The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes

by Michael Kurland

  “Do I have that assurance, Mr. Brass?”

  “If you are not confessing to murder or high treason, I can promise that I will not use anything that I hear from you unless I hear it separately and independently from another source,” Brass said, reciting our usual formula.

  Edward didn’t look happy.

  “Oh, come on, brother dear,” K. Jeffrey said. He turned to Brass. “The trouble with my brother is that he regards life as a painful duty. He also believes that everyone has his price, and in that I must report that he has so far been proven right.” He spread his arms apart in an elaborate shrug. “So, are you going to tell him, brother dear, or am I?”

  Edward sighed. “I am not as rigid as Kasden would have you think. I wrote poetry in college. I was seriously considering becoming a novelist, but then it became necessary for me to take my place in the family business.”

  “We all have our secret sorrows, brother,” K. Jeffrey said with a twisted grin. “I was going to marry a chorus girl.”

  Brass took a bite from his sandwich, which reduced it to a right-angle length of crust, and put it aside. “So far,” he said, “I have heard no secrets worth keeping.” He drained his coffee cup.

  Edward turned in his chair until he was facing Brass head-on. “Is this man sober and trustworthy?” he asked, indicating me with a flip of his thumb.

  “Completely,” Brass said. “My secrets are his secrets.”

  Well! I would have to remember that the next time I ask for a raise. I nodded to Edward, arranging my face to look as sober and trustworthy as I could. He looked at me doubtfully, but then switched his gaze back to Brass.

  “Making shoes,” Edward said, “is a difficult way to amass a fortune. Great-grandfather Welton also made leather shackles and restraints.” He paused, and the silence grew.

  “For prisoners?” Brass asked.

  “For slaves. For the slavers, which sailed from New England ports. Eventually he owned a part interest in a slaver. The Sojourner, out of New Bedford. A sleek, beautiful craft. We have a painting of her under full sail in the moonlight, done by Carter Biddell. With the profits great-grandfather bought land. When the Civil War started, his son, our grandfather, sold boots to both sides. And rifle slings, and harnesses and pack saddles. With the profits he bought more land.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Brass told Edward.

  “That was seventy years ago,” Edward said. “One of the great truths that we all live by is that what one’s grandparents did, no matter how reprehensible, is washed clean by the passage of time. Particularly if it made a lot of money.”

  Edward perched farther forward on his chair. “Oh, I have no pretensions as to how our family got where it is, Mr. Brass, but, having arrived at a pinnacle, not as lofty as some, but a pinnacle nonetheless, we have dug in and set up our trench work, and will answer the call of blood-to-blood, come what may.”

  “A neat job, brother,” K. Jeffrey commented. “You haven’t so much mixed your metaphors as stirred them up.”

  “I have just explained to Mr. Brass why it is that the family just doesn’t disown you and let you marry some little tramp or produce shows full of dancing girls on your own hook.”

  “I used the money from grandfather’s trust fund,” K. Jeffrey said, with the sort of weariness in his voice that showed that he had gone over this many times before, and didn’t enjoy it any more this time.

  “It shouldn’t be necessary to remind you that the fund is discretionary and can be cut off,” Edward commented.

  “It is a pleasure to remind you,” K. Jeffrey said, leaning across his desk and stabbing a finger in Edward’s shoulder, “that Lucky Lady is doing smashing box-office business, and I have a cluster of happy angels, ready to back my next show, whatever that might be.”

  Edward backed away as far as he could without leaving the chair. “By damn, you’re even starting to speak like them,” he said. I smiled, but my heart wasn’t in it. If they had asked me, I would have told them how tired I was of these riches-to-riches stories of the lads who had taken the million dollars their grandfather had left them and run it up into a real fortune. There were too many working stiffs out there who, every time they paid their rent, wondered how they were going to eat for the next week. And too many stiffs who were not working and wondered that every day. But they didn’t ask me, which was probably just as well.

