The Yankee Club

by Michael Murphy

  I waved back and remembered the tingling sensation when she slid her foot up my leg in the dining car. I quickly dismissed the memory.

  With Stella and Frankie beside him, Gino clapped me on the shoulder. He let out a low whistle as Dorothy climbed the stairs. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  After the final curtain call, Frankie and I went backstage, two of maybe a hundred anxious to offer their congratulations to the cast. I had to warn Laura about her fiancé.

  Frankie tipped his hat to every gorgeous dish who passed by, and there were plenty. We stood outside Laura’s dressing room, in an area packed with reporters and photographers snapping pictures. Leaning on my cane, I caught a glimpse of her well-practiced smile as she held a dozen white roses, her favorite.

  The lights around the square mirror behind her shimmered off Laura’s black curly hair. She looked more beautiful than her billboard outside The Yankee Club. For a moment I found myself staring into her dark brown eyes and the face I knew so well.

  Laura caught my eye. She smiled and waved. “Jake, come in.”

  Frankie followed as we wedged our way inside. Roses were everywhere, mostly red and white. I kissed her cheek. Over the din, I introduced Frankie, who stood with his mouth open like a kid meeting Babe Ruth for the first time.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Malzone. Hope you enjoyed the play.” Laura held out a hand to Frankie but glanced at me. Perhaps I was the only one who recognized concern behind her gracious exterior.

  Frankie shook her hand. For a minute, I didn’t think he could speak. “You were wonderful, Miss Wilson.”

  “Darling.” Spencer Dalrymple stepped between Frankie and me. He kissed Laura’s cheek then introduced her to a short man in tow. “Laura, may I present Baron Karl Friedman.”

  Wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a blond, thinning comb-over, the Baron clicked his heels and kissed Laura’s hand. “My father was a baron. I’m just a humble public servant. Please call me Karl, fräulein.”

  Laura took her hand back and glanced at me a moment. “A pleasure, Karl.”

  The so-called baron stared at me as if he knew me, but I couldn’t see how, unless he was one of a couple hundred Germans who stormed our trench near the Marne River in ’18.

  Dalrymple’s steel-gray eyes didn’t blink as he shook my hand. “So glad you recovered in time to come to the play … and to the house later.” No mention of our limo ride.

  I held his gaze and gripped his hand harder than he squeezed mine, an immature gesture, but a satisfying one nonetheless. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  He introduced me to Karl, the German public servant, code for Nazi, no doubt.

  A reporter, with a pencil and pad in hand, shouted from behind me. “Miss Wilson, so many Broadway actresses have left for Hollywood since talking pictures have proven more than a fad. What are your plans now that Night Whispers has closed?”

  “Hollywood? I can’t imagine leaving Broadway, though I don’t have any new roles lined up, just yet.”

  Dalrymple slipped an arm around her, posing for photographers who obliged with several flashes. “Except the role of Mrs. Spencer Dalrymple.”

  The reporter wrote down the quote. “Have you set a date for the wedding?”

  I tapped Frankie’s shoe with my cane. “Let’s go.” I couldn’t take any more darlings and Mrs. Dalrymple talk and certainly didn’t want to learn when they’d marry.

  Behind me Laura called, “We’ll chat at the party, Jake.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Dalrymple would, no doubt, find a way to keep us apart.

  As Frankie and I made our way through the crowd, her fiancé called to me, “Good-bye, Mr. Donovan.”

  His knowing voice shot a chill into my back but filled me with renewed determination.

  Chapter 7

  The Green Hippopotamus and the Stalker

  Frankie turned down a well-lit tree-lined drive. The Dalrymple Estate rose from the rolling countryside twenty miles north of the city. Past the gatehouse, white marble columns and nude statues around the mansion evoked images of ancient Greece and Washington D.C. At the gate, two uniformed guards waited with unsmiling expressions and black-braided uniforms. They increased the sensation that we were about to enter a foreign country ruled by King Dalrymple.

  I accepted the cast-party invitation out of respect for Laura. The limo ride gave me a better reason to attend and a new mission—to convince her that marrying the arrogant bastard would be a dangerous mistake. She’d never listened to my frequent suggestions about marriage before, but I had to try.

