Speak Now (24 page)

“How romantic,” I said. “Where does Macbeth fit in?”

“Nowhere, yet. Up until this point it really does seem like just a bizarre coincidence. Rix says Regan wanted to get out of porn, and she figured if she could be ‘discovered’ in a small play put on by a small company, nobody would look any further into her past. The Rep seemed like the perfect place to start, but it apparently never occurred to her to just try out for a part. Instead, she talked Rix into investing in the theatre so he’d have enough influence to get her cast.”

“And Rix did it?” I shook my head “Nobody’s that stupid.”

“Apparently the lady is quite persuasive,” Jack said. “And it was also a way for Rix to make you think he had money. He wanted you to owe him.”

“I wish he hadn’t gone. I’d like to give him a swift kick,” I muttered.

“And I’d like to see you do it.” Jack flashed another grin. “Now do you want to hear where Macbeth comes in?”

“How? When? What—”

Jack didn’t bother to let me frame a coherent question. “After getting Regan situated nicely at the Rep, Rix did the one stupid thing he could be counted on doing.”

“There are lots of stupid—”

Jack cut me off again. “He kept gambling.”

“Oh,” I said. “And…” I didn’t get it.

“And he lost,” Jack continued. “He lost a lot. To a lot of people. And he was just thinking his best option was to leave town when he got a phone call.”

“From Macbeth—wait, was Macbeth dead by then?”

“Yes, this was only a couple of weeks ago. The guy who called said he was working for an ‘interested party.’ He said this party had bought all Rix’ debts, and Rix now only owes one person, but he owes a little over four hundred thousand dollars.”

“And the interested party is Macbeth’s accomplice.”

Jack nodded. “He told Rix how he could pay off the debt.”

“How?” I didn’t like the look on Jack’s face.

“By ruining the Rep.”

“What! How—”

Before I could do anything other than sputter out incoherent questions, Jack went on. “Don’t worry, I took care of it.”

I stared at him. “Tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Jack nodded. “Rix was told that if he made all sorts of allegations about financial improprieties at the Rep, and ruined your reputation, his debt would be paid.”

I swallowed. “He can’t do that. We’re not a publicly held company. We don’t have to answer to anyone—” I stopped. “At least we didn’t until we took his money.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said again.

“What did you tell him?” My voice shook. The Rep may occasionally drive me crazy, but to have it vulnerable to attack from outside made me completely insane.

“I was very sympathetic.”

“Great.”

“And then I bought him off.”

“You what?” I yelled. “You gave him money?”

“Here’s the thing,” Jack said calmly. “If he didn’t owe anyone money, he didn’t have any reason to ruin the Rep.”

I swallowed. Or I may have choked. “You didn’t give him four hundred thousand dollars?”

“No, I rounded up.” Jack got that pleased-with-himself look again.

“Jack! You didn’t!”

“Pumpkin, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.” I was speechless, which Jack took a moment to enjoy. Then I got it.

“It’s a trap.”

“Ten points to the gorgeous woman in black. Have I told you how good you look in that dress?”

I refused to be distracted. “You’ll follow the money.”

“Mike will. And we’ll see if we can find out where Macbeth’s partner in crime is currently stashing the cash.”

“And that will tell us who it is?”

“It will help.” Suddenly Jack became serious. “And that’s when things will get dangerous.”

And here I’d been thinking that murders and kidnappings were already pretty dangerous.

“When will all this happen?” I asked.

“As soon as Rix can make contact with whoever owns his debts.”

“Jack! If he’s going to find this guy we should follow him! When did he leave? Where was he going?” I jumped up and headed toward the door. Jack didn’t follow me. I turned around to find him crossing his legs comfortably.

“Gosh, I wish I’d thought to have him followed.”

“Oh.” I deflated. “All right, you’re better at this than I am.” I put my hands on my hips. “Maybe you married the wrong girl.”

He grinned. “Like hell I did.”

***

I never claimed to be a great hostess. We’d probably been gone half an hour by the time we rejoined the others.

Harry had put Victor in a cab soon after he’d started snoring from his seat under the potted palm. Then, ever the gentleman, Harry offered his car and driver to Olivia, who seemed to think that was as good as an engagement ring. “Charley, dearest, I’ve had such a lovely evening,” she said, looking at Harry. “Such delightful company.” She floated off in a haze of Obsession.

“Guess I’d better be going too,” Paul said. “I’ll be there bright and early tomorrow, Charley.” He turned to Cece. “Can I count on you to come see me on opening night?”

