The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  Max laughed. “I can’t think of an actor who hasn’t said that at one time or another.”

  “Oh,” Jonathan said, obviously relieved. “Sure.”

  “I wonder why Cam would settle for being an understudy if he had his eye on the lead?” I said.

  “I suppose because actors have to act, and there are more actors than there are parts available. The odds of an understudy taking over for the lead for more than a few performances are really low, but it does happen, obviously.”

  We arrived at Chris and Max’s building and climbed the stairs while Chris took out his keys to open the door.

  Max yawned. “Well, it did go pretty well tonight. We just might make it to opening.” He did a slow neck rotation and rolled his shoulders. “But right now, let’s get inside, relax a few minutes, and go to bed. Tomorrow is another day…I read that somewhere.”

  And, I thought, tomorrow starts my search for a possible killer.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tuesday we took the bus to 59th Street, the base of Central Park, and walked for what seemed like miles along the paths and trails, ending up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we spent several hours and had lunch. We still didn’t see everything, of course, but they were having an exhibit of Henry Moore’s work, which Jonathan and Chris found intriguing. It was a pleasant day, but me being me, I began to feel guilty about having a good time when I’d been hired to work on a case. And as much as I was looking forward to seeing Cats that evening, part of me felt I should be at the Whitman tracking down or eliminating potential suspects.

  Rocks and hard places, one of my mind-voices observed.

  Jonathan was enjoying himself thoroughly, of course, but I could see him glancing at his watch, obviously getting a little antsy to go back and start getting ready for the evening, even though curtain time was still several hours away. And I could tell Chris and Max were mildly distracted by thoughts of the evening’s full dress rehearsal. So, by unspoken mutual agreement we left the museum at a little after three and returned to the apartment.

  There was a phone message for Chris from Arthur McHam, asking if he could come in early to help Doris get the costumes ready.

  “Shit!” Max said. “I was afraid this was going to happen!”

  “What about dinner?” Chris asked.

  I took the opportunity to step in. “I tell you what, why don’t Jonathan and I have dinner somewhere near the theater? That way we won’t be holding you back.”

  Jonathan beamed at the thought of the two of us alone in New York City, going to a real Broadway show and having dinner in exotic Times Square. I suspected there weren’t too many really good restaurants in the area, but then we weren’t exactly gourmands, either.

  We both felt a little guilty when Max told Chris he’d stop at the deli on the way to the Whitman and pick them up some sandwiches, but Chris dismissed our concern lightly. “Won’t be the first time,” he said.

  *

  By six o’clock we were ready to go, Jonathan looking spectacular in a new blue blazer and black pants he had bought for the trip. He’d also bought two white dress shirts and a tie to match the blazer. He looked, as I said, incredible, and I was so proud of him my chest ached.

  I hated dressing up, but wore a fairly new sport jacket, dress slacks, and a tie.

  Chris had written down the bus routes, which I was pretty sure I remembered anyway, and gave us his key to the apartment before he left for the theater around five thirty. Max left when we did and walked us to the bus stop on his way to the deli.

  *

  We made it to Times Square in what seemed like record time and got off at 42nd, deciding to walk up to Broadway toward the theater. I remembered my first time in New York and how excited I’d been walking alone through Times Square, and I could see it had the same magic for Jonathan. Somewhere between 46th and 48th we found a decent-looking steakhouse and went in for dinner, asking for a table near the window so that Jonathan…okay, we…could look out at the people passing by on Broadway.

  Every now and then the hardcore romantic in me comes out, and this was one of them. Jonathan stretched one leg forward under the table and rubbed it against mine, and I totally melted. I know damned well anyone looking at the two of us could tell we were slightly more than friends.

  The food was surprisingly good. Jonathan had a filet and I had glazed grilled salmon, and we took our time and didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to.

