| GLB Publishers San Francisco
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © 2004 by Dorien Grey
All rights reserved.
Printed in the U.S.A.
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in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.
Published in the United States by
GLB Publishers
P.O. Box 78212, San Francisco, CA 94107 USA
Cover by GLB Publishers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
ISBN 1-879194-49-X
Published 2004
T H E R O L E P L A Y E R S
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players…."
Shakespeare said that, of course, and you've got to admit the guy had a way
with words. If you doubt him, just go to any bar on a Saturday night. As
we go through life we all tend, consciously or not, to pick out some sort
of role for ourselves as our way of dealing with the world—how well
we play it varies from person to person.
I guess what Willie meant was that very few people, if
any, are exactly who they appear to be on the outside; it doesn't take a
private investigator to figure that one out. But maybe that's why people
tend to be so fascinated with actors, who are people who are not who they
seem to be pretending to be people who are not who they seem to be…well,
it gets a tad confusing. How they can possibly keep track of who they're
supposed to be at any given time is beyond me.
Being in the company of someone who is really or has
aspirations to be an actor is interesting enough, but when you're surrounded
by an entire theater troupe full of them, well, it's really hard to pick
out exactly who really are The Role Players.
* * *
"Wow," Jonathan said softly to himself for about the
thirtieth time, as he took yet another photo of the huge mounds of whipped-cream
clouds surrounding us. This was his first time on a commercial flight—and
first time in an airplane, as a matter of fact—and he, whom I often
think of as a sensory sponge, was taking it all in with his usual
enthusiasm.
Though I could tell he was a little nervous on takeoff,
he was trying very hard to appear cool. But when I reached over to hold his
hand as the plane began moving down the runway, he grabbed it tightly and
gave me a quick smile of thanks. This elicited a stern look of disapproval
from the business-suit type sitting in the aisle seat next to me. I merely
stared at him until he gave a small "harumph" and turned his eyes back to
his copy of Business Week. Jonathan was totally unaware, concentrating on
listening to the roar of the engines (not that he could have avoided it)
and watching the terminal and hangers passing by with increasing speed until
the whole front of the airplane rose up, pushing us slightly back into our
seats and the ground dropped away beneath us. Jonathan watched, transfixed,
as we climbed out over the city and the hills that circled it to the north.
Whenever I flew, I always asked for a window seat and
felt cheated if I couldn't get one because, reluctant as I might be to admit
it, I was always as fascinated with soaring through the sky as Jonathan was
now. But this time I gladly deferred to Jonathan's having the choice seat.
As always, I was secretly delighted by his ability to
become so totally and unapologetically enthusiastic over things that pleased
him. No halfway with Jonathan.
We were, in case you were wondering, on our way to New
York (Jonathan insisted on adding ‘City' whenever he mentioned it, probably
lest someone think we were planning a vacation in Poughkeepsie) to visit
Chris, my long-time ex, and his lover Max. They'd come out to visit us a
while before, and invited us to come see them in return. The actual dates
had been left open.
And then we got a call from Chris telling us that Max,
who worked for a brokerage house on Wall Street by day, was going to be stage
managing a new play for a small but rather well-known predominantly gay theater
group he'd occasionally worked with before he met Chris. The company's set
designer had recently died of AIDS, and Max had agreed to do the stage managing
only if Chris could apply for the set designer's job. Since Chris was assistant
to the head window designer for the flagship store of the Barton & Banks
Department Store chain, he was asked to submit a few sketches and was hired.
Chris's excitement reminded me very much of Jonathan.
They'd insisted we come out for opening night and we
could hardly refuse. Besides, I'd not had a real vacation in far, far too
long, and Jonathan had never been to New York, and while I was perhaps a
little better able than Jonathan to control my enthusiasm, we were both looking
forward to it.
I'd been lucky enough to have been working almost steadily
for the past month or so—nothing particularly exciting but at least
I was paid promptly and fully for what work I did, which was something of
a rarity for me, given my penchant for getting involved in cases for which
I was neither hired nor paid.
And Jonathan had completed a full year at Evergreens,
the landscape nursery where he worked, and got a week's vacation with pay.
