I went upstairs to the executive offices of the theater and asked Phillip, our general manager, where I could find Beth. He said he thought she was across the street in Ho Tang’s. Beth was my producer, a woman of forty-eight, twice divorced and childless. Thirty-nine years ago, she had first set foot on a New York stage as a child actress, and some of her friends still called her Baby Beth despite her flinty blue eyes and imperious mouth. She was sitting with Edward, our stage manager, at a table in the bar section of the restaurant. Ho Tang’s specialized in a Chinese-Korean cuisine and though we had never once tasted the food there, it was rumored to be excellent. We used the place as a command post, meeting there to drink and discuss the play, as Beth and Edward were presumably doing when I approached the table. Edward was my age, forty-three, but he looked a good deal older; perhaps the horn-rimmed spectacles accounted for that. He always wore a trench-coat, day or night, fair weather or foul, indoors or out. He gave the impression of someone expecting a phone call that would force him to leave immediately for another appointment.
“Here’s Gene,” he said.
Beth pulled out the chair beside her. Her eyes studied my face, and she said immediately, “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think Danny’s lost control of the play and the actors, and I think he should be replaced.”
The table was silent for an instant. Beth looked across at Edward. I thought he nodded almost imperceptibly but that may have been in understanding of what I’d said, rather than in agreement with it.
“We were just talking about the same thing,” Beth said.
“Do you agree with me?”
“I’m not sure. I want to watch tonight’s performance.”
“Will you know then?”
“Yes,” she said.
I did not get a chance to talk to her after the evening performance because Danny was with us when we went over to Ho Tang’s for our customary drinks and critique. He was exhausted after a full day of rehearsal and a grueling performance during which he could not have failed to sense the enormous apathy of the audience. His weariness showed in his face. He was a tall man, fifty years old, with graying hair and a small bald patch at the back of his head. His eyes were a deep brown, darting and alert, as searching as an inquisitor’s. He had a habit of pointing with his entire head, jutting it forward sharply to ask a question. His nose was a trifle too keen for his otherwise soft features, emphasizing the head thrust each time it came. His mouth was gently rounded, curving upward at either end to give him an expression of perpetual amusement. I was waiting for him to go to the jukebox to play his favorite song, a tune called “One More Time” which had, through over-exposure during the last five weeks, practically become the show’s theme. As soon as he left the table, I said, “Well?” and Beth sharply whispered, “Later.”
“One More Time” erupted into the bamboo bar, its tempo insinuatingly tropical, its lyric hypnotically repetitious. Danny came back to the table and we began the usual post mortem, discussing the play in minute detail, lines, movement, nuance, everything but what was essentially wrong with it: Danny.
At twelve-thirty in the morning, we left Ho Tang’s and put Beth into a taxi. I still had not spoken to her. I hailed a cab for myself and arrived at the Tenth Street apartment at a quarter to one. Beth’s line was busy when I called. I tried again in five minutes and she answered the phone on the second ring.
“Gene?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I was just talking to Edward.”
“And?”
“We think you’re right,” she said. “We’ve got to replace Danny.”
“How shall we do it?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
“Who’ll we get?”
“I don’t know.”
“Beth, we’ve got to move...”
“Tomorrow’s a matinee day,” she said calmly. “I’ll make some excuse not to be there. Meet me outside the Plaza at two-thirty. We’ll figure it out then.”
“You do agree...”
“Yes, I think he’s lost control of it,” Beth said, and sighed. “Darling, I’m exhausted, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I said, “goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Gene.”
I hung up, and then called Natalie to tell her what we’d decided. She listened intently and then said she thought we were doing the right thing. I turned out the light and tried to sleep. I kept listening for the blond girl in the green dress, but there was no laughter that night.
The streets of New York were thronged with college kids home on vacation. I walked up Fifth Avenue, envying each and every one of them. They all seemed to be smiling or laughing, sporting their new Easter outfits, enjoying the mild spring day, window shopping, chattering gaily.
Beth sat alone on the lip of the fountain outside the Plaza, bathed in sunlight. She was wearing a blue suit, and her hands were clasped over her bag, which she held in her lap, her head bent, the sunshine touching her short blond hair. Six months ago, when my agent had finished his negotiations with her, he had called me immediately and said, “Baby Beth, my ass, she almost chewed the rug off the floor.” She had then gone out to raise eighty thousand dollars in less than a month, assembled cast and director and crew in half again that time, booked a theater, and hired her press agents and advertising representatives — all of this accomplished effectively and tirelessly in a business that boasted its only good producers were men. She was a tough beautiful broad. I had never seen her looking as forlorn or as vulnerable as she did that day outside the Plaza, sitting in sunshine on the lip of the fountain.
I hesitated before approaching her. She seemed to be caught in one of those intensely private reveries it is almost sinful to interrupt. But I walked to her at last, and my shadow fell over her crossed hands on the bag in her lap, and I said, “It’s not the end of the world, dear.”
She looked up, gave me a fleeting smile and a brief nod, and then patted the fountain rim beside her. I sat with my hands clasped between my knees, my head turned toward Beth. I felt suddenly old, like a tired vagrant watching pigeons.
“So,” I said, “what do we do now?”
“We get another director, of course,” Beth said.
“Isn’t it too late?”
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve got a full week, we don’t open until next Wednesday night. I’ve seen shows saved in less time than that.”
“What if we don’t fire him, Beth?”
“I think we’ll be killed.” She shook her head. “The actors smell it. They’ve lost faith in him.” She shook her head again. “It’s a goddamn shame, but that’s what’s happened, and we’ve got to fire him or die for him.” Her eyes met mine, bright and blue and cold and hard in the warm sunshine. “I don’t think you want to die for Danny, do you?”
I hesitated. Then I said, “No, I don’t want to die for Danny.”
“I didn’t think so,” Beth said. She took my hand in hers. We might have been lovers sitting in the sunshine, except that we were discussing an execution. “You’ve written a good play, Gene,” she said. “I’ve done everything I can for it so far, and now I’ve got to do the rest. I’ve got to fire Danny, and I’ve got to do it fast because time is the one luxury we haven’t got.”