November 27, 1940
PLAN TO GET LEO OUT
Step 1: Stop office memos coming to him. Let time pass to let it sink in to Leo what is happening.
Step 2: Disconnect all Leo phone lines but one. Ditto about letting time pass. Tell switchboard to direct all his calls to me.
Step 3: Get his office repainted some ugly color while he’s out of it. “Vomit green.” Ditto re time.
Step 4: Remove nameplate from his door. Hide it. Make door of steel so he can’t screw new one on. Ditto re time, but time gets shorter now between Steps.
Step 5: Fire his secretary. Disconnect final phone line same day. Instruct switchboard to say, “Mr. Leopold Myerson is no longer with us.”
Step 6: Have him painted out of “Founders Portrait.”
Start date for plan: January 2, 1941.
Read plan to Flo last night before dinner. She likes it. Added a few touches of her own (nameplate, e.g.).
There follow entries for the dates that each step of the plan was carried out.
January 7, 1941
Took Leo a week to figure out something’s going on, why he’s getting no interoffice memos, he’s so stupid. Now he runs up and down office corridors after mailroom boys, trying to snatch memos from their stacks! Told Flo about this last night. She laughed and laughed.…
March 1, 1941
All Leo’s extra phone lines cut off today. Took him most of the day to realize it. He’s hopping mad! Tried to get in to see me, but Jonesy won’t let him. Using private elevator direct to car to avoid him. Others in the office now realize something’s going on, and they’re getting a big kick out of it because all of them hate Leo, too. I think Henry knows something’s going on, too, though I haven’t told him about my Plan. Henry’s in a much better mood these days, cheerier, more compliant. Think maybe my tough talk with Alice has paid off. Maybe she’s nagging and hen-pecking him less.… Thank God for Henry! I despair of the other one.…
April 4, 1941
Step 3 carried out last night, after hours! Had his office repainted last night, ugliest puke color I could find. For good measure, had his carpet torn up and one large sofa removed, and had Clorox poured into the pots of all his precious plants! It will be fun when they begin to die! Painters still at work when he came in this morning. Leo started screaming like a banshee, yelling, “Who ordered this?” Painters just said, “Company orders, sir,” and went on painting. Now he is running up and down the corridors, screaming and yelling at everybody, making everybody crazy, but everybody really getting a big kick out of what is going on. He keeps trying to get me on the phone or get into my office, but can’t. Ha, ha, ha.
April 9, 1941
Leo wailing and kvetching, “What’s the matter with my plants?” Making his secretary crazy. Hope I can get to Step 5 before she quits on him, he’s making her so crazy.… He runs around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get in to see me. Not yet!
May 5, 1941
Had his office door replaced with steel one yesterday. “Fire regulations,” he was told. His nameplate “lost” in process. He went out and ordered a new one, and spent an hour this morning trying to hammer his new nameplate onto the steel door, while nails kept bending and Leo cursing and screaming and banging his thumb with hammer. Wish I could have been there to see this! What a schmuck!
May 17, 1941
Had Personnel Dept. give Miss Applegate, his secretary, her walking papers last night. They say she cried a lot, but then she said she was thinking of quitting anyway, he was making her so crazy. Also had his last phone line disconnected. Leo strangely silent today. Not a peep from him all day long. They say he just sits in his office, staring into space. Is he planning something? Or have I finally “broken the camel’s back”? I hope so. Anyway, I think I’ll hold off my final move for a while, and let him settle into this silent state of his before I deliver the “coupé de grace”!
Now, as Mimi turns the pages of the daybook for the year 1941, she encounters an entry that is not an entry at all, but a yellowed clipping from the New York Times, dated June 4, 1941, and affixed to the pages of the diary with dried and crumbling Scotch tape.
HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER KILLS PEDESTRIAN ON FIFTH AVE.
