest Weekly Probe with its shrieking headline, "Emperor Calls Subject to Death!" and the subheading, "`Off With His Head!'" He caught a trace of garlic on Peach's breath.

"Wondering if you got any comment on this kid's death —"

John Steinberg pushed his way between Peach and Dennis. "Mr. Hamilton has nothing to say to —"

"Why don't you let him tell me that, pal. Hey, Mr. Hamilton, did you really call the kid out and —"

Once again Steinberg interrupted. "Mr. Hamilton has nothing to say. Now we have a funeral to go to."

"Well, fine, I'll go too," Peach said, a condescending grin on his pouchy face. "Maybe you'll feel like talking inside the church."

"Look," Steinberg said reasonably, "I'll tell you what. I'm John Steinberg —”

“I know who you are. His manager."

"That's right. And his spokesman. And if you just stay out of the church and don't cause a scene, I'll give you an exclusive story when I come out.”

“Oh yeah?"

"Yes. I promise. Just wait here, and we'll come out the back. But there's no point in making this a circus. If I see you try to get inside that church, no story."

"Okay," Peach said. "I'm a professional, all I want is a story. I'll be nice to you, you be nice to me."

"That's right."

"But exclusive. No talking to the Times or the Post or those other guys first.”

“Of course not. For you alone."

Peach backed up and made a mock bow. "Be my guests. I'll be here when you come out."

"Of that I have no doubt," Steinberg said, and guided Dennis toward the church door. Robin and Donna Franklin followed. Quentin and Dex took up the rear, and Dex whispered, "My God, he looks awful," as they went through the door.

Quentin nodded in agreement. In a way, Quentin had always, even when they had become close friends, felt a fearful respect toward Dennis, but the tottering figure going down the narrow hall before him now inspired no fear, only pity. What, he wondered, had become of the Dennis Hamilton he had known, the Dennis who had barked "Scheiskopf!” at those who earned his displeasure, the Dennis Hamilton who was always so sure of himself and his talent and his decisions? That Dennis Hamilton had enraged him at times, but it was preferable by far to this season's model.

The small party filially made its way to the narthex, took computer-printed programs from the chipper assistants of the funeral director, and entered the sanctuary. It was imposing, Quentin thought. He'd never seen a stage set as ponderously overwhelming. Dark wood and gray stone predominated, but neither wood nor stone were as deeply imbued with puritanical solemnity as the face of the middle-aged man in the first row, who turned as the Hamilton party came in and sat down in pews at the rear. The man watched Dennis's face intently until the woman seated next to him put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned back toward the casket.

Tommy's father, Quentin thought. Poor bastard. Losing an only child was bad enough, but to have it splashed all over the tabloids made it worse. A ten-day wonder, but those ten days could be hell to get through.

The service seemed to go on forever. A dour-faced minister droned tirelessly away, and Quentin shut his ears to it. He had heard it altogether too many times in the past few years, had seen the caskets of too many friends on too many biers. He wondered glumly how many more he would attend before being the guest star himself.

At last the music and the scripture and the message of comfort were over, the minister intoned his last amen, and the congregation stood. As in a wedding, the front row exited first, and as Tommy Werton's father passed the pew that Quentin, Dex, and the Hamilton party sat in, he glared with undisguised hatred at Dennis, who seemed not to notice, lost in his thoughts. When the time came, they stood, and shuffled along with the rest of the crowd into the narthex, where they found Mr. Werton and the woman who had been sitting beside him, and another man the same age.

"Tommy's aunt and uncle," Robin whispered to Quentin and Dex. "His mother's dead."

The murmured sympathies grew louder as they approached the triumvirate of grief. Robin took the offered hands and spoke the words, and then Dennis was nodding to the aunt, the uncle, and finally, Mr. Werton, to whom he put out his hand tentatively, as if afraid of having it grasped and twisted. He need not have worried. Mr. Werton's hand, clenched in a fist, remained at his side. He was a small man, but the way his mouth twisted in a scowl made him look far larger, more menacing.

"I won't take your hand," he said. Quentin could see that the man was actually trembling, and for a moment he was afraid that the fist would come up and strike Dennis.

Dennis stood there, his hand halfway up, his mouth partly open as if he was about to say something, but then thought better of it. The hand fell back to his side, and he turned and moved on. Steinberg was next in line, and he grasped Werton's hand and held on to it. "I was there," he said gently. "And Mr. Hamilton had nothing to do with your son's death."

The little man opened his mouth to speak, but Steinberg plunged on. "He liked Tommy very much, Mr. Werton. We all did, and we share your grief."

Werton jerked his hand away, and when he spoke, his words bit sharply. "Damn theatre. Never wanted him in it. Wouldn't get a real job, always went from show to show. No way to live."

The way the man's face changed terrified Quentin with its suddenness. From vicious anger it went immediately to powerless sorrow. The features melted like hot wax, and tears ran down Werton's cheeks. Steinberg moved away, knowing, as did Quentin, that words could do nothing in the face of such deep and irrational grief. Dex passed the party with a sad smile, and Quentin followed, a sotto voce "very sorry" the best he could muster.

He found the others in a cloakroom off to the side. Dennis was leaning against the wall, and the others were gathered around him. He was paler than before, and droplets of sweat were perched on his high, aristocratic forehead. What in God's name has happened to him, Quentin thought again. Werton had been a fool, a narrow-minded man who probably hated the theatre because of the supposedly loose morals that had been associated with it ever since Shakespeare. Five years before, Dennis would have eaten Werton alive, bereft of a son or not, and spit out the bones.

Quentin recalled one afternoon when the Private Empire revival had been rehearsing at the Broadway Arts Studio. After lunch, Dennis and some of the chorus members had been rehearsing a number when a monster of a man in his forties burst into the room, bellowing, "Where's Danny!"

Danny was a kid from Cleveland, and Empire was his first Broadway show. Everybody liked him, but only a few, Quentin and Dennis among them, knew about the problems he had had with his father that had made him leave home a year before.

The father had beaten the boy severely, a fact attested to by a red, round scar on his forearm, burned there by his father's cigarette.

"Where the hell is he?" the man roared again. The stage manager began to tell him he would have to leave, but an upraised palm changed his mind. "There doesn't have to be no trouble. You just tell me where Danny is."

That was when Dennis left the ensemble, which had by now frozen, and, carrying a thin cane he was using as a prop saber, walked over to the man. "I'm afraid Danny's on his lunch break right now. Would you like to leave a message?"

"I'm not leavin' any fuckin' message — I want my boy!"

"You're his father?" Dennis asked, lightly swinging the cane.

"That's right."

"And what do you want with him?"

"Take him home. He goes off here to New York to be a dancer," — the word dripped contempt — "and now he's queerin' around."

"How old is Danny?"

The man had to think for a moment before he answered. "He's just nineteen.”

“Well, in that case, whether he uses his anus for withdrawals or deposits is up to him, isn't it?"

The air in the studio had grown so thick Quentin could barely breathe as he watched Danny's father seem to grow another foot in height and another yard in girth. The man threw a fist the size of a paint can, but Dennis dodged easily and whipped the cane upward so that it slashed Danny's father between his treelike legs. He let out one sharp scream, fell to the floor, and instantly vomited food and beer all over the worn boards of the studio.

When he had finished, he opened his eyes to find the point of Dennis's cane prodding the hollow of his throat, and Dennis standing over him. "Now listen to me, you scheiskopf," he said. "If you want to see your son, you do it at his place or on the street, not in my rehearsal." He stressed each syllable with a poke of the cane that made the man gag. "Now you go out to the front desk, and you ask the lady there where you might find a mop and bucket. Then you come back, and without making a sound you clean up this mess you just made. And when you're done, don't you ever come in this studio again. Do you understand me?"

Danny's father nodded, undoubtedly fearful that a negative response would cause Dennis to send the wooden point of the cane as far into his throat as possible. To the amazement of Quentin and everyone else in the studio, the man came back to clean up his vomit. Dennis, seemingly intent on his rehearsal, did not look at the man once. When Danny returned from lunch and was told that his father had been there, he asked to be dismissed for the day. He was at rehearsal the next day, however, and never mentioned his father again.

Quentin thought that although Dennis was concerned with the way Danny's father had treated the boy, what had angered him more was that his rehearsal had been interrupted and he had been treated rudely by a boor, and those were things that he would not suffer. How unlike the Dennis Hamilton who today, scarcely a decade later, turned pale at a harsh word, an ignorant snub.

They were moving now, down the halls, down the stairs, through the basement to the back door. When they walked outside, Larry Peach was waiting for them, smiling. "Nice service?" he said.

"Very nice," John Steinberg answered, then turned to the others. "Please, get in the car, everyone. I won't be long."

Quentin and Dex opened the doors for Robin, Dennis, and Donna, then watched while Steinberg conspiratorially drew Peach aside. They could just overhear what the two men said.

"An exclusive," Steinberg told Peach. "For your ears and those of your readers alone."

"Yeah, yeah, fine. So what is it?"

"This past weekend," Steinberg said, an arm around Peach's shoulder, "I received substantiated proof that . . .” Here he looked around, as if to make certain no unwelcome listeners were present. “. . . that your mother has been lasciviously fornicating with all the indigent Haitian boat people she can wrap her labia around."

He patted an unbelieving Peach on the shoulder and hopped into the car astonishingly fast. "Have a nice day!" he called as he started the engine and drove down the alley.

"You fuck . . ." Larry Peach said softly, while Dex and Quentin started to giggle. "You fuck!" Peach yelled, throwing his note pad after the fleeing BMW.

It was the first time Quentin had laughed in a week. It was the first time he had forgotten about death.

Scene 6

Donna Franklin's day had been grim until the woman came in applying for the new job. At that point it seemed to lighten somehow. God knew it had started out badly enough. Although two weeks had passed since the accident, it was still on everyone's mind, and long faces were the order of the day. As if that weren't enough, she had had a scene with Abe Kipp again. Abe Creep was what she called him, but only in front of Sid.

Donna, after her customary post-breakfast walk, had come in through the stage door that morning. She usually reentered the building through the lobby doors, but today she had to check the date of inspection on the backstage elevator. The door had been unlocked and the work lights on. Abe and Harry were down in the rows of seats, giving them their biweekly dusting, and she paused to listen to what Abe was saying.

"Halloween, Harry. That's the time, y'know."

"Time for what?" Harry asked.

"Mad Mary, what else? Scare the shit right out of you if you see her. Dressed all in white up there in the balcony, her arms a-wavin', her long white hair blowin' out behind her even when there ain't a breath of wind . . .”

"She's . . . she's worse at Halloween?"

Abe nodded solemnly. "I seen her once years ago. The afternoon of Halloween day. I was dustin' the front rail of the mezzanine, and I hear this moanin' sound and turn around and there she is!" Abe jabbed a finger toward the balcony and Harry jerked his head around to look.

"Where!"

"I mean there she was, dummy. She was standin' right at the top of the balcony steps, her long white gown and hair flutterin', her arms reachin' toward me, and before I knew what was happenin' she was swoopin' down on me fast as hell, comin' right at me. I started to jump back, but I was right on the edge of the rail, and then . . ."

"What? What?"

Abe thrust out his lower lip and shook his head slowly. "She went right through me."

"Through you?"

"Her face came right up to mine, and I was starin' into her yellow eyes, and she went through me and disappeared. She was tryin' to scare me into fallin' off the mezzanine, Harry. They say she can actually scare ya to death, so I guess I'm lucky to be alive." A slow smile settled on Abe's wrinkled face. "You be careful this afternoon."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"When you're cleanin' up there alone."

"Me? Up there alone? On Halloween? Aw, Abe!"

"Harry, don't you be no pussy boy now."

"I ain't, Abe, but dammit —"

"I gotta clean the pool this afternoon, Steinberg told me to."

"But why can't I help you?"

"'Cause you gotta do the balcony, boy. You just be brave, and —"

"Abe," Donna said. Harry, already spooked, jumped at the sound, while Abe turned slowly, regarding her with the eyes of a recalcitrant boy caught cheating but not caring. Donna's voice had been angrier than she had meant it to be, and for a moment she thought she would call his name again, soften it. But no, she decided. The son of a bitch deserved that kind of harshness. "I'd like to speak to you alone, please."

She walked down the stage steps and up the aisle, not looking back to see if Abe would follow her. When she got to the inner lobby she stopped and turned. He was right behind her. "Why do you keep doing that?" she asked him.

"What?"

"Teasing Harry that way. It's very cruel. Mr. Steinberg's spoken to you about this before, hasn't he?"

"Yes ma'am, he has. And I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I like Harry a lot. He's dumb as a post and he's real lucky to have this job, but he's a good boy and does what he's told. Now I admit I tease him a little bit now and then, but Jesus Christ, what have I got to talk to him about? I mean you try workin' with a retard all day and see what happens."

"Abe, I don't think that —"

"It's like a cat, Miss Franklin. You tease 'em. You dangle a string or give their tail a little tug, it doesn't do 'em no harm, it's fun for you and it gets their juices flowin' a little, so where's the harm? Sure I tease Harry, just like I tease Crissie sometimes, but it doesn't mean I still don't love the old cat." Abe crossed his arms and gave an impatient puff. "Now if you got any complaints about my work . . .” He left it unfinished.

"No, Abe," Donna said. "No complaints. I'd just like to see you treat Harry a little more kindly, that's all."

Abe shrugged. "Okay then. You don't want me to tease him so much, I won't tease him so much. That make you happy?"

"Yes. It would."

Donna had seen no point in further discussion, and had walked to her office, imagining Abe muttering imprecations behind her. He was a bastard. There was, she thought, no "teasing" in him, only cruelty, pure and simple. One day he would go too far when Dennis was around, and then . . .

And then what? What would Dennis do?

The man had changed. It had been so slow and gradual that no one had noticed at first. But now more and more decisions were being made by John Steinberg. Oh, it wasn't as if John hadn't always plotted Dennis's career and finances, but Dennis had always wanted to be kept aware of what was going on. He had used to be omnipresent in their New York or Los Angeles offices, or wherever John and Donna established their temporary offices on the road, but now, in spite of his enthusiasm for the New American Musical Theatre Project, a long held dream of his, he seemed to show only a mild interest in the details of his life and his millions, and it bothered Donna, just as it bothered John.

He had been shorter with her than usual lately, and it was unlike John Steinberg. Donna had been with Steinberg since she was a twenty-year-old business school graduate who landed a minor secretarial position with his investment firm. Though not distinguishing herself by her brilliance, she proved to be an extremely hard worker, and soon her reputation drifted even as high as Steinberg's ethereal office. He had her promoted to his personal staff, and, when he gave up his firm to become Dennis Hamilton's manager, chose Donna to be his assistant.

The work had taken over her life, and her devotion to Steinberg was boundless. She had never known her father, who died when she was two, and so welcomed Steinberg's avuncular manner. He had always treated her in the most gentlemanly way, and it was not until she worked for him for four years that she learned he was gay. His relationships were few, however, and grew more infrequent as the years passed. Now there were no partners at all that she knew of, and she would know.

But this morning John had been unusually bitchy, indeed had actually barked at her when she came into the office on the second floor. He apologized immediately, but still his uncustomary sharpness had startled her, and only added to the sense of disquiet that her showdown with Abe Kipp had caused.

The woman who applied for the production assistant's job was like a breath of fresh air in contrast to Donna's previous confrontations of the morning. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, or perhaps her ebullient enthusiasm for theatre and, Donna thought, life in general was so evident. Whatever the reason, her presence was sufficiently disarming for Donna to stow her usual Cerberus-like attitude when it came to interviewing prospective employees. Even before she examined the woman's resume, Donna had decided that she would take her in to see John, the next step toward the ultimate goal of employment.

Fortunately the resume was adequate if not outstanding, and, after all, what was there for the production assistant to do? A lot of paperwork — filling out the multitudinous forms that Actors' Equity required for the performers and stage managers who were members, state and federal tax forms, form letters to everyone involved in the productions, and more. It wouldn't take a genius, just someone who had some clerical background and could work well with people, and this applicant seemed to fill the bill.

"You know," Donna said, "there's just one thing that puzzles me. You've done so much volunteer work, I'm curious as to why you suddenly want a fulltime job, especially one that pays just a little above the minimum wage."

The woman smiled and looked down at her lap, then up again. "The volunteer work alone isn't enough to fill my time anymore, and this theatre project seems like a worthwhile thing. The money really isn't a factor. It's not that I need it, so it really doesn't matter what I make. Actually, minimum wage would be fine. I'll probably contribute it anyway."

The statement, Donna thought, was sincere in its artlessness. She heard no pride or self-infatuation in it. "That's very generous of you."

The woman shrugged, making her honey-blonde hair bounce healthily. "It's not generosity, I just don't need it . . . you see," she finished rather lamely, a bit embarrassed, Donna supposed, by her wealth.

"Still . . .” Donna aligned the résumé and references with a sharp rap on the desk top. "I don't see any reason why you couldn't handle the position. Frankly, I think you'd be excellent. So what I'll do now is introduce you to Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Hamilton's manager."

The woman licked her lips nervously. "You mean you, uh, haven't had any other applicants?"

"Actually, we had three in yesterday. Two of them balked at the salary, and the third didn't have the . . . how shall I put it?" Donna laughed. "She was tastelessly dressed, huge as a cow and reeked of curry."

"Well," said the woman with a wry smile, "I'm glad I used my Scope this morning."

"Come on," Donna said, rising. "Let's go see John. I'm sure he'll love you."

She led the way into Steinberg's office. John was sitting, as usual, behind his desk. His habitual frown vanished as he saw the woman come in behind Donna. So, Donna thought, he's not invulnerable to feminine charms after all. "John," she said, "I'd like you to meet a very qualified applicant for production assistant."

Steinberg rose and came around the side of the desk. "Delighted to meet you, Miss . . ."

"Mrs." Donna corrected. "Mrs. Deems. Ann Deems."

~ * ~

It was unlike Ann Deems to think about money, but earlier that morning, as she stood in the parking lot of the Kirkland Community Building and looked at the massive edifice before her, she had found it impossible not to. She had always felt comfortably well-off, indeed at times even wealthy. Her husband had earned well over a quarter of a million dollars a year from his law practice, and his insurance policies had left her with well over a million dollars, even after Terri's trust fund was established and the taxes and attorneys had supped their fill. Adding to it the money previously inherited from her father, Ann knew she would never have to work a day in her life to live in what most people would consider luxury.

Yet here she stood, ready to go inside this palatial building that Dennis Hamilton had purchased and apply for a no doubt poorly paying job. Her résumé, such as it was, was tucked inside a three hundred dollar leather portfolio, as were recommendations from the presidents of the charities and hospitals for which she had done volunteer work for the past two decades.

Ironically, she had Terri to thank for showing her the advertisement. It had been in Backstage, and read:

WANTED: Clerical production assistant for New American Musical Theatre Project. Secretarial skills required. Apply Venetian Theatre, Kirkland Community Building, Kirkland, PA 17571.

"A little something to do in your copious free time," Terri had said offhandedly. "If you think you can keep from attacking the mogul who runs the joint."

Ann had ignored the sarcasm, and had tossed the Backstage onto the coffee table of the den, trying to forget both the ad and Dennis Hamilton. But the sparse words in the tabloid haunted her for the rest of the day, and the following morning she called her colleagues in philanthropy and asked for references, which they were happy to provide, for Ann was unlike most of the society women who offered one or two hours a week to the local hospital or library or children's home. Her interest was heartfelt, and she gave not only of her money but her time. She had never worked less than twenty hours a week at her different charities, and her involvement was deep and often emotionally searing.

For three years she had been a lay counselor at a juvenile hospice, working with dying children for several hours three days a week, playing with them, listening to their fears and concerns, and comforting them as best she could. It was harrowing and rewarding work, and in no time she had earned the respect of both administrators and nurses by not only her emotional involvement, but by her willingness to do even such menial chores as cleaning up the younger children's toilet mishaps.

Besides the hospice, Ann had also volunteered her time to the YWCA, the local Blind Association, and several retirement communities, and had done secretarial work for a farmland conversation group, an act that did nothing to endear her to several of her friends, some of whose husbands happened to be developers.

When she asked herself why, after so many years of volunteer work, she should be considering taking a paying job, she told herself that it was not because the New American Musical Theatre Project had anything to do with Dennis Hamilton. Rather it was because she believed that the goals of the project were worthy. She and Eddie had made innumerable trips into Manhattan to see shows (she preferred plays, while Eddie had liked musicals), and she knew full well that American musical theatre was in the doldrums, if not in its death throes. The good musicals all seemed to be British, and although Ann thought most of the classic American works such as Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe were often sloppily sentimental, she knew too that they had produced great songs and lasting stories, and she was damned if she could think of a single tune from, say, Sundays in the Park With George, as innovative as it was.

Too, Ann was interested in theatre from backstage. She had worked with her local little theatre group as assistant stage manager, props person, and costume assistant over the years, and had even directed a production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1982, which was well reviewed in the local paper. The experience, however, had left her shaken, and she had never wanted to direct again. The clash of personalities, as well as the backbiting and pettiness that seemed to be part and parcel of even an amateur group, strengthened her resolve to remain backstage rather than onstage, as far away from the actors as possible.

So, she felt, with her own interest and involvement in theatre and the worthiness of Dennis Hamilton's project, it made sense for her to pursue this new possibility. After all, Kirkland was only forty miles away — an hour's drive at most.

Ann looked at the building again, at the classical façade of light gray limestone. Higher, beneath the roof lines, were ornate moldings of grapevines from which peered faces of mythological deities, and above, the red Roman tiles of the multi-leveled roof on whose corners perched occasional gargoyles, carved in unexpectedly benign and reflective poses. There was money, she thought, and there was money. She had the former, while Dennis Hamilton had the latter. Not for a minute did she begrudge it of him. He had worked hard — that much she had known years before when they had first met — and over those years he had entertained millions, brought a story of love and fidelity and honor into lives that often knew those things in no other way.

No, she thought, Dennis Hamilton deserved his money, his theatre, deserved everything he had. And Ann Deems would have felt that way even if she had not still loved him.

She had taken a deep breath then and started across the parking lot, and now here she was, sitting in the office of John Steinberg, the same man she had seen on Entertainment Tonight only a few weeks before. Donna Franklin had excused herself and left. Steinberg had been, for the last five minutes, looking over her file of papers. At last he glanced up, and Ann was relieved to see that he was smiling.

"This looks very good," he told her, aligning the papers in the same way that Donna Franklin had done before. "Your secretarial skills are certainly up to what we'd need — at least for this job. And you do have some experience in theatre."

"Little theatre," Ann reminded him.

Steinberg waved a hand airily. "The only difference is that the egos are larger here."

Heaven help you, Ann thought.

"Why do you want a job like this, though? You certainly don't need it, do you? I don't mean to pry, but I consider myself an excellent judge of wardrobe and jewelry, as well as character, and you don't appear to me to be a woman used to working for five dollars an hour."

"As I told Miss Franklin, the money's of little consequence. I'm recently widowed, and I'd simply like a full time job to help fill the days."

"Why not do what other bored, wealthy women, widowed or not, do? Open a shop and sell something that interests you."

"Selling things doesn't interest me at all."

"But filling out pension and welfare forms does?"

"I believe it might. I won't know unless I try."

"And if it doesn't, then you leave us in the lurch."

"No, Mr. Steinberg. I finish what I start. This job is scheduled to last through next summer. If you hire me, I promise you I'll be here until the end.”

“Barring acts of God and, the same gentleman forbid, death."

Ann smiled. "Of course."

Steinberg leaned back and crossed his arms. He sat that way for a moment, and then, in a movement whose quickness startled Ann, he leaned forward across his desk, his arm out, hand extended toward her. "We'll take a chance on you," he said.

She nodded, took the offered hand, and shook it. "Thank you."

"And now," said Steinberg, standing up, "let's go meet Dennis."

"Meet . . . Dennis Hamilton?" The muscles in Ann's legs tingled, but she made herself stand on them nonetheless.

"Yes. He's been damned gloomy lately, and I think meeting an attractive new production assistant would do him a world of good. Besides, far better this way than to have him stumble over you in the balcony, yes?" Steinberg opened the door to the outer office. "Donna," he said, "tell Dennis I'm bringing someone up to meet him." He turned back to Ann. "Have you seen the theatre?"

"Just the lobby on my way in. I came to a lot of movies here when I was in school, though. It was quite beautiful."

"It still is. Donna can give you the grand tour later. Now, onward and upward." They walked down the hall side by side. Halfway up the staircase to the third floor, Ann cleared her throat. "I've, uh, met Mr. Hamilton before."

There was, she was afraid, something in her voice that implied secrets, and Steinberg slowed, then stopped and leaned against the railing. "Really. And where was this?"

"Oh, it was a long time ago. Back when his first show played here. I was working in the hotel that housed the cast. In the restaurant."

"I see. Well, in that case, you've known Dennis longer than I have. What am I introducing you for?"

Ann paused before she answered. "I doubt that he'll remember. That was almost twenty-five years ago."

"You'll discover," Steinberg said, smiling gently, "if you don't know it already, that Dennis never forgets a face. And certainly not such a pretty one." He began to walk up the stairs again, and Ann followed. "I'd also introduce you to Robin, Dennis's wife, but she's in New York this week, meeting the playwrights and composers who've written the shows we're considering for production. But you can meet her later. A charming woman, very young, but very . . . perceptive."

There were dimensions of meaning in the word, and Ann could not help but wonder if Steinberg suspected the nature of her previous relationship with Dennis Hamilton. Well, if he did he did. All that was in the past.

Still, as they reached the top of the stairway and began to walk down the long hall, she could feel her heart pounding, and she began to wonder if she had been lying to herself, if her desire for this job was born of nothing but the desire to see Dennis again. Why else did she feel relieved that his wife was away?

Finally they stopped at a pair of carved double doors. "The sanctum sanctorum," Steinberg said, pushing a button. In a moment the doors were opened by a short, stocky man in a pale blue jogging suit, who Steinberg introduced as Sid Harper. He shook Ann's hand, looking at her with what might have been a trace of recollection.

"It's pretty warm today," he said, leading the way across a living room right out of Architectural Digest. "Dennis is on the terrace." Ann followed through the French doors and saw him.

He was sitting with his back to them at a glass-topped table on which lay a morning newspaper, folded and unread. Next to it was a Limoges cup filled with coffee. Although all she could see of Dennis was the back of his head above the collar of the soft brown leather jacket, she would have recognized him anywhere. The sandy red hair, now touched with highlights of gray, was still swept backward in a leonine manner. It glimmered in the morning sun just the way it had when they had said goodbye to each other so many years before. Although she had seen his face since, it had always been in films or on television, and she could barely keep herself from going up to him, touching his shoulder, seeing him turn and look at her once again.

"Dennis," Steinberg said softly but firmly, "I'd like you to . . . reacquaint yourself with Ann Deems."

It seemed to Ann that he turned in slow motion, so that the jutting chin, the straight and narrow nose, the blue eyes, once piercing but now soft, came into her view over a period of what seemed like minutes, and after that eternity he was finally looking at her face, and the eyes became sharp and clear again, and she knew that he not only recognized her, but that he had not forgotten her. It was the look of lovers meeting after many years of separation, and the knowledge that he had never stopped loving her nearly drowned her, and she became aware of the most wonderful and terrible knowledge of all, that she had never stopped loving him either.

"Ann . . .” His lips formed the word, but she did not hear it.

"Hello, Dennis," she said, her throat thick, her hands tingling with the longing to touch him. "It was Ann Warren then."

"Yes . . ." It was as though he suddenly realized that he was being rude, and he got awkwardly to his feet. "What a surprise," he said, and a smile that held more things than she could imagine formed on his face. He made a delicate motion toward her, then stopped, as though he had intended to give her a kiss of greeting, then changed his mind. "It's been . . . quite a long time. You're looking very well."

"Thank you. You too. The beard still looks wonderful."

He chuckled. "My chin hasn't seen daylight for ten years now."

"He could grow mushrooms in it," Sid said, then crossed his arms. He looked uncomfortable, Ann thought.

"Well, since you two seem to know each other," Steinberg said, "Sid and I will get back to work. Oh, by the way, Dennis, Mrs. Deems will be our new production assistant, with your approval, of course."

"Oh. Oh. Of course. I'm sure she'll be . . . wonderful. Ann, would you . . . like some coffee? Tea?"

"No thank you, Dennis. I'm fine."

"Later," Sid said, following Steinberg through the French doors and out of sight.

"Um . . . please, sit down." He held out a chair for her and she sat, finally looking at the view. A large courtyard with a fountain was below. Across it and to the right were the vast walls of the building itself, while to the left was the street, an oak-lined boulevard that undoubtedly had looked the same for decades.

"It's a beautiful town," she said, and Dennis, sitting across from her, nodded.

"It always was," he said. "One of the few places that never changed. You could almost imagine that it's the same as it was when we . . . when I first came here."

"Except for the fact," said Ann, "that they don't show dirty movies here anymore."

Dennis laughed, and Ann was glad to hear the sound come bubbling out of him. Her silly remark had broken whatever romantic nostalgia had bound them, and she felt easier now, less apt to cry or shout or embrace him or any of the other childish, foolish things she had thought she might do. "God, you look good," Dennis said. "So tell me everything. How you became Ann Deems, whatever became of your parents, if you have children, the works. I mean, we do have a quarter century catching up to do."

"That dates us, doesn't it?" Ann said dryly.

"Me perhaps. Not you. You've hardly changed a bit."

She smiled. "Actors are always such skillful liars."

"Lying is our profession. But in this case I'm as honest as I know how to be. But now tell me — you're married."

"I was. I'm . . . a widow now. God, that word sounds so quaint, doesn't it?”

“Did it happen recently?"

So prompted, Ann told Dennis what had happened since they had last seen each other. He hung on every word, expressing a child-like delight at her triumphs, dismay at her losses. Never before had anyone listened so intently to her, or responded so sympathetically. She finally told him of Eddie's death, though she did not mention the circumstances, and merely hinted at the gap it had left in her life.

"Well," he said when she had finished, "it sounds as though you'll do a terrific job working with us. But you know, I'm interested in what you said about Terri. She's a good costumer?"

"I think so, but I'm her mother. Why? Do you need someone here?"

"Yes we do. Or we will very shortly. There are tons of costumes that need to be cleaned, repaired, you name it. We're trying to build our own wardrobe here so that we'll have most of what we need for shows, rather than having to rent everything from New York houses. There's no rush for Marvella right now, but once we select a show, which might be very soon, she's going to need help."

"Marvella Johnson?" Dennis nodded. "She's Terri's idol. She did a research paper on her designs."

"You think she'd be interested in working for her?"

"You're joking. She'd be delirious. You mean there's actually a chance?"

"I don't know why not. A degree in costuming from Yale Drama School is nothing to sneeze at, even for Marvella." Dennis laughed. "Of course I think tenth grade was as far as Marvella ever got. Someone with her natural gifts comes along about every fifty years. She calls herself the idiot savant of costume design, but believe me, she's no idiot, she's a damned genius."

"It was Ilona Herrick who discovered her, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Sort of like Lana Turner in the soda shop. Herrick hired her as a seamstress — out of desperation to meet a deadline — and accidentally knocked over a folder full of Marvella's sketches. The rest is history."

Ann nodded. "A happy set of circumstances."

"Mmm. Fate," Dennis said. "Kismet, I suppose, that brings two people together." He paused. "Accidents." Their eyes locked and they looked at each other for a long time. Ann tried to keep the tears from forming, but felt them begin to pool, and looked away, blinking savagely.

"Let's have dinner tonight," Dennis said. "The Kirkland Inn still gets fresh seafood every day." He smiled and touched her hand. "You always liked their seafood."

Ann looked at his hand on hers and thought how natural it seemed, how right, even though so many years had passed since she had last touched him. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know if that would be such a good idea."

"I don't know either," he replied. "All I know is that I'd like to have dinner with you, talk with you some more. Just talk, that's all. It's been so long."

"Maybe too long," she said, still watching their hands together.

"Maybe." He took his hand away. She almost grasped it, but restrained herself. "Let's consider it an employer-employee interview then. Professional down the line. No touching, except a warm and dry handshake. Is it a deal?"

Finally she looked up at him. He was smiling gently, and she realized she could not say no. "All right. It's a deal." Then she smiled. "Boss."

Dennis laughed. "I can pick you up at your home."

She began to agree, then remembered Terri. "No. Thank you, Dennis. I'd really rather drive myself."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Shall I meet you here or at the inn?"

"Well, since we're being professional, how about the inn? Say seven-thirty?"

"That's fine." They did not kiss, did not touch when they parted. He called Sid, who took her back to Steinberg's office, where she received Donna Franklin's smiling congratulations, filled out the necessary employment forms, and was told to report for work at nine o'clock on Thursday morning.

As she sat behind the wheel of her car and pulled the door closed, she realized what a terrible mistake she had made, not only in accepting the job, but in coming to Kirkland in the first place. She should not have seen him, should never have seen him again, because, damn it all to hell, she still loved him, and could see in his face that he still loved her, and while one part of her brain reveled in that fact, another part agonized over it, because Dennis was married, wasn't he? He was a married man, with a wife who loved him and who he no doubt loved too. And now Ann had become part of the equation simply by reappearing, or at least she thought enough of herself to imagine she had.

But what if she was kidding herself? What if Dennis's reaction had been due merely to nostalgia for simpler and happier times?

Oh Jesus. Jesus, there was too much to think about, too many possibilities, too great an assortment of emotions on both their parts to come to any conclusion. She didn't know what he felt, what he thought. All she knew for sure was that she still loved him, and she knew that through her twenty-two years of marriage she always had. Through all the years she was loving Eddie — and she had loved Eddie — she was loving Dennis as well, and if that sounded impossible, it was nonetheless true. Who the hell knew what love was anyway?

Oh, goddammit, who the hell knew anything?

She gave into it then and cried. She cried for Eddie and for loving Dennis and for herself, and when she had finished she started the car and began to drive home, remembering the day she had first met Dennis Hamilton in the coffee shop of the Kirkland Holiday Inn. She had spilled a tuna salad sandwich on him.

~ * ~

"Oh God . . . oh God, I am so sorry, there was butter there, and I stepped in it, and . . . oh God, all over your sweater . . .”

"It's okay . . .”

"No, wait, let me get that bread . . . oh yuck . . . Look, I'll just go back in the kitchen, get a towel, some cold water —"

"It's okay, really." The young man smiled at her. "There's just one problem," he said, and pointed to a large blob of tuna salad in the vicinity of his stomach. "Didn't I ask you to hold the mayo?"

She laughed, just a little, and as his smile grew broader and he began to laugh as well, she laughed harder, an embarrassed, half-crying laugh, shaking her head at her own clumsiness. "Watch," the young man said. "Magic." He tugged on the sweater at the neck, something her mother had always taught her not to do, pulled it up over his head, and removed it, turning it inside-out in the process. "Voila! All gone."

"I am sorry," she said again. "Please, let me have it cleaned."

"Well, all right," he said. "On one condition, and that's that you return it to me over dinner."

Yes was on her lips, but she bit it back, remembering who the boy was — an actor who was rehearsing for that new musical at the Venetian Theatre, one of those rare and frightening beasts her mother had warned her about, and even her father had viewed with minor alarm. But, on the other hand, he was so darn cute, and that smile was enough to light the main street of Kirkland. "I . . . I don't know . . .”

"We don't have to eat tuna salad, you know. And we don't have to eat here either."

"Well . . .”

"And I'll bring you home safe and sound, I promise. Untouched by human hands."

Once again she gave an embarrassed laugh.

"'You pause, madam,'" he said. "'Do you find me repulsive?'"

She gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

"It's from the show. Now you say, 'Not at all, sir. I shall be happy to accompany you.’”

"Oh, that's what I say, huh?"

"Well . . . I'd like you to." He leaned toward her and grinned. "And shall I tell you why?"

"Why?”

"Because I've been wanting to get a chance to meet you, and I can't do that if all we're saying is 'Would you like more coffee,' and 'Miss, may I have the check now.' In fact, I have a confession to make."

"What?"

"I put that butter on the floor on purpose so you'd slip and spill something on me.”

“You didn't!"

"No, I didn't. But I would have if I'd thought of it." Ann laughed again, but there was no embarrassment in it this time.

That evening over stuffed flounder at the Kirkland Inn, the young man, whose name, Ann learned, was Dennis Hamilton, told her that he was enjoying the meal more than any other he had had since rehearsals began. "And you know why? I didn't think so, so I'll tell you. It's because you're the first normal person I've met since this whole thing started."

"What do you mean, normal? Dull?"

"No, no, not at all. I mean beautifully, charmingly normal. Have you ever been involved with theatre? Professionally?"

"No."

"Me neither. Not until this show, anyway. Oh, I did a lot of stuff in high school, and I busted my hump working in a summer theatre to get my Equity card, but all did on the stage was serve a drink in Act Two and say, 'Would you care for another, sir?' But anyway, everybody in this business is slightly crazy."

"Present company excluded?" she asked.

"Of course. All the women are so self-centered you can hardly talk to them —that is, if there was anything besides performing that they could talk about — and the men are all gay. Well, most of them anyway. Couple of guys — Sid and Harry — they're straight."

"Gay? You mean homosexual?" Ann was shocked, but hoped she didn't look it. She hoped in vain.

"That surprise you? It did me. Hey, you'd be surprised how many guys in theatre and movies are. I mean, the stories I've heard, some of the names, the guys who are famous for being such big . . .” He searched for a word. ". . . studs, pardon my French, well, they're absolute flaming faggots when nobody's looking."

"God, that's amazing. Like who?"

"Aw, I don't want to say, I mean, some of it might be just talk. But whether they're straight or gay, the guys are just as into themselves as the girls are.”

“So what's this show all about?" Ann asked.

"It's a musical about this young emperor who falls in love with this girl who isn't a princess or anything, and he wants to marry her, but his nobles don't want him to, so they have her killed."

"Ooo. That's a little extreme, isn't it?"

"Well, it's all done behind his back, but he finds out about it, and there's a big duel at the end with this imposter the nobles have tried to put in his place, and it turns out that the emperor decides never to get married and let his line die out. See, that's the revenge on the people who wouldn't let him marry the girl he loved."

"Oh, that's kind of a different ending. How did you get in it?"

"There was an open audition, so I took my brand new Equity card and went and sang a song. Then they had me come back to read and sing for Ensley and Davis. You know who they are?"

"Sure." Ann's parents had taken her to New York to see All For the Best when she was in ninth grade, and she had seen the film versions of Wandering Wind and Calahan's Folly and owned both soundtrack albums. "So you really sang for them?"

Dennis nodded. "Danced too, though they didn't think much of my dancing."

"But you got the part."

"Mmm-hmm."

There was a pause while the waiter removed the soiled dishes. Then Ann asked, "So what do you do? Serve drinks again?"

He gave a short, uneasy laugh, and for a moment she was afraid that he had no lines at all, but was just a singer in the chorus. "No, no drinks. I get to do a little more this time."

"Oh, well, that's good. Who do you play?"

"The Emperor."

It took a few seconds for her to realize that he was being serious. "You have the lead?" He looked down and nodded. "My God, that must be . . . exciting.”

“Try scary."

“Why?”

"Because the people who aren't counting on me to sell their million dollar show are hoping that I'll screw up." He shook his head in frustration. "It usually takes years to get somewhere in this business, and that's what I expected to happen too. I thought my voice would get me through a few years of chorus jobs while I took enough dance so that I didn't stumble around on stage too much, then a few speaking roles, maybe the hero's comic relief friend, and then, if the gods smiled, actual leads by the time I was in my thirties or forties."

Ann was beginning to see. "But it happened a lot faster."

"Did it ever. This is a part every young performer in New York wanted, and I —literally — just stepped right into it." He sighed. "As a result, an awful lot of people don't like me very much."

He sat there quietly for a long time until the waiter brought them coffee and asked if they wanted dessert. They didn't, and the waiter left. "It's a drag," he said finally. "I don't feel as though I'm really into the part. I mean I read fine during the auditions, and I was okay during the first week in New York. But everyone got so . . . bitchy. They treat me like this incredibly lucky jerk. Hell, I don't feel like an emperor at all."

Ann thought for a bit, took a sip of coffee, then spoke. "Maybe you shouldn't try and feel like the emperor. Maybe . . . maybe you should just be the emperor."

~ * ~

(At a window high up in the building, THE EMPEROR stands, looking out onto the parking lot from which Ann Deems is driving away.)

THE EMPEROR

I want her. And I will have her. I'll have her crying, screaming, kneeling to me. Kneeling to her emperor. I'll have her bleeding.

Scene 7

"Looking back," said Dennis Hamilton to Ann Deems as they sat at the same table as they had on their first date, "I think I owe it all to you."

"Owe what?" she asked. She was wearing a teal sweater dress with a long, rust-colored wool challis scarf. The diamond studs in her ears sparkled in the candlelight. Her face, Dennis thought, looked untouched by the years, as smooth as a child's in the gentle, golden glow.

"I owe you my career," he answered, smiling at her quizzical look. "Don't you remember the first time we ate here? I was bitching about how I didn't get any respect, how everyone was hoping to see me wind up flat on my face, and you told me not to try and feel like the Emperor, but to be the Emperor. And after I dropped you off I went back to my room and I thought damn it, she's right. I didn't have to feel like royalty as long as I could act like it. And I knew I could do that, and from that day on, at the rehearsals, I did."

Now Ann was smiling too. "I do remember."

Dennis looked down into his wine glass. "God, I was scared, though. But I figured I had nothing to lose."

"And that was when you told the stage manager to get you coffee."

A look of astonishment came over his face. "I told you about Pritchard?"

"You told me everything then. And I remember I was so proud of you. It's silly now, but it was a turning point for you in that show."

Dennis shook his head, remembering how Caton Tully, the director, expected Ralph Pritchard to get coffee from the machine in the lobby for him and several of the more highly paid actors at every break. Dennis had not been among the select few. The morning of the day after he and Ann had their first dinner together, Dennis had made his move.

~ * ~

When Pritchard started back to the lobby to get Tully's coffee, Dennis called after him, "I'll have some too, Ralph. Black," and turned away before Pritchard could respond. When Pritchard returned, he handed the cardboard cups around, then finally gave the last one to Dennis. Dennis opened it and saw the light brown of a double cream. Although he didn't taste it, he felt certain that Pritchard had dumped a double sugar into it as well.

"Ralph," he said in a flat, cold tone. "I asked for black."

"Oh yeah?" Ralph shrugged. "You want something done right, do it yourself."

"You scheiskopf!" And suddenly Dennis Hamilton was gone, and the Emperor

stood there in his place, an Emperor who had been pushed past all endurance and

would brook no more. "It was your mistake." Dennis thrust the cup into the man's

chest, so that the light, sticky brew splashed Pritchard's shirt, and husked out one

word — "Black." The theatre grew deadly quiet, and no one moved for a long time.

~ * ~

"I never," Dennis said to Ann, "never would have done that if you hadn't suggested it. And even then it was hard. I mean, Jesus, what a smartass punk, they must have thought."

"But he brought you a black coffee, didn't he?"

"Yes he did. I guess it helped that he was such a screwup to begin with. I don't know, maybe he thought I could actually get him replaced or something. After all, I was the star, whether I realized it or not."

"And you finally began to act like it."

"That's right. And I've been acting that way ever since. So following your advice not only made my reputation," said Dennis with a wry smile, "it ruined it as well. From enfant terrible to aging tyrant."

"Oh, the gratitude you must feel toward me. But you're not aging, you're forty-three, the same as . . .” She hesitated.

"The same as you. I know. No secrets here. But the years have been far kinder to you, Ann, than to me."

"How can you say that? You look wonderful."

"There are silver threads among the red, and, though you can't see it, I'm beginning to cultivate a paunch. The weight's remained the same, it's just been . . . redistributed." They laughed together, stopping only when the waiter refilled their wine glasses.

"So," Dennis said, "did you ask your daughter whether she'd be interested in working for us too?"

"No," Ann replied, and Dennis thought he saw a cloud pass over her face. "She wasn't home when I got there. Probably out with friends. I'll talk with her . . .” She paused, as if contemplating what the evening would hold. “. . . tonight, when I get home."

Dennis nodded. The mention of Ann's daughter had unexpectedly introduced the spectre of all the years that had passed since the nights they had last sat here, at first holding hands, later kissing with light, gentle kisses when the waiters' and other diners' attentions were elsewhere.

They did not hold hands now, though Dennis wanted to. From the moment he had seen Aim that day, he knew that his feelings for her had never left, that although at times he had denied her existence, he knew now that he had done so to spare himself the pain of life without her. For only by not thinking about her, by banishing her from his mind, could he live with the knowledge that he loved her, and always would.

He looked at her now, and her gaze came up and met his, their eyes held, and they both knew the secret the other was trying to hide. He saw tears in her eyes and felt them form in his own, tears of self-pity for all the years spent apart, for the life they might have had together.

Her hand touched his, her cool fingers intertwined with his own. There were no words. They only sat and watched one another, as if trying to drink in the sight, quench the thirst of a quarter century, attempt to fill that emotional reservoir they both knew was bottomless, infinite, in preparation for an uncertain future.

"Oh, Ann," he whispered, his throat thick with grief and joy. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Sorry for what had been, he wondered, or sorry for what was yet to come?

"No," she said, looking away at last, brushing away the tears with the hand that was not holding his. "I'm the one who's sorry. Sorry for what happened, sorry I came back to see you . . .”

"No. Don't be sorry for that, don't ever be. I'm glad you came."

"I shouldn't have. I shouldn't take the job, I should just go home and forget all about this, about you . . .”

"No." His hand tightened on hers. "I don't want you to do that. Please stay." She shook her head as though it weighed a ton. "You're married. I don't want to . . . to be the cause of anything."

"You won't," he said, thinking that it was a lie, saying it nonetheless, thinking that he would have said anything to be with her longer. And then he thought that maybe what he said was true, but that he didn't want it to be.

At last she took her hand away, and his own hand had never felt so empty. "I don't know why," she said with a crooked smile, "why you have stayed in my mind all these years."

Dennis felt her smile mirrored on his own face. "Maybe it's because we loved each other, but we were never lovers. That's . . . a reflection, not a proposition."

"And taken as such." She sighed, sat back in her chair, and took a sip of wine. "You may be right, though. It was . . . relatively chaste. So all these years I suppose I've thought about what it would have been like." Now the smile held true humor. "And probably the fantasy is better than the reality."

"It generally is," Dennis said. "But there are exceptions to that rule." Ann's face became sad again. "We'll never know, will we?"

"No," Dennis said. "I guess we won't."

They sat there silently until Ann spoke again. "What if I asked you?" she said. "I'm not, but what if I did? What if I asked you to take me back with you tonight? What would you say?"

I've been an actor too long, Dennis thought, and acted again. "I'd say no. For both of us."

"And for your wife."

"And for my wife, yes." Then he added, as though it needed to be said. "I love her, Ann."

He walked her to her car. They did not hold hands, nor did they embrace when she got in. "I start Thursday," she said.

"Good," he said. "Good. Have Terri come with you and meet Marvella, yes?"

"All right." He closed the door for her, but she opened the window and spoke to him through it. "Dennis, if this doesn't work, don't blame me if I quit. Right now I just want to see you, even if I can't . . . be with you. Maybe it'll pass. I hope it will."

"I know. I know how you feel. I feel the same way."

She smiled. "This has got doom written all over it, hasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Are we stupid?"

"Maybe. But we don't have to be." And he thought yes, yes, we are stupid. And we are helpless as well. But he only said, "Goodnight, Ann."

He turned then and walked down the street, not looking back, fearful that if he did he would go back to her, and though his heart wanted him to, his mind did not. He reminded himself that he loved his wife, he loved Robin, and he would not, could not be unfaithful to her. He had played that game too many times before with other women he had pretended to love. He would not do it to Robin, not to Robin. He owed her more than that.

When he returned to his suite, it seemed more empty than ever. He wished that Robin were there, and, out of loneliness and the desire to hear her voice, called her at the apartment they kept in New York. She sounded the same as ever, and told him that one show in particular stood out among the several finalists she had reviewed, and that she would be returning on Friday with the script and a tape of the music. He told her that he missed her and loved her, and she sounded, he thought, surprised to hear it.

She also sounded, he was dismayed to learn, ever so slightly like a stranger.

~ * ~

What if he had given a different answer, Ann wondered as she drove home. What if he had said yes, I'd take you back with me, and I'd make love to you for the first time, and it would be the first time for the both of us for the rest of our lives, and we would spend the rest of our lives together, no one else, the way it should have been so many years ago.

What would I have done? Would I have gone with him if he had asked me to? God, I don't know. I would have wanted to, but would I have gone?

And as she drove through the night, the headlights of cars cutting across her vision, she thought of what it would be like to go to bed with Dennis, and as the lights streaked by, she thought of the last time she had gone to bed with Eddie, and in her mind Dennis's face became her husband's, and the dead weight of her husband became Dennis, and by the time she turned into the long driveway that led back to her home, she wondered for the hundredth time if she could sleep with any man again, but thought that if one existed who could make her forget, it would be Dennis. How sad, she thought, when Dennis was what she needed most to forget.

~ * ~

Terri was sitting in the den watching a Tracy-Hepburn movie on the large screen television when Ann walked in. The girl glanced away from the screen just long enough for her to take in her mother's appearance, then looked back at the four foot tall Tracy giving a towel-clad Hepburn a rubdown. "Well," she said dryly, "and where have we been in our sexiest dress?"

"It's not sexy," Ann said.

"Look in the mirror and tell me that, O mother of mine. Your boobs are displayed to their best advantage."

"What there is of them." Ann walked to the sofa where Terri was reclining and sat on the arm. "How would you like to work for a living, daughter dear?”

“Doing what?" Terri asked disinterestedly.

"Being an assistant to Marvella Johnson."

For the first time since Eddie's death, Ann saw the girl's stoic sarcasm replaced by youthful excitement, and felt a thrill run through her that she was actually doing something that made her daughter happy. "Marvella Johnson? Are you kidding me?"

"Dead serious. I followed your advice and went job hunting myself today. At the Venetian Theatre."

Terri's face grew solemn once more. "So that's it. The old boyfriend." She made a strange noise, half-snort, half-laugh. "I'm surprised you came home at all tonight. Or was Mrs. Hamilton there to put a damper on things?" Ann stood up, walked to the television, and turned off the power. "Hey, I was watching that," Terri said.

"Well, you're going to watch me now — or at least listen to me. Dennis Hamilton was a friend of mine, yes, a long time ago, but he's married now, and that's all we are — friends. I've never slept with the man and I don't intend to. Now that's none of your damned business, but you seem to think it is, so that's why I'm telling you, to set the record straight."

She came back, sat on the arm again, looked down at her daughter. "Dennis is a good man, and I'm going to be working at his theatre on his project. When I told him about you, he said that Marvella Johnson needs an assistant and told me to invite you to apply for the position. I've done that. I'm going in to work on Thursday, and if you want to come along, fine. If you don't, that's fine too. Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I don't give much of a damn what you do. Goodnight." And she left the den without another word.

~ * ~

Left alone, Terri looked at the doorway through which her mother had passed, then at the blank screen of the huge TV. In a way that she could barely admit to herself, she felt jealous of her mother, for both the things she had and the things she had not had.

Men were not part of the equation. Terri had had men, and in abundance. In college, sex had come easily and, for the most part, happily to her. It was also carefree, for she carried her own condoms, and would not consider sex without them. Her partners were willing to trade off increased sensitivity for ease of access, so Terri was seldom left wanting sexual companionship.

What she was left wanting, however, was romance, something with which she believed her mother had lived all her life. Ann had told her long before about having known and dated Dennis Hamilton, although she had never given her any details. Around this skeletal framework Terri had constructed a legend. She had seen the film version of A Private Empire, and had even seen Dennis in the New York revival back in 1982. She remembered her father telling her mother that they should go backstage, that Dennis would surely remember her, but Ann refused. At the time, Terri thought it was because Ann had made the whole story up, but later realized that seeing the two men she loved together would have been too difficult.

So, through the years, Terri thought about her mother and Dennis Hamilton, about their young love that, on her mother's part at least, she knew had lasted. And as that love became less of an unattainable dream and more of an attainable ideal, so Terri's anger and jealousy grew toward her mother. Now, with the knowledge that they had seen each other again, she was torn between the joy she knew she should feel for her mother, and the jealousy that was the reality. For Ann to have two romances in her life, while Terri had never come close to even one, seemed selfish in the extreme, and Terri, despite Ann's best efforts, had been raised by a spoiling and doting father to be as selfish as possible.

What Ann had, Terri wanted, and, if it could be gotten, she would get it. When Thursday came, she would go with her mother, she would meet Marvella Johnson, and maybe, just maybe, she would meet Dennis Hamilton too.

Terri got up from the couch, went over to the wall full of videotapes, and took A Private Empire from its storage box. Putting on the earphones so her mother would not hear, she began to watch the film.

Dennis Hamilton really had been a beautiful young man, she thought, and wondered what changes the intervening years had made. She wondered if he was still handsome, then looked more closely at the perfect face of the bearded young man that filled the screen, and felt sure that he was.

She would like working for Marvella Johnson, she thought. Yes, she would like everything about the Venetian Theatre.

Everything.

Scene 8

Donna Franklin liked everything about the Venetian Theatre too. Everything except Abe Kipp and going to the fourth and fifth floors by herself. She didn't know how Marvella was able to live there alone. She did have Whitney, but in a few weeks, perhaps, the girl would be gone, and Marvella would have that suite and those long halls all to herself — and to Abe Kipp's ghosts.

Not that that would bother Marvella. Though at times she played the comic darkie, it was only in a way that poked fun at the old, tired, white man's stereotype, never at herself or her race. In truth, she was the least superstitious person Donna had ever met. Her imagination was bounded by fabric and sketches, and had no room for ghosts.

Donna didn't believe in ghosts either, but there was something about the upper floors, the fifth floor in particular, that poured tension into her like a stream of ice, and caused the pressure in her bladder that had always been the physical manifestation of Donna's anxieties. She thought the feeling was due to knowing that the place had once been a hospital, where people had suffered and died in pain.

Shaking the thought from her mind, she continued down the hall. After all, she was on the fourth floor now, a floor that was already occupied by Marvella and Whitney, and would soon be the temporary homes of others as well. The presence of people here would surely banish whatever theatrical or medical spirits still remained.

She paused where the hall turned, and examined the two doors at right angles to each other. One would be Dex Colangelo's suite, the other Quentin Margolis's, when the two men came down to Kirkland for the rehearsals of whatever show was chosen. Today Donna was to examine the rooms and determine which should be bedrooms, living rooms, kitchenettes and the like. They had been only dorm rooms for the orphan school years before, as had the suites on the third floor. But walls had been battered down so that the dozens of tiny, individual rooms (little better than cells, Donna thought) had become the spacious and elegant suites in which they all now lived. She unlocked the door on the left, turned on her flashlight, and entered.

The smell of old plaster and damp wallpaper hung heavy in the air, although in the flashlight's gleam the place looked clean enough, the rubble of the pulled-down walls removed, the dust swept away. To Donna's left was a windowless room that she thought could serve as a kitchen/dinette. She turned to the right and walked down a narrow hall, from the end of which daylight was coming, to find two more rooms, the first with windows at the far end only, which would make a decent bedroom, and the second with windows on two walls, which would be perfect, she thought, for Dex's living room, since there was plenty of space for a piano. The bath could go wherever the existing plumbing system allowed. Donna jotted down a rough layout on her clipboard, then capped her fountain pen and turned to walk out.

She had not taken a step before she knew that someone was in the suite with her. The door, which she could see from where she stood, was closed, and she was sure she had left it open so that the light from the hall would help illuminate the interior. Also, she thought she detected the steady sound of someone breathing, normally the quietest of sounds, but terribly loud now in the deathlike stillness of the dark rooms. Whoever it was, she thought, didn't care if she knew he was there or not, and she wasn't sure if that made her feel more or less comfortable.

Donna stood there for what seemed like many minutes, her flashlight dark. Then she decided that this standoff, if standoff it was, had to end, and she called out, with more courage than she felt, "Hey, who's there?" It could, after all, be Harry Ruhl, who would probably be more scared than she was.

After a moment's silence, the answer came. "Me." And Donna breathed a sigh of relief, recognizing the deep, warm voice of Dennis Hamilton.

"Jesus, Dennis," she said, as she flicked on her flashlight, "you nearly scared the hell out of —" But her words choked as the light shone on his face.

It was Dennis, but it was a far different Dennis than the one she expected to see. There was nothing soft and vulnerable about this face that stared at her out of the darkness, nothing yielding about those eyes that caught the flashlight's glare and turned it to red. The eyes were those of a cat, the face that of a wolf, and Donna found she could not speak. Never before had she felt so hunted, as though she were nothing but prey for the man who stood before her.

It took her a moment to realize what he was wearing, and had it not been for the shining gold buttons she might not have noticed. It was his uniform coat, the uniform coat that he had worn in innumerable performances as the Emperor Frederick.

~ * ~

(THE EMPEROR wears not only the coat, but the jodhpurs and boots as well. The saber hangs by his side.)

THE EMPEROR

Did you find the bedroom?

DONN

(Slowly) Yes . . . the second room.

THE EMPEROR

Let's look. Let's look . . . together (He begins to move toward her DONNA turns her back on him, as if with great courage, and leads him into the room. Sunlight is shining through the dusty windows.) Dexter will like this as a bedroom.

DONNA

(Self-consciously) You're in costume.

THE EMPEROR

I am.

DONNA

But why? Why the costume . . . Dennis?

THE EMPEROR

Because we should not forget to whom we owe all this. This beautiful building, this success, this . . . soon-to-be bedroom. (He walks about, hands clasped behind his back.) And what things might be done here? Do you think that Dexter will form a liaison with any of the chorus members? He has before, you know. (He fixes her with a challenging glare.) Did you know that?

DONNA

(Nods) Yes.

THE EMPEROR

Dexter is quite an accomplished lover. Perhaps it is his Italian heritage. (He gives her a look that would pin a butterfly to a board.) Have you ever had an Italian lover, Donna?

DONNA

I . . . I don't . . . no. No, I haven't.

THE EMPEROR

A pity. Life should be filled with as many experiences as possible. And such an attractive woman as yourself. . . no, no protestations, please. You know it's true, even though you attempt to disguise it under those owlish glasses and that severe hair style. They merely beg a man to remove them and unpin the hair, and give that classic line, "Why, Miss Franklin, you're beautiful." Please don't tell me that you've never imagined that weary scenario, or that it's never happened to you, for I feel sure it has.

DONNA

Dennis —

THE EMPEROR

(He raises a hand, interrupting her.) Spare me, Donna. I can tell when I'm talking to a woman who is experienced. I have empathy for that sort of soul to whom the flesh means much. (He looks away from her and murmurs, lost in thought.) The flesh . . .

(Seeing that THE EMPEROR's attention has shifted away from her, DONNA starts to edge past him toward the door, but he shoots out a hand in front of her, though he does not touch her.)

THE EMPEROR

When two such souls join — two souls with the proper regard for the flesh — the outcome would be astonishing. (He lowers his hand and smiles.) And I think that you and my . . . colleague of long standing have long experienced such a bonding. (He steps aside, bows deeply, and makes a low, sweeping gesture toward the hallway.) Pray, proceed. Remember me. And my veiled offer. For the time is coming when the flesh will live. And command.

~ * ~

The same fear that had held Donna now allowed her to tear her fascinated gaze away and move past him, walking briskly, then running, to the freedom of the hall. She heard the door close behind her, but she did not turn to see if he was there watching her, or had remained within, in the shadows. All she could think about was escaping. There was something about him that had soured her soul. His presence (his madness? — What was the costume for?) made her feel all the world was vile. It was not so much what he said as what she had heard actors call subtext — what lay beneath his words was like the pale, flat worms that crawl under rocks after rain.

And those words had come out of him on breath that smelled queer and strange and metallic, nothing as pedestrian as cigarette smoke or as pungent as garlic, but a curious and unique odor, one she had never before noticed from Dennis or any other human being. Whatever it was, it had terrified her almost as much as his bizarre words.

