Final Curtain (25 page)

Tim was tempted to take the entire manila folder but realized that if the police—or the killer—decided to look for the rosters, one missing page could be considered misfiled, but an entire folder gone would be highly suspect. As he went backward in the dates, starting from last night, he carefully scrutinized the pages. But just as he arrived at Monday, July 10, he heard voices approaching from the dressing room area. He closed the drawer and sat back in the chair pretending to read a magazine.

Gerold and Charlotte entered. “Shouldn’t you be with your mother?” Gerold said. He looked at Tim with suspicion. “She’s crying her eyes out in her dressing room. Guess I shouldn’t have compared her performance to Tammy Faye Bakker’s mascara-smudged sermons.”

Tim was suddenly angry. “You know, Gerold, Polly and Placenta and I have tried to be nice to you. But you’re a louse. You’d get a hell of a lot more out of your performers if you treated them with respect and consideration. Polly will do anything her director tells her to do, and it always pays off with a brilliant crowd-pleasing performance. That’s why she’s a legend and why she’s lasted so long in this business. You don’t know a cross fade from a cutout or a rostrum. You don’t belong in the theater. You should be hauling trash for the city.”

Gerold was perspiring with anger. He looked at Tim with disdain. “Get out of my theater.”

“I’m with your star, Mr. Mucky Muck. I ain’t leavin’.”

Gerold looked around. “Where’s security? I’ll have you thrown out!”

“One call from me to the producers and you’ll never work in this theater again,” Tim parried.

Gerold’s eyes blazed as he stood looking down at Tim with contempt. He knew that as the star’s son, Tim would hold sway with the producers. He was also aware that the producers were putting together next season’s schedule and hadn’t consulted with him about the shows they were considering. This was not a good sign. He presumed that his days as the artistic director of the Galaxy were numbered. Gerold didn’t want to ruffle their feathers in case there was still a chance that he’d be asked to renew his contract. “I need a file,” he finally said. He moved toward the desk and opened the drawer.

Tim sat in horror watching as Gerold pulled out the folder marked
Mame
. He wanted to grab it away from Gerold and flee the building. However, he realized that would be futile. He’d be accused of stealing theater property. Instead, Tim pretended to not care or have any idea why Gerold wanted the folder.

Gerold closed the desk drawer. He slipped the folder under his arm without bothering to look at the sheaf of papers inside. He gave Tim another withering look and began to walk away with Charlotte. Then the stage door opened and the two security guards walked in laughing and joking between themselves. Gerold yelled, “You’re fired! You’re supposed to be watching the door, not going in and out of it.” He looked at their Starbucks cups. “We provided you with coffee. You deserted your post for no reason. You’ll be hearing from your boss. Now git!”

The men were speechless. They looked at each other, and then looked at Tim.

Tim stood up from his desk and faced Gerold. “I gave them permission to take a break. They’re allowed fifteen minutes every four hours. Unless you want trouble with their labor union, in addition to all the trouble you’re in here at the theater, you’d better back off.”

The security guards grinned at Tim’s bravado and handed him a paper cup from Starbucks. “We brought one back for you,” Luther Ray said.

Gerold stormed out of the backstage area. Tim presumed that he was headed for his office. Although he wanted to get to his mother’s side as soon as possible, it was imperative that Tim rescue the folder from Gerold. He didn’t know what to do. “That SOB just stole theater property,” he said to the security men. “Important documents. Somehow I’ve got to get them back.”

“Man, it’s sorta his theater,” Orvine said. “I mean, he’s the director and all.”

Tim looked around for the switch to the intercom system. “If we can hear from the stage, there should be a way for the stage to hear us,” he said. Then, on the wall behind the Mr. Coffee machine, he found two ancient toggles. Neither was labeled. Tim flipped one and heard ambient noises coming through. He realized that was the switch to listen to the performance and any instructions that the director might want to send back to the stage doorman. The other switch was obviously for the stage doorman to make announcements to other parts of the theater. Tim looked up at the guards who were now more or less his buddies. “Do you guys see a microphone anywhere? It’s probably a really old thing that looks like—”

“Like that?” Luther Ray said, pointing to a dusty green bulky instrument on the shelf next to a can of Folgers Crystals.

