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

  “I expect you have a good memory.”

  “A necessity in my business.” I glanced over to Angie and Sylvia who were diving into a plate of prawns. Angie caught my eye and sent me a questioning look. I nodded back and smiled that all was well.

  “Moving around like that, you could not have attended school. Did you have a governess?”

  A governess! What fairy tale did this man live in? I thought of Marie Antoinette, who wondered why the breadless Parisians did not simply eat cake, and stifled a laugh. “Vaudeville kids don’t have a schoolroom education but that doesn’t mean they are uneducated. I learned to read from my mother, and I still read every book I can get my hands on.”

  “If Darling isn’t your real name, what is?”

  “My name’s whatever role I’m playing. These days I’m billed as Carrie Darling, the second Little Darling. Angie over there is two inches taller so she’s the eldest kid. Height trumps age in this business.”

  “But the name your mother gave you?”

  “Leah. Why, I’ll never know—she never used it. Usually she called me Baby.”

  “And your last name?”

  “That depends. Mother’s real last name was Pearson, but she dropped it when she left Ohio. Her family never spoke to her again after she went on the stage. She changed her name to Chloë Randall and stuck with that most of the time. But I seldom used Randall, or Leah, for that matter. During my Shakespeare period I was called Juliet, then Becky Jordan when I was one of the Jordan Sisters. During my Kid Kabaret years, I was billed as Sallie Angel—I hated that one!—and for a season I was Jo Baker with my twin brother Joey, and then Sophie Dale with the Dancing Dollies. I’ve done a little of everything, a bit of acrobatics, a dog act—I was even a magician’s assistant for a while. The original jack-of-all-trades. Speaking of names, remind me of yours?”

  He looked surprised. “I haven’t properly introduced myself, have I? The name’s Oliver Beckett, at your service.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Beckett.” I slurped another oyster.

  “What happened after your mother died?”

  The pain that is wrapped around that question cannot be conveyed to a person who has not lost his only parent at a young age. I continued eating, as if the response didn’t claw out my gut. “I didn’t feel abandoned,” I said with practiced bravado. “You have to understand, vaudeville is like one big family. In fact, there are a lot of families that tour together, like the Darlings. Mother fixed me up with a good kiddie act before she passed away. When that one crashed, I got other roles. I didn’t grow much after twelve, so it was no trick to keep braiding my hair, accent the freckles, and avoid getting fat.” Whoops. Too much champagne.

  He ignored the gaffe. “You’re vaudeville’s version of Mary Pickford. She’s well into her thirties and still playing adolescents in her films.”

  I nodded. Mary Pickford was my idol. She was playing eleven-year-old girls in A Poor Little Rich Girl and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm when she was my age, and she was nearly thirty when she played a young boy in Little Lord Fauntleroy. I’d sit through several showings of her films at one go, crouching under the seats each time the theater emptied so I didn’t have to pay again, just to learn the tricks she used to help herself look childlike. What I learned from Mary Pickford about makeup, clothing, and youthful gestures I put to good use.

  He asked more questions, and I made vaudeville sound like a pretty nice life. In many ways, it was. I was too proud to tell this rich man about the hungry times, the weeks of no work, the days I hung around the theater after the last show hoping someone would take me with them to get something to eat, the men who wanted a return on the money they’d spent, and the times I’d come out of the grocer’s with more in my pockets than I’d paid for. I hadn’t always played Big Time two-a-days. We were barely there now. Most of my life had been Small Time hardship, four or five shows a day, tawdry boardinghouses, promised salaries unpaid, and nights spent on a cold train to save the dollar the hotel room would have cost.

  “If I may be so crass as to mention financial matters … what sort of money do you earn?”

  “Enough to get by. The Darlings get $250 a week. They pay hotels and food, and give me $20. The younger kids, Angie and the two boys, get $10 each.” Here it comes, I thought.

  “And how long is your contract?”

  “A typical thirty-week run. Ends in May. It’ll be renewed, though.” We hoped.

