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"So what?" Ice asked him.

"So what? That's not exactly a television commercial jingle, you know, and she performed it rather well. I thought, Maybe even better than you do." he told Cinnamon.

"That doesn't bother me. Howard. This is just all very sad to us. Can we go now?"

"Let me just see what else she knows," he said, and followed her into the living room.

"He's a piece of work, our Howard Rockwell," Cinnamon muttered. We all trailed after him.

Gerta was on the sofa. She picked up some needlework she had been doing and continued as if none of us were there. Howard watched her, fascinated, for a moment.

"Gerta?"

She didn't look up at him.

" 'I do believe 't'was he.' " he said.

Gerta looked up at him.

" 'How now, my lord? I have been talking with a suitor here, a man that languishes in your

displeasure.' "

"Holy cow." Howard said, turning back to us. "She knows the whole thing. Desdemona's part." He stared at her a moment, "I wonder... 'How now?' " he cried in a loud, angry voice,

" 'What do you here alone?' "

Gerta's face changed, her body stiffened.

" 'Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.' "

Howard's eyes looked like they would pop out of his head. "That's Emila's line. She knows the whole play by heart!"

"Howard," I said. "Maybe that's enough, okay?"

"No, wait a minute. Let's try... Macbeth." He turned back to Gerta and in a loud whisper said. 'If we should fail?' "

She gazed at him, her face now turning angry.

" 'We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place, and well not fail.' "

She leaned forward to whisper.

" 'When Duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him, his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince, that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. When in swinish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death, what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon his spungy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?...' "

"That's it!" Howard cried. "Lady Macbeth's planning of the murder of the king, She knows it all by heart."

Gerta returned to her needlework,

"Can we go now. Howard? Are you satisfied?"

"No. How did she get like this? How come I never read or heard anything about her? What's her name. Gerta, Berta? What?"

Gerta's head snapped up.

"No Gerta Berta. No!" she cried, her face in a

"Huh?" said Howard, stepping back quickly and turning to Cinnamon.