Free Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy Page B

her nerves. She caught the eye of Carlos, the bartender.
    “What are you having, Mrs. Parker?”
    “Not much fun.”
    “The usual, then?”
    She nodded. Carlos turned to the rows of bottles behind the bar, selected the three-sided bottle of Haig & Haig scotch, and deftly poured two fingers into a teacup. She held up three fingers and Carlos poured a little bit more.
    He handed her the drink with a kindly nod. She cupped it in her hands as if it was warm and took a long sip.
    “Ah, now, that’s a nice, strong cup of tea,” she said to herself.
    She looked over the rim of her teacup and surveyed the familiar speakeasy. The room was narrow, with the bar on the left side and several booths on the right. It had once been the large front room of the brownstone. For a living room, it would have been large. But as a bar, the room was small. And it was jammed with drinkers and clogged with smoke. She hadn’t seen either Benchley or Faulkner, but then, her short stature had her at a disadvantage. After another warming sip, she ventured forward again, cautiously navigating her way through the booze-swilling crowd.
    Revelers of all kinds peopled the room. Glamorous showgirls and society matrons mingled cheek by jowl with bespectacled professors and slick politicos. To one side, a newly famous baseball player chatted with a grande dame of the social register. To the other side, a long-legged, loosely dressed flapper debated with a long-bearded rabbi. All clutched delicate teacups or stout coffee mugs of their favorite top-shelf liquor—sipping, swigging and gulping them down.
    She overheard a familiar woman’s voice and turned to see an acquaintance, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, talking animatedly to a powerfully built man. She had wavy, auburn hair, a pale, elliptical face, and wintry green eyes that were locked on the man’s face. He had a thick shock of dark hair and wore an immaculate white wool overcoat. He had a face as square and hard as a block of ice, but he looked around, as though searching for a means of escape.
    “Please don’t be coy,” Millay said, her green eyes flashing. “Tell me what it’s like to pummel another man. I’m disgusted and thrilled by the very idea. Is there a lot of blood?”
    “Nope, it’s not like that at all,” the man said, still looking about evasively. “It’s not like I go in there and club the guy to death. Those days of boxing are history.”
    “But you’re notorious for knockouts in the first round,” Millay said, her eyes traveling over the man’s broad shoulders. “You must be terribly strong.”
    “You got it all wrong,” the man groused. “It’s a thinking man’s sport. It’s a science. You prepare and you practice and you prepare some more. Then when you get in front of the crowd, it looks effortless. But it ain’t.”
    Millay laughed at him. “A thinking man’s s port? A science ? I know a lot of thinking men and a few scientists, and they’re nothing like you .” She grabbed his arm, nearly spilling his drink. “Now, stop all this folderol and tell me about how you destroyed Georges Carpentier, the pride of France.”
    The man—Dorothy now recognized him as the heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey—recoiled from the woman’s grasp. Still, Millay, almost drooling, continued to pepper him with questions. Dorothy couldn’t help herself. She had to rescue the poor man.
    “Well, hello,” she said, stepping between them. “If it isn’t the Poet of Greenwich Village! What are you doing up here, Edna ?”
    She knew that Edna St. Vincent Millay demanded everyone call her Vincent.
    “Oh, hello, Mrs. Parker ,” Millay said, eyeing her suspiciously. “Mr. Dempsey and I were just having a cozy chat. You don’t look so well, Mrs. Parker. And you seem to be missing your right hand.”
    “My right hand?”
    “Mr. Benchley, of course,” Millay trilled haughtily.
    “Of course.” She eyed Millay’s hand on Dempsey’s arm. “But then again, it’s