by Barbara Paul
It was beginning to look as if Foxfire was going to survive even this latest calamity. Then I came upon Hugh Odell, trembling and stammering and blaming himself for what had happened to Leo Gunn.
I decided to play tough. “Come on, Hugh, snap out of it. You’ve got another performance tonight.”
Hugh leaned forward over his dressing table and stared into the mirror. “Abby, I don’t remember this afternoon’s performance. I just walked through it. I don’t remember a thing about it.”
Oh boy. “Hugh, you’ve got to stop thinking like this. It’s morbid. You’re not the guilty one. You mustn’t let this maniac make you feel guilty—that’s exactly what he wants. You mustn’t give in. Resist!”
He looked at me distractedly, as if he were trying to make some sense out of what I was saying. “Resist?”
“Every minute of the day. It’s just too damned easy to start blaming ourselves for everything that’s happened. He wants us to feel guilty—don’t you see? Don’t give him the satisfaction.” I’m not Jewish and I’m not a mother, but I found myself falling back on food for solace. “Did you order anything to eat?”
Hugh shook his head. “Not hungry.”
When the food was delivered, I took the sandwich I’d ordered in to Hugh and nagged him into eating it. He was just finishing when Griselda Gold stuck her head through the door. “Abby. Better come.”
“Where?” I asked, but she was gone.
Some sort of argument was going on just inside the stage door. A small man with thinning reddish hair was trying to force his way in. He was yelling and excited. Both the doorkeeper and a guard were trying to calm him down. Griselda stared at the little man uncomfortably, not knowing what to do.
“What’s the trouble?” I asked.
“My name is Carl Banner,” the little man yelled, “and I demand you return my daughter to me!”
“Have we kidnapped her?”
“This place is not safe!” he screamed. “You’ve got a lunatic loose in here and you all just go on pretending nothing’s wrong!”
“Nobody’s pretending anything, Mr. Banner,” I said. “There are police all over the place. Carla’s well protected.”
“Like that guy who got his hand cut off?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Just then Carla came up, carrying her purse and a plastic shopping bag full of what I supposed were personal belongings. She was drooping in a posture of defeat, her eyes fixed upon the floor. “All right, Daddy, I’m ready.”
“Carla!” I said, shocked. “You’re not going with him? What about the performance? You can’t just walk out on us!” She moved her head back and forth miserably but wouldn’t look at me. “Carla, you signed a contract! You can’t leave us with no stage manager!”
“Let’s go,” her father snapped and turned on his heel. Carla shuffled after him, and they were gone.
We all stared at each other dumbfounded. Even the police looked stunned.
“Cancel?” said the doorkeeper.
“No,” I answered automatically. “Let me think.”
Earlier in the day I’d half-wanted to cancel a few performances, just to give everyone a chance to calm down a little. But now, something in me rebelled. It was too much. It was all just too much. The best play I had ever written, plagued by one goddamned thing after another. No, we were not going to cancel. No, we were not going to give in.
No.
I turned to our assistant director. “Griselda—”
“Not me,” she said quickly, her eyes huge. “I can’t. Don’t ask me, Abby. I don’t know how—I’ve never managed in my life. I don’t know how.” She was almost babbling. “Somebody else. Not me.” So Ms Supercool was going to panic in a crisis.
Unfair, I told myself. I meant I was being unfair. I had no right to ask Griselda to take over. Of course she’d panic at the thought of stage managing—her experience was limited and it was unrealistic to expect her to step into Carla’s shoes. Reluctantly I realized I’d have to do it myself.
There was, however, that little matter of the union. Tell union officials you’ll have to cancel a performance unless a nonunion worker is permitted to do a certain job, and they say Cancel. Theatrical unions don’t give a damn about the welfare of the theater. In my first professionally produced play I’d included a minor bit of business that required a lamp to be moved from one table to another between the acts. The union decided three able-bodied men on full pay were needed to perform that chore. I was so outraged I rewrote the part requiring the lamp to be moved. Whereupon the union informed us that no stagehands would be available unless we performed the first version. We performed the first version.
