“The problem is, darling,” I commented, just as Harpo, his short brown hair neatly combed, and dressed in a suit and tie, a raincoat over his arm, entered the store humming a tune. He walked to the silver cutlery counter along the wall, inside which were displayed the magnificent sterling-silver patterns that graced the finest tables on the East Side and were the preferred wedding registry gifts of brides all over the country.
As a clerk saw to Harpo’s request to see this fork and that spoon, I continued: “The problem is, darling, as lovely as this brooch is, it is possible that a dozen other members of the Rotary Club could be wearing one just like it.”
The clerk fervently assured me that each creation was a one-of-a-kind design by the artist, and each diamond bird unique.
That’s when Chico arrived, pulling a dolly through the entry doors, over the objection of one of the guards. On it was stacked several boxes with the logo of Cartier Jewelers. They tried to stop his progress, but he began talking very loudly with his phony Italian accent, and this called the attention of several of the clerks and brought about the arrival of one of the floor detectives at his side.
Within a few seconds, the manager—a pencil-thin fellow with a pencil moustache, a persnickety attitude, and a bowtie that looked like it was strangling him, making the protrusion that was his head appear like an angry red pimple about to pop—entered from out of the offices at the rear of the store. Sizing up this new arrival, Groucho waylaid his victim by grabbing the fellow’s hand to shake with his briefcase-tethered hand, which served only to slam the poor soul in the groin. To add insult to injury, Groucho apologized, and then reached up in an attempt to straighten the man’s tie, which had been knocked askew. The attaché case slammed a frontal assault on the manager’s chest. Groucho had managed to disarm, dishevel, and unravel any officious stance the man could assume, all this while announcing that he had arrived with the cache of gems that Mr. Tiffany had ordered.
As a little ruckus between Groucho, Chico, a guard, a detective, and the store’s manager ensued, I asked the clerk to show me “that one, the brooch with the emerald eye.”
“Oh, you like the chicken?” Mr. Benchley asked me.
“Sir, that, if I may correct you,” said the clerk, “is a pheasant.”
“Looks like a chicken to me . . . .”
“Pretty, but not quite right for me,” I said, placing the pin back onto the velvet cushion. “Ah! Now that is quite lovely,” I said pointing to another.
“Well, that’s a chicken, for sure.”
“A partridge, sir,” said the clerk, unsuccessfully trying to suppress his condescension.
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Benchley, ignoring the little scene playing out with Groucho and Chico. “Not a chicken, you say . . . .”
The boys were flanking the manager, each talking at the same time, spouting nonsense into the ear that presented itself: a torturous sight. I know from experience what it’s like having just one Marx Brother bend your ear. I can’t imagine two brothers, both ears.
“I have to deliver these gemstones immediately,” said Groucho, holding up the case attached to his wrist. “My man here,” he said, referring to Zeppo, “from the Secure Security Company, has to unlock these chains that bind me upon delivery of the goods . . . and boy, do I have the goods!”
“No, Mr. Manager,” said Chico in broken English. “I god-a da goods right-a here!”
“Yes, but those are for Cartier’s down the street,” said the manager, pointing to the competitor’s name and logo on the boxes, his pimple-head growing redder and redder. “You’ve come to the wrong place.”
“I no comma to da wrong-a place,” said Chico. “I comma to here!”
On the other side of the store, Harpo was being shown dozens of patterns of silverware, all lined up across the rolled-out length of black satin, and when I turned to look at him, he was asking the clerk to please bring down the sterling-silver coffee service. When the clerk turned his back to fetch it, Harpo inconspicuously moved a spoon at the end of the lineup of silverware patterns off the counter and into the coat hanging over his arm.
“Darling?” said Mr. Benchley calling my attention back to the brooches. “What about that one, the pigeon?”
“I’m sorry sir, you mean—it’s a rooster.”
“I thought you said there were no chickens, and now you are pointing to the cock, which is a chicken, after all! Young man,” said Mr. Benchley with feigned annoyance, “That one over there? Now, don’t tell me that is not a chicken!”
