But Eddie Blake? That weak, ineffectual, fidgety little nothing?
There were new voices coming from the TV now. He stared, trying to make out the picture, and finally saw it was the commercial. A husband and wife, a happy and devoted couple, and the secret of their successful marriage was — of course — their brand of toilet paper.
Successful marriage. He thought of Nancy. And of the writer, Herb Martin.
“I want a divorce, Don.”
He paused in his eating. “No.”
The three of them were at the table together in the Athens Room, Denton and Nancy and Herb. Nancy had said, this afternoon, that she wanted to talk to him about something important, and he had told her it would have to wait until after the show. He didn’t want to be made upset by any domestic scenes just before airtime.
Herb now said, “I don’t see what good it does you, Don. You obviously don’t love Nancy, and she just as obviously doesn’t love you. You aren’t living together. So what’s the sense of it?”
Denton glared sourly at Herb and pointed his fork at Nancy. “She’s mine,” he said. “No matter what, she’s mine. It’ll take a better man than you, buddy, to take anything of mine away from me.”
“I can get a divorce without your consent,” Nancy said. She was a lovely girl, oval face framed by long blond hair. “I can go to Nevada—”
“If there’s any divorce,” Denton interrupted, “and there won’t be — but if there was one I’d be the plaintiff. And I wouldn’t even have to leave the state. Adultery will do very nicely. And the co-respondent just incidentally used to be a Commie.”
Herb said, “That’s getting old-hat, Don. How long you think you can use that threat?”
“For as long as there’s a blacklist, baby,” Denton told him.
“Things are different now. The blacklist doesn’t mean what it used to.”
“You think so? You want to test that theory?”
“Nineteen thirty-eight—”
“Baby, it doesn’t matter when you were a Commie, you know that. Now, basically, I like you, Herb; I think you write some fine material. I’d hate to see you thrown out of the industry—”
“Why won’t you let us alone?” wailed Nancy, and diners at nearby tables looked curiously around.
Denton patted his lips with the napkin and got to his feet. “You’ve asked your question,” he said, “and I’ve given you the answer. I don’t see any point in discussing it any more than that, do you? Oh, and I know you won’t mind paying for your own dinners.”
“Do me a favor,” said Herb. “On your way home, get run over by a cab.”
“Oh, don’t joke with him, Herb,” said Nancy, her voice shrill. She was — as usual — on the verge of hysterical tears.
“Who’s joking?” said Herb grimly.
“All joking aside, friends,” his voice said, “Dan and Ann are one of the finest dance teams in the country.”
Slumped in the chair, Denton stared desperately at himself on the screen. That little self there on the screen, he could talk, he could move around, he could laugh and clap his palms together. He was alive, and content, not hurt.
Who? Who? Who? Herb or Nancy, or both of them together?
He tried to think back, tried to visualize that silhouetted figure again, tried to see in memory whether it had been a man or a woman. But he couldn’t tell; it had been only a bulky shape inside an overcoat, only a black shape outlined against the hall light. Inside the overcoat, it could have been as thin as Eddie, as shapely as Nancy, as muscular as Herb, as fat as Morry Stoneman.
Morry Stoneman?
Dan and Ann, one of the poorest dance teams in the country, were stumbling through their act before the cameras. Backstage, fat Morry Stoneman was dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief and saying, “They looked good, Don, honest to God they did. They got all kinds of rave notices on the coast—”
“They’re stumblebums,” Denton told him coldly. He glanced out at Dan and Ann. “And I do mean stumble.”
“You approved the act, Don. You gave it the okay.”
“On your say-so, Morry. Or is it my fault?”
Morry hesitated, dabbing his face with the handkerchief, looking everywhere but at Denton. “No, Don,” he said finally. “It isn’t your fault.”
“How much of a kickback, Morry?”
Morry’s face was a white round O of injured innocence. “Don, you don’t think—”
“How much are they giving you, Morry?”
The white round O collapsed, mumbled, “Five.”
“Okay, Morry. We’ll take that off your percentage.”
“They got rave notices on the coast, Don. I swear to God they did. I can show you the clips.”
Denton brushed that aside, said, “By the way, the five hundred doesn’t come off the IOUs, you know that.”
“That’s what I was thinking of.” Morry’s left hand held the handkerchief, dab-dab-dabbing at his forehead. His right hand clutched at Don Denton’s sleeve. “All I’m trying to do,” he said urgently, “was promote some extra cash so I can start paying back those IOUs. You want that money back, don’t you?”
“So you can thumb your nose and walk out on me? That’ll be the day, Morry.”
“Listen, would I walk out on you? Don, I—”
“That’s right,” said Denton. “You haven’t been trying to get next to that Lyle broad?”
Injured innocence again. “Who told you a dumb thing like that, Don? I wouldn’t—”
“You won’t,” Denton interrupted him. “The minute you quit me, those IOUs become payable. So you can just forget Lisa Lyle.”
Applause. It was time to go back and give Dan and Ann a big round of applause. Denton jabbed a thumb at the bowing, smiling dancers onstage. “Get them out of here,” he said. “I don’t want them around for the final bow.” Then he trotted onstage, ignoring Morry’s face.
He found the right camera and beamed at it. “For our last act tonight.”
“For our last act tonight,” the image on the screen told his dying likeness, “we have that wonderful new singer — she’s going to have her own show starting in March, you know — Lisa Lyle!”
Denton watched his black-and-white self, teeth gleaming, hands beating together. “She wants Morry,” he whispered at that unhearing image. “And Morry wants her.”
Morry? Was it Morry who’d shot him?
Who was it?
The space between himself and the television set seemed to blur and mist, as though a dim fog were rising there. He blinked, blinked, blinked, afraid it was death.
In the fog, he seemed to see the four who could have done this. Herb and Nancy, directly in front of him, arms around each other, studying him in somber triumph. Eddie Blake, off to the right, his left hand playing his shirt buttons with jittery fingers as he stared at Denton with tentative defiance. And Morry, behind the others and off to the left, stood stocky and unmoving, glaring with frustration and hate.
“Which one of you?” Denton whispered. Fighting back the pain in his chest, he strained forward at them, demanding, willing them to speak, having to know.
And they spoke. “When you are dead,” said Nancy, “I can marry Herb.”
“When you are dead,” said Eddie, “it will be The Eddie Blake Variety Show.”
“When you are dead,” said Herb, “so is that blacklist threat.”
“When you are dead,” said Morry, “so are those IOUs. I can make a mint with Lisa Lyle.”