Anything Goes

by Richard S. Wheeler

  But a while later, she didn’t know how long, a skinny man appeared, apologized, put her in her room, and volunteered to go for the bag himself after she had signed in as Mrs. Charles Pomerantz.

  “Never see anyone at this hour,” he said.

  “Here’s a dollar,” she said.

  “Holy cats,” he said, fingering the bill as if it were a thousand-dollar note.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was knocking on her door with the bag, looking like he wanted to come in and see where the waning night might lead.

  “My mother died,” she said, and closed the door.

  She lay inert, dressed, on the bed until midmorning, when a thunderous thumping on the door galvanized her. She rose, slowly, feeling unwashed, knowing who it would be. Parkinson, the reporter, who regularly read hotel registers.

  “Please wait,” she said, and without listening for a reply from the other side of the flimsy door, she found a washbasin and pitcher, poured water into the basin, and wiped away the travel from her face with the cool water.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Parkinson said.

  She took her time, all the while wondering what he might ask, and how it might hurt her, or how it might inflame Pocatello. When she felt more presentable, she opened, but did not invite him in.

  “Saw you were here,” he said, doffing a fedora. “Ask some questions?”

  “Thank you for wiring me,” she said.

  “Yeah, and that’s the story. You came back to bury her. How come, given the little spat or two? And escaping from her upstairs window?”

  “I came to bury my mother.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “I think that is my business. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll try to nap.”

  She started to close the door, but found his foot blocking her. “Not so fast, sweetheart. Now, here you are, even before your old man’s set the funeral day. You regret ditching your old lady?”

  “They sent me,” she said, and regretted it.

  “Who’s they? The Follies? They want to keep their nose clean, right?”

  “I came because it was the thing to do, and now please remove your foot. I need rest.”

  “Naw, my foot in the door’s gotten me more stories than my pencil in hand.”

  “Then your foot will feel what comes next,” she said, and swung the door hard. He yanked his fancy shoe away in the nick, and the door clattered shut.

  “That’s how you treat the man who wired you?” he asked in the hallway.

  “I will talk to you after the funeral,” she said.

  He tried a few more gambits, and finally left, and she was back on her bed, engulfed in the silence of the morning, and an odd sense of loss for her mother. She understood her mother at last, and the understanding freed her. For Mazeppa Jones, marriage had been a prison.

  But she was allowed no rest. When she opened to the next knock, an hour later, she discovered her father, in black, solemn, his gaze gentle. She hesitated.

  “May I?” he asked.

  She nodded. He stopped in, eyeing her quietly. “The reporter, causing trouble,” he said, trumping her question. “I’m grateful you came.”

  He saw her weariness. “If you’d like, I’d like to take you out. I have a club, and we can dine quietly, away from prying eyes.”

  She nodded. “Let me freshen,” she said.

  He met her in the lobby, and he walked briskly toward the river, and a brick building there he said was the Bannock Club. In short order, he was seating her in an obscure corner. They were left to themselves, the dinner courses arriving.

  “I’ll tell you about it, if you want. If not, I’ll just have a quiet meal, and be on my way.”

  She nodded.

  “Mazeppa always had dreams for you,” he said. “I never paid heed until you left us, and never really understood. I think I do now. I didn’t understand, and went along with it, paid the bills, thought we were simply giving you the best that we could give a gifted daughter. I missed the other. Until your barefoot escape…”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I make no apologies,” he said. “Not for me, not for her. No matter how you add it up, you had a privileged upbringing.”

  “But it wasn’t me,” she said. “I didn’t count.”

  He quieted, dabbled with his potatoes, and stared.

  “Let bygones be bygones,” he said. “I need you. The house is empty. I’d like you to stay on, live as you choose. I will make sure you have everything. I’d be pleased if you resumed your life as a concert performer, but wouldn’t insist on it.”

  Oddly, the arrangement tempted her. The person who had tormented her, driven her to flight, was gone. Her father, well, she could manage life in the same house with him.

