Scene Stealer (15 page)

Dark clouds threatened and the air was heavy with humidity. Except for a grossly overweight man who walked at a snail-like pace past Captain Corcoran, the neighborhood appeared deserted. The man's breathing was labored; every breath he took produced a hoarse, whistling sound. The captain waited until he turned the corner before slipping past the side of Saint Genesis.

Thunder, lightning, then a curtain of rain turned visibility to zero. He wasn't prepared; didn't even have a flashlight. The matches he carried in his pocket were sodden, no use at all.

Another flash of lightning revealed a window; an open window. Carelessness on the part of whoever took charge of this place. He hoisted himself over the sill into a room blacker than the street. His arm hit a heavy iron pot and sent it crashing to the floor, making a noise loud enough to wake the dead. That was a morbid thought; he had enough of those lately.

Shaking again; after a month in the veteran's hospital and without the pills for his nerves, he still got the shakes.
Steady,
he told himself.
Hold on. Remember what the doctor said. Take your time.

He listened to the silence. No one had heard him, or no one was in the theatre. Good thing. He had messed up making that noise. Didn't matter; a wild goose chase if ever there was one. Yet, those two young girls had been invited to see a performance tonight. Why had it been cancelled?

He followed a path of half-light to a carpeted passageway. When the carpet ended, he realized he had reached the side of the stage. His pulse quickened. A light should mean people.

A tall makeshift pole, with a bulb attached, stood in the center of a platform. It furnished just enough light to let him see and avoid a table that lay on its side next to shards of glass, a broken pitcher, cosmetics and pieces of fake hair. An accident? Had the performance been cancelled because Lawrence Dunn was hurt? Drunk? He checked the debris for a bottle. No bottle, no smell of alcohol.

Captain Corcoran edged closer to the light. So this was a stage from the actor's angle. He seemed to be tilting toward the auditorium. A new symptom. He suffered from the shakes, depression, forgetfulness, fear but never before this feeling of standing on an incline.

He noticed a bench. Its back legs were longer than the front. Of course, the platform was built on a slant. He expelled a small sigh of relief. He wasn't completely crazy. The back of the platform was raised. Odd thing to do. He walked down front and peered into the auditorium. A center and two side aisles and the stalls of benches.

He walked down a few steps, turned and faced the stage. The raised platform made the stage look wider and deeper than it actually was. That must be the reason for the slant.

The former church appeared to be empty; he sensed that it wasn't. In the stillness he heard the faint tapping of high heels. The sound came from the front of the church. A woman must be in the lobby; someone would know what happened. Dunn had probably tripped, cut himself and gone to the hospital to be stitched up.

A child screamed. Instinct took over: his child. His Kevin. Captain Corcoran raced toward the sound.

“Let him go!”

Startled, the woman released her hold on the boy.

“Daddy. You came. Daddy.” Kevin ran toward his welcoming arms.

A woman. A woman had kidnapped his child, why?

He sensed the gun before he saw it. “Kevin! Run!” The boy obeyed.

Captain Corcoran lunged toward the woman. Once he would have made it, but not now; his reflexes had left him. He tried to move forward, couldn't. He hurt too much. Liquid bubbled past his open lips. The world was a blur; he couldn't see. He tried to rise but he couldn't control his body; his mind began to drift. He heard Kevin scream, “Daddy, Daddy.” The sound came from far away.

“Kevin, run, hide; she has a gun.” He thought he murmured, then there was no more sound, no feeling but pain. The pain of losing—of not saving—his son.

Dunn's pay-as-you-go cell phone had just enough time left for him to place his call to
Hitting Bottom.
His television debut and he had reached an audience that numbered in the millions. Lawrence Dunn believed in himself; ever since childhood he knew he was an artist. An artist ruled by divine inspiration, ardor, soul-stirring passion.

Common sense told him he was also an actor trapped in a situation fraught with danger. If he didn't follow Felicity's orders, her support for his theatre would disappear. Tonight he must make a decision and choose between that ungrateful wench and the child. Even as he thought that, he knew that he had already chosen the lad. Kevin was a polite child with some talent who revered the Bard of Avon as much as he did. He had come to feel that in more propitious circumstances, with the proper tutelage, Kevin could become his theatrical heir. A worthy successor when the final curtain fell.

Actors must stand together. The rest of the world did not understand them.

Dunn perched in the fly gallery, high above the stage, and tried to consider his options. He found it hard to concentrate; his thoughts were on his theatre; his creation. He had built the raked stage, painted the flats, installed the lights, sewn the draperies. His playhouse would soon be complete; he had been working on the gallery floor for months. The ropes were rigged; the heavy, canvas sandbags, to be used as counterweights, were in place. A few more hours of toil and he would be able to fly the scenery.