Donna's heart did not slow until she was back in the office suite she shared with John Steinberg, who was standing next to her desk looking through the day's mail. A pile of empty envelopes lay on her desk top, and Steinberg was smiling as he riffled the contents at her. "More checks," he said. "More good people wanting to invest in the project. Cissy Morrison sent ten thousand." Steinberg tossed down the pile of checks and sighed. "I'd feel happier, however, if I didn't think they were coming more in Tommy's memory than as real investments. I know that's what was in Cissy's mind at least."

Donna felt secure again. She was back with John now, talking about money, as usual. All was nearly right with the world. "How do you know that's what Cissy had in mind?" she asked.

"Because she told me in her goddamned letter. Listen." He picked up a sumptuous piece of cream-colored stationery from the desk and read, "'Not for your sake, you pompous windbag, but in memory of Tommy. And I'd better make a fucking profit too.'" Steinberg shook his head. "Cissy has such a way with words. So. You were up in the highest reaches of the keep?"

"Yes. I . . . I ran into Dennis."

"Dennis? Surveying his domain?"

"I don't know, John. He seemed awfully strange. He was . . . he was wearing his costume."

John eyed her over the top of his bifocals. "What costume?"

"His emperor costume. The whole regalia. And he acted like, well, he wasn't like himself at all. He acted more like the Emperor, like he was playing a role when he spoke to me. It was odd. I was actually a little scared."

Steinberg's face sobered. "Hmm. Well, he has been acting strangely. Tommy's death hit him hard. Hell, it did all of us. I'm sure he'll get over it."

"But . . . the costume?"

Steinberg heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of the desk. "Donna, Dennis has been the Emperor for many years. Even though he wasn't sorry to stop playing the role, it was a major part of his life. It's rather odd that he should put on the costume once again and roam the corridors above where he'd think no one would see him, but it's not inexplicable. It's like a little boy playing dress-up, for actors can be, as you well know, little more than children at times. When you discovered him, he was embarrassed, so he fell into character. And that," he finished, "is my pseudo-Freudian analysis. I shouldn't worry about it if I were you. Dennis will come around."

~ * ~

"John's wrong. I didn't come across him," Donna said to Sid. "He came into the suite. Sid, he knew I was there. If he didn't want me to see him, he could have just walked away down the hall."

Sid rolled over onto his back, rested a hand on Donna's bare thigh, and looked up at the bedroom ceiling. "It doesn't sound like Dennis. He never propositioned you before, did he?"

"Never. He's always been a gentleman around me. And he knows about us . . ." She trailed off, turning toward him and throwing an arm over his chest.

"Mmm-hmm. He's known for years about our . . .” He kissed her cheek. “. . . relationship. I can't believe he'd try to make a move on you."

"I can't either, but he did. I didn't imagine it."

"I know. You're a very rock-solid lady." He chuckled. "That's why I keep returning to your open arms."

Sid Harper and Donna Franklin had been making love to each other for ten years. It was a relationship of convenience in which expediency of passion was the key. They had had few relationships with other people during the time they had been together, and had never spoken of the four-letter word, love.

"I just don't know," Sid mused, "what's gotten into Dennis lately. He's not his old self, that's for sure."

"There was something else," Donna said, and he felt her stiffen beside him. "I just remembered. He didn't blink. I don't think I saw him blink one time, even when I shone my flashlight right in his face . . .”

Scene 9

The next morning, Ann Deems came to the Venetian Theatre to begin her new job. Donna Franklin gave her a tour of the building, and then showed her to a small office on the second floor just down the hall from Donna and Steinberg's two-office suite. There, she began to fill out the first of the forms that would become such a large part of her life. Dennis had not been there to greet her, nor had she expected that he would, and she was relieved not to have to see him again so soon after their last meeting.

Halfway through lunch, which Ann ate at her desk, Donna appeared at the door. "You have a visitor," she said. "Your daughter?"

Donna stepped back, allowed Terri to enter the tiny room, and left them alone. "Sit down," Ann said. "Here, let me move these papers."

"You look like you've settled in," said Terri, who remained standing. Ann noticed that she had her portfolio with her. "Are you feeling particularly fulfilled yet?"

"Terri dear, when you are all grown up and married, I hope you have a daughter exactly like mine."

"Thank you, mother. Now. Who do I have to . . . bribe to meet Marvella Johnson?"

Ann thought for a moment. She had made whatever loose arrangements she had with Dennis, and had no idea if he had even mentioned the situation to Marvella Johnson. Then she looked at the phone on her desk, at the initials next to the push buttons, in particular the one marked DKH, and made up her mind. "Hold on," she said, picked up the receiver, and pushed the button. Sid answered, but in less than a minute she was talking to Dennis, who sounded happy to hear her voice, and told her to bring Terri to the costume shop, where he would introduce them to Marvella.

Terri followed Ann silently down the hall and up the stairs. The place was such a labyrinth that Ann felt secretly proud that she remembered her way there. When they entered, Dennis was standing next to Marvella, his beaming face in harsh contrast to her wrinkled and frowning countenance. After the introductions, during which Marvella did not speak one intelligible word, Dennis walked Ann back to her office, leaving Terri and the costumer alone.

"I don't think they hit it off," said Ann, as she sat behind her desk.

Dennis chuckled as he leaned against the door frame. "Marvella doesn't hit it off with anyone. The costume shop is her domain, and she sees everyone else as interlopers — at least until they've worked with her for a while and she realizes they don't have smeared chocolate on their fingers or sabotage on their minds. Don't worry, they'll get along. And if Terri's good, she'll get the job."

"I hope so. I'd like to see her happy again."

"Again? How long has it been?"

"Oh, since she was six."

They laughed, and Ann realized she felt comfortable with Dennis. Maybe, she thought, this could work out after all. They seemed to be friends now, and there was no reason they could not remain so, no reason they had to become anything more.

~ * ~

Marvella Johnson's frown was a forced one. It took a great deal of effort to make her facial muscles press the sides of her mouth down so far, but, she thought, it was worth it. If she could get them crying, or at least get that lower lip trembling, then she knew they were busted, and would go away thanking sweet Jesus that they weren't going to work with the tyrannous Marvella Johnson.

But this girl — this Terri — was one tough cookie. She gave Marvella back stare for stare, and slapped her designs on the work table as though daring her prospective boss to criticize them. Marvella liked that. It meant the girl wasn't prepared to put up with bullshit. Marvella hadn't put up with bullshit for years. "This all you brought?" she asked Terri, her steely black fingers flipping through the contents of the portfolio like a harrow through weeds.

"You want more, I can get more. But I don't have it here." She sounded, Marvella thought, just pissed off. There wasn't the trace of a sob.

"No, I guess this's enough to show me what you can do. The designs are fine, but what about the construction? You good with a machine?"

"I've built everything you see there." The girl took a colored envelope from her purse. "Here are the photos." She tossed the envelope so that it spun twice before it hit the table.

Marvella snorted, picked it up, and looked through the pictures inside. They were damn good, she thought, with the disappointment she always felt when she found someone she knew was good enough to work for her. It had to be done. She needed someone even now, for the bulk of the work was creeping up on her. Alone, she would be in no condition to costume the show due to open in the spring. Nope, no way around it. She could hire some of the people she'd worked with before, and when the time came, probably would. But she needed someone now, someone who would work like hell and take no shit except from her, and was damn good at what she did. Who knows, she thought, maybe I might even learn to like the little bitch.

Marvella tossed the pictures on the table and looked up at the girl. "You start next Monday. Work out the salary with Miss Franklin."

~ * ~

Sweet Jesus! Terri thought, and felt the smile burst across her face before she could contain it. She thought about pushing it back, then decided what the hell, Marvella Johnson had already seen it. The only thing more uncool than losing your cool was doing it and then pretending you hadn't. "Thanks, Ms. Johnson."

"Don't load any of that 'Miz' crap on me. That's what my mama used to call the ladies she did floors for. Marvella'll be fine. We're on an equal footing here, except for what I say goes." She nodded her head several times as she looked at Terri appraisingly. "Yeah, you're gonna be fine. But get outta here now, I got work to do."

"Sure. And thanks." Marvella waved a hand in reply and turned back to her work. Terri couldn't call her Marvella. Not yet.

She felt jubilant as she walked down the hall to the elevator she had passed on the way up. For a moment she thought of finding her mother and telling her that she had gotten the job, but decided not to. She would drop it at the dinner table tonight, subtly, as though it was no big thing, just something that she deserved. Although Terri was surprised Marvella had chosen her, she didn't want Ann to know that. No, she would let Ann think that the real surprise would have come if Marvella had not offered her the job. That would piss her off royally.

The elevator doors opened, and Terri got on and pushed 1. The three story ride was slow, and Terri started to think about Dennis Hamilton. He was good looking, there was no doubt of that, and the way that he carried himself was a real turn-on — like someone born to be rich and famous. And too, when he had looked at her in the costume room, was she imagining it or had he examined her with more than ordinary interest? His smile had been very warm, and she was sure she had caught him, just for a moment, looking at her legs.

She giggled as the elevator doors opened, then stepped out into the large, elegant lobby, too busy with her thoughts to see the vast and priceless oriental rug over which she walked, the marble arches that spread over her, the Emperor looking down on her from the mezzanine balcony above.

~ * ~

I shall have this one. Perhaps the mother later, but first the young one. I'll have her flesh, and with it I shall do whatever I want.

Whatever the Emperor wants.

Scene 10

That evening Marvella worked late in the costume shop. She wouldn't have normally, but Robin had sent a script down from New York by Federal Express. It was the script, the one that looked like the best possibility for production by the New American Musical Theatre Project, and Marvella decided immediately that she would have to see what pieces already existed for the 1930's American city milieu in which the show was set.

She had gone to the costume shop after dinner, climbed up the rickety stairway to the fifth-floor loft, and begun to go through the racks of unironed (and in many cases uncleaned) clothes that she had not yet explored. When she found a costume she thought might be serviceable, she threw it over the edge of the loft and let it float down to the floor of the shop below. By nine o'clock, when she paused to look over the edge, she discovered that she had quite a pile below, and decided to take a break.

Marvella always took her own coffee grinder and drip coffee maker wherever she went. To offer her coffee from a machine was tantamount to giving pork to a rabbi. It simply wasn't done, and no one did it twice. Now Marvella ground six scoops of Blue Mountain beans, one of the few luxuries she allowed herself, poured fresh water in the reservoir, turned the switch to on, and sat back for a minute while the coffee brewed and the air filled with its deliciously bitter-smelling steam.

The ragged bubbling had nearly stopped when the door to the costume room opened. "Looks like I'm just in time," said Sid, ushering Whitney, who was clad in pajamas and clutched a stuffed zebra, ahead of him.

"You want a cup?" Marvella asked.

"No thanks."

"Then what brings you here? And what brings the child?"

"I couldn't sleep, Grandma," Whitney said, going to her grandmother and attempting to put her little arms around her. "I missed you too much.”

“What's wrong with Sid?" asked Marvella, trying to sound stern.

"He's not as soft to hug."

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment. Okay, you can stay here for a while. I'll be through soon. Thanks, Sid."

"My pleasure. I can watch your TV as easy as mine. G'night." He gave Whitney a peck on the cheek and left.

"So what are you gonna do now?" Marvella asked her granddaughter.

"Just watch you. I'll watch you work, and then I can see what you do, and then when I'm old enough I can be your helper, like that new lady you hired." The girl walked over to the pile of clothes and started rummaging through them. "When can I meet her, Grandma?"

"Oh soon," Marvella sighed, sipping her black coffee with pleasure. "Real soon now."

~ * ~

Soon, Grandma said. Everything was always soon, and Whitney was tired of "soon." Grandma would be done in the costume shop "soon," Whitney was going to go back to her mother "soon," Grandma would teach Whitney to sew "soon" as she had some time. Whitney gave a big, deep sigh, just the way she had seen the little girl on The Cosby Show do it, but Grandma didn't say anything, didn't ask her, like Bill Cosby always asked his little girl, what was wrong.

Maybe this new lady would be nice, Whitney thought. Maybe she'd want to do things now and not "soon." Grandma had said she was nice, and Whitney was anxious to meet her. So was soon tomorrow or next week or the week after, or . . .

No. Oh no. Soon was right now.

Whitney looked at her Grandma and saw that her back was to the lady, so she couldn't see her. But Whitney could, and knew that it had to be this Terri who Grandma had told her about at dinner. She had bright red hair, cut just below her ears, and glasses, but really pretty glasses that didn't make her look like an owl like some glasses did to people like Miss Franklin. She looked just like Grandma had said, only she wasn't crabby-looking at all. She was smiling at Whitney, a big, wide smile that showed all her teeth, and Whitney was surprised at how white her teeth were, almost like they were glowing.

The woman put a finger to her lips, as though she didn't want Whitney to tell her grandma that she was there, and winked at Whitney with her bright green eyes. Whitney winked back, and the woman smiled even more then, gestured over to the narrow stairway that led up to the loft, and began to tiptoe in that direction. She was a great tiptoer. Everybody made noise when they walked around the costume shop because the floor was so creaky, but Whitney couldn't hear the woman's footsteps at all, not even when she started up the stairway and beckoned to Whitney to follow her.

Whitney, in her own opinion, was a great tiptoer, since she was so light the floorboards refused to give beneath her. She held her breath as she followed the woman, around the pile of clothes, across the floor, and up the steps. Whitney couldn't see her now. She must have gotten to the top and turned to the left and was waiting for Whitney. What was she going to do? Some surprise for Grandma, that was it. Maybe they could scare her.

"Hello?" Whitney whispered, and clapped her hand over her mouth dramatically, the way she had seen the little girl on Cosby do it when she said something she shouldn't have.

"Whitney?" came her grandma's voice from below. "Where are you, honey?"

She had to answer. "Up here, Grandma. Just exploring."

"Well, you be careful and stay away from the edge. That banister's not much to speak of, so you stay back."

"I will, Grandma," she said. She was at the top of the stairs now, but still couldn't see the redheaded woman she had followed. On the left was the open area of the loft and a small work table, while to the girl's right were three racks of clothing parallel to the wall, so that only the front one was visible to Whitney. Where was the woman? Was she hiding behind one of those rows of clothes? Did she want Whitney to come and hide with her too? And then they could get Grandma to come up and look for them and jump out at her and scare her? That had to be it, and Whitney suppressed a giggle as she tiptoed across the boards of the loft, peering between the costumes that hung like dozens of scarecrows on the fat, steel pipes.

"Hello?" Whitney whispered again, softly enough this time so that she didn't have to put her hand over her mouth. But there was no answer. Okay then, Whitney would just have to find her.

Slowly she made her way down the rack of costumes, pausing after every half dozen or so to separate and look behind them for the lady. At worst, she expected Grandma's helper to lean forward, make a face, and whisper Boo. But when she pulled the costumes apart at the exact middle of the rack to reveal who was standing behind them, no one said Boo. No one said a thing. And what Whitney had expected to be the worst would have been merely playful in comparison to the reality.

It was not a young, redheaded woman with kind green eyes and glasses who now stood a yard away from Whitney. Instead it was a creature out of a worse nightmare than any little girl could imagine. Everything was bad, but the eyes were the worst of all, or rather the absence of eyes. Where they should have been were two black pits, their utter darkness in vicious contrast to the icy whiteness of the skin and the long hair that, shroud-like, framed the face. Yet deep within the sockets Whitney saw red specks burning brightly, like coals when you blow on them.

The mouth opened slowly, as if cranked, and the exhalation that rippled over Whitney was more foul than anything she had ever confronted in her eight years of life. She felt a sudden warm dampness, knew that she had wet her pajamas, and for an instant shame swept over her before the fear bludgeoned its way back.

Now something moved at the bottom of her field of vision, and she saw that the hands, sharp talons from which gray flesh was flaking, were coming up toward her across the surface of the thing's blood-red dress, and the monstrous head was growing closer as well, the nightmare face nearing her own.

Whitney's hands fell to her side, and the costumes closed together, blocking the woman from her sight, breaking the spell the lich had laid upon her, giving her just enough time to back away a few steps before the gray, rotting claws darted from between the costumes, pushed them violently to either side, and the woman came toward her again, quickly now, her legs unseen beneath the long red dress she wore, the red coals of the eyes blazing as though buffeted by a tornado.

"Grandma!" Whitney screamed, still backing away, unable to turn her gaze from the thing bearing down on her. Then her head hit the railing of the loft, and she was through, falling backward, toward the floor of the costume shop far below, falling, the ceiling receding, and all she could do was hope that the woman didn't come over the edge, didn't fly down after her where she was falling, falling, hearing the air rush past her, hearing Grandma's cry, and falling . . .

~ * ~

It was Whitney's scream that alerted Marvella, then the sharp crack of her head hitting the rail that brought her to her feet and turned her around just in time to see the girl fall. Too far away. There was nothing she could do, only stand frozen and watch the girl falling, falling in an eternity of time during which Marvella could not move a muscle, in that split second knowing the futility of it, praying for angels to bear the child up, ease her to the floor.

But the prayers were unanswered. The girl did not slow in her descent, but fell down, down, directly onto the heap of clothing that Marvella had been throwing over the edge of the loft for hours, and disappeared into them.

"Oh Jesus," Marvella breathed, a prayer, not a curse, and ran to the heap of costumes, where weak, thrashing movements told her that her granddaughter was alive. "Lie still!" Marvella barked, fearing that if harm had been done the girl's movements would only worsen it. "You lie still, Whitney!"

But the girl did not obey. Soon she was out of the soft pile, and if the strength of the embrace with which she held her grandmother was any indication of her general health, Marvella had nothing to worry about. Still, she grasped the girl's shoulders to disengage her as gently as possible and hold her at arm's length. "Are you all right?" she said firmly.

The girl, tears in her eyes and trembling, nodded. "Oh Grandma," she said, lowering her head and pointing upward, as though she feared what she might see. "That lady up there, she turned into something . . . into a witch . . ."

"What?" Marvella frowned. "What are you talking about. What lady?"

"The lady! The lady you said was helping you, the lady with the red hair and the glasses, she was here."

"Who? Terri?"

"I guess, I guess, and I followed her up the stairs, only when I got up there it wasn't her, it was somebody else, like a witch, or like a . . . a dead person . . .” The girl broke into a fit of crying then, and it was a moment before Marvella could get anything else out of her. "She scared me, Grandma, and that's why I fell over!"

"You let me look," said Marvella grimly, knowing that no one could have gotten into the costume room without her seeing them.

"Don't leave me, Grandma!" The girl grabbed at her sleeve.

"Well, you wanta come with me then?"

"No! No, I don't wanta go up there!"

"Well then, you just have to wait here, don't you? I won't be a minute," and she started toward the stairway.

"I gotta see you, I gotta see you, Grandma!"

"Well, you're not gonna see me when I'm up there."

The girl's face puckered in thought, and she wiped her cheeks with balled fists. "Sing then," she said. "You sing, I know you're there."

"All right, all right, I'll sing." And she climbed the stairs, singing one of the ballads from A Private Empire that she sang Whitney to sleep with when she was younger:

"'I catch a glimpse of you as in elusive dreams,

A girl who could be true, but isn't who she seems . . .”

Marvella hummed the rest, loudly enough so that Whitney could hear her as she went through a cursory search of the loft. She expected to find nothing. She knew Whitney, and knew how the girl tended to dramatize events, blaming her own rash acts on invisible playmates, or people who were there "just a minute ago," but who conveniently disappeared when time came for blame. The woman turning into a witch was just one more, Marvella reasoned, in a long line of Whitney's fictitious scapegoats. Her fear and crying could easily have been caused by her terrifying fall. God knew it had shaken up Marvella as well.

There was no one in the costume loft. The only thing she found out of place from when she had left it just a short time before was one of Dennis Hamilton's costumes from A Private Empire. It was the Emperor Frederick's formal dress uniform. The costume was turned on its wooden hanger so that it lay adjacent to the other costumes, neatly lined up in their row.

"Now what's that doing here?" Marvella whispered to herself, forgetting to continue humming. It should have been downstairs in the locker that held all of Dennis's costumes. She picked it up just as Whitney shouted up to her.

"I'm here, I'm here," Marvella replied. "Don't worry." She began to hum again as she crossed the loft and came down the stairs, the uniform held carefully so that it would not wrinkle.

"Did you find her?" Whitney asked. "Where is she? Was she there?"

"There's nobody there, Whitney," Marvella said gruffly. She opened the locker, carefully hung the costume inside, closed the door, then turned back to her granddaughter. "And there wasn't to begin with. You made that all up, didn't you?"

The child's face went gray. "No, Grandma, no!"

"You got careless and you fell outta that loft and thank the Lord those costumes were beneath you, and you made up that story to get the blame off yourself. But now you got a whupping coming, girl. You come here."

Whitney went to Marvella, but not at all reluctantly. She went, her arms outstretched, tears streaming down her face, sobbing as if she were going to die. Marvella hugged the girl, but her trembling would not stop. She decided then not to punish her, that the terror of the fall had been punishment enough. When Whitney sat in her lap, and she felt where the girl had wet herself, she was sure of it. No, Marvella thought, patting her granddaughter's head as she carried her back to their suite, this little one has had quite enough for one night.

Scene 11

The show was titled Craddock, and Robin Hamilton knew it was a good one. It had all the elements she thought a strong musical should — harmonically sophisticated yet memorable tunes, lyrics that managed to disguise their cleverness beneath a cloak of spontaneity, and a powerful, original story, complete with a charming and involving love interest.

The readers in New York had done a good job, narrowing the field down to just five finalists. Robin, Quentin Margolis, and Dex Colangelo read all five shows, listened several times to the scores of each, and interviewed the librettists, lyricists, and composers. The final choice of Craddock was unanimous. She had copies sent to Kirkland, then stayed two more days in the city to rest, see some shows, and visit friends, activities that ultimately drained her far more than her work had.

Now, as her plane landed at the Philadelphia Airport early Friday afternoon, she felt quite weary, anxious only to see Dennis again, to have him put his arms around her in the car so that she could go to sleep as Sid drove them both home. But when she went to the baggage area, she found only Sid, who shook his head sadly, as if he knew what she had expected, and was sorry. "He said he didn't feel up to the drive," Sid told her.

"He sounded all right on the phone the other night," she said, trying to keep the hurt and disappointment out of her voice.

"I don't know, Robin. I mean, the doctors can't find a thing wrong, but . . .”

“I still think it could be Epstein-Barr."

Sid shook his head. "Doc Chandar says it's not the yuppie flu, and he's not the only one." He reached out and grabbed one of Robin's Banana Republic bags from the carousel. "I think once we get started with the show, he'll come around. Something to keep him occupied."

"That's what I thought about the theatre. But he's been holing up in our suite so much . . . there's the other one." Sid grabbed the bag at which Robin was pointing, and they started toward the parking lot.

The drive to Kirkland took forty minutes, and Sid had to wake Robin after he parked the car. She stretched and rubbed her eyes, lightly smearing her liner, but did not fix it, thinking that she would have access to a rest room before she saw Dennis again. Indeed, she would be surprised if he was not sitting in the chill air of their balcony, steeped in lethargy.

The thing she did not expect to find was Dennis sitting in the office suite, laughing and talking animatedly with John Steinberg and an older woman she did not recognize. It was the first place she had gone on not finding Dennis in their apartment, and as she entered, Dennis was sitting on the sofa with the stranger, his back to Robin. John was the only one of the three to see her come in, and he wiped tears from his eyes and gave one final chuckle before he acknowledged her presence.

"Robin," he said, "welcome back. We're just swapping old war stories."

When Dennis turned, she knew that something had changed. He looked surprised to see her, but there was something else there, something that she did not immediately recognize because she had never seen it on Dennis's face before. He looked, she slowly realized, guilty. And when Robin looked in turn at the woman on the couch next to him (not touching, but close, yes, close), she thought she saw the same emotion (but less obvious, oh yes, this was a cool one).

"Hello, darling," Dennis said. He stood up, hugged her, and kissed her, but she was aware of a self-consciousness about his action, as though he wished he did not have to do so. Dennis was a marvelous actor, as she often told him, but she knew him intimately enough to know precisely when he was acting, and now was one of the infrequent times. Nevertheless, she responded to his kiss with more passion than she would have otherwise, pressing herself against him with the wary tension of an animal marking its domain against interlopers.

She broke away then, and looked at the woman. "I don't think we've met," Robin said, unable to hide the smugness in her tone, the subtext of See? This is my man.

Too smug, Robin thought as John Steinberg leapt into the conversational breach like a handler separating pit bulls. "Of course. Let me make the introductions. Robin, this is Ann Deems, our new production assistant. Ann, Robin Hamilton, Dennis's wife, as you may have surmised from the warmth with which they have just embraced."

Was there a dig in that? Robin couldn't tell, but she didn't think so. It wasn't like John to bait her. Other than an ironic aside from time to time, he had never unleashed his witty but savage cruelty upon her. She realized that she must be looking for things to irritate her, and that thought made her even more irritable.

Ann stood up, smiled and nodded. "I'm delighted to be working here, Mrs. Hamilton. It's such a wonderful building."

"Oh, it's home," Robin said, trying to smile as warmly as she knew how. "And please, call me Robin."

"One big happy family, that's us," said Steinberg.

"I'm sorry I didn't come along to meet you," Dennis said, a hand on her shoulder. "I was feeling a little off today."

"You seem all right now."

"Yes, well, John wanted me to look at a few things here, and we got talking, and . . ."

"And," Steinberg continued, "laughter being the best medicine, we decided to set the lad right in time for your arrival home."

"Well, thank you. I appreciate it." She put her arm around Dennis's waist. "It was nice meeting you, Ann, but if you'll excuse us, there's so much that I want to catch up on with Dennis. All right, darling?"

"Sure," he said. "Let's go up. It's good to have you back again."

Is it? she thought, but only smiled and left the room, Dennis following her.

When they were in their suite, the first thing she did was to hand him a script of Craddock and put the cassette they had made in New York in the tape deck. As the first song began to play, the composer's reedy but not unpleasant voice piping over her commanding piano playing, Robin sat next to Dennis on one of the sofas and put her arm around him.

They listened for a few minutes, Dennis nodding his satisfaction, smiling at the occasional lyrical bon mot. As the first song ended, Robin finally spoke. "Did you know her before?"

"Who?" He was good, but not good enough to fool her.

"Ann Deems. She seems very nice."

"Well, yes, I did know her, oh, years ago."

Robin felt something heavy in the pit of her stomach. "You never mentioned her before."

She felt him shrug. "Why should I have?"

"You seemed to be very friendly."

"Jesus, Robin! Is this an interrogation? I knew a lot of people before I met you!" He pushed her away, and with the action, all the anger seemed to go out of him, leaving him confused and pale. He shook his head, it seemed to her, as though he had no understanding of his previous outburst. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what came over me . . ."

"No," Robin said, struggling to keep her own anger in check. "I don't either."

"I knew Ann . . . I knew Ann Deems when we started A Private Empire back in '66. We dated a few times, here in Kirkland, that was all. She applied for the job, she was qualified, she was hired — I didn't even know about it until later."

Robin knew she had gone too far. The jealous wife was a role she had never played before, and did not want to play, and she regretted it, as she regretted the hurt look on Dennis's face. Maybe she had been wrong about what she had sensed in the office suite. Maybe Dennis had just been surprised to see her, and she had imagined the rest. Robin could be very imaginative.

"I'm sorry, darling," she said, putting her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him. "I'm not jealous, really. I was just curious, that's all. I know that I have no reason to be jealous." She rubbed her hands down his back, cupping his buttocks. "God, it seemed like I was away from you a long time."

He was smiling now, his eyes halfway closed, and his own hands ran up and down her sides. She moved away from him just enough to allow him to caress her breasts. "I missed you too."

"Let's go in the bedroom," she whispered, following the words with a soft lick of her tongue just behind his left ear. She would make him forget that Ann Deems had ever existed.

Their lovemaking was impatient, urgent, and both reached orgasm quickly. After the final kisses, Dennis drifted to sleep, but Robin's thoughts were too full. She looked at the clock, saw that it was only two-thirty, and, although she knew she would have benefitted from a nap, arose quietly, dressed, and walked down the stairway to the second floor, from which she went to the mezzanine of the theatre.

The vast auditorium was empty and quiet, dimly lit by recessed lights at the sides of the ceiling. Robin thought she could hear music playing, but the sound was so elusive that she could not determine its origin. From the mezzanine, she walked up toward the top row of the balcony, a trip she took several times a day, often in exercise clothes. There was nothing better for the legs, she had been told, than to climb long flights of stairs at a brisk clip. Now, however, she wanted to ascend to have a place to think, an aerie from which she could theoretically look down, godlike, on the world below. She did not like what she saw.

Rather, she did not like the drama her imagination constructed, the impending romance played out upon the screen of her mind.

It was romance and imagination that had drawn Robin McKenzie to the theatre. It was the closest she could come to living in the fantasies she imagined. And finally, one of those fantasies had come true — that elegant, exciting fantasy of the chorus girl marrying the star. But now, a fantasy far more pure was coming to light.

A lost love had returned.

It was absurd, she told herself. It was like being jealous of her own mother. For God's sake, the woman had to be in her forties. What could she offer Dennis?

And the answer came. While Robin could offer him only the pale substitute of her own youth, Ann Deems could offer him the emotions he had felt when he himself was young. She could restore the feelings of his youth, of the times when he was innocent and truly happy. Robin found no reassurance in the fact that what she had to offer was truth, and what Ann Deems had was illusion, for from the first time she had met him, Dennis Hamilton had always chosen illusion.

It was not until the second week of rehearsals for the 1981 revival of A Private Empire that she had even set eyes on Dennis Hamilton. The chorus had, by that time, set all their work in the production numbers, and the time had finally come to fit the principals into the mob scenes. That morning, Quentin Margolis had entered the Broadway Arts rehearsal studio with Dennis and Naomi Weiss, the Austrian film actress who was playing Lise, the female lead, and several of the principal players. Robin had never seen Dennis in person before, although she watched the film version of the musical every chance she got. To her, at nineteen, Dennis Hamilton was a man dreams were made of, and, from the age of twelve on, she had watched all his other movies as well, whenever they appeared on television. So now she looked on him with the eyes of impressed youth, and he was well worth looking at. At 34, he was trim, muscular, and handsome, and there was no gray in his red hair. The frown lines on his forehead were deep for his years, and, noticing that, Robin fell into the attitude of worshipful solicitude that would permanently mark her relationship with Dennis.

But he did not notice her. Not once did she find him looking her way. Rather, his interest was divided between the mechanics of the rehearsal and Tanya Pearson, another dancer whose face and form were abetted by what Robin considered to be a severe overuse of makeup and a blatant underuse of rehearsal togs. She looked, one of the gay singers remarked, like a Republican's wet dream.

If that was the case, Dennis Hamilton was a Republican. Tanya Pearson was the most artificial looking woman in the studio that day. Even Naomi Weiss (who left the show two months after the opening, unable to deal with what she felt to be Dennis's turbulent ego) couldn't hope to compete with Tanya's studied theatricality. During the breaks, it was Tanya to whom Dennis spoke, and, by the end of the day, touched, with a gallant arm thrown comradely around her shoulder. Robin assumed they became lovers, but was never sure. In any case, Dennis tired of her quickly, and Tanya followed in Naomi Weiss's footsteps several months later.

Despite Dennis's apparent predilection for bimbos, Robin was still very happy to be working in his company. He was not one of those irritating actors who she had already come across in her brief career who began to get into character a long time before they ever step on stage, becoming withdrawn and frequently obnoxious. In contrast, Dennis could go from an animated conversation about films, politics, or baseball directly on stage and be completely in character in an instant.

Of course, in a way Dennis was never out of character. In public and in rehearsal, he acted like an emperor, and it was being able to see behind that façade that finally endeared him to Robin. She was perceptive enough to know that what she and the rest of the world was seeing was not the real Dennis Hamilton, that beneath the guise of imperiousness was just another frightened human being who needed love like anyone else.

It was not, however, until the show went on the road that she began to actually get close to Dennis. Until that time, she wasn't even certain that he knew her name, although everyone else did. Robin was funny and thoughtful, and helped keep the company at ease. It was she who remembered everyone's birthday, who posted photos of celebrities with humorous typed captions or word balloons on the cast bulletin board, who was always the first to welcome a new chorus member into the dressing room. She was, in short, everyone's friend, and it was only a matter of time before she became Dennis's as well.

The first time he talked to her at length was on Robin's twenty-first birthday, when they had already been on the road for a year. They were playing Seattle, and Robin had brought in several boxes of doughnuts and placed them on a table outside the chorus dressing rooms. It was a half hour before curtain and Robin, having come early, was already in costume and makeup. She was just placing the napkins when Dennis came up to her, also ready for the performance, and asked what was the occasion.

"My birthday," she replied, somewhat embarrassed.

"Your birthday?" Dennis said in the patronizing voice he used with the dancers. "And how old is our little girl today?"

"Twenty-one."

He looked surprised. "Really? I don't mean to offend, but I thought you were older. You've been in the show since the beginning, haven't you?"

"Yes, but I was only nineteen then."

"A lucky lady to get such an early start."

She thought about it before she said it. "And lucky to get in this show too."

He cocked his head. "Lucky? Why?"

"I've always admired your work."

"Ah! Not only is she pretty, she has good taste as well." He chuckled self-deprecatingly. When he stopped, the soft smile remained. "Robin, isn't it." She nodded. "You're the one who puts the funny pictures on the board?" She nodded again. "You've got a wonderful sense of humor. Where were you when we needed more jokes in the script back in '66?"

Now it was her turn to smile. "In nursery school."

"Ooo." He winced. "Did I say sense of humor or acerbic wit? You make me feel old."

"You're not."

"I know," he said, and surveyed the doughnuts. "Nor am I fat, but perhaps I can remedy that shortcoming. Are there any cream filled ones here?"

She pointed. "Those."

"My weakness," he said, taking one and extending his neck so that no powdered sugar would fall on his costume. "Delicious," he said after swallowing a bite. "Now. Come with me."

He led her across the backstage area toward his dressing room, and she went reluctantly, unsure of what to expect. If he had taken a fancy to her, and expected a squeeze and a tickle in private, or even more, he would get an unpleasant surprise, even if he was Dennis Hamilton. Nevertheless, she followed him inside, where they found Sid Harper sitting in a corner reading a copy of Downbeat. "Sid, give Robin here fifty dollars, please."

"What?" she said, surprised.

"For doughnuts," Dennis said. "Every night I want you to buy several dozen for the cast and crew, and when you're out of money see Sid and he'll give you more. That was a nice deed, and nice deeds are not often enough rewarded in this world. Besides," he grinned, and for the first time Robin saw the man behind the mask, "I like doughnuts. And if you buy them, then I don't have to feel guilty about eating them."

She bought the doughnuts as directed, and, since Dennis was generally at the doughnut table a half hour before curtain (he always ate one and one only), she made it a point to dress early and be there as well. Their conversations lengthened, got more serious, and in a short time Dennis suggested that they finish over dinner after the show. One dinner led to another, and by the time the show arrived in Portland for a week's run, they were spending most of their time together. They did not sleep together until San Francisco, although by that time it seemed a foregone conclusion. She could tell that it was more than lust that had brought Dennis into her arms, and, several months later, one night in his suite when she grew bold enough to broach the subject of marriage, she was pleased to find him receptive. Although she felt in retrospect that she could have used a more subtle approach than, "Do you ever think of getting married again," such a bold sally had the desired effect.

"Yes, I've thought of it," he told her. "A lot lately. And I've thought about it because of you, Robin. Because you're one of the few giving people I've ever met. And I'm damn sure you're the prettiest." He smiled. "And the best in bed, for what that's worth. You're the best thing that's happened to me for a long, long time."

"It sounds like you'd be crazy to let me get away."

"It does indeed." They had been lying on the carpet of his living room watching a football game on television, and he turned off the set, reached over, and took her hand. "Do you love me?" he asked.

"I do," she said. "Yes."

"Marry me then. Take care of me, and I'll take care of you. I need someone like you very much. I have for a long time."

She didn't ask him then whether he loved her as well as needed her. After they were married, he told her that he did, and she had never had any reason not to believe him. Their marriage had been a good one, although the second year of the tour she regrettably stopped performing at his request, after he told her that he felt she would be far more of a help to him as a liaison between him and John Steinberg. There were so many things, he said wearily, that John expected of him, a hundred little decisions a week that sapped his strength, all of which he needed lately for his performance.

At first she was reluctant to stop performing, especially to fill the role of majordomo, a position already held, she felt, by Sid. Dennis's response to that was curt. "But you're my wife, Robin. You know how I think, you know what I'll say before I say it." She wasn't so sure of that, but she didn't disagree. "Besides, Sid, as much as I love him, is really a glorified cook and valet. He makes no decisions other than what to serve for dinner and what tie to lay out for me. As for major business decisions . . . darling, you could be of great help to me."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if part of it was that he didn't want her to perform any more, but she bit it back. Dennis, although he was always kind to her, was possessive as well, and she could not help but feel that he resented her performing because it meant that her affections were divided, that the energies she brought to her stage work were somehow energies that were taken away from him, and, like a selfish child, he resented it.

Still, she did as he asked, deferred to him as did so many others, because to refuse would have been unthinkable, an act of treason to the throne. People obeyed Dennis, from his son Evan to John Steinberg. Robin simply fell into line and obeyed as well. She had promised to take care of him, and take care of him she would. She saw all too easily the insecurity behind the imperial mask, and she loved the man there. Too, she loved the life that he had given her — the luxurious suites, the fine dinners, the parties with famous people, the clothes, the jewelry — Dennis never scrimped. All she had to do was to mention that she thought something was nice, and he would buy it for her, sometimes on the spot, more often later as a surprise. This generosity was one way he knew to show affection, and she appreciated it. It showed her that her efforts to make his private life as easy as possible were not taken lightly.

Nor should they have been. It could be hard work to live with Dennis Hamilton. Despite the change that had recently come over him, he had often been demanding and imperious and selfish. But the rewards, both financial and emotional, had been great. There was no denying that she loved the man and the life she led with him.

But now, with the reappearance of Ann Deems, Robin saw the possibility —indeed, in her imagination, the likelihood — of that life being taken away, of a quick and savage divorce and settlement and remarriage to Ann. And although she knew that whatever settlement she would receive would be a greater sum than she could imagine, it was not money she wanted. It was Dennis. Dennis when they were alone together and the masks came down, when the regalness turned to tenderness.

And he had been more tender of late, more sensitive to the needs of those around him, even weak at times, so that he needed her all the more to be his strength, and she would be, no one else. No, she would let no one come between them. She would not lose him. She would not lose Dennis.

Dennis.

She saw him, far below, way upstage in the shadows. She could make out no details, but she knew it was Dennis from the long, magisterial stride he used on the stage.

"Dennis?" she called, not loud enough to be heard below, even with the excellent acoustics of the Venetian Theatre. She would have called louder, but something stopped her. She would not admit that it was fear, for she had never feared her husband. What was it then? she wondered. What caused this hesitance on her part to call down to him?

She opened her mouth to call louder, but she stopped as the figure paused. She saw its leonine head turn in her direction, caught the spark of red in the hair, a quick flash of blue eyes, and the lights shining dimly on . . .

Gold braid.

He was wearing his costume, the imperial uniform of the Emperor Frederick.

She tried to call again, but her tongue felt thick and disobedient in her mouth. Now the lights seemed to dim even more, the figure backed slowly upstage, and in a few seconds was lost in the darkness.

Robin sat there, staring into the blackness at the rear of the stage, but seeing nothing. "Dennis," she whispered, then stood up. The shortest route back to the suite was down the steps, but the dread in her would not let her go any closer to the stage. Instead she turned and walked up the stairs to the back balcony stairway, frequently glancing over her shoulder. At the top she turned and looked down, but saw nothing.

When she arrived back at the suite, Dennis was sleeping in precisely the position she had left him a half hour before. He was still naked, the sheet and blanket pulled over his hips. There was no sign of a costume, no traces on his unmarked skin to indicate that he had on any clothing since she had left him.

She lay down beside him, put an arm around his shoulders without waking him, and began to worry, not only about Dennis and Ann Deems, but about herself.

Scene 12

During the next few weeks, the Venetian Theatre was filled with caution. Ann Deems felt her way into her job, neither seeking out Dennis's company nor seeking to avoid it. When she did run into him, he was generally accompanied by Robin, who hovered over him protectively, an attitude to which he made no protest. Their conversations, as a result, were merely friendly and perfunctory.

And, like her mother, Terri Deems felt her way into her new job. She made the shell around herself even harder in the presence of Marvella Johnson, refusing to be baited, accepting Marvella's reproofs with a sullen silence, swearing to herself that she would do nothing to raise Marvella's ire again. The best way to accept chastisement, she decided, was not to do anything to be chastised for in the first place.

Robin's fear of losing Dennis hung about her palpably, as did her concern over what exactly she had seen from the balcony, and Dennis's own uncertain emotions gnawed at him slowly. Marvella and Whitney remained shaken from the little girl's narrow escape in the costume loft, and Donna and Sid were puzzled over what they took to be Dennis's recent deviant behavior toward Donna.

With the strange death of Tommy Werton casting an additional pall over the denizens of the Venetian Theatre, it would be no exaggeration to say that everyone walked on eggs in those weeks before Thanksgiving.

Two days before that bountiful holiday, Dan Munro, Kirkland's chief of police, sat in the six-year-old department Buick in the huge parking lot of the Venetian Theatre. From time to time he thought about the turkey dinner that his wife and sister and mother would make together on Thursday. He wondered if his sister would cook the oyster stuffing that she always said never turned out right, although he could not remember a Thanksgiving when he hadn't loved it. He thought too about the cranberry relish that was his mom's specialty, the mashed potatoes (gloriously lumpy and real, not instant) at which his wife Patty excelled, and the pies — always three kinds, at least — and he had to fight his kids for every bite.

Shit. He thought he should just forget about this damn theatre and go get himself some lunch. Maybe that would get all the visions of sugarplums out of his head.

But it wouldn't get out the other visions that had been there for nearly a month now, ever since the official ruling of Tommy Werton's death had called it an accident. Oh, there was no reason that it couldn't have happened the way they determined it did. The rope could have been loose on the pin and then slipped the rest of the way, sure. At first Munro had been willing to accept it.

But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it didn't happen that way. Too many people heard Dennis Hamilton talking when Dennis Hamilton said he was quiet, heard him say things that he insisted he hadn't said. The only thing that that proved — to Dan Munro at least — was that Hamilton was lying about talking. Munro himself admitted that Hamilton couldn't have pulled the pin himself. It would have been physically impossible.

A confederate? Maybe. Hamilton calls the kid out, and the confederate yanks the pin and kills the kid, then runs out one of the stage doors, locking it behind him. The only thing was that the drivers and reporters who were hanging around outside didn't see anyone leave the theatre. And what would the motive have been? Maybe something nobody knew about. Maybe the Werton kid was screwing Hamilton's young wife. Munro grunted. Hell, with these theatre types, maybe the Werton kid was screwing Hamilton. Whatever it was all about, the damn thing just didn't wash.

So for the twentieth time this month, Munro sat in the parking lot watching people come and go, seeing the same faces over and over — the bunch who lived there, the two women, one young, one older, who worked there, the janitors, the delivery people. He sat there for hours at a time every few days at random. He didn't know what he expected to see, but he'd know it when he saw it. It was just a feeling that he had. Bill Davis, his good right hand, had teased him about those feelings over the years, calling them his sixth sense. But it had solved at least one murder, one of the few that had occurred in the fifteen years that Dan Munro was a member of the Kirkland police force. It had wasted a lot of time too, but it was his own time, not the town's, and if he wanted to waste his own time, well, dammit, that was his own business, wasn't it?

Just as Munro was getting ready to start the car and grab some lunch down at the Burger King, a cab pulled up in front of the Venetian Theatre's main entrance. Munro watched as the door opened and a young man climbed out. His red hair, though short, was not at all stylish, and a scraggly beard circled his face. He wore what looked like an Army-Navy store jacket, and pulled a khaki duffel from the back seat. The young man paid the driver, turned, and looked at the exterior of the building for over a minute after the cab pulled away. Then he hoisted the duffel to his shoulder and walked under the great marquee and through the heavy brass doors into the box-office area.

Now who in hell, Munro wondered, is that?

~ * ~

Evan Hamilton paused again inside before trying the inner doors, only to find them locked. On either side were ticket booths, both closed, but next to the left-hand booth was a button with a small sign, Visitors. He rang it and waited.

In three minutes the curtains behind the glass of one of the inner doors parted, and a woman he did not recognize peered through. He thought she looked mildly frightened of him, and realized that he must be a pretty scary looking figure. So he smiled and gave a little wave, and she opened the door. "Yes?" she said.

"I'm Evan Hamilton. Here to see my father."

An expression of interest lit the woman's face. She was attractive, he thought, if a bit old for him. "Evan," she said, and opened the door wide enough for him to pass through. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Ann Deems. I work for your father."

He followed her the length of the lobby to a door that discreetly hid an elevator, which they entered. Ann pushed a button, and the doors closed. "Does your father know you're coming?"

"No. It's sort of a . . . surprise."

"Ah. Well, fine. That'll be nice." The elevator was slow and cumbersome in its ascent, and he noticed that she was looking at him with what he took to be more than slight interest. As if self-conscious at being caught, she said, stammering a bit, "I think Dennis and Robin are just finishing lunch now."

He smiled. "Think they'll invite me?"

Ann Deems laughed uncomfortably. "I'm sure they will."

They did not speak again until they were standing outside the door of the Hamiltons' suite. "Go ahead," she said as he paused at the door. "I'll just leave you here, okay?"

He smiled thinly and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

When he no longer heard her footsteps down the hall, he raised the brass knocker and rapped it on the door. It opened, and he mercifully found himself face to face with Sid Harper, who stood looking at him for a long moment before finally breaking into a huge smile.

"Evan!" Sid said, wrapping him in a bear hug. "Damn, but it's good to see you!" He held Evan by his shoulders and looked from his face to his clothes to his face again. "You look . . . terrible," he said, and laughed. Evan laughed too, in spite of himself.

"Sid, who . . ." Evan heard a voice from the other side of the room, looked up, and saw Dennis standing in the doorway, Robin behind him. "Evan . . ."

Sid remained between Evan and Dennis, as though hesitant to let the two of them meet, but Evan gently detached himself from Sid's grip and walked over to his father, letting his duffel fall to the floor. "Hello, Dad."

He didn't know what to expect. He had not seen his father for nearly two years, and their parting had not been happy. Though his attention was fixed on Dennis, he saw Robin out of the corner of his eye. He had liked Robin from the first time he met her when he was twelve, and he still saw the hope in her eyes that he had seen then, the hope that in some way he and Dennis could be as close as they were when he was little, before the rounds of private schools and summer camps had isolated him from this man he admired and respected, and feared that he would never be able to make respect him as well.

He stood there now in front of Dennis, and realized that the man had grown older. There was something else too. He didn't look as big as he used to. Had he lost weight, or had Evan merely grown, become a man? Suddenly, as he looked into Dennis's watery and somehow hunted eyes, he had the irrational but overwhelming feeling that something was threatening his father, and he wanted nothing more than to be with him and protect him.

"Dad?" he said uncertainly.

"I'm . . . glad to see you, Evan." Dennis held his hands out in front of him, as if not knowing what to do with them, how to make them form a paternal embrace, and the thought ran through Evan's head, Is he acting? There were so many times he was unable to tell.

"I'm glad to see you too," Evan said, taking the hands and holding them.

"Hello, Evan," Robin said, her voice as warm as his father's hands were cold. "Welcome home." He felt Dennis's fingers stiffen when she said that. He knew what Robin meant, that this was where his family was, whatever family meant, but he wondered if his father felt the same way.

There was a pause that seemed to last forever, but Sid finally broke the silence. "You hungry, Evan?"

He shook his head as he released his father's hands. They stayed where they were for a moment, then slowly the fingers closed, and Dennis brought them back to his side. "No thanks, Sid," Evan said. "I had something."

"Jesus, not airline food."

"Worse. Bus station."

"You came in on the bus?" Robin said. "From where?"

"Quantico."

"Virginia?" He nodded. "Then you're on leave?" she asked.

"You might say that," Evan said. "Permanent leave. The Corps and I have parted company."

"I thought you were in for another year or two," Sid said.

"Honorable discharge." Evan smiled. "Always honorable, never fear. Medical reasons.”

"Medical?" Dennis frowned. "Are you all right?"

"The asthma I had when I was a kid kicked up. Nothing life-threatening, but, under the circumstances, pretty inconvenient. They were a little pissed I hadn't told them about it when I enlisted."

"Well, look," said Sid, "I'm sure you have a lot of catching up to do, so I'll take care of some shopping. The farmer's market is due to have some fresh cauliflower — I know you always liked that stuff, Evan. You'll, uh, be staying for dinner?"

"I don't know," said Evan. "We'll see."

Sid nodded and took a jacket from the coat tree near the door.

"Hold on, Sid, I'll go with you," said Robin, giving Dennis and Evan a peck on the cheek. "It's been a long time since the two of you were alone together. Too long. And, Evan, you will stay for dinner. At least." In another few seconds the two of them were gone.

"Well," said Dennis. "Come in. Let's sit down."

He followed his father through the entry and the spacious living room down a short hall into a baronial den paneled with oak. Evan was relieved when Dennis did not sit behind the massive carved desk, but instead sat on a leather couch, beckoning his son to seat himself on the other end. At least, Evan thought, we're not on opposite sides of the room. That must mean something.

"I'm glad you're out," Dennis said, crossing both his legs and his arms.

"I thought you would be."

"I never wanted you to go."

"I know. You screamed like hell when I told you."

"Do you blame me? We had other plans for you."

"They weren't my plans."

"You never wanted to go in the Marines."

"It was the only way out."

"Out from what?"

"From the prep schools, from the college you picked for me. It was the only thing I figured I could pick for myself."

"It was a waste. A waste of two years."

Evan barked a laugh. "How do you know it was a waste? You've barely spoken to me in two years. Two Christmases ago, that was all. When I came to see you in New Orleans? Even then we hardly said a word to each other." He sighed, and slumped back in the couch. The leather creaked under his weight. "Look, Dad, I didn't come here to fight. We fought enough." He looked into his father's eyes. "And I always knew I could never win. I could only run away." He smiled gently. "How can anyone hope to beat the emperor?"

Dennis looked away, and Evan was again struck with how his father had aged. "I'm not the emperor anymore." He turned back to Evan, who was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight either. I've missed you terribly. I did write to you . . ."

"I know. I got the letters."

"You didn't write back."

"There wasn't anything to say."

"You could have told me what you were doing —"

"That's not what I mean. I didn't have anything . . . to say to you." He smiled. "No subtext."

Dennis did not smile back. "So. What are you going to do now?"

"Why? Do you have plans for me? College?"

"Not if you don't want to. It's your life."

"Well. I'm glad you finally realize that." Evan sighed and put his head against the cool leather back of the couch. "I don't have any plans, not really. Thought I'd just move around, see the country." He smiled. "Since you never took me with you on the road."

"I suppose I should have," Dennis said.

"It was what I wanted most of all — to be with you." He cleared his throat and corrected himself. "To be on the road."

"Why not now, then?"

He shifted his head to look at his father. "Now?"

"We really could use you. We have no ASM, since Tommy . . . you heard about it?"

"How could I help but? You have a way of staying in the public eye.”

“Work with us, Evan. Stay here."

"I see you haven't lost the imperial 'We.'"

"I didn't mean that — I meant the family. We have one, you know. Robin and Sid and John, Donna, Marvella — there's a togetherness here, and I'd like you to be a part of it. I do love you, you know —"

"Come on, Dad . . ." He felt embarrassed. He could not remember his father telling him that, although he was sure that he must have, years ago.

"I do, Evan. I only ever wanted what I thought was best for you. Maybe I made mistakes —"

Evan laughed uncomfortably. "Maybe is right."

Dennis turned pale at the rebuke. "I never meant to hurt you."

"Dad, you never hurt me. I mean, I always knew you had my best interests at heart. Damn thing is, most of the time you were right." He shook his head slowly. "The service was one of my mistakes."

"How could you know that asthma would kick up? . . ."

"It wasn't just asthma . . ." Evan's voice trailed off as he remembered the humiliation of standing in front of his squad, trying to speak, to command, the terrifying inability to fill his lungs with air, while the others watched with a mixture of bemusement, pity, and contempt.

"What, Evan?"

He heard his father's voice as if from far away, and twisted his head as if to clear it of the memories. "Nothing. Never mind, nothing important." He stood up and began to move around the room. He felt like a caged animal, and knew he must look like one too. "I can't stay here, Dad. Thanks for the invitation, but I can't."

"Why not?" Dennis's voice was pleading. It was a sharp contrast to the father he had known before, the father who would not have accepted an answer that did not please him, and it nearly weakened Evan's resolve.

"It . . . the time's not right, things, the situation, I just . . . need to be by myself," he said weakly.

Dennis sat there, his eyes large with sorrow. "Stay the night," he said at last. "Have dinner. Stay the night, maybe longer. Could you do that?"

"I . . . I guess so, yes."

"If you need money —"

"I don't." It was true. The severance from the Corps would see him through for a few months.

"Well . . . if you do, ever . . .” Dennis left it unfinished. "We have a guest suite down the hall. You'll be comfortable there . . . for as long as you like." Evan didn't like the implication.

"Just for tonight," he said.

~ * ~

After Sid helped him get settled in, Evan decided to take his suggestion and inspect the building complex. Evan had liked exploring theatres ever since he was old enough to walk. He liked the quietness of them, the emptiness of the vast spaces. Most of all, he liked the absence of people.

He had been exposed to crowds ever since he could remember, and he had hated them, had seen them as a protoplasmic mass with bulging eyes and reaching arms, shaking papers like guns toward his father and him, wanting autographs, a word, a handshake, as though celebrity was something contagious, and fame could be spread with a touch. His father never understood Evan's aversion to the mob, those adulatory throngs who treated Dennis, that strong and distant man whom he seldom saw, as a king. He merely accepted the acclaim and the flattery as due him. And, like a king, he had not so much fathered Evan as commanded him.

As the years passed, Evan grew used to obeying. His favorite times were when he was alone, when the crowds were dispersed, when the boarding school term was ended and he was home in the house in Beverly Hills with just his father and, best of all, Sid. It was Sid who made life with his father bearable, who acted like the brother or close friend Evan never really had.

Evan did not remember his mother, who had killed herself when he was two. She had at least had the good sense to send the toddler to stay with friends before she had downed her Seconal-Drambuie cocktail. When he went to live with his father, he had had a nanny, despite the fact that Dennis was not working with any regularity. As soon as he was old enough, he went away to boarding schools, and saw his father only on holidays and during the summers. The revival of A Private Empire took place the same year that Evan entered puberty, the result being that just when he needed a father's guidance and advice most, his father disappeared almost totally from his life.

Although his marriage to Robin initially brought Evan and Dennis closer together, they split apart, seemingly irrevocably, when Evan announced his plans to go into the Armed Forces the summer after his high school graduation. Dennis had insisted on, indeed ordered him to go to college, but instead Evan, on his eighteenth birthday, enlisted in the Marines.

Dennis had gone into a rage that promised to be perpetual, and Evan now wondered just what had happened over the past year or two to make his father so tractable. He thought it might be giving up the Emperor that had done it.

Damn the Emperor anyway, Evan thought savagely. That absurdly melodramatic personality had controlled his father's life, and Evan was delighted that it was finally gone. There had been so many times in the past when he had felt that he was not talking to his father at all, but to that damned character he had created. Evan had not seen A Private Empire on stage since he was thirteen, and had seen the movie only one time. He could not bear it.

Now, as he stood in the first row of the orchestra, he pictured his father in front of him dressed in that red costume with all the epaulets and the ribbons and the medals, and the thought made him nearly as sick as had his feeble attempts to command his squad. He closed his eyes for a moment to drive away the dizziness and the nausea and restore his breathing, and, while his imagination was in darkness, he heard a voice.

"What are you doing here?"

Startled, Evan opened his eyes and twisted around. A girl was standing halfway up the aisle. He could not see her face in the semi-darkness, but her form was slim and elegant, even in the loose-fitting pants she wore.

"Do you belong here?" she said, and advanced toward him into the light so that he could see her. Her features were small but beautifully made, and reminded him of porcelain faces, white and pink and delicate.

"I . . . I'm sorry," he said. "I'm, uh, Evan. Dennis's son."

"Evan," the girl repeated thoughtfully, then asked, somewhat sharply, "Are you an actor too?"

He laughed at the suggestion. "God, no. No way."

Her head tilted, and he could not shake the sensation that he was being studied as if under a glass. "Stage fright?"

How the hell did she guess that? he wondered, and then realized that his unease was all too evident. If he was this uncomfortable with one stranger, how could he ever have functioned before an audience? "You got it," he said.

"I'm Terri," the girl said, coming down the aisle and holding out her hand. "Terri Deems. I work with Marvella." He took her hand and held it for a moment. It was cool, and her grip was firm. She shook it, then broke the contact, and smiled at him for the first time. "So, are you going to be here for a while? Or just visiting?"

"I'm . . . not sure." He grinned. "I may stay a little longer than I'd thought."

Already Evan was wondering what the duties of an assistant stage manager were. He was as immediately and irrationally attracted to Terri Deems as his father had been attracted to her mother a quarter of a century before.

Scene 13

Evan Hamilton's decision to remain at the Venetian Theatre was not based purely on his fascination with Terri Deems. Other inducements offered over dinner that evening were Robin's maternal urging, Sid's desire to catch up on the events of the past years, John Steinberg's assurances that Evan would be of great value to the company, and Dennis's diffident and chastised manner.

It was a novelty to Evan to have his father actually sit and listen and pay attention to what he was saying. What was even more seductive was the impression that his father was actually concerned about what Evan thought on certain subjects. It may, he considered, have been illusion, acting only, but Evan believed that his father had never before felt him important enough to even act for.

By the end of the evening, Evan accepted the blandishments of his courtiers, and agreed to remain. Curtis Wynn was called from his suite, introductions were made, and a date was set between the two for breakfast the following morning. Evan went to sleep that night thinking of Terri Deems and his father, hoping that he could grow closer to both of them.

~ * ~

The next day was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and Curtis Wynn awoke early, showered, shaved, and finished packing his bags. He was going back to his parents' home in Trenton that afternoon, but was of two minds about leaving the Venetian Theatre. As much as he loved working on and around the stage, with a practical efficiency that made him a valued member of every production team he was on, he was looking forward to a brief sabbatical from Kirkland.

Tommy Werton's death had affected him more than anyone knew. Curt had worked hard at making himself unflappable, and a great deal of his reputation stemmed from the fact that if the entire stage caved in, Curtis Wynn would not bat an eyelash, but would coolly and methodically continue to call the show out of one side of his mouth while making arrangements for carpenters out of the other. True to form, he had let no one see the effect Tommy's accident had had on him. In a way, he felt as though it was his fault, for, according to theatrical tradition, whatever went physically wrong on stage was the ultimate responsibility of the stage manager — not the director, not the actors, but the stage manager. Also, though he had seldom shown it, Curt liked Tommy Werton. He was easy to get along with, energetic, and he knew his business, unlike the boy he was going to have to initiate today.

God, talk about unbridled nepotism, Curt thought. The prodigal son returns home, with absolutely no theatrical experience, and suddenly he's the new ASM, trying to fill the shoes of a techie whose hammer he isn't fit to carry. Oh well, he'd do with him what he could. At least the kid looked strong.

And, thank God, he was punctual. Right at the stroke of seven-thirty, Curt's bell rang. He opened the door, ushered Evan into the small kitchen of his suite, slid eggs and bacon onto plates, and served the coffee. After the meal, during which neither of them said much, Curt handed Evan a well-worn copy of The Stage Crew Handbook. "When I come back on Monday," he said, "I'll expect you to have read this and have learned most of it."

Evan nodded and began to flip through the book. "I know a lot of this stuff."

Curt was surprised, but didn't show it, nor did he ask where Evan had learned. "Good," was all he said. "We won't do much today. I have to leave at three. I want to go under the stage. There's a big storage area there. Lots of lumber, flats, rolls of canvas, a lot of it's garbage we'll have to throw out, but I want to inventory the materials we can still use."

