Mood Indigo

by Ed Ifkovic

  “No, thank God. Another ghost of the past haunting these rooms downstairs.” He waited a second. “Not even Cyrus, the headless horseman.”

  “Your theater is closed?”

  He nodded. “For a while. We’ll stage a production after the first of the year. We lost Chauncey Waters.” He made a face. “No loss there. A whiner and malcontent. Untrustworthy. Limited talent.”

  “And Kent LaSalle?”

  He gave a sardonic laugh and looked around, reached for a pack of cigarettes on a side table, and lit one, dragging on it, expelling smoke, a contented look on his face.

  “Another failure, but more dramatic. Disappeared into the cheap gin mills over by the docks. A drunk, big-time, you know. Just walked away. Folks tended to like him—so much the veteran that he’d put to memory dozens of lines. He could spout soliloquies from Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe. Christ, even the Bible. Lately he mouths an irritating 1932 Psalm, as he calls it, stolen from a newspaper column.”

  “Yes, I heard it. Chilling.”

  He frowned. “Unnerving, to say the least. I don’t need a reminder that we’re in a Depression. As a young actor he must have been something. But now…” His hand waved in the air.

  “Now,” I finished, “he’s an old drunk.”

  “You said it. And gone.”

  “What will you do?”

  He breathed in. “As I said, after the holidays. What choice do I have? Find some new actors and stagehands who’ll work dirt cheap. Real cheap.” He grinned. “I may have to hire the Swiss Bell Ringers. Whatever.” His hand stretched out toward his derelict furniture. “We had hopes of moving out of this dump. Money coming in.”

  “Belinda’s?”

  “Yeah, but no more. You may have noticed that she no longer is a star.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re all sorry. Poor Linda. Christ.” He puffed up his cheeks. “In my blood, you know. Theater. I can’t stop now. No audience, so be it. No money for rent, so be it. We get by. Sooner or later this Depression gotta end. People want theater.” He half-bowed. “I’m waiting in the wings.”

  “But you need money…” I began, thinking of Chauncey’s words—Jackson and Belinda, schemers after gold.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I can always sell apples on the corner.”

  “You already have competition out there. The Times reports that there are over six-thousand men already selling apples…” I pointed out the front window. A visible rooftop across the street, a shabby wooden water tower, an old billboard nailed to the shingles. D’Arcy’s Dime Museum. Oddities and Curiosities. All Welcome.

  A wide smile. “I’m charming. An actor at heart.”

  “Are you acting now?”

  He didn’t answer. Then, slowly, “We’ll probably have to move out of here.”

  “No stipend from Dougie?”

  He set his mouth in a grim line. “I told you—he’s disappeared.” He grumbled. “Everybody’s disappearing, especially Dougie.”

  A voice from the hallway startled me, high-pitched laughter, but dark, cynical. Millie Glass walked into the room. “I’m sure he’s been sent to the Caribbean for the winter. Isn’t that what rich people do when their sons commit murder?”

  Jackson wasn’t happy. “Christ, Millie, a little insensitive.”

  She glared at me. “What do you want me to say? He plays at dalliance, then moves on.”

  “Maybe he’s innocent.” I stared into her face.

  She arched her eyebrows and looked at Jackson. “I told you—don’t let her upstairs. Accusation.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone.”

  Jackson played peacemaker. “Millie’s a little angry because we may have to give up these rooms.”

  Sarcastic, a titter. “Yeah, when you get used to such luxury…”

  “Sort of cozy.” I looked around. “A lived-in feel. I like rooms with magazines, lots of books.” I looked at the overloaded side table. “Piles of sheet music.”

  Jackson couldn’t read my expression but decided to be friendly. “Coffee, Miss Ferber. I was waking up from a nap, and just brewed…” He pointed to the kitchen.

  Millie was tapping her foot. “Really, Jackson.”

  I watched her closely. “Belinda lived in these rooms with you before her success.”

  For some reason an explosive line because Millie muttered something under her breath, and Jackson frowned at her. A look came into his eyes—Be careful, Millie. Careful.

