The Dead Key

by D. M. Pulley

  Max did whatever she wanted, and no one ever said a word about it. Maybe it was time that she stopped worrying so much, Beatrice told herself. Her boss didn’t even know her name. Ms. Cunningham, despite her warning to Beatrice that she took everything at the office personally, barely stuck her nose outside her office door. The other secretaries ignored her. No one really cared who Beatrice was or what she did now that Max was gone. Maybe it was time to do what she wanted to do. At that moment, Beatrice wanted Doris’s key back.

  At 5:00 p.m. Beatrice put her purse on her shoulder and followed the other women to the coatrack in the hall. She put on her coat, her hat, and her gloves alongside the other secretaries and walked to the elevator lobby. Just as everyone was climbing into an elevator car to go home, she stepped away as if it were an afterthought and headed into the ladies’ room. No one noticed.

  The lavatory was empty and dark. The overhead bulb was off. Beatrice squinted in the faint light streaming through the window where Max would blow smoke. She stepped into a stall and sat down to wait.

  For over an hour she sat still and quiet. She had to be sure that everyone was gone. It was a Friday, and even the managers who liked to stay late would surely be going home on time. The holidays were upon them. There was Christmas shopping to do and family to see. She had noticed all week how eager everyone was to leave work. The streets downtown seemed to empty early each night as she sat in the shelter waiting for the 82 bus to take her home.

  Beatrice had no one to see and nothing to do but go to the hospital and watch machines move air in and out of her aunt’s withering body. Beatrice caught a glimpse of herself sitting in the stall in the dim bathroom mirror. Gaunt and pale, she looked like a ghost of herself.

  The street noises outside grew quiet. She waited until it had been a full ten minutes since she’d heard the whir of the elevator in the hall and slowly crept out of the bathroom. The clicking of her boots on the tiles echoed off the walls. She slipped them off by the bathroom door and silently padded down the hall in her stocking feet.

  No one was chattering on the phone or rustling through files. The floor was deserted. It was so quiet, she was certain that someone would hear her heart pounding against her rib cage. The hallway floodlights were still lit, but the big fluorescents that hung over the rows of desks had been shut off. The doors that surrounded her workspace were all dark. Only dim yellow lights from the street below filtered through the frosted glass.

  The faint light from the hall was bright enough to see by as she sat down at Max’s desk and pulled open the center drawer. Instead of pens, paper clips, and other office supplies, it was filled with nothing but paper loosely scattered across the drawer. She felt around the piles for Doris’s key and found nothing but more paper. Beatrice pulled out a sheet and struggled to read it in the faint light. It was covered in scribbled shorthand. Beatrice squinted at the notes and finally gave up and switched on the small desk lamp in the corner. Max’s shorthand was not as neat as her own, but she could just make out the words among the ticks and curlicues on the page.

  Box 304—payment delayed, notified 6/7/78, Taylor Cummings, repossessed 6/19/78; Box 305—delinquent, contacted 6/6/78, Marion Delaney, no forwarding address, repossessed 6/19/78

  It was a record of Max’s audit. It seemed odd that it was written in shorthand. The notes were brief already, and they didn’t appear to be dictated by anyone but Max. Mr. Thompson, or anyone else outside the secretarial pool for that matter, wouldn’t be able to read them. It was almost as if Max had left them just for her. Her eyes wandered down the page, and her eyebrows raised as she read,

  State of Ohio Treasurer’s Office contacted 6/25/78, no record of repossessions. Contents unaccounted for.

  Max had called the state to verify the repossessions. There were pages and pages of records for the safe deposit box audits, and each page concluded that the state had no record of taking possession of the box contents. She leafed through sheet after sheet until it really hit her. The contents of over a hundred safe deposit boxes were officially missing. Max was verifying the missing accounts and keeping records in shorthand so that no one else could read them.

