“You would slip it out unposted, steam open the envelopes, and take what is important to Sam’s Print Shop at the address I have written down inside the package. Ask for Sam and tell him the papers are for Edwin. He’ll duplicate them for you on a machine in the back.”
“What if he isn’t there?”
“Usually he is, and after the print shop closes at six o’clock, you can knock on the back door. Normally he stays pretty late. But don’t let anyone else handle the papers.
“After you have that done, reseal the envelopes, stamp and mail them. You must not unseal the envelopes once they’ve been posted.”
“Why not?”
“That’s a federal offense.”
“Oh … I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather run that risk than to do all these things you have planned for me. Besides, I doubt I can manage the mail. The International Bank is big. It has a huge mail room, and mullets—runners—take care of the mail.”
“I speak only of Tetzel’s private mail. You might offer to take what there is at the end of the day, rather than have it wait till the morning. You are in the position to capitalize on your youth and enthusiasm for your new job. That can be your excuse for all the extras you do.”
“Up to now all my enthusiasm has been genuine.… Where and when do we meet again?”
“I’ve written down a telephone number where I can be reached between six at night and eight in the morning. Call me when you have something and we’ll arrange a meeting.”
“If I have something.”
“Sure. And thanks, Camille.”
When he was gone I sat awhile longer, wondering why in the world I let myself get mixed up in this and wishing my mother had not chosen to come to San Antonio when she did. Most of all, I wished Edwin had not said “thanks.”
During lunch hours all the following week I looked for an apartment which met the specifications, though the closest I could find, considering my small salary, was hardly more than a room. Located on Houston at River Avenue, the apartment building was at least fifteen years old. It was not between the post office and the bank, but close enough so that I could reasonably offer to drop off the mail on my way home.
The place was not fancy by any standard, and right away I knew I was going to miss the indoor swimming pool and gymnasium at the Y. However, it did have several redeeming features, which the manager was careful to point out. “This unit was painted last summer,” he said, taking in the main room, tiny private bath, and kitchenette of which it consisted in one sweep of his hand. “Formerly this whole floor was rented by one family of high means, and for that reason a kitchen was built at the other end, and this little kitchenette was added for the maid. You’re lucky. These rooms are on the corner, so that you have a view of Houston and River Avenue both, and two balconies.
“There’s a laundry room and storage space in the basement, and you’re within a block of a small grocery store with a bakery and a good meat counter, back on River Avenue.”
“But you see, I have no furniture.”
“That’s no problem, miss. I can have some brought down from a vacant apartment up on the fifth floor. Small bed, chair, couple of tables and lamps. One dollar extra a month. How about it?”
I gave notice at the Y and moved in by the end of the following week. My renting a private place seemed to shock Cecelia, but she soon recovered and picked a roommate who shared her tastes in leisure activities. When I loaded the last of my possessions and started out, she looked over the top of her book and said, “You ought to be careful. The streets aren’t safe for women nowadays, remember.”
“That’s the least of my worries,” I said.
When I was about halfway down the hall she suddenly hurried toward me with our sickly-looking ivy plant. “Take this as a going-away present,” she said. “It never grew very well in our room—probably not enough light. You could put it out on one of your balconies, but don’t let it freeze.”
I thanked her, and as I had no extra hand in which to carry it, she put it in the crook of my elbow and said, “Well, good luck now,” and hurried away. Thanks a lot, I thought. What I needed was a sick ivy plant.
The furniture promised by the manager was waiting inside the rooms, and when I put everything down and sat on the edge of the little iron bed, I suddenly had an overflowing feeling of satisfaction. This was the closest thing to a place of my own I had ever had, where I would be the one to say when I’d come and go, and whether or not to fix a meal or leave a lamp burning late at night. I was possessed of a strong urge to bounce up and down on the bed, but then remembered it did not belong to me, so I got busy scrubbing and putting my things away in the chest provided by the manager and the small closet next to the bath.
I could get a bright-colored spread for the bed and some pictures for the walls, I thought. When I watered the ivy and set it out on the River Avenue balcony in the sunshine, I noticed the grocery store across the street and down the block. Butler Grocer Co. It reminded me I hadn’t stopped to eat all day and it was nearly three o’clock. I decided to walk down and buy a few things for the pantry. As I descended the steps in the apartment hall, my spirits went in just the other direction. If one good thing came out of this whole spy mess, it was having my own apartment. True, it had no river view, but it was mine, and I was truly on my own at last. I went humming into the grocery store, past the pickle and cracker barrels near the door; I picked up a loaf of bread, a tin of George Washington Coffee—having no coffeepot, I’d have to make mine in a cup—a pound of butter, a wedge of American cheese, a can of Gebhardt’s Chili with rice, a box of chocolates, and some grape juice. I didn’t know how to cook so I skipped the meat counter and the produce section. Then I saw someone opening the pickle barrel, and made a quick detour to dip down and get a big juicy one for myself.
