by Gene Wolfe
“I’ll tell them,” Brian said, and hurried away.
Ebony asked, “Want to sit down?”
Cassie nodded. “See if you can’t find us a table, Margaret.”
Norma touched her arm. “Come on. I’ve got one already.”
“So do I,” Tabbi protested. “Cassie can sit with us.”
“She certainly can.” It was Bruce Sandoz. In a tone only slightly lower he added, “We featured players should cleave together, Cassie.”
“I’d better sit with Ebony,” Cassie decided. “India will be coming, and I promised we’d talk here.” She called Margaret back.
Porter Penniman was seated there already, apparently holding the table. With a smile as broad as a piano’s, he raised his exceedingly impressive four hundred pounds and indicated the chair on his right. Like all of Rusterman’s chairs, it was massive and looked medieval.
Cassie managed to drag it back while Margaret squirmed into the chair on Cassie’s right.
“De-lighted. Ah’m mos’ surely de-lighted, Miz Casey.” Porter Penniman’s voice belonged in Walker’s, blackstrap molasses drowning a cinnamon waffle.
Cassie smiled. “You know, Mr. Penniman, you’ve always seemed a little sinister to me, onstage and off. You’ve changed now, and I like the new you.”
He raised a hand that looked as large as a dinner plate. “Ah mos’ solemnly swears, Miz Casey, that Ah shall never agin enlist no smelly li’l foreigners to wring your pretty li’l neck.”
“Friends forever.” Cassie offered her hand. “And call me Cassie, please.”
He took it, grasping it rather as an ogre of unusual size might have held a dove. “An’ you mus’ call me Tiny, which all mah other fren’s already does.”
A waiter leaned between them, proffering a platter of smoking fritters. At Cassie’s other elbow Brian Kean said, “Anchovy fritters, made fresh for you. I haven’t sampled them. They’re very hot.”
The waiter added, “Rusterman’s best,” and set his platter in the center of the table.
“ ’Til I come heah,” Tiny intoned, “Ah had believed this place heah to be solely in Noo Yahk.”
Margaret whispered, “It’s a chain now.”
Brian had taken the chair to her right. “Speaking of chains, I understand that India wants to enlist people for a new show.”
“It seems to me like it’s way too early for anybody to commit to anything,” Cassie said. She turned to Ebony, who was sitting to Porter Penniman’s left. “How long has India had this angel? Do you know?”
“No,” Ebony told her. “I don’t. But not long. Or I don’t think so.”
“I can always make a good living doing commercials,” Brian declared. “Still, there’s nothing like the stage, is there? Live audiences and reviews next morning.”
Ebony grinned. “The roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd.”
Porter Penniman had picked up a fritter. He popped it into his mouth as he might have eaten a peanut.
Cassie sipped Chablis.
Ebony rose, waving. “Over here, India!”
From behind Ebony, Tabbi murmured, “I thought she was bringing the angel.”
India pulled out a chair and dropped triumphantly into it. “Wallace Rosenquist will be along shortly, kids. I’ve made firm arrangements for them to let him in, and Bruce is waiting there to raise holy hell if they don’t. He saw our show tonight, and he’s eager to meet all of you.”
She turned to Cassie. “How were the utility tunnels?”
“You heard, huh?”
India nodded. “Mickey told me. Unwelcome company?”
“If you want to call it that.” Cassie picked up a red something on a toothpick, conveyed it to her mouth, chewed — and swallowed before she realized she did not know what she had eaten. “I saw a man I knew in the audience. After the show, Jimmy came around to tell me somebody was waiting for me in the alley. Waiting to give me something, okay?”
Ebony said, “Careful time.”
“Right. I’m not saying I don’t want to see this guy. I’d like to talk to him as a matter of fact. But there are very few people I want to meet in dark alleys, and he’s not one of them.”
Margaret whispered in Cassie’s ear, and she added, “He’d scared the heck out of Jimmy, and I didn’t like that. He’d also given Jimmy a hundred, but Jimmy was scared just the same.”
India said, “So?”
