Chapter Nine: A Change of Tune

Tuesday morning was one of those times in your life you’d give most anything to blot out from your memory. I have a few of those. Unfortunately, I also have a fairly good memory.

I drove down to Chase Street early and found a diner with windows facing the brokerage office across the street. I bought a paper from the newsie on the corner, and at ten after six I was seated in a booth where I could get a good view of both ends of the block. I stretched a light breakfast to nearly an hour and a half, ready to slap a fifty-cent piece down on the counter and tear out the door if I saw what I was looking for. My stomach was pretty well knotted up, and a little food, leisurely taken and thoroughly chewed, would help. I had to force myself because I had no real appetite. I sipped enough coffee for the waitress to keep refilling it, giving me a reason to keep my booth.

So Myers and Wiedermann had skimmed this cash over a week ago. Why wait so long to go for the big score? They’d probably taken time to run it through a couple of other banks first, trying to muddy the trail so it couldn’t be traced back to them. Of course, I had no way of knowing if the big play was going to happen today, but if it was I couldn’t afford to miss it. I was prepared to stake that brokerage office out all day until it closed if necessary. If the embezzlers didn’t show today, I’d come again tomorrow morning, only I’d tell Nathan first to keep them at work all day no matter what, and once I called him to verify they were at the bank, I’d break into both their houses and search until I found that goddamn money. Wiedermann’s kids would be in school most likely, and I’d either wait for his wife to go shopping or knock on her door and send her on some urgent errand. Hell, I’d tell her she had a gas leak and had to clear out for a couple hours if need be. If I could just buy this one day, I might have a chance.

Just my luck, turned out the calendar wasn’t selling any Tuesdays that week.

I forced myself out of the diner and ambled slowly up and down the block, peeking into shop windows and going inside the places where I could still see out. There’s nothing for the nerves like forcing yourself to shuffle about listlessly when you’re wired like a thousand watts of neon. I was a guy who’d lost his job, I decided, just killing time because he hadn’t the guts to tell his wife yet and was still making like he was leaving for work every morning. That would explain my pointless meandering, a man with all kinds of time on his hands and nowhere to go.

On my third pass by a haberdasher I picked up the spotter, another guy in no hurry to get anywhere or do anything, but careful not to give up a good vantage point. When you run a phony brokerage office or a fake betting establishment, or any of the elaborate fronts that confidence men refer to as a “store,” you have to keep genuine customers from wandering in off the street. Only the mark can be allowed inside. Big cons are meticulously planned affairs involving dozens of men playing their parts, and every variable must be controlled – a strange ingredient dropped into the soup could queer the whole deal. The first step is to keep a low profile. The “store” is in some unassuming, out-of-the-way location where legitimate clientele aren’t likely to find it in the first place. This usually plays well with the mark, who is convinced he’s being let in on the town’s best kept secret. The next step is to have people keeping an eye from the outside, ready to head off any curious passers by. You seal this up by paying off the local police, steady cuts to the chief and every beat cop working the neighborhood. The law in this part of town knew exactly what went on inside that brokerage office. More importantly, they knew that if they let anyone louse things up, they’d go back to relying on just their salaries.

Oh, things still happen now and then, sure. But confidence men are masters at improvisation, and they’ve come up with an array of counter-actions for every conceivable circumstance. They can simply be rude until a real customer decides to take his business elsewhere. They can demand ridiculous amounts of identification and other documents until someone gives up and walks out in disgust. They can close down the office in seconds due to some unforeseen emergency. They can even use their ties with the police to stage their own raid on some pretext or other, and either watch the unwelcome intruder scram or see that he’s hauled away if necessary. They’ve been at this for awhile, you see.

I learned all this from my time at Pinkerton’s, working on the fringes of enough cases to pick up quite a bit. The Pinkerton’s Ops who were full-time on this kind filled me in on a lot, too, and now and then I’d even sat in on the questioning of con men who’d been caught red-handed and were ready to sing a bit – some even to downright brag – in exchange for a little consideration from the law.

So long as I didn’t cross the street or otherwise go anywhere near the brokerage office, I should be able to avoid attracting the spotter’s attention. He’d be watching carefully if a big play was happening today. He may even have help. I had no idea how big an operation this particular store ran. Did they have sheep lining up to be sheared every day of the week? If not, could they afford to keep the store open just to keep up appearances? Paying the dozen or so shills pretending to be employees and investors? Not likely. Apart from the unnecessary expense of it, an open store with no play going on would increase the chance of walk-ins – attention they didn’t need. No, the store was for the benefit of the mark; if he wasn’t going to be there, neither would they. And this store was definitely open for business. All morning long I’d watched men walk in and out, caught movement through the tiny windows. Okay, so they had at least some action scheduled for today. Could be nothing more than a few convincers, letting some newly-acquired mark buy a small amount of fake stock and double his money a few hours later, setting him up for the big play down the road.

