Who He? - (2)

The house was emptying out. The two glass control booths at the back of the orchestra were filled with gesticulating agency men who might or might not be berating Raeburn Sachs, the director, and Sol Eggleston, the network camera-director. Jake's nostrils dilated. The stage was in a turmoil. Six dancers in snow-crystal costumes dashed past him with their duck-footed gait, whispering nervously.
    "Angie ... Flo ... Ruthanna!" Lennox called. They were his favorite pipe-lines to the backstage. They glanced at him with frightened eyes, looked away and scampered up the iron stairs to the dressing rooms on the balcony overlooking the stage. In a corner book-fold set representing Santa's workshop, Oliver Stacy was snarling at Kay Hill, a thin, attractive girl with acid eyes and a slack mouth.
    The camera crews and stagehands were striking equipment and sets in silence. There was no chatter or laughter despite the fact that the Grabinett office had slushed them with Christmas graft and it smelled as though the graft had been sampled. Lennox turned and looked across the house to the right boxes where the musicians' platform was built, searching for his friend, Sam Cooper, the rehearsal pianist. The musicians were leaving. Sam was nowhere in sight. Lennox mustered himself for another fight. Carrying his naked weapons ready for quick murder, he strode to the star dressing room on stage, knocked once and entered, prepared for attack or defense.
    The star stood in scarlet Santa costume with half a beard clinging to his lantern jaw. Mig Mason was thin, dark, young, with a good hairline and a bad nose-job. He was sobbing hysterically. His wife, Irma, in a mink coat, wearing Christmas orchids, a bad platinum dye and a good nose-job, was trying to soothe him. The producer, Mel Grabinett, blinking and jerking, was roaring at Tooky Ween, Mason's agent. Diggy Dixon, the dummy, in gnome's costume, sprawled on the dressing table alongside the door and regarded the scene with a wooden grin.
    "I don't care how much you're worth," Grabinett stuttered. "I don't care how much goddam billing you handle. What the hell are you trying to do? Bury my show?"
    "What are you trying to do?" Ween rumbled. "Bury my property?"
    "It ain't bad enough you gouge my budget for three grand. Three Almighty Grand for that special skyscraper set so he can crawl around like a cowardy cockroach and drop the dummy and turn my show into a trappisty--"
    "I told you I had to have three hours' rehearsal on camera," Mason shrieked.
    "He had to have three hours," Irma said.
    "But then he has to bitch the telephone contestant!" The producer's face twitched hideously. "She give him the right answer. Kris Kringle, she said. My operator was monitoring that Kansas call. She heard it. The dame give the right answer."
    "She did not," Mason cried. "Tell him, Tooky. The right answer was St. Nicholas."
    "The right answer was St. Nicholas," Irma said.
    "It was Kris Almighty Kringle, you no-talent son of a--"
    "Lay off!" Ween broke in. He glared at Grabinett. "Lay off my property. You ain't just talking to talent. He's a star."
    "The question," Grabinett told the star with exaggerated calm, "was: You seen me play the part of Santa Claus in our comedy sketch. Now, for five thousand dollars, can you tell us another name for Santa Claus. That was the question. And she give the right answer. Kris Kringle. But no, you said. Sorry, you said. That's not right. Thank you. Merry Christmas. And you hung up the phone and hung me up with the FCC. That dame's husband is a lawyer. He called back before we went off the air. He's so goddam mad he's suing us for fraud. He's suing the network." Grabinett's voice broke in agony. "He's suing the client. The client!"
    "The answer was St. Nicholas," Mason shouted.
    "It was Kris Almighty Kringle!"
    Lennox could have backed out and disappeared unnoticed; instead he thrust the dressing room door wide. The knob struck the dummy and knocked it to the floor. Everyone twisted around and saw him. Instantly they seemed to close ranks. Even the dummy shifted its eyes malevolently. Lennox looked them over insolently, daring them to attack. They attacked,
    "Ask him!" Mason cried. "Ask him! He wrote it. He's supposed to know all the answers. The Thinker!"
    "It's his fault," Irma said.
    "Where the hell you been?" Grabinett blurted. "You know what happened? If you'd been around tonight we wouldn't be in this jam."
    "You got one hell of a nerve writing a lousy show like this for my property," Tooky Ween growled, "I want a new writer hired."
    "You don't need a writer," Lennox snapped. "You need an education. And don't try to rap me for that skyscraper fiasco. F-I-A-S-C-O. I voted for Rear-Projection at the conference."