“It’s a swan, sir.”
“Water fowl. Close enough. We’ll take it!”
“No,” I said right on cue. “None of these are what I had in mind. Do you think I can have a design created just for me?”
“The designs are one of a kind, Madame. You will be the only person owning this particular brooch.”
“Look, here is what I want,” I said, taking out a sketch of a design I had fashioned myself, similar to the one I saw in the drawer of Featherstonhaugh’s hotel room. “It’s an egret. A bird on the wing. Can one be made for me?”
“Madame, the artist—well, something very similar to this has—I believe one has already been fashioned and purchased by—”
Frowning, he hesitated, turned, and pulling out his keys unlocked a drawer in a sleek, low wooden island counter behind him, removing a narrow black book consisting of no more than ten or twelve pages of designs. Flipping to the back of the book, he ran his finger down the page, following the handwritten accounts with his index finger. Finding what he was looking for, he then flipped several pages toward the front where there were photographs of the various designs.
He murmured, “Three egrets: walking, at attention, in flight.”
He looked up at me, and then at Mr. Benchley, and was about to speak when I gave the signal. “Oh, I feel faint!” I said, as I fell back into the awaiting arms of Mr. Benchley.
“Someone, bring a chair and a glass of water!” ordered Mr. Benchley in a thunderous voice, setting everybody into action.
The clerk placed the book on the counter, and then as trained, returned the prized brooches back into their cushy velvet beds below the glass. Mr. Benchley knocked the black book to the floor on our side of the counter.
At the same time, just twenty feet to our side, Groucho, cupping his chin in his hand, stood leaning the elbow of his cuffed arm atop the attaché case he’d placed on the counter. Finally, after listening to the rants of Chico’s pseudo-Italian character struggling to escape the grasp of one of the store’s guards, Groucho had had enough. He took a swing at his battling brother with his tethered fist. The case flew open, releasing hundreds of gemstones, as fake as Woolworth’s did sell, in an awe-inspiring rain that fell and rolled and tip-tapped on the surfaces of everything in sight.
Mind-numbing alarms went off; and the few genuine customers dropped to their hands and knees.
As if this was not sufficient distraction for our purpose, on the other side of the room, the clerk assisting Harpo was instantly alerted to attention by the alarm and interrupted in his task of counting the diminishing number of spoons he’d laid out before his customer. Several times he looked up from the count, and then, upon returning his eyes to the counter, began a recount of the silverware. He appeared nonplussed by the skirmish of clerks and customers diving onto the floor to collect, and possibly pocket, what appeared to be priceless gemstones.
Harpo turned abruptly to leave the store, and from his raincoat pocket escaped a knife, which clanked loudly onto the floor. He stopped in his tracks, and, when he thought his stash was secure, took a step. Out slipped teaspoons to jangle and scatter along the aisle.
“Sir!” said the clerk, ending his inventory on the counter when he realized the inventory was clattering all over the marble floor.
Harpo turned to face him, and then, as he spun back around to make a dash out of the store, a dozen knives, spoons, and forks clanked with each step he took. The silver clerk pressed another
alarm button, setting off another series of bells and squawks, which sent Harpo into a jog.
But after Harpo stopped to retrieve a ruby the size of the Hope Diamond, which he inspected, flipped into the air, caught, and then pocketed, out slipped a sterling trophy bowl resounding on the floor like the deafening gong of the Liberty Bell. This he picked up and offered to a well-coiffed matron who was crawling on her hands and knees collecting treasures.
Mr. Benchley knelt down, retrieved the book at his feet, and flipped to the page of names of customers to which the brooches had been sold.
It was time to get out of the store. Not only were the bell alarms making my head ache, but the scheme was unraveling and our escape could be blocked at any moment if the doors were suddenly locked to bar our exit.
