by Alan Handley
We all sat down and Ted couldn’t wait for the drinks to finish being ordered before he launched into the newest juicy morsel of gossip he’d unearthed.
“Darlings, have you heard about Harry Bruno…you know the one that owns that dreadful theater on Seventh Avenue.” This little darling hadn’t heard but this little darling knew that theater quite well having served a very short time in two flops there. “Well, you know he simply can’t afford to have a hit in that house, he owes so much money and he makes more out of flops. Believe me, he even goes to the out-of-town openings just to make sure they’re bad enough…. Of course, with the theater shortage he can get away with it.”
“But, Ted, I don’t understand,” said Margo. “What do you mean he can’t afford to have a hit?” Yes, she was doing all right…she’d learned how to set up Ted. Yes, it wouldn’t be long before Ted would be sending out little notes to the columnists saying, “Well-known stage and screen star Ted Kent is blazing with what recently renovated eyeful?” and signing someone else’s name. He’s done it before and he can do it again. “I should think every theater owner would want a hit.” Lay it out for him sister. Give him the topper.
“But don’t you see, darling. Every show has to pay for the theater two weeks in advance and if it’s a flop and doesn’t run two weeks then Harry can keep the money and get another show in right away and that show has to pay two weeks in advance, too.”
“Why, I think that’s awful,” said Margo. “Don’t you, Tim?” But Ted wasn’t going to let me get into his act.
“Well, anyway, Ed Dell—you know, the critic—hates Harry’s guts and thought he’d fix him but good. He knew Harry needed twelve thousand bucks right away or he’d lose the theater, and the only way he could get that much money in the time he had was to have three quick flops. Well, he got two all right and the third one was a stinker, too, but Ed gave it a rave notice in his paper, thinking that would make it run long enough to put Harry out of business—and it would have, too. Only guess what Harry did?”
“What, Ted?” said Margo breathlessly. “I can’t imagine.” Here was my chance.
“So Harry took the rave notice,” I said before Ted could stop me. “And went to a loan shark and borrowed the twelve thousand dollars on the strength of Ed’s rave notices and lived happily ever after.” Ted, I am glad to say, was livid.
“I think after that, Tim,” said Maggie, “the least we can do is leave.” She got up and I helped her on with her coat.
“Libby told me about their offering you that part in the Equity Library show, Margo,” I said. Ted was still sulking. “I think you’d have gotten more experience from that than understudying.”
“Oh, that was just Libby’s idea, and even if I did want to act I’m certainly not ready for Ibsen yet. Can you imagine me as Nora in A Doll’s House?”
“Libby said it was Rosalind in As You Like It. I should think you’d be a good type for that.”
“Oh, you know Libby, how vague she is. It was A Doll’s House and I’m certainly not up to that.”
“How’s your walk-on in the new Frobisher thing?” said Ted. That was a feeble effort to get back at me. He knew it was more than a walk-on.
“It’s shaping up.” He wasn’t going to get any change out of me.
“When do you open?”
“Wilmington, Friday.”
“I might run up and catch it if I can. I’ve always liked Randall’s work, but I’m surprised in her position she couldn’t make Frobie get someone better to play opposite her than Paul Showers.” Someone like Ted Kent, no doubt. I knew what the next line would be. It always is. “They offered it to me, but I couldn’t let Terry and Lawrence down. What’s Showers doing back here, anyway? Didn’t they pick up his option?”
“Just slumming like the rest of us.”
“Well, good luck. Carry your spear pretty. I’ll try and remember, but if I forget, consider yourself sent a wire opening night.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that little thing.” I bought back my coat and hat from the checkroom and we hit Fifty-second Street, but not soon enough. The fair Diana was just getting out of a taxi. I toyed with the idea of ducking back into the bar but it was too late. She had seen me. The look and nod I got were reserved exclusively for brass monkeys. Well, that’s done it. You’ve had it, chum. It’s going to take a great deal of explaining to get back on her Christmas list. But what do you know? Suddenly I realized I didn’t care. To hell with that. I’d jumped through Diana’s rather peculiar hoops for the last time.
“What are you laughing about?” asked Maggie while we were waiting for a cab.
“I hadn’t realized I was laughing.”
“Well, you were. It sounded nice. You should do it more often.”
I kissed Maggie and meant it. “Well,” said Maggie breathlessly. “You should do that more often, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
AS I STARTED TO CLIMB the Casbah stairs, I remembered that I wanted to ask Helga to let me in Kendall’s room to see if he had anything there that might suggest why he got the acid facial—there was just a chance, not much of one, but I didn’t want to overlook any bets. I knocked at Helga’s door and waited. Nothing happened so this time I pounded. After a moment she asked who was there and I told her and said it was important that I see her. I had to wait a couple of more minutes until she finally unlocked and opened the door just wide enough for her to slip out into the hall and closed it quickly after her. I didn’t have to wonder why. She had a silk kimono clutched around her and as far as I could see nothing else.
“What you want, Tim? Come back tomorrow.”
“Sorry to bother you, Helga, but it’s important. I want to look through Kendall’s room.”
