MYSTIC
MAH JONG
MYSTIC
MAH JONG
Agata Stanford
A JENEVACRIS PRESS PUBLICATION
Mystic Mah Jong
A Dorothy Parker Mystery / July 2011
Published by
Jenevacris Press
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2011 by Agata Stanford
Edited by Shelley Flannery
Typesetting & Cover Design by Eric Conover
ISBN 978-0-9827542-5-2
Printed in the United States of America
www.dorothyparkermysteries.com
For my husband, Richard.
Also by Agata Stanford
The Dorothy Parker Mysteries Series:
The Broadway Murders
Chasing the Devil
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
The Final Chapter
Glossary of British Slang
Glossary of American Slang
About the Author
Who’s Who in the Cast of
Dorothy Parker Mysteries
The Algonquin Round Table was the famous assemblage of writers, artists, actors, musicians, newspaper and magazine reporters, columnists, and critics who met for luncheon at one P.M. most days, for a period of about ten years, starting in 1919, in the Rose Room of the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan. The unwritten test for membership was wit, brilliance, and likeability. It was an informal gathering ranging from ten to fifteen regulars, although many peripheral characters who arrived for lunch only once might later claim they were part of the “Vicious Circle,” broadening the number to thirty, forty, and more. Once taken into the fold, one was expected to indulge in witty repartee and humorous observations during the meal, and then follow along to the Theatre, or a speakeasy, or Harlem for a night of jazz. Gertrude Stein dubbed the Round Tablers “The Lost Generation.” The joyous, if sardonic, reply that rose with a laugh from Dorothy Parker was, “Wheeee! We’re lost!”
Dorothy Parker set the style and attitude for modern women of America to emulate during the 1920s and 1930s. Through her pointed poetry, cutting theatrical reviews, brilliant commentary, bittersweet short stories, and much-quoted rejoinders, Mrs. Parker was the embodiment of the soulful pathos of the “Ain't We Got Fun” generation of the Roaring Twenties.
Robert Benchley: Writer, humorist, boulevardier, and bon vivant, editor of Vanity Fair and Life Magazine, and drama critic of The New Yorker, he may accidentally have been the very first standup comedian. His original and skewed sense of humor made him a star on Broadway, and later, in the movies. What man didn’t want to be Bob Benchley?
Alexander Woollcott was the most famous man in America—or so he said. As drama critic for the New York Times, he was the star-maker, discovering and promoting the careers of Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and the Marx Brothers, to name but a few. Larger than life and possessing a rapier wit, he was a force to be reckoned with. When someone asked a friend of his to describe Woollcott, the answer was, “Improbable.”
Frank Pierce Adams (FPA) was a self-proclaimed modern-day Samuel Pepys, whose newspaper column, “The Conning Tower,” was a widely read daily diary of how, where, and with whom he spent his days while gallivanting about New York City. Thanks to him, every witty retort, clever comment, and one-liner uttered by the Round Tablers at luncheon was in print the next day for millions of readers to chuckle over at the breakfast table.
Harold Ross wrote for Stars and Stripes during the War, where he first met fellow newspapermen Woollcott and Adams. The rumpled, “clipped woodchuck” (as described by Edna Ferber) was one of the most brilliant editors of his time. His magazine, The New Yorker, which he started in 1925, has enriched the lives of everyone who has ever had a subscription. His hypochondria was legendary, and his the-world-is-out-to-get-me outlook was often comical.
Jane Grant married Harold Ross but kept her maiden name, cut her hair shorter than her husband’s, and viewed domesticity with disdain. A society columnist for the New York Times, Jane was the very chic model of modernity during the 1920s. Having worked hard for women’s suffrage, Jane continued in her cause while serving meals and emptying ashtrays during all-night sessions of the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Club.
Heywood Broun began his career at numerous newspapers throughout the country before landing a spot on the World. Sportswriter and Harlem Renaissance jazz fiend, he was to become the social conscience of America during the 1920s and beyond through his column, “As I See It.” His insight and commentary made him a champion of the labor movement, as did his fight for justice during and after the seven years of the Sacco and Vanzetti trials and execution.
Edmund “Bunny” Wilson: Writer, editor, and critic of American literature, he first came to work at Vanity Fair after Mrs. Parker pulled his short story out from under the slush-pile and found it interesting.
Robert E. Sherwood came to work on the editorial staff at Vanity Fair alongside Parker and Benchley. The six-foot-six Sherwood was often tormented by the dwarfs performing—whatever it was they did—at the Hippodrome on his way to and from work at the magazine’s 44th Street offices, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the twentieth-century Theatre’s greatest playwrights.
Marc Connelly began his career as a reporter but found his true calling as a playwright. Short and bald, he co-authored his first hit play with the tall and pompadoured George S. Kaufman.
Edna Ferber racked up Pulitzer Prizes by writing bestselling potboilers set against America’s sweeping vistas, most notably, So Big, Showboat, Cimarron, and Giant. She, too, collaborated with George S. on several successful Broadway shows. A spinster, she was a formidable personality and wit and a much-coveted member of the Algonquin Round Table.
