The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe

by Josh Pachter

  Once a year, the association threw a dinner in a hotel in Canarsie, where the winner of the coveted Van Dusen Prize for Outstanding Poetry received a plaque and a check for ten thousand dollars. I imagine that mollified some landlord. Certainly it reawakened my interest.

  At this point, Lyon swooped in for the kill. “Which was stolen, the plaque or the check?”

  “Neither.”

  Lyon yelled for cream soda.

  “I’m new to the Association,” said Nurls, when Gus left with his empty tray. “I replaced the executive director who’d been with the A.P.A. since the beginning, who retired rather suddenly to Arizona on the advice of his cardiologist. My first duty is to plan this year’s dinner, which will commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of our founding. Naturally I spent a great deal of time on the phone with my predecessor, gathering historical details to include in the program: names of charter members, events of note, etc. Naturally a complete list of past winners of the Van Dusen Prize was essential.”

  “Naturally,” Lyon and I said simultaneously. He scowled at me, and I returned my attention to my screen.

  Walter Van Dusen, we learned, was a loaded industrialist jonesing for culture, who upon his death had left an endowment that made the cash incentive possible. Before that, the winners had taken home a plaque only, presumably to boil the sap from to make soup.

  “When I came aboard,” Nurls went on, “the records situation was rustic, to put it charitably. The old fellow had taken them with him, for reasons of his own; I picture a shabby notebook in his personal shorthand. I rang him up in Phoenix, and he read off the winners’ names and contact information where it existed. I thought it would be a grand gesture to invite as many of them as were available to attend the dinner as guests of the Association.”

  He related the tragic circumstances: of twenty-four former winning poets, eleven could not be located, six had died from natural causes, three had committed suicide, and two weren’t interested; one, over the phone, had been emphatic on the subject to the point of questioning the details of Raymond Nurls’s ancestry. Of the pair remaining, one was too elderly to make the trip. The last was willing, but required mileage and accommodations. These the executive director agreed to provide, since the budget was flush.

  “I’m concerned chiefly with one of the names on the list,” Nurls said. “A gentleman named Noah Ward.”

  “Dead, disgruntled, or unlocatable?” Lyon asked.

  “The last. So far, I’ve been unable to learn anything about him. I Googled the name, and was able to narrow the list to three who have any connection with literary endeavor, but one is far too young—he’d have been in junior high the year Ward was honored, and our prize committee is not disposed to recognize precociousness—another, the editor of the book review page of a Baltimore literary journal, assured me he’d never written poetry and didn’t review it because, quote, ‘I wouldn’t know a grand epic from subway doggerel,’ unquote. The third, a self-published suspense writer, thought the A.P.A. had something to do with the Humane Society.” He adjusted his glasses.

  Lyon shifted his weight, evidently in sympathetic discomfort with this last piece of intelligence. Actually he was trying to burst a bubble in his gut, which he did, with spectacular results. In a belching contest, I’d put every cent I’ve embezzled from him on his nose. “Why this obsession with one name on the list?”

  “Because Ward is the only one on it I’ve been unable to confirm ever existed.”

  “Ah.”

  Encouraged, the executive director steepled his hands higher. “Nary a birth certificate nor a Social Security number nor a school transcript nor an arrest record nor so much as a ticket for overtime parking. Really, Mr. Lyons—”

  “Lyon. I am singular, not plural.”

  “I stand corrected. It’s next to impossible, not to say impossible, to exist in today’s world without leaving a footprint of some kind on the Internet. Therefore, I propose that Noah Ward is a chimera.”

  “And this is significant because—?”

  “You’re a detective. Figure it out. Whoever claimed that ten-thousand-dollar prize under a fictitious name is guilty of grand fraud.”

  “I assume you’ve ruled out the likelihood of a pseudonym.”

  “At once. The rules of the American Poetical Association expressly state that all work must be submitted under the contestant’s legal name. That provision was adopted to prevent anyone from submitting more than one work for consideration. A long lead time was established between the deadline for entry and the announcement of the winner to investigate the identities of all the contributors.”

