[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil

by Agata Stanford

  “I can’t honestly say for sure, Mrs. Parker,” said Peter. “Overcoat and fedora? I’m sorry, but there are so many—”

  I stopped him in mid-sentence. “That’s all right, Peter, never mind. But, if you notice anyone hanging around, watching the hotel, would you call up to my room?”

  Peter, a tall Scotsman, leaned in to scrutinize at my face.

  “This guy bothering you, Mrs. Parker?”

  “I don’t really know,” I replied vaguely.

  “You will let us know if you see anyone skulking about, won’t you?” asked Aleck, more an order than a request.

  “I will keep a vigilant eye on the street, Mr. Woollcott!” said the saint. “And I will make sure that Joseph is told to do so when he comes on in the morning.” He straightened his epaulettes and touched his cap in affirmation.

  I checked at the front desk for telephone messages and wires: My sister Helen called from Connecticut where she was on a short holiday to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, as did my friend and once-neighbor, artist Neysa McMein, to invite me up for drinks Friday at five. There was a wire from Scott and Zelda (Fitzgerald) from Cap d’Antibes where they were spending the holidays with Sara and Gerald Murphy, ex-pats living in France: “When was I sailing across the pond for a long visit with the Murphys?” they wanted to know.

  Scott’s latest novel, The Great Gatsby, had received scathing reviews and had flopped in sales since it came out last summer. I’d wired to him in Paris that I liked the book.

  Some accuse Scott of being guilty of having set a standard for the mindless, sophomoric, devil-may-care philosophy of the wealthy, spoiled, upper-class fops of our generation: “Have fun before it’s too late.” The strict code of social behavioral ethics practiced by the Victorian parents of today’s youth had brought their children into a war. “Let’s abandon the rules,” their children seem to say. “Be outrageous! Carpe diem. Tomorrow we all die.” The rich can get away with anything, and in Scott’s book, even murder. Scott acts the fool much of the time, indulging in too much booze and naughty behavior, but shallow he is not. He isn’t encouraging any devil-may-care philosophy for living. He is simply showing in Gatsby that such a life of carelessness, purposelessness, and disloyalty has become glamorous, when in fact it masks betrayal and empty promises. Sophistication has less to do with education and culture and fortunes and poses, and more to do with the corruption and adulteration of longstanding mores. One has only to attend one of the extravagant soirees hosted by Herbert Bayard Swope and his wife at their Long Island estate to understand the point of his book, written with self-effacing, brutal honesty about his own life and his fascination with Zelda, but I doubt any of the reviewers had ever been invited to one of those parties, and therefore they have missed the point entirely.

  My other messages were that the police sketch artist had called to ask if I would appear at the precinct house at 11:00 A.M. so that he might create a portrait of the culprit from my description.

  And Mr. Benchley had called.

  “It would be rude not to return his call, Dottie,” Aleck said, rationalizing why I should ring up our friend. We’d gotten off the elevator and were walking toward my door.

  “But be a good soul and let him sleep. You can tell him everything in the morning. Now, let’s get settled with a scotch and soda.”

  Aleck resplendent

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  The Cotton Club

  Duke Ellington backing the Cotton Club Chorus

  Snake Hips

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Benchley, having returned to Manhattan, arrived at my door with an offering of coffee and donut at the ungodly hour of ten A.M.

  “What’s this I hear about exploding cats and soldiers, murdered priests and Aleck reviewing jailhouse cuisine?” said Mr. Benchley, with a bit more zeal than I was used to so early in the day.

  I tied my kimono, splashed cold water on my face, swallowed down a couple aspirins, and appraised my face in the bathroom mirror. It would be hours before I could face the world.

  Taking the paper cup from my energetic friend who stood leaning at my bedroom doorframe, I staggered to the living room sofa, Woodrow Wilson at my heels. A bite of donut for me; the rest for Woodrow.

