[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil

by Agata Stanford

  I thought the boy would burst out in tears.

  “I wrote perfectly dreadful things about all you terribly talented people,” pronounced Aleck with jovial fanfare.

  “Calamity!”

  “Nonsense!” chided Aleck, and then, with magnanimous reassurance, “That’s what they said about me, at my very beginning: ‘Calamity!’ Look at me tonight—bursting with good fellowship!”

  Mr. Benchley was soon surrounded by a chorus of chorines, quite literally hanging off his sleeves. FPA ambled over to Marilyn Miller and Tallulah Bankhead, who were singing a duet of Toddle Along. A self-proclaimed twentieth-century Samuel Pepys, Frank would undoubtedly include mention of the actresses leading the new dance sensation, the Toddle, in his newspaper column tomorrow morning.

  I headed straight for the bar and a glass of the bubbly. And that’s where I saw it, the newspaper article.

  “The Thanksgiving Murder,” that’s what the headline called it on the front page of the Evening Star. A stock photo of Aleck, captioned The Intended Victim, alongside one of Felix the Cat, moments before the feline’s explosive demise, stared up at me from the bar. I had little time to read the copy before I turned to see an enraged Aleck at the center of a crush of gushing actors wanting to hear first-hand of his adventure fighting off the killer at the Christmas Parade. I could see his distress, but it seemed unfounded, really, in light of the events of that afternoon. The killer was dead, although that fact had not as yet hit the papers. Within hours, however, there might be a stock photo of me and Mr. Benchley on Page One of the morning papers. I had foolishly believed that because we were so entrenched among the most powerful reporters and editors of the day our names would not be revealed! Of course we didn’t know every city editor, nor were we all on good terms with every reporter. A scoop was, after all, a scoop, and we’d been scooped, all right.

  I worked my way through the throngs of beauties in shimmering glitter accosting Mr. Benchley, and managed to pull him aside to inform him of the situation. FPA appeared, and the men freed Aleck, while I found the butler, who fetched our coats.

  “May I be of assistance?” asked the owner of a rich baritone voice. There was a trace of Midwestern casualness in the flat vowels. I turned to look up into the clean-shaven face of a man in his early forties with rich, light auburn hair and a complexion so fresh as to be reminiscent of chilled summer melon.

  “Thank you, young man,” said Aleck, even though there was little difference in their ages.

  As Mr. Benchley helped me on with my coat, the “young man” took the cape from the butler and placed it on the shoulders of the critic.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” said Aleck. “It’s not safe here.”

  “Has someone threatened you, Mr. Woollcott? You must tell me immediately, and I will see that the fellow is dealt with,” said the impeccably suited fellow. There is nothing so attractive as a man who can carry the responsibility of evening attire. And he carried his burden divinely. I don’t remember, but I must have stood there with my mouth open, and possibly my tongue dangling, because I was mesmerized by his compelling charisma—and promise of brute strength.

  “Not yet, but the evening is still young. I’ve just panned their play and there are a hundred actors who’ll want to wring my neck when they see the newspaper. Calamity!”

  “Forgive me. I should introduce myself, Mr. Woollcott,” he said, offering his hand to shake. “My name is Pinchus Seymour Pinkelton. My friends call me Pinny.”

  Can you ever forgive your parents? I said—in my head.

  “And you are Dorothy Parker. I knew you the instant you walked into the room from your photos in the magazines.”

  He took the ungloved hand I offered and kissed it.

  “And I’m Bob Benchley, gadabout, man-about, and rarely sad about—anything, and this is Frank Pierce Adams, the newspaper columnist.”

  They shook hands all around.

  “You’re not an actor, are you?” asked Aleck, with suspicion.

  “I can’t walk across a stage without tripping,” Pinny said with an amused twinkle in his eyes. “I tried once, I must admit, at Princeton, but the other actors on stage wanted to wring my neck, so I understand your feelings tonight.”

  The near-hysterical Aleck became suddenly still.

  “They’ll be coming now.”

  “Aleck?”

  “All of them!”

  “All of whom?”

