Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families (11 page)

With the breakfast all down, including the coffee, which was pretty good, I was so interested in my reading that I didn’t notice that my mate had finished with sports and proceeded to other current events. What got my attention was the feeling that I was being scrutinized, and sure enough I was. He was looking at me, and then at his page four, and back at me again.

I grinned at him. “Pretty good likeness, huh? But I don’t think that’s the right dog. I’m no expert, but Hebe isn’t quite as slim as that.”

He was regarding me with a new expression, not particularly matey. “So you’re Nero Wolfe’s little Archie.”

“I was.” I gestured. “Read the paper. Apparently I am now my own little Archie.”

“So I bought a meal for a shamus.”

“Not at all. Didn’t I say it was on me when I get my wallet back?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have believed it. With them clothes? I supposed you had got snagged in the raid on the Covered Porch. It gets worse all the time, the dicks. Look at this, even here in the can I meet a guy with a suit of clothes like that, and he’s a dick!”

“I am not a dick, strictly speaking.” I was hurt. “I am a private eye. I said I liked the way you talk, but you’re getting careless. I also noticed you were cultured, and that should have put me on my guard. Cultured people are not often found in the coop. But nowadays dicks are frequently cultured. They tossed me in here because they think I’m holding out on a
murder, which I’m not, and the fact that it has been tried before doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try it again. Putting you in here with me wasn’t so dumb, but you overplayed it, buying me a breakfast first pop. That started me wondering.”

He was on his feet, glaring down at me. “Watch it, loose-lip. I’m going to clip you.”

“What for?”

“You need a lesson. I’m a plant, am I?”

“Nuts. Who’s insulted now?” I gestured. “You call me a name, I call you a name. I take it, you take it. Let’s start over.”

But he was too sensitive to make up as quick as all that. He undid his fist, glared at me some more, sidled between his chair and his cot, and got comfortable on the cot with his
Gazette
. With his head toward the corridor he was getting as good light as there was, and I followed his example, folding one of the blankets for a pillow and spreading my handkerchief on it. Two hours and ten minutes passed without a word from either cot. I happen to know because as I stretched out I glanced at my watch, wondering how soon I could reasonably expect Parker to show up with a crowbar to pry me loose, and it was twenty past nine; and, after giving that
Gazette
as good a play as a newspaper ever got, I had just looked at my watch for the twentieth time and seen 11:30 when he suddenly spoke.

“Look, Goodwin, what are you going to do now?”

I let the paper slide to the floor. “I don’t know, take a nap, I guess.”

“I don’t mean now, this minute. Is anyone looking after you?”

“If he isn’t he’d better be. A high-priced lawyer named Parker.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll go home and take a bath.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll brush my teeth and shave.”

“Then what?”

I swiveled my head to glance at him. “You’re pretty damn persistent. Where do you want us to get to?”

“Nowhere in particular.” He stayed supine, and I noticed that in profile he looked a little like John L. Lewis, only a lot younger. He went on, “I was just thinking, with Nero Wolfe gone I suppose your job’s gone. Can’t I think?”

“Sure. If it doesn’t hurt.”

A brief silence. He spoke again. “I’ve heard about you a little. What kind of a guy are you?”

“Oh—I’m a thinker too, and I’m cultured. I got good marks in algebra. I sleep well. I’m honest and ambitious, with a good personality.”

“You know your way around.”

“In certain circles, yes. It would be hard to lose me within ten miles of Times Square unless I was blindfolded. What are the requirements of the position you are about to offer?”

He ignored that and took another angle. “My name is Christy—Max Christy. Ever hear of me?”

If I had it was vague, but I saw no point in hurting his feelings. “Max Christy?” I snorted. “Don’t be silly.”

“I thought you might have. I’ve only been around the big town a couple of years, and I don’t toot a horn, but some people get talked about. How much has Wolfe been paying you?”

“That’s asking,” I objected mildly. “I wouldn’t
want it to get in the papers. I’ve been eating all right and I’ve got a government bond. Anything over—”

Footsteps in the corridor stopped at our door, and the turnkey’s voice came. “Mr. Christy! They want you down in the office.”

