to stop telling the story.
They didn’t catch Lundeen, which, considering his physical condition, said little for the efficiency of the wartime San Francisco Police.
“Lot of places to hide,” Preston said, coming back to Vera’s dressing room, where I was taking off my makeup. “We’ve got the place surrounded, exits covered. We’ll make a room-by-room search in the morning. You can pick up your wallet, gun, and car at the station.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Come after ten,” he suggested. “Sunset gets off at eight, and I don’t think you want to run into him again.”
“After ten,” I agreed.
“Lot of things we can shut you up for,” said Preston. “Moving Griffith’s corpse, pulling the sword out of him, escaping from legal custody. Long list, but my chief doesn’t want to see that Flores lawyer again. He’s filed a defamation suit against the police department.”
“I’ll give Lundeen that,” I said. “He got me a good lawyer when I needed one.”
“Yeah,” sighed Preston. “We’ll be happy if you’re out of town by noon tomorrow and you don’t visit us again. It’s a big country. I’ll take San Francisco. You can have the rest.”
“Sounds like a good deal.”
“It is,” he said. “We’re clearing out the building. Twenty minutes. Out the front. No costumes. Single file.”
He left us alone. Ten minutes later we met Shelly, Jeremy, Gunther, and Gwen in the front lobby. They were talking to Stokowski, who greeted Vera and me with a sad shake of his head.
“You would have been fine,” he told her, taking her right hand in both of his. “I hope you were paid in advance.”
“No,” Vera said.
“I was. Always get paid in advance,” Stokowski said.
“Maybe we can still …” Vera began.
“I’m afraid,” Stokowski said with a sigh, “I must get back to New York. A crisis. Rumblings over my choice of music. Toscanini is doing battle for me, but I fear his heart is not in defending modern composers. Mr. Peters, I’m afraid a check will not be forthcoming for your services.”
“Let’s call my services a donation to art and culture,” I said.
“I admire the gesture,” he said with a bow. “I’ll absorb the loss of Charles’ uniform.”
And he was gone.
“The man has good teeth,” said Shelly.
“You should have told him, Shel,” I said.
We agreed to meet in the late morning for breakfast at a place near Vera’s hotel. Gunther, Jeremy, Shelly, and Gwen left single file through the main door.
Outside on the steps the Reverend Adam Souvaine was bullhoming to a crowd of about twenty, claiming victory for God, America, and the Church of the Enlightened Patriots. There were “Hallelujahs” and “Amens” and even a few cries of “Past the ammunition.”
“See them emerge,” Souvaine said, pointing up at us. His eyes, blazing with triumph, met mine. I looked at him steadily and smiled. He turned away and continued, “Like rats. The rotting edifice will crumble like the walls of Jericho, the temples of Babylon. God and his instruments, the Enlightened, will be ever alert whenever the Nazi snake or the yellow godless horde dare stick their heads above ground into the clean sunshine of America.”
More shouts. The ancients danced and Vera bent her head to my ear.
“I’ll call my agent tonight,” she whispered, taking my hand. “Maybe I’ll have a few weeks or even more. I’ve never really seen Los Angeles.”
“I’ll show it to you,” I offered.
“My makeup case,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I left my makeup case in my dressing room.”
We hurried back to get it, and that almost got us killed.
15
We were heading down the corridor outside the dressing rooms on our way back to the front of the building when the lights went out. We both stopped. I was carrying Vera’s makeup bag. I shifted it to my left hand.
“Toby,” Vera whispered. I found her hand.
“Power failure,” I said.
“No,” she said. “There’s a light down there.”
I wasn’t sure where down there was, but I looked around and saw a vague glow. We headed for it.
“Straight down the hall,” I said. “Nothing to trip over.”
We moved slowly, the glow getting brighter, but not much. When we hit a door, I opened it and found the source of the glow, a dying bulb dangling from a wire snaking into the darkness above.
“Which way now?” I asked.
“That way, I think,” Vera said, pointing that way.
As I took my first step in the direction she was pointing, two things happened. First, a man’s voice began to sing, an echoing sound full of passion coming from the darkness in front of us. He was singing “Poor Butterfly.” Second, the floor beneath us quivered. Plaster dust sprinkled down from the ceiling.
“What is it?” Vera asked, squeezing my hand.
“A tremor and a baritone,” I said, wiping plaster from her hair.
“Deeper than baritone,” Vera said. “I think I’m frightened.”
“Hold your bag,” I said. “I may need both hands free. And let’s go.”
We moved toward the singing and came to a stairway.
“Let’s go back,” Vera said.
“Let’s just get out,” I answered, and pulled her gently up the dark stairway.
We came to a landing. A small dirty window let in enough moonlight for us to see two doors and more steps going up.
The singing stopped and a deep voice came down the stairs.
“Are you familiar with William Blake, Peters?”
“Stop it,” Vera shouted, putting one foot on the next step up.
“I can’t,” said the voice. “The game is not over. As Blake said, ‘If you play a Game of Chance, know, before you begin, if you are benevolent you will never win.’”
A shot tore through the darkness and crackled the wallpaper near my head. I pushed through one of the doors and pulled Vera in with me. A large room. Another small window and even less moonlight. The vague beam hit a pair of doors across the room.
“‘Great things are done when Men and Mountains meet,’” came the voice. “‘This is not done by Jostling in the Street.’”
Footsteps were coming down the steps.
“You’ve made a wrong decision,” came the voice on the opposite side of the door. “‘The errors of a Wise Man make your Rule Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.’”
“Come on,” I told Vera, and we worked our way across the room toward the pair of doors.
“Another choice,” came the voice beyond the door behind us. “Two doors. Which will be the lady and which the tiger?”
I reached for one of the doors and threw it open. The moonlight fell on the dead white face of John Lundeen.
Vera screamed.
“Wrong choice,” came the voice behind us.
Lundeen, still in his Pinkerton jacket, was hanging by the neck. He wore no pants, just a pair of white boxer
