by George Baxt
“When do you leave?” Ross asked Benchley.
“Saturday morning.”
“Are you taking Gertrude with you?”
“Which Gertrude?”
Woollcott placed the newspapers in front of Mrs. Parker. “Another murdered showgirl, my dear, if such trash interests you.”
“Anything about murder interests me,” trilled Mrs. Parker gaily, “as long as I’m not the illustration.” Ilona Mercui had made it big at last. She was headlines splashed aero the front page of the three newspapers. Mrs. Parker began reading in her softly modulated voice: ‘“The brutally strangled body of Ziegfeld showgirl Ilona Mercury was fount early last evening in a vacant lot in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.’“
“Nobody should be found strangled in Brooklyn,” said Benchley.
“Nobody should be found in Brooklyn, strangled or not,” added Woollcott.
‘“An autopsy, performed this morning, ruled out alcohol or narcotics.’" She looked up and her eyes locked with Woollcott’s. “Dear Alec, have we good seats for tonight?”
“Fifth row centre, my dear. I haven’t booked for dinner yet. Have you any preference?”
“Oh, I should have phoned and told you last night.”
“I wasn’t home last night. What should you have phoned and told me?”
“We’re booked at Tony’s for after theatre, it’s just around the corner from the Globe Theatre.”
“The Globe. That’s where Ziegfeld’s revue’s playing.” Ross wrinkled his nose with distaste.
“Didn’t you like it, Harold?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“Not my cup of tea. Haven’t you seen it already, Woollcott?”
“Yes. Now I shall examine it as a social study.” He directed his mouth at Mrs. Parker. “Who booked us at Tony’s? Put down that newspaper and answer me, and you Benchley, signal a waiter. I need a drink.”
Mrs. Parker dutifully folded the newspaper and let it fall to the floor. “I met and had drinks with a friend of the management late yesterday afternoon. A very charming gentleman named Lacey Van Weber.”
Woollcott’s pince-nez dropped.
“Now how the hell did you get to meet him?” asked Ross.
“Horace Liveright fixed it. Say, Harold, I’ve got a hell of an idea. Van Weber has really captured the imagination of the city …”
“Among other things,” interjected Woollcott.
“Wouldn’t he make a hell of a subject for a New Yorker profile?”
“Not a bad idea,” chipped in Benchley. “Gertrude can’t get to read enough about him. She says he reminds her of Jay Gatsby.”
Mrs. Parker blanched slightly. “What do you say, Harold? He’s really hot and up to the minute.” And sexy and handsome and I want a really good excuse to try to get to know him better in case he doesn’t call for a date within the next crucial twenty-four hours.
“I’ll think it over,” said Ross, without enthusiasm.
Woollcott piped up. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. You mustn’t ignore brilliant ideas, Harold, just because they’re not your own. And will you just look at our Mrs. Parker’s face? How many months has it been since we’ve seen such enthusiasm brightening her cheeks and lighting up her eyes like exploding Roman candles?”
“Gentlemen,” said Mrs. Parker with a slightly trembling voice, “speak of the devil, here he is.”
Lacey Van Weber entered the Rose Room as though he Were in the centre of a theatrical spotlight. Ten feet into the room, he paused, waited for the effect to sink in, doffed his homburg and smiled in Mrs. Parker’s direction. He shifted his walking stick and gloves from his right hand to his left and smartly stepped forward with his right hand outstretched. “Mrs. Parker, how nice to see you again, and so soon.”
Mrs. Parker hoped somebody had smelling salts but dreaded the thought of the need for them. She shook hands with Van Weber and introduced him to the others. “Won’t you join us?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“Just for a moment,” said Van Weber. “I’ve two business associates waiting in the other dining room. I had a feeling you might be lunching here today, so I popped in for a look. You look lovely.” Somebody grunted. Mrs. Parker suspected it was Benchley. Van Weber sat down. Woollcott picked up the ball. “I gather you’ve recommended we dine at Tony’s tonight. Is it a sincere recommendation, or do you own a piece of the place?”
Van Weber smiled. Mrs. Parker clutched her stomach! “It’s a sincere recommendation, and I own a piece of the place.”
