You Might As Well Die (32 page)

Clay unzipped the case and thumbed through the money. Satisfied, he closed it up again and stuffed it in his jacket. Without a second look, he turned away from Snath and strolled back into the building.

Snath lay on the ground, moaning.

Dorothy, Benchley and Houdini hurried to him. They reached down to lift him up. But Snath’s eyes went wide when he saw them. He flung up his arms protectively and even kicked out his smoking feet. “Get away, you vultures !”

His left leg caught Houdini by surprise, jabbing him in the side like a kidney punch. Houdini doubled over and stumbled backward, about to back into the fire. Realizing this, Houdini contorted himself, pulling his knees up and falling onto his side. He landed hard, just a foot from the flames, making a pathetic yelp.

Dorothy turned away from Snath and was at Houdini’s side in a flash. “Are you hurt?”

Houdini nodded; his eyes were like slits. His face had gone ashen. “My arm. It may be broken.”

Dorothy helped him to his feet.

Meanwhile, Benchley attempted to calm down Snath. “We’re not robbers or thieves, Mr. Snath! We’re here to help you.” He spoke over his shoulder to Dorothy. “I think we should call for an ambulance, Mrs. Parker.”

“I fully agree, Mr. Benchley.”

She helped Houdini hobble to the doorway and stood him against the jamb.

“I’ll be fine in a moment,” he insisted, though his voice was weak. “I’ve nearly died several times. I dislocated my shoulder on countless occasions. That straitjacket escape was ruinous to my body, but I happily performed it twice a night.”

The show must go on,
Dorothy thought. She left him leaning somewhat unsteadily in the doorway and ran inside to find a telephone. She hoped she wouldn’t also find Bert Clay still hanging around.

The first phone she found was upstairs in the reception room in front of Snath’s office. It was an old wall-mounted crank-winding phone. No wonder Snath couldn’t keep a secretary, the cheap bastard. She turned the crank, tapped the switch hook and soon had the operator on the line.

Moments later she was back in the alley. Houdini was looking better. His color had improved from gray to sallow pink. Benchley was huddled over Snath, who still lay on the ground. Benchley had removed Snath’s shoes.

“How’re his feet?” she asked.

“Odorous,” Benchley said. “But they won’t require amputation, I don’t think.”

“Amputation?”
Snath cried. He was sweating, but it appeared to Dorothy to be a sickly, cold sweat.

Soon, the ambulance arrived at the end of the alley. Two orderlies with a wooden stretcher came hurrying forward.

Behind the ambulance, a long white limousine cruised to a stop.

“Fred, look!” Dorothy said. “Is that Mickey Finn come to find us?”

“Come to
fine
us, I think,” Benchley said.

“Finn the bootlegger?” Houdini said. “He struck me as a hot-tempered sort of fellow.”

“He’s not the forgiving sort,” Dorothy said. “Especially when it comes to debts.”

Benchley turned back to Snath. “We have to run.” He held up Snath’s blackened shoes so the lawyer could see them. “Mind if I borrow these?”

V
iola’s mother folded her big, flabby arms over her broad chest. In one hand, she held a brown paper sack. “I’m here to see my daughter, too. But not the same way you’re here to see her.” She narrowed her eyes at Sherwood, Woollcott and Harpo. “And I see you’ve brought some low-life pervert friends.”

“Madame, withdraw that imputation,” Woollcott said haughtily, holding up his croquet mallet like a walking stick. “Perverts? Perhaps. Lowlifes? Never!”

Sherwood glanced again over his shoulder. The musicians were only a few paces behind them now.

Harpo didn’t say a word. He simply snatched the paper bag from the woman’s chubby hand.

“Give that back!” she cried, reaching toward Harpo. “That’s my daughter’s lunch.”

Harpo easily ducked under her swinging arm and darted past her into the theater lobby. She turned and lumbered after him. Sherwood and Woollcott quickly followed. As soon as she was out of the doorway, they circled around her and caught up to Harpo.

She couldn’t move as fast as they, but she pursued them like a charging rhino. Harpo held out the bag, taunting her.

“Enough of that,” Sherwood said. “Time to go.” He pulled Harpo by the back of his sweater and grabbed Woollcott by the elbow, steering them out of the theater’s front doors.