He asked for and got a second week (no pay) to give us a little more flexibility
in our length of stay. Chris and Max had timed their own vacations to include
the week before the show's opening and the week after. Because I knew that
things would be pretty hectic for Chris and Max right up to opening night,
we originally had planned to go for just one week, arriving the day before
the opening. But they urged us to come for the same two weeks of their time
off. Max especially, as stage manager, would be busy with the show nearly
every night. Chris would be largely free, since the sets would already have
been completed before the final week of rehearsals, and Max invited us to
sit in on rehearsals any time we wanted.
That cinched it for Jonathan, who of course needed very
little cinching.
We arranged for our friends Tim and Phil to come over
and feed Jonathan's fish and water the 14,000 plants he had salvaged from
the trash bins at his work and lovingly nursed back to health.
* * *
The other shoe dropped the night before our flight. We'd
called Chris to confirm that they'd meet us at LaGuardia at 1:15 when our
plane got in. I could tell in his voice that something was wrong, and when
I asked, he said that one of the play's two leading men had been found dead
early that morning, apparently mugged and shot the night before while on
his way home from the theater. The police were already beginning to question
everyone who had been at the rehearsal the night before. Other than the natural
shock of having someone you know murdered, it of course was a terrific blow
for the entire show. The understudy could and would step in—there was,
after all, a week of rehearsal time left before opening night—but the
murdered man had been the production's single best-known actor, who'd had
a minor career in Hollywood and did frequent guest appearances on TV. And
to complicate things even further, he was also, apparently, the lover of
the play's author.
Aside from the blow to the company's morale, it wasn't
a direct problem for Chris since, again, the sets were already designed and
up, but it put tremendous additional pressure on Max's responsibilities for
riding herd on just about every detail of the production. A "new" leading
man meant an entire new set of things to keep track of.
I of course asked if we should cancel our trip, but Chris
was adamant—as, he insisted, was Max—that we come out as
scheduled.
"We'll do our best not to let all this interfere with
you guys' vacation," Chris said. "And we've been waiting too long to see
you as it is."
I suggested that we could at least find our way into
the city by ourselves, but again Chris insisted that they would be at the
airport to meet us.
* * *
And so there we were, on an airplane beginning its descent
for its final approach to New York's LaGuardia airport where the temperature,
the captain informed us over the intercom, was 78. We fastened our seatbelts
and Jonathan watched intently as we descended below the clouds and over the
sprawling city. When the engines changed pitch and the cabin shuddered briefly
with the "thunk" of the lowering landing gears' locking into place, Jonathan
again reached for my hand. I glanced quickly at the business type on the
other side of me, who had not said a single word during the entire flight
other than to order three Bloody Mary's from the stewardess. He was studiously
avoiding looking at us so I was not obliged to tell him to go fuck himself.
I could see, by looking past Jonathan, the ground rushing
up to meet us, followed by the gentle jolt of landing and the quick screech
of the tires as they made contact with the runway, then the roar of the engines
going into braking mode. And then relative quiet as the plane moved smoothly
down the taxiway to the terminal.
As usual, despite the "Please remain seated until the
captain has brought the plane to a complete stop" caution, several people
began getting out of their seats to reach into the overhead racks for their
belongings.
The minute the "remain seated" lights went off, the business type unbuckled
his seatbelt, stood up to open the overhead, pulled out a large briefcase
and, after a momentary pause to glare quickly at Jonathan and me, his lip
curling into a slight sneer, he disappeared into the crowd heading toward
the front of the plane and the exit.
Jonathan, too, was like a racehorse at the gate, his
seatbelt undone and sitting forward and sideways in his seat, one hand on
the seat-back in front of him, eager to get up and get going. He was clearly
impatient with me as I remained seated to allow those who apparently believed
the plane was about to explode at any moment pushed and jostled their way
to the front.
"They're going to think we missed the plane!" Jonathan
said, plaintively.
I grinned at him. "I doubt it," I said, and was treated
to one of what I have come to think of as "The Martyr's Sigh." He didn't
use them often, but they were quite effective when he did.
"Okay, okay," I said, getting up only to be hit in the ass with a large makeup
kit being wielded by a lady who looked as though she could desperately use
its contents.
No "excuse me," just a quick scowl for my having dared
to get in her way and she swept imperiously up the aisle.
