Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [129]
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the wonderful Natalie Cole.”
Klayman turned to see the singing star begin a song associated with her late father, Nat “King” Cole. He forced himself to redirect his attention to the prop room door, which was now open. He went to it and peered inside. No Bancroft. He scanned the myriad boxes on shelves. The boxes were neatly stacked, one atop the other, floor to ceiling, each carefully labeled. His eyes went to one box that sat on a small table wedged in the corner. He looked up to an empty space where a box had been. A few steps closer allowed him to read the label on the box on the table: FIREARMS.
He lifted the cardboard lid and saw the array of fake weapons piled inside. Why hadn’t the Secret Service noted this when they’d swept the room earlier in the day? He looked up again. The box had probably been up there, high off the floor, when agents examined the room. Still …
Natalie Cole’s voice singing “Route Sixty-six” reached him in the room. A Secret Service agent looked in. Klayman motioned him to look in the box.
“Where’d these come from?” the agent asked, going through the array of stage props.
“Up there, I think,” Klayman said, indicating the space at the top of the shelving.
“All phonies. Plastic.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take them.”
The agent placed the lid on the box and carried it from the room, presumably to place it under the control of other agents until the evening was over. Klayman stayed behind for a few minutes, trying to put his thoughts in order. Although every weapon in the box was an obvious replica, why had that particular box been taken down from the shelf? Had Bancroft removed it and placed it on the table? If so, why?
He left the room and took in his backstage surroundings. He spotted Johnson at the other side and gave him a wave, which was returned. Bancroft came into view. He stood alone by the light panel, his back to the lighting technician, head lowered, fingers pressed against his temples as though to push a headache from his head, or a particularly onerous thought.
Bancroft turned and saw Klayman. He appeared to want to want to say something, but spun and disappeared behind a heavy vertical curtain.
“… Someday my happy arms will hold you, and someday I’ll know that moment divine, that all the things you are, are mine,” Natalie Cole sang to conclude her set. The audience applauded enthusiastically as she took her bows and left the stage, to be replaced immediately by Clarise Emerson. She stepped to the mike, flashed a wide, dazzling smile, and began her scripted one-minute speech.
Alan King stood in the wings, poised to follow.
Bancroft stepped from behind the vertical curtain and followed the contour of the backstage wall to a position immediately to Clarise’s stage left, out of view of the audience. Klayman saw the aged Brit make his move, reaching into the front waistband of his trousers.
Klayman narrowed his eyes and leaned forward to see better: “What’s he doing?” he wondered.
Clarise was about to deliver her final line when she saw Bancroft out of the corner of her eye. She froze for a second, the smile sagged. But she delivered the line, smiling again, and finished with, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, one of America’s comedy treasures, Mr.—Alan—King!”
As King strode to the microphone, Klayman looked into the audience. Vice President Maloney sat front-row center, flanked by two Secret Service agents. To her left, next to the agent on that side, were vacant seats President Nash and the first lady were to have occupied.
King launched into his monologue and immediately had the audience laughing. Police officers behind Klayman laughed, too, and a barbed comment about the nation’s first female vice president adding Martha Stewart to the cabinet caused Klayman to chuckle, but only for a second. He watched as Bancroft, seemingly transfixed, his eyes boring holes into the front row, again reached into his waistband. This time, his hand emerged holding a handgun.
The sight froze Klayman