You Might As Well Die (23 page)

“What fact is that?”

Dorothy narrowed her eyes but continued with a smile on her face.
Would Midge
really
be so obstinate about this?
She tried a different approach. “The suicide note, the one you wrote for Ernie. It was a catalog of lies.”

“Lies?” Midge said, a hand on her chest. “That’s not true. Ernie meant every word we wrote.”

“Every word about him being misunderstood, perhaps,” Dorothy said. “But the part about him killing himself—that’s a whole different story.”

Midge’s pale face finally registered at least some sense of alarm. “What exactly do you mean?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” Dorothy said. “You lied. Ernie had no intention of killing himself. The whole thing was a fake. And you knew all about it when we talked last week. But you didn’t say a thing. Your husband, Ernie, is alive.”

Midge covered her mouth with her hand, trying hard to keep her composure and hide her alarm.

“Huh?” said a deep voice behind them.

Dorothy jumped at the voice. She and Benchley spun around in surprise.

Bert Clay, unshaven and in a tight white undershirt and baby blue boxer shorts, leaned halfway out of the hallway closet. He looked at Benchley in surprise. “Hey, you’re that friendly telegram messenger. What are you doing here?”

Before Benchley could answer, Clay’s expression turned menacing. He realized that Benchley was no friendly telegram messenger. Clay stepped out of the closet, all six foot two, 250 pounds of him.

“What are we doing here?” Benchley said, chuckling, backing away. “Why, we were just leaving. So nice to see you again.”

He tipped his hat to Clay and Midge. Then he grabbed Dorothy’s hand. They turned quickly, trotted down the steps and hurried away down the street.

T
he next morning—Saturday morning—Dorothy and Benchley were at their desks in the editorial office at
Vanity Fair
. They had agreed to meet Robert Sherwood there. The three of them were the only ones in the place—except for Crowninshield, who was in his office, evidently doing actual work. Rain drummed on the windows. They were leaning back, sipping hot black coffee and talking—for the dozenth time—about all that had transpired at the séance and at the auction house on Halloween night, and what had happened the previous morning with Midge MacGuffin.

“I didn’t even ask her about her rotten book,” Dorothy said. “How the hell did she get a book deal so fast, and get it printed even faster?”

As if to answer that question, Harold Ross came in the door. “So here you are!” He had a book in his hand. “How’s that story going on Ernie MacGuffin?”

“It was looking dead in the water for a while,” Dorothy said. “But we were just talking about how it’s come to life recently.” She pointed at the book. “What’s that you have there?”

“Glad you asked,” Ross said, handing it to her. “It’s Midge MacGuffin’s memoir. Came out yesterday. How soon can you review it?”

Dorothy looked at the slim volume, glancing at the title, reading it aloud. “
Silence Speaks Volumes.
That doesn’t quite apply to the author, does it?”

Ross shrugged. “The bookstores have ordered scads of them. They’re expecting it to sell like hotcakes. There’s talk that it will make it onto tomorrow’s bestseller list in the
New York Times
.”

Dorothy groaned hearing this. For the umpteenth time, she thought about how she had to struggle for weeks to write just one short poem, and here came blank-faced, empty-headed Midge MacGuffin about to break into the bestseller list with her slapdash memoir. Dorothy was reluctant, but also painfully curious, to look inside to see what dreck Midge must have written.

She opened the book. But the pages were blank.

“Ross, you dope,” she said. “You picked up a misprint. Didn’t you even look inside?”

She held up the book for all of them to see and flipped through its blank pages.

“That isn’t a misprint, damn it,” Ross growled, lighting a cigarette. “That’s the idea.”

“What’s the idea?” Dorothy wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“You don’t read it,” Ross said. “You look at it and you think things. Get it?”

Dorothy, Benchley and Sherwood looked at one another. They didn’t get it.

Ross reached out and took the book from Dorothy. He licked his forefinger and turned to one of the first pages. He read aloud. “‘
Silence Speaks Volumes
, by Midge MacGuffin.’” He turned to the next page and read in his gruff voice: “‘The pages of this book are as empty as my heart. I look at an empty page as though looking on an empty canvas, and wonder about the story that now won’t be told or the picture that won’t be painted. At other times, I recall the happy visions and dreams of yesteryear. I invite you to do the same, dear reader. Imagine what you long for. Think of thoughts of the future, and memories of the past, and envision your own story.’”

