The Big Brush-off Read online

  “I’ve been away: Hollywood, Hawaii…”

  “I mean away from…”

  “Laura?”

  “From”—she closed her eyes as if searching for the proper words—“the distractions Laura’s profession brings to your life, your career.”

  Maybe she was right. Because of Laura’s success, I didn’t worry about things I should have, like book sales.

  I let out a deep breath. Four years ago Mildred had talked me into leaving for Florida for a few months. A few months turned into nearly two years, and I’d almost lost Laura.

  In Florida I was a nobody and thrived on the anonymity. Now I couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, either as Jake Donovan, mystery author or, more frequently, Jake Donovan, husband of movie star Laura Wilson. “So, what are you saying?”

  “Empire Press has taken a few hits since the Depression spread.” She let out a long sigh. “I can’t offer you a new contract.”

  That was it? After working together for five years and four novels, Mildred was giving me the brush-off.

  “Jake, I like you, but I like my corner office much better than the typing pool.” She returned to her chair. “I’m giving you another chance. Empire Press is giving you a final opportunity. Find someplace you can be Jake Donovan, instead of a movie star’s husband. Get in touch with Blackie Doyle. Take your time, and resubmit new chapters in ninety days.”

  I rose and shook her hand. I gazed around the room. “I’m going to get you a bigger office.”

  Mildred laughed, something she rarely did. “Do you want your chapters?”

  I swept them into a trash can beside her desk. I grabbed the bottle of whiskey, poured a shot into the second glass, and downed the bourbon in one gulp.

  She walked me to the door. “Blackie Doyle would’ve thrown those pages in my face.”

  I wasn’t Blackie. I was Jake Donovan, not so long ago Empire Press’s rising star. There wasn’t any more to say. I got canned and was unemployed, like millions of others in the country.

  My pride took the brunt of the pain. I’d taken a fall I never envisioned. This was how Dempsey must’ve felt when he lost the title to Tunney.

  An hour ago, I was the luckiest man in the world. Now I was like so many others, hopes dashed and futures uncertain, but I was still better off than most. Mildred had given me another chance, an opportunity I wouldn’t squander.

  I took a quick glance at the urn on the bookshelf. Unless I came up with something in ninety days, my writing career was deader than Mildred’s dog.

  Chapter 2

  But I’m Jake Donovan

  I left the building wondering if I’d ever return to Empire Press. Minutes later I stepped off the curb, jolted back to the present by the blast of a taxi horn and the shout of an angry cabbie.

  All around were unfamiliar buildings. I’d walked several blocks without realizing it. I dropped down on a bench outside a five and dime store. Ignoring the passersby, I glanced at my expensive shoes, black-and-white wingtips from Italy I’d purchased to impress Mildred.

  I stared at my reflection in a department store window, barely recognizing the man staring back. Fancy pin-striped gray suit, button-down starched white shirt, a fedora with a black silk band, gold cufflinks, and a fifteen-jeweled Bulova Sky King watch that cost more than my first car. I used to think a lot more about money when I didn’t have any.

  To understand what brought me to this crisis, I sat on the bench and revisited the old days. Once the war ended, I left the army and talked my way into a job as a Pinkerton detective. After my old man passed away, I opened my own agency with Mickey O’Brien and rekindled my relationship with my old high-school flame, struggling actress Laura Wilson. No fancy clothes back then for either of us.

  The twenties were good to Laura and me. A month before the stock market crash in October of ’29, I followed Dashiell Hammett’s advice, left my gumshoe life behind, and signed a contract for my first novel. The popularity of my books was due to Mildred and the character I invented, Blackie Doyle.

  Literary success, fame, and fortune, three things I never strived for. By then, however, Laura and I shared an apartment. Royalties paid our expenses and allowed Laura to pursue her acting without struggling to make ends meet.

  Laura’s career on Broadway took off and she soon made more than me. The dough was nice, but our new wealth insulated us from problems most of the country’s citizens faced.