It was eight-thirty by the time Evan and Curt reached the empty stage. "Nobody's here now," Curt said. "The custodians don't start till nine." He led the way to a narrow staircase in the stage right wings, and led Evan down it.

"How do they get anything up and down this way?" Evan said.

"They don't. Part of the stage floor drops to cellar level."

Curt hid a grimace as the sour smell of dampness struck him. Although the pool and activities rooms were on the same level as the storage area, the huge space under the theatre, except for a room directly beneath the stage that had served as an orchestra green room, was unheated and had only a dirt floor. Although there was never standing water, the scenery materials were all stored on wooden skids, the bottoms of which were filmed with a pale green mildew that caused the musty odor. They had already decided to install a dehumidifying system the following spring.

At the bottom of the stairs Curt flipped a switch that gave a feeble light to the brick and timber walls and the gray dirt under their feet. A walk of twenty yards brought them to the mouth of a central tunnel from which they could see bays on either side. Pieces of yellowed stage flats and 1x4's protruded from the darkness like massive, webbed fingers.

"The lights are just in the center corridor," Curt said. "Here." He handed Evan a flashlight and a clipboard, to which a legal pad and a pen were clipped. "Just write down what I tell you. Single columns."

They made their way down the right hand side, and by ten-thirty had catalogued the contents of seven bays. As they were about to start on the eighth, the last one on that side, Evan cleared his throat. "Hey," he said, "is there a john down here?"

Curt shook his head. "Upstairs. Go ahead, I'll wait."

Absurd as he knew it was, his ability to control his urination was a point of pride with him. He would go before he went to the theatre to call a show, and would only seek a bathroom again after the show was over and the prompt book safely stowed away. When asked by a musical director if he had a cast iron bladder, Curt had replied, "Someone goes to take a piss, that's when things fuck up." Struck by the sprightly rhythm of this response, the musician had used it as the lyrics to a canon, performed with great fervor at the opening night party.

"Want anything?" Evan asked. "Coke?"

"All right," Curt said, taking fifty cents from his pocket and handing it to Evan. "A Coke."

Evan turned and trotted down the corridor toward the stairway, leaving Curt alone. He took a deep breath, wishing that he would have gone above if only to breathe some air that didn't smell like mildew, then walked into the eighth bay, shining his light up and around.

The bay was much like the others. A few pieces of old furniture used long years before as set dressing were piled atop each other, their stuffing rotting away. Odd lengths of lumber leaned against the outer wall, their bases green with mold. In one corner a steamer trunk sat as it must have sat for decades, the once bright stickers pasted to it now dulled to a flat and obscure gray. Curt allowed his controlled imagination to roam just far enough to consider what itinerant showman might have left it behind and why — a failure to appear due to drink, and a convenient escape from town before the management could prosecute him? Or something else — perhaps the owner's death, no next of kin, no one to send the trunk to, so it came down below, as buried as surely as its owner.

The thought was morbid, unlike him, and he tried to dismiss it, thinking instead about the tremendous trash bill the removal of all the ruined materials would bring, not a pleasant thought either, but one closer to realities, intended to help him drive back the discomfort that seemed to be entering his brain through the mold-coated channels of his nostrils. If only, he thought, I could smell something else. The scent of the mold seemed redolent of death and decay.

But Evan would be back soon. The kid seemed pleasant enough, and, like Tommy, eager to please. Now if only he didn't take so damn long on the crapper . . .

Curt had just about made up his mind to go above, when he heard footsteps from the direction of the stage. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief that Evan was returning, when he realized that the steps were not Evan's. Instead of a brisk clatter, like those of someone returning to their task, they were instead a slow and ponderous shuffling, not so much the sound of walking as that of something being dragged along in the dirt.

It was possible, wasn't it? Maybe Evan had glanced into one of the bays on the left and found something heavy that he wanted Curt to see. Wasn't that possible?

No. That was stupid. There was someone out in the main tunnel, and it wasn't Evan. So what? So fucking what? It sure as hell wasn't a ghost. It could be Abe Kipp or Harry Ruhl or a goddam electrician, and to learn who it was, all he had to do was look — just take a few steps to the main tunnel, turn, and look.

Then do it, damn it. Just do it.

He hissed air through his teeth in self-disgust, twisted about, and stepped into the corridor.

It wasn't Evan. And it wasn't Abe Kipp or Harry Ruhl or some goddam electrician.

Electricians didn't wear long black robes with hoods that covered their faces.

Electricians didn't move along tunnels like this thing did, half-floating so that Curt could see the toes of its bare feet, the dirty yellow-white of old bones, dragging through the dust, plowing thin furrows as it came toward him.

Electricians, or Abe Kipp, or Harry Ruhl, didn't drive a wedge of ice down Curt's throat, didn't make him feel that at any second his carefully controlled bladder might burst in wet fear.

Electricians and plumbers and janitors didn't, goddammit, do those things, and Curt could only stand and watch as this absurdly medieval apparition, this terrifying and imbecilic anachronism drifted closer and closer, the light behind it growing brighter, the dark oval within the cowl becoming blacker, an ultimate blackness that would drown him if he did not move, or yell, or look away . . .

And then, in the blackness, he saw its eyes.

"Hope Sprite's okay!"

It was gone as quickly as Evan's words had come, just vanished, as if it had never been there, and instead he was looking at Evan bouncing down the tunnel, a green can in each hand, a smile on his face, a face mercifully normal, eyes, nose, mouth, all in the proper place and in the proper relief.

"The machine's out of Coke," he went on, holding out a can for Curt to take.

Although Curt felt incapable of motion, he saw his hand reach out and grasp the can, and felt the cold. The sensation steadied him, and he nodded at Evan. "Thanks," he heard himself say harshly, and cleared his throat.

"Pretty dusty down here," Evan said, acknowledging Curt's roughness of voice.

"Yes . . . it is. Maybe we've been down here long enough. We can finish this next week." He tucked the clipboard under his arm and let a cold jolt of the soda sear his throat. "Have you seen our recreation area?" he asked Evan, thinking that an exit from the tunnel in that direction would keep him from once more passing the dark mouths of the bays.

"Not yet."

"Come on then, I'll show you," he said, and led the way out of the tunnel.

What he had seen, he told himself, had to be an hallucination. He had been working too long without a break, maybe thinking too much about Tommy Werton's death, and, finding himself alone in a particularly eerie place, and in a morbid state of mind, that mind had just overloaded its circuits and shown him something that did not, could not exist outside the network of ganglions in his brain. Simple as that.

The only alternative was that there were ghosts, and Curtis Wynn had never believed in ghosts. He had spent over half of the thirty-eight years of his life in theatres, a good many of which were reputed to be haunted, and not once had he ever seen anything inexplicable by natural means, not once had he felt the presence of any creatures other than human.

Hallucination, then. A visit home was just what he needed, and he decided to leave early.

~ * ~

As soon as Curt and Evan stepped into the basement hall and closed the door to the storage area behind them, the musty odor was replaced by that of chlorine. "Smell that?" Curt said. "The pool. Right around the corner. But in here . . .” He crossed the hall and opened a door. "A bowling alley, shuffleboard court, even quoits, if anyone is still into that."

"Very thirties, huh?" Evan said, grinning at the large room. Although he had never played quoits, he had bowled often while in the Marines, and had enjoyed shuffleboard at several of the boarding schools he had attended, even though it was considered a retiree's game.

"In here," Curt went on, sliding open a pair of paneled doors, "are pool tables and card tables. Kirkland's bridge club met here some years ago. Dennis had the pool tables' surfaces recovered." Evan nodded appreciatively. The tables were elegant, with legs of polished mahogany and large net pockets rather than ball returns. But he had little time to examine them closely, for Curt led the way immediately out another door and across the hall, from where the chlorine smell came.

"The pool," he said as he passed through the doorway. "Six lanes. We use this a lot. You have a suit?" Evan nodded. "You may want to give it a try today then. It's heated, of course. The locker rooms are through there." He gestured toward a door at the deep end of the pool. "Come on — it goes through to the gym."

"A gym too? You've got everything here."

Curt shrugged. "It was a community center. And the man who ran the community was generous."

As they passed through the men's locker room, down the rows of dark green metal lockers, Evan pictured it as it must have been over half a century before — the laughing, sweaty bodies of businessmen, sated with their Saturday luncheon at the local Rotary, casting off their inhibitions with their suits and ties, becoming kids again, splashing about in the pool David Kirk had given them. But this picture of aquatic felicity was banished by the sight that met his eyes as they walked into the spacious and well-appointed gym.

Terri Deems, clad in a leotard and Reeboks, was driving the flywheels of a rowing machine to a state of frenzy. Her short red hair was plastered to her forehead, and sweat darkened the light green fabric between her breasts. When she saw the two men, it seemed to startle her. She broke her rhythm, then took two more long strokes before she relaxed, letting the machine come to a rest with a long hum of gears.

"You two met?" Evan asked.

"Yesterday," Terri said.

"So," Evan said smiling, "you're into exercise.”

“I'm into not dying an early death, that's all.”

“Things slow upstairs?" said Curt, crossing his arms.

"Marvella's in one of her solitary moods — she can't stand the sight of me right now."

"If I remember right," Evan said, "most of the time Marvella can't stand the sight of anyone in her shop." Terri gave a sour smile.

"Well, the five dollar tour is over," said Curt. "I'm going to take our list to the office, then get out of here." He started to move toward the door, but Evan didn't follow. Curt turned back, gave him a look half-amused and half-pitying, and nodded. "Happy Thanksgiving. See you both next week." Then he was gone.

Jesus, thought Evan, is it so obvious? Well, if it was it was. He was simply not capable of walking away from Terri Deems without an overwhelming reason. "So," he began, "how did you come to work for Marvella?"

"Your father used to date my mother," she said, without the trace of a smile. The answer took him by surprise, and he gave a chuckle that he was sure sounded as uncomfortable as it felt. "I'm sure there was more to it than that."

"Really? And how did you get your job?"

He felt his face redden. "I, uh, I had some connections too."

She shrugged. "Makes the world go round, doesn't it."

"Look, um, would you like to have some lunch?"

“Why?”

God damn it, but she was cold. "Well, it's almost noon, and I thought you might be hungry."

"I brought my lunch, thanks.”

“Maybe dinner?"

"I eat dinner at home."

"A movie?"

"I don't think so." There was not a hint of apology in her voice. Evan knew that any further attempt would be useless.

"Okay, well . . . I'll be seeing you." He gave a half-hearted wave and left the gym. Outside the door he paused and listened to the rowing machine crank up immediately. God, what an impression he must have made on her — not even a moment of contemplation for the poor putz who tried to date her. Nope, just pump that machine and feel the burn. Hell.

He decided to go watch the television in his suite and think about ways to look sexy.

~ * ~

Hot shit bastard, Terri thought, trying to punish the machine by yanking the oars out of their cradle. Just because his old man runs the place, he thinks he's got free and easy access to all the help. Fuck that.

She stopped her rowing, thrust the oars from her, and sat with her head down, watching the sweat trickle from the hollow of her throat down onto her chest. Dennis Hamilton's kid. Just the person she didn't need in her life. She was angry at her mother, and she was angry at Dennis as well for having loved Ann, and for maybe still loving her, and she was goddamned if she was going to have anything to do with his kid.

Even if he was as cute and charming as hell.

Even if she did, in spite of herself, like him.

~ * ~

She likes the boy. She'd like to have him, I'll wager, have him between her legs, making her sweat even more.

Sweat.

God, look at her sweat.

But that's nothing to how I'll make her sweat. Christ's jewels, I'll make her MOAN and sweat, sweat blood before I'm done with her, the little whore.

Sweat.

And blood.

Blood.

Scene 14

Thanksgiving passed. The core of people who comprised the New American Musical Theatre Project sated themselves on turkey for several days, then, slightly logy, returned to their jobs. Dennis and John Steinberg agreed that Craddock was a good choice for the first show, and the premiere was set for the following May. Though December was looked upon as the calm before the storm, there were still things to do.

Steinberg and Donna began to draw up the agreements, while Dennis and Robin discussed what revisions the composer and writer should be asked to make. Ann Deems arranged to have auditions held at the Minskoff Studios in Manhattan in mid-February, and Curt and Evan finished their inventory of the cellar. Though occasionally alone there, Curt saw nothing out of the ordinary, to his great relief.

The final two weeks of rehearsal for Craddock would take place, not in New York, but in the Venetian Theatre itself, and the performers and crew would lodge in the theatre building itself. While some of the dormitory rooms on the fourth floor would be converted into suites for Dex, Quentin, and the writers, others, along with the former hospital rooms on the fifth floor, would simply be enlarged and furnished in a non-opulent manner that would keep Broadway gypsies and the stage crew at least content. It had taken John Steinberg much time and effort to get permissions from Actors' Equity and I.A.T.S.E., the stagehands' union, to give their people what was basically dormitory housing, but the project promised to give so many people work that the whole theatrical community was solidly behind it, and the powers that be were willing to bend the rules a bit to get the fledgling out of its nest.

The fifth floor had been untouched for many years, and it was that large, ex-hospital area that was Abe Kipp's concern this early December morning. Although the iron bedsteads and wooden chairs had long since been removed to the Kirkland General Hospital that had been built in 1940, musty mattresses remained in each room. An antiquated table still sat in the center of each of the two operating theatres, and a few desks on the verge of collapse made up the remainder of the furniture. There were still porcelain sinks and lavatories in each examination room and ward room, unsalvageable, their once white finishes now faded to the yellow of rheumy eyes, and stained by years of mineral deposits from the springs that had made David Kirk's fortune. Even a few trolleys stood as they had for decades, crippled forever by the loss of wheels.

"Fuckin' mess," Abe Kipp observed. Years before he had used the place to hide out and goof off, but gave up on it because there were too many stairs to climb. Besides, the place had an odor he didn't like. The old mattresses were part of it, but it was more than just that. It smelled like something metallic, yet sour and organic at the same time, as if a mouse had died behind the wall. Only the smell never went away as the mouse dried up. Abe had searched for its source, but had never found it. It just seemed to come from everywhere.

He shook his head as he thought about those actors living up here. "Better them than me," he muttered. Maybe, he thought, after everything was all cleaned up and repainted, the smell would go away. It was probably in the fuckin' walls and floor. A coat of paint'd cover it up all right, sure it would.

He found Harry Ruhl in the costume shop where he had sent him. The nigger had called Abe on the backstage phone and bitched about getting the waste cans emptied and the place mopped up, so Abe had sent Harry. Abe didn't like to work for the nigger. He didn't like niggers in general, and especially not that big fat Aunt Jemima on the fourth floor. She was sitting behind her sewing machine now, looking at Abe like he was something she found under a rock. "And what do you want?" she said.

Abe didn't answer right away. Damned if he was going to respond to that kind of talk. Who the hell did she think she was? He glanced around but didn't see Harry anywhere. Terri, the new girl, was in the corner fussing with some dress on a dummy. His gaze lingered on her body until she looked at him and he had to look away. Helluva nice set of knockers on her. She wouldn't have been at all out of place in one of his skin mags. "Where's Harry?" he finally said.

Marvella jerked her head toward the door under the costume loft. "In the bathroom."

"You didn't say nothin' on the phone about cleanin' no bathroom."

"Wasn't my idea. Harry just figured long as he was up here he might as well clean it."

Holy hell, cleaning a nigger's bathroom. Sure, it had to be done from time to time, but actually doing it because he wanted to? Christ, if there wasn't any proof before that the kid was a retard, it sure as shit was here now. "Harry!" Abe bellowed, moving to the bathroom door. "What the hell are you doin'?"

Harry looked up grinning from the toilet bowl. "Just cleaning up, Abe.”

“You finished?"

"Almost."

"Well, get finished. I got something else for you. A really big job. Important.”

“Important? What?"

"Porcelain removal."

Harry's face was a blank. "Huh?"

"I want you to bust up some sinks and toilets."

"Bust them up?"

"Take 'em apart from the wall, put 'em on the freight elevator, and then out back. They gotta be replaced."

"Hey," Marvella said, not deigning to turn from her sewing machine. "We're working here. You want to finish this talk somewhere else?"

Abe ignored her. "Get rid of the furniture too. Mattresses, desks, couple operating tables —"

"Operating tables? You mean up on the fifth floor? The . . . the hospital?”

“Yeah, the hospital, but it ain't been a hospital for fifty years, Harry."

"But it was, Abe. People died up there. I had a uncle died up there. I never been up there, Abe."

"There was never no reason before, was there?"

"You'll go with me, Abe? Won't you?"

"Hell, Harry, don't be such a . . .”Abe lowered his voice. “. . . a pussy boy now."

"I'm not, Abe, I'm not, it's just that I don't like that place, I mean, you think of all the people who died up there.

Marvella turned, frowned at Abe, and shook her head at Harry. When she spoke, her voice was gentle. "There's nothin' up there, Harry. I been up there before. I been all over this place day and night, and I never seen a thing to scare anybody." Her face clouded for a moment, and Abe wondered if she was telling the truth. "Abe," she said, "why don't you go up there with him. Those things're pretty heavy for one boy to tote around."

"Hey," he said. He never referred to Marvella Johnson by name, since he would not give her the honor of addressing her as Mrs., and he was too frightened of her to call her by her first name. "Do I tell you what to do with your helper?"

Marvella's face puckered like a prune. "Just plan your itinerary somewhere else then. We're tryin' to work here."

"All right, all right, come on, Harry." Head held high, Abe Kipp strode to the door, and Harry scurried behind him with his mop, bucket, and garbage bag.

"Don't you be scared now," Marvella said to Harry, "and thanks for cleaning up." He saw Terri smile at Harry and nod as if to encourage him. Shit, Abe thought, why are women so automatically nice to dummies? Maybe if that hot ticket thought he was a dummy, she'd be nice to him too. Goddam, what a figure, even if she did cut her hair like a guy. He considered it and decided he'd crawl through a mile of broken glass just to beat off on her ankle.

He stole one last glimpse of the girl's nipples poking against her blouse, and then went out into the hall. "Come on, dammit," he told Harry, and started walking toward the elevator that would take them to the fifth floor.

~ * ~

Marvella listened to the footsteps moving down the hall and shook her head. "That Abe is not a nice man."

"I've noticed that," Terri said.

"Only thing in the world loves him is that cat."

Terri gave a mock shudder. "Once I tried to pet it, but it ran away. Spat at me first, too."

"Nasty animal. Maybe that's why she and Abe get along." She shook her head again, then turned back to her work. "How you coming on those chorus designs?”

“I've got some rough sketches. You want to see?"

Marvella shrugged. "I guess so. They any good?"

"I think so." She placed a large pad in front of Marvella, just to the right of the sewing machine, and slowly turned the pages until she had finished showing six of them.

"That's all so far?" Terri nodded. "They're good," Marvella said, gave a flicker of a smile, then looked back at the sewing machine and stepped on the treadle.

Terri had to bite back a grin. It was getting better, she thought, better every day. Marvella's praise so far had been limited to semi-appreciative grunts. But today she had actually said Terri's work was good. True, she wasn't the most communicative person Terri had ever known, but the respect she felt for Marvella was, she thought, beginning to be returned, if ever so slightly. At least it was something, and it could, she considered, be a lot worse.

Abe Kipp could have been the costume designer.

Terri chuckled at the thought, earned a look of mild disapproval from Marvella, and got back to her work.

~ * ~

By four-thirty the shadows had gathered on the fifth floor, and Harry Ruhl was hoping that his digital watch would beat the darkness to five o'clock. From time to time he glanced down at it and whispered, "C'mon, c'mon, hurry it up . . .” but it did no good. He thought of moving it ahead by several minutes, but remembered that he did not have the instruction sheet with him.

He worked on, uncomfortably alert to every slight noise, every squeak of floorboards, settling of joists. He had disconnected each sink and toilet in the rooms of what had been the men's ward, had loaded them onto the elevator, and hauled them out behind the theatre to the dumpsters. It had taken him three trips, and now the only thing remaining was the equipment in the men's operating room. Harry had not yet gone in there.

He hated operating rooms, although he had never seen one. An operating room was where his daddy had died four years earlier. The doctor had come out and told him that when they cut his daddy open they had found that what they called the tissues were so desiccated that there was no way to reattach them on closing. Harry had not understood what all the words meant, but he had understood that his daddy had been alive when he went into the operating room, and was dead when he came out. Another thing he knew about operating rooms was that his uncle had died in the one on the fifth floor back in the late thirties. His uncle was only a teenager then, and his daddy had told him the story plenty of times. "They killed him in there, Harry," he had said. "He wasn't all that sick, but they killed him in there anyway."

The conclusion was a simple one for Harry Ruhl to draw — they killed people in operating rooms. And since people were killed in there, what happened was what usually happens in places where people are murdered. Ghosts come back.

That thought was more vividly in his mind than ever as he walked down the short hall toward the operating room. He had to take the sinks and the table out of there, or Abe would get mad at him. He didn't mind someone being mad at him — lots of people had over the years — but what really bothered him was Abe's teasing, and calling him a pussy boy. So he had to show Abe he wasn't afraid. He had to show him he was brave. He had to take that operating table down there, right in front of Abe.

The only problem was that he didn't feel brave. He really felt like a pussy boy right now, and it was dumb, he knew, but he really didn't want to open those big doors to the operating room. Worst thing was that there were no windows in those doors, so he couldn't peek through first to make sure there wasn't anything there. He'd have felt a lot better if he could have done that.

But he couldn't, doggone it. So there was no point in just standing here, was there? Nope. What he just had to do was open those big wooden doors and walk right in, and there wouldn't be a thing there to be scared of, and he could just yank out that operating table and take it down and then go the hell home and watch something funny on the television to help him stop thinking all these dumb, weird things.

Harry put his hand on the cold metal handle of the door and was about to pull it open when he heard something inside the room and froze. It was a dry, rasping sound, like something scraping on metal.

A mouse? he wondered, and prayed it was so. Maybe a mouse's claws scratching the floor. But wait, it wasn't the floor, was it? No, it had sounded hollow, like something on the operating table.

Oh Jeez, he thought, and then, oh Jesus, damning himself as he heard the words in his head. He shouldn't think that, shouldn't think swearing. But in another moment the self-condemnation was gone as the sound came again. Could it be a mouse?

Doggone it, if it was he would be ready for it, wasn't going to let a mouse scare him, wasn't going to go down and tell Abe that there was something up there and then Abe would come back and say, "Look, it's just a mouse, you dummy, you pussy boy . . .”

Harry reached in his pocket and drew out a Swiss Army knife that his daddy had given him the Christmas before he had died. It wasn't a real official one — Abe had told him that — but it had all sorts of things on it, including two knife blades, the larger of which he now opened and held in front of him, inner wrist cocked up, like a child shines a flashlight, as though it were a talisman that could magically protect him from whatever waited within.

"Not gonna scare me, mouse," he said, and thought how lonely his voice sounded up here in the waning shadows from the far windows that faced the west. "No sir. I'm gonna open this door now, so you better scoot!" He shook the handle with his left hand and listened.

There was no sound now. Maybe it had run away.

"I'm comin' in . . . right . . . now!" He yanked the door open and looked in.

The doctor was waiting for him.

~ * ~

(THE EMPEROR, tall, broad-shouldered, strong looking, stands behind the metal operating table. He wears a white gown spattered with red-brown stains, and rubber gloves glimmering with something dark and wet. His hands are empty, but his eyes are full of fire, and a saber lies on the table before him.)

THE EMPEROR

Hello, Harry. I've been waiting for you. Waiting for . . . the pussy boy. (HARRY tries to speak, but his throat chokes.) Give me your scalpel, Harry. I was going to use this . . . (He indicates the saber.) . . . but yours is much nicer. Give me the scalpel.

(HARRY walks toward THE EMPEROR with slow, ponderous steps, as if against his will. He reaches across the table and hands him the Swiss army knife. THE EMPEROR takes it in his right hand, picks up the saber with the left, and leans it against the wall. He holds up the knife and turns it in his hand, as if admiring the blade.)

THE EMPEROR

This will do nicely. (He reaches up and pulls down his mask, revealing his face.)

HARRY

Mr . . . Hamilton . . .

THE EMPEROR

(Smiling) No. Not Mr. Hamilton. Emperor. Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus, about to grant a boon to one of his most loyal subjects. Now. Won't you lie down? And then we shall begin.

Scene 15

God damn Harry anyway. Five-thirty already and the big dummy's still upstairs, and after how afraid he was and all.

Abe Kipp shook his head in disgust, as he paced toward the elevator. He always counted on Harry to let him know when it was quitting time, but for once the kid didn't come through. Abe had been backstage reading a twenty-year-old issue of Cavalier, when that smart-ass Curt Wynn came walking by and asked him what he was still doing there. When Abe looked at his watch and saw that he should have left a half hour before, he was torn between walking out the door and giving Harry a piece of his mind. He decided on the latter, as there were so few times that Harry really did anything worth yelling about. But this, dammit, was one of those times. Christ, stay late once and they'll be expecting freebies from then on. They got paid weekly, not by the fucking hour.

He jabbed the elevator button with his finger, and hopped on when the door skittered open. The lights were on on the fifth floor, so he felt sure that Harry was still there. He had never known Harry to leave the lights on when he was finished with a job. One thing you could say about Harry — he was dependable. Up until now, at least.

"Harry!" Abe called, but there was no answer. "Harry! Where the hell are you!"

It took him three minutes to find Harry Ruhl, and he smelled him before he saw him. The odor, sharp and sweet and salty all at once, was coming from behind the closed door of one of the operating theatres. Abe thought he recognized the smell, but when he recalled where he had first come across it, he dismissed it as impossible. The Venetian Theatre was no battlefield.

He changed his mind when he opened the door. Harry Ruhl was lying on the operating table, his abdomen split open, his intestines seemingly floating in a pool of blood that had overflowed its boundaries and lay puddled on the tile floor. In one of the puddles lay his genitals. Where they had once been was now nothing but a deep gash, apparently slashed there by the pocketknife that remained in the wound. On what was left of the skin of Harry's chest were words drawn in blood, "IM A PUSSY BOY."

Abe Kipp did not scream, or faint, or vomit. Instead, he started to cry. He cried for a long time, and finally, when he was done, he went downstairs to find someone who could help.

~ * ~

Dan Munro was eating dinner when he got the call from the station, but he immediately put on his coat and told Patty not to wait up for him. He had had a gut feeling that the Werton guy's death had been more than just an accident, and now this new death added a gallon of gasoline to that fire. His deputy hadn't known exactly what the trouble was, just that someone from the theatre had called and said somebody had been killed and that the police should come right away.

Munro arrived at the same time as the ambulance, and went with the medics to the fifth floor. Three men who he recognized as Sid Harper, John Steinberg, and Curtis Wynn were standing in the hall. He nodded to them and went through the large door where he saw Bill, his white-faced subordinate, taking photographs of the body.

"Hey, Dan," he said softly, and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Neither had Munro. He felt bile rising in his throat, and looked away from the corpse long enough to force it back down.

"Don't feel bad," Bill said. "I threw up once already, and I'm afraid I'm working on my second shot."

"Jesus," said Munro, "I know this kid. Harry Ruhl — played football for Kirkland, didn't he?" Bill nodded. "What the hell happened to him?"

"I'm not sure. The guy who found him seems to know something about it, but I couldn't get much out of him. He kept crying."

"Where is he?"

"Down on the second floor in the offices."

Munro steeled himself and examined the body, wincing as he had to step around the pool of blood on the floor and the pitiful chunks of flesh in it.

"You think we oughta be able to pick them up," Bill said. "Goddam awful.”

“Not till the M.E. comes," Munro answered.

"I know."

Munro forced himself to look at the mutilated stomach and groin, noticing the angle in which the knife was placed. "It's like he . . .” His words trailed off.

"Yeah," Bill said. "Like he carved himself a . . . " Munro could almost hear the cruder word on Bill's lips, but the policeman pulled it back. ". . . a vagina."

"Is this supposed to be `pussy boy?’" Munro wondered aloud. The row of bloody letters began at the corpse's left clavicle and went downward along his rib cage, finishing just above the gaping abdominal wound. Munro noticed that the Y of "BOY" trailed down the side. When he examined the fingers of the right hand, he saw that the index and middle fingers were coated with blood.

"I called the state police," Bill said. Munro would have expected that, and suspected that Bill had said it more for conversation than to convey information.

On his way to the offices, Munro passed the Medical Examiner and two state police investigators. The M.E. shook his head and muttered, "Lifestyles of the dead and famous," as he passed Munro. Munro didn't smile. He wondered how funny the M.E. would be when he saw what was waiting for him. Probably wouldn't affect him at all. Most of those guys had cast iron stomachs. Hell, they'd have to, wouldn't they, face to face with messy, violent death day after day? Munro was thankful this kind of thing didn't happen very often in his town. But Christ, this damn theatre —two ugly deaths in nearly as many months. Show people.

In the waiting area of the offices, Munro was amazed to find Abe Kipp crying. Kipp was one of the biggest hardasses in town, and had been, Munro had heard, a real hellion when he was younger, picking fights in bars, mostly with guys smaller than he was, and the years apparently had not mellowed him. Yet here he sat, blubbering like a baby, flanked by Donna Franklin on one side and Hamilton's wife on the other. The young man Munro had seen entering the theatre a few days before Thanksgiving was seated in the corner.

"Mr. Kipp, I'm Chief Munro."

Kipp nodded. "I know . . . I know you."

"You found the body?"

"I did, yeah, I did . . . my fault, oh shit, all my fault."

"Your fault?"

"He wouldn'ta done it . . . not without my teasin' him. I teased him, but it was just jokin', you know? Just a little joke, he was always so scared of everything —"

"Now wait," Munro said sharply. "You mean you think he did this to himself?"

"What, you . . .” Kipp's eyes widened. "You think . . . I done it?" The surprise was so openly honest that Munro was instantly certain of the man's innocence, at least as far as wielding the knife went. "I . . . I just teased him, y'see? Teased him about bein' a . . .” The words seemed to lock in Kipp's throat. “. . . a pussy boy, that's what I called him. But I didn't do that, oh hell, how could I have done that?"

"I don't know, Mr. Kipp. But you might just as well ask how could anyone have done that to himself."

~ * ~

When the medical examiner was finished, he told Munro that death probably occurred between four-thirty and five-fifteen. "Good thing I got called so fast," he said. "The fresher they are the easier it is to nail down the time." At least, Munro thought, he wasn't smiling any more. "The state boys tell me the prints of the victim are the only ones on the knife."

"You saying it was suicide?"

The M.E. cocked his head. "I know what you're thinking, Munro. Could he have cut himself open, buried the knife in his groin, and then misspelled words in his own blood? The answer, remarkably enough, is yes. He'd be bleeding like a river, but he would have time to do all those things. If he were so compelled. What would compel a man to do such things is beyond my comprehension. That's your job."

"But it's possible."

"Yes, it's possible. Look at the Samurai in Japan — they'd slice themselves open with two cuts, one across and one down. Now they generally had a friend to help finish them off by lopping off their heads, but it wasn't necessary. For all I know, they might have written haiku while bleeding to death, let alone the sad little epitaph our friend there composed."

The interviews with the residents of the theatre were inconclusive. Alibis were abundant, since everyone was with someone else who could account for them. Even Abe Kipp had been seen at frequent enough intervals near the end of the day so that Munro knew he would not have had the time or opportunity to go to the fifth floor, perform that act of butchery, cleanse himself of the blood that must have resulted, and return backstage.

When Munro interviewed Dennis Hamilton, he found him red-eyed and unresponsive. There was no hostility, however, in the perfunctory way Hamilton answered Munro's questions, and Munro could not help but wonder if the man were on drugs, as he had heard so many people in show business were.

But maybe, Munro thought, it was something else. Maybe it was numbness, like psychological novocaine, a protective mask of some sort to guard him from the pain of having another person — maybe just an employee, maybe a friend — die under mysterious circumstances. Still, Munro couldn't get the idea out of his head that Hamilton knew more than he let on.

~ * ~

After the police and ambulance left with Harry Ruhl's ruined body, Sid and Curt drove Abe Kipp to Kirkland General Hospital, where he was given a sedative and put to bed in a semi-private room. When they returned to the theatre and Sid checked on Dennis, he found that Robin was in the bedroom, trying, like Abe Kipp, to sleep away the horror. Dennis, however, was wide awake, sitting in the living room with a tall drink in his hand, staring out the window at the darkness.

"Let's go out," he said to Sid. "Let's go to that bar two blocks over." He looked at Sid then, and went on, as though he owed him an explanation. "I don't want to celebrate, Sid. I just want to get away from this place. It seems . . . terrible tonight. God, poor Harry." He shook his head and stood up. "Let's go, huh?"

There was no reason not to. In all the years Sid had been with him, he could count on the fingers of one hand the times Dennis had too much to drink. Besides, he really wanted a drink himself.

The name of the bar was Riley's, and there were only a few people in it on this Monday night. When Dennis sat at the bar, the bartender recognized him and greeted him by name, then asked what they wanted. Sid had a bourbon, Dennis a scotch.

After a few sips, Dennis said, "I never would have thought it of Harry. He just didn't seem the type."

"Suicidal?"

Dennis nodded. "He always seemed happy, so simple."

"He was simple."

"I don't mean retarded, I mean his wants seemed simple."

"You don't think someone else killed him?"

"Someone else?" He snorted a bitter laugh. "Who, Sid? The building was locked, everybody was accounted for, and even so, which of us could have done something like that? Marvella? Donna? John? Hell, me?" Dennis shook his head. "No, he did it himself. The poor man. Poor dumb man. Couldn't even spell his own suicide note right."

Sid felt very cold. He had seen the body, Dennis had not. "How did you know the words were spelled wrong?"

"Didn't you tell me? Or Munro?"

"No, I didn't, and I don't remember Munro mentioning it when he talked to you."

Dennis frowned. "I don't know. Maybe I just assumed it, knowing Harry. I can almost see it if I try," he said. "And I don't want to see it, Sid. I really don't want to." He finished his scotch in a single swallow, then held up a finger for another.

They continued to drink in silence for some time, their eyes on a football game on the TV mounted over the bar. Finally Dennis spoke.

"What makes a person do something like that?" Sid said nothing. Dennis's impeccably clipped speech was starting, very slightly, to slur. "You'd have to hate your life so much to leave it on purpose." He looked at Sid from weary eyes. "You ever think about it, Sid? About suicide?”

“No. Never have."

"I did," Dennis said quietly. "Few years back. When we first went out on the road with Empire, remember? I really thought about it. In Chicago. I was standing on the balcony of the suite, and I leaned over the rail, and I looked down, down, and I knew that if I jumped from there it would all be over so fast with just a moment of pain, and then nothing. I climbed over the rail and leaned into the wind holding on with one hand, and I was all ready to let go. But I didn't. I didn't because I was scared. I was scared of the fall. I didn't think I'd like it."

"Why did you . . . want to do it?"

The words came slowly, as if Dennis was forcing them out. "I thought my life was over anyway. I mean, in all my life I had created only one thing — I mean one thing that was real. And that was the Emperor. The character. I mean, that really was something. And it was mine. Nobody else did that for me, Sid. I did that myself. And I never did anything else. And that's why I wanted to . . . to die. Because I was afraid I'd never do anything else."

"Maybe that was enough."

"It's not enough."

"Dennis, most people go through life not creating a damn thing, and they're happy. But you took a character that only existed on paper, and you made it live. You made people laugh and cry and dream with it, and that'll never go away. The Emperor is really alive because of you." Sid chuckled. "Long live the Emperor, huh?"

Dennis shook his head sadly. "The Emperor's gone, Sid. That's all over. But I found something else to make me want to live. I found Robin, and I found the project. The shows are here now — the new shows, the shows that wouldn't exist if it weren't for me and my money. And my direction, dammit. I'm gonna direct these shows and they're gonna be my shows, aren't they? I'm gonna create these shows . . .” He drained the glass of another drink. Was it the fifth? Sid wondered. Or the sixth? He couldn't remember, and it didn't seem to matter anyway.

"If it weren't for that," he heard Dennis mumble, "I might still try to fly off a roof. Man's gotta create . . . gotta create something . . . make something before he . . . before he dies." And then Sid heard Dennis start to cry softly. "Poor Harry," he said between gentle sobs, "Aw, poor Harry. . ."

~ * ~

Although he knew it was a dream while he was dreaming it, that made it no less frightening. He was wearing his costume, the costume of the Emperor Frederick. He held a fat pocketknife in his right hand, and with the other he held down some kind of animal on an altar of black metal. Was it a sheep? It seemed to be, for the eyes were the eyes of a sheep, dull and mild. The body was docile, yielding, like one would expect a sheep's to be as one held it down to be slaughtered. Even its cry, a pitiful, braying lament, was sheeplike.

But its cry had no effect upon the Emperor, who demanded his sacrifice, the sacrifice to the God among men, to Dennis Hamilton who was the Emperor, to the Emperor who was Dennis Hamilton, to both, to neither, but something made of both, and he was so confused, was he still drunk even in his dream?

No, he was more than drunk, he had to be, for even drunk he would never have taken the knife and driven it in, not into the heart, but lower down, where what he savaged told him that this was not a ewe he butchered, but a ram.

Then the sheep transformed beneath him: the bloodied wool became flesh, the wide, wet, terrified eyes eddied from brown to blue, the tortured snout shrank, the pumping forelegs turned to writhing arms, and there, untouched by the knife, the skin whole and unmarked, she lay, still twisting in agony as though an unseen blade was channeling through her from within.

"Ann . . .” he whispered, and it seemed to him that he spoke with two voices. "Ann . . .” He was struggling now, trying to bring himself up from the dream, knowing that to end it would end her torment.

"Ann . . .”

And he was free. The brutally honest light was gone, and all around him was the darkness of night and its reality, and he turned to the warm, living body by his side, that sweet body free of pain, and he held it and murmured, "Ann. . ."

And Robin stiffened, awake, next to him in their bed.

"What?" she said in a voice muted with interrupted sleep. "What did you say?" The distance in her voice made him tremble, and he could not answer her. "What did you call me?"

"Robin . . ."

"You called me Ann. You called me by her name."

Light blinded him, and he pressed his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he saw her sitting up in their bed, staring at him with wide-eyed fury, as though her anger were greater than the pain of the light. "Tell me, Dennis," she said, and there was no sleepiness in her voice now. "Tell me everything."

He coughed, tasted the scotch far back in his throat, swallowed, coughed again. "I'm sorry," he said. "There's not that much to tell."

"Are you . . . seeing her?"

"You mean having an affair? No, Robin. And we never did."

"You never did."

"No. But I loved her. I admit that."

"You admit it."

"Yes. She was the first woman I ever loved, and . . . and I guess I still feel some of that."

"You do."

"Yes." Her repetition unnerved him. "I'm sorry, I don't want to, but I don't seem to have any choice in the matter. But I swear to you I haven't done anything about it and I don't intend to."

"Oh. You're just going to use her name when you fuck me in the dark?”

“Robin —"

"Fire her, Dennis."

"What?"

"I want you to fire her. I want her away from here."

His mind raced. "No, I can't do that, it wouldn't be fair."

“Be fair? Be fair to who, to her? Jesus Christ, Dennis, you just tell me you love this bitch —"

"She's not a bitch."

"Bullshit she's not! Why do you think she came here? For the love of the thee-a-ter? She came because her husband died and she thinks maybe she can get something started with you again, never mind the fact that you're already married. Jesus, Dennis, are you blind?"

He wasn't blind. He saw all too well how Ann Deems felt. And, what was even more disturbing, he saw beyond a doubt how he felt as well. He could not let Ann go again. Now that she was finally back in his life, he could not let her go. There was, he thought simply, no choice involved. He needed her like he needed air. Even if they never touched again, he needed her.

"Nothing is going to happen," he said to Robin. "If something was, it would have already."

"And you're telling me it hasn't."

"That's right. Never. And it won't."

Robin tossed back the sheets, leaped out of the bed, and threw on a robe. "You know what I hate most, Dennis? I hate it that this bitch is back, and I hate it when you tell me that you still feel something for her. But I hate it most when you lie to me —"

"I haven't —"

"When you lie and you tell me that you never fucked her, that Dennis Hamilton, the young stud emperor — oh hell, yes, I've heard all the stories — never had her the way he had every other woman that crossed his path, well, if that's what you want to tell me, that's what you expect me to believe . " She yanked open the bedroom door, then turned back to face him. “. . . then you must think I'm the dumbest cunt you ever had!"

She slammed the door behind her, and he listened to her footsteps pad across the carpet of the hall. The guest bedroom door opened and slammed, and then he heard nothing but her sobbing.

~ * ~

The next morning Robin was distant and aloof at breakfast, but she said nothing more about Ann Deems. The aftermath of Harry's death distracted her and everyone else from more personal problems. A call from Dan Munro to John Steinberg made it official that Harry Ruhl's death was being handled as a suicide. Munro didn't sound happy about it, but, as he explained to Steinberg, Harry's fingerprints were the only ones on the knife, and the nature of the wounds, devastating as they were, were consistent with a verdict of self-mutilation.

Abe Kipp came back to work two days later. When Donna Franklin talked to him about hiring a new assistant, he seemed different to her, quieter, not at all sarcastic, almost humble. He told her that he did not think he needed an assistant right away, that maybe when the show came down from New York he could use a man, but for now he should be able to handle everything himself. Donna saw him later carrying a bucket and mop into the office restrooms.

Ann and Terri Deems were shocked by the news of the death when they heard it from John Steinberg the following morning. The first thing Ann felt, beside pity for Harry Ruhl, was that she wanted to be with Dennis, that it must be terrible for him to have still another tragedy in his theatre, especially the death of poor, simple Harry. She knew, from seeing the two of them together, that Dennis had liked Harry, and the feeling had been mutual. The few times she had spoken to him to compliment him on a good cleaning job, Harry had invariably responded, "Like to keep things nice and neat for Mr. Hamilton."

Ann had been touched by that. There was indeed something about Dennis that inspired that kind of loyalty. It was an emotion that few besides the scrupulously honest Harry Ruhl could have put into words, but it was there. She would have felt it even if she had not loved him.

But if her joy came from seeing Dennis, she was doomed to unhappiness during the next few weeks of December. It seemed to her that he seldom came out of his suite, and, if he did, it must have been during the times she was not in the office. She began to wonder if he was avoiding her on purpose, or if it was merely circumstance. The thought made her feel immature and foolish, as though she was once again a fifteen-year-old cheerleader, waiting around after practice to see if Jamie Beamenderfer would come out of the locker room and want to walk her home, and feeling like hell if he left another way and missed her.

But this was worse, for Jamie Beamenderfer had not been married, and Dennis was — happily, if reports were true. Ann knew she had made a mistake in taking the job at the Venetian Theatre. But at the same time, she had been powerless not to.

The morning after Harry Ruhl's funeral, Ann Deems found a man's folded handkerchief in her office. It had a monogram of the letters DH. She felt a delighted thrill go through her, and wondered why Dennis would have come to her office, and why he would have left a handkerchief on her desk. There were several explanations, all of them rational, but the one which she chose to accept was a scenario in which Dennis had come, perhaps after hours, hoping to find her still in. When she had not been there, he had left his handkerchief on purpose, with the intention that she should return it.

So now what? she wondered. She could return it. In fact, it was the sensible thing to do, for she was certain that it was his. But should she wait until he came to the offices, or should she take it to him in his suite? If he had left it there by accident, there would be no harm in it. He would simply accept it, thank her, and that would be all.

But what if he had left it there on purpose? What if he wanted to see her alone? What if he wanted to tell her what she wanted most to hear, and yet dreaded hearing?

She could always say no. Absurdly, the words came to her mind — just say no — and she smiled in spite of herself. How easily those words came, and how hard they were to obey. Could she? She wondered.

There was only one way to find out, one way to learn how good she was, how honest she was, how truly loyal she was. Because she knew that if she was all these things she would say no to what Dennis Hamilton might ask her to do, or to become. If she loved him, she would refuse him, and bring ease to his life.

When she stepped off the elevator, the third floor hallway was empty, and she heard no noises from behind any of the doors of the other suites. Everyone was working, including Robin, who Ann had seen going into John Steinberg 's office several minutes before. She stood before Dennis's door for a long time before she finally pushed the doorbell. She heard chimes inside, then footsteps, and found herself wishing that Sid would open the door so that she could just hand him the handkerchief, say she found it in Steinberg's office, and walk away.

But it was Dennis who answered the door, a pale Dennis who looked so sad and so weary that she wanted only to hold him in her arms so that he could sleep. "Ann," he said. "Uh . . . good morning."

She smiled at him. "I found this, Dennis," she said, holding out the handkerchief. "It was on my desk."

"Your desk?" he said softly, taking it. "In your office?" She nodded. "How could it have gotten there?" he said as if to himself. "I haven't been in there . . ."

"I figured you had more, but . . ." She shrugged and waited. The opening was there, but Dennis did not step into it.

"Well, thank you. Thank you." He swallowed, looked at her. He didn't have to speak. The look said everything.

"You're welcome," she said, relieved and disappointed, knowing that he would not say what she was praying he would not.

"I'll . . . see you."

Oh God, yes, I hope, Dennis, she thought, but said only, "Yes," then turned and walked away, hearing and not watching the door close gently behind her.

~ * ~

But someone else watched Dennis's door close, watched Ann Deems, burdened with the need for flight, walk quickly away down the hall toward the stairs.

Robin Hamilton watched from the elevator as Ann left the suite whose door her husband had just closed, and Robin burned with the knowledge of what it might mean. But she did not confront Dennis with what she thought she knew. If she had, he would have honestly denied it, and, though at first angry and disbelieving, she might have ultimately believed him, and so been happy.

Instead, she grasped the idea, dug a hole in her heart, and buried it there. And it grew, hard and healthy.

Scene 16

"Sonny," said Marvella Johnson to Evan, "what you got there?"

"Mail. Had to come up anyway to check the dressing rooms, so I figured I'd bring it along." He tossed the packet on the table in front of Marvella, who grunted her thanks, picked it up and leafed through it. "Hi, Terri," he said to the girl, who seemed intent on ripping out a seam.

"Hi," she said, without a hint of intonation.

"What you checking the dressing rooms for?" Marvella said after a moment, putting down a letter.

"See what's in them, I guess. I don't know, Curt just told me to take inventory."

Marvella shook her head. "Curt and his inventories. Count every damn nail in the bin you give him the chance. Well, what you just standin' there for? We're workin' here, Sonny, so you get busy too."

"Marvella, I wish you wouldn't call me Sonny anymore."

She narrowed her eyes as if studying him. "Yeah, I guess you've got a little bigger at that, haven't you? Old habits. So get to work . . . Evan."

He smiled, gave a wave, and disappeared into the first of the chorus dressing rooms. There was one on the fourth floor where the bottom level of the costume shop was, another on the third, and still another on the fifth, which had been put into use only when the largest musical shows of the twenties occupied the Venetian stage. All would be needed for the spring production of Craddock.

"That's a nice boy," Marvella observed. "A wonder he turned out so friendly, his daddy the way he is." She paused a moment, and then added, "The way he was."

"I thought you liked Dennis," said Terri, her eyes on the job before her.

"I do like Dennis. I love Dennis, the way you love a spoiled child. But that doesn't change the fact he's spoiled."

"So's Evan," Terri said.

Marvella looked at the girl. "Why are you so down on him? He likes you well enough."

She snorted something that may have been a laugh. "That's the truth. I just don't want history to repeat itself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't know about my mother? And Dennis Hamilton? Back in the good old days?"

"I know he was sweet on her, that what you mean?"

"Well, that's one way to put it."

"That's the way to put it. Honey, I knew Dennis back then, and believe me, if there was ever a more innocent baby — at the beginning, anyway — I never saw him.”

“And so is his son then, huh?"

"Evan's a good boy. A little mixed up about what he wants to do with his life, but everybody goes through that. Joining the Marines was the only way he could get away from his daddy, or so he thought. Had to get himself into a situation where Dennis couldn't haul him back home again, or stick him in another school."

"Well, maybe he's the sweetest boy in the world, but I don't want anything to do with him."

Marvella's eyes narrowed. "What's got you so skittish? Just that your momma and Dennis liked each other once?"

"Liked? That's past tense."

"Now hold on. If you're thinking that Dennis would try to get something going again with Ann, you're wrong, girl. He's married, and he loves Robin. He's not like that. Used to be, but not anymore."

"You've never heard of reversion to type? A good-looking man, not at all old, rich and famous with the reputation of being a ladies' man? How long do you think he can stay faithful, Marvella? I mean, I've noticed the way he's looked at me from time to time, and —"

"All right now, you stop coming up with these soap opera plots and you get your mind back on your work, girl. You just forget about Dennis and your ma, and you especially forget about Dennis and you. There's gonna be no funny business in this theatre, believe you me . . .”

~ * ~

Robin was sure that Dennis and Ann were having an affair when, in the middle of a Friday afternoon two weeks before Christmas, she returned from the office to the Hamilton suite and heard voices coming from the bedroom. One of the speakers, she was sure, was Dennis, while the other, though she heard the voice only in brief snatches, was a woman.

"Dennis?" she called. The voices stopped, and she said again, "Dennis?" There was a shh, then quick whispers, and Robin thought she heard the woman (the woman? Ann Deems, god damn her!) giggle. That did it. She would not be laughed at. To be cheated on was bad enough, but to be laughed at was intolerable. She rushed to the bedroom door, flung it open, and stepped inside, ready to explode, to tear the woman apart, to wipe from her face forever the smirk that her laughter made all too clear.

But the bedroom was empty. That was the one thing Robin did not expect. She was prepared for nudity, for sexual gymnastics, for the most pornographic and blatant evidence of her husband's infidelity, but she was not prepared for negation, for an utter denial of what she had known to be the truth.

Or was it a denial after all? The room appeared to be empty, but the bedclothes were so disturbed that even the bottom sheet had come off to expose the mattress cover beneath. There was a trace of perfume in the air, Ann's perfume, mixed with the scent of naked bodies, the musky smell of rutting. And the bathroom door, usually open, was closed.

She was astonished at their audacity. To hide in the bathroom? Did they think she was some kind of moron not to realize that that was the only place they could be?

"You bitch," Robin said, jerking open the bathroom door.

The light was on, but the room was empty.

"How the hell . . .”she whispered to herself. "How the hell . . .”

On her way down to the office, she met Sid on the stairs. "Have you seen Dennis?" she asked.

"About half an hour ago. He said something about going for a walk."

She eyed him keenly as he passed her. Was he lying, covering up for his friend of many years? She had always trusted Sid before, but now he seemed like a stranger.

In the office, when she mentioned ever so casually that she had not seen Ann today, Donna told her that she had asked for the day off to do some Christmas shopping in Philadelphia, and, since she was well caught up with her work, Donna had obliged.

Shopping. Sure, Robin thought viciously, shopping for her husband's cock. They did it, goddammit, whether she caught them or not. They did it right in the bed she shared with Dennis, right in her own goddam bed, and Jesus, how that hurt, how that shamed her.

But she would say nothing. Not a thing. Not until she caught them, and she would catch them, it would be impossible not to, as careless as they were. She had no idea how they had gotten out of the bedroom, where they had hidden, but that they had been there was as true as the smell of that bitch's heat in the air. And when she found them

Robin could not remember ever being so angry. She was, she knew, mad enough to kill.

~ * ~

A week before Christmas, people began to disappear, but in a benign manner.

Marvella Johnson took Whitney and went to her sister's home in Baltimore, where Whitney's mother would also be for the holidays. Donna flew to her mother's home in Fort Myers, Florida, while John Steinberg went to his brother's house in upstate New York. Curt also returned home, leaving the only non-Hamilton in residence at the Venetian Theatre Sid Harper, whose parents were both dead, and who had no siblings.

Evan Hamilton wished that he had other relatives he could visit over the holidays, but his relationship with his paternal grandparents was even more forced than it was with his father, and he had not seen his maternal grandparents for a dozen years. He did not relish the thought of spending Christmas with Dennis and Robin. Nothing, he felt, had really changed between him and his father. Despite early indications to the contrary, Dennis seemed more withdrawn than ever before. Robin had invited him to have dinner with them several times, and at first Evan had great hopes that he might finally become friends with his dad. The first few meals together were warm and friendly, and there had been moments of closeness and affection.

But lately the invitations had come less frequently, then not at all. It was just as well. Ever since Thanksgiving, a grand and glorious feast cooked magnificently by Sid, Dennis and Robin seemed to be at cross purposes, as though a wide and unbridgeable abyss lay between them. Evan wondered what was wrong, but could gather no hints.

His unease at having to spend Christmas with his uncommunicative father and stepmother was relieved when Dennis visited his suite and told him that he and Robin were flying to London for the holidays. "I hope you understand," Dennis said. "Robin's been working awfully hard the past few weeks, and I think it's important that we have a little time to ourselves. It'll be lonely around here, but at least Sid's staying. I just hope you're not disappointed that we won't have a family Christmas."

Evan made a gallant effort to show the proper amount of dejection the situation warranted. "No, I understand. It's fine. I hope you have a great time."

~ * ~

They did not have a great time, nor even a good one. They had first come to London on their honeymoon, and Robin had loved it, entranced by every pub sign, by every plaque on what seemed like every house, by the overwhelming presence of age that hung over every twisted street, each little byway. The churches had awed and inspired her, the shops had delighted and tempted her, and Dennis had pushed her into every temptation. They had eaten in the little out of the way restaurants, most of them ethnic, that Dennis had discovered and cherished on previous trips across the Atlantic, had laughed, enjoyed, loved.

But this visit was the dark side of their first one. They revisited many of the old haunts, but Robin found no joy in them. The happy memories they brought up made the present situation that much more intolerable to her. To her credit, she tried to enjoy herself, tried to act as though nothing were wrong, told herself that she still loved Dennis, and that he had brought her here because he loved her as well. If he had not, wouldn't he have wanted to remain in Kirkland, where he could have continued his clandestine meetings with Ann Deems? Of course he loved her.

And every time she almost convinced herself of it, the image came into her mind of the rumpled bed, and she heard the mocking sound of a woman's laughter, caught the scent of a hated perfume.

She and Dennis slept in a double bed at the Hotel Russell, as always, but little went on in it other than sleep. Throughout their marriage, making love had nearly always been initiated by Robin, though Dennis always delightedly complied with her wishes. The few times she wondered why he was seldom the instigator, she assumed that it was in order to balance the reputation he had earned for being a Don Juan, to present an image to his wife of a man interested but little in sex, and therefore a potential model of fidelity.

But now, when she would have welcomed ardent overtures on Dennis's part, they were not forthcoming, and she felt in no mood to start them herself. Why should she be put in the position of begging for what was rightfully hers? Better, far better to do without than to have to ask, although she knew that Dennis sensed her anger, and that might have a great deal to do with his hesitation to approach her.

So the week passed, with London far more chilly than usual for December. They celebrated Christmas Day at their favorite restaurant. Robin gave Dennis a new Rolex, and he gave her a pair of diamond pendant earrings. When they kissed, it seemed to Robin that Dennis wanted to extend the contact, but Robin pulled quickly away, robbing the exchange of any warmth.

It was with relief that she boarded the plane back to the United States. The one thing to be said for the trip was that Dennis had no more dreams, neither nightmares nor visions more pleasurable. No names were blurted out in sleep. In a way, she wished he would confess, tell her the truth about himself and Ann Deems. Then together they could work something out, and she could find a way to banish the woman from both their lives.

It became an obsession with her. Every time Dennis opened his mouth, she stiffened, as if expecting to hear his words of self-condemnation. But he never mentioned it. He only became more patronizing toward her, agreeing with her most irrational remarks, giving in to her most casual whims without comment.

Damn, she thought, over and over again. Damn, Dennis, talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking, what you're feeling. It doesn't matter, as long as you can tell me. If you can tell me, then there's hope. Just tell me. Please. Tell me.

~ * ~

(The scene is the following week in the living room of Dennis and Robin Hamilton's suite in the Venetian Theatre Building. The furnishings are white, black, and sumptuous. On a bookcase, displayed very prominently, are two Tony Awards. Next to the bookcase is a large portrait of Dennis Hamilton as the Emperor Frederick. On the couch, his head buried in his hands, sits THE EMPEROR. He is dressed in a sweater and slacks. His body shakes as if with sobs. ROBIN enters stage left.)

ROBIN

I thought you were out. (Notices him crying) Dennis? Dennis, what is it?

THE EMPEROR

(He looks up at her, shakes, then cries out, as if in torment.) Oh Robin, oh God, Robin! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. . .

ROBIN

What is it? Tell me what's wrong!

THE EMPEROR

Robin, have you ever . . . thought about something . . . had something so strong on your mind that you couldn't get it out . . . you wanted to, but you couldn't? (He shakes his head) Have you ever had . . . an obsession like that?

ROBIN

(A sad look of resignation comes over her) Do you mean . . . (A pause) Ann Deems.

THE EMPEROR

(A brief nod) You knew, you knew all along. I can't get her out of my head, no matter how hard I try. It's as though she forces her way in whether I want her to or not.

ROBIN

(Firmly) Let her go, Dennis. Just let her go and forget about her.

THE EMPEROR

I can't. I can't, darling, don't you think I've tried? But it's impossible. Knowing that she's . . . that she's alive, that she'd be somewhere not far away — I can't live with that. I couldn't forget her, not for (He seems to oddly stress the next words) as long as she lives.

ROBIN

(Takes his hand) Dennis. . .

THE EMPEROR

(Lost in thought) If something happened to her . . . if it did, I would grieve, but it would pass. Like when I lost her once before, years ago, I grieved then. But life went on. I found other people. I found . . . (He looks into her eyes) . . . you. (He shakes his head savagely) Oh God, just forget I ever said anything about this. I'm not thinking straight. What's done is done, I can't change it, I'm sorry for it. We'll just . . . go along, take it from day to day. If you're willing to stay with me.

ROBIN

Of course. But Ann . . . why can't you just fire her?

THE EMPEROR

I told you. Firing her isn't the answer. Robin, I don't know how I expect you to understand this, but she's got . . . a part of me. I can't do anything to hurt her. I can't do it by myself. I'm yours, but a part of me is hers. And it will be. (A pause) For as long as she lives.

ROBIN

(She stands for a moment, thinking) I think maybe we both could use a drink.

THE EMPEROR

Yes. That would be good. Let's have a drink and talk about something else. (ROBIN starts to exit stage left) Robin? (She stops) Will you do something for me? (She looks at him) Will you not mention this to me again? I've said all I need to. More than I should have. Please. I don't want to hear her name on your lips. I don't want to think about her. All I want is to be free of her. (A pause) Will you help me? Help me with that?

ROBIN

(A pause) I'll get the drinks.

(She exits stage left. THE EMPEROR watches her go. Then he sits, leans backs, and, very slowly, smiles.)

Scene 17

Robin did as she was asked. She did not mention Ann Deems to Dennis. And Robin proceeded with something else that had been only suggested, Ann Deems's death.

Dennis had said, hadn't he, that he wanted to be free of her? Had said that he was bound by her for as long as she lived? Well then, the only way to free him was to end that life, end it in a way that would appear to be an accident.

Robin had never before harmed anyone, nor intended harm to anyone, and the realization that she now planned to kill a fellow human being strangely enough did not shock or dismay her. The deaths of Tommy Werton and Harry Ruhl had inured her to blood, and the thought of losing Dennis had inured her to the shedding of it. She had long heard that anyone is capable of murder, but had not really believed it. But now she knew that there was a limit, and she had been pushed to hers. Ann Deems had pushed her to it. Therefore, it followed that Ann Deems had to die, and die in a way so that Robin would not be suspected, and, even if suspected, would not be convicted. It was a situation more easily fancied than conceived, and several days passed before the plan began to formulate itself in Robin's laboring brain.

It was created by Ann Deems herself, born of an overheard comment of hers made to Donna Franklin. "The star ceiling is just incredible," Ann said. "I'd love to see how it works. How do you get up there?"

"There are catwalks," Donna answered. "Ask Sid or Curt sometime. I'm sure they wouldn't mind taking you up."

The catwalks. Robin had been up there only once. Two feet wide, they crisscrossed the area above the ceiling like a checkerboard made of wood. There were no handrails, nothing to stop the unwary from falling off onto the plaster two feet below. But once someone fell, they would not simply stop at the plaster, no. They would go through that fragile coating, break through the ceiling, and plummet to the floor of the theatre. There was a layer of chicken wire on top of the plaster, but Curt had told her that it was only wishful thinking that it could catch and hold the weight of a falling stagehand.

