Death of a Showman

by Mariah Fredericks

  Whether it was fine silver canes or a tube of Leichner’s greasepaint, tempers were such that someone was going to do someone an injury. Leo and Warburton’s shouting matches grew more heated. There were daily arguments about spending. One day, as I made my way through the cramped corridors, I heard Leo say, “Money was no object on your last disaster. What’s the problem? Your investor getting cold feet? Or maybe they’ve had enough of the lies.”

  Mrs. St. John stepped in a leaving of Peanut’s and subjected me and Mr. Harney to a tirade that included words I would not have suspected she knew. Violet was caught gossiping on the only private phone in the theater, which happened to be in Warburton’s office. This sent the producer into a rage—which grew even uglier when the story of Peanut’s accident and Adele St. John’s ruined shoe appeared in the newspapers, along with speculation that Warburton’s new show was in trouble.

  “You can’t talk to the newspapers, Vi,” Leo explained wearily.

  “I didn’t, it was just my friends.”

  “Well, then you can’t talk to your friends.”

  “But I don’t have anything else to do.”

  The dispute that caused the most friction was the question at the heart of the show: which lady should the gentleman choose? Warburton, a longtime collaborator with the Ardens, said Claude should choose Blanche—because who would not choose Blanche? Leo insisted Nedda was the more modern choice; as a working girl, she was someone the audience would cheer for.

  As he often did these days, Leo turned to Louise. “Do you have an opinion, Mrs. Tyler?”

  Blushing, Louise said it was an impossible choice.

  One saw Mr. Warburton’s point. Next to Vernon and Irene Castle, the Ardens were the most famous dance team in the country. In town after town, people turned out to see Blanche tease, escape, then finally surrender to her obsessive paramour. Their actual love story was well known: Claude had been a popular singer of romantic ballads. On a tour of upstate New York, he had spied in the front row “the loveliest of creatures, a girl of moonlight and stars. I knew at once that I would be dancing with her for the rest of my life.” That night, he had appeared at Blanche’s window and sung of his love. She had run off with him on the spot.

  The public might expect Blanche to be Claude’s choice, but personally, I rooted for Nedda Fiske. When she strode onstage, she captured the spotlight not just for herself, but for all of us not born to wealth. Maybe we didn’t have money—or other obvious attractions—but we had humor and talent and heart. One of her hallmarks as a performer was to ape the elegant, well-born lady she was so clearly not. Offstage, she sometimes drawled to an imaginary butler, “Wentworth, the caviar eggs are the wrong shape. Tell the fish: rounder. My ermine needs fluffing, my diamonds buffing, and my backside could use a good smooch!”

  As in the show, the ladies were rivals. But the affections of the gentleman were no way in doubt. Nedda Fiske took this as a challenge. In one rehearsal, she writhed so energetically against a miserable Claude that Warburton bellowed at her to stop, insisting, “This isn’t some cheap burlesque theater!” Nedda launched into an exaggerated belly dance. Standing in the wings with Mr. Harney’s cold towel, I heard Leo laugh.

  “I will not be mocked in this way!” shouted Claude.

  Nedda rolled her eyes. “Oh, cut the histrionics.”

  Claude glared at her and then Violet, who had wandered in in her maid’s outfit. Snarling, “So many things I’d like to cut,” he stalked into the wings just as Mr. Harney ambled on to rehearse “A New Man” with Miss Fiske.

  As Mr. Arden approached, I drew into the shadows. In the past, the singer had pointedly ignored me. Now, rather than storm off to his dressing room, he sank, winded, onto a chair. Head down, shirt dark with sweat, legs akimbo, he was the picture of exhaustion. The black hair was thinning—and dyed—and when he raised his head, his neck and eyes showed signs of age. Blanche, I realized, was at least a decade younger.

  I offered the ice-laden towel. He took it without a word and buried his face. Then after a moment, he asked, “Tell me—would you fall in love with this man? You’re a young girl.”

  Wanting to be kind, I said, “Yes, he’s … wonderfully romantic.”

  Crow’s-feet deepened as he peered at me. “You don’t think he’s a bit of a cad? I mean, he loves this one, he loves that one, he wants to fall in bed with the maid. I can’t help thinking the audience will despise him. ‘Make up your mind already!’ If he’s flitting back and forth, don’t you just want to hit him with a chair?”

