The Baxter Trust

stage. And there, just a page later, was his entrance. For a long, long scene. Lines and lines and lines, more than he could ever learn in time.
    The odd thing was, the script in his hand didn’t tell him the name of the play, didn’t even give him a clue. But he didn’t even think of that. That didn’t even bother him. That wasn’t part of the dream. In the dream it never occurred to him that the play’s title should be on the script, that all he had to do was look at the cover. In the dream the script only told him the lines, the lines that he didn’t know. That and how soon it would be that he would have to say them.
    And suddenly it came, and he was on stage, and the girl was talking to him, and in the void beyond the footlights were a thousand eyes all staring at him, waiting for him to reply, waiting like the girl for an answer that would not come, for a performance that would not happen. And here was this girl talking to him, and he didn’t even know her name. Christ, he didn’t even know his name. And the girl was talking, and the people were watching, and a phone was ringing, and—
    A phone? A phone in a Chekhov play? Wait What was going on? Something was not right. Couldn’t be a phone. A bell, maybe. Yeah. A bell. Saved by the bell. He didn’t have to go on. He didn’t have to answer. The play was called off, down but not out, saved by the bell at the count of nine and—
    Steve’s eyes popped open. He blinked, stared. Where was he? What was that?
    His eyes blurred. Then focused.
    A battered bookcase. The top two shelves taken up with worn, dog-eared, Perry Mason murder mysteries—paperbacks, some with their spines cracked, and the pages separated so that the titles were no longer legible; others, in slightly better repair, dating themselves with twenty-five-and thirty-five-cent prices. The middle shelves filled with books of plays, including several Samuel French scripts. The lower shelves filled with newer-looking law books.
    Posters tacked to dirty, cracked, off-white walls. Faded posters from summer stock theatre productions: “Mayfair Theatre presents A Streetcar Named Desire”; “Roundtree Summer Theatre presents The Homecoming.”
    A window with the blind drawn, light spilling through the cracks, offering the only illumination in the room.
    The room where Steve lay stretched out on the couch.
    Listening to the phone ring.
    His room. His couch. His phone.
    Phone.
    Shit.
    Steve rolled onto one side, reached over the end of the couch and grabbed the receiver from the end table.
    “Hello,” he muttered.
    An adenoidal voice said, “Mr. Winslow?”
    “Yes.”
    “This is your answering service. A Miss—”
    “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Steve said. “Lemme get a pencil.”
    He hung the phone over the end of the couch, sat up, and threw the blanket off him. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock: 4:30. Damn.
    He got to his feet and pulled up the blind to let the light in. He turned and looked around, helplessly.
    Steve’s apartment was a one-room affair not unlike Sheila’s except for the fact that his couch did not fold out into a bed, he slept on it as is, and, while Sheila kept her apartment fairly neat, his was a holy mess.
    He plodded to the desk, pawed through the litter on top, and pulled open the drawers.
    No pencil. Letters, books, magazines, newspapers, everything else but a pencil.
    He was about to give up and just try to memorize the message, when he spotted a pencil on the floor. He scooped it up. The point was broken. He began picking at it with his thumbnail. He grabbed a letter off his desk and hurried back to the phone.
    “Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”
    “A Miss Sheila Benton called and wants you to call her right back. She said it was urgent.”
    “Wait a minute. What did you tell her?”
    “Just what it says on your card—‘Mr. Winslow is in conference with a client right now. Could I have him call you back?’”
    “Fine. What was the name?”
    “Sheila Benton.”
    “And the number?”
    She told him and he wrote it down as best he could with the unsharpened pencil. It was poor, but it was legible.
    He hung up the phone and dialed the number.
    The first ring had barely begun when the phone was snatched up and a voice said, “Hello?”
    “Sheila Benton?”
    “Yes.”
    “Steve Winslow, returning your call.”
    “Oh, Mr. Winslow. Thank god you’re there. I need an attorney.”
    “What’s the trouble?”
    “A man was murdered in my