Or even, Robin considered, the lighter weight of a bitch.

~ * ~

"So what's the occasion?" Dennis asked John Steinberg. "The last time you took me to lunch was when the theatre sale was wrapped up."

Steinberg smiled. "Special times, Dennis. I only wish that this town had someplace a bit fancier than the Kirkland Inn. But it's the gesture that's important, I suppose, and not the quality — or lack of same — of the food." He took his wine glass, swirled the liquid, sniffed, and drank. "Craddock is now fully financed, Dennis. Completely backed. We have every cent we need."

A grin spread across Dennis's face. "That's wonderful, John. You've done a fabulous job."

Steinberg shrugged. "I do what I'm paid for."

"No, you do it because you love it."

"And I love it because I'm good at it. But whatever the reason, the company should be able to come in at the end of March as scheduled." He pursed his lips. "Now that the good news is over, I've got a question for you."

"Yes?"

"Supposing we hadn't been able to raise enough money. Would you have financed it?"

"No."

"You would have let the project die? Something you've been planning for years.”

“Yes."

"Do you mean that? We both know that three million dollars would put only a slight dent in your resources. If the show didn't make a cent, you could still afford to lose it."

"I won't do a vanity production. I've told you that. I won't have people saying that Dennis Hamilton is financing this show so that he can direct it. If we couldn't have raised the money from investors, I'd . . .”

"You'd have what? Sold the theatre? Forgotten about everything? Began your second retirement at forty-three?"

"Maybe."

"My ass you would've. But that same concern brings me to my next subject. The next show."

"Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves?"

"I don't think so," Steinberg said. "We'll be staging Craddock beginning in May. Three months here, then opening in the city. If it succeeds, we'll have no problem getting backing. If it fails, not that I expect it to, but if it does, we may have problems. You won't consider using your own funds, I take it?"

"No. Not out of penuriousness, John, but out of —"

"I know, I know, sheer pride. Then may I suggest what I think would be a spectacular fund raiser? What if, for one night only, right here in the theatre where he had his birth, we resurrected the Emperor?"

Dennis was silent for a moment. "I don't understand."

"One final performance of A Private Empire. Twelve hundred seats, and each seat reserved for an investor of $5000."

"No, John." The reply was unequivocal.

"Dennis. That's six million dollars. We can stage one performance for less than seven figures. The second show would be instantly financed."

"I said no. I've given my last performance as the Emperor. How long do you expect me to keep beating a dead horse?"

"Dennis —"

"No, John. I'm surprised you'd even ask me that. I won't even consider it. That part of my life is over. The Emperor is dead." Dennis drained his wine glass. "He's dead."

~ * ~

It's here, isn't it . . . yes, right where she left it, here in the top drawer of her desk.

Pretty thing. Look how it smiles at me. And look how its other face frowns. Comedy and tragedy, those two great extremes of life without which there is no drama.

No drama. Terrible thought. But there will be drama now, when the dear lady finds this pin where it should not be, oh yes, there will be such drama.

And I think it will be tragedy.

~ * ~

The next morning, Robin found Ann Deems's pin in the Hamiltons' bedroom. She knew it was Ann's because she had seen her wearing it the previous day, had noticed it when Ann had come in in the morning. It was a small but striking piece, a representation of the masks of comedy and tragedy. Robin knew jewelry, having received fine items all the years she was with Dennis, and she could tell that the pin was expensive. What she would not have been able to tell was that, like her own pieces, this one had been a gift from Dennis as well.

Robin had been about to enter John Steinberg's office for a minor business matter when she heard Sid's voice from Ann's office and stopped.

"Very pretty pin."

"Thank you," Ann said. Robin thought she sounded uncomfortably self-conscious, and wondered why.

"I think I remember it."

"Do you?"

"Dennis gave it to you, didn't he? Way back when?"

"Way back when," she repeated, and Robin felt a chill in her heart. "Do you think it's smart to wear it now?" Sid asked.

"I . . . I don't know." Ann gave a little laugh. "I hadn't really thought about it.”

“Maybe you should. It might send a signal that shouldn't be sent."

"Sid, I —

"No, Ann, listen to me for a minute. Now I don't know how you feel about Dennis, but I love the man. Like a brother. That's why I've put up with him all these years. He's been. . . troubled lately, and I think you've been a part of it."

"Sid, nothing's happened between Dennis and me."

Lying little bitch!

"Good. I hope it stays that way."

Robin could listen to no more. She turned, and quickly and silently walked away.

And now here was that pin, the subject of that hated conversation, on the bedside table, nearly hidden beneath the clock radio. How had it gotten there? There were two possible explanations. The first was that Ann Deems had given it back to Dennis, a gesture intended to end whatever relationship still existed between the two of them. The second, and the one to which Robin subscribed, was more realistic, utterly vivid. She could both see and hear how it had happened:

God, God, how I love you.

Oh, hold me, hold me, Dennis.

Ow! What the hell . . .

My pin, just my pin. Here, let me take it off . . .

Yes, the pin first, and then the sweater, and then everything, and the two of them fucking like dogs on her bed . . .

Her bed, the bed she shared with Dennis, with her husband, God damn it!

Robin clutched the pin so tightly in her hand that it hurt her, and when she unclenched her fist, she saw the impressions of the two faces, a smile and a sneer, on the pale skin of her palms. And as those four faces, the two of gold, the two of flesh, looked up at her, the plot fell into place, and she knew that this pin had been given to her for a purpose, and that purpose was to end Ann Deems's life.

~ * ~

"I understand you'd like to see how the star ceiling works."

Ann Deems looked up from her desk and saw Robin standing in her doorway. She was surprised. The woman had not spoken to her for weeks, and Ann doubted if she ever would again. Yet here she stood, smiling, seemingly as friendly as anyone else in the Venetian Theatre. Ann smiled back and shrugged. "Yes, I would. Sometime."

"How about now?" Robin said.

Ann looked at her watch. There was only a quarter of an hour remaining in the lunch break. "Could we make it by one?"

"Sure. There's not a lot to see, really, but what there is is interesting."

Ann thought for a moment. There was no reason not to, since she was with the boss's wife if she was late getting back. Besides, Donna had never been a stickler for punctuality, and often returned late from lunch herself.

Another reason for going was that she didn't want to refuse Robin. She had been feeling guilty over her desire for Dennis, unfulfilled or not, and a chance to form even this tenuous bond of friendship with his wife was not something Ann wanted to let slip past her.

"All right," she said, and got up from her chair.

~ * ~

Got you, you bitch, thought Robin, slipping her hand into the pocket of her slacks. Yes, the pin was still there. Though Robin was an actress, she needed no false emotions to make her smile and chat cheerily with Ann Deems as they walked up the flights of stairs that led to the ceiling. Robin was happy for the first time in ages.

It would be so easy now. Just a push, a jostle, and over the side she goes, those heels of hers cutting right through that plaster, and then down, down, all the way down to those nice soft seats below, but those seats won't be so soft from seventy feet in the air, will they? She hoped that Dennis would still be in the auditorium when it happened, not to hurt him, but so that he would see, would see her as she died, so that he would see and be free.

“. . . think they like it?" Ann was saying.

"I'm sorry?"

"Ted and Amy Lander, do you think they like the theatre?" The Landers, a husband and wife film production team and one of the biggest investors in Craddock, had missed the party in October. This week, however, they had flown to New York from the coast on business, and had made a day trip down to Kirkland to visit Dennis and see the theatre about which they had heard so much.

"I'm sure they do," Robin said, opening the door to the projection booth. "What's not to like? Besides, they love Dennis." She took a beat, hoping that the next line was ominous, but not so obvious that Ann would run back downstairs. "Everyone loves Dennis."

Ann made no response, and Robin led her to the end of the booth, opened another door, and went up a spiral staircase that led into the aerie above the ceiling. "Watch your head," she said. And your ass.

They came out onto a small platform, and Robin felt again for the pin, needing to know that it was there, like some magic talisman, a spell that would protect her from harm:

She dropped her pin, officer, it must have come undone, and she stepped off to get it, just stepped off before I could tell her, before I could warn her.

And the pin would be there, wouldn't it? There right beside her body. Because Robin was going to drop it just as she pushed her. She would wipe it free of her fingerprints against the lining of her pocket, hold it by the edges, take it out, push the bitch, drop the pin, and be happy again.

"Can you see all right?" Robin asked. She didn't want her to slip, not until it was time.

"Yes, it's fine."

"Hold on to the girders if you lose your balance. Even if you'd fall off, no harm done. The ceiling's solid." Robin smiled in the semi-darkness at her lie. She didn't want to scare her now. She wanted her to feel safe, so safe that she would be off her guard, so safe that she would be very much surprised when Robin pushed her. "See the bulbs? They're under those little metal plates."

"God," Ann said, "there must be hundreds of them."

"Three hundred and fifty. They're divided between ten and twenty-five watts, so all the stars aren't the same brightness. The stereopticon machine that makes the clouds is right up here. We're almost over the orchestra pit now."

This is where it would happen, because this is where she would fall the farthest. When Ann leaned over for a closer look, that was the time.

"The clouds are on a twenty-inch disc," Robin went on, trying to banish her nervousness by immersing herself in details. "The machine has a thousand-watt bulb."

"It won't go on while we're up here, will it?" Ann asked with a nervous chuckle.

"Oh no," Robin said. "There's no way. Don't worry. We're as safe as can be." The stereopticon was directly ahead of them now. Robin grasped the pin by its edges, took it from her pocket, rubbed it against her slacks. "There's the machine. Here, get ahead of me so you can see it better."

She moved carefully to the side to let the woman edge by her. Ann moved gingerly, but nothing would protect her when Robin made her move.

Robin tensed. Push, drop the pin. Just one little push to make her fall back. Push, drop the pin.

Closer now, nearly next to her . . .

Push. Drop the goddam pin . . .

Now, beside her, and she could smell the perfume, the perfume she had smelled in their bedroom, that bitch!

Push!

Now!

And as Robin drew back, she heard the grating sound of rusty metal, and the world exploded into light. Blinded, she twisted away from this new and sudden sun, twisted her body, lost her balance, flailed once with her arms, and fell.

Robin's right foot drove a hole through the plaster and the wire of the ceiling, and she felt her leg shoot down, as though she were being swallowed by some enormous, expanding mouth. She had enough presence of mind to slam her body flat against the surface, which stopped her only long enough for her to feel the plaster crumble beneath her body as she slipped further into the abyss. Her hands scrabbled at the chicken wire, trying desperately to gain a hold while her thighs, her waist slid through, and then, finally, her fingers found a grip that slowed but did not stop her.

The wire bit deeply into the pads of her fingers, and she cried in agony as the ceiling continued to crumble like thin ice. The light still burned above, and silhouetted against its fire she saw a figure reaching down for her, and thought for an instant that she had already fallen and was dead and it was her mother drawing her up into heaven.

But reality returned quickly, and she knew that it was Ann, Ann, who had saved herself from falling, and was now lying on the catwalk, her head and shoulders extended, her arms reaching down to save Robin. And she would take that hand, that help. If she could.

The plaster was crumbling more quickly now, and soon she would fall, fall through the ice and drown in the lake of air. If she let go with one hand, let go and reached up for Ann, she might live. But to let go with the abyss beneath her was more than she could bear. Still, she had to. If she wanted to live, she had to.

A whine of terror squeezed up from her throat, and she tightened the grip of her right hand. Then, with a surge of energy she had thought lost, she threw her left arm toward Ann like a swimmer starting a race.

And just as their fingers touched, she saw Dennis's face looming over Ann's shoulder, a face that glowed with its own light, a face that grinned at her in secret knowledge of what she had intended, and in delighted retribution at the result.

Her hand slipped away from Ann's.

"Reach!" Ann said. "You can do it, you can!"

But she could not. The strength was gone, driven away by the look on Dennis's face, and she hung there by one arm, by a grip slowly weakening. It was all she could do to hold on long enough to get the words out

"Dennis . . . you bastard . . .” She took a deep breath and screamed as she fell.

"You royal bastard!"

~ * ~

Ted and Amy Lander watched her fall. They had watched everything from the moment Robin's foot had come through the plaster, pouring a fiery light from the hole above. They had seen Robin slide through the ever-widening hole, had seen Ann reaching down for her, had seen Robin make one last effort to reach her would-be rescuer, had seen her fall.

They saw her twist in the air, heard her scream of anger and anguish, saw her land in the first row of seats, heard her spine break and her neck snap as she struck the hard metal backs of the seats. She died before they were by her side.

Ted looked upward to where the light blazed down as though from some attic of hell. He could not see the other person. "Are you all right?" he called.

"Yes," came a weak voice from overhead. "Yes . . .”

"Dennis?" Ted called, then louder, "Dennis!" He turned to Amy, who was crying, her hand clasped over her mouth. "He went to the office, can you find the office?"

Ted asked her. She only shook her head. "Hello? Anyone?" Ted cried, and was immeasurably relieved to see someone he took to be a janitor come down the steps from the stage.

"Sweet Jesus," Abe Kipp muttered. "Oh my God . . . Mrs. Hamilton."

"Go to the office," Ted said. "Get Dennis. And an ambulance. Hurry up, man!" Abe nodded, then ran up the aisle toward the lobby.

~ * ~

Dennis knew that something was wrong as soon as he saw Abe Kipp's face. It was the same gray, ashen color that it had been when Harry Ruhl had died. "Mrs. Hamilton," Abe blurted out. "There's an accident."

Dennis heard the intake of breath from Donna Franklin, saw John Steinberg's knuckles whiten. The office seemed ominously still. "Is she dead?" he asked.

Abe swallowed and nodded. "Yes sir. I think so."

Later, Dennis did not remember walking down the stairs and into the auditorium. He only dimly remembered weeping, lifting Robin's broken body off the seats with Ted Lander's help, laying her gently down on the thickly carpeted aisle, sitting there next to her. As he sat and waited for more people to come, he noticed a piece of jewelry under a chair. He picked it up, saw that it was a pin, and thought that it seemed somehow familiar. He held it and sat by Robin's side until a doctor came and gave him an injection of something. He didn't even feel the needle enter his skin. The sedative made him sleepy, but he would not let himself sleep, and he would not leave Robin's side. He rode to the hospital in the ambulance with her. When they arrived, they gave him another injection, and this time, try as he would to remain awake, his eyes closed and he slept without dreaming.

He awoke in darkness, the feel of an unfamiliar bed and stiff sheets beneath him. Only semi-conscious, he made his way to the line of light that marked the bottom of a door, pushed it open, and pressed his eyes closed against the fluorescent glare of a hospital corridor. He realized that he was dressed only in his underwear, then remembered why he was there — that Robin was dead, and he had most likely been in shock.

Dennis stumbled back into the room and let the door drift shut behind him. As the light left him, he thought of the light that had left his life, thought of Robin. He did not think of her anger, of her jealousy. He remembered only her goodness, her kindness, the help she had been to him, the joy she had brought, and he wept again, but not in shock. He wept from her loss and for her pain.

When he finished, he found the light switch and flipped it on, got dressed, and left the room. A nurse at her station looked at him wide-eyed. When he said, "I'm Dennis Hamilton. I'm all right now. Where is my wife?" her eyes got even wider.

"Just . . . wait here a minute," she said, and picked up a telephone.

Dennis did not wait to learn who she was calling. He walked down the corridor until he found an elevator, rode to the ground floor, and went outside, where he confirmed that he was indeed in the Kirkland Medical Center, a slab of steel and glass that sat on the site of David Kirk's long dried up spring. It was a mile from the heart of Kirkland, and he decided to walk. Along with inconsolable grief, he felt an overwhelming desire for activity, to shake off the effect of the sedative, to lessen his sorrow by moving.

He was exhausted before he had walked two hundred yards. At a phone booth on a corner he dialed Sid's number, and asked him to come and pick him up. Sid was there in ten minutes.

"How did it happen, Sid?" Dennis asked him in a thick voice.

"She fell off the catwalk when the light went on," said Sid, his eyes on the road.

"What was she doing up there?"

"Showing Ann the star set-up."

“. . . Ann? She and Ann were up there together?"

Sid nodded. "Ann was still up there when Munro and the police went up to look around. She was lying down, holding on to the catwalk for dear life. They finally talked her into coming down. She's all right now. Terri took her home." He sighed, and his voice grew softer. "Ted and Amy saw the whole thing. Robin slipped through, Ann tried to save her, but . . . the ceiling just fell away beneath her, section of wire came apart, and . . . I'm sorry, Dennis. She was a wonderful girl."

They rode in silence until Sid drove the car down the ramp and into the garage beneath the theatre. When the motor stopped, Dennis said, "How did the light come on?"

"Nobody knows. That's the thing of it. Nobody knows."

~ * ~

Goddammit, somebody knew, thought Dan Munro savagely. It was after two o'clock in the morning and still he could not sleep. He prowled around his basement rec room like a caged tiger, bound by the limits of his imagination. There had to be an answer somewhere, had to be a pattern. There had been just too damn many "accidents" to be coincidental — first the Werton kid, then Harry Ruhl carving himself open, and now Hamilton's wife taking a high dive.

He picked up the clipboard on which he had scrawled his notes. At the time that hot light had gone on, everybody had an alibi except for two people — Dennis Hamilton and Ann Deems. Hamilton because he was supposedly on his way to the offices to get some paperwork to show the Landers, and Ann Deems because the only other person she was with was now dead. Besides, she couldn't have turned on the light from the front of the ceiling. The only switch was in the projection booth. Even assuming that there was some collusion between Hamilton and Ann Deems, there seemed to be no way that he could have left the Landers, gotten up to the booth, turned on the light at just the right time, and then scurried back down to the offices to be there at the time Donna Franklin and John Steinberg said he was.

Besides, the Landers had sworn that the Deems woman had tried to save Mrs. Hamilton. "She was leaning over so far she almost fell herself," Ted Lander had said, and his semi-hysterical little wife had backed him up.

But what bothered Munro most was the pin that they removed from Hamilton's hand when they took him to the hospital. Both Steinberg and Donna Franklin had said they saw him pick it up near Robin Hamilton's body. Ann Deems had identified it as hers, but said that she had lost it the day before, and had no idea how it had gotten where Hamilton had found it.

Neither did Munro, and that fact was driving him crazy.

He looked at his list of possibilities again. Maybe Ann Deems had pushed Robin Hamilton, then changed her mind and tried to save her. But then who had turned the light on, and why? The sudden blaze of light would have blinded Ann Deems as well as Mrs. Hamilton. Then maybe a third person was up there, turned on the light and pushed the victim? Physically impossible. Besides, everyone except Hamilton had a firm alibi.

It always came back to Hamilton, though he could have had nothing to do with it and keep on the time schedule that had been established. Ted Landers said that less than a minute had passed between the time Hamilton left them and when Robin Hamilton shot through the ceiling. Munro himself had tried sprinting from the inner lobby up the flights of stairs to the projection booth, and his best time had been two minutes.

But if Dennis Hamilton had had nothing to do with it, then why had Robin Hamilton called her husband's name before she fell? A cry for help? Maybe. But both the Landers and Ann Deems said that she had cried out something else, though none of them had been able to make out the words.

What the hell had she said? And where had the pin come from? Munro was convinced that if he knew the answer to those two questions, he'd feel a lot less stupid than he did.

What the hell, he wondered for the hundredth time that long, cold night, had she said?

~ * ~

You royal bastard!

Dennis shuddered into wakefulness as the cry reverberated within his mind. He sat up in the darkness, hearing its echoes die away. Robin's voice. Had he been dreaming? The words had seemed so real.

He turned on the bedside lamp. The space beside him was empty, and with a terrible ache he realized that it would remain so. Robin was dead, and he was filled with grief.

But why had he heard her voice?

The glowing numerals of the clock read 3:17 A.M. He had been sleeping for only an hour. When Sid had helped him onto the bed, it had seemed to embrace him, drown him in its softness, and he fell asleep so quickly he did not remember Sid leaving the room.

Dennis stood up, slipped on a dressing gown, and walked down the hall into the living room, where Sid, snoring softly, was lying on the larger of the two couches. Dennis tiptoed past him and went out the entrance to the suite, then made his way to the balcony level of the theatre.

The curtain was raised, and the auditorium was dimly lit by the work lights backstage. Dennis walked down the stairs to the first row of the loge and sat down. Then, finally, he looked toward the ceiling. A large hole gaped overhead, as though God's wrath had ripped the sky apart. Fragments of plaster clung to dangling wire, the same wire, Dennis thought, that Robin had clung to, trying to keep from falling, falling . . .

He looked down. Although the fallen plaster had been cleared away, two of the chairs in the first row were broken, their backs shattered, their seats lolling like exhausted tongues. Something moved then, and Dennis stiffened, felt ice freeze his spine.

"Robin?" he whispered. "Robin?"

The movement came again, and he saw now that it was the cat, insinuating herself around the legs of the broken chairs, sniffing at something on the floor, looking up at him, sniffing again, taking a tentative lick at the stained plush of the seats, then licking a paw, washing her ear, sniffing still again.

He turned his head away, looked back toward the ceiling, and heard, very dimly, Robin's voice —

You royal bastard!

For an instant he thought he could see her falling, turning in the air, seeing it as it must have been.

But he was not seeing it from where he sat. Instead he was seeing it as if from above, seeing her falling back and away from him, growing smaller and smaller, her face glaring venomously at him until she hit the chair and the head snapped back, out of his view.

Seeing the body from high above, looking over . . .

Over Ann's shoulder.

No! He was not there! He had not seen, had not heard her as she cried out her last final accusation. But how did he know? How could he see?

How could he hear?

You royal bastard!

He leaped to his feet, ran up the steps, then down the ramp to the mezzanine lobby, where he stood, clamping his fingers onto the cold brass of the railing overlooking the main lobby, fixing his eyes upon the complexities of the painted and bas-relief ceiling, the mythical entities frolicking above, the chariots and cherubim. He stood, trying to recall the sound of intermission audiences, the chattering, the laughter, the sound of ice rattling in plastic glasses, trying to banish that final cry of denunciation —

You royal bastard . . .

~ * ~

The next few days were a confused and confusing assemblage of meetings and interviews with funeral directors, Chief Munro, and, thankfully, John Steinberg, without whom Dennis would have been lost. He handled everything efficiently and with a minimum of emotion, although he was teary-eyed at their first meeting. He was also instrumental in keeping away the vultures of the tabloid press, going so far as to hire a team of security guards to make sure Robin's funeral service was not infiltrated.

The funeral was held in Kirkland, as both Robin's parents were dead, and Dennis could not bear the thought of her ashes being interred in her parents' plot in Ohio. At least in Kirkland he could visit the columbarium at Springside Memorial Park, and thought that he would do so often. He had loved Robin deeply. That she was the only woman he had never cheated on was, to him, proof of that.

After the service, the theatre seemed unbearably empty. His friends and employees did what they could to cheer him, but after a few days he realized that he could not keep his mind on Craddock, and would have to get away from Kirkland for a time, and decided to visit his parents in Florida. They had not been to Robin's funeral service, nor had Dennis expected them to come, as both of them were confined to wheelchairs. Dennis had bought a house for them on the gulf in Fort Myers, and paid for full time nursing care. So they lived, surrounded by the things they loved, independent and as happy as could be expected, considering their age and health.

Dennis, as usual, found the company of his father neither comforting nor comfortable, but he had long talks with his mother on the deck overlooking the gulf, and they helped clear his mind. He also walked on the beach alone, thinking through the circumstances of Robin's death. Knowing Robin's dislike and jealousy of Ann, it seemed to him inconceivable that she would have taken Ann into the ceiling just for the sake of kindness. Also the presence of the pin led him to believe that Robin may have lured Ann into the ceiling to . . .

No. He could barely admit the thought to his mind, let alone voice his suspicions to anyone else. He had loved Robin, and that would not change, whatever her motive for taking Ann into the ceiling. Whatever she had done, he, in a way, had forced her to. She had known of his attraction to Ann Deems, and, knowing it, she could not live with him as long as it was a part of him. But if there were no more Ann Deems . . .

The thought came, and he pushed it back. He could not believe that this gentle girl whom he had loved for her kindness and thoughtfulness could have planned such a thing. It was not true. It was not.

But whether it was or wasn't was moot. Robin was dead, and Dennis felt guilt over her death, not only because he suspected he was the cause of the circumstances that led to it, but also because his feelings for Ann had not changed. In fact, he felt more deeply toward her than ever, and had been staying away from her on purpose.

He was afraid that he had snubbed her at the funeral, though it had not been his intention to do so. It was simply that he was not yet ready to be unfaithful to Robin's memory, and had a great fear that, if he looked too closely or for too long a time at Ann, people would read in his face what he felt in his heart. An actor, he was used to wearing his emotions, or what passed for them, on the outside.

After two weeks in Florida, he felt revitalized, and ready to return to Kirkland and the Venetian Theatre. Whatever awaited him there, professionally or emotionally, he could now deal with. The change of scene had done him good, and he felt better than he had in months. It seemed, in a way, almost unnatural.

~ * ~

When Dennis arrived at the tiny Kirkland Airport, after a commuter flight that jostled him all the way from Baltimore, he did not call Sid Harper to come and pick him up. Instead he took a taxi and had it drop him off in front of the Venetian Theatre's blank marquee. He paid the driver, stood for a moment in the cold, and then, his flight bag over his shoulder, began to walk around the massive complex that housed the theatre and his home.

His thoughts were full of Robin. He recalled the first time they visited the theatre together, the excitement on her face, his realization, mirrored in her eyes, that this was the perfect home for the venture that had been their dream for several years. He remembered their moving in, their taking possession of the place, nights spent together in their suite, and most recently her reading pages from Craddock to him, singing the songs at the piano, smiling, laughing, loving and caring for him.

And now that was over, over in the seconds of time it had taken her to fall through the air and break her body on the floor of the theatre, their theatre.

Dennis sighed and turned into the outdoor plaza. In the cold and the night, he sat on one of the stone benches and looked up at the dark windows of his suite. In the glow of the street light he could see the balcony and the large French doors that led inside, imagined Robin there, waiting for him as she should have been, as she would have been if all this had never happened, if he had not been weak and filled with old love.

Then, just as his impossible memory of her cry of accusation had frozen him days before, so did he feel the chill of more than the freezing weather as he saw something move behind the glass above. There was only the slightest hint of motion, and he thought for an instant that it might have been the reflection of blowing branches, but realized that there was no wind. The air was dead.

Dennis stood up and moved back out of the street light's gleam. Now he could see that a light shone dimly behind the glass doors. He watched, and in another minute he saw the movement again. Someone was slowly pacing in front of the doors to the balcony. His first impression that it was Robin's spirit was, he saw now, erroneous. The figure was far larger than Robin's petite frame. It looked tantalizingly familiar, but from just the bits of motion he could glimpse he knew that it was not Sid, nor John Steinberg, nor anyone who lived in the Venetian Theatre building. Then who? Someone he knew, he was certain of that. Someone he knew.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he started quickly toward the nearest entrance for which he had a key, unlocked it, and entered. It took several minutes for him to wend his way through the corridors and up the stairways, but soon he stood outside the door of his suite, listening. He could hear nothing inside, so he took a deep breath, fit his key into the lock, and pushed open the door.

The suite was not altogether dark. A ginger jar light was turned to its lowest illumination, bathing the room in a fifteen watt glow. Dennis listened again, and let the door close softly behind him. "Hello?" he said, but there was no answer.

Trembling slightly, he pressed the light switch on the wall, and the room grew bright. There was no one there. Warily, he went from room to room, opening doors, turning on lights, even looking into closets, but the suite was empty save for himself.

He went back to the front door then, and locked and double locked it. Then he called Sid.

"Dennis, Jesus, you should've let me know you were coming back early. How'd you get here?"

"Took a cab. Listen, Sid. Was anyone in here tonight?"

"In here? What, your suite?"

"Yes. I thought I saw someone from the street."

"Not a soul, Dennis. I was in a couple of hours ago to straighten things up.”

“Did you leave a light on?"

"Yeah, one of the lamps in the living room, why?"

"Nothing. I'm just a little jumpy, I guess."

There was a pause. Then Sid asked, "You need someone to talk to?”

“No, I'll be all right. I'm tired. Just want to take a bath and go to bed."

"You have a good trip?" The words Did it help? were unspoken but understood.

"It was fine. It helped a lot."

"Good. That's good. Look, if you want anything, just call."

"Thanks, Sid. You're a good friend. Goodnight."

Dennis hung up, turned off the lights in the living room so that just the ginger jar glowed weakly, then went into his bedroom. Not bothering to unpack, he stripped off his clothes and took a near scalding bath.

He was toweling himself dry when he heard it. The sound of someone clearing his throat. A familiar sound, and Dennis knew unequivocally that whoever was in the suite was known to him. He took his robe from the hook, slipped it on, and looked around for something he could use as a weapon. The only thing at hand was a heavy antique wood hand mirror on Robin's vanity. He hefted it like a club, praying that he would not have to use it, and opened the bathroom door.

He prayed too that it would not be Robin he would see, Robin staring at him with dead and accusing eyes. The thought made him shiver as he moved down the hall, coming closer to where he could see into the living room, see in the dim light who was there waiting for him.

Then he rounded the corner, and saw.

It wasn't Robin.

~ * ~

(The scene is the living room of Dennis Hamilton's suite. It is dimly lit by a single lamp. DENNIS HAMILTON stands stage right at the entrance to the hall. Beside the portrait of Dennis as the Emperor stands THE EMPEROR, dressed exactly as in the portrait. He smiles at Dennis.

THE EMPEROR

Hello, Dennis. You don't know how long I've been waiting to meet you.

(The mirror falls from Dennis's hand and shatters. They stand, looking at one another.)

CURTAIN.

ACT II : CREATOR

A man's soul was his own enclosed garden, nothing could obtain admittance there without his invitation and permission.

— "Naboth's Vineyard," E. F. Benson

Scene 1

(DENNIS and THE EMPEROR are in the exact positions that ended Act I. There is a long pause.)

DENNIS

(In a voice filled with fear and awe) Who are you?

THE EMPEROR

(Smiles) Who do you think I am?

DENNIS

You're not me.

THE EMPEROR

I'm part of you. I'm something you created — out of yourself.

DENNIS

This isn't real. I'm imagining it. You don't exist. (He moves toward the Emperor, a hand extended gingerly)

THE EMPEROR

You won't prove it that way. I have no . . . physical existence, I admit that. (He reaches out a hand to touch that of Dennis. Their hands pass through each other, occupying the same space.) Do you feel anything?

DENNIS

No . . . yes, something . . . cold.

THE EMPEROR

Sad, isn't it? Something so full of hot life as myself, and I can only be felt as cold.

DENNIS

What . . . are you?

THE EMPEROR

Your creation. Your child, born of your performance. Born of its strength and its reality.

DENNIS

My creation? How . . . how could that happen?

THE EMPEROR

You created the Emperor, Dennis. On stage. Year after year, night after night, the strength of your performance formed me. You were never, as you have said to that woman who thinks she teaches acting, an interpreter. You were always a creator.

DENNIS

(Confused and upset) I don't see . . . I still don't see how such a thing . . . how you could come to be. Outside of my mind. That's where you belong — in my mind, nowhere else!

THE EMPEROR

Perhaps I'm the first of my kind. A . . . what shall I say? A histrion, perhaps?

DENNIS

But how?

THE EMPEROR

You became another person so many times, and so effectively, that that person became an independent entity. Me. (He smiles. There is no trace of menace in it)

DENNIS

That can't happen — there's no way that can happen. It would take more than a . . . a performance to bring something like . . . like you to life.

THE EMPEROR

Oh, of course. Of course it took more. Do you have any idea of the power that lives in a theatre? Any conception of the emotions remaining after years and years of people viewing plays, films, becoming involved with what they see on that stage or screen?

DENNIS

(Slowly understanding) Catharsis.

THE EMPEROR

Exactly! Catharsis! And it remains where it is shed, remains as what one might call energy. And the result? Cogito, ergo sum!

~ * ~

I have gone insane, Dennis Hamilton thought, looking at the person, the creature, the ghost, the thing standing near him, there in his living room.

It was there. He saw it, he heard it, he knew he was not dreaming. He may have created it, yes, but if so, he had created it only in his mind. His fingers had slipped right through those of the thing. Wasn't that proof that it was not real?

Wasn't that proof, he thought in a miserable panic, that he was crazy?

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

(Shaking his head sadly) You don't believe me. You think I'm nothing but an hallucination.

DENNIS

(Firmly) Yes. Yes, that's right.

THE EMPEROR

I can prove I'm not.

DENNIS

How?

THE EMPEROR

If I'm your hallucination, I can only know what you know. Isn't that true?

DENNIS

Yes. That seems . . . logical. If any of this is logical.

THE EMPEROR

It is. Supremely. (He smiles) Royally. I know the answers.

DENNIS

What answers?

THE EMPEROR

I know why Robin died. And Tommy Werton. I'm sad to say I know why Tommy died too.

DENNIS

(His hands tremble) Why? Why Robin?

THE EMPEROR

(His face is wreathed with deep sadness) She wanted to kill Ann. (Dennis's eyes squeeze shut. He clasps his hands over his ears.) I know. I know, it's difficult to believe. But I can see into hearts. I can see what even the finest actors, those scholars of human emotion, cannot. Robin hated Ann Deems. She took her up among the stars to kill her. She had found a pin that belonged to Ann, a pin that you had given her many years ago. She intended to drop it as Ann fell through the ceiling, and then tell people that it had come off her blouse and she had stepped down after it, not realizing the danger. But the light went on. An unforeseen accident. And Robin fell instead of her intended victim.

DENNIS

(Whispering) No . . . oh dear God, no . . .

THE EMPEROR

If it will comfort you to know, she did it for love of you. (An inarticulate cry comes from Dennis.) She loved you very much.

DENNIS

(After a moment his sobs subside.) And Tommy . . . what about Tommy?

THE EMPEROR

That, I fear, was partially my fault. It was me he saw backstage. I unintentionally distracted him. He saw me, thought I was you.

DENNIS

Did you . . . did you call him onto the stage?

THE EMPEROR

I did, Dennis, yes. I saw that things were wrong, and I wanted only to help. I had no idea that the fire curtain would fall.

DENNIS

You didn't?

THE EMPEROR

(Spreading his fingers) Could I have pulled the pin? (He attempts to pick up one of the Tony Awards, but his hand passes through it.) An accident. A tragic accident.

DENNIS

Harry . . .

THE EMPEROR

Harry Ruhl? He was disturbed, Dennis. A simple and disturbed young man. It was terrible, but it was self-inflicted.

DENNIS

Do you know everything?

THE EMPEROR

Only what takes place in . . . our empire. Perhaps I should say your empire. For it is yours, and since you created me I am part of it. You are my creator, therefore my god. I look to you for my well-being, my strength.

~ * ~

Dear God, what is this thing? Dennis wondered. It spoke of Harry's and Robin's and Tommy's deaths with only the outward semblance of compassion. Dennis had been an actor long enough to know when someone — or something — was dissembling, and this creature was doing just that. It seemed to Dennis that the thing had no conception of sympathy or the more tender human emotions. Dennis saw pride in abundance, but little else. Could it be that it was not in the creature's nature to feel the sympathetic emotions? Could it be that self-centered?

Still, when it spoke of him as its creator, its god, Dennis heard affection there and something more. Worship, perhaps? It was blasphemous, but Dennis felt it was sincere.

~ * ~

DENNIS

I don't know . . . I don't know what to say. (He gives a helpless laugh) I don't even know what to think. Except that I'm crazy.

THE EMPEROR

You are not insane. I am very real.

DENNIS

And if you're real, then what? What happens now? What do you do? What do I do with you?

THE EMPEROR

Shelter me. Be my god. I must remain here. I can go nowhere else. What nourishes me is here. You are here.

DENNIS

Can . . . other people see you?

THE EMPEROR

They should not. Not yet. They would not understand.

DENNIS

May I tell people?

THE EMPEROR

(He shrugs) Would they believe you?

DENNIS

But who are you? Who? Are you me?

THE EMPEROR

No. I am the Emperor. I am the character that you created, with all the character's emotions that you gave me.

DENNIS

That I gave you . . . (Startled, suddenly realizing) You said what nourishes you is here. Do you mean the theatre? The catharsis? Or me?

THE EMPEROR

(A pause) Both.

DENNIS

You take your strength from me?

THE EMPEROR

And why should I not take strength from my creator? You gave me life, so should I not draw my survival from you as well?

DENNIS

Strength . . . taking my strength?

(THE EMPEROR begins to fade away, his voice fading with him.)

THE EMPEROR

Farewell, my friend. We shall be together again.

DENNIS

Wait, wait!

THE EMPEROR

I cannot. I cannot. I am drawn away . . .

(THE EMPEROR is gone.)

~ * ~

Dennis stood for a long time listening, but he saw nothing more, heard no more words. When he regained the power of motion, a few steps brought him to the spot where the apparition, if such it was, had been standing.

There was nothing there. No trace of cold, no puddle of ectoplasm, no indentations in the thick pile carpet from ghostly feet.

"What in God's name. . .” Dennis said softly. Had something been there? Or had he been hallucinating? The thing had told him nothing that could not have come out of his own mind — the explanations of the deaths had all occurred to him. He supposed that even Robin's purported plot with the pin had crossed his mind. Still, it had seemed so damned real.

No. Not seemed. It was real. He was sure of it. He had never before had hallucinations, and his body was as drug free as anyone's could be. What he had seen he had seen, and its implications were staggering.

He had always thought that the Emperor had, in a strange way, a life of his own. Dennis had inhabited the character more than he had acted it, creating it like a tailor creates a suit of clothes that he plans to wear for a long time, building it up carefully, knowing that it would have to last.

But in the last year of the Emperor's reign on the stage, it had been as though the suit was wearing the tailor, and after some performances, Dennis, instead of feeling triumphant as he always had before, felt drained, as though more than energy had been taken from him, and something other than the audience was receiving the strength of his performance.

It was just as the Emperor had said — drawing life, and drawing sustenance. Did that explain, he wondered, why he had felt this tremendously diminishing change in his personality? Or was this Emperor-thing merely a "creation" of his weary mind to try and rationalize (if however irrational) the unexplained change in his temperament?

He didn't know. The only thing he was sure of was that he had seen what he had seen, and that if he did not talk to someone about it, and soon, he might damn well go mad, if he wasn't already.

Sid was still awake, and answered the door quickly at Dennis's knock. He was watching an old Bogart movie on video with Donna Franklin. Dennis suspected that he had interrupted more than just the movie, but Sid graciously assured him that he would be glad to talk to him, gave Donna a kiss, and accompanied Dennis to his suite, where Dennis told him, in as much detail as he could recall, to whom he had spoken and what was said.

When he finished, Sid got up, went to the bar, poured two cognacs, and brought them back to the couch where they sat. "Go ahead, drink it." He did as Sid said. The warmth of the liquor and his friend's presence were reassuring.

"So what do you think?" he asked Sid.

Sid took a deep breath and another sip of his drink before he spoke. "I think it's a projection."

Dennis didn't understand. "What, you mean a trick?"

"No. A psychic projection maybe. A projection of guilt."

"Guilt. For what?"

"For Robin. And maybe even for Tommy and Harry Ruhl, I don't know. We've all been through a helluva lot, Dennis."

"Then you don't believe me."

"I do. I believe that you saw what you say you saw."

"But you don't believe it was real. You think I imagined it."

"I think . . . it was real to you."

Dennis shot to his feet and started to pace. "Oh, that's bullshit, Sid, and you know it. If you think I'm imagining things, tell me, for God's sake. Don't patronize me.”

Sid nodded. "All right then. I think you're imagining things. But I can understand why. And I think it'll pass. You may never see this . . . this guy again.”

“He wasn't a guy, Sid. He was the Emperor."

"Aw, Dennis —"

"Aw, hell! So what do you think I ought to do, Sid? See a shrink?”

“I don't think it would hurt."

"I've been that route, and that was as much bullshit as your psychic projections. I saw this thing. I saw it right there in front of me."

"But you didn't touch it."

"I couldn't! It wasn't . . . solid."

"It wasn't real then."

"Christ, Sid, you can't touch love or hate, but that doesn't mean they're not real, does it?"

Sid sat looking down into his drink as though there were an answer there. "No. I guess it doesn't." He looked up and sighed. "Dennis, maybe it is real, I don't know. But whatever it is, it'll go away if you want it to. It'll go away in time."

But do I want it to? Dennis was surprised at the thought. The gravity of it made him calm again. "All right. All right, I'm sorry I lost my temper. Look, you go back to Donna, huh? I'll be okay. I just had to talk about it to someone. Maybe you're right, maybe it's just . . . things. It's been hard."

"I know. You know how I felt about Robin."

Dennis nodded and showed Sid to the door, where he gave him a hug, smiled, and said goodnight.

Alone, Dennis walked back into the bedroom, took off his robe, and got into bed. It seemed terribly large, terribly empty, and he wondered about what Sid had said. He didn't want to believe it, but maybe his friend was right. Maybe, he thought as he lay in the darkness, it was a projection, all in his mind, a phantom born of the guilt he felt about Robin's death. True, he had done nothing specific to cause it, but he couldn't stop thinking that if he had loved her more, paid more attention to her and her concerns and her not altogether unfounded jealousy, she would still be alive.

And as drowsiness overtook him, he thought again that he should have loved her more. If there was a next time, he would love completely and unselfishly. No next time with Robin, no, it was too late now, but with someone else . . .

With Ann . . .

"Ann . . .” On the edge of sleep he breathed her name, and knew, in an instant of realization that shocked him into full wakefulness, that someone else was there to hear that softest whisper.

He sat up in the darkness, listening for a breath not his own, listening, but hearing nothing. He put his head back on the pillow, and in a few minutes was asleep.

~ * ~

(The scene is the living room. THE EMPEROR stands by his portrait, smiling, his head cocked as if listening to the deep breathing of DENNIS coming from the bedroom. He crosses to the bar, grasps the bottle of cognac with his right hand, a glass with his left, and pours. There is an audible sound as he replaces the bottle. Then he raises the glass to his lips and drinks from it. The cognac disappears. And, in another moment, so does THE EMPEROR.)

Scene 2

It had been, Ann Deems thought, a hell of a day so far. She was now on the phone for a third time with a representative of Actors' Equity, discussing accommodation arrangements that had already been settled, or at least so she thought. Apparently the Equity rep didn't.

"According to the producers' agreement, to which you people are a signatory," the man droned on, "there are to be toilet facilities in every room."

"But we got a concession for that," Ann repeated, "as long as the performers agree. There are sinks, but no showers or toilets. Those are in common bathrooms that serve every six rooms."

"I have no record of that concession."

"Well, I've got a copy right here. I can read it to you if you like."

"Read it or not, I've got to have it on paper. Hearing it over the phone doesn't do a thing."

"But you were sent two copies."

"Well, they're not here."

"Well then you must have lost them. Now the best I can do is to fax you copies.”

“Oh, we don't need them that quickly."

Jesus, Ann thought. Then what was all this goddamned fuss about? Just as she was about to lose her temper and unleash an anti-bureaucratic tirade upon this clown who was frittering away her morning, Dennis Hamilton walked in.

She had not seen him since the funeral, when he had said nothing to her, only nodded and looked away. She had expected no more. He had gone off to Florida immediately afterward, and, although she had heard John Steinberg tell Donna that he had returned the previous night, had not expected to see him so quickly.

She had also not expected to see him looking as apparently robust as he did. The weeks in Florida seemed to have done him good. His face was tanned, and he appeared to have gained some weight. He was smiling, although the longer she studied him the more she felt that there was something cautious about him. No, she thought. Cautious wasn't the word. Haunted. And hunted.

"Look," she said into the phone, paying no attention to the officious jabbering on the other end, "I'll send you those copies and we can go from there. Goodbye." She hung up without waiting for a response.

"Don't tell me," Dennis said. "Equity."

She nodded. "Even the arts have their share of bureaucracy."

"It'll all get sorted out in the end." His face sobered. "I wanted to thank you," he said.

She looked at him, puzzled.

"For trying to . . . save Robin," he explained. "It was very dangerous. You were very brave. You could have fallen yourself."

"I just . . . tried to reach her, that's all. I'm only sorry I couldn't."

"Well, I just want you to know that I appreciated the attempt." Dennis sighed and sat down in the metal folding chair next to Ann's desk. "I know there's been a terrible amount of tragedy here. And I know that it must have some effect on everyone. Now I don't know if you've had any thoughts about leaving — because of everything that's happened, I mean . . .”

She felt chilled. What was he saying? Was he about to let her go? Ask her to leave?

". . . but I hope you won't." The words were like a caress. "I need you here, Ann. More than ever now, I need everyone here. It's going to be harder than ever without Robin. She did so much — for me and for the project. She'll be difficult to replace." He looked up guiltily. "She worked so hard on the project."

"I know," Ann said. "I know what you mean."

He smiled again. "You're a bright spot around here, Ann. And if there's anything we need right now, it's bright spots. Will you stay?"

"Sure." She wondered if she should say the words, then cast discretion away and did. "You'll have a tough time getting rid of me."

She thought he read into them what she wanted him to. He looked at her for a long time, then nodded. "I hope so."

~ * ~

Another three weeks went by before Dennis came into her office again. During that time they only talked on the phone or said hello to each other as they passed in the hall. The time was filled with work, and everyone from Dennis to Abe Kipp immersed themselves in it, working hard and keeping late hours, as if the business would keep tragic memories and thoughts at bay. Dennis and John Steinberg spent one of those weeks in New York, auditioning performers for Craddock, and on the first day he returned, he came into Ann's office just before lunch time. They chatted for a while about the auditions, he told her that they had cast the entire show except for the male lead, Frank Craddock, and then walked over to her window and looked out of it.

"Ann, I don't want this to sound unfeeling or insensitive," he said slowly, as if feeling his way, "but I think you know how I feel about you. You know that it was only because of Robin that I didn't say more than I did." He sighed and turned to face her. "This is all by way of asking you to have dinner with me tonight. Dinner. Nothing more, except for talk. Despite all the hustle and bustle that's been going on around here, I feel very lonely right now. I'd like your company."

She began to speak, but he held up a hand. "Again, if you don't want to, just say no. It'll make no difference in your work here."

She laughed. "When have I ever been able to say no to you?"

"You did once," he said without a smile.

"Yes. I know. And that was a mistake."

"Then don't make it twice."

They looked at each other for a long time. Then Ann said, "I'll have to go home and change."

"You look fine."

"No I don't. I look like a production assistant."

He laughed. "All right, go home and change if you want to. But this time I'll pick you up at your house."

Immediately the thought of Terri leapt into her mind. "Oh no, Dennis, you don't have to —"

"I'm quite capable of driving myself, and I asked you, not the other way around. I'll pick you up and take you home and not another word about it, please."

It was stupid to be concerned about it, she thought. Terri would have to know anyway. There was no way to keep it a secret. And why would she have to? There was nothing wrong with having dinner with Dennis. They had done so before, and the evening had ended innocently enough.

When she told Terri over lunch that she was having dinner with Dennis that evening, the girl made a face that was half a sneer, half a grimace of anger. "Not wasting any time, are you?"

"That's a crude thing to say."

"It's a crude thing to do, in my opinion."

"I don't recall asking for your opinion."

They finished their respective lunches in silence.

~ * ~

"What do you think of Terri Deems?"

"I try not to think of her at all." Curtis Wynn put his shoulder to a flat and shoved it into its bin, then turned to accept the mid-afternoon Coke that Evan Hamilton handed him. In the few weeks they had been working together, Evan felt that he had developed a certain camaraderie with Curt. The older man was still taciturn, but talked more than he had when Evan had started. He thought that was due in part to Curt's pleasant surprise over Evan's expertise at backstage work.

"What, you don't think she's cute?" Evan asked.

"Sure, she's cute. I just don't want to get involved with her."

"Why not?"

Curtis gave Evan a sidelong look. "First of all, I'm indifferent to that girl. In fact, I think she could be kind of a pain in the ass, given half a chance. The second reason is that I have no idea of what's cooking between her mother and Dennis."

The muscles of Evan's face went taut. "What do you mean?"

"Like I said, I have no idea. I don't know. But you asked me, I told you. Let's let it go at that."

"Ann and my father?"

"I've already said enough, okay? It's none of my business, but I wouldn't do anything until I found out which way the wind was blowing."

Evan could feel his cheeks turning red. The thought of Ann and Dennis together infuriated him. Despite the loose moral climate of his parents' world, the values he had learned were those of private schools and the armed services — old style discipline and respectability. After the initial shock of her age, he had treasured Robin as a stepmother, because he found very quickly that she had shared those values. And now to learn that Dennis had probably been cheating on her right under her nose was more than he could bear. The fact too that she was Terri's mother added fuel to the fire, but he consciously ignored that aspect as he whirled around and headed toward the steps of the stage.

"Evan!" Curt called after him. "Where the hell are you going?"

He didn't answer, but ran up the aisle, through the lobby, and to the flight of stairs that led to the second floor. He was too impatient to wait for the elevator. He ran down the hall until he was in front of the door of Dennis's suite. Ignoring the doorbell, he hammered on the oak panels.

In a moment, Dennis opened the door. He looked startled by the pounding, then confused to find his son there, so obviously upset. "Evan, what is it? . . .“

“It's Robin, that's what it is — Robin, and the way you treated her!”

“What —"

"Ann Deems, huh? And I thought those tears at the funeral were real. God, what a terrific actor you are!" Dennis's face went white, and Evan knew then that Curt's suspicions were true. Having drawn blood, he went in for the kill. "What the hell is wrong with you? All the time I was growing up, you were grabbing every —"

"Be quiet," Dennis said. "Come in here. Come in and we can talk."

Seething with what he felt to be righteous indignation, Evan glared at his father, then pushed the door open and entered the suite, while Dennis gently closed the door behind them. "What do you want to talk about?" Evan went on. "You want to rationalize cheating on her?"

"I didn't cheat on her," Dennis said. "I never cheated on Robin."

"Why should she be any different from your other wives and lovers?"

"You know damn well I only had one wife before Robin — your mother. And yes, I did cheat on her. And she cheated on me too. You read that trashy biography of her, you know the stories. Why do you think I didn't sue? I couldn't. Everything they said was true."

The accusation toward his mother sobered Evan somewhat. "You never told me that before. But even so, so what? So fucking what? Why should I believe you about Ann Deems?"

"I was faithful to Robin."

"Sure. Sure you were. But if you weren't, you're the lowest piece of slime that ever walked a stage."

"Don't you speak to me like that."

"Why? What'll you do, fire me? The tabloids'll eat that up, won't they?"

"Get out, Evan." His father sounded terribly weary, and for a moment Evan almost pitied him. He walked to the door.

"You know, Dad, there was one lesson you taught me — not right out, but by example, and I'll never forget it. Seeing you taught me never to think with my dick."

He turned his back on his father, opened the door, and stepped into the hall. He didn't close the door behind him, and he didn't hear his father close it either.

~ * ~

The scene is the fly space fifty feet above the stage floor. It is an hour later. The area, a space in which large scenery pieces "fly" up out of sight above the proscenium arch, is in semidarkness, lit by the work lights twenty feet below. EVAN HAMILTON is standing on a catwalk, and is examining the condition of the fly ropes with a flashlight he carries. His attention is so fixed on his work that he does not hear THE EMPEROR, dressed exactly as was Dennis in the suite, come up behind him.)

THE EMPEROR

Evan . . . (EVAN, startled, turns, almost losing his balance. He is grasped by THE EMPEROR.) Don't fall. I would not want to be deprived of the joy of dropping you myself. (He grasps the boy by the belt and the collar and holds him over the rail of the catwalk so that Evan's upper body is hanging above the stage floor.)

EVAN

(Terrified) Dad! Jesus, what are you —

THE EMPEROR

Speak when you're spoken to, you little bastard, and maybe not even then. You are a bastard, you know. I didn't tell you that, either. I have no idea who your real father was. That whore I married would fuck anyone in breeches.

EVAN

Dad. . .

THE EMPEROR

Whining now? Whining suits you. You've whined your whole damned life, haven't you? Whined at home, whined in your little schools, whined in the Marines, didn't you? I wonder if you'll whine as you fall through the air. Robin didn't, you know. She shouted her anger. But you only shout your anger when you think you're safe, don't you? Will you shout your anger now?

EVAN

Please . . . please don't . . .

THE EMPEROR

(He jerks EVAN back up onto the catwalk, but hangs on to his collar.) Then you don't. You don't ever talk that way to me again. Not to the Emperor. (He emphasizes each word.) Do you understand?

EVAN

Y . . . yes.

THE EMPEROR

Yes what?

EVAN

Yes . . . sir.

THE EMPEROR

Yes, your majesty!

EVAN

Yes . . . your majesty.

THE EMPEROR

Good. (He releases Evan.) Now get down from here . . . before you have an accident.

(EVAN moves quickly away to the narrow stairway and climbs down.)

~ * ~

My God, Evan thought, my God, he's really crazy, he's really gone off the deep end . . .

He slipped more than once in his rush down the stairway, but he managed to regain his footing. At the bottom, he crossed the last six steps in one leap, and came down hard on one knee, grunting with the pain.

"What's the matter with you?"

Evan looked up into the narrowed eyes of Abe Kipp. "You okay?" the man said. "Hard fall there."

"I'm okay," Evan said, standing straight despite the pain.

Abe looked up into the flies. "Who you talkin' to up there?"

Evan looked up too, but could see no trace of movement in the shadows above. "My father," he said at last.

"Mr. Hamilton?" Abe looked up again, took a few steps to one side, then back again. "I don't see nobody. Mr. Hamilton?" he called, but there was no answer. "Don't hear nothin' neither. Catwalk squeals like a bitch. Somebody walkin' up there you'd know it. Hey, Mr. Hamilton!" he called again, but there was no reply, no sound of anyone moving above.

"He must have left another way," Evan said. He was still trembling, and hated himself for it, hated himself for not dying if he had to, not taking the old man over the rail with him. Your majesty! Jesus sweet Christ, what was wrong with him?

"Other way? Only other way's across the ceiling into the projection booth," Abe said. "Lights're off and it's dark as hell up there. Man'd have to be a fool to go walkin' on the ceilin' catwalk in the dark. One wrong step and . . ."

Abe didn't have to say any more. The picture of Robin's crushed body was vivid in both their minds. "I don't know, Abe. Maybe . . . maybe he had a flashlight," Evan said, looking at his own flashlight he had somehow hung on to through his ordeal.

"Maybe so," Abe said. "Don't know, though. Still seems crazy."

Crazy was the word, Evan thought as he went to find Curt. He wouldn't go up in the flies again. He didn't think he could bear to climb those stairs, not now, not after what had happened.

Halfway up the aisle of the theatre he changed his mind. It was Sid he would look for, not Curt. He had always been able to talk to Sid while he was growing up, and he wanted to talk to him now, to tell him about how crazy Dennis had acted. Sid's suite was just across the hall from Dennis's, but he would be careful. He didn't think he could bear to see his father again, not so soon after that horrible confrontation.

Terri Deems was in the lobby as he passed through it on his way to the elevator. He thought she looked different, then realized that it was the first time he had ever seen her smile. "Hi," she said, and stopped as if she wanted to talk. He slowed, unsure of her intentions. "What are you up to?"

"Uh . . . looking for Sid."

"He's in the office. I just came from there."

"Thanks."

He started off, when she called after him. "Hey, why the hurry? I wanted to ask you something."

"Uh, okay. What?"

"I was just thinking maybe we could go out."

"Go out?"

"You know — boy, girl, go out, date . . . what you mentioned to me a few weeks ago."

Was this the same girl? "That was a few months ago, and you . . . didn't seem too thrilled with the idea."

"That was then, this is now. I was rude. I'm sorry. I've had second thoughts.”

“Well . . . sure. That'd be great."

"How about tonight?"

"Tonight?"

"You have other plans?" she asked in a tone that told him he would be a fool to.

"No, no, not at all. Dinner?"

"Fine."

"Shall I pick you up?"

"With what? You don't have a car."

"Oh. Yeah."

"I'll be at your place. You're in a third floor suite, right?"

"Right." He thought for a second. "How about the Kirkland Inn?"

She smiled a smile that would have melted butter. "That would be perfect," she said, and headed out the door.

God, he thought, yin and yang. It seemed that whenever something awful happened, something good happened too. Curt may be right, he thought. Terri Deems might be a pain in the ass. But what a nice ass it was.

He tried to clear his head of her, and went to find Sid.

As Terri had said, Sid was in the office talking to Donna Franklin. When Evan told him that he'd like to see him in private, Donna told them to stay there in her office while she stepped into Steinberg's. "Sid," said Evan when they were alone, "I'm worried about my dad."

"Nothing's changed then. You've always worried about him."

"This is different. He was up in the flies today. He threatened to throw me off.”

“Are you sure? You didn't misunderstand him?"

"I'm sure. He wanted me to call him 'your majesty.'"

Sid shook his head. "Did you do anything to piss him off?"

"I . . . well, yeah, I guess so." And briefly Evan filled in Sid on the confrontation in Dennis's suite.

"That wasn't very smart, kid. You dad's private life is his own affair, you know that"

"Yeah, I know. But goddammit, I just saw red. So soon after Robin's death and all."

"It's been six weeks. And your dad's always been one to pick up pieces quickly. The Emperor in him, I guess."

"That was the weirdest thing, Sid. That was what really . . . scared the hell out of me. He called himself the Emperor. Up in the suite he was one way, but on the catwalk — it was like he was somebody else."

Sid put an avuncular hand on Evan's shoulder. "Kid, your dad's gone through a helluva lot lately. We all have. You take three deaths — one your wife — and combine them with this project we've all gambled our lives on, and you think you're gonna be totally normal? It's just a job to you, pal. It's Dennis's life. Give him slack."

"Sid, he threatened to kill me."

"He's done that before. Not to you, maybe, but to other people who pissed him off. He's never carried it through, though." Sid smiled. "Leastways, not that I know of. He flies off the handle . . .” The smile turned to a puzzled frown. "Or he used to. God, I haven't seen him explode in ages. You must have touched a sore spot.”

“He even said . . .” Evan paused.

"What?"

"That I wasn't his son."

Sid sat for a minute, staring at Evan. Finally he shook his head. "That's bullshit. Believe me, I know. I was there, pal. Right after they were married, Dennis didn't want to let your mom out of his sight. And when he did, I was right there. If anything funny had gone on, I'd have known about it."

"You're right. You're probably right. But he just seemed so crazy . . . I don't know, maybe I should just get the hell away from here."

"Maybe you should stay. You might be able to help him."

"Help him? How?"

"He needs stability right now. Maybe he's looking back at the days when he was the Emperor, thinking that things were better then, simpler. Play the role and that's it. He needs to have people around him who care, Evan. Robin's death's has left a helluva gap. We've all got to try and help to fill it."

Evan walked to the window and looked down at the tree-lined street. "Why, Sid? Why do we have to?"

"Because he's a good man. A generous man. And because we love him.”

“You really think that's true? You think he's good?"

"Yeah, I do. He works his heart out when the telethon comes along each year. And in the past twenty years he's given away millions. Literally millions.”

“I never knew that."

"Nobody does except us and the IRS. He doesn't want it publicized. But there's another thing — if this musical theatre project works out it's going to mean work for hundreds of show people. It's a damn good cause." Evan didn't speak. "Hang around, kid. He needs you, really."

"All right. For a while. I don't know what I can do, though."

"Just don't piss him off again. Let him go, even if you think he's wrong. He's got to work some things out on his own. But be there when he needs you.”

“All right, Sid. Thanks for listening."

"Hey, anytime." He gave the boy a hug.

"Curt's gonna wonder where the hell I am," Evan said, and went to the door. "So long, Sid."

"See you, kid."

~ * ~

Kid, he thought as he watched the boy leave. Yeah. My kid?

Sid felt his gut cramp and wondered if he had been able to keep the look of shock off his face when Evan had dropped the bombshell. If Evan's reaction was honest, he had. That's what came of once having been an actor.

