[Dorothy Parker 04] - Death Rides the Midnight Owl

by Agata Stanford

“I told Roger, ‘Roger, wouldn’t it be the thing to put some cash on a Broadway show?’ and he said, ‘Sure honey!’” she giggled. “But, I thought that that dreamy John Barrymore was going to be in the play, too. I was disappointed to hear I was wrong about that. It’s that grumpy Lionel who’s in it, instead.”

  I pointed to Lionel Barrymore, who was across the room, doing a little soft-shoe with a girl on each arm. “Doesn’t look too terribly out-of-sorts to me.”

  “Oh, don’t be an Airedale, Dot!”

  Mr. Benchley caught my eye and said, “Has Hermione met Aleck?”

  “Oh, you mean that roly-poly little man over there scooping up all the caviar garnish off the poached salmon plate?”

  “She’s met him,” said Mr. Benchley. “How about my friend over there?”

  “I was just asking Dot about him!”

  “Come, I’ll introduce you.”

  Before she could answer, the butler appeared with news that his mistress had a telephone call. “I’ll take it in the study, she said, and smiled and excused herself, leaving me and Mr. Benchley alone with each other—but, not for long, because Mr. Benchley was whisked away to the bar by an old friend before we could discuss our next move.

  The room was buzzing with music, gay conversation, and laughter. A good distraction, I thought, as I cut through the crowd, zigzagging my way, head down, hoping that no one would stop me. I figured that the bedrooms were on the upper floor, atop the curving stairs. I took the opportunity to slowly weave my way up, and when I was stopped by an actor I had known while growing up on the Upper West Side, I just handed him my empty glass and asked if he could get me a refill. A couple of women were coming out of the bathroom and I pretended that that was my destination, taking the door which they held for me and then, when they were gone, moving back toward the bedrooms.

  I knew it was her bedroom when I entered it because of the perfume that clung in the air—a familiar perfume by Guerlain. How vanity could give it all away, I thought.

  Quickly, I assessed the space, and then made straight for the dressing room, its door slightly ajar, a light glowing, revealing a glimpse of the many furs and racks of shoes and designer gowns within. That’s when I heard the familiar padding footsteps, and when I looked around, there was Woodrow.

  “Naughty boy,” I scolded in a whisper, annoyed that Mr. Benchley had let go his leash. He followed me into the dressing room, where my eyes scanned over the many boxes on the shelves, looking for a particular box—oblong, bearing the distinctive name of Madame Charlotte Chapelier. I found what I was looking for and, stepping up on a little footstool, pulled the box down from its perch on the shelf. I knew what was inside, and with hands shaking I removed the lid.

  I was not rewarded with the find I had expected, however; the box was empty. And I didn’t have much time to think about where it might be hidden because all thinking stopped with the realization that there was a gun in my back.

  “Did you really think I was stupid enough to keep the hat?” said Hermione, her voice uncharacteristically deep. “After the fuss you made about it on the train, telling that stupid detective that you’d kill for such a hat?”

  “That was Ruth’s big mouth,” I stuttered out. She’ll not shoot me in here. The blood would get all over her pretty clothes, and those satin shoes over there on the rack—it would never wash out.

  “Don’t worry, Dorothy, I’m not going to kill you here,” she said, reading my thoughts. “Although, there is so much noise downstairs that even if anyone did hear the shot, they’d just think it was a champagne cork.”

  “And it would make a bloody mess of your things, of course.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You may have been smart enough to get rid of the hat, but you were stupid enough to wear that brooch—that goddamn monster of a diamond brooch.”

  “You mean this pin?” she said, her eyes darting down toward her ample bosom. “I thought it was—”

  “You thought it was the hat that gave you away? Yes, and the fact that you are not a natural blonde.”

  “Who is these days?” she said, with a hard, snorting laugh.

