Blood on the Boards
Page 7
Norah didn’t answer. Joe started to answer, but then the door from the auditorium opened and Alan Dysart came in.
He looked pale and frightened. He said, “Sharon, I have to talk to you right away.” He looked at Norah and Joe and then back at Sharon. “Alone.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY WENT OUT TO THE PATIO, and Norah and Joe were again alone. Norah started to open a can of coffee, and Joe came over to take it from her.
He said, “You’re grumpy tonight.”
“I guess. Acting like a despoiled virgin, or something. Golly, didn’t Alan look terrible?”
“Mmmm-hmmm. Hasn’t he a mother to run to?”
“She lives in Italy. With her fifth husband. And his father is dead. I’m surprised Alan’s as stable as he is. It’s a damned shame, I think.”
“You kind of like him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Norah looked out the window toward where Alan and Sharon were talking. Then she looked back at Joe. “Jealous, flatfoot?”
“About Alan? No. It’s the maternal in you.” He set the opened coffee can on the big table. “Let’s go and watch them rehearse.”
In front of the stage, Larry Puma was saying, “Jed, when you beat your fist into your hand like that, keep both hands above the waist. Any gesture below waist level is inclined to be awkward. We’ll try it again from Dorothy’s entrance.”
Twice more he stopped them after that, and then it began to come alive, to flow.
Norah whispered, “That water must be boiling by now. And just when this thing was starting to move.”
“I’ll get it,” Joe said, and put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from rising. In the kitchen, Sharon sat alone at the big table. “Alan gone?” Joe asked.
She nodded. “I told him to go home and get some sleep. He’s worn out. Am I due on yet?”
“I think it’s pretty close. They’re in that part where Jed and Dorothy discover they have a mutual friend.”
“Migawd, that’s it.” She rose quickly and went out toward the prop room.
Joe put twenty measures of coffee into the bubbling pot and checked his watch.
He came out into the auditorium again just in time to see Sharon make her entrance.
Leonard Smith was on the stage as a butler, his back to Sharon. She crossed to stage right and gazed out a nonexistent window toward a nonexistent patio.
Then she turned and said, “Arthur, you’ve arranged the patio very cleverly, and—”
“Just a second,” Larry Puma said, and glanced at the script the stage manager was holding. “Didn’t we change that? Wasn’t Sharon supposed to say ‘good evening’ to the butler when she entered?”
“I should,” Sharon said. “It’s awkward, otherwise, though it isn’t in the script.” She smiled. “I was afraid, if I did, you might think I was trying to pad the part.”
Norah whispered, “Here we go, again.”
But Larry laughed. “My mistake. I never changed it. Come in again.”
She made her entrance again and Larry didn’t interrupt for a full five minutes.
“It’s playing, now,” Norah whispered. “That Puma man has done a fine job here.”
Joe was no critic, nor reasonably accurate facsimile, but he could see what Norah meant. Larry’s polishing had made them shine; the illusion was solid and communicative.
Joe whispered, “It’s a damned crime, a guy with his moxie selling shoes.”
“He’s young,” Norah said. “This is a slow business when you come up the right way.”
How far “up” was this? Joe said nothing, thinking of Walter Hamilton and Leonard Smith, fairly wealthy men who didn’t need the theater for a living, though they needed the theater. And he remembered the stories he’d read of how this or that now famous movie star had been discovered. One behind a soda fountain, another running an elevator. With no previous theatrical experience, as the columnists loved to mention.
Was it to be considered a virtue, not knowing your trade? Of the gang now on the stage, Sharon was undoubtedly the crudest. And yet she projected a lure that Hollywood could sell. Of the gang on the stage, or in this organization, Sharon would be the best Hollywood bet.
But who could blame the studios for that? They didn’t make the public taste; they were businessmen and doomed to follow it. There were many great talents in the studios; John Wayne still remained the number-one box office draw.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Norah whispered.
