The Complete Crime Stories (16 page)

We went into the finish, and laid it right on the end of Mario's stick, and slopped out the tears in buckets. Buckets, hell, we turned the fire hose on them. It stopped the show. They didn't only clap, they cheered, so we had to repeat it. That's dead against the rules, and Mario tried to go on, but they wouldn't let him. We got through the act, and Parma flopped on the bed for the last two “
Mimi's,
” and the curtain came down to a terrific hand. We took our first two bows, the whole gang that were in the act, and when we came back from the second one, Mario was back there. Cecil yelled in my ear, “Take him out, take him out!” So I took him out. I grabbed him by one hand, she by the other, and we led him out on the next bow, and they gave him a big hand, too. That seemed to fix it up about that missed cue.

It was a half hour before I could start to dress. I went to my dressing room, and had just about got my whiskers pulled off when about fifty people shoved in from outside, wanting me to autograph their programs. It was a new one on me, but it's a regular thing at every performance of grand opera, those people, mostly women, they come back and tell you how beautifully you sang, and would you please sign their program for them. So I obliged, and signed “Logan Bennett.” Then I got washed up and met Cecil and we got a cab and went off to eat. “You hungry, Leonard?”

“As a mule.”

“Let's go somewhere.”

“All right.”

We went to a night club. It had a dance floor, and tables around that, and booths around the wall. We took a booth. We ordered a steak for two, and then she ordered some red burgundy to go with it, and sherry to start. That was unusual with her. She's like most singers. She'll give you a drink, but she doesn't take much herself. She saw me look at her. “I want something. I—want to celebrate.”

“O. K. with me. Plenty all right.”

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I enjoyed the final curtain.”

“Didn't you enjoy the applause after the
O Mimi
duet? It brought down the house.”

“It was all right.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“I liked it fine.”

“You mean you really liked it?”

“Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I
really
liked it. That was the prettiest music I heard all night.”

The sherry came and we raised our glasses, clinked, and had a sip. “Leonard, I love it.”

“You're better at it than in concert.”

“You're telling me? I hate concerts. But opera—I just love it, and if you ever hear me saying again that I don't want to be a singer, you'll know I'm temporarily insane. I love it, I love everything about it, the smell, the fights, the high notes, the low notes, the applause, the curtain calls—everything.”

“You must feel good tonight.”

“I do. Do you?”

“I feel all right.”

“Is it—the way you thought it would be?”

“I never thought.”

“Not even—just a little bit?”

“You mean, that it's nice, and silly, and cock-eyed, that I should be here with you, and that I should be an opera singer, when all God intended me for was a dumb contractor, and that it's a big joke that came off just the way you hoped it would, and I never believed it would, and—something like that?”

“Yes, that's what I mean.”

“Then yes.”

“Let's dance.”

We danced, and I held her close, and smelled her hair, and she nestled it up against my face. “It's gay, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“I'm almost happy, Leonard.”

“Me too.”

“Let's go back to our little booth. I want to be kissed.”

So we went back to the booth, and she got kissed, and we laughed about the way I had hid from Mario, and drank the wine, and ate steak. I had to cut the steak left-handed, so I wouldn't joggle her head, where it seemed to be parked on my right shoulder.

We stayed a second week in Chicago, and I did my three operas over again, and then we played a week in the Music Hall in Cleveland, and then another week in Murat's Theatre, Indianapolis. Then Cecil's contract was up, and it was time for her to go back and get ready for the Metropolitan.

The Saturday matinee in Indianapolis was Faust. I met Cecil in the main dining room that morning, around ten o'clock, for breakfast, and while we were eating Rossi came over and sat down. He didn't have much to say. He kept asking the waiter if any call had come for him, and bit his fingernails, and pretty soon it came out that the guy that was to sing Wagner that afternoon couldn't come to the theatre, on account of unfortunately being in jail on a traffic charge, and that Rossi was waiting to find out if some singer in Chicago could come down and do it. His call came through, and when he came back he said his man was tied up. That meant somebody from the chorus would have to do it, and that wasn't so good. And then Cecil popped out: “Well what are we talking about, with
him
sitting here. Here, baby. Here's my key, there's a score up in my room; you can just hike yourself up there and learn it.”

