The Breaking Point (34 page)

‘There has to be someone in this outfit in a state to take the wheel and get us back to town,’ said Ken, ‘and, when we get there, go to the studio and deal with Gigantic Enterprises.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bim,‘that’s why I stayed sober. If Barry don’t turn up I can go on the floor for him.’

Ken took the ten miles back to town slowly. It would give the boys time to pull themselves together. First they would have to check at the house to see if Barry had come home, and after that they must all of them shower and shave and dress to be down at the studio by seven. They must come to some decision as to what was to be said. Alf was of the opinion that, if there was no news at all, then they must call up the F.B.I. It meant Barry had been kidnapped, and the matter was out of their hands. The news would break, of course, but it could not be helped. Ken agreed with Alf, and one by one as the car slid slowly along the road the boys came round to the same belief. It would have to be the F.B.I.

They pulled up in front of the house and, as they had feared, there was no word of Barry. The boys went round to their own place, and showered and changed, and then they all met once more in the living-room of Barry’s house, and Pat called up May and told her to come right back.

‘I can’t speak over the wire,’ he said. ‘It’s serious.’

None of them had any stomach for breakfast.The butler served them coffee, and that was all. They sat there watching the clock, and they saw the hands creep up to a quarter of seven.

‘Well?’ said Alf. ‘Do I call the F.B.I.?’

The boys looked at one another. It was a fateful decision to have to make. Once done, the Menace would no longer be their property, but the property of the United States government.

‘Hang on,’ said Pat. ‘How about checking with the Silver Slipper just once more, in case the doorman or someone saw Barry get away?’

‘We tried them before,’ said Ken impatiently. ‘It’s a waste of time.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bob. ‘It’s worth trying again.’

Although it was always Pat’s job to put through calls, Alf was on the buzzer because it had been agreed that he was the one to speak to the F.B.I., so he carried on, and asked for the Silver Slipper.The boys sat waiting, and watched his face for any change in expression. When they answered him from the Silver Slipper, and he asked if anything had been seen of Mr Barry Jeans, the effect was instantaneous. Alf said, ‘What?’ excitedly, and nodded to the boys, and then he listened to what the operator had to say. The boys saw his jaw drop, and a look, first of disbelief, then of dismay, then of shocked resignation and despair, pass over his features.

‘OK,’ he said grimly. ‘Sit on it. We’ll call you back.’

He clamped the receiver down and sagged in his chair.

‘Dead?’ asked Ken.

‘Worse.’

Alf pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Then he took a swig of coffee and pushed back his chair.

‘Barry’s sick,’ he said briefly. ‘We’ll have to call the psychiatrist after all. Get that Swede’s number, Pat, but don’t get it through International. If International has this story we’re through.’

‘But Jesus, Alf,’ said Bob, ‘what’s happened?’

Alf stared at the floor. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked at the boys.

‘Barry never left the Silver Slipper all evening,’ he said. ‘The operator on the switchboard saw him sneaking out of the ladies’ powder room just after four a.m.’

In Pinkie’s living-room the Menace had finished his second plate of rice pudding and was licking the spoon. With his left hand he turned over the pages of Pinkie’s photograph album.

‘This one’s great,’ he said, ‘just great.’

He was pointing to a snapshot of Pinkie’s second grandson in paddling-drawers bending down and patting a sand-castle with a wooden spade.

‘How old is the little chap in this one?’ he asked.

Pinkie bent over his shoulder and put on her spectacles.

‘That’s Ronnie,’ she said,‘that’s Ronnie on his second birthday. He doesn’t take after our side of the family, though, he’s a real McCaw. Turn back, and you’ll see Mr and Mrs McCaw, that’s to say my Vivian’s in-laws, sitting on their verandah. There they are. You see Mr McCaw’s big ears? Ronnie has them too. That little girl on Mrs McCaw’s knee is another grandchild, Sue, she’s the child of Tom McCaw, who had the bad motor accident I was telling you about.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Barry, ‘I remember. And who’s this?’