  We arrived at the Winter Garden at about seven forty and when Jonathan saw the crowd in front of the theater, he said, “Look at all those people! We’ll never get in!” But when I reminded him that we had reserved seats and nobody else would be taking them, he relaxed. At a quarter till, the doors opened and the crowd started to jostle its way into the theater. We were given programs and shown to our seats: sixth row center. I was really impressed.

  When the houselights dimmed and the overture started, Jonathan reached over and took my hand, intertwining our fingers. We looked at one another and smiled. Well, I smiled; Jonathan glowed.

  *

  There was a standing ovation at curtain call, and it occurred to me I should have tied a string to Jonathan to keep him from floating clear off the floor. He had sat enraptured through the entire show, and when Betty Buckley sang “Memories,” his grip on my hand tightened and his eyes misted over. Okay, so I wasn’t exactly a stone statue myself. And when at last everyone began to file out of the theater, Jonathan began picking up programs people had left behind. He must have had ten of them by the time we reached the lobby. (“I want to give one to all the guys back home!” was his rationale.)

  As we walked back toward 42nd, I realized this was Jonathan’s first direct exposure to Times Square at night, with all the lights blazing and the masses of people pouring out of all the theaters. It was pretty overwhelming, even for me. We stopped at a deli for a bagel—lox for me, whitefish for Jonathan—and a Coke, and then caught a bus back toward the Village. It was around 11:45 by the time we got back to the apartment. We entered quietly and found a note: Sorry, guys; we’re beat and went to bed. Looking forward to a full report in the morning. Max and Chis. Their bedroom door was closed, so we turned out the lights and went to our room.

  As we got into bed, Jonathan snuggled up to me. “This was one of the best days of my life,” he said, “except for when I met you.”

  Melting time again. I pulled him closer. “You know what would make it even better?” I asked.

  I felt his hand moving over my chest, then sliding lower to grab my hip. “I know,” he said, rolling me over on top of him.

  *

  In the morning, over coffee, Jonathan effervesced about dinner, the show, the crowds, even the bagels, his enthusiasm as strong as it had been the night before. I then asked Max and Chris how rehearsal had gone.

  “Pretty well, considering…” Max said, letting his sentence trail off.

  “Considering…?”

  “Joe was really off cue last night—lots of glitches. I found out that the building he works in had a major fire yesterday afternoon. No one was hurt, but he’s laid off until the damage can be assessed and repaired. He might be off for quite a while, and I know money’s tight for him.”

  “That’s a shame,” Jonathan said. “But it could have been a lot worse; he could have been hurt.”

  “True. But still, it was pretty traumatic.”

  “How did costume and makeup go?” I asked.

  “No major problems,” Chris said. “A few alterations on the costumes, and a couple of the actors’ makeup will have to be totally redone, but we’re getting there.”

  I had an idea. “I wonder,” I said addressing Max, “if you might have Joe’s home phone number?”

  “Yeah, I do. What did you have in mind?”

  “Do you think he might talk with me privately? I’ve really got to get started on this thing, and having a private talk with Joe is as good a place to start as anywhere. I still don’t know if there’s a real c
ase or not.”

  Max shrugged. “It can’t hurt to try, I suppose. But won’t you have to give away the fact that you’re working for Tait, and that Joe might be a suspect?”

  “A risk, sure, but I’ve gotten pretty good at tap-dancing around the truth without actually lying, and maybe I can find a way to do it here. Besides, since I’ll have to be talking with everyone, someone’s bound to figure out what’s going on.”

  “So, you want me to call him for you?” Max asked. He glanced at his watch. “It’s quarter to nine. Why don’t we give him a couple of minutes, in case he’s sleeping in.”

  “Okay.”

  Meanwhile, Chris said, “What shall we do about breakfast? We can go out or make something here.”

  “Here’s fine with me,” Jonathan said. “And I can help you make it, if you want.”

  Max and I nodded in unison. “Sounds good,” Max said.

