Too Soon Dead (8 page)

After a couple of minutes Gloria came out of Brass’s office and went to Cathy. “Stop bawling,” she told her sharply. “Mr. Brass wants to see you in his office, but not while you’re crying; so stop!”

Cathy looked up, stifling a sob. She worked at wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “It’s not—it’s not—”

“Sure it is,” Gloria told her. “Come on, let’s go back into the bathroom and I’ll fix your face.”

The two of them left the room. About ten minutes later Gloria poked her head in the doorway. “You too,” she said, crooking a finger at me.

I entered Brass’s office behind the two girls and we ranged ourselves in front of his desk. He glared at us. “Sit,” he said. We did.

Brass leaned back in his chair. “First, the money,” he said. “Gloria, you will escort Mrs. Fox to the Manhattan Bank branch on the corner tomorrow morning and open an account for her.” He transferred his gaze to Cathy. “Unless you already have a bank account.”

“What would I do with a bank account?” she asked.

“They are very useful,” he told her, “now that Mr. Roosevelt has given us some assurance that they have to keep to some of the same standards that they demand of their customers. A savings account, I think. Gloria will help you. The process will be painless; Mr. Mergantaler, the branch manager, owes me a favor. Actually, several favors. Being a journalist has certain advantages.”

“I guess everyone likes to have their name in the paper,” Cathy said.

“In this case I kept his name out of the paper,” Brass told her. “Don’t be alarmed; it had nothing to do with his handling of the bank’s affairs.”

Brass leaned back in his chair. “Now,” he said. “I have something to discuss about the recent events.”

Cathy jumped to her feet. “About William?” she asked in one explosive breath.

“No,” Brass said. “Not directly. But it does concern you. Please sit down.”

She lowered herself onto the edge of the chair. It was a close approximation of sitting.

“I’ve just come from a meeting with the Big Three,” Brass told us. “The publisher, the managing editor, and the city editor. All of whom were convinced, for some reason, that I had information about William Fox’s murder that I was withholding from the police.”

He stared at Cathy for a minute, and then transferred his gaze to me. “They said I would not have had Fox tailing someone on mere speculation. They had discussed it. They all agreed. They intimated that I would not have spent my own money unless I was sure of results, hinting at a reputation for penuriousness that I didn’t know I had. They asked—they
demanded
—to know what that information was.”

“What did you tell them?” Gloria asked.

“I told them that they didn’t want to know. I said what I knew couldn’t be used by the
World.
That if it leaked out it would ruin the lives of many important people. They said that surely they could be trusted.”

Cathy returned to her feet. “Then you do know something more about William’s death!” she said, her voice rising.

“Please, sit down,” Brass said testily. “If you keep jumping up and down, it will make me nervous.”

She perched herself on the edge of the chair like a bird that was ready to take flight at the next loud sound.

“But you didn’t tell them anything,” Gloria said. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know whether I wouldn’t,” Brass said, “but I didn’t.

“What do you know about Bill’s death?” Cathy asked. “Whatever it is, I have a right to know.” She clenched and unclenched her fists. “Migod—I can’t not know!”

Brass looked thoughtfully at her for a moment and then sighed.

“I will tell you if you ask. Would it help if I say that you can be actively involved in the search for your husband’s killer, if you wish?”

Cathy regarded him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the
World
will hire you, at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, as a researcher.”

“Twenty-five dollars!” Cathy sat down. “Thank you,” she said. “I know you did this for me, and I appreciate it. But I’m not a researcher, I’m a singer.”

“I did this for both of us,” Brass said. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you can put your singing career on hold for a little while, I would appreciate it. I am going to need some assistants who I can trust completely, who owe no allegiance to the paper, or the police department, or the people of the State of New York. At least as far as this matter is concerned.”

Cathy pursed her lips and thought it over. “I will certainly stop singing for a while if I can truly be of help in catching Bill’s killer,” she said. “But surely there are many people more qualified. If you’re just trying to find a way to give me even more money—I’d rather sing.”