  “But I found out that the real Hermione Mellon had turned prematurely gray in her early twenties. Before that strip job of yours your hair was brown, Joan Trombley! And before I met your husband, Freddie, and learned that he sent your cousin, Charles Fanshaw, to find you, I noticed something about that portrait you conveniently showed me in your sitting room at Last Call, the one of you and your sister—with your mother? I am aware that blonde little girls sometimes turn dark-haired at adulthood, so it wasn’t your dark roots my—our— hairdresser Loretta had to bleach that caused me to notice that there was something very odd about that painting.”

  There was a noise in the hall and then voices at the door. She shoved the gun barrel deeper into my spine and pulled me back further into the dressing room, pulling the door closed. A couple of kids had entered the bedroom and were singing as they danced through and then out again in their romp through the house.

  “We’re going for a little ride, Dot.”

  “Don’t be an Airedale, Hermione. How do you figure you can get away with this?”

  “Easy. Freight elevator.”

  “No! I mean get away with killing me?”

  “Who says that I’m going to kill you?”

  “What, we’re going to a sale at Klein’s?”

  “No, I’m going to have someone else kill you. This way,” she said, pushing me out the dressing room door. Spotting Woodrow peeking out from behind a floor-length mink, she said, “and your little dog, too!”

  “Can’t we just leave him here? He won’t bark.”

  Pointing the gun at my chest, she told me, “Pick up the dog!” She led me through the bedroom, gun aimed at my back, and peeked out of the bedroom door. I was trying to figure out if I could knock her in the head with a heavy candlestick or vase or something, but there was nothing handy to grab. “Let’s move,” she hissed.

  She hustled me along the hall and down a short staircase ending in an alcove between the kitchen and a butler’s pantry. The kitchen was too busy with caterers and waiters getting the food out to the partygoers for any of them to notice us as she pushed me out the service door. Down the elevator to the basement we went and, after peeking out of the gate, she led me along a maze of pipes to another door, which opened onto Central Park South. I clutched Woodrow to me.

  “So where does this little expedition end, Hermione?”

  “Get in the car,” she said when we had arrived at the chauffeured Rolls parked on the street. Her liveried man opened the door, wrenched Woodrow from my arms, and threw him to the sidewalk before shoving me in the backseat. “Woodrow!” I screamed.

  “Hermione” hopped in next to me, slamming the door.

  I was horrified for Woodrow—alone on the sidewalk facing the busy thoroughfare of Central Park South. But, the doors were locked and I couldn’t escape. Why, oh, why had I allowed myself to leave the relative safety of the apartment? I could have broken away. She never would have shot me, not with a hundred witnesses to see her do it! Lesson learned: Never let them take you to another location where it would be easier to kill you! Too late!

  These panic-ridden thoughts raced through my head as the driver pulled away from the curb and into the slow stream of traffic. I could feel the rush of adrenalin course through my veins like a drug. I was poised to do something, anything, to get free, but I knew not what. I craned my neck to look out the back window—there was Woodrow, barking from the curb, and then he jumped off it and into the busy flow of traffic. I heard the screech of tires and the blast of a horn, and closed my eyes against the inevitable disaster waiting to befall my little pup. As any mother would grieve for her child, I reeled at the thought of his death under the tires of an automobile!

  And then I thought, I’ll never be a mother; I’ll never have the child I’ve always wanted. I would have been a good mother, I would’ve!

/>   “You’ll get over it; it’s just a dog,” she chuckled. “I suppose you believe in the afterlife, Dot? If so, you’ll be seeing the little fellow soon enough.”

  I wanted to hurt her, punch her, pull out the bleached hair in great chunks from her skull. Instead, I cringed at her heartlessness, and in the face of it I realized that the only way to fight such evil was to keep my wits about me and to stay calm when I wanted to strike out. For that was all I had left, my wits, my ingenuity, because only God knew where the hell they were taking me to finish me off!

  At last I found my voice and I tried not to let it quiver as I said, “I see you’ve a hired man. Does he do your killing for you?”

  “I’m a modern girl, Dot; I can do my own killing when I want to.”

