by George Baxt
“My God, don’t tell me she’s here.” Mrs. Parker was aching for a good look at the supposedly exotic movie star. “I mean Nita Naldi and Opal Engri in one evening. It’s a cornucopia of something or another.”
“She’s here to accompany Valentino’s body back to the West Coast.”
“What a morbid assignment,” commented Woollcott darkly.
“She insists they were engaged to be married.” Mrs. Parker found the wicked smile on his face enchanting. Obviously everybody knew the rumours about Valentino and his non-relationships with women. “Rudy, of course, is not around to deny it. The publicity is worth a fortune to her. I hear she’s packed about two dozen varieties of widow’s weeds to parade around in on the back platform of the train when they pull in at the scheduled whistle stops.”
“What a disgusting circus,” said Mrs. Parker. “I want to be cremated and my ashes poured all over the Rose Room of the Algonquin so all my beloved friends can continue to walk all over me.”
She saw Woollcott zeroing in on Van Weber. “You were a friend of Valentino’s, what was he like?”
“He was a doomed innocent.”
“So much for Mr. Valentino,” said Mrs. Parker, hoping she wouldn’t be posthumously dismissed with five words.
“You met him in Hollywood?” asked Woollcott, elbow on table, chin resting on his hand.
“I met him …” He paused, and then continued the flow, “… here.”
“Of course everyone’s heard how he laid Horathy to filth at your party. How can you associate with a man of such dubious repute?” Woollcott was enjoying himself. Jacob Singer was enjoying Woollcott. Mrs. Parker wanted desperately to get very drunk. She wanted Woollcott to cease and desist, leave Lacey Van Weber to her. He was hers by squatter’s rights; she’d seen him first and staked out the territory. What the hell did he think tomorrow was all about? Ideally, Mrs. Parker planned to win Van Weber and his confidence and by late afternoon was positive he’d spill all, whatever “all” there was to spill.
“I don’t associate with Dr. Horathy. We have mutual friends. I frankly don’t remember what he was doing at my party or who brought him. Ah! Here comes Texas!”
Saved by the bell, thought Jacob Singer.
“Hello, suckers!” Texas Guinan was vainly fighting encroaching middle age. Her hair was bleached-blond and frizzled. She wore a red satin gown dotted with multi-coloured sequins that sparkled and glittered, thereby emphasizing the falseness of her own forced ebullience. Her red slippers sparkled with rhinestones, and diamond buckles and bracelets were shackled to her wrists. The variety of rings she sported looked like amethysts and rubies until Mrs. Parker spotted one lonesome diamond and decided the whole lot was paste. “Well, Jacob Singer, does your presence mean I’m in for another raid?”
Singer raised his hands in a pantomime of innocence. “Tonight I come as a friend, Tex.”
“Okay, friend.” She recognized Mrs. Parker and Woollcott. “It’s nice to have the literati here tonight, it adds a little class to the joint. The Lord knows my joints can always use a little class.” Mrs. Parker thought the woman was pushing too hard, and it bored her. She suspected her own face was a dead giveaway, but she was too tired to recompose it. “Must be a full moon bringing out all you celebrities tonight. We sure got a passel of them at this watering hole. Why, hell, here’s Al Jolson. I hope the son of a bitch remembers to pay the check. Hello, sucker!”
“Hello, m’little Texas baby, m’little bright spot of sunshine after midnight.” He gave her a bear hug and then ran his tongue over her lips lasciviously.
She pushed him aside and bellowed, “You all know Jolie, don’t yuh?”
“Only on one knee,” said Mrs. Parker.
Texas clapped her hand on Mrs. Parker’s shoulder. Mrs. Parker felt her skin shrivel. “Great little kidder, our Dottie. Your gang’s over there near the bar, Jolie.” Jolson went looking for his gang. “He’s off to Hollywood to do a flick for the Warners. Sounds like a real stinker to me.” A waiter whispered something to her. “Right you are, McGillicuddy. It’s showtime!” She signalled the orchestra leader who cued the drummer. The drummer tattooed a long roll, and the dancers left the floor. Texas took centre stage on the dance floor bathed in a blinding pink light. “Hello, suckers!” she bellowed again. “Welcome, you sheiks and flappers and all you butter and egg men in from the boondocks just looking to get rolled.” Large peals of laughter. Mrs. Parker thought it sounded rehearsed. “We got a great little show for you tonight and a real big surprise. But first, let me bring on the girls.” The room was filled with piercing whistles, and the floor shook from stomping feet.
