They went in by the stage door. The doorman gave them a peek of the lobby, with its sixty-foot ceiling and thirty-foot chandeliers. Light bristled off towering gunmetal mirrors, steel, chrome and aluminum foil. “It’s visual jazz!” Doyle exclaimed as they entered the theatre, a six-thousand seat lollapalooza capped by a symphony orchestra pit and a vast deco sunset. By the footlights, Mary Mabel saw a bank of radio mikes that would broadcast the show live, coast to coast, and on a small platform in the pit, the newsreel cameras of Metrotone Presents.
Mr. Leonarde Keeler was on stage making adjustments to the lie detector. He’d invented the most up-to-date improvements on the instrument and had been hired to conduct the interrogation. His authority would put the results beyond doubt. After introductions, he had Mary Mabel sit in his chair to try out the straps and sensors that would feed him information on her blood pressure, pulse, and respiration.
The basic equipment was simple, but for theatrical purposes Hearst’s people had added some decorative elements. The chair was oversized and covered in diamond mirrors and gold foil, the straps were painted silver, and she was to wear an enormous futuristic headdress with circular neon rings designed to make her look like a creature from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
The chair would be positioned under the trap door at centre stage. The show would start with a symphony overture, a dance by the corps de ballet, a vocal chorus, and then the Rockettes. Their tap dance would climax with fountains of water jetting from the stage floor. As the applause peaked, the lights would dim and an amplified voice would announce the Inquisition. The orchestra would play “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and Mary Mabel’s chair would rise twenty feet in the air on a hydraulic dais of glitter and light. She made a mental note to keep her knees together.
The rest of Mary Mabel’s day was so packed with activities she didn’t have time to be scared. But at 6:30, when Hearst’s limo arrived to take her to Radio City, she had a palpitation.
She and Floyd were at the elevator. When it arrived, she stepped in. Not Mr. Cruickshank. As the door closed, he called out, “Meet you in the lobby,” and darted down the corridor to Brother Percy’s.
Downstairs, Mary Mabel grew increasingly alarmed. Was there a problem with the reverend? News that Percy was boycotting the show had been a relief. She hoped there wasn’t a hitch. After a ten-minute fret, she determined to go upstairs to see what was up, but at that moment, the elevator door opened and Floyd stepped into the lobby whiter than his starched shirt.
“What’s the matter?” Mary Mabel demanded.
“Nothing. Everything’s taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I said,” he replied. “Now hurry up, we’re late.” He grabbed her by the elbow, and whisked her into the back of Hearst’s limo.
Unsettled by the twitch in his eyes, Mary Mabel was too frightened to investigate further. Nor was she in any shape for the tumult at the Radio City stage door. Hustled along the red carpet, heart beating a mile a minute, she thought she heard a familiar voice call to her from the crowd: “Yoo-hoo, baby doll! Over here, it’s me!”
She turned to the voice and nearly fainted. There in the sea of faces — was it her papa?
Autograph books were waved in front of her face. Flashbulbs exploded everywhere. When her vision cleared, whomever she’d seen had disappeared.
Her knees wobbled. Police helped her the rest of the way, to a dressing room filled with so many baskets of flowers she half-expected to find one of Mr. Bigelow’s caskets. She closed the door and sat in front of the makeup mirror staring at the stranger staring back. Over the speaker, she heard the audience piling into its seats. It was too much. She had to run.
It was then that she noticed a battered shoebox by a vase of roses. The box was tied with a string and had her name on it. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a first edition of Guys and Dolls inscribed by Mr. Runyon.
“Dear Miss McTavish,” he wrote, “If they ever make Sarah Brown into a picture, you’re my gal. You got a noodle, kiddo. Break a leg. Don’t let ’em break your heart. Your pally, D.R.”
From the depths of despair she filled with joy. Her mama’d arranged to send her luck.
Doyle burst in. “You better sit down. Bad news.”
The Revelations of Brother Percy
After his opening night humiliation in Flint, Brother Percy had collapsed by his bedside. “Dear Lord,” he’d wept, the crowd’s laughter ringing in his ears. “It’s not that I doubt You. It’s just I’m at the end of my rope. Talk to me. Say something. Please.”