  Doris had kept records of safe deposit boxes too. Beatrice carefully gathered all of the notes into a neat stack. She opened one of the larger file drawers, looking for a manila folder, and heard something clank at the bottom. It was a half-drunk pint of whiskey. She fished the little bottle of Old Grand-Dad out and shook her head at Max.

  As angry as she was, holding the bottle made her feel nostalgic. Work would not be the same without her friend. She unscrewed the cap and took a little sip in honor of Max. It burned rolling down. She put the bottle back and poked around in the large drawer until she was satisfied her aunt’s key wasn’t inside. She grabbed an empty folder for Max’s odd notes and slid the drawer shut.

  She opened the smaller drawer above it and found a hairbrush and a small makeup bag. Whiskey was one thing, but leaving makeup behind seemed stranger. The small satin bag was heavy. It jingled like a pile of coins. She hesitated a second and then shrugged. Max had no qualms going through her aunt’s purse. She opened the bag and felt inside.

  A door closed down the hall behind her.

  Beatrice’s heart stopped at the sound. She zipped the makeup bag shut as footsteps approached her from behind. She turned. A tall security uniform came into view. She considered running down the hall, but that would just make her look guilty. There was a gun hanging in a holster on the guard’s hip. Her only hope was to seem like she belonged there.

  She tried to relax her shoulders and smiled. “Good evening!”

  “What are you doing on the floor this late, ma’am?”

  It wasn’t an accusation really. Not yet.

  “Oh, I forgot my makeup bag,” she said, holding up the little zippered case for the man to see. “I’m such a clod!”

  She stood up, putting the bag in her purse, and gathered the folder of Max’s notes from the desk. The name stitched on his uniform read “Ramone.” She stared at the letters to avoid his eyes.

  “The floor’s closed. It’s time to go home.”

  He led her to the elevator lobby, and she followed far behind him, praying he wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t wearing shoes. Her boots were still sitting by the bathroom door. She couldn’t walk out into the snow in her stockings.

  “Shoot. I’m sorry. I’ve got to use the powder room. Excuse me for a moment.”

  She dashed to the restroom before he turned around. Closing the door behind her, she threw on her boots and stuffed the file of Max’s notes into her purse. She pulled out the makeup bag again and searched for Aunt Doris’s key. It wasn’t there. Just a pile of hairpins and loose change. Max’s desk had one more drawer she hadn’t searched yet. There might still be time, she told herself, and she may not get this chance again.

  She walked into the bathroom stall where she had hid earlier that evening and flushed the toilet for the benefit of the guard waiting outside. Gazing at the window as water ran in the sink, she could almost picture Max standing there. She would have taken a cigarette out from under the loose stone where she stashed them and smirked at Beatrice for being nervous. It gave her an idea.

  Beatrice turned off the tap and walked over to the windowsill. She lifted the loose piece of marble at the corner where Max hid her cigarettes. Underneath was a hollow clay tile. Beatrice reached inside. Something hard and metal brushed against her fingertips.

  It was a huge ring of keys. Beatrice pulled them from the hiding spot and fanned them out. There must have been thirty of them of all shapes and sizes. The large steel ones looked like they were for office doors. A smaller key ring was attached to the large one. It held thirteen small brass keys. Her heart quickened as she picked one out. It read “D” on one side, with the words “First Bank of Cleveland” etched around its outer edge, just like her aunt’s key. She flipped thr
ough the others. Each had a letter. None were Key 547.

  There was a knock on the door. Beatrice jumped.

  “Time to go,” the security guard barked.

  Beatrice threw the ring of keys into her bag and carefully placed the loose stone back where it belonged. When she returned to the hall, Ramone was visibly irritated. He motioned her toward an open elevator door.

  Beatrice knew she was pushing her luck, but she still needed to find her aunt’s key. “Darn it! I forgot something else. I’m supposed to bring some notes home to look at over the weekend. I’m such an airhead. I’ll be right back.”