To me, wishful thinking is an awful lot like voting: it makes you feel good, but rarely seems to accomplish much. Shortly after nine o’clock that morning, I was admiring a display in a storefront window when the reflection showed me both Myers and Wiedermann rounding the corner across the street, one carrying a fat valise. I moved quickly while trying not to seem like I was, passing by the spotter without a glance in his direction. I had maybe twenty seconds to catch up with those two bankers before they got to the brokerage office, and probably not much more time once I intercepted them. This had to be the big play. Apart from the valise, it was risky for both these men to miss work on the same day at the same time (which also told me they didn’t trust each other enough to let just one of them bring the money alone).

Hands in my pockets, I put on a bit more steam as I crossed the street diagonally, cutting the two men off fifteen feet from the brokerage office door.

“Good morning, Mr. Myers, Mr. Wiedermann,” I called out, blocking their path.

“Mr. Shaw?” Myers spoke first. Wiedermann gave a small nod a half second later as recognition kicked in. I could see Wiedermann’s chubby hand gripping the valise tighter and both men fidgeted slightly, eager to be on their way. I’d already worked out what I was going to say to them: Change of plan, gentlemen. New instructions from Clay Stanton. Today’s not the day. Hold onto the money and wait till he contacts you.

I only needed a few seconds, a few seconds I didn’t get. Before I could get a word out, something settled heavily on my shoulder. I looked down and saw the business end of a billy club mashing the fabric of my suit jacket.

“Mighty careless of you, crossin’ in the middle o’ the street like that. Sure, an’ people get killed doin’ that.” I turned around slowly and stared into the face of a brawny Irish street cop. The spotter must have given him the high sign as soon as I stepped off the curb.

I offered the cop a friendly smile. “I do apologize, Officer. I’m from out of town, you see. I’m afraid back in Kansas City, we are a little careless about that.”

“Ye can afford to be when yer dodgin’ nothin’ but cows and women on bicycles. We got traffic here, Mister. The motorized kind, don’t y’know.” I didn’t take the bait; it was clear the cop was looking for any reason to haul me in. He looked past me at Myers and Wiedermann. “You two gentlemen can go about your business. It’s this fella here I’m needin’ to speak to.”

It wouldn’t work to give them the message now; they were already on edge seeing me turn up out of nowhere. And the law showing up two seconds later? Whatever I blurted out now would just confuse them, and it wouldn’t stick. Someone inside the broker’s office would come out onto the sidewalk if he had to and set them straight. I’d be painted as a jealous business rival of Stanton’s, trying to louse up one of his hot deals. Telling them the truth, that this was all a con, would confuse them even more, and the end result would be the same.

I had an impulse to grab that valise right out of Wiedermann’s fat hand and hightail it down the street, but I knew it’d be a no-go. I’d have a burly cop hard on my heels, and probably half a dozen more once O’Malley here started blowing his whistle. I could see the spotter checking us out from across the street. He’d join in the chase, too, and even if I could outrun them all, it seldom does you any favors to run from the law in a strange city. No, there was nothing for it but to let the train ride the rails to its inevitable wreck and try to keep myself from being arrested.

Myers and Wiedermann, both agitated, excused themselves and proceeded up to the door of the phony brokerage office. The cop blocked me, in case I got the notion to take off after them.

“What’s your name then?” He punctuated the question by pressing the end of his billy club into my chest.

“Shaw, Officer. Kelly Shaw.” I dropped my shoulders, calm and relaxed, not even glancing toward the brokerage office. There could be nothing about me suggesting I was a man whose plans had just been gutted.

“Let’s see some identification.” The billy club pressed into my chest again.

“I’m afraid I left my wallet back at my hotel,” I said with a fool’s shrug. “Found that out five minutes ago when I tried to buy something for the missus back home.”

“Uh huh. An’ what was yer business with them two gentlemen just now?”

“I just wanted to say hello.”

“You know them well, do you?”

I shook my head. “Only met them the other day.”

“And they made such an impression you just had to dart across a busy thoroughfare like the devil himself was on your heels? Just to say hello?”

“I’m a stranger in town,” I shrugged. “Saw a couple of friendly faces.”

