A Cadenza for Caruso (6 page)

But what Caruso liked most about the better barbershops were their bathtubs. Huge, commodious things that were far more comfortable than the tub he used at the hotel. Plus rows and rows of bottled scent for the water: lilac, mimosa, sandalwood, musk rose, lavender, blue hyacinth, verbena, hibiscus, wisteria, violet, birch leaf, chinaberry, honeysuckle—the tenor wanted to try them all. (Except gardenia; Caruso never used gardenia. He couldn't stand the soprano the scent was named after.) Caruso could soak in the barbershop bath for hours if he wished, the attendants constantly making sure the water stayed at the temperature he liked. New York barbershops were, in short, havens of repose and comfort for tired businessmen and distraught opera singers.

Mario's massage had gotten him through the rehearsal well enough; but at the end of the day Caruso felt the need to soak and steam—and talk. He liked the camaraderie of the barbershops, but that wasn't the kind of talk he wanted this time. He persuaded Pasquale Amato to go with him to Tonio's on Seventh Avenue, where he asked for a private room with two tubs.

Once he and Amato were installed in their tubs, Caruso told the attendants not to come in until he rang for them. Then he proceeded to tell Amato everything he had earlier in the day promised Puccini he would never reveal to anyone.

Amato swore. “No wonder he has been distracted. How can a man concentrate on work with something like that hanging over his head?”

Caruso cast a quick glance around the small bathroom to make sure no one had sneaked in when he wasn't looking. “Do you know what I think it is?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I think it is the Black Hand!”

“Ah, not again!”

“Why not again? Because they fail to extort money from me? That does not mean they are going to stop! The Black Hand
never
stops.”

“Rico, that is the first thing
you
think of, naturally enough. But to assume this man who is blackmailing Puccini—”

“It
is
the Black Hand, I feel it!” Caruso was sweating, and not just from the heat of the bath. The last time he'd been in New York, the Black Hand had threatened his life. The price for his safety had been fifteen thousand dollars, to be delivered to an address in Brooklyn. Caruso had summoned the police, who'd provided the terrified tenor with an armed guard, even in the opera house. Then Martino had taken a dummy package to the Brooklyn address, where police were watching. Two men were captured; a third escaped. That had all been earlier in the year, in February, but Caruso still couldn't think about it without breaking into a sweat.

Amato was watching his friend carefully. “Rico, are you still afraid of them?”

“Yes,” Caruso admitted without hesitation. “What of reprisals? One of the men escaped, remember. And they must have friends.” Caruso scowled. “And now they are after Puccini.”

“Do not be so sure of that,” the baritone mused. “The Black Hand is made up of thugs and hoodlums, Rico. I can believe they'd go to Puccini and threaten to break his arms or put out his eyes if he doesn't pay them off—that is their style. No finesse. But think a moment. Can you really see these thugs going to the trouble of locating a sample of Elvira Puccini's handwriting, and then sitting down and forging those letters? And doing a good enough job of it that most people would be fooled? Rico, a lot of those Black Handers cannot even read and write! This is just not their kind of crime. It is too calculated.”

A glimmer of hope appeared in Caruso's face. “Do you really think so?”

“I really think so. In fact, I am willing to lay a small wager that Puccini's blackmailer is one man acting on his own. You did say the man is a small-time impresario, did you not? Does that sound like the Black Hand to you?”

Caruso splashed his tub water happily; he was willing to be convinced. “So we have only one man to worry about. But what do I do? I sent Ugo to find out his address—I think I may sign a contract with Luigi Davila after all. A few extra concerts will not hurt me. I just might do it.”

“
Cielo!
Why?”

“Well, perhaps if that nasty pink man can make a little success, be a real impresario … you see? If he makes money from me, legitimately—he may leave Puccini alone!”

Amato threw back his head and laughed. “Sometimes you can be so wonderfully innocent, Rico! That is not the answer. Don't you see, then he would just have his hooks into both of you. A man like that has no honor. It is a generous impulse, Rico, but a bad idea. I suggest you forget it.”