  Looking to the piano where Violet was turning Leo’s pages, I said, “… Possibly.”

  Just then we heard Blanche trill as she came into the theater, calling, “Mr. Hirschfeld—Oh, I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, Miss Fiske, but Mr. Hirschfeld, I wonder if I could talk to you about that second act song…”

  At the sound of his wife’s voice, Claude pulled back the curtain to gaze at her. “One girl,” he said softly. “He loves one girl and all he wants to do is win her heart.”

  “I’m sure you’ve won it, Mr. Arden.”

  He smiled sadly, patted my arm. “One girl—tell your boss that’s what you’d pay to see.”

  I had been sincere in my reassurances to Mr. Arden concerning his wife’s devotion. But I began to wonder. Mrs. Arden had told the press how excited she was to be working with a bold young songwriter, and she expressed her enthusiasm in private as well. She pronounced herself fascinated with Leo’s hair, touching it often. Amused by his fights with Warburton; so much passion! Enchanted by his syncopation; so … seductive.

  Two days after my talk with her husband, I watched Blanche as she twirled onstage alone in Mrs. St. John’s latest creation. Leo approached from the opposite wings and she danced prettily up to him. As they stood facing each other in the narrow space, she said, “What do you think of the dress? Does it show too much?”

  With a slight smile, Leo said, “You know just what to show, Mrs. Arden. You don’t need my advice.”

  Hand above her knee, she drew the fabric up. “But would it be better so…”

  The silk slid higher; she bent her leg to nudge his. “… or so?”

  Leo swallowed. “So,” he managed. “Very, very much so.”

  The next day, I was returning cleaned clothes to the dressing rooms when I saw that the door to the Ardens’ room was closed. But no matter how hard one tries, a servant cannot always avoid trespass on moments of intimacy. Not when they are conducted as operatically as this particular conjugal episode. The voice was soprano; the birdlike dancer exhorting her husband on as if he were a horse at the track. I made my way back down the rickety stairs. Reaching the stage level, I heard Claude Arden, running through his mee, may, ma, mo, moo’s. Violet lolled in the front row, yawning.

  Leo was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  That evening on the drive home, I recalled the splendors of Mrs. Tyler’s rose garden on Long Island in the vain hopes that Louise would pronounce herself in need of a change of scene. She merely plucked at the fingers of her gloves and looked pensive.

  Then she said, “I’m sorry, Jane. I know it’s difficult seeing Mr. Hirschfeld. I told Mr. Tyler he was putting you in a terrible position, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s worried his mother will find out he let me go unescorted to a … den of iniquity. It’s very silly, but there it is.”

  “It isn’t difficult to see Mr. Hirschfeld.” At least not on the rare occasions when he wasn’t exercising himself. “But they’re somewhat … irregular people.”

  “But aren’t they wonderful?” breathed Louise, thrilled to have the chance to discuss her passion. “The dancing, the costumes, little Peanut. And the songs! Just to spend the day listening to those wonderful songs. Maybe they aren’t such regular people, but I … can’t say I mind that.”

  This last was said with uncertainty, she expected correction. But it was wonderful to see her so animated. Bidding a private farewell to the hope of sea air and rose-scente
d gardens, I said life in the theater was certainly not dull.

  “I do wish Mr. Warburton would stop shouting at people,” said Louise, as if wanting to concede a point to me.

  As we approached the house, Louise gathered her coat about her. I moved to help her and noticed that the diamond-and-opal brooch I had placed on the breast that morning was gone.

  “Mrs. Tyler, your brooch.”

  We searched the seat and the floor of the car. “Maybe it fell off at the theater,” I suggested. Although the clasp had been secure, I had made sure when I fastened it. “I’ll search the cloakroom tomorrow.”

  “Please don’t mention this to Mr. Tyler.”

  “Of course not.”

  I strongly suspected I would not find it in the cloakroom. Or anywhere in the theater. Floyd Lombardo had a very handsome straw hat that he kept in the cloakroom. And as he went in and out of the theater several times a day, he was often there. Alone.