“We’d better go out and check that coffee.”
In the kitchen, he turned the gas off under the coffee and brought out some cups from the cabinet.
“A penny for your thoughts, I repeat,” Norah said.
“I was thinking of how hard those kids work, and for what? Actors with less ability are getting paid for it, aren’t they?”
“I suppose. In any trade or art or craft or profession, breaks help, you know. Timing and single-mindedness are important, too.”
“I don’t understand all of that. Aren’t they single-minded?”
“Not enough to put their whole attention to the job of getting ahead, playing the angles, living for the break. Except Sharon, of course. She has one interest in life: the theatrical advance of Sharon Cassidy. And she’ll do it, too, selling just as much of herself as she needs to at each step.”
“You sound like a soap opera.”
“She’s right out of one, so typical it hurts. Haven’t we another topic of conversation?” “Well, last night-” “Don’t be vulgar.”
“Last night,” he went on, “when Larry was talking about plays and actors and playwrights, it all made sense, even to a moron like me. If he can get through to me, he can get through to any audience. It seems a crime that he’s not able to land in TV, at least.”
“He will. Joe, when Larry goes up, he’ll stay up. His knowledge will be so wide and so sound that he’ll be secure. He’ll never get ulcers, not from fear, anyway.”
“If he goes up.”
Norah took a deep breath. “I could use a cup of that coffee. Did you and Mr. Smith come to any conclusions on the murder?”
Joe poured two cups of coffee and brought one to Norah. “Nope. He likes you. If you weren’t too tall for him, he’d like to lead you to the altar.”
“You discussed me?”
“He did. That’s all he said. We were talking about Dick Metzger, too. Want a cigarette?”
“No, thank you. How did it happen you were talking about Dick Metzger?”
“I don’t remember.” Joe lighted a cigarette and sipped his coffee.
Norah glared at him. “Locker room talk, Joe, about me?”
“That’s a rotten remark, lady. What the hell’s the matter with you tonight?”
“Nothing a man could understand. All right, I’ll take a cigarette.”
He lighted it for her and she smiled at him. “Sensitive. I keep remembering it was my idea, last night. I feel like a tramp.”
“Everybody knows you’re a lady,” Joe told her. “That’s one thing we all agree on. And it wasn’t only your idea, last night. And you’re a big girl now; act like one.”
“All right. Kiss me.”
He came around to her end of the table and kissed her. And from the doorway, someone said, “How romantic!” It was Sharon, and the others were behind her. Joe grinned and went to pour the coffee as Norah turned beet-red.
They settled around the big table. Larry Puma had taken the chair on one side of Norah, Smith the other, by the time Joe had finished pouring the coffee.
There was an empty chair next to Sharon, and Joe took it. Sharon said softly, “You’re going to be in trouble. Norah won’t like this.”
“We’re not married,” he said.
“Yet.”
From the other end of the table, Joe caught Norah watching them. As his eyes met hers, she looked away.
Sharon said, “Norah can get awfully intense about a man.”
“Like Dick Metzger?”
“Meee-iouw,” Joe said. The scent Sharon wore must have been heavy with musk. Joe felt the pulse beating in his wrists.
She made a production out of lighting a cigarette.
Joe said, “If you’ll permit me a layman’s opinion, I think you’re wrong on Larry Puma. He’s certainly shaping this show into something.”
“Oh, I suppose he’s really competent enough. Larry hasn’t any—push, any fire. That’s his big lack.”
“Any brass, you mean. I like him.”
She smiled. “It’s a free country. He doesn’t like me, so I return the favor. I’m not a really popular girl in this gang.” She blew a big cloud of smoke. “But I’m not crying about it. I’m not pathological enough to need friends like some people do. I enjoy my own company.”
Joe said, “But you seemed very concerned about Alan Dysart. He’s special, huh?”
“He will be, in a week or so. He’ll be rich.”
“You mean that his uncle left him the estate? Alan’s the heir?”
