Fade to Black (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 5)

by Robert Goldsborough

  “No, but we’re sure as hell trying. We can’t even find out if he’s in town. I might ask you the same question.”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers. “I do know, through the folks at M/L/R, that he’s not very happy.”

  “Yeah, our ad columnist talked to Mills, and he was able to worm that much out of him, if nothing else. Listen, Archie, I’m counting on you to come through for us.”

  “Have you talked to the people at Colmar and Conn?” I asked, ducking his plea.

  “Dammit, they’re as closed-mouthed as Mills, although they’ve got good reason to be. They don’t want to talk about idea-thievery.”

  “But now with what’s happened to Swartz, they may have to, at least to the police,” I said. “What about Harlowe Conn?”

  “What about him?” Lon sounded exasperated. “God, you’ve sure got enough questions—but no answers, at least not for an old friend. I’ve talked enough, and we’ve got deadlines. Call me back when you’re prepared to be the talker.” He hung up before I could get in the last word. That made it twice in one day.

  “Well, I got some information on the eremitic Mr. Foreman,” I said to the cover of Wolfe’s book, thinking my use of a fifteen-dollar word would get his attention. I was wrong, and I turned back to the file folders on my desk, but before I could even open one, the phone rang.

  “Mr. Acker Foreman calling Nero Wolfe,” a crisp female voice intoned. I asked her to please wait and covered my mouthpiece. “It’s Foreman,” I told Wolfe, who this time lowered the book and reached for his instrument.

  “This is Nero Wolfe,” he said as I stayed on the line.

  “A moment please for Mr. Foreman,” Ms. Crisp Voice said. She hit the hold button, and Wolfe looked like he was going to hang up. Nobody enjoys that “you-get-on-the-phone-first” stunt, Wolfe least of all. But he didn’t have to wait more than a handful of seconds.

  “Nero Wolfe?” a gravelly voice burst loudly onto the line, not waiting for an answer to his question. “This is Acker Foreman. I need to see you. Today.”

  “Indeed?” Wolfe replied coolly.

  “You know why,” Foreman shot back. He wasn’t exactly oozing social graces.

  “Perhaps you can enlighten me,” Wolfe replied, still as cool as a fall evening in the Vermont mountains.

  “Let’s not waste time sparring. I read the papers. I know you’re bright—some say you’re a sort of genius, but that’s been said about me, too. Words like ‘genius’ are overused and therefore devalued, particularly the way the press throws them around. Can you be here in an hour? My office is on Sixth Avenue, the address is—”

  “I will not be there in an hour, or ever,” Wolfe said evenly. “I make it a practice to avoid leaving home save in exceptional circumstances.”

  “This is an exceptional circumstance.”

  “For you, perhaps; for me, no. If you wish to see me, sir, it will be here, providing that we can agree upon a time.”

  That slowed Foreman down, as it was meant to. “Don’t try to get tough with me, or you’ll regret it,” he rasped after several ticks of the clock.

  Wolfe neatly aligned his book with the edge of his desk before responding. “My stance is not meant to be tough, merely firm,” he replied. “In this instance, you are the petitioner. Were our roles reversed, I would doubtless be compelled to venture forth to Sixth Avenue. Manifestly, that is not the case.”

  “Give your address to my secretary,” Foreman snapped. “I will be there at two.”

  “I will not be available at two,” Wolfe parried. “Three o’clock is acceptable, however, and my associate, Mr. Goodwin, will supply the address to you—but to no one else. Please hold on.”

  Wolfe gently cradled the receiver, returning to his book. “Mr. Foreman, this is Archie Goodwin,” I said politely, proceeding to give him the address. I assumed he was taking it down, although I heard nothing other than a sniff on the other end until, after several seconds, there was a click, and the dial tone began droning.

  “Not a terribly sociable fellow, is he?” I said, but Wolfe was buried in his book again, where he would stay until we went into the dining room to tackle Fritz’s chicken livers and tomatoes, followed by rice cakes.

