Laurel and Hardy Murders (8 page)

I was halfway up the aisle, ready to leave, but I couldn’t resist watching the old trouper in his first performance onstage in a good fifteen years. “The Cuckoo Song” played and Adam (Ollie/Natie) and Eve (Stan/Toby) walked on. They approached the sole piece of stage scenery, a large, two-dimensional apple tree. After a bit of pantomimic by-play, Ollie pushed a finger against a knothole in the tree unit and a doorbell rang, followed by a heavenly fanfare.

Jack Black entered, twirling his phony mustache. Despite his ninety-plus years, he did a little ridiculous hop-skip that looked exactly like the one Stan performed whenever he saw an attractive woman in the short comedy “Putting Pants on Philip.” Everyone from Tye through the rest of the cast cracked up when he did it, and Black looked pleased, though he didn’t break out of character.

“
That bitch-mother! Goddamn it
!”

I swung around, amazed at the vehemence of the imprecation. It had not been uttered loudly, and I doubted that anyone heard it but me.

In the back of the theater stood Wayne Poe, his chilly professional smile plastered on his face in a ghastly parody of mirth. There was a woman standing next to him. She started to whisper something to him, but Poe turned abruptly on his heel and marched out of the theater.

I approached the other. It was Sandy Sable, a thirtyish mousy brunette who barely measured up to the middle of my chest. She was the protégée of the parent tent, a clever monologist whose area of specialization was nostalgic humor. Onstage she was vivacious and wistfully appealing at the same time, but when she wasn’t performing, she retired inside herself and took most of her personality with her.

The only times I’d seen her before were when she was doing her comedy act and on those occasions she was always smartly dressed. But O. J. said she never took that wardrobe onto the street for fear of losing the full tax credits she deducted for clothing. So there, in the darkened rear of The Lambs’ theater, Sandy blended into the woodwork in a tattered white short-sleeved blouse and faded jeans she couldn’t do justice to.

“What was wrong with him?” I asked her, jerking my thumb in Poe’s direction.

The ghost of a smile twitched her lips, but immediately disappeared. “He just learned he has to go on after the play. Isn’t that a shame?” She stared up at me with large watery brown eyes. “Do you know me?” she asked shyly, inverting the usual form of the question to suit her comedian’s need for recognition.

“Sure. You’re Sandy Sable.”

Her smile lasted a fraction of a second longer this time. “What’s your name?”

“Gene.”

“Gene, would you do me a very special favor?” She asked it in such a low voice that for a second I thought it was going to be something very personal. Somewhere in the depths of her eyes I sensed an individual I would like to get to know.

I asked her what the favor was and she beckoned me to follow her. She walked to the left side of the theater house, opened a door in the rear wall and passed through. I wondered what the hell I was getting into, but I followed.

We were in a small dark room filled by a long walnut conference table, chairs, and bookshelves crammed full of ancient plays and books of theatrical theory and history. She flicked on the light and asked me to take a seat.

For the next half-hour, Sandy Sable tried out every bit of new comedy material she’d written over the past three months. After each punch line, I had to tell her whether I
really
thought the joke was funny, or if I was just laughing to be polite, because I felt I had to. Actually, she would have been surprised how low my store of politeness had waned by the time I extricated myself from her flypaper grasp.

She’d made me late, and I had to hurry home to change and pick up Hilary. I was still tiptoeing around the office to spare her any added aggravation. One of our accounts, Trim-Tram Toys, had just canceled its contract and we were in rocky financial shape, a condition in no way ameliorated by Uncle Sam’s magnetic affinity for our income.

I had an awful feeling Hilary was going to find out about the parent tent’s stag membership policy that evening, and I fully expected the night to end in emotional fireworks.

But things started off much more smoothly than I’d thought possible. She was already dressed when I got back to the apartment, and I nodded approval at the alluring green silk pants suit and simple matching jacket. Her hair was in an upsweep, a style I’d never seen her wear before. Usually, Hilary either let her hair hang loose about her shoulders or tied it severely in back.

“How do you like it?” she smiled, indicating the hairdo with a graceful upward movement of both arms.

“I wouldn’t have said it was you, but it looks great!”