They hurried along the sidewalk. Their only destination in mind was to get away. As they rounded the corner, Sherwood took a glance behind. Viola’s mother doggedly followed them, her fists pumping, her dress swaying as she ran. They may have been faster, but she had the single-minded determination of a bloodhound. At least the musicians had stayed behind at the theater.

Harpo slowed as they neared the iron stairway leading up to the elevated train station.

“Come on,” he said, a wide grin on his puckish face. “Let’s take the El. We’ll lose her.”

They clambered up the stairs. But the station platform was empty. No trains were departing or arriving. They paced back and forth a moment, not yet sure what to do. Sherwood stepped on something that crunched. He looked down. It was a peanut. Just then, they heard the woman’s footsteps clanging heavily up the stairs.

“Ah, nuts!” Sherwood said.

“Yes, she’s coming,” Woollcott said.

“No,
nuts
,” Sherwood repeated. “I have a bag of peanuts in my jacket pocket. They’ve been falling out. I’ve been leaving behind a trail of peanuts like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of bread crumbs.”

“And here comes the wicked witch of the forest!” Harpo said.

Sherwood silently cursed himself. He was supposed to be unobtrusively following Viola. Instead, Viola’s mother—a potential murderer—was the one following him. He did not think this was what Mrs. Parker had in mind when she assigned him to this task.

The woman appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Fun and games are over, Harpo,” Woollcott huffed, his face flushed from running. “Just give her back the lunch bag.”

“No, don’t.” Sherwood had an idea. “Keep the lunch. Now I
want
her to follow us. Come on!”

He reached in his pocket for change. Somehow they had to get around the woman and back down the stairs. He handed a nickel each to Harpo and Woollcott and had one for himself.

He rushed toward the turnstile and dropped in his nickel. Harpo and Woollcott quickly followed. Now that they were on the other side of the gate, they passed by Viola’s mother, who stared at them in anger. They exited through a different set of turnstiles and found themselves near the top of the stairs. They hurried down to the sidewalk. The woman’s heavy footsteps again clanged behind them as she, too, descended the stairway.

When they reached the sidewalk, Sherwood directed them south. He began dropping peanuts as they went.

“Why in heaven’s name,” wheezed Woollcott, “do you want her to follow us?”

“I think this woman killed Ernie MacGuffin,” Sherwood said. “We need to lead her to Dottie.”

Just then, an ambulance sped past them in the street, its siren wailing. And who, of all people, did Sherwood see in the back window?

“Bless my stars!” he said. “There goes Dottie now.”

I
nside the crowded ambulance, Dorothy thanked the orderlies for giving them a ride. They didn’t look at her as they responded. “Anything for Mr. Houdini,” one said.

The magician smiled. “It’s just Houdini, boys. Everyone calls me Houdini.”

A little adulation and he’s right as rain,
Dorothy thought.

In the center, Snath lay on the stretcher. He, too, seemed to be returning to his typical ill-tempered self. Crowded around him were Dorothy, Benchley, Houdini and the two orderlies.

“I reiterate,” Snath said, “I have changed my mind. I do not need to go to the hospital.”

The orderlies ignored him. One of them just finished putting Houdini’s arm in a sling.

“Tell us, Mr.—I mean, Houdini,” the orderly said. “Can you still perform a trick with a sprained wrist?”

“Well, boys”—Houdini’s smile faded—“I’m afraid that would be impossible for any magician.”

“Awww,” the orderlies said in unison.

Then Houdini smiled even wider than before, his eyes alight. “But I’m not just any magician. And the impossible is my stock-in-trade!”

The orderlies actually cheered. Dorothy shook her head.

With his good arm, Houdini reached in his pocket for a deck of cards. But the ambulance slowed and came to a stop before he barely had a chance to show the orderlies that he could shuffle with one hand.

“Show’s over,” Dorothy said. “We’re here.”

“I tell you again,” Snath cried. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“This is our stop,” Dorothy said. “Not yours.”

She pushed open the ambulance’s back door and hopped out. A shoe-shine stand, which she’d never noticed before, blocked her view of Midge MacGuffin’s house. Benchley got out and stood beside her.

“Where did this shoe-shine stand come from?” she asked.

