Passion Play

  “I will. Right now I’m talking to you.”

  “Fair enough.” He settled himself, put on a thoughtful look, began to declaim. “Jonathan Mask: well, start with the basics. He was a star, the biggest.”

  “Did he deserve to be?”

  Vachon smiled quickly and dipped his fingers into a pot of cold cream. “Hey, no ego here. You ever see him in Othello or Blue Star?” I nodded. “Then you don’t need me to tell you. Yeah, he was good. He was the best I ever saw.” He paused to wipe the make-up from his eyes, going carefully over the lids, leaving a sienna stain on the white tissue like a burnt kiss. “Some actors, the more you see them, the less you think of them. You get used to their tricks, you begin to predict the way they’re going to deliver their lines.—You see them through the character. Does that make sense?” I nodded. “Well I’ve worked with Jon a couple of times, and I’ve seen almost everything he’s ever done, trying to find out how he does it. With him you never see anything but the role. He’s never predictable—completely transparent. It’s like watching a new man each time.

  “That’s why he single-handedly killed method acting. It wasn’t just that he didn’t believe in their approach; if he hadn’t been so God-damned good it wouldn’t have mattered. But he got the results they were trying so hard for, and made them look stupid doing it.” Vachon shook his head admiringly. “Of course, they’re still around—even I use some of the Method techniques from time to time; we can’t all be Mask. They finally had to fall back on calling him a closet Methodist.” He grinned slyly and I couldn’t keep from laughing too. “No, seriously—they said that he ‘lived his characters’ even though he denied using their approach.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Vachon wiped the last of his base from around his strong jaw. With an exaggerated flick he sent his tissue spinning into a waste basket and then turned his chair to face me. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t think so. When you live a character, it becomes a part of you—I still hold my make-up pencils in a feminine way because of a show I did once where I played a homosexual. It’s a trivial example, but you know what I mean.

  “Jon Mask wasn’t like that. He didn’t live his characters; he constructed them. With incredible patience, but still constructed. When the show was over, whoosh: he struck the set and there was nothing left. He was never—stained—by any of his characters.

  “It was generally acknowledged that Jon was a shaper, you know,” Daniel said conspiratorially. “He used it to probe people, to figure out what made them tick. Like a surgeon’s laser.” Vachon shook his head. “Brilliant, of course, but not really a healthy approach.”

  I listened to this shit, stone-faced.

  “Most actors have a touch of it, you know. In our own small way.” He twirled a mascara stick admonishingly. “Jon’s tragedy was that he used only one side of it—the analytical, mind-reading sort of thing. Never stopped to feel the joy of a sunrise, or take in the poetic ambience of a great artist.” He examined himself in the mirror again. “A pity really.”

  “You’re no shaper,” I said contemptuously.

  Vachon looked at me steadily, all affectation vanishing in an instant. “No,” he said. “I’m not.

  “Each of Jon’s characters was perfect,” he went on at last, “and washed off completely when he was done with it. Except for Mephistophilis, of course, and that was hardly his fault.”

  “Meaning he died.”

  He grimaced. “Well, of course. But not just that. David was really pushing him. The first scenes in the play—just Jon and me—were the last ones to be shot. We went days behind schedule. No problems with me,” he said and laughed. “No—we reached my limits early. But David worked Jon over and over. I don’t know that he was ever completely satisfied, but we were under time pressure.”

  “Mask was no good as Mephistophilis?”

  “O no—quite the opposite. David was looking for the jump from brilliant to immortal, that’s all. He even—gasp—raised his voice a couple of times. Shouting ‘All the way, Jon! All the way, damn you!’ You never heard D.D. yell at me,” he finished wryly.

  “Interesting…What about Tara Allen?”

  Vachon gestured peacefully with his hands. “Can’t tell you much. Good tech.” He paused. “I know some people aren’t too fond of her, because she’s a woman.” He shrugged and smiled charmingly. “I don’t see it makes much difference. I think women are just as capable of holding responsible positions as men.” He grimaced. “Certainly more capable than me.”

