A Chorus of Detectives (9 page)

Time for Act IV.

The first part of the act passed without incident. The chorus did nothing at all out of the ordinary; the women had evidently decided to leave him alone for the time being. Gigli forgot about them and poured his heart and soul into his performance. For the first time that evening, he felt like singing.

Then, during a duet with the soprano singing Helen of Troy, the woman looked over his shoulder, widened her eyes, and screamed.

Gigli whirled to see a scenery flat come crashing down from the flies. Warned by the soprano's scream, four of the chorus women jumped out of the way just in time. The orchestra couldn't cover the sound of ripping canvas and splintering wood and a cry went up from the audience. Somebody was yelling. Somebody else closed the curtain.

“Are you hurt, Mr. Gigli?” a voice asked.

“No, no,” he said dismissively, already over his shock and beginning to grow angry.

No one was hurt, as it turned out; the flat had come close but had not actually hit anyone. Within five minutes the debris of the shattered flat had been removed and a stagehand was sweeping splinters and nails from the stage floor. What little pleasure Gigli had been able to derive from that evening's work was now gone forever. He gritted his teeth and determined to get through the rest of it somehow.

He finished the fourth act and dashed off the stage. He donned a beard, a white wig, and a cloak to hide his knight's costume. He went back on the stage. He sang the Epilogue. He bowed to the audience. He left the stage. He went up to his dressing room. He kicked a chair and broke it.

And started his toe hurting again, the one the lead-footed chorister had stepped on. Deliberately. Gigli sat down on the dressing room's remaining unbroken chair and philosophized about that for a while. What does it signify that a man should work all his life toward a single prize, and just as his fingers close around it—somebody steps on his toe?

It was too much for him. He could understand the chorus's badgering of Rosa Ponselle, in a way. She had not earned her starring-role status; she'd had it handed to her on a platter. She'd not spent her life learning languages, memorizing scores, practicing scales three hundred sixty-five days a year. She'd not experienced the rejections and the small humiliations that were part of every singer's life. She had not
suffered
. The chorus was wrong to badger her—Ponselle had the true gift, after all—but he could understand why they did it.

What he couldn't understand was why the chorus was treating him the same way. He'd expected
some
resistance from the Caruso-lovers, but not to this extent! It was inexcusable. To think that a soloist at one of the major opera houses of the world should be subject to harassment by a gang of nameless musical thugs! And he could do nothing! He'd complained to the conductors, he'd complained to the chorus master, he'd complained to Gatti-Casazza, he'd complained to Gatti's assistant.

A thought struck him. About the only ones he'd not complained to were the choristers themselves. Lead singers did not normally involve themselves in the concerns of the chorus, but in circumstances as extraordinary as these—

“
Magnifico!
” a world-famous voice boomed out. “
Stupendo! Eminente!
”

Gigli groaned inwardly as Caruso burst into his dressing room, followed by his Nordic American wife.
Smile. Show him a rival who is self-confident and relaxed
.

“A great
Mefistofele
tonight!” Caruso cried. “You make great Faust, eh?”

“We both enjoyed your performance immensely, Mr. Gigli,” Dorothy Caruso said quietly.

“Me, I am jealous!” Caruso sang joyfully, looking anything but jealous. “You steal my role from me, yes?”

Gigli squinted at Caruso suspiciously. If the older tenor were indeed worried about being permanently replaced in
Mefistofele
, why was he acting so happy about it? Did he really mean he thought Gigli's performance so lackluster that he didn't have anything to worry about? Gigli managed to choke out a civil answer.

Caruso's mood changed abruptly; he became conspiratorial. “It fails tonight, does it not? The four ladies in the chorus, they are not hurt.”

Gigli didn't understand. “What fails tonight?”

Caruso glanced quickly at his wife. “Whatever is causing so much trouble for the chorus.” He'd promised Dorothy to stop talking about a curse. “The falling flat, it hits no one. No one is hurt tonight.”

