Murder Your Darlings (9 page)

Should she duck into one of the big theaters? If so, which one? The Rialto? The Bijou? The Lyric? The Gaiety? Or should she sneak into one of the small burlesque revues?

Should she run into that all-night Automat? Or up those stairs to a smoky pool hall? At the next doorway, a huckster tempted tourists into a dance hall where men paid a dime per dance to women with tight dresses and loose morals. Over there was a corner cigar store she’d accompanied Benchley into a few times. Or she could scurry into that soda fountain and hide behind the magazine racks.

She was paralyzed with so many ways to turn—and none offered any guarantee of safety.

Then, above the din of traffic, she heard the whinny of a horse. An open carriage stood in front of the Hotel Astor. A happy-looking young couple was climbing in.

Dorothy darted toward them. She sized up the young couple quickly: honeymooning out-of-towners, probably midwesterners, in New York for the first time.

She hurried toward the carriage and climbed up after them. She plopped down and found herself sitting next to the startled husband. On his other side, the young bride looked surprised but not alarmed.

“Welcome,” Dorothy said brightly. “I’m from the Manhattan Tourist Bureau. First time in New York?”

“Y-yes,” stammered the young woman happily. The young man was too taken aback to answer.

On the high bench seat in front, the driver, in a top hat and velvet cape, looked back at them.

“Let’s be off, my good man,” Dorothy said.

He turned around indifferently and snapped the reins. The old horse heaved forward and the carriage moved into traffic.

“Just married?” Dorothy said.

The young woman nodded eagerly. She smiled from ear to ear and squeezed the young man’s arm. “My better half! I can’t let him go for a moment.”

There was a sudden jolt and the carriage stopped abruptly. Dorothy looked down and saw the man with the scar standing angrily beside the carriage.

“Get out now!” he snarled at her.

Dorothy turned to the young woman. “That’s my lesser half. He won’t let
me
go for a moment.”

The woman looked shocked. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Out. Now!” The man reached into the pocket of his long coat.

The driver cracked his whip. “Begone, you!”

The man with the scar jerked away. His hand flew to his cheek and he staggered backward.

The crack of the whip goaded the horse. The carriage jolted forward and moved at a brisk trot.

Smiling, Dorothy turned back to the young bride as though nothing had happened. “On your honeymoon?”

“Oh, yes.” The woman nodded eagerly. “We’re so happy.”

“Ah, marriage,” Dorothy said, easing herself back in her seat. “What a wonderful institution.”

“Isn’t it?” the young woman agreed.

“Certainly,” Dorothy said drily, “if you want to be institutionalized.”

Chapter 9

Inside Tony Soma’s speakeasy, Dorothy elbowed through the crowd and finally stood at the bar. The chase through Times Square had frazzled her nerves. She caught the eye of Carlos, the bartender.

“What are you having, Mrs. Parker?”

“Not much fun.”

“The usual, then?”

She nodded. Carlos turned to the rows of bottles behind the bar, selected the three-sided bottle of Haig & Haig scotch, and deftly poured two fingers into a teacup. She held up three fingers and Carlos poured a little bit more.

He handed her the drink with a kindly nod. She cupped it in her hands as if it was warm and took a long sip.

“Ah, now, that’s a nice, strong cup of tea,” she said to herself.

She looked over the rim of her teacup and surveyed the familiar speakeasy. The room was narrow, with the bar on the left side and several booths on the right. It had once been the large front room of the brownstone. For a living room, it would have been large. But as a bar, the room was small. And it was jammed with drinkers and clogged with smoke. She hadn’t seen either Benchley or Faulkner, but then, her short stature had her at a disadvantage. After another warming sip, she ventured forward again, cautiously navigating her way through the booze-swilling crowd.

Revelers of all kinds peopled the room. Glamorous showgirls and society matrons mingled cheek by jowl with bespectacled professors and slick politicos. To one side, a newly famous baseball player chatted with a grande dame of the social register. To the other side, a long-legged, loosely dressed flapper debated with a long-bearded rabbi. All clutched delicate teacups or stout coffee mugs of their favorite top-shelf liquor—sipping, swigging and gulping them down.

