The Man Who Couldn't Miss

by David Handler

  Marty’s eyes widened with surprise. “The playhouse, you mean? No way. Or I should say not that I know of. I’m not positive I’d recognize him now. He partied plenty hard.”

  I finished my breakfast, wiping my mouth with my napkin. “He and Merilee were hot and heavy for a while, too, I understand. Any idea why they broke up?”

  “Because he was no good, like I said.”

  “Was there a major blowup?”

  “You mean did he smack her around like Dini? Not that I’m aware of. The bad boy infatuation wore off, that’s all. She got fed up with him and moved on.”

  So she’d given it to me straight. Her classmates didn’t know the truth about the night that R.J. “borrowed” his cousin Richie’s Porsche. She hadn’t told a soul. Unless, that is, Marty was sitting right there across the table lying to me, which was certainly a possibility. Actors lie for a living.

  “You want to know what I think?” He pulled on his cigarette, his eyes narrowing. “I think that for women like Dini and Merilee—sensitive, caring women who have good hearts—R. J. Romero is a phase they go through. It’s like that phase in high school when guys like you and me think we’re going to become normal, well-adjusted members of society, remember?”

  “Sure do. I thought I was going to be a lawyer. Possibly even a Supreme Court justice. I even started wearing permanent press Sansabelt slacks to school.”

  Over by the screen door, Lulu raised her head and coughed, which is what she does because she doesn’t know how to laugh.

  “But I quickly returned to my senses and the genuine, crazy me took over again,” I assured Marty.

  “Did you burn the slacks?”

  “Tried to, but they were flame retardant.”

  Marty let out a laugh. “Me, I decided I was destined for a career on Wall Street. Bought myself a pair of Florsheim cordovan wing tip shoes.”

  “Did you ever wear them?”

  “Twice. They made me feel like Bozo the Clown. I stuck them in the back of my closet and there went a promising career in high finance. To this day, I still don’t understand what an arbitrageur does.”

  “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

  Our waitress returned to fetch Lulu’s thoroughly cleaned plate and to ask us if she could get us anything else. Marty treated her to a big smile and said we were just fine, thanks. Off she went, wiggling her generous hips provocatively.

  “How long were you and Dini together?”

  Marty’s face fell. “She ended it after a semester,” he said, stubbing out his Lucky in a Sherbourne Inn ashtray. “Told me we weren’t a good match. She was right, of course. Wackiness aside, she was a traditional small-town southern girl who needed a calm, emotionally grounded adult male—not some wild man like me who’s racked by demons. Still, it surprised me when she and Greg started getting it on.”

  “Were you and Greg friends?”

  “We got along okay. He was a nice guy. Still is. We were just real different, that’s all. He was quiet and conservative. Grew up working in his dad’s sporting goods store in Tacoma. Liked to hunt and fish. Dini was so bohemian and eccentric that I couldn’t imagine that Greg was her type. But he was exactly her type. And they’ve been happy together ever since, so far as I can tell.”

  “You still have a soft spot for her, don’t you?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Only to me. I happen to lug around a great big torch myself.”

  “Merilee? I don’t blame you. She’s the McCoy, as my pop used to say.”

  “She told me that R.J. considered Greg a total stiff.”

  “R.J. was dead wrong about him. Greg Farber can carry an entire fifty-million-dollar film on his back. Very few actors are capable of doing that. R.J. just resented him because Greg knew how to get along with people. He was respectful and considerate. He was also a professional, by which I mean he was willing to learn his lines and work hard. R.J. wasn’t.”

  The waitress returned with our check. Marty signed it with a flourish, winking at her. She blushed as she went back inside, her hips continuing to wiggle.

  He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a full dress rehearsal at noon. Costumes, sets, lighting, the works. Merilee wants to make absolutely sure we’ve got our wardrobe and set changes down cold so we don’t inflict forty-minute intermissions on our audience.”

  “And do you have them down cold?”

