Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (9 page)

“Just because I happen to be the youngest guy here don’t mean I haven’t got moxie,” I told him.

“Hah! You’re just barely younger’n me,” Cather fired back. “And you don’t have anywhere near the street smarts that I got. Hell, I was born in this town, and I’ll probably die here, peacefully or otherwise.”

“Gentleman, we are not gathered to quibble over qualifications,” Wolfe said. “While I admire experience, I also appreciate resourcefulness. Mr. Goodwin, if you accompany Mr. Williamson, albeit out of sight, do you feel you can perform in his best interests, and—more important—in the best interests of the kidnapped child?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“So do I,” Nero Wolfe said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “Saul, get one of the guns from the safe for Mr. Goodwin. I assume the rest of you are armed.” Everyone nodded. “I see no reason for there to be gunplay, but we must be prepared for any contingency.

“Saul—you, Orrie, Fred, and Mr. Bascom will this evening drive out to a prearranged location near the Williamson estate along with Mr. Goodwin, arriving there no later than eight o’clock. Mr. Goodwin, you will ride back into the city with Burke Williamson for his rendezvous in the Bronx, although you will be out of sight, probably hunkered down on the floor of the backseat. You will doubtless be most uncomfortable,” he said, making a face, “but sadly that cannot be avoided.

“Mr. Goodwin gets into the Williamson automobile and they drive off. You four will follow that machine at a discreet distance to ensure that no one is tailing it. And you also will keep watch on them, again from a distance, when they reach the telephone booth on the Grand Concourse. Saul, you and Mr. Williamson are to agree on a meeting place after all this activity has transpired—including, it is to be hoped, the return of the Williamson boy. Questions?”

“Yeah,” said Panzer, scratching his chin and leaning forward in the red leather chair at one end of Wolfe’s desk. “Am I correct in assuming that we are meeting Williamson at a location away from his house so that none of his employees will know what’s happening?”

“You are indeed correct. Mr. Williamson stubbornly persists in his belief that every member of his household staff remains above suspicion. I do not share in that admirable but naive belief. When he leaves his home tonight, the only person to know his destination will be his wife. I have insisted upon this, suggesting he develop a plausible reason for his absence if asked by anyone in his employ. Any other questions, gentlemen?”

We all looked at one another, then back at our host. No one spoke.

“I reiterate that the sole purpose of this undertaking is to return an eight-year-old boy safely to his parents. While we, of course, also would like to apprehend the kidnappers and retrieve Mr. Williamson’s money, those goals, albeit commendable ones, are not what I have been hired to do.” Wolfe looked at each of us again, as if to detect some sign of disagreement.

“Very well. Each of you who does not have the telephone number of this office needs to record it now,” he said, reading off the digits as I scribbled them down. “I will call Mr. Williamson and establish the meeting place.”

A
half hour later, the five of us piled back into the Heron sedan, with Saul Panzer again behind the wheel, destination: an intersection near the Williamson estate on Long Island.

“What’s with Wolfe not knowing anything about this Grand Concourse place?” I asked. “Sounds like it should be pretty well known, given that you called it ‘The Main Street of the Bronx.’”

That drew a chuckle from the others, but Panzer remained serious. “Mr. Wolfe is brilliant, like nobody I have ever seen or ever will see. He has broken open cases I would have said were unsolvable, and how he has done it, I can’t begin to tell you. But he also has his, shall we say ...
eccentricities
. He almost never leaves his home; why should he? He has got everything he needs right there: his ten thousand splashy orchids in that greenhouse up on the roof, complete with his own gardener, old Horstmann; his gourmet meals prepared by Fritz Brenner; his endless supply of beer; and enough books to stock a small public library.

“He reads three or four newspapers every day, so he knows what’s going on in that outside world where he rarely sets foot,” Panzer went on. “But for reasons known only to him, Mr. Wolfe has little or no interest in geography, local or otherwise, even though he’s got that big globe in his office. For instance, if I handed him a map of Manhattan, I very much doubt he could locate Greenwich Village or Columbia University or Madison Avenue without poring over that map. And the fact is, he really doesn’t care. That’s part of the reason he has guys like us working for him. Among us we know pretty much all the neighborhoods and streets and byways in the five boroughs, and you’ll get to know them, too, Archie, if you stay around this town long enough.”

