The Final Curtain

by Gilbert, Morris

  “But that may never be!” Ainsley protested. “If he’s a member of the cast, you can’t follow the actors when they break up.”

  “So we’re supposed to let somebody else get himself killed.” Flannery snorted. “And the papers can go on calling us a bunch of dumb cops! No! You’ve got to call off the blasted party!”

  The argument raged on, but clearly the officials lacked the power to close the play. Finally Dani took a deep breath and gave Jake Goldman a slight nod. He saw it, and stepped forward, saying, “Chief, may I have one word?”

  Flannery stared at the slender officer suspiciously. He had never known what to make of Goldman. Flannery was automatically suspicious of any police officer who lived well, and Goldman went beyond all bounds. It was common knowledge that the chief had had Goldman investigated several times by various organizations, but the dapper policeman had never been connected with anything shady. By the same token, Flannery knew that Goldman was probably the best investigator on the force. He reluctantly ordered, “Go ahead, Goldman.”

  “This has been the most difficult case I’ve ever handled, mostly because of the isolation of the cast. They have their own little world, and no policeman is going to break through. At the very beginning of the case, Mr. Ainsley had a very good idea. He decided to bring in a private investigator—an undercover agent.”

  At this statement, Dani, who was watching the cast, saw every head go up and looks of astonishment cross every face. “Who is it? Why, I don’t believe . . .” ran the talk, but Goldman ignored it, except for raising his voice slightly.

  “Usually I would insist on having one of our own people in such a position, but you can see that would be very difficult. The world of the theater is small, and an agent would be spotted almost at once. Therefore, after checking the qualifications of the investigator, I agreed to the plan.”

  Now the chief looked surprised. “I think you might have let the rest of us in on this, Lieutenant Goldman.”

  “Chief, you taught me some good lessons,” Goldman said. “And one of the best was keep your undercover man protected. You always stressed that, I think.”

  Trapped by his own words, Flannery could only nod. Cranston asked, “Where are you leading us, Lieutenant?”

  “Our man has been successful—or almost so. Evidence has been collected that will result in an arrest on the charge of murder. However, there are still two items which must be nailed down. I’m asking that you allow the play to go on for just one week. By that time the murderer will be in custody. I’ll stake my reputation on it.”

  Flannery stared at him. Goldman was reputedly the most pessimistic man in the department. He never said a positive word about a case until the criminal was caught, tried, sentenced, and in jail. “Too many loopholes,” Goldman often lamented. “It’s not over until they’re behind bars.”

  “You feel sure about it?” Flannery demanded. When he got a nod from Goldman, he looked at Denton Cranston. The two of them reached some sort of mystic agreement, and the chief nodded. “All right, you have one week to get your man, Goldman.”

  He stalked off the stage, followed by Cranston and the two officers. As soon as they left, the talk rose like wildfire. Jonathan held up his hand, shouting, “All right! Hear me now—we go on in three days.”

  “What about the Lockridge roles?” Lyle asked.

  “Be at rehearsal tomorrow at eight,” he said. “The roles will be filled. Now, I’ve got a lot to do!”

  The group broke up, the actors talking wildly about the new development. Dani demanded, “Jonathan, a word with you.”

  “Come along.”

  She followed him to the office and wasted no time. “Two things, Jonathan. First, about Victoria’s role. I think you should allow her to continue in it.”

  “Are you crazy, Danielle?” Ainsley almost stuttered. “In the first place, she blames me for her husband’s death. Second, this is the last place she needs to be. It’s out of the question!”

  “She has nowhere to go, Jonathan,” Dani insisted. “Yes, she hates you, but that can change. Her husband hated you, too, but he changed toward the last, didn’t he?”

  “Well—yes,” Ainsley admitted grudgingly. “But she’d be on the very spot where her husband was murdered!”

  “That’s her problem, and I think she can handle it much better than her other problem—which is what to do with her life.”

  Ainsley didn’t like the idea, but Dani wore him down. Finally he said, “Well, if she wants to do it, I agree.” As soon as he spoke, he mused, “The newspaper boys will love this one, won’t they?”