  The gatehouse guard studied Frankie and me and the inside of the car. Apparently, he couldn’t picture us with the rich and famous. He found my name and practically snapped to attention and waved us through.

  Frankie drove down a gravel drive and let out a low whistle. “Your ex … Miss Wilson … Never mind, I’m just your driver.”

  Frankie was much more than a driver. He saved my life the first night we met. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  “When I met your ex’s fiancé, I didn’t know what she saw in him. He’s short, pale, has a whiny voice, the kind of guy we used to pick on at school.” Frankie parked next to a red Pierce Arrow and nodded toward the huge mansion. “Now I get it.”

  Growing up, Laura endured a father who never held a steady job and spent what little he earned on booze. She deserved the kind of life that Dalrymple’s wealth could provide, but he didn’t deserve her.

  He might act like a gentleman around Laura, but during the limo ride, Dalrymple displayed his true nature: a dangerous bully. Laura was as tough as they came in our old neighborhood. She could handle anyone. Still, she couldn’t possibly know what she was in for.

  We climbed the steps to the white-columned entryway. Outside the massive front doors, another uniformed guard checked us off his list.

  Inside, my cane slid on the slippery marble. A pretty young woman took our hats and smiled at Frankie. He possessed an uncanny ability to attract the ladies.

  Scores of old-money guests and self-indulgent celebrities filled a main hall the size of a basketball court. At the far end, two winding staircases flanked French doors that led to an outside deck.

  Frankie looked like he’d swallowed a bar of soap. “A regular stiff’s convention. Remind me again why we’re here.”

  “Free booze.” I nodded toward a bar outside an open door. Piano music came from the room.

  Frankie ordered a scotch, but I had no intention of drinking. Booze might take the edge off my throbbing leg, but I didn’t want Laura to think the booze was talking when I coughed up information disparaging her fiancé.

  Frankie poked his head into the music room. “It’s Cole Porter. He’s playing our song.”

  Lillian Hellman came through the French doors. Cigarette in hand, she headed for the bar. The aspiring playwright appeared just as I remembered, late twenties, serious minded, with reddish-brown hair. Unlike most of the women who’d dressed to impress, Lillian’s style was practical, a beige cotton dress and comfortable black shoes.

  “Go ahead.” I patted Frankie on the back. “I’ll join you later.”

  Frankie did a soft shoe into the music room while Lillian stepped to the bar without noticing me. Her voice still contained the hint of a New Orleans accent as she ordered a martini. She turned and grinned. “Jake Donovan.”

  I kissed her cheek. “Lillian.”

  “Don’t Lillian me.” She grabbed the martini from the bartender and took a long gulp.

  Why was she mad at me? “Where’s Dashiell?”

  “On the deck.” She led me away from the bar and the crowd of people. “You had to come back to New York, didn’t you?”

  The question, though rhetorical, made me face the truth. Now that I’d returned, I knew finalizing the novel wasn’t my real reason for returning to New York. I came back to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake leaving Laura. Returning had been a dreadful disaster. Laura was engaged, Mickey was dead, and I w
as to blame for both.

  Lillian tossed back the drink, crushed her cigarette into the glass, and set it on a table. She led me toward the French doors. “Dash is facing a deadline on his latest book. Since he read in the papers you’re investigating Mickey’s murder, he hasn’t been able to write a lick. Now he finds conspiracy in everything.” She peered through the French doors. Her face sagged. “See what I mean?”

  Dashiell Hammett, in a blue pin-striped suit and black Italian shoes, leaned over the deck railing. With a smoldering cigarette in his hand, he peered through opera glasses into a topiary garden below.

  I shook my head. “Someone who beat tuberculosis shouldn’t smoke.”

  “I know, right?” She lit another cigarette. “He hasn’t been a Pinkerton or carried a gun in more than ten years. He wants to help you find the killer.” She grabbed my wrist. “Don’t let him. I don’t want him to end up like …”

  “Like me.”

  “Or Mickey.”

  Lillian wasn’t angry with me. Her behavior reflected concern over Dashiell Hammett, her love for as long as I’d known them.