  “I leave town for a couple of days and all hell breaks loose!” exclaimed my dapper Mr. Benchley. He took the chair across from me, lit a cigarette, and I wondered how, with the hectic life he led, he could look so pulled together: crisp collar, bright, smooth knotted silk tie, folded breast-pocket kerchief, charcoal double-breasted waistcoat, immaculate spats, groomed moustache, and center-parted Brilliantined hair.

  “I hate you,” I said. “You look like an advertisement for Brooks Brothers, all clean and shiny and new, and you smell good, too. Yuck.”

  “My thanks to you, Cinderella. Would that that could be said of you.”

  “It must be all that wholesome living in the wilds of . . . the Schenectady—”

  “Scarsdale.”

  “Yes. All that fresh air and sunshine and that good home cooking of Gertrude’s in your little cabin in the woods of the Saratoga—”

  “Scarsdale.”

  “But what about the horses? I thought you had horses.”

  “That’s Saratoga.”

  “That’s what I said before, at your home in the horse country of Saratoga—”

  “Scarsdale,” he retorted, pulling out his pocket watch.

  “Scarsdale, Schenectady, Sasquatchua; it’s all so very far away . . . .”

  “Why didn’t you telephone me, then, if you needed to talk?” said Mr. Benchley, hearing the message beneath my cranky retorts.

  “You need your sleep, even if you do disturb mine, and what time is it, dawn?”

  “Most of the day has passed you by, my dear Mrs. Parker. The early bird, and all that, has not only caught, but swallowed, digested, and shat the proverbial worm. Now, if you can manage to make something of yourself, perhaps I’ll allow you to escort me to the offices of Messieurs—”

  “Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, “What time is it?”

  “Don’t whine. It’s ten-twenty-seven by my watch. Do I take it that you have—”

  “Shit-shit-shit! I’ve got to get dressed and down to the precinct house by eleven.”

  “What, pray tell, Madame, for?”

  “Come with me. No, not to the bedroom, idiot, but down to the jail.”

  “Oh, very well,” said Mr. Benchley. “Whom are we bailing out?”

  “Would you mind very much escorting Woodrow Wilson on his morning constitutional while I get ready? Oh, and put on his new red coat.”

  “I doubt it will fit me,” he replied, “I’ve only two legs and this is not my best shade of red. Well, come along, my bewhiskered Commander-in-Chief; let us take a stroll around the rose garden.”

  The right hat can disguise an unkempt head of hair, so I pulled on a little chapeau bought at Bendel’s last month. I’ve noticed that items attributed to the French designers always carry a higher price tag, and as this was a pricey little number, from the House of Madame Claire Beaumont, I refer to this piece of art from abroad as chapeau. Of course, it is entirely probable that it was made by a little old man in Hackensack, New Jersey, as there is nothing distinctly “French” about it.

  Although it was cold outside, as I noted when I raised the window and stuck out my bare arm, it was also brightly sunny, so I slipped on hosiery and a new wool dress. I looked at myself in the standing mirror: no breasts, no waistline, just a straight fall from the shoulders of amusingly tailored fabrics. This was truly comfortable, but I did have a rather neat little waist, and I mourned that it would not be on view again for several seasons.

  I pumped a cloud of Coty’s Chypre parfum (notice the French spelling!), fetched gloves, purse, and jacket, and then rode down to the lobby and walked out into the street where I spied Mr. Benchley, halfway up the block having his shoes shined. Woodrow sat beside him, dizzily watching the buffing brush fly from side to si
de across the leather.

  “Young Lincoln, may I introduce the famous Mrs. Parker,” said Mr. Benchley to the young Negro boy who was down on one knee, buffing away.

  “Yes, Ma’am, how’d you do?” said the boy.

  “Pleasure, I’m sure . . . .”

  “Lincoln, here, is Washington Douglas’s eldest son,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Filling in for your father, Lincoln?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Douglas had a bit of an accident last week, you see, so Lincoln’s taking over for a while.”

  “What kind of an accident?”

  The boy, who couldn’t have been older than twelve, did not look up from his work, although I noticed a hesitation in the circular application of the shoe polish. Head down and close to the shoe, he picked up speed, throwing me a side glance. “Fell off the trolley, Ma’am.”

