Fighting my way out of my coat sleeve, I said:
“Arrrrrrggghhh!”
“Are you having a stroke?”
“Arrrrgggghhhhhhh!”
“Tainted gin! Whadda you expect from a joint called ‘Slippery Dick’s’?”
“Fred!”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. “Dottie! Talk to me!”
“B-b-b-b-e-e-e-e-h-h-h-h, bleh, bbbbllleeehhh—”
“Oh, now we’re in trouble: You’re speaking in tongues! Stay where you are! I’ll call a priest—I mean a doctor!”
Rising from his knees, he was stopped short to a half-bow. He raised a hand to the back of his head and felt the cold metal cylinder extending from behind his shiny top hat. Slowly he rose to full height. A warning, a familiar click, froze him in place.
“Mrs. Parker,” he said, “I believe we are not alone.”
“Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah . . . .”
“So you’ve been saying.”
Benny Booth, gun pointed at Mr. Benchley’s top hat, moved around to face us.
Mr. Benchley
Franklin Pierce Adams— “There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.”
Aleck
Chapter Eight
“Nightcap, Benny?” said the verbose Mr. Benchley.
With gun aimed at us, Benny Booth backed toward the open doorway, giving the false impression of retreat. Through my fear I could see his desperation—gun hand trembling, eyes wild, legs spread apart as if trying to balance on shaky pins. All in all, these unsettling symptoms were even more alarming than they would have been had his demeanor been cool: The gun’s trigger was cocked and the man holding it was obviously half-crocked. Anything could happen.
“Now, don’t you try anything, you two,” he said, whipping the gun around. “You,” he said pointing at Fred, “Benchley. Sit down next to Mrs. Parker.”
The gun fired.
Mr. Benchley’s top hat flew to the wall.
Woodrow barked.
“Now you’ve done it!” said Mr. Benchley, turning on his heel to verbally blast Booth. “You’ve killed a perfectly good topper. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t mean to do it. I’ll buy you another.”
“I should say so. That hat put me out a good fourteen-fifty!”
Gun hand wobbly, Booth was coming unhinged. His voice shaking, he hoarsely ordered, “Sit down!”
Woodrow barked some more.
My friend squeezed in between me and my pup. I could feel his knees shaking.
“Keep him quiet, or else.”
“Benchley?” I asked.
“The mutt.”
“What’re you going to do, shoot him?” Nobody threatens my puppy.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Then, why don’t you put down the gun and I’ll fix you a drink. We can talk like civilized human beings without guns waving around. Someone could get hurt, old sport,” said Mr. Benchley. “You’ve already killed a perfectly fine hat, and the way your hand is shaking, you’re liable to take out Mrs. Parker’s Corona, and then where will she be?”
“A jokester, hmmm? You crazy?”
“One man’s lunacy is another man’s reason, I suppose.”
“Whom are you quoting?” I asked.
“No one, just me.”
“What the hell does that mean,” I asked, annoyed. “‘One man’s lunacy’?”
“I’m not sure yet; it just popped into my head.”
“And so will a bullet if you don’t shut up!” said Benny, drawing our attention back to the gun.
Woodrow growled, head bobbing back and forth, following the motion of the gun from side to side, up and down.
“I’m warning you. I don’t want to hurt the dog.”
“I suppose it’s sort of like the adage, ‘One man’s garbage is another man’s—’”
“Shut up!”
“All right, sorry,” said Mr. Benchley. “Just trying to be—”
The ivory-and-silver-knobbed walking stick came down hard on the back of Benny Booth’s head, and as he slumped to the floor, Woodrow leapt from the couch to stand guard on the fellow’s chest.
Aleck stood majestically in the doorway, his huge frame draped dramatically in his theatre cloak, the wide-brimmed black hat atop his head, his cane raised at the ready like a swordsman anticipating ambush. I couldn’t help thinking of a miscast, paunchy, sloth-footed actor auditioning for the role of Cyrano de Bergerac. As far as I was concerned, there was no one better for the part.
