Annie (11 page)

M
r. Warbucks was true to the promise he
had made Annie. Putting aside all other business, he worked day and night directing a massive nationwide search for Annie's parents. By the following morning, he'd seen to it that headline stories about the search appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the United States. And, buying commercial time on radio stations all across the country, Mr. Warbucks broadcast a recorded appeal to Annie's parents that was repeated every hour, on the hour, for days. Meanwhile, the F.B.I. agents whom he'd borrowed from J. Edgar Hoover had joined in the search, along with more than twenty thousand Warbucks factory workers who were excused from their jobs to make door-to-door canvasses in search of Annie's parents. Each day, over every major American city, skywriters in Warbucks-hired planes wrote the same message over and over again, “Annie's parents, contact Oliver Warbucks.” Within forty-eight hours, in fact, there was scarcely anyone in the United States who hadn't heard about Annie and her dream of finding her lost parents.

In none of the stories that Mr. Warbucks released about Annie, however, did he reveal the exact contents of her note or mention the fact that she'd been wearing a broken silver locket when she'd been left at the orphanage. “That's information that only your real parents could have,” explained Mr. Warbucks. “So if a couple comes forward knowing everything that was written in your note, like your date of birth, and also having the other half of your locket, then we'll know that they're really your mother and father.”

“I see,” said Annie. “That way we can't be fooled by fakes who only claim to be my mother and father.”

“Exactly,” Mr. Warbucks exclaimed.

On Tuesday evening, a few days before Christmas and five days after the nationwide search had begun, Annie and Mr. Warbucks appeared as special guests on America's most popular radio program, an hour-long comedy-variety show which starred a hammy comedian-singer named Bert Healy. Scheduled to go on toward the end of the program, Annie and Mr. Warbucks sat nervously on the stage of a huge mid-town theater before an audience of over a thousand, while Bert Healy and his cast of regulars—a trio of blonde singers, the Boylan Sisters; a masked announcer named Jimmy Johnson; and a ventriloquist named Fred McCracken and his dummy, Wacky—sang songs and did a series of comedy sketches that everyone but Annie and Mr. Warbucks seemed to find hilarious. At last, Annie was summoned to the microphone by Bert Healy and asked to tell her story to the millions who were listening to the program all over the United States.

“Thank you, Annie, thaaaaaaank you, Annie,” Bert Healy crooned when she had finished speaking. “On America's favorite radio program,
The Oxydent Hour of Smiles
, starring your old softy, Bert Healy, a moment of sadness.”

“Thank you, Bert Healy,” said Annie, tiptoeing back to her seat and sitting down next to Mr. Warbucks.

“Good going, Annie,” whispered Mr. Warbucks, squeezing her hand.

“But still,” Bert Healy went on, “remember my motto, folks . . .”

“Smile, darn ya, smile,” squeaked the ventriloquist's dummy, Wacky, in a high little voice.

“That's right, Wacky,” Healy said, “smile, darn ya, smile. And now, from station WEAF in New York and over the coast-to-coast facilities of the NEB Red Network, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you none other than that very wealthy industrialist and Wall Street tycoon . . . Oliver Warbucks!”

The audience applauded enthusiastically as Mr. Warbucks joined Bert Healy at the microphone. He nervously clutched a script that had been written for him by the show's writers.

“Good evening, Oliver Warbucks, it's nice of you to drop by,” said Healy.

“Good evening, Bert Healy, it is nice to be here,” read Mr. Warbucks from his script.

“Oliver Warbucks,” said Healy, who was also reading from a script, “I understand that you have some further details to tell the folks at home about wonderful little Annie here.”

“Yes, Bert Healy, I do,” Mr. Warbucks enunciated carefully, “Annie is a twelve-year-old foundling who was left by her parents on the steps of the New York City Municipal Orphanage, Girls' Annex, on St. Mark's Place, on the night of December thirty-first, 1921.”

“And aren't you conducting a coast-to-coast, nationwide search for Annie's parents?” asked Healy.

“Yes, Bert Healy,” replied Mr. Warbucks, “I am now conducting a coast-to-coast, nationwide search for Annie's parents. Furthermore, I'm announcing tonight for the first time that I am offering a certified check for fifty thousand dollars to any persons who can prove that they are Annie's parents.”

