The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  “Sorry,” Brass said. “But, like I said . . .”

  “Mr Brass, you should know better than that. I got my professional pride.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  “No hard feelings,” the Kid assured him. “See you around, hey?” he tipped his fedora at Brass and descended the three steps into the deli.

  Harlan McWheeter had been a judge in the Supreme Court of New York county system for 12 years. He was now a partner in DaSilva Brown Henderson & McWheeter, and had been recommended to Governor Roosevelt by our honorable Mayor Jimmy Walker to head the SCIPERC Commission. He was a tall, bony man with a prominent nose, deep set brown eyes, and a black toupee that looked as though each hair had been carefully glued into place. That day he was wearing his usual dark blue double-breasted suit; the starched collar of his underlying white shirt jutted up so high that it looked as if it was a structural support for his narrow chin. There was a story that a junior associate had once walked into his office and seen the judge with the two top buttons of his jacket unbuttoned. The associate was promptly fired.

  Brass was frisked quickly and efficiently before he was shown into the inner sanctum of McWheeter’s suite of offices, where five people awaited him, grouped at the far end of the long mahogany table that took up most of the room. The judge, looking stern and magisterial in the center, was flanked by a pair of Commission attorneys in blue suits, a stocky bodyguard in brown, and an elderly male secretary with a steno pad.

  “Sit,” McWheeter said, indicating the chair in front of Brass, which put him the whole table length away from McWheeter and his cluster.

  Brass sat. “If there’s anything I look forward to,” he said. “It’s a quiet, intime little tête-à-tête.”

  “How’s that?” asked McWheeter.

  Brass raised his voice. “I said I hate yelling,” he yelled.

  “Stop that,” McWheeter said irritably. “No need to shout.” He sat down and, as though they were worked by strings, the others sat with him. “Now, just what sort of information is it you have for us, Mr Brass?”

  “We should first warn you,” said one of McWheeter’s minions, giving Brass a steely glare, “that we are not prepared to offer immunity from prosecution unless what you tell us is substantial and can be verified.”

  Brass smiled. “Blessings on you, little man,” he said. “I don’t require immunity. But the gentleman on whose behalf I speak may, and he will definitely require protection.”

  “What sort of protection?” McWheeter’s other minion inquired.

  “Dutch Schultz will certainly put the spot on him when he finds out he’s talking,” Brass said. “And he would just as soon not be spotted. As I said on the phone, he’s the Dutchman’s bagman.”

  “He collects money for Mr, ah, Schultz?” McWheeter asked.

  “Collects and pays,” Brass said. “And what he’s got to trade, among other things, is the identity of the city official – I assume it’s a city official – whom Dutch is paying off for protection.”

  “Son of a – ” the lawyer on the left slapped the table. “Say, that would about put this commission on the map, now wouldn’t it?”

  “Governor Roosevelt would be very pleased,” McWheeter allowed. “Is this man reliable?”

  “Well, I’d say he has nothing to gain and a lot to lose if he isn’t,” Brass told him.

  “Does his information sound, ah, plausible to you?” McWheeter asked.

  “I don’t know what his information is,” Brass said.

  “He hasn’t told you?”

  “My understanding is that the Dutchman pays three thousand dollars a week to someone they call ‘Mr Big’.”

  McWheeter sat back and glared down the long table. “Mr Big? Surely you jest.”

  “Perhaps my informant does,” Brass told him. “But I surely do not.”

  “That has all the plausibility of a Nick Carter dime novel,” McWheeter said. “Who is this ‘Mr Big’?”

  “I don’t know,” Brass told him. “I’m not sure that Sammy does either.”

  “Sammy?”

  “Sammy Mittwick, the bagman in question. He’s willing to testify, but he will want protection, and possibly immunity; although I don’t know whether collecting and delivering money is per se a crime. Bank messengers do it all day long.”

  McWheeter pondered. When he arrived at the Pearly Gates and the recording angel asked him whether he wanted to enter or take the elevator down below, McWheeter would ponder. “All right,” McWheeter said finally. “But he’d better come up with something – or someone – we can verify. Something better than merely ‘Mr Big’.”

