by Rex Stout
On my way back to Manhattan I stopped four times to find a phone and dial Roeder’s number, and the fourth try, at a Hundred and Sixteenth Street, I got him. I told him where I was. He asked what they had wanted at White Plains.
“Nothing much, just to ask some questions about a lead they had got. I’m going to the Churchill to fix it to go ahead with that date today.”
“You can’t. It has been postponed until tomorrow at the other end. Arrange it for tomorrow.”
“Can’t you switch it back to today at your end?”
“It would be difficult and therefore inadvisable.”
I considered how to put it, in view of the fact that there was no telling who or how many might hear me. “There is a possibility,” I said, “that the Churchill will have a vacant suite tomorrow. So my opinion is that it would be even more inadvisable to postpone it. I don’t know, but I have an idea that it may be today or never.”
A silence. Then, “How long will it take you to get to your office?”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”
“Go there and wait.”
I returned to the car, drove to a parking lot on Third Avenue in the upper Forties, left the car there, and made steps to Madison Avenue and up to 1019. I sat down, stood at the window, sat down, and stood at the window. I wouldn’t ring the phone-answering service because I wanted my line free, but after a few minutes I began thinking I better had, in case Roeder had tried for me before I arrived. The debate on that was getting hot when the ring came and I jumped for it.
It was Roeder. He asked me through his nose, “Have you phoned the Churchill?”
“No, I was waiting to hear from you.”
“I hope you will have no trouble. It has been arranged for today at four o’clock.”
I felt a tingle in my spine. My throat wanted to tighten, but I wouldn’t let it. “I’ll do my best. In my car?”
“No. I’ll have a car. I’ll stop in front of your office building precisely at two forty-five.”
“It might be better to make it the Churchill.”
“No. Your building. If you have to reach me I’ll be here until two-thirty. I hope you won’t have to.”
“I do too.”
I pressed the button down, held it for three breaths, and dialed the Churchill’s number. It was only ten to one, so surely I would get him.
I did. As soon as he heard my name he started yapping about the message I had sent him, but I didn’t want to try to fix it on the phone, so I merely said I had managed to call off the trip out of town and was coming to see him. He said he didn’t want to see me. I said I didn’t want to see him either, but we were both stuck with this and I would be there at one-thirty.
At a fountain service down on a side street I ate three corned-beef sandwiches and three glasses of milk without knowing how they tasted, burned my tongue on hot coffee, and then walked to the Churchill and took the elevator to the tower.
Rackham was eating lunch, and it was pitiful. Apparently he had done all right with a big glass of clam juice, since the glass was empty and I couldn’t see where the contents had been thrown at anything, but all he did in my presence was peck at things—some wonderful broiled ham, hashed brown potatoes, an artichoke with anchovy sauce, and half a melon. He swallowed perhaps five bites altogether, while I sat at a distance with a magazine, not wanting to disturb his meal. When, arriving, I had told him that the appointment with Zeck was set for four o’clock, he had just glared at me with no comment. Now, as he sat staring at his coffee without lifting the cup, I got up and crossed to a chair near him and remarked that we would ride up to Westchester with Roeder.
I don’t think I handled it very well, that talk with Barry Rackham, as he sat and let his coffee get cold and tried to pretend to himself that he still intended to eat the melon. It happened that he had already decided that his only way out was to come to some kind of an understanding with Arnold Zeck, but if he had been balky I doubt if I would have been able to manage it. I was so damned edgy that it was all I could do to sit still. It had been a long spring and summer, those five months, and here was the day that would give us the answer. So there are two reasons why I don’t report in detail what Rackham and I said there that afternoon: first, I doubt if it affected the outcome any, one way or another; and second, I don’t remember a word of it. Except that I finally said it was time to go, and he got himself a man-sized straight bourbon and poured it down.
We walked the few blocks to my building. As we waited at the curb I kept my eyes peeled for a Chevy sedan, but apparently Roeder had been promoted, either that or the Chevy wasn’t used for important guests, for when a car nosed in to us it was a shiny black Cadillac. I got in front with the driver and Rackham joined Roeder in the rear