The Dead Key

by D. M. Pulley

  “Good Lord! Why are you so high-strung?”

  Beatrice spun around and was face-to-face with the mystery woman. She was a knockout, like a movie star. Her smoky blue eyes were lined with false lashes and charcoal. Her blond hair was set in a French twist with a crown of tight curls. The blouse was low cut, and the skirt was an inch shorter than it should be, making the woman look almost garish.

  “Um, I guess I’m a little nervous.” Beatrice let her eyes wander around the ladies’ room, trying not to seem so anxious. She leaned against a sink for effect.

  The stranger sauntered to the window and lifted a piece of marble from the sill. She retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from underneath. She was clearly amused at Beatrice’s confusion. She lit a cigarette and explained, “Old Cunningham banned smoking in the secretarial pool last year. Said it was a fire hazard. So, what’s your name?”

  “Beatrice.”

  “I’m Maxine, but you can call me Max. Don’t worry so much. Cunningham may be a bulldog, but she’s okay. She’s certainly not going to fire you on your first day or anything.” Max paused to blow smoke out a cracked window and look Beatrice up and down. “How the hell did you get this job? You can’t be more than sixteen.”

  Beatrice stiffened at the accuracy of Max’s assessment. She focused on the perfect red lip-stains at the end of her Virginia Slim to keep from fidgeting. “I’m eighteen, actually. I applied for the job.”

  “Did Bill interview you?” Max asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Bill?”

  “You know, Mr. Thompson.”

  “Yes, Mr. Thompson interviewed me.” Beatrice began to wonder what the heck she was doing in a bathroom watching Max smoke when she should be at her desk. “What do you care?”

  “I don’t, but it just figures. Mr. Thompson has a weakness for the young girls, if you know what I mean.”

  Beatrice’s mouth fell open.

  “Oh, keep your girdle on! I don’t mean he molests Girl Scouts or anything.” Max smirked, seeming amused at how easy it was to shock Beatrice. “I’m just saying he likes hiring young girls. He hired me a few years ago. Catch my drift? Just be happy you got to meet with Bill instead of that goat Rothstein. He handpicked Cunningham and the other bloated old maids in the room. Rothstein would have sent you back home to your mama!” Max chuckled.

  Beatrice changed the subject. “Are we allowed to go to the restroom without telling someone?”

  “Sure, but if you’re gone longer than five minutes, you better have a damned good excuse. The poor girl that had your job last kept running to the toilet and got fired. It was probably for the best, though.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She had family problems, if you know what I mean.”

  Beatrice shook her head.

  “You know.” Max pointed to her belly.

  “They fired her for that?” Beatrice’s eyes widened. She paused and looked at the open bathroom stall and pictured a poor girl sick on her knees. The tiles looked cold and hard.

  “Of course! First Bank of Cleveland is a family business. Kind of ironic, right? Just keep your head down and your ears open, and you’ll get the hang of things around here. Besides, now you have a friend to show you the ropes.”

  “Uh, thanks!” Beatrice was beginning to wonder how Max, with her cleavage and long lashes, fit into the family business.

  Max ground out her cigarette on the windowsill. “Listen, meet me in the front lobby at 5:00 p.m. I’ll buy you a drink and tell you all about it.”

  Before Beatrice could answer one way or another, Max was out the door and clicking down the hall.

  CHAPTER 8

  At 5:01 p.m. Beatrice met Max in the lobby and followed her out the heavy revolving doors. She wanted to call her aunt to tell her that she would be late, but she couldn’t risk being scolded like a child in front of Max, who was pulling her by the arm down the street.

  The wet, cold wind bit at their legs as they made their way from 1010 Euclid Avenue up East Ninth Street. The street was clogged with Buicks and Lincolns and the occasional bus. Men in long coats with perfectly coiffed hair crowded the sidewalks. Most kept their heads down as they rushed past the “For Lease” signs dotting the storefronts. No one smiled as they brushed shoulders, each one trying to get ahead of the next guy. Jobs were getting harder to come by; that’s what Aunt Doris had said.

  After a few blocks, Max turned a corner onto a side street and led Beatrice down three steps and through a door that read “Theatrical Grille.” The bar was dark, dank, and nearly deserted on a Monday evening.

  A stout man with a thick, black mustache and bushy lamb chops stepped out from behind the bar with his arms open wide. “Ah, Maxie! Bella! How are you this evening?” He picked up her manicured hand and gave it a ceremonial kiss. “Who’s your beautiful friend?”

  “Oh, stop flirting, Carmichael!” Max swatted at him. “This is Beatrice.”

  “Beatrice, welcome to my pub. What can I get you lovely ladies? Your first round is on me.” His merry eyes and rosy cheeks made Beatrice grin back at him as if he were a long-lost uncle.

  “I’ll have a stinger. How about you?” Max looked over at Beatrice.

  “Me?” Beatrice squeaked. She had never been in a bar before. “Uh, a stinger sounds great.”

  To her relief, Carmichael didn’t ask for proof of her age; he just bowed deeply and disappeared back to the bar.

