Show Business is Murder

Razzle Dazzle by ANNETTE MEYERS

HE BEGAN EMPTYING the pockets of his suits methodically, collecting the scraps of paper, napkins, receipts, all of which he’d dropped, stored, left, forgotten but not, sometimes crumpled, one time or another in various pockets. He made several trips into the kitchen and only after studying each piece of paper did he put it in its proper place on the kitchen table. The order was important. It explained everything.

“No, it doesn’t, David.”

Miranda stood with her brutal back to him, staring out at the fog that made their rooftop seem adrift. From the river came the nasal honk of a foghorn.

“But it does, love. You’ll see.” He’d done what he had to do.

The kettle let out a shrill shriek, and he shut it down. He turned to Miranda. “I forgot to grind the beans.” But Miranda was gone.

His glasses were stained. He took them off and held them under the faucet, rinsing. The water stained the porcelain a rusty color. He dried the glasses thoroughly and put them on again. He saw with such clarity now. It was amazing.

Back to sorting. Here was the note on the flap of Sardi’s matchbook. Twenty-five. Silver. Where was his Mont Blanc? He went back to the bedroom. Miranda was in bed, pretending. He stood watching her.

He’d done the right thing. Planned it down to the last minute, waited till Patrick left for school. She’d given him no choice. He had to put a stop to it.

It was a while before David remembered why he’d come to the bedroom. His pen was in the inside pocket of the dark blue Hugo Boss. In the kitchen again, he crossed out “silver” and wrote “diamonds.” Diamonds for Miranda.

MIRANDA. SHE WAS the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. With his legal pad ready, David stood in the dark theater in front of the orchestra pit beside Bob Fosse as the girl dancers auditioned for Chicago. Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon were already set for the leads, so this was chorus. But it was not news that Fosse was a control freak, right down to the last bit of costume, to the understudies in particular because Gwen was no kid. She’d be out a lot the way she was when she was in Sweet Charity, and that was nine years ago.

Bobby, Buddha-eyed, arms folded, watched as his assistant showed the first group of dancers the combinations, then stepped back and signaled to the accompanists and the dancers began.

She was a head taller than any of the others and another chorus dancer might have gotten lost in the back row. But not Miranda. She gave off a kind of glow. A blonde iridescence on long, elegant legs.

David looked over at Bobby. No reaction. Was he blind?

When the dancers finished, Bobby said, “Thank you.” The dancers felt the rejection, took it personally. David could see the slump in the shoulders as they left the stage. But not Miranda. She edged out as the next group of dancers came on and took their places.

Bobby said, “That one.”

“The tall blonde?”

“Yes.”

So like Bobby, David thought, as he raced for the stairs to the wings. He liked to make them suffer a little before he gave them the good news.

She was on the street, her heavy bag hanging from her shoulder, when David caught up to her. “He wants you,” he told her.

Her eyes were a deep gray-blue, confused now. Her brows pale as her hair. “Who?”

“Bobby. He wants you. I need your name, and your agent’s name, address, and phone number.” I need you, he thought.

“I don’t have an agent,” she said. “I haven’t been here long enough.” It was just starting to sink in. “He wants me?”

“Yes. Rehearsals start in four weeks. Are you available?”

She began laughing, a deep throaty laugh, which is when David fell for her big time.

“My name is Miranda Donnelly,” she said.

She gave him her phone number. “Find an agent and get back to me,” David said. “You should have an agent, although the dance contracts are usually minimum. I’ll find you an agent. Leave it to me. You’re going to be a star. You need someone who knows how to do it. And I’ll help you.”

She was waiting, looking at him expectantly. “I don’t know who you are,” she said.

He felt himself flush. “David Sharp,” he said. “I’m the assistant stage manager.”

She thrust out her hand and smiled at him. “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, David Sharp. Thank you for the good news.”

DAVID SET THE matchbook cover down. Twenty-five years. He would shower her with diamonds. Yes. It would be really big. He’d take over Sardi’s for the night. Let’s see, who owed him? Half the world owed him, though they wouldn’t admit it.

“I don’t want diamonds,” she said. “I just want it to be like it was.”

“I do, too. And it will be, you’ll see. I’ll make it right.”

“Oh, David, you always say that.” She covered her mouth.

It had been wonderful then, when they were both beginning. Fosse, the brilliant Bob Fosse, had created a number just for her.

“He saw me as… what did he call me, David?”

“His perfect instrument.”

The show was a big hit. And David became production stage manager, calling the cues. And after the show every night, Miranda was his. All his.

They were married the week before rehearsals began on Bobby’s new all-dance musical Dancin’, with Miranda as lead dancer. This was when David decided he had to break out, become a producer.

He had a connection-the father of his Rutgers roommate was president of the teamsters N. Y. local. The connection greased the way for David to get an apprenticeship in ATPAM, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers. His short term goal was to become a general manager. He would learn the business of producing this way, then do it himself. And he would do it better than anyone had done it before. There’d be no stopping him.

“You were so intense,” Miranda said. “Sometimes it frightened me.”