Brass leaned forward, his hands flat on the desk. “If I was merely assuaging my own guilt, which I admit I feel, I would call in a few markers and get you a singing gig at one of the big clubs—the Copacabana or the Sky Room. I know you can handle it; I’ve heard you sing. Indeed, if you choose not to work for me, I will do that. But this is a delicate and difficult problem we are facing, for reasons you don’t as yet know. The qualities I need are intelligence and loyalty.” Brass raised his right hand, palm out. “Honest.”

“But if the newspaper is paying my salary…”

Brass nodded. “You have a well-developed moral sense,” he said. “Most people would not let a small detail like that bother them. The
World
will be paying your salary with the understanding that you are to be working for me. If you doubt me, you can ask Mr. Sanders; he’s the publisher.”

“No,” she said. “I believe you.” She stared intently at Brass for a minute as though the answer to some dark riddle were written in the lines of his face—not that there are many lines on his face; I’m just being poetic—and then nodded. “Okay,” she said.

Brass turned to Gloria. “Will you get those pictures out of the wall safe and give them to Mrs. Fox, please?” he said.

Gloria opened the wall safe, took out the packet of pictures, and handed them to Cathy. I tried to look casual while she examined them, but I think I was blushing. Hell of a thing for a grown man, but there you have it. If she had looked up at me while she was looking at the pictures, I’m sure she would have seen a pair of beet-red ears.

When she did look up, after several minutes spent examining the pictures one at a time, she was gazing calmly across the desk at Brass. “Well?” she said.

“I trust the subject matter didn’t offend you,” Brass said.

“I work in a cabaret in Greenwich Village,” Cathy said. “Before that I worked in a mob night club. You’d have to go some to shock me. Tell me about the pictures.”

“The man who gave us those photographs is the man Fox was following when he left here,” Brass told her. “We assume that the man, and possibly—no, quite probably—the photographs, had something to do with his death.”

“Who was the man?”

“We don’t know. That’s what Fox was trying to find out.”

“Who are these people in the pictures?”

“That we do know. In each photograph one of the couple is a prominent man—or woman. We have no reason to assume that they had anything to do with the murder, but release of the pictures would harm them greatly. It’s the reason we are keeping this from the authorities. Gloria will give you a briefing on who they all are.”

“But you don’t know for sure that they had nothing to do with it?”

“No. You will help us find out.”

“Oh.” She put the pictures on the desk and sat with her hands folded in her lap, thinking. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

Brass smiled. “You’ve got moxie,” he told her. “We could use some more moxie around here.”

Pushing himself up from his chair, Brass went to the small closet which held, among other things, the office booze, and took out a bottle of cognac and four narrow-stemmed glasses.

The office booze collection consists mostly of bottles of various cognacs, Armagnacs, and wines. The only thing I know is that the booze Brass buys is very good and varies from impressively expensive to impressively inexpensive. We also keep a bottle of cheap rye for visiting newsies. Not that Brass would be hesitant to share his quality booze; newspaper men as a class seem to think it’s unmanly to drink anything but cheap rye.

Brass poured the amber liquid into the glasses and passed them around. “I think we need this,” he said.

Cathy sniffed cautiously at her glass, ran a few drops over her tongue, and nodded. “This is good,” she said. “A lot better than the firewater they serve in the clubs.”

“It better be,” Brass told her. “It’s forty dollars a bottle.”

She looked up at Brass like he’d gone crazy, but then sort of sighed and took another sip.

Gloria was slowly going through the pictures as she sipped her booze. I saw her stop at one picture, examine it closely, and nod to herself. I wondered exactly what she was agreeing with, but I didn’t ask.

Brass asked Gloria and me whether we thought we’d learned anything useful from our phone calls, and we assured him that we had not. He told us to type up our notes anyway, you can never tell. “When you have finished you can go home,” he told Gloria. “I’ll need you here early tomorrow morning, because God knows I won’t be. I expect it to be a long night.”

“What of me?” Cathy asked.

“Why don’t you go home and get a good night’s sleep,” Brass said. “You probably need it.”

“I probably do,” Cathy agreed, “but I don’t want to go home. Not just yet. I don’t think I want to be alone tonight.”

Gloria reached over and patted her on the arm. “I have a couch, honey,” she said. “It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but I’ve slept on worse.”

