Cover-Up Story

by Marian Babson

  I nodded. Stage Mother. I should have spotted it before, but there had been such confusion in the hasty arrival that I could excuse myself for not having picked up all the relationships.

  It was another problem to brood over, however. Perkins & Tate had never handled that sort of thing before. One of our friends had. He’d picked up a Stage Brat, complete with Stage Mother, about a year ago. His hair had been jet black then – we called him Tinsel Top these days.

  ‘And this one.’ She was still turning pages, and we weren’t halfway through the first scrapbook yet. There were three of them, and a smaller one at the bottom of the pile. If Sam didn’t collect me soon, I wasn’t going to last out the afternoon.

  ‘What’s that one?’ I asked, more to divert her than because of any curiosity, pointing to the smallest scrapbook.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to see that one,’ she simpered, pulling it out before I could agree with her. ‘It’s just a little one that’s all my work.’

  She flipped it open. It was pasted up three columns to a page, with a picture of Lou-Ann heading each column, beside the caption: ‘SEE THE STARS – WITH LOU-ANN MARS.’

  ‘I been doing this four years now,’ she said. ‘It’s syndicated in six fan magazines. ’Course, I make out like it’s written by Lou-Ann herself, but she’d never have time to do it. It’s all about the wonderful places she goes, and the famous people she meets, and how they’re just like you and me really. You’d be surprised all the fan mail she gets about it.’

  At this point, nothing would surprise me. ‘Mmmm-hmmm,’ I said, making the fatal mistake of actually reading a couple of sentences my eyes had carelessly rested upon. They were larded with the sickening cracker-barrel philosophy Americans specialize in, and lightened with alleged jokes that were older than Joe Miller. I turned a page hastily.

  ‘Matter of fact,’ Maw Cooney said, ‘I was working on our first column from London, England, when you came along.’ She reached for a heavily ruled pad and I knew that, if I didn’t get away, she was going to read me selected snippets – perhaps even the whole thing. I set the scrapbook down and began sidling towards the door. The hell with waiting for Sam – in a situation like this, it was every man for himself.

  ‘I wanted to ask you –’ she whirled, and her gimlet eyes halted my hand halfway to the doorknob – ‘how do you spell Olivier?’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘Sir Olivier. I thought it would be a nice touch in the column if I had Lou-Ann meet him and he kissed her hand and said what a wonderful actress she was.’

  Stunned by the mental picture, I spelled it automatically and this time succeeded in getting the door open.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded. ‘You haven’t seen the other scrapbooks yet. They’re full of ideas.’

  Happily, I had one myself just then. ‘I’m going to arrange for a photographer,’ I said, truthfully enough.

  ‘There now!’ she crowed with delight. ‘That’s more like it. I just knew seeing all about Lou-Ann would inspire you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I lied cravenly, and gained the corridor.

  ‘You run along now,’ she said. ‘And let me know when you want Lou-Ann. We always co-operate with the Press just as much as ever we can.’

  ‘Fine.’ I closed the door behind me, but didn’t bother looking around for Sam. I needed a drink and, in any case, I had the distinct feeling that he had forgotten me.

  Anyway, I consoled myself, it could have been worse. She could have wanted to know how many l’s in Philip.

  CHAPTER IV

  BACK AT THE OFFICE, there was no sign of Gerry, either. It was possible, of course, that he was with one of our other clients. Gerry always rang around first thing in the morning to count our chickens and find out if any hands needed holding during the day. He usually turned up a palm or two. At last count, we still had the dubious privilege of representing two ‘resting’ actors, one film producer on the run from the bailiffs, a company director with a burning urge to have every sneeze reported in The Financial Times, a radio actress currently appearing in an off-Broadway comedy in New York, and an Italian restaurant. At least we ate regularly.

  We might eat even better, if we managed to keep Sam happy. I looked around the office and paranoia set in – Sam was probably on his way here right now, and the place looked like a badly-appointed pigsty. I ought to try to clean it up.

  I removed a pair of Gerry’s dirty socks from the filing basket and another pair from the Pending tray, rolled them together and pitched them into his room. It was a start, but the place still looked fairly squalid.