“
What?
Learn it in one morning and then sing it?”

“There's only a few pages of it. Now. Go.”

“Faust is in French, isn't it?”

“Oh damn. He doesn't sing French.”

But Rossi fixed that part up. He had a score in Italian, and I was to learn it in that and sing it in that, with the rest of them singing French. So the next thing I knew I was up there in my room with a score, and by one o'clock I had it learned, and by two o'clock Rossi had given me the business, and by three o'clock I was in a costume they dug up, out there doing it. That made more impression on them than anything I had done yet. You see, they don't pay much attention to a guy that knows three roles, all coached up by heart. They know all about them. But a guy that can get a role up quick, and go out there and do it, even if he makes a few mistakes, that guy can really be some use around an opera company. Rossi came to my dressing room after I finished Traviata that night and offered me a contract for the rest of the season. He said Mr. Mario was very pleased with me, especially the way I had gone on in Wagner, and was willing to work with me so I could get up more leading roles and thought I would fit in all right with their plans. He offered me $150 a week, $25 more than I had been getting. I thanked him, thanked Mr. Mario for the interest he had taken in me, thanked all the others for a pleasant association with them, and said no. He came up to $175. I still said no. He came up to $200. I still said no and asked him not to bid any higher, as it wasn't a question of money. He couldn't figure it out, but after a while we shook hands and that was that.

That night she and I ate in a quiet little place we had found, and at midnight we were practically the only customers. After we ordered she said: “Did Rossi speak to you?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did he offer $150? He said he would.”

“He came up to $200, as a matter of fact.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no.”

“… Why?”

“What the hell? I'm no singer. What would I be trailing around with this outfit for after you're gone?”

“They play Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Pittsburgh before they swing West. I could visit you week-ends, maybe oftener than that. I—I might even make a flying trip out to the Coast.”

“I'm not the type.”

“Who is the type? Leonard, let me ask you something. Is it just because his $200 a week looks like chicken-feed to you? Is it because a big contractor makes a lot more than that?”

“Sometimes he does. Right now he doesn't make a dime.”

“If that's what it is, you're making a mistake, no matter what a big contractor makes. Leonard, everything has come out the way I said it would, hasn't it? Now listen to me. With that voice, you can make money that a big contractor never even heard of. After just one season with the American Scala Opera Company, the Metropolitan will grab you sure. It isn't everybody that can sing with the American Scala. Their standards are terribly high, and very well the Metropolitan knows it, and they've raided plenty of Scala singers already. Once you're in the Metropolitan, there's the radio, the phonograph, concert, moving pictures. Leonard, you can be rich. You—you can't help it.”

“Contracting's my trade.”

“All this—doesn't it mean anything to you?”

“Yeah, for a gag. But not what you mean.”

“And in addition to the money, there's fame—”

“Don't want it.”

She sat there, and I saw her eyes begin to look wet. “Oh, why don't we both tell the truth? You want to get back to New York—for what's waiting for you in New York. And I—I don't want you ever to go there again.”

“No, that's not it.”

“Yes it is. I'm doing just exactly the opposite of what I thought I was doing when we started all this. I thought I would be the good fairy, and bring you and her together again. And now, what am I doing? I'm trying to take you away from her. Something I'd hate any other woman for, and now—I might as well tell the truth. I'm just a—home-wrecker.”

She looked comic as she said it, and I laughed and she laughed. Then she started to cry. I hadn't heard one word from Doris since I left New York. I had wired her every hotel I had stopped at, and you would think she might have sent me a postcard. There wasn't even that. I sat there, watching Cecil, and trying to let her be a home-wrecker, as she called it. I knew she was swell, I respected everything about her, I didn't have to be told she'd go through hell for me. I tried to feel I was in love with her, so I could say to hell with New York, let's both stay with this outfit and let the rest go hang. I couldn't. And then the next thing I knew I was crying too.