One hot afternoon and one drink too many, and he had lived with the guilt all his life. Dennis had been in New York meeting with John Steinberg, and Sid was left alone with Natalie Pierce, Dennis's wife of three months. She was a few years older than Sid, but ravishingly good looking, and when she asked him to sit with her at poolside and talk, he had done so willingly, and had made them both several drinks.

One thing had led to another, and before he was even aware of it, they were screwing in the cabana, without benefit of condom. Nine months later Evan had been born.

Sid had never been sure if he or Dennis had been the father. As the omniscient majordomo of the Hamilton household, he knew that they were the only two possibilities, and prayed to God that it was Dennis and not himself. Natalie Pierce had never requested a repeat performance, much to his relief. She was, he grew to realize, a games player, and had fucked him just to have fucked her husband's friend. With that mindset, it was surprising that she had never mentioned their indiscretion to Dennis, but such, Sid had figured, must have been the case, for Dennis's attitude toward Sid had not changed a jot. In another year, Dennis and Natalie were divorced. The year after that, she was dead, her games ended forever.

But the guilt had remained with Sid. Several times he had been on the verge of quitting over some outrageous words or actions on Dennis's part, but always he stayed, feeling himself condemned to penance because of his previous disloyalty with his employer and friend's wife. A greater penance, however, was the presence of Evan when he came to live with Dennis after Natalie's suicide.

It was Sid who became the surrogate father when Dennis was on location shooting a film, or working fifteen hours a day on his short-lived TV series. Later, with the success of the Private Empire revival, he saw Evan less and less, but the bond that had been forged in Evan's young childhood was still strong.

And apparently the bond that was forged, ever so briefly, between Sid and Natalie Pierce Hamilton was still strong too, in Dennis's mind at least. Sid had no idea that Dennis had ever suspected. How could he have? There had been no insinuations about Sid in Natalie's biography that had appeared in 1977, which presented a roster of her sexual partners, for one of Natalie's weaknesses was a loose tongue. Perhaps she hadn't considered Sid worth mentioning to her cronies.

Then why had Dennis told Evan that he was a bastard? Merely out of spite, in order to hurt him with his mother's adulteries? It didn't seem like Dennis. He could be hard, but not petty.

Of course, Dennis had not seemed like himself for months. Still, Sid had noticed no change in the way he was treated. Hadn't Dennis come to see him the night before to talk about that hallucination he had had? Surely there was evidence that he considered Sid a confidant, and bore him no ill will for a twenty-year-old indiscretion, even if he did suspect. He had even hugged him.

But dear God, Sid thought, forgetting for a moment the surprising revelation Evan had mentioned, what was happening to Dennis? Coming on to Donna a few months ago, the hallucination of seeing the Emperor as a separate entity several weeks before, and then today, with Evan, claiming to be the Emperor. . .

The grief and loss must have been great, but he had been acting strangely even before Robin's death. What was going on in Dennis's head? What in God's name was he thinking?

Scene 3

"Let's not go to the Kirkland Inn tonight," Ann said, as she and Dennis walked from her front door to his car, a white Porsche that sat in her driveway like a glowing, friendly beast.

"All right. Any special reason?" he asked, opening the door for her.

"I'm too susceptible to old emotions at that place," she answered smiling, not telling him the real reason.

Terri had been quick to tell her that she was going out to dinner with Evan Hamilton that evening, and Ann strongly suspected that it was not because she was attracted to the boy, but because she thought it some kind of revenge for her mother seeing Dennis. It was stupid of Terri, but then Terri could be awfully stupid at times. If she had been clever, Ann thought, she would not have said a word, and when Dennis and Ann walked into the Kirkland Inn, as they would have if Ann had not had the advance warning, Terri could have been sitting there with Evan, waving pleasantly, even asking them to join her, making it a most uncomfortable and humiliating evening.

But instead she had tipped her hand and given the game away. Ann knew that Terri would talk Evan into going to the Kirkland Inn, so Ann would make sure that she and Dennis went elsewhere.

They ended up at a steak house two miles east of Kirkland. Although the restaurant was crowded, Ann saw Terri's smooth, short cap of red hair nowhere among the heads that bobbed over the plates. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention where she had wanted it to be all along, to Dennis.

Though the ambience was more bustling than she would have preferred, the dinner was excellent, the steaks cooked precisely the way they had ordered them, the salads crisp and fresh, the dressing delicate, and the selection of wine was remarkably varied. Between bites, they spoke of inconsequential things, not mentioning the tragedies that had occurred in the theatre. By the time they ate dessert, a piece of blueberry pie for Dennis, a cup of custard for Ann, she was feeling relaxed, partly as a result of the wine, partly from the ease of being in Dennis's company again, and from knowing that there was no longer a wife offstage.

It was absurd, she thought, that she should be feeling guilty over not having to feel guilty. If she could have wished Robin alive again, she would have. But wishing would change nothing, and, circumstances being what they were, she thought she would have been a fool not to be glad to be there with Dennis, to have him across the table from her, their eyes meeting constantly, and her reading in his eyes things unspoken, things she longed to hear.

The meal finished, Dennis paid the bill, and they walked outside. The winter air was brisk, and their breath puffed out like amber clouds in the gleam of the lamps that lit the parking lot. She slipped her arm though his as they moved toward the car, and, after he unlocked her door, he turned to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her, a light and gentle kiss, made with no demands. They stood there for a long time, until she shivered from the cold in spite of her warm coat, in spite of Dennis's embrace. Finally he spoke.

"This feels so right. All those years ago, and it seems like only yesterday since I held you." He sighed, and she felt his warm breath against her hair. "I wish that time never would have passed. I wish we would be back there, that we had done things differently."

"I do too," she whispered. "It was a mistake. It didn't take me long to find that out."

"Mistakes," he said, "can be corrected."

They kissed again, and he opened the car door for her. When they were both inside, he started the engine, and heat rushed at them from the vents. "I don't want to take you home," he said.

"Whose home?"

She could see his smile in the semi-darkness. "Come to the theatre with me.”

“What show will we see?"

"A love story." There was only the trace of a smile now.

"Do you know how it will end?" she asked him.

"Happily. I pray to God, happily." Then he added, "This time."

She made a little gesture toward the night, the cold darkness. "Let's go," she said.

~ * ~

The other love story, the one that had taken place twenty-five years before, had not had a happy ending. That ending had come on a July night at a table at the Kirkland Inn, with a young man and a young woman seated across from each other in candlelight. They held hands, but as the words passed between them, the grips loosened, and soon there were two hands in the center of the table, barely touching. She withdrew hers first, into her lap, blinking away the tears in her eyes so that he wouldn't see. But he did, through the teary haze that warmed his own eyes. She loved him, yes, she admitted that, but it would not work. Her parents were against it, and she had never gone against them, simply could not. They wanted her to finish college, and she wanted to also.

Couldn't they write to each other, he asked, write and maybe he could come up to see her at her college on Mondays, when the theatres were dark, and the show wouldn't run forever, after all, it might even be a flop, so did it make sense to call an end to everything now?

She had to, she told him. She could not imagine being away from him, but it was her parents, and she could not disobey them.

Then you don't love me, he said.

But I do, she answered.

They were still young, barely past adolescence. They were in love with each other, but with their own lives as well, he with the theatre, she with her school, her friends there, and bound by her ties to her mother and father. They were confused, they were angry, they were hopeless and doomed to estrangement. After that night, they did not see each other again for twenty-five years.

And twenty-five years later, their children sat facing each other across that same table in that same inn. An onlooker who knew both their parents would have noted the resemblance. The boy's features were strong and clear, his red hair the shade of his father's before gray had touched it. Though her hair was cut short, and was similar in color to the boy's hair rather than her mother's, the girl bore Ann Deems's delicacy of features, the small mouth, the pert nose, the small but intense green eyes under gracefully arching brows. The hands of the two did not touch, though. Not yet.

"You expecting somebody?" Evan asked. "You keep looking around."

Terri smiled as though it hurt her. "No, not really."

They had finished their entrée, and were waiting for dessert. Up to that point, the conversation had been neither sparkling nor provocative, so Evan was surprised when Terri asked him if he was a virgin.

He gave a little laugh. "Why?"

"Curious."

"The same reason you keep looking around?" She didn't answer. "No, I'm not. Is it your business?"

"It might be. A person can't be too careful these days."

"About what?"

"About their sexual partners."

He looked at her for a long time before he spoke. "What?" He knew it was a dumb thing to say even as he said it. He had heard her clearly, and realized the implication, but he was too distrustful of fate to think that it should drop something this desirable in his lap.

"Look," she said, and now her smile was not as pinched as before. "I know you find me attractive, and I think you're kind of a hunk in a strange way.”

“Thanks. I guess."

"And we're both unattached, so why shouldn't we?" She cocked her head at him. "Unless I've been reading you wrong."

"No, no, I think you're quite a . . . a hunkess yourself, you're right.”

“Hunkess? I didn't know there was a feminine form for that."

"So what are you asking?" he said, getting back to the subject that now hung over the table like a fleshy chandelier. "If I'm safe?"

"Basically. Oh, I mean, we'll practice safe sex anyway, but if you know that you're carrying something unpleasant, I'm sure you'd be gentleman enough to tell me.”

He had never, he thought, met a girl like this before. Not even in Honduras with the corps. "I'm not," he said. "I mean, I don't have anything."

"Good," she said, giving him a look that produced in him an instant erection. "I'm very glad to hear that."

"You, uh . . . you still want dessert?"

She smiled and shrugged. "We already ordered it, didn't we?"

~ * ~

Dennis pulled the Porsche into the small underground garage of the Kirkland Community Building shortly after ten o'clock. When he opened the door for Ann to get out of the car, she stepped directly into his arms and they kissed again, this time with more passion than before. "You don't think this will spoil it," Dennis said with a half-smile.

She shook her head. "I only wish it had been earlier. We've had to wait so long.”

“No longer," Dennis said, and kissed her again, lightly.

They walked, their arms about each other, to the elevator that would take them to the suites above. "Wait," Dennis said, as Ann was about to push the button. "Let's walk up. Through the theatre. I want to . . . to talk for a moment."

She didn't know what he intended, but followed him without protest through the shadowy corridors, up the winding stairs, and into the inner lobby of the theatre, then up the marble staircase that led to the balcony, across the mezzanine lobby, and finally up the ramp that led to the balcony. He took her hand and led her down to the first row of the loge, where they sat together, looking out over the dimly lit auditorium.

"I used to come and sit here," Dennis said. "Just sit here and look down at that stage and think about what's been on it, and what's going to be on it. Sit here and dream my dreams." He took her hand in his. "This project's so damned important to me. My whole career has been for me, but this is finally a way I can do something for somebody else, pay back the theatre for everything it's given me . . . all the good things, I should say.

"I've come up here several times since. . . Robin died. But I haven't thought about the dreams, about the things that'll come. I've just been remembering. Remembering that day. And I can't, Ann. I've got to stop. Go on. But I can't, unless I  . . ."

He paused, and Ann felt that there was more he wanted to say, something he wanted very much to tell her, beyond dreams, beyond love. "What is it, Dennis? You brought me here for a reason. What is it?"

He turned and looked at her as frankly as he ever had before. "Robin wanted to kill you," he said. "She planned to push you off the catwalk, planned for you to go through the ceiling."

Her stomach twisted, and she wondered if she looked as pale as she suddenly felt. "She told me . . .” she said, remembering, “. . . she told me the ceiling was solid, that if I fell off the catwalk I wouldn't go through." Her hand tightened on Dennis's. "Why?" she asked in a pinched voice. "Why would she want to do something like that?"

"She thought we were having an affair."

"Dennis . . .”

"She knew about us — years ago. I knew she was jealous, but I had no idea how much."

"Did she . . . tell you? That she wanted to kill me?"

His pause made Ann uncomfortable. "No. No."

"How did you know?"

"I . . . I knew. But not until afterwards. I . . . put it all together. It was the only thing that made sense."

"But how did you —"

"I knew." He leaped to his feet, stood for a moment looking at the stage, then turned to face her, his hips against the low railing. For a moment she was frightened of the intensity in his look, but when he spoke again, his voice was softer. "She never told me, but I knew. I'm sorry. I just couldn't keep it a secret from you. You had to know."

She was about to speak when a movement from above caught her eye. It was up where the ceiling had been recently plastered over, up at that pale spot where Robin had fallen through, where she . . .

. . . fell through again.

As though in some dream without sound, Ann saw the ceiling break away, saw Robin drop through, hang for a moment, then fall as if in slow motion, saw her eyes, full of unmistakable hatred, turn full upon Ann's, boring into her with a malignancy she had never before known, then vanish in the middle of the air.

"Ann?" It was Dennis's voice, but it sounded as though it were under water. "Ann, are you all right?"

His face, as full of concern as Robin's had been full of fury, came between her and the theatre, blotting out the broken ceiling, the ghostly track in the air that marked the path of Robin's descent. Still, his sudden movement startled her anew, and she gasped.

"What is it?" he asked, grasping her shoulders.

Slowly she craned her head past him, saw nothing but the theatre in semi-darkness, the ceiling, patched but whole.

"Did you see something?" he asked, turning to look down at the stage.

"I . . . I thought I did. But I couldn't have." She shook her head in disbelief. "This place seems full of nightmares."

"I know," he said, still looking at the stage, "but it won't always. It's going to be a theatre again, with living performers and living audiences. It's going to be a wonderful place, Ann, the way it used to be. In spite of . . .” He broke off, and Ann thought his eyes too seemed to see something below that wasn't, that couldn't be, there. "In spite of everything," he finished.

"You'll do it, Dennis," she said. "You can make it live again. Make it sing."

He nodded, then looked back at her. "If you'll help me."

"I will," she said. "Any way I can."

He smiled at last. "Let's go somewhere else now. Together."

"Yes," she said, relieved to take his hand again, to find that it was still warm and soft.

They walked together to Dennis's suite, meeting no one on the way, seeing nothing strange or frightening. As the door closed behind them, Ann thought its solid sound of wood meeting wood was one of the most comforting she had ever heard. Nothing, she felt, could harm them now.

"I do love you," Dennis said, embracing her.

"And I love you."

"Would you like something to drink?"

"No," she said. "No, let's just go to bed."

He nodded, and led the way.

~ * ~

At the same time their mother and father were tenderly undressing each other, Evan Hamilton and Terri Deems were finishing their second bout of intercourse. Evan rolled off the girl, pushed his hair back from his sweating forehead, and rubbed his hands down his chest until he touched his groin. Then he sat up and began to peel off the condom.

"Worn out yet?" Terri asked, and Evan chuckled wearily.

"No," he lied. "Not yet. You'll have to give me a little time, though.”

“Fine. We can watch some TV, then fuck some more."

"Why do you say that?"

"Say what?" she said, stretching long and languidly beside him so that her leg rubbed against his.

"Fuck. Fuck some more."

"So what are we doing? I thought we were fucking."

Evan shook his head and looked away from her toward the candle that gave the room its only light.

"What's the matter?" Terri said. "You want me to pretend I'm a virgin?"

He gave a little laugh so as not to make her angry. Although the girl was turning him off in one way, she sure as hell turned him on in another. He didn't think he had ever been with a lover — or was that, he thought, a fucker? — who had done the things that Terri had done. Her legs moved and stretched like a contortionist's, and she had done things with the muscles of her vagina that sent ripples of pleasure through him, even with the sensory handicap of the condom.

"It's not that," he said, caressing the smoothness of her stomach, and feeling a tingling in his groin again. "I mean, I don't care if people say fuck. It's just that when you say it in reference to, well . . .”

"I see. It's a question of semantics. What do you want me to say — making love?" She said it with such a bored flatness that he could have hit her. "Evan, I'm not making love, okay? You've been fucking me, and I've been fucking you. Why try to turn it into Casablanca?"

He didn't say anything, and his hand slowly slipped from her stomach. He felt humiliated and embarrassed and as if he might be sick.

"Hey," she said, and he felt her hand on his arm. "Did I hurt your feelings?”

“No."

"I had fun," she said, and rested her head on his thigh, where she blew soft streams of air over his penis, chilling it. "I really did. And I want to have fun with you some more." She shifted her head so that she could take him in her mouth, and, impossibly, he felt himself beginning to grow hard again. "Mmm," she muttered, "great taste — latex and come."

He laughed in spite of himself, and let her take his hand and press it between her legs.

"So," she said. "You wanta make love? Or you wanta fuck me?"

His mouth felt dry. "I want to fuck you."

"Just what I wanted to hear."

~ * ~

"No, Dennis, wait!"

She pressed her legs together, trembled. Her hands bit into his shoulders, not in passion, but in fear.

"Ann?" He whispered. There was an urgency in his voice as demanding as the piece of flesh that pressed against her mons. "What is it? What's wrong? Don't be frightened . . .”

She tried to drive the image from her mind of the last time she had made love with Eddie, but she could not, and the vision terrified her, smothered her desire to finally consummate the love that she had felt for Dennis for decades. "I'm sorry," she stammered, tears coming to her eyes. "Wait. Please wait."

She felt him grow flaccid against her, and loved him all the more for his involuntary concern. "What is it, Ann," he said again, the breathless need gone from his tone. "Please tell me. If you can't make love to me, if you won't, it doesn't matter." She felt his hand touch her cheek. "It hasn't mattered all these years. I've loved you just the same."

She told him then. She told him about Eddie, about their making love, about Eddie's death. She even told him what she had never told anyone else. "When he died . . . when he collapsed on me . . . he, he came. He came inside of me."

"Oh God, Ann . . ."

"I knew he was dead, and still . . ." She was shaking uncontrollably now. "It seemed to go on forever, and it felt as though it was burning me, and I started to scream and scream and scream until . . . until Terri came in."

"God . . . she saw it then."

"Yes. She saw everything. But she helped me. I think I might still be there if she hadn't helped me. She took over when I lost control, and ever since then she's been, I don't know, less of a daughter and more like a person I just live with.”

“It must have been hard on her too."

"Oh, it was. She went around in a daze for weeks afterward. Then her skin toughened up and never got soft again."

They lay there naked, their arms around each other, for a long time, until tenderness, warmth, and security took the place of apprehension and bitter memory. Finally Ann turned to Dennis, kissed his cheek, and began to make love to him again. No more words were spoken. This time when he touched her, she did not object, and finally the love story that had begun a quarter of a century before was told, the song sung.

From the corner of the room, in the dark, the Emperor watched, and listened, and smiled, waiting his turn.

~ * ~

Dennis dreamed of him again, of the Emperor and of Ann. The Emperor had her by the throat as before, but in his other hand was something long and thick and wet, and as Dennis watched in horror, unable to move, the thing became thinner, harder, and the Emperor's hand seemed to become a shell. But then Dennis saw that it was not a shell, but a guard from which extended a gleaming saber.

With one hand the Emperor held Ann higher in the air, her face white from lack of blood, and with the other he plunged the sharp blade into her, just below the heart.

Dennis screamed in silence as blood pumped out of her, as though she had been a balloon filled with it, and he, the Emperor, dying Ann, his dream were all awash in blood, and the whole world was wet and red, and the only sound was the Emperor laughing, laughing.

He did not wake from the dream, only entered a deeper darkness of sleep until the morning came, and he found her beside him, well and alive and asleep. He had little memory of the dream. Now it was just a blurred jumble of terrifying images. He lay there, wondering about the thing, the person, the doppelganger he had seen. Was it evil? If not, why then the visions, the dreams of violence and terror? Perhaps, he thought, the dreams merely mirrored his fear, his lack of understanding of what it was he had created. Perhaps they were not premonitory, but simply indicative of his mental state. He was a pragmatist concerning such things, which was, contradictorily enough, precisely why he believed in the reality of the Emperor. Dreams were one thing, his waking senses another.

His metaphysical musings were delightfully interrupted by Ann stirring next to him. Her eyes opened, and he saw for a moment that she did not know where she was. In a second, clarity came, and she sighed and smiled, then leaned over and kissed him.

"Good morning," she said.

"It is indeed," he agreed. "The best morning I've had in a long time."

"It was wonderful," she said, "to fall asleep in your arms. I didn't think it would ever happen, and in a way I always knew it would."

"I knew too. I love you, Ann."

"I love you."

She hugged him, and in another moment they were together, their bodies molded as one, and they made love again. This time there was less of the feeling of discovery that had added such a sweet sense of tension to their joining of the night before, but that was more than made up for by the sheer joy that now possessed them both. To wait so long and then find that their sexual coupling was so perfect, only a physical extension of the love that had remained all those years, was more than either could have asked. But it had been true, and it had been wonderful. In Dennis's arms, Ann was able to forget the terrors of her husband's death, and in Ann's arms, Dennis found the peace he needed as well.

Finally they lay, sweating and happy, the covers thrown back from the bed, looking at each other's bodies. "You look wonderful," Dennis said. "You look like a girl."

"You're an actor, but it's all right. And you look damned good yourself. How do you keep your stomach so flat?"

"A carefully designed program of exercise, diet, mental tension, pressure, and guilt. It works wonders. Now, how about some breakfast to fatten us both up?" He picked up the phone and pushed two numbers, then waited.

"Who are you calling?"

"Sid." Ann gasped, and pulled the sheet over her body. "Don't worry," Dennis laughed. "It's not a picture phone."

"But I don't want him to know that I'm —"

"That you're here?" He broke off and turned his attention to the phone. "Sid. Could we have two breakfasts please? Big ones . . . Yes, that's right. Two." Then to Ann, "How do you like your eggs?"

"Poached," she said, with a sigh of acceptance.

"Poached . . . sure, orange juice is fine. Thanks, Sid." He hung up the phone and smiled at her. "Sid is my right hand. He knows more about me than anyone else, maybe even me. He is also as circumspect as a clam."

"But, Dennis, I work with him. How will he act when he knows about us?"

"He already does. Now don't look so surprised. Over the years I talked about you a lot to Sid. There are a lot of lonely nights on the road when all you want to do is talk. And remember. He knows how I feel about you. He has for a long time."

"It's just that it's been such a short time since . . ."

"Since Robin's death. I know. But I can't tell my feelings to wait another two months. This is the 1990's, Ann. No one is going to criticize us for being in love."

She nodded, though her discomfort with the situation was evident. With all his heart he wanted to make her more comfortable, wanted to remove that look of doubt that wrinkled her lovely features. "And no one," he said, "is going to criticize us when we get married."

He didn't know what to make of her reaction, which began with wide-eyed surprise just short of shock. Then she laughed as if she had not believed what he had just said. "Married?"

"It's what we should have done twenty-five years ago. Things would have been very different for both of us. Better."

"Dennis, I —"

"Don't say no, Ann. You do love me."

"Yes, of course I love you . . .”

She paused, and in the silence he thought he could hear his heart pounding with dread. "I hear a 'but' coming."

"It's too soon," she said, and he thought he saw tears forming in her eyes. "It's just too soon. Oh, Dennis, I love you, how much I love you, but we can't get married now, not now."

"When?"

"Please, don't push me," she pleaded. "Sometime, I swear it. I want to marry you, Dennis. But it's too soon."

"Then you will?" he asked, touching her soft hair.

"You know I will."

"That's all I ask," he said. "It doesn't matter when. I've waited all these years, I can wait a few more months. And don't worry about what people will think. I can be as circumspect as Sid can. No one even has to know." He kissed her tenderly, and thought he had never tasted anything so wonderful as her mouth. Then he smiled. "We'd better get dressed."

Her face fell. "God, I'm going to look real businesslike in the dress I wore last night. So much for keeping secrets."

"Don't worry about it."

"I could call Terri . . . she probably hasn't left yet . . . ask her to bring . . .”

~ * ~

And then it hit her — Terri. She had realized, when she made her decision to spend the night with Dennis, that Terri would certainly know, but her need to be with Dennis had completely freed her mind of seeing her daughter afterward, that snide look of Terri's, the dry and bitter words that Ann tried not to hear in her mind. Perhaps, she thought, it would be better to call, ask her to bring a change of clothing. The girl could not be nearly as vicious over the phone as she could be in person.

"I'll get a shower," Dennis said. "Go ahead and call her if you like, but frankly I liked that dress last night." He kissed her again and vanished into the bathroom.

She steeled herself, pulled the covers higher over her body as if Terri could see her, and dialed her number, but there was no answer. Had she left already? Ann wondered. But no, it was only seven o'clock, and they never left the house before seven-thirty. It was possible that she had had breakfast out, but not likely. No matter how Terri criticized Mary, their live-in maid and cook, she had always loved her very English breakfasts. Ann hung up the phone, and waited for Dennis to finish his shower.

When Sid brought breakfast, she tactfully remained in the bedroom until he had gone, then joined Dennis in a breakfast nook that overlooked the plaza below. "Much cozier than the dining room," Dennis said, and Ann agreed.

"Do you eat this way every morning?" Ann asked, looking at the table filled with eggs, sausage, home fries, bagels and toast, and fresh fruit. "Your arteries must be as thick as cream."

"Not really," he said. "Robin always had big breakfasts, but she was able to work it off and not gain any weight. I usually just have a little fruit and some toast. But this morning calls for something a bit more festive."

The mention of Robin was disturbing. Ann could imagine her sitting across from Dennis where she was sitting now, eating like a trencherman, filled with life and happiness, at least before Ann had come along and unintentionally changed everything, making her jealous enough to kill, if what Dennis thought was true.

"I'm sorry," Dennis said. "I shouldn't have mentioned her."

She shook her head. "No, it's all right. It's a part of your life, like Eddie's a part of mine. Neither one of them will go away, not ever. But it's all right. I don't think we'd ever want them to."

"No," Dennis said. "They won't go away. But they don't have to come between us."

After breakfast, they sat and continued to talk, trying to make up for years of separation, and Ann knew that despite the guilt, despite her upcoming confrontation with Terri, despite everything, she was happy. At nine o'clock Ann told Dennis that she had better go down to the office.

"Do you want me to walk you down?"

"No," she said quickly. "I want to go in alone."

They decided to have dinner together again that weekend, and she kissed him at the door, then stepped into the hall. He waved, smiled, and closed the door rather reluctantly, she thought. She was glad of it.

But now she was alone, alone in the halls of the Venetian Theatre, and although she knew that Dennis would make good on his promise to bring it to life again, now, with the closing of that door, it once more felt full of phantoms. No matter how she struggled to shake off the feeling, the oppressiveness hung in the air like mist. She bit back her dread and began to walk the short distance down the hall to the elevator.

When the woman came around the corner, Ann nearly leapt in shock. At first, seeing the spare frame, the manly shoulders, she thought for a moment that it was Robin. But a second later the drawling voice, full of derision beyond her years, told her that it was even worse than a ghost.

"Well, not letting any grass grow over the grave, are you?"

It was a cruel and vicious and all too usual thing for Terri to say. "And what are you doing here," Ann asked, unable and unwilling to launch a rebuttal. "Same as you, I suppose. Like mother, like daughter."

Ann's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? You spent the night here?" The girl nodded. "With Evan?"

"No, with Marvella. I've gone dyke."

"Terri —"

"Please don't tell me you're shocked, Mother. I hate to laugh so early in the morning. Of course with Evan. And how about yourself? Was it Curt? Or John? . . . no, I hardly think John. Sid? No, Donna's got him sewed up. Why . . .”Her eyes widened in mock surprise. "Could it be rather the grieving widower? Were you able to ease his sorrow?"

"All right, that's enough."

"How long has it been, two months? Maybe you could still use the funeral flowers for the wedding."

"Goddam it, that's enough from you!" Ann was trembling. "What have I done?" she said. "You tell me what I've done to deserve this from you? Go ahead. Tell me."

For once Terri was silent. Her face still wore its studied look of contempt, but she seemed quelled. Then she took a deep breath. "You have done nothing, Mother. You are innocent. Te absolvo. Things are between you . . . and your conscience." She gave a little wave before she turned toward the stairs. "Have a nice day."

~ * ~

I can have her now. I can have her any time.

She is so absurd. She thinks she is clever in her ironies. But instead she wears her heart on her sleeve. Her feelings are plain for all to see, yet her mother ignores them. The source of her anger, her pain, is so obvious. She wants what her mother has.

The little whore is jealous.

But she will not have to be for long. No.

I shall give her what she wants.

I shall give her the Emperor.

Scene 4

The following Monday evening, Terri Deems was working alone in the costume shop. She would not have had to, but she had fallen into the habit of avoiding her mother whenever possible, and knew that Ann would be home that night.

She simply could not abide to be in the same room with Ann. The previous week Terri had remained in her own room in the evenings, making excuses to take her own car to Kirkland rather than ride with Ann. The weekend hadn't been bad, because her mother had been away for most of it. Although she hadn't asked, and Ann hadn't offered the information, Terri assumed that she had spent it with Dennis Hamilton. Fine, she had told herself bitterly. Get it while you can. Besides, her mother was forty-three already, and her looks weren't going to last forever. Maybe if she married Dennis, Terri wouldn't have to see her again. Ann could live in Dennis's palace and give Terri the house. That would be fine with her. Mothers were a bitch anyway. At least hers was. A bitch and more.

She sighed and turned back to her sketching. She liked the costume shop, both the dry and calming presence of Marvella, and the utter silence when she was alone there. She was alone tonight. Marvella had taken Whitney to a birthday party for one of her friends from day care. At first she had been hesitant about leaving Terri alone in her domain, but the girl had been so excellent an assistant that she had finally agreed. "Don't get too fancy with anything," Marvella had warned her, "and make damn sure everything's put away when you're done — one thing I hate's coming in and not being able to find shit." Terri had smilingly agreed, since she didn't even plan to touch a needle that evening. Rather she was working on her designs for the chorus of Craddock.

It had been Marvella's idea for her to work up a few designs for the show. The principals' costumes, of course, would be designed by Marvella, but if Terri's designs were good, Marvella told her that some would be used, and she would get an associate costume designer credit, a title well worth having, particularly under the aegis of Marvella Johnson. If only, she thought, she did not have her mother to thank for having gotten her the job.

Damn! Thinking about Ann had made her extend a bodice too far. She erased the offending line and redrew it, her thoughts returning to her mother again.

What had she ever done to deserve Terri's contempt? Ann had asked in all seriousness. Nothing, mother, absolutely nothing, and perhaps that was the problem.

Ann had always been such a goddamned coward. Whenever Terri had asked for something, whether it was some extra spending money for clothes, her own car, or later, as a college freshman, for a signed permission slip so that she could start taking birth control pills (that one had been kept a secret from her father), Ann had always agreed, albeit with motherly cautions, such as the observation that the pill would do nothing to prevent AIDS. Her father had done very little parenting. Most of the time he was working, and when he wasn't he was either playing golf or parked in front of the television. Maybe, Terri thought, that was why she liked Marvella so much — because when she said do something, you either did it or else.

A movement at the door caught her eye, and she saw Cristina rubbing herself against the frame. "Well, hello, girl," she said to the cat. "You lonely tonight? You'd have to be to come and see me, huh?" She had never seen such a standoffish feline before. It wouldn't allow anyone except Abe Kipp to pat it, and if you tried to corner it to lavish some affection on its gray fur, God help you. It would just as soon savage you as look at you.

Nevertheless, Terri put down her pen, knelt next to her drafting table, and rubbed her fingers together. "C'mon, girl . . . c'mon, Crissie . . . puss puss puss . . .”

The cat, its itch apparently scratched, sat and looked at her, unblinking, as still as an Egyptian idol.

"Aw, come on," she said, "let me pet you, huh?"

"Like most of us," said a voice from above, "there are few people she loves."

~ * ~

(TERRI looks up at the loft and sees THE EMPEROR standing there, leaning on the railing. He is dressed in a V-neck sweater and navy slacks.)

TERRI

Jesus, you startled me. How did you get in here?

THE EMPEROR

I must have come in when you weren't looking. (His manner is gentle, very non-imperious. He descends the stairs through the following speech.) You'll find it quite an endeavor to get on the good side of Cristina.

TERRI

She's not very friendly, is she?

THE EMPEROR

No. Of course you never can tell with animals — or with people. One minute it

seems as though they hate you . . . (Now at the doorway, he leans down and

picks up the cat, cradles it in his arms. It purrs and nuzzles his hand.) . . . and

before you know it, you discover that there is . . . some affection there after all.

~ * ~

What in God's name? Terri thought. That cat hated Dennis. Marvella had told her that in no uncertain terms, and she had seen an example of it once, when Dennis had rounded a corner and taken the beast by surprise. Cristina had leapt into the air, come down spitting, taken a swipe at his ankle, and run off. But now she lay there as gentle as . . . yes, goddammit, a kitten, purring and reaching up toward his face to lick it, as though Dennis was the kindest, most calming thing in the world.

It was a sensation she was uncomfortably aware of herself. Here was a man she was determined to despise, a man who had seduced her mother — perhaps not for the first time, in spite of Ann's denials — only a short time after his wife was in her grave, who, with his money and fame, simply bought everything that he desired. Yet she, like that sycophant of a cat he held in his arms, could not help but feel drawn to him, just as, she finally admitted to herself, she had been ever since she had first seen him on the stage.

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

I think you can pet her now.

TERRI

I . . . I'd really rather not.

THE EMPEROR

She won't hurt you. I promise. When you're afraid of something, the thing to do is to grasp it, firmly but gently. That way you learn to control your fear. Your fear leaves, and you are left with fulfillment. (He brings the cat to her.) Here. Touch it. (TERRI reaches out a hand and pats the cat on the head. It continues to purr.) See? Listen to me, Terri. I'll never do anything to bring you harm.

TERRI

(Steps back, her temper rising) Maybe you already have.

THE EMPEROR

I don't understand.

TERRI

My mother.

THE EMPEROR

(Nodding solemnly) Ah. You're referring to our . . . spending the night together.

TERRI

And the weekend too, as I recall. (She waits) Well? You're not saying anything.

THE EMPEROR

(Sets down the cat) I don't know what to say.

TERRI

Do you love her? Is that your excuse?

THE EMPEROR

I loved her . . . a long time ago. And now I love what she was. Perhaps that seduced me more than I did her. (He looks at her intently and speaks slowly, weaving a web of words around her.) I love in her what I see in you now. You remind me so much of her, as she was then. She had that hard surface too, to protect her from the world. But I saw beneath it, to the tenderness that was there. (He touches her cheek She neither draws away nor responds, but simply looks at him, fascinated, trapped.) You ask for my excuse. Love needs none. It is enough in and of itself to excuse anything. Any deed, any pain.

(THE EMPEROR moves his hand behind her head and draws her face toward him. He kisses her passionately and she responds immediately. Still kissing, he lifts her as if she weighed nothing, and carries her to the pile of costumes on the floor, where they both fall, their arms about each other. From the corner, the cat watches.)

~ * ~

She bled afterwards. She bled and hated herself for what she had done, what she had allowed him to do. But while it was happening she had felt powerless to resist. She had been swept away by him, by his passion, by his need for her, and had been unable to refuse anything that he had wanted of her. For the first time in her life, she had been used.

Her cheeks burned as she remembered. She had, at his direction, put her fingers into herself as far as she could, much farther than she had thought possible. She had fellated him, licked him everywhere, and finally he had thrust into her savagely from behind, surprising her by swiftly moving his penis from her vagina to her anus, something she had never experienced before with anyone.

The pain had been nearly unbearable, but after her first gasp he had ordered her to be silent, and she had not cried out, not even when he exploded inside her, and it felt, not merely warm, but hot, as if fire was jetting from him.

Afterward, when he left, only blood had leaked from her. There seemed to be not a trace of semen. Only the blood, which soon stopped.

The bastard, she thought. The son of a bitch. He had not even used a condom, and she had not even mentioned it. It had occurred to her, but by that time he was already in her, pounding away, and she was afraid, afraid to say a word. He had seemed so big that she thought he could actually split her apart if he became angry. Then, when he had finished, he had withdrawn so roughly that she had cried out despite his warning. She had fallen, exhausted, into the pile of costumes, her face buried in velvet, and had heard him say, "Love and pain. Ache, and remember me." When she had turned around, he was gone.

Why in hell had she done it? She had been attracted to him, of course, but to have actually fucked him, knowing that he and her mother . . .

Or maybe, she thought, that was exactly why she had done it — to get back at her mother. A cheap, quick, easy (if painful) revenge. But it would be useful only if Ann knew about it. Terri was sure that Dennis wouldn't tell her, so that left only one way for her to find out.

Love and pain, mother — a lesson I've been taught, a lesson you taught my father, a lesson for you to learn too.

When she dressed and left the costume shop, she walked past Cristina. The cat spat at her, then ran away.

~ * ~

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Terri pulled her Jetta into the garage. Ann was not in the family room, so Terri went to her bedroom door, saw light beneath it, and knocked. "Terri?" her mother said, and she opened the door and went inside. "Is something wrong? You don't look well."

"Maybe something's wrong. I'll let you be the judge of that."

Ann put the bookmark in her volume and set it on the bedside table. "Sit down." Terri ignored her and remained standing, looking at Ann, who was wearing a long-sleeved nightshirt. Her hair was up, and she wore no makeup. She looked, Terri thought, every year of her age, and would look older once she heard the news. "All right then, suit yourself. What is it?"

"I saw your boyfriend tonight."

"My boyfriend." Her face remained expressionless, as though she was determined not to let Terri get to her.

"Dennis. Remember him?" Ann said nothing. "He paid me a visit in the costume shop." She waited for a moment, but was rewarded only by her mother's silence, by a total lack of emotion in her face. "We talked about the two of you for a while. And then — I wouldn't mention this unless I didn't think that you should know — he came on to me."

"He came on to you," she repeated flatly.

"Mmm-hmm. Tried to make me. To fuck me." She still hadn't cracked that damn facade. "And you know what?"

"You let him."

"Yeah. I did."

Ann picked up her book, opened it, and turned her attention back to its pages. "That's nice, dear. Sleep well."

"You don't believe me."

"I didn't say that."

"But you don't." Terri smiled crookedly. "What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

"Why would you want to prove it to me?"

"So you believe me."

She closed the book and look up at her daughter. "Is it that important? If it were true, what would you gain by telling me? Would you want me to do something about it? Should I go to Dennis and tell him that he should do the honorable thing and marry you? Or would just hurting me be enough?" She shook her head. "Honestly, Terri, I don't know what you hope to gain."

"He has a mole high up on his thigh," she said, then looked up as if trying to remember. "Now let me think . . .” She lifted her hands to eye level a foot in front of her face, spread her fingers, and turned her palms inward as though cupping imaginary buttocks. Then she opened her mouth roundly and let her eyes shift from hand to hand. "The right thigh, it would be." She dropped her hands. "I couldn't have missed it from where I was. How about you?"

God yes, Terri thought, that got her. Ann's chin was trembling now, her eyes had grown very hard, and Terri's satisfaction was replaced by a feeling of loss, of something irretrievably broken. Still, her pride made her tough it out. "I assume that you'll accept that as verification?"

"Just get out, Terri," Ann said in a choked voice. "I'm very tired, and I feel sick.”

“All right, Mother. I bid you good night."

"Get out." Ann reached over and turned off the light. Terri heard the book fall onto the floor. The pain coming out of the darkness was almost tangible, driving her through the door, and as she felt it she felt her own pain as well, and knew that this time she had gone too far, she had pushed her mother over the edge.

Pushed? No. She had pulled her. They were both going down, weren't they? Falling into an abyss of broken trust from which there would be no returning. God knew the times they had felt close, had laughed and joked together, were few enough, but now there would be no more at all. What she had done, what she had just said, had made them more than strangers. It had made them enemies.

In her room, Terri wept.

~ * ~

And Ann Deems wept too, wept knowing that what her daughter said could not be true, was not true, but doubting, and weeping for her doubt. She did not sleep well that night, and in the morning she called Donna Franklin to tell her that she was ill and could not come in to work. It was a cowardly thing to do, she knew. The best thing would be to go to Kirkland and confront the truth, whatever it might be. If what Terri had said was true, she would learn it quickly enough by the way Dennis acted toward her. If it was not true, she could learn that quickly enough too.

But either way she lost. If Dennis had not seduced Terri, then her daughter was a vicious liar. If he had, then the man she loved was not worthy of her love. It was a no-win situation, and one that she did not want to face. To move from such buoyant joy to such terrible doubt was more than she could bear.

So again, she thought to herself, she would take the coward's way out. She would avoid the confrontation. She would hide.

~ * ~

If she had known with what disappointment Dennis Hamilton heard of her absence, she would have been considerably cheered.

Dennis had begun the morning feeling radiant. He was to meet with Mack Redcay, a young set designer whose sprawling, passionate scenery had been the only thing the critics (and Dennis) had liked about the previous fall's "big musical," which, to everyone's amazement, was still running on the basis of advance ticket sales, but was rumored to be closing in early April.

Redcay had agreed to design Craddock, and had come to Kirkland that morning on a six o'clock commuter flight which Sid met at the Philadelphia Airport. Dennis, Redcay, and Curt breakfasted in Dennis's suite, and afterward they went down to the theatre to show the designer the stage. They were joined there by Evan, who had copies of the stage blueprints for Redcay, and by Donna Franklin, who had brought Redcay's contracts down from the office.

"Where's Ann?" Dennis asked her, as he had expected she would be the one to run that particular errand.

"She called in sick today."

"Anything serious?" he said, trying to sound only vaguely interested and failing miserably.

"She didn't say — just that she felt under the weather."

Dennis nodded and turned his attention back to Redcay and the stage, hoping there was nothing really wrong, and yet selfishly hoping that there was, for he could not bear the thought of Ann wanting to stay away from him.

The rest of the morning was spent touring the stage, exploring the flies (Evan, Dennis noticed, seemed reluctant to ascend), examining the area beneath, and endlessly going over the blueprints. Redcay seemed a quiet, almost sullen man, but his store of questions was endless, and before anyone realized it, it was time for lunch.

They decided to take Redcay to the Kirkland Inn, and were walking through the theatre lobby when they saw Terri Deems. She was carrying a small, green canvas bag that Dennis assumed held her lunch, and smiled at him knowingly when she saw him. "Dennis?" she said. "May I speak to you for a minute?"

Her sly smile indicated to him that she knew precisely what was going on between him and her mother. So what was this to be then? he wondered. A case of premature nepotism? He felt more than a trifle wary as he told the others he would only be a moment. "What is it, Terri?" he said softly, not wishing the others only a few yards away to hear.

She gave a little laugh. "I just wanted to make sure that, despite what happened last night, you don't think too badly of me."

What was she talking about? "I'm sorry, I . . . last night?"

"I'm not usually that easily . . . won over," she said, as though he understood perfectly what she meant. "I guess I've always had kind of a schoolgirl thing for you. And I was flattered that you'd feel that way about me."

"Terri, please . . . I'm not sure what you mean."

Now her laugh was marred with disbelief. "God, how quickly they forget. Last night? The two of us? In the costume shop?"

He shook his head, feeling as though he had been displaced in time. Was the girl insane? Had his affair with her mother somehow unbalanced her? "I wasn't in the costume shop last night — I didn't see you at all last night."

Now the look on her face was one of sheer exasperation. "Why are you doing this?" she said, raising her voice. "You get a kick out of playing with all the help?"

"Please, Teni," he said. "Keep your voice down. I have no idea what this is all about, but whatever it is, can we talk about it later?"

"I like this job too much to lose it," she said, her voice boiling with anger. "So if last night was what I had to do to keep it, okay. But don't look for a repeat performance, Mr. Hamilton, and don't think my mother doesn't know about this either. And if you try to have me fired, I'll have you in court on a sexual harassment charge so fast it'll make your head spin. And maybe I'll throw in rape for good measure."

"Look, Terri, please —"

"Because I have no pride, none at all — I think I proved that last night!"

She spun away from him and ran through the doors to the stairway, leaving Redcay and Curt puzzled, Evan furious, and Dennis stunned. He could only stand and stare, terribly confused, at the door through which she had vanished. The next thing he felt was Evan's arm on his shoulder, pulling him around to face his son.

"Looks like your reputation's spreading, isn't it?" Evan said in a harsh whisper, anger in his eyes. "Guess I'm not the only kid who's a little pissed about what his parent is doing." Then he turned and ran too, in the opposite direction from Terri.

Dennis, breathing heavily, saw Curt and Mack Redcay, their faces pale and uncertain. He willed himself to calm, and addressed Curt. "Before we go down to the Inn, give them a call, Curt, and tell them it will be a party of three today."

~ * ~

Lunch was not the disaster Dennis had feared it would be. Mack Redcay was a professional, and, outwardly at least, had dismissed whatever interpersonal relationships plagued the Venetian Theatre as none of his affair. The talk quickly returned to set designs and the capability of the theatre's stage to house the impressive ideas Redcay was considering. Dennis's attention seemed to be on the conversation, but he let Curt carry the weight of it. In truth, his mind was focused on Terri Deems and what he was supposed to have done with her in the costume shop the previous night.

At least Evan had not overheard the words, only the tone of Terri's voice, and

had assumed that she was deriding Dennis for seeing her mother. Best to leave it at that. If the boy had even suspected that Dennis had done . . . what Terri seemed to be accusing him of doing, there would be no end to it.

But damn it, Dennis knew what he had done the previous night — he had watched the videocassette of Olivier's Othello with Sid, all two and a half hours of it, then had played a couple of hands of gin, said goodnight, and gone to bed. He had been nowhere near the costume shop. So what was the girl talking about?

It hit him as he finished his soup. Maybe, just maybe, Terri was telling the truth. Maybe it was the Emperor she had seen. It seemed so obvious that he was amazed he hadn't thought of it the moment she began to speak of things that could not be.

The Emperor. In the costume shop with Terri. And that meant that he was not an hallucination, not a mere figment of Dennis's imagination, but was real, real enough for another person to see him and speak to him and — what else?

But no, that would have been impossible. What he had seen was no more corporeal than a ghost. His hand had passed right through it. How could it have been capable of what Terri had implied?

Then the hardest thought of all struck him. What if The Emperor, like all good actors, was a liar?

What if, like all the characters ever created, he was, himself, a lie?

Scene 5

That evening, Terri Deems stormed into the family room, where her mother was sitting pretending to watch the huge television screen. "He's yours again, mother. I give him back to you."

"What?" Ann said weakly, in no mood to argue. Her day alone had been agony, and she had decided that the wisest thing would have been for her to go to work. There, at least, there would have been other things to occupy her thoughts.

"Your handsome, aging lover. You can have him back. I rescind all previous claims. He may have had my body, but he no longer has my heart, if he ever did."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked quietly. "Why do you keep playing this game?"

"Because it's no game — it's true — and you damn well ought to know what kind of person you've gotten yourself involved with. He denied all knowledge of what he and I did last night, pretended it never happened. I mean, the man is an absolute shit. I've learned my lesson, I hope you've learned yours." She sat down on the couch next to Ann and grabbed her by the shoulders. "It's the truth, mother. I swear to God, he screwed me last night. And boy, did he ever screw me today . . ."

Terri flopped back on the couch, looked at the ceiling, and closed her eyes. "I don't hate you, mother," she said in a quieter voice. "If I hated you, I wouldn't give a damn. I'd let you go on your merry way to hell." She sighed and stood up. "Just don't let what you think is love blind you to the ugly truth. Besides, he's not a very generous lay, is he? Or was your experience less sordid than mine? . . . Not talking? Okay then. Do what you want — maybe you can screw him to death too!" She ran out of the room without looking back.

Ann sat there for a moment, her eyes on the pastel images of the screen across the room, her mind filled to bursting. Screwed him to death? Eddie? Is that what she really believed, that her mother had killed her father? Is that what had come from that nightmare evening when Terri had burst into the bedroom in answer to Ann's screams?

It was a sick and ugly and horrid thought, and Ann realized that her daughter, in spite of the outward signs of maturity, was, in ways that mattered, really little more than a child. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to hold her little girl.

But she could not bring herself to go to her. She was too afraid, afraid of Terri's harsh words, afraid of even more rejection. "You coward," she whispered to herself. "Oh God, you coward . . .”

She had to prove to herself that she was brave, at least in some way. So she picked up the remote, turned off the set, and lifted the telephone handset. Dennis answered on the fourth ring.

"Dennis, it's Ann."

"Ann, how are you? I wanted to call you, but I've been tied up with Mack Redcay all day."

"I'm fine, Dennis." Far better, she thought, to get her own duplicity out of the way. "I didn't want to come in today, that's all." There was silence on the other end of the line, and she wondered, now what? Do I see if he'll run with the ball, or should I just tell him?

He took the burden from her. "Did Terri tell you about anything . . . something that happened last night?"

"Yes. She did."

"What exactly?"

"She told me that you had seduced her."

Ann heard him give a long sigh. "Honest to God, I don't know what she means. She implied the same thing to me today. Ann, I never even saw her last night." She didn't speak. "Ann, listen to me — I've waited for you for so many years, do you think I'd destroy it all by seducing your daughter? Even if I wanted to, which I don't. You know there'd be no way to keep it a secret. I would never be that stupid." He paused for a moment, then spoke more quietly, tenderly. "And I would never do that to you. Believe me. Please."

"I do," she said, and it was the truth. "I do believe you, Dennis. But Terri . . ." She was near tears. "What shall I do about Terri?"

"I don't know, Ann. I really don't. What if we both sat down and talked to her? Got everything out in the open, told her about the way we feel toward each other, what our plans were."

"No, Dennis, no. You don't know Terri. She's not ready to hear that. And I don't think she's ready to deny what she said." It was an excuse. The simple truth was that Ann was not up to another scene with Terri, not yet, particularly not with Dennis present. "Let's just give it some time."

"All right then. Whatever you think best. As long as you know the truth. And the truth is that I love you, and would never do anything to hurt you. Or Terri."

"I know that."

"Will I see you tomorrow?"

"Yes. I'll be there." There seemed nothing more to say. "Goodnight, Dennis.”

“Goodnight."

~ * ~

(DENNIS hangs up the phone and sits quietly for a moment. He sighs deeply, stands, and turns to see THE EMPEROR, dressed exactly as DENNIS is, standing stage left by the entrance to the hallway.)

THE EMPEROR

I'm afraid I've caused quite a little contretemps.

DENNIS

Jesus . . . you're here.

THE EMPEROR

And where should I be, if not near my creator? I owe you a slight apology. I'm afraid that I embarrassed you with the ladies.

DENNIS

Last night . . . with Terri. It was you.

THE EMPEROR

It was. Her loveliness quite overcame my better judgment.

DENNIS

But how could you . . . (He pauses, uncertain how to put it.)

THE EMPEROR

Seduce her, being intangible? I seduced her with words alone, my dear friend. No matter how desirous I might have been to possess her sweet young body . . . (He places his hand into the wall.) . . . it would have been quite impossible to do so. Much to my regret, I might add. So I was only able to make love to her with my tongue.

DENNIS

You can't . . . you mustn't do that. They think it's me.

THE EMPEROR

My apologies. But can you not understand? Is seducing this lovely creature not exactly what you would have done some years ago? You have always had an eye for beauty, no matter how cleverly disguised behind a mask of acrimony. And am I not, after all, my creator's child?

DENNIS

I . . . I told my friend about you — Sid.

THE EMPEROR

It is good to have a friend, a confidant, someone to whom you can entrust the secrets of your heart. You would be a lesser man without Sid, would you not? A weaker one.

DENNIS

Yes . . . I guess I would.

THE EMPEROR

One little knows how much one depends on others until they are gone. We draw strength from those we love, and from those who love us. That, I suppose, is one reason that I sought to establish a bond with Terri, to have someone true, someone loyal.

DENNIS

I can do that. I . . . created you. So I can be a friend to you. You don't have to . . . to go to anyone else.

THE EMPEROR

Ah, but one subject is scarcely enough for an emperor. . .

~ * ~

He was gone in an instant. There were no words of farewell this time. Instead he simply was no longer there. Only his words echoed in the air. One subject is scarcely enough for an emperor.

What did he mean? Dennis wondered. The implications were more frightening now than ever. What had he said to Terri? What had he done — or tried to do? And was it not, the creature had asked him, what he himself would have done some years before?

It was. Dennis had to be honest with himself. If a young and attractive girl like Terri had aroused him, and there was no Ann to complicate matters, he might have done exactly as the Emperor had — gone to her at night and seduced her.

But that had been years ago. He had not felt any urge to perpetrate such seductions for a long time. It seemed as though those particular emotions were simply not a part of him any more. But they were certainly, he realized an instant later, part of the Emperor.

The thought gave him pause, and he began to think about the other changes in his personality that had occurred over the past few months and years. He had heard people remark that he seemed more thoughtful and considerate, but he had attributed this to Robin's influence and to aging. But what, he thought, if it was due to something else?

What if it was due to his creation of the Emperor? What if this histrion, as it termed itself, had drawn from him those very emotions with which he had created it on stage and created the legend of Dennis Hamilton in his life — imperiousness, superiority, pride, a quick temper, and, yes, ruthlessness? He breathed a prayer of thanks that such a creation was incapable of interfering physically in his world.

And then another thought possessed him. If his theory was true, should he not, instead of fearing what he had made, be grateful to it? Might it not have, after all, drained him of his emotional poisons, making him truly a kinder and better person?

Dennis didn't know. He was certain of only one thing — that he had somehow created this creature, but whether he was cast in the role of Frankenstein or God he could not tell.

He remembered then what the thing had said about Sid, and knew that he had to talk to him about this immediately. The need for the presence of another human being — real, not ethereal — became the most important thing in the world to Dennis Hamilton, and, instead of calling Sid, he decided to go to his suite. Sid would know what to do. What the Emperor had said was true in one regard — he would indeed be a lesser man without Sid.

~ * ~

Sid Harper had knocked off early that night. He had driven Mack Redcay to the airport, served Dennis dinner, and was now lying in bed with Donna Franklin.

It was the first time they had made love in many weeks, weeks that had been filled with the activity of Robin's death and funeral, with everyone working at a feverish pace to try and banish the memories of tragedy, with Sid's departure to New York with Dennis and John, with work and worry and depression. Finally, when Sid had returned from the city, Donna had started her period. Her fastidious outward manner extended into her sex life only in one regard, and that was an absolute refusal to sleep with Sid when she was anything less than pristine. He had long accepted this condition, just as she had accepted the fact that Sid might be called from her side at any minute at the whim of Dennis Hamilton.

They had been interrupted during sex before, but the events of the past few months had made Donna even more high-strung than she usually was, and Sid was well aware that his lover's nerves were on a knife's edge. He had done all he could to calm her that evening, given her wine, held her tenderly, talked for a long time before taking her into the bedroom. But even with the preamble of concern, he still felt the tension, not only deep inside her, but also just beneath the surface, like a volcano about to explode. So when Sid's doorbell rang, she had stiffened beneath him and barked, "Jesus," in a way that made his penis shrivel instantly.

"I won't answer it," he said, caressing her hair.

"Sid?" He heard Dennis's voice, followed by more knocking.

"Oh shit," he murmured.

"Your master's voice," Donna said, rolling away from him.

"I'm sorry."

"Sure, you're sorry." Her voice was bitter.

"Look, I'll see what he wants, be right back."

She said something into the pillow that he didn't hear. The knocking came from the door again, and he rolled out of bed, threw on a bathrobe, and paced to the front door.

"Sid," Dennis said when he opened it. "You're in bed."

He managed a weak smile. "Not any more. What's up, Dennis?"

Dennis looked reluctant. "I, uh, I just wanted to talk to you about something. Um, alone. You . . . is Donna here?"

Sid nodded. "In the bedroom. I'll come over." He called toward the hall. "I'll be back in a bit."

"God damn it!" Donna cried from the bedroom. Sid turned to see if Dennis had heard, knowing full well that he had to, and saw that someone else was privy to her outburst as well. John Steinberg, his round face dour, was standing behind Dennis in the doorway.

"Is anything wrong?" he said.

"No, John," Sid replied. "Nothing is wrong."

Steinberg looked at him for a moment as though he didn't believe him, then gave a sharp nod, and proceeded down the hall on his way to his suite.

"I'm sorry," Dennis said. "I don't want to upset Donna."

Sid shrugged. "She's already upset. Let's go."

In Dennis's suite, Sid listened while Dennis told him about the confusion over Terri's accusations, of the conversation with Ann, and finally, of the return of the Emperor, and his admission of his verbal seduction of the girl. As Sid sat there, a great sorrow filled him. He could not help but feel that his friend was mad.

But when Dennis had finished his story, Sid sat for a moment, then nodded his head in sympathy. "This . . . thing sounds like nothing but trouble, Dennis," he said, trying to sound sincere. "I think you should try and get rid of it. As quickly as possible. Maybe I could help you."

Dennis frowned. "I don't know, Sid. It doesn't seem as if its intentions are bad. It acts the way it does because . . . well, because it knows no other way. It has the emotions that I gave it — the egoistic, childish ones. I can't really blame it for how it thinks. It's a child, a newborn, really. It's got . . . so much more to learn."

Dear God, Sid thought, he really has gone off the edge. "But, Dennis, you can't know what it intends. It could be bad — very bad. Maybe there's some way we could, I don't know, exorcise it or something. We could talk to a minister, or maybe . . . (Here goes, he thought) . . . a psychiatrist?"

Dennis looked at him for a long time, his eyes heavy-lidded and weary. "You still don't believe me."

"Dennis, I didn't say that, of course I believe you."

"This isn't something a psychiatrist can deal with, Sid. I honestly don't believe this is anything that anyone has ever had to deal with before."

Unique, Sid thought. I'd expect nothing less of Dennis Hamilton. "What'll we do then?"

"For now, nothing. I just had to talk about it, tell someone, and I knew I could trust you — if not to believe me, then at least not to tell anyone else. I don't want this . . . creation to be discovered, studied, examined, at least not yet. It trusts me, Sid, and I have to confess I feel . . . protective toward it. It is, after all, my child, for want of a better word. And in a weird way I actually feel a little proud of it." He paused, then chuckled. "With the small amount of pride it's left me."

Sid thought for a moment. "Then you think that this explains the recent changes in your personality. This histrion, as you call it, took the emotions of the Emperor away from you."

"Yes. And it could explain why my last performances, for the most part, weren't nearly as powerful as before."

"It makes . . . an odd kind of sense," Sid said, nodding. "But do you want to give those things up?"

"Maybe it's done me more good than harm. It's made me a kinder person. Hopefully a better one." He grinned. "When's the last time I barked ‘scheiskopf’ to you?"

"Well, yeah, I haven't missed that," Sid admitted.

"See, there's good in everything. Even . . .”

Sid stepped into the pause. "An emotional vampire?"

Dennis sobered immediately. "I wouldn't put it like that."

"No. I guess not. I'm sorry, Dennis, I didn't mean to be flip." He stood up. "Okay then, you don't want to do anything about this, talk to anyone else, right?"

"No." Dennis sat there looking at the carpet. He seemed, Sid thought, to have been drained of feeling, and he thought that his vampiric description of what was eating Dennis (from within only, he had no doubt) was apt.

"Well, goodnight then," he said, and let himself out, noticing, as he left, that Dennis didn't look up to see him go.

Back in his suite, Donna was still in the bed. When he climbed in next to her, she smiled at him apologetically. "I'm sorry," she said. "That wasn't like me. I feel so stupid."

"It's okay," he told her. "I understand." Instead of immediately resuming their lovemaking, he simply put an arm around her and let her cuddle against him. "This whole place is on edge. You should've seen John when he heard you yell."

"Ohmigod, John heard me?"

"Yeah. He was in the hall."

"It's going to be lovely to face him tomorrow."

"Not like he doesn't know about us."

"I know, but I don't think he's ever really approved. He still treats me like a daughter, even after all these years."

"Better like a daughter than like a slave to ole' massah Dennis . . .”

The last word fell off into such despair that Donna propped herself on her elbow and looked at Sid's face in the dim light. "What is it?"

"Dennis. There's something very wrong. Remember when you thought he was putting the moves on you upstairs?" She nodded. "Well, I don't think you were imagining it. I think he tried to — hell, maybe he even did — seduce Terri too."

"My God. John told me Terri was arguing with Dennis in the lobby. So that's what it was about. No wonder Ann stayed out sick."

"That's not the worst of it. Dennis has come up with this alter ego — his Mister Hyde who's doing all these rotten things. It's the Emperor."

"What?"

"The Emperor Frederick. The character. It's . . . split off from him, see? So when Dennis does something bad, like try and seduce you, or try and screw Terri Deems when he's seeing her mother, it's not him, but the Emperor who did it."