“You were getting what you wanted, why shouldn’t I?”

David studied the scraps of paper in front of him on the table. It was something specific he remembered making a note of yesterday or the day before.

Their first apartment. It had been in this building. A small one bedroom, third floor rear, right next to the elevator. Dark as hell.

“Now look what we have,” he said.

“A penthouse. Sixteen floors up. You wanted a penthouse.”

“So did you. Who’s the genius in this family? Who’s the deal maker? Who gave you the best?”

“David…”

“Yes. David.” He liked to hear her say it. She had that throaty voice. She was so beautiful and she was his. He reached for her now and she slipped away from him.

He went to the sink and splashed water on his face. He had to call the office. There were things to be done. He hit the direct dial button.

“David Sharp Productions,” a strange voice said.

“Put Betty on.” Betty Carbone. Not much of a looker, but a great gal. Loyal. When he began producing plays, he made her his general manager. She’d been with him for years. She was like family. He loved her like a buddy. He trusted her.

“Who is calling please?”

“The man who’s fucking overpaying your salary,” he yelled.

The girl was flustered. “Oh, oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Sharp.”

Betty came on. “David?”

“Listen, Betty, there’s something I have to do.”

“Yes? Is everything okay?”

“We’re working things out. And Betty?”

“Yes?”

“I love ya, pal.” He hung up the phone.

Where was he? Oh, yes. He was sorting his papers. Ticket stubs. So many. They wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but it made sense to him. It was their life together.

Miranda went on the road with Dancin’ and he flew out to see her every weekend.

“I loved touring,” she said. “We’d go dancing after the show. I met so many people. It was so much fun.”

“I hated not seeing you every day. I hated that you were with them.”

“Them, David? Who is them?” He caught the exasperation in her voice. Didn’t she know he adored her?

“Anyone you were with when you were not with me.”

He placed the stubs back in their place. All except one. The Naked Truth. His play. A review with sketches written by a dozen famous writers on erotic subjects, the performers either all or semi-nude. It had been done before, and it hadn’t been successful. But that was because he wasn’t involved. It needed someone with vision. He would do it better.

“And you did,” Miranda said.

“Yes. And then I bought the theater, too. You have to own the real estate,” he said, “otherwise, you’re always paying the man.”

“Where did the money come from, David?”

“What difference does it make? I have friends who believe in me.”

“Why the hell not? You were laundering their money.”

“I didn’t hear any complaints from you. You have the best of everything. Clothes, the penthouse, everything you could ever want.”

“Yes.” She gave him a sad smile. “Like the hot tub.”

“You loved the hot tub.”

“With you sitting in it doing business, a phone on each ear, making your deals, raising money, negotiating with the unions. Oh, yes, I loved the hot tub.”

“I was really something. Admit it.” He made another grab for her, but she eluded him. “I never understood how you could let Bobby talk you into going back. You had everything.”

“That was part of the problem. I felt as if I was just something valuable that belonged to you-”

“Oh, come on. I never heard anything so crazy.”

“And I missed dancing.” She raised a long elegant leg and rested the back of her heel on the table without dislodging the lines of scrap paper. “You never-”

“There wasn’t any work for you.”

“You never let me talk. You never let anyone-”

“Talk? Anyone who wants to talk can talk. I’m the one with something to say.”

“You see what I mean? You finish my sentences. You do it to everyone. Bobby’s offer to be his assistant choreographer was perfect timing.”

“You wanted to get away from me.”

“You chased me away. You chased our friends away. You compete with everyone, even to the point of where to buy the best focaccia.”

“Your lousy friends couldn’t handle how successful I was.”

“They were our friends once.”

“They were jealous.”

“That’s not true. You made them nervous. You talk nonstop right through everyone.”

He took the coffee beans from the refrigerator and poured some into the grinder, then ground them to drown out her sound. She was gone when he finished, back to the bedroom, back to her barre. She was always walking away from him.

He poured the hot water through the grounds. “There’s coffee,” he called. She didn’t answer. He could hear her singing as she worked. “Razzle Dazzle.” She’d replaced Ann Reinking in the revival of Chicago. Bebe Neuwirth herself had called and asked Miranda to do it. And Miranda had been a sensation.

David had hated it. He put his hands over his ears. He didn’t want to hear “Razzle Dazzle.” It reminded him of Fosse and the old days before everything got so complicated, when you knew who your enemies were.

THEY’D JUST BEGUN to live together. She was sewing elastic across the instep of her new ballet shoes and the needle kept piercing her fingers.

He licked the blood from her punctured fingers. “You can buy them with the elastic already there,” he said.

“It’s not the same,” she said. “It has to be perfect. That’s why I do it myself.”

He knew in that moment she was what he wanted. It was how he felt his life should be. But in the end she was not perfect.

“DAVID,” SHE SAID. “What will you tell Patrick?”

“I’m working on it,” he said. He began looking through the scraps on the table for a clean piece of paper. Patrick was fourteen, almost a man. The best part of Miranda and him.

