Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 by Romance Page B

you don’t mind.”
    “He’s right, boys,” her agent said. “Thanks for coming up, but she needs some rest now.”
    One of the photographers asked Michelle if she would mind one last picture, and when she said, “Okay, but I’m really very
     tired,” he asked if she would mind lowering the gown off her left shoulder to show the bandaged wound, which she did in a
     demure and ladylike manner, while simultaneously managing to show a little bit of cleavage.
    The moment everyone was gone, Kling asked, “Was the man who stabbed you white, black, Hispanic or Asian?”
    The black nurse seemed about to take offense, but then Michelle said, “White.”
    At nine that night, Ashley Kendall was still rehearsing his cast, but instead of Michelle up there playing the Actress, her
     understudy was filling in for her. Kendall hated Corbin’s pretentious naming—or non-naming—of the characters in his play.
     Right now, he was rehearsing the Actress’s under-study, who happened to be an actress named Josie Beales, but on the same
     stage with her was an actress named Andrea Packer, who was playing the
character
named the Under-study, although
her
understudy was an actress named Helen Frears. It could get confusing if you weren’t paying attention.
    Josie was twenty-one, with strawberry-blond hair that was only a timid echo of Michelle’s fiercer tresses. But she was taller
     than Michelle, and less cumbersomely endowed, and therefore moved more elegantly. In Kendall’s opinion, she was also a far
     better actress than Michelle. In fact, he’d wanted to cast
her
as the Actress, but had been outvoted by Mr. Frederick Peter Corbin III. So now Miss Tits had the leading role, and Josie
     was a mere understudy who moved furniture and props and played a variety of non-speaking roles. Such was the tyranny of playwrights.
     Josie hadn’t expected to be here tonight. She’d been interrupted at home, eating dinner—actually a container of yogurt and
     a banana—and watching
Love Connection
in her bathrobe, when the stage manager called to say, “You’re on, babe.” She’d thrown on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt
     and rushed right over. Now she waited with the other actors for the rehearsal to resume.
    Kendall supposed he could have called off the rehearsal, but Michelle’s earlier behavior and stormy departure had left the
     other actors feeling confused and miserable. Besides, he was grateful for the opportunity to run through the scenes with an
     accomplished and disciplined young woman like Josie standing in, and without Mr. Moneybags Morgenstern sitting by witnessing
     a tantrum. The producer was gone now. In his stead in the sixth row center sat the exalted playwright himself, who had been
     home earlier today rewriting some
lines
that were troubling him, when he should have been rewriting three or four
scenes
that were troubling Kendall. Or maybe even the whole damn
play,
for that matter.
    Everyone in the theater already knew that their “shtar” had been stabbed in the alley outside and taken to Morehouse General.
     Chuck Madden, the show’s stage manager, had called there a few minutes ago. Now he leaned into the sixth row, and informed
     Kendall and Corbin that some blue-haired volunteer had told him Miss Cassidy’s condition was stable and that she’d be released
     from the hospital some-time later tonight.
    “Thank you, Chuck,” Kendall said, and rose and said, “People?”
    The actors chatting onstage, waiting for things to start, turned and squinted out into the darkened theater.
    “I know you’ll all be delighted to learn that Michelle’s okay,” Kendall said. “She’ll be going home tonight, in fact.”
    “Terrific,” someone said without enthusiasm.
    “Who did it, do they know?” someone else asked.
    “I have no information on that,” Kendall said.
    “Not germane, anyway,” someone else said.
    “I heard that, Jerry!”
    “Sorry, boss!”
    “Chuck? Are you back there yet?”
    “Yes,