Murder Your Darlings (24 page)

“In the back,” said the man.

She went along a narrow aisle toward the back of the little shop. She saw a figure in the dimness coming toward her. As she approached the figure, she could make out that it was a woman. The woman was abnormally tall, with a dark blue coat and a brimless cloche. Shadows of other people appeared to be behind the woman. But when Dorothy slowed her step, the woman hesitated, too.

That was when she realized she was looking at her own reflection. It wasn’t a regular mirror, though. It was a fun house mirror that elongated her shape. No wonder she didn’t recognize herself in the dark. She moved forward confidently. She didn’t want Finn’s men to think she had been fooled by such a dumb trick.

She went right up to the mirror and looked at her seven-foot-high reflection. So that’s what she would look like if she were as tall as Robert Sherwood. Maybe being petite was not so bad after all, she thought.

“I must stop working so hard,” she said.

“Why do you say that?” Benchley kindly responded.

“Look at me. I’ve stretched myself way too thin.”

Behind them, one of the men shuffled impatiently. “Shove it, lady.”

“Pardon me?” she said. “
You
shove it, pal.”

“The mirror. Shove it forward.”

She faced the mirror and placed her hands on it, meeting the lengthened reflection of her own hands. She pushed.

Silently, the mirror glided away from her.

It was a secret door. She looked inside at what must have once been a storeroom. The room was dark and empty, but on the far side of the room was an open doorway. Bright light, music and laughter came through that doorway.

“Go on,” the man said. “Mr. Finn is waiting for you.”

 

As they stepped into the large, brightly lit room, Mickey Finn jumped up. His yellow, polluted grin spread across his handsome face. The sounds of fiddle and piano came from somewhere.

“Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here,” he sang, prancing toward them with a sideways, crablike jig. “We’ve been waiting for you. Couldn’t start the party without you.”

He was in his shirtsleeves, his jacket draped over a chair. He had a glass mug of beer in one hand and a large cigar in the other.

“You and you,” he called to two men slouched in armchairs. “Get up. Give ’em a place to sit.”

They were in a bar as big as a cafeteria. Dorothy realized it was the employee tavern inside the brewery building. Before Prohibition, such a room would have served as the lunchroom as well as the after-hours hangout for the brewery workers, she knew. Now it was the private hideaway for Mickey Finn and his gang.

Most of the bar tables and benches had been removed or pushed to the walls. In their place were armchairs and a few couches. About ten or so of Finn’s men sat or milled about. A white-haired old man with furry black eyebrows stood behind the long bar. A trio of statuesque women in flashy dresses—low cut and high hemmed—stood poised on a makeshift stage at the far end of the room. One of the women (a real beauty, Dorothy had to admit, despite the streetwalker dress) alighted from the stage and came forward with a bewitching grace.

“Now, listen,” Mickey Finn said, steering them into seats. “I want to apologize for the other night. I wasn’t acting like myself. I’m a likable guy, really. You’ll see. I’ll prove it to you. How about a cigar for the gentleman? A cigarette for the lady?”

He hooked his fingers, and one of his men jumped up with a wooden box full of cigars. The beautiful woman produced a silver cigarette case. Someone shoved a cigar into Benchley’s mouth and a cigarette into Dorothy’s. Finn snapped a match on his thumbnail, and the flame danced in his hand. With a fluid motion, he lit her cigarette and Benchley’s cigar. Benchley didn’t notice the cigar. He was gawking at the stunning harlot.

“Let’s get these two swell folks something to wet their whistle. How about a goblet of choice wine for the lady? And a mug of fresh beer for the gentleman?”

Benchley’s attention was momentarily distracted away from the woman. “A mug of fresh . . .
beer
?”

Beer had never been Benchley’s drink, Dorothy knew. But since Prohibition had gone into effect, good beer had been nearly impossible to acquire. Liquor could be smuggled in, but casks of beer? That was unheard of. The current saying went: “Prohibition succeeded in replacing good beer with bad gin.”

“Lucy, fetch this estimable man a mug of our finest. Do you know my Miss Lucy?” Finn said as the woman sashayed toward the bar. “Ah, I can see the gentleman does.”

Dorothy leaned toward Benchley, who was transfixed by the woman’s posterior.

“Who is she?”