It went back and forth like that for another minute, the cop trying to goad me into losing my temper, me giving innocent answers to his questions. He softened the tiniest bit when I mentioned my sainted mother, rest her soul, from Wexford.

“Irish, was she?”

“And proud of it.”

“And your father?”

“English.”

“Charitable woman, your mother was.”

“That’s how she saw it.” He smiled a bit brighter, told me he guessed that no real harm had been done, advised me to show some sense from now on (“What would yer dear mother say, watchin’ from heaven and seein’ you get yer fool self run over in the street?”), and let me go. I tipped my hat and ambled down the sidewalk without a backward glance at the door with the tiny sign on it. The money was well and truly gone.

I grabbed a bite of lunch before returning to my hotel, where no less than four messages from Nathan were waiting for me. I sighed, walked over to the house phone, and dialed.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” Nathan complained. “Both Myers and Wiedermann left the office right after they came in this morning.”

“They tell you where they were going?”

“Apparently there was some Chamber of Commerce meeting they needed to attend. It sounded suspicious to me, because neither of them had mentioned it to me before.” My brother, the detective.

“How did they seem when they came back?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“All smiles and good cheer? Practically walking on air?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

“That won’t last.”

“What do you mean? Have you seen them?”

“Saw them both this morning, and they weren’t at any Chamber of Commerce meeting.”

“I knew it!” Nathan sounded pleased with himself. That wouldn’t last either. “So where did they go?”

“Not over the telephone. Nathan, let’s you and I have dinner downtown tonight, just the two of us. Can you call Marie and let her know?”

“Sure.” He gave me a time and place.

“Make sure it’s a place where you can get a drink, Nathan. You’re going to need one.”

My brother is a patient listener, I’ll give him that. We hadn’t talked since Sunday, and I took him through the whole story in detail. The report I received from Townsend, seeing Stanton with Myers and Wiedermann at the restaurant last night, bribing the waiter after hours, a highly condensed version of Ethan Ryland’s tale, and the whole fiasco this morning – right up to the cop stopping me on the sidewalk. He sat in silence all through dinner, not once interrupting me, his face showing nothing but the polite interest he might have shown one of his customers at the bank. It started to unnerve me a bit. Was he going into shock or was he just not following any of this?

The plates were cleared and Nathan nodded politely to the waiter, indicating he, too, would have coffee to go with his brandy and seltzer.

“Dev, I have a few questions I’d like to ask.” It was his banker’s tone; apparently my collateral was looking a little shaky.

“Shoot.”

“Did you manage to verify somehow that the Clay Stanton you saw at the restaurant last night is the same Clay Stanton your client – Ryland, was it? – that he mentioned?”

“Apart from the description, that he works in Baltimore, and that he advises people to make investments at a phony brokerage firm, no.”

“Baltimore’s a big city, you know. It has a fair-sized population.” Another cow-town crack about Kansas City. I was starting to get a little sick of those. Nathan continued: “And did you manage to verify that this brokerage office you saw today was definitely not legitimate?”

“I didn’t go inside to trade any stock if that’s what you mean.” If I’d tried, Nathan would be posting my bail right about now.

“And I don’t suppose you actually looked in the valise to see if it was filled with money?”

“Yes, yes, Nathan, I did. I asked them real nice-like and they dumped it all out on the sidewalk for me. The three of us sat down on the curb together and counted it. Thank God it wasn’t windy.” Now I was really starting to get steamed. I’d taken time off work, flown all the way out here, done everything I could to try and help, had my initial advice ignored, and tried my best to head off an even bigger disaster. And Nathan had the gall to start talking down to me? Asking me chump questions like I was some school kid lying about his homework? I thought about walking out of the restaurant, sticking him with the bill, and heading right back to K.C. I took a sip of brandy and waited for him to push me over the edge.

“Dev,” Nathan put up a patient, condescending hand, “I’m just saying that it seems all you have here is conjecture. We don’t even know for a fact that Myers and Wiedermann are involved in the disappearance of the money.”

“Then why did they sell you that hooey about the Chamber of Commerce meeting this morning?”

“I’ll certainly speak to them about that tomorrow,” he said firmly. “But maybe they just got hold of a good stock tip and wanted to make an investment on their own. It was wrong of them to leave work to do it, yes, but that doesn’t make them embezzlers, and it certainly doesn’t make them victims of a confidence scheme.”

I sat there almost wanting to laugh, marveling over how my brother’s mind works. Why no, Waiter, we don’t know for a fact that this is food you’ve just served me. All we really know is that it’s a warm, pleasant-smelling substance served on a plate at a restaurant. Let’s not go drawing any wild conclusions now.

