You want to play a game, Sprague thought? Is that what you want? Then I'll play along, my own way.
Turning again, he swept both of his hands across the top of the control console, batting the central light switch on. The room blazed white with light.
There was no one in front of him, no one behind. He glanced down at the arms sill wrapped around his neck -- they were thin and wiry, covered with black hair. The front of his lab coat was stained with blood. Dangling over his shoulder, warm and wet, was the lifeless head of the monkey. Sprague shuddered with disgust, pried the creature off his shoulders, and threw it against the glass wall. It crumpled in a heap atop the console.
Over the intercom, he heard, so faintly it might have been coming from another world, a young woman's laughter.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE CALL FROM Burt, the contractor, bad come in the nick of time. The last of Jack's guitar students had just stuck a note to his mailbox saying he'd decided to take up drums instead, and Jack was wondering if it was time to bite the bullet and get in touch with the guy who booked musicians for the bar mitzvah and wedding circuit. He was about to go looking for the number, when he decided to check with Registry first and see if he had any messages.
He had one, from Burt, and called him back immediately.
“What did you do,” Burt said, “change your home phone number? I called there first and they said it was no longer in service.”
“Yeah, well, I was getting some calls I didn't want to take, and I just decided to get an unlisted number.”
There was a slight pause, then Burt said, “From people who wanted to talk to an angel? I saw that other article in the Post, the one about the guy who tried to kill himself -- Garcia. Are you still doing all that?”
Jack didn't know how to answer; he didn't want to lie to him, but he didn't want to say yes either. He was afraid if he did, Burt would think he was still too crazy to return to the show. “It's no big deal,” Jack said, “I go in once or twice a week for some tests.”
“But you're still pulling that con?” Burt persisted, though good-naturedly.
Jack figured it was too late now to retract it. “Sort of,” he said. Now he'd be playing the bar mitzvah circuit for sure. “How's the show going?”
“Getting by, getting by... So tell me, in general you feeling any better?”
“Yeah, I'm okay,” Jack said. “I just needed a little rest. I've got things pretty much under control now.”
“Enough so you think you could play the show again?”
Jack could hardly believe his ears. “Oh yeah, definitely,” he found himself burbling. “That'd be no problem. I'd really like to be playing the show again.” This was too good to be true.
“Then why don't you come down tonight? Come a little early -- a couple of the numbers in Act Two have been trimmed, and I'll show you the changes. Other than that, it's the same old drill.”
“Great -- I'll be there.” He wanted to kiss the receiver. “And Burt -- thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Forget it.”
“I won't.”
Man, what a narrow escape, Jack thought; another five minutes and he'd have been booked for a wedding reception in New Jersey.
Around six-thirty, he pulled the Fender Strato-caster out of the closet and took the subway down to the theater. None of the other musicians were there yet. Burt was in his office -- a dank little cell across from the locker room -- buried in paperwork. When Jack said hello, he jumped in his chair.
“Jesus, you startled me,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette and looking up. “Musicians never show up early for work.”
“You told me to, so you could show me the changes,” Jack reminded him.
“Oh, yeah, right,” he said, leaning back in his chair and giving Jack the once-over. “You look okay -- you sure you feel okay?”
“Feel fine.”
Burt seemed to take him at his word. He riffled through the clutter of papers on his desk, pulled out a dog-eared score. “I marked the changes -- I'm sure you'll see how they work.”
Jack took the score, glanced at some of the cuts. They'd lopped about ten minutes out of the act. “No problem,” he said, then, when he'd caught Burt's eye, added, “I appreciate the second chance.”
“Hey, I already told you,” Burt said, quickly looking away, “don't thank me.”
And for the second time, Jack felt that he really meant it, that he really didn't want to be thanked.
“I told your sub to clear out the locker,” Burt said, his head bent low over the timesheets. “Go on and get settled again.”
It was almost as if Burt was feeling guilty about it. Jack waved good-bye with the score, not that Burt noticed, and went back to the locker room. Vinnie and Haywood had checked in, and were dumping their stuff. When they saw Jack, they hooted and hollered. Haywood stuffed a toothpick in his mouth, and Vinnie, taking out his trumpet to empty the valves, said, “About time! About time! I didn't know what else we could do to your sub.”
“What do you mean?”
“We put tacks on his chair,” Haywood broke in, “gum in his score, I gave him a toothpick I'd stuck in the soap in the men's room. I tell you, there was no way to get the message to that dude.”
Was that what Burt had been feeling guilty about -- that the sub had been tormented by his friends? “Well, whatever you guys did, thanks -- it worked.”
Catalano, Van Nostrand, and the rest of the band drifted in; over the backstage intercom, the stage manager gave the ten-minute call.
“You see the changes in the second act?” Vinnie asked.
“Yes,” Jack said, distractedly, “Burt marked my score.” But something else was different too: there was a short, dark-haired girl stashing her coat in what used to be Veronica Berghoffer's locker. Jack gestured at her turned back and asked Vinnie, in a low voice, who she was.
“Name's Miranda something. She replaced Veronica right around the time you left.”
“How come?”