“I’ll give you an idea of what Saul’s talking about,” Cather said with a sour laugh. “A year or so, Fred and I were on a case for Wolfe where we had to talk to a big-shot corporate lawyer who had an office in the brand-new Chrysler Building, and Wolfe asked us where it was. Here you’ve got the tallest, most-famous skyscraper in town—although that Empire State Building they’re building is going to top it—and Wolfe had no idea whatever of its location, other than it was somewhere on Manhattan Island. Saul is absolutely right. Wolfe doesn’t need to know where things are as long as he’s got us around.”

“All in all, I’d say the system works pretty well,” Durkin volunteered. “We all go out and collect pieces in information, much of which doesn’t mean a damn thing to us, and we drop it all in Wolfe’s lap. Then he—don’t ask me how—takes these pieces and puts them together to solve a puzzle.”

“And on numerous occasions, that puzzle has been a murder,” Saul said. “In the years I’ve known him, Mr. Wolfe has done the Police Department’s work for them more times than I can count.”

“How do the cops feel about that?” I asked.

“Hah!” Del Bascom snorted. “Just ask that question to Wolfe’s old buddy Inspector Cramer.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard his name before.”

“And you’ll doubtless hear it again, Archie, if you do more jobs for Wolfe,” Bascom said. “They go back quite a ways.”

“Well, Cramer may not enter into this case,” Saul Panzer observed, “given that it’s a kidnapping and not a homicide.”

How wrong that prediction proved to be.

S
aul Panzer steered the Heron along a dark country lane in the general vicinity of the Williamson mansion and pulled off the pavement near an intersection with another two-lane road, letting the engine idle. We sat there no more than two minutes when another car, a swell Packard sedan with side-mounted tires, pulled up beside us and a grim-faced Burke Williamson climbed out.

We all stepped from the Heron as Panzer and Williamson went over the plan. “Archie Goodwin will be in the car with you, out of sight, as Mr. Wolfe has told you,” Panzer said. “We will be behind as you drive into the city to ensure that you’re not being followed. You won’t see us. Do you have the money?”

“It’s in the car,” the hotelier said. “Understand, I want no gunplay.”

“Nor do we,” Panzer said. “Let’s go.”

I got into the backseat of the big Packard. “I’ll crouch down on the floor when we get closer to the Bronx,” I said.

Williamson nodded curtly as we pulled away. “You seem awfully young,” he remarked. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”

“Not exactly, although I’ve been in the game longer than you might think,” I answered, exaggerating my experience. We drove the rest of the way in silence, and even in the dim glow supplied by passing streetlamps, I could see the veins standing out on the back of Williamson’s hands as he gripped the steering wheel. Periodically, I looked out the back window but saw no headlights behind us. Either the foursome was farther back than I would have thought or Panzer was driving with his lights off.

I hadn’t looked at a map and had no idea what direction we were going in, but I was aware that we had entered the Queens section of New York City. “Are we close to the Bronx?” I asked Williamson.

“Yes, and you’ll know we’re there when we cross a bridge over water,” he said in a hoarse voice. “It’s coming up soon, and that’s when you will need to get down.”

The bridge came and I dropped to the floor behind the front seat, feeling the cold bulk in my jacket pocket of the automatic pistol Panzer had gotten for me from Wolfe’s office safe. It was a Webley, so he said, and fully loaded.

“We’re at the Grand Concourse,” Williamson announced. “It should only be another two or three blocks.... Yes, there’s the telephone booth, I see it. I have five to nine, Goodwin; what does your watch read?”

“The same,” I told him, barely making out the dial on my wristwatch in the near darkness of the automobile’s well-carpeted floor. He pulled the auto to the curb, got out, and walked to the booth as I rose to my knees and peered out the window. At precisely nine o’clock, the instrument jangled and Williamson answered it on the first ring. I could see his lips move and his head nod twice. He then cradled the receiver and walked back to the car.

“The voice told me to go to a second booth, three blocks from here at East 201st Street and Briggs Avenue. I was told I would get another call there. And, of course, I am to bring the money along.”

