Too Soon Dead (27 page)

“Well,” I asked Brass after Raab had cleared out, “what’s your vote? Did Childers do it?”

“There seems to be a confluence of events around Senator Childers,” Brass said. “But when a cyclone hits a barn in Kansas, you don’t blame the barn.”

I paused for a moment to admire the rustic metaphor. “Then you think he didn’t do it?”

Brass drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “It remains to be seen whether Senator Childers is the barn or the cyclone,” he said.

“Do you think Vogel is our missing pornographer?” Gloria asked.

“He probably took the pictures of the girl after she had been damaged,” Brass said. “Dworkyn filed them under his name. But how did he get them? We don’t know. And even if Vogel brought Dworkyn the first batch of pictures, we don’t know whether he took them or not, and if so, what the circumstances were.” He raised an arm and pointed it in the general direction of the wall safe. “You think he did that?” he asked me. The door was still hanging at a strange angle from the body of the safe, and the wall around it showed minor battle scars. Brass had ordered a sturdier replacement from the Ouiga Safe Company, but it would be another week before they could install it.

“Not himself,” I said. “He wasn’t one of those three men. But maybe he sent them.”

“Why?” Brass asked.

I stated the obvious. “To recover the pictures.”

Brass shook his head. “It won’t do,” he said. “If he took the pictures, he had the negatives. If they were being used for blackmail, the threat is in no way diminished if I have copies. He must have known I wouldn’t use them.”

“Not everyone is as aware of your honesty and rectitude and high moral principles as we are,” I said. “But I see what you mean. The people most likely to have wanted the pictures badly enough to send a trio of thugs to retrieve them are the subjects.”

Gloria stretched and turned around in her chair. “But they would have to have known that we had the pictures,” she said. “How would they have found out?”

“Whoever killed Dworkyn tortured him first,” I said. “Probably to discover what he did with the pictures.”

“And on that happy note,” Brass said, “I have a column to write. And I have nothing in mind. Nothing. Considerations of murder and mayhem, when you have a reason to take them personally, can drive all lesser thoughts from your mind.”

“Tell the world about Senator Childers’s idea of what the ideal dinner party should be,” Gloria suggested. “The bourgeoisie always like hearing about how their betters live and frolic.”

“That’s what caused the French Revolution,” Brass said. “That reminds me,” he turned to me. “Just when did Childers call me a son of a bitch, and how did you happen to overhear it?”

“I met his daughter, Elizabeth, and we got friendly,” I began.

“So that’s what they’re calling it now,” Gloria said. I glared at her, and I think my ears turned red. She said, “Oops, sorry,” and shut up.

Brass stared at me patiently. “Your relations with Bitsy Childers are your business,” he said, “but anything you know about her father should be shared.”

He was right. I paused for a few seconds to think of a way to say it, and then decided, what the hell, tell it like it was. I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Senator Childers caught us being friendly in the pool house,” I told Brass. “And he was very mild about it. I sort of expected an explosion, but it didn’t happen. He is not a normal father. A while later I was standing behind the pool house, and he and Bitsy were inside and I heard him yelling at her. But it wasn’t what he caught her doing with me that he was angry about; it was that she might be telling me things about him, which I would pass on to ‘that son of a bitch’ you. She said she wasn’t. He just about told her that, in that case, she should see me again and get me to talk about what you know about him and what you’re doing.”

“Well,” Gloria said. “I wonder what secrets little Bitsy knows that her dad is worried about her telling to random partners—sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

“I like the girl,” I said. “I don’t care what her reputation is, or how much of it is true, and I imagine a lot of it is.”

“Are you going to see her again?” Brass asked.

“I hope so,” I said. “She’s supposed to call.”

“Well, don’t pump her about her father; he might hear about it. Whatever she might know, we can get at some other way.”

“Let me make something clear,” I said, perhaps less mildly than I intended. “I have no intention of interrogating Elizabeth about anything, unless and until I get a compelling reason to do so. I’m sure she knows many interesting things about her father, but I doubt if any of them have anything to do with our concerns.”