“Now, that’s another funny story—” he said.

“Shh,”
Dorothy hissed, pointing ahead. “There he goes.”

They inched forward and peered around the shoe-shine stand. Just on the other side, Bert Clay strolled down the sidewalk. Now they could see that he was headed toward Midge MacGuffin’s house.

Clay moved quickly, but there was a spring in his step, a cheerful jauntiness in his stride. His hat was tipped back ever so slightly, as if to catch a few extra rays of hazy autumn sunshine.

The moment he reached the steps, the door opened and Midge appeared. Clay stopped at the bottom step, reached in his jacket and pulled out the leather money case he had taken from Snath. He held it up triumphantly. Midge raced down the steps and into Clay’s arms.

“Now what do you think they’re up to?” Dorothy muttered, looking at Benchley. He shook his head.

After their embrace, Midge and Clay skipped up the steps and into the house. The door remained open.

“What’s going on back here?” said a familiar scratchy voice. Then Rudy appeared from around the front of the shoe-shine stand. His face fell when he saw Benchley. “Oh no, it’s you again.”

Looking past Rudy, they saw Midge and Clay reappear at the door. Midge wore a bright green coat and Clay now had two suitcases—a green one to match Midge’s coat and his own shiny new one. Bert Clay looked up, the ambulance apparently now catching his eye.

Benchley pulled Dorothy away, flattening them both against the back of the shoe-shine stand. He had his hand on her arm. How comforting that felt! She was tempted to entwine her fingers in his.

But then Rudy spoke. “What are you two up to?”

“We’re wondering the same thing—but about them,” Benchley whispered, with a nod of his head toward the house.

Rudy turned and looked.

Benchley said, “What are they doing?”

“The woman is closing the door, locking it,” Rudy reported. “Man is picking up the bags, and down the stairs they go. Coming this direction now.”

Houdini poked his head out of the ambulance. “Whatever is going on out here?”

“Get back inside or they’ll see you,” Dorothy said quietly. “Shut the door.”

Houdini nodded and disappeared, soundlessly closing the ambulance’s back door.

“Rudy,” Benchley murmured. “Where are they now?”

Rudy faced the sidewalk, one arm leaning against the corner of the shoe-shine stand. “Good afternoon, folks,” he said enthusiastically.

Midge’s voice came from the other side of the stand. She spoke blissfully. “A
lovely
afternoon.”

Rudy nodded and tipped his cap as Midge and Clay passed by. A few moments later, he turned back to Dorothy and Benchley. His enthusiastic voice and smile had vanished. “They’re gone, okay? Now, how about you get going, too.”

Benchley nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

He grabbed Dorothy’s hand—or had she grabbed his?—and they climbed back into the ambulance.

“Houdini,” Dorothy said pleasantly. “Can you please request the driver to follow that couple strolling up the street—a tall woman in a green coat and a large man carrying suitcases?”

Before Houdini could answer, Snath sat up. “A tall woman? And a large man! Don’t tell me—”

Snath jumped up and poked his head into the driver’s compartment. “It’s him! That violent, monstrous thief! It’s a good thing for him we’re in an ambulance, because he’s going to need it.”

Houdini laid a hand on Snath’s arm. “There, there, my good man. All in good time. As Mrs. Parker says, let’s see what they’re up to.”

“He’ll be up to twenty years in prison before I’m through with him!” Snath said. “And he’s with Midge, no less. She’s a good woman. She should know better.”

Dorothy spoke thoughtfully. “Perhaps she does.”

Houdini leaned into the driver’s compartment and told him to follow Midge and Clay.

“As inconspicuously as an ambulance can,” Dorothy added.

The ambulance started up and moved forward slowly, the driver following twenty yards behind the couple.

Dorothy turned to Snath, who had sat back down on the stretcher. He craned his neck forward to look out the front window.

“Where are they going?” she asked.

Snath looked at her, perplexed. “How the deuce should I know?”

“Midge is your client. Did she say anything about packing up and leaving?”

Snath’s expression hardened. “She certainly did not.”

“Are you in love with her?”

His eyes went wide. The thought seemed to disgust him. “How dare you! She was not only my client, but also the wife of my now deceased client, Ernest MacGuffin!”

“Just asking,” she said.