“You’re awfully cute,” she told him, running a manicured finger down his tie. “But I can’t think of anything more boring.” She didn’t wait for him to leave before turning away and going upstairs.

It was right about that time that Regan seemed to notice Rix’ absence. “Would you allow me to take you home?” Mike asked her. He seemed all masculine and protective but at the same time a little star struck. It worked for him. I wondered how many of her films he’d had to research.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t imagine what happened. Charley, thank you so much for such a lovely time.” Her manners were impeccable. I wanted to squash her like a bug.

“Well, old thing, I guess that’s our cue.” Simon slung his arm around Eileen. “Shall we run away together?”

“My son’s coming home tomorrow,” she told him. “I’m not running anywhere.”

“Didn’t think so. How about a lift home, then?” He kissed me on the cheek and shook Jack’s hand.

“Are you two staying over?” Harry asked when they’d gone. “And you’d better say yes, because I haven’t got a goddamn clue what went on here tonight.”

Gordon, whose timing was even better than his crème brûlée, appeared with a tray of after-dinner liquors.

“Stay,” Brenda said. “I’m dying to know what you said to Rix.”

We stayed.

***

Later that night, when I woke up at my usual three o’clock thinking time, it occurred to me that I should ask Jack where he’d gotten the half million dollars he’d given Rix.

Chapter 27

Opening night. At least it would be in twelve hours. We’d had our one and only preview the night before. Not a disaster. I’d held my breath for the entire performance. Then Chip and I had kept the cast until almost one, giving notes and encouragements.

Jack dropped me off in front of the theater in the morning with Flank and a subdued little black Donna Karan that I planned to change into before the performance. Flank carried a purple shoebox which I hoped contained my Stuart Weitzman stilettos and not munitions of some sort.

“Break a leg,” Jack said.

“Save that for later. Right now just tell me everything’s going to be fine.”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said dutifully.

I took a deep breath. “See you at six?”

“I’ll be the incredibly handsome guy in the new tux.”

The plan was for the company to break at six, two hours before curtain. Jack would come by then and stop me from running away from it all. Which is what I felt like doing. I’m pretty sure everyone involved in the production did, at that point.

“You won’t do anything stupid between now and then, will you?” I asked.

“Probably not.” He said it lightly, but his face betrayed a flash of frustration. We’d learned nothing since the dinner party. We’d had Rix followed and monitored his bank account, hoping to trace the half million. Nothing. We’d had Regan followed, and when she wasn’t at rehearsals or obsessing about her part to the pathetically infatuated Rix, she was at home, either working out or sleeping. We’d had Paul followed, and although we now knew the best places in the city to score heroin, we were no closer to an answer.

Jack squeezed my hand. “Everything will be fine,” he said again. He’s a very good liar.

***

If the saying “bad rehearsal, good show” was true, we were in luck. Victor knew his lines by now but was having trouble with his shoes. They seemed to snag on the stage and he tripped constantly. Sally was having a major case of opening-night jitters. She spent most of the morning sniffling in her mother’s arms. “Don’t worry,” the mom assured me, “she’s a trouper. She’s got it in her blood.” Right. That stopped me from worrying.

Paul was fine early in the morning, but got increasingly high-strung and irritable as the day wore on. We all did, I suppose, but I assumed he’d take something at the six o’clock break and be fine for the opening. If it turned out he wasn’t plotting to kill someone, I planned on getting him to a rehab center as soon as I could manage it.

Thank God for Lisa. She seemed to be everywhere, doing everything, keeping a different crisis at arm’s length every five minutes. Chip had always been a good stage manager, but Lisa was amazing. I couldn’t imagine how we’d have gotten along without her.

When I’d seen Simon first thing in the morning he’d had his usual opening-night case of nerves. “Charley, we’re completely sold out. Completely! Is it too early in the day to start drinking?”

“It’s nine in the morning. Have some coffee. Decaf.”

He’d taken a deep breath. “Everything will be fine?”

“Everything will be fine,” I’d told him. And I’d kept repeating it to everyone I came in contact with all day. Until the electricity went out.

***

Four o’clock in the afternoon. Four hours until curtain, and the theater was plunged into darkness.

I only had the time to think “what the hell?” before I was tackled and thrown to the ground. I would have yelled, but for the first time I realized what it meant to have the wind knocked out of you.

The bright white safety lights flickered on a few seconds later, and I got a look at my attacker.

“Flank, get off of me,” I wheezed.