  He grumbled behind her as she ran back to Max’s desk. She held up a one-minute finger and pulled open the last file drawer. It was crammed full of files. She pushed them aside and felt the bottom of the drawer for the key. She came up with nothing but a handful of pencil shavings. She randomly grabbed one of the files to make her story to Ramone plausible and slammed the drawer shut.

  “You find everything you need all right?” Ramone’s deep voice asked from just over her shoulder.

  Beatrice stifled a shriek. She hadn’t heard him following her. “Um, yes, thank you.”

  “It’s time to be going now, Miss—?”

  He was going to report her. She was standing at Max’s desk pretending it was hers, and he wanted her name. She decided to play deaf. “Yes?”

  “What’s your name, miss?”

  “Oh,” she gulped. “Maxine. Maxine McDonnell . . . I really should be going.” With that, she rushed over to the elevators as fast as she could without running. A car was waiting, and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the lobby.

  Thankfully, the guard didn’t follow her. He didn’t leave Max’s desk. He just stood there staring at it, seeming lost in thought. He finally looked up at Beatrice, standing there in the elevator.

  “Have a good night, miss,” he said with a grim face, and the elevator doors closed.

  CHAPTER 25

  Saturday, August 15, 1998

  Iris berated herself the rest of the week for being an incorrigible slut. How could she have just crumpled onto the floor after a few kisses? It was beyond her control, she argued. It wasn’t her fault he was a mind-scrambling kisser. It wasn’t her fault that the scant sex in her life up until Nick had been lukewarm at best. They had kissed once before. They had flirted. It wasn’t the same as dating but it was something, she reasoned. Besides, adult women could have sex with men they liked without being branded or punished.

  But she was being punished. He didn’t call.

  By noon that Saturday, there was no doubt about it. She was just a piece of ass to Nick. He would never take her seriously now. The sweaty walls of her apartment were closing in on her. She had to get out.

  It was even hotter outside. She trudged past Mrs. Capretta’s rocking chair without even looking up.

  “Well, how do you like that? People don’t even say hello to their neighbors anymore. I expected it from the Orientals upstairs, but not from you, Iris.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Capretta. How are you today?” Iris sighed, avoiding eye contact.

  “Better than you from the looks of it . . . What’s the matter? Boy trouble?” Mrs. Capretta rocked in her chair in her moth-eaten housecoat.

  “Sort of.”

  “You career girls got your heads all screwed up. In my day we knew how to keep a man. You want my advice?”

  Not really.

  “Learn to cook, and keep your legs shut! That’s how you land a husband.”

  Iris rolled her eyes.

  “You think you’re too good for marriage? Sure, you say that now when you’re twenty-three. Just wait till you’re thirty-three, then forty-three. Come talk to me about how great your career is then. Ha!”

  “Okay. Thanks.” That was just the pep talk she needed, she thought wryly.

  Mrs. Capretta squawked after her, “That’s what happened to my Betsy, you know. Wasted all her good chances, and now she’s alone . . .”

  That settled it. Iris was moving. She clomped down the street to Calabria’s, her favorite coffee shop. She grabbed copies of the Free Times and Around Town Magazine, along with her coffee, and found an air-conditioned corner. Her eyes skimmed the east-side rentals, until she compulsively began reading the listings for Tremont, where Nick lived. He had just bought a condo near Lincoln Park and had been flashing pictures around the office for weeks. It wouldn’t exactly make her a stalker if she found a place nearby.

  She rolled up the papers with a sigh. Maybe Mrs. Capretta was right. She should have kept her legs shut. As she munched her bagel, the cover of Around Town caught her eye. She unrolled the paper and read, “Dennis! And the Default of 1978 . . .” It was the year that made her stop and unfold the paper. First Bank of Cleveland closed around that time. Iris had seen the “Dennis!” yard signs all over town. There was an election coming up in the fall.

