Ed McBain - Downtown (27 page)

"Positive," Michael said, and followed Felix across the room to a doorframe hung with a black curtain. Felix pushed the curtain aside, whispered, "Stay close behind me," and stepped through the doorframe. Connie went out after him. Anne was watching Michael. He smiled at her. She smiled back. There was darkness beyond the curtain. And a man's voice.

"Let's take it from Judy's entrance again." And then a voice Michael remembered well. "Kenny, could you please refer to me as the Queen?"

Judy Jordan speaking. The woman who'd called herself Helen Parrish on Christmas Eve. Wishing to be called the Queen on Boxing Day. "Because if I'm going to stay in character ..." "Yes, yes," the man said patiently.

"... and you keep referring to me as _Judy ..." "Which, by the way, is your name." "Not in this _play," Judy said. "In this _play, I am the _Queen, and I wish you'd refer to me as that."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the man said. "Can we take it from the Queen's entrance, please?" "Thank you," Judy said. Michael was following Felix and Connie up the side aisle of the small theater, turning his head

every now and then for a glimpse of the lighted

411 stage, where Judy Jordan was standing with three men. Michael stumbled, caught his balance, and then concentrated entirely on following Felix, who was now at the last row in the theater, moving into the seats there. "What's the problem?" The man's voice again. Kenny Stein, the director. "Some problem, Your Majesty?"

"Did you want this from the top of the act, or from my entrance?" Judy asked. "I said from your entrance, didn't I?"

"That's so close to the top, I thought ..." "From your entrance, please." Seated now, Michael turned his full attention to the stage. The set seemed to be an ultramodern apartment in Manhattan, judging from the skyline beyond the open French doors leading onto a terrace. But the people in the set--Judy and the three men--were dressed in medieval costumes. Judy was wearing a crown and an ankle-length, scoop-necked gown. One of the men was wearing a black helmet that completely covered his head and his face. Another of the men was holding what looked like a real sword in his right hand. The third man, younger than the other two, was wearing leggings wrapped with leather thongs, and a funny hat with a feather in it; he looked like a peasant.

"They're rehearsing in the set for a play that's already in performance," Felix whispered, leaning over Connie, who was sitting between them. "It's only two A.M.," Kenny said patiently, "just take all the time you need."

"We just want to make sure we've got the right place," the man with the sword said. "The right place is Judy's entrance," Kenny said. "From my line?" "Yes, your line would be fine."

"`The White Knight? At your service, fair maiden?`"

"Yes, that is your line," Kenny said. "Can we do it now, please?" "Thank you," the man with the sword said. "Judy, are you ready?" "Please don't call me Judy," she said.

"Well, I'm not supposed to know you're the Queen yet. You haven't come in yet." "Yes, please do come in," Kenny said. "Just

say your line, Hal, and Judy will come

413 in." "The play is called _Stalemate," Felix explained.

On the stage, the man with the sword said, "The White Knight. At your service, fair maiden."

"I'm not a maiden," Judy said. "I'm a queen."

The White Knight knelt at once. "Your Majesty," he said. "Forgive me." Judy turned to the man who looked like a peasant. "Who are _you?" she asked.

"I am the White Knight's squire," he said, "a mere pawn. Your Majesty." "And this poor creature?" she asked, indicating the man in the black helmet. "A helpless servant of the Queen, Your Majesty, tell him to put up his sword!" "Release him," Judy said.

"He's a dangerous man, Your Majesty." "Release him, I say." The White Knight and his squire immediately let go of the man wearing the black helmet.

"Take off your helmet," Judy said. "I want to see your face." "No," the man in the helmet said.

"I'm a _queen!" Judy said. "Do as I say!"

"You're not _my queen, lady," the man in the helmet said, and immediately turned to look out into the theater. "Kenny," he said, "I don't get this, I really don't. A minute ago, I'm calling her `Your Majesty,` and now I'm telling her she's not my queen."

"That's because this is the first time you can really see her," Kenny said patiently. "Why can't I see her before this?"

"Because she's standing in the dark. This is when she moves toward the fire. On `I'm a _queen,` she moves toward the fire. And you can see her face in the firelight, and that's when you say `You're not _my queen, lady.`" "Then whose queen is she?" the man in the helmet asked.

"That's not the point, Jason. The point is ..."

"You know, I think Judy's right, you shouldn't call us by our real names when we're supposed to be other people."

