Authors: Gabrielle Holly
“A couple of days?” Bridget shouted, widening her green eyes.
“Yep. And I’ve got a few hundred light bulbs for the marquee ordered too, so we’ll have to get an electrician in. Then I’ve got a tile guy doing the bathrooms and…”
“And?” Bridget said.
Mike swept her into a hug. “Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Mm hmm,” she replied.
Mike kissed her hard then pulled her towards the staircase. “C’mon you guys. Let’s go check out the lounge downstairs. It is so awesome!”
The women followed Mike down the steps and Toni realised that Mike thought almost everything in life was awesome. The staircase opened onto a low-ceilinged room. A fireplace fronted with green-tinted mirrors faced the stairs. To the right was a single door and to the left was a display case flanked by openings. One marked ‘Ladies’ and the other ‘Gentlemen’.
Mike stood in the centre of the room as if guiding a tour. “So this is the lounge. There used to be red velvet couches and smoking stands down here. I’ve got those on order—the couches, I mean, not the smoking stands. I don’t think the fireplace works, but the electrician is going to wire it for some of those fake glowy logs.”
“On order?” Toni and Bridget asked in unison.
“Of course! And over here,” Mike said, gesturing to the display case, “is where they used to put posters for upcoming movies and live acts. Then in the ‘90s they started bringing in bands and that’s where they hung those announcements. When that was a bust, the historical society took it over and filled it up with all that stuff. There are some pretty cool things in there.”
Bridget and Toni stepped over to the case. At the centre of the display was a photo of a doughy-faced man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a fedora. He was grinning and had a fat stogie clenched between his teeth. “Who’s that?” Bridget asked.
“That’s Preston Stringman, the original owner. He was quite a character. He moved here from New York in the early ‘30s. Legend has it that he was drummed out of the East Coast for trying to compete with the mob during prohibition. He came to Travois intent on making his fortune in illegal booze with the theatre as a front. He set up a speakeasy in the backroom—I’ll show you that in a minute—but six months after he opened the doors they repealed the 18th Amendment and it was kind of a moot point.”
Toni leaned in to examine the portrait. “What’s that in his hat?”
Mike tapped the glass. “A cigar lighter. He was working at a New York movie theatre near the financial district during the stock market crash of ’29. He pilfered it from the body of one of the poor souls that jumped from a window after losing his fortune.”
“Nice,” Bridget muttered.
“Yeah, he loved to brag about it being solid gold. He wore it in the hatband, rather than tucking it in his pocket, so people would notice and ask him about it. After alcohol was legal again and his plans got screwed up, he kind of lost interest in the theatre. He’d run movies, but he never really kept the place up. By the early 1950s he’d found a way to make money in real estate and was gone most of the time—spending the summers out East and the winters in Hawaii.”
“That explains the shirt,” Bridget noted.
“Right. It was kind of his shtick—that and the hat and the cigars. Then in ’55, another theatre developer came to town and built the Rialto directly behind the Bijou.”
“Where the Food Co-op parking lot is now?” Toni asked.
“Exactly.”
“What happened to it?”
“Burnt to the ground on opening night. Everyone got out of the Rialto okay, but the projectionist of the Bijou died. The fire started in the alley between the two buildings and when smoke started pouring into the Bijou everyone panicked and started running for the lobby. Witnesses said they saw the projectionist down by the stage at the exit door to the alley. Some of them said he was just trying to wave people away from the danger, but most claimed he was down there because he’d started the fire. Either way, he never made it out and the official police report said it was arson, and conventional wisdom was that he was responsible.”
“We should head down to the station in the morning and see what they’ve got for records,” Bridget said. Mike nodded.
Toni narrowed her eyes. “Why would he want to burn the place down?”
Mike pointed through the display case glass at Preston Stringman’s photograph. “In Stringman’s statement he said that moments before the fire broke out he’d gone up to the projection booth to can Kip. He said he’d found out that Kip was having an affair with his second wife, Bitsy. That’s her there.”
Toni looked at the photo of the curvy redhead. “Pretty and young.”
“Twenty years his junior,” Mike confirmed.