  “Your predecessor could not enlighten you on the details?”

  Nurls jammed his glasses farther into his head. “He perished last week, in a fire that consumed his condominium, himself, and any records that might have furnished additional information. The disaster was entirely accidental,” he added, when Lyon’s eyes brightened. “The arson investigators traced it to a faulty electrical circuit.”

  Lyon pouted. “Unfortunate and tragic. I assume you polled the membership for reminiscences? The committee responsible for the honor springs to mind.”

  “Our membership rolls run toward an older demographic. Everyone who might have shed light upon the selection has passed. The only member I managed to reach who was present at that dinner is unreliable.” He touched his left temple.

  “Dear me. All the powers appear to be aligned against you. Is it your intention to bring legal action for the recovery of the ten thousand dollars?”

  “It is. The Association has empowered me, upon filing formal charges, to remit fifteen percent to the party who identifies and exposes the guilty person. Expenses added, of course.” Nurls sat back a tenth of an inch, folding his hands on his spare middle.

  Lyon finished his cream soda in one long draught, this time patted back the burp, and replaced his pocket square with all the ceremony of a color guard folding the flag. “I accept the challenge, Mr. Nurls. We’ll discuss payment upon success or an admission of failure. In the latter event, I will accept no remuneration.”

  I had to hand it to the little balloon. He’d managed to appear professional and hold off the wrath of the State of New York in one elegant speech. I knew him then for a liar when he said he couldn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat. But the bean counter in the ugly orange chair wouldn’t have taken the Holy Annunciation at face value if Gabriel had blown sixteen bars in his ear. He’d have asked for references, and followed up on them on Yahoo.

  “How do I know you can deliver? Forgive me, but all I have to go on is three lines in the Times.”

  Lyon looked at the clock. “It’s nearly lunchtime. Blood soup, with a stock combined of livers and gizzards; free-range goose, of course. Cheese blintzes for dessert and an acceptable Manischewitz from my cellar. Once you’ve sampled the fare of my table, you’ll be in a better position to judge my success in this profession. Will you join us?”

  Nurls declined, looking a shade green around the collar, but he was hooked. Me, too, from then on. A first-rate second-rate grifter knows a champ when he sees one.

  “Phooey!”

  Wolfe says, “Pfui,” but his disciple can’t pronounce the labial without spraying.

  He was responding to my suggestion to access the Library of Congress web site for poetical compositions copyrighted under the name Noah Ward.

  “It’s futile to attempt to prove a man does not exist. It expends energy the way trying to add light to dark wastes paint, with no appreciable effect. We’ll assume as a hypothesis that Nurls is right and Ward is a phantasm.”

  “How’d you know that about paint?” I asked.

  “I investigated the phenomenon of temporary employment the summer I turned fifteen. A less than august August.” He dismissed the subject with a wave of his little finger. “If a check was issued to Noah Ward, some
one had to cash it. The transaction took place too far in the past for any bank to retain a record of it, even if we found the bank and its personnel were willing to cooperate. March down to the police station and inquire whether anyone using that name or something similar has ever been arrested for bunko steering.”

  “These days they just call it fraud.”

  “Indeed? Colorless. A pity.”

  “Ever’s a long way to comb back, even if I could get them to do it.”

  “Concentrate on the past seven years. I assume that’s still the statute of limitations for most crimes. A man who draws water once may be expected to return to the well the next time he thirsts. Perhaps he wasn’t so successful the second time.”

  “What if the well isn’t in Brooklyn?”

  “Start here. Unless and until he has the money in hand, a poet is unlikely to come by the travel expenses necessary to collect. My ‘Ode on a Lycopersicon Esculentum’ paid only in copies of the Herbivoron.”

  Before taking my leave, I looked up all three unfamiliar words, identifying the Latin preferred name of the common tomato and the semi-monthly newsletter issued by the Garden Fruit Council of New Jersey.

