Evan Hunter - Romance

“314 East Seventy-first Street.”

“Here in Manhattan?”

“Yes.”

“Apartment number?”

“6B.”

“Are you married? Single? Div…?”

“Single.”

“Are you employed?”

“I’m an actress.”

“Oh?” Eyebrows going up in sudden interest. “Have I seen you in anything?”

“Well… I’ve done a lot of television work. I did a Law & Order last month.”

“Really? That’s a good show. I watch that show all the time. Which one were you in?”

“The one about abortion.”

“No kidding? I saw that. That was just last month! ”

“Yes, it was. Excuse me, Detective, but…”

“That’s my favorite show on television. They shoot that right here in New York, did you know that? Will you be doing any more of them?”

“Well… right now I’m rehearsing a Broadway play.”

“No kidding? What play? What’s it called?”

“Romance. Uh, Detective…”

“What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s sort of complicated to explain. The thing is, I have to get back to the theater…”

“Oh, sure.”

“And I’d like to…”

“Hey, sure.” All business again. Fingers on the typewriter keys again. “You say these calls started last Monday, right? That would’ve been…” A glance at the calendar on his desk. “December…”

“December ninth.”

“Right, December ninth.” Typing as he spoke. “Can you tell me exactly what this man said?”

“He said, ’I’m going to kill you, miss.’ ”

“Then what?”

“That’s all.”

“He calls you ‘miss’? No name?”

“No name. Just ’I’m going to kill you, miss.’ Then he hangs up.”

“Have there been any threatening letters?”

“No.”

“Have you seen anyone suspicious lurking around the building or…?”

“No.”

“… following you to the theater or…”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, miss…”

“This may be a good place to pause,” Kendall said.

Both actors shaded their eyes and peered out into the darkened theater. The woman playing the actress said, “Ashley, I’m uncomfortable with…” but Kendall interrupted at once.

“Take fifteen,” he said. “We’ll do notes later.”

“I just want to ask Freddie about one of the lines.”

“Later, Michelle,” Kendall said, dismissing her.

Michelle let out a short, exasperated sigh, exchanged a long glance with Mark Riganti, the actor playing the detective who adored Law & Order, and then walked off into the wings with him. The actor playing the other detective stood chatting at the fingerprint table with the bearded actor playing his prisoner.

Sitting sixth row center, Freddie Corbin turned immediately to Kendall and said, “They wouldn’t be wearing guns anywhere near a thief being printed.”

“I can change that,” Kendall said. “What we’ve really got to talk about, Freddie…”

“It spoils the entire sense of reality,” Corbin said.

His full and honorable name was Frederick Peter Corbin Ill, but all of his friends called him Fred. Kendall, however, had started calling him Freddie the moment they’d been introduced, which of course the cast had picked up on, and now everybody associated with this project called him Freddie. Corbin, who had written two novels about New York City cops, knew that this was an old cop trick. Using the familiar diminutive to denigrate a prisoner’s sense of self-worth or self-respect. So you think you’re Mr. Corbin, hah? Well, Freddie, where were you on the night of June thirteenth, huh?

“Also,” he said, “I think he’s overreacting when he discovers she’s an actress. It’d be funnier if he contained his excitement.”

“Yes,” Kendall said. “Which brings us to the scene itself. ”

Kendall’s full name was Ashley Kendall, which wasn’t the name he was born with, but which had been his legal name for thirty years, so Corbin guessed that made it his real name, more or less. Frederick Peter Corbin III really was Corbin’s real real name, thank you. This was his first experience with a director. He was beginning to learn that directors didn’t think their job was directing the script, they thought their job was changing it. He was beginning to hate directors. Or at least to hate Kendall. He was beginning to learn that all directors were shitheads.

“What about the scene?” he asked.

“Well… doesn’t it seem a bit familiar to you?”

“It’s supposed to be familiar. This is police routine. This is what happens when a person comes in to report a…”

“Yes, but we’ve witnessed this particular scene a hundred times already, haven’t we?” Kendall said. “A thousand times. Even the detective reacting to the fact that she’s an actress is a cliché. Asking her if he’s seen her in anything. I mean, Freddie, I have a great deal of respect for what you’ve done here, the intricacy of the plot, the painstaking devotion to detail. But…”

“But what?”

“But I think there might be a more exciting way to set up the fact that her life has been threatened. Theatrically, I mean.”

“Yes, this is a play,” Corbin said. “I would assume we’d want to do it theatrically.”

“I know you’re a wonderful novelist,” Kendall said, “but…”

“Thank you.”

“But in a play…“

“A dramatic line is a dramatic line,” Corbin said. “This is the story of an actress surviving…”

“Yes, I know what it…”

“… a brutal murder attempt, and then going on to achieve a tremendous personal triumph.”

“Yes, that’s what it’s supposed to be about.”

“No, that’s what it is about.”

“No, this is a play about some New York cops solving a goddamn mystery.“

“No, that’s not what it’s…”

“Which you do very well, by the way. In your novels. There’s nothing wrong with stories about cops…”

“Even if they are crap,” Corbin said.

“I wasn’t about to say that,” Kendall said. “I wasn’t even thinking it. All I’m suggesting is that this shouldn’t be a play about cops.”

“It isn’t a play about cops.”

“I see. Then what is it?”

“A play about a triumph of will.”

“I see.”

“A play about a woman surviving a knife attack, and then finding in herself the courage to…”

“Yes, that part of it’s fine.”

“What part of it isn’t fine?”

“The cop stuff.”

“The cop stuff is what makes it real.”

“No, the cop stuff makes it a play about cops.”

“When a woman gets stabbed…”

“Yes, yes.”

“… she goes to the cops, Ashley. She doesn’t go to her chiropractor. Would you like her to go to her chiropractor after she’s stabbed?”

“No, I…”

“Because then it wouldn’t be a play about cops anymore, it’d be a play about chiropractors. Would that suit you better?”

“Why does she have to go to the cops before she’s stabbed?”

“That’s known as suspense, Ashley.”

“I see.”

“By the way, that’s a terrible verbal tic you have.”

“What is?”

“Saying ‘I see’ all the time. Somewhat sarcastically, in fact. It’s almost as bad as ‘You know.’ ”

“I see.”

“Exactly.”

“But tell me, Freddie, do you actually like cops?”