Early afternoon shoppers on Fifth Avenue looked on in horror yesterday as an automobile, ignoring a red light, tore across the intersection of 54th Street, striking a male pedestrian who was crossing the Avenue from west to east and injuring several others. The victim, whose identity is not yet known, was pronounced dead upon arrival at Roosevelt Hospital. While bystanders rushed to the victim’s assistance, the driver of the vehicle, which did not stop at the time of the accident, sped northward and was quickly lost in uptown traffic.
Several other pedestrians received bruises and minor injuries as they rushed, or were pushed, out of the path of the speeding car.
Though there were literally scores of witnesses to the accident, it was difficult for police to get consistent descriptions of either the car or its driver. Most, however, maintained that the automobile was a black Lincoln Zephyr sedan, of the year model 1939 or 1940. Others, however, claimed that the car was dark blue or dark green. There appeared to be a consensus among witnesses that the driver of the car was a young woman between the ages of 25 and 30, wearing a white sailor-type hat. Others claimed to have seen a small child in the front seat beside her.
Several bystanders attempted to note the license number of the car. According to one witness, the license number was KLG-130, while another claimed to remember it as HJG-030. Still others claimed that the automobile was moving too fast to note the license. All agreed that the car bore New York plates.
“What we’re looking for,” said Police Chief Walter O’Malley, “is a dark Lincoln Zephyr sedan, 1939 or 1940 model, with a license plate containing at least one G as its third letter, and one three, and at least one zero. This will narrow our search considerably.”
The accident occurred at approximately 2:45 P.M. yesterday. A four square block area immediately surrounding the scene was cordoned off by police for about one hour to allow access to ambulance and other emergency equipment.
The next day’s entry was a second clipping, from the Times of the following day:
HIT-AND-RUN VICTIM’S IDENTITY LEARNED
The identity of the pedestrian killed on Fifth Avenue Tuesday afternoon by a hit-and-run driver was revealed by police today. He was Larry J. Elkins, 39, of Utica, N.Y. Mr. Elkins, a teacher in the Utica public school system, was vacationing in New York with his wife. Mrs. Elkins, who was not with her husband at the time of the accident, was waiting for him to return from a short shopping errand in the couple’s room at the Gotham Hotel. The Elkinses have two children, aged 13 and 9. Mrs. Elkins returned to Utica with her husband’s body today.
No arrest has yet been made in the case. However, according to Police Chief Walter O’Malley, “We have narrowed this down and have several very strong leads that we’re pursuing. We are confident that an arrest will be made in the very near future.”
The driver of the car that fled the scene of the accident at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street has been described as a young woman in her mid-twenties or early thirties, wearing a white hat and driving a dark (black, dark green, or dark blue, according to various witnesses) 1939 or 1940 model Lincoln Zephyr sedan, with New York license plates.
The entry for the following day was once again in her grandfather’s hand, and his words were especially terse.
June 6, 1941
My suspicions confirmed. Henry came into my office this morning. Told him I will handle everything. Alice leaves for Bar Harbor immediately. Servants there have their instructions. Everything else to be taken care of. Alice! She is Henry’s nemesis, his bane, his curse, his bad penny. Told Henry that. Also told him that this is the last time we will be using his uncle Leo’s friends. For ANYTHING.
What had her grandmother said that night at the dinner table? “She killed a man once, you kno
w. It was all in Adolph’s diary.” With a feeling of despair, Mimi thinks: This was the man she killed, the man Granny meant, not Daddy. Oh, Mother, Mother, she thinks—was that you? The pretty lady in the big white hat? Was the white hat ever a part of her dream? She cannot remember, but this man was the dark shape flying across the windshield of the car, and those screams were perhaps not her mother’s screams but his screams, or the screams of the onlookers standing at the intersection or trying to cross the street. Slowly, all the pieces of the puzzle now are tumbling into place: Why she could never tell her grandparents about her scholarship, why there was never enough money, why her mother and father exchanged those dark, secret looks, why her parents fought all the time, why there was always the hidden threat of tension and misery in the air on 97th Street. Why her mother drank. As Granny Flo said, it was all in Adolph’s diary.
She turns the page to find another clipping from the Times.
