The Final Curtain

by Gilbert, Morris

  Dani looked at him oddly. “When you were on the trapeze, Ben, you risked your life two or three times a day.”

  “Maybe, but I’d rather fall and break my neck than get stomped by one of those monsters!”

  When the bucking-horse event was under way, he asked, “How does a guy win? By staying on until the whistle blows?”

  “That’s part of it, Ben, but there’s lots more. A good rider has to rake his horse with his spurs in perfect time to the animal’s plunges. He can’t grab leather or hold on to anything. It’s a matter of style.”

  To Savage it all looked about the same, but then he wasn’t a fan. It was the barrel riding that he’d brought her to see, and it was worth it. Again she explained the rules, though she’d done it before, but he listened as if it were new. She looked as excited as any schoolgirl, with her black curls tumbling around her face. “See those barrels in a triangular position?” she asked. “Well, the idea is to take the horse around the barrels without knocking them over. Oh—look at that horse, Ben! Isn’t he beautiful?”

  They stayed to the end, and afterward went to McDonalds for quarter pounders and chocolate milk shakes. Dani stuffed her mouth full, talking around her food, reliving the rodeo.

  “You should have made a career of barrel riding, Dani! You like it so well,” Ben told her.

  “I wanted to, Ben. And I almost did. But it didn’t work out.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, it’s so competitive. Only a fixed number of rodeos and about half a million girls who’d like to win the national. It’s like all sports, I guess. For every five thousand who try to get in, only one really makes it big.”

  He studied her through half-shut eyes. “Doesn’t sound like you—quitting because the odds are tough.”

  She cocked her head and thought about it. “I was good,” she admitted. “But there were two hundred more just as good. I could have made a living at it, I think, but that’s about all. It’s a pretty rough life, too.”

  He grinned at her suddenly, his light eyes catching the gleam of the outside lights. “Sure. Not like this piece of cake we’ve got going, I guess.”

  Her mouth went tight, and she nodded. “It’s terrible, Ben. It’s like an avalanche, I sometimes think. Nobody can stop it.”

  “You finished?” he asked, sorry he’d brought up the case. It had been good to see her lose herself in something. On the way home he tried to steer clear of it, but her mind was back on it. As he walked with her up to her door, she explained, “The terrible thing is, that I’ve gotten to know these people, Ben. They were just names once, but now they’re all so real!” She unlocked the door. “Come on in. I want you to go over some things.”

  She got the coffeepot going. For half an hour they sat at the table, filling legal pads with notes.

  “Ben, what would it do to you if you found out that Carmen was the murderer?” Dani wondered aloud. “How would you feel if she was put in jail for life—and you knew you were responsible for catching her?”

  He lifted his eyebrow in surprise, then shrugged. “I’d be sorry for her.”

  “But you’d do it?”

  “Sure I would. That’s my job.” She looked down at the pad in front of her, thinking hard.

  “What would you do if it turned out it was Calvin?” he asked suddenly.

  “Calvin? Why, that’s out of the question!”

  “No, it’s not. But say it was him, would you lose sleep over sending him to the slammer?”

  Dani narrowed her eyes, concentrated hard, then nodded. “Yes. I would.” She straightened her back and a faint light of anger entered her eyes. “Anybody would, Ben. Even you!”

  He studied his coffee cup silently, then lifted his head. “Cop named Bates was on the take when I was in the department in Denver. I turned him in. He got kicked out and went to the pen for two years.” Then he said evenly, “He was my partner. Got me out of a tight spot once or twice.”

  Dani stared at him, fascinated. “But, Ben, didn’t you worry about it later?”

  “Can’t afford to.” He shrugged. “Bates knew what he was doing. I would have gone into an alley to pull him out, but he was wearing a badge.”

  “You’re a hard one, Ben,” Dani said slowly. “Too hard. One of these days you’re going to find out something about bending a little bit.”