  “Is this taking us anywhere useful?” Brass asked.

  “Yes, brother,” K. Jeffrey said. “Back to the matter at hand. Tell Mr. Brass your long and sad tale.”

  Edward, who was rubbing his shoulder where his brother had poked him and glaring across the desk, turned back to Brass. “Again I apologize,” he said. “I need your assistance on a delicate matter. It seems I…” His voice trailed off and he stared desperately around the room, as though searching for a script hidden in a lamp or vase that would tell him what to say. “I hardly know how to begin,” he said.

  “You want me to do something for you,” Brass said, “obviously as a result of something that happened. What happened, when and where did it happen, and what do you want me to do? Let’s start with what happened.”

  Edward took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The safe in the inner office”—he pointed—“was emptied. Probably by the Trask girl when she left, else why should she have gone? But we doubt whether she acted alone. Regardless, whoever did it took the weekend receipts from Lucky Lady and a thick manila envelope that belonged to me. I need to get certain of the contents of that envelope back.”

  Brass shook his head. “That’s a job for the police,” he told Edward, “and they won’t charge you.”

  “In the envelope,” Edward continued, “is, or was, ten thousand dollars in cash and another ten thousand in United States Treasury Bonds, twenty-year maturity, issued in 1918.”

  I whistled. It was involuntary. “That’s a heavy manila envelope,” I said when Edward turned to look at me.

  He nodded impatiently and went on. “There is a reason why it is important to get those bonds back. It would be pleasant to get back the money—the cash—but I realize that it is probably irreparably gone. But the bonds may be obtainable. That’s what I want you to do, to get the bonds back for me.”

  “What’s special about the bonds, aside from their value?” Brass asked.

  K. Jeffrey slapped his hand on the desk and intoned, with feeling:

  “Some for the glories of this world; and some

  Sigh for the Prophet’s paradise to come;

  Ah, take the cash, and let the credit go.

  Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum!”

  “Is that your advice?” Edward asked in a tight voice.

  “No,” K. Jeffrey said. “That’s Omar Khayyam. Just a random thought. Feel free to ignore it.”

  “I shall,” Edward said. He turned back to Brass. “I would not be telling you this, except that it has become expedient,” he said. “If you print it in your newspaper, I shall deny it and sue you for slander.”

  “Libel,” Brass told him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ll sue me for libel. If it’s written or printed, it’s libel; if it’s spoken, it’s slander.”

  “Very well then. I shall sue you for libel.”

  Brass sighed a heavy sigh. “Mr. Welton, I don’t understand you, really I don’t. I was invited here because I understood that you needed a favor from me. Then, after informing me that my profession is deplorable, you tell me that you want me to retrieve ten, or possibly twenty thousand dollars; for which you offer me five hundred dollars; then you threaten to sue me.

  “Mr. Welton, I don’t need your money or your threats. I came here because two women are dead and two more are missing, and I have an interest in finding out what happened to them. Now, if I can help you retrieve your bonds, I will, but I won’t take your money—you can donate it to charity; I suggest the Barbara Ellen Home for Unwed Mothers on Fifty-third. Just leave a check through the mail
slot.”

  Edward stared at Brass, his mouth agape. I don’t know whether it was that nobody had ever spoken it to him that way before, or that nobody had ever turned down his money before. K. Jeffrey also looked shocked. It took Edward a minute before new words could struggle out of his mouth. “Mr. Brass,” he said finally, “it could be that you are indeed high-minded and principled, and would not take advantage when there is advantage it to be taken. But, I ask you sir: how was I to know that? The twenty thousand dollars in that manila envelope was intended as a bribe for a city official. If a man entrusted by the city of New York to conduct its official business will take a twenty-thousand-dollar bribe, who shall I excuse from the sin of venality, and how shall I recognize him?

  “I asked you to come here because I was told by my brother that you were the best person for what has to be done, but. I know nothing about you. I have never read your column. I am told you have a radio show; I have never listened to it. I do not know you.”