  I nodded to accept the implicit compliment, and found myself liking Vachon against my better judgement.

  An idea struck him. “Look, I am not the world’s best-loved individual, but like me or not, most people know me pretty well before they’ve known me long. Tara is someone I’ve been saying hello to in the halls for almost five years, and I couldn’t tell you if I was a close friend or a distant acquaintance.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Who knows? I’m not very good at reading other people,” he said candidly. “It’s my worst failing as an actor.”

  “Hm.” I decided that Daniel was good in direct proportion to the company he kept. Surrounded by louts he would be the loutiest, but now, alone in the familiar reek of the make-up room, he seemed not such a bad guy.

  Partly, of course, because he was playing to my biases. “Did you ever worry that Mask would blacklist you?”

  Vachon grinned. “At the end of his illustrious career as an Inquisitor? Frankly, Ms. Fletcher, I doubt I was even worth Jon’s time.”

  “Mr. Vachon! You’re too modest.”

  “My colleagues will tell you that an excess of modesty is not one of my problems.”

  I laughed. “What about your director?”

  Vachon smiled. “Now he’s an odd one—I was wondering when you’d get to David.”

  “Why?”

  “Stands to reason. He’s the boss. And Ms. Fletcher, he cares!” The actor’s voice sank to a hammy whisper, and his face filled with pain. “He really cares. And he makes us all care. We’re just one big family: not always happy, but boy do we care!” Vachon laughed. “David wants total intensity, total commitment, and he’ll work you to death to get it. His projects are always draining because there’s this incredible energy around the set, this intensity. People fall in love, drink themselves silly, break up old friendships…” Vachon grinned. “It’s a running joke among actors that you never do a Delaney project if you’re having problems with your marriage.”

  Ah. That fit, that was the edginess, the volatility I had felt from the whole cast when I first met them in the Green Room. “How good is he?”

  “David? One of the best, for certain types of work.”

  “Such as?”

  Vachon waved a hand in the air. “Mm—personal, emotional stuff. Passion, drama of the heart. Love stories, that kind of thing.—He’s not too good on action/adventure material. His camera work is solid, but not fancy; he’s not the cerebral Gale Danniken type director, for instance. Which is fine, if you’re an actor. That’s what he likes, working with the cast. He makes good performances. Ah—” He counted up on his fingers. “Here: I can think offhand of eight different actors who have won awards for David Delaney shows—but he himself has never won a thing.”

  “Why?”

  Vachon shrugged. “He’s a director, not a film-maker, really. He would have been better off back in the days when theatre was still viable. Don’t get me wrong: he makes a good living, and some day he’ll pick up an Oscar or an Emmy. But it might be for lifetime achievement, rather than for an individual piece, if you know what I mean.”

  I discovered a smear of red make-up on my fingers and wiped them on my jacket. “What kind of person is he?”

  “Nice. Very nice.”

  “That’s a bland and uninformative answer, Daniel. Is he a friend of yours?”

  Vachon immediately shook his head. “No. He’s not the sort of guy who has a lot of friends. H
e’s a bit on the reclusive side; has depressive phases. Rumoured to have attempted suicide at one point last year, but that’s just rumour.” He laughed and made a face. “The truth is, he’s too nice for a guy like me. I mean, if you want three words to describe him you’d get nice, talented, and nice again. I don’t know what to say to him. When we chat after work I always get the feeling that he’s thinking about things I never think about.—My fault, I realize, not his.”

  “I know the type,” I said.

  I got Vachon going on a couple of the extras just to diffuse things; I didn’t want him and Celia comparing notes and coming to any premature conclusions. After ten more minutes it was time for me to leave; I had one last appointment that evening, with Delaney himself, and I wanted to grab a snack beforehand. Vachon and I walked together to the elevators. I asked him about Celia.