  “He can show you the place where the transaction happened,” Brass said. “And I suppose he could identify ‘Mr Big’ if you could get him in a line-up.”

  “It’s a start,” McWheeter’s right-hand minion offered.

  McWheeter nodded. “We’re putting our witnesses up at the Gotham,” he said. “Those who require putting up. I suppose – ”

  “The Gotham’s too public,” the left hand law minion objected. “Everybody knows about the Gotham. We’ll want this testimony to be a surprise until it’s delivered.”

  “Not to mention that if Schultz hears about it first, he’ll never live to testify,” Brass added.

  “Secret and secure,” the right hand lawyer said. “Deputy Commissioner Mapes has a special squad for handling jobs like this. I’ll call him. Where is this Mittwick now?”

  “I’ll have to talk to him first,” Brass said. “I’m just the messenger. I can tell him that you agree to keep him hidden until he testifies?”

  McWheeter nodded. “You can tell him that,” he agreed.

  “And what about after?”

  McWheeter pondered. “We’ll see that he is taken safely to a location of his choosing,” he said finally. “Somewhere in the United States. He is to agree to keep in touch with us in case we require his further testimony.”

  “Okay,” Brass said. “I’ll pass it on.”

  “But our responsibility, and our expenses, end there,” McWheeter warned. “Don’t lead him to expect that we’re going to finance his living expenses from then on.”

  “I think he can take care of himself in that regard,” Brass said. “Or so I understand.”

  McWheeter looked at him doubtfully. “The fruits of illegal activities – ” he began.

  “ – Are not our concern at this time,” the left hand legal minion cut in smoothly.

  McWheeter thought this over, and nodded. “True,” he said. “The harvest of Mammon may be put to good uses. Have this man call us, and we’ll arrange matters.”

  “Here,” said the right hand lawyer, coming around the table and handing a card to Brass. “The private phone number of Deputy Commissioner Mapes. I’ll tell him to expect your call.”

  McWheeter looked sourly at his minion. “I suppose that’s best,” he said. “Well, thank you for coming in, Mr Brass. We have other matters to attend to now.” And, with a wave, he dismissed Brass from his thoughts.

  The final big production number of George White’s Scandals of 1926 was time stepping its way across the Knickerbocker’s wide stage as Brass pushed his way through one of the closed entrance doors. The house manager, who was standing in the lobby with a brace of ushers, recognized Brass and trotted over. “Mr Brass,” he said. “You should have told me you were coming. There are some seats in the orchestra. I’ll have one of the girls . . .”

  “That’s okay, Mr Purcell,” Brass told him. “You’ve got, what, fifteen minutes to run? I’ll stand in back. I’ve just come to see one of the performers after the show.”

  “Ah!” Purcell said. “One of the chorus girls, Mr Brass?”

  “As it happens, that’s right, Mr Purcell.”

  Purcell arched his eyebrows. “Any particular one, Mr Brass?” he asked.

  “Why, Mr Purcell!” Brass said, his eyes wide. “Shame on you!”

  Brass tiptoed his way to the back of the au
ditorium and tried to spot Ellen on the distant stage. He couldn’t look for the third girl from the left, as the chorus line was circling around a large man in a dinner jacket and oversized white bow tie, who was singing “Are You The Girl For Me, Or Have I Been Misinformed?” to each of the chorus girls in turn as she passed him. They all seemed to be quite willing to be the Girl For Him, and he was having an understandably hard time in picking just the right one. Then the girls straightened out their line, faced the audience, and went into their step-step-kick-step routine, and Brass was able to focus on the third girl from the left.

  Ellen, Brass was pretty sure it was Ellen, seemed quite beautiful from the back of the auditorium, with long and shapely legs. But then, so did the other 21 girls. At any reasonable distance, all women look beautiful. Men find women in the abstract desirable, as evidenced daily at any maternity hospital.

  Brass felt a tap on his shoulder, and a high-pitched voice murmured, “are you looking for me?”

  He turned. “Mittwick,” he whispered. “Let’s go back into the lobby, where we can talk.”

