by Josh Pachter
“Hell, no! But that’s where I saw the ad. Why a dirty, stinking rag like that?”
“I advertised in all the metropolitan papers plus a few suburban journals. As an afterthought, I included the underground press. I wanted maximum coverage. Apparently, my caprice was a well-advised one, since it brought me a man of your talents.”
I grinned at that. “So you know me, huh?”
“Your reputation is not unknown to me. Although it would never have occurred to me to make contact with you, I must admit your particular abilities might be useful to me. I already have Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather, and Fred Durkin on the case, but none of them is Archie Goodwin.”
“I’m not, either.”
“No, I know that, but you have a certain eye for detail and a well-known ability to describe your experiences vividly, albeit distastefully. Saul Panzer never made a bestseller list.”
“Neither did Goodwin.”
Wolfe glared at me. “I’ll disregard that. Bestseller lists are odious anyway. I think, without further badinage, I should acquaint you with the facts of the case, bare as they are. To put it succinctly, Archie Goodwin left here after breakfast the day before yesterday—that was Tuesday—and virtually disappeared from the face of the earth. His expressed destination was the home of Mrs. Francine Vermillion, a widow for whom we have been conducting an investigation.”
“Yeah? What was that?”
“An apparently minor and rather uninteresting case, which I had accepted principally because of the lady’s extensive wealth and our current monetary depletion. It was a dognapping case. Someone had made off with her cocker spaniel, stolen from the Cloverfield Kennels.”
“Huh! How did Vermillion kick off?”
“The lady’s husband died three years ago, of apparently natural causes. He was ninety-three.”
“And how old is the dame?”
“I should say twenty-six.”
“A looker?”
“Archie found her attractive. My opinion in such matters means little. Mr. Himmler, it is by no means certain that the lady or her dog had any connection with Archie’s disappearance. I am inclined to believe they did not. I merely mention her because it was to her residence that he was going that morning. He never arrived.”
“Anything else on the fire?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“Any enemies? Threats?”
“As you know as well as anyone, persons in our line of work tend to make enemies. Archie Goodwin had enemies, some all his own and some that were my enemies and thus his by association. There were no direct threats to either of us recently. As I’ve suggested, it’s been a rather slow year.”
“How do you know Goodwin didn’t just take an unannounced vacation?”
“That would be very much unlike Archie. But there is another reason for suspecting foul play. At ten o’clock, Fritz, my cook, received a phone call from Archie. He was apparently rushed and in a state of excitement. He spoke with a sense of urgency rare in him. He told Fritz he couldn’t stay on the phone long and left the following message to be relayed to me. ‘Take two and hit to right. Fourth and goal on the three. Two minutes for high sticking.’ He made Fritz read it back to him and then hung up. I know Archie is trying to tell me something, but I cannot determine what.”
I grinned and leaned back in the red armchair. “Wolfe, you came to the right guy—or I mean the right guy came to you. That’s sports talk. ‘Take two and hit to right’ is advice you might give to a guy who’s going up to bat, you know, in baseball. Let two pitches go by and hit the ball to right field. ‘Fourth and goal on the three’ is football: fourth down on the three-yard line.”
“Pfui! Mr. Himmler, there is no need to belabor the obvious. A man cannot live the greater part of his life in the United States of America without picking up at least perfunctory acquaintanceship with her sporting idioms. I know very well what those terms mean in their athletic contexts—that still doesn’t tell me what they meant to Archie on Tuesday morning and why he was so anxious to communicate them to me. I have tried every means at my command to break the code and have failed.”
“Look, Wolfe, I’m a hell of a lot better at breaking heads than I am at breaking codes.”
“I realize that. I’m not trying to employ you as a cryptographer. But I want you to assault the pavements of this city—ask questions, look for leads within the sports world and without it, exploit every resource you have for information, and then report to me. I must tell you that Saul, Orrie, and Fred have uncovered precisely nothing of value so far. Still, you might compare notes with them to avoid going over the same ground. One more thing, Mr. Himmler. I said you are to assault pavements. Not people.”
