“I’ll admit, that’s a first for me.” He cleared his throat again. “The two original daggers were from the sixteenth century, brought over by Sir Anthony. The one on the left is the reproduction I found in New Jersey. It can still kill a man though, original or not.”
“I’ll bet. Who has a key to this cabinet?”
“Right now, no one but me. When I found out the dagger had been taken from here, I changed the locks. Before, it was an old lock and been on for years. Too many people had keys to it.” He separated the shell from the pistachio with his fingers and ate the meat.
“Like who?”
“Like you, for instance, or your position,” he added. “Plus me, my assistant, the director, the stage manager, and there was one hanging in Ned’s room. A spare. It’s not there now. So I changed the locks. I have the only key and there’s an end to it.”
“Pretty smart, Ralph.”
He nodded and stood for a moment, staring into the case. “You know the difference between a dagger and a knife?”
“I do.”
Ralph went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “A dagger is a double-edged blade used for stabbing or thrusting. It’s equally curved on both sides toward the point. A knife is any cutting edge or blade, handheld or otherwise. One side is curved and the other is the one for cutting.” He turned to her, watching her stare into the case. “Which would you prefer to use? If you had to?”
“A gun.”
Ralph threw back his head and laughed. “I like you, Percy. Percy.” He mused for a moment, as he opened another pistachio with his fingertips. He seemed more relaxed. No more clearing of his throat. “What’s that short for? Not Percival, that’s a man’s name. Persephone, perhaps? Daughter of the Underworld. Image doesn’t quite fit you. Maybe you need to wear a Himation instead of pants.” He threw the nut in his mouth.
“Himation. That’s a long, woolen garment the women of ancient Greece wore, right?”
“Right.”
“You sound like an educated man, Ralph.”
“Harvard. Class of aught-five. But not for me. I’ve done pretty well here. Thirty-eight years and nothing like this has happened before. It was stolen from my prop room. It makes me look bad.”
“Maybe that can be fixed.”
He scrutinized her face. “You don’t sound like any ASM I ever knew.”
Percy walked around him and made for the door, saying over her shoulder, “We’re a changing breed, Ralph. Thanks for the tour. I’ll see you at the beginning of act one, scene two, to hand out the battle gear. Down stage right, isn’t it?”
“Before then,” he corrected, raising his voice to her departing figure. “We start handing them out when the Weird Sisters begin their first scene. The men need to be in place and ready to go with all their props. And it’s upstage right. There’s a table I lay everything out on. You’ll see it. Second to the last wing. The one in front of the witches’ platform.”
Percy stopped, wheeled around, and came back, leaning inside the door. “That’s where most of the actors stand to enter the stage. Then the scene is done upstage center, right?”
“That’s the place. Can’t miss it. A lot of men in uniform,” he said with a grin.
Percy thought for a moment. “Thanks.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Elsie, the rooming house I’m staying in only has a phone in the lobby. I can’t call you, someone might overhear us. We can’t be seen together either, that detective is hanging around, looking everywhere. If she doesn’t go away soon, I’ll have to stop her. I don’t mean to criticize, dear sister, but you may have made things worse by what you’ve done. However, there’s no turning back and there’s no going home. There is no home. Everything was stolen from us, including our precious mother, thanks to Dexter Wainwright. He will pay, but first he will suffer. We will make him and the rest of them suffer. We need to take care of Laverne. If she regains consciousness, she’ll tell and then we will be finished. I’ll bring the poison as soon as I can, but you’ll have to do it. As lady Macbeth says, ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail’. Evelyn
Chapter Twenty-six
“Care for some tea, Percy? I’ve brewed a fresh pot,” Mavis said, with a ready smile.
“No, thanks. I’ve got a celery soda,” Percy said, gesturing to the half-drunk bottle on her side of the stage manager’s podium.