She overheard a familiar woman’s voice and turned to see an acquaintance, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, talking animatedly to a powerfully built man. She had wavy, auburn hair, a pale, elliptical face, and wintry green eyes that were locked on the man’s face. He had a thick shock of dark hair and wore an immaculate white wool overcoat. He had a face as square and hard as a block of ice, but he looked around, as though searching for a means of escape.

“Please don’t be coy,” Millay said, her green eyes flashing. “Tell me what it’s like to pummel another man. I’m disgusted and thrilled by the very idea. Is there a lot of blood?”

“Nope, it’s not like that at all,” the man said, still looking about evasively. “It’s not like I go in there and club the guy to death. Those days of boxing are history.”

“But you’re notorious for knockouts in the first round,” Millay said, her eyes traveling over the man’s broad shoulders. “You must be terribly strong.”

“You got it all wrong,” the man groused. “It’s a thinking man’s sport. It’s a science. You prepare and you practice and you prepare some more. Then when you get in front of the crowd, it looks effortless. But it ain’t.”

Millay laughed at him. “A
thinking man’s s
port? A
science
? I know a lot of thinking men and a few scientists, and they’re nothing like
you
.” She grabbed his arm, nearly spilling his drink. “Now, stop all this folderol and tell me about how you destroyed Georges Carpentier, the pride of France.”

The man—Dorothy now recognized him as the heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey—recoiled from the woman’s grasp. Still, Millay, almost drooling, continued to pepper him with questions. Dorothy couldn’t help herself. She had to rescue the poor man.

“Well, hello,” she said, stepping between them. “If it isn’t the Poet of Greenwich Village! What are you doing up here,
Edna
?”

She knew that Edna St. Vincent Millay demanded everyone call her Vincent.

“Oh, hello,
Mrs. Parker
,” Millay said, eyeing her suspiciously. “Mr. Dempsey and I were just having a cozy chat. You don’t look so well, Mrs. Parker. And you seem to be missing your right hand.”

“My right hand?”

“Mr. Benchley, of course,” Millay trilled haughtily.

“Of course.” She eyed Millay’s hand on Dempsey’s arm. “But then again, it’s best not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, don’t you find?”

Millay frowned and released her grip on Dempsey.

Dorothy continued, “I don’t mean to disturb you two, but Horace Liveright just arrived. He’s your publisher, isn’t he, Edna? He said he was looking for you. Something about you owing him a manuscript in return for a large advance.”

Millay looked as if a millipede had just crawled up her back. This information was well-known in the publishing community.

Dorothy spoke conspiratorially. “This place has a back door, if you want to give Liveright the slip. Mum’s the word.”

Millay nodded. With a longing look at Dempsey, she sneaked away.

Dempsey visibly relaxed. “Whew, that gal was tougher to shake than Billy Miske.”

“Oh, she’s just busy burning her candle at both ends. I take it she was bending your cauliflower ear?”

“You could say that. Is that Liveright guy really here?”

“I sure hope not. The only better way to kill the party would be a police raid.”

Dempsey smiled. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

She told him her name, extending her hand.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of you.” His palms were rough, but his handshake was surprisingly gentle. “The newspapers print the funny things you say. How does that one line go? ‘Men seldom make passes at girls—’”

“With fat asses?”
Oh, brother,
she thought. She worked for months on perfecting a single poem or short story, but all anyone seemed to know was that stupid, off-the-cuff rhyme that took her all of four seconds to compose. Oh, well, at least this palooka knew who she was.

“‘Who wear glasses.’” His smile dimpled his rugged face. “They say you have a wit sharper than a serpent’s tooth, or something like that. I guess they’re right.”

“No, no. That’s not me at all. Well, not tonight anyhow. My poison found an antidote.”

“Well, you got rid of that goony poet lady for me. That’s something. I owe you one.”

“Forget about it. I’m forever rescuing puppies and pugilists. All in a night’s work. And any other night, I’d be lining up right behind her to throw myself at you.”

