Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (22 page)

Wolfe drank beer, dabbed his lips with a handkerchief, and continued. “Any one of you might accuse me of petulance, and I would be hard put to deny the charge. At this point, my self-esteem demands reparation. There are six of you here tonight. There are three sets of brothers at large, one brace of which is very likely guilty both of kidnapping and murder. You are to divide into groups of two, with each group assigned to find a pair of brothers. Saul?”

“Yes, sir. Here is how I have divided the assignments up: Fred and Del, you’ve got the Harker boys; Orrie and Bill, take the McCalls; and Archie and I will go after the Bagleys. I have some leads, albeit questionable, on where all these lovable lads might be found.”

“So it has been decided that none of Williamson’s employees were in on it, huh?” Cather asked.

“Not necessarily, Orrie,” Wolfe said. “But if we locate the felonious brothers, we almost surely will discover the identities of anyone else involved in the Williamson case. I already have formed some assumptions in that direction.”

Cather, arms folded, looked unconvinced. Panzer moved among the men with such information as he had on these sets of brothers. I waited my turn patiently.

O
kay, here is what we know about the Bagleys,” Panzer told me after briefing the others. “These two have been running scams of all sorts, mostly two-man short cons, for at least fifteen years in New York, maybe longer. They could have written the book on three-card monte, the pigeon drop, the fiddle game, the Spanish prisoner, the pig in a poke, the badger game, and half a dozen others.”

“You’re speaking a language I never learned back in Ohio,” I said. “Someday, you’ll have to translate for me. Just out of curiosity, how do you come by all the information you’ve gotten?”

“It’s a long story, Archie, with plenty of wrinkles. I know a lot of people, some of them cops, who know a lot of things about a lot of other people. Back to the brothers: their father, the late ‘Beer Barrel’ Bagley, was well known around town. The man took grifting to new levels. It was said that he once conned a famous old-time jewel thief out of five grand’s worth of hot ice by claiming he could fence the diamonds for twice their value.”

“So the supposedly clever thief gave the diamonds to Beer Barrel, who he never laid eyes on again, of course.”

“Of course,” Panzer said. “And his sons take after the old man. They’ve operated mostly out of the Bronx under a variety of last names, including Keller, Cunningham, and Schmidt. And like most grifters, they move around a lot, from one cheap hotel or flophouse to another.”

“Aha, the good old Bronx again. That means they figure to be the ones we’re looking for.”

Panzer shook his head. “Not necessarily, Archie. It turns out that all three sets of brothers come from the Bronx.”

“So it’s a hotbed of con men up there?”

“I never thought of the borough that way, when I’ve even thought of it at all, but you may be right.”

“I’m really puzzled by the murders, Saul,” I said. “What I’ve heard about con men these last weeks is that they go out of their way to avoid violence. As I understand, they don’t want the grief that comes with it.”

“You’re absolutely right in most cases, but every one of them has dreams of getting that one big strike that will put him on easy street, maybe for life. The Williamson kidnapping, with its hundred-grand ransom, sure as hell qualifies. Where that kind of dough is involved, the stakes go up and behaviors change. Case in point, Archie: most con men don’t want anything to do with firearms, but at least one of those two was armed that night at the Bronx Zoo, and I will lay odds that the other one, the driver, also carried a gun.”

“Do you figure that Haskell guy who got plugged was part of the team, and that they had a falling-out?” I asked.

“More likely he somehow learned about the plan and demanded to be dealt in. I located a half brother of Haskell’s, a bookie who lives over in Brooklyn, and he said Barney had told him he was on to something ‘really big’ but that he couldn’t talk about it.”

“Okay, so where do we go from here?”

W
here we went was to yet another transient hotel in the Bronx, a place Panzer had sniffed out as a possible lead to finding the Bagley boys. I had become spoiled, riding in Wolfe’s automobile and driving the dandy Williamson machines, but all that was over now. Panzer didn’t own an auto and, as I now knew, neither did any of the operatives Wolfe normally used. If I was going to stay in this town, I had better get to know the public transportation system, I thought as we came up out of the subway and onto a busy commercial street. Half a block down, we arrived at a shabby-looking establishment whose faded sign proclaimed it to be the
HOTEL ELEGANT.

