Persephone Cole and the Halloween Curse

by Heather Haven

  Inside each wing and also out of sightline, light poles stood ten to fifteen feet tall. Up the side of each pole starting from the middle to the top, a line of floodlights were attached by c-clamps. Lenses covered the lights in one of five colors, blue, red, yellow, pink, or white and each was aimed at a particular section of the stage. Layered sandbags were stacked on their wide bases, a measure of security against toppling over. Dark and unused for the moment, they stood like silent sentinels guarding the empty stage against further catastrophe.

  Straight ahead was the stage, devoid of furniture or scenery and gloomy in its dimness. A lone, white light, covered with the same protective metal screening as the lights on the walls, sat thirty to thirty-five feet ahead at center stage on a four-foot stand. It cast long, strident shadows.

  Out front, beyond what was referred to as the ‘fourth wall’, was the auditorium or house, lavish in its painted murals, crystal chandeliers, and red velvet and gold seats. Percy glanced into the house. Hundreds of empty seats stared back at her. The effect was eerie and lonely.

  She studied the proscenium arch separating the house, where the audience sat, from onstage containing the main stage acting and backstage areas. With the ornate and imposing proscenium arch being nearly forty feet in height, that meant the ceiling behind it had to be double in order to accommodate the backdrops or flies lowered and raised during a production.

  That’s a lot of feet, baby.

  Percy tilted her head back and looked up into the shadowy vastness of the eighty-foot high ceiling called the grid. She allowed her eyes to adjust to the dark for all the good it did her. Thirty-five feet in the air the narrow catwalk ran the length of the stage and wings, the one from which Carlisle fell to his death. More bags of sand, used as counterweights for stored scenery, hung from ropes and dangled precariously above. Unable to be seen, they were nonetheless there, tied on to railings on both sides of the catwalk.

  That must be where the sandbag came from that fell on the stage manager, too. How the hell do you get up there?

  Taking her last bite, her eyes scanned the back and side walls of the theatre, searching for stairs or steps. On each side wall of the theatre, a series of iron rungs ran up the wall leading to the catwalk. She walked toward the closest one, brushing the crumbs off her hands, and cupped her hand around an iron rung.

  Not exactly the stairway to heaven, but it seems to be the only way to get to the catwalk. I’ll climb up when I can and see exactly what’s what up there. But I’ll have to have a strong cup of coffee first.

  Percy wheeled around and headed back to the producer’s office. She stepped onto what’s referred to as the side stage, a larger, better lit area providing access to offices and dressing rooms. From what she’d been told, there were dressing rooms on the ground floor and the second floor, with the basement used primarily for costumes, props, hair and wigs.

  “Miss Cole,” called out a female voice.

  Percy paused mid-step, her head whipping around to the sound of Mavis’s voice. This side of the proscenium was where the stage manager stood to cue the show and prompt performers, aptly called the prompt corner. The secretary and the newly crowned stage manager, Kyle, came out from either side of the podium and moved toward her with a distinct purpose.

  “Hold that thought, kids,” Percy said, with a nod and a smile. Then she opened the door of the producer’s office, slamming it closed behind her.

  Wainwright, seated behind his desk, was jarred by the sound of the closing door during his telephone discussion. He gave her a dirty look but resumed his conversation. Percy stood for a split second eyeing him. Then she walked over, snatched the phone from his hand, and talked into the mouthpiece.

  “He’ll call you right back.”

  She replaced the receiver on its instrument and glared down at the seated Wainwright who’d been too shocked to move.

  A dark fury covered the producer’s features. He leapt up from his chair and put his face level with her face, shouting, “How dare you! How dare you come in here and do something like that. Just who do you think --”

  “Shut up and sit down,” Percy ordered.

  Taken aback, the man nearly fell into his chair, eyes round in astonishment. Her voice quiet but commanding, Percy first shook a finger in his face then leaned over the desk until they were almost nose to nose.