Dorothy jumped up and grabbed the book from Ross.

“That’s it?” She flipped through the blank white pages in disbelief. “One screwy paragraph and then a hundred empty pages? That’s her book?”

Ross nodded. “That’s her book. That’s how she got it printed so fast.”

“And you mean to tell me it’s going to be a bestseller?”

“Yup, it’s all the rage,” he said. “Folks are in love with the idea. It’s a book that doesn’t tell you what to think. It’s for people who want to do the thinking themselves.”

“It’s for people who don’t do
any
thinking themselves!” She dropped back into her chair. “Only an idiot would buy this book.”

Ross was unconvinced. “Yet a whole lot of people will, and I’m sure they’ll get a lot out of it.”

“Get a lot out if it? There’s nothing in it!”

Ross exhaled smoke. “So, how soon can you review it?”

“Review it?” Dorothy almost screamed. “How am I supposed to review a blank book?”

“You’ll think of something clever, Dottie,” Ross said reassuringly. “That’s what you always do.”

“This will be the first-ever book review that’s longer than the book!” she said.

Editor in Chief Frank Crowninshield opened his office door and leaned out his old head. “Mrs. Parker, what’s all that ruckus?” Then he spotted Ross. “Harold Ross, you’ve got some nerve coming in here. Are you trying to poach my editors again for your little
New Yorkers
magazine?”

Ross stood straighter. “It’s
The New Yorker
, Frank. And I’m not poaching anyone.”

Still leaning back in his chair, Benchley said, “He’s not poaching me, but he’s got me scrambled.”

Dorothy was simmering, looking at Midge’s book in her hands. “He’s got me fried.”

“Glad you didn’t say ‘over easy,’” Benchley said to her.

Crowninshield gave Harold Ross his most severe patrician glare. “Ross, please remove yourself from these premises at once.”

Ross glanced at the book in Dorothy’s hand and exchanged looks with her. “Okeydoke. I was just removing myself anyhow.”

Benchley sprang into action, jumping toward Ross. “Attaboy, on with your hat. There you are. Now go. Go on—you heard what the boss said.” He nearly shoved Ross out the door and closed it quickly.

Crowninshield looked at Benchley approvingly and seemed to recall something from deep in his memory. “Benchley, didn’t we have an appointment first thing yesterday? Where were you?”

“I was working hard on that Houdini review, you lovable old goat.” Benchley smiled.

“But I saw you at the art auction,” Crowninshield said slowly, his silver mustache twitching. “You didn’t even attend the Houdini show the other night.”

“I’d never let a little thing like absence stop me from writing a review.”

“Or abstinence, for that matter,” Dorothy said, thinking of Benchley’s hands between Lucy’s legs. She would certainly have to ask him more about that.

Crowninshield closed his eyes, shook his head with a sigh and retreated back into his office, shutting his door.

“I guess I’m not fired,” Benchley said, smiling, once again leaning back in his chair. “Thanks to Ross, I got a reprieve.”

Dorothy dropped the book on her desk. “And thanks to Ross, I gotta review.”

The phone rang. Dorothy picked it up.

“Hello, my lass,” Mickey Finn’s voice said on the other end of the line. His voice was smooth, low and somehow extremely menacing. “Is your dear friend Robert Benchley there? I need to see you both. Right now.”

Dorothy was about to make an excuse when Finn added, “Be on the sidewalk in five minutes. And bring the painting. I want to be there when you have it authenticated.”

Finn hung up and Dorothy stared at the receiver. Then she looked at Benchley. “Your reprieve is over. Mickey Finn wants to have a little art-to-art talk.”

D
orothy spent the next few minutes frantically trying to reach Neysa McMein to ask her for the name of an art expert. “One who’ll say the painting is worth a mint,” Dorothy told Neysa on the phone.

Neysa gave her a name, and Dorothy scribbled it down. Then she told Sherwood to call the police if she and Benchley didn’t come back by lunchtime. She was only half joking.

The next minute, she and Benchley stood on the West Forty-fourth Street sidewalk in front of the Condé Nast Building, waiting for Mickey Finn as though waiting to take the short walk to the electric chair.