  I removed my hat and ran a hand through my hair, paying little attention to a woman in a simple cotton dress as she passed by. She stopped, opened her purse, dropped a quarter into my hat, and walked away.

  I grabbed the coin, jumped to my feet, and hurried after her. When she stopped at a bus stop I held out the two bits. “Thanks, but I don’t need charity!”

  She closed my fingers over the quarter. “Everyone needs help, young man.”

  “But I’m Jake Donovan!”

  She flashed a wistful smile as a bus pulled up. “We all used to be someone, Mr. Donovan, before the Depression hit. I used to sing in a speakeasy. Now I mop floors in a hotel.”

  She climbed aboard the bus before I could return the coin and explain. The driver glared at the quarter in my hand. “You coming or not, buddy?”

  When I shook my head, he closed the bus door and pulled away from the curb.

  I stared at the quarter a moment before stuffing it in my pocket. Once again, I studied my reflection, this time in a pawnshop’s window. My gold watch was a present from Laura, the cufflinks a birthday gift from Cole Porter, but I had bought the hand-sewn Italian shoes. The truth was, I’d grown comfortable in my fancy clothes and expensive accessories. Success changed me and, without realizing it, success had changed Blackie Doyle.

  I hailed a cab. While the cabbie chatted about how the Yankees would never be the same without Babe Ruth, I closed my eyes, trying to figure out what made Blackie so popular with readers: his heart, his guts, his desire to aid those who needed help the most.

  In my first novel, he was just another gumshoe struggling to pay his rent. However, when someone shot the bartender at his favorite hangout, in the alley behind the bar, Blackie took on the case. The cops thought he was wasting his time.

  As a detective, I cared about some cases more than others, but I always felt sorry for the clients I worked for, people with no place else to turn for help.

  While the cabbie talked baseball, I gazed at the people on the sidewalks, men with old scuffed shoes, frayed cuffs poking from sleeves of threadbare suit coats, and women who looked like they hadn’t worn a new dress in years, and probably hadn’t. Most were struggling to make ends meet, like Laura and I had long ago.

  Now we’d tasted success. We liked snazzy clothes and the best restaurants, but underneath our fancy duds, we were still a couple of kids from Queens.

  Yet, as the cabbie dropped me off, here I was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria. In spite of the jolt about my career hanging by a thread, I had it better than most folks, who’d gladly change places with me.

  I entered the hotel, wondering how to break the news to Laura. There was no easy way to let your new spouse know your profession might be a thing of the past.

  As I crossed the lobby, a man’s voice called to me. “Mr. Donovan.”

  I needed an autograph seeker at this moment like I needed a bunion. I sped up and pretended not to have heard, but when he called again, I looked back at a familiar face—two familiar faces I hadn’t seen in nearly ten years.

  Oh, sure, I remembered Father Ryan from St. Catherine’s Church in Hanover, Pennsylvania, but beside him, behind a huge Boston fern, sat someone who instantly wrenched my mind off my career uncertainty.

  Some folks were unforgettable and Mary Caldwell was one of them. The white-haired woman looked thinner than before, frail really. It didn’t take a detective to see the change in a decade wasn’t just from the ticking of years, but something grimmer. Age and grief didn’t cause the deterioration in her appearance. I’d seen the
look before.

  Illness was evident in the pale skin and the pain behind her swollen eyes. The first and only time my father allowed himself to be admitted to a hospital, he wore the same look. If my instincts still functioned, Mary didn’t have long to live.

  Father Ryan helped her to her feet as she struggled to rise from a soft leather chair. She leaned on a cane and managed a smile.

  The middle-aged priest, with dark hair and green eyes, shook my hand with a prizefighter’s grip, an unusual trait for a man of the cloth. I’d never been able to read the guy—but then I never understood men who took vows of chastity seriously.

  I smiled at the woman. “Mary Caldwell, what a surprise.”

  She’d always been a proud woman, and in spite of her obvious ill health, she still appeared to be a confident, speak-your-mind kind of person, the kind who resented being helped to her feet.

