The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  Max shrugged. “About his personal life? Almost nothing. He comes from a wealthy family, I know. His father, I believe—I’ve never heard Tait speak directly of him—was Horace Duncan, one of the most ruthless men on Wall Street. I know Tait’s got a lot of business interests all over the country, but other than that…no idea.”

  “No lover?” I asked. “Dating anyone? Go out to the bars?”

  Both Chris and Max shook their heads. “Not that we know about,” Max said. “As I said before, there are certain things it never even occurs to you to think about. We just tend to accept what we see and let it go at that. I’ve never seen him with anyone—I don’t even know what kind of guy he might be attracted to.”

  “Except…” Chris said.

  Max looked at him. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “except what that guy told you at work, and I don’t know if I’d put much stock in it.”

  “And what was that?” I asked.

  “Well,” Chris said, “there’s this guy, Chuck, at work who’s really into the Master/slave thing, and he swears Tait picked him up one night in an S&M bar.”

  Uh… I thought. “How would he know who Tait was?”

  “No idea. But Tait’s a pretty unusual name, and one day at work he heard me mention Tait to a friend, and said, ‘Tait Duncan?’ I hadn’t said his last name. When I said ‘yes’ he said, ‘Why, honey, I didn’t know you were into the scene.’ I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but he told me. The guy’s a real gossip, so I more or less let it pass—but he seemed pretty convincing.”

  Max shook his head. “Tait into S&M?” he said. “I just don’t buy it.”

  “People can fool you,” Jonathan said, with an uncharacteristically serious expression. I knew he was referring to his hustler days in general and to the bastard who nearly killed him.

  “Well if he is he sure fooled me,” I said. “I’ve never picked up the slightest vibes that he was anything other than solid vanilla.”

  “He can be pretty controlling, though, now that I think of it,” Chris said. “He’s usually pretty subtle about it, but still controlling.”

  Max shook his head. “So are a lot of rich businessmen, but being controlling and being into any branch of S&M aren’t exactly the same thing.”

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “Isn’t that the whole point to Master/slave relationships?”

  “I’m far from an expert on the subject…” I began…

  “Yeah. Pity,” Jonathan said with a wicked grin. I shot him a raised eyebrow look of surprise, and he just kept the grin and returned my raised eyebrow.

  That broke my chain of thought into several small pieces, but I managed to keep going.

  I sighed, then continued. “Well, again I can’t imagine Tait’s sexual preferences being relevant to Rod Pearce’s death, unless I’m missing something.”

  Jonathan leaned toward me and said in a stage whisper, “Interrogation over, mein kommandant? Shall I return the prisoners to their cells?”

  I felt myself flushing, and I looked quickly at Max and Chris, who sat there grinning.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.”

  “You didn’t,” Chris said. “But when you latch onto something, you sure don’t let go easily.”

  Jonathan put his hand on my leg. “I hope that includes me.”

  I covered his hand with my own. “Yeah,” I said, “like you had any doubts.”

  “We’re glad to do whatever we can to help,” Max said.

  We sat in relative silence for a few moments, drinking our coffee, until Chris said, “So what would you like to do today?”

  “Whoa!” I said. “Aren’t you two pretty beat? And you’ve got another show on tonight. Why don’t you just kick back today and rest?”

  “No,” Max said, “that’s not fair to you. You’re on vacation.”

  “True,” I said, “but I want to try to see Tait, if I can, and then maybe run up to Times Square to see if we can get tickets to something for tonight. Torch Song Trilogy, maybe, or Quentin Crisp, or who knows? It’s not as though we’re low on options. And we still need to pick up a few more presents to take back home. No sense dragging you through a bunch of shops.”

  Max and Chris looked at one another. “You’re sure?” Max said.

  “We’re sure,” Jonathan answered. “Maybe we can all do something special tomorrow if you feel like it.”

  “Well, we feel a little guilty about not spending as much time with you as we possibly can,” Chris said, “but tonight Max starts taking over the show.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said, puzzled.

  “Once a show opens,” Max said, “the director’s job is fairly well over. Everything is set and established. So it falls on the stage manager to keep everyone and everything in line and running smoothly from performance to performance.”

  “Wow, that’s some responsibility!” Jonathan said, admiringly.

  Max just shrugged.

  “All the more reason for you to take a day to yourself,” I said. “We’ve got another week before we leave. And even then it’s not as though we were never going to see each other again.”

  “True,” Max said.

  “So let me call Tait, and then Jonathan and I can run to the store and bring back something for breakfast; no point in you even getting dressed.”

  “You don’t have to go to the store for anything,” Chris said. “We’ve got some more frozen sausage in the freezer and I can whip up a batch of waffles. And there’s another bottle of that syrup.”

  “Great,” I said, glancing at my watch. It was just 9:30, and Tait was probably up by now. “Now, if I can use your phone….”

  *

  Keith had answered the phone (“Duncan residence”) and after I’d identified myself there was only a moment’s pause until Tait came on. I told him it was important that we talk privately and offered to come over to his apartment if it was convenient so as not to disrupt his day any more than necessary. I added that since I assumed Keith would be there, and that Jonathan would be with me, perhaps Keith might be willing to spend a little time with Jonathan in the conservatory. I knew Jonathan had a million questions about orchids he’d not had time to ask the first time we were there.

