The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  He gave another small smile, without the sadness. “I’d imagine both private investigators and writers share a similar basic motivation,” he said. “Curiosity.”

  I nodded. “I suppose that’s true,” I admitted. “If something piques my curiosity, I can’t seem to leave it alone until I find an answer—if there is one, and often there is not. It’s something I have to learn to control.”

  “And did Rod’s death pique your curiosity?” he asked calmly.

  Whoa! I thought.

  “Well, yes, it did,” I said. “But Jonathan and I came here strictly on vacation, and will be going home at the end of next week. This is all terra incognita to me.”

  At this point, we saw Arthur McHam coming up the aisle toward us, and Morrison quickly said, “Ah, I see we’re about to be interrupted. Would it be possible for us to continue our conversation privately—tomorrow morning, say, over breakfast? I don’t want to intrude on your time with Jonathan and your friends, but…”

  “No problem,” I said. “I’d be glad to.”

  McHam came up to us, gave me a nod and a “Mr. Hardesty” by way of greeting, then turned to Morrison. “Gene, may I speak with you a moment?”

  “Certainly,” Morrison said, getting up out of his aisle seat. “Later, then, Mr. Hardesty,” he said as he followed McHam toward the stage.

  Now what in the hell was that all about?

  *

  After a minute, and still totally confused, I got up and went to the lobby. Tait, I noticed, had joined McHam and Morrison by the stage. One side of the swinging doors was propped open, and Keith was moving toward the main doors, keys in hand. Six or seven people stood immediately in front of the doors, with another eight or nine standing around on the sidewalk, talking and smoking. Jonathan stood in front of the closed half of the swinging doors, next to what looked like an old-fashioned telephone stand with a large stack of programs. He grinned at me broadly and said, “Hi, Dick!”

  “Having fun?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I really am.”

  At this point, the main doors were opened and people began entering, invitations in hand. Keith went back into the box office and I only had time to say, “I’ll go save our seats” before Jonathan began taking invitations and handing out programs. And yet again I was impressed by how he looked and acted as if he’d been doing it all his life. Our friends Mario and Bob had been right when they said, after first meeting Jonathan: “This one’s a keeper.”

  I moved to the left-side aisle nearest the wall and sat in the second seat from the aisle in the back row, saving the aisle seat for Jonathan. They weren’t the best seats in the house, but in a theater as small as the Whitman, there weren’t really any bad ones.

  Once people started coming in, the auditorium filled up rapidly until, just before curtain, I was rather surprised to see there were only a few empty seats. I’d been sitting there trying to figure out what sort of game Gene Morrison might be playing, and where he was planning to go with it.

  As the houselights dimmed, Jonathan sat down beside me. “Keith’s watching the lobby,” he whispered.

  The houselights dimmed, the curtains opened, the light cube began to pulsate, the thrumming increased, and the show began.

  *

  Even though Jonathan and I had seen the show several times, this was the first time we could appreciate it as one seamless piece. Neither Cam nor Brent missed a line. When the stage plunged to darkness at the end, there were several seconds of total silence. And then the clapping began, and when the actors came out for the curtain call, there was a standing ovation. I thought Jonathan would clap the skin off his hands.

  The cast began clapping, too, moving forward to the front of the stage. Cam and Brent leaned forward, motioning Gene Morrison to come on stage, which he did to renewed applause. He took a bow, then raised his hand and the audience fell silent and took their seats. He thanked the audience, the cast—especially Cam for taking over on such short notice—and the crew, then asked for a moment of silence for Rod. It was quite touching and made me realize that, however else he may have been involved in Rod’s death, he must have loved him desperately. And maybe “desperately” was the key word.