“I did mention,” I began patiently, “that the spotter put a cop on me the second I crossed the street? That this cop was on me like gravy on biscuits the instant I tried to talk to Myers and Wiedermann?”

“You were breaking the law,” Nathan answered, his face showing amused bewilderment. “You jaywalked. In front of a policeman, no less. Did you expect him to let you finish your shopping, wait for the right moment to approach you about it? And this spotter, did you even talk with him? He could have been anybody.” There are people who have an answer for everything. More often than not, they’re the kind of people who’ve already made up their minds what the facts are, and long before hearing any of them.

“I’m sorry, Dev,” he went on, “but this whole confidence setup you’re talking about…dozens of men using phony offices and bringing in one victim after another in broad daylight, and no one nearby notices any of this…it doesn’t strike you as a little fanciful?” It’s too bad Marie doesn’t let him smoke cigars, I thought; one would have gone well with the brandy in his hand and the self-satisfied look on his mug.

What Nathan didn’t understand, what most people don’t, is that cities are like mazes: you only see the part you’re looking at every day. And because of that, you forget there are other parts. You may not even be aware of them to begin with. Church-going grandmothers never see the back alley crap games at midnight. Cat burglars never sit in on troop meetings of local boy scouts. Soda jerks don’t watch the county coroner cut open a dead body on a sunny, Tuesday morning. Nobody sees all the levels, all the layers, all the nooks and crannies, even if a few of us see more than most. But that doesn’t make the parts you don’t see any less real.

I had an idea. “Tell you what, Nathan. First off, don’t say anything to Myers and Wiedermann about them missing work today. Give it at least one more day. Promise me that, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Second, check out First Quality Investors tomorrow on Chase Street. Make some calls if you want. Better yet, go down there yourself. Walk in and buy some stock, something small. If you can manage this, it proves the joint is on the up and up, and I’ll admit I’ve manufactured this whole scenario and we’ll start from scratch. Fair enough?”

Nathan’s eyes glittered at the chance to make of fool of me over this.

“Fair enough.”

I didn’t fly back to Kansas City that night. I settled for sticking him with the bill.

Nathan was singing a different tune the next afternoon. Christ, he was sitting in with a whole different orchestra! The trip to Baltimore paid for itself at 1:35 pm on Wednesday, April 3rd, 1935. As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the image of Nathan standing at the sergeant’s desk at the local police station after I’d just posted his bond.

I’ve seen my brother’s indignation more times than I can count, seen him self-righteously lousy with it. But at that moment, I could have lit a cigarette off the back of his neck. I didn’t say a word until we were outside and all the way to my rented car.

“Nathan, when you telegrammed and asked me to fly out here to bail you out of some trouble, I never thought–”

“This is an outrage!” he exploded. “I am a respected member of this community! A vice president at one of the oldest financial institutions in Baltimore! A law-abiding citizen, taken into custody like a common criminal!” Why was I not surprised he worked his position at Beldham & Morrissey into his tirade?

“A little louder, Nathan. One of the shopkeepers might be snoozing in the back room.”

He whipped his to the left and right, mortified, then lowered his voice and hissed at me over the roof of the Terraplane.

“Somebody is going to pay for this! I don’t care how long it takes, I don’t care who I have to go to! I will clear my good name if it takes the rest of my days on earth!”

“Get in the car, Nathan.”

I settled in behind the wheel, wincing as Nathan slammed his door shut. I pressed the starter and pulled into traffic, casually asking: “So what was the charge?”

“Disturbing the peace.” He answered, biting off each syllable with disgust. I damned near had to stuff the end of my necktie into my mouth. “And there wasn’t a soul around except myself and the arresting officer! And what is so damn funny, Mister?”

“I’m sorry, Nathan. This is an outrage. We’ll get a lawyer and fight this thing to the bitter end.”

“Damn right we will!” Two damns in two minutes, two more than I’d heard Nathan use since I got here. He turned to me hotly and demanded: “And what have you been doing all day?”

“Oh, hanging around the hotel, waiting for you to call.”

I could feel him staring at me.

“You knew this was going to happen?”

“Knowing you?” I asked. “I’d have been willing to put greenbacks on it.”

“Then why didn’t you say something last night?!” he demanded angrily.

I turned to look at him while we waited out a traffic light.

“I said a lot of things to you last night, Nathan. You ready to listen to some of them now?”