"He told you this?"

"He's got it all worked out in his head. It's scary as hell, Donna. I think he really believes it too. I don't know whether it's guilt over Robin's death or what, but something's driven him half crazy. Maybe all crazy."

"But when I saw him — upstairs — and he was in his costume, that was before Robin died."

Sid shook his head and sighed. "I don't know. I don't get it at all."

"Sid, you don't think . . . " She paused, as though she hated to say what was next. "You don't think Dennis could have had anything to do with the deaths, do you?"

"I can't believe that. There's another, more reasonable explanation for everything that happened—Tommy, Harry, even Robin. Dennis couldn't have been responsible for any of those. It was physically impossible. But, goddammit, there's something wrong with him, and he's my friend, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, I know one thing you can do — make sure the door's locked, huh?"

"It is, always. That's what comes from living in New York." He kissed her, placed his hand on her stomach, moved it up to her breasts, and was delighted to find that her nipples were hard. "Don't worry," he said, "no one's going to walk in on us. And no more interruptions either. Dennis — and the Emperor — will just have to wait until tomorrow."

They made love then, softly and sweetly, and when they were finished Donna nestled against Sid and went right to sleep. Sid, however, lay awake, thinking about Dennis and about what he might do for his friend. For they were friends, and had been ever since that first company of A Private Empire, when Sid, a chorus member only a year older than Dennis, was overjoyed with Dennis's transformation from a put-upon ingenue into the man who called the shots. At the end of the third week of rehearsals, by which time Dennis was feared by everyone involved with the show except Davis and Ensley themselves, Sid had gone up to Dennis during a break and said, "I like what you're doing — and not just with the role."

Dennis had looked at him dully for a moment, and then, realizing that someone had seen through his dual performances, grinned broadly. That moment began a collaboration and a friendship that had lasted a quarter century, and had been betrayed only once — by Sid in a poolside changing room with Dennis's first wife. It was a mistake Sid had regretted ever since, and ever since he had been unfailingly loyal to Dennis.

He would be loyal to him now. There was no way he could bring himself to share his knowledge with John Steinberg, who, although he loved Dennis too, would have unhesitatingly had him committed to one of those celebrity psycho/drugs/alcohol wards whose graduates graced the covers of People and the tabloids. John was practical enough to do it, and had the power to do it as well. If Dennis was the Emperor, then Steinberg was the power behind the throne. No, Sid would say nothing to him, and hope that Dennis was able to work his problems out for himself before Steinberg noticed anything strange about his sole client.

Ann Deems might help, Sid thought. It had been obvious that she had begun something with Dennis just last week. Coming so soon after Robin's death, it was a wonder that he had not tried to blame that on the Emperor as well. Still, he remembered liking Ann when Dennis had dated her years before, and from what he could see, she had become a good woman. Dennis had seemed in better spirits after having been with her, at least until this snafu with Terri.

And Sid would do what he could too, comfort Dennis, reassure him, be there when he needed to talk. He could work it out, get rid of this fucking inner gremlin or whatever it was that was busting his chops, making him do things that he probably didn't want to do.

Sid tried to drive the thoughts from his mind, and looked down at Donna's sleeping face. He kissed her cheek, then slowly shifted his body, moved out of her embrace, slid his feet onto the floor, and stood up. Then he pulled the covers over her shoulders, turned off the dim light, stepped into the hall, gently closed the bedroom door, and went into his kitchen for a snack.

He was invariably ravenous after making love, but always waited until Donna was sound asleep to raid the refrigerator, and was always back in bed with her before she awoke. Now he got some raisin bran from the shelf, poured milk over it, and sat down at the table. The wooden chair was cold on his bare buttocks, but the room was warm, and he was soon comfortable. He finished the bowlful in five minutes, then drank a small glass of juice, and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he went back into the bedroom, Donna was dead.

He didn't realize it at first. He lay down beside her in the dark, moving next to her for her warmth. She had rolled over onto her back, he noticed, so he put his arm around her waist, and his head next to hers so that her hair was against his cheek. It took him several minutes to realize that she wasn't breathing. There was no gentle, regular pulse against his arm, no soft sound of her breath drifting in and out of her lungs, although, in his own soporific state, he still did not equate this with death, merely with something being not quite right.

"Donna?" he whispered, still expecting to hear a slight murmur, but none came. "Honey?"

There was no response, and he knew that something was wrong. Now fully awake, he put his fingers to her face, to reassure himself that she was still breathing. But instead of touching her mouth and upper lip, feeling the blessed puffs of warm, damp air, he touched something soft, cold, only slightly moist.

It was her tongue, protruding from her gaping mouth.

Terror burned through him. He rolled away from her, tumbled onto the floor in a cocoon of sheets and blankets, scuttled wormlike to the wall switch, and flicked it on.

She lay there naked, the flesh of her body white, though her face was mottled blue and purple. A wreath of bruises encircled her throat, and her eyes bulged, as though they had been forced from their sockets.

Sid's mind filled with panic, horror, grief, and terror that whoever had done this thing was still in the suite. In an instant, however, anger had replaced his fear, and he grabbed a sword from where it hung on the wall. It was only a stage sword, one of the first Dennis had used in A Private Empire and had given to Sid, but it had a sharp point, and was longer than the arms that had strangled Donna.

Though he felt terribly vulnerable in his nakedness, he wanted to waste no time. He dashed out of the bedroom, ran down the short hall, across the living room, past the kitchen, and to the front door.

It was still locked. The deadbolt was closed.

Then whatever had killed Donna was still in the suite.

Good, he thought savagely. Good. Sid would find him, and run that thin, prop sword through him until he was nothing, until he was as dead as Donna, without spirit, movement, life . . .

"Donna . . .” he said, and choked back a sob. No, there would time to cry later. There would, he knew, be years to cry.

He looked in the small foyer first, throwing the closet doors open, his sword poised to strike. But they were empty, and he went back into the kitchen, then searched the living room, the bathroom, and finally steeled himself to go into the bedroom once again, where Donna lay unmoving, still dead, and the sight crushed him, for he had prayed and half expected that he might have had a dream, a nightmare, one of Dennis's hallucinations, and she would still be alive, waking to ask him what he was doing. But no. Donna was there, and Donna was dead. Donna, whom he had made love to and loved for years and never told how he felt. Donna, who he could never tell.

"You bastard!" he cried to the night, to the death that had come. He ran to the windows, only to find them all closed and locked from the inside. "Where are you!" He ran from room to room, weeping, shrieking for the coward Death to appear.

Only silence answered him.

Finally he went back into the bedroom, sat next to Donna, dropped the sword, and took her hand. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I love you. I have always loved you."

Her eyes did not turn to his, her fingers did not grasp his own, her face did not come alive with a look of love received and returned.

Donna Franklin stayed dead.

Someone knocked at his door. He sat next to her until he heard voices calling his name. Then he got up, padded naked and shocked to the door, unbolted and opened it. Dennis, John Steinberg, and Curtis Wynn stood there, Dennis pale, Steinberg florid, Curt looking as he always did, his sole concession to the disturbance a hint of concern that furrowed his eyebrows.

"We heard you shouting," Dennis said. "What is it?"

Sid tried to tell them, but his lower lip began to quiver, and he was soon sobbing uncontrollably, his eyes blinded with tears, clinging to Dennis with all his strength. He heard Curt and John move past him into the suite, heard John's startled cry, then returning footsteps, felt a hand on his shoulder pull him away from Dennis, and now he looked into John's angry face.

"Did you . . ." the man began, then seemed to grasp control. "Who?" he said in a hollow tone. "Who, Sid?"

Sid shook his head. "I . . . I —"

"Was it you?" John asked, his voice as empty and lifeless as before.

Sid answered with only more sobs. A second later he felt John Steinberg's open hand slash across his cheek.

"Was it!"

"No!" The pain gave him words. "No, John! Jesus, I loved her, I'd never hurt her!"

"Who then?" Steinberg asked in a voice whose fury dwarfed his own earlier rage.

"I don't know — the door was locked, bolted, and the windows . . . Jesus, I don't know . . ."

"Curt," Dennis said, "get him his robe."

"And call the police," Steinberg added. When Sid looked up at him, he was surprised to find that the man's eyes were filled with tears, and the loose flesh of his face was trembling as if with a life of its own.

~ * ~

What a lesser man you will be without Sid. And without Donna. Even your loyal Jew shows signs of failing. Coming closer now, Dennis. Taking away your loved ones, wearing you away bit by bit. Remember the song we sang together? —

"And though the minutes wear away the years,

Time can never dry up all my tears.

And every tear that falls, as long years roll,

Like rain on rock, does wear away my soul."

Not Davis's best, was it? But fitting, quite fitting.

A suitable epitaph.

The king is dying. Long live the Emperor.

Scene 6

"This time there's no doubt," Dan Munro said. "It's a case of homicide." He smiled grimly at Dennis Hamilton across the top of his littered desk. "We're going to have to recheck Mr. Harper's alibis for the other deaths as well. It's very possible that he's the one who's given you all this trouble."

"No," Dennis said. "You're wrong."

"Really?" Munro tilted his head, trying not to act too cocky. "You think this was a suicide too?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. I mean that it wasn't Sid who was responsible . . . if anyone was."

"And what makes you think that?"

"Because he . . . well, he just wasn't. Sid couldn't have had anything to do with those things. There's not a mean streak in him."

Munro sighed. "Mr. Hamilton, face the facts. Harper's suite door was bolted from the inside — not just locked, but bolted. All the windows were locked, there was nobody in the suite but him and the victim, and I've got three witnesses, and you're one of them, who say that the two of them had an altercation just an hour or so before you went over and found them. So what's the logical conclusion to draw?"

"I still tell you that Sid didn't do it."

"The man had the means and the opportunity, Mr. Hamilton, and I have no doubt we'll find a motive as well." Munro stood up. "Thanks for your cooperation, sir. Harper will be transferred to the county prison in the morning, and a judge will determine if bail can be set."

"Do you think it will be?"

"In a case like this, I doubt it."

John Steinberg came into Munro's office next. After going over the ground that he had on the scene, Munro asked Steinberg if he knew of any reason why Donna Franklin would be angry at Sid Harper.

Steinberg cleared his throat and looked toward the ceiling. "Sometimes Donna would get upset when Dennis required Sid's services at . . . inopportune times.”

“Like when they were in bed together."

"Yes."

"How long had they been lovers?"

"Years."

"Did that bother you?"

"No." Steinberg, Munro thought, had paused just a bit too long.

"Were you ever involved with Miss Franklin?"

Steinberg fixed Munro with a look of withering scorn. "In what way?" The words dripped acid.

"Romantically."

"No. Never."

"But you were close?"

"She was very much like a daughter to me." Steinberg's voice grew softer. "I did love her in that way."

"Were you happy with the situation between her and Harper?"

"My happiness had nothing to do with it. It made Donna happy. That was sufficient."

"Did they quarrel much?"

"Not that I ever knew of."

"Could there be any possibility that Miss Franklin wanted a permanent relationship and Harper didn't?"

"I don't know."

"Was there any indication that she could have been pregnant? Morning sickness? Whatever?"      1

"That's highly unlikely. Miss Franklin had a tubal ligation several years ago.”

“Oh. Oh, well, the autopsy will turn that up." Munro sat for a moment shaking his pen, trying to decide what to ask next. "Mr. Steinberg," he finally said, "Mr. Hamilton sincerely believes that Harper is innocent." He waited, but Steinberg said nothing. "Just between us, what do you think?"

"I really don't know. I thought that's what the police were for."

"You know the circumstances. You see any other possibility?"

"That's not what I am paid for. It's you, I believe, who gets a check from the town. Do you have any other questions? It's very late," Steinberg said, glancing at the wall clock, whose hands read one-thirty in the morning.

"No. Not right now."

Steinberg stood up. "Robert Leibowitz, who will be Mr. Harper's attorney, is flying down from New York. I trust that he will not be questioned further until Mr. Leibowitz arrives."

"Of course not." God damn, Munro thought, I wish I didn't feel like a kid in the principal's office around this guy. He stood up as well, thanked Steinberg, and was left alone with his thoughts and a feeling of triumph.

He knew it. He knew all along that there was more to that fucking theatre than met the eye. Accidents, bullshit. He had known that it was only a matter of time before a flat-out obvious-as-hell murder took place. But now the question was, had Harper done it all? Did his original alibis stand up? And if they didn't, why had he done the nasties? Other than the crime of passion/lovers' quarrel that had killed the Franklin woman, the other deaths didn't fit into any pattern that he had ever heard of. Serial killers didn't coolly and methodically snuff their coworkers over a period of months — that was stupid. It would be impossible to evade capture. If you had a lust to merely kill people, you offed strangers. Hell, you could do that for years and not get caught — the Green River killings were proof of that.

As for a highly motivated series of killings, Munro could understand why Harper might want to kill Hamilton's wife, but why the assistant stage manager? And for crissake, why a janitor? Just to throw the attention off the intended victim? That was right out of Agatha Christie, and as improbable in reality as it was clever on paper.

Still, with all the doubts, one thing was for damn sure — he had the guy who killed Donna Franklin. Locked doors, caught with the corpse, no doubt about it. He had even fucked her before he killed her, if the wadded towel in the bed was any indication. Hell, maybe he'd even done it again while he was strangling her. The State Police lab could determine that.

The son of a bitch was caught with his pants down, all right. It would take more than a fancy New York lawyer to get him out of this. Yeah, Donna Franklin's killer was safely under lock and key, and the royal bastard would stay there.

Scene 7

What a horribly vacillating thing the mind is, Dennis Hamilton thought, lingering over the breakfast he had made himself. His thoughts had swung between two poles innumerable times that morning. At one moment he was certain that the Emperor had killed Donna Franklin, and at others he believed that it might really be Sid.

In his way Sid had loved Donna, and to Dennis's best knowledge he had never committed a violent act in his life. Still, the unpleasant and newly discovered truth remained that anyone was capable of murder. What Robin had planned to do to Ann was proof of that.

But not Sid, he thought anew. Not Sid killing Donna. That was unimaginable.

What remained then, behind locked doors and windows? Only a creature to whom doors and windows meant nothing, because he was incorporeal. The Emperor. But he could not have killed Donna, could he, for the very reason that he was incorporeal.

Then that left only Sid, but Sid could not have killed Donna because . . .

And on and on it went. He welcomed this inner debate, as inconclusive as it was, for it kept his mind busy, kept the terrible depression at bay. It seemed that the people on whom he depended, the people he loved, were being taken away from him. We draw strength from those we love, the Emperor had told him. God, how true that was. And when those we love are gone, how empty our lives can become. Robin, Donna, Tommy, and yes, even simple Harry Ruhl, who had brightened Dennis's days with his sweet, innocent charm.

And now Sid was gone too, Dennis's right hand for over two decades. It seemed callous, and he felt guilty as he realized it, but he would miss Sid most of all. Dennis had not always treated him kindly, but Sid had always stuck by him, and Dennis loved him for it. He would do everything he could, short of perjury, to prove Sid's innocence.

Dennis put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, then went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. Last night Steinberg had suggested getting someone to replace Sid for the time being, but Dennis had declined. He would do for himself for a change. He felt the need to be alone, with only one exception to his solitude, someone he desperately needed to see and talk to.

Dennis waited for Ann Deems outside, under the marquee. The cold air bit his lungs as he breathed it in, and the sensation pleased him. The pain proved he was still alive.

Terri Deems arrived alone at eight-thirty, and Dennis went back into the theatre lobby and waited in the coat room until she passed, then went back outside. Ann arrived just before nine o'clock. She was bundled in a maroon coat and a gray cloche, and looked, Dennis thought, absolutely wonderful.

She saw him as she began to cross the street from the parking lot, and her steps slowed. He walked across the empty street toward her, and she took his arm. Tears hung in her eyes.

"I heard," she said in a choked voice. "I heard on the radio this morning. Dennis, is it true? Did Sid? . . .”

"No," he said. "It looks that way, but I don't believe he could have. I told you how he felt about Donna."

"And I know how she felt about him. It wasn't so much what she said as how she acted when he came into the office."

They walked inside and sat, still in their coats, on an upholstered bench in the lobby, where he told her everything that had happened the previous night. Ann cried in his arms over the loss of Donna, and they sat in silence for a long time. Finally he spoke.

"I wanted you to know something — about what Terri told you. This may be hard to understand . . . but maybe no harder than a lot of other things that have been happening."

He took a deep breath and looked down at the dark, swirling colors of the giant Oriental rug. He had to tell her. He could not let her think Terri a liar. "I'm afraid that she may have been partially right about the other night. Not that I seduced her — I didn't. That's the truth. But I may have said some things that . . . may have given her the wrong impression. I've been having lapses in memory, in judgment too, I'm afraid. These deaths, these . . . losses have hurt me, weakened me. It's as though I'm . . . not myself sometimes." He gathered the courage to look at her. "Can you understand that? And can you forgive me?"

"I can always forgive you," she said, taking his hand. "I know you, Dennis. I've known you for so long, and I know that you're a good man. Terri is . . . well, she's confused. I think it would be easy for her to misunderstand what might be only a sign of approach, of affection, for something else."

"I'm glad you believe me, Ann. I needed you before, but I need you more than ever now."

"You have me. For as long as you want."

"You may regret saying that," he told her, with the hint of a smile. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want this to sound callous, but we're going on with Craddock. John and I talked it over last night — poor man, I think it was harder for him than it was for me. He treated Donna like a daughter for years. But we decided it would serve no purpose to delay the show. That's why Donna and Tommy and . . . and Robin were here. And I won't leave the area anyway — not as long as Sid's in jail. It won't be an ideal situation. It'll be harder than ever for the show to come off on time, but we can do it. If we have your help."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Take over Donna's position. You know the job, you know everything that it would take someone else months to learn. Donna was irreplaceable, we all know that. But if anyone can come close to what she did, it's you. And John agrees with me."

He had feared she would hesitate, claiming ignorance or inability, but she did not, and love and admiration surged through him as he saw her nod, heard her say, "All right. I'll do it. If you and John think I can, then I can. I only have one request.”

“And that is?"

"I want to move in here. Into the building, in one of the vacant fourth floor suites."

Dennis felt ice in the pit of his stomach. "No, Ann. No."

"Dennis, I have to. I've seen what Donna's job was like. She had to be accessible to John at all times."

He sought for an excuse to keep her out of the building. "But what about Terri? You want her to live alone?"

"I never see her now as it is. I think we'd both be more comfortable if we were apart for a while. Maybe that's a coward's way out, but I just can't bear any more confrontations with her."

"No. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

"Yes. There have been four deaths in this building."

"And they all have explanations, Dennis. Tommy and Robin's deaths were both accidental, Harry, as impossible as it seems, had to be a suicide, and . . ." She trailed off.

"And Sid killed Donna? Is that what you think?"

"What else is there to think, Dennis? After what you told me about the two of them being the only ones there? I agree, it seems incredible that Sid could do such a thing, but what other explanation is there? I like Sid too, and if you could give me another possibility I'd grab onto it."

"He didn't do it, Ann."

"You say that as his best friend, but do you really believe it?"

Dennis thought about Sid and Donna and the Emperor's hand going through the wall, his own fingers feeling nothing but air where the Emperor stood, thought about Terri's accusation, thought about how real artists' creations could be. "I don't know," he said. "I really don't know."

"I'm moving in, Dennis. That's the only way I'll agree."

"Then you can't agree," he said, calling her bluff. "You cannot move in here. In fact, Whitney's moving out tomorrow — Marvella's daughter finally found a place that's suitable. But even if she hadn't, I'd have the two of them put in a hotel, whether Marvella kicked and screamed or not."

"All right, Dennis. I'll stay at home then. But I think you're being too cautious.”

“I don't," he said. "Trust me."

~ * ~

Little work was done in the Venetian Theatre offices that day. Robert Leibowitz, Sid's attorney, spoke with Steinberg, Dennis, and Curt for hours, then spent nearly as much time in Sid's suite in the company of a policeman. By late afternoon, Dennis felt exhausted, and when Steinberg asked him to join him for dinner, at first he declined.

"Come on, Dennis," Steinberg said. "It'll be good for you to get away from the building for a while. Besides, your own cooking could be fatal, you know." So he agreed to meet John at six-thirty, when they would walk together to the Inn.

When he arrived in the lobby, he saw Whitney sitting on a chair, swinging her short legs back and forth. When she looked up, her expression was far removed from her usual childish glow of wonder. "Hello, Whitney," he said, smiling at her, but she did not smile back.

"Hello, Mr. Hamilton."

"Waiting for your grandmother?"

She nodded. "We're going to McDonald's. Then we're gonna work in the shop tonight. I'm gonna help."

"Ah. Are you excited about going home?"

"Yeah," she said. "It'll be okay." She looked down for a moment, then said with juvenile candor, "Mr. Hamilton, is it true about Sid? Did he really hurt — kill Donna?"

"I don't know, Whitney. I'd rather believe not."

"I don't think he did," the girl said. "He loved her too much to hurt her. He never hurt me, and he got mad at me sometimes."

Dennis smiled, blessing the trust of children, wishing that it remained in himself. "I think you may be right, Whitney. I hope so anyway."

"Then did someone else do it?"

"I . . . I don't know. It could be, I suppose."

"I'm not afraid. Grandma'll take care of me."

"I'm sure she will." As if on cue, the elevator doors opened, and Marvella stepped out. "Hello, Marvella."

"Dennis," she said, and nodded to him. She looked as though she had been crying. "Awful thing, awful thing."

He nodded back, and without another word she took her granddaughter's hand and they left the building.

Dinner was mercifully bereft of any discussion of the killing, but it was there all the same, a ghostly presence, impossible to ignore, that sat at the table with them over each course, that ingratiated itself in every bite of food, every word they spoke.

"You didn't eat very much," Steinberg observed as the waiter cleared away Dennis's half-eaten dessert.

"Not much of an appetite."

"You need exercise. When's the last time you had a swim?"

"Weeks ago. I feel too tired."

"That's precisely when you should exercise. Let's have a dip when we get back."

Though a swim was the last thing that Dennis wished for, he felt incapable of refusing. It was somehow easier to go into the locker room, change into trunks, and join Steinberg in the pool. Dennis marveled at the man's grace in the water, heavy as he was. Steinberg swam laps, dove from the high board, and went for great lengths underwater, breaching the surface and taking in great lungfuls of air that Dennis felt would have burst him in two. Dennis, on the other hand, paddled without much vigor back and forth across the pool, resting often, his arms on the cool tile of the pool's edge.

After twenty minutes of exertion, Steinberg pulled himself out of the water for the last time. "Well, I'm sufficiently exhausted for a good night's rest, even after the events of the past day. Join me for a nightcap?"

Dennis shook his head. "No thanks. This feels good. I think I'll just stay in the water a bit longer."

"You'll be all right alone?"

"Why, you think there's something here?" He said it before he even realized it was out of his mouth. It was the lassitude the water caused that made him careless. Steinberg's eyes narrowed. "Something? What do you mean, something?”

“I . . . don't know. I guess I'm spooked, that's all."

"There's nothing here," Steinberg said with more force than Dennis thought was necessary. The three words implied a multitude of sentiments, chief among them that Sid was safely in jail.

"You think he did it?" Dennis asked Steinberg. It was the first time either of them had spoken of it that night.

"Yes. I do. There is no one else." Without another word, Steinberg turned and walked into the locker room, leaving Dennis alone in the pool.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against his arms. "No," he whispered to himself, unable to believe his friend had done what everyone except he and a trusting child thought he had. Even the attorney had seemed dubious that anyone else could have conceivably murdered Donna.

As if to escape from his thoughts, he twisted backward into the pool, immersing his head beneath the water, diving down, down, until his fingers touched the smooth surface of the pool's bottom, then came up again, his eyes still closed against the chlorine, against what he himself was beginning to think was the truth.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw that he had been right after all, saw that Sid was innocent. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Emperor standing by the side of the pool.

He was holding out a towel.

~ * ~

(THE EMPEROR wears his full dress uniform. His skin shows no signs of perspiration from the humidity of the pool. Smiling, he holds the towel toward DENNIS, who, treading water, seems stunned, and afraid to swim any nearer.)

THE EMPEROR

Not ready to come out? It won't wash off, you know. No matter how long you stay in there.

DENNIS

What . . . won't wash off?

THE EMPEROR

The blood. Your friends' blood on your hands.

DENNIS

You're . . . you're holding it.

THE EMPEROR

The towel? Oh yes. I'm quite capable of corporeality now, no small thanks to you. (He swings the towel about in demonstration.) I owe you a great deal, oh creator of mine. I owe you my very existence, of course, but you knew that. What you don't know is that I also owe you lives. Lives that I, in my imperial power, have taken.

DENNIS

(He is growing tired, continually treading water.) You killed Donna.

THE EMPEROR

I did.

DENNIS

Why? For God's sake!

THE EMPEROR

Why? Surely not for God's sake, but for the sake of the Emperor. You see, my friend, you no longer have the strength of will, the force of character required to hold such high office. It is time, my dear fellow, to abdicate to a higher power. Me.

DENNIS

No! It's a character, just a character! There is no emperor!

THE EMPEROR

(He spreads his arms) There is now.

DENNIS

Why did you let me think you were . . . harmless?

THE EMPEROR

It amused me to play such a game, to pretend, to perform. After all, was I not

born of performance? Born of an actor? Born of artifice? Yet, in a way my . . . harmlessness was true. My corporeality grew slowly, like a child learning to walk. I pulled the pin that dropped the curtain on that scheiskopf of an assistant stage manager — my first physical act, and it exhausted me. There was no way I could physically destroy one of your sycophants — not then — without great care and happy coincidences. But I could be seen, and I could move objects, were they small enough. (He grins) Like the servant's knife.

DENNIS

Harry. . . Harry Ruhl . . .

THE EMPEROR

Yes. The physician was correct, you know. He did perform those . . . surgeries upon himself. But at my direction, and by my will. He had practically none of his own. His brain was like butter. Your wife, I had hoped, would prove a worthier subject, but she was not. I had merely to drop the suggestion that she destroy your mistress, and she was off like a hound on scent.

DENNIS

You told her to kill Ann?

THE EMPEROR

Nothing so crude. I only opened the portal — she rushed through it. A few subtle clues, a hint of perfume, overheard voices, a lost handkerchief — had she never seen Othello? — and vengeance quite o'ertopped her thoughts. I little cared which one perished, though I hoped that only one would, so as to save a treat for later. (He shakes his head.) I had no idea you felt so deeply for the girl. After her death my strength was increased fivefold. More than enough to throttle the woman last night.

DENNIS

Oh my God . . .

THE EMPEROR

You have no idea of the pleasure of it — to actually hold a life in your hands, and make it ebb away. The strength I felt, the power, the . . . reality.

DENNIS

Everything then. you've done everything.

THE EMPEROR

I have indeed. Including the peccadillo with the young wardrobe person. That brought you more than a little grief from your aging mistress, I vow. It was an interesting sensation, but all in all I prefer execution more. Mating is only . . . a little death.

DENNIS

(Near tears) Why? Why have you done this?

THE EMPEROR

For a simple reason — self-preservation. I wish to live, and to keep growing in

my existence. In order for all things to grow, they must derive strength from

something. And I derive my strength from my creator. As your spirit ebbs, mine grows stronger. Each loss undermines the structure of your life, and makes my dais more solid, my throne more permanent. Soon everyone you love, everyone upon whom you depend, will be taken from you, and Dennis Hamilton will fade away, leaving only the Emperor. And on that day, as Dennis Hamilton became the Emperor, so will the Emperor become Dennis Hamilton.

DENNIS

(In a voice filled with fury) You're a liar.

THE EMPEROR

I beg your pardon?

DENNIS

(Desperately) You're a liar. I don't know what else you are, but I do know that. I don't even believe in you. Sid was right. You're nothing but a figment of my imagination. Maybe you're a part of me, but you're a part of my mind, nothing more.

THE EMPEROR

You know that's not true. You're only denying a reality that you're afraid of, that you feel ultimately responsible for. I can't blame you. It's such a human trait, but one that, under these circumstances, can accomplish nothing.

DENNIS

You don't exist.

THE EMPEROR

So I must prove it. Dear me. (He looks upward, as though hearing something.) Very well then. You wish proof? You shall have it. The little girl. Get out of the pool. Run and see. By the time you arrive it shall be done. Do not think to arrive before me, for you take the high road, while I take the low. (THE EMPEROR vanishes. The towel he has been holding falls to the floor.)

~ * ~

Dennis did not stop to dress nor to dry himself. Barefoot, dripping, clad in bathing trunks, he ran around the corner into the hall, and savagely pushed the button for the elevator. He had thought of running up the stairs, but the elevator would take less time than a trip up the labyrinthine, curving stairways.

He jabbed the button again, and realized that nothing was happening. He heard no whirring of gears, no whine of cables. The bastard! If he had been able to turn the lights on and off with whatever strange powers he possessed, the elevator should be a simple thing to stop.

Dennis cursed, whirled away from the elevator door, and ran toward the steps, his wet feet slapping the carpet beneath. He reached the stairs to the lobby and began to run up them, when the lights went out.

"No!" he shouted, but heard only his voice echoing through the building. One hand in front of him to ward off whatever barrier he might strike, the other clutching the banister, he climbed up the steps in the deep blackness that only cellars can exude. The banister came to an end, dim light was visible, and he knew he was in the first floor hall. In the light that shone through the glass doors from the street lamp outside, he made his way to the door to the lobby, shambled across it, and pushed open the door to a small storage room where, among other things, the ushers' flashlights were kept. He snatched one up, flicked its switch, and ran on, preceded by a weak, yellow beam that he prayed would stay alive.

Up the winding stair he ran to the second floor, then to the third. As he labored up the narrower stairway to the fourth floor, he noticed that the strength of the flashlight's beam was diminishing, and ran faster, so as to beat its imminent failure.

He was not successful. The light winked out just as his foot touched the last step. Surprised, he tripped, banged his shin, stood up, kept moving down the hall, knowing that the costume shop was ahead, that if he kept going straight he would run right into the door. Right hand against the wall, left hand out, Dennis scuffled along, expecting at any moment to bump into the door he sought.

But it did not come, and he thought that perhaps he had taken a wrong turn, or was on the wrong floor, or was trapped in the Emperor's world, in the skewed reality of a mad thing's mind, and that the hall went on forever into the darkness, that there would never be an end to it. Sobbing in frustration and fear, he pushed on, expecting at any moment to feel the floor fall away beneath his feet, plunging him down, down into some nightmare even worse than the one he now inhabited.

And just when he thought he could not bear to move another step, just as he was on the verge of falling, shrieking, crying, surrendering to whatever the Emperor was, his bare toes battered against a wall, and the pain flung him backwards, down, and he fell hard on the floor, hurting, but thinking he was there, oh Christ, he was there at the end, at the door, and he scuttled on his knees to it, fumbling for the door knob, ignoring the sharp pain of his aching foot, finding the knob, turning it, pushing in, the door opening, and the light going on as if on cue, as if someone had been waiting to illuminate the scene.

In a large and chaotic pile of clothes, Marvella Johnson was sitting like a Buddha, rocking back and forth, tears cutting a trail of ice down her black cheeks. Whitney lay in her arms, unmoving, her face turned away from Dennis, buried in Marvella's wide breast. A soft, irregular, grunting noise came from between Marvella's parted lips, and slowly her massive head came up, looked at Dennis.

"Oh, Dennis," she said, in a soft and dreamy voice he had never heard her use before. "Oh, Dennis, she's dead. . ."

He walked over to the pair as if in a dream. "What happened? Marvella, what happened?"

She shook her head, and it seemed as if she could not stop. "She was playing in the pile of clothes, tunneling through, she's done it lots of times. I went into the bathroom, just went into the bathroom for a minute, and when I came out I looked over and I didn't see her, and called her name. Then I saw the pile moving, but she didn't say a thing, and I thought she was down under, playing a trick on me, and . . . and God help me, I went back to my work. I looked over again, and saw the clothes still moving.

"And I knew that it wasn't her moving them. They were coming up from the sides, like a . . . like a sponge or something, like something living, and I shouted her name, and went over, and started pulling the clothes off her, but they kept moving back into the pile like crawling things, like arms of an octopus or something, and when I got 'em all off, when I got to her . . .”

Marvella gave a choking sob and held the girl to her breast. "I did everything I knew. I gave her CPR, mouth to mouth, I had the courses, but she wasn't breathing, and I called 911, and they're coming, but it's too late now, too late. Oh, my little precious . . .”

"Marvella . . .”

"Then the lights went off, and I thought — I hoped maybe I was dying too. I hoped so, Dennis. Oh God, oh God save her sweet little soul . . .”

Dennis trembled from the cold, and from the fear. He heard a sound then, a low chuckle from above, but Marvella did not look up from her granddaughter's still face. Dennis looked, upward to the loft where the old costumes hung like empty shells of men and women, and saw what the Emperor wanted him to see.

Tommy Werton stood there, his severed head suspended in the air, strands of meat and gristle dangling over his neck, open like a bloody chimney, his half-closed eyes staring at Dennis. The features shifted, and Tommy became . . .

. . . Harry Ruhl, standing gutted, crimson letters streaked on his flesh, until the letters faded, and Harry melted into . . .

. . . Robin, his Robin, like a broken doll, neck twisted, back bent, her ruin of a mouth forming silent words over and over again in a litany Dennis heard in his soul — You Royal Bastard . . . Royal Bastard . . . Royal Bastard . . .

. . . and now her clothing vanished, and Donna, her face blue, her tongue black, ogled Dennis with eyes like eggs, until her flesh grew red, turned to cloth, ribbons, medals, braid, the dark tongue lost in a red beard, a devil's grin, bright blue eyes . . .

. . . to the Eniperor, who beamed down on Dennis Hamilton, as if proud to show his own creations to his creator, giving a crisp and military salute before he faded into the grief filled air.

Dennis's gaze hung in the empty space, still seeing the faces of the dead, and that final, most hideous face of the never alive. He whispered to the night, whispered so that Marvella could not hear, but knew that something else would —

"I created you. And God help me, I will destroy you."

ACT III: DESTROYER

"The way is to the destructive element submit yourself."

— Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

Scene 1

The rest of the night was chaos, a phantasmagoria of whirling faces, medics working in vain, the omnipresent policemen returning like vultures to worry the dead, Marvella's eternal sobbing, the pale, drawn faces and whispered words of Curt and Evan and John, and the stern, dread countenance of Dan Munro, his presence like a bell tolling doom for still another denizen of the Venetian Theatre. Questions were asked, photographs taken, in a dreadful fivefold repetition, and Dennis told only some of what he knew, lying some of the time, keeping the truth to himself, knowing that it would be thought a lie, that he would be thought mad for telling it.

He agreed listlessly when Munro told him that he wanted to meet with him at the station first thing in the morning, and did not see the growing awareness in Munro's eyes, nor feel the solicitude the policeman subtly offered.

Nor did he watch Munro look at him with pity in his eyes as he started to walk toward his lonely suite.

~ * ~

Munro lay awake in his bed for a long time that night. Patty had been asleep when he had come in shortly after one o'clock, and at first he had considered staying up, thinking about it all in his big leather chair, a Coors by his side. But he thought he might think about it better in the dark. Too, he felt as if he needed his wife beside him, needed the knowledge that he had someone he loved and who loved him, and who he need not fear would be taken away from him.

Oh, he had those fears from time to time, but they were only the normal, natural fears of any man for his loved ones — that they would be taken by disease or accident or even a random act of violence. But he did not have the fears that he knew must be possessing Dennis Hamilton. He did not have the precedents that Dennis Hamilton had.

The town of Kirkland averaged .5 homicides per year, but now in only half a year the Venetian Theatre and environs had experienced five violent deaths — one definite murder, one possible suicide, and three "accidents."

No, Munro thought again, they were no accidents. Accidents didn't happen over and over again in one place, to a small group of people. And tonight? The little girl had suffocated, but that she should have done so on her own had been impossible. Self-preservation would have kept her pushing the clothes away from her face. There was no reason for it, just no reason at all short of murder, but to assume that the grandmother had done it was just plain stupid. Her grief had been real, as had been her attempts to bring the little girl back to life. The probability then?

Simple. When the grandmother wasn't looking, when she was in the john, somebody sneaked in and smothered the girl, then left. That story the woman had told about the clothes moving on their own Munro had dismissed as hallucination brought about by panic. It was the only thing to believe. Clothes didn't move on their own, not even in the goddamned Venetian Theatre.

And Dennis Hamilton once again had an alibi of sorts, though not a perfect one by any means. There had been one set of wet footprints going up to the costume shop from the pool, a bloody spot on the stairs where Hamilton had apparently raked his shin when the lights went out, and John Steinberg saying that he had left Dennis in the pool just minutes before the time of death. One thing bothered Munro, however, and that was why Hamilton had run up to the costume shop the way he did.

Hamilton's explanation had come in bits and pieces. He said that after Steinberg left he thought he had seen someone else pass in the hall, someone he didn't recognize, and ran out to see who it was. He said he called to the person, but that there was no answer, and that he grew afraid, thinking that it might be the same person who had murdered Donna Franklin. He decided to warn the others, and went to the costume shop first, knowing that Marvella Johnson was working late, but the lights failed, which alarmed him further, and he had to get a flashlight in the lobby. When he arrived, the girl was already dead.

Munro believed the story. There was no reason not to. Munro had little doubt that the person Hamilton had seen was the killer, not on his way to murder the little girl, but on his way out after having done so. One more death. One more mindless and motiveless death.

At least there was no motive that any sane mind could come up with. And that was what had given Dan Munro his theory.

~ * ~

Dennis Hamilton remained awake through most of the night as well, trying to deal with a reality that could not be, but was. The Emperor had proven himself. Proven himself with Whitney's death.

Dennis gave a shuddering sob and wondered if he had accepted the Emperor, had told him that he believed in him, had begged him to turn back from whatever horrible path he was taking, if the girl would still be alive. But she was not. She was dead, just like Robin and Tommy and Harry Ruhl and Donna, whom the Emperor had paraded before him like waxworks in some chamber of horrors.

And wasn't that just what the Venetian Theatre had become?

For an instant the old Dennis Hamilton flared, and he thought, How dare he? How dare that monster take my dream and turn it into a nightmare? How dare he tread on the bodies of the people I love?

And then the feeling was gone, but the memory of it buoyed him. There was still anger, emotion there, wasn't there? The Emperor had not taken it all. And he would not. He would not use Dennis's strength to harm the very people he loved. No. No more. No more theft. No more deaths.

No more.

~ * ~

The next morning Dennis Hamilton arrived at the police station at nine o'clock. John Steinberg was with him, and Dan Munro guided them into the little room that served him as an office. There were only two chairs, so Bill Davis brought in a folding chair for Steinberg, then coffee for the three of them.

"Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Steinberg," Munro said, "I'm convinced you have a real problem, and one that's not going to stop." He noticed that Hamilton's eyes seemed to light with surprise, but made no comment on it. "I don't think that any of the deaths that have occurred in the theatre building have been accidental. I believe every one was a premeditated homicide — and that includes Harry Ruhl's so-called suicide." He took a deep breath and another sip of coffee, watching for a reaction from either man, but there was none. "You've heard of celebrity stalkers?"

Steinberg murmured, "Yes," and Hamilton nodded.

"I think that may be what we've got here," Munro went on. "I came in early today, and read as much as I could find about it in our law enforcement journals. The situation doesn't fit the pattern perfectly, but it's damn close."

"You mean . . . a stranger?" Steinberg asked. "Someone we don't know?"

"It's possible. Maybe someone you do know, if only slightly. A big fan who may be jealous of the people around you, Mr. Hamilton, who'd like to be part of your entourage, and decides to whittle down the competition, or a performer jealous of your success, trying to hurt you through your friends . . . your wife. There are a lot of sick people out there. And a lot of people who don't need much of a reason to kill. Look at that kid who killed Lennon, or the one who shot Reagan — to impress Jodie Foster, for crissake. Celebrities can make weird people do weird things."

"I don't quite see," Steinberg said carefully, "how you suspect murder in all these cases."

"All right. I think that somebody dropped that curtain on Tommy Werton. I think Harry Ruhl was just plain murdered with that knife. Somebody knew when your wife and Mrs. Deems were going to be in the ceiling, and turned on the light to purposely startle them into falling. We know that Donna Franklin was strangled, and the little girl was smothered. It was no accident."

"How do you know that?" Steinberg asked.

"They did an autopsy early this morning, called me with the results. There were bruises and contusions on the girl's inner lips, and her nose was broken. Someone held those clothes over her face."

"Poor thing. Poor little thing." Steinberg grimly shook his head. "But how could this person . . . this stalker, as you put it . . . have access to all these places?" Steinberg asked.

"That's not difficult. He — or she — may have possession of all the keys he needs to get in and out of the theatre. One thing I'd do is have the locks changed — all the locks. To your apartments and everywhere else. But the first thing I'd do is to search that building from top to bottom. Every tunnel, every forgotten staircase, every room, any nook or cranny where somebody could be hiding."

"You mean you think this person might actually be living in the theatre," Steinberg said, "in hiding?"

"It's not likely, but it's possible."

Steinberg gave a dry chuckle without a trace of humor. "I think you may have seen The Phantom of the Opera once too often, Chief."

"And I think your situation warrants every precaution at this point, Mr. Steinberg. No offense, but there aren't that many of you left. Your chance of being the next victim is growing by leaps and bounds."

"All right." Steinberg sucked on his lower lip for a moment. "All right with you, Dennis?"

"Of course," Hamilton said. "If there's something there . . . something that can be found, let's find it." He sighed. "It won't do any harm. But does this clear Sid?"

Munro shook his head. "No. There's still the possibility that Miss Franklin's murder was an isolated incident. All the evidence points to Mr. Harper. Even someone with keys can't bolt a door when they're on the other side."

"What about with string?" Steinberg suggested. "I've heard of —"

"Now you're reading too many locked room mysteries, Mr. Steinberg. The investigators know all the tricks, and there was no trace of any gimmicks like that. It couldn't have been done, believe me."

"Do you think we should leave the premises?" Steinberg asked.

"Well, I’d sleep a lot better, knowing you folks were out of Kirkland, but it might not do any good. This . . . person would just follow you. No. Let me and my men come in and sweep the place, then change all your locks. That's a start. And if you see anyone suspicious hanging around outside the building, give us a call right away. I'd expect this to be someone from out-of-town, someone who followed you here, and we could find that out by questioning them." Munro sat back. "Is there anything you can tell me? Anyone you can think of who might have a reason, no matter how twisted, for doing these things? Any strange fan mail? Threatening notes? Calls?"

"No, nothing," Steinberg said. "My office handles all that, and there's been nothing out of the ordinary — the usual requests for autographs, pictures, things like that. Maybe two or three a day. But nothing in the least bit unusual."

"Do you save those items?"

"No. We just respond to them, then throw them away."

"Would you hang on to them from now on? I'd like to look at them.”

“Of course, if you like."

"Thanks. And thanks to both of you for coming in. Like I said, anything strange happens — anything — call me. We'll be over this afternoon."

~ * ~

It was only three blocks to the Venetian Theatre, and a sunny day. Steinberg and Dennis had walked over, and now they walked back, their eyes downcast, Steinberg deep in thought.

"Do you think he's right?"

Dennis's answer was a long time in coming. "Yes. In a way I do." There was something in his tone that made Steinberg stop.

"Dennis, do you know more about this than you let on?" Dennis said nothing, kept his eyes on the sidewalk. "Has anyone been in touch with you that I haven't been aware of?"

"No, John." The words were soft. Dennis still did not look at Steinberg.

"I've known you a long time, my friend, and I don't think you're telling me the truth."

"The truth is . . . that there's been no one in that theatre other than the people we know."

"My God, what are you saying? That it was one of us? Curt? Evan? Abe Kipp?”

“No, not at all, it's just . . . oh, forget it, John. Just forget it. I don't know what the hell I mean."

They walked on in silence. As they rounded the corner of the Kirkland Community Center, Steinberg saw a figure standing under the marquee. It was a heavy man in a dark blue, down filled jacket and a Irish bog trotter's hat. It was not until he turned around that Steinberg recognized Larry Peach, the reporter from The Probe who had accosted them at Tommy Werton's funeral.

"Hey, what a treat," Peach said, walking toward them. "Both of you at once. My luck's changed. Your security guys were so damn good after the first funeral I didn't get a chance to chat with either of you. But now here you are walking down the street. Saves me using my usual subterfuge to get in to see you."

"What do you want?" Steinberg asked.

"The usual. Maybe a picture, a little interview, a few kind words. Look, don't get me wrong. I'm simpatico. I know you've lost a lot of people. I mean, five deaths? And you're all still here? Hey, if it was me, I'd've hauled ass a long time ago. So what's the story? The cops around here don't say dick, and I've been driving since early this morning to get here. I think I deserve a little enlightenment."

"Mr. Hamilton has nothing to say," Steinberg said, walking around the man. Dennis tried to follow, but Peach blocked his way.

"You let Mr. Hamilton tell me that."

"I'm warning you," Steinberg said.

"Come on, Dennis Hamilton hasn't popped a reporter in years." He lifted his camera and took a close-up. The flash blinded Dennis and he put his hands up. "He's needed the publicity too much for that. Everybody needs publicity, am I right? Come on, Mr. Hamilton, you want the truth told, don't you? Not some silly bullshit. So talk to me, tell me what you know. The press is your friend if you know how to use it."

The flash exploded again. "Stop it," Dennis said. "No more pictures.”

“Then talk to me."

"I'm not talking to you."

"It's the only way you'll get rid of me."

"That's enough," Steinberg said.

"Talk to me!"

"Go away." Dennis flailed an arm weakly in Peach's direction.

"What do you know? Who do you think did it?"

"Stop it!" Dennis balled a fist and swung it at Peach. It grazed his shoulder, but did not even make him lose his balance.

"Fuck you," Peach grunted, and pushed a gloved left hand into Dennis's midsection hard enough to push him backwards and send him to the pavement on his rear, a dazed, drunken look on his face. "This is better than an interview," Peach said, raising his camera.

He never took the picture. John Steinberg swung him around and threw a right hook that caught him on the side of the head and felled him like a tree. The camera fell from his hand, and Steinberg brought his right foot down hard on it, shattering the lens and breaking the case so that the film was exposed to the bright daylight.

"You son of a bitch!" Peach yelled from the sidewalk. "You can't do that! Freedom of the press, you motherfucker! You'll pay for this!"

"I certainly will," Steinberg said, and removed a wad of twenties from his pocket.

"Buy yourself a new toy, but don't bring it back here to play with." He tossed the bills next to Peach's shattered camera, then helped a groggy Dennis to his feet.

"I'm gonna have the cops on you!" Peach said, pushing himself erect.

"If you do," Steinberg replied, "I'll file charges against you for harassment and assault."

"He hit me first!" Peach cried, for all the world like a child in a schoolyard. "That was scarcely what I would call a hit. Besides, it's your word against ours — and who will the police believe? Us, or a piece of slime who makes Morton Downey look like a bastion of good journalistic taste?"

"You're gonna be sorry — I'm gonna find out what the hell is going on around here!"

"If you do," said Steinberg, unlocking the door, "please inform us. We'd love to know."

"Yeah!" Peach yelled as the door was drifting closed. "You're all dying to know, aren't you? Dying to know!"

~ * ~

Dennis sat on the padded bench in the lobby, told John Steinberg that he would be all right, told him to go to his office, watched him go, thought to himself:

I wore a mask. For all those years I wore a mask to make myself strong. But it was a lie. Masks are weak. Only reality is strong. And now reality is the Emperor. Now I am weak, but he is strong, and yes, Jesus loves me, oh Christ.

He was weak. His rage at that reporter had been only false rage, his blow barely thrown. There had been a time when he might have waded into the man with both fists, broken his nose, turned his face into a smear of blood. But no more. He was weak. How had it happened, oh God, how?

He felt as if he knew nothing, as if all the laws of life, things he had accepted for years, had suddenly been proven false, and that he existed in some other world, where those laws were perverted, broken, turned into cruel lies.

Lies. Lies and truth. Acting and reality. Artifice and emotion. Had he gone too far down the former path? Had he, by ignoring his true emotions and living false ones, lost his soul?

He rose unsteadily to his feet and started the long walk to his suite, his head full of thoughts and contradictions.

He wanted to tell someone, wanted to talk. But to whom? Sid, his sole confidant, was in jail, permitted no visitors except his attorney, and Steinberg was too practical to ever believe such a story. Then Ann? But even Ann, who he loved, and who loved him, might not believe him, might even think that he had constructed a vast charade to disguise his own guilt. He did not think he could bear to see disbelief and doubt in her eyes.

He pushed open the door of his suite and entered, his mind on Ann. He decided that he must be the one to tell her about Whitney. It had been his fault, and was his responsibility. He picked up the phone.

"John — when Ann comes in, tell her to come up here right away. Don't tell her about Whitney. I want to do it . . . yes. Thanks."

He would tell her about what had happened to the little girl, but that was all. He would say nothing more. And then he would take her away from this theatre. He would take everyone away from this theatre, this place of death and terror, this terrible, dreadful empire that he had unwittingly and unwillingly created. And maybe, just maybe, the thing could not follow him.

The thought held him for a moment, and he explored its possibilities. It had said that its strength came partly from Dennis and partly from the energy stored in the theatre. What then if he left the theatre? Might it not wither away? Fade away into nothingness? If it had nothing on which to feed, Dennis thought, might it not starve to death?

"Hardly likely, my dear fellow."

~ * ~

(THE EMPEROR stands as before, by the fireplace, his arm resting on the mantel. He wears his full dress uniform.)

THE EMPEROR

My demise is not so easily accomplished as you think, Dennis.

DENNIS

You monster . . .

THE EMPEROR

I am what you made me.

DENNIS

How could you do that? Kill that little girl?

THE EMPEROR

You did not believe in my reality. I had to prove it to you.

DENNIS

But not that way! Killing a child? No one human could do that . . . (He stops, as if suddenly realizing.) The Emperor couldn't have done that. That character . . . he became imperial, commanding, yes, but never cruel, never . . . evil. (DENNIS shakes his head.) You're not the Emperor at all. Are you? You're something else.

THE EMPEROR

(Magisterially) I am the Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus.

DENNIS

No. No, you're not. You're the cruel and selfish parts of him . . . of me. That's all you are. You took the hatred and anger from my heart, didn't you? That's what gives you life, that and the energy in this theatre, energy from years and years of emotion.

THE EMPEROR

I am the Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus.

DENNIS

You're a liar. You're a proud and cruel bastard is what you are. But no more of you. I'm going to leave this place. Everyone is. And we'll see how strong you are then.

THE EMPEROR

Leave. You'll return soon enough. Return or die.

DENNIS

(A pause) What do you mean?

THE EMPEROR

I mean I have too much of you already. You're withering away, my friend. And you'll continue to do so. You see, something's been taken from you, something that you cannot live without. But you no longer have the strength to take it back. So I shall simply take more, and more, until there is nothing left. As they say, you can run, but you cannot hide.

DENNIS

I'll destroy you. I'll destroy you yet.

THE EMPEROR

No. On the contrary, I shall destroy you. And everyone you love . . . who remains alive, of course.

DENNIS

You're insane . . .

THE EMPEROR

No. Just different. Superior. Unlike you, I have no false morality to prevent me from reaching my goal. And my goal . . . is your soul. Davis and Ensley could have made a lovely lyric out of that, couldn't they? But run, Dennis, if you like, if you feel it can do you good.

DENNIS

I will. For all I know, you're lying now, telling me that it'll do no good so I'll stay. But I won't. I'm leaving, and everyone else will leave with me. You'll be here alone. All alone.

~ * ~

When Ann Deems came up to Dennis's door, she raised her hand to knock, then decided to simply walk in if the door was unlocked. She had been crying in John Steinberg's office for some time.

When he had told her to go up to Dennis's suite right away, she knew there was something wrong from the expression on his face, the pinched quality of his words, as though he was holding something back. She asked him what had happened, and he just shook his head. But she asked again, and he told her that Whitney had been smothered in a pile of clothes. She gasped in horror, and then began to cry. "I don't know how it happened," Steinberg said. "No one does. But Dan Munro thinks it was murder, that there's someone . . . stalking us." She shook her head, not knowing what to believe, only knowing that she had to see Dennis, had to be with him.

And now she pushed open the door of his suite, and heard voices, both of which she identified as Dennis's. What was he doing? Talking to himself? Acting? Reading a script aloud? One of the voices was sneering and silky, the other louder, angry, and then she began to hear the words, and when she grasped their import, a flame of steel swept through her with the searing knowledge that Dennis was mad.

Ann stepped across the foyer and into the living room. Dennis turned to look at her, and his eyes went wide with surprise, as did Ann's a moment later when she saw the other person in the room.

Dennis's exact duplicate was standing by the fireplace. He was wearing the same costume that Dennis had worn in A Private Empire, but his face had none of the warm kindness of Dennis Hamilton. Instead he stared at her with undisguised loathing. Never before had she felt such malignancy from another being, and the force of it made her incapable of motion, unable to back away from him as he started to slowly walk toward her, as his hands came up, reaching for her. She could neither move nor speak nor scream, but only watch as if in a dream, as this nightmare, this Dennis yet not Dennis, advanced upon her.

"No," said a voice that she knew belonged to Dennis, the real Dennis, her Dennis, and she felt his arms around her, and now he was standing between her and the thing that wanted to harm her. "No, damn you. No."

The features of the Dennis-thing quivered, but whether in rage at being thwarted, in fear of Dennis, or something else entirely, Ann did not know. "You'll see me again," it spat, and then vanished as quickly as a light bulb turning off.

Ann buried her face in Dennis's chest then, afraid to look up, and felt his arms holding her to him. "It's all right," he whispered. "It's gone now. It's gone."

"Oh, Dennis," she said, looking up at him, "what was it? Was it you?"

"I think it's . . . a part of me. A part that got away somehow."

Then he told her all about the Emperor, about its appearing to him for the first time and the times since, about its confessions and explanations of how it had killed, about its seduction of Terri, and finally, about its disappearance of the night before and Whitney's subsequent death.

"It killed her," Dennis concluded, "just to prove to me that it was real. I can't comprehend that. Killing a child to prove a point. And not even that, really. It knew that I believed in its existence, even though I tried to deny it. It just killed her because . . . because it likes it, and because it took one more person away from me and made me that much weaker. It's . . . a monster. As far as it's concerned the only thing human lives are — all Whitney was, all Robin was — are just ways to whittle me down. . ."

Then the thought occurred to him at last, and it was so overwhelming that he voiced it. "All those lives might have been spared . . . if mine had ended. And how many more might be spared now . . . if I would die?"

"Stop it, Dennis," Ann said, and her voice was low and steady. "Don't even think about that. For all you know, that could be just what it wants — your death."

He had been so lost in his thoughts that he had almost forgotten she was there. Now he looked at her gratefully. "You believe me."

"Of course I believe you. My God, I saw it. It may be something born of your mind, but it's not an hallucination. Hallucinations can't kill." She clutched his arm. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to do what I said I would. We're going to leave."

~ * ~

"But, Dennis," John Steinberg said, "Munro said that it wouldn't do any good to go away, that this . . . person would just follow us."

"Munro's wrong."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do. We're putting the show in mothballs, John. The show and the theatre. I want everyone out of here. We'll stay elsewhere tonight. Try to make reservations at the Kirkland Hotel. And tomorrow we'll go back to New York."

"And what do I tell the investors?"

"You won't have to tell them much at all. They read the newspapers. Call it a production delay, I don't care. If anyone wants their investment back, give it to them."

Steinberg scratched his head. "Marvella's gone back already with Whitney's body, so there's only you and I, Evan, and Curt. What shall we do about Ann and Terri? Let them go?

"Just Terri. Keep her on the payroll, but there's nothing for her to do until we get underway again. Ann's coming to New York with us. I've already asked her and she's accepted, if that's all right with you."

"Of course." Steinberg cocked his head and looked deeply at Dennis. "Will we get underway again?"

Dennis stood up and looked out the window of Steinberg's office. "Yes. This is only a truce, John, not a surrender. This project has been my dream for a long time, and I'm not going to give it up." He turned back to his friend. "But for now I want us all to pack today — get everything out of the suites we'll need in the city. Curt and Evan can finish doing whatever they need to do on the stage — pull the electrics, whatever's necessary — but I don't want either of them alone down there at any time. Understood?"

"I'll take care of it. By the way, Leibowitz just called. He's arranged it so that you can get in to visit Sid now. You may want to do that before you go.”

“I will this afternoon. I'll take Ann with me, if that's all right."

"Go ahead. I can get everything thrown together here. Most of it's on disk anyway. When are you going to pack?"

"I'm already packed. It didn't take long, because I didn't take much." Dennis smiled grimly. "I'm planning on coming back."

Scene 2

Sid Harper was of two minds about seeing Dennis Hamilton. Dennis had been his friend for many years, but at the same time, Sid had come to the conclusion that it was Dennis who had killed Donna Franklin and possibly the others in the theatre. He had thought about little else in the few days he had been incarcerated, and could come up with no other conclusion. As unlikely as it seemed, Dennis was the only one who was not accounted for during several of the deaths, and if anyone had access to keys, it would be the man who owned the building. The motives were a puzzle, but perhaps, Sid thought, the only motive needed was madness.

For Dennis was mad. He had proven that with his seemingly constant sightings of this psychic double he had told Sid about. Sid had not believed the story, not for an instant. There were no such things outside the limits of Dennis's mind. Sid did believe, however, that Dennis thought this creature was real. He had created it out of guilt, out of frustration with his life, out of God only knew what else. At any rate, he had brought it into being in his mind, and Sid firmly believed that it was Dennis as "The Emperor" who had killed Donna.

How he had gotten past him, whether he had come through a window or a door or a goddam secret passageway, Sid didn't know. All he knew was that these deaths had to be the work of a maniac, and, as much as he hated to admit it, there was only one person whose behavior put him close to that category.

So when the guard came up to his cell and told him that Dennis Hamilton was there to see him, he didn't know how to feel. He got up stolidly, left the cell, and followed the guard to the visiting room, where Dennis sat on the other side of a heavy glass window. Sid sat down facing him, and waited for him to speak through the microphone.

"How are they treating you?"

Sid shrugged. "It's jail. It's pretty much like the movies. Not too bad."

Dennis sat for a long time before he spoke again. "There was another death last night."

Sid could hardly take it in. "What?"

"It was . . . Whitney." Dennis swallowed heavily. "She suffocated. In a pile of costumes."

Sid's face grew hard even as he felt tears come to his eyes. "Jesus, Dennis. Jesus." He would not cry, dammit, he would not. The girl's face came into his mind and he forced it out. Now was not the time for more tears. "Whitney?" Dennis nodded. If there had been no glass between them, Sid felt he might leap at the man and try to strangle him. "And do they have . . . a suspect?"

"Munro thinks it's a celebrity stalker."

"But you know it's not."

Dennis nodded. "That's right. I know who it is now."

Sid nodded as well. "The Emperor."

"Yes. The Emperor."

Sid jerked his head away. He could not, he felt, look at Dennis any more. Before he had felt mostly pity toward the madness of his friend, but now he felt only hate. Whitney. Dear Christ, how could he have killed Whitney?

"And what about me, Dennis? Do you think I'm safer in here than I would be out there? Do you think . . . the Emperor would kill me too?"

"I don't know, Sid. I think he might try."

Sid looked at Dennis. His face was still blank, seemingly devoid of feeling. "You hate me that much too?"

Dennis shook his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I think you'd try to kill me, Dennis. Not the Emperor. I don't believe in the goddamned Emperor. What I believe in is you."

Sid's words were pouring out in a desperate torrent. "Why don't you tell them, Dennis? You need help. Do it now before you . . . before somebody else dies. Because you know you'll do it again."

"It's real, Sid. Ann saw it. She heard it."

"Then she's just as crazy as you are. Come on, Dennis, please, God, you've gotta stop this!" Sid had his hands on the glass now, trying to reach through, to reach Dennis, to make him stop — Donna, Robin, now Whitney, for Christ's sake, all of them, all of them . . .

Then he felt a guard's hand on his shoulder, a voice saying, "All right, that's enough, come on now . . .” and he swung around.