Jonathan grinned. "Nice try," he said.
Looking carefully behind me, I opened the overhead and
took out Jonathan's book bag, which he'd crammed full of extra clothes that
he couldn't squeeze into our two regular sized bags.
We were indeed among the last to get off the plane, and
as we left the causeway and entered the main part of the terminal, Jonathan
grabbed my arm and said: "There they are!" Sure enough, Chris and Max, grinning
broadly, hurried up for an exchange of back-pat hugs, handshakes, and—after
a quick dash to a concession stand for film—photographs all around.
Although we were among the last off the plane and took
our time getting to the baggage area, when we found the carousel for our
flight, the first bags were just starting to come off the conveyor and the
feeding frenzy of passengers scrambling to retrieve their luggage and get
the hell out of the airport had just begun.
"Give me the tags, Dick," Jonathan said. "I'll go get our suitcases. No sense
all of us getting caught up in that crowd."
"Okay," I said, exchanging the tickets for his book-bag
so he could wend his way through the mob more easily. Smiling broadly, Jonathan
dove into the pack and expertly sidestepped and swerved and wriggled his
way to the carousel.
As he disappeared momentarily into the crowd, Chris smiled
and said: "Think he's having a good time so far?"
I nodded. "He hides it well, doesn't he?"
Since ours had been a non-stop flight, I was fairly sure
there wasn't much chance that our bags had gotten misdirected to Lisbon and
I was right. Less than five minutes later we saw Jonathan retrieve one bag
and set it at his feet between himself and the carousel. He reached for another,
made a quick check of the tag in his hand, and let it go by. Almost immediately
he spotted another, looked at the tags, and pulled it off the carousel. I
handed the book-bag to Chris and moved forward to meet Jonathan as he wended
his way back through the crowd.
"Ah, the luck o' the Quinlans," I said as I reached to
take one of the bags. Rejoining Chris and Max, we followed them to the
exit.
A friend in their building had lent them his car—like
many New Yorkers, Chris and Max didn't feel the need to own one
themselves—and soon we were headed into the city, catching increasingly
frequent glimpses of the impressive skyline across the river. As a special
concession to Jonathan's first trip to New York, Max took us over the
Queensborough Bridge, which brought us onto Manhattan at the bottom of Central
Park. Max turned up Park Avenue to 96th, then through the park to Central
Park West. Chris acted as tour guide, pointing out various landmarks and
points of interest as we drove by.
By the time we'd turned left on Broadway and were approaching
Times Square—something I knew few New Yorkers in their right minds would
ever do in their own car if they could avoid it—I was beginning to think
Jonathan might be close to sensory overload. He'd been silent most of the
trip (a pretty strong indication right there), and he just kept staring in
apparent disbelief that he was actually there.
While we weren't exactly from Hicksville Junction ourselves,
it surely wasn't New York, either, and for a kid who was originally from
a small town in Wisconsin and who'd never been on an airplane until today,
it was all pretty overwhelming.
* * *
As we entered Greenwich Village, Jonathan pointed to
a street sign and said happily: "Christopher Street! The Christopher
Street?"
"Yep," Max said.
Jonathan turned his head to keep the sign in sight as
long as possible, then turned back in his seat.
"Wow!" he said. "You're so lucky to live in Greenwich Village!"
"Actually, we live in the West Village," Chris said,
"but close enough."
Max and Chris lived on a narrow, tree-lined street less
than ten blocks from Washington Square. Max pulled up in front of a very
attractive four-story building which blended in perfectly with its three-and-four
story neighbors. Chris, Jonathan, and I got out and retrieved our suitcases
from the trunk, after which Max drove off to try to find a parking space.
Jonathan slung his book-bag over one shoulder and picked up one of the suitcases
as I took the other.
Chris led the way up the steps to the bright blue front
door, taking out his key as we climbed. Like every other building on the
block, the front entrance was raised above the street, allowing what might
have been the basement in most buildings back home to in fact be a sunken
apartment with its own steps leading down from a wrought iron gate.
The hall, when we entered, was neat, clean, and well
lit. A stairway to the left led up, and we followed Chris to the second floor.
We walked back past the stairs to a door close to the window overlooking
the street. He took another key, unlocked the door, pushed it open and waved
us in.
