Murder Your Darlings

by J. J. Murphy

  “Would I lie to you? A detective with the police force?”

  The detective squinted. “Why are you trying to cover for this Dachshund? What’s he to you?”

  “He’s an innocent, lost little boy, trying to find his way,” Dorothy said, without thinking. “I know he didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Then he’s got nothing to be afraid of. Now, what’s your room number?”

  “Four twenty-six.”

  O’Rannigan shook his head. “I’m a detective, and I can read you like a book.”

  “Is it a good book?”

  “It’s fiction and fantasy.”

  “I knew it wasn’t a romance. At least you didn’t say it was a tragedy.”

  “Cough it up. What’s your real room number?”

  Dorothy bit her lip, thinking how to respond.

  O’Rannigan said, “Like I told you, I’m a detective, so now I’m going to do a little easy detective work. Give me your room key. Now.”

  He stuck out a hand that was as large as a salad plate. She stared at the policeman’s big hand a moment. Then she opened up her purse, fished inside and dropped her key ring into the man’s open palm.

  He smirked. “I just knew a bobbed-haired vamp like you would never have bothered to take the number off the key.”

  She didn’t mind about being called a vamp. “I don’t have bobbed hair,” she said, insulted.

  O’Rannigan looked at the key fob.

  “Two thirteen?” His expression twisted in anger, and he shook a meaty fist in front of her face. “On the last floor down—the third floor—you said you lived on the next floor.”

  “I said I lived one floor away, Detective. You were the one who jumped to the conclusion that I lived on the floor above, not the floor below.”

  He grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her back toward the stairs.

  This was cutting things too close, she thought as O’Rannigan hurried her along. Benchley probably hadn’t taken Faulkner safely out of her room just yet. Or had he? She secretly crossed her fingers and hoped so, for all their sakes.

  Chapter 5

  Benchley knocked on the door of Dorothy’s suite.

  “Billy, come on, now. We have to go.”

  Faulkner opened the door. He held a highball glass of amber liquid.

  “What’s that?” Benchley said.

  “I think it’s supposed to be bourbon. But it tastes like lighter fluid.”

  “Let me see that.” Benchley deftly snatched the glass from Faulkner’s hand, put it to his lips and swallowed it before Faulkner could say a word.

  “Well?”

  “Puts hair on your chest.” Benchley coughed. “Then burns it off again. Let’s go.”

  He handed the empty glass to Faulkner, turned and strode away quickly.

  “Go? Where?” Faulkner shut the apartment door and hurried to catch up. He still carried the glass in his hand.

  Benchley called over his shoulder, “To the elevator, of course. Douglas Fairbanks is operating it and he doesn’t have all day. He’s a very busy man.”

  “Douglas Fairbanks is operating the elevator?”

  Dorothy Parker reached the second-floor landing before Detective O’Rannigan. She stopped and fished in her purse.

  “Quit stalling,” he puffed as he descended the last few stairs. His face was redder than before. A ribbon of perspiration stained the headband of his derby.

  “Smoke break.” She removed a cigarette from her bag and popped it in the corner of her mouth. “Have a light?”

  He made a fist. “No, but I’ll make you see stars.”

  “Now, that’s the last straw.” She flung the cigarette to his feet. “First, you call me a spinster. Then you call me homely, then a liar, then a vamp. And for the second time in mere minutes, you threaten me with violence. If this is the state of law enforcement today, then I prefer anarchy. I refuse to help you any longer!”

  She flattened her back against the hallway door and crossed her arms.

  “Suits me fine.” He reached past her and grabbed the door handle. “You ain’t been doing nothing but running me around in circles anyway. I have your key. So what do I need you for?”

  He pulled open the door and pulled her along with it. Her shoes skidded along the tiled floor.

  Now he was in the hallway. But she was after him.

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Yeah,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m about to apprehend a murderer.”

  At the far end of the hall, far beyond the hulking silhouette of O’Rannigan, she heard the elevator door close. She hoped that was Benchley and Faulkner making their escape.

  “That’s not all you’re up to,” she said.