So if I stage-managed even one performance of Foxfire, the union would have my hide. Well, let them try. Right now I was feeling belligerent enough to take on the consolidated working force of the entire United States.
I announced my decision and sat down to study Leo Gunn’s cue sheets. Tiny came over and patted my shoulder and mumbled something in my ear. I was scared. The last time I’d managed a play was in my amateur-theater days, when the entire production had cost less than what Ian Cavanaugh earned for one performance of Foxfire. But one way or another, Foxfire would be performed that night. It had nothing to do with that show-must-go-on garbage; I was simply tired of being bullied.
When the time came to start, I found I was just as tight-throated as Carla Banner had been that afternoon. But the curtain was open and Vivian Frank and another actress were out there on the stage saying their lines just as if this were any other performance. When I managed to make a telephone ring on cue, I felt as if I’d just written Hamlet.
“They’re up, oh wow, are they up!” I looked around to see Griselda and Tiny and a policeman all watching the stage excitedly. “They’re giving a great performance, Abby,” said Griselda, “great!” A great performance, and I couldn’t watch it.
I missed a light cue in the first act. The electrician sat at the dimmer board and smirked at me. That mouth-breathing cretin knew the cue, but he wouldn’t do a damned thing unless I first told him to. Then when I told him to do a fast sneak to make up for it, he twirled the dial all the way around in one swift movement. Instant sunrise. Another argument in favor of fully automated lighting systems.
By the time the first act ended, my shirt was plastered to my body with sweat. The cast was keyed up, knowing they had a winner going tonight—if the stage manager didn’t close the curtain in the middle of the next act or some other damn fool thing. I wasted a minute telling the electrician what I thought of him and then hurried off to check on the stagehands. By the time they had everything in place, it was time to go again.
The second act started. I felt a tap on my arm and looked up to see Griselda holding out a Styrofoam container of iced tea. I never tasted anything so good in my life.
The electrician was sulking, but he didn’t have much to do in the second act so I didn’t worry about him. I didn’t have a whole lot to do either, so I was able to watch the performance a little. Oh, my wonderful actors, how I loved them that night! I loved them all! So did the NYPD, evidently, for there seemed to be an unusually large number of police standing around watching the stage. Why aren’t you looking in dark corners for hatchetmen? I thought irritably, and turned back to my cue sheets.
My stomach was growling. I’d gone straight from the hospital to the theater without stopping for lunch, and now I was wishing I’d given Hugh Odell only half my sandwich.
After a while I began to feel a slight pressure on my back. When I looked around I was appalled at the number of police packed into the wings—at least I assumed they were police: grim-looking strangers with fixed, glassy stares. I poked the stomach of the man who was pressing against me, smiled sweetly, and said, “Back off.”
He moved about an inch. Just then Hugh Odell came off the stage and had to elbow his way through the crowd.
That did it. I pushed against a couple of the men and said, “You’ve got to move!
You’re blocking the exits. Move back!”
They tried. There was some shuffling and looking around for a place to stand, but there were so many of them there just wasn’t room. Where did they all come from? There weren’t that many police when the performance started.
Then I caught sight of Lieutenant Goodlow. I pushed my way through to him and said, “You’ve got to move your men. They’re in the way. Tell them to wait outside, or in the prop room, or on the other side of the stage. But not here.”
The Lieutenant nodded and spoke to the man standing next to him. Some of the men began to move away, a bit too noisily, but we had some breathing space again.
I tried not to worry about this influx of police; I had to concentrate on the performance. But it was no good. When we came to a free place in the play, I went over and plucked at Lieutenant Goodlow’s sleeve. “All right. What’s up?”
He gazed over my head. “Who’s in charge here tonight?”
“I am.”
“Then I’d better tell you.” He noticed the doorkeeper watching us with interest and motioned me aside. “Bad news. The worst yet.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting.