  “A nice kid,” he said sincerely. “She’s been hit pretty hard by his death. She used to idolize him, lucky bastard, but then something happened to open her eyes. I’m not sure what he did, exactly,” Vachon said, “but it offended her morals somehow. Not that Celia could actually ace someone,” he added hastily. “And after all that, to leave her the money…Sometimes Jon was a little too cold. He could be a manipulative son of a bitch.” Vachon shrugged and smiled. “Still, seven million dollars can buy a lot of aspirin, I guess. She’ll do okay.”

  “Are you after her money?”

  The spasm of anger that twisted his lovely mouth was satisfactorily spontaneous. I had opened up a little, and had to concentrate on not getting angry myself. “That’s a hell of an accusation!”

  “Just a question,” I murmured.

  “Well the answer is no.” Vachon mastered himself. His tone changed and he adopted his man-of-the-world leer. “Surely you don’t think a fellow would need the money thrown in to make him interested?”

  “No,” I admitted, remembering Celia sheathed in her flare. “I suppose not.”

  Abruptly Vachon dropped the sharkskin smile and was back to the man who had sat across from me in the make-up room. “Look—I like Celia: she thinks nice and she’s built better. But she’s young, and very straight. Red Youth and everything—I kid you not. Mask was her idol. He screwed her around and then got killed, and I wanted to help. Credit?”

  “Credit,” I said, as the elevator finally reached us.

  “Though, mind you,” said Vachon, in his best Ernest Worthing voice, “the addition of the fortune does nothing to detract from the young lady’s considerable charms…”

  After my interview with Vachon I got a sandwich and placed a call to Central. None of the damn tasers we had impounded had been fired into Mask’s costume. However, the test results were in. The fragment of skin found on the flash of the costume was from Tara Allen. I thanked the sergeant and told him to leave the results in Rolly’s file.

  David Delaney was my last interview for the night; I had arranged to meet with Tara Allen the next morning at Mask’s place. I wanted to see the great man’s house, hungry for the traces of himself he must have left there.

  Things were emerging that I had not guessed when I first saw Jonathan Mask dead on the carpet in his dressing room. Of his talent I had been aware; the intellectualism, the cold-blooded manipulation—these things were new. And the will: its references to game seemed remarkably appropriate. Jonathan Mask had been a game player, capable of moving from role to role, much like Vachon, but faster, deeper, with greater subtlety and sophistication. Possessing each person he played like a devil, slipping out again when his work was done.

  As I prowled through the seventy-first floor, looking for stage #206, I decided to get a copy of the Memoirs from Tara. Red hagiographies weren’t going to be much use.

  #206 was tucked into the northwest corner of the NT building. The stage was circular, and surrounded by seats: theatre in the round. Parts of the set from Faustus had been moved down here already; I recognized the desk (bare without its flamboyant pen), and an oak shelf holding books with sinister titles.

  Delaney hadn’t yet shown up, so I browsed. The only illumination was a dim glow that filtered softly down from a rack of spotlights above my head. Death in the limelight. The microplane technology used in the Mephistophilis costume was the same as that which stored the energy from the two hundred lightnings that smote the NT building each year. But man’s lightning, not God’s, had killed Jonathan Mask.

  The books were disappointingly hollow, or else re-covered manuals on how to operate scuba gear, or outdated picture books filled with shots taken from the space station before it had been abandoned.

  A voice came out of the dim air around me. “Ms. Fletcher? God bless—my apologies; I didn’t hear you come in. I shall come down immediately.”

  Never having looked up beyond the lights, I had missed the control booth. Delaney clambered down the short ladder at the side of the room. “You walk with cat’s feet,” he observed as he crossed over to the stage.

  “Professional requirement. They don’t give you your hunter’s license unless you can turn cartwheels on Rice Krispies without making a sound.”

  Delaney kept his distance, looking at me curiously. “Sorry to keep you waiting; I was rather preoccupied in making some unpleasant decisions. I shall have to tell Len I can’t hire him for my next project.”

  “Nothing to do with my investigation, I hope?”

