Play It Again

by Stephen Humphrey Bogart

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Play It Again

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  Play It Again

  By Stephen Humphrey Bogart

  Copyright 2012 by Stephen Bogart

  Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 1995.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Stephen Bogart and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Bogart: In Search of My Father

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  Play It Again

  Stephen Humphrey Bogart

  To Barbara, for her love and support—

  and

  To my children, without whom there would be no R.J. Brooks

  CHAPTER 1

  There was a bullet hole in his windshield, courtesy of a Tong hothead down in Chinatown, just so nobody forgot he was in a serious trade. His business card read:

  R. J. Brooks

  Matrimonial Detective

  It was the lowest form of sleuthing. His clients—mostly bluestocking lawyers from Manhattan law firms—generally used slimeball types for this kind of work, but R.J. had a reputation. He was reliable and effective.

  R.J. didn’t look like a sleazy private eye, and that was a professional plus. He knew his way around the upper and lower East Sides, and he could mix with the cream as well as the curd. He was fiercely loyal to his clients, even if he detested their sordid lifestyles. He never betrayed a confidentiality to the police, a judge, a journalist, or anyone else, and he never padded his expense accounts.

  In fact, in a lot of ways he was an average guy. For starters, like a lot of other guys, he had trouble with his mother.

  His mother had aged. They all did, but to her it was more of a tragedy. And since she figured she might have missed out on telling him a few things the first time around, she tried to make up for it now. That doesn’t sit so well with a guy in his thirties, in a tough profession.

  The problem was worse because she was right: She had missed out on a hell of a lot of stuff when he was a kid. In fact, he had been raised pretty much without her. Of course she’d been busy, he didn’t argue that.

  It was a full-time job being a movie star.

  And even now, at her age, it was still a full-time job. Which was one reason he hated being seen in public with her. Her friends were bad enough. But to see normal, rational people falling all over themselves at the sight of his mother—it was enough to gag an alley cat.

  Still, she was his mother. He saw her only once or twice a year. So when she called with one of her “Darling I’m in town for just a day or two” invitations to lunch, he tried to do the right thing and see her.

  Unless, of course, he could come up with a really good excuse.

  But this time he’d come up blank. Probably because he’d let his brain go soft the last week or so. He had just finished a lucrative but remarkably vile divorce case, and he was feeling burned out. But he could afford to be, for a week or two. He was way ahead for a change, bucks in the bank. He hadn’t taken on anything new yet. He was just relaxing, enjoying himself in the greatest city in the world.

  He’d taken in a couple of ballgames, gone to the track, even let a woman he was seeing drag him downtown to some dismal theater built around a grease pit in a converted garage. They’d seen something that probably didn’t sound as pompous in German, but in English it was tough to take. The woman had made it up to him by taking him to the opera later that week, and that had been a good one, one R.J. could sing along to.

  It was a good week. It wasn’t often R.J. could afford to let himself drift, and he was enjoying the hell out of it, with no thought about getting back to work.

  He should have known it wouldn’t last.

  Just as he was starting to think that life was a good thing for a change, the phone call had come.

  “Darling,” she said. She always said that. Couldn’t bring herself to say “hello” like a normal person, because there was nothing normal about Belle Fontaine.

  “Oh. Hello, Mom.”

  The long hiss of cigarette smoke blowing out of her lungs. “Well, don’t overwhelm me with filial affection, R.J.”

  “It’s a little late to worry about that, isn’t it?”

  More smoke. “All right, R.J. Forget I said anything.”

  “Sure thing. So how’s tricks in the screen trade?”

  “Actually, darling, I’m just in town for a couple of days about another Broadway thing. I thought we could have lunch.”

  Oh, Christ, he thought, but what he said was, “I’m kind of busy today, Mom.”

  “Perfect, darling, so am I. Shall we say tomorrow, one o’clock?”

  You stepped in it now, sport, he said to himself. “Russian Tea Room again?”

  “Of course, dear, it’s a lovely place.”

  “It’s a tacky place. Nobody hangs out there but old queens and wannabees.”

  “Really? And which am I, dear? An old wannabee?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mom.”

  “Because I hang out there, dear, and I happen to like it there,” she said, and R.J. could hear her lighting another cigarette.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s Heaven on earth. The food is marvelous, the company divine, and the ambience is devastatingly witty, carefree, and bohemian. Now get off my case, okay?”

  “My God, you remind me of your father,” she said. “You even sound like him when you get mean.”

  “I’ll see you at one o’clock tomorrow,” R.J. said and hung up, suddenly weary of the game. They always ended up saying the same cruel things, and it always hurt.