  When he looked back at me, his eyes were cloudy. “Yes, of course. She was happy here, Miss Ferber. We were happy here, starting out, dreaming, acting. A cold, harsh city, a brother to protect her.”

  Millie squirmed, uncomfortable. “Yeah, hours spent embroidering ‘Home, Sweet Home’ to hang over the holes the rats burrow through.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Millie.” Jackson wagged a finger at her. “We got Edna Ferber in our house. Show Boat. Can you at least…?” His voice trailed off, then, louder, “Coffee? Do you want any?”

  I shook my head. “Thank you, no. I really can’t stay.”

  “Then why are you here?” Millie took a step closer to me.

  Jackson shot her a look that said: Shut up. I told you—shut the hell up. His eyes blazed.

  “A question I have, that’s all. I am curious about family.”

  “What?” A nervous edge to his voice.

  “I was in Connecticut for Christmas,” I began slowly. I watched his head jerk forward, eyes narrowing. “Greenwich, then Bridgeport. Then, because we were near, Noel and I drove into Sayville. A pinched little village, stung by…”

  He tossed a look at Millie, then at me. “What?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  His voice quaked with anger. “There’s nobody there any more.”

  “So I learned. We cruised by your old farmhouse.”

  Twisting around, catching Millie’s eye, Jackson sputtered, “A little intrusive, no?”

  “Curiosity.”

  Millie hissed, “Killed the…” She stopped, flustered.

  Jackson’s face was dark. “Millie, leave this to me.”

  “Yeah, you’re doing a good job of it.”

  He turned to me, all the friendliness now gone, his voice a squeak. “And what did you discover about our past?”

  I waited a heartbeat. “I learned that Belinda—then Linda—ran off to get married. To some man she met in chorale.”

  He chuckled. “That old story? Christ, Miss Ferber. Small-town gossip. Our father made short shift of that nonsense. Who tattled that silly tale to you?”

  “No matter, but…”

  “If you must know, Linda—Belinda was headstrong, foolish, easily falling in love with any of the hundreds of boys who gushed around her. She was convinced she had to be married—eternal love, stars shining bright, moonlit honeymoon in Niagara Falls.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever scenario she read in some sensational, claptrap romance.”

  “But it did happen, yes?”

  He hesitated, trying to read my expression. “Yes, it happened. For a moment. Then she got dragged back home crying and cursing.”

  “What did you do?”

  Again the hesitation. “Me? Simple. I told her that her future was in this city. Broadway. Her looks, her voice. The whole package. I’d take care of it. I was the shining star she’d best hitch her wagon to, if you know what I mean. I had the brains. When our father died, we headed out.”

  Millie had been listening, but was anxious to say something.

  “Yes?” I turned to her.

  “She was lucky there was someone to save her from herself.”

  Jackson pointed a shaking finger at me. “Why is this so important to you, Miss Ferber? Our past.” He sucked in his breath. “Are you stupidly going to try to p
in poor Belinda’s murder on somebody in my theater? On me?” He laughed a phony laugh. “The man who lost everything when she was murdered.”

  “True,” I agreed.

  “Then what is it you want from me?”

  I counted another heartbeat. “I also learned that you have another brother.”

  Jackson blanched. “Christ Almighty. Nothing is sacred. The ghost of good old Russell, the brother nobody liked.”

  “I gather he went to Chicago.”

  He broke in, agitated. “Yes, and was never heard from again. Good riddance. We don’t talk about Russell. Rusty, he was called, a name that described his soul. My father’s dark shadow. What’s he got to do with anything? Really, Miss Ferber—nosiness is…”

  “Even when Belinda became famous? He didn’t try to contact you?”

  “He better not. Frankly, I know nothing about him, Miss Ferber. He knows nothing about us. We parted on real ugly terms. Blood threats. Even a fistfight that wasn’t pretty. There’s a reason he went to Chicago. Here’s a man who snuck out in the night with what little money we’d stashed in a coffee can in the cupboard. The family savings. All of it. Every measly dime. He may not even be there now. A wanderer. A…”

  “A schemer?”