  “I have an unusual role I’d like you to consider.” I braced myself and looked him straight in the eye. “I’d like you to play the role of Jessie Carr for a few years. For the rest of your life, if you like the part.”

  That was certainly not what I expected, but I was too well schooled to let my features betray surprise. At that moment, the young Adonis materialized at my shoulder to ask if I’d care for more tea. Dumbly, I nodded, and he left with my cup and saucer. I detected a flash of raw hunger in Oliver’s eyes as they followed the waiter until he disappeared around the bar, and all at once I understood I had never been in any danger of an indecent proposition. Oliver turned back to the matter at hand as if there had been no interruption. “Before you say anything, let me tell you the whole story.” Sure of his audience, he settled back in his chair and milked the pause before he began.

  “Like you, my niece Jessie was orphaned as a child. Both her parents drowned in a sailing accident when she was eleven. She was sent to live in Oregon with her aunt and uncle and their four children. Have you ever heard the name Carr?”

  Not in the way he meant it.

  “Jessie’s father, Lawrence Carr, was a very wealthy man. He inherited a family business that centered on logging and mining operations in a dozen states, and while he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least he didn’t run the business into the ground before he died. Jessie was his only child and sole heir. The business has been managed by a trust ever since—managed a good deal better than foolish Lawrence Carr would have done—and the fortune has grown considerably. I know little of the details but it seems to be worth somewhere in the range of ten million dollars. Jessie inherits everything the day she turns twenty-one. That day is September 30, 1924.”

  Six months from now.

  It occurred to me that Uncle Oliver was not a nice man.

  “Look, Oliver,” I cut in. “If you think someone who looks vaguely like Jessie is going to convince her hotshot lawyers and all her relatives that she’s the real McCoy, you’re screwy.”

  “Jessie has no family left who knew her before she was orphaned. The lawyers and trustees met her once, when she was eleven and they were settling the estate after her parents were killed. Her aunt and uncle’s family knew her only for the three years she lived with them. Jessie disappeared seven years ago. Memories dim with time.”

  “You really think someone like me, with no fancy manners, could fool rich people that I was one of them? Maybe for ten minutes!”

  “Having just observed you eating your salad with the fish fork, I am well aware that certain training would be required in the realm of proper etiquette.”

  “And when the real Jessie Carr shows up on her birthday?”

  “Jessie’s dead.”

  He said it with such finality, I blinked with confusion. “I thought you said—”

  “Oh, I don’t know it for a fact—probably no one does. But it’s been seven years this August. If she was kidnapped—something we all considered likely at the time—the kidnappers never asked for ransom. Or perhaps they killed her accidentally and had nothing with which to bargain.”

  “But you said she ran away.”

  “Sheer speculation. It’s possible. If she ran away, she caught the Spanish flu and was buried in some potter’s field. If she joined the circus, an elephant stepped on her. If she was playing a cruel trick on her aunt—something she was quite capable of doing, that child was bereft of decent feelings—she missed the pleasure of shocking her aunt into a heart attack with an unexpected return.” H
e turned up his hands in the universal gesture of helplessness. “How do I know what happened to her? Except for the few hours I thought you were Jessie, I’ve been convinced for years that she was dead.”

  He glared at his water goblet while I swallowed my disgust. His blunt words and cold manner made it clear that he had no genuine affection for his poor niece. No, the girl had inconvenienced him by going missing, and he resented the disruption. I could hardly hide my contempt.

  He reached into his breast pocket and took out a wallet. “Here,” he said, handing me a small photograph. “Judge for yourself.”

  A familiar face stared back at me with an intensely serious expression, and I felt a queer jolt of electricity tingling through my limbs. I guessed she had been about twelve when it was taken. She had my hair and my features, and I had to admit, the resemblance was striking—but it was the resemblance of sisters, not of twins. Something about her touched me deeply though, something beyond superficial appearances … perhaps it was the connection of having been orphaned at almost the same age.

  “I see now why you mistook me for her,” I said, returning the photograph.

