The Fourth Wall Read online

  After about an hour I couldn’t take any more. I went out to the lobby and dropped a dime into the pay phone.

  Vivian Frank answered herself. “Hello?”

  “Don’t get sick,” I said.

  “Don’t …? Abby?”

  “I’m at the Marilyn Frazier rehearsal.”

  “Oh. That bad, huh?”

  “That bad. Hopeless, in fact. I’ll never forgive John Reddick.”

  “Or Gene Ramsay.”

  “I don’t expect any better of Gene Ramsay. I do of John. Just because he was eager to get on to his new play—”

  “Oh, I don’t think that had anything to do with it—”

  “Ho, don’t you believe it! He picked just anybody so he could have it settled and done with. I’ll kill him.”

  Vivian good-naturedly let me grumble on for another few minutes. It didn’t really change anything, but I had to sound off to somebody.

  9

  In December the weather was surprisingly mild, and one Saturday I was running errands and feeling good. When I found myself at Columbus Circle, I stopped: Sylvia Markey and Jake Steiner lived nearby. On impulse I turned on to Central Park South and walked until I came to their apartment building.

  I gave the doorman my name and asked if Jake Steiner was in. To my surprise, he was. The doorman hung up his phone and told me to go on up.

  “Come in, Abby.” Jake looked well, considering the strain he’d been under. His face was gray and tired, but he held his body straight and his head up. “Drink?”

  I declined. “How do things stand, Jake? The hospital won’t say anything other than ‘condition stable.’”

  The beginnings of a smile appeared on his face. “She’s coming home, Abby. In three days. She’s coming home.” The surprise must have shown on my face, because Jake went on, “The doctors wanted her to go to a nursing home, but I know I can give her better care than one of those impersonal institutions. Oh, she’ll have qualified nurses here—around the clock. She’ll be well taken care of, you can be sure.”

  “But … I thought there would be surgery?”

  “There will, but not for some time yet. She’s got a lot of healing to do first. Then there’ll be a whole series of operations. It’ll take several years, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh Christ, poor Sylvia.”

  “And they haven’t decided yet what’s best to do about her hand. They—”

  “Her hand?”

  “The one she used to smear the cold cream on her face. Before she realized she was on fire.”

  I felt myself sagging. I hadn’t even thought about her hand.

  “And you know she’s lost the sight in her right eye, don’t you?”

  Dear God, would this list of horrors never end? “No, I didn’t know.”

  “So, all in all, I thought it better to keep her here with me. Sylvia’s changed, Abby. She’s no longer the person she used to be—who would be, after a thing like that. She’s afraid. I mean really afraid. She’s afraid of the nurses, the doctors, the police—she won’t talk on the phone or open the mail. She’s afraid of the aide who comes in to fill her water pitcher. She won’t even go to the bathroom unless I promise to stand by the door and make sure nobody breaks in. You see why I can’t send her to a nursing home? I’m the only one she trusts, Abby. I have to stay with her.”

  Out of that mass of depressing detail I grasped at the one straw I saw. “She can talk, then?”

  “Out of the left side of her mouth. It still hurts her, and the doctor said it’d be better if she’d write notes, give the mouth time to heal. But sometimes she gets so frustrated trying to write with her left hand that she just blurts out what she wants to say.”

  “Could I visit her?”

  “I’m sorry, no. She won’t see anyone except me. She just wants to hide. It’s as if she’s ashamed as well as frightened. She feels degraded, the way she felt when this guy broke into the apartment—only a thousand times worse. I got a psychiatrist for her, but she won’t talk to him. Not yet, anyway. She won’t talk to anybody but me. If a nurse is standing right there by her bed, she’ll still tell me what it is she wants the nurse to do.”

  “Jake, how are you going to manage all this? You can’t be with her all the time. Your work—”

  “No more. I’ve told my partner I want to sell my share of the business.”

  “Oh, Jake!”

