The Cutthroat

Eighty men and women were sleeping on the train. This late at night, the only sounds he heard were mechanical — the huff of switch engines, wheels grinding on rails, the muffled clash of couplers, the hoot-hoot of engine signals, the clank of bells, the urgent hiss of locomotives bleeding steam, and the long, long whistle of a train leaving for the West — this train, this special bound for Denver — rumbling out of the yards, thumping through switches, then smooth on the main line, swaying as it picked up speed, whistle howling, drive wheels thundering.

What had his instincts latched onto? What had he noticed? It was there, almost beside him, something close, which he could not quite touch yet. He had to let his mind drift… The broken sword had started his dream. He remembered it well. He had found it when the tide exposed the muddy Thames bank. It took an edge beautifully. A razor’s edge. It was eventually too light, for he had taken on size and developed hard muscle as he grew older. The double-edged Roman short sword was a better fit, and he had used a variety of them—gladius, the longer spatha, the short puglio dagger — choosing one over the other on whim, enjoying one or the other, before moving on to thinner, whippier blades he could hide in a cane.

* * *

He sat up in bed, his mind clamoring.

Change plagued touring companies. Every imaginable mishap felled actors. They got sick. They got drunk. They got pregnant. They couldn’t remember lines anymore. They were arrested for debt, locked up for bigamy. They married. They divorced. They even got homesick. Or they simply vanished. But whatever the mishap, the company had to replace them, and backstage people, too — carpenters, riggers, electricians, wardrobe. So regular turnover was typical of a road show. But he could not recall as many new faces as he saw in the Jekyll and Hyde company — all at once, back in Cincinnati.

Two actors: the new Mr. Pool, Archibald Abbott; the new maid, Helen Mills; a replacement stagehand named Quinn, just hired away from Jimmy Valentine. Then there was the newspaper reporter who had talked his way into the publicist’s good graces, Scudder Smith; and the Hartford angel, Isaac Bell; and now Bell’s wife, Marion Morgan Bell, who had looked familiar, though they had never met before the movie meeting the day before.

The wolf of my dream knows that his den has been invaded.

I am no longer safe when I sleep.

ACT FOUR

HOLLYWOOD

43

DENVER

Rumor ricocheted the length of the Jekyll & Hyde Special.

They were steaming on the High Plains, and from the locomotive to Isaac Bell’s private car and back again. Scrambled in the crowded Pullman dormitory cars, and simultaneously denied and amplified in the dining car, guesses, gossip and speculation, confused players, stagehands, carpenters, electricians, clerks, publicists, advance men, and musicians, and set all on edge.

Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan had had a huge blowup.

Bigger, much bigger, than their usual rows.

The Jekyll and Hyde tour was canceled.

Because the crazy writer killed himself? Cox. They found him in the suburbs.

The tour would be speeded up.

They would skip Denver… But what a great theater town.

The tour was extended to include Los Angeles.

The tour was canceled.

Barrett and Buchanan had had a terrible fistfight.

Mr. Young had tried to stop it. The poor stage manager had to throw himself between them. The reward for his pains? He had been beaten bloody. The sight of Mr. Young drinking coffee in the dining car without a mark on him only added to the confusion.

Harry Warren thought the stage manager looked almost happy, not his usual appearance. He offered a smoke from a pack of Young’s favorite Turkish tobacco, Murads.

“Bless you, Quinn.”

The twitch in Young’s cheek that the regular stagehands said always jumped like a frog on closing days and opening days — when every stick of scenery and every stitch of costume had to be loaded onto the train the second the curtain came down — was barely pulsing.

They lit up. Warren said, “I overheard the boys saying you stand in for Barrett and Buchanan.”

“Who said that?”

“Couple of sceneshifters… Do you?”

“On occasion.”

“You must be one slick fencer to survive that Dream Duel.”

“So far, at least.”

“And a heck of an actor to make Mr. Hyde as evil as they do.”

Young smiled at the compliment. “Thank you, Quinn. It’s harder than dueling, I’ll tell you that.”

“Do folks in the audience ever complain?”

“No, bless them. They’ve been kind. I actually receive ovations. Often more sustained than Barrett’s or Buchanan’s.”

“Do the stars mind?”

“Green-eyed with jealousy?” asked Young, with another smile.

“For all your extra applause.”

“They’re too grateful for the chance to pull a disappearing act. And of course they’re not in the theater when I receive my applause. At least not the one I’m standing in for that night.”

“Where do they go on their disappearing acts?”