Bandbox (26 page)

“That nice Mr. Montgomery,” said Hannelore. “From your gentleman friend’s magazine? He has been an exception.”

“Oh,” said Betty. “Then he’s back.”

“No, still at home under the weather. But so kind as to send a telegram to my apartment when he heard the news.”

“He’s very thoughtful,” declared Betty. She was running out of things to say, but Mrs. von Erhard more than kept up her end with some chatter about Siegfried.

“There was nothing old-fashioned about Mr. von Erhard, you know. Back in Dusseldorf he was the first one to put air tires onto his bicycle, and over here he saw to it that we were the earliest in
our building to have a radio. So, you understand, I couldn’t have him moldering under the weeds up in Woodlawn. It didn’t seem
twentieth-century
. Whereas the Rose Hill Mortuary and Crematorium are right up-to-date.”

Betty was losing the auditory thread, since Hannelore was not only talking fast and with her accent, but addressing some of her remarks to what was left of Siegfried himself. Launching into a description of her husband’s fiery, up-to-date
Dämmerung
, the news vendor remarked to Betty, and reminded Siegfried, that “Mr. von Erhard’s remains were untouched by human hands. While the soul ascended to heaven, the ashes proceeded straight from the furnace to the urn. Via a stainless-steel spout,” she explained. “The ‘Felicity Shunt,’ the Rose Hill man told me it’s called.”

With Mrs. von Erhard tapping the urn again, Betty had missed nearly all of the last few sentences, and misunderstood her to say “publicity stunt.”

“Yes,” said Hannelore, no longer tapping, and looking straight at Betty now. “How Siegfried got here has been written up in the newspapers.” She meant a recent article on Rose Hill’s modern methods, but having heard “publicity stunt” and then, more clearly, this last business about a write-up, Betty concluded that Hannelore had been trying to draw attention to the newsstand by means of a feature about Siegfried’s new dwelling place here on the counter. She recoiled, and pretended that Mukluk was tugging on his leash. “I should be getting upstairs. My sincerest sympathies, Mrs. von Erhard. I hope that Siegfried will be happy here.”

“Danke,”
said Hannelore, back in her forelock-tugging mode.

Betty and Mukluk walked off to the elevator bank—followed closely by Chip Brzezinski, who did a fast skulk past the newsstand to avoid the Widow von Erhard’s notice. He entered the elevator, returned Betty’s smile, and took a position at the rear of the car. Mukluk, always overexcited to be on board, yapped so loudly that Chip
imagined trying to squeeze the thing into the shaft once someone got on at another level and created a gap in the flooring.

As they ascended, Chip looked over Betty’s shoulder at her
Daily News
, which she had open to the story of
Bandbox
’s search for John Shepard. Though he could see only the back of her head, Chip assumed she was concentrating on the article, especially Joe Harris’s quotes, whereas in fact she was looking over the top of the paper, toward nothing but the metal gate of the car, and continuing to marvel, distastefully, over Mrs. von Erhard’s conversation.

“A publicity stunt!” she muttered, louder than her poor hearing let her realize.

The elevator operator just smiled, but Chip—hearing the remark, and seeing the back of Betty’s head shake from side to side while she seemed to be reading about Harris’s hunt for that awful hick kid—was prompted to remember Max Stanwick’s recent remark to Spilkes:
I invented Mrs. Shepard
. Trying to suppress his excitement, he managed to put two and two together and come up with three grand—the salary he’d be able to command from
Cutaway
once he told Jimmy Gordon this whole “search” was a big con designed to increase the circulation of his dying rival.

An impending strike by the city’s tailors concerned Jimmy more for its potential effects on his own closet than on the fashion pages of
Cutaway
. The latter had already been sketched and photographed for the next several months, but Andrei, his personal, high-end Russian threadsman, was Bolshy enough to walk out with all the poor
Jews down on Seventh, leaving the gray silk suit he was making for Jimmy in some uncuffed limbo until who knows when. So, having planned to spend Friday in the city but out of the office, Jimmy decided he would drop in on Andrei prior to boxing a few rounds at the Athletic Club, after which he’d head back to Garden City on a mid-afternoon train. With Joe so satisfyingly on the run, he could afford to spend a few hours shoring things up at home.

