You Might As Well Die (14 page)

Dorothy sighed. “You’re not cutting the fee again, are you?”

Ross cleared his throat. “Well, how about this? What if you also write a book review, and I won’t lower the fee?”

“A story about MacGuffin and a now a book review—all for four hundred?” Dorothy said.

“You got it,” Ross nodded, taking this as her acceptance of his offer. “But you’ll love this book. It’s a memoir. Guess who just wrote it?”

“If you say Ernie MacGuffin, I’ll rip your nose off,” she said.

“Close, but no cigar. It’s by Midge MacGuffin. The book comes out on Friday.”

Dorothy’s eyes went wide. “What? I just had a visit with her yesterday, and she didn’t mention any memoir! Matter of fact, I had to drag her story out of her. And now she wrote a book?”

“Well, yes,” Ross stammered.

She railed on. “And it’s coming out on Friday? For Pete’s sake, Ernie killed himself hardly a week ago. How did she find the time to write it—
and
get a publisher?”

“Shucks,” Ross said. “I thought you’d be happy for her. You know, a fellow female writer.”

“Happy for her? She’s no writer. She—” Dorothy stopped. Midge
did
ghostwrite Ernie’s suicide note.

“What is it?” Benchley asked.

Dorothy also remembered that there was some other subject that Midge didn’t want to talk about. It must have been about her memoir, of course.

“Mrs. Parker, what is it?” Benchley asked again.

“Of all the crummy things,” Dorothy muttered and slumped in her chair. She had been pecking away on her typewriter for years now, and what did she have to show for it? The only one who had shown any interest in publishing her work was that British bastard Jasper Welsh, who offered only pennies—

Dorothy sat up. “Fred, what did Welsh say? He had something big?”

“Don’t call me Fred,” Benchley said. “But, yes, Welsh said he and Snath had a big deal coming up.”

“Damn!” Dorothy pounded her tiny fist on the table. “Midge is publishing with that Cockney snake in the grass.”

“That’s right,” Ross said. “Her book is coming from Waterloo Press. Welsh probably did make the deal.”

“How did Midge MacGuffin get mixed up with that slimy limey Welsh?” Benchley asked.

“Through Snath,” Dorothy said. “He’s Ernie’s agent. Maybe Welsh pitched it to Snath, and Snath talked Midge into it. I can’t imagine she’d come up with the idea herself. She’s no operator. She’s as green and as dense as an emerald.”

Ross was unfazed. “So, will you review it?”

“This whole thing stinks,” she said, ignoring him. “Maybe I will go ask Ernie all about it at the séance. What do I have to lose?”

“What time is the séance?” Sherwood asked.

“Midnight,” she said.

“Midnight on Halloween night?” Kaufman cried. “Have you lost your marbles?”

“It’s trick-or-treat,” she said. “We’ll find out how Viola does her trick, and revealing it will be a treat.”

Sherwood ran a finger around the rim of his coffee cup. “I thought you two were going to Houdini’s show tomorrow night.”

Dorothy said, “Houdini’s show will be over before the séance begins. Maybe we could even convince Houdini to join us for one of his famous debunkings.”

“Good idea,” Benchley said. “Houdini
is
the famous debunk king.”

Adams waved his cigar, creating a plume of smoke. “What about Snath’s big auction of MacGuffin’s works? You said you wanted to buy a painting at the auction and have it authenticated. Isn’t that tomorrow night as well?”

Dorothy frowned. Adams was right. She couldn’t be in two places at once. She’d have to forgo the auction and put aside the thought of exposing those paintings as forgeries. At least for now.

Sherwood shrugged. “I’d offer to go to the auction in your stead. But there’s a big Halloween party at Texas Gui-nan’s. And—”

“And what?” she demanded.

“And—well, you don’t have the money to buy a painting.”

Benchley turned to Dorothy. “Maybe we
could
borrow the money from Mickey Finn. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “That violent, volatile gangster wouldn’t hurt a soul. What’s the worst that could happen?”

M
ickey Finn laughed, “Not in a million years.”

Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley sat together in the love seat in the middle of Finn’s hideout. Outside, through the smoked-glass windows, a late October twilight descended. Inside, Dorothy was pleased that Lucy Goosey had reclaimed her usual house-cat seat on the wide arm of Finn’s armchair.