The jagged corner of a receipt caught his eye. He knew what it was though no one else would. Dick Boodle & Associates. Boodle was a former cop who’d set up a detective agency. David had used his services for body guards and stage door security for The Naked Truth cast.

“You’ve been having me followed,” Miranda said, an aura of sweet perspiration surrounding her. “Since the spring.”

“I found out who he was. Advertising. A loser. You fucked me over for a loser.”

“David-”

“After everything I did for you. How we live, the clothes on your back, and it’s not enough for you.”

“What you did for me? Having me followed for the last six months? I haven’t seen him in-”

“You saw him yesterday.” David knew all about it. She’d met him at the Mark Bar. He shook the memo at her. “It’s here in black and white.”

“I had a drink with him is all-”

This time it was David who walked away. He opened the door to the terrace and stepped out on the roof. The fog had lifted but the sky was gray and dense, and the temperature had dropped. Snow was in the air. At the edge of the terrace was a low brick wall that separated the terrace from thin air. Below was the closed courtyard, earth and stone now. In the spring, grass and daffodils.

He heard the phone ringing. He charged back into the apartment. He didn’t want Miranda to get it. The answering machine picked up and the ringing stopped. He listened. She said he had a love affair with the phone. But it was like an extension of his personality. When the Times did the feature on him, they took his picture with a phone on each ear and another on his desk. God, he loved it. But lately, since he’d stopped going to the office, he’d just let it ring, or let the answering machine get it.

“Miranda?” It was Nora, the bitch, her sister. Always butting her nose in. “Are you there? Pick up. I’m worried about you.”

He got hot, seething, began screaming at her, though she couldn’t hear him. “We’re working everything out, not that you care, you trouble-making bitch.”

“You say that, David,” Miranda said, “but we’re not working anything out. It’s too late for that.” Her cheeks were pale, her eyes distant.

“I swear, Miranda, I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Yes. Like when you don’t let me go to the dentist, and to even the supermarket by myself.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you. Most wives would be thrilled to be taken care of like I take care of you.”

Miranda sighed. “We’ve been married twenty-five-”

“Wonderful years-”

“Some wonderful years-”

“You turned everything we had into shit.”

“I broke it off with him.”

“You saw him yesterday, don’t you remember?”

“I told you, for a drink. That’s all.”

“It’s not all. It’s never all.” He went back to the terrace, slamming the door. Gratitude. No one had any anymore. Miranda was ungrateful for anything he’d done for her. There’d been a scene in Philadelphia-what the hell was the name of the show? His brain was fuzzy. Anyway, they’d cut her number. He’d come down after a tearful phone call, but first he’d made his own calls. The number was put back in.

He couldn’t lose her. She was his whole life, more important even than The Naked Truth. Why didn’t she understand that? It was for her own good. Yes, he’d had her followed, yes, he’d had the phone tapped. How else would he know what was happening in his life? He’d done what any good husband would do.

One more call. Ruben Bronson. He’d trained Ruben from scratch. Ruben was production stage manager on The Naked Truth. When was the last time David had talked to him? Once more to the speed dial. “Listen, Ruben-”

“David, I was just going to call you. Can you come in tonight? We have a problem.”

“I have some things I have to do.”

“It’s Jenny’s replacement. You haven’t been around. She’s not working out-”

“You handle it.”

“Okay, if that’s what-”

“I love ya, kid.” David hung up.

In the kitchen he scrawled the letter to Patrick on the phone bill. He had to write around the notes he’d made about the people Miranda called and the numbers he didn’t recognize.

“Why have you stopped going to the office?” she said.

“I want to be with you.”

“You’re driving me crazy, David. You’ve got to give me some space.”

“So you can sneak around and meet your friend, the loser?”

“I have other friends.”

“Yes. Like Linda Marshall who warned you that I was dangerous.”

“If you listen to my phone calls, you have yourself to blame. Linda is a therapist. She thinks you need help.”

“She’s just a dyke who wants you for herself.”

Miranda stared at him, weeping. Her tears made red streaks on her cheeks. She was tormenting him. Why didn’t she just stay where she was? He closed his eyes and made her go away.

The quiet became oppressive. He went into the bedroom. She was back in bed, where they would find her.

He returned to the kitchen and rinsed his hands, stacked the dishes and utensils in the dishwasher, all but the bread knife, which he dried carefully and put in the oak block on the counter.

The afternoon was waning.

“Please, David,” she said, “Patrick will be home soon.”

“We were working it out,” he said. He was on the terrace again, walking around. He looked at the canvas-covered hot tub with its blanket of withered leaves and crusty pigeon droppings, the Adirondack chairs around the table. The empty mug someone had left under the table wore a moldy crust.

He took off his glasses and placed them on the table.

He looked at his Rolex. There was blood on the face. He raised it to his lips and licked the blood off. It was four o’clock. Patrick would be home soon.

He listened to the sound of the elevator, the key in the lock.

“Mom? Dad? I’m home.”

For a brief moment David stood on the low brick wall that enclosed the terrace, then he stepped off.