“Dear God,” gasped Woollcott.
“It’s a ritual here, old sport,” explained Van Weber. “Texas is the high priestess. An evangelist without portfolio. She directs the flock, the bellwether of hedonists. This is nothing, tonight. Try it on a weekend when it’s absolutely Hogarthian.”
“Now here’s that redheaded vixen you all been waiting for! The flaming bombshell herself, Lily Robson. Come on, you suckers! Give the little girl a great big hand!” Guinan left the spotlight, which expanded as Lily Robson, wearing what Mrs. Parker assumed was an oversized handkerchief bordered with blue baguettes, came dancing out onto the floor with six other girls. For about five minutes, Lily did exactly what she had told them she did, a little bit of this, a little bit of that with a lot of the old moxie. She was magnificently untalented and wonderful to look at. The line of girls behind her danced as though they were being pelted with buckshot. One cute young brunette kept winking at Al Jolson. Van Weber explained she was Jolson’s new heart-throb, Ruby Keeler.
“She’s a long way from Mammy,” commented Mrs. Parker.
Lily Robson and the girls left the stage to a thunderous ovation, causing Mrs. Parker to wonder if the roof would have caved in had there been a truly talented performance. Texas was introducing a dance team, “Hot from Madrid. That’s from over there in Spain where they grow lemons and olives and these two great flamingo dancers.” Van Weber explained she meant “flamenco,” and Jacob Singer watched for a reaction from Mrs. Parker but saw none. Woollcott was pouring himself another glass of champagne, and Mrs. Parker decided he looked as though he was resigned to an early death. “Let’s give a great big hand to Juan and Juanita!” With an explosion of castanets, Juan and Juanita came rushing onstage from either side of the bandstand. They waved their hands and stomped their feet and made ugly guttural noises as they chased each other around the stage. The scene was bizarre and madly out of synchronization, as either the dancers were ten beats ahead of the orchestra or the orchestra was ten beats behind the dancers.
Mrs. Parker whispered to Woollcott, “I suppose there are people who come here nightly?”
“Masochists. How much more of this must we endure?”
Mrs. Parker couldn’t answer. Texas Guinan was centre stage again, this time bathed in a stomach-churning blue light. “And now, folks, I have a special treat for you. It’s a real sad special treat. You know the world is mourning the death of that great lover, that great actor, that great old pal of mine, Rudy Valentino.” There was a smattering of applause.
Mrs. Parker asked Jacob Singer, “Do you suppose they’re for or against?”
“We ain’t never gonna see the likes of Rudy again, folks. When they made Rudy, they threw away the mold.” Mrs. Parker expected the orchestra to back her up with a rendition of “Hearts and Flowers,” but realized it wouldn’t work without violins. There were never string instruments in a Texas Guinan jazz band. “Let’s hope that our sheik of sheiks, Monsoor Beaucaire himself, the son of the desert, is up there before the cameras in that great movie studio in the sky.” She had her right hand upraised, index finger pointing at the ceiling. The effect was interesting, and the reaction was tumultuous. “With us tonight is a great little lady whose suffering is worse than any of ours. Rudy’s fiancée.”
“Balls!” shouted a woman, and Mrs. Parker recognized Nita Naldi�
��s voice. She identified Naldi to the group, and for the first time in minutes, Woollcott grinned from ear to ear.
Guinan glared nastily in the direction of the vulgarity and then remembered there was an audience out there hanging hopefully on her coming words. “Like I said, Rudy’s fiancée is with us tonight. In memory of Rudy, she has consented to dance his favourite ‘Tango d’Amour’. Dancing with her is our own favourite, Georgie Raft.” Applause. “Ladies and gentlemen! Let’s give one hell of a great big hand to the one, the only, the great … Opal Engri!” The place exploded. Raft, a short man with sleek, shiny, patent-leather hair, entered as Guinan left. He adjusted his tight bolero jacket and then stretched out his hand. Opal Engri slowly walked onto the stage. She wore on her hair a black mantilla. Her dress was trimmed in black Chantilly lace, which Mrs. Parker didn’t think was quite the ruching for black satin. She wore black pumps, black bracelets, a string of black pearls around her neck, and Mrs. Parker was disappointed that neither of her eyes was blackened. The orchestra struck up the tango, and the uproar settled down to a minor din. Raft deftly whisked Miss Engri through the intricate steps while the audience was treated to a fresh vulgarity from Nita Naldi.
