Tommy waved and sidestepped so that he was a yard further on stage. He dug his hands into his pockets and looked down at the wooden floor, as if waiting for further instructions. Then something offstage seemed to catch his attention. He turned, lowered his head, and stared into the shadows of the stage right wings.
'Dennis?' he said.
Suddenly the lights all went black, except for the beam of a follow spot that struck Tommy full in the face. He threw his head up and back, away from the blinding light. At that exact moment, the fire curtain fell.
The curtain, with its lushly painted scene, was engineered, in the event of fire, to drop instantly to a height of six feet. It did this. Unfortunately, Tommy Werton stood six feet four inches in the cowboy boots he was wearing. The bottom of the five ton curtain struck him soundly on the top of the head with a crack that echoed through the acoustically perfect theatre, and he slumped to the floor.
The same designers who had determined the efficacy of the fire curtain's initial drop then planned for the curtain to fall the rest of the way more slowly, giving people trapped on stage just enough time to run beneath the ever diminishing opening until they were free of the threatening backstage conflagration, and could join in the panic of the audience. They would have been proud of their work this night. The curtain worked precisely as it had been intended to. At the rate of six inches per second, it sank toward the floor, heedless of the people pushing their way over seats, running down the aisles toward the steps to the stage, heedless of Tommy Werton lying unconscious on the floor, his head toward the audience, his heels toward the back wall, his neck at the precise spot where the fire curtain was inexorably descending.
It did its job, falling, falling, until all five tons of it rested firmly against the stage floor, ignoring what had tried to come between it and its goal, crushing the frail interloper of flesh, bone, and muscle. On the painting, the wine barrel soaked up a new, deeper vintage, and the drunken courtier grinned.
Scene 4
Ally Terrazin sat speechless, her mouth open, her eyes fixed on Tommy Werton's own open mouth, round and gaping like a beached fish gasping for air. But Tommy Werton's mouth was no longer connected in any way to his lungs. His mouth was separated, along with the rest of his head, from the torso that lay jerking on the other side of the fire curtain.
'See me die,' Ally finally whispered.
Her date, half crouching at his seat, looked at her. She saw the horror in his eyes. 'What?' he said harshly.
'Nothing… nothing.'
Few people seemed to know what to do. Several men and women had tried to get to the stage in time to pull Tommy's body out of the way before the curtain fell, but only Cissy Morrison and Sid, who had been sitting together on the aisle, had even gotten as far as the marble steps that led to the stage when the fire curtain reached the floor. Sid had frozen for a moment, then twisted his head away, but Cissy, her gown hiked up to her knees, grasped the base of the curtain and vainly tried to pull it up. Immediately she ran behind the curtain, out of sight of the others. Sid shook his head and joined her.
By then, others had come to the stage, and a few ran toward the lobby in search of a telephone. Marvella Johnson sat, her dark complexion turned ashy-gray, and held her granddaughter Whitney's head against her massive breast. 'Grandma, what was that? What happened?' the girl asked. Marvella, her throat awash with grief, could not reply. She could only sit and wish that she had sent Whitney upstairs as she had first intended.
No one knew what to do. They sat or stood in the theatre, sweating, mumbling, a few running out to the rest rooms as their stomachs rebelled against what they had seen. Sid found a drop cloth backstage and came onto the stage with it. Cissy, her arms crossed as if holding herself, frowned at him.
'What's that for?'
'I'm going to cover him up.'
'The police or the coroner or whoever won't want anything touched,' Cissy said.
'The hell with them. We've got two hundred people out there watching.”
“And you're concerned with their sensibilities,' she said dryly.
'I'm concerned with Tommy's memory. Okay?' Without another word, Sid covered Tommy's head with the cloth as gingerly as possible, trying not to change the position of the grisly artifact.
'I'm sorry, Sid,' Cissy whispered as he returned to her side.
'It's okay.' Sid shook his head. 'Jesus. Oh Jesus, what happened?' He squinted toward the booth high above. 'And where the hell's Dennis?'
~* ~
When Dennis pushed open the door of the booth, he saw both Curt and Robin looking wide-eyed out the narrow slits of windows to the stage far below. 'What is it?' he said.
Robin turned her head in slow jerks, as if unwilling to look away from the stage. 'Did you…” Her voice was harsh and breathless. 'Did you call him?”
“Call… who?'
In reply, Robin gestured toward the window. Dennis came over and looked. Even though the distance to the stage was a hundred and fifty feet, he could easily make out the head and the splash of blood on the fire curtain. His legs trembled, and he would have fallen if Curt had not grabbed his arm. 'Tommy… oh my God, Tommy… what happened,' he husked out. 'Curt, what happened?'
'The fire curtain fell,' Curt said, his voice soft but, as always, in control. 'Tommy was under it.'
'We heard you on the speakers,' said Robin. 'You called him, didn't you? To the stage?'
'No, no… the mike doesn't work. It stopped down there. Oh Jesus, how could this have happened? Tommy…”
Curt reached out and took the microphone from Dennis. He flicked a switch, and a red light glowed on the object's base. 'It's working now,' he said, then put the mike down on a table, reached for the wall phone, and dialed 911.
~* ~
Dennis, Robin, and Curt waited by the lobby doors for the police and an ambulance to arrive. The guests were packed in the lobby once more, with only Sid and Cissy remaining in the theatre proper. The police got there first, since the station house was only a few blocks away from the complex that housed the Venetian Theatre.
The local police chief introduced himself as Dan Munro. He was a stocky, pockmarked man in his late forties, with a perpetually frowning mouth under a bushy moustache. His gray suit fit him as well as any suit would that had not been tailor-made to his bulky form. He seemed more gruff than necessary, perhaps in an effort not to be intimidated by celebrity. His companion, a young, uniformed patrolman named Davis, stood a deferential yard behind his boss, looking tense.
'Did anybody leave yet?' Munro asked.
'Just a few,' Robin said. 'We asked people to stay until the police came, but some were just so sick and upset…”
'That's okay. We'll catch up with them later. Bill,' Munro said, turning to the patrolman, 'you stay at the front doors. I don't want anybody else leaving.'
'I have a complete list of the guests I can give you,' Robin said. 'That way we don't have to keep them here.'
Munro smiled tightly. 'I'm afraid we do have to keep them here, Mrs. Hamilton. At least till the state police come and decide whether to let them go or question them first. They're in charge in a case like this.'
'A case,' Curt said softly. 'But it was an accident.'
'I'm sure it was. But they have to make sure of that. Now, if you'll take me to the body…'
Dennis led the way through the white-faced mob of celebrities. When he turned to make sure Munro was with him, he noticed that the man's gaze was darting here and there, lighting with recognition on one person, then another. Dennis felt no pleasure in the awe in which Munro involuntarily held his guests and, most likely, himself. He had long since ceased to be titillated by the ardor of fans. Besides, now was hardly the time for vanity.
~* ~
Sid and Cissy, sitting in the fifth row, turned at the footsteps. Dennis made brief introductions, and Sid led Munro to the stage, where Munro knelt and gingerly pulled back the drop cloth. He cleared his throat, then let the cloth fall back over Tommy's severed head. 'You put the cloth on?' he asked Sid.
'Yes.'
