Was it only temporary? Of course it was. Just until I felt like myself again. Still, I felt a weird pang when she said so.
Robbie was still talking. “I think, when we meet next week, I’ll recommend hiring Naveen to take over the financial stuff. That’s once he figures out where we stand.”
“Let me know what he thinks,” I said. “Maybe Kate had some weird system I don’t understand, but the numbers just didn’t make sense to me.”
“Sure. And, um…” Robbie became uncharacteristically hesitant. “Naveen wasn’t the only person I heard from today.” She took a breath. “I got a call from Ted.”
I poured another glass of wine, hating the jolt of electricity that shot through my system.
“He asked me to tell you he misses you.”
“Misses me or misses the hundred thousand things a day I did for him?” I kept my voice dry as my traitorous pulse pounded.
“’Atta girl,” Robbie said, sounding relieved. “Stay strong.”
“Of course I will,” I told her. “I have very few other options.”
The next day I met Albert outside the theater. He was chatting with Marty, who was once again up on the ladder changing the marquee to the new lineup.
“Mad scientists,” I said by way of general greeting.
“Oh, Nora!” Albert was typically warm in his welcome. “I was just telling Marty that I seem to recall a poster for Dr. Jekyll in the archive. Perhaps it’s time to switch out Karloff and friends?” He nodded toward the Frankenstein and other monster posters currently lining the tiled walkway to the lobby doors.
“Great idea. I’ll help,” I said. “Morning, Marty,” I called up to him.
“Sure,” he said.
So, that went well.
After dropping our things upstairs in the office (where Trixie was not in residence—at least not visibly) Albert and I took the back stairs all the way down to the basement. The stairwell couldn’t have been more different from the sweeping grandeur of the lobby stairs. The walls were exposed brick, the railing was iron with a layer of peeling green paint, and the stairs themselves were bare concrete.
We clattered to the bottom and I saw that we were just a short distance away from the equipment room and alley door, both still sealed off with crime scene tape.
“I should call that detective,” I said. “And ask him when they’re going to be finished with the room.” I could also ask him if he’d found a connection between Raul and Kate, and if they’d figured out exactly when Raul had gone on ice, and any number of other things that he undoubtedly wouldn’t tell me.
“The prop room is this way,” Albert said, leading me around a corner, then around several more, and down a long hallway to a room I barely remembered from my first day tour.
It was large and windowless, and if I’d kept my bearings correctly, it was directly underneath the stage upstairs.
Miscellaneous piles of junk revealed themselves to be not entirely miscellaneous on a second look. A rack of shabby costumes was in one corner, surrounded by accessories ranging from tap shoes to umbrellas. Another area had furniture—beat-up chairs and tables stacked with random odds and ends.
Albert went straight to the only new-looking piece of furniture in the place, and even that looked like it had been scavenged from some office in the eighties. It was a tall gray metal file cabinet with very wide, very shallow drawers. I’d seen cabinets like it in art departments. Albert pulled out one of the drawers, labeled “D-G” and sighed.
“Gorgeous.”
I peeked over his shoulder. He was regarding a sultry Rita Hayworth trailing cigarette smoke as Gilda (1946, Hayworth and Glenn Ford) and whether he was talking about the actress or the poster itself, I had to agree. Gorgeous.
“Is that an original?” It certainly looked like one to me. But it also looked brand new. There were no pin holes in the corners or other signs of the rough usage it would have seen when the movie was first in theaters.
“No, but Kate found a supplier that does amazing reproductions. You should see some of these. Careful.”
He slid Rita down a bit to reveal a sheet of archival paper covering the next poster. Gaslight (1944, Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer). Again, the quality of the reproduction was extraordinary.
“Should we bring that one up?” I suggested. “It’s part of the ‘Ladykillers’ slate that starts Friday.”
“Good idea,” Albert said, pulling it carefully from the stack and holding it by the top corners. “Oh. Could you…” he nodded to a nearby desktop. I quickly moved everything on it to one corner. “There’s paper in the top drawer,” Albert said. I opened the drawer to find sheets of poster-sized archival paper in a neat stack. I took one and placed it on the table. Albert put Gaslight on top of it.
“It’s probably silly to take such care, but Kate was very particular about the posters. When she started acquiring the high-quality reproductions she made sure everyone handled them as respectfully as if they’d been originals—that’s when we handled them at all. She preferred to take care of them herself. She even switched to magnets in the display frames, instead of pushpins, to avoid damage.”
“I wonder how much an original Gaslight would be worth,” I said.
“Probably more than I am,” Albert grinned.
“You’re wrong there, Albert,” I told him, carefully looking through the rest of the stack. “I have the feeling you’re priceless.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. Well. We’ll see if you still think that when you know me better.” He gave me a sly grin and came back to the “D-G” drawer. “Dr. Jekyll should be near the bottom.”
