The Impersonator (Leah Randall/Jessie Carr Novels) Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Postscript

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  I felt his eyes before I saw his face. A quick sweep of the audience and I spotted him, the man from last night. On the aisle again, row C, seat 1. A good choice—his bulk would have overflowed the armrests of an interior seat and caused his neighbors to curl their lips and lean away.

  I am sensitive to being watched. Whenever someone’s eyes rest overlong on me, a prickly awareness flushes across my neck and shoulders. It comes from a lifetime spent onstage, honing the subtler tricks of the trade—the toss of the hair, the jut of the hips, the flutter of the fingers—whatever pulls the audience’s attention. I can throw attention too: a gasp and wide eyes will send them searching for the cause of my surprise; my languid examination of another actor will turn every head in the audience to him. I know what I’m doing, and I know when I am doing it. At that moment, I was doing nothing. I had finished my line and moved stage right where I stood like a marble statue so as not to distract from Darcy’s solo verse. I was doing nothing to draw the fat man’s stare, yet he was staring.

  Had he been young and attractive, I would have been pleased, but this man made me uneasy. He wasn’t watching the act; he was watching me. Two nights in a row. I’d put it down to my great beauty, but I live my life close to the mirror, and I know better.

  I missed my cue—something I’d hear about later. Hands on hips, I tap-danced back into the lights, caught up with Angie approaching from stage left, and the seven Little Darlings began to sing the final refrain.

  You’ve got to see Mama ev’ry night,

  Or you can’t see Mama at all!

  All eyes were on me now, and I blocked out any thought of the fat man in the third row.

  2

  Three bows. It should have been two, but “Mama” stole the last one, pulling us back onstage as the applause drizzled away, leaving us to slink off in silence. I was mortified, but no one blamed me, I was just a kid. So to speak. We got out of the way for the Kanazawa Japs.

  Our dressing room was as small as a closet. Angie kept bumping my elbow as I wiped off the greasepaint. I snapped at her, then apologized. She was a good kid, wiser than her seventeen years, and a good friend since she’d joined the Little Darlings a couple years back. The closet wasn’t her fault. Fact of the matter, it was better than most I’d seen growing up, with electric lights and heat and toilets in the basement. The Creighton, like all Orpheum Circuit theaters, was Big Time and pretty decent, all in all. But even a headliner’s dressing room at the Creighton would have been seriously crowded with nine of us struggling to change to street clothes.

  At last I escaped, my coat over my shoulders and Angie at my heels.

  “Lordy mercy, I could use a drink!” she exclaimed—uselessly, since we both knew my bottle of hooch was empty and neither of us knew Omaha well enough to find a speakeasy that would admit two girls who looked fifteen. “Three shows! Whew!”

  “Many’s the time I’ve played four or even five shows a day,” I said. “And in theaters without dressing rooms at all. We’re lucky to have made Big Time.”

  “I know,” she said, but she didn’t really.

  We threaded our way down the narrow passageway choked with crates, props, barrels, and paint cans. Angie caught her foot in a coil of rope and dislodged a rat. She smothered a scream as it scurried ahead of us and disappeared into the shadows.

  “Yikes! Where’s the Cat Circus when you need ’em?” I said, immediately regretting the little quip when I saw the quiver in Angie’s lip. She was sweet on the young man who managed that act, and we hadn’t shared a billing with him in many weeks.

  “Button up,” Angie said, as she squared her shoulders and threw open the heavy stage door. March in the Midwest has its pleasant days. This wasn’t one of them.

  “I’m going back to Mabel’s,” I told her by way of an invitation. “I snitched some rolls and chicken legs when no one was looking. Enough for two.”

  The alley was muddy and littered with broken glass. Old playbills clogged the gutter. Ahead of us, a voice called out to someone, “Jessie!”

  Angie and I tied scarves over our heads and made our way toward the main street, guided by the light of the single gas lamp that glowed in front of the theater. It was a nine-block walk to Mabel’s boardinghouse where the Little Darlings were lodged this week. Tomorrow was our last night. On Sunday we’d jump to Tulsa, a day’s train ride if we were lucky and there were no cows on the tracks.

  “Jessie!”

  I paid no attention. It wasn’t my name.

  Then I saw him in the lamplight. The fat man from the aisle seat. Waiting for Angie and me to come down the alley. Except I knew he wasn’t waiting for Angie.

  Nothing to worry about; I’d blown off men before.

  He stood with his hands in the pockets of a cashmere topcoat, a Vandyke beard on his chin, and a fine fedora on his head. “Jessie! Jessamyn Carr!” he said as we came closer.

  I gave an exaggerated look over my shoulder, shrugged, and attempted to walk past him.

  “Wait! A moment, please. Just a moment. I recognized you from the audience, Jessie. You remember me, don’t you? Uncle Oliver? Of course you do.”

