The Hamlet Trap (20 page)

“Darling, I'm sorry,” she began, but it was hopeless. “Where in the name of God does that ‘you all' come from? And how can a knife rent bread? Why a butcher's knife? And—”

“I can see that you're not my natural audience,” he said stiffly. “Wayne is talking to Virgil about Virgil and Florrie, the woman they both love. I believe ‘you all' is quite appropriate in that context.”

“Yes, dear,” she said. “And ‘render asunder' is fine, really fine. Poetic even. And I sort of like renting the bread with a butcher knife. It grows on you, doesn't it?”

“Why don't you just watch a sitcom while I work at my art,” he said huffily.

Her mirth was gone now. Somberly she asked, “What are you up to?”

“Making cheese.”

“Oh, Lord, I was afraid of that.”

“A mousetrap without cheese is like a drama without characters. It won't play in Peoria.”

“Have you ever written a play before?”

“Nope. Have you?”

She shook her head.

“Well, we won't worry about that. I doubt if Sunshine ever did either, and she won first place.”

“How much do you think you need?”

“Eight pages—ten, if I can get them out. And a synopsis or whatever it is.”

“Okay. Let's examine Sunshine's play. Yours is moving too fast. It would all be over in ten minutes at that speed. I'm afraid we've got a lousy weekend coming up.”

“But we may discover unplumbed depths of creativity just itching to be set free. We may start a whole new school of play-writing, Hollywood, television, Broadway! There's no limit!”

She did not look up at him. She was making notes, Sunshine's play open on the table before her. “Charlie,” she said absently, “shut up, please.”

He grinned and went to the bar to mix them both a drink. It was going to be a long weekend, a hard weekend, but a lousy weekend? He did not believe that for a minute.

TWENTY-THREE

All week Ginnie had
worked hard, into the late hours of the night, the early hours of the morning. She was in no mood for a party when Ro called Sunday afternoon asking her over for drinks. Reluctantly she agreed to come when he said that Constance and Charlie were back in town and they would be there. By the time she arrived, Brenda, Bobby, Jack Warnecke and Sandy, half a dozen others were already on hand. Gray was in a corner looking sullen and tired. She nodded to Eric, spoke briefly to William, and then collapsed onto a chair next to Gray.

“He always does this,” she said unhappily. “Last party before the final rehearsals start, with no more fun or games until the first opening night.”

Gray nodded and sipped his drink, something in a tall glass, not very strong-looking. He glanced at his watch. She knew the signs. As soon as it was polite to leave, he would be gone, back to work.

Only at work was it possible not to think, not to worry, not to grieve. She looked at her own glass, mostly tonic water and ice cubes.

In the first half hour there it seemed that everyone in the room drifted over to ask how she was doing, how she felt. Jack Warnecke's glance was piercing, a thorough examination with one swift look, she felt. And Brenda wanted to hover. She watched Constance move about the room easily, speaking pleasantly to one, then another of the guests, as if she were the hostess. She envied Constance, she realized suddenly. She was so self-assured, so calm and poised, so elegant in her high heels and lovely pale blue silk dress with a jacket, discreet pearls. She looked past her to Charlie and found herself nodding. Perfect for Constance; he was strong and capable, with just enough cynicism, just enough idealism to make him intriguing. He had two faces, one for the world, one for his wife. She liked that. And she liked the way Constance looked back at him. That, she imagined, was what it meant to be in love. Would she ever have found that with Peter? Unanswerable. She looked down at her glass to hide the sudden welling of tears. This was what happened when she wasn't working, she thought angrily, and decided she had put in an obligatory appearance, that she could leave now.

Some of the cast members entered the apartment with Larry Stein; they were giddy and loud. When two of the women started to move toward Gray, Ginnie stood up. “Oh, Lord,” Gray said. “Here they come. See you later.”

She looked at him in surprise. Most men would love to have two lovely women descend at once. He looked grim.

She looked around for her uncle to tell him she was leaving. Constance was on the balcony with Sandy Warnecke, examining the paintings. Charlie and William were in a discussion that seemed to need a lot of arm-waving. Eric and Anna Kaminsky and Bobby were drawing pictures on an envelope, arguing. She saw Constance open the door to the spare bedroom and close it hastily, move on to the last of the paintings. Ginnie suddenly had one of those intense memories that seemed so silly to keep intact. She had come home from school one afternoon to find Uncle Ro and someone unknown hanging a painting up there on the balcony. The sunlight had been at a low angle, but was bright and golden, and for a moment she had been seized with terror. It was as if she had come awake in a strange house, with strangers all around, speaking an unknown language, doing unfathomable things. The same feeling of terror gripped her lower stomach now, caused it to spasm.

