The Fourth Wall

by Barbara Paul

  “How about this?” said John. “Why don’t you sit in on the rehearsals, Abby? To advise Griselda, make suggestions. Would you like that?”

  I’d rather face the Steelers’ front four. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. She’s bound to resent it, and I couldn’t get anything accomplished under those conditions. I don’t like this, John. I don’t like anything about it.”

  John grinned. “You worry too much. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

  I turned to Vivian. “Don’t get sick.”

  She grimaced. “When it would cost me ten thousand dollars to miss a single performance? You better believe I’m going to stay healthy.”

  John and I exchanged looks. “You signed that contract?” I said. “The same kind Sylvia had?”

  Vivian shrugged. “It meant double the salary. How could I pass that up? Even though I know Gene Ramsay would collect if I took time off to go to my own funeral. Besides, it’s only half what it’s costing Sylvia Markey for missing that matinee.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Ramsay isn’t going to collect from Sylvia. Surely not. Not now.”

  “Yes he is, Abby. Ramsay told me she violated her contract and she was going to have to pay.”

  “That bastard,” said John.

  None of us was really surprised. Disgusted, but not surprised. Gene Ramsay was like that.

  As we were getting ready to leave, I asked’ John, “Is Anthony Gordon coming over for Androcles in Church? I’d like to meet him.”

  “Can’t make up his mind,” grinned John. “First he says yes, then he says no. You know how indecisive writers are.”

  “Right,” added Vivian. “No firm opinions about anything.”

  I had no opinion about that.

  7

  The next day I had another session with Sergeant Piperson.

  This one lasted several hours. The Sergeant had decided that someone connected with Foxfire had to know something and he was going to dig it out of us if it killed him. Or us. “Everything,” he said to me. “I want to know everything you know about Sylvia Markey, every conversation you ever had with her, every conversation with someone else about her. Everything.”

  I was appalled. “Every conversation in the past ten years? That’s how long I’ve known her. You don’t really expect me to remember—”

  “I expect you to remember one thing at a time. Start with your first meeting.”

  “But that will take hours!”

  “Then we’d better get started, hadn’t we? Why the reluctance, Abby? What’s your problem?”

  People who say “What’s your problem,” for one thing. I started talking, trying to remember “everything.” Most of it was trade talk, but Piperson was more interested in details of her personal life—most of which I suspected he already knew. All I could tell him was what I had personally seen and heard during rehearsals and performances of my own three plays Sylvia had acted in.

  Piperson showed an interest in Sylvia’s sex life that bordered on the prurient. “Jake Steiner’s her third husband,” I said. “Her first husband died—in a traffic accident, I think—and she divorced her second. She and Jake have been married, oh, three or four years.”

  “Lovers?”

  “Between marriages, yes, I think so. After Jake, I don’t know. Sylvia’s not the type to gush out intimate details of her personal life.”

  “Oh, come on, you’ve got to know more than you’re letting on. A woman like that—”

  “What do you mean, ‘a woman like that’? Some people brag about their lovers to bolster their self-esteem. Sylvia’s always had enough self-esteem for ten people. She didn’t need to brag.”

  “Give me some names.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know any.”

  “What about John Reddick?”

  “What about him?”

  Piperson showed his annoyance at my obtuseness. “Did he ever have an affair with Sylvia Markey?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “But he could have?”

  I shrugged.

  “He thinks he’s a regular Don Juan, doesn’t he?” Piperson persisted. “You mean to tell me that a man like that wouldn’t make a play for a woman like Sylvia Markey?”

  I was beginning to get angry. “I’m not telling you anything. I simply don’t know.”

  “I’ll say you’re not telling me anything. Next you’ll be saying John Reddick lives the life of a monk.”

  “Why are you trying to antagonize me? What’s this all about?”

  “Think. Rejection, jealousy—”

  “Oh, bull. John Reddick would no more put his star out of action than he’d slit his own throat. And whatever John’s problems, he’s not suicidal.”

  “Then he does have problems?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “What kind of problems? He’s on speed, isn’t he?”

