Trip was a spoiled brat and a grown man, but he was also a son who had seen his father’s corpse in the same space we were in now. He’d seen the terrible things left behind after someone sticks a gun in their mouth and pulls the trigger.
No child would ever be old enough to see their parent in that condition.
I might’ve had Mrs. Fairfax’s permission to be there, but suddenly I felt like I was trespassing. But as much as I wanted to leave him alone with his grief, I still had one last question for him. “How about telling me what you found in the safe?”
Trip shook off his tears. “I didn’t even know that safe existed until you showed it to me. My father treated this office like his private sanctuary. He didn’t even like having meetings in here if he could avoid it, even with me. Mrs. Swenson probably knows about it. Why don’t we ask her?”
A light knock came on the door as Mrs. Swenson eased the door open. She looked at Trip when she said, “Mrs. Fairfax is on the phone and would like to speak to Mr. Fairfax if it’s convenient.”
“Go talk to your mother if you want to,” I said, “and ask her if she knows the combination to the safe if you get the chance. I’ll ask the chief’s office if we can have the note back. I know it means a lot to you and your family.”
The natural punk in him returned. “Don’t do me any favors, Doherty. Just remember that I have no intention of allowing my mother to be taken advantage of by some cheap gumshoe.”
I let him have the last word. He’d earned it.
Now that it was just the two of us again, I asked Mrs. Swenson, “He always that cheerful?”
“He’s under a terrible strain,” she said. “He’s normally—”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “A kind and generous man. I know the drill. Any luck on getting those dates I asked for?”
She handed me a piece of paper and stood there while I worked the dial for the right combination. I tried all the dates. His wife’s birthday. His daughter’s birthday. His son’s birthday. I even tried Walter’s birthday.
None of them opened the safe.
“Can you think of any other numbers I should try?”
“No, but I can ask Mr. Fairfax if his mother might’ve had any suggestions.”
“You do that,” I said as I picked up the telephone on Mr. Fairfax’s desk. The private line he must’ve used to call Dr. Blythe. It was one of those fancy new devices that had the ear- and mouthpieces connected to each other. “What time is it now and what time do you usually go home?”
She looked outside and checked the clock on her desk. “It’s half past four now. I usually stay in the office until six or so. Why do you ask?”
The operator came on the line and I gave her the number I was looking for. I pressed the mouthpiece against my chest. “Because I’ll be back here in about an hour with a guy who’ll know how to get that safe open. I’d appreciate it if you were still here.”
Chapter 7
It was going on five o’clock by the time I walked into The Stage Left Bar. Most people called the place Lefty’s, back from when it had been one of the most popular speakeasies in town.
Before the Crash, you couldn’t get near the place when a new show or play opened. Prohibition may have been the law of the land, but Manhattan considered itself an island and hadn’t paid it much attention. Places like Lefty’s only thrived in the years after the do-gooders outlawed booze.
Back then, Lefty’s had been a sea of tuxedoes and top hats, minks and pearls, the place where the swells liked to slum before and after taking in a show. Cocktails and champagne flowed. Volstead could drop dead.
But a lot of things in this town had dried up since the Crash, and Lefty’s had been one of them. These days, the place saw more roaches and rodents than black ties and feathered boas. It was just another worn-out gin mill huddled deep in an alley off West 45th Street where the glow of the bright lights of Broadway just didn’t reach anymore.
Times were tough, and people had to worry about putting food on the table. They didn’t have money to waste on things like plays and musicals anymore.
Some people had run out of things to care about. Those were the people who came to Lefty’s now. It was more soup kitchen than hot spot; an old bus depot at the end of a long, dull ride. Prohibition was still the law, but Treasury agents didn’t even raid the place anymore because it wasn’t worth the trouble.
The bar drew a regular crowd of old stagehands and rope rats waiting for word about a new show that might open. Any show would do. They had been waiting a long time and would be waiting longer still. Superstition prevented the men from standing too close to each other. They kept enough distance between themselves for Lady Luck to stroll in and take her place at their side. It might sound silly to some, but superstition was all these men had since no one was making dreams like they used to anymore.
At the tables, a scattering of broken-down character actors with familiar faces and little else going for them pored over industry rags for anything that might resemble a job. Possibilities got circled with a stubby pencil.
The sorriest of the bunch were the press agents who nursed warm beers while eying the bank of phonebooths in the back, praying for that one call from the right client that would change everything. A call they knew would never come, but hope sprang eternal at Lefty’s.
Add a few petty criminals and other undesirables into the mix, and you’d have a pretty good idea of what the dump was like when I got there that night.
I had no trouble spotting the man I’d come to see. Wendell Bixby was in his usual spot at the rear table by the phonebooth. He always sat facing the door.
People who didn’t know any better might have figured Bixby for another red-nosed press agent who liked Lefty’s for the cheap booze and charming company. Few people knew he actually owned the dump. The poor bastard had signed the papers the month before the market crashed in 1929. Now he was every bit as tied to the place as the people who crawled in for a drink every evening and crawled out of there at night with nowhere else to go. I was one of the few who knew he slept on a cot in the storeroom.