“Honey, are you all right?” Ro asked at her elbow, and she started and knocked over her glass, which she had put down on an end table.

“Sorry,” she said, near tears. “I was… daydreaming, I guess.”

Ro picked up ice cubes and wiped up a few wet spots with a napkin. “No harm done,” he said easily. “Look, I want to talk to you and Gray tonight. Will you have dinner with me, both of you? Sevenish?”

She started to say no and he caught her arm. “Please, Ginnie. It's important to me. It's about next year's lineup. I want to do Peter Pan, and I want to send you off into the world to do some research on flying, but we need to talk.”

“Uncle Ro,” she said helplessly, “don't you understand I might not even be here? What if they arrest me?”

His face darkened and his grip on her arm was almost painful. “At seven,” he said. “Kelly's. I made a reservation, hoping you'd agree. I'll speak to Gray about it. Can you give him a ride? I might be held up a few minutes. I have to wait for Sunshine to bring over the new play she's been working on. That damn woman,” he added sourly, shaking his head. “She called and said she'd drop it off a little before seven, but God only knows if she'll be on time. Anyway, I'll get there as soon as I can.”

“Ro,” Sara Lytton called, “do you mind if I put on the music for
The Threepenny Opera
?” She was holding up an unopened album. She was to be Polly in the production.

“Put it on,” he said. “Haven't heard that album myself yet.” He looked back at Ginnie. “Seven. I'll tell Gray you'll pick him up at about a quarter to. Okay?”

She nodded, thinking what the hell difference did it make? Uncle Ro wanted this dinner and would have it. She looked around for Gray and found that he had been backed halfway across the room by Amanda White.

“You can tell Gray to give me a call if he isn't going or doesn't want a ride. I'm leaving now. See you in a couple of hours.” The Moritat began and she heard herself singing the words silently: “And the shark he has his teeth and…” Ro kissed her cheek and she left the party, the music alive in her head.

“Of course I believe in all kinds of psychic powers,” Constance was saying to Jack Warnecke a few moments later when Ro joined them. “It's the organization of them that charlatans use that I don't believe in. What if you can have prophetic dreams, say once a year, and your scientist demands that you have them on schedule in order to prove they exist? That leads to real problems, and, I'm afraid, fraudulent reports.”

“I thought scientists all dismissed that sort of thing,” William said, studying her curiously.

“You dismiss it if you're willing to discount the evidence of your own eyes and ears and expunge your own memory periodically.”

Jack Warnecke was smiling at her indulgently; he looked as if he might pat her on the head.

“Take Sunshine,” Constance said, including Ro in the conversation now. “She's highly intuitive. She sees things, knows things that escape most people. Where do you draw the line between well-developed sensor}' abilities and psychic phenomena? I think she crosses the line.”

Charlie joined the small group and put his arm around her shoulders. “Tune in tomorrow,” he said cheerfully, “and we'll tell you more. Sunshine's going to read her cards tonight for Constance. We'll see if there's a tall dark man in the future, or inherited wealth, or something. And I,” he added, suddenly somber, “intend to grill her thoroughly. She was with Laura all afternoon the day she was killed. But Sunshine doesn't talk to cops.” He mimicked her slurred, soft speech. “I'm hoping she'll talk to Constance, after we win her confidence by letting her read the damned cards.”

Ro grimaced. “She drives me nuts,” he muttered. “She's as crazy as they come.”

“Not really,” William started and was interrupted by Gray, who said he was leaving now.

“See you at Kelly's,” Ro said, and Gray nodded and left. Ro watched until the door closed after him. He turned to Charlie. “If they don't try to pin all this on Ginnie, they'll go after him, won't they?”

“Sure. He had plenty of time to get from the high school to the theater that night, and if Laura saw something, or guessed something, why didn't she tell? Who else would she have wanted to protect? From everything I've heard, she hated the theater and everyone connected to it.”

“Blackmail,” William said brusquely. “She was trying to blackmail someone.”

Constance shook her head emphatically. “She just wasn't the type, from everything we've heard about her. Evidently she didn't think much about money. All she worried about was losing Gray, either to the theater, or to Ginnie.”

“But there hasn't been anything between him and Ginnie,” Ro said.

