Cover-Up Story (2 page)

‘Okay, but you just watch it, you hear?' Bart glared, but the menace was wasted on Uncle No'ccount's back, so he turned it on me.

‘You don't move very fast round these parts, do you, boy? We told you as soon as we got here an' took a look at the electricity to get the plugs changed an' slap transformers on all the instruments. S'pose I shouldn't be surprised it ain't been done yet, now I see how long it takes you to even cross a room.'

It was a pity Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd needed the money so badly. It would have been a pleasure to tell him what I thought of him and walk out.

On second thought, I probably couldn't tell him anything he hadn't heard before. And we needed the money. He might be a bastard, but he was a solvent bastard.

‘I put in a call for an electrician,' I said. ‘They promised to speed it up and have one over here first thing in the morning. That means some time tomorrow afternoon.'

He glared at me suspiciously, but seemed to realize I was serious. ‘Hell! What a country!' he exploded. ‘I got thousands of dollars worth of electronic equipment here, and it ain't worth a damn unless I can get the juice going through it.'

‘You'll have everything ready in time for your opening,' I said. ‘You've only been in the country about eight hours, why not relax and enjoy it?'

‘You trying to be smart, boy?'

‘We had to skimp the introductions to get ready for the Press,' I said. ‘My name is Perkins, Douglas Perkins.'

‘Like I said, you trying to be smart,
boy?
'

The Cousins began to snicker, then to push each other about. ‘You hear that,
boy?
Yes, sir,
boy
!' They scuffled wildly.

‘All right, cut that out!' They had brought unwelcome attention back to themselves. ‘You got off light –
this time.
Don't let it go to your heads.'

‘Yeah, Bart.' ‘Sure, Bart. They were instantly subdued.

‘You got nothing better to do – cut along to your hotel and get some more practice. You flatted that top note on me. Do that on stage and you'll be swimming back home the hard way – under water.'

They slunk away quietly, but before I had time to enjoy the peace, Maw Cooney was on us.

‘Young man, have you got that room changed yet? By rights, we ought to have a suite. You can't expect Lou-Ann to put up with being treated like poor white trash.'

Since that was what she'd gone to great trouble to dress herself up to look like, it would seem to be an occupational hazard. Perhaps that was why Maw Cooney, as her dresser, was so sensitive about it.

‘
You
tell him,' she whirled on Bart. ‘Lou-Ann is the comedy star of this Troupe. She deserves better than that poky old room. There isn't room enough to swing a cat in there. Tell him we want a room befitting her position.'

You had to hand it to her for bravery, if not sheer gall They were lucky to be in the same hotel as the Great Bart. Uncle No'ccount and the Cousins had been salted away over in the heart of ‘Europe On Five Dollars A Day' territory. But, obviously, Maw Cooney was not one to sit back and count her blessings.

Bart turned his head slowly to stare down at her. I closed my eyes. I hate to see a man hit an old lady – no matter how much she's been asking for it.

When I opened them, she was still standing there, untouched. Bart's eyes had narrowed dangerously, but he hadn't said a word.

‘You tell him now.' She insisted on crowding her luck. ‘You order him to find a nicer room for Lou-Ann. You know it's due her – in her position.'

Crystal had moved up behind Bart and, once again, an unspoken communication passed between them.

Suddenly, Bart shrugged. ‘Right, Maw.' He glared at me. ‘See to it, boy! ' He jerked his head at Crystal and they left the room together.

Maw Cooney fussed her way back to collect Lou-Ann. On their way out, she stopped to say, ‘We'll pack our things. We didn't unpack much, anyhow, once we saw that awful place. You get the bellboy to move us. We'll be out getting a bite to eat.'

I stared after them thoughtfully. After a moment, a throat being cleared over by the door brought me back to the scene.

SAM MARCOWITZ. Now there was a man who could give wallpaper lessons on fading unobtrusively into the background.

All this time he had been sitting at the table by the door, thumbing through the Guest Book the Press had signed as they arrived.

I walked over to him. ‘What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?'

