The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  The theater’s side door was closed, so I walked back to the main entrance just in time to see Joe walking up, reaching into his pocket for a set of keys.

  “Thanks for meeting me, Joe,” I said as he unlocked the glass doors and gestured me in and locking the door behind him. He walked to the swinging doors separating the lobby from the auditorium, opened one and reached behind the other to flip a couple of switches lighting the two dim spots on either side of the stage and a few equally dim ceiling lights, which provided enough light for me to see where we were going.

  “Let’s go into the booth,” he said. “I can start doing some things while we talk.”

  He opened the door leading to the booth, flipped another switch near the bottom of the stairs, and I followed him up into the lighting/sound/stage manager’s booth, which was the size of a slightly-larger-than-average bathroom. At the top of the stairs was a cluttered desk with stacked notebooks, what appeared to be an old peanut-butter jar filled with pencils and a rainbow of marking pens, and a clipboard holding sheets of papers with diagrams of the stage made almost indistinguishable by the scribbled notes and arrows and various markings in a variety of colors. Directly above the desk was a small window overlooking the auditorium and stage. Obviously Max’s desk.

  The rest of the room was taken up by a U-shaped series of what I assumed to be lighting and sound panels with row after row of knobs, switches, and small levers. How any one person could figure out which lever/switch/knob was for, I couldn’t imagine. But I was sure Joe did.

  He gestured me to Max’s chair and moved around to the center of the U to take his own seat behind the console.

  “So,” he said, looking out another small window over the center of the console and into the auditorium, “what’s this all about?”

  “Well,” I began, “as I told you on the phone, I’m a private investigator by trade, and the only reason I’m in New York is to visit Max and Chris, who invited us to the opening of the show. I was particularly looking forward to it because I heard Rod Pearce was in it, and I’ve had the hots for him ever since I saw him in War and Destiny. I never met the guy, never even saw him in person, and was pretty disappointed when I learned that now I never would.”

  “You didn’t miss much,” Joe said, leaning back in his chair.

  “So I understand ever since I got here. But over the years I’ve developed a really weird gut-level instinct for when something just isn’t right, and it’s telling me that something about Rod Pearce’s death just isn’t right.”

  He looked directly at me for the first time. “So you think somebody from the Whitman killed him?”

  I shook my head. “I really don’t know. But it’s a possibility worth looking into.”

  Joe shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “So tell me what you know about him.”

  He took a deep breath. “You know how in the Bible Jesus tells St. Peter, ‘I shall make you a fisher of men’?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Rod was a fisher of men, too. Only he’d hook ’em, reel ’em in, then rip out the hook and toss ’em back in the water. He got a big kick out of it.”

  I looked at him closely. “Can I gather from that that you were one of the ones he hooked?”

  He stared out the small window at the stage. “Yeah, you can. I’m sure as hell not proud of it. I knew what a prick teaser he was before he even zeroed in on me. But he was Rod Pearce, and that’s one tempting piece of bait to dangle in front of any fish. I think he looked on me as a kind of special challenge, since I keep pretty much to myself and don’t mix well with many people. Anyway, he kept dangling the bait and dangling the bait until I bit. Then one night in bed and he tossed me back overboard the next day. I mean, hell, I wasn’t looking for a big romance, but he made it pretty clear that I was just a number on his scoreboard.”

  “And you were pissed.”

  He gave an exaggerated, slow nod. “Oh, yeah. But actually I was a lot more pissed at me than I was at him. I’ll tell you one thing; something like that doesn’t exactly encourage me to come out of my shell.”

  “So how about the rest of the cast and crew? Anyone whose anger wasn’t directed at themselves?”

  He thought a minute. “First of all, Rod’s criteria seemed pretty simple: you had to be male and breathing. He went through just about everybody. I understand he even hit on Max in the bathroom one night. Chris wasn’t too happy about that, you can be sure. Russ, the prop man, was really crushed when Rod baited him then dumped him…that was a really shitty thing for Rod to do; take advantage of a kid who barely knows the ropes yet. But that was Rod.”

