by Gore Vidal
“I have had an inquiry from the Benjamin Franklin Kafka Foundation; they would like to know if you could handle their account for the next six months. I indicated that I would communicate with you.”
I asked what sum they had suggested and when she told me I said that I would accept. We talked business for a few minutes. Then she suggested that I come by the office and read the mail.
“I’ll be over this afternoon. The case is finished, by the way.”
“That should be nice for the dancers.”
“For all of us.”
“Are you to continue with those clients much longer?”
“Only another week.”
“* * * * * * * *”
I did not get over to my office that afternoon, however, for just as I hung up the telephone Miss Ruger announced that the Executive Secretary of the Veterans’ Committee awaited my pleasure.
“Show him in,” I said.
A thick burly veteran of the First World War rushed toward me; I slipped behind my desk, afraid of being tackled.
“The name’s Fleer, Abner S. Fleer.”
“My name is …”
“I’ll come straight to the point … no use mincing matters, is there? When you got something to say say it, that’s what I say.”
“Shoot!” I said, showing that I could talk straight, too.
“We’ve been picketing your show, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll bet you’d like us not to picket your show, right?”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“It happens to be a very useful form of promotion, Mr. Frear.”
“Fleer. That remains to be seen. Veterans are staying away … I can tell you that.”
“Even without the veterans we are sold out not only for this season, but also on the road. We go to Chicago next week.”
“Only because you’ve been cashing in on the other immoral goings-on in your show.”
“You’re referring to the murder?”
“I am indeed.”
“Well, a man killed his wife and now the man is dead of a heart attack … so that’s all over.”
“We have reason to believe that your company is a hotbed of Reds and other undesirables.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Mister, we have spent close to a hundred thousand in the last year to root Reds and other perverts out of our way of life, in government, entertainment and the life of everyday … and we’re doing it. We have reason to believe this man Wilbur is a party member.”
“If you can prove it why don’t you get him indicted? Or whatever the procedure is.”
“Because these fellows are slippery. Oh, we’ve been tipped off but that’s a long way from getting a gander at his membership card.”
“Then why don’t you wait until you have got it … save a lot of bother.”
“There’s a moral issue involved. It may take us years to track him down … in the meantime he is corrupting our cherished ideals with his immoral dances. We want to put him out of commission right now and we’re appealing to you as fellow Americans to help us.”
“But I’m not convinced he is a Communist and neither is Mr. Washburn.”
“We can show you reports from a dozen sources …”
“Malicious gossip,” I said righteously.
“Are you trying to defend this radical?”
“I suppose I am. He is a great choreographer and I don’t know anything about his politics and neither do you.”
“By the way, Mister, just what are your politics?”
“I am a Whig, Mr. Fleer. The last President I voted for was Chester A. Arthur.” On this mighty line, I got him out of the office, still shouting vengeance on all who attempted to sully our way of life.
I was pretty shaken by this interview with what was very likely one of the last perfect examples of Neanderthal man on the island of Manhattan. I went back into Mr. Washburn’s office to get a drink … I knew that he kept a bottle of very good brandy in a bottom drawer of his Napoleonic desk. Since he wasn’t in, I took a mouthful right out of the bottle; then, carefully, I put it back in the desk and idly glanced at the papers on his desk. One of them was a letter from Sylvia Armiger, the English ballerina … a short note which I naturally read, saying that she would be unable to succeed Eglanova for the ’52 season, that she was already under contract, but many thanks and so forth and so on.
The old bastard, I thought, amused by Washburn’s duplicity. Even with Sutton gone he was still trying to replace Eglanova. I was less amused, though, when I noticed the date on the letter … it was ten days old. It had been written before Ella Sutton’s murder.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
The last night was a triumph. The box office reported that we had beaten all previous standing-room records for the Met and the audience was in a frantic mood, drowning out the music with almost continual applause for the stars who danced, I must say, with more skill than usual. If the audience was disappointed that the cable didn’t break in Eclipse, they didn’t show it for they called Jane back on stage seven times after the ballet. Swan Lake was magnificent in spite of several veterans who saw fit to heave a couple of firecrackers onto the stage … as well as a stink bomb which fortunately didn’t go off.
Backstage, after the audience had left the theater, a great deal of vodka was stashed away by the Russian contingent … those members of the company born in Europe and their hangers-on … all singing and laughing and drinking vodka among the trunks and costumes. Eglanova was roaring drunk, weeping and laughing, her talk a mixture of Russian and English, all very confused.
Jane and I left early. Mr. Washburn caught us at the door and grandly gave me the next day off … after extending my contract another week. Jane, however, had to report at three-thirty the next day for rehearsal with Wilbur.
