“Ignition was turned off, then?”
“Yes.”
“And it was very late?”
“Yes.”
“But he couldn’t have been waiting for you because no one knew you were going out.”
“No one at all. He could have been told, of course, but he’d have no reason to wait for me. I didn’t know him.”
“But he knew you.”
“Yes.”
“You have no way of estimating the time?”
“No... I... but Kelsey’s light was on. Perhaps she hadn’t gone to sleep yet.”
“I think she was already dead then,” Sands said. “Alice had turned the light off at twelve when she went to bed. You heard nothing, no noise, from Kelsey’s room when you went through the hall?”
“No noise... then.”
“Later?”
“Later, yes, when I was on the third floor. I thought I heard — Isobel. She was running along the hall.”
But the fog was coming over him again. Sands could tell that from the uncertainty in his voice, the vagueness in his eyes.
Sands left him sitting in front of the fireplace. He wasn’t comfortable about leaving him alone in the room with Isobel sitting on the mantel. Ashes or no ashes. Isobel wasn’t quite dead.
Chapter 10
Before the first show went on at nine o’clock Joey himself came backstage. He didn’t go back very often, he left it to Stevie to see that the girls were ready on time, their squabbles settled without scratching and their costumes fit to be viewed by the pure in heart.
But tonight he went back himself and stood for a minute inside the door. The girls were ready, clustered in small groups, twittering and chirping. They became quiet gradually when they saw him; they were a little afraid of this soft-voiced, hard-eyed man who signed their checks every second Monday.
“Break it up,” Joey said.
They broke it up but they didn’t come any closer to him. Marcie emerged from the dressing room wrapped in a long black cape. Stevie appeared too, quite suddenly, as if he’d dropped from the ceiling.
“My master’s voice,” he said.
Joey didn’t look at him. “There’s a special guest out front. He didn’t bring his ten-year-old son but act like he did. Keep everything clean.”
“The cleanest show in town,” Stevie said, but he couldn’t be heard above the girls: “What do you mean?”
“Who’s out there?”
“Why my own mother says it’s a swell show!”
“That’s all,” Joey said. “Except — Mamie.”
Mamie looked at him sulkily. “Yeah?”
“It’s your job to make the customers sad, pleasantly sad, not to make them commit suicide. Get it?”
The girls giggled. Mamie took a step forward, her dark eyes already brimming with tears.
“Yeah, but Joey, you don’t know — it’s Tony...”
“Dry up,” Stevie said to her. “O.K., girls, go and lock yourselves in the dressing room. We’ll be a little late tonight.”
“We will, will we?” Joey said softly.
Stevie waited until they had disappeared. “Who’s out there?”
“A cop.”
“A cop. Well, what of it? Don’t cops relax?”
“Not this one,” Joey said, “and not here.”
“Which one is it?”
“He didn’t introduce himself and he didn’t tell me he was a cop. I just happen to know.”
“Oh.”
“What difference does it make to you?” Joey said dryly. “You’re wearing enough clothes and you don’t shake your rear. He was here a couple of weeks ago, too.”
“He was?” Stevie drew in his breath. “That’s swell.”
“You haven’t been doing anything, Jordan?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well, neither have I,” Joey said. “But it gives me the same kind of feeling I get when I cross the border. I never have a damn thing on me but I always feel I have.”
“Guilty conscience.”
“Yeah. Ready now?”
“Sure.”
“Stay away from the booze tonight, Jordan. The boys will bring you cold tea. On my orders.”
Stevie went with him to the door. “Which one is he?”
“Left. Second table from the floor. Alone.”
Stevie looked out. After Joey had gone he kept the door open a little and looked out again, for a long time.
There was nothing to show that the man was a cop. He was quite small and even from a distance Stevie could see his little black moustache. Just an ordinary man in a dinner jacket. Maybe Joey was wrong...
But he knew Joey wasn’t wrong. Once you knew the man was a cop you found all sorts of reasons for believing it. The way he sat, motionless, almost rigid, as if his very muscles were determined not to relax or to have a good time. Some of the wives sat like that, the wives who didn’t drink and came along just to keep an eye on their husbands.
Stevie closed the door. There was sweat on the palms of his hands and he was trembling, but he couldn’t resist reading it once more. He took the clipping out of his pocket.
“The death occurred suddenly last night of Kelsey Heath in her twenty-eighth year, at the home of her father, Thomas Heath, 1020 St. Clair Avenue. Miss Heath had been in ill health for some time. Funeral arrangements have not been completed. She is survived by her father, a sister, Alice, and a brother, John. Please omit flowers.”
The orchestra faded, there was a pause, a roll of drums.
That was for him. He replaced the clipping and smoothed back his hair and lifted the curtain. He walked briskly on to the floor and there was a smattering of applause, a dying down of many voices and finally a hush.
“Hel-lo!” Stevie said. “So some of you came back and even brought your friends...”
He talked for five minutes, fast, not even giving them a chance to laugh. They didn’t laugh much anyway at the first show. Then he walked around the floor, still talking, pausing at some of the tables, asking a question or two, getting blushes and giggles and soft embarrassed answers.
“And what did you do to deserve this lovely lady?”
A laugh, a whisper from the man, “I guess I’m just lucky,” a blush from the lady, a yell from the crowd.
The spotlight swerved, rested for an instant on the solitary figure in the dinner jacket. The man looked across at Stevie. He didn’t even blink at the spotlight, he just stared without moving.
It seemed to Stevie that the whole crowd was aware of it, there was a deadly quiet as if they had all withdrawn and left him alone to face this man.
“Break it up,” somebody shouted.
“Sorry, folks, I just had a hot flash. Must have been something I et, or maybe something I drenk.”
The spotlight moved with him and the man with the staring eyes dissolved into darkness.
Stevie walked off the floor five minutes before he should have, and the girls came on. He usually sat at one of the tables and ordered a drink while the girls were dancing, but tonight he went right out through the curtain.
The door of the dressing room was open but he rapped anyway, and said, “Marcie?”
She came out, with the long black cape clutched around her. She looked ill and her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly swollen.
“What’s the matter?” Stevie said.
“Nothing.” She leaned against the wall, a tired little bat with folded wings and the face of a girl. “Flu, maybe!”
“I’ve got something to show you.”
“What?”
“From a newspaper.”
“I saw it.”
“Tough on you,” Stevie said.
“Why me?” She opened her eyes wide.
“Tough on him, then, on Johnny Heath. So I guess it’s tough on you, if you love him.”
Her black wings stirred a little. “Don’t tell anybody.”
“About what?”