John Barrymore was a member of the Royal Family of the American Stage, which included John Drew and Ethel and Lionel Barrymore. John Barrymore was famous not only for his stage portrayals, but for his majestic profile, which was captured in all its splendor on celluloid.
The Marx Brothers: First there were five, then there were four, then there were three Marx Brothers— awww, heck, if you don’t know who these crazy, zany men are, it’s time to hit the video store or tune into Turner Classic Movies!
Also mentioned: Neysa McMein, artist and illustrator, whose studio door was open all hours of the day and night for anyone who wished to pay a call; Grace Moore, Broadway and opera star, and later a movie star; Broadway and radio star Fanny Brice—think Streisand in Funny Girl; Noel Coward, English star and playwright who took America by storm with his classy comedies and bright musical offerings; Condé Nast, publisher of numerous magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House and Garden; Florenz Zeigfeld—of “Follies” fame—big-time producer of the extravaganza stage revue; The Lunts, husband-and-wife stars of the London and Broadway stages, individually known as Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne; Tallulah Bankhead—irreverent, though beautiful, southern-born actress with the foghorn drawl, who later made a successf
ul transition from the stage to film—the life of any party, she often perked up the waning festivities performing cartwheels sans bloomers; Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jascha Heifetz—famous for “God Bless America” and hundreds more hit songs; composer of Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess and many more great works; and the violin virtuoso, respectively.
MYSTIC
MAH JONG
Chapter One
So here I sat, a reluctant member of the Olenska Side Show, when I could have been dishing out dirt and throwing back highballs with Tallulah at Tony’s.
Suicide was no option; I’d left the razor at home.
I asked myself, why were we sitting around a table in a darkened room, lit only by the occasional candelabrum, and holding hands with strangers?
Notwithstanding an additional fifty years of decrepitude, this woman, Olenska—eyes shut, swaying somberly, the firelight sinking fathomless pools of shadow below the crags and hillocks of forehead, cheek, and chin, and streaking through her restless, very brightly dyed red hair like waves of flame—should not be confused with the beautiful, world-weary heroine of Edith Wharton’s Gilded-Age novel, The Age of Innocence. If she had been, in fact, the model for the Countess Ellen Olenska, the woman had not aged well.
Spooky.
Well, I thought, squinting through lowered lids at the others around the séance table, it will all be over soon; I’d been to worse displays of melodrama on Broadway, so I might as well just grin and bear it, or, as the occasion seemed to suggest, close my eyes and concentrate on “the spirits.” And for the rest of the evening, I won’t embarrass Mr. Benchley with any more “spirit” puns, even though I thought my reply, “Jack Daniels or Johnny Walker” to Madame Olenska’s question—“With which spirits do you wish to converse?”—should have evoked a chuckle.
Teetotalers.
Mr. Benchley squeezed my hand. “Stop wiggling in your seat,” he hissed.
I stopped tapping out Sweet Georgia Brown. Maybe, if I took a little nap . . . ?
The tune played on in my head; I couldn’t sleep.
Mah Jong! That’s why I’m here, I thought. I’d scored the lowest, so that’s why I’m here. We were playing Mah Jong—me, Edna, Jane, and Tallulah.
This afternoon I had set up the card table, a handy turn from the drinks trolley, for the game. It’d been one of those dreadful, damp, bone-chilling autumn days that make the city look especially grimy; the coal smoke of restarted boilers hangs heavy in the air like a sinister, menacing cloud. I had wished it would just rain and get it over with. A violent downpour in New York City washes soot and stench down the sewers; the accompanying north wind from the Hudson blows it dry and softens the air. I love the rain, the cleansing, soul-quenching rain. But, for three days low clouds and an ineffectual drizzle served only to dampen the spirits. The sentiment was voiced like a foghorn in the harbor:
“This weather dampens my spirit,” said Tallulah. She’d been whiny and crabby for days, now, and I knew it wasn’t really about the weather, but rather the departure for Hollywood of one of her multitudinous lovers. Of course, he was just one of a long string of gents flitting through her life, but once he’d boarded that Twentieth Century coach and chugged away toward the land of orange groves and Cecil B., he’d become her most precious and favorite lover, lost forever to the brainless starlets of Tinseltown. This, on the heels of Rudolf Valentino’s death this past August.
Valentino had been in New York when he became ill from a perforated ulcer. Although he fared well through surgery, he developed peritonitis and died within a week. Thousands stormed Frank Campbell’s Funeral Home on the East Side; fans desperate to see the recumbent heartthrob smashed windows trying to get in for a glimpse of his beautiful corpse; Pola Negri became distraught and hysterical over the coffin before finally collapsing from grief; the funeral mass at St. Malachi’s, on West 49th Street, known to all in the business as the Actors’ Chapel, couldn’t handle the crowds.
Tallulah Bankhead adored the handsome Italian, and although she’d never met him, she’d seen all of his pictures and was devastated by the news of his death. Mascara streaming down her cheeks, she moaned, “I’ll never get to strump him now!”