  Emptying the ashtrays helped, but not enough. I was collecting cups and saucers from the windowsill when Penny came in. She smiled at me, glanced around the room, and got the picture immediately. ‘Having a tidy-up, are we?’ she said.

  ‘We may be having visitors any minute. Lend a hand, will you?’ The request was unnecessary, she had already picked up the filing basket and headed for the files.

  ‘New client?’ she asked hopefully. She was always cheering for us.

  ‘Road Manager for Black Bart and his Troupe,’ I said.

  ‘Oooh, good!’ She finished the filing, pulled a duster out of the bottom drawer and began running it over the furniture.

  She was a lovely kid. Just turned fifteen, she had left school last term and was currently serving time at a secretarial college in the mornings. She came to us afternoons and Saturday mornings, practised her shorthand and typing, made our tea, did the charring and any other odd jobs that came up – and seemed happy about the whole thing.

  In return, we paid her six pounds a week, and let her bask in the glamour of it all. It was too bad that, inevitably, some busybody would explain to her about money, and we would lose her.

  Meanwhile, the place was looking better already. ‘Good girl,’ I said, rather as though she were a bright puppy. ‘Good girl.’ She was more like a kitten, though, all fluffy hair and enormous eyes, overbalancing on long spindly legs. She’d be a beauty in a few years, but we wouldn’t see it – unless she took it into her head to come back and see if we were still keeping out of bankruptcy court. Or perhaps – I tried to look on the bright side – perhaps our luck would change, and we would be able to afford to give her a rise and take her on full time when she finished college.

  ‘I heard the record – “Homesteader”,’ she said. ‘It was on the radio yesterday. I’m going to get the record for myself on Saturday. It’s wonderful. Is – will –’ The words were tumbling over each other. She stopped and tried again.

  ‘Do you think Black Bart would autograph the record for me? He will be coming in here some day, won’t he? Do you think I could meet him?’

  ‘Why not?’ Another instalment of the glamour of it all. Something to tell her friends about. I hoped Bart wouldn’t disillusion her too badly. He seemed to be canny enough to wait until the Press got out of the way before throwing any scenes. If I could slip Penny in with a Press party and get her out again before Black Bart reverted to type, she ought to be able to have her little thrill and keep her illusions intact. ‘We’ll see what we can arrange,’ I promised.

  ‘Wonderful! Oh, thank you!’ I might have promised her the Taj Mahal by moonlight. She went back to her typing with renewed enthusiasm.

  I took the seat behind the desk and started to look busy, prepared for Sam to walk in and discover us both hard at work.

  It was a good pose and, when I looked at my watch after actually finishing off what work there was, I discovered that I had held it for over an hour. Sam had had plenty of time to get here, even if he had walked. Americans, however, take taxis if the distance is farther than twenty yards. He should have been here long ago.

  That uneasy feeling was creeping over me again. I reached for the telephone and tried the hotel.

  I got through to Sam directly. ‘Where the hell have you been? I thought you were coming here, after I missed you at the theatre. I want to see
you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Doug, I’m sorry. I tell you, I was coming over there, but I got sidetracked. Couple of other things came up. You know how it is.’

  ‘Well, are you coming over now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Doug. I’d love to, but it just isn’t possible right now. Too many things to attend to. You know how it is.’

  I didn’t, but I was beginning to find out. ‘Perhaps I could come over there. We ought to have a talk, you know, before I can do much more about the Press before the opening.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that, Doug. Sorry, you’ll have to play it by ear. I’ll tell you, I’m not going to be at the hotel this evening.’ His voice had a shifty note in it. If we were face to face, I had the feeling that he would refuse to meet my eyes.

  ‘It’s kind of awkward right now. You know how it is when you get to a strange city, and I’ve got all these people to look after. Honest, Doug, I don’t have a spare minute today.’

  I hung up thoughtfully. One thing had become quite clear in the course of the conversation. I should have been relieved. Instead, I found that it only added to my uneasiness.

  Far from watching me, Little Brother was actively avoiding me.