My mate stayed flat. “Come back in ten minutes, Wilkes,” he called. “I’m busy.”

I confirmed it. “We’re in conference, Wilkes,” I snapped.

“But I think it’s your out.”

“I suppose so. Come back in ten minutes.”

Wilkes, mumbling something, went away. Christy resumed. “You were saying …”

“Yeah. That anything over fifty grand a year would find me a good listener.”

“I’m being serious, Goodwin.”

“So am I.”

“You are not. You never got within a mile of fifty grand a year.” His head was turned to face me now. “Anyway, it’s not a question of so many grand a year—not in this business.”

“In what business?”

“The business I’m in. What did I say my name is?”

“Max Christy.”

“Then what more do you want? Take my being here now, for example. I got raked in at the Covered Porch yesterday by mistake, but I would have been loose in an hour if it hadn’t been Sunday—and Easter too. Here it is”—he looked at his wrist—“not quite noon, and I’m walking out. There has never been an organization to compare with it. For a man like you there would be special jobs and special opportunities if you once got taken in. With your record, which is bad as far as I know it, that would take
a while. You would have to show, and show good. Your idea about so many grand a year just isn’t realistic, certainly not while you’re being tried, but after that it would depend on you. If you’ve got it in you there’s practically no limit. Another thing is income tax.”

“Yeah, what about income tax?”

“You simply use your judgment. Say Wolfe paid you thirty grand a year, which he didn’t, nothing like it, what did you have to say about income tax? Nothing. It was taken out before you got paid. You never even saw it. In this business you make your own decisions about it. You want to be fair, and you want to be in the clear, but you don’t want to get gypped, and on that basis you use your judgment.”

Christy raised his torso and sat on the edge of the cot. “You know, Goodwin, I’m just tossing this at you on the spur of the moment. I laid here reading about you, and I thought to myself, here’s a man the right age and experience, not married, the right personality, he knows people, he knows lots of cops, he has been a private eye for years and so he would be open to anything that sounds good enough; he is just out of a job, he’s got himself tangled in a hot homicide here in Westchester, and he may need help right now. That’s what I was thinking, and I thought why not ask him? I can’t guarantee anything, especially if you’re headed for a murder rap, but if you need help now and then later on you would like a chance at something, I’m Max Christy and I could pass the word along. If you—”

He paused at the sound of footsteps. Wilkes’ voice came from the door. “They want you down there, Mr. Christy. I told them you was busy personally, but they’re sending up.”

“All right, Wilkes. Coming.” My mate stood up. “What about it, Goodwin?”

“I appreciate it,” I said warmly. Wilkes, having unlocked the door, was standing there, and, using my judgment, I kept it discreet. “When I get out and look around a little I’ll know better how things stand.” I had got to my feet. “How do I get in touch with you?”

“Phone is best. Churchill five, three two three two. I’m not there much, but a message will reach me promptly. Better write it down.”

“I’ll remember it.” I took his offered hand and we shook. “It’s been a pleasure. Where can I mail a check for the breakfast?”

“Forget it. It was a privilege. Be seeing you, I hope.” He strode out like an executive going to greet a welcome caller, Wilkes holding the door for him.

I sat down on the cot, thinking it was a hell of a note for a Max Christy to get sprung before an Archie Goodwin. What was keeping Parker? In jail a man gets impatient.

I
t was seven o’clock that evening, just getting dark, when I left the car at the curb on West Thirty-fifth Street in front of Wolfe’s house and climbed the seven steps to the stoop. Parker, armed with papers which stated, among other things, that my continued availability to the People of the State of New York was worth ten thousand dollars, had arrived at the jail shortly after two, and in another ten minutes I had been unleashed on society again, but District Attorney Archer had requested another session with me in the presence of my attorney, and Parker and I had obliged. It had dragged on and on, and was really a bore, because there was nothing for me to try to be witty about. Unlike some other occasions when I had been in conference with the law, there was nothing to stimulate me because all I had to do was tell the truth, and all of it—except the sausage part and the phone call from Arnold Zeck.