He chewed that over while I drove him back to the bank (he’d taken a cab over to the phony brokerage office, not sure of the neighborhood and so not wanting to park his own car there). He had a brief panic attack just before we arrived. What if the newspapers got hold of this? What if his employers found out? I calmed him down, assuring him that I knew how to handle this kind of situation. Nobody would find out anything if he did what I told him to, and yes, I promised I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to Marie.

I parked the car half a block down from the bank.

“So where do we stand on the other issue?” he asked.

“Same as before,” I told him. “Don’t say anything to anyone, not until we’ve had a chance to go over the situation in detail.”

“If it really is as you say,” Nathan said, “Myers and Wiedermann will be damn sorry they ever set foot in my bank.”

“Please don’t talk like that, Nathan.”

“What?”

“It’s just that, well, jail hardens a man. I’d hate to see that happen to my only brother.”

He slammed the door again before stalking off. For a moment, I sat there shaking with laughter. When I could drive again, I pulled out my handkerchief, wiped my eyes, and put the car into gear.

After dinner that night at Nathan’s house – and our usual war council on the back porch – I was back in my hotel room, pacing the floor and thinking. Mostly I was thinking about those three altered documents in Nathan’s desk. How would they look in court? My brother would need a good lawyer, and that lawyer would need to pay for a first-rate forgery expert. Bank examiners would have to be brought in to try and trace the missing money, and Nathan’s lawyer would probably have to use a subpoena to get a look at any evidence that was turned up, which could take awhile. Nathan’s reputation and work history would weigh heavily in his favor, but would they weigh heavily enough? Even if they did, it was going to cost Nathan some real dough to get out of this mess. And an outfit like Beldham & Morrissey, where probably at least half the board members had bragging rights to ancestors on the Mayflower? Even if he were cleared in full of any wrongdoing, just the hint of such scandal could cost him his job. Would another bank hire him on? Sure, probably one of them. For a lot less money and responsibility. No more new Hudsons, maybe a smaller house, a lot fewer family dinners in restaurants.

I wanted to throw something but settled for punching my right fist into my left palm. It hurt. Must have flattened a blood vessel, dammit. I massaged my left hand just below the fingers and started thinking all over again. Keep it simple, Dev. Keep it clear. And find a goddamn answer! Your pompous, know-it-all older brother needs you. And so does his family. So unless you want to be responsible for Little Mary Caine sleeping out on the sidewalk and catching the malarity, think of something. Anything.

I started pacing again, looking around the room at various objects, trying to get my brain started. The money is gone. A confidence man named Clay Stanton has it. There’s no way to get it back, not now. The two men responsible have framed Nathan and just might make that stick.

There really isn’t much to look at in your average hotel room. A bed, a desk, a bureau, a few chairs, a picture or two on the wall that you’d be embarrassed to hang in a kid’s treehouse. The contents of my pockets were spread out on top of the bureau. My wallet, a pen, a lighter, half a pack of Camels and the change I’d received from the tobacconist (three ones, a Liberty silver dollar, some quarters, a nickel and a dime), a pocket comb, and a small brown notebook. And the pint of scotch I’d picked up around the corner, close to a third gone now. I looked at the glass in my hand and decided the bottle could spare some yet.

Ideas don’t always start as a faint glimmer, nor do they always blaze suddenly into your head like a bright light. Sometimes they’re just there. And they’re too goddamned silly to bother with, so you ignore them. Only you run out of other options so you keep coming back to them. And each time, without realizing it, you shore them up a little. A four-by-four here, a sandbag there. And each time your mind comes back around to it, your goddamn silly idea is just a little sturdier, gets just a little harder to push away.

For a long time I found myself making notes and drawing diagrams on the hotel stationery. A general notion, bits and pieces forming and reforming in my head as I grabbed a fresh sheet off the bureau, sifted for the right materials to build with now that I had some shoring in place. At the end of two hours, I had a pile of sheets I could take to Webster’s, offer to sell them the whole mess if they needed a new definition for “long shot.”

Because it was a far-fetched plan from the very start, I’ll give you that. The odds of success were never very high, climbing only fractions of a percentage point as I refined the notion. But the thing of it was, the risk was equally low. If it didn’t work – and it almost certainly wouldn’t – Nathan would be no worse off than before. Surely I could convince him it was worth a try?

Or would he even need convincing? Now that my brother’d had a taste of the criminal life, he might be itching for a chance at some real action. I had an image of Nathan on a Wanted poster. Then I had an image of him standing in front of that poster in a neighborhood shop, criticizing the grammar. Then I looked at the more-than-half-empty scotch bottle and decided I’d done enough planning for tonight.

I’d see how my plan looked tomorrow when the sun hit it.