  “So, what did you think of your first day?” Max slid into a booth and lit a cigarette.

  “It was great.”

  “Great? Oh, come on now.”

  “Okay. It was pretty dull.” Nothing had happened all day. Ms. Cunningham seemed to have forgotten about her, and none of the men in the offices asked for her help. “I guess I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing yet.”

  “Old Cunny will have to assign you to one of the middle men if you want to get busy and keep this job.”

  Beatrice flushed at the unflattering nickname Max gave their boss. The mention of losing her job helped maintain her composure.

  “The middle men?”

  “Yeah, the little guys that work for Bill. The ones in all the offices. No one really knows what they do. They sit in their offices and take calls, and every once in a while they want you to type something. If you want to stay at the bank, you need to find one that likes you and stick with him.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Well, seven years ago when I started, I was working for this mouse of a man named Miner. He would scamper around and stare at me with these little beady eyes. But he got the ax four years ago.” She paused as Carmichael brought over the drinks. The tall fluted glasses were filled to the brim with something pink and fizzy, and each was topped with a cherry. “Come to mama.” Max grinned as she sipped off the top of the glass and popped the cherry in her mouth.

  “Thank you,” Beatrice said to Carmichael, and waited until he left to turn back to Max. “So what happened after Miner left?”

  “Well, old Cunny tried to get rid of me, but Bill convinced her to keep me on a special assignment, and I’ve been working for Bill ever since.”

  “A special assignment?”

  “I can’t really discuss it.” Max waved her hand.

  “Does he let you call him Bill?” Beatrice debated whether to ask about the assignment. Maxine seemed nice enough, but she couldn’t help but wonder about the cleavage falling out of her tight blouse.

  “Oh God, no!” Max laughed. “But what he don’t know can’t hurt him, right?”

  Maxine took a deep drag off her cigarette and began to fill Beatrice in on the office gossip. The stern librarian, Francine, was Mr. Thompson’s cousin, and a spinster. One of the heavy ladies was a divorcée. The other was a widow. “The Sisters Grim,” as Max called them, were always together. “They eat together, work t
ogether, go to the bathroom together—it’s a little queer, if you ask me,” Max said with a smirk and a wink.

  Beatrice nearly spit out her drink. “But I thought you said this was a family business!”

  “Well, sure, but what family doesn’t have its secrets?” Max’s eyes twinkled. “So what about you, kid? What’s your story?”

  Beatrice turned her eyes to her glass and drank the sweet fizz slowly as she stalled for time. She didn’t know how much she could trust this new friend who loved to gossip. Her glass was suddenly empty, and she was still struggling with what to say.

  “Garçon! Another round!” Max called to the bar, and turned her giant, probing eyes back to Beatrice. “So, where are you from?”

  “Marietta.” That was an easy one.

  “How long have you been in Cleveland?”

  “About two years. I came to live with my aunt.” She was careful not to mention Doris’s name, and Max didn’t ask. The lies were becoming so natural to her that Beatrice almost believed them.

  Apparently, that was enough information for Max to piece a few things together. She nodded as if she understood what could happen to a girl in a small town that might make her leave.

  The next round of drinks came. Max stirred hers and began to chew on the little red straw. Beatrice took a long drink of the sweet stuff and felt her head begin to lighten and drift.

  “I’ve lived in Cleveland all my life. I grew up on the west side. My dad was a cop.” Max took another sip and changed the subject. “I think you might do well working for Randy Halloran. The girl that had your job last used to do everything for him, and now he’s a bit lost.”

  “You mean the one that had . . . ?” Beatrice pointed to her stomach.

  “Yep. I’ll find a way to introduce you. But watch out, kid. That man’s a shark.”

  “A shark?”

  “Just keep an eye on his hands, especially after long lunches. He’s a bit of a lush.”

  “Like a drunk? But won’t he get fired for drinking on the job?”

  “Of course not. His father is the vice president of the bank!” Max laughed. “He’s got a job for life.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “What’s fair about anything?” Max’s eyes flickered. “These rich bastards grow up in their east-side mansions, go to their private schools, and never do a hard day’s work in their little privileged lives! The important thing is that if he likes you, your job is safe.”

  By the time they left the bar, Beatrice was more than a little dizzy. The cold wind felt good on her warm cheeks. The streets of Cleveland were empty at 8:00 p.m. Not even a taxicab could be found. The two of them made their way to the corner bus stop and sat down on the bench. An empty paper bag blew by and landed in the dirty snow in front of the shelter.

  Max lit another cigarette. She gazed down at the bag and then surveyed the empty street. “Man, this town is dead! I would love to live in a real city, like New York or Chicago.”

  “Why don’t you?” As far as Beatrice could tell, Max could do anything.

  “Oh, someday I’ll leave this dump.” Max stared up at the factory soot in the streetlights.

  She waited until Beatrice was safely on the bus. “Are you going to be okay by yourself?” Beatrice asked, looking at her beautiful new friend and then around at the empty sidewalks.

