'Sid, I -
'No, Ann, listen to me for a minute. Now I don't know how you feel about Dennis, but I love the man. Like a brother. That's why I've put up with him all these years. He's been… troubled lately, and I think you've been a part of it.'
'Sid, nothing's happened between Dennis and me.'
Lying little bitch!
'Good. I hope it stays that way.'
Robin could listen to no more. She turned, and quickly and silently walked away.
And now here was that pin, the subject of that hated conversation, on the bedside table, nearly hidden beneath the clock radio. How had it gotten there? There were two possible explanations. The first was that Ann Deems had given it back to Dennis, a gesture intended to end whatever relationship still existed between the two of them. The second, and the one to which Robin subscribed, was more realistic, utterly vivid. She could both see and hear how it had happened:
God, God, how I love you.
Oh, hold me, hold me, Dennis.
Ow! What the hell…
My pin, just my pin. Here, let me take it off…
Yes, the pin first, and then the sweater, and then everything, and the two of them fucking like dogs on her bed…
Her bed, the bed she shared with Dennis, with her husband, God damn it!
Robin clutched the pin so tightly in her hand that it hurt her, and when she unclenched her fist, she saw the impressions of the two faces, a smile and a sneer, on the pale skin of her palms. And as those four faces, the two of gold, the two of flesh, looked up at her, the plot fell into place, and she knew that this pin had been given to her for a purpose, and that purpose was to end Ann Deems's life.
'I understand you'd like to see how the star ceiling works.'
Ann Deems looked up from her desk and saw Robin standing in her doorway. She was surprised. The woman had not spoken to her for weeks, and Ann doubted if she ever would again. Yet here she stood, smiling, seemingly as friendly as anyone else in the Venetian Theatre. Ann smiled back and shrugged. 'Yes, I would. Sometime.'
'How about now?' Robin said.
Ann looked at her watch. There was only a quarter of an hour remaining in the lunch break. 'Could we make it by one?'
'Sure. There's not a lot to see, really, but what there is is interesting.'
Ann thought for a moment. There was no reason not to, since she was with the boss's wife if she was late getting back. Besides, Donna had never been a stickler for punctuality, and often returned late from lunch herself.
Another reason for going was that she didn't want to refuse Robin. She had been feeling guilty over her desire for Dennis, unfulfilled or not, and a chance to form even this tenuous bond of friendship with his wife was not something Ann wanted to let slip past her.
'All right,' she said, and got up from her chair.
Got you, you bitch, thought Robin, slipping her hand into the pocket of her slacks. Yes, the pin was still there. Though Robin was an actress, she needed no false emotions to make her smile and chat cheerily with Ann Deems as they walked up the flights of stairs that led to the ceiling. Robin was happy for the first time in ages.
It would be so easy now. Just a push, a jostle, and over the side she goes, those heels of hers cutting right through that plaster, and then down, down, all the way down to those nice soft seats below, but those seats won't be so soft from seventy feet in the air, will they? She hoped that Dennis would still be in the auditorium when it happened, not to hurt him, but so that he would see, would see her as she died, so that he would see and be free.
“… think they like it?' Ann was saying.
'I'm sorry?'
'Ted and Amy Lander, do you think they like the theatre?' The Landers, a husband and wife film production team and one of the biggest investors in Craddock, had missed the party in October. This week, however, they had flown to New York from the coast on business, and had made a day trip down to Kirkland to visit Dennis and see the theatre about which they had heard so much.
'I'm sure they do,' Robin said, opening the door to the projection booth. 'What's not to like? Besides, they love Dennis.' She took a beat, hoping that the next line was ominous, but not so obvious that Ann would run back downstairs. 'Everyone loves Dennis.'
Ann made no response, and Robin led her to the end of the booth, opened another door, and went up a spiral staircase that led into the aerie above the ceiling. 'Watch your head,' she said. And your ass.
They came out onto a small platform, and Robin felt again for the pin, needing to know that it was there, like some magic talisman, a spell that would protect her from harm:
She dropped her pin, officer, it must have come undone, and she stepped off to get it, just stepped off before I could tell her, before I could warn her.
And the pin would be there, wouldn't it? There right beside her body. Because Robin was going to drop it just as she pushed her. She would wipe it free of her fingerprints against the lining of her pocket, hold it by the edges, take it out, push the bitch, drop the pin, and be happy again.
'Can you see all right?' Robin asked. She didn't want her to slip, not until it was time.
'Yes, it's fine.'
'Hold on to the girders if you lose your balance. Even if you'd fall off, no harm done. The ceiling's solid.' Robin smiled in the semi-darkness at her lie. She didn't want to scare her now. She wanted her to feel safe, so safe that she would be off her guard, so safe that she would be very much surprised when Robin pushed her. 'See the bulbs? They're under those little metal plates.'
'God,' Ann said, 'there must be hundreds of them.'
'Three hundred and fifty. They're divided between ten and twenty-five watts, so all the stars aren't the same brightness. The stereopticon machine that makes the clouds is right up here. We're almost over the orchestra pit now.'
This is where it would happen, because this is where she would fall the farthest. When Ann leaned over for a closer look, that was the time.
'The clouds are on a twenty-inch disc,' Robin went on, trying to banish her nervousness by immersing herself in details. 'The machine has a thousand-watt bulb.'
'It won't go on while we're up here, will it?' Ann asked with a nervous chuckle.
'Oh no,' Robin said. 'There's no way. Don't worry. We're as safe as can be.' The stereopticon was directly ahead of them now. Robin grasped the pin by its edges, took it from her pocket, rubbed it against her slacks. 'There's the machine. Here, get ahead of me so you can see it better.'
She moved carefully to the side to let the woman edge by her. Ann moved gingerly, but nothing would protect her when Robin made her move.
Robin tensed. Push, drop the pin. Just one little push to make her fall back. Push, drop the pin.
Closer now, nearly next to her…
Push. Drop the goddam pin…
Now, beside her, and she could smell the perfume, the perfume she had smelled in their bedroom, that bitch!
Push!
Now!
And as Robin drew back, she heard the grating sound of rusty metal, and the world exploded into light. Blinded, she twisted away from this new and sudden sun, twisted her body, lost her balance, flailed once with her arms, and fell.
Robin's right foot drove a hole through the plaster and the wire of the ceiling, and she felt her leg shoot down, as though she were being swallowed by some enormous, expanding mouth. She had enough presence of
