The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes (3 page)

“Not a new,” she responded. “But here’s the mail.” She indicated a wicker basket stuffed with envelopes on one side of her desk. It is part of my job to sort the mail and answer that part of it not destined for other ends. I took the basket and retreated to my little cubbyhole office in the short hall between Gloria’s well-appointed reception room and Brass’s vast sunlit chamber with a view of the Hudson River, which flowed past some three blocks away for Brass’s personal amusement.

Brass came in about an hour later and settled in his office. I brought him the three letters that he had to look at, and placed them carefully on the blotter in front of him. He was staring out the window at the passing scene. A couple of old four-stack destroyers were puffing their way up the Hudson, working their way past two tugs that were pushing a long row of barges the other way. It was very nautical. Inspired, I snapped to attention and saluted. “Good morning, Commodore Brass,” I said. “Ensign DeWitt reporting for instructions.”

“Good morning, Mr. DeWitt.” He turned to look at me. “Go keelhaul the mizzenmast. And don’t annoy me until at least twelve bells.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” I said. I did a smart about-face and went back to my office to begin answering the stack of letters. A little while later I heard the steady clatter of Brass’s Underwood typewriter over the intermittent clacking of my own. It was a sweet sound, the sound that paid my salary as well as that of Gloria and Garrett. It also kept Brass well supplied with those toys that made his life worth living. In addition to the cars—he now had six—he had recently developed an interest in science and scientific instruments. A couple of months ago he had purchased a six-inch reflecting telescope from a pawn shop—Brass was fascinated by pawn shops—and had installed it on the terrace of his Central Park South apartment. Last Tuesday night, he showed Gloria and me the moons of Jupiter with paternal pride. He had some old maps of Manhattan, purchased from a Cortlandt Street dealer, and was tracing the island’s early streams and water-courses to find out what happened to them as the city spread its concrete around and over the original landscape. What, if anything, he intended to do with the water when he found it I don’t know.

About an hour after the typing started, he called me in to pick up the column, triple-spaced just like a real reporter would type it, and bring it to Gloria for copy editing and fact checking. I was expected to read it and comment if I saw anything I didn’t like, but usually he just glared at me or shook his head sadly when I did. Gloria’s opinion he respected, mine he tolerated.

I paused at Gloria’s desk to see if he had included anything about Two-Headed Mary. The opening piece said nice things about Senator Huey Long, who was not expected to live out the day. The piece on Two-Headed Mary was the third item, sandwiched between a favorable mention of Clarence Day’s new book,
Life with Father
, and a long think piece on how the world was getting ever smaller, what with the S.S.
Normandie
just crossing the Atlantic in four days, eleven hours and thirty-three minutes, and the
China Clipper
flying boat going into regular service between San Francisco and Manila. The piece on Mary read:

THE GREAT WHITE WAY is missing one of its lights tonight. We know her as Matinee Mary and, in the casual, uncaring way of New Yorkers, know little more about her except that for much of the past decade this earnest matron in the print dresses and flowered hats has stationed herself outside Broadway’s theaters during intermissions and dunned the matinee audiences for worthy causes. She learned what shows would open the purses and wallets of the audience and which would not, and stood, rain or shine, where she could do the most good. She has a kind heart, and has been known to help a chorus girl in trouble with advice, friendship, and perhaps a folded-up bill slipped into her hand.

But for the past week Matinee Mary has not been standing under the broad, protective awnings of the Broadway theaters, and no one seems to know where she has gone. Mary, the chorines at the Broadhurst and the Belasco miss you. Forty-sixth Street is a little darker without your smile. We hope you’re o.k., Mary, and we want to see you back under the awning of the Majestic or the Alhambra with your collection tube and your sempiternal smile real soon.

“Matinee Mary” was a pretty good invention. Brass couldn’t very well call her Two-Headed Mary in print, not without explaining the name, which wouldn’t have been nice.

“So,” Gloria said, seeing what I was reading, “Two-Headed Mary is missing. Maybe one of the audience members actually read what it says on that collection tube of hers.”

“They might have punched her out,” I said, “but they wouldn’t have kidnapped her.”

