The Vampire Files - The Dark Sleep Part 19

"I'm going to have to leave for the station in a few minutes. See you there in an hour?"

"Me and Charles both."

"Good, I can have one of you on each side to protect me from the curious public."

We said good-bye, and I went upstairs to get ready. It was to be the white tuxedo again tonight, but with a fresh shirt and tie. Bobbi and I had pretty much rumpled those the other night. I put on a pale, pearl gray topcoat and yelled toward Escott's room to ask if he was ready.

"I'm downstairs," he called from the hallway below. "And yes, I'm ready. I was just about to bring the car around."

"We can take mine."

"It's no trouble." I heard the kitchen door bang as he went out. By the time I was set, he'd brought the Nash up to the front door. I locked things, climbed in the pa.s.senger seat, and we were off.

"That's sharp," I said, nodding at his own topcoat. It was a rich dark wool and brand-new.

"Yes, I thought I would follow your example and augment my wardrobe as well for such an important occasion."

"Tuxedo, too?"

"Of course."

"I'm impressed." We pa.s.sed a tavern with a red neon sign, and that reminded me of my visit to Moe's last night.

After leaving Bobbi in the very wee hours, I'd swung by McCallen's house to check for him, but he was still gone.

Before the dawn blotted everything out for me, I wrote another note to Escott and left it on the kitchen table. I mentioned Jim Waters and his guess that McCallen might be a communist. "Have you asked Miss Sommerfeld if she knows anything?"

"She's barely speaking to me. Our lack of progress is wearing thin with her, and we've come to the limit of the daily retainer she paid out, yet I feel honor-bound to present her with some sort of resolution."

"With McCallen making himself scarce it's kind of hard to wind the case up. We can go by his house after the party and see if he's decided to come home yet. If he has, then I'll finish things. It'll be good for the agency's reputation."

"I hope so. She's most unhappy with her hotel stay. Is Miss Smythe all right?"

I told him about Bobbi and her busy day fighting the phone and fame. "Archy gets his walking papers tonight, though."

"I'm delighted to hear it. What a uniquely sordid arrangement he must have with Ike LaCelle. Playing the procurer, indeed."

"Not anymore-at least with Bobbi. And Ike's no longer a problem. Him I was able to fix last night."

"Good. I remembered that I have a file on him in my office."

"Why does that not surprise me? What about Gil Dalhauser?"

"Oh, yes. I've quite a lot of information on him. We had a bit of a run-in about two years ago when I was working on a case that caused our paths to cross. To resolve my client's problem it was necessary to pa.s.s some bookkeeping information I uncovered on Mr. Dalhauser to the Internal Revenue people. He managed to avoid going to jail, but eventually had to pay them a whacking great fine. They've had their eye on him ever since."

"If he sees you at the party, is there going to be gunfire?" My question was only ninety percent joke. The other ten percent was entirely serious, inspired by past experience with my partner.

Escott tutted, something only the English can do right. "I hardly think so. There were no reprisals back then; I doubt any will be forthcoming after all this time. He might not even recognize me."

Parking in the heart of the city was a problem, as always. Escott found a place a block away, but the hike to the Wrigley Building was no real hardship. It was cool, but dry for once, taking the bite out of the wind whipping around the buildings. We arrived in plenty of time, and joined up with other polished-looking people riding the elevator to the studio's floor.

Unlike the restaurant there was no hitch about getting in; the tickets Bobbi reserved were ready and waiting, then we went in to find our seats.

She'd outdone herself and put us right in the middle of the front row. I looked around trying to spot anyone I knew and waved at a few faces from the nightclub. Gordy was not among them, but I figured his attention tonight would be on Adelle Taylor's performance in the review. You do not progress in a romance by ignoring the lady's interests.

Escott looked the place over as well. He had plenty of stage experience, but none in radio that I knew of, and seemed engrossed in what he saw. I got to play native guide for once and pointed out the sound booth and a few other things.

"What's that table over there that looks like a jumble sale?" he asked.

For English jumble, I translated American rummage. "Sound effects."

Escott had it pegged as looking strange. Set up within easy reach of the soundman was a frame about a foot square with a miniature door set in it, but with a full-sized k.n.o.b and latch. Nothing makes a noise quite like a shutting door as a door itself, I explained. A flat pan filled with cornstarch was a good imitation of footsteps in snow, and a pair each of men's and women's shoes stood ready on a square of wood to provide other footstep sounds. The rest of the inventory was just as oddball, including a small gun, a jug full of water and a big pail, a box of metal junk, another of broken gla.s.s, two unbroken gla.s.ses, a taxi horn, a large sheet of tin that could be the cracking thunder of a storm, and a typewriter. And those were just the larger objects, not counting bells, horns, whistles, and other debris necessary for building the illusions the script called for.

