Too Soon Dead

by Michael Kurland

  “My God,” she said. “I’m sorry; I couldn’t help it. How do I look?”

  “Like a chipmunk who’s trying to disguise herself as a raccoon,” Gloria told her. “Come with me; I’ll fix you up.”

  The two girls disappeared down the hallway into Brass’s private washroom. I hung up Cathy’s coat and put the white envelope down on the table and sat on the couch. The coat smelled of face powder and perfume, and I found myself thinking of all that Fox had lost.

  I suddenly found myself very upset. I was sniffling. Luckily I had another handkerchief. I blew my nose just as Cathy and Gloria emerged from the bathroom. I was glad that they hadn’t seen me. A man should never be seen crying.

  The puffy redness was still evident on Cathy’s face, but the mascara and other externals had been repaired. She came over to me and put out her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t intend to make a scene. I’ll have your handkerchief cleaned.”

  I took her hand. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just give it to the woman who does my washing. My laundry is usually so dull that she’s been feeling sorry for me. A lipstick-smeared handkerchief will cheer her up.” I was still holding Cathy’s hand, and I quickly let it go before anyone else noticed.

  Cathy smiled, which was quite an achievement, all things considered. “I wanted to see Mr. Brass,” she said. She indicated the envelope on the table with a wide, expressive gesture using both arms, as though the envelope had suddenly become a hippopotamus. “I can’t take that.”

  “What’s the matter with it?” I asked.

  Gloria picked it up. “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s some money that Brass left Mrs. Fox to pay for some work Billy did, ah, a few days ago,” I improvised. I restrained myself from saying what I thought: that Brass had stuck fifty or a hundred dollars in the envelope to help assuage the guilt he felt because Fox had died while working for him. Hell, I didn’t blame him. I felt guilty myself, and I hadn’t done anything.

  “It’s not, you know,” Cathy said.

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s a gesture. Bill never earned that. It’s a wonderful gesture, but I can’t let him do it. I can’t take that.”

  Gloria slipped open the envelope and took out the bills inside. “Some gesture,” she said, fanning them like a bridge hand. “So that’s what McKinley looks like.”

  I took a look and then got up and leaned toward them, drawn to the bills like I might be drawn to a precious stone: How often does one get to see such a magnificent sight? There were twelve bills in the fan: 2 five-hundred-dollar bills and 10 hundred-dollar bills. “That’s two thousand dollars,” I said cleverly.

  Gloria looked at me. “Very good!” she said. “Next week we’ll start you on simple fractions.”

  Cathy reached out and touched the fan of money, and then drew her hand away. “You know, I get five dollars a night for singing at the club,” she said. “I sing three nights a week. That’s fifteen dollars a week. And dinners; they feed me on the nights I work.”

  Gloria stuffed the money back into the envelope and laid it gently on the table. “That’s not so bad, kid,” she said.

  “I know,” Cathy said. “A lot of people get by on less. It’s what I want to do, and I’m lucky to be doing it. Now that Bill is dead, the men are going to start—touching—me again, but I guess I can handle that.”

  “Touching you?” I asked. “The customers?”

  “No, the bosses. Wherever I work there always seems to be at least one boss who thinks he has the right to touch me. Bill put a stop to that. But now he’s gone.”

  “I know what you mean,” Gloria said. “All men are wolves.” She gave me a dirty look because I was the only available man.

  “Isn’t that a good reason to take the money?” I asked her. “It will mean you won’t have to work any place where they don’t treat you with respect. It will mean you can take voice lessons. Not that I think you need them,” I added, realizing how that might sound. “But I’ve heard that all singers always want to take voice lessons.”

  “You think I should take the money?” Cathy asked. “Even though Bill did nothing to earn it except get killed? And I’m sure he wasn’t planning to do that.”

  “I think Mr. Brass wants you to have the money,” I told her. “I think he can afford it. I think he will be offended if you turn it down. I think he regrets that there is nothing else he can do to pay Fox for what happened except to give you money.”

  “But that’s almost two years’ salary!” Cathy said.

  “Not for Mr. Brass,” I said. “The amount he gives you has to be meaningful to him, even if it seems overwhelming to you. Otherwise there’s no point to it.”

  “That makes a certain amount of sense,” Gloria said. “Listen, kid, keep the money. If you try to give it back to Brass, he’ll probably burn it.”

  “Oh, no!” Cathy said. “That would be horrible!”

  7

  We worked hard and long to convince Cathy to keep the money. She felt, as best she could express it, that having a husband get murdered was a hell of a way to earn two thousand dollars. If Brass was really going to burn it, then she would take it and give it to charity. I told her that Brass already gave enough to charity, which was true, although some of his charities wouldn’t have made the Bishop’s List. Finally we convinced her that Billy—William—would certainly want her to keep it, and that Mr. Brass wanted her to keep it, and so she should keep it. Gloria stuffed the bills back into the envelope and pressed it into her hands, and she clutched it to her bosom and started to sob quietly. Gloria kept talking, ignoring the tears, and I figured that Gloria must know what she was doing, so I joined in. We were deciding for her just how and where to do the keeping.

  She shouldn’t walk around with that much money, we decided; she might be robbed. And she’d better not leave it at home; she might be burglarized. And she couldn’t trust banks, which could close, or move to Albania, and what could you do about that? Gloria and I came up with some esoteric solutions. I suggested that she fill her kitchen and living room with cans of tuna fish, spinach, and condensed milk; then at least she could always eat. Gloria held out for buying the biggest, best damned diamond ring she could for the money. “And don’t mind the imperfections, as long as you can only see them under a microscope,” Gloria said. “Imperfections are between you and your jeweler; as far as the world is concerned, it’s the size that counts.” We had Cathy giggling, and her tears had just about dried up when Brass came through the door, and in an instant all our good work flew out the window.

  Cathy turned to face Brass and the tear ducts opened. She thrust the envelope full of cash out in front of her. “Oh, Mr. Brass,” she wailed, “I can’t take this!”

  Brass took a second to focus on her, and another second to think about what she’d said. Then he reached out and took the envelope from her hands. “All right,” he said. He patted her on the shoulder, and then walked through the room and down the short hall to his own office.

  When I was eight years old I was knocked out of a rowboat by a medium-sized bass that I was trying to land. That was the last time I was quite this startled. At least this time I wasn’t wet. The three of us formed a tableau for a minute: Cathy standing as she was and sobbing, and Gloria and I too stunned to move. At least I was; the expression on Gloria’s face was hard to read. I have never actually seen Gloria surprised at anything, and a lot of surprising things have happened in that office.

  The intercom buzzed twice, the signal for Gloria to go into Brass’s office instead of answering, and so she did. Cathy turned to look at me, and then suddenly burst into fresh sobs and threw herself on the couch. I sat beside her and patted her on the shoulder and tried to think of something clever to say.

  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!”

&n
bsp; 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 g
ood 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.