In the midst of the ordered chaos in the backstage preparation for the run-through, Mavis’s calm demeanor seemed oddly misplaced. Stagehands whisked scenery from here to there or hammered last minute repairs on the Weird Sisters’ platform. Actors scurried around in various stages of dress, makeup, and readiness. Director Hugo Cranston screamed out instructions to lighting men perched on tall ladders adjusting lights. Kyle, wearing a headset, repeated sound cues again and again from his podium microphone to someone in the back of the house. Everywhere people were either talking or yelling, and all were scrambling to be ready in time.
Percy found it hard to concentrate in the controlled bedlam, and she prided herself on being able to turn nearly anything off. But while studying the notes she’d gathered as she’d gone to each dressing room or department checking people in, she found herself going over the same things again and again. Still and all, she’d made a small amount of progress.
Not usually superstitious, she thought about the unlucky number, thirteen. Wainwright had been Cohen’s partner for thirteen years. Thirteen women in the cast and crew were the right ages to be one or both of the Cohen girls.
Jacob Cohen’s daughters being here was a long shot, she knew, but it was possible. She looked into the brown eyes of the producer’s private secretary, a young woman on her list as one of the possibilities.
“Just let me know if you change your mind about the tea.” Mavis smiled again. “I keep a pot going at all times in Dexter’s office. Go in and help yourself if you like, but mum’s the word,” she added, putting her finger to her lips.”Don’t tell anyone. We don’t want the whole cast in there.”
“I’ll remember that. By the way, Mavis.” Percy paused, looking in the stage manager’s direction to make sure he couldn’t overhear. “I want to see the original paperwork for every single hire, cast and crew, as soon as you can get it to me.”
Mavis’s smile waivered for a split second, while she digested this. “Of course, I’ll put that together during the show. Will in between shows be soon enough?”
“That’ll do. Thanks.”
A departing smile flashed on the girl’s face, as she turned on her well-shod feet and went back to the office. Percy noticed the flair of Mavis’s skirt as she walked. A soft tan dress and jacket ensemble, fabric moving like heavy silk, was finished off by a string of pearls, no doubt real.
I saw an outfit like that in a fashion magazine at Gretchen’s Beauty Parlor a couple of months ago. Cost a bundle. You don’t get clothes like that doing any secretarial job I know, unless there’s some extra-curricular activity.
“Excuse me, miss,” said a voice she knew only too well, breaking into her thoughts. Percy turned, expecting to see her father. But standing before her was a short, dark haired man wearing pseudo battle armor from the middle ages, with scruffy eyebrows and an even scruffier beard.
So everything went smoothly with Pop’s ‘hire’, Percy thought. At least they can do something right around here.
“I’d like to introduce myself.” Pop stuck out a hand. “My name is Pop Parker, and I’m a new member of the cast.” His blue eyes twinkled, the color emphasized even more by the blackness of the eyebrows and the red painted cheeks.
With a straight face, Percy took his hand and shook it. “I’m Percy Cole, the assistant stage manager. Nice beard.”
“Glued on with some foul-smelling stuff called spirit gum,” he replied. “Not sure it’ll ever come off.”
She fisted her hand and pointed her thumb over her back. “That’s the stage manager, Kyle. I’d introduce you to him, but he’s running cue
s right now with sound.”
As if to prove the point, Kyle lost his temper as the sound of hoof beats came out of the loudspeakers. “No, no! It should be trumpets,” he bellowed into the microphone. “The battlefield trumpets. Cue number sixty-three is the battlefield trumpets. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” His voice was menacing. “Cue number one, Act one, Scene one: A strike of lightening, and your cue is to follow with the roll of thunder. Cue number two…” He turned his head away and the rest was lost in the general hub-bub of the backstage noises.
“I guess I’ll go and find out when and where I carry my spear on stage,” Pop said in mock seriousness.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Parker. Oh, here. You’ve got a loose thread.” Percy leaned forward, pretended to grasp something on his shoulder, but whispered in his ear. “Be careful Pop. There’s a lot going on around here, like falling sandbags, rat poison, and flying daggers. Keep your eyes open. Did you give the pen to O’Malley?”
Pop nodded imperceptibly.
“You tell him about Reefer Jones and to keep it up in Harlem?”