His Shakespearean monologues had gone well tonight. He was pleased Bottoms's program had broadcast the Bard all over the nation. That television audience would now flock to see him perform the great roles, and his house would be full. He surveyed the stage; perhaps he would enact a scene from
Phantom of the Opera
as a divertissement.
Hunchback of Notre Dame
might be amusing. Yes. His public would appreciate an occasional change of pace. He would establish a repertory company.

“Kevin! Run!” The acoustics in the old church were excellent. The strange male voice carried to the gallery. Dunn leaned forward. It was a commanding voice. The voice of an officer. The voice of Brutus. The voice of Julius Caesar.

Whap! Whap! The swinging doors bounced back and forth, producing a rush of stale air that followed Kevin down the center aisle. The sad-eyed saints, set in stained-glass windows high above his head, watched him run but couldn't help. There was no way Kevin could scale the walls to reach them.

The theatre was dark except for the patches of light cast by the pilot lamp on stage. Dunn watched Kevin run toward the light, feeling oddly distanced from what he saw.

The gunshots ended Dunn's reverie. This was not a performance, and the shots were not fired from a prop gun. The sound echoed through the church. Kevin stopped running, feet frozen with fear, then ran again. Blindly. The boy's knee slammed into the steps that led to the stage and he cried out. “Daddy!”

Tears stung Dunn's eyes. He envisioned himself as Kevin. A face streaked with dirt, a bump on his forehead, a scratched arm. Dried blood where the sharp edge of glass had penetrated. Every part of his body would sting and ache. Make-up would be unable to hide all the black-and-blue marks. Dunn touched his knee; his fingers came away all wet and sticky. Blood. His trousers were soaked in blood. He would lose all the blood in his body and die. Never see his mother and father again.
Don't cry,
he thought.
Don't be a baby.
He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Daddy,” Dunn said. He had to find a place to hide 'til his daddy came.

He saw Kevin grip the edge of the stairs as hard as he could. There was a hollow underneath where the child could hide. Kevin eased himself down and crawled over a piece of wood attached to the leg of the stairs. If he curled himself into a ball there was just enough room.

The boy's shirt would be damp. Dunn's own shirt was sticking to his back. It was hot up in the flies. He could smell the sweat. He needed a towel. A deathlike silence crept through the theatre. Then footsteps; who was here? Had the police found them?

A gust of air dried Dunn's cheeks. He watched Kevin crawl from under the stairs, then stop. The footsteps didn't belong to a man, they were Felicity's.

The faithless wretch had found them.

Dunn watched Felicity walk down the aisle. Taking her time. Being careful. She stopped beside each row of benches, searching for the boy. She shifted her gaze to the fly gallery; Dunn moved out of the dim light into the shadows.

Felicity reached the foot of the aisle, walked toward the old organ on the left side of the church. She bent, looked under the bench then checked the pulpit standing to the right before moving closer to the stage. The blood on the steps—Kevin had left a trail that was easy to follow.

Felicity would be smiling now; knowing the child had to be beneath the steps. She reached for the boy.

Dunn heard Felicity's sharp intake of breath even as he saw her pull back. The boy had used his only weapon; his teeth had pierced her pale white skin. She stumbled, clutching her arm. One drop of blood, another. Dunn pictured her blood mixing with the child's.

He watched Kevin hoist himself onto the stage and run toward the left wing, Felicity two steps behind. Then the miracle happened. Saint Genesis, his Saint Genesis, the patron saint of the theatre, performed a miracle. It had been his church and Saint Genesis took care of actors. Kevin's back pressed against the scenery, and the double-faced, door-type trap in the upstage flat pivoted. The child disappeared backstage. Felicity was left on the other side. The raked stage he had built slanted toward the audience. There was just enough room between the floor in the back of the old church and the raised stage for a small child. No grown-up could ever squeeze in there. The clever boy would find the perfect spot to hide.

Lawrence Dunn was pleased with himself and Kevin. More than pleased; he felt elated. The trap he had spent hours constructing had worked and allowed the boy a fast escape…Dunn's moment of pleasure was spoiled as Felicity's expletives reached his ears. The woman stood center stage, her presence in his temple to Thespis an obscenity that had to be erased. How could he have ever fancied himself in love with such a harridan? Hecate must have cast a spell.

In deciding to help the lad, Lawrence Dunn was certain he had made the right decision. Now it was time to make his grand entrance.

He stood, grabbed a long line—strung from his makeshift grid—and, howling, swung onto the stage.

