There was one worrisome puzzle. Only three hundred seats had sold for opening night, and a handful for other nights, and none for the matinees. He contacted the owner and operator of the Columbia to find out a few things. The man’s name was Pincart, James Almond Pincart. Maybe Pincart could point to something that needed doing.
The man had not been helpful. He charged a flat rent, not a percentage, which gave him little incentive to fill the seats. He was of the crafty, calculating sort, always with an eye to protecting himself and his property. In the early negotiations, Charles had learned to expect nothing, and to follow through on everything, from printing of tickets to making sure the bills were posted and the ads scheduled in the daily Statesman.
He found Pincart peering at his ledgers in the small office at the back of the Columbia Theater.
“Well, you’re not selling seats,” Pincart said. “I knew it. You’ll have empty houses.”
“What’s not working, sir?”
“The ads in the paper. They buried them, back of the classified. They like to do that.”
Charles pushed an issue of the daily across the prim desk, and thumbed it open to the inside of the rear page, where the announcement of the Beausoleil Brothers Follies was buried.
“The publisher, Wool, he doesn’t like money leaving town. He says every cent taken out by a touring company’s a cent that Boise merchants don’t get, so he buries ads like yours.”
“But not locals?”
“Nope. When the Boise Marching Band advertises a concert here, Wool runs the ad on page two, prime spot, where it gets seen. A Boise band, the ticket money stays in town, you see.”
Charles stared. “I wish you had told me. We could have insisted it get better play in that paper.”
Pincart shrugged. “No skin off my teeth,” he said. “Wool’s right. Keep the money in town, not let it ride the next train out.”
“I was called away, couldn’t be here, and now these ads are buried. And you let it ride?”
“Small crowds, it’s easier to clean the house,” Pincart said.
“What else isn’t right?”
“Bill-poster, name’s Thompson, he never got them up. You got cheated.”
“What?”
“Cold spell, he didn’t feel like going out, got only two, three pasted up. Don’t know what he did with the rest. Hid them, I guess. Here’s his invoice, sixty playbills up, eighty-seven dollars.”
“Say that again?”
“He didn’t paste up the playbills, worthless sort, and here’s his charges.”
A desolation stole through Charles. “And you didn’t wire me, or inform me?”
“No skin off my teeth,” Pincart said.
“Where are the sheets? Who can I get to paste them up? Can you show me the walls where they go up?”
“Thompson’s probably used them to start fires in his stove by now. They’re evidence against him, you know, so he no doubt burned the whole lot.”
Charles stared. “I’ve got no ads anyone’s seen, and no playbills around town, and no seats sold. And you let it pass?”
“Saves me work, cleaning up. I hate to fill the theater. Janitors complain and want overtime. People are all swine, leaving stuff on the floor. I ought to charge a clean-up fee on top of the tickets.”
“Are the tickets all printed?”
“Here’s the invoice.”
“May I see them?”
“Printer’s holding on to last three nights until you pay him.”
“Steer me to Thompson. I want to get the bills and find someone to paste them up. He must have a sub.”
“Now, you don’t want to disturb a sick man, and I’ll say absolutely not. He’ll catch the pneumonia.”
“Where can I get flyers printed fast? And boys to pass them out?”
“I despise flyers. People bring them in, drop them on my floors, and I have to cart all that rubbish out.”
“What is the other paper?”
“The Evening Mail, just out today.”
Pincart looked almost triumphant.
Charles snapped up the Thompson invoice. It had a street address. He stuffed it in his pocket.
“I’ll expect rental from you for the next five days, before showtime tonight,” Pincart said. “Or the curtain doesn’t go up.”
Charles wrapped his coat and scarf around him, bolted through the cold theater and out into bright light, and waylaid the first man he came across. The capital was serene.
“Pardon, sir, looking for an address. Can you direct me to Myrtle Sreet?”