  “I hadn’t meant to retire for another six or seven years yet, but it can’t be helped. Sylvia needs me now in a way she’s never needed me before. She used to be so self-sufficient, Abby. Well, that’s all changed now.”

  We were both silent a moment, and then I asked, “Do the doctors have any idea of how much of her face can be restored?”

  Jake shrugged. “Too early to tell. Even if they can restore it to the point where she’s willing to see people again, that side of her face will be dead. The muscles are destroyed—she’ll have no facial expression on the right side whatsoever.”

  “Does she know? Has she been told?”

  An oddly beatific expression came over Jake’s face. “Yes. Sylvia said if I didn’t tell her the complete truth, then she’d have nobody she could trust. So I told her. She must have someone she can believe in, or she’ll lose what little grip on reality she still has. I’m the only thing standing between her and madness.” One corner of his mouth twitched.

  The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees; I was beginning to understand.

  Jake continued, “She knows she’s finished as an actress. And she understands what her life is going to be like the next few years. The walls of this apartment, strangers in nurses’ uniforms, and me. It’s up to me to make that life tolerable for her. I must keep her mind healthy and her interest in life strong. She’s completely dependent on me now. Isn’t that strange, Abby? A woman like Sylvia, so completely in control of her world. Now she’s been reduced to a frightened, whimpering child who has to turn to me for everything she wants.”

  “My God, Jake,” I muttered, “do you know what you’re saying?”

  He didn’t hear me; he was smiling openly now. “Orphans want to be hugged a lot, did you know that? Sylvia’s like that now. She used to dislike being touched. Now I stroke her hair or sit on the hospital bed with my arm around her and she feels comforted. Such a little thing, touching—but it means so much to her, now. I have to keep reassuring her that I’m not going to leave her. Such a foolish fear. I’ll never leave her. I’ll take care of her always. Always.”

  I felt as if I were caught in an iceberg. To break the illusion I moved toward the door; Jake was there before me, opening it.

  “Abby, promise me something. Promise you won’t worry about not doing that little job I asked you to do.”

  “What little job?” I managed to say.

  “Keeping an eye open backstage at Foxfire, trying to find out who Sylvia’s enemy is. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway, so don’t worry about it. I understand why you had to go to Pittsburgh. Your career is important too.” He smiled.

  I stood frozen in the doorway. Don’t you have enough? Must I feel guilty too? I felt myself being nudged out into the hallway.

  “Goodbye, Abby,” Jake Steiner said. He shut the door.

  Somehow I made my way out of the building. The pleasant winter day had turned to dirt. Who would have guessed that the comfortable exterior known as Jake Steiner housed such a monster of resentment and retribution? I plodded along the street, turned a corner without thinking, stopped mechanically for a traffic light. When I started seeing again, I looked for a bar. I could use that drink now.

  The first bar I came to was stifling inside. I slipped out of my coat and asked the bartender for a scotch. So Sylvia Markey was to be punished for having been self-sufficient. How long had that been gnawing at Jake, knowing he was not the center of his wife’s universe? Why had he married Sylvia in the first place? Did he see some sort of challenge there, a test of the warped notion that a man is a man o
nly if he dominates?

  No, that was too simple. Besides, Jake had always been such a loving husband. Even now I couldn’t believe it had all been an act; but obviously I’d been mistaken about the kind of love Jake felt. John Fowles was right: in Daniel Martin he had written that when people say “I love you,” they really mean “I want to own you.” How Jake must have resented Sylvia’s independence. But she would pay for it now.

  Someone farther down the bar was trying to attract my attention. There, wearing a turtleneck sweater and an off-duty grin, sat the policeman who always managed to rile me. I was vaguely pleased to see he was holding a martini; I’d always suspected vermouth drinkers were not to be trusted.

  Sergeant Piperson took the bar stool next to mine. “You look like you’ve just lost your best friend.”

  As if. “I’ve been talking to Jake Steiner. Sylvia Markey’s leaving the hospital in a few days.”