  “Every damned actor and playwright and director that I’ve buried,” he said, his eyes wide, his body rigid, and a shiver coursing through his rotundity. “They’ll be rising from the graves I put them in; it will be like the old Wild West: I’m Wyatt Earp, and every silly gunslinger I ever crossed will want to take me on!”

  He looked like he might faint, collapse dead from apoplexy, he went so quickly from red-faced to white pallor.

  Pinny asked the butler to fetch his overcoat, and once down the elevator to the lobby, he offered his car to transport us all home. I accepted before there could be any objections from the men.

  As we waited for the doorman to fetch Pinny’s chauffeur parked half a block away, we wandered out into the brisk night air. Central Park across the street sent over a sharp, invigorating fragrance of winter woods, and after the smoke-filled, perfume-drenched closeness of the apartment, it was refreshing. We lit cigarettes all around.

  “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” shouted the newsy that came from around the corner to stand under the building canopy, out of the icy sleet that had started to fall. “Woollcott cheats death, priest sacrifices life!”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more strongly, Mrs. Parker!”

  FPA flipped the boy a nickel. “Keep the change, Kid,” he said, and he began reading aloud: “‘Famed theatre critic and star-maker, Alexander Woollcott, survived an attack on his life yesterday by a dagger-wielding fiend moments after the mid-air blast of Felix the Cat. Woollcott, forty-three, was shielded by the selfless Roman Catholic priest from Tennessee who’d been on a sightseeing vacation at the time and had come to witness the spectacle of R.H. Macy’s Christmas Parade . . . .’”

  “We get the idea, Frank,” I said.

  “Take me home,” cried Aleck, as we ushered him into the elegant, creamy-yellow Duesenberg.

  “Don’t worry, Aleck, I’ll set things straight in my column tomorrow.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Frank!”

  Pinny Pinkelton ordered his chauffeur to 412 West 47th Street, where we saw Aleck into his apartment. Pinny refused the offer of a drink, and said he’d been happy to be of service but had to return to the party where he’d left the woman he’d escorted to the theatre that evening.

  I was disappointed, but recovered from my foolishness with the help of several shots of Jane’s home-brewed gin.

  Noel

  This three-day play needed a couple more days of “tinkering”

  Cast parties do get wild!

  Joan Crawford (who came to the cast party) was waiting tables when she helped with clues to solve The Broadway Murders, and a year later is on her way to stardom!

  Chapter Six

  “Go away, Mr. Benchley.”

  I stuck my head under the pillow, ignoring the continued knocking at the door. Woodrow Wilson stood rooted at the foot of the bed sounding responding yaps, like a metronome, piercing through my veil of sleep. I huddled tightly under the blanket. Woodrow jumped on the bed and continued his rant.

  “No!”

  “Yap!”

  “No!”

  “Yap!”

  New approach: blanket in teeth, pull and growl.

  The blasted knocking began anew.

  “It’s the pound for you, Mr. President!”

  “Owwuouwww, yap!”

  “Ohhhh, for cryin’outloud,” I whined, throwing off the covers and pushing up my eyeshades. Woodrow Wilson leaped off the bed, victorious, and led the way out of the bedroom and toward the door to the
hall. Applying his herding skills, circling back and around my shuffling feet and barking encouragement at my slow progress, he led the way.

  “What do you want, Mr. Benchley,” I said, belting my kimono and throwing open the door. My eyes fell upon a pair of heavy-soled shoes, and traveled up to a rather pedestrian brown overcoat, and it dawned on me that Mr. Benchley was not standing across the threshold. But, why was my hat, my Aberdeen cloche with the ginger-colored feather and garnet crystal brooch, dangling before me?

  I ventured a peek above the turtleneck. There was no going back now. Two blue eyes met my mascara-smeared squint.

  “Mrs. Parker?”

  “Ahhh, heck . . .”

  “I’m Timothy Morgan.”

  I covered my face with one hand and waved him in with the other.

  “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, ‘sit.’ Have a seat, sit.”

