Gambit (15 page)

‘Goodwin?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“Victor Avery. On second thought I have decided I may be able to give you some good advice. Not at noon or one o’clock because I have appointments. The fact is, it would be difficult for me to make it before evening, around seven o’clock. The best place for a private conversation is in a car, and we can use mine. I’ll pick you up at some convenient -“

“Save it,” I cut in. It was time to get tough. “Do you think you’re dealing with a cluck'Listen, and get it. There’s a little restaurant, Piotti’s, P-i-o-t-t-i,

on Thirteenth Street just east of Second Avenue, downtown side. I’ll be there,

inside, expecting you, at one o’clock tomorrow. If you’re not there by one-fifteen I’ll go straight to Nero Wolfe. And I’ll go anyway if you don’t have with you one hundred thousand dollars in cash. Good night again.”

“Wait! That’s fantastic! I couldn’t possibly get any such amount. And why should I?”

“Forget the rhetoric. Bring as much as you can, and don’t make it peanuts, and maybe we can arrange about the rest. Now I’m going to bed and I don’t like to be disturbed. You have it'Piotti, Thirteenth Street east of Second Avenue?”

“Yes.”

“Better write it down.”

I hung up, straightened, and had a good stretch and yawn. On the whole I thought I had done about as well as Sally, but of course my part wasn’t finished. After another stretch I returned to the phone and asked the switchboard to get a number, and in a minute a voice came: ‘Nero Wolfe’s residence, Saul Panzer speaking.”

I falsettoed. “This is Liz Taylor. May I please speak to Archie?”

“Archie is out streetwalking, Miss Taylor. I’m just as good, in fact better.”

I normalized. “You are like hell. All set. One o’clock at Piotti’s. We’ll have a busy morning. Meet me for breakfast at eight o’clock in the Talbott restaurant.”

“No snags?”

“Not a snag. Like falling off a log. As I said to the subject, pleasant dreams.”

Getting ready for bed, as I buttoned my pajama jacket it occurred to me that the character who had done such a neat job with Kalmus might be capable of something really fancy, so after bolting the door I put the table against it and a chair on top. The windows were absolutely inaccessible without a rope down from the roof, and if he could manage that between midnight and seven a.m. he was welcome to me.

At ten minutes to one Friday afternoon I was seated at one of the small tables along the right wall of Piotti’s little restaurant, eating spaghetti with anchovy sauce and sipping red wine - and not the wine you’ll get if you go there. Wolfe had once got John Piotti out of a difficulty and hadn’t soaked him,

and one result was that whenever I dropped in for a plate of the best spaghetti in New York I got, for sixty cents, a pint of the wine which John reserved for himself and three or four favorite customers, and which was somewhat better than what you paid eight bucks for at the Flamingo. Another result had been that back in 1958 John had let us use his premises for a setup for a trap, including running some wires through the cellar, coming up through the floor in the kitchen at one end, and up to one of the tables in the restaurant at the other end. That was the table I was sitting at.

The morning hadn’t been as busy as I had expected, chiefly because the wires running through the cellar were still there, intact, and when we tested them they were as good as new. We didn’t have to call in a technician at all. For the kitchen end Saul brought the tape recorder from the cupboard in Wolfe’s kitchen,

and for the restaurant end I bought the latest model midget mike. That was the main cash outlay, $112.50 for the mike, a lot of lettuce for a mike, but it had to be good and it had to fit into the bowl of artificial flowers on the table.

Of course the bowl had to be the same as those on the other tables, and we had a devil of a time making a hole in the bottom for the wires to come through.

Against the risk that my table companion would take it into his head to move the bowl and find himself pulling wires up through a hole in the table, which would have stopped the show, we made two smaller holes in the bottom of the bowl and screwed it to the table. So if he tried to move it and it wouldn’t budge I could say, “By golly, Piotti doesn’t let the customers walk out with anything, does he?”

Everything was in order by half past eleven, well before the lunch hour, which is early in that neighborhood. Saul went to the kitchen, to stick there, since it was just possible that the subject might come for a look around in advance,

and it wouldn’t do for him to catch sight of the man who had taken my job. I went to the Talbott, to learn if there were any messages for me. There weren’t.

I phoned Wolfe that we were ready, and returned to Piotti’s at twelve-thirty.

John had kept the table free, and I took it and began on the spaghetti and wine.

At ten minutes to one the tables were pretty well filled with customers, and two of them were known to me. At the next table in front of me, seated facing me,

was Fred Durkin, and at the next table but one back of me was Orrie Cather. I was facing the door. Very neat.

At four minutes to one Dr Victor Avery entered, stopped three steps in, saw my raised hand, and came. I took in a forkload of spaghetti while he removed his coat and hat and hung them on the wall hooks, and I was sipping wine as he sat.

He looked more middle-aged than he had last night, more than middle-aged, and not so well-fed.