  “I hope you’re paying him enough,” I said loudly for the man to hear. “After all, he could be a witness against you, you know, or blackmail you blind.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Clever retort, Joan. You must know that people at the party will miss us there, that someone must have seen us when we left the building.”

  “Well, you were sick, fell ill, and I insisted on having my driver take you home, and I decided to make sure you were tucked in bed, like a good friend would do for a good friend. But, you wanted to ride around for a while, till your stomach settled—a ride through the park, you suggested—”

  “Making it up as you go along, is that it? How will you explain how I went from a car ride to a bullet through my head?”

  The evening traffic was sluggish as we approached the Grand Army Plaza, the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, where traffic finally came to a halt. We were only a short distance from where we had started out. The Plaza Hotel stood to the right, and any chance of signaling for help through the closed window was futile as Joan was on that side of the car.

  The window on my side of the car faced the lane of traffic going in the opposite direction, going west toward Columbus Circle. On that side of the road, near the park entrance, oncoming traffic was lighter and moved briskly. Through the gaps in the flow of cars, I could see the horse-drawn carriages lined up, a favorite romantic attraction for tourist rides through the winding roads of Central Park. And that’s where I caught sight of a familiar face, the face of a friend who just happened to look across the street at the same time I saw him. I knew that he recognized me, pawing frantically at the raised window, but then his attention was suddenly diverted and I didn’t have a chance to make any further gesture to communicate that I needed help. The limo was moving again, and then suddenly turned north onto East Drive, the long, winding road that cut through Central Park. I slunk down in my seat, defeated.

  The park was dark, except for the occasional lampposts lighting the road’s periphery. The automobile’s headlights sliced wedges through the blackness, and, except for the few times when we occasionally breezed past one of the slow-moving carriages, there was no one who might see my predicament.

  “I’m not the only one who knows you and your darling ‘husband’ Roger are murderers,” I said, hoping that knowledge would put an end to this madness, but after the words passed my lips I regretted having made the profession, because that knowledge would put my friends in danger.

  And I was right to think that because she said, “Roger will take care of your Bobby Benchley, Dot. He’ll have a little accident.”

  Before I could scratch out her eyes, the car slowed and turned off East Drive and onto a bridle path. A few hundred yards later the car came to a stop. The driver shut off the engine but kept the headlights glowing. Then, he got out, came to the driver’s side passenger door, opened it, and grabbed me by the elbow, roughly pulling me out of the car. Hermione was at my side a second later, and while the chauffeur held me firm, she walked off a little way to look over the terrain.

  The moon had risen in the east, and I turned away from the glare of the headlights, allowing my eyes to adjust to the natural light shed onto the darkened woods around us. Moonlight glinted off a high spot where a soft ring of illumination glowed in the distance over the tree-line. I instantly identified the landmark: the obelisk, “Cleopatra’s Needle” we used to call it when I was a child, even though Cleopatra had nothing whatsoever to do with the Egyptian-style monument erected not far from the rear of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  I could smell water. To the west lay the Croton Reservoir—that great expanse of fresh water that poured through the taps of the millions of homes on Manhattan Island. I knew it well. I knew the park like the back of my hand: the rambles, the Menagerie, Bethesda Fountain, Vista Rock, atop which sits Belvedere Castle, the Victorian “folly” built of stone and now used as headquarters by the United States Weather Bureau.

  This was my playground when I was a child—all of Central Park was my playground. And I made a bet with myself that these two fly-by-night pippins hadn’t the foggiest idea where we were. If I could make a break into the darkness of the trees, I’d have a chance of escape. I had to try; the alternative was a bullet in my lovely little head.

  To break and run toward the obelisk would bring me to the museum and quickly to the street at Fifth Avenue around 80th Street. But the area around the obelisk was open, mostly, and lit to be seen to best advantage, as was the grand edifice of the museum. I might get away, but they’d see me and most likely the big guy would catch me. Result: a bullet in the head.