The man could and did, and Charles raced in that direction. There was no time. No time at all. But maybe he could prevent disaster. Four blocks later he found Myrtle, and a shabby bungalow at 400 south so poorly marked it was all guesswork. But he bolted up two stairs, rapped on the white door with peeling paint, and soon confronted a whiskery man in his grimy union suit and britches.
“Ah, you’ve come to pay up,” Thompson said, looking Pomerantz over.
“Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether you do your job, now, this afternoon, every bill up.”
“Too cold,” Thompson said.
“How many were you to put up?”
“I dunno. The usual.”
“How many did you post?”
“Two, three.”
“I want the playbills and you can give me the name and address of a sub.”
Thompson yawned. “You sure are making a fuss.”
The man was soaked in rotgut, and exuded it.
“You mind if I come in and look around?”
“Well, truth to tell, the bills are at the theater. Pincart’s sitting on them.”
“You mind if I look?”
“There’s two, three here.”
“Why is Pincart not putting them out?”
“He doesn’t like vaudeville, but doesn’t mind renting the stage.”
“You mind putting up the bills you’ve got, and any you can find?”
“It sure is cold, old boy.”
He saw three or four large playbills lying in a corner. “I’ll take those,” he said, and tried to edge past the owner of the manse, but a hard arm shot out and blocked him. “They’ll cost you a dollar apiece,” Thompson said, a smirk building. “Lay out five.”
“I’ll find the ones in the theater,” Charles said. “If Pincart’s got them.”
The door turned him back to Myrtle Street. It was too late to paste up three-sheet playbills around Boise. He needed a printer. In the space of an hour he had gone from optimism to utter desperation. It was time to get August and the performers in on it. They could hand out flyers as well as anyone, and it might generate some interest in the show.
The job printer on Fourth Street turned out to be a gruff old pulp-nosed codger in an ink-stained smock. Charles sketched out his needs: Beausoleil Brothers Follies, Vaudeville, Columbia Theater, December seven to thirteen, featuring Ginger, Wayne Windsor, Harry the Juggler, The Wildroot Sisters, The Marbury Trio, The Genius and Ethel, The Grab Bag. Each evening at seven, two o’clock matinees on the eighth and twelfth. Advance sales at Rubachek’s Pharmacy. Fifty cents to a dollar fifty. The biggest show ever.
“Small flyers, you choose the size, a thousand, as soon as possible, an hour or two if you can manage it.”
The printer eyed Charles as if he were daft. “An hour or two! Have you the slightest knowledge of my art? An hour or two. Judas priest, where have you been all your life?”
“Sir, you can set that type in twenty minutes, I can proof it in one, you can make corrections in five, and crank out a thousand in an hour on that flatbed right there.”
The printer’s eyes gleamed with malice. “Supposing I can. What makes you think I will?”
“I’ll pay extra. Half again your charge.”
“Oho, bribing me, are you? You can pick up the first hundred at noon, day after tomorrow, and wait for more stock to come in before I print the rest.”
“Sir, I see all sorts of
sheets on your shelves, different sizes, but they’ll do, if you don’t mind. We can hand out all sorts of flyers. Whatever’s in stock. Colored paper, too.”
“You think that, do you? And has it never occurred to you that those sheets are reserved for printing jobs ordered locally, in time for Christmas?”
“There’s a paper cutter, sir. Sitting right there. I’ll cut large sheets myself, and ready them for you.”
“Just so you can walk the cash out of town. That’s the trouble with you travelers. You think you can come in and skim the cash from good folks here and catch the next train out with a pocketful.”
Charles had heard that before. “You own this job shop, sir?”
“Nope. I run it, but the Statesman owns it.”
“Is there another job shop here?”
“I leave that to you to discover, my good man. Now, if we’re done?”
Charles plunged outside, into an icy wind, the sort of wind that withered and killed anything fragile. Boise, a bustling, prosperous town, didn’t know the troupe was about to open, stay a week, and generate marvels, laughs, musical delights, and amazing feats of dexterity. If there were any playbills up, Charles had not seen them, but some tickets had sold even so.