  “As will others. Now”—Oliver preened, unconscious of his own outrageous conceit—“the key to the success of this plan is myself. No one else could carry it off, even with an impersonator as perfect as you. You see, I spent a good deal of time during those three years with my niece’s family. I visited their remote house in Oregon quite often. My point is, I know the house, I know the family, I know the servants, the pets, and all the little details of everyday life that will convince everyone you are Jessie. I know what Jessie knows and I know what she doesn’t know. I can teach you. It is simply another role for you to play.”

  “And you would help me pull off a trick like that so I could claim the Carr fortune? How very generous of you!”

  He twisted his lips into a serpent’s smile that would give Satan the shivers. “Just so, my dear. You’re so very clever, you realized some time ago where my interests lie. I have always had expensive tastes, and sadly, I find myself unable to continue in the manner to which I have become accustomed without regular infusions of cash. I am not, however, a greedy man. I also realize that transferring large amounts of money to my name would be impossible without alerting the trustees, lawyers, and bankers who are all vigilant minders of the Carr fortune.”

  Now I was curious. “So how would you get the money?”

  “Leave the details to me. I am the soul of discretion and, never fear, there is plenty to go around. We won’t be taking the money away from anyone—not really—we’ll just be sharing it among a broader group of people.”

  I didn’t need to think this one over. Not for a moment. What Oliver was proposing was anything but a simple acting job. It was a crime—a serious crime, and fraught with peril. Punishable by a who-knows-what-length prison sentence. With millions of dollars at stake, no lawyers or relatives were going to smile sweetly, congratulate me, and hand over the dough without exhaustive background checks and a thousand sneaky little tricks designed to trip me up. One slipup with the pony’s name and I’d be breaking rocks in Sing Sing. Not to mention the hold dear Uncle Oliver would have over me should I ever object to his pulling my strings. Thanks, but no thanks.

  Oliver continued, “Jessie Carr, vaudeville star, has come home for her twenty-first birthday. It will be the easiest role you’ve ever played. You need invent no tales about where you have been for the past seven years. You merely tell the truth. The private investigators who will be hired to verify your story will find everything you say is true.” He wet his lips as two large servings of baked Alaska were placed before us. “You must see that it’s perfect.”

  Perfectly absurd. As soon as the waiter had stepped away, I burst his bubble.

  “Thank you, Oliver, for your kind offer to make yourself rich. Sadly, I am booked for the foreseeable future with the Little Darlings, whose ironclad contract prohibits me from taking on other roles.”

  I expected him to erupt in a great rage or at least continue to argue his point, but nothing, it seems, could divert this hedonist from the task before him. Into the mound of ice cream and meringue he plunged, inhaling it with such gusto I wondered whether he had even heard me. I looked in the direction of Angie and Sylvia’s table, but they were too engrossed in flaming cherries jubilee to notice that I was itching to leave.

  When the plate was clean, Oliver sat back again, wiped his mouth on his napkin, and gave me a smirk I did not like at all. “Quite all right, my dear. I understand completely. Think on my proposal. If you should change your mind, you’ll know where to find me.”

  I hadn’t a clue where to find the wretch. And that was fine with me.

  Angie and Sylvia had finished their desserts. We stood up, and they followed us out of the dining room, back to the gilded lobby. Oliver took my coat from the maid and guided my arms into the sleeves as the woman helped the girls with theirs. He bade us good-bye at the hotel entrance, summoning the Pierce-Arrow to take us wherever we wanted to go next.

  4

  It was two days past my twenty-fifth birthday before I realized the date had slipped by me unobserved. Just as well. I needed no reminders of my advancing age. The example of Mary Pickford buoyed me up. Like her, I would play kiddie roles until my hair turned gray or lumbago made me hobble with a cane.

  The Little Darlings killed ’em in Lincoln and Topeka, and we were jumping to Tulsa when the letter reached Francine. Our agent had earned his five percent and renewed our contract with Orpheum—hip, hip, hooray! Another thirty weeks and a slight rise in pay. I had never been happier.