It was, and so was Dial M for Murder (1954, Grace Kelly and Ray Milland) which was also part of the ‘Ladykillers’ lineup. There were four display frames in the walkway to the lobby doors, but we didn’t have posters for any of the other upcoming films, so we decided to use the three we’d found and leave Frankenstein where he was until after Halloween.
I spotted a notebook in the top drawer next to the archival paper. “That’s the catalogue,” Albert said when he saw me pick it up. “Obviously we don’t have art for every film we show, but we have well over a hundred posters. You’ll find the ledger has them listed alphabetically, along with where they were sourced and when we’ve displayed them. Kate started the system when she found her new printer. We’d better jot down that we’re putting these up and taking three of the Universal monsters down.”
“Right,” I agreed, holding the book. “I think I’ll take this up to the office with me. I’d like to see what other treasures are hidden away in these drawers.” I was getting a tingly feeling. It started when Albert said, “new printer.” I knew he meant the new supplier Kate had found for the reproductions, but what if there hadn’t been a new supplier? What if there had really been a new printer? Kate had bought a large-format high-end laser printer a while ago. It was a crazy half-formed thought, but I couldn’t help being excited by it. What if forged movie posters had been the source of the inexplicable money Kate had been spending?
“Oh, the treasures of the Palace,” Albert’s teasing voice brought me back from my fevered speculation. “Once you start looking you’ll find they’re all around you.”
“I have no doubt of it.” I took another look around the room as Albert carefully closed the last drawer. This time I glanced up at the ceiling. “Are those trap doors?”
“Yes! There used to be magic acts back in the Vaudeville days,” Albert said, his face lighting up. “There was a time when this room was filled with stage sets and backgrounds and all kinds of wonderful things. Back when she first started, Kate arranged an auction and one of the old magician’s cabinets turned out to be quite valuable. I believe she used the money to restore the lobby chandelier.” He looked at the piles of junk fondly.
“Isn’t there a story about a showgirl from back in those days?”
I asked. “A knife thrower’s assistant who was killed onstage? Isn’t she one of the Palace’s ghosts?” I kept my eye out for Trixie, thinking a conversation about ghosts might conjure her somehow. I was starting to get worried about her. Can something happen to a ghost?
Albert gave me a considering look. “There was a showgirl who died, but not onstage. She choked on a chicken sandwich between shows and was rushed to the hospital. She died there, not here, and no, she isn’t one of the Palace’s ghosts.”
“Oh.” I felt a little bit let down. “I guess getting killed onstage by a knife thrower is a better story than choking on a chicken sandwich.”
Albert smiled. “Yes. And what is the Palace about, if not telling stories?”
Right. Although there was one ghost story that I knew to be true.
“Although there is one ghost story that I know to be true,” Albert said, uncannily.
I stared at him.
“An usherette died here in 1937,” he said.
I blinked. “I heard about that.” I cleared my throat. “Do you think that one’s true?”
“Oh, I know it is,” he said. “I was there that night. And what’s more, I’ve seen her ghost.”
Chapter 14
“I was ten years old.”
I had insisted that Albert tell me everything right there and then. We’d pulled two chairs together in the vast basement prop room, and I was now on the edge of my seat as he told me about the night Trixie died.
“The film that night was The Awful Truth,” he told me. “Which wasn’t exactly made for ten-year-old boys, but my father worked nights, and my mother often took me to the movies—the pictures, she called them—just to get out of the house in the evenings.”
“Sure,” I said, wanting him to get to the next part. The Trixie part.
“We were in the balcony that night, about halfway back, and I was perhaps more interested in watching the audience than in watching the movie. I was also hoping to catch a glimpse of the head usherette.” He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Her name was Trixie and she was just about the most glamorous girl I’d ever seen, in all my ten long years.” He grinned.
“I can imagine,” I said, although I didn’t have to.
“I don’t know what started it,” he went on. “But there was some sort of argument down front. Two men were raising their voices, and the people around them started shushing, and pretty soon Trixie came upstairs to see what the fuss was all about.”
“You saw her?”
“I did,” he nodded. “The object of my boyhood affections. She had this blonde hair, and the curls bounced when she walked, and she was so very kind to all of us who came every week to the kiddie matinees.” He sighed. “My friends and I all agreed—you can keep your Jean Harlows and your Carole Lombards—Trixie was the most beautiful blonde in the world.”
“I’ll bet she was.”
A shadow crossed Albert’s face. “What happened next was terrible,” he said. “Trixie got caught up in the fight, and then the men started throwing punches, and—I can see it like it happened yesterday. One minute Trixie was there, trying to get them to calm down, and the next she was gone.”
I held my breath.
“I couldn’t believe it. I truly couldn’t believe what I had just seen. It made no sense. It couldn’t have happened—that one minute she’d be right there, and the next…Then people downstairs started screaming, and the lights came on, and…it was true.” More than eighty years later, his face was still bereft.
