by George Baxt
“Neysa McMein?”
“How nice. You’ve heard of her.”
“I’ve heard of all of you. I get around and I have my sources of information.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got a theory or two about why those girls were murdered.”
He didn’t take the bait. “Do you?”
Fearless Parker rode forth to give battle. If Van Weber heard the rattling of sabers, he showed no sign of it. “As a matter of fact I do. I think their murders were dope-related.”
“You mean they were part of some dangerous drug ring?”
“I mean Vera DeLee was addicted and Ilona Mercury knew too much.”
“About what?”
“About what Valentino was yelling at your party when he attacked Dr. Horathy. He recognized Horathy from Hollywood.”
Van Weber had been pouring a fresh cup of tea for himself and he sloshed some. Mrs. Parker saw this. I’ve struck a nerve. “Is this all supposition or do you know this for a fact?”
“I know it for a fact. Jacob Singer received some very pertinent information from the Los Angeles police linking Horathy and Ilona Mercury to a dope ring there.” Forgive me, Jacob Singer, if I’m spilling too much, but I’ve got to bring this man down from his empyrean heights, I’ve got to worry him and lead him into making a slip. Trust me, Jacob Singer, my intuition tells me I’m doing the right thing. True, it’s thanks to my intuition I married Ed Parker and bedded down with an assortment of rogues who belong in Madame Tussaud’s crime museum, but sometimes it can be busted, like when I decided to make you my friend, Jacob Singer.
“Mrs. Parker, you are absolutely fascinating,” Van Weber said with amazing equanimity.
“Yes, on occasion I can be a bit of a sorceress. Did you know William Desmond Taylor?”
The cup and saucer were placed on the table, and his hands rested at the table’s edge, the knuckles showing white. “Everyone’s read about that case.”
“Jacob Singer suspects there’s a link between the murders here and the Desmond Taylor case in Hollywood. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“Overpowering.”
“Now you can understand why Alec and I are hooked. Mr. Van Weber, you’re not listening."
“I’m listening. I haven’t missed a word.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “If you’re to be back in the city by six, we’ll have to get going.”
“Would you like to come to Neysa’s party tonight? She lives just across the hall from me. She makes her own gin. It’s absolutely delicious, guaranteed not to induce blindness.”
“How very kind of you.”
How very formal of you, thought Mrs. Parker, after this afternoon’s intimacy. Didn’t it matter, she wondered. “You were about to say something, Mrs. Parker?”
“You can call me Dottie, you know.”
“Thank you, old sport, I’d be delighted.”
Alexander Woollcott looked like the cock of the walk as he strutted from his West Forty-seventh Street home to the Algonquin Hotel on West Forty-fourth Street. He dutifully waited for traffic lights to change in his favour at all street corners until he reached the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Forty-fourth Street. As chance would have it, he saw George Kaufman strolling on the opposite side of Sixth Avenue toward West Forty-fourth.
“George!” Woollcott shouted as he started to cross the street. “Kaufman! Over here!”
Kaufman heard and turned and saw Woollcott. “Alec!” he shouted. “Get back! Look out!” A woman screamed. Woollcott heard an even shriller scream and realized it was his own. There was an unmarked delivery van bearing down on him.
“Alec was poetry in motion,” said Kaufman, describing Woollcott’s almost fatal brush with death. “I shouted, a woman screamed, Alec screamed, some people hurried to pull him out of the path of the delivery van, but Alec had already taken flight, soaring back onto the sidewalk with a leap that would have brought a blush of envy to Nijinsky’s cheeks.” Kaufman raised his cup of gin and orange, a rare occasion that he took liquor, in a sincere toast to Woollcott. “Bravo, Alec!”
Woollcott sat as still as a statue of Buddha, introspective, still shaken, wondering how soon it would be before Jacob Singer would arrive to rescue him from his friends. The Round Table was sparsely populated, with only Harold Ross and Robert Benchley at hand to make it a foursome.
“Poor Alec,” commiserated Ross, “did your life flash before your eyes?”