  ELEVEN

  WOLFE HAD READ AN ESSAY someplace to the effect that baseball more than any other single pastime or activity encapsulates the composite American character, whatever that means. Anyway, during lunch, he asked me a pile of questions about what baseball means to me, being as how I’ve spent so many hours at Shea Stadium through the years.

  I should mention here that although he once went to a World Series game—by way of indulging a foreign guest—Wolfe’s knowledge of baseball is probably comparable to my intimacy with the writings of Montaigne. But he was serious—he really wanted to know what it is about the sport that captivates me and millions of our fellow countrymen. And since he refuses to discuss business in the dining room, I was only too glad to expound on a subject I know more about than he does.

  “Well,” I said between bites of chicken liver, “for instance, when Dwight Gooden is pitching for the Mets, it’s as if I’m out there on the mound myself. I like to imagine that I can feel the pressure he’s feeling, what with forty-odd thousand people all willing him to strike out the batter.”

  “But would you really like to be Mr. Gooden?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not. It’s one thing to imagine the pressure, quite another to live it, or so I can guess. That kind of pressure I can live without. I’ll take a box seat, thanks, along with a hot dog, a scorecard, and enough voice to tell the umpire what I think of him every couple of innings.”

  That set Wolfe to musing over whether the majority of baseball fans—or “aficionados” as he insists on calling them—have any interest in the technical aspects of the game, or are experiencing it only on a visceral level.

  “If I understand what ‘visceral’ means, and I’ve got a pretty good idea, then with me it’s some of both,” I told him. “But for most of the mob at your average game, it’s strictly us-versus-them and to the devil with intricacies and strategies.”

  Our baseball discussion went on through the end of the meal, and then it was back to the office for coffee. At my request, Fritz had gone out for an early copy of the Gazette, which was on my desk. Our home-delivered edition doesn’t come until after four, and I didn’t want to wait that long.

  Swartz’s murder was played in the lower left-hand corner of page one, under a two-column headline that read ADMAN FOUND SLAIN IN VILLAGE FLAT. The piece was a straightforward recitation. Time of death, according to the police, was between four and six P.M. Mention was made that Annie and I had been the ones who found the body, and there were a few lines on how Wolfe had been hired by Mills/Lake/Ryman to look into what the article called “idea espionage” involving the highly lucrative cherry drink campaigns.

  Harlowe Conn was quoted as saying Swartz had been “one of the finest creative talents in advertising history, a tragic loss.” But he refused comment on any possible connection between his death and his work on the AmeriCherry campaign. Likewise, Rod Mills had no comment on the competitive battle.

  “Here it is,” I told Wolfe, laying the paper in front of him. “The good news, they spelled both our names right; the bad news—no pictures.”

  The truth is, Wolfe enjoys seeing his picture in the paper as much as the next person, maybe more, but he ignored my comment as he digested the article. I then gave him a fill-in on what Lon had told me about Foreman, but he seemed more interested in his latest book, Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy, by Porter McKeever, which he plunged into while I was still talking about our next visitor.

  As it turned out, Acker Foreman had at least one thing going in his favor: promptness. The doorbell rang precisely at three. I went to the hall and through the one-way glass got an eyeful of a trio. Foreman was in the middle. He was my height, give or take an inch, with a long, narrow, slightly ruddy
face and a sparse crop of white hair, which was combed straight back. His eyes were dark—almost black—and they darted nervously from under bushy white brows.

  He was flanked by young men, at least young by comparison to him, and neither of them qualified as a bodyguard. It wasn’t only that they were skinny and slope-shouldered, but they seemed limp, although admittedly that was a snap judgment based on a five-second gander through the glass. The one on his left I recognized from the Gazette photo as Arnold. I walked back to the office.

  “Our guest has arrived with two pals,” I told Wolfe. “One is son Arnold, and were I the wagering sort, I’d say the other was son Stephen. You remember—the pair Mills said were a pain you-know-where and that Lon referred to as a ‘not so funny joke’ around the soft drink offices. Do I let them in with the old man? Wait—before you answer, you should know that I can handle both of them if they decide to get cute.” Wolfe pursed his lips and nodded, taking a long swallow of beer. He’s never been one to start working without fortification.