“It’s empty. All cleaned up. Everything.” So that was no good.
“But, Helga, didn’t you find anything when you were cleaning it up? Something that might give an idea about what he was doing that night. A magazine he was reading…or a paper?”
“Why you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because I want to find out how he was killed.”
“Policeman said it was accident.”
“I know he did, but I just want to find out how the accident happened. He was my friend, Helga.” She looked at me for a moment then did a quick flick around the door and almost immediately reappeared, still without letting me get a glimpse into her room. She handed me a piece of notepaper with some writing on it.
“This was on the floor. Must have fallen off table. I was going to send it to his brother.” I recognized Kendall’s florid handwriting. It was the beginning of a letter: Friday Dear Bobby,
“Can such things be and overcome us like a summer’s cloud without our special wonder?” My wants are few and it will unquestionably be to your advantage to revive old memories. “Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightaway?” Say, three o’clock Monday. I was amused to see—
—and it stopped there. I tried to keep my voice calm.
“Let me have this for a couple of days, Helga. I’ll give it back.”
“What you want it for? You won’t get me in trouble?”
“No. I promise.” Then I thought of something. “Helga, listen, this is important. Was there an envelope with this? Think carefully.”
“No, that was all, and I ought to send it to his brother.”
“But, Helga, you know as well as I do Kendall’s brother doesn’t care a damn about him. You heard him.”
“He shouldn’t have said that about his own brother. He was no bum like he said.”
“Of course he wasn’t. Thanks, Helga.” Before she could say anything else I ran up the stairs.
I went into my room, locked the door and sat down on the bed. Three more readings of the letter didn’t tell me anything new, but it was written to Bobby, and in my little world there was only one Bobby I was interested in and I was positive this was written to that one—Bobby LeB. I didn’t recognize the quotations, but then I wouldn’t. There
didn’t seem to be much doubt that Ninny’s tomb referred to either Nellie’s office or the funeral parlor. Maybe Maggie would know. I phoned her and she’d just gotten in. I told her about the letter. For some reason I almost whispered it over the phone.
“Kendall was quite the Shakespearean scholar, wasn’t he? Ninny’s tomb is from Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she said rather superciliously, I thought. “The Pyramus and Thisbe scene.”
“How in the world did you know that?”
“We did it at college and, I might add, I was ravishing as Titania, but I don’t know the other quote. What do you suppose it means?”
“I hoped you’d know.”
“But are you sure this Bobby is the one we want? There are lots of Bobbys in the world, you know.”
“Only one I’m interested in.”
“Well, take care of yourself, my darling. Sweet Shakespearean dreams.”
“Maggie, have breakfast with me tomorrow morning?”
“But it’s Sunday.”
“The Brevoort, then. Ten o’clock. That’ll give us time to go by the library before rehearsal.”
“The library?”
“Don’t you remember? To look up the Front Page Stuff notices?”
“Oh my God.”
“Ten o’clock, Brevoort.”
“Okay. Well, good night.”
“Good night.” I started to hang up.
“Oh, say, Timmy…”
“Yes?”
“If I were you, I’d lock my window and put a chair under my door.”
“Don’t worry about me.” I laughed. “I can take care of myself. Good night.”
But, feeling like a damn fool, I did lock my window and I did put the chair under my door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OF COURSE IT NEVER occurred to either of us to telephone first to make sure, so we didn’t find out till we got all the way up to the public library that the back newspaper file department is closed on Sunday.
“A pretty how-do-you-do! Now what?” said Maggie. “Go back to the Brevoort and have me watch you stuff yourself some more?”
We were standing in front of the information desk feeling a little letdown. But people seemed to be taking books out under their arms—those departments were still functioning on Sunday—and there were books that had, at least, the casts of all the plays, if not the reviews. That might help some. Like those Burns Mantle Best Plays of things. Maggie had mentioned them only the other night. Maggie sighed and obediently followed me up to those caverns where you get books. After duly looking it up on index cards and filling out the little slip, we waited in another enormous room until our number flashed on the indicator and we were presented with Best Plays of 1934.
Seeing the titles of the best plays brought 1934 back with a rush. The theater was all very glamorous then. I had seen all the plays listed as best, too. Dods-worth and Ah Wilderness and The Shining Hour and The Green Bay Tree and Mary of Scotland. I was afraid A Kiss Thrown In would seem pretty pallid by comparison.
Sure enough, listed in the back was Front Page Stuff with the cast of characters and a brief synopsis. Kendall was there and Nellie and then at the bottom where the “also among those present” were grouped together, one name came whirling up at me. Instead of calling it the chorus, the boys and girls in Front Page Stuff were classified “Headliners and Featurettes,” pretty fancy, that. There among the names of the six headliners was the baby we’d been looking for. The last five letters of a six-letter word beginning with B. Robert LeBranch. I felt the library light up like a pinball machine.
“Now, at least we know his name,” I whispered to Maggie. “All we’ve got to do is find him. Chorus Equity’ll be sure to know. Have you got a pencil?”
“What for?”
