“You thought stealing my …”
“Oh, come on, that was for a good purpose.”
“A good …”
“In fact, you should have been delighted.”
“Delighted? Do you know what Judy did with those things? My credit cards and my license and my …?”
“Yes, she had them blown up as posters.”
“She what?”
“For your birthday party.”
“My what?”
“How terrible it must be,” Felix said.
“What?”
“To be born on Christmas Day, do you think you could let go of my collar now?”
“Born on …?”
“It’s like being upstaged by Christ, isn’t it?” Felix said. “I really think you’re closing off an artery or something. I’m beginning to feel a bit faint.”
Michael let go of the collar.
“Thank you,” Felix said.
“So that’s what she told you. Judy.”
“Yes.”
“That my birthday was on Christmas Day …”
“Well, her friend’s birthday. She didn’t tell me your name.”
“And she was going to have my credit cards blown up as posters.”
“Yes, and your driver’s license, too. To hang on the walls. For the party.”
“Which is why you went to this bar with her …”
“Yes. And waited for her signal.”
“Her signal?”
“She said she would signal when she wanted me to move in.”
“I see.”
“She would hold out her hand to you, palm up.”
Asking for the ring back, Michael thought.
The ring. Please, I don’t want any trouble.
“And that was when you were supposed to come over and do your Detective Cahill act.”
“Yes.”
“Where’d you get the badge?”
“A shield. We call it a shield. I bought it in an antiques shop on Third Avenue.”
“You were very convincing.”
“Thank you. I thought so, too. Did you like it when I said, `This individual is a thief?` That’s the way policemen talk, you know. They will never call a person a person, he is always an individual.”
“Yes, that was very good.”
“Thank you.”
“But why’d you steal my money? If Judy wanted the …”
“I don’t know why she wanted the money. She said your money and all your identification. Which is all I took.”
“Which was only everything in my wallet.”
“Well, that was the job.”
“Which you did for a thousand dollars.”
“Yes, but I’m between engagements just now. How was the party?”
“Mr. Hooper, do you know where all that stuff ended up?”
“No. All I know is that I still haven’t got my thousand dollars.”
“That stuff ended up alongside a dead man.”
“That’s a shame,” Felix said. “But I’m sure it had nothing to do with my performance.”
“Do you know who Mama is?”
“No. Is that a riddle?”
“Did Judy Jordan ever mention a woman named Mama?”
“No. Mama who?”
“She didn’t say, did she, that it was Mama who wanted that stuff taken from my wallet?”
“No.”
“Did she ever mention a man named Arthur Crandall?”
“Arthur Crandall? The director? The man who did War and Solitude? What are you saying?”
“Did she tell you it was Crandall who wanted my …?”
“Oh my God, was I auditioning for Crandall?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to find out if …”
“Crandall, oh, God, I’m going to faint.”
“Would you know if …?”
“Why didn’t she tell me? I mean, I hardly even prepared! I mean, I went on cold! If I’d known I was doing it for Crandall …”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to …”
“I’ll kill her, I swear to God! Why’d she give me that story about a birthday party? Crandall, I’m going to cry.”
“No, don’t cry, just …”
“I’m going to die, I’m going to kill her, I’ll go kill her right this minute.”
“You can’t, she isn’t home.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know where she …”
“The theater!” Felix shouted.
15
The theater was on Thirteenth Street off Seventh Avenue, a ninety-nine-seat house in what had once been the rectory of a Catholic church. The church was still functional, although the theater —according to Felix—barely scraped by. All of the street lamps on either side of the block had been smashed by vandals, and the only illumination at one-forty in the morning was a floodlight bathing the facade of the church and causing it to look like a sanctuary for Quasimodo. A hand-lettered sign affixed to a stone buttress on the northwest side of the church advised that the Cornerstone Players could be found in the direction of the pointing arrow at the bottom of the sign.
“They’re rehearsing a medieval play,” Felix said, “an allegory of sorts.”
Michael thought it odd that a group of players would be rehearsing at this hour of the morning. Then again, he did not know anything at all about allegories. Perhaps an allegory had to be rehearsed in the empty hours of the night.
“They were supposed to open just before Christmas,” Felix said, “but the director’s wife ran off with another woman, and they had to bring in a replacement. They’ll be lucky if they make it before the end of the year. Even with all these crash rehearsals.”
He was leading them familiarly up the lighted alleyway on the side of the church, feeling very chipper now that Michael had stopped banging him against the wall and had released his grip on the parka. On the way downtown in the open convertible, he’d told them he was really looking forward to killing Judy Jordan. Michael doubted he would actually kill her, even though he sounded simultaneously serious and cheerfully optimistic about the prospect. Apparently, an audition with Arthur Crandall was an important thing. Working in an Arthur Crandall film, even if the movie didn’t make any money, could help an actor’s career enormously. Which was why Felix was so incensed that Judy hadn’t told him the detective role was an audition.
Michael assured Felix it had been nothing of the sort, but Felix thought he was just mollifying him, Judy Jordan being a good friend of his and all, who’d even thrown a surprise birthday party for him. Michael was thinking that in his own way Felix was crazier than any of the people he’d met in the past few days. But Felix was an actor; perhaps he was only acting crazy.
There was an arched doorway near the rear of the church, which Felix explained was the entrance to the theater, but he walked right past it and around to the back of the church, where a metal door was set in a smaller arch. A sign advised that this was the stage door and asked all visitors to announce themselves. Felix pressed a button under a speaker. A woman’s voice said, “Yes?”
“Felix Hooper,” he said.
“Minute,” the woman said.
There was a buzz. Felix grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and led them into a space that looked like a one-room schoolhouse, with students’ desks and a teacher’s desk and a piano in one corner, and an American flag in another corner. A dark-haired woman wearing a wide, flower-patterned skirt over a black leotard and tights came into the room, carrying a clipboard.
“Hi, Felix,” she said.
“Hi. Is Judy here?”
“Onstage,” she said.