“You never can tell,” Gloria said. That being the unofficial motto of the office, I couldn’t argue with her. The joke is that kind, sweet Mary was a con woman. But she gave her marks a fighting chance. If anyone ever stopped to read the legend wrapped around her donation tube they would have known that this was no ordinary charity that Mary was collecting for. “Give,” it said, “GIVE—for the Two-Headed War Orphans of Claustrophobia—Give—GIVE.”

And thus her nickname.

* * *

The column appeared on Wednesday, September 11. By that afternoon we were fielding phone calls from actors, dancers, stage managers, and other people in “the business,” as the showbusiness folk call their occupation, as though it were the only business on the planet worth considering. And a few from those denizens of Broadway whose professions couldn’t be classified, at least not if they wanted to stay out of jail. None of them had any worthwhile information regarding Two-Headed Mary’s whereabouts, but they all wanted us to know that they thought well of her. By the next morning, we had several letters from chorus girls, and one from a chorus boy, detailing how Two-Headed Mary had helped them with money, advice, or a place to stay when they were in need. I gave the letters to Brass with a note clipped to them that read: “St. Mary of the Grift. Maybe we should pass the story on to Damon Runyon.” He walked by my cubical later and glowered at me and muttered “Runyon indeed,” under his breath.

The next day, which would make it Thursday, at noon I was in the outer office discussing with Gloria the sensitive question of the acquisition of office supplies when the slender, well-groomed scion of the aristocracy, K. Jeffrey Welton, appeared in the doorway. He sported a red and blue striped tie and a red carnation boutonniere in the lapel of his gray cashmere suit jacket. His shoes were glossy black patent leather. His was the sort of elegance that makes we mere mortal men identify with toads; and we envy him but we do not like him. Women, I believe, feel differently—although how a woman can like a man who is habitually prettier than she is, I do not understand.

There are those who claim that the United States of America has no aristocracy; they are misguided. The Weltons and the Vanderbilts and the Astors and the Rockefellers and one particular set of Adamses and some Dutch families whose ancestors were burghers in Nieuw Amsterdam, and some others whose families have been here so long that their names no longer reverberate in casual conversation, are the American aristocracy. Some of these families are social, and are high up in the society Four Hundred, some irrepressible souls make up a part of café society, some pay lawyers and other servants large retainers to see that their names do not come before the public at all.

The Weltons made their money manufacturing shoes in Massachusetts. Welton boots covered the feet of both Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, and American, British, and, it has been alleged, German soldiers during the World War. There was a congressional investigation about the latter incident, but it came to naught.

“Ta, all,” K. Jeffrey said in his clipped, slightly nasal, aristocratic voice. He leaned on his walking stick and smiled into the room. “What’s the good word?” Welton’s father still made shoes, but K. Jeffrey had taken his pittance of the family fortune and shifted it from the shoe business to the show business. You can imagine how his family must have felt about that. But whatever they felt about his choice of profession, they couldn’t argue with his success. He had come straight from Yale to Broadway and started in the esoteric field of play production about the same time I came to New York and began working on the Great American Novel. I had never gotten past page sixty in any of my attempts. K. Jeffrey had already produced four plays: one flop, two that just eked out their nut before closing, and a reasonable success. The success, the musical
Lucky Lady
, was even now in its sixth month at the Monarch Theater.

“Mr. Welton,” Gloria said, smiling sweetly up at him as he approached her desk. “Mr. Brass supplies the words, we just work here. What can we do for you?”

“This bloody Mary business,” he said, leaning on the desk and smiling down at Gloria. “Has she turned up yet?”

“Two-Headed Mary?” I asked.

“That’s her,” he agreed. “Very clever calling her ‘Matinee Mary,’” he said judiciously, “but then your boss is a clever man.”

“If she has reappeared we have not been told,” Gloria said. “Would you like to speak to Mr. Brass?”

“Sure thing,” Welton agreed. “If the old man is in, I’d like to chew the fat with him.”

“I’ll see,” I said, rising from the chair I had deposited myself in upon Welton’s entry.

“Are you in?” I asked Brass, who was staring out his window at something in New Jersey. “K. Jeffrey Welton would speak with you.”

“What does he want?” He asked, swiveling around in his chair.

