REIGN
By Chet Williamson
Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Reconstructed from scans and copy-edited by David Dodd
Copyright 2010 by Chet Williamson
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"For Chief and D, and Fred and Lee, and everyone with whom I've walked the boards. And most of all to Laurie, for her incomparable performance in supporting roles through the years."
Of all arts, the most difficult was the art of reigning.
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.
Milton, Paradise Lost
In that tyme . . . reygned a grete pestylence.
Caxton's Caton
OVERTURE
Watch, Dennis. Watch.
Dennis Hamilton watched. He had no choice. He was once more a captive of his dream, a slave of the very emperor he had himself been for the last quarter of a century, the character he had created. And now that character came to life before his eyes, stood there grinning as nakedly as if the skin of the face were transparent, revealing the skull beneath.
Watch.
Who, Dennis wondered, would the Emperor kill tonight? Which of the people he loved? His wife? His son? John, his manager, or Marvella, his costumer, or Curt, his stage manager? Night after night, he had taken them all in dreams, killed them all by grasping their necks in his left hand, which seemed as huge and monstrous as the necks seemed thin and frail, and shaking them until those pencil-necks snapped with the sound of cracking twigs, and the bodies had fallen like empty sacks, and the grin had widened until it threatened to raven the world, and Dennis would awake with tears in his eyes, and turn and clutch Robin's warmth, waking her to comfort him.
Who tonight? Who? He saw her then, dimly at first, as through a fog, or a gray-tinted window, but he recognized her immediately. Though twenty-five years had passed, he knew her, for he had never forgotten, never stopped feeling what he had felt when he was so young, when emotions had been taut as wires, sensitive as exposed flesh in winter.
Ann.
She was older, but still as lovely as he remembered. Her honey-blonde hair was shorter than it had been, but still long, falling to her shoulders like a veil. She wore a dress — or was it a gown? — of white. She seemed, Dennis thought at first, dressed for a wedding.
But when the Emperor stepped into the frame of his sight, he knew instead that she was dressed for a sacrifice.
Watch.
Ann's neck did not change, did not diminish and thin as the others had. And the Emperor's hand, when he grasped her, no longer grew in size. A hand it remained, though one with great strength. It squeezed, and Dennis saw Ann's face go white with pain, though there was no fear in her eyes. She looked, not at her attacker, but at him, and in her gaze was mingled a plea and a longing, both emotions mirrored in his own thoughts.
He moved toward her as he had with all the others, to save and to protect. But unlike before, when the thick and fluid bonds of dream held him back, now he flew forward with a dazzling speed that blinded him, and when he could see again, he knew that it was his hand that was clutching Ann's throat, his eyes that were blazing into hers, those green spheres clouded with approaching death.
He gasped, and tried to release his grip, loosen the fingers that dug into the flesh so deeply that the tips were hidden.
He could not. The fingers, his but not his, pressed harder. The eyes refused to obey his demand to close, the mouth, rebel to his will, grinned with teeth he could not see, and Ann faded away as she had on that day long ago, from his sight, from his love, from his life . . .
From life.
Ann.
~ * ~
Dennis Hamilton awoke weeping. His body was slick with sweat, and he felt hot and cold at once.
"Dennis?" Robin's voice, full of love and concern, echoed in the darkness. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"
He grasped at her, and when he felt her arms go around him, he let himself go completely, let the sobs shake his body.
"The dream?" she asked. "The same dream again?"
"Yes," he said. "The same." It had come at irregular intervals, unpredictably and unexpectedly, for nearly a year.
"Who this time?"
He didn't answer right away, and he could sense her curiosity in the dark. To give him time to decide what to say, he reached up and turned on the dim reading light over his side of the bed.
"You're sweating," Robin said. "Do you feel all right?"
He nodded. "It was you," he told her. "I dreamed that he was hurting you . . . choking you."
She looked so young in the rose-colored light. Her dark hair cupped her face like a pair of gentle hands, and the edge of the sheet was draped over her waist, exposing her full, round breasts. Dennis felt desire trying softly to usurp his previous apprehension.
"It's just a dream," she said, reaching out and smoothing the damp hair back from his forehead. "Dreams can't hurt you."
"But it frightens me," he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his cheek. "It seems so real, and I worry about . . . about what it might mean."
"We've talked about this before," she said with a sigh, "and you're not angry at me, darling. You're not angry at any of the people you've seen hurt in your dreams, even if you are the one who's doing the hurting."
"I'm not the one," he said. "It's the Emperor, I told you that. It's him every time, not me."
She touched his cheek. "After tomorrow there won't be any emperor anymore, will there? You can replace him with another dream — a dream you've had for so long. One that's going to come true."
He smiled at her, remembering. "Yes," he said finally. "I guess it will."
"Can you sleep now?" she said. "It's going to be a big day. A very big day. Shall I call Sid? Have him fix some warm milk to help you sleep?"
"No. No thanks. It's all right." He turned off the light and put his head on the pillow. Robin leaned over and kissed him.
"Sleep well," she said. "Sweet dreams now. Or no dreams at all. I love you."
"And I love you," he said, meaning it. But he went back to sleep remembering Ann.
~ * ~
Morning came, and then the night. The last performance was glorious.
~ * ~
He sat before the mirror, gazing at the man within. The face was older now. Nearly twenty-five years had passed since he first saw the Emperor inside him, twenty-five years since that first night, that night in 1966 that set the pattern of his life as firmly as heredity.
Had the audience dozed, had the critics been unkind, had he been in poor voice, or nervous, or forgetful, his life would have been very different. But those things had not happened, and he had been crowned Emperor of the Theatre, and had remained so for a quarter of a century, longer than many real emperors, or kings, or popes. Until tonight. Until this warm April night, on which they roared out their acclaim for a voice still young, still as strong as ever, roared for the full, rich, velvet baritone with which he had enthralled audiences across the country, around the world. His world. His circumscribed and loving world, girdled with his talent, governed by his persona, ruled by the Emperor.
