Archie in the Crosshairs

by Robert Goldsborough

  I went down the hall, saw the figure through the glass in the front door, and returned to the office. “Cramer,” I said.

  Wolfe opened his eyes and raised his brows. “Again? All right, let him in.”

  I followed orders, and after he marched down the hall to the office, the inspector planted his substantial fundament in the red leather chair and glowered at Wolfe. “Well?” he barked.

  “‘Well’ indeed, Mr. Cramer. I had not expected to see you so soon after your last visit.”

  “I hadn’t expected to be here again myself, but you have a way of attracting attention.”

  “I assure you such is not my intent.”

  “Uh-huh. Whether you know it or not—and I suspect you do—shots were fired at one of your windows sometime within the last day, probably last night.”

  “Extraordinary,” Wolfe said.

  “Isn’t it? Ever since the other shots were fired at Goodwin that night, we have had this house under surveillance. And this morning about six, the men in one of our cars passing by spotted two circular impressions, caused by bullets, in the window of your front room.”

  “How do you know they were caused by bullets?” Wolfe asked.

  “These were found under the window,” Cramer said, reaching into his suit jacket pocket and pulling out two shell casings, which he laid on the desk blotter. “They’re thirty-eight caliber and could’ve been fired from either a revolver or an automatic. Interesting that those earlier shells were also thirty-eights. Or would you term that ‘extraordinary,’ too?”

  “I suppose I should be flattered at your concern for our welfare,” Wolfe said. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thanks, and please don’t flatter yourself. The department’s concern is for the safety of everyone who passes by and lives on this block, not just you and Goodwin. Care to tell me now what this is all about?”

  “Over the years, I have made numerous enemies, which is hardly a surprise to you. Apparently, one or more of them now seeks retribution.”

  “You seem very calm about the whole business,” Cramer snorted. “Do you have any clue as to who that might be?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “To repeat a question I asked on my last visit: Are you now working on a case?” I smiled inwardly at how my boss would answer.

  “At the moment, I do not have a commission,” Wolfe stated.

  “So you say. And you have no idea who’s after your scalp, not even an educated guess?”

  Wolfe sighed and placed his hands, palms down, on the desk. “Mr. Goodwin and I are now in the process of reviewing past cases in an attempt to determine who might most wish us ill.”

  “That could be one long list,” Cramer deadpanned. “Let us know if you want help from the department.”

  “That is a most generous offer, sir.”

  “Not really. If anything happens to you, all hell will break loose in the press, and from the commissioner on down, we will be roundly castigated for failing to protect New York’s best-known private investigator. For instance, I can only imagine how the Gazette, your buddy Lon Cohen’s paper, would react. They would probably call for my head, but what else is new? They and the other papers have been doing that off and on for years.”

  “Thank you for putting the situation in perspective,” Wolfe said.

  “My pleasure,” the inspector responded, with no pleasure whatsoever evident in his tone. He rose slowly and walked out of the office and down the hall, and I followed along, bolting the door behind him.

  Chapter 10

  So, you claim we have no commission at the moment,” I said to Wolfe after Cramer had departed. “That news will come as something of a surprise to our Miss Hutchinson.”

  “I did not lie to the inspector; we have yet to accept any payment from the young woman.”

  “All right, split hairs if it pleases you. By the way, you said early on that we must remain vigilant. But shots were fired at our window—presumably, although not necessarily, in the night—and the police retrieved the shell casings from under said window without our knowledge that any of this was happening.”

  Wolfe looked up from his book. “Would you prefer that I bring Saul and Fred in so the three of you can keep watch in eight-hour shifts around the clock?”

  “Well, at least that is one plan of action, sort of. What else do we have at the moment?”

  “Confound it, must I always—” Wolfe was interrupted by the telephone, which I answered.

  “Archie, the call just came—the blackmailer!” It was a breathless Cordelia Hutchinson. “And he, and he …”

  “Okay, slow down and tell me exactly what the man said,” I told her, signaling to Wolfe to pick up his instrument.

  “He told me … what I have to do. He was most insistent and most specific. I’m still shaking from the conversation.”

  “Go on.”

  “He wants the money, in fifty-and one-hundred dollar bills, delivered to a spot in Central Park.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “He said tonight, but I told him I wasn’t sure I could get seventy-five thousand dollars that soon. He said he would call me again later today with more specifics. And he said that if I couldn’t get the money at all, the pictures would be sent to my family and the Mercers, and to the newspapers.”

  “Do you believe you can get the money?”

  “I … think so. I have a personal banker at our family’s bank, Amalgamated Trust, and he has always been extremely cooperative in the past.”

  “Given the size of your account and those of others in your family, I am hardly surprised. But won’t this request throw him, particularly when you ask for used currency?”

  “If he asks, which I doubt, I will tell him that I plan to purchase an expensive automobile, and that I don’t want to have to bother with a car loan that has monthly payments. I will also tell him that the car dealer prefers to receive the payment in this manner.”

  “Interesting. With that kind of dough, you could be getting yourself a Rolls-Royce,” I said.