  Tait agreed and suggested we come by around eleven.

  I knew we’d be cutting it close—an hour and a half didn’t give us much time to shower, dress, have breakfast, and make it on time, but figured we could take a cab.

  Chris said for us to start getting ready while he began breakfast, which we did.

  Jonathan suggested that we could take a joint shower to save time. Normally, that would have involved about three times as much time as taking individual showers, but he promised he’d behave if I did.

  Breakfast was nearly ready when we returned to the living room to find Max setting the table. We’d been delayed a few minutes while Jonathan debated over which of three shirts to wear.

  *

  The cab dropped us off in front of Tait’s building at 10:55. Jonathan was looking forward to possibly spending more time in Tait’s conservatory, but said he’d do his best to find out anything he could about Keith and Tait’s relationship. The doorman was expecting us, and walked us to the elevator.

  Keith met us at the door. “Mr. Hardesty. Mr. Quinlan. Good to see you,” he said with a warm smile. “Please come in and have a seat. Mr. Duncan will be with you in just a minute. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thanks,” we both said in unison.

  Keith smiled again and gestured us to the chairs near the window. “I’ll just go tell him you’re here,” he said, and left the room.

  “I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Jonathan whispered.

  “What? The ‘Mr.’ thing again?”

  “Yeah. It makes me feel like somebody’s grandfather.”

  While I sat, Jonathan walked over to the windows, looking out at the Statue of Liberty.

  “Think you’ll ever get tired of look
ing at it?” I asked, gently.

  “Nope,” he said, without turning around.

  Just then Tait entered the room, followed by Keith. Jonathan turned around and I got up from my chair to shake hands with Tait.

  “Mr. Quinlan,” Keith said, “there are a couple of new orchids blooming. Would you like to see them?”

  “Sure!” Jonathan said eagerly. Without another word, Keith turned toward the conservatory and Jonathan followed him from the room.

  Tait smiled after them, and then turned to me. “Sit, please,” he said, and we both did.

  “So,” he said, “news?”

  “Well, what I’ve got is a great big box of jigsaw puzzle pieces, and I’m trying to fit them together. Most of them are probably just sky and forest, but I can’t afford to ignore any of them at this point.”

  Tait nodded. “I understand.”

  “Jonathan accidentally came across what might be one of the pieces when he was helping Keith stuff the new cast sheets into the programs. Keith had gone to look for another box to put the programs in, and Jonathan was looking for some scotch tape in the drawers under the ticket window. He found a gun and a box of bullets behind a stack of old playbills in the bottom drawer. Do you know anything about it?”

  He looked puzzled, then surprised. “A .38?” he asked.

  Aha! I thought.

  “Jonathan didn’t know what kind it was,” I said.

  He shook his head. “My god, the police asked me if we kept a gun on the theater premises, and I told them no! I was so shaken by Rod’s death I wasn’t thinking straight. I’d completely forgotten there was one in the box office! I haven’t seen it in years. I bought it when I first took over the Whitman, as a protection against robbery, and over time completely forgot about it. I should lock it up in the safe right away.”

  “Uh, that might not be a good idea right now,” I said. “Did you know Rod was killed with a .38?”

  “No! I had no idea! Surely you don’t think…”

  “It’s highly unlikely,” I said, “but the deeper I get into this thing, the more strongly I’m inclined to believe that your intuition might have been right. If the box office gun was involved, I think it should be left where it is for now.”

  “But we just can’t leave a possible murder weapon lying around. What if whoever used it decided to use it again?”

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” I said. “If someone from the Whitman killed Rod, they had a specific reason for doing so. I don’t think anyone else is in danger. If someone did use it, he may not know how many other people were aware of it. He probably thought that by putting it back, no one would think to connect it with the killing. Otherwise, he could have just disposed of it after the shooting. Moving it now could cause more problems than just leaving it there.”

  I sighed. “Of course I’m just blowing smoke on this whole thing until we can eliminate the possibility of this gun being the gun.”

  “I’d imagine only the police could do that,” he said. “But do you think it would be wise to turn it over to them at this point?”

  “Frankly, no,” I replied. “If it turned out it wasn’t the murder weapon, we’d be wasting their time and calling unnecessary attention to the Whitman. You said they never told you the caliber of the murder weapon. As far as I know they never told anyone else, either. And if it was the gun that killed Rod, the police would be swarming all over the place, which I’m sure you do not need in the middle of a production.”

  He shook his head firmly. “Definitely not. But there is another reason, one I’d not mentioned previously, why I really want to get this resolved one way or another,” he said.

  “What might that be?”

  Heaving a deep sigh, he said, “I trust you to keep this between us, but Gene and I think there might be a possibility of taking Impartial Observer to Broadway after its run at the Whitman. It’s much too early to know for sure right now, but we both feel strongly it has the potential. With some good reviews and a solid box-office, and Gene’s reputation as a playwright, it may well be feasible.”

  “How long have you been considering this, if I may ask?”