  “That’s bad news?”

  “She’s in bad shape.” He waited for me to go on, but I didn’t.

  “Well, I’m sorry she’s in bad shape,” the Sergeant said, “but I don’t see what you’re so upset about, Abby. You don’t really like her.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I took a swallow of my drink and said, “Are you really that callous? Or is it part of some tough-guy image you’re trying to project?”

  His face reddened. “Now, wait a minute—”

  “No, you wait a minute. A woman’s life has been ruined, and I’m supposed to shrug the whole thing off because we weren’t close friends? How can you be so insensitive?”

  “Look, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but if you had to see the things I see every day—”

  “I’d be as thick-skinned as you are? I don’t think so.” I finished my drink.

  “You’re pretty quick on the trigger, aren’t you?” Sergeant Piperson grunted. “All I said was you shouldn’t be upset.”

  I didn’t say anything. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was taking my anger at Jake Steiner out on him. Sergeant Piperson motioned to the bartender for refills.

  Time to mend fences. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I said. “It was just the way you worded it, it sounded … oh, never mind. I’m sorry.”

  “’Sokay.” The bartender brought our drinks. “Where had you been planning to go for Christmas? Before I spoiled your plans.”

  “Boston.” I told him about my aunt’s open house, keeping up my end of a stupid conversation neither one of us was interested in.

  “I’ve spent the last three Christmas Eves in the station,” the Sergeant said.

  “Are you on duty this Christmas too?”

  “No, but something’ll happen to call me in. Always does.”

  “Maybe not this time.”

  I could feel him looking at me through his invisible eyelashes. “Hey, buck up. We’ll catch him.”

  “Will you? That’s the first time I’ve heard you say so.”

  “We’re not just sitting on our duffs. We’ll get him.”

  “I hope so. Nobody’s really functioning full power as long as this sadist is on the loose. I know I’m not. I haven’t written a word for nearly a month. I’m a writer, you know. I’m supposed to write. Well, I don’t seem to be doing it.”

  “You mean your whaddayacallit, your muse has deserted you? No inspiration, or what?”

  I sighed. “Inspiration is a Victorian myth. Writing is work. You can’t do it if you can’t concentrate. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate.”

  “It’ll come back,” Sergeant Piperson dismissed my problem, leaving me unsure what the “it” referred to. “Tell me about Hugh Odell,” he said abruptly.

  Hugh Odell. The new favorite suspect? “Well. He trained at Dublin Abbey—”

  “Naw, not that kind of stuff. You know what I’m looking for. Personal stuff.”

  Personal stuff. “Sergeant, we both know that whatever I can tell you you’ve already got typed up and tucked away in a folder somewhere. So why go through it all again?”

  “What caused his breakdown?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Four or five years earlier Hugh had completely retreated from the world, spending a year in a private clinic in Switzerland. Then abruptly he was back—the same professional, hard-working, asthma-ridden Hugh I’d always known. He’d picked up his career where he’d left off, and his year away from the theater was more or less treated as nothing more than a long vacation. He’d volunteered no information and I’d asked no questions.

  “Probably a great number of things,” I said in answer to Sergeant Piperson’s question, “none of which I know. He never talked about it.”

  “Tell me about his wife.”

  “What do you want me to tell you? Her name’s Rosemary, she’s young, she’s pretty. She and Hugh have been married only about a year.”

  “And you don’t like her.”

  I had to laugh. “That obvious?”

  “Mmm. What don’t you like about her?”

  “What I don’t like is the way Hugh dotes on her. More like an overfond father than a husband. He’s a lot older than she is.”

  “Twenty-nine years.”

  “That much? I didn’t realize. I’ve known Hugh a long time, and I don’t like seeing some bland young girl exerting that kind of power over him. There are other ways of recapturing one’s lost youth.”

  “But what’s she like?”