The Buddha stirred. The eyes narrowed dangerously into slits. The tongue struck like a flash of lightning. “No, I saw only a parade of you worthless bastards, and what an ugly sight you were.”
“Did you see the man behind the wheel?” asked Ross.
“I saw nothing but a brief enticing flash of the afterlife. Actually, I felt a searing surge of anger. I always planned to die on my own terms. For me, nothing less than a martyr’s death.”
“In the name of what cause?” asked Benchley.
“Myself. The supreme sacrifice.” He turned to Kaufman. “I suppose no cool head thought of jotting down his license number?”
“The license plates were masked.”
“Oh.” Woollcott’s voice was soft and tiny. Masked license plates. Vehicle shooting out of the side street without warning. It must have been waiting for me outside the house, thought Woollcott. It followed me here, waiting for an opportunity to strike. I’m a cautious pedestrian. I wait at street corners for the traffic light to favour me. I was safe until I reached this corner, and as fate would have it, there was Kaufman on the opposite side of the street and like a damn fool, I stepped into the gutter to hail him. Poetry in motion.
“What are you smiling at?” asked Kaufman, worrying that Woollcott might be in shock and need precautionary medical attendance.
“I was enjoying a most welcome euphoria.”
“Euphoria,” said Kaufman, “or against.”
“George,” said Woollcott solemnly, “I’m the one who should be in a state of shock.” He settled back in his chair, looking like a wounded lion waiting for its thorn to be removed. Waiting for Jacob Singer to arrive and comfort him. Kaufman had phoned the detective at Woollcott’s request when they arrived in the Algonquin lobby. A patrolman had taken their statements and those of the other witnesses, but that was routine. What had almost befallen Woollcott could not be a forgotten notation in a patrolman’s report, Jacob Singer would see to that. He sipped his gin and stared at Kaufman. The look of concern on his face was almost touching. Woollcott knew there was hardly a sentimental bone in the man’s body. He was selfish and remote, concerned only with finding the right curtain line for a third act. In any case, they couldn’t really discuss the murder attempt without arousing the suspicions of Benchley and Ross, who were enjoying a facetious conversation of their own. It could only be discussed with Singer and, when she got back to the city, with Dottie.
Dottie. Dear God. Is she safe? he wondered, not knowing at this precise moment she was complimenting the condition of a broiled trout.
Kaufman, looking past Woollcott, said, “Here’s Jacob Singer.”
“Ah,” said Woollcott, turning in his seat with an avuncular smile. Benchley and Ross remained absorbed in each other. Not even the announcement of the second coming would have impressed or interrupted them.
“I got here as soon as I could, Mr. Woollcott.” He acknowledged Kaufman and ignored the other two, who obviously didn’t care to be disturbed. Woollcott stood up and suggested he and Singer repair to the other dining room, which was smaller and quieter.
“I’ll phone you later, George. Sorry about our lunch date. I’ll take a rain check.”
“Take care of yourself,” were Kaufman’s parting words.
“Now he tells me,” snapped Woollcott peevishly as he led the detective out of the Rose Room.
Ten minutes later, seated across from each other at a secluded table, Jacob Singer eyed Woollcott with sympathy. “Somebody’s getting nervous,” commented Singer.
“So am I,” replied Wooll
cott, drumming on the table with his fingers. Their cups of gin were replenished, and Woollcott said he might manage a club sandwich when Singer suggested food. The waiter took their orders and departed.
Singer smiled. “You look cool and collected, Mr. Woollcott. You handle yourself well under stress.”
“Young man,” said Woollcott with fire, his juices revived and bubbling, “I have endured and survived the enfilades of German Stukas, I have had more than my share of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but let me tell you, I have never experienced the feeling of such total hopelessness and vulnerability as I did at that precise moment when I realized a man behind a wheel intended to kill me.” He wiped his perspiring brow. “I have suffered nothing so deadly since Ethel Barrymore’s Juliet. And what about poor Dottie? If an attempt is made on my life at one of the city’s most crowded intersections, she’s a sitting duck out there in the wilds of Long Island!”
