Death on Deadline (4 page)

I figured the morning walk to Times Square was enough exercise for one day, so I felt no guilt whatever in flagging a cab to midtown for my meeting with Gershmann. He didn’t want me to come to his office on Forty-seventh Street in the diamond market, suggesting instead a back booth in a deli about a block away.

He was waiting when I got there at exactly three-thirty. It took me about a half-hour to lay the whole thing out, including all the evidence needed to convince him that an employee was taking home a lot more than his salary every week.

After I finished, Gershmann pumped my hand, thanked me more than he needed to, and pulled out his checkbook. If he was chagrined that he had to go outside the close-knit diamond community for help, he didn’t show it. “Just out of curiosity,” I said, “and although it’s none of my business, how do you plan to deal with the situation?”

“There are very definite procedures for this kind of thing,” Gershmann said in a voice that dropped thirty degrees. I didn’t press the matter further. As we shook hands again, he handed over the check in an amount hefty enough to keep the brownstone running for several weeks. And that’s saying plenty, because not only does Wolfe need to ante up for such incidentals as the four cases of beer he consumes every week, he also has to pay me, his confidential assistant, man of action, and all-round gofer, to say nothing of Fritz, the finest chef in the universe, and Theodore Horstmann, who fusses over the ten thousand orchids in the plant rooms up on the fourth floor.

And then there are the grocery bills and the books, of course, but you get the idea. Simply put, the place takes a lot of cash to keep it going. And that cash only comes in if Wolfe feels like working, which is seldom before the bank balance slips to five figures. Right now, that balance was well above the danger level, and would be even higher tomorrow with the addition of Mr. Gershmann’s generous draft. We were in for a leisurely spell.

I got back to Thirty-fifth Street a few minutes after five, which meant Wolfe was still up playing with his orchids. I unlocked the safe and tucked our latest check in, then wandered out to the kitchen, where Fritz was in high gear for dinner, and poured myself a glass of milk. “What’s the program?” I asked.

“Breast of chicken in cream with foie gras on noodles,” he said. “I remember how much Mr. Cohen liked the chicken breast another time when he was here.”

“Nice choice,” I said, and meant it. Fritz is a magician with chicken. But then, he also is a magician with beef, lamb, pork, veal, and any fish you can name. If there’s a Cooperstown for chefs somewhere, he ought to have a spot there, with his puss and his name in capital letters on a brass plaque along with the words “He keeps Nero Wolfe happy—which alone is reason enough to be in the Hall of Fame.”

Not that Wolfe and Fritz didn’t have their differences over food—and some of their bouts had been dandies. Like the time Fritz used tarragon and saffron to season a platter of starlings and Wolfe went into a pout and refused to eat it because he wanted sage instead. Despite their occasional tussles, Wolfe knows Fritz’s batting average is well over .950, so he picks his fights cautiously—and rarely.

My stomach already was pondering the chicken breast as I went back to the office and typed a letter to an orchid grower in Pennsylvania who wanted a peek at the plant rooms on a trip he was making to New York next month. Permission granted. Wolfe almost never denies a serious request to see his precious orchids. I call it vanity; he says it’s the sharing of information, although visitors always learn far more than they could ever teach either Wolfe or Theodore.

After finishing the letter and putting it on Wolfe’s blotter for his signature, I started in on the germination records but was interrupted by the phone.

“Archie, it’s Lon. I’ll be hung up at the office for a while yet. I’ll tell you why when I get there. It’ll probably be pushing seven.”

I told him not to worry, that we might even postpone the start of dinner by as much as three minutes if he was late. As I turned again to the germination cards that Theodore brings down daily, I heard the whine of the elevator. My watch said six-oh-two, which meant Wolfe was on his way down from the plant rooms.

“Lon called—he’ll be a little late. Trouble of some kind at the paper,” I said as Wolfe came in and headed for his desk. “I’ll lay nine to five it has something to do with MacLaren.”

“Very likely,” Wolfe said, reaching for the Terkel book. “We can delay dinner if necessary.” His tone told me he found the idea extremely distasteful. But he also felt—he’s said so many times—that “a guest is a jewel, resting on a cushion of hospitality.”

