by George Baxt
“And that snotty Louise Brooks. Oh, my”—she struck an artificial pose—“but ain’t we grand. Still, I like to listen to her, that is, when she decides to talk.”
“Louise and Paulette and most of the others are too smart to get mixed up in drugs. Just remember, kitten, there’s no vaccine for drug addiction.”
“What are you feeding me that line of apple sauce for? I ain’t on the hook.”
“I hope you’re not. I’ve found myself wondering, you rooming with Ilona, real neighbourly with Vera DeLee.”
“Vera was nuts. I didn’t like her. Ilona was okay, though. What a rotten way to die. And dumped all the way out in Brooklyn, for crying out loud. Sayyyy, who’s going to bury her? I mean what with her family and all back there in Hungary. D’y’think they’ll ship her back to Hungary?”
“I can’t think why,” responded Ziegfeld suavely. “There’s certainly nobody there to claim the body, unless it’s shipped to a medical school.”
All of a sudden her face brightened. “Hey, Flo, guess what?”
“What?”
She said with delight, “We’ve been talking.”
The Harlequin Club was situated in the basement of a brownstone. There was a blue light casting an eerie pall over the cement stairs leading to the door, which was Painted black. There was an eyehole in the door. Woollcott gingerly led Mrs. Parker down the stairs and then knocked hard on the door. After a moment, the eyehole opened and a voice that apparently belonged to the eye examined them and asked, “Whaddyawant?”
Mrs. Parker piped up immediately. “We’re friends of Lacey Van Weber.”
The eye disappeared. The eyehole was shut. They heard a bar sliding back. Woollcott gently pinched Mrs. Parker’s cheek. “You clever girl.”
“I had an idea that would work,” she said with the pride of an Olympics winner. The door opened for them and they entered. Their ears were attacked by the rinky-tink music of a mechanical piano. Mrs. Parker asked Woollcott, “Do you have a machete?”
“What for?” inquired a startled Woollcott.
“To hack our way through the smoke.”
The man at the door looked as though he had just been rescued from a head-on collision. “Yawannatable?” Mrs. Parker was fascinated by the way he ran words together, like a seamstress gone berserk.
“I think we’d adore a table,” replied Mrs. Parker. The man raised his arm and pointed into the room, but at nothing in particular. Mrs. Parker, with Girl Scout instinct, led the way to a table near the end of the bar. The other tables were mostly occupied, and they recognized some celebrities. A waiter took their order, bourbon neat for Mrs. Parker, gin and orange juice for Woollcott.
“I don’t hear any sniffing,” said Woollcott.
“How can you hear anything with die racket that player piano’s making?” The wall behind the bar was hung with framed photographs of athletes and showgirls. Mrs. Parker thought that made good sense. Showgirls, in their way, were athletes of a sort. There were about a dozen people at the bar, most of the women fanning themselves with their hands. The ventilation at best was inadequate, with a few overhead revolving fans stirring up an occasional trace of a breeze. The waiter served their drinks, made a notation on a little pad and then went elsewhere. Mrs. Parker sipped her drink. “This is pure, unadulterated lye.”
“Don’t insult our hosts. Why, hello!”
There was a tall, raven-haired, sultry-looking beauty newly arrived at their table, smiling at Mrs. Parker. “Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Parker? We met in Cap d’Antibes a couple of months ago. I had just arrived from Germany.”
Woollcott recognized her immediately. “Don’t be such a fool, Dottie, this is Nita Naldi!”
“Oh, my God, of course!” exclaimed Mrs. Parker. “I’m not sure who anybody is with all this smoke. Please sit down.”
“Just for a bit,” said Naldi as she sat. “I’m with a movie producer and I can’t leave him alone for too long. They run out of things to say to themselves.” Woollcott introduced himself. “What are you two doing in a dive like this?”
“I dote on dives,” said Mrs. Parker swiftly.
“I don’t, but whither he goeth”—Naldi jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of her escort—“I goeth.”
“How long will you be in town?” asked Mrs. Parker politely. She didn’t dare admit not recalling meeting the glamorous movie vamp in France. At the time she was in a dazed state of crumbling romance. At a time like that she couldn’t remember her telephone number.