  He only admitted, “That might come.” He got to his feet. “Anyway, the rodeo was fun. Always liked to see guys get their brains scrambled by a dumb horse.”

  She laughed and rose to escort him to the door. He slipped into his coat, and for a moment they were close. His hand lay on the door, and she stood close enough that he could smell the faint aroma of her perfume. Her eyes seemed enormous.

  “You’d better fire me,” he advised her.

  “Fire you?” She looked blank. “What in the world for?”

  He stood there, a tough shape in the dim light of the room. Studying the well-known face, Dani wondered what was going on behind that rough exterior. He had tried her patience time after time, and more than once in their stormy encounters she had come to the brink of firing him—but had never actually done it and stuck to it. Each time the thought of going on a case without his support caused her to weaken.

  “Why would I fire you?” she demanded.

  “I am about to break a rule,” he said.

  “You don’t usually notify me beforehand! What rule is it?”

  “I made my mother a promise when I left home. I’m going to break it.”

  “What’s that?”

  Savage dropped his hand from the door, reached out, and pulled her close. His voice softened and he whispered, “I promised her faithfully that I’d never kiss my boss the same night I took her to a rodeo.”

  The corners of his lips curved upward, and she knew that he was waiting for her to pull away. A sudden perverse spirit rose up in her, and she determined not to back down. “Well,” she answered softly, pulling closer to him, “are you going to break your old rule or not?”

  Still he hesitated. Suddenly she put her hands behind his head, drew it forward, and put her lips on his. He had kissed her twice, and both times had been light and carefree.

  The pressure of his lips was faint, then grew strong. His arms tightened around her. For a moment, she held him. When he was still reaching for her, she slid her lips away. Stepping back, she smiled. “Now, you broke your rule, Ben. Good night.”

  He had been shaken by the kiss and somehow angered. She had gotten the best of him in some way that he couldn’t figure out. Staring at the door, now closed upon him, he lifted his voice, “Well, am I fired or not?”

  “Not!” Came her faint reply, and he knew that she was giggling. He glared at the door, then whirled and walked down the stairs. But by the time he got to his car, his mood had changed. As he looked up at the lights in her window, a smile broke across his lips. “Well, she won that time!” He got in the car, whistling, a cheerful and dreadfully off-key version of “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

  “The call came from Richard Jurgens while you were gone, Jonathan.” Tom Calvin handed him a note. “That’s his offer for doing the screen version of Out of the Night.”

  Ainsley had just come into his office. It was only six o’clock, but he had asked Calvin to meet him to go over some financial matters. He looked at the note, smiled, and handed it back. “I got a call from Simpson yesterday. He offered almost twice that, Tom.”

  He sat down at his desk, and for the next fifteen minutes the two men went over the finances. Finally Ainsley leaned back, saying, “Well, it looks good. Better than I’d hoped, even.”

  “No play ever had so much free publicity, I guess,” Tom commented. “But maybe it’s all over.”

  “I think so,” Ainsley admitted. “Whoever was doing it all must have been scared off.” It had been a week since the stabbing incident, and since then everything had gone smoothly.

  “How long a run do you want to shoot for, Jo
nathan?” Calvin asked.

  “Not too long. I want to do the movie version as soon as possible. Then I’ve got another idea that I think will fly.”

  Calvin hesitated, then prodded, “What about Sir Adrian? He’s not doing very well.”

  “I’ve asked Dave Tolliver to learn the role.” Tolliver was an actor of some stature who was a good friend of Ainsley’s. “I’ve been worried about the old man. He’s ill, and I told Dave to be ready to step in at once.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Calvin wished regretfully.

  “So do I, but we have to be prepared.”

  Most of the cast felt concerned for Sir Adrian, who was barely able to make it through each performance. “You’d never know how bad he felt,” Dani said to Lyle as they watched him go through his final scene in the play. “He gives it all he’s got, but when it’s over he’s ready to collapse.”