“Stay down,” he ordered. His gun was drawn and he crouched protectively by my side. It seemed he was only intelligible when his gun was out. I didn’t have time to speculate on the Freudian implications of that, because Olivia, who had screamed when the lights went out, screamed again when she saw him.

Flank’s entire security team had swarmed to the stage. It looked like the last scene in a John Woo movie. Everyone who had a gun was pointing it at someone else with a gun. Gradually, they all realized they were on the same team and began calling “Clear!”

“Can I get up now?” I asked Flank. I’d recovered my breath enough to notice how much my butt hurt. He holstered his weapon and held out his hand to help me up.

“Thanks,” I muttered. Then, addressing the group at large, “What the hell happened?”

“Um…” I heard a voice from backstage. “I think I did it.”

Paris let out a volley of obscenities that shocked even me. The electrician who stepped out from behind the scenery was a brave man. “It was the fan,” he explained. “For the breeze in Act Three. It must have overloaded the circuit.”

“Then fix it!” This was bellowed by the lighting director, who then gave Paris a challenging stare. Who was allowed to yell at whom was a matter of strict union rules, and the electrician belonged to him, not Paris.

The electrician dashed back behind the scenery. “Where’s he going?” I asked Paris, trying to distract him from what promised to be an all-out testosterone war. “Isn’t the electrical room downstairs?”

He glared at me. “And just what in the hell do you think you know about anything electrical?”

Great. “Paris, sweetie,” I said evenly. “Don’t worry about it. He’ll fix it. Everything will be fine.”

I received a snort in return as Paris stormed away.

Lisa stepped out from behind a tree. “Don’t worry, Charley, this should just take a minute.” I followed her gaze upward. I could see the electrician climbing a metal ladder bolted to the wall behind the stage. The ladder led to a platform in front of a bank of metal boxes on the wall.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Lisa. “What’s up there?”

“Electrical stuff,” she said. “All the circuit breakers.”

The electrician got to the platform and began opening various boxes and flipping switches. “Here it is!” Suddenly the normal lights were back.

“Okay, everybody,” Lisa called. “One more run-through of Act Three for lighting cues and then we’ll break. Is everybody ready?”

***

At five-thirty we’d had enough. I sent the cast to their dressing rooms to rest, if they could, and prepare themselves for the curtain. Lisa had ordered a buffet of sandwiches and snacks, and had set everything up on a long table backstage. It was a nice thought, but against our policy of bringing large amounts of unattended food into the theater. We had a minor rodent problem, as most theaters do, and we didn’t want it to get out of hand. But when the cast and crew started swarming around the table, I figured there wouldn’t be enough leftovers to cause a problem.

Sally’s mother brought her a hamburger meal from the fast food place down the street. I didn’t tell her what a bad idea I thought that was. The kid had pre-performance butterflies in a big way. But I ruffled the girl’s hair and told her everything was going to be fine. Then I told Martha to make sure not to dress the child until she’d inevitably thrown up.

Flank followed me up to the office. I expected to find Simon, surrounded by public relations and publicity people, in a frenzy of activity, but the room was empty. “Where is everybody?” I asked.

Flank tapped his earpiece and mumbled into his sleeve. Then I think he said “Box office.” I considered asking him to take out his gun and repeat himself, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Look,” I told him, “I’m going to lie down with a cold compress on my eyes for about twenty minutes, okay? So don’t worry about me. Go get something to eat or something.”

Flank looked doubtful, but he nodded and left.

Quiet. Solitude. Bliss.

I soaked some paper towels at the water cooler, squeezed them out, and lay down on the couch with the wet compress over my eyes. It was hardly a day at Elizabeth Arden, but it would have to do.

I wished I’d paid more attention at those meditation things Brenda had taken me to over the years. It would be nice to be able to summon a quiet mind whenever I wanted to. Of course, it would also be nice to summon a cast that wasn’t full of drug addicts, porn stars, and possible killers. The only one with any real talent was Regan, and she was only using us to cover up her past.

Nevertheless, she was a damn good actor. And I was having a harder and harder time casting her in the role of Macbeth’s accomplice. Whoever was running things now, aside from being a sociopath, would have to be intelligent, organized, efficient, and capable of managing multiple operations simultaneously, all while keeping his or her identity a secret. As talented as Regan was, she just didn’t seem that smart.

I took a deep breath and tried to put it all out of my thoughts until after the performance.

My mind drifted to Paris’ little outburst. I knew tension was running high, but did he really resent the fact that I didn’t get into the technical details of putting on a production? Did everyone? Even Lisa knew where the electrical stuff was, and she was the newest staff member at the Rep. Martha probably hated me too. I hadn’t even cared enough about her costumes to go see that fabulous closet I’d bought for her.

