by George Baxt
Lily Robson spoke to Marc Connelly on the phone Monday morning, and the playwright was saddened to hear that the luscious redhead had had her fill of Texas Guinan, mobs and New York, and was accepting an engagement at a nightclub in Chicago run by a charming young Italian she had met the previous night at a party. His name was Al Capone, and she truly believed him when he said he’d take care of her. Connelly’s writing block was ended, and he went back to his typewriter.
Stella Crater read the account of the raid on the Van Weber estate and then sternly regarded her husband, the judge, across the breakfast table. “I know what you’re thinking, Joseph Crater, and let me tell you don’t you dare harbour any plans for disappearing!”
In Hollywood, Robert Benchley lay in bed staring out a window at a ratty palm tree. He had read and reread the accounts of the raid. There was nothing about Mrs. Parker. He supposed she’d had a lot of fun and would make capital of the event for weeks to come. He got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and called a cab to take him to the studio. He didn’t plan to remain in Hollywood any longer than necessary.
Jacob Singer sat at the desk in his office remembering Mrs. Parker’s dissertation on his single-minded ambitions. He was surprised it had been all that obvious, especially to her. He didn’t think he mattered that much to her or to anybody else. He knew that was what was missing in his life, being of importance to another person. But that had its drawbacks. It would mean burdening himself with the responsibility of sharing a deep emotion, and he recognized from past experience it was a burden he didn’t relish. He travels fastest who travels alone, right, Singer? Right.
On Monday, shortly before noon, Mrs. Parker sat by the window. The sky was overcast and so was her heart. She had been sequestered in her studio since returning from East Cove Saturday night, eating little, drinking a lot. Neysa McMein had grown hoarse from her entreaties in the hallway and finally listened to her husband and decided it was best after all to leave Mrs. Parker to sort herself out. Woollcott phoned.
“I’ve been on this phone all day yesterday and all this morning, and in my free moments I’ve been typing up my notes. Meet me for lunch and we’ll work out a schedule for our collaboration. We’ve got to get to work before the story grows cold. Pussywillow, are you there?”
“I’m thinking about my husband.”
“You mean your brain’s a blank?”
“What was nice about being married to Ed was not having to think.”
“Now listen, you,” said Woollcott, bristling with impatience, “I know you’ve been through a traumatic experience and I’m more than sympathetic. But it’s as plain as the nose on anybody’s face, even if he wasn’t a fraud and a murderer, there was no future in a relationship with Lacey Van Weber.”
“Alec, do you think he’ll be buried in an unmarked grave? Who’s to claim his body?”
“Science, certainly not you. Now put on one of your pretty little frocks and meet me at the Algonquin. I promise to let you have equal time. Dottie?” Silence. “Dorothy?” Silence. “Mrs. Parker!” he roared.
“Goodbye, Alec,” she said wistfully, and hung up the phone.
Woollcott slammed the receiver down on the hook and started to struggle out of his tattered bathrobe. He’d made a date with Polly Adler to go to her place for a game of backgammon after lunch. Mrs. Adler expressed pleasure at the tragic turn of events. But she also advised Woollcott that there would soon be another Lacey Van Weber showing up in the city. “Those boys have a manufacturing exclusive on his kind of patsy. There’s always a demand. And where there’s a demand, they supply.” Her throat rasped as though being attacked by sandpaper.
“Well, I hope to hell whoever he is never comes within blinking distance of Dottie. She’s absolutely unqualified to cope with this sort of thing. Would you believe she had hysterics when the bastard’s plane crashed?”
“Alec,” said Polly Adler knowledgeably, “a woman’s heart is a very peculiar organ. It takes special understanding. Believe me, you’re talking to a lady who’s suffered her share of hysterics. I know just how she feels. I’d call and tell her, but at a time like this, you leave the lady alone. She’ll get it settled in her mind soon enough.”
“That’s what you think! You don’t know our Dottie the way I know our Dottie. She’s probably eying that straightedge razor she harbours with a hunger peculiar only to her!”
Now Woollcott stared at himself in the mirror as he knotted his tie. His words to Mrs. Adler had come back to haunt him. Straightedge razor. Peculiar hunger.
“Hell fire and damnation!” shouted Woollcott as he grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair and went hurrying out of his room.
Mrs. Parker sat in the bathroom, the razor poised over one of her wrists, her eyes and soul damp with tears. She pressed the razor against the outline of the previous slashing.
She would wait to be rescued.