The young fellow who tallied my bill and boxed my groceries was tall and muscular with not quite but almost blond closely cropped hair. He had a strong, prominent jaw and a serious expression across his otherwise pleasant face. He put all the things carefully into the box, then looked across at me with eyes that were an almost startling shade of ocean blue. “We have green beans on special today—five cents a pound—and carrots a penny a bunch.”
“Thanks, I don’t need any.”
“Do you need meat? Got some good beef for pot roast.”
“I don’t cook much.”
“Can I carry these to your car, or deliver them?”
“I’m walking, but thanks anyway,” I told him and picked up the box.
“If you live nearby, I could walk you home and carry these.”
“Is that part of the service?”
“No, but I could get away for a few minutes.”
“All right.”
Out on the street he introduced himself as Keith Butler. His father had been in business on that corner for twenty years. He had an older brother, Kenneth, who’d become a dentist, and Keith went to college part-time and helped at the store. His father was the butcher, his mother ran the bakery and kept the books, and two other employees, with Keith’s help, took care of just about everything else. From his description, they sounded like a wholesome, respectable group. We discovered we’d gone to the same high school, but he was two years ahead of me and we had never met.
“You live with your folks?” he asked when we got to the apartments.
“No, I’m strictly on my own.”
From his expression I wasn’t sure if he was shocked or impressed. He offered to carry the groceries up, but I told him not to bother and thanked him for his help.
“You’ll come by again, won’t you?” he asked. “Mother’s been baking special breads and pastries for a party we’re catering tonight, but usually on Saturdays she makes butter streusel kuchen—the best in town.”
“Are you German?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondered. Well, good-bye.”
This unexpected meeting of someone so nice, whose life seemed a sort of s
turdy fabric of uninterrupted threads, kept my sunny mood intact for the balance of the weekend, until Monday morning arrived and I was forced to realize again that I was faced with insurmountable tasks.
The morning was bitter cold, and rainy. As I walked to work under my umbrella I was passed by automobiles inching slowly along behind glowing headlights. When I reached the corner of Navarro and Houston, Mr. Tetzel pulled over to the curb and offered me a ride. He’d been so nice to me. I still felt guilty about spying on him that night he worked so late, and had purposely put off doing anything further for the BNA because I didn’t want to find out anything bad about him. For the short distance to the office that morning, he proved interested in hearing about my new apartment and how I liked it, and said if I needed some extra time to get settled in I could leave a little early.
“Claude will be in the bank’s employ until the end of the month. Surely he can stay at least one full day, between now and then,” he said, then winked.
I laughed and told him no thanks. It was now a common joke around the bank that Claude was leaving a little earlier every day, but he was sure that Mr. Tetzel was too busy to notice. He let me out right at the entrance and drove on to his parking space, and as I closed the door I felt determined more than ever to get this nasty business of spying out of the way and prove, once and for all, that he was not guilty of taking sides in the European war. Once I had done that, I would certainly have proven by all my willingness to help out in extra ways that I was the sort of secretary any man would be grateful for, and he would wind up prizing me in the end. It was like having a nagging toothache. One painful extraction, and things would be fine again.…
The first matter was getting to the general ledgers. While filling Tetzel’s inkwell that morning I told Claude, “You’ve taught me just about everything about this office, but I know little about how the bank works. Don’t you think I would benefit by having a look at each department while you’re still around? I’d feel like I know at least a little more about what’s going on.”
He shrugged, and shot me a petulant glance that I suspected he had been saving for a long time. “There’s really no reason to start getting into people’s hair for a while—”
Just then Mr. Tetzel came through the door and cut him short. “On the contrary, if Camille is that interested I see no need to waste time. She’s already caught on to the work in here. But since you’re too busy to familiarize her with our procedures, I’m sure we can find someone who can spare the time. Get Giddeon Sparks down here. She knows more about how this bank is run than anyone else.”
After he walked out, Claude slammed a file drawer shut and picked up the phone, without looking at me.
I’d seen Giddeon—whom everyone called Giddy—around the bank before, though we had never met. She was a widow, and had been with the bank since her husband died ten years before. She always wore dark skirts and white ruffly blouses on her stocky frame. She had a chubby face, kinky hair, and wore a pair of spectacles on the edge of her pug nose. Giddy looked like somebody’s grandmother, though she’d never had any children. She had the vocabulary of a sailor and an infectious laugh. She was merry and fun. I adored her right off.
Before we left on a tour of the bank, Mr. Tetzel told me she was the assistant auditor, and a “most valued employee.” On the way down the hall I asked how a person worked up to such an important position.
“Aside from knowing how to keep a general ledger and understanding bookkeeping, you’ve got to have excellent penmanship,” she said.
“That leaves me out. Say, what sort of information goes into the general ledger, anyhow?”
“All deposits, withdrawals, transfers, loans—virtually everything, including a financial standing of the bank itself. It is the key to the whole operation, and has to be balanced to the penny each night.”
“Sounds like a tall order.”
