The Impaler (8 page)

“Doug and his crew,” Kiernan began, “busted their butts this week to get us onstage a day early, and now I have to take time out of rehearsal for this nonsense. In fact, in my twenty years as chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, tonight is the first time I’ve ever had to take time out of a rehearsal for something like this,
period
.”

Kiernan set down his notepad and leaned back against the stage—the tension-filled pause, the icy stare over his wire-rimmed spectacles as only George Kiernan could pull off. Jennings had witnessed his boss chew ass many times during his eleven-year tenure at Harriot. And even though he was genuinely angry, the technical director’s chest tingled with excitement.

“As you know,” Kiernan continued, “this isn’t the first time things have gone missing from the tool closet this year. And Doug and I are quite confident that the thief is sitting amongst you here tonight.”

The students shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“Doug and I are the only people with keys to the tool closet, and thus we’ve narrowed down the possible time frames in which the tools could have been stolen. That’s right. The belt sander, as well as the tools that went missing earlier this semester, appear to have been stolen during
your
regularly scheduled crew hours.”

Kiernan’s voice was calm and deliberate, but Jennings knew the eruption was coming soon. He exchanged a knowing glance with his assistant Edmund Lambert. Lambert was a good egg, Jennings thought—the only kid in the bunch whom he still trusted. Well, Lambert was hardly a kid anymore—mid-twenties, former Army specialist, and built like a brick shithouse. It was Lambert who brought the latest theft to his attention as he was closing up after yesterday’s stage scenery crew; Lambert who’d since gone to Best Buy
and installed the new webcam in the scene shop; Lambert who’d offered to sniff out the thieving bastard himself and teach him a little lesson “Screaming Eagle style.”

Doug Jennings felt a special kinship with his brother from the 101st Airborne. Both had done their stints out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky—Jennings in the mid-1980s; Lambert a few years ago. Finished up his bid with a tour in Iraq, saw the heaviest shit in Tal Afar, he said. Jennings kind of envied Lambert; saw him as a younger, leaner, meaner version of himself. Uncanny the way their lives paralleled each other: returning to school in their mid-twenties on the GI Bill; discovering their love of technical theatre later than most. And Doug Jennings didn’t regret taking his fellow Eagle under his wing. The past year had worked out great. He would have to give Lambert more responsibility now—get a key to the tool closet made for him and all that.

“I cannot begin to express how disturbed and disappointed I am by all this,” Kiernan said. “But what really burns my ass is the blatant disregard and betrayal of everything we here in the Department of Theatre and Dance stand for. And that’s
trust
. Whoever has stolen the items out of the tool closet has betrayed
all
of our trust. The trust we have in each other that everybody will do their job and work together toward a purpose greater than ourselves. What I’m talking about is having each other’s backs.”

Kiernan’s voice had grown steadily in speed and volume, his cheeks flushed, the perspiration beginning to break out like melting snow at the edges of his white receding hairline. And when he turned to retrieve his notepad from the edge of the stage, Doug Jennings knew the moment had arrived.

“But now I turn around,” Kiernan said over his shoulder, “and someone sticks a knife in my back.
Again
, goddammit!”

The theater was deathly quiet, the echo of the chair’s voice petering out into the stifled sobs of the female lead.
The rest of the students sat with their eyes focused on their laps. They were scared, Jennings could tell, and that made him feel better.

“Now here’s what’s going to happen,” Kiernan said, his voice once again calm and measured. “Not only have we installed a new security camera in the scene shop, but the Greenville Police have already begun dusting for fingerprints. Harriot University is treating this as a criminal act that will be prosecuted. I will not only make sure that the thief or thieves are expelled, but have also made it my personal mission to see to it that they never work in the theatre again.
Period.
”

Kiernan paused to survey the crowd.

“However,” he continued, “I’m leaving the door open for the thief or thieves to return the stolen items anonymously outside my office when no one is around. If that happens, all will be forgotten. If not, then rest assured we will find out who did this. And when we do, justice will be swift and merciless. Now get moving and get focused. We go in ten minutes.”

