You Might As Well Die (15 page)

“I keep it safe in the bank, like any good businessman,” Finn said firmly. He spoke directly to Benchley. “So I’ll give you my bank credit number. That should satisfy any transaction.”

Benchley was puzzled. “I-I’m not handling any such transaction.”

Dorothy spoke up. “You can give the account number to me. I’ll do the bidding at the auction.”

“You?” Finn laughed derisively. “A woman? Not on your life. Who would believe a woman would buy a fine painting?”

“I know a couple women who
paint
fine paintings.”

“It won’t work.” Finn wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. “They’d laugh when you go to pay and you have to give the name Michael Finnegan. No, Mr. Benchley will take care of it, won’t you?”

Benchley tugged at his bow tie. “I’m not so certain—”

“Certainly you’re certain!” Finn leaned his fists on his knees. Lucy Goosey took out her compact and powdered her nose.

Benchley cleared his throat. “What if Miss Goosey accompanies me?”

Lucy turned and raised one eyebrow.

Dorothy gasped, “Nothing doing, Fred!”

Finn ignored Dorothy. “Good idea, Mr. Benchley.” He chuckled and then winked at Lucy. “Lucy goes with you—to ensure my investment is safe. She’ll make sure you don’t spend my money at the nearest speakeasy, and make sure no unfortunate occurrence may befall you.”

No unfortunate occurrence befall Benchley?
What could that mean? Dorothy didn’t like the sound of this. She felt that disaster was looming. She also felt a sharp pang of envy. She didn’t like that self-satisfied look in Lucy Goosey’s sultry eyes.

“Miss Goosey accompany Mr. Benchley?” Dorothy stammered. “But everyone knows she’s your—your companion! People will talk.”

Lucy cast a dark glance at Dorothy. “I can dress up as fancy as you please. I can look like the wife of any Park Avenue millionaire—don’t you worry. I’ll dress the part and do up my hair. No one will recognize me in a million years.”

Finn gently patted Lucy’s leg. “In that case, cut back on the makeup, doll.”

Lucy folded her arms grumpily. Dorothy was pleased to see her at least a little upset. Still, she had to talk them out of this.

“Mr. Benchley
can’t
go to the art auction,” she said. Her voice sounded weak even to her own ears. “We have tickets to see Houdini at the Hippodrome tomorrow night. Mr. Benchley is assigned to review the performance for
Vanity Fair
.”

Finn looked angry again. “You came to me. Now you don’t want my money? You think you can waste my time like this?”

Lucy patted his arm to calm him down. “So Mr. Benchley and I go to the auction, and Mrs. Parker goes to see Houdini. She can write the review.” Lucy looked down at Dorothy. “You are a writer, aren’t you?”

Dorothy couldn’t bring herself to answer to this former stripper–turned–gangster’s concubine. It took her a moment to respond. “Well, I’m as good a writer as you were a stripper. Does that answer your question?”

Lucy glared at her.

“That answers the question for me.” Finn smiled. He pointed his cigar at Lucy and Benchley. “You two go to the art auction and multiply my investment.” He aimed the cigar at Dorothy. “And you go see Houdini and write your little magazine article. Now, all of you get the hell out. I have work to do.”

“Of course you do,” Dorothy said, standing up. “Those kneecaps won’t break themselves.”

T
he next night, Halloween night, Houdini stood onstage, waved his hands, and opened the giant box. The crowd gasped. The five-ton elephant was gone.

Dorothy sat in the third row of the massive Hippodrome auditorium. She could feel the air being sucked past her as the five thousand people in the audience simultaneously drew in their breath.

Then, like the rest of the crowd, Dorothy applauded and cheered. The sound was thunderous. She automatically looked to her right, as she usually did when attending shows, to smile in mutual approval at the merry face of Benchley.

But Benchley wasn’t there, of course. The seat was empty.

 

Benchley stood waiting at the curb in front of Pennsylvania Station. At home, he had dressed in his tux and tails, bid his family good-bye, and boarded the evening train. Now here he stood on the noisy, bustling sidewalk, with people rushing by behind him, traffic jostling along Seventh Avenue in front of him, and the exhaust from buses and cars blowing on him, waiting for Lucy Goosey to arrive in Mickey Finn’s white limousine to pick him up.