  Dani was disgusted with his callous attitude, but ignored it. “One more thing. I want you to let drop to one person that I’m the undercover investigator.”

  “Dani, we can’t do that!” Ainsley protested. “It wouldn’t be too hard to figure that it must be you or Ben. If the killer has any idea it’s you, he won’t hesitate to kill you.”

  “That’s the idea, Jonathan. I’m the bait in the trap.”

  Jonathan sat down on the desk, stared at her, then shook his head. “What’s the name?” he asked quietly. When she spoke it aloud, his eyes flew open. “Are you sure?”

  “No. But we will be when he makes a try for me, won’t we?”

  “I don’t like it, but it’s your decision. When shall I let it drop?”

  “The day before we open the play again.”

  She left the office and found Goldman waiting for her outside. “How’d I do?” he wanted to know.

  She smiled at him, thinking of their last meeting. He’d been adamantly against the plan, but step by step she had convinced him that it was a certain way to catch the killer. “You ought to be in show biz, Jake,” she remarked.

  He flagged down a cab and walked her to it. As he put her inside, he took her arm. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Danielle. I’ve come to think a lot of you,” he admitted.

  “I’ll bet you say that to all your undercover agents!” she quipped.

  But Goldman didn’t smile. “Listen, I’ve got some extra manpower. Savage is on the job, and we’re going to have you covered in every direction. But if you see or even think something looks wrong, don’t be proud, hear me? Scream your head off!”

  He slammed the door, and as the car moved away, she saw him watching. As soon as the cab turned the corner, and he was lost to her sight she felt lonely—and the tendrils of fear began to creep along her nerves. She made herself think of the portrait of Colonel Daniel Monroe Ross. Calling up the image of his fearless eyes, she murmured softly, “Well, Colonel, it’s not Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg—but the way I feel it could be just as dangerous to your great-great-granddaughter!” The thought of that stern face braced her spirits, and she sat back as the cab dodged in and out of the traffic.

  17

  The Bait

  * * *

  The reopening of Out of the Night proved anticlimactic.

  Nobody was shot or stabbed. There were no attempted homicides. As Charlie Allgood caustically put it in his column, “After all the sound and fury by the police department about the dangers of a homicide in Jonathan Ainsley’s hit play, the standing-room-only crowd had to be content with just solid performances and quality drama.”

  But Allgood was not aware of the intense preventive measures taken to halt another murder attempt. Three still-faced, rather unobtrusive men moved about the set before, after, and during the performance. Goldman had told Dani, “These three are the best SWAT men in the state. If the killer so much as coughs, they’ll nail him!” In addition to the precautions inside the Pearl Theater, Dani was aware that she was being followed to and from the studio. Savage was everywhere, his eyes constantly moving, like a frontier scout, with Earl and Julio as alert as prime bird dogs.

  Savage had been dead set against the idea of leaking the information that Dani was the undercover agent. He had heatedly argued it with Goldman and Dani. “You’ll be a sitting duck!” he protested, facing the two
of them. “You practically announced that you’re the one who’ll be getting the evidence to nail the killer. Do you think he’ll let that pass?”

  Dani shook her head wearily. “Ben, we’ve been over this a hundred times! It’s the only way to force his hand.”

  Savage stared at her, looking hard and tough in his dark stage clothing. “You know what this is?” he said suddenly. “It’s a rerun of the action we had in the silo.”

  “What’s that?” Goldman demanded.

  Dani started to answer, but Ben interrupted loudly, “I’ll tell you what it was. We were trapped in this sort of jail with a bunch of other prisoners. One of them was a killer. Guess who got the brilliant idea of using herself as bait, so we could nab the murderer? Danielle Ross, girl detective, that’s who!”

  “It wasn’t like that, Ben!” Dani objected angrily.

  “It was like that!” he snapped. “What is it with you, Dani? Do you have a death wish or something? Or maybe you just like to hotdog all the time? Goldman, you ought to stop her.”

