shorts. The blue navy cap was perched on his head. I grabbed Vera and moved toward the second door.
The door behind us opened, and a flashlight beam shot over my shoulder as we went through the door next to the closet.
“One suicide and two disappearances,” came the voice as I slammed the door behind us. “Or perhaps, two more murders and a remorseful suicide. I’ll have to consider the many options.”
A shot ripped through the wood and the man behind us launched into something in Italian. I didn’t have time to ask Vera what it was, and she was in no condition to tell me.
We tripped down a narrow hallway and I pushed through the first door my hand touched, hoping it was a way out. It wasn’t. We went through and I closed the door behind us. I could make out a ladder in the center of the room. I went for it, pulling Vera behind, and up we went as another slight tremor shook the building and set the chandelier waving.
And that’s how I got into the situation I started this tale with.
Remember, I’d let go of the chandelier and dropped in the general direction of the Phantom, knowing I was going to miss him. As I jumped, a third tremor hit. Vera screamed above me. The Phantom fell backwards, and I landed on a section of the floor weak enough for one of my legs to go through up to the knee. Dust rose. My eyes were stinging, my leg, in pain.
He was sitting dazed about six feet away from me. The flashlight was on the floor at his side, casting a beam in my direction. Also on the floor between us in the beam lay his fallen pistol.
I tried to pull my leg out of the floor, but I knew it was no go with the first pull. The leg was broken. I stretched for the gun. It was a good six inches out of reach.
“Toby,” screamed Vera. “Are you all right?”
“Are you?” asked the Phantom, coming to his knees. He reached forward and pushed the gun toward me, just an inch or two, still out of my reach. “I would like to know that, too.”
A ball of glass shattered near the flashlight. Then another. A third almost hit me. Vera was pulling glass teardrops from the chandelier and hurling them down.
The Phantom stopped the game and picked up the gun. He was still on his knees.
“Stop that,” he shouted, “or I’ll shoot him between the eyes.”
Vera sobbed and stopped.
“Good,” he whispered. “I keep my word. I’ll shoot you in the heart. But first I’d like to know if you really knew who I was, or if I was simply being paranoid.”
“Arthur Sullivan,” I said, grinding my teeth against the pain, reaching around slowly out of the beam of light in hope of finding a board, a nail, something to use as a weapon. “You played Rance in the now-famous production of
“Right” he said.
“You, Lundeen, and Lorna were involved in the death of the guy in the chorus.”
“An accident,” he said.
“Come on,” I said, stalling while my fingers kept searching. “You’re among enemies now.” My eyes were adjusting to the near darkness.
“Well,” he admitted, “not quite an accident.”
“What are you doing down there?” cried Vera.
I could hear the chandelier swaying, tinkling, as she moved in the hope of seeing what was going on below her.
“Discussing history,” the Phantom said.
“The three of you changed your names and went on to new identities,” I said, holding back a groan of pain. “And then one of you, Lundeen probably, got the idea for duplicating the Texas scam here on a bigger scale.”
“Good,” said the Phantom. “But there were no photographs of me. When did you know?”
“When we went to Lundeen’s office this morning,” I said. “Outside the door.”
“What did you hear?” he asked with interest.
“It’s not what I heard,” I said. “It’s what I didn’t hear. No raised voices. No quarrel. The second we opened the door, you and Lundeen were at it as if you’d been screaming at each other for an hour. Later, when we left the room, I could hear his normal voice on the phone behind the door. It gave me the idea that you and Lundeen had staged the argument.”
“We did,” admitted Adam Souvaine. “It really hadn’t been a good plan, even from the beginning. I had a fair deal going with my flock when Johnny came to me. The money was fine, but his threat of exposure was even more convincing. I exhorted my flock against the opera while Johnny and Lorna worked from within. The irony is that we have ultimately succeeded, but we … or rather I, since I am the sole survivor of this bleak tontine … will collect nothing but my freedom-though my flock and I may receive a bit of credit for keeping the opera from opening. But we digress. Everyone who could have connected me to Texas or this fiasco is now dead, with the exception of you and the soprano.”
“Toby,” screamed Vera from above. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
“Patience,” said Souvaine. “I’ll have you down in a minute.”
“The workman who died, Wyler?” I asked as Souvaine aimed the gun at my chest.
“Accident,” said Souvaine.
“Lorna?” I asked.
“John’s work, unplanned. She wanted out.”
He pulled back the hammer.
“Griffith?”
“Mine,” he said. “And let’s call John a remorseful suicide.”
“Let’s.”
“And we’ll hide your body and that of our buxom young diva, and it will be the great mystery of the Opera,” he said. “I’ll claim that God took you. Better yet, I can write a suicide note from John saying he killed you before he took his own life. So many possibilities for a creative mind.”
A small ball the size of a dog came hurtling out of the darkness from the direction of the door. Souvaine, still on his knees, was turning to the noise when Gunther landed on his neck, knocking him toward me. I reached up and grabbed Souvaine’s arm. Gunther gave him a small-fisted punch in the face and I got the pistol.
Souvaine rose up on his knees and rolled Gunther across the room like a bowling ball. Vera screamed from above. On his feet now, he took a step toward Gunther. I aimed a few inches in front of his face and fired, not worrying too much about missing. He froze. Gwen came running through the door, saw what had happened, and rushed to Gunther, who was trying to sit up.
Souvaine threw back his cape and looked toward the door.
“Sit down,” I said, aiming the gun at his stomach.
Souvaine sat. The events of the next ten minutes were worth recording on film. Gunther got up groggily and explained that he and Gwen had decided to wait for us to come out. When we didn’t, they had come looking for us and had followed the sound of Souvaine’s singing and the gunshots.
“You saved my life, Gunther,” I said as he and Gwen grappled with the ladder and finally got it in position for Vera. When Vera got down, I gave the gun to Gunther, and the two women managed to pull me up through the floor. I couldn’t walk. I could barely stay conscious. There was no feeling in my leg.
We all sat there exhausted for about five minutes before Vera and Gwen went for help.
I’ll give Souvaine credit. He didn’t offer a deal, make threats, or commit suicide by going for Gunther, who leveled the pistol at him with two steady hands.
“I could have been a first-rate character performer,” said Souvaine. “If John hadn’t been a fool in Texas … But life is a great ‘if,’ isn’t it? And there is no grand finale. Beaten by a dwarf.”
“A little person,” I corrected, feeling Gunther bristle and imagining his finger tensing on the trigger.
Souvaine began to sing softly. He sang as Gwen and Vera returned, leading a trio of cops headed by Preston. He was still singing when I passed out as a couple of cops lifted me up.
In my delirium, Souvaine’s voice became many voices and many songs. I was in a white room. Koko came in-wearing white-to work on my leg, assuring me with a grin and a wagging tongue that he’d have me as good as old in just a while.
And Souvaine’s voice said, “Bullet scars, scar tissue still healing. Here. See?”