“Maybe some other night, then.” He smiled and handed her a small card. “I gotta shake a leg, but here’s my telephone number. I owe you one for getting rid of that gasbag. You ever need a favor, or anything”—he gave her a meaningful wink—“you just give me a call, okay? Bring your glasses.”

Before she could reply, he had turned away, weaving through the crowd toward the door.

She mumbled sorrowfully to herself, “There goes another one. He’ll probably be kissing the canvas before ever kissing me.”

She took a long pull from her teacup and emptied it. She began to thread her way back toward the bar, now keeping a sharper eye out for Faulkner and Benchley. Despite the scotch, she was growing anxious. Faulkner should have arrived by now.

Then she felt a familiar tug on her sleeve.

“There you are,” she said, expecting to see young Faulkner. But she found she was facing Benchley. “Oh, Fred, it’s just you.”

His smile withered. “Weren’t you expecting me?”

“Of course I was. But I’m worried about Billy.”

Benchley’s merry eyes now grew concerned. “But isn’t he with you?”

She felt a pang of guilt, remembering that Benchley had told them to leave the theater among the safety of the crowd. “Billy was right. There really is someone following him. A big, mean thug.”

“What?”

“Billy and I separated in Times Square and I got the man to follow me instead of Billy. At least, I thought I did. But Billy hasn’t appeared yet.”

Benchley scratched his head. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Billy seems to be a clever and resourceful young man, probably not nearly as helpless as he appears.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself, too. But somehow I have a hard time believing it.”

Benchley looked thoughtful. “However ... if there really is a man following him, that changes everything.”

“How do you mean, that changes everything?”

Benchley looked into her empty teacup. “Let’s get some drinks first, Mrs. Parker. Then we’ll talk. Maybe Faulkner will show up in the meanwhile and all will be fine.”

He guided her to the bar, where Carlos refilled her cup with scotch and gave Benchley a whiskey sour in a coffee mug.

“Come on.” Benchley drew her to a less crowded corner of the room. “Let’s talk over here.”

They clinked cups. “God bless Tony’s,” Benchley said. And they drank. She felt the warmth of the scotch as before, but it did nothing to soothe her.

She said, “What did you mean just now?
What
changes everything?”

“The man following Faulkner. I suppose I really hadn’t thought it through before.”

“Didn’t you believe Billy when he told you he saw such a man?”

“I believed that
he
believed it. But whether that man is the one who murdered Mayflower, I wasn’t so sure.”

“So how does that change anything?”

“Well, don’t you see?” he said, smiling. “If there really was some gangster at the Algonquin this morning, and he was the one who killed Mayflower, then that proves the murderer isn’t someone from inside the Vicious Circle!”

She looked shocked. “Has there ever been a doubt about that?”

“That’s not what Bud Battersby and the
Knickerbocker News
would have the city believe.” He pulled the rumpled newspaper from the deep pocket of his overcoat. “Look, these articles make it seem as if each member of our Round Table is a suspect, without a mention of anybody else. So, you see, if this threatening man was actually following Billy and even chasing him, we know that this fellow wasn’t just some random suspicious character in the lobby this morning. If this man has a reason to hunt Billy down, then it means this man must indeed be the killer.”

Her shoulders sagged. “But how does that change
anything
? It’s the same thing that Aleck Woollcott said, that someone from outside our group murdered Mayflower. Only the murderer mistook Mayflower for one of us, or Mayflower somehow got in the way.”

“Well, yes ...,” he said weakly.

“That still leaves the rest of us in danger. And now Billy is in even greater danger, because this man clearly realizes that Billy noticed him this morning and can identify him. That’s why the man is following him. To make quite sure—dead sure—that Billy won’t identify him.”

She could almost see Benchley’s spirit sinking. He gulped his drink, saying, “And we thought we were protecting Billy by keeping the police from questioning him. If Billy had described the man to Detective Orangutan, the police would have had something to go on—a means to finding the murderer. But now if this man catches Billy—”

“You mean if this man
kills
Billy?”

“Then,” he continued, rattled, “there won’t be anyone alive who can identify the man.”