Still, Dennis Hamilton thought, looking into the mirror, it was not the voice that really mattered, was it? It could have been aged and withered, made harsh by the nicotine he never inhaled, pickled by the alcohol he seldom touched, constricted and parched by the cocaine that floated all around the New York theatre scene like a gritty cloud but which he had never even tried. No, it was not the voice, but the presence.
He still had the presence. He could go on. His friends begged him to go on; his fans, who made up much of the civilized world, begged him to go on. To them he was the Emperor, and always would be.
The stance was enough to tell anyone that. The stance at the beginning of Act I, Scene 6, when the change came. The hands locked commandingly behind the back, the thrust of the jaw, lengthened by the beard, that long Ruritanian beard that he had never shaved off, dashed now with specks of gray not yet visible from the audience. He could have dyed it, but that would have been vanity. Besides, they all knew he was no longer twenty, and it would not have diminished their love. No. The world knew that he had based his life on artifice, and the world had made him a rich man because of it.
He heard them outside his dressing room door now. It was late. The show itself ran, as always, three hours with the intermission, and tonight's curtain calls had lasted another half hour. They could have lasted longer, he thought. They could have lasted until morning.
But no, it was good that Curt had brought the curtain down and the house lights up when he did. Always leave them wanting more — the theatre's golden rule.
Dennis smiled at the memory of the applause continuing long after the curtain had come down for the final time and the auditorium was fully lit. Five years ago, three, even six months ago he might have interpreted Curt's ending the curtain call as insolence, and given him a tongue-lashing for it. But tonight he felt not even mild aggravation. Leaving the Emperor behind was indeed, he thought, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
There was a knock on his door, and he heard Robin's voice calling, "Dennis? Dennis, the party?"
"I'll be there," he called back. He had not yet removed his costume or his makeup, and the Emperor still stared at him from the mirror. The medals flashed, the gold braid gleamed like chorus girls' hair. The lines in his face were invisible beneath the makeup and the powder. It was, if not a young man's face, then the face of a man whom the years had touched but lightly. He knew that he could not stay there forever, that people and the rest of his life were waiting for him. The thought made him smile, and he spoke to his image in the glass, encompassed by soft, naked bulbs, "Well, your majesty, it's time to leave you. Leave you for good." He shook his head. "I can't stay here forever."
It was as if the image told him that he could. The carmined lips did not open, but he heard the voice inside his head.
You can, it said.
"What . . ." he whispered so quietly that an ear next to his mouth would not have heard.
You can, it said again, then became silent.
Dennis Hamilton shivered, and the conceit that he had considered, the intention to leave on his costume and makeup, to remain the Emperor for one final night, suddenly oppressed him. He pulled the uniform jacket open so quickly that the snaps seemed to pop simultaneously, and yanked the garment from his body as though it were lined with barbs. Then he reached for the jar of cold cream as a drowning man reaches for a spar, and slathered it over his face, rubbing it in and wiping it away with handfuls of tissue, desperate to escape the Emperor.
And when he looked in the mirror again, the Emperor was gone. In his place, dressed crisply in a dinner jacket, was Dennis Hamilton. The beard, reddish-brown and trimmed to perfection, was the only thing that remained, for the eyes, the brow, the mouth were all gentle, with not a trace of imperiousness in their slants, their turns, their attitudes.
Dennis sighed in relief, walked to the door, grasped the knob, and looked back at the mirror, expecting for a moment to see an image still framed within. But the glass only reflected the silken curtains, the red brocade wallpaper of his dressing room. He looked again, as if some mistake had been made, then turned and opened the door upon the crowd, upon the world. Hands reached out for him, kind words assailed him, and the door closed upon the mirror.
It sat there, blank. And, in a while, an image returned.
ACT I: INTERPRETER
All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.
—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Scene 1
Six months after Dennis Hamilton's farewell performance of A Private Empire, on a October night whose chill pushed thin ribbons of cold between the cracks in the casements of the old farmhouse windows, Ann Deems, newly widowed, sat in the large family room and watched Entertainment Tonight on the projection TV. She had been working on the details of the estate all day, and a thick sheaf of papers still lay, awaiting her attention, on the teak coffee table.
She ignored them now, her feet tucked comfortably under her, her gaze fixed loosely on the images that blurringly danced across the giant screen. She made a mental note that one of the first things she would do would be to get rid of the damned thing and buy another regular TV. She hated the way colors bled into each other, the lack of sharp detail that phosphor dots provided. She had complained to Eddie about it time and again, but all he had said was, "You'll get used to it, Annie. I mean, look at the size of it. It's like being in a goddamned theatre, isn't it?"
Yes, she had told him. Yes, I suppose so, thinking all the while that it was like a theatre in which the projectionist was drunk and the lens was smeared with Vaseline. Still, Eddie had loved it. It was his toy, just like all the other toys he had bought and played with and gotten bored with through their twenty-odd years of married life.
She didn't begrudge him the things. After all, he had worked hard for them, had always worked hard since the day he had gotten out of law school and gone into practice with his father's firm. And even if he hadn't worked hard, they still would have had the money. Henry Deems always saw to that. The only son of the senior partner in one of the oldest law firms in Philadelphia would want for nothing, and neither, Ann thought with an odd mixture of satisfaction and distaste, would his widow or his daughter.
She shrugged off the thoughts and tried to turn her attention back to the TV. This kind of empty-headed pseudo-journalism was exactly what she needed now. Mind candy, popcorn for the brain. It seemed as though she had been thinking about Eddie every minute since his death three weeks before. She was afraid she would always think about it.
