Show Business is Murder

Break a Leg by STUART M. KAMINSKY

KENNY KILLED THE wrong poodle, but it really didn’t matter.

You see Kenny wanted to kill Pinky of Ben Burke and His Amazing Poodles. Pinky was the star. Pinky was also getting old which was one reason Kenny didn’t feel so bad about poisoning Pinky’s food bowl. Actually, there were signs of arthritis or something in Pinky. Kenny was doing the dog, and himself, a favor. At least he would have been had Pinky eaten the food instead of Puddles. A mistake. But it was enough to cancel Ben Burke and His Amazing Poodles from the show which moved Kenny up a notch on the bill.

He still had a long way to go. Ben Burke would be replaced. That couldn’t be helped, but given Goobernick’s budget and the dwindling number of vaudeville houses and smaller audiences, the replacement would be someone cheap, a whistler, an alcoholic comic with a big tie, a juggler.

It was 1924. Movies were taking over the vaudeville houses. First the movies were an act like the seals and the dancing Bronte Sisters, but now the movies were taking over and the old acts were becoming filler for Valentino, Keaton, and Garbo.

Kenny was an optimist. Vaudeville wouldn’t die completely. People would get tired of mimes in black and white on a flat screen. There’d always be room for a few good acts like Kenny Poole the Dancing Fool. Actually, Kenny’s real name was Pemerhoven. But except for Sid Scrimberger and his Musical Seals no one Kenny knew in the business had kept their real names. Of course the Scrimberger name had been associated with seal acts for who knows how the hell many years but that didn’t really matter to anyone anymore. Besides, if things went right, the Scrimberger seals wouldn’t be belching or playing their horns or balancing their balls or clapping their fins much longer. The two of them would be dead. There had once, not long ago, been three Scrimberger seals. Old Betsy, who was temperamental and fat but the smartest of the trio, had swallowed a light bulb and died.

The problem was simple. Goobernick had told the eight acts on the traveling bill that three of them were going to have to be cut and soon. It didn’t take The Amazing Weller, the World’s Greatest Mind Reader, to figure out that it was the last three acts on the bill that would go. Even having moved up one with the death of the poodle, Kenny was still only one act up from the bottom. For him to survive, three of the top five had to meet with accidents.

They were in Chicago, the Rialto on State Street. Winter. Blizzard. Small houses. Almost not worth selling the tickets, but the show goes on, the girls stripped. Strippers didn’t belong. Burlesque was taking over. Burlesque and moving pictures. Vaudeville was talent, real talent like Kenny’s or even the dogs and seals and those cousin contortionists and people like Callahan the World’s Greatest Irish Tenor who, when sober, could hit a note Caruso would envy.

Kenny sat in the diner across from the Rialto. Cars went by. The snow was blowing at an angle. Getting heavier. Cold out there. Mug of coffee and the sinker felt good.

Kenny had bills to pay. No relatives he could turn to. If he didn’t take care of himself, who would? Nobody, that’s who. Like Bert Williams sang, “Nobody.” Kenny liked to dance to that song, self-taught, making it all up. Now Bert Williams’s songs were too slow for the audiences. Kenny was so far down the bill that by the time they got to him, the people on the other side of the lights were looking at their watches. Kenny had to dance fast, smile, do tricks like the once over with a double click. He had to use taps. Make noise. Eccentric dancing wasn’t enough anymore. Kenny could only do the one-legged rollover to his right, but nobody knew or noticed.

Kenny got older. He had to dance faster. Smile more. That was okay. What the hell, but if he were higher on the bill, he could hang on, at least through the season which was just starting. No way Kenny could work in a diner like the one he was sitting in. He’d rather die. Well, not really. But he would rather kill.

It was best if it was just animals. He hadn’t killed a human yet. Tonight would be the first time. He’d get backstage early so he’d be there when Vogel, the World’s Strongest Human, dropped dead on stage. He’d be there so when Alf the stage manager with no teeth panicked, Kenny could say, “I’m here. I can go on.”

