“Doesn’t sound like much of a joke,” Ortega said.
“It was supposed to involve a surprise birthday party. As Mister Balenger and his friend wondered what on earth was going on, friends hiding upstairs would shout ‘Happy birthday!” Food and drinks would be carried down. The party would start.“
Ortega looked at Balenger, then asked Perry, “How much were you paid?”
“For the group, for what amounted to an hour’s work, we received two thousand dollars. It was a much-needed contribution to our remodeling efforts.”
“How were you approached?” Balenger asked.
“A woman phoned and arranged to meet me here at the playhouse.”
“Did she give a name?”
“Karen Bailey. The woman you met at the lecture.”
“I had the feeling she was part of your group,” Balenger said.
“Not at all.”
“Do you have a contract?” Ortega asked. “An address or a signature I can look at?”
“No. It didn’t seem necessary. The arrangement was unusual, yes, but the two thousand dollars couldn’t have come at a better time. We were thankful for the windfall.”
“But why are you here?” the older woman asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.” Ortega gave Perry his business card. “If she contacts you again, let me know.”
“Karen Bailey did leave a photocopy of something,” Perry said. “She told me to give it to Mister Balenger if he came to the theater.”
“A photocopy?” Balenger frowned. “Of what?”
“I put it in my script bag.” Perry tucked his pointer under an arm, went to a worn canvas bag next to a seat, and searched through it. “Here.” He offered Balenger a folded piece of paper.
But before Balenger touched it, Ortega said, “Wait.” He removed the latex gloves from his sport coat. After putting them on, he opened the paper.
Balenger stood next to him and looked down at it. The paper had streaks from a photocopy machine. It showed a book page on which everything was matted out, except one paragraph and an imprint of, a stamp: NYPL HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE LIBRARY. The stamp was faint.
Ortega read the paragraph out loud.
“It is a wonderful place, the moor,” said he, looking round over the undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite foaming up into fantastic surges. “You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious.”
The passage was so bewildering it made Balenger lightheaded. “Karen Bailey told you to give this to me if I came to the theater?” he asked Perry.
“Yes.”
“Did she say why?”
“No. I assumed it was part of the practical joke.” Perry tapped his pointer on the floor. “What’s the problem? Why won’t you tell us why you—”
“I smell smoke,” Balenger said.
11
Spinning toward the back of the theater, Balenger saw wisps of gray drifting through the seams in the double doors.
“No,” Perry moaned.
Balenger heard the four actors scramble down steps from the stage, but all he paid attention to were the strengthening tendrils of gray. He and Ortega ran up the aisle, stopping when they saw light flicker beyond the middle of the doors. Something crackled on the other side.
Perry and the other actors rushed to them.
“The paint supplies.” Drawing a breath, Perry inhaled smoke and stifled a cough. “Somehow they must have caught fire. Rags in a can. Some kind of spontaneous—”
“Or maybe they had help,” Balenger said.
“Help? What on earth do you—”
Behind them, the stage lights went out. As darkness enveloped them, an actress screamed. At once, battery-powered emergency lights glared from the corners.
“Give me your pointer.” Ortega took it from Perry and used its thick end to push the door open.
Smoke gushed through the opening. Beyond it, orange rippled among the gray clouds, flames licking toward the pointer.
Ortega yanked the pointer away, letting the door swing shut. As Perry stumbled back, he bumped into one of the actresses, who bent over, coughing.
“Where’s a fire exit?” Balenger demanded.
“One’s over there.” Perry gestured toward a door halfway down the right aisle. Next to it was a small red fire-alarm box.
Amid thickening smoke, Balenger helped the coughing woman to straighten and guided her along a row of seats. Ahead, the actors banged against arm rests and reached the aisle on the right, where Ortega pushed a bar on the fire door.
The door didn’t budge. Ortega rammed his shoulder against it, but the door remained firm. “Who the hell locked this?”
“Nobody! It always works!” Perry insisted. “The door must be jammed on the other side!” The director tugged open the alarm’s cover and pulled a lever, groaning when the alarm didn’t sound. “It’s supposed to be linked to the fire department, but if we can’t hear it, the signal isn’t being transmitted!”
In the back of the theater, the smoke was now so thick it obscured the doors. A crackle of flames became a roar. The paint and turpentine were acting as accelerants, Balenger realized. “Sprinklers? Does the theater have—”
“Yes! I don’t understand why they aren’t working!”
One of the actors pointed toward the back. “The fire got through the doors!”
Balenger spun, his skin prickling when he saw smoke and flames climbing toward a balcony. For a terrible moment, he reeled from déjà vu, as if he were trapped in the inferno of the Paragon Hotel. It’s happening again, he thought. “Where’s another emergency door?”
“Backstage!” Perry shouted.
The smoke had a harsh greasy taste that made Balenger cough. A couple of the actors seemed paralyzed with fear. For a moment, Balenger too felt overcome with terror, his previous nightmares seizing him. “Move!” he found the strength to yell.
Boards rumbling, they hurried up the steps to the stage. Behind a side curtain, an emergency light glared above another exit. Ortega pushed the bar and crashed against the door, but it didn’t open. Balenger joined him, slamming his shoulder against it.
Someone pointed toward the back. “The fire’s on the ceiling!”
Smoke spreading toward him, Ortega noticed circular metal stairs. “What’s on the upper floor?”
“A fire escape off a dressing room!” Perry charged toward the spiral steps. They vibrated as he scurried up. But he suddenly stopped, clinging to the trembling hand rail. When Balenger reached the stairs, he saw what made Perry gape. Smoke obscured the top.
“We couldn’t breathe up there,” someone said. “We couldn’t see where we’re going.”
The staircase went down through the floor.
“What about the basement?” Balenger asked.
“Three windows!”
“Go!”
As their footsteps clattered on the metal, Balenger stared down toward the gloom and hesitated. A basement, he thought. There’s always a basement. Sweat oozed from his forehead, only partly because of the accumulating heat. He saw a flashlight attached to a bracket beside a control panel. Grabbing it, he forced himself down the stairs.
The air became cool. Off-balance from repeated turns, he reached a stone floor. Light struggled through a row of three narrow windows along the right wall. Close to the basement’s ceiling, the dusty panes showed the dirty brick wall of a narrow alley.