Violencia!

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  “I need you to get on a plane and fly to Winslow as soon as possible,” he told her. “It’s vitally important.”

  Angela had a quiet, capable, unflashy style of getting things done. Without fanfare, she arranged to get to Winslow in no time flat. Gurney was coming along the corridor, outside his hotel suite, when he saw her being manhandled by one of the security guards. He walked over briskly, deliberately not running, knowing that if he got there too quickly he might kill the man. Taking the guard’s wrist in a tight vise, and keeping his voice measured—something he’d trained himself to do, no matter what the provocation—he said: “Take your hands off her.”

  The guard directed a neutral, clear-eyed law enforcement look at Gurney that might have been unnerving had he not worked in the homicide field and seen it many times before.

  “She’s been claiming she belongs in one of the suites.”

  “She’s with me,” said Gurney, returning his own version of the look.

  “I didn’t realize she was your wife, Mr. Gurney. We go out of our way to protect spouses.”

  “She is my wife, sort of,” said Gurney. “What’s important is that I’m taking her with me.”

  “We try to do a decent job,” said the man, bringing his jaw an inch from Gurney’s.

  “Then for God’s sakes, do it,” said Gurney, shoving the man aside and leading Angela to his suite.

  Before opening the door, he whispered back to the man: “Can’t you see she has a missing wing?”

  Inside the suite, he hugged Angela as hard as he could, trying to squeeze all the loneliness out of himself. As if to demonstrate that she had a life and ideas of her own—and possibly influenced by her brush with security—she drew away from him and began to expound on the plight of America’s student anarchists.

  “The young intellectual has no channel for his energies, Paul, and this will inevitably lead to an explosion of the student elite.”

  She pranced around the room as she threw off her new ideas, her chest thrown out proudly. It was an Angela he hadn’t seen before, and he enjoyed seeing this side of her. Everything about her was modest at a first glance, but improved on closer scrutiny. That was true of her jewelry, her clothing, her perfume, her features. After she had held forth for ten minutes or so on the intellectual frustration of the student radical, she sat down on the bed, shoulders slumped and out of breath.

  “How’s the show going?” she asked.

  Gurney told her he couldn’t say exactly, but that he had asked her to fly out to Winslow because, quite frankly, it was tedious hanging around theatre people. It wasn’t quite true—he hadn’t been hanging out with anyone—but it got him past the moment. As if exhausted by her sudden intellectual pursuits, she sighed and lay back on the bed. She was wearing a short flowered skirt that somehow tied in with her student-radical concerns. It fell back over her long tanned legs, and there was the fabled and careless glimpse of white panties, the effect of which was to make him pounce on her as if he’d been shot out of a gun. He made love to her as if he’d received word that it was the last time he’d be permitted to make love to anyone. Her style in bed—when he allowed her to have one—was never to let Gurney do anything to her unless she countered by offering some delicious treat of her own. When he came a second time—a famous first for him—her response was a low, gratified chuckle that had a note of gentle triumph to it.

  Clement Hartog came by a bit later. Before admitting him, Gurney sealed Angela into one of the rooms and received the director in another—wondering all the while why he needed to go through with this deception.

  “Got anybody in there?” Hartog asked, nodding toward the second room.

  “Sort of,” said Gurney.

  “Someone in the show?” asked Hartog as if he were a teacher querying a naughty student. “If so, which one?”

  Gurney thought the director was being much too nosy, but all the same he said: “Oh, for Christ’s sakes, why lie, it’s Angela. Come on out.”

  She appeared, trailing a blanket to cover her nudity, kissed Hartog on the cheek, and then went back to the other room so that the collaborators could either talk or work.

  “I remember Angela,” said Hartog. “How come you were keeping her under wraps?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Gurney. “I guess I felt that if we were going to work, I’d feel uneasy about having a girl in the next room.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Hartog. “How could you really throw yourself into it? She’s got a great body, incidentally, with a powerful little ass. But it’s hard to concentrate that way. It’s bad enough for me having Essie in the next room, and as you well know, she’s just my mother.”