  “Is he badly hurt?”

  Bored with the show—or hypnotized—Woodrow curled down to nap.

  “He’ll be just fine, soon. Thank you, Ma’am. Jus’ fillin’ in.”

  The boy put his whole heart into buffing in the polish with the woolen brush; his discomfort was palpable. Mr. Benchley shot me a look that silenced the questions forming on my lips.

  “Well, that’s just swell, then. I’m glad to hear he’s recovering.”

  Mr. Benchley rose from the bench, and riffled through his pockets for change. Finding none, he took out his billfold and handed the boy a dollar.

  “Thank you, young fellow. Why, I can comb my hair in these,” he said, staring down at his shoes. He handed me Woodrow’s leash and we started to walk toward the Algonquin. I followed, dragging my lazy pooch.

  “Your change, Mr. Benchley!”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right, Lincoln. Keep the change, and regards to your father.”

  “What’s this? Joseph informed me about a stalker in the neighborhood.” said Mr. Benchley as we entered a cab hailed by the aforementioned doorman.

  St. Pete, our night doorman, had been true to his word, having alerted Joseph to watch for suspicious activity. I elaborated on the events of the evening before.

  “It’s a good thing that my rooms are across and facing the street from yours, so that I, too, can keep an eye peeled for the monster.”

  “That would be a reassuring comfort if it weren’t for the fact that you are almost never home.”

  The police station was busy this morning, with officers milling about with the previous evening’s catch of criminals. The NYPD had for some time turned a blind eye to violators of the Volstead Act, as thousands of speakeasies and bootleggers operated throughout the city. An occasional raid might be conducted of the most troublesome establishments to appease the Feds, but if the prohibition law were to be enforced, most everyone would be in jail, the providers and the imbibers, or they would have left the city to live in the obscure, but “wet,” regions of the Canadian Rockies. So the job was left to federal agents to make a show of enforcement with arrests and convictions. But as of 1925, no-one’s heart is really in it, anymore.

  Today the majority of offenders awaiting booking, alongside the usual disorderly drunks and burglars, were a handful of Thanksgiving-night vandals and a dozen young men from the Columbia University student body, identified by way of their beanies and jerseys, brought in for having released several hundred live turkeys onto Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. The birds were destined for the chopping block and stolen from trucks on the way to Delmonico’s last Tuesday night. That accounted for the birds we spied from Edna’s window yesterday afternoon grazing with the sheep in Central Park.

  Aleck’s cousin, Joe Woollcott, is desk sergeant at the precinct, but was far too busy this morning to doggie-sit Woodrow Wilson and tend to our inquiries. After a few pointers in answer to our queries from several policemen, we managed to find the sketch artist assigned to draw a likeness from my description of the murderer of Father John O’Hara.

  It was not a pleasant hour, with Mr. Benchley commenting on what he considered my “obtuse” observations, but we did, in the end, come up with a rather uncannily accurate drawing of the man. Of course, few people walked about town with such a crazed expression plastered on their faces, but as I did not see the man smiling or in an unemotional state, it would have to do as facsimile.

  “The artist appears disposed to take to his bed,” noted Mr. Benchley as we departed. “If there is such a creature as you’ve described, Mrs. Parker, he will not get far without a disguise.”

  “Let’s hope not and that they catch him soon.”

  It was a lovely noontime in the city, and the traffic was thick with autos and pedestrians enjoying the long holiday weekend for shopping, sightseeing, lunching, and, for some, business as usual. There was a disproportionate number of children about on the sidewalks accompanied by adults marveling at the skyscrapers built during the past half-decade. One can easily tell the tourists from the city’s residents, without taking into account their costumes, as the tourists’ heads are always in the clouds, while we who live in Manhattan rarely look up. We are a jaded lot, having quickly taken for granted the miraculous engineering feats around us; also, looking up while walking the crowded streets of the city could get you run over.

