Bugsy Malone (7 page)

A V
IKING HELMET
is never very comfortable and this one weighed heavily on the head of the Brooklyn soprano whose voice echoed to the empty gallery of the Bijoux Theatre. She clasped herself in a strange self-embrace as she screeched out her song. The brass breastplate she was squeezed into might have had something to do with her agonised tone, as her lips trembled and her tongue wobbled for all it was worth at the back of her throat.

“Velia! Oh, Velia, the witch of the wood...”

She had the kind of voice that breaks wineglasses and eardrums. It wasn't a dreadful voice, but it would be fair to say that it was in the no man's land somewhere between pretty terrible and awful. But she had guts. With a voice that bad, you need guts. She was what music teachers call a tryer. She ploughed into the second verse of her song unaware of the special kind of torture she was inflicting on her audience.

The occasion was the audition session for Lena Marrelli's Show. Lena had stormed out, as she had done a thousand times, and her producer, Oscar De Velt, had said it was the last time she would walk out on him. He had said that before, of course – almost as many times as Lena had abandoned the show.

“Let her go,” he'd said. “I don't need her.” Oscar De Velt had been putting on Broadway shows when Lena Marrelli was in pig-tails. She still was in pig-tails, but he always omitted this fact from his thoughts. Her floppy red ringlets and precocious talent had paid for his silk shirts and velveteen jackets and his apartment overlooking Central Park for too long for him to see things clearly. Every time she quit, he set up a new casting session. Amongst the pros it was regarded as a bore and not to be taken seriously. But to the hopefuls, the first timers in New York, the dreamers, the ones that didn't know the ropes, it was their big chance.

Oscar De Velt, dressed like every Broadway producer, went through the charade of pretending to look for new talent. Slumped in the third row of the stalls, his arm dangling over the back of the seat and his hand-stitched boots propped up on the row in front, he shouted at the acts to be auditioned. He had a rather nasty, smart but spotty secretary who had even more disregard for personal feelings than he did. She would rebuke the cracked sopranos and squeaky tenors with a mouthful of abuse that sent many a hopeful packing back to their home town.

“Next!”

That evil word that says so much to the plucky, but talentless, auditioner. It may only be a little word, but it can be interpreted a million different ways. “Next” could mean, “Thank you very much, you are extremely talented and will surely go far, only you're just a teeny bit tall for us.” On the other hand, it could mean, “Get off the stage quickly – your ears stick out, your voice sounds like a cat who's caught his tail in the door, your knees are as bandy as a viola player's and you'd do a great service to showbusiness by taking a job in a laundry.”

“Next!” Oscar De Velt yelled once more. This time, a conjurer came out and brushed down his dress suit rather too many times and took immense pains to put up the stand for his tricks. The metal legs were a little wobbly to begin with, but he tried to hide his nerves by persevering with the troublesome brass joints. The long line of auditioners waited impatiently for their brief chance for Broadway immortality. The conjurer cleared his throat most politely and walked to the footlights to deliver his hopeful showbusiness broadside.

“Good evening. I am the Great Marbini, illusionist to kings. I have been privileged to have obtained second billing at theatres in Missouri, Polar Bluff and Norfolk, Nebraska, and will now perform for you a trick only before seen by the crowned heads of Europe. I will produce from this hat not one rabbit, not two rabbits, but
three
rabbits.” As he spoke, he indicated on his fingers the rabbits he hoped to pluck out of the hat. This proud boast met with an expansive yawn from the producer and a bored stare from his assistant. Oscar De Velt shouted, “Next! Next! Next!” to each of the conjurer's three rabbits and the conjurer disappeared from the stage as quickly as only an illusionist could.

Blousey waited nervously in the long audition queue with Bugsy. She handed him her mirror, which he held up for her whilst she fixed her make-up.

“I wish they'd hurry up. I get so nervous waiting.”

“Quit worrying, will you,” Bugsy said. He was beginning to feel nervous himself.

“I didn't figure on this many people.” Blousey bit on her bottom lip as she craned her neck in search of the end of the queue, which seemed to go on forever.

“Oh, they're all jugglers and magicians by the look of it. Don't worry. You've got no competition. You'll walk it, believe me.”

