"Lisa Goldstein - Walking the Labyrith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

Goldstein, Lisa.
Walking the labyrinth / by Lisa Goldstein.
p. cm. “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 0-312-86175-3
I. Title. PS3557.0397W35 1996
813'.54-dc20 95-53142
CIP
First Edition: June 1996
Printed in the United States of America


FOR CLAIRE PARMAN BROWN



PROLOGUE

When the show ended, when the stagehands came out to clear away
the stars and streamers and glittering sequins, Andrew made his
way down the aisle to the stage. He knocked at the door to the
greenroom, which opened to a woman in a turban and a short green
and silver kimono.
“I’m Andrew Dodd from the Oakland Tribune ,” he said. “Callan
and Thorne Allalie told me to meet them after the performance.”
 “Ah,” she said. “Callan’s in the trap room. Do you know where
that is?”
He shook his head. The woman gave him complicated directions
and he walked down the stairs, then followed a maze of sloping
corridors. The brown and off-white walls, the rough ceiling and bare
bulbs, were almost a relief after the opulence of the theater. He
came to the trap room and knocked.
“Come,” a deep voice said. Andrew opened the door and stepped
inside. “I’m Callan Allalie. You’re the reporter, aren’t you?”
“Is this part of the mmd-reading act?” Andrew asked.
Callan laughed. He was, Andrew saw with surprise, fairly short;
on stage, wearing a top hat and tails, he had seemed larger, more
imposing. He was almost completely bald; that had been hidden by
the hat.
“You were the only man in the audience not wearing a tie and
tails,” Callan said, indicating Andrew’s white blazer and straw
skimmer. “I saw you from the stage and I thought, There’s the
reporter. Sit down, sit down.”
Andrew looked around. In one corner stood a piano covered with
a cloth. Near it were several rolled rugs, then the ramp leading to
the orchestra pit. Clothing racks hung with costumes took up
another corner. Two men carrying a golden statue between them
came through the door. So they had been statues, then. Andrew
hadn’t been sure.
He sat on one of the rolled rugs. Callan laughed again and sat
next to him, stretching his legs. “Good, good,” Callan said. “I like