Reign, p.33
Reign, page 33
~ * ~
THE EMPEROR
Good evening. (He smiles smugly.)
DENNIS
(Walking slowly down the aisle) What did you do? What did you do to my son?
THE EMPEROR
Merely had him follow in his father's — or purported father's — footsteps. I gave him an audience. They were appreciative, but he had a bad case of stage fright. Has he recovered?
DENNIS
Yes. He'll be fine.
THE EMPEROR
Ah. A pity. I thought he would die. And he would have had it not been for his timely rescue by the police. Still, it is of no importance. You grow weaker by the day, even with your . . . son alive.
DENNIS
Why do you say that? What did you mean, my purported son?
THE EMPEROR
(Mock surprise) You mean that you didn't know? That the bad news must come from me? (Sighs) So be it then. Little Evan is not your offspring. He's Sidney's son. Sidney, you see, fucked your wife.
DENNIS
That's a lie.
THE EMPEROR
It's not.
DENNIS
Evan looks exactly like me.
THE EMPEROR
A remarkable coincidence, is it not? And a quite fortunate one for Sid. I'm sure that his grandfather must have had red hair.
DENNIS
Say what you want. I don't believe you anymore. Everything you say is a lie.
THE EMPEROR
Much was. But I have no reason to deceive you now. (He pauses, eyes DENNIS appraisingly) You're leaving, aren't you?
DENNIS
Yes.
THE EMPEROR
But you'll be back too, won't you? You won't be able to stay away, you know. If you do . . . you'll die. Actually, it will be worse than death. Just a deterioration of your personality, day by day, until there is no you anymore.
DENNIS
Don't worry, I'll be back. I'll come back and I'll destroy you.
THE EMPEROR
I have no doubt that you'll be back, but that you'll destroy me? (Laughs) Very unlikely. But go. Take your time, muster your resources, though I think you'll find them rather faltering as time passes. When you're ready, come back. And then we'll see. Then we'll see who the real emperor is. Yes, we'll see who is real.
DENNIS
I'll beat you.
THE EMPEROR
No, you won't. You're already too weak to even fight. And you'll just grow weaker. Whereas I . . . (He picks up the cat.) . . . grow stronger, for I have none of the weaknesses that human flesh is heir to. I have no sympathy, no compassion, no love. (Pets the cat) This creature, on the other hand, loves me, I don't know why. But does that stop me from doing this? (Casually he strokes the cat's head, then grasps it and twists, breaking the neck. He drops the dead cat, not once looking at it.) Can a cat look at a king?
(DENNIS turns and stumbles up the aisle, retching. He runs into the lobby, out to the doors, fumbles with the key, unlocks the outer door, and steps outside into the pouring rain, where he vomits on the pavement. The storm roars overhead. Thunder crashes. Lightning illuminates Dennis's pale, sweating face. Over the sound of the storm, DENNIS hears gales of laughter. He weeps, but his face is wet with nothing but rain.)
Scene 4
Dennis slept fitfully that night. In the morning, he called the hospital, and was told that the doctors wanted to keep Evan for one more day of observation. After he hung up, he met Curt and John for breakfast in the Kirkland Hotel's coffee shop, and told them to call Abe Kipp and tell him to bring their luggage down from their suites. "I don't want either of you going into the theatre again," he said.
"What about Kipp?" Steinberg asked. "You feel he's expendable?"
Dennis sighed. "No one's going to do anything to Abe. I'm not close to him. There's no way his loss would hurt me."
"Maybe," Curt said, "this stalker of ours would just do it for fun."
Dennis ignored the comment. "I'll join you in the city after Evan gets checked out of the hospital. That should be tomorrow. Now, John, what about Terri?"
"I called her yesterday morning after Ann had left their house, and told her what had happened, and not to come in until further notice. She's still on the payroll, as you requested."
"All right. We won't take her to New York unless Marvella wants her there." Dennis paused. "Do you think Marvella will do the show?"
