Cover-Up Story

by Marian Babson

  Nate had gone onwards and upwards with the almost-arts and was now climbing into the top executive class at one of the really important agencies. I had come back to England – it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  But she had married a Title with money attached, while I was still trying to get my feet under me. That set my feet properly loose, and I took off for the Continent. I met Gerry Tate while we were both doing a stint for Cinecittà in Rome. We decided that, since we could deal with the paparazzi, we ought to be able to manage Fleet Street, where the natives were at least friendly.

  Since he was one of the wrong Tates, it took a while to earn enough money to start out on our own. And that was where Nathan Marcowitz had come back into the picture. We had corresponded casually. I sent scrawled postcards from wherever I happened to be, and he sent back secretary-typed notes giving me the latest Trendex Ratings on his commercials. What the hell, it kept us in touch.

  The week after I’d broken down and written a real letter – I was younger then, by about a hundred years – outlining our plans for Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd, a cheque arrived. He wanted to buy in as a sleeping partner. Every smart young business exec should diversify. I thought he must be joking, but the cheque didn’t bounce, and we were in business.

  That was two years ago. So far, Perkins & Tate were still eating, but Marcowitz hadn’t had any return on his investment. Not only that, he’d had to kick in with a couple of thousand more dollars to settle an unavoidable overdraft. I’d been wondering for some time just when he was going to get tired of writing us off on his income tax return as a loss.

  Now, here was Brother Sam with Black Bart and the Troupe – a nice fat account dropped into our laps, with only a week’s advance warning by cable. This could be it. A big Stateside build-up behind the Client, with a guaranteed fee. Let’s see you muff this one. Little Brother is watching.

  I freshened my drink from his bottle. Hesitated, when I noticed his eye on my glass, then poured more in. That’s not the answer, Little Brother. If the firm goes bankrupt, it won’t be because Perkins & Tate are secret lushes. We don’t need a gift subscription to Alcoholics Anonymous, just an introduction to a good tough collection agency.

  ‘How did you get mixed up with this bunch?’ I really wanted to know. Perhaps it would give me the answers to a few other questions.

  ‘I don’t remember. Suddenly, everything went black and, when I came to, they told me I was their Road Manager.’

  ‘And this is the Road?’

  ‘This is the Pie in the Sky. The roads they were on before, they didn’t have to have a manager. Bart and the Troupe just played it by ear as they went along. They got paid off in black-eyed peas and ham hocks – or anything else they considered negotiable.’

  ‘But then they hit the Big Time.’

  ‘Yeah. Frankly, this is the problem.’ He became serious, leaning forward and giving me that straight, sincere look with which Ivy League graduates preface their shiftiest deals. I knew that whatever was coming next was going to be from the bottom of the deck.

  ‘They hit it before they were quite ready. So we thought we ought to groom them a bit before we give them the full treatment.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘They’ve signed a Television Contract. One of Nathan’s clients is going to sponsor them on a weekly half-hour, coast-to-coast, next season. But everybody agreed they could use a little more polish first.’

  ‘So they shipped them off to England, hoping some of our Olde Worlde culture would rub off on them?’

  ‘That’s right. Nathan and the Agency decided I ought to come along as Road Manager, since I knew something about Show Business to begin with. I guess you could say I’m really holding a watching brief.’ He smiled with sincere insincerity.

  So, Little Brother was watching all around. That much I believed. In fact, I believed all of it. So, why did I have the feeling that I’d just been dealt a hand full of jokers?

  Perhaps it was the way he was looking at me – or not looking at me. He met my eyes only occasionally, in that straightforward look, then his focus shifted abruptly, as though, having scored a point, it had better things to do. Mrs Marcowitz hadn’t brought her boys up to be good liars.

