The Hidden Man

by Anthony Flacco

  A cop, then, judging by the way he moves.

  The three slowly walked away, engrossed in their conversation. He could not make out a word of it at that distance.

  Still, he made no attempt to follow. There was no further need. His reconnaissance was a success because he now knew that Duncan was safely occupied with these two, and thus the coast was clear over at the theatre. It would remain so for a while yet, driving a nice little wedge under this window of opportunity, holding it open. For how long? Say thirty minutes, at the least? Half an hour was several times more than enough.

  With the frenzy of last-minute preparations going on at the fairgrounds, he had encountered no trouble in remaining nondescript while he posed as a deliveryman and wheeled a dolly with a crate strapped to it straight out of the Hall of Science and across the fairgrounds. The situation had called for moving unnoticed across an area filled with workers. For a man of his natural anonymity, it was a casting call from Fate.

  Once he reached the main gate, whatever force that had been helping him helped him again. Taxi carriages had already begun to hover at the new fairgrounds, and so hailing one was easy enough. For a few extra coins, the eager driver helped load the crate and the dolly right into his taxi. Then the cab took him all the way to Market Street and dropped him two blocks away from the Pacific Majestic Theatre—San Francisco’s Finest.

  After assisting him in unloading the crate, the satisfied taxi driver moved on to his next fare. He would quickly lose any detailed recollection of a nondescript man dropped off at no particular location.

  The nondescript man had risked leaving the sealed crate outside the theatre’s backstage door while he followed Duncan, so he hurriedly made his way back from the restaurant, moving along at a quick dog trot.

  He was there within two minutes. His property had been respected. Then it was a simple slip into the deliveryman persona, and onward through the theatre’s receiving entrance with the dolly and the crate. His research had already showed him that the theatre had no guards on duty in the backstage area before showtime.

  Like the finest background player, he flowed onto the scene, blended in, and moved through it without drawing attention. His character projected the perfect attitude: casual, bored, impatient, a working man who radiated the potential for the kind of annoyed and annoying conversation that nobody wanted to hear. Others would avoid his company without even thinking about it. He knew that because the master had known it—in a distant past, he had observed James “J.D.” Duncan pulling that particular slight on various marks, plenty of times.

  Randall and Shane said goodbye to Duncan at the restaurant’s front door ninety minutes after leaving The Sea Mist together. He proceeded on to the theatre to prepare for that evening’s show while they went inside and ducked into a booth.

  The manager spotted Shane and came over scowling, ready to ask why an off-duty employee was in the restaurant. Blackburn calmly gazed at him and said, “He’s with me. We’d like a couple of beers.” He dropped a dollar coin on the tabletop.

  The manager recalculated his attitude, offered a brief, tight little smile, then snapped up the coin and shuffled off to fetch the drinks. Once he was out of earshot, Blackburn muttered, “I don’t see how they can object, as long as you spend money here.”

  “He’s on my back, anyway,” Shane quietly replied. “Wants to move me out of here, make me cover the extension restaurant they’re opening on the exposition grounds.”

  “Really? Why not just play along? It would probably be a much more amusing place to work.”

  Shane smiled and nodded. “First we’d better get through tonight’s show with Mr. Duncan. And I have to tell you right now, I don’t see anything with him.”

  “Nothing?”

  “It’s as if he’s covered in a thick coat of paint. No light shines through him at all, that I can see. That’s not a sign of something being wrong with him, necessarily. It’s just that I can’t tell if his story is true, half true, or some cooked-up fantasy.”

  The manager arrived and dropped off their beers, sneaking a quick look of disapproval at Shane before quickly following with an obsequious smile to Blackburn. Blackburn caught his gaze and silently held it, blank-faced. The manager moved away.

  “I’m sorry that I can’t do any better with this one, Randall,” Shane added.

  “No need to apologize,” Randall replied, sipping at his beer. “I’ve never seen a man so close to outright hysteria for no particular reason.”

  “Maybe this is a tendency, you know, with people who go into public life. Entertainers.”

  “So someone is out to get him, but he either can’t or won’t tell us who it is. He’s sure that he’s being followed, but can’t say why. He got the city brass to make me follow him around and look for unknown assassins who could strike from any direction.”

  “But he only needs security during performances.”

  Blackburn exhaled through his teeth in frustration. “Just tell me. As far as you can tell, is he in his right mind?”

  Shane took a slow gulp to cover for some thinking time while his impression of Duncan came into focus. “I don’t think he’s insane. He doesn’t seem delusional. With the exception of his conviction that someone wants to kill him, he speaks in a perfectly rational way. But something has him off balance.”

  “Want to guess what it is?”

  “I will, but only after stressing the speculative aspect of my answer.”

  “Ah! Well, then.” Blackburn raised his glass to him. “Consider it stressed.”

  “Whatever it is that troubles him, that’s the real source of his fears, not some remote assassin.”

  “And of course,” Blackburn spoke for both of them, “if his fears are real, then the time when he’s the most vulnerable is right where I can’t do him any good at all.”

  Shane completed the thought. “Any fool with a handgun can bring Mr. Duncan down when he’s all lit up on the stage.”

