Reign (57 page)

"Seven o'clock call," Curt said.

"Fine. Dennis? Anything you'd like to add?"

Dennis stood up and faced the company. "I'd just like to thank you all. You've done a wonderful job in a very short time. You've given up some shows that might have advanced your careers in order to do this . . .” He chuckled. “. . .
extremely
short run . . .”

The company laughed, and one wag called out, "You paid for it, Dennis!" making them laugh again.

"I guess I did," he said, and the look on his face ended the laughter. "But thank you all anyway. I appreciate it. I'm sure tomorrow night will be fine. Thank you all, and break a leg."

On their way to the car, Ann clutched his arm, grateful for the nearness of him, happy for his success. "You must be tired," she said.

"No. Surprisingly enough, I'm not. I feel good. I feel so good I'm almost afraid of it."

"Don't be. You were wonderful tonight, and you'll only be better tomorrow.”

“I'll try," he said, and suddenly she was afraid, hearing his own fear, and wished the next night had already come and gone.

Abe
Kipp
had found God again. He had forsaken Him in Europe, after he had seen his friends die, seen what war did to people. After the Big One, he had wanted nothing more to do with God.

But now Abe had changed his mind. He had been raised Roman Catholic, but had never been serious enough about the faith to seriously become a practitioner of the art of guilt. Only the aftermath of Harry
Ruhl's
death had done that for him, and he went to confession after several weeks of self-condemnation, entering the booth as though it were a euthanasia chamber.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." He remembered the words, not from experience, but from the movies.

"How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"

That was a toughie. He quickly subtracted in his head. "Thirty-five . . . no, make that forty-five years, Father."

There was a short silence from the other side of the screen. "Forty-five years, my son?"

Abe thought for a moment, and gave the church the full truth. "Actually nearer fifty, Father."
A half century of absolution
, thought Abe.
By the time I'm done, I could be dead of old age
.

But Abe didn't let the time element stop him. He told the priest everything he could remember, fifty years worth of sins, ending with the tormenting that had driven Harry
Ruhl
to his death.

The priest gave him absolution. Though Abe didn't see how a few spoken words on the priest's part and a few more spoken on his own could save his soul from hell, he was quite willing to go along with the deal, and felt much better as he left the church.

He felt better for all of three hours, until he tried to go to sleep, and the guilt came back to torture him again, robbing him of sleep, making his stomach feel cold with a coldness that neither whiskey nor tea could warm.

After he found Cristina dead, he thought that might be the end of it, that it might have been God's way of punishing him, by taking one of the only things that he loved and killing it. But after a while, he didn't think that God would really do that, especially if the priest said that he was forgiven.

Abe enjoyed the time away from the Venetian Theatre, after Mr. Hamilton had decided to close the place up and go back to New York. He watched a lot of television and read some books, since when he did those things he couldn't think about what had happened at the theatre. When Mrs. Deems called and told him when they would be coming back, he discovered that he did not want to return to the theatre, because, as he had learned to believe in God again, so he had also learned to believe in the existence of something else supernatural, the very things with which he had teased Harry
Ruhl
.

Abe
Kipp
had learned to believe in ghosts.

It made no difference that he had been working in the Venetian Theatre for decades and had never seen a trace of evidence of the reality of spirits. That was then and this was now, and Abe, his shell of materialism cracked by Harry
Ruhl's
death and his resultant reacceptance of his childhood faith, felt the same fear at being alone in the theatre as he had forty years before when Billy Potts had told him the ghost stories for the first time . . .

They'll come
ta
getcha
, Abe, don'tcha turn yer back. They'll
getcha
sure you don't watch out and be careful and say yer prayers and carry a cross
. . .

And he had carried a cross, in spite of his disbelief after the war, a little gold one that had belonged to his mother. And each time he went into the theatre alone he had said prayers to a god in whom he did not believe, and looked over his shoulder a thousand times a day, looked for the Big Swede . . .

His head 'n chest's all messed up, crunched by that sandbag 'at kilt '
im
. He got
jes
half a face, I seen it
oncet
, and the half
thet's
left smiles at ya when he tries to push ya
offa
the flies down
onta
the stage where he died
. . .

. . . looked for the Blue Darling . . .

She's so damn pretty you think it's a little girl got lost and is lookin' for her mama, wears a pretty blue dress and got pretty blue eyes, and she reaches out to take yer hand, but don't you let her. She touched me
oncet
, and her hand was
jes's
cold as the grave
cuz
'
at's
where she's from, come to see
aVaudeville
' n fell
offa
the balcony
. . .

. . . looked, especially, for Mad Mary, the worst of all . . .

Just lookin' at her makes ya half crazy
yerself
. She was a actress whose boyfriend left her 'n she found out about it here in this theatre 'n she waited after the show till everyone else left and then she hanged herself
offa
the balcony where them flats are. I knew the guy who found her, an' he said her
hair'd
turned all white and her eyes were
poppin
' out and even though she was dead she still looked crazier 'n hell, 'n all she wants
ta
do is get revenge on the man who left her, but she's so crazy she thinks any man is the one. So watch out
fer
her sure,
cuz
she's the only one who can really scare ya t' death
. . .

They were ghost stories, just the kind of ghost stories that get told in any old theatre. And for a while, before he found out what a rummy and a horse's ass Billy Potts was, Abe had believed them. But after a few months of getting to know both Billy and the theatre, he realized that the horrors of Anzio had been far greater than any ghosts of little girls or crazy ladies or stagehands who had been dumb enough to hang themselves over some man, or fall off a balcony, or get themselves under a falling sandbag at just the wrong moment. A bunch of dopes, that was all those ghosts were, and he had stopped believing in them.

