As Aleck began to re-dress, he made the introductions all around. The Brothers nodded and bowed and went about their business of dressing into evening clothes. We bade them farewell, promising to see them soon after Aleck called in his review, and we made for the stage door and the alley leading to the street.
Hays thanked Aleck for getting him the first-night tickets, and Mr. Darrow expressed his gratitude for being included in such an enjoyable, if unlikely, experience. Declining the invitation to join us for a late supper and the cast party, the attorneys strolled with us toward the curb where Hays’s car was already waiting to take him and Darrow home. Street and pedestrian traffic had dispersed by now, and fetching cabs should not be difficult.
Hays waited for his liveried chauffeur to step out of the driver’s compartment to open the door for him and his friend, but after a moment passed without the man’s appearance, Hays opened the door himself, and was about to bid Darrow enter when he turned to us and asked: “Are you sure I can’t drop any of you somewhere?”
I couldn’t help myself. Here were two very . . . compelling men. At least one was compelling me, and I didn’t want to lose the opportunity of spending a few minutes alone in his company, even with Mr. Darrow as chaperone. I spoke up before my companions could put on my brakes:
“I’d be grateful for a lift to the Algonquin,” I said, moving swiftly now past Mr. Darrow and into the car.
“Mrs. Parker,” interjected Mr. Benchley, “you’ve dropped your glove.”
I wasn’t about to fall for such a ploy; I supposed he thought he could just pop into the seat next to me so that he could monitor my behavior, the stinker!
But he had retrieved my glove, for I saw that I held only one in my hand.
I expected Mr. Benchley to bounce into the seat beside me, but he did not. Rather, to my surprise, everyone appeared to turn away from the car as their attention was drawn to a disturbance a few feet along the sidewalk.
There were shouts as Hays was rushed by a young man, coatless, his shirt soiled and disheveled, a trickle of blood running down from his brow.
“Walter!” said Hays, at the sight of the distressed fellow. “I don’t understand,” he said, looking into the car and at the capped profile of the driver sitting behind the wheel. “Who’s driving? Why aren’t—Oh, my Lord, you’ve been hurt.”
But I was to hear no answers, for suddenly the door slammed shut, the car bucked, throwing me rudely back against the seat, and the next thing I knew we were speeding away from the curb.
“Wait, driver!” I shouted lamely, trying to aright myself so as not to land my rump on the floor. “You’ve forgotten—”
I grabbed the seat in front of me and saw not only the driver but another figure in the seat beside him.
Before I could object, a blanket was thrown over my head. I felt a scuffle, and then a bulky presence leaning in next to me.
I fought as best I could to find my way out from under the suffocating hold of the blanket and the stronghold of the arms that held it in place. My headband slipped and I found myself with a nose full of feathers, adding to my panic of claustrophobia from the musty woolen shroud. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t escape; my arms were pinned, and when I heard a laugh, I felt the cold, damp gooseflesh of terror rise in me. I struggled to exhaustion, but it did no good. I reasoned, finally, as the car rumbled over the cobblestones, that if I did not desist in my struggle, whoever had me in his clutches might not be reluctant to knock me out with his fist. It was doubtful I could escape the power that held me hostage, for I was wearing out from lack of air and brute resistance. If I were to have any chance of escape, I’d better adjust my thinking. I stopped moving and slumped into a feigned faint. It proved to be the right play, for even through the heavy cloth I could discern two voices.
“I think she’s dead,” said the voice closest to me, the man gripping me. He shook me a couple of times, and I felt my neck snapping in whiplash. I wanted to scream, but squelched the impulse. “I think she’s dead!”
So there were two men who’d kidnapped me: the Driver and the Gripper.
The Driver said: “She’s not dead, you dummy, only fainted, probably.”
“She’s suffocated!” said the Gripper.
“Get hold of yourself!” yelled the Driver.
The pressure loosened around my head, although the cover remained. I desperately wanted to take a deep breath, but instinctively knew it was better to play dead. Could the men hear my heartbeat? It reverberated loudly in my ears.