“You guys are the best!” Tim reached for the heavy mic. He set it on the desk and thought for a moment, not sure about what to say. “Heck, I don’t even know if this works.” He looked up at Orvine. “Gerold knows my voice too well. Would you please make an announcement for me? Just say, “Mr. Goss. You’re needed in dressing room seven.”

Orvine nodded his head. “No problemo.” When Tim flipped the toggle and made a “go” signal with his index finger, Orvine spoke into the microphone and ended by adding “immediately.”

Tim patted Orvine on the back. “If he comes this way and asks why he was paged, tell him that someone named Jamie is waiting for him,” he said.

“What happens when he doesn’t find anyone?” Luther Ray said.

“Tell him that this Jamie guy decided not to wait.”

T
im rushed to his mother’s dressing room. “Gerold got the folder before I did,” he said, panting. “He probably took it to the office.”

“He made me cry!” Polly shouted. “He stopped my performance and said I danced like a duck! He’s hateful! We have to get that file!”

“I’ve just paged him. If dressing room number seven means what I think it means, he’ll be hustling down this way right now.”

Polly stood up. “Follow me,” she said. “Placenta, hold down the fort. And hold down Gerold if he tries to leave the dressing room area.”

Polly and Tim slipped out of the star’s dressing room and cautiously made their way down a dark corridor that was seldom used. It bypassed the stage doorman, and meandered behind the other dressing rooms. It ended at a stairwell. “This leads to the mezzanine,” Polly said.

Polly and Tim climbed the old concrete stairs until they reached a door that said
THE QUEEN’S BOX
.

“This is the right level,” Polly said. “But the only queens who ever sat up here—”

“Mother!”

Polly slowly opened the door and gingerly looked down the corridor to the right and then to the left. “I think it’s all clear.” She stepped into the open. Tim followed as they stealthily made their way down the long hall. “It’s one of these doors,” Polly said, confused. Then she saw the trash can that she’d tripped over the other night and remembered that it was just outside the door where she had overheard her name in conversation. “This is it,” she said and put her ear to the wooden door. Then she placed her hand on the knob and slowly turned it to the left. The door opened and she peered inside the office. She was terrified. She gave the all-clear signal to Tim and he followed her as closely as a shadow.

“That’s it!” Tim said in a loud whisper, pointing to the folder on the desk.

Polly rushed to the folder and opened it up. She leafed thought the top dozen sheets until she came across one dated July 10. She quickly picked it up and scanned the paper for names. “Look,” she said, pointing to Charlotte Bunch. “She signed in at eight-oh-five, but didn’t sign out.”

Tim looked over his mother’s shoulder. He pointed to Sharon Fletcher’s name. “Just as George said. Sharon signed in at eight-ten, but someone else signed her out at eight twenty-five. Gerold said that he did that because she raced out of the theater in tears. But why then didn’t he sign Charlotte out?”

Suddenly Polly and Tim froze. They could hear a conversation in the distance. It was Gerold’s voice and he was approaching the office.

“Don’t lie to me, you little weasel,” Gerold said. “I was just paged to our dressing room! If you try one more stunt like that I’ll see that you never work in this business again. Now stay away! Or else.”

As Gerold stepped into his office he flipped his cell phone closed and went straight to his desk. As he settled himself into his chair, it made a squeaking sound as it strained to support his weight. He opened the folder and began leafing through the pages. “Where the hell…?” he said aloud to himself as he got to the last page. He started from the beginning and once again looked for the July 10 roster. “Son of a bitch!” he screamed and flipped the folder into the air. He picked up his cell phone and speed-dialed Polly Pepper’s number. “Let me speak with her,” Gerold barked into the phone.

“Miss Polly is indisposed at the moment,” Placenta said. “Shall I ask her to return your call?”

Gerold flipped his phone shut without a response. He stood up and walked out from behind his desk, stepping on the folder and scattered pages. He left the room and slammed the door closed.

In a moment, the small private bathroom door whined on old hinges as it was slowly opened. Tim peeked out and then reached behind him to take his mother’s hand. They tiptoed tentatively across the room and left the office. Once in the open hallway, they raced for the stairwell and moved as quickly as possible down to the basement level. When they arrived in the backstage area, Orvine and Luther Ray stopped Tim and cautioned him about Gerold and the tantrum he’d just thrown when he couldn’t find Polly.

