Death of an Angel (2 page)

It had run its hundred, and might well run forever. It had, to be sure, a cast of eleven, and was a three-setter, of which the beach set of the last act was the most troublesome. (Sand gets into everything.) Phyllis Barnscott, the second lead, did not come cheap and Sidney Castle likewise knew his value by the week. Naomi Shaw's cheek (even before her percentage of the gross) was signed by Wesley Strothers with averted eyes. His signature quivered, had nothing of the boldness evident, for example, on the check made out to Jane Lamont, who might, except that she understudied Naomi and so had to stick around, have gone home midway of the second act.

But the gross was the thing, and for weeks it had hardly wavered. One thousand and sixty-two people could sit in the Forty-third Street Theater, and some would stand. In a week they could pay $33,500 for the privilege. Even in Holy Week, the gross had dipped only into the upper twenties and in the week after Easter there were standees in layers, and even the boxes were filled by those who felt that half of
Around the Corner
was better than none. Tickets for October were at the printers; tickets for August were selling nicely. The sky, in short, was cloudless. And Bradley Fitch was giving the party, in his duplex on Park Avenue.

In the taxicab, Pam North pointed out, with doubt in her voice, that they were not dressed. She dangled this, however, only briefly, pulling in just before Jerry—who is not essentially a party man—snapped. It didn't really, Pam said, matter. Jerry raised his eyebrows.

“We're the literary element,” Pam said. “Like Sammy. Nobody will expect anything.” To this, Jerry said, “Oh,” and the cab stopped. A doorman, white-gloved against the contamination of taxis and other creeping things, opened the door for them. He waited, detached, tolerant, while Jerry paid. But he walked across the sidewalk with them, and held open a heavy glass door. He could hardly have done more had they arrived properly, chauffeur-driven.

They joined a tall, dark man who stood, a little stooped, waiting the arrival of an elevator. He looked at them from dark eyes, over which the brows jutted. He looked at them, for a second, as if somewhat puzzled. But then he said, “Oh, hello. Glad you could make it.” Then he looked around the lobby. “Didn't bring Sam with you?”

“Bring Sam?” Pamela said. “Why bring Sam, Mr. Strothers? That is—”

The elevator door opened.

“Foolish thing to say,” Wesley Strothers said, and stood back to let them go ahead into the car. “Somehow got the idea you were—oh. Remember now. Saw you talking to him in front of the theater. Got the idea you were together.”

“We ran into him,” Jerry said.

“Writers I don't get,” Strothers said. “Morbid, that's what they are. Ever notice that, South?”

“North,” Jerry said. “Yes, or ebullient. Or, for the most part, just like anybody else.”

“Not our Sammy,” Strothers said. “This is where we get out. You know Fitch?”

“No,” Jerry said. “Somebody called and invited us. I suppose Sam suggested it.”

Wesley Strothers, to this, made a sound without words. Pam led them into an anteroom, which appeared to be a living room, furnished with a sofa and two modern arm chairs. A wide door, painted a dusky red, was in the wall they faced. The elevator door closed behind them. It was of the width of the door opposite and painted the same color.

“Swank,” Strothers said. His voice was low pitched, rumbled slightly. Yet laughter seemed to stir in it. “Do you well here, as Brad says. Also calls it his little
pied-à-terre
. Quite a boy, Brad is.” He pressed a button beside the red door, and musical notes occurred within. “Nice boy, all the same,” Strothers said, and the door opened. “'Evening, Henry,” Strothers said, to a butler in a black coat. “Party started?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Strothers,” Henry said. “It has indeed, sir.”

It had indeed. It had started in a big room beyond the entrance foyer—a room, Pam thought suddenly, too large for anything she could think of. It had—for heaven's sake, Pam thought.
There's a chandelier!
There was. It was prismed.

“Used to be his mother's apartment,” Strothers said. “Accounts for everything.”

A tall man—tall and broad of shoulder and tapering down—left a group which was under the chandelier, and came forward. He advanced a hand. He told Pam that she must be Mrs. North. He said he had heard so much about her. She admitted that she was; did not ask what he had heard, or from whom. He said, “Bradley Fitch. Glad you could come. Mr. North, sir. 'Lo, Wes,” thus taking care of everyone. Momentarily, then, he looked over them, toward the door from the foyer. He smiled and nodded over them, but briefly. He waved to a large man, probably in his middle fifties, whose round, pink face had been touched soothingly by many barbers, who had the most dignified of double chins. The woman with him, who was blond and much younger, who was the second lead in
Around the Corner
—why can't I ever remember names when I ought to? Pam demanded of herself—came just to his shoulder.

