Play It Again
Play It Again
By Stephen Humphrey Bogart
Copyright 2012 by Stephen Bogart
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass
and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 1995.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Stephen Bogart and Untreed Reads Publishing
Bogart: In Search of My Father
Play It Again
Stephen Humphrey Bogart
To Barbara, for her love and support—
and
To my children, without whom there would be no R.J. Brooks
CHAPTER 1
There was a bullet hole in his windshield, courtesy of a Tong hothead down in Chinatown, just so nobody forgot he was in a serious trade. His business card read:
R. J. Brooks
Matrimonial Detective
It was the lowest form of sleuthing. His clients—mostly bluestocking lawyers from Manhattan law firms—generally used slimeball types for this kind of work, but R.J. had a reputation. He was reliable and effective.
R.J. didn’t look like a sleazy private eye, and that was a professional plus. He knew his way around the upper and lower East Sides, and he could mix with the cream as well as the curd. He was fiercely loyal to his clients, even if he detested their sordid lifestyles. He never betrayed a confidentiality to the police, a judge, a journalist, or anyone else, and he never padded his expense accounts.
In fact, in a lot of ways he was an average guy. For starters, like a lot of other guys, he had trouble with his mother.
His mother had aged. They all did, but to her it was more of a tragedy. And since she figured she might have missed out on telling him a few things the first time around, she tried to make up for it now. That doesn’t sit so well with a guy in his thirties, in a tough profession.
The problem was worse because she was right: She
had
missed out on a hell of a lot of stuff when he was a kid. In fact, he had been raised pretty much without her. Of course she’d been busy, he didn’t argue that.
It was a full-time job being a movie star.
And even now, at her age, it was still a full-time job. Which was one reason he hated being seen in public with her. Her friends were bad enough. But to see normal, rational people falling all over themselves at the sight of his mother—it was enough to gag an alley cat.
Still, she was his mother. He saw her only once or twice a year. So when she called with one of her “Darling I’m in town for just a day or two” invitations to lunch, he tried to do the right thing and see her.
Unless, of course, he could come up with a really good excuse.
But this time he’d come up blank. Probably because he’d let his brain go soft the last week or so. He had just finished a lucrative but remarkably vile divorce case, and he was feeling burned out. But he could afford to be, for a week or two. He was way ahead for a change, bucks in the bank. He hadn’t taken on anything new yet. He was just relaxing, enjoying himself in the greatest city in the world.
He’d taken in a couple of ballgames, gone to the track, even let a woman he was seeing drag him downtown to some dismal theater built around a grease pit in a converted garage. They’d
seen something that probably didn’t sound as pompous in German, but in English it was tough to take. The woman had made it up to him by taking him to the opera later that week, and that had been a good one, one R.J. could sing along to.
It was a good week. It wasn’t often R.J. could afford to let himself drift, and he was enjoying the hell out of it, with no thought about getting back to work.
He should have known it wouldn’t last.
Just as he was starting to think that life was a good thing for a change, the phone call had come.
“Darling,” she said. She always said that. Couldn’t bring herself to say “hello” like a normal person, because there was nothing normal about Belle Fontaine.
“Oh. Hello, Mom.”
The long hiss of cigarette smoke blowing out of her lungs. “Well, don’t overwhelm me with filial affection, R.J.”
“It’s a little late to worry about that, isn’t it?”
More smoke. “All right, R.J. Forget I said anything.”
“Sure thing. So how’s tricks in the screen trade?”
“Actually, darling, I’m just in town for a couple of days about another Broadway thing. I thought we could have lunch.”
Oh, Christ, he thought, but what he said was, “I’m kind of busy today, Mom.”
“Perfect, darling, so am I. Shall we say tomorrow, one o’clock?”
You stepped in it now, sport, he said to himself. “Russian Tea Room again?”
“Of course, dear, it’s a lovely place.”
“It’s a tacky place. Nobody hangs out there but old queens and wannabees.”
“Really? And which am I, dear? An old wannabee?”
“For Christ’s sake, Mom.”
“Because I hang out there, dear, and I happen to like it there,” she said, and R.J. could hear her lighting another cigarette.
“All right,” he said. “It’s Heaven on earth. The food is marvelous, the company divine, and the ambience is devastatingly witty, carefree, and bohemian. Now get off my case, okay?”