    "You can't get laugh values with projection," the agent rumbled. "You got to pin-point my boy on a genuine set."
    "And what happened on the genuine set? Lennox eyed Mason coldly. You dropped the dummy? For laugh values?"
    "They never gave me a chance to rehearse the chimney," Mason wept. "When I got halfway down with the bag of presents and I say to Diggy: Hey Diggy! This ain't the right chimney. It smells wrong. And Diggy says...."
    From the floor the dummy cackled: "Better get your paddle out, Mig. You're up the creek."
    Lennox scowled. "I told your gagmen not to use that. We agreed to cut it." He enlisted Grabinett. "You backed me up, Mel. Yes?"
    "Yeah," Grabinett answered. He too scowled at Mason.
    "But it's the best boffola in the routine. When I did it on the Oddfellows show last year they--"
    "Used it last year? You swore the Santa sketch was an original." Lennox attacked Tooky Ween. "You guaranteed Mason would use nothing but original material on this show. Fact?"
    "Listen," Ween began to explain, "My boy is--"
    "Your boy is going to lay a suit for breach of contract in your lap if you don't watch him."
    "It was so strictly original," Mason protested hysterically. "Last year we did it like a chimney sweeper and his helper. We--"
    "And next year it'll be a burglar and his friend. What happened tonight in the two thousand dollar chimney? Two, Mel?"
    "Three!" Grabinett howled. "Three thousand bucks so he could get his pants full of nails and drop the dummy trying to ungoose hisself. It was a trappisty!"
    "Who'd he drop it on, Tooky?"
    "Who cares who?"
    "Mel and I care. We're still trying to find a laugh in that sketch."
    "I care on who." Irma raked Ween with her eyes. "Happens he dropped Diggy on me. My head."
    Lennox kept his face straight. "Did it get a laugh?"
    "Nobody saw. I was behind the set."
    "Cuing him from the script," Grabinett sputtered. "He didn't even know his lines."
    "If you don't like my boy, you know what you can do," Ween told him.
    "There's co-operation for you," Lennox said bitterly. "What does he have to lose, Mel? He's got a network contract for his boy. Two thousand a week guaranteed, work or no work. What does he care about the show?" Lennox looked at Mason sympathetically. "But you ought to care, Mig. It won't do you any good to go off and lose your fans while Tooky collects his ten percent."
    "Fifteen," Mason snapped.
    "Oh? Three bills a week out of you? For what? Watching? Advising? Protecting? No. 'If you don't like my boy, you know what you can do.' Agents!"
    "What the hell are you trying to parlay?" Ween demanded.
    "I think you're looking for an excuse to get out of the show," Lennox answered. "You're trying to duck the Kansas lawsuit. Your property got Mel into this jam. Now you want out so he'll have to face it alone."
    "They'll never get away with it," Grabinett shouted. "Neither of you both. You got me into this. You're stuck with it."
    "St. Nicholas!?" Mason cried. "St. Nicholas!"
    "Yeah? Show me where it says in the contract," Ween answered, "It ain't our headache. It's yours."
    "Then how would you like it if I handed you a real genuine headache, Mr. Ween? Something I had been protecting your Almighty property from." Grabinett blinked ominously. "A nice little headache waiting for your boy up at the office in a blue envelope. Number six, it is."
    "What?" Lennox exclaimed. "Another one, Mel?"
    "Yeah. Another one. It come special delivery this morning. What a sweet Christmas card! Wait'll you read it, Jake. It got me so scared, I--Wait'll Mig reads it."
    "What's this? What's this?" Tooky Ween said angrily. "You been holding out on my property's fan mail?"
    "Not any mail he wants to read. Some elegant letters in blue envelopes which--"
    "Mel! Hold the phone," Lennox interrupted. "We decided we weren't going to mention those letters to anyone. Are you going to blow it?"
    "It's already busted wide open. If Kansas don't take us off the air, them letters will." Grabinett shook his fist at Ween. "Threatening letters which come addressed to 'Dear Who He' and signed 'Guess Who' and they'll curl the hair off all his property, including that atom bomb shelter he built in Westchester and this no-talent dummy-dropper."
    "Cut out them insults," Ween said furiously.
    "Cut out them grammar," Lennox murmured. Having turned the united front back into civil war, he felt secure again; in full control of the situation, austere and infallible. But the news about the letter was alarming. It was another attack to be met ... a vicious, anonymous onslaught, far more dangerous than the threatened lawsuit.