Toni scanned the other pictures in the case. Most were artistic black and whites of the theatre. Each had the name
P. Stringman
printed in the lower right corner. “So he was a photographer too?”
Mike followed her gaze. “Oh, no. P. Stringman in this case was Priscilla Stringman—Preston’s daughter from his first marriage. She did some work for the local paper. Won some awards, I think. That one’s my favourite,” Mike said, pointing to a shot of the Bijou sign taken from almost directly below.
Priscilla. So that’s your name,
Toni thought.
“Okay ladies, the tour continues with the speakeasy.”
Mike led them through the door opposite the display case and into an office stuffed with boxes and discarded furniture. A second door brought them to a narrow hallway which jogged left and opened into a small room. Mike turned to face them then pointed to the wall at his right. “Just so you can get your bearings, the fireplace in the lounge is on the other side of this wall. When they had live acts, this space doubled as a dressing room. Behind me there’s a small staircase up to the stage. It was Stringman’s speakeasy for about five minutes.”
Toni glanced at the opening leading to the stage and as she turned away she caught movement in the corner of her eye. Her attention snapped back to the stairs, but there was nothing there. A chill ran through Toni and she was glad when Mike suggested they continue the tour upstairs. She couldn’t get out of there soon enough.
* * * *
Toni looked over the balcony railing at the main theatre below. The heavy pleated drapes that lined the side walls were tattered and some of them were missing altogether. Where the wall was exposed, she noticed the faded hint of a mural. “What’s that Mike?”
Mike joined her at the railing. “Oh, that is so cool! They’re black light murals. It was a huge thing back when they were building these places in the ‘30s. As the audience was filing in they’d turn on black lights and the murals would glow—almost like 3D. The ones in here are paintings of a park with fountains and gazebos and people having picnics. I had a restoration guy look at them and he said the walls just need a good cleaning. He’s going to have some college kids from the art school come over and do the work. And if you look up, see how the ceiling is coved? It’s painted super dark blue and there are thousands of little dots of phosphorescent paint. The black light makes it look like a starry sky.”
“Cool,” Toni agreed.
Mike grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs to the back of the balcony where Bridget was waiting. “Acrophobia,” she explained. “Me and heights just don’t get along.”
Mike gave her a reassuring peck on the cheek then continued his tour. “To the right we’ve got the projection room. It’s the heart of the theatre.” Toni and Bridget poked their heads inside the olive green room. Mike pushed past them and ran his hand over the huge machine in the centre. “And this, ladies, is the Whisper Reel Deluxe—the big mac-daddy of film projection units. It’s older than the two of you combined, but it’s a workhorse. I ran it through its paces and this kitten purrs! All I need is a new bulb and we’re in business.”
“And you know this how?” Toni asked, thinking she already knew the answer.
“I worked in a movie theatre in high school.”
“Of course you did,” she said, not at all surprised. Mike’s resume was nothing if not varied. He’d worked as an emergency medical technician, a real estate agent, a cameraman, a soda fountain jerk and who knew what else.
The Jack-of-all-trades finally stopped petting his new toy and crossed to the space opposite the projection room. “And this is the VIP room. Movies were a big deal back in the day and the swells didn’t want to mix with the hoi polloi…”
“Swells?” Toni whispered to Bridget.
“Hoi polloi?” the redhead whispered back, “I think he’s been watching too many old films.”
Mike pretended not to have heard, but Toni was pretty sure he had.
“Aaaaaanyway,” he continued, “So the theatre owner would set them up in here with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, maybe a record player. They’d party before and after the movie and then during they’d sit on couches and watch through that window.” He pointed to the huge pane of glass covering the wall overlooking the theatre. “This room is wired with a separate set of speakers too. It was also used for stars that came to attend premieres.”
Toni could feel the entities in the room. She wasn’t uneasy, as she’d been in the secret room downstairs. The emotion in here was joyful and expectant. The warm, positive vibes washed over her and she was almost sorry when Mike asked her to follow him back downstairs.
“Alright, fearless spirit hunters,” he said. “It’s getting late. Let’s set up the equipment, dim the lights and see if we can get any ghoulies and ghosties to make an appearance!”
