Scene Stealer (14 page)

Our bodies reeked of ketchup. I sneezed. One. Two. Three. Four times.

“Bless you,” Annalise said.

Lawrence Dunn used a liberal hand when he doused us with large dollops of the condiment. The rich, spicy sauce looked like gluey blood. Clammy liquid trickled down and seeped through my blouse. A large splotch attached itself to my good tweed skirt.

“Mr. Dunn.” I spoke softly. “Mr. Dunn, let us go. We would be more than happy to testify in your behalf.”

Dunn finished binding our wrists; ignoring my plea.

“Scream,” he hissed.

Annalise complied with a blood-curdling shriek. I followed suit. Dunn nodded in approval, straightened his back, strode to the door, turned slowly, faced us once more and, in a stage whisper, recited, “When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning or in rain?”

Annalise, with unwarranted enthusiasm—considering our circumstances—picked up the next line. “When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won.”

Actors! I would never understand actors; we were in grave danger and Annalise had joined Dunn in quoting The Scottish Play's witches.

Perhaps there was some basis for the old superstition. The title of The Scottish Play had been constantly mentioned and now Felicity Silk plotted our murder. I felt unsettled. The title did seem to be cursed.

Control yourself,
I thought sternly.
You are a rational woman. You don't believe in nonsense.

“Our play's end has gone awry.” Dunn resumed a pattern of speech that sounded remotely contemporaneous. “I shall have to improvise a new second act. If in my absence, Felicity returns…” Dunn took a long, dramatic pause. “Pretend you're dead!”

He turned off all but one light and locked the door. Annalise and I were alone.

Dunn hadn't murdered us. He must have doused us in ketchup to fool Felicity in case she returned to the room We sat on the damp floor, trussed like fowl; if Felicity returned, and realized his weak ruse, were we waiting to be butchered? Kevin. Had Kevin escaped? If someone didn't realize we were missing and notify the police, we would die in this basement.

I pictured Goldie swimming round and round his bowl. My poor fish would die too if he wasn't fed soon.

I flexed my hands; my wrists and ankles were bound with lash line that Kevin had told me was more commonly used for securing stage flats. The bindings were loose; I worked at slipping my wrists through them. Annalise sat propped against my back, struggling in much the same manner. Dabs of ketchup flew in all directions as we squirmed through the fastenings. We were a sorry sight but I doubted Felicity Silk would be fooled for long; we might appear to be mortally wounded but we smelled like a Big, Bad Burger.

The line fell from my hands; I untied my legs then helped Annalise. We stood—both wobbly as ninepins. Annalise, with the resilience of youth, recovered first.

“We need a weapon,” she whispered.

I produced the purloined dagger.

Annalise's face brightened then registered disappointment. “Macbeth's dagger;
Macbeth,
act 2, scene 1,” she said, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, I said the name of The Scottish Play again. The dagger is a prop. The knife collapses when it presses against the body.” She demonstrated by plunging the point into her chest. The blade disappeared, thankfully, into the hilt of the dagger. “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” Annalise couldn't resist the monologue. “The dagger toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.”

“Yes, dear. Very good. But we don't have time for recitations or superstitions.”

Our conversation ended abruptly as the click of Felicity's heels sounded above the storage room. A table crashed, glass splintered, a muffled sound that suggested a shriek followed a string of epithets then silence.

Annalise and I stared at each other. I was sure my eyes mirrored the fear in hers. Silence was more worrisome than the clamor.

“We shall start by stacking the tables and chairs and unlocking the trap door. When we hear Miss Silk's footsteps descending the stairs, we'll climb through the trap and make our escape,” I whispered.

“Are you sure?” Annalise doubted my agility.

I imagined she was counting the wrinkles that lined my face, as one would count the rings on a tree, to determine my age.

“Don't worry, dear. I'm quite spry,” I assured her and set to work lifting one end of the table. We performed our task as fast as we could; Felicity might return at any moment.

Annalise climbed atop the chairs and reached into her pocket for the key. After trying every other pocket in her jeans, she looked down at me shame-faced. “I forgot. I don't have the key anymore.”

I stifled an impatient sigh. Perhaps we could pry the lock open with a nail-file. I handed mine up to the child.

