Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Thiago
Iwas in the stage-right wing of the Orpheum with my phone against my ear. A union carpenter pushed a cart of road cases past the loading door without looking up.
“Devereaux bought the flash unit three months ago,” Michael said. “Two weeks after that, a compatible wireless detonator. Same supplier and same invoice chain.”
I watched the loading entrance and the path from there to the wing. Twelve feet. Clean approach. Clean exit, if no one had a reason to be watching that door.
“Burn risk?”
“Minimal if it’s placed correctly. It’s not designed to damage anything.” I heard papers shuffle. “Controlled concussive light burst. Three to five seconds of visual disruption, maximum. Every head in the building will turn toward the source.”
“He’s not the shooter then,” I said.
“No, he’s providing the opening.”
A stagehand came through the wing carrying two folding chairs under one arm and a coffee in his free hand, managing both without apparent difficulty. I stepped back against a fly rail support and let him pass.
“There’s more.” I heard Michael tapping on a keyboard. “Devereaux and Micah Landry have a documented connection. Touring production in Baton Rouge three years ago. Devereaux ran effects support. Micah was one of his references on the crew application.”
As Michael spoke, I watched Micah measure the stage floor.
“That’s contact,” I said. “Not proof of a conspiracy.”
“The stage world is small. People vouch for each other. This may be nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“No, I didn’t say it was.”
More typing. “I’m still working the Bridget thread, but if Devereaux’s your distraction, he doesn’t need the front of the house. He needs one door and a reason to be near it.”
“He already has both,” I said.
I ended the call and walked to the loading entrance.
A truck turned onto the service lane. Two men in work clothes got out and headed for the loading dock. The union steward waved one through without lifting his pen from the clipboard. The other held up a credential and was already walking past me before the steward finished looking at it.
I watched them disappear inside.
No one needed special effort to get through the door. It had been standing open for months.
Eamon completed a circuit of the building and joined me. “Michael looped me in after he spoke with you,” he said.
“Good.”
We walked along the interior wall. It included brick, patched mortar, and a conduit pipe running vertically beside a caged service light. At the loading entrance, he gestured with two fingers toward a table. It held day-pass stickers and a steward working through a line of crew.
“Separate credentialing process,” he said. “Union crew. Venue security doesn’t own it.”
Eamon nodded toward the table. “How many people come through here on a normal day?”
“Dozens,” I said.
“All cleared by that steward?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody from venue security checks the list?”
“No, not that I’m aware of.”
We watched another truck ease toward the dock.
“That’s a lot of traffic,” he said.
After a moment he added, “Henri doesn’t come through here. He’s already inside.”
I drove us back to the house in the SUV. Eamon peeled off toward the kitchen to make calls while I went to find Dominic. He was in the salon with a score open on the Steinway. A fresh bowl of lemons sat on the console.
“Is everything tidy at the theater?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
Dominic closed the score.
“I need to ask you something directly.”
He gestured toward the chair across from him. I sat.
“What does Henri want?”
Dominic looked at the closed score. Not at me. “Acknowledgment,” he said. “A public statement that the moment in Jackson Square had an architect, and it wasn’t me.”
“Would that be enough?”
“It would have been.” He looked at me. “Once.”
I waited for him to continue.
“The concert announcement changed the terms,” he said. “It is a new celebration tied to the event everyone remembers. He will watch me receive credit while he’s ignored. He wants everyone to remember that he laid the groundwork.”
“Do you think he wants the concert stopped?”
“No, he wants the concert to happen. He’s planned for it, but he wants it to happen differently.”
“On his terms,” I said.
“That’s how I read it.” He paused. “I do intend to acknowledge him publicly, but after the concert.”
“Why not before?”
He looked at me steadily. “Because an acknowledgment offered under duress is not an acknowledgment. It is a ransom payment. He may deserve the credit, but I will not allow him authorship of my response.”
“If what he needs is the acknowledgment delivered in public,” I said, “what you’re planning is arriving too late.”
“No, the timing is correct. He disagrees.”
