Cover-Up Story

by Marian Babson

  ‘Sure do, Lou-Ann. I had exactly thirty-six.’

  ‘Thirty-six,’ Lou-Ann said thoughtfully. ‘Suppose you count them right now, and see how many you got there.’

  ‘Sure, Lou-Ann.’ She was calm, but Zeke’s hand was trembling slightly as he spilled the pills across the dressing table and pawed through them, counting aloud . . .

  ‘... twenty-eight ... twenty-nine ... thirty ...thirty-one ... thirty-two ...’ He ran his hand frantically over the dressing-table, searching for some that might have rolled out of sight. There were none, of course. He turned to face her slowly.

  ‘I make it thirty-two, Lou-Ann,’ he announced. ‘But I know there was thirty-six last time I had that bottle.’

  ‘I expect there were, Zeke,’ Lou-Ann said wearily. She looked at Bart and shrugged.

  Incredibly, I had to swallow hard against a rising bubble of laughter in my throat. She was lost, sad, forlorn. But she was also brilliantly, exquisitely funny.

  ‘What’re you tryin’ to say?’ Bart reverted to bluster. He glared from one to the other. ‘What kinda stupid put-up job is this?’

  His day was over. Nobody cringed. But there was nothing funny now.

  ‘I jest took one pill that night,’ Lou-Ann said. ‘So you must’ve given me the other four in that cocoa. Did you think that five would be enough? I expect it didn’t matter, did it?’ She sighed. ‘You still had plenty in that bottle – and nobody would’ve been so surprised next time it happened.’ She didn’t look at him. She never looked at him again.

  ‘Okay, Bart.’ Sam snapped into life. ‘Pack your things and get out of here. I don’t care where you go – just go. You are finished, boy. Don’t ever come near us or the Agency again.’

  ‘You can’t believe her,’ Bart protested. ‘She’s jealous, that’s all. She’s so crazy mad, she reckons if she can’t have me, then –’

  ‘Do you think you could convince the police of that?’ I asked.

  ‘You, boy!’ He turned on me, lowering his head like a bull about to charge. ‘You’ve had it in for me from the beginning. And I ain’t so hot on you, neither.’ He was maddened with fury and terror. Somehow, he had decided that I was responsible for everything that had gone wrong for him since he had landed in this country.

  ‘You and me, boy –’ he all but pawed the ground – ‘are gonna have it out right now. He rushed at me in a demented charge.

  He’d never heard of the Marquess of Queensberry. Or, if he had, he thought such stupid Rules only applied to the sissified English, and not to red-blooded jest plain folks.

  His charge slammed me against the farther wall. He kidney-punched me with one hand and gouged for my eyes with the other.

  I said goodbye to the Marquess myself and brought my knee up. We were too close for it to do much damage, but he released me briefly and I tried to get away. I had no illusions about my chances in a prolonged stand-up fight with Bart.

  ‘You wanna fight dirty, boy – okay!’ He leaped at me again. I heard the window-pane crack as my head slammed against it.

  I was fighting as hard as I could, but I might as well have been swimming under water in slow motion. Vaguely, I wondered why no one was trying to help me. Would it have violated their Code of the Hills? Or, from where they stood, could it look as though I was holding my own?

  Iron bands closed around my throat and blood filmed my eyes. If he had been satisfied to stand still and keep tightening those hands, Bart would have added me to his victims. But he jostled me along, muttering curses, shaking me like a terrier.

  We careened back and forth along the wall, and I tried to keep punching – always hoping to land a lucky blow.

  Then suddenly, the wall gave way, and we were leaning perilously out into space. Some damned fool had thoughtfully opened the window so that we wouldn’t break it.

  Bart loosened his hold while we both scrabbled for balance. For an instant, I was completely free of him, and aware of friendly hands pulling me back into the room.

  Through the haze of blood filming my eyes, I had the dim impression of other hands clutching Bart, who thrashed about, still snarling curses. He must have hit the window-frame, the window started to slide down, and then –

  I couldn’t see properly, I was still gasping for breath, all I had was a dim impression of movement.

  With a choked cry, Bart disappeared. The window crashed down with a violence that broke the glass. Was I imagining things, or had one pair of those ‘helping’ hands actually pushed?

  There was silence in the room, except for the last shards of glass tinkling to the floor. We were all lost in our private thoughts. Or were we getting our stories straight?

