Thieves of Mercy by James L Nelson

Author:James L Nelson [Nelson, James L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061871405
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

HORATIO:…So shall you hear

Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fallen on the inventors’ needs.

SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET,

ACT V, SCENE 2

Samuel Bowater had seen his share of theaters and opera houses. During fourteen years as an officer in the United States Navy, on the European Station, the Mediterranean Station, and the South American Station, Bowater had indulged in some of the finest performances, in the most sumptuous theaters, that the civilized world had to offer. The opportunity to see such performances, along with the chance to take in the museums of England and the Continent, the Sistine Chapel, Venice, Florence, the Parthenon, all the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, were the singular benefits of belonging to a service that offered little chance of promotion, and even less of action.

As far as his own country was concerned, his notion of a theater was the stately, elegant, but not ostentatious Charleston Theater on Meeting Street in his native Charleston, South Carolina.

Along with the Charleston Theater, Charleston was home to the Dock Street Theater, or was until it burned down. The Dock Street Theater was believed by many to be the first theater built specifically for the purpose in the United States. When the Dock Street burned, any number of other theaters—houses of culture, venues for the great works—sprang up to take its place. Fire and decay had claimed most of them. But the Charleston Theater still stood as a monument to Southern culture.

That was, to Bowater’s thinking, further proof that Charleston was indeed the hub of all that was worthy and good in both the Confederate States and the United States, and that the farther one moved from that shining core of civilization, the more dark and barbaric things became, until, at last, you found yourselves among Mexicans in California.

And so the Tilton Theater of Memphis, a good six hundred miles distant from Charleston on a rhumb line, nearly a third of the way to California, was about what Bowater expected. With its peculiar smell and peeling flocked wallpaper, dirty, cramped box office, worn carpet in the lobby, and pools of an unidentified viscous substance on the floors to which his shoes stuck, it was a place best suited to minstrel shows or burlesque. Bowater imagined its boards saw more of that sort of thing than they did the Bard.

With some apprehension Bowater accompanied Mississippi Mike Sullivan through the lobby and into the house. The theater was crowded, a rough-looking bunch, and Bowater wondered if they knew what kind of entertainment was in store for them.

Sullivan moved like a Wabash-class frigate through the crowd, shouldering it aside, and Bowater followed along in his wake. Behind Bowater, Hieronymus Taylor thumped after them, panting in his effort to keep up.

Sullivan did not stop until he was at the front row, where he found three seats together, once he had ejected two people who were already there. He was grinning widely, enjoying himself.

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