  Blackburn drained his mug and dropped it with a thud. “All right, then. All I see here is an old-fashioned babysitting assignment. But I still need for you to come, at least for the big public appearances.”

  “You mean until you can dump the assignment.”

  “Amen.”

  They stood up to leave. Blackburn turned to where the manager was leaning against the bar and nodded to him. The manager gave his standard gracious imitation of affability, and since Shane was right next to Blackburn, did not even attempt to slide in a threatening look.

  “Come on,” Blackburn muttered while they walked out, “we’ve got just enough time to catch an early dinner before we report backstage.”

  “At home?”

  “That would take too much time. We’ll just stop in someplace where your manager doesn’t work. Vignette knows to bring Miss Freshell along with her to the theatre if we don’t get back on time.”

  Shane grinned. “I know Vignette will get there on her own. She isn’t going to miss a good show just because we don’t turn up. But aren’t you worried that your sweetheart might take offense?”

  Blackburn gave him a wry look. “Miss Freshell was not feeling herself that day, Shane. You know that as well as I do.”

  “No, I wasn’t talking about—”

  “What, you’re referring to her ongoing clashes with Vignette? She just needs time to—”

  “Not Vignette.”

  “Well what, then? She always seems to go out of her way to make a pleasing impression upon you.”

  “She does, Randall. I’m not—”

  “Has she said something?”

  “What, to me? Hardly.”

  “Well then, what are you trying to say to me? Why are we discussing this? They’ll meet us at the theatre. Can we go get some supper or not?”

  “We can. Let’s go. I’m only admiring your fearlessness.”

  “Shane…”

  “You haven’t even specified to her whether you will meet her before the show?”

&nb
sp; “She knows we’re working! She doesn’t expect me to sit with her.”

  “No, she doesn’t expect you to sit with her.”

  “What, then? Damn it, Shane!”

  “Can we agree that Miss Freshell is a published author of romantic novels, and that in some circles she is something of a celebrity?”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Can we also agree that as your fiancée, she is likely to expect special treatment from you?”

  “I arranged their tickets already!”

  “Tickets. But such a woman, a woman who has read from her books in public, a woman who is engaged to marry—she won’t notice if you don’t show up to greet her before the show, though. Will she?”

  They walked in silence while Blackburn absorbed the concept.

  “The question of whether I meet her before the show or after the show—don’t you think that’s something of a technicality? Miss Freshell is a reasonable woman.”

  “Miss Freshell is a proud woman.”

  “Not proud in the wrong sense of the word.”

  They continued on down the sidewalk.

  “All right, Randall. I’m sorry I asked.”

  “No need to apologize,” Blackburn said, looking troubled. “I know you mean well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Certain things, in a private conversation, a man can ask.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “You think I should meet her and Vignette before the show begins, don’t you?”

  Shane adopted an exaggerated nonchalance, just for fun. “I think Vignette will be fine, either way.”

  Moments like this reminded Blackburn why he had remained a bachelor for so long. He walked along in a busy silence until they found an inexpensive café and turned to go inside.

  J.D. always arrived at the theatre well ahead of showtime, taking advantage of the enforced privacy backstage to maximize his concentration, do his exercises, and make sure that his makeup was perfectly applied. Tonight’s special preopening show was enough of an occasion to make it worth spending a good part of the late afternoon at the theatre.

  All proceeded as normal, for quite a while. He sat at his makeup table applying darkener to his temples and warming up his voice. The silence backstage was the perfect backdrop for his imagination. He prepared himself by visualizing that night’s two-hour extravaganza. Naturally, he would dither away the first half by calling up volunteers and having them do the usual tricks, while he covertly worked his suggestions into the audience.

  That interaction with the individual audience members would serve its true purpose of ferreting out the ones that struck him as ready to play along. Out of those, he was usually right about half the time. And it was they who served as the capstone of his show, at the end—when he triggered them and watched their reactions convert a theatre filled with sophisticates into a gaggle of delighted children.

  His mental rehearsal was in full swing when he decided to go ahead and get dressed, even though he still had an hour and a half until the house opened. The sensations of being made up and dressed in his stage clothes always helped to heighten his readiness and, these days, seemed to help clear his thinking. He stood up and stepped over to his dressing room closet.

  His performance clothing had been delivered and placed there for him, early in the day. J.D. opened the door and looked at the suit rack to select the evening’s jacket. It was not an unpleasant chore, something of a ritual. A few languorous moments drifted by. Style being a showman’s first statement, the choice was not without meaning. Sometimes a pattern to aid in eye-dazzling the folks, sometimes a bold black for mystery. He was already in cake…cake up…caked makeup. His makeup was already on, that is, meaning that from now on, every little choice he made was a part of that evening’s sow. Not sow, as a farmer sows a field, rather show. Show, was what his inner voice was trying to say: every little choice he made was part of that evening’s show.

  Something tickled at his lower peripheral vision. It was just a flicker, but enough to drop his gaze down to the floor and land it squarely onto the young woman’s body.

  She must have been beautiful once, but was now quite obviously deceased. She was wadded into a ball, with her arms wrapped around her bended legs, as if she had been packed into a box. There was no smell of decomposition, at least not enough to overpower the strong scent of greasepaint and the various stage makeup products.