  O’Rannigan glanced at the numbers on every door they passed. They had nearly reached her suite.

  “Yeah, I’m running you in for obstruction, too.” He stopped at her door, room 213. “Ah, here we are.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She lightly laid her hand on his as he inserted the key into the lock. “You came up here to see my boudoir.”

  He looked at her momentarily and sneered. Then he threw the door open with a crash. “Awright, Dachshund. Come out!”

  O’Rannigan pulled away from her and entered. Dorothy held her breath and remained standing at the doorway.

  “Come out now, Dachshund,” he yelled, stomping about. “Don’t make me tear this lady’s place apart to find you.”

  She peered through the door. Her suite was small—a small parlor, a small bedroom, a small bathroom, no kitchen. Even this tiny residence was more than she could afford. Most months, she handed Frank Case an empty envelope. Case was decorous enough never to mention that she’d failed to enclose a check. (She knew he liked having writers, actors and artists in his hotel, often to his financial loss.)

  The detective raced from room to room. In the bedroom, he was startled to see a lumpy figure in the small bed. He grunted in triumph and yanked the covers away.

  But it wasn’t Faulkner. It was a surprised bug-eyed, bat-eared Boston terrier. The ugly dog had a mangy short-haired coat the color of vomit.

  “Come here, Woodrow,” Dorothy called, crouching down. The dog leaped off the bed and into her open arms.

  “Woodrow?”

  “Woodrow Wilson. Named after the only politician I’ve ever trusted. Until he sent us to war. A noble failure, like this dog.”

  The detective scowled and continued his search. In just a few moments, he had inspected all the possible places a man could hide—under the bed, behind the sofa, in the closet, in the bathtub and that was all. He had come up empty. He stood in the middle of the parlor, baffled.

  Douglas Fairbanks was several years older and several inches shorter than Benchley, though Faulkner noted that the famous movie actor’s clean, handsome, unwrinkled face looked younger. Fairbanks wore his characteristic pencil-thin moustache. He held the elevator operator’s lever with one hand and a tennis racket with the other. He pulled the lever and the elevator began to descend.

  Faulkner suddenly realized he still had the empty highball glass in his hand.

  “What’s that?” Fairbanks said.

  Faulkner was as surprised as if the celluloid version of Fairbanks had spoken to him from the screen. “It—it used to be bourbon,” he answered.

  “Not on your life,” Benchley said. “If that was bourbon, I’m a monkey’s uncle. It was bootleg whiskey distilled through someone’s boot. But never mind that now, Billy. We have to get you out of here.” The elevator came to a halt. Benchley spoke like an elevator operator. “Here we are, ground floor. Ladies’ dresses up, men’s pants down. Thank you for shopping at Macy’s.”

  Fairbanks reached to open the door.

  “Just a moment, Mr. Fairbanks,” Faulkner said hurriedly. “There’s something I need to tell Mr. Benchley.”

  “Right now?” Fairbanks frowned, which failed to ruin his good looks. If anything, it brought his matinee-idol features into sharp r
elief. “I’m late for a tennis date.”

  “Have no fear, Douglas,” Benchley said. “She’ll wait. You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “She is Florenz Ziegfeld.”

  “Florenz Ziegfeld, the Broadway producer?” Faulkner sputtered insensibly. “She’s a he. I mean, he’s a man.”

  “That’s a generous description,” Fairbanks said. “I would have called him a greasy rat. In any case, get on with your discussion so I can get to my game.”

  Faulkner looked doubtfully from Fairbanks to Benchley.

  “Oh, he’s okay,” Benchley said to Faulkner. “Whatever it is you have to say, Douglas won’t bother to repeat it. Unless it’s something flattering about him.”

  “All right,” Faulkner said, speaking low regardless. “I was trying to tell Mrs. Parker something important before she shut me up in her apartment.”

  “Something important?” Benchley said. “About what?”

  A loud banging came from the other side of the elevator door, followed by the muffled bawl of an old man.

  “Let me in, you crooks,” came the creaky voice of Maurice, the elevator operator. “You stole my elevator.”