  As it turned out, Hartog didn’t want to work at all, just to talk and relax for a bit. Gurney saw the visit as an opportunity to gauge the director’s feelings about the shape they were in and their chances for becoming a hit.

  Hartog was direct and concise.

  “I don’t think we’re ready. We’re not going to be ready in Winslow and I doubt we’ll be ready in Holliman.”

  He sat there grimly, as though he were about to get a haircut from an untrustworthy barber.

  “I wouldn’t stake my life on it,” he said, “but there’s a small chance we’ll be ready in New York.”

  Scene 10

  On the morning of the opening in Winslow, Gurney walked over to check the theatre once again. Standing alone in the vast open space, aware that his pose was slightly dramatic, he took a rough count of the seats and saw that there were close to two thousand of them.

  How in the world will we be able to pack the place, he wondered, way out in Winslow?

  He had seen very few people in the tiny, windswept town and could not imagine Winslow having two thousand residents, much less theatregoers. But he’d heard there was a busy suburb just outside the town. Maybe that was where the potential audience resided.

  By early evening, the center of Winslow had begun to bustle with traffic. Gurney’s hotel, too, livened up considerably, as though a major convention were being held there. As it happened, there was such an event, a gathering of radiology equipment people.

  Gurney had no idea if the radiology execs were coming to the opening of Violencia. He had mixed feelings about the possibility. On the one hand, they seemed an odd audience for a Broadway-bound musical; still, there were quite a few of them, they were not as badly dressed as some conventioneers he had seen—and they certainly would fill up the place. On the way back to his suite, Gurney saw one of them, who was not quite as drunk as he pretended to be, waving a foot-long vibrator at passing couples and winking as he did so.

  “You’ll never guess what this is for,” he called out after them.

  Despite the tasteless exhibition, Gurney felt sorry for the poor man. At the same time, he wondered why the normally alert security guards hadn’t noticed him. They’d certainly kept a close eye on everyone else.

  Gurney and Angela had a preopening light bite at Sardi’s Pacific Northwest. The owner, completely oblivious to the importance of the occasion, was sunk deep in his own difficulties.

  “I lost two cooks this morning,” he moaned, “and the salad man just threatened to quit.”

  He didn’t even offer the couple a good-luck drink, which Gurney felt was shabby treatment indeed—especially since the restaurant was now packed with people who were either Violencia opening-night guests or radiology specialists. On how many other nights of the year does he get this much business? Gurney wondered.

  Diners, who looked suspiciously like East Coast theatre people, started to file past the table. Gurney did not know any of them personally, but Hartog, who had joined the couple, seemed to be acquainted with them all. As each one passed, the director would duck his head down beneath the table.

  “Oh no, oh God no, not him. He’s here for only one purpose—to run back with the news that we’re a turkey.”

  Gurney was feeling like an outsider until he saw John Gable, the dick who
had taken over his Homicider column and who had apparently, and amazingly, made the trip out to catch the opening of Violencia. Gable, who obviously felt out of his depth among all the veteran theatre people, did not approach their table, but did give Gurney and Angela a good-luck wave before slipping behind a counter in the rear of the restaurant and trying to be as inconspicuous as posssible. Gurney understood Gable’s feelings. Just five or six months back, he might have behaved the same way. The man was a good, clear thinker, and Gurney was thrilled to see him. Not only did he now have a friend in Winslow, but Gable, as a homicider himself, might be able to furnish him with some useful tips after he had seen the production.

  Gurney did not know the protocol for opening night. Did one send a telegram to each member of the cast? Flowers to the chorus kids? He decided he would send everyone an expensive gift for the New York opening, but to keep it down here to flowers for the two leads, Essie Hartog and Matt Tanker. He was completely baffled as to what to get for the gifted Hobie Hancock, finally settling on a magazine subscription to a well-known entertainment monthly, one that featured news about opportunities in show business for up-and-coming young performers.

  He then paid a backstage visit to Essie Hartog. The aging actress’s eyes were filmed over with a mixture of tears and excitement, and she might not have been aware of it when Gurney wished her the best. Matt Tanker’s mother had been hired as her backstage dresser. She was busy oiling Essie Hartog’s stilts and seemed to be in a rage because a famous doctor had said publicly that cancer might be emotionally induced.

