Blood Will Have Blood (6 page)

“Be quiet, Greg!” Georgina's cheeks flamed. “Do you want her to hear you?”

“I really don't care,” Hudson said calmly, and walked away. Hit and run, that was Hudson's style, thought Spraggue.

Georgina let out her breath soundlessly, watching Karen. The argument over Eddie continued; the stage manager couldn't have overheard. “Sometimes I think Greg's crazy!” she said, moving closer to Spraggue. “He seems to want to hurt everybody—”

“Do you think he's the company joker?”

“No,” she said swiftly. “I'm sure he's not.”

“Why?”

“Not the type. He lets all his nasty feelings out. Wouldn't you think that the kind of person who'd do things like that would be—well, all quiet and polite on the outside?”

“And dark and twisted inside?”

Georgina nodded gravely. “Yes. Sick and mad.… To play such cruel jokes—”

“He's done something to you.” Spraggue kept his voice light but firm. If there were no question, there would be no denial.

“Yes,” she murmured. The memory of the beheaded doll clouded her gray eyes.

“Deirdre told me about the doll,” Spraggue said.

“She did?” Georgina stared at her fingernails.

“Why didn't you say anything about it?”

She kept her head down and answered lamely but doggedly. “It wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to talk about.…”

“You might have told Darien.”

“What could he do? It was over. I wanted to forget it ever happened.”

“Georgie, was there a piece of paper stuck to the doll?”

She looked up finally. “Yes.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I might.”

“Do me a favor.”

She smiled at his pleading. “Okay.”

“Lunch break. Go get the paper. Don't tell anybody else about it. Don't mention where you're going.”

“But, Michael—”

“Spraggue!” Darien's voice shot across the rows of seats.

“Yes.”

“Come here!”

Spraggue gave Georgina's cold hand a squeeze. “Don't forget,” he said. Georgina's eyes avoided his, but her hand squeezed back. He walked rapidly over to Darien.

Karen Snow's dark, angry eyes were still fastened on the director. He seemed flustered, but kept command of his voice. “I wondered, Spraggue,” he began meekly. “
We
wondered if you'd mind going over to Lafferty's place and taking a look around. Just to hoist him out of bed, I expect.” Darien tried a laugh. It fell flat. He raised his voice; the rest of the conversation was for Georgina's curious ears. “I thought you'd be the best person to send. All your Act Two scenes are with Eddie, so I can't very well rehearse you without him. And Karen has volunteered to go over your blocking tomorrow night, if that's okay—so any time we miss can be made up. I can work the women's scenes while you're gone—”

Maybe he'd go on talking forever, Spraggue thought. He stopped the anxious voice with a word. “Sure,” he said easily. “Just give me an address.”

“One hundred forty-one Hemenway,” said Karen. “Apartment 5.”

She hadn't left Darien's side to look it up. Too quick a response for an “older sister”?

“You take a left out the front door, then a right at the corner,” she said.

“I know where it is.” Spraggue turned and left.

Does she know about me? he wondered as he walked the few blocks to Eddie's apartment. Had she suggested to Darien that he send me? Her dark eyes were intelligent, hard to read. She had a way of using them to close people out; her eyes were shields, hard and opaque. Maybe he could break them down during the extra blocking rehearsal. She'd be a good ally. If she wasn't the joker.

Whatever he was getting paid, Eddie Lafferty wasn't squandering it on rent. One hundred forty-one Hemenway was ugly yellow brick, a narrow five stories high, flanked on either side by fragrant alleys. The building to the right was a burned-out hulk. The street-level windows were haphazardly boarded over with plywood.

The neighborhood wasn't exactly quiet. Rock blared from an open window across the street. Voices called from the Laundromat on the corner. Usual day-to-day noises. No wailing police sirens. Whatever had happened to Eddie, at least it didn't rate that. Or, thought Spraggue, maybe it just hadn't been discovered yet.

Up three crumbling cements steps. A scrawled yellowed notice advised callers to ring and wait for the buzzer. Spraggue tried the door; it swung open at his touch. Some security.

Apartment five. He climbed two flights of narrow steps.