“So the utility tunnels. They run from building to building and there are electric wires in them. Pipes and all kinds of stuff. Mickey showed me how to get down in there. Then he took me on through when he saw how scared I was. We came out in the basement of the Marcus Building.”
Cassie stood. “I don’t mean to be impolite or anything, but where’s the Jane?”
Ebony said, “I’ll show you,” and Cassie followed her, hoping that Margaret was following as well.
She was. When they were alone, Cassie opened her purse. “I said I’d give you a raise if you did a good job, remember? You can earn that raise right now. Here’s ten bucks.”
Margaret accepted it, pushing it into her sleeve.
“Maybe you’ve heard of Gideon Chase. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s got an apartment someplace in the city — I don’t know where. He teaches close to Providence, so he’s probably got another one around there. Got it?”
Margaret nodded.
“Get on the phone — directory assistance, the Babybell Search Engine, all that stuff. Find him. Tell him who you are, and tell him I’m here and I’m scared. Tell him to get himself over here quick.”
When Margaret had gone, Cassie held the door open to watch her hurry away. The party at Ebony’s table seemed unchanged. Ebony had resumed her seat, and India was holding forth. It occurred to Cassie that she need not rejoin it. Other tables dotted the tapestried room; there was even a crowd around the bar. After washing her hands twice, she slipped out of the restroom.
She was halfway to the bar when Palma pounced. “You were marvelous tonight, Cassiopeia Fiona Casey. Truly and absolutely marvelous! It was a privilege and an honor to tread the boards in your distinguished company. You made my poor scheming detective look very poor indeed, and that was all to the good. I know that the audience, God bless ’em!, made bold to let you know how merveilleux you were; but none of these hams will, so I intuit that I should do it myself. One strives, one endeavors, you know, to leave our poor old Earth a better place, eh? You have, and I do my own threadbare trifle by telling you how greatly you dazzled us. Come sit by me, and I’ll tell you much, much more.”
Palma had been steering her as a tall and unusually cruel tomcat might steer a captive mouse. They had nearly reached a table at which Donny Duke sat sipping something green, and at which Norma was in the act of sitting. “I was going to the bar,” Cassie protested weakly.
“Donny will fetch it for you, Cassiopeia. Be seated, tell him your desires, and it shall be done.”
Tempted to ask for a beach cottage, Cassie refrained. “I don’t care what you get me, Donny, as long as it knocks my panty hose off. If you and Vince have to carry me out of here and pour me into a cab, you’ll have done your job.”
Borne up by half a smile, Donny floated from his chair and drifted toward the bar.
“I take it you’re celebrating,” Norma said.
“Try taking it that I’m scared.”
“Cassie shall prophesy evil,” Palma intoned, “but she shall not be believed. Save by me. Alone.”
“Tell us,” Norma said.
“There’s nothing to tell.” Cassie looked around for the Chablis she had left on Ebony’s table, and failing to find it took a healthy swallow from Donny’s glass. It was like drinking toothpaste.
“The Irish,” Norma remarked, “are rarely afraid of nothing.”
Palma smiled, and brushed an invisible yellow feather from his lips with a manicured and be-ringed paw. “She has heard the banshee.”
“Seen it,” Cassie said, “and I think I�
��m going to be going out with it in a day or two.”
“Why Cassie!” Norma was grinning. “You always seemed so hetro.”
“English speakers,” Palma lectured her smoothly, “are invariably deceived by the second syllable. It merely conveys that banshees are to be numbered amongst the Grey Neighbors.”
“I’ll be damned if I’ve the foggiest idea what that’s supposed to mean,” Norma said, “but doesn’t Cassie have a gray neighbor right now?”
“She’s talking about me,” Margaret whispered.
Turning, Cassie caught her arm. “Did you get him?”
Margaret shook her head. “I tried all those things. I talked to answering machines at both his apartments. I left a voice mail — ”
Cassie raised at hand. “That’s plenty for now. You can tell me the rest later. Find a chair, sit down, and talk about something else if you want to talk.”
Donny returned bearing a tall and narrow glass thick with frost. Solemnly he passed it to Cassie, who sipped, shuddered, and sipped again.