‘Honest to God, mister,' he whined. ‘I never done nothing like this before. You're the first. Why don't you sit down and have a slug of booze while I slip into something more comfortable.'

He reached under the table and brought out a bottle of scotch the waiters had neglected to reclaim, and loosened his tie. ‘Jeez, what a blast!'

I had gone to school with his elder brother, Nathan. Twice, in fact. Once when Nate had come here as part of the ‘Junior Year Abroad' scheme of his American college and attended my Redbrick university. And the second time when I had taken a postgraduate course at the Harvard School of Business Administration. After which, we had spent a year together in one of the lesser-known Madison Avenue advertising agencies.

Nate had gone onwards and upwards with the almost-arts and was now climbing into the top executive class at one of the really important agencies. I had come back to England – it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But she had married a Title with money attached, while I was still trying to get my feet under me. That set my feet properly loose, and I took off for the Continent. I met Gerry Tate while we were both doing a stint for Cinecittà in Rome. We decided that, since we could deal with the paparazzi, we ought to be able to manage Fleet Street, where the natives were at least friendly.

Since he was one of the wrong Tates, it took a while to earn enough money to start out on our own. And that was where Nathan Marcowitz had come back into the picture. We had corresponded casually. I sent scrawled postcards from wherever I happened to be, and he sent back secretary-typed notes giving me the latest Trendex Ratings on his commercials. What the hell, it kept us in touch.

The week after I'd broken down and written a real letter – I was younger then, by about a hundred years – outlining our plans for Perkins & Tate (Public Relations) Ltd, a cheque arrived. He wanted to buy in as a sleeping partner. Every smart young business exec should diversify. I thought he must be joking, but the cheque didn't bounce, and we were in business.

That was two years ago. So far, Perkins & Tate were still eating, but Marcowitz hadn't had any return on his investment. Not only that, he'd had to kick in with a couple of thousand more dollars to settle an unavoidable overdraft. I'd been wondering for some time just when he was going to get tired of writing us off on his income tax return as a loss.

Now, here was Brother Sam with Black Bart and the Troupe – a nice fat account dropped into our laps, with only a week's advance warning by cable. This could be it. A big Stateside build-up behind the Client, with a guaranteed fee. Let's see you muff
this
one. Little Brother is watching.

I freshened my drink from his bottle. Hesitated, when I noticed his eye on my glass, then poured more in. That's not the answer, Little Brother. If the firm goes bankrupt, it won't be because Perkins & Tate are secret lushes. We don't need a gift subscription to Alcoholics Anonymous, just an introduction to a good tough collection agency.

‘How
did
you get mixed up with this bunch?' I really wanted to know. Perhaps it would give me the answers to a few other questions.

‘I don't remember. Suddenly, everything went black and, when I came to, they told me I was their Road Manager.'

‘And this is the Road?'

‘This is the Pie in the Sky. The roads they were on before, they didn't have to have a manager. Bart and the Troupe just played it by ear as they went along. They got paid off in black-eyed peas and ham hocks – or anything else they considered negotiable.'

‘But then they hit the Big Time.'

‘Yeah. Frankly, this is the problem.' He became serious, leaning forward and giving me that straight, sincere look with which Ivy League graduates preface their shiftiest deals. I knew that whatever was coming next was going to be from the bottom of the deck.

‘They hit it before they were quite ready. So we thought we ought to groom them a bit before we give them the full treatment.'

‘We?'

‘They've signed a Television Contract. One of Nathan's clients is going to sponsor them on a weekly half-hour, coast-to-coast, next season. But everybody agreed they could use a little more polish first.'

‘So they shipped them off to England, hoping some of our Olde Worlde culture would rub off on them?'

‘That's right. Nathan and the Agency decided I ought to come along as Road Manager, since I knew something about Show Business to begin with. I guess you could say I'm really holding a watching brief.' He smiled with sincere insincerity.

So, Little Brother was watching all around. That much I believed. In fact, I believed all of it. So, why did I have the feeling that I'd just been dealt a hand full of jokers?

