The Gallery (15 page)

Chapter

I
knew from experience that it was best to get Daddo up on his feet and walking in the cold.

Ma used to say—back before she stopped saying anything—that Daddo spent too much time at the saloons. But Ma never understood theater folk, see? She didn't see the bits and gags that Daddo riffed at the bar with his buddies, or the way the men bought Daddo pints when he sang along with the player piano, or the way they all called his name when he walked in the door. In the bar, he was Daddo to everyone.

But yes, sometimes he lost count, and he needed me to get him going again. So we marched up and down Broadway, him stumbling beside me in just a suit jacket and a banged-up top hat. I had Creak and
Eek each slung over my shoulders by an arm, dragging their bony feet along the sidewalk.

Even for New York, we got some strange looks.

Still, while I'd found Daddo in plenty of speakeasies, I'd never found him in the wrong state, and I tamped down the furious confusion just under my chest, breathing slowly to keep it from flinging words out of my mouth. I let him get in seven blocks of sobering arctic blasts before saying a word.

“Daddo.”

He jumped as if he'd forgotten I was there. “Oh, my sweet Marty.” He threw an arm around me—which is to say, me and Eek. “How good you are to come and see your pop.”

“It's a sheer miracle I found you,” I said between gritted teeth. “I thought you were in Alabama, after all.”

“Alabama, yes indeed. ‘
Chattanooga, Tuscaloosa, climb on board this train's caboose-a
,'” he began to sing. “I just got back, my girl. Never seen so many grits in my life.”

“Chattanooga's in Tennessee. And I already know Harry fired you.”

His mouth opened and closed, grasping for words like a fish gasping for air.

I shook my head, and when I caught my reflection in a shop window, I looked just like Ma.

“Vaudeville isn't what it used to be, my girl, my
pearl, my wee O'Doyle.” They all rhymed when he said them. His accent clanged in my ears after those velvety radio voices back in Harry's office.

“The big houses don't want the old acts anymore. They just want a laugh, a bit of song-and-dance to open for the picture shows.” He stopped to lean against a brick wall, fishing in his pockets for a cigarette and coming up empty, “Well, you know I don't open. I'm a headliner, I am.”

“Be honest now. Were you on tour at all? Or were you just on the drink?”

“Now, don't go begrudging your old man a few drinks, for ‘
With a gallon of whiskey at his feet, and a bottle of porter at his head
 . . .'”

“I'm getting tired of your old songs,” I snapped. “I think I'm ready for you to start singing a different tune.” A blast of cold air blew my skirts around, and I wriggled away from Daddo to hold them down. “Oh, what is Ma going to say.”

“Well, my darlin', wait till you hear this tune.” He cleared his throat, then got down on one knee, like Al Jolson. “‘
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home
 . . .'”

I yanked his arm and got him moving past the beat cop who was starting to slow his gait as he passed. “All right, all right. What are you saying, Daddo?”

“Don't you know why I was in that speak? Why, I was celebrating! Celebrating the new act!”

I looked at him suspiciously. “What new act?”

“The one that's going to bring me back to New York! You're right that Harry and I had a parting of ways, but trust me, it was for the best. He's in bed with radio these days. Doesn't understand the draw of the stage, and never did.

“But now I'm working on a new act. What d'you think I'm doing in these clothes, sure?” He dusted off the top hat, which was going green on the edges where the black silk had worn thin. “Oh, it's gonna be grand! It's me and Stan, see? And we're gonna call it—well, we're still working on the name—but I'm thinking something like The Long and the Short of It.”

I chuckled despite myself, because Daddo was tall and lanky and looked like his whole body was hung from a coat hanger, and Stan was short and round and bald and pink like a rubber ball. Put them together, and they'd look like an exclamation point.

“The gist is that we're two bums, but Stan is the brawn and I'm the brains, and we do a whole comedy routine where he holds me up on a chair while I recite the Gettysburg Address.”

I had to admit, it sounded pretty good. “Yeah,
and you could get some good slapstick in there, like the Keystone Cops.”

“Yes, my girl, that's it!” And as a way of testing it out, he walloped me over the head with his top hat, which just happened to be already broken at the crown. This was the Daddo I loved, the one who'd stop in the middle of the street to work out some footwork, or juggle the groceries, or serenade a newsboy. “So Stan and me are polishing up the act. Now alls we need is a venue. Because if the right people see this, we could be bigger than Amos and Andy. I just know it.”

My foot started tapping, and my mind started racing.

“The right people? How about society and business types, all in one place? Writers, money men, even film stars!”

“Sounds all right, my girl. You got the key to Sam Goldwyn's office?”