“Christ knows,” replied Naldi. “There’s a slump in the market for movie vamps. I haven’t worked since those two pictures I did abroad.”
“Ah, you’ve worked in Europe? With Fritz Lang? F. W. Murnau?”
“Please, Mr. Woollcott, nothing so fancy. I worked for a porker named Alfred Hitchcock. Two disasters. The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle. They’re so awful I’m sure they’ll never be released. The producers will probably turn their backs on them and let them escape. As for the director, he didn’t know shit from shingles. But still, these days you go where the work is, and like I said, there’s not much open for fading vamps these days.” She spoke with great good humor, and Mrs. Parker liked her. “The number I’m with says he’s going to be doing some films here in New York. So, you know, you have to play along until he either makes the right or the wrong proposition.” She looked at her wristwatch. “Midnight, and he hasn’t even put his hand on my knee yet.” She turned around in her chair and waved at the man. He raised his glass in a silent, admiring toast. “I can relax. He’s pickled.” She roared with laughter. Then she asked, “Where you been tonight?” Woollcott told her they’d seen No Foolin’. “No kidding! So did we! I didn’t see you there.”
“Why didn’t you come backstage?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“Oh, no.” Her voice was now a different color. “I saw Flo. You know I was one of his discoveries a couple of centuries ago. I’m one of the girls who got away. I don’t like him, never have. You read about this Ilona Mercury kid? He’s not raised a finger about helping to bury her. Tomorrow I start passing the hat. In fact, maybe I’ll start tonight with my sossled Romeo.” Mrs. Parker made a mental note to mention the matter to George S. Kaufman.
“Were you a good friend of hers?” asked Woollcott.
“There’s good and there’s good. I knew her years back in Hollywood under a lot of other names, I can’t remember which. She was a nut, that Ilona. I kept my distance when I found out she travelled in that drug set out there. A mean bunch they are.” Mrs. Parker and Woollcott were delighted and exchanged a glance. They had struck pay dirt.
“Did she get into trouble there?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“Well, after William Desmond Taylor’s murder, she disappeared.” Naldi told them much of what Jacob Singer had in his report from the Los Angeles police.
"And the butler has never resurfaced?” asked Woollcott.
Naldi shrugged. “Maybe he’s dead. I never saw him. I never knew Desmond Taylor. Listen, my best friend’s laying in a coffin over at Campbell’s. Poor Rudy. Poor bastard. I was one of the few people who listened when he talked.”
“Would you like a drink?” asked Mrs. Parker, wondering if she could palm off hers on the actress.
“No, thanks. I don’t much. I don’t look it, but I’m a good girl.” She let loose with another burst of laughter that spoke of health and energy. “Rudy wasn’t much for hooch either. Jeezus, what good times we had. Blood and Sand, Cobra, The Sainted Devil.”
“You were lovely in Blood and Sand,” said Woollcott. Then he added quickly, “Do you believe these rumors Valentino might have been poisoned?”
“Who the hell knows? There sure were some who would want him out of the way. He had Sicilian connections. Some said Rudy did the Black Hand some errand a couple of years back when he was so broke. He walked out on a contract with Paramount and they blacklisted him. He had so little money to begin with. Rambova, that’s the wife, was
bleeding him dry with her extravagances. Ah, who knows what you do when you’re up against it? All I know is, there were a lot of people at a certain party a couple of weeks ago who heard Rudy laying it into a certain Dr. Horathy, and they wouldn’t have liked what Rudy knew to be noised about.” She looked over her shoulder. Her escort was at the piano player feeding it coins. “I better get back to him. Quiet types like him usually have a short fuse.”
Mrs. Parker was loath to lose her. She pressed her with a question. “Did you know Dr. Horathy?”
“Oh, sure. Back on the Coast.” Mrs. Parker and Woollcott sat up. “He was Dr. Bliss back there, too. Rudy was right. The son of a bitch did help hook a lot of nice people. Let’s hope he gets his very soon.” She stood up. “It was just lovely talking to you two.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” said Mrs. Parker. Woollcott, in a rare display of courtliness, got to his feet, took Miss Naldi’s hand and kissed it.
Said Miss Naldi, “I’ll bet that’s about as much action as I get tonight.” With another tremendous roar of laughter, she made her way back to her escort. Woollcott sat down. “Now wasn’t that a bit of a bonus?” he said.