  “He ought to quit, I guess,” Lyle remarked.

  “Hard to do, when acting is all you know,” Dani murmured. She had grown very close to the old man during the past week. Twice she had gone to the Lockridge apartment to visit, and she could tell that the strain of her husband’s ill health was getting to Victoria.

  “Did you ever get the reports from the physical Sir Adrian took?” she asked once.

  “Oh, it was the same as all the rest,” Victoria quickly explained. Then she had placed her hand on Dani’s. “You’re very good for him, Danielle!”

  “I only wish I could do more.”

  Ben spent all his free time checking props. “These people seem to have forgotten there’s a killer loose, Dani,” he complained one evening before the performance.

  “I think we’d all like to forget it, Ben,” she answered. He was prowling around, reaching under an old-fashioned bathtub. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Checking to make sure there’s not a trapdoor under this tub. Hate to see you disappear right in the middle of the play.” He gave her a quick grin. “This is my favorite scene in the whole play.”

  “It would be!” she snapped. The scene was one that gave her problems, for in it she took a bath on stage. In one of Miller’s ornate sets, the huge tub was filled with a few inches of water, then a machine whipped up suds to make it bubble over. It was not in the least pornographic, for she wore a work-out suit and was in the tub from the time the curtain opened on the scene until it closed.

  Mickey, who played her lover, came in, and they had a long dialogue, but no more than her head and arms were ever revealed. She would put on the work-out suit in her dressing room, throw a robe over it, then go to the set. Earl always had the water just right and the bubbles to the top, so all she had to do was toss her robe to one side and get in. When the scene ended, she would get out, put on the robe, then go change for the next scene.

  Ben had teased her about the scene from the first. “What will your parents think?” he mourned. “And what will all the guys back at the office think—Dani Ross taking a bath in public?”

  Dani had put up with the jibes, but now as he felt around under the tub, she asked, “Ben, I’m feeling pretty jittery. I—I guess things are going well, but I feel as if we’re in the eye of a hurricane.”

  He straightened up and nodded, his face serious. “I know what you mean. These people are living in a fool’s paradise. Just a matter of time until he tries again. So keep your head down, Boss!”

  The performance that night was off, primarily because Sir Adrian was not able to keep pace. He missed several cues, and some of his lines came out so garbled that they could not be understood. Jonathan was unhappy, they all saw, but he said nothing to Lockridge.

  The next day, Dani met Charlie Allgood at the theater. He was reading a paper, and when he saw her, he came forward at once. “You know anything about this?”

  Dani looked at the story he indicated. The headline stated: “Tolliver to Replace Sir Adrian Lockridge in Play.” The brief story explained that, due to ill health, Sir Adrian Lockridge was leaving the cast of Out of the Night and would be replaced by David Tolliver. “No, I didn’t know about it,” Dani murmured.

  “I don’t think Lockridge knew either,” the reporter said. “He came in early this morning and had a real run-in with Jonathan.”

  “Excuse me, Charlie.” She left him at once to go to Jonathan’s office. He was with Tom Calvin, and some of her anger must have shown in her face.

  “Now before you start on me, Danielle,” he interjected quickly. “This story is all wrong. Completely out of order.”

  “Did you hire this man Tolliver to take Sir Adrian’s place?”

  “I certainly did not!” Ainsley stated emphatically. “I did talk to Tolliver on the phone. Asked him if he’d be free to take over, in case Sir Adrian couldn’t continue—but that’s all!”

  “That’s true enough, Danielle,” Tom insisted. “I expect Tolliver told someone, and the reporters took it from there.”

  “How terrible it must have been for Adrian and Victoria!” Dani exclaimed. “Reading such a thing in the newspapers!”

  Ainsley nodded grimly. “I know that better than anybody. The same thing happened to me once. Found out I’d been fired from a part by reading the papers. It was ghastly!”