  *

  At about 9:15, while Chris and Jonathan were in the kitchen fixing breakfast, Max reached into his wallet and pulled out a sheet of paper with the phone numbers of the cast and crew. He got up to get the phone, which, like ours at home, had an extra-long extension cord which enabled him to bring it to the couch.

  “Joe lives only a couple of blocks from the Whitman,” he said, picking up the receiver and tucking it between his ear and chin as he checked the phone number again. Setting the paper aside, he dialed with one hand while retrieving the receiver from its precarious balance with his other.

  There was a considerable pause, then, “Hi, Joe. Max. Sorry to bother you at home, but you remember meeting our friends Dick and Jonathan at the theater the other day? Well, Dick would really like to talk to you about something and…I’m not quite sure exactly, but…well, he’s right here; can I let him tell you himself?”

  He quickly handed me the phone with a raised eyebrow and a shrug.

  “Joe, hi, it’s Dick Hardesty. I’m a private investigator back home, and I’m just here on vacation for two weeks. The thing is that ever since I heard about Rod Pearce’s death, it’s been bugging me. I know it’s none of my business, but I’m really curious as to how he got himself killed. From what I understand, Rod pissed off a lot of people, including several guys at the Whitman. Since you and Max are up there in the booth and see everything that goes on, I was wondering if you might be able to tell me something about Rod from your prospective.”

  “So you think I had something to do with his death?”

  “No, not at all, but I’ll bet not much goes on at the Whitman that you’re not aware of. I’d just like to talk with you privately for a few minutes.”

  I could tell he was far from enthusiastic about the prospect, but was relieved when he said, “I’m going in early today to do some things. I’ll be there around two, so if you want to come by…”

  “Great! I’ll see you there.” I hung up before he had a chance to change his mind.

  I handed the phone back to Max, who hung it up, then carried it back to its regular place.

  “Well,” he said, “that was simple…. Maybe too simple?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just that I’ve worked side by side with the guy for six weeks and, other than talking about work, never gotten enough complete sentences out of him to make a paragraph.”

  “The Hardesty charm,” I said with a grin.

  “I hope so,” Max replied, obviously unconvinced.

  *

  Breakfast was pancakes and sausage with chilled canned fruit, orange juice, and more coffee. Some friends of theirs had been on vacation in upper New England and brought them back a couple bottles of real maple syrup, which was delicious; we pretty much polished off a whole bottle.

  We hadn’t really discussed what we might do that day, but my meeting with Joe at two o’clock fairly well ruled out going very far from home. It was decided that while I as at the Whitman, Chris and Jonathan would walk down to the Hudson and watch the ships coming and going while Max stayed home to go over some notes he’d made during the previous night’s rehearsal.

  When Jonathan mentioned that we still had to get several presents for the gang back home, Chris said, “Doesn’t your friend Jared teach Russian literature?” We nodded. “Well,” he continued, “there’s a little bookstore...one of those ‘only in Greenwich Village’ places…that specializes in used books in just about every language there is. Maybe you could find something for him there.”

  “Great!” I said. “Is it far from here?”

  “Just this side of Washington Square.”

  “Can we go this morning?” Jonathan asked. “Before Dick has to go to the theater?”

  “Sure.”

  *

  Jonathan and I did the dishes (he washed, I dried), then we all pulled ourselves together and went off to the bookstore. It was exactly as Chris had described it. I’d rather expected a thick layer of dust over everything and cobwebs in the corners, but it was very clean—cluttered but not messy. The woman behind the small counter just to the right of the door was a short white-haired lady with large, round, thick black-rimmed glasses that made her look rather like a friendly owl. When we explained what we were looking for, she smiled broadly.

  “Of course!” she said in a soft, unidentifiable accent. “This way.” She led us to the back of the store, where a section about four feet wide and seven feet tall was labeled Russia. While I could see all the titles were in Cyrillic, I of course hadn’t a clue what they said. She raised an index finger and, starting at the top row, made a quick sweep from book to book. On the fourth row down, her finger stopped and tapped a large volume.

