“So that’s six.”
“Plus our mystery guest from Willow Street. I’ll bring him myself.”
“Making seven. And you’ll be eight, and I suppose there’ll be some other municipal employees present.”
“Cops, you mean? Two, maybe three. Guys I can work with.”
“Nine, ten, eleven. Plus Carolyn, because I can’t leave her out.”
“Makes twelve, and with you it’s thirteen. I hope you’re not superstitious, Bernie.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Anyway, won’t it be fourteen? Because I can’t believe the man from Willow Street won’t want to have his lawyer present.”
“What’s he need with a lawyer? He knows he’s not a target of the investigation.”
“Oh? How does he see himself?”
“As a public-spirited citizen,” he said, “helpin’ me develop a case against a notorious burglar.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, that sounds about right.”
“Seven o’clock,” I told Carolyn, and ran through the guest list. “So I’m afraid we don’t get to thank God that it’s Friday.”
“If we close at five-thirty—”
“I think I’ll just stay open,” I said. “Ray said we may have a few early birds.”
“In that case,” she said, “there’s an hour’s worth of dusting and cleaning I’ve been putting off, so I might as well get it out of the way. How will it be if I show up around six-thirty?”
“I’ll be here.”
“And we can still express our gratitude for getting through another week, Bern. We just won’t have glasses in our hands when we do it.”
It’s hard to keep Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books in stock. People keep discovering the series and seeking copies of the titles they haven’t read yet, while long-term fans come in hoping to replace the books their friends have borrowed and failed to return.
I managed to turn up a book club edition of Might As Well Be Dead and was using it for reference, noting how Wolfe positioned a roomful of suspects before solving a case, putting various people in various chairs. I didn’t have a red leather chair, or a batch of yellow ones, and in fact just about all of my guests would have to stand, but I made a little chart anyway, trying to work out the order of my presentation.
This took longer than you might think, because a stray comment of Archie’s about one of the participants sent me flipping pages, looking for the scene where she first appeared. I couldn’t find it, but I found other good parts, and realized the only sensible course was to start the book at the beginning. It had been a couple of years since I last read it, and I was clearly ready to read it again.
I suppose I heard the bell when my door opened, and I registered it the way one notes in passing a screech of brakes in the street outside. When it’s followed by the sound of impact, one looks up; otherwise it’s just part of the city’s background music.
“I don’t believe it!”
A woman’s voice, bubbly with surprise and delight. Pleased to find an old-fashioned bookshop, no doubt, or perhaps more specifically pleased to find a book for which she’d long been searching. If what I was reading were a little less compelling, I’d look up and greet her. But as it was—
“I was sure you’d never be open. I had this fantasy that you were keeping tabs on my schedule, so you could make sure to close before I could get over here. But here we both are, and what do you think about that?”
Oh, God, it was the lady who’d been leaving notes for me. I looked up from my book to see a slender young Asian woman in dark slacks and a blue silk blouse. She had a book bag slung over one shoulder and an expression on her face that morphed as I watched from pleased to startled.
I suspect my own face must have been undergoing much the same transformation.
Our eyes locked, and we stared. And then, at the same instant, we both spoke, and we both said the same thing:
“Juneau Lock!”
“You speak English,” I said.
“And so do you. Who would have guessed?”
“But—”
“God, this is embarrassing. Look, when you’re a Chinese girl in a culture where Asian ethnicity is a male fetish second only to big tits, your life becomes way simpler if the people you deal with don’t know you can speak their language.”
“I can see how that would be true,” I said, and looked closely at her. “But that’s only part of it, isn’t it? You get a kick out of it. You like getting over on people.”
“Oops,” she said. “Busted. Yeah, you’re right. That’s bad, huh?”
“Well, it’s probably a character defect.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“But one of the more endearing ones.”
“You think?” She grinned. “It does pass the time. And I don’t get a lot in the way of recreation.”
“You must work long hours.”
“Long enough to keep me from getting here during your all-too-brief business hours. I’m at the restaurant every day from ten to six. Once in a green moon I beg my uncle for a half hour in the slow part of the afternoon. You’re smiling. What’s so funny?”
“Once in a green moon,” I said.
“I said green? I meant blue. I even know what the expression means. Do you?”
I did. “When the moon’s full twice within a single calendar month, it’s called a blue moon.”
“And it doesn’t happen very often. But why blue? Any idea? Well, we could always Google it. Right or wrong, we’d get an answer. Anyway, blue or green, I’d rush over here, and you’d be closed.”
“And then you started leaving notes.”
“I couldn’t help myself. I was being obnoxious, wasn’t I?”
“More like charming.”
“Really?”
“Intriguing, even.”
“Actually,” she said, “that’s what I was aiming for. It was sort of like an online flirtation, where you have no idea what the person’s like, and if you did you wouldn’t flirt with him in a million years, but it’s online, so who cares?”
Our eyes met, and the abrupt realization that we were now flirting face to face brought a rush of color to her cheeks. “Oh, that reminds me,” she said, spinning away from me. She darted over to a bank of shelves and came back with Antonin Dvorak: The Man and His Music, by Dieter Vogelsang.