“All this figures. They’re trying to see if you’ve got reinforcements. Wait a couple of minutes, just in case we’ve lost our other car.”

“I don’t want to keep them waiting,” Williams said, panic edging into his voice.

“You know how to get there from here?”

“It’s simple; the voice gave me directions.”

“A man?”

“Yes, a deep voice, very precise, with no accent that I could make out,” Williamson said.

“Okay, I think it’s safe to go now. Panzer seems like the sort who knows how to hold a tail.”

“Back down on the floor, Goodwin.”

After less than five minutes, the Packard stopped again. This was a far quieter intersection, although as I got partway up from the floor again and looked out, I saw apartment buildings several stories high on all four corners. The night could have many eyes. Then I saw something else as Williamson walked toward the phone booth with the suitcase full of ransom money. It was a figure, seemed to be a man, lying up against the apartment building nearest the phone booth and writhing.

I got out of the car. “Look out—it may be a trap!” I whisper-yelled to Williamson, who by now had noticed the figure, a guy in a gray jacket and flat cap, moaning and clutching his stomach. I pulled out my Webley and edged toward him, expecting trouble. But he made no move, other than to continue groaning and wrapping both arms around his midsection.

I knelt next to him. “What happened?” I asked, leaning down toward his anguished face.

“Shot ... silencer ... gut.” Blood began to ooze out between his fingers and he slumped further down, mouth agape and eyes sightless. I did a fast pat-down of his jacket and felt a flat lump in one pocket.

“What is he saying!” Williamson hissed.

“He’s not going to be saying anything more,” I told him. “He’s gone. Let’s get out of here.”

“But the phone call!”

“There isn’t going to be any phone call coming now, believe me,” I barked. “We’ve gotta go.” I grabbed Williamson by the shoulder and pulled him toward the Packard. He tried to dig in his heels, but I pulled harder and got him and his suitcase full of dough up to the car. “But my son, I’ve got to—”

“You’ve got to get in, but you’re in no condition to drive. I’ll take the wheel. Give me your keys. We can’t stay here.”

He thrust the keys at me, and we both got into the Packard. I pulled from the curb and peeled away just as the Heron came into sight in the rearview mirror. “Where are we supposed to rendezvous with the others?”

“The same intersection as before,” he said, holding his head in his hands as I began retracing the route back to Long Island. “Oh God, what do we do now, what do we do next?”

“First a call to Wolfe,” I said, stopping at yet another Bronx telephone booth. I took out my wallet and got the sheet of paper with the brownstone’s number, dialing it.

“Yes?” Wolfe answered on the first ring.

“Archie Goodwin, Mr. Wolfe.” I began telling him where we were and what had happened. “The bozo was armed, had an automatic in his pocket. I got Williamson out of there fast. If the cops had showed up while we were around, we’d have been hauled in and had plenty of explaining to do. Then who knows—the kidnappers might have panicked, and, well ...

He made a sound I would describe as a growl. “Confound it, I did not anticipate such an outcome.”

“If you want my opinion, there was a falling-out between this bunch, whoever they are, and one of them, the guy lying croaked on the sidewalk, was moving to cut his colleagues out right there on the corner and grab the kale from Williamson.”

“I did not ask your opinion, Mr. Goodwin, but I happen to concur with it. Where are the others?”

“Presumably heading back to our prearranged meeting place. That’s where I’m going now with Williamson, who’s not in very good shape.”

“Understandable,” Wolfe said. “Very well, have Saul telephone me as soon as possible.”

We drove back to Long Island in silence, and I only had to ask directions of Williamson once. We waited for ten minutes at the now-familiar intersection before the Heron joined us.

“What the hell went on back there?” Panzer asked as we all climbed out of the autos and stood in a circle in the grass beside the country lane.

“I ran over and checked on the guy lying on the sidewalk, who said he’d been shot with a gun that had a silencer,” I said, “and those were his last words.” I finished my rundown and told Saul that Wolfe wanted to talk to him.

“But what’s going to happen next?” asked a frantic Williamson.

“Do you want to bring the police into this now?” Panzer said.

“No! No, I don’t. Those kidnappers said no police, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize Tommie. Oh Lord, I can’t bear to go back and face Lillian. She’s been praying that I would bring him home with me.”