I focused a lot more attention on the carpet sweeper I was using. There was nothing to sweep, as I’d already vacuumed, but it made a good prop. “I don’t know; you guys work in the same theatre, I thought maybe you were friends.”
“Friends are impediments.” She must have learned that at the Goth Girl meetings. I wondered if they had a secret handshake, but maybe hands were impediments, too.
“I heard you two talking the day Anthony . . . left,” I told her quietly. “I heard something about not telling your parents.”
She stared at me.
“I’m not your father, Sophie, but if you know something about this that you’re not telling the police . . .”
Sophie stared at me some more. This time, I believed, with genuine confusion in her eyes.
“So I guess not, then.” Clearly, I was such an enormous fool that I was not worthy of a response, but I decided to take one last stab. “Anthony never taught you how to run the projector, did he?”
“The one upstairs?”
No, the projector I carry around in my back pocket
. I nodded. “Why would he do that?”
Sometimes, talking to a person is less informative than not talking to them. It doesn’t make sense, but it is true.
We opened the doors at seven, although the show wouldn’t start for forty-five minutes. Sophie had the popcorn machine going, so the lobby smelled wonderful, and with all the lights on and the marquee illuminated, it really did present at least a glimpse of the image I was trying to project. With another few years of restoration, and a whole lot of money, maybe I’d be able to complete the vision.
A few people were already starting to wander in before seven fifteen, so I went upstairs to recheck the projector (still not entirely comfortable with its being so well prepared by an unseen hand). Then I put up the velvet ropes at the entrances to the balcony, since Anthony usually watched those stairs before starting the projector, and I couldn’t be in more than one place at a time. I’d have to be ripping tickets at the auditorium doors before the show started.
I walked back downstairs and stopped in awe on the third step from the bottom. It was hard to believe my eyes.
The place was packed. The lobby was full of people, and from what I could tell, the auditorium was already at least half full. I’d never seen so many customers in the theatre at the same time. This had to be at least ten times the usual house. The lines at the snack bar, where Sophie was simultaneously selling tickets and overpriced goodies, were backing up.
Immediately, I wondered whether I had ordered enough popcorn to accommodate the box office for tonight. We’d never needed nearly this much before.
I ran to Sophie’s side and started selling tickets, announcing to the crowd that the line just for snacks should shift toward Sophie. She began dealing in food exclusively, looking overwhelmed, but Goth.
“Where’d they all come from?” I wondered aloud.
“They’re here because the guy died,” Sophie said, shaking her head at how stupid I am. Of course.
Things were moving so quickly that I barely looked at the people to whom I was selling tickets. They became hands that handed me money, and to which I handed tickets for the two films being screened tonight, sometimes with change. The hands were young and old, male and female, of various skin tones. The money was all green, except for one wise guy who tried to pay in Susan B. Anthony dollar coins.
One of the larger, darker hands hesitated a moment when I handed him change, then spoke in a deep, resonant voice. Well, the
hand
didn’t speak, but you get the idea.
“Looks like you got quite a turnout tonight,” said Police Chief Barry Dutton.
“I really wasn’t expecting it,” I told him. “Thanks for coming.”
“Not at all. I figured I helped close the place down, so I should help reopen it. Hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
I looked up into Dutton’s face, which was smiling. “On the contrary; I guess having a man die in the house is good for business,” I told him. “Go figure.”
“Hopefully, you won’t expect someone to be murdered every night just to keep your business going,” Dutton said. I’m pretty sure he was kidding.
“I’d prefer to get by without it,” I answered. “It’s nice to see you, Chief, but . . .” I gestured toward the long line behind him.
“Of course,” Dutton said. He walked toward the auditorium doors, where two tall African-American women, who must have been his wife and daughter, were waiting. With them was a short white man and his very attractive wife and two children, a tallish boy with a slightly gawky look and a girl who was so small she could have been anywhere from five to thirteen. When Dutton joined them, the short man said something that made the chief laugh, and they all went inside.
