Something Wicked Read Online Free

claimed, moreover, that if the players didn’t have a successful (i.e., debt-free) summer season Halcyon Development would be free of any further responsibility for the theater, and could build and lease the site to any business of its choice.
    At this point, Sunday, May 31, the players were determined to mount a successful summer season to maintain theirclaim to the harbor-front site and, hopefully, to force Halcyon Development to rebuild in the fall.
    As the Porsche jolted to a stop, gray dust rose in dispirited swirls in the unpaved lot.
    Max surveyed the skipping dust-devils. “We’d better remind Burt to have somebody wet down the lot before opening night.”
    Annie was hopping out. “Let’s hurry. It looks like almost everyone’s here.” She noted the half dozen cars, and the two bikes, Henny Brawley’s bright red ten-speed and director Haznine’s cheaply rented bent and battered old-fashioned no-speed.
    She moved eagerly toward the school. Despite the problems with the production—and God knows there were many, ranging from the miscasting as Teddy of a California surfer running to fat to the series of odd tricks that had plagued the play since rehearsals began—she still looked forward to rehearsals. She loved
Arsenic and Old Lace.
She loved the dear old sisters so busily dispatching lonely old men to, they were certain, a finer world. She loved nervous, alcoholic Dr. Einstein with his plaintive “No, Chonny, no!” And she adored Max as Mortimer. There was something about Max in a double-breasted suit and a snap-brim felt hat that melted her bones. She picked up speed. She heard a soft chuckle behind her as she pulled open the faded red door.
    Then she pulled up short, stopped by a frazzled voice climbing until it neared falsetto.
    Sam Haznine, his pudgy shoulders tightly hunched, stood with his back to them, clutching the receiver of the pay phone in the lobby. “I
know
it’s hot. Goddamn, I’ve been hot ever since we hit this godforsaken outpost, but, sweetie, it’s gonna get better. Stick with me, honey lamb. We’re going to bust out of this swamp right back to Broadway.
Please,
sweetie, don’t go. It’s just one more week and we open and then it will all be gravy, I swear to God.” He paused, pulled a wilted handkerchief from a hip pocket, and mopped the back of his neck. The director’s seersucker pants hung limply on his pear-shaped frame.
    Annie held a finger to her lips and began to tiptoe across the scuffed tile to the double doors at the, center aisle. One door sagged from its hinges. Once she and Max were safelyout of the foyer, she said softly, “Poor Sam.” Then, a little wearily, “Poor us. What’ll you bet it will be some rehearsal today?”
    But Max was looking toward the stage. “Not all the fireworks are going to come from Sam.”
    She looked down the aisle and saw Hugo Wolf rising from his seat as Burt Conroy darted out on stage.
    Even in the somewhat dingy auditorium, Hugo commanded attention. As he stalked with measured tread toward the stage, every eye turned toward him.
    What was it that distinguished Hugo? Not his size, although he was over six feet and solidly built. Not even his looks, although he had a dark, twisted countenance that made her think of a Borgia contemplating a dinner partner. Hugo had presence, that mysterious quality that makes men stand out from their fellows. You
knew
when you looked at him that he was a heavy hitter, and, if the set of his shoulders meant anything, and she was quite certain it did, he was ready to unload this afternoon.
    It was easy to understand, when Hugo reached the stage, why he was cast as Jonathan, the menacing, saturnine older brother who has returned to terrorize his screwball family. Hugo’s thick, silvery eyebrows tufted in a grim frown as he glared down at Burt Conroy.
    “Dump Shane.” His hard-featured, broken-nosed face was implacable.
    To Annie’s surprise, Burt Conroy didn’t crumple on the spot.
    Feeling a