“And if he’s past the point where your terms mean anything to him—“
“I accept the arithmetic, Mr. Reyes. I am not arguing against your assessment. I am telling you what I will do.” He glanced toward the window.
The live oaks threw shadows on the marble.
“I will not conduct this concert under negotiated terms. That is not stubbornness. It is the only thing I have left to protect that is entirely mine.”
I stood.
“Mr. Reyes, I know what this could cost me.”
He reopened the score. The conversation was over.
Eamon took the update in the kitchen while drinking a cup of coffee. Luca was in the courtyard tending the lemon trees.
“So,” Eamon said, “either that acknowledgment is what Henri wants and the problem resolves itself, or he wants control of the moment and Dominic’s decision changes nothing.”
“I suspect it’s not enough.”
Eamon swallowed the last of his coffee.
“If the shot comes from the balcony,” I said, “Dominic is standing in the cleanest sightline in the theater.”
“Then we move the mark.” We returned to the Orpheum that afternoon, accompanied by Dominic with his full consent.
The stage manager met us near house left. Dominic addressed him first.
“I want the podium further upstage. Six feet. Acoustic refinement.”
“That changes the visual balance.”
“Yes.” Dominic adopted an entirely convincing flat and faintly irritated tone. “Fortunately, the audience came to hear music and not to observe my relationship with the front edge of the stage.”
Micah appeared from stage right with tape and a blade.
He took in the request, crouched at the original mark, and worked without questions: lift, peel, measure, replace.
He set the new position six feet upstage, close against the orchestra risers, just inside the shadow line the proscenium threw across the deck.
After moving the risers, it would look like a minor revision from the house seats. From the balcony, the sight line to the original position would be eradicated.
Dominic stepped onto the new mark and raised one hand. He glanced over his shoulder. “Two inches left.”
Micah adjusted. Dominic tried the new position. “Better.”
He stepped down, baton in hand, and looked at me. He shrugged. “Move it wherever you need to. I’ve been making artistic revisions for fifty years.”
Eamon smiled. I had not seen him smile all day.
Micah peeled the backing from the last edge of tape and pressed it smooth with the heel of his palm. He rose and began gathering his tools. Then he stopped.
He stood at the new mark for two or three seconds longer than the job required, looking at it. Not checking his work. His work was done. He was examining the position itself.
He picked up his tape roll and walked back to the wing. I watched him go.
Eamon appeared at my shoulder. “You saw that.”
“Yes.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Nothing I can use yet.”
“Luca would know what to make of it,” Eamon said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not being romantic. I’m being accurate. It doesn’t take long to realize that the way he reads people is a professional asset. I’m not sure you’re fully taking advantage of that.” He glanced toward the wing where Micah had gone. “Luca’s part of the team.”
Eamon moved off toward the loading dock. I stayed where I was on the stage, the empty house opening out in front of me, with eight hundred dark seats curving up to the balcony rail.
We’d broken the sightline from that arc to the new mark. Dominic would stand in a slight shadow, six feet from where Henri’s calculation had placed him.
We returned to the house and discussed logistics at the kitchen table for the rest of the evening. Luca came through twice. The second time he let two fingers rest briefly at the base of my neck on his way past.
After nine, Eamon pushed back from the table.
“Dominic’s arts council dinner is tomorrow,” I said.
“I’ll cover him.”
I looked at him.
“You need a break. I can sit through one dinner with arts administrators.”
“Celeste will be there.”
“It will be the perfect opportunity to meet Ms. Hargrove.” He gathered his notes. Then, not quite looking at me: “Sleep.”
“I will.”
“That would be more persuasive from a man who hasn’t been running on four hours since I landed.”
He went upstairs before I could respond. I followed a minute later and stopped by Luca’s room, tapping lightly on the doorframe. He was at his desk and turned immediately.
“Eamon’s covering Dominic tomorrow evening. Are you free?”
He smiled. “Are you asking me to dinner?”
I stepped into the room. Luca rose and joined me. “I am asking you to eat food with me in a location outside of this house, yes.”
He reached out to wrap his arms around my waist. “That’s a romantic invitation.”
“The red beans will keep.”
He kissed me. “I accept.”