Bixby didn’t bother looking up from his typewriter as I slid into the booth across the table from him. He was too busy typing out another column for the New York Journal. Bixby’s Box was still the most influential gossip column in the city. Just because people couldn’t afford to go out anymore didn’t mean they didn’t like to read about those who could.
No one in the city was beyond Bixby’s reach, especially a city on its heels. He still found a way to scrape up enough money to pay the most for the best dirt on all the finest people. Socialites, captains of industry, actors, actresses, and politicians all fell under his scope. One mention in Bixby’s Box could either start a career or stall it, depending on what nouns, verbs, and adjectives he stirred into the mix. A reference in a blind item at the end of his column was even better. Vagueness could be its own reward, and kept Bixby from being sued for libel.
Just about the only thing worse than being mentioned in his column was not being mentioned at all.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Bixby anywhere other than Lefty’s, even before he’d bought the place. That’s because the information he put in his column always came to him here, either by one of the phones in the back or in person. A river of scandal and shortcomings flowed right past Bixby’s dark perch in the back booth.
“Look at what the cat dragged in.” Bixby’s fingers flew across the typewriter keys. “Haven’t seen you since New Year’s.”
I dug out a cigarette from my case and lit it. “Christmas. You were already shitfaced by the time I got here on New Year’s.”
“That’s what you think, kid.” Bixby winked. “I’m never as drunk as I’m supposed to be. What brings you down here with us common folk? Want to sell some dirt on your Park Avenue pals? Don’t insult me by telling me you’re n
ot the kind who tells because I know better, remember?”
He certainly did. I used to feed him Carmichael-approved dirt back when I was on the force. Dirt that always served the chief’s purposes in one way or the other.
Bixby had returned the favor by being one of the few scribes who’d stuck up for me during the whole Grand Central Massacre fiasco. The support had caused him a hell of a lot of trouble with his bosses at the paper, but he did it anyway. They didn’t want to end up as a blind item in one of his columns, either. They never would’ve let him print it, of course, but they would have known he had something on them and the threat of exposure would be enough.
For a man who didn’t have many good qualities, Wendell Bixby had more than most.
I knew telling him anything about the Fairfax incident would be in the morning’s paper, so I kept my mouth shut. But Countess Alexandra was a different matter entirely. “Suppose I asked you about a woman who goes by the name Countess Alexandra von Holstein.”
Bixby made a show of yawning while he typed. “I’d have to put toothpicks under my eyes to keep them open. She’s white toast, kid. No butter, no crust. She’s one of those society gals who hobnobs with the kinds of people you work for these days. As dull as she is beautiful, and she’s pretty goddamned dull.” He quickly looked at me before going back to the keys. “Nice suit, by the way. Bonds?”
“Brooks Brothers.”
He shook his right hand like he’d burned it. “Fancy. Anyway, I wouldn’t pay for any dirt on the countess alone. Throw in something with her and a male friend of hers, preferably a married, wealthy male friend, and maybe I’d bite. Not too hard, mind you, but I’d throw a couple of bucks your way.”
“What kind of men does she like, anyway?”
“The same kind women like her always like. The kind that have a bunch of zeroes after their last name. Word is she’s from some hellhole in Europe, who came over here when her family lost the farm after the war. Got off the boat a year ago, poorer than my Aunt Ethel, and now she’s got herself a nice place to hang her hat on Central Park West. Like the lady in the harbor says, ‘Give me your tired, your huddled masses who used to have stables of polo ponies and servants and estates, yearning to be free.’ Must’ve gotten herself a rich boyfriend or three to make the leap from refugee back to countess again. I’m not surprised, though. She’s beautiful so I’m not surprised she’s popular. Most of those leggy European types usually have a couple of studs in their stable, and your countess is leggier than most. Ever seen her?”
I shook my head as I took a drag.
“Then you’re missing out on a complete life.” Bixby sighed dramatically and went back to his typing. “Whoever she hooked must have deep pockets because, from what I’ve heard, she’s one of the few people in town who isn’t shy about shelling out the ducats.”
“You said she’s on Central Park West,” I said. “I need an address.”
Bixby laughed as he typed. “And I need my place at The Dakota back, along with all the money I lost on the market. I don’t know where she lives.” He stopped typing and looked at me. “But I can find out easy enough if you tell me why you want to know.”
I let smoke escape my nose. “No way. I’ll pay if you want, but nothing in the papers. Not yet, anyway.”
Bixby frowned. “Information’s the coin of my realm, kid. My readership is falling and my editors are thinking of cutting my column in half or, worse, they want me to go back to covering sports.” He exaggerated a shiver. “I’ve seen Babe Ruth naked enough for one lifetime. No, thanks. Besides, I need the meager pittance the paper pays me in order to keep this dump open. You don’t think these deadbeats pay their way, do you?”
I knew they didn’t, but I also knew people still paid Bixby plenty to stay out of their columns, or to be placed in them. But there was no reason to make him angry. He was a friend and I needed him.
“Then what’ll it take to make you interested enough to look for the countess?”