    "I been trying to protect my show," Grabinett continued passionately to Tooky Ween. "I been trying to protect your lousy artiste so he could earn his two yards and get us a rating, but if you're gonna rat on me, then I'll--"
    "Why don't you leave me alone?" Mason screamed. "What are you trying to do? Murder me? Leave me alone!"
    He scooped up the dummy, thrust past Lennox and dashed out of the dressing room. The others stared in astonishment, then all four ran after the star. Mason was at the prop table. He snatched up a ski-pole and veered out on the naked stage, whirling the pole over his head, making whimpering sounds. He smashed the single work-light hanging down from the grid, and the stage was in darkness. Irma screamed. Grabinett groaned. Tearing noises came from the back wall where the struck sets were stacked. Lennox took over.
    "Angie! Flo! Ruthanna!" he shouted. His favorites heard him. They opened their dressing room door and came out on the balcony. The stage was flooded with dilute light from overhead.
    "What is it, Jake? What's the matter?"
    "Keep that door open. We need light," Lennox answered. He called to the star: "Mig, don't be a fool! If you want to break something, your agent's right here."
    Mason stopped ripping the flats apart, dropped the ski-pole, turned and ran wildly behind the master switchboard in the left wings. An instant later they heard the clatter of his feet ringing down iron steps. They pursued him down the spiral stairs to the huge dressing room under the stage where six naked ballet boys in half makeup were standing and staring in bewilderment.
    "Excuse us, ladies," Lennox called. "Where's Mig?"
    They pointed to a heavy bulkhead door just oozing shut.
    "Jesus Almighty," Grabinett moaned. "He's down in the cellar."
    "Find the electrician," Lennox told him. "Tooky, get a flashlight. Irma, you wait here."
    Lennox went through the cellar door, stumbled down an endless zig-zag flight of concrete steps, clinging to the rail. He came to the bottom of the steps, lost his grasp on the rail and was lost in blackness.
    "Mig!" he shouted.
    There was no answer.
    "Mig! Come back. It was St. Nicholas."
    He fumbled in his pockets for matches, listening for the sound of footsteps. He heard faint echoes far ahead, and ran forward, meanwhile pulling a book of matches out and trying to light one. "What a Christmas," he muttered and blundered against a wall with a stunning impact. The matches flew from his hand. He clung to the wall, waiting for the crashing in his head to subside.
    "Tooky! Mel!" he called. "Hurry up with the lights!"
    There was no answer. There was no light.
    "There must be an easier way to earn a living," he told himself and began to grope blindly.
    Suddenly he lost control again. For the second time in that monstrous day he was attacked by panic. It was inexplicable and gut-chilling.
    "No," he said. "No. Please."
    He was blacked-out and could not withstand this second blow. He began to wilt and fight for breath. The mass of the theater overhead pressed down on him, slowly collapsing, painfully crushing. He clawed at the wall and searched feebly for the stairs. He turned a corner, another, a third. He was lost forever.
    A hard hand thrust into his neck. Lennox cried out and jerked his arm up. He was struck savagely across the forearm by something stiff and wooden. He backed away from this menace and blundered into a jagged field of metal bones that rattled and clashed. Lennox sagged to his knees and cried shamelessly. That was how Sam Cooper found him half an hour later; kneeling in a cellar storeroom amidst overturned music stands, sobbing before an imperious wooden Indian.
    Without a word, Cooper pulled Lennox to his feet, brushed him off and led him back to the cellar stairs. His flashlight played erratically on the glistening tunnels and rotting wooden doors. In the days of past glory, the Venice had been one of the big musical houses and its vaults were stuffed with the jetsam of ancient hits: Congo masks, Hessian boots, racks of tarnished costumes, ear-trumpets, Civil War muskets, an entire Merry-Go-Round with peeling poles and blind horses.
    "Love to steal them and deal them out to Mig's audience some night," Cooper murmured.
    "The guns?"
    "The ear-trumpets."
    Cooper helped Lennox up the concrete stairs. As he thrust open the bulkhead door, he said: "Easy. Gone home. The dancers."
    "Get reporters," Lennox said. "I found Judge Crater."
    They entered the empty dressing room which was still lit. Cooper sat Lennox down before a bulb-ringed mirror, handed him a box of cleansing tissue and a comb. Lennox cleaned himself wearily and pretended to comb his hair. Cooper lit a cigarette and thrust it between Jake's lips.
    "I don't smoke," Lennox said, handing it back.
    "You smoke when you're plastered."