  “Here we are!” she said, pulling the book out from the shelf and handing it to me. I opened a couple pages at random and noticed several nice woodcut prints. I looked at the smiling clerk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t read Russian. What is it?”

  She took the book and rubbed the flat of her hand lovingly across the cover. “It is a book of Russian folktales, she said. “Out of print for many years, now.”

  It could have been a cookbook published last week for all I knew, but I instinctively trusted her. I turned to Jonathan. “What do you think?”

  The clerk handed the book to him and he opened it as though it were made of eggshells, and gingerly turned through the pages.

  “It’s perfect!” he said, then leaned closer to me and whispered, “It looks pretty expensive. Can we afford it?”

  The clerk smiled at him. “Of course you can afford it,” she said. “You’d be surprised how little call there is for Russian folktales in the original Russian.” She then quoted a price that was only slightly higher than the coffee table book we’d bought for Tim and Phil at the aquarium.

  We took it. As she carried it to the counter and carefully wrapped it, I idly looked around the other shelves. On one wall they had a large section of old retail catalogs—Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penny, Sears and Roebuck. I spotted a Sears catalog from 1923 and suddenly remembered that, from the turn of the century up until the 1940s, Sears sold complete houses in kit form, with every single board identified as to exactly where it went, and including everything from doors and windows to nails and paint! You could get a three-bedroom bungalow for well under $1,000. I took it from the shelf and looked through it. Sure enough, there were pages after pages of houses, blueprints, and prices, including shipping. I took it immediately to the counter and showed it to Jonathan.

  “How about this for Jake?” Jake was Jared’s more-than-friend who was built like Paul Bunyan and had his own construction business.

  “Wow!” Jonathan said. “He’ll love it!”

  Chris and Max came over to join us at the counter and Jonathan showed them the catalog. “Isn’t this great?” he asked. “Maybe Jake will get some ideas from it.”

  The clerk smiled. “I’ll wrap that for you,” she said.

  *

  We returned to the apartment shortly before noon, and Chris m
ade sandwiches.

  Starting on his second sandwich, Jonathan said, “Would you mind if we came to rehearsal again tonight…if it’s okay?”

  I’d been just about ready to ask the same thing. Depending on what, if anything, I learned from Joe Kenyon, I’d like to be able to follow up on it.

  “Sure,” Max said. “You can come any time you want.”

  “If you’re sure you won’t get bored,” Chris said.

  Jonathan gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise. “No way!” he said.

  And that settled that.

  “You know,” I said, “I think I’d like to try to set up a talk with Cam, too, after I talk to Joe.”

  “Because of what he said about killing for the part? He was just joking.”

  “I’m sure he was. But it wouldn’t hurt to know a little more about him. Do you know his background? Where he’s acted before? How he came to audition for Impartial Observer?”

  Chris shook his head. “Not too much. I know he was a drama major at one of the Ivy League schools and has done quite a bit of stage work, but…”

  I looked to Max, who also shook his head. “That’s about all I know, too,” he said.

  “That’s okay. I’ll find out.”

  Finishing his sandwich, Max sighed. “Well, that should hold me till dinner.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Jonathan said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Is there a grocery store anywhere around here?”

  “Grocery store, meat market, fruit stand, bakery…all in the same block. We don’t have many supermarkets like back home,” Chris said. It was the first time he had ever referred to where Jonathan and I live now as “back home” though, in truth, I guess it was. And I was strangely pleased that he still thought of it that way.

  “I was thinking,” Jonathan continued, “I could make a meatloaf and stick it in the oven on low. That way we can eat when we’re ready and have plenty of time to get to the theater.”

  “Good idea,” Chris said.

  *

  Chris, Jonathan, and I left the apartment at the same time and walked together for a couple of blocks before they turned off at a cross street leading to the stores. I continued on to the theater, rather enjoying the sensation of being alone in New York. It brought back a lot of memories.