  That didn’t make him happy. “I don’t care about him at all.”

  He wasn’t looking into my face, and I felt to my marrow that he was lying about something.

  Millie was watching him closely, puzzled, unhappy. “You never mentioned Russell. A brother.”

  He snarled, “No need to.”

  “Belinda never mentioned him.”

  Sharply, cutting. “No reason to. Enough. All of this. Stop this craziness.” He yelled out, “Miss Ferber, you are up to something. You’re trying to put a noose around our necks.” That fake laugh again. “Myths and legends. What’s the truth?”

  “I wonder about that myself.”

  Jackson stormed to the door and threw it open. “Again, thank you for your visit.” A sneer in his voice. “I’m assuming Dougie’s many lawyers put you up to this. If not, then what? Maybe you should mind your own damn business, Miss Ferber.”

  I stepped out onto the landing. When I glanced back, Millie rushed toward the door and slammed it so hard that flecks of old plaster crumbled off the wall and landed at my feet.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I had a disturbing call from Dougie,” Noel began as we sat having lunch at Sardi’s two days after my unsettling visit to Jackson Roswell’s apartment. “This morning. Early. I’d asked him how he spent his Christmas day. After all, Christmas Eve at your place was so—well, disturbing.”

  “Is he at Lady Maud’s? I’ve been wondering why we haven’t heard from him.”

  Noel shook his head. “On Depression Street, he told me. That’s the name he gave me. That’s what he said, and I drew a blank. But he spent the day in Central Park—in Hooverville. That tumble-up village. Have you heard of that, Edna?” A quirky smile. “Tarpaper shacks and oil drum stoves under your expensive window?”

  I pushed my plate away. “It’s not funny, Noel. In the shadow of all those wealthy apartments, deep in Central Park. Twenty or so ramshackle homes, spaced out, filled with homeless families. Small children even. Arrested, dragged to court—then back again. A city drained the reservoir there, planning to build a wonderful blue-green summer lawn, but ran out of money. Now desperate folks are building makeshift homes out of corrugated tin, cardboard sheets, old bricks, scrap metal, wood, even grease barrels—anything for shelter from the winter. You know, I watched it grow during the summer when I took my walks through the park. Depressing, though the residents have a sense of humor. I mean—that sign that announces: Depression Street. Black paint slapped onto an old pine board. But I’ve seen the emptiness of those folks’ faces, Noel. Haunted faces standing in shabby doorways against pinewood slabs of rotting timber.” I shuddered. “Such sadness there.”

  “The city allows it?”

  “Most cops and judges turn a blind eye. The cops move in, forced to—complaints from citizens, I’m afraid—arrests for vagrancy, but no one condemns. After all, that beefy Irish cop fears he may be a next-door neighbor as the economy plummets even more.” I paused. “What was Dougie doing there?”

  “A wanderer, he said. He walked through one morning and met a man named Sam who once worked as a houseman for Lady Maud, fired by her for some trivial act. Dougie, bothered, sat all day long in Sam’s hovel, a wood shanty warmed by a makeshift wood stove that makes the interior feverishly hot, he said—all day, drowsy, sad, talking to Sam, going out to buy food for his family. For others. There’s even a young homeless boy named Josiah Smith who gives tours to folks who want to see the shantytown, nickels in his pocket from the gapers. Dougie drifted the whole day there, so he said, and then he went home to Lady Maud.”

  “Okay, a little disturbing I admit, but what bothered you?”

  He waited a while. “Dougie talked a little crazy, Edna. I fear he’ll be speaking in tongues shortly. Messianic folderol. He rambled on about Belinda and his hope that the world was coming to an end.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Exactly. And I thought the British were inhabitants of the dark side of the moon.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What he told me. He told me that Manhattan is a city of ghosts.”

  “What?”

  “‘Everywhere you look there are ghosts. Deep in the subway—ghosts.’ Then: ‘I am one of the ghosts. You can see right through me.’ That scared me, Edna. What’s he saying?”

  I considered Noel’s words. “The fact that he’s having this…this epiphany in a Hoover Valley hovel bothers me.”