By the way, Kenny knew that Vogel was not the World’s Strongest Human. Lots of men on the circuit and in circuses and side shows and lifting logs somewhere in the woods in Norway or wherever were probably a lot stronger than Vogel. Hell, Kenny even knew two women who were stronger than Vogel.

Helga Katz who was retired now but could still hold up a platform on which sat five girls, an anvil and a fat man in a chair smoking a cigar and pretending to read a newspaper. The other woman was Marge Corsat, who Kenny preferred not to dwell on because Marge had once punched him in the chest when she thought he was getting fresh with her. That was a long time ago. Maybe Kenny was getting a little fresh wondering what it would be like to be with a woman as big and strong as Marge.

Vogel had a gut. He didn’t deserve billing above The Dancing Fool. Vogel didn’t do anything original except maybe for bending the two-inch pipe over his head, which he did with much grunting. Kenny knew if he examined that pipe he’d find Vogel had done something to it. Besides, where did Vogel get a new two-inch pipe two shows a day? Pipe cost money. He had to be using the same piece of pipe over and over. It had probably gone soft in the middle five years ago.

Kenny checked the clock on the wall. Time to get back. He had put the rat poison in the egg salad sandwich on Vogel’s dressing table. Vogel ate an egg salad sandwich every night before he went on. Vogel had great faith in eggs. Four acts including Kenny shared the dressing room. The women had another room. The animal acts were downstairs.

Kenny had to get back to get rid of the sandwich remnants if there were any. He hoped Vogel didn’t die till he got on stage. The good thing about killing Vogel was that Kenny really didn’t like him. Nobody liked him. He was a grunter, a loner. He read books in German. The U.S. of A. had goddamn just a year ago beat the crap out of the Huns and here was one of them taking money from people like Kenny, good Americans. Vogel had probably been a Hun soldier, maybe even killed Americans. Kenny was performing a patriotic act. Maybe. At least he was helping one American named Kenny Poole.

He finished his coffee, dropped a quarter on the counter near the cash register, pulled his coat collar up, and went out on State Street. It was damn cold. He had seen worse. Buffalo, just last year. Snow up to your neck almost. Cold as an icebox. Colder. Six people in the audience. Where the hell had they come from? Buffalo. Kenny crossed the street almost slipping, avoiding the cars, hearing the elevated train rumble above him half a block away above Wells Street.

In the stage door. Old guy at the door sitting with a pipe barely looked up. Kenny didn’t want to be one of those old guys who everybody called Pop, old guys whose name no one ever remembered, who wore sweaters and sat at stage doors and went home to a small one-room walk-up to open a can of beans and maybe listen to Amos and Andy on the radio.

The dressing room was empty. The sandwich was gone. So was Vogel which meant he hadn’t died right away. Kenny put on his costume, smoothed out the wrinkles in his trousers with his palm, adjusted his tie in the mirror, checked the taps on his shoes, spit on a rag, and rubbed the toes and heels. He was ready.

The Bronte Sisters were on. He could hear their music, Together in a Corner, Juntos en el Rincon, their signature final number. Kenny clicked down the dozen metal steps from the dressing rooms and moved toward Vogel waiting to get on. Vogel was not doing his usual preparatory muscle flexing. Alf the stage manager, little Alfie who always looked as if he were about to cry, looked at Kenny and whispered,

“What the hell are you doing here? You’ve got a for-chrissake half hour for chrissake.”

Kenny shrugged.

“Staying warm,” he said flexing his shoulders. “Being ready. Never know, do you?”

“You always know,” said Alf turning to Vogel and asking, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Shtomack,” said Vogel, hand to his gut. Vogel wore blue tights with a black sash. His black dyed hair was parted in the middle. He had once had a mustache, but had shaved it last year. No one knew why. Vogel didn’t say.

The Bronte Sisters danced off the stage right past Vogel and Kenny. Their huge smiles ended. The applause behind them wasn’t bad, especially for a frozen night in Chicago.

Vogel rubbed his stomach, made a face, and watched the curtain come down. Then he wheeled his low, flat cart full of weights onto the stage and nodded at Alf. Alf waved at the stagehand who lifted the curtain.