‘They’re just friends we used to know, the Harrisons. Such a nice couple. They lost a son in Korea. That girl there is the married daughter. Now, I don’t want to hurry you, but time’s getting on. If you want to be at the studio by seven you’ll have to think of getting into that taxi.’

‘Damn,’ said Barry.

He shut the album and glanced at his watch. Pinkie was right. There was just time to straighten up and get a taxi, and arrive at the studio. He swung his long legs over the settee and on to the floor.

‘I can’t tell you, Pinkie,’ he said, ‘what this has meant to me.’

‘I’m so glad,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see old friends.’

He washed his hands, and brushed his hair, and touched his jaw where the beard was beginning to show. Slip must deal with that when he got to the studio. Then he bent down and kissed Pinkie.

‘It’s been great,’ he said, ‘just great.’

She opened the door of the apartment and looked up and down.

‘Just one thing,’ she said.‘Don’t tell anyone where you’ve been, or who you’ve been with. A woman living alone has to be so careful, and I couldn’t hold up my head if I thought there might be talk.’

‘I won’t say a word, Pinkie,’ he assured her.

‘It never seemed worth telling the children about how we knew each other at Herne Bay,’ she went on. ‘I thought about it once or twice, and then it seemed silly. They would have thought I was making it up. So I left it. But of course if you like to come again some time I shall always be glad to see you.’

‘Thank you, Pinkie,’ he said.

‘No one saw us at the Silver Slipper,’ she said. ‘The operator on the switchboard was fast asleep. It’s a good job, and I should hate to lose it.’

‘Of course you won’t lose it,’ he told her.‘What an idea. Could you let me have some money for the taxi?’

‘I’ll give you five bucks,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t be more than that. If there’s any over keep the change.’

Pinkie had called up a taxi from the stand at the end of her block, and it was waiting for Barry when he got downstairs. The driver smiled when he recognized the Menace, and he opened the door for him to hop inside.

‘I haven’t had the luck to drive you before, Mr Jeans,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Barry, ‘I don’t often ride in a taxi.’

The driver passed an autograph book through the window to the back.

‘To please the wife,’ he said.

Barry took out his pen and wrote his name in the book.

‘Don’t say where you picked me up,’ he said. ‘I’ve been out all night.’

The driver winked and reached back for his book.

‘Good job you picked on me,’ he said. ‘Some of the lads sell all the dope they get to
Confidential
.’

Barry paid off the driver before they reached the studio, and then walked through the gates and along to his dressing-room just as the big clock was striking seven. The boys had beaten him to it and were already waiting there. He could hear them talking inside as he opened the door, and it sounded as if Pat was on the telephone. Anyway, there would not be time for massage.

‘Morning,’ he said. ‘How’s tricks?’

It was not an expression he had ever used before, but it was one he dimly remembered hearing one of the technicians say to the continuity girl.The boys stared at him.They might have seen a ghost. Then Pat put down the telephone. Alf threw him a warning glance and rose slowly to his feet.

‘Morning, Barry,’ he said.

The rest of the boys sat very tight and still.They none of them smiled. It reminded Barry of when his father, the parson, called him into the study of the old home in Herne Bay and asked him why he had missed the bus from Ramsgate. It was too late for hair-drill, too late for massage, too late for a pressure-shower.There was only time for a shave and for Slip to get him ready for the floor.

‘You fellows enjoy yourself last night?’ Barry asked, and he strolled over to the mirror and examined his own blue jaw.

The boys said nothing. Barry was either very sick indeed, and they would have to watch out for violence, or he had been fooling the lot of them for years.

‘How are you, Barry?’ said Ken gently.

Barry began taking off his coat and undoing his collar and tie.

‘I’m great,’ he said, ‘just great.’

It was true, too. He still did not feel tired. And that rice pudding Pinkie had made him was a much better breakfast than porridge. It was more substantial, somehow. More packed.

‘Get any sleep?’ said Bob.

Barry threw down his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. The little tremor that had come into his face when he first recognized Pinkie broke at the corner of his mouth once more. The boys saw it and gasped. The Menace was smiling. He was actually smiling.