“Don’t get upset,” Brass said. “I was just telling you not to do what you’re insisting you won’t do. Just be careful not to tell her anything about what we’re doing, or what we suspect.”

I got up and glowered across the desk. “If you don’t trust me—”

“And for God’s sake don’t take offense,” Brass said. “We haven’t got time for that now. Men have been known to tell their inamorata secrets that were better untold. That’s how Mata Hari had a career.”

“She got shot,” I said.

“Right,” Brass said. “Now get out of here and let me attempt to work.” I went home.

Pinky came back from his gig at the children’s hospital around eight o’clock, and I talked to him. My subject was women; specifically senators’ daughters. A very polite clown, Pinky pretended to be interested for over an hour before announcing that he had to go to his room.

When I returned to the office around ten-thirty Monday morning, Gloria and Cathy were there, but Brass was not. Cathy was looking pleased with herself.

“Morning,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I,” Cathy announced, “just got offered a job.”

“You have a job,” I said.

Gloria was sitting behind her desk. She smiled up at me. “That was her job,” she said, “getting this job.”

I propped myself up on the edge of the desk, leaned forward, and smiled back. “You lost me,” I said.

“My new friend Heidi suggested I might like to work at the Mainard Clinic, where she works,” Cathy explained. “I led into it very gradually so she has no idea that it wasn’t her own idea. I told her I was a nightclub singer, but I wasn’t doing very well. She was very sympathetic. According to Heidi, I can make a lot of money at the clinic. The tips are very good.”

“I’ll bet,” Gloria said.

“I never realized I could be sneaky like that; it felt funny. And then I realized it’s what girls do with men all the time; I just never did it to another girl before.”

Gloria nodded. “The ancient art of letting men think they’re making the decisions,” she said.

“Isn’t Dr. von Mainard her uncle?” I asked.

“In name only,” Cathy said. “When an old man goes out with a pretty young girl, he’s either her uncle or he’s a dirty old man. We called them ‘sugar daddies’ at the Hotsy Totsy Club.”

“I thought Wackersan the department store prince was her sugar daddy,” I said. “Isn’t Heidi the girl in the photograph with Wackersan?”

“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. If she isn’t, I’ve taken the wrong job.”

“You’ve taken the job?”

“I had an interview with Dr. von Mainard yesterday at his office.”

“Sunday?”

“One has to work Saturday and Sunday in the clinic, as a lot of their patients are important men who can only come in on the weekend.”

“Just what is your job?” I asked.

“I’m to be the receptionist,” she said.

“I’ll bet that’s not where the good tips are,” Gloria said.

Brass came in, nodded hello to all of us, and went through to his office. We followed in a couple of minutes, giving him enough time to sit down, twirl around in his chair a couple of times, and check the traffic on the river.

“Cathy has got herself a job,” Gloria told him. “At the Mainard Clinic.”

“Very good,” Brass said. “So your new friend Heidi works for her uncle?”

Cathy explained about uncles and sugar daddies.

“Wonderful,” Brass said. “So she’s an employee as well as a niece. I wonder if Mr. Wackersan ever visits the clinic.”

“I wonder if it has a room with a skylight,” I added.

“Be cautious,” Brass told Cathy. “If there’s anything to discover about the clinic or the doctor, let it come to you. Don’t take chances. If these people are involved, they’re very dangerous.”

Cathy nodded. “Believe me,” she said, “I’m too scared to do anything silly.”

The phone dinged, and Gloria reached around Brass’s desk to pick it up. “It’s the lobby,” she told Brass. “A group of Germans wants to come up to see you.” Since our incident with the three thugs, lobby security had instructions to check with us before letting people on the elevator. It was either that or hire two large bodyguards to stand at the door.

“What group?” Brass asked.

Gloria relayed the question. “It’s the Verein for Whosis and Whatsis,” she told him.

“Send them up,” he said.

There were five of them this time: the four originals and their leader, who had obviously been released from jail. They paused to bow politely to the ladies as they came in the room, and then turned to face Brass, a clump of five middle-aged European intellectuals standing at attention, hats clutched in front of them. “We have come to give you thanks,” Grosfeder, the stout journalist, announced.

