"Suicidal?"

  Dennis nodded. "He always seemed happy, so simple."

  "He was simple."

  "I don't mean retarded, I mean his wants seemed simple."

  "You don't think someone else killed him?"

  "Someone else?" He snorted a bitter laugh. "Who, Sid? The building was locked, everybody was accounted for, and even so, which of us could have done something like that? Marvella? Donna? John? Hell, me?" Dennis shook his head. "No, he did it himself. The poor man. Poor dumb man. Couldn't even spell his own suicide note right."

  Sid felt very cold. He had seen the body, Dennis had not. "How did you know the words were spelled wrong?"

  "Didn't you tell me? Or Munro?"

  "No, I didn't, and I don't remember Munro mentioning it when he talked to you."

  Dennis frowned. "I don't know. Maybe I just assumed it, knowing Harry. I can almost see it if I try," he said. "And I don't want to see it, Sid. I really don't want to." He finished his scotch in a single swallow, then held up a finger for another.

  They continued to drink in silence for some time, their eyes on a football game on the TV mounted over the bar. Finally Dennis spoke.

  "What makes a person do something like that?" Sid said nothing. Dennis's impeccably clipped speech was starting, very slightly, to slur. "You'd have to hate your life so much to leave it on purpose." He looked at Sid from weary eyes. "You ever think about it, Sid? About suicide?”

  “No. Never have."

  "I did," Dennis said quietly. "Few years back. When we first went out on the road with Empire, remember? I really thought about it. In Chicago. I was standing on the balcony of the suite, and I leaned over the rail, and I looked down, down, and I knew that if I jumped from there it would all be over so fast with just a moment of pain, and then nothing. I climbed over the rail and leaned into the wind holding on with one hand, and I was all ready to let go. But I didn't. I didn't because I was scared. I was scared of the fall. I didn't think I'd like it."

  "Why did you . . . want to do it?"

  The words came slowly, as if Dennis was forcing them out. "I thought my life was over anyway. I mean, in all my life I had created only one thing — I mean one thing that was real. And that was the Emperor. The character. I mean, that really was something. And it was mine. Nobody else did that for me, Sid. I did that myself. And I never did anything else. And that's why I wanted to . . . to die. Because I was afraid I'd never do anything else."

  "Maybe that was enough."

  "It's not enough."

  "Dennis, most people go through life not creating a damn thing, and they're happy. But you took a character that only existed on paper, and you made it live. You made people laugh and cry and dream with it, and that'll never go away. The Emperor is really alive because of you." Sid chuckled. "Long live the Emperor, huh?"

  Dennis shook his head sadly. "The Emperor's gone, Sid. That's all over. But I found something else to make me want to live. I found Robin, and I found the project. The shows are here now — the new shows, the shows that wouldn't exist if it weren't for me and my money. And my direction, dammit. I'm gonna direct these shows and they're gonna be my shows, aren't they? I'm gonna create these shows . . .” He drained the glass of another drink. Was it the fifth? Sid wondered. Or the sixth? He couldn't remember, and it didn't seem to matter anyway.

  "If it weren't for that," he heard Dennis mumble, "I might still try to fly off a roof. Man's gotta create . . . gotta create something . . . make something before he . . . before he dies." And then Sid heard Dennis start to cry softly. "Poor Harry," he said between gentle sobs, "Aw, poor Harry. . ."

  ~ * ~

  Although he knew it was a dream while he was dreaming it, that made it no less frightening. He was wearing his costume, the costume of the Emperor Frederick. He held a fat pocketknife in his right hand, and with the other he held down some kind of animal on an altar of black metal. Was it a sheep? It seemed to be, for the eyes were the eyes of a sheep, dull and mild. The body was docile, yielding, like one would expect a sheep's to be as one held it down to be slaughtered. Even its cry, a pitiful, braying lament, was sheeplike.

  But its cry had no effect upon the Emperor, who demanded his sacrifice, the sacrifice to the God among men, to Dennis Hamilton who was the Emperor, to the Emperor who was Dennis Hamilton, to both, to neither, but something made of both, and he was so confused, was he still drunk even in his dream?

