Mel got his suitcase and walked over to the entrance, where Haldemann was standing with one of the glass doors held open, his head tilted inside. Looking past him, Mel saw Mary Ann McKendrick behind the ticket window now, instead of the pneumatic Cissie. Mary Ann was apparently saying something, though Mel was too far away to hear it. He heard Haldemann answer, “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he turned, saw Mel, and said, “All right. You’ve got your bag? Yes, I see. Good.”
They walked together across the gravel toward the house. Mel said, “Mary Ann’s a local girl?”
“Yes. I thought she’d be gone by now, but she’s taken over for Cissie for a few minutes.”
They went up the sagging stoop and into the house. A dim hall stretched ahead of them, and voices came through the closed doors to their right. Haldemann opened these doors — double doors, that slid back into the wall — and stuck his head in, saying, “Excuse me, Ralph. Daniels is here.” He sounded apologetic again, as though this Ralph were the employer and Haldemann only a very minor flunky.
“How nice.” It was a coarse gravelly voice, heavy with sarcasm. “Shall we give him a drum roll?”
Mel set his suitcase down in the hall, and followed Haldemann through the doorway.
It was a long room, made by the removal of the partition between living and dining rooms, used now as a rehearsal hall. Folding chairs were scattered around in no particular order on the bare floor, and at the far end of the room there was a cleared space containing only a beat-up sofa and an old kitchen table.
Four men were sitting here and there on the folding chairs. A man and a woman stood up by the sofa, holding playbooks open in their hands. Another man stood in a corner at the back of the room, a cigar in his mouth.
Haldemann said, “Ralph Schoen, Mel Daniels.”
Ralph Schoen was the man with the cigar. He was of medium height, and very fat. The second fat man Mel had met so far today. But Arnie Kapow was fat in a solid, hard sort of way; he was barrel-shaped. And Ralph Schoen was shaped like a bag of lard, soft and sagging, with a petulant jowly face, and pudgy hands. He was wearing a gray suit and white shirt and bright red tie, the tie pulled loose from his throat and the shirt bunched at his waist where the coat hung open.
He came forward, removing the cigar from his mouth. “You’re Daniels, huh?”
The man was offensive just by his very nature. The look of him was offensive, and the sound of his voice was offensive. Added to it, he was at the moment trying to be offensive.
More than anything else in the world, Mel wanted to hit him in the mouth. But he just said, “That’s right. I’m Daniels.”
“Isn’t that wonderful. What’s your experience, Daniels?”
“What?”
“Experience, experience. You have some experience, haven’t you?”
“Four off-Broadway shows, if that’s what you mean.”
“How many lines?”
“Lines?”
Schoen grimaced. “That’s what I like,” he said. “Quick on the uptake. I’ll go a little slower for you, Daniels.” He held up one pudgy hand, extended one finger, waved it. “The first show you were in, Daniels. How many lines did you have?”
“Two.”
Another finger. “Second show.”
“None. I was in three crowd scenes.”
“Crowd scenes! Off-Broadway is getting expensive!” Another finger. “Third show.”
“Five lines.”
“And fourth show.”
“Three lines.”
“And that’s it? No more experience? Professional experience, I mean, Daniels. I’m not interested in your high-school play.”
“That’s it. Just the four shows.”
“Do you even have an Equity card, Daniels?”
“No.”
“Then tell me, Daniels.” Schoen smirked at him, and stuck the cigar back in his mouth, and talked around the cigar. “Just tell me, Daniels, do you really think you’re ready for the grand entrance yet?”
“I’m not trying to make any grand en—”
“Or am I misjudging you? Do you just happen to come from a part of the world where the calendar is different? Do you live the other side of the International Date Line, Daniels?”
Mel opened his mouth to call Schoen a fat slob, just to relieve his feelings, but Haldemann cut in first, saying, “He’s here now, Ralph. I think we can let bygones be bygones.”
“Of course.” Schoen smiled around his cigar and shook his head. “I can hardly wait for your first entrance, Daniels,” he said. “The cue is delivered, there’s a pregnant pause, everyone on stage looks toward the door where you should be coming in, and where are you?”
“Still here listening to you, I guess.”
Haldemann spoke hurriedly again, burying about half of Mel’s line: “Arnie says he can use Mel today if you don’t need him, Ralph.”
“Need him? Need him? Perish the thought. No, we went ahead and cast our first production without you, Daniels. A real shame. I’m looking forward to seeing you act.”
Haldemann touched Mel’s arm. “Come along,” he said, rather hurriedly. “You can meet the others later.”
Mel followed him out to the hall. Haldemann closed the double doors and said, “His bark is worse than his bite, Mel, it really is. If you’re afraid he’ll be down on you all season, don’t worry. He’ll forget all about this by tomorrow.”
“Great.”
“We’re all under pressure here, Mel. Don’t let Ralph get under your skin.”
“Perish the thought.”
Haldemann smiled, nervously. “You go on up and find yourself a room now,” he said. “Get changed into work clothes, and then report to Arnie.”
“Right.”
“Just try doors up there. We all keep our room doors locked. You never know who’ll come into the house here.”
Which meant, Mel knew, there’d been a history of petty thieving here. And it would be some member of the company doing it, no stranger wandering in from outside.
He was beginning to wonder if summer stock was such a good idea.
Haldemann went out, with one last encouraging smile, and Mel took his suitcase and went upstairs. There were six doors in the second-floor hall, and five of them were locked. The sixth was the bathroom. So he went on up to the third floor.
Another six doors. The first two were locked, but the third one opened. Mel stepped inside, looked around, and froze.
Cissie Walker was lying on the bed. She was wearing white socks and one sleeve of her blouse. The rest of her clothing, ripped to pieces, was scattered around the room. Her arms and legs were spread-eagled, and her fingers were curved into taut claws. Red streaked her face, and the pillow beneath her head. Her throat was livid with gray and purple bruises. Her tongue protruded, fat and dry, from her crushed mouth. Her eyes were red and staring, straining up out of her face like gory marbles. A band of yellow sunlight angled across her chest.
Mel turned, stumbling, and took two steps, and vomited in the hall.
The madman had forgotten about women.
He’d forgotten the feel of their thighs, the roundness of their rumps, the heavy promise of their breasts. He’d forgotten the clothes they wore, and the way they walked, and the way their arms moved, and the lines of their throats, and the softness of their lips, and the looks in their eyes. He’d forgotten the sound of their voices, and the way they smiled, and the way they climbed stairs or sat in a chair or bent over a table.
He’d forgotten about women; so he forgot to be clever.
The awareness hadn’t really started until he’d gotten to the theater. There had been women on the bus, and women on the streets of Cartier Isle, but then he’d been too full of his plans, thinking and scheming and trying to find fault with the way he’d worked it all out. It wasn’t until he was set, until Haldemann had accepted the idiotic story of the wrong photograph, until the madman was sure no one suspected him, that the awareness had really started.