“Seems like all I’m doing lately is dropping in on flophouses,” I complained.

“If you’re going to be an operative in this vast and colorful metropolis, you’d better get used to it,” Panzer said as we paused before entering. “This business of ours is not what one would term glamorous, despite what you might read in those pulp magazines of yours.”

“When Bascom and I went into another fleabag not far from here, he passed himself off as a police lieutenant,” I said. “What’s the plan at this joint?”

“Archie, I can see Del Bascom filling that role, but do you honestly think that I could convince anyone that I was a cop?” he asked, gesturing to his thin, stooped frame. “Playing an officer of the law is not my métier and never has been. I take different approaches.”

We walked into the dark, narrow lobby of the Hotel Elegant to find a heavy bleached blond of uncertain years sitting behind the counter and painting her fingernails a fire-engine red color. She looked up, eyeing us from under dark lashes that were thick enough to run a comb through.

“Can I help you fine gents?” the woman drawled in a South-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line voice.

“I earnestly hope you can, Gloria,” Saul Panzer said, taking off his flat cap and grinning.

Her brown eyes widened, lifting the mighty lashes. “Hey—how is it you know my name?”

“Who doesn’t know the great Gloria McCracken? I remember you well from your days at the Spider Web Club over on West Eighty-Sixth. I recognized you the instant we walked in.”

“Well, I’ve, um ... put on a few pounds since those days,” she said, fluffing her hair self-consciously.

“Ah, but you look the same as ever to me,” Panzer said, leaning his elbows on the counter. “And I will never forget the way you could warble ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’ You always had the whole room in the palm of your hand with that one. I think it got requested every night, didn’t it?”

Gloria got a dreamy look. “Ah, do I remember those days! That was just before the stinkin’ Prohibition stuff came in and ruined everything. Say, you don’t look old enough to have been goin’ into the clubs back then.”

“I’m a lot older’n I look, Gloria,” Panzer said. “’Fraid to say I’ve been around the block a good many times.”

“Tell me about it. These last few years, well ... She lifted her shoulders and let them drop.

“I hear you. It’s the same with everybody, which is why we’re here.”

“Tell me about it, soldier,” she said, holding out an arm to study her newly lacquered nails.

Panzer ran a hand though his hair, feigning nervousness. “It’s like this. There’s a couple guys who owe me and my nephew here some money, and—”

“Stop right there, soldier,” Gloria said. “You’re not the first ones who have come into this place puttin’ the touch on me. Now I know that I got a reputation for being softhearted, but —”

This time, Panzer did the interrupting. “No, no, Gloria, I am not trying to hit you up for a few bucks, although Lord only knows I could use them. What I’m trying to do is find these guys—brothers, or so they claim.” He then described them, and Gloria nodded with a thin-lipped smile.

“Yeah, I happen to know just who you’re talking about. What did you say your name is?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Berg, Norman Berg.”

“Well, Norman, you gotta be talkin’ about the Schmidt boys, or so they called themselves when they was bunking here. A couple of mean ones, those two, nastier than any other flimflam artists I’ve ever seen.”

“That so? When did they stay here, Gloria?”

“It’s been a few weeks back now, it was. I can check if you want,” she said, opening the big guest book on the counter.

“Please do,” Panzer replied. “I’d appreciate it, Gloria.”

She flipped pages. “Let’s see ... here we are. They checked in on the second of this month, stayed ... until the eleventh.” She turned the book around so we could see it. One of them had signed his name, “Earl Schmidt and Brother, New York U.S.A.”

“They didn’t stay here long,” I said.

“Huh—too long!” Gloria shot back. “A pair of surly so-and-sos, always complaining about their room, using foul language, spitting on the floor, even though we got spittoons all over the place. What the hell did they expect for what they were paying, a suite at the bloody Plaza? By the way,” she said, turning to Panzer, “how did you happen to know they stayed here?”

“I’ve got a friend who has a friend, you know how it is. I suppose they didn’t leave a place where any mail could be forwarded?”

“Nah, nobody ever does,” she said, brushing the question away with a hand. “More than half the time, they don’t even know where they’re headed next. They—wait a minute. I did hear something that might help you track them down.”