  Now it was Brass’s turn to have his mouth drop open, but he fought it. He knew that, since he had a readership of two and a half million, that there must be 125,021,000 people in the United States, as of the last census, that didn’t read “Brass Tacks.” But to know that intellectually was one thing; to actually meet one of them face-to-face, and be civil to the man, that was hard.

  Brass smiled, but it was a tight-lipped smile. “Who were you trying to bribe, and what did you expect to get for your money?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that knowledge would be of any use to you,” Edward said. “The bribe hasn’t happened, and now it certainly will not, even if we get the bonds back. The, ah, person in question says that he thinks that Mayor LaGuardia is watching over his shoulder, and he doesn’t dare do anything suspicious.”

  “What favors were you trying to get?” Brass asked. “I do have an interest in what’s for sale in this town.”

  “It’s a question of land,” Edward said. “Due to the Depression, land prices are low throughout this great country, but they are particularly depressed in New York City. The building boom that ended in twenty-nine has left a surplus of apartments and office space.”

  “You want to buy land?” Brass asked. “For that you’ll pay a twenty-thousand-dollar bribe?”

  “We want to build a skyscraper,” Edward said. His face became animated as he spoke of it, and he made large gestures with his hands. “The Welton Towers. Eighty-seven stories high, with a dirigible mooring mast on top. Not as high as the Empire State Building, but respectable. We’d put our corporate offices on the top floor.”

  “Quite a grandiose goal,” Brass said.

  “But building anything in this city is complicated and expensive. Some of the owners of buildings on the site we want won’t sell, even though we offer more than fair market value for their homes. The land must be condemned. And then we must get zoning variants and all sorts of special permits. We want the facing of the first five floors to be in Vermont marble, and we have to bring in workers experienced in setting marble. The local building contractors have to be paid off to allow us to do that. And we have to get all the land secured and the permits in place before we can complete the financing.”

  “You’re not paying for it all yourselves?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” Edward told me. “You’re talking millions of dollars. We’ll have the largest chunk of it, of course, but that will only be about fifteen percent.”

  “So the twenty thousand dollars does not represent a large amount of money to you?” Brass asked.

  Edward smiled. “To me, it represents a small fortune,” he said, “but to the family, no. We were prepared to spend it anyway.”

  “Then why is it so important for you to get it back? Why not just forget about it and go on?”

  “Because the bonds were ready to be handed over to—ah—the person in question. Because we had already signed them over to him. Because his name is on all ten bonds, and that could put him in prison.”

  “And you?” Brass asked.

  “Possibly, but that is doubtful,” Edward said. “We can pay for very good attorneys.”

  “A Welton in prison?” K. Jeffrey said in mock horror. “Impossible!”

  “But it would effectively kill our plans for the Welton Towers,” Edward said, ignoring his brother.

  “I still don’t understand what you want me to do,” Brass said. “I can’t go to my contacts in what you call the ‘underworld’ and ask them if they have any stolen bonds.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Edward said. “A note arrived today, with instructions.”

  “A note?”

  “That’s right.” He turned to his brother. “Kasden, have you the note?”

  K. Jeffrey took an envelope out of his desk drawer and flipped it to his brother. It was a regular plain white business envelope, with nothing to distinguish it from a million others. Edward carefully took the message from within and unfolded and passed it to Brass.

  Brass took it gingerly in both hands, one at each corner, and examined it closely. I peered over his shoulder.

  It was a regular sheet of white bond paper, which had been folded in three to put in the envelope. The message on it was made up of individual words that appeared to have been cut out of a newspaper and pasted onto the paper. It said:

  I HAVE YOUR BONDS,

  GIVE $10,000 TO ALEXANDER BRASS

  USED MONEY

  HE WILL BE TOLD WHERE TO GO.

