2

Grofield dropped the body in the hole and picked up the shovel again and started pushing the dirt back in. It was a cool night and cloudy, very dark. Despite the chill, Grofield was sweating as he worked. His eyes glared at everything as he moved, his jaw was clenched, his mind was turning and turning and finding no rest.

He finished filling in the grave, returned the pieces of weedy sod to the top, and walked back and forth to tamp the fresh dirt down. Then he walked over to his car, a five-year-old Chevy Nova he'd bought secondhand two years ago, put the shovel and flashlight and ground cloth in the trunk, and drove on back to the theater.

Mary was moving around in bathrobe and slippers, making a midnight snack. They'd made love earlier, downstairs in the dressing room, more awkward with one another than they'd ever been before. The sex had been cumbersome and difficult and not very satisfying in the usual sense, but afterward Mary had been more relaxed, more her normal self. And now that Dan was gone she was even better.

The sofa looked strange. He'd taken the slipcovers off and burned them, but the upholstery itself was stained with blood – Myers had been using his knife again – so Grofield had covered the thing with an old blue bedspread from the storage room downstairs. Under normal circumstances, they would have had their midnight snack sitting on that sofa, but tonight Mary without comment put the things on the table in the dining room set, and Grofield said nothing about it.

She'd made sandwiches and coffee, and she'd put out cookies. They sat at right angles at the table, eating, and Mary started a conversation about the coming season. There were three or four actors from last year they should get in touch with again, people they particularly wanted back. Grofield kept up his part of the conversation and did his best to keep his voice normal and not to glare all the time at the opposite wall. He thought he'd been doing pretty well, when Mary suddenly said, in a matter-of-fact way, "I don't suppose there's any point to my asking you not to go after him."

Grofield looked at her in surprise. "I don't know what to do," he said. "I don't want to leave you here alone."

"I'll go to New York," she said. "Remember, June said we could always stay with her if we came to the city. I'll go there and talk to some of the people we want this year."

"We still don't have the money," Grofield said.

"You'll get it." She said it offhand, as though there were no question.

"You don't mind going to New York?"

"Of course not… Alan?"

He couldn't read her face. "What?"

"Please don't leave tonight," she said. "Please don't leave till tomorrow."

Surprised, he suddenly realized he'd been turning over in his mind various ways to tell her he had to leave right away. As though there were any hurry now. "There's no hurry," he said. Abruptly his face changed; he stopped glaring, and uncovered a natural smile. Reaching out to hold her hand, he said, "I won't leave till you're ready."