‘Embezzling? What do you mean?’
‘You’ve siphoned over a thousand dollars out of the Committee’s funds.’
‘But that was my salary.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m on the board. You said you needed a Jewish board member.’
‘But you’re not Jewish, are you, Mr Loeser? And you’ve never been to a board meeting. In fact, there’s no record of your ever being offered any type of post on the Committee. You just used your friendship with my husband and me to betray us by stealth.’
‘You sent me those cheques every month.’
‘You may never have noticed, but those cheques were made out in your own handwriting. Apart from “my” signature on them, which you are obviously not very good at faking. Any good graphologist will confirm that.’
Dolores Mutton’s unpredictable alternation between friendly and aggressive over the past three years had been like a slow version of one of the advanced procedures from
‘Several years ago, in Berlin, you sent Jascha a letter about a play. You wanted him to write the score.’
‘
‘Jascha maintains an extensive library of handwriting samples. It often comes in useful.’
‘Well, you’re not as clever as you think, Mrs Mutton! My handwriting has changed since then. “Any good graphologist” will confirm that, too. Your cheques won’t fool anyone.’
‘Actually, that will make them all the more convincing, because it will look like you tried to contrive a different scrawl, but didn’t succeed in masking your real one.’ She shrugged. ‘In any case, if our preparations don’t work out, that will be a pity, but it won’t be a problem. We’ll just go back to how we would have done it before. We’ll run a risk.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Jascha will kill you and make it look like an accident. Goodnight, Loeser. You know what you have to do.’
‘Wait — how long do I have?’
‘Like you told me, you’ve only just met the Professor. And we’re reasonable people. We can give you six months.’
‘Why is this so important? What are you going to do with him? Is this about the Teleportation Device?’
‘Don’t worry about that. Just get us Bailey.’
After she shut the door behind her, Loeser stood there paralysed for so long that he still hadn’t shifted when his doorbell rang for the third time that night. He opened the door to a policeman in uniform.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ said the policeman. ‘We had a report of an intruder at this residence.’
‘I’m fine. There’s no one here.’
‘So you didn’t call us?’
‘No. I’m sorry. Perhaps it was a nuisance call.’
‘So there’s nothing wrong here at all?’ said the policeman.
‘No,’ said Loeser. ‘There’s nothing wrong here at all.’ And at that moment, as the policeman peered past him into the house, Loeser watched two young deer running down Palmetto Drive, nacreous in the twilight, ghosts on a frictionless plane.
PART III
This Is Your Life
6. LOS ANGELES, 1939
The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the California Institute of Technology Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an almost empty auditorium. They hardly dared to breathe as the slim, solemn figure of their director emerged from the naked seats to join them on stage, as he pulled a stepladder raspingly from the wings and climbed halfway up its rungs to turn and tell them, without so much as a preparatory clearing of his throat, that they were a damned talentless group of people and a terrible group of people to work with.
‘We are going to start again,’ he said. ‘From the beginning. And carry on until we get it right.’
No murmurs of dismay followed these words, nor even the briefest eye contact between the Players. Like slaves who had been whipped so many times they had forgotten how to flinch, they just moved numbly back into their places for the first scene. Loeser got down off the stepladder, pulled it back into the wings, and returned to his seat in row F.
‘Ready, Ziesel?’ he shouted.
‘Ready!’ shouted Ziesel from his technician’s box.
‘
Ziesel cut the footlights so that the auditorium was in total darkness. Dr Pelton, CalTech’s best amateur pianist, struck a series of eerie dissonant chords. Then a spotlight lanced across the stage, revealing Adele Hister standing on a dais in the centre. She wore a tight black gown with a sort of asymmetrical cheongsam collar and spiky shoulders.
‘Look, Grandma,’ she howled, raising a lump of magnesium ore high above her head, ‘I caught a snowflake in my hand and it isn’t melting!’
Another spotlight came on, this time revealing Mrs Jones, a secretary from Throop Hall, as she rolled a rusty wheelchair down a long steel ramp.
‘But, precious,’ Mrs Jones howled back, ‘it’s not even snowing outside.’
‘I know, but look!’
‘Well, precious, I hope you know what that means. My own dear old grandma told me when I was just a little girl. If you catch a snowflake when it isn’t snowing, you get one wish. And if the snowflake doesn’t melt, you get three wishes.’
‘Three wishes!’ At this point a row of three more lights came on, these ones shining intensely into the stalls as if there were escaped prisoners among the audience.
‘Yes, precious. What will they be?’
‘Gee, Grandma, first of all, I wish that we get a real white Christmas. Real snow on Christmas Day, like in stories.’ One of the three lights shut off, and Dr Pelton, in the orchestra pit, tolled a deep, funereal bell.
‘And?’
‘Second of all, I wish that Ma and Pa find the money to buy medicine for poor old Nigger.’ A second light shut off, and a second bell tolled. At the same time, a different light came on, revealing the huge aluminium model of a dog’s skull, ferocious jaws agape, that was suspended on chains from the ceiling to represent the family’s ailing pet.
‘And?’
‘And third of all, I wish that mean Mr Parker doesn’t make Pa work in the factory on Christmas Day.’
A third light shut off, and a third bell tolled. At the same time, a hydraulic machine press that had been installed at the front of the stage started up, producing a hammering noise that left much of the dialogue that followed almost inaudible.
‘ “Mean”? That’s no way to talk about your future father-in-law, precious,’ shouted Mrs Jones.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everyone knows you’re sweet on Chip Parker, precious. Just yesterday, you were necking with him at the