He hurried back to the Overland, against the arctic wind, and hunted down August, who was in his room with the cashbox, filling brown pay envelopes.
Tersely, Charles outlined the events of the past hour, sparing his colleague nothing. August stared at his pay envelopes, at the declining stack of greenbacks in the cashbox, and nodded. The show was in peril again.
“And Pincart wants the balance in advance,” Charles added.
“Anything left?”
“The Evening Mail, we might persuade to print flyers. Or some sort of extra edition. If it’s not too late.”
August seemed almost to fold up. “I suppose we could just tell them what we’re up against and see what happens,” he said. “We could bring some acts with us. They’ve got stories. A good reporter could make something of them. Maybe we could give the weekly a scoop—if they’d go for it. But we’re down to the wire, Charles.”
There weren’t many of the troupe in the Overland Hotel that hour, but they found Wayne Windsor, Ethel Wildroot, and Art and Harry Grabowski. That would do.
The weekly, it turned out, was near the capitol, and survived largely by publishing legals, the endless public notices that emanated from a seat of government. Its editorial content was sober, with business stories dominating. It seemed the last place for a special edition about a vaudeville troupe. But who could say?
Its owner, Harvey Pelican, greeted the visitors cordially. Considering that he published a weekly loaded with legal notices, he seemed almost jovial. Nothing so exotic as a vaudeville troupe had ever penetrated his sanctum sanctorum.
“If you’ve time, sir, I’d simply like to tell you our story, and our dilemma,” Charles said.
“Have a cup of cold mean java, there, and spill the beans, Mr. Pomerantz,” the owner said. He plainly wished to be diverted. And that’s how it went, the next hour. They diverted him. They told him their tale of woe. And asked for help.
“You tickle my funny bone,” Pelican said. “Let’s whip up a few and see how it goes.”
44
THE WESTERN Union boy found Ginger in the lobby of the Overland Hotel, and handed her a yellow envelope. A telegram? Who could be sending it? She pulled it open and found the message printed in block capitals: MAZEPPA JONES DEAD OVERDOSE TODAY PARKINSON.
She could not fathom it. Her mother? Dead? Overdose? Suicide? The reporter had swiftly sent word. And probably had another sensational story. She read and reread it, trying to unlock its terse message, more and more shaken. Her mother did have laudanum and used it frequently for whatever ailed her. And it was dangerous. But overdose?
Her mother? Had Ginger’s flight from her family anything to do with it? Of course, of course. Disobedient daughter, mother gives up living. Her mother’s revenge. You failed me, so I will give up my one, my only life. You are what I lived for, and now I have nothing, except the blue laudanum bottle and a teaspoon. A flood of something unfathomable flowed through Ginger. She could not say what. Her mother was hanging a crown of thorns upon her, and she felt the thorns cut into her heart.
She felt no rush of sorrow or loss; that was impossible. Maybe sometime, a few years away, she might. She didn’t feel weighted; quite the opposite. Her spirit seemed to float free. No longer was her mother trying to work her will upon her daughter without the slightest thought of what Penelope might want from life.
And yet, somehow, Ginger felt sadness steal through her. There was love, too. She suddenly understood how starved Mazeppa was for attention, how hollow was her mother’s passage through the days and years, and how desperate her mother had been to find a reason to live, finally settling on shaping her daughter.
Then Ginger couldn’t think at all, and sat numbly, the yellow telegram in hand, her mind a jumble of conflicting feelings. She did not know the passage of time, only that she was paralyzed, in the hotel, and that was how Charles found her some while later.
“Where’ve you been, Ginger?” he asked.
She handed him the yellow sheet. He glanced at it.
“Oh, Ginger,” he said. “Oh my God.”
She nodded.
“Let me take you back to the room,” he said.
She let him lift her out of her chair, and let him guide her down the dark hallway, let him unlock the door, let him guide her in, let him guide her to the bed and ease her down upon it, she looking upward at her husband.