5TH AVE. HIT-AND-RUN VEHICLE BELIEVED FOUND
June 8. The automobile involved in the vehicular homicide which occurred on Fifth Avenue at 54th Street Tuesday afternoon has been found, police officials say. The accident, from which car and driver fled the scene, left one man dead and others slightly injured, while creating pandemonium and disrupting midtown traffic for nearly an hour.
The automobile, a black 1940 Lincoln Zephyr sedan, was found abandoned on the street in the docks area at the foot of West 23rd Street. The car matched eyewitnesses’ descriptions of the death vehicle. Its hood and right front fender were deeply dented, police say, and tests showed that spatters of dried blood on the hood and windshield matched the blood type of the victim, Larry J. Elkins, 39, a schoolteacher from Utica, N.Y.
The car bore painted-over license plates with the numbers HLG-031, which also closely correspond with eyewitness accounts. This license number, however, corresponds with no known owner of record in New York State. Under the painted-over plates, police were able to identify the luxury vehicle as one reported stolen from a Brooklyn garage in April of this year. Tests of the car’s interior revealed no fingerprints.
“The fact that the vehicle was stolen hamstrings our investigations somewhat,” Police Chief Walter O’Malley told the Times today. “But we are determined to find the perpetrator of this homicide and are actively pursuing various leads.”
Now Mimi is puzzled. Would her mother have been driving a stolen car with painted-over plates? It makes no sense. The driver must have been an entirely different person. And yet why would her grandfather have devoted so much space and attention to this accident in his diary? She turns the pages slowly now but finds no more reference to the accident in the weeks that follow. Then, under the date of August 9, she finds the following:
Executed final phase of Step 6 today. Summoned Leo to my office. Have refused to see or speak to him since Step 1. Jonesy, all smiles, showed him in (she knows what’s up!). Leo looked thinner, paler. Held out his hand to shake mine, then noticed portrait of “Our Founders,” which has been significantly altered. Portrait now titled “Our Founder.” They say, “I hate to see a grown man cry.” I didn’t. I liked it. Leo blubbered like a baby, said, “How can you treat your own brother this way?” I said, or in words to this effect, “Face it, Leo, you’re through in this company. I have no further use for you. This company has no further use for you. You’ve had it, you’re finished, you’re through, you’re out. Now go back to your office, clean out your desk, get out of here and never come back. I have the goods on you, you know. I know all about your dealings with those friends of yours. It’s all on record, it’s all written down. Now get out.” After he left, Jonesy stepped in and gave me a saucy little wink. She’s kind of cute. Tonight, Flo and I to celebrate with dinner at “21.”
But then, a week later, on August 15, he still seemed to be worried about Leo.
Could Leo sneak back and find these diaries? Too dangerous. Ordered locks changed on all doors—closets, too. Consider ordering wall safe with combination lock to keep these in.
And then, on August 27, she finds another entry that seems to allude to the accident, and to the fact that, even though Leo was now out of the company, her grandfather still feared him and his mysterious friends, and that Leo still wielded some ominous power over the family.
Leo has put 2&2 together re Alice—or thinks he has. Has approached Henry with threat. Wouldn’t dare approach me! Henry in to see me this morning, very frightened. Wrote Henry cheque for $100,000, which is what Leo wants. Worth it, I guess, to shut Leo up. But told Henry this is the end of it. No more where this came from! Besides, Leo has no evidence, only guesswork. Police have closed case. End of this.
There are only one or two other entries of interest.
September 20, 1941
Ordered combination wall safe today. Mosler people here to measure. Delivery: one month.
Then she has come, again, to the final entry of all, the one dated October 10, about her father borrowing money from his mother. But now, as she flips absently through the blank pages, she discovers a loose piece of paper placed between two of these. It is a letter, and she removes it and reads it. It is typed on a letterhead that rings only a faint bell in her memory.
THE KETTERING PLAY SCHOOL
24 East 39th Street
New York 16, N.Y.
