You Might As Well Die (6 page)

“Good afternoon, boys and girls,” Sherwood said as he took off his overcoat and his straw boater and hung them on the coat stand.

He hesitated before he sat down, sensing he had interrupted something between Dorothy and Benchley. “What’s with you two?”

Dorothy explained their all-too-brief meeting with Midge MacGuffin that morning and their puzzlement about the appearance of Bertie. “We’re supposed to find out what kind of man MacGuffin was. But now it seems like we have to find out first what kind of woman she is.”

“Did you call her this afternoon as she told you to do?” Sherwood asked.

Dorothy shook her head. “She gave us a phony number.”

“Look her up in the city directory,” Sherwood said.

Dorothy had already considered that. “What good would it do? She’ll give us the brush-off on the phone even easier than she did on her doorstep. No, we need to think of something else.”

They were silent for a long moment, thinking. Then their editor’s office door opened, and a stately gray-haired gentleman appeared. Frank Crowninshield, born of high society and educated with high standards, was a perfect match for the fashionable, erudite style of the magazine he edited.

Crowninshield stared at the three editors stretched out in front of him. Dorothy slouched in her chair, staring sullenly at nothing. Benchley had his feet up on his desk, his hands laced together behind his head, his eyes closed. Sherwood sat with his long legs angled from his chair; his chin rested on his hands, which were folded on his desk.

“I was alarmed by the uproarious silence,” Crowninshield said in his honeyed, cultivated voice. “What are you young whelps up to out here? Very little, I see.”

They didn’t answer. They barely moved.

“Dillydallying again? I’ve just about had enough.” Crowninshield sighed, more disgusted than angry. “You treat this office as your backyard tree house—you come and go as you please. You’re gone for hours at lunch. When you do deign to come in, you lollygag and let your deadlines fly by like swallows heading south for winter—”

Sherwood stood up. He held out a thin envelope.

“What’s this?” Crowninshield said, alarmed.

Sherwood spoke for the three of them. “It’s two tickets to Houdini at the Hippodrome.”

Crowninshield gently accepted the envelope. “Houdini?”

“That’s right,” Benchley said quickly. “We know he’s your favorite. This is his final tour before he retires. They’re for next Thursday’s show, which is Halloween night. Should be fantastic.”

Crowninshield blushed. “You really got these for me?” He looked at the tickets and made an attempt to recover his composure. “You’re not giving me these just to embarrass me into silence? To curry favor?”

“Certainly not,” Dorothy said. “They’re a gift, freely given. No strings attached. No favor curried. No chicken curried either.”

Crowninshield’s eyes began to well with tears.

Benchley said, “We sent Sherwood out into deepest midtown just to acquire those for you. We know how you like a magical spectacular.”

Crowninshield’s fingers trembled as he held the tickets. His voice was choked. “You damned young whelps. I thank you and I would love to go. But unfortunately I cannot make it next Thursday night. I have a social event to attend.” He handed the tickets to Benchley. “Here, you go. Take Mrs. Parker. Review it for the magazine. Put the cost on your expense report.”

Crowninshield removed an immaculate handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at his damp eyes. With a sob and a sneeze, he withdrew into his office and closed the door.

Sherwood broke into a grin. He stood and bowed.

Dorothy muttered, “That was quick thinking, you giant son of a bitch.”

Benchley was not as pleased. “If he had kept my tickets, I would have taken it out of your paycheck.”

“And now you can expense them, thanks to me,” Sherwood said.

“And now I have to write yet another review, thanks to you,” Benchley said.

“Oh, you would have been assigned it anyhow,” Sherwood said with a wave of dismissal. “You may return the favor at your leisure.” He glanced at the clock on the wall—nearly four o’clock. “Now, let’s celebrate, shall we?”

“Where?” Dorothy asked.

Sherwood stood, retrieving his hat and coat from the stand. “Tony Soma’s, of course.”

“We can’t,” she said sourly. “We’re
personae non gratae
.”

Benchley said, “That’s pig Latin for
et-gay ost-lay
.”

“You don’t say.” Sherwood dropped into his chair, disappointed. “Then where?”

D
orothy and Benchley spent nearly a week fruitlessly trying to get in touch with Midge MacGuffin and trying to find someplace to get a drink.

Why is it,
Dorothy thought,
that when you’re denied something, you only want it more?