The car whipped around and I was thrown from side to side, and would have fallen hard to the floor if the Gripper hadn’t had me firmly in his clutches.
The tires skipped—we’d crossed over streetcar tracks—and then the rump-rump-rump of a subway train passing overhead on the el. The car swung around a corner. For a time we were whizzing down a thoroughfare; we were traveling down an avenue; lots of stops on cross streets, and now it was smooth like macadam. Most of the avenues had been paved over the old cobblestone.
We came to a jolting stop, and if it hadn’t been for the Gripper my head would have hit the windshield.
Horns sounded in multiplicity; a fire engine’s siren whirred faintly in the distance, and soon the brisk clang-clang-clang of the fire truck’s bell announced its impending approach; dogs barked. Shouts and police whistles filtered through my black prison.
The Driver blasted his horn with angry fury, cursing a blue streak while maneuvering the wheel from side to side as if to clear some obstacle. The fire siren was getting louder and louder, signaling the truck was coming closer and closer. The alarm was ear-splitting, the Driver’s cursing more and more vivid. I smelled the bitter odor of fire smoke, and knew we were in the vicinity of some great conflagration.
Now the whining of the siren had doubled and the clanging bells rang out zealously announcing the joint arrival. I sensed we were in the middle of it all, perhaps dead in the path of the trucks, for all of a sudden a truck horn bellowed like a ship’s foghorn upon us, and I could hear the incensed shout of a policeman ordering drivers to pull aside.
But the Driver was not about to obey.
The car lurched forward. A sharp turn followed by a spine-jolting bump and the irate shouts of the policeman told me we were riding the sidewalk.
Leaving in our wake startled voices and hair-raising screams, we thumped and rumbled along, hitting objects in our path, with the screech and scrape of metal as we barreled down the sidewalk.
A street-corner alarm sounded, and a new onslaught of police whistles followed, and soon came the whine of police car sirens from several directions.
I was thrown ruthlessly to my side, and on landing managed to find the door handle. The Gripper couldn’t see my hand resting on the handle, as the blanket obscured it. I was about to risk it, jumping out of the car, for I felt a reduction in speed.
But before I could make my move, a new sound: It was as if the car’s engine was suddenly in the cab with us, and the sound of the wheels clunking along cobblestones reverberated intensely. A thud: We’d hit something metallic. A cat screeched indignantly.
We were in an alley! The closeness of the buildings’ walls enclosed us, and I anticipated that if I tried to get out of the car, now, I’d hit a wall and probably roll under the vehicle’s tires: a sorry end.
I knew that should the alley not lead to a side street, but dead-end at a wall, it would be the end of the ride and perhaps the end of my life! For how could I hope to find a means of escape from my captors when blocked on three sides? Where would I run?
But as soon as it began, the echo disappeared, and I knew we were out on the street again.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” said the Driver as we raced over cobblestones.
“But I did what you said. It’s not my fault she got in the car!”
“Shut-up!” yelled out the Driver. “We’ve got to get rid of her.”
They meant me.
The car suddenly stopped.
The Driver said, “If she wakes up and makes a sound, break the bitch’s neck.”
Eyes had been squeezed shut against the dark, against my fate, but now I opened them.
A door opened and slammed, and a new presence was in the car, in the front seat; I smelled his cologne.
“Where’s the other one?”
“There was a mix-up,” said the Driver. “We have a woman.”
“How the hell . . . ?”
The blanket was tugged and lifted.
Playing dead was harder than I thought, but I forced my body to remain limp, my face toward the back seat. I was sure I wasn’t going to fool anyone; my heartbeat thumped so loudly in my ears I was sure it could be heard a block away. Would they kill me in the car? Would my body be discovered floating in the East River alongside some knocked-off bootlegger’s? I hadn’t a chance of escape—not in the shoes I was wearing.
“She’s not dead,” said the New Man. “She’s just passed out.”
Oh, shit!