  But the yearning for that vanished.

  “I … I’m afraid not,” she said. “I love my husband, I love the stage. I’ll catch the next train to Boise. But thanks.”

  He grinned unexpectedly. “Now I’ll have to deal with that rascal reporter,” he said.

  45

  THE BOISE opening went badly. The cavernous Columbia Theater was mostly empty, as bad an omen as there was. August peered out upon row after row of blank seats, each a rebuke to his company. Out there in the darkness a couple hundred people were scattered about, many of them in cheaper balcony seats. The hollow theater subdued them as much as it subdued the performers.

  August was used to bad shows, but somehow this one abraded him. His ceremonial posture was too jaunty. His apology for not offering the star of the show, Ginger, was too forced. His easy humor, intended to put the people out there in a good mood, fled him.

  “And now, ladies and gents, the one, the only Laverne Wildroot,” he said, and she bounced out to the limelight in the middle of silence. And trilled her songs in a vacuum.

  “And now, ladies and gents, the masters of acrobatics, The Grab Bag,” he said, but the act fell flat. Harry, out of what should have been the audience, was off. Had he bulled his way onstage from a packed house, it would have been comic. Instead, it seemed like a ritualized rehearsal. But they tried. August gave them credit for that. They careened about like demented gladiators.

  Wayne Windsor’s monologue fell flat. He tried several tacks, trying to pick up a thread that would delight those scattered people, and he couldn’t. They didn’t chuckle. They didn’t appreciate. And they didn’t clap.

  Harry the Juggler performed flawlessly, and no one noticed. The Marbury Trio tapped and two-stepped as elegantly as ever, and the tapping sounded like hail on the window, and the audience stared. The Genius gave it a try, insulting Boise, insulting the audience, insulting Idaho, insulting men, women, and children and dogs, and no one howled.

  At the intermission some of the audience vanished, leaving even fewer to enjoy the second set. From the wings, the company watched inertly, knowing they were witnessing something as bleak as they had ever seen onstage. Ethel Wildroot stood there, shaking her head. LaVerne Wildroot looked to be ready to weep.

  August himself was about ready to weep, too, with cash receipts for the show running about two hundred dollars, and bills piling up by the hour. He watched the critic from the Statesman clamp his felt hat over his slicked hair, and slouch his way toward the exit. No telling what would be in the paper, if anything. The ultimate thumbs-down was to say nothing at all.

  The show seemed to end with a whimper, and after a scattered clap or two, the remaining patrons wound their scarves around their necks and vanished. The theater was large, quiet, and empty.

  August noted a fair-haired man in a topcoat working his way through the performers, who were standing mute in the wings, reluctant to call it quits.

  “Where may I find LaVerne Wildroot?” he asked, politely.

  The Genius jerked a thumb in her direction, and the local gent headed her way, hat in hand, and introduced himself as Stanford Sebring. It was easy to see he wasn’t poor.

  “Miss Wildroot, I just had to come back here to tell you how
enchanted I was, and how much I liked the opening song,” he said.

  A stage-door Johnny. That was the last thing August anticipated on a night like this, when there were no stars in the sky.

  “Why, I’m so glad,” she said. “You came all the way back here to say that? My goodness. You’ve surprised me.”

  “It took some doing,” Sebring said. “I thought, if I don’t try, she’ll never know. So I found an unlocked door. In fact, I think you are the finest songstress I’ve ever heard.”

  August had never seen a stage-door Johnny flatter the cast after a debacle like tonight’s. But that was fine. If there were stage-door Johnnies around, all wasn’t lost. LaVerne was swiftly turning into a coquette, and August heard her say she’d like to get into street clothes, and yes, she’d love to do a turn with him, and yes, wait in the Green Room.

  It gave August odd solace. It was still show business, even in Boise, in the worst opening in recent memory. He glanced bleakly at Charles, who was holding a strongbox with the night’s take, which was going to be pathetic.

  “Bad, right?”

