[Celebrity Murder Case 01] - The Dorothy Parker Murder Case

by George Baxt

  “What about Ben Hecht?”

  “He’s out of touch.”

  “Certainly not you.”

  “Certainly not, and this is hardly the time for whimsy. Driver, what is all that awful traffic congestion ahead of us?” They had turned right into Broadway heading uptown, and traffic heading in both directions was jammed up. Trolley cars were stalled with passengers hanging out the windows trading japes with passengers in stalled autos. A beer wagon fronted by a team of horses adjoined an elegant Minerva Landaulet imported from Belgium, the driver of the beer wagon making lewd suggestions to the ladies seated in the back seat of the town car. Mounted policemen and foot patrols were trying vainly to unsnarl the bottlenecks.

  “Is it a parade?” asked Mrs. Parker.

  “Lady, it’s a funeral,” the driver told her. “Dincha know Rudolph Valentino died yesterday?”

  Along with my will to live, thought Dorothy. “No, I didn’t know. Did you know, Alec?”

  “Of course I knew. It was in all the bulldog editions. The poor bastard. And only thirty-one years old.”

  The driver worried his klaxon for a while until Woollcott demanded he desist. “Exercising that ugly horn of yours will hardly alleviate the situation. Will you look at that crowd, Dottie, it’s unbelievable. Why, for crying out loud, almost all the women are dressed in black. It’s unbelievable."

  The driver laughed. “Some broad committed suicide this morning. She left a note saying she was going to join Rudy. Can you beat that? Even my missus hung the laundry at half-mast. Y’know the rumor’s around he was poisoned.” He pronounced it “perzonned.”

  Woollcott was making notes in a pocket pad. “What’s the date?”

  “August twenty-fourth, nineteen hundred and twenty-six,” contributed Mrs. Parker.

  “How clever you are.”

  “August twenty-second was my birthday.”

  “Aha,” said Woollcott, “which precipated this morning’s unfortunate decision to do yourself the injuries.”

  “The decision was made two days ago. It took that long for me to get moving. Do you suppose we ought to get out and walk?”

  “It’s too hot to walk.”

  “It’s stifling in this cab.”

  “We’re only at West Sixty-sixth Street. It’s six blocks more.” They stared out the window at Frank Campbell’s funeral parlour where Valentino’s body was on view. There was a line that stretched out of sight of people waiting to view the remains. Newspaper photographers swarmed wildly like locusts in heat, and Woollcott and Mrs. Parker recognised several of the reporters milling around the entrance of Campbell’s.

  Woollcott was writing feverishly. “Why would they suspect he might have been murdered?”

  “It was in all the papers,” the cabby told him. “He was at this here private party on the night of August fourteenth given by that there rich guy somebody Van Weber.”

  “Lacey Van Weber,” Mrs. Parker contributed.

  Woollcott blinked his owl eyes. “Lacey Van Weber? Sounds like a name only Edna could conjure up for one of her novels. Gaylord Ravenal. Magnolia Hawkes.” Mrs. Parker wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t a fan of Edna Ferber’s and barely tolerated her presence at the Algonquin Round Table. She knew Woollcott’s eyes were riveted to her face.

  “Where did you ever hear about Lacey Van Weber?” he asked.

  “There was an article about him in the Daily Graphic on Monday.”

  “I didn’t know you read that rotten scandal sheet.”

  “As a rule I don’t. But Neysa does.” Neysa McMein, the artist, and her husband, John Baragwanath, were Mrs. Parker’s neighbours. “I found a copy lying outside Neysa’s door, so I copped it. Mr. Van Weber sounds absolutely fascinating. And he’s a real good looker.”

  “Obviously, the article was illustrated.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what about Lacey Van Weber?”

  “What do you want to know? And why do you care?”

  “Because Mr. Valentino took ill at Van Weber’s party.”

  “So?”

  “The lady he escorted to the party was Ilona Mercury.”

  Mrs. Parker rearranged herself so that she faced Woollcott. “Now how the hell do you know that?”

  “Kaufman told me earlier. Stop looking so perplexed. I haven’t told you everything that went on with George because there hasn’t been time. The Mercury thing was terribly upset when she asked George for the use of his place. One of the things upsetting her was Valentino’s death. That’s when she told him she had been with him at the party.”