  *

  There was a lot of milling around afterwards, the cast coming down into the audience to be congratulated by friends and family, Tait and Morrison and Arthur McHam surrounded by well-wishers. Chris came out from backstage to join us, and Jonathan excused himself to go see if Keith needed any help. I could tell he was having the time of his life, and I figured I should just let him run off some of his excess energy. Finally, the crowd started to leave and I noticed Gene step out from a group of admirers and motion me to come over. He handed me a business card with his phone number and address.

  “Is eight thirty too early?” he asked.

  “No, that will be fine,” I replied.

  Before either of us had a chance to say anything else, part of the group he’d just stepped away from moved in to surround him. I put the card in my pocket and returned to Chris, who was talking to Doris and her son, out of makeup and ready to go home. I congratulated all of them, and especially Carl on his professionalism. Though he only had a handful of lines, he delivered them well and seemed a natural on stage.

  “Thanks,” he said, clearly pleased, as was his mother. They excused themselves and headed for home.

  The place was beginning to empty out and Chris and I followed two obviously gay couples into the lobby—Max was apparently still busy with something in the booth, since we’d not seen hide nor hair of him or Joe—to check on what Jonathan might be up to. We found him and Keith in the ticket booth putting inserts into programs. I tapped on the window to get his attention.

  “About ready to go?” I asked.

  He looked mildly startled. “I guess,” he said, and Keith smiled at him.

  “Yes, it’s about time,” Keith said. “I’d better go see if Mr. Duncan and Mr. Morrison are ready.”

  With that they put the stuffed programs into a box and scotch-taped an insert to the top so they’d know which were which, then Keith squeezed past Jonathan to open the booth’s door, which faced the front of the theater. He stood aside so Jonathan could get out, then switched off all but the one small light over the ticket window and came out himself.

  “You don’t keep the booth locked up?” Jonathan asked.

  Keith shook his head. “Only during business hours. The money and tickets are kept in the main office at night and brought out when they’re needed.” He smiled at Jonathan and said, “Thank you again for your help, Mr. Quinlan. I really appreciate it.”

  Jonathan grinned. “Thanks!” he said. “It was fun.”

  Keith gave us a nod and went back into the now-nearly empty auditorium.

  Giving me a puzzled look, Jonathan said, “How come he won’t call me Jonathan?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess he just doesn’t think it’s proper; he’s working for Tait, after all.”

  “So?” he said, but before I had a chance to try to find a reasonable answer, he moved on to another subject. “Funny they don’t keep the booth locked up all the time,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, they keep a gun in there,” he said.

  That came as something of a surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “When Keith went to get a couple of boxes to put the programs in, I thought there might be some scotch tape to seal them up with in one of the drawers under the counter. There wasn’t. Keith had to go get some from Tait’s office later. But in the back of a bottom drawer I found a gun and a box of bullets.”

  “No shit?” I said. “I don’t suppose you recognized what kind of gun?”

  He shook his head. “We had a couple of hunting rifles at home, but I don’t know anything at all about handguns. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, though I was curious as to whether it might be a .38. And of course even if it was, .38s are one of the most common handguns
around.

  Still…

  Yeah, well, we’ll check it out, I decided.

  Jonathan, who of course had no idea what I was thinking, had kept on talking. “I’d imagine they had it there in case someone tried to rob the box office,” he said, “though you’d sure think they’d be more careful with just leaving it around like that. Anyway, I didn’t say anything about it to Keith—I didn’t want him to think I’d been snooping. I did offer to help him tomorrow night, if he wanted me to, but he says their regular ticket taker will be here then.” Jonathan was obviously totally caught up in the mystique of show biz, so I could sense the disappointment in his voice.

  “Well,” I said, “at least now you’ll have another adventure to tell the gang back home.”

  Jonathan grinned. “Yeah; they won’t be able to shut me up for a week!”

  Keith returned to the lobby briefly to lock the main doors. “Just about everybody’s gone,” he said. “Anybody still left can take the side exit.” He again smiled at Jonathan. “Thanks again,” and we followed him into the auditorium as he closed the swinging doors and turned out the lobby lights.