When they had finally called it a day and Parker and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, he asked me, “Am I to know where Wolfe is?”

“I doubt it. He told me not to look for him.”

“I see.”

His tone of voice irritated me. “Every word you heard me say in there,” I asserted, “was the truth, I haven’t the thinnest idea where he is or what he’s doing.”

He shrugged. “I’m not complaining. I only hope he hasn’t tumbled in where it’s too deep this time—and you too.”

“Go to hell,” I advised him, and marched off. I couldn’t really blame the Westchester bunch, but Parker should have known me well enough to tell which side of my mouth I was talking out of. It’s damn discouraging, when you do tell the truth, not to have it recognized.

Also discouraging was the welcome I got on entering Wolfe’s house that evening. It was in the form of a note stuck in the corner of my desk blotter, unfolded.

I was pleased to observe that he stuck to routine to the end, putting the time down. Also it was nice of him to end his note to me the same as Wolfe had
ended his. Nevertheless, it was a discouraging welcome home after a night in the hoosegow. And there had been a period of more than five hours when any phone calls that might have come would not have been answered, something that had never happened before in all the years I had worked and lived there. Unless Theodore …

I beat it to the stairs and up the three flights, and entered the plant rooms. One step inside the first room, the warm one, I stopped and surveyed. It was more of a shock, somehow, than it had been a year ago when it had been used as a target for tommy guns from across the street. Then they had at least left a mess; now there was nothing but the benches and stands. It really got me for a minute. I moved on through: medium room, cool room, potting room, spray chamber, Theodore’s room—all empty. Hewitt must have sent an army to clean all that out in one day, I thought, heading back downstairs.

In the kitchen was another longer note from Fritz, reporting phone calls that had come before he left and various minor matters. I opened the refrigerator and poked around, and settled for a jar of home-made pate, a hunk of Italian bread, Vermont cheese, and milk. As I sat working at it with an evening paper propped up before me, I kept listening for something—nothing in particular, just something. It had never been a noisy house, but I had never known it anything like that quiet. Almost no cars went by, and the few that did must have been coasting in neutral.

My meal finished and things put away, I wandered into the dining room, office, front room, down to the basement to Fritz’s room, up one flight to Wolfe’s room, up another to my room. As I undressed
for my post-jail bath, I thought that the hell of it wasn’t how I felt, but that I didn’t know how to feel. If I had actually seen the last of Nero Wolfe, it was a damn sad day for me, there were no two ways about that, and if I got a lump in my throat and somebody walked in I would just as soon show him the lump as not. But what if it was Wolfe himself who walked in? That was the trouble. Damned if I was going to work up a fancy lump and then have him suddenly appear and start crabbing about something.

After I had bathed and shaved and got into clean pajamas, and answered a couple of phone calls from journalists, and moseyed down to the office and fooled around a while, someone did walk in. When I heard the front door open I made for the hall as if I had been expecting another package of sausage, and there was Fritz. He turned from closing the door, saw me, and beamed.

“Ah! Archie! You escaped?”

“I’m out on bail.” He seemed to want to shake hands, and I was willing. “Thanks for your note. How’s the new job?”

“Terrible. I’m played up. Mr. Wolfe?”

“I know nothing about Mr. Wolfe. I ate half a jar of pâté.”

He stopped beaming. “Mr. Vukcic is going to sell this house.”

“He’s going to offer it for sale, which is not the same thing.”

“Perhaps not.” He sighed. “I’m tired. Mr. Vukcic said there is no reason why I should not sleep here but I should ask you. It would be good for me—I am so used to that room….”

“Certainly. I’m used to mine too. I’m going to sleep here until further notice.”

“Good.” He started for the kitchen, stopped, and turned. “Are you going to look for him?”

“No!” Hearing myself shout, it seemed a relief and I did it again. “I am not!” I went to the stairs and started up. “Good night.”