“No.” I smiled as it all came together in my mind. “It's a party, at Ma's employer's house. They need entertainers, circus and vaudeville types. They'll have all kinds of swells there. And it's good money!”

He shook his head while he coughed and spit. “You really think your ma would let me come to her precious place of employment? Like this?” Daddo flapped the sides of his shabby suit jacket.

“Trust me, she's been vetoed on everything from the menu to the dress code. She can't say a thing.” I stopped on the sidewalk, making him look in my eye. “But look, if you want the gig, there are a few requirements.”

“Sure, sure, Marty. Anything for my new manager!” He swept me up in a waltz, flinging skeletal limbs into the huddled bundles that hastened past us out of the wind.

“This is serious, Daddo.” I stopped him again and slung Eek over his shoulder, making him share the load as we pushed forward down Broadway. “First of all, you gotta get some of your friends to come, pretend to be sideshow freaks for the night. Jenny Donovan especially.”

“Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, I'll tell ya, I haven't seen the old gang in a while.”

“It's nonnegotiable,” I said, my hands on my hips. “No Jenny, no Daddo and Stan. And Jenny's got to bring a full beard.”

Daddo chuckled. “You drive a harder bargain than Harry. All right, all right, I'll chase up some freak acts I know.”

“Good. The more circus-y, the better. And I'll have a job for you afterward. Not a gig, just a favor.” I made my voice sound nonchalant, as if this weren't
the most important piece. “You'll need to borrow a car for the night.”

“Well, sure. Cloaky McClure owes me a favor, and he's got a workhorse Model T he's always bragging about, God knows why—”

“And here's the last thing.” I stopped and held him at arm's length. “You come home. You stay off the road, and you take a break from the drink. You stay the straight and narrow and make up all these absences to Ma.” To us.

He squirmed. Squirmed. My heart froze to see that he regarded this as the last straw.

I pushed the thought out of my mind and determined to push it out of his, too. “Think, Daddo. Home-cooked meals, Ma darning your socks, and the boys jumping on you every morning in bed.” He smiled, and I saw his eyes go a bit moist. “We might could even get some money up front, rent a studio, let you and Stan work out your act in peace and quiet.”

“Sounds grand,” he said quietly, pulling Eek's arms around his neck tighter like a woolly muffler. “It'll be a new beginning.”

I put my arm through his, and as we walked toward the R train, I chose to believe him.

Chapter

“T
his is the last thing I have time for!” Ma fretted as Alphonse lugged a large canvas through a swarm of caterers, florists, servants, and servers.

The party hadn't even begun yet, and Ma was at her breaking point. It wasn't just the party preparations, with the endless rounds of menus with Chef, and the counting the silver and tracking down the crystal that had Ma aflutter. We'd had to take on two extra maids just to wake the house from its long slumber, plus six new footmen to serve on the night, and a whole brigade of kitchen help to keep the food flowing. We'd gone from a small and reluctantly functional family to a full-blown military operation, and Ma was struggling to keep the battle plans on track.

And she didn't even have an epic escape to plan. A twinge of panic grabbed at my stomach as I watched the frame make its way toward the gallery. What was Rose up to? Was she making a new plan? I'd already sent up notes with the details of my scheme. I needed Rose to commit to the plan, not change the details by way of some picture of a cupid frolicking with forest nymphs—or whatever it was.

With a glance over my shoulder and assured that Ma was occupied with a dropped tray of oysters Rockefeller, I followed Alphonse to the gallery.

I found him in front of the painting, rocking back on his heels and narrowly missing a tray of crystal champagne flutes and a trombone player looking for the bathroom.

“Funny, no?” He chuckled to himself. “Mrs. Sewell still has her humor.”

The painting looked like any other to me: another god, wrapped in a bedsheet, leaves in the hair, surrounded by fruit, offering a goblet of wine.

“Bacchus.”

“Aha,” I nodded, still not seeing what was so funny about it. “God of—”

Alphonse smiled at my attempt. “Wine.” In the ballroom, the jazz orchestra began tuning up with barn-like bleating. “And wild revels.”

He stroked his mustache, as if trying to fluff it up, though it had filled out nicely. In fact, in his full livery, he looked rather dashing, and you'd never guess just a few years before he'd been on a boat from the Old Country.

Ma had drawn the line at costumes for the servants, especially when Lady Florenzia suggested a skintight acrobat getup. I scratched at my own taffeta “formal,” the stiff starched white collar already rubbing my neck raw.

“Ah. Well, isn't that clever,” I said flatly. Oh, Rose, I thought, is this really the best time for jokes about mythology? Couldn't we stay focused?

