1953 - The Sucker Punch (2 page)

"I mean it. I'm taking over from you right now, worse luck."

"We'd better go to the Shelley room then, and I'll try and put you wise."

The Shelley room was equipped from ceiling to floor with hundreds of filing cabinets. Every document, every receipt, every lease, in fact every scrap of paper to do with the estate was in this room.

Fifteen suckers had slaved here at one time or the other to produce a foolproof system, so when Miss Shelley suddenly took it into her head to call up and ask questions about this rent or that dividend, the guy who happened to be nailed to the job at that particular moment could give her the information with the minimum delay.

When Leadbeater started on file 'A' with every appearance of working his way through the works until he reached file 'Z' I stopped him.

"Hey, wait a minute," I said, sitting on the desk. "I don't want to know about all this junk. So let's skip it."

He stared at me as if I had confessed to murdering my mother.

"But you've got to know it," he said, his voice shrill. "These files are the foundation of the account. You don't know what you're saying."

I was puzzled why he had turned his back on me while he was talking.

"You've got to know where to put your hands on things," he went on, and there was a sudden shake in his voice that startled me. "You don't seem to realize the tremendous responsibilities that go with this account. Miss Shelley expects a very high standard of efficiency. The account is one of the largest in the country. It would never do to lose it."

I lit a cigarette.

"Between you and me it would be no skin off my nose if we did lose it," I said. "If you or Sternwood expect me to have sleepless nights over it you have another thing coming."

He didn't say anything. He stood very still, his back turned to me, his head bent, his hands clinging to the drawer of the cabinet.

I saw he was trembling.

"What's up, Tom?" I said sharply. "Don't you feel well?"

Then he did something I'll never forget as long as I live; something that sent a cold chill washing up my spine.

He lowered his face on to his hands and began to sob like a hysterical woman.

'What's the trouble, Tom? Here, sit down and take it easy."

I got hold of him and led him to the desk chair and got him into it.

He just sat there in a heap, his face in his hands, his breath coming in great rasping sobs.

There was something so pathetic and defeated about him that instead of feeling contempt, I felt sorry and alarmed for him. This wasn't just spinelessness. He was a man at the end of his tether.

"Take it easy," I said, patting him on his shoulder. "Relax, you big mutt. This is no way to behave."

He took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. It was a gruesome sight to see the effort he was making to control himself.

"I—I'm sorry ... I just don't know what got into me. I guess my nerves are shot," he said and mopped his face again. "I'm sorry Winters, to have made a scene like that. I didn't mean. . . ."

"Forget it." I sat on the desk. "You look about all in. Have you been working too hard? Is that it?"

"You don't know what she is like!" he burst out suddenly. 'I’ve tried so hard to please her! I've slaved for her! I wanted to keep this job. Sternwood promised me a raise at the end of the year. My eldest kid is going to school and the raise would have taken care of the extra expense. But Miss Shelley got to hear about the raise. She gets to hear about everything. She started picking on me. You don't know what I've been through this last month. And now it's over: without even a word from Sternwood."

"But why didn't she want you to have a raise?" I asked, wondering if overwork had sent him nuts.

"You wait," he gasped. "You're pretty confident now, but just wait.

She doesn't like anyone to be happy. She doesn't want anyone to be successful. You may think you can handle her, but in a little while, you'll find she's gaining control. She never leaves you alone. Even at night she'll call you up to ask you something, to remind you not to forget to do something. Three times this week she has got me out of bed between two and three in the morning. Twice she has sent for me during the day, and I've had to leave a stack of work and go out there and wait for hours, and then her secretary has told me she's too busy to see me. I've had to stay late night after night to catch up with the work because she's always hanging me up. In a few months, you'll be feeling as I am feeling."

"Do you think so?" I said, shoving my chin at him. "Well, you're wrong! Let me tell you something: I know how to handle women. This bitch won't ride me. You watch it and see."

chapter two

I
had a note in my diary to call on Vestal Shelley at 11 a.m. on 15th May.