  No, he was more than drunk, he had to be, for even drunk he would never have taken the knife and driven it in, not into the heart, but lower down, where what he savaged told him that this was not a ewe he butchered, but a ram.

  Then the sheep transformed beneath him: the bloodied wool became flesh, the wide, wet, terrified eyes eddied from brown to blue, the tortured snout shrank, the pumping forelegs turned to writhing arms, and there, untouched by the knife, the skin whole and unmarked, she lay, still twisting in agony as though an unseen blade was channeling through her from within.

  "Ann . . .” he whispered, and it seemed to him that he spoke with two voices. "Ann . . .” He was struggling now, trying to bring himself up from the dream, knowing that to end it would end her torment.

  "Ann . . .”

  And he was free. The brutally honest light was gone, and all around him was the darkness of night and its reality, and he turned to the warm, living body by his side, that sweet body free of pain, and he held it and murmured, "Ann. . ."

  And Robin stiffened, awake, next to him in their bed.

  "What?" she said in a voice muted with interrupted sleep. "What did you say?" The distance in her voice made him tremble, and he could not answer her. "What did you call me?"

  "Robin . . ."

  "You called me Ann. You called me by her name."

  Light blinded him, and he pressed his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he saw her sitting up in their bed, staring at him with wide-eyed fury, as though her anger were greater than the pain of the light. "Tell me, Dennis," she said, and there was no sleepiness in her voice now. "Tell me everything."

  He coughed, tasted the scotch far back in his throat, swallowed, coughed again. "I'm sorry," he said. "There's not that much to tell."

  "Are you . . . seeing her?"

  "You mean having an affair? No, Robin. And we never did."

  "You never did."

  "No. But I loved her. I admit that."

  "You admit it."

  "Yes. She was the first woman I ever loved, and . . . and I guess I still feel some of that."

  "You do."

  "Yes." Her repetition unnerved him. "I'm sorry, I don't want to, but I don't seem to have any choice in the matter. But I swear to you I haven't done anything about it and I don't intend to."

  "Oh. You're just going to use her name when you fuck me in the dark?”

  “Robin —"

  "Fire her, Dennis."

  "What?"

  "I want you to fire her. I want her away from here."

  His mind raced. "No, I can't do that, it wouldn't be fair."

  “Be fair? Be fair to who, to her? Jesus Christ, Dennis, you just tell me you love this bitch —"

  "She's not a bitch."

  "Bullshit she's not! Why do you think she came here? For the love of the thee-a-ter? She came because her husband died and she thinks maybe she can get something started with you again, never mind the fact that you're already married. Jesus, Dennis, are you blind?"

  He wasn't blind. He saw all too well how Ann Deems felt. And, what was even more disturbing, he saw beyond a doubt how he felt as well. He could not let Ann go again. Now that she was finally back in his life, he could not let her go. There was, he thought simply, no choice involved. He needed her like he needed air. Even if they never touched again, he needed her.

  "Nothing is going to happen," he said to Robin. "If something was, it would have already."

  "And you're telling me it hasn't."

  "That's right. Never. And it won't."

  Robin tossed back the sheets, leaped out of the bed, and threw on a robe. "You know what I hate most, Dennis? I hate it that this bitch is back, and I hate it when you tell me that you still feel something for her. But I hate it most when you lie to me —"

  "I haven't —"

  "When you lie and you tell me that you never fucked her, that Dennis Hamilton, the young stud emperor — oh hell, yes, I've heard all the stories — never had her the way he had every other woman that crossed his path, well, if that's what you want to tell me, that's what you expect me to believe . " She yanked open the bedroom door, then turned back to face him. “. . . then you must think I'm the dumbest cunt you ever had!"

  She slammed the door behind her, and he listened to her footsteps pad across the carpet of the hall. The guest bedroom door opened and slammed, and then he heard nothing but her sobbing.