“All I'm telling you is what Sunshine told us,” Constance said with a shrug. “And she said that Laura told her. Maybe she was looking into the future, anticipating what might happen.”

“God, I'll be glad when that woman crawls back into her cave,” Ro said bitterly. “She's done nothing but cause trouble from the day she came here.”

“Well, we're off,” Charlie said, taking Constance's arm. “See you at rehearsals.”

Ro walked out with them to the back of the apartment complex where they had parked the rented Buick next to his Fiat.

“Get it running?” Charlie asked.

“Just needed the batter)' charged. They say that happens if you leave them parked.”

“Use it or lose it,” Charlie said, and opened the door for Constance.

“You know Gray couldn't have got down to the river the night Laura was killed there,” Ro said, frowning. “How do you suppose they'll account for that if they begin to suspect him?”

“They'll say they walked to the edge of the cliff over the park and he hit her there and followed her body down. I looked; it could work like that.”

“Bullshit!”

Charlie shrugged. “They really need a suspect with motive and opportunity. They'll cling to the ones they have.”

He got in the driver's side and closed the door. Ro waved to them and went back inside his apartment. When Charlie released the hand brake, the car began to roll down the slight grade to the street. He turned the wheel hard at the street and headed down the hill and did not turn on the key until they approached the cross street.

Constance reached out and put her hand on his thigh. He glanced toward her with a small grin, but he was not really seeing her. She could always tell.

“Where is this restaurant?” Gray asked as Ginnie drove out of town.

“Just past Medford. It's good. Or Uncle Ro wouldn't go there,” she added.

“He never eats at home?”

She shook her head, then realized that he was not looking at her, but staring moodily out the window. “He won't cook, and hates to have anyone in the house long enough to do it for him. He wants Mrs. Jensen to get in and clean while he's out, and to do the theater cleaning before he gets there. But why he had to pick one this far beats me.”

Gray laughed. “Back East we didn't think anything of going miles away, taking an hour to get to a decent restaurant. What's this one, fifteen minutes?”

“Yeah. I think he wanted to go where people won't give us those looks while we're eating. You know what I mean?”

“I know,” he said in a low voice.

Neither spoke again until she had parked in the lot behind the restaurant. Ro had reserved a corner table; the dining room, lighted by candles in red holders, was agreeably dark. No one would stare, Ginnie thought; they couldn't even see them. Ro had said for them to go ahead with drinks. Gray asked for a Gibson, and she ordered white wine.

“You don't drink much, do you?” she asked idly.

“Nope, and I don't do drugs, or sky-dive, or anything else exciting.”

“Me too. People think what an exciting life I must have, and really all I want to do is work.”

“Laura called it an obsession,” he said. “She was probably right.”

At Harley's Theater, backstage was almost as dim as the restaurant. Two twenty-five-watt bulbs yielded feeble light and made deep caves of shadows here and there.

The stage door opened and Ro Cavanaugh slipped inside, closed the door softly. He went to his office, not hurrying. In the office he turned on the lights, put down a paper bag, and took off his coat, tossed it over a chair back, and went to the desk, where he sat down and put a tape player on a pile of papers. He turned it on. The music was the Moritat from
The Threepenny Opera
. It was turned high. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number that was written on a slip of paper; when there was an answer he asked to speak to Miss Braden.

Ginnie watched with curiosity when a waiter brought a phone to their table and plugged it in. “Miss Braden? A call for you.”

She looked about self-consciously and lifted the receiver, said hello. She moved the earpiece away from her head a little. “I can't hear you,” she said. “The music's too loud.” Uncle Ro, she mouthed to Gray, as she waited for her uncle to turn down the music. When he came back, his voice was clear. She listened, said okay, and hung up. The waiter removed the phone and she frowned at the spot where it had been. “What the hell was that all about?” she muttered.

“What did he want?”

“He's still at home. He said he's waiting ten more minutes for Sunshine and if she doesn't show up, he'll leave. We're supposed to go ahead and order. It'll be half an hour before he can get here.”

“Let's get an appetizer or something,” he said and reached for a menu.

She moved her own menu and it hit her wineglass, knocked it over. She made a strangled sound and jumped to her feet, staring at it. Again the feeling of terror wrenched her, but this time everything was swirling out of control. Sunlight, candlelight, her father on the floor, Peter…” She clutched her chair back for support and would have fallen without it. She shook her head violently, trying to clear the merging images.

“No,” she moaned. “Oh, God, no!” She snatched her purse and ran from the restaurant.