"I spoke to her before she left yesterday afternoon. By the way, the funeral's on Monday — I'll be there, but I don't think you should go. Marvella understands. As far as Empire goes, all she told me was that she wouldn't go back to the theatre again. Not ever. But we can live with that. She can design and build in New York. It will cost more, but —"
"Damn the money, John, I don't care about that. Whatever she wants is fine with me. I just want her on the project. I want everything the way it was, all the people we can get — Dex, Quentin, everyone. Anybody who was in the revival and we can get back, I want them, you understand?"
Steinberg examined his coffee cup thoughtfully, while Curt sat silently, watching the two men. "Today's Friday. I'll call our casting people right away, and I can be back in the city by noon." He glanced up at Dennis. "Do I have a budget on this?"
"Unlimited. Take it through the roof if you have to. I don't care how much it costs, John. To the rest of the world, this is a New American Musical Theatre Project fund raiser, but between us, this is my project. I want it done the way I want it done, and I don't care if it costs ten, twenty million dollars."
"Twenty million dollars," Steinberg said, as though angry at the mere thought of such wanton expenditure. "For one performance."
"Yes. For one performance."
Steinberg's mouth was pinched, his tone arid. "Do you mind very much if I ask you why?"
"Yes. I mind. It was your suggestion in the first place, John. But it's my decision." He looked past his friends, out the window toward the town which housed the theatre. "And it's my show. God damn it all, it's my show."
~ * ~
Dennis arrived at the hospital at ten o'clock to find Evan sleeping. "He kept waking up with nightmares," the duty nurse told him. "We sedated him about three in the morning. He should wake up soon."
Dennis pulled the plastic covered hospital chair next to the boy's bed, and sat waiting. He watched Evan breathing gently, his chest rising and falling regularly, without a hint of the spasmodic wheezing that had plagued him as a child and still tormented him as an adult. Then Dennis examined the boy's features, the facial lineaments that so closely resembled his own, the hair so vibrantly red that it dazzled the eye.
My son, he thought. Are you my son?
The patient chart was at the foot of the bed where the morning examining physician had left it. Dennis picked it up and looked for the secret.
It was there. They had typed him. B.
Dennis was type O. Evan's mother had been type A.
He didn't know Sid's type. And he decided he didn't want to know.
Dennis set down the chart, sat back, and looked at his son again. For, despite the evidence of letters, he knew Evan was his son. Family was not blood. Family was feelings and emotions and bonds, even bonds that were stretched from time to time, even bonds that had been broken.
When Evan awoke, he saw his father's face.
~ * ~
Fine fiddle-fuckin' thing, thought Abe Kipp, walking down the street in front of the Venetian Theatre. Get the bags, shut things down, put the whole damn building in mothballs until further notice. He sighed as he rounded the corner. Damned if he wasn't going to miss the place, even after all the bad shit that happened there. But orders were orders and he would be paid just the same as if he were inside dusting and cleaning and goofing off. Still, the place had been his lavish home away from home for so many years that he didn't really know what to do with himself. Sit around the bars all day? He didn't feel like drinking the way he used to, and there was nobody around he wanted to tease . . .
No, that wasn't it, was it? He just didn't want to tease anymore. He didn't want to tease anyone, not like the way he had teased Harry Ruhl. He would sit around his apartment and watch television, maybe go to some movies, maybe spend some time in the library, even buy a VCR and rent things he had always wanted to see. They'd call him back when they were ready to start again, or when somebody was ready to do something with the building. You didn't just desert a piece of real estate like that.
The thought crossed his mind of just going in to the building every day anyway, and puttering around the way he'd always done before, but he dismissed the thought quickly. He didn't mind it when there were other people there, but now that the place was empty, he wasn't sure. It had never bothered him before, but now as he slipped his key into the lock of the stage door, opened it, and stepped into the darkness, he felt funny, as though for the first time in years there was something bad, really bad, in the place, something a lot worse than the ghosts he had scared poor Harry Ruhl with.