"Wow! Chris!" Jonathan said, looking around the
high-ceilinged, cream-colored room, brightly lit from the large front windows.
"This is fantastic! Look, Dick! They've got a fireplace!"
I had to admit, Jonathan was right about the apartment.
Chris's decorating skills were clearly in evidence, and I thought back to
the apartment we'd shared when we were lovers, fresh out of college and with
very little money. Even then, Chris had done a great job with it. We'd actually
built our first couch out of plywood and Styrofoam, and we haunted Goodwill
for most of our other furniture, which we refinished ourselves.
Nothing Goodwill here.
"You like it?" Chris asked, smiling.
"I'm impressed," I said. "You've done very well for
yourself."
I did notice several small pieces of artwork, a couple
of sculptures, a crystal cigarette lighter and ashtray, and some other things
I recognized immediately from our days together. An odd feeling, in a way.
And I'm sure Chris must have felt the same when he and Max visited us. Though
I'd moved from the apartment we'd shared, many of the…things…were
the same.
Noticing we were still holding onto our suitcases, Chris
said: "Come on; I'll show you your room and the rest of the place, what little
of it there is. I'm afraid the living room takes up most of the apartment."
We followed him down a short hall. To the left was a very small kitchen,
across from which was an open bedroom door.
"This is our room," Chris said as we passed. Next to
it, on the same side of the hall, was a bathroom with a claw-foot, bright
white cast iron tub which had been retrofitted for use as a shower. Slightly
opposite it, and behind the kitchen, was another small room with a comfortable
looking couch, a desk, and several bookcases.
"The sofa's a sleeper," Chris said. "I hope you don't
mind. It's really pretty comfortable. We needed a den, and there just wasn't
room for another full bed. I'll pull it out for you later."
Chris opened the door to a small, empty closet with lots
of hangers. "I hope this will be big enough for your things," he said. We
assured him it would, and he excused himself to go off to start coffee while
we unpacked.
As we walked into the kitchen—well, actually the
kitchen was really too small to be practical for three people, so we stood
in the doorway—the front door opened and Max came in. "I love New York,"
he said, shaking his head, "but I'd never have a car here."
We joined Max at the teak dining room table at the
kitchen-end of the living room, and Chris came out with a tray with four
mugs of coffee, an open carton of half-and-half, a bowl of sugar packets,
and a couple of spoons.
"What?" I asked. "Not the good china?"
Chris grinned. "This is the good china," he said. "At
least for family…which includes you. I thought you might be insulted
if we started treating you like guests."
He had a point.
Max looked back and forth between Jonathan and me. "I
see married life seems to agree with both of you," he said. He looked at
Jonathan appreciatively. "You, especially. What happened to that skinny kid
we saw just a couple of months ago?"
I guess I hadn't really realized it until now, seeing
Jonathan every day as I did, but Max was right. Jonathan had filled out very
nicely.
Jonathan blushed. "Well, when you haul trees and bushes
and 50 lb. bags of mulch around all day.…"
"Well," Max said, "whatever you're doing, keep it up."
We drank our coffee and small-talked about things that
had been going on in our lives that we hadn't covered in phone calls and
letters. Max wanted to hear about the cases I'd been working on since their
visit and I sketched in a couple of the more interesting ones. The conversation
eventually got around to the play.
"Sorry to hear about one of the lead's dying," I said.
"What do you know about it?"
"Not much," Max said. "The police are on it—they've
apparently contacted everyone who was at the rehearsal that night. A couple
of cops stopped by here today just as we were getting ready to leave, and
we told them what we could…which wasn't much. Nobody's heard anything
more from them as far as I know. Given the neighborhood where they found
Rod, and its proximity to a pretty notorious gay bar, Tait assumes they're
turning their focus there. Apparently there have been a lot of incidents
around there, since bar neighborhoods make good hunting grounds for
muggers."
Max sighed, sitting back in his chair. "I gathered they're
pretty much convinced it was just a robbery gone wrong. But Rod's death was
a real blow. He was a recognizable name; he would have pulled in a lot of
business."
"You think the play won't draw enough business on it's
own?" I asked, a little surprised that Max's concern seemed to be more for
the success of the show than for the poor guy's death.