“The spaghetti here is something special,” I said. “Better have some.”

He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”

“The wine is special too.”

“I never drink during the day.”

“Neither do I usually, but this is a special occasion.” My eyes were on my plate, where I was twisting spaghetti onto my fork, and I raised them and aimed them at him. “How much did you bring?”

His hands were open on the table and his finger tips were working. “I came out of curiosity,” he said. “What kind of trick is this?’ He was nothing like as good as he had been on the phone, but of course he had had a hard night.

I leaned to him. “Look,” I said, “you’ll just waste your breath dodging. I saw you go in Kalmus’s house Wednesday and I saw you come out. Yesterday I asked -“

“What time did I go in'What time did I come out?”

“Nuts. Don’t think I can’t tell Nero Wolfe, and also the cops, and also a judge and jury when the time comes. If you want to try fixing up an alibi, you know the times as well as I do. This isn’t a quiz show with you asking the questions.

Yesterday I asked myself a question, could it have been you who killed Paul Jerin'Of course it could; when you mixed the mustard water you put arsenic in it. But the trouble was, Jerin had got sick before you went in to him, and that stopped me, until yesterday afternoon, when I learned why he got sick before you were called in. Not only that, I also learned that you knew he was going to get sick, so you brought some arsenic along because you knew you would have a chance to use it. So you had killed Jerin, and I knew why, or at least a damned good guess. Tuesday evening Nero Wolfe told you that the man who killed Jerin had no malice for him, he wanted to destroy Matthew Blount, and you said tommyrot, but you knew it wasn’t, because you were the man who did it and that was your motive. Then when you learned that Kalmus had figured it out and was on to you,

you went to his place and killed him, and I saw you coming and going. So how much did you bring?”

He had realized that his hands were out of control and had taken them from the table. “That’s all tommyrot,” he said. “Every word of it.”

“Okay, then get up and walk out. Or ring the District Attorney’s office and have them come and take me for attempted blackmail. The phone booth is in the rear. I promise to wait here for them.”

He licked his lips. “That’s what I ought to do,” he said, “report you for attempted blackmail”

“Go ahead.”

“But that would be - it would start - scandal. It would be very - disagreeable.

Even if you saw me entering and leaving that house - you didn’t, but even if you did - that wouldn’t be proof that I killed Kalmus. It was after ten o’clock when you went up to his apartment and found the body. Someone had entered after I left - that is, it would have been after I left if I had been there. So your lie that you saw me enter and leave - it’s not a very good lie. But if you -“

“Cut.” I snapped it. “I’ll listen to sense if you’ve got any, but not that crap.

We’ll settle that right now, yes or no, and if it’s no get up and walk out. To Nero Wolfe. Did you enter that house Wednesday, late afternoon or early evening,

whichever you want to call it, or didn’t you'Yes or no.”

He licked his lips. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of coercing me into -“

I had pushed my chair back and was getting up. He put a hand out. “No,” he said.

“Sit down.”

I bent over to him. “No?”

“I mean yes.”

“Did you enter that house at that time Wednesday?”

“Yes. But I didn’t kill Dan Kalmus.”

I sat down and picked up my glass for a sip of wine. “I advise you to watch your step,” I told him. “If I have to keep jumping up to make you talk sense it will attract attention. How much money did you bring?”

His hand went into his breast pocket but came out again empty. “You admit you’re a blackmailer,” he said.

“Sure. Birds of a feather, a murderer and a blackmailer.”

“I am not a murderer. But if I refuse to be victimized and you do what you threaten to do I’ll be involved in a scandal I can never live down. I’ll be under a suspicion that will never be entirely removed. To prevent that I’m willing to - to submit. Under protest.”

His hand went to the pocket again and this time got something, a slip of paper.

He unfolded it, glanced at it, said, “Read that,” and handed it to me. It was handwritten in ink:

I hereby affirm, and will swear if necessary, that my statement to Dr Victor Avery that I saw him enter the house of Daniel Kalmus on Wednesday, February 14,

1962, was untrue. I have never seen Dr Victor Avery enter that house at any time. I write this and sign it of my own free will, not under duress.

I dropped it on the table and grinned at him. “You could frame it,” I suggested.

“I have ten thousand dollars in cash,” he said. “When you write that and sign it and give it to me, I’ll hand it over.”

“And the other ninety thousand?”

“That’s fantastic. I couldn’t possibly pay such a sum, and even if I had it…

it’s absurd. In addition to the ten thousand now, I’ll guarantee to give you another twenty thousand within a week.”

“I’ll be damned. You actually have the gall to haggle.”

“I’m not haggling. To me thirty thousand dollars is a fortune.”

I regarded him. “You know,” I said, “I admire your nerve, I really do. You’re too much for me.” I looked around, caught the eye of Mrs. Piotti, and signed to her, and she came. I asked her how much, and she said a dollar-forty, and I handed her two ones and told her to keep the change. Of course that was just for appearance’s sake; I had given John fifty bucks and would give him more.