He slammed the door behind him.
“Good thing you came by,” I said, as Mr. Benchley knelt to check Benny’s pulse, Woodrow, standing on Booth’s chest, not abandoning his guard. “Everyone hear the gunshot? Called the police?”
“Everyone thinks it was a champagne cork,” growled Aleck. He looked like he was going to bust a gut. “Was it you, Little Miss Sunshine, who sent our taxi over the Brooklyn Bridge?”
“It wasn’t me, sire, but damn, wish I’d’ve thought of it.”
“Benchley?”
“Who do you think?”
“Harpo! Where is that snake? He needs to die.”
“Haven’t we had enough violence for one evening?”
“Shut up, Bob; I say Harpo needs killing; it’s the only way he’ll learn!”
Lamplight bounced off his thick glasses like fire flashes; I thought he’d have a fit. Aleck loved Harpo like a son, even though there were very few years between their ages; by tomorrow the Marx Brother’s greatest champion would cool down, have a private little chuckle, and find a way to return the insult. He looked at the man lying prone on my carpet. “Who’s this gun-toting cowboy, another one of Harpo’s victims?”
“A suspected killer. Good thing you happened by to rescue us,” I said, appealing to his sense of chivalry, to his vanity. Although I was grateful for the knock on the noggin he’d delivered, his overblown dramatics were giving me a headache.
“A killer did you say? Well, slap the fellow back to consciousness. I want to hire him.”
“Suspected,” I corrected. “Woodrow,” I called, and my black-and-white friend turned to look at me from his sentry post. “Wake him up.”
Woodrow threw himself wholeheartedly into licking mode. In a few seconds, Benny Booth was not only revived, but well washed.
Mr. Benchley lifted the gun off the floor with his index finger and placed it on a table, and then poured several fingers of scotch into a tumbler. Benny did not resist as he was lifted to a sitting position and the glass placed to his lips.
Aleck threw off his cape and hat and placed them on a chair. He walked over to the drinks trolley and poured for the three of us, before settling into an armchair.
Helped to his feet, and gingerly inspecting the knob that was growing on his head, Benny collapsed on the davenport next to me. A few minutes later, icepack cooling both bump and temper, scotch warming heart cockles and spirits, cigarettes burning eyes and lungs, we sat silently waiting for Benny to speak.
Aleck, temporarily appeased with drink and a chunk of stilton I’d foraged from my kitchenette’s icebox that was left over from a cocktail hour several days past, along with a cellophane of crackers from same party, further satisfied his oral fixation by lighting up a Cuban cigar. As he puffed repeatedly, drawing the flame of his lighter, he sternly appraised Benny Booth like a judge about to pass sentence on a condemned man. “Well man, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Benny spoke in a monotone just above a whisper: “I don’t know what to say, I’m so ashamed.”
“Be that as it may, explanations are expected!”
“If it’s any consolation, Benny,” I said in a gentle voice, softening Aleck’s cross-examination, “we don’t believe you murdered the two spiritualists.”
A light of hope shined out through his eyes along with a little bit of gratitude.
“I was hoping, Mrs. Parker, that you might feel that way.”
“Shooting hats, like apples off heads, is the fare of Annie Oakley and not exactly the way to win support.”
“I apologize for that, Mr. Benchley, but I only pulled the gun because I was afraid you’d overpower me and turn me in before I had a chance—it was Mrs. Parker I’d come to speak with.”
“I suppose there must be some logic behind that obtuse observation,” agreed Mr. Benchley. “How were you so sure Mrs. Parker would be sympathetic to your cause?”
“I wasn’t sure, but I had nowhere else to turn. And I was right, she does believe me innocent. Last night when she was talking with Bette—”
“You were there, in the hotel suite?” I asked.
“I was hiding in the bathroom, waiting for Bette to return to the room.”
“But, why didn’t you show yourself? Does Bette know—”
“No. She never knew I was there, and I don’t want her to know,” he said adamantly.
“Then you’ll have to explain yourself. You just said you were there to see Bette.”