  I’d never forget the Thanksgiving Dinner I’d had at their home. Mrs Marcowitz had been carving the turkey (the old man hated the job) and we had all been talking. Sam and Nate had been reviewing one of the plays in the football game that afternoon. ‘And how about that dumb centre-forward?’ Nate had said. ‘Anybody who couldn’t have blocked that pass, Jesus –’ The flat side of the carving knife descended sharply across his knuckles. ‘We do not take the name of God in vain in this house,’ Mrs Marcowitz had said, and waited. ‘I’m sorry, Ma.’ Still, she waited. Nathan glanced around the table. ‘I’m sorry, everybody, I apologize.’ Satisfied then, Mrs Marcowitz had gone back to the carving. She had brought her sons up to be gentlemen, in the best tradition of the American Dream. She wasn’t to know they’d be taught a different dream at those schools she’d scrimped to send them to. They had worked out their own version of the American Dream now, but they were going to be slightly handicapped in achieving it – early training dies hard.

  ‘I was rather surprised you brought them over by ship,’ I said. ‘I thought air was the only way to travel these days. Time is money – and all that – especially while they’re still at the top of the Hit Parade.’

  ‘Yeah, well –’ Sam’s eyes danced off to survey the horizon – ‘I’ll tell you the truth.’ Another bad sign. ‘They’ve been working awfully hard lately. Series of one-night-stands from Nashville to Tuskaloosa and back again. We figured they were overtired. A nice sea voyage, six days on the ocean, give them a good rest and a chance to get themselves into shape to face new audiences over here.’

  Maybe – just maybe – managers, out of the kindness of their hearts, were sending artists on sea voyages at the height of their drawing power because they might be overtired.

  ‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘What does your mother think of this crew?’

  ‘Ma? She doesn’t know them. It’s nothing to do with her.’ Sam stood up, his eyes steely. ‘You’d better go and get those reservations changed for Lou-Ann, hadn’t you? There’ll be hell to pay if you don’t.’ He turned and walked out.

  So, now I knew. They weren’t the sort of people you brought home and introduced to Mother. Well, I’d mixed with some characters at Cinecittà that I’d be happy never to see again, let alone introduce to my mother. But, somehow, with the Marcowitzes, it meant something different.

  And there was one other little thing that bothered me about Sam these days – his hands. When I’d known him in the old days, he’d worn fingernails.

  I was very thoughtful as I made my way to the desk clerk. Handling Black Bart and the Troupe might be very good for the Perkins & Tate bank account, but I wondered if we might wind up crying all the way to the bank.

  I arranged for Lou-Ann and Maw Cooney to be transferred to a double room on the sixth floor. Which reminded me – there was one other member of the Troupe. A second guitarist with a stomach ache. I’d better get over to their hotel and check on whether it was just a memory of mal-de-mer, or whether he needed a nice National Health appendectomy. All part of the service.

  I dropped off the bus at Bloomsbury Square and cut through Russell Square. Behind an unprepossessing Edwardian front, the lobby was full of tourists queuing to cash travellers’ cheques, or to ask if there was any mail. I sidestepped them all and joined the crush waiting for the lift. I was able to push my way in on the second trip and, firmly pinioned between two blue-rinsed ladies, I heard far more than I ever wanted to know of the details of Susie’s operation. I broke free at the third floor, just as the surgeons were leaving a sponge inside, and walked up the remaining flight.

  The sound of the harmonica guided me down the hallway. A shoe-box at the end of the corridor had been allotted to Cousin Zeke, and that was where I found th
em all. It was quite a homely little scene.

  In the traditional manner of friends cheering the sick all over the world, the others were crowded into the room, going about their business, ignoring Cousin Zeke, who was lying there looking greyer by the minute – as well he might.

  Uncle No’ccount was leaning against the wall, whuffling softly into the harmonica. The plaint was unfamiliar, but melodious, perhaps some old American country ballad. His eyes were abstracted and he was paying no attention to the others.

  Cousin Homer was sitting on the edge of the bed, paring his toenails. Actually, I was rather relieved to see this – I gathered it meant he wouldn’t be doing it onstage. After witnessing Uncle No’ccount and the bit with the teeth, I wasn’t sure just how far they went. On the other hand, if they unbuttoned sufficiently, there was a sporting chance they might be taken up by the Sunday critics and become a rage with the intelligentsia.

  Cousin Ezra, sprawled in the room’s only armchair, was engrossed in a magazine. I was surprised to discover he could read but, looking closer, I saw that it was a girly book. That was more typical.