“This is New York during Prohibition,” she cried. “There’s practically a speakeasy on every corner. Why is this so difficult?”

Benchley shushed her. This was not the place to make such exclamations. They stood in a long line at the pharmacist’s counter at the rear of an enormous drugstore off Times Square. They had heard that this druggist made and sold hooch over the counter for ten bucks a pint. Not cheap, but cheaper—for now—than paying off their bill to Tony and Mrs. Soma. Fortunately, they hadn’t run into Mrs. Soma and Tony Jr. since that night on the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Mrs. Parker, Mr. Benchley,” a woman’s voice said. “What are you doing here?”

They turned to see Neysa McMein followed by Franklin Pierce Adams, enshrouded in a cloud of cigar smoke.

“Just buying a pint of ‘medicine,’ ” Dorothy said. “What are you doing here at seven o’clock on a Monday night?”

Neysa nodded toward Adams. “Just dropping by to pick up some cheap cigars for the star columnist of the
New York World
. What’s that phrase? ‘What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar’? Well, he just bought a bundle of them.”

Adams frowned. “There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in this country. The trouble is, they each cost a quarter.”

Dorothy waved away the pungent smoke. “No, the trouble is, they smell like hell.”

“Anyway, I’m so glad we bumped into you,” Neysa said. “I asked everyone in the art scene and it took me forever, but I finally found out the name of Ernie MacGuffin’s agent.”

“Swell. What’s his name?”

“Abraham Snath. He’s a lawyer, an artists’ agent, an art dealer, you name it. Not a very sweet fellow, I’m told.”

“Are any of them?” Dorothy asked.

“His office is near the old armory, off Lexington,” Neysa said. “But there’s something else.”

“Next!” the pharmacist said gruffly.

Benchley apprehensively approached the high counter and mumbled something unintelligible.

“What? Speak up!” the irritable pharmacist barked.

Benchley flinched.

“Cripes!” Dorothy said to Benchley. “He’s not a Supreme Court judge.” She turned to the impatient pharmacist, who exuded authority with his high-collared white smock and his high perch behind the counter. She spoke sweetly. “A pint of your finest medicine, if you please, sir.”

The pharmacist scowled. “Got a prescription?”

“A
prescription
?” She blinked. “Is that honestly necessary?”

“This is a licensed pharmacy, you ditzy lady. No prescription, no medicine,” the pharmacist said with finality.

Benchley slammed his hand hard on the counter. He spoke so loudly that everyone in the store could hear. “Don’t you dare talk to her like that!”

The store went quiet. Everyone’s eyes were on them. The pharmacist froze.

“You need a prescription?” Benchley again slammed his hand down on the counter, leaving a five-dollar bill on top of Dorothy’s ten-dollar bill. “There’s your prescription. Good enough? Now, give the lady what she asked for.”

Without a word, the pharmacist disappeared among the shelves behind him and quickly reappeared with a large brown glass bottle with no label. “I’m fresh out of the usual. This is all I have,” he said humbly. “It’s, uh, ‘cough medicine.’ ”

As the pharmacist spoke, he put the bottle in a white paper bag, folded down the top of the bag neatly and placed it on the counter in front of Dorothy.

Benchley, Neysa and Adams turned to leave. Dorothy picked up the bag. She spoke as sweetly as before. “I suppose we each got a taste of our own medicine.” She turned on her heel and followed her friends.

They strolled to the marble-topped soda counter at the front of the store. Dorothy caught up to Benchley and squeezed his arm. She whispered, “Thank you for standing up for me to that thug of a druggist.”

“I’m now both anti-thug and anti-druggist. I’m anti-thuggist.”

“Gesundheit.”

Neysa took a seat at the soda fountain. Adams, still in a cloud of cigar smoke, sat down next to her. Benchley and Dorothy joined them.

“You were telling us about MacGuffin’s agent,” Dorothy said to Neysa. “And you were about to say something else before we were so rudely interrupted.”

“Why, yes.” Neysa’s beautiful half-lidded eyes widened. “Guess where we’re off to. You’ll never guess.”

“No, I certainly won’t,” Dorothy said impatiently. “Just tell.”

“A séance. Can you believe it?”

Dorothy and Benchley looked back and forth between Neysa, whom they knew as a savvy, worldly-wise woman, and Adams, a hard-nosed veteran newspaperman.