We spent the morning in bed, reading the newspapers and talking to people on the telephone, to dancers who were also spending this wonderful morning in bed, in various combinations. It was very cozy, like being part of a large family with, at the moment, no serious feuds to shatter the pleasant mood.
None of us could get over the fact that the investigation was finished, that Gleason was no longer a part of our lives.
“But,” as Jane said in her most professional voice over the telephone to one of the boy soloists, a Greek god with a voice like Bette Davis, “where are we ever going to get another conductor as good as Miles?”
“I think Gold’s working out fine,” I said, when she had hung up the telephone and was sitting cross-legged beside me on the bed, idly pinching my belly, trying to find a serious fold of flesh to complain about: she has always thought I do too little exercise … the reason, I always tell her, why I can eat everything and stay slim while she exercises, eats like a horse and has to watch her weight.
“You don’t have to follow him,” she said irrelevantly, breathing deeply, rib-cage thrust forward, chin held high, breasts moving all of a piece, not quivering like jello the way most breasts do in this age of starch.
I grunted and shook her hand off my stomach as I read about our company, on page twenty-seven, in the Globe: “Murdered Dancer’s Husband Dead” … “Suspected of Murder.” An interview with Gleason followed, on page twenty-eight, without photograph.
“Kind of nice not to be on the front page,” I said.
“Don’t say that or you’ll be thrown out of the press agents’ guild or whatever it is that makes people like you the way they are.”
“The bitch goddess.”
“The what?”
“The ignoble concern with ephemeral reputation which has created people like me … professional criers, drum-beaters, trumpeters of brazen idols with feet of clay.”
“Oh, shut up. Does John Martin say anything in the Times about us?”
“He says that the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet is leaving town next week for a five-month tour.”
She grabbed the Ti
mes away from me and read the column on “Dance” with the desperate concentration of a ballerina hunting for a good notice.
“Certainly a plug for Eglanova,” she said at last, critically.
“Well, she’s had a lot of them in her day.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she retired of her own free will?” said my good-hearted girl.
“I don’t see why. She’d be miserable. She doesn’t want to teach. I think it’s real fine the old woman can keep going like this … and still be a big draw all over the map.”
Jane scowled. “It’s so hard on the rest of us … I mean, it keeps everybody back.”
I snorted. “Listen to her! A week ago you were one of those lousy cygnets in Swan Lake pounding up and down the stage with three other girls in a Minsky routine and now you’re thinking of the day when you’ll succeed Eglanova.”
With one long liquid line as a certain ballet critic might have described it, Jane Garden dealt me a thunderous blow with the pillow. After a stiff fight, I subdued her at last … quite a trick considering she is a solid girl and, in spite of her lovely silklike skin, all muscle.
“It’s not true!” she gasped, her hair like a net over the white sheet as I held her tight on her back.
“Delusions … that’s what it is.”
“Everybody feels the same way. Ask any of the girls.”
“Vicious group … ambitious, untalented.”
“Oh!” And she twisted away from me and sat up in bed, breathing hard as she pushed her hair out of her face.
“It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if you knocked off Ella just to get her place in the company.”
Jane laughed mournfully. “I don’t need to tell you that our company works on the caste system. I was number seven ballerina before Ella died.”
“But now you’re number two because you knew that if Ella was out of the picture I’d see to it you got her part.”
“Everything has worked out nicely,” said Jane, beaming.
“You have no conscience.”
“None at all. Especially now that the case is over.”
“Were you afraid of being caught?”
“Well, seriously, I didn’t feel so good when poor Miles died.”
“Why?”
“Well, darling, I was there.”
“There?”
“I saw him about an hour before he died … I stopped off on my way to the party.”
“Good God!” I sat up in bed and looked at her … “Did you tell Gleason that?”
“No, I didn’t. I … I suppose I was afraid.”
“You little fool.…” I was alarmed. “Don’t you realize that he had that building watched, that Miles was being watched every minute of the day and night no matter where he was? Did you go in the front way?”
“Did I go in …? Of course I did. What do you think …”
“Then he knows that you were there and that you didn’t mention it when he questioned you. What do you think he’ll make of that?”
“But … Miles did do it, didn’t he? The case is closed?” she asked in a small voice. I sometimes think that dancers have less brains than the average vegetable.
“I don’t know that he did and neither do the police. I have a hunch he didn’t but I may be wrong. Even so, no matter what the papers say or Gleason says, those boys are still interested in what happened to Ella … and maybe to Miles, too.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.” But she was scared.
“By the way, if I’m not being indiscreet, just what were you doing at Miles’ apartment that night?”
“I had a message for him, from Magda.”
“Who paid a call on him later, after he was dead.”
