Page 145 of Code 6
The men sprinted to the gun, pushing and shoving each other, and knocking the sliding door from its track on their way out. Shattered glass showered over them, as the struggle for the gun continued out onto the balcony. Kate felt like she was watching in slow motion, but even in her surreal frame-by-frame view, the two men only seemed to gain speed, like a boulder rolling downhill, as their momentum carried them across the balcony and into the aluminum railing.
Kate screamed as the railing gave way.
Liu went over the edge with the first section of battered aluminum balusters. Then Patrick.
“Patrick!” Kate cried, and she ran to the balcony’s edge.
Patrick was hanging on by one hand to a piece of metal railing that was still fixed in the concrete floor of the balcony. His feet dangledin the air, high above the motor court below. Patrick had managed to grab Liu on his way over the railing, and his left hand clung to Liu’s forearm.
Kate was standing at the balcony’s edge, looking down. Liu looked up, and their eyes met. He was twisting in midair like a kite tail, his life literally in Patrick’s grip.
“Tell him to pull me up!” shouted Liu.
Kate said nothing.
Patrick said something. He spoke in a soft voice, as if his words were not intended for Kate, Liu, or any other living person. It was possible, Kate would later tell police, that Patrick was running out of strength and said something like “I can’t hold on any longer.” But the more likely scenario would forever remain a secret between her and Patrick.
“I did it for Olga,” was what Kate heard.
Liu slipped from Patrick’s grip, his scream piercing the night until his body slammed into the pavement below.
Chapter 70
January. A blanket of white covered Washington, D.C. Kate had butterflies in her stomach. Giant butterflies. Pterodactyls, even. She hoped that snow on opening night was the theatrical equivalent of rain on a wedding day, a sign of good luck.
The theater held about two hundred, and every seat was taken. Kate chose to sit among strangers, not with family or friends. She preferred to surround herself with the unvarnished reactions of real theater goers, not the obligatory praise of folks who were kind enough to come but probably hadn’t seen a live play since their middle school’s production ofAnnie.
Patrick was seated a couple of rows behind her. He’d brought a date, which Kate was happy to see. Her father was seated on the aisle in the next section over from her.
Minutes before curtain, she received a text message from Irving Bass.
Break a leg.
She smiled to herself and texted back.Wish you were here.
It was unusual for the director not to attend opening night, but the production ofCode 6—she finally had a title—had been anything but “usual.” It had felt rushed from the beginning. A completely rewritten script. Casting before the script was even finished. Irving’s collapse and hospitalization. Hers should have been the first play of the coming season in September, not the first play of the new year in January. Not until December did Irving come clean with her and explain the fast track.
“I have pancreatic cancer, Kate. There isn’t going to be a next season.”
At first, she’d refused to believe it. Half joking, she’d even accused him of stopping at nothing to get her to accept his revisions to the script. But he was seriously ill, and the fact that her play would likely be his last became their secret. They drew closer over the following weeks, though disagreements were still intense. Irving had even thrown her out of rehearsal one afternoon in front of the entire cast. And, for the most part, Irving did get his way, including his “non-negotiable” item: one act, ninety minutes.
Kate watched the first seventy-five minutes with fingernails digging into the armrest. Some of the “humorous” lines she’d absolutely refused to cut from the script had fallen flat with the audience; Irving had been right, after all. Nonetheless, the audience seemed to be enjoying it. The real test was the final scene—the volcanic point of conflict between an aging Thomas J. Watson, Sr., and his up-and-coming son.
The setting was the 1950s. Watson was grooming his son to replace him as CEO. It was the dawn of the computer age, and IBM was transitioning from electromechanical technology to fully electronic. It was also the height of the McCarthy era, and Tom Junior had made the mistake of speaking out publicly against it. His father had harsh advice for him, leading to another one of their epic confrontations after work at the Watson town house on the Upper East Side.
“A businessman sticks to business,” said Watson.
“That’s the most narrow-minded view of the world I’ve ever heard.”
“‘Shoemaker, stick to your last.’ It’s the best advice I ever got.”
“Which explains how you kept quiet and just kept making shoes, even as German boots were trampling all over Europe.”
“You’re such a smart-ass, Tom.”
“You’re such a coward.”
“I am not a coward!”