“We’re not asking for much,” Dorothy said, trying to sound convincing. She wasn’t sure how firmly she wanted to make her case. She wouldn’t beg Finn for the money. She certainly wouldn’t stick her neck out if he insisted on being a gangster about it. “Just enough to buy one painting. A few hundred dollars, at most.”

“Listen,” Finn said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “I like you brainy birds. I don’t have many society types come in here. And certainly not magazine writers—except a few nosybodies looking to sell a juicy story about me. But they get tossed out on their ear because I don’t want
any
stories written about me. I just want to be left alone to enjoy myself and take care of my business enterprises. I think you understand that.”

“No one has to know you lent us any money,” Dorothy said.

“I said, I like you,” Finn repeated, more sternly. “We’re old friends, right? As a rule, I don’t lend money to friends. It’s bad for business and bad for friendship. Bad things tend to happen to the people I lend money to. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my friends.”

Benchley took a different approach. “Don’t think of it as a loan. Think of it as an investment.”

Finn’s laugh was as sharp as a boxer’s jab. “I’ve heard that one before. They say, ‘Buy into this racehorse, Mr. Finn. He’s a guaranteed moneymaker. He can’t lose.’ They tell me, ‘It’s not a loan, Mr. Finn. A stake in this nightclub is a sure thing.’” Finn laughed. “Let me tell you, no business is a sure thing. There are no guarantees, other than the ones you ensure by force. And I don’t want to have to get into the kneecap-busting business with you. What kind of investment is that?”

Dorothy was almost insulted. Even a gangster didn’t want to get into business with her? “I’ve been told my kneecaps are just divine, thank you very much.”

Finn leaned forward. “Then let’s keep them that way and drop this whole thing.”

He leaned back in his chair and sucked on a large cigar, blowing smoke up at the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Dorothy saw Lucy look meaningfully at Benchley. What was that all about?

“You know, Mick,” Lucy whispered in his ear, “that crazy son of a bitch’s paintings are expected to sell for ten times their original asking price. Investors are going to make out like bandits.”

Dorothy knew Lucy was the only person Finn ever listened to.

“Ten times?” Finn stood up, moved slowly to the bar, grabbed a shot glass and a bottle of Irish whiskey, poured himself a neat snort and tossed it back. Lost in thought, he didn’t offer them a drink. “You know what tonight is?”

“Wednesday?” Benchley said.

He shook his head.

“Pinochle night?” Dorothy said.

“Wash night?” Benchley suggested.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?” Dorothy asked.

“No, no, and not even close.” Finn chuckled throatily. “It’s October thirtieth, Mischief Night.”

They waited silently for him to elaborate.

“When I was a lad in Belfast,” he continued, “we used to get up to all kinds of shenanigans on Mischief Night.”

“Do tell,” Dorothy said, sensing he had something rich to share.

“I remember one Mischief Night very clearly.” Finn sat down, a storyteller’s twinkle in his ice blue eyes. “I was nine. Me and some of the other lads went to an old graveyard to carry on and scare ourselves silly. I said, let’s dig up some old bones. Well, this notion frightened the bejesus out of the other boys. But I was full of hell. I didn’t care. Me and another lad, Tommy Connor, dug ’em up anyways. So we took these old bones, buried probably two hundred years, and we carried them to the house of Mrs. Parsons. Now, her husband, Mr. Parsons, was a tough, angry bastard, or so we thought at the time. If I were to meet him today, I suppose he might seem a decent and upright—if rather angry—sort of man. But there’s no chance I would meet him today, because at that time he had recently died. Mrs. Parsons had just buried the bastard the week before.”

What does this have to do with the price of MacGuffin’s paintings?
Dorothy wondered. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

Finn continued. “Anyhow, it was the kind of October night that ghost stories are made of. Fog. Drizzling rain. Wind howling like a banshee. The other boys had run on home. So now it was just me and Tommy Connor. We carried with us the bones of one arm and the skull. We peeked into the Widow Parsons’ sitting room window. She sat in a rocking chair, cuddling a crying baby. Now, Tommy Connor, he had a heart as hard and black as coal. He took true joy in the misery of others. Back then, I didn’t know any better, and he and I were thick as thieves. He wanted to scare Mrs. Parsons right then—and maybe we’d get to see one of her teats as she fed the baby. I said no, let’s wait for her to put the baby in the cradle.”

