flash blinded Dennis and he put his hands up. 'He's needed the publicity too much for that. Everybody needs publicity, am I right? Come on, Mr. Hamilton, you want the truth told, don't you? Not some silly bullshit. So talk to me, tell me what you know. The press is your friend if you know how to use it.'
The flash exploded again. 'Stop it,' Dennis said. 'No more pictures.”
“Then talk to me.'
'I'm not talking to you.'
'It's the only way you'll get rid of me.'
'That's enough,' Steinberg said.
' Talk to me!'
'Go away.' Dennis flailed an arm weakly in Peach's direction.
'What do you know? Who do you think did it?'
' Stop it!' Dennis balled a fist and swung it at Peach. It grazed his shoulder, but did not even make him lose his balance.
'Fuck you,' Peach grunted, and pushed a gloved left hand into Dennis's midsection hard enough to push him backwards and send him to the pavement on his rear, a dazed, drunken look on his face. 'This is better than an interview,' Peach said, raising his camera.
He never took the picture. John Steinberg swung him around and threw a right hook that caught him on the side of the head and felled him like a tree. The camera fell from his hand, and Steinberg brought his right foot down hard on it, shattering the lens and breaking the case so that the film was exposed to the bright daylight.
'You son of a bitch!' Peach yelled from the sidewalk. 'You can't do that! Freedom of the press, you motherfucker! You'll pay for this!'
'I certainly will,' Steinberg said, and removed a wad of twenties from his pocket.
'Buy yourself a new toy, but don't bring it back here to play with.' He tossed the bills next to Peach's shattered camera, then helped a groggy Dennis to his feet.
'I'm gonna have the cops on you!' Peach said, pushing himself erect.
'If you do,' Steinberg replied, 'I'll file charges against you for harassment and assault.'
'He hit me first!' Peach cried, for all the world like a child in a schoolyard. 'That was scarcely what I would call a hit. Besides, it's your word against ours – and who will the police believe? Us, or a piece of slime who makes Morton Downey look like a bastion of good journalistic taste?'
'You're gonna be sorry – I'm gonna find out what the hell is going on around here!'
'If you do,' said Steinberg, unlocking the door, 'please inform us. We'd love to know.'
'Yeah!' Peach yelled as the door was drifting closed. 'You're all dying to know, aren't you? Dying to know!'
Dennis sat on the padded bench in the lobby, told John Steinberg that he would be all right, told him to go to his office, watched him go, thought to himself:
I wore a mask. For all those years I wore a mask to make myself strong. But it was a lie. Masks are weak. Only reality is strong. And now reality is the Emperor. Now I am weak, but he is strong, and yes, Jesus loves me, oh Christ.
He was weak. His rage at that reporter had been only false rage, his blow barely thrown. There had been a time when he might have waded into the man with both fists, broken his nose, turned his face into a smear of blood. But no more. He was weak. How had it happened, oh God , how?
He felt as if he knew nothing, as if all the laws of life, things he had accepted for years, had suddenly been proven false, and that he existed in some other world, where those laws were perverted, broken, turned into cruel lies.
Lies. Lies and truth. Acting and reality. Artifice and emotion. Had he gone too far down the former path? Had he, by ignoring his true emotions and living false ones, lost his soul?
He rose unsteadily to his feet and started the long walk to his suite, his head full of thoughts and contradictions.
He wanted to tell someone, wanted to talk. But to whom? Sid, his sole confidant, was in jail, permitted no visitors except his attorney, and Steinberg was too practical to ever believe such a story. Then Ann? But even Ann, who he loved, and who loved him, might not believe him, might even think that he had constructed a vast charade to disguise his own guilt. He did not think he could bear to see disbelief and doubt in her eyes.
He pushed open the door of his suite and entered, his mind on Ann. He decided that he must be the one to tell her about Whitney. It had been his fault, and was his responsibility. He picked up the phone.
'John – when Ann comes in, tell her to come up here right away. Don't tell her about Whitney. I want to do it… yes. Thanks.'
He would tell her about what had happened to the little girl, but that was all. He would say nothing more. And then he would take her away from this theatre. He would take everyone away from this theatre, this place of death and terror, this terrible, dreadful empire that he had unwittingly and unwillingly created. And maybe, just maybe, the thing could not follow him.
The thought held him for a moment, and he explored its possibilities. It had said that its strength came partly from Dennis and partly from the energy stored in the theatre. What then if he left the theatre? Might it not wither away? Fade away into nothingness? If it had nothing on which to feed, Dennis thought, might it not starve to death?
'Hardly likely, my dear fellow.'
~* ~
(THE EMPEROR stands as before, by the fireplace, his arm resting on the mantel. He wears his full dress uniform.)
THE EMPEROR
My demise is not so easily accomplished as you think, Dennis.
DENNIS
You monster…
THE EMPEROR
I am what you made me.
DENNIS
How could you do that? Kill that little girl?
THE EMPEROR
You did not believe in my reality. I had to prove it to you.
DENNIS
But not that way! Killing a child? No one human could do that.. . (He stops, as if suddenly realizing.) The Emperor couldn't have done that. That character… he became imperial, commanding, yes, but never cruel, never… evil. (DENNIS shakes his head.) You're not the Emperor at all. Are you? You're something else.
THE EMPEROR
(Magisterially) I am the Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus.
DENNIS
No. No, you're not. You're the cruel and selfish parts of him.. . of me. That's all you are. You took the hatred and anger from my heart, didn't you? That's what gives you life, that and the energy in this theatre, energy from years and years of emotion.
THE EMPEROR
I am the Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus.
DENNIS
You're a liar. You're a proud and cruel bastard is what you are. But no more of you. I'm going to leave this place. Everyone is. And we'll see how strong you are then.
THE EMPEROR
Leave. You'll return soon enough. Return or die.
DENNIS
(A pause) What do you mean?
THE EMPEROR