“After your conversation, I didn’t want her to find me. Oh, I know that sounds crazy, but—”
“What changed your mind?”
Benny buried his face in his hands and then, spreading his fingers, ran them through his hair in a gesture of desperation. He looked up at me. His solemn stare was sobering. As I looked into brown eyes wrought with pain, watching them glisten over and the tear that escaped and splashed on his shirt collar, I was certain he was innocent of murder. Of course, I’d been fooled before.
Benny took a recovering breath and was about to speak, but stopped short as he glanced over at the big man smoking, eating, and drinking like A.A. Milne’s nauseatingly contented Pooh with honey pot. If not for Pooh Bear, one good thing could be said of Aleck: He wore trousers.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” I said. “That’s only Alexander Woollcott. Aleck, this is Bette’s husband, Benny Booth, the man you clobbered—”
“The big dramatic critic?”
Aleck beamed bright benevolence at his victim.
“He’s dramatic, a critic, and as we all observe, he is big, all right,” I confirmed. Then, introductions over, “So why did you change your mind? Why didn’t you want Bette to know you were at the hotel?”
“I didn’t want to involve her.”
“But, she already is involved, and you were there.”
“I don’t know how we can help you, if you are innocent, Benny, unless you level with us,” said Mr. Benchley.
There followed a long silence, referred to on-stage as a “pregnant pause,” during which the conflicted character weighs the pros and cons to determine what course of action most benefits his intentions.
I decided to prompt this actor’s lines: “It was because she lied about something, isn’t that right?”
Silence, once again.
“Why would she lie, Benny?”
It came out with a gush of anguish: “I don’t know. She must have thought she was helping me.”
Aleck interrupted: “Explain, please; what lie are you talking about?”
“The time that Bette said he left their suite at the Waldorf happens to be within the timeframe that Madame was killed.”
“Caroline told the police that you came to the house on Washington Square at two o’clock in the morning, that you insisted on meeting with Madame O, and that she left you with the Madame in the drawing room.”
“I did go to Madame Olenska’s house, but it was much earlier, around midnight. But if Caroline told you that Madame Olenska received me in the drawing room, well, that is not true.”
“But, Caroline said she left Madame with you.”
Mr. Benchley interrupted: “No, my dear. Caroline never said she left them together in the drawing room. What she did say to us was, ‘Once she (the Madame) agreed to speak with him, she sent me away, insisting I return to bed.’ Now, that may suggest that Caroline left Benny and Madame together in the drawing room, and then went to bed, as you’ve come to interpret along with the police, or it can mean more simply that she went to Madame’s bedroom to awaken her, told her Benny wanted to see her, and Madame agreed, sending Caroline off to bed, meaning Caroline left Madame in her bedroom to go to her own room; she never accompanied Madame Olenska to the meeting at all.”
“You are quite correct, Mr. Benchley,” I said. “Words, and how they are strung together, can evoke many different interpretations.”
“So Caroline sent you to the drawing room to wait while she woke the Madame,” said Mr. Benchley. “But, you left the house very quickly.”
“That is true. I changed my mind. The woman upset my wife, and I wanted to warn her to keep away from Bette, keep her out of it, but I realized anything I said would only make things worse, so I left. How did you know that?”
“A witness says you left the house within a couple of minutes of arriving at the door.”
“But you left the package, an envelope with money. Did you just place it down somewhere for Madame to find? It only took a minute. There was no reason to wait for Madame Olenska. You weren’t buying photographic negatives, were you? Just her silence. You left the money to pay the blackmail, am I wrong?”
He hesitated, looked from one to the other of us before continuing. “Then you know that she was blackmailing me. How did you know?”
“I’d like to say it was deductive reasoning, but what else could it be? A lucky guess,” said Mr. Benchley, “and the fact that you just stated you wanted to tell Madame O to ‘keep Bette out of it.’ So, I wonder, out of what? Something she didn’t know about. Your gambling losses? Common knowledge; we heard that you gambled and lost a lot on the voyage home. No; some other secret: blackmail. And Bette herself insinuated, when she spoke to Mrs. Parker about the circumstances of her first husband’s death, that there were still unanswered questions.”
