Death of a Showman

by Mariah Fredericks

  Thinking of the morning breakfast, I said, “I can remember the last time you and Mr. Tyler were in the same room and talking. Very happily.” I felt it expedient to throw in that last little lie. They had talked happily, just not the last time.

  “And yet I feel William’s so unhappy with me.”

  There are times when servants are required to manage more of their employers’ lives than their clothing or train tickets, and this was one of them. As the woman who cared for Louise’s clothes, certain realities were obvious and we were high past time Louise stopped keeping her secret.

  “Mr. Tyler will be very happy when you give him your news. And a baby will certainly be a shared interest.”

  Caught out, Louise smiled. Then blinked. Then started to cry.

  Crouching by her chair, I took her hands. “It’s perfectly natural to worry…”

  “I’m not worried,” she said irritably, letting me know I had condescended. Which I had and had done before without objection from her. I reminded myself, this was a new Louise, one who went to Rector’s, who brought soft-shell crabs to actresses, who had stood up to her husband and insisted on spending money she called hers.

  She was still Louise Tyler, though, because she apologized. I told her she had been right to correct me.

  “I was happy, when I first thought … when I realized. We were still in Europe. I spent a day just imagining all to myself. What William would say when I told him. What the baby would look like. Names, boy or girl. But that night, we went to one of those dinners, I don’t even remember the house or the name. And I sat there for hours, among people I didn’t know, knowing the only interesting thing that would occur the entire evening was the changing of one course to the next. Talk, talk, talk—from all these people who did absolutely nothing. I would never have thought it possible to do so little in life and yet talk so much. With so much self-importance. I thought of how many days and how many hours we had spent like this, thought how I was supposed to feel lucky, that this was now my life. But I felt like I was drowning. At one point, I felt I would leap up from the table and fling myself out a window just to get away from the monotony of smiling and swallowing and digging my nails into my palm just to keep from shrieking.”

  She had, I remembered now, crescent spots of red on her hands one night. I thought a glass had broken.

  “The next morning, I practiced in my head, telling William. I thought how happy he’d be, but also … how protective. I imagined him hovering over me, my mother telling me not to do things, you—I’m sorry, Jane—you running about fetching things for me, making me sit, lie down, not move. And I just thought, No! No, I don’t want this. I don’t, I can’t. Then the show began and I thought, Oh, yes, this is…” Her shoulders raised, a yearning gesture that suggested all the difficult words: “want,” “love,” “need.” I remembered her face, radiant at the window as she promised Leo, “I’ll be there.” No one had asked her to do things she never imagined she could, then praised her success. I had worried Louise was falling a little in love with Leo. But really, she had fallen in love with herself.

  I thought to say that it was almost opening night; the show would fail or succeed, and that would be the end of it. Then realized, the end of it was the very opposite of what Louise wanted. Unless Leo went to jail for killing Sidney Warburton—or I shipped him to Siberia—he wouldn’t give up his patron. And his patron would not give up on him. Or herself. Baby and Broadway would have to be reconciled.

  Louise said, “You’re going to tell me to tell Mr. Tyler.”

  “If only because he will soon be able to guess. But tell him the rest of it, too. He knows you’re unhappy and it makes him unhappy. Give him a chance.” I thought of them, heedlessly planning dogs and ice cream and card game tournaments in the car on July Fourth. They did want the same sort of life; they had just never seen such a life before and so these two kind, deferential people who had always done what other people expected were going to have to create it for themselves.

  I raised my hand. “And I do so solemnly vow never to make you sit. Or lie down. Or not move.”

  Just then I heard William’s footstep. Louise nodded to indicate that I was dismissed. Pausing at the door, I wanted to tell her that personally, I was thrilled, that I could not wait for this tiny Tyler to enter the world. But Louise didn’t need to be overwhelmed with my feelings; indeed, it was not appropriate for her to know they existed at all.

  * * *

  Returning to my room, I was surprised to find a letter slid under my door. Sitting on my bed, I opened the envelope to see familiar handwriting. More lectures, I thought. Masses said for my soul. Reminders of the virtues of milkmen.