“That’s why the auditor has an assistant. I’ve always done most of the work, while my boss sits around in meetings. Lately I’ve had a bookkeeper helping me. But even when the boss retires a few years from now, I won’t have a prayer for taking his title or salary. Personnel will move a man in to fill the job and hold me back, because I wear a skirt instead of trousers.”
“But that isn’t fair. Mr. Tetzel doesn’t seem—”
“I know, honey, but that’s how it is. The personnel department is like a fortress. It takes a good deal of conniving to get past them to Mr. Tetzel’s ear. He’s a big advocate of line-of-authority. Around a bank, women are treated second-class, or haven’t you noticed? No, I guess not. You’re in a unique position.”
“I get unspoken messages from Claude, though. I think he’s insulted at being replaced by someone as young as me, aside from my being a female. I just ignore him.”
“You’ve got plenty of fight. That’s good. I never give up either. I keep hoping someday my capabilities will be appreciated.…”
We began on the main banking floor with the four tellers’ cages, and I soon found Giddy had access to every corner of the bank because of her job function. She tapped twice, then paused and tapped once again on the door of the head teller’s cage. In a moment I heard a lock turn, and the door opened. The teller explained that once he’d opened his money in the morning, he locked his door and stayed in there until he closed his pouch and left. “I understand you have to balance every night,” I told him.
“I once spent Christmas in this cage.”
When we left Giddy said, “From here a mullet picks up the checks and deposits, and sends them upstairs in a basket. Transit is up on the fifth floor. Mullets also send checks to the clearing house, and take bad checks to the merchants who issued them. They hand deliver statements to some of the customers who work in the downtown area.
“Now, on the day a check is written it goes to the credit department for posting. A pair of bookkeepers work together on this. We have a double entry system. They’re also in charge of checking signatures, dates, and stop-payment orders. If they ever pay a check that’s supposed to have been stopped, it’s automatic dismissal.
“We’ll go there after I show you the bank vault and safe-deposit boxes.”
We also stopped by the trust and collection departments along the way, and I began to understand why the bank occupied all five floors of the building. Still, I couldn’t make out where to find information on loans, and was afraid to ask for fear of being obvious.
The credit department proved the answer, located next to Giddy’s office on the second floor. “A loan committee passes on every loan in the bank, no matter the size, unless Tetzel himself gives the go-ahead. You see the reports daily on his desk. Information on loans goes back five years in this department, and there’s a credit file on everyone, with an individual financial history. If Mr. Tetzel ever calls for a file on someone—or if you ever need one—you can phone down and order it for him.”
I thought of the implications of that, then realized as quickly I could hardly ask for files by the load without becoming suspect. And from the number of filing cabinets in that department, I would have plenty to go through. Giddy was continuing, “Of course, most of the time Mr. Tetzel just calls me and I bring them for him.”
“He depends upon you so much, I almost wonder he didn’t ask you to become his secretary,” I said.
“I’m a whiz with pen and ink, but I can’t type my name, and I don’t take shorthand either. Now I think we’ve covered about all the departments except for the storage basement. I’ll let you have a peek at my ledgers, but I won’t have much time to show you how they’re done today. My little ‘assistant’ is ill and I’ve got her posting to do along with my own.”
She showed me the big bound records, and I could instantly see what she meant about good handwriting. The script—I could denote three different hands—was as beautiful as fancy printing. I noticed a safe in her office like the one in Tetzel’s and remarked on this. “Oh, nearly all the departments have safes. We have to keep everything un
der lock and key—even the department doors. If we have a check or any other customer document overnight, it has to be locked up. That’s bank policy.”
As I was leaving Giddy in her office, over an hour later, she said, “Oh, and a couple of incidentals that you may or may not learn from experience. We’ve got some cheeky mullets around here. If they ever try getting fresh with you, just report them. Those guys are even more dispensable than women employees.
“And another thing—watch your personal telephone calls. Minerva, the switchboard operator in the main lobby, will snitch on you. She’s an old gossip, and she thinks she’s important because she once blew the whistle on an employee who was embezzling, just by some calls he made.”
“Thanks for the information … I’ll be sure to remember.”
Walking back up the stairs, I thought if ever there seemed an airtight operation, this was it. Clearly banks were on the watch for dishonest people … it only stood to reason.…
As for the nosy switchboard operator, Tetzel certainly could not carry on illicit conversations with her around … unless she were involved along with him.
4
When I phoned Edwin that night to explain the predicament, he asked, “Does Tetzel keep a master set of keys?”
“Not that I’ve been told about.”
“If so, see if you can slip them out one day and have a duplicate set made. If not, you’ll have to take it one department at a time. Try and sneak them out at lunchtime and take them to a locksmith. There’s one farther up on Navarro, just past Market. Then stick around one night and do some browsing.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Don’t worry. Just be careful. Good luck.” He hung up.
Oh, I have to do better, I thought nervously. I should have had the sense to be more nosy when I had the chance. Next morning while Mr. Tetzel was in a meeting, I told Claude I was going to the credit department to observe. “I’ll probably spend some time looking over Giddy’s shoulder, too, while I’m down that way,” I added.
Keeping Secrets Page 23