  I sighed, not really liking to talk about John to this prying policeman. “No, John’s not ‘on’ anything except a natural-born high. John is a very gifted, intense, high-strung individual. He needs continuing confirmation of his talents, his worth—his ‘manhood,’ if you like. All this sexual activity is just a part of his seeking reassurance.”

  “You don’t sound as if you like him very much,” Piperson smiled nastily.

  That did it. “I love John Reddick, dammit! He’s the best director I’ve ever had! That might not mean anything to you, but it’s important as hell to me. Why all these snide little insinuations? John Reddick is a good man who wouldn’t knowingly hurt anyone.”

  Sure, his expression said. What’s the penalty for throwing an ashtray at a police officer.

  When Piperson finally let me escape, I felt as if I’d been put through a wringer. When I’d calmed down a little, I began to wonder about the Sergeant. What kind of life could he have—poking into other people’s affairs, needling, prodding people into saying things they’d rather not say? What does a job like that do to a man? Or rather, what kind of man is suited to a job like that?

  When I’d calmed down a little more, I had to admit that part of my annoyance sprang from Sergeant Piperson’s easy assumption that I disliked John Reddick because of his overactive sex life. But John’s Don Juanism was none of my business and didn’t affect my life one jot. So far as I knew, John never pursued a woman with whom he was associated professionally. If he and Sylvia Markey had had an affair, I was willing to bet it was sometime when they weren’t working together.

  The next few days were full ones. A friend called, wanting to see the latest Eugene O’Neill revival; I talked him into going to a movie instead. (Sorry, folks, I’m one of those who never learned to like O’Neill.) I attended a “literary” party I’d been looking forward to but left early because it quickly degenerated into a one-upmanship affair. I caught up on some reading.

  I made several more unsuccessful attempts at getting in touch with Jake Steiner. I went to the hospital once looking for him, but he wasn’t there. The no visitors ban was still in effect, and all I could learn about Sylvia was that her condition was stable. Loren Keith was stable in Santa Monica and Sylvia Markey was stable in New York. Terrific.

  Christmas was fast approaching. I was finishing up a letter to my aunt saying I’d definitely be coming to Boston when the phone rang. It was my favorite policeman.

  “Hope you aren’t planning on going away for the holidays, Abby,” Sergeant Piperson started off.

  “I am, as a matter of fact. Why?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you to stay in town. All of you. We’ve just learned something that puts this thing in a whole new light.”

  I began to get a bad feeling. “What?”

  “Sylvia Markey just talked to us—wrote notes, actually. Talking hurts her. Mouth’s all screwed up.”

  Dear God.

  “She told us about the cold cream,” Piperson went on. “Seems she ran out of it after the performance, when she wanted to take off her make-up. She said when she went t
o get some, the make-up cabinet was locked.”

  “Yes, Carla doesn’t always remember to unlock it.”

  “Carla? Carla Banner, right—the assistant stage manager. Anyway, Markey just went into the next dressing room and looked through the drawers of the dressing table. She found some cold cream that hadn’t been opened and took it. You see what that means? That cold cream wasn’t meant for Sylvia Markey at all. It was intended for someone else.”

  My throat felt tight. “Whose dressing room?”

  “Ian Cavanaugh’s.”

  8

  It made sense, in a horrible sort of way.

  Sylvia Markey hadn’t risen in the world by being a great beauty but by being a great actress. She was part chameleon: she could be dowdy in one play and regal in the next. She could be calm and contained, or she could be a perpetual emotion machine. Sylvia could be whatever she had to be. But it was Ian Cavanaugh’s good looks that had gotten him most of his roles—and made many people (including me) overlook his real skills as an actor. Ian was the beauty in our cast, not Sylvia.

  The police had reluctantly released the news that Sylvia Markey’s disfigurement had been a freakish accident and Ian Cavanaugh was the intended victim. The entire cast and crew of Foxfire were being questioned anew (this time concentrating on Ian), and there would have been no way to keep the matter from leaking out. The resulting publicity meant another jump in advance sales. Foxfire was settling into a solid hit, and for all the wrong reasons.