  The policeman had been taken aback by the fury of Savage’s attack, but he looked at Danielle. “I think Ben’s got something. Let’s just let that part go.”

  Dani shook her head, and the stubborn streak that lay hidden surfaced. “Look, do you think he hasn’t figured it out already? I think he has—but if not, we’ve got to jar him! Jake, you promised me you’d go along with my idea. Are you going to welsh just because Ben’s getting to be an old woman?”

  Savage suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm, almost paralyzing it with his grip. He ignored her wince of pain, dragging her close. “You’ve been around show biz too long! Everything’s got to be a big production—and Dani Ross has to be in the center of it!”

  “Let me go!” Dani cried. She stepped back, rubbing her arm, and her face turned pale with anger. “Maybe you’d better remember who signs your checks, Savage! When I hired you, I thought you were a tough cookie—now you’re starting to fold just when the trouble’s about to start! Why don’t you get a job selling vacuum cleaners, if the work’s too hot for you!”

  “Maybe I will,” Ben said, staring at her, his eyes blazing with anger. “After this is over, you can get another man!”

  He turned and walked away. “What’s with you two?” Goldman asked. “You fight worse than a man and wife.”

  The words struck Dani wrong, and she said bitterly, “Ben Savage thinks he’s the only human being in the world who can do something right.”

  “And you’re going to show him he’s wrong?” Goldman shot back. “Look, Dani, this isn’t some kind of game in which the one with the most points wins! This is forever stuff. I think Savage is right. Why don’t we just change that one part of the plan?”

  But she had stubbornly refused to listen, and soon Jonathan reported that he had dropped the information.

  After the performance, Dani had immediately gone to Ben, commenting, “See, it went all right.”

  His face was unsmiling, and he bit off the words like iron. “He’s not a complete fool. Wait until that SWAT team leaves!”

  Dani had hoped Ben would soften his attitude, but as she walked away to go congratulate Victoria, Dani wondered, I don’t know why I even thought he’d change. He never has!

  Then she pushed her way through a crowd to get to Victoria, who was surrounded by admirers, cast and audience alike. “You were wonderful, Victoria!” she whispered, hugging the older woman. Victoria held the embrace longer than necessary, but the tears filled her eyes, and she could only nod.

  As Victoria walked away, Dani thought of how simple it had been to get her to stay in Out of the Night. She had gone to Victoria’s apartment and said without preamble: “I think you ought to stay in the play, Victoria. It will be hard, but not as hard as being alone.”

  Actually it had taken very little more persuasion, for Victoria was filled with grief for her loss—but also with fear for her future. Within a day the details were set, and the newspapers had made a big thing of it—show business in the best tradition!

  The replacement for Sir Adrian, Dave Tolliver, was an older man, of course, and an experienced actor. It had not hurt that he had been a long-time admirer of Sir Adrian, and his courteous and highly respectful attitude toward Victoria greatly helped her.

  Dani accompanied the cast to a late supper, to celebrate the reopening of the play. It was at an expensive supper club on the east side of town. She sat between Victoria and Tom Calvin, eating little and wondering why Savage had absented himself from the party. When she asked Jonathan, he quietly explained, “Partly because the stage hands don’t usually come to these things. We may have given away your identity, but nobody need know about Savage. He’ll be more effective that way. Anyway, he wouldn’t come. He told me he was moving into the theater—going to sleep on a cot or something. Not a bad idea, either, when you stop and think of it.”

  The party broke up, and Tom took her home. He came up for a while, and they drank coffee and talked until nearly two o’clock. Finally when he got ready to leave, he gave her a strange look, and said, “Dani, what about me?”

  “About you, Tom?”

  “About you and me, then,” he said. “Is there any chance for me at all?”

  Dani was taken aback. She had become very fond of Tom Calvin, but not once had the thought of falling in love with him entered her mind. “Why, Tom!” she answered slowly. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Why not?” He came toward her, trying to kiss her, but she drew back.