Kenny stood watching, waiting for Vogel to die on stage, ready to dance in to save the show. But Vogel didn’t die. He lifted bars, bent pipe over his head, held a reluctant volunteer from the audience over his head with his right hand and then moved the terrified man to his left hand. Applause. Vogel bowed in dignified silence. The curtain came down.

One of the Bronte sisters, probably Lizzy, screamed from the women’s dressing room upstairs,

“Alfie, somethin’s wrong with Corrine. Get up here.”

“Corrine’s on now,” Alf said. “Tell her. She’s on. Chrissake.”

Kenny looked toward stairs. Lizzy was standing at the top.

“She’s not movin’,” Lizzy said.

Corrine was a ventriloquist, the World’s Greatest Female Ventriloquist, but they didn’t put that in the program. There were already too many “Greatests” in the show and besides, anyone who saw Corrine’s act could tell that she was far from the greatest. She was the bottom of the bill, below Kenny. Corrine’s dummy was Fifi. Fifi was supposed to have a French accent, but when Corrine had been drinking, she forgot the accent or used an Italian or Spanish one instead. When Corrine had been drinking, which was frequent, she also sometimes forgot to move Fifi’s mouth when Fifi spoke. Corrine was over seventy, and her false teeth clacked. She forgot most of her punch lines. She wasn’t a bad sort, but she wasn’t much of a mingler.

“I’ll go see,” said Alf. “Kenny, you go on. You’re ready. You go on. Tell Al and Spitzer in the pit.”

Al was the piano player. Spitzer played clarinet, trumpet, sax, whatever was called for. Spitzer of all trades. Versatility and mediocrity combined to make one perfect inexpensive musician.

Kenny moved past Vogel and asked,

“How’s your stomach?”

“Not good. Couldn’t even eat my sandwich.”

“You gave it to Corrine didn’t you?” Kenny asked.

Vogel nodded seeing nothing meaningful in the question.

Kenny stuck his head through the curtain and signaled to Al and Spitzer that he was going on next. They both shrugged. Made no difference to them.

They started his music. Chinatown. The Dancing Fool came tapping out. No applause. He didn’t expect any. Not yet. If he were lucky, the few dozen people out there would clap out of sync when he finished. Kenny was determined to wow ’em. He doubled the tempo. Al and Spitzer had a hard time keeping up with him. Al frowned. Kenny Poole danced like a fool trying not to think about Corrine. There was no point killing Corrine. It wouldn’t move him up in the bill. First he kills the wrong poodle and now the wrong person. But maybe she wasn’t dead.

Kenny sweated through three fast-paced numbers and then did his special, hands-in-the-pocket slow dance to Silver Threads Among the Gold. The trick was, the skill was, not to tap, to defy the metal cleats. It took work, practice. Only the pros knew how hard it was. Audience’s almost never got it. Once in Rochester a woman had applauded wildly after he did the slow dance. He had tried to get a good look at her, but she was in the back of the house. That was five, maybe eight years ago.

He ended the act with the lean-forward kick and double back arm swing to the slightly flat rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever. You had to be unpatriotic not to applaud, especially when Kenny stopped dancing and pulled the flag out of his jacket pocket.

He tapped offstage, smiling over his shoulder, exhausted, tucked the flag in his pocket, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He’d have to get the soaked costume cleaned. Two bits, maybe half a buck. Cost of doing this kind of business. The seals were sitting there already barking, being fed fish from a bucket.

“Corrine’s dead,” Lizzy Bronte greeted him, tears in her eyes.

The seals and Sandy Scrimberger moved onstage to the pit duo playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic that they played because Sandy was dressed in a Union uniform and the seals were going to play the song on their horns.

Scrimberger and the seals were number five on the list. Few would mourn a pair of deal seals.

Kenny allowed himself to stand panting and comforting Liz Bronte.

“It’s the drink what did it,” she wept. “We tried to tell her. Doctors tried to tell her. Would she listen?”

“No,” said Kenny.

Alf came down the stairs shaking his head.

“Doctor’s coming,” he said. “But she’s gone.”

