Reign (7 page)

The same designers who had determined the efficacy of the fire curtain's initial drop then planned for the curtain to fall the rest of the way more slowly, giving people trapped on stage just enough time to run beneath the ever diminishing opening until they were free of the threatening backstage conflagration, and could join in the panic of the audience. They would have been proud of their work this night. The curtain worked precisely as it had been intended to. At the rate of six inches per second, it sank toward the floor, heedless of the people pushing their way over seats, running down the aisles toward the steps to the stage, heedless of Tommy
Werton
lying unconscious on the floor, his head toward the audience, his heels toward the back wall, his neck at the precise spot where the fire curtain was inexorably descending.

It did its job, falling, falling, until all five tons of it rested firmly against the stage floor, ignoring what had tried to come between it and its goal, crushing the frail interloper of flesh, bone, and muscle. On the painting, the wine barrel soaked up a new, deeper vintage, and the drunken courtier grinned.

Ally
Terrazin
sat speechless, her mouth open, her eyes fixed on Tommy
Werton's
own open mouth, round and gaping like a beached fish gasping for air. But Tommy
Werton's
mouth was no longer connected in any way to his lungs. His mouth was separated, along with the rest of his head, from the torso that lay jerking on the other side of the fire curtain.

"See me die," Ally finally whispered.

Her date, half crouching at his seat, looked at her. She saw the horror in his eyes. "What?" he said harshly.

"Nothing . . . nothing."

Few people seemed to know what to do. Several men and women had tried to get to the stage in time to pull Tommy's body out of the way before the curtain fell, but only
Cissy
Morrison and Sid, who had been sitting together on the aisle, had even gotten as far as the marble steps that led to the stage when the fire curtain reached the floor. Sid had frozen for a moment, then twisted his head away, but
Cissy
, her gown hiked up to her knees, grasped the base of the curtain and vainly tried to pull it up. Immediately she ran behind the curtain, out of sight of the others. Sid shook his head and joined her.

By then, others had come to the stage, and a few ran toward the lobby in search of a telephone.
Marvella
Johnson sat, her dark complexion turned ashy-gray, and held her granddaughter Whitney's head against her massive breast. "Grandma, what
was
that? What
happened
?" the girl asked.
Marvella
, her throat awash with grief, could not reply. She could only sit and wish that she had sent Whitney upstairs as she had first intended.

No one knew what to do. They sat or stood in the theatre, sweating, mumbling, a few running out to the rest rooms as their stomachs rebelled against what they had seen. Sid found a drop cloth backstage and came onto the stage with it.
Cissy
, her arms crossed as if holding herself, frowned at him.

"What's that for?"

"I'm going to cover him up."

"The police or the coroner or whoever won't want anything touched,"
Cissy
said.

"The hell with them. We've got two hundred people out there watching.”

“And you're concerned with their sensibilities," she said dryly.

"I'm concerned with Tommy's memory. Okay?" Without another word, Sid covered Tommy's head with the cloth as gingerly as possible, trying not to change the position of the grisly artifact.

"I'm sorry, Sid,"
Cissy
whispered as he returned to her side.

"It's okay." Sid shook his head. "Jesus. Oh Jesus, what happened?" He squinted toward the booth high above. "And where the hell's Dennis?"

~ * ~

When Dennis pushed open the door of the booth, he saw both Curt and Robin looking wide-eyed out the narrow slits of windows to the stage far below. "What is it?" he said.

Robin turned her head in slow jerks, as if unwilling to look away from the stage. "Did you . . .” Her voice was harsh and breathless. "Did you call him?”

“Call . . . who?"

In reply, Robin gestured toward the window. Dennis came over and looked. Even though the distance to the stage was a hundred and fifty feet, he could easily make out the head and the splash of blood on the fire curtain. His legs trembled, and he would have fallen if Curt had not grabbed his arm. "Tommy . . . oh my God, Tommy . . . what happened," he husked out. "Curt, what happened?"

"The fire curtain fell," Curt said, his voice soft but, as always, in control. "Tommy was under it."

"We heard you on the speakers," said Robin. "You called him, didn't you? To the stage?"

"No, no . . . the mike doesn't work. It stopped down there. Oh Jesus, how could this have happened? Tommy . . .”

Curt reached out and took the microphone from Dennis. He flicked a switch, and a red light glowed on the object's base. "It's working now," he said, then put the mike down on a table, reached for the wall phone, and dialed 911.

~ * ~

Dennis, Robin, and Curt waited by the lobby doors for the police and an ambulance to arrive. The guests were packed in the lobby once more, with only Sid and
Cissy
remaining in the theatre proper. The police got there first, since the station house was only a few blocks away from the complex that housed the Venetian Theatre.

The local police chief introduced himself as Dan Munro. He was a stocky, pockmarked man in his late forties, with a perpetually frowning mouth under a bushy moustache. His gray suit fit him as well as any suit would that had not been tailor-made to his bulky form. He seemed more gruff than necessary, perhaps in an effort not to be intimidated by celebrity. His companion, a young, uniformed patrolman named Davis, stood a deferential yard behind his boss, looking tense.

"Did anybody leave yet?" Munro asked.

"Just a few," Robin said. "We asked people to stay until the police came, but some were just so sick and upset . . .”

"That's okay. We'll catch up with them later. Bill," Munro said, turning to the patrolman, "you stay at the front doors. I don't want anybody else leaving."

"I have a complete list of the guests I can give you," Robin said. "That way we don't have to keep them here."

