THE SIX OF THEM sat in the front row of the Howell Theater, a ninety-nine-seat house located in San Francisco’s Eureka Valley district. With the house lights up and the work light on, the theater plainly showed its age: fifty years, at least, originally built as an Odd Fellows’ Hall, later used as a neighborhood community house.
One of the six rose to his feet. He was a tall, lean man with dark, thick hair and an angular, deeply etched face. The face was Semitic: olive-hued, with a long, thin nose and an expressive mouth. Unmistakably, it was a Jewish face, a face that reflected both an ancient sadness and a new, gentle hope. The tall man wore corduroy slacks, an Icelandic wool sweater, and an open-neck shirt. Beneath heavy eyebrows, his vivid blue eyes moved restlessly as he spoke to the five still seated:
“I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Alan Bernhardt. I’m forty-two years old, and I’ll be directing this play. It’s the fifteenth play I’ve directed at the Howell. I came to San Francisco eight years ago. Before that I spent several years in New York, mostly acting off-Broadway—and sometimes on Broadway, if the part was small enough.” He smiled: a slow, rueful, half-shy smile. He waited for the chuckles, then continued. “I directed off-Broadway, too—and had a play of mine produced at Circle in the Square. It didn’t have a very long run, I’m afraid—” Now the smile twisted slightly, quietly ironic. “But at least I’ve got the clipping, and a photostat of the check.” He paused, looked at the five aspirants: three men, two women. One of the women, on his far right, interested him. Her name, he’d learned, was Pamela Brett. She was in her middle thirties. Serious. Attentive. Pretty face. Great body. Not on display, the body. But definitely there, beneath the jeans, and the loosely worn fisherman’s sweater.
“The reason I’m telling you all this,” Bernhardt said, “is that I want to make the point that, as far as I’m concerned, the Howell is the best theater of its kind I’ve ever worked in. The people who run it are very, very serious about what they’re doing—serious about producing damn good plays. That takes dedication, and stubbornness, and vision, and a feeling for what the public wants. And integrity, too. It takes a lot of integrity. And it also probably takes a touch of mild insanity, the kind of insanity that Don Quixote had, I suppose. Quixote, and Dave Falk, the man who’s run the Howell for as long as I’ve been here. If you haven’t met Dave, you will. Maybe you’ve already seen him, and didn’t know it. He could’ve been answering the phone, or selling tickets, or sweeping out the lobby, or—”
A small, shrill shriek interrupted: Bernhardt’s pager, clipped to his belt, under his sweater.
“Oh, oh—” He switched off the pager. “I moonlight, like a lot of people in this business. Either you moonlight, or you have an inheritance. And that’s my master’s voice. I’ll just be a minute. Then we’ll do some reading, from the beginning.” He smiled, this time at Pamela Brett, who quickly returned the smile. Bernhardt pushed himself away from the edge of the stage, and walked up the center aisle. Slightly stooped, he moved purposefully, eyes to the front, as if his attention were focused just ahead. In profile, with his long, slightly hooked nose, his sharp chin, with his thick, roughly cut hair growing low across his forehead and over his collar, Bernhardt could have played the part of the younger Lincoln.
In the tiny lobby with its worn carpet and its vintage playbills tacked to the walls, a pay phone hung beside the table used to serve coffee and pastries during performances. Drawing a deep, resigned breath, Bernhardt dropped a quarter in the slot, punched out a number.
“Yes?” the familiar voice answered.
“It’s Bernhardt.”
“Can you come in tomorrow at nine?” Dancer asked. “I’ve got something for you.”
“Is it local, or out of town?”
“I’m not sure. A little of both, maybe.”
“How long will it take?”
“Hard to say. Two or three days, at least.” As always, talking to an employee, Dancer’s voice was take-it-or-leave-it flat. Then, because it was Bernhardt, he added, “It’s a skip trace. There’s a twenty-five percent bonus, if it works out. But you’ve got to tell me now. Right now.”
“All right. Nine o’clock.”
“Good.” The phone clicked, went dead.