  “Continue. I’m fascinated.”

  “That’s about as much as I know. Well, there wasn’t all that much time to palaver on the phone. George was upset and needed help right away. There was no reaching you by phone because you had yours off the hook. And for all I know, since it seems to be taking us an eternity to arrive for his rescue, he’s probably turned himself in to the police and the devil take the hindmost.”

  “We’re clear,” sang out the cabdriver. “You realise what we just drove through was history.”

  “Young man. I have been through the Great War. That was history.”

  The driver stared at Woollcott through his rear-view mirror. “Listen, mister. There’ll be lotsa wars. But there’ll only be one Valentino.”

  Mrs. Parker leaned back in her seat with a sly smile. “And Henry Mencken dares revile the likes of him as the booboisie.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” George S. Kaufman held the door slightly ajar. His friends could see he was under a severe strain. As Mrs. Parker was later to explain, the bags under his eyes could have accommodated a week’s laundry. His hair, an oversized bird’s nest when properly looked after, now gave him the appearance of a Zulu warrior fighting a high wind.

  “You’ll have to open the door wider,” snapped Woollcott. “I could never pass through the space you’re allowing me.” Kaufman moved away from the door and Woollcott pushed it open. Mrs. Parker followed him into the apartment, gently closing the door behind her. The living room was simply furnished. The windows were wide open. They looked out on the street. “Where’s the stiff?” asked Woollcott.

  “In the bedroom, of course,” Kaufman told him sullenly, “where she’s most at home.” Mrs. Parker decided the door straight ahead would lead to the bedroom, and the men followed her. Kaufman recognised the velvet bracelets disguising Mrs. Parker’s bandaged wrists. “For Christ’s sake, Dottie, you didn’t try it again.”

  “For want of anything grimmer to do.” She pushed the bedroom door open and was grateful Kaufman had been thoughtful enough to open both windows. “She’s beginning to decompose.”

  Kaufman remained in the doorway with his hands on his hips. “I wish people would have the decency to decompose in their own apartments.”

  In death, Ilona Mercury looked nowhere near as alluring as Mrs. Parker imagined she must have looked in life. Her face was bloated. Her tongue protruded from between bulbous lips. The colour of her skin was a bluish-gray. Her honey-coloured bobbed hair was a mess, hanging over her forehead and almost masking the eyes which were half open. Her sleeveless blue sheath was hiked over her knees, and Mrs. Parker briefly considered the decorum of readjusting the dress until she realised the hemline would reach just above the knees anyway. “I think she’s been strangled.”

  “Let me have a go at her,” said Woollcott.

  “That’s Alec’s standing offer, after they’re dead.” Woollcott glared at Kaufman.

  “Innuendo, and out the other. And let’s spare each other the smart-ass repartee. This is serious business.” Woollcott devoted his attention to the corpse. Kaufman I walked slowly into the room until he was standing next to Mrs. Parker. “She’s been strangled, of course. Looks to me as though she died sometime last night.”

  “She left me a little after ten,” Kaufman told them. “I met her at Gino’s, that’s a little joint o
ver on West Seventy-third, for dinner around eight and to give her the set of keys to the apartment. That’s when she told me about the party at Van Weber’s.”

  “I want to hear about that,” said Mrs. Parker as she led the men back to the living room. She shared the couch with Kaufman while Woollcott sank into a morris chair and after three attempts to cross his legs, settled for legs outstretched, one ankle across the other.

  “I liked Ilona,” said Kaufman.

  “Obviously.” Woollcott sounded smug, and it was at a time like this that Mrs. Parker had to resist the urge to excoriate him.

  “She had a great sense of humour.”

  “George, tell us what she told you about the party.”

  “Oh, the hell with the party!” He leaped to his feet, running his hands through his hair. “What do I do about this? I can’t afford a scandal. They might take Anne away from us and that would kill Bea. How do I get out of this?”

  “I’ll get you out of this,” said Mrs. Parker confidently. “My friend Jacob Singer will come to the rescue. He owes me a few.” Both Woollcott and Kaufman knew detective Jacob Singer, the legendary Manhattan lawman. Big Jake with the beefy fists, the scourge of the underworld, the terror of the Chinatown tongs and Little Italy’s Black Hand. He’d even been known to take on a ferocious rabbi he suspected of bottling illegal sacramental wines. Jacob Singer had one lamentable shortcoming. He was incorruptible. He played everything straight, his career, his private life and stud poker. Mrs. Parker had often wished he’d make a pass at her, but to a man like Singer a celebrity like Mrs. Parker was an untouchable. “Now tell me what Miss Mercury told you about the party.”