To his surprise, Felicity vanished. The pistol, all that remained of her presence, slid across the stage into the wings. A chorus of a thousand discordant sounds made his ears ring. He looked at the top of his house; the grid was shifting. Cables and ropes dropped about him. He began to run, tripped and fell heavily to the floor. Beams rained from above. A pulley narrowly missed his upturned face. He covered his head, tried to rise but a pipe batten struck his leg and Lawrence Dunn heard the splinter and crack of bones. His bones. His instrument. The sinew and marrow of his being.

“Howl! Howl! Howl!” He began to recite Lear, but dust clogged his throat. He coughed and his ribs stabbed flesh. Dunn began the piece again, trying to ignore the pain, but memory failed. The words faded as he descended into black mists, his body gripped by intolerable agony, his face dusted with grains of sand.

A long, loud, reverberating summons blasted the air above the storage room. “Miss Weidenmaier? Oh, my God! Larry and Felicity are blowing up the theatre!”

The noise had startled rather than frightened me, being reminiscent of the proclamations trumpeted by elephants while performing in a circus. The loud, strident cry was followed by a cracking sound, the thunder of wood and metal falling, the thud of bodies crashing to the floor of the stage.

Annalise clutched my arm; the relentless pinch of the girl's fingers would leave a bruise. We stood side by side, stock-still; eyes riveted to the ceiling as a storm of sand and sawdust, followed by Felicity Silk, dropped through the trap door.

Felicity landed, in a supine position, on the mattress set beneath the trap. I stared at the woman's body, taking inventory, unable to move my own limbs. Felicity's arm had been bloodied, her attire torn, soiled and in considerable disarray. A bunch of keys had fallen out of a pocket. A shoe, missing from her right foot, lay close to her forehead.

An eye fluttered; her mouth opened. The wind had momentarily been knocked out of her sails; but Felicity Silk was alive. Her fingers gingerly touched her forehead; a moan escaped her mouth.

After what seemed an interminable period of time, but was probably just seconds, Annalise and I recovered our wits. Unfortunately, so did Felicity Silk.

“Keys!” Annalise said. “Those are my keys to the theatre. I knew I didn't lose them.”

“Keys!” Felicity and I said simultaneously.

I scooped up the keys, managing to reach them an instant before Felicity. Strands of hair covered her eyes and temporarily obscured her vision, giving me a slight edge.

“The glue gun.” Annalise raced for the gun with Felicity breathing down her back. Annalise won and pointed the gun at Felicity. Felicity went into reverse; Annalise advanced. Felicity backed into a shelf of props, grabbed a bottle and smashed it against Annalise's forehead.

Much to my surprise the bottle crumbled into bits. Of course, the bottle was a stage prop made of sugar glass. Felicity removed her remaining shoe; prepared to strike. Annalise pressed the glue gun's trigger but her unsteady finger proved less than accurate. The only damage done was to Felicity's tattered skirt. The glue decorated the skirt with sticky filigree that slowly converged on and covered what appeared to be spots of blood.

Whose blood? Bile threatened to rise and clog my throat. I choked it down and ran toward the door. There were so many keys. I tried one, then another. The door opened.

“Hands up where I can see them,” Annalise ordered Felicity. “This time I won't miss; I'll aim right for your eyes.”

“Amateur!” Felicity said.

I turned just in time to see Annalise take another step forward, aim and fire. Nothing happened. Annalise pressed the trigger again and again. Unfortunately, the cord must have pulled out of the wall socket.

Felicity lunged toward Annalise; the child reeled under the force of Felicity's slap. Felicity's nails were a millimeter away from Annalise's eyes when I managed to grab a fistful of silver-blond hair.

Felicity shrieked, turned in my direction and immobilized me with a swift kick to the right shin. In the several seconds it took for Annalise and I to regroup, Felicity escaped the prop room.

Without thinking, ignoring the pain that stabbed at my shin, I followed Annalise as she pursued Felicity up the stairs. As we reached the top step, the door to the basement slammed shut. Though it took only a moment to reopen the door, by the time we emerged, Felicity had slipped out of sight.

The scenery composed of flats lashed together had survived. We peered through a crack.

“Oh, my God!” Annalise said. “The whole grid has fallen down.”

“Shh.” I held a finger to my lips. “I hear someone.”

“Come away, come away, Death, and in sad cypress, let me be laid. Fly away, fly away, breath: I am slain by a fair, cruel maid.”

“Larry's leg is under a pipe,” Annalise said and, forgetting Felicity, ran to Dunn's side.

Lawrence Dunn raised his head and tried to focus on Annalise. Annalise gently patted his hand, offering sympathy. Being of a more practical mind, I looked for a way to free him, while keeping an eye out for Felicity—and poor Kevin.

Beads of sweat joined together and traveled down Dunn's pale face. He wiped his eyes with a feeble hand and spoke to an audience only he could see. “My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it! My part of death, no one so true, did share it!”