Perhaps it was the way he was looking at me – or not looking at me. He met my eyes only occasionally, in that straightforward look, then his focus shifted abruptly, as though, having scored a point, it had better things to do. Mrs Marcowitz hadn't brought her boys up to be good liars.

I'd never forget the Thanksgiving Dinner I'd had at their home. Mrs Marcowitz had been carving the turkey (the old man hated the job) and we had all been talking. Sam and Nate had been reviewing one of the plays in the football game that afternoon. ‘And how about that dumb centre-forward?' Nate had said. ‘Anybody who couldn't have blocked that pass, Jesus –' The flat side of the carving knife descended sharply across his knuckles. ‘We do not take the name of God in vain in this house,' Mrs Marcowitz had said, and waited. ‘I'm sorry, Ma.' Still, she waited. Nathan glanced around the table. ‘I'm sorry, everybody, I apologize.' Satisfied then, Mrs Marcowitz had gone back to the carving. She had brought her sons up to be gentlemen, in the best tradition of the American Dream. She wasn't to know they'd be taught a different dream at those schools she'd scrimped to send them to. They had worked out their own version of the American Dream now, but they were going to be slightly handicapped in achieving it – early training dies hard.

‘I was rather surprised you brought them over by ship,' I said. ‘I thought air was the only way to travel these days. Time is money – and all that – especially while they're still at the top of the Hit Parade.'

‘Yeah, well –' Sam's eyes danced off to survey the horizon – ‘I'll tell you the truth.' Another bad sign. ‘They've been working awfully hard lately. Series of one-night-stands from Nashville to Tuskaloosa and back again. We figured they were overtired. A nice sea voyage, six days on the ocean, give them a good rest and a chance to get themselves into shape to face new audiences over here.'

Maybe – just maybe – managers, out of the kindness of their hearts, were sending artists on sea voyages at the height of their drawing power because they might be overtired.

‘One more thing,' I said. ‘What does your mother think of this crew?'

‘Ma? She doesn't know them. It's nothing to do with her.' Sam stood up, his eyes steely. ‘You'd better go and get those reservations changed for Lou-Ann, hadn't you? There'll be hell to pay if you don't.' He turned and walked out.

So, now I knew. They weren't the sort of people you brought home and introduced to Mother. Well, I'd mixed with some characters at Cinecittà that
I'd
be happy never to see again, let alone introduce to my mother. But, somehow, with the Marcowitzes, it meant something different.

And there was one other little thing that bothered me about Sam these days – his hands. When I'd known him in the old days, he'd worn fingernails.

I was very thoughtful as I made my way to the desk clerk. Handling Black Bart and the Troupe might be very good for the Perkins & Tate bank account, but I wondered if we might wind up crying all the way to the bank.

I arranged for Lou-Ann and Maw Cooney to be transferred to a double room on the sixth floor. Which reminded me – there was one other member of the Troupe. A second guitarist with a stomach ache. I'd better get over to
their
hotel and check on whether it was just a memory of mal-de-mer, or whether he needed a nice National Health appendectomy. All part of the service.

I dropped off the bus at Bloomsbury Square and cut through Russell Square. Behind an unprepossessing Edwardian front, the lobby was full of tourists queuing to cash travellers' cheques, or to ask if there was any mail. I sidestepped them all and joined the crush waiting for the lift. I was able to push my way in on the second trip and, firmly pinioned between two blue-rinsed ladies, I heard far more than I ever wanted to know of the details of Susie's operation. I broke free at the third floor, just as the surgeons were leaving a sponge inside, and walked up the remaining flight.

The sound of the harmonica guided me down the hallway. A shoe-box at the end of the corridor had been allotted to Cousin Zeke, and that was where I found them all. It was quite a homely little scene.

In the traditional manner of friends cheering the sick all over the world, the others were crowded into the room, going about their business, ignoring Cousin Zeke, who was lying there looking greyer by the minute – as well he might.

Uncle No'ccount was leaning against the wall, whuffling softly into the harmonica. The plaint was unfamiliar, but melodious, perhaps some old American country ballad. His eyes were abstracted and he was paying no attention to the others.