  “Hell no. We’re still flying blind. Chances are that one of us will tumble headfirst over Amanda’s sofa in the middle of a scene. That’s part of the thrill of attending a one-shot performance like this as far as the audience is concerned. Did you hear that Jackie O’s coming? Word is she saw Tallulah Bankhead perform here when she was a kid.” Marty glanced at his watch again. “That’ll take us up to midafternoon. I’ll probably come back here for a nap before showtime. Could use a bit of diversion, too.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Do you think Millie’s too young for me?”

  “That all depends. Who’s Millie?”

  “Our waitress.”

  “I think she’s still in high school, Marty.”

  “Does that mean no?”

  Chapter Five

  By the time Lulu and I made our way across the village green the bright summer sun had burned through the morning clouds and it was swelteringly hot out. Mimi, looking fabulous in tight jeans and an even tighter tank top, was out on the lawn dealing with two men from Sherbourne Roofing, whose truck was parked next to the stage entrance. The younger of the two had climbed an extension ladder that was propped against the side of the playhouse and was moving around very, very gingerly on the section of roof directly over the stage.

  “No can do, Nick!” he called out.

  “Why is he saying that?” Mimi asked Nick as I approached them. “What does he mean?”

  “The beams are rotted out over the middle of the structure,” Nick explained patiently. “If we try to walk across the roof we’ll fall right through.”

  “How about a crane? Can you bring in a crane?”

  “I’m not sure I can rent one on such short notice.” Nick was trying really hard not to stare at Mimi’s breasts snugged inside her tank top, which were still a sight to behold even though it had been sixteen years since she—they—had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. “Even if I could we’ve still got the weight issue, as in the structure can’t hold any. Best we can do is fling a couple of blue tarps over the stage and anchor ’em in place with a few bricks and boards.”

  “Wouldn’t plywood be more effective?” she asked.

  “Plywood’s too heavy. Might crash right on through and kill one of your stars. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

  Mimi’s nostrils flared. He was patronizing her. “There have been times when I would have,” she answered tartly. “But this isn’t one of them.”

  Nick tilted his Sherbourne Roofing cap back on his head, gazing up at his man on the roof. “Latest forecast I heard for this evening is an eighty percent chance of severe thunderstorms with wind gusts up to sixty miles per hour. That kind of wind will blow our tarps right off. For that matter, it could blow the whole roof off. Those old cedar shingles up there are so rotted out that the nails are barely holding them in place. Picture driving a nail into a piece of sopping wet toast. That’s what my man’s looking at.” He glanced over at the big tent. “And I wouldn’t place any bets on that thing staying put either.”

  “Is there a point to this?” Mimi demanded irritably.

  “If it was me I’d postpone your event until tomorrow.”

  “Not possible. Two of my stars will be leaving town as soon as the curtain falls. Besides, hundreds of very prominent individuals have cleared their busy schedules to drive out here from New York City. It’s got to be tonight.”

  “I wish I could help you, but I can’t replace those rotted beams and reroof her in six hours. It’s a two-, three-day job for a half-dozen men. Besides which, we’re still talking about a building
that’s sliding off of its foundation sills. This playhouse should have been torn down five years ago.”

  “It’s not going to be torn down!” Mimi said heatedly. “That’s what tonight is all about. We’re trying to save it.”

  “I understand,” he responded, though clearly he didn’t. Roofers are noted for their achy knees, not their sentimentality. “All we can do is tarp the stage area and say a prayer.”

  “What about the roof over the audience?” I asked him.

  “We can tarp the whole danged building if that’s what you want. But I’m telling you right now, if those tarps blow off, your very prominent individuals will get good and wet.”

  “So they’ll get good and wet,” Mimi said. “That’ll make it a night to remember. Wouldn’t you say so, Hoagy?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Okay, whatever you want.” Clearly, Nick didn’t approve of the whole enterprise. “Should we get started?”

  “Please,” she said to him.

  He trudged off toward the extension ladder to talk to his man on the roof.

  “This may be it, Hoagy,” Mimi said, watching him walk away.

  “May be what?”

  “The day I completely lose my mind.”

  “Not to worry, I’ll help you find it. I have a ton of experience in that particular department.”

  Her pager beeped. She glanced at it and excused herself, striding briskly off toward the set warehouse, her fists pumping with determination.