During the week I had done very little work to prepare for the meeting.

I had learned to find my way about the files, but I hadn't attempted to memorize any details.

I didn't get much help from Leadbeater. He wasn't in a fit condition to do more than bring me up to date on a few outstanding points, but these points were important.

Recently Vestal had made three demands, and because Leadbeater hadn't been able to agree to them, she had brought pressure on Sternwood to get rid of him.

First, she was asking that a mink coat, costing twenty-five thousand dollars, she had recently bought, should be accepted by the tax authorities as a legitimate expense, and included in her expense claim.

As Leadbeater rightly pointed out, this suggestion was ridiculous, and the tax authorities would think the bank had gone crazy if they put forward such a claim.

Her second demand was to have all the rents of the Shelley Foundation, a two mile stretch of tenement houses on the lower East side, raised by fifteen per cent.

Leadbeater had reminded her that only the previous year she had raised the rents and could not do so again. He had the full support of Harrison & Ford, the estate management firm who handled the Shelley Foundation. They were emphatic that the rents were already out of all proportion to the conditions of the tenements, and the collectors would not be able to squeeze the extra money out of the tenants.

Her third demand was for the bank to sell a large apartment house, No. 334, Western Avenue, which her father had bought way back in 1914.

This seemed, on the face of it, a reasonable request as the property had sharply increased in value. There were, however, five tenants who had lived in the house since old man Shelley had bought it. The bank thought they should be considered. Vestal had received an offer for the house from Moe Burgess. The offer was a considerable one as Moe was anxious to turn the house into a deluxe brothel.

So apart from all the trick questions she might shoot at me, I had also these three points to get around if I were going to last any length of time working for her.

On the morning of the 15th, I took a taxi from the bank to civ one-room apartment soon after ten o'clock and changed out of my working clothes. When Leadbeater visited Cliffside, the Shelley residence, he always wore the conventional dark suit. I decided to give Vestal a complete change of scene.

I put on a yellow linen sports jacket with pouch pockets, a white sports shirt with a brown and yellow polka dot neck scarf, a pair of gabardine navy slacks and reverse calf moccasins. I looked a lot more like a successful movie actor than an unsuccessful clerk, and that's how I wanted to look.

The private road to the Shelley residence was cut out of the cliff face. It twisted and turned for three miles, climbing higher and higher until it eventually arrived at the elaborate wrought iron fifteen-foot high gates, some 900 feet above sea level.

As the taxi rounded the final bend in the drive, the first sight of the house stood me up on my ear.

I expected something pretty grand, but this wasn't a house—it was a palace.

It stood on an imposing terrace: a vast and magnificent pile of glittering white marble.

It was quite a walk up the hundred white steps to the terrace and front entrance.

Before I could hunt around for a bell or a knocker, one of the doors opened and Hargis, Vestal's butler, stood framed in the doorway.

He was a big, fat man with the cold aristocratic face of an archbishop, and his pale grey, coldly disapproving eyes ran over me like the Siberian wind.

"I'm Mr. Winters," I said. "Miss Shelley, please."

He stood aside, and I walked into a hall the size of Pennsylvania Central Station.

"If you will take a seat, sir."

He went away, his head held high, his back stiff as a ramrod.

I moved around looking at the suits of armour, the battleaxes, the pikes and the broadswords that gleamed dully from the oak-panelled walls.

There were several oil paintings of well-fed, handsome cavaliers that might or might not have come from the brush of Frans Hals.

The atmosphere of the house began to have an odd effect on me. I found I was regretting I had put on this sports getup. I was even suddenly scared of meeting Vestal Shelley.

I had a mental picture of Tom Leadbeater in his neat dark suit, clutching his briefcase in sweating hands, while he waited in this overpowering hall for a battle he knew he couldn't win.

Hargis returned after a few minutes.

"If you will follow me. . . ."