  “That would not be so surprising, Archie. After all, my father has driven them for years.”

  “Like father, like daughter. Okay, when will you know if you will be able to get the dough?”

  “I have an appointment with Mr. Harkness—he’s the banker at Amalgamated—this afternoon. But Archie, I still haven’t paid you anything.” I looked at Wolfe, who shook his head.

  “Never mind that for now. We can discuss the payment later. Just call us and let us know when you can get the money.”

  “I will, Archie, and … thank you.”

  “Well, do we have anything resembling a plan?” I asked Wolfe after we had cradled our instruments.

  He leaned back and studied the ceiling. “We will apprehend the blackmailer,” he said.

  “By ‘we’ you mean me, of course.”

  “Along with Saul and Fred, assuming they agree.”

  Earlier, I referred to Fred Durkin as one member of our poker group. As a private investigator, he isn’t in the same league with Saul Panzer, but then nobody is. Fred’s far from brilliant, but he is both brave and loyal, and he would jump off a cliff if Wolfe asked him to. Oh, and I should mention that he saved my life once during a stakeout that became a shootout in a darkened warehouse one night across the East River from Manhattan. Enough said.

  “Do you want me to get the boys now?”

  “No, we shall wait until we have heard from Miss Hutchinson. It is time for lunch.”

  After a meal of sweetbreads in béchamel sauce with beet and watercress salad, followed by spiced brandied cherries, we were back in the office having coffee when the phone rang. We both picked up our receivers as I recited my usual, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

  “I will have the money tomorrow m
orning,” Cordelia said, sounding like she was out of breath.

  “Have you been running?”

  “No, I am just nervous, Archie. Very nervous.”

  “Miss Hutchinson, can you recite to us precisely what instructions were given to you by the presumed blackmailer?” It was Wolfe talking.

  “He told me to bring the money in a case to Central Park. He said that when he calls back, he will tell me the exact location.”

  “Did he stipulate that you had to be the one bringing the money, or can you appoint an agent to execute it?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Wolfe. Do you want me to ask him?”

  “Yes, and try to insist that someone else deliver the money.”

  “What if he asks who that person is?”

  “Just tell him that it is a very good friend, someone you place a great deal of trust in. Tell him you are simply too frightened to carry out the delivery yourself, that you are afraid you would make a hash of it.”

  “That would be the truth,” she said.

  “Please telephone us immediately upon hearing from the man,” Wolfe told her.

  “I am, of course, that ‘very good friend’ of hers,” I said after we had hung up.

  “Unless you would rather let the cup pass from you.”

  “No, I am already the target of one person. What’s one more? In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  “I am most impressed that you are conversant with that ancient English adage,” Wolfe said.

  “Don’t be, I learned it from you. Besides, this little project of ours may just take my mind off whomever it is who wants to see me sent back to my relatives in Ohio in a pine box.”

  Wolfe chose not to reply, ringing for beer and opening his latest book. I turned to my desk and began typing letters he had dictated that morning.

  Cordelia’s call came at four-fifteen, which of course meant Wolfe was up in the plant rooms on the roof with Theodore Horstmann, communing with his orchids in his second session of the day.

  “I have my instructions,” she said, her voice still shaky.

  “Fire away, I’m taking notes.” This was one time I did not want to entrust the details to my memory.

  “He wants the money delivered tomorrow night, at ten o’clock. ‘Precisely at ten,’ he insisted. He was very definite about that. In the park, about a hundred fifty yards east of the corner of Central Park West and Seventy-Seventh Street, there is a blue spruce, the tallest tree in a cluster, he told me. He said the money, in an attaché case or suitcase—he doesn’t care what type it is—should be placed at the base of that tree on its east side.”

  “Did he say you had to be the one to put it there?”

  “Oh—no, he said that it could be someone I trusted, he didn’t seem to care who. But he told me that if the money was not brought to that spot, and at the time he specified, the pictures would be sent immediately.”

  “Did he—or you—say anything else?”

  “Just that once he had received the money, a package of photographs would be sent to me, special delivery.”

  “In an envelope either with no return address or a phony address, of course. Okay, Cordelia. I will talk to Mr. Wolfe and get back to you. I will call on that number you gave me.”

  “Do you have any idea when that will be?”

  “Just stay near the phone,” I told her. “We still have almost thirty hours before the delivery.”

  After signing off with Cordelia, I climbed the three flights of stairs to the plant rooms on the roof. As often as I have stepped into these rooms over the years, I never get over the awesome experience of seeing ten thousand orchids in every color of the rainbow—and maybe some hues that have never even made it onto a rainbow.

  Several years ago, the Gazette proposed running a special Sunday magazine section filled with color photos of the orchids, but Wolfe turned them down flat, and even Lon Cohen’s intercession on behalf of his employer couldn’t budge him.

  Upon finishing the climb, one first encounters the cool room, with some twenty-five hundred plants, among them Odonto­glossums on both sides of the aisle in yellow, rose, and white with spots. Next is the intermediate or moderate room, where the splashy Cattleyas, in purple, orange, lavender, and yellow, show off shamelessly. Then comes the tropical room, which is filled with Miltonia hybrids and Phalaenopsis in pinks, greens, and browns.

