Smart Moves

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I know,” I said. “I don’t want to scare you, but I think the Fahre or whoever Povey is with wouldn’t mind taking both you and Einstein out with one shot.”

  “A prominent Jew and a prominent Negro,” he said, with a shake of his head.

  “Maybe the most prominent Jew and Negro in the world right now.”

  “And maybe you think I might need some protection too?” he asked, pushing away from the table with a knowing look and taking a step toward me. “And maybe I might retain your services?”

  It was my turn to shake my head. “Einstein is picking up the tab. Two for the price of one. I’ve got my assistant here with me, in case things get a little too spread out.” I tried not to conjure up images of “my assistant,” the thick-lensed Shelly in a bath full of bubbles, singing war songs.

  Robeson looked at me against with something that might have been cautious respect. “What do you know about Othello?”

  “A hell of a fellow?” I said. “Shakespeare, a rhyme. A small joke.”

  The cautious respect faded a bit and I could see him considering a new course of action. He looked a little tired as he rubbed his forehead and glanced toward the door to the theater. Voices came through, echoing, “Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away. Go, vanshing into air, away!” It was Albanese.

  “He’s not very good,” I commented.

  “No,” agreed Robeson, “he is not. We’ll probably have to replace him. I find it difficult to do such things, but the show is too important to tolerate even one minor mediocre performance. I’ve done Othello before, a decade ago that felt like a century. It means something different to me now. The Shakespeare scholars tell me about love and obsession. I see a dark-skinned man who is used by his society, honored by his society, treasured by his society for his skills, praised to his face and schemed against behind his back, hated for his love of a fair-skinned woman, driven to madness and despair. A man who can fight and love but who is too naive to understand the hatred his very presence brings. And yet he stands forth, enters the land of the stranger, suffers the hatred, proves himself, and kills himself when the world of hatred overwhelms him.” Robeson paused, looked up at me, cocked his head to one side as if it were my turn.

  “Remind you of anyone?” I asked.

  “Remind you?” he asked back.

  “Joe Louis,” I said.

  Robeson laughed again, louder than before, and a trio of actors, two men and a woman, came running into the alcove to see who the comedian was. They looked at Robeson and looked at me. They didn’t see anything funny in me. I shrugged, agreeing with them.

  “Mr. Peters is my guest at this rehearsal,” he said. “He will sit quietly and wait for his friend Mr. Albanese.” And then to me, “Perhaps we’ll talk again later.”

  “Don’t forget your sword,” I said as he turned to the puzzled trio.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll not forget my sword.”

  He led the group back into the theater and I followed. The theater was more like a loft where during the week old guys probably set up card tables and played poker for nickels. The folding chairs were all over the place and in bad shape, the stage a raised platform about a foot above the worn wooden floor. There was a light on the stage but not much in the audience section. On stage, Albanese was talking to a woman with long hair, who was trying to get him to do something. He was nodding his head in affirmation, but there was no look of understanding on his face.

  “Irony,” the woman said, pushing up the sweater sleeves that refused to stay there and immediately began to creep back down. “Irony, Alex. Are you familiar with irony?”

  “Well, I …” Albanese began looking around for someone to supply a definition and saw a sea of unhelpful faces, including mine.

  “Try it this way,” the woman said, working on her sleeves again as if she had a tub of dishes or a floor to scrub. “You are just delivering a message, but you are a clown, a clown who can’t help making little jokes. When you mention wind instruments and say, ‘Thereby hangs a tale,’ you are making a joke about the word ‘tail.’ You are suggesting the word ‘tail,’ t-a-i-l. It is a dirty joke about wind instruments, tails, sexual parts. Do you understand?”

  “Sexual parts …” Albanese mumbled, looking around for help. I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I was out of it, but no one else seemed inclined to help either. He brushed back his hair with his right hand and said. “I see,” but he was such a lousy actor that all assembled knew he didn’t.