Liz Bronte ran up the stairs where her sister stood at the top. They hugged.

“Between you and me and Charlie Chaplin,” Alf said. “Corrine’s breath smelled like she’d been drinking some thousand proof.”

Alf hurried off behind the flat of a Civil War battlefield.

If the doc said Corrine had a heart attack, he couldn’t kill Vogel and make it look like a heart attack. There are coincidences and coincidences, but… Kenny got an idea.

No Bronte sister act with only one Bronte sister. One Bronte sister with a broken leg and no act. Show business tradition. “Break a leg, girls,” someone would say when the house was good and they remembered.

Kenny would find a way to break a Bronte leg, probably Charlotte’s. Charlotte was stronger. She’d recover faster. Not fast enough to get back in the season. And Kenny wouldn’t have to kill her. So, get rid of the seals and one Bronte and Kenny would make the cut.

When? The sooner the better. Why not now?

Risky, but look at it this way: Corrine’s dead. Charlotte’s distraught. She comes down the steps crying her eyes out. She trips, with a little help from Kenny hiding under the stairs. It shouldn’t kill her. With luck, a broken leg, especially if he hits the leg hard when he trips her. Hit the leg, duck into the janitor’s closet under the stairs, go through the window, close it, back around fast to the stage entrance, to the sound of people screaming about the double tragedy. Get a chance to feel Liz leaning against him again. Bonus.

He moved under the stairs, hid in the shadows, picked up a broom leaning against the wall.

The seals on stage were blowing their horns. He could hear the Brontes coming, comforting each other.

“Maybe one of us should stay with her,” Liz said.

“Go on,” Charlotte said. “I’ll be right up.”

Perfect. Liz was heading back to the women’s dressing room. Charlotte was already coming down the stairs. He heard her at the top step. Then the second. Saw her ankle. Nice ankle. She was moving slowly. Kenny was sweating even more now. Life or death. Kill or be killed, but he wasn’t going to kill her.

He thrust the broom handle between the steps and swung it hard against Charlotte’s ankle. Charlotte screamed, maybe she reached for the metal railing. She tripped and tumbled down the last nine stairs, but Kenny had already put the broom back and was closing the closet door behind him.

He went through the window. Cold out there. Sudden shocking chill. His sweat froze. He felt dizzy. Had to move fast. Around the corner, stepping through a thin layer of ice into a puddle of icy water. Hurrying, taps sliding on ice under snow.

Inside, Liz heard her sister, ran down the stairs screaming. The two-man pit band got louder to cover whatever the hell was going on backstage. Alf appeared, shouting “Chrissake, what now?”

Charlotte lay at the bottom of the steps, her eyes closed, her sister cradling her head.

“Oh God, Char. Oh God.”

The old man who guarded the stage door shuffled over, tucking his pipe in his pocket. Vogel came down the stairs quickly and knelt at the fallen dancer’s side. He touched her forehead, cheek, put his ear to her chest.

“Water,” he commanded.

Alf ran for water.

Charlotte opened her eyes.

“What son-of-a-bitch tripped me?” she demanded, woozily sitting up.

“You fell down the stairs,” Vogel said gently.

“You were upset about Corrine,” said Liz.

“Someone tripped me,” Charlotte said. “Help me up.”

Vogel lifted her as if she were a raggedy doll.

“My ankle hurts like hell,” she said leaning over to look at the purple and red welt.

She tested it.

“For chrissake, who are you?” asked Alf looking at a lean, white-haired man in an overcoat and muffler who had apparently come in the stage door while they were busy with Charlotte.

“I’ve come at a bad time,” the man said.

“It could be worse,” said Alf. “The roof could collapse.”

“Happened in the Fairfax in New Haven four years ago,” said the stranger. “I was there. No one was killed but…”

Charlotte was limping around now.

The white-haired man turned not toward the stage door but the door that led into the theater.

“No,” said Alf. “You’re here for chrissake. What do you want? You a cop? That’s all we need.”

“No,” said the man. “I’m looking for Kenneth Poole.”

“Kenny?”

