Kiss Your Elbow (17 page)

I
WENT OUT INTO THE STREET
still staring at the glasses the basket man had put in my hand. The cop followed me and got in the patrol car and drove off.

I got away from the Regal Baths as fast as I could—walking in the middle of the street this time.

So Bobby LeBranch had been there, too. He must have been in the alley with Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy. It had probably been Bobby's voice that had whispered, “Hold it. Someone's coming.” It was all so simple now. The phone call at Peters the Dancing Boy's. “No, I tell you. You can't come up here.” He probably didn't want to get nasty old blood all over his nice monk's-cloth slipcovers. The mickey in the Scotch. Jo-Jo and Bobby waiting outside Peters's since he was too finicky to let them take care of me in his apartment. Then following me till I got sick in the alley and almost finishing me then and there if it hadn't been for the musician and his girl. But Bobby was no fool. He just sent Jo-Jo around the corner after they had beat it up the alley to play Good Samaritan and be so helpful and suggest the dreamiest little Turkish bath he knew of. One the tourists hadn't
discovered yet…He hadn't left the Baths at all while I was talking to the basket man…just slipped into the back and put on his working clothes. Maybe he worked there during the day, or at least had at one time. And what a really groovy way to take care of me: asleep at the switch in a steam room—who can prove anything? The motherly care with which he had washed me off first—always wash it before you cook it—it's a wonder he didn't put an apple in my mouth. And the sadistic delights of the rubdown just like the way you tickle a lobster to make him relax just before you pop him in the boiling water…And then calling in his pal Bobby through the back door to watch the final death throes through the little window. Bobby was probably shuddering with such delicious delight that he never even knew his glasses had fallen off.

What a pity the soldier forgot his dogtags—they had had to beat it out the back door before the final exquisite spasm. But it didn't matter…there was always tomorrow—or the day after—and there wasn't a goddamned thing I could do about it.

I'd been beaten up, almost roasted alive and only some blisters, bruises and scratches to show for it. Lieutenant Heffran would give me the same brush-off this time, just like this last cop. No proof…
You admit you had been drinking? How can you be sure you weren't just imagining the whole thing? Soldiers, you say? Well, who are they? What are their names? Oh, one is named Lou and the other has a scar on his belly? Well, isn't that peachy. Oh, a couple, too?…But still no names. And
then running out without paying your bill. Tsk, tsk, now was that a nice thing to do. I have here a report from Officer Pushface—good man, Officer Pushface
—here there would be a pause for business of fingering reports.
He says you were drunk and almost disorderly…. I'm afraid, Mr. Briscoe, you were just imagining the whole thing. Now why don't you go away for a nice long trip somewhere and leave me the hell alone?

At the moment I was so tired and frustrated and mad that I would have been glad to believe the whole thing was just imagination…D.T.'s…anything. But it wasn't. I knew it wasn't.

But why? That's what I didn't get. Evidently I knew something a lot of people didn't want me to know, or, at least, they just thought I did. But what was I going to do? I couldn't just say, “It's all a mistake, boys. Honestly, fellas, I don't know a damn thing.” Because in the first place I didn't know who to say it to and you can't go around being careful if you don't even know who you have to be careful of. The smart thing to do would be to get out of town before it was too late. But I had a job—for the first time in months—and I was damned if I was going to run from something now. Particularly when I didn't even know what it was.

I took a cab to the Casbah, showered and shaved as well as I could around the scratches. I put Mercurochrome on the cuts and Band-Aids on top of that and my face looked like a camouflage net for snowy terrain. I knew how to treat the blisters on my hands and feet, so I wasn't worried about them, but what the hell was
Frobisher going to say when he got a load of my patchwork puss, particularly since he'd come right out and told us that the only reason Maggie and I were in the show was to look pretty, and scabs and Band-Aids don't do anything for you.

I wondered for a moment if he could fire me. This was no act of God…this was an act of that bastard Bobby. And to get fired on top of everything that had happened to me last night would be the last straw.

But what happened to me last night wasn't going to happen to me again, not if I could help it. I hadn't done so well with my bare hands, so from here on in I was going to have a gun, gun-control laws notwithstanding. The law had been conspicuously absent last night when I could have used it, so the law could just shove it.

My German pistol, which was almost standard equipment for every G I veteran of the war, was still in a shoe at the bottom of my closet. Bobby must have found the Youth and Beauty Book that time before he got as far as looking in my shoes. There was still too much oil in the barrel and it would never have passed an inspection, but there wasn't time to do anything about that now. It would shoot. The clip was still loaded and the click as I shoved it into place was mighty comforting. I always figured I'd hock it when I got completely broke, but never quite did. The S.S. Major who owned it originally and I had played a very interesting scene in which the pistol was an important prop, and I was kind of proud of my performance.

I got dressed and wrapped the pistol in a handker
chief and put it in my breast pocket. It pulled my coat down on the right side, though by experimenting in the mirror I found that if I kept my hand in the right pants' pocket, it wasn't so noticeable.

Well, that seemed to be all. As I closed and locked my door I thought to myself how nice it was there was nobody around to say, “This is it!”, an expression that always made me want to retch.

But I must admit that as I went down the steps and out into the street it was what I was thinking.

I didn't even stop for breakfast at Riker's. I was taking no chances today. The last time I had had coffee and eggs some very unpleasant things happened soon after. Let's face it—I was scared. Every man on the street was a potential Bobby and he wouldn't even be wearing his fancy glasses now to help identify him. I had them hidden behind the baseboard at the Casbah. While I waited for the subway I hugged the walls of the station. I stayed on the local. It was too easy to get pushed accidentally on purpose in front of a subway train. You think about those things after someone you don't know deliberately tries to kill you.