"It would be clumsy to call you

415 `Black Knight,`" Kenny said.

"Then call me `Sire,`" the Black Knight said. "Me, too," the White Knight said.

"And what would _you like to be called, Jimmy?"

"I'm the Pawn," the young man in the peasant outfit said, looking stunned.

"Yes, that's what the playwright has chosen to call you, the Pawn, that is part of the metaphor. The chess metaphor. But shall _I call you `Pawn` when I address you?"

"Yes, that would be fine, Kenny," the young man said. "Very well, then. Sire, would you please take it from your denial line?" "Me?" the White Knight asked. "No, the _other sire, please." "My _what line?" the Black Knight asked. "The line where you deny the Queen. If you please." "Oh." "Thank you," Kenny said. Michael wondered if allegory and metaphor were one and the same thing. Whichever, it was certainly a very confusing play, at least the part of it they were rehearsing. At one point, he thought he was beginning to catch on to the idea that the Black Knight represented black men everywhere, but then the play swerved off in another direction and he figured he was wrong. Puzzled, he began to lose interest, until--

"I can still remember the day Arthur died," the Black Knight said.

"Oh, yes, of course," the Queen said, "the whole _world remembers."

"I'd been in the woods with a friend of mine," the Black Knight said. "It was a bright, clear November day, the forest was alive with sound, we walked on crackling leaves, and breathed needles into our lungs. And when we came out of the forest, there was a beggar woman sitting by the side of the road, wringing her hands and weeping, and we said to her, `Why do you weep, old woman?` and she answered, `Arthur is dead.` And we didn't believe her. Arthur could not be dead. But as we walked further along the road, we came upon more and more people, all of them saying, `Arthur is dead,` until at last there was a multitude of

people, all of them weeping and saying the same

417 words, `Arthur is dead, Arthur is dead,` and then we believed it. And the sun went out, and a wind rose up, and there was no longer the sound of life in this land of ours, there was only the sound of muffled drums." He's talking about John F. Kennedy, Michael thought. The Queen shuddered and said, "You're a very morbid person." "He was a good king," the Black Knight said.

"Yes, but we've all got to go sometime, you know."

"Things would be different if he were still alive," the Black Knight said. "He had a vision, that man, you could see it flashing in his eyes, you just knew he had a _dream clenched tight in those hands of his. And when a man can dream that strong, it makes you want to join him, it makes you want to move right in and say, `Yes, Daddy, take me where you're going, I'm _with you, Daddy, let's yell it out together.` There was no bullshit about that man. I loved him."

Now he's talking about Martin Luther King, Jr., Michael thought.

"You talk too much," the Queen said, "and not about the right things. Also, I don't like profanity. And if you want to know something, I'm beginning to find you enormously boring and a trifle sinister."

This is _Alice _in _Wonderland, Michael thought.

"Besides, I don't trust masked men," the Queen said. "Nobody does." Everything in this city is _Alice _in _Wonderland, Michael thought.

"This isn't a mask!" the Black Knight shouted. "Then what is it?"

"My _head is inside this black cage," the Black Knight shouted. "My _brain is in here, I _think in here, I _feel in here, it is not a goddamn _mask!" "You're frightening me," the Queen said. "Look, the fire's going out."

"The fire went out the day Arthur died," the Black Knight whispered. "Very good," Kenny said, "very nice indeed. Let's take a ten-minute break, and then I want to do the dragon scene, the H-bomb scene."

"Oh, God, is _that it?" the White

419 Knight said. "Sire?" "Is the dragon supposed to be the _H-bomb?" "Yes, Sire, that is the metaphor," Kenny said.

"I'm glad to know that. Because, actually, I was wondering why I was so afraid of a little dragon. I'm supposed to be an experienced knight, but I'm afraid of a little dragon. It didn't make sense to me. Now that you tell me it's the H-bomb ..." "That's the metaphor, yes."

"Well, that's an enormous relief, I can tell you. Did you know it was the H-bomb, Jason?"

"Oh, sure," the Black Knight said, and both men walked off the stage. The Pawn, looking somewhat bewildered, followed them. "Ten minutes, please," Kenny called after them, and left the theater through the curtained doorway that led to the one-room schoolhouse.

Judy Jordan sat alone on the stage. Sat on a wooden plank stretched across several stacked cinder blocks. Head bent, studying her script.

Looking blonde and beautiful and serene and quite regal.