  ~ * ~

  The next morning Robin was distant and aloof at breakfast, but she said nothing more about Ann Deems. The aftermath of Harry's death distracted her and everyone else from more personal problems. A call from Dan Munro to John Steinberg made it official that Harry Ruhl's death was being handled as a suicide. Munro didn't sound happy about it, but, as he explained to Steinberg, Harry's fingerprints were the only ones on the knife, and the nature of the wounds, devastating as they were, were consistent with a verdict of self-mutilation.

  Abe Kipp came back to work two days later. When Donna Franklin talked to him about hiring a new assistant, he seemed different to her, quieter, not at all sarcastic, almost humble. He told her that he did not think he needed an assistant right away, that maybe when the show came down from New York he could use a man, but for now he should be able to handle everything himself. Donna saw him later carrying a bucket and mop into the office restrooms.

  Ann and Terri Deems were shocked by the news of the death when they heard it from John Steinberg the following morning. The first thing Ann felt, beside pity for Harry Ruhl, was that she wanted to be with Dennis, that it must be terrible for him to have still another tragedy in his theatre, especially the death of poor, simple Harry. She knew, from seeing the two of them together, that Dennis had liked Harry, and the feeling had been mutual. The few times she had spoken to him to compliment him on a good cleaning job, Harry had invariably responded, "Like to keep things nice and neat for Mr. Hamilton."

  Ann had been touched by that. There was indeed something about Dennis that inspired that kind of loyalty. It was an emotion that few besides the scrupulously honest Harry Ruhl could have put into words, but it was there. She would have felt it even if she had not loved him.

  But if her joy came from seeing Dennis, she was doomed to unhappiness during the next few weeks of December. It seemed to her that he seldom came out of his suite, and, if he did, it must have been during the times she was not in the office. She began to wonder if he was avoiding her on purpose, or if it was merely circumstance. The thought made her feel immature and foolish, as though she was once again a fifteen-year-old cheerleader, waiting around after practice to see if Jamie Beamenderfer would come out of the locker room and want to walk her home, and feeling like hell if he left another way and missed her.

  But this was worse, for Jamie Beamenderfer had not been married, and Dennis was — happily, if reports were true. Ann knew she had made a mistake in taking the job at the Venetian Theatre. But at the same time, she had been powerless not to.

  The morning after Harry Ruhl's funeral, Ann Deems found a man's folded handkerchief in her office. It had a monogram of the letters DH. She felt a delighted thrill go through her, and wondered why Dennis would have come to her office, and why he would have left a handkerchief on her desk. There were several explanations, all of them rational, but the one which she chose to accept was a scenario in which Dennis had come, perhaps after hours, hoping to find her still in. When she had not been there, he had left his handkerchief on purpose, with the intention that she should return it.

  So now what? she wondered. She could return it. In fact, it was the sensible thing to do, for she was certain that it was his. But should she wait until he came to the offices, or should she take it to him in his suite? If he had left it there by accident, there would be no harm in it. He would simply accept it, thank her, and that would be all.

  But what if he had left it there on purpose? What if he wanted to see her alone? What if he wanted to tell her what she wanted most to hear, and yet dreaded hearing?

  She could always say no. Absurdly, the words came to her mind — just say no — and she smiled in spite of herself. How easily those words came, and how hard they were to obey. Could she? She wondered.

  There was only one way to find out, one way to learn how good she was, how honest she was, how truly loyal she was. Because she knew that if she was all these things she would say no to what Dennis Hamilton might ask her to do, or to become. If she loved him, she would refuse him, and bring ease to his life.

  When she stepped off the elevator, the third floor hallway was empty, and she heard no noises from behind any of the doors of the other suites. Everyone was working, including Robin, who Ann had seen going into John Steinberg 's office several minutes before. She stood before Dennis's door for a long time before she finally pushed the doorbell. She heard chimes inside, then footsteps, and found herself wishing that Sid would open the door so that she could just hand him the handkerchief, say she found it in Steinberg's office, and walk away.

  But it was Dennis who answered the door, a pale Dennis who looked so sad and so weary that she wanted only to hold him in her arms so that he could sleep. "Ann," he said. "Uh . . . good morning."