Caruso agreed readily, since he hadn't thought too much of the idea in the first place. “By the way, you understand you are to repeat all this to no one,” he cautioned belatedly. “If anyone asks, you do not know anything about it. I gave Puccini my solemn word I do not tell his secret. But I am at my wit's end trying to figure out how to help. You always know what to do, Pasquale. Suggest something.”

Amato was silent a moment. Then: “You are asking my advice?”

“Yes, I am asking your advice.”

“Then my advice is to stay out of it. You coerced Puccini into revealing his secret in the first place, yes? And if you start meddling you will just make things worse. Rico, old friend, mind your own business.”

“How can I do that?” Caruso protested. “When a friend needs help—”

“But since we both know you have never minded your own business in your life,” Amato went on smoothly, “my
second
piece of advice is to find this blackmailer and confront him yourself. Find this Luigi …?”

“Davila.”

“Davila, yes. Go to him and tell him you know what he is doing. If he thinks other people know about it, he just might back down. No man wants to be known as a blackmailer. Too risky.”

Caruso sat up straight in his tub. “You think that will work?”

“It might. It will depend on how easily intimidated this man Davila is.”

“Will you go with me?”

“How can I?” Amato blew soapsuds in Caruso's direction. “I do not even know about this, remember? And Rico—I still think my first advice is the best. Don't meddle in it.”

Caruso swooshed the water with his toes, thinking. “Pasquale—if our positions were reversed, what would you do? Would
you
stay out of it? Or would you try to help?”

Amato was silent for so long that Caruso began to think he'd fallen asleep. Then the baritone sighed, musically. “I'd try to help.”

Caruso leaned back in the tub and smiled. It was the answer he wanted.

4

The following day Caruso was excused from the
Fanciulla
rehearsal. He was singing
Pagliacci
that night, and Toscanini had agreed to rehearse around him, just this once. The conductor knew how much preparation a heavy tragic role like
Pagliacci
demanded of a singer.

That was another mystery Caruso had to contend with. Why was Toscanini being so understanding? This was unnatural behavior, to say the least.

It took some doing for Caruso to get himself into the proper frame of mind for the heavier operatic roles. His usual procedure was to spend most of the day lying down. He would vocalize very little, and then always in long, sustained phrases, building up gradually until it was time to go to the opera house. By then he would be in the initial stages of a first-class, grade-A
panic
.

Enrico Caruso suffered from stage fright.
Terrible
stage fright; it had been with him all his life and showed no sign of going away. Over the years it had fallen to his accompanist Barthélemy to nurse the tenor through these pre-performance jitters, to supply him with headache medicine and throat spray and analgesic powders and generally soothe and encourage him any way he could. Once Caruso stepped out on the stage, he was all right; but that period right before a performance began was hell for everybody.

So it was to everyone's benefit if the day preceding an evening performance could be spent calmly. Caruso tried lying down and blanking his mind, but this time the trick didn't work. Ugo had turned up an address for Luigi Davila, and facing the blackmailer was all Caruso could think of. He found, to his distress, that he didn't want to do it.

When Davila had been just an annoying little man trying to hitch a free ride on Caruso's coattails, the tenor had known how to respond to him. But now that Caruso was aware Davila was a blackmailer, or a would-be blackmailer—well, that made a difference. One did not speak to blackmailers the same way one spoke to ordinary pests.

To get his mind off the matter, Caruso went to his desk to read some of his mail. Everyone in the household took turns with the mail; and sometimes Caruso had to ask friends to come in and help, there was so much of it. Some of it came to the hotel, but most was sent to the Metropolitan Opera. A New York postal clerk had once told Caruso that he received as much mail as an entire small town.

The first letter he picked up followed a common pattern.

Dear Cousin Enrico
,

You may not remember me from our early days in Naples, as I was only a child when you left. I have been living in the United States of America for three years now and have fallen upon hard times
.…

The letter went on to ask for a small stake to start a coal-and-wood business in Ohio and was signed
Federico Caruso
.