  Dear Miss Prescott,

  I am writing to apologize for my remarks. They were uncalled for.

  Dutiful language, I thought. The flat, correct words one offers up when an apology is required, but not felt.

  Frankly, I don’t know why I said it. It is none of my business what sort of education you pursue, Parisian or otherwise. I will only say what should be obvious by now and that is I hold you in high regard and do not like to think of you being made unhappy. Rather than say that, for some reason, I insulted you. Your response was fair comment.

  I hope you can put it down to lack of sleep on my part or the general idiocy of men. As part of my penance, I am abstaining from giving further advice. I will only say in closing that one of the many things I admire about you is your devotion to those you care for. You deserve the same—and a great deal more.

  Yours,

  MB

  Going downstairs to the kitchen, I picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the Herald. When I heard Michael Behan’s voice, I said, “I thought you might like to know that Nedda Fiske is returning to Two Loves Have I.”

  There was a pause; had I gotten his letter? I decided to neither confirm nor deny.

  “Well, that’s happy news, isn’t it?” he said finally. “Although not for Miss Tempest.”

  “Miss Tempest has other stairs to climb.”

  “And no one’s concerned about how Miss Fiske’s lover’s gun was used to kill Warburton?”

  The same question had occurred to me. As she herself had said, Nedda Fiske was the most likely person to have gotten hold of Floyd’s gun, and it might have suited her mood at the time to frame her lover for the murder of her nemesis—then ride to his rescue with lawyers paid for by her vast funds. But her conversation with Louise told me that Nedda Fiske’s madness was strangely efficient. She loved Floyd Lombardo, because he served her needs, connecting her to a wildness she fed off. Sidney Warburton did not inspire such feelings—and he paid handsomely for the work that Floyd inspired and lived off. Even her latest collapse had been strategic, a way to force Leo’s hand into giving her something the Ardens did not have in the show.

  No, I did not think Nedda Fiske had shot Sidney Warburton. Other names, other sorrows, floated through my mind like the brief glimpse of images in the turning pages of a scrapbook. But those names were not for Michael Behan. Not yet.

  “The show must go on, Mr. Behan. Good night.”

  * * *

  The next day, Nedda Fiske returned to rehearsals as if absolutely nothing untoward had happened. Leo welcomed her pleasantly. Roland Harney smiled broadly. Peanut wriggled until he was set down so he could trot over and lick her hand. The Ardens exchanged looks. Then Claude stepped forward to say, “A genuine pleasure to have you back, Miss Fiske.”

  Violet, I noticed, was quite still. She had been waiting, I thought, to see the reaction of the rest of the cast, hoping against hope they might take her side. When it was clear she had been abandoned, she tried to make the best of it, saying, “Well, I guess it’s back to the staircase for me.”

  “We’ll see,” said Leo.

  Later, Roland Harney came up to me, jowly face alight. “Please tell Mrs. Tyler that she has my undying gratitude.”

  “What soft-shell crabs can achieve.” Soft-shell crabs and the bes
t song in the show.

  Picking up Peanut, he ambled in his strange, lolling gait toward the stairs. Watching him brought to mind someone else who did not move well. Who had been very angry. Ranting against those who had in abundance: fame, comfort, admiration, all stolen, in this man’s view, from their betters.

  Who, now that I thought of it, had tried to kill Sidney Warburton that very night. And possibly succeeded.

  18

  Roland Harney had said that on the night Sidney Warburton was killed, he had seen an individual who had good reason to want him dead. There were, I knew, a few such individuals. But only one had tried to do it in front of witnesses.

  It took a few days to find him. My first searches were either too early or too late; during the day, the police were more aggressive about keeping the street around Rector’s inhospitable to vagrants. Finally, I went around to the back door of the kitchen and made inquiries. Yes, said the busboy, he had seen the man. He usually turned up around four to pick through the garbage after the lunch rush. He liked the man, even if he wasn’t right in the head; unlike some, he didn’t leave a mess behind. And he sang a funny little song.