  She smiled at him. "I found this, Dennis," she said, holding out the handkerchief. "It was on my desk."

  "Your desk?" he said softly, taking it. "In your office?" She nodded. "How could it have gotten there?" he said as if to himself. "I haven't been in there . . ."

  "I figured you had more, but . . ." She shrugged and waited. The opening was there, but Dennis did not step into it.

  "Well, thank you. Thank you." He swallowed, looked at her. He didn't have to speak. The look said everything.

  "You're welcome," she said, relieved and disappointed, knowing that he would not say what she was praying he would not.

  "I'll . . . see you."

  Oh God, yes, I hope, Dennis, she thought, but said only, "Yes," then turned and walked away, hearing and not watching the door close gently behind her.

  ~ * ~

  But someone else watched Dennis's door close, watched Ann Deems, burdened with the need for flight, walk quickly away down the hall toward the stairs.

  Robin Hamilton watched from the elevator as Ann left the suite whose door her husband had just closed, and Robin burned with the knowledge of what it might mean. But she did not confront Dennis with what she thought she knew. If she had, he would have honestly denied it, and, though at first angry and disbelieving, she might have ultimately believed him, and so been happy.

  Instead, she grasped the idea, dug a hole in her heart, and buried it there. And it grew, hard and healthy.

  Scene 16

  "Sonny," said Marvella Johnson to Evan, "what you got there?"

  "Mail. Had to come up anyway to check the dressing rooms, so I figured I'd bring it along." He tossed the packet on the table in front of Marvella, who grunted her thanks, picked it up and leafed through it. "Hi, Terri," he said to the girl, who seemed intent on ripping out a seam.

  "Hi," she said, without a hint of intonation.

  "What you checking the dressing rooms for?" Marvella said after a moment, putting down a letter.

  "See what's in them, I guess. I don't know, Curt just told me to take inventory."

  Marvella shook her head. "Curt and his inventories. Count every damn nail in the bin you give him the chance. Well, what you just standin' there for? We're workin' here, Sonny, so you get busy too."

  "Marvella, I wish you wouldn't call me Sonny anymore."

  She narrowed her eyes as if studying him. "Yeah, I guess you've got a little bigger at that, haven't you? Old habits. So get to work . . . Evan."

  He smiled, gave a wave, and disappeared into the first of the chorus dressing rooms. There was one on the fourth floor where the bottom level of the costume shop was, another on the third, and still another on the fifth, which had been put into use only when the largest musical shows of the twenties occupied the Venetian stage. All would be needed for the spring production of Craddock.

  "That's a nice boy," Marvella observed. "A wonder he turned out so friendly, his daddy the way he is." She paused a moment, and then added, "The way he was."

  "I thought you liked Dennis," said Terri, her eyes on the job before her.

  "I do like Dennis. I love Dennis, the way you love a spoiled child. But that doesn't change the fact he's spoiled."

  "So's Evan," Terri said.

  Marvella looked at the girl. "Why are you so down on him? He likes you well enough."

  She snorted something that may have been a laugh. "That's the truth. I just don't want history to repeat itself."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You don't know about my mother? And Dennis Hamilton? Back in the good old days?"

  "I know he was sweet on her, that what you mean?"

  "Well, that's one way to put it."

  "That's the way to put it. Honey, I knew Dennis back then, and believe me, if there was ever a more innocent baby — at the beginning, anyway — I never saw him.”

  “And so is his son then, huh?"

  "Evan's a good boy. A little mixed up about what he wants to do with his life, but everybody goes through that. Joining the Marines was the only way he could get away from his daddy, or so he thought. Had to get himself into a situation where Dennis couldn't haul him back home again, or stick him in another school."

  "Well, maybe he's the sweetest boy in the world, but I don't want anything to do with him."

  Marvella's eyes narrowed. "What's got you so skittish? Just that your momma and Dennis liked each other once?"

  "Liked? That's past tense."

  "Now hold on. If you're thinking that Dennis would try to get something going again with Ann, you're wrong, girl. He's married, and he loves Robin. He's not like that. Used to be, but not anymore."

 

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