Denial

13

I explained to Ames as we drove up 301 to DeSoto and then went west past the greyhound track on our left and then the airport on our right. There was a long wait at the light at Tamiami Trail. The Ringling Museum of Art sat about three hundred yards in front of us behind the iron fence. The light changed. I went across the Trail and made a right turn into the Florida State University Asolo Center.

The parking lot was almost full, with visitors to the museum and to the matinee performance. I drove past the large box, which housed the theater, the Sarasota Ballet and the Florida State University graduate program for acting students.

I found a parking spot near the backstage entrance, pulled in and got out with Ames coming around and joining me as I moved up the concrete steps toward the door. It had taken less than fifteen minutes.

I had tried to think about what I would do when I stood in front of the man who had wept on the phone, but nothing would come. Whatever happened would happen. I had no plan. I glanced at Ames and saw that he had a plan; it consisted of showing me a very small pistol in the palm of his right hand.

“Double derringer,” he said. “A forty-one-caliber rimfire.”

“I don’t think we’ll need that,” I said.

“Can’t hurt,” he said.

“Yes, it can.”

He shrugged. We had no time to discuss it. We went through the door, Ames hiding the weapon in the palm of his large hand.

The security counter was on our left. A man in a blue uniform, lean and spectacled, stood behind the counter. There was no one else in view. The double doors leading backstage were closed.

“A man,” I said. “Big, white beard, wanted to see Nancy Root.”

The man behind the desk looked at us.

“Who’re you?” the guard said.

“Friends of Miss Root,” I said. “Where’s the man?”

“Left,” he said. “Nervous. Asked how much longer the show was. Not much room to pace in here. He went outside, walked around a little and then went off to the right, walking fast. You want to see Miss Root, you’ll have to wait too.”

“Is there any other way in?” I asked.

“Couple,” he said. “Can’t open them from outside and if they open from inside, it lights up on the board back here.”

“Except for the entrance to the theater?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“If he comes back, don’t let him in to see Miss Root,” I said.

“Not up to me,” he said. “Up to her.” He looked us over. A short dark man wearing a baseball cap. A tall old man in flannel shirt and an old cracking leather jacket. “You’re not cops.”

I didn’t confirm his keen observation. I went back outside with Ames next to me. We hurried around the building and up the steps to the theater. The doors were open. The play had to be nearly over.

An old woman in a white blouse and blue skirt stood talking to a young man behind the refreshment counter in front of us. They looked us over as we moved quickly toward them. The woman held a finger to her lips to let us know that we should be quiet. She whispered, “Show’s almost over. Can I help you?”

“Big man, white hair, white beard,” I said. “Did he come in a little while ago?”

“Yes,” she said. “Very odd. He said he had to get in. I told him he had missed more than half the show, but he went to the box office and bought a ticket.”

“He’s in the theater?” I asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Where?”

“Balcony,” she said. “Plenty of seats on the main floor, but I didn’t want him to disrupt the actors, so I thought-”

“We really have to find him,” I said.

“Performance will be over in about fifteen minutes or so,” she said.

“We really have to find him now,” I said.

“Why?” the young man behind the counter said.

I tried to think of a good lie that would get us in. I failed, so I said, “You know what happened to Nancy Root’s son?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

The young man nodded.

“I think the man with the beard was driving the car,” I said. “I’m working for Miss Root.”

“I’m calling security,” said the young man.

The woman looked confused.

“Good idea,” I said, starting toward the stairs on my left, half expecting the old woman to try to stop us. She didn’t.

We came to the mezzanine landing and went up another flight of carpeted steps and moved through a closed door into near darkness. We could hear voices, the projected sound of actors’ voices that said, We’re actors. We’re not talking normally. We’re projecting. We expect you to pretend that you don’t notice.

I groped my way through a hanging velvety drape with Ames at my side. A voice from the stage below us, Nancy Root’s voice, said, “And you think that would stop me? Fifteen years together and you think a few words can stop me now?”

The light from the stage was bright enough to make out the seats in the balcony, though the people in them were shadowy.

“Not here,” Ames whispered before I could see faces.

Most of the seats weren’t filled. People were scattered.

From the stage, a man’s voice said, “Stop you? With words? You’re right. I know you too well to think that common sense would make any difference. No, Maddy, I’m going to kill you.”

I motioned Ames down narrow steps and looked over the balcony into the orchestra seats. Ames did the same. The man wasn’t there. On the stage, Nancy Root, in a blonde wig, stood in a living room, arms folded, facing a tall, burly-looking man with wavy brown hair and a knowing smile. She was wearing a blue dress showing cleavage. He was wearing a tuxedo. He was holding a gun.

I was trying to think of where we could stand to see the seats in the mezzanine and the rear of the ground floor when Ames nudged me and pointed across the theater at a box seat at the mezzanine level.

A single figure sat in it, a burly man with a white beard. His hands gripped the bronze rail in front of him as he looked down at Nancy Root.