Nathan Myerson, Esq. June 20, 1941
I West 72nd Street
New York 23, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Myerson:
Thank you for your interest in the attendance record of your niece, Mireille, at our School. Our records show that little Mireille spent a normal, happy day at School on June 3, and was collected promptly by her mother at 2:30 P.M. to be driven home.
Sincerely,
Edith Kettering
Headmistress
June third, of course, was the date of the accident, which had occurred at 2:45 P.M.
Suddenly Mimi realizes she is not alone in the room, and she looks up, startled.
“Hi, kiddo,” he says.
“How did you get in?” she cries.
“Just walked in off the elevator,” he says. “Nobody’s here but you, but the place is wide open. I guess they were counting on you to lock up the store.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Walking down the street and saw the lights on in your corner office. Figured you might be here, reading the diaries.”
“How very strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“Brad’s girlfriend has been watching our building from across the street, and now you’re watching my office.”
“Not watching, really. Just glanced up and saw lights on. I’m not as bad as our friend Mrs. Robinson, kiddo.”
“Is that her name?”
“Rita Robinson. Just like the song. ‘God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson, heaven holds a place for those who pray, ay-ay-ay.’”
“She’s married, then.”
“Separated. I gather she thinks she can land a bigger fish with Mr. Bradford Moore. Mind if I sit down?” He flops in her sofa without waiting for a reply, kicks off his Gucci loafers, and, lying back, stretches out on the sofa, his stockinged feet up on the arm. He glances at the stack of diaries on her desk. “Well, what did you think? Did you get through all of it?”
“Yes.”
“I warned you that there’d be some unpleasant things there, but you insisted.”
“But I don’t understand it all, Michael. For instance, what was Nate Myerson’s role?”
“Can’t you fit the pieces together, Mimi? Nate was Leo’s son. Both of them, père et fils, were probably pretty bitter about the way your grandfather was treating Leo. But Leo wasn’t the real blackmailer. The real villain of this story was Nate.”
“But what did Nate know?”
“Look,” he says, staring up at the ceiling from his sprawled position on the sofa, “this is what I figure must have happened. Your mother drove a black nineteen forty Lincoln Zephyr in those days, with a license number pr
etty close to the one those witnesses remembered. She picked you up at your nursery school that day. You were—how old? Three? Would you remember any of this? Probably not.”
“There’s a dream I sometimes have. It involves a car, my mother screaming, a dark shape across the windshield.”
“She picked you up at that school, headed uptown, and had the accident. Maybe she was drunk. Anyway, she left the scene, which is a bad no-no. I figure the first one to put two and two together was your father—with the license plate. And one look at the condition of his car would have told him something bad had happened. Maybe he confronted your mother, and she confessed and begged him to help her. Maybe the police had already called them for questioning. Anyway, your father was pretty scared and went to see his father the following day. The diary says he did.”
“Yes.”
“Your grandfather came to your mother’s rescue, in the only way he knew how: using those people he refers to as ‘Leo’s friends.’ A plan was worked out. Your mother was shipped off to Bar Harbor, where the servants were instructed to say that she’d been there for several days, maybe weeks, and was hundreds of miles away from New York at the time of the accident. Meanwhile, those friends of Leo’s went to work for your grandfather. A new pair of painted-over plates was slapped on the car, taken from a similar Lincoln that had been stolen in Brooklyn. The car was then driven to the West Side and abandoned, for the police to find it.”
“But how did Nate get involved in all of this?”
“I figure the second person to put two and two together was Nate. Nate and Leo then put their little heads together. Both Nate and Leo would have known what kind of car your parents drove, and either one of them, or both of them, could have recognized the license plate. The first one to put the screws on your father was Leo. He got his hundred thousand. But Nate had the foresight to write a letter to your nursery school and got exactly what he wanted: proof that your mother was in New York that day, and in fact had been just a handful of blocks away fifteen minutes before the accident happened. Using that letter, Nate was able to bleed your father for the next twenty years.”
Shades of Fortune Page 47