  “Never mind him,” Benchley said. “What was it you wanted to tell Mrs. Parker?”

  Faulkner’s voice dropped so low, Benchley had to strain to listen. “I saw a suspicious man in the lobby this morning. Before that drama critic was murdered.”

  “A suspicious man? Suspicious in what way?”

  “There was something dark and dangerous about him,” Faulkner said.

  Maurice hammered his fist on the door again. Fairbanks sighed.

  Benchley’s eyes were fixed on Faulkner. “Why didn’t you tell us this before? Why didn’t you mention this when the police detective was questioning everyone, including you?”

  “I don’t know.” Faulkner looked down at his hands. “I went dumb as a stump.”

  Benchley turned to Fairbanks. “Open the door, Douglas. Time to go.”

  When the doors opened, Maurice stood there, puffing and as hot as a steam engine. Benchley, Faulkner and Fairbanks ignored him and entered the lobby.

  The elderly elevator operator stood fuming. He spat, “You can all go to hell.”

  Over his shoulder, Benchley said, “Guess who goes first, Maurice.”

  Now that Dorothy knew that Benchley had taken Faulkner from her room, she wanted to catch up with them quickly. That meant getting rid of O’Rannigan.

  “It’s just a small place,” she said. “Only enough room to lay my hat—and a few friends.”

  The detective ignored her. He stood in the center of the parlor, his hand on his round jaw, his gaze off in the middle distance.

  “You see?” She moved toward him. “We’re alone. Just like you planned.”

  “Like I planned? I planned to find Dachshund—that’s what I planned. Now where the hell do I look?”

  “Look right here.” She fixed her eyes on his. “Isn’t this what you expected to find?”

  He backed away a step. “What are you talking about?”

  She approached him like a cat stalking a mouse. “You called me a liar? Maybe. You called me a spinster? Someday probably. You called me a vamp? Definitely.”

  She put her tiny hand on his chest. He batted it away as if it was a spider. He raced out the door, like a child running from a haunted house.

  She turned and watched him go. This, she thought, was always what happened when she threw herself at a man. It made him run for the hills.

  Chapter 6

  Inside the Automat at Forty-sixth and Broadway, just three blocks from the Algonquin Hotel, Dorothy gazed at the mirrorlike wall before her. The wall was made up of tiny doors, each about the size of a post-card. Within each chrome door was a small window, and behind each window, a plate of food. There were macaroni and cheese, ham-and-cheese sandwiches, creamed spinach, Boston baked beans, stewed tomatoes, slices of blueberry pie.

  But she wasn’t looking at the food. She wasn’t even looking at the windows. She looked at the thousand reflections in the glass and chrome. Sure, her reflection was there. Her brimless cloche hat was pulled low, almost covering the dark bangs on her forehead. She wore a deep blue dress that was stylish without calling attention to her shapely petite figure.

  But she wasn’t interested in her own reflection. Instead, she watched a thousand Robert Benchleys sitting around a table of friends. She saw a thousand of his smiles, two thousand of his merry eyes. She again felt that familiar precious heartache. All these Benchleys here for her alone, yet she couldn’t keep a single one of them. She heard his mellifluous voice behind her.

  “Did I ever happen to tell you about the time Mrs. Parker and I both swore off drinking? We were at Tony Soma’s speakeasy one night, holding up our end of the bar ...”

  Benchley was telling a story he’d told them all before, entertaining them in order to cheer them up. He spoke as though nothing horrible had happened, as if he had not seen Mayflower’s corpse less than an hour ago.

  “Tony was there, as usual, standing on his head and showing off, singing opera. Well, Mrs. Parker and I were greatly enjoying ourselves, by which I mean we were drinking hand over fist, although that’s a certain way to spill your drink ...”

  Benchley had given Dorothy a handful of nickels. She popped one of these in a slot, turned the knob and opened the tiny door. She withdrew a liverwurst sandwich. Then she bought a dish of rice pudding, then a slice of pecan pie. She went over to the enormous silver coffee urn, where the steaming black liquid poured from a brass spout in the shape of a dolphin. Again, she watched the elongated reflection of Benchley in the silver urn.

