Murder Your Darlings

by J. J. Murphy

  “Heywood, you remember Mr. Dachshund from this afternoon, of course?”

  “Of course!” said the man. His big paw shook Faulkner’s delicate hand. “Heywood Broun. Sportswriter for the New York Tribune.”

  She said, “I wonder if you could do us a favor or two, Heywood.”

  “Of course!”

  “Wonderful. First, do you have your flask?”

  “As always.” He winked and reached in his jacket for a well-worn silver army flask, which he handed to her. She unscrewed the flask’s cap.

  “Second, do you think you could escort us back to the Algonquin?”

  She tipped the flask to her lips. Then she frowned. She held the flask upside down and shook it. Not a drop came out.

  “Sorry about that,” Broun said, reclaiming the flask. “I needed a little help to enjoy the show. Not bad so far, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve seen better productions in a chamber pot,” she said. “Now, can you walk with us back to the Algonquin?”

  Broun shook his head. “Sorry about that, too. I told my wife I’d meet her at the Cotton Club up in Harlem right after the show.”

  “Oh, never mind, then. Thanks just the same.”

  “It was nothing,” he said, and disappeared into the crowd.

  She watched him go. “You can say that again.”

  “Mrs. Parker! Mr. Dachshund!” Benchley fought his way through the crowd. “There you are. What’s all the fuss about?”

  “Mr. Benchley, where have you been?” she said. “Billy thinks he was followed by the man he saw at the Algonquin this morning.”

  “Really?” Benchley said. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “I think so,” Faulkner said. “It looked like him.”

  “Dear me,” Benchley said, and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe and pouch of tobacco.

  She snatched something out of his hand. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, just a notepad,” Benchley said, artificially casual, dumping much of his tobacco onto the floor instead of into the bowl of his pipe.

  She looked at the notebook closely. It was small, the size of a deck of cards, and bound in black leather. Its pale blue pages were trimmed in gold. On the cover were monogrammed initials, also in gold.

  “L.M.,” she said. “Leland Mayflower! Fred, where did you get this?”

  “Not so loud.” Benchley coughed as he lit his pipe. “I found it on the table when Detective Orangutan took me to identify the body.”

  She flipped through it. The first page had been torn out. The next few pages were filled with Benchley’s handwriting in pencil.

  He said, “You know how I’m always losing the darned things and I never have one when I need one. So I picked it up. Came in handy, too. I took notes of the show for my review, see?”

  She read aloud: “‘I am not overwhelmed. I am not underwhelmed. I am merely whelmed.’” She handed it back to him. “Well, I agree with you there, but I disagree with your actions. I never pictured you for a grave robber, Mr. Benchley.”

  “It was a thoughtless whim, not grave robbing,” he said. “What’s the opposite of grave robbing? Comical robbing? Trivial theft?”

  Faulkner leaned into their huddle. “Petty larceny?”

  “Yes,” Benchley said. “That’s all it was. I’ll return it to Mayflower’s widow, if it makes you feel better.”

  “He wasn’t married,” she said.

  “His mistress, then.”

  She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be toddling off?”

  Now Benchley frowned. “I suppose I should.”

  “Toddling off?” Faulkner said. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to review another opening play,” Benchley said. “This is what we drama critics do in a busy season. We attend the first half of one play, then hustle down Broadway to see the second half of another. Mrs. Parker, as she often does, will take notes for me. Won’t you, Dottie?”

  “Mental notes,” she said. “I don’t need a filched notebook.”

  Faulkner said anxiously, “But what about the man who followed me here? He could be waiting outside.”

  Benchley scratched his chin. “Take my seat for the second half. Then when you leave, stick with the crowd and stay on Broadway. He wouldn’t be likely to do anything to you under the bright lights with a thousand people around. Hail a cab, and I’ll meet you afterward at Tony’s.”

  “Tony’s?” Faulkner said. “Who is Tony?”

  But Benchley had already left. Pipe in his mouth, he waded through the crowd in the smoky lobby, and then he was gone. The lights flickered and the orchestra began tuning up. Intermission was over.