So it was almost a nice diversion to see Mrs. Soma and Tony Jr. stroll down the sidewalk.

“You!” Mrs. Soma’s tired eyes narrowed when she spotted them. She pointed a stubby finger at Dorothy. “You are a devil woman, Mrs. Parker!”

“Funny,” Dorothy said. “That’s what Mr. Parker used to say.”

“You told me you’d meet us at the bank to pay off your debt. But you never showed up,” Mrs. Soma seethed. “You tricked us. You lied!”

“Hmm,” Benchley said. Dorothy turned and saw he had a very self-satisfied look on his face.

“What was that noise?” she asked.

“I just realized something quite ironic.”

“And what is that?”

He tipped back his hat and chuckled. “Don’t you see? You tricked Mrs. Soma, and then this morning you were so angry at Midge MacGuffin for tricking and lying to you. See? It’s funny. And ironic, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Soma snapped, “I don’t think it’s funny.”

“Nor is it ironic, Mr. Benchley,” Dorothy said airily. “Irony is when you buy stock in a company that makes pianos, and then a piano falls out of a window and crushes you to death—which is what I’m wishing for right now.”

Mickey Finn’s long white limousine cruised to a stop in front of them. The smoked-glass window rolled down.

“Get in,” Mickey said.

Dorothy turned back to Mrs. Soma. “Our chariot awaits.”

“You—!” Mrs. Soma sputtered.

Dorothy held up a hand. “We will get you the money—one of these days. There’s no need to upset yourself.”

Mrs. Soma ignored this. “I told every speakeasy owner in this town to keep you out. You’re blackballed—do you hear me? I don’t even care if you’re friends with our liquor supplier.” She jabbed her finger at Mickey Finn this time. “You’re still blackballed in this town.”

“Go home to your husband,” Mickey Finn said to Mrs. Soma.

Dorothy looked at Tony Jr. “And you, stay out of those back alleys at night. You never know who you’ll run into.” She winked.

Tony Jr.’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as he figured out what she was saying.

Dorothy and Benchley climbed into the limousine. Dorothy watched Mrs. Soma swing her fist at Tony Jr. and yell, “What is she talking about? What are you doing in back alleys at night? Answer your mother!”

Tony Jr. covered his head with his arms in self-defense. Dorothy couldn’t hear his response—if indeed he answered his mother at all.

The limo pulled away into traffic. In the backseat, Dorothy and Benchley turned to Mickey Finn. His ginger red hair seemed redder than usual. His ruddy face seemed redder, too. But his ice blue eyes were as cool as ever. Even cooler, perhaps.

“You two are getting in trouble all over town, aren’t you?” he said with a grimace that showed his yellow teeth.

“It’s nothing but child’s play,” Dorothy said. “We’ll sort it out. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” he said with a laugh, but his face wasn’t smiling. “Not worried at all. I always get a return on my investments.” He nodded to the flat, brown-wrapped parcel leaning against Benchley’s knees. “Is that the painting?”

“Yes—” Benchley began. He unwrapped it and showed it to Finn.

“This is the painting you paid five thousand bucks for?”

“Y—” Benchley began again.

“Five thousand when you only asked me for, and I quote,
a few hundred
?”

“Y-yes.”

“And how much do you owe Tony Soma?”

Benchley mumbled something.

Finn leaned forward. “Speak up, my lad. I didn’t hear what you said.”

“A few hundred,” Dorothy said, repeating Benchley’s mumbled words.

Finn leaned back in his seat and nodded. “Aye, you told
me
you only needed a few hundred and my investment would increase tenfold.”

Dorothy frowned. They hadn’t said that. Lucy was the one who said it.

Finn continued. “As I may have mentioned, I didn’t get much formal education, so I never learned my multiplication tables very well. Tell me, what’s ten times five thousand ?”

Benchley gulped. “Fifty thousand.”

Finn’s blue eyes went wide in mock surprise. “Fifty thousand! Now, that’s quite a payoff, ain’t it? That’ll be a tidy profit when we sell it—
if
we sell it.” Finn’s mouth was tight. His hands gripped the silver-tipped shillelagh lying across his knees.

Neither Dorothy nor Benchley answered. They knew Finn didn’t really want a response.