“Lucy Goosey, the famous stripper,” Benchley mumbled. “Or . . . so I’ve heard.”

“A striptease
artist
,” Finn corrected affably. “She’s an artist.”

“Oh, right,” Dorothy said. “I’ve seen her oeuvre in the Louvre.”

“Aye,” Finn said with a wink. “She has quite a body of work.”

The woman returned with a mug of beer, a glass of red wine and a smirk on her face. “Here you are.”

Benchley fumbled taking the mug from her hand, nearly spilling it. He raised the mug in a sort of toast to her; then he took a long drink and smacked his lips. His mustache was coated in foam.

Dorothy did not feel the same about the wine. “Have anything stronger?”

“You name it,” Finn said hospitably.

“Haig and Haig?”

“Yes and yes.”

Finn snapped his fingers and yet another man jumped up and quickly returned with a highball glass full of scotch.

“Now,” said Finn, dropping into a chair opposite them and taking a long pull on his cigar. “You are probably wondering why I called you here to my little sanctum sanctorum.”

“I couldn’t hazard a guess,” Dorothy said.

“I could hazard one,” Benchley said. “But my doctor told me to stop. Hazardous to my health.”

“We wouldn’t want that, sure.” Finn smiled. “Like I say, I’m a likable fella. Everyone likes me.” He turned to his gang with a shout. “Everyone likes me. Don’t they?”

Like a chorus, they sang his praises.

“Absolutely, boss.”

“You bet.”

“One hunnert percent!”

Only Lucy Goosey remained silent, like a beautiful statue. Finn turned to her, waiting. He seemed to want her approval most of all. “Everyone likes me. Don’t they, doll?”

She gave him a reluctant smile. “What’s not to like?”

Satisfied, Finn turned his wide yellow grin to Dorothy and Benchley. “There you are, see? We’re all friends now. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “So, tell me, where’s our other friend, Mr. Dachshund? Wouldn’t it be great if he could join us?”

“That would be dandy,” Dorothy said. “If we only knew where he was.”

Finn cackled a knowing laugh. “Aye, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” He changed tack. “There was an article about you in the newspaper today. Did you happen to read it?”

“In the
Knickerbocker
?” she said. “The only place for that newspaper is the bottom of a birdcage.”

Finn ignored this. “Seems our friend Dachshund might need something of an alibi. And you two want to prove that Dachshund’s alibi is all tied up with my very old friend Knut Sanderson.” He leaned forward with a fist on each knee. “Now, here I am—I’ve got my new friend Dachshund on the right hand and my old friend Sanderson on the left. And these two friends of mine were apparently working on some business together. That pretty much makes it my business, too.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Didn’t the Sandman work for you?”

“Here and there, he did, sure.”

“Here and there?” she said. “So he didn’t work
only
for you? He was a freelancer?”

“A freelancer?” Finn cackled again. “You could say that. Only most of the lancing he did was for me. And it wasn’t free. I’ll assure you of that.”

“So who’s to say you didn’t hire him to kill Mayflower?”

He smiled. “Ah, but if I did, we wouldn’t be having this nice little get-together, now, would we?”

“Then who else did he work for?”

“Whoever might pay. Certainly none of my competitors, though. He was smart not to do that. But he did ... other types of things. Like what he did for our friend Dachshund.”

“Dachshund didn’t hire Sanderson to kill Mayflower,” she said. “Don’t be stupid.”

Everyone in the room suddenly froze.

Finn turned red. “Stupid? You just said I’m stupid?”

“I didn’t say you were stupid,” she muttered quickly. “I meant you shouldn’t believe a bunch of stupid lies from a newspaper that’s only interested in selling more newspapers. What I mean to say is, how can you be so sure it was Dachshund who hired the Sandman?”

Finn no longer appeared on the verge of fury, but he spoke sharply. “Knut had a fancy Park Avenue apartment in the Reginald. He worked out of there, you could say. Well, after we heard he was dead, we went through every inch of that place. Couldn’t find a trace of who he was working for. But he was smart, you see. Not sloppy. He wasn’t the type to leave names and numbers lying around. He never slipped up.”

“At least once he did,” she said. “We gave him the slip.”