As it turned out, we were able to stay on schedule. Lon rang the doorbell at six-fifty-seven, which meant he had plenty of time for Scotch on the rocks in the office while I worked on bourbon and Wolfe downed his second beer.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lon told Wolfe, settling into the red leather chair with his drink. He looked beat. “Things are jumping at our place. Turns out the
Times
is breaking a story in tomorrow’s editions that MacLaren has made a bid for the
Gazette.
I don’t know how they caught wind of it, but they called our chairman, Harriet Haverhill, and asked her to respond to MacLaren’s statement that he was making an offer for
Gazette
stock. She gave them a ‘no comment,’ then called the city desk to alert them, and we really had to scramble to get something into tonight’s Final.”

“Indeed?” Wolfe said. “Mr. Cohen, with your sufferance, I would like to defer the subject of Ian MacLaren until after dinner. I assure you I’m most interested in hearing about him, but—”

“Say no more,” Lon cut in, laughing and holding up a hand. “I agree completely. I’ve been looking forward to this meal, and the best way to enjoy it is with conversation on more pleasant topics.”

So twice in one day MacLaren got scrubbed as a mealtime subject. And knowing how both Wolfe and Lon felt about him, I was beginning to be anxious to meet the guy to see whether he had horns, fangs, or maybe a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

Still, events at the
Gazette
hadn’t noticeably damaged Lon’s appetite. He managed three helpings of the chicken and went for seconds on the tart. As we ate, Wolfe held forth on why he thought the constitutional amendment limiting a President to two terms should be repealed, while Lon—bless his heart!—took the opposite view. I scored Wolfe the winner, but just barely.

We left the table strewn with polished plates for Fritz to clear and crossed the hall to the office. Lon settled back in the red leather chair, with a snifter of the long-awaited Remisier at his elbow. It looked so good I treated myself to some, too, instead of Scotch. Wolfe, of course, had beer.

“Mr. Cohen, you know from Archie that I’ve become very curious about Ian MacLaren,” he began, switching to business.

“So I gathered when he phoned and said you wanted to see some of his papers. Naturally I’m curious as to why you’re curious. By the way, did you read any of the rags?”

“Enough to confirm my opinion of the man’s journalistic standards. I have several questions about him, sir, but you proceed, please. You said earlier that his bid for the
Gazette
is now public knowledge?”

“Well, not quite yet,” Lon replied, looking at his watch. “We learned that the
Times
will break a piece in tomorrow’s editions, so our management finally got up off their collective duffs and decided to run something, if just to keep from getting scooped on our own story. But it’ll only make the Late City Edition, which is less than ten percent of our circulation. It will be on the street in about half an hour.”

“How serious is MacLaren’s bid?”

“Damn serious,” Lon said. “The
Gazette
is very closely held. Private ownership. And that ownership is in the hands of a small number of people, most of them members of the Haverhill family. All MacLaren has to do is win a few of them over.”

“I want to get to the family later,” Wolfe said. “First, what is your own opinion of Mr. MacLaren?”

Lon savored the Remisier. He might have been too beat to notice all this curiosity on Wolfe’s part was out of the ordinary, but I wasn’t. Something unusual was afoot, so I paid close attention. “As far as I’m concerned, MacLaren is the worst thing that’s happened to journalism in decades. You’ve seen his papers. He’s in the business for the cash. Rather, I should say the cash and the power.”

“Has he ever started a newspaper?”

“Nope, in every case he grabbed an existing one by throwing money around. He’s made a profit on just about all of them, so you can’t knock his business success. But what he does when he gets a paper …” Lon scowled. “He gives it his stamp—if you want to call it that. He usually turns them into tabloids, fills the front page with shrill headlines, slices stories in half, throws in girlie pictures, and cuts loose with an editorial policy that’s about twenty degrees to the right of Jesse Helms. As far as I’m concerned, he combines the worst of the original William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch.”

“How long has he owned his papers, at least the ones in this country?”

“I happen to know the answer to that one,” Lon said, “if only because I’ve been reading up on the guy. He bought the L.A. paper in ’74, that was his first one. Then he swallowed Detroit in ’75 and Denver a year later. You might be interested to know that in all those years, none of the three papers has ever endorsed any Democrat for President, the Senate, or the House. They’ve always backed the Republican candidate.”

