"Paid to?"

Everyone started talking at once--everyone except Milo. He sat there pale and shaken, speechless for the first time in his life.

"Look at him, Gil," LaB oz urged.

"You've done him a terrible injustice."

Gil stood in front of the stage and spread his arms.

"Intermission. Bar's behind the last row." He led the way. The others exchanged a look, shrugged, and followed.

All but Milo, who sat slumped in his seat.

"Gil must be losing his mind," Phoebe said to LaB oz low.

"Does he really think his father was murdered?"

LaB oz took a long swallow of his drink.

"If he does, this is the first I've heard of it. I can't convince myself he really means it. At least, not the part about Milo."

"I know." Just then, Phoebe saw Gil approaching;

without a word she turned her back and walked away.

"Good thing I wasn't hoping for a reconciliation," Gil said wryly.

LaB oz do you mind being stuck backstage with the console? I do need to watch from out front."

"I don't mind that," LaB oz said, "but I'm not too happy with the direction things are taking."

Phoebe was sitting with Milo, trying to cheer him up.

"I hope you're familiar with the laws governing false accusation,"

Shalimar said to Gil as she drifted back to her seat.

"I didn't accuse," Gil answered her.

"I suggested."

A grunt came from the bar, where Kinunel was helping himself.

"No, accusation is up front and straightforward. Innuendo is more your style. Just like your father."

"He accused you," Gil pointed out.

"Fraud and grand theft."

"Because he knew I was on the point of bringing charges against him.

Anyway, we settled that one out of court."

"Why don't you tell us what was going on?"

Kimmel laughed humorlessly.

"Justify myself to you? No, thank you. I see you inherited your father's arrogance along with everything else."

A look of sadness pa.s.sed over Gil's face.

"You really did hate him, didn't you? It wasn't just business--it was personal between you two. Why? I know he wasn't perfect, but he was a good man, Kimmel.

You speak of him as if he were a monster. And you must know he was nothing of the kind."

Kimmel studied the face of his old foe's son for a long time.

"Some men are one thing at home, another in business. That's the most I can say."

Gil nodded, recognizing the remark as the closest Kimmel could come to conceding the point.

"Since you won't enlighten us in one area, how about entertaining us in another? Take the stage. Show us a thing or two."

One corner of Kimmel's mouth turned up.

"That's so transparent a ploy that I think I'll let you get away with it. All right, I'll be your next guinea pig. Do your d.a.m.ndest."

Gil smiled.

"Pick your scene."

The older man thought a minute.

"I think it's called the closet scene. The one where our hero has it out with his mother."

"How very Oedipal," murmured Milo, beginning to recover.

LaB oz helped Kimmel into costume.

"Why did you choose that scene?"

The other man grinned.

"It was the only one I could remember."

Oddly, he threw himself into the performance like an enthusiastic amateur: "Now, Mother, what's the matter?" The scene was a long one, building in intensity.

Kimmel was clearly out of his element, so he took the pragmatic approach of a man used to problem solving as a strategy for living. LaB oz watched fascinated as Kimmel worked at getting the rhythm right, at pitching his voice to the best level for that size auditorium. At using his body language to best effect. The man was teaching himself acting. By scene's end he was still the amateur--but a less awkward one, now at least adequate as a performer. When Kimmel pantomimed dragging Polonius's hologram corpse off the stage, LaB oz could almost believe it was happening.

The others were equally impressed.

"You missed your calling," Shalimar said dryly.

"Or did you?"

Kimmel stood watching Gil, waiting.

"I've just understood something," the younger man said.