Nebula Awards Showcase 2016

by Mercedes Lackey

  Water pressure wasn’t good, and the pipes were rusty, but like the building itself, the pipes and wiring pretty much worked. Twenty minutes later, shaved, showered, purged, and scented, he donned modern underwear then got dressed from the costume rack: a starched shirt minus the collar, trousers held up with suspenders, an unbuttoned vest, and slippers.

  A palm message told him the elevator inspector was waiting. He opened his bedroom door and walked into the big sky lighted room that had once been the office/den of Edwin Lowery Nance, whose unproven murder haunted the Angouleme Hotel.

  In Nance’s lair all was old wood and brass and it had not aged well. For scores of years The Angouleme had followed a downward path before being seized by the city. Bright sun streamed down and highlighted the scarred desk and worn rugs. After dark and in the low glow of early electricity, all would have to appear mysterious, rich, and rotten. Everything depended on that.

  Down a very short corridor lay the bedchamber of Evangeline, daughter of Edwin Lowery Nance, and more famous in her time than Lizzie Borden. Through the open door Cass could see the curtains on the canopied bed parted to display a beautifully dressed Parisian doll. Legend demanded it. Just as Lizzie will always be the harridan with the axe, Evangeline Nance was the sleep walking child with a doll under her arm.

  Jacoby Cass’s career had high points which many in this city remembered. His Hamlet was set in an abandoned seminary where audience members could pick flowers with Ophelia, help dig graves or secretly poison swords.

  The Downton Abbey he staged in the Frick Museum was a week-long twenty-four-hour-a-day drama built around an antique television show. Customers took tea with aristocrats, spied on lovers, searched closets and dresser drawers for clues and scandal. It ran for years and rescued the bankrupt museum for a time.

  Once, Cass was spoken of as a theatrical giant: Barrymore and Ziegfeld combined. But at the moment he was coming off flops on stage, screen, and net. He’d recently been approached to take the film role of a hammy older actor. He’d turned it down. But the backers of Sleep Walking Now and Then were not a patient crew, and in his bad moments he wondered if he’d regret not taking the part. This show would click fast or die fast.

  Cass inhaled deeply and stepped out of Nance’s sanctuary: His sanctuary he reminded himself, as he stood straight and walked down the hall to the private elevator. The public elevators had all been upgraded many times over the years. But this one stood with its door half-open. The original machinery had been replaced, but the car with its golden cage and faded 18th century silhouetted couples in wigs and finery still remained.

  Cass intended this to be a central motif of his drama. It was here that the first death had blackened the Angouleme’s name and begun its legend.

  The story was well known. Deep in the night of April 12, 1895, Nance—drunk, distracted, or both—thought he was stepping onto the elevator. Instead he went through the open door and fell nine stories to his death at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Rumor had it he was in pursuit of his daughter. Most accounts now considered it a murder.

  The city inspector, a small, neatly dressed man, was in the elevator car examining the control panel. As Cass approached he caught the eye of Ms. Jackson, head of security for Sleep Walking. She gave an almost invisible nod and he understood that Inspector Jason Chen had accepted a green handshake.

  By reputation Chen was honest and would stay bribed. But he was also smart enough to be quite wary of a major scandal wiping out his career. “Let’s talk,” he said, and Cass led the way back to the lair.

  They sat in Nance’s old office with Cass’s lawyer linked to both. The inspector said, “Jackson tells me that twice a night you’re going to have that door open and the cage downstairs.”

  Cass smiled and explained, “The car will only be a few feet below the floor so as to be out of the audience’s sight. Other than that it will just have regular usage.”

  “I want Ms. Jackson and her people here every minute the door is open and the car is in that condition. And I want it locked every minute it’s not in use by your production while there are customers in the building. We will send observers.”

  “I’m playing Nance,” Cass told him. “I’m the only one who’ll go through the door with the car not in place. And at my age I don’t take risks.”

  The inspector shook his head. “It’s not you I’m worried about. I’m concerned about some spectators who have so little in their lives that they decide to become part of the show. We all know about them! My wife’s Spanish. She talks about espontáneos—the ones who used to jump into the ring during bullfights and get maimed or killed but became famous for a little while. People get desperate for attention. Like that one who torched himself at the Firebird ballet!

