Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 by Romance Read Free Book Online Page A

the actor playing the Detective. Tall and lean and dark-haired and wearing jeans, sneakers, and a purple Ralph
     Lauren sweater.
    “We’ve
been
doing the fucking thing,” Michelle said, “over and over
again
, and I
still
don’t know who it is that steps out of the shadows and stabs me.”
    “That’s not important,” Andrea said.
    Andrea Packer, the
All About Eve
twit who was playing the Understudy. Andrea was nineteen years old, with long blond hair, dark brown eyes and a lean, coltish
     figure. In real life, she had a waspish tongue and a cool manner that perfectly suited the character of the Understudy; sometimes,
     Michelle felt she wasn’t acting at all. Her rehearsal outfit this afternoon consisted of a short blue wraparound skirt over
     black leotard and tights.
    Michelle hated her guts.
    “Maybe it’s not important to
you,
“ she said, “but then again
you’re
not the one getting stabbed.
I’m
the one getting stabbed by this unidentifiable
person
who steps out of the shadows wearing a long black coat and a black hat pulled down over his or her head, who is really Jerry…
     ”
    “Hi,” Jerry said, popping his head out from behind the teaser, where he’d been waiting for his cue.
    “… who was the waiter with the mustache in the scene just before this one. I don’t think it’s the waiter with the
mustache
who’s stabbing me, is it? Because then it becomes just plain ridiculous. And it can’t be the
Detective
who’s stabbing me because
he’s
the one who leads me back to finding myself again and all that. So it’s got to be either the Understudy or the Director because
     they’re the only other important characters in the play, so which one is it? Is it Andrea or is it Coop, I just want to know
     who it is.”
    “Well, I don’t think it’s
me,”
Cooper Haynes said apologetically. He was forty-three years old, a dignified-looking gentleman who’d done years and years
     of soap opera—daytime serial, as it was known in the trade—usually playing one or another sympathetic doctor. In
Romance,
he was playing the Director. Actually, he was much nicer than any director Michelle had ever met in her life, even the ones
     who
didn’t try
to get in her pants. “I haven’t been playing the part as if I’m the one who stabs her,” he said, and shaded his
eyes
and looked out into the darkness. “Ash, if I
am
the stabber, I think I should know it, don’t you? It would change my entire approach.”
    “I think we’re
all
entitled to know who stabs me,” Michelle said.
    “I truly don’t
care
who stabs you,” Andrea said.
    “Neither do l,” Mark said.
    “Ashley’s right, it’s not germane to the scene.”
    “Or even to the play.”
    “Maybe the butler stabs you,” Jerry whispered from the wings.
    “If a person gets stabbed, people want to know who stabbed her,” Michelle insisted. “You can’t just leave it hanging there.”
    “This isn’t a play about a person getting stabbed,” Andrea said. “Or hanged.”
    “Oh? What’s it about then? An understudy who can’t act?”
    “Oh-ho!”
Andrea said, and turned away angrily.
    “Freddie, are you out there?” Michelle shouted to the theater.“Can
you
tell me who stabs … ?”
    “He’s not here, Michelle,” Kendall said wearily.
    He was uncomfortably aware that Morgenstern was sitting beside him here in the sixth row and he didn’t want his producer to
     get the impression that he was losing control of his actors, especially when he actually was. The moment an actor started
     screaming for clarification from the playwright was the moment to come down hard, star or no star. Which, by the way, Michelle
     Cassidy wasn’t,
Annie
or no Annie, which was a hundred years ago, anyway.
    Using his best Otto Preminger voice, seething with controlled rage, he said, “Michelle, you’re holding up rehearsal. I want
     to do this scene, and I want to do it right, and I want to do it
now.
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