Like a cluster of cockroaches, the students scattered from the theater in a whoosh. Jennings retrieved his boss’s notepad and accompanied him up the aisle to the back of the theater.

“You think Greenville PD will find anything?” Jennings asked.

“Probably not,” said Kiernan, wiping his brow. “Fucking bunch of Keystone Kops. Thing I said about the fingerprints is bullshit. Just trying to scare them.”

“I know.”

“’Least now we got that webcam going twenty-four seven. Nobody’ll be able to get in or out of the scene shop without us recording it. Sad though that it has to come to this. Fucking times we live in.”

Jennings nodded.

“Listen, Doug, I know you got that thing with your son tonight. Why don’t you get going? No need for you to stick around here any longer on account of this bullshit.”

“You sure?”

“We got a week before we open. And Lambert’s going to be around, right?”

“Yeah. He was out sick a couple days last week—really bad, from what he says—but he busted his ass double time this past weekend. If it wasn’t for him, the trap mechanism wouldn’t have been finished. Wouldn’t have been able to give you the stage a day early, either.”

“Fine. Tell Doug Junior I said to keep cracking those books.”

“Will do, George. And thanks again.”

Kiernan nodded and began shuffling through his notes when Edmund Lambert emerged from the stage left vom. Jennings waved to him across the empty seats—pointed and gave him a thumbs-up to ask if everything was okay. Lambert gave a thumbs-up of his own, and with that Doug Jennings exited the theater.

The cool April air felt good on his face—chilled his pits and tickled the wetness in the cracks of his flab as he walked across the parking lot. He would not have time to shower and change into a fresh set of clothes, but that was just fine and dandy as far as he was concerned. He hated wearing a tie—that was a given—but at least now he’d have a good excuse when his wife started bitching at him in the junior high school auditorium. Good thing Lambert had been around to pick up the slack for him, too; at least now he’d get there on time.

“Yeah,” Jennings muttered as he slipped into his old pickup. “I gotta get that guy a key to the tool closet.”

Edmund Lambert watched the final scene of
Macbeth
from the wings. He stood just far enough offstage to stay out of sightlines and still get a good view of the trap. He didn’t care about the sword fight, and when it came right down to it, thought the whole climax of the play to be quite silly. He didn’t understand why the director had Banquo’s ghost come up from Hell, from underneath the stage to blow dust in Macbeth’s eyes as he was about to kill Macduff. That wasn’t in Shakespeare’s original—contradicted the very nature of fate, Edmund thought.

Then again, what could the director possibly know about fate? About ghosts and killing and witches and Hell?

The clang of swords rang out as Macbeth bellowed his final words:
“Lay on, Macduff; and damned be him who first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

The trap had worked perfectly from day one. Edmund had designed the mechanism and built it himself: a three-stepped platform on casters that split open down the middle to reveal a stair unit that allowed the actors to disappear into the electrics shop beneath the stage. A nice effect, Edmund
thought. He especially liked how, when someone died, the Witches would rise up to take the dead person’s spirit down “to Hell.”

Then again, he thought, getting into Hell was easy. It’s getting out that’s the tricky part.

Edmund also liked the design of the set very much: a two-tiered horseshoe with multiple entrances and a tall set of double doors upstage center that were intended to mimic the pattern on the oven doors at Auschwitz. However, instead of setting the play in Nazi Germany (which would’ve been perfect, he thought) the director had chosen to portray Mac-beth’s kingdom as a burned-out, post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Edmund thought this trite and juvenile—a poor man’s
Road Warrior
or something—but no matter. No, as long as the trap worked smoothly, that’s all he cared about.

And once the platform came apart and Banquo blew the dust in Macbeth’s eyes, Edmund stepped back into the offstage shadows feeling satisfied.

“You don’t want to see him get his head cut off?” asked the girl playing Lady Macbeth.

Edmund shrugged and took his seat by the pin rail. He’d never really spoken to her—only a few words here and there over the past year—but knew her name was Cindy Smith. She was in her rehearsal clothes, but had taken it upon herself to dress like the Witches—like a spirit to represent her descent into Hell. Edmund had overheard her during crew complaining about not being able to take her bow in her queen costume, and had thought her petty and as common as her last name for bitching about such nonsense.