  “Nah,” said the Toad. “Come off to the side over there; there’s a hall leads backstage. We can talk backstage.”

  “It’s going to be kind of noisy,” Brass objected in a whisper.

  “There’s a room,” the Toad said. “Come.”

  Mittwick led the way down a narrow corridor lit by bare electric bulbs hanging from disused gaslight fixtures, the brick walls plastered with posters from long-defunct shows. When they reached the backstage area, Mittwick crossed to a circular iron staircase toward the back. “Don’t stomp,” Mittwick whispered to Brass, “this thing creaks.”

  “Got it,” Brass agreed. “No stomping.”

  They went up two flights and entered a room full of oversized trunks and folded draperies. “What’s in the trunks?” Brass asked.

  “Who knows?” the Toad explained.

  “Ah!”

  Mittwick stretched out on the floor with his head outside the door, and peered down the stairs. A large revolver of ancient vintage had suddenly appeared in his hand.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Brass asked.

  “Shut up for a minute, will you? I gotta make sure as we weren’t followed.”

  Brass looked sadly down at the prone Mittwick. “You don’t trust me?”

  The Toad twisted his head around and looked up at him. “Any reason I should?”

  Brass shrugged. “I guess not. Ellen trusted me.”

  “Yeah,” Mittwick grunted. “That and a nickel will get you on any subway in the city.”

  “Sammy!” Brass said. “Your own girl friend!”

  Mittwick shook his head. “She’s a great girl,” he said. “But she ain’t got the best judgment in the world. Hell, she chose me, didn’t she?”

  Brass was speechless.

  After a couple of minutes Mittwick stood up and brushed himself off. He closed the door. “So, did you talk to this McWheeter guy?”

  “I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “They’d like to believe your ‘Mr Big’ story, but they’re not convinced. He said if you’ve got something they can use, and you can prove it, they’ll help you.”

  “Prove it? How prove it?”

  Brass shrugged.

  “I can show them where his office is,” the Toad said. “I can even tell them what he looks like.” He chuckled. “He used to do this thing, like out of the dime novels. He’d wear like a black bag over his head with these two eye holes cut out, you know?”

  Brass nodded to show that he knew.

  “So I got curious. One day I sat in the barber shop downstairs with a hot towel wrapped around my phiz so’s he wouldn’t spot me, and waited. Sure enough, about ten minutes later he came out. No bag. So I got a good glom at him.”

  “You didn’t follow him to see who he was?”

  “I thought of that, but this big limo pulls up and he hops in and splits. So I didn’t get the chance. After that I guess I was too nervous to try it again. But I think I got enough to find him. Besides I got the names of all the sports I’ve been collecting from. Probably half the speaks, gambling dens, and whore houses in Manhattan, and a couple in Jersey.”

  “It sounds like you’ve got something saleable,” Brass agreed.

  “You know it,” said the Toad.

  “So when do you want to do this?” Brass asked.

  “No time like the present,” Mittwick said. “They got to come and get me. I got a bag packed downstairs.”

  “You think you’re in trouble already?”

  “Listen,” Mittwick said. “The Dutchman has this guy working for him; Havasack, they call him. His real name’s Berman. Abbadabba Berman. He’s a math wizard of some kind.”

  “This guy’s name is Abbadabba, and he has a nickname?” Brass asked.

  “Everybody’s got a nickname,” the Toad said. “Everybody in the rackets, anyway. It’s a thing.”

  “I guess so,” Brass said.

  “Anyway, this Havasack, he’s been working the track. Something to do with changing the odds or something. But he just came back to the city and, to have something to do, he decided to go over the Dutchman’s books. That was two days ago. The Dutchman, he was laughing about it. He said anybody that was stealing from him, they’d better watch out. But you may think he was kidding, but believe me, he wasn’t kidding.”

  “So you’ve been skimming, and you figure that this Havasack is going to find you out?”

  “I been taking a little off the top,” the Toad agreed. “I figure there’s a good chance he’s already found out. Like I said, he’s some kind of math wizard.”