“I’m all ears—if you overlook my snout,” Panzer said, grinning.

“Well, after they had checked out of here and the one brother had made a remark to me that I won’t repeat, the other one, who called himself Carl, said to knock it off. ‘We gotta get to Barney’s place,’ that’s what he said. ‘Barney’s place.’ I don’t know if that helps you any.”

“It might at that, Gloria. Well, thanks. It’s been a pleasure seeing you. Do you still do any singing?” Panzer asked.

“Those days are gone and so are my pipes, Norman,” she said, patting her throat. “Too many late nights, and way too many Lucky Strikes, if you get my drift.”

“That is indeed our loss,” he answered, turning back to bow before we headed out the door.

“That’s really something, you remembering Gloria’s singing from years ago,” I told Panzer when we were out on the sidewalk.

“Archie, I never saw that woman before in my life.”

“What! But you knew all about her, the club where she performed, and that song of hers.”

He looked at me with a lopsided grin. “My source, the one who knew that the Bagley brothers had stayed at that flophouse, also knew a lot about Gloria and her past life. Besides, how ancient do you really think I am? She was right to say I didn’t look old enough to be hanging out in clubs back before Prohibition kicked in.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. At least you made her feel good, Mr.—what is it?—Norman Berg.”

“I just may have done more than that.”

“True, Saul. The Bagley boys, if that’s really their name as seems likely, would now appear to be definitely linked to Barney Haskell, assuming that’s the Barney who they were going to see. It begins to look like they’re the ones we’re looking for. There’s one other thing, Saul.”

“Yes?’

“I told Wolfe this: when the kidnappers had Tommie Williamson, he heard them mention the name Barney.”

“I know, Mr. Wolfe mentioned that to me. We’ll want to hear from the others, though, to see if they’ve found out anything about the Harker and McCall brothers.”

“I still think we’re getting warm,” I said.

“So do I, Archie.”

B
y prearrangement, the six of us met the next morning in a coffee shop on West Sixty-Seventh Street to go over our findings and compare notes. Fred Durkin and Del Bascom went first.

“Here’s the story on James and Melvin Harker,” Del said, consulting his notebook. “We found the flat where they had been living up until August, in a walkup just off Third Avenue in the South Bronx. The building super said they moved out because they had what they called some ‘important business’ in St. Louis. They gave him a forwarding address, and he says he’s sent a couple of pieces of mail to it.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re really out there,” Cather said.

“Of course not, Orrie,” Del snapped, turning to Durkin. “Think we didn’t check? Fred?”

Durkin took the cue. “I got a good friend named Alvin who’s now in Saint Loo, an operative I worked with back when I was just starting out,” he said. “I called him with the Harkers’ address, and he went over to the flat, claiming that he was a termite inspector for the city. James Harker bought the story whole, even showed Alvin his identification to prove his residence. Alvin then did some checking around, and it turns out the Harkers have muscled in on the bootleg business in Missouri through a cousin there. Got themselves a real sweet deal.”

“So we can cross off the Harkers,” Panzer said. “Orrie, Bill, what about the McCall boys?”

“You can cross them off, too, Saul,” Cather said. “One of the brothers, Ronald by name, has been residing in the Tombs for the last three months now.”

“The Tombs? What the hell is that, a cemetery?” I asked.

“Formally known as the Manhattan House of Detention,” Panzer said. “What’s he in for?”

“Pulling the old three-card monte con,” Bill Gore put in. “An undercover cop he tried to scam ran him in. Seems Ronald’s not exactly an Einstein. That’s his third or fourth trip to the cooler, according to my source.”

“Well, that narrows it down to the Bagleys,” Del Bascom observed. “What did you boys learn?”

Panzer went over our recent activities, and everybody nodded. “So now all we have to do is find them,” he said.

“What about checking the hospitals?” Durkin asked. “After all, we think Orrie winged one of them.”

“With all the hospitals we’ve got, that could take us forever,” Panzer said. “Besides, the guy may have gone straight to some hard-up sawbones for treatment and paid him hush money to keep his mouth shut. Lots of docs treat gunshot wounds these days without reporting it.”