Vinnie shrugged, bent down to untie his shoes in preparation for playing the show. “Veronica was acting pretty spacy. She told Haywood she was having trouble sleeping, couldn't concentrate. I don't know what she's doing now.” He sat back up. “Why? You planning to give it another try with her?”
Jack let it pass. Burt appeared in the doorway, clapping his hands together and telling everyone to get a move on. They filed through the narrow passageway into the pit and set up. When Consuela stepped to the podium and rapped her baton, Jack had to look up at her, she was staring straight back at him. She gave him a little nod -- a warning? -- and lifted her baton for the downbeat. Jack studied the score sheet in front of him as if his life depended on it.
The first act went off without a hitch. The more he played, the better it felt. After an especially tricky passage, Vinnie even gave him a thumbs-up sign. The girl who'd replaced Veronica had noticed he was new, and smiled his way. Funny, Jack thought -- for all she knows, I'm the sub.
During the intermission, Jack trailed back to the locker room to horse around with the other musicians. He was introduced to Miranda, who said he seemed to be doing an amazing job for his first time out. Vinnie said, “This is the guy who wrote that riff in the middle of the factory scene. He's the original lead guitar.” Miranda apologized, and Vinnie went on, “Logan was with this show when it was a standing-room-only, smash hit.”
“It was?” Miranda asked, incredulously.
But Jack couldn't bear to see someone so misled. “This show has been on the ropes since the out-of-town tryouts,” he said. “And from the look of tonight's house, it's due for a knockout punch pretty soon.”
“You mean it's going to close?”
“This show's been closing ever since it opened,” Haywood threw in from the other end of the bench.
“Yeah, but tonight the place sounds like an empty warehouse,” said Catalano. “You see all those empty seats?”
Jack had counted fourteen in the first row of the
mezzanine alone. It would be just his luck, he thought, to get called back to work on the eve of the show's closing.
“Time to make music,” Burt called into the locker room. On their way out, he touched Jack on the elbow and said, “Stop into my office after the show, will you?” Before Jack could ask why, he took off after Van Nostrand, saying something about skin books in the pit.
Why did Burt want to see him, Jack wondered? Had Consuela complained about him again? How could she? His playing, he knew, had been fine; he hadn't missed a cue, or a note, all night. He took his seat in the pit feeling distinctly unsettled again, and told himself to forget about it or he would start blowing his cues. Maybe it was just some union regulation, some employment form that had to be signed -- yeah, that was it, he tried to persuade himself, just one of those papers Burt had been shuffling around.
Still, he had to concentrate doubly hard on the rest of the score, especially the newly trimmed sections, in order not to make any mistakes. He wanted to be able to present himself to Burt with an absolutely unblemished performance behind him. And as far as he could tell, when the curtain finally came down, he'd done just that.
While the other musicians went about collecting their stuff from the locker room, Jack knocked on Burt's open door. He was sitting behind his battered, gray metal desk, talking to a woman whose back was to the door. “Logan,” he said, and the woman turned, “I want you to meet -- “
“Arlette Stein,” Jack said. He remembered her from that night he'd saved Garcia.
“That's right -- we met a few weeks ago.” She didn't bother to elaborate. “Burt was nice enough to provide me with a house seat for tonight's performance,” she said, “and the opportunity to talk to you after the show.”
Jack looked coldly at Burt, who ducked his gaze. No wonder he'd been acting so guilty.
“We both thought there might be an interesting story in your returning to the show,” Arlette continued, oblivious to the silent exchange. “You know, something like ‘Broadway Gets an Angel with Real Wings,’ something like that. The first thing I -- “
“Is that what you thought?” Jack said to Burt, ignoring Arlette altogether. “Is that why you called me back to the show -- so you could get some free publicity? Maybe keep it afloat at least through the holidays?”
“Jack,” Burt replied, raising his hands from the desk, “I swear to you, I called you back for the same reason I hired you -- you're the best lead guitar I know.”
“That's right,” Arlette interjected, looking from one to the other, “Burt was just telling me that -- “
“The best lead guitar who could get a plug for Steam-roller,” Jack retorted, bitterly. “From now on, why don't you just take out an ad?” And he turned and stalked across the hall to the locker room.
“Hey, Jack,” Vinnie said, already prepared to go, “a bunch of us are gonna get together on New Year's Eve and watch the ball go down in Times Square, then go back to my place to party. Barbara told me to be sure to ask you to come.”
Jack yanked the lock off the handle of his locker, and grabbed his coat from the hook.
“So what do you say? If you want to skip Times Square and just come to the party afterwards, that's okay, too.”
“I'll let you know,” Jack said, and strode out of the room.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Vinnie called after him, sounding bewildered. Jack heard him ask someone, presumably Haywood, “What's eating him?”
But Jack still wasn't out of the woods. Arlette was at the backstage door, with her note pad out, talking to Gus. When she spotted Jack, she abruptly turned away from him, and said, “Burt told me you'd be coming this way.”
“Good old Burt.”
“Listen -- I'm sorry if you feel you've been taken advantage of, but why don't you use my story to set the record straight?”