  “You’re a brave man, stealing from the Dutchman,” Brass said.

  “Hell, I didn’t figure on getting caught,” said the Toad.

  Brass spiraled down the iron staircase and crossed to the payphone by the stage door. When the operator came on, he dropped in his nickel and looked on the little card for Deputy Commissioner Mapes’s phone number. “Canal three-four-three-six,” he told the operator.

  “That is a local exchange,” she told him, each word carefully enunciated, each syllable rounded. “You may dial that yourself.”

  Brass sighed. “I would, but this payphone has no dial.”

  “All our payphones without dials are being replaced,” she informed him.

  “Perhaps,” Brass said, “but this one hasn’t been yet.”

  “I will get that number for you,” she said in her rolling tones, “but in the future please remember that you can dial numbers on local exchanges yourself.”

  “Oh, I will, I will,” he assured her.

  An assistant picked up the phone, but the deputy commissioner came on immediately. “Brass,” he said, his gravelly voice booming into the phone. “I’ve been waiting for your call. What’s the story?”

  “Sammy’s going to sing to the Committee,” Brass told him. He filled Mapes in on those parts of the story that concerned him and suggested that he get a few plainclothes men in an unmarked car over to the Knickerbocker Theater as soon as possible.

  “I’ll issue a subpoena for him,” Mapes said. “That way we can hold him in protective custody.”

  “The more protective the better,” Brass agreed. “Pull around to the stage door. Mittwick is edgy, and may have good cause.”

  Sammy the Toad came slowly down the spiral staircase, Ellen, still in her Misinformed costume, hanging on to his arm, her feathered headdress brushing along the underside of the spiral. “You’re going to be okay, baby,” she said, trying womanfully not to cry. “Let me know where they take you, and I’ll come see you right away, I promise.”

  “That might not be such a good idea, kid,” he told her bravely. “When they get me out of here, I’ll find a way to send for you. But it’ll be a couple of months.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long without you, my darling,” she sobbed.

  A few minutes later a large, unmarked touring
car pulled up to the stage entrance and three large men in dark blue double-breasted suits got out, a tommy gun cradled in each of their arms. Sammy spun up the spiral staircase and was in the upstairs room with the door bolted before you could say “subpoena”. It took Brass and Ellen together to lure him out.

  “Come with us,” the officer in charge said. “We’ll take care of you.”

  “Where are we going?” Mittwick asked. “Where are you going to take me?”

  The officer looked around. “No disrespect,” he said to Brass, with a nod to Ellen, “but it would be better if I didn’t say.”

  “I quite agree,” Brass said. “Mittwick, these gentlemen will keep you safe until after you testify. After that, I’ll make sure they don’t forget their promise to get you away to someplace safe.”

  “Yeah, well, okay, Mr Brass.” Sammy shook hands with Brass, kissed Ellen firmly, grabbed the hefty suitcase he had stashed by the door, and got into the car. “Thanks for what you’ve done for me, Mr Brass,” he said. “I won’t forget it.” The car pulled away.

  Brass sighed. “Come on, Ellen,” he said. “I’ve got my car around the corner. Get into something resembling street clothes, and I’ll take you home,”

  “Say, Mr Brass,” she said. “I’m grateful for what you’re doing for Sammy, and all. But I don’t know if it would be right, I mean so soon – ”

  “Take you home.” Brass said, smiling a sad smile, “and leave you at the door. Honest.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess that’s okay, then.” And if she sounded slightly wistful, neither of them mentioned it on the drive home.

  It was three days later that Deputy Commissioner Mapes called Brass at his office. “If I give you something,” he boomed into the telephone, “can you keep it under your hat?”

  “I have a very large hat,” Brass assured the deputy commissioner.

  “And when the time comes,” Mapes continued, “you’ll remember how to spell my name?”

  “My word,” Brass agreed. Which is, after all, largely how a column like Brass Tacks comes to be written: confidences kept and names spelled right.

  “Meet me downstairs in ten minutes,” Mapes told him. “There should be a large envelope waiting for me at the city editor’s desk. Bring it down with you, if you don’t mind.”