You Might As Well Die (21 page)

She strolled slowly up to MacGuffin, cranked back her arm and, with all her strength, punched him right in the eye.

“Ow!” MacGuffin shouted. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You rat bastard,” Dorothy said calmly. “That’s for giving me that stupid suicide note and making me feel like hell for the past week.”

“Jeez, first this guy clubs me with his cane. Now you sock me in the eye.” He rubbed his eye. “How long have you known?”

“Since about two seconds after your voice came out of that phony medium’s mouth,” she said. “I should have suspected it long before. But I never thought you had it in you to pull such a stunt. Didn’t it occur to you that suicide is very serious?”

MacGuffin looked dumbfounded. She could guess his thoughts.
Dorothy Parker, of all people, says suicide is too serious to joke about?
Even she had joked with him about it.

Houdini was shorter than MacGuffin, but he shook the painter by the collar like a puppet. “You rapscallion. You knave. You milksop.”

The skin around Ernie’s eye was swelling and turning from red to purple. She had really popped him one. She felt strangely gratified—and ashamed. So what if he deserved it? Punching MacGuffin was beneath her. It was like kicking a scrawny alley cat.

“That’s enough,” she told Houdini, who stopped shaking MacGuffin but didn’t let him go. “Would you care to explain yourself?”

MacGuffin nodded. “But first can I ask for your help?”

“My help? After what you’ve pulled?” Dorothy looked to Houdini. “Shake him some more. Shake some sense into him.”

Houdini shook him vigorously.

“Thank you, Bidder Q. That’s twenty-nine hundred. Do I have three thousand dollars?”

The audience grew quiet and tense with anticipation. This was the highest bid yet.

Benchley banged his hand on the bidding box one more time, more out of desperation than anger.

“Three thousand for Bidder N!” the auctioneer said. “Thank you, Bidder N.”

The auctioneer continued. “I shall now increase the bidding by increments of five hundred dollars. Do I have three thousand five hundred? Thirty-five hundred dollars for this exquisite, abstract rendition of the Brooklyn Bridge? The last sight that Ernest MacGuffin saw before his tragic death. Thirty-five hundred?” The auctioneer looked to the center of the audience but at no one specifically. “Thank you, Bidder Q. Thirty-five hundred dollars for Bidder Q. Do I have four thousand dollars?”

Lucy angrily shook the bidding box, which caused people nearby to raise their eyebrows and look askance at her. Benchley had given up. He leaned back lazily in his chair with his hands behind his head.

“Bidder N for four thousand dollars,” the auctioneer said, looking in their direction. “Thank you, Bidder N. Do I have forty-five hundred?”

Lucy let go of the bidding box. She rammed her elbow into Benchley’s ribs, which doubled him over. “Do something, damn it!”

Bent over, Benchley noticed a thick black wire coming from the bottom of the bidding box. The wire ran along the floor, where it met with other wires from other bidding boxes. Together, the wires ran under the seats and presumably toward the central switchboard on the stage.

“Bidder Q for forty-five hundred dollars. Thank you, Q. Do I have five thousand dollars? Five thousand? Allow me to inform you that this one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen painting was found at the scene of the artist’s suicide. So it commemorates both the life and the death of Ernest MacGuffin, now recognized as one of our modern-day masters.”

Benchley inspected the wire. It was coated in cloth and as thick around as a pencil. Did he have the strength to yank it out completely?

“Thank you, Bidder N. That’s five thousand dollars for Bidder N. Do I have five thousand five hundred?

Lucy hissed, “Do something. Hurry!”

Benchley pulled the wire out of the box. It was as easy as pulling a blade of grass from the ground.

“No?” the auctioneer said. “Fifty-five hundred? Final call for five thousand five hundred dollars. Going once. Going twice . . .”

Benchley folded his arms and looked up at the chandelier :
Oh, now you’re quiet.

