Cover-Up Story (12 page)

‘Okay, but who'll bell the cat?' I murmured. Bart had come onstage now, standing in the background like a great black panther, brooding on the scene. As the amplifiers throbbed out the familiar beat, he stepped into the spotlight.

‘Homesteader, Homesteader,

‘Ridin' alone ...'

The audience went wild. Wilder than usual. After the embarrassment of the always corny, but now inept, comedy routine, the dark magnetic figure singing the hit song of the moment provided release and exhilaration. I doubted that he would allow Lou-Ann to take any time off, now that she was so bad. The worse the others were, the better he looked by comparison – and he knew it. You could call the Client a lot of things – but not one of them was fool'.

‘She's got to knock off and go home
now.
' Sam leaned forward in his seat, straining to look into the wings, where Lou-Ann's small slight figure slumped against the wall in dejection. ‘Come on, I'm going to take her home.'

We were in aisle seats, but we had to fight our way through a crowd of standees to get to the door leading backstage. I was aware of the Client's cold eyes following our progress from the stage. People didn't walk out when he was singing – especially not his Road Manager and his PRO. We'd pay for this defection later.

We hadn't quite reached Lou-Ann when the Client ended his number and held up his hand to quell the audience. ‘Now, folks,' he said, ‘I'd like a big hand for a real little Trouper. Y'all don't know what it cost her to come out here tonight and give you a show.' He gestured to Lou-Ann and she moved forward on to the stage.

Sam tried to stop her, but she brushed past him. Any time, anywhere, any actress will climb over a mountain of corpses to take an extra bow – and Lou-Ann wasn't going to be done out of this one.

‘Yessir.' Bart put his arm around her, displaying her to the audience like a prize specimen. ‘This brave little lady came here tonight, even though her heart was sure-enough breaking, just so as not to disappoint all you lovely people. You see, her poor darling mother – beloved of us all, I might add – died today. In a traffic accident.'

There it was again – one of the things I had learned to dread in the States. The appalling American habit – elevated into a virtue by the ‘jest plain folks, hell, jest plain
honest
folks' type – of hauling out their bleeding guts and holding them aloft for attention and admiration.

By rights, the audience should have shrunk from it.

But your reticent Englishman feels that reticence should apply only to himself – he doesn't worry overmuch about what
you
want to give away. And it was certainly adding something to the show tonight. Just ask any typical member of an audience about the most memorable performance he ever saw. Some of them will choose Olivier or Gielgud, but nine out of ten – being jest plain honest folks – will plump for the night the juvenile lead fell into the orchestra pit, fracturing his femur, dislocating three vertebrae, lacerating his skull, and had to be carried off, streaming with blood.

They applauded with wild enthusiasm, and Lou-Ann took her bows proudly. Bart still had his arm around her, as though he were never going to let her go again. Certainly he wasn't going to let her back out of any performance while he could get this reaction from an audience. They milked the applause for all it was worth, then Bart held up his hand again.

‘I'd like all of you to know that I'm working on a new song now that's going to be a tribute to Maw, and tell all about how she cheered us on through the dark days we've had, and how much she meant to us all. But until I get that finished, I'd like to sort of “make do” with somebody else's song, which kinda fits the occasion.'

The Cousins had evidently been briefed ahead. They picked up the downbeat and gave him an intro. Perhaps I was the only one offstage who noticed that Uncle No'ccount had lowered his harmonica, bowed his head, and dissociated himself from the proceedings. For a moment, I wondered whether he might not know the tune, then I realized that even I knew the tune. In that case, Uncle No'ccount had more taste than I had ever given him credit for.

The song was that great old tearjerker, ‘In The Baggage Car Ahead'. All about the grave litte girl who is sitting all alone in the train steaming southwards towards her home and, when a kindly stranger asks her where her mother is, the child replies, ‘In The Baggage Car Ahead'.

I had never seen anyone do it before, but Sam was actually gnashing his teeth. He snarled out several words, any one of which his own dear mother would have flattened him with the back of her hand for. ‘I'll kill that bastard,' he grated. ‘I'll kill him.'