A sizable part of the room was devoted to the orchestra, otherwise known as the Variety Hour Band. They were making a chaotic din tuning up their instruments. All wore the same dark red coats with the letters VHB st.i.tched over the breast pockets. Bobbi's accompanist, Marza Chevreaux, was at the piano, studying her sheet music. She was an angular woman with hair that was too black, and wore clothes too young for her forty years. The only time she smiled was when she was playing piano and when she dealt with Bobbi, of whom she was fiercely protective. Marza didn't like me much, and if she noticed me in the audience, she never let on.

Very unexpectedly Bobbi emerged from someplace backstage and all but skipped right toward us. No red dress with gold sequins as planned. Now she was wrapped snug in a deep blue clingy thing with a modest spray of rhinestones dotting her shoulders. She was happy and smiling, full of the kind of vibrant glow she always got while working.

Escott and I made haste to stand.

She planted a no-nonsense kiss on my lips that everyone saw, perhaps to let all and sundry know the papers had gotten it wrong about her and Grant. I didn't mind. She finally let me go and turned her blinding smile on Escott.

"Charles, I'm so glad you could come, how handsome you look."

She always seemed to affect Escott's ability to speak, but he looked pleased. His tuxedo was a conservative black style, no adventurous white coat for him, but it fit perfectly. He took her hand and made a little half bow to kiss it. I'd seen LaCelle and Grant do the same thing, but Americans just can't seem to get it right. Escott's version was all homage to and admiration for the lady, not some half-a.s.sed attempt to impress her for the man's own ends.

"And you are stunning as ever, Miss Smythe," he returned. "I'm quite looking forward to your performance."

"What's with the new dress?" I asked. I was worried that in spite of my best efforts I might have damaged the red one somehow.

"I had to get another for the show. All that stuff in the papers spoiled its debut."

I sort of understood that one. "Besides," she continued, "after seeing the photos, I realized how overdressed I'd be. This one's much more appropriate."

We both told her she looked great.

"How're things backstage with you-know?" I asked.

"Just fine. He's all busy getting ready, no time for me. It's quite a relief."

"Still want to drop him in a vat of acid?"

"Not drop," she corrected. "I want to lower him in an inch at a time."

Escott's right eyebrow bounced. "My, we certainly are medieval tonight, but with justified provocation, I understand."

She beamed at him. She loved to hear him talk. "It's so good to see you again. You must come to the club before the review's run is over and tell me what you think."

"I shall endeavor to do so."

"And now I've got to get back before the director has a fit. See you in an hour." She directed this at both of us, squeezed my hand, and whisked away, leaving behind the rose scent of her perfume.

"Wow," I said, staring after her in awe.

Escott threw me an amused glance. "Indeed. Though his techniques are less than gentlemanly, one can understand your adversary's motivations."

"After tonight he's going to be just a bad memory."

The lights flickered, the orchestra's tuning efforts subsided, and the leader got them started on some bright dance music. It was a full ten minutes before broadcast time, but the crew that made everything work for the performers was still bustling around doing mysterious things with the equipment. The audience sorted and settled themselves, and usherettes in snappy red coats with lots of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons saw to it that the last people found their seats. It was a full house. Grant's show was very popular.

Five minutes before things started, Archy Grant emerged, grinning and waving. A big cheer went up in response, louder than anything I'd heard for him yet, but this was an expected event, not something impromptu. He introduced himself and asked for the audience's help with the show, drawing their attention to some boxes hanging over the stage that read applaud and laugh.

"I know you won't need any help from our director to know when to laugh," he said. "But he needs your help to make sure the show runs within its time limit. So when you see a sign lighting up, that's when you do what it says.

When it goes out, that's him asking you to hold it down so we can get out the next line in the script. And trust me, you're all gonna love being in s...o...b..z."

His delivery was exactly right so the laughs he got came easy. Escott and I were more reserved, Escott because that's how he was, and me because I still wanted to punch Grant in the nose.

Someone handed Grant a script, and he quickly introduced a number of people who came filing onstage holding scripts, including Bobbi. She got a little extra cheer of her own, accepting it graciously, though this recognition was more a result of the publicity in the papers than anything else.

Silent signals got tossed back and forth between the director and the players. The second hand on a huge clock swept up to twelve, and the band started in on the show's theme song the way it did every week. I used to enjoy hearing it and hoped I'd be able to again. Sometimes it's a bad idea to meet the person behind the celebrity.

Everything went smooth; the work they'd put into all the rehearsals paid off. You can mess up a line even reading from a script, but all the performers were in top form tonight, especially Bobbi. Though Grant was the main focus of the show, she easily outshone him, at least in the studio. Whether the spark of her personality was going out over the air or not, we wouldn't know until tomorrow's reviews. Then Escott, who was highly critical of performers who were less than the best, surprised me by leaning over while Bobbi was in the middle of a song.

"She really is wonderful, isn't she?" he murmured, his usually poker-faced expression softened and relaxed. Bobbi could do that to people.