“Don’t give me that hangdog look.” He waved a crooked finger at me. A typist’s finger. “The last time you came in here looking for dope on someone, it led to the Grand Central Massacre and one of the biggest scoops of my career. You only come to see your Uncle Wendell if it’s something big, and I can sense whatever this is must be pretty damned big, so spill. You want an address, I want to know why you’re interested in a broke aristocrat who runs around with a bunch of German intellectual types.”
He smiled as soon as he said it. “See what I did there, you Irish bastard? I fed you something you didn’t already know. I can tell by the look in your eyes.” He pointed to his temple and went back to typing. “Uncle Wendell is always right. Tell me why you need to know where the countess hangs her tiara, or that’s all you get from me.”
I laughed at him as much as at myself. If anyone else had called me an Irish bastard, I would’ve kicked their teeth down their throat. But Bixby had a way of making even the worst insults sound like a compliment.
It was still too early to trade information for the countess, so I stalled. “Maybe I’ll have something for you by tomorrow.” I looked back at the crowd that had grown at the bar since I’d walked in. “In the meantime, let’s get to the real reason why I’m here. Any of your distinguished customers any good with a safe?”
Chapter 8
I watched Billy Donohue squint as he placed his ear against the door of Walter Fairfax’s wall safe. He was prison-pale and skinny, thanks to the slop they hash out in stir. He was ten days out of Sing Sing on a four-year bounce for possession of stolen property. The fact that he hadn’t been put away for safecracking had left a deep scar on his professional pride.
“A guy like me with the skills I got, goin’ away for somethin’ as stupid as possession.” His long fingers adjusted the dial as if he was adjusting a radio knob. “It ain’t hardly fair, Charlie. It wasn’t even my score. My brother, see? He—”
“Stow the tale of woe and work the safe.” From her spot in the office doorway I could see Mrs. Swenson was getting nervous, and I couldn’t blame her. Billy was the type of guy who made you want to take a shower. Fortunately, the rest of the office workers and staff on the floor had already gone home, otherwise Billy would’ve been the source of office gossip for days. At least Trip wasn’t around, so that was one less headache for yours truly. “Can you open the goddamned thing or not?”
“Of course I can open it.” He took a stethoscope from his tool bag, stuck the earpieces in his ears, and placed the bell against the safe. “Damned thing should be called an un-safe. Might as well have stuck whatever’s in here in a shoebox and hid it in the closet. A blind newsy could crack it just by listening to the tumblers.” He looked at Mrs. Swenson while his fingers worked the dial. “Bet whoever put this in here for you charged you plenty for it, too.”
She was going to answer, but I motioned for her to ignore it. It just would’ve launched him into another defense of his professional pride.
Donohue went back to fiddling with the dial. “That’s the problem with people in this business today. No one’s got any professionalism anymore. No decency.”
“A convicted safe cracker talking about decency,” I said. “What’s the world coming to?”
Donohue turned the tumbler for a third time, then grabbed the handle. “I went up for stolen property, remember?” He turned the handle down and the safe’s door opened. “Never got pinched for safe crackin’, Charlie.”
I put my hand on the door to keep him from opening it all the way. I didn’t know what was inside and I’d be damned if I’d let Donohue know, either. Everyone in Lefty’s would know what he’d found within five minutes. Bixby would know even before that. What he didn’t see couldn’t hurt me or the Fairfax family.
I palmed him the money I’d promised him and nodded toward the office door. “There’s what I owe you, plus a little extra to help you remember to f
orget how you earned it. Understand?”
“Come on, Charlie. If I was a talker, I would’ve ratted out my cousin about all that stolen silverware he stashed at my place.”
A minute ago, it was his brother. Now it was his cousin. That’s why the safe door would stay shut until Donohue was gone. I looked back at Mrs. Swenson. “Please show Mr. Donohue to the elevators.”
She didn’t seem in a hurry to go. “Why don’t you do it? He’s your friend.”
She’d changed in the hour or so since I’d gone to Lefty’s. She was a little less flustered and showed a little more backbone. I wondered why. “Because I was hired to examine the contents of the safe, not you. Please show Mr. Donohue out.”
She didn’t seem to like that idea. “Whatever’s in there is likely company property, which means—”
I gestured to Donohue behind his back. “Not in front of the baby, Mrs. Swenson. Get our guest on an elevator, make sure you ride all the way down with him, and come back. We’ll examine the contents of the safe together.”
“Of course.” And that’s when something came to me. It might not have been important, but I had to ask. “Say, Bill. You don’t happen to remember the combination to the safe, do you?”
“Sure do,” Donohue said. “I just done it, didn’t I?” He cleared his throat like he was about to recite Shakespeare. “Four, twenty, eighty-nine.”
I pulled out my notebook and wrote the numbers down before I forgot them. Looking at them didn’t make them mean anything to me. It wasn’t Fairfax’s address. It didn’t match any of his family’s birthdays, either. Maybe it was the countess’ birthday. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, but I’d keep it in the back of my mind just in case.
I signaled Mrs. Swenson to take Donohue to the elevator. As much as I didn’t want Donohue seeing what was inside, I didn’t want Mrs. Swenson seeing it either. I didn’t have any reason not to trust her, but I didn’t have a reason to, either.
The Fairfax Incident Page 7