  Gene Ramsay had hired a guard to protect the investors’ money. The guard was a quiet, gray man who quickly learned the backstage routine and made a point of checking everything before it was used—make-up, props, the set, the rigging, heaven knows what else. He was in the theater two hours before anyone else and was the last to leave. Every night he escorted Ian Cavanaugh to a waiting limousine that whisked the actor straight home, where another guard was waiting.

  “The problem, of course,” said Sergeant Piperson, “is whether we have one nut loose or two.”

  “Or three?” I said dubiously. “Loren Keith.”

  “Or three,” he agreed. “It would be easy to assume one person is responsible for both the attacks on Sylvia Markey and the one aimed at Ian Cavanaugh, but we don’t know that to be a fact.”

  The precinct station was familiar to me now; I’d spent hours there on four separate occasions. I’d told Sergeant Piperson everything I knew about Sylvia and Ian—which in the latter case was practically nothing.

  “Why did Sylvia Markey go looking for the cold cream herself? Didn’t she have a maid?” the Sergeant asked.

  “Not at the moment. She’d just fired her last maid.”

  “Why?”

  “Lord knows,” I said. “She was always firing her maids, or they were always quitting. Sylvia’s not an easy person to work for.”

  “Does the management provide all the make-up? I thought actors brought their own.”

  “About half and half. Make-up is supplied, but most actors use some substitutes of their own. Different brands they like better or maybe a different kind of make-up. Sylvia Markey always used her own cold cream—the cold cream in the make-up cabinet is a regular theatrical brand. Sylvia wouldn’t have run out of her own cold cream if she’d had a maid to keep track of her supplies.”

  “What do you think about Phil Carter?”

  The abrupt change of direction didn’t exactly catch me by surprise. Phil Carter, Ian Cavanaugh’s understudy, would be acting in Foxfire right now if Sylvia Markey hadn’t run out of cold cream.

  I shook my head. “Too obvious. He’s the first one we’d all think of. Besides, Phil is just a normally ambitious actor. I can’t see him destroying Ian Cavanaugh’s face just to get a role.”

  “Can’t you?” Piperson said dryly. “Can you see this? Say a second-string actor gets tired of waiting for his big chance. But knocking out the star might direct suspicion toward him, so he tries a couple of red herrings first—like vandalizing the leading lady’s home and killing a cat. Then when the glamour boy gets it, that’s just one more ugly thing in a string of ugly things that’ve been happening. He might even try something else, something more to cover his trail. Possible?”

  “But not probable. For one thing, he’d have no guarantee he’d get the role if Ian left the play.”

  “Sylvia Markey’s understudy’s playing her role, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, because we think Vivian Frank is right for the part. There aren’t any rules for these things—each case is decided individually. If anything happened to Ian Cavanaugh, Phil Carter would take over the role for a few performances at least. Until we could figure out what we wanted to do. We might decide to give the role to somebody else.” I thought a moment. “In fact, we’d probably give it to Hugh Odell.”

  “Odell? But he already has a part in the play.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference. Hugh is a versatile actor and he knows the play—he could handle Ian’s role. He’s got a lot more experience under his belt than Phil Carter, and he’s better known. We’d probably move Hugh to Ian’s role, and then either hire someone new to replace Hugh or give Phil Carter a crack at that role. Phil was hired to understudy both Ian and Hugh.”

  “So he’d still be getting a part, wouldn’t he? Not the lead, but at least he’d no longer be an understudy.” Piperson looked pleased with himself. “By the way, Abby, who’s ‘we’? Who decides who plays what role? This isn’t my forte, you know.” He pronounced it for-tay.

  “Gene Ramsay, John Reddick, and I do the casting. Ramsay has the final say. Most producers like to use a casting director, but Ramsay doesn’t work that way.” It would appear that Piperson’s suspicions had shifted from John Reddick to Phil Carter. Who next? Hugh Odell? “You seem to be opting for the one-villain theory.”