  Just in case no one else was covering the Opening, Gerry borrowed a flash camera. On the way to the theatre, we picked up Penny, festooning her with bags of spare flashbulbs and plates, so that she’d look useful and, possibly, even like a member of the Press.

  We pushed our way through what looked like a crowd of hired extras (perhaps Sam had pulled himself together enough to give Perkins & Tate an object lesson in publicity) in the foyer and went backstage. It was about as hectic as I’d thought it would be, and no one was paying any attention to us.

  I tucked Penny away in a corner of the wings, where she’d have a good view of the show, left Gerry beside her with instructions to keep the flashbulbs popping throughout the performance, and went round to the dressing-rooms to see if the troops needed cheering.

  It was strictly a one-stop journey. I’d noticed before that the Cousins believed in communal living. This time they were spread out all over the corridor outside Black Bart’s dressing-room. His door was open and I could see Crystal and Lou-Ann inside. Maw Cooney knelt at Lou-Ann’s feet, sewing an extra bright red patch to the seat of her skirt. Behind her back, Cousin Ezra pantomimed a hearty kick at her rear. Charming. And typical. I was glad I’d left Penny in the wings.

  ‘I thought I’d drop by and say “Good luck”,’ I said.

  ‘That’s mighty neighbourly of you.’ As usual, Uncle No’ccount was the only one who bothered with the little niceties of life. The others looked at me with mild curiosity and some distaste, as though I might have crawled out from under some log best left undisturbed.

  Then Cousin Ezra seemed to decide that he ought to be cordial, too. ‘Howdy, Doug Boy,’ he held out his hand.

  Like a fool, I took it. A jolt of lightning bit into my palm and travelled up my arm, to the accompaniment of a buzzing noise.

  ‘Haw! Haw! Sure enough got you that time!’ Cousin Ezra fell about. The others snickered merrily.

  ‘That Ezra – he’s a one!’ Maw Cooney said, twisting round to smirk up at me. ‘You got to watch him every minute. He’s a real practical joker.’

  I rubbed my aching palm. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Where the hell’s Sam?’ Black Bart was not amused and called us to order. ‘He oughta be here. And what the hell are you doing?’ He had whirled on the unfortunate Cousin Zeke.

  ‘Nothin’, Bart, nothin’ at all.’ Cousin Zeke had been gulping a handful of pills. He put his hand behind his back.

  ‘You better be doin’ nothing. Just you let me catch you doin’ something, and there’s gonna be trouble like you never seen before.’ He turned away abruptly.

  Cousin Zeke snaked his hand back to his mouth and gulped a few more pills. I reflected that my doctor was reputable and a shrewd psychologist – the pills were probably nothing but placebos. At the rate Cousin Zeke was downing them, even aspirin would be dangerous. No wonder Bart had confiscated his pills, if this was the way Cousin Zeke took them.

  ‘You make a better door than window.’ Bart shouldered past me. ‘If you ain’t got nothing better to do than stand there gawping, why don’t you go away?’

  ‘Good idea.’ I mentally withdrew any good wishes I had extended towards him. ‘I’ll go out front and watch the show. I haven’t seen it yet.’

  ‘I’ll come along,’ Uncle No’ccount fell into step beside me. ‘I oughta be getting onstage. I open the show, you see.’

  I saw. It fitted in with the rest of the picture. Any nasty job, anything hard, tricky, any spot where a person might fall on his face – went to anybody in the Troupe except Bart. The Client wanted his path made straight for him, and he got it. I wondered fleetingly if they were all in such desperate need of money that they had to put up with that kind of treatment.

  To my surprise, they had the beginnings of a good show, even before Bart made his appearance. The curtains parted on a vaguely Western set, suggesting a barn, corral and watering trough. Uncle No’ccount was leaning against the corral fence, oblivious of the audience, softly playing the harmonica to himself. For a moment, all you got was the feeling: the isolation, the longing, the haunting distant something. Then I recognized the melody, it was the old Spiritual ‘Lonesome Valley’, but Uncle No’ccount’s harmonica gave it an extra dimension.