I was moving back up the steps to return to the steps to the mezzanine level when the man looked over at us. Our movement had caught his eye.

Our eyes met. He recognized me. I didn’t recognize him but I knew who he was. He got up and stepped back quickly into the shadows of the box. Ames and I hurried up the last few steps, went through the drapes and headed for the door and the steps beyond, which would take us to the mezzanine level.

The box where the man had been was empty, the door open.

On stage, Nancy Root was saying, “I have a cliche for you, Norman. You won’t get away with it.”

“Why not?” the man asked with a touch of amusement.

“Because,” she said, “I’m recording everything we say. Don’t bother to look around. It’s voice activated and the microphone is extremely well hidden.”

“You’re lying,” he said.

“Am I? Well, there is one way to find out,” Nancy Root said. “I don’t recommend it for either of our sakes.”

Ames and I were back in a dark corridor just beyond the box seat. The man hadn’t passed us. There was an emergency exit to the left. This time Ames led the way. We were on a bare concrete landing. Bare concrete steps with a metal railing led down. Footsteps clanged below us.

“Wait,” I called.

The footsteps stopped.

“Let’s talk,” I said.

Ames, derringer in hand, started slowly, quietly down the stairs back against the wall. I leaned over the railing. There was no one in sight.

Somewhere below us the man, his voice echoing, said, “Not here. Not now. I have to take care of things. Take care of her before-”

“Nancy Root?”

“No,” he said. “Oh God, I should have let her kill you.”

“Her?” I called.

“The woman who tried to run you down,” he said.

I could hear him move, heard the echo of running feet below. First the man. Then Ames hurrying down. I started after him, my sore knee slowing me down, and reached the ground level in time to see Ames go through a door and turn to the right. The door started to close. I pushed the door back open and followed him.

The security guard came through a door in front of me and said, “What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer. I followed Ames.

“I said, What’s going on?” the guard repeated.

A turn in the corridor. Dressing rooms. Something that looked like a small lounge. An almost empty room with a polished wooden floor and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall.

I was closing in on Ames, who pushed through a door into a small, empty theater with seats graded upward about fifteen rows. There was a dim light coming from the small stage to our right and exit lights behind us and across from us.

We headed for the exit and pushed through a door and found ourselves back in the lobby with the old woman and the young man behind the refreshment counter.

“That way,” shouted the man, pointing to the entrance to the theater.

We ran through the doors into the late afternoon.

Fear, anger, desperation, adrenaline had kicked up the speed of the big man in front of us. He had a lead of about thirty yards.

Ames slowed down a little and said, “Damn arthritis.”

I moved past him, losing my Cubs cap. I was in good shape, at least for running, but my knee did more than just slow me down. I didn’t know what I’d do even if I had been able to catch up with the man, who was a good four or five inches taller than I was and at least fifty pounds heavier.

The man got to his car, opened the door, sat heavily and slammed the door. I was in the middle of the aisle. He was parked between two cars facing into the space. He backed out, swinging the rear of his car in my direction with a wailing squeal.

I moved between two parked cars. I could see the dented fender, the broken light. He was almost even with me. He looked over the passenger seat and met my eyes. I’m not sure what he saw. I’m not sure what I was feeling. I definitely wasn’t thinking.

He shifted into drive and started forward.

A shot, the sound of a firecracker, came from the small gun in Ames McKinney’s hand. Ames was standing in the driveway now. The bullet hit the rear window of the car as it started forward. It made a hole but didn’t shatter. Ames fired again. The bullet pinged off the trunk as the driver made a sharp left turn.

“Two pellets,” Ames said. “That’s it.”

He held up the empty little gun.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“No,” I said, imagining a wild car chase, imagined the clearly desperate man losing control, a crash. “We’ll find him. Now we know where to look.”

We went back through the stage door, where the fuming security guard stood with his hands on his hips and greeted us with, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Miss Root will explain,” I said.

“She’d better,” he said. “I’ve got to write this up, you know.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t need this kind of crap, you know.”

“I know,” I said.

“I get crap about this, I’m quitting. I can always bag groceries at Publix or Albertsons.”

He went back behind the counter, pulled out a pad and began to fill out the form, shaking his head the whole time while we waited for Nancy Root.

She came out about five minutes later, still in costume and makeup.

“Where is he?” she said, looking at Ames and me.

“Got away,” I answered.

“I saw him in the box stage right, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” I said.

“He’s insane, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Something like that,” I agreed.

I wondered if the person who had run down my wife had felt anything like the kind of guilt as the bearded man. I hoped he did.

Nancy Root and I looked at each other. Her mask of makeup didn’t cover the pain in her eyes. I knew that pain. I saw it in mirrors when I had to look or mistakenly looked. She was an actress. She would have to look in mirrors as long as she worked at her profession. She was young. She had a lot of years to look at those mourning eyes.