I was rolled over, and felt panic rising like a painful tingle coursing up from deep within my belly.
Dear God—if you exist—dear God, if you can hear me, and of course, as you are all powerful, omnipresent, you can hear my thoughts—dear God!
“It’s that bitch, Parker,” said the New Man. “Now you’ve done it!”
A slap, followed by a cry of surprise. The Driver was on the receiving end.
“It was supposed to be two birds with one stone; and you bring me a goddamn mouse!”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but she just got in and—”
Another slap put a period on the Driver’s objection.
“Did she see your faces? Can she identify you?”
“No, we threw the blanket over her head, soon as she got in the car.”
“Dump her over there by the trash, and you idiots get the hell out of here. I don’t want to hear you’re still in this city tomorrow morning.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the Gripper, out of arms’ reach of the New Man.
“What do you think I’m going to do, you lamebrain flunky! Now it’s going to be more dangerous to take them out! More of our people at risk and months of planning down the drain. Throw her in the garbage, dump the car, wipe off your fingerprints, for chrissake, and get out of town.”
The car door opened and slammed.
They hastily wrapped me in the blanket, and then I was carried over the shoulders of the Gripper. A shoe fell off, and my purse fell from my arm when I let my arms dangle. I braced myself mentally for a landing on hard ground and metal cans, but when I finally hit the ground it was with less impact than I had anticipated. I remained motionless until I heard the car gears engage and the whine of reverse gear. Screeching tires on the cobblestone faded into the hum of regular traffic before I threw off my shroud and opened my eyes.
I rose slowly to my feet to assess the damage to my person. I was bruised, for sure, although I couldn’t see the evidence under my disheveled clothing; fingers caught in the tangles of my hair, a bird’s nest complete with mangled feather left behind.
I hobbled through the alley in search of my missing shoe, a bare light bulb over a doorway lighting my way, and found it kicked close to the wall of the building, my purse, a few feet away.
Afraid to enter through the alley door and into the building for fear of confronting the New Man, I quickly walked toward the street, hoping for the sight of lots of people, but was disappointed. My city that never sleeps was caught snoozing on the job!
To my left was Fifth Avenue, the northwest corner. I stood on the side street, and instantly knew the lay of the land. Mady’s Speakeasy was a few doors away, and that meant a telephone, and rescue, and safety from the fiends of the night.
But before I ventured into Mady’s I turned back once again toward Fifth Avenue. The alley I had been dumped in—the door by which an overhead lamp had lighted my way—led to a place I’d forgotten about; a place noted and ignored because of all the crazy events that had been occurring to me and my friends. And here it stood before me: the clue, its connection to the two murders, another attempted, and tonight’s kidnapping.
The University Club loomed big, like a neon sign calling my attention.
Oh, crap, I thought. This is bigger than anything I could have imagined. I made the leap to understanding that brought me back to the little priest from Tennessee, and now I couldn’t just let it lie. But I couldn’t go to the police and tell them of my kidnapping. A police dragnet out to capture my kidnappers might serve merely to send the assassins underground and into hiding until the heat was off. It wouldn’t serve in snagging the entire ring of conspirators. These people weren’t out to kill me; they didn’t bother when they’d had their chance just a couple of minutes ago.
The threat to the lives of Clarence Darrow and Arthur Garfield Hays would remain until the leading players in this scheme were caught, and I suspected that there were lots more people involved than the three men who took me on the little ride across town. They were the small fish; we had to snag the big fish, and I suspected that the New Man, if not the big mackerel, would lead us to a bigger catch of the day.
These murders and the ones planned for execution were motivated by hatred and prejudice: a personal, deep-seated effrontery in the minds of the transgressors. This was happening in New York City, one of the most liberal places in the country. Who was to know who else was involved? Maybe it wasn’t just the Ku Klux Klan of the South, but a Klan right here in my city!
I walked to the corner of Fifth Avenue to flag a taxi to drive me down the dozen blocks home. A car screeched to a stop and Mr. Benchley leaped out. He ushered me into the backseat, where sat Aleck and FPA.