“Ah,” the tall man said. “Gerald, my boy. Been hoping you'd turn up.” His smile, which was all affability, encompassed the others. “And this is the little lady.” He extended a hand, which Pam accepted. It was a plump hand, but firm. It appeared that she was the little lady in question.

“Tootle,” the big man said. “Jasper Tootle,” and to this Pam said, “Oh. Of course.” It did, for some reason, seem inevitable.

“Where's Naomi?” Strothers said, and spoke to the blond girl, who was much, Pam thought, more exciting to look at now that the Naomi enquired of was not beside her.

“Taking a shower, darling,” the blonde said, and then, “I'm Phyllis Barnscott,” to Pamela and Gerald North. Fitch said, “Oh, sorry. I'm a hell of a host,” and the Norths identified themselves. Fitch looked around the big room and made gesturing motions, emphatically, with his head, and a waiter brought a tray. On the tray, champagne bubbled coolly in wide glasses. Phyllis said, “Ummm!” and reached. Phyllis had, Pam North realized suddenly, an amusing face.

“Nobody has to drink this stuff,” Fitch told them. “There's plenty of everything.”

There was indeed, Pam thought, and sipped champagne.

“Excuse me a minute, cousins,” Bradley Fitch said, and went elsewhere, and Phyllis Barnscott moved beside Pam North.

“You're friends of Sammy's, aren't you?” she said. She looked around the room. “He'll never come, will he? There's just too much of everything for Sammy.”

“He—” Pam said, and broke off and said, “He just
has
come.” Phyllis turned, too, and they watched Samuel Wyatt, who stood inside the door from the foyer. He was a slight man, he wore a dark suit which fitted him limply, on his long face there was an expression of incredulity. He stood alone, and snapped the fingers of his right hand.

“If somebody doesn't do something,” Phyllis Barnscott said, “he'll just go away again, won't he?” She raised her voice a little, projecting it a little. “Sammy,” she said. “It's all right, son.”

Samuel Wyatt appeared, at first, to blink. But then he smiled, and walked to them through deep carpet. “A friendly face,” Sam said. “Two friendly faces.” He said, “I—”

A slender woman in her forties came from somewhere and said:

“Mr. Wyatt. It must be Mr. Wyatt, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Wyatt said.

“I'm Alicia Nelson,” she said, and to this Wyatt said, “Oh.” Then he said, “Oh, of course.”

“You've never heard of me,” she said. “Why should you have?” She looked at Wyatt's long face, which did not display any inclination to contradict. “I'm Brad's cousin,” Alicia Nelson said. She smiled briefly. “Really his cousin. When I heard he was giving this”—she indicated this—“I said I simply had to come. I said I had to meet the man who wrote that perfectly
wonderful
play.”

“Oh,” Wyatt said. “Well, I—”

“Do you speak?” she said, then. She had an expression of great eagerness. Her short gray hair curled vigorously.

There was no doubt, this time, that Samuel Wyatt blinked.

“She means at things, don't you, Mrs. Nelson?” Phyllis Barnscott said. “He's easily baffled, Mrs. Nelson. Luncheons, Sammy. Women's clubs. I'm Phyllis Barnscott. I'm in Mr. Wyatt's play.”

It was Alicia Nelson, this time, who said, “Oh”; who paused a moment and said, “I
know
, my dear.” She looked at Pamela North, who said, “I'm Pamela North. I don't do anything, really.”

“No, I'm afraid I don't,” Samuel Wyatt said, and snapped fingers of his right hand. “Why?”

“The club,” Mrs. Nelson said. “It's a country club but some of us feel—I mean, golf is wonderful, of course—and polo too. I don't really mean. But sometimes one wants more. Don't you think, Mr. Wyatt?”

“I'm afraid,” Samuel Wyatt said, “that I've never played polo, Mrs. Nelson. I'm afraid of horses.”

“Of horses?” she said. Then she laughed. “Oh,” she said. “I should have known.” She did not say what she should have known. “I—”

But Jasper Tootle loomed, and now a small young woman, very pretty, very red of hair—and, Pam thought, smelling very wonderful—was with him. It was one of the other women in the play—oh, yes, the one who dropped her drink and then—Jane Lamont, that was who it was.

