Cover-Up Story

by Marian Babson

  ‘Then how about –?’

  ‘How about going back to the hotel?’ I said. ‘Get everyone together, and I’ll come along for a council of war in a couple of hours – after I get everything sorted out here.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think –’ He was prepared to be obstinate, and I was afraid I knew the reason why.

  ‘You go ahead.’ With a silent shrug of apology at Penny, I sold her down the river. ‘We’ll be along shortly.’

  Black Bart might not have been the greatest star since the Roaring Twenties, but he certainly had the entourage mentality. ‘Where is everybody?’ he demanded.

  I looked around, observing them carefully – still not quite willing to admit, even to myself, what I was looking for. (Bastard, bastard, which one was the biggest bastard of all?)

  Lou-Ann perched wanly on the edge of the big chair. The Cousins sprawled by the fireplace, engaged in a desultory game of craps. Sam and Gerry were worrying over a Press Release in the corner. I had promised Penny an extra three pounds a week ‘danger money’ and sworn that either Gerry or I would always be along whenever she had to see the Client, so she was here with me now.

  Bart hovered near the window, occasionally moving forward to pat Lou-Ann’s shoulder – when he remembered that he was supposed to be a comfort to his grieving wife. But he always returned to the window, although he never seemed to see what he was hoping for. And his eyes kept sliding to Penny in a way that made me feel like a pimp for having brought her along.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Bart repeated. There were only two people missing.

  ‘I think Crystal’s gone shopping, Bart,’ Lou-Ann said softly. ‘I asked her to get some things for me. She oughta be back soon.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Bart said. ‘And where’s that lazy, no’ccount old fool with the harmonica? Why ain’t he around?’

  ‘Maybe he’s gone to church,’ I said. ‘After a death – some people pray.’

  ‘Pray!’ Black Bart exploded into laughter. ‘Hell, boy, there ain’t been no Revival Meeting lately! ’ He staggered with laughter to the fireplace, and swayed over the Cousins, pointing down at them. ‘That’s the only time my kinda people get down on their knees.’ He scooped up the dice, leaving the Cousins hovering there, uncertainly.

  He shook the dice and flung them from him. They swirled across the carpet and hit the leg of Lou-Ann’s chair. A single dot stared upwards from each one.

  ‘You see that?’ Bart crowed. ‘Snake eyes! That’s the only eyes you got looking at you. What you talking like that for, then – you understudying Billy Graham? Nobody’s watching – only old Snake Eyes. So you jest grab what you want afore you’re too old and dead to enjoy it.’

  Silence hung in the room a minute. Lou-Ann seemed to shrink. Sam moved as though to go to her, but hesitated. Losing interest, Bart whirled and went back to the window. After another silent moment, Cousin Homer slithered across the carpet and retrieved the dice. The crap game continued, but some of its zest was missing.

  ‘Please,’ Penny whispered to me, ‘I’d like to go home.’

  ‘In a minute,’ I whispered back. It was still ominously quiet. The first person to draw attention by a decisive word or movement might yet unleash another storm.

  When the door of the suite opened, it seemed that it was to be Uncle No’ccount who was to receive the brunt of Bart’s still unspent mood. As though he sensed this, he advanced into the room diffidently.

  Bart moved to meet him. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he snarled.

  ‘Workin’, Bart.’ Placatingly, he held out a worn loose-leaf binder to Bart, like an offering. ‘Working hard. All day.’

  ‘You jest better have been!’ Bart snatched the binder and disappeared into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  The atmosphere lightened immediately. The crap game grew noisier, and Uncle No’ccount wandered over to join the Cousins. I nodded to Penny and she folded up her shorthand notebook, to slip away while the going was good.

  She nearly collided with Crystal, who was entering as she exited. They did a little side-stepping waltz in the doorway, then Crystal smiled faintly and stood aside. Penny rushed past as though all the hounds of hell were behind her. Crystal’s smile faded, replaced by a faint frown as she looked after Penny. She came into the room, and was visibly relieved to see it full of people.

  It occurred to me that Crystal could not have entirely escaped a certain amount of backlash from Bart’s various episodes.