“Would anyone care for ugly news?” Donny inquired. “Perhaps everyone has already heard? Am I to know shame because I had not?”
Cassie wet her lips from the glass and licked them. “It depends on what bad news you have in mind. My God! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this stuff.”
“You weren’t planning on two?”
“Lord no!”
“Are you going to be displeased because I bribed the man to mix it to my own specifications?”
Palma touched Cassie’s elbow. “I had supposed you celebrating, Cassiopeia darling. I see how mistaken I was. Rest assured, I beg you, that your friends — and everyone at this table is your friend — will stand by you through thick and thin.”
Norma had taken out her compact and was studying herself in its mirror. “The cavalry’s not coming, Vince. You’ve made westerns. I know you have. The Apaches are closing in, and back at the fort nobody knows. You’ve got to learn to listen.”
Donny raised an eyebrow. “Listen to... ?”
“You weren’t here.” Norma snapped her compact shut. “To Alexis’s dresser. Cassie sent her to the colonel, but she couldn’t find him.”
“This is my personal thing.” Firmly, Cassie set the frosted glass down. “Whatever you’ve heard, Donny, wasn’t. Or I don’t think it was. So tell us.”
Margaret returned with a glass, sat, and sipped primly.
“Well, I um... ?” The scarlet dots of Donny’s pimples stood out like bloodstains on a sheet. “Was the security guard back at the theater a, er, special friend of anyone here? I believe his name was Jeremy? I, ah, perhaps you thought I knew him?”
“I consider him a friend,” Cassie said. “I did and still do. Has he been fired? He always seemed like such an honest, cheerful sort of man.”
Margaret spoke more loudly than usual. “He was, Miss Casey. I knew him about as well as I know anybody. James K. Warshawsky was his name, and he’s passed away.”
In the silence that followed, she added, “Or that’s what they say. I think that’s probably what Mr. Duke heard at the bar.”
Donny nodded.
“Let me guess.” Cassie closed her eyes. “They found him in the alley outside the stage door, and he’d been shot. Maybe stabbed. Is that right?”
“Oh, shit!” Norma spoke under her breath, adding, “I’m back in the show.”
“I didn’t hear about shooting or stabbing,” Donny said, “did you, Margaret?”
She shook her head.
“Quiet, everybody! Quiet!” The voice was India’s; she was standing in the middle of the room, speaking into a mike.
It had the desired effect.
“Thanks! We call this the cast party, but it’s not all cast. Some of us were never onstage, but we’re all in showbiz and that’s what this’s really about. Now I’d like to introduce you to a gentleman you really ought to know. He’s in showbiz, too, or he soon will be.”
There was a subdued buzz of talk. Cassie gulped her drink.
“It always seems like big stage musicals are few and far between,” India continued, “but the legitimate stage is coming back. Maybe it’s just a cyclic thing. That’s what some people say. Maybe it’s all these hoppers, and people vacationing on barren worlds. Honeymoons on the moon, when grandpa was happy just to do it on his honey. All that shit. I don’t pretend to know, but I do know that lots and lots of the old movie theaters are reopening as legitimate playhouses, where people can sit and watch talented people like you onstage doing a show.” She fell silent, looking toward the door.
“Some of you may have heard rumors about a big new musical called Dating the Volcano God. Okay, if you want to know more we’ve got the man right here.” She motioned urgently to a big man in a pin-striped teal suit. “Let’s have a real standing ‘O’ for a real angel — Mr. Wallace Rosenquist!”
The applause was loud and prolonged. Cassie took advantage of the cover it afforded her to open her purse and glance at two photographs she took from it. Nodding to herself, she crumpled them and let them fall to the floor.
The man Gideon Chase had called Bill Reis took the mike from India, coughed once, and smiled. “First of all, I want to say that our show’s still in the planning stages, very much so. India and I hardly know each other at this point. We haven’t even started looking for a set designer and a choreographer.”
From his left, India put in, “Tomorrow, Wally.”