  “Social awareness arrives in our Dougie?”

  I shook my head. “That would be welcome, I admit—yes. But no. I think Dougie feels he’s walking among the dead.”

  Noel shivered. “Lord, dear Edna, chills up my spine.”

  “Meeting this Sam—someone tossed willy-nilly out of a comfortable world, forced to survive—got to him. Everyday—what to eat. Where to sleep. What to do about his family. Dougie never thought about poor people. It jarred him. Dougie sees them as the dead.”

  “And now he sees himself as one of them?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Noel fiddled with his napkin, dabbed at this lips. “I remember something else, Edna. He said, ‘Once you realize that you are one of the ghosts of Manhattan, you have the power to fly.’”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Noel, we need to talk to him. I’m not happy hearing this. This all scares me.”

  “The funny thing is that Dougie seemed so happy. You know how lately he’s so sad, even distraught. When he was telling all this to me, there was laughter in his voice. It was almost as though he was at peace.”

  “I want to see him.”

  Noel sat back, a smile on his face. “I’m one step ahead of you, darling. I was worried, too. Of course, I was. So I got him to promise to go out to dinner tonight. You’re invited. The three of us. Chambord’s under the Third Avenue El. Very nice. I’ve been there. Duck a l’orange. Mouth-watering. Their Alsatian chef Pierre is…anyway, eight o’clock reservations. Meet at my doorstep around six for drinks and…Sorry, darling, you will be forced to hear me recite some newly-crafted lines from Design for Living. An evening of hilarity and foolishness.”

  I frowned. “Bad timing, Noel.”

  “The only timing we got.”

  I twisted my head to the side. “Let’s see if he shows up at your place.”

  “He will. I warned him.” Noel shifted the subject, a smile on his face. “Now, Edna, tell me about this mysterious Roswell brother. I know you’re driven to learn his story. Tell me, did you learn anything?” A bemused look on his face. “I don’t understand your fascination with this elusive brother. This
…this Russell Roswell hunkered down in the Windy City.” Then, looking into my face, a twinkle in his eye. “Your monomaniacal obsession these past two days.”

  I smiled back at him. “I have a reporter’s heart and soul—and doggedness. Jackson’s panic at the mention of his brother’s name…frankly, that set off alarms in my Appleton Crescent cub reporter brain.”

  He laughed out loud. “Jackson is a soul completely unspoiled by…failure. Okay, tell me. You were successful?”

  I hesitated. “Of sorts. I don’t know if any of this relates to Belinda’s death, but I always like to flesh out the people in the stories in my head. Paper-thin people don’t tell me about their souls.”

  His eyes got wide. “And you learned about this character’s soul?”

  I laughed out loud. “Not his soul, really. But I learned that something fishy happened on the way out of boondocks Sayville by those three children.”

  “I’m listening.” He leaned forward.

  “First off, I needed to trade in a few favors back in my old Chicago stomping ground. My family still there, in fact. My mother spends a good part of each year staying with relatives on Calumet Avenue.”

  “So you can catch your breath in New York?”

  “Unfortunately her breath is often stronger than the breezes off the lake. She gossips about how I fail her as a daughter and the telephone lines start ringing in Manhattan.” I waved my hand, dismissing the thought. “No matter, that unhealthy bond of mother and daughter. I have friends at the Chicago Tribune, a paper that once refused to hire me. Something I’ll never forgive.”

  “Another digression, Edna.” He was grinning widely at me.

  “Be that as it may, dear Noel. A few phone calls, and the machinery got moving. But the name Russell Roswell meant nothing to any of my friends in theater. In old-time vaudeville. Nothing in the newsrooms. “

  He drummed his fingers on the table. “And yet you persisted.”

  “There is no other way.” I stabbed a pickle in my dish, watched it slide away. “The business directory lists a ‘Roswell, R.’ as the owner of a local movie house. One of dozens, I gather, opened after talkies made America delirious. A few calls and I found myself on the line with Russell Roswell, who was at first startled, then curious, but finally very, very annoyed.”