  I was really surprised that Joe was being as talkative as he was. Part of me wondered why. Maybe he just needed to talk. Or…?

  “What do you know about Rod’s association with Gene Morrison?” I asked.

  Joe raised one eyebrow and actually almost smiled. “It was pretty obvious from day one that Rod and Morrison were more than mentor and mentee, so when Rod came out from California with Gene for the casting, it hardly floored anyone when Rod got the lead. Gene stuck around for the first week of read-through and blocking before heading back to California to work on some project or another. They played it really cool, but they sure didn’t fool anyone.

  “I mean, here’s this hot looking stud actor whose career had flat lined being taken under the wing of a well-known playwright more than twice his age, and he lands first lead in the playwright’s new play? Come on!”

  “Do you think Gene knew what was going on with Rod while he wasn’t around?”

  Joe shook his head. “Gene’s far from stupid. And I’d say that if you were looking for somebody from the Whitman who might have an excellent reason to kill Rod, it would be Gene. But he didn’t come into town until the day after Rod’s body was found.”

  Supposedly, I thought.

  “Plus…” he said, yanking my attention back to the moment… “the fact that you’re not the only one with gut feelings about when things aren’t right.”

  He paused, and I cocked my head in an unspoken question.

  “Four seasons ago we were doing The Triangle,” he continued. “The kid who was playing the lead was a terrific actor with some really serious mental issues, which became more apparent as time went on. He was convinced he was no good, that he’d be laughed off the stage opening night…stuff like that. Tait took him under his wing and guided him along step by step, always trying to shore up his ego. After each rehearsal, he’d sit in the auditorium with the kid after everyone else had gone home, just talking to hm. There were rumors floating around that he had something for the kid, but I doubted it.”

  He paused again to rub his hand over his chin in reflection, then continued. “But whatever Tait did, it worked. The kid made it through rehearsals and opening night, and the show was a big success. But he still thought he was no good. A week after the play closed, he shot himself. Tait never mentioned his name again.”

  “Jeezus! What a shame,” I said. “What was the kid’s name?”

  “Greene,” Joe said. “Michael Greene.”

  But Joe wasn’t finished. “Plus…” he said again, and again he had me.

  “There’s more?” I asked, and Joe nodded.

  “Two seasons ago we did another new play, The Circus, by Philip Rounds…not one of our best, I’m afraid…with a new stage manager, Ted Marx. He was a real martinet who thought he was a lion tamer and the cast and crew his wild animals. He pissed off Arthur McHam from the first day. Marx had never worked with the Whitman before, and I’m not sure how or why Tait ever gave him the job, but apparently he somehow conned Tait into it. Ted kept dropping hints about how close he and Tait were, and I don’t think Tait was very happy about that. It was almost as if Ted had something on him. Well, two weeks into rehearsal, he was gone. Literally. Not fired, not quit, just gone. He just didn’t show up one night and no one ever saw or heard a word from him since. That nearly scuttled the show right there, but luckily Tait wa
s able to find a replacement from another company.”

  “You think he had something going on with Tait?”

  Joe shrugged. “I doubt it. Tait always manages to separate his private life from what goes on at the Whitman. He has to, of course, and unlike Gene, I can’t see his getting involved with anyone associated with any of his shows. Still, kind of strange. And now with Rod….”

  He was right; it was strange. Nine chances out of ten, Greene’s death and Marx’s disappearance were pure coincidences. But never underestimate gut instinct. I didn’t, and apparently Joe Kenyon didn’t, either.

  *

  So that’s why Joe had been so willing to talk to me, I thought as I walked back to the apartment; either to shift focus away from himself or out of a sincere belief that something odd was going on at the Whitman. The first problem there was that if he was right about some sort of link between the three events, that would effectively rule out Gene Morrison, since he’s had nothing whatever to do with the other two shows. The second problem was that it shifted the spotlight to Tait Duncan, and I found that almost unthinkable. It was Tait who had hired me, and unless he was crazy, why would he hire someone to try to find him guilty of murder?