“How considerate of you,” Dorothy said dryly.

“I thought so at the time.” Finn shrugged. “Finally, the baby is done crying and feeding. Mrs. Parsons lays the baby in the cradle. That’s when we take the skull, see, and we take what’s left of the bones of the one arm, and we start tapping—gentle, oh so gentle—on the window, with the finger bones. Tommy is holding up the skull in front of the window, so when she opens the curtain—
Aaaah!
—there’s a skull staring at her with its black, dead eyes. Its hand is scraping at the window to get inside. That’s our plan, anyhow. So we hear her shuffle toward the window; then she draws back the curtain—and then—”

“Then what?” Dorothy said.

“Then nothing,” Finn said. “No scream of terror. No sound at all.”

“Could she even see the skull in the dark?” she asked.

“She saw it, all right.”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” Finn continued, “the next sound we hear is a terrific explosion. And the window blasts to pieces and the skull is suddenly gone. And gone, too, is Tommy’s hand, which had been holding it up.”

“His hand?” Dorothy asked.

“Shot clean off. With a shotgun. Almost point-blank range, from right inside the window. Mrs. Parsons must have taken it off the mantel and fired it the moment she saw that skull.”

“What did you do?” Benchley asked.

“Nothing at first. I’m staring at the stump at the end of Tommy’s arm. And I see him screaming, but no noise comes out of his mouth. I realize my ears are ringing—I was stone deaf from the shotgun blast. Then all of a sudden Mrs. Parsons is standing above us, lowering the barrels of the shotgun at us. Next thing I knew, I’m tearing hell down the lane. I left Tommy behind and I didn’t give a tin shit if he lived or died. I just wanted to save my own precious little arse.”

Finn took a long drag on his cigar.

“And then what?” Dorothy asked.

“Then nothing. The next morning, my uncle was leaving on the steamer for New York. I begged and pleaded that he take me with him. Been here ever since.”

“And your friend?” Benchley asked gingerly. “What happened to him?”

“He survived, I heard. But he wasn’t the same. Even more belligerent than before. Got himself into any fight that came his way. When there was no fight, he would start one. In another year or so, he got kicked in the head by a horse and died.”

Again Dorothy wondered what this had to do with an investment in a painting. “So?”

“So when I was a boy, I thought grumpy Mr. Parsons was an old man. But I’m about the same age as he was when he died. Funny how your point of view changes. One thing didn’t change. On that long, filthy voyage to America, I had a lot of time to think. I swore to myself that I’d never knowingly trick anyone ever again.” He held his arms wide, to encompass not only the clandestine brewery but also his citywide bootlegging empire. “And that’s been the secret of my success. I’m an honest man working hard in an honest business.”

“That was a tremendous story,” Dorothy said. “But you do realize you’re a ruthless gangster running an illegal racket.”

Finn shook his head. “It’s the law that’s wrong, not the business. Not me. I’m not like those undercover Prohibition agents. I don’t trick or swindle. I set reasonable market prices and I deliver quality products when I say I will. Play fair with me and I’ll play fair with you—that’s my slogan. You call it Mischief Night, but now it’s just another night for me.”

Dorothy sighed. “So I guess that’s a really, really, really long-winded Irish way of telling us no.”

“No,” said Finn. “It’s a really long-winded Irish way of telling you yes.”

“Yes?” Dorothy and Benchley said in unison.

“Aye, yes,” Finn said. “I don’t like the notion of this slick lawyer fellow swindling fools with a dead man’s reputation. You catch him in the lie. You write a big magazine article on it. You expose him as a fraud.” He held up a hand. “But first, you sell off the painting and you give me my tenfold profit. Does that sound like a fair deal?”

Dorothy considered this, though she wished she had a drink to think it through. “Buy a painting at auction? Show that it’s a fake? Sell it to some rich sucker at a big profit? And expose Snath in print? That’s our deal?”

Finn nodded seriously. “That’s our deal.”

Benchley was ready. “So, can you give us cash?”

Again Finn barked in laughter. “Ha, you think I keep my money here in a coffee can under the floorboards, like some petty criminal or little old lady?”

“If I had any money,” Dorothy said, “that would do for me.”