“Yes, things are starting to fall into place. I’m beginning to feel better about our investigation.”
Sniff sniff sniff.
Sid Curley must have come to their table on little cat feet. It was quite possible because he was a little man wearing a loud, checkered suit and a loud purple tie, which, Mrs. Parker later thought, was worn to blend with the colour of his past. On his head he wore a black derby which was now perched somewhat precariously at the back of his head. Sniff sniff sniff.
Mrs. Parker nudged Woollcott’s knee under the table. “I see you know my friend Nita,” said Sid Curley to Mrs. Parker.
“How observant you are,” replied Mrs. Parker.
“Are you somebody special?” he continued, head cocked to one side like an inquisitive sparrow.
Mrs. Parker tried to assume a pose of modesty. “Well, my name is Dorothy Parker. Have you heard of me?”
“Yeah. I think I heard of you.” He pivoted his eyes until they focused on Woollcott. “And who is this?”
“My governess,” said Mrs. Parker.
“My name is Woollcott, my good man,” said Woollcott somewhat testily, never understanding how there could still be anyone at large who didn’t recognize him since his face had been reproduced in numerous periodicals for one reason or another. “Alexander Woollcott.”
“Oh yeah,” said Sid Curley, as uninvited he took charge of the seat recently vacated by Nita Naldi. “It’s still warm.”
“Yes, it’s terribly warm,” agreed Mrs. Parker.
“I mean the chair. Nita’s got a hot butt.”
Mrs. Parker restrained herself from saying “The better to eat you with, my dear” because it really didn’t pertain. “It’s so nice of you to join us. Not many people join us when we’re out together. There are nights when we sit at a table, staring into our drinks, wondering when did it all go wrong, when did the magic go out of our lives.”
“You talk good,” said Curley.
“Would you like a drink?” asked Woollcott.
“I wouldn’t mind. On you?”
“On me.”
He shouted at the bar, “Hey, Maxie, send me a beer. Their tab!” At the bar, Maxie drew the beer in a glass schooner while Curley folded his arms and rested them on the table. Mrs. Parker thought he needed a toothpick in his mouth to complete the tableau. “So you’re a friend of Lacey Van Weber’s.”
Mrs. Parker looked at him, somewhat bemused. “Now how did you know that?”
“I got good ears. I pick up lots of stuff.”
“I see. You heard me announce that through the door.”
“Smart chick.” The beer arrived, and Curley leaned back, making room for it.
“Does he come here often?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“He don’t come here never, least not while I been around.” he slurped a good mouthful of beer which left a moustache of foam on his upper lip. This he wiped away with the sleeve of his jacket.
“So how do you know him?” asked Woollcott.
“I got connections.” He looked cautiously over both his shoulders and then leaned forward conspiratorially. Mrs. Parker wondered if they looked like a trio of Bolsheviks plotting the coming revolution. “You here looking for anything special?”
Mrs. Parker decided to take the plunge as Woollcott was looking a bit nonplussed. “Actually, a very dear friend of ours recommended this place to us. You see, Mr. Woollcott and I are doing an article about these two girls who were murdered.”
“I read about them,” said Curley. Somehow it did Mrs. Parker good to know the little man could read. She also wondered if he could tap dance. With the outfit he was Wearing, she thought all he needed was a cane and a choreographer to go over big with this crowd. Over Curley’s derby, she saw Nita Naldi and her escort leaving. Nita pausing in the doorway to wave at them. Mrs. Parker waved back, Curley turned in his seat and also waved. Mrs. Parker was positive Nita Naldi had never met the little man in her life. Sniff sniff sniff. “Where was I?”
“You had read about the girls,” prompted Mrs. Parker.
“Who’s the friend what sent you here?”
“Lean closer,” said Mrs. Parker, thoroughly enjoying herself and the game as being played to Sid Curley’s slightly demented rules, “and I’ll whisper his name.” Curley obeyed and she whispered, “Jacob Singer.”
“Sssssh!” hissed Curley, behaving as though he’d been singed by a hot poker, “don’t whisper so loud!”
Mrs. Parker apologized. “Sometimes a girl doesn’t know her own strength.”
