The Phantom of Oz, Installment #20
And one of "The Wizard of Oz's" best actors
Hello! As most of you know, I’m serializing The Phantom of Oz here in a bit of an experiment. Once a month, you’ll still receive the “regular” Slightly Silly News. If you missed earlier chapters of Phantom, you can find links to all of the earlier installments here.
The cast of The Wizard of Oz has so many great actors, like…Toto. Seriously. Watch the film again sometime, concentrating on Toto. He is charming, funny, and fearless. He’s also really a she, a Cairn Terrier named Terry.
I’m not the only one who loves Toto, who was mentioned in reviews, has a fan club, a memorial in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and their own postage stamp (with Dorothy).
I also loved my own version of Toto, a Norwich terrier mix named Don King (RIP, you good boy).
Now on to another Toto. Happy reading!
Chapter 15
It Was an…Accident…a Sad…a Very Sad…Accident
But how in the world was I going to investigate the accident site? I had no good reason to be snooping around backstage. People at the theater had already seen me around, so I couldn’t pretend to be any sort of official. Who else would have any reason to want to examine the site?
Ah.
“So I’m writing an article about the Grand Phoenician for The West Coast Stage,” I said as I followed Logan back to his office. “It’s a theater magazine.” That was not true.
“I didn’t know you were a writer.”
“I’m not really.” That was true. “A friend got me the gig”—(false)—“and I can always use the cash.” (True.) Though lying was sometimes necessary in PI work, I didn’t like doing it. Sprinkling in some truth made me feel better.
“And you promise that you’re not really writing about Babette or Candy or Itty Bitty or any of that crap?”
“I promise.”
“I refuse to be part of anything that promotes that fake ideal of beauty in order to get people to buy crap. It’s conspicuous consumerism personalized. If you buy this, you’ll be pretty. If you drink this, you’ll be thin. If you—”
“I understand. I will need to ask about the accidents, though. It’s one of the reasons they’re interested in the theater.”
Logan opened the door to his office. “Can I read the article before you send it in?”
“Sure.” That was sort of true, since I would never actually write an article. Logan ushered me into his office, which was crammed full of boxes. They were stacked almost from floor to ceiling, in sizes that ranged from shoeboxes to liquor boxes, and each one was neatly labeled: Allenwrenches, Adhesives, Rubber, Foam, Carving knife (carving knife?) and more. A framed poster of the seventies sci-fi flick Logan’s Run hung above the desk. A grinning white mask with black eyebrows, mustache, and goatee hung next to it—the anti-establishment symbol from V for Vendetta.
Logan sat down in his desk chair and I sat in the only other chair in the room, a cracked Naugahyde recliner that had probably been a set piece somewhere.
I took out my notebook and grilled Logan for ten minutes about the history of the theater (built in 1925, survived the Depression by cutting ticket costs, turned into a movie house in the 1960s, closed when mall cinemas drew audiences away in the 1970s, fell into disrepair and was rescued from the wrecking ball in 1990 by a small group of history and theater buffs). “Now,” I said, “about those accidents...”
A noise from the hallway. A snuffle. Nothing visible through the slightly ajar door. I looked at Logan, but he was examining his fingernails. Then, a smell. Sweet and flowery, like...shampoo? The door creaked open by itself. And suddenly there was a scuffle and I was engulfed by something dark with claws and...wet dog fur.
“Toto.” Logan admonished the dog. “Get off Ivy.”
The little black terrier jumped off my lap and sat obediently on the floor.
“Must have just had a bath,” Logan said. “He likes to run around afterward and dry off. Sometimes on people’s laps.”
I scratched Toto’s damp head. “Should we get him back to wherever he belongs?”
“Nah. He belongs to one of the munchkins. She lets him roam around the theater. He’s really well behaved, and he can’t go anywhere. We’repretty much locked in here.”
“Which brings me to the accidents.”
“It does?”
“Sure. I mean, they couldn’t have been caused by someone outside the theater, right? Everyone has to sign in.”
“But no one has to cause accidents. In fact...” Logan turned around and tapped a few keys on his keyboard. “An accident is defined as ‘an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.’”
I looked over his shoulder at the dictionary site he’d pulled up. “Or ‘An event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.’ An accident could be caused by a person, but we can’t see how or why.”