  Lou-Ann looked up then and saw Crystal. She beckoned and Crystal crossed to her – I noticed that she was carrying no parcels. She crouched beside Lou-Ann’s chair and the two of them whispered together urgently.

  I stood up, deciding to join Sam and Gerry. But, as I turned, I found Cousin Zeke had detached himself from the crap game and was at my elbow, staring at me plaintively.

  ‘I hear tell they’re gonna get Maw cremated,’ he said.

  I hadn’t heard, but it seemed like a sensible thing to do. ‘Not until after the inquest, I imagine,’ I said.

  ‘That means we ain’t gonna go home, then? Means we jest gonna stay here jest the same? Take the ashes with us when we go back?’ His voice rose on a progressively querulous note. ‘It don’t seem right.’

  ‘After all, you have contracts to fulfil,’ I reminded him. ‘And it couldn’t make any difference to Mrs Cooney now, could it?’ Belatedly, I remembered that it might make a lot of difference to him. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Not too good.’ He glanced at me warily. ‘Not as bad as I might, but not too good.’

  ‘The new pills the doctor gave you are working all right, are they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he admitted cautiously. ‘I guess maybe it’s partly that. And partly, I was wondering –’ He looked towards Lou-Ann and lowered his voice. ‘Do you think it mighta been maybe the Conjure Woman got things a little bit mixed up?’

  ‘Mixed up?’ For a moment, I didn’t follow him.

  ‘Yeah. You think maybe that old Conjure Woman jest seen that somebody died when we was away from home? Maybe she couldn’t rightly make out who. An’, since my ma was asking her about me, maybe she jest reckoned it musta been me as was gonna die. But maybe she made a mistake, and it was really Maw Cooney all the time.’

  ‘That’s a very good theory. You hold on to it.’ It wasn’t much of a brand to snatch from the burning mess but, if Cousin Zeke could get over his neurosis, it might ease the situation a bit.

  Or was that the whole idea? An insane thought flooded into my brain. Had Cousin Zeke painstakingly worked this out beforehand – and had he pushed Maw into the path of that speeding car so that a death would occur away from home? A sacrifice to his Conjure Gods in place of himself? It was a crazy notion – but no crazier than some of the notions I’d heard from these characters.

  ‘I really think you have the solution there,’ I said weakly. I only hoped I hadn’t.

  ‘On the other hand –’ he wasn’t to be comforted for long – ‘maybe Maw’s dying was jest extra-like. Maybe it was something that old Conjure Woman didn’t never see at all. So maybe I’m still a-gonna die while we’re all away from home. ’Course, if that happens, that means there’ll have to be another one die, too. Kinda thing always comes in threes.’ He looked around the room with gloomy relish, obviously speculating on the identity of the third victim.

  ‘I’m sure you were right the first time,’ I said hastily. ‘The Conjure Woman misinterpreted her ...um, facts. There was only one death – and it was Maw Cooney’s. You’re going to be all right.’

  He nodded dubiously and shuffled back to the crap game, having shot his bolt and left me transfixed by it. The idea of a series of three deaths had unnerved me completely.

  After a moment, I pulled myself together, mentally cursing Cousin Zeke, the Conjure Woman, Maw Cooney and the day I ever got mixed up with this entire bunch of lunatics. I had never thought I’d feel nostalgic about dear old Cinecittà, but I was beginning to remember it as a golde
n period in my life. Ah, for those happy, carefree days of shrieking tantrums over billing, and those merry evenings spent trailing starlets along the path of la dolce vita, trying to drag them back to their hotels so that they wouldn’t photograph with bags under their eyes in the morning. I didn’t appreciate a soft job when I had it.

  I wondered if Gerry felt that way, too. Certainly, from the expression on his face, he had taken just about enough of whatever Sam was handing him. I went over to them, ready to act as peacemaker, if necessary.

  As I reached them, the bedroom door opened. Black Bart stood in the doorway, surveying the room. He glowered sombrely at everyone, not missing the fact that Crystal had returned, then looked round again restlessly.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ he demanded.

  ‘We’re all here, Bart,’ Lou-Ann said.

  ‘No, you ain’t,’ Bart said. His eye fell on me. ‘You, boy,’ he said. ‘Where’s your secretary-kid? I’m outa cigarettes. I want her to go fetch me some.’