  ‘Poor guy,’ Sam said finally, ‘he hadn’t been feeling well all day. He’d already had one dizzy spell in the dressing-room, when he fell and hit his head. And then, the window hitting him like that – when he just leaned out for a breath of air –’

  ‘Too bad,’ Uncle No’ccount said. ‘I suppose maybe we ought to call the police. Seems like they’ll have to know.’

  Cousin Zeke carefully pushed the pills back into the bottle and put it in his pocket. ‘Reckon maybe they’ll already know,’ he said. ‘Seems to be a powerful lot of commotion down there.’

  Lou-Ann just sobbed. Crystal put her arm around her waist and led her into the sitting-room. There was nothing anyone else could do for her.

  They were all looking at me, I realized. Waiting.

  What, after all, had I actually seen? There was only the split second impression of hands lashing out. I couldn’t even say whose hands.

  You can’t stand up in court and swear to an impression. That isn’t evidence.

  ‘This has been ... a very sad tour ... for all of you . . .’ I said slowly. ‘I hope ...you won’t take away entirely unhappy memories ... of our country.’ I could feel relaxation in the air around me.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I continued, ‘you will all ...manage to rise above these unhappy events ... and go on to greater heights.’

  Sam came round to the office on the morning of the day they were flying back. He brought the new pilot film along and insisted on showing it to us. It came out rather strangely against the green distempered walls of the office but, even with that drawback, we could see that he really had something.

  They had rethought the entire script, scrapping the original concept completely. Now Lou-Ann was the star, backed by her friend and buddy, ‘The Non-Feudin’ Hatfield’ – a toothily smiling Eugene, Uncle No’ccount behind him for ever, and with full credit for the songs. The dentist had done a magnificent job, giving him a set with just that hint of buck-toothed unevenness to make them look genuine.

  But that was nothing to the change in Lou-Ann. She was smooth, relaxed – and brilliantly funny. She could throw a line away with the best of them now. Tossing it languidly over her shoulder, as though she didn’t care whether you caught it or not. Perhaps she didn’t.

  The new, bright, hard quality was still in evidence. Although she was smart enough to learn to hide that as time went on.

  ‘How are things going, otherwise?’ I asked Sam.

  ‘Just swell.’ He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘It’s much too early, of course. But she agrees, in principle. We –’ he was suddenly shy – ‘we’re going home for Christmas with the family.’

  “That’s fine.’ If I was a trifle hearty, he didn’t notice. His mother could welcome a poor little widow with a welcome a divorcée would never have received. Things were changing in the world – but not that much – not among the old families.

  I looked at the film again. Lou-Ann, unhampered by a doorknob passing through her wrist, was tossing off a line with an airy gesture. It was the line she usually took a pratfall on.

  Sam had his great comedienne. Bright, funny, and uncaring. Whether he would ever again find the woman beneath was his problem – and he was welcome to it. He didn’t seem to have any doubts.

  We parted warmly. Sam’s handshake was made even warm
er by the folded slip of paper in his hand. ‘A bonus,’ he explained. ‘You’ll be getting the bill after it’s been cleared by the Home Office, but this is extra – and they agreed. You boys have really done a great job handling this tour.’

  It was all very civilized. Who was I to bring up a nasty word like ‘bribe’? We exchanged several protestations of mutual undying affection, then Sam went off.

  ‘Have to collect Lou-Ann,’ he said. ‘She’s got a last couple of errands before we leave.’ He waved, and went down the stairs.

  Gerry and I exchanged glances. I tossed the cheque on the desk. Somehow, neither of us felt like looking at it. We knew the Agency would have done the right thing by us. We were in the black. We were solvent again. Now all we wanted was something to take the bitter taste out of our mouths.

  Gerry slumped down on the edge of the desk, staring moodily out the window. He made no move when the telephone rang, so I answered it.

  A crisp Kensington voice crackled at me imperiously. After a moment, I could even make out what she was saying. I put my hand over the receiver and motioned to Gerry.

  ‘Do we want to handle a cat show?’ I asked.

  ‘A cat-house?’ Gerry brightened perceptibly.

  ‘Only in the broader sense,’ I said. ‘A Cat Show. You know, Best of Breed, and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Gerry slumped back on to the desk. ‘Why not? It will make a change to admit our clients are four-footed.’

  I turned back to the phone and agreed with the Kensington canary that a cat show was just the sort of clean-living, right-thinking account Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd would be delighted to handle. It should have been the truth.

  Why then did I suddenly feel that I had just been sold a pup?