"Take it easy, Wolfgang. Don't get panicky. I told you I'd see you through."
"See me through what? More hell?"
"It may be hell, but it's worth it. We're promoting you, son."
"Promoting me?" Cooper laughed hysterically. "You're an expert, aren't you? You've promoted yourself to hell."
"Maybe I have, but I'm not quitting on the way down. Don't you quit on the way up." Lennox glared at him. "For Christ's sake, Sam! Do I have to fight for both of us? Don't you have any strength of your own?"
Cooper started to his feet in horror.
"Get that coat off." Lennox jerked the coat off, spun Cooper around and put him into the red and white blazer. He cocked the straw hat on his head, tapped it into a rakish tilt and shoved him out of the dressing room. Cooper trudged to the stairs like a sleepwalker. The stage manager below beckoned frantically and he increased his pace going down the stairs.
Lennox nodded and picked Cooper's jacket up to hang it away. Three slips of paper had fallen out of the pocket in the tussle. He was about to return them; then he stopped short as his eye caught the familiar hysterical writing. He smoothed the slips out and examined them fearfully. His heart began to pound. There were fragments, phrases, names, numbers; all scrawled in that sick hand: SUIDI ... $$$ ... MOST ... MERRY XMAS ... AMPMAMPM ... ROX ... §§§3 ... ¶7 ... MY HEART & ... BLOOD. SWEAT. TEARS ... WHO WHO WHO WHO HE?
Lennox went black with rage. He placed the slips in his pocket and burst out of the dressing room. Down on the main floor he left the stage, leaped down the short flight of steps to the empty green room and called Sergeant Fink on the pay phone.
"Bob? Jake Lennox."