  “Before we knew it,” he continued, “the night had turned into the wee morning hours, and we realized it was time to go before we started seeing pink elephants. It was just a week before Christmas, and a soft, silent snow was falling when we finally went outside. Then suddenly, under the Sixth Avenue Elevated, we saw a line of elephants approaching ...”

  She smiled. Benchley was getting to the good part.

  In many ways, he was her opposite. Opposites attract, they say. But then again, in other ways she and Benchley were much the same. They perceived things through the same eyes. But they differed in how they reacted. Walking down the street together, they once witnessed a very minor tragedy. A little boy had trotted along, his one hand in the hand of his grandmother, his other hand holding a balloon on a string. A woman, walking in the opposite direction, had removed a cigarette from her mouth and tapped off the ash with a long, careless finger. As she did so, the hot end of the cigarette came in contact with the balloon, which burst with a sharp bang. The woman either did not notice or did not care, because she didn’t stop. The boy was at first shocked, then heartbroken.

  Dorothy and Benchley had witnessed the same incident, and both, without saying a word, felt in their hearts the little boy’s utter despair. But their reactions were completely different. She wanted to embrace the crying child and cry with him. Misery loves company, she thought.

  But Benchley always handled things in a brighter way. He bent down and said something funny—she couldn’t hear what it was—and for a moment, the child forgot his sadness. Then Benchley performed the old sleight-of-hand trick, pulling a nickel from behind the child’s ear. He handed the coin to the boy and told him about a shop around the corner that sold balloons that were even bigger than the one the boy just had.

  Benchley continued his story, “The elephants walked in single file, trunk in tail, padding through the snow, and on the tail of the last elephant hung a red light. I turned to Mrs. Parker and said, ‘That’s it. No more booze. I’m on the wagon.’ ‘Me too,’ she said. And then, to steady our nerves, we turned around, went back inside and ordered two double brandies.”

  She set the cup of hot coffee on a saucer, and, carrying this and the three other dishes in her arms, she walked carefully over to the improvised Round Table.

  “I asked her, ‘Did you
see anything just then? You know, anything out of the ordinary?’ ‘Nope. Did you?’ she said hopefully. And Tony turned to us and asked if we had seen the elephants. ‘Elephants? You mean you’ve seen them, too?’ I said. Well, he explained, the Ringling Brothers Circus was in town and the elephants were marching to the Hippodrome.”

  The group burst into laughter, attracting the sidelong glances of other diners.

  “And that’s when we decided that never again would we swear off drinking,” Benchley concluded.

  Faulkner rose when he saw Dorothy approaching, burdened with dishes.

  “Oh, Mrs. Parker,” he muttered in his southern accent. “Why didn’t you call me for assistance? Chivalry is not dead.”

  She looked at the other men at the table, none of whom rose to help. “No, chivalry’s just sitting on its fat ass.”

  Woollcott harrumphed. “Dottie is right. Couldn’t we at least have lunched at a proper restaurant, with waiters to serve us? Here we are, the literary lights of New York, eating humble pie with the common folk at a Horn and Hardart’s.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “Usually, all I can afford at the Algonquin is a hard-boiled egg. And I can rarely afford that.”

  She set the sandwich in front of Faulkner and patted his hand in a motherly way. She took a sip from the cup of hot coffee. When she looked up, she saw a man standing by their table.

  “Heavens to Betsy!” said the normally laconic Robert Sherwood. “Bud Battersby, where did you suddenly come from?”

  Merton “Bud” Battersby was the editor and publisher of the Knickerbocker News. He was middle-aged yet had an eternally boyish face. But his typically apple-cheeked countenance was now drained of color.

  “I just came from the Algonquin.” Battersby’s voice was that of a sick cat. “Your waiter, Luigi, told me you’d all be here. He told me about Leland Mayflower, too.”

  Sherwood rose out of his chair and laid his long hand on Battersby’s shoulder. “We couldn’t believe it about Mayflower. We’re so sorry, Bud.”

  “That’s good of you, considering what Leland wrote about your debut play.”