  “Margaret, may I?” Robeson said, handing me his sword and striding to the stage.

  Margaret held up her hands, pushing up her sleeves, and said, “Give it a try.”

  “O,” Robeson said, folding his arms and leaning toward the young man playing the musician, “thereby hangs a tale.” The last four words were whispered, lasciviously, a secret joke, a private joke. Robeson’s eyes had opened widely and looked around, as if he both wanted no one to hear the line and wanted to be sure there was an audience to his joke.

  “I’ve got it,” Albanese said.

  “Right,” Margaret said with a sigh. “Then after that when you are offering the musician money not to play, you’re playing with the words. Like … like …”

  “Chico Marx in Animal Crackers when he tells Groucho how much he and his orchestra charge not to play,” a voice called out from the audience. It was mine.

  “Right,” Margaret said with a smile. “Like that.”

  Albanese nodded, knowingly touched his mustache, and did the scene again. He strained to please the star, the director, the audience with a delivery that made no sense to him. He was even worse than the last time.

  Margaret pushed her sleeves up again and said, “Let’s call it a day, Paul?”

  “It’s a day,” said Robeson.

  “Thanks everyone,” she said aloud. “We’ll see you all in the morning. Usual time. I understand it’s raining out there, so cover up and don’t catch colds.” She walked to a table at the back of the platform, and Robeson followed her. They put their heads together and began whispering. Everyone but Albanese knew that they were deciding his fate.

  Men, women, girls moved past me, talking about where they were going to eat, who was walking to what subway. Chairs got moved. People laughed, one woman said, “Jose wouldn’t do that,” and they all filed out through the door, down the steps, all except Robeson, the woman with the sleeves that wouldn’t stay up, me and Albanese, who hopped from the platform and strode over to me, with a simple smile on his face.

  “Went rather well, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Sounds like something Custer said just before Sitting Bull’s last charge at the Little Big Horn,” I answered.

  “Sitting Bull? I don’t think …”

  “I know,” I said. “Shakespeare can wait. Let’s get going.”

  I didn’t know how far this place was where Albanese had made the movie. As it was, it was probably too late to find someone there. I might have to do some illegal entering and I preferred to do it while I was reasonably awake.

  “Just a moment,” Albanese said, holding up a finger. “Left my jacket backstage. Shan’t be more than a tick or two.”

  He left me there holding my sword, crossed the stage, and exited. Robeson looked away from his conversation and toward the door with a slight shrug. The woman talked furiously. When Abanese came back, he was going to be an out-of-work clown.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Robeson told the woman. “You get a table at Tony’s. I’ll call Essie and tell her I can’t make it back to Connecticut tonight.”

  The woman nodded, energetically gave another tug at her sleeves, and walked wearily from the stage, grabbing a cloth coat from a chair near me. “There are days like this,” she said to me and herself as she strolled past.

  “Whole lifetimes sometimes,” I said, saluting her with the sword.

  “Tell me about it.” She chuckled and went through the door.

  As she exi
ted, Albanese came back in a light jacket neatly pressed. He was all smiles and looked as if he were seeking a partner for a civilized game of bridge.

  “Alex,” Robeson said, walking to him.

  “Yes,” said Alex, smile broadening, the novice expecting to be praised by the star.

  “Margaret and I think the role of the clown is not right for you,” Robeson said, touching the arm of the younger man.

  “Not … oh, I see.”

  “We’ve got a different part for you,” Robeson said. “One we think is more suited for your talents.”

  “Let me guess,” Albanese beamed. “Cassio? Roderigo? Lodovico?”

  “A soldier,” said Robeson softly.

  “Ah,” said Albanese, looking over at me to share his promotion. “A soldier. I agree. I’m much more suited to soldier than a clown, but I don’t really recall any … What scenes does my character …”

  “He has no lines,” said Robeson. “But he is on stage for more than the clown. At least five scenes.”

  “No lines?”

  “No lines,” said Robeson.