  I have cop friends. I’ve been down there often enough to strike up acquaintances and I have a good line of gab, which they like almost as much as Krispy Kreme and are apt to disregard a little thing like a non-violent rap sheet in order to enjoy. I cast my line and caught a big fish, although I didn’t know it at the time and would have thrown it back if I had.

  It was Friday night. For religious reasons, Gus couldn’t clock in again until after sundown Saturday and—unlike his hero—Lyon is capable of burning a salad, so I fixed him two boxes of mac and cheese in the microwave and made myself a BLT. I can keep kosher as well as the next guy, but every so often I get a craving for swine and shellfish that has to be addressed.

  We were just finishing up when the doorbell rang. It rang again before we remembered Gus couldn’t answer it. By the time I got to the door, our visitor had abandoned ringing for banging. I used the peephole and hustled back to the dining room.

  “It’s cops,” I said. “Actually only one, but what he lacks in number he makes up for in mean.”

  Lyon glared up at me from his tilted bowl. I shook my head innocently. I hadn’t tried to sell anyone an autographed Portable Chaucer in six months.

  I brought Captain Stoddard into the office, where Lyon was just clambering onto his perch behind the desk. I was halfway through introductions when our visitor brought his fist down on the leather top. “Where do you get off sending this cheap crook to my precinct? I put every officer who gave him the time of day on report.”

  “Please have a seat, sir. I have spinal issues that make it agony to tilt my head back more than three degrees.” His tone wobbled a little. He seemed to have authority issues as well, but I gave him points for the show of spunk.

  Stoddard did, too, maybe, or maybe he’d been on report himself too many times that fiscal period for pushing around citizens. Anyway, he sat.

  Physically, he’s the opposite of Nero Wolfe’s nemesis in NYPD Homicide. Inspector Cramer is beefy where Captain Stoddard is gaunt, and the captain’s a few more years away from mandatory retirement, but he filled the orange chair with nastiness the way Cramer fills the famous red one with buttock. Stoddard commands the local precinct. I was trying out the straight-and-narrow as much to avoid another interrogation by him as to stay out of jail.

  “Woodbine left your name,” he told Lyon. “So far, I can’t find a record under it, but if you’re partnered up with this little goldbrick artist I’ll start one for you personally. What kind of scam you got going that involves turning the Brooklyn Police Department into an information service?”

  “I pay taxes, Mr. Stoddard. If you look up my name outside your rogues’ gallery, you may be able to calculate how much. But even the poorest resident of this country has the right to consult the police when he suspects a law has been broken.”

  He gulped, but he got it out. It was a good speech, too. The proof was in the way the man he spoke it to didn’t haul him out of his chair and slam-dunk him into his own recycling bin. Instead, his nails dug little semicircles in the pumpkin-colored leather.

  “I monitor all the computers in the precinct,” he growled. “Some cops think that, when I step out, they can fool around in the files and get away with it. They always fold when I jump them. Who’s this bird Ward?”

  Spunk has its limits. Lyon looked to me for support, but I was scareder than he was, with experience to justify it. He took a couple of deep breaths to prevent hyperventilating and told Stoddard everything Raymond Nurls had told us. He’d barely finished when the captain sprang to his feet with an Anglo-Saxon outburst that knocked out of line the picture on the wall next to the elevator shaft. I’d thought only the elevator could do that.

  “A puzzle!” he roared. “My precinct has murders to investigate, rapes, child abuse, armed robbery, each of which requires three weeks minimum to make an arrest and a case to make it stick, not counting petty little interruptions like burglary, purse-snatching, and assault, and you take up twenty minutes of that time playing Scrabble.”

  “You’re being metaphorical, of course,” Lyon put in. “Fraud is not a parlor game.”

  The fist came down, jumping a pen out of its little onyx skull. Lyon jumped too and looked ill. “A cheesy award given out by a bunch of nances for the best poem about a lark. No!” Fist. The pen rolled to the edge of Lyon’s blotter.

