1953 - The Sucker Punch Read Free

"You're pretty confident now, but just wait.
    She doesn't like anyone to be happy. She doesn't want anyone to be successful. You may think you can handle her, but in a little while, you'll find she's gaining control. She never leaves you alone. Even at night she'll call you up to ask you something, to remind you not to forget to do something. Three times this week she has got me out of bed between two and three in the morning. Twice she has sent for me during the day, and I've had to leave a stack of work and go out there and wait for hours, and then her secretary has told me she's too busy to see me. I've had to stay late night after night to catch up with the work because she's always hanging me up. In a few months, you'll be feeling as I am feeling."
    "Do you think so?" I said, shoving my chin at him. "Well, you're wrong! Let me tell you something: I know how to handle women. This bitch won't ride me. You watch it and see."
     
     

chapter two
     
    I had a note in my diary to call on Vestal Shelley at 11 a.m. on 15th May.
    During the week I had done very little work to prepare for the meeting.
    I had learned to find my way about the files, but I hadn't attempted to memorize any details.
    I didn't get much help from Leadbeater. He wasn't in a fit condition to do more than bring me up to date on a few outstanding points, but these points were important.
    Recently Vestal had made three demands, and because Leadbeater hadn't been able to agree to them, she had brought pressure on Sternwood to get rid of him.
    First, she was asking that a mink coat, costing twenty-five thousand dollars, she had recently bought, should be accepted by the tax authorities as a legitimate expense, and included in her expense claim.
    As Leadbeater rightly pointed out, this suggestion was ridiculous, and the tax authorities would think the bank had gone crazy if they put forward such a claim.
    Her second demand was to have all the rents of the Shelley Foundation, a two mile stretch of tenement houses on the lower East side, raised by fifteen per cent.
    Leadbeater had reminded her that only the previous year she had raised the rents and could not do so again. He had the full support of Harrison & Ford, the estate management firm who handled the Shelley Foundation. They were emphatic that the rents were already out of all proportion to the conditions of the tenements, and the collectors would not be able to squeeze the extra money out of the tenants.
    Her third demand was for the bank to sell a large apartment house, No. 334, Western Avenue, which her father had bought way back in 1914.
    This seemed, on the face of it, a reasonable request as the property had sharply increased in value. There were, however, five tenants who had lived in the house since old man Shelley had bought it. The bank thought they should be considered. Vestal had received an offer for the house from Moe Burgess. The offer was a considerable one as Moe was anxious to turn the house into a deluxe brothel.
    So apart from all the trick questions she might shoot at me, I had also these three points to get around if I were going to last any length of time working for her.
    On the morning of the 15th, I took a taxi from the bank to civ one-room apartment soon after ten o'clock and changed out of my working clothes. When Leadbeater visited Cliffside, the Shelley residence, he always wore the conventional dark suit. I decided to give Vestal a complete change of scene.
    I put on a yellow linen sports jacket with pouch pockets, a white sports shirt with a brown and yellow polka dot neck scarf, a pair of gabardine navy slacks and reverse calf moccasins. I looked a lot more like a successful movie actor than an unsuccessful clerk, and that's how I wanted to look.
    The private road to the Shelley residence was cut out of the cliff face. It twisted and turned for three miles, climbing higher and higher until it eventually arrived at the elaborate wrought iron fifteen-foot high gates, some 900