Chapter Two
Toni and Bridget leaned against the candy counter in the lobby and waited for Mike to return from the screening room with the equipment.
“I wonder if we got anything,” Bridget said as she traced a pattern in the dusty glass.
Toni shrugged, “I sure didn’t feel anything. You?”
Bridget shook her head. “Nope. We’ll grab a pizza then go back to the hotel and review the footage. Never know what it might have recorded.”
Toni nodded. They’d sat in the old theatre for two hours—each in a different row—inviting unseen presences to make themselves known. The lights on the EMF metre had remained dim. She realised that she’d actually hoped the place was haunted. Before her experiences at the Buckman Inn and at the ice cream parlour, she hadn’t even believed in ghosts, let alone wanted to make contact with them.
Bridget must have read the disappointment on Toni’s face because she patted her arm and said, “This is what ghost hunting is usually like. We average about ten hours of investigation to put together one show. Then we still have to pad the forty-three minutes of air time with witness interviews, footage of us setting up equipment, reviewing data. Not all of us are ghost magnets, sweetheart!”
Toni rolled her eyes in response.
The women turned towards the sound of clattering gear as Mike struggled through the swinging doors lugging a pair of metal equipment cases.
“Ready?” he asked.
Toni slung her purse over her shoulder and patted her front jeans pocket. It was empty. She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and found only her keys, gloves and wads of tissue.
Bridget noticed her fidgeting. “Lose something?”
“My cell,” Toni answered, then plopped her purse back on the counter and methodically searched through each zippered compartment. “I must have left it in the theatre. I’ll run back in and get it. Give me a minute to get inside then call my number, would you?”
“Sure. We’ll go load the van.”
* * * *
Toni let the theatre door swing shut behind her then flicked on the house lights.
I was sitting near the centre,
she thought as she headed down the sloping aisle. Turning into one of the middle aisles she eased her way across the row, shuffling her feet to avoid stepping on her phone in case it had fallen to the floor. The space between the upturned seats was cast in inky black shadows. When she’d travelled to the halfway point, she heard her cell ring. It was close. Following the sound, she pivoted towards the front of the room and saw the glowing screen nestled in a cup holder in the next row up. She stretched to grab it then swept her thumb across the glass. “Found it, Bridge. Thanks. I’ll be right out.”
Toni ended the connection and dropped the phone into the deep side pocket of her coat. Resting her hands on the chair back, she paused a moment to look out over the theatre. The renovation would be hard work, but the place definitely had potential. Squinting, she tried to imagine what it would look like with new paint, carpet and fabrics. A rumbling growl from her stomach reminded Toni of the pizza Bridget had promised. Before she could turn to leave, her knees were buckled by a soft blow from behind. Glancing over her shoulder, Toni saw that the cushioned seat had flopped down. She reached out to right it, but was overcome by a sudden wave of dizziness and was forced to turn and clutch the chair in front of her again, this time for support. A high-pitched ringing filled her ears and her head felt like a helium balloon on a string. She let her head drop forward and inhaled deeply—in through the nose, out through the mouth—while trying to bring the texture of her wool overcoat into focus.
Just breathe, Toni. In through the nose…
She’d almost convinced herself that the wooziness that washed over her was due to low blood sugar when she felt a tug across her chest. Digging her fingers into the rough upholstery, she watched her coat’s buttons slip free of their holes. The wool was pulled aside like the opening of a curtain and she felt a pair of invisible hands cup her breasts. When her nipples were cruelly pinched, she forgot her breathing exercises and sucked in a sharp breath through her mouth.
Here we go again!
Though her mind protested, her body had an entirely different response. The sensitive flesh puckered and hardened under expert ministrations from unseen hands. Toni couldn’t help but roll back her shoulders and shamelessly offer her tits to her tormentor.
The ringing in her ears subsided and every sense sharpened. She shut her eyes and an orchestral strain filled her ears. She could pick out every instrument—every note. The cushioned roll of a timpani drum started as a distant beat then built to a thrilling crescendo.