  The Darlings had become the family I had never had, the family I had always longed for. We celebrated that night with a meal at a decent hotel, then Jock went back to the boardinghouse and drank himself to bed. We were big time for another season. Audiences were not sitting on their hands. The act was good and getting better. The real reason was Darcy.

  At five, Darcy was a born entertainer with a sterling silver future. Although his brother Danny was a year older, Darcy was the more sophisticated in every way. Danny sang like a child; Darcy crooned like a seasoned pro. Danny could hoof it a little; Darcy’s stair routine would make Bojangles Robinson sit up and gape. Danny could repeat a joke and get a chuckle; Darcy’s instinct for timing and facial expressions made audiences fall out of their seats laughing. I was already imagining their future as a musical comedy act as they grew older, with Danny playing straight man to Darcy’s lead. The Darling Boys, or maybe the Darling Duo.

  We had a great week in Tulsa. Angie struck gold—the Cat Circus finally shared our billing again, and her young man was still making goo-goo eyes in her direction. It should not have surprised me at all, but it did, when Angie came to our room in the boardinghouse on Friday evening while I was getting ready to head over to the theater.

  “I got some news,” she said, twisting her hands. Her face turned fiery red and she stammered a little. “I—I was just upstairs telling Francine and Jock. After them, you’re first to know. I’m leaving the Little Darlings. I’m joining Walter’s Cat Circus.”

  “Why, Angie!” I had no idea the romance had progressed so far so fast. “Why, that’s … that’s … oh, my goodness, that’s wonderful news … are you—well, are you sure?”

  She nodded fiercely. “I’m not leaving the act high and dry, don’t worry. I’ll stay on through Oklahoma City to give the Darlings time to train a replacement. Walter and the cats are billed there with us next week, then he goes to Canada and the Little Darlings are for Kansas and, well, I just couldn’t bear it, being separated from Walter again.”

  True love. I’d caught it myself a couple times and knew its pleasures and its pains firsthand. I had my doubts about Walter’s staying power, but heck, I wasn’t about to rain on her parade. I collected my wits and said all the right things. I’d miss Angie.

  Change is the only thing you can count on in vaudeville, my mother used to say. So I was p
repared when on Saturday night after the last show, Francine and Jock sent Darcy to fetch me to their room.

  “We need to talk about the act,” Jock began. He was standing at the fireplace, his hair still wet from his bath. One hand fiddled with the change in his pocket, the other drummed on the mantel. Francine’s hands were folded serenely in her lap and, as she occupied the only chair in the room, I perched on the edge of the bed.

  I agreed with him. The addition of a new person to an act was a good time to make changes. I had some ideas to contribute.

  “We’ve been thinking about this for some time. Angie’s leaving makes it come about a little quicker than we had planned but it’s where we were going anyway. We’ve decided not to replace Angie.”

  Bad move, I thought. Everyone knows dancing acts need an odd number to look right on stage. Three, five, fifteen, whatever. Odd numbers allow for greater versatility in the choreography. I was about to say so when Francine spoke up.

  “We’ve been working up some different routines, ones that play up to Darcy,” she said.

  “I couldn’t agree more. That boy’s got the makings of a real star.”

  Francine beamed. What mother doesn’t enjoy hearing her child praised? “Robert’s family wants him to come home,” she continued. At eleven, Robert played the third oldest Darling, the stair step down from me. He had been with us a year and a half. A nice boy, but he could be replaced without much difficulty. “His father is doing poorly,” continued Francine, “and his mother needs him on the farm more than she needs the money we pay him. He’s going home next Saturday.” She cleared her throat delicately. “And we’ve found a place for Stanley with an acrobatic act. He’s always been so limber. He’ll do well there.”

  Oh, my God, she was breaking up the act! A sick, hollow feeling I hadn’t known in years settled in my stomach like a cold rock. She couldn’t be dumping me too? Surely they would keep me?

  “And me?” My voice cracked on the question. I cleared my throat to cover up my rising panic.