He put his hand unerringly on the switch on the wall that turned on the work lights, and pushed it up. The lights flickered on, illuminating the stage, bare except for what looked to Abe like a pile of rags lying near the footlight panels. "What the hell," he muttered as he walked toward it. It was not until he was a few yards away that he saw that it was not a pile of rags, but rather the corpse of Cristina the cat, her neck twisted, her open eyes filmed over. Wastes had come out of her to stain the wood of the stage.
"Aw," Abe said softly as he knelt next to his pet. "Aw, hell . . .” He gently stroked her fur, then pressed his fingers into it to feel the accustomed warmth, but the small body was stiff and cold. "Who'da done this," he asked himself. "Who'da done this to a little cat . . .” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and cradled the cat, carrying it to the back of the stage wall, where he placed it in a cardboard box. Then he took his mop and bucket and cleaned up the urine and feces, snuffling as he worked. When he was finished, he went upstairs, got the suitcases from the four suites, wheeled them down to the stage door on a trolley, and set them outside, softly crying all the while. Then he picked up the box, walked to the edge of the stage, and looked up and out at the auditorium.
"Whoever did this," he said loudly, "is a motherfucker!" He paused, then went on, louder than before. "Whoever did this . . .” He thought for a moment. “. . . is a son of a bitch!"
He looked out over the empty seats, waiting for an answer, a challenge, a voice, but none came.
"Now you know," he said, softer but with no less venom. "You know what you are. Now you goddam well know."
He turned, took his cat out of the theatre, and began to wait for Curt, who would come for the luggage.
~ * ~
That afternoon, Curt and Steinberg went back to New York, Abe Kipp buried Cristina in a wooded area outside of Kirkland, and Dennis Hamilton, after having lunch with Evan and spending the early afternoon by his bedside, did some banking.
He went back and had dinner with his son, and they watched the news and Jeopardy! together, answering questions along with the contestants. Dennis was impressed with the large amount of information the boy had picked up, despite the lack of a college education. When the show was over, Dennis knew the time had come to talk to Evan about what would happen next, but could not bring himself to begin. He was relieved by a doctor who came in, examined Evan, and told them that he would be permitted to leave tomorrow.
When the boy opened his eyes the next morning, Dennis was sitting there next to him. "Good morning," Dennis said.
"Hi."
"Feeling okay?" Evan nodded. "No dreams?"
"None I can remember."
"How's the breathing?"
Evan took in a draught of air, expelled it. "Good."
"Ready to go?" Evan nodded again. "I have something for you then." Dennis reached into his coat pocket and took out a thick envelope. "There's five hundred dollars in cash here. And a checkbook. I opened an account in your name. There will be three thousand dollars a month put in it, which gives you a decent annual income until you decide where you want to go, what you want to do." Evan began to speak, but Dennis held up a hand. "Please, let me finish. Let me say what I need to say, and then you can talk. You can yell if you want to." He looked down at the dull orange carpet of the hospital room floor. "I tried to run your life, Evan, and I'm sorry, I really am. What I'm sorry for the most is that I never got to know you well enough to know what your life should — could — have been, to learn what you wanted out of it, and not what I wanted for you."
Dennis sighed, and rubbed his temple with his fingertips. "This isn't a payoff. This isn't given out of guilt, but out of love. I want to help you be what you want to be, do what you want to do, what's right for you."
Evan was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. "You said that you wanted to take me to New York with you."
"I was wrong. I was being selfish again. I want you to go where you want. You talked about California . . .” He trailed off.
"Do you want me to go there?"
"It doesn't matter what I want. It's what you want." When he looked up, Evan was staring at him hard.
"Someone's after you, aren't they?" Dennis didn't, couldn't answer. "What you said . . . I remember now, when I woke up. You asked me if I saw someone like you. Someone who looks like you? Is that it? Is that what all this is about?"