It was amazing the number of Carusos that had sprung up in the world over the past few years. True, “Caruso” was a very common name, but no man alive ever had as many relatives as the number that now claimed kinship to
the
Caruso. Federico Caruso, for instance—the tenor had never heard of him. For all he knew, Federico might be a cousin at that. The amount of money the man asked for was modest, so Caruso wrote him out a check.

“Rico!” Ugo said reprovingly, looking over the tenor's shoulder. “You must stop giving so much money away! Who is this ‘Federico Caruso'? Another long-lost relative, undoubtedly?”

“Well, well, perhaps.”

Ugo snorted. “
Anybody
can ask you for money and get it! What do you know of this Federico? He could be a liar and a thief! He could beat his wife and children!”

Caruso waved his arm in the air, inadvertently sprinkling Ugo with ink. “How am I to know which ones are deserving? They cannot
all
be liars!”

Ugo threw up his arms in disgust and stormed away. Caruso returned to his mail; they had had this argument before. Ugo was downright stingy with Caruso's money; keeping the accounts had given him a proprietary interest in it, Caruso supposed.

But even as he went on reading the mail, his thoughts kept returning to Puccini and Luigi Davila. Finally he pushed the mail away in irritation; concentration was impossible. He took out his sketch pad and tried a few drawings but couldn't get the lines to go right. He slammed the pad shut and was annoyed that it didn't make more noise.

Caruso sat and twiddled his thumbs for a few moments. Then he thought of his watches—ah yes, he would play with his watches! He hurried into another room and started taking small black boxes out of a bureau drawer. Caruso had only recently begun collecting the eighteenth-century enameled gold timepieces, but already he had enough of them to make an impressive display. The tenor loved their look and their touch; he loved the heavy feel of them in his hand. But today the watches failed to work their usual magic; Caruso was just handling them without seeing their beauty. He put the boxes back in the drawer.

The Hotel Knickerbocker apartment had eight rooms; the times Caruso had stayed there before, the place had been ample enough. But today the rooms seemed to be shrinking in on him. He prowled all eight of them, looking for something, anything to distract him. Barthélemy was out, running some personal errand. Ugo was seated at a table working on the accounts, still grumbling over what he considered Caruso's excessive open-handedness. Mario had turned invisible, as he always did when he was not needed. Martino was sewing a button on a coat.

Caruso sat down and watched Ugo and Martino work. He didn't feel like reading or playing cards. A trace of morning hoarseness still remained in his throat, so it was too early to start vocalizing. He should lie down and rest. He jumped up and sprayed the room with perfume.

“Is something wrong, Rico?” Martino asked. “Shouldn't you be resting?”

Suddenly Caruso felt that if he didn't get out of that apartment he would suffocate. “Martino! Bring me my coat and hat. I am going out!”

“To distribute alms among the poor, no doubt,” Ugo muttered from his table.

Martino brought Caruso his hat and fur-collared coat, his gloves and cane. “Where are you going, Rico?” The same question he asked every time Caruso left the apartment. Like a mother hen checking up on one of her chicks.

“I am going to see my tailor,” Caruso lied.

“You do not wish him to come here? Shall I call him on the telephone?”

“No, no, this time I go to him. I am going to buy a new suit and a new pair of shoes,” he improvised.

“Rico,” Martino laughed, “you already have
eighty
pairs of shoes!”

“Eighty?”

“And fifty suits.”

“Fifty!”

Ugo, low: “All two sizes too small.”

“And,” Martino finished with a flourish, “a dozen hats!”

Caruso's eyes grew large. “
Per dio!
It is a new
hat
that I need!”

Out he marched.

Caruso stepped off the streetcar at the corner of Third Avenue and Fourteenth Street and took a few moments to get his bearings. East Fourteenth Street—once the center of New York's entertainment world until the theatres had started moving uptown, first to Herald Square and then to Times Square. Now the street had a rundown, faded-glory look to it, a roosting place for also-rans and left-behinds, people like Luigi Davila who'd never really been part of the mainstream at all.