  As expected, the brooch was nowhere to be found. Louise refused to tell Leo or Warburton, saying she had many other brooches and she didn’t want to cause difficulties. This reticence was natural to her, and I suspected she didn’t want to give Warburton an excuse to bar her from the theater. I, however, was less reticent.

  I had noticed that Mr. Lombardo often had his appointments during scenes when all the actors were onstage. During one such scene, I saw him rise from his seat and make his way toward the lobby where the cloakroom was. I followed—and found him making a leisurely inventory of Claude Arden’s coat pocket.

  “I believe your hat is in the cubby, Mr. Lombardo.”

  With the smoothness of one often caught in compromising situations, he removed his hand and stepped around the counter. Nedda Fiske kept him well. His dark hair was slick as an otter’s, his cleft chin beautifully shaved, his left hand expensively jeweled. On the right hand, however, he wore a cast.

  “And you are?” he said.

  I gave my name, adding, “I work for Mrs. William Tyler.”

  He raised an impressed eyebrow. “You know I’ve wondered, how does Mrs. Tyler come to be at Sidney Warburton’s squalid little theater?”

  “She is a supporter of his protégé, Mr. Hirschfeld.”

  “‘Protégé,’ is that what we’re calling him?”

  I didn’t understand the joke and I didn’t like it. “Returning to the subject of Mrs. Tyler. Her brooch went missing the other day. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it.”

  “Oh, Miss Prescott, that sounds like an accusation.”

  “It’s a request.”

  “Miss Fiske is not partial to opals.”

  “How did you know they were opals?”

  The second’s hesitation in answering was an admission of guilt and Mr. Lombardo knew it. I turned. He grabbed hold of my arm. I smelled lime, tobacco, and desperation.

  “We could have a nice arrangement, you and I. Mrs. St. John foisted the laundry off on you, didn’t she? You pass some things my way, I’ll make sure you get a cut. Fortune favors the bold.”

  “I’d hate to scream, Mr. Lombardo, let me go.”

  “Oh, I’d hate to scream, too, Miss Prescott. No one really trusts servants, do they? Paid so little, treated so badly, you almost can’t blame them if they get light-fingered…”

  The hand that took hold of my backside was not a show of carnal interest. Lust was not absent, but primarily, he was motivated by a desire to take, to cheat, to get what he could while no one was looking. Unfortunately for him, someone was looking.

  “Beat it, Lombardo,” said Violet Hirschfeld.

  The hand was removed. For a moment, Floyd Lombardo assessed Violet Hirschfeld; did she have influence? Would she be believed? Then tipping his straw hat, he said, “Adieu, Salome,” and left the theater.

  When he had made his departure, she said, “You all right?”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  “A lady as smart as Nedda, you’d think she’d have better taste, right? But some women, no matter how bad their man treats them, they can’t give him up.”

  How well, I wondered, did Leo treat her? I thought to ask Violet about Lombardo’s protégé snipe, but decided that would show an unnecessary interest in her husband. Instead I asked how Floyd had injured his hand.

  “Says he broke it playing polo.” She rolled her eyes. “I sure didn’t know Owney Davis liked the ponies. Not for polo, anyway.”

  Owney Davis was a gangster who had been so successful at the racetrack, it was said he had single-handedly shut down Belmont for two years by fixing races. He had attained a peculiar glamour that gave him entrée into venues that would have ejected any other steamfitter’s son from Brooklyn. He was rumored to be generous in his lending—and ruthless in collection. No wonder Lombardo was desperate. I recalled the fight I had overheard between him and Miss Fiske. He had said he needed money. She said she didn’t have it to give. The truth? Or had she noticed his wandering eye and wanted to remind him who held the upper hand?

  Glancing back at the coats, I said, “I caught him rifling through Mr. Arden’s pockets. Should I tell Mr. Warburton?”

  She winced. “I don’t know. Nedda won’t see sense about Lombardo and Sidney thinks the show needs her. Maybe better to just keep an eye on Mrs. Tyler’s things.”