“You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been looking for this book,” she said.
“You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve owned it.”
“Really?”
“It was here when I bought the store.”
“I could see it from outside,” she said, “and I could never get inside to buy it. Is this right? Only ten dollars?”
I shook my head. “That’s the old price.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. How much do you want for it?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s free.”
“Come on, be serious.”
“This is as serious as I get. I’ve had the book forever, and you’re the first person to express any interest in it whatsoever. And look at all the sensational food I’ve received from your hands, not to mention the hard time you’ve had getting your hands on Mr. Dvorak. Please, just put it in your bag.”
“Well, if you’re sure—”
I said I was, and she added the man and his music to her book bag. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Bernie,” I said. “Bernie Rhodenbarr.”
“I’m Katie Huang.”
“And you’re from Taichung?”
“Taipei.”
“Okay, but your uncle’s one of the two guys from Taichung?”
“He’s both guys,” she said, “because why change the sign? And he’s from Taipei, too, but he thought Taichung sounded more exotic.”
“He’s right about that. I didn’t even know where it was.”
“In the middle of the country, southwest of Taipei.”
“So I discovered.”<
br />
“Google, huh? Anyway, the food we cook is more Taichung than Taipei.”
“Especially General Tso and the orange beef.”
“The real food,” she said.
“Juneau Lock.”
“I’ll never live that down, will I?”
“Not if I can help it. Dvorak, huh?”
“My main man, ever since I first heard the New World Symphony. And the timing’s perfect, because I’ll be performing his sonata for flute and piano Sunday afternoon. The one in A minor.”
“It’s good you specified. You’re a musician.”
“Not yet, but that’s the plan.”
“A budding musician. And you’re giving a concert?”
“It’s just a recital. I’m a student at Juilliard. That’s why I never have a spare minute, I’m at the restaurant all day and in class half the night, and practicing the rest of the time. Do you want to come? I mean, it’s just a student recital, and none of us are ready to audition for the Philharmonic, but on the other hand it’s the same price as Mr. Vogelsang’s book.”
“Ten bucks?”
“Free admission. You could bring, um—”
“Her name’s Carolyn,” I said, and decided to answer the unasked question. “She’s my best friend, but we’re not a couple. She, uh, likes girls.”
“You know, I had that feeling—”
“It’s the haircut.”
“—but you being together all the time, although I never actually saw you both at the same time, but still, I mean, coming in on alternate days and buying food for two, and Juneau Lock and all—”
“I know.”
“Um, are you—”
“I’m like Carolyn,” I said. “In that we both like girls.”
“I had that feeling, too. Oh, God, I’m running late. I’m supposed to be rehearsing. Nguyen’s gonna kill me.”
“He’s the flautist?”
“He’s the pianist. I’m the flautist. Most people say flutist, but you actually said flautist, didn’t you? And why should that make me so curiously happy?”
“I have no idea. What time on Sunday?”
“Three o’clock at Alice Tully Hall. It’s open seating, so you might want to get there a few minutes early. Do you really think you might come?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“You know, there are men who have a sort of fetish for women who play woodwind instruments.”
“Really? Gee, I wonder why.”
“It’s one of life’s mysteries. I’m glad you’re not like that.”
“Me too. But I might have the other one that you mentioned.”
“I hope it’s for Asian women and not big tits.”
“It’s more specific. It’s for adorable smartass girls from Taipei.”
“Adorable? My Tiger Mom would be so proud. Oh, rats. I really have to—”
“I know. Sunday at three at Alice Tully. And dinner afterward.”
“That’d be great. But one thing, Bernie—”
“Anything but Chinese.”
“Oh, I think I’m in love,” she said, and flew out the door.
It must have been around 6:15 when Katie left, and if she’d waited five minutes she could have held the door for Carolyn, who arrived carrying two bottles of a perky little Beaujolais and a party platter from Sweet Suffering Cheeses. While I tried to figure out where to put things, she took down my sign that said OPEN or CLOSED, depending on which way it was facing, and replaced it with a chunk of cardboard with PRIVATE PARTY hand-lettered on it.
“If they think it’s a festive occasion,” she said, “they’ll be leaning the right way when you pull the rug out from under them. I hope they don’t mind drinking out of plastic cups.”
If they did, they were polite enough not to show it. A lanky blonde with bright red nail polish was the first to arrive, around fifteen minutes before the appointed hour. “Oh, I’m early,” she said. “I usually am, and the people I’m supposed to meet with are usually late. I’m Deirdre Ostermaier.”
I recognized her from a photograph, even as I recognized the next arrivals, Boyd Ostermaier and Stephen Cairns. They were both tall and well built, their medium-brown hair buzzed short, their gym muscles shown to advantage in Chelsea Gym T-shirts and tight Levi’s. Boyd, who had a perfectly trimmed beard, gave the cheese platter a professional glance and pronounced it an attractive presentation. Stephen, beardless, had nice things to say about the wine.