But the Client wasn't the type to be killed. He was a predator, not a victim. Sam must know that. Just as he must know that, with a solid English success under Bart's belt, he must go on building Bart for the Agency. His personal feelings didn't come under any heading on the Agency's Balance Sheet, so they weren't worth considering. Not even by Sam. That was the worst of it – the bright New American Dream held no place for emotions. It measured success by the bankroll, the ratings, the wall-to-wall broads and broadloom. The golden eggs were beginning to roll now, so the Goose was sacrosanct. Nobody would kill him – they'd kill themselves first, trying to quash indictments, wall-papering over murky stains from the past, and turning a blind eye to the future. Our Boy Bart had it made now.

The song ended, and Bart took his bow. Lou-Ann, tears streaming down her face, took a bow, too. I felt sick. But what else could you expect? Maw Cooney had brought her up to curry favour with an audience at any price. All Lou-Ann knew was that applause said that they were loving her. For the wrong reasons – but they were loving her. She bowed again.

‘Come on,' I said to Sam. ‘I'll buy you a drink.'

GERRY HAD been there when I got back to the flat, and I had filled him in on everything except my private suspicions. He had promised to turn his hand to the wheel, and take the early morning tour of duty at the hotel, leaving me to cope with some of the office routine for a change of pace – and peace and quiet.

When I woke, he had already left. By the time I'd dressed, eaten and shaved, Penny had arrived for work. ‘Feeling better?' I asked.

‘Yes, thank you.' She didn't look at me. At least she had come back. I was grateful for that.

She settled down with a pair of scissors and began going through the pile of morning papers. Her composure slipped away. ‘How awful,' she said. ‘Oh, that poor girl.'

I nodded, without telling her that she didn't know the half of it. When the Client had chosen to make his announcement to a crowded house from the stage, the resultant coverage wasn't too surprising.

The earliest editions just had it as a Stop Press item. Some of the later editions had pulled out the first publicity shots we had sent them, and were running totally unsuitable pictures of Lou-Ann in ‘comedy costume' along with the bare outlines of the story. All of them were obviously set to give the story the fullest coverage in later editions. Unless we were exceptionally lucky and some political figure got assassinated, or war broke out, we were doomed to have the full glare of a publicity spotlight on the Troupe – with all the nasty ramifications that that might entail.

In a way, it was almost poetic justice. After all, The Client had brought it on himself.

Unfortunately, it was Perkins & Tate's job to stop it. And we couldn't rely on luck. I cursed Gerry for not ringing me immediately to liaise and plan action, then wondered just what he
was
doing. Perhaps he was already in The Street, trying to pick up the pieces.

‘Run down and get the very latest editions,' I ordered Penny. ‘All you can find. Try Charing Cross Station.'

I tossed her a pound note and she turned and ran. She was a nice kid, if a little literal-minded. Then I sat back and destroyed a couple of fingernails with a thoroughness that would have done credit to Sam, while I waited for her to return with the papers.

When she did, Bart was with her. He carried the pile of newspapers, crowding on her heels, leering down at her. She looked pale and frightened. I felt a bit pale myself.

‘Y'oughta take better care of this little gal than sending her out alone.' He tossed the papers down on the desk in front of me. ‘I don't like the way some of them characters around the station was staring at her.'

‘I don't like it myself,' I said pointedly.

Then you shouldn't send her over there. It was just a good thing I happened to come along and find her.' He tried to toss an arm around her shoulders, but she eluded him, moving to the file and taking out a folder we hadn't used in months, busying herself with it.

‘Ain't she cute?' Bart chuckled at me. ‘Honey,' he leaned over her, as though to study the file, ‘you jest pay attention to your Uncle Bart, now, when he tells you –'

‘How's your wife?' I interrupted.

He straightened up. ‘Huh?' he said blankly.

‘Your wife,' I said. ‘You remember – Lou-Ann?'

‘Oh, yuh,' his face fell into the smooth unctuous lines of concern. ‘Poor kid, poor kid. I'm really worried about her, you know. She ain't taking this at all well –'

‘How well should you take it when your mother dies?'