“It's too wide,” Annalise said. “Won't fit.”

“Back to square one.” I could not manage to hide my disappointment.

“Maybe there's something we can use resting in the prop trunk.” Annalise climbed down, agile as a monkey, and began searching through the jumble. “Nothing.” She stared at the trunk—nibbling at a fingernail—lost in concentration.

“Annalise, do not bite your nails. Put on your thinking cap.” I mentally discarded several ideas as unworkable and found myself fussing with a loose strand of hair. A hairpin pricked my thumb.

“The very thing. Most useful. I shall try my hand at picking the lock, Annalise.”

Before the child could think of a tactful way of saying I was too old to be standing on chairs, I managed to reach the lock. Annalise shoved Kevin's mattress under the trap: a cushion in case an old lady fell. I supposed I appeared ancient to the child.

My wiggling of the hairpin resulted in the same lack of success that Annalise had achieved.

“Hot spit! Excuse me, Miss Weidenmaier.” Annalise held up a short length of wire and stretched out her arm to hand it to me. I diddled the wire back and forth while Annalise resumed her quest for a defensive weapon.

A sudden rush of excitement surged through my body. I enjoyed a momentary feeling of elation; I had jimmied the lock.

“I found it, Miss W!” Annalise said. “The glue gun; I'll connect it, then we'll have a weapon.”

The tread of heavy footsteps. A man's steps. We froze.

Perhaps it was the police…I was brought back to reality when I remembered Lawrence Dunn was still in the theatre. The man might have defied Felicity, but he was erratic; we could not lower our guard.

“Are they Dunn's?” I whispered.

“I can't tell,” Annalise said. “His walk depends on the character he's portraying.”

The trap, used in The Scottish Play, complained. A harsh grating sound like nails scraped across a blackboard. A muscle in my left leg contracted; a twinge of fear, I thought. Mesmerized; eyes riveted to the ceiling, I watched motes of sawdust drift through the stale air. Was it my imagination or had the trap dropped below stage level, one side slightly lower than the other? A penny slipped through a slit-sized space, hit the edge of the top chair, slid to the table and dove to the floor of our cell where it began to roll. It rolled past the mattress, past the boxes and chairs, gathered speed as it fled only to be stopped when it struck the locked door. The penny rebounded, spun in dizzy circles, then fell, face down.

Norman Bottoms put his lewd remarks to a fresh-faced production assistant on hold while he sprayed a liberal amount of cinnamon-flavored, breath freshener into his mouth. He gargled, then spit into the small basin she held under his plump jowl.

“Kiss me, sweetie,” he said. “I'm pure.” He flashed a mouthful of perfectly capped teeth and bent his head toward hers.

The girl ducked, familiar with his nightly routine. She heard him snicker as he strode out of the wing to the stage and made his entrance.

“Listen up, everybody.”

“We're listening, Norman.”

“America is really
Hitting Bottom
tonight.”

“Yeah! Bottom. Bottom. Bottom!” The applause sign lit. The audience erupted into cheers, hisses and applause.

“Have we got a show for you tonight,” Norman continued. He studied the faces of the people sitting closest to the stage. Yeah, he thought, piece of cake. Tonight he would have them eating out of his hand. The hottest talk-show host to hit the tube in years.

Norman walked toward his desk, the camera followed. “Bend your ears, folks, we'll spend a few minutes talking with my first guest. How are you, sir? Or is it ma'am? Can't tell with that get-up. What's hiding under that sheet and dunce cap?”

“A man, Norman. A red-blooded patriot, a true American man.” The guest placed his meaty hand over his heart. “Norman, I want to thank you for inviting me here tonight. Not many men have the guts or brains to listen to what I have to say. I represent the backbone of America.”

“The backside of America,” a voice shouted from the audience.

Norman held up his hand.

His guest poured himself a glass of water and managed to slip it under the covering that hid his face. He continued, “The God-fearing, patriotic men and women who make this country great; thousands of true, red-white-and-blue Americans who want to be heard.”

Norman wasn't impressed. “Why don't you take off that sack—you'll be seen as well as heard.”

“Because, Norman, the enemy is watching; they know the power real Americans wield. They want to destroy us and take over America. They're watching; waiting for us to let down our guard. Never forget we are surrounded by enemies.”