  I’d let her down, not solving the case of her daughter’s murder. Mary was my last Pinkerton client before my old man’s stroke forced me to return to New York. It was rough leaving in the middle of a murder investigation, but I did the right thing. Three months after I returned home, my old man passed away.

  She summoned all the strength I suspected she could muster. “It’s been such a long time. I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

  The day we met was still vivid in my memory. She came into the Pinkerton office in Philly seeking my help finding the animal who murdered her daughter. The Hanover cops had given up way too soon. Mary Caldwell didn’t have much money. No one else in the office wanted to touch the case, but something in her eyes drew me in.

  I saw the same look in her eyes now. Why had they traveled hundreds of miles to see me?

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask someone who lost her daughter in a brutal murder a decade earlier how she’d been.

  Children shouldn’t die before their parents. How tragic. The woman’s end was near and she didn’t know who killed her daughter. I felt guilty. Except for the recurring dream, I’d barely thought about her all these years. “It’s been a long time, Mrs. Caldwell.”

  She nodded. “You always called me Mary, remember?”

  I smiled. “I sure do, Mary.” I tried to read Father Ryan. “What brings you two to New York?”

  The priest rubbed the back of his neck. “I admit I sometimes read the society pages. I saw your wife was filming a movie in the city and you were working on your next novel.”

  “The movie is just wrapping up.” The novel was in a state of disarray.

  Father Ryan looked hopefully toward Mary. “Perfect.”

  What was perfect?

  The frail woman swayed and the priest helped her to a chair.

  Mary’s eyes watered. She snapped open a purse and dabbed her eyes. Her face hardened like wet cement on a cold day as she stared at my new shoes. “Look at you. You used to be a detective with only a couple of suits.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve done well since you abandoned me in Hanover ten years ago.” She made it to her feet. “Come on, Father. I told you it was a mistake.”

  Father Ryan chided her in a calm voice. “Now, Mary, we’ve come all this way. You sit and let me talk to Mr. Donovan a minute.”

  She dropped back in her chair and dismissed us with a wave.

  Mary Caldwell had a right to be angry over her daughter’s unsolved murder, but why blame me?

  Father Ryan led me through the crowded lobby. We stopped several feet away and he lowered his voice. “Every year the church hosts a memorial service to Katie. Each service fewer people attend. This one will mark ten years since she lost Katie. Mary never gave up hope the killer would be arrested, but now…” He swallowed hard. “A few months ago, she received some bad news, Mr. Donovan.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to be around to see justice done unless the murderer is uncovered soon.”

  Had they come to New York City to ask me to reopen my investigation? “Anyone talked to the police recently?”

  Father Ryan smiled. “Being a thorn in their side has been Mary’s life work the past ten years. She hounds the police every chance she can. I talked to the sheriff before we left, and he didn’t sound hopeful.”

  I blamed myself. I’d spent a week in Hanover and had made enemies in the peaceful town. When I left, I had every intention of returning to the case in a few days. When I got back to Queens, my old man was sicker than I thought, and I ended up quitting my Pinkerton job. I stayed with him until the end.

  Father Ryan peered through the crowd and waved to Mary. “It was her idea to come speak with you. She seemed convinced you’d want to come back to Hanover and solve the murder. I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how stubborn she can be. She would’ve come without me, and she shouldn’t travel alone.”

  Across the lobby, Mary coughed into a hankie.

  “How much time does she have?”

  “A few months, maybe weeks. Jake, I explained that you’re no longer a detective and you live in California now. You and your wife have your careers, but it’s hard to say no to Mary. Maybe she needs to hear it from you.”

  “Hear what, Father?” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m too busy to care?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I took off my hat and ran a hand through my hair. I couldn’t return to Hanover. Laura was just finishing her movie. After a few days with Gino and friends, we planned to return to Hollywood so she could meet with her manager and the studio about her next film. Me? I had a novel to write, a character to find again, a career to salvage. “Maybe Laura and I could stop off in Hanover for the memorial service on our way back to California.”

