Excerpt from The Role Players:
Excerpt from The Role Players:
We returned to the apartment a little after ten and were
sitting in the living room talking when Max came in at around 10:30. With
a nod to Jonathan and me, he walked directly over to Chris and bent over
to give him a peck on the forehead.
"Rough one?" Chris asked as Max stood up and, placing
his hands on his hips, did a back stretch.
"What's happening to me?" Max asked. "I used to be a
kid!" He looked tired. I moved closer to Jonathan to allow Max to join us
on the couch, onto which he plopped down heavily. He turned to Jonathan with
a weak grin.
"Enjoy it while ya' got it, kid," he said. Then he looked
at Chris and said: "Does that answer your question?"
Chris nodded. "Yep."
Max sighed. "We did a complete run through with
Cam—he's Rod's understudy—for the first time."
"Problems, I gather?" I asked. Max gave me the same weak
smile he'd given Jonathan.
"Can we say ‘train wreck,' boys and girls? All the
actors play two or three roles. When Cam stepped into Rod's part, that meant
we had to get someone to take his parts, and…well, there was a hell
of a lot of shifting around. But as a result, everybody was about a quarter
octave off pitch—or would have been if this were a musical, but you
get the idea. I have to give Cam credit, though, he knew every single one
of Rod's lines by heart. And Gene was there, like Banquo's ghost, pacing
back and forth behind the last row and not saying a word, which made everybody
as awkward as all hell, not knowing what to say to the guy, or if they should
say anything at all. Tait went back and asked him why he didn't just go home
and get some rest, but Gene insisted he just wanted to be there." He sighed
heavily. "Well, hopefully Monday will go better. It couldn't get much worse.
And we open next Friday."
Turning to me, he said casually: "Oh, and Tait has invited
us all over to his place tomorrow for lunch. He wants to meet Dick and Jonathan."
"That was nice of him," I said.
"Especially considering everything he's going through."
Jonathan nodded in agreement. From the expression on
Chris' face, I gathered this invitation had not been of long-standing
duration.
"Does Mr. Duncan know what I do for a living?" I asked,
sensing something Max wasn't saying.
Max looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I think both
Chris and I had probably mentioned it to him at one time or another, and
then tonight he called me into his office and was asking some questions about
you."
Gee, one of my mind voices—the one in charge
of skepticism—observed, I can't possibly imagine why. "So there
might be something behind the invitation other than just his being a nice
guy," I said.
Max sighed. "Well…I wouldn't be surprised. He asked
me not to repeat our conversation to anyone involved in the play, so I get
the feeling…" he paused.
"Yes?" I prompted after the pause exceeded my three-second
patience limit.
Max seemed to be having second thoughts about whatever
he'd started to say."Well," he said, "I mean, this is your vacation, after
all, and we don't have to go. Hey, I can call Tait in the morning tell him
we can't make it. I can tell him you'd already made plans for the day."
"No, no," I said. "After his having gone out of his way
to help get us tickets for Cats it would be pretty rude to ignore
his invitation."
Now it was my turn for a slight pause before: "So you
were saying about this feeling you had…?"
He shrugged. "I get the feeling he thinks one of us involved
with the play killed Rod."