The Complete Crime Stories

by James M. Cain

  Miss Carver

  Intermission

  Aria

  MOZART

  Batti, Batti

  From Don Giovanni

  Miss Carver

  Aria

  VERDI

  Eri Tu

  From Un Ballo In Maschera (Preceded by the Recitative, Alzati! La Tuo Figlio)

  Mr. Borland

  Songs from the British Isles

  CAREY

  Sally in Our Alley

  MOORE

  Oft in the Stilly Night

  BAYLY

  Gaily the Troubadour

  MARZIALS

  The Twickenham Ferry

  Miss Carver

  Songs of the Southwest

  Billy the Kid

  Green Grow the Lilacs

  The Trail to Mexico

  Lay Down, Dogies

  Strawberry Roan

  I’d Like to Be in Texas

  Miss Carver

  The piano is a Steinway

  “It’s all right, pretty nifty. Except that Leonard Borland is gradually on purpose going to turn into Logan Bennett.”

  “Oh, yes. I meant to ask you about that. Yes, I think that’s better. Will you change it, Ray? On the proof that goes to the printer. And make sure it’s changed on all his groups.”

  “I only sing twice?”

  “That’s all. Did you bring the music I said?”

  “Right here in the briefcase.”

  “Give it to Ray, so he can go over it. He always plays from memory. He never brings music on stage.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll attend to the program, Ray?”

  “I’m taking it over myself.”

  Wilkins left, she had me ha-ha for ten minutes, then said my voice was up and stopped me. Some sandwiches and milk came up. “They fed us on the plane. I’m not hungry.”

  “You better eat. You don’t get any dinner.”

  “… No dinner?”

  “You always sing on an empty stomach. We’ll have some supper later.”

  I tried to eat, and couldn’t get much down. Seeing that program made me nervous. When I had eaten what I could, she told me to go in and sleep. “A fat chance I could sleep.”

  “Lie down, then. Be quiet. No walking around, no vocalizing. That’s one thing you can learn. Don’t leave your concert in the hotel room.”

  I went in my room, took off my clothes, and lay down. Somewhere downstairs I could hear Wilkins at the piano, going over the Italian songs. It made me sick to my stomach. None of it was turning out the way I thought it was going to. I had expected a kind of a cock-eyed time, with both of us laughing over what a joke it was that I should be up here, singing with her. Instead of that she was as cold as a woman selling potatoes, and over something I didn’t really care about. There didn’t seem to be any fun in it.

  I must have slept, though, because I had put a call in for seven o’clock, and when it came it woke me up. I went in the bathroom, took a quick shower, and started to dress. My fingers trembled so bad I could hardly get the buttons in my shirt. About a quarter to eight I rang her. She seemed friendly, more like her usual self, and told me to come in.

  A hotel maid let me in. Cecil was just finishing dressing, and in a minute or two she came out of the bedroom. She had on a chiffon velvet dress, orange-colored, with salmon-colored belt and salmon-colored shoes. It had a kind of Spanish look to it, and was probably what she had always been told she ought to wear with her eyes, hair, and complexion, and yet it was heavy and stuffy, and made her look exactly like an opera singer all dressed up to give a concert. It startled me, because I had been married for so long to a woman that knew all there was to know about dressing that I had forgotten what frumps they can make of themselves when they really try. She saw my look and glanced in the mirror. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t I look right?”

  “Sure.”

  She told the maid to go, and then she kept looking at herself in the mirror, and then at me again, but when she lit a cigarette and sat down she wasn’t friendly any more. “… All right, we’ll check over what you’re to do.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “First, when you come on.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. What do I do?”

  “At all recitals, the singer comes on from the right, that is, stage right. Left, to the audience. Walk straight out from the wings, past the piano to the center of the stage. Be quick and brisk about it. Be aware of them, but don’t look at them till you get there. By that time they’ll start to applaud.”

  “Suppose they don’t?”

  “If you come on right, they will. That’s part of it. I told you, it’s a battle, and it starts the moment you show your face. You’ve got to make them applaud, and that means you’ve got to come on right. You go right to the center of the stage, stop, face them, and bow. Bow once, from the hips, as though you meant it.”

  “O. K., what then?”

  “You bow once, but no more. If it’s a friendly house, they may applaud quite a little, but not enough for more than one bow. Besides, it’s only a welcome. You haven’t done anything yet to warrant more than one bow, and if you begin grinning around, you’ll look silly, like some movie star being gracious to his public.”

  “All right, I got that. What next?”

  “Then you start to sing.”

  “Do I give Wilkins a sign or something?”