“Sure, Wolfe,” I said, getting up from the red chair. “First I check out the Vermillion dame.”
“She has been adequately questioned, I assure you. I had Saul bring her here, and I interrogated her myself, in this very room. You need not concern yourself with the Vermillion woman.”
“Sure, pal.”
Like hell.
The Vermillion dame was stacked.
She came to the door wearing a yellow bathrobe. And nothing else. I could see the wide white cleavage between her large firm breasts, and when the robe fell open at the bottom I could see her long legs, firm and smooth and wellmuscled like a dancer’s. After a few minutes, I noticed her face, and it was all right, too, pale and free of makeup, wreathed in long black hair, sensual lips wet and slightly parted, penetrating gray eyes that held an unmistakable invitation.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Mack Himmler—I’m a private investigator. Can I come in?”
She looked me over.
“You want to see my credentials, baby?”
“Sure, big boy, but not out here in the hall. Come on in and have a drink.”
The apartment was class all the way. Plush and roomy. She went to the portable bar to mix our drinks. I watched her with masculine eyes.
After a couple of hours of preliminaries, I got right to the point.
“Okay, baby, where’s Goodwin?”
“What, Mack?” she asked, breathing hard still.
“Archie Goodwin. Nero Wolfe’s man. The man you saw about a dog. Don’t kid me.”
“Oh, Archie.” She giggled. “Such a Puritan.”
I smacked her hard with the back of my hand. A trickle of blood started its course from the corner of her mouth down her lovely chin. A hint of terror came into her eyes.
“Where’s Goodwin? You know something. Spill it.”
“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen Archie since he left here day before yesterday morning.”
I gave it to her again. Now she had two trickles from either corner of her sensual mouth.
“And you told Wolfe he wasn’t even here Tuesday morning. That’s two strikes, baby. I guess my next move is to hit to right. Or maybe you’d like a little high sticking. I’m good at that, too.”
“Mack,” she whimpered, “what does all this mean?”
“Don’t play dumb, Francine. Where’s Goodwin?”
“He—he never found Velda. I—”
“Velda?”
“My cocker spaniel. Her name was Velda. A nice, friendly little bitch.”
That made me livid with anger, but she didn’t seem to understand why. “You want a bullet in the belly, slut? Where was Goodwin going when he left here?”
She finally decided to play ball. “The Empty Sulky,” she choked, her eyes filmed with terror.
So she wouldn’t think there were no hard feelings, I kissed her hard on her bloody, sensual mouth before I left.
It was dusk now, and a light rain had begun to fall. I pulled the trench coat tight around me and walked twenty-eight blocks in the relentless drizzle to the Empty Sulky. A man can think in the rain, and I had a lot
to think about. Something didn’t add up—some small point I’d missed was gnawing away at the edge of my brain.
The Empty Sulky was a dim-lit and smoke-filled bar, a hangout for hookers and horseplayers and pimps and human scum and beaten-down husbands and punchy ex-pugs and guys like me. I knew the place well, but I’d never seen Archie Goodwin there. It wasn’t his kind of joint.
“Hiya, Mack,” the bartender greeted me. “What’s your pleasure?”
“The usual. And some information.”
“Why, hell, Mack, I always thought that was part of the usual. What do you need to know?”
“Do you know a dick named Archie Goodwin?” I described Archie.
“Yeah, sure, he was in here the day before yesterday afternoon.”
“Alone?”
“No, not alone at all. In fact, there were three rather well-known characters with him.”
“Hoods?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Joe Mammoth, André Pomfrit, and Reggie Mantis.”
Things started to fall in place. Joe Mammoth was the quarterback of the New York Tartans pro football team. André Pomfrit was a French-Canadian defenseman who played twenty years in the National Hockey League before retiring to become a dress designer. Reggie Mantis was one of the greatest sluggers in baseball history. The words of Archie Goodwin’s message came back to me.