"Amen to that, brother."

Bobbi finished to rolling applause, then the show paused for a coal commercial, and I thought of Gil Dalhauser and his trucking business. His trucks were the ones that hauled the sponsor's product all over the county. I started to look around for him, then changed my mind. If he'd been in the audience Escott would have said something. He'd trained himself to have an excellent memory for faces.

"Not too shabby," I said. "Better than you expected, huh?"

"Well, it is much more interesting to me to see how it's done rather than merely listen to the results at home. Also, it's easier to ignore the advertis.e.m.e.nts while in the studio."

Escott often got annoyed at the constant ads that paid for the shows and made a point of turning them down when he could. Unless he was especially interested in a program he often forgot to turn the volume back up again.

"There's something about Archy Grant that bothers me," he said.

"There's plenty about him that bothers me. What's your beef?"

His lips tightened and he shook his head. "He seems very familiar in an odd way. He reminds me of someone, but I can't think who."

"Probably of himself. You've heard me listen to him a lot."

"That's not quite it or I'd have remarked on it before. The radio changes a person's voice as it filters through a speaker. But in person..."

The station break ended and the players stepped up to the microphones again to do a comedy sketch with Grant about a man trying to teach his dog how to drive. The sound-effects guy had his hands full, especially at the end, with the inevitable car crash and sirens.

"I know I've heard that voice before," said Escott, staring down at the brightly lit stage where Grant stood close by the microphone. "Now, I wonder who the deuce he could have been?"

He followed Grant's every move, concentrating on each line, laugh, and song, which is the wrong way to go about remembering something. The harder you try, the more elusive the memory becomes. He should have eased back so it could sneak up on him.

I left him to it and let myself enjoy what was left of the hour. It seemed to go by amazingly fast. Bobbi had often described the experience to me, saying it was a very intense kind of living. Sometimes she could remember everything in astonishing detail, and other times she went blank, depending on how much fun she was having. Then she'd have to ask me later how things had looked. Just in case, I took a lot of mental notes for her on this one.

The show ended, the applaud sign flared and faded, the lights went up for the audience, and that was the end of it.

Escott said he'd go get the Nash and spare Miss Smythe the walk.

I waited for Bobbi, but not for too long. She was in a hurry to get to the Nightcrawler to catch Adelle's last performance of the review. I didn't want to miss it either, being curious to see how such a refined and graceful-looking woman would handle prancing about in a Chinese dragon head.

"Wasn't I terrific?" Bobbi demanded when she rushed up to me in the studio lobby. This would be one of those times when she'd recall everything. When that happened, she always knew the quality of her work.

"They'll have to make up new words for how good you were," I said, taking her arm, or trying to; she was so full of energy she couldn't hold herself still and had to dance around me a few times talking a blue streak about the fun she'd just had. In a way I envied her absolute joy and was a little saddened by the knowledge that it was something I couldn't give her. She'd made it for herself, using her own talent. The closest I'd been to what she had now was years back when I sold my first news piece to a paper, but that seemed small in comparison to her reaction.

People looked and smiled at her, whispering excitedly. A few came up and asked her to autograph their program books. This surprised and pleased her enormously.

"It was so scary, too," she said to me while scribbling her name with a borrowed pen. "Anything could have gone wrong. I mean, when it happens at the club, then only a couple hundred know the mistake, but on a national broadcast it could be thousands and thousands."

"Well, now they all know how great you are."

"Oh, I hope so, I really, really hope so!" she said, looking so alive and beautiful that I felt something crack inside me. It was almost physical, the pain, and I was pretty sure it was my heart breaking.

If this guest spot did result in bigger, more important bookings for her, I might not see her so much, if at all. The big jobs were in New York and Hollywood. She could be gone for weeks, months at a time, traveling, working.

The press of people around her forced me to step back, and I wondered just how far I might have to keep stepping.

Looking on from the edge of a crowd could be my new future with her, and I didn't think much of it. It gave me a tight feeling all over, like I was strangling, and I had to resist the urge to push through them all, to go to her and sweep her away before I lost her.

But that would have spoiled her moment.

This was Bobbi's time to shine, not mine to drop a cold bucketful of my own self-doubt onto her dreams.

I pinned a smile to my face and waited for the crowd's flood of adulation to subside. If I wanted to keep her, I'd have to steer clear of anything remotely resembling a leash and trust she would come to me when she was able to do so.

Not an easy thing to do, especially when all of me wanted to rush in for her.

For myself.

"Hey," she said, suddenly free of the autograph seekers and slipping her arm around mine. "Wake up, Handsome Hank. I thought you were going to protect me from the curious public."

"Anytime, anyplace," I told her lightly.

She leaned on me with a satisfied sigh as we walked toward the elevator. "Thanks for waiting."

"No problem."

Not the easiest thing I'd ever done... but certainly the smartest.