Downtown Strut: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) Read Free Page B

mentioned Jed’s name, not friendly. Bella glanced at him, a sideways twist of her head that attempted to be coy but came off as apologetic. A sliver of a smile crossed her lips, but just as quickly disappeared, a feeble gesture, a little flirtatious, that told me that she liked Roddy. Lawson, meanwhile, was trembling. While I was watching this little drama, Ellie bounced up, made a dismissive grunt that seemed to take in the others, and picked up a glove she’d dropped to the floor. She turned, colliding with Freddy, standing there with his arms folded over his chest. Everyone stammered goodbye, over and over, and thanked me as they scrambled to the doorway, their arms holding bundles of their writing. In a flash, they were gone, with Freddy and Harriet doggedly following the others out the door.
    Jed Harris had said not one word to any of them.
    Waters, looking the baffled schoolboy he was, shot me a worried look.
    “Well,” I began.
    In a squeaky voice he asked me, “Did something just happen here?” He opened his eyes wide, wide.
    I grinned. “And I was thinking on the train ride back that it would be nice to return to my apartment where nothing ever happens.”
    Something had, indeed, happened.

Chapter Two
    The phone woke me from a deep sleep. I glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand: four in the morning. Good Lord, I thought, no one in Manhattan gets up at this absurd hour. Some folks were just going to bed. Someone had better be dead.
    “Edna.” Blunt, thick, a cigarette smoker’s midnight voice.
    I sighed. “What did I tell you about calling in the middle of the night, Jed?”
    He ignored that. “You know, I’m gonna fire the cast.”
    My mind reeled. I sat up in bed, felt a chilly draft from the windows, wrapped my wool blanket snugly around me. What absurdity was this? “No, you’re not.”
    A raspy chuckle, too loud, as if he held his mouth on the receiver. “I’m the producer.”
    “And I’m the writer.” I paused. “Though your persistent and silly dialogue changes might suggest the contrary.”
    Again the thick unpleasant laugh. “Edna, the cast is all wrong.”
    “Jed, it’s four in the morning. At this hour everything is wrong.”
    “Ann Andrews is horrible as Julie Cavendish.”
    True, I thought, but the wonderful actress Ethel Barrymore, on whom most believed George and I based the glamorous, enthralling Julie, not only refused to play the part, as we’d fervently and naively hoped she would, but also now planned on suing, as she’d thundered to the press on more than one occasion. We’d supposedly maligned the august Barrymore clan. Theatrical royalty. Legendary Broadway luminaries. And because of Ethel’s strident pronouncement, no veteran actress would touch the central role, so we’d reluctantly settled on Ann Andrews, an old blowsy trooper who was blond and tall and filled with static—and thus all wrong for the part. A vaudeville stereotype, best at playing bawdy barkeeps. Feebly, I said into the phone, “It’s too late to find someone new.”
    “That’s why I’m closing the play down.”
    “No, you’re not.” I was getting a headache. I joked, “Isn’t it bad enough that the Marx Brothers plan to sue because they suspect we based the play on their lives? We’re becoming laughing stocks.” I sighed. “Jed, I’m going to the theater this morning. We’ll talk then. I haven’t even looked at the changes yet.” Then I added, “And then I have to be at the Ziegfeld for a meeting about Show Boat . Meet me at…”
    “I’m headed home now, dear Edna, so I won’t get up till two or three.” Loud voices in the background, the tinkle of glasses, a whisper of a laugh, and a few bars of music. Jed at some mid-town honky tonk—maybe the Del Ray Club or the Hotsy Totsy.
    “Some people keep normal sleeping hours, Jed. I, for one, require a solid eight hours when Manhattan lies under darkness…”
    He interrupted me. “Nothing good happens in Manhattan