Munro smiled tightly. "I'm afraid we do have to keep them here, Mrs. Hamilton. At least till the state police come and decide whether to let them go or question them first. They're in charge in a case like this."

"A case," Curt said softly. "But it was an accident."

"I'm sure it was. But they have to make sure of that. Now, if you'll take me to the body . . ."

Dennis led the way through the white-faced mob of celebrities. When he turned to make sure Munro was with him, he noticed that the man's gaze was darting here and there, lighting with recognition on one person, then another. Dennis felt no pleasure in the awe in which Munro involuntarily held his guests and, most likely, himself. He had long since ceased to be titillated by the ardor of fans. Besides, now was hardly the time for vanity.

~ * ~

Sid and
Cissy
, sitting in the fifth row, turned at the footsteps. Dennis made brief introductions, and Sid led Munro to the stage, where Munro knelt and gingerly pulled back the drop cloth. He cleared his throat, then let the cloth fall back over Tommy's severed head. "You put the cloth on?" he asked Sid.

"Yes."

"Move anything? Touch anything?"

"No. Nothing."

Munro pushed himself to his feet with a sigh. "Let's see the other side. You know how things work back here? The curtains and all?"

"A little, but Curt's the real specialist."

Munro looked down at the house. "Mr. Wynn? Would you come up here with us, please?"

The three men went behind the fire curtain and looked at the torso. "Curtain must be pretty heavy," Munro observed.

Curt nodded. "Heavy enough."

"Where's it drop from?"

"The pin rail. Over here." Curt led the way stage right.

"Anybody touch anything here?" Munro asked.

"No," Sid answered.

"This is the one." Curt pointed to a place on a long, heavy beam that ran the depth of the stage. A series of wooden pins the size of policemen's
billies
were placed vertically in the beam every twelve inches. Ropes were twisted around them, both above and below the rail. "That's the one that held up the fire curtain," Curt told the policeman.

Munro knelt and examined the wooden pin that lay on the floor. "So somebody pulls this pin, the curtain falls down?"

"Yes. With the other pins, you're really not supposed to pull them. You just loosen the rope until you can bring it down easily. But with this fire curtain, you want it to come down as fast as possible." He went on to explain the mechanics of the curtain to Munro, who nodded.

"So all somebody had to do was wait until this gentleman was out on the stage in the right . . . or the wrong place, and pull the pin."

"That's right," Curt said, "except that there was nobody back here but Tommy.”

“How could it have happened then?"

Curt took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "What could have happened was that he was getting ready to drop it — that's what was supposed to happen next — and maybe he pulled it out partway. Then he heard Dennis, came out onto the stage, and the pressure on the rope yanked it out the rest of the way."

"Wouldn't that have been kind of careless?" Munro asked, and Curt nodded. "You think Mister
Werton
would've done something like that?"

Curt thought for a second, then shook his head. "No. I don't. Tommy
Werton
was one of the most efficient techies I ever knew. He wasn't afraid of anything, but that was because he always did everything safely."

"Techies?" Munro asked.

"Technical people. Backstage types."

Munro nodded. "So the only way that curtain would've dropped is if somebody pulled the pin."

"Or," Sid put in, "if it was defective in some way." He looked at Curt. "Couldn't that be? A rope broke or something?"

"Doubtful," said Curt. "If it broke up above there'd still be rope around the pin, and the pin would still be in the rail. But we can check it."

"We'll take care of that," Munro said. "Now, you say the victim came out on stage when he heard Mr. Hamilton?"

Curt nodded. "Through the speakers."

"What did he want?"

"You'll have to ask him that."

"There was something peculiar about that," Sid said. "It was Dennis's voice . . . I think. But I don't think it was coming from the speakers."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, the speakers are fairly primitive in terms of placement. You can hear the directionality real easy, can point above to where the sound's coming from. It sounds artificial, as though it's not really from the stage. It's so bad Dennis is going to have a new system installed. But when I heard that voice calling Tommy on stage, it sounded . . .
better
somehow, like we already had a new system in, and the sound was coming from the front." Sid smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I don't know what that means, but it just struck me as odd."

"Okay," Munro said. "Fine. Now, where was everybody when this happened?”

“Everybody was sitting down front," Curt said, "except for me and Tommy. He was backstage, and I was up in the projection booth."

"At the time the curtain fell? Everybody was down in the seats?"

Curt frowned. "No . . . I'm not sure. The power started going crazy, the lights and sound system went on and off — at random, it seemed."

"Why?”

"I have no idea. I couldn't do a damn thing about it up there. I was checking connections as fast as I could, and then everything went off but a follow spot.”

“What's that?"

"A big spotlight up in the booth. It went on by itself. Next thing I knew the curtain had fallen, and when I looked down . . .” he shook his head. ". . . I saw Tommy.”

“Then what happened?" Munro asked.

"Robin came into the booth."

"What was she doing there?"

"She came up when the lights started going crazy."

"Anybody else?"

"Yes. Dennis came up too."

"How much later?"

"I don't know. A minute or two? Time seemed to do funny things. I guess it was a minute."

"After Mrs. Hamilton got there?"

"I guess. Maybe. I'm not really sure."

Munro turned to Sid. "Mr. Harper, you were in the audience when Mr. Hamilton left to go upstairs?"

"Yeah."

"How much time passed between the time he left and the time the curtain fell?”

“Oh Jesus . . . not long. Maybe a minute or two, like Curt says."

"Could've been two minutes?"