7

We hit New York Monday morning, but there was a freight wreck ahead of us, so we were late, and didn't get into Grand Central until ten o'clock. She and I didn't go up the ramp together. I had wired Doris, so I went on ahead, but a fat chance there would be anybody there, so when nobody showed I put Cecil in a cab. We acted like I was just putting her in a cab. I said I'd call her up, she said yes, please do, we waved goodbye, and that was all. I went back and sent the trunk down to the office, then got in a cab with my bag and went on up. On the way, I kept thinking what I was going to say. I had been away six weeks, and what had kept me that long? On the Rochester part, I had it down pat. There had been stuff in the papers about grade-crossing elimination up there, and I went up to see if we could bid on the concrete. But what was I doing in those other places? The best I could think of was that I had taken a swing around to look at “conditions,” whatever they were, and it sounded fishy, but I didn't know anything else.

When I got home I let myself in, carried my grip, and called to Doris. There was no answer. I went out in the kitchen, and there was nobody there. I took my grip upstairs, called to Doris again, knocked on the door of the bedroom. Still there was no answer. I went in. The bed was all made up, the room was in order, and no Doris. The room being in order, though, that didn't prove anything, even at that time of day. Her room was always in order. I took the bag in the nursery, set it down, went out in the hall again, let out a couple more hallo's. Still nothing happened.

I went downstairs, began to get nervous. I wondered if she had walked out on me for good, and taken the children with her, but the house didn't smell like it had been locked up or anything like that. About eleven o'clock Nils came home. He was the houseman. He had been out taking the children to school, he said, and buying some stuff at a market. He said he was glad to see me back, and I shook hands with him, and asked for Christine. Christine is his wife, and does the cooking, and in between acts as maid to Doris and nurse to the children. He said Christine had gone with Mrs. Borland. He acted like I must know all about it, and I hated to show I didn't, so I said oh, of course, and he went on back to the kitchen.

About a quarter to twelve the phone rang. It was Lorentz. “Borland, you'd better come down and get your wife.”

“… What's the matter?”

“I'll tell you.”

“Where is she?”

“The Cathedral Theatre. Come to the stage door. I'm at the theatre now. I'll meet you and take you to her.”

I had a glimmer, then, of what was going on. I went out, grabbed a cab, and hustled down there. He met me outside, took me in, and showed me a dressing room. I rapped on the door and went in. She was on a couch, and a theatre nurse was with her, and Christine. She was in an awful state. She had on some kind of theatrical looking dress with shiny things on it, and her face was all twisted, and her hands were clenching and unclenching, and I didn't need anybody to tell me she was giving everything she had to fight back hysteria. When she saw me it broke. She cried, and stiffened on the couch, and then kept doubling up in convulsive jerks, where she was fighting for control, and turning away, so I couldn't see her face. The nurse took me by the arm. “It'll be better if you wait outside. Give me a few more minutes with her, and I'll have her in shape to be moved.”

I went out in the corridor with Lorentz. “What's this about?”

“She got the bird.”

“Oh.”

There it was again, this thing that Cecil had said if I ever heard I'd never forget. I still didn't know what it was, but that wasn't what I was thinking about. “She sang here, then?”

“It didn't get that far. She went out there to sing. Then they let her have it. It was murder.”

“Just didn't like her, hey?”

“She got too much of a build-up. In the papers.”

“I haven't seen the papers. I've been away.”

“Yeah, I know. Socialite embraces stage career, that kind of stuff. It was all wrong, and they were ready for her. Just one of those nice morning crowds in a big four-a-day picture house. They didn't even let her open her mouth. By the time I got to the piano the stage manager had to ring down. The curtain dropped in front of her, the orchestra played, and they started the newsreel. I never saw anything like it.”