“I know … but she wanted me to see him and tell him something. Her family was watching her like a hawk and she told me she wasn’t able to get away and would I please go and see him.”
“This was before Don Ameche’s invention of the telephone or the establishment of a national post office.”
“I wish you wouldn’t try to be funny.”
“I couldn’t be more serious.”
“Then act like it.”
“I am acting like it … God damn it.…” We snarled at each other for several minutes; then she told me that Magda had not been able to leave her room for several days, that her family did not let her near the phone. Except for one stolen visit, Miles was not allowed to see her; as a matter of fact, the family had been reluctant to let her see even Jane.
“What did Magda want you to tell him?”
“What difference does it make now? … the whole thing’s finished.”
“Come on … what did she want you to tell him?”
“It was about the child. She wanted to know if Miles would like her to have an abortion.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said no, that they were going to get married as soon as the trial was over.”
“How was he when you saw him?”
“High as a kite … he didn’t make much sense … he kept rambling about the new ballet … I mean about Eclipse and Mr. Washburn … he was angry at him. I don’t know why.”
“Had Washburn been to see him?”
“No, not then.”
“How did you know he did see him that night?” I was like a district attorney, ready for the kill. But it didn’t work.
“Because I saw Mr. Washburn outside in the street when I left and he asked me how Miles was, if he was high or not.”
“That was an awfully busy street that night, with half the company running in and out of Miles’ apartment.”
“Oh, stop trying to be smart. You sound like a movie.”
“That may be,” I said somberly. “Was Mr. Washburn upset when he saw you?”
“He was surprised; after all, we were both supposed to be at the party.”
“He didn’t swear you to secrecy …”
“Oh, stop it, will you? I don’t think it’s funny.”
“I don’t either. As a matter of fact it may be very serious … your having gone there without telling Gleason about it.”
“He didn’t ask me. After all, I didn’t lie to him.”
“What did he ask you?”
“Just a lot of questions … general things.”
It was no use; when Jane decides to be vague it is like collecting fragments of quicksilver from a broken thermometer to get a straight story out of her.
“You better go and tell Gleason what you told me.”
“I certainly won’t now that everything’s finished.”
“Then don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
At three o’clock I went to the office of the ballet and she went to rehearsal and neither of us was in a good mood. I was both angry and worried at what she had done. I wondered whether or not I should tell Gleason myself. For a number of reasons I decided not to. I did wonder if Mr. Washburn had told Gleason. This possibility had not occurred to me before; now, when I thought of it, my worry turned to alarm.
I found Mr. Washburn in his office playing with some silly putty which an admirer had given him; in case you haven’t come across it, silly putty is a pink substance which, if rolled in a ball, will bounce better than rubber, which will shatter if you hit it with a hammer and which will stretch to an unbelievable length if you pull it … there is no point to silly putty and I took it as a serious sign that Mr. Washburn should now be stretching a long pink rope of it, like bubble gum, across his Napoleonic desk.
“I told you you could have the day off,” said my employer, unabashed, beginning to plait the substance. Had his mind snapped under the strain?
“I thought I’d drop by and take care of a few things. Toledo wants some photographs, so I thought …” I watched, fascinated, while Mr. Washburn made a hangman’s noose.
“Wonderful house last night,” said Mr. Washburn. “The best so far.”
“Good press this morning.”
“Gratifying … gratifying. Di
d you ever see this stuff before?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful idea … relaxes the nerves.” He rolled the putty into a ball and bounced it on the carpet where it sank deep; Mr. Washburn had to duck under his desk to retrieve it.
“By the way,” I asked, “have you decided if you’ll open the Chicago season with the new Wilbur ballet?”
“Mid-season … we’ll do it our third week. I haven’t picked the day yet.”
“Shall we do anything about Miles’ funeral tomorrow?”
Mr. Washburn draped the silly putty over his upper lip like a mustache, only it looked more like some awful cancerous growth; he frowned. “Better do nothing about it, Peter. The quicker this business is forgotten the better. Besides, it’s going to be a family affair. A couple of aunts and a grandmother appeared on the scene, from Jersey, and they’re in charge.”
“Are you going?”
Mr. Washburn shook his head and returned the silly putty to its egg-shaped plastic container. “I don’t think I will. I passed word on to the others that I thought it might be a good idea for them not to go either … papers would be sure to print a picture of Eglanova at the funeral, and give it space.”
“Then I won’t go either.” I was relieved. I don’t like funerals. Then I asked him, very casually, if he had said anything to the police about seeing Jane at Miles’ apartment the night he died.
Mr. Washburn looked at me gravely. “She was a very unwise young lady not to tell the police she was there.”