Pop looked at her and winked. “Mick’s mighty grateful,” he murmured.
“He should be,” she whispered back. Percy straightened up and said in a normal voice, “There, I got it, Mr. Parker.”
“Thank you, young lady.” Pop turned on his heels and strutted away.
Percy watched him with a smile before returning to her list, hoping for a chance to make more sense of it.
“Percy darling,” said a clipped British accent, interrupting her again. She turned to see the director fast approaching from another direction, this time wearing a yellow shirt and brown trousers, with a green, yellow, and brown tie nipping in his waist.
If I had a waist, I might try that look. Naw, too weird looking.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to use you to another advantage, apart from being the assistant stage manager,” he called out to her, before coming to rest at her podium. “We’re down two witches.”
“Excuse me?”
A small woman, under five feet tall, trailed behind Hugo. She was done up like the scariest Halloween witch Percy had ever seen. The director turned to her. “Percy, this is Betty. She’s the lead Weird Sister.”
“How do you do.” Betty’s contralto voice was a surprising contrast to her size.
Hugo Cranston slapped the podium with his open palm and said in his best directorial tone, “I’ve decided you’re to go with Betty. She’ll show you where to stand and what to do. I’ve underlined the words that you say. Congratulations, you’re witch number two.”
“Excuse me?”
“Listen old crumpet,” Hugo said, when he saw her reluctance. “This is emergency measures, probably just for today until we find somebody. We’ve got an ad in Variety. And I mean, you’re perfect, a little overweight, but perfect. Such authority. I know it will transfer to the stage.”
“But what about my job?” Percy stuttered, thinking that she’d lose a certain mobility backstage. “Who’s handing out the props and helping the witches up and down the stairs?”
“My assistant will hand out the props. And you ladies can jolly well ‘help’ yourselves up and down the stairs.” Hugo snapped at her with impatience.
“Come with me.” Betty, grasped Percy’s hand with her own miniature one. She dragged Percy away from the podium with gusto and toward lower stage left, where a large caldron awaited in the wings on an undersized rolling stage, called a platform trolley. The trolley held not only the black caldron, but imitation shrubs and canvas-covered rocks giving something of a semblance to a Scottish moor.
Percy pulled back. “Wait a minute. I’m no actress.”
“Who cares?” With a strength the detective had no idea the small woman was capable of, Betty gave Percy’s hand a hard tug. Off balance, Percy went flying through the air and tripped up the one step and onto the moveable set, regaining her balance by grabbing onto a prickly, fake bush.
“See in there?” Betty’s cockney voice directed Percy’s attention to papers taped to the inside of the enormous, round caldron. The witch hopped up beside Percy. “The whole scene is written out and all your words are underlined in red. If you get confused, say ‘double, double toil and trouble’ and tickity-boo, I’ll take it from there. You see, luv, I can’t be the only one standing on the stage. We’re supposed to be the Weird Sisters, not the one weird broad. Alfred should be here in a minute. We’ll run lines then.”
“Alfred?” Percy studied the woman’s face, encrusted with a long pointy chin with one large, hairy wart, a huge hooked nose, bushy, salt and pepper eyebrows and a scraggy wig. Even though her features were smothered in a nauseating gray-green powder, Percy knew this was an attractive young woman, early to mid-twenties, from checking her in earlier in her dressing room. Another of the thirteen possibilities.
“Alfred did the role day before yesterday,” Betty went on. “Said he knew it from summer stock. Bollocks. The blighter just wanted to dress in drag, but the girl hired to replace him yesterday came down with the flu last night, she says. Malarkey. Once they find out what’s going on in this cursed production of the Scottish Play, hardly no one wants to be in it, except for me. As far as I’m concerned, any place in America is better than going back to England with the war on, innit, eh? Like me mum says, take your refuge where you can get it.”
Despite the turn of events, Percy looked at Betty with appreciation. Nothing seemed to throw her. Percy remembered the Prop Master’s remark that things were getting so bad, someone might make him don a suit of armor and march onto the stage. Little did she know a version of that scenario was going to happen to her.
