Using my own keys as a lever, I turned the Greenpeace charm over. On the back of it was Richard Dathan Morris’s name and phone number. I located an evidence bag in my inside jacket pocket and stuck the key chain in that. If there were any prints on the keys, I didn’t want to risk ruining them by carrying the key chain around unprotected. I was just finishing shoving the contents of Jasmine’s purse back where they had come from when Alan Dale bounded into the room.
“She said you were here. You’ve got more nerve than a bad tooth! There’s a phone call for you, asshole. Take it and then get the fuck out of here before I clean your clock.”
With that, he grabbed the purse out of my hand, tossed it onto the counter, then turned and stomped out of the dressing room. I followed him back to the side of the stage where, next to the curtain pulls, a wall-mounted phone showed a blinking line on hold. I picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Detective Beaumont?” a woman’s voice asked. She sounded relieved.
“Yes.”
“Just a minute. Let me put Ron on the phone.”
There was a momentary shuffling and then I heard Peters say, “Thanks, Amy. Beau?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“I’ve been calling all over town looking for you. Have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“The DEA made a major drug bust in L.A. this afternoon.”
“So?”
“At Westcoast Starlight Productions.”
“No shit!”
“They arrested fourteen people at the corporate headquarters, and the news broadcast says they have warrants out for at least sixteen more. Evidently they have people scattered all over the country. KIRO Radio did a news flash here about half an hour ago. Somebody must have tumbled to the fact that Jasmine Day’s show is a Westcoast production.”
“I’m a son of a bitch,” I said.
On stage, the orchestra was beginning the second-act overture. Alan Dale came up to me. “Get off the phone,” he said. “You can’t talk here when the show starts.”
“I’ve gotta go, Peters,” I said. “Intermission’s over. Thanks for the tip.”
I put the phone down. Alan Dale was in the process of herding me down the steps when we both heard raised voices coming from the dressing-room area behind the stage. The head carpenter’s concern for maintaining silence on the stage overcame his eagerness to run me off. He turned toward the noise, and I followed him.
Big Bertha Harris, a fat pit bull of a woman, was standing in front of the dressing-room, barring the way of two well-dressed men who towered over her.
“No way are you going in there,” she was saying. “I don’t care who you are.”
“Hey, you guys,” Alan Dale called. “Knock off the noise. The show’s started.”
They all three turned to look at us. I recognized one of the two men right away. He was Roger Glancy, agent of the day for the DEA.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Glancy looked surprised to see me. “I could ask you the same thing. We’ve come to arrest Jasmine Day.”
“You what?” Alan Dale exploded. He moved toward Glancy and attempted to bring a haymaker up from the floor. I caught Dale’s arm in midswing and pulled him back.
Glancy regarded the head carpenter warily. “Who’s this?” he asked. “We’ve got warrants for Jasmine Day, Dan Osgood, and Ed Waverly.”
Dale shook his arm loose from my hand. Without another word, he stalked away from us.
“His name’s Alan Dale,” I told Glancy. “He’s the head carpenter.”
“Let him alone, then,” Glancy said. “He’s not on the list.”
Glancy turned his attention back to Big Bertha. “We’ve got a search warrant here. Now, either you get out of the way, or we’ll move you out of the way.”
Silently Bertha stepped to one side. She had heard enough. She wasn’t fighting anymore. Glancy motioned the other man into the dressing rooms.
“You guys are a little late in making your move, aren’t you?” I asked. “My partner just called. He says it’s already been on TV.”
Glancy nodded grimly. “Nobody’s been able to raise Wainwright on his pager. He may be up in his plane and out of range. We were supposed to be here by six, but it was after seven when L.A. finally reached me. It took time for me to get the local warrants signed.”
“Goddamn it! There goes the son of a bitch again!” I heard Alan Dale’s oath and looked in his direction. He was frantically motioning several stagehands to follow him onto the stage where the band shell was sitting. It had stopped halfway down the stage and halfway into its turn.