  We decided to walk the dozen blocks back to the Gonk, heading south on Fifth Avenue, for our one o’clock luncheon in the Rose Room. As we made our way, children would spot Woodrow Wilson leading us along and stop to ask to pet him. As if anyone had to ask: Woodrow Wilson is a very socially adept creature, who basks in the light of praise and affection. A child would offer a hand for him to sniff and stoop down to pet his well-groomed fur, and in a few seconds another child, and then a third and fourth would materialize proclaiming his various attributes. My little man would raise his princely head high, as well as his tail, and bear the acclaim with regal dignity before being forced to move on to accommodate the burgeoning crowds.

  Our daily luncheon at the Algonquin has been taking place at one o’clock in the dining room of the hotel since 1919. The “attendees” of the daily fare have varied slightly over the years, and there are around thirty notables claiming membership. The regulars are the famous newspaper and magazine journalists—reporters, columnists, art reviewers, editors, and publishers—as well as actors, musical geniuses, playwrights, novelists, and poets. Aleck presides. The regulars include myself, Mr. Benchley, FPA (Frank Pierce Adams), George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, Heywood Broun, the Gershwins, Marc Connolly, Robert Sherwood, any or all of the Marx Brothers, Edna Ferber, Irving Berlin, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Noel Coward when he’s in town, Jascha Heifitz when he’s in town, and many others who like to drop in when they are in town.

  We gather around a huge round table that the hotel manager, Frank Case, set up for us years ago, so our daily luncheons have become known as the “Round Table Luncheons”; we are often referred to as “Round Tablers.” But, privately, we call ourselves “The Vicious Circle.” The conversation is rapid-fire, rapier sharp, and quoted in the papers, most often in FPA’s daily column, “The Conning Tower.” I have become famous for many of the one-liners, but much of what I say is unprintable in publications distributed to the general public. I have to hold my own in a room full of sharp-witted men, after all, and although I am treated tenderly by the big oafs, and my company sought out, it is because I have never allowed any of them to intimidate me or out-wit me in terms of the humorous.

  Tourists pop their heads in through the entrance of the dining room to peek at us. Frank Case has positioned our table for advantageous viewing, so the curious can see which famous (or infamous) persons are dining on any given day (if you can call it “dining”; it’s more like feeding time at the zoo).

  To be truthful, my dinner gang appears not to be so distantly related to the primates in the zoo. I’d given it quite a bit of thought last summer, the day I was reading about the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Law. Shit! I thought, looking around the table at lunchtime, watchi
ng Marc Connolly fight Harpo for the last popover in the breadbasket, and wishing Ross’s soup-slurping and Broun’s lip-smacking would end sometime soon. In school down South a teacher talks to his students about Darwin’s theory and it all winds up in a courtroom with William Jennings Bryan quoting from the Bible! Had Bryan only had the chance to observe my Round Table friends at lunch there would have been no question that Man is recently descended from apes!

  Today there were only a handful of us present, as the holiday weekend had claimed the familial commitments of many. Mr. Benchley and I were first to arrive. Bunny Wilson came in with FPA, followed by Marc Connolly with Robert Sherwood. Aleck walked in last and in an agitated state. Without Harold Ross present to provide fodder for Aleck’s angst, the mood was anything but effervescent. In fact, Aleck’s mood cast a pall over the dinner table, and our efforts at congenial conversation proved more difficult than sucking pâté through a straw.

  At Mr. Benchley’s prompting, Bunny told us of the latest Condé Nast indiscretion, real meat for our lion, but the story of our much-hated publisher at Vanity Fair held little interest for Aleck. I felt his forehead, as he’d left food on his plate and ordered only one, rather than multiple, desserts, and determined that as he was not feverish he was simply displaying residual remorse from yesterday’s brush with death. It was obvious to me, if not the others, that there was an elephant in the room blocking out all light, and until we acknowledged its presence it would not depart and there would remain a dark, gloomy shadow over the table. We had to face the beast head-on.

  “Any news about the motive for the murder, Aleck?” I asked. “Cousin Joe was too busy to speak with us this morning.”

  “Nothing,” he replied, and then drained his coffee cup.