Grab Bag Read online

  How could she? Sisters didn’t hate sisters. Except in soap operas. Would those millions of viewers stand for so much sororal venom if at least some of them didn’t hate their sisters, too? By Saturday morning she had half a dozen red pills hidden inside her toothbrush holder. Six should be enough. Only she still hadn’t made up her mind who was going to take them.

  As far as herself was concerned, there was no problem. If she had to give up Jim and the kids she’d have nothing left to live for, so why bother trying? But why must she give them up? Martine didn’t really love the kids, she’d barely glanced at Peggy’s potholder. She’d do her duty by them the same way she’d always done it by Betsy, snatching them away from the dirty old sandbox, packing them tidily inside an impeccably tasteful cage.

  Nor did she love Jim, not the way Betsy did, not the Jim who let his whiskers grow on the weekends and took the kids wading in the swamp to see the bullfrogs. Once the trend to not-so-handsome younger men had spent itself, she’d stack him away on the shelf with the rest of the back numbers and find somebody who’d do more to enhance her corporate image. It was appalling to think of murdering one’s own flesh and blood, but if it was a matter of keeping Jim and the kids from being smothered in Guatemalan folk art, there was no choice Martine could make for her.

  After Betsy was dressed and the nurse’s aide had left her to pack her few things, she wrapped the six red pills in a tissue and stuck them in the pocket of her blouse. She’d know what to do when the time came.

  And the time was at hand. When Jim came to get her, he was so wired up she wanted to scream at him, “Go on, say it. Get it over.” But they were almost to the house before he pulled off the road.

  “Betsy, before we get home, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  When she spoke, the voice didn’t sound like hers. “It’s about Martine.”

  Jim took a deep, deep breath. “Betsy, I know how close you are to your sister. I fought it, Betsy. You’ve got to believe me.”

  She could only wait.

  “But goddamn it to hell, Betsy, I couldn’t stand her! Japanese flower arrangements in my fishing creel. The kids whining for peanut butter and getting gazpacho. When I got home that third night and she threw it in my face how she’d gone to the hospital and got you switched to a private room because she could take proper care of her baby sister even if I couldn’t support my wife, I went straight off the deep end. I told her it was her own goddamn fault you got hurt in the first place, her and her goddamn crap about gracious living. I told her to butt out and let us run our own lives. I told her to take her goddamn gazpacho and … all right, get sore. But honest to God, Betsy, if I’d had her around for one more day, I actually think I’d have killed her.”

  His arms were trembling as he pulled her against him. “The doctor said you needed absolute rest and no worries, so what could I do? I had to keep telling everybody you weren’t allowed phone calls or visitors so they wouldn’t spill the beans and get you all upset. But oh God, it’s been tough! If you only knew the strain I’ve been under.”

  She got one hand free after a while and ran it over his face, making sure he was really there. “Jim, it’s okay. Believe me it is. But who kept the kids?”

  “I did, mostly. I called the office and told them I was on vacation as of then. We’ve been giving the hamburger stand a lot of business.”

  Incredibly, she could still laugh. “No candlelight dinners?”

  He snorted. “I used to memorize a fancy menu out of your cookbooks every day so I’d have something to talk about. That wasn’t what I wanted to say, kid.”

  His hands were exploring, confidently now that he knew she was still his. “What the hell? You’re lumpy.”

  “Oh.” Betsy shoved his hand away and grabbed at her breast pocket. “It’s just some stupid pills from the hospital.” She rolled down the car window and scattered them into the woods. “I won’t need them now. Who’s keeping the kids?”

  Jim grinned all the way to his jawbones. “Our new maid. I stuck an ad in the paper for somebody to help out till you get your act back together. Damned if I didn’t get an answer from that woman who’d been in the ward with you. She showed up in a T-shirt that had I’m the Greatest stamped on it. She was the one Martine really went up in flames over, so I figured she’d just about do for us. She’s teaching the twins to box and Peg to referee. You know, broadening their horizons.”

  “Poor Martine, She really does mean well, Jim. At least she thinks she does.”

  “If you say so, baby. Just so she means it to somebody else. You know, I’d never realized how totally different you two are. Isn’t it a shame Martine couldn’t try to be more like you.”