“No,” Dorothy said, stupefied. “I can’t believe it. A
séance
?”

“Not just any séance,” Adams said, puffing cigar smoke. “A séance of Ernie MacGuffin. Some sorceress or voodoo priestess claims to be conjuring up MacGuffin’s disembodied voice.”

“Come along with us,” Neysa said, playfully. “It’ll be a lark.”

“A lark?” Dorothy said. “Sounds like a crock.”

“Of course it’s a crock,” Adams said, smiling. “But it’s good material for my column.”

Dorothy shook her head. “I need a drink if I’m going to hear any more of this.” She motioned for the young, pimply-faced soda jerk. “Soda water, please.”

“Same for me,” said Benchley.

Neysa asked for a root beer float. Adams ordered an orange phosphate.

After the soda jerk delivered the drinks, Dorothy reached for the white paper bag with the brown glass bottle. She pulled out the stopper and sniffed. It even smelled like medicine.

“Maybe you
should
come with us to the séance,” Adams said. “Might be something there you could use in your article for Ross.”

“Ugh, that article for Ross,” Dorothy groaned, and poured some of the druggist’s hooch into her soda water. “We don’t even want to think about it.”

“Not going well?” Adams asked.

“Our only contact so far has been Midge MacGuffin, but we can never pin her down. She’s likely been busy with Bertram the Mystery Man all week.”

“Well, now you know the name of Ernie’s agent,” Neysa said. “That should get the ball rolling.”

“Thanks to you,” Dorothy said, raising her glass. “Let’s make a toast to that numbskull himself. To Ernie MacGuffin. May his death have been easier for him than it’s been for us.”

They raised their glasses and clinked them together. “To Ernie MacGuffin.”

They all drank deeply. Suddenly Benchley gagged. Dorothy coughed violently.

“Mrs. Parker, Mr. Benchley, are you all right?” Adams asked. “Something wrong with the ‘cough medicine’?”

“Damn right, there is,” Dorothy choked, slamming her glass to the counter. “It really
is
cough medicine. That lousy pharmacist actually put medicine in my medicine bottle.”

T
he next morning, Dorothy and Benchley skipped work. They wondered how the séance had been the night before. But they would ask Neysa and Adams about it another time.

Today, they were off to see Harold Ross to ask for an advance. Ross had offered to pay them five hundred for the article. So, why not collect it now rather than later? Once they paid off Tony Soma, then they could focus on writing the article—and know they would have an oasis to go back to after writing it.

Dorothy and Benchley found their way to Ross’ new office in the Fleischmann Building on West Forty-fourth.

As they rode up in the elevator, she thought again about how Benchley had defended her in the drugstore. It wasn’t his gallantry that impressed her—she was a thoroughly modern woman and could speak for herself. She didn’t need a man to do that.

What impressed her—what warmed her heart—was that she knew Benchley usually avoided such confrontations. He hated “scenes.” And yet, he spoke up for her, without even a moment’s hesitation. She wanted to grab his hand and squeeze it tight. Damn it, she wanted to kiss him! But Benchley was a married man. And even if he wasn’t, there was an elevator operator standing right there in front of them.

Before she could give it another thought, the doors opened. The operator said, “Twelfth floor,” and they stepped into a wide, well-lit hallway.

A few paces away, a workman in stained painter’s overalls was busy lettering the new magazine’s name on the door’s opaque glass window.

“
The New Yorker
?” Dorothy read aloud. “A rather generic name.”

The painter turned on her and spoke with a hard Brooklyn sneer. “What should it be called?
The Pittsburgher
?”

The painter yanked open the door. They went in, and he slammed the door behind them.

Dorothy had pictured a posh, bright office with many sharp, young editors hard at work. Instead, they were in a tiny, dingy, windowless office with three old desks. Only one of the desks held a typewriter. On a second desk stood an old telephone. At the third desk was a young woman with a smart, boyish haircut and a tired expression.

Dorothy and Benchley recognized her as Jane Grant, a journalist for the
New York Times
and also Ross’ wife. She was the only person in the room and was busy erasing numbers from a large ledger book. She paused a moment to blow away the erasures. She appeared frazzled as she looked up and noticed them. “Mrs. Parker. Mr. Benchley. Whatever are you doing here?”