  “Five scenes?”

  “Maybe more,” said Robeson. “And you get to carry a lance.”

  “I can do magnificent things with a lance as prop,” Albanese said, rebounding.

  “We can discuss them with Margaret tomorrow,” said Robeson, and then to me. “Peters, if you’d like to join us at Tony’s down the street, two blocks left, you are welcome.”

  “Thanks, but Alex and I have an appointment. Raincheck.”

  “It’s raining now,” said Robeson. He touched Alex’s arm and strode past me without looking back, a great exit.

  Alex hurried toward me, excited. “Did you hear that? Did you hear?” he said, clapping his hands together. “A bigger role.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Let’s get going.”

  His hands went to his hips, and he looked like a kid doing an imitation of Errol Flynn.

  “I can’t wait to begin anew tomorrow,” he said, but he wasn’t going to begin a new role tomorrow. A shot cracked from behind me, followed by two more. The first two hit Albanese. The next one pinged off of the sword I was still holding.

  8

  My hand was stung by the bullet that hit Robeson’s sword, but I didn’t drop the weapon. I hit the floor still holding it and rolled over while another shot hit a folding chair and pushed it back, as if it had been kicked by an angry elephant. It toppled another chair, but the domino effect stopped there.

  Albanese wasn’t screaming. He was either dead or close to it, and my chances for future appearances in the theater didn’t look too good either. I rolled to my right behind a clump of chairs, turned, and got to my knees. Another shot went past me. I got up and made a charge at the low stage, swinging the sword over my head and I plunged ahead. I swiped at the glowing cord above it, and brought down an electric sputtering rain that ended in near darkness. The next shot hit something metal. I turned and threw the sword at the light bulb in the socket on the rear wall. I missed. The sword clattered to the floor. It was time to try for my .38. I started to go for it, but an accented voice came out of the darkness.

  “No, no, no, Peters. Don’t touch it. You’ll live a few precious minutes longer if you stand perfectly still.”

  Povey stepped out of the darkness near the doorway, his Walther held out, an extension of his straight right arm, right out of the manuals for proper small arms firing and maintenance. I let my hand go back to my side.

  “If you had heeded my warnings, recognized my sincere efforts to frighten you off,” he said, stepping forward, “we would not be in this situation. This is very awkward for me.”

  “Hey, I feel for you.”

  Povey stepped even closer, the light now catching his white hair, and shook his head. “No, no you do not,” he said. “Killing you, killing him solves a problem, yes, but it creates another which impedes … It that the correct word, ‘impedes’?”

  “Sounds right to me,” I said, not about to give a lesson in English to a sensitive killer with a gun in his hand.

  “It impedes my real goal and opens the possibility of interference from the police, even federal agents. You are a professional who deals with such things, even though on a miserably low level, but perhaps you can appreciate my situation. My task is to dispose of certain people. I get no great pleasure in eliminating you or the actor there.”

  “No great pleasure,” I said. “Just a small kick or two.”

  “You wrong me,” he said. “I’m not in this for pleasure or hate. Those I work for are obsessed with hate, hate of Jews, Gypsies, Negroes. Whatever satisfaction I get is professional. I’ll tell you a secret.”

  He looked around and put a finger to his lips to indicate silence. He was having a hell of a good time. Albanese let out a low groan. “I think the people I work for,” he said, “will not win this war. I think I will have to offer my services to your side eventually, but I can wait till I’m sure how things are going. I must sense that delicate moment when it is time to have a sincere change of heart, to come to the Allies with repentance and a gift of secrets. Now I am afraid I cannot converse any longer.”

  He smiled, dropped his aim to my chest, and I knew I would take a leap at him, knew I would be shot before I reached him. I shifted my right foot forward, deciding to go in low, trying not to think of the bullet that would hit the back of my head or my neck or my spine.

  “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them,” came Robeson’s voice from the doorway.