Once escorted safely back to my apartment and wrapped cozily in my wooly robe, a couple scotches warming me up, I relayed the details of my abduction; then the men told me about the chase that ensued.
It had become evident that the intended kidnapping victims had been Darrow and Hays, from the words overheard by Hays’s chauffeur when he had been tumbled out of the limousine by the culprits. My friends secured a taxi to pursue the limousine, leaving Edna in the charge of the attorneys. When I asked if the police had been called in, they were unsure, but a call placed to Hays at his house told them he had not called them as yet, believing my life might be in danger if ransom was what the kidnappers were after; the loss of the automobile was of no importance to him. Whether Hays was aware that my abduction was the result of a botched plan to snare himself and Darrow, he didn’t say, and I acted dumb, playing down the episode: I was fine, I said, just fine. And look for the limo near the docks, I said.
I turned to my friends and told them everything I had deduced after my little adventure, and that it was time to investigate and stop the murderers from going any further.
“You, Mrs. Parker, will do nothing.”
“That’s right, Dottie, dear, we can’t be chasing you all over the city. My old heart just can’t take it,” said Aleck.
“Shit!”
“We’ll take care of things, all right, Dot,” said Frank, smoothing his comb-over and puffing on his cigar, a self-assured smile stretching his bat-like features.
I wanted to crown all of them with a frying pan—if I’d had one handy.
“Never-you-mind, Mrs. Parker,” said Benchley. “Tomorrow I’ll check things out at the University Club myself—ask around, get the general lay of the land, so to speak.”
“I’ll so-to-speak myself, if you don’t mind!”
“Now, Dottie, darling, don’t be cross,” said the fat man. “You can’t get into the Club. You’re a woman.”
“But they’ll let you in, Aleck?” I said, testily, recalling Aleck’s drama club photos from Hamilton College.
“It’s a gentlemen’s club, and even if you were a guy, you didn’t finish high school let alone graduate from a university,” said the smug puffer.
“I finished top of my class at Harvard, was editor of the Lampoon,
and can mingle with boys from lesser schools,” said the idiot Bob Benchley. “And I know all the words to “The Whiffenpoof Song,” even if it is a Yale abomination—the published words, too, not only the dirty lyrics: We are poor little lambs that have lost our way, baaa baaa—”
“Oh, baaaa, yourself!” I said.
“It’s little things like that—knowing all six verses—that’ll get me in.”
“Is that so?” I said, not really expecting an answer.
“That’s right,” said Benchley, and Hear-No-Evil and See-No-Evil nodded in agreement. “It’s too dangerous, Mrs. Parker. Men swimming naked in the pool and such things. You know what they say,” said Big Brute Bob.
“Oh? What do they say, whoever ‘they’ are?”
“A woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
I snatched the tumbler of scotch from his hand and finished it off. “If that’s your philosophy, it’s no wonder you can’t get a woman in the bedroom.” They thought they were so smart, but as I was just a little cluck, and had no frying pan, I’d find a way to cut them down to size!
It was time they learned their lessons.
“Goodnight, you big bruisers,” I said sweetly, and pulled closed the curtain to my bedroom alcove.
The next morning I telephoned Jane: “‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen,’’’ was all I had to say to the woman who detested domestic husbandry.
Next, I put a call in to Edna: “‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen,’” was all I needed to say for her to slam down the receiver and rush down to my rooms.
Inspiration struck! I telephoned Groucho Marx, who, always ready for outrageous adventures, more than happily agreed to my plan, and by noon Jane, Edna, and I were greeted at the stage door of the Lyric Theater.
The Brothers
University Club—Groucho need not apply for membership
Chapter Nine
One had to pity the Brothers’ dresser for the work involved in setting their dressing room straight. If the condition of the room this morning was any indication of his labor, the Marx Brothers should kiss the fellow’s feet. Knowing them, they probably would, just to embarrass the man.
[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil Page 16