  “I’ll come to that, but I’m not done yet about how you come on. Look pleasant, but don’t paste any death house smile on your face, don’t look sheepish, as though you thought it was a big joke, don’t try to look more confident than you really are. Above all, look as though you meant business. They came to hear you sing, and as long as you act as though that’s what you’re there for, you’ll be all right, and you don’t have to kid them with some kind of phoney act. If you look nervous, that’s all right, you’re supposed to be nervous. Have you got that? Mean it.”

  “All right, I got it.”

  “When you finish your song, stop. If the piano has the actual finish, hold everything until the last note has been played, no matter whether they break in with applause or not. Hold everything, then relax. Don’t do any more than that, just in your own mind relax. If you’ve done anything with the song at all, they ought to applaud. When they do, bow. Bow straight to the center. Then take a quarter turn on your feet, and bow to the left. Then turn again, and bow to the right. Then walk off. As quickly as you can get to the wings without actually running, walk off.”

  “The way I came on?”

  “Right back the way you came on.”

  “All right, what then?”

  “Are you sure you’ve got that all straight?”

  “Wait a minute. Do I do that after every song, or—”

  “No, no, no! Not after every song. At the end of your group. You don’t leave the stage after every song. There won’t be much applause at the end of your first two songs, they only applaud the group. Bow once after the first song, and when the applause has died down, start the second, and then on with the third.”

  “All right, I got it now.”

  “If the applause continues, go out, exactly as you went out the first time, and bow three times, first cente
r, then left, then right, then come off.”

  “Go ahead. What else?”

  “Now about the accompanist. Most singers turn and nod to the accompanist when they are ready, but to my mind it’s just one more thing that slows it up, that adds to the chill that hangs over a recital anyway. That’s why I have Wilkins. He can feel that audience as well as the singer can, and he knows exactly when it’s time to start. Another thing about him is that he plays from memory, has no music to fool with, and so he can watch you the whole time you sing. That gives you better support, and it helps you in another way. They don’t really notice him, but they feel him there, and when he can’t take his eyes off you, they think you must be pretty good. You wait for him. While you’re waiting, look them over. Use those five seconds to get acquainted. Look them over in a friendly way, but don’t smirk at them. Be sure you look up at the balcony, and all over the house, so they all feel you’re singing to them, and not to just a few. Use that time to get the feel of the house, to project yourself out there, even if it’s just a little bit.”

  “Must be a swell five seconds.”

  “I’m trying to get it through your head that it’s a battle, that it’s a tough spot at best, and that you have to use every means to win.”

  “All right. I hear what you say.”

  “Now go in the bedroom, and come out and do it. I want to see you go through it all. The center of the stage is over by the window, and I’m the audience.”

  I went in the bedroom, then came out and did like she said. “You came on too slow, and your bow is all wrong. Shake the lead out of your feet. And bow from the hips, bow low, as though you meant it. Don’t just stand there jerking your head up and down.”

  I went in and did it over again. “That’s better, but you’re still much too perfunctory about it. You’re not a business man, getting up to give a little talk at the Engineers’ Club. You’re a singer, getting ready to put on a show, and there’s got to be some formality about it.”

  “Can’t I just act natural?”

  “If you act natural, you’ll look just like what you are, a contractor that thinks he looks like a fool. Can’t you understand what I mean? This is a concert, not a meeting to open bids.”

  I did it all over again, and felt like some kind of a tin soldier on hinges, but she seemed satisfied. “It’s a little stiff, but anyway it’s how it’s done. Now do it three or four more times, so you get used to it.”

  I did it about ten times, and then she stopped me. “And now one more thing. That first number, Vittoria, Mio Core, I picked out for you to begin with because it’s a good lively tune and you can race through with it without having to worry about fine effects. After that you ought to be all right. But don’t forget that it has no introduction. He’ll give you one chord, for pitch, and then you start.”

  “Sure, I know.”

  “You know, but be ready. One chord. One chord, and as soon as you have the pitch clear in your head, start. Don’t let it catch you by surprise.”

  “I won’t.”

  We had another cigarette, and didn’t say much. I looked at the palms of my hands. They were wet. Wilkins came in. “Taxi’s waiting.”

  We put on our coats, went down, got in the cab. There was a little drizzle of rain. “The Eastman Theatre. Stage entrance.”

  The stage was all set for the recital, with a big piano out there, and a drop back of it. There was a hole in the drop, so we could look out. First she would look, and then I would look. Wilkins found a chair, and read the afternoon paper. She kept looking up. “Balcony’s filling. It’s a sell-out.”

  But I wasn’t looking at the balcony. All I could see was those white shirts, marching down into the orchestra. Rochester is a musical town, and formal, and a lot of those white shirts, they had those dreamy faces over top of them, with curly moustaches, that meant musician. They meant musician, and they meant tony musician, and they scared me to death. I don’t know what I expected. Anybody that lives in New York gets to thinking that any town north of the Harlem River is out in the sticks, and I must have been looking for a flock of country club boys and their wives, or something, but not this. My mouth began to feel dry. I went over to the cooler and had a drink, but I kept swallowing.