Bernhardt flipped the script closed, put it on the edge of the stage, stretched, looked at his watch. “Okay, that’s the first act. What I’d like to do, I think, is go through all three acts, reading the way we have tonight.” He pointed to his clipboard. “I’ve been taking notes, the way directors’re supposed to do. So far I haven’t put down any ‘wows,’ but then there aren’t any ‘ughs,’ either. The way I like to work is to read through the whole play. Then I get together with each of you separately, and we decide whether we think it’s going to work, with the parts you’re reading. Okay?”
As he spoke, the five auditioners folded their own scripts and rose from chairs that had been placed in a semicircle on the stage.
“Today is Monday,” Bernhardt said. “Can everyone make it Friday at the same time, six o’clock?” He looked at the five faces: three men, one woman—and Pamela Brett, who’d obviously acted before. A month from now, four or five rehearsals into the play, some of them would have given up, forfeiting the money they’d paid, to pursue their fragile dreams.
Thank God he believed it, what he’d said about the Howell. It was the best little theater company he’d ever worked with.
“So study your parts,” he said, concluding. “Read them over. Make the characters you. That’s the best advice I can give. Decide what your character has for breakfast, what he does for kicks—how his love life is going, or not going. I always encourage actors to write bios of their characters. Believe me, it helps. And it’s fun, too. So—” He put the script on top of the clipboard, put his ballpoint pen away. “So I’ll see you Friday night. If I should have a conflict—that moonlighting, I told you about—I’ll call you. I’d help if you give me all the phone numbers you can, where I can get you, or leave a message. Okay?”
As they nodded, some of them thanking him, some not, the group dispersed, moving up the aisle, individually. Was it intentional, Bernhardt wondered, that Pamela Brett had lingered, the last one up the aisle? Hastily, he vaulted up on the stage, switched off the work light, jumped lightly down, took up the clipboard and script, walked up the aisle. Ahead, she was already pushing open the door to the lobby. He couldn’t run after her; he could only walk like this, briskly, believably, hoping she’d linger.
And, yes, through the lobby door’s small round window he saw her. She stood with her oversize leather purse and script hugged close, staring gravely at a reproduction of a turn-of-the-century playbill, Elwood Carrington’s Hamlet.
He pushed open the door, went to the fusebox, switched off the lights in the auditorium. At the sound of the switches she turned, smiling when she saw him. Had she been waiting for him? He would probably never know.
“You’re a ringer,” he said, returning the smile.
“A ringer?”
“You’ve acted before.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t admit it.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I tell you how long, you’ll think I should be better.”
“That’s the wrong attitude. I should’ve given my positive-thinking spiel.” He widened his smile, stepped closer, looked into her eyes. “Anything’s possible, you know, as long as you don’t give up. And it’s true. I’ve seen it work. Acting—working—marriage. It all comes down to determination.”
Still hugging her script and purse to the swell of her breasts, she shook her head, then dropped her eyes. Her voice was pensive as she said, “You think so?”
The three words, spoken so softly, revealed a certain sadness, a hidden vulnerability. Unintentionally, he’d touched a nerve—a very raw nerve.
“Do you feel like coffee, a sandwich? There’s a place around the corner. Mike’s. They stay open until midnight. And they’ve got great pastrami sandwiches, the best outside of New York.”
Quickly, her head came up, the smile returned. “On rye, of course. Dark rye.”
“Of course.”
As he chewed a mouthful of pastrami, he studied her face: a small, oval face with a good, straight nose, dark, lively eyes, expressively arched eyebrows, a mobile mouth, generously shaped. Her hair was deep auburn, shoulder length, simply gathered at the nape of her neck. The modeling of the face was delicate, but the play of her expression was animated, inventive, fleetingly mischievous, sometimes bold. The pensive vulnerability he’d seen as she responded to his “positive thinking” quip hadn’t returned, even momentarily.
“What’s the name of your play?” Watching him over the rim of her glass, she sipped her apple juice. “The one the Circle produced?”
“It’s called Victims.”
“Is it three acts?”
He nodded.
“I’d like to read it.”
“When I know you better, maybe.”
“Why do I have to know you better to read it?”
“Because it’s part of the past. My past, anyhow. I can do better, now.”