  The Dastardly Dilemma of the Vicious Vaudevillian

  ANOTHER AUGUSTUS FOX STORY, begun as a possible Mystery Weekend plot for my friends at Murder by the Book, and discarded because it’s so hard to get hold of a really outstanding flea circus these days. This seems an appropriately theatrical flourish with which to draw the closing string on a Grab Bag.

  The audience stirred restlessly before the closed curtain on which were painted in large, ornate letters shading from softest pink to vibrant cerise the poignant words, MOTHER SHIPTON’S SOOTHING SYRUP—GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU. To the left of the slogan was the spirited depiction of a wan, elderly, bald-headed man writhing in obvious agony and visited by a multitude of maladies. Beneath it was the single ominous word, BEFORE. To the right was a portrait of the same man, but ah, what a difference! Young, vital, bursting with robust health and boasting a full head of wavy chestnut hair, it was labeled succinctly, AFTER.

  One might have thought this artistry, with its inspirational message of hope and rejuvenation, would suffice for the entertainment of those assembled before it, but not so. Impatient utterances and restless stirrings might be heard, especially from those in the front rows who could catch certain mutterings from behind the curtain. These sounded suspiciously like, “Your deal,” “I’ll take two cards,” “Raise you,” and similar ejaculations pertaining to some uncouth game of chance.

  Suddenly the curtain parted. BEFORE was banished to the left, AFTER to the right. But instead of the awaited spectacle, the audience saw only two unkempt stagehands, both startled, one irate. This latter was yelling, “Hey, fathead, lay off them ropes. The show don’t start for another two minutes.”

  Finding the opportunity to play to a filled auditorium irresistible, however, he fanned his cards to display a king-high straight and laid it before his partner. “Okay, Gus. Let’s see you beat that.”

  “You cheated,” cried the man thus addressed. “That ain’t the hand I dealt you.”

  His further expostulations were drowned in loud outcries from offstage, uttered in a female voice with a strong French accent.

  “Qui, moi? Jamais! Nevaire! Pas du tout! Not on your teentype! I am no spy, no sneak, no pigeon de stool. In vain you lure me wiz meenks, wiz gold, wiz diamonds and pearls all fake like you. I am a trouper, not a snooper.”

  Then came a crash, as of a scent bottle or a pomade jar smashing against a wall dangerously close to some would-be tempter’s ear. Their own altercation forgotten, the two stagehands rose. He of the inside straight dashed for the wings. The other paused only to show the audience a hand of five aces, toss the cards carelessly down among the other appurtenances of what could only be a magician’s act, and hasten after his partner.

  Little did the audience realize they had just been in the presence of one who was in fact no mere stagehand but in reality the famous detective Augustus Fox. His appearance in this rude guise was at the behest of Victor Virtue, far-famed manager of Virtue’s Victorious Vaudevillians, in a desperate attempt to stem the plague of misfortunes that threatened to bring about the company’s ruin.

  A motive for these perfidious acts was not far to seek. It must have been obvious to everyone from the call-boy to the newest member of the chorus that some member of the company had been bribed to perpetrate the calamities
by Virtue’s hated rival, one Samuel Slime. Slime’s motive, of course, was to usurp Virtue’s place in the forefront of vaudeville, replacing his wholesome entertainments with the sort of filth that, under Virtue’s aegis, would ne’er sully the eyeballs of honest men, respectable women, and innocent children. Left to Slime, the stage would become one seething fleshpot of un-draped limbs and swelling bosoms, interspersed with vulgar comedians posturing in the rudest manner while they turned the air blue with their ribald anecdotes.

  Already serious onslaughts had been made: itching powder in the tightrope walker’s tights, garlic in the lead soubrette’s nosegay, peach fuzz glued to the metal plates on the tap dancer’s shoes. Chopped onions had been thrown down from the balcony to make the audience cry instead of laugh during Tom Tripp’s impeccably pure but generally hilariously received comedy act, aggravating the comedian’s habitual melancholia and causing him to drown his sorrows in a too-liberal dose of Mother Shipton’s Soothing Syrup.