Apparently realizing what he'd said, Max did some quick back-peddling. "Sorry,"
he said with a small smile. "I'm sure the play will do just fine. At least
I hope so. It's just that Rod was…well, he was kind of a…"
"I think ‘slut' is the word you're looking for,"
Chris said with a very strange smile aimed directly at Max.
Max blushed. "Uh, yeah. I guess ‘slut' would do
it."
Chris looked quickly from Jonathan to me. "Sorry," he
said brightly. "Just a little of the jealous lover cropping up in me, I
guess."
Jonathan and I looked at one another, not quite sure
what to say, since neither of us had a clue as to what Chris was referring
to.
Chris smiled sweetly at Max and said: "Tell them, Lamb
Chop."
Max shuddered and gave Chris a quick grin. "I hate it
when you call me that."
Chris returned the grin. "I know," he said. "So tell
them before they think we're on our way to divorce court."
Max gave another deep sigh. "Chris walked into the bathroom
at rehearsal one night and found Rod putting his hand on my ass at the urinals.
It's not like I was standing there playing with myself just waiting for him
to make a move!"
"I know," Chris said. "Rod had the hots for Max from
day one. The minute I saw him follow Max into the bathroom that night I knew
what he had in mind."
"Rod had the hots for everybody from day one," Max amended.
"You, too, if memory serves. Like the Sunday afternoon he showed up here
when he thought I was at an A.A. meeting?"
Chris' grin grew. "Yeah, that was kind of awkward, wasn't
it? But I'm sure it was just an innocent drop-by visit." He leaned toward
Jonathan and said in a stage whisper: "Actually, I gave him the wrong time
by accident."
"Uh huh," Max said.
"Didn't Dick tell me Rod and the guy who wrote the play
were lovers?" Jonathan asked.
Chris and Max nodded in unison. "Yep," Chris said, "which
just adds to the general merriment."
"How so?" Jonathan asked.
"Well," Max explained, "Gene Morrison, the playwright,
got his start here in New York, but then got lured away by Hollywood to write
for the movies. That's where he met Rod. I don't know if you remember
him—he went by the name Rod Pearce, though he'd changed it from something
else."
Jonathan's eyes grew wide. "Rod Pearce? He played the
soldier who got killed by that other soldier he made a pass at
in…uh…"
"War and Destiny," I said. "Jesus, I thought I was the
only one who remembered that movie. He really was a walking wet dream!"
Jonathan smiled. "Tell me!" he said. "On nights when
my brother Samuel was away, I used to lie there in bed and think of Rod Pearce
and…uh…" he left the sentence dangling, but we got the idea.
"Yeah," I said, "me too." Max, Chris, and I exchanged
smiles.
"Anyway," Max continued, "Rod had a short-term contract
with one of the studios, but War and Destiny was the closest he ever came
to making it big. He was a little too openly gay and refused to play the
starlet-dating games the studio insisted on, so it didn't renew his contract.
He met Gene at a party just before his contract expired and recognized a
good thing when he saw it. Gene is a great guy but, like a lot of writers,
he's basically pretty insecure and really, really quiet until you get to
know him. So here we have quiet, shy Gene meeting Rod-the-never-shy hunk,
and the rest is history.
"Gene hadn't written a new stage play in nearly ten years,
and he thought—or Rod convinced him—that writing one for Rod would
be a way to help Rod's career and get Gene back to doing what he loved
best—theater."
"Did Mr. Morrison know Rod was screwing around on him?"
Jonathan asked.
Chris got up from the table to get more coffee, pausing
behind Max to run one hand casually down under the front of Max's shirt.
Max reached up and held it through the fabric. It was a totally spontaneous
gesture on both their parts, but it fairly well erased any possible thought
of divorce court.
"I don't know how he couldn't have known," Chris said.
"But from what we can tell, he really loved him. He wrote
Impartial Observer for him, I'm pretty sure."
"Gee," Jonathan sighed. "What a shame for Mr. Morrison."
He paused, then said: "What's the play about?"
"It's an allegory about society's increasing loss of
humanity, and where the world is headed. Rod, oddly enough, played the part
of The Student, who is a time-traveler—neither one of the two primary
leads has a name. It's that kind of show."