“Sam, my boy,” Jasper said, and spoke heartily. “Wondered where you'd got to.”

“Here,” Sam Wyatt said, and looked around him. “Just here, Jasper. This is Mrs. Nelson. Jasper Tootle.”

Jasper Tootle was charmed. He said as much.

“I'm Mr. Wyatt's agent, Mrs. Nelson,” he said. “Have to keep an eye on him. It's a delightful party, isn't it? Your cousin's quite a boy.”

It was to be expected that Jasper Tootle would have informed himself. Why, Pam thought, don't I, ever?

“Tootle,” Mrs. Nelson said. “The Rye Tootles?”

“Omaha,” Jasper said. “I know Henry, of course. No relation, I'm afraid.”

There was, briefly, a pause.

“Mrs. Nelson wants Sammy to talk,” Phyllis said. “To a group.”

Jasper Tootle was seldom speechless. This seemed to leave him so. He looked at Wyatt, who, expression absent from his long face, was looking around the room. The room, large as it was, was now almost filled.

“I don't think Sammy likes to make speeches,” he said. “Do you, my boy?”

“What?” Wyatt said. He focused on Alicia Nelson. “I'm afraid of speeches, too,” he said. “Where's Nay, Jasper? Isn't she coming?”

“Sure she is,” Jasper Tootle said. “She'll—”

But Pam North saw Jerry, who was holding a glass in either hand, who was looking around.

“An entrance, Sammy,” Phyllis said. “We actresses—”

Pam made an exit. She joined Jerry; hoped the glass was for her, was assured it was. She was asked if she was having a good time.

“Not terribly,” Pam said. “It's all like the opening chorus, isn't it? Except they don't sing.”

Jerry shook his head at that. He edged them into a corner.

“Before the star comes on,” Pam said. “When they're all saying, ‘He comes, he comes.' Or she, of course. And you get tired of waiting.”

They could go, Jerry said. Nobody would mind.

“It wouldn't be right,” Pam said. “Not before Miss Shaw comes. She hasn't, you know.”

Jerry did not know. All he knew, at the moment, was that one of Jasper's boys had a book manuscript that Jerry was going to be crazy about. Although Harper had not been, nor Doubleday. Nor, in fact, Simon and Schuster.

“I do hope,” Pam said, “that nothing has happened to her.”

She was invited not to be morbid.

“It's the champagne,” Pam said. “I never know why, because it's supposed to be so gay. And all it makes me is sad.” She paused. “Not even tight,” she added.

She had had one glass, Jerry pointed out. A glass and a sip, and otherwise since dinner only an enfeebled scotch. She expected too much. “Gaiety,” Pam said. “The fabulous life. The glitter of the world of the theater.” She looked around. “It's just people, isn't it?” she said.

“Now,” Jerry said, “you're really being morbid.”

It was only, Pam said, that realism kept cropping up. She sipped. They were protected in their corner; they could watch the play. The cast of the play was large—there were fifty people in the oversize room, with the prismed chandelier sparkling discreetly in its center. There were men in business suits, and some in jackets and slacks; there were a few in dinner jackets, of which Bradley Fitch's and those of one or two others were white. The women shone more; by and large the women glowed, and not a few of them were close enough to beauty—Phyllis Barnscott, the vividly red-haired Jane Lamont. “There's Leonard Lyons,” Pam said, and there, indeed, was Mr. Lyons. And there was the handsome couple which put forward Hollywood's best matrimonial feet, having been in step—now—for almost a year. There was—surely that was the man who wrote—And wasn't she—but of course she was.

And all the fifty—the more than fifty—talked. It was inconceivable, from the sound, that they did not all talk at once. The voices of the women were jagged above the heavier monotone of the men—it was as if serrated hills rose from a plain. Momentarily, there was the famous laugh—the laugh known to everyone who had entered a theater, watched a comedy program on television. Speaking of television, wasn't that one of the ones Godfrey had fired?

“I,” Pam North said, “feel like a tourist. Do you?”

Jerry did, a little.

“I wish,” Pam said, “the parade would come. Don't you?”

Because there was, about the now lively enough—and noisy enough—party, a curiously tentative air. It was as if, for all vivacity brought to bear (and in most cases vivacity most professionally designed) nobody's heart was in it. No conversation (but this was only to be felt; could not be demonstrated) progressed with security, was in a real sense engaged in. People talked with the major portions of their minds elsewhere, waiting for something different. Pam said something to this effect.