Reign (23 page)

"The machine's out of Coke," he went on, holding out a can for Curt to take.

Although Curt felt incapable of motion, he saw his hand reach out and grasp the can, and felt the cold. The sensation steadied him, and he nodded at Evan. "Thanks," he heard himself say harshly, and cleared his throat.

"Pretty dusty down here," Evan said, acknowledging Curt's roughness of voice.

"Yes . . . it is. Maybe we've been down here long enough. We can finish this next week." He tucked the clipboard under his arm and let a cold jolt of the soda sear his throat. "Have you seen our recreation area?" he asked Evan, thinking that an exit from the tunnel in that direction would keep him from once more passing the dark mouths of the bays.

"Not yet."

"Come on then, I'll show you," he said, and led the way out of the tunnel.

What he had seen, he told himself, had to be an hallucination. He had been working too long without a break, maybe thinking too much about Tommy
Werton's
death, and, finding himself alone in a particularly eerie place, and in a morbid state of mind, that mind had just overloaded its circuits and shown him something that did not, could not exist outside the network of ganglions in his brain. Simple as that.

The only alternative was that there were ghosts, and Curtis Wynn had never believed in ghosts. He had spent over half of the thirty-eight years of his life in theatres, a good many of which were reputed to be haunted, and not once had he ever seen anything inexplicable by natural means, not once had he felt the presence of any creatures other than human.

Hallucination, then. A visit home was just what he needed, and he decided to leave early.

~ * ~

As soon as Curt and Evan stepped into the basement hall and closed the door to the storage area behind them, the musty odor was replaced by that of chlorine. "Smell that?" Curt said. "The pool. Right around the corner. But in here . . .” He crossed the hall and opened a door. "A bowling alley, shuffleboard court, even quoits, if anyone is still into that."

"Very thirties, huh?" Evan said, grinning at the large room. Although he had never played quoits, he had bowled often while in the Marines, and had enjoyed shuffleboard at several of the boarding schools he had attended, even though it was considered a retiree's game.

"In here," Curt went on, sliding open a pair of paneled doors, "are pool tables and card tables. Kirkland's bridge club met here some years ago. Dennis had the pool tables' surfaces recovered." Evan nodded appreciatively. The tables were elegant, with legs of polished mahogany and large net pockets rather than ball returns. But he had little time to examine them closely, for Curt led the way immediately out another door and across the hall, from where the chlorine smell came.

"The pool," he said as he passed through the doorway. "Six lanes. We use this a lot. You have a suit?" Evan nodded. "You may want to give it a try today then. It's heated, of course. The locker rooms are through there." He gestured toward a door at the deep end of the pool. "Come on — it goes through to the gym."

"A gym too? You've got everything here."

Curt shrugged. "It was a community center. And the man who ran the community was generous."

As they passed through the men's locker room, down the rows of dark green metal lockers, Evan pictured it as it must have been over half a century before — the laughing, sweaty bodies of businessmen, sated with their Saturday luncheon at the local Rotary, casting off their inhibitions with their suits and ties, becoming kids again, splashing about in the pool David Kirk had given them. But this picture of aquatic felicity was banished by the sight that met his eyes as they walked into the spacious and well-appointed gym.

Terri Deems, clad in a leotard and Reeboks, was driving the flywheels of a rowing machine to a state of frenzy. Her short red hair was plastered to her forehead, and sweat darkened the light green fabric between her breasts. When she saw the two men, it seemed to startle her. She broke her rhythm, then took two more long strokes before she relaxed, letting the machine come to a rest with a long hum of gears.

"You two met?" Evan asked.

"Yesterday," Terri said.

"So," Evan said smiling, "you're into exercise.”

“I'm
into
not dying an early death, that's all.”

“Things slow upstairs?" said Curt, crossing his arms.

"
Marvella's
in one of her solitary moods — she can't stand the sight of me right now."

"If I remember right," Evan said, "most of the time
Marvella
can't stand the sight of
anyone
in her shop." Terri gave a sour smile.

"Well, the five dollar tour is over," said Curt. "I'm going to take our list to the office, then get out of here." He started to move toward the door, but Evan didn't follow. Curt turned back, gave him a look half-amused and half-pitying, and nodded. "Happy Thanksgiving. See you both next week." Then he was gone.

Jesus
, thought Evan,
is it so obvious?
Well, if it was it was. He was simply not capable of walking away from Terri Deems without an overwhelming reason. "So," he began, "how did you come to work for
Marvella
?"

"Your father used to date my mother," she said, without the trace of a smile. The answer took him by surprise, and he gave a chuckle that he was sure sounded as uncomfortable as it felt. "I'm sure there was more to it than that."

"Really? And how did you get
your
job?"

He felt his face redden. "I, uh, I had some connections too."

She shrugged. "Makes the world go round, doesn't it."

"Look, um, would you like to have some lunch?"

“Why?”

God
damn
it, but she was cold. "Well, it's almost noon, and I thought you might be hungry."

"I brought my lunch, thanks.”

“Maybe dinner?"

"I eat dinner at home."

"A movie?"

"I don't think so." There was not a hint of apology in her voice. Evan knew that any further attempt would be useless.

"Okay, well . . . I'll be seeing you." He gave a half-hearted wave and left the gym. Outside the door he paused and listened to the rowing machine crank up immediately. God, what an impression he must have made on
her
— not even a moment of contemplation for the poor
putz
who tried to date her. Nope, just pump that machine and feel the burn. Hell.