He set off down the passage and I went after him. We walked down a corridor wide enough to take a ten-ton truck and paused outside double oak doors.

Hargis knocked softly, turned the handle and pushed open the door.

"Mr. Winters from the Pacific Banking Corporation," he said, and he made it sound as if he were announcing a third-rate act in a fourth-rate vaudeville hall.

I braced myself and walked in.

The room was small, bright and full of flowers. Casement windows opened on to a wide terrace with a magnificent view of the garden and the distant ocean.

There was a big desk by the window and seated behind the desk was a girl whose dark hair was scraped back and whose blue eyes stared at me through hard, rimless glasses.

I looked no further than the scraped back hair and the glasses, and that's where I made a mistake. Knowing what I know of Eve Dolan now it seems incredible that I shouldn't have spotted that thing in her that was to play all hell with me in a few months' time. I don't care for women who wear glasses, so I didn't bother to look closely at her, and I thought the hard effect of the scraped back hair put her straight into the sour virgin class, and I am not and never will be interested in sour virgins.

"Mr. Winters?" she asked, and I could see she was staring at my getup.

"That's right."

"Oh. I'm Miss Dolan, Miss Shelley's secretary. Won't you sit down? Miss Shelley may be a little time."

I remembered what Leadbeater had told me; how he had waited hours and then was told to go away. That wasn't going to happen to me.

"When Miss Shelley wants me you will find me in the garden," I said and walked out on to the terrace.

I heard her say something, but I kept moving. I walked down the steps to the terrace and sat on the balustrade and lit a cigarette.

I was pretty keyed up, but I kept telling myself I wasn't going to be sent away without seeing this woman. I decided to give her fifteen minutes and no more before I took action. I watched the regiment of Chinese gardeners tending the lawn, the paths and the packed flowerbeds with slow and loving care. I smoked three cigarettes while the hands of my watch crawled on. At last the fifteen minutes were up. I walked back to Miss Dolan's sanctuary.

"Miss Shelley still not ready for me yet?" I asked, putting my hands on the desk and leaning forward so she could catch a sniff of the lavender water I had used after shaving.

"I'm afraid not. She may be quite some time, Mr. Winters."

"I would like a sheet of notepaper and an envelope."

That came as a surprise. After a moment's hesitation she indicated a rack containing paper and envelopes.

"Thanks," I said. "Do you mind?" I leaned forward and lifted her typewriter away from her, set it before me on the other side of the desk, pulled up a chair and sat down.

She began to say something then changed her mind. She continued to write in an engagement book, but I could see I had taken her right out of her stride.

I pounded out the following note:

Dear Miss Shelley,

I have been waiting to see you for the past fifteen minutes. Miss Dolan now informs me that you may yet be delayed further.

I am a man with a conscience, and I feel it is my duty to remind you that every minute I remain relaxing in your beautiful garden, I am wasting both your time and your money—particularly your money. There is an old saying that the stock markets don't stand still while investors sleep.

There is also a little matter regarding a mink coat that appears to need our combined attention somewhat urgently.

I signed this note, put it in an envelope, crossed the room and dug my thumb into the bell push.

A minute or so passed, then the door opened and a young footman came in.

"Take this note to Miss Shelley right away," I said.

"Yes, sir."

There was a long impressive silence as I wandered over to the casement windows and stared out at the gardens. I lit a cigarette to steady my nerves. I had hold of myself, but inside, I was pretty worked up.

Minutes ticked by. I kept my eyes on my watch and wondered if my bluff was going to fail. Then I heard a knock on the door and the door opened. An apologetic cough sounded just behind me. I turned.

The young footman stood respectfully at my side.

"Miss Shelley will see you now, sir. This way if you please."

I followed him to the door, then as he went on ahead I paused to look at Miss Dolan.

She sat motionless, staring at me, her face bewildered and perhaps slightly admiring.

I gave her a long, slow wink, and then set off after the footman.

I felt as if I were walking on clouds.