“My God, you remind me of your father,” she said. “You even
sound
like him when you get mean.”
“I’ll see you at one o’clock tomorrow,” R.J. said and hung up, suddenly weary of the game. They always ended up saying the same cruel things, and it always hurt.
R.J. spent the rest of the day walking downtown and snarling at strangers. He thought about seeing a movie but couldn’t find one worth the price of the ticket.
He thought about going to a bar and watching a ballgame on TV, but he had been sober too long to want to hang out in a bar.
So R.J. had a hot dog in Times Square and took the subway home. One last big night on the town.
The next day he was at the Russian Tea Room, near Central Park, about ten minutes late. He was still there ahead of his mother. He stood for another twenty minutes with the maitre d’ looking at him the way he’d look at a turd in a finger bowl.
He knew from the adrenaline-soaked murmuring that suddenly sprang up all around him, and he didn’t have to turn to look at the door, but he did anyway. Everybody did.
Belle Fontaine had arrived.
An admiring throng pressed in on Belle and an elfin companion, but she plowed through without even seeing them. Straight for the maitre d’. The maitre d’ had seen it all, had turned away more celebrities than William Morris, but even he was impressed. His whole face was one big, unctuous smile.
For somebody who hadn’t worked more than a few weeks
in fifteen years, Belle still commanded a tremendous amount of interest. “It’s the legs,” she would always say, but R.J. knew she was wrong.
The truth was, she had It, whatever It was. She could walk into a room filled with celebrities, athletes, politicians, whatever. And everybody would stop breathing and look at her.
Which was exactly what was happening now.
Here we go, thought R.J. Belle paraded up and planted a kiss on his cheek. He returned it dutifully.
She put her hands on his shoulders and stepped back, looking him over. “You look terrible,” she announced.
“Thanks,” he said. “You look swell.”
“You need to lose a little weight. Exercise. Do you even take the vitamins I send you?”
“No,” he said. “Let’s eat something, all right? We can tear each other to shreds much better with something in our stomachs.”
R.J. turned to where the fawning maitre d’ was stuck in a half bow, pointing the way toward a table. “Keep that up, you’re gonna need a chiropractor, Jack,” he said.
Behind him his mother snorted and the elf snickered.
They worked their way through the room to a table in front, where Belle was properly displayed. She was on good behavior and only stopped to schmooze twice.
R.J. finally got a seat under him and sank into it gratefully. He watched the waiter and the elf go through the ceremonial seating of Belle. So did everybody else in the place.
“You’re supposed to wait until the lady is seated, R.J.,” his mother said as she finally pulled her chair in to the table.
“I might faint from fatigue if I had to wait for you,” he said.
She shook her head. “You always have to have a smart answer.”
He bared his front teeth in a parody of a smile. “I’m a smart guy,” he said.
She lit a cigarette, looked him over. He could see her decide to start again. “This is Michael, R.J.,” she said, indicating the elf. “He’s the most wonderful musical lyricist on Broadway.”
“How do you
do,
” Michael said. “I’ve heard
so
much about you.”
“That’s good news,” said R.J.
“Michael has been working on a few numbers for a backer’s audition,” Belle said. “We plan to have something ready for Christmas.”
“After
all
,” gushed Michael, “she was so wonderful in the last show, it’s just a
shame
not to get her right back on the
boards
again.”
It was always the same, thought R.J. Belle was always looking for a comeback, and there was always some sleazy little weasel ready to ride her attempt into his fifteen minutes of fame. It made him tired, and a little sad, to see his mother drag herself through these demeaning gyrations.
“Why can’t you let it go?” R.J. said. “You could afford to retire, you know.”
She looked daggers at him. “My career is important to me, R.J. And plenty of people still know who I am.”
“Sure they do,” said R.J. “Why wouldn’t they? You spend enough on your publicist.”
“Must you be so cruel, R.J.?”
“I guess not,” he said wearily. “How about you?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Michael, go make a phone call.”
Michael hesitated just a second, and Belle swung her incredible blue eyes at him. He popped up instantly, sweat beading on his upper lip, and slithered away to the back of the restaurant.
“What rock did you find him under?” R.J. asked her.