  By this time, the bell was ringing again—a series of short, angry squawks. I went back down the hall and swung open the front door. “You would be Mr. Foreman, I presume?” I asked cheerfully.

  “Took you long enough to get here,” Foreman snapped, stepping into the hall and motioning his escorts in with a toss of the head. “You Goodwin?”

  I said I was and quickly slammed the front door, leaving the two bozos out in the cold.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Foreman spat hoarsely, raising a hand as if to karate-chop me. “Those are my sons.”

  “Sorry for that, but you should have told us on the phone that they were going to be tagging along. We don’t like surprises,” I told him as the boys began banging on the front door and yelling.

  I reopened the door and they burst into the hall. “You okay, Dad?” the one with the dark-rimmed glasses blustered, panting.

  “Yes, dammit, I’m fine. Goodwin, this is Stephen”—he gestured curtly toward the blusterer—“and Arnold.” They could have been anywhere from the mid-thirties to the mid-forties, each of them a couple inches shorter than their old man, each with unruly black hair, and each shortchanged in the chin department, to say nothing of their manners.

  I helped Foreman off with his cashmere overcoat and let Steve and Arnie wrestle with their own. My butler’s license covers only invited guests.

  “Just a second, Champ,” I said to Arnie, moving quickly and twisting his left arm behind him. I reached inside his suitcoat and found what I was looking for, relieving him of it in a smooth motion. “That’s two surprises,” I said to Foreman Senior, palming a thirty-two-caliber automatic. “One more and you’re out.”

  “Arnold, I told you that kind of thing wasn’t necessary!” the billionaire snarled, giving his son a laser-beam look.

  “But, Dad, you can’t be sure that—”

  “Shut up!” Foreman said, turning my way. “They think I can’t handle myself, but I’ve been doing nicely since before they—and you—were born.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I told him. “And if Arnie here insists on wearing a shoulder holster, be sure he tells his tailor to make the proper alterations when he gets fitted for his next suit. He walked in here with a protrusion the size of a small Alp. Now you—take your suitcoat off,” I told Stephen, the one wearing glasses.

  “I’m not carrying a gun,” he protested, hunching his shoulders. “I’ve never even fired one.”

  “That’s easy to believe, but off with the coat, or no one, and that includes Dad, goes one step farther.”

  Steve was in a bind, but his father ended the dilemma. “Take off your coat,” he said quietly. Like Wolfe, Foreman could get the maximum impact without raising his voice. The red-faced son peeled off his brown plaid sportcoat and handed it to me.

  I patted it down and gave it back. “Okay,” I told him, “I realize you weren’t bulging at the seams like your sibling, but after his little stunt, I was afraid you might have a Derringer tucked away.” I patted down Steve’s trouser pockets for good measure and led the Foreman crew to the office. As I got to the door, Wolfe set his book down and looked a question at me.

  “A little discussion over firearms,” I answered, displaying the thirty-two. “It got settled, though, and I’m holding this in trust until adjournment. This is Acker Foreman and his offspring, Stephen and pistol-packin’ Arnold.” Wolfe favored the old man with one of his millimetric nods, ignoring the boys.

  “Lord, I heard you were heavy, but I had no idea,” Foreman said, settling into the red leather chair while Curly and Moe plopped into the yellow ones. “Man, don’t you know what that does to your system? I weigh exactly what I did sixty years ago, and the reason is, I watch what I eat—and what I don’t eat. And I mean every day. I haven’t tasted meat since the fifties, and—”

  “Sir, I wasn’t of the impression you sought this meeting to discuss my well-being,” Wolfe said. “Would you like anything to drink? As you see, I’m having beer.”

  “I don’t touch alcohol, and neither do these two,” Foreman replied curtly.

  “We’ve got coffee and tea,” I offered.

  “No thank you,” Foreman said, squaring his shoulders. “Caffeine’s out, too.” The guy may have been in his late seventies, but he cut a lean, healthy figure, and his pricey navy blue pinstripe suit didn’t hurt that image any. “Wolfe here is right—we didn’t come to talk about his dietary habits, although Lord knows, he could use counseling. But that’s his affair. What I’m here to find out”—he turned from me to Wolfe—“is why you’re involved in this business with my advertising agency?”