“The
performance
is hurt,” Gigli said touchily. In his view the Metropolitan's chorus was unusually accident-prone, and that was the source of the mishaps that had been plaguing the opera house for the past few weeks. It didn't quite explain the woman with the knife in her chest, though. “We have to stop, while stage is cleared.”

“Only
un momento
,” Caruso said reassuringly. “When you sing again, everyone forgets the accident.”

“That's true, Mr. Gigli,” Dorothy added. “The performance resumed so quickly, no one had time to think about what had happened.”

Gigli allowed himself to be persuaded. He relaxed a little and said, “Do you know the police question
me?
What do I know of the choristers' problems?”

“Sì, they question all of us,” Caruso said. “They even talk to Doro because she is backstage some of the time.” Dorothy nodded. “Right now, all they want to know about is the poor lady who is stabbed,” Caruso went on. “That is no accident! But who hates her?”

“I do not even know her,” Gigli said. “I do not know any of them, except as members of group of singers who are nothing but trouble! In no other house I sing in is chorus like this one tolerated—not for one minute!”

Caruso looked shocked. “It is not the lady's fault she is stabbed!”

“Of course not,” Gigli said testily. “Her I do not blame. But the others—I think they invite trouble.”

“You say they deserve what happens to them?”

Gigli threw up his hands. “I do not say this! I say they are troublemakers. Perhaps they make trouble for themselves?”

Dorothy saw the outrage building in her husband's face and started urging him toward the door. “We'll leave you to change now, Mr. Gigli. And we do thank you for such an exciting performance! Goodbye.”

Gigli wondered at the odd look Caruso threw him as he allowed Dorothy to usher him out the door.
Cielo, it is strange evening all around
, Gigli thought. “Roberto! Assist me!” He quickly changed into street clothes, eager to get to a more friendly environment than what the opera house had provided that night. He left his valet to clean up behind him and hurried down the steps, almost bumping into a poorly dressed woman as he rushed out.

“Hey, there!” the doorkeeper called to her in a friendly way. “You're here mighty late, ain't ya?”

“Leave thing,” Mrs. Bukaitis said. “Mistake.”

“You forgot something? Well, better hurry up and get it, then. I'll be locking up in a few minutes.”

The scrubwoman nodded and made her way to the substage area, which was not only deserted but dark. Mrs. Bukaitis pulled a flashlight out of her bag and aimed it upward. Following the night the trap door in the stage had given way, Edward Ziegler had issued the order that the pneumatic platform be kept in a raised position whenever it was not in use so that no one would fall again. The trap and the lift both had been needed in that evening's
Mefistofele
, but the stagehand in charge of working the lift had followed Ziegler's order and returned the platform to its up position as soon as the performance had ended. It was the underside of the platform that Mrs. Bukaitis was interested in.

She tucked the flashlight into an armpit and use both hands to work the lever, stopping the platform's descent at about six feet above floor level. She shone her light under the platform … yes, there it was. She stripped away the tape holding the rectangular box in place, and considered opening it right then.

No, better wait—wait and show it to Antanas. Antanas could tell her why the bomb had failed to go off.

“You must find new chorus master,” Alessandro Quaglia told Gatti-Casazza in no uncertain terms. “Setti is not doing the job. He has no control over the chorus.”

“Can anyone control the chorus?” Gatti murmured. “It is not simple matter of discipline, Maestro. They have reason for their anger.”

“They need no reason! Their behavior is unprofessional and must not be tolerated. Do you see how they sabotage Gigli in
Mefistofele
last night?”

“I see. Do you see how falling flat almost kills four choristers?”

“Do you suggest one justifies the other?”

“
No certamente
.” Gatti pulled at his beard. “I mean to say now is not good time for the, er, cracking down.” Quaglia had come storming into the general manager's office, snow melting on his overcoat, demanding action, and Gatti was looking for a way to stop the conductor from pressuring him. “We must first end these ‘accidents',” he said. “Then the chorus is more manageable.”

Quaglia snorted. “They use the ‘accidents' to demand more for themselves! Are they not asking for more money? Again?”

“My assistant handles all contract negotiations,” Gatti said, ducking the question.