  They became aware of me suddenly. The harmonica died to a moan. Uncle No’ccount whipped it from his mouth and, for a moment, looked as though he were going to hide it behind his back. Cousin Ezra closed the magazine and sat on it. Cousin Homer wavered, but must have decided he was the only respectably engaged one of the lot. ‘Evenin’,’ he said, quite civilly for him.

  ‘Good evening,’ I said. ‘How’s the patient?’ Cousin Zeke opened his eyes, but the effort of focusing was too much, and he closed them again. I began to get worried. Seasickness wouldn’t have lasted this long. He should have had his land legs under him by this time.

  ‘He’s feeling a mite poorly, still,’ Uncle No’ccount said unnecessarily. He glanced at the closed door. ‘You come along by yourself, did you? Nobody waiting outside?’

  ‘I’m alone,’ I reassured them. ‘I thought I’d look in and see how you’re settling in, and find out whether there was anything I could do for you.’

  Cousin Ezra snorted, wriggled the magazine out from under his rump, and went back to memorizing the blonde on page 12.

  ‘Nice of you. Mighty neighbourly.’ Uncle No’ccount nodded amiably at me, and the harmonica crept back towards his mouth.

  ‘Mighta knowed it,’ Cousin Homer said. ‘Y’all didn’t think Bart was gonna come slumming just ’cause Zeke was sick, did you?’

  ‘Like to see him show up here.’ Cousin Ezra looked up balefully. ‘We’re on our own time. He comes shoving his nose into this hotel, I’ll tell him what he can do.’

  Oh, yes. The cat was away, and the mice were flourishing flick-knives and bragging to each other about how they were going to take him next time he appeared on the scene.

  ‘About Zeke.’ I tried to call the meeting to order. ‘Does he seem better or worse than he was on the ship? I mean, do you think he needs a doctor – or have you already sent for one?’

  They thought I was mad. It was in every expression. Even Zeke propped one eye open to regard me with a jaundiced look.

  ‘It will be safer to have a doctor check him,’ I persisted. ‘You’re booked for your first show day after tomorrow. You want him to appear, don’t you?’ A delicate thought occurred to me – I wasn’t sure how much they were paid, but I’d received the distinct impression that Black Bart wasn’t exactly the last of the Big Spenders. ‘You don’t have to worry about the money, you know. We have a National Health Service, it won’t cost you any –’

  I stopped short. They were laughing at me. Not loud honest laughter, but the half-audible snickers that told me I had run afoul of a long-standing situation I knew nothing about. It was in-joke laughter, and I was on the outside looking in. Perhaps they’d explain it, so that I could join in the laughter, and perhaps they wouldn’t. I waited.

  ‘Hell, boy! ’ Cousin Ezra exploded. ‘He ain’t that kind of sick.’ They burst into guffaws. ‘He’s sick, all right, just like he’s always been. But it’s all in his head. It’s all some kind of psycho – psyoho –’

  ‘Psychosomatic,’ Uncle No’ccount clarified. It wasn’t until later that I thought the word surprising on his lips. ‘That poor boy’s always like that – every time we travel. Seems his ma took him to a Conjure Woman when he was a-growing up, and that Conjure Woman, she told him he was gonna die away from home. So, every time he gets away from home, he’s like this for the first two-three days. It wasn’t so bad when we was starting out, but it’s been blue murder since we got famous and been doing those one-night stands all over the place. Some nights, he’s got up on that stage with so many pills inside him, we wasn’t never sure he could even stand up, never mind play music.’

  I looked at them suspiciously, but they were serious now. ‘You don’t mean it – no one believes in Conjure Women in this day and age!’ I was trying to convince myself, however. If anybody believed in that sort of thing, this little lot would.

  ‘We don’t know as he really believes it,’ Cousin Homer said, ‘but he just ain’t sure. He’ll be all right after two, three days, though. When he sees he’s still alive.’

  ‘Be all right now,’ a voice from the bed said weakly, ‘if I could just have my pills.’