"I . . . don't know, I —"
The boy's speech was fragmented, as though he was trying to assemble sentences of great semantic complexity. "When I saw you — did you — when you were up — on the catwalk — was that you?"
"Slow down, slow down. When?"
"Weeks ago. I had . . . gotten mad at you. About Ann. You grabbed me on the catwalk . . ."
"I didn't."
". . . almost threw me over . . ."
"Evan, I didn't. I would never do that."
"But you did."
"Have I ever done anything to you like that before? Did I ever even spank you?”
“But my God, my God, Dad. Who was it?"
Dennis took a deep breath. "It's going to be hard to believe. But it's the truth. It's the Emperor."
Dennis told Evan everything he knew, everything except what the Emperor said about Sid being Evan's father. "He's done everything. Everyone who died, he was responsible for. He killed them all."
Evan's eyes were dull, as if the truth was too impossible to accept with a clear mind. "That can't be. He can't have done everything you said. Disappear? Make me see . . . what I saw?"
"I've seen him vanish. So has Ann."
"Hypnosis then. Maybe he hypnotized me too, made me see those things and then made me forget that I ever saw him."
"No hypnosis. He has powers, Evan. Terrible powers. He's been sucking my life away." He looked sharply at his son, as if to impress the truth upon his mind by what little ferocity he could muster. "I made him. I gave him life. And I think the only way to destroy him is the same way I created him. That's why I'm going to play the Emperor again, one final time. To beat him at his own game, get back what's mine, kill him for killing the others."
"How? I don't see how."
"By being a better emperor than he is. By being so real that he has no choice but to consider himself make-believe." He nodded, trying to convince himself that it was all true. "And then he'll die. Then the bastard will die." Dennis sat, exhausted from the emotion he had expended.
Evan said something then, but so softly that Dennis could barely hear him. He looked at him curiously, and the boy repeated it. This time Dennis heard. "I'm coming with you."
"Coming with me? Where?"
"To New York. To wherever you'll do the show, wherever you'll be the Emperor. I've been wrong too, about a lot of things. I'm coming with you. Maybe I can help."
"There's . . .” Dennis cleared his throat. "We'll be coming back here. Back to the theatre to do the show. That's where he . . . it is."
"That's all right. I don't know if I can go into the theatre, but I'll do what I can. I want to help. Whether this thing is human or . . . or what you say it is, I want to help catch it."
"Destroy it," Dennis corrected, and Evan, looking, his father thought, like the Marine he had been, nodded.
"Destroy it," Evan said.
~ * ~
Early that afternoon, Ann Deems finished packing to go to New York with Dennis. He had called just before noon, and told her that he and Evan would pick her up in his car around three, and that they should arrive in the city that evening.
Ann had just closed the latches of the last suitcase when she turned and saw Terri in the bedroom doorway. "How is he?" she said.
"Who?" They had barely exchanged two words in as many days, and her response was more insecure than curt.
"Evan," Terri asked with studied patience.
"He's fine. Dennis says he's fine now."
Terri nodded. "I'm glad."
Ann looked at her daughter strangely. "I thought you and he were . . . on the outs."
"I don't have to be in love with someone to be glad they're all right, do I?”
“No. No, I'm sorry." Ann lifted the suitcase and set it on the floor.
"Marvella called me last night," Terri said. "She wants me to come to New York and help her costume Empire."
"She's going to do it then."
"Yes. She told me that it's all she has left now. At first she thought she'd give it all up, go somewhere else, the west coast maybe. But then she said she realized that . . .” Terri paused, spoke more softly. “. . . that Dennis's little entourage is all the family she has left." Terri shook her head and gave a little snort of embarrassed laughter. "She says she thinks something's wrong, that something or somebody is after Dennis, after all of us maybe. She thinks that whoever it was killed Whitney. And she says she won't be scared off."