  “Can you imagine,” she said, “a man like that, with all the good things he’s done in his life, coming right out and saying something filthy like that? Shouldn’t he think twice before he shoots his mouth off? They ought to take him out and give him cancer and see what kind of emotions he has.”

  Gurney did not agree at all. He felt it was much too rough a penalty to give a man for advancing a sincerely felt opinion. But since it was opening night, he did not stop to argue the point. Added to this, it seemed a strange sort of debate to be having before the premiere of a new show.

  Gurney found Matt Tanker in an entirely different state from that of the Viennese actress. The ex-dick seemed calm, level-eyed, and peaceful as he sat on the floor of his dressing room, wearing a poncho and molding pottery pieces. He had come a long way from the days when he was a hard-nosed sex patroller—and he had even put some distance between himself and his more recent career as a highly paid L.A. chiropractor specializing in the injured backs of highway accident victims.

  “It’s a show,” said Tanker with a curious, beatific little smile. “If it works out, fine. If not, I’ll go up north to the mountains, find myself a cave, and investigate my head.”

  Try as he might, Gurney could not altogether admire Tanker’s unruffled state of mind. Wasn’t the actor being a bit smug, considering the fact that a small fortune was at stake, along with the careers of more than a hundred people? Was it possible that the actor was using dangerous hallucinogenic drugs? If so, it certainly wasn’t going to help his line deliveries in the crucially important role of Essie Hartog’s detective son. Gurney would have preferred that the male lead in Violencia be just a little bit keyed up. On the other hand, he had to ask himself what exactly was so great about his own contribution.

  On the way back to his seat, Gurney took a quick look into the shabbily appointed chorus kids’ dressing room and saw Han Nihsu’s four assistants tossing the nimble-bodied Holly up in the air on a fireman’s circular tarpaulin. They stopped immediately when they saw Gurney, who thought it was a peculiar warm-up exercise for the opening.

  He took his seat then, alongside Angela, and thumbed through the show program. There was a bearded picture of him on the back page, along with the following notes:

  “Librettist Paul Gurney, 39, is an ex-cop who has never done a show before. This is his first one, repeat, the first show he has ever done. He has no experience in the drama whatsoever, which is quite something when you think about it. Such are the vagaries of what we know as theatre in America. Gurney lives alone in an East Coast city and collects so-called ‘art’ pictures of naked young Danish girls.”

  Gurney was outraged by the final sentence. Evidently Hobie Hancock had gotten in touch with Nettie Hersel, the public relations woman who prepared the program notes, and told her about his onetime purchase of the hot magazines. It was bad enough for the actor to have ratted him out. For that idiot PR woman to so nakedly expose him …

  Angela did her best to calm him down.

  “It’s only Winslow,” she said. “And there’s plenty of time for a correction before we get to New York.”

  She assured him that they might even be able to make some editorial changes before the show hit Holliman. Gurney gradually took control of himself and turned around to check the audience in the theatre, which was quickly filling to capacity. It looked about the way he imagined it would: A good many of the radiology people were there, along with a large contingent of well-dressed people he guessed were from the East Coast theatre world. There was another rather plainly dressed group that Gurney took to be the local Winslow crowd. The students did not seem to have shown up in any number, but there were two surprise contingents in the audience. One was made up of hotel security guards, who were scattered about and perhaps recognizable only to Gurney. He had no idea if they were there for security purposes or because they loved show business. But they seemed to be in a much jollier mood than they ever were when on duty—and since this was the case, he was rather glad they had turned up. Another group, which he did not know how to take at all, was a large body of seamen, some in dress uniforms, others in underwater wet suits. Hartog, coming over to wish his partner well, explained that they were from the local Underwater Demolition School and had been let in free as a courtesy gesture and to help fill up the house.

  “They will laugh at the sexy stuff,” said Hartog. “I’ve had them at openings before and you can count on it. I don’t believe they can hurt us.”