  Me, I went in the stage door and down the spiral staircase to the dressing rooms. It still smelled moldy and sour down there even though several box fans and sump pumps were going. And Lulu still had that same guarded look on her face that she gets whenever she’s in the presence of r-a-t-s.

  I found Merilee in the ladies’ dressing room with Dini and Sabrina. All three were busy putting the finishing touches on their circa-1930 period costumes. Merilee wore a slinky pale yellow chiffon dress and saucy little hat. She was seated at the mirror darkening her eyebrows. Dini wore a knockoff of a little black Elsa Schiaparelli flapper-style dress and was fiddling with a gleaming black wig. Sabrina, whose wig was gray, was buttoning her dowdy maid’s uniform.

  Merilee eyed me in the mirror. “What do you think, darling?”

  “I think it’s you. All you need is a flask of hooch tucked in your garter. How are you feeling?” I asked Dini, who looked shaky and deathly pale.

  “I’ll be fine,” she replied, her voice sounding quavery.

  “Did you hear back from that doctor?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “I bet you have Lyme disease,” Sabrina offered helpfully. “They have ticks all over the damned place around here. I can’t wait to get back to the city.”

  “I’ll conserve my energy during rehearsal and take a nap before the curtain,” said Dini, who looked so sick it was hard to imagine she’d make it. But I’d seen Merilee crawl out of bed with a fever of 104 and light up a Broadway stage numerous times. It’s what performers are born to do. The show must go on. Dini Hawes appeared frail and delicate but, trust me, she was constructed out of the same chromium steel as Michael Jordan.

  I heard a commotion in the corridor behind me. Lulu was frisking with the twins, playfully whooping as they chased after her calling out, “Luluuuu . . . !”

  “Mimi was just outside talking to a roofer about what to do if it pours tonight,” I informed Merilee.

  “What did he suggest?”

  “He’s going to tarp it, but he can’t place too much weight on the tarps or the entire roof will collapse. He seems quite convinced of that. So if it gets really windy the tarps will blow off and everyone’s going to get soaked.”

  “Darling, I wonder if you would do me a somewhat unusual favor.”

  “Do I have to wear a dress?”

  “No.”

  “Then fire away.”

  “I want you to hit every Walmart you can find and buy up all of the umbrellas they have in stock.”

  “Say no more. I’m on it.”

  “We’ll also need plastic buckets. Dozens of them. If the roof leaks it’s going to drip in the aisles, the lobby, everywhere.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “If you can find us two hundred umbrellas I’ll marry you.”

  “Does this constitute a proposal? You’d better be careful. I have two witnesses.”

  One of those witnesses, Dini, nearly crumpled to her knees when she stood up from her dressing table. She had to grab onto it to steady herself.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Merilee asked her, greatly concerned.

  “I’m fine,” Dini assured her.

  “You’re not fine,” fumed Glenda, who’d arrived in the doorway just in time to witness her daughter nearly collapse. “I’m calling Doctor Orr to find out if he has the results of your blood work back yet.”

  “Mom, I’m his patient, not you, remember?” Dini pointed out wearily.

  “I can still find out if he has them,” she said stubbornly.

  “Whatever.” Dini sighed, her small hands trembling slightly.

  On my way out I checked on Greg and Marty in their dressing room. Both actors had slicked back their hair with brilliantine. Greg was decked out in a vintage double-breasted white suit, Marty in a checked sports jacket and pleated cream-colored slacks. Something about their costumes reeked of summer stock to me. Possibly it was the overpowering smell of mothballs.

  Greg sat before his dressing table mirror fiddling with a fake mustache. “What do you think?” he asked me.

  “I think it looks like a pair of dead cockroaches.”

  “I was going to say dung beetles,” Marty put in.

  Greg studied himself in the mirror, turning his head this way and that. Off went the mustache.

  “Dini seems to be feeling worse,” I said to him.

  “I know, poor thing. They’ll knock it out with antibiotics, whatever it is. I just hope the twins don’t catch it.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I never get sick. I have the constitution of a horse.”

  “And the comic timing to match,” Marty said.