“Who are they?” Norman asked. “Are we talking outer space here? A creature from Mars?” Boring, Norman thought, this jerk was bor-ing. His staff was gonna hear about this one. Damn it to hell, he wished Kevin Corcoran's kidnapper would pick up the phone and call in, already. When the slime-ball called his secretary that morning she'd told him to call any time, no need to reschedule. The boy was still hot news.

“Come on, Norman, you know who they are. We all know who they are. Look around you. You can see who has taken over America; our schools, our jobs. They're moving in on us, Norman. They're all around…”

“Hold it!” Norman Bottoms raised his hand and stopped his guest before he reached the end of his sentence. The show's floor manager was frantically signaling him to pick up the phone. He picked up the red telephone that sat in the center of his desk.

“You're
Hitting Bottom,
” he said, and from coast to coast, his bored television audience perked up and paid attention.

Lawrence Dunn cleared his throat and addressed the largest audience of his performing life. “Canst thee, O cruel! Say I love thee not, when I against myself with thee partake? Do I not think of thee, when I forgot am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?”

Jesus, Bottoms thought, his wish had been granted. Listening to Kevin Corcoran's kidnapper, even a con artist, would be a lot more entertaining than the same old run-of-the-mill bigot. Bigots could be heard on any talk show.

At that point, every line on the switchboard at police headquarters flashed with impatience. “911,” the telephone operator said, and with a practiced hand, popped open a roll of antacid tablets.

“Bingo!” The police sergeant, monitoring the program, put down his bag of potato chips and mug of reheated coffee and buzzed Lieutenant Brown.

Lieutenant Brown turned on the television set that had lived in his office longer than anyone could remember, used to track breaking news and daily soaps.

“Don't conk out on me, sweetheart. Not tonight.” A picture popped onto the screen: Norman Bottoms, holding a phone to his ear, while the voice on the other end was piped into the studio for all there—and all those watching—to hear.

 

“What the…?” Norman Bottoms glared at his floor manager, certain the wrong call had been patched through.

The manager shrugged, shook his head and pointed toward the control booth.

“Make your point, fella.” Norman Bottoms loosened his tie and ran his index finger around the inside of his shirt collar. “Where's Kevin Corcoran? Why did you grab the kid?”

“Look, what is done cannot be now amended.”

“You sorry you took Kevin?” Norman counted points. His ratings would soar tonight whether this creep calling in was phony or not.

Lawrence Dunn allowed himself a gentle cough and tried to continue. “Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes, which after hours give leisure to repent.”

“Stop that phony, baloney English lingo,” Norman Bottoms said. “Give it to us straight.”

Repentance, Norman thought. Not a bad idea. He would do a show on sin and repentance. “You're confessing! Right?” The moron was confessing on national television. A first for
Hitting Bottom!
A first for any talk show. Eat your heart out, Letterman, eat your heart out, Oprah. Norman extended his tongue and barely restrained a derisive raspberry meant for Leno.

 

In the precinct, Lieutenant Brown slammed a batch of papers against his desk. “Make that location. Fast! Trace that call before that idiot Bottoms loses him for us.

“An actor,” Brown said to himself. “An actor. That figures.”

 

Dunn paused, and thought about hanging up. Would Bottoms dare to talk to Olivier this way? Olivier would disconnect, as would Gielgud and Richardson. But their place in theatrical history was assured. The like of Norman Bottoms would be beneath their contempt. He, on the other hand, had just begun to reach his audience. No. Lawrence Dunn would not allow this illiterate, ill-mannered clod to rend the silken bonds spun between a great actor and his public.

“Hey, Bozo? You still on the line?” Bottoms asked.

“Varlet! Knave! Rascal! If thou dost dare interrupt this player again,” Dunn said, “I shall leave your stage never to return.” He composed himself, then took a breath that emerged as a sigh. “For you, my dear Felicity, though you no longer hear my voice. Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle; mild as a dove, but neither true trusty; brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is brittle; softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty.”

“Who's this broad, Felicity?” Norman Bottoms asked. “Your accomplice?”

 

“Felicity,” Lieutenant Brown said. “Felicity Silk.”