Frank Herbert Read online

  “So that’s Wilfred,” I said to myself. “Oh, brother. Oh, Bro-ther!” I groped into my pocket and brought out my flask.

  By this time George had regained his voice. “Oh,” he said apologetically. “You’re the new singer.”

  We shifted our eyes to George with an amazement that lasted only until we saw the glint in his eyes.

  “Well,” he shouted boisterously, “I guess I jumped too soon. Come on over and sit down while we run through this thing again. You can ask all the questions you want. Just sit quietly until I give you the sign.” He grabbed Wilfred’s arm. “Say your name’s Wilfred?” he asked and turned toward the orchestra. “Boys, this is Wil-fred.”

  The accent on the first syllable seemed to go unnoticed as George ushered the singer to a seat in the background.

  While the boys went back to Kentucky, I examined our new addition. So help me, he looked like a Wilfred. He didn’t look like a Will or a Fred; he just looked like a character who had been created for the whole name. There are some men who can carry the name well, but when it’s attached to someone like this it’s like kicking a man when he’s down. Wilfred’s eyes held a round, owlish expression which was made almost ludicrous by overhanging eyebrows slanted steeply toward the nose. The eyebrows appeared to be leering while the eyes gave a gentle, wise admonishment. Under his clothes Wilfred looked flabby, and his neck was short, with a roll of fat just above the collar. He didn’t look paunchy; he merely gave the picture of a man who has been fat and reduced only in odd spots.

  The eighth cutting received a grudging approval from Sayles in the work room; George gave the orchestra the “ta-dumpha” wave with his baton, and they began picking up the pieces and filing out in whispering, rustling, and clattering groups.

  A little smile hovered around George’s lips as he stepped up to Wilfred. “Any questions?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Wilfred said. “Really quite simple, isn’t it?”

  “Quite simple,” George agreed.

  I had about five of my friends down from the front office the next day to watch the fun, and we just managed to squeeze into an empty space along the back wall. There was a schoolroom, giggly undertone in the room. Wilfred strode in at about one minute before rehearsal deadline and took his place before the horn. He stood there, glancing through some sheet music and seemingly unaware that the room was packed. George appeared just as the second hand whirled straight up and, knowing how unpunctual he usually was, we took this as an omen.

  Wilfred and George bent their heads over the music for a minute, then George straightened. “Mr. Wilfred Long will sing ‘Duna,’” he said.

  A deprecating smirk flitted over one side of Wilfred’s face. We all clapped, and he bowed slightly.

  They rehearsed the song three times—a remarkably small number—and each time, George’s grin became broader. Wilfred’s voice was … well, I guess common is the word that best describes it. I turned to Callahan of Booking, who was standing beside me. He shrugged his shoulders.

  After the third rehearsal, George nodded to Wilfred and shouted into the horn, “Cut this one!”

  He returned to his stand, motioned the orchestra in, and raised his baton, lifting slightly on his toes. He appeared more like someone about to lead a series of yells than an orchestra. The buzzer sounded, and they went at it.

  The music was wonderful—most especially the violins. It’s the string section that really can sabotage a singer. The brass, woodwinds, and tympany can destroy a musical effect as quickly, but a voice usually can hold its own against them through contrasting tonal values. Let the violins run wild, though, and the singer might as well be shouting down a rain barrel.

  When they finished, we waited for the cut-down to the center of the platter and started clapping. George put one arm around Wilfred’s shoulder and motioned toward us. Wilfred acknowledged our ovation distantly. He was beginning to see the light.

  It was about an hour and a half wait for the casting and playback, so we adjourned to our own business. The playback would be an anticlimax anyway, we thought; we’d seen the show. I was anxious to hear it, though, if only to watch Wilfred while it was being run. At about twenty minutes after the hour, I wandered back to the studio. There was a crowd of people at the door, all listening to Wilfred tell what he had said to the Duke of Montmarte. His sang-froid seemed to have returned.

  “So I told the duke the fox couldn’t have gone that direction,” he was saying.