Polly squared her shoulders, ready for a fight. She marched into her dressing room and found Placenta. Polly tried to move toward her maid but was caught off guard by Gerold, who had seated himself out of sight behind the door. “You want to play bully?” she barked at him. “Don’t take your adolescent self-loathing out on me!”

Gerold stared at Polly. “Give it to me,” he said in a quiet tone.

“I’ll give it to you, all right,” Polly snapped. “When the
L.A. Time
s comes to interview me this afternoon, I’ll tell them what a horror you’ve been to work with, and that if the show isn’t a success Jerry Herman can blame only one person…the untalented Mr. Gerold Goss. Everybody knows that I’m a straight shooter. Audiences and the critics will all feel bad for me, and castigate you!”

Gerold drew in a deep breath and loudly exhaled. “Hand it over.”

Every molecule of Polly’s body went into acting mode. She first gave Gerold a quizzical look that said,
I don’t know what you’re talking about
. “Hand what over?” she asked, turning to indignation.

“Don’t play games with me, Miss Pepper,” Gerold said in a stern voice. “I want what belongs to the theater.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“Perhaps he means the tea bags that you took home last night,” Tim suggested, pointing to the hot plate and the basket of instant coffee packets and herbal teas.

“Hell, if that’s all you want, subtract the cost from my paycheck,” Polly said.

Gerold stood up in a rage. “We’re not talking about tea bags! You know what I want, and if you don’t hand it over I’ll have security strip-search you.”

Polly looked deep into Gerold’s eyes. “I have never, in all my thousands of years in this business, been treated with such disrespect and condescension, even by the likes of Pearl Bailey. If you think that I have something that belongs to you or to the theater, you’d better file charges with Actors’ Equity. But be prepared for a lawsuit that you and this theater will never financially survive.”

Gerold turned to Tim. “I don’t need permission from Actors’ Equity to search
you
! Hand it over, or I’ll get those two idiots out there to look in every orifice and body cavity.”

Tim, too, stared at Gerold. “Okay,” he said.

Gerold’s demeanor instantly changed to optimistic.

Tim looked at Polly and Placenta, and then back to Gerold. “It’s about time. I should have done this before.”

“Good boy.” Gerold smiled evilly.

Tim reached into his jeans pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and looked intently at it before handing it over to Gerold. He then reached into his pocket again and pulled out his cell phone and began pushing numbers on the keypad.”

Gerold yelled, “What the hell is this?”

“J.J. Norton’s new private number. I haven’t entered into my speed dial yet. “What are the last four digits? Oh, never mind. I remember.” Then he continued dialing. “J.J. please. Polly Pepper calling.”

Gerold was taken aback. “What the hell? Polly’s agent? What do you think you’re doing?”

“You’ve left us no choice,” Tim said defiantly. “Your harassment of J.J.’s biggest client will have him seething and eating you as well as the stage scenery for lunch.”

Gerold’s face drained of color. As much of a bully as Gerold was himself, Polly’s agent, J.J. Norton, was known as a pit bull. If he sank his fangs into someone’s career jugular, he never let go until he’d destroyed them.

“Hold for Polly Pepper, please,” he said into the phone and handed it to Polly.

“Sweetie!” she sang. “Oh, it’s…going. However, not in any way that I ever expected.” She listened for a moment. “I’m sure you’re right, but I won’t know until you see it and tell me how brilliant I am!” Polly laughed and looked at Gerold. “Darling,” she cooed, “I am having one problem. Yes, I know that’s what you’re there for, which is why I’m calling. It has to do with the director.”

Gerold shouted, “Forget it! I’m through! Get your butt back onstage for another run-through!” He quickly left the dressing room.

Polly returned to her call. “Sorry.
No hablas Espanole
! Wrong-o numero,” she said and flipped the phone shut. She smiled at Tim for faking the connection to J.J. “You’re too clever. Now, where can we safely stash this until we get home?” Polly retrieved the roster page—which had been folded into sixteenths—from inside her bra. She looked around for the right place to hide the document.