“He didn’t say,” I said. “Just that he wants to chew the fat with the old man. By which, of course, I knew immediately that he meant you. Sir.”

Brass grimaced thoughtfully. “I’ll come out,” he said. “It will be easier to get rid of him.”

Welton was leaning against Gloria’s desk when we emerged, watching her. His pose was artfully casual, but there was something about his look that suggested that Gloria was a piece of cheesecake and he had just realized he was hungry. Gloria, who was used to being a piece of cheesecake in men’s eyes, was smiling up at him with a smile of devastating innocence.

Brass took in the pose at a glance. “Welton,” he said. “There’s a biblical injunction against coveting thy neighbor’s employee.”

“He wants me to star in his next show,” Gloria said, batting her eyelids theatrically. “Little me! Imagine!”

“Get it in writing,” Brass advised. “I’ll have Syd negotiate the deal for you.” Syd Lautman was Brass’s attorney, and a very good and thorough one he was.

K. Jeffrey grinned. “You people don’t let any grass grow under your palms,” he said. “A little friendly proposition between a man and a woman, and all of a sudden it’s a business deal.”

“Predatory, we are,” Brass said. “Ready to take advantage of the innocent Broadway producer. What can I do for you, Welton?”

“Mary,” Welton said. “I understand she hasn’t turned up yet.”

“True,” Brass agreed.

“The girls in my show are worried about her. They suggested I put up a reward for finding her. The idea being if I can do it for someone who’s a thief, I can do it for someone who’s a good Samaritan. And from the stories the girls tell me, Mary is an angel in disguise.”

“A thief?” Brass paused. “Oh, that’s right.
Lucky Lady
is your show. You mean the Trask girl.”

“That’s right. Billie Trask. Nice kid—I thought. Stole a weekend’s worth of box-office receipts, among other things, and disappeared. I have posted—I guess that’s the word, although I didn’t actually post anything anywhere—a thousand-dollar reward for finding her and my money.”

“Were the receipts that much?” I asked.

“A little less,” he said. “Which means, if they find her with all the money, I won’t quite break even.”

Brass frowned. “Didn’t you have insurance?”

“Sure. It covers the theater rental and utilities for two days. Paying the cast and crew and the investors, I’m on my own.”

“Do you really think she did it?” I asked.

K. Jeffrey thought that over for a moment. “I certainly hope she didn’t,” he said. “As I say, I liked her. But the police think she did it. Apparently she had a secret boyfriend, and they think she ran off with him.”

“Do you want me to put that in my column?” Brass asked. “About the reward for Mary?”

“What do you think?” Welton asked. “Why don’t you wait a few days? Perhaps she’ll return on her own.”

“All right,” Welton agreed. “If you think so. We’ll give her the weekend to show up. Listen, keep me informed, will you?”

“And you,” Brass said. “If you hear anything about either of our two mysteries, let me know.”

Welton nodded. “Turnabout, and all that,” he said. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Well, must be going. Ave atque vale, old amicus.” And with that, and a wave of his hand, he was out the door.

“It shows,” Brass said, “the advantages of a Yale education. One can say goodbye almost entirely in Latin.”

Two hours later, Sandra Lelane came to the office. Gloria was off researching something about the Spanish navy for Brass, so I was sitting at the reception desk at the time. Miss Lelane was demurely dressed in a green frock that went well with her shoulder-length light brown hair and soft hazel eyes, and she was wearing what to my untrained eye looked like the minimum of makeup. If I hadn’t recognized her I might have guessed her to have been a shop girl or a princess, and she would have done either very well. I stood up when she walked in. I would have taken off my hat if I were wearing a hat.

She approached the desk and the slight odor of lily of the valley came along with her. “I would like to see Mr. Brass,” she said. Her voice was soft and pleasant, and lower than I remembered.

“You’re Sandra Lelane,” I said.

She smiled and the room got warmer. “You know me,” she said.

“I have seen you,” I said. “In
A ll the King’s Horses
and in
The Good Word.
And you were at Ira Gershwin’s birthday party last year. You sat on the piano and sang ‘A Wonderful Party’ and ‘The Half of It Dearie Blues’ and a couple of other of the Gershwins’ stranger songs. I sat in a corner and worshiped you from afar.”