“Ian Cavanaugh’s home has been bombed. His wife and daughter are dead. And a bodyguard Cavanaugh hired to protect them.”
For some reason, I didn’t believe him. He was making it up. “I don’t believe you,” I said calmly.
The Lieutenant looked at me sadly. “It’s true.”
“They’re dead. Ian’s wife and daughter … and a bodyguard. They’re all dead, you say.”
Lieutenant Goodlow didn’t say anything, just watched me.
“It didn’t happen.” Then suddenly I knew it was true. “It did happen. They’re dead. Three people?”
The Lieutenant took hold of my arm. “Are you going be all right?”
“No,” I said, pulling away. “Probably not.” I stumbled back to my cue sheets.
“What is it?” Griselda asked me. I couldn’t answer her.
Ian was on stage now. I watched that big, poised, handsome man move through his role with a confidence that would soon be shattered forever. I didn’t hear any of the other actors’ voices, just Ian’s. I saw only Ian, enjoying the last few minutes of uneasy peace he would ever know.
A performance was in progress; I couldn’t make any noise. I clenched my fists and opened my mouth and screamed—silently. I screamed and screamed and screamed. Without making a sound. I didn’t stop screaming until I realized Griselda had put her arms around me and was squeezing, hard. She looked terrified, her eyes big and her mouth gaping. It was the look on Griselda’s face that brought me to my senses. I sort of collapsed against her for a minute, and then said, “Okay. It’s okay now.”
Only it wasn’t. Nothing was okay. Nothing on this whole godless, violent, sick little planet was okay. Lieutenant Goodlow was watching, looking as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. I told him Griselda should know what had happened; the next time I saw her, she was leaning against Tiny, crying.
I didn’t want the performance to end, but in time it did. Ian stood smiling during the curtain call—fattening, actorlike, on the waves of admiration and love that floated up from the audience. This was what it was all for.
When I closed the curtain for the last time, the cast came laughing off the stage, exhausted but happy. Who’s going to tell him?
Lieutenant Goodlow approached Ian and said something. I couldn’t hear over the chatter around me, but the Lieutenant gestured toward the dressing rooms. Ian, however, froze—sensing the disaster, somehow. Lieutenant Goodlow tried to get Ian to go with him, but Ian, immobile and granite-faced, said something that had a sharp and commanding tone to it.
A little circle of space had formed around the two men, and the talk gradually died away. A laugh started and broke off in the middle. In a voice inaudible to the rest of us, Lieutenant Goodlow told Ian his family had been murdered.
Ian never looked more remote and untouchable than he did at that moment. All around me people were whispering—What is it? What’s happened now? Lieutenant Goodlow spoke to Ian but received no answer. Ian jerked off his tie and dropped it on the floor. Then he slipped out of his suit jacket and let it fall.
I went over and put my hand on his arm. “Ian?”
He didn’t even know I was there. He ripped off his shirt, popping the buttons. Piece by piece Ian took off all his clothes and then, stark-naked, walked out of the theater.
Part Three
1
Foxfire closed.
By mutual consent, with one exception: Vivian Frank wanted to keep going. But even Gene Ramsay, hastily returned from Europe, knew he couldn’t buck the boycott announced by Equity and the stagehands’ union. Nor did he particularly want to; Ramsay was as sickened by what had happened as the rest of us.
I had made no objection. The swell of resistance that had pushed me into stage-managing the last performance collapsed like a punctured balloon. My lovely play had turned so sour I doubted that I’d ever want to see it again. No one would ever watch the play without thinking of its horrible, destruction-filled history. No one would ever watch the play for itself again. Gene Ramsay had half-promised me Foxfire could reopen once the killer was caught and the furor had died down, but I wasn’t going to hold him to it. Our enemy had killed my play as well as Ian Cavanaugh’s family.
For a long time I struggled with a new kind of guilt. I had not lost people I loved or a part of my body the way the others had. I couldn’t begin to understand the agony Ian Cavanaugh must be going through, knowing he was the cause of the deaths of the people he cared about most in the world. Wouldn’t he feel like a murderer himself? How could anyone live with that? Knowing four people were dead because someone hated him—how could a man live with that?