  I turned around and went back down the hall out of earshot. I suddenly felt sorry for the poor dope. Didn’t he know the silly picture he made? Could anyone really be that dumb? I turned the corner and bumped into a little blonde tester from the factory named Lisa Engman. She had a package in her hands.

  “Whooof!” she said. “Felix, you scared the daylights out of me.” Her voice was about three tones above a falsetto. “What’s in this?” she asked, holding up the package. “They told me to treat it like fragile china.”

  I glanced at the tag. “Darling,” I said, putting my arm around her and taking the package, “you are looking at the rise and fall of a guy by the name of Wilfred Long. Let’s take it into the cutting room, and I’ll buy you a drink after we’ve had our fun.”

  Sayles was standing by the cutting room door as we passed. I winked and handed him the package, then went up the hall to spread the word. Lisa and I squeezed ourselves into the studio and found a couple of empties along the far wall. We started to sit down but were interrupted by a commotion at the entrance. Radcliffe was coming in with Callahan. Room was made for them near the door. I looked around for George and found him down front with several of the orchestra members. Wilfred was the last to enter. His composure seemed to have deserted him. He stood by the exit as if ready to bolt or do a death scene.

  A hush came over the room as the music started, but as it progressed, we leaned forward like a nest full of baby robins grabbing at a worm. The voice coming out of the horn was good—maybe better than good—and the orchestra was properly in the background. I looked at George. He had scrunched down in his seat, and a nerve at his temple was jerking. His complexion had taken on a boiled-cherry hue, dark and violent against his white collar

  The recording wasn’t easy to explain—in fact, the only explanation was that it had happened before. If there was one thing you could say about the recording business in those days, it was that the platters were unpredictable. Through some acoustical quirk, Wilfred and the loud orchestra had hit the right combination. They didn’t seem to go together any more than Gilbert and Sullivan, but they made beautiful music.

  When it was over, Wilfred turned to George with a positively glowing expression. He looked as though someone had just run a heater over his face. “You know,” he said, “when we were making that record I thought you were a little loud, but I guess you know more about this business than I do.”

  “Yeah,” George said. “I guess we do.”

  He brushed past Wilfred and went out the door. I had one devil of a time following him. There was a crowd milling around Radcliffe and Wilfred. Radcliffe had the broad smile of a man whose hundred-to-one shot has just romped home. He was shaking Wilfred’s hand as though it was a pump handle.

  I found George at Vincentes, and we drowned our woes.

  “That damn pipsqueak and his lousy voice!” George kept repeating. “That damn pipsqueak …”

  That was the beginning of a really wonderful hate.

  Wilfred’s contract read for five masters, and when he’d completed those, the company signed him for ten more. He’d cut three of the new batch when he got an offer from a Broadway company to do the lead in Star Night, a musical being produced by Royce and Bodington. This sort of thing always was good publicity for the platters, so the company gave Wilfred a leave of absence, stipulating in the contract with his producers that all the throwaways and posters mention Brunswick—the usual procedure.

  Royce and Bodington had heard all of Wilfred’s recordings a
nd assumed his voice was of the same quality. They had no reason to assume otherwise and didn’t even bother to hear him before completing the contract.

  I wasn’t at the first rehearsal—or any of them, for that matter—but I understand it was something new on Broadway. It was all over town in a couple of days. They started Wilfred on one of the more difficult scores, a duet with the feminine lead, Eugenia Moran. Royce and Bodington heard about twelve bars of it and motioned for the conductor to stop. The orchestra trailed into silence and Royce, a big, blustery fellow, stood up in his seat.

  “This is no time to make jokes,” he shouted. “Sing with your right voice, the one we hear on the records!”

  Wilfred ignored him and ordered the maestro to continue. Somehow they struggled through the rehearsal, and toward the end, Wilfred’s voice seemed to become a little better—or maybe they merely became more accustomed to it.

  “A liddle tightness in de t’roat, mebbe?” Bodington inquired when it was all over.