  He didn’t grab my arm or try to touch me in any way, and his round face was creased with what looked like genuine anxiety. Maybe, just maybe, he was legit—and I didn’t want to be unkind. I decided to play it straight. “I’m sorry, sir. You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Excuse us, please.”

  “No, I can’t be wrong. You’re Jessie Carr. Even after all these years, I’d recognize you anywhere—the auburn hair, the eyes, the freckles.” His sincerity was unmistakable, and I felt a stab of sympathy for him.

  “Look, Mr. Oliver,
I am sorry. But honestly, I’m not your niece. I’ve gone by a lot of names in my life, but Jessie was never one of them. I guess I look like her, but you know what they say: there’s a double for every one of us somewhere in the world.” His expression was almost comical with disbelief, and he seemed to grow smaller, like a round balloon with some of the air let out. I felt sorry for him. “Is your niece in vaudeville?”

  “Oh, no … at least, not that I know of,” he replied, peering hard at my face to watch for my reaction as he continued with his tale. “My late sister’s child, Jessamyn Carr, disappeared seven years ago, in the summer of 1917. Ran away, no doubt. No one has seen her since. You look so much like her … those freckles … She would be twenty now, almost twenty-one. At first glance I thought you were too young, but after careful study, I realized you were older than the girl you play on stage. Are you sure there’s no chance that you could be—”

  “Well, I’m older than twenty,” I said. His eyes widened in surprise. So did Angie’s. I generally keep mum about my real age. Most people in the business figure I’m around seventeen, and they’re amused at how much younger I appear, on stage and off. It’s been the key to my success, really. “I’ve been in vaudeville since I was a baby, so I can’t be your niece.”

  He gave a great sigh and rubbed his hand over his face. “I beg your pardon, young lady. I—I really thought … you are so like her, exactly as she would look grown-up. It’s—well, it’s uncanny. Excuse me.”

  He bowed from the waist like I was royalty, lifted his hat, and walked off in the opposite direction from Mabel’s.

  Angie arched her eyebrows in a silent question that I answered with a shrug of my shoulders.

  “He seemed so sure…” She trailed off. I knew what she was thinking. Although we’d been in the same act for a couple years, she knew almost nothing about my life before the Little Darlings.

  “I feel kind of sorry for him,” I said as I watched him disappear into the night.

  “He reminds me of Fatty Arbuckle,” Angie said softly.

  “I’m not his niece.”

  Angie giggled. “Maybe you should have said you were. Maybe he’s fabulously rich and was going to leave you all his money!” And we laughed our way back to Mabel’s.

  3

  Saturday’s three shows went well enough. The Little Darlings hoofed it through their fourteen-minute musical routine with the flawless timing that comes from months of repetition. The audience applauded generously, and “Mama”—chastened earlier by the emcee—stole no bows. We’d been billed third this week and so finished by ten, a distinct advantage in my book since it left more time for celebration at the end of a long week. Angie and I waited impatiently for Sylvia, the assistant in the magician act billed after the Kanazawa Japs. Sylvia had played Omaha last year and knew of a blind pig that would serve us … if it hadn’t been shut down by now. I hoped it had food too. I was hungry enough to eat a whole pig myself.

  We wore our best. Angie and I had brushed the schoolgirl braids into pinned-up styles befitting sophisticated young ladies, and the new hat I’d bought at Younkers in Des Moines two weeks ago made me look at least eighteen. As soon as Sylvia joined us, we headed for the stage door.

  The fat man was waiting for us by the gas lamp, dressed in a tuxedo.

  “Excuse me, Miss—ah, Darling?”

  I was in an end-of-the-week mood. “Uncle Oliver!” I exclaimed buoyantly. “I didn’t see you in the audience tonight.”

  “I wasn’t in the audience tonight.” He doffed his homburg to acknowledge Angie and Sylvia, then turned back to me. His eyes took in my hair and outfit with a gleam that approved the transformation. “I came by the theater in the hope that I could persuade you to dine with me tonight. I would like to talk with you about a job, something I think will be well worth your while.”

  I’ll just bet. Angie and Sylvia exchanged knowing glances. We’d each had our share of mashers on the make. The missing niece had been a ruse after all. I should have known.

  “Thank you kindly, sir, but as you can see, my friends and I have plans for this evening.”

  “So that my intentions are not misconstrued, I was of course including your friends in my invitation. I have reserved a table at the Blackstone Hotel, reputedly the finest restaurant in the Midwest, where I will be honored to treat you and your friends to anything on the menu.”

  His gentle caress of the word “anything” would have made an actor proud. And who hadn’t heard of the Blackstone? Only headliners could afford to stay there, and they raved about its luxury.