  “From the time I first read the script,” Tait said.

  Well, I thought, there went Gene Morrison as a potential suspect! He wouldn’t risk sabotaging his own show by killing the lead, even if Rod weren’t his lover.

  I pulled myself back to the moment. “Did Gene—or you—ever think about just opening it on Broadway to begin with?”

  Tait shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t have been practical. The costs of staging a show on Broadway are staggering. You need investors. We wanted to be sure of its feasibility first. And though Gene wrote it for Rod, not even he knew for sure that Rod could come through. Staging it at the Whitman is roughly the equivalent of out-of-town trials without the expense of moving it around from town to town. It gives us a chance to correct any problems. The play is strong on its own, and so even if Rod—or any other member of the cast, for that matter—wasn’t strong enough in the part, he could be replaced by a bigger name for the Broadway run.”

  I admit I was more than a little surprised. “And Gene agreed to that…the possibility of replacing Rod?”

  Reenter Gene Morrison as suspect #1.

  Tait smiled. “The possibility of replacing any actor, yes. Casts come and go. It’s the play that lasts, if it’s good. Writing Impartial Observer for Rod was an act of love, but Gene is also an eminently practical man.” He paused, looking at me. “So all these conjectures, speculations, ifs, and maybes aside, what do you suggest we do now?”

  “I’ve got five more days in town, counting tomorrow,” I said. “Let me follow up on some angles I’m working on and see where they lead. Again, this may all still end up as just a wild goose chase. And if I haven’t found out anything more by the time I leave and you are still considering taking the show to Broadway, I’d suggest you go to the police.”

  Tait sighed. “Very well.”

  We sat in silence for a moment until I broke it to ask, “So you’re not aware of anyone else who might know the gun was there?”

  Tait pursed his lips in thought. “Nobody, as far as I know,” he said. “When I bought it the box office staff knew about it, obviously, but none of those same people are still with us. Even though I’d forgotten about it completely, if anyone had mentioned seeing it in the interim, I’d have remembered and gotten rid of it then.”

  “So nobody still with the company?” I persisted.

  Tait thought another moment. “No,” he said, then reversed himself. “Oh, wait. Gene. He’s the one who convinced me we should have one, and he went with me to buy it, since I didn’t and don’t know a cap pistol from a machine gun. I’m sure he’s forgotten about it, too.”

  Gene Morrison again, eh? I thought.

  “Okay,” I said, “so let’s just leave it right where it is for now. I’d strongly suggest you don’t even mention it to anyone. We don’t want to risk calling any attention to the fact we even know that it’s there. I’d suggest that you don’t go near it, and definitely don’t touch it. We don’t want any more fingerprints on it than are already there, assuming whoever might have used it didn’t wipe it clean before putting it back in the drawer.”

  Boy, you’re really reaching, aren’t you, Hardesty? my mind asked. I ignored it.

  I then asked Tait about Gavin Sturgess and why he might have said the things he did, and pretending I didn’t already know, I asked who Gavin was referring to as an ‘ex-criminal.’

  “Gavin despises me,” he said. “Gavin despises just about everyone. It’s just who he is. After he won the Tony he became insufferable. As the years passed without another hit, his ego is the only thing that keeps him going. And the best way to raise himself up in his own eyes is to put everybody else down.

  “The ‘ex-criminal’ he was talking about was—and I trust you not to repeat this—Joe Kenyon. Joe is one of the best lighting and soundmen in the business. He could
and should be working on Broadway, but Gavin’s gossip mill pretty much assured that no other company would hire him after his release. He’s a great asset to the Whitman, and I certainly wasn’t going to turn my back on him.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Oh, and I’m curious as to who has keys to the theater?”

  He thought a moment. “Me, the director, the sound manager, the stage manager, and the prop manager.”

  “Does Gene Morrison have one?”

  He nodded. “As a close friend and one of the original investors, yes, though I bought him…and the other investors…out some time ago. He uses it occasionally when he’s in town.”

  *

  I asked him a few more minor questions until I saw him glancing over my shoulder. I turned to see Keith standing in the doorway.

  “Are we about done here?” Tait asked me.

  “I think so,” I said, and Tait nodded to Keith, who disappeared, returning a few moments later with Jonathan. As Jonathan crossed the room to join us, Keith once again left the room.

  The three of us talked for a few minutes—well, okay, Jonathan talked, about the new orchids and how he envied Tait for having them and admired him for appreciating their beauty—until I looked at my watch and realized it was time for us to go.

  Keith reappeared to show us to the door. I thanked Tait for his time and information, and Jonathan thanked Keith profusely for showing him the orchids.

  I waited until the elevator doors closed behind us before turning to Jonathan and asking, “So what did you find out?”

  Jonathan gave a small shrug. “Not too much, really, except I’m pretty sure Keith is in love with Tait.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The elevator stopped a few floors down from Tait’s apartment and a blue-haired dowager got on with a Lhasa Apso in her arm. It looked very much like a well-groomed dust mop. We exchanged polite smiles and rode the rest of the way down in silence.

  “He said so?” I asked Jonathan, picking up the conversation as soon as we left the building and headed for the subway stop.