  “Worst ever,” Charles said.

  “Well, maybe we can make it up when we get out to Seattle.”

  “August, I wired them days ago, and haven’t heard a word.”

  “Carelessness. It’s December, and people have other things in mind.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Charles said.

  August didn’t like the sound of that. But there were pressing things, such as paying bills, keeping the theater open, and in a couple of days, another round of payroll for the acts.

  They repaired to an alcove off the Green Room and counted the take, which came to a hundred ninety dollars and change. Pincart wanted two hundred just to keep the doors open for the remaining performances.

  “Guess we’d better shovel it all his way. We can add the rest. If you have it,” Charles said.

  “I was keeping it for the flyers.”

  “Better tell the acts they’ll be out pushing flyers all day tomorrow.”

  Harvey Pelican over at the weekly would do a thousand flyers, gussied up with a few stories about the acts. He thought it would be fun, and a way to needle the daily. But the flyers wouldn’t be ready until morning. And then August intended to push them into every store and restaurant and bar, hand them to people on the street, drop them into government offices, leave them on counters in stores, tacked to electrical poles, stuffed into mailboxes, and pushed under doors. He would have his entire ensemble at it, including the hands, the musicians, the acts, and Charles and himself. One way or another, Boise would be given the message: The Beausoleil Brothers Follies was in town, at the Columbia, and tickets were going fast. See Ginger! See Wayne Windsor! See the Marbury Trio! Laugh with The Grab Bag. Enjoy The Genius and Ethel. Get your seats fast at Rubachek’s Pharmacy, open all day, every day.

  “What was the takeout?” Windsor asked.

  “Under two hundred.”

  “And how long can this keep up?”

  “About another hour,” Charles said. “Or maybe a half hour.”

  “Never fear. LaVerne’s new Johnny will fork over. He’s not wearing cheap rags.”

  August had entertained fantasies like that in years gone by, and had never seen one materialize. Maybe someone would like to own a piece of a vaudeville company.

  “I should have been a barber,” Windsor said. “You get to talk to the guy while you’re shaving him and he can’t talk back, and if he does, you nick him. He’s in the chair and he’s gotta listen. I’d like that. Captive audience every time, and if he whines he bleeds. And barbers have a regular income.”

  August didn’t contradict him.

  “I live high, never worry about the future. There’s no point in show business if you don’t live life to the hilt,” Windsor said.

  “Then you’ll do better on the big-time stages.”

  “Hey, August, here I’m top banana.”

  August made some notations in a pocket ledger, and closed his cashbox.

  “Hey, what are you going to do with that?” Windsor said.

  “Add eight dollars of my own, making it two hundred, and then I’ll give it all to Pincart. He wants cash in advance to keep the doors open the next four performances. Fifty a day.”

  “Out of our paychecks, right?”

  “We have to fill a lot of seats starting tomorrow.”

  “This company is sitting here without a dime?”

  “And a stack of bills. Like the hotel. Maybe that’ll inspire you to get the flyers out tomorrow.”

  “Nah, it’ll inspire me to wire my agent about work.”

  “I’ve had the same idea,” August said. “If we make it to the coast, we’ll be okay. But that’s a ways off. I don’t know who’d employ me.”

  “Is this secret?”

  “Anyone who has eyes can see it. No, it’s not.”

  August left the rent money in the manager’s strongbox, and headed into a bitter night. The acts had been alerted. Show up at ten for duty on the streets. The show needed a jolt, and fast, and flyers were the only route open. There had been very little grumbling. Anyone who had looked out upon all those vacant seats, each with its bleak message, knew something needed to be done. He’d send men into women’s stores, and the show girls into men’s stores, and see what that did for sales.

  He debated whether to spend something on a nightcap, and decided against it. His early life had taught him a few things. Just now he was wondering whether that would be his fate once again. But not if he could help it, and he thought he could.

  In the hotel lobby he ran into Charles, who was bundled up for a cold walk.

