Amberlough(76)

“Come on, Landy.” Her stomach had gone sour with fear. “What’s got everybody in such a fret?”

But Garlande just shook her head. “Ask Malcolm, if you’re still talking to him. Or Ari if you can stand it.” She turned her back and ran off before Cordelia could shake out an explanation.

Suddenly apprehensive, she kept on down the corridor until she came to Malcolm’s office. The door was clogged with a crowd, all shouting and hissing and waving their hands.

“What are we supposed to do instead?” demanded the new tit singer—Mal’d brought on a contentious contralto after he sacked Thea. “What kind of act are you gonna slip in? We haven’t got anything.”

“Do you run this show?” Malcolm thundered, from the depths of his burrow. “No! So I’ll thank you to swallow your tongue. Choke on it if you like. Liesl!”

The conductor, at the edge of the mob, started and dove in. Whatever Malcolm had to say to her got lost in the hubbub.

One of the chorus dancers spotted Cordelia and went white. He elbowed his friend, who gaped, then turned to whisper into the ear of the mime. Within seconds, the whole lot of her cast mates had gone quiet and blanched as a bunch of boiled potatoes.

“What’s got all of you so pinched?” she asked, holding her purse to her chest. Something was dead wrong here. Bad wrong.

“Delia?” Malcolm’s voice sounded rough in the sudden silence, and there was a stuffy, nasal undertone that made her wonder if he’d been crying. “Get in here. The rest of you, clear off. If you don’t hear from me in half an hour … well, you’ll hear from me in half an hour. For now, keep on like we’re doing the show.”

“Aren’t we?” she asked, pushing through the rest of the cast as they left.

“Come in,” said Malcolm. “Shut the door.”

Ari was in Malcolm’s office, and Liesl, taking up the love seat and the extra chair, respectively. Cordelia reached for the stool under the coat hooks, the one Tory usually used. Malcolm looked pained. Ari coughed and made a little gesture with his hand, outside of Malcolm’s view. Cordelia left the stool and stood awkwardly in front of Malcolm’s desk. She felt like she was about to have her knuckles slapped by a school teacher.

“What’s wrong?” she snapped. “You all look like somebody died.”

Aristide closed his eyes and mouthed something that looked like a short prayer. Liesl ran her teeth over her lower lip. Malcolm’s face was indescribable.

Cordelia clutched her purse straps. “Who is it?” Then, remembering the reaction when she reached for Tory’s stool, she took a sharp breath and choked on it. “Mother and sons. He’s not—” She staggered and reached out. Liesl was beside her, suddenly, with a hand under her outflung arm. The conductor guided her to the love seat and settled her next to Ari.

“No,” said Liesl, “no, he’s not. Damnation, your hands are cold. Malcolm, you might have told her to sit down first.”

But Malcolm had the heels of his palms against his eyes, and didn’t apologize.

“He’s not dead,” said Aristide, staring at Malcolm. “But he’s very badly injured, and he hasn’t woken up. They aren’t sure that he will.”

“Where is he? What happened?”

“His performance last night was positively stinging,” said Ari. “You missed it—costume change, I think—but he’d never done better.”

“What happened to him?”

“Well he rubbed a couple cats the wrong way, didn’t he?” Malcolm let his fists fall to the top of his desk, rattling pens and empty glasses. “And they scratched.”

“What do you mean? What did he say?”

“He destroyed Acherby.” Malcolm laid a square of rolling paper out and added a pinch of tobacco. He tried, twice, to twist it up, then slashed it away with the flat of his hand. “Took him apart and dangled his bits up like a carnival sideshow. It was genius. Only, some of the punters got pinned about it and sang to the blackboots. Near as I can put together, he got about halfway home before they caught up with him. The ACPD picked him up around four a.m. and got him to Seagate Hospital, but by then he’d been lying in the gutter a couple hours.”

“Holy stones,” said Cordelia, reaching blindly with a shaking hand. “Has anybody got a straight?”

Aristide produced his case and offered it around. Malcolm accepted, gratefully. Liesl waved him away. When Cordelia put one of his cigarettes between her lips, Ari handed her a smudged book of matches with a few sticks missing. She lit up with shaking hands and took a deep, smoky breath. Exhaling, she asked, “So. Are you canceling?”

“That’s what we’re trying to decide.” Liesl’s expressive hands fidgeted on her knees. “The whole cast is having fits.”

“We’ve had fits before,” said Cordelia. “Mal, I know you ain’t gonna take that for an excuse.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said. “But it ain’t just that. Without Tory…” He paused for a steadying drag on Ari’s gold-stamped straight. “Without Tory, there’s some gaps in the show that need filling. About fifteen minutes, all told. Three acts.”

“Drag out some old material,” said Aristide. “Two seasons old. No one will remember it.”