  Wilfred brushed right by him and followed Eugenia Moran down to the dressing rooms. They let him go. There were a lot of bucks tied up in Wilfred’s contract, which maybe accounted for part of their reluctance to antagonize him. Besides, artists were supposed to act that way.

  The only person who failed to notice anything wrong with Wilfred’s voice was Miss Moran. Of course, she could have been too busy listening to herself.

  Then, too, a baritone so close to her probably was a novelty. Tenors usually took the romantic leads.

  Two days before the show opened, I received two tickets through the office mail. I buzzed George, and he said he had a couple too.

  “The whole damn orchestra and Radcliffe got Oaklies,” he said. “Wilfred wants to show off. You got ’em because you’re publicity.”

  “You going?” I asked.

  When George quieted down, I said, “Maybe it’ll be a flop.”

  There was such a long silence that I thought George had hung up. “You still there?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe it’ll be a flop.”

  Opening night, I took my tickets and Lisa Engman, the blonde from cutting, and went to hear Wilfred. They were playing at the old President Theater, and the place was aglitter with lights, jewels, white faces and shirt fronts and bright talk. The usher led us down front, and I had to admit Wilfred had given us good seats. They were about a third of the way back from the orchestra, right in what is called the acoustical focus. We stepped past some expensive knees and sat down. A few minutes later, George and Gladys, his wife, came in. They had the seats beside ours. George shifted around so that he was sitting next to me.

  “’Lo,” he said.

  I nodded and leaned over him to speak to his wife. “Gladys, this is Lisa Engman.”

  They made a few polite remarks, which I don’t remember. George pushed me back—rather rudely, I thought. He was in a pretty rough mood.

  “You still think it’ll be a flop?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” I countered.

  “Could be,” he said, and turned to glance back over his shoulder. “That bastard sure must have sent out a lot of Oaklies.”

  George’s voice was none too quiet, and a woman behind us must have heard him. She sniffed so loud she could be heard for six rows. Gladys leaned over and shushed George. The introduction started on time or it could’ve been a family row.

  By the middle of the second scene, we knew it wasn’t going to be a flop. They had done things with props and lights, and the music was good … catchy. It would have taken a worse voice than Wilfred’s to knock the box office from under that show.

  George made only one other comment during the evening. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “That bastard is still getting the breaks.”

  I looked at Moran, whom our Wilfred was fondling with more than the required intimacy during their love scenes. “Yeah,” I agreed.

  This Moran was what could be called a dish. She looked as though she’d just come from a conference with a snake and an apple. Wilfred appeared interested enough to take a bite himself.

  George gave me the slip when the curtain came down, so I said, “To hell with it!” and went out and had myself a time with Lisa. It was about two AM when I got back to my hotel, and there was a call at the desk for me. I took it, went over, and crawled into a booth. It was George’s wife.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said. “I was worried about George. He brought me straight home and then went out, but he just came in.”

  I heard a hoarse voice in the background say, “Who’n ’ell you talkin’ to now?”

  “Okay, Gladys,” I said. “Put him to bed with an ice pack. He’s had a large disappointment.”

  It didn’t come as a surprise to any of us when Wilfred and Eugenia Moran began seeing a great deal of each other. What with those torrid love scenes, one thing and another, I guess they convinced themselves they really were in love. It has happened before and most likely will happen again—many times. Both of them were married, but that rule isn’t supposed to apply to artists.

  I’d met Wilfred’s wife once—in Mendel’s. I’d gone in to buy a new tie, and there was Wilfred and a mousy-looking woman. The term had been coined for her. Mousy she was and dressed in gray. A rather big nose jutted out above a wide, thin-lipped mouth, and her forehead was tall and smooth.

  Wilfred was trying on a new suit, a tweed thing. I believe he fancied himself a type—the English gentleman, y’know. All he needed was a monocle.

  I walked over to him. “Quite a piece of burlap you have there, Wilfred,” I said.

  He didn’t stop admiring himself in the full-length mirror, but he glanced at me in the reflection. “Maude,” he said, “this is Felix Jacobsen. He works at Brunswick. Say hello.”