"So it doesn't have a happy ending, then?" Jonathan
said, trying to hide his disappointment.
Chris, who had reentered the room with a fresh pot of
coffee, grinned. "Well, let's just say it isn't a musical. But it's a pretty
powerful show."
* * *
Max had to be at rehearsal by seven p.m. so we agreed
to a very early dinner at a gay restaurant just down the block from the theater,
which was itself within walking distance of the apartment. It was a nice,
comfortable place that reminded me vaguely of our favorite restaurant, Napoleon,
back home. But, of course, the fact that this was not back home lent it an
air of mystery and intrigue. The food was excellent, although the portions
were just a little small for Jonathan's appetite; of course he didn't say
so. Max had to leave before coffee arrived, and when the waiter asked if
we'd like dessert, Jonathan nodded eagerly. He couldn't decide between the
Bavarian Torte and the cherry cheese cake, so I told him to order one and
I'd get the other. Chris had French Apple pie. When our orders arrived, I
made sure I only took a couple of bites—it was delicious, but I was
in one of my noble moods—and insisted I was full and that Jonathan should
finish it for me.
"Are you sure?" he asked politely, but reaching for the
plate even as he spoke.
Chris looked at me quickly and grinned, but didn't say
anything.
* * *
After dinner, Chris took us on a walking tour of the Village.
We passed the theater, which, though it had no formal marquee, wasn't hard
to miss. The entire front of the building was painted a bright purple, and
a large painted sign stretching across the width of the building said simply
"The Whitman Theater Group." Flanking the glass double entry doors were large
posters announcing: ‘Impartial Observer, a new play by Gene Morrison.'
Jonathan immediately spotted and pointed to the smaller-font credits, which
included: ‘Set Design by Chris Wolff.' He turned to Chris, beaming.
"Hey, Chris, you're famous!" he decreed. "This is terrific!
You must be really proud!"
Chris shrugged and gave Jonathan a small smile. "Well,
let's wait until you see the play before jumping to any conclusions."
Peering into the theater from the street, we could see
a small, dark lobby behind the glass doors, lit only dimly by a light behind
the ticket window. There was no evidence that there was a rehearsal going
on inside. Chris moved on, and I had to grab Jonathan's arm to pull him away
from the poster.
"Isn't this great?" Jonathan said to me in a stage
whisper.
I grinned at him. "Yeah," I said, "it is." And we hurried
to catch up with Chris.
I'd been to the Village a couple of times before, but
it was really nice to be with a native, as Chris now considered himself.
He pointed out the homes of several famous people, writers and actors and
artists, and both Jonathan and I were duly impressed, though Jonathan didn't
even bother to hide it.
We did a casual walk-through of Washington Square, which
I guess I'd forgotten was not wall-to-wall gay, though it wasn't hard to
spot a goodly number of fellow travelers.
We stopped off for drinks at a couple of bars along the
way and, all in all, had one great time.
"This play thing must really take up a lot of your time,"
Jonathan said, picking the cherry out of my Manhattan and tapping in on his
napkin to eliminate any trace of alcohol, then dangling it by its stem like
a goldfish by its tail and lowering it into his mouth, putting the stem carefully
on his napkin.
Chris sighed. "Yeah, it's turned out that way. Not so much my time, now that
the sets are done, but for Max. He has to be there for every single rehearsal
and that cuts way into the time we have for our regular life. He was single
when he did it before, and it's been a while, so I don't think he actually
realized how much time it would take away from us. We've talked about it,
and I think maybe this will be the last time he'll do stage managing for
awhile."
"How did you like set designing?" I asked.
"A piece of cake, actually," he said. "The set didn't
require much "design" at all. The whole thing is black. Just black. The only
props are chairs—plain wood-backed chairs painted medium grey, a medium-grey
table, and a large light fixture—basically just a cube suspended by
one corner—hanging down from center stage. All the costumes are in shades
of brown, grey, and white. The hardest thing for me was the backdrops for
the hydraulic platform…" he paused and grinned. "Well, you'll see it
for yourselves. Just be ready to use a lot of your own imagination."
Jonathan had been taking it all in, wide eyed. "It sounds
great!" he said. "I can't wait to see it!"
"You can come to rehearsal Monday night, if you'd like.