“I’ll bet you own a piece of a lot of places,” suggested Benchley.1
“My investments are indeed diverse and scattered! They have to be. It’s all a crap shoot.”
“It’s quite a coincidence, your entrance, Mr. Van Weber, just when I was suggesting to Mr. Ross you might make an interesting subject for a New Yorker profile,” said Mrs. Parker.
“That’s very flattering,” responded Van Weber. “Would you write it?”
“When I suggest it, I write it.”
Ross was crumbling a bread roll. “Might be worth a go! You interested, Van Weber? Would you cooperate?”
“Let me think it over. You’re moving a little too fast for me.”
“Oh, my!” said Mrs. Parker suddenly, punctuating with a slight gasp, “I’ll bet you haven’t seen the afternoon papers.”
“Not yet. No.”
Mrs. Parker took one of the papers from Benchley’hands and spread it on the table in front of Van Weber “Isn’t it awful?”
Woollcott, looking about as innocent as Jack the Ripper, asked, “Did you know the victim?”
“Slightly. Rudolph Valentino brought her to a party at my penthouse a week or so ago.”
“Was that the night he took ill?” pursued Woollcott.
“Sadly enough, that was the night. Poor girl. Strangled. How sad.”
“And dumped in Brooklyn,” mused Benchley. “That’s adding insult to injury.”
Van Weber got to his feet. “You must excuse me. I promised my associates I’d only be a few minutes.”
“You’ll let me know about the profile?” asked Mrs. Parker.
Van Weber smiled and took her hand. “You’ll hear from me very soon.” He left as the waiter finally brought Woollcott a drink. Woollcott glowered at the waiter and then focused on Mrs. Parker.
“Dorothy,” he said, “you look like Lillian Gish with a stomach-ache.”
Mrs. Parker said nothing. She lifted her Jack Rose and drank. She had a feeling she was sailing into a stormy sea.
“Good afternoon, fellow Philistines.” Woollcott and Mrs. Parker were surprised to see Kaufman. He had a newspaper under his arm.
“Where’ve you been keeping yourself, George? Haven’t seen you in weeks.” Ross was fond of Kaufman, if only because his own mountain of hair towered over the other man’s.
“No place special, Harold. Been catching up on the new movies.” A waiter approached, and Kaufman ordered iced tea. Benchley shuddered. “Saw the new Barrymore yesterday, Don Juan. It has music and sound effects. I suppose soon they’ll be talking. There’s a pretty little actress in it, Mary Astor. A real good looker.”
“What’ve you got there?” asked Woollcott, referring to Kaufman’s newspaper.
“The Journal."
“We’ve seen the Journal,” said Mrs. Parker. Then as though suddenly stricken, she exclaimed, “Oh, George! That poor thing who was strangled and dumped in Brooklyn, on a what?”
“Mercury,” growled Woollcott.
“Didn’t you know her, George?” Mrs. Parker resemble Little Eva on the verge of running amok.
“I’d met her.” He opened the paper and stared at the| revolting photograph of the strangled woman. “Some girls looks fade fast.” He folded the paper and shoved it under his seat. “What else is new?”
“I had dinner last night with our detective protege, Mr. Singer.” She paused dramatically to let the news take effect where she was hoping it would take effect. Kaufman was constructing a pyramid of sugar
cubes, Woollcott was studying the menu. Benchley and Ross were participating in a game of cat’s cradle with a string Benchley had produced! “He’s really a fine example of self-improvement.”
“You mean he was able to pronounce the dishes on the menu?” asked Woollcott.
“Don’t be so superior, Alec,” said Mrs. Parker in a voice that recalled an old maid schoolteacher. “You could afford to learn a few things from Mr. Singer.”
“And what did you learn last night?” asked Kaufman Mrs. Parker swept the table with a meaningful look. “That it frequently pays just to sit back and listen.” She saw Edna Ferber entering. “Oh, dear. Gangrene is setting in.” Her dislike of the wealthy novelist was accepted and tolerated by all at the table, including Mrs. Ferber herself, who I looked upon Mrs. Parker as a parvenu in the shaky world of modern literature.
“Hello, my darlings,” yodeled Mrs. Ferber as she sat I down next to Kaufman, for whom she harbored what she thought was a secret passion. Unfortunately, her face wasl more eloquent than her novels. “Dottie, I just ran into your publisher.”