Miraculously, God had obliged. He spoke to Percy that night and every night thereafter. The preacher had to listen very hard, for the Almighty spoke in a strange language, low and rumbling, punctuated by hisses, clanks, and knocking. Fortunately, Percy had been blessed not only with tongues but with the gifts of prophecy and divination. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, he thought, as he sat before various hotel radiators, taking dictation in his little black books.
Percy was determined to keep these communications private. The godless would say he was crazy. Small wonder. The first time the radiator spoke, he’d covered his head with a pillow and tried to get back to sleep. But God was insistent, reminding him that He’d appeared to Moses as a burning bush, so what was the big deal?
“You might be Satan come to my room to trick me,” Percy said.
God replied that Satan already came to his room to trick him.
“How does the Fiend get in?”
“Seek and ye shall find,” God rumbled.
Percy went on a tear. He searched for a secret passageway to Hell under the bed, in the closet, and behind the chest of drawers and medicine cabinet. Nothing. He was about to give up when he became aware of a slow drip coming from the bathtub faucet. Percy crawled into the tub and put his ear to the drain. A hollow sound as delicate as breath rose from the pipes. It seemed to be coming from deep in the bowels of the earth. As Percy listened, the sound filled with distant wails of loss and regret. This was no mortal sound. It was the sound of lost souls in Hell.
God was right! Percy panicked. Satan’s using the drains to sneak into my hotel rooms and drive me mad. These drains were surely connected. All over North America. Perhaps all over the world. No wonder the devil moved slick as a gopher. He simply popped down one hole and out another. The money boys who built these drains — the bankers with the funny names — they were in on it. Satan’s minions. He’d always guessed it. Now he had proof.
Percy plugged the tub and turned on the taps. When it was full, he blessed the water, that it provide a holy seal between himself and Hell. He likewise secured the sink, then turned to the W.C. It didn’t seem right to consecrate water in the toilet, but what if the Serpent slithered up through the bowl? Percy had an inspiration. He covered the lid with a towel and put his Gideon Bible on top.
God’s revelation changed Percy’s life. His first order of business on checking into a new room was to secure the drains. The wiring in his mouth had made brushing his teeth impossible. Now he stopped bathing as well; he didn’t want his nether parts to defile the holy water. As for bodily functions, he squatted above the lip of the john and launched his load with a hearty, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
To further protect the holy water, Percy dry shaved, but he nicked himself so often that his cheeks became dotted with bits of toilet paper applied to staunch the blood. Consequently, on God’s advice, he let his beard grow. His hair, too. This prevented heathen barbers and chambermaids from collecting the clippings for voodoo dolls. In order not to look peculiar, he stuffed his matted locks in a rubber bathing cap covered by a fedora.
After a week or two, Floyd began to leave his car window open: “For Christ’s sake, Perce, you’re high as a cat’s litter box.”
Better the stink of the saved than the stench of the damned, Percy thought. It thrilled him to know that his whoremonger partner was hell-bound. The Lord had passed word by means of the radiator: It turned
out He had intended to fry Floyd in London. Unfortunately, He’d been so full of wrath that His lightning bolt had hit the Beeford boy by mistake; when He’d resurrected the kid, You-Know-Who had stolen the glory.
Percy said it wasn’t fair that a stray bolt had left him with a broken jaw, playing second banana to a witch. God told him to buck up, the righteous were destined for affliction, it was part of His grand design. In any event, “Soon the she-devil shall be cast down, and ye shall be raised to glory, a star shining brighter in Mine firmament than all the saints and the apostles.” Since a thousand years is a day unto the Lord, Percy wanted to know how soon was “soon.” “I will come like a thief in the night when ye least expect it,” the Almighty clanked. Then He rattled a bit and shut down.
Every night for two months God made the same promise. Percy got so impatient he almost gave the radiator a kick. Then Whacker Jones hit the headlines, Hearst made his challenge, and the preacher did cartwheels. Yea, the harlot would be exposed and he would be exalted; God’s prophecy would be fulfilled.
Percy rapped on Floyd’s door and demanded to open the show at Radio City.
“Mr. Hearst only invited Mary Mabel,” Floyd scrambled.