  “Tony Soma’s is a speakeasy,” she said. “Everyone goes there. What do you say we go there now? I could really use a cup of tea.”

  Chapter 8

  “A cup of tea?” Faulkner said.

  “Yes, wouldn’t you like a nice, strong cup of tea?” Dorothy said, taking his hand. “Look at you, you poor wretch. You’re as wet as a dog’s nose and just as cold.”

  She pulled him toward the exit.

  He protested weakly, “Mr. Benchley said we should join the crowd after—”

  But she ignored him. Gripping his cold, slender hand, she weaved through the crowd on her way toward the exit. Faulkner dutifully followed, fighting against the tide of theatergoers rushing back to their seats. Finally, they burst through the twin brass doors and into the cold, damp night air.

  The rain had tapered to a foggy drizzle. The puddles on the sidewalk mirrored the dizzying glow of the lights of Broadway, as though a subterranean world of buildings and marquees grew downward like stalactites and could be glimpsed only through holes in the sidewalk. These lights also reflected upward, casting a ghostly illumination that reversed the shadows on the raincoats and faces of passersby. The wail of car horns and the screech of elevated trains, mimicking the shrieks and cries of unseen birds of prey, echoed through the thin fog and the cold night air.

  She sensed Faulkner’s reluctance to leave the well-lit radiance underneath the theater marquee. She sensed this in herself, too.

  “How far is this speakeasy?” he asked.

  “It’s only on Forty-ninth, just a few short blocks away.” She pulled up the collar of her jacket to cover her neck. “But perhaps we should take a taxi in case it suddenly starts to pour again.”

  “That’s a good idea.” He moved toward the curb, raised his arm to hail a cab but then lowered it abruptly.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “I don’t think I have enough money for a taxi ride.”

  “Me either. Not one thin dime. Or a fat one, for that matter.”

  “How did you expect us to pay for tea?”

  “Tony extends me a line of credit,” she said. “Currently, that line extends from Manhattan up through the Hudson Valley, over the Adirondacks, and is now threatening to cross the border into Canada.”

  He glanced about nervously. “Then we’ll walk?”

  “Of course,” she said with a confidence she didn’t quite feel. She linked her arm through his and started walking. “There are hordes of people around. We’re safe as houses.”

  They strolled to the end of the block and turned up Seventh Avenue. She had been right, of course, she told herself. People of all kinds—many dressed in formal clothes for the theater—filled the sidewalks. The crowds became even thicker as they approached Times Square. The theater lights were so bright and dazzling, they could have been on a Sunday stroll on a sunny June afternoon. But the night was cold. She cursed herself for forgetting her gloves.

  “How many theaters are there in New York?” Faulkner said. He gazed upward as they walked into the bright pool of light under yet another theater marquee.

  “Dozens. Maybe seventy-five or so legitimate theaters.”

  “Legitimate theaters?”

  “Theaters that show dramatic plays or glitzy musical revues, like that Ziegfeld piece of tripe. Then you have scads of othe
r places for entertainment, such as the vaudeville houses and cabarets, the girlie shows and the minstrel shows.” A sudden thought struck her. “Come to think of it, how did you get into the theater without a ticket, anyway?”

  Faulkner looked guilty. “I fibbed. I told the usher that there was a certain doctor in the audience, a brain specialist, and the hospital sent me to fetch him.”

  “A brain specialist?” She laughed. “You’re quite a fibber, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes, sometimes. I mean, no, I’m not a fibber really. But it’s true; sometimes I do tell stories to people for fun. I mean, a writer of fiction has to be something of a fibber, doesn’t he? To make up an imaginary world, filled with imaginary people, he’s got to be a counterfeiter. A prevaricator. A storyteller. A fictionalist.”

  “In other words, a liar. Guess that’s why most of the great writers are men.”

  He chuckled. “I guess so. Can I tell you a secret?”

  “By all means!” She loved secrets. “Can I tell you I’m not good at keeping them?”