“Horace?”
“Yes. He looks like a corpse they forgot to embalm.”
“He looked perfectly fine when I saw him yesterday. But then,” she continued with an air of perverse innocence, “I heard him say something about holding a meeting at midnight.” The men exchanged knowing glances. Mrs. Parker now knew they knew. She hated them for not having let her in on the scandalous goings-on.
“Why, Dottie, darling, what have you done to your wrists?”
“You know damn well what I’ve done to my wrists, Ferber.”
“You should stop doing that, Dottie. It obviously doesn’t work.”
“Touché,” murmured Woollcott.
“How’s Beatrice?” Ferber asked Kaufman.
“We’re still married. Doesn’t anybody care about eating any lunch?”
“I’m starving,” said Mrs. Parker. “I haven’t eaten in days.”
“What about your dinner last night with the detective?” asked Ross.
“He did all the eating.”
“How’s the matzo brei coming?” asked Polly Adler as she came into the kitchen where Gloria was bending over the stove carefully scrambling eggs and soggy unleavened bread. It was one of Mrs. Adler’s favorite dishes.
“Almost ready.”
“Any word from Vera?”
“Not a peep.”
“Any complaints from any of the girls who worked for Liveright?”
“Not a peep.”
“I see. My chickens aren’t peeping this morning.” She Poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table. “How’s the day shaping up?”
“There are three girls on outcalls now.”
Mrs. Adler nodded. “The luncheon special.”
“There are two booked for seven this evening.”
“The blue-plate special.”
“And Mr. Julian Eltinge”—a celebrated female impersonator—“has asked for Agnes to be at his theatre for the second intermission.”
“Nothing special.”
The phone rang. “I’ll get it. You stay with the matzo brei. Keep stirring. I like it hard.” She paused. “No pun intended.” Into the phone she growled, “Yeah?” She looked at her wristwatch. “Mr. Vanderbilt, I am chagrined and ashamed of myself. I absolutely did not mark it down in my appointment book. I am so sorry. Consider I’m grovelling at your feet. I’ve never disappointed you before so I know you’ll forgive me. It’s just that Vera wasn’t feeling too well last night. I didn’t learn that until just a few minutes after you called. So I gave her the night off. If you still want her, I’ll phone her and get her over to your mansion within an hour.” Whatever Vanderbilt said made her smile. “Mr. Vanderbilt, for my money you’re number one in the Four Hundred.” She hung up. “That stupid cunt. She knew she was due at Vanderbilt’s at one. I should have reminded her when she phoned in from Horathy’s last night.” She jiggled the hook on the phone. “Hello, Central, wake up for Christ’s sake, the war’s over.”
Vera DeLee lived in an apartment hotel on West Thirty-fourth Street near Tenth Avenue. The day clerk explained to an impatient Polly Adler that as far as he knew Miss DeLee was still in her apartment. He hadn’t seen her leave and he’d arrived at seven in the morning and Gods knows the only time he’d seen her at seven in the morning was when somebody pulled the fire alarm. “If you’ll wait," he told Mrs. Adler, “I’ll send one of the maids up to shake her up. Well, she’s not answering the phone!” Mrs. Adler told him she’d wait.
The maid opened the door to Vera DeLee’s room with her passkey. There was a terrible stench in the room. The windows were shut, and the shades were drawn. She saw Vera DeLee sprawled across the bed, face up. Drunk again! she thought. She shook her head and shuffled to the bed! “Miss DeLee!” she shouted, but the shout stuck in her throat. Her hands flew to her mouth but too late to gag the scream that welled up in her stomach, forced its way up past her lungs, out her throat and into the room and the hall outside where it brought several of the frightened tenants on the run.
Vera DeLee was not a pretty sight. Her face was bloated. Her skin was an ugly greenish-gray. Her tongue protruded from between bloated lips. Her body was stiff with rigor mortis. She had been strangled.