The plan was simple. Daddo, Stan, and Jenny Donovan had worked up an act and were scheduled to go on around eleven thirty. After their spot, they'd change out of their costumes, and Daddo would go pull the car around. I'd go up in the dumbwaiter to Rose's room, where she'd change into Jenny's bearded lady costume. Down we'd go again, one at a time in the dumbwaiter, to the first floor, where I'd escort her out to the sidewalk, into Daddo's borrowed car, and on to—

Where? I didn't know. Daddo had instructions to drive as far as the night and a tank of gas could take them. On the backseat was an old suitcase with some
of Ma's castoffs and five dollars I'd skimmed from the Ovaltine can.

The rest was up to Rose.

A servant at the end of the gallery clinked and clanked bottles as he set up one of the six bars I'd counted so far. “I don't think we really need a reminder of what's on the drinks menu.”

“It is not the wine. And it is not for us.” Alphonse glanced around. “It is for them—the party guests. So they can see who he really is.”

“Him?” I pointed at Bacchus.

“Mr. Sewell, of course.”

“But Mr. Sewell doesn't drink.”

“He does not need to. Notice—he's offering
us
the wine. And tonight, they will all be drinking it.”

And with a wave of his hands, the front bell rang, as if Alphonse had summoned the first guest himself.

—

Not that anyone took two beans of notice of our friend Bacchus, god of wine or no. Why would anyone look at art when there were trapeze artists whizzing from the gallery ceiling?

Or carnival games, with a chance to win real gold watches, diamond earrings, a boat cruise to Bermuda leaving at midnight?

Or a full jazz orchestra from Harlem, playing
music designed to make every society matron think she was Josephine Baker?

Or the year's biggest film star in a dunk tank? Or a senator and a gangster in a Siamese twin costume, or a World Series slugger doing the Black Bottom with the Four-Legged Woman?

I could barely collect the coats fast enough, great piles of furs—like being smothered by zoo animals—that I ferried from guest to cloakroom, hustling to get back to The
Greatest
Greatest Show on Earth.

And then there was liquor: prime stuff, and a hundred percent illegal. The party was drenched in it. Trays of glasses—highballs, low balls, flutes, coupes, tulips—filled and emptied as if on command, and the parquet floors got sloshier as the night went on.

Mr. Sewell hovered above it all, looking deeply uncomfortable in the glossy ringmaster costume Lady Florenzia had selected, as if he couldn't wait to kick out everyone and lock down his fortress again.

“Infernal, egregious waste of resources,” he muttered, clenching a glass in hand—no Bacchus here, as his decidedly unmerry demeanor suggested seltzer water. He tapped his foot, waiting for something to happen in a room where everything was happening. “By God, this had better pay off.”

Luckily Lady Florenzia had just arrived,
fashionably late to her own party, of course. After trading her fur wrap for a boa—a real boa constrictor to complete her snake charmer costume, all shimmer and shimmies—she twined her snaked-wrapped arms around his. I stuck close, pretending to rearrange the furs in my arms.

“I was just saying that this had better pay off,” he launched in, dodging her kisses on each cheek. “Just look at these drunken freeloaders—”

“Why, darling, these are your guests! Or if it helps,” she said with a wink, “just think of them as potential sources.”

“Yes, I know, but . . .” He grimaced as what appeared to be a giant and a midget hobo wandered by. “My God, what a ragged lot.”

It was Daddo and Stan, dressed for their act.

“Marty, it's a disaster,” Daddo launched in with no notice of the house's ringmaster. “They're squeezing us between Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson!”

Stan readjusted his cap and folded his arms. “We're headliners, we are!”

Lady Florenzia couldn't help but overhear this, and her gaze shifted to Daddo and Stan with disdain. “Is this one of the acts you brought in?” she asked me accusingly.

“Lady,”—Daddo was determined to take his case
to the top—“we're used to the top billing. What're Cantor and Jolson gonna do, just sing? Me and Stan do it all—sing, dance, comedy, you name it. I mean, just look at this.”

And there followed a display of the most frenzied and grotesque slapstick.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, Jenny Donovan, our Bearded Lady, wandered by. She'd extended her fake half beard to wrap across her face, but with an unmatched hair color, which apparently she hoped to distract from with a most shockingly low-cut gown.

“Fellas, fellas,”—she was already slurring—“getta loada this hooch. ‘S'all free, canyastandit?” She swiped another glass from a passing tray.

Mr. Sewell made a sound of contempt from the depths of his throat. “My word, this is—”

I shot Lady F. a look that said, “Let me handle this,” and dragged the trio to a corner.

“Look, I didn't want to say anything. Al Jolson—he, uh, he requested you. He heard about your act, and he said, look, I need a little comedy to warm up the crowd, see?” I leaned in conspiratorially. “Maybe if you really kill it tonight, he'll take you on the road? I hear he's headed to Hollywood to make a new talkie. . . .” I let that one dangle.