How do I get myself into these messes?
he wondered. Why couldn’t he have simply had a relaxing, enjoyable evening with Mrs. Parker, sitting together watching Houdini’s magical spectacle?
Oh well,
he contented himself,
at least
she
must be enjoying herself.

Soon, the long white limo cruised up to the curb like a yacht docking in a boat slip. Benchley opened the door and found only Lucy Goosey inside. “Permission to come aboard?”

She waved him in. He sat down and closed the door, and the car eased back into traffic.

Lucy Goosey had been right about her ability to look like a millionaire’s wife. Benchley had always admired her. But here she looked absolutely stunning. Too bad Mrs. Parker wasn’t here, he thought. Mrs. Parker would have a quip about Lucy going from harlot to starlet, or something like that. He smiled at the thought of it.

Lucy asked, “Do you know anything about art auctions?”

He shook his head. He now eyed the limo’s little bar, stocked with top-shelf liquor. But she didn’t invite him to have a drink.

“Don’t be fooled,” she said. “Art is a business. Just as cutthroat as any other.” She told him she had learned everything there was to know about art auctions.

“So, then,” he asked politely, “you’re not that fond of art?”

“You think just because I was a striptease artist that I can’t appreciate the finer arts?”

“Please forgive me, Miss Goosey. I didn’t think any such thing.” However, he admitted to himself, that had been almost exactly what he had thought. He asked, “So you’re an art lover, are you?”

She frowned at this term but nodded. “And you?” she said doubtfully. “Do you appreciate art?”

“Most assuredly,” he said, stealing another glance at the minibar. “I like them all—Monet, Manet, Tanqueray.”

“Oh dear. Not Monet. I hate the Impressionists. So simplistic.”

He chuckled, trying to keep the mood light. “Well, you know what they say. Monet isn’t everything.”

“You can keep your Impressionists. I prefer the Baroque artists.”

“Every artist I ever met was br-oke.”

She frowned again. “Not broke.
Baroque
.”

“Again, you know what they say. If it ain’t Baroque, don’t—”

“Don’t say it,” she said, dismissing his jest. “I particularly like Rubens. Do you like Rubens?”

“No, thanks. I like the corned beef but can’t stand the Russian dressing.”

She was smiling now. “Rubens is not known for his dressing. He’s known for his
un
dressing. His nudes.”

“Nudes?” Benchley was now on shaky ground. He didn’t like where this was going.

“Yes, nudes. Do you like nudes?” She leaned toward him. Her intoxicating perfume enveloped him. She wore an elegant dress, but it was decidedly low cut at her—her—her bustline. He forced himself to look her in the eye.

“I asked you,” she said, “do you like nudes?”

“Well, no,” he said nervously. “No nudes is good nudes.”

He glanced out the window at the busy sidewalk, wishing to be back out there. Just how
did
he get himself into these messes?

 

After Houdini’s show was over, Dorothy elbowed her way through the crowd toward the backstage area of the Hippodrome, intending to find his dressing room. The Hippodrome Theater, located directly across the street from the Algonquin, was the most massive auditorium in New York—it took up nearly half a city block. The stage itself was double the size of a baseball diamond, big enough to fit an entire circus. Below the stage, Dorothy knew, was a glass-walled water tank the size of a swimming pool, which could be raised onstage and then lowered as needed. As a teenager, Dorothy had seen performances of horses diving into that tank. The Hippodrome had been in its glory back then.

As she made her way backstage, she could see how the theater was now showing its age. The well-worn plank floors were dusty and dilapidated. The ropes and cables for raising and lowering the scenery looked thinned and frayed. Stagehands and crew members pushed past her. They had an air of weary indifference about them, as if they weren’t a part of the theater’s storied past or had no sense of pride in working under its roof. No one questioned her. No one asked why she was backstage. This indifferent attitude discouraged her from asking directions, so it took her some time to navigate her way.

As she went along, she considered what she would say to the magician. Houdini had closed the third act of his show with the vanishing elephant trick. But he had spent most of the second act lecturing about spiritualism (denouncing it, really) and demonstrating the tricks that bogus spiritualists and mediums used. Then he restated his challenge, with the five-thousand-dollar prize, for any medium to show him scientific proof of spiritual manifestation.

For Dorothy, this challenge confirmed that Houdini simply
had
to accompany her that night to Mistress Viola’s séance. Besides, it was Halloween and, superstitions or not, she did not want to go alone.