It left a tremendous void in her life, as though someone had come and pulled up their house in one piece, so that only a pit remained where the basement used to be. If they had been older, it might have been easier to take, even though the ties would have been still deeper with years. But you just don't expect someone to die of a heart attack at forty-four. Cancer maybe, or a car crash, but not a heart attack, not for someone who never smoked, got a lot of exercise, ate right, was a walking public service spot. Not Eddie. And not the way it happened. She wondered if, after everything was over, the estate settled, Eddie's things stored away or distributed among the many charities that Ann did volunteer work for, she could forget that night. She wondered, if she met another man and fell in love with him, if she could ever make love again.
A commercial came on the huge screen, and Ann looked away, closed her eyes, and remembered once more. There was nothing to see, for it had been in darkness. No, there was only the sound and the feeling of him, of Eddie over her, filling her, the two of them pressed together, moving as one toward a climax, and her coming first, the warmth moving up from groin to stomach to breasts, and feeling the spasmodic heat inside her, knowing that Eddie was with her, part of her. And then the horror began.
It was as if someone had struck him with a sledgehammer. He died on top of her, inside her, in an instant. A sharp intake of breath, and the weight of him pressing her down, smothering her, not the weight of passion spent, but the terrible, awesome weight of life fled. Dead weight. Dead.
She blinked back tears and looked at Eddie's goddamned, mammoth screen again. It was the stuff of stupid, dirty jokes, dying like that, and she felt furious at him for doing it, knowing full well that it had not been his fault, that he did not choose where and when to have his fatal attack. Still, his death had savaged her above and beyond the already harrowing experience of losing a husband, a friend, a man to whom you had given all your love for nearly a quarter of a century. Despite her friends, her family, despite Terri, she felt terribly alone.
“. . . Dennis Hamilton . . .”
The words from the stereo speakers on either side of the screen sent a shot of adrenalin through her, and her head snapped back to the glowing, watery images. One of the show's vapid correspondents, golden-haired and red-lipped, was holding a mike and talking at the camera. Behind her, some twenty yards away, was a wall of gray stone decorated with bas-reliefs. Ann listened.
“. . . who purchased the Venetian Theatre with the intention of making it a showcase for new American musical comedy. Though we were unable to talk to Hamilton himself, we were able to visit with his business manager, John Steinberg."
There was a cut to an interior, and Ann saw a round-faced, balding man in his sixties smile benignly toward where the unseen correspondent stood. "There's a need for it," the man said in a voice that was deep but held effeminate tones. "I mean, just look at the musicals on Broadway — Les Miz, Cats, Phantom, that new one, Rinky-Tink — all of them British.”
"What about Sondheim?" the woman asked.
Steinberg shrugged. "Well, his shows are always interesting, but I haven't found the last few very . . . involving. And, it seems, neither have the critics nor the audiences. Let's face it, American musical theatre just isn't that healthy."
"And Dennis Hamilton wants to change that," the woman said.
"Yes he does. All of us involved with the project do. Dennis believes that there are new Rodgers and Hammersteins and Lerner and Loewes out there."
"What about new Davis and Ensleys?" the woman asked, referring to the long-retired writers of A Private Empire.
Hamilton's manager smiled. "That goes without saying. He would be absolutely delighted to find a team like that. After all, he owes his fame to them."
The camera went back to the woman in front of the building. "So, tonight will see the re-opening party of the Venetian Theatre here in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and Entertainment Tonight wishes Dennis Hamilton well in his effort to restore the status of American musical theatre to the grand old days of Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Back to you, Bob . . ."
Ann picked up the remote and clicked the switch. The picture and sound faded away, leaving the room darker, quieter, an incubator for her thoughts. After a minute, she got up and crossed the room to the cherry-wood shelves, ran her fiver over the black-cased rows of videocassettes, and removed one. She uncased it, put it in the machine (a Panasonic Super-VHS — one more of Eddie's toys), and turned everything on. Then she sat down and watched as the anti-copying message and the Paramount Home Video logo ran their course.
When the overture began over the opening credits, she held her breath, releasing it when his name came up on the screen. She watched the film for fifteen minutes before Terri came into the room.
"Mother?" the girl said, and Ann looked around guiltily. Terri's smile was a bit sad, a bit bitter. "Don't tell me. You were watching ET, right?" Ann nodded, and Terri sat down next to her. Though Ann was tall, Terri was taller still. It was daunting, Ann thought, to try and mother a person taller than you, and nearly an adult in years as well. Maybe that was just one reason she hadn't done a very good job of it lately.
"I just thought it would be . . . fun to look at this again. I haven't seen it for a couple of years." It was a lie. One morning several months before, Ann had watched the film of A Private Empire when the house was empty. She had cried at the end, as she always did, telling herself that it wasn't because of Dennis and what might have been, but because of the sadness and the romance of the plot. "I'll turn it off," Ann said, reaching for the remote.
"You don't have to feel guilty," Terri told her, the tone belying the words.
"I don't feel guilty," Ann said, pressing a button and making the image vanish. "I've never done anything to feel guilty about. Not that way."
Terri raised her eyebrows, as though such an accusation had been the farthest thing from her mind. "You don't have to be defensive about it either. I'm not one to judge. For all I care, you can go visit him at his new theatre. Kirkland's only forty miles away."
"Don't be smart."
"I'm not. I'm serious. Maybe you could use your . . . influence to get me a job with him."
"I don't have any influence with Dennis Hamilton. It's been over twenty years since I've seen him."
"There's no reason you can't pick up where you left off. I hear he's very rich, so you'd have something in common already."
Ann struggled to keep her anger under control. "I've never noticed you complaining about having too much money," she said dryly, and, she hoped, with a trace of humor. She hated to argue with Terri, because even if she was right, she never won. And since Eddie's death, arguing with Terri consisted of talking to her.