  Russ, the prop man, was moving up and down the rows of seats, picking up a few programs and putting the seats upright. Tait and Gene were waiting for Keith near the exit, and we exchanged waves of good-bye. At last the door to the booth opened and Max emerged, followed by Joe, who paused only long enough to exchange a combination greeting and good night before heading immediately for the exit. Max looked tired, and Chris moved behind him to massage his shoulders. Max leaned his head back against Chris’s hands and gave a long sigh.

  “I called for a cab,” Max said. “I figured if I had a choice between a ten-minute walk home and ten minutes more that I could spend in bed it wasn’t much of a contest. Damn, I hate getting old!”

  Chris grinned at him. “That’s right, grandpa. Why don’t you tell Dick and Jonathan what Mr. Lincoln said to you after the Battle of Gettysburg? I love that story.”

  Max bared his teeth at him and made a deep, animal growl. “Watch it, little man,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m about ready for bed myself.”

  To my considerable surprise, Jonathan said: “Yeah, bed sounds pretty good.”

  Will wonders never cease?

  “’Night, Russ,” Max called as we left by the side exit and made our way to the street to wait for the cab.

  *

  On the ride to the apartment, I explained I had an 8:30 meeting with Gene Morrison the next morning, and maybe they should plan their morning without me. Jonathan looked disappointed, but didn’t say anything.

  But Chris said, “That’s okay. I think we can all afford to sleep in.” He looked at Jonathan. “And we’ll leave a key out so that if you feel like taking a jog up to Central Park before we get up, you can let yourself back in.”

  “Thanks,” Jonathan said, and then turned to me. “What time do you think you might be back?”

  I shrugged. “I’d say I should be back by ten or ten thirty. I really don’t know what Morrison has in mind, but I’m eager to find out.”

  *

  I was up at seven o’clock, much against my will, and slipped out of bed to go take a shower. I knew damned well that Jonathan woke up when I did, but he studiously pretended to be asleep for my sake. When I returned to the bedroom, closing the door behind me, he was lying on his back, hands behind his head, blankets tossed aside to reveal the full package, smiling at me. He looked sexy as all hell, of course.

  “Wanna play a game?” he asked innocently.

  I deliberately made a wide circle around the bed to get to the closet, bending over quickly to toss the blankets back over him. “You know I do, and you know I can’t, so behave yourself or I’ll paddle your ass till it glows in the dark.”

  He gave me a wicked grin. “Promise?”

  I just shook my head in mock exasperation and continued to the closet.

  He watched me as I put on my shorts and reached for a shirt, then got out of bed to go to the shower.

  “You really don’t have to get up,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied and continued on his way to the bathroom.

  I was dressed by the time he came back into the bedroom. “So what are you going to do until Chris and Max get up?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” he said, rummaging through his bag for shorts and socks. “Thought maybe I’d go out for a walk.”

  “That jog up to Central Park?” I asked, and he looked at me quickly to see whether I was teasing him.

  “No,” he said, raising one leg to step into his shorts, “but it’s an idea. Not enough time, though. I’ll probably just walk around the neighborhood and go to the bakery for some rolls for coffee. I want to be here when you get back.”

  “That would be nice,” I said, walking over to give him a hug and a kiss. “But now I’d better go call a cab.”

  He came into the living room as I was standing at the window, looking for the cab to pull up.

  “Why don’t we go wait outside?” Jonathan asked, picking up the key from the coffee table. “It looks like another really nice day.”

  The cab pulled up just as we started down the front steps. “Oh, well,” Jonathan said. He walked me to the cab.

  “See you soon, Babe,” I said, opening the door and climbing in.

  I turned around as the cab pulled away, and saw him standing there, watching me. Then he turned around and walked off in the opposite direction.

  *

  Morrison lived in the East Village, overlooking Thompkins Square Park. I was early (of course) and had just enough time to take a brief foray into the park. I realized how my being apart from Jonathan as much as we’d been might actually have been a good thing. It gave each of us time just for ourselves to experience the city in our own way.