  During our Pinkerton days in the Omaha office, Dashiell became an inspiration to me—as a detective, a writer, a man who cared about people less fortunate. “I’ll do my best.”

  Her expressive doe eyes softened. “I’m sorry about Mickey and you getting shot.” She gazed around at the Dalrymple mansion opulence. “I’m also sorry about Laura.”

  So was I. Outside, flecks of gray shone in Dashiell’s thick hair and stylish thin mustache. He stared intently through the opera glasses.

  I stopped beside him. “Shakespeare in the park?”

  “Droll. Very droll.” He held the glasses to his side. “I thought I recognized your voice.” He pointed to the garden where guests, mostly couples, strolled along a redbrick path lit with flickering torches. “See the guy in the tan suit? Who wears tan to a cocktail party?”

  The man stood in the shadows of the topiary garden gazing up at the house. Shadows hid his face. “You going to bust him for lack of fashion?”

  “He’s casing the joint.”

  I took another look. “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure? If it wasn’t for me, you’d probably still be locked in that Omaha grain elevator. Trust me on this. Once a Pinkerton, always a Pinkerton.”

  Dashiell was right. The man was as inconspicuous as garters on a racehorse.

  When the man disappeared behind an elaborately trimmed green elephant, Dashiell set the opera glasses next to a half-full martini on a table behind him. “Wait here.” Taking a long drag on the cigarette, he hurried down the stairway to the topiary garden.

  He dashed from shrub to shrub, drawing closer to the man in tan. Dashiell hid behind a bush shaped like a monkey. Cigarette smoke curled from behind the tail, drawing attention to his presence.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. He’d lost his touch since Omaha.

  The man in the tan suit crossed the path, torchlight flickering across his face. I grabbed the opera glasses, focused on his face, and stopped breathing. It was Laura’s stalker, the same man who followed us from the bus station to The Diamond House. This guy was no security guard or party guest. He certainly appeared to be casing the Dalrymple mansion, but why had he followed Laura?

  I limped down the stairway, one difficult step at a time. I made my way down the walkway with growing concern. Beside a thick hedge trimmed in the shape of a hippopotamus, I looked up and down the path. Where was Dashiell?

  “Pssst.” With one foot on a wrought-iron bench, Dashiell crouched behind a green turtle bush and waved me over.

  I ducked beside him, determined not to register concern over Laura’s stalker. I thought about reporting him to the plentiful supply of guards mingling with guests. They’d call the cops, who’d toss him in jail. I wouldn’t find out if he was a threat to Laura. “Maybe he’s one of the guards,” I whispered. I didn’t believe that for a minute.

  “You think I was born yesterday?” He climbed onto the bench. His unbuttoned suit coat displayed a holstered pistol with an ivory handle, like the one he carried in Omaha. “Get back. He’ll walk by, and I’ll grab him.”

  Before I could stop him, Dashiell jumped down. He lunged past the bush and grabbed the arm of a man twice the size of Laura’s stalker. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you …”

  The flickering torchlight revealed boxer scars similar to my father’s. This guy, who wasn’t Laura’s stalker, was a heavyweight, Dashiell a middleweight at best.

  The angry man jerked his arm from Dashiell’s grip and turned to a pretty girl in a white dress behind him. “I’ll handle this, dollface.”

  Dashiell held up both hands. “I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were … someone else. Let me buy you and the young lady a drink.”

  “It’s an open bar.” He took a menacing step toward Dashiell.

  I stuck the end of my cane against the center of the man’s chest and stopped his advance. “Back off, friend.”

  The girl tugged on his arm. “Let’s get back to the party, Bernie. That guy’s drunk.”

  Dashiell nodded. “She’s right. I am drunk.”

  Bernie slapped the end of the cane away then pointed a thick gnarled finger at Dashiell. “If you ever lay your paws on me again, I’ll rip off your mustache and jam it down your throat.” He slipped a protective arm around the girl and escorted her back to the stairway.

  Dashiell dropped down on the bench and buried his head in his hands.

  In all the commotion, Laura’s stalker had disappeared. I wanted to find out whether he was a threat to Laura, but I wouldn’t let Dashiell see my interest in the guy.