" 'Visi d' arte,' " Terri replied. "I live for art."
"I know what it means, thank you."
"But I also live to eat. Are we having dinner tonight?"
"You'd better ask Mary that. She's in charge of the kitchen."
"Mary's in charge of cuisine boring," Terri said with a French accent with a sneer in it.
"Does anything meet with your approval around here?" Ann finally asked. She knew that her irritation was precisely what Terri had hoped to draw out, but she couldn't help herself.
"No, not really. Everything seems weary, stale, flat . . .”
“. . . and unprofitable," Ann finished for her. "I'm not totally illiterate."
"Oh, brav-o," Terri said, getting up and walking to the door. "I'll see you over chow."
What a little bitch, Ann thought as she watched the girl walk out the door. How had Terri turned out like that? What had she or Eddie done wrong? Too much money? Too many privileges? Terri had never had to do an honest day's labor in her life. She had never waited on tables, never washed dishes for money, never peddled anything door to door, had never done any of the hundreds of thankless tasks that kids did growing up that earned them a little money and a lot of humility.
Being a waitress during her college summers had been, Ann thought in retrospect, one of her best learning experiences. She had moaned about it continually at first, because there was no need. Her grandfather, the president of a bank, was paying her tuition, and her father, a doctor, could more than afford her room, board, and expenses. But he had insisted, over the protests of Ann's mother, that she work during the summers. "It might be the only physical labor the girl ever does in her life," he had said.
"Oh, John," her mother had argued, "it's just not necessary. Look at me — I've never worked like that."
"I know," her father replied. "And that's exactly why Ann should." Ann hadn't laughed at the comment then, but did later, many times.
Her father had been right, as usual. Though she had hated that Holiday Inn coffee shop the first few days, she grew to like the job in a grudging way. There was only one other college girl working there, an art major from Penn State who needed the money badly. Of the other women, a few were older married types who wanted the additional luxuries two incomes would provide, while the rest were single girls, most of them high school dropouts. It was a good cross section, and Ann, unfailingly pleasant and a little afraid, got along well with all of them.
The other thing that waiting on tables had done for her was introduce her to Dennis Hamilton, who, with the rest of the company of A Private Empire, was staying at the Holiday Inn in Kirkland, Pennsylvania, and would be opening the fledgling production in Kirkland's Venetian Theatre.
Scene 2
The original intention of the producers was to take the show to New Haven, Connecticut for its out-of-town tryout, but no theatre was available at the time. Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, which housed its share of hopefuls, was also booked. But then one of the producers remembered the Venetian Theatre in Kirkland. It had been the home of many touring shows after the death of Vaudeville, but had for some years been only a movie theatre, its former glories masked by dust. Still, it had the necessary facilities, and was close enough to Philadelphia to insure decent audiences, particularly for a new Ensley-Davis show, the same team that had brought the theatre-going public blockbuster musicals ever since the mid-forties.
The Venetian Theatre was over fifty years old in that summer of 1966. Although it was shabby, and the seats were threadbare, there was still much that was majestic about it. But it had never, not even on the night it had opened, looked as sumptuous as it did on the evening of Dennis Hamilton's party, and had certainly never seen such a contingent of the wealthy and famous standing within its marbled grand lobby, flanking its wide, carpeted staircases, chattering on its palatial mezzanine lobby.
The party had begun at nine, and by ten-thirty nearly all two hundred and fifty guests were there. Many had flown from New York and Los Angeles into Philadelphia, and there hired cars to take them the remaining thirty miles to Kirkland. There were actors, directors, musicians, writers, and a smattering of technical people, nearly all of whom knew or had worked with Dennis Hamilton. No one had been invited simply for appearance's sake.
Dennis and Robin stood near the front entrance, greeting the latecomers. Left alone for a rare moment, Robin squeezed his hand gently. "Will the liquor hold out?" she asked him. There were four bars in service, three in the grand lobby, one in the mezzanine lobby, and all were cluttered with humanity.
"So the caterer claims," Dennis said, then grinned. "Of course I don't know if he had this group of alcoholics in mind when he made his plans."
Brian Chaney and Lydia Marks came through the front door, received hugs, compliments on their latest films, and were told where to take their coats. "Lydia looks good," Robin said when the couple were out of earshot.
Dennis nodded. "Amazing what a seventh facelift and a butt-tuck can do, isn't it?"
"Don't knock her. She's still doing nude scenes."
"Last Chance, you mean?" Robin nodded and Dennis shook his head. "Uh-uh. Body double."
"You're kidding."
"Nope. Clinton told me. A twenty-two year old porno star."
Robin giggled. "You know, I like this party better than our last one.”
“Closing night? Why? That was a good party."
"I know, but it was sad. It was the end of something, and this is the beginning of something new. Everybody seems happier."
"I don't know, I thought they were pretty happy that they'd never have to see me in Empire again . . . unless they catch it on the late show."
"You know that's not true," Robin said, but the conversation stopped there as Michael Riley came up, bottled beer in hand, to talk to Dennis, and Robin took the opportunity to wander.
She was immediately grabbed by Cissy Morrison, an actress who had started out in the film version of A Private Empire and who now shared her sitcom with another ex-movie queen of the sixties. "Jesus, Robbie," she gushed, "this place is fantastic. I mean it's like the fucking Roxy or something. Of course I never saw the Roxy, but I saw pictures, you know? This place must have cost a mint, huh?"
Robin smiled. "Only about half of your annual share of the residuals on After She's Gone, Cissy."
"My ass. I couldn't touch this place with a ten-foot dick, honey. But of course I didn't have John Steinberg investing my income for the last twenty years.”