  “Something like that happens with the elevator and they fire me, shut you down forever, and we’re up to our necks in indictments. Now let’s take a look at your insurance and permits.”

  As he authorized documents with eye photos, Cass remembered an old show business joke: ‘A play is an original dramatic construction that has something wrong with the second act.’ His second act was the murder of the designer/performer Jacky Mac on these very premises. It happened seventy-five years after Nance’s death and was even more dramatic. What his play still needed was a third act.

  Chen departed; the lawyer broke contact. Cass, half in costume, sat behind the huge, battered desk which Rosalin had found somewhere. His New York was the Big Arena, a tough city with a sharp divide between rich and poor, between a cruel, easily bored audience and the desperate artists. It seemed more like 1895 than not.

  Cass felt he was looking for a main chance again, just as he had forty years and many roles before. He told himself that Edwin Lowery Nance, an entrepreneur in his fifties afloat with his daughter in the tumultuous late 19th century, must have had moments like this.

  Like an echo of the thought, a child’s voice said, “Daddy! Thank you! I shall call her Mirabella!”

  Startled, Cass/Nance looked up and found Evangeline Nance, with her long golden-honey hair and the 19th century Paris fashion doll she had named Mirabella tucked under her arm. Her eyes were shut and she didn’t appear to sleep walk so much as to float toward the door amid the smoke-blue silks of a flowing dress and sea of petticoats. Her satin slippers hardly seemed to touch the floor.

  In character, Jacoby Cass picked up a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez from the desk, put them on his nose and peered silently at his daughter

  At the door Evangeline stopped, turned and nodded, satisfied she had his full attention. “We’re scheduled to do a run-through of the elevator chase. Remember, Mr. Nance?” she asked in a voice that was all New York actress. And suddenly Evangeline was Keri Mayne, a woman in her endlessly extended late thirties.

  Keri had a history with Jacoby Cass—Ophelia to his Hamlet, a refuge fifteen years before when his third marriage broke down. The two had discussed Evangeline Nance. Her mother died when she was six. Over the twenty years before Evangeline became an orphan she remained a child and a sleep walker.

  Kerri Mayne’s Evangeline threw open the door to the outer hallway and Jacoby Cass arose ready to be Edwin Lowery Nance. Researching his play Cass found no one solid account of the night of April 12, 1895. It seemed very likely that Evangeline sleep walked her way out of the apartment and the father followed. Servants had seen this happen before. No witnesses were available to testify about the April night.

  In Cass’s script and performance, Nance rushed out of his office after her, calling, “Evangeline!” in a voice he felt would sound like cigar smoke and Scotch. “My child, where do you think you’re going?” he cried as Keri/Evangeline sailed down the hall. Cass wore more of Nance’s wardrobe: a vest, shoes that hurt his feet but somehow enhanced his performance.

  Whispered rumor held that Evangeline had fled her bedroom with him in pursuit. And there was servants’ testimony that this had happened before.

  Almost all tellings agreed that
Nance, in the dim light thought Evangeline had gone to the elevator and stepped through the open door. He followed and found not Evangeline but a nine-story drop. How the elevator car happened not to be there was a matter of mystery and dispute.

  With all that in mind, after an hour and a half of rehearsals, Cass/Nance called out “Evangeline!” for the tenth time. All this took place with late September light streaming through the windows. But Cass channeling Nance began to see it happening by moonlight and primitive bulbs. He had to dodge assistants and understudies who had been instructed to stand in his way, walk across his path just as the theatergoers would.

  He actually lost sight of Keri/Evangeline before he reached the elevator. The faded gold door was wide open and she had to be inside the car. Nance hurried forward, stepped inside, and fell nine stories into the cellar. It was only three feet and the padding was well placed. But he screamed “EVANGELINE” and made it seem to fade as if coming out of Nance as he hurtled nine stories down.

  Jackson and a burly assistant moved forward and would have blocked the line of sight had there been any audience.

