Madam Z’s act began in what I supposed was a traditional way, but still effective. Curtain up slow on a nearly dark stage, a small compact glow of light at the center. This intensifying as we became silent—a tiny spotlight focused on a large glass globe which sat on a kind of pillar. Now the light expanded to include Madam Z’s face from below, then gradually her entire upper body. Absurd but effective. She sat there cross-legged in a sort of harem costume, I guess, a turban on her head, motionless, staring down at the glowing globe. And we sat silent and waiting.
Abruptly—spoken down here on the dark auditorium floor—a man’s voice, impressively deep. “Mad-am Zell-da!” As he spoke, a spotlight picked him out, standing in an aisle: tall, broad, tan suit, white shirt and dark tie. “Are you ready?”
A pause just long enough so that maybe she wasn’t going to reply. Then, “Yessss,” holding the hiss, “Madam Zelda . . . is ready!”
The spotlight broadened to include the member of the audience seated beside the big man standing in the aisle. The seated man looking up at the other, smiling, waiting. “I have here, a lett-ter be-longing to a gentleman, and addressed to him. What . . . is his name?”
“His name . . . is Robert . . . Lederer.”
“And what is the address below it?”
“The address is . . . One-eleven West Eighth Street, City!”
“Is that correct, sir?”—handing the envelope back, the man nodding, smiling, looking sheepish. “Quite correct!” The big man moved quickly up the aisle, ignoring several letters or cards or whatever held out to him, and stopped to lean into an aisle and pick up the hand of a young woman. “This young lady, Madam Zelda! Is wearing a ring! Tell us, Madam Zelda, what is the ring like?”
“The ring . . . the ring . . .”
“Yes! Describe it please!”
“It holds a diamond, a beautiful diamond, and on each side of this magnificent stone is . . . a lustrous pearl!” How was she doing this? Code, I supposed, an elaborate code buried in whatever the tall man called to her.
“Correct!” he shouted, the girl looking pleased and abashed, the tall man stalking swiftly up the aisle, moving on behind me so that I couldn’t see him without twisting around, but I listened. “A gentleman here, Madam Z! Tell me, tell me now, the name . . . the name . . . of this man’s sister!” Code or not, how could he know that?
“Her name is . . . Clara!”
“Is that correct, sir? Yes! The gentleman says you are entirely correct! And now, Madam, I am holding this man’s watch! Tell me, concentrate, think, think! What is the number . . . of this man’s watch?”
“The number of his watch is two . . . one-eight-seven . . . six-nine—no, seven-nine . . .” She paused, hesitating, the man in the aisle insistent: “Yes!? Yes!?” and I sat bewildered because I—not quite, but almost—recognized the numbers as he spoke them. I—almost—knew them too. Triumphantly Madam Zelda finished. “Seven! The number of this man’s watch is two-one-eight-seven-seven-nine-seven-one!”
“Is that correct, sir?” I was twisting around in my seat to see. “Is that the number of your watch?” and I sat staring as Archie nodded, smiling at the Jotta Girl beside him. “Yes,” Archie said, slipping his watch back into a vest pocket, “that is quite correct.”
“Archie is Z,” I said to myself stupidly. His watch number was the number I’d seen in Alice Longworth’s letter. The tall man in the aisle turning away toward someone else, the Jotta Girl looked up to see me staring back at them. She spoke to Archie, who looked up, then gestured, indicating a vacant seat beside them. And I stood, edged out into the aisle, walked back a half-dozen rows, and . . . Rube, Rube, look: I’m sitting down next to Z. Now what? What do I do now?
What I did was . . . sit there. Talking a bit to Archie, to the Jotta Girl. And all I could think of to do was . . . stick with Archie now, as best I could. Become his buddy. It sounded empty, vague, but . . . what else?
We sat applauding Madam Zelda as the curtain went down, Archie delighted with her. G lighted up on the proscenium, and a moment later the heavy green curtain was bumped from behind, wavering its long velvet folds, drawing our attention. Then a movement at the very bottom of the curtain, lifting it slightly into an inverted V. A face appeared there, just over the stage floor, tipped sideways, peeking out, the eyes widening at sight of us, mouth opening in comic dismay, to a rustle of laughter. “Joe Cook,” Archie said happily, and the audience sat waiting, murmuring expectantly.
I think Joe Cook was funny. The audience thought so. He came out, moving fast, in funny hat and costume, heading for a cottage at center stage. Rapped loudly on the door, the landlord demanding rent. Did it again, then simply picked up the whole cottage—of canvas and light wood frame—and walked offstage with it. He had whatever it takes to make that hilarious, generally explained by talk about “timing.” And the audience howled. And I sat, not actually howling—but yes, I did know . . . that Tessie and Ted were standing in the wings watching Joe Cook too. Watching, laughing genuinely, and—oh yes—grinning and nodding at him as he came off, maybe actually speaking to him, one vaudevillian to another.
Almost immediately Joe Cook was onstage again, staggering across it with three men on his back, each with his feet on the shoulders of the man beneath him. It looked genuine, their clothes real and fluttering, and he staggered so realistically under their weight, but—the “timing” again—now he somehow let us see they were papier-mâché just exactly as he entered the opposite wings. And as we exploded in laughter I knew—knew—who stood grinning backstage, looking at each other to nod in the joy of actually knowing Joe Cook, a vaudeville “headliner.”
We sat watching Joe Cook’s act. Watched as this vaudeville aristocrat came out, sat down in a chair facing us, and waited, looking benignly out at us till the house became quiet. Then entirely silent as he waited some more. Finally, not a cough or stir; I could hear the faint sound of Archie’s breathing. How did Joe Cook do that? If I’d been up there facing the audience like that, waiting, smiling, my nerve would have broken, and I’d have had to run off the stage.
Then, speaking into our utter silence, he said in a quiet conversational way as though to a friend, “I will now give you an imitation of four Hawaiians,” and began what may be vaudeville’s most famous monologue. I sat smiling. Not at Joe Cook but at the pair I knew must be standing just out of sight, listening, happy with each other in their “week,” the famous three-day “week on Broadway” in the most illustrious company of their world. I hope the great man speaks to you, I said silently. I hope he has troubled to know your names and uses them at least once in this famous time which will have to last you for the downhill rest of your lives.
Z. Well, he would get to Europe; Rube and I knew that. He was okay here in New York. So—find out where he was going, because . . . I’d have to go along, it looked like. Who was Z? Z was Archie, but who was Archie? In the cab back to the hotel I said, “Would you two join me this evening? For . . . cocktails? Dinner. A night out. I’m in a celebratory mood; maybe you’d guide us around, Arch.”
“Very kind of you, Simon. I’ll be happy to.”
The Jotta Girl, seated between us, said, “Me too.” Then turned to murmur in my ear, “Found your man, haven’t you,” and I nodded.
In the lobby I bought an Evening Mail, and we rode up, Archie getting off at four. On up to ten; then I walked on right past the Jotta Girl’s room, but as I stood unlocking my door she was beside me. “Oh, I should have bought a paper too; there’s a sale at Wanamaker’s. Do you mind if I tear out a little teeny bit of their ad?”