“The record doesn't interest me anymore. The record's whatever you people at the newspapers and TV want to make it. Now if you'll excuse me...” He tried to get around her, but she quickly moved to block him. He stopped dead, clenching the handle of his guitar case.
“That's not true, what you said about the record,” Arlette argued. “It's only when our sources aren't upfront with us that things get wrong, or maybe misrepresented. As a reporter, I stand behind everything I write.”
“That's probably the best place to stand,” Jack said, and feinted to the left; Arlette subtly moved in that direction, and Jack dodged around her to the right.
“You didn't sign out,” Gus sputtered as he hurried through the backstage door.
“Do it for me.” And he was out in the backstage alley, in the cold night air.
The other theaters were just letting out, so his chances of hailing a cab were nil. Holding his guitar upright against his chest, he weaved his way through the crowds, and over to the Eighth Avenue subway stop. On the ride uptown, he tried to forget about Burt, and Arlette, and the whole business -- he wondered briefly if he could afford to quit the show altogether -- and concentrate instead on what was ahead of him that night. Nancy was coming over; they had planned to celebrate his return to the show and, even though Christmas was still two days away, exchange presents. Best of all, she'd told her parents that she'd be spending another night up at the institute.
They had until the next morning. It was just too bad he didn't feel like celebrating.
Five minutes after he got home, Nancy buzzed from downstairs. She came up the stairs carrying a wicker picnic basket and a plastic shopping bag. “Like my matching luggage?” she said, when she saw Jack standing in the open doorway to his apartment.
“Very smart.” They kissed at the threshold, then he drew her inside by pulling one end of her scarf.
“Whoa! Don't you even want to know what's in the basket?”
“Sure,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her again. “I can't wait.”
When their lips parted, she said, “I'll say.” She pretended to push him away. “But at least let me get my coat off.”
Underneath, she had on a pair of black slacks and a loose white sweater. “So how'd it go?” she asked him, over her shoulder, as she took the basket over to the bed and flipped up the lid. “Were those friends of yours -- Vinnie and Haywood -- surprised to see you?” She had taken out a white tablecloth, with a red tiger embroidered in its center, and thrown it over the comforter.
“Yes,” Jack said, “they were.”
Now she was taking out plates -- real china dessert plates and teacups -- and setting two places.
“How big were those changes they'd made in the music?”
“Not very.”
“Could you start some water boiling?”
“I could.” He went into the tiny kitchenette and put the kettle on. When he came back, he saw that she had put out several different kinds of cake and fruit.
“You want to tell me what's going on?”
“Not yet,” she said, carefully removing from the bottom of the basket an elaborately decorated teapot. “Could you fill this with the hot water?”
“Yes, ma'am.” He did as he was told, and when he returned there were two lighted candles on the bedside table and the lamp had been turned off.
“Now?”
“Yes, if you'll take a seat.”
Cautiously, so as not to upset the crockery set up on the mattress, he sat down across from her, cross-legged just as she was.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He looked at the lighted clock behind him. “Ten of twelve. Why?”
“It should be midnight. But then it should be New Year's Eve, too.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, with a laugh.
“I'm serving you the traditional Chinese foods of good fortune for the coming year. We should start with these.” She passed him a bowl full of dumplings. “Your chopsticks are on your napkin.”
He took several and passed the plate back.
“These are called jiaozi. I made them myself. They'r
e supposed to be eaten precisely at midnight.”
They were soft and warm, and filled with spicy ground meat. Jack couldn't believe she'd gone to so much trouble for him. While he ate, Nancy poured out the tea. “This tea is called yuan boo cha, and it's also considered ‘lucky’ -- its name has something to do with silver ingots.”
The tea was sweet and fragrant, and it was accompanied by several other lucky foods -- rice cakes whose roundness symbolized peace and harmony, date cakes, and a platter made up of peanuts -- “they're associated with longevity” -- lotus seeds, and other dried fruits. “This combination platter,” she said, “is something called -- and don't even try to remember it -- zaoshengguizi.”
“And what does that mean?”
She laughed and said, “Funny you should ask. Roughly translated, it means ‘to soon realize the birth of noble sons.’”
Jack laughed too, and toasted her with his teacup.
“Yeah, well, that had better be a joke,” Nancy said. “I had a hard enough time explaining to my parents that I'd be staying overnight at the institute again.”
“Would it be easier,” Jack volunteered, facetiously, “if I spent the night at your family's place? I could just as easily catch a train downtown after the show.”
Nancy gave him an overly sweet smile. “It's very kind of you to offer, but I don't think so.”
A silence fell. Jack sipped the last of his tea from the little china cup. “This was incredibly nice of you to do,” he said.
“My pleasure.”
“I mean it.” Quickly clearing the dishes from the bed, he rolled over beside her. “I think this was the nicest Christmas present I ever got.”
“But this wasn't your actual present.”
“It wasn't?”
“No. Look under your pillow.”
He reached under the pillow and pulled out a small wrapped box.
“I put it there while you were boiling the water. Go ahead -- unwrap it.”
He tore off the paper. "The Wizard of Oz,” he said, reading from the front of the videotape, “the original, unedited 1939 film classic.”
“I thought, since we always refer to Sprague as -- “
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