  ‘She’s gone for the day,’ I said. ‘She only works part-time.’

  ‘What’d you let her go for? You mighta knowed we’d want something.’

  ‘I’ll get your cigarettes,’ I said coldly. ‘What brand do you smoke?’

  ‘How do I know? All your junk tastes alike to me. Jest get me half a dozen packs. We got a rehearsing session comin’ up now.’

  As I left the suite, I heard him expending more wrath on the Cousins.

  ‘You bastards think I brought you over here to enjoy yourselves? Git your guitars and let’s make like you’re gonna do something to earn your keep. We wanta rehearse my new number for the show tonight.’

  CHAPTER XI

  BACKSTAGE AT the theatre, I took the first chance I had had to sit down in hours. Bart had deliberately kept me on the hop all afternoon. Pointedly, on errands one would normally expect an office junior to do: post a letter, bring in coffee, get more cigarettes, go for the evening papers. It was deliberate punishment for having let Penny go home. I knew it – and he had intended that I know it. I had held my temper, ignored the snickers of the Cousins, and the sympathy of Uncle No’ccount and the girls. I didn’t need the anxious pleading in Sam’s face to keep me in line. At whatever cost in pride, the Black Bart account was going to lift Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd back into solvency, and I wasn’t going to blow it.

  Now, however, I sank into a straight chair in the wings and did my best to give an imitation of an immovable object. If Bart wanted any more errands done, he could get one of the stagehands to do them. I was off duty for the night – off active duty. I was still on entourage duty, as was Gerry, and no more pleased about it than he was. But I knew that, like me, he was visualizing the long columns of red ink in the Perkins & Tate ledgers slowly turning black. He’d put up with a lot of inconvenience for that result, too. It would pay for a lot of birdseed, later.

  Fortunately, the Client had been in a better mood since we reached the theatre. The house was full, bookings were solid for the remainder of the engagement and, when he glanced out through the curtains, he’d found the first half-dozen rows filled with giggling teenage girls. He was looking almost cheerful when he went to his dressing-room to get ready for his entrance.

  Gerry had joined the crap game that was carrying on in the Cousins’ dressing-room, and was practising while they opened the show. I could hear Sam arguing with Lou-Ann in her dressing-room. It was the same old argument about comedy technique. I wondered why he didn’t give it up. Lou-Ann didn’t feel safe with a joke unless she hammered it into the ground with crossed eyes and a pratfall. It was too bad, but that was the way it was.

  ‘Trust the lines, baby, I promise you – they’re funny. You don’t have to do anything to them.’ Sam followed her out of the dressing-room, brushing at a speck of powder on her jacket, too absorbed in her to notice me sitting there. ‘Just relax and throw them away. Try it. Just for tonight – try it. You’ll see – it will work.’

  ‘Yes, Sam,’ she said mechanically. For a moment, he looked hopeful, as though he thought he’d got through to her. He forgot that it was part of her nature to agree if she thought she’d make someone happy by it. It was another manifestation of the irresistible impulse to make them laugh. They had to like her. She’d promise anything, but forget the promise the instant the spotlight hit her. In as short a time as I’d known her, I realized that. Sam must know it, too, but he was as incapable of relinquishing his dream as Lou-Ann was of changing the technique she believed tried and true.

  ‘That’s a good girl.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now, go on out there and remember what I told you.’

  ‘All right, Sam.’ She paused before her entrance, adjusted her hat to a wilder angle, and I caught the telltale movement of her tongue across her teeth. When she turned to smile at Sam, the liquorice gum was blacking out her two front teeth. She bounced onstage, and we heard the thump of her pratfall above the shrieking laughter of the front rows.

  Sam’s shoulders slumped, defeated. I nodded to him, but there didn’t seem to be anything to say. He stood beside me, wincing, as Lou-Ann threw herself about with extra emphasis. She seemed to have taken Sam’s pep talk as an indication that she wasn’t being funny enough, and she was determined to outdo herself tonight.

  ‘It was a nice try,’ I said.