  “Listen, you. I told you over the phone this morning, you had to tell me the truth, all of it. Later on in this office, I asked you if there was anything else and you gave me a stall. Twice I’ve told you to level with me and twice you haven’t. Three times and you’re out. I’ve got a good mind to throw this check for forty-five bucks in your face and leave. And maybe I’ll punch you in the snoot on my way out, just for the hell of it. But whatever, I’m keeping the expense money you gave me, because I don’t like being lied to. So this is your call. Are you going to tell me the truth or am I hitting the road?”

  “I haven’t lied --”

  “Omission is a lie,” she said, her volume overriding his.

  They glared at each other for a moment but Wainwright was the first to break down.

  “Very well, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But I don’t think...”

  “That’s the trouble with you, Wainwright,” she interrupted. “You don’t think. But you’re paying me to do it for you, so at least cooperate. Let’s start with the production before this one, Stars and Stripes Forever. You helped develop it, right?”

  “I brought it to where it is today.” Pride overtook his indignation. “Like I did with this one.”

  “Yeah, with people getting maimed, killed, or running for their lives. So tell me, you get a threatening letter?”

  “How did you know?” Wainwright pulled out a three-way folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Percy. “This showed up this morning. I found it in a stack of mail. I got so thrown by it, I called you.”

  She opened it and saw the same kind of pasted on cut out words as Felicity Dowell’s. Percy read the brief letter aloud. “You’re next. Remember. Forever. Not poetry, but the message is loud and clear. You got the envelope it came in?” She looked up at Wainwright and waited.

  He turned to a stack of mail and searched. The producer chose a ripped envelope and tossed it across the table to her. Percy picked it up and looked at the canceled stamp in the corner.

  “Mailed at the Thirty-fourth Street post office. Who opens your mail?”

  “I do or my secretary does. This morning, I did.”

  “‘Remember. Forever’. Remember what?”

  “How should I know?” His attitude was belligerent. Percy raised an eyebrow and his tone mellowed. “I’m not sure, not exactly. It’s why I didn’t mention it before.”

  “Mention it now.”

  He hesitated then smiled at her in a conspiratorial way. “Listen, I’m not always the most likable guy in the world.”

  “No kidding.”

  “The truth is, I’m a businessman, Miss Cole. My job is to make money, to challenge the director, to foresee--”

  “Stop telling me the reasons why you’re an S.O.B. and stick to this,” Percy waved the letter in his face. “Why did somebody send this to you? Last chance and then I’m going home to some milk fish stew, which is preferable to your baloney.”

  “All right, all right. I had a business partner,” he said, chewing on the flesh around his thumbnail. “Jacob Cohen, someone who started me in the business. The last thing we did together was work on mounting Stars and Stripes Forever. It took us three years to get it going. Smash hit, still running down the street to sold out crowds. Previously, we’d had some duds, momentous losses. We were on the edge of bankruptcy. Even before casting Forever, we knew it was going to be a winner. But several months before it opened, Cohen up and died unexpectedly, and…” He stopped speaking.

  “And,” Percy encouraged.

  “We had never signed a waiver to the partnership agreement on that particular project.
You have to do that if you want something else done with your share.” He went back to chewing on his thumbnail.

  “How long had you been partners?”

  “Thirteen years.” Wainwright waved a long, pointy finger in her face, as he took a deep breath. “These agreements are complicated but we’d always been fair with one another. Like I say, we hadn’t signed anything and I had done most of the brainwork. There are six road companies of Forever, plus the Broadway show, even with the war on, and because of me. I look back on it, Jacob wasn’t holding up his end then and hadn’t been for months. It’s a pity but there you are.” He stood up, stretched his long six foot four frame, and gave her an innocent look.

  “So he dies and you take it all.”

  “It’s called Right of Survivorship. If you don’t want your partner to inherit his half, you have to put it in writing.”