“Doo bat,” Percy replied. “Ma invitashun es fwum Gah!”
“Congratulations. Did He mention how you’re supposed to preach with a mouth full of wires?”
“Ee zez dey muz be re-mooft.”
“Fine, we’ll remove them.” The wires had been due for removal weeks ago, but given Percy’s tenuous grip, Floyd had hoped to let sleeping dogs lie. Or rust. Now he had to act.
Percy selected a doctor from the phone book; Floyd arranged for the house call. When the doctor arrived, Floyd slipped him a twenty-dollar bill and a note that read: “Beware. This patient likes to bite people. These wires were installed as a muzzle.”
The doctor found the note questionable, the appearance of a bribe moreso. All the same, the rubber bands dangling from the reverend’s bathing cap were certainly peculiar, and when he tried to wash his hands in the sink, Percy went berserk. Playing it safe, the doctor advised Percy to consult his regular physician in Canada. The radiator hissed and clanked. Percy ranted incoherently and burst into tears. The doctor prescribed sedatives.
Floyd administered the pills in triple doses. For the rest of their stay in Tulsa, Percy slept peacefully. (Floyd was tempted to ease him into the bathtub. Drowning in holy water. What a tragic accident.) He remained drugged on the airplane ride to New York, rousing only to throw up on Floyd’s lap, and to cause a scene when they entered the Belvedere. Not to worry. A few more sedatives from Floyd and the bellhops had been able to tuck him into bed without incident.
But Percy didn’t stay put. When Floyd arrived to spoon-feed him soup, he found the evangelist on the floor. In case the upchuck on the plane had eliminated some medication, Floyd slipped an extra pill in the broth. But when he came by next, Perce was slumped by the radiator. After that, in the bathroom, Floyd took no chances. He emptied half a bottle of pills down Percy’s throat.
The next morning, Hearst’s limousine picked up Mary Mabel for last-minute activities. Floyd tagged along, returning every few hours to check his friend. Relief. Whenever he opened the door, Percy was exactly where he’d left him, out cold under the shower curtain sucking his thumb.
For supper, Floyd gave him an over-the-top-up, then dressed for the show. At 6:30, the phone rang; Hearst’s limo had arrived for the trip to Radio City. Floyd collected Mary Mabel and escorted her to the elevator. But as he was about to step inside, he had a terrible premonition. “See you downstairs,” he said, as the door closed, and raced down the corridor into Percy’s room.
His worst fears were realized. Percy sat at his desk, dressed in his secondhand tux, a top hat on top of his shower cap. Greasy hair billowed from under the cap and flowed into his beard, matted by various soups and stews. “I knew you wouldn’t leave without checking in on me,” Percy said. “Care for a mint?” He offered a bowl of bile-coated sedatives.
Floyd stared blankly. “Your jaw is free. You’re talking.”
“Yes, just out of surgery,” Percy replied. It was then that Floyd noticed the pieces of wire on the desk, the pliers and cutters, and the blood and saliva dribbling from Percy’s mouth, down his beard and onto his clothes.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Nonsense,” Percy said. “We need to get me to Radio City.” He rose gingerly, pliers in one hand, wire cutters in the other. “Tonight God’s prophecy is fulfilled! Tonight I preach glorious hellfire!”
“You’re not stepping out of this room.”
“Stop me!” Percy tottered forward. He swung his bony arm. The pliers grazed Floyd’s temple. Floyd staggered backward. Percy swung again and again. “Stop me, Profligate Beast! Defiler of Virgins! Licker of Toads!”
Floyd scrambled over the bed. He grabbed a pillow for protection. The preacher attacked. “Woe unto thee, Fountain of Iniquity!” Floyd tumbled off the bed as the pillow shredded apart. He retreated on hands and knees over the shower curtain.
“Prepare to meet thy God!” Percy raised his weapons high and bounced from the mattress onto the shower curtain. It slid beneath his feet. He pitched forward. Floyd rolled to the side. Percy’s head cracked against the radiator.
There was a terrible silence.
Best Laid Plans
Brewster hadn’t wanted to kidnap his daughter, but Comrade Duddy had insisted. “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” he railed the night Brewster showed him Mary Mabel’s picture in the paper. “It’s pie in the sky when you die. We need salvation here and now. Control of the means of production.”