I continued to sell tickets until I noticed a striking blond woman a few places back in the line. It took me a moment to recognize her out of uniform, or without a microbrewed beer in her hand.
Leslie was wearing a skirt, slit up the side to great effect, and a low-cut blouse that completely negated any thought of the police officer who had questioned me the night Ansella died. I blinked a few times, and tried to remember where I should be looking. Tickets. That was it: I was selling tickets. Yes.
Leslie gave me a quick peck on the cheek when she got to the front of the line. “I was hoping I wouldn’t be the only one in the theatre tonight,” she said. “Guess I didn’t have to worry.”
The only thing I could think to say was, “You look amazing.”
“Of course. You’ve never seen me dressed as a girl before, have you?” She stood back and let me take in the view, which was worth taking in.
“If that’s a disguise, I never want to see the way you really look,” I said.
“That was a compliment, right?” Leslie asked. I nodded. “Good,” she continued. “I appreciate the thought . . . I think. See you inside?” She tried to hand me a ten-dollar bill.
“Your ticket is on the house,” I told her.
She looked annoyed and walked away. Women make no sense.
When the line began to wind down a little, I gave control of both concessions back to Sophie and walked into the auditorium to assess the crowd.
It was astonishing. Virtually every seat was taken. If I’d had confidence in the balcony, I could have opened it and come close to filling the seats up there, too. I considered it, then thought about the possibility of 250 Midland Heights residents falling twenty feet to the floor on top of 250
other
Midland Heights residents, and made the more prudent, but perhaps less profitable, decision to turn the overflow crowd away. But I thought about it.
This was what I had envisioned when I opened Comedy Tonight. It was what I had wanted when I first flashed on that For Sale sign in front of the Rialto and called Virginia Squeo on an impulse. It was, perhaps, what I had been hoping to do all my life.
The fact that the success had come about because someone had poisoned Vincent Ansella’s popcorn did dampen the feeling a little but, I confess, only a little.
Time to head back up to the projection booth and get started. On my way out of the auditorium, I almost knocked over a large bucket of buttered popcorn. Behind the bucket was my one and only loyal customer, Leo Munson.
Leo, in his early sixties, would have been a great “grizzled old Indian fighter” in a Howard Hawks Western, the kind of part generally played by Walter Brennan or Ward Bond. He always had some white stubble on his face, but never grew a beard, thus creating a look perfected in the 1980s by Don Johnson. You almost expected him to be wearing a captain’s hat, but Leo was bald as a cue ball and proud of it. He once told me that “every hair I’ve lost is an experience I wouldn’t give back for anything. They can keep the hair.” I didn’t know who “they” were, but I appreciated the sentiment.
“I was afraid you might not have a seat for me tonight, Elliot,” he said.
“Always a seat for you, Leo, even if you have to sit up in the projection booth with me.”
“You know, I came by both nights you were closed. The ad kept running in the paper.” Leo had come to Comedy Tonight literally every night since I opened the place, laughed the loudest, and, until Vincent Ansella, left the theatre last, discounting the staff.
“Sorry about that, Leo. I couldn’t change the ad in time, and obviously I didn’t know what was going to happen Tuesday night.”
Leo thought about that, ate a little popcorn, and then rubbed some of the butter inadvertently on his stubble in thought. “Yeah, that poor fella. Didn’t really seem to be enjoying himself, even before he died.”
“Yeah, I guess not. Well . . .” I was already turning away when I realized what he’d said, and I practically pulled a muscle in my back twisting to face him. “Leo!” I shouted. “You
noticed
him?”
“Sure. You come every night to see the same movie, eventually you get to watching the audience at key moments. That guy was sitting there with his girlfriend, watching every move on the screen. The girlfriend just about bust a gut laughing at the ‘walk this way’ gag with Marty Feldman. You’d think they’d never seen it before.”
I heard myself say, “Actually, it was his favorite movie,” before I regained my senses. “His
girlfriend
?”