‘No, sir,’ said Barry. ‘I had better things to do last night than sleep.’

It was grim. The boys felt sick at heart. To think they had known Barry for the best part of a quarter of a century, known him and respected him and served him, and it was all to end in this way. He looked well, that was the worst thing about it. Had he come into the dressing-room with dragging feet and green about the gills, they would have called an ambulance right away and warned the hospital to be ready for him, and then got the Swede and other experts along for consultation. But Barry had not dragged into the room. He had even whistled outside the door. It was terrible.

‘May shown up yet?’ asked Barry.‘What news of her migraine?’

It was so cold-blooded. Bim could not stand it. Tears came into his eyes and he had to go and look out of the window. The rest were not soft-hearted. They were shocked and disgusted, but they were not soft-hearted. It was obvious now that Barry was not sick. The man they had nursed to fame was vicious, and hard as steel. He had been deceiving them all for thirty years.

‘Look here, Barry,’ said Alf, and there was a threat in his voice and his face was ugly. ‘You can’t get away with it like this. We happen to know where you were last night.’

‘So what?’ said Barry.

He went and sat in the chair and waited for Slip to come and shave him. Slip looked at Alf for orders, and Alf motioned him to go ahead. The telephone rang, and Pat reached for it. It was the production manager wanting to know the form. He said he had been up all night trying to keep Gigantic Enterprises quiet for the twenty-four-hour break, and now the time limit had expired and he had to tell them something.The unit was waiting. The technicians were ready. Were the boys going to get Barry Jeans on the set by eight o’clock to have a test? Pat explained the situation to Alf in low tones.

‘We’ll have to play for time,’ said Alf. ‘We’ll have to ask for a postponement.’

Slip’s hand was shaking so that he got the shaving soap into Barry’s eyes. Barry reached for the towel and heard the word postponement.

‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Haven’t they got that gadget working yet?’

Pat threw eyes to heaven and looked at Bob. The sound of the production manager’s voice kept coming down the receiver. At that moment the door opened and May came into the room. She looked round wildly for Barry, and when she saw him in the chair with the last of the lather on his face she burst into tears.

‘My poor honey,’ she said, ‘what have they done to you?’

Barry looked at her, and he looked at the boys, and it came to him slowly that something was going on that he did not understand. May disappearing to the Club with a migraine head, and the boys not letting him stay at home and play patience but dragging him off to that beach in the sun, and then taking him off to dinner with a crowd of wrestlers and Japanese girls and acrobats. And now everyone was trying to pin something on him because he had spent the night drinking hot milk in the powder room with Pinkie and going back with her to the apartment to look at snapshots of her grandchildren. If the boys got Pinkie into trouble he would never forgive them.

Barry stood up, and he looked terrific standing there, a head and shoulders taller than any of them in the room. He was bronzed, too, from his day on Poncho beach, and he felt fine and relaxed after his talk with Pinkie and the rice pudding he had had for breakfast. If any of the fans had seen him at that moment they would have said he had another ten years before he dropped to second place on the popularity list, and that if he went on looking as he did right now the youngsters coming up would never lick him. Even the boys were amazed. Barry had never looked so good.

‘Now listen, all of you,’ said Barry. ‘I’m boss here. And that goes for you too, May. Nobody’s going to ask me questions about last night. I had a good time. That’s all there is to it. I never had such a time since I’ve been on the Coast. I feel great, just great. And if those damn fools on the floor haven’t got their feelie gadget fixed by eight o’clock I’ll tear up my contract with G.E. and quit business. And the first one of you who opens his mouth is fired.’

Then he threw off his braces and told Slip to reach for his trousers.

It was a minute to eight o’clock when Barry Jeans walked on to the studio floor followed by May and the boys. No one had spoken in the dressing-room, and May’s eyes were still red from crying. The director came forward and glanced first at Alf and then at Ken, but they both avoided his eyes. The production manager was standing by the set. He did not say anything either. He fumbled in his pocket for his box of tranquillizers.

‘Everyone OK?’ asked the director.

‘I’m OK,’ said Barry. ‘The boys are a bit tired. And May has migraine.’