"I want her first," Felix said, and stood up. "No," Michael said. He said it quite softly. Almost whispered it, in fact. There was no reason for Felix to have obeyed him. But he sat down at once. Michael walked up the aisle to the front of the theater. He climbed the steps onto the stage. Judy was absorbed in the script, probably trying to dope out all its inherent metaphors and allegories. He walked directly to her. "I'm looking for a good criminal lawyer," he said. Her head jerked up.

"Because I've been accused of murder," he said. She started to rise.

He put his hands on her shoulders and slammed her back down onto the makeshift plank and cinder-block seat, which was undoubtedly a

metaphor for a medieval bench.

421 "Remember me?" he said. "Yes," she said. "Hello."

She was playing a woman in a movie about the French Resistance. She was really a Nazi spy and he was the wounded American soldier who had fallen in love with her and been betrayed by her. It was now his painful duty to turn her over to the authorities. He had come to take her away. She still loved him. She was looking up at him wistfully, her blue eyes wide. "How have you been?" she asked. "__Comme ci comme _�" he said, in the French he had learned in Vietnam. "_Et _tu?" "Not very good," she said. "I saw it on television." "Oh. And what did you see, Miss Parrish?"

"My name is Judy Jordan," she said. "I know."

"I'm sorry," she said. "That's not what I thought would happen." "What did you think would happen?" "Charlie said he was playing a joke on a friend of his." "By Charlie ..." "Charlie Nichols." "You call your father by his first name, do you?" "My father?" "Yes, Charlie. You call your father `Charlie?`" "No, I call my father `Frank.`" Michael looked at her. "Isn't it true that you call Charlie `Daddy`?" he asked.

"No, I call Charlie `_Charlie.`" "Look, Miss Jordan, I happen to _know that Charlie Nichols is your goddamn _father. So please don't ..." "No, Frank Giordano is my goddamn father, which is where I got the name Jordan, from Giordano, and I really don't know _what you're talking about!"

"I am talking about a photograph of you and Charlie Nichols ..." "Oh." "Yes, oh, inscribed `To My Dear Daddy, With Love,` and signed Judy Jordan, who is _you, Miss Jordan,

Miss Parrish, Miss Giordano,

423 who-_ever the hell you are!"

Nodding, Judy said what sounded exactly like, "I remember Mama."

"Good," Michael said at once. "Who is she?" "_Who?" Judy said. "_I _Remember _Mama is a _play. I was Christine in a revival. Charlie was Papa." "What?" "Yes. In the play. My father." "In a play?" "Yes. _I _Remember _Mama. And at the end of the run, I signed a photograph ..." "To My Dear Daddy ..." "Yes, With Love." "Referring to ..."

"Yes, the characters in the play. Also, it was an inside joke, in that Charlie and I were sleeping together at the time." "I see." "Yes. Charlie was my first lover." "I see." "Yes. I was seventeen. I was a virgin at the time." "So he wasn't your father." "No, that would have been incest. Also, my own father would have shot him dead if he'd found out." Michael wondered if her own father had now belatedly if messily shot Charlie dead. He also wondered if Judy even _knew that Charlie was dead. He decided not to mention it. From seeing a lot of cop movies, he knew that this was an old cop trick. You did not mention that someone was dead. You waited for the suspect to trap himself by mentioning that the last time he'd seen So-and-So alive was Thursday, and then you yelled, "Ah-ha, how did you know he was _dead?"

"I am really sorry," Judy said. "When I saw on television that they'd accused you of murdering Arthur Crandall ..." "Oh, you saw that, did you?" "Oh, yes. I was _shocked!" "But I _didn't murder Crandall, you know." "Well, of _course you didn't."

"In fact, I didn't murder _anyone." "Well, I'm not too sure about _that." "You can take my word for it. And please don't change the subject. The reason the police _think I killed Rainey ..."

"Who?"

425

"... is that you and Felix Hooper stole my goddamn identification and ..." "Yes, but that was for a joke." "What joke? What do you mean?" "The joke Charlie was going to play on his friend." "What friend?" "He didn't say." "What _did he say?"

"He said he needed someone's identification to play a joke on a friend of his. He said it wouldn't really be stealing ..." "Oh, it _wouldn't, huh?"

"In that he would return the stuff to its rightful owner the moment he was through with it." "And just how did he plan to do that?" "He said he would mail it all back." "And you believed him, huh?"