  I arrived at Morrison’s apartment on the 14th floor at 8:25, and he greeted me at the door. The apartment was about a fifth the size of Tait’s—actually, almost the same size as Chris and Max’s—but it was extremely comfortable and not the least ostentatious.

  “I know you have other things to do today,” he said, “so breakfast is nearly ready.”

  He led the way into a small dining room, where the table was set for two, complete with goblets of orange juice and a small napkin-covered basket I assumed held rolls of some kind. He waited until I was seated, then said, “I hope you like quiche. I didn’t know if you were a vegetarian so I made two—one with spinach, tomato, and onion and the other with ham. Which would you prefer?”

  “Either would be fine,” I said, a little overwhelmed by the trouble he’d obviously taken—especially for someone he’d barely met. He excused himself and went into the adjacent kitchen—there was a shuttered pass-through window between the two rooms. He opened the shutters from the kitchen side and placed a tray on the small ledge, on which he put a spatula and a carafe of coffee and, after disappearing for a minute or two, two individual-sized quiches.

  He came back into the dining room and moved the tray to the table, finally sitting down himself. “Since you said you have no preferences, shall we cut each one in two and have both?”

  “That’ll be fine,” I said as he picked up the spatula and cut each quiche neatly in half, then expertly removed them from their pans with the crust totally intact and conveyed them to our plates. They smelled wonderful.

  Setting aside the spatula, he lifted his glass of orange juice and said, “Cheers.”

  I returned the toast.

  “It was kind of you to have me over,” I said, “and to have gone to all this trouble. You must have gotten up at the crack of dawn.”

  He set down his glass to pick up his fork. “No trouble at all,” he said. “I’m an early riser and I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen. I think if I’d not been a writer, I’d have considered being a chef.”

  I finished my first bite of the spinach quiche, which was delicious. “This is excellent!” I said. “But you can rea
ch more people with your writing than you could ever have reached as a chef. I still remember seeing Unbroken four times when I was in college. A great movie!”

  “Ah, my first film,” he said with a small smile. “I’m glad you liked it. I must admit it was one of my favorites. And you’re right about reaching more people through writing. When I’m cooking, I’m happiest when I cook for only two.”

  His eyes suddenly reflected a terrible sadness, which rippled quickly across his face. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I’ve not had the opportunity….”

  His voice trailed off and he made an “hh-hem” sound and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. I could clearly see that Tait’s earlier description of him had been accurate: Gene Morrison tried very hard to hide his vulnerability under a facade of calm and sophistication, but it didn’t always work.

  “You obviously loved him very much,” I said, aware that I may have overstepped my bounds.

  He looked at me strangely, then took a deep breath and straightened up, giving me that small smile again.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did. Am I that transparent?”

  “No,” I replied, “you’re that human.”

  He was silent a moment, then looked at me and said, “I’m normally a very private person, Mr. Hardesty…”

  “Dick, please,” I interrupted.

  He smiled and made a brief nod. “Dick,” he continued. “I’m seldom this open even with Tait, whom I’ve known for what seems like a lifetime. But when I met you, I sensed…something. I have no idea what…that reminded me of myself many years ago. You struck me as the kind of person who would listen, and would understand. Nothing I’ve seen thus far has altered that original assessment.

  “So, yes, I loved Rod. How could I not? He was breathtaking, and funny, and warm, and I sincerely do believe he cared for me as deeply as he could.”

  “And why wouldn’t he?” I asked.

  He gave a laugh, which had more than an edge of bitterness to it.

  “Very kind of you to say, Dick, but look at me! I’m sixty-three years old, grey haired, and four inches shorter than Rod. He could—and did—have any man he set his eyes on. I had no illusions. Those were taken from me years ago. But I thought he and I could work out an arrangement beneficial to both of us.