"Aye aye," Thomas said. He caught Pat's eye, made a brief, mock-despairing sign of the cross and sprinted for the lobby.
"Okay," Gladhand barked from his front row seat. "Curtain. Scene two."
A girl walked out on stage, looked around and shrugged. "I pray thee, Rosalind," she began, then halted. "Uh, sir?" she said hesitantly, trying to shield her eyes from the glare of the lights, "Rosalind's—Pat's not here."
"What?" Gladhand roared. "Find her!"
"Here I am," Pat said lightly, running down the carpeted center aisle.
"Where were you?" The theater manager's voice was ominously low.
"I was trying to find Jeff, to give him my gun," she said. "I thought I had plenty of time to make my entrance. I'm sorry, sir. Won't happen again."
Gladhand nodded wearily and scratched his beard, looking like an overtime clerk who notices another figure that must be included in an already complicated equation. "On the stage," he said quietly. "Your entrance has only just arrived."
They had reached the beginning of act four when the police arrived.
"Hi!" came a voice from the lobby doors. "You there, you actors! Where's your boss?"
Gladhand shifted around in his seat and stared for a moment at the two android policemen who stood in the doorway. "I'm Nathan Gladhand, the manager," he said. "Skooney! House lights only!"
The auditorium lights went on and the stage lights dimmed as six policemen filed in and strode down the aisle toward Gladhand. The actors gathered curiously at the front of the stage.
One of the policemen carried a cardboard box whose lid he now pried open. "Did you know this person, sir?" The android asked, tilting the box to show a severed human head.
Gladhand frowned. "Put it away," he said in a rasping voice. The android lowered the lid. "Yes, I knew him. That's Robert Negri, one of my actors." A low mutter of horror and anger arose from the stage; Thomas's eyes darted to Pat, but she showed no particular dismay now. "How," Gladhand asked, "did this happen?"
"This young man walked into the police station and requested to see Chief Tabasco. When officers asked him to submit to a search, he produced a pistol and menaced them. Two officers were killed before we managed to kill the young man. We brought the body to Chief Tabasco, who, being a connoisseur of the dramatic arts, recognized him as one of the Bellamy Players."
"I see," Gladhand said. "His… girlfriend was killed in the misunderstanding in Pershing Square on Saturday. Perhaps, in his grief-crazed state, he blamed Chief Tabasco for her death."
The android nodded. "That seems most likely," he agreed. "We must, though, be thorough. Do you have any objections to our searching your theater?"
"Of course not," Gladhand said. "Would you like a guide?"
"No."
"In that case we will go on with our rehearsal."
The officer smiled at him. "Will your actors be able to function properly immediately after a… piece of news such as this?" He held the box up and shook it.
"Probably not," Gladhand answered shortly, "but I'd rather have a bad rehearsal than call a halt so they can all brood about it."
"Ah. Good point." The android bowed and led his fellows back up the aisle to the lobby.
"Okay, dammit," Gladhand snapped. "Onward. Spencer, tell us again about your 'humorous sadness.' Skooney! Lights!"
The rehearsal progressed leadenly and without verve; by the time they'd finished, the police had left, taking Negri's head with them.
"Albert says they never even entered the basement, sir," Spencer said when the troop had gathered in the greenroom. "So I guess we're okay. We weathered this one."
Gladhand was uncertain. "They made a very cursory search," he said slowly. "I've seen them be far more thorough with far less cause."
Spencer shrugged. "It's hopeless to look for logic in the behavior of androids," he said.
"Is it, Spencer?" the theater manager asked softly. "Is it, entirely?"
The noon rehearsal left Thomas exhausted and obscurely depressed; when the actors dispersed at 13:30 hours, he gravitated toward Pat. She was standing by the edge of the stage, intent on wiping her nose after a sneezing fit, and she jumped when Thomas touched her on the shoulder.
She whirled around. "Oh, it's only you, Rufus. What do you want?"
It wasn't quite the way he had expected to be spoken to by a girl who loved him. "Let's go up to the roof." he said, trying to keep the dullness he felt out of his voice. "Catch whatever cool breeze there may be."
She considered the suggestion for a moment. "Okay," she said.
They walked up the three flights of stairs in silence; Thomas held the roof door open for her. After the dimness of the stairwell, the daylight was overpowering and Thomas squinted through watering eyes as he dragged two canvas chairs to the roof coping. He felt small and unimportant under the vast, empty blue vault of the sky. He noted with relief that its sapphire uniformity was flawed by a dirty smudge of rainclouds over the mountains to the north.
When his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, he glanced over at Pat, who was staring at the maze of cobbled streets and gray-shingled roofs stretching into the distance. God, she's pretty, he thought helplessly. Black hair fringed her smooth jawline; the curve of her tightly blue-jeaned leg was braced against the bricks in front of her. What makes you think, he asked himself contemptuously, that you could possibly have any future with a woman like this? Guys like Negri get these girls.
Negri didn't get this one, though, he reminded himself.
"Awful," he said, "what happened to Negri."
"Oh," she waved her hand dismissingly, "he was a jerk." She looked at him and smiled. "You know that."
"Yeah," Thomas admitted.
"He was just trying to make what you did last night look… small-time." She draped her hand over his arm in careless affection. "You guys were really up the creek there for a little while last night, weren't you? Before you managed to kill Albers and escape. The penalties for outright treason must be considerable."
"There was some talk of hanging," Thomas admitted, "and even of torture. But I think Albers had something else in mind for me personally."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Well—it's a long story. I must confess I lied to you last week, when I told you where I came from."
"You're not really from Berkeley?"
"No. I grew up not 15 kilometers from here—not 20, anyway—at the Merignac monastery. I ran away from there last week. And my name isn't Rufus Pennick. It's Thomas. Anyway, Spencer tells me the police have been looking for me ever since I entered the city, though neither of us can figure out why. Last night Albers realized I was this escaped monk everybody's after, and he wanted me for that reason, not for gunrunning."
Pat seemed tense, so he patted her hand reassuringly. "But Albers is dead now, and you and Spencer and Gladhand are the only ones that know I'm Thomas. So I'm safe again."
"Well, that's good," she said. But she shook her head, and Thomas noticed an expression of hopelessness in her eyes. "Oh, but for how long, Rufus? How long will you be safe? And what can conceivably become of us?"
Thomas put his arm around her shoulders. "It isn't that bad," he said softly. "They aren't omnipotent. And I'll tell you what's to become of us—we'll get married when all this political foolishness is over with."
She buried her face in his shoulder and said nothing.
Thomas stroked her fine hair and stared thoughtfully at the vista of rooftops, stretching away as far as he could see to the south. He wondered what would have happened if he'd reached San Pedro; he tried to picture himself dashing about the deck of a steamer, stripped to the waist and tanned the color of an old penny—but the absence of Pat from the daydream made it unconvincing.