"It's him," Sid told the guard. "He's the one who did it, not me . . . it's him! Make him stop!"

"Sid." Dennis's voice bit through the air. "I'll get you out of here. Don't worry. Trust me. Believe in me."

Sid laughed all the way back to his cell. When the door closed behind him, he began to cry, and did not stop for a long time.

~ * ~

That afternoon, back at the Venetian Theatre, lunchtime had come and gone, unnoticed by Curt and Evan, who were trying to put the theatre and all its systems in mothballs by five o'clock. They were both subdued by Whitney's death, coming so fast upon the heels of Donna's murder and Sid's imprisonment, and both of them, though they did not mention it to each other, were glad to be leaving Kirkland.

If it had not been for Curt's desire to have everything in its place, they could have been finished in an hour or two. Safety dictated that only the electrics needed to be disconnected, but Curt insisted that everything else be stored away where it had been originally, and all backdrops and curtains flown to their original height. Since three days before they had lowered everything to inspect the ropes and battens, they worked from eleven to one putting most of the flown scenery aloft, and when the last teaser was airborne, Curt said that he was hungry. "Want a sandwich?" Evan offered, pointing to the paper bag with his lunch.

"No, I made one, but I left it upstairs. You, uh, want to come up with me? John said we shouldn't be alone."

"To get a sandwich? How long's that going to take?"

"I don't think it's smart for anybody to be alone."

Evan heaved an irritated sigh. "So you want me to schlepp up all those stairs with you while you get a sandwich? You were alone this morning."

"I wasn't thinking of myself. I was thinking of you alone down here on the stage."

"I'll be fine. You'll be gone all of three minutes, right? Look, I'll sit right here on the edge of the stage in front of the proscenium so nothing can fall on me, okay? Besides, I was a goddam Marine."

Curt nodded. "All right. Don't go anywhere."

Evan made himself comfortable on the edge of the stage. There was no danger of falling, for the orchestra pit, raised to its highest level, was only four feet below. He watched Curt trot up the aisle, then settled back on his elbows, thinking about how this was the last time he would see this place.

He had had enough of the Venetian Theatre. The place had become a haunted house. All the deaths had been bad, particularly Robin's, but Donna's had hit him worst of all because of Sid's imprisonment. And then, last night, the little girl . . . it was no wonder his father wanted everyone out. Evan thought he might have evacuated the place a helluva lot earlier.

He looked out over the hundreds of seats. Yes, he had had quite enough of this theatre, and of his father, and of Terri Deems, who had been the main reason for his remaining there as long as he had. Ever since they had spent the night together, she hadn't had a kind word for him. Now was the perfect time to leave.

Maybe he'd go out to the west coast. He had some friends there, and the place seemed fresher, sunnier than Pennsylvania or New York. Whatever happened, he wasn't going back to Manhattan. He didn't want to be anywhere where there were theatres. They were fine when they were empty, wonderful open spaces that comprised a whole world. He had loved empty theatres when he was little, and he loved them still. The problem was that they didn't stay empty.

Evan shivered as he thought about audiences, those vast, featureless masses of people with one great, demanding face. With the thought alone came the first drowning sensations of his asthma, constricting his windpipe. He forced the thoughts away, made himself relax, and soon he was breathing easily again. He chuckled bitterly as he thought about the Marines and his feeble attempts at command. All he had needed was for a squad to look at him, and the nightmare began. How could you command when you couldn't even breathe?

No, it was the west coast for him, maybe up on the coast of northern California. He had visited school friends there his senior year, and had been impressed with the life style. Maybe he could become a carpenter. He liked working with his hands. Hell, he thought, even a house painter would be fine. Something to get him out in the weather, away from theatres, from the memories of all the faces . . .

Then the lights went out.

He felt panic for only a moment, then realized that the darkness had a natural explanation. After all, they had pulled electrics all morning. Perhaps the circuit that the remaining lights were on had overloaded. Or a fuse had burned out, that was all. In a minute Curt would be back, would see what had happened, and would come on stage with a flashlight. Everything would be fine.

Still, Evan was uncomfortable enough to pull his feet back from over the edge of the pit. He didn't like the idea of them dangling into darkness.

But was it completely dark? Usually a theatre's darkness was like that of caves —  total and unrelenting. You could not even see the deeper darkness of your hand in front of your face. But Evan thought that there was light coming from somewhere, and he called out.

"Hello? . . . Hello, is anyone there?"

There was just enough light now to make out the great curves of the loge and balconies above. But where was it coming from?

Then he became aware of a sound he had not heard in years, a dull drone, as of some giant hive filled with huge bees, punctuated by an occasional higher-pitched tone. When he realized what it was, his bowels turned to water.

An audience.

The murmur went on and on, its sound terrifying him with the knowledge that out there in the dark were people, people sitting and facing him, and only that blackness, once feared, was what kept their eyes from him. He wanted to get up, to run off the stage, but his legs refused to move, his arms would not push him erect. And then, from high up in the booth, the light started to grow, one light, bright as flame, blinding him as it must have blinded Tommy Werton before the curtain fell on him, but Evan would not step back, even if he had wanted to. He was incapable of motion.

And now the sound, that doleful buzzing of the hive, diminished slowly into a

flat silence, and he knew they were looking at him, at him alone, staring with their

thousand eyes, listening with their thousand ears, waiting for him to speak or scream.

But he could not scream. Only a thin whistling sound escaped from his throat as

he struggled to take in the air that refused to enter his terror-filled lungs, the air that

would not go to his screaming brain, the air whose absence brought a dark and blessed curtain down over Evan's consciousness, but not before the light began to grow on the audience as well, and he could see them, thousands of them, filling every seat in the vast theatre, from the first row not ten feet away up, up to the soaring reaches of the balcony where they became lost, coalesced into a single distant mass of flesh and clothes and eyes, for that was all there was to their faces — no mouths, noses, cheeks — only eyes, staring, waiting. And the horrible buzzing began again, and he wondered, just before he fell into the pit of their need, how can they speak without mouths?

Scene 3

Dan Munro, with three of his officers, had come to the Venetian Theatre to perform their search of the premises. When they entered the auditorium, they found the work lights on and Evan Hamilton lying unconscious on the floor of the stage. The officers, all of whom were trained in CPR, immediately went to work on the boy, while Munro ran to the backstage phone and called 911 for an ambulance, which arrived only five minutes later. The medics found Evan breathing, and correctly diagnosed his condition as a severe asthmatic attack accompanied by a state of shock. They lost no time in bundling him into the ambulance and transporting him to the Kirkland Medical Center.

While the ambulance pulled away from the theatre, sirens screaming and lights ablaze, Dan Munro talked to Curt, who had returned with his lunch as the officers were laboring to keep Evan's breath flowing. "I couldn't have been away for three minutes," he said. "I don't know what the hell happened. He was fine when I left. And now . . . oh Christ . . . is he going to be okay?"

"I think so. Unless there's something else wrong they didn't spot," said Munro. "You didn't see anybody in here?"

"No, no one." Curt gave a bitter laugh. "There aren't that many of us left."

~ * ~

John Steinberg called the prison before Dennis's visit with Sid was over, and informed Ann about Evan's attack. When Dennis came out of the visiting area, she took his hand and told him that Evan had been taken to the medical center. "John said not to worry. They think he'll be fine."

"What was it?" Dennis asked, his face drawn.

"An asthma attack. Pretty bad. He said he was in shock too." They drove, neither one of them speaking, to the hospital. Dennis pulled the car up to the front entrance, and ran into the waiting area, where Curt and John were sitting.

"I want to see him. Now," Dennis said.

Steinberg collared a nurse, and in another ten minutes Dennis was in Evan's room. The boy was breathing quickly and shallowly, his eyes closed, but his brows were pressing down in an uneven tempo, as though he was trying to block something from his mind's eye. Dennis pulled up a black plastic and metal chair and sat next to him, taking his moist and clammy hand in his own.

"Evan," he said softly. "Evan."

But the boy neither opened his eyes nor spoke. He only panted like a dog on a hot day, his eyes jerking convulsively behind their lids.

"Evan," Dennis said again, and continued to say the name, a litany, a prayer to bring his son back to him. "Evan."

He sat there for an hour, ignoring the visits of the doctors and nurses, sat there until, just before four o'clock in the afternoon, the boy opened his eyes with a start, looked about him, and saw his father sitting by him, holding his hand. "Dad?" he said weakly.

"Evan. Hello." He knew it sounded foolish, but after chanting the boy's name for so long, he did not know what else to say. "Are you . . . all right?"

Evan took several deep, shuddering breaths, then closed his eyes again. Dennis was afraid the memory of what he had seen, for he was sure that the attack was the Emperor's doing, was driving his son back into the mercies of unconsciousness, but Evan opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling.

"Did you see something?" Dennis asked. "Something in the theatre?"

Evan nodded slowly. His mouth was open, and he was breathing loudly through it.

"What was it? Was it . . . me? Some one that looked like me?"

He shook his head. “. . . people," he whispered. "Full of . . . people . . . all eyes . . . watching me . . ."

"The auditorium," Dennis ventured, "was filled with people?"

"Yes." Evan closed his eyes and began to cry, a terrible, silent crying that made Dennis fear he had lost his breath once more, but in another second the boy sucked in air and let it out again with a wet, bubbling sound that made Dennis picture boiling wells in hell.

"It's going to be all right," Dennis said. "You don't have to go back there. You don't ever have to go back. We'll go to New York. I'll take you to New York. You sleep now, just sleep."

Dennis placed his hand upon his son's forehead, and Evan closed his eyes. In time, his breathing grew less frenzied, and in a while he slept. When Dennis was sure the boy could no longer hear him, he said, "I love you, Evan," and left the room.

He did not rejoin his friends immediately. Instead he stepped into a dimly lit stairwell, sat on a step, and thought for a long time about what to do next. Then, when he had made up his mind, he walked to the waiting area.

Steinberg, Curt, and Ann were still there. "He'll be all right," Dennis told them. "He's sleeping now. John, Curt, are you both packed?" They nodded. "Good. I don't want anyone to go back to the theatre today, but tomorrow Abe Kipp can get our bags. You'll leave Kirkland first thing in the morning. Ann and I will follow you when Evan is fit enough to travel. But we'll come back. We'll come back to do a show."

Steinberg nodded. "Craddock."

"Yes, Craddock. But another show before that. I'm going to take your advice, John. We're going to do A Private Empire. One performance. The final performance."

Steinberg frowned. "I thought you didn't want to —"

"I changed my mind. I want to do it. In the Venetian Theatre. As quickly as we can put it together."

"It'll take time," Steinberg said. "Three months, maybe."

"No. That's too long. Half of that, if not sooner."

"My God, Dennis, you're talking about staging a major production.”

“You said before that it would be easy."

"With time, yes. But doing it so quickly — it would cost twice, three times as much as it would otherwise."

"I have the money. I'm not concerned."

"There's not much room for profit."

"I don't care about profit, I just want to do it." Dennis spat the words out, and Steinberg seemed to recoil before them. "Do I still run this business, John?”

“Of course you do."

"Then don't fight me. Just do what I ask." He turned to Ann. "I'll take you back to your car, Ann." He turned and walked down the hall. Ann followed.

"Why, Dennis?" she asked him on the way to the parking lot. "I know there must be a reason."

"There's a reason," he said. "It's killed the people I love, and it showed Evan something, something that terrified him, that nearly killed him. I have to destroy it, Ann. If not destroy it, then bring it back into me, at least those parts that it stole from me. I have to fight it. It's the only way to stop it, the only way to . . . to get back my soul."

"But doing the show — A Private Empire? . . ."

"I lost myself playing the Emperor. And I think that playing the Emperor again is the only way I can get myself back. If I can somehow . . . revive those emotions, maybe I can weaken him instead of his weakening me."

"But you don't know," she said, standing by his car. "It could be just what he wants — for you to be the Emperor again. Maybe there's some sort of psychic link there. Maybe, if you become the Emperor again, he'll just become stronger as a result."

Dennis sighed, and pulled up the collar of his coat against a light rain that had just begun to fall. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm playing right into its hands. But it's the only thing I can think of. All I know is that it came out of me, and that it's part of me, and that this is what I think is the right thing to do. I think my strength can destroy it. And I think I can be strong again." They got into the car and sat there for a moment, the only sound the patter of raindrops on the roof.

"My outburst at John just now," Dennis finally said. "I'm not proud of it, but I haven't gotten angry at him for a long time, not him or anyone. And maybe that's a sign, an indication that I still have the emotions that fuel the Emperor. Or that I can get them back from time to time."

He thought for a moment. "I wonder," he said quietly, "if when I get angry, or when I feel deep emotion, he loses something." The tempo of the rain had gradually increased until Ann could barely hear him as he said, "I wonder, if I felt enough, if he would lose . . . everything."

When they arrived back at the theatre, the rain was driving down. Dennis drove next to Ann's car so that she was able to step directly from one to another. She had promised to go to New York with him, and he told her he would call her the next day to make arrangements.

He didn't want her to see him go back into the theatre, so he waited until she had driven away before he pulled his car up in front of the main entrance. As he did, Dan Munro and his men came out the door. Dennis joined them under the marquee. Rain spat down around them, and Munro nodded in greeting.

"How's your son?"

"He'll be all right," Dennis said. "A severe asthma attack. I'm glad you were there to help. Thank you."

"I'm glad we were there too." He gestured toward the theatre. "We've been through the whole place, top to bottom. All the suites, all the rooms upstairs, even the closets. We went into the ceiling, down in the cellars, everywhere, and the only thing alive in there was the cat. I think if you change those locks you'll be a lot safer."

"Thanks, Chief," Dennis said. "I appreciate the search, and I will have the locks changed. While we're away."

"You're leaving?"

"We're going back to New York for a while. We'll rehearse a show there, then come back in a month or two. I just want to get a few things, then I'll lock up.”

“All right, Mr. Hamilton. Be careful, huh?"

"I will." Dennis watched as they crossed the street and got into their car. Then he entered the building, locking the outer door behind him, and walked into the lobby.

Even inside, Dennis could hear the sound of the rain, and distant thunder. Even inside, in the warmth, he shivered. He had come back to see the thing one final time before he went away. Though it had destroyed those he loved, he had to see it again, had to speak to it, had to watch and listen and learn if it had weaknesses of which he was not aware. It was his last opportunity to find out, for when he returned, there would be no time to learn, only to fight.

He had no fear, however, that it would harm him now. It needed him too much to do that. He was its food, its source of life. Somehow he felt that it was still a child, not yet ready to be on its own, to become Dennis Hamilton, if indeed it ever would be, if it were truly more than some demon sent to torment him.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and walked across the lobby toward the doors to the theatre. If it would be anywhere, it would be there on the stage where it had been given birth. He pushed the doors open gently, and saw that the work lights were on, bathing the stage in a dim glow. He stepped into the inner lobby and saw the cat, Cristina, sitting, its tail wrapped around it, at the head of the aisle. For a moment it watched him with an eerie intelligence, then turned and padded down the aisle, past the orchestra pit, and up the steps to the stage. There it walked regally to the exact center, and sat once again.

And the Emperor was there. There was no slow appearance like a ghost coming into view. One moment he was not there, and the next moment he was. It was startling, and Dennis's breath caught in his throat.

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

Good evening. (He smiles smugly.)

DENNIS

(Walking slowly down the aisle) What did you do? What did you do to my son?

THE EMPEROR

Merely had him follow in his father's — or purported father's — footsteps. I gave him an audience. They were appreciative, but he had a bad case of stage fright. Has he recovered?

DENNIS

Yes. He'll be fine.

THE EMPEROR

Ah. A pity. I thought he would die. And he would have had it not been for his timely rescue by the police. Still, it is of no importance. You grow weaker by the day, even with your . . . son alive.

DENNIS

Why do you say that? What did you mean, my purported son?

THE EMPEROR

(Mock surprise) You mean that you didn't know? That the bad news must come from me? (Sighs) So be it then. Little Evan is not your offspring. He's Sidney's son. Sidney, you see, fucked your wife.

DENNIS

That's a lie.

THE EMPEROR

It's not.

DENNIS

Evan looks exactly like me.

THE EMPEROR

A remarkable coincidence, is it not? And a quite fortunate one for Sid. I'm sure that his grandfather must have had red hair.

DENNIS

Say what you want. I don't believe you anymore. Everything you say is a lie.

THE EMPEROR

Much was. But I have no reason to deceive you now. (He pauses, eyes DENNIS appraisingly) You're leaving, aren't you?

DENNIS

Yes.

THE EMPEROR

But you'll be back too, won't you? You won't be able to stay away, you know. If you do . . . you'll die. Actually, it will be worse than death. Just a deterioration of your personality, day by day, until there is no you anymore.

DENNIS

Don't worry, I'll be back. I'll come back and I'll destroy you.

THE EMPEROR

I have no doubt that you'll be back, but that you'll destroy me? (Laughs) Very unlikely. But go. Take your time, muster your resources, though I think you'll find them rather faltering as time passes. When you're ready, come back. And then we'll see. Then we'll see who the real emperor is. Yes, we'll see who is real.

DENNIS

I'll beat you.

THE EMPEROR

No, you won't. You're already too weak to even fight. And you'll just grow weaker. Whereas I . . . (He picks up the cat.) . . . grow stronger, for I have none of the weaknesses that human flesh is heir to. I have no sympathy, no compassion, no love. (Pets the cat) This creature, on the other hand, loves me, I don't know why. But does that stop me from doing this? (Casually he strokes the cat's head, then grasps it and twists, breaking the neck. He drops the dead cat, not once looking at it.) Can a cat look at a king?

(DENNIS turns and stumbles up the aisle, retching. He runs into the lobby, out to the doors, fumbles with the key, unlocks the outer door, and steps outside into the pouring rain, where he vomits on the pavement. The storm roars overhead. Thunder crashes. Lightning illuminates Dennis's pale, sweating face. Over the sound of the storm, DENNIS hears gales of laughter. He weeps, but his face is wet with nothing but rain.)

Scene 4

Dennis slept fitfully that night. In the morning, he called the hospital, and was told that the doctors wanted to keep Evan for one more day of observation. After he hung up, he met Curt and John for breakfast in the Kirkland Hotel's coffee shop, and told them to call Abe Kipp and tell him to bring their luggage down from their suites. "I don't want either of you going into the theatre again," he said.

"What about Kipp?" Steinberg asked. "You feel he's expendable?"

Dennis sighed. "No one's going to do anything to Abe. I'm not close to him. There's no way his loss would hurt me."

"Maybe," Curt said, "this stalker of ours would just do it for fun."

Dennis ignored the comment. "I'll join you in the city after Evan gets checked out of the hospital. That should be tomorrow. Now, John, what about Terri?"

"I called her yesterday morning after Ann had left their house, and told her what had happened, and not to come in until further notice. She's still on the payroll, as you requested."

"All right. We won't take her to New York unless Marvella wants her there." Dennis paused. "Do you think Marvella will do the show?"

"I spoke to her before she left yesterday afternoon. By the way, the funeral's on Monday — I'll be there, but I don't think you should go. Marvella understands. As far as Empire goes, all she told me was that she wouldn't go back to the theatre again. Not ever. But we can live with that. She can design and build in New York. It will cost more, but —"

"Damn the money, John, I don't care about that. Whatever she wants is fine with me. I just want her on the project. I want everything the way it was, all the people we can get — Dex, Quentin, everyone. Anybody who was in the revival and we can get back, I want them, you understand?"

Steinberg examined his coffee cup thoughtfully, while Curt sat silently, watching the two men. "Today's Friday. I'll call our casting people right away, and I can be back in the city by noon." He glanced up at Dennis. "Do I have a budget on this?"

"Unlimited. Take it through the roof if you have to. I don't care how much it costs, John. To the rest of the world, this is a New American Musical Theatre Project fund raiser, but between us, this is my project. I want it done the way I want it done, and I don't care if it costs ten, twenty million dollars."

"Twenty million dollars," Steinberg said, as though angry at the mere thought of such wanton expenditure. "For one performance."

"Yes. For one performance."

Steinberg's mouth was pinched, his tone arid. "Do you mind very much if I ask you why?"

"Yes. I mind. It was your suggestion in the first place, John. But it's my decision." He looked past his friends, out the window toward the town which housed the theatre. "And it's my show. God damn it all, it's my show."

~ * ~

Dennis arrived at the hospital at ten o'clock to find Evan sleeping. "He kept waking up with nightmares," the duty nurse told him. "We sedated him about three in the morning. He should wake up soon."

Dennis pulled the plastic covered hospital chair next to the boy's bed, and sat waiting. He watched Evan breathing gently, his chest rising and falling regularly, without a hint of the spasmodic wheezing that had plagued him as a child and still tormented him as an adult. Then Dennis examined the boy's features, the facial lineaments that so closely resembled his own, the hair so vibrantly red that it dazzled the eye.

My son, he thought. Are you my son?

The patient chart was at the foot of the bed where the morning examining physician had left it. Dennis picked it up and looked for the secret.

It was there. They had typed him. B.

Dennis was type O. Evan's mother had been type A.

He didn't know Sid's type. And he decided he didn't want to know.

Dennis set down the chart, sat back, and looked at his son again. For, despite the evidence of letters, he knew Evan was his son. Family was not blood. Family was feelings and emotions and bonds, even bonds that were stretched from time to time, even bonds that had been broken.

When Evan awoke, he saw his father's face.

~ * ~

Fine fiddle-fuckin' thing, thought Abe Kipp, walking down the street in front of the Venetian Theatre. Get the bags, shut things down, put the whole damn building in mothballs until further notice. He sighed as he rounded the corner. Damned if he wasn't going to miss the place, even after all the bad shit that happened there. But orders were orders and he would be paid just the same as if he were inside dusting and cleaning and goofing off. Still, the place had been his lavish home away from home for so many years that he didn't really know what to do with himself. Sit around the bars all day? He didn't feel like drinking the way he used to, and there was nobody around he wanted to tease . . .

No, that wasn't it, was it? He just didn't want to tease anymore. He didn't want to tease anyone, not like the way he had teased Harry Ruhl. He would sit around his apartment and watch television, maybe go to some movies, maybe spend some time in the library, even buy a VCR and rent things he had always wanted to see. They'd call him back when they were ready to start again, or when somebody was ready to do something with the building. You didn't just desert a piece of real estate like that.

The thought crossed his mind of just going in to the building every day anyway, and puttering around the way he'd always done before, but he dismissed the thought quickly. He didn't mind it when there were other people there, but now that the place was empty, he wasn't sure. It had never bothered him before, but now as he slipped his key into the lock of the stage door, opened it, and stepped into the darkness, he felt funny, as though for the first time in years there was something bad, really bad, in the place, something a lot worse than the ghosts he had scared poor Harry Ruhl with.

He put his hand unerringly on the switch on the wall that turned on the work lights, and pushed it up. The lights flickered on, illuminating the stage, bare except for what looked to Abe like a pile of rags lying near the footlight panels. "What the hell," he muttered as he walked toward it. It was not until he was a few yards away that he saw that it was not a pile of rags, but rather the corpse of Cristina the cat, her neck twisted, her open eyes filmed over. Wastes had come out of her to stain the wood of the stage.

"Aw," Abe said softly as he knelt next to his pet. "Aw, hell . . .” He gently stroked her fur, then pressed his fingers into it to feel the accustomed warmth, but the small body was stiff and cold. "Who'da done this," he asked himself. "Who'da done this to a little cat . . .” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and cradled the cat, carrying it to the back of the stage wall, where he placed it in a cardboard box. Then he took his mop and bucket and cleaned up the urine and feces, snuffling as he worked. When he was finished, he went upstairs, got the suitcases from the four suites, wheeled them down to the stage door on a trolley, and set them outside, softly crying all the while. Then he picked up the box, walked to the edge of the stage, and looked up and out at the auditorium.

"Whoever did this," he said loudly, "is a motherfucker!" He paused, then went on, louder than before. "Whoever did this . . .” He thought for a moment. “. . . is a son of a bitch!"

He looked out over the empty seats, waiting for an answer, a challenge, a voice, but none came.

"Now you know," he said, softer but with no less venom. "You know what you are. Now you goddam well know."

He turned, took his cat out of the theatre, and began to wait for Curt, who would come for the luggage.

~ * ~

That afternoon, Curt and Steinberg went back to New York, Abe Kipp buried Cristina in a wooded area outside of Kirkland, and Dennis Hamilton, after having lunch with Evan and spending the early afternoon by his bedside, did some banking.

He went back and had dinner with his son, and they watched the news and Jeopardy! together, answering questions along with the contestants. Dennis was impressed with the large amount of information the boy had picked up, despite the lack of a college education. When the show was over, Dennis knew the time had come to talk to Evan about what would happen next, but could not bring himself to begin. He was relieved by a doctor who came in, examined Evan, and told them that he would be permitted to leave tomorrow.

When the boy opened his eyes the next morning, Dennis was sitting there next to him. "Good morning," Dennis said.

"Hi."

"Feeling okay?" Evan nodded. "No dreams?"

"None I can remember."

"How's the breathing?"

Evan took in a draught of air, expelled it. "Good."

"Ready to go?" Evan nodded again. "I have something for you then." Dennis reached into his coat pocket and took out a thick envelope. "There's five hundred dollars in cash here. And a checkbook. I opened an account in your name. There will be three thousand dollars a month put in it, which gives you a decent annual income until you decide where you want to go, what you want to do." Evan began to speak, but Dennis held up a hand. "Please, let me finish. Let me say what I need to say, and then you can talk. You can yell if you want to." He looked down at the dull orange carpet of the hospital room floor. "I tried to run your life, Evan, and I'm sorry, I really am. What I'm sorry for the most is that I never got to know you well enough to know what your life should — could — have been, to learn what you wanted out of it, and not what I wanted for you."

Dennis sighed, and rubbed his temple with his fingertips. "This isn't a payoff. This isn't given out of guilt, but out of love. I want to help you be what you want to be, do what you want to do, what's right for you."

Evan was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. "You said that you wanted to take me to New York with you."

"I was wrong. I was being selfish again. I want you to go where you want. You talked about California . . .” He trailed off.

"Do you want me to go there?"

"It doesn't matter what I want. It's what you want." When he looked up, Evan was staring at him hard.

"Someone's after you, aren't they?" Dennis didn't, couldn't answer. "What you said . . . I remember now, when I woke up. You asked me if I saw someone like you. Someone who looks like you? Is that it? Is that what all this is about?"

"I . . . don't know, I —"

The boy's speech was fragmented, as though he was trying to assemble sentences of great semantic complexity. "When I saw you — did you — when you were up — on the catwalk — was that you?"

"Slow down, slow down. When?"

"Weeks ago. I had . . . gotten mad at you. About Ann. You grabbed me on the catwalk . . ."

"I didn't."

". . . almost threw me over . . ."

"Evan, I didn't. I would never do that."

"But you did."

"Have I ever done anything to you like that before? Did I ever even spank you?”

“But my God, my God, Dad. Who was it?"

Dennis took a deep breath. "It's going to be hard to believe. But it's the truth. It's the Emperor."

Dennis told Evan everything he knew, everything except what the Emperor said about Sid being Evan's father. "He's done everything. Everyone who died, he was responsible for. He killed them all."

Evan's eyes were dull, as if the truth was too impossible to accept with a clear mind. "That can't be. He can't have done everything you said. Disappear? Make me see . . . what I saw?"

"I've seen him vanish. So has Ann."

"Hypnosis then. Maybe he hypnotized me too, made me see those things and then made me forget that I ever saw him."

"No hypnosis. He has powers, Evan. Terrible powers. He's been sucking my life away." He looked sharply at his son, as if to impress the truth upon his mind by what little ferocity he could muster. "I made him. I gave him life. And I think the only way to destroy him is the same way I created him. That's why I'm going to play the Emperor again, one final time. To beat him at his own game, get back what's mine, kill him for killing the others."

"How? I don't see how."

"By being a better emperor than he is. By being so real that he has no choice but to consider himself make-believe." He nodded, trying to convince himself that it was all true. "And then he'll die. Then the bastard will die." Dennis sat, exhausted from the emotion he had expended.

Evan said something then, but so softly that Dennis could barely hear him. He looked at him curiously, and the boy repeated it. This time Dennis heard. "I'm coming with you."

"Coming with me? Where?"

"To New York. To wherever you'll do the show, wherever you'll be the Emperor. I've been wrong too, about a lot of things. I'm coming with you. Maybe I can help."

"There's . . .” Dennis cleared his throat. "We'll be coming back here. Back to the theatre to do the show. That's where he . . . it is."

"That's all right. I don't know if I can go into the theatre, but I'll do what I can. I want to help. Whether this thing is human or . . . or what you say it is, I want to help catch it."

"Destroy it," Dennis corrected, and Evan, looking, his father thought, like the Marine he had been, nodded.

"Destroy it," Evan said.

~ * ~

Early that afternoon, Ann Deems finished packing to go to New York with Dennis. He had called just before noon, and told her that he and Evan would pick her up in his car around three, and that they should arrive in the city that evening.

Ann had just closed the latches of the last suitcase when she turned and saw Terri in the bedroom doorway. "How is he?" she said.

"Who?" They had barely exchanged two words in as many days, and her response was more insecure than curt.

"Evan," Terri asked with studied patience.

"He's fine. Dennis says he's fine now."

Terri nodded. "I'm glad."

Ann looked at her daughter strangely. "I thought you and he were . . . on the outs."

"I don't have to be in love with someone to be glad they're all right, do I?”

“No. No, I'm sorry." Ann lifted the suitcase and set it on the floor.

"Marvella called me last night," Terri said. "She wants me to come to New York and help her costume Empire."

"She's going to do it then."

"Yes. She told me that it's all she has left now. At first she thought she'd give it all up, go somewhere else, the west coast maybe. But then she said she realized that . . .” Terri paused, spoke more softly. “. . . that Dennis's little entourage is all the family she has left." Terri shook her head and gave a little snort of embarrassed laughter. "She says she thinks something's wrong, that something or somebody is after Dennis, after all of us maybe. She thinks that whoever it was killed Whitney. And she says she won't be scared off."

"What about you?" Ann said. "Are you scared?"

Terri looked at her mother levelly. "Shitless," she said. "But I want a career."

~ * ~

I want something else too, she thought. Evan. She had nearly died herself when she heard about his attack, and had to restrain herself from jumping in her car and driving to Kirkland to see if he was all right.

He had stuck with her, no matter how she tried to drive him out of her head. After the night they had spent together, she had kept him at arm's length, refusing to go out with him again, going out of her way to avoid him, being unresponsive when he spoke to her, leading him and apparently her mother to think that they were indeed "on the outs."

She had told herself that the only reason she had slept with him in the first place was to annoy her mother and make her relationship with Dennis all the more complex. But there had been more to it than that. Evan was not at all what she had expected. Instead of being a celebrity brat, he had been kind and sweet and thoughtful. In bed he had been more interested in her feelings than his own, and though she had tried to tough it out, to pretend that all she wanted to do was fuck, by the time she went to sleep she knew that they had been making love. She was embarrassed when they woke up and he had his arm around her. She was not used to being cuddled, being held, and although she liked it, that was not what she was there for. She had disengaged herself and dressed before he was even awake. She had refused his offer of breakfast, and had left with barely another word.

But she did not leave so easily. His behavior toward her stayed with her, his initial shyness, then his tenderness. Still, she tried to get him out of her thoughts, her memory, telling herself that her concern for his well-being derived only from compassion. But she knew better. She had never before known love, and now that it had come to her, she feared it even as she desired it.

She hoped he would go to New York. She had almost lost him on the haunted stage of the Venetian Theatre, and she did not want to lose him again.

“. . . are you going up?"

Her mother's words intruded upon her thoughts. "I'm sorry?"

"When are you going? To New York?"

"I don't know. Sometime next week, I guess. After the funeral. Marvella says I can stay at her place. It's just a few blocks away from the costume shop.”

“Do you . . . would you want to go up with us?"

"Us?"

"Dennis and Evan and me. They won't be here until three. You'd have time to pack."

Terri shook her head, remembering Dennis in the costume room. "No. Not with Dennis."

"Terri," her mother said, taking her hand. Terri looked down at her hand and her mother's in surprise. They had not touched for a long time. "I'm going to tell you something. And when I do, I just want you to remember that I've never lied to you before."

Ann told her then, an extraordinary story about a double of Dennis Hamilton, an imposter who had been responsible for the deaths, a man who Ann had seen with her own eyes while Dennis was in the same room. "If you were seduced," Ann closed, "that was the man who did it. Not Dennis." She let go of Terri's hand. "Do you believe me?"

Slowly she nodded. "If for no other reason than that no one would tell that involved and crazy a lie." She sat down on the bed. "You know, when I talked to him the next day . . . he didn't seem to know a thing about it. I thought he was just acting, but maybe he wasn't."

"No. He wasn't. He was terribly upset about it."

"But why didn't he tell someone? Why didn't he tell the police right away?"

"He didn't know at first. The police know now. They're treating it like a celebrity stalker case. And they're right. Someone's trying to destroy Dennis. By harming the people around him."

"Then Sid . . . and Donna?"

Ann nodded. "This . . . person killed Donna. Even though the evidence points to Sid."

It was too much to fathom. "My God. My God."

"Come with us," Ann said, a hand on Terri's shoulder. "I don't want you to be alone. You can stay with me at Dennis's suite until after Monday."

She felt unmoored, drifting on a sea of confusion and unreality, but her mother's hand was solid and real. "All right," she said. "All right. I'll go with you."

~ * ~

Dennis and Evan drove into the Deems's drive just after three o'clock in the spacious Lincoln they had rented for the trip, and were surprised to find both Ann and Terri waiting with their luggage. Terri smiled stiffly at both men, as if afraid the expression might crack her face. While Evan helped her take her luggage to the car, Dennis looked questioningly at Ann.

"I told her," she said.

"About the Emperor?"

"Just about a double. She knows it wasn't you who . . . that night."

He nodded. "Evan knows too. But he knows everything. He's coming along," he said with parental pride. "To help."

"That's good," Ann said. "Things are getting better."

Still, they spoke little in the car. Ann sat up front with Dennis, and Terri and Evan were on either side of the wide back seat. Mostly they discussed A Private Empire. "It'll be a race," Dennis said, "to get it ready in time. You and Marvella will have quite a job on your hands, Terri. The Empire costumes were disbanded after the last show, so you'll be starting from scratch. Except for my costumes."

"I, uh, don't know," Terri said. "That might be a problem."

"A problem?"

"Your dress uniform? The red one? It kept getting misplaced," Terri explained. "Marvella would find it on one rack, then another, and now . . . we can't find it at all."

They stopped for dinner at a cafeteria on the New Jersey Turnpike. No one recognized Dennis. They spent a half hour backed up at the Lincoln Tunnel, and finally arrived at Dennis's East 85th Street apartment building just before nine o'clock. Dennis had not been there since before Robin died, but John Steinberg, with Dennis's approval, had had Robin's clothes and most of her personal possessions put in storage until her will was administered.

When Dennis walked into the foyer of the apartment, the others behind him, he was struck as never before with Robin's presence. The apartment had been as much hers as his, and he was reminded of her wherever his glance turned. There was the vase with the pussy willows she had bought in Paris, the Picasso etching she had given him for his birthday four years ago. She was everywhere. Her clothes may have been gone, but Robin, poor seduced Robin, whose only sin was loving him too well, was still there, an inescapable and ineffable spirit of the place. He could not help but feel that bringing Ann there was a betrayal.

Still, he ushered in his guests, and asked Evan, whose own room was still filled with his boyhood things, to show Terri to Sid's room. He took Ann to a small guest suite. "You may stay here until Terri leaves, if you'd rather," he said, taking her hand.

"That would probably be best," she said, nodding. "It won't be long. Besides, we've got all the time in the world."

He smiled and kissed her, then went to the spacious and memory-haunted bedroom he had shared with Robin, and lay awake for a long time. Robin's sweet and suffocating presence was part of it, but it was also excitement that would not let him sleep.

He was getting ready, his little army was behind him, no one had deserted. John, Curt, Marvella, Ann, Terri, even Evan, thank God, even his son. And most of them knew, if not the specifics of the creature they would help him fight, at least that there was a creature worth fighting, worth destroying for what he had done to so many they all loved.

When Dennis slept, he did so without dreaming. But when he awoke, and his eyes opened to the bedroom wall with its airy bamboo bookcase next to the small O'Keefe watercolor, his sleep-drugged mind assumed that it was years before, before everything bad had happened, and he turned toward where Robin would naturally have been, to hold her and kiss her good morning.

He cried softly when she was not there, when he had to remember all the things that had come after their last embrace in that bed. Even the thought of Ann did not stop his tears, and when the last of them had been wiped away, he whispered to the Emperor, "There, you bastard. I can still cry. I can still feel, can't I?"

It was Sunday, and after a breakfast made by Evan and Terri, he sent them and Ann outside and into the park to observe the signs of approaching spring, while he took down the battered set of sides of A Private Empire, and began to review his lines.

They were as familiar to him as his own name, his address, his social security number, and were nearly as dull. God, he thought, how can I make this alive again? I thought I was done with this, done with it because, let's face it, it didn't mean much to me anymore, because I felt my performances slipping . . .

And they were, weren't they? Slipping away to that bastard, to the Emperor. Slipping away from me because I had made him.

No. Get it back. Read it. Aloud.

He stood, struck the immaturely imperious pose that had caused millions to chuckle, and began.

"God! This is your servant, Prince Karl Frederick Augustus, soon to be Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus. And still, of course, your servant. I suspect that, of Europe's other monarchs, very few — if any — are praying at this moment. Therefore, since kings rule by divine right, as the more superstitious of us are apt to believe, I ask you to shut your ears to the peasantry and give me your undivided attention. It will not take long. Please.'"

Call on God indeed, thought Dennis. It will take at least God for me to bring life to that line. How many times have I said it? Hundreds certainly. Thousands undoubtedly.

He had never figured out how many performances of A Private Empire he had done, but the weight of them over the years sat heavily on him now, an infinite accumulation of words, songs, gestures. He tossed down the sides and sat down at the piano, picking out the introduction to "The Awful Thing About a King," his first musical number, a humorous patter song in which the soon-to-be emperor sings about his concerns, not over ruling a country, but taking a bride.

It was the first time he had sung in many months, and his voice sounded, he thought, weak. The low notes were tentative in tone, the higher ones unsure of pitch. His facility as well had suffered greatly from the lack of practice. Perhaps Dex Colangelo could help him as he had helped him before. Yes. Of course he could. The voice was rusty, that was all. With work, with practice, it would come back as strong as it ever was. And so would the acting. Everything would come back. Everything.

Everything except Robin. And Donna. And Whitney, and Tommy, and Harry Ruhl.

"Oh, you bastard," he whispered, bringing his hands down on the keyboard to produce a brash and angry cluster of notes. "I will beat you, you bastard."

~ * ~

At nine-thirty the next morning Dennis went to the building on Broadway and 54th where John Steinberg still retained an office for use when he was in the city. Steinberg's expression was weary, there were dark pouches beneath his eyes, and his suit was unaccustomedly rumpled. The first thing he said when he saw Dennis was, "Did you bring Ann along?"

"Not right now. But she's here in the city. Why?"

"Because I need her. I am up to my bulbous ass in work, Dennis, and, although I've accomplished a great deal by making phone calls all weekend and thereby annoying a great many agents, I have still more to do."

"Call her," Dennis said. "She's at my place."

"Excellent. Now, I suppose you'd like to know where we stand." He leaned back in his leather chair, steepled his fingers, and smiled. "We begin rehearsals at the Minskoff in two days."

"Wednesday?" Dennis said, amazed.

"Wednesday. It is indeed remarkable what an unlimited budget can do. I posted the bond with Equity Friday afternoon, the principals are all cast except for the villainous Kronstein. The way things worked out, they're all people who have done the show with us before, either here or in one of the road companies. And Dex and Quentin are putting the chorus together. They got half of them over the weekend."

"Who's playing Lise?"

"Kelly Sears. Pleased?"

"Delighted. I always thought she was the best of them. But no Kronstein.”

“No. Sam Reynolds is on tour with Me and My Girl, and Harry Barnes is about to open in the new Lloyd Webber show at the Kennedy Center."

"What about Andy Sims?" Dennis said.

Steinberg frowned. "Andy died. Three weeks ago. AIDS."

"God. I didn't even know he was sick."

"He kept it quiet. And we've had our own crosses to bear."

"So what will we do about a Kronstein? Audition?"

"Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. The agents know that he has to bear a striking resemblance to you. You wouldn't happen to have a twin I don't know about, would you? . . . What is it?"

"Nothing."

"You went pale for a moment," Steinberg said.

"I'm fine, fine." Dennis cleared his throat. "How did you get a studio at the Minskoff on such short notice?"

"Well, I've given you the good news, now it's time for the bad. There was, as I'm sure you realize, no space available. Not at the Minskoff, not at Bennett's, nowhere. There was, however, a show rehearsing that was, shall we say, in financial straits. So I made the producers a proposition. In exchange for their delaying their show for three and a half weeks, which is our required rehearsal time here in the city, we would help to finance their show to the tune of . . . well, perhaps I should give you the figure later. It's rather depressing, particularly when you realize their show is a musical version of The Divine Comedy. Overreaching, in my opinion. They welcomed the hiatus, in fact. I believe they want to give the book a bit of a polish. So we have both studio rooms they were using — one for chorus rehearsals, the other for principals."

"I didn't think you could do it so quickly, John. You're wonderful."

"I am indeed. And now it's your turn to be wonderful. Starting Wednesday.”

“How did people react," Dennis asked slowly, "when you asked them? I mean, was there any hesitance because of what's happened? All the tabloid stories and everything?"

Steinberg shook his head. "Not a bit. Everyone seemed very happy to be doing the show again, and not just because of what we're paying them. Now my job is to fill the house. But even if I do, it's a losing proposition. This is costing you a fortune, Dennis. Please note that I didn't say a small fortune. I mean a regular sized, Swiss bank account type fortune. No less."

"It doesn't matter." Dennis thought of the funeral then. "Are you still going to Whitney's funeral?" Steinberg nodded. "Did you send flowers from us?"

"No, a contribution to a children's hospital in lieu. A generous one. I did hear, however, from Marvella's daughter's lawyer on Saturday. He's thinking of bringing a wrongful death suit against us. Apparently because of our lack of security."

"That's the least of my worries," Dennis said.

"What's the greatest of your worries, Dennis?" Steinberg said.

Dennis sat looking into his friend's face. "Too many to enumerate, John," he finally said.

~ * ~

They found their Kronstein, the Emperor's bastard half-brother, at the next day's auditions. His name was Wallace Drummond, although he preferred to be called Drummy. At his agent's urging he had flown up from Florida, where he was playing Curly in a dinner theatre production of Oklahoma, and sang Kronstein's big number, "Take What Is Mine," in a fine baritone voice. Dex approved of him vocally, and he read well. Quentin felt his dancing was "less than terpsichorean perfection," but since Kronstein did not have to dance, other than a waltz with Maria, his mistress and the Emperor's intended bride, he had no real problem. "He's a mover-weller," Quentin said. "I can get him into shape."

Drummy's appearance was his main selling point. Although he was slightly older than Dennis, he was approximately the same height and build, and with his hair dyed red and makeup covering the crow's feet, the resemblance would be close enough on stage. And when the false beard and moustache were put on in the final scene, when Kronstein tries to announce to the populace the Emperor's betrothal to the evil Maria, the expected success of the subterfuge would be believable enough. It was, after all, a show.

Terri moved out of Dennis's apartment and into Marvella's flat at the Dakota on Tuesday evening, and that night Ann slept in Dennis's bedroom. The windows overlooked Central Park, and when they woke in the morning, Dennis pushed a button by the bed and the curtains opened silently on smooth tracks, revealing a bright, clear morning.

"It's beautiful," Ann said. "An omen for the first day of rehearsal?"

"Maybe," Dennis said, holding her tight, afraid to get up, afraid to go to the studio and try and perform and direct. "Maybe." He had never believed in omens before, but there were other things that he had not believed in either, and he knew now that they were real. Perhaps, he thought, he should believe in good omens too.

Rehearsals began at ten o'clock. The chorus and dancers were in the larger studio A, the principals in B. The studio was much as Dennis remembered it, large and white, ballet bars running down the wall of windows that looked across at the buildings in the next street. On the opposite wall was secured an unbroken expanse of mirrors. Several formica-covered pedestal tables sat here and there, as did twenty or so folding chairs. Curt had the lines of the stage floor laid down with masking tape, and tape numbers ran across what represented the front of the stage, with 0 at stage center, and 1 through 8 on either side of center.

The part of Act I, Scene 1 with Rolf and Inga had been scheduled for blocking from ten to eleven. Dennis guided the actor and actress through the scene, using the stage directions from the old prompt book that had served them through the revivals and several tours. Curt remained by his side, deciphering some of the directions that had been penciled and red-penciled into near obscurity. When they reached the song, Dex played, and Rolf and Inga, who had both performed their roles before, sang the song, using the actions they vaguely remembered from their past performances.

When the song was over, Bill Miley, the actor playing Rolf, shook his head. "Dennis," he said, "we did some comic business in the second verse that never got into the prompt book. Do you remember what it was, something about her sitting on my lap, and my hand's there, and she jumped or something?"

Dennis licked his lips, looked down at the stage floor and tried to remember. Something funny, but what was it? He recalled the audience laughing somewhere in the song, not too long a laugh for fear they would miss the lyrics, but a laugh . . .

"No, I . . . I don't remember."

"Maybe we could come up with something," Miley said.

It was a plea for direction, and Dennis paused, trying to think of something funny, but nothing would come. He stood there for what seemed like hours, before Dex finally spoke.

"I think it was halfway through the second chorus, Bill. It was on the line, 'And bump, with a thump, all the sparks fly.’”

Miley snapped his fingers. "Right! I remember — it was a little pat right when she. . ."

They worked it out while Dennis watched. He felt lost as they blocked it, confused when they laughed at how the action went with the music. Was it funny? he wondered. Had he ever laughed at that before? Had he ever, he wondered sadly, laughed at anything?

Later in the morning Kelly Sears arrived. It was the first time Dennis had seen her since Robin's funeral. She kissed him, then pulled out her copy of the sides, ready to work. They began rehearsing Act I, Scene 3, in which Lise first meets the Emperor in the forest without knowing who he really is. Curt called the blocking as they went, and Kelly glanced only occasionally at her set of sides, remembering her lines of many months before. Dennis, on the other hand, kept his eyes glued to his sides. Although he had played the role thousands of times, the words seemed only mildly familiar now, and he stammered several times per page.

Dennis knew that his reading was flat and lifeless as well as hesitant, yet he could do nothing about it. The more he tried to put emotion and life into the lines, the duller they sounded. He noticed with dismay that Kelly, who had begun the rehearsal with the perfect touch of feminine boldness that the character of Lise, the bright and lovely peasant girl, demanded, was now responding to his mood, and by the time the scene was blocked, both of them were murmuring their lines as though they were on Quaaludes.

Dex played the introduction to the song, "Someone Like You," but Dennis waved him to silence. "Let's break for lunch," he said, and the cast slowly filed out. Kelly put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. "A little rusty?"

"Rusted shut," Dennis said with a weak smile.

"Don't worry. It comes back."

"I hope so. But do something for me, Kelly."

"What?"

"Don't hold back. Don't go flat to try and make me look better. Because that way we both look like shit."

"Dennis —"

"I know what you were doing, and I appreciate the thought. But the only way I'm going to come to life is if you and the other actors do. So don't patronize me. Challenge me."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm sorry. You're right. But you'll pick up, old bear. You always have."

"Kelly," Dennis said, "tell me something. The last year of our tour. Was I as good as at the beginning?"

Her face seemed to narrow as she thought. "You were different," she said. "Your voice was as good as ever, and your scenes with me were fine. But at the end of the first act, and later, after Kronstein and Kruger kill Lise, there wasn't as much . . .”

"As much strength?"

She nodded. "Maybe. Or 'command' is more like it. I mean, your sensitivity played fine, just like always, I really felt that, and sympathized. But where you're supposed to become the Emperor — in the scene with Count Rinehart? — it was the words more than your manner that offended him, and it has to be both for the scene to really work." She gave a self-conscious smile. "I'm sorry, old bear, but you asked me."

"I did. And I value your telling me the truth so much that I'm taking you to lunch."

"If I tell you your singing stunk, will you take me to dinner?"

~ * ~

Dennis had two drinks with lunch. They relaxed him enough so that he didn't try so hard that afternoon, and his readings were better, although nowhere near performance level. Kelly, true to her word, let out all the stops, and her believable display of constructed emotion seemed to spur Dennis on. Three more scenes were blocked that afternoon. Although what Dennis did could have generously been called acting, he did very little that could have been called directing.

That evening he poured out his frustration to Ann and Evan as they sat at the table in his dining room. "I couldn't seem to feel a thing," he said. "And as far as directing went, there wasn't a thing I could offer. What was funny, what was sad, what movements, what gestures to use — the well was dry."

"You can't worry about it," Ann said. "It'll be there when you need it to be.”

“I need it to be now. I'll never be able to . . . face it otherwise."

"Then get mad," Evan said.

"What?"

"Get mad. That's what my drill instructor tried to make me do when I was supposed to head my squad. I guess he figured that if I got mad, then I wouldn't be afraid."

"The Marine equivalent of whistling a happy tune, eh? Did it work?"

Evan shook his head. "I couldn't do it. Not with all those eyes on me. I tried to get mad, mad at them, mad at myself for being such a . . . such a wimp. It didn't work. I'd get the attacks. Couldn't talk, after a while couldn't breathe. But it might work for you."

"It might," Dennis agreed. "If something would make me mad. I don't think I can do it on my own."

~ * ~

On Friday afternoon Ann and Evan came in to the rehearsal to see if Dennis's performance in rehearsals was as bad as he had thought. They quickly discovered that it was. During a break, Dennis went to the larger studio where Quentin and Randy, his assistant, were rehearsing the chorus. Dennis signaled to Quentin, who called a five and went with Dennis into the comparative privacy of the hall.

"I want you to direct," Dennis told him, "not just choreograph."

"Why?"

"Because I can't. You've sat in, you've seen the scenes. I can't bring a damn thing to them, Quentin. Can you do it?"

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Randy can bring the chorus the rest of the way. But first I want you to do something for me." He put a hand on Dennis's shoulder and looked at him with sad and ancient eyes that had seen too much weary death. "I want you to see a doctor."

Dennis gruffly shook off Quentin's hand. "I don't need a doctor, there's nothing wrong with —"

"Listen to me. I have seen friends by the dozens wither away and die, Dennis. And Christ knows I hate to say it, but they started the same way you are — pale, tired, as though the life's being sucked out of them. Now are you keeping something from me?"

"Are you asking me if I have AIDS?"

"Maybe. Or maybe something else. I do think you're sick. Now I know Phillips at Mt. Sinai, and she's the best internist in the city. I want you to have every fucking test known to man, and I want to find out what's wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing physical."

"Then prove it to me."

Dennis looked at him for a long time before he nodded. "All right. Set up the appointment. They can take all the blood, shit, and piss they want. They can stick tubes up me and X-ray me until my hair falls out. Just direct this show. Now."

Quentin immediately walked to the pay phone down the hall, made a brief call, and returned. "Monday," he said. "You're in at seven, be there most of the day. All right?"

Dennis shrugged. "I'll do as much good there as I will here. You've got a cast waiting for you."

After Quentin explained the situation to Randy, he followed Dennis into the studio in which the principals were rehearsing. Dennis said only that Quentin rather than himself would be directing the show, and offered no explanation. As he had assumed, none was necessary, and the day wore on.

~ * ~

At four o'clock Terri arrived at the studio to take Kelly Sear's costume measurements. She smiled at Evan as she came in and again as she went out. He followed her and found that she was waiting for him.

"I wanted to see you," she said. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. For being such a bitch." She smiled. "Did I need to add that?"

"You were a little . . . aloof. I didn't know what I did wrong."

"You didn't do anything. I was a little confused, that's all. I was mad at you for something that . . . that wasn't your fault. And I just wanted to apologize."

Evan nodded. "Apology accepted. How's Marvella doing?"

"She's fine. I don't think she likes having a roommate much, though. She's really depressed about . . . what happened to Whitney. It might have been better if she was alone for a while."

"I doubt it," Evan said. "Staying busy will be good for her. Help her forget.”

“She'll never forget." For the first time Evan saw tears in the girl's eyes. They seemed out of place there. "None of us will."

He held her then while she cried, and her body molded itself into his. "What's happening?" she whispered. "What's happening? Who's doing these things? And why?"

"I don't know, Terri. But we'll get him. We will."

Scene 5

Everyone involved with the show welcomed Sunday like a lover. They slept late, dined late, tried for several hours to banish the thought of the Empire of Waldmont and its fictions from their minds. Then some picked up sides and studied, or sat down at pianos in their apartments and plunked out tunes, or pushed back chairs and reviewed steps.

Evan Hamilton and Terri Deems had lunch together and then went to the new Woody Allen film. John Steinberg woke up, watched John Ford's Red River on his VCR while he ate a large and nourishing breakfast, then spent the rest of the day reading the Sunday Times and a T.V. Olsen western novel. Curtis Wynn and the young woman he had been dating on and off for several years woke up at noon, made love again, and went back to sleep. Marvella Johnson went to church in the morning, had lunch with some friends at their apartment, and then went back to her place, where she turned on the television and stared at the screen for several hours. If anyone would have asked her what she had seen, she would not have been able to tell them.

That afternoon, Dennis and Ann walked arm in arm through Central Park. There was a light drizzle, and they huddled together under a wide umbrella, more for the human contact than to keep the thin sheen of rain off their heads and shoulders. The air was warm for March, and here and there crocuses pushed from between the rocks by the side of the paths, their bright purples and yellows like miniature torches in the gray mist.

Dennis slowed down as they reached a bench. "Let's sit down a minute," he said.

Ann wiped the moisture from the wood with a handkerchief. "You're tired.”

“A little." They sat and Dennis lowered the umbrella. "It's stopped raining.”

“How do you feel? Really?"

"Terribly tired. I have no energy at all. All I want to do is just lie down and sleep. It's draining away, Ann. My life. The son of a bitch is taking it. He's back there in Kirkland, but somehow he's still taking it."

"You could be sick, you know," she told him, almost wanting to believe it. At least sickness was something that could be either fought or accepted. At this point, the Emperor allowed for neither. "We'll know better tomorrow."

"They won't find a thing," Dennis predicted. "My blood will be fine, there will be no tumors, no sites of infection. Blood pressure will be normal, and there will be not a trace of cancer. The test for AIDS antibodies will be negative." He smiled crookedly. "I won't even have so much as a cold."

He put his head back. The rain had begun again, a fine mist, and he closed his eyes and let his mouth fall open as if, she thought, he was about to receive some communion from the heavens. Then he closed it and, still looking up, said to her, "They can't see sicknesses of the soul."

~ * ~

He was right. They could not. The following day, after an evening in which he fasted and a night in which he purged himself with castor oil and Fleet enemas, he submitted himself to the ministrations of the doctors. Despite his apathy, some of the procedures were painful enough to make him cry out, and he welcomed the pain, welcomed anything that could make him feel, react, show an honest and unforced emotion.

At the end of the day, when he was dressed and feeling only dull aches, the weak memory of pains suffered rather than their sharp reality, the doctor told him that neither she nor all the vast machines of Mt. Sinai could find anything physically wrong with him, and suggested therapy to see if his condition could be of a psychosomatic nature. He declined the offer.

~ * ~

On Monday the rest of the cast had rehearsed in Dennis's absence, and now that he had returned, they still rehearsed in his absence. Dennis was there, they all felt, in body only.

He grew paler and thinner as the days passed. Those who had lunch with him saw him eat, but could see no trace of the nourishment in his flesh. Even his singing voice, that wonder of regularity whose lack of failure had never caused him to miss a performance, was growing weak. The notes were always there and on pitch without cracking, but their fullness had diminished to heard shadows of what they had been. Kelly and the others who shared scenes with him tried desperately to draw the Emperor of old out of him, but with no success. They worked around him.

Many of them had rehearsed shows like this before, star vehicles for music theatres in which the lead, usually a TV celebrity, came in for the final run-through, and was represented in early rehearsals by an assistant stage manager who carried the book, read the lines lifelessly, and walked through the movements like a trained zombie. It was little better than acting with a puppet. Only in this case the puppet was a performer who had won two Tony Awards and the applause and respect of the theatre world.

Ann Deems did what she could for Dennis. She encouraged him, admonished him, seldom left his side, lived with him, made love to him, and loved him. His reciprocating love, she thought, seemed the only real thing about him anymore.

When she met him at the studio at the end of the day's rehearsal, he showed more life than he did at any other time. Still, she thought

"He's dying, John. I really think he is."

Steinberg quickly looked up from the papers they had been about to go over, as if surprised at the unexpected comment. "They said he was all right at the hospital.”

“But he seems so weak, and getting weaker."

"I know. But too, I know Dennis. I've known him for a much longer period of time than you, my dear, despite your recent relationship. And there were times he was absolutely dreadful in rehearsals — disinterested, bored, lifeless —"

"But ever as bad as this?"

Steinberg sat back in his chair, folded his hands upon his generous lap, and looked up at the ceiling, as if his memory dwelt there. "No," he said. "I'll concede that. No. But the situation . . . all the deaths, the loss." He sighed. "Robin . . . Whitney . . . Donna . . .”

Steinberg sighed, and Ann knew that he was remembering the woman who had worked with him for so many years. Their own relationship had improved considerably in the past month, and she thought that Steinberg might be trying to turn her into a replacement for Donna.

Steinberg jerked his head down. "He'll change once he gets on a stage. And when he finally has an audience . . . well, you'll see. We'll have the old Dennis back again. We'll have the Emperor, by God." A shiver ran through her at the intensity of his grin. "But enough of this. I can only say don't worry about him. You're good for him, Ann. He needs you. And he'll be all right. Now our job is to make sure that the evening of the performance is everything that he wants it to be."

She nodded. "I'm sorry. Sometimes it just gets to me. I worry that he won't . . . have it."

"He'll have it. And we'll have one hell of an audience. I've got the donations to date here. At $5000 a seat, we'll be filling the Venetian Theatre to capacity.”

“John, that's incredible!"

"Not so incredible when you think about it. Only about half of these names are our prior investors. The others are all from news services, magazines, television stations . . . both Geraldo and Sally will be there."

The truth hit her then. "My God, because of what happened . . . and —“

“Because of what might happen again, yes, you're right. The vultures are out in force, hoping for a show beyond the show."

"You can't let them, John."

"I can't stop them, Ann. Their money is as good as anyone else's. But understand, nothing will happen beyond the show. Backstage will be filled with cast and crew, and we will have security people en masse. There will be no opportunity for what happened to Tommy Werton. These news hounds will see a musical, nothing more. And the publicity this will bring the project is something that no money can buy. I confess I hadn't thought of that angle when Dennis said he wanted to do Empire again."

"But it seems so ghoulish . . .”

"What's ghoulish about playing A Private Empire? Some people may have a morbid reason for coming, but that's their problem. They'll soon learn that if they want to see Grand Guignol, they had best go to Paris. They won't see it here. No, Ann, the only thing they will see on that stage is the, shall I say, transformation of Dennis Hamilton." Steinberg's eyes got very small, and he leaned across the desk toward her. "Why is he doing it, Ann? He hasn't told me."

"Maybe he thought you were right about it, and changed his mind."

"It's not that. It happened after Evan had his attack. Why does he want to do it? What good does he think it will do?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I won't do that. I have never . . . pried into his affairs. He's told me much without my asking, and I don't want that to change."

"Maybe he thinks," Ann said slowly, "that this is something you'd have trouble accepting."

"Perhaps I would. But I would try."

"I'm sorry, John. Just know that he believes that it's for the best. And I believe it too. If it works, if what's supposed to happen happens, it will change things. End things."

"The killings."

She paused. Had she said too much? John was such a materialist, how could he believe in the reality of the Emperor?

"Is he trying to . . . draw this person out?"

"In a way," she said. "Or maybe drive him away."

"If what Chief Munro thinks is true, that could be very dangerous.”

“It could be more dangerous for Dennis to do nothing."