  “I told you. I’ve lived here all my life.” Max smiled and sauntered away toward Terminal Tower.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Beatrice? Can you take a memo?” Mr. Halloran poked his head out of his office after lunch. Max had made good on her offer, and Beatrice had been working for Mr. Halloran on a regular basis for almost two weeks. He met her at the door and led her toward the desk with his hand on the small of her back. It was getting more and more difficult to overlook the way his hands and eyes lingered on her body.

  “Something’s different,” he said with a half smile. There was vodka on his breath.

  “Hmm? Oh, I have a new blouse.”

  Max had taken her shopping the week before. “I’m not looking at your sad, flea-bitten wardrobe for one more minute!” Max had cackled, and swiped Beatrice’s paycheck out of her hand. “We’re going shopping!”

  “Shopping? But . . .” Beatrice frowned at her oversized plaid skirt and the run in her panty hose she’d tried so hard to hide. Standing next to Max’s sleek, flared pants and skintight blouse, she looked utterly ridiculous.

  “What’s the matter? Doesn’t your aunt let you out of the house?”

  Beatrice shrugged. She had been ducking out of work a few minutes early each day to avoid going out again with Max. Her aunt had been furious when she’d come home drunk two weeks before.

  “Come on, Bea! You’re a grown woman. You can’t let your aunt run your life.”

  “But I don’t have any money for shopping.”

  Max had waved the paycheck in her face.

  “Yeah, but I don’t even have a bank account.”

  “Well, that’s easy to fix!”

  Max had grabbed Beatrice by the hand and pulled her back through the main lobby of the building to the banking floor. The tellers were just closing up for the day. Max dragged Beatrice over to one of the barred windows.

  “What am I going to tell my aunt? She told me to bring my paycheck home to her.”

  “Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Max demanded. “How long are you supposed to be her meal ticket?”

  “Oh, I don’t think she’d steal it. She just doesn’t want me to go spending it all. That’s what she says. She wants me to save up so I can afford a place of my own someday.”

  “Well, that’s nice. But you can’t just put your whole life on hold, waiting for someday to get here. What if it never does, and then what do you got?”

  “What am I going to tell her?”

  “Tell her . . . tell her the bank has requested that all of its employees open savings accounts to ‘improve investor confidence.’ ”

  Max was a genius. It was as if Mr. Halloran or some executive were talking. That settled it.

  Beatrice smoothed the lapel of her new knit top. It was covered in little paisleys and hugged her ribs.

  “I like it.” Mr. Halloran grinned. After an uncomfortable pause, he seemed to remember himself and turned toward his desk. “Have a seat. I need you to take a letter.”

  Beatrice obediently opened her steno pad. After practicing nearly every day with her Gregg shorthand manual on the bus to and from work, she had mastered a sloppy sort of shorthand. She was beginning to feel like a real professional.

  “Attention: Mr. Bruce Paxton, Federal Reserve Board.” He gazed out his window at the Cleveland skyline. “I understand your interest in our recent trading activity; however, I must remind you that the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 has been repealed . . .” Beatrice took notes while he lectured the addressee. She lost all track of the content of his words as she jotted them down in little swishing lines. She was almost able to keep up. He closed the letter with, “President Nixon may have abandoned the country to inflation, but we are banking on gold. We intend to fight this investigation all the way to the Supreme Court.”

  Her eyes widened as she jotted down the words. “Is someone investigating the bank, sir?”

  “Hmm?” he replied as if he had forgotten she was there. “Uh, no, Beatrice. This is just a formality. Just tag it with my usual closing and type it up.”

  “Yes, sir.” She stood to leave.

  “Wait, Beatrice. There is another matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

  She sank back down to her seat. “Yes?”

  “What I am about to tell you can’t leave this room, do you understand? Can you keep a secret?”

  She swallowed. “Um. Yes, sir.”

  “We have reason to believe that there is a mole working here at First Bank of Clev
eland, someone who is trying to sabotage the company from within.”

  “A mole?”

  “A spy.” His eyes simmered darkly.

  Beatrice waited for him to say more. According to the letter he had just dictated, the Federal Reserve was investigating the bank, and she wondered if that had anything to do with it. After a long pause, she had to ask, “What does this have to do with me?”

  “You’re friends with Maxine McDonnell, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I need you to find out what special projects she’s working on with Mr. Thompson.”

  “You don’t think Max has anything to do with this, do you?” Her stomach sank.

  “Her? No,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “I just need to know what Mr. Thompson and his team are up to.”

  “And you think Max will tell me?”

  “She’ll feel more comfortable talking with you. Girl talk. You know.” He winked at her. “Of course, I’m going to need you to keep this conversation strictly between us. Maxine can’t know you’re working for me.”

  He walked over to her chair and took her hand. As he gazed down at her, his smile deepened. His eyes darkened. “Can I count on you, Beatrice? Your loyalty will not go unnoticed.”

  The way he was standing over her, she panicked he would lean down and crush her with a kiss. She rose from her seat awkwardly and took a step toward the door. “Of course, Mr. Halloran.”

  “Randy,” he said, leaning closer. He was still holding her hand.