“Tonight, it
is
me,” she said, taking my arm. “Gene, I’ve been looking forward to this evening. If there’s something I can really use today, it’s a good laugh.”

I agreed, but added I could also use a drink. Now Hilary is stubborn, she insists on chipping in half on the cost of our dates. Since I knew she was worried about money, I suggested a cocktail beforehand at Beefsteak Charlie’s, one of the more satisfying economical restaurant chains in the city. Considering the usual open-bar prices one finds at banquets, I figured Charlie’s would be easier on her purse.

By the time we got to The Lambs, the cocktail hour was well under way, and so were we. Negotiating the stairs carefully, we entered the second-floor lounge, where the welcoming committee greeted us—O. J., Hal Fawkes, and Al Kilgore. Hal and O. J. checked us off on the master list and fished out identification badges which Kilgore inscribed with our names.

“Howya, honey,” he said to Hilary, “Gene tells us all about ya!” He gestured jauntily. “I’d slap ’im, if I were you.”

Hilary was tipsy enough not to care what I might have said about her in her absence. She laughed it off, put on her badge, and took my arm as we began a circuit of the lounge to the opposite side where the bar and, therefore, most of the activity was.

It was a big rectangular place with two arms, too small to be considered wings, stretching toward 44th Street. Deep, luxurious beige carpeting covered every inch of the flooring and there were immense oil paintings of Kean, Booth, Beerbohn-Tree, and other bygone thespians suspended all about the room. Twenty linen-covered dining tables covered most of the area. The head table, mounted on a dais, stretched the width of the room. A huge blow-up poster of Al Kilgore’s escutcheon rested in front of it, while behind, on the wall, there was a big movie screen, not yet pulled down.

On the side of the room opposite from where we entered, an alcove provides access to a second staircase running both up and down, to the men’s rest room, and a door into the second-floor kitchen. At the moment, the area of the alcove was the scene of considerable bustling of Lambs waiters and cooks.

As we headed for the bar, Hilary commented on the small, attractive platform stage Barry had constructed to the left of the dais. Though there was the theater on the floor above, it was too big for intimate cabaret entertainment, so Barry spent a healthy chunk of Sons capital to provide a stylish place for the performers of the evening: a proscenium draped in the club colors, blue and white, with stills from Laurel and Hardy films adorning the uprights.

The extreme left edge of the stage abutted the wall. Steps led down from the platform and out of sight to the far door of the kitchen, which later on would be used as “wings” for performers to wait in before going onstage.

On our way over to the bar, we had to pass right by the door to the second staircase. As we did, I noticed a man slinking stealthily upstairs. As he neared the open door to the banquet hall, he ducked his head, hurried past, and continued on his way to the third floor, where the dressing rooms were located.

I wondered why Dutchy Hovis was acting like a fugitive. Whom was he hoping to avoid?

A large crowd of people thronged the ell in which the bar was situated. Men in white jackets, leisure suits, blazers embroidered with Sons of the Desert escutcheons, milled around the lineless service counter and vied for the bartender’s attention. Women in slacks, evening gowns, tailored suits, and here and there a simple skirt-blouse combo, laughed and chatted with one another or whichever guest they cared to flatter. Wayne Poe was in the middle of the group, talking louder than anyone. I had to walk by his coterie to get to the bar; he was holding forth on the trials of putting on a network TV series. I shuddered; it would be too much to hope that O. J. hadn’t run down film clips of Poe’s turkey of a program.

Toby called me over and introduced me to Rosina Lawrence, the heroine of Laurel and Hardy’s feature
Way Out West.
One zealous tent member tracked her down after her whereabouts had been unknown for years. Ironically, she lived not far from Manhattan. Her delicate features and winsome smile were little changed since the year the film was released, 1937.

Hilary took the Gibson from me and we ambled about, saying hello to various members of the Sons I wanted her to meet. Nearby, I saw Natie talking to Bob and Ray. I heard Bob Elliott asking, with great gravity, whether the dulcimers had been purchased as he’d stipulated.

“You know we can’t do any of our material without the dulcimers,” he warned Natie, who was doing his valiant best to keep a straight face.

Ray Goulding chimed in. “I think I saw the crate of monkeys downstairs. I hope they sent all six.”

