Дональд Уэстлейк - Brothers Keepers

“It’s a different ballgame entirely,” Brother Dexter told him.

The new bicycle fell over.

Brother Hilarius said, “Well, what about these other buildings? Maybe they don’t want to be torn down either.”

“Now,” said Brother Clemence, “we get to Brother Jerome. Go ahead, Jerome, tell them what you told me.”

Brother Jerome had a habit of pushing his sleeves up to his elbows before speaking, as though speech were a difficult physical activity that required strength, determination and a lot of forethought. Because the sleeves of our robes are very loose, his usually flopped right down to his wrists again, as they did this time. “They want to sell,” he said. He had a gruff, under-utilized kind of voice, and he always crammed his eyebrows down hard over his eyes when using it.

Brother Oliver, still distressed at the failure of that bicycle, frowned back at him and said, “ Who wants to sell?”

“All of them,” Brother Jerome said. He wasn’t one for wasting words.

Brother Clemence, urging him along as gently as a prospector with a favorite mule, said, “Give them the details, Jerome.” Then, before that could happen, Brother Clemence turned to the rest of us himself and explained, “Jerome knows the maintenance people around here, the janitors and superintendents and all that. They tell him what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

Brother Oliver said, “And what is going on?”

Brother Clemence said, “Well, let’s take the other buildings one at a time. On our left here, going down to the corner, we’ve got the Alpenstock Hotel. Tell them about that, Jerome.”

“They want to sell,” Brother Jerome said.

“Well, yes,” said Brother Clemence. “But tell them why.”

“On account of the Nazis.”

Brother Oliver was on the verge of incoherence. He said, “ Nazis ?”

“Maybe I’d better,” Brother Clemence decided. And none too soon, either. “You check me on this, Jerome,” he said, and then told the rest of us, “The history of that hotel is a little odd. Local German-American citizens built it before the turn of the century, planning to present it to the homeland for their New York Consulate. But Germany didn’t want it, and the builders couldn’t find a buyer for it, so finally they converted it to a hotel, just to pay it off. During the thirties the place got taken over by the German-American Bund, pro-Nazis, and they set it up to be Nazi Headquarters for after the invasion.”

Brother Oliver said, “What invasion?”

“The invasion of the United States. By Nazi Germany.” Brother Clemence reassuringly patted the air, saying, “It never happened.”

“I know that,” said Brother Oliver. “What has this got to do with tearing the building down?”

“We’re getting there,” Brother Clemence promised. “Now, there wasn’t an invasion, so the—”

“We all know that, Brother!”

“Yes, that’s right,” Brother Clemence said. “I’m just getting to the point.”

“Good,” said Brother Oliver.

“The point is,” Brother Clemence said, retaining his attorney’s calm in the face of the hysterical layman, “that the Bund was disbanded during the war, and the group that owned the Alpenstock Hotel simply disappeared. Eventually the bank took over, for nonpayment of mortgage. Two banks, actually, they’d had the building very heavily financed. The banks have operated the hotel themselves for the last thirty years, and they don’t like any part of it. It’s been continuously on the market for all that time, but this is not the city in which to sell a Nazi hotel. The place has generally earned out its expenses, the property taxes and staff and so on, but very little dent has been made in the principal of the indebtedness. So the banks are delighted to have a buyer after all these years.”

Brother Dexter said, “What banks are they, do you know?”

“One of them is Capitalists and Immigrants Trust.” Brother Clemence turned to Brother Jerome. “Do you remember the other one?”

Brother Jerome hiked up his sleeves and lowered his brows. “Um,” he said. “Douchery.”

Brother Oliver said, “ What ?”

“That’s it,” said Brother Clemence. “Fiduciary Federal Trust.”

“Ah,” said Brother Dexter. He nodded with fatalistic satisfaction. “Dimp does business with both of those banks,” he said. “According to the people I’ve talked to, they’re the principal paper holders on this very project.”

Brother Oliver closed his eyes. Faintly he said, “Paper holders?”

“They’re putting up the money,” Brother Dexter explained.

Brother Hilarius said, “They’re all entwined with one another, aren’t they? Dwarfmann buys the hotel from the two banks, and the two banks loan him the money to make the purchase.”

“There’s another tie-in,” Brother Clemence said. “At least potentially. For myself, I’ll be very surprised if the Flattery Construction Company doesn’t do some of the work on the new building.”

Brother Oliver opened his eyes. “I’ve said it before,” he said, “and I’ll say it again. If one is very patient, if one listens very carefully, if one just keeps asking questions, sooner or later everything begins to make sense.”

“I’m becoming interested in those buildings on the other side of us,” Brother Dexter said. “Just how do they tie in?”

“Not quite as neatly,” Brother Clemence said. “But there are still connections. For instance, Capitalists and Immigrants Trust also holds the mortgage on the building on our other side.”

“You mean the Boffin Club,” Brother Oliver said.

“Right.” Brother Clemence nodded. “The building is owned by the club. It’s a nonprofit corporation, like the Lambs Club or the Players Club.”

Brother Hilarius said, “Those are actors’ clubs, aren’t they?”

“Mostly,” said Brother Clemence. “But the Boffin Club is primarily for writers.”

“Nicodemus Boffin,” Brother Oliver said, rather unexpectedly, “was a character in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend . He was so in love with books that he kept buying wagonloads of them, even though he didn’t know how to read.”

“Now, there’s a friend of writers,” said Brother Dexter. “I can see why they named their club after him.”

“But the founders of the Boffin Club,” Brother Clemence said, “were mostly radio writers. This was back in the twenties. They’ve had some playwrights and television writers over the years, but very few novelists. And in fact the membership has declined very badly in the last ten years or so.”

Brother Dexter said, “I believe that’s the case with all clubs of that sort. Society changed after the Second World War, something happened, people aren’t as interested in social clubs as they once were.”

Brother Clemence said, “I don’t know about any other clubs, but the Boffin Club is in very bad shape. Most of the founders are gone, the remaining members are generally older men who don’t do that much writing anymore and don’t have as much money as they used to. The club’s been on the brink of bankruptcy for years. Brother Jerome has a friend over there who’s told him the situation.”

Brother Jerome lifted his sleeves and lowered his eyebrows. “Tim,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Brother Clemence.

Sleeves up, eyebrows down. “Action writer.”

Brother Clemence nodded. “Yes. It seems this fellow Tim used to make a very good living as a writer. He wrote radio shows like The Shadow and a lot of short stories for the old pulp magazines. Had an estate out on Long Island.”

Sleeves, eyebrows. “Hindenburg.”