Free Cover-Up Story by Marian Babson

it! ’ Sam held up his hand, eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Just think it over for a minute. There’s always a shortage of good female comics.’
    â€˜ Good is the word.’ But I didn’t say it too loudly. Something about Sam’s attitude was beginning to proclaim ‘vested interest’, even to my uncritical eyes.
    â€˜Good,’ he repeated, on firmer ground. These things go in cycles. We feel the public may be tired of pretty girls standing up and snarling protest songs at them. There’s room for a comedienne who can also sing ballads and tearjerkers. There hasn’t been one since Judy Canova – and look how big she was.’
    â€˜I remember,’ I said, treading cautiously. ‘But I don’t think Lou-Ann is quite –’
    â€˜And look at Dorothy Shay – the Park Avenue Hillbilly,’ Sam went on enthusiastically. ‘You get some fast patter and some sophisticated material and –’
    â€˜Now, I know Lou-Ann isn’t Park Avenue Hillbilly material,’ I said firmly. ‘Hillbilly, yes. Park Avenue, no.’
    â€˜Okay, so the kid needs a little more polish, a little more class. But then, there’s nowhere she can’t go –’ He broke off. Nothing I had said had been able to get through to him, but now something from the back of his own mind stopped him. He deflated like a punctured tyre.
    â€˜Nowhere she couldn’t have gone,’ he corrected.
    Here it came. He slumped in his chair, staring into space, his head turning from side to side in agonizing, unbelieving negation.
    â€˜Then the whole thing blew up,’ he said. ‘Right in our faces. After we had their names on the contract, but before we had time to start the star build-up.’
    â€˜Bart?’ I asked.
    â€˜Bart,’ he agreed grimly. ‘We’d been planning to phase him out of the act. You know the routine. A little less to do every few shows, then part of the background, then – pfft. He quietly disappears. And, all the while, Lou-Ann would have been coming to the fore, getting known, taking over the show.’
    â€˜But it didn’t work out that way.’
    â€˜He got hold of the ‘Homesteader’ song. They cut the disc. Nobody realized it was going to be that big a hit. Now, he’s dead centre in the Public Eye, and we’re stuck with him.’ Sam got to his feet wearily, as though the effort of finally telling me the story had drained his last reserves of strength.
    â€˜Did Bart know what you’d planned?’
    â€˜Hell, no. We were keeping it Top Secret – Agency level only.’ Sam began moving towards the door slowly. ‘You want to know something funny?’ He bared his teeth in a brief, mirthless grimace.
    â€˜Now, Bart wants us to get rid of Lou-Ann. Phase her out of the act, and just leave him and the boys. More appeal to the public, he says. His female fans.’
    â€˜Well, why not?’ I couldn’t see why Sam was making such a grand tragedy production of it. ‘It seems like the perfect answer. You just split up the act. And then you have two star acts. Perhaps even, two big television shows.’ I should have known that, if the answer were that easy, Sam would have thought of it.
    â€˜It doesn’t quite work that way.’ He paused at the door and turned back to me. ‘Nothing in life is ever that simple. You see, Lou-Ann is married to him. Not only that, but she’s still so crazy, out-of-her-skull nuts about the bastard that what he says goes! ’
    I spent the rest of the afternoon in a fool’s paradise, thinking that Sam had finally confided in me. I knew the worst – and it had nothing to do with Perkins & Tate. It was the Agency’s problem.
    After cleaning up a few jobs for remaining clients, and finishing the photo call, I went over and opened the window, and leaning against the window frame, looked down at the Thames. I even