“Thank you,” Cathy said.

Brass turned to me. “If you have the energy,” he said, “I’d like you to come with me.”

“I have the energy,” I said. The man was at least fifteen years older than I. If he had the energy, I had the energy. I hoped.

Gloria put the pictures back down on the desk and Brass reached over and picked them up. “See anything interesting?” he asked her, snapping a rubber band around the packet and sticking it in his pocket.

She gave a tired smile. “Nothing I’d cross the street for,” she said. “Some of those men should go on diets and try to get regular exercise.”

T
he apartment Fox’s body was found in had been rented by a I German expatriate group called the Verein für Wahrheit und Freiheit, which translates as the “Truth and Freedom Society.” What had brought them together was a shared distaste for the social policies of Adolf Hitler. They used the mimeograph machine in the apartment to put out pamphlets with titles like “The Truth About National Socialism,” “What Hitler Intends,” and “Europe—Wake Up!” in six different languages, which they distributed to anyone who would read them. Since the members had little else in common, and their politics ranged from monarchist to communist, their meetings often dissolved into shouting contests, enlivened with occasional fisticuffs. Apparently, no one ever got seriously hurt, and the meetings broke up with everyone joining in the beer of forgiveness at the corner bierstube and agreeing that fighting Hitler was more important than fighting one another. Their ages ranged from the early twenties to the late seventies, with those years over fifty predominating. None of them looked like they had ever done any heavy lifting.

A gaggle of them were gathered in that apartment, spilling out into the hallway and the apartment across the hall, when Brass and I returned to the scene of the crime at about nine that evening. They were busily and noisily engaged in a meaningful discussion, but since it was in German, the topic of the evening eluded me. A rotund man with a red face yelled an emphatic German phrase at Brass as we came up the stairs. When Brass failed to respond, he grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him down the hallway to an area that was relatively free of babble. I followed close behind. “You are not more police, yes?” he asked in a deep, gravelly voice. “You are too goddamn well dressed.”

“I am not more police, no,” Brass agreed. “I am a newspaperman.”

“That is good,” the man said, bobbing his head up and down. “You will write about us, yes? You will tell what the Gestapo are doing to us, yes?”

“Now come on,” I said from behind him. “The New York police aren’t that bad.”

He wheeled and jumped back, as though I had just prodded him with a hot needle.

“I’m with him,” I said, indicating Brass. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He relaxed a little. “I am not speaking of the New York police,” he said. “I am speaking of the
Geheime Staatspolizei
—the Gestapo. Heinrich Himmler’s own revenge apparatus.” He lowered his voice. “You are United States of America citizens, yes? Also you are New York City newspapermen, yes?”

Brass took the leather case holding his press pass from his pocket and showed it to the red-faced man. “Yes,” he said. “We are.”

I pulled out mine for emphasis and held it before his face. He seemed duly impressed. Considering that the passes were made up in the
World
’s composing room, and had no official status, they had served us well over the years.

“Ah, truly,” the man said, peering closely at Brass’s card. “You are the renowned Alexander Brass. I, myself, was a writer for a monthly journal of political opinion in München—Munich—until the day last July when our editor was removed to a concentration camp for his health. He was suffering from that contagious disease known as socialism. For my health—although I am not, you understand, a socialist—I was on the next train to Geneva, leaving behind my job, my dachshund, and my mistress; all of whom, I’m sure, were goddamn better off without me.” He bowed slightly from the neck. “Willi Grosfeder at your service.”

“What’s happening?” Brass asked, indicating the fracas before us with a wave of his hand.

Grosfeder filled us in on the
Verein
, and then explained, “They are trying to decide whether they should hire a lawyer for Max or deny any connection with him. Some of them say one, some the other; some say neither, some say both; several are arguing over what Karl Marx would have done; Gumple, over there, is explaining something about Martin Buber, and Hollberger—that tall man in the doorway—is going to burst into tears at any minute and tell anyone who will listen that this is all pointless, and we are all ineffectual intellectuals, a phrase he is overly fond of. He’s right, of course, but it changes nothing to say so.”