  I noticed the telltale flash from one side of the stage and winced inwardly. Gerry was taking his directions too literally. The Client wasn’t going to be happy about flashbulbs being wasted on anyone but himself.

  Thoughtfully, Uncle No’ccount wiped the harmonica on the seat of his trousers, ignoring the applause, and looked off into the distance. He could have taken an encore, but he didn’t. I wondered when that battle had been lost and won.

  Then the Cousins tumbled onstage, rowdy and rollicking, breaking the mood, but not quite setting up a mood of their own to replace it. Their routine leaned heavily on the ‘We-uns is jes’ plain folks’ routine – in fact, they said it several times. The ‘Jes’ Plain Folks’ attitude is the American equivalent of the British ‘Working Class and Proud of it’. In both cases, it means that they expect you to despise them, so they’re going to take the offensive by despising you first. It comes off better on the stage than face-to-face.

  Things improved when the Cousins began to sing. Their voices were raucous, but adequate. They did better on instrumentals, but then, their orchestrations were very good. I wondered how much it had cost Sam and Nate.

  Then it was Lou-Ann’s turn. The way she stumbled across the stage and took her first pratfall did get a laugh. There was the sheet-lightning effect of flashbulbs off in the wings again – at least it would keep Maw Cooney happy, even if The Client went wild.

  Helped too vigorously to her feet by Cousin Zeke, she fell off into the wings, then bounced back for another pratfall. The laughs kept coming, but she worked too hard for them, they cost too much. And she violated the cardinal rule of comedy : Never cross your eyes more than three times in any one minute.

  The dialogue took a turn for the worse.

  ‘I know a sad song, and a sad story to go with it. A sad, true story,’ Lou-Ann said. ‘Y’all wanna hear it, don’t you?’

  There was a frozen silence, then an embarrassed sprinkling of applause from the audience at thus being appealed to directly. Perhaps we’re growing into a nation of voyeurs, thanks to films and television, but audiences prefer to think that they’re invisible from the stage. It jars them to find that those strange characters acting out a charade for their amusement can actually see them, too. Nothing is more inconvenient than a one-way street when you find traffic coming the other way.

  ‘There now, I jes’ knew you were all my friends!’ She spoiled the effect by turning and sticking her tongue out at the Cousins.

  ‘Well, now, this here is a song written by a young fella back near the turn of the century. Hi
m and his gal had been apart for a long while, but he was happy now because she was on a train comin’ to marry him. An’ while he was waitin’ for the train to bring her to him, he wrote this song for her. But he didn’t know that she was never goin’ to hear it, ’cause even while he was writing it, the train had crashed and his sweetheart lay dying in the wreckage . . .’

  It was bathos, but the house had hushed. Lou-Ann threw back her head and began to sing in a clear, sweet voice.

  In the background, Cousin Homer took the bandana from Uncle No’ccount’s pocket, shook the teeth out of it and handed them back to Uncle No’ccount, and caricatured wiping his eyes on the bandana. The other Cousins began making those gestures toward Lou-Ann.

  There was a nasty, low-throated rumble from the audience. The Cousins looked startled.

  Then the spotlight blacked out for a moment, returning as a soft baby blue spot centred on Lou-Ann’s head and shoulders. You were only vaguely aware of the Cousins in the background, going through their accustomed gestures of derision.

  But the laughs had stopped coming, and it unnerved her. She kept singing, but her eyes shifted restlessly. It didn’t matter to her that the audience had been laughing at her and not with her. What mattered to her was the laughter, and that was gone. She wilted without it. Luckily, that didn’t do the song any harm. Without knowing it, she had accomplished something I’d be willing to bet she had never done before. She had the audience in the palm of her hand as she finished the number.

  She looked bewildered as the full spotlight came back to her and the applause broke loose. She bobbed a curtsy, swiftly, awkwardly, still glancing around like a wild, frightened thing. Then she dashed offstage.

  The amplifiers went on, the beat loud, solid, hypnotic, for Black Bart’s entrance.

  ‘Homesteader, Homesteader,