“That’s what he told me tonight. And he wants to marry me. He can keep me, now, in the style to which I’d like to be accustomed. What do you think of that, Mr. Burke?”
“It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. How does Alan know this so soon?”
“Bruce’s attorneys arranged to have him released. That alone should be proof. They don’t want to lose the account.”
From the other end of the table, Larry Puma said, “All right, let’s go. We’ll do the third act.”
Sharon gulped the rest of her coffee as Joe asked her, “And are you going to marry Alan?”
“Not if I get a better offer. And not if it means I’ll have to give up my career.” She stood up and patted Joe’s head. “You wouldn’t have a better offer, would you?”
This last question was voiced loudly enough for all to hear. A few heads turned their way, and one of the heads was Norah’s. Her face was blank; next to her Leonard Smith was smiling.
Most of them went out to the stage or the auditorium. Joe started to pick up the cups and carry them to the sink. Norah sat at the table, smoking, drinking her coffee, and staring out at nothing.
Joe said, “That Sharon sure uses a lusty perfume.” Nothing from Norah.
Joe started to fill the sink with water. “Alan’s the heir, I guess. He asked Sharon to marry him.”
“The fool. She’ll milk him dry.” Norah put out her cigarette and brought her empty cup over to the sink. “I’ll wash, if you want.”
“No, I don’t mind dishwater hands.”
He washed; she dried. There was very little dialogue between them. Outside, the dry wind from the east was blowing the litter of the park toward the basketball courts. From the stage, they could hear the voices dimly.
Joe finished the last cup and washed out the sink. Norah hung the towel over the back of a chair and picked up her purse.
“Going?” Joe asked her.
She nodded. “Before I blow up. Or collapse. I’ve got the blue jitters.”
He went over to get his jacket and was going through the pockets for his cigarettes when he heard the door to the patio close.
Norah was walking past the table tennis tables. Joe went over to open the door and call, “You might say good night.”
“Good night.” She didn’t turn.
He closed the door as the door to the prop room slammed from the draft. He watched her through the windows over the counter until she disappeared around the corner of the building.
The wind was howling now, and from somewhere came the clang of an ash-can cover scraping concrete. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat at the big table.
Women…. Interesting and exasperating people, women were, in this man’s world. Sharon he could understand; she was a direct girl. She wanted to be a big glamour job in the glamour industry and she meant to get there any way she could make it. Sharon was simple; she thought like a man.
It was actually, Joe reflected, only the nice girls who puzzled him. He probably hadn’t known enough of them.
Someone had left a Theatre Arts on the table. He leafed through it until he came to a piece by George Jean Nathan. He was deep in the acid of the Nathan prose when he smelled the musky perfume, and looked up.
Sharon was at the counter, getting a cup.
“You must have rubber heels,” Joe said. “Where’d you come from?”
“Berkeley. What’s your home town?”
“A comic, too, eh? How’s it going in there?” He went to the stove to lift the heavy pot.
“It’s going right along. Don’t tell the others, but we’re going to be under observation Friday and Saturday nights.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“A man from Paramount on Friday and a scout from Twentieth on Saturday.” “How do you know?”
She smiled at him. “I make it my business to know little things like that. Where’s Norah?” “She went home.” “Oh? Spat?”
“She wasn’t feeling well. There is a possibility, then, that an actor might be noticed in one of these productions?”
Sharon sat down and sipped her coffee. “Of course. Why else would I be here? Or Larry Puma, or half a dozen others I could name. The older ones are having fun, but this is just a minor-league showcase for the rest of us.” She smiled. “Did you think we were interested in doing something significant and fresh for the ‘theeatuh’? Putting on old Broadway stand-bys? We haven’t put on an experimental play since this gang started.”
“I suppose that’s what Alan will do now, start an experimental ‘theeatuh’?”
“I suppose. And it’ll be the mecca for every fag west of the Rockies. I don’t know why those things always wind up as pansy beds, but they do.”