Wolfe shuddered. “What does he want with the
Gazette
?”

“One of his goals—he’s been quoted on this several times—is to control a paper in the largest city in every English-speaking country. He’s already done that in Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, even South Africa. That leaves only the U.S.—New York. The
Gazette
just happens to be the only possible target here. The other dailies in town all are held by big media companies that aren’t about to sell.” Lon drained his snifter and I gave him a refill.

“And the owners of the
Gazette are
prepared to sell?”

“That’s a question,” Lon said, turning to salute me for keeping the Remisier flowing. “A few apparently are, from the talk I hear around the building, but whether or not MacLaren can finagle a majority of the stock remains to be seen.”

“How many owners does the
Gazette
have?” Wolfe demanded. “And how hard would it be for this man to buy them out?”

“Okay, here’s the picture. First, there’s Harriet Haverhill, whom I mentioned. She’s chairman of the board, the widow of Wilkins Haverhill, who bought it back in the thirties. It wasn’t much then—sort of a pseudo-populist tabloid with pretensions to compete with the
Times
and the
Herald Trib.
Haverhill made it into a broadsheet, beefed up the metropolitan coverage, and built a strong home-delivery network. And his editorials got tough with city government—so much so that La Guardia nicknamed him ‘the Bulldog,’ not to mention a few other unprintable names. All in all, he built the
Gazette
into a first-rate paper. He died in the early sixties, and she’s been in charge ever since. One hell of a woman. She’s over seventy now, and is the largest single stockholder, with a little more than one-third of all the shares. The figure I’ve heard most often is thirty-five percent.”

“Is she likely to sell?”

“Definitely not, and that’s one of the most encouraging things right now,” Lon answered. “From the start, MacLaren is frozen out Of the biggest chunk. Which means he’s really targeting the others.”

“And they are … ?”

“The next two largest holders are Harriet’s stepchildren, David and Donna—Donna Palmer—who have about seventeen-plus percent each. David’s president of the company, but that’s pretty much a figurehead job. He has wanted more for years, but for my money, the guy’s a loser. He’s erratic, has a hot temper, plus a real fondness for the bottle. His wife, Carolyn, has far more brains and savvy than he does. Harriet would never let him run the company if she could prevent it.

“Donna, the stepdaughter, is pretty much out of the picture.” Lon held the snifter to the light and squinted. “She’s divorced, lives up in Boston, where she runs a public-relations firm. I don’t think she’s much interested in the paper, or in New York, for that matter.”

“Is that all the family members who share in the ownership?”

“No, there’s also Scott Haverhill, Harriet’s nephew, with about ten percent. He’s the general manager, and he wants the top spot about as badly as David does. He’s an oily bastard, always trying to ingratiate himself with his aunt and maneuvering behind the scenes to weasel more power. She’d probably choose Scott over David to run the whole show, but only just barely. Lesser of two evils.”

“You’ve accounted for about eighty percent of the ownership,” Wolfe said, ringing for more beer. “The rest?”

“It’s in smaller pieces,” Lon said. “My boss, Carl Bishop, the publisher, has five percent, and he’d hold out against MacLaren till the finish. Elliot Dean, the family lawyer, who’s been around for a hundred years, has about two or three percent, I think. He was a confidant of Wilkins Haverhill, and he’s been Harriet’s adviser since the old man died. A magazine publishing company, Arlen, has a piece, and so does a guy named Demarest, whose family sold the
Gazette
to Wilkins Haverhill.”

Wolfe leaned back and practiced lacing his fingers over his middle mound. “Which holdings do you see as being completely safe from Mr. MacLaren?”

“Harriet’s, of course, and Bishop’s. And I can’t imagine Dean selling out on her,” Lon said. “The kids I wouldn’t be sure of for a minute—any of them. Same with Arlen and Demarest. They’d both go where they could get the biggest—and quickest—profit, and right now, that looks like MacLaren. The
Gazette
’s a profitable operation, but neither one of them may ever get another chance like this, and they’ve got no loyalty to the paper.”

“So the anti-MacLaren forces, to call them that, control only about forty-three percent of the shares?”