"She. It was a she. Her name is Bebe Gonsalves."
"Ah. And does she predict with fruit on her head?" He waved a hand. "I take it back. A racial slur. Was the money well spent?"
"You mean did she find anything? No. She didn't."
Steinberg eyed her long and hard. "I think you're lying to me, Ann. I think that you know more than you're telling. Is that right?"
"No."
"You are a kind and lovely woman, but a very bad liar. If you don't want to tell me the truth, I assume you must have a reason. I merely hope that you will put the safety of Dennis and yourself and everyone else in this building first. Will you do that?"
"Yes, John. And that's the truth."
"All right." His face soured, and he snorted petulantly. "It used to be that I was told everything, and what I wasn't told I found out anyway. Those were the halcyon days of the past, and I trust once all this foolishness is over that they will return again." He passed Ann a sheaf of papers. "These are the contracts for the security team I'm hiring. Please look over them and work out a final budget."
"Security team?"
"I'm a bit concerned too, Ann," he said, as though explaining to a child. "Concerned enough to bring in some muscle starting tomorrow to ensure that our stalker or whoever the hell he is has no further access to the theatre or its staff. There will be two men here at all times, guarding both front and rear entrances. There will also be a man at the hotel. If anyone wants to do any more killings, he's going to find that he's got to dispose of a few armed guards first." Then Steinberg smiled. "I may be ignorant, Ann, but I'm not senile. If anyone's going to get into this theatre unseen in the next two weeks, he's going to have to be a shadow. Or a ghost."
A half hour later a live cast began to assemble on the stage of the Venetian Theatre for the first time in a quarter of a century. Quentin, a navy cashmere sweater tied casually over his shoulders, came down the aisle with Dennis. "Do you want to talk to them first?"
Dennis shook his head. "No. You just go ahead."
"But, Dennis, it's your show, your theatre, you don't want to welcome them?"
"I'd really rather not, Quentin. You just go ahead and do it, all right?"
Gathering everyone to the first few rows of seats, Quentin welcomed them to the theatre, gave them a brief history of the place, omitting the recent tragedies, told them where the rest rooms, coffee pot, and Coke machines were, then had Curt pass out rehearsal schedules.
"The first scene today, as you hopefully remember," Quentin said, smiling, "is two-seven. We'll start right at the end of Kronstein's 'Take What Is Mine,' and rehearse the segue to the crowd scene. We'll have the scenery coming in the middle of the week. For now, Curt will show you the entrances and exits. Okay, people, let's get to places."
When the chorus went to the stage, the theatre became filled with life, color, sound. Dex Colangelo's fingers roamed up and down the keyboard of the freshly tuned Steinway in the orchestra pit. Dancers tugged up legwarmers, stretched in their leotards, singers warbled triads and octaves, Quentin laughed, clapping people on the shoulder, techies scurried as they always scurry, and Dennis thought that maybe everything would be all right now, that the magic of the theatre could banish that other, darker magic. Glorious illusion had returned to the Venetian Theatre's stage to replace the dread reality that had darkened it.
As he sat watching the dancers and singers work, he felt happy again, as though he was back where he belonged, doing what he should have always been doing. It was the theatre, and the long years he had spent in it had done nothing to diminish his affection for it. In that moment, he loved the life as he loved nothing else. Then he thought of the Emperor, and wondered if he was watching, and how he could stand in his evil pride against such an affirmation of joy and life as was on the stage at that moment.
"Take that, you son of a bitch," Dennis whispered, and felt his tiny smile grow larger as the music increased in volume, the harmonies blended, the players moved as one, until he was grinning, unafraid, grinning at the grim face of death he knew was hiding somewhere in the shadows of the theatre.
But the shadows would fade, wouldn't they? With song and dance and laughter, they would fade and be replaced by glorious light. It always happened that way in the books and the movies and the stories, didn't it? Christ, it had to happen that way, it just had to.
They worked the number through several times, getting used to the new stage floor, the acoustics and geometry of the space. Curt called a break, and the cast relaxed, got coffee, Cokes, sat on the apron, cooled down in a dozen different ways. At the end of the five, Quentin waved to Dennis. "We'll go on with the scene, yes?"
Dennis nodded and got to his feet. For a moment a wave of dizziness swept over him, and he clutched the arm of the seat, but it passed, and he took a deep breath, walked down the length of the row, and up onto the stage of the Venetian Theatre, where he had first become what he was.
He stepped over to the stage right prop table and strapped on his scabbard, pulling out his saber to examine it. The cutting edges were dull, but still capable of inflicting a wound, and the point, though slightly rounded, could pierce flesh nonetheless. The weapon was just like that of Wallace Drummond, with whom Dennis would fight the climactic duel at the show's end. Quentin, besides being a Tony Award winning choreographer, was also an expert fencer, and had staged duels for half a dozen Broadway shows and many more regional theatre productions. He had choreographed the swordplay for the revival, and had worked for several hours with Dennis and Drummy in New York, using wooden canes to block the moves slowly and carefully, safety always being the major factor. He avoided thrusts, except when they were absolutely necessary.
"Slashes," he had told them, "can be avoided or parried even by the beginning swordsman. And if they land there usually isn't much harm done. But a thrust can injure badly. That's why we use them seldom, and why we should know precisely when they're coming."
Dennis slid the saber back into the scabbard, and walked onto the stage, where Drummy and Quentin were waiting for him. Dan Marks, the actor playing Kruger, Kronstein's henchman, was standing stage right, where Dennis's entrance would occur. Marks, a short, stocky actor, was nervously sliding his own saber in and out of its scabbard. He stopped long enough to smile at Dennis, then fell back into the routine. He looked, Dennis thought, almost scared to be on the stage, and he wondered if Dan was nervous about the scene, or about the stage on which they were playing it.
"All right, gentlemen," Quentin said. "We'll start with Dennis's entrance – quiet please, people! We're rehearsing!" he added for the others, who were making more noise than was usual for breaks. They quieted quickly, however, at Quentin's request. "Let's start with your line, `What in God's name,' all right?"
The three actors got into position. The jovial Drummond put on the dour character of Kronstein in an instant, standing stage center and looking upstage and down, as he would be when the set was on stage. Marks, as Kruger, moved right center, facing Dennis, who was standing right, only a yard from the wings.
"We're on stage now," Quentin reminded them, and Dennis felt the words addressed to him in particular. "So let's see some emotion. Please don't mark it, I want it full out, yes? Begin."
The scene was the climactic one in which the Emperor Frederick finds his half-brother Kronstein about to impersonate him in front of the populace, and announce his intent to wed Maria of Borovnia. Furious, Frederick cuts his way through Kruger to Kronstein, who decides his only step is to kill Frederick and take his place permanently.
Dennis shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remember the feelings, the emotions he had counterfeited a thousand times, trying to become the Emperor Frederick once again. He opened his eyes and strode forward.