Jacob Singer sat in a straight-backed chair taking notes while the morgue boys wrapped Vera DeLee’s body for removal. The maid stood with her back to the bed, her hand covering her mouth, a feather duster clenched tightly in her other fist. The desk clerk, Vincent Laurie, had opened the windows wide and stood against the wall facing Singer, arms folded, a veteran of murders, suicides and physical beatings. It was less than half an hour since the maid had found the prostitute’s body, and Singer had already efficiently cross-examined the two employees, which added up to next to nothing. They had very little to tell him. Laurie explained that the night clerk might be able to add more to Singer’s meagre store of information on the dead woman. Singer restrained from enlightening him that he knew almost everything about the dead woman except who had murdered her.
“Can’t I please go now?” pleaded the maid. “I’m getting behind on my rooms and I can’t stand it in here no longer. It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.” The morgue attendants were carrying the corpse out on a stretcher. Poor Vera Debee, thought Singer, I hope there’ll be somebody to claim her. If not, he knew he could rely on Polly Adler to do the right thing. After all, she was famous for guaranteeing her girls legal and medical services. Vera DeLee’s was an admirable reputation in whoredom. Surely Polly would award her the bonus of a decent burial. Vera DeLee. He wondered what her real name was.
Singer dismissed the maid and the desk clerk. After they left, he went to the phone and asked the switchboard to connect him with the Algonquin Hotel. It was not yet two in the afternoon. There was every likelihood Mrs. Parker was in temporary residence in the hotel’s Rose Room.
At the Round Table in the Rose Room, Harold Ross was asking George S. Kaufman, “What’s the new play about, George?”
“It’s about triplets. Princesses.” Mrs. Parker was examining her fingernails and deciding she could use a manicure. “One’s good, one’s evil, and the third is undecided.” Edna Ferber breathed a sigh of relief. Kaufman had promised not to reveal to anyone that he had agreed to collaborate with her on a new play, at least not until they were both satisfied with the first draft.
“Why has Marc Connelly abandoned us?” asked Benchley. “It’s over a week since he’s been here.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” contributed Ferber. “I spoke to him early this morning. He’s in the throes of a writer’s block. The agony is unbelievable. It seems he was invaded yesterday afternoon by some uninvited guests, causing his delicate muse to flee.”
“I don’t think that’s what caused his muse to flee,” suggested Mrs. Parker. “I think it was the dreadful decor. I mean who was his interior decorator? Helen Keller?”
Woollcott swallowed
the last of his lemon meringue pie I and then sat back contentedly. “I composed a poem this morning.” Silence descended over the table. The air was pregnant with expectation. Woollcott cleared his throat and recited, “This morning I met a pelican/ Whose stomach held more than my belly can.”
“Is that it?” asked Mrs. Parker incredulously.
“That’s it. I shall offer it to Mr. Adams for his column! I should think it might enhance my celebrity.”
“Why, Alec,” said Mrs. Parker agreeably, “it just might make you as celebrated as Whistler’s father.” She saw George, the headwaiter, approaching with a phone.
“It’s for you, Mrs. Parker.”
Mrs. Parker’s hands fluttered. She favoured Lacey Van Weber as the likely caller, probably sitting in one of the bank of telephone booths in the lobby. She could see his profile as he held the telephone receiver to his ear, waiting to be excited by her bell-like tones. George placed the phone in front of her and then plugged it into the wall. Conversation stopped. Mrs. Parker stared at the phone as though it were about to develop a life of its own.
“Well, for crying out loud, answer it,” said Woollcott testily.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Jake Singer. There’s been another murder.” He had her undivided attention. She listened placidly to the sordid details of Vera DeLee’s final exit. She was wondering if the pattern of strangulations was becoming epidemic. Her eyes moved from Kaufman’s hands to Ross’s hands and then to Benchley’s hands. Then her eyes found Woollcott’s, and she wondered if he was psychic. She had a feeling he sensed it was Singer at the other end of the line and there was a new murder to consider. “I’ll be calling on Polly Adler in about half an hour. Want to join me? I can pick you up in about fifteen minutes.”
“Mr. Woollcott is here with me.” All eyes were on Woollcott. He smiled sweetly and dropped four sugar cubes into his cup of coffee. It was really coffee.
“Oh, by all means bring Mr. Woollcott, if he isn’t too sensitive for an establishment like Mrs. Adler’s.”
“Mr. Woollcott isn’t sensitive to too much, so I wouldn’t let it worry you. By the way, is this news for publication?”