    "I'm not plastered."
    "It says here." Cooper took a drag. "They've got an old Bechstein Grand in that cellar," he said softy. "I'm going to take your tape recorder down some night and break it up with an axe. The Bechstein. Could sell a dub to every pianist in town. Wish fulfillment."
    "Do me a favor," Lennox said.
    "Name it."
    "Break up the wooden Indian on the Flip."
    "I thought that was Judge Crater."
    "I thought it was Kris Kringle," Lennox said somberly, fingering his neck. Suddenly he asked: "Where's Mason? Dead?"
    "Went under the cellar. Came up the other side. Went back to his dressing room and doing very well I hear."
    Lennox grunted thrice in anguish. Cooper eyed him solemnly in the mirror. His face wore a permanent expression of perplexity. He was tall, compact, with strong hands, high cheekbones and deep-set narrow eyes. He had the well-scrubbed Princeton look, and as a matter of fact had been a big wheel in Triangle shows before he broke into television. He was a mediocre song-writer and a magnificent rehearsal pianist, which is a high art unappreciated outside the business.
    Cooper and Lennox had been close friends for over three years, and for the past ten months Sam had been sharing Lennox's apartment. When Lennox invited him, Sam had moved in his grand piano, seventeen copper pots, one hundred and thirteen record albums, a complete Hi-Fi sound system, two Siamese cats, and a mink-dyed skunk. He'd said: "Gosh, fellows, let's room together all through school." They were still together, despite the skunk.
    "Great God on echo!" Lennox said after a long pause, "I think I'm on my way to the booby hatch."
    "Oh? Why the hell did you go charging down there? For Mig?"
    "I was playing the scene."
    "Rover Boys to the rescue. Which were you? Fun-loving Tom?"
    "No. Noodnick Jake. And then I lost hold...."
    "On Mig?"
    "Myself. You saw me down there...." Lennox winced in shame. "Hysterical."
    "Maybe you're afraid of the dark."
    "I wish it were something nice and simple like that; but the cellar was just the pay-off on something worse. I.... When did you see me last?"
    "Yesterday. After rehearsal. You went out for a drink with Avery Borden," Cooper answered promptly.
    "I remember that. I remember the drinks. Then--I didn't sleep home last night?"
    "Not last night. No."
    "Christ, stand by me!" Lennox muttered.
    Cooper looked bewildered. "You've slept out before. Why the production? What plays?"
    "I've lost a day," Lennox said slowly. "I don't know where I was or what I was doing from nine last night to nine tonight."
    "Um. Loaded?"
    "Looks like."
    "Smells like. What were you drinking? Caveat Emptor Reserve?"
    "I've got a feeling that I did something dirty.... Something that's going to shock hell out of me if I ever find out.... Something as dark as that cellar. Maybe that's why I blew down there."
    "You're not the dirty type, Jake."
    "But I'm scared. I--You know those newsreels where they dynamite a smoke-stack?"
    "Yep. Always comes after the Miami water-skis. They play suspense-type music in two-four."
    "I feel like that moment just before everything collapses. But what blew up, Sam? What happened?"
    "You think something blew up between tonight and last night?"
    "I know it. That must be why I blacked out. I can remember ... I can remember a Quaker and a blonde...."
    "Quaker? Man from Philadelphia?"
    "Yes. A Quaker and a blonde and a knot."
    "Blond woman?"
    "I think so."
    "What kind of knot?"
    "What kind could there be?"
    "Dozens. The kind you tie, like hangman's knot. How fast a ship goes. A knot in wood. A knot in palmistry. A knot in--"
    "You're no help. I can't remember. Just a Quaker and a blonde and a knot. It's crazy. Why'm I shaking like this?" Lennox tried to control himself. His eyes burned with tears. "Look at me. Jake Lennox, leader of men, crying like a fag."
    "You know something," Cooper told him solemnly. "On you it's becoming. Makes you human."
    "Human!" Lennox burst out in contempt, grinding his eyes with his knuckles.
    "You need a bath and some food," Cooper said firmly. "Leave us go home. On your feet, Beaver Patrol. Watch it! You've got your hand in something."
    "Robust Juvenile No. 4," Lennox muttered, peering at the makeup jar.
    "Robust and juvenile men.... Forward!"
    They left the dressing room, turned out the lights and mounted the spiral staircase. A new work-light had been hung from the iron grid high above the stage. Mason's dressing room was open and an informal party was in progress, Mason had the dummy in one hand and a bottle in the other. He was going through a comedy routine while Grabinett, Ween, Irma and a dozen others shrieked with laughter.
