Too Soon Dead (24 page)

Scented candles were burning on sconces high on all four walls and the smell of oranges hung heavy in the room. A large bar occupied one corner of the ballroom, and its three bartenders were doing a steady business. A dozen musicians were clustered on a small platform in another corner, playing the sort of music that one could dance to, or sleep to, or talk over. Most of the guests were busily talking over the music. Some were in evening clothes, having already dressed for dinner, which was, according to my watch, about an hour away. The women’s gowns were revealing without being daring, a good thing in most cases, and what was revealed was festooned with jewelry. I could not see Brass or Gloria or Cathy in the room, nor was Elizabeth anywhere about.

A small door at the far end of the great room opened, and a conclave of men engaged in earnest conversation entered. The word spread in an echoing whisper from one group to the next: “It’s Lindbergh!” “It’s Lindy!” Within a few moments the scattered groups had all ceased talking and all heads had turned to face the royal presence. The musicians continued on for a moment but then, as though afraid to play into the silence, or perhaps they had just reached the end of their set, they stopped.

The conclave, made up of Senator Childers; John Pall, the governor of New Jersey; William David Sattler, who was a columnist for the
New York Graphic
, and whose politics were slightly to the right of Benito Mussolini’s; and Colonel Charles Lindbergh, moved slowly through the room like a great ship coming into harbor. They were accompanied by two hard-faced, flinty-eyed young men in blue suits, who eyed the rest of us suspiciously and kept their hands near their sides. All lesser groups parted for them, and some of the men nodded slow nods as though they would have liked to bow but realized that it was somehow un-American.

Lindbergh was talking. His voice was not loud, but it was very positive, and in the expectant silence it filled the room. “Of course the Germans aren’t even supposed to have an air force,” he said. “But the Versailles treaty is pretty much a dead issue, with no Allied powers interested in enforcing it. And the planes that Herr Goering showed me—he’s the minister of the air force they’re not supposed to have—they call it the
Luftwaffe
—can fly higher, faster, and farther than anything we’ve got, and carry a heavier load.”

“You believe that air power is going to be important in the next European war?” Senator Childers asked. He didn’t seem to be in any doubt that there was going to be a next European war.

“Important? It’s going to be decisive!” Lindbergh said firmly.

By now they had reached somewhere around the center of the room, and there they stopped. The people in the room gathered around them like iron filings to a magnet. Preferring not to be part of a group, and not to get into any sort of discussion with Senator Childers at the moment, I skirted the room, heading for a door that might lead to somewhere else inside the house.

“I don’t think that Herr Hitler wants a war,” Lindbergh said assuredly. “He told me that he doesn’t, and I believe him. But he is determined that Germany regain her prestige, lost at the Treaty of Versailles. Germany is, and deserves to be, a great power, and her new chancellor is going to see that she is treated like one. Germany wants what’s hers, what was taken away from her by the treaty, and England or France would be well advised not to fight over it.”

“What about his treatment of the Jews?” Governor Pall asked. “I understand that German Jews are no longer allowed to practice law or medicine or hold government jobs.”

“Well,” Lindbergh said, “that may be so. But aren’t there too many Jewish lawyers anyway?”

The crowd chuckled at the witty remark. The whole thing had the feeling of a set piece to me. Childers had maneuvered Lindbergh into the room and steered the conversation. Now everybody present would be able to say, “I was talking to Lindy the other day at Senator Childers’s—yes, that’s right, Colonel Lindbergh—his friends call him Lindy—and he told me…” I might even work it into a conversation myself. Perhaps Pinky would be impressed. I wondered if Lindbergh thought there were too many Jewish clowns.

When I reached the side door I had picked, I forewent the pleasure of listening to the rest of Herr Lindbergh’s discourse and left the room. I found myself in one of those corridors that exist only in the very large houses of the very rich, a hallway placed for the passage of the servants so they can scuttle about out of sight of their betters. I followed the corridor until it terminated in a large kitchen, which I entered. A couple of dozen chefs, cooks, and assorted food choppers, slicers, and arrangers of both sexes and several different races were frenetically and loudly engaged in the process of food preparation and nobody paid the slightest attention to me.