  By this time Woodrow Wilson had herded the stranger to the sofa, leaped up, and growled for the fellow to sit, too. Woodrow prevailed.

  “I’ll be a few minutes,” I said, taking the hat and returning to the bedroom. A trip to the bathroom to splash cold water on my swollen face, a quick tooth brushing, hair brushing, a touch of lipstick, a spray of cologne, and then to the closet to find a modest wrapper.

  By the time I returned to the living room, Woodrow Wilson sat staring at me from his perch on the man’s lap, enjoying the stroking of his shiny coat.

  “Now, who are you, did’ya say?”

  “Tim Morgan,” said the ordinary-looking man of thirty or so years, as if I was supposed to know who he was.

  “This is swell!” he said, facing my blank stare. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you!”

  “No, I suppose you can’t.”

  There was a lovely lilt to his speech, betraying Southern charm. And charming he was, especially his smile, turning a plain face into an appealing one. Blond and blue-eyed, and probably not too bright: just what I look for in a man. I wondered if he was an actor I’d seen in a play, or might have met at Neysa’s or somewhere, because there was something vaguely familiar about him.

  “I found the hat on the street near the rectory.”

  “How’d you know it was mine?” I asked, calling down for room service to send up a pot of coffee, some rolls, and a couple of cups.

  “Mrs. Daniels recognized it as yours.”

  “Who the hell is Mrs. Daniels?”

  “Father Murphy, Michael Murphy’s housekeeper?”

  It took a few seconds, but the light dawned.

  “I’m afraid I came at a bad time, Mrs. Parker.”

  “Was up ’til dawn, is all.”

  “Father Michael said that you and Mr. Benchley hoped to speak with me, but I’ve not been able to reach Mr. Benchley.”

  “That’s because he’s more ambitious in the morning than I. The ‘man about town’ is probably about town,” I said, searching the icebox for a can of something to feed my pup. I shoveled the remains from an opened can into Woodrow’s dish and filled his water bowl. Woodrow held his post. “Corned beef now, pâté for lunch, young man.”

  It didn’t excite.

  Jimmy the bellboy arrived and placed the tray on the coffee table. Woodrow Wilson jumped off the sofa, fetched his leash, and the two were off for a brisk walk.

  “Ah, now I remember. You’re the godchild,” I said, pouring the coffee.

  “Yes. John O’Hara was my godfather,” he said, and I found the southern accent most endearing.

  The telephone rang. Mr. Benchley was in the lobby; might he come up?

  My friend had brought the morning papers. We were page-three news in the Herald, the Tribune, the New York Times, and the World. As soon as the men were introduced and seated we brought Timothy Morgan up to date on the events occurring immediately after our departure from the rectory last afternoon.

  “You could identify him, Mrs. Parker. He wanted to get rid of his witness. Thank goodness you are all right!”

  “I’ve never been all right, really,” I said, but the blank look on his face told me I was being drolly self-deriding without effect.

  “It must have been a random act of violence that killed my godfather,” said Mr. Morgan. “He had no enemies that I knew of, unless he made one when he came to New York.”

  “That’s easy enough to do—just hang around with me for a day or so—but whatever you’ve heard, New Yorkers don’t go around wielding daggers, just dirty looks.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Parker, I didn’t mean—”

  Good God. I was being taken seriously.

  Perhaps I was serious, after all. I don’t like it when out-of-towners criticize my city. What do they expect? With seven million people living and working in close proximity to each other there are bound to be a few crazies. Doesn’t every backwater hole-in-the-woods have its village idiot? Who else will pull the bell cord in the church steeple and serve as example to children of what happens when they neglect their school lessons? One idiot wouldn’t be enough for a city the size of New York. We need thousands to do the job. No, I don’t like tourists criticizing my New York. We like to do our own dirty work.

  “Oh, don’t mind me.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Morgan, don’t mind Mrs. Parker.”

  “Call me ‘Dorothy,’ please,” I said, repentant—but not for long. “I reserve ‘Mrs. Parker’ for intimate friends,” I said, and flashed a look at Mr. Benchley, who scolded me with a twitch of his moustache, “and we’ve not become intimate yet.” I was feeling wicked today.