  At 8:25 a stagehand went out and closed the top of the piano. He came back and another herd of white shirts came down the aisle. They were hurrying now. Wilkins took out his watch, held it up to Cecil. “Ready?”

  “All right.”

  We all three went to the wings, stage right. He raised his hand. “One—two”—then lifted his foot and gave her a little kick in the tail. She swept out there like she owned the place and the whole block it was built on. There was a big hand. She bowed once, the way she had told me to do, and then stood there, looking up, down, and around, a little friendly smile coming on her face every time she warmed up a new bunch, while he was playing the introduction to the Rossini. Then she started to sing. It was the first time I had heard her in public. Well, I didn’t need any critic to tell me she was good. She stood there, smiling around, and then, as the introduction stopped, she turned grave, and seemed to get taller, and the first of it came out, low and soft. It was Latin, and she made it sound dramatic. And she made every syllable so distinct that I could even understand what it meant, though it was all of fifteen years since I had had my college Plautus. Then she got to the part where there are a lot of sustained notes, and her voice began to swell and throb so it did things to you. Up to then I hadn’t thought she had any knockout of a voice, but I had never heard it when it was really working. Then she came to the fireworks at the end, and you knew there really was a big leaguer in town. She finished, and there was a big hand. Wilkins came off, wiped his hands on his handkerchief. She bowed center, left, and right, and came off. She listened. The applause kept up. She went out and bowed three times again. She came off, stood there and listened, then shook her head. The applause stopped, and she looked at me. “All right, baby. Here’s your kick for luck.”

  She kicked me the way Wilkins had kicked her. He put the handkerchief in his pocket, raised his hand. “One—two—”

  I aimed for the center of the stage, got there, and bowed, the way I had practiced. They gave me a hand. Then I looked up, and tried to do what she had told me to do, look them over, top, bottom, and around. But all I could see was faces, faces, faces, all staring at me, all trying to swim down my throat. Then I began to think about that first number, and the one chord I would get, and how I had to be ready. I stood there, and it seemed so long I got a panicky feeling he had forgotten to come out, and that there wouldn’t be any opening chord. Then I heard it, and right away started to sing:

  Vittoria, vittoria,

  Vittoria, vittoria, mio core;

  Non lagrimar più, non lagrìmar più,

  E sciolta d’amore la vil servitù!

  My voice sounded so big it startled me, and I tried to throttle it down, and couldn’t. There’s no piano interludes in that song. It goes straight through, for three verses, at a hell of a clip, and the more I tried to pull in, and get myself under some kind of control, the louder it got, and the faster I kept going, until at the finish Wilkins had a hard time keeping up with me. They gave me a little bit of a hand, and I didn’t want to bow, I wanted to apologize, and explain that that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. But I bowed, some kind of way.

  Then came the O Cessate. It’s short, and ought to start soft, lead up to a crescendo in the middle, and die away at the end. I was so rung up by then I couldn’t sing soft if I tried. I started it, and my voice bellowed all over the place, and it was terrible. There was a bare ripple after that, and Wilkins went into the opening of the Come Raggio. That’s another that opens soft, and I sang it soft for about two measures, and then I exploded like some radio when you turn it up too quick. After that it was a hog-calling contest. Wilkins saw it was hopeless, and came down on the
loud pedal so it would maybe sound as though that was the way it was supposed to go, and a fat chance we could fool that audience. I finished, and on the pianissimo at the end it sounded like a locomotive whistling for a curve. When it was over there was a little scattering of applause, and I bowed. I bowed center, and took the quarter turn to bow to the side. The applause stopped. I kept right on turning and walked off stage.

  She was there in the wings, a murderous look on her face. “You’ve flopped!”

  “All right, I’ve flopped.”

  “Damn it, you’ve—”

  But Wilkins grabbed her by the arm. “Do you want to lose them for good? Get out there, get out there, get out there!”

  She stopped in the middle of a cussword and went on, smiling like nothing had happened at all.

  I tried to explain to her in the intermission what had ailed me, but she kept walking away from me, there behind the drop. It wasn’t until I saw her blotting her eyes with a handkerchief, to keep the mascara from running down her cheeks, that I knew she was crying. “Well—I’m sorry I ruined your concert.”

  “… Oh well. It’s a turkey anyhow.”

  “I didn’t do it any good.”

  “They’re as cold as dead fish. There’s nothing to do about it. You didn’t ruin it.”

  “Was that the bird?”

  “Oh no. You don’t know the half of it yet.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you have to blast them out of their seats?”

  “I’ve been telling you. I was nervous.”

  “After all I’ve told you about not bellowing. And then you have to—what did you think you were doing, announcing trains?”