  But the show must go on, and on it went. The curtain parted in earnest, revealing The Great Mysterioso in frock coat, top hat, and sweeping black cape, together with his piquant aide, Miss Mopsy Muffet, in winsome peasant costume, her green bodice laced snugly around a tiny waist and pink skirts frothing out beguilingly (and, it must be confessed, somewhat abbreviatedly) over bright pink stockings and dainty green slippers.

  All went well at first. Mysterioso produced coloured handkerchiefs by the dozens from the end of his magic wand. He caused an egg to vanish from his own hand and turn up in Miss Mopsy’s pompadour. He did incredible things with the deck of cards so recently cast down by the two recreant stagehands. He produced a somewhat sullen white rabbit from the depths of his top hat. Miss Mopsy brought a tiny flowerpot, held it out so the audience could see that it was completely empty, then waited with eager, shining eyes while the magician draped a pink silk handkerchief over the pot and made mysterious passes.

  Hey, presto! Change-o! The kerchief began to bulge, to rise. Of a sudden, it was wafted aside. There in that empty pot grew a magnificent paper flower fully eight inches in diameter, on a tall stem. With a gallant bow, Mysterioso plucked the posy and presented it to Miss Mopsy. She in turn raised it to her dainty nostrils, took an appreciative sniff—and fell into a fit of uncontrollable sneezing.

  “Pepper!” she gasped.

  “Ah me,” sighed the magician whimsically, in an attempt to carry off the mishap as part of the act, “those wicked imps of air and fire have been at it again.”

  He handed her an assortment of coloured handkerchiefs and busied himself with some sleight-of-hand tricks while Miss Mopsy retired to the wings to recover her composure and repair the ravages to her greasepaint, but it was clear he had lost his audience’s attention.

  Sensing this as any good showman should, he hurried along to his last and most spectacular illusion. A long, coffin-like box had been sitting at the back of the stage throughout the performance. This was now pulled forward. A member of the audience was invited up to inspect the box inside and out, making sure it was free of any hidden compartment. This person was allowed to assist Miss Mopsy into the box, then politely thanked and dismissed. Miss Mopsy put her head through an aperture in one end of the box, her green-slippered feet through the opposite end. The lid was closed, securing her within a wooden prison. Amid gasps of horror from certain ladies in the audience, Mysterioso picked up a large saw and declared his intention of sawing Miss Mopsy in half!

  The saw was without doubt a sharp one. It cut through the wood cleanly and quickly. The audience held its breath. Surely the magician would slay his charming assistant! Yet Miss Mopsy Muffet continued to smile quite self-assured, as the saw came nearer and nearer.

  But now her eyes widened, a grimace of fear contorted her face. Her lips parted in an earsplitting shriek.

  “Stop! Stop! You’re killing me.”

  Mysterioso’s arm froze in mid-thrust. Victor Virtue himself rushed onstage. The two halves of the great curtain swung together. BEFORE scowled, AFTER beamed, as the audience babbled together in frightened anticipation of dreadful news. But in a matter of moments, Victor Virtue stepped through the folds and held up his hand for silence.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that Miss Mopsy Muffet sustained only superficial injury during the recent unfortunate episode, which was caused not by any lack of skill in the part of The Great Mysterioso, but through careless mishandling of the equipment by a negligent stagehand who has already been dismissed. Gallant trouper that she is, Miss Muffet declares herself quite able to perform her starring role as the heroine in our smashing grand finale, that stirring melodrama, NUGGET NELL, OR THE GOLD MINER’S DAUGHTER. And now I have the honour to present the act that took all Paris by storm, directly from the Moulin Rouge, the darling of the boulevards, Mlle. Fifi LaPuce and her Trained Fleas!”

  He bowed and withdrew, amid somewhat tentative applause. The curtains parted again. Gone was the magician’s equipment, including the ill-omened wooden box. In its place hung a backdrop of the Champs Elysées, in front of which came tripping a saucy, black-eyed mademoiselle wearing a jaunty red bow in her jetty locks, a flirtatious costume of vivid scarlet, and black pumps with heels fully two inches high. She was wheeling something that looked like a glassed-over tea cart, and smiling as only a Parisian gamine can smile. If it was Mlle. La Puce (and who else would it have been?) who had made that tempestuous scene before the show began, there was no sign of perturbation in her manner now.