Informed of Jimmy’s absence by the
Cutaway
receptionist, Chip felt like he’d been thrown on the rack. Now he’d have to spend the weekend holding down this giant canary of information he’d swallowed in the elevator, a frustration that would get all the worse when it combined with his nervousness that some cop who’d noticed him deposit Siegfried on East Thirty-second Street might still show up at his door.

“Have you seen Siegfried?” All morning long the question lilted across the fourteenth floor, as one person after another reported making a stop at the newsstand and spotting the tall ceramic urn. Daisy owed him big, Chip decided once again, as he listened to this chatter. And he wanted to collect: any dirt on Harris—and he felt sure she had some—would be ice cream atop the slice of pie he was ready to serve Jimmy. But Daisy, claiming a cold, hadn’t returned to the office since Siegfried’s amorous demise.

What a bunch of weak sisters, thought Chip: Newman absent with his drunkard’s shattered nerves; Paulie out with the flu. But waiting for Jimmy made Chip feel like an invalid, too. By 3:30 he could take no more: he left the office and went across town to Penn Station to get a train for Long Island. Jimmy was now grand enough to be unlisted from the latest phone book, but once Hazel went out for lunch, Chip had found she still had his Garden City home address in her file box.

He arrived in the fancy suburb as it was turning dark. Walking up Stewart Avenue past some huge mock-Tudor spreads, he figured
Jimmy would trade up to one of these before long. For now, though, his future boss could be found in a modest frame house whose sidewalk Chip paced four or five times before deciding he’d get arrested for casing the joint if he couldn’t bring himself to ring the bell.

“Well, hello!” cried Jimmy’s wife. “This is certainly the day for unexpected visitors!” She told him to come inside, where she was letting her sons spoil their supper with cookies and milk. Chip remembered her from two Christmas parties ago. Prettier than she should be; sweeter, too. She made him feel even more thwarted and angry.

“He’s in his den,” she said, “behind that door on the right. I’ll let you take yourself in there, since my hands are full with these two.” She laughed, tilting her head in the direction of the noisy boys.

Now that he was here, Chip didn’t care if he interrupted Jimmy clipping his toenails or talking to his bookie. He strode up to the door of this “den” and knocked twice. A moment later it was opened—by Paul Montgomery.

“Welcome to dry land,” Jimmy called out from a chair at the far end of the room.

Chip looked perplexed.

“He means congratulations on deserting the sinking ship,” Paulie explained. “Guess we know what that makes us!”

Chip wanted to bust him on the beezer. Why wasn’t he home sick in bed?

Jimmy broke the silence. “And what are
you
selling, Brzezinski?”

Unable to answer in front of a third party, Chip just looked at Paulie, who was wearing the suit he’d had made in London; all day Tuesday he’d been waving around that swatch of fabric, bragging.

“We’re trying to decide,” said Jimmy, “whether I can run Montgomery’s article about getting his suit made if I cut Joe a check for his trip expenses. It’s a little unorthodox, but it might keep Oldcastle’s lawyers away.”

“It’s your call, boss!” said Paulie.

Chip finally spoke. “Oldcastle’s lawyers are going to have more than that to worry about!”

“Right,” said Jimmy. “Joe’s payoffs.” He smiled over his part in their disclosure.

“Payoffs nothing!” yelled Chip. “He’s now in on the biggest fraud since Aimee Semple faked her kidnapping!”

Jimmy waited a minute, pretending to be unexcited. “Tell me more,” he then said.

“Can I sit down?” asked Chip.

“You can even have a drink,” said Jimmy.

Chip declined, but he could feel those mere words welcoming him to the company of gentlemen. His future had finally stretched itself out like a red carpet.

“This John Shepard business is a fake,” he said.

Jimmy smiled again, but managed to keep his teeth hidden, as if they were his cards in the negotiation. He was going to make Chip earn it. “I’m listening,” was all he said.

Without further interruption, Chip proceeded, until his narrative had covered both Betty’s muttering about a “publicity stunt” and the “I invented Mrs. Shepard” remark from Stanwick to Spilkes.

“So,” said Jimmy at last. “They’re going to try and ‘rescue’ the kid, like Tom Sawyer from the cave, to make readers believe the magazine would do the same for them, be their selfless friend in a cutthroat world.”

“This is a disgrace!” opined Paulie. “Think of how Joe’s always priding himself on the ‘real journalism’ they run.”

“Oh, shut up, Montgomery,” said Jimmy Gordon. “If this thing is a fake, it’s the best idea Joe’s had in six months.”