  Kaufman sat down. “Ziegfeld introduced her to Valentino, who invited her to be his date. Ilona knew Van Weber and seemed annoyed she didn’t have an invitation of her own. She wasn’t particularly fascinated by Valentino or of the prospect of spending an evening with him …”

  “… because, dollink, I’ve been told he’s such a bore.” Ilona was ignoring the plate of spaghetti she’d been served and instead sipped red wine from the coffee cup in which it had been served. Prohibition was no match for the clever restaurateurs determined to hold onto their drinking clientele. Kaufman was just as little interested in the chicken cacciatore congealing on the plate set before him. He sat with his arms folded and resting on the table, enjoying his stunning companion, as were several other gentlemen in the restaurant who were sneaking looks at her. “Besides, how dare Lacey Van Weber not invite me to his party? I who have introduced him to many of Ziegfeld’s most gawjuss girls!”

  Kaufman laughed. “You mean you weren’t even looking forward to Valentino making a pass at you?”

  “Valentino making a pass at a voman? Are you mad, dollink? Are you sniffink somet’ink?” She knew Kaufman neither took drugs nor drank nor smoked, but she enjoyed teasing him.

  “Now you’re not going to tell me those stories about him being a pink powder puff are true.”

  “I don’t know vat color is the puff, but vomen are not on Valentino’s diet.”

  “But he’s been married twice.”

  “Hoo ha ha ha ha.” She slapped the table and the silverware trembled. “First vife, Jean Acker. Lesbian.”

  “Aw, go on.”

  “I vill. Second and present vife, Natacha Rambova. Lesbian.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Is true. Even her name is phony. She is from the cosmetic family, the Hudnuts. Her real name is Vinifred . . meaning Winifred, . . Hudnut.”

  “You mean she’s a Hudnut to crack.”

  “Rambova and Acker vere all part of Nazimova’s harem in Hollywood.”

  “Alla Nazimova?”

  “How many Nazimovas have you heard of? Is also said I Valentino’s true love is Ramon Novarro.”

  “Oh, now stop that and for God’s sake lower your voice, we’re the centre of attention.”

  “That is because I am so stonning.”

  “You are so loud.”

  “So I am so loud and stonning. Vere vuss I? Oh, yes. Valentino is focking Ramon Novarro. But then, since he starred in Ben Hur, is very fashionable to fock Ramon Novarro. Anyway, the party is at Lacey’s penthouse on Central Park Souse. Everybody is there. Lacey greet me like long-lost lover.”

  “Are you?”

  “I call him naughty bastard not to invite me, and he say, ‘But you are here, no, dollink?’ Then he sees I am with Valentino, and this he doesn’t like.”

  “Aha. He’s jealous of Valentino.”

  “Is not important. Valentino is very sweet to him. From the moment they meet you would think they are longtime friends from the way Valentino acts. But then, Valentino is surrounded and I am left with ziss strange man. You perhaps know Joseph Force Crater?”

  “Judge Crater? Oh, sure. I’ve met him a couple of times.”

  “At the party he is with Vera DeLee, one of Polly Adler’s girls.”

  “I’ve met Vera. Sweet kid.”

  “Oh, sure. Judge Crater calls her the cat’s meow. The judge, by the way, isn’t very happy at the party. I remember he says to me, ‘Someday, my dear young woman, life will catch up vit me and I just might have to disappear.’ Kvaint, no?”

  “Very quaint.”

  “Was also there your friend the playwright.”

  “I have lots of friends the playwright.”

  “The little bald one.”

  “Marc Connelly.”

  “Right!”

  “Was also there Flo Ziegfeld, of course, who is having terrible time these days with money and also his wife.”

  “Billie Burke puts up with an awful lot from Flo. He’s not very discreet about his affairs.”

  “Is lousy lay, Flo.”

  “Who was Connelly with?”

