No one needed special effort to get through the door. It had been standing open for months.
Eamon completed a circuit of the building and joined me. “Michael looped me in after he spoke with you,” he said.
“Good.”
We walked along the interior wall. It included brick, patched mortar, and a conduit pipe running vertically beside a caged service light. At the loading entrance, he gestured with twofingers toward a table. It held day-pass stickers and a steward working through a line of crew.
“Separate credentialing process,” he said. “Union crew. Venue security doesn’t own it.”
Eamon nodded toward the table. “How many people come through here on a normal day?”
“Dozens,” I said.
“All cleared by that steward?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody from venue security checks the list?”
“No, not that I’m aware of.”
We watched another truck ease toward the dock.
“That’s a lot of traffic,” he said.
After a moment he added, “Henri doesn’t come through here. He’s already inside.”
I drove us back to the house in the SUV. Eamon peeled off toward the kitchen to make calls while I went to find Dominic. He was in the salon with a score open on the Steinway. A fresh bowl of lemons sat on the console.
“Is everything tidy at the theater?”
“Not exactly,” I said.
Dominic closed the score.
“I need to ask you something directly.”
He gestured toward the chair across from him. I sat.
“What does Henri want?”
Dominic looked at the closed score. Not at me. “Acknowledgment,” he said. “A public statement that the moment in Jackson Square had an architect, and it wasn’t me.”
“Would that be enough?”
“It would have been.” He looked at me. “Once.”
I waited for him to continue.
“The concert announcement changed the terms,” he said. “It is a new celebration tied to the event everyone remembers. He willwatch me receive credit while he’s ignored. He wants everyone to remember that he laid the groundwork.”
“Do you think he wants the concert stopped?”
“No, he wants the concert to happen. He’s planned for it, but he wants it to happen differently.”
“On his terms,” I said.
“That’s how I read it.” He paused. “I do intend to acknowledge him publicly, but after the concert.”