  Wolfe looked at him without enthusiasm. “I have a client, sir, and I consider the relationship to be privileged.”

  “Come now, that high-sounding stuff is fine when you’re being grilled by some churlish newspaper reporter, but we’re talking informally here,” Foreman said in what for him probably was a friendly tone.

  “Indeed?” Wolfe raised his eyebrows and came forward in his chair, placing both hands palm down on the desktop. “I’m not in the habit of indulging in badinage upon a first meeting.”

  “I didn’t have you pegged as quite so arrogant,” Foreman fired back as both of his sons smirked and Arnie let loose with a guffaw. I was beginning to enjoy the proceedings. “Blazes, it’s not as if you don’t know who I am,” he continued.

  “Actually, I know very little about you,” Wolfe countered. “You seem to pride yourself on being secretive and reclusive, which in and of itself is not unadmirable, as long as the quest for privacy stops short of obsession.”

  “And you’re suggesting that I’m obsessive?”

  “I don’t have adequate information on which to base such a suggestion. And in candor, I have not delved into your vitae. I am, of course, aware of certain things that are public knowledge—among them that in the forties your former partner in an Oklahoma trucking company sued you for mismanagement of funds and that you settled out of court for about a half-million dollars.”

  “Four hundred thousand and change,” Foreman muttered. His sons had stopped smirking.

  “Just so. Also, after you sold your airline, the purchaser, a major national carrier, discovered that a number of your planes had serious mechanical deficiencies, and they entered into litigation to reclaim a portion of the purchase price.”

  “I was not aware of those problems when I sold out,” Foreman answered, his voice rising.

  “I am not suggesting you were. I merely wished to display the admittedly meager scope of my knowledge about you.”

  “So noted,” the billionaire said sourly, making an effort to remain calm, although it was obvious Wolfe had gotten his goat. “Now, about Mills and his ad agency, you’re aware that I’m by far their largest client?” Wolfe nodded.

  “That being the case, I have every right to know what’s going on between you and them.”

  “Then ask Mr. Mills or one of his partners,” Wolfe said. “They, of
all people, are beholden to you.”

  “Dad, this isn’t accomplishing a damn thing. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Arnie squawked, getting up.

  “Sit down!” If a voice can sound like a rifle shot, Foreman’s did, and Arnie promptly deflated back into the chair. “Wolfe, I have talked to Rod Mills, and he says he hired you because neither he nor any of his people were getting to first base in trying to find the leak of ideas over to that foul agency of AmeriCherry’s. Of course he didn’t bother to tell me that he came to you—I had to read about it in the goddamn papers. This whole business is an acute embarrassment to me and Cherr-o-key.”

  “To say nothing of its effect on Mr. Swartz,” Wolfe observed dryly.

  “What? Oh—the man who was killed. Awful thing. But I don’t see the connection between that and our problem. Anyway, Mills told me you hadn’t gotten anywhere yet.”

  “Sir, where were you yesterday between four and six P.M.?” Wolfe asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” Foreman snorted.

  “A direct one.”

  “All right, but what’s behind it?”

  “Dad, that’s around the time that guy was killed,” Arnie cut in. “Wolfe’s pumping you to see if you’ve got an alibi. Like I said before, let’s—”

  “Arnold, I know he’s pumping me, goddammit. I’m capable of speaking for myself.” The old man turned away from Arnie and looked at Wolfe through narrowed eyes. “All right, I’ll play along; I don’t have an alibi for that time, and if I had, I wouldn’t use it. What do you think of that?”

  “Same with me—I don’t have an alibi,” Steve said cockily.

  “Me neither,” Arnie added, grinning.

  Wolfe scowled, then let his glance rest on each of them in turn, starting and ending with Acker. “Do you believe that someone at Mills/Lake/Ryman was passing information about Cherr-o-key advertising to the rival agency?” he asked.

  “Hell, yes—how else could they get it?”

  “Were you satisfied with the quality of advertising that you were getting?”