Blousey was in no mood to be calmed down. The make-believe butterflies in her tummy fluttered about trying to get out. She pressed her lips together to spread the lipstick evenly, and tucked a loose hair into her feathered skull cap.

“How do I look?”

Bugsy gave the same answer as he had given a dozen times. “Fine.”

“I look a wreck.” She was getting more nervous.

“You look swell.”

“Honest?”

Bugsy nodded, at last he seemed to be getting somewhere. “Honest.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart. You look beautiful.”

He kissed his finger and touched her on the nose. She forgot her butterflies and smiled for the first time. Auditioning was never easy in such surroundings, and the constant toing and froing of the men who were moving the props didn't help either. A four girl dancing group with rather too-plump thighs did a high kicking number that finished with them ploughing through the scenery. Oscar De Velt put his head in his hands and a muffled “Next” seemed to come out.

A ventriloquist came forward and the wooden dummy she was holding seemed to realise they were on to a loser before his operator did.

“I guppose goo are gendering gwy I'm here tonight?”

The lady ventriloquist exposed her dentures. True, her lips didn't move but, there again, the words didn't come out all that clearly either. She replied to the dummy, whose wooden head swivelled on its stick and whose bottom jaw flapped up and down, squeaking as it did so.

“Garen't goo going to gask me gow I gam?”

“Well, how are you, Clarence?”

“Gon't gask. I feel gerrible.”

“Gnext!” The producer brought the proceedings to a halt. She wasn't a bad ventriloquist. With a little better material she could make a living on the radio. Sound radio ventriloquists were all the rage and the audiences sitting at home never could see if their lips moved.

Blousey edged closer, nudging the girl in front who was having trouble moving a giant harp. Bugsy helped her on to the middle of the stage with the monumental, gilt-laden instrument. It wasn't really worth it because the very sight of the instrument was enough to put Oscar off.

With the sudden exit of the harp player, Blousey was next, and she tripped rather clumsily on to the stage. Bugsy shouted “Good luck!” from the wings. Blousey politely announced herself as she handed the pianist her music.

“Er... Blousey Brown... er, singer.”

She nodded to the pianist to begin the introduction. Blousey opened her mouth to sing – but there was no time for her even to get her first word out, because the inevitable happened. Lena Marrelli returned. You couldn't mistake her or her mink coat and red ringlets, which bounced up and down as she stormed down the centre aisle. Oscar De Velt made no attempt to look displeased at her entrance. A morning going through what he'd been through made it easier to welcome Lena back with open arms – and Oscar's arms were held very, very wide.

“Lena, honey, you came back to me.”

Lena screwed up her horrid little precocious face. The freckles on her nose disappeared into the wrinkles that were formed. “I'll give you one more chance, you hear me, Oscar, otherwise I'm out for good. Out, out, out!”

Her entourage, who had followed her in, fussed round her as she poked her bony little finger at Oscar. His assistant poked out her tongue behind her clipboard by way of defiance. Oscar repeated himself.

“Lena, honey, you came back to me.”

The audition queue looked on in silence, including Blousey, who was still waiting centre stage to begin her song. Oscar broke away from his returned star long enough to send everybody home. The charade was over.

“OK, everyone, the audition's finished.”

The hopefuls, the would-bes and the might-have-made-its walked off like dejected mongrels, their tails between their legs. The harp player dragged away her enormous harp, risking serious injury as she yanked it across the stage. Blousey was very dejected and Bugsy put his arm around her to console her.

“Cheer up. There's a million other jobs.”

“Sure, on the sidewalk with a hat to catch the dimes in.”

Bugsy pushed open the double doors that led off the wings and into a narrow brick corridor at the rear of the theatre. “It's only a matter of time,” he said rather lamely.

Blousey pulled away from him and kicked at a pile of scenery that toppled over on to the floor with a loud crash.

“Cool off, will you,” Bugsy shouted at her.

Blousey was getting very tearful and shouted back, “Look. I've been walking the streets of New York for six months now, and the only fancy steps I've done so far are avoiding the man who collects the rent.”

“So it takes time to be a movie star. We could come back tomorrow.”

“Come back tomorrow? Come back tomorrow! Come back! That's all I ever hear. My whole life I've been coming back tomorrow.”