“Horseshit!”
Woollcott said to the table, “I’m entertaining the thought of falling in love with that woman.”
“Has Engri no shame?” inquired Mrs. Parker.
“None,” Van Weber said.
“She’s one hell of a looker,” contributed Jacob Singer.
“She’s not one hell of a dancer,” said Woollcott.
“Her partner’s pretty good, if a bit too oily,” said Mrs. Parker.
“He’s Guinan’s latest,” said Singer.
“Oh? And where does that leave Larry Fay?” asked Woollcott.
“He knows what’s going on,” said Singer. “But Raft’s useful. He’s a bagman for the gang. Fay will send him out to Hollywood soon. It’s what Raft’s after anyway. He’s local, you know. Hell’s kitchen. George Ranft was his real name.”
Woollcott inquired loudly, “Does anyone else but me feel he’s in the centre of the decline of Western civilization?”
The dance was drawing to a close. Raft had Engri pressed against his body, her back to him, his arms around her waist, his right hand clasping her right hand, her eyes smouldering with repressed sexuality, his eyes indicating he was counting out the beat.
“You polack bitch!”
The dance came to an end. The applause swelled. Flowers were thrown at Engri. A whisky bottle missed her by inches, thrown, they later learned, by Nita Naldi. Raft kissed Engri’s hand, and she rewarded him with a flower. Then, suddenly remembering she was in mourning, she burst into tears as Raft led her offstage. Now Mrs. Parker saw Nita Naldi. She had lifted a chair and was being restrained by her escort. Guinan sent two bouncers over to remedy the situation. Naldi conceded the chair but not her contempt. She drew herself up with a sneer and a loud raspberry that penetrated through the din, and majestically marched out of the club followed by her gentleman friend.
“Poor Nita,” said Van Weber. “She’s having a rough time. There’s no more work for her in pictures. Imagine being washed up at twenty-seven.”
“My God, is that all she is?” asked Mrs. Parker. “Hollywood must be a very cruel place.”
“It certainly is,” said Van Weber.
And that, thought Mrs. Parker, has got to be a clue.
Jacob Singer couldn’t believe his ears. Mrs. Parker had asked him to dance. The orchestra had slipped smoothly into “Somebody Loves Me,” a ballad both could cope with. Despite the cacophony in the overcrowded speakeasy, they could hear the orchestra and each other.
“I had to get you alone because there’s something I’ve been trying to give you all evening.” She had palmed the pill she had taken from Lily Robson before asking Singer to dance and now gave it to him. “Horathy gave those pills to Lily Robson this afternoon. We must have just missed her. She took one at dinner with Van Weber. They’re for her nerves.”
“Van Weber made her nervous?”
“I think everything makes her nervous. I get the feeling the simple act of opening a door could be a prelude to hysteria.”
“You think one of these pills made her sick?”
“Something made her sick. She was quite ill at the Harlequin.”
“Lots of people get ill at the Harlequin. I’ll put the lab to work on this the first thing in the morning.” The pill was transferred to his pocket with the deftness of a magician. “How’d you make out with Sid Curley?”
Three minutes and the new accompaniment of “Somebody Stole My Gal” later, Singer had heard the entire adventure at the Harlequin. At Mrs. Parker’s suggestion, he kept a smile on his face throughout her dissertation, the better to give the impression he was being amused rather than provided with information. “I hope I’ll know more tomorrow, after he’s shown me around his estate at East Cove.”
“Don’t be too smart tomorrow.” There was as much concern as caution in his voice.
“Good heavens, no. I shall be terribly girlish and all fluttery hands and make all the correct, appreciative noises.”
“The guy with Opal Engri is trying to attract your attention. Or else he’s making a pass at me.”
“Why, heaven help us, it’s Horace Liveright. He’s publishing my poetry. And now he’s brave enough to escort Miss Engri. My God, her black stockings have fleurs-de-lis embroidered on them. I’m dying to meet her, aren’t you? Hello, Horace! What a surprise meeting you here.”