  R.J. spent the rest of the day walking downtown and snarling at strangers. He thought about seeing a movie but couldn’t find one worth the price of the ticket.

  He thought about going to a bar and watching a ballgame on TV, but he had been sober too long to want to hang out in a bar.

  So R.J. had a hot dog in Times Square and took the subway home. One last big night on the town.

  The next day he was at the Russian Tea R
oom, near Central Park, about ten minutes late. He was still there ahead of his mother. He stood for another twenty minutes with the maitre d’ looking at him the way he’d look at a turd in a finger bowl.

  He knew from the adrenaline-soaked murmuring that suddenly sprang up all around him, and he didn’t have to turn to look at the door, but he did anyway. Everybody did.

  Belle Fontaine had arrived.

  An admiring throng pressed in on Belle and an elfin companion, but she plowed through without even seeing them. Straight for the maitre d’. The maitre d’ had seen it all, had turned away more celebrities than William Morris, but even he was impressed. His whole face was one big, unctuous smile.

  For somebody who hadn’t worked more than a few weeks in fifteen years, Belle still commanded a tremendous amount of interest. “It’s the legs,” she would always say, but R.J. knew she was wrong.

  The truth was, she had It, whatever It was. She could walk into a room filled with celebrities, athletes, politicians, whatever. And everybody would stop breathing and look at her.

  Which was exactly what was happening now.

  Here we go, thought R.J. Belle paraded up and planted a kiss on his cheek. He returned it dutifully.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and stepped back, looking him over. “You look terrible,” she announced.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You look swell.”

  “You need to lose a little weight. Exercise. Do you even take the vitamins I send you?”

  “No,” he said. “Let’s eat something, all right? We can tear each other to shreds much better with something in our stomachs.”

  R.J. turned to where the fawning maitre d’ was stuck in a half bow, pointing the way toward a table. “Keep that up, you’re gonna need a chiropractor, Jack,” he said.

  Behind him his mother snorted and the elf snickered.

  They worked their way through the room to a table in front, where Belle was properly displayed. She was on good behavior and only stopped to schmooze twice.

  R.J. finally got a seat under him and sank into it gratefully. He watched the waiter and the elf go through the ceremonial seating of Belle. So did everybody else in the place.

  “You’re supposed to wait until the lady is seated, R.J.,” his mother said as she finally pulled her chair in to the table.

  “I might faint from fatigue if I had to wait for you,” he said.

  She shook her head. “You always have to have a smart answer.”

  He bared his front teeth in a parody of a smile. “I’m a smart guy,” he said.

  She lit a cigarette, looked him over. He could see her decide to start again. “This is Michael, R.J.,” she said, indicating the elf. “He’s the most wonderful musical lyricist on Broadway.”

  “How do you do,” Michael said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “That’s good news,” said R.J.

  “Michael has been working on a few numbers for a backer’s audition,” Belle said. “We plan to have something ready for Christmas.”

  “After all,” gushed Michael, “she was so wonderful in the last show, it’s just a shame not to get her right back on the boards again.”

  It was always the same, thought R.J. Belle was always looking for a comeback, and there was always some sleazy little weasel ready to ride her attempt into his fifteen minutes of fame. It made him tired, and a little sad, to see his mother drag herself through these demeaning gyrations.

  “Why can’t you let it go?” R.J. said. “You could afford to retire, you know.”

  She looked daggers at him. “My career is important to me, R.J. And plenty of people still know who I am.”

  “Sure they do,” said R.J. “Why wouldn’t they? You spend enough on your publicist.”

  “Must you be so cruel, R.J.?”

  “I guess not,” he said wearily. “How about you?”

  She stubbed out her cigarette. “Michael, go make a phone call.”

  Michael hesitated just a second, and Belle swung her incredible blue eyes at him. He popped up instantly, sweat beading on his upper lip, and slithered away to the back of the restaurant.

  “What rock did you find him under?” R.J. asked her.

  “He’s a very clever lyricist,” she said defensively.

  “I got a pal who’s very clever at leg-breaking,” R.J. said. “But I didn’t bring him to lunch.”

  “All right, R.J., I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought Michael along, and I know it. I just couldn’t face you alone.”

  R.J. nodded. “You never could,” he said quietly.

  “But can’t we put all that behind us?” Belle pleaded. “I know I was no great shakes as a mother. But I had some damn good excuses.”

  She said it with a valiant attempt at a smile that she obviously didn’t feel. R.J. softened in spite of himself.

  “You sure as hell did,” he said.

  “But I’ve been sober for fifteen years, R.J. I really am a different person. I detest some of the things that other Belle Fontaine did.”