  I had no idea if he knew how hungry I was at that moment or how poorly we’d eaten lately, but the memory of the fried meat, cornmeal mush, and peach preserves we’d been served for the past week at Mabel’s made me drool for something better. Potluck at the blind pig was likely to be greasy sausages or nothing at all. A nod from Angie and Sylvia clinched the deal. Why not? The price for him would be high. The price for me was small: a curt refusal when he got around to making his “job offer.”

  “Thank you, sir; we’d be delighted to accept.”

  He beamed. Without turning his head, he lifted one arm and snapped his fingers. Before I had time to wonder, an enormous Pierce-Arrow hummed out of the darkness and a chauffeur leaped out to open our door.

  The Blackstone Hotel lobby was a work of art with enough gold leaf to make Willie Sutton trade in his gun for a chisel. We gawked like rubes at the painted ceilings, fancy mirrors, and plush velvet furniture as we were ushered through to the Orleans Dining Room. A maid took our coats. A fawning maître d’ bowed and motioned to a waiter, then led us to a table in the middle of the room.

  It was a small table set for two. I waited for the maître d’ to realize the obvious, but he maintained his expectant face as he held a chair for me. One look to my right and I caught on. The waiter was seating Angie and Sylvia at another table some feet away. The girls, as frozen with uncertainty as I, looked inquiringly in my direction. My call.

  Seeing my mouth open to protest, my host said, “Surely you can have no objection to this arrangement. Your friends are nearby”—he smiled at them and waved his fingers—“and the waiter has been instructed to bring them whatever they desire. Our business is best discussed privately.”

  Neat. Very neat. And plotted well in advance, which meant he anticipated having to include my friends. I could pitch a fit, demand a larger table, and draw the attention of the entire dining room. Or I could shut up and sit down. I’d come this far. The girls were right there. It was a public restaurant. What was I afraid of? I closed my mouth and sat. Angie and Sylvia followed my lead.

  Round one to Uncle Oliver. But I’d be damned if I’d help him out with charming conversation. He could jolly well talk to himself as far as I was concerned. Silently vowing to order the most expensive dish on the menu, I buried my nose in the hand-lettered menu and promptly forgot my resolution.

  “Gracious! Lobster? Here? How do they manage that? And pheasant under glass! I always supposed that was made up.” My stomach rumbled its appreciation. No wonder Uncle Oliver was fat.

  “Would you like a cocktail? Or wine with dinner? Or perhaps both?”

  Right out in the open? That was pretty bold of the Blackstone. “My word. Have they bought off the police, then?”

  “No doubt. But they also take care to serve liquor in teacups so no one can tell what anyone is drinking. Should an emergency arise, one merely finishes one’s tea. Quickly.”

  I was all admiration. “Could I have champagne?”

  “You may have whatever you like, my dear.” And he proceeded to place his order with a handsome young waiter for a martini for himself and French champagne for me. When it came in a porcelain teacup accompanied by a plate of pretty hors d’oeuvres, I couldn’t help but giggle.

  He was, I guessed, in his fifties, but his efforts to appear younger only made him seem older. A dapper gentleman of the Edwardian style, complete with malacca walking stick, mother-of-pearl
cuff links, and white spats, he would have been attractive in the days before gluttony fattened his figure and age thinned his hair. To afford the dinner we ordered, he must be rich indeed. I decided that when the proposition was made, I would turn him down gently.

  The courses came one after the other with baffling complexity as our conversation wandered from Omaha to Europe, where I had never been but longed to go. He had an urbane and natural wit and a boundless curiosity about my life, no doubt prompted by his need to douse that last flicker of uncertainty about my identity. I found myself talking more freely than I had intended.

  “No, honestly, Darling is their real name,” I said. “Jock and Francine. And Lizzie is their real daughter, and the boys, Darcy and Danny, are theirs too. I’ve been with them for several years and they’re like family. Francine’s the boss. And bossy. But we all get along.”

  “And now the act is seven children, like the Seven Little Foys.”

  “That was the idea. Anyway, the Foys broke up a year ago and we’re still going strong.”

  “How long have you been on stage?”

  “Twenty-five years, if you count the roles my mother played while she carried me.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he studied my face closely, looking for wrinkles, I guess. “Is your mother still living?”

  I shook my head. “She died after a long illness when I was twelve. She was a talented singer—a headliner. I have her old playbills to prove it.”

  Talking about my mother brought back the hollow pain I always felt whenever I thought of her death. I was glad when he changed the subject. “What about your father?”

  “He left before I was born.” I thought he might ask if I was a bastard, which I most definitely am and would have said so to his face, but he did not. I guess it was self-evident. Everyone knew vaudeville people were immoral.

  “So you literally grew up on the stage.”

  “My first role was Moses in the Bulrushes, and I’m told I made a good Baby Jesus later that year. By the time I was three I could memorize lines, so I began acting in scenes for kiddie versions of Romeo and Juliet, Oliver Twist, Peter Pan, and other vaudeville staples.”