Chapter 13: The Wings

Hal's friend ran sound at Playhouse Square, and Hal had once rebuilt the man's whole stage lift for the price of a sandwich.

"Dress rehearsal is at four," the engineer said at the stage door on Friday. "Wear black and look bored."

Doran and I were already in black.

He carried a clipboard Hal had found in the shop, and I carried a laptop bag.

Nobody looked at us twice.

Backstage smelled of dust, hot lamps and paint.

The engineer walked us past the sound booth and showed me the line that fed every speaker in the hall.

"Plug in here and you own the room," he said. "I'll be in the booth tomorrow, and so will Hal."

"And if Constance's people check the board?"

"They've never checked it in nineteen years." He shrugged. "She pays for the show. She doesn't ask how it sounds."

I tested the cable with a thirty-second clip of nothing but a low hum, and the whole hall hummed back.

Doran breathed out beside me.

"That's it," I said. "Tomorrow night, that's all it takes."

"Come see the rest," the engineer said. "Stage left. You'll want to know where she walks."

He took us down a narrow passage behind the curtain, into the left wing.

It was a black tunnel of ropes, sandbags and cable, lit only by a blue work light on the floor.

Through a gap in the drape, I could see the stage.

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