Shenanigans at the Plaza
Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David kills an ambassador in Shanghai.
David was miffed. He was not in London long enough to have an intimate evening with Lady Elvira Chatsworth or even Freda Ward before Tommy Lascelles informed him that the Foreign Ministry had recommended to the King that it would be a good idea to send the Prince of Wales to New York City to participate in the U.S. celebration of Labor Day.
“Labor Day?” David raised an eyebrow. “What? No Tory Day?”
“It’s not that kind of labor. It’s to acknowledge the American working class.”
“Tommy, I was making a joke.”
“I know. I was ignoring it.”
On his first evening out from Portsmouth, David found the selection of ladies rather depressingly sparse at dinner, so he took a walk along the deck which was shrouded in a particularly dense fog. As he was about to flick his cigarette overboard an old woman, who was dressed more as a street peddler than as an ocean liner passenger, walked up in a fit of giggles.
“Pardon, yer majersty,” she gurgled in a hardly understandable Cockney, “but could I please have yer butt? As a souvenir of meeting your worshipful holiness.”
“Excuse me. What did you say?”
The current group of strollers harrumphed and hurried away. David leaned in to the old woman and cupped his ear.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch your comment. Will you please repeat?”
“Yer butt,” she said loudly, which caused the next couple to rush along. “You know, yer fag butt.”
David’s brow over his sagging eye arched. “I must say, my dear lady—“
“Oh, get over yerself, David,” she rasped. “Steam room. Seven in the morning.” The old woman grabbed the burnt-out cigarette and tossed it into the ocean before she fumed into the fog.
The next morning David awoke early, went for a light run around the deck and entered the steam room. Wrapping a towel around his middle, he sat, waiting alone for details for his next mission from MI6. Exactly at seven, a pudgy old man entered from the locker room and sat next to him.
“Begging your pardon, David,” he whispered in a familiar Cockney. “Me old lady can be rough around the edges. You know we’ve been doing this since the old queen died.”
“Think nothing of it. Now what is this important business in New York?” He wiped sweat from his brow.
“They want you to steal an American socialite’s jewelry and then mail them back to her a month later. No return address, of course.”
David sat up. “What? That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Don’t jump down my throat.” The old man looked away and sniffed. “I don’t make this stuff up. I just pass messages along.”
Leaning back, David smiled. “You’re much too sensitive for this line of work, you know.”
“Come close to getting killed too, you know. Me old lady pulled me chestnuts out of the fire, many a time.”
“Very well. What else?”
“You heard of Woolworth’s Five and Dime? It’s his daughter. Jessie Donohue. They’re one of the richest families in America, but because their money comes from selling cheap stuff to poor people, other rich folks give them the cold shoulder. That’s why she buys so much jewelry. It’s worth $600,000.”
David was already becoming bored, but he dared not make any more brash remarks before the old man was finished.
“The problem is her husband. He spends all his time gambling and romancing both men and women around the world. Scuttlebutt has it the husband had contracted the organization to steal his wife’s jewels to pay off a blackmailer who knows he’s just broken off an affair with a black male dancer. And I know you’re thinking what does this have to do with the national security of the British Empire. Your own brother George is a well-known philanderer visiting both sides of the street.”
“Well,” David interjected in a sardonic tone, “he is considered to be the handsome brother in the family.”
“If darker forces realize they can hire the organization—the biggest, most successful crime syndicate in the history of civilization—to blackmail a rich American family, what is to stop them from extorting the royal Windsors?”
“I thought I had been so outrageous that anything the rest of the family did would be too dreary for the public to notice.”
“Mixing the races and not mixing the sexes is quite a different matter. Now don’t get me wrong. Personally I don’t care about what goes on behind closed doors but the rest of the world is not as advanced as me.”
David sighed and slid down on the bench. “Oh well, at least I’ll be in New York. It’s a fine town. Maybe I can make it out to Coney Island for a hot dog.”
“You’re kidding me! That’s why me old lady and I took this job. Love those hot dogs. And Coney Island is like Brighton Beach, but less hoity toity.”
Another man entered the steam room, and David’s companion made a quick exit. When a suitable amount of time elapsed, he also left. After bathing, and changing into his new plaid slacks and a powder blue shirt complemented by a purple ascot, David sauntered into the breakfast lounge. Once being seated, he ordered black coffee, a bagel and half a grapefruit. As he awaited his meal, David lit a cigarette and considered how he would have to join diplomatic officials for pictures with the New York mayor and attend the Labor Day Parade—he presumed there would be a parade. Americans loved to march. When the server brought his food, David asked that the latest editions of all the New York City newspapers be delivered to his suite. His enjoyment of his grapefruit was ruined when a photographer suddenly appeared in the door with his camera and flash holder. Damned nuisance.
Over the next couple of days David read about the Donohues in the society pages. They traveled in circles of actors, athletes, nouveau riche, oilmen and exiled foreign royalty whose company could be purchased for the price of a roof terrace hotel suite. How could anyone be so desperate to be bought by classless Americans, he asked himself.
Currently the Donohues resided at the Plaza while their house on East 80th Street was being modernized. They had two sons, Woolworth, twelve, and James, ten. A nanny tended the children every night as the parents went to glittering nightclubs. That gave David a window of opportunity to break into their apartment. Labor Day. After the parade. After decent people were at home asleep in their beds.
The day arrived, and David appeared at the mayor’s office with his diplomatic entourage, posed for photographs and sat in a reviewing stand on the city hall steps to watch the parade. He ate with a group of energetic American capitalists, then excused himself to his hotel suite since the last few days had been so fatiguing, with the ocean crossing and all.
After midnight, he dressed in his black turtleneck and trousers with the mask in his back pocket. Slipping into the basement of the Plaza Hotel, he slinked up the backstairs until he reached the Donohue suite. Once inside he made his way to what his research showed to be their bedroom. Just as he was about to turn the handle, he heard a child’s voice.
“”Hello, I’m very pleased to meet you. My name is Jimmy Donohue. And who are you?”
David turned to see a ten-year-old boy with brown hair and remarkably clear blue eyes staring at him.
“I’m nobody.”
“Oh, so you don’t have any money. That’s all right. I have enough money for everybody. Of course you have to do anything I want if you want me to give you any.”
“Um. Excuse me, young man. I’m rather preoccupied at the moment.”
“You sound English.”
“I’m in a frightful hurry.”
“No need to be. Mother and father will be out until dawn. They’re nightclubbing with this woman from Baltimore. She’s supposed to be important but I don’t know why. She’s not rich. My parents are paying for everything. People say she’s supposed to be beautiful but I think she has the face of a horse. I can’t remember her name but it’s a man’s name. Isn’t that odd?”
“You like to talk, don’t you, young man?”
“Of course, I do. I’m fascinating.” Jimmy looked at David’s hand on the doorknob. “You want to steal something from my parents’ bedroom.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re wearing a mask, and your hand is on the knob.”
“Very observant.”
“What do you want? My mother’s jewelry? I know where it is. I can get it for you.”
“Why would you do that? Do you hate your mother?”
“No. I love my mother. If you stole her jewels then she could have the fun of buying new ones.”
“I hate my mother and father.” David did not understand why he said that. The boy must have cast a spell on him.
“You need to see a psychiatrist,” Jimmy advised.
“So show me where the jewels are.”
Jimmy opened the door, and David followed. The boy went straight to a large, ornately carved wooden box and lifted the lid. Nothing was there. He looked up at David.
“Someone beat you to it.”