  Father Ryan glanced at Mary and smiled. “How kind and generous of you, Mr. Donovan. It would mean a lot to Mary to have someone who…”

  “Who what?”

  “You were one of the few people in the past ten years who offered Mary hope.”

  I felt like a heel, putting my career and Laura’s ahead of someone who really needed my help.

  I crossed the lobby and stopped beside Mary’s chair. She gazed across the spacious room, ignoring me.

  I gave it my best shot. “Mary, I could make some calls. I know a few detectives who owe me a favor.”

  She coughed into her hankie, an ugly, painful sound. Father Ryan stood beside her with one hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

  Her eyes locked on mine. “Don’t do me any favors.”

  When the coughing ended, Mary balled the cloth, pulled herself to her feet, and leaned on her cane. Her rigid jaw softened. “I thought…” She let out a heavy sigh. “You were my last hope, but like everyone else, you…you moved on.” Her chin trembled. “The Hanover cops closed their file six months after Katie died, six months!”

  Mary’s eyes glistened. “They never gave a damn. Sorry, Father. Whoever killed my Katie is someone important in town, someone who got away with murder, and I’m just a nobody…but you’re somebody…now.”

  I shared her suspicions that someone influential in the community had killed her daughter. I had three prime suspects before I left. One of them was standing beside her, and it wasn’t me.

  She exchanged a glance with the priest. “I shouldn’t have come here, Jake…Mr. Donovan. Father Ryan tried to explain, but I wouldn’t listen. I’m a silly old fool.”

  She clamped her eyes shut a moment and color returned to her face. She spoke in a whisper. “It seemed like a good idea when I boarded the train, but your face tells me my daughter’s murder isn’t important to you.”

  “It’s not that.” I couldn’t drop my obligations to Laura and to my writing.

  “I understand.”

  “My wife and I would like to come to Hanover for the memorial service on Sunday.”

  Through misty eyes, Mary managed a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Donovan. That’s very kind of you.”

  She struggled to her feet and handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s my address.” She squeezed my hand and
made her way through the busy lobby.

  Father Ryan gave me an apologetic shrug. “Thank you for your time.”

  They crossed the lobby and headed down the sidewalk. After they disappeared, I stared at the front door. I couldn’t get the woman’s pained expression out of my mind. Reconnecting with Blackie Doyle and reviving my career seemed shallow and insignificant.

  Chapter 3

  Roses Are Red and I’m a Little Blue

  In the corridor I stood outside our suite for at least a minute, trying to figure out how to explain my meeting with Mildred to Laura. Another couple stepped off the elevator and as they hurried past gave me the eye, like I was some kind of jewel thief.

  I unlocked the door and went inside. The scent of roses hit me like a slap across the face. At least one more vase of flowers had been delivered since I left. The latest issue of Variety magazine sat on the table with dozens of cards and fan mail. Everywhere I looked was a reminder of Laura’s success.

  The silence confirmed she’d yet to return from her picture’s final shoot. I dropped the keys on the coffee table and poured a tall drink in a short glass. I stood on the balcony, listening to sirens, car horns, police whistles, screeching tires, and shouted obscenities. I’d been to lots of cities, but New Yorkers had the most creative curse words.

  Nowadays the majority of New Yorkers couldn’t pick out neighbors from a lineup. Most didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Still, at the end of the day, they managed to go out for drinks, or to a movie or ball game or the theater. Damn, I missed New York.

  I went inside, dropped onto the soft couch, and sipped the bourbon. The booze cleared my head, but no quantity of alcohol could erase Mildred’s expression of disappointment in me.

  I finished the bourbon and gazed around the room. What a sap. I couldn’t be happier for Laura’s success. She struggled hard to get out of Queens and be a star on Broadway and now in Hollywood.

  Still, roses and cards of congratulations were insignificant mementoes compared to what Mary Caldwell had gone through the past ten years. I pictured her on the train back to Hanover, her last hope dashed by selfish concerns for my future.