I felt queasy. It wasn’t nerves. Nerves make me hungry. This was the kind of queasy I get when I wake up in the middle of the night and realize I’ve forgotten something, or said something tactless, or done something stupid. What? What had I forgotten? If it was anything important it would be on Chip’s three-page checklist, but still. Queasy.

Was it something about Chip? He’d speak up if there was anything wrong. Simon? He’d lost all sense of perspective, but he always did on opening night. Paris? The sets were fine, even if he was furious with the lighting director, and maybe me. Martha? Something about Martha. There was something nagging me about Martha, but I couldn’t pin it down.

Then another name popped into my head. Lisa. No problems with Lisa, of course. She was amazing. No matter how many things Chip and I passed off to her, she could handle them. Hiring her had been Chip’s smartest move ever.

I took the compress off and sat up. When exactly had Chip hired Lisa? I had no real idea. Sometime while I’d been gone, but when? My gaze wandered past the battered desk to the file cabinet. It would be easy enough to find out.

I sighed and threw the compress away as I crossed the room. I opened the drawer marked
Staff
, pulled Lisa’s file, and took a look.

The date seemed to rise off the page, burning itself into my vision. I still saw it after I shut the file, dropped it back into place, and closed the drawer.

Chip had hired Lisa just before I’d come home from London. Just before Cece had been kidnapped and Nancy had been killed. Just after Macbeth’s death.

I shivered. Where was Chip? I needed to ask him about Lisa. Had he known her before she showed up at the theater? If so, I was out of my mind and Lisa was just an extremely competent professional. But if he hadn’t…

Seriously, where was Chip? This close to curtain he could be anywhere. I braced myself and called his cell phone. He didn’t pick up and I didn’t leave a message. I couldn’t think of one that wouldn’t make him doubt my sanity.

This was crazy. I should file it away and tell Jack about it after the performance. What else was I going to do? Ask Chip if he thought maybe he’d unintentionally hired a psychotic killer? Or pull Lisa aside and drill her with questions during the most hectic two hours of her career?

Yes. That’s what I was going to do.

I dialed her number. She picked up immediately. “Lisa,” she said briskly.

“Lisa, it’s Charley.”

“No!” she shouted. “Not there! Stage right!” She turned her attention back to me. “Charley, what’s up?”

Damn. She was in the middle of chaos. I shouldn’t do this. “Lisa, I need to speak to you in private. Where are you?”

There was a slight pause. “Right now I’m on my way down to the costume shop with Victor’s shoes.”

Victor’s shoes! I slapped my forehead. That’s what had been nagging me about Martha. She needed to get Victor’s shoes fixed before the curtain went up.

“Charley? You still there?”

“Still here,” I said. “Look, I’ll meet you in the costume shop, okay?”

“’kay.” She hung up.

The short conversation made me feel better. Criminal masterminds do not say “’kay” when confronted by their accusers. Not that I was accusing her of anything yet.

“Oh, hell,” I said to the empty room. “Hell.”

***

I headed downstairs and saw most of the crew and some of the actors milling around the buffet table, scarfing down little croissant sandwiches and cheese cubes on sticks. I headed for the basement.

I could hear Paris in the workshop yelling at someone. I was a little worried about that. We had three more plays to get through this season. He couldn’t have a breakdown for months.

When I got there, the costume workshop was empty and I felt ridiculous. I didn’t even know how to approach Lisa. I didn’t think “Hey, did you ever know a spy who really hated my husband?” would set the right tone.

I looked around the shop, wondering if Lisa had been waylaid by yet another crisis. The costumes were all up in the cast’s dressing rooms, so there were just odds and ends lying around. And a pair of men’s shoes—Victor’s. Damn. Lisa must have already come and gone. She was probably so busy she couldn’t wait around for me.

All right. Enough. This was some cosmic way of telling me to forget about it until after the performance. I looked around the room one last time and noticed the closet door was open. Great. With as many pains as Martha had taken to create a sealed environment, I didn’t imagine she’d like the door left open.

I went over to close it and hesitated, suddenly queasy again. The other door, the one inside the closet, was visible beyond the Elizabethan dresses, and it too was open slightly. Martha had said it led to an electrical room, but I’d seen that afternoon that the electrical stuff was mounted on the backstage wall. Of course, Paris was right, and I didn’t know anything about anything, so it was likely that there was more electrical equipment in the room behind the closet. Generators or boilers or something.