Reign

intervention to get Prescott released, although his pistol was unloaded and kept by the guards.

The other smuggler was Larry Peach of the Probe, who tried to carry in a small camera under his sport coat. He set up a howl greater than Prescott's, about freedom of the press and the rights of the public to be informed, but the guards were adamant, even more so when the squabble drew the doubly annoyed John Steinberg back to their sides.

'These bastards won't give me my camera,' said Peach.

'When you receive your playbill,' Steinberg said smoothly, 'you'll find that the taking of photographs is strictly prohibited.'

'Not when it's news, pal – or when it turns out to be news, and I got every indication that that's what just might happen tonight. You don't let a reporter photograph news, that's censorship, that's restraint of free trade!'

'And that's enough,' Steinberg said, taking a checkbook from the pocket of his dinner jacket and writing in it with a gold fountain pen.

'What are you doing?' Peach asked, still restrained by the security guards.

Steinberg signed with a flourish, tore out a check, and stuffed it into Peach's breast pocket. 'That is a check from The New American Musical Theatre Project for five thousand dollars. You are a nuisance, and are hereby ejected from the premises, but with a full refund. See the gentleman out, please.'

' Hey! ' Peach screamed as the guards half pushed, half dragged him to the doors. 'You can't do this! Hey!' He saw a familiar face in the crowd. 'Geraldo! Hey, lookit this, man! Freedom of the press! You believe this!… Hey, Geraldo, where you goin'?… Hey, man, this is a story!… Yo! Oprah! '

The security people guarding the stage door were even more vigilant than those in the front of the house. Every member of the company had been patted down for weapons, and every dance bag thoroughly checked. No one complained, as they had all been informed beforehand of the procedures. 'It's for your own safety,' Curt had told them, 'and the safety of everyone in the theatre.' He had been about to say, and no one has a thing to worry about, but couldn't get the words out honestly, so left them unsaid.

Curt was worried, in spite of himself. He had been to the bathroom every twenty minutes, knowing that the pressure in his bladder was due to nerves, but that knowledge did nothing to relieve it. It had all gone too easy in the last week.

Dennis had taken a turn for the brilliant, and while it had initially delighted Curt, it now disquieted him. It had been too instantaneous, too abrupt, like a switch in Dennis's brain had been turned on. And Curt knew all too well from working with electrics that what could be turned on could also be turned off. He could handle nearly anything technical that happened on or off the stage, but he couldn't do a thing about the vagaries of the actors' performances except spoon-feed lines, and lower the curtain if things got too bad.

He still didn't really know why Dennis wanted to reprise the role of the Emperor one final time, but he suspected that it had something to do with what everyone discreetly referred to as 'the tragedies.' Whether or not it symbolized (along with his infatuation with Ann Deems) a return to happier times for Dennis, a time before the accidents and suicides and murders, Curt didn't know. There seemed to be more to it than that. There was an intensity in Dennis that Curt had not seen for a long time, almost a need to prove something to himself.

But what? That he could still act? He had finally proven that in the past week of rehearsals, though it had been touch and go until the outburst at Quentin. Curt had been startled by it and amazed at the results of it. Yet, even with the remarkable change in Dennis's acting, Curt felt as though there was still something missing, and he didn't know why, or what, beyond the feeling that it still seemed like artifice, no matter how precisely presented, like a photo-realistic painting masquerading as a photograph, or a brilliantly conceived and built robot aping real life.

Whatever it was, it felt fragile, like a house of cards about to tumble. Curt hoped it wouldn't take the rest of the theatre along with it.

He walked to the call board to make certain that everyone in the company had checked in. They had. Everyone was there.

Everyone.

The air of backstage was filled with vocalizations, notes both high and low. They came from every dressing room, from Dennis's, closest to the stage, all the way up to those of the chorus members unlucky enough to have to tread the wooden steps to the fifth floor. The intercoms, or 'squawk boxes,' in each dressing room were checked to make sure that the company would be able to receive their calls several minutes before they were due on stage for their various scenes. Hair was put into place and sprayed heavily. Faces were twisted and distorted to ease the application of makeup. These things accomplished, costumes were donned, muscles stretched, hands shaken, prayers said, dozens of simple and arcane ceremonies observed. Those who were ready queued up to read the telegrams and mailgrams that strewed the bulletin board, hiding the call sheets and the boilerplate Equity notices no one had read in the first place. They remarked over names, laughed over witty messages, had cups of coffee, waited.

Evan Hamilton imagined that he smelled the audience shortly before he heard it, long before he saw it. Even over the heavily cosmetic scent of foundation makeup, the biting sting of spirit gum, and the vomitous reek of liquid latex, he could sense the eternal smell of the theatre. It was the scent of many people gathered under one roof, a clean scent of freshly washed and perfumed bodies, the smell of people ready for pleasure.

But there was something else, a headier aroma, a ripeness of anticipation. It must have been such an odor, Evan fancied, that hung about the perfumed citizens of Rome as they waited for the circus to begin, for blood to flow.

Now he heard it through the thickness of the curtain, heard the sound of the audience, the low, dull buzzing of the faceless mass, like a hive of threatening bees. This sound, which he had heard and which had frightened him when he was a child, was like no other, and affected him like no other, and he closed his eyes as he felt the channels through which blessed air came in and out of his body begin to constrict, and he whispered a curse in his head, and felt like dying, and someone took his hand.

He opened his eyes and saw that Terri had come out of Kelly Sears's dressing room and was with him again. 'Are you all right?' she asked.

He nodded, took a deep breath. 'The crowd. I was remembering.'

'Don't,' she said. 'Forget it. It can't hurt you. Everyone's here. How could anyone hurt you?' She smiled and gave him a kiss. 'Let's see if Dennis is all right.'

They walked across to stage right, down the short flight of stairs to Dennis's door, behind which they heard him singing his first song, 'The Awful Thing About a King.' They listened for a moment. His voice sounded full and strong, and even in the warm-up, the mocking humor of the lyrics shone through. When he finished the first chorus, Terri knocked, and Ann opened the door.

'Hi, mother. Is everything all right? Dennis's costume all set?'

'It's wonderful, Terri,' Dennis said, getting up from his chair in front of the mirror. 'Frankly, I'm glad the original one got lost. This costume feels fresh and new and ready.' He laughed and put an arm around Ann. 'Just like me. Reborn. You've really done a wonderful job. And of course,' he added slyly, 'the fact that I had the best dresser in the business helped…'

He stepped aside, and behind him Terri and Evan saw Marvella Johnson standing in the corner. She smiled at Terri dryly. 'You did okay, girl,' she said in her low, rumbling voice.

'Marvella!' Terri pushed past an amused Dennis and ran to her mentor, who held out her arms for an embrace. 'You came!'

'How could I miss your professional debut?' Marvella said, nearly crushing the girl with a bear hug. 'And how could I miss the boss's last star turn?' She held Terri at arm's length, and her smile faded, her mouth straightening into sadness. 'But I'll just stay down here. I won't go upstairs at all. I'll just stay in the audience and watch. I've been backstage too many years.'

'All right, Marvella,' Dennis said. 'For tonight anyway. But as for the future, I still want you to be part of it.'

'We'll see, Dennis,' she said, and Evan thought his father would have his work cut out for him if he wanted