I picked my way carefully through the kitchen, avoiding anyone who was yelling or handling a large knife. Past the stoves and the prep area a bank of ice boxes were set into the wall, and a couple of large electric refrigerators sat next to them in case the ice ran out. Past them a door led into a large pantry, in which a squad of workers, mostly young women, were giggling among themselves while carefully arranging endive salad on a collection of plates. When I entered the room all giggling stopped, and they stared covertly at me. Perhaps they thought I was a spy for management. I said, “As you were, ladies,” and strolled through the room. But the giggling did not resume until I had passed through the far door.

I was now in what must have been the servants’ dining area, a large room full of plain wooden tables and plain wooden chairs. A score of men in chauffeurs’ uniforms were scattered randomly about the room reading newspapers, drinking coffee, smoking, and talking. Garrett was at a table by himself in the far corner, musing over a notebook. I went over.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Garrett looked up. “I have been contemplating the squid.”

“The squid?”

“Yes. Or cuttlefish, if you like. I have constructed a poem.”

I sat down. “About a squid?”

“Indeed.” Garrett held up a hand to silence me, and then, with exquisite enunciation, read from his notebook:

“An unlikely fish is the cuttlefish,
That sly, surreptitious and subtle fish.
Quick as a wink
He’ll immerse you in ink,
Thereby escaping the chafing dish.”

He looked at me expectantly. “I think you’ve captured it,” I said.

“Notice the interior rhyme in the first two lines,” he said. “I’m particularly pleased with it.”

“And well you should be,” I told him.

He eyed me suspiciously. “If you don’t like it—”

“Oh, no!” I said. “I like it. Honest. It says something to the youth of America.” I stood up. “How do I get out of here?”

“That depends on where you want to go,” Garrett said reasonably. “There are changing rooms upstairs where gentlemen can change for dinner. In my capacity as chauffeur, I brought the bags up. You and Brass are in the same room. You might go up and try to convince them that you are a gentleman, as dinner rapidly approaches.” Garrett put his cap on so he could touch the brim of it in mock salute. “Have a good time, sir. I’ll stay here with the rest of the servants and eat my gruel.” He grinned at me, took the cap off, and went back to his notebook.

Once again I realized that there was much more to Garrett than met the eye. And considering how much met the eye, the man was impressive indeed. If it wasn’t for a supreme lack of interest in using his brain for anything beyond what caught his fancy from moment to moment, Theodore Garrett could have achieved greatness in any of several fields. I said something like that to him once, and he told me that in working for Brass he had achieved peace and security and a good supply of booze, and enough occasional excitement to keep his mind and body stimulated, and that was all he wanted.

Garrett pointed me toward a door which led to a hall, which opened onto the main hall, which terminated in a staircase that you could have rolled an elephant down, if you happened to be into that sort of sport. I went up the staircase, keeping a close watch for elephants, and found two neatly printed signs at the head of the stairs. One said
MESDAMES
and had an arrow pointing to the left, and the other said
MESSIEURS
with a right-pointing arrow. Next to the signs stood one of the liveried minions, presumably to make sure that my French was up to the task. I trotted down the hallway to the right. There were cards with names on them tacked to the doors, four names to a card.

After passing eight or nine doors I came to one with a card reading
BRASS/DEWITT/CONVERS/PIGGORTY
. I entered. The room had a brass bed and a bureau and makeup table of some well-aged dark wood, and a wash basin under the window. For some reason there was an old oaken rocking chair in the corner. Brass was standing in front of the makeup table and staring into the mirror, tying his formal black bow tie. Convers and Piggorty, whoever they were, were not in evidence. My suitcase was in the corner.

“Good evening, DeWitt,” Brass said. “I trust you’ve had an interesting afternoon.”

“You could say that,” I told him. “Have you and the girls had any luck?”

He shrugged into the single-breasted dinner coat that he claimed was as close to informal as one could get at a Republican dinner, even one that claimed “dress optional,” and stared critically at himself in the mirror. “I didn’t really expect anything to come of this, but I was mistaken,” he said. “We have learned many things, one of which is of particular interest, although I’m not sure just what to make of it yet.”