“I want to copy down the rest of the cast.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a taxpayer,” said Maggie and she took the page and ripped it out of the book. I was aghast. “Come on, we’ve got to get going. If we’re late again we are both definitely out of a job.” She handed me the page. I furtively stuck it in my pocket.
“Maggie, you shouldn’t do that,” I said.
“I always do. You wanted those names, didn’t you? Come on.” We left—me expecting any minute a guard would tap me on the shoulder and beckon me to follow him to some dim vault in the public library where they do awful things to people who tear pages out of Best Plays of 1934. “You can’t take books out of the reference room, can you?” she said when we were safely through the turnstiles and out on the steps. I admitted you couldn’t. “Well then, we’re late now and would be a great deal later if you’d written all that stuff out. Don’t make such a thing of it.” We beat it for the Lyceum. It didn’t seem possible that I could be so shocked. People could kill other people or throw acid in their face, but people didn’t tear pages out of library books.
The rehearsal seemed endless. We were having straight run-throughs now, but Greg insisted that we stand by the entire time, which seemed rather pointless to me, but he said those were Mr. Frobisher’s orders, so I didn’t quite quibble. During the first and second act I went out to the pay telephone in the hall and tried to find some of the Front Page Stuff cast in the phone book. A few of the principals were listed but I figured they’d be the least likely to remember a member of a chorus fourteen years ago. The principals speak only to themselves and sometimes not even that. The bit players ignore each other and try to talk to the principals, and no one ever speaks to the chorus except possibly the baritone or the comic who tries to sleep with every one of the chorus girls before the show closes and, more often than not, succeeds—particularly when he can get them fired if they aren’t susceptible to his charms. On an off chance, I even called Chorus Equity, but there was no answer. Only one of the headliners and featurettes was listed, which, considering it was fourteen years ago that the show played, was not too surprising. The single exception was a Peter Peters who had a dance studio on West Twenty-third Street. The life span of a chorus boy or girl is comparatively short. The girls, I suppose, manage to marry someone and can leave off their girdles for good, but I never can figure out what happens to superannuated chorus boys as a rule. Mr. Peters had apparently opened a dance studio. But the rest of them must get into a final Off-To-Buffalo and just keep going, or else get in the road company of the Student Prince. I dialed Mr. Peter Peters’s number and he miraculously not only answered the phone but was the same one that had been a headliner.
“Yeah,” said the soft, rather high voice of Mr. Peters. “I was in that show, so what? You trying to collect dues for something? You’re a little late, bud.”
“No,” I said, “I’m just trying to find someone else who was in it and you’re the only one I could find with a phone.”
“My God, that was ages ago. Who are you trying to find?”
“A Mr. Robert LeBranch. Do you remember him?”
There was a long pause. Finally…“What do you want him for?”
“I’m from out of town and wanted to look him up.”
“Who’d you say this was calling?” I gave him the name of my character in the show, Dan Kelley. “A friend of his, you say?” I repeated that I was.
“Sorry, fella. I don’t know. Haven’t seen him since the show.”
“Well, thanks anyway.” I started to hang up.
“Wait a minute. What’d you say your name was?” I told him again. “Kelley, eh? Hoofer?”
“No. Just a friend.”
“What are you doing tonight? Why don’t you drop around for a drink? I can ask around. Might find out something for you. We could have a couple of laughs—see some sights.” My quest for Mr. LeB. seemed to be widening my circle of acquaintances.
“Thanks. I might do that. What time?”
“Anytime. I’ll be here. You got the address in the book. I live in the back of the studio. The later the better, it’ll give me time to ask around.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
“It’s a
date.”
“Yeah. See you later. Goodbye.” I hung up the receiver and turned to face Maggie’s amused look.
“Get him!” she said. “Got a date with a chorus boy, have you? What are you going to do? Drink champagne out of his slipper?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“What did you find out about our mutual friend Mr. LeBranch?”
“He remembers him. Think I’ll drop over after rehearsal and see what he knows. I tell you what I wish you’d do for me.”
“I think he’d rather you went alone.”
“Never mind about him, but tomorrow morning I wish you’d go to Chorus Equity and find out what you can there.”
“I’ve got a fitting at Ernie’s tomorrow morning.”
“Well, do it before that. And while you’re at Ernie’s find out what else you can about that niece of Nellie’s. I still can’t get over that. Maybe Ernie was lying.”
“Okay, boss. If I’m good can I have a drink out of the office bottle like a real private eye?”
“We’d better get back onstage or there won’t be any bottle at all. They must be almost through with the second act.”
We went back and rehearsed and sat around and ate and went to Frobisher’s apartment and sat around and rehearsed and then just sat around.
Just as we were saying good-night, Mr. Frobisher called us over and told us we could forget about the five-day clause. We were in! I could have kissed him, and Maggie did.
Up until that minute I had half expected Greg or Mr. Frobisher to give me the old line about “It has nothing to do with your performance, but the author feels you’re just a little too old for the part, I’m sure you’ll understand,” and then you say that of course you understand perfectly and it’s quite all right and thank you so much, and you leave with your eyes tight and your mouth set in a deathlike grin and you get somewhere alone just as fast as you can and get as drunk as you can afford.