“Wow, that's great!” exclaimed Annie, jumping up from her chair and joining the audience in applauding Mr. Warbucks. For in those long-ago days, fifty thousand dollars was a huge amount of money, the equivalent nowadays of several million dollars.

“Fifty thousand dollars,” said Healy, “wow, that's great.”

“Oh, boy—oh, boy—oh, boy, fifty thousand smackers—I sure could use that kind of dough to help out my poor old mom,” joked Wacky, the wooden dummy. “She's a peach tree down in Georgia.”

“Shh, quiet, Wacky, this is no joke,” warned Mr. McCracken, the ventriloquist.

“I know, McCracken,” said Wacky. “Everything you say is no joke. And you move your lips, too.”

“So, Annie's parents, if you're listenin' in,” Healy went on, “write to Oliver Warbucks care of this station, WEAF, New York, or directly to him at . . .”

“At my home, Bert Healy,” furnished Mr. Warbucks, “nine eighty-seven Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.”

“That's nine eighty-seven Fifth Avenue, New York, New York,” said Healy. “Thank you, Oliver Warbucks.”

Mr. Warbucks was about to return to his seat when Healy suddenly shoved another page of script into his hands and motioned for him to read it.

“Thank you, Bert Healy,” read Mr. Warbucks from the page he'd never seen before. “And I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the makers of my favorite toothpaste, all-new Oxydent, with miracle K-64 to fight bad breath, for letting me appear here this evening. Good night, Bert Healy.” Mr. Warbucks cast an angry glance at Healy for having duped him into delivering a toothpaste commercial, and stomped back to his seat.

“Good night, Oliver Warbucks,” Healy said. “And, Annie's parents, if you're out there, remember there's fifty thousand dollars and a wonderful daughter waiting for you.”

“So get in touch right away, you hear,” Wacky ordered.

“Well, I see by the old clock on the wall that another of our Tuesday-evening get-togethers has gone by faster than you can say ‘Oxydent.'”

“O-x-y-d-e-n-t!” sang the Boylan Sisters in close harmony, off-key.

“Yes, O-x-y-d-e-n-t, the toothpaste of the stars—the toothpaste of Frances Dee, Frances Farmer, and Kay Francis—to make your teeth Hollywood bright,” said Healy. “So, for all of the
Hour of Smiles
gang—Ronnie, Bonnie, and Connie, the lovely Boylan Sisters; Fred McCracken—”

“And Wacky!” chimed in Wacky.

“And Jimmy Johnson, radio's only masked announcer,” added Jimmy Johnson.

“This is your old softy, Mrs. Healy's boy, Bert,” said Healy, “saying until next week, same time same station, brush your teeth with Oxydent, and, gosh, I almost forgot, good night!”

• • •

All across the United States, tens of thousands of Americans had heard Mr. Warbucks offer fifty thousand dollars to Annie's parents on Bert Healy's radio show. And among them had been Pepper, Duffy, July, Kate, Tessie, and Molly at the orphanage. Annie had written them that she was to be on the program that night, and so they'd sneaked downstairs after lights-out to listen to the
Hour of Smiles
in Miss Hannigan's office.

“Gee, Annie on the radio, from coast to coast—she's famous,” Kate exclaimed as the orphans huddled wide-eyed around the radio, amazed to hear the voice of someone they actually knew coming into the room from far away.

“I wish I was on the radio,” Molly said wistfully.

“Me, too,” agreed Tessie.

“Nah, not me—who'd want to be on the dumb old radio,” said Pepper sourly, switching off Miss Hannigan's radio.

“Yeah, the dumb old radio,” muttered Duffy, who always agreed with everything that Pepper said.

Another person who'd heard
The Hour of Smiles
was Miss Hannigan herself, who'd listened to it from a barstool down the street at Sweeney's Shamrock Saloon. Now, toddling drunkenly home to the orphanage, she heard the orphans, talking and giggling in her office. She flung open the door and confronted them. “Do I hear happiness in here?” shrieked Miss Hannigan.

The orphans quickly scurried into a line and stood at attention. “No, Miss Hannigan,” they chorused.

“Whatta ya doin' up, down here?” Miss Hannigan demanded.

“Annie was on the radio,” said Molly.

“On WEAF,” added Kate.

“Yeah, I heard her, too,” said Miss Hannigan. “Next thing you know, she'll be in the funny papers. Now, get outta here, upstairs, back to bed!”