Blousey was getting very distraught, and with this last outburst she let fly with another kick that toppled another pile of scenery to the ground. Bugsy was beginning to get angry.

“Knock it off, will you, Blousey? Cool down.”

“I will not cool down. I will not! I will not!”

By now Bugsy had had enough, and unhooked the fire bucket from the wall. He wasn't quite sure of the contents as he threw it. It could have been sand, but it turned out to be water and it drenched Blousey from head to toe. Blousey screamed with rage. She was wet through – and suddenly her anger subsided and she began to sob instead.

“I'm sorry.”

Bugsy put his arm around her once more. “Don't worry. There's always Fat Sam's place.”

“He won't see me,” she sniffed.

“I'll talk to him?”

“You know him?”

“Know him? We're like that.” Bugsy crossed his fingers to show how close a buddy of Fat Sam's he was.

“You're real good friends?”

“No. It's just that when I talk to him, I cross my fingers that he won't hit me.”

Blousey laughed for the first time and Bugsy took off his coat and put it over her shoulders. They walked down the corridor laughing as Blousey's feet squelched loudly in her soggy wet shoes.

T
HE SLEEK BLACK
sedan squeaked around the corner. Its occupants made it bulge at the seams, and, really, to call it sleek is to flatter it. Fat Sam's gang fell out rather awkwardly.

They were a ragged bunch of individuals who vaguely answered to the term ‘hoodlums', but they frightened themselves a lot more than they frightened anyone else. They sauntered down the street as if they owned it. Now and again they would push the passers-by to one side, but more often than not this would result in disturbing the padding in their suits rather than inconveniencing their victims. Ritzy and Snake-Eyes helped themselves to an orange from a fruit seller's stall. She was busy serving someone else and didn't catch sight of the theft. However, Louis followed suit and, being Louis, was naturally spotted by the fruit seller as his great banana hands wrapped themselves round an orange. She screamed at him in Italian, and hurled cabbages along with her Sicilian abuse.

At that moment, Fat Sam emerged from the back door of his office and climbed up the stone stairs to street level. At the sight of his gang retreating in cowardly disorder from the enraged fruit seller, a torrent of words left his mouth like buckshot. Fat Sam's mouth, when really stretched, would spread from ear to ear, and on a good day with the wind in the right direction his voice would carry for as many as twenty blocks. He was furious.

“You dummies, can I believe my eyes? You bunch of peanut brains, you hear me? Get out of there, we got business to do. Come on, snap it up in here. In, in, in! Don't hang around. Get your legs movin' in this direction.”

He snapped his fingers to punctuate his words, and turned into the doorway. The gang followed, their heads bowed in a combination of fear and shame. And the way Fat Sam pulled open the door to his office, nearly taking it off its hinges, it was mostly fear.

Sam opened a walnut closet and replaced his grey pinstriped jacket with a gold silk dressing gown. Ritzy attempted to help him on with it but Fat Sam scowled and shrugged him off. The rest of the gang sat down rather timidly. Fat Sam tied the belt of his dressing gown tightly round his fat midriff.

“Right. Let's get down to it.”

Snake-Eyes had nervously started to throw his dice on to the baize of Sam's pool table. He swept them up and threw them down monotonously.

“Don't do that, Snake-Eyes. This is thinking time.”

“Sorry, Boss.”

Sam eased his bulky figure into his chair. Knuckles filled the silence with a crack of his knuckles.

“And don't do that, Knuckles. I'm surrounded by a bunch of nervous wrecks.” Sam absent-mindedly toyed with his letter-opener as he spoke, and dug it into the veneer of his desk top. “Right. Let's get down to it. I'll start at the beginning. We're being outsmarted by that lounge lizard. Right?”

The gang nodded in agreement.

“And we're gonna get back on top. Right?”

“Right back on top, Boss.”

“We're gonna kick that drugstore cowboy into line. Right?”

“You bet, Boss.”

The gang were certainly not going to disagree with Sam in this mood. They threw nervous glances at one another to make sure they never missed their cues. Fat Sam continued, this time, remarkably, his voice held a trace of humility.

“Sure we've been a little slow off the mark, but dumb bums we ain't.”

“No. Dumb bums we ain't.” The hoods looked at one another as they confidently echoed Sam's words.