“How do you plan to stop so-called accidents? The police cannot stop them. How do
you
stop them?”

“Ah.” Gatti sat up a little straighter. “The police cannot be everywhere during a performance—there are not enough of them. That is where I
can
do something. I employ firm of security protection agents to patrol the opera house before and during every performance … until the man behind these dreadful events is caught.”

“Guards?” Quaglia thought a moment. “The man who is doing these things—he is very clever.”

“But is he clever enough to stay hidden when
everyone
is looking for him? If nothing else, the presence of large numbers of guards discourages him, no? It goes on long enough. It must stop.”

The conductor nodded slowly. “So we wait a little longer. Then, if it does not stop—then you replace Setti?”

Gatti told him he would think about it. Quaglia saw he was going to have to be satisfied with that and left. In the foyer, three scrubwomen were on their hands and knees; Quaglia wondered if one of them was the woman who'd discovered the hanging man in the chorus dressing room. He slipped into the back of the auditorium and sat down in the last row. The chorus master whom he'd wanted Gatti to replace had called an onstage rehearsal, ostensibly for the benefit of the new members of the chorus. But actually Setti was more worried about the regular choristers than the new ones, and he took every opportunity he could to rehearse them. Recalcitrant old singers and nervous new ones, both on the stage together. Quaglia wanted to hear what they sounded like.

What they sounded like right then was a gang of revolutionaries getting ready to storm the Bastille. They were shouting and waving their fists and clomping about the stage with unnecessarily heavy feet. Last night's falling scenery flat was the day's bone of contention, and the singers were making the most of it. Gatti's assistant was on stage with Setti, the two of them working at calming down the irate singers. But the choristers didn't want to calm down; they were feeding off one another's anger and excitement.

Finally Giulio Setti planted his feet, threw back his head, and roared: “
Sta'zitto!
” In the auditorium Quaglia flinched; so big a voice coming out of so small a man was a surprise.

The choristers were startled too, lapsing into a silence that could only too easily prove temporary. So Edward Ziegler stepped forward and began to speak rapidly. He told them Mr. Gatti had hired guards to protect them; the guards would be backstage, in the greenroom, in the chorus dressing room on the fourth floor. He explained that some guards would even dress in costume and accompany them on stage during performances. He promised them that this protection would continue until the person who had killed one of their number had been caught.

“So you see,” Ziegler finished, “the management truly is concerned about ensuring your safety. We are doing everything we can conceive of to protect you. If you can think of anything else we could be doing, please tell us about it. We are open to suggestion.”

There was a little
sub voce
muttering, but no one came forward with a specific suggestion; Ziegler had taken the wind out of their sails. One of the singers wanted to know how much the guards were being paid, but Ziegler pretended not to hear. “For the time being,” he said, “just stay together, don't wander off alone. Try to keep a guard in sight at all times. Well, if that's all, I'll leave you to Mr. Setti now.”

Ziegler hurried off into the wings but paused when he got there. He didn't want to run out on Setti if the chorus should still prove intractable. And besides, Gatti would be sure to ask him how the chorus sounded.

Setti said one word: “
Forza
.” A few of the new choristers were carrying scores; they hurriedly located the choral music for
La Forza del Destino
. At Setti's indication, they began to sing.

Ziegler winced. Their attack was dreadful, everyone coming in at a different time. Setti let them continue awhile, until they were getting into the feel of the music, and then had them start over. The second time was a little better, but they still sounded more like a group of highly gifted amateurs singing together for the first time than the chorus of a professional opera company.

“Stop!” Setti cried. “You new people, you do not watch me! Put the scores aside. If you do not know the words, go
la-la-la
. But watch
me
.”

This time, with every eye in the chorus on Setti's hands, the attack was crisp and sharp, the way it was supposed to be. Ziegler felt a tingle of excitement as the chorus began singing with enthusiasm; Setti was getting the ringing tones out of them that Verdi had intended when he wrote the music. They were beginning to sound like a real chorus when—for reasons known only to themselves—every tenor in the chorus started singing flat.