“Give it here,” Placenta said, swiping the page from Polly’s hand. “No one will think to look in a bottle of champagne.” She slipped the folded paper into a Ziplock sandwich-size bag and ran her finger over the strip to seal it tight. Placenta then uncorked a half-full bottle of Dom and stuffed the bag down the neck of the container.

“Are you sure it won’t get wet?” Polly begged. “That’s all the evidence we’ve got!”

Placenta rolled her eyes. “Relax. I smuggled a bag of marijuana into my college dorm this way. Of course it was a liter of Pepsi, but the principle is the same. Now, get into your first act costume! Tim, go hang out with the security guys until Polly’s ready.”

Per Gerold’s orders, the stage manager dismissed the company at four o’clock. Placenta helped Polly remove her makeup and to change from her stunning white faux-fur curtain-call costume into her everyday chic-but-bounce-around clothes. By the time the wardrobe lady came by to collect Polly’s costumes for washing and ironing, the dressing room was deserted.

Tim guided the Rolls along the freeway and eventually got off at Sunset Boulevard for the last leg of the journey to Bel Air. When he reached the Pepper Plantation gates Tim pressed the automatic opener, and they drove down the cobbled lane. “Home at last!” Polly declared. “Let’s go break open the champagne. And I don’t mean a new bottle from the fridge…but do that too.”

The trio practically raced up the two front steps. When the security system was disarmed they quickly headed to the great room. “I’ll get a hammer,” Placenta said as she left for the utility closet inside the garage. When she returned, Polly had uncorked the bottle and poured what remained of the champagne. “What a waste,” she proclaimed as Placenta proffered her hammer and placed the bottle in a brown paper bag. Polly set the bag on the floor and lifted the hammer into the air. One blow was all that was required and the bottle shattered.

“Use gloves,” Placenta said, handing Polly a pair of Hector’s work gloves.

“Oh, I can feel his strong hands in here,” Polly sighed, then immediately returned to her mission. She carefully opened the bag and looked inside. As Placenta had promised, the sandwich bag was waterproof, and Polly collected it with her gloved hand. “I should buy stock in the company that makes this stuff,” she said, admiring the way the plastic bag locked out moisture just as the television ads promised.

Once she had shaken the plastic bag of all shards of glass, Polly removed her gloves and unsealed it. She retrieved the paper and unfolded it. Together, the three looked at the roster and tried to create a timeline for when each of the suspects had arrived and left the theater.

“I’m torn,” Polly finally said. “I can’t risk accusing Gerold when clearly it appears that Charlotte and Jamie were in the theater at the time of Karen’s death. Gerold has an alibi with Jamie, or so they claim. Charlotte has zip.”

“Jamie and Gerold supposedly didn’t get together until after Karen’s death,” Tim reminded her. “So really neither of them has concrete alibis.”

Polly turned to Tim. “Remember when Gerold came into the office and he was yelling at someone on his cell? I’ll bet it was Jamie on the other end of the line. Gerold said, ‘Our dressing room.’ You paged him to dressing room number seven, which is where they had their ‘audition.’”

Tim nodded. “I still don’t understand why Jamie is banned from the theater. Unless he’s like
The Man Who Knew Too Much
.”

“We need another conversaysheoney with Jamie,” Polly sang. “Call him. Tell him that he’s being feted tonight at Pepper Plantation and that you’ll pick him up in an hour. I’ll get to the bottom of this Gerold thing.”

At eight o’clock Polly was in the great room with Tim and Placenta, and they were all doing their best to surreptitiously give Jamie a champagne buzz as quickly as possible. At the hands of the champagne masters at Pepper Plantation, Jamie never stood a chance. Soon he was as gregarious as Tom Cruise on a talk show couch. Placenta served hors d’oeuvres and pizza from Spago, and Polly made certain that his champagne flute was never empty. Finally, when Polly steered the topic around toward
Mame
and how unprofessional it was of Gerold to go back on his word after promising to cast Jamie in the show, Jamie suddenly became sullen.

“Anything the matter?” Polly asked.

Jamie shrugged his shoulders. “This show changed my life. I lost my partner and best friend. I lost a role that I’ve played a gazillion times. And I’ve been blacklisted from L.A. theater.”

“Blacklisted?” Polly said.

“Gerold is punishing me. He’s afraid that I’ll tell—”