“John's good," Robin said.
"Of course John's good," agreed a voice from behind Robin. She felt a hand around her waist and turned to look into the deep green eyes of Steinberg himself. "Good evening, darling," he said, and kissed Robin on the cheek. "Lovely party. And the omnipresent Ms. Morrison. I loved your most recent show, Cissy. I tell all my friends that no one, not even Lucille Ball in her salad days, falls hind-first onto a cherry pie like you do. Sheer artistry."
Cissy Morrison made a face. "You're a cunt, John."
"I wish, my dear." Steinberg turned his attention back to Robin. "You look glassless, love. May I get you something?"
"No thanks, John. I don't want to get too sloshed to be a good hostess.”
“Never happen. You're the perfect hostess, drunk or sober. How's Dennis?”
“He's wonderful. He's just so excited about this."
"Aren't we all."
"About what?" Cissy asked.
"About this theatre, my sitcom queen," Steinberg said. "About the workshop, about the whole project."
"You have any shows yet?"
"It's just been announced," Robin said, "but a few submissions have trickled in already."
Steinberg took a sip of his drink and nodded. "Trunk work, no doubt. But there may be something good in them. If there is, we'll find it." He grinned, showing white, even teeth. "And we'll produce it."
"With whose money?"
"Oh, we have our ways, dear. We have backers in abundance, and expect a multitude more. You, for one."
Cissy squinted her eyes. "Me?"
"Why do you think you were invited here tonight, love?"
"God, John . . ." Robin said, shaking her head.
"Why do you think we paid to fly you across this great, musical-theatre-loving country of ours to wine and dine you and tell you how marvelous your still young-looking hindquarters look encrusted with cherry pie filling?"
Cissy gaped, and Robin giggled. "John, stop it."
"Oh, Robin, it's all right, Cissy knows I have no interest in her hindquarters save from a purely aesthetic point of view, don't you, Cissy?"
"Well sure, I mean I know it's a fund raiser, but . . ."
"Not a fund raiser, Cissy," Robin said. "John's looking for investors, not contributors." She turned a mockingly cold eye on Steinberg. "But I thought the pitch was going to come later."
"I'm sorry, I apologize," John said. "Mea maxima culpa. It's just that, when faced with this woman's residuals, my thoughts turn from her backside to her money."
"Well, honey," Cissy drawled, "if you ever want to see the one, you're gonna have to kiss the other."
Steinberg exploded in sincere laughter. "I love you, Cissy," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "I really do. I only dish it out to you because I know you'll reciprocate."
"Bet your ass, John. Now why don't you go get me a drink."
Steinberg obediently wandered over to the bar. "Is he living down here with you?" Cissy asked Robin.
"Yes. He and Donna Franklin, his secretary, have apartments on the third floor. Dennis and I are there, and Sid, of course. He has a small apartment right next to ours."
"What, you're all on one floor?"
Robin nodded. "Curt's here too."
"Jesus, they must be tiny. How do you stand it?"
"Oh no, our apartment's huge. Twice as big as any of the suites we used to stay in on the road."
"What about the one at the Ritz-Carlton-Boston?"
"By far. And we've got more apartments on the fourth floor for Dex and Quentin when they come down to work a show. Not to mention twenty smaller rooms on the fifth floor."
"What did they use all this space for before?" Cissy asked.
"It wasn't just a theatre," Robin explained. "The theatre only takes up a little more than a third of the floor plan. This was a whole community building that David Kirk built for the town of Kirkland. He was quite the philanthropist — really a very generous man. The third and fourth floors were a school for orphan children. The third was classrooms, the fourth was the dormitory, and on the fifth floor there was a hospital for the people of the town."
"Speaking of hospitals, here's the perfect medicine," Steinberg interrupted, returning with Cissy's drink. "Explaining the history of the estate, Robin?" He handed the cocktail to Cissy.
"Who was this Kirk guy anyway?" Cissy asked.
"A philanthropist, a humanitarian, and a supreme quack," Steinberg said. "He made his first money at the turn of the century when he found a mineral spring on his parents' farm near here. Instead of remaining a starving farmer, he became a master marketer. Began to bottle the water, added some herbs to it, printed a bunch of labels, and purveyed the stuff as 'Dr. Kirk's Medicinal Tonic.' People were suckers for patent medicines back then, so he expanded his line, wrote a book called Physical Culture: Wellspring of a Healthy Society, and did very well indeed. Well enough to build Kirkland Springs Sanitorium near his spring, become a multi-millionaire, and turn the little village of Farmers' Corners into the company town of Kirkland."
"You're making him sound like a rotten man, John," Robin said. "He did a lot for the people of this town. Like this community center. There was no profit involved there."
"No," Steinberg agreed. "Just an attempt to make himself more godlike. The Great White Father dispensing blessings on his children, just like he dispensed his little pills and nostrums that would cure everything from hernias to cancer. He was a fraud, pure and simple."
"But he built this place for the people of the town — and the school, and the hospital," Cissy said.
"Showing off, that's all. You think the people who worked in his factories cared whether or not he used Carrara marble here in the lobby? You think they cared that those murals are by Winter? As long as they had a place to see their vaudeville — and later to watch movies — you think they cared? Kirk did it for his rich friends from Philadelphia and environs, to show them how goddamned rich he was. As for the school and hospital, maybe it was his way of buying off his guilt for all the harm he did with his useless potions."
"You know, John," Cissy said, "I like you, but the thing I don't like about you is that you think that anytime anybody does something nice they've got an ulterior motive."
"I believe in the innate selfishness of man, darling. It's that simple."
"What about Gandhi?" Cissy said. "Or someone like that guy in A Tale of Two Cities? Or Jesus, for crissake?"