  From the story lead-in, Congressman Kucinich was running against a Republican intent on dredging up the incumbent’s sordid past. According to the article, Dennis Kucinich had been mayor of Cleveland at the ripe age of thirty-two, when the city defaulted on several bank loans. It was a low point in the history of the city, right up there with the burning of the Cuyahoga River. Cleveland was the laughingstock of the country and the poster child for Rust Belt decay. A once-great metropolis became “the mistake on the lake.” She’d heard pieces of the story before, but she had never really understood the details. She kept reading.

  The city had run up a huge debt as politicians promised “no new taxes” while increasing their budget spending. The city’s debt was financed by loans from several local banks because its bond rating was so low. The article listed the financiers, and Iris’s eyes widened when she read that First Bank of Cleveland was the largest local bondholder of the city’s debt.

  Kucinich’s administration of young-gun advisers had alienated the old business establishment by refusing to let them privatize the electric utilities. On December 15, 1978, when the bonds came due, the local banks refused to work with the mayor’s office to renegotiate the terms. First Bank of Cleveland was one of six banks to refuse to roll over the debt. The bank’s board of directors were the most influential businessmen in Cleveland. The elite aristocracy included Theodore Halloran, Samuel Wackerly, Alistair Mercer, and many more, the story read.

  Images of the portraits hanging in the library of the old bank loomed in Iris’s mind. She’d seen at least twelve old white men glowering at the books. She scoured the article for more information on the bank and its board of directors and found none. The story went on to describe Kucinich’s voting record in Congress. His opponent, James Stone, reportedly claimed that the ex-mayor’s failure to the City of Cleveland spelled failure for the country if Dennis was to be reelected. Iris folded the paper and stuffed it into her purse.

  She walked home in the heat of the day. There had to be more to the bank closure than business as usual. The abandoned files, the full desks, the dead plants—it all looked like evidence at a crime scene. Besides, why would a perfectly good fifteen-story building just sit frozen in time for twenty years? She’d seen abandoned buildings in downtown Cleveland before. She drove past them every day. They were shuttered and gutted, picked clean of anything valuable. Looking through their broken windows, she could see there was nothing left. Why was 1010 Euclid Avenue a perfectly preserved time capsule with an armed guard? Her thoughts kept returning to the vault.

  She pushed through the door of her sweltering apartment and saw the light on her answering machine blinking. She threw her purse in the corner and ran to the little black box of hope. Maybe Nick had decided she was worth a phone call. But it was her mother. Again.

  “Iris? Iris, I’m starting to get worried. You need to call home.”

  “Okay, okay.” It had been a few days longer than she intended. She picked up the pho
ne and dialed home without even looking at the keypad. The phone number hadn’t changed in twenty-three years. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Iris! Well, it’s about time you called. I’ve been worried! Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” She hadn’t meant to worry the poor woman. “I’ve just been really busy with work.”

  “Well, you could have called to let me know. I am still your mother even if you are all grown up now.” Her mother sighed on the other end of the line. “So. How’s the new assignment going? Are you liking it?”

  “Yeah! I’m working in the field now on this old building. It’s fascinating! The head of the company, Mr. Wheeler, chose me out of everyone to take the lead on the survey.” Iris found herself bragging even though she suspected Mr. Wheeler had only picked her because she was the cheapest employee.

  “Oh, honey! That’s wonderful! I’m so glad you’re having a good time.”

  Iris smiled. “How’s Dad?”

  “Hmm? Oh, he’s fine.” She paused. “I think he’s making the adjustment just fine.”

  “Adjustment?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? His company just went through a downsizing. You know they’re doing it everywhere. He’ll be just fine, don’t you worry. He’s really enjoying having more time to work out in the shed.”

  Her dad had been fired. Her mother straining to be sunny and bright about it just made it seem worse. “Mom! When did this happen?”

  “Last week.”

  “Is he all right?” Iris asked, even though she knew she wouldn’t get a straight answer.

  “He’s doing great! He was really tired of the job, you know. He’d gone as far as he could. Now it’s on to the next thing.” Her enthusiasm was grating Iris’s nerves.

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Not now, honey, he’s sleeping. Do you want me to have him call you?”