Liveright stood and kissed Mrs. Parker lightly on the cheek. Engri acknowledged the introductions dolefully and gave what Mrs. Parker later described as some sort of Polish grunt when the couple agreed to sit down with them for a quick drink. Liveright had additional glasses brought immediately and poured champagne. Mrs. Parker, feeling no pain and quite gay, asked the screen temptress, “I suppose you prefer this stuff drunk from your slipper.”
“Very unsanitary.” Engri’s voice seemed to come rumbling from the bowels of her body, a voice seductively husky, heavily accented, and it seemed to have grabbed Singer by the throat. He was hypnotized.
“How tragic, Mr. Valentino’s death.” Mrs. Parker wondered if Miss Engri might have attended Liveright’s midnight party the previous evening.
“I sit before you in ruins.” Miss Engri was not too ruined to down a glass of champagne.
“Oh, come, come, dear,” trilled Mrs. Parker, “from the ashes the phoenix shall arise again.”
“I am in ruins, not in ashes.” Liveright refilled her glass. “We were going to star together in Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Now posterity has been robbed of this great epic masterpiece. Films will never be the same again.”
Mrs. Parker rejoined, “I suppose neither will Tolstoy. Well, Horace, you certainly do get around, and with some of the most fascinating people. Imagine knowing Opal Engri.”
Liveright tried hard not to preen too much and didn’t succeed. “Opal and I go back quite a few years.” Engri’s eyes smoldered at the “quite a few years.”
“We met in Germany when she was filming Bovary.”
“I was child. Very young child.” Engri’s eyes zeroed in on Singer. “Why are you so silent?”
“I guess I’m in awe of the great Opal Engri.”
“Yes, I understand. Who are you? What do you do?” She was running her tongue around the rim of her glass, and Singer crossed his legs as though preparing to ward off an attack.
“I’m a detective.”
Mrs. Parker thought Liveright’s face coloured, but she couldn’t be too sure under the erratic lighting system. She plunged deeper. “Mr. Singer is investigating the murders of Ilona Mercury and Vera DeLee. You know of course Miss Mercury was Mr. Valentino’s date at the party where he took ill.”
Engri leaned back in her chair, found her cigarette holder on the table somewhere between her gold metal evening purse and a package of Turkish cigarettes, squeezed a cigarette into the holde
r, then raised the holder as Liveright struck a match on cue, applying it to the cigarette. Engri inhaled, nostrils flaring just as Mrs. Parker remembered they had flared in most of her films. She sent a perfect smoke ring in orbit toward the ceiling and then impaled Mrs. Parker with her eyes. “Rudy and I had no secrets except those we shared with each other. I was the only woman in Rudy’s life.” She brought a black handkerchief to her eyes with her other hand. Mrs. Parker could detect no sign of a tear, but the dramatic effect was breath-taking. “Other women were walk-ons, extras, bit players. Engri was the queen sharing his throne!” The handkerchief hand was strikingly raised above her head, the eyes were shut, the breast heaved (somewhat threateningly, thought Mrs. Parker), the nostrils quivered, and Mrs. Parker resisted the temptation to shout “Cut!” Singer softly suggested it was time they return to their table, and Mrs. Parker agreed, albeit reluctantly. She was in a wicked mood thanks to too much champagne and wanted to ask Liveright about his orgies and Miss Engri about Valentino’s frigid wives, but Singer was gallantly helping her to her feet while she made cooing noises which the others interpreted as “This has been absolutely memorable.”
Singer led Mrs. Parker around the perimeter of the dance floor. Their table had now expanded to two tables. They’d been joined by Florenz Ziegfeld and Charlotte Royce. “Oh, look, Mr. Singer, it’s just like the Mad Hatter’s tea party!” Woollcott looked surprisingly unruffled by the company, the hour, and the abandonment by Mrs. Parker and Jacob Singer. He was smoking a cigarette and chatting amiably, it seemed, with Miss Royce, who was sipping from what looked like a tall glass of straight gin. Mrs. Parker apologized for herself and Mr. Singer, explaining they’d had a drink with Horace Liveright and the inimitable and never-to-be-forgotten Opal Engri.