“I have the book, however, and some ideas about the music. Plans already made and plans I’m still shaping. What’s more, I have the money and the determination. This afternoon I found my director.”
Raising her arms, India shook her own hands like a prizefighter.
“I talked to her over lunch, and she was good enough to give me a ticket so I could watch a fine example of her work. I did, and want to say how much I enjoyed it. You are artists, and I mean that sincerely. There won’t be parts for everybody here in our new show, and I realize that some of you will already have commitments elsewhere. That will be our loss. We’ll be talking about commitments and contracts, roles and all the rest of it in the days to come. Right now, tonight, I just want to say that I wish I could have all of you.”
There was a burst of spontaneous applause and some scattered cheering.
“Having said that, there’s one member of your cast I’d like to pay particular tribute to. You’re well ahead of me now, I feel sure. I’m told Miss Cassie Casey is at this party.”
Palma hissed, “Stand up, Cassie!”
She did not.
“I have a gift for her,” Rosenquist continued. “I want to give her this little keepsake, whether she will consent to be our leading lady or not.”
India said, “Come on, Cassie! Who the hell ever heard of a shy actress?”
Rising, Cassie handed her purse to Margaret, pushed back her chair, and came forward smiling. “You want a Dumb Dora, don’t you, Mr. Rosenquist? If that’s what it is, I’ll be perfect.”
“Has anyone told you, Miss Casey, that you’re even more stunning in person than onstage?”
She dropped him a mock curtsy. “Make that stunned.”
Rosenquist was reaching into his coat pocket. “I had this designed and fabricated months ago. At that time, I didn’t know to whom I would give it. When I saw The Red Spot tonight, I knew I had found her.”
The leather-covered box he handed Cassie was eight inches long, two and a half inches wide, and remarkably heavy.
“I should have had it wrapped,” he told her, “but I’m afraid the ribbon will have to do.”
“Open it,” India directed.
Ebony seconded her from the audience: “Show us, Cassie!”
She slipped the gold ribbon off, and found that her hands were trembling. “I don’t think I can. I feel like I’ve just won something I don’t deserve.”
“You deserve much more,” the man who had given it to her said.
Bill Reis, Cassie told herself. B
ill Reis said that. India had given him another name, but she had forgotten it.
Her fingers found and released the catch. Reis took a step backward and urged India forward.
“Show me!” India sounded eager. “I want to see it.”
From the table Cassie had left, Donny called, “What is it?”
“It’s... a bracelet. A great big gold bracelet.” She pulled it from the box and dangled it above her head. “It’s — well — massive.”
“Solid gold,” Reis told her. “Eighteen karat, which means it’s pretty soft. Be careful with the clasp.”
“Put it on,” India said. “Here, hold out your arm. I’ll do it.”
She did, adjusting the catch and wrapping the heavy bracelet around Cassie’s wrist. Cassie, who already hated it, said, “It’s very pretty.”
“Lovely,” India muttered. “Simply lovely.”
A large hand took the box from Cassie. “I need to speak to you privately. I’ll meet you at the front desk downstairs in twenty minutes.” Reis’s whisper was a trifle hoarse, deep yet sibilant.
India was using the mike to field questions about Dating the Volcano God. No, she had not seen the songs yet, but she knew they would be good. As the show now stood, there would be seven major parts, a dozen minor ones, and perhaps forty parts for dancers and singers who would play male and female natives, missionaries, and seamen. There was no hard casting date yet, but it would begin soon.
That question had been from Palma; as Cassie returned to his table, India asked him to stand. “I want Wally to see you. I know he’s seen you already onstage, Vince; but I’d like him to see you again without makeup. Think you might be loose?”
Palma licked his lips. “You’ll direct, India?”
Reis rumbled, “Absolutely. Tomorrow I’ll have her under contract.”
“In which case,” Palma declared, “I shall cancel my commitments.”
“Reading the synopsis,” India told him, “I kept seeing you as the Volcano God.” She turned to Reis. “How about it, Wally? What do you think?”
“I’d certainly like to see you try out for it. How tall are you, sir?”
“Six feet four, and...”