“Did they leave together?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where they were going?”
“No idea.”
“Thanks for the dope, buddy. Is Bork around?”
“That miserable, sniveling, wretched little informer? He’s in his usual booth.”
I walked to the darkest, dingiest corner of the Empty Sulky, where Rance “Greaseball” Bork, my favorite stool pigeon, was perched on his customary stool. He didn’t hear me coming—he had a comic book in front of him and the leer on his ferret-like face and the glassy look in his eye told me Captain America was beating the stuffing out of some evildoer. I feel sorry for people who get their kicks reading about sadism and violence—practicing it is so much more fun.
I sat down opposite him.
“Hey, Bork.”
He peered up at me in the dim light. “Hi, Mack.”
“Can I have that comic when you’re done?”
“Sure, Mack, sure.”
“I need to find three men. They’re public figures, so it shouldn’t be too tough.” I named the three sports heroes, and Bork recited three addresses and unlisted phone numbers without blinking.
“You gonna beat ’em up, Mack?” he asked breathlessly, hero worship in his eyes.
“If I have to.”
“Go easy on Joe Mammoth’s right knee.”
“That the bad one?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s the middle of the season yet. Just put him in some kind of excruciating pain he’ll be over by Sunday.”
“If he’s not in jail by Sunday. You know anything about a dognapping ring operating in the city?”
“No.”
“Any line at all on the Archie Goodwin snatch?”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, kid. What do I owe you?”
The punk was drooling now. “The same as always, Mack.”
“Okay, kid.”
I took him in the back room and beat the hell out of him.
I walked on through the rain. Things were starting to make sense, but I still didn’t know what the racket of the three sports heroes was or what connection the cocker spaniel named Velda had with it.
I kept thinking I’d like to meet the bastard that named that bitch Velda.
At ten o’clock, after covering miles of Manhattan and giving my knuckles that good soreness that comes from satisfying vengeance, I called Wolfe’s brownstone to report what I’d learned.
“Mr. Himmler, I hope you haven’t resorted to methods that—”
“My methods are my methods, Pudge. You hired me. You’re the boss. I do what you say, but I do it my way. Got it?”
“Very well. I want all parties to the case to convene in my home at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. The group should include the three athletes, Mr. Mammoth, Mr. Pomfrit, and Mr. Mantis; the operator of the Cloverfield Kennel, Mr. Cloverfield; and of course Mrs. Vermillion.”
“They’ll be there. You got something, Wolfe?”
“Yes, I may be able to bring the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.”
“You know where Goodwin is?”
“I believe so.”
“You know who’s behind this business?”
“I am quite sure I do, Mr. Himmler.”
“Tell me who the skunk is and I’ll—”
“—put a bullet in his belly? Pfui! Your methods are not mine, Mr. Himmler. In the current idiom, you’ve done your thing. Now I intend to do mine.”
“Okay, Nero. I’ve had my fun.”
After I hung up the phone, I knew there was something somewhere along the line I’d missed, something I should have caught. Something was not what it seemed, but damned if I knew what it was.
The Vermillion dame got the red leather chair, giving Wolfe a view of those nicely molded legs that was wasted on him. The three athletes sat quietly, like little choirboys who’d been caught in a scuffle. André Pomfrit’s kisser already resembled hamburger from twenty years of fast-moving pucks, so he didn’t look much worse than normal. Pomfrit had frustrated me. I couldn’t find any teeth to break in his mouth. Joe Mammoth may still have a million-dollar passing arm, but I’d taken him out of the cover-boy class in the profile department. Reggie Mantis I used to watch as a kid in the Polo Grounds—he was a kind of hero of mine—so he wasn’t as busted up as the others. I’d come up with the kennel guy, too, but hadn’t been able to get anything out of him, aside from the usual red fluid.
