A-Splendid-Ruin(40)

Ellis Farge made a face. “Gelett Addison, meet Miss May Kimble. Miss Kimble, here is one of the most odious creatures in the world, the art critic. Please don’t let his idiocy blind you to his very few virtues.”

There were two extra chairs at our table, and Gelett Addison chuckled and sat at one without invitation. He was short and plump, with a round, shining forehead and receding hair perfectly combed into place, as well as a carefully kept mustache. “Miss Kimble, I am delighted, though frankly I’m flummoxed as to why you’ve deigned to associate with this man. Where did you meet this charming creature, Farge? At Del Monte, where the rich while away their hours swimming naked in the ocean and dancing by the light of the moon?”

“Or something like that,” Mr. Farge said.

“Come, my friend, if you tell me there are no pagan rituals among the upper crust, I shall be severely disappointed.”

“They worship a small white ball, which they fling with long sticks into very small holes.”

“Sounds enticing.” Addison reached for Farge’s wine and took a gulp, and then called out, “LaRosa! My darling Blythe! Farge has brought us a new one!”

Mr. Farge sighed. “I see it was too much to hope for privacy here. I am sorry, Miss Kimble.”

The people Mr. Addison had called began to drift over, all of them holding half-full glasses of wine, but for a woman clad in a severe black walking suit and small black hat perched upon a hillock of dark, glossy hair, who had a small cup of coffee. Gelett Addison leaped to his feet, dragging over chairs and then the table they’d occupied, pushing it together with ours—no one in the restaurant even looked twice; apparently this was usual behavior. He rattled off introductions as he did so. A dapper-looking young man with a thin face and small mustache and auburn hair curling in a comma above his temple was Wenceslas Piper, whom everyone called Wence. He had fine light eyes and an insouciant air and fingers stained with colored inks and was an illustrator for the satire magazine the Wasp.

Mr. Addison said, “He also writes terrible poetry, perhaps you’ve read some?”

“I couldn’t say,” I said politely.

“You know the purple cow rhyme? ‘I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one . . .’?” Then, at my nod, “He didn’t write that. His are all moons and Junes—”

“And loons,” joked the man introduced as Dante LaRosa. He had thick dark hair and olive skin and he smoked his cigarette and looked at me as if surprised to find me here, which made me wonder if I knew him from somewhere. But he had a distinctive face. I thought I would have remembered him.

“LaRosa’s a writer too,” said Addison.

“Or at least that’s the rumor,” Mr. Farge said.

“I told you I was sorry, Farge,” LaRosa said. “I was only quoting Radisson at the opening. What was I supposed to do, make something up?”

“Don’t you usually?”

I felt LaRosa bristle, but Addison swept in lightly, saying, “Now, now, boys. LaRosa writes for the Bulletin, Miss Kimble. Be careful around him, or he’ll have you in the gossip pages by morning.”

LaRosa grimaced. “It’s bad enough to have to talk about society when I’m working. Must we do so here too?”

“Wait—you’re the society page columnist for the Bulletin?” I asked.

Wence whistled low and mimed ducking for cover. “Oh my God, here’s someone else he’s offended!”

LaRosa ignored him and dragged on his cigarette. To me, he said dryly, “No flies on you.”

“But . . . but you can’t be.”

“He is. Alphonse Bandersnitch, in the flesh,” Addison said. “I told him it was a terrible name.”

“It’s kept me hidden well enough, hasn’t it?” LaRosa asked.

“Oh, but you’re not at all what I expected!” I said. He was too young, too masculine, too Italian.

“That’s what everyone says,” Addison put in. “I keep telling you, LaRosa, you write like a sour old woman who lives with a hundred cats.”

Dante LaRosa gave him a thin smile. “Perhaps you could lend me some of your cats, Addison, so I could better fit your picture. Anyway, Older’s promised to put me on the Barbary Coast beat soon.”

“He promises that to everyone,” said the woman in black. She introduced herself as Blythe Markowitz, the Sunday feature writer for the Examiner. Then, to LaRosa, “He’ll say whatever you want to hear as long as it keeps you working for him. It doesn’t mean he’ll do it.”

“This time, I believe he means it,” LaRosa said glumly.

“To go from the crème de la crème to the scum of the earth—that’s quite a drop even for you,” said Addison.

“God knows it would be a relief to write about murderers of men instead of murderers of cotillion etiquette,” LaRosa said. “Something that matters for a change.”

A woman wearing a turban wandered over. “Is there a party? Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Because you’re wearing that ridiculous hat,” said Wence.

The woman patted the patterned silk. “Don’t you like it? I think it very stylish.”

“Worshipping idols in Chinatown again?” asked Addison.