Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

floor where in an unsteady dash, she went through the door and down the front steps, to the astonishment of the doorman who had noticed no one who even faintly resembled her entering the house. THE Nineties songs had the same success as the earlier ones, and in his corner Mr. Malkowsky's enthusiasm grew. At the end he turned to his assistant and said, "Veil, vot do you tink of her?" !"What do you think?" asked the assistant. "She's vunderful. She's just vot ve've been look£>vj£i ing for." ^ So Mr. Bergman, the assistant, went over to the boarders' table, where Tommy and Sarah Jane had gone to join the others. The table was surrounded now by old friends of "Sal," by people who pretended they were old friends, by people who wanted to know her, by people who had given her an extra push when she was on the way down, but Sarah Jane wasn't deceived by any of it, because she'd B been in the game too long. What she did know was that this was success. When they came running like that, it meant the real stuff, more than compliments and applause and everything. t Mr. Bergman, the assistant, made his way through the throng and bent over her. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm assistant director with Colossal Pictures. I've got Mr. Malkowsky, the great foreign director, with me, and he wants to know if you'll have a glass of champagne with him." 1 "Sure," said Sarah Jane, rising. The moment she saw Mr. Malkowsky, she thought, "He's a phony." She could tell it by the black Assyrian beard, by the unctuous voice, by the way he rose and kissed her hand. But almost at once she thought, "So what? Even if he is a phony, mebbe I can use him. I'll feed him up. What's the difference, if he 'discovers' me?" So she fed him up, playing up to the shiny beard f and the hand-kissing and the unctuous voice, and when she left the table, Mr. Malkowsky said, "Veil, I expect you then to have lunch vit me tomorrow at vun at the Valdorf." "I'll be there," said Sarah Jane. When she had gone, Mr. Malkowsky said, "She's vonderful! I tink I make a discovery." "She's marvelous," said Mr. Bergman, the assistant. "Colossal! You've got a wonderful eye for talent." When she got back to the table Mr. Grasselli had disappeared, because success had attracted to the table too many people who knew him. People came and went. Agents suggested meetings and one revue producer talked about a show he had in the fall, if Sarah Jane was "interested." She said she didn't know. She could tell him later. She had a good many plans to consider. Finally about four in the morning there wasn't anyone left in the room but Sarah Jane and Tommy and a couple of tired waiters. They had expected that Mr. Grasselli would return, but he never did, so Sarah Jane said, "Let's go up and see him." In the upper hallway, Tommy suddenly put his arms about her and said, "Well, we pulled it off, didn't we?" "I'll say we did." "And none of 'em knew why we were so good." Sarah Jane laughed and kissed him and he said, "There was even a song publisher playing around. *£.. . . Old Herman from Beck and Herman." She went to Mr. Grasselli's door and knocked, and when there was no answer, Tommy pushed it open. Still there wasn't any sign of Mr. Grasselli and when they turned on the lights, the room was empty. "That's funny," said Tommy. "Maybe he's in the bathroom." But he wasn't in the bathroom. They went all over the house, but they couldn't find any trace of § ' Mr. Grasselli. Then it occurred to Tommy to ask the doorman. Tommy described Mr. Grasselli's appearance, his black hair and mustache. "Sure," said the doorman, "I seen him goin' out. A coupla cops had him. He looked kinda familiar to me, only funny." If the cops had him there wasn't any use pretending any longer that Mr. Grasselli wasn't Monk Maguire, so Tommy said, "You know who he was, don't you?" "No, who?" "It was Monk." "Jeez!" said the doorman. "I knew he was familiar." Tommy went off alone around the comer to the police station. He found the sergeant and a couple of sleepy policemen, and when he asked for Monk Maguire, the sergeant said, "And what d'you wanta see him for?" "Because I work for him." "How?" asked the sergeant. "I play the piano in his joint." "Oh," said the sergeant. "Well, that's different. He ain't here." "Where is he?" "They took him to headquarters, but there ain't no use in going way down there. You couldn't see him. Better wait till the morning." "Okay," said Tommy. "Thanks." As he turned to leave, the sergeant said, "Wait a minute. Mebbe you could tell us about the old dame we've got shut up here." "Mebbe," said Tommy. "What does she look like?" The sergeant described her, dyed red hair, lots of paint, a heavy veil and a kind of diamond butterfly in her hair. "Sure," said Tommy. "I know who she is. She lives at my mother's boardinghouse. How did she get here?" "Well, I'll tell you," said the sergeant. It seemed that Miss Flint, in a state of hysteria, came into the police station and asked to be locked up. When they asked why she wanted to be locked up, she said it was because she was scared. When they asked by what, she said she was always being followed and that they were trying to take her for a ride. At first, because of poor respectable Miss Flint's appearance, they believed her story, only they couldn't think of any joint in the neighborhood that had a madame who resembled Miss Flint. They began to question her. At last, after a half hour of questions in which she nearly drove them crazy trying to follow her, they discovered that she knew where Monk Maguire was and that she was scared out of her wits by her knowledge. So finally they broke her down. She said nobody in the boardinghouse, but herself, had guessed the secret, but if they wanted to get him, they could go right over there now and pick him up, only they had to remember that he had dyed his hair and mustache, and was wearing dark glasses. Then the sergeant thanked her and told her she might as well go home, but she begged instead that they shut her up. She wouldn't feel safe outside of jail. She wouldn't