Then came the cheer onstage signaling Macbeth’s beheading, and Cindy whispered, “There isn’t a sword in the world big enough to cut
that
guy’s head off.”

Edmund smiled and all at once thought better of her.

“Are you planning on going to the cast party?” she asked. “I don’t know if you know, but it’s after the show next Friday.
Don’t remember ever seeing you at any of the other ones this year. But anyway, you should come.”

“Not sure if I can,” Edmund said in his thick Southern drawl. “Gotten behind on things at home because of all the work here.”

“Well, I hope to see you there. I know you’re a little older, but the cast parties are pretty chill—not a bunch of drunk freshmen making fools of themselves if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Edmund nodded vaguely. A flourish was heard onstage, the signal that the newly crowned king of Scotland was about to give his final speech.

“Cindy!” hissed an assistant stage manager. “Get your ass to places!”

But Edmund knew the actress had a little more time; would only have to run down the vom stairs and into the electrics shop to get under the trap, from where she’d rise to take Macbeth’s spirit into Hell. In fact, she still had to wait for the end of that stupid dance number with the Witches—something the director had inserted at the last minute so that the actor playing Macbeth would have enough time to get back onstage in
his
spirit costume. And although Edmund hadn’t been around to hear it, word on the street was that Macbeth had put up even more of a stink about his bow than Cindy had.

“I gotta get moving,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll talk to you before then, but think about coming to the cast party next Friday, okay, Edmund?”

“Okay.”

Cindy smiled and disappeared into the darkness of the vom.

A short time later, Edmund caught her eye when she stepped out of the pit to meet the spirit of her dead husband. And whereas the young actress most certainly must have thought he was watching in the wings for her, all Edmund
Lambert really cared about was that the trap was working properly.

It was just after midnight when Edmund turned his old Ford F-150 down the long dirt driveway that led to his grandfather’s farmhouse. The sprawling, two-story rambler with the dilapidated front porch was set back about two hundred yards off a country road on the outskirts of Wilson, almost exactly halfway between the Harriot campus and downtown Raleigh.

Edmund’s grandfather had once grown tobacco here; had taken over the family business from Edmund’s great grandfather and made himself quite a killing in the sixties and seventies. And even though the tobacco fields had been barren and brown for a long time now, Edmund was glad his grandfather never caved in and sold the farm.

For now Edmund understood why.

He had lived with his grandfather all his life, but the house had only officially become his when he returned from Iraq, after his grandfather died and left him everything. That had been over two years ago now, but even then Edmund had understood that the timing was no accident.

It was just part of the equation. Everything connected.

And once he was safely past the stone pillars at the foot of his driveway Edmund Lambert was the General again.

He cut off the pickup’s headlights. He liked to return home this way—the crumbling silhouettes of the old tobacco sheds passing by him like a grim honor guard as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He parked the truck by the front porch and stepped out—took a deep breath and headed for the field behind the old horse barn. There hadn’t been horses in the barn for almost fifty years—only his van and his chin-up bar now.

The General wandered out to the middle of the field and
stopped—the moonlight, a wrinkled blanket of silver beneath his feet; the stars, a bag of scattered diamonds above his head. It hurt his neck to look at them tonight. He was tired, but anxious, too; felt that the crews and the building of the trap during the past few days had put him behind schedule. And then there were all the technical rehearsals coming this weekend. True, he’d called in sick a couple of days the week before—that had given him ample opportunity to take care of the lawyer—but little time to figure out who was to be next. Of course, the Prince wanted him to rest, but still …

Sighing, the General walked back to the house. Once inside he turned off the alarm and immediately reset it to STAY/ INSTANT. He’d had the alarm installed after his grandfather’s death just in case anyone should ever come snooping while he was busy in the cellar. But no one ever came snooping anymore. No relatives, no friends, no more men from Big Tobacco offering to buy the farm.