Max von Pilath took one step forward. “I am owing you much thanks,” he said. “I am not ungr-gr-grateful.” With that the entire group marched forward to crowd around Brass’s desk, right hands extended. Brass stood up and gravely shook hands with each of them, and they each took a step back at the completion of the ritual.

Brass looked them over. “Obviously Mr. von Pilath has been released from jail,” he said, “and obviously you think I had something to do with it. Much as I would like to take credit, I think you should save your thanks for Inspector Raab of the New York City Police Department.”

“But this inspector,” von Pilath said, “you t-told him of my innocence, yes? And he listened to you, yes?”

“I told him I thought you were innocent, yes, but he made up his own mind.”

They all chuckled, possibly at the idea of police inspectors having minds of their own.

“It is as I said,” Grosfeder said. “In this country journalists are of some account. They are not locked up when they disagree with the authorities. It is the freedom of the press.” They bowed to the room at large and turned to leave. Before they had taken a step Schulman turned back and thrust his chin forward, pointing his beard at Brass. “You should use your admittedly great skills to write columns about the travail of the workers, Mr. Brass,” he said, nodding his head for emphasis. “You must grant that the capitalist system has been shown to—
ergh
—”

Grosfeder’s large hand came up and grabbed Schulman by the collar and pulled him out of the room, his hands waving in the air.

T
he bird had flown. Inspector Raab went to call on Vogel late that Monday afternoon, and his studio was empty, deserted, cleaned out. A lady in the office across the hall told Raab that movers had come early that morning to take everything away and that Vogel, “such a nice man, always so polite,” had told her he was going away for a while. He didn’t say where.

“And I don’t even know what he looks like,” Raab said. It was a little after five Tuesday afternoon, and he was in his usual corner of the couch in Brass’s office, a cup of coffee in his hand and annoyance in his voice. “You saw him, Brass; describe him to me.”

“Gloria’s better at describing than I am,” Brass told him. “But it isn’t necessary. I can do better than that.” He fished in his drawer and came up with a manila envelope, which he skimmed across the room to Raab. “Can’t you trace him through the moving company?”

“I’ve got two men on that right now,” Raab said, opening the envelope and shaking the contents onto the couch cushion. “What are these?”

“The negatives of those photographs were in the Bird folder. The
World
photo lab just printed them up for me.”

“More information you’ve been withholding?”

“I didn’t mention them before because they weren’t relevant.”

Raab scowled. “Someday, just once, I wish you’d let me decide that. Just once.”

He switched on the table lamp by his side to better stare at the photographs. I peeked over his shoulder. There were eight pictures, all taken on a New York City street, judging by the background: a couple of Vogel in a suit, three of a plump but attractive girl in the sort of skirt and blouse that makes you think of European peasants, and three of both of them standing together.

“That’s Vogel?” Raab asked. “Who’s the girl?”

“That’s Vogel,” Brass affirmed. “I don’t know the girl. She’s not one of the young ladies in our exotic picture collection.”

“I’ll take these two,” Raab said, stuffing the one of Vogel alone and the one of the girl alone in his pocket. He tossed the other two back on the desk. “You want a receipt?”

Brass shook his head. “My gift to the NYPD.”

Raab pushed himself to his feet and jammed his hat on his head. “I’m meeting Colonel Schwarzkopf at Luchow’s in an hour,” he said. “I was kind of vague about what I wanted to talk to him about over the phone, but I think he got my drift. And I think he has something to tell me if I ply him with roast beef and dark beer.”

The phone rang in the outer office as Inspector Raab left, and a few seconds later Gloria stuck her head through the office door and pointed to me. I returned to the little cubicle I call an office and picked up the phone. Gloria had already patched the call through to me.

“Hello?”

“Morgan the Pirate?”

For a second I didn’t know who it was. I think I didn’t really believe she’d call. “Elizabeth?”

“I’m so pleased,” she said. “You can recognize my voice from all the other girls that pester you with phone calls.”

“They all call me Mr. DeWitt and try to sell me subscriptions to
The Saturday Evening Post.
”

“How’s your sales resistance?”

“Wonderful. I now have twelve subscriptions.”