I tossed my suitcase on the bed and undid the catches. “What’s that?”

“Gloria pointed out—” Brass paused to consider. “No, wait until we go downstairs and I’ll show you. Your independent confirmation, uncoached, would be valuable.”

“Fair enough.” I pulled my dinner clothes out of my suitcase and stared critically at them. “My dress trousers and my dinner jacket are both creased,” I said in mock annoyance. “Where were the servants?”

Brass stared at me thoughtfully for a moment. “We are the proletariat,” he said. “We are here for our entertainment value only. If we were one step lower on the ladder of social importance, we would have had to enter through the kitchen and dress in the butler’s pantry.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I’m sure the senator wants to treat you right.”

“I don’t think Senator Childers would go out of his way to deliberately insult me,” Brass said. “But I think that treating me, or any other columnist or reporter, right is pretty far down on his list of necessities. His interest is in influencing the owners of the newspapers, not the workers.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right,” I said. “About an hour ago I overheard him refer to you as ‘that son of a bitch Brass,’ and yet here we are about to eat his food.”

“Oh?” Brass said. “And under just what circumstances did you happen to overhear his remark?”

Good question. How much of my recent experience should I share with my boss? I’d have to think that one over. “It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Brass checked his watch. “Meet me downstairs when you’re ready,” he said. “There’s a half hour of cocktails before dinner. Don’t drink; I need you alert.”

“I am always alert,” I told him, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off my shirt.

“Nevertheless,” he said, and exited the room.

B
rass, in evening dress, looks like royalty; I look like an organizer for the Amalgamated Waiters’ and Kitchen Workers’ Union. I’m not sure what it is about formal attire that brings out the Bolshevik in me; perhaps it’s the fear that any moment I’m going to be denounced as a fraud. Even though I now own my own tailor-made black single-breasted dinner coat with matching vest and trousers with a black silk stripe running down each leg, along with cummerbund, cravat, and patent leather oxfords, I am not comfortable wearing this rig. I play dress-up regularly as part of my job: at Broadway plays, nightclubs, the Metropolitan Opera. But evening dress still leaves me uncomfortable and unsure. I feel as though I’m in costume but whoever is in charge has forgotten to tell me what the play is or what part I’m supposed to be playing.

I stared at myself critically in the mirror as I tied my bow tie. I was not particularly handsome, nor was I particularly ugly. It would have been nice to be one or the other; being nondescript was to be unnoticeable, to fade into the background.

I pondered this as I made my way downstairs and followed the slow drift of humanity to the dining room. The room was not as large as the ballroom, and the ceiling was not as high, but if it were emptied of furniture it still would have made a useful roller skating rink.

Two large rooms flanked the dining room, each with its own bar; servitors weaved through the rooms with trays of hors d’oeuvres, and the dinner guests wandered about the three rooms with cocktail glasses in one hand, little plates of hors d’oeuvres in the other, and fixed smiles on their faces. The men were all in their penguin disguises, and the ladies were gowned and bejeweled in a dazzling display of Republican austerity. The waiters and bartenders were easy to differentiate because, not only were their faces varied shades of brown ranging to black, a feature not shared by any of the guests, but their dress suits were purple. Purple. Their bow ties were white and oversized, stretching across about eight or ten inches of shirt and jacket front.

I spotted Brass and Gloria from across the room at about the same time they spotted me, and we weaved our way toward one another. Gloria wore a red evening dress of some soft material that emphasized this and that, and suggested these and those. Cathy was not in sight. “There you are,” Brass said. “I was beginning to wonder what happened to you.”

“I’ve decided to organize the waiters,” I told him. “We’re going to strike for higher pay and the right to sing while we work.”

Brass nodded. “Each of us must carry on the fight for truth and justice in his own way.”

“Sing?” Gloria asked.

“That’s right,” I said. “If these gentlemen are required to look like a cross between a minstrel show and a chorus from a bad Sigmund Romberg operetta, they should be allowed to sing. Where’s Cathy?”