  CRIMINAL AT LARGE

  The dollar sign, the ten and the three zeros were cut out separately. “Criminal at Large,” which I assumed was meant to be the signature, had been cut out as one piece. The “Alexander Brass” was also one piece, and was in a different typeface.

  “My name is from my byline on ‘Brass Tacks’ in the New York World,” Brass said. “But the other words are from a different newspaper.”

  K. Jeffrey leaned over to stare at the note, looking interested. “Which one, do you suppose?”

  “Variety, I think,” Brass said. “Yes, Variety, the type style is unmistakable. And besides, ‘Criminal at Large’ is that Edgar Wallace show that ran a couple of years ago. Variety did a piece this week on the box-office gross of different sorts of shows since the stock market crash.” Brass continued to stare thoughtfully at the paper. “Symmetrical, isn’t it? Ten thousand out, ten thousand in.”

  K. Jeffrey nodded. “Does that mean anything?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Something else?” Edward asked.

  “Doesn’t the wording strike you as being a bit odd?” Brass replied.

  “I don’t know,” Edward said. “How do blackmailers usually write?”

  “Odd in what way?” K. Jeffrey asked.

  Brass folded up the paper and handed it to K. Jeffrey. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe it’s my imagination. Besides, as your brother says, who knows how blackmailers usually write?”

  “Will you do it?” Edward asked.

  Brass nodded. “I’ll go as far as listening to whatever the person who wrote the note has to say. If it doesn’t involve any undue danger, or too outlandish a rigmarole, I’ll do the exchange for you.”

  “Good,” Edward said. He took a thick envelope from an inside pocket. “Here is ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills,” he said, handing it to Brass. “You’d better count it so there is no room for error. If you can get the bonds back for less, I’ll pay you ten percent of what you save. And don’t let them cozen you. I won’t go a penny higher.”

  “I’ll try not to be cozened,” Brass told him.

  17

  We took a cab back to the office. It wouldn’t do to get mugged on the street with ten thousand dollars of someone else’s money in your pocket. It was a couple of minutes shy of three-thirty when the elevator deposited us on the sixteenth floor. Brass walked through to his office to put the envelope stuffed with hundreds in the new and improved wall safe that had recently been installed near his desk. He called, �
�How did it go?” to Gloria at her desk as he passed.

  “You’re on for a thousand, and you have the wrong idea about the South,” she said. “The coloreds don’t want to associate with the whites, and that’s why they have their own drinking fountains and waiting rooms. This is the gospel according to Mr. Simmonds. And you have a visitor.”

  After a moment of twirling knobs and slamming of a safe door, Brass returned to the outer office. “Who?” he asked. “And where is he?”

  “Mr. ‘Just call me Pearly’ Gates. There are, apparently, a few names he wants to call you. He’s out having a bowl of soup at Danny’s. He hasn’t eaten all day, he’s so upset, so I sent him over there. He’ll be back any time now.”

  “Upset about what?”

  “I’ll let him tell you. You’ll be amused.”

  “Hmph,” Brass said, and retreated to his office.

  I gave Gloria a rundown of our day so far, and she was properly impressed. “Goodness,” she said, “Mr. B. has pulled all kinds of stunts since I’ve been here, but that’s a new one; an intermediary in a blackmail payoff to conceal the attempted bribery of a city official.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I said.

  “That has long been one of my functions,” Gloria told me. “To make sure that the boss is aware of just what it is that he’s doing when he gets involved in some of his little projects. He tends to get overenthusiastic.”

  The office door opened and an angry and determined Pearly Gates bulled his way through, swinging his ten-gallon hat belligerently in front of him to sweep any resisting molecules of air out of the way. He stopped in front of me and clamped the hat back on his head. “You’re back!” he bellowed. “And it’s about goddamn time!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Did you have an appointment?”

  “Don’t fuss around with me, son, I’m not in the mood. Where’s your boss?”

  “I’ll tell him you’re here,” I said. “Have a seat.”

  He glared at me. “Don’t you tell me what to do!”