“He owed her, you ask me,” Donna Sue said. “He left Kiki for a trophy wife twenty years younger. He gave Kiki a big settlement and the house. But it wasn’t just the divorce. Brendan has been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for months. I was afraid he’d close the office with no warning. That’s when I started looking. Friday’s my last day, and good riddance.”
“Brendan has money trouble?” Helen asked. “How did that happen? I thought lawyers were money machines.” She thought she’d get more information playing dumb.
“They are,” Donna Sue said. “Especially class-action lawyers like him. But he spends it as fast as he makes it. Private jet, a yacht, a shooting lodge in North Carolina. All the lawyer toys plus an expensive young wife. The yacht’s for sale now, if you have a spare million.”
“I don’t get my commission money until Friday,” Helen said.
Donna Sue laughed. “Brendan was doing okay until three months ago, when he lost this big securities case. He thought it was a sure-bet win. He’d spent several million lining up clients and running ads on TV. You know the kind.”
She intoned: “If you’ve been ripped off by your brokerage firm, we can help. Call 1-800—”
Donna Sue went back to her regular voice. “He needed money and Kiki was driving him to bankruptcy. On top of all he’d shelled out for the settlement, he agreed to pay half his daughter’s wedding expenses. He expected the wedding to cost about two hundred thousand, but Kiki ran the bills past three hundred thousand dollars, with no end in sight.
“Kiki signed for everything for that wedding. All the bills. Florist, hotel, limos, you name it. The two of them were supposed to split the cost, but her signature was on the receipts. Now Brendan says there’s nothing in writing, so Kiki’s estate will have to pick up the whole wedding tab.”
Helen was shocked. “But the estate goes to Desiree. That’s his daughter’s money. He’s making her pay for her own wedding.”
“I think it’s lousy,” Donna Sue said. “He says Desiree can afford it. I say he should pay. A man shouldn’t abandon his family.”
Helen suspected Donna Sue’s ex had abandoned her, and that’s why she felt sorry for Desiree.
Helen sneaked a look at her watch. It was two fifteen. She wanted to be out before Brendan came back. “Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but do you think there’s any chance Kiki and Brendan might have gotten back together?”
“I don’t think it’s crazy at all,” Donna Sue said. “A couple of times I accidentally picked up the wrong line, and I’d hear him talking real soft and she was being really sweet. Then next time they’d be screaming at each other. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he married her or killed her, either one.
“I see a lot of couples like that in the theater. They’re at each other’s throats one minute, lovey-dovey the next. They get off on the drama. Me, I like peace and quiet. Guess that’s why I never remarried.”
A voice came from behind a dark wood door. “Donna Sue! Is that you yakking out there? Get your ass in here.”
“Is that him?” Helen lowered her voice.
“Charming, isn’t he? Must have snuck in the back way.”
“I better run,” Helen said. “I don’t think he’s in a good mood for a condolence call.”
“He’s never in a good mood,” Donna Sue said. “That man’s got a temper like a stepped-on snake. I can’t wait to tell him good-bye.”
Chapter 19
It was the first act of
Jason, the production’s new Richard, paused. The tiny noise had distracted him. He recovered quickly. “And all the clouds that—”
Helen heard the small sound all the way in the back of the theater. After she’d seated the last latecomers, she’d propped herself against the wall. The house was sold out.
From his first words, she knew Jason was no match for Luke. Helen missed Luke’s crazy energy and high emotion. Luke’s Richard was crippled in mind and body, bent on revenge for imagined slights, hungry for power.
Jason was correct but dull. The only good thing was his speeches seemed much shorter. Otherwise, Helen felt trapped in a PBS special.
Helen tiptoed across the empty lobby and slipped through the velvet curtains to the backstage entrance. A table in the narrow hall was piled with props: a crown with glass jewels, an evening purse, a dagger.
She threaded her way through a fire marshal’s nightmare of costume racks and stacks of scripts. Sagging gray curtains divided the men’s and women’s dressing rooms.
The sound was louder now. Helen thought it came from the other side of the dressing rooms. She slid past a bearded actor going over his lines, his costume damp with flop sweat. He didn’t notice her.
A plywood partition was just beyond him. Helen peeked around it. Chauncey was sitting on a kitchen chair at an old wooden desk, a bottle of bourbon in front of him. He picked up the bottle and poured sloppily into a water glass, hitting the rim with a loud clink. His shirt was open almost to his waist and there was a bandage on his neck.
Helen felt a cold hand touch her shoulder and stifled a scream. It was Donna Sue, in a black gown and silver crown. She raised a finger to her lips, brushed past Helen, and held out her hand with a regal gesture.
Chauncey sheepishly surrendered the glass. Donna Sue poured the bourbon into a foam coffee cup and gave it to him. Helen wanted to applaud.
Chauncey stared at the foam cup moodily. His too-red lips trembled, then sagged. He poured his next drink in silence.
Helen followed Donna Sue through the plywood passages to a small kitchen. The counter was cluttered with half-eaten veggie subs, bottled water, and boxes of doughnut holes. Actor food, all of it.
“What—” she said, but Donna Sue shushed her. Helen watched as she rinsed Chauncey’s glass in the sink, then pulled a lighter and a pack of Virginia Slims out of a purse and slipped out the back door.
Helen followed her into the chilly night. There was no one else in the bleak staff parking lot, but a mound of cigarette butts and a rank nicotine odor said this was where the pretend princes and peasants smoked between scenes.
Donna Sue the actress was more self-assured than Donna Sue the secretary. The theater was her world. “Sorry to shut you up.” She took a deep draft of her cigarette. “But sound carries backstage. We can talk out here.”
“I didn’t know that Chauncey drank,” Helen said.
“He doesn’t,” Donna Sue said. “Well, every so often, he goes on a bender when the pressure gets too much. The production isn’t the same without Luke.”
“It’s the first act of his first night,” Helen said. “Jason may get better as he warms up.”
Donna Sue shook her head. “We knew there was trouble in the rehearsals. Jason forgets lines like crazy. He missed about a third of his speech in that last scene, and forgot the cue line. Ben—he’s the Duke of Clarence— covered for him, thank God.”
“I hardly noticed it,” Helen said. “Really.”
“But you did, just the same. Jason’s memory gets worse and worse. I don’t know what’s wrong. Chauncey spent hours rehearsing him. Poor Chauncey. All that, on top of Kiki’s death. No wonder he hit the bottle.”
“Literally,” Helen said. “I could hear the clinking in the back of the theater.”
“I figured,” Donna Sue said. “That’s why I took the glass away. You’re wondering why I didn’t take the bottle,