  No, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed Joe was grasping at straws. Michael Greene’s death, tragic though it was, most likely was a suicide. He wasn’t the first temperamental artist to kill himself. All Tait did was try to help him.

  And Ted Marx? Well, if Tait wanted to get rid of him, it would be a lot easier to quietly fire him than kill him, I’d think. Unless Ted had somehow blackmailed Tait into hiring him? Over what? No, I just couldn’t buy it.

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you, one of my mind-voices volunteered cheerily.

  So, okay, I’d mention Greene and Marx to Tait, just to see if there might be any unusual reaction. And I still had to figure out a way to talk to Gene Morrison.

  But first, I wanted to tap into my contacts at the police department back home. I had a pretty good relationship with a couple members of the force—Lieutenant Mark Richman of the Administration Division and Officer Marty Gresham, who worked for him, to be specific—and because I’d helped them out on a couple of cases, they’d gone out of their way for me more than once.

  I wanted to see if they could get me a complete police report on Rod Pearce’s death from the NYPD, and I wanted them to check with Trans-Con Airways to see if Gene Morrison had indeed been on Flight 106 the morning after Rod’s body was found.

  *

  I arrived back at the apartment to the smell of meatloaf. Max was seated in front of the coffee table with two notebooks open in front of him. No sign of Chris or Jonathan, who were apparently still out on their walk by the river.

  “How’d it go?” Max asked, putting down his pencil and sitting up straight to rotate his shoulders to relax them.

  “Not sure,” I said. I told him most of my conversation with Joe, and how surprised I was to find him so talkative. I didn’t mention Joe’s implication that Tait might be somehow involved, but asked him what he might know about Michael Greene and Ted Marx.

  He shrugged. “Not much, really, on Greene, other than that he was a very talented actor who’d killed himself, and nothing at all on Marx. Don’t forget, I hadn’t worked with Tait or the Whitman for about five years. I sort of lost touch for a while.”

  I asked if I could use the phone for a long distance call, and he said, “Sure.”

  I called Mark Richman’s number, hoping he’d be in. Luck was with me.

  “Lieutenant! It’s Dick Hardesty.”

  “Dick; it’s been awhile. What can I do for you…and I assume that’s the reason for the call.”

  Fortunately, I knew he was joking.

  I explained that Jonathan and I were in New York on vacation, which surprised him, and that I’d stumbled across a possible case, which didn’t.

  “How the hell do you do it?” he asked.

  “It’s a gift,” I said.

  “So, what do you need?”

  I told him. “I was hoping you could ask Marty Gresham if he’d be willing to do it, if he wouldn’t mind. I know he loves doing detective work. I hate asking you for help again, but it’s the only way I can get the information I need.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Give me your phone number. It probably won’t be until tomorrow morning that we’ll know anything.”

  I thanked him sincerely, and we hung up shortly thereafter.

  “We saw an aircraft carrier!” Jonathan announced, coming over to hug me. “It was enormous! And there were two destroyers following it like two ducklings swimming after their mother.”

  I grinned. “Glad you enjoyed your walk,” I said.

  “It was nice,” Chris said, then sniffed the air. “Think we should check on the meatloaf, Jonathan?”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan replied, and the two of them hurried into the kitchen.

  Chris returned a minute later. “They’re done,” he said. “Jonathan made two so we can get another meal out of it.”

  Typical Jonathan.

  “We can eat whenever you want,” Chris continued. “We just have to make the salad.”

  Max looked at his watch. “It’s a little past four. How about quarter to five? That’ll give us enough time to make it to the theater by six. Sound about right?”

  “Fine with me,” I said, and Chris nodded and went back into the kitchen.

  *

  Just as we were sitting down to eat, the phone rang and Max went to answer it. “Dick,” he called, “it’s for you.”

