"I think she caught that, didn't she?" Kehoe said, mocking Dobbis.

"There's only another five seconds for anyone onstage to get off when that happens. But then the steel sides and rear drop-and if you don't know they're coming-you get caught in there, just the way your cops did. It's like a giant steel trap."

"But he got out." I was referring to Ross Kehoe, as I grasped the seatbacks and followed Dobbis's baby steps, coming to an abrupt stop behind him as he reached a cement setback in the middle of the row.

"You remember the way, Chet, don't you? Take those stairs."

"I can't see anything, damn it. You should go ahead of me."

Kehoe laughed. "You could probably scale your way up the side of the Grand Canyon or the top of Everest and you're telling me you can't climb up there? Four more steps, Chet. Feel your way."

Chet Dobbis leaned over the opening and crawled. Kehoe squeezed behind me as I followed Dobbis, still hearing no noise, no sign of rescuers, coming from below.

Kehoe padded like a panther in the darkness, familiar with his surroundings and secure in his footing.

"They'll get out, too," I said, sounding no more confident than I felt. "Soon."

Chet Dobbis was at the top, reaching out a hand for me to stand up in the dusty confines of a storeroom full of antiquated stage lighting equipment. "It won't be that easy for them, Miss Cooper. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say Ross has sealed the whole place off. Killed all the electricity down there. In half an hour, it has an automatic disengage system built in, but thirty minutes is a long time to wait."

Kehoe pushed me aside and lined up behind us. There was a slice of a footpath between stacks of plywood scenery that had been left leaning against walls and cardboard cartons that were labeled with show titles, costumes and props abandoned on top of them.

"They've got cell phones," I said, remembering that Laura had not gotten one to replace mine before I left the office this afternoon.

"Easier to get through from outer space than from inside that metal enclosure," Dobbis said. "Nobody knows that better than Ross."

"Why?" I asked. "Why does Ross know?"

"'Cause that was my job, girl," Kehoe said, sneering at me, the same irritating noise coming from his lips. "You kept asking me what I did for Joe, didn't you? You think I'm some kind of jerk, don't you?"

Another door for Dobbis to open. Another step into a black chamber, like the poor man's equivalent of entering Tut's tomb. Once again my eyes gradually became accustomed to the greater darkness; the room was piled from top to bottom with theatrical treasures, if not the golden objects of a boy king.

Dobbis was feeling his way through the mess, his movement slowed by the overflow of old sets that were in his way.

"You didn't give me credit for being so smart, did you, Alex?" Again Kehoe clutched my neck with his bare hand, trying to shake an answer out of me. I could feel the calloused skin, the strong grip of a man who had labored as a stagehand for years before being rescued by Mona Berk from his working-class surroundings.

Kehoe squeezed tighter.

I had nothing to say. I hadn't seen a moment's chance to break away on this trek, and now I seemed to have lost the ability to resist against his brute force.

"Joe did. Joe Berk did. Saw me working backstage when I was just getting started. Still a teenager, brought in by my uncle, trying to get into the carpenters' union. Move it, Chet. One more door there, then up a flight. Don't you remember?"

"I've never come this far. Nobody's been there since this place was built."

"Been where?" I asked, the words catching in my throat.

"Forget fucking carpentry. I figured that one out feist. I watched my old man's thumb get ripped to shreds by a saw while he was building a set for some bullshit play that didn't even stay open for two weeks. Tore the bone off down to the joint. Too much back-breaking work, and you're sucking in the sawdust all day long. It was the lights I liked. I liked controlling the whole operation with the flick of one switch. All the juice was in my hands and even old Joe Berk thought I was a genius."

Another pitch-black chamber, this one hung with row upon row of faded costumes.

Royal robes and ballgowns, tutus and tulle skirts of every length, outfits for soldiers and cowboys and chorus girls and cancan dancers.

Dobbis leaned over and half crawled up another set of stairs. "Joe Berk's jack-of-all-trades. You did all his dirty work for him."

"You don't know half of what that old bastard was up to," Kehoe said, waiting for me to follow Dobbis.

"Is this it?" Dobbis asked.

"Open the door."

Chet Dobbis turned his shoulder to the black steel frame and pushed but nothing moved.

Kehoe removed a small silver gadget, the size of a can opener, from his left pocket. He pressed a button on it and the door slid to the side, allowing a slice of light from within to streak down the painted black cement steps.

"It's the dome of the old mosque, Alex. We're going into the dome."

One more long wooden staircase, its steps embedded with a row of tiny lights like the pathways that illuminate on airplanes to show the way to the exits in case of emergency.

At the top of the flight, awaiting our arrival, stood Mona Berk.

"Shit," she said to Kehoe. "What are you doing with her, too?"

"I didn't expect the cops to show up in the middle of this. I had to think fast."

"Not your strong suit. Let's figure this out."

Dobbis went first, and despite the danger to both of us, seemed to stand in place and look all around the room, taking in everything he could see.

Ross ordered him to move and when I reached the top of the landing, I understood what had stopped Dobbis in his tracks.

Overhead, in the center of the massive circular structure, was a large skylight. Through it streaked moonbeams from the cloudless April night. Adjacent buildings-large hotels, offices, and high-priced apartments that overlooked the vast space of the mosque dome- also cast down an eerie neon night-light.

And high above me, suspended from the rounded ceiling on lengths of shiny brass chain links, was a red velvet swing-the kind that sixteen-year-old Evelyn Nesbit swung on naked to amuse her paramour, the great Stanford White, and the kind of swing from which Lucy DeVore dropped, likely to die, the day Ross Kehoe walked her backstage for her audition.

"Over there, Chet," Kehoe said, directing him to a sofa in a corner of the great dome that had been furnished to look like a hidden bordello.

When Dobbis took his seat, Ross passed the gun to Mona and told her to keep it on me while he tied Dobbis's hands behind his back with some strips of cloth that looked ready-made for the occasion.

I studied him now, out from behind me for the first time since he'd accosted me. He was edgier still, pushing Dobbis's limbs when the captive director didn't comply fast enough, licking his lips constantly and sucking in more air.

I tried to scope the rest of the room, not wanting to take my eyes off the handgun for many seconds. There was a bed, to the side of the swing, that was dressed in the lavish style of the linens in Joe Berk's room and had the same crest and monogrammed initials; an antique brass clothing stand from which hung a variety of lingerie and robes; a well-stocked bar with liquors, wines, and crystal glasses of every shape and size.

I started to walk back the cat. "Where's the camera?"

"What?" Mona asked.

"That's what you did for Joe, isn't it?" I said to Kehoe, ignoring Mona Berk. "You wired up places for Joe Berk. You're the electrical specialist-that's what you did in theaters, isn't it? You built him an entertainment system that let him watch anybody he wanted-women in dressing rooms, bedrooms, showers-and whatever the hell was going on here, in this… this playground you created for him."