Whenever Duddy went on about “control of the means of production,” the comrades had a snooze. They could picture owning hammers and saws, maybe even a toolbox, but Duddy always talked about factories. Who the hell wanted a factory? They couldn’t agree on the time of day, much less how to organize shift work. Why not stick to blowing up banks?
Fortunately, on this occasion Comrade Duddy kept the yackety-yack short. He had a plan. If they made tracks they could hit Manhattan in time for Mary Mabel’s big show. Brewster would greet her at the Radio City stage door. After a tearful reunion, he’d lead her to an alley five blocks away where Comrade Duddy would knock her out with a hankie doused in chloroform. Comrade Lapinsky would stuff her in a burlap bag and the three of them would haul her to a hideout on the Lower East Side. Here she’d be indoctrinated into the wonders of Communism, re-emerging to preach the Gospel According to Marx. Her fame would draw converts and contributions. General Secretary Comrade Seamus Duddy would become a leader in the glorious revolutionary struggle and they’d all live happily ever after.
Brewster’s plan was much simpler. He’d show up on Mary Mabel’s doorstep, stake his claim as her father, and his comrades could bugger off. “After all,” he told them, “she’s my daughter. Why should I give you a cut of the action?”
Lapinsky picked his nose with the Hand. “Because if you don’t, we’ll kill you.”
Comrade Duddy was more diplomatic. “Right now your kid’s pot of gold goes to the God racket. You won’t get a cent. Help us rescue her and you’ll be rich.”
In that light, kidnapping his daughter was smart thinking: Whoops — kidnapping — wrong word, that could get a guy strung up. He was simply protecting his child’s nest egg from preachers. At least that’s what he told himself as he left the gang’s hideout on Avenue D and headed to Radio City.
When he arrived, he found police barricades from the street to the stage door. Brewster was astonished at the size of the crowd. It would be hard to get close enough for Mary Mabel to see him. Nonetheless, by the time her limo pulled up, he’d groped enough bottoms to get within earshot.
Mary Mabel got out of the back seat, flanked by police. A sea of fans reached over the barricades. Some wanted autographs. Some wanted to be healed.
“Mary Mabel!” Brewster shouted, waving his arms among the s
ea of other arms. “Yoo-hoo, baby doll! Over here! It’s me!”
For a second he almost caught her eye. Then he felt a golf bag pressed against his back. “If it isn’t the proud pappy,” came a voice from the past. “Marge sends her regards.”
As the mob cheered and waved, Slick Skinner wrapped his free arm under Brewster’s ribs and drew him backwards. “Help me!” Brewster cried to the people around him. “Help me!” Nobody heard. Like quicksand, they filled his space as Slick pulled him backwards. In seconds, Brewster was swallowed by the crowd.
Slick Skinner had been stalking the tour since Kalamazoo, confident that sooner or later McTavish would show up. After all, pigs know where the truffles are.
Tracking had been a snap. He’d travelled in the expansive trunk of the Olds. Picking the lock was easy; the trick was to squish himself under the back blanket until the bags were unpacked and the car parked. Hunting food was a breeze, too. Towns were well-stocked with raccoon, squirrel and neighbourhood cat. As for the stakeout, it held a bonus attraction: nights when the fire escape passed by Mary Mabel’s window. She was a sweet thing asleep in her nightie. Once he’d killed her pa, he’d jimmy the sash and pay his respects.
Still, time was wasting. After months of rubbing the bullet-etched B.McT., his prey hadn’t shown a whisker. Skinner didn’t know if Brewster was dead or in jail. Either way, he’d decided Radio City would be his last stand. If McTavish didn’t show there, he wouldn’t show anywhere.
Stowing aboard the Hearst plane was impossible. Instead, Slick got to New York courtesy of newlyweds Elmer and Mona Mackenzie. Minutes away from their wedding reception, he used his hunting knife to carve his way from their trunk into their back seat. Mona thought this was another prank of her goddamn alcoholic Uncle Fred till Slick stuck his shotgun in her ear and suggested Manhattan was a better honeymoon destination than Topeka.
The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish Page 21