“It’s pretty ingenious all right,” said Paulie.

“But
is
it a fake?” Jimmy wondered, as he looked toward his bookshelves and tried to figure things out.

“Of course it is!” shouted the Wood Chipper. Had he given away this bonanza for nothing? Was Jimmy going to say, Thanks, I’ll think about it, and just let him go back to the city?

“Well,” said Jimmy. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll set Mr. Montgomery to find out if it’s true or not. That’s your first assignment, Paulie, after the article about your suit. Expose the story behind Joe’s story.”

Paulie gave him a thumbs-up.

“What about me?” asked Chip, with more menace than he could conceal.

“You’re going to hope like hell that Paulie succeeds,” said Jimmy. “If he finds out this story’s a phony, it’s the
coup de grâce
for poor old Joe. You’ll be a rat with a
new
ship—the jolly, bobbing
Cutaway
.”

Chip’s expression turned so hopeful that he would have looked almost sympathetic to anyone seeing him.

“And we won’t keep you in the hold,” promised Jimmy. “We’ll let you scurry right up the masthead—long tail, twitchy little snout, and everything.”

“Welcome aboard!” cried Paulie.

Chip smiled so wide he didn’t care if his two cracked molars showed. For the first time in eight hours he didn’t feel like hitting somebody.

“Thanks, Betty, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Hanging up the phone, Becky could scarcely believe that today—February 20th, another awful Monday in this raw, endless winter—she
had just agreed to browse the
Pinafore
dress racks for outfits she could take with her to sunny southern California. Late Friday afternoon Harris had stunned her with an assignment: go out to Hollywood and report on Blanche Sweet and Dorothy Gish, two nice-girl actresses now struggling to get racy vehicles,
The Green Hat
and
The Constant Nymph
, past the Hays Office and into production. The decency czar would soon be in Washington to testify about all the money he’d once scooped up for the GOP—in Liberty Bonds, no less—from a big oil man who’d later gotten some choice Teapot Dome leases. Becky felt shaky on the politics but understood Harris wanted her to keep the focus on two pretty girls caught in the hypocrisies of flesh and finance. The as-yet-unreported, unwritten piece was already on a lineup sheet with the title “Temptations and Teapots.”

She crossed the corridor to Cuddles’ office carrying a plant she hoped he would water while she was gone. Relying on him for this task wouldn’t win her any commendation from the Botanists’ League, but maybe Cuddles would see the request as a sign of confidence.

“Would you mind?” she asked.

Cuddles stroked his chin, considering. “It’ll be risky. But okay. I’ll borrow one of Kitty Sark’s two remaining lives for it.”

Harris made a sudden entrance. “You all ready, kid?” he asked Becky. “Come into my office for a pop at five o’clock. We’ll see you off.”

She smiled, not quite believing how, after a cocktail, she’d be escorted downstairs to Grand Central for the 6:00
P.M
. departure of the
Twentieth Century Limited
, just the way it happened for Paulie and Max and David Fine.

“Betty’s lending me some things to wear,” she told the boss.

“Have her pick out some schoolgirl stuff,” Harris replied.

Becky blanched. What was
this
salacious fantasy? Just when she’d been thinking so well of him for the shot at something big!

“To wear in front of Rosemary LaRoche,” he explained. “So she won’t think of you as vampy competition—devastating though you may be, Miss Walter.” Seeing her puzzled look, Harris elaborated: “I’m sending you out there with
two
assignments. You’re the new writer on our Rosemary cover story. I’d say congratulations, but I’m still not sure she’ll agree to go through with it. Actually, I’m not sure I’d say congratulations even then—seeing as how in order to
get
the story you’ll have to be in the same room with that tramp.”

Becky, flustered but determined not to blush, said, “I’m not sure—” and then stopped, uncertain of what to add.

Cuddles finished her sentence: “ ‘That I could live without this opportunity.’ ” He looked straight at her. “Say thank you, Gracie.”

“Thank you,” said Becky to Harris. “But what’s happened to Newman?”

“He’s announced he’s taking a leave of absence. Not that he could be bothered to tell me personally, of course. I’ve been informed of it through Miss O’Grady, who’s apparently trying to keep him off a cot at the Salvation Army. She says LaRoche is the last thing he could handle at this point. By the way, he’s the last teetotaler I ever let work at this place.”