“All of them? Even the good ones?”
“All the ones I’ve ever worked in. And how those swishes loved to cast me as a sexual degenerate.”
Joe sniffed and studied a thumbnail.
She laughed. “Don’t say it. Bigger men than you have regretted their nasty cracks about little Sharon.”
“You know,” Joe said, “one thing about you, you’re direct. And you don’t pretend to be anything you aren’t, do you?”
“Only on the stage. Sit down and have another cup of coffee. You’re making fascinating conversation.”
Joe sat down. “I’ve had enough coffee. One thing about you I can’t completely understand. If it’s money you want, why not Alan? Why the career?”
“It—isn’t only money. I want to be known. I want to be up there where I can sneer.”
There wasn’t anything Joe could think of to say to that. The wind screamed, the windows rattled. They sat there quietly.
Leonard Smith came in from the prop room and poured himself a cup of coffee. Sharon looked at him and away; Smith continued to look at her.
Joe felt uncomfortable. He smiled at Smith. “Everything coming along all right?”
“Fine, fine. I have mastered the role of the butler.”
Sharon looked up to meet Smith’s gaze. “We’re bitter tonight, Mr. Smith?”
“Every night,” he said. “Older, bitterer. Frustration, you know.”
“Frustration? Nice home, single, solvent.” Sharon shook her head. “Why should you feel frustrated?”
“I’m not sure you’d understand. But I had hoped to make some small sound before I died.”
Joe said, “You’re not dead yet, Leonard.”
Smith shrugged. “In the way I meant, I’m dead.”
Sharon said, “I don’t want to make a sound, just a splash.”
The windows rattled. A bough from the eucalyptus tree outside rubbed against the roof of the kitchen. All the light in the room seemed to be caught in the red-gold of Sharon’s hair.
Smith went over to the sink and rinsed out his cup. “Well, good night, kids. I’m letter perfec
t, and I’m going home.” He went out without looking around.
Sharon lighted another cigarette. “Are you depressed, too?”
“I’m getting that way. I suppose it’s a delayed reaction to the murder with all of them. I know looking at corpses used to give me some soul-searching moments. Leonard’s past forty, and he hasn’t done what he’d hoped—” Joe shook his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m no psychiatrist.”
“They all make me laugh,” Sharon said. “Slopping through life with no discipline, no goal. And they find themselves forty and empty and go looking for what they missed in a bottle.”
“Or a blonde,” Joe agreed.
“Or a redhead. Leonard was awful sweet on me for a while.”
Joe said nothing. The wind died for a second and they could hear the players on the stage. Sharon rose and went to rinse out her cup.
Her back was to Joe as she said, “Why don’t we go some nice place and get drunk?”
Joe wondered if she could hear the pound of his heart. There was a sudden pressure in his loins. He said, “Why not?” and was shamed by the shakiness of his voice.
She turned to look at him speculatively. “You’ll be a gentleman, I hope? I’m not always a lady under alcohol.” He smiled at her. “I’ll be as much of a gentleman as I need to be.” And he thought, Stud Burke, at your service, lady. Two times in two nights; that would be a seven-year Burke record.
It didn’t develop along those lines. They went to the Pico Room of the Shalimar Hotel in Santa Monica and there was dancing. And there were friends of Sharon’s, male friends not averse to table-hopping.
They danced with Sharon and he drank. They sat at his table drinking good liquor on his tab and occasionally throwing him a remark as evidence of their good will. Gay, gay, gay: soft lights and sweet music and the finest in bottled bourbon.
Joe got drunk and drunkenly resentful. Around midnight, Sharon rose to dance with a tall and extremely handsome blond young man.
Twenty minutes and five numbers later, they weren’t back, and Joe rose to look for them. His legs were unsteady, but he concentrated on keeping his balance and managed to skirt the floor and achieve the French doors that led out to a sheltered patio.