  I looked at Uncle No’ccount, but he shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Bart threw his tranquillizers and sleeping pills overboard. Said he was sick and tired of all this foolishness. Kill him or cure him, Bart said, and he didn’t care which, but he’d had enough of this damn fool nonsense.’

  For the first time, I felt a fleeting sympathy with the Client. It couldn’t be easy trying to work with this bunch of morons, no wonder he had such a nasty temper. It wouldn’t do my own temper any good if I had to have much to do with them. But it was only for six weeks and, I reminded myself, Perkins & Tate needed the money.

  ‘Bart’d never’ve knowed –’ Cousin Zeke surfaced again, to glare accusingly at Uncle No’ccount – ‘if Maw Cooney hadn’t of snitched to him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cousin Ezra joined in venomously, ‘she never could mind her own business. Somebody oughta take a meat axe to that old bag.’

  ‘Trouble is –’ Cousin Homer seemed to be peacemaker – ‘she reckons Lou-Ann would take over that extra number if Zeke falls down on the job.’

  ‘She oughta –’

  ‘Easy, boys, easy.’ I decided I ought to try some peace-making myself. At the same time, it was all grist to the mill. The story of a Conjure Woman and a hexed musician was a colourful one – perhaps we could get some coverage out of it. Build up some suspense about whether Cousin Zeke could pull himself together enough to appear on opening nights. Would the show go on, in the Great Tradition – that sort of thing. Carefully, though, we’d have to lose the part about the pills going overboard. The idea of big, kindly, lonely Homesteader Bart destroying a sick man’s medicine wouldn’t do anything for his image.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do about getting some more tranquillizers,’ I promised. ‘And I ought to talk to Bart, too. Do any of you know where he is?’

  ‘Out on the town, way he always is when we hit a new place.’ Cousin Ezra’s mouth quirked slyly. ‘With Crystal.’

  ‘And Lou-Ann,’ Uncle No’ccount said, studying his harmonica.

  ‘And Maw Cooney,’ Cousin Homer added. He glanced obliquely at Uncle No’ccount.

  Once again, there was a private joke in the air. Even Cousin Zeke, who had given up trying to keep his eyes open, was lying back on the pillows with a knowing smirk on his face.

  Once more, I was on the outside looking in, trying to assess what the hell was going on. Uncle No’ccount and Maw Cooney? Why not? It took all tastes. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, if you didn’t mind the battleaxe variety.

  With a show of indifference, Uncle No’ccount began improvising on the tune he had been playing earlier. The Cousins were openly grinning now, watching me challengingly. Inviting me to ask more questions, to start the hare running. There was a lot they
could tell me that I ought to know, their attitudes implied.

  No doubt there was, but I had had a long hard day. Whatever the Facts of Life among this troupe, I could learn them some other day. And, preferably, from some other people.

  ‘Since there’s nothing more I can do for you, I’ll say good night now,’ I told them. If I’d been in the right mood, I might have found the looks of disappointment on their faces, as I closed the door behind me, comic.

  But I was in the wrong mood. I didn’t like any of it. The uneasiness I had felt all day was stronger than ever. Something very unpleasant was coming – and nothing could stop it.

  I was going to find out the Facts of Life, all right. But I wasn’t going to go looking for them. Not with the Cousins.

  They were the kind of nasty-minded little boys Mother had warned me never to go behind the barn with.

  CHAPTER III

  I WENT BACK to the office. Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd have a small office flat near the top in one of the buildings sloping down towards the river in Villiers Street. If Maw Cooney had ever seen it, she’d have thought her old room was the Grand Ballroom at Buckingham Palace by comparison.

  Gerry Tate was brooding at the window, fouling the atmosphere with one of the tiny cigars which were trying to fool the public that they were non-carcinogenic cigarettes. We had held that account for a month before the client decided one of the big advertising agencies could do a splashier job for him. We still had a crateful of the product under the desk. When we were desperate we smoked them, but we’d never again mention them by name. No publicity once the client has withdrawn the account. I saw five stubs in the ashtray. The situation must be serious – Gerry wasn’t even making a face as he inhaled.

  ‘Which account did we lose this time?’