“Yes, of course. I don’t want to lie anymore. Madame was blackmailing me. You see, before we left the séance I was to place an envelope with ten thousand dollars in it under a particular seat cushion. But there was only one ridiculously unanticipated problem: Rabindranath. He took that particular chair and did not budge from it. Bette was beside herself, if you also remember? It was all I could do to get her out of there. I had to return later, after I’d gotten her settled at the hotel and given her a sleeping powder. Madame called the hotel, you see, when she discovered I had not left the money; said she’d have to do as she’d threatened—place an anonymous call to the police.”
“So Bette had no idea that you were being blackmailed?”
“Oh, no! She knows nothing! I saw no need to worry her.”
“But ten thousand dollars!” I said. “Pardon me, but wouldn’t Bette wonder where all that money—”
“I am a very rich man, Mrs. Parker. The money would never be missed; she’d never know a thing about it. If it would protect her from the agony of reliving the suspicions surrounding Johnny’s death, or allay any doubt of my innocence, it was a small price to pay. When Madame O telephoned and said there was a witness to Johnny’s murder—”
“Wait a second!” I said. “She was blackmailing you for the murder of Bette’s husband, Johnny, claiming there was a witness?”
“Oh, God!” moaned Benny. “Madame Olenska said she knew that I was in the car with Johnny the night he died, at the Hoboken pier, that I got out of the car, disengaged the brake, pushed the car into the river and walked away. She said there was a witness, a dockworker, and together they wanted ten thousand dollars to keep quiet.”
“And is there any truth to the story?”
“I was at the pier that night with Johnny. We’d had a couple of drinks at a speakeasy in the city, but it wasn’t until we headed back to Jersey and he drove to the pier that things got crazy. He drove me out there to confront me and accuse me of trying to steal Bette away from him.
“At first I thought it was just the liquor talking; his
accusations that we were having an affair were off the mark, but he was convinced of it. He pulled a gun on me while we were sitting there looking out over the dark water, the lights of Manhattan across the way so close, so many people just across half a mile of water, and yet help was so far away. I was alone with a maniac, the man who had been my closest friend and whom, suddenly, I didn’t recognize. He ordered me out of the car at gunpoint, ordered me to confess before he shot me and threw my body into the Hudson.
“Johnny was very drunk, and had trouble keeping his balance and at one point tripped over a board on the dock, and that’s when I made my play at rushing him for the gun. He was a head shorter and several pounds lighter than I, so it was easy to knock him down, but he still had the gun, and we struggled. The gun went off, I pushed him away, and ran for cover. He shot at me wildly a couple times. I made it to the overhang and hid in the shadows. I peeked through a space between the wallboards, and when I saw him walking back to the car, I fled toward the road and then took off on foot through the marsh.
“I thought he’d go home, and after I got to my apartment, I began to think about how crazed he was and what he might do to Bette, so I drove to their place to see if Johnny was back. His car wasn’t parked out front like it was when he was home, so I went up to the apartment to warn Bette about Johnny, ask her why he believed there was anything going on between us, but mostly to make sure Bette was all right, that he hadn’t hurt her before I got there.”
“Why didn’t you just telephone?”
“Telephone her? I don’t know. I suppose—I don’t know. I just went there, like I had to or something.
“It was very late, the streets pitch dark, but the landlady saw me, heard me go in. Johnny wasn’t home; his car wasn’t parked out front, and Bette receiving a man in the middle of the night—you get the picture.
“We were out looking for him when the police came to notify Bette that Johnny was dead. The landlady, witnessing my arrival in the middle of the night soon after Johnny was killed, told the police and it made me look suspect.”
Mr. Benchley said: “You dared not tell the police that you were at the pier for fear they’d pin a murder rap on you.”
[Dorothy Parker 03] - Mystic Mah Jong Page 15