  “I got a wire from Ginger’s old man. She’s on the westbound ninety-seven, due here in a few minutes. Want to come?”

  “He wired you? Did he wire you about canceling that suit?”

  Charles stuffed the yellow sheet into August’s hands. It was terse.

  “I’ll come along,” August said. “Maybe she’ll have full pockets.”

  They braved the whipping air that scoured warmth from Boise along with smoke from a lot of chimneys. They walked grimly, straight into the wind, and that’s how life was in Boise, so far. The station was cold, but a relief from the wind. The ticket window was shut. Anyone boarding here would need to buy passage from the conductor.

  But the express train did roll in on time, and first off was Ginger, carrying her satchel, and glad to be welcomed. Charles pecked her cheek and grabbed her bag. There was no hack in sight, and August was glad of it. A dime saved was a dime to eat with.

  “So, what happened? Did you bury your mother?”

  “No, but I did go to a private visitation with my father. I said good-bye, and he put me on the train again.”

  “You contacted your father?”

  “That reporter was busy. He’s still looking for stories, like a runaway singer who scorns her mother’s funeral. He told my father I’d arrived, and my father came to me, and we met privately.”

  “What happened, if I may ask?”

  “He asked me to stay on, take my mother’s place in the house, and resume a concert career.”

  “And?”

  “I told him I loved my husband and I loved show business. He accepted it, and that was all. He upgraded my ticket; I came back in a palace car.”

  “Did he talk about the lawsuit? Like dropping it?”

  “We talked about honoring my mother.”

  The wind blew them back to the hotel, a gale gently pushing at their backs.

  “Tomorrow, Ginger, we have work for everyone in the show, handing out flyers. But Charles will tell you about it.”

  She nodded. August left them there, in the lobby, and headed into the night once again. He had one more mission, which was to drop in at the Statesman and see what sort of review the critic had penned. You never knew. Dour critics, sitting three rows back, sometimes wrote fine reviews. Other times, the affable critic, looking plumb happy, would bu
tcher the show. Most reviews were mixed. That was all right. It was vaudeville, variety, and no one had to like every act.

  The paper was easy to get to, in the shadow of the capitol. He entered a well-lit pressroom, found a live body, reading proof, introduced himself, and asked to see the review, if any.

  The gent, in a stained vest, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a green-billed visor, nodded, pulled off galley proofs from the spike until he found what he was looking for.

  “Dull,” was the tagline.

  “The Beausoleil Follies opened last eve to a sparse, cold, and bored crowd, a condition that didn’t change an iota the entire evening, except the audience diminished as the evening crept onward.”

  There was more of that, and a concluding line. “Keep the cash in Boise, and spend it locally,” it said.

  Beausoleil read it carefully and handed it back.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Glad to be of service,” the proofreader replied.

  46

  THE TELEGRAM, this time from Chicago, made Charles Pomerantz’s knees go rubbery. It was from an acquaintance named Martin Beck, who was now employed by the Orpheum circuit on the West Coast. It announced that Orpheum had bought the Olympia Theater, the Puyallup Opera House, the Seattle Theater, the Tacoma Theater, and was negotiating the purchase of Reed’s Opera House in Salem, Parker Opera House in Eugene, the Marquam Grand Opera House in Portland, Cordray’s New Theater in Portland, and Park Theater in Portland. And bookings made by the previous owners would be canceled immediately. Circuit vaudeville on the coast would start in January.

  There went the tour.

  He should have guessed. Circuits were fast replacing individual vaudeville companies. Circuits put individual acts on tour forty weeks a year, moving from city to city, providing constant fresh entertainment along the circuits. The arrival of a rail network offering swift transport from town to town had made circuits possible. New shows, on the move.

  Charles stared at the offending yellow paper, feeling the clutch of despair grab his chest. Of those on Beck’s list, five had been booked by the Beausoleil Brothers Follies. Nothing in the telegram said anything about Northern California, but the Orpheum was already strong in San Francisco, and the outlook there was just as bleak.