“Yes, Miss Hannigan,” said the orphans, hurrying up to their beds before Miss Hannigan could get after them with her paddle.

In her bedroom behind the office, Miss Hannigan got into a gray flannel nightgown and poured herself a nightcap from the quart of Four Roses whiskey she kept on the table next to her bed. All the while she muttered to herself about the money that Oliver Warbucks had offered to Annie's parents. “Fifty thousand bucks—what I couldn't do with fifty thousand bucks,” grumbled Miss Hannigan drunkenly. “And me that raised the damn kid not gettin' a red cent. Oh, God, I hate that Annie so much you'd think I was her stepmother.”

Two others who'd listened to the
Hour of Smiles
that night were Rooster Hannigan and his lady friend, Lily St. Regis, who heard the program on the radio in their dingy room in the Hotel Dixie, on West 42nd Street near Times Square. “Fifty thousand bucks—there's gotta be a way we can get our hands on that dough,” said Rooster, angrily pacing the floor of the small, airless hotel room. Suddenly, Rooster snapped his fingers and smiled a sinister, crooked smile: he'd had an idea. “Listen, Lily,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Remember how we took that old lady in Atlantic City for three hundred bucks—made her think we was her long-lost brother and sister?”

“Sure, Rooster, that was the best bunco job we ever pulled off,” Lily recalled.

“Yeah, up 'til now—that's gonna be peanuts compared to this,” Rooster bragged. “Lily, unpack that old dress you wear. We got ourselves a job to do.”

“You mean . . . ?” Lily asked.

“Yeah,” said Rooster, “the return of America's sweetest and most lovable couple, Ralph and Shirley Mudge.”

• • •

An hour and a half later, Miss Hannigan was awakened from a drunken sleep by the ringing of the front doorbell. “Who the hell can that be at this hour?” she mumbled to herself, putting on slippers and her peach-colored flannel bathrobe and going to the door. Standing meekly on the front steps was a tall, stooped man with gray hair, spectacles, and a droopy salt-and-pepper mustache. He was wearing black overshoes and a shabby brown overcoat, and he held his hat trembling in his hand. With him was a plump, gray-haired woman in a black lambskin coat that had seen better days. At their feet was a pair of battered suitcases tied shut with pieces of rope.

“Yeah, what is it?” Miss Hannigan demanded suspiciously as she stared at the woebegone couple.

“Excuse us, ma'am, but are you the lady that runs this here orphanage?” asked the man in a gentle, frightened voice.

“Yeah, that's me,” said Miss Hannigan as the man and woman stepped into the front hallway with their suitcases.

“Oh, sweetheart, I'm scared,” said the woman to the man. “Somethin' coulda happened to her.”

“Hush, dear, it's gonna be all right,” the man assured her. “She's gonna be here and she's gonna be our kid again.” He turned to Miss Hannigan. “Ma'am,” he asked, “was you workin' here twelve years ago?”

“Yeah,” Miss Hannigan curtly replied.

“Well, we had terrible money troubles back then—along toward the end of 1922,” the man said. “And for a job that come up, we had to head north, to Canada.”

“A job on a farm—but they could only take the two of us,” the woman explained.

“So, you see, well, we had to leave our baby here,” said the man.

“Our little girl—our Annie,” crooned the woman, her eyes misting with tears.

“Annie?” asked Miss Hannigan, dumbfounded. “You're Annie's parents?”

“Yes, ma'am, we are,” said the man.

“Please, ma'am, nothin's happened to her, has it?” the woman begged.

“I can't believe this,” said Miss Hannigan. After all these years. Annie's parents. “Where'd you say you came from again?”

“We came from a little farm way up in Canada,” the woman replied.

“Yeah,” said the man, “where they got plenty of chickens and ducks and geese and . . .
roosters
!” And with that, pulling off his mustache to show that it was fake, flapping his arms, and loudly crowing like a rooster, the man revealed himself to be none other than Rooster Hannigan in disguise. And with a high-pitched giggle, the woman whipped off her gray wig to reveal that she was none other than Lily St. Regis.

“Ha, gotcha, sis!” crowed Rooster, roaring with laughter.

“Oh, God, Rooster,” said Miss Hannigan, “I never woulda known it was you in a hundred years.”

“Fooled ya, Aggie,” Rooster jeered. “And Lily, if we can fool my own sister, we can fool anybody. Including Warbucks.”