  But to break away off the bridal path and hit the low brush bordering it might be my best escape route. From there I could keep off the paths, move stealthily between the tall trees, and make it to the reservoir. They couldn’t take a vehicle there. I could get through the darker regions guided only by moonlight and the water line, even get to the shelter and safety of Belvedere Castle while they searched aimlessly for me. From the castle I could put out the alarm.

  All these plans were running through my mind over the course of half a minute while the Big Blonde tried to figure out her strategy. I had stopped struggling in the grip of the Big Dope, which served to lessen the firmness of his handhold.

  “What do you think about down there? Just off the path and close to those bushes?”

  “Good a place as any,” said the Big Brute. “We can roll her body into the underbrush.”

  “They’ll find her too quickly, once daylight comes, don’t you think?”

  “So, we’ll put her in the trunk and drop her in the East River. It’ll look like the Mafia hit her.”

  “No! We want it to look like the anarchists got her,” said the airhead.

  “Now, why in hell would the anarchists want to kill me?” I asked, and she told me to shut up. Which I did—after all, she had the gun, and I didn’t want her to be facing me when I decided to run. I should not call her attention to me again.

  That’s when I heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the distance. A horse-drawn carriage was going by. They wouldn’t shoot if there was anybody nearby to hear the gunshot.

  I dug my heel into the Big Jerk’s instep, and when he hollered I turned and poked his eyes with two fingers. I grabbed the opportunity to escape by sinking down toward to the ground and wriggling out from under his encircling arms. He turned to grab me as I began to run for the brush. Then the thunderous blast of the gun’s discharge sounded. I made it to cover, and only then, while remaining very still, did I realize that in her moment of panic Joan had shot her sidekick.

  There was much ado from the fellow as he lay there moaning and whimpering and yelling obscenities about the bull’s-eye strike to his nether regions. I made my way through to a stand of trees and their voices faded.

  Then I heard the roar of the car revving up, and when I glanced toward the direction from whence I’d come, I saw the headlights glimmering through the trees at a distance. I watched as they turned north, away from me. I sighed with relief, stood to my full height, took deep breaths, and considered my best choices to exit the park. I was just about to walk toward the museum when suddenly I saw tiny specks of light in the dis
tance, flickering between the trees, and heard the hum of a motorcar getting closer and closer as the headlights shone bigger and brighter on the approach. East Drive was not in that direction, I didn’t think.

  The flickering lights became bigger and bigger until they were large spheres, and I knew they hadn’t given up the plan to kill me. I was in greater danger now because Joan Trombley was angry and desperate. As careless as she was, she wouldn’t refrain from any rash decision about where and when to kill me.

  The car stopped, the headlights were killed, and I heard the sound of a door slam. As I looked out blindly, my eyes slowly adjusting to the sudden darkness, I caught the striking glimmer of diamonds catching the rays of moonlight. She was standing only a few feet away.

  I held my breath and took a step back, but she must have heard the sound of a twig cracking under my foot, for the gun went off with deafening thunder and I could even see the spark of the shot coming out of the barrel. I ran!

  Now there was another kind of light bobbing along the tree branches and I realized she had a flashlight, and she was coming up behind me. I ran for cover, and as I was about to dive behind a boulder I again heard the loud report of the gun. I was now between a rock and a hard place.

  There was a muffled sound of something getting closer on the grassy knoll where I stood frozen and listening in the dark gray of the night. It was the snorting breath of an animal coming closer and closer. With my heart in my mouth I turned toward the direction I thought the animal was coming from and my throat choked off a futile scream.

  Was it a coyote? Or a wolf? They still lived in the park. I expected the end, and my life was flashing before my eyes when in front of me rose up a great black shadow waving its head at me! I immediately mourned that I could have done things a little differently and lived a better, a finer life. I could feel the heat of the beast’s breath on me and closed my eyes before I was mauled.

  Instead, I was hoisted into the air by a strong, muscled arm and found myself bouncing on a galloping horse, in a most unbalanced position on my stomach, into the moonlit clearing that was the reservoir.