  The little butterball surprised me. Ever since Stoddard had leapt up, he’d been doing his best to shrink himself inside his folds of suet, like an armadillo gathering itself into a ball. Now his eyes opened wide and he straightened himself in his chair, tilting his head two degrees past agony to meet the glare of his tormentor. “Would you repeat what you just said?”

  Stoddard wound back the tape a little too far, back to the unbroadcastable word that had brought him out of his chair.

  “After that,” Lyon said. His tone was as steady as the tide. “After I questioned your choice of the word Scrabble.”

  “An award! A cheesy award!” The captain shouted into his face, flecks of spittle spattering him from his hairline to the knot of his green silk tie. “Are you deaf, too? I know you’re dumb!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stoddard. You are a synaptic savant.”

  That silenced him. It silenced me, too, until I looked up both words on the dictionary program. He straightened, looking around.

  “Where’s your investigator’s license? You’re supposed to display it prominently.”

  “I haven’t one.”

  Stoddard’s bony face twisted to make room for a horse-toothed grin. It wasn’t nice. He isn’t a nice man, or even a good one. He lowered his tone to conversational level; he might have been bidding four no trump. “Do you know the penalty in this state for conducting professional investigations without a license?”

  “I’ve never had cause to look it up. A professional would be well advised to do so, but I don’t charge for my services. My amateur standing remains intact.”

  The horse teeth receded. Stoddard’s BB eyes darted left, then right. That put me inside range. “What about Woodbine? Don’t tell me he works for you for free. He’d walk to Albany and back for a dirty dollar.”

  “I employ Mr. Woodbine to obtain the information I require to pursue my avocation.”

  “That’s investigation. You need a license to earn a salary.”

  “Tish-tush.” I gave Lyon double points for that: thumbing his nose at the NYPD while employing a phrase alien to his inspiration. At his insistence, I’d made a sizeable dent in his Rex Stout library, and had not once come across it. Somewhere in that roly-poly wad of derivative flapdoodle was an authentic original waiting to be recognized, as well as a tough little nut. “When a personal assistant is asked to pick up the tel
ephone and inquire when a bank closes, is he conducting an illegal investigation or running an errand? Is it your desire to give up your day off to answer that question at a public hearing?”

  I never found out if Stoddard had an answer for that. He opened his mouth, presumably to let out a four-letter opinion of the question that had been put to him, but he closed it. Lyon’s eyes were shut tight, and he was foraging inside his left ear with the energy of an anteater.

  Nero Wolfe never sums up a case without an audience. It can be a handful or a horde, but it rarely gathers outside his personal throne room, where the Great Detective holds forth from behind the massive desk on West 35th Street, New York, New York. Claudius Lyon would have it no other way, even if the venue was his office of many compromises in Brooklyn, and his spectators reduced to four.

  Stoddard was present, eager to make his case to prosecute Lyon and me for playing detective without saying Simon Says, as well as fraud, and of course Raymond Nurls was invited. My seat, turned from my desk, was a perk of the job, but I couldn’t see any reason why Gus was there, except to fill one more seat in a show that needed a solid third act if it weren’t to be left to die on the road. It had taken all of Lyon’s powers of persuasion to convince the cook that he wouldn’t burn in hell for sitting in on the Sabbath. Just to make sure, Gus sat in the green chair nearest the door, where he could escape if anyone asked him to turn on a light or something. Nurls’s thin frame bisected another green chair, and Stoddard deposited his hundred and seventy pounds of pure hostility in the orange.

  Lyon entered last, straightened the picture on the wall, scowled at the pea-size green tomato growing at the end of the vine in the pot on his desk, and scaled to his seat. “Thank you all for coming. Does anyone object to Mr. Woodbine taking notes?”

  Nurls shook his head, the silver chain swaying on his glasses. Stoddard scooped a small portable cassette recorder out of his pocket and balanced it on his knee. “Just in case he misses something culpable,” he said.