  “Can you remember it?” I asked.

  He squinted, trying to recall the exact words. “‘… Zoltan, man of steel … Zoltan, what power he wields…’ Something like that.”

  At four o’clock, I waited. And saw him lurching down the block, his ragged gray curls swaying. He was tilted, the wooden leg was poorly made. But he moved with speed and purpose. Unlike the night I had first seen him, he did not seem deranged. Still, I approached him with some caution, catching him just before he turned the corner into the alleyway.

  Holding up the dish Mrs. Avery had consented to make me, I said, “I wonder if you would care to have lunch with me.”

  It took the additional offer of a dollar. He was, after all, Zoltan the Mighty and I, a nobody. But in the end he accepted.

  * * *

  He looked nearly a foot shorter than the muscled colossus in Mrs. Warburton’s picture. The broad shoulders that had once supported a pretty girl each were now stooped and rounded. The mighty arms had gone to fat, the mustache was now just more greasy overgrowth on his face. The eagle’s nose broken, large pored, and purple. The proud dark eyes, the inheritance of generations of Magyar warriors, were rheumy, resting on bruised, wrinkled pouches of flesh. Sometimes they had their old fire. Sometimes, they darted anxiously, as if he were reminding himself, I am here now, this is where I am. Yes, I still know where I am.

  The wooden stump that had replaced his right leg lay between us on the pavement, its point worn and uneven.

  “Did you really lift an elephant in the air?” I asked.

  He took a bite of stew and coughed slightly, sending bits of meat and carrot into the air. “Of course.”

  “How big an elephant?”

  He smiled. I had guessed the trick. Holding out a shaking hand, he said, “Baby. We put a bonnet on it, make the joke, Zoltan the papa. Sing the baby to sleep, rock the baby…”

  He took another bite, chewing energetically with what teeth he had. “Doesn’t stay baby though. Better to say, Zoltan—‘Powerhouse Who Lifts Pachyderms’ on the poster and be done.” He smiled. “I lifted the girls. The barbells. I fought the lion. Girls. A lot of girls.”

  “I’m sure.” I let him eat a while longer before asking, “How did you hurt your leg?”

  A spasm that was half laugh, half bile. “My leg, my back, my hip, my neck…” He tugged at his ear. “This part, maybe, doesn’t hurt.”

  “But what was your last show?”

  He sighed, felt around his foul clothes. “Last show for Zoltan. Warburton says, ‘Zoltan, I am bored. Audience bored. Girls, lion…’” He made a wet, dismissive brr with his lips. “‘We need something new, something big.’ I say, ‘Yeah, sure—what?’ He says, ‘Zoltan, you will lift train.’ I think, Train? There’s no baby trains, you know? How we gonna make this work? He says, ‘Don’t worry, I get the newspapers, the crowds, the train—you rock it a little, we put weights inside so it tips, maybe on a little hill. It goes up, we get expert to measure. Headlines: “Zoltan Lifts Train!”’”

  “Would people believe that?”

  “Yes, people believe. First, it’s only the ones at the front who are going to see anything. All you have to do is get them to say, ‘He did it! He lifted the train!’ Everybody behind them is going to say, ‘Really? You saw this?’ ‘Yes, I saw, absolutely.’ Now they’re special because they saw this miracle. They were there, they saw it happen.”

  He shoveled more stew into his mouth. “And also, you pay people to say, ‘Oh my God—did you see that?’ No one wants to say they missed it. ‘Yeah, I saw it, I saw it!’”

  “What happened?”

  “The day comes. Big crowds. Newspapers. I am there in my tights, mustache—everyone loves Zoltan. It was a beautiful day.”

  He sat lost for a moment.

  “In the train, there are bank vaults to tip it. Big, heavy. And a little hill. Only the hill … doesn’t go the right way. The track it…” He gestured: goes down. “And I say, Sidney, ‘This train it better not move.’ He says, ‘No, no, we put blocks on the wheels, it’s fine.’