  Lying face down on the padding, Cass’s palm tingled and he read a message from Rosalin telling him that at 6:00 p.m. the Angouleme Hotel’s lobby would be ready and awaiting his approval. Rolling over, he looked up at Keri and Jackson staring down and made arrangements for a run-through of the lobby scene at 6:30.

  Taking a director/playwright’s privilege, he wrote Evangeline into the scene. When the elevator door opened at 6:30 the lobby was all in shadows, low wattage light caught remnants of gold filigree on the walls. The three-story-high ceiling loomed above them with its mural of the European discovery of Manhattan still showing traces of grandeur.

  The lobby was a collage of a hundred and seventy years of history. Singly and in groups, manikins lingered in corners and stairs. A sexual spectrum, enigmatic and sinister, they were dressed in 1970s miniskirts, flared pants, and psychedelic T-shirts, in 1890s bustles and floor-length gowns, in World War I doughboy uniforms. Some of their eyes seemed to reflect the light. One with dark hair, a red silk kerchief around his neck, and a leather jacket appeared to move slightly.

  With his lovely daughter on his arm and the pair of wealthy customers alongside him, Cass/Nance surveyed them as if he saw the cream of New York society. When he said, “My good sir and lovely madam” and the rest of his opening lines, Cass had fully mastered his Nance voice, throaty and a bit choked with good living.

  The actors playing the couple had their lines down. “But,” said the man, “what of the location here, almost on the docks and in a neighborhood of factories?”

  “The anteroom of the Mighty Atlantic, sir! We shall steal the Hudson River’s thunder. This is meant to be a palace for my lovely princess, my daughter.” His daughter looked up at him, adoring but somehow lost.

  The man frowned but the woman smiled and said, “How enchanting!”

  “Come and partake of the Angouleme’s humble fare,” said Cass/Nance, and the quartet moved toward what had once been a famous hotel dining room and soon would be the Sleep Walking snack bar.

  As they moved, Cass glanced at the front doors and saw them fly open right on cue. A long-haired figure in gold-rimmed dark glasses, an impeccably fitted velvet jacket and slacks strode across the empty lobby.

  The young actor, Jeremy Knight, a rising star in the Big Arena, was Jacky Mac, dubbed the Kit Marlowe of late 1960s New York, whose murder was the Angouleme’s second famous death.

  Before Jeremy Knight got any further, Cass stepped out of character and into the center of the space. He addressed the company, human and manikin alike: “Our city loves scandals. When current misconduct is too drab the city seeks out its past, desires old relics. This lobby reflects that perfectly.” Catching sight of her in the shadows, he bowed. “Thank you, Rosalin! But let’s remember that it’s only two weeks to opening night and there’s so much to be done.”

  Everyone, cast and crew, applauded. He noticed that Keri Mayne, the charmer, and Jeremy Knight, the young lion, were talking together.

  Rosalin led forward the production assistant who’d brought his coffee. “Sonya went out of her way to be helpful when I was acquiring props, saved us a lot of money. She has theatrical experience. There’s the silent part of the maid for which we were going to use one of Jackson’s people. She can do that and I could use her assistance.”

  Cass looked at this tense young woman from deep in the artist underclass and wondered about Rosalin’s motives. But he was sure of her loyalty to this production into which she’d put so much invaluable work, if not to him. Sonya would come cheap and might be of use. So he nodded, smiled, and agreed with what was proposed.

  When she and Sonya were alone Rosalin said, “I came to this city when it was first being called the Big Arena. Thirty years ago I was where you are now.” Rosalin had learned that Sonya had no family she could go to, no close friends outside the city. “I had nobody in this world and nothing but my work.”

  TWO

  Thursday night, at the 8pm show two weeks into the run, Keri Mayne leaned against the wall of Evangeline’s bedroom. In full costume, the flowing skirts made sitting both difficult and unwise.

  She listened to Cass/Nance outside, saw his image on her palm—cameras were everywhere—heard him say, “Of course, J. P.,” into the wall telephone. Nance spoke loudly because he didn’t trust the instrument and because an audience needed to hear.