He shut the door, and sat beside her.
“You don’t have to make any decisions,” he said, which puzzled her.
But then it grew upon her that there were decisions that needed to be made. Whether to sing that opening eve. Whether to go back to Pocatello, the funeral, her father. But she could not make them. She felt small and helpless, and just wanted to lie quietly, without decisions.
But he made one for her, then and there.
“You won’t want to sing at this time,” he said.
She wasn’t so sure of that. She thought she might, she might sing a canary song, a bright song, a song of her own. But his decision had foreclosed that.
“I’ll talk to August,” he said. “Change the show around. This would be a good night to do it. Small crowd.”
“Small crowd?”
“Yeah, a lot of trouble. The bills didn’t go up; no one knows we’re here. But tomorrow we’ll have flyers to hand out, and maybe make some money.”
She understood none of it.
He vanished. She stared at the ceiling. Oddly, she could barely remember her mother, or anything about her. She could draw her father’s image into her thoughts, but not her mother’s. She liked her father; she was not afraid of him. But mostly, she just lay quietly, uncertain, uncomfortable with any thought or plan.
When Charles did return some while later, he handed her a train ticket. “There’s an eastbound express at seven, gets you to Pocatello before dawn. Lousy schedule, but that’s all I could do. You’ll have a room at the Bannock Hotel there for as many nights as you need. I can’t go with you. There’s trouble here, so you’ll be alone. But I know you’ll be all right, and secure, and doing what needs doing.”
“I don’t know what needs doing.”
“You’ll want to be at your father’s side, for your sake, for his. And to quiet the newspaper, which is likely to make much of this. Be thinking of what you’ll say to that reporter, Parkinson.”
“What to say?”
“He will want to know if your mother, ah, abandoned life because of you. Your departure.”
“I think I should stay here. I have nothing left in Pocatello.”
“You have ghosts, and they need to be laid to rest, Ginger. Memories…”
“But I’ll miss the show. Several shows.”
“Yes, and the shows will miss you.”
�
��But Charles…,” she said, knowing she would go. Knowing it was something she had to do.
“You’ll regret not going, and always be grateful you put your mother to rest,” he said.
She wasn’t so sure of it. He could not know what her mother was like.
The talk ended that way, she uneasy, he firm. But she welcomed his firmness. It was as if he was, momentarily, more father than lover.
She whiled away the afternoon, packed a small valise, grew fretful when the performers headed for the Columbia Theater and she was not among them. But then Charles escorted her to the Union Pacific station, and waited with her until the eastbound local huffed in, sending up clouds of steam in the chill air.
“You have everything? Money?”
She nodded, and he escorted her to the coach, gave her a squeeze, and helped her up the stool, and onto the steel step of the coach. And then he was gone. He didn’t linger. He didn’t wait on the platform while she settled in a seat, but was gone, and it reminded her that something was amiss, and he was trying to deal with it.
The train lurched eastward, its whistle mournful in the inky dark. Beyond the lights of the city lay nothing at all, and nothing but night lay beyond the windows. The coach was mostly empty, the passengers mostly male, and all were keeping to themselves. The coach exuded an odor, and she wondered what it might be, whether a leaking water closet, or ancient sweat, or scratchy wet wool, but most of all the odor was despair. It was the train to nowhere.
She sat quietly through the night, occasionally passing a flash of light that signaled something, perhaps a town. But mostly she was tunneling toward the unknown. When at last the weary conductor announced Pocatello, she collected her wits, pulled her satchel off the rack, and waited for the train to squeal to a halt. Then she stepped into a cold night. There were no hacks. She waited for someone, anyone, and found no one. The two others who left the train vanished.
Well, this was her hometown. The bag was heavy, so she left it on a luggage shelf. She would send someone from the hotel for it. And then she walked toward the Bannock Hotel, through the wee hours, a time so devoid of life that not even footpads would be about. When at last she turned into the hotel, its entry barely lit, she found no clerk, nor did ringing a counter bell bring one.
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