“You’re working on another play?”
He looked away. “Always.”
She bit into her own sandwich, watched him as she chewed. Finally: “You’re shy. You didn’t seem shy, earlier. But you are, really.”
“Most actors are shy. Or at least self-protective.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Probably not.” He drank an inch of beer from one of the mugs that Mike allowed his favorite customers to use. “What about you? Where’d you do your acting?”
“Los Angeles. I grew up there, went to Pomona College. That’s where I got hooked on acting, in college.” She hesitated, blinked, bit her lip. Her earlier vulnerability had returned, darkening her eyes, saddening her smile. “My husband is—was—a screenwriter. He got me some bit parts in movies.”
He let a moment of silence pass, then said, “When you say ‘was,’ does that mean—” He let it go unfinished.
Which was it? Dead? Or divorced?
With obvious effort, she raised her eyes to meet his. “It means we’re divorced. I got married right out of school. And he’d already been married, twice. We kept at it for ten years. Eleven years, really. But—” She shook her head, drew a deep breath, bit once more into her sandwich, almost gone. Her appetite, Bernhardt noted with satisfaction, was good. Finally she said, “That was two years ago, that we got divorced. I decided I wanted a change, wanted to get out of town, at least for a while. So I came here, to San Francisco.”
“Do your parents still live in Los Angeles?”
She nodded. “They teach at U.C.L.A. They’re both sociology professors.”
“Impressive.”
Her smile returned, along with the playful lilt in her dark, quick eyes. “What about you? I’m sure—I’ll bet—that you’re an easterner. Am I right?”
He chuckled. “Right. New York. But you could’ve guessed, couldn’t you? From what I said earlier, to the cast.”
“So what’s your story, Alan Bernhardt? You know why I’m in San Francisco, hiding out. What about you?”
With his eyes on the circles of wetness that his beer mug left on the tabletop, making designs of the circles, he let the silence lengthen so long that it would have been an embarrassment not to have told her.
“I was married pretty much right out of college, too—a couple of years out, anyhow. She was an actress. We were married until—it’s been eight years, now. Eight and a half, really. And she—” He swallowed, realized that he was helplessly blinking. He felt the familiar ache, the palpable suffocation of terror and dread as he remembered answering the door, remembered seeing the badge, seeing the man standing there, in the dimly lit hallway.
He’d known what had happened. Instantly, he’d known.
“She was mugged. They—they knocked her down, and she hit her head on the curb. She—” He swallowed again. “She never regained consciousness. Her name was Jennifer. Jenny.”
“Oh, God. I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I always seem to—”
“You didn’t know. It’s been eight years. That’s time enough.”
“Are your folks in New York?”
Still with his eyes lowered, speaking very deliberately, he said, “I don’t have any folks, not really. None except in-laws. My father was killed in the war. He was a bombardier. And my mother died sixteen years ago, of cancer.”
“Jesus, Alan—” She reached across the table, to touch his hand. “I’m not—I’m not trying to—”
“It’s okay—” He raised his eyes, smiled, saw her answering smile, slightly misted. “Really, it’s okay.” He rotated his hand, to clasp hers. “I like you. So it’s okay.”
Between them the moment held. Until, gently, she withdrew her hand. Saying: “I like you, too.”
They sat for a time in their separate silences. Then, venturing a tentative smile, she said, “I almost hate to ask any more questions. But all evening I’ve been wondering—” She paused, waited for him to smile, to nod encouragement.
“It’s the buzzer,” she said. “Your pager. What are you, a part-time brain surgeon?”
He laughed: a full, explosive laugh, filled with pure pleasure.
“I’m a free-lance investigator—a private detective. And a pretty good one, if I do say so.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “I’m not kidding. Actors make good private investigators. There’s a lot of role-playing—pretending you’re someone you aren’t, making people believe it.” Watching her, he realized that she was deciding whether she believed him. “I’m serious. You should try it, sometime.”
“I’m not very tough, I’m afraid.”
“Neither am I,” Bernhardt answered. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
Gravely returning his smile, she nodded. “Yes, I can see that.”
“Good.” He nodded, too.