“She’s not alone.”
“What do you mean ‘not alone’? What do we know about Van Weber? The old sport might be a deadly killer!”
“I’ve had a tail on them from the minute they left her apartment house.”
“Oh.”
“One of my best boys. Yudel Sherman.”
“Have you mentioned him before?”
“He got us the information there was a man with Vera DeLee the night she got murdered.”
“Now what about that?”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do you mean what do I want to know?” Woollcott ran his hand anxiously through his hair, leaving it looking like an eroding pasture. “Have you followed up on that? Have you had Horathy or his nurse in the hot seat?”
“All in good time.” Singer was buttering a roll as though he were honing a straightedge razor on a strop.
“All in good time? You mean all in bad time, don’t you? I have lost all interest in the possibility of this investigation being my epitaph. You are looking at a ferociously angry man.” Singer knew he was hearing a ferociously waspish one. “I resent being nominated for extermination without prior consultation. I like mysteries where you get a warning in advance giving you a fighting chance. I’d have preferred it if someone on the street had slipped me the black ace or a slip of paper with a red X, a little touch of sportsmanship, you know what I mean?”
“There’s nothing sporting about hired killers.” He was chewing his bread and butter, peacefully ruminating like a bull in a pasture. “The attempt on your life was obviously jobbed out. It wasn’t the same bastard who strangled the girls.”
“Jobbed out? You mean someone contacts someone else and says, Hey there, interested in knocking off a nuisance for twenty bucks, something like that?” Woollcott was genuinely incredulous. Singer couldn’t believe his naivete. He thought newspapermen were men of the world, sophisticated, knowing the ropes, exchanging such information with each other as who’s our friendly neighbourhood assassin.
“More like a hundred smackers, Mr. Woollcott. That was the going rate when last I heard.”
Woollcott commented quietly, “What an evil world we cohabit in. My dear Jacob, you suddenly take on a completely different coloration. Your job places you in constant danger doesn’t it? Someone could come through those drapes carrying a revolver and attempt to kill you.”
“No revolver,” explained Singer matter of factly, “a twenty-two. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Nobody sees it until you take aim and fire. It’s very effective.” Their food was served, and Singer dug into his beef stew with relish. Woollcott stared at his club sandwich with distaste for about thirty seconds, and then hunger overtook him. “Now tell me your version of the incident.”
“You mean the attempt to kill me?” The incident. We live in different worlds, Woollcott was beginning to realize, with different vocabularies. The incident. Woollcott began his discourse, and when he was finished, he watched Singer’s face and saw nothing of any value except for his usual manly good looks.
Singer finally spoke. “Nothing new in unmarked plates. The delivery van was probably stolen. It’ll turn up sometime today abandoned in some back alley. One of the witnesses had a sort of make on the driver.” Woollcott’s ears perked up. “Nothing too useful, but it’s better than a poke in the eye. The witness is a woman, probably the one who screamed when the truck was first seen coming at you. She said the driver wore a cap pulled down over his head to his eyes, which were covered with dark glasses. She thought he was wearing gloves. If he had any brains, he was wearing gloves. He wouldn’t want to leave anything on the steering wheel that we could use. Anyway, that description could fit a couple of hundred boys in this town available for those assignments.”
Woollcott was about to attack his club sandwich when a disturbing thought occurred. “There could be another attempt on my life.”
“I have foreseen that possibility. You’ll be having company for a while. At least until we crack this case.”
“I see.” Woollcott thought for a moment and then inquired with his old hauteur, “Someone presentable, I hope.”
“You won’t know he’s there.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve had more bad news.” Woollcott waited. “Sid Curley’s disappeared.” Woollcott remembered, sniff sniff sniff “He was supposed to meet with my other partner, Al Cassidy, but he stood him up. I mean when a police informer is an hour late to a rendezvous, you got to believe he’s met with an unfortunate accident. Preplanned, usually.”
“Do you suppose Dottie and I talking to him last night might have triggered that?”