  “You’ll pay for that,” Greg shot back, grinning at him.

  Sabrina joined me in the doorway in her frumpy maid’s costume. “You guys look awesome,” she observed, gulping. “I just hope I can hold up my end. I must confess that I’m starting to panic. There’ll be a houseful of really great actors out there tonight.”

  “There are really great actors here already,” I reminded her. “You’ve been working alongside of them for two weeks and doing fine. Trust me, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Her dark, slanted eyes gleamed at me. “I didn’t know you were sweet. On top of being brilliant, I mean.”

  “Sabrina, you really need to work at getting over your shyness with men,” Marty advised her.

  She ignored him. “I’m free for the next half hour. Would you like to get a coffee?”

  “I’d love to, but I have that vital errand to run, remember?”

  THERE WERE THREE, count ’em, three Walmarts skirting the shoreline within a thirty-minute drive of the Sherbourne Playhouse.

  The first one I arrived at, in Clinton, was the standard cheerless, windowless, dimly lit gulag of a warehouse. Whenever I walk inside of a Walmart I’m convinced that we didn’t win the cold war. There were surveillance cameras everywhere. Racks of cheap, utilitarian merchandise that had been manufactured in a giant sweatshop in some impoverished land halfway across the globe. The employees were so slack-jawed and dead-eyed that I swore they’d been lobotomized. And then there was the smell of those sweaty hot dogs that had been going round and round on the rotating electric grill in the snack bar for the past seven or eight hours. I wondered what continent those hot dogs originated from. I wondered what was in them. Actually, no, I didn’t.

  Lulu was highly allergic to the place. I think it was the dye that they used in those stac
ks of stiff, nondesigner jeans. All I know is she started sneezing the second we passed through the automated doors.

  After I’d asked three clerks and hoofed it a half mile I found a box of twenty-four black travel umbrellas hidden among the camping and fishing gear. They were the sort that slide open and shut. I slid one open. It wasn’t sturdy enough to handle a mild gust on Sixth Avenue, but we weren’t expecting any gusts inside of the Sherbourne Playhouse. Or at least I certainly hoped we weren’t. I asked a clerk if they had any more in the back. He obliged me with humanoid politeness and returned ten minutes later with another box, which gave me forty-eight. Not a bad start. Next I trekked to the housewares department and filled a grocery cart with twenty plastic buckets in assorted sizes and colors.

  From there it was a half mile back to the cash registers to wait in line, which gave me a chance to catch up on the latest supermarket tabloid news. There was plenty of dirt about Burt and Loni’s impending divorce if you wanted to read about that, which I didn’t. Also the shocking revelations about new first lady Hillary Clinton’s top-secret love affair with a man whom a highly reputable scientist believed was an extraterrestrial. I didn’t pull that off of the rack either. Not when I could read about those captivating young lovebirds Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt. It seems that Lorena had caught her husband cheating on her. On the night of June 23, while John was asleep in their bed, Lorena had proceeded to cut John’s penis off with a kitchen knife, jump in her car and drive away with it. Somewhere near their Manassas, Virginia, home she’d thrown it out her open car window into an empty field, then suffered, um, misgivings and phoned the police. A thorough search of the field was undertaken and John and his severed penis were surgically reunited at the hospital a few hours later. He soon announced it was good as new—all systems go—and was now cheerfully squiring porn stars and nude models around L.A. by the dozen while Lorena languished in a Virginia jail cell awaiting trial, unaware that she had single-handedly contributed a major new verb—to bobbitt—to the rich tapestry of our language.

  Back out into the icky, sticky summer air we went, the blacktop of the five-acre parking lot radiating the searing afternoon heat as I pushed the grocery cart back to the Woody. I unlocked the tailgate and stowed my purchases, closed the tailgate, turned and discovered that R. J. Romero was standing less than a foot behind me, grinning at me. His sweaty, gleaming face had a faintly jaundiced tinge to it in the bright sunlight. His rotting teeth looked grayish. He wore a striped T-shirt that looked as if he’d scored it off of Beaver Cleaver, blue jean cutoffs and sneakers without socks.