  “We don’t know that to be a fact,” Piperson repeated mechanically. “It looks that way, but we have no evidence.”

  I snorted. “Of course it was all done by the same person. What kind of evidence do you need? Look at the nature of the acts—including Loren Keith’s blinding. Look how ugly they are.”

  “So they’re ugly. A lot of life is ugly.”

  “Come on, Sergeant! There’s only one purpose behind all this—to hurt, to cause suffering. Some sick twisted person wanted Loren and Sylvia and Ian to feel pain.”

  “Day before yesterday we arrested a kid who gouged out an old man’s eyes after taking the six bucks he had in his pocket.”

  I threw up my hands. “So there are a lot of sick people around! Does that make our sick person any healthier? He likes to inflict pain—”

  “Not so fast, not so fast. We don’t know the whole story yet. There could be any number of reasons why this guy’s going around hurting people.”

  I slapped at his desk in frustration. “You, aren’t, hearing, me. Cause and purpose are two different things. Whatever the cause, the purpose of the acts is to inflict pain—”

  “And we should go for the Psychological Profile Approach? You’ve been watching too much television. It almost never helps. Criminals aren’t caught that way.”

  In exasperation I stood up so abruptly I knocked over my chair. I started to argue further but didn’t say anything when I saw Piperson was leaning back and grinning broadly at me.

  “You theater people,” he laughed. “You sure like a big scene.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. The man was getting a charge out of this! He found us—me—entertaining! I turned my back on him and walked out.

  You theater people. You sure like a big scene. He had to be doing it on purpose, he had to. But what did he hope to gain by irritating me that he couldn’t find out by just asking? I was trying to be co-operative. I couldn’t figure this guy.

  The next day I sat in on Griselda Gold’s first rehearsal of Vivian Frank’s new understudy. She was an actress named Marilyn Frazier whom John Reddick had chosen over my strong objections. I found her mannered and monotonous, but John and Ge
ne Ramsay had overruled me. John had started rehearsals of Androcles in Church, so Griselda had inherited the job of teaching Marilyn Frazier the blocking.

  I hadn’t intended to go to the rehearsal, but when an actress you don’t like is being rehearsed by a director you don’t trust in one of your plays—you go. I waved to Griselda and slipped into the last row. Gene Ramsay was nowhere in sight; he should have been there.

  Phil Carter was on the stage, rehearsing with Marilyn Frazier. I wondered if he knew he was Sergeant Piperson’s favorite suspect. This week, at least. Phil had a pained look on his face, and I soon found out why.

  I mentioned that Marilyn Frazier was a mannered actress. One of her most annoying mannerisms was her habit of drawing out the last word of every sentence, whether the word was important enough to stress or not. “You’ve always shown a conventional willingness to try new thiiiinnnngs,” she read from the script. “So how about showing some real two-fisted tolerance now when it coooouuuunnnnts?”

  “That was rilly very good, Marilyn,” said Griselda. “But now let’s try it another way. I think the important thing to get across here is that you’re annoyed with him because his liberal attitude has always been something of a pose. You want to create the impression that you’re aware of the difference between what he is and what he thinks he is. Okay?”

  The actress’s face took on a pinched look and she waited a ten-count before reading the line again. “You’ve always shown a CONVENTIONAL willingness to try new thiiiinnnngs. So how about showing some REAL two-fisted tolerance now when it coooouuuunnnnts?”

  I ground my teeth and slipped down farther into the seat.

  “That’s better,” said Griselda, with a false ring in her voice. “Let’s try it again.”

  They tried it again and again and again, with no change whatsoever. Patient Griselda finally announced they’d go on and come back to this part later. John Reddick would have bullied Marilyn Frazier into reading the line his way with no trouble at all. But Griselda didn’t have John’s clout, so she was trying to wheedle a more intelligent reading out of the actress. I’d come to the theater prepared to sit on Griselda if she overstepped her bounds and tried to do any real directing. But after listening to Marilyn Frazier for ten minutes, I was silently urging Griselda on.