  Povey turned to the door, leveling his pistol at shadows. I took two steps to the edge of the platform and leaped toward Povey, who was just bringing his Walther back toward me when I caught him, waist high. We skidded back into chairs, spraying them out as we hit. Povey clubbed me on the neck with the pistol, and I threw an awkward left into his kidney. His gun hand was near my face. I bit his hand and he yelped as we rolled over again. He didn’t drop the gun, but I had to let go of the bite when he gave me an open-palmed chop to the head with his left hand.

  Povey’s foot caught my stomach just above the groin, and I rolled backward, coming up almost to my feet. He panted to a standing position in front of me, a film of blood on his teeth as he smiled and prepared to shoot me in the face. Something caught the light behind him and swooshed over his shoulder. Metal clanked on metal and Povey screamed, dropping his pistol. His fingers were bleeding from the slash of the sword Robeson held in his hand, ready to sweep again.

  “If this were sharp,” Robeson said deeply, “you’d be a one-handed man. Sit down.”

  Povey spat blood and I tried to stand up. Povey hissed something in German between his teeth and Robeson answered him in German. They went back and forth that way with Robeson advancing on Povey, who held his bleeding right hand with his left.

  I didn’t know German, but I did know the word shvartz which meant “black” and which came out several times in a snakelike hiss. Robeson reached forward with his free hand for Povey, who lowered his shoulder, came under the sword, and ran into the actor, who staggered back enough for Povey to see a path to the open door. He went for it and I lunged after him. I tripped over the body of Alex Albanese, rolled into a pair of chairs, and landed on my back. I lay there exhausted, listening to Povey’s footsteps clack down the steps beyond the door.

  “Are you hurt?” Robeson asked, kneeling at my side.

  “I’m hurt,” I said, “but not as much as much as Alex. I don’t think he’s dead yet. He moaned a few minutes ago.”

  We scuttled to Alex, who had two holes in him, one in his chest, another his neck. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t dead, not yet.

  “I’ll call for an ambulance.” Robeson stood, then said “I’ve aged. Did you know I was an All-American end in football at Rutgers? I had letters in football, baseball, track and now I can’t even handle a creature like that.” He nodded toward the door through which Povey had escaped.

  “He’s a pro too,” I
said. “You’d better make that call for an ambulance and then get out of here. You don’t need this kind of publicity.”

  “Don’t see how I can avoid it.”

  “Leave that to me,” I said. “It’s my job.”

  Robeson went through the doors and left me with Albanese. I checked his pulse, tried to talk to him, got no answer. I hid my gun and holster in a prop case on the stage and came up with what I thought was a somewhat reasonable tale for the police. It took the ambulance about fifteen minutes to get there.

  While they carried Albanese off to Bellevue Hospital, a pair of cops in uniform asked me questions and suggested that I go to the hospital to have my visible bumps and bruises taken care of. They were polite when I told them that Alex and I were old friends, that I had come to pick him up for dinner after a rehearsal, and that we had stayed behind to talk about his new role in the play. A stray robber had come in. We tried to fight him off. Alex took a spray of lead and we scared the bad guy off.

  The cops were sympathetic, said it wasn’t a good idea to leave doors open in this neighborhood. I acted worried about Alex after I gave them a more or less accurate description of Povey and they let me go. It’s nice to be in a town where you don’t have a bad reputation. It’s like starting clean. It had taken me almost half a century to make the police department of Los Angeles and its environs discount everything I uttered. New York was fresh turf.

  When the cool, damp night air hit me, I felt sick. I held my face up to catch the rain and let the drizzle run off my nose and eyes. It helped. The ambulance had already gone, its siren blazing. I walked about a block and stood in a doorway to wait. The cops left ten minutes later. I could hear their voices as they went to their car and got in. They were saying something about plans for a Billy Conn–Joe Louis rematch. The incident behind them hadn’t even held their attention till they got back on the street. I waited till they had pulled away and turned the corner before walking slowly back to the theater entrance.