Harpo, free of the weighty silver, held open the door for Chico, Zeppo, and Groucho, who managed to crawl away unseen from the frenzied treasure hunters combing the floor for their fortunes. Mr. Benchley and I returned the book to the counter and, unnoticed, calmly walked out of the greatest American jewelry store in New York.
Harpo now shook out his raincoat and out fell a flurry of fruit knives and demitasse spoons. Then, for the finale, the elaborate samovar, last of the family silver, was sent crashing down in a deep, echoing thud on the marble floor.
Chapter Eleven
Aleck arrived at my door dressed in a summer ensemble of white linen accessorized with powder-blue shirt, tie, and pocket kerchief, with white buckskin on his feet and a white panama hat atop his head. He looked very like a Jamaican plantation owner. One fiery glare at Woodrow, as he hesitated in crossing over the threshold, was enough to stop any ideas my pup may have had of jumping up and laying paws on the white trousers. Woodrow slinked away and settled down in the corner.
Aleck’s foul mood of the past few days since his return from his summer island retreat in Vermont appeared to have lifted somewhat. Aleck loved a good party where he would be surrounded with theatre people who hung on every word he said. After all, he was the most prominent theatre critic in the country, known as “the star maker”; finding a place in his good graces was the most important thing a young actor could do for his career, besides being able to act. And tonight the Mellons’ apartment would be crawling with actors.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” he asked, after I bade him enter and poured him a scotch on the rocks.
“I really don’t feel up to going to the party tonight, Aleck.”
“Are you ill?”
“I will be if I go.”
“Nonsense! Get dressed,” he ordered, and just sat there frowning at me. I took a long drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out to answer the knock on the door.
Mr. Benchley stood leaning on the doorframe, dressed in a royal-blue suit and sporting a peppermint-striped bowtie. Instead of his usual evening top-hat, he was carrying a buff-colored grass fedora. On a man of smaller, slimmer stature, the effect would have been Runyonesque, but on Mr. Benchley, it was daring with a touch of class. The two men eyed one another’s attire.
“Well, we look wonderful, don’t we, old sport,” said Mr. Benchley to Aleck, as he bent to pet Woodrow, who’d come over from his corner to greet and jump on him, and to receive the stick of beef jerky extracted from the coat pocket.
“You look very . . . carnival barker, Bob,” said Aleck.
“And you, Aleck, remind me of an overstuffed Southern cracker in all his ponderous splendor.” And then, looking over at me: “And you look like the second gravedigger. And why aren’t you dressed?”
“She thinks the party will make her ill.”
“Just sick and tired, I suppose,” I said, dropping down on the sofa. I took a swig of my scotch, and when I heard no reply from the usually loquacious Aleck, I turned to face that big man, as cool as an ice cream sundae melting in the plush chair. But still he remained silent.
Mr. Benchley poured himself a drink and sat down next to me. “I just met our socialist friend down at the bar. He was giving Bunny an earful about conditions in a shirt factory in upstate New York. Bunny talked about all the fun stuff happening in Russia, making a labor movement moot. I left them to it.”
“How very generous of you,” I replied, mindlessly tapping down another cigarette. Mr. Benchley lit me up and said, “Yes, we had a very interesting talk.”
“Aaaaannnd? What was so very interesting that you might share with me?”
“Oh, I think you should ask our socialist friend yourself, my dear, as he’s going to tag along with us to the Mellons’ soirée.”
“Slumming, is he?” I said, my laughter hollow. “Fraternizing with the capitalist class? I don’t know what’s worse: the smugness of the socialist or the heartlessness of the rich capitalist.”
“Please, Dorothy, dear, don’t bore me with politics. You do know there will be caviar and champagne?” said Aleck, offering culinary inducements. I could see him salivate. “Bluepoint oysters, filet mignon, and for dessert—”
“And Tallulah wants you there,” said Mr. Benchley.
“She won’t in the least miss me.”
“Au contraire! She depends on it.”
“But, why did you invite him?” I asked. “Why on earth would he want to come and spend the evening with people he has contempt for?”