Spraggue wasted three seconds trying Eddie's door. Considering the ease of entry downstairs, each apartment probably boasted five or six locks—chains, deadbolts, anything to soothe the fear.

He knocked, expecting no reply. The picklocks were already active in his hands when he heard it: a low moan followed by a sharp crash.

“Eddie?” Spraggue called.

Again the moaning, grunting noise.

Spraggue made short work of the feeble main lock. There were no chains or bolts. He entered quickly, closing the door behind him.

The room was dark and stuffy; heavy curtains obscured the windows. Spraggue took a step, kicked something hard but insubstantial. It skittered across the floor. His hands searched the wall to the left of the door, found the light switch, clicked it on.

Later, he noticed the slit pillows, overturned furniture, tumbled-out drawers. Later, he had time to read the scrawled inscriptions on the walls. At first, all he saw was Eddie.

A pajama-clad Eddie Lafferty balanced precariously on tiptoe on a chair near the center of the room. His mouth was gagged. His blue eyes stared wildly. His hands were tied behind his back. There was a noose around his neck. The rope stretched up over a pipe running the length of the room. It was tied off taut on a closet handle.

Lafferty stared at him blankly, then his eyes rolled up and he started to sag. Spraggue opened his pocket knife as he sprang across the room. He cut the rope with one hand, broke Eddie's fall with the other.

He eased the limp body down to the floor, removed the gag. He pushed Lafferty over on his side and untied his hands. The rope yielded easily. His hand closed over Lafferty's wrist. Pulse fast and faint. Spraggue dodged debris and found the tiny kitchen, ran cold water from the tap into two glasses. One he poured over Eddie. He drank half the other then offered it to the still spluttering actor.

“You're all right, Eddie,” he said soothingly, seeing the wildness come back into the huge eyes. “It's all over.”

“My God.” The boy's voice was a feeble croak.

Spraggue grabbed a cushion that had lost its chair and shoved it under Eddie's head. “Better?”

Eddie tried a tremulous smile. His lips shook.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“More water.”

Spraggue held the glass for him. A lot of it dribbled to the floor.

“What time is it?” Eddie asked.

“Eleven thirty-five.”

“My God,” Eddie said again.

“How long have you been perched up there?”

“I don't know. I was still asleep when he came in.”

“Who came in?” said Spraggue.

“Something. I was asleep and something hauled me out of bed. It was dark.”

“A man or a woman?”

“I couldn't tell. I couldn't—” Eddie gulped, raised his hands to his Adam's apple. “My throat hurts,” he said fuzzily.

“I know,” said Spraggue. “Whisper, but try to answer.”

“It had a black face, a black cloak, black gloves. It was all black, like a shadow.…”

“He wore a mask?”

Eddie's eyes lit up. “Maybe. A ski mask. All black.”

“Did you see the eyes, Eddie? What color eyes?”

“I don't know. Dark, I think. The room was so blurry.… I didn't have my glasses.”

“Height?”

“Average. I don't know. At first I was in bed. Then I had to climb on the chair—”

“Voice. Male or female?”

“It whispered, Spraggue. The cloak hid the body. Strong, though. Whoever it was. Powerful.”

“Did he knock you out?”

Eddie gave a tiny half-smile. “He
or
she. No. I did what he said. He had a gun. I'm not brave. He tied my hands. He made me stick my head through the noose. I had to stand on tiptoe.” Eddie's voice quavered, almost stopped. “I thought I was going to die.…”

“Take it easy. It's all over,” Spraggue said.

“Then he threw everything around the room.”

“Wouldn't somebody hear?”

“Around here?” Eddie's voice was bitter. “People hear plenty in a neighborhood like this. They stay alive ignoring it.”

“What did he do then?”

“He wrote on the walls. Then he just stood and looked at me. I thought he was going to kick the chair over. He laughed, a whispery kind of noise, but a laugh. He said: ‘I have a message for you.' It was a bunch of numbers. It didn't make any sense. He told me to memorize it, made me repeat it. I can't remember it at all now.”

“Let me know if it comes back.”

“Then he left.”