Stan elbowed my dad in the knees. “The kid's got a point. C'mon, we've got a captive audience. Let's give 'em a preview.” And Stan pushed Daddo into the center of the room, where he proceeded to climb him like a telephone pole and beat him about the head with his cap. Jenny pretended to swing punches at Daddo while he held her at arms' length. Daddo shouted his new catch phrase, “Everything's swell, kids!”

No one noticed.

My relief lasted only an instant.

“Miss Smith-Smythe,” Mr. Sewell was saying, “you promised me certain meetings. And I promised you use of my house for this travesty, ensuing delivery of said meetings. But if you don't hold up your end of the bargain, I have no qualms about clearing this house. The Fire Department can always be called for signs of a gas leak. . . .”

“Please, call me Lady Florenzia.” Miss Smith-Smythe smiled through clenched teeth. “And—Oh!” She exclaimed as a squared-off hunk of granite entered and was relieved of his overcoat. “Speak of the devil, and the devil appears. As it were. Allow me to make the introductions.”

And as the serpent slid its way around Lady Florenzia's shoulders, she wound one arm through Mr.
Sewell's and the other through the mystery man's. She moved the real party to the office, where the door was firmly shut to protect whatever sacred knowledge they shared.

I turned and saw Ma, staring suspiciously after the group. She'd had a look all night as if she smelled something rancid, but now she looked—shaken. It was something about the way Lady Florenzia's arm had snaked through Mr. Sewell's.

—

Between the frenzied pace of clearing coats and plates and the free entertainment, the next few hours flew by.

As their sobriety fell away, so did the guests' disguises, and soon the true behavior of New York's rich and powerful was on full display. Any delusions I had of the rich being more genteel or refined than us common folk were discarded that night, along with the contents of Cole Porter's stomach and the toupee I saw Mrs. Astor fling out a window.

But with pride I saw that the drunker the guests became, the more the servants' smooth sailing stood in relief. Ma had choreographed a beautiful dance, putting the staff through their paces in the weeks preceding so that they parried and glided around the stumbling obstacles, balancing tinkling trays as if
by levitation, magically producing fresh drinks and empty ashtrays.

Sometime before midnight my own routine was interrupted by a tug at my elbow. It was Stan, now in a very dapper tuxedo. He shoved what looked like a silk-wrapped badger pelt into my hand. Jenny's beard and costume.

“We bombed,” he offered, before I could ask. “We still get paid though, right?”

My eyes scanned the room frantically. Jenny was beardless but tuxedoed, asleep and drooling in a wing chair. “Where's Daddo?”

“'Ere I am, my girl,” came a Brooklyn braying behind me, and when I turned I saw Daddo, his costume crumpled beyond what was necessary. “Just celebrating a job well done. Had 'em eating out of our hands, din't we, Stanny Boy?” The glass in his hand jingled merrily with ice cubes and an elixir of dubious origins.

“You find the bar then?” Stan made his dinner jacket dance with a hand on each lapel. “I'm headed that way meself.”

“No, no, no,” I sputtered, grabbing the drink out of Daddo's hand and pouring it into a potted palm. “You're supposed to be bringing the—”

“Car around, 'course.” Daddo's eyes were ringed red, whether from drink or tears I didn't know.

I grabbed Daddo's arm. “Swear, Daddo. Swear you'll do this, and do it right.”

Daddo threw a sweaty arm around me. “Now, now, darlin'. When my girl asks, I answer.” He gave me a final squeeze. “Just leaving to get it now.” Daddo made a retreat through the crowd, but I saw him swipe a champagne glass off a gliding waiter's tray.

I pulled Stan back by his jacket. “
One
drink, Stan.
One.
You have to see to it—”

“See to what? Oh, hello, Stan. Fine show tonight.” Ma stepped in, and Stan made a hasty exit. Ma's usually placid forehead glowed with sweat, and she dabbed it with the handkerchief she kept up her sleeve. “Where have you been? I've been looking for you. The sword swallower and Mr. Chaplin made a wager, and now there's blood all over the music room carpet.”

“Ma, Daddo's act was—”

“A disaster, I know.” She shook her head. “The act was all right, but to follow Eddie Cantor,
ach
—” Ma's eyes looked so sad that the room seemed to deflate for a moment. “These last few weeks at home. I did hope—well, never mind.” Ma looked quizzically at the beard in my hands. “What's that?”

“So there's blood in the music room?” I sidestepped.

“Yes, you'll need seltzer.” She spotted some breach of etiquette across the room and turned to squelch it. “But first stop by the butler's pantry. I need you to carry the soiled glasses down to the kitchen. The dumbwaiter can't keep up.”