  “And good luck to you, Paul,” said Hartog, who then returned to his seat.

  Just before the curtain went up, a fellow approached and introduced himself as Norbert Tiomkins, a classmate of Gurney’s in grade school. Though Tiomkins had put on a great deal of weight, particularly in the jowls, Gurney recognized his old school chum immediately.

  “We live out here in Winslow, Paul,” said Tiomkins, “and we’ve been watching your every move with enormous pride. I wonder if you would join Maggie and me for a drink after the show?”

  “Normally, I’d love to,” said Gurney. “But I have a feeling my collaborators and I are going to have our hands full after the opening and will have to have an immediate meeting. Perhaps some other time, Norbert.”

  “Not on your life,” said Tiomkins, who evidently had not been prepared for a turndown. His jowls shook with rage. “My wife and I wouldn’t shit on the best part of you and your wife.”

  He then scooped up a woman Gurney took to be Mrs. Tiomkins and stormed out of the theatre. Gurney then realized that his own response had been a bit on the smug side, however honest in its intentions—and that perhaps Tiomkins’s reaction was not as inappropriate as it first seemed.

  The reference to Angela as Gurney’s wife made the librettist slink down in his seat, almost reflexively, as though his ex might at any moment come in and spot the two of them. How preposterous that was, Gurney thought, straightening his back. For one thing, she was his ex-wife, and he could certainly go to the theatre with anyone he liked. Added to this, it would not surprise him in the least if Gilda Gurney was rolling around on a carpet somewhere with a treacherous colleague they’d met together at one of the Homicide family picnics.

  As the bland overture began, the new stage manager, who had taken over for the deceased Mr. Mortimer, presented Gurney with what seemed to be a ticket-purchasing bill. Studying it quickly, Gurney saw that he was being asked to pay for the choice orchestra seats of the
eighteen hotel security guards.

  “This is outrageous,” said Gurney. “I didn’t invite them.”

  The fellow used the lame excuse that he was “just following orders,” then added, “And it has to be paid or the curtain can’t go up.”

  Was it possible that the security guards had discovered that Gurney was an ex-homicider and assumed that, as a courtesy, he would want them to attend the show as his guests? If that was so, it was a law enforcement custom Gurney had never heard of, and he thought he was familiar with all of them.

  “I’ll have to make out a check,” said Gurney. “But I’m going to look into this and will probably insist on getting my money back.”

  The curtain finally went up on one of Bess Filimino’s tiny but exquisitely made sets. Gurney, who had expected to be limp with nervous tension, found that he was surprisingly calm about the experience. He was able to sit back and watch the show just as if he were a normal audience person. And in a sense he was, since he had never really seen Violencia run straight through, with no interruptions from either Clement Hartog or the technical staff. Or perhaps his nonchalance derived from that cynical side of himself which remained aloof from show business, even though he was in the thick of it.

  When the audience applauded Essie Hartog’s first appearance, she answered them with a loud, vulgar farting sound, an old goodluck custom from her Berlin theatre days, one that most of the people in the audience did not quite comprehend. The underwater demolition people razzed back at her, some of them turning and farting in the direction of the stage, evidently thinking it was a new kind of audience-participation show. No question, their raucousness, though in answer to Essie’s vulgarity, did tend to dilute the effect of the opening number—for which Welles, without consulting his collaborators, had infuriatingly switched the lyrics around, so that the chorus once again confusingly sang “I Love Paris in the Off-Season” instead of the agreed-upon “I Love Precinct Nineteen in the Off-Season.”

  In spite of the bumpy start, the audience quickly settled down and seemed to enjoy the first fifteen minutes of the show. A turning point came during Betty Pound’s wistful “I Can’t Get His Gun Off” number, which the theatregoers perhaps misinterpreted as being salacious in its intentions. Shaking her hips as she did and using some of the buttock manipulations Han Nihsu had supplied her with, the scrappy, zesty little one-armed actress did nothing to reduce this impression and rather helped it along. The underwater demolition crowd in particular gave her a good working-over, shouting out obscene catcalls and many of them passing notes up to the stage with invitations for meetings after the show.