  “Cohen have a family?” He didn’t answer but nodded. “Did his wife contact you? Ask for her husband’s share?”

  “Yes. You see, his wife had actually come up with the idea for the show, a Brit’s view of the Yanks celebrating July Fourth, done in song and dance. Brilliant idea. Of course, I developed it.”

  “Before he died, though, I’ll bet Cohen said he wanted his share to go to her, even though he hadn’t gotten around to writing it down.”

  “Something like that.” He looked at her appraisingly. “You’re pretty quick. Anyway,

  It was sort of a verbal partnership we had with his wife. She came a few times to our meetings before we went into production, several months before her husband died. Scatty, bird-like thing, his wife. But, like you say, he never got around to putting it in writing before he died. So the show became mine, lock, stock and barrel.”

  “Let me get this straight, you went and cheated the bird-like widow of your dead business partner even though the show was her idea? You’re a louse.” Percy stopped for a moment and thought. “Were there kids?”

  “Yes, two girls, I think. I can’t remember their names. I never met them. He never brought them around and rarely spoke of them. Cohen and I didn’t socialize. He was upper Manchester, I was a Yank. We were strictly business.”

  “You’re still a louse.”

  “Hey, business is business and I’ve got a family, too, you know.” Wainwright bristled. “Two ex-wives collecting alimony, a current one who likes to shop on Fifth Avenue, and four kids needing braces.” He stood and paced the room aimlessly, more like a sulky teenager than a grown man. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. It was over two years ago and after her solicitor contacted me and I said ‘no’, I never heard from her again. Then I read she died, jumped off a roof or something. I thought it was over.”

  “Maybe one or both of his kids has got it in for you, ever think of that?”

  “ No, well, maybe. Maybe Cohen’s girls have got it out for me. Maybe, from their point of view, I’ve done them wrong. But for God’s sake, that was England. We’re in America now.”

  “You ever hear of a boat?” Percy reached inside the breast pocket of her jacket and pulled out the letter sent to Felicity Dowell. She opened it up and handed it to him. “Miss Dowell show you this?”

  He nodded.

  “She says that’s why you let her out of her contract.”

  He nodded again. “These letters don’t have anything to do with the bad luck we’ve been having,” Wainwright finally said, looking away.

  “What makes you so sure?” Percy took the letter from his hand.

  “I think it’s Tony.” He looked back at Percy again. “Or maybe he sent them. You want all the truth? This is it. If I wasn’t locked into an ironclad contract with him, I’d get rid of him. Tony likes to flaunt his position as ‘one of the world’s leading actors’. He scorns the traditions of the theatre, despite his recently acquired title. An East Ender is always the same, spoiling for a fight. I don’t put anything past him. He’s a power-hungry prick.”

  “Don’t hold anything back,” remarked Percy.

  “He’s been walking around backstage saying the name every chance he gets.” Wainwright went on like a burst dam spewing words instead of water. “Once he stood in the middle of the stage, begging the curse to rain down on him. That’s when the sandbag fell on the stage manager. Tony had been standing in the same spot only moments before. I think he rigged it and it was a joke gone awry, but he still won’t stop. This morning the police found a microphone near stage left with a wire going up to the catwalk. There was a loud speaker up there. That’s where all the moaning sounds were coming from that were throwing the actors off. They’re running fingerprints on it, but I know it was Tony.”

  “Sounds like he’s trying to close the show. Why would that be?”

  Wound down, Wainwright dropped into a chair, his air of self-righteousness leaving him completely. “He…he wanted to produce the Scottish play himself. In fact, he was in the middle of mounting it but went into heavy debt when he lost a bundle playing the horses at Kempton Park. I offered to cover his losses, if he’d step aside and let me have this production. He didn’t want to but he had no choice. He’d already had a ‘conversation’ with someone about breaking his legs. The Brits aren’t any different about gambling debts than us Yanks.”

  “They just do it after tea?”