"To take them in order, I'm sure that Gandhi got a great deal of inner pleasure from the sacrifices he made; Sidney Carton is a fictional character, but I suspect that his real-life counterpart would have been suicidal; and as for Jesus . . . well, I'm afraid that my own socio-religious background precludes serious consideration of him. However, I'd hazard a guess that a death by crucifixion was precisely what he wanted. It seems to have worked out for all concerned, doesn't it?"
Cissy cast a dry look at Robin. "And Dennis has put up with this guy for twenty years?"
Steinberg leaned forward and kissed Cissy on the cheek. "He pays for my economic savvy, dear, not my spiritual philosophies."
"Thank God," said Robin.
Any further conversation was halted by the little black girl who pushed herself between Steinberg and Robin. "Hello, Aunt Robin. Hi, Uncle John." She looked up at them with bright eyes. Her hair was corn-rowed to perfection, and she wore a spotless yellow dress with red stitching.
"Hey, sweet pea," Steinberg said, hoisting her aloft. "My God, Whitney, you're getting heavier every day. Why aren't you in bed?"
"I was, but I wanted to come to the party so much that Sid brought me down. Just for a while, he said. I haven't seen Grandma yet." The girl looked around cautiously. "Is she here?"
"She's somewhere," Robin said. "And you'd better hope you spot her first, young lady."
Cissy cleared her throat. "I don't think we've been introduced, John."
"Sorry. Cissy, this is Whitney Johnson, Marvella's granddaughter, and Whitney —"
"I know who you are," the girl interrupted. "You're Mona, and you're on Mona and Me. I watch it every week. My grandma made costumes for you once, didn't she?"
Cissy laughed, and shook the girl's hand. "She sure did. A long time ago. But Mona is just a character I play. My real name's Cissy."
Whitney nodded sagely. "I knew that, but I forgot. It says it at the start of the show. In the credits." She seemed proud to know the term.
"So are you visiting with your grandma down here?"
"I'm living with her for a while. My mom and dad are breaking up."
"Well now," Steinberg said gently, "you don't know that for sure. They might get back together."
"Grandma says fat chance." The girl gave an exaggerated sigh. "Grandma's nearly always right."
"What are you doing up?" came a voice from behind Steinberg. They all turned to see Marvella Johnson, all one hundred and sixty pounds of her, glowering in pretended ferocity at her granddaughter. "Didn't I say no party?"
"Sid brought me down," said Whitney, still in Steinberg's arms.
"Maybe I'll have to whup Sid and you both then."
The girl smiled. "You won't whup me, Grandma."
Marvella's huge chuckle sounded like tin cans rattling in a silo. "No, I guess I won't. C'mere, you stinker." She took the girl easily from Steinberg's arms and hugged her. "All right, a half hour. And at eleven o'clock I take your little bones back upstairs." She stifled a yawn. "And maybe I'll go with you. I'm not used to these late nights."
"You still a morning person, Marvella?" Cissy asked. "God, I remember those eight o'clock costume calls. I honestly believe you meant to kill us."
"Lazy show people." Marvella shook her massive head. "Get them up before noon and they're nothing but a pain in the . . .” She glanced at her granddaughter. “. . . in the posterior." She gave the little girl a squeeze. "Come on, honey, let's meet some more stars, what do you say? Excuse us?" She sashayed off into the crowd, bearing her granddaughter in one arm as lightly as a purse.
"She's part of your entourage too?" Cissy asked Robin.
"Mmm-hmm. Sort of a permanent wardrobe mistress."
"I thought she retired."
"She did," Steinberg said, "but when Dennis came up with this whole idea and asked her to work with us, she jumped at the chance. Her husband died last year, and I think she realized she would have been bored out of her skull just sitting around the city."
"And she's living here too?"
Robin nodded. "On the fourth floor. We wanted her on the third with the rest of us, but she wanted to be right next to the wardrobe room. Pretty lonely up there, though."
"Oh, she's not all alone," Steinberg said. "She does have Whitney."
"Just until Janice — that's Marvella's daughter — can find a place of her own," said Robin.
"And of course there's always Kitty," Steinberg said dryly.
“Kitty?”
"Our resident pussycat. Or the little bitch, as I like to call her, although her name's Cristina."
"A theatre cat?" Cissy said. "Oh, that's cute."
"You haven't seen her," said Robin. "She likes Abe Kipp, the head custodian, and that's about it. She tolerates me and absolutely hates Dennis."
"The poor man tried to pet her the first time he saw her," Steinberg said. "Bit him right to the bone."
Cissy gave a little snort. "Well, now that I know who all is down here, my next question is what do you do all day. Watch Kirkland Springs flow to the sea?"
"Kirkland Springs," Steinberg said, "dried up back in the late thirties, along with David Kirk's fortune, right around the time the FDA started getting serious about the patent medicine business. But there's plenty to do nevertheless. This was, after all, a community building. In the basement, we have a lovely pool, a small gymnasium —"
"Don't tell me, John," Cissy said. "Show me. If you want my investment, I have to observe the kind of lifestyle that I'll be supporting."
Robin bristled. "The backers will be supporting production costs alone, Cissy, that's all. Dennis bought this building, and he'll donate the space. And his own time." She smiled. "That said, I'd be glad to show you our underground pleasure palace. Shall we?"
"Why not?" said Cissy, mildly drunk. "But could the toady here get me another drink first?"
"The toady," Steinberg said, bowing, "would be honored. Would your highness prefer the usual Ripple on the rocks?"
~ * ~
Dennis Hamilton was bored. He had lost count of how many times he had discussed acting styles with Sybil Creed, but knew that the number guaranteed that neither one of them would at this point proselytize the other. Still, he nodded politely at her as they stood together on the mezzanine lobby, looking down through the marble arches at the guests below. He let her words bounce off him, and concentrated instead on the vista behind her.