“Let us say it could well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Let’s understand each other. You and Mrs. Parker are now in too deep to retreat. You spent the better part of the day snooping with me yesterday, and that would get around fast. And then last night, what with connecting with Curley at the Harlequin, and later at Texas Guinan’s”—Singer began chuckling—“taking on Flo Ziegfeld and Lacey Van Weber the way you did …”
“I was rather devilish, wasn’t I …”
“Oh, you were terrific, absolutely terrific.”
“Dottie phoned this morning and complimented me, too. Terribly sweet of her. One never knows how one really stands with our Dottie. One moment, she gives you the pat on the head, the next moment, the stiletto in the back. Still, she’s rarely dull.”
“Anyway, Mr. Woollcott, getting back to Curley’s disappearance, let us assume that his somewhat dubious profession finally caught up with him. Now you see, there are a few others who just might be in jeopardy.”
“Such as?”
“There’s Lily Robson.”
“The pill! Was it poisonous?”
“As innocent as a Tootsie Roll.”
“Then what could have brought on such a violent attack?”
“My buddy Cassidy suggested food poisoning. My dirty mind inclines more toward a mickey planted in her drink when she wasn’t looking.”
“You mean by Van Weber?”
“By Van Weber or any number of people. I backtracked on where they ate. Gallagher’s. Always crowded. Anybody could slip you a mickey when the house is full. Still, the girl insists she knows nothing.” He ordered coffee for two while the waiter cleared the table. “But she’s been in a position to hear a lot of things that could be dangerous if she was smart enough to remember them, and then begin adding it all up. I don’t think she’s smart enough, but somebody might decide not to take any chances. Then there’s Charlotte Royce.” The look of distaste on Woollcott’s face required no explanation. “A snotty little two-bit bitch, but smart. Real smart. Ambitious. That’ll trip her up. It usually does.” He sat back while their coffee was poured. “Charlotte Royce is really something. She’s been deep-sea fishing and she’s hauled herself in one of the prize catches, Flo Ziegfeld.”
“Do you think Ziegfeld could be seriously involved in these murders? He certainly knew Ilona Mercury.”
“He’s involved because
of knowledge. He knows about the dope scene. Ziegfeld talks a lot. Maybe he’s passed something on to the Royce kid.” Singer shrugged. “Who the hell knows how people get involved in shit like this, deliberately or inadvertently? You could overhear a conversation at the bar of a gin mill and suddenly end up a marked man.”
“I don’t have to,” said Woollcott indignantly. “I’m already a marked man!”
“Mr. Woollcott, my money’s on you. You’re a survivor. You’ll outlive all of us.”
“Well, actually, Jacob,” said Woollcott with some pride “Mrs. Parker once said she thought I’d have to be hammered into my grave.”
Singer laughed and then sipped some coffee. “Now for the rest of them who might have had good reason for feeling uncomfortable lately. There’s Ziegfeld himself, although I don’t think there’s any danger of a rubout where he’s concerned. There’s Bela Horathy, whose very being makes my mouth water at the information I’m sure he’s got.”
“Then why don’t you bring him in for questioning?” demanded Woollcott impatiently.
“Because on the surface he’s clean.”
“Does he have a license to practice medicine?”
“He sure has. Don’t ask me who fixed it up for him, but he’s got one. This coffee’s lousy.”
“It always is. Drown it in cream. What about Horathy’s nurse?”
“That’s the baby I’m going after. Cora Gallagher. She’ll take delicate handling, but I think I smelled her fear when we were in the office yesterday. She can identify who was in Horathy’s office when Vera DeLee was there. But you have to go easy with these things. You can’t put a scare into a potential witness. I get her nervous, Gallagher might decide to visit her sister in Oregon.”
“I had no idea she had one.”
“Neither do I. But in an emergency, some distant relative always manages to materialize. Oregon, Manitoba, Passaic, New Jersey, it never fails. Most distracting, but challenging.”
“What about that greasy dancer we met last night?”
“George Raft?”
