“Mrs. Parker. Mr. Benchley. There’s just a little matter I’d like to discuss. It’s about the bill.”
“Ah, yes,” Benchley rocked back on his heels, nearly spilling the drink in his coffee mug. “Our cups and our tab runneth over.”
“Tony, you know we’re good for it,” Dorothy said, gently swatting him on the arm. “We’ll pay in full next time.”
Tony’s deep-set eyes turned darker. “That’s what you said last time. It’s been weeks since you paid.”
He slid his hand inside his vest pocket. Dorothy, less than five feet tall, instinctively edged behind Benchley.
Tony pulled out an envelope. “Your bill.”
Benchley glanced at Dorothy. He reluctantly took the envelope and gingerly pried it open.
This prompted Dorothy to remember MacGuffin’s envelope. She hadn’t given him a single thought since lunchtime. She didn’t care much for Ernie, but she hoped he had gotten over whatever itch had been bothering him.
Benchley gasped when he read the bill. Dorothy grabbed her purse and quickly pulled out her horn-rimmed glasses. She scanned down the long column of numbers to the total. . . .
Four hundred and eighty-five dollars! Her big dark brown eyes grew wide. That was more than she earned in a month.
“Have we really drunk all this in a matter of months?” Benchley asked her.
She silently returned his glance. Of course they had. The bill was only a column of prices. It didn’t list the many different types of drinks. But she could imagine—double scotches, whiskey sours, gin martinis, gin rickeys, gin and tonics, sidecars, orange blossoms, Tom Collinses, Rob Roys, old-fashioneds . . . and more Manhattans than they could remember.
Dorothy felt weak. She needed a cigarette—and another drink. She reached into her purse for her pack of Chesterfields, but her hand touched paper. She pulled an envelope from her purse—MacGuffin’s envelope.
“What’s that, Mrs. Parker?” Benchley asked, his thin mustache twitching. “Another bill?”
“You pay mine first,” Tony said, folding his arms over his barrel chest.
“Might be nothing,” Dorothy said, holding it in her quavering hand. “Might be something.”
MacGuffin must have slipped it into her purse after lunch. He had told her not to open it until midnight. She grabbed Benchley’s arm and looked at his wristwatch. Just a few minutes ’til midnight. Something told her to open it right now.
She ripped it open, unfolded the plain white paper and skimmed through the handwritten note.
To whom it may concern. At midnight tonight . . . Will meet my fate in the waters beneath the Brooklyn Bridge . . . My last will and testament . . . Once I am dead and gone in this life . . . A new and better life awaits me. Good-bye, cruel world.
“Oh, crap!” She clutched Benchley’s arm. “It
is
a suicide note. That damned Ernie! Come on, we have to go.”
She stepped forward, but Tony blocked her way. “Sorry. I cannot let you leave until you pay.”
“Tony, what is this?” she said. “A friend of ours—well, a man we know—is about to kill himself. We have to stop him. We have to leave now.”
Tony shook his head. “Nobody leaves until the bill is paid up.”
Benchley was puzzled. “We don’t carry that kind of money around with us. How can we get you any money if you won’t let us leave?”
Tony merely kept his arms folded and jutted out his round chin.
“Please, Tony,” Dorothy said. “A man might be dying. Right at this moment.”
He shrugged, indifferent.
“Oh, Tony, old pal—” Benchley began kindly; his eyes were merry and twinkling.
Dorothy interrupted. She had had enough. “Don’t make me make a scene,” she said quietly, but Tony heard every word. “Really, is that what you want—a short, hysterical woman shrieking in your speakeasy?”
Underneath it all, she knew, Tony was a softie. His tough facade cracked. His eyes changed from unforgiving to apologetic.
“My friends, I’m so sorry,” he sighed, his hands cradling his sagging cheeks. “It’s the wife, Mrs. Soma. She’s on my back day and night. No more freeloading, she says.”
“Freeloading?”
Dorothy gasped. “Well, I never.” She eyed Mrs. Soma across the room. Mrs. Soma returned Dorothy’s glance with an icy glare.
“Look around,” Tony said, exasperated but with a touch of pride. “We’ve paid for a lot of improvements. In case we get raided, we put in trapdoors behind the bar where the bottles can drop out of sight.”
Benchley nodded approvingly.
Tony continued, “See all these new potted plants with the big ferns? If the cops bang on the door, you dump your drink in there, and we fill up your cup with tea or coffee. And don’t forget all the palms that need to be greased—the patrol cops, the lookouts, the city officials. I can’t run the place on goodwill!”
“Of course,” Benchley said. He held out a few bills. “Take this for now. We’ll pay you the rest as soon as we can.”
Tony took them and stepped aside. “Go on. Go help your friend. But please bring in the money soon, okay?”
“Sure,” Benchley said, patting him on the shoulder. Dorothy kissed him on the cheek.
They hurried outside and down the steps of the brownstone. They looked in vain for a taxi. The darkened street of town houses was quiet as usual.
“Stop right there!” Mrs. Soma shouted from the doorway. “You pay your tab or you’ll never drink in this club again!”
Tony grabbed her arm to drag her back inside. She shook him off easily and pushed him away.
Dorothy and Benchley paused only a moment. Then they turned and ran.
Mrs. Soma yanked off her apron and threw it back inside. “Tony Junior! Get your backside out here and catch these scroungers! Now!”