  And she should: She had trampled on people, stabbed fellow actors in the back, clawed her way to the top over the mangled careers of everyone who stood in her way. And her son had not always been spared.

  R.J. felt her hand covering his and looked down in shock. He couldn’t remember the last time she had touched him.

  He looked up into those famous, gorgeous blue eyes, now wet with tears she was trying not to show.

  “It may be too late to be your mother,” she said, her voice not quite breaking, “but could I at least be your friend? We hardly know each other.”

  “It’s hard to really know somebody in ninety minutes a year,” he said, wanting to buy into what she was saying but not daring to, not yet, not so easily.

  “You know, R.J.,” she husked in her best velvet voice, “I’m trying very hard, I really am. When you get to be a certain age, family is a lot more important.”

  “More important than your career?” he asked her.

  “Oh, God, you’re a bastard when you want to be.” She took her hand away. “Just like your father.” She rummaged through her handbag and pulled out a tissue, dabbing at her eyes and then blowing her nose genteelly. “You even look like him when you say those things, and it makes me crazy, darling. I miss him terribly.”

  It was a good recovery. The use of the word “darling” was a tip-off, though. She was back in control.

  That was about it. Michael came back and they waded through a miserable, awkward lunch. Sixteen people stopped and asked politely for autographs. Michael sang a few snatches of his terribly clever lyrics. A total stranger insisted on paying the check.

  And R.J. staggered out an hour later, wondering at that strange interlude with his mother. She’d seemed sincere, but then Belle had made a career out of seeming sincere. And he had a nagging suspicion that he’d heard some of her lines before, in one of her old movies.

  It was true that she was a different person now, sober. But he still didn’t know who that person was. And, stubbornly, he felt it was up to her to let him know.

  He went home uneasy about the whole thing, unwilling to believe that somebody could really change that much, and unable to dismiss the idea completely. But the uneasiness faded as he got back to work on a new case, a man who thought his wife was sleeping with his father.

  It was almost a year before he thought about that lunch again, and his mother’s hand reaching across the table to hold his.

  And then it was too late.

  CHAPTER 2

  R.J. checked the illuminated dial of his Ebel watch—a gift from his partially satisfied client—and figured he’d given them long enough. With his Pentax IQ, fitted with a lens and automatic focus, he’d already gotten the girl’s picture when she arrived.

  Another redhead. Not as young as the old man’s usual prey: college girl, no doubt, working her way through school on her back. She’d only hook until she had her B.A. Sure she would.

  Tough not to be c
ynical on this end of the camera, R.J. thought as he snapped off half a dozen of the girl and Burkette climbing out of the car and giggling on into the townhouse.

  But street shots weren’t enough. The jaded magistrates of New York’s matrimonial bench needed animated fuck shots. They weren’t the only ones.

  “I want the bastard’s balls,” Tina Burkette had said, handing over R.J.’s retainer.

  “For the right price,” he’d assured her, “I’ll give ’em to you in a pickle jar for your mantel.”

  That had pleased her, and she wasn’t shy about showing it. They’d spent a memorable evening cementing client-investigator relationships in a hot tub and a waterbed the size of Long Island Sound.

  But the truth was, he didn’t really give a rat’s ass who or what the millionaire tycoon was shacked up with tonight in his brownstone lair near Gramercy Park. If the guy wanted to screw an albino manatee that was okay with R.J.—as long as the manatee didn’t mind. But R.J. had a job to do.

  He grabbed his camera, locked the car door, and crossed the street in the November gloom. It was after two A.M. and the neighborhood was deserted. It was chilly, in the upper thirties, and R.J. shivered slightly as he crossed the street.

  Moving in shadows close to the building, he was almost invisible in his black jogging pants, black turtleneck sweater, and dark running shoes. A pair of wire cutters hung from his belt and infrared goggles around his neck.

  He sheltered in a doorway while a man in a fur coat walked a barbered poodle across the way. The dog stopped and arched its back, then walked in a tight little circle as it forced the turds out onto the sidewalk. When it was done, the man in the fur coat stooped over and collected the turds with a plastic glove, dropping them into a Baggie.

  The two walked away. R.J. slid out of the doorway, looked carefully down the street, and moved on.

  In the distance, a wind-driven siren wailed near Times Square. A stolen car chase, shootout in the Garment District, more slaughter on Fifth Avenue.

  But here the sidewalks were clean and safe, the buildings well-lit and professionally monitored. Only Mafia neighborhoods were more secure. Jaguars, Caddies, and Lincoln Town Cars snuggled against the curbs. A few blocks closer to the river and they would be cannibalized before dawn.