Barry Richmond tapped me on the shoulder. He had his usual Coke in his hand and looked deservedly exhausted.

“Hilary,” I said, “meet His Excellency Sir Barry Alan Richmond—”

Before I could finish, she was in the midst of a curtsey. “Your honor,” she said deferentially, “your fame precedes you!” She rose, cocked an eyebrow, and demanded that Barry tell us what was being done for women’s equality in Montmartre.

“As a matter of fact, that’s a very important issue,” Barry replied glibly, “and I just enacted an edict that all female citizens have to wear a government-issue standard one-size bra. The next step will be to make them all equal in height. We’ve got a Japanese Secretary of the Exterior, but his plan to extend foot-binding from the soles of the feet to the top of the head is definitely not going to
last.
Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

“Speaking of length,” he went on unflagging, “did I ever mention how long the Montmartre year is?”

Hilary shook her head. “You couldn’t have. We just met.”

“No, I don’t mean did I ever mention it to you, but did I ever mention it at all?”

She laughed, defeated. “I don’t know, Mr. Tambo, but tell me, how long
is
the Montmartre year?”

“It’s a problem,” Barry admitted, adjusting his glasses, “because it’s only 365 days long, not 365 and a quarter. So every Leap Year we lose a day!”

Hilary drained her glass in one swallow and headed back to the bar for a much-needed refill. Barry sometimes has that effect.

Suddenly, everything went dark. At the front of the room, there was a noise: Hal pulling down the movie screen. A bright light played on it and became the image of Oliver Hardy, dressed elegantly, beaming at the camera. He told us with great self-importance that dinner was ready, “everything from soup to nuts.” In this way, the Sons informed everyone that The Lambs dining staff was about to serve dinner.

The room rocked with laughter, the lights came back on, and there was a general move toward the tables. Hilary took my arm, not so much out of affection as a need for an anchor, and we went to the place designated on our identification badges.

Each table held ten settings, but only nine people were seated at ours. The woman beside me was next to the empty chair. During introductions, I learned her name was Isabel Hovis, Dutchy’s wife.

“He’s going to be late, he had to work overtime,” she told us as she tried to smile. But the expression was unsuccessful because she had too many lines on her face headed in the opposite direction.

“We’re used to Dutchy arriving late,” Natie Barrows remarked.

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “So am I.”

No more was said about our absent member, but I wondered why he didn’t want his wife to know he was already there.

P
HIL FAXON WAS ONE
of the other people at our table. I heard him grumbling to Natie about Wayne Poe, who was seated on the dais with the other guests.

“I give him his start, that louse, y’know that?”

Natie shook his head, pretending to be ignorant of the fact.

“Why, sure,” Phil said. “I used to be an agent, once upon a time, didn’tcha know?” He lowered his voice an octave, so that he sounded like Tony Marvin, Arthur Godfrey’s radio announcer. “Phil Faxon, young man-about-town, impresario, agent, and producer.” He changed back to his natural tone. “I discovered Wayne Poe. Lot of good it ever did me, what he pulled, almost got my head blown off.”

Natie feigned surprise, made interested sounds, and let Phil ramble. Everybody on the executive committee had frequently heard how Poe had embroiled Phil Faxon with gangsters a good fifteen years before, but it was not considered gentlemanly to call Phil on his eternal repetitions. What else did the poor old coot have to talk about?

Despite the fact that the Sons constitution states that all officers must sit at the head table, it is rarely done. That night, O. J., in the seat farthest left and closest to Barry’s platform stage, wisely occupied the place next to Wayne Poe, thus reducing potential dais friction 50 percent. On Poe’s left, Jack Black ate slowly and occasionally addressed a remark to his neighbor, Rosina Lawrence. Ray Goulding also chatted with her, while his partner, Bob, engaged in conversation with Sons co-founder Chuck McCann, resplendent in a shiny summer-weight gold blazer. Rodney Dangerfield had the next chair; beyond him, Butterfly McQueen—who hadn’t aged much since
Gone With the Wind
—picked at the salad she’d ordered instead of the prime ribs she, a vegetarian, could not eat. Every so often, she glanced up, smiling shyly, at some question or remark made by Grand Sheik Al Kilgore, seated on the extreme right of the banquet’s head table.