They could have fooled no one. A bigger bunch of dumb bums had probably never graced a hoodlum's office than the knuckle-headed crew that sat before Sam. He took them all by surprise as he suddenly changed the subject.

“OK, Louis. Stand against the wall.”

“Who? Me, Boss?”

“Sure. You, Louis. How many other guys called Louis in this room?”

Louis stood up from the wicker-backed twin-seat that he usually sat in. The wickerwork had sagged a little over the years and Louis's plump bottom fitted very comfortably into the dip. He edged up against the creamy brown wall and jostled the boxing pictures with his elbow. The rest of the gang looked at one another. They were as mystified as Louis. Fat Sam slowly pulled himself out of his chair.

“Ritzy, hand me a pie.”

A pie? thought Louis. Snake-Eyes threw a glance to Angelo, who tugged at his starched collar and gulped awkwardly. A pie? Ritzy got up from his chair and went across to the veneered drinks cupboard. He snapped up the top and took out a silver tray. Six very healthy cream pies sat in two neat rows across it. Sam scooped his podgy hand under one of them and made towards Louis, who sweated at the thought of what might happen.

“What did I do, Boss? Boss? Talk to me, Boss. Tell me what did I do wrong?”

“You didn't do nothing, Louis. Nothing.”

Before Sam had finished his words he had let the pie go. It curved through the air in an expert arc, but Louis was thinking quicker than he'd thought for a long time. His brain told him to duck and he willed his legs to bend at the knees. He ducked just in time. The pie splurged against the wall with a wet ‘schplattt', covering the boxing pictures like a sudden fall of snow. Sam strutted back to his desk.

“See what I mean? Missed. OK, Louis, you can sit down now.”

Louis stood up and, more than a little relieved, eased his bottom once more into the dip in the basket chair.

“Even a dumb mug like Louis is too quick for us. That's the root of our trouble. We're behind the times.”

Knuckles wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. He wasn't really following Sam's line of thought.

“I don't get it, Boss.”

“Knuckles, we're never gonna get on top with this kind of hardware.” He prodded the fluffy cream pies with a stubby forefinger. “It's old fashioned. In short...” Sam paused and looked at his gang, who sat up, waiting for the next piece of wisdom to drop from his lips. “...In short, we gotta get ourselves that gun.”

There was silence in Fat Sam's office. If the gang had had any brains, and if brains could clank and whirr like pieces of machinery, the noise would have been deafening. However, the only muffled sound came from Snake-Eyes, as he clicked his dice together in the secrecy of his side pocket.

Suddenly a telephone bell cut through the emptiness left by Sam's remarks. It, too, was muffled, and it was difficult to ascertain where the sound came from. Sure, there was a stick phone on Sam's desk, but that stood silent. Sam bent down and tugged at the handle of the bottom drawer on the far side. As he opened the drawer, the bell sounded clearer as he revealed his secret phone. He snatched at the receiver and stuffed it into the gap between his shoulder and ear.

“OK. Yeah. Start gabbin'. Yeah, yeah, OK. Right. You sure now? Right. Thanks. 'Bye.”

The gang strained their ears to hear what was being said. The muffled voice at the other end of the line sounded rather frightened and talked very quickly, making it impossible to follow the conversation. Sam put the receiver back into the cradle and swung his chair round on its squeaky swivel. He tapped the end of his fingers together and smiled. The gang were very relieved. He didn't smile often, and they were grateful if a little sunshine ever drifted their way past his yellow teeth. He leaned back on his chair.

“OK, you guys. We've had ourselves a little break. Who knows the Hung Fu Shin Laundry Company?”

Ritzy raised a finger. “Me, Boss.”

“Right. 'Cause my friend on the telephone tells me that's where they stash the guns. Get movin'.”

The gang jumped out of their chairs and made for the door. They didn't need telling twice.

“Not you, Knuckles. I need you here with me.”

Knuckles stopped in his tracks and closed the door after the hoods, who were already on their way to the Chinese laundry. He automatically cracked the bones in his fingers and his boss ignored it for once. Sam was already sensing victory. He smiled to himself as he clasped his hands tight across his ample stomach. His fat lips slid into a satisfied smile. But it was a smile that wouldn't be there for long.