A burly stagehand suddenly blocked her way.

“Just where do you think you’re going, lady?”

“I need to see Mr. Houdini.”

“Yeah, you and a thousand other adoring female fans.” The man brushed sawdust off his brawny forearms. “You want to reach him, send him a postcard. No visitors backstage.”

She ignored him with a wave and attempted to brush past him. But the man grabbed her arm with a meaty hand. She was about to launch a sharp insult but realized this would do little to disarm him. Then a thought occurred to her.

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped in her most dramatic voice—which was not very dramatic at all. Kind of austere and raspy, as a matter of fact. “I commune with the dead.”

The man dropped his hand. “W-what’d you say?”

“I am a spirit guide,” she said, doing her best to create a mysterious look in her eyes. “I traverse the stygian boundary to bring back the messages of those who have gone before us to the—the land of the spirits.”

The man’s initial surprise was wearing off. “Oh, yeah, sure, lady. Whatever you say.”

She cranked it up a notch. “I am here to accept the challenge of Herr Houdini. I will show him his proof that the ghost world does indeed exist within this material world.”

“Oh, will you, Frau Parker?” said a voice behind her.

Dorothy turned around to see Harry Houdini standing in the doorway of the makeup room, wiping the greasepaint off his face with a cotton cloth.

Houdini stepped forward, hand extended. “Good to see you again, Mrs. Parker.”

“Ah, I didn’t see you there, Mr. Houdini. Did you hear . . . all of that?”

“I certainly did,” Houdini said with a grin. “An atrocious performance. But you pulled it off with panache. Good for you. Great showmanship is more than half the battle of winning over your audience. And you had big Danvers here fooled.” He patted the burly stagehand on the back.

Big Danvers gave Dorothy a surly look and walked away.

Dorothy smiled at Houdini in return. “You’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Houdini—”

“Just Houdini. Not
Mr.
Houdini. Not Harry. Everyone, even my wife, calls me Houdini. Now, what can I do for you?”

She batted her big, brown, soulful eyes. “Well, Houdini, I wondered what you’re doing after the show.”

Now it was Houdini’s turn to be flustered. “Well, now, Mrs. Parker, I’m a happily married man.”

“Fine with me. Your wife can come along. Come one, come all.”

“Mrs. Parker!” Houdini was insulted. “Exactly what sort of proposition are you making?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” She smiled, letting him off the hook. She enjoyed getting his goat. “Who do you think I am? Some floozy who would try to get you alone and get my hands on your—your magic wand?”

He realized she was teasing him. “I had no such illusions, at least not illusions of the extramarital sort, I assure you.”

“Well, good. Now that we’ve settled that, enough playing games. Time to get down to business. You want proof of the afterlife? Let’s go.”

“Go? And where might we be going?”

“To meet a friend.” She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him along. But even though he was twice her age, he was still as strong as a rhino. He could not be moved.

“And who might this friend be?”

She dropped his arm. “Just a friend—who’s a ghost.”

A
rm in arm, Benchley escorted Lucy Goosey through the stately entrance of Piddle Brothers, the famous auction house off Fifth Avenue. It was not truly a “house”—it was built more like a ballroom or ornate auditorium—but it had the luxurious furnishings of a mansion, with high-domed ceilings, crystal chandeliers, long white columns, gold-brocaded drapes and plush crimson carpets.

“Over there.” Lucy discreetly pointed one of her white-gloved hands. She steered Benchley toward a long, wide table marked REGISTRATION.

“Is that where we get our table-tennis paddle?” he asked. Lucy ignored this.

Not a very lively companion,
he thought. Mrs. Parker would have had the courtesy to roll her eyes at least, or respond with a typical, “That’s enough, Fred.”

As they made their way to the registration desk, Benchley took in the crowd. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Mostly stiff old rich gents and their powdered matronly wives, noses in the air. Well-to-do names from the Social Register. But there was some “new money,” too. Benchley spotted at least a couple of famous athletes, a number of gadfly actors and actresses he knew and more than a few high-level gangsters and bootleggers, deliberately ignoring one another. None of them seemed to recognize Lucy, or at least they pretended they didn’t know her. Buzzing around the hall, in and out of the mostly formal old crowd, were a few packs of rich young lads in their baggy tuxedos, arm in arm with their flapper girlfriends in their swishing beaded dresses, laughing loudly and carrying on.