The paintings and bas-reliefs clinging to the canvas of the lobby's curved and segmented ceiling were a hodge-podge of mythological and historical themes. Here a Babylonian war chariot raced toward a covey of cherubim, their piggish little mouths open in some hymn to . . . was it Apollo floating there? Yes, Dennis thought. It must be — there was the lyre . . .
“. . . liar, that's all you are, all anyone is who thinks that way."
He drew his attention back to the gray-haired woman whose black, shining dress seemed to be sprayed on her whip-thin body. "I'm sorry, Sybil? Think what way?"
"There! Concentration! Or the lack of it — that's the problem with all of you technical actors. Staring at the goddamned ceiling when you should be listening and martialing your resources."
"But it's a beautiful ceiling."
"Oh God, Dennis, how like you. It's the coward's way out, changing the subject like that."
"Now I'm a coward instead of a liar?"
"You've been both in your performances throughout your whole life."
"The critics seem to have liked my performances. And I won't mention the public."
"Why not?" Sybil said. "They're one and the same, aren't they? Both easily fooled. But not me, Dennis. You have always been an outward actor, never inward. And it is only the inward actor, the one who creates his performance from within, who gives a true performance."
"Using your own past experiences isn't creating, Sybil, it's interpreting. To me, real creativity is forming a character out of whole cloth." He shrugged. "And anyway, it doesn't matter whether a performance is true or not, as you put it. What matters is the impact it has on the audience."
"That's fraudulent."
"It's not fraudulent. You're an elitist, Sybil — you think that the only valid style of acting is when you use your own memories and responses. But how can you call any actor who touches an audience — who makes them laugh or cry or just, for Christ's sake, feel — fraudulent?"
"What else can you call someone who wears a mask? Honest?"
"What do you mean, a mask? That's a character, Sybil. The character takes over. That's where the creative act comes in."
"But in letting the character take over, you deny the reality of yourself.”
“Oh Christ . . .”
"Are you denying that, Dennis? You've done it all your life, you know, protected yourself from the truth about yourself. You're the most consistent mask-wearer I know."
"And what is the truth about myself, Sybil?"
"I don't know. Because you're so damned good at protecting it."
"Bullshit."
"Why are you so afraid to allow your real emotions to show through — your emotions, not the emotions of a character?"
"Sybil, you've baited me like this ever since I walked out of your acting class twenty years ago because I didn't want to be a tree."
Sybil's nostrils flared, and her mouth became a thin line as she bit off each word. "You would have learned a hell of a lot about acting from trying to be a tree, to use what was inside you to do it —"
"And blow in the wind like the rest of those pretentious little twits? 'Oooh, I feel the birds nesting in my branches . . .' Wonderful," he finished dryly.
"Jesus, what's this?" said Sidney Harper, coming up to the squabbling pair and placing a hand on Dennis's shoulder. "Our traditional battle royal?"
"Oh, go to hell, Sid," Dennis snapped, then grinned at the man.
"There," Sybil said. The words spilled out, not giving Dennis a chance to interrupt. "There you are, that's precisely what I mean, that grin. You really are angry at Sid. You really mean to tell him to go to hell, and you do, but then you cover up your anger with a false smile."
"It's a real smile," Dennis said, putting his arm around Sid. "I love Sid.”
“Yassah," Sid said, nodding crookedly. "Massah Dennis love this po' ol' white boy, cuz Sid, he wuk so hand fo' Massah Dennis."
"Can the crap, Sid." Sybil lit a cigarette, and blew a shaft of smoke in Sid's direction. "You're just as bad as Dennis. You hide what you feel with bullshit. But you were never as good at bullshitting as Dennis, and that's why you got out of acting."
"Whoo." Sid shook his head. "Isn't it awfully early in the evening to get so viperous, Sybil?"
"Excuse me," Dennis said, still smiling, "but this conversation's made me dry as hell. I need another drink." He walked away, toward the bar.
~ * ~
Sid set his drink on the wide balcony rail and crossed his well-muscled arms. He had to look up at Sybil, but the disparity in height didn't bother him. Sid could hold his own. "Why do you do that, Sybil?" he asked with a sigh.
"Do what?"
"You know — try and bust his hump like that."
"I couldn't have a few years ago. He would have argued with me for hours, or, more likely, called me a silly bitch. What's wrong with him?"
"Wrong?"
"He's not the same man, Sid. There's a weakness in him. He was always so imperial before, you couldn't tell the difference between him and the Emperor. But now . . ." She trailed off with a shrug.
"Yeah, he's changed, but I don't necessarily think it's for the worst," Sid said, leaning on the railing. "I like to think he's just mellowing. Easing out. The show's had a lot to do with it. I think he's been bored the last few years."
"His performances would indicate that."
"Come on, Sybil —"
"You know I'm right, Sid. Most people didn't notice it. The great unwashed who make up his audience, and of course the critics. But there's been a flatness to it.”
“Except . . ." Sid paused.
"What?"
"Well, basically I think you're right. And I think that Dennis realizes it too. But I saw almost every damn performance, and every once in a while, in the past year or so, he gave one that was just electric. A real killer, better than I'd ever seen him, even when it was all fresh and new in the sixties. And afterwards he would be just drained, totally exhausted." Sid's face grew thoughtful. "Sometimes he said . . ."
"What? What did he say?"
He looked at Sybil and found her too interested, too expectant, found himself on the verge of divulging things that Dennis would consider secret. "Nothing. Nothing important. Excuse me, Sybil."
Sid Harper took his glass from the balcony rail and walked into the oak-paneled men's lounge, where he sat alone on one of the renaissance-styled chairs and finished his drink. He thought about Dennis Hamilton, the man who had been his employer and friend for over twenty years, and thought about how glad he was that Dennis had left A Private Empire behind him. The show had made Dennis a fortune, it was true, but it had also cost him much.
