Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence H. Levy Read Free Book Online Page A

of land and—”
    “Small? From what I’m told there’s not much of Fifth Avenue left. They’re thinking of changing its name to Arabella Way.”
    She emitted a short bellow of a laugh. “Oh, George, you do have such a wonderful sense of humor.”
    “Thank you. You’re being generous as usual. Arabella and Archer, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Mary Handley.”
    “Well,” said Arabella, “I am more than pleased to meet any friend of George’s. How do you do, Miss Handley?”
    After the requisite bows and pleasantries were exchanged between Mary and the Huntingtons, George turned to Archer. “Archer, I know how fascinated you are with Hispanic culture. Have you seen the Goya the museum just acquired?”
    “Really, a Goya? Where is it?”
    “Come, I’ll show you. Please excuse us, ladies. We’ll be right back.”
    And they left, but not before George nodded his good-bye, casting an almost imperceptible sly glance at Mary. There was definitely an element of the rogue in him, and Mary liked that. She was also impressed by how smoothly he had orchestrated her being alone with Arabella Huntington—without even a hint of suspicion.
    “Well, it looks like we have an opportunity to have a little get-to-know-you chat,” Arabella remarked with a smile.
    “Yes, I’d like that very much, Mrs. Huntington.”
    “Good,” responded Arabella as the coldness she’d exhibited with her driver crept into her voice. “But first you must explain why you, a neophyte detective, were pretending to sketch houses outside my home.”

5
    A BIGAIL C ORDAY WAS an actress of little repute, her accomplishments unable to fill the smallest footnote in the annals of New York theater or any theater at all. Much to her chagrin, besides having a few small roles in some less than noteworthy melodramas, her biggest break had come a few months earlier when she was cast in a production of Sophocles’s
Electra,
where she was merely one of many in the chorus of the Women of Mycenae. Since a Greek chorus required a uniformity of look and movement, individual actors rarely stood out. But Abigail had managed to circumvent that.
    She had long admired the Italian actress Eleonora Duse, who was known for her naturalistic acting style and for portraying real, raw emotions. She felt only disdain for most actors of the day. Their set facial expressions and hand gestures indicating what emotion they were supposed to be feeling were superficial, phony, and almost comical to her. Abigail had worked hard on her part in the Greek chorus of
Electra,
making sure every word, every gesture, and every movement was completely genuine and truly felt. She had even created a detailed background for her character. It had nothing to do with the action of the play, but it had helped her to understand who she was and why she was there.
    Abigail realized early on that the director had no concept of reality, urging the actors to make one untruthful move after another. So she approached him after one of the rehearsals. She pointed out that the chorus was looking up when they should have been looking left and they were moving to the right when they obviously should have been moving forward.
    “Why would I look up? What’s my motivation?” she had asked.
    He had simply replied, “Your job, my dear.”
    On opening night, after three weeks of rehearsal following the director’s lead and feeling like a complete fraud, she had come to the conclusion that she was going to show the American audiences what real acting was. True, she was part of a chorus, but all the Women of Mycenae were real people who had very real lives. If the director had been more receptive to her ideas, he would have understood. How could anyone contest that they were all human beings?
    When the curtain rose and the play had begun, she was a living, breathing person, and the others in the chorus were the lifeless automatons of the director’s creation. She had rationalized that the fact that