  “Sir Adrian was too upset to listen, Danielle,” Tom said. “Why don’t you go talk to him. Explain the way it was.”

  “Yes, and tell him I said he can stay in that role until he’s a hundred, as far as I’m concerned,” Jonathan added.

  “All right, I’ll do it.” Dani nodded. “But I think you should make some statement to the papers. Give it to Allgood. He’s outside right now.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Danielle,” Jonathan promised.

  She went at once to the Lockridges’ apartment and was met at the door by Victoria. The older woman’s eyes were cold, but when Dani asked, “How is he, Victoria?” she seemed to shake off the emotion that grasped her. “Not very well, Danielle. It came as such a shock.”

  “I can imagine—but I have good news. Can I talk to both of you?”

  “Of course. Sit down and I’ll get Adrian.”

  She left the room, but Dani paced the floor nervously. She had grown fond of Sir Adrian, and though his wife was much harder to know, of her as well. When the pair came back, she began at once, “I must tell you, it’s all been a horrible mistake. Ainsley has made no contract with David Tolliver. He told me to tell you that you can stay in your role until you’re a hundred years old, as far as he’s concerned. Those are his exact words.”

  Sir Adrian was wearing an ancient smoking jacket. He had emerged with an angry look on his face, but slowly he relaxed. “There! You see, dear! I said it was all a mistake!”

  Lady Lockridge was not so happy. “He’s lying, Adrian. That man has never done an unselfish thing in his life. He’ll never keep his word to you. He never has.”

  Dani stayed for thirty minutes, calming them down. At one point she saw Victoria’s shoulders slump, a rare sign of weakness in a strong woman. Dani went to her before she left, comforting her, “It’ll be all right, Victoria, you’ll see!”

  Lady Lockridge kept her face averted for a moment. “It will never be the same, Danielle! Never!” she objected.

  Dani got to the theater in time to see Savage before she changed. “I talked to the Lockridges.”

  “How they doing?”

  “Not very well. I’m afraid for them, Ben.”

  Then she left and had to hurry to be ready for curtain time. She saw Sir Adrian in his costume, waiting to go on, and he looked better than he had for days. When he saw her, he promised, “Tonight, Danielle, you’re going to see something.”

  And she did. She saw a man dominate the stage as if he were on it alone. That night, Sir Adrian Lockridge gave the finest performance of his life. He was flawless in every line. His body language was that of a young man, and the rest of the actors might as well have been made of wood for all the audience noticed them.

  When the fina
l curtain fell, Jonathan went to Sir Adrian, grinning. “No use the rest of us going out there, Adrian. It’s your show!”

  The audience simply would not let Sir Adrian go. He made twenty-one curtain calls and finally lifted his hand for silence. When it came, he said strongly, “My life has been the theater. It is all that I have known. But now that I am older, I see that I have left something out of my life. A dear young friend of mine has introduced me to something far better than anything I’ve ever known. Because of that, I can say with a feeling I never had before, May the Lord God bless all of you!”

  He left the stage. Dani met him, tears in her eyes. “I love you!” she cried, and he held her as her shoulders shook. The rest of the cast gathered to congratulate him, and Dani knew that as long as she lived, she would never forget Sir Adrian’s performance or his confession that he had found a better way.

  15

  The Last Toast

  * * *

  “I wish every performance could be as exciting as last night’s, Ringo,” Dani said wistfully. The two were drinking coffee in her dressing room, waiting for the first call.

  “It was something, wasn’t it?” The battered features of the big man were the marks of his hard life, but Dani had found that beneath the bruising form lay a sensitive person. Ringo gave her a quizzical look. “That stuff Sir Adrian said about some ‘young friend’ giving him something good—that was you, huh?”

  “Well—yes, I think so.” Absently, Danielle picked up a brush and began to untangle her curls. “He’s really a very lonely man. I just told him how I felt about God—how Jesus Christ has changed my whole life.”