  At the far end of the conservatory, one finds the pottery room, where on this day, Wolfe, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, was with Theodore Horstmann. They were studying a plant in a pot on the bench as intently as two highly trained surgeons about to conduct a delicate operation. As is usually the case when I dare to enter the hallowed plant rooms, Horstmann glared at me. We have never warmed to each other, and after all these years, it is clear that we never will.

  “Yes?” Wolfe snapped at me. He hates to be interrupted during his orchid time, but I felt the day’s events warranted the intrusion. I gave him Cordelia’s report as he scowled. “Any instructions?” I asked after I had finished.

  “Call Saul and Fred. Have them here at nine tonight.”

  “What if either of them can’t make it?”

  “Without going into any detail about the meeting, tell them they would be honoring me with their presence.”

  I began to reply, but he turned back to the plant that was being nursed. I had been dismissed.

  Chapter 11

  I started with Saul, who picked up on the first ring. “Mr. Wolfe said he would be honored by your presence here this evening at nine.”

  “Getting pretty formal, aren’t we? Your boss knows all he has to do is ask, and I’ll show up, day or night,” he said. “Should I come via the back way again?”

  I said yes and called Fred. “Of course I’ll be there, Archie,” he said. “Anything I need to know ahead of time?”

  “No, you’ll get filled in when you’re here. You know how to get to the brownstone from Thirty-Fourth Street?” I asked.

  “Uh, yeah, I do. Don’t you remember, one time years back when we were working on the—”

  “Yes I do, no time to talk now. See you later.”

  They arrived simultaneously at eight fifty, and if Fred was puzzled by the back path approach, he didn’t indicate it. These two are among the few people with whom Wolfe will shake hands, and following that formality, Saul parked himself in the red leather chair as befits his status with Wolfe, while Fred, who is my height but thicker in the midsection and thinner on his dome, took one of the yellow chairs. I passed out drinks—scotch for Saul and beer for Fred, who thinks that is what he should drink when in Wolfe’s presence. I poured myself a scotch.

  “Thank you both for coming on such short notice,” Wolfe said, looking from one to the other. “I would like to enlist your assistance in an operation, but after hearing my description of its particulars, one or both of you may choose to decline to participate. If so, I fully understand. The situation is not without risks.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Saul said, holding up his glass.

  “Yeah, I agree,” Fred added. “You’ve always been square with me, Mr. Wolfe, and I want to hear the deal, too.”

  “Very well,” Wolfe said. He proceeded to take them through the Cordelia Hutchinson case from the start.

  “Okay, the drop is to take place in the park near Seventy-Seventh and Central Park West, which puts it a stone’s throw, or maybe two, east of the Natural History Museum and a little west of that small lake,” Saul said. “At ten, that section of the park figures to be pretty deserted, wouldn’t you say, Archie?”

  “I’d say. But then, we would hardly expect our mystery man to choose the spot because of the crowds.”

  “Manifestly,” Wolfe said. “However, he surely will be on alert as he enters the park in his quest for the money. Archie will have placed the case next to the specified tree and will bide
his time nearby. I want our man captured and unharmed. Do all of you feel this is feasible?”

  “Chances are he’ll be armed,” Fred put in.

  “And he may very well have a lookout,” Saul added.

  “Possibly,” I said, “but I doubt that he’ll be expecting three of us. After all, he presumably does not know that Miss Hutchinson has hired us. We should have the element of surprise in our favor.”

  Saul nodded. “I think we should triangulate the area, making sure that if there happens to be gunplay, we won’t be firing at one another. I also think we should go over and have a look at that spot in the park during the day tomorrow and give it the once-over.”

  “The blackmailer might be there all day, though, keeping watch,” Fred said, his broad brow knitted.

  Saul shook his head. “I doubt that, but you may be right. What do you think, Archie?”

  “I am not sure our pickup man, whoever he is, will hang around the park all day,” I said. “But I do like the idea of us getting an advance look at the scene without tramping all over the place. We could drive up there in the morning and do our reconnaissance from the car, parking it on Central Park West.”

  “How does that sound?” Wolfe asked, looking at each of us in turn.

  Fred nodded after a sip of beer, and Saul grinned, giving a thumbs-up.

  “Very well,” Wolfe said. “Once again, I stress that this sortie may have its perils. I realize the three of you are hardly strangers to risk, but I do not want unnecessary chances taken.” We agreed to be cautious and use discretion.

  The next morning at nine, after finishing breakfast under Fritz’s watchful eye and somber expression, I left the brownstone by the back door and walked to Curran Motors over on Tenth Avenue, where our cars have been garaged for years. When I got there, I found Saul and Fred waiting on the sidewalk out front.

  “You are exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds late,” Saul said, making a production out of consulting his wristwatch.

  “I was not about to wolf down Fritz’s wonderful poached eggs Burgundian,” I replied haughtily. “A dish like that must be savored, and the poor man is upset enough lately without my treating his culinary efforts as if they were some slapped-together hash-house grub.”