“That’s not germane to the scene,” Kendall called from somewhere in the dark, she wished she could see where, she’d go out there and stab him.
“It’s germane to me, Ash,” she called, whatever the hell germane meant, still shading her eyes, still seeing nothing but the glare of the lights and the blackened theater beyond.
“Can we just get on with the scene?” he said. “We’ll go over who done what to whom when we do notes.”
“Excuse me, Ash,” she said, “but the scene happens to be what I’m talking about. And the whom who gets the what done to her happens to be meem. I come out of the restaurant and I’m walking toward the bus stop, and this person steps out of the shadows…”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Meesh, let’s just do the fucking thing, okay?”
Mark Riganti, the actor playing the Detective. Tall and lean and dark-haired and wearing jeans, sneakers, and a purple Ralph Lauren sweater.
“We’ve been doing the fucking thing,” Michelle said, “over and over again, and I still don’t know who it is that steps out of the shadows and stabs me.”
“That’s not important,” Andrea said.
Andrea Packer, the All About Eve twit who was playing the Understudy. Andrea was nineteen years old, with long blond hair, dark brown eyes and a lean, coltish figure. In real life, she had a waspish tongue and a cool manner that perfectly suited the character of the Understudy; sometimes, Michelle felt she wasn’t acting at all. Her rehearsal outfit this afternoon consisted of a short blue wraparound skirt over black leotard and tights.
Michelle hated her guts.
“Maybe it’s not important to you,“ she said, “but then again you’re not the one getting stabbed. I’m the one getting stabbed by this unidentifiable person who steps out of the shadows wearing a long black coat and a black hat pulled down over his or her head, who is really Jerry…”
“Hi,” Jerry said, popping his head out from behind the teaser, where he’d been waiting for his cue.
“… who was the waiter with the mustache in the scene just before this one. I don’t think it’s the waiter with the mustache who’s stabbing me, is it? Because then it becomes just plain ridiculous. And it can’t be the Detective who’s stabbing me because he’s the one who leads me back to finding myself again and all that. So it’s got to be either the Understudy or the Director because they’re the only other important characters in the play, so which one is it? Is it Andrea or is it Coop, I just want to know who it is.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s me,” Cooper Haynes said apologetically. He was forty-three years old, a dignified-looking gentleman who’d done years and years of soap opera — daytime serial, as it was known in the trade — usually playing one or another sympathetic doctor. In Romance, he was playing the Director. Actually, he was much nicer than any director Michelle had ever met in her life, even the ones who didn’t try to get in her pants. “I haven’t been playing the part as if I’m the one who stabs her,” he said, and shaded his eyes and looked out into the darkness. “Ash, if I am the stabber, I think I should know it, don’t you? It would change my entire approach.”
“I think we’re all entitled to know who stabs me,” Michelle said.
“I truly don’t care who stabs you,” Andrea said.
“Neither do l,” Mark said.
“Ashley’s right, it’s not germane to the scene.”
“Or even to the play.”
“Maybe the butler stabs you,” Jerry whispered from the wings.
“If a person gets stabbed, people want to know who stabbed her,” Michelle insisted. “You can’t just leave it hanging there.”
“This isn’t a play about a person getting stabbed,” Andrea said. “Or hanged.”
“Oh? What’s it about then? An understudy who can’t act?”
“Oh-ho!” Andrea said, and turned away angrily.
“Freddie, are you out there?” Michelle shouted to the theater.“Can you tell me who stabs…?”
“He’s not here, Michelle,” Kendall said wearily.
He was uncomfortably aware that Morgenstern was sitting beside him here in the sixth row and he didn’t want his producer to get the impression that he was losing control of his actors, especially when he actually was. The moment an actor started screaming for clarification from the playwright was the moment to come down hard, star or no star. Which, by the way, Michelle Cassidy wasn’t, Annie or no Annie, which was a hundred years ago, anyway.
Using his best Otto Preminger voice, seething with controlled rage, he said, “Michelle, you’re holding up rehearsal. I want to do this scene, and I want to do it right, and I want to do it now. If you have any questions, save them for notes. Meanwhile, I would like you to get stabbed now, by whoever the hell stabs you, as called for in the script at this point in the play’s time. You have a costume fitting at six-thirty, Michelle, and I would like to break for dinner at that time, so if we’re all ready, let’s begin again. Please. From where Michelle pays her check, and comes out of the restaurant, and walks into the darkness…”
From where he stood in the shadowed side doorway of the delicatessen that shared the alleyway with the theater, he saw her coming out of the stage door at the far end, tight blue sweater and open peacoat, short navy-blue mini, gold-buckled belt, blue high-heeled shoes. He backed deeper into the doorway, almost banging into one of the garbage cans stacked alongside it. She checked her watch, and then stepped out briskly in that long-legged stride of hers, high heels clicking, red hair glowing under the hanging stage door light.
He wanted to catch her while she was still in the alley, before she reached the lighted sidewalk. The delicatessen’s service doorway was just deep enough in from the street to prevent his being seen by any pedestrians, just far enough away from the stage door light, too. Clickety-click-click, long legs flashing, she came gliding closer to where he was standing. He stepped into her path.
“Miss Cassidy?” he said.
And plunged the knife into her.
3
STANDING AT THE SQUADROOM WATER COOLER, DETECTIVE/Second Grade Stephen Louis Carella could not help over-hearing Kling’s conversation at the desk not four feet away. He filled his paper cup and turned away, standing with his back to Kling, looking through the wire-grilled window at the street below — but he could still hear the conversation. Deliberately, he tossed the empty cup at the wastebasket, and headed back across the room toward his own desk.
Carella was close to six feet tall, with the wide shoulders, narrow hips and gliding walk of a natural athlete — which he was not. Sitting behind his desk, he sighed and looked up at the wall clock, marveling at how the time did fly when you were having a good time. They were only three hours into the shift, but for some reason he was enormously weary tonight. Whenever he was this tired, his brown eyes took on a duller hue, seeming to slant more emphatically downward than they normally did, giving his face an exaggerated Oriental cast.
Four detectives had relieved the day shift at a quarter to four that Monday afternoon. Mayer and Hawes caught a liquor store holdup even before they took off their topcoats, and were out of the squadroom almost before they’d officially arrived. At around four-fifteen, a redheaded woman came up and told Kling somebody was trying to kill her, and he took down all the information and then discussed the possibility of a trap-and-trace with Carella, who said they wouldn’t have a chance of getting one. Kling said he’d talk it over with the boss soon as he came in. Lieutenant Byrnes still wasn’t here and Kling was still on the phone with someone named Sharon, whom he kept asking to meet him for coffee when the shift was relieved at midnight. From the snatches of conversation Carella could still over-hear, Sharon wasn’t being too receptive. Kling kept trying. Told her he’d be happy to take a cab to Calm’s Point, just wanted to talk to her awhile. By the time he hung up, Carella still didn’t know if it had worked out. He only knew there were five long hard hours ahead before they’d be relieved.