~ * ~
There had been, first and foremost, the problem of identity. To the world at large, Dennis Hamilton was the Emperor Frederick, and vice versa, from the time he was nineteen years old, the star of A Private Empire and the newest enfant terrible of Broadway. The show had run on the street for five years, and Dennis had been with it for every performance, except for a five-month hiatus in 1968 in which he went to Hollywood to star in the film version. After the show closed, he accepted a number of movie offers, but the films, unlike the cinematic A Private Empire, were less than huge successes, both critically and at the box offices.
Dennis Hamilton was Emperor Frederick as surely as George Reeves had been Superman and Bela Lugosi Dracula, and neither his private detective in The Crystal .45, his beleaguered deputy in The Battle for Tombstone, nor his baffled college student in Up Against It won him attention. Only the rock musical, Sparks, made any money, and that was because Dennis's co-star was Bette Barton, whose rock album went platinum just before the film's release. Most of the critics observed rightly that Dennis's trained lyric baritone wasn't right for the role, and his vocal coach's attempts to turn him into an R&B belter were strained at best, laughable at worst.
After Sparks, the only offers of movie roles his agent was able to get were leads in low-budget films, which Dennis turned down. Instead he recorded albums of standards which sold slowly but steadily, appeared on TV variety shows, and performed in solo concerts around the country and occasionally in Vegas. Although films would have been more lucrative, Dennis had no need of money. Back in 1968, when he received a large amount from both his contract renewal and his film performance of Emperor Frederick, he had been lucky enough to fall into the hands of John Steinberg, an experienced financial manager who took the young man and his investments under his wing.
Steinberg guided Dennis through both his career and his private life, which included a marriage in 1969 to Natalie Pierce, a well-known stage actress a few years older than Dennis, the birth of their son Evan in 1970, and their divorce in 1971. Natalie got custody of the baby, which was, in retrospect, a mistake of the court, considering her suicide less than a year after the divorce was final. Evan then came to live with his father, whose career was scudding along more lethargically than the one that had driven Natalie Pierce to wash down fifty-seven sleeping pills with a bottle of Drambuie.
But because of John Steinberg's expertise with a dollar, Dennis Hamilton was able to bide his time and still live like the emperor he had created on the stage. Steinberg bought penny stocks that quickly grew to dollar ones. He invested in real estate like a wizard, purchasing apparently worthless lots that in a few years grew to be ideal places to build shopping malls, housing developments, and industrial parks. With those profits he bought song catalogues and invested in well-chosen films and theatrical productions, a dangerous game, but one which Steinberg loved to play, and played properly. Of seventeen such investments made from 1975 to 1978, only one failed to show a profit, and by 1978, Dennis Hamilton was worth in excess of fifty million dollars.
That year, Dennis was offered a lead in a TV series, a sitcom about a teacher at a military academy, and he accepted it against Steinberg's advice. Twelve episodes of Up in Arms were made, but critical response was so negative and viewer disinterest so high that only seven were aired.
Three more years of gradually declining album sales and less well attended concerts followed. Television variety shows were dead, and from 1978 to 1981 Dennis's television exposure consisted of eight appearances with Mery Griffin, and his annual appearance on the Muscular Dystrophy telethon, which had begun in 1972. Then, in 1981, Irwin Richards decided to stage a revival of A Private Empire, and asked Dennis if he would repeat his role of Emperor Frederick.
At first, Dennis was hesitant. "I've done it, John," he told Steinberg. "I mean, it's a part of my career that's behind me now."
"And what's ahead is so wonderful?" Steinberg asked. "You're only thirty-four years old, Dennis. You're a rich man, and your being rich has made me rich too, but except for A Private Empire, your life is notable only for the remarkable string of failures you've been able to pack into such an abbreviated career. No offense."
"Do I ever take any from you? If I did, we wouldn't have lasted a month together."
"My point is," Steinberg went on, "that like it or not, that show was the high point of your career. You are still a young man, and since you look far younger than you really are, you could still play the role to perfection. There has never been a better male part written in American musical theatre, as far as I'm concerned, and if you're still unconvinced, let me just whisper two little words to you."
"What?"
"Yul Brynner."
"Yul Brynner," Dennis repeated.
"Do you know what The King and I revival did for his career? And he'd been working steadily for nearly three decades anyway. You, on the other hand. . . Well, if you do this show, it should be even more impressive than Brynner's return to the stage, because, unlike him, you have barely been seen for ten years. You would be like a phoenix rising from the conflagration of a, shall we say, less than splendid career? It would be as though no time has passed since today and 1966."
"You think I should do it."
"No, of course not, I just love to hear myself talk.”
“I don't know, John . . ."
"My dear boy," Steinberg said without a smile, "may I be blunt?”
“Blunter than usual?"
"Yes. It won't be easy to hear, but it's necessary if you want to do more than merely be a wealthy man."
"All right," Dennis said after a pause. "Shoot."
"I will. You are not a marketable commodity in the eighties, Dennis. You have a spectacular musical comedy voice, your acting is solid if not on the level of Olivier, your dancing is less than splendid, due to those same flat feet that kept you from military service and, you being the klutz you are, no doubt saved your life. You are a creature of the musical theatre. And I have urged you time and again to return to the stage, perhaps in some vehicles that, true, were not worthy of your participation, but you have always refused, feeling that a return to Broadway was a step backwards. But on screen and television, except for the film version of Empire, you have only a string of failures behind you, and as far as recording goes, your once a year albums no longer sell enough to warrant their creation, as you have no doubt been able to tell by RCA's lack of enthusiasm over your latest proposed project. Are you with me so far?"