Fritz and I did a little first aid, and by the time Wolfe came waddling in, the bleeding was over and I guessed all that was left was a bunch of nice chit-chat of the kind that makes Goodwin’s books so dull.
“I appreciate your attendance this morning, Mrs. Vermillion and gentlemen. I trust the conclusion of today’s discussion will be satisfactory to all of us—or most of us. It’s seldom everyone can leave this room in a jubilant humor. Mr. Himmler, you have done your job well. And in just the manner I had been given to expect of you. Archie!”
Archie Goodwin walked in. He was grinning broadly.
“Goodwin!” I shouted. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Here and there, Himmler. And I understand you’ve been dogging my footsteps.”
“Enough of this punnery and flummery, Archie,” Wolfe said. “Mr. Himmler, I don’t know if you have penetrated our little charade yet.”
My head was spinning. What was the one point I’d missed?
“I can see ways that you could have. We weren’t really as clever and devious as we might have been, but our purpose has been served, I believe.”
It hit me then.
“God damn it! It was a hoax. It was a trick. Goodwin never disappeared at all, and I should have known it all along. The East Village Udder is published on Tuesdays, and you told me Goodwin disappeared on Tuesday. If he did, how could the ad be in the Udder that came out the same morning? There wouldn’t be time. Why’d you take me in like this, Wolfe? I ought to smash your fat face in!”
“There’s been ample face-smashing already, Mr. Himmler. Yesterday and today you have been guilty of at least seven demonstrable instances of assault and battery, utterly unprovoked violence. All the people here are ready to testify against you in court. I myself am prepared to testify, much as I dislike making such appearances. Your career of killing and disfiguring has gone on long enough, Mr. Himmler. Today it is ended.”
“Then you were all in on it?”
“From the newsboy to the kennel ope
rator. It was an intricate operation, Mr. Himmler. It depended upon a good many good citizens exposing themselves to painful beatings. I myself was fully prepared, although I admit relief at being spared your blows.”
“But the cocker spaniel—”
“There was no cocker spaniel,” the Vermillion dame said sneeringly.
“Velda … her name was Velda.”
“Mr. Himmler, in the same day’s paper was another classified ad, one you’d surely have answered even if you missed my other ad. It said, ‘Come home, Velda, all is forgiven’ and gave Mrs. Vermillion’s phone number.”
I couldn’t speak. My mouth filled with phlegm.
Wolfe kept talking.
“You may wonder, Mr. Himmler, why I would go to all this trouble merely to eliminate one competitor, however much I despised the competitor. I assure you that I have been paid well for this venture by a group of concerned citizens, some of whom are wearing dentures today as a result of your overly vigorous interrogation methods, and others of whom, among them the publisher of the East Village Udder, have not been victims of your barbarism but some day might well be if you were not stopped.
“I believe you were a participant on the Allied side in the Second World War, Mr. Himmler. So was I, although my age and physical qualifications precluded my being a part of the active-duty military. I believe I did my part for my adopted country in my capacity of civilian consultant to Army Intelligence. Mr. Goodwin held the rank of major in the U.S. Army during that conflict.
“It may be, Mr. Himmler, that you and I are both anachronisms in this day, that the fires operative in our society, the trends away from the visual in favor of the audio-tactile, the reversion to tribalism that many foresee, the apparent discrediting of the whole concept of nationalism, may not be fully understood by either of us, being as we are of a different generation and, as I sometimes feel, of a different world. Possibly the very concepts of democracy we were fighting for in that war are now obsolete. Some may think this; I prefer not to.
“However, Mr. Himmler, I remember what I was fighting against in that conflict—Nazism, fascism, hatred and violence as a way of life, breaking heads as a means of dealing with dissent, the Brownshirts, the gas chambers, the government by terror, the police state. The use of violence to solve his problems degrades a man, Mr. Himmler. I have always shunned it.