  He let out an appreciative chuckle. “I understand he’s recouped his losses now, but it’s too late. We have an ironclad contract and I’m not letting him out.”

  “If he keeps the show from opening, he can come back later with his own money and do it his way?”

  “Yes, it’s extreme but possible. I don’t have to tell you, the money in a hit is on the producer’s end. Tony makes a good salary, but nothing like he would make if he was still producing it, too.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes. “Jesus, it’s like everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. Maybe we are cursed.” He opened his eyes. “About Stars and Stripes Forever, I didn’t mention the…the…little trouble to you because I wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. And I don’t need the publicity over it. It’s an all-American family show. I need people to think I’m a good guy.”

  “There’s a stretch, but good for you if you can pull it off.” Percy walked to the door, opened it, and turn back. “Now that we’re done here, I’m going undercover to learn how to be an assistant stage manager. Pop is nosing around on some other angles while I’m doing this. That makes two of us on this case, but I’m giving you a break. Both of us for twenty-five bucks a day, plus expenses. You going to have a problem with that?”

  Wainwright, jumped in saying, “None whatever. Pop helped me out of a blackmailing scheme when I was starting out--”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “So I want this cleared up as soon as possible, but…” He hesitated going on.

  “What?”

  “A good ASM is the stage manager’s right hand man. They both are crucial to the running of a big show like ours. Dozens of light, sound, and placement cues going on at the same time, sets coming in and out. You can’t just walk in and --”

  “Sure I can, Wainwright. Price of all your troubles. You had a ‘good’ ASM and now you’ve got me.” She banged the door behind her on her way out.

  I can’t believe I thought that idiot was remotely attractive. Never judge a book by its cover, Percy. Words to live by.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Percy turned around and bumped into a man an inch or two shorter than she was. He looked at her with a leer and grabbed both her arms with his beefy hands.

  “Afternoon, Sir Anthony,” she said, pulling back, with a slight smile. “Want to let go?”

  “And you are, my dear?” The man, reeking of alcohol and wearing a five o’clock shadow, continued his hold on Percy’s arms. “An Amazon warrior? A goddess of Zeus? A larger than life package of womanliness for only the likes of me?”

  Oh, jeesh, what a ham.

  She broke free, studying his demeanor. Something was out of sorts. This was a man p
retending to be a rakish charmer, and missing by a New York Yankee mile. “None of the above. I’m the new ASM. Name of Persephone Cole. You can call me--”

  “Persephone,” he interrupted, saying each syllable with distinction. He stepped forward again, his foul breath making her eyes water. “So I was right. The daughter of Zeus and Queen of the Underworld. A perfect foil for me. I--”

  “Yeah, yeah, back off, tiger. And I’m only going to tell you that once,” she warned. She lightened her mood instantly. “As I was saying, Sir Anthony, I hate to rush off, but I’m the new assistant stage manager and I have a job to do.” She looked over his shoulder at Kyle, drumming his fingers on his podium some ten feet away, looking angrily at her.

  “So see you around.” Percy flashed him a smile. She moved around the burly actor and took a step toward the waiting stage manager.

  “That’s too bad, my fiery dove,” Sir Anthony replied, disappointment coating his words. “I was hoping to invite you to my dressing chambers for a little ‘cheer’ and chat.”

  She spun around and took him by the arm saying, “On second thought, I always have a moment for the star of the show, Sir Anthony. Now where’s your dressing room?”

  “Right over here, my dear.” He pointed to a door at the back of the stage with a red painted star over his stenciled name. He pulled her toward it.

  As they passed a fuming Kyle, Percy shrugged and gave her new boss a ‘what can you do?’ look.

  “Back in five minutes.” She removed her fedora and tossed it on the edge of the podium. Red curls cascaded down her back and shoulders.

  The actor pushed open the door and escorted Percy inside a lavishly decorated room fit for a Broadway star of his stature, carrying the scent of expensive leather and a man’s sultry aftershave.