be able to close an eye. She'd heard, she said, that Monk's gang meant to strangle her and put her body in a barrel filled with cement. So in the end they yielded and locked her up in a cell and almost at once she had gone to sleep. "Mebbe I'd better have a look at her," said Tommy. They went along a corridor and at last came to the cell where Miss Flint was locked out of harm's way. She was asleep, very sound asleep. The police had taken off her hat and coat and veil and put a blanket over her. The butterfly of rhinestones still glittered jauntily in the flaming hair. When Tommy returned, the sergeant said, "Better let her stay here tonight and sleep it off. We'll bring her home in the morning." "Thanks," said Tommy. "Good night." Tommy understood. The champagne and Mr. Grasselli's strange make-up had been too much for her. It would, he thought, have been too much for almost anybody. TOMMY didn't wake until noon and by then Mrs. Lefferty and Maggie had already discovered the disappearance of Mr. Grasselli and Miss Flint. An elopement, they decided, was scarcely likely, so Mrs. Lefferty went round to the police station, and there for the first time she learned the true identity of Mr. Grasselli. It came as a shock, such a shock that she had to sit down and have some brandy and be fanned. They knew her at the station house, so they didn't have any suspicions that she had been consciously providing the notorious Monk Maguire with a place of refuge. Then when she had recovered from the first shock, she found out all about Miss Flint. Miss Flint, the day sergeant said, was still sleeping peacefully, but by now, he thought, she ought to be able to go home. So, accompanied by Mrs. Lefferty, they went to the cell and roused Miss Flint. She waked slowly, and at the sight of Mrs. Lefferty, burst into tears and flung herself into Mrs. Lefferty's plump arms. "Never mind, dearie," said Mrs. Lefferty, patting her back. "We're going home now. They've told me the whole story. It's going to be all right." "Oh," cried Miss Flint. "We can't go home alone." "Why not?" said Mrs. Lefferty. "They'll surely get us now." "Who'll get us?" "Mr. Grasselli's mob," sobbed Miss Flint. Here the sergeant, grinning, intervened. "Sure, don't you worry, Mrs. Lefferty," he said. "I'll send Officer Leibowitz around with you. That'll keep her quiet." "Oh, I'm so ashamed of myself," sobbed Miss Flint. "I don't know what came over me ... to get you into all this trouble." "There ain't any trouble," said Mrs. Lefferty, continuing to pat Miss Flint's skinny back. "Sure, dearie, stop your worryin'." Officer Leibowitz came forward to escort the two ladies home. He was a respectable Jewish policeman, with a large family, and after he had taken a good look at Miss Flint, painted and dyed and still bedecked in a ball gown, with the diamond butterfly in her Titian hair, he went up to the sergeant and began whispering to him. "Sure," said the sergeant. "Take 'em home in a taxi. I guess the city can pay for it" DUT at home there was a fresh calamity, one which to Maggie and Mrs. Lefferty was far worse than the scandal of Mr. Grasselli's identity and the night spent by Miss Flint in a cell at the police station, for in this new calamity there was a tragedy which touched them both and destroyed forever the few remnants of joy that remained over the success of the opening of the Golden Nineties. After Mrs. Lefferty and Maggie had put Miss Flint to bed and given her calming medicines, they met Mr. Boldini on the stairs. He had been looking for them. His bloodhound countenance was the apotheosis of melancholy, and the tears streamed from his eyes. "A terrible thing has happened," he said. Then he began to sob, and it took Maggie and Mrs. Lefferty quite a little while to calm him. Then he said, still sobbing, "Fanto is dead!" "Dead!" said Mrs. Lefferty. "But what was the matter with him? He was in wonderful spirits last night." She leaned against the stair rail trying to realize what it was that Mr. Boldini was telling her. Fanto couldn't be dead, not the Fanto who had been so joyous only last night. "When I woke up this morning," said Mr. Boldini, "he was still in his basket, curled up the way he always was, but when I called him he didn't get up. He didn't even open his eyes and wag his tail. I went over to him and ... he was dead!" And Mr. Boldini began to sob again. "He's been with me for fourteen years . . . ever since he was a puppy . . . my best friend!" And then the three of them, without speaking, went softly along the hall to Mr. Boldini's room and opened the door. There in his basket, curled up as he had always been, lay Fanto. He looked happy. He looked, Maggie said, as if he had died wagging his tail. "Sure he had a good time," said Maggie, "and he had fun last night." "Yes," said Mr. Boldini. "He never had such a success before." "It must have been the excitement," said Mrs. Lefferty. "Sure," said Maggie, "with his rheumatism. It was too much for his heart." She leaned down and touched Fanto's head. It was her way of saying good-by to him. She and Mrs. Lefferty were thinking the same thing. Fanto wouldn't be there any more to help Mrs. Lefferty make the beds. He wouldn't ever again give them a performance, wagging his tail, and turning somersaults and standing on his head. AFTER Tommy had risen and had some breakfast and heard about Miss Flint being home and Fanto being dead, he went to police headquarters to see Mr. Grasselli. He found him in a cell having a late lunch which he had sent out for, and he seemed to be taking the whole affair philosophically. "It didn't make any difference," he said. "I was gonna give myself up anyway on Monday. It was all fixed. 'Mr. Hirsh' had it all arranged. He says everything is gonna come out all right. A coupla days don't make any difference. Say, but that was a swell opening, wasn't it?" "Yes," said Tommy. "I guess you and Sarah Jane otta be pretty well fixed. You two got a break anyway. You otta be gettin' contracts right along now." "It looks kinda good," said Tommy. "I guess even old Boldini will get a break out of r o m f Min^Ki M$M 35