  In the play it was well after midnight in the midst of the financial crisis of 1895 and J. P. Morgan had just called. “Of course I will stand with you, Mr. Morgan. Tomorrow at ten? I will be there, sir.”

  Keri/Evangeline watched Sonya, in a European maid’s uniform, standing at the bedroom door and listening. In the intricately jealous context of a theater company Keri mistrusted and feared her.

  Outside Nance said, “Of course, sir, I too know the loneliness of losing a wife.” His voice became muffled as he turned away. But those in the room could hear the great financier describe a need a discreet hotel keeper might satisfy. Nance had left behind him some nasty rumors and Cass had used all of them.

  Keri/Evangeline heard the others in the room move closer to Nance, trying to catch the conversation. This was the moment. She nodded; Sonya threw open the door and Evangeline floated out of her room and into her father’s den.

  Evangeline light as a package of feathers, was wrapped in silk. Shimmering hair flowed down to Evangeline’s waist. Her eyes were half open, as if she was in a trance. She had Mirabella in her left arm. The gold slippers glided across the floor.

  Half a dozen audience members were in the room. Women wore short skirts; men’s legs were concealed in trousers. These were the rich and Sleep Walking was a game as much as a play. Devices that enabled communication, blocked insects and rain, illuminated, cooled, or heated the area around one as the moment dictated were turned off. Mostly.

  By clustering around Nance in the corner, the playgoers opened the way to the outer hall door which Sonya opened, revealing a crowd of eavesdroppers. She plowed through them. Seemingly unaware of all this Keri/Evangeline floated over the threshold. And maid and mistress passed down a dim lit hall.

  Most of the windowpanes were blackened and heavily curtained. But an occasional one seemed to look onto the outside world. Playgoers on this floor could gaze out upon a 19th century night. Hologram pedestrians and horse-dawn vehicles traveled on the avenue, lanterns on ships bobbed on East River piers. Some figures in lighted windows across the way spoke intently at each other by lamplight while others seemed to grope naked in the dark.

  “Evangeline!” she heard Nance cry as he came out the office door. Playgoers followed him. Figures in 19th century clothes discreetly got in their way. Audience members accidently blocked him. “My child, where are you going?” Nance cried to his daughter, who gave no sign she was aware of him.

  Playgoers were supposed to be absolutely silent. But a man whispered, “She’s a bit taller t
han I would have thought.” And a woman responded, “Looks like a child and at the same time older.” Sonya kept them away.

  Though their conversation irritated Keri, she did prize her ability to alternate between radiant child and disturbed adult. All was shadows and misdirection at the end of the hall. Evangeline floated toward the open elevator door.

  Nance, in a voice that was authoritarian and pleading at the same time, shouted, “Young lady, you must obey me. Stop!” His heavy shoes banged on the floor as he began to run.

  For a moment everyone looked his way. When they looked back to the elevator, Evangeline and her maid had disappeared.

  Edwin Lowery Nance, who managed to appear to hurry while not really moving quickly, came down the hall. He ran through the open doorway and his shout turned into a scream. His voice faded as he fell nine stories into the cellar.

  Jackson and her equally big cohort, dressed in 1890’s street clothes, were suddenly there blocking the audience members’ view. She and her partner looked into the pit. The partner screamed. “Someone get a doctor! Call the police!” Ms. Jackson shook her head sadly and pulled the elevator door closed.

  “I saw him, his body was all bloody and smashed,” a theatergoer cried.

  Keri—standing inside the door that led to the servants’ stairs—listened, amused by this. Someone was always getting caught up in the drama. She imagined Cass/Nance lying on the padding, looking up at the faded fleur-de-lis design on the elevator car’s roof and, like her, taking the cry as a kind of applause. When reviews called the show “Just a Halloween entertainment,” Cass told her, “That gets us through the next month. After that we’ll find something else.” She hoped he was right.

  Her costume made stairs difficult and the maid reached out to help her. Sonya spoke, voice low and intense: “Just after Nance fell they thought it was a tragic accident. Then rumors started that I was seen near the elevator machinery in the cellar. I disappeared before I could be questioned about the events and was never seen again.”