Logan groaned. “Foiled by my own smart-ass-ness.”
“Hoisted by your own petard,” I said. “Isn’t it cool how Shakespeare fits every occasion?” I looked down at Toto. “Like, ‘Pish to you, you mangy dog;’ or as your dictionary says, ‘Accident: also used euphemistically to refer to an incidence of incontinence, typically by a child or an animal.’”
“What?”
I pointed at the small pool of liquid on the floor underneath Toto.
“No,” Logan said to Toto or to me or maybe regarding the incident in general. He stood up and pulled a piece of an old t-shirt from a box labeled “rags,” threw it on the floor, and mopped up the puddle, which was not much bigger than a quarter. Then he sniffed the rag. “Just leftover bath water.” He tossed the rag into what looked like a small pile of laundry in the corner of his office. “You’re a good boy, Toto.”
Toto looked at me with literal puppy dog eyes. “Sorry, boy,” I said. “Didn’t mean to tarnish your reputation.” He must have forgiven me, because he hopped back up on my lap. Oh well, at least he was a clean wet dog. “So, back to the accidents,” I said to Logan. “I heard that thechandelier fell because a bolt was loose?”
“Or maybe a couple of them,” he said. “Hard to tell after the fact.”
“Could someone have loosened them?”
“You mean, taken a cherry picker into the theater, raised themselves up under the chandelier, and gone at it with a wrench? I think someone would have noticed that.”
“No, from the other side. Is there any way to get above the ceiling? A crawlspace or something?”
“Sure.” Logan frowned. “There are air-conditioning ducts and stuff up there. I’m sure there must be a way to access it if somebody needs to.”
“Did you hear anything about the chandelier being jury-rigged by an extra cable so it wouldn’t fall all the way down?”
Logan sighed. “I don’t know why people are making a big deal about that. It makes sense to have a safety mechanism in place, doesn’t it?”
Yeah, it did. I picked up Toto off my lap and set him on the floor. “Can we go backstage? I’d like to understand what happened with the runaway, or whatever you call it.”
He shrugged but got out of his chair. “Come on.”
“Hey,” I said as Logan and I walked toward the stage. “You were onstage during the runaway accident, right?”
Logan’s back stiffened. “Why?”
“Did you see the ghost light turn on and off?”
He relaxed a little. “No.”
“It was weird, almost like a signal.”
“Maybe it was somebody plugging in the wrong cord. Or maybe it was the ghost.”
I knew Logan was teasing me, but it was weird, the light turning on at the same time as Candy’s accident.
He opened the door to the stage and the sound of hammering. Dorothy’s house was onstage, and several men were repairing its crunched lower half. “It’ll be ready for tonight’s show,” Logan said in answer to my unspoken question. “So, the runaway: as you know, set pieces stay up in the fly space for most of the show, flying in and out when needed. We do that through counterweights, which are controlled by those lift lines you see over there.” He nodded at the ropes that lined the wall offstage left. “Those cables, usually a couple of them, are attached to the load—the set piece—and a winch or counterweight arbor. We have to perfectly balance the loads so we can fly them in and out. For some reason, last night that particular load—Dorothy’s house—was unbalanced enough that Rosie couldn’t control her line set, and we had a runaway.”
“She was really lucky she wasn’t hurt.”
Logan’s face turned red. “She was really stupid. Everyone who works backstage knows better than to grab a runaway rope.”
“I don’t know, it seems like it might be just a reflex, trying to make sure that flat wasn’t going to come down on anyone’s head.”
“No.” Logan shook his head. “Talk about reflex: even if everyone here didn’t know to get out of the way when they hear that call, they’d run anyway. No. Rosie was just stupid. People have been killed that way, hit their heads on a metal beam as they went up. And if that had happened, it wouldn’t be the ghost they’d be blaming. It’d be me.”
“Why would anyone blame you?”
“Because I’m in charge,” he said. “I’m also out of time. You got what you need?”
“I think so. If I have any more questions—”
“Good. See you around. Come on, Toto.” Logan held open the door to the hall where his office was. He waited for the little terrier, then closed it behind them, leaving me backstage by myself.
Watch next week for a “regular” Slightly Silly Newsletter, and another installment of Phantom a week later.
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated series:
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