  “So the big moment comes. I raise my arms.” The old arms in their tattered coat rose. “The camera flashes. I step to the train, I heave with all my might. Sidney says, ‘Do it three times, so it looks hard.’ Once, twice … I feel the train rock forward a little. One more time …

  “The blocks gave way. Maybe … they were never there. The train moves forward. I am caught under wheel. I wake up, no more Zoltan. For months, I am ill. Every day of my life, in pain. I cannot work. I have no friends. I look for Sidney. He is nowhere. I never see him again until that night.”

  “I would understand if you shot him,” I said quietly.

  “I would never have shot Sidney Warburton. I would have taken him by the throat with my two hands and crushed him. I would have liked to see his eyes as I did that, as he realized it was me. But…” He shrugged. “Not to be.”

  I watched him as he spoke, trying to judge the truth of his statement. Even a man whose life had been so thoroughly destroyed might hesitate to give up his liberty. He would not fare well in prison as a frail, crippled old man. He might well have accosted Floyd Lombardo one night as the gambler made his way to Rector’s revolving doors, gotten hold of his gun. But this was still a man with great pride in his strength—and his showmanship. Killing Warburton would have been the final act of his life. I couldn’t believe he would refuse to take his bow. For a moment, I imagined him storming into the main dining room, pistol held aloft, to announce his triumph to all those happy, glittering people on whom the lights still shone. He would not have left the pistol at the scene to frame Floyd Lombardo; he would have wanted credit for his last performance.

  Besides, he was a pungent character. It would have been very hard for him to slip into Rector’s undetected.

  I said, “The composer of Mr. Warburton’s new show saw you when he was a boy and remembers you fondly. Perhaps if you stop by the theater…”

  “What?” A weary half smile. “He’s going to put me on the stage?”

  “He might have a job for you.”

  One shoulder lifted: he would consider it. But he did not believe it.

  “It’s the Sidney Theater. If you don’t come, you’ll make me come all the way back here on my day off. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”

  He laid a grimy hand over mine, patted it, and said I was a nice girl. A very nice girl.

  “Stay away from theater,” he advised.

  And then he got up and made his exit.

  * * *

  As I walked the few blocks back to the Sidney, I knew I had been given very good advice. I just couldn’t follow it at the moment. Lost in thought, I passed by the Times building. A small crowd had gathered and people were staring upward—a contagious condition, and I looked up as well. In the windows, in big bold
red letters, the paper was assembling a headline for the people below: AUSTRIA BREAKS WITH SERBIA. More posturing, I thought irritably, and hurried on.

  As I rounded the corner, I saw another young lady who had failed to follow Zoltan’s advice standing at the theater doors. She was pretty, no doubt also nice. But her gloved fingers were tightly interlaced, she paced a few feet right to left and back again, clearly longing to go in while terrified to do so.

  “May I help you?”

  Her nerves were so strained, she jumped at the sound of my voice. Hand to her breast, she collected herself. “Do you work here?”

  I nodded.

  “You must see a hundred girls a week who say this, but Mr. Warburton said I should come by…”

  Now I remembered: the charming brunette at Rector’s, the breathy one who had distracted Warburton just as Rodolfo was trying to make an impression.

  “You must know Mr. Warburton is dead.”

  “I know, I know. It’s terrible.” The speed at which she spoke belied sincerity. “But you see—you’ll think I’m making it up, but truly I’m not—he wanted to see me about an understudy role. For Miss Fiske’s part. And I read in the papers that she’s been absent from the show, so I thought I’d try my luck. Maybe Mr. Warburton mentioned me?”

  Dear God, I wondered, were all actors so desperate and delusional? “Miss Fiske has returned.”

  “But she’ll still need an understudy, won’t she?”

  Her pushiness made me blunt: “She has one. Miss Tempest. Who is also Mrs. Hirschfeld. The wife of the composer.”

  “Oh.” All liveliness left her as she realized Violet’s claim far exceeded her light acquaintance with Mr. Warburton.

  Then she frowned. “She’s the understudy? But she was there that night, Miss … Mrs. Hirschfeld.”

  “Yes, she was sitting quite close, between Mr. Warburton and her husband.”