Curley finished his beer, and Woollcott signalled the bartender to send another one. Mrs. Parker hoped the session with Mr. Curley would not be protracted. She didn’t know how long she could sustain the meeting without saying or doing something that would blow their cover, whatever that meant. She remembered reading something like that in a detective story. Curley had lowered his head and seemed to be talking into his beer. As they listened, Mrs. Parker hoped he wasn’t talking through his hat. “What I’m gonna tell you is worth twenty. You got twenty?”
“Twenty?” repeated Woollcott. “You mean dollars?”
“I sure don’t mean zlotys,” replied the little man, somewhat exasperated. Mrs. Parker nudged Woollcott’s knee under the table again.
“Yes, I most certainly have twenty dollars.”
“Slip it to me under the table. Be careful! Don’t let nobody see you reaching for your wallet.”
“I have a money clip.” Mrs. Parker wished he hadn’t sounded so haughty. Somehow, Woollcott managed to manoeuvre his bulk, extract a twenty dollar bill from the clip in his jacket pocket, and slip it under the table to Sid Curley.
“Now listen and listen good because I do not chew my fat twice. I gotta talk low because I don’t want nobody to overhear me. The walls have ears.” Mrs. Parker thought if anybody could hear them over the din in this place, they were in possession of something that deserved to be patented. “Them girls …” pronounced goils “… just mighta known too much about what’s goin’ on in the private life of a certain party in this town who happened to have entertained them along with about a hundred others . . pronounced udders “… a couple’a weeks ago in his penthouse…
Mrs. Parker felt her hands beginning to tremble and interlaced them.
“There is talk in important circles that he keeps this here mansion out on the island so it is a drop-off place for a bootlegging operation that comes down here by way of Canada. There are them what says at times it gets even dirtier …” pronounced doitier “… and certain other kinds of stuff gets dropped off there. There’s a lot of protection behind this guy, protection I am told that reaches as high up as Washington letter D and letter C.”
Good God, thought Woollcott, not another Teapot Dome scandal simmering.
“And you know the person …” pronounce
d poison “… of which I am speaking.”
“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Parker, “he’s just arrived with a gorgeous redhead.”
Lacey Van Weber had entered with Lily Robson, who was very unsteady on her feet and leaning heavily on his arm. Sid Curley saw them, and Mrs. Parker heard his pained intake of breath. He started to leave the table, but not before being seen by Van Weber. The little man scurried away from them and disappeared through a door at the back of the speakeasy that probably led to a back alley. Van Weber guided Lily Robson to Mrs. Parker and Woollcott’s table.
“What luck running into you here,” he said with his hypnotic smile and treacly voice. Mrs. Parker could feel her knees go weak. “This is Lily Robson and she’s just been taken ill.”
“Oh, God,” whimpered Lily Robson as her eyes rolled hack in her head.
“Mrs. Parker, could I prevail on you to assist her to the ladies’ room?”
“Do you think they have one here?” asked Mrs. Parker as she found the strength to stand up and put her arm around Lily Robson’s waist.
“Ladies’ room!” Woollcott shouted at the bartender.
“For you?”
“For them,” snapped Woollcott, indicating the ladies. “In the back,” advised the bartender.
“Let me help you there.” Van Weber’s arm also went around Lily Robson’s waist, and its warmth made Mrs. Parker wish they were alone, she and Lacey Van Weber, heading into a boudoir in his penthouse. Penthouses, as far as Mrs. Parker concerned, were too elegant for bedrooms. They had boudoirs, which were high class and elegant, like penthouses.
“Was it something she ate?” asked Mrs. Parker.
“I really don’t know,” answered Van Weber. “It came over her on the street a few minutes ago. I was escorting her to Texas Guinan’s where she works …”
“Oh, God,” moaned Lily Robson as her legs began to give way.
“… when she suddenly gasped and said ‘I don’t feel too good.’ So I saw this place, I’d heard of it and brought her in. Providential, don’t you think?”
Mrs. Parker hurried Lily Robson into the ladies’ room where the redhead threw up. Five minutes later, Mrs. Parker wiped her face with a paper towel dampened with cold water. The color was coming back to the girl’s face. “Feeling better? You’re looking better.”