“So you’re from England.” Percy hoped to sound like she was making friendly conversation.
“That’s right. Born and raised in East London, just like his nibs, Sir Anthony. Only I don’t think I’m too good for where I come from. But it’s nice not to be sitting in a bomb shelter, listening to the wireless for the next bombing raid. No clotted cream to be had these days, neither.” Betty jumped from subject to subject with hardly a breath between. “We’ll take you down to wardrobe and hair after we run lines. Shame to cover all that red hair with one of those wigs. They itch, too. Here comes Alfred.” She pressed into Percy, looked up, and spoke quieter. “Try not to say anything about his false nose looking as wicked as mine. It’s real, ducks, and he’s sensitive about it.”
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, Percy finished babbling assigned words written on cards placed within, under, and over props or hanging from various parts of the scenery. Progressing throughout the script scene by scene, she’d said her few lines or stood ghoulishly in place on one of the 20-foot high platforms that would be rolled onstage behind the scenes during performance. It was a lot of standing. It was a lot of rolling.
Done, but by no means satisfied, she followed Betty down to wardrobe, thinking. This show biz is getting dicier and dicier. I want to finish this job and get home to my son.
Together, Percy and Betty stood to the side, waiting for their turn with Kyle’s girlfriend, Alice, for Percy’s costume. Betty tugged on Percy’s shirt sleeve and the taller woman bent down within ear shot.
“The supervisor is out in the house, taking wardrobe notes from the director. Alice is in charge now, which is no picnic, luv.”
Together they watched as the wardrobe assistant, wearing the familiar blue smock, handed out different Tartan kilts to the supporting actors for the run-through in a dismissive manner. Percy studied the large, square wardrobe room. Stark lights hung from the ceiling on long wires. Below the lights, dozens of costumes were crammed onto rack after rack lined up one behind the other. The costumes hung on carefully marked hangers, categorized by style and period, male and female. It was like visiting a costume museum, Percy thought.
“Is it me,” whispered Betty to Percy, as both followed the movements of Alice’s bouncing waist-length hair, “or does her name suit her to a T?
”
“I probably look just like a Persephone, myself, but maybe not.” She thought of Ralph’s comment about her name.
“Is that your given name, Persephone? Pretty. Mine’s Elizabeth. I prefer it to Betty, but I’m too short to be an Elizabeth.”
“I didn’t know there was a height requirement for a name. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll call you Elizabeth from now on,” remarked Percy, just as Alice approached them.
“You’re here for the Second Witch costume?” Alice gave Percy a bored, sullen look.
“Yeah, I --”
“It’s over here.” Alice turned away and reached up for a many layered gunmetal gray and black gauze free-flowing garment from a rack. Blotches of a lighter gray dabbed here and there added to the overall grunginess.
Those long sleeves and train looked like double, double, toil and trouble for climbing up and down the platform stairs. Oy!
“Here’s the hat.” Alice threw the costume over one shoulder, dragging the bottom of it on the floor, while she sauntered over to another section of the room. Rows of canvas head blocks stood at attention on shelving, some still wearing hats or headgear used in the play. She reached up for a pointy black hat, the top of the cone bent to one side. Tattered clumps of grey fabric were sewed on in a haphazard pattern.
That’s the ugliest hat I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty ugly ones, like at Mother’s church on Easter.
“What size shoe do you wear?” Alice looked at her from under heavy-lidded eyes.
“Eleven.”
“We don’t have any women’s shoes that big. I’ll have to give you a man’s boot.”
“How about if I wear my own? They’re black and rubber soled. I like them.”
Alice didn’t answer, but shrugged and yawned.
“We keeping you up?” Percy’s voice was light but had an edge to it. “Or you just hate your job?”
Alice shot her a startled look and became a little flustered. “Oh, I’m sorry. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been sleeping all that well. The woman in the apartment next to mine has a new baby and the walls are paper thin. None of us are getting any sleep these days.” She smiled and her face lit up.
Persephone Cole and the Halloween Curse Page 13