Leo clearly thought I had lost what precious little there was left of my mind, as the look in his eye indicated a deep desire to dial 911 and ask for a well-padded ambulance. “Yeah. Big blonde. Gave him a peck on the cheek at one point, then left before the first movie was over.”
“Was he dead by then?”
“How the hell would I know? I was sitting behind him. I could see her leave, all right, but I couldn’t see his face. For all I know, the guy was dead before the picture and somebody just dropped him in his seat in time for the trailers. ”
“What scene was it when she got up and left?” I knew he’d remember that. Whenever Leo’s view is obstructed, he remembers.
“Puttin’ on the Ritz,” he said with great certainty.
I needed to be sure of something. “You’re sure it was a big blonde? Ansella’s wife was a petite brunette, and about as beautiful as you’ve ever seen.” I took a good look at Leo. “Probably
more
beautiful than you’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t assume, Elliot. I wasn’t born this old.”
But I wasn’t listening. Could Ansella really have been cheating on a wife that gorgeous?
“If she’s that good-looking, then it sure as hell wasn’t his wife,” Leo continued. “I’ll tell you, Elliot, I couldn’t see the guy’s face, but the woman kept turning to look at him, and I got a good look at her in profile. She sure don’t match your description.”
“Not a slim, beautiful brunette? A blonde, huh? Was she . . . brassy?” Could Ansella have been cheating with his best friend’s wife?
Leo shook his head. “Not slim, not brunette, not brassy, and just between you and me, Elliot?” He gestured that I should lean forward, and I did, so he could speak softly.
“That was the ugliest woman I have ever seen, bar none.”
I was about to ask another question when the house lights dimmed, which stunned me. The only place from which that could have been accomplished was the projection booth. I could see Sophie from where I was standing, and she looked at me and shrugged.
I rushed over to her. “Who’s up there?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said, managing not to call me Captain Obvious. Then she got the most delighted grin I’ve ever seen on her face. “Maybe it’s a ghost.”
The trailers began to enthusiastic applause, and my gaze instinctively went up to the ceiling. Someone was running the projector, and I was relatively sure it wasn’t me.
“Stay right here, Leo,” I hissed at him, and even though he complained about missing the beginning of
Horse Feathers
, he stayed.
I ran up the main stairs to the balcony, and turned right to the projection booth door. It was locked, but I pulled the key out of my pocket and burst through the door.
The lights were out in the room, as they should be, but I could see well enough via the illumination of the screen. And what I saw—or didn’t see, to be more accurate— made me gasp and sit down behind the projector. There was absolutely no one in the room.
Maybe it
was
a ghost.
14
I went back down and found Leo inside the auditorium, just at the back of the room, laughing as Groucho Marx sang his way through “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” a song which pretty much changed the course of my life when I first heard it in 1986. I scolded him for leaving the area I’d left him in, and he shushed me, pointed to the screen and said, “Groucho.” Who could argue?
Nonetheless, I found Dutton in the crowd (luckily, he was laughing loudly, and his basso tones made him easy to locate) and asked him to come to the lobby for a moment. I dragged Leo out after the song and, over his protests, got him to reiterate his story to Dutton in the lobby.
“You sure it was a large blond woman?” Dutton asked again.
“Why is everybody so shocked at this?” Leo wanted to know. “There’s more than one type of woman in the world. I remember this one time in Kansas City . . .”
“I’m not interested in your romantic history, Mr. Munson. Thank you,” Dutton said, which was a relief to me, if not to Leo. “Let me ask you this: did you see anyone do anything to Mr. Ansella’s popcorn? Did this woman reach over at any point?”
“I wasn’t watching the two of them with a pair of binoculars, Chief,” Leo said. “I noticed what I noticed, but it
was
Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn on the screen, after all.”
“After all,” I echoed. I don’t know why.
“So you didn’t see any interaction beyond a kiss on the cheek?” Dutton was pushing Leo, thinking there was something the older man just wasn’t remembering.
“Nah. That was it.” Or, he had been watching the movie.
“Okay. Thanks, Mr. Munson. We might want to get in touch with you again.”