  Timothy Morgan twitched in his seat. Was he really so naïve?

  “Where were we?” I asked, giving up. The fellow was witless, but heck, he was cute.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, wanting to get my point across: “I’m not so sure that my witnessing had anything to do with the murderer wanting to kill me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps he really had meant to target Aleck, but accidentally stabbed your godfather. And was after me, too. Perhaps he’s some disgruntled actor Aleck and I panned in our reviews. I meant what I said, Mr. Morgan: Hang around me for a day, and at my heels will trail a dozen or so new enemies.”

  Mr. Benchley jumped in: “Mrs. Parker exaggerates, Mr. Morgan. I’m the only one trailing her heels, and I’m no enemy.”

  What was this country bumpkin to think?

  “Anyway,” continued Mr. Benchley, “I believe that had the killer been after Aleck and Mrs. Parker, he’d have taken the opportunity to ‘do her in,’ as they say, when he came face to face with her on Thanksgiving morning.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Mr. Benchley,” I conceded. “But, if he’d been worried about being identified, why didn’t he leave town? I’d never have seen him again.”

  “There is that point, of course, unless he couldn’t leave town for some reason. Family, perhaps? A job and kiddies?”

  A thought struck me. It was something the police had never asked me about, and that I’d never before thought to add to my description of the killer when interviewed on Thanksgiving: Although the clothing the culprit was wearing when he killed Father O’Hara was nondescript—jacket, hat, et cetera—it was most definitely the costume of a rural life.

  “Remembering what he looked like and how he was dressed, I’d say he wasn’t cosmopolitan at all.”

  We were all silent for a long moment.

  “Yesterday, I saw that he was wearing boots,” said Mr. Benchley. “I doubt he was an angry actor out to kill the critics and who left his spats at home, now that I think about it.”

  “He came to New York for a reason: surely not to intentionally kill my godfather? Is that what you’ve decided?”

  “I honestly am unsure, Mr. Morgan. When Father O’Hara visited with you, did he say that anything or anyone was troubling him?”

  “Not at all; he seemed just fine. We kept in touch through letters, of course, and he had planned to make his visit to me quite some t
ime ago.”

  “What brought him to New York?”

  “He wanted to make a long holiday of it. Wanted to visit his old friend, Father Michael.”

  “For how long did he visit with you?”

  “Three days.”

  “And during that time, how did he spend his days?”

  “I can’t account for all of his time—we spent evenings together—because during the day I attended to my responsibilities. I just assumed he’d be returning straightaway to Tennessee. But he probably just wanted to make the best of the time he’d taken.”

  Again, he was digging into memory.

  “You know, I remember that he didn’t tell me why, but when I asked what he planned to do here, he was rather vague—church business, and to visit with his old friend Michael Murphy.”

  “Could your godfather been having a crisis of faith, Mr. Morgan?” asked Mr. Benchley. “Could he have wanted to leave the Church?”

  “Oh, dear me, no! It couldn’t have been that. It’s not unusual for men of the Church to sometimes grapple with doubts, especially in these modern times when science is always presenting answers to what were once believed to be exclusively the miracles of God. John told me that when he was a young seminarian he’d wrestled with nagging doubts about the transubstantiation, the acceptance of it as the miracle that it is, and not as symbolic ritual.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. A Jewish child educated at a Catholic academy for girls, I thought of biblical stories as no more than the fancies of old men in long robes, long beards, and longer hair. David and Goliath, multiplying fishes and loaves, parting seas, Jonah and the whale, Noah and his ark: all children’s fairytales just like Hansel and Gretel. I couldn’t deal with six-syllable words like trans—whatever-he-said.

  “You’ve lost me,” I said.

  Mr. Benchley said, “Have you had a chance to go through your godfather’s belongings, or do the police have them?”

  “The police didn’t have anything except his wallet, which they returned to me this morning. I was hoping that you knew something that could shed some light on why he was killed.”

  “Have you looked for any papers or notes that might indicate places he’d been while in New York?”