  He waved away my suspicion. “No no. I’m afraid Len has a—…habit that makes him unreliable. I’ve given him a second, third and fourth chance, but…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to the interview.”

  “Do you have to have one? Why not just let NT send his notice over the Net and be done with it?”

  He looked at me disapprovingly. “Ms. Fletcher, if one holds a position of authority, one must be willing to take responsibility for the hard things as well as the easy ones.” He paused, as if searching for another way to make his point. “When you go to apprehend someone, I would guess you do not leave the job to a few electronic snoopers and a concealed corder—am I right?”

  “Well, corder tapes aren’t admissible evidence under this government, but I get your point. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “They aren’t?” Curiosity flared and dwindled in him. “Anyway, it’s a question of personal responsibility. Now: what may I do for you?”

  “There are some loose ends I would like to clear up in the death of Mr. Mask, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. For instance, I would like to know where you were when he died. You were seen from time to time, but…”

  “Of course. I came in, and stopped by the booth for a quarter of an hour, working on some last minute preparations; I do not like publicity shorts, and I’m afraid I tend to procrastinate on them. I then went to talk to Tara and the crew, looked at the set, hung my coat in the back office, and returned.”

  “How long was it before the gopher came to you with the news?”

  “Perhaps ten minutes, perhaps slightly longer.”

  I nodded. His story checked, but it didn’t rule out the possibility of his stopping by the Star dressing room on his journeys. “I’d also like to hear your thoughts on the victim.”

  “As an actor, or as a man?”

  “Both, eventually.”

  Delaney nodded. He walked slowly towards the bookcase, then stopped and looked back at me. “Do you mind if I walk around? I find it helpful sometimes, but it can be an annoying habit…I spent much of my youth alone, and am often sadly deficient in the social graces.”

  “Please, feel free. Whatever helps you to think is just fine.”

  He nodded and resumed his pacing, a tall, quiet spirit moving through the gloom of Faustus’s study. In the dim light, surrounded by dark books on the shelves and watched by the grinning skull on Faustus’s desk, I could almost believe we were back in some cursed medieval chamber where a great man had sold his soul, bringing doom upon himself for the sin of Pride. “As a communicator, Jonathan Mask was unparal
leled, at least in our age; as an individual he at times left much to be desired.” Delaney turned to me, his back against the bookshelf. “Understand that I speak of his acting—forgive the expression, Jonathan!—as a director, and of his personality as a man. I never had any difficulties working with him; nor was I ever in direct conflict with him off the set.”

  “Granted.”

  Delaney turned back to the bookcase, idly running his fingers along the volumes. He had the thin, nervous fingers of a sculptor. “Of course, no artist’s work is ever separable from his personality, so there must be a degree of overlap in the discussion.”

  “Really? Daniel Vachon told me that Mr. Mask had a unique ability to separate his art from his life.”

  “Did he? He’s right, of course. I wasn’t sure that Daniel knew that.” Delaney walked over to the desk and sat down on its top. “But Jonathan’s art and life were not mutually exclusive; on the contrary they were the same thing in two different guises.”

  “How so?”

  “Jonathan had a very powerful mind, and his personality was a complex one. Acting, as I’m sure you know,” he said with a wry smile, “is not a profession notorious for producing intellectuals. Nonetheless, Jonathan Mask was one in the fullest sense of the word. He looked at the systems underlying things: philosophy, politics, relationships, what have you. And because he was a talented actor as well, once he had grasped these systems, he was capable of extrapolating from them like no other member of his profession. It was true that Jonathan Mask never put much faith in understanding people—but he did understand characters, and he understood acting, and he understood audiences in a very powerful analytical way.

  “What I am attempting to show you is that Jonathan was a very cerebral man, with a first class mind and certain talents that allowed him to simulate things well. He knew how to please an audience, and even when you knew him well he could be extraordinarily persuasive. It was his knowledge of character and audience that allowed him to produce his great roles—but these were things he knew, rather than felt. When the need for the role had passed, Jonathan discarded it.”