Эд Макбейн - Barking at Butterflies and other stories

“Gene?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I was just talking to Edward.”

“And?”

“We think you’re right,” she said. “We’ve got to replace Danny.”

“How shall we do it?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said.

“Who’ll we get?”

“I don’t know.”

“Beth, we’ve got to move...”

“Tomorrow’s a matinee day,” she said calmly. “I’ll make some excuse not to be there. Meet me outside the Plaza at two-thirty. We’ll figure it out then.”

“You do agree...”

“Yes, I think he’s lost control of it,” Beth said, and sighed. “Darling, I’m exhausted, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Yes,” I said, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Gene.”

I hung up, and then called Natalie to tell her what we’d decided. She listened intently and then said she thought we were doing the right thing. I turned out the light and tried to sleep. I kept listening for the blond girl in the green dress, but there was no laughter that night.

The streets of New York were thronged with college kids home on vacation. I walked up Fifth Avenue, envying each and every one of them. They all seemed to be smiling or laughing, sporting their new Easter outfits, enjoying the mild spring day, window shopping, chattering gaily.

Beth sat alone on the lip of the fountain outside the Plaza, bathed in sunlight. She was wearing a blue suit, and her hands were clasped over her bag, which she held in her lap, her head bent, the sunshine touching her short blond hair. Six months ago, when my agent had finished his negotiations with her, he had called me immediately and said, “Baby Beth, my ass, she almost chewed the rug off the floor.” She had then gone out to raise eighty thousand dollars in less than a month, assembled cast and director and crew in half again that time, booked a theater, and hired her press agents and advertising representatives — all of this accomplished effectively and tirelessly in a business that boasted its only good producers were men. She was a tough beautiful broad. I had never seen her looking as forlorn or as vulnerable as she did that day outside the Plaza, sitting in sunshine on the lip of the fountain.

I hesitated before approaching her. She seemed to be caught in one of those intensely private reveries it is almost sinful to interrupt. But I walked to her at last, and my shadow fell over her crossed hands on the bag in her lap, and I said, “It’s not the end of the world, dear.”

She looked up, gave me a fleeting smile and a brief nod, and then patted the fountain rim beside her. I sat with my hands clasped between my knees, my head turned toward Beth. I felt suddenly old, like a tired vagrant watching pigeons.

“So,” I said, “what do we do now?”

“We get another director, of course,” Beth said.

“Isn’t it too late?”

“No, I don’t think so. We’ve got a full week, we don’t open until next Wednesday night. I’ve seen shows saved in less time than that.”

“What if we don’t fire him, Beth?”

“I think we’ll be killed.” She shook her head. “The actors smell it. They’ve lost faith in him.” She shook her head again. “It’s a goddamn shame, but that’s what’s happened, and we’ve got to fire him or die for him.” Her eyes met mine, bright and blue and cold and hard in the warm sunshine. “I don’t think you want to die for Danny, do you?”

I hesitated. Then I said, “No, I don’t want to die for Danny.”

“I didn’t think so,” Beth said. She took my hand in hers. We might have been lovers sitting in the sunshine, except that we were discussing an execution. “You’ve written a good play, Gene,” she said. “I’ve done everything I can for it so far, and now I’ve got to do the rest. I’ve got to fire Danny, and I’ve got to do it fast because time is the one luxury we haven’t got.”

“Couldn’t we postpone?”

“Yes, but that costs money. We’re stretched very thin as it is.” She sighed heavily. “You don’t know how I hate doing this,” she said. “I’ve known Danny a long time. This isn’t our first show together, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“He’s had a rough time these last five years. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Neither do I.” I hesitated and then said, “Look, maybe we ought to forget it, just take our chances and see what happens.”

“No,” she said.

“It’s only a play, Beth.”

“ Is it only a play, Gene?” I did not answer her. She nodded wearily. “We’ll do what has to be done,” she said. “The only thing...”

“Yes?”

“I want it to come from him. I want him to realize for himself that it’s no good anymore. I want him to suggest that we bring in another director.”

“Who have you got in mind?”

“I’ve already spoken to Terry Brown. He says he’s interested.”

“When did you do that?”

“This morning. Would you agree to Terry?”

“Of course I would.”

“Fine then,” she said, and nodded.

We sat in silence for several moments. And then, because we had completed the difficult pan of our discussion, deciding unanimously that we were ready and willing to sacrifice Danny for the sake of the play, we now rushed into the easy part — how to commit our homicide. We spoke in whispers; there was the hard beat of urgency to our words.

“When will we do it?”

“Tonight,” Beth said. “After the performance.”

“Where?”

“Ho Tang’s. We’ll gradually lead up to what’s wrong, try to make Danny see he’s hurting the show.”

“Then what?”

“When he suggests getting another director, I’ll pretend Terry is a spur-of-the-moment idea.”

“Why all the duplicity?” I said. “Why can’t we just tell him straight out?”

“I told you. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Suppose he doesn’t suggest...”

“I’ve thought of that,” Beth said.

“I mean, it may never even occur to him that we should get another director.”

“In that case, I’ll just have to tell him,” Beth said. “Straight out,” she said, and sighed.

I sighed, too.

We shook hands then, and glanced over our shoulders like the conspirators we surely were. Beth walked off up Central Park South. I went down Fifth to Forty-Sixth and then cut crosstown to the theater.

The matinee had not yet broken.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the marquee.

The new title of the play had been suggested by Danny a week before we went into rehearsal. Every time I looked at it, or heard it spoken, or even thought about it, I felt a pang of guilt, as though I had honestly named my baby Max, only to have agreed later that his name should be changed to Percy. The stars’ names were above the title — their credits rigidly predetermined by contract and scrupulously respected by those professionals who design window cards, three-sheets, and newspaper ads — in the same size, style, weight, color, and color background as the title. Listed below their names was the title itself (I felt the pang of guilt) and then my name as author (25 % of the title) and then the names of the supporting players (50 % of the title) and then Danny’s name as director (100 % of the title, on the strength of the hit show he had directed for Beth five years back). I stood studying the marquee in despair, not because my name was the smallest one on it, but only because I suspected I might wish it were even smaller come opening night, illegible perhaps, known to only a few loved ones like my mother and my wife, otherwise hidden from the rest of the scornful world.

I stared at the marquee only a moment longer.

Then I walked up to Sixth Avenue and found a bar.