Tuesday you've got tickets for Cats," he said casually, glancing at Jonathan
for his reaction.
"Really?" Jonathan asked, as if he thought Chris was
just teasing him. "I thought they were sold out for years! That's fantastic!"
he said, looking to me for confirmation. Then his expression changed to mild
concern. "What did you mean ‘you've'? Aren't you and Max coming with
us?"
Chris gave him a slightly-embarrassed smile. "We saw
it about a month ago. I didn't mention it because I knew you wanted to see
it. And we'd had our tickets ordered even before we came out to visit you."
"But then how…" Jonathan began, but Chris stepped
in with the answer before he finished the question.
"Tait Duncan, who pretty much is The Whitman Theater
Group, pulled a few strings for Max when we found out for sure you were coming,"
he said. "You'll be sitting close enough to the stage that you can almost
reach out and pull the characters' tails—and there are a couple of guys
in the cast whose tails I'd love to pull." He grinned then, looking at me,
quickly added: "…Were I not a happily married man."
Uh huh, I thought.
* * *
We returned to the apartment a little after ten and were
sitting in the living room talking when Max came in at around 10:30. With
a nod to Jonathan and me, he walked directly over to Chris and bent over
to give him a peck on the forehead.
"Rough one?" Chris asked as Max stood up and, placing
his hands on his hips, did a back stretch.
"What's happening to me?" Max asked. "I used to be a
kid!" He looked tired.
I moved closer to Jonathan to allow Max to join us on
the couch, onto which he plopped down heavily. He turned to Jonathan with
a weak grin. "Enjoy it while ya' got it, kid," he said. Then he looked at
Chris and said: "Does that answer your question?"
Chris nodded. "Yep."
Max sighed. "We did a complete run through with
Cam—he's Rod's understudy—for the first time."
"Problems, I gather?" I asked.
Max gave me the same weak smile he'd given Jonathan.
"Can we say ‘train wreck,' boys and girls? All the actors play two or
three roles. When Cam stepped into Rod's part, that meant we had to get someone
to take his parts, and…well, there was a hell of a lot of shifting around.
But as a result, everybody was about a quarter octave off pitch—or would
have been if this were a musical, but you get the idea. I have to give Cam
credit, though, he knew every single one of Rod's lines by heart. And Gene
was there, like Banquo's ghost, pacing back and forth behind the last row
and not saying a word, which made everybody as awkward as all hell, not knowing
what to say to the guy, or if they should say anything at all. Tait went
back and asked him why he didn't just go home and get some rest, but Gene
insisted he just wanted to be there."
He sighed heavily. "Well, hopefully Monday will go better.
It couldn't get much worse. And we open next Friday." Turning to me, he said
casually: "Oh, and Tait has invited us all over to his place tomorrow for
lunch. He wants to meet Dick and Jonathan."
"That was nice of him," I said. "Especially considering
everything he's going through." Jonathan nodded in agreement.
From the expression on Chris' face, I gathered this
invitation had not been of long-standing duration.
"Does Mr. Duncan know what I do for a living?" I asked,
sensing something Max wasn't saying.
Max looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I think both
Chris and I had probably mentioned it to him at one time or another, and
then tonight he called me into his office and was asking some questions about
you."
Gee, one of my mind voices—the one in charge of
skepticism—observed, I can't possibly imagine why.
"So there might be something behind the invitation
other than just his being a nice guy," I said.
Max sighed. "Well…I wouldn't be surprised. He asked
me not to repeat our conversation to anyone involved in the play, so I get
the feeling…" he paused.
"Yes?" I prompted after the pause exceeded my three-second
patience limit.
Max seemed to be having second thoughts about whatever
he'd started to say."Well," he said, "I mean, this is your vacation, after
all, and we don't have to go. Hey, I can call Tait in the morning tell him
we can't make it. I can tell him you'd already made plans for the day."
"No, no," I said. "After his having gone out of his way
to help get us tickets for Cats it would be pretty rude to ignore his
invitation." Now it was my turn for a slight pause before:"So you were saying
about this feeling you had…?"
He shrugged. "I get the feeling he thinks one of us involved
with the play killed Rod."
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Finalist in 2004 Lambda Literary Awards for Gay Men's
Mystery