I'm so conditioned by the movies that I half expected during the walk up from Times Square to be shouldered into a waiting black sedan and whisked away for the final chase, and I sighed with relief when the Lyceum stage door came into view.

Almost the entire company was standing around on the sidewalk getting a few final gulps of fresh air before rehearsal on the dusty stage. I pulled my hat down
farther over my face and tried to make the stage door before anyone noticed me, but it didn't work. Showers grabbed my arm and pulled me back on the sidewalk.

“Can such things be?” he declaimed, hamming it up with gestures. “And overcome us like a summer's cloud without our special wonder.” I tried to shake him off, but then Miss Randall joined in.

“I pray you speak not. He grows worse and worse.” Which was no lie. I was getting mad. “Question enrages him. At once good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once…” With all that, even I could recognize the quotation now. Banquo's ghost scene from Macbeth. It had been in Kendall's unfinished letter to Bobby, but I didn't have time to think about it now, I was too busy trying to dream up a plausible story. I couldn't tell them the truth…. Why should they believe me any more than the cops? And even if they did, I'd probably get fired. Mr. Frobisher certainly wouldn't want valuable rehearsals interrupted with someone trying to kill one of his bit players all the time. The show must go on! As it was, Mr. Frobisher was about as frantic as he could get with the story I did whip up. Lord knows what he would have done with the truth, probably busted a gut.

I made up a story about stumbling down some stairs and scratching myself on a plaster wall and a few doors that happened to be around. The whoops of laughter this brought from the rest of the cast didn't make me feel any better, either. I was glad that Maggie wasn't there yet because she would undoubtedly shut them up by telling
them the whole thing, or as much as she knew and I didn't want that…not yet.

Mr. Frobisher kept cross-examining me. Wanted to know where the stairs were, exactly how it had happened—had I seen a doctor? I must be careful the cuts didn't get infected. Those things can be dangerous. He was telling me! I told him I had put the stuff on myself but he would have none of it.

“You go see my doctor now.” He wasn't asking—he was telling. “We're starting with the first act so you'll have time. I don't want you to take a chance, Tim…I know what can happen.” He got an odd look in his eye and I knew what he was remembering so I asked him for the address and started to go.

Just then two cabs pulled up and getting out of the first one was old Square-Mouth, Margo. She had certainly taken me at my word. Libby had made me promise to introduce Margo to Mr. Frobisher when I was definitely set and Margo was holding me to it. All that business about her wanting to act being Libby's idea was a lot of whoop-de-doo. Even though judging by Frobisher's fatherly interest in my scratches I was in pretty solid, I still didn't want to annoy him with women getting over divorces by going into the theater. But there didn't seem to be any way out of it. I had promised.

“Mr. Frobisher,” I said. “I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but a friend of mine would like to see you about an understudy job.” And before he had a chance to refuse I called Margo over. She was just finished paying off the cab and at least had the good grace to pretend
she was surprised to see me there. She came over very reluctantly but she didn't need to overdo it. A dark fur coat softened that Bennington look today and as far as type went she wasn't too much of an impossibility to understudy Miss Randall after all. But Mr. Frobisher wasn't buying any.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Briscoe, but I don't make it a practice to interview people on street corners.” He turned on his heel and stalked through the stage door. Two minutes ago I was
Tim
and mustn't take a chance getting my little cut infected and now I was
Mr. Briscoe
and I could drop dead. That's what happens when you try to help someone.

“Whew,” I whistled after he'd gone. “I'm sorry, Margo, but I tried.”

“It doesn't matter.” But I could tell that it did. No woman likes to be cut dead on the street. “I had no business imposing on you this way. It was all Libby's idea really. Thanks for trying, anyway. But what happened to you? Were you in an accident?”

“Yeah, I'll tell you all about it sometime, but I've got an appointment right now. So long.”

“Perhaps I can drop you off.”

“No thanks, Margo, I'd rather walk.”

“Okay, well thanks again.” She started for the cab still standing at the curb. I remembered something I had meant to do.

“Just a minute, Margo.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and walked over and put it in her hand. She looked down at it in surprise.

“What's this for?”

“The theater tickets the other night.”

“Oh…but…”

“Now don't argue.”

“But I don't understand what this is all about.”

“I'm not sure I do myself.” Greg Moulton, the stage manager, had just come out the stage door to herd the rest of the cast in. Well, since I'd started being the little Boy Scout, I might as well finish the job. Besides, who was Frobisher to get so high and mighty? He'd been nothing but a stage manager himself not so many years ago.

“Greg, would you mind coming here a minute?” He came over. “I'd like you to meet Margo Shaw. I think she might be a good bet for understudy. I wish you'd introduce her to Frobisher.” Greg looked her over.

“Well, you might fit the clothes, at that, Miss Shaw, but you understand with a star like Miss Randall there's not much chance of your going on even if she does get sick.”

“She understands all that, but you know Frobisher always has understudies, star or no star. The least you can do is let him decide.”

“Well, why don't you come back in about an hour, Miss Shaw, and I'll introduce you to him during one of the breaks. Okay?”

“That's terribly nice of you,” said Margo. She seemed a little amused. I guess she could afford to be a little amused about getting a seventy-five-buck-a-week job—if she could wear a coat like that one. “But I don't think…”

“Nuts,” I said. “What can you lose? Go have lunch and be back at two. It's all set.” I opened the door to the cab and there was Maggie sitting in the back. She'd evi
dently been there the whole time watching me be noble. She got out and Margo got in and drove off.