“Does the door lock automatically, Eddie?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get in?”

“I don't know. I didn't see.”

“You don't use the chain when you're inside?”

“No.”

The door hadn't been hard to force. He'd have to check it for signs of recent tampering.

Eddie caught his hand. “I just stood there, Spraggue. I was so scared I'd fall. I kept trying to get my hands free; I figured that was my only hope. I almost did.”

Spraggue glanced at Eddie's wrists. Rope burns, abrasions. He was telling the truth.

“That chair.” Eddie nodded at the black wooden job, knocked on its side. “I could reach it with my foot. If I heard anyone on the stairs I was going to kick it over, hope somebody would notice. But no one came by. I kicked it when I heard you knock. I almost lost my balance.”

So that was the crash he had heard.

“Do you have ice in the freezer?” Spraggue asked.

“Yes,” said Eddie. “I guess I'm trying to say thank you.”

“You're welcome. I think you would have gotten your hands loose in time.”

“I'm glad I didn't have to.”

Spraggue emptied an ice tray into a frayed kitchen towel, wrapped it into a long cylinder, and gave it to Eddie. “Put that around your throat,” he said.

The phone rang.

“It's been ringing all morning—”

Spraggue picked up the receiver.

“Spraggue?” It was Karen Snow.

“Put Darien in a cab and get him over here,” said Spraggue.

“Eddie?”

“He's all right.” Spraggue could hear the sigh of relief, felt irrationally displeased by it.

“Can I talk to him?” she asked.

“No. Later.”

“Darien's rehearsing. He's not going to like it.”

“Get him here in ten minutes or he might not have anything to rehearse. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. The phone went dead.

Eddie was sitting up, the towel clutched to his throat. His color was better. He looked at Spraggue and managed a grin.

“Don't bother talking,” Spraggue said shortly. “Go over the whole incident in your mind, see it again. Do it like an acting exercise, one sense at a time. Maybe you can get those numbers back.”

Eddie nodded.

Spraggue searched the room. It was a shambles, a useless mess. What to look for? A button off a long dark cloak? A fingerprint left by a gloved hand? Somehow his eyes kept coming back to the writing on the walls. That familiar printing, those unevenly scrawled black caps. Carefully uneven, planned sloppiness—the person who'd created that mask of Greg Hudson could do a far neater job. Spraggue sniffed at the gooey letters, scraped some of the gunk off on a fingernail. Lipstick. Deep, blood red.

A female? No. Actors were comfortable with lipstick, men and women. And no clue to the prankster's height. The inscription ran all around the room at different levels, sometimes skirting the floorboards, sometimes almost at ceiling height. He must have used a chair—and an entire tube of lipstick.

The message, though, never varied.
CANCEL THE SHOW CANCEL THE SHOW CANCEL THE SHOW
; it said over and over.

Chapter Eight

Arthur Darien decided against the police. Buoyed by Darien's concern and his offer to pay all damages, Eddie went along with him. Spraggue called them anyway, dialing a number three years hadn't made him forget.

The pay phone on the corner of Huntington Avenue was in typical shape: door kicked in, phone book ripped out. But it had two advantages: it commanded a view of the front door of the theater, and was far enough from that front door so that no one entering or leaving the theater could overhear Spraggue's end of the conversation.

Lieutenant Detective Fred Hurley grabbed the phone on the first ring. “Hurley. Records,” he snarled.

“Charming as always,” said Spraggue.

“Huh?”

“Did you happen to find an envelope on your desk this morning?”

“Yeah, but I figured I was seeing things 'cause the guy that sent me the envelope, I haven't seen him for years. Is that you, Spraggue?.”

“You don't recognize my voice?”

“After all these years? Christ!”

“Can you help me out?”

“You back in the business, Spraggue?”

“No. Just a little thing I'm handling for a friend.”

“Some little thing. Must be ten names in that envelope.”

“Eleven. All I want is a rundown, anybody with a record. I listed birthplaces and last known addresses. That should help.”

“You're all heart. Look, I'm busy, but I'll try.”

“Just charge a little of that overtime to me instead of the city. That's all I'm asking.”