  “That’s all right. During the war, I tried to run off and enlist. But I came too late. They declared armistice before I ever took up arms. Then, when I went back home, I—” He hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  “I pretended I had fought. I walked around town in a uniform. With a limp. I even adopted a British accent, believe it or not.”

  She was both amused and appalled. “Oh, Billy. Pretending to be a soldier won’t get you far with my crowd. Most of them—except for Mr. Benchley and Mr. Connelly—were behind the lines, either fighting or reporting. Perhaps I will keep your secret after all.”

  They continued arm in arm along the crowded sidewalk.

  “Still, you’re probably right that a writer has to be something of a liar,” she sighed. “But I’ve always been told the opposite. Be brutally honest, they said. Don’t write one word that rings false, they said. Write as if you’re stark naked, they said. I tried writing stark naked once. It didn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “All the other writers in the bull pen gave me funny looks, and I caught a nasty chill. But for you, I think you’re right to be a storyteller, a fictionalist, a fibber.”

  “I hope so. But few people who’ve seen my writing think much of it.”

  “Is that why you came to New York? To have your voice heard?” She tried not to sound discouraging as she said it, but the motherly part of her mind wanted to discourage him, to shoo him back to the South, where, she imagined, he’d be safe and warm.

  “Yes. Well, no. Not to have my voice heard. More like, to hear my voice for myself.”

  “To find your voice?”

  “Yes, exactly.” He seemed relieved. “I’ve filled notebooks with poems and sketches, but something’s lacking.”

  “Did I tell you I read the pages you gave me? I liked what you wrote. You clearly have scads of talent. But it’s a bit scattershot right now. All you need to do is to focus it—to find your own specific way of saying it.”

  He sighed, “I’ve got words rattling around my head like pennies in a tin can, but try as I might, it just comes out sounding like noise. As you say, I need to find my voice.”

  She squeezed his hand and bit her tongue. She wanted to say something tart and incisive, tell him his sensitive southern voice didn’t belong in nasty New York. Give him a little bitter medicine that would be for his own good.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him, even if it would have helped him. He seemed so earnest and hopeful. Writers are frail, vain creatures, she thought. And this boy still needs some mothering. Mayflower’s murder must have made her soft in the head to feel this way, she thought.

  “You want to find your voice?” she asked. “Keep writing. Your voice will find you.”

  “You think so?”

  “And don’t stop reading. As a writer, I love to read.”

  “Me, too. What’s your favorite thing to read?”

  “The signature on a paycheck. Too bad I don’t get to read it more often.”

  Faulkner chuckled, then stopped abruptly. His face froze. She looked at him and noticed an angry-looking man in a wide-brimmed hat standing close behind Faulkner.

  “Stop right here,” the man growled to Faulkner. Then he looked at Dorothy. “Don’t move. I have a gun.”

  She didn’t move. But she looked at the man closely. He wore a very long, dark gray wool coat. His eyes were in shadow beneath the wide brim of his dark gray hat. But she could see his mouth—his lips were bisected vertically by a leathery scar that ran from the right side of his nose to the left side of his chin.

  The man turned away and raised his arm toward the street.

  Faulkner whispered urgently, “It’s the man from the Algonquin lobby. He followed us here.”

  In an instant, a taxicab pulled up.

  “Get in,” the man said. “We’re going for a ride.”

  “Leave her—” Faulkner began.

  “Shut up. Your mommy’s coming with us. Now, get in.”

  Dorothy hopped forward. “Ladies first,” she chirped, and jumped into the open door. She slid along the seat to make room.

  Faulkner reluctantly clambered in, looking at her as if she were crazy. As the man with the gun sat down, she reached across Faulkner and across the man and quickly pulled shut his door.

  “What the—” the man snarled.

  She pulled herself back, then turned and yanked open the door on her side and quickly got out. As she did, she grabbed Faulkner’s arm.

  “Billy, come on!”

  Faulkner was stunned, confused, but went with her because of the force of her momentum.