Finn leaned back thoughtfully, exhaling cigar smoke. “Aye, that you did. And that’s the nail in the coffin. Knut Sanderson was always careful not to get caught. But, just like a Swede, he was also careful about getting paid. He wouldn’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, you see, unless he had a good reason.”

“Have you seen Dachshund?” she said. “He’s not a goose who lays golden eggs.”

“Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure.” Finn smiled. “But I believe Dachshund did employ Sanderson, and at the time when the three of you met him, Dachshund hadn’t yet paid him. Maybe in the space between wanting to kill Dachshund and wanting to get paid, Sanderson let his guard down a little and you three were able to slip through.”

“Still doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why would Dachshund want to kill Mayflower?”

“How in blazes should I know?” Finn jumped up out of his armchair. “All I know is Sanderson did it. And Dachshund was the one who put him up to it.”

She sighed. This was the same dumb argument she’d had with Captain Church and Detective O’Rannigan. She looked to Benchley for support, but Benchley’s eyes were drinking in Lucy Goosey as his mouth was drinking in beer.

“You’ll hate yourself in the morning,” she muttered to him.

“It’s just one beer,” he said.

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She turned back to Mickey Finn. “You admit that the Sandman murdered Leland Mayflower.”

“Sure he did. And Dachshund hired him to do it.”

“Did the Sandman usually use such things as fountain pens to murder people? I guess a bobby pin wasn’t at hand.”

Finn dropped back into his chair. He frowned at this insult to his memory of Sanderson. But apparently, this question bothered him, too.

Lucy Goosey slid onto the arm of Finn’s chair. “It’s obvious,” she said. “Whoever wanted to kill Mayflower wanted to send a message. You reap what you sow. You know, Mick, like when that two-timing fella who owned that concrete business turned up at the bottom of the Hudson, his stomach and mouth filled up with concre—”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Finn said sourly. “Knut Sanderson didn’t deal in poetic justice, like some of us do. I think there’s another reason why he used that fountain pen.”

“Why?” Benchley said.

With a thoughtful expression, Finn tapped the ash off his cigar. “I’m not ready to say why just yet. That’s why I need to talk to Dachshund. You bring him to me. By this Friday. Or else.”

Dorothy laughed. “Or else what? We’ll wind up at the bottom of the Hudson?”

Finn leaned forward with a wink. “Even that wouldn’t shut you up, I’m sure. No, I’m thinking you do me a favor, and I’ll do you a favor. I know a lot of people, and I know a lot of things. For instance, I know you go to Tony Soma’s speakeasy. I supply Tony with his liquor. So it’s simple. You get me Dachshund by Friday, and I make sure Tony’s supply doesn’t run dry.”

Benchley, empty glass in hand, turned white. “You wouldn’t.”

Dorothy had a stiff backbone. But she knew even she couldn’t suffer the loss of Tony’s.

“See?” Finn said with a wide yellow grin, arms wide. “I want you to like me. We’re friends. This is how friends do things for each other.”

Benchley’s voice wavered. “But you’re threatening to take away our booze. How can you say we’re friends?”

“Take away your booze?” Finn was genuinely shocked and hurt. “Not at all. I’ll make certain you and Tony keep getting it, as long as you do what I need. We help each other out, see?”

Dorothy muttered into her glass, “If this is how you treat your friends, I’d certainly hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

“Yes,” Lucy Goosey said, leaning forward. “You certainly would.”

Chapter 30

Several hours later, cold and drenched from the rain, Robert Benchley shivered in the dark under the awning of the Reginald. This had been Sanderson’s apartment building; Mickey Finn had said so that very afternoon. But now that he was here, staring through the glass door to the little lobby, Benchley wondered why he had even thought up this idea—to break into and search the Sandman’s apartment for
any
clue about who had hired the Sandman to kill Mayflower. Now that he was here, he didn’t want to go through with it.

But he had told Dorothy Parker he would do it, and now there was nothing to do but go ahead with the wrong-headed plan.

Benchley’s first obstacle was the doorman. The heavy-lidded, slack-jawed, uniformed brute sat slouched behind a narrow desk just inside the lobby. Not only did Benchley have to get past the doorman, but he also had to somehow wheedle out of him the Sandman’s room number.

Sanderson wasn’t listed in the city directory, of course. Benchley had at least determined that first. And Benchley could see there was no posted list of residents anywhere in the lobby.