  “Bon soir mesdames, messieurs. Tonight you weel see some feats ze most amazing. But first you must meet my so talented entertainers.”

  She proceeded to introduce her fleas, holding them up one by one. There were sweet little Clothilde the tightrope walker, brawny Pierre and agile Armand, the daring young fleas on the flying trapeze. There were Babette the coquette and handsome Eugene who apparently chose to invent their own impromptu routine, for she broke off her exposition to exclaim, “Ah, naughtee! Naughtee! Pas devant ze audience,” and put them hastily back into the tea cart.

  Mile. LaPuce was clearly fond of her fleas and it might have been presumed that her fleas in turn were fond of her. Certainly she won all hearts as she described, though not in over-tedious detail, what wonders her troupe were to perform.

  “But you must wondaire, mesdames et messieurs, ’ow you weel be able to see mes chers petits performing zair pretty treecks. So now I show you. Be’old ze giant magnifying glass.”

  She glanced expectantly toward the wings. Instead of the stagehand with the magnifier, out galloped a huge dog of unnameable breed. As Mlle. LaPuce vainly endeavored to restrain him, the vicious mongrel contrived to overset the cart and then ran offstage, carrying the entire flea circus within his shaggy pelt. Screaming hysterically, “Ma pauvre Clothilde!,” Mlle. LaPuce rushed after him as from the opposite wing Victor Virtue rushed onstage to announce the next act.

  Troupers to the core, the Bathos Brothers danced onstage, twirling their canes and waving their straw boaters to the tune of “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.” But alas, their waltz became a mad fandango as it was made evident that their feet were utterly and completely out of control. While Augustus Fox was backstage removing pins from the actors’ greasepaint, some archfiend had been buttering the Bathos Brothers’ boots.

  Stalwart souls that they were, the brothers tried to pretend their wild antics were part of the act, but the audience was not deceived. For the first time in their hitherto distinguished theatrical career, the song-and-dance team were booed off the stage. Victor Virtue was forced onstage again to quell the tumult.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the event you’ve all been waiting for. Virtue’s Victorious Vaudevillians present that soul-stirring saga of love and hate in the badlands of gold and greed, Nugget Nell.”

  It was the old, old tale of the harried heroine, the handsome’ hero, and the venomous villain. True, the gold miner himself was to have figured in the drama. Said to say, however, he had be
en so plied with strong drink immediately before the performance, no doubt by the same dastardly hand that loosed the dog and buttered the boots, that he spent the entire act slumped on a rustic bench that formed part of the stage setting, emitting only lugubrious hiccoughs and an occasional snatch of “Whoa, Emma.”

  As the drama unfolded, it became apparent to all that the true hero of the performance was in fact the alleged villain. Finding the actor who was to have essayed the role stretched prone in his dressing room helpless from a sudden attack of poison ivy, his face towel having been clandestinely rubbed with that noxious weed by the unknown evildoer, Augustus Fox himself had donned the frock coat, the opera cape, the high silk hat, and the black crepe hair mustache with its over-dandified curling ends. Flawlessly he executed the demanding role, declaiming his fell intent to foreclose on her father’s gold mine or else work his evil will with Nugget Nell as the case might be. Convincingly did he recoil in sinister ire as the stainless, unflinching heroine told him to go his wicked way, and might fortune grant him grace to find repentance ere doom o’ertook him.

  Instead of repenting, however, Fox whipped out a dagger which he proposed to plunge into the hero’s back as that young man enfolded Nugget Nell in a fervent though chaste embrace.

  Because of the series of near-disasters that had already cast their blight on the entertainment, Fox thought best to explain in an aside to the audience that the deadly-looking knife was but a trick dagger with a collapsible blade, and that he would only pretend to stab the hero. Notwithstanding this disclosure, he performed the action with a most convincing display of histrionic talent. The hero fell gasping to the floor. Shrieking in anguish, Nugget Nell threw herself on her adored one’s supposedly lifeless corpse.