Meredith Ostermaier and Nils Calder had a uniformed patrolman as an escort, one Morton O’Fallon, a rail-thin fellow with a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Meredith was a sort of hot Earth Mother type, all flesh and warmth, while her mate was as laid back as a coiled spring; it wasn’t hard to picture him pacing back and forth on a small stage and telling the actors what to do. He filled a cup with wine and skipped the cheese. Meredith, playing Mrs. Sprat, did the reverse.
Patrolman O’Fallon allowed himself neither wine nor cheese, but planted himself where he could size everybody up. It wasn’t long before he had somebody to talk to, when another cop—in plainclothes, but no less identifiable—came in with Jackson Ostermaier in tow. Jackson looked like a lawyer, and a successful one at that, with a haircut that had cost more than the cop’s suit and a suit that cost more than his car.
I didn’t catch the plainclothes cop’s name, I don’t think he gave it, but I heard O’Fallon call him Tom.
Carolyn drifted over to my side and let her eyes move around the room. “They seem like perfectly nice people,” she said.
“They do,” I agreed. “And they’re all talking among themselves, the way people do at a social gathering. You were a genius to think of the wine and cheese.”
“Well, you need something to break the ice, Bern. It’s that or you’ll have Meredith and Nils getting everybody to throw their keys in a hat.”
The conversation by this time had a nice party-time hum to it, enough to drown out the tinkling of the bell when the door opened once more. Still, something must have got their attention, because the room quieted down and heads turned for a look at the new arrival.
It was Ray Kirschmann, accompanied by a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit. He had what looked to be a small brass button sewn to his lapel, but I couldn’t make out the design, or guess what candidacy it was supporting.
“Evenin’, everybody,” Ray said, in a voice that carried the room. “My name’s Ray Kirschmann, I’m a detective with the New York Police Department, but like I told you tonight’s little event’s completely unofficial. I think you all know each other, bein’ as most of you are brothers and sisters. But not all of you know this here gentleman, who’s come along to help us all out.”
Eyes swung from Ray to the man at his side.
“This is Mr. Alton Ogden Smith,” he said, and Meredith Ostermaier passed the cheese even as her sister Deirdre brought over two cups of wine.
“And now I’ll turn things over to our host,” Ray said. “This here is Bernie Rhodenbarr, a man I’ve known for a good many years, and besides bein’ a man with a shop full of old books, he’s got a real knack of separatin’ the hats from the rabbits. Bernie, you want to get things started?”
And now all eyes were on me, and most of them showed puzzlement. With one exception, they were meeting me for the first time.
Still, I knew my cue. “Welcome to Barnegat Books,” I said. “I suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you all here.”
“Not long ago,” I said, “a deeply unfortunate event occurred that touched everybody in this room. Helen Ostermaier, whose four children are present this evening, attended a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. At intermission she told a friend that she didn’t feel well and would make an early night of it.
“She caught a cab and went home, but evidently she’d been exposed at some point to peanuts in one form or another, and she suffered from a severe peanut allergy. By the time she got home she was feeling worse, not better. She attempted to inject herself with epinephrine, to
counteract the anaphylactic shock she was beginning to experience, but it turned out to be too little too late, and her weak heart couldn’t handle the strain. She fell to the floor and lay there.”
Deirdre was holding back tears. Stephen had a hand on Boyd’s shoulder, comforting him, and Nils was doing the same for Meredith.
“Now this was all tragic,” I said, “but it was a natural occurrence. Helen Ostermaier had been asthmatic as a child, with multiple allergies. The asthma receded as she matured, and so did the allergies, but they’d returned in recent years, and along the way she’d developed heart problems. While she might well have lived a good many more years, death in one form or another could have come at any time.”
“At least it was quick,” Deirdre said. “She didn’t suffer.”
“And she was active right to the end,” Boyd said. “She’d have hated being bedridden, but she was spared that.”
“Museum openings, the opera, the theater,” Meredith said. “Those things were her life. She wouldn’t have wanted to go on without them.”
“And she still had all her faculties,” Jackson added. “She hadn’t lost a step mentally, and how she dreaded that prospect. When a good friend of hers showed signs of early Alzheimer’s, it shook her.”
“She told me she hoped she died before she got like that,” Boyd said, and Deirdre said she’d been told the same thing.
“Still,” I said, “it was sad.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
“And,” I continued, “it may not have been altogether inevitable. Oh, the allergic reaction, the anaphylactic shock, the collapse—nothing could have been done to forestall that. But not long after Helen Ostermaier crumpled to the floor, someone unlocked her front door and walked in on her. Someone who’d managed to equip himself with a key, and who knew he’d have the house to himself, because the housekeeper had left hours ago and Mrs. Ostermaier would be listening to Wagner for another hour or more.”
“That’s the first thing I thought,” Deirdre said. “When I found her. Everything was strewn around, as if a burglar had been searching for something. I assumed she walked in on him and he killed her. Or if he didn’t actually strike her or stab her, the shock of seeing him there could have brought on a heart attack. That happens, doesn’t it?”
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) Page 23