  It was sound advice and I followed it. But other things began to go missing. Blanche lost a pair of earrings. A bracelet disappeared from Violet’s dressing room. Harriet became frantic when she could not find her pen. All these items were labeled “misplaced.” But when Mrs. St. John opened her wallet to find twenty dollars gone, she acidly inquired if Nedda had lost anything—or perhaps gained. Nedda went red, but she pronounced herself as broke as Stanley Ketchel’s front teeth.

  The next day I found Mr. Harney lingering outside the closed door to Warburton’s office, Peanut in the crook of his arm like a stuffed toy. Mr. Arden’s celebrated voice could be clearly heard. “This is not the show we signed on for, Sidney. Stand up to her; tell her you won’t put up with it.”

  I had to strain to hear Warburton mumble something about “contracts.”

  “You have to get rid of him, Sidney.” Blanche Arden was more soft-spoken but no less insistent than her partner. “We can’t work like this. If she feels she needs him…”

  “Then she can go straight into the gutter with him,” shouted Claude. “At a certain point, Sidney, it’s her or us.”

  I thought I caught Leo’s voice, low and surprisingly earnest. The Ardens lowered their tones to match his, which made it difficult to hear. Mr. Harney and I frowned at each other; discretion could be so frustrating.

  Then Leo declared, “Well, if she goes, I go.”

  This was dramatic. Mr. Harney pulled a face.

  Also dramatic was the sound of a cane being slammed onto a surface and Warburton’s bellow, “Who owns this theater? You talk about gutters—where would any of you be without me? You? You’d be singing that same sad song to old women in Boise. You’d be offering your rear end at every stage door in town, and you…” For a moment, the producer strangled on his rage. When he found breath, he screamed, “You don’t tell me what I have to do. None of you! I put the lights on you. I take them away—you’re nothing.”

  In extremely colorful terms, he invited them to leave his office. At which point, Mr. Harney and I departed as well.

  For a day, it was strangely silent; everyone strained to be agreeable. Nedda carried on, seemingly unaware of the animosity. Not so Floyd Lombardo, who sat with the triumphant smile of a nasty little boy hiding behind a giant of a mother.

  That afternoon, I came into the theater to find it empty except for Louise and Mr. Lombardo, who had curled into the aisle seat next to her in the second row. In a quavering voice, Louise said, “I’m afraid I couldn’t, Mr. Lombardo.”

  I hurried to her, saying, “Mrs. Tyler, you have an appointment with your dressmaker at four.”

  She affected to look at her watch. “Oh, dear, and it’s after three. Mr. Lombardo, would you
excuse me?”

  She waited for him to stand so that she could pass. He stayed put. “I really would like to talk to you about this investment opportunity. Fortune favors the bold, Mrs. Tyler.” He gave me what was meant to be a smile. “I said just that to Miss Prescott in the cloakroom the other day.”

  I was trying to judge the exact nature of the threat when I heard an explosion of foul language and saw Sidney Warburton charge through a curtained entry, Harriet Biederman behind him. The enraged producer hauled Lombardo out of the seat, spraying him with spit and curses, before demanding, “Where’s my cane?”

  “How should I know?” I heard a tremor in the affected drawl.

  Warburton gave him a hard shove. “Don’t lie to me! Where is it?”

  The shouting drew the Ardens and Mrs. St. John, then Violet and Leo, doing up the odd button, and finally, Nedda, who warily assessed the situation.

  Warburton took a deep breath. “Nedda, he’s got to go.” The Ardens exchanged glances.

  “Calm down, Sidney, I’ll talk to him…”

  “No talking! I want him out, gone!” Then as Nedda began to object, he bellowed, “Stop defending him, for God’s sake. Just the other day, he was pawing that one in the lobby.”

  He gestured to me and Louise gasped. Nedda looked to Lombardo, eyes cold. “Is that true, Floyd? Those hands been wandering?”

  For a man who habituated theaters, Lombardo was a poor actor. “Nedda, you can’t think…”

  Louise said, “I’m sorry, Miss Fiske, but I must agree with Mr. Warburton.”

  There was a long, painful pause. Clasping her hands in the rigid manner of a hostess on edge, Nedda said, “Don’t be sorry, Mrs. Tyler. Out he goes, with the trash as they say.” She snapped her fingers. “Wentworth, remove this person. I’m off to bathe my emeralds.”