  It finally hit him. Time froze. J.D. was a beached fish gasping for air. He stared at the sight before him and felt a rushing sound fill his hearing. It rose and fell in time with his pulse.

  He found his knees shaking and felt them losing the strength to stand. Instinctively, he grabbed on to the doorjamb for support. His balance reeled away, and with a flood of alarm he realized that he was an inch away from passing out.

  He dropped to his knees and lowered his head. He had been to this point often enough to know what to do: Suck air in and blow it out, fast and hard.

  J.D. kept his eyes jammed shut and stabilized himself enough to remain conscious. But when he opened them again and found himself staring directly at one of the dead girl’s feet, a second wave of shock swept through him.

  The shock intensified while he forced himself to look upward, all the way to her face. She had powder around her mouth and nose. It looked just like his secret elixir.

  The resulting tableaux was perfect. Its message was conveyed with clarity, bright and shiny as a well-lit marquee. And the message told him that this scene was precisely the same as it would be if this unfortunate woman had a noose tied around her neck—with the rest of the rope coiling its way directly back to him.

  Panic hit him like a drop through the gallows. His body reacted before his mind could, and it threw itself into a frantic backward crab-walk, blindly repulsed, not thinking at all. He traveled away from the girl, straight across the floor and directly into the opposite wall with the back of his head. The awful impact was rock hard, through his skull, his teeth, his skeleton. This time, when the sensation of falling snatched him away from the world, he was powerless to stop it.

  J.D. crumpled to the floor and slumped against the wall, unable to do anything more than make involuntary twitching movements while he tried to remain connected to himself. Inside, he danced on the deck of a violently rolling ship. One second…two…possibly three…but then his muscles went limp, all balance eluded him, and he fainted dead away.

  THAT EVENING

  THE PACIFIC MAJESTIC THEATRE—SAN FRANCISCO’S FINEST

  AT TWENTY-ONE, SHANE Nightingale had never felt burdened by an overactive sex drive. Under the right circumstances, free from his usual self-haunting, he could view a woman’s beauty and charm with the animal purity of a lustful desire. But he was fortunate among most men because sexual longing did not drive his days. What there was of it could be self-corrected effectively enough, on the occasional basis.

  Thus while he steered Randall through the early arrivals to rendezvous with Vignette and Miss Freshell, he reminded himself that he had no real idea of what level of urge drove Randall’s manhood. A fellow so obviously virile might require the presence of a woman at some point in his life. He might feel that it is something he simply has to have, in order to live. Shane could only assume that something like that was driving Randall now.

  In that vein, he encouraged Randall’s best behavior in matters regarding Miss Freshell, in spite of other choices that he might prefer to see Randall make. Even though she lived at her hotel and never stayed for the night, she was still at the house often enough to feel like a boarder. Randall had never become seriously involved with a woman in the years that Shane had known him, so there was nothing for comparison.

  And so Shane never said a word to him about his reservations about her, because he owed his life to Randall Blackburn in ways that Blackburn himself would never know. Starting with the day nine years ago when Blackburn inadvertently drove away Shane’s deadly tormentor.

  Randall had
never wanted anything except for Shane to thrive. Nearly everything that Shane knew about being a good and decent man, he had learned from him. Therefore, if Randall needed this powdered creature in his life, that was it. Shane could never do anything to spoil whatever happiness Miss Freshell might bring.

  So he made sure that Randall intersected with Vignette and Miss Freshell, who arrived as scheduled in the theatre lobby. At Shane’s prompting, Randall had already picked up their tickets. Miss Freshell was greeted by her fiancé before the show so that she did not have to go stand in the will-call line, and was personally escorted to her seat, along with Vignette, by both men together.

  Miss Freshell beamed so brightly with pleasure at this treatment that Randall finally grasped the concept. His eyes widened and a smile crossed his face. He glanced at Shane and wiggled his eyebrows. Shane snorted back a repressed laugh.

  When the two women reached their seats, Shane and Blackburn dropped them there to wait for the show to begin while the men began their duties for Duncan.

  Shane resumed his place at the front of the house, discreetly looking back up the aisles and studying the audience members while they filed in. Randall was at the back wall, watching from behind.

  Shane was so grateful for the chance to be of use to Randall, to work at his side, that he would gladly accompany him on any duty at all. Nevertheless, they were saddled with a completely unreasonable goal for this performance. He could understand the frustration that Randall had to be feeling, in spite of doing a good job of hiding it. Randall had been abandoned to this assignment by an angry boss, and now was under orders from this Mr. Duncan, a man whose judgment might be reasonable or might not. As for that moment, their job was nothing more difficult than to look out for anybody who might want to do harm to Duncan, by whatever means, at any point during the night. That was all.

  Is that man over there raising a cigar, or does he have a derringer in his hand? What is under that lady’s tall hat?

  Shane’s biggest challenge in this was that he could all too easily imagine such outbursts of personal violence, and the many reasons for them, coming from practically anybody. He had found that so far in his life, the passing of nine years since the Nightingale murders had done nothing to dim their impact upon him.