  “Tom, this isn’t right,” she objected. “We don’t even know each other. You’ve never seen me when I wasn’t playing a role. Why, you don’t even know what I look like!”

  “I don’t care about that, Danielle,” he insisted stubbornly. “I only know that I’ve never seen a woman as strong as you are.”

  “Tom, you don’t need a strong woman—if by strong you mean a woman who can tell you what to do.”

  “You think that’s what I want?” he asked with a sudden angry tone in his voice. “You think I can’t take care of myself?”

  “You never tried, did you, Tom?” Dani saw the question strike a nerve, and she added very gently, “Tom, you’re a fine man, but I think you’ve always taken the easy way. You don’t like Jonathan Ainsley or what he stands for—but you work for him. Why? I think it’s because you’ve given up on yourself. And that’s wrong, Tom, because you’ve got so much to offer!”

  “What do I have?” he asked bitterly.

  “You’ve got courage, for one thing. I know it hasn’t been easy, living your Christian convictions in the world of the theater—but you’ve done it. I’m very proud of you, Tom.”

  His face tensed, but slowly his eyes lost their anger. Instead a humorous light came into them. Finally a curve appeared at the ends of his lips. “I guess I’ve known for a long time that I’ve been coasting. I guess it’s time to ante up, isn’t it, Danielle?”

  “Yes, Tom, it’s time.” Then she kissed him on the cheek, and he left at once. Shutting the door, she leaned against it and gave a deep sigh of relief. “Just what I needed,” she murmured. “A thirty-year-old baby to raise!” But even as she wondered about Tom Calvin’s future, she was thinking about Savage, roaming the dark confines of the backstage area of the Pearl—and she prayed an old Scottish prayer she’d learned from her grandmother:

  From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties

  And things that go bump in the night,

  Good Lord, deliver us!

  * * *

  Dani was just putting on her coat, getting ready to leave for the Friday-evening performance, when the doorbell rang. Opening the door, she found Goldman before her, impeccably dressed, but with an odd look in his dark eyes. “I’ll drive you to the theater,” he ordered abruptly, and she followed him to the car without asking any questions.

  He didn’t speak until they were underway. “The SWAT team won’t be there tonight. They had to go to Albany on an emergency assignme
nt,” he commented as he wove a tight pattern through the traffic. “I probably won’t be there either. A new case just came up this morning, and I have to get on it right away.”

  “Of course, Jake.” She patted his arm, adding, “You’ve done more than anyone could ever have expected. We knew you couldn’t drop your other work just for this.”

  “Sure I could,” he said. “I don’t have to work for a living.”

  “Yes, I think you do, Jake,” Dani responded. “What would a man like you do if he didn’t have his work? Be a gigolo for some old lady?”

  Then he said without emotion, “Not for an old lady. Maybe for you, Danielle.”

  She missed his meaning, he spoke so flatly, and he turned to look at her. “I asked you once if I were a man you might love. All I got was a lecture. I’m asking again, and this time not for a lecture. I’m not asking you to marry me. Who knows about things like that? All I say is that I’ve never thought about a woman as much as I’ve thought about you. Maybe I’m going nuts. I don’t know.” He jerked the wheel viciously, missing a truck by inches, but seemed not to notice. “I thought I’d seen about everything there was to see in women—but you’re not like the others.”

  Dani sat there, unable to find a word to say at first. Finally she swallowed and explained, “Jake, I’m just a strange specimen to you. You’re curious, that’s all. You’ve been spoiled by all the women who can’t wait to fall into your arms.”

  He swiveled his head around, peered at her, then shook his head. “No, that’s not it. What I want is a beautiful woman as smart as I am, with a wonderful sense of humor, who can cook.”

  “Lots of luck!” Dani wished him, then sobered. Thoughtfully she said, “Jake, you know why I won’t even think about it, don’t you?”

  “Sure. It’s because I’m Jewish and you’re a Christian.” He shrugged his trim shoulders. “That’s no big deal! I’m Jewish by blood, maybe, and by a little strip of land called Israel—but I have no God, Danielle. I gave up on Him a long time ago.”