Reign

Sid put an avuncular hand on Evan's shoulder. 'Kid, your dad's gone through a helluva lot lately. We all have. You take three deaths – one your wife – and combine them with this project we've all gambled our lives on, and you think you're gonna be totally normal? It's just a job to you, pal. It's Dennis's life. Give him slack.'

'Sid, he threatened to kill me.'

'He's done that before. Not to you, maybe, but to other people who pissed him off. He's never carried it through, though.' Sid smiled. 'Leastways, not that I know of. He flies off the handle…” The smile turned to a puzzled frown. 'Or he used to. God, I haven't seen him explode in ages. You must have touched a sore spot.”

“He even said…” Evan paused.

'What?'

'That I wasn't his son.'

Sid sat for a minute, staring at Evan. Finally he shook his head. 'That's bullshit. Believe me, I know. I was there, pal. Right after they were married, Dennis didn't want to let your mom out of his sight. And when he did, I was right there. If anything funny had gone on, I'd have known about it.'

'You're right. You're probably right. But he just seemed so crazy

… I don't know, maybe I should just get the hell away from here.'

'Maybe you should stay. You might be able to help him.'

'Help him? How?'

'He needs stability right now. Maybe he's looking back at the days when he was the Emperor, thinking that things were better then, simpler. Play the role and that's it. He needs to have people around him who care, Evan. Robin's death's has left a helluva gap. We've all got to try and help to fill it.'

Evan walked to the window and looked down at the tree-lined street. 'Why, Sid? Why do we have to?'

'Because he's a good man. A generous man. And because we love him.”

“You really think that's true? You think he's good?'

'Yeah, I do. He works his heart out when the telethon comes along each year. And in the past twenty years he's given away millions. Literally millions.”

“I never knew that.'

'Nobody does except us and the IRS. He doesn't want it publicized. But there's another thing – if this musical theatre project works out it's going to mean work for hundreds of show people. It's a damn good cause.' Evan didn't speak. 'Hang around, kid. He needs you, really.'

'All right. For a while. I don't know what I can do, though.'

'Just don't piss him off again. Let him go, even if you think he's wrong. He's got to work some things out on his own. But be there when he needs you.”

“All right, Sid. Thanks for listening.'

'Hey, anytime.' He gave the boy a hug.

'Curt's gonna wonder where the hell I am,' Evan said, and went to the door. 'So long, Sid.'

'See you, kid.'

Kid, he thought as he watched the boy leave. Yeah. My kid?

Sid felt his gut cramp and wondered if he had been able to keep the look of shock off his face when Evan had dropped the bombshell. If Evan's reaction was honest, he had. That's what came of once having been an actor.

One hot afternoon and one drink too many, and he had lived with the guilt all his life. Dennis had been in New York meeting with John Steinberg, and Sid was left alone with Natalie Pierce, Dennis's wife of three months. She was a few years older than Sid, but ravishingly good looking, and when she asked him to sit with her at poolside and talk, he had done so willingly, and had made them both several drinks.

One thing had led to another, and before he was even aware of it, they were screwing in the cabana, without benefit of condom. Nine months later Evan had been born.

Sid had never been sure if he or Dennis had been the father. As the omniscient majordomo of the Hamilton household, he knew that they were the only two possibilities, and prayed to God that it was Dennis and not himself. Natalie Pierce had never requested a repeat performance, much to his relief. She was, he grew to realize, a games player, and had fucked him just to have fucked her husband's friend. With that mindset, it was surprising that she had never mentioned their indiscretion to Dennis, but such, Sid had figured, must have been the case, for Dennis's attitude toward Sid had not changed a jot. In another year, Dennis and Natalie were divorced. The year after that, she was dead, her games ended forever.

But the guilt had remained with Sid. Several times he had been on the verge of quitting over some outrageous words or actions on Dennis's part, but always he stayed, feeling himself condemned to penance because of his previous disloyalty with his employer and friend's wife. A greater penance, however, was the presence of Evan when he came to live with Dennis after Natalie's suicide.

It was Sid who became the surrogate father when Dennis was on location shooting a film, or working fifteen hours a day on his short-lived TV series. Later, with the success of the Private Empire revival, he saw Evan less and less, but the bond that had been forged in Evan's young childhood was still strong.

And apparently the bond that was forged, ever so briefly, between Sid and Natalie Pierce Hamilton was still strong too, in Dennis's mind at least. Sid had no idea that Dennis had ever suspected. How could he have? There had been no insinuations about Sid in Natalie's biography that had appeared in 1977, which presented a roster of her sexual partners, for one of Natalie's weaknesses was a loose tongue. Perhaps she hadn't considered Sid worth mentioning to her cronies.

Then why had Dennis told Evan that he was a bastard? Merely out of spite, in order to hurt him with his mother's adulteries? It didn't seem like Dennis. He could be hard, but not petty.

Of course, Dennis had not seemed like himself for months. Still, Sid had noticed no change in the way he was treated. Hadn't Dennis come to see him the night before to talk about that hallucination he had had? Surely there was evidence that he considered Sid a confidant, and bore him no ill will for a twenty-year-old indiscretion, even if he did suspect. He had even hugged him.

But dear God, Sid thought, forgetting for a moment the surprising revelation Evan had mentioned, what was happening to Dennis? Coming on to Donna a few months ago, the hallucination of seeing the Emperor as a separate entity several weeks before, and then today, with Evan, claiming to be the Emperor…

The grief and loss must have been great, but he had been acting strangely even before Robin's death. What was going on in Dennis's head? What in God's name was he thinking?

Scene 3

'Let's not go to the Kirkland Inn tonight,' Ann said, as she and Dennis walked from her front door to his car, a white Porsche that sat in her driveway like a glowing, friendly beast.

'All right. Any special reason?' he asked, opening the door for her.

'I'm too susceptible to old emotions at that place,' she answered smiling, not telling him the real reason.

Terri had been quick to tell her that she was going out to dinner with Evan Hamilton that evening, and Ann strongly suspected that it was not because she was attracted to the boy, but because she thought it some kind of revenge for her mother seeing Dennis. It was stupid of Terri, but then Terri could be awfully stupid at times. If she had been clever, Ann thought, she would not have said a word, and when Dennis and Ann walked into the Kirkland Inn, as they would have if Ann had not had the advance warning, Terri could have been sitting there with Evan, waving pleasantly, even asking them to join her, making it a most uncomfortable and humiliating evening.

But instead she had tipped her hand and given the game away. Ann knew that Terri would talk Evan into going to the Kirkland Inn, so Ann would make sure that she and Dennis went elsewhere.

They ended up at a steak house two miles east of Kirkland. Although the restaurant was crowded, Ann saw Terri's smooth, short cap of red hair nowhere among the heads that bobbed over the plates. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention where she had wanted it to be all along, to Dennis.

Though the ambience was more bustling than she would have preferred, the dinner was excellent, the steaks