“You do it all the time, my dear, fodder for your stories. And . . . because you’ll be there.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think he plans on writing an exposé on wealthy Americans, how the other half—no—think again, that would be how the one percent live. Distribution of wealth, and all that. Don’t worry; he won’t pose any danger tonight.”
“Oh, very well, give me ten minutes.”
The Hotel Navarro on Central Park South was built only a couple of years before, and its art deco appointments offer luxury living, with spectacular, unobstructed views of Central Park from its southernmost border at 59th Street to its northernmost one at 110th Street. The spacious rooms of the Mellons’ penthouse were already teeming with the vivacious rabble of theatre people, and the apartment was brightened with lamplight as the sun dipped down in the west, gradually leaving the park in darkness.
Piano music greeted our arrival, as did Tallulah, practically knocking over the butler who opened the door to us. Thirty or forty Broadway hopefuls were plowing into the spread at the buffet table, or lounging about on sofas and chairs, or leaning on the piano and swaying or singing along with the show tunes issuing forth. There was always music at such gatherings of showpeople. The musical accompaniment provided an opportunity for a young chorine to lend her voice to a song, perhaps to be heard by the likes of a Gershwin or a Richard Rogers or an Irving Berlin as an informal audition. You never knew who might drop in looking for a charmer like yourself to fill the very role he’s trying to cast in his next smash hit!
I had brought Woodrow, who wore a red-satin bowtie made for him to wear at last year’s Actors Equity Halloween party. He was fussed over and offered pâté. He loved being the center of attention, and he was my excuse when the time came that I wanted to escape the party: Dogs do not adhere to the social graces.
I could hear Hermione’s distinctive bray over the music, from somewhere deep in the apartment. At least, I thought, when her voice becomes louder it might serve as a warning of her approach, and if lucky, I might be able to avoid contact with her altogether, ducking away before I was caught.
No such luck with Roger, however; he was at my side before I knew it, begging introduction to Aleck, who beamed his pleasure when Roger said that he always counted on reading Aleck’s thoughtful Broadway show reviews and that he was undoubtedly the best-known figure in America, better known than Calvin Coolidge. Our socialist friend nodded agreement and then turned to me and Mr. Benchley with, “And who isn’t? ‘Silent Cal’ never entertained a thought or expressed an opinion in his life, so God only knows who’s really sitting in the White House.”
Hermione caught me—I was trapped, wedged bet
ween the show’s director and the playwright wanting to discuss with me the possibility of consulting on a scene of dialogue in the play’s second act, when she snuck up on me. She took me by surprise, and I must have looked startled, staring at her bared breasts—she was a foot taller than me, and her décolletage exceptionally low. I halted in my reply to the playwright midsentence as I was thus struck in the face, and then took in the rest of what there was of her dress. And it wasn’t that I felt dowdy in my beaded sleeveless coral-silk shift with the Delmonte clips, standing next to this siren. Well, of course, I did; but it wasn’t the comparison that had me reeling.
I marveled at her brazenness, or was it just plain careless stupidity on her part? She excused herself for interrupting, and then, turning me by the elbow to look at the partygoers on the other side of the room, said: “I see you’re with that socialist, tonight.”
“He tagged along. Just slumming. Want to meet him? I’m sure you’ll be charmed.”
“I didn’t know you were a—”
“Socialist? Not quite.”
“Pity!”
“Why’s that?”
“It would be fun to have a socialist friend.”
“Barrel of laughs.”
“Is he?”
Mr. Benchley appeared from out of the crush. Having arrived at my side, his eyes widened when he took in, first the bosom, and then the dress. But it was his double-take that almost gave him away. “Delightful gathering, Hermione,” he choked out to avoid appearing speechless.
“Yeah, thanks, Bobby.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette holder, and when she exhaled down her nose the effect was that of the mists settling over the twin peaks of New Hampshire.
“I understand this is your first venture into Show Business?” he asked.
[Dorothy Parker 04] - Death Rides the Midnight Owl Page 19