The auctioneer banged his gavel. “Sold to Bidder N for five thousand dollars! That’s Bidder N.”

“That’s the bitter end, all right,” Benchley muttered to Lucy.

“Mickey’s going to have your head on a plate,” she said.

“For five thousand?” Benchley asked. “He’ll have my head, my feet, and everything in between.”

Then Benchley spied Snath in the shadows, down at the edge of the stage. The lawyer was looking heavenward, nearly floating with joy, an impossibly wide grin on his narrow face.

“ S
-stop, p-please,” MacGuffin said through clenched teeth, as Houdini continued to shake him like a rag doll.

“Okay, let’s hear him out,” Dorothy said.

Houdini stopped shaking him. MacGuffin eyed him carefully, then hesitantly began to speak. “I’m sorry I tricked you, Dottie.”

“You didn’t trick only me. You tricked the whole town. People would kill you for this—if you hadn’t already committed suicide.”

MacGuffin looked sorrowful.

“And that séance business,” Dorothy said. “What would make you do such a shameful thing?”

“It was her—Viola’s idea, not mine.”

There was something about the way he said her name.

“She’s your girlfriend,” Dorothy said. “Mistress Viola is not just
a
mistress, she’s
your
mistress. And she put you up to this hoax, didn’t she?”

MacGuffin nodded. “I didn’t want to do it. But I agreed in return for a piece of the money. And the notoriety. It was fun. At first.” He smiled a moment. But his smile faded at their hard stares.

“Then why did you give your suicide note to
me
?” Dorothy asked. “Why not give it to her?”

“To Viola? She’s an artist’s model. It wouldn’t look decent.”

“And letting her use you as a ghost to make a quick buck is decent?”

MacGuffin shrugged.

Dorothy asked, “Then why not give the note to your wife? She helped you write the damned thing—”

Then Dorothy figured it out and understood why the room had the scent of flowers. The sitting room upstairs, where Dorothy had sat last week with Midge, was full of them. “We’re in the basement of your house, aren’t we? So your wife is in on it. That’s why she showed no guilt when I asked her about helping you with your suicide note. She knew full well you weren’t dead.”

MacGuffin nodded. Then the words poured out of him. “Dottie, please. You have to help me. I’m in a tight spot. I’m at the end of my rope.”

“Which is it? You’re in a tight spot, or you’re at the end of your rope?”

“It’s both. I’ve dug myself in deep, and now I can’t get out.”

“Put yourself out on a limb, and you’ll also be fresh out of metaphors. Now explain yourself. Why did you fake your suicide?”

“It was a career move, pure and simple.”

“Faking suicide is neither pure nor simple,” she said tartly.

“So I’ve learned. But all the same, that’s why I did it. To make myself famous. To raise the price of my work.”

“I’ve heard of career suicide, but suicide to improve your career?”

“It’s not career suicide. It’s career success.” MacGuffin brightened with the thought of it. “The moment everyone thought I jumped off that bridge, my work was suddenly in demand, even more than I had hoped. Overnight, I went from middling success to celebrity sensation.”

She thought of the auction and the prices that Snath would be asking. “So this was all just for fame and fortune?”

“Exactly. And it worked—only too well.”

“Too well?” she asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He saddened again. “Look at me. I’m at the top of my career, the talk of the town, with a high-priced auction going on at Piddle Brothers. But I’m hiding out in back rooms and basements. To make it work, no one can know I’m alive. Then again, if I can’t enjoy the reward for my labor, it was all for nothing. The money and the accolades are pouring in, and I can’t enjoy a bit of it.”

“Slow down,” Dorothy said. “Start over.”

But MacGuffin didn’t start over. He babbled on. “It’s my agent and lawyer, Snath. He and my wife, and even Viola, they all have me over a barrel.”

“You mean they’re all in on it?”

“Not together, but individually, yeah.”

“They all know you’re still alive?”

“Yeah.”