Four people—that was the final count. Ian’s wife, his daughter, one of two bodyguards Ian employed, and an old woman in the house next door. The other bodyguard had been outside checking the grounds when the bomb went off. He’d lost a leg. The house itself, in Yorkville, was reduced to rubble; the house next door, the one where the old woman had lived, had lost one entire side.
Had our enemy hired a professional? Polar ammon gelignite, the police said, a commercial blend—probably stolen. Detonated by radio transmission. That meant the bomb could have been planted any time, even before Ian had hired the bodyguards. The official police guess was that it had been concealed in an air duct. The radio transmitter that set it off could have been located anywhere, depending on its range.
Ian had not gone far when he left the theater—only a few steps, in fact. Lieutenant Goodlow and his men had gotten some clothes on him and hustled him off to a hospital where he was treated for shock. None of us were permitted to visit. Then after a few days Ian was discharged and went—where? To a hotel? I didn’t know. The police weren’t saying.
Ian’s shedding of his clothes was an admission of defeat more shattering than anything else he could have done. The most private person I knew had exposed himself totally to whatever force it was that was out to destroy him. All right, the act had said, here I am. Do your worst.
Ian’s symbolic acting out of what had happened to him was as natural as it was terrible. But if he continued the gesture, there could be only one result: That way lies madness. The fact that the hospital had released him after only a few days suggested the moment had passed. Now Ian was alone somewhere, perhaps fighting suicide, perhaps under psychiatric care, perhaps not. The police wouldn’t tell me. The police wouldn’t tell me anything.
Lieutenant Goodlow had been taken off the case. Now a Captain Mitchell was in charge—first a sergeant, then a lieutenant, now a captain. But Captain Mitchell was not the accommodating source of information Lieutenant Goodlow had been. His underlings gave me the brush-off every time I phoned, and Hugh Odell said he had gotten the same treatment. Ian’s whereabouts were secret, and they were going to be kept secret.
There was one new thi
ng about this latest catastrophe: the fact that our enemy may have hired someone else to do the dirty work. Did this mean he’d shown his face to another person? Or had he been able to conceal his identity in his dealings with the bomber? How does one go about hiring a bomber anyway? How are these things arranged? The newspapers had a heyday speculating over the various possibilities.
But I didn’t do any speculating myself, because it just didn’t matter any more. Our enemy had won. It was over. He’d got us, every single one of us who’d served on Manhattan Repertory’s governing committee at the time of the Michael Crown disaster. Two of us were dead, three of us were maimed, one had been terrorized into dropping out, two had lost people they loved, and one had had her work destroyed. Nine targets, more than nine victims. And still the police did not have the remotest idea of who had done these things.
Nor would they ever. I was convinced now as never before that the official protectors of the people would never, never unmask the lunatic whose destructive obsession had ruined so many lives. I’d said before I didn’t think the police would catch him—so had we all, at one time or another. But even when you’re saying a thing like that, you don’t completely believe it—always at bottom there’s a slight glimmer of hope, hope that at the eleventh hour the cavalry will ride to the rescue, that Big Daddy will step in and make things right.
Our enemy had succeeded and our police had failed. It was done, a fait accompli. Captain Mitchell would have no more success than Sergeant Piperson or Lieutenant Goodlow before him. We’d spend the rest of our lives wondering who our enemy was—a nice metaphor for the times, wouldn’t you say? You can have it.
Such was my own state of shock that it took me several days to realize where Ian Cavanaugh must be staying. I went to John Reddick’s apartment and rang the bell. No answer, but I hadn’t answered the door either while I was staying there. Was Ian inside or not? I’d left my key with the super when I moved back into my own place. But if Ian didn’t want anyone intruding on his grief, then I wouldn’t intrude. I scribbled a note—Let me help—and stuck it in the doorjamb.