    As Cooper and Lennox passed the door, the dummy cackled: "Ah! The Thinker and the poor man's Paderoosky. Merry Christmas, boys."
    Lennox pulled to a stop despite Cooper's urging. "Peace on earth, good will to all men," he answered savagely. "For five thousand dollars can you tell us what it means?"
    Grabinett, Ween and Mason glared at Lennox with hatred. He scowled back and then permitted Cooper to lead him to the stage door. As they plunged out into the sleet, he growled: "I'll fight."
    "Who?"
    "I don't know ... but I'll fight. I'll go down fighting, and I won't go down."
    CHAPTER III
    The Lennox apartment was on Knickerbocker Square which is one of scores of hidden relics of the past concealed on The Rock. There are elongated sycamore trees corseted with cement, a Greek cross of gravel paths, four square patches of grass, and a black and brass fence surrounding all. The houses facing the square are red stone Dutch style with copper roofs, bottle windows and glass orangeries in the rear. The old night lanterns and polished stone carriage posts are still standing. Lennox occupied a floor and a quarter in Number 33.
    You entered from the street into the kitchen, decorated with Cooper's cooking utensils and garish butcher charts he had charmed out of an influential meat-packer in Grosse Pointe. There was also a lunatic side-arm Oliver typewriter which he had charmed out of a Brooklyn druggist. It wrote in minims and other pharmaceutical symbols, and Cooper typed recipes on it. He once sent me one that read like Witch's Brew. Turned out to be Fruit Soup.
    Past the kitchen, through a short hall lined with cupboards, you came into the living room. It was forty feet long with high windows looking out on a rear garden, and had evidently been enlarged from two smaller rooms because there were two fire-places on the right wall. On the left was the door to Cooper's bedroom, the door to the bath, and a narrow flight of steps leading up to the other quarter floor Lennox had. This was a second bedroom and study where Lennox slept and worked.
    The living room contained Cooper's piano, his Hi-Fi system, his records and his two Siamese which hunted in pack. The mink-dyed skunk had conceived a passion for the bathtub and only came out grudgingly when the shower was turned on. Lennox had four or five hundred books in walnut breakfront cases and a pair of butterfly wing chairs to which he was devoted and over which he waged relentless war with the Siamese who well knew how to punish him when he offended them.
    There was an Italian couch before one fireplace, which was kept practical, as we say in the business, and a sawbuck table that doubled as a bar against the other which contained an aquarium of adenoidal goldfish. The walls were decorated with smouldering photographs contributed by Cooper's sister who had studied with Berenice Abbott, but had not yet recovered from the childhood influence of a Doré Bible. There was a magnificent refectory table with six captain's chairs near the windows.
    It was a warm, pleasant apartment since Cooper had moved in. His easy style took the curse off Jake's stiffness. In the past we used to dread going to Jake's parties. He was such a punctilious host that he invariably chilled the guests. But Cooper, who came from fresh-water society, had lived with protocol too long to be impressed by it. He kidded Lennox into relaxing and showing us flashes of his real self ... the Lennox that Cooper knew. I think everyone would have loved Jake if they could have seen him the way he showed himself to his friend.
    But this Christmas night Lennox was not lovable; he was impossible. It was his custom to make his prayers in the shower, asking God to keep him austere, kindly, infallible and sophisticated. He never begged. He made his request as one son of the Marquis of Suffolk to another. Now, however, he was raging. He stood under the hot downpour with uplifted head, fists clenching and unclenching, furious with himself and God.
    "What next?" he asked the shower-nozzle. "What else? Don't pull any punches. I won't whine or beg off. Let's have it all, and I'll show You!"
    He cut off the water, wrapped himself in a towel, kicked open the bathroom door and stalked out into the living room. The mink-dyed skunk galloped past him back into the bathroom and stamped its paws angrily when it discovered the tub was wet. Cooper had a fire going in the practical fireplace, and a pot of coffee tactfully exposed on an end table alongside one of the wing chairs. It was half-past ten and the Siamese were enjoying their bedtime magic hour, skittering crazily up and down the apartment with crossed eyes and flattened ears.
    Lennox dried his back and rump carefully before he sat down. He poured black coffee and drank it as though it were poison hemlock. Cooper came in from the kitchen and appeared to be having a magic hour of his own, for he was wearing his chef's hat and a dinner jacket. Lennox stared at him.