I admire Tallulah Bankhead, incorrigible as she is, probably because she is so free of pretensions. While many of my generation still bear visible scars from nineteenth-century sexual repression, there exists no vestige of Victorian prudishness about Tallulah. I doubt she’s ever had any. Sex is natural, fun, and a superior substitute for calisthenics. Where people think about sex, dream about sex, design elaborate courtships for sex, go as far as to marry for sex, Tallulah will just approach the object of attraction and say, “Let’s screw!”—just like that.
“Speaking of spirits,” said Jane Grant, reversing the ivory tiles and then shuffling them on the table, “I’ve been asked by the entertainment committee to interview spiritualists for the Actors’ Equity Halloween Ball.”
“How the hell does one interview a spiritualist?” asked Tallulah.
“Ask him to tell you the color of your bloomers?” suggested Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and thorn in my side.
“Never wear any,” said Tallulah.
“Oh, yes—I forgot I was talking with the Bare-Bottom Whore of Babylon,” said Edna, eyes rolling heavenward.
Tallulah guffawed, a deep, throaty cough. An image arose in my mind’s eye: At parties, usually a few hours in, and with lots of gin imbibed, Tallulah would recharge the waning mood with a series of cartwheels.
“Just soda, Dottie,” said Edna.
“Whiskey, neat,” said Jane. “I’m sick of gin.”
Jane Grant, my petite brunette friend and social columnist for the New York Times, had been recently arrested for chemical processes occurring in her bathtub.
I fixed myself a highball and sat down to choose my tiles.
“I suppose we just have to see if the mediums on my list can put on a good show,” said Jane.
“Whaddaya mean, ‘we’ ?” said Tallulah, her southern accent showing.
“Don’t you all want to come along to a séance or two? Perhaps you can raise the spirit of Valentino.”
“Darling, I have no interest in raising dead men, just the living.”
“Edna?”
“Sorry, busy.”
“But, you don’t even know when the first séance is!”
“That’s right: Sorry, busy.”
“Dottie?”
“Shit, no!”
“Have I no one to help me with this?”
“Why do you need help?” asked Edna.
“She’s afraid!” growled Tallulah.
“Take Ross along with you,” said Edna, referring to Jane’s husband, Harold Ross, publisher of the New Yorker, the new weekly magazine that debuted a year ago and is struggling to survive. “There’s a talisman! One look at his mug and the phantoms will find another place to roost!”
Edna, upon first meeting Ross half-a-dozen years ago, described him as “a clipped woodchuck” because he possesses dark, beady eyes, large, protruding teeth, and a head of hair not unlike a metal scrub-brush.
That’s when one idiot among us suggested that she who scored the lowest at our game would be Jane’s séance buddy.
The ineffectual drizzle of the afternoon gave way to a hovering, sulfuric fog that blanketed the city at dusk. The days were getting shorter, and by five o’clock the streetlamps glowed like orbs suspended below my windows at the Algonquin, their sources indistinguishable in a gray field.
I’d not played well, and, claimed by Jane as her companion into the world of the occult, I eagerly attempted to recruit additional support. But Lulla and Edna wouldn’t have it. Perhaps I could snare a couple of other, more interested fellows to stand in for me.
Soon, friends would arrive at my rooms for cocktails; I’d called room service with an order for several buckets of ice, three-dozen glasses, and plenty of bottles of White Rock. Hong Fat, my favorite Chinese R
estaurant on the avenue, would soon be delivering the eggrolls and shrimp toast to be washed down with whatever divine spirits appeared as offerings from my guests.
Mr. Benchley, casually elegant in double-breasted navy wool, a red cravat, and gray fedora, was the first to arrive, cradling what appeared to be a real bottle of French cognac.
“Yes, Mrs. Parker, it is the real thing,” said my handsome friend as I inspected all the various labels stuck along the bottle’s neck and body. Lots of bootleggers slapped counterfeit labels soaked in seawater on bottles of rotgut, claiming the contents to be the genuine article. “Just off the boat” is a common claim. Only tasting is believing.
He laughingly greeted Jane and Edna, who were putting the tiles away and setting the trays of glasses on the console table. Tallulah, having moved the card table to the corner, a ready surface for Hong Fat’s fare, stopped what she was doing and, always mad about the boy, practically fell into his arms. Mr. Benchley enjoying the attention, kissed her long white hand, after unwrapping himself from her encircling grasp. He held the tips of her fingers and appraised the red polish.
“You have drawn blood, my dear.”
“Not yours, not yet,” drawled Miss Alabama. Her eyes widened when I handed Mr. Benchley the bottle of cognac to open, shifting her attention to ogle the quality brew. “Hello, lover!”
“Where’s my boy?” asked Mr. Benchley, uncorking the bottle.
“Woodrow?” He was referring to “my little man,” Woodrow Wilson, my roommate and canine companion Boston terrier. “Enjoying his afternoon constitutional through the fog with Jimmy the Bellboy.”
“I’ve got a bone to pick with him,” he said, patting his pocket, where must lie Woodrow’s treat.
The Chinese delivery boy arrived, his arms laden with boxes of food.
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