  “Well, she has no humor. She never thinks—she doesn’t do anything. She likes being waited on. Rosemary never questions her right to be adored—she casually accepts Hugh’s worship as her due. Hugh gives her everything she asks for. In short, she’s one of those vacuous girls to whom things come without any effort on their part.”

  The Sergeant smirked. “Wow, I’d hate to have you mad at me.”

  “I’ve told you nothing you couldn’t see for yourself just by watching the two of them together. And you did ask me, you know.”

  “And you were quick to slip the needle in when you got the chance.”

  I turned on my stool so I was facing him. “Sergeant Piperson, you’re the most peculiar cop I’ve ever met. You ask me for information I know you already have. And when I try to oblige, you make me feel like a fool or a traitor or worse for trying to co-operate. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this to me.”

  He laughed. “God, are you theater people touchy! You snap and hiss and crackle at everything I say. All of you. Talk about temperament!”

  There it was again: you theater people. “Sergeant, where did you get your ideas about theater people? From Tallulah Bankhead? The twenties? The Royal Family? Theater isn’t like that any more. You insult me and when I object, you brush me off by saying ‘you theater people.’ As if that explained something.”

  “Take it easy, nobody’s insulting you. Simmer down.”

  “Don’t tell me to simmer down. I dislike being spoken to as if I were some yo-yo you just pulled in for shoplifting. You’re damned condescending, do you know that?” I glanced up to see the bartender watching us with interest. “Don’t set any more traps for me. And if you don’t know how to talk to people civilly, then maybe you’d better send around someone who does.”

  He didn’t like that. “Look, lady, I’m in charge of this case and I’m the one you’ll talk to. Whenever I say, and as often as I say.”

  I gave up. For the second time, I turned my back on him and walked away. Rudeness for rudeness, a tooth for a tooth.

  Outside I waved for a cab. Damn that Piperson. All along I’d been overestimating him, giving him credit for some clever but indiscernible plan of investigation when in truth he was nothing more than that stereotype of bad fiction, the dumb cop. I doubted that even now he understood how offensive he’d been, implying that my judgment was not trustworthy simply because I worked in the theater.

  To hell with him.

  10

  All was peace and quiet until two days before Christmas. I was on my way out to meet some frie
nds when the telephone stopped me.

  It was Leo Gunn, the stage manager. “Goddamnedest thing has happened, Abby. We’re going to have to shut down for a while. Somebody wrecked the set.”

  It came at me too fast; I had trouble taking it in. “What do you mean, somebody wrecked the set?” I said stupidly.

  “Somebody got in the theater during the day and tore the set apart. The flats are ripped up and there’s paint all over the place. I’ve called Gene Ramsay and the police.” Silence for a moment. “Abby?”

  I came to. “Yes. I’ll be right there.” I called my friends and then hurried to the theater.

  The sight that greeted me was an ugly one. As Leo Gunn had said, the flats were ripped up and yellow paint was splashed over everything. The stage furniture had been chopped up with an ax; I couldn’t see one piece that looked as if it could be repaired. All the set decoration—lamps, pictures, books, and so on—all of it was smashed. The sky-drop was in shreds. Wiring had been ripped up, the control console smashed, and all the glass in the lighting instruments was broken. Whoever had done this had taken his time and made a thorough job of it. Someone hated Foxfire with an intensity I couldn’t begin to understand.

  Gene Ramsay was yelling at the guard. “Where the hell were you? You’re supposed to prevent this kind of thing! Where were you?”

  “I was right here, Mr. Ramsay, at four o’clock,” said the guard. “The same time I always come in. The damage had already been done. You didn’t contract for round-the-clock protection. Somebody got in before I got here.”

  “Did you check all the doors when you left last night?”

  “Of course. Every one of them was locked.”

  “You overlooked something.”

  “No sir, I did not,” said the guard firmly. “The police are trying to find out right now how he got in, and if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go help them.” The guard walked away and spoke to Sergeant Piperson, whom I now saw for the first time.