“I just saw his act. I’d like to talk to him and to you two,” the man said looking at Liz and Charlotte.

“We’ve got a dead woman upstairs,” said Vogel softly. “This is a bad time.”

“Where is Kenny?” asked Charlotte as the pit band played By the Sea to accompany Scrimberger and his seals off the stage. The applause was the best of the night.

“What’s with all the noise?” Scrimberger asked.

Both seals barked. Scrimberger threw each of them a fish from the bucket he was carrying.

“Corrine’s dead,” said Liz tearfully. “And Charlotte was almost killed.”

“I wasn’t almost killed,” said Charlotte. “Someone tripped me.”

“Can you still dance?” asked the white-haired man.

Charlotte looked at him and said, “By tomorrow I’ll be perfect, unless I break my leg kicking the hell out of whoever-”

“Where is Kenny?” asked Liz.

The stage door flew open, letting in a frozen blast of air. Standing in the doorway was a chubby little man in a black coat and derby hat wearing black gloves and carrying a black pebbled-leather satchel.

“Someone should be with the body,” the chubby man said, closing the door behind him.

Scrimberger muttered something and led his seals past the stairs to the downstairs room reserved for animal acts so the cats, dogs, seals, parrots, and occasional chimp wouldn’t have to go up and down stairs.

“Buddy Donald is upstairs with her,” said Liz.

“For Chrissake,” said Alf rubbing his forehead. “Buddy’s supposed to be on next.”

“Upstairs?” said the chubby man.

“Corrine’s upstairs,” said Liz pointing to the landing.

“Corrine?” asked the chubby man. “What in the blazes on a cold night in hell are you talking about? I’m Doctor Milton Frazier. Someone called about a dead body. I practically tripped over it right out there.”

He pointed to the door through which he had come.

“And,” he said. “It’s no she. It’s a he, and even though I’ve worked with you vaudeville people before, I don’t think his name is Corrine. And what’s he doing out there without a coat on a night like this and a little U.S. flag on his chest and…”

Alf dashed to the stage door, opened it, and ran out. Buddy Donald, short and wiry with very little hair, who had once been a tenor and was now a comic, came hurrying down the stairs saying, “I’m on.”

He ignored everyone, adjusted his cuffs and walked onstage.

“It’s Kenny,” Alf said coming back through the stage door. “He’s out there. He’s dead.”

“I just told you he was dead,” Doctor Frazier said. “Close the door.”

Alf closed the door.

“What happened to him?” Liz cried.

It was Charlotte’s turn to comfort her sister.

“Looks to me like he slipped on a patch of ice by the steps,” said the doctor. “Looks to me like he must have been in a hurry, which is not a good thing to do on ice, especially when, as I could see, you’re wearing tap shoes. Left leg’s broke. Hit his head on the ice. There’s another body?”

“This way,” said Vogel motioning for the doctor to follow him up the stairs.

The doctor stopped at the top of the stairs and said, “Call the police. And try to stay alive till they get here.”

“Shame,” said the white-haired man, buttoning his coat. “I’ll come back and talk to you two young ladies tomorrow.”

“About what?” Charlotte asked.

“About being in a movie,” the man said. “My name is Lee DeForest. I have a studio here in Chicago. I’m starting to make movies with sound to show in theaters like this one, short movies with music. I’d like the two of you to do your act for my cameras and sound tomorrow.”

“You’re kidding?” said Charlotte.

“No,” said Alf. “I heard of him. He makes movies with sounds. We’re thinking of showing them here.”

“I show them all around the country,” he said. “You get paid well, I think, and people all over the country get to see you. I can assure you, you’ll be famous.”

The sisters looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Sure.”

“I really came to see Mr. Poole,” DeForest said with a sigh. “One of my people said he would be perfect for movies. Tap dancing. Music. Pity. Now if you tell me where you are staying, I’ll have a car pick you up at, say, eleven tomorrow?”

“We’ll miss the first show,” said Liz.

“Miss the first show,” said Alf with a wave of one hand and the other on his forehead. “We’re three acts short. We’ll show an extra movie.”