‘Well, sure, I understand that. Why, Maw –' he reached up and swept off his sombrero, holding it over his heart and bowing his head – ‘Maw, she was like a mother to us all. It's plumb broke me up, too. You jest don't know how much Maw meant to me.'

About a fifteen-year stretch in the Federal Penitentiary, I'd have said. But he didn't know I knew that. It seemed to me that there was something else I knew, but it was lost among the other niggling worries at the back of my mind.

‘Of course, she meant even more to Lou-Ann,' he went on. ‘They was as close as could be. That's why I'm so worried about Lou-Ann now –'

A paper fluttered from the file to the floor, and Penny bent to pick it up. Bart watched her, losing his train of thought for a moment, then recovered.

‘Lou-Ann, she really depended on her Maw for everything. And it don't seem like she's never going to stop crying no more. I sure wish there was something I could do to help her.'

‘Why don't you try cutting the sob stuff out of the show,' I suggested. ‘Drop “In The Baggage Car Ahead”, and forget about putting in any tribute stuff. Just carry on with the show as you've been doing it.'

‘No tribute to Maw?' He looked genuinely shocked. ‘Why, that wouldn't hardly be seemly. What do you think we are?'

I could have told him, but it would only have led to bloodshed. ‘It wouldn't do any harm to forget it.'

‘Why don't we go out to lunch and talk it over, like?' He was staring at Penny hungrily. ‘
All
of us. I'd sure be interested to know the opinions of the President of the Black Bart Fan Club on this subject.'

Penny's mouth tightened grimly and I suspected that, like mine, her opinions could lead to bloodshed, too.

‘I'm afraid we're going to be busy for lunch,' I said hastily. ‘All this publicity you got with your announcement last night.' Penny shot me a grateful glance. ‘We've got to get busy on the follow-ups for it.'

It was the one subject which could have diverted him. He looked at the pile of newspapers complacently. ‘Sure did set the cat among the pigeons, didn't I? You reckon I oughta follow it up with something dramatic – like a reward offered for catching the reckless driver?'

‘It wasn't exactly hit-and-run,' I reminded him coldly. ‘The driver stopped. The police have all his particulars. If you try a stunt like that, you could find yourself in the middle of the biggest libel suit of the century.'

‘Oh.' He deflated slowly. ‘Hell, it was jest a thought.'

‘Think again,' I said. There was no one I'd rather see up to his neck in hot water but, unfortunately, he was still the Client. And it would reflect back on Perkins & Tate. For that reason only, he had to be protected from himself.

‘Then how about –?'

‘How about going back to the hotel?' I said. ‘Get everyone together, and I'll come along for a council of war in a couple of hours – after I get everything sorted out here.'

‘I don't know. I think –' He was prepared to be obstinate, and I was afraid I knew the reason why.

‘You go ahead.' With a silent shrug of apology at Penny, I sold her down the river. ‘
We'll
be along shortly.'

Black Bart might not have been the greatest star since the Roaring Twenties, but he certainly had the entourage mentality. ‘Where
is
everybody?' he demanded.

I looked around, observing them carefully – still not quite willing to admit, even to myself, what I was looking for. (Bastard, bastard, which one was the biggest bastard of all?)

Lou-Ann perched wanly on the edge of the big chair. The Cousins sprawled by the fireplace, engaged in a desultory game of craps. Sam and Gerry were worrying over a Press Release in the corner. I had promised Penny an extra three pounds a week ‘danger money' and sworn that either Gerry or I would always be along whenever she had to see the Client, so she was here with me now.

Bart hovered near the window, occasionally moving forward to pat Lou-Ann's shoulder – when he remembered that he was supposed to be a comfort to his grieving wife. But he always returned to the window, although he never seemed to see what he was hoping for. And his eyes kept sliding to Penny in a way that made me feel like a pimp for having brought her along.

‘Where
is
everybody?' Bart repeated. There were only two people missing.

‘I think Crystal's gone shopping, Bart,' Lou-Ann said softly. ‘I asked her to get some things for me. She oughta be back soon.'