“And whose idea was it to fake your death? Yours, or one of theirs?”

“Well, mine, I guess.”

“You guess? You don’t know?”

“I was on the phone with Snath one day. He had gotten me a job to paint some cowboy cover or something. But it was a rush job, and the fee—well, the fee was hardly enough to cover the costs of paint and canvas, much less my time. So I said, if he kept me at this pace, he was going to kill me. And, for a laugh, I said if I died in the middle of painting this job, then it might really be worth something, if only for the sheer novelty of it.”

“And that joke gave you the idea?”

“Sort of,” MacGuffin said with a shrug. “Snath called me back a few days later. He said he was researching what I said, and generally a painter’s worth increases immediately after he dies. The more successful the painter in life, the bigger the boost after death. I laughed and said, ‘So I’d be worth more dead than alive?’ And he agreed. And that’s how it all began.”

“So what’s the problem? You’re on easy street now. And if you’re dead, I guess it’s all tax free,” she said sourly. “Enjoy it to your shriveled, atrophied heart’s content.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t enjoy it,” MacGuffin moaned. “Snath hasn’t yet given me a dime. He has me working like a dog, churning out painting after painting, which he’s selling at auction. But I haven’t seen a red cent.”

Dorothy thought about Benchley at the auction at that very moment. And Lucy Goosey probably cuddled up next to him. Dorothy also angrily remembered Midge’s recent book deal, which Snath had undoubtedly brokered.

Irritably, she said, “And what about your wife? Is she conspiring with Snath?”

MacGuffin shrugged. “Sort of. Midge helped me with the suicide note, but that’s as involved as she wanted to be, she said. I promised her a piece of every painting sold after I, you know, died. And she agreed to that. But she said she didn’t want to have to lie to anyone. So she wants me to stay away.”

Dorothy thought of big, thick-necked Bert Clay and wondered if Midge had another reason for wanting Ernie to stay away. “So where are you staying?

“At Viola’s house. I use the alleys to go back and forth, so no one will see me.”

“And you’re still using this studio to paint all your posthumous paintings? Here, in your very own house, with Midge upstairs?”

Ernie automatically lowered his voice. “I come and go by the cellar door there. I keep quiet and do my work and don’t go upstairs. Midge simply pretends I’m not here.”

“And that arrangement works for you all?” Houdini asked.

MacGuffin looked at him sorrowfully. “No, that’s just it. It works for all of
them
, but it’s killing me.” He turned to Dorothy. “Please, you’ve got to help me, Dottie.”

“Oh no.” She held up a hand. “The last time you asked me that, you stuffed something that turned out to be ‘police evidence’ into my purse, and I got assigned to write a posthumous magazine tribute about you—and you’re not even dead. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Ernie. And right now, I just want to pretend you’re dead, too.” She turned to go.

“Dottie, please!”

She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone your secret—yet.”

Houdini loosened his grip. MacGuffin pulled free and ran in front of her. He stood before the door, blocking the exit. “Please, Dottie, you have to help me out of this mess. Please! I don’t have anyone else to turn to. Help a fellow out.”

“You made your bed, you lie in it. You’re pretty good at the lying part.” She tried to shove him out of the way, but she couldn’t move him.

She stepped back. “Okay, then, I’ll go upstairs and out through the front door. I’ll give Midge your regards on my way out.” She turned toward the basement stairs.

“No, no, don’t do that,” Ernie said quickly, moving away from the door. Dorothy turned around and grabbed the doorknob.

“Just one more thing,” Ernie said, clearly trying to stall her. He touched the eye that Dorothy had punched. It was dark purple now, and Dorothy couldn’t help but feel just a little sorry for him.

“What is it?” She took a cigarette out of her pocket.

“Can I—can I ask you just one question?”

She shrugged, grabbed a box of matches from the worktable and lit her cigarette.

“Can you tell me why,” he asked slowly, “you’re dressed like a newsboy?”