I took his bony hand in mine. “Albert. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. “Well. It was all a very long time ago.” He gave my hand a squeeze before letting go.
“You said you’d seen her,” I prompted. “I mean…”
“Her ghost,” he nodded. “Many times. The first was when I was back from the army. It was Christmastime and I took my parents to see The Bishop’s Wife. That would have been…”
“1947,” I said without thinking (Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young).
“Yes. 1947. And there she was. We were sitting in the balcony. I glanced over toward the aisle, and I saw her standing there plain as day, wearing the same uniform I remembered, and carrying her flashlight like she was just about to scold someone.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared,” he said. “I looked over to my mother, to see if she could see her as well, and when I looked back she was gone.”
“But you’ve seen her since,” I said. “Have you ever spoken to her?”
His smile was tinged with sadness. “No, never. But I saw her several times over the years before the Palace closed.”
“And since it reopened?” I asked. “Since you came back to work here?”
He nodded. “Here and there,” he said. “Never for more than an instant. But you can take my word for it. Trixie is still at the Palace.” He sat back, waiting for my reaction. Then I heard a familiar voice from behind me. A familiar usherette’s voice.
“Well, if that don’t beat all.”
Chapter 15
“Nora, he’s seen me!” Trixie said.
“Right,” I said softly. It had taken all my self-possession not to turn around and talk to the ghost as soon as I heard her speak. Albert was still watching me expectantly.
“Why doesn’t he see me now?” Trixie moved from behind me to put herself squarely in front of the elderly man. She leaned down and waved a manicured hand in front of his face to no apparent effect. “Hello! Hi there!”
Albert cleared his throat. “Of course I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said. “But maybe one of these days you’ll see her yourself.” He tilted his head and peered at me from behind his thick round glasses.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I told him.
Trixie turned to me, hands on hips, her face a study in exasperation. “Why, I’m here just as plain as the nose on his face!”
“All right, then.” He stood. “I should get these posters up, don’t you think?”
Back upstairs in the office, I put the ledger on the desk and tried to calm a pacing Trixie.
“I don’t understand!” she said. “If he could see me once, why can’t he see me all the time?”
“I don’t know,” I told her.
“And why can you see me when he can’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“For heaven’s sake! If anyone can see me and talk to me, I’d suppose it would be a person I knew when I was alive, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you please stop saying ‘I don’t know?’ I know you don’t know!” She threw herself into a chair and tossed her head to move a stray lock of hair off her face.
“I think,” I said hesitantly. “I’m not sure, but I think it may have something to do with getting conked on the head by that light fixture.”
She stared at me. “You think that’s why you can see me?”
“It only started after I woke up,” I said. “You were right there in the room with everyone else when I came to.”
She sat up, pointing at me. “Random Harvest!” she declared. “You’re just like Ronald Colman!”
“Except that was amnesia,” I said. “But I see what you’re getting at.”
“Oh, Nora.” Her eyes widened in alarm. “Whatever you do, don’t get conked on the head again.”
“I’ll try not to,” I assured her.
“Hmm,” something seemed to occur to her. “I wonder what would happen if Albert got conked on the head.”
“Trixie! He’s a ninety-year-old man!”
“Older than that, if he was ten when I died,” she mused.
I gave her a look.
“All right, fine. I promise I won’t conk him.” She sighed. “But, gee it w
ould be wonderful to talk to someone about the old days.”
“I know,” I said. “Do you remember him?”
She thought about it. “There were so many kids running around all the time. You know that kiddie matinee he mentioned? Every Saturday we’d show two serials, then cartoons, then some B-movie monster picture or gangster picture or something, and then a feature, or even a double feature. The neighborhood kids would be here all day long.” She smiled, then seemed to think of something. “Say, I wonder who his mother was. He said she came to the pictures all the time, and I might remember her more than a little boy.”
“I’ll ask him her name,” I promised.
She nodded, chewing her lower lip in thought.
“Trixie,” I said. “There’s so much I don’t understand about how this works.”
“You mean about being a ghost? That makes two of us.”
“I know you said you can’t help it when you go away,” I said.
She nodded. “It just happens. Poof.”
“Right. When you’re startled or frightened. But you didn’t go poof when Todd Randall showed up yesterday. I think I was more startled than you were.”
“Gee, that’s true,” she said. She tilted her head. “I wonder if it was because I was so darn mad at you.”
“Oh!” I hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe you were too mad to be scared?”
“Maybe. I was plenty steamed.”
I cleared my throat. “About that. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. It just honestly never occurred to me that you could be real.”
“Oh, honey, that’s okay,” she said. “It seemed less crazy to think you were crazy, right?”
“It did seem to be the more logical explanation.”
“Logic is for the birds,” she said.
“In this case,” I agreed. “Here’s another question: Who do you think the guy on the horse was?”
“You mean the gentleman who came for me when I died?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know. He was nobody I knew, that’s for sure.”
Murder at the Palace Page 10