"Ann, I want to know —"

"John," she said, interrupting him, "please. I can't tell you any more." And she did not.

~ * ~

In the middle of the last week in New York, Sybil Creed dropped in to the rehearsal. By now, the chorus was working together with the principals, and Quentin was directing Act II, Scene 7, the last scene, in which the Emperor Frederick, having slain Kronstein in a duel, speaks to his people, telling them that if he is killed leading his army against Wohlstein to restore the usurped King Fritz to the throne, the people of Waldmont should be his heirs and rule through a democracy.

When the speech was over and a five was called, Sybil walked up to Dennis, who smiled and dutifully kissed her cheek. He had not seen her since the night of Tommy Werton's death, as she had been in Europe for several months running an acting seminar.

"That was shit, son," were the first words out of her mouth. Dennis gave a small laugh. "And that laugh," she went on, "should be called self-deprecating, because if I've ever seen an actor with a reason to deprecate himself, it's you today."

"Do you want to continue to lambast me here in front of my cast," Dennis said, "or would you rather take me outside to the woodshed?"

"How long is your break?"

"Only five, but they're doing a scene I'm not in."

"Fine," said Sybil. "Take me out for a drink. After seeing the garbage you were just spewing, I need one."

"All right," Dennis said, taking his jacket from the back of a chair and waving to Curt to let him know he was leaving. "But please don't hesitate to tell me what you really think."

Sybil's sharp line of a mouth curled. "Very good. Was that irony? God knows there was more spark in it than in that watery speech you just gave." She offered her arm, Dennis took it, and they walked out.

When they were comfortably settled in a booth at Joe Allen's, with drinks in front of them, Sybil took Dennis's right hand in both of hers and squeezed it. "I heard about you," she said, "but I didn't believe it. You're the talk of Broadway, Dennis dear. The only performer living whose talent has not only deserted him, but has apparently sued for alimony as well. Rumor has it that you've had to sign over half your brain cells. True?"

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like you're some goddamned apprentice at the worst non-Equity dinner theatre in South Dakota, for Christ's sake. What is the matter with you? Did you forget how to fool the nice people?"

He shrugged. "Did I ever know?"

"Of course you knew, don't be fatuous. You could never fool me, but you fooled the others well enough. And I hate to see a charlatan lose his skill. You may have to actually learn to act, Dennis." She threw back half her drink and shuddered. "Now that I've bawled you out for no longer being able to do what I always felt you shouldn't anyway, let me tell you how sorry I am over everything that's happened. You have had a hill full of crosses to bear." She put back her head and looked down the long bridge of her nose at him. "I assume that's what's been the cause of this . . . performing debacle?"

"In a way."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Try to . . . find it again. The performance."

"And where might you be looking? Outside? All around? In the movies? Under cabbage leaves?"

He shook his head. "Inside."

"Inside. Will wonders never cease." She shook her head in mock amazement, then plunged it toward him like a hawk attacking a vole. "Well, you'd damn well better find it, my friend. Because you are no more than an object of pity right now. You've got how long till the big night?"

"A little over two weeks."

"I'd recommend some sessions, but I don't think you'll have time. So perhaps you wouldn't mind if I gave you some advice?"

"Sybil, at this point I'd take acting advice from Vanna White."

"Oh, thank you so much for the compliment."

"You know what I mean. I've always admired your work, even when I haven't agreed with the principles behind it."

"Meaning that you do now?"

His only reaction was a shrug.

"It's hard for an old dog to learn new tricks, isn't it, Dennis? But I'll tell you what I think, and you can take it for what it's worth. Maybe it'll help you. Maybe you'll decide that you do want to try being a tree and letting your branches blow in the fucking wind." She took another sip of her drink. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. All your life you've been afraid to drop the mask and confront yourself. You've worked with technique alone, and in that way you've protected yourself from the truth — both bad and good — about Dennis Hamilton. Your emotions have been only constructed artifice, and it's only when you confront your true emotions, emotions expressed sincerely, that you will give a truly great performance. Working with a series of constructs, as you've been doing for your entire career, is not the way to bring real life to a character."

Dennis began to laugh. It started out slow and soft and gentle, then increased in volume and became a series of rattling bursts that filled the room. His eyes squeezed shut and tears emerged from their inner corners. The attack slowly diminished to weak, panting sobs, and he waved his hands in the air feebly in apology.

"Well," Sybil said in a voice as chilled and dry as her martini, "I'm glad you still find my beliefs so amusing."

"It's . . . I'm sorry, it's not that, Sybil, I just . . . things have been stranger than you can imagine, and . . .”He paused. There was no way he could tell her the truth. "I'm sorry. Really. I won't laugh again."

"Do," she said, getting stiffly to her feet. "At least it's an emotion, and it's real." She spat her curtain line, "And that's more than I've seen from you in years," and left him sitting alone.

God damn it, he thought. She was so close in one way, so far in another. Despite what Sybil said, it was precisely the strength of his dramatic constructions that had brought his character to life, and to a hateful, violent life at that. But she was right in that it was only by the strength of his own emotions, at least those he still had left, that he would bring those he had lost to the Emperor back again.

And make his soul complete.

Scene 6

That night, after his calamitous discussion with Sybil Creed, Dennis had a variant of the Actor's Nightmare. He was standing on the stage of the Venetian Theatre, dressed in the full regalia of the Emperor Frederick. Richard Reynolds, the actor who played the role of the Peasant Leader in the 1966 production of A Private Empire, was with him on stage. Dennis knew that he had just pardoned the man from being a spy and made him a retainer, for Richard said:

— Would to God my Emperor were as decent as you. I'll serve you well, majesty. My life for yours —

And then he turned and left the stage, leaving Dennis with the knowledge that he was in a dream, for Richard had been dead for fifteen years, beaten to death by a burglar.

In reality, Dennis would have known his lines, his lyrics, his movements, but in the dream, and knowing that it was a dream, he did not. That knowledge did nothing, however, to lessen his panic. All he knew beyond the fact of the dream was that he did not know. He heard the music begin, and remembered dimly that the song was called "A Land Where We Can Love," but could recall none of the lyrics, did not remember how the song began, where he should be on the stage.

The introduction seemed to bubble on forever, pushing him closer to that moment when he would be expected to open his mouth and sing, and in desperation he crossed the stage, slapping his hands behind his back, wondering if he was past the point in the show where that gesture was first used. Striding to the stage right curtains he peered into the wings in hopes of seeing the prompter, but saw not even the dim light that guided the actors off stage. There was nothing there but darkness, a thick, inky blackness that seemed even more terrible than his fate were he to remain on stage until the time came for him to sing the song he did not know.

The introduction was finally coming to its end, and Dennis turned back toward the audience, his dream-self trembling. The upbeat was coming, and he opened his mouth, thinking that perhaps if he just began to sing, the right words would come out. After all, he had sung them thousands of times, they should, damn it, be there. They were not. The accompaniment of the unseen orchestra below him in the pit droned on, and he stood there, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out, no song filling the air. The music got softer and softer, making his failure all the more obvious. What must they think of him? he wondered. They must think him a fool. And then, as if in universal agreement, they started to laugh.

Dennis recognized the laughter. It was the laughter of thousands laughing with one voice.

And the voice was that of the Emperor.

Then all the stage lights exploded into brightness, and in their glow Dennis saw row upon row of Dennis Hamiltons, of Emperors, of himself and of the beast, going back and out and up into the air, and the rows had no end, the theatre had no ceiling, and the world was girdled with images of himself, images with madness in their eyes, madness that seeped into his soul even as they stole that same soul away.

He woke up sweating, his stomach a churning pit of fire, his spine a rope of ice, and remembered waking up next to Robin after the other nightmares. But he wasn't next to Robin now. He was next to Ann, and the sounds of his awakening had not pierced the armor of her sleep. He listened to her breathing softly in the dark, the sound coming around the edges of the pounding of his own heart.

He thought he must have woken up quietly then, without a cry or a sudden motion. Of course. A cry would have taken emotion, wouldn't it? And though he felt it, it seemed as though his days of expressing it were far behind.

Lying in bed then, after the nightmare, he decided to call Ally Terrazin. She was the only person he knew who was serious about what the rest of his friends and acquaintances had regarded as silly. Perhaps, he thought, smiling inwardly as his self-perceived foolishness, Ranthu or Ramcharger, or whatever that damn thing's name was, could help. Dennis's skepticism toward the occult had taken a terrific beating.

He called her the next day at the lunch break, hoping she would be up by nine o'clock Pacific time. She was.

"Hello, Ally?"

"Dennis? Is that you?" Ally sounded, Dennis thought, just as perky and bouncy and unrelievedly west coast as she always did.

"Yes."

"God, how are you?"

"I'm . . . all right."

"Dennis, I'm so sorry about everything. I sent you cards, did you get them?"

He didn't know whether he had or not. "Yes. Thank you."

"I would've written, but I had two films back to back, just finished the second one. It shot in Spain. So how are you?" she asked for the second time.

"Fine, Ally. Listen, I wonder if you could give me some help."

"Sure. Oh, hey, I can't come to your show, though. I start another movie on the 24th, isn't that great?"

"I'm glad to hear you're keeping busy. But look, you remember when we talked about . . . was it Ranthu? The night . . . Tommy Werton was killed?"

"Ranthu, yeah?"

"Well, I might have a job for . . . Ranthu. I want him to find out if, well, if there's anything in the theatre when we go back next week."

"Anything. What, you mean like a presence? Like energy?"

"Yes. I guess so."

"Well, that's really not something that Ranthu handles. I mean you need like a psychic for that. And Bob — he's Ranthu's channeler — he doesn't really do that sort of thing. I think you'd want somebody like Bebe Gonsalves."

"Who's Bebe Gonsalves?"

"Just the best damn psychic in L.A. You want her number?"

"You know her?"

"Oh yeah."

"Are you busy next week?"

"No, why?"

"Would you be willing to bring her to the theatre? Saturday's our last day of rehearsal here before we go back to Kirkland. I could meet you at the theatre on Sunday before rehearsals start down there. Could you fly Ms. Gonsalves out here and stay with her? I'll pay you all expenses plus whatever you want."

"Expenses are fine, but I'll come just to see you again. Besides, you're gonna pay through the nose for Bebe. She doesn't come cheap." She paused for a moment. "Dennis, what is it? What do you think is there?"

He lied. "I don't know, Ally. But I've exhausted all human explanations. So maybe there's a supernatural one."

They talked for a while longer, and then hung up. Dennis felt stupid speaking seriously of psychics, and particularly of Ranthu, but a year ago he would have felt stupid speaking of doppelgangers. He just didn't want to go back into the theatre blind. He had no idea what the Emperor had in store for him. Would it be stronger now? Or would all human absence from the building have weakened it, perhaps even to the point of nonexistence? Was his inability to act the result of the Emperor's draining away his strength, or was it purely psychological?

They were questions that had to be answered, questions that were plaguing him now even in his sleep. "Inquiring minds want to know," he said softly to himself, then headed back into the studio.

~ * ~

The Kirkland Hotel was barely prepared for the onslaught. Fifty cast members, fifteen crew people, and assorted spouses and lovers began to check in on Saturday evening and continued to do so until after midnight on Sunday. The original thought of lodging them in the Venetian Theatre building had been abandoned, as there was no time to prepare the largely unfurnished rooms and suites for occupancy, and, even if there had been, many of the party were nervous enough about rehearsing and performing in what they held to be, if not cursed, then at least a haunted theatre.

Dennis, Ann, Evan, and Terri drove down together Saturday after the last New York rehearsal. The route to the Kirkland Hotel did not pass the theatre building, for which all four were grateful. It was dark by the time they drove up the winding road to the hotel, a large Victorian hulk of a building that had originally been a sanitarium where David Kirk's mineral water was the main remedy. It sat on a hill overlooking the town, and when Dennis got out of the car he could not help but look down and see the complex that housed the Venetian Theatre. The lamps that lit the parking lot tinted the building with red, so that its dark spine of a roof shone through the evening mist like that of some giant, gleaming beast waiting to come to life, to rise and to strike.

When they entered the hotel, there was a message from Ally Terrazin at the front desk. She and Bebe Gonsalves would arrive at the theatre at eleven o'clock the next morning, and hoped Dennis could meet them there. Exhausted and apprehensive, he fell asleep in Ann's arms. If he had dreams, he could not remember them in the morning.

By the time he and Ann had a small room service breakfast and read the Sunday Times, it was time to meet Ally and Bebe Gonsalves. On their way through the lobby, they ran into John Steinberg, who asked them where they were off to. When they told him they were going to the theatre, he frowned.

"Do you think that's wise? No one's there yet. The crew doesn't go in until one this afternoon."

"We're meeting someone there, John," said Dennis. "An investigator.”

“Oh. Now a detective. Don't you think you could have told me?"

"It isn't a detective, John. It's . . .” Dennis cleared his throat. "It's a psychic investigator."

John did not respond. He only stood there looking at Dennis, his expression as unreadable as granite. "Psychic," he said at last, then nodded gravely, and continued on his way.

"I've been working with him for months now," Ann said, "and I've never seen that reaction."

"I have. It's meant to imply utter contempt." Dennis smiled in spite of himself. "When someone brings up something which John thinks isn't even worth discussing, since talking about it would mean that he's actually taking it seriously, he merely grunts a repetition, like, 'flying saucers,' or 'séances,' and then walks away." He took Ann's hand and gave it a squeeze. "You see now why I didn't want to tell him about the Emperor without having physical proof to show him. I swear to God, he'd have me committed."

"Maybe we'll have proof," Ann said.

"I hope not," said Dennis, leading her outside. "The thing I'd really like is to have that damned theatre as empty as an ingenue's head."

Bebe Gonsalves was not at all what Dennis had expected. He had thought to find a short and wide woman bedecked with eyeblinding prints and gaudy if authentic jewelry. But the woman who stood next to Ally Terrazin under the Venetian Theatre marquee was as striking as any actress he had ever met. It was only when he came near enough to see the thin web of wrinkles in the corners of her eyes that he knew she was, like himself, over forty. She wore a beautifully tailored top coat that was opened to display an even more perfectly cut suit beneath. She looked more like the owner of an upscale cosmetics firm than a psychic. Her hair was the blue-black of dark nights, and her skin a rich olive shade. Her only jewelry consisted of two small diamond earrings that seemed to catch the sun even on such a cloudy day.

Ally introduced Bebe Gonsalves, and Dennis introduced Ann, and together they walked to the theatre door, which he unlocked.

"Your hand is shaking, Mr. Hamilton," Bebe Gonsalves said. "It is a cold morning."

"I'm afraid I'm a little nervous," Dennis said.

"At what you may find? Or what you may not?"

Now what in the hell, Dennis thought, did she mean by that? At last the recalcitrant lock clicked, and Dennis ushered the others inside.

"Before we proceed," Bebe Gonsalves said, "I think it would be best if you tell me what it is that you think is here. I know of the things that have happened here, so you need not tell me of them, or if you think that what we are in search of has caused them. Just tell me what you think is here."

Dennis swallowed heavily, then spoke slowly and distinctly, not wanting to be misunderstood. "I don't think there's any name for it. It's a double, in a way. But it's not what they call a doppelganger. It's more like . . . part of me that got away. A bad part. And I need to get it back. Because on its own, away from me, it takes the energy that's stored here . . .” He glanced at Ally.

"The psychic energy," she explained. "From that catharsis thing?”

“I see," said Bebe Gonsalves. "Go on."

"And it . . . and it does bad things with it, with the power. It wants . . . I don't know what the hell it wants — to be me, maybe, to replace me."

"It's real," Ann added. "I've seen it — it and Dennis at the same time.”

“I don't doubt what you say," the psychic told her.

"I went away," Dennis went on, "hoping that being away from me it might grow weak, maybe die. I thought that you might be able to tell, to . . . feel something, see if you think there's anything here."

Bebe Gonsalves pursed her full lips. "Theatres are difficult. There are so many things, so much activity, that it's hard to pinpoint any one phenomenon. But I'll try. Now. Where is the creature the strongest? Where have you seen it?"

"The stage, I suppose," Dennis said. "On the stage."

He led the three women into the inner lobby, fumbled about at the wall switch, and turned on the house lights. The interior of the Venetian Theatre was just as they had left it. They walked down the aisle onto the stage, and Dennis noticed that Ally looked overhead nervously, as if expecting the curtain to come crashing down on them the way it had on poor Tommy Werton.

"It's here," Dennis said. "I think it's here that it's strongest."

Bebe Gonsalves's face seemed to shimmer in the dim light, as though possessed of an infinity of unpleasant emotions. "It is very bad here. Not from the presence you seek, but from the act, from the man who died, the one last fall. His pain and shock, the horror of those who watched — I feel it all. It makes things muddy." She put a long-nailed hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. "It will take a moment to dispel these thoughts. They must go before I can seek the entity you dread. Please, be quiet for a time."

The four of them stood, all of them believing, and trembling. After three long minutes, Bebe Gonsalves gave a quick intake of breath, and whispered, "There is something." Her eyelids fluttered. "Something that wishes . . . or wished . . . to start a . . . a dynasty, or rather . . . an empire. A dark, dreadful empire. But it is very weak, very weak. Near death. It suffers. It is being drained away. It lives in fear . . ."

She shook her head. "It is gone," she said, turning to Dennis. "It may still be here, but I can sense it no longer. I would advise you to have no fear, Mr. Hamilton."

"Then you think . . . it's harmless?"

"If what I felt is the entity of which you spoke, I think it is indeed harmless." She shrugged. "Pitifully so. It will not live long, and while it does, it is impotent. Ignore it," she said, and smiled for the first time. "And it'll go away."

Ally and Bebe Gonsalves declined Dennis's offer of lunch, and drove away in their rented car, but not before Ally had kissed Dennis on the cheek and whispered to him, "Hang in there, buster. You got over me, you can get over this," which made him smile, but not laugh.

When they were gone, Dennis stood with Ann on the sidewalk under the marquee. "Do you believe her?" Ann asked, putting her arms around him. "Do you think she has those . . . powers?"

He held her. "After what's happened to me, I don't disbelieve in anyone's powers anymore. As for what she said, I think she might have felt something. Something that had dreams, something that's weak, that's dying. Something that won't be here for long."

"But isn't that good?"

"I don't know," he said. "It depends on who it was that she was sensing. The Emperor?" He looked down at her. "Or me?"

He felt her muscles stiffen. "Don't say things like that."

"I've got to face the facts. I don't have much left in me."

"It'll change now. You're back on a stage again. Your stage."

"Mine?" He turned and looked back through the glass doors into the shadows of the lobby. "Is it?"

"Yes. It's your building, your theatre, your stage. It's your character."

"No, Ann. They'll be mine when I take them back again, back from him. Not before."

"Then do it, Dennis. Reach down inside you and do it."

He did not answer. He had nothing to say. He felt horribly old, unbearably weary, as though the battle had already been fought and he had lost. "Let's go back to the hotel," he finally said. "I'm tired. I'd like to rest."

~ * ~

At one o'clock that afternoon, the techies went in. Curt Wynn supervised as two assistant stage managers taped the stage, the props people prepared the tables stage right and left, and the crew set furniture for the first scene to be rehearsed the next morning. The set itself, the original road show design by the late Kinsey Holworth, was still being reconstructed in New York scene shops under Mack Redcay's demanding eye, and would be transported to Kirkland on Wednesday. The designer had been disappointed at the delay of Craddock, but the money that John Steinberg offered did much to assuage his regret at having to supervise the rebuilding of another man's design. Still, there was no time for a new one.

Thorne Wilson's lighting design was also to be repeated, and Wilson, a big, hearty man with a penchant for using as many lighting instruments as his budget would allow (and often more), was delighted to recreate his former triumph, even if only for one performance. He scurried about the theatre, using the lighting board in the rear of the theatre as his home base, always on his walkie talkie to his minions above, those on the tall platform ladders called cherrypickers, and those in the ceiling, who were hanging and focusing the instruments.

Though Thorne Wilson was happy to be back with A Private Empire, Marvella Johnson did not share his enthusiasm. She had remained in New York, working in the costume shops and rental houses to recreate as closely as possible the show's costumes, many of them now sold, scattered, or rebuilt. Terri Deems had done most of the legwork, and Marvella rewarded her with the title of Costume Coordinator, and she would appear as such in the playbill directly under Marvella's name. That Sunday afternoon Terri worked in the fourth floor costume shop with three female seamstresses and one male, a flighty gay who got on her nerves, but who was a master of organization and could stitch a seam as quickly as the best of them.

Some of those who had never before been in the Venetian Theatre were wary at first of the place's reputation, and for the first hour or so were constantly glancing overhead or over their shoulders. But hardly any of them had never worked in a theatre that did not have some dark history of a violent death or a ghost or two, and when no one was strangled by a roll of adhesive tape, smashed by a falling counterweight, or skewered by a stage brace in the first hour of work, they began to relax, and brought to their jobs the attention and professionalism that had gotten them hired in the first place.

But neither Curt Wynn nor Terri Deems were quite so cavalier as their blissfully ignorant charges and co-workers. Although Curt had seen only the eerie and possibly hallucinatory revenant in the cellar, he firmly believed that a killer was stalking Dennis and Dennis's theatre, and had told everyone that if they saw any person in the theatre building they could not identify, to come to him immediately and tell him about it.

Now, as he walked about the stage, in the wings, in the dressing rooms, he could not banish the feeling that he was being watched. It was not, however, the sensation of being observed secretly, but rather of being watched quite openly and appraisingly. Every time he turned around, he expected to see the nemesis standing there unconcerned. But he saw nothing, not even from the corner of his eye.

Terri, on the other hand, had a more realistic knowledge of what stalked the Venetian Theatre. She had, after all, been with the imposter, spoken with him, touched him and more. If he had not actually raped her, the bastard had at least pushed her past the point of consensual sex. Still, when she thought of what he might have done, and what he had done to the others, she shuddered with the horror that such a man had had her. She felt unclean, and horribly used, and wished that she might see him again, captured and bound. She would spit on him then.

But now, surrounded by other women and one ineffectual male, she wanted nothing less than for the monster to come through the costume shop door. Still, she did not think he would come among so many, and she did not intend to be alone in the theatre, or be alone anywhere, for that matter.

She and Evan had adjoining rooms in the Kirkland Hotel. They had slept in each other's arms last night, and would, by mutual consent, continue to do so. Though she had grown to like him before, it was when they were together in New York that she thought she had begun to love him. He was the only boy she had ever known who made no demands on her, and although he had not gone to college, an omission that he was now planning to correct, he was one of the brightest people she had ever met. But more than that, they had fun together, and the last time Terri could remember having fun with a boy had been long before she had discovered sex and the power she was able to wield with it.

She missed him as she worked in the shop, and wished that he were nearby, down on the stage with Curt. But he would not come back to the theatre, and after he had told her what he had seen the day of his attack, she could not blame him. That it had been an hallucination she had no doubt, for such a vision as he had seen could only have come from the imagination of someone who, like Evan, seemed terrified at the mere thought of standing in front of an audience. "I might go in," he told her, "but not now, not yet. My gut cramps when I think about it."

"But if you weren't alone," she told him. "If you were with people . . .”

"I know. I will. I think I will. Maybe later this week. But not now. Not yet."

So he remained in the hotel, looking through the college catalogues he had obtained in New York. She hoped he would choose Columbia or N.Y.U. That way they could stay close to each other, even stay together.

Stay together. God, that was just too good to be believed. Something would have to go wrong, she thought with the fearful pessimism of the jaded young. She had no right to be that happy.

~ * ~

The following morning at nine-thirty, John Steinberg was once again in his office at the Venetian Theatre when Robert Leibowitz called and told him that Sid Harper's trial date had been set for the last week in May. There was no new evidence, and the lawyer was not at all certain that he could persuade a jury to free Sid.

If Leibowitz used the "mystery man" defense, claiming that one individual had been responsible for most if not all of the deaths that had taken place in the theatre building, the jury might rationally assume that if circumstantial evidence indicated that Sid was responsible for Donna Franklin's murder, he might just as well have been responsible for the others, except for Whitney's, of course.

"Doesn't the fact that Whitney was murdered," Steinberg said, "indicate that this `mystery man' exists?"

"Possibly," Leibowitz answered. "But the prosecuting attorney might be able to make those wounds on the girl's lips and the broken nose look self-inflicted —struggling to escape suffocation. I'd feel a lot better if it was a more obvious murder. But if we ignore the mystery man, the jury might just as rationally decide that it was Harper and no one else who had murdered Miss Franklin and Miss Franklin only. Our only hope is that something comes up before the trial begins."

"Like what?" Steinberg asked.

There was a long pause. "Like another murder," Leibowitz said. "A murder that couldn't be anything else."

Now it was Steinberg's turn to pause. "Well," he finally said to Leibowitz, "I'll see what I can turn up."

He hung up just as Ann came in. "Leibowitz needs another murder to free Sid," he told her. "Would you please canvass for volunteers among the cast and crew?"

Ann ignored the comment. "What shall I do, John? Do you have letters?”

“Of course. But before we get to business, how's Dennis?"

"Dennis is . . . very much the same."

"Your psychic did nothing to allay his concerns?"

"I don't know, John."

"No one seems to know much of anything. I assume the purpose of this . . . alleged psychic was to try and visualize our house terrorist?"

Ann paused just a moment too long. "Yes."

"And did he have any visions?"

"She. It was a she. Her name is Bebe Gonsalves."

"Ah. And does she predict with fruit on her head?" He waved a hand. "I take it back. A racial slur. Was the money well spent?"

"You mean did she find anything? No. She didn't."

Steinberg eyed her long and hard. "I think you're lying to me, Ann. I think that you know more than you're telling. Is that right?"

"No."

"You are a kind and lovely woman, but a very bad liar. If you don't want to tell me the truth, I assume you must have a reason. I merely hope that you will put the safety of Dennis and yourself and everyone else in this building first. Will you do that?"

"Yes, John. And that's the truth."

"All right." His face soured, and he snorted petulantly. "It used to be that I was told everything, and what I wasn't told I found out anyway. Those were the halcyon days of the past, and I trust once all this foolishness is over that they will return again." He passed Ann a sheaf of papers. "These are the contracts for the security team I'm hiring. Please look over them and work out a final budget."

"Security team?"

"I'm a bit concerned too, Ann," he said, as though explaining to a child. "Concerned enough to bring in some muscle starting tomorrow to ensure that our stalker or whoever the hell he is has no further access to the theatre or its staff. There will be two men here at all times, guarding both front and rear entrances. There will also be a man at the hotel. If anyone wants to do any more killings, he's going to find that he's got to dispose of a few armed guards first." Then Steinberg smiled. "I may be ignorant, Ann, but I'm not senile. If anyone's going to get into this theatre unseen in the next two weeks, he's going to have to be a shadow. Or a ghost."

~ * ~

A half hour later a live cast began to assemble on the stage of the Venetian Theatre for the first time in a quarter of a century. Quentin, a navy cashmere sweater tied casually over his shoulders, came down the aisle with Dennis. "Do you want to talk to them first?"

Dennis shook his head. "No. You just go ahead."

"But, Dennis, it's your show, your theatre, you don't want to welcome them?"

"I'd really rather not, Quentin. You just go ahead and do it, all right?"

Gathering everyone to the first few rows of seats, Quentin welcomed them to the theatre, gave them a brief history of the place, omitting the recent tragedies, told them where the rest rooms, coffee pot, and Coke machines were, then had Curt pass out rehearsal schedules.

"The first scene today, as you hopefully remember," Quentin said, smiling, "is two-seven. We'll start right at the end of Kronstein's 'Take What Is Mine,' and rehearse the segue to the crowd scene. We'll have the scenery coming in the middle of the week. For now, Curt will show you the entrances and exits. Okay, people, let's get to places."

When the chorus went to the stage, the theatre became filled with life, color, sound. Dex Colangelo's fingers roamed up and down the keyboard of the freshly tuned Steinway in the orchestra pit. Dancers tugged up legwarmers, stretched in their leotards, singers warbled triads and octaves, Quentin laughed, clapping people on the shoulder, techies scurried as they always scurry, and Dennis thought that maybe everything would be all right now, that the magic of the theatre could banish that other, darker magic. Glorious illusion had returned to the Venetian Theatre's stage to replace the dread reality that had darkened it.

As he sat watching the dancers and singers work, he felt happy again, as though he was back where he belonged, doing what he should have always been doing. It was the theatre, and the long years he had spent in it had done nothing to diminish his affection for it. In that moment, he loved the life as he loved nothing else. Then he thought of the Emperor, and wondered if he was watching, and how he could stand in his evil pride against such an affirmation of joy and life as was on the stage at that moment.

"Take that, you son of a bitch," Dennis whispered, and felt his tiny smile grow larger as the music increased in volume, the harmonies blended, the players moved as one, until he was grinning, unafraid, grinning at the grim face of death he knew was hiding somewhere in the shadows of the theatre.

But the shadows would fade, wouldn't they? With song and dance and laughter, they would fade and be replaced by glorious light. It always happened that way in the books and the movies and the stories, didn't it? Christ, it had to happen that way, it just had to.

They worked the number through several times, getting used to the new stage floor, the acoustics and geometry of the space. Curt called a break, and the cast relaxed, got coffee, Cokes, sat on the apron, cooled down in a dozen different ways. At the end of the five, Quentin waved to Dennis. "We'll go on with the scene, yes?"

Dennis nodded and got to his feet. For a moment a wave of dizziness swept over him, and he clutched the arm of the seat, but it passed, and he took a deep breath, walked down the length of the row, and up onto the stage of the Venetian Theatre, where he had first become what he was.

He stepped over to the stage right prop table and strapped on his scabbard, pulling out his saber to examine it. The cutting edges were dull, but still capable of inflicting a wound, and the point, though slightly rounded, could pierce flesh nonetheless. The weapon was just like that of Wallace Drummond, with whom Dennis would fight the climactic duel at the show's end. Quentin, besides being a Tony Award winning choreographer, was also an expert fencer, and had staged duels for half a dozen Broadway shows and many more regional theatre productions. He had choreographed the swordplay for the revival, and had worked for several hours with Dennis and Drummy in New York, using wooden canes to block the moves slowly and carefully, safety always being the major factor. He avoided thrusts, except when they were absolutely necessary.

"Slashes," he had told them, "can be avoided or parried even by the beginning swordsman. And if they land there usually isn't much harm done. But a thrust can injure badly. That's why we use them seldom, and why we should know precisely when they're coming."

Dennis slid the saber back into the scabbard, and walked onto the stage, where Drummy and Quentin were waiting for him. Dan Marks, the actor playing Kruger, Kronstein's henchman, was standing stage right, where Dennis's entrance would occur. Marks, a short, stocky actor, was nervously sliding his own saber in and out of its scabbard. He stopped long enough to smile at Dennis, then fell back into the routine. He looked, Dennis thought, almost scared to be on the stage, and he wondered if Dan was nervous about the scene, or about the stage on which they were playing it.

"All right, gentlemen," Quentin said. "We'll start with Dennis's entrance — quiet please, people! We're rehearsing!" he added for the others, who were making more noise than was usual for breaks. They quieted quickly, however, at Quentin's request. "Let's start with your line, `What in God's name,' all right?"

The three actors got into position. The jovial Drummond put on the dour character of Kronstein in an instant, standing stage center and looking upstage and down, as he would be when the set was on stage. Marks, as Kruger, moved right center, facing Dennis, who was standing right, only a yard from the wings.

"We're on stage now," Quentin reminded them, and Dennis felt the words addressed to him in particular. "So let's see some emotion. Please don't mark it, I want it full out, yes? Begin."

The scene was the climactic one in which the Emperor Frederick finds his half-brother Kronstein about to impersonate him in front of the populace, and announce his intent to wed Maria of Borovnia. Furious, Frederick cuts his way through Kruger to Kronstein, who decides his only step is to kill Frederick and take his place permanently.

Dennis shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remember the feelings, the emotions he had counterfeited a thousand times, trying to become the Emperor Frederick once again. He opened his eyes and strode forward.

"'What in God's name are you about!'" he cried. Or tried to cry. What came out, instead of an angry, imperious shout, was a weakly barked series of words that descended in a mealy whine. It was no worse, but certainly no better, than Dennis had done in the New York rehearsals.

"'About,'" Marks went on, snarling the line, "`to announce your future, your majesty.'

"'You've returned too early, Frederick,' " said Drummond as Kronstein. "'And you've gone too far, Kronstein,'" said Dennis flatly. "`Get away from that balcony.'"

"'Stop him, Kruger. Don't harm him, but stop him.'"

Marks drew his saber and advanced on Dennis en garde. Dennis fumbled with his blade, unsheathed it, and tried to go into the quick flurry of moves that would end with his slapping his blade under Marks's upstage arm to simulate a fatal thrust.

But his movements were sluggish, and he dropped the sword to his side in frustration even before Quentin was able to stop the scene. "Okay, Dennis, you remember the moves?"

Dennis nodded. "I'm sorry. Not loosened up yet.”

“Let's start from the same place then."

They did. Dennis gave his lines with no more life than before, the sabers were drawn, the movements barely gotten through. Dennis's final thrust was more like a caress, but Marks dropped his saber, grabbed his chest as though a cannonball had passed through it, and fell to the floor, expiring without another line.

"'That was uncalled for . . . your majesty,'" said Drummond. "'He would not have killed you, you know. Those were not the orders I gave.'"

"'I'm giving the orders, Kronstein. Move away from that balcony. Now.'“

“'You shall not let me make my announcement?'"

"'If you were to make it looking like that, I should be the one bound to it. And I shall not wed Maria. I'll wed no one.'"

Drummond cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. "'And let the line die out, eh? You're so grieved over the loss of your peasant girl?'" He spat the final words.

Dennis tried to act stunned, but failed miserably. "'What do you know about her?'"

"'I know she had a cherry mark upon her breast. But perhaps you never found that out. You always were such a gentleman, Frederick.' "

"'You bastard . . .'"

"'Precisely. A royal bastard, I believe, is the term.'"

"'You killed her.'"

"`No. I intended only to . . . dishonor her. Originally Kruger was to have the pleasure. But when we had her there in the cabin, she was such a handsome wench that I decided to take her first. She tried to run away, but fell. Struck her head. A pity. She would have been quite a little piece. Perhaps I could have sired another royal bastard. Wouldn't that have been amusing, Frederick?'"

Dennis stood, trying to let the rage build up inside him, but the well was empty. He looked around quickly, trying to refocus his thoughts, and saw John Steinberg and Ann sitting in the first row. He lost the line. "Line," Dennis said, calling for it.

"'I shall not have you . . .'" Curt read from the prompt book

"'I shall not have you executed,'" Dennis repeated.

"'Oh, thank you, majesty.'"

"'I shall kill you myself.'"

"'That seems to gel precisely with my plans, Frederick. Only I plan to kill you. No one save your mother can tell the difference between us now, and old ladies die every day. I can become used to being addressed as Frederick . . . or as your majesty. In fact, I think I'll enjoy it.'" Drummond drew his saber. "'Pray to your god, Frederick. From this day on, I am God in Waldmont.'"

"'Add blasphemy to your list, Kronstein, along with murder and treason and whatever else you've committed. I'll execute you for all of them.'"

The duel began. Dex Colangelo pounced on the Steinway's keys, crashed out the opening minor chords of the scored battle, then darted into interweaving staccato runs intended to mimic the rattle of sabers onstage.

But the action between the two men could not hope to equal the dexterity of the musical accompaniment. Though Wallace Drummond tried his best to bring buoyant life to the carefully choreographed lunges, cuts, and parries, he had to carry Dennis Hamilton to do it. The piano played on, but the movement on stage slowed, as if the men were dueling in a thick swamp of dream, slowed, and then stopped, with Drummond's saber still en garde in arrested action, but with the point of Dennis's drooping to the wooden floor like an exhausted and storm-bent reed.

"Dex . . ." Quentin said softly. "Dex," he said louder, to be heard over the music that now accompanied only a tableau. Dex looked up, stopped playing, and sat back, his shoulders slumping. "What's wrong?" asked Quentin. "Did you forget the moves?"

Dennis shook his head.

"Do you not like the moves?"

"They're fine," Dennis said softly.

"Then," Quentin said, his voice rising, "why the fuck don't you do the goddamned moves!"

Dennis jerked his head toward the director, as if awakening from a long dream. "Is this the best we can expect?" Quentin's voice was tight, fighting for control. Dennis looked at him, then at Ann's face, filled with pity, and Steinberg's, frowning with concern.

"Can you do better?"

He turned, saw Terri Deems standing in the wings holding a costume, saw the cast watching, the dancers' taut bodies coiled with apprehension.

"Can you?" Quentin pressed. "Because if you can't, there is no way that this show can ever go on in eleven days. Eleven fucking days!"

"Quentin," Steinberg said quietly, "let's call a break —"

"It's not time for a break, John! Are you directing this show or am I?" He swung back to Dennis. "So what's it going to be, your majesty? Are you going to give me something or are you going to be a zombie up there? I want to know, and I want to know now!"

Dennis looked into Quentin's red face, looked at John, at Ann, at Drummond and Marks, at all of them waiting for him to speak.

"Don't you shout at me . . ."

Dennis's words were soft, but filled with angry intensity, and now they increased in volume and in furor. "Don't you ever, ever raise your voice to me again . . . you . . . scheiskopf!” He saw Quentin's lips quiver, and something very much like joy surged through him. The saber tingled in his hand, and he raised it, swung it so that it sliced the air with a satisfying hiss. It finally felt at home in his hand, light, agile, ready.

"Let's do the scene," he said. "From the same place." He grinned at Marks and Drummond, a grin so wide it felt wolfish. "And we'll do it this time. Full out."

It was as though the years had rolled back. The performance, for performance it was, had the energy and the fury of youth, the anger of a lover bereft by death, a monarch usurped of his throne. Dennis shot out the lines like bullets, his voice and body full of command. The sabers danced as the music played, and those who watched felt that Wallace Drummond too had never acted better, in large part because of his all too real fear of Dennis's whistling blade.

Still, the movements came precisely as Quentin had staged them, except for Dennis's final thrust, when Drummond, in expectation, threw his upstage arm so far away from his body that, as Dan Marks laughingly said later, a small car could have been parked in the space, let alone a saber. Dennis's blade arrived at the planned and safe six inches from Drummond's torso, and Drummond clutched his chest and fell. The watching cast, Ann, Steinberg, Quentin, Dex, and even the unexcitable Curt Wynn, burst into a spontaneous ovation that lasted minutes, while Dennis stood trembling before them, his gaze fixed on the ground, his eyes slowly filling with long-sought tears.

Scene 7

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.

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

You fight like an old woman. Is this the best that your dancing master could teach you?

DENNIS

It won't work. Your plot won't work.

THE EMPEROR

It will.

DENNIS

They see me, they see you. They know who I am now.

THE EMPEROR

Now they do. Yes . . .

~ * ~

"Dan, I can hardly tell them apart, it's wonderful."

Patty Munro clutched her husband's arm, her attention glued to the duel on the stage. As far as she was concerned, the whole night had been wonderful. She had never expected to see so many celebrities in one place, and here she was sitting among them. Thank God she had gone out and bought a new dress for the occasion. At first she had felt like a housewife amidst the glitterati, but that feeling had been quickly replaced by awe, as she brushed shoulders with the famous, recognized faces she had seen before only on the television screen or in the movies.

The only stage shows Patty Munro had seen, short of her high school's productions of Damn Yankees and Arsenic and Old Lace, were a local dinner theatre's truncated version of Sweeney Todd and a touring company of Cats in Philadelphia, to which Dan had taken her for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. She had loved it, but it hadn't had all the dialogue that A Private Empire had.

Patty, to give her credit, had been very uncritical of Dennis Hamilton's performance. At intermission, when Dan had mentioned that the Emperor Frederick seemed far less imperial toward the end of the act, Patty said, "It's no wonder. After what you've told me, I'm sure he had a lot on his mind. I don't know how he can remember all those lines in the first place."

Now she watched the duel with intense interest. The seats, she thought, were wonderful — second row of the loge, so that the entire stage was visible, and Patty's view was further aided by the shortness of the woman in front of her, who Patty knew she had seen in a TV movie, but couldn't remember which.

"Now this is good," she whispered to Dan. "I mean, it seems so real right now. Oh!"

This last exclamation was produced by a savage move on the part of the actor playing Kronstein's part. He pressed Frederick back with a rapid series of feints and attacks which Frederick seemed scarcely to be able to parry . . .

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

So many dead because of what you have created, Dennis. And more now Good reasons for me, Dennis Hamilton, to kill you, the imposter . . .

DENNIS

More? More dead?

THE EMPEROR

The servant — Kipp . . .

(He attacks, backing DENNIS toward the stage right wings.) Kronstein — your fellow player . . .

(He attacks again.)

And your dancing master — the one who liked men . . .

~ * ~

Patty Munro gasped as Kronstein closed with Frederick, grasping his sword arm, throwing them both off balance so that they toppled together out of sight behind one of the side flats that, Patty remembered, were called legs, from when she was in the Damn Yankees stage crew.

"Oh God," she whispered to her husband. "Now I'll never be able to tell them apart . . .”

~ * ~

(DENNIS and THE EMPEROR struggle offstage, unseen by all, then move toward the stage again. When they reappear, the attitudes and expressions of both are identical — weary, wary, and determined. They circle each other slowly.)

THE EMPEROR

Now they don't know who we are. You could be me. I could be you. And I will be, because I have all your memories too. It will be all mine now, as soon as I kill you. All mine — your life, your Ann . . .

(DENNIS attacks, driving THE EMPEROR back. THE EMPEROR parries, and evades him.)

THE EMPEROR

Still some emotion left. All the better. The savage attacker. The maniac. And me, Dennis Hamilton, killing him out of self-defense.

(THE EMPEROR advances.)

~ * ~

"What the hell is going on down there?" John Steinberg roared, pushing open the door of the control booth.

"I don't know, John," Curt said softly. "I've just about given up all hope. The ship is sinking, and it's up to those two on the stage to bail it out. I don't know who's going to quit first — them or Dex."

"Have they stuck to any of the original moves?"

"Not a one. I don't know what the hell Drummond thinks he's doing — you see that bit where he took Dennis offstage? Even I don't know who's who anymore."

"Who's who . . .” Steinberg went pale. "My dear God."

"What?" said Curt, then realized the possibilities himself, far worse than two actors going up on their lines and moves.

Steinberg took a cased pair of opera glasses from his jacket pocket, snapped them open, and peered down at the stage. After a moment he handed them to Curt. "That's not Wallace Drummond," Steinberg said dully. "It's Dennis. Both of them are Dennis."

Curt lowered the glasses. "What shall I do, John? Lower the curtain?"

Steinberg shook his head. It was the first time that Curt had seen him totally at a loss. "No, I . . . I don't know . . . If it's real, it could distract Dennis . . . We should contact security, have them stop it . . . I'll . . . I'll go downstairs, get help." He left the booth as if in a daze, and Curt watched the duel continue, listened to the music rage on.

~ * ~

In the loge, Dan Munro watched too, watched as the two men fought, saw one of them lunge at the other, saw a sleeve rip and blood flow, too real to be artifice, and slowly began to understand.

"It's him," he said to himself, even though others heard. "One of them is him."

He stood up then, pushed his way past the legs and knees of the others in the row. But he had a long way to go, up the loge stairs, down a ramp, through the mezzanine lobby, down the curving staircase, through the inner lobby, and all the way to the stage.

By the time he would arrive there, it would all be over.

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

Does it hurt, Dennis? The cut? I feel your pain, your anger. I adore them. They feed me. But don't feel too much, Dennis. Let me take you slowly. . .

(THE EMPEROR lowers his guard. It is a subtly disdainful move, but enough of a breach for DENNIS to thrust his saber, wounding THE EMPEROR in his left arm.)

THE EMPEROR

“If you prick us, do we not bleed?" See how human I have become? And we are identical again! Triumph, tragedy, I take them all in, Dennis. You have done your worst. It is time to die. And to let me be born. Farewell, my father.

(THE EMPEROR lifts his saber.)

~ * ~

From the moment the Emperor and Dennis raised their weapons against one another, scarcely two minutes had passed. They were minutes filled with horror for Ann Deems. From the start she had known that it was the Emperor rather than Wallace Drummond on the stage with Dennis. There was no other explanation. Still, she only watched, knowing that Dennis had to meet his nemesis on his own, had to claim his own soul with whatever means were available — with a sword, if it came to that.

But then they had disappeared from sight, and when, a moment later, they had returned to the stage, they were so alike that she could not tell them apart. Blood flowed then, on both sides, and she heard Terri gasp beside her.

"What's happening?" her daughter said. "What are they doing?"

"It's the other," Ann said, not taking her eyes from the pair, watching them more carefully than she had watched anything in her life. She was not even distracted by the scream of terror that came from backstage when Dan Marks finally returned to the dressing room he shared with Wallace Drummond.

She only watched, and thought. "I can help him now," she said. "I know how." And she ran onto the stage.

~ * ~

(THE EMPEROR lowers his saber as ANN runs to him, and stands in front of him, as if protecting him from DENNIS.)

DENNIS

(In warning) Ann!

ANN

No!

THE EMPEROR

A fatal error. One I cannot pass up. We were confused before, we can be so again — and who would blame me for slaying the murderer of the woman I love?

(Before DENNIS can move, THE EMPEROR takes a step back, raises his saber, and thrusts it into ANN's back.)

~ * ~

Her eyes widened, not in surprise, but in fulfillment.

"Now?" she asked him gently, and he knew she had made no mistake. She had known him all along. And she had known too what the Emperor would do. "Now?"

She fell, and the movement pulled the blade out of her back, revealing the Emperor standing behind her, holding the bloody sword.

~ * ~

THE EMPEROR

All gone now, Dennis. No one left. No reason for you to live on. Let us waltz again. I must become you for the last time.

~ * ~

Air surged in and out of his lungs like a bellows fanning a fire to fury. When the flame leaped, hot and bright, from his soul, that air burst out of him with a shriek of such hatred and savagery as had never before been heard on a stage.

The Emperor flinched before it. Dennis saw the sword tremble in his hand. Still, in another second the creature leaped over Ann, advanced upon Dennis, trying to drive him back into the wings again, to repeat the subterfuge that had once before confused them in the audience's mind.

It was like trying to harry the wind.

Dennis would not be driven back an inch. He parried, then attacked, not thrusting, but slashing. He was filled to bursting with emotion — loss, grief, fury, and above them all, hatred. Hatred for the Emperor and for himself, hatred that he had not been stronger, that Ann had had to make him reach inside himself with her own self-sacrifice.

"You . . . royal . . . bastard!" he shouted, advancing on the Emperor. It was Robin's voice and Ann's voice, Donna Franklin's and Tommy Werton's and Harry Ruhl's, all the voices of the Emperor's victims, all of their strengths. And it was Dennis Hamilton's voice, Dennis Hamilton's strength as well.

It was Dennis Hamilton driving the Emperor back, back where he had come from, and the Emperor paled and weakened, and seemed to shrink, and his arms did not come up as high to parry Dennis's attacks, and at last a cut flew through the defense, bit into the Emperor's side, and another followed like a silver flame, burning into the shoulder and neck, so that the Emperor's saber clattered on the wooden boards of the stage, the Emperor's body fell, spurting blood not his own, but made from Dennis's soul, now reclaimed, restored, and forevermore at war with itself.

He looked down at the dying Emperor, scarcely feeling the arms grip him from behind, only dimly hearing the audience's cries. Tears sprang into his eyes, and he blinked them away, trying to turn back toward Ann, seeing Dan Munro holding him, and, over his shoulder, Ann lying on her side, people all around her, Terri crying, Evan standing near, John Steinberg, arms crossed, a fist to his forehead. The stage seemed full of people now, running, crying, and he said to Munro, "Let me . . . let me . . ."

The policeman knew what he meant, and he staggered to where she lay, fell on his knees beside her, his hands held out in pleading, afraid to touch her. "Oh," was all he could say, less a word than a breath. "Oh . . ."

"Dennis," she whispered. "It's you? All . . . of you?"

"Yes . . . yes . . ." Every word was an effort for both of them. "Live," he sobbed. "Oh Ann, live, I can't lose you again . . .”

Her hand reached up and grasped his, trying to stay. But she could not obey his last command. Her grip weakened, her eyelids quivered, then closed, and she was gone.

Wrenching, desperate sobs broke from him, but no grief, no emotion, however strong, could bring her back.

"Mister Hamilton . . .” He heard the familiar voice, Munro's voice, like wind in his pounding ears. "I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. But I have to know. Is he the one?" Dennis looked up at Munro standing above him.

"He's still alive. Is he the one? The one who did it all?"

Duty. He would have stayed at Ann's side till they dragged him away, but there was duty to be thought of. He did not look at her face again for fear that if he did, he could not leave her. Instead he rose to his feet, walked over to where the Emperor was lying, smiling, bleeding, breathing.

"No," Dennis said, with a cold that seared his throat. "He's not the one. He's nothing, no one at all. An imposter."

The smile shivered away, the teeth bared, stained with brackish blood. "I . . . am . . ." the voice said with hellish pride, "Emperor Karl . . . Frederick . . . Augustus! . . . Of Waldmont . . . of this theatre . . . of the world!"

"You are nothing."

"I am who I claim!" He coughed, and blood sprayed. "And I . . . execute without mercy . . . those who doubt."

"You execute them?" Munro asked softly. "You executed the others?”

“All . . .” The word was weak, but audible.

"Donna Franklin?"

"All . . . all of them . . .”

Dennis closed his eyes. Duty. He had done his duty to Sid. The creature on the floor had taken his pride, and now that same pride found it guilty and freed his friend. Keep the pride, Dennis thought, and prayed the thing heard. Let it die with you. When he opened his eyes, the Emperor was staring at him.

"The king is dead . . .” the Emperor said, and spoke again. The words were soft, but very clear. Unmistakable.

"Long . . . live . . . the king . . ." it said, and died.

They were the most terrible words that Dennis Hamilton could imagine.

He turned from the dead monster back to his dead love, and stayed with her, knowing that he would never leave her.

His soul was his own again, and he gave it to Ann.

CURTAIN

Warwick. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.

King. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.

Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;

And let us all to meditation.

— Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth, Part II

Dan Munro, although he was only partially aware of the audience, was surprised at their reaction. They merely sat in their seats, or stood where they had risen in sympathy to the action occurring on the stage, until someone finally thought to bring down the curtain on the grim tableau. Then, as if they had just witnessed a particularly moving tragedy rather than an actual slaughter, they filed silently, almost reverently, out of the auditorium. A few remained where they were, weeping quietly, or just standing, stunned. Even the vultures of the press and media seemed subdued, walking rather than running toward the telephones, the cameras waiting outside.

There was little need to keep any of the audience for questioning, since Dan Munro had seen the slaying of Ann Deems as he came through the inner lobby and down the aisle. Even though Dennis Hamilton's savagery at the end had startled and disturbed him, it was as clear-cut a case of self-defense as he had ever seen.

When the first ambulance came, Hamilton remained by Ann Deems as the attendants lifted her body onto a stretcher and carried it to the ambulance. He would not yet let them bandage his wound. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," Munro told Hamilton, although he was unsure if Hamilton heard him, as he made no response. Munro's last sight of him was as he stepped into the ambulance, sat down next to a softly weeping Terri Deems, and took Ann's still hand in his own.

The police found the bodies of Quentin Margolis and Abe Kipp after only a short search, and Munro had no doubt that it had been the double who called himself the Emperor who had hung and eviscerated the janitor and killed and horribly mutilated the director. Wallace Drummond's corpse brought the maniac's total to four for the night. But the tally would stop there. Hamilton had seen to that.

How many had this madman killed? The four that evening, and, if his confession was true, the others as well. Five others. Nine altogether. Men, women, a little girl.

Munro thought the son of a bitch had deserved a crueler death. He prayed the royal bastard's soul would burn in hell.

He drove Patty home, then returned to the theatre, where he worked with the state police for several hours more, doing everything that needed to be done, finding that there was an even greater mystery, one final puzzle with which he would have to confront Dennis Hamilton.

Munro did not sleep at all that night. Even if he would have had the time, he knew that he could not. Just after dawn, after the proper judges had been awakened, the proper papers had been served, he drove to the county prison and had Sid Harper released, told him what had happened the night before, and how the confession now made him a free man. Harper seemed strangely subdued, not at all pleased about being free.

Munro had arranged with John Steinberg to meet him and Dennis Hamilton in Hamilton's suite at the Kirkland Hotel at eight-thirty. When they arrived, Steinberg opened the door. He looked at Sid Harper, and his wide, florid face trembled with emotion. "Hello, Sid," he said in a tight, pinched voice. "It's good . . . so good to see you."

They clasped hands then, and Munro thought they would have embraced had it not been for Dennis Hamilton's entrance. At first Munro did not recognize him, for his face was clean-shaven. The reddish beard and moustache were gone now, leaving a broad upper lip and a firm if white-fleshed chin revealed. He was wearing tan slacks and a pale blue shirt with an open collar.

"Sid," Dennis said, and the two men walked toward one another.

"Dennis," Harper said, not raising his hands. "I'm so sorry. For everything."

Dennis nodded, and took his friend in his arms. "I'm glad you're back," he said.

"I've got to tell you," Sid said, "I didn't know that —"

"Later," Dennis said gently. "We've got all the time in the world to explain things."

Munro cleared his throat. "Before we get into anything else," he said, "Mr. Hamilton, could I talk with you alone?"

Dennis nodded. "John, take Sid to your room. Have some breakfast. We'll join you as soon as we can."

"Mr. Hamilton," said Munro when they were alone, "first of all, I want you to know that I have no doubt that the man you killed last night was responsible for the deaths. All the deaths. I had a theory, and I think it's the one that's going to survive — all the papers have come up with it this morning anyway. And that's that this man was a celebrity stalker, that he was . . . unbalanced by his extreme resemblance to you, and that he felt he actually was the character you created, and became fixated on you and the people around you. We don't know who he is, and although checks are being run with every law enforcement office in the country — dental records, fingerprints —I have no doubt we'll come up empty. He'll be John Doe from now till doomsday.

"Because he isn't anybody else, Mr. Hamilton. He's you. A duplicate. I'd say he was an identical twin that you never knew you had, or you didn't tell us about, except for one thing. I've got your fingerprints on file that we took after Tommy Werton's death. They're in my office. And not even identical twins have the same fingerprints."

"Mine . . . and his are the same?"

Munro nodded. "In every detail. That's an impossible thing. There's no way to explain that." He took a deep breath. "So I'm not going to try. There's a hell of a lot more here than meets the eye, but all I know is that I saw that man kill Mrs. Deems, and I heard him confess to killing the others, and that's good enough for me. These waters are too deep as it is. If you want to try and explain it to me, I'll listen. But if you don't, it all stops here. Nobody else is going to check his fingerprints against yours. And even if they do, the poor bastards'll be just as confused as I am."

Dennis Hamilton looked at Munro for a long time, then nodded. "Thank you for coming in. What happens next?"

Munro couldn't help but smile. He had had enough. "A hearing in a week or two. Just a formality. You won't be charged with anything, I'll see to that.”

“Thank you, Chief Munro."

"Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Just between us, if that man had been brought to trial, I'd probably spend the rest of my days on this case. Frankly, I'd rather live in ignorance than in court."

~ * ~

Although the management of the Kirkland Hotel closed off the lobby to reporters, they ringed the outside of the building, so that Dennis and Sid left the underground parking garage with Sid driving and Dennis crouching down to remain unseen.

When they arrived at the theatre, they parked in the outside lot and walked around the back to the stage door. Larry Peach was waiting for them, and took several photos, while they averted their eyes from the electronic flash.

"Shaving off the beard," he said. "That's good, but it didn't fool me. And ya didn't fool me at the hotel, either. I knew you'd come back here. There's something about this place, isn't there? You gotta come back. Now look, I know I been rough on you in the past, but how about a few words? Who was that guy you killed? And what about that woman, that Ann Deems? She was your girlfriend or what?"

"Open the camera," Dennis said.

Peach narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"Open the camera and expose the film." The words were filled with such a tone of command that even Sid trembled, and took a step away from Dennis.

Peach laughed nervously. "Uh-uh. Remember the last time you played that macho game on me? Didn't work then, why should it work now?"

Dennis walked up to Peach until he was only a foot away. "I'm different now."

Peach tried to wet his lips with his tongue, but no moisture showed on either.

"Open it." The words were not loud, only impossible to disobey. Peach, afraid to look away from Dennis Hamilton's awful eyes, fumbled with the catch at the back of his camera until there was a click, the sound of a metal and plastic door opening.

"Now go away," Dennis Hamilton said. "I don't want to see you again." He walked on toward the door, and, in a moment, Sid followed, leaving Peach shaken, angry, and impotent on the sidewalk. Sid didn't look to see if Peach did as he had been ordered.

Dennis unlocked the stage door and they entered. The work lights were still on, and the final set was up. They walked around it onto the stage. The curtain had been raised again, and they looked out over the hundreds of seats.

"Do you think it feels empty?" Dennis asked.

"I never think any theatre feels empty." He looked at Dennis. The man's clean-shaven face seemed pale and vulnerable in the dim light. "Dennis, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for Ann, and I'm sorry because . . . I didn't believe you."

"It was true, though. Everything I told you was true. He wasn't . . . a real person, Sid. I created him, God help me. Maybe by not admitting what was inside me, I gave birth to something far worse. Or maybe it was because I was too good at acting, and not good enough at feeling."

Dennis shook his head. "Ann," he said softly. "She helped me to feel. She gave herself so that I could feel, she loved me that much. She knew who was who all the time, knew that the only way I could feel again, feel enough, was to see her . . . hurt." He smiled a thin, sad smile. "And the bastard did just what she wanted him to. He thought seeing her die would make me lose everything, lose all hope, all reason to live. Then he could trade places with me again.

"But he underestimated me. And he underestimated her knowledge of me. When I saw her . . .” He broke off, squeezed his eyes shut, and Sid saw tears run from beneath the lids.

"How can I ever thank her? How can I make what she did matter?"

"By going on. By living your life the way she would have wanted you to. And you can. You've still got us with you — me, Curt, Marvella, John . . . Terri . . . we can start again. With Craddock."

Dennis looked at him. "Don't forget Evan."

Sid nodded. "Evan."

"After all, he's my son." He smiled while the tears shone on his cheeks. "That counts for something." He looked back out over the empty seats.

"But is it gone, Sid? The Emperor? When it died, it said 'Long live the king.' What did it mean? Is it gone?" He turned to his friend. "Or is it only waiting to come out again? Is it still inside me?"

"Maybe it is. I don't know," Sid said slowly, and a thought came to him. "Or maybe the only things inside you are the things that are inside all of us."

"I don't know which is worse to think about," Dennis said, looking out and up to where the rows stretched into darkness. "I don't know which is more terrible."

They stood there for a long time. "Come on," Sid said. "We can always come back. And we will." He looked around and shrugged. "It's a theatre, Dennis. Just a theatre and a stage. It's whatever we want it to be."

~ * ~

As they walked out, Sid's words reverberated in Dennis's mind. Whatever we want it to be.

It can only be what we put here, Dennis thought. The empty stage is ours to fill with what we want the audience to see. It's nothing on its own. Only a space we fill. A lifeless space we make come alive.

And he would make it live. For Ann, for all of them, he would bring the light, make it sing, make it live.

From Stage World 1990, Volume LXXIX:

CRADDOCK (Tony win.)

Cast: Steven Peters (Tony win.), Kelly Sears (Tony nom.), William Winslow, Craig DeLucca (Tony nom.), Sarah Wilson

Book and lyrics: Kevin McDonald (Tony nom.)

Music: Teresa Stafford (Tony win.)

Musical & vocal direction/orchestrations: Dexter Colangelo

Set design: Mack Redcay (Tony win.)

Lighting design: Thorne Wilson (Tony win.)

Costume design: Marvella Johnson & Terri Deems-Hamilton (Tony nom.)

Choreography: Ric Pettrucci (Tony nom.)

Direction: Dennis Hamilton (Tony win.)

Produced by The New American Musical Theatre Project

Broadway Opening: October 26, 1990, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (still running) First

Performance: July 27, 1990, The Memorial Theatre, Kirkland, Pa.

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