Until forty years later, when he started to believe, not only in them, but in Harry
Ruhl's
ghost as well.

Ghosts came back for good reasons, didn't they? That's what all the stories said. And no ghost could have had a better reason for coming back than
Harry's
. Abe had been the one who had driven Harry to his death. He had died aching and in torment, and it followed that his spirit must be restless, still floating or walking or however the hell ghosts got around, near the place it had died.

And why was it still here? Because, Abe thought, it wanted to get him, to haunt him, scare him, maybe even scare him to death, Abe's life for his own.

Now the damn thing was, Abe told himself, that he should just stay out of the theatre from now on. But he couldn't. He had paid back God for his sins with his Hail
Marys
and acts of contrition, and it had gotten rid of some of the guilt. But not all. The only way he was going to get rid of the rest of it was to pay back Harry
Ruhl
. And the only way to do that was to be where Harry
Ruhl
could . . .

Not get
a hold
of him. Abe hated the sound of that.
Get in contact
was better. Maybe if Abe saw
Harry's
ghost, he could tell Harry how sorry he was, and maybe Harry would go away, get out of Abe's head, leave him the hell alone. Abe couldn't live with the bad thoughts and dreams any more. He had to do something, had to tell Harry how sorry he was. And the only way he could do that, he thought, was to be where Harry had died.

He didn't go up to the old operating room. That was one thing he
couldn't
do. He knew he'd start to blubber and cry and break down before he got within fifty feet of the place. But he could be in the theatre. He could do that much. And if Harry wanted to see him — or have him see Harry — well then he could.

Abe constantly looked for Harry when he was alone in the place, which wasn't too often. Mrs. Deems had hired two temporary custodians to help Abe. They were young fellows, one of them a college graduate who hadn't been able to find a teaching job, and the other a kid who reminded Abe of himself when he had started, just out of the service. They were nice and considerate, always asking him what he would like them to do next after finishing a job, instead of goofing off somewhere. Abe felt pretty sure that Harry
Ruhl
wouldn't show up as long as they were around.

So he went off by himself on solitary jobs, going in to the once hated restrooms, cleaning their stark surfaces, bare tiles, a deed that was a subconscious penance for what he had done. Harry
Ruhl
had spent many hours, and, amazingly enough, happy ones in these toilets, polishing, wiping chrome until it gleamed. The rooms were filled with reflections, and often Abe fancied that he saw the image of movement behind him, but when he turned around, nothing was there except his own face, gawking at him from the mirrors, or curved and distorted by the plumbing fixtures.

Once, when he was using a urinal, he was looking at the chrome collar atop the porcelain, amused by his face as seen through a fish eye, when suddenly he saw another face over his shoulder and twisted his head around, dribbling the final droplets of urine on the side of the receptacle, the wall, and his pants leg.

No one was there.

He cleaned up the urine, cursing, then asking God to forgive him for cursing. All the rest of the day, he felt as though he was being followed by a playful child, remaining perfectly behind him, turning when he turned, dodging out of sight in mirror-like synchronization with every rearward motion he made, until he began to whisper, "C'mon, Harry, stop fu . . . messin' around . . .” After that, the sensation was gone.

And now here they were, Abe and his two helpers, the night before the performance, with everyone else gone home, cleaning up the backstage area, emptying the wastebaskets, cleaning the toilets, picking up the tissues thick with cold cream. Abe had seen several actors removing their makeup with the tissues, and thought it seemed like wiping off your face, an image that made him distinctly uncomfortable, as did the mirrors on both sides of the dressing rooms, mirrors that he feared to glance into as he cleaned up the mess, thinking that somewhere in those long rows that stretched to infinity, there was Harry
Ruhl
and the Blue Darling and the Big Swede and Mad Mary, and if he looked down those rows of reflections long enough, they would slowly stick out their heads, and their bodies would follow, and they would walk impossibly down those rows toward him, and if he turned his head the other way they would still be there in the other mirror, and there would be no escape, nowhere he could look where he would not see them.

"Shit," he murmured. "Oh, shit . . .” He gazed into the mirrors as if willing them to cast forth their shadowy occupants, but saw nothing. He finished his cleaning, said good night to his helpers, then put on his jacket and went out the stage door. As it closed behind him, he stopped, turned around, and looked up at the massive stone wall looming over him.

"What are you waiting for, Harry?" he asked the theatre, asked the night. "What are you waiting for? Judgment day?"

Friday, the day of the performance, began bright and clear, but slowly darkened outside as well as in as it became a logistical nightmare for Ann Deems and her temporary staff. Flights were delayed, throwing off the limousine schedule and necessitating the launch of more of the ungainly but luxurious vehicles. Several well-heeled investor/attendees showed up at their hotels with additional guests, who had not only to be found lodging, but seating where there were no seats available. Fortunately the last minute cancellations balanced the newcomers, who were only too happy to invest the required five thousand dollars per ticket.

Attending the performance had become a badge of honor among both the cognoscenti and the sensation seekers, and once the word had spread that tickets were available, they were sold out in less than a week. Many of the investors in
Craddock
, having been the first to be informed, were the first to buy tickets and thus invest in the following show. Many new investors were added, and over one hundred seats were sold to media representatives, among them all of the major tabloids. Even Larry Peach of the
Weekly Probe
would be there. His paper's headlines this week included, "CURTAIN UP ON NIGHTMARE!" and proceeded to review in as gory detail as was known the series of recent deaths at the theatre, along with the suggestion that there would be more to come, and if it did, their reporter would be on the spot for the next decapitation.