He decided to go watch the television in his suite and think about ways to look sexy.

~ * ~

Hot shit bastard
, Terri thought, trying to punish the machine by yanking the oars out of their cradle.
Just because his old man runs the place, he thinks he's got free and easy access to all the help. Fuck that
.

She stopped her rowing, thrust the oars from her, and sat with her head down, watching the sweat trickle from the hollow of her throat down onto her chest. Dennis Hamilton's kid. Just the person she
didn't
need in her life. She was angry at her mother, and she was angry at Dennis as well for having loved Ann, and for maybe still loving her, and she was
goddamned
if she was going to have anything to do with his kid.

Even if he
was
as cute and charming as hell.

Even if she
did
, in spite of herself, like him.

~ * ~

She likes the boy. She'd like to have him, I'll wager, have him between her legs, making her sweat even more.

Sweat.

God, look at her sweat.

But that's nothing to how I'll make her sweat. Christ's jewels, I'll make her MOAN and sweat, sweat blood before I'm done with her, the little whore.

Sweat.

And blood.

Blood
.

Thanksgiving passed. The core of people who comprised the New American Musical Theatre Project sated themselves on turkey for several days, then, slightly logy, returned to their jobs. Dennis and John Steinberg agreed that
Craddock
was a good choice for the first show, and the premiere was set for the following May. Though December was looked upon as the calm before the storm, there were still things to do.

Steinberg and Donna began to draw up the agreements, while Dennis and Robin discussed what revisions the composer and writer should be asked to make. Ann Deems arranged to have auditions held at the
Minskoff
Studios in Manhattan in mid-February, and Curt and Evan finished their inventory of the cellar. Though occasionally alone there, Curt saw nothing out of the ordinary, to his great relief.

The final two weeks of rehearsal for
Craddock
would take place, not in New York, but in the Venetian Theatre itself, and the performers and crew would lodge in the theatre building itself. While some of the dormitory rooms on the fourth floor would be converted into suites for Dex, Quentin, and the writers, others, along with the former hospital rooms on the fifth floor, would simply be enlarged and furnished in a non-opulent manner that would keep Broadway gypsies and the stage crew at least content. It had taken John Steinberg much time and effort to get permissions from Actors' Equity and I.A.T.S.E., the stagehands' union, to give their people what was basically dormitory housing, but the project promised to give so many people work that the whole theatrical community was solidly behind it, and the powers that be were willing to bend the rules a bit to get the fledgling out of its nest.

The fifth floor had been untouched for many years, and it was that large, ex-hospital area that was Abe
Kipp's
concern this early December morning. Although the iron bedsteads and wooden chairs had long since been removed to the Kirkland General Hospital that had been built in 1940, musty mattresses remained in each room. An antiquated table still sat in the center of each of the two operating theatres, and a few desks on the verge of collapse made up the remainder of the furniture. There were still porcelain sinks and lavatories in each examination room and ward room, unsalvageable, their once white finishes now faded to the yellow of rheumy eyes, and stained by years of mineral deposits from the springs that had made David Kirk's fortune. Even a few trolleys stood as they had for decades, crippled forever by the loss of wheels.

"Fuckin' mess," Abe
Kipp
observed. Years before he had used the place to hide out and goof off, but gave up on it because there were too many stairs to climb. Besides, the place had an odor he didn't like. The old mattresses were part of it, but it was more than just that. It smelled like something metallic, yet sour and organic at the same time, as if a mouse had died behind the wall. Only the smell never went away as the mouse dried up. Abe had searched for its source, but had never found it. It just seemed to come from everywhere.

He shook his head as he thought about those actors living up here. "Better them than me," he muttered.
Maybe
, he thought,
after everything was all cleaned up and repainted, the smell would go away. It was probably in the fuckin' walls and floor. A coat of
paint'd
cover it up all right, sure it would
.

He found Harry
Ruhl
in the costume shop where he had sent him. The nigger had called Abe on the backstage phone and bitched about getting the waste cans emptied and the place mopped up, so Abe had sent Harry. Abe didn't like to work for the nigger. He didn't like niggers in general, and especially not that big fat Aunt Jemima on the fourth floor. She was sitting behind her sewing machine now, looking at Abe like he was something she found under a rock. "And what do
you
want?" she said.

Abe didn't answer right away. Damned if he was going to respond to
that
kind of talk. Who the hell did she think she was? He glanced around but didn't see Harry anywhere. Terri, the new girl, was in the corner fussing with some dress on a dummy. His gaze lingered on her body until she looked at him and he had to look away. Helluva nice set of knockers on her. She wouldn't have been at all out of place in one of his skin
mags
. "Where's Harry?" he finally said.

Marvella
jerked her head toward the door under the costume loft. "In the bathroom."

"You didn't say
nothin
' on the phone about
cleanin
' no bathroom."

"Wasn't my idea. Harry just figured long as he was up here he might as well clean it."

Holy hell, cleaning a nigger's bathroom. Sure, it had to be done from time to time, but actually doing it because he
wanted
to? Christ, if there wasn't any proof before that the kid was a retard, it sure as shit was here now. "Harry!" Abe bellowed, moving to the bathroom door. "What the hell are you
doin
'?"

Harry looked up grinning from the toilet bowl. "Just cleaning up, Abe.”

“You finished?"

"Almost."

"Well,
get
finished. I got something else for you. A really big job. Important.”