  Ilona stared into her wine, and apparently that’s where the name of Connelly’s date for that night materialised. “Lily Robson.” Ilona could tell from the blank look on Kaufman’s face the name didn’t ring a bell. “Lily is one of Texas Guinan’s girls. She dances at the Club Guinan. Flaming red hair. She always looks as though her head’s on fire. Anyway, was also movie stars, like Nita Naldi, who was in Blood and Sand with Valentino. She’s a great gal, Naldi. She tells me Mae Murray likes to fock Cubans. Is cute, yes? And then”— her face darkened—“is there a man I detest.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s actually a man you don’t like.”

  “Is many men I don’t like, but not like I don’t like Bela Horathy.”

  This name Kaufman recognised. “Dr. Bliss. It figures he’d be at a party with those high fliers.”

  “Dr. Bliss,” repeated Ilona with a sneer. “Better his name is Dr. Caligari. I can see Valentino does not like him. Is very obvious. He knows, we all know, Bela Horathy is a drug pusher. How many lives, I wonder, has he destroyed.”

  “The cops have never been able to get a thing on him.”

  “Very clever man, Horathy. I remember stories from the old country.”

  “Which old country?”

  “Hungary, you dear sweet man, what other old country could I possibly mean? They still remember him there. And Valentino remembers him from Hollywood. Oh, how he is angry and scowling when he see Bela Horathy. He is like Vesuvius, vich is also Italian. How Valentino explodes! ‘Murderer!’ he screams wid his awful wop accent, pointing a manicured finger at Horathy. ‘You destroy Wally Reid and Barbara LaMarr and Mabel Normand and you hook poor little Alma Rubens . . and he mentions all these Hollywood stars who either die from drugs or soon will and it is a terrible scene. Lacey tries to calm him. ‘I say, old sport, let’s get out on the terrace for a breath of fresh air.’” Ilona was playing every role in the melodrama she was describing, and the entire restaurant was mesmerised. “Judge Crater says, ‘He needs a drink,’ and gets him one. Then later, Rudy clutches his stomach and screams, ‘Oh, my God! The pain! The pain!”’

  “The Times said he suffered from ulcers.

  Ilona leaned across the table conspiratorially an
d at last lowered her voice. “I think he was poisoned. Now may I have the keys? I do not vish to be late.” She favored him with her dazzling smile. “Tonight is a most important night for Ilona.”

  “The ultimate night of importance for Ilona,” appended Kaufman with a weary sigh. “I walked her here and then I took a cab home. When I got here shortly before noon, intending to do some work on my new play, I found her dead.”

  Mrs. Parker fixed him with her brown, fawn-like eyes. “You didn’t touch the body? You didn’t touch anything?”

  “Just the phone to call Alec.”

  Woollcott had been making notes throughout Kaufman’s discourse. Some of his best articles were dissertations on true life crime stories. He scented another beauty now. “I like this murder. I like this murder very much.” Mrs. Parker expected him to smack his lips, but he disappointed her. “I’m going to stay with it. My instincts tell me this is the beginning of one of the most fascinating crime stories of this era. Don’t you agree, Dottie?”

  “I think it’s more fascinating than making an inside straight. I’d love to know who was Ilona’s appointment in Samarra.”

  Kaufman began raging again. “Will you for God’s sake get hold of Jacob Singer and get me out of this mess?”

  “Always remember, George,” said Mrs. Parker as she crossed to the telephone, “in defeat there is also triumph.” Woollcott, perplexed, screwed up his face as he asked, “Now who said that?"

  Replied Mrs. Parker, “Why, I just did.”

  While Mrs. Parker was at the telephone tracking down detective Jacob Singer, Woollcott studied the notes in his pocket pad, mopping away at his forehead and neck with a large blue handkerchief. Kaufman was slumped in a straight-back chair, hands clasped and staring at the floor with the woebegone expression of a dyspeptic bassett hound. “Jake?” they heard Mrs. Parker trill. “I’ve found Jake,” she announced. Her conversation with the detective was brief and to the point. In less than two minutes, she was finished with the telephone and seated on the couch. “He’s on his way and in his own car. There’ll be no police sirens, no hullabaloo, no inquisitive crowds gathered on the sidewalk. It’ll all be as discreet and private as ladies’ night at a Turkish bath. I wish one of you would try to look cheerful.”