  Knowing Dashiell used real-life people, from his Pinkerton days, as characters in his novels, I sat beside him. “Bernie might make a nice villain in your next novel.”

  Dashiell grumbled a response. He rose, jammed both hands into his trouser pockets, and headed for the stairs.

  I limped after him. By the time I made it back to the deck, Dashiell was at a table smoking a cigarette and sipping a martini. He was a million miles away. I sat across from him, trying to think of something comforting to say.

  He blew a plume of smoke and watched it drift into the night air. “Lillian talked to you, didn’t she?”

  “She’s worried, that’s all.”

  “She thinks I can’t handle myself anymore. Now you do as well.”

  “Lillian doesn’t think that. I don’t either.” I thought back to the day we met. “You once told me something I’ll never forget. You said carrying a gun and solving crimes doesn’t make you a man. You’re one of the country’s most successful writers. You don’t need to be a detective.”

  He took a sip of the martini. “You close to finding out what happened to Mickey?”

  “The papers got it wrong. I’m not investigating Mickey’s murder. I’m just waiting for my leg to heal before I head back to Florida.”

  His scowl revealed he didn’t believe me. I felt guilty lying to my old friend, but I was keeping what I learned to myself. Only Laura had seen pieces to the puzzle of Mickey’s last case.

  “Lillian thinks I’m trying to recapture my youth. Truth is, I’m a crime novelist who hasn’t solved a crime in more than a decade.” He crushed the cigarette in an ashtray. “I could use another drink.”

  “If I had two bits for every time I heard you say that, I’d be a rich man.”

  Lillian set martinis on the table in front of Dashiell and me. “You are a rich man, Jake.” She sat and held his hand. “What are you boys up to?”

  I took a sip. “Admiring the Dalrymple topiary garden.”

  Lillian laughed. “You never were a good liar, Jake Donovan.”

  She was right. I needed to find the stalker before Laura arrived. I left the martini and slid back the chair. “I’m staying at the Carlyle. Give me a call. Maybe we can get together for dinner.”

  Lillian kissed my cheek. “That would be wonderful, wouldn�
��t it, Dash?”

  “A delight.” He finished my drink.

  I left my two friends, hoping I’d convinced Dashiell to ignore his longing to return to detective work. Inside the large hall, I mingled, searching for the man in the tan suit. In spite of his attire, he proved to be surprisingly elusive. At the door to the music room I nearly collided with a woman with red curly hair.

  “Jake Donovan.” A snug purple gown made the big-boned woman resemble a ripe eggplant. She wrapped me in a bear hug like we were long-lost cousins. She took my arm and practically dragged me into the music room. “I know you’re friends with Cole Porter. Introduce me. Please! I’d be perfect for the new song he sang earlier.”

  “ ‘Anything Goes’?”

  “You rascal.” A bawdy grin crossed her face. “I’ll be grateful, but not that grateful, Slim.” She clapped me on the back and let out a head-turning laugh.

  Now I remembered where we met. She appeared in a play with Laura several years ago and always called me Slim. In spite of her flaming red hair and booming voice, her name escaped me. I didn’t want her hanging on my arm all night. “I’d be happy to introduce you.” I hoped her name came to me by the time we reached the piano. I took my time limping across the room.

  Cole laughed at something Frankie had just said. He looked up and applauded. “Jake. I almost sent out a search party.”

  The woman looked ready to burst, but I still couldn’t remember her name. “I’d like you to meet … a wonderful actress—”

  “Ethel Merman.” Cole rose and kissed her hand. “Why haven’t we ever worked together? Tell Jake what the press said about your voice.”

  “That I can hold a note longer than Chase National Bank.” Her laughter drowned out Cole’s. “Scuttlebutt says you’re working on a new play.”

  Cole stepped back and framed Ethel with both hands. “You’d be perfect for the lead.”

  Applause came from the lobby. I excused myself and left Cole and Ethel Merman discussing his new play.

  Frankie snatched a drink from a tray as a waiter passed by. He followed me, slurring his words. “Turned out to be a ssswell party.”