  The little gray woman stepped away from Wilfred and gave me her hand. “I’m delighted,” she said, and she made me believe it. I took back all the things I’d been thinking. Her smile was beautiful—full of warmth, affection, and … oh, a grand love of life.

  “Mrs. Long, where has Wilfred been hiding you?” I asked.

  She looked back at her husband, and a haunting, poignant expression flitted across her features and was gone. “Oh, I’ve been busy opening a new house out at Great Neck,” she said. “A home is such a bother. Really, all I need is a stable.”

  Again she favored me with that smile. “Why don’t you come out and ride with me some morning? Wilfred never has time.”

  Hearing his name, Wilfred looked away from the tailor with whom he was speaking. “What’d you say?” he asked.

  “I only said that you never seem to have time to ride with me anymore.”

  Wilfred turned away, muttering. “Silly beasts,” was all I caught, but his wife’s face looked as if he’d slapped her. The expression vanished so quickly that it was almost as if I’d imagined it.

  “Do come out,” she said. “I’d enjoy becoming acquainted with one of Wilfred’s friends. I know so few people over here.”

  I murmured a banal, “One of these days,” and took my leave. Wilfred hardly noticed my going.

  I heard later that Maude came from a wealthy British family. Wilfred was a crown citizen, of course—South African—but not many people knew it until he was picked up at Nuremburg and the trial was splashed all over the papers. He always was pretty much a mystery man, and he really didn’t look the type.

  Well, along in the fall of that year, Star Night closed shop in New York and went on the road, the understudies taking over. Eugenia Moran went to Reno “for her health,” the tabloids quipped, and Wilfred disappeared. I don’t mean he vanished in the usual front-page sense with police hunting him; he just didn’t show up at any of his regular places, and gradually the talk died. He was resurrected for a short while when news of Eugenia Moran’s divorce broke, but it didn’t last. We simply forgot about him.

  I first learned that Wilfred was back in town from a friend of mine—Lee Adams, a reporter on the Sun. I
t was about eleven months later. Lee said he’d seen Wilfred in the customs line getting off the Muritania.

  “You sure it was him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s him. Got a face full of whiskers, though—regular Evans Hughes badger. But you can’t miss ’im; it’s the same Wilfred. He was standing in the D line.”

  We both laughed.

  It wasn’t until a week later that I ran into Wilfred for myself. I was leaving Vincentes just as he was entering. He was with Eugenia Moran.

  I grabbed his arm. “Wilfred, old boy,” I said. “When’d you get back? And what’s with the bush?”

  He regarded me with a cold stare. “Wilfred?” he inquired, freeing his arm. “Are you acquainted with someone by that name who resembles me? My name is Louis Donet.”

  I turned to Eugenia.

  “Excuse me,” she said, looking up at Wilfred. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Felix Jacobsen. He’s director of publicity at the Brunswick Recording Company, darling.” She turned to me. “This is Mssr. Louis Donet of the Paris Opera.”

  “Louis Donet!” I protested. “Why, this …”

  But Wilfred already had my hand. “Delighted,” he said. “It’s such a pleasure to meet Uzheenyaa’s friends. We must see more of each other.” He looked down at Eugenia. “I understand the Brunswick company is seeking a new baritone.”

  “We simply must be going,” Eugenia interrupted. “We’ll see you some other time, Felix.” She turned back to Wilfred.

  It was Wilfred. I knew it!

  “We have a big night ahead of us, haven’t we, darling?”

  “Uh, oui, cheri,” he murmured, looking into her eyes and then returning his gaze to me. “It has been delightful meeting you, Mr. Jacobsen.” He gave me a courtly little Continental bow and turned away.

  I stood there watching them as they disappeared into the club. “What the hell’s the pitch?” I asked myself.

  As it turned out, I was the first of the old crowd to meet the new Wilfred, but we all received the same greeting. He brushed everyone off cold—all his old acquaintances at Brunswick, the show, everyone. I understand Radcliffe almost had apoplexy. There was one possible exception, of course, and that was Eugenia. But I’m not sure to this day about her.