  She heard, as she’d predicted, a roar of rage and frustration from the man inside the car. She had shut his door on his long, expensive wool coat. She had stopped him—for the moment—and he wasn’t happy about it.

  She pulled Faulkner in between the cars, trucks, buses and trolley cars moving through Times Square. Fortunately, the heavy traffic moved slowly—but horns honked at them. And at one point she narrowly got them out of the way of an oncoming trolley.

  “Perhaps we were safer in the taxi,” Faulkner said, only half joking.

  The reached the sidewalk on the other side of Times Square and took a moment to catch their breath, as though they had forded a raging river.

  “Look,” Faulkner said. “He’s coming after us.”

  She could see the man weaving through the midst of the traffic. He was moving quickly, heading right toward them.

  She thought a moment.

  “He can’t come after both of us if we split up. Come on.”

  A few paces away, a green metal structure could be seen above the passersby. Its white glass dome glowed with light from within.

  “What is it?” Faulkner asked, running after her.

  “The subway. Do you have a nickel for each of us?”

  A blast of hot air, a low rumble and a high-pitched metallic screech hit them as they descended the stairway. They dropped their coins in the turnstiles and hurried toward the platform. An uptown train had just pulled in.

  “Get on it,” she said, shoving him into the train’s open door. “Meet me at Tony Soma’s. Ask any cabdriver where it is.”

  “But you can come with me,” he protested.

  “He’s after you, not me. I’ll lure him away so you’ll be safe. Don’t argue.”

  Faulkner opened his mouth to do just that. But the conductor blew his whistle and the doors slammed shut.

  The subway train lurched forward slowly; then all of a sudden it sped away with a whoosh and left behind a surprising hollow silence.

  She looked around the dim, nearly empty platform. No other trains were in sight. Besides her, only a handful of people stood waiting.

  The man with the scar would arrive any moment. Should she ask someone for help? That would certainly be the sensible thing to do. But getting someone else involved might put that p
erson in danger, too.

  Then she spotted a uniformed policeman at the far end of the platform. He stood with his wide back to her, twirling his baton, rocking on his heels. For once—for once!—luck was on her side. She hurried to him.

  As she approached, she slowed her pace, noticing the policeman’s white hair.

  He turned to face her and smiled.

  Her hopeful spirits sank. The portly old man was seventy-five if he was a day. He had the rheumy-eyed, slightly vacant expression that she associated with old age and senility.

  Behind the elderly policeman was the pitlike darkness of the subway tracks. The man with the scar could shove this old cop down there with one little push.

  She looked over her shoulder. There he was, fifty feet away. The man was running down the steps, his long coat flapping behind him. He reached the platform and looked around.

  She turned away, but she could feel that he had spotted her, could feel that he was now stalking quickly after her.

  “Evening, miss,” the policeman said. “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s just jake.” She smiled and walked on. She didn’t want to give the man with the scar any reason to hurt the old cop.

  Just beyond was another stairway, leading back up to the center of Times Square. She scurried up the steps.

  Back on the busy sidewalk, she looked around. Above her were glowing signs and flashing billboards advertising Arrow Shirt Collars, Maxwell House Coffee, Squibb’s Dental Cream, Camel Cigarettes, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, and countless others. The illuminated marquees of the multitude of theaters and dozens of hotels blazed at her. People called Broadway the Great White Way because of the millions of bright lights that turned the dark city night into day. But all that light only served to make Dorothy feel more conspicuous. She glanced around, looking for somewhere to hide. To disappear.

  Should she duck into one of the big theaters? If so, which one? The Rialto? The Bijou? The Lyric? The Gaiety? Or should she sneak into one of the small burlesque revues?

  Should she run into that all-night Automat? Or up those stairs to a smoky pool hall? At the next doorway, a huckster tempted tourists into a dance hall where men paid a dime per dance to women with tight dresses and loose morals. Over there was a corner cigar store she’d accompanied Benchley into a few times. Or she could scurry into that soda fountain and hide behind the magazine racks.