  Approaching the phone, I gave Max a classic “Who is it?” gesture, but he just shook his head and handed me the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Dick, it’s Marty.” Of course I’d recognized his voice immediately.

  “Marty!” I’m sure my voice showed my surprise. “That was fast!”

  I could almost see him grinning. “Hey, I don’t like to waste any time. Just wanted to let you know I’ve got a call in to the NYPD, and that I checked with Trans-Con in L.A. and they had no Gene Morrison on Flight 106 that day. I asked them to check to see if they could find out when he did leave L.A. and they said they’d get back to me.”

  “Thanks, Marty!” I said, my mind immediately going into overdrive.

  “My pleasure. I’ll call as soon as I find out more, or hear from the NYPD. See ya.” And we hung up.

  Well, well, well, I thought, mentally reaching for a meerschaum pipe, the plot thickens.

  CHAPTER 5

  We made it to the theater by a little after six, and were left to our own devices while Chris and Max went about their business. Between exchanging greetings with the cast and crew, and exchanging a few words with those we knew, we largely just watched everything that was going on. When the rehearsal started, we took seats in the back row and immersed ourselves in the production.

  During a break in the rehearsal, when Tait got up from his third row aisle seat next to Gene and went back to the lighting booth, I took the opportunity to approach Gene.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Morrison, but I didn’t have the opportunity, when we met, to offer my condolences on Mr. Pearce’s death.”

  A quick look of sadness crossed his face, then faded.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. …Hardesty, was it?” I nodded. “That’s very kind of you.”

  Looking at me closely, he said, “Are you in the theater, by any chance?”

  “No, I’m a private investigator just visiting friends for a couple of weeks.”

  He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow slightly. “Really? How very interesting. Why don’t you sit down a moment and tell me what you think of New York.”

  Well, the door was opened; I just didn’t know what sort of entrance to make. Luckily, just as I was preparing to sit down, Tait came up and Arthur McHam called out, “All right, people; we’ll take it from Cam’s entrance.”

  I “excuse-me’d”
out of Tait’s way and started to turn back to my seat, but Gene turned around and said, “Perhaps later.”

  Giving him a nod and a smile, I went back to join Jonathan as the houselights dimmed.

  *

  Joe came out of the lighting booth only once to talk briefly with the director, then returned. We exchanged a quick, heads-up nod of greeting, but that was it.

  Other than a minor problem with a backdrop in the Lusitania scene and a few blocking glitches, the show definitely seemed to be coming together. The next night, Thursday, would be a full run-through, start to end, with as few interruptions as possible. There’d be an audience, too—friends and relatives of the cast and crew, some associates of Tait and Gene, members of the Whitman Theater Board of Directors, etc.

  I was pretty sure Jonathan would want to be there, too, and though I wasn’t finding out nearly as much as I’d hoped to by attending the rehearsals, I had to admit I was hooked on the show’s progress.

  And depending on what I heard from Marty Gresham, Thursday just might open a whole new corridor of doorways to explore.

  *

  On the way back to the apartment, Max said, “You know, since Jonathan was so taken by the carrier he saw today, why don’t we—if Dick hears from his police contacts early enough—take a run up to Pier 88. The carrier Intrepid’s docked there and they’ve just opened it as a museum. Jonathan can get his sea legs. Chris and I haven’t been there yet, either. It should be fun.”

  “What a great idea!” Jonathan said enthusiastically. “We can actually go on board?”

  “That we can,” Chris said.

  Jonathan thought a minute then turned to me. “You were in the Navy! And weren’t you on a carrier?”

  “Yep.” I found myself fighting off an unexpected wave of nostalgia. “The Ticonderoga and the Intrepid were sister ships. There were 23 Essex-Class carriers; the Intrepid was CVA-11, the Ti CVA-14. I saw the Intrepid several times in the Mediterranean.”

  “Wow!” Jonathan said. “I’ll bet you can’t wait!”