  ‘She can’t relax.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe, if she just had more confidence in herself ...But that bastard –’

  I glanced at Sam, but he didn’t seem to realize what he had said. Or attach any significance to it. Of course, anyone who knew Bart inevitably referred to him as ‘that bastard’ – but no one seemed to connect it with Maw Cooney’s last words. Or was I just imagining it all? But Maw Cooney was dead – I hadn’t imagined that.

  ‘What have you heard from the police?’ The thought followed naturally.

  ‘Police?’ Sam looked as blank as though I had been speaking in an unknown language.

  ‘About the inquest,’ I reminded him. ‘About releasing the body.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He withdrew his attention from the stage with an effort. ‘We shouldn’t have any trouble. They’ll keep it as quiet as they can. Bart being a big star with a big teenage following, they’re a little nervous about getting a courtroom full of fans just along for the ride. They’ll probably have it in a few days, with no advance publicity, first thing in the morning, at some quiet out-of-the-way place. We don’t have to worry about a thing.’

  ‘Not even about the verdict they’ll bring in?’ I couldn’t resist it. He was so complacent. So sure that all we had to worry about was an undignified deluge of fans.

  ‘Verdict?’ He looked at me as though I were mad. Perhaps I was. ‘It was a traffic accident. You heard what the cop said – Misadventure. What other verdict could they bring in?’ But he was subtly shaken. Perhaps it was the first time it had occurred to him that there might be any doubt.

  Before I could answer, the Client stood in front of us. I wondered how long he had been lurking within earshot.

  He didn’t speak, just paused long enough to rake us with an arrogant, menacing glance, then continued onstage. We could hear the audience going wild. Even backstage, the air vibrated with that haunting, hypnotic beat I was beginning to hate:

  ‘Homesteader, Homesteader,

  ‘Ridin’ alone ...’

  Sam and I stayed silent throughout the song. Whatever his thoughts were, they must have been nearly as depressing as mine. He grew steadily gloomier.

  Bart held up his hand for silence after the song ended. He didn’t seem displeased when it took longer than usual for the audience to quieten down.

  ‘Now, folks,’ he said, ‘I want to introduce another little number I wrote myself – jes’ like “Homesteader” –’ It took another moment for the pandemonium to die down. ‘Yessir, it was inspired by a wonderful little lady, who had the misfortune to be killed in a traffic accident a couple of days ago, here in your wonderful city. It sorta cast a pall on t
he whole Troupe, even though we’re carrying on, like she woulda wanted us to. Especially –’ He went into the spiel about Lou-Ann then, and I stopped listening as I tried to control my queasy stomach. All this just-plain-folksiness was going to give me my first ulcer, if I wasn’t careful. I tried not to look at Lou-Ann, smirking and taking bows.

  A soft rustle behind me drew my attention. Crystal had slipped into the wings to stand watching the stage with shining eyes. ‘He’s going to sing it now,’ she murmured softly. ‘Oh, it’s so pretty.’

  Well, it was nice for Bart, I supposed, to have a permanent fan club in a member of his own family. It doesn’t always work that way with families. But it didn’t help the state of my stomach.

  ‘Yessir.’ Bart, onstage, was returning to the main business of the evening. The spotlight snapped off Lou-Ann abruptly and was all his own again.

  ‘Yessir, our own Maw Cooney was my inspiration for this special number I’m introducing here tonight – for the very first time anywhere! ’ He waved a hand, and the Cousins picked up the downbeat.

  The lyrics were about as mawkish as you’d expect, but the melody was strong, wistful and haunting. And the audience was loving it. In all fairness, I’d have liked it myself if Bart hadn’t been responsible for it. For a moment, I mused on the injustice of talent – why did so much of it have to be given to people one ordinarily wouldn’t wish to associate with?

  The song had brought Sam out of his gloom. I could see his brain cash-registering the probable sale of the record. Obviously, the next hit record for Black Bart and the Troupe. It was a spellbinder.

  But, as the song continued, I was more than spellbound – I was riveted. Something about it began to seem terribly familiar. I had heard that song – that melody – before. And not so very long ago.

  ‘It’s so pretty,’ Crystal was murmuring in a soft litany behind me. ‘Beautiful. It’s jest so beautiful.’