I shook my head at Avery. “Positively too much for me. We’ll have to go and put it up to Mr. Wolfe.”

He gawked. “What?”

“I said, put it up to Mr. Wolfe. This isn’t my show, it’s his, I only work for him. That last night, me being fired, that was just dressing. You’ll have to come and do your haggling with him. He certainly won’t settle for a measly thirty grand.”

He was still gawking. “Nero Wolfe is behind this?”

“He sure is, and also in front of it.” I shoved my chair back. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I will not.”

“For God’s sake.” I leaned to him. “Dr Avery, you are unquestionably the champion beetlebrain. Nero Wolfe has got you wrapped up and addressed straight to hell, and you sit there and babble I will not. Do you prefer hell or are you coming?’ I picked up the slip of paper and pocketed it, rose, got my coat from the hook and put it on, got my hat, and headed for the door. As I passed the next table Fred Durkin, crammed with spaghetti and wine to his chin, got up and headed in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen. As I emerged to the sidewalk a gust of winter wind nearly took my hat, and as I clapped my hand on it here came Avery, his coat on his arm. When he tried to put the coat on, the wind tossed it around, so I helped him, and he thanked me. A murderer and a blackmailer, both with good manners.

Second Avenue was downtown, so we walked to Third for a taxi. When we had got one and were in and rolling I rather expected Avery to start a conversation, but he didn’t.

Not a word. I didn’t look at him, but out of the corner of my eye I saw that his hand was working inside his overcoat pocket. If he had nerve he also had nerves.

Wolfe made more concessions during the five days of the Blount thing than he usually makes in a year. Ordinarily, at ten minutes to two, the hour at which Avery and I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone and entered, Wolfe is right in the middle of lunch, and I was expecting to have to entertain the guest in the office for at least half an hour while we waited. But as I learned later from Fritz, he had been told when he took up the breakfast tray that lunch would be at 12:45 sharp. To you that merely means that Wolfe had sense enough to change the schedule when it was called for, but to me it meant that at breakfast time he had taken it for granted that half an hour with Avery at Piotti’s would be all I would need and I would have him at the office before two o’clock. It’s nice to have your gifts recognized, but some day he’ll take too much for granted.

So I had barely got the guest into the office and seated in the red leather chair when Wolfe entered. I went and shut the door. Saul and Fred and Orrie would soon be passing by on their way to the kitchen with the recorder and tape.

As I returned to my desk Avery was blurting, “I’m here under protest, and if you think you and Goodwin -“

“Shut up!’ It wasn’t a roar, just the crack of a whip. Wolfe, seated, turned to me: ‘Was there any difficulty?”

“No, sir.” I sat. “All okay. More than enough. To the question did he enter that house at that time Wednesday, a flat yes. He offered me ten thousand cash now and a guarantee of twenty grand more within a week if I would sign a statement that I hadn’t seen him. He didn’t -“

That’s a lie,” Avery said.

So he hadn’t started a conversation in the taxi because he had been too busy deciding on his line, and the line was to call me a liar and make Wolfe start from scratch. Not so dumb at that.

Wolfe leaned back and regarded him, not with hostility, merely as an object of interest. Of course he was just passing the time until the trio arrived. “A book could be written,” he said, “on the varieties of conduct of men in a pickle. Men confronted with their doom. In nearly all cases the insuperable difficulty is that their mental processes are numbed by the emotional impact of the predicament. It is a fallacy to suppose that the best mind will deal most effectively with a crisis; if the emotion has asphyxiated the mind what good is it'Take you with Mr. Goodwin in that restaurant. Since you have succeeded in your profession you probably have a fairly capable mind, but you reacted like a nincompoop. You should either have defied him and prepared to fight it out, or,

asking him to sign a document that would remove his threat, you should have met his demands in full; and you should have admitted nothing. Instead, you tried to dicker, and you made the one vital admission, that you had entered that house Wednesday evening. Indeed -“

“That’s a lie.” Apparently that was to be his verse and chorus. Not a bad idea if he had the guts to fight it out, but in that case he should get up and go.

The doorbell rang. I went and opened the door to the hall a crack. Fritz came from the kitchen and went to the front and opened up, and here came the trio,

not stopping at the rack to take their coats off. Saul nodded at my face in the crack as he passed, and Orrie made the sign, a jerk with the tips of his thumb and forefinger joined. When they had disappeared into the kitchen I swung the door wide, returned to my desk, and reached around behind it to flip a switch.

That was all that was needed at my end.

Wolfe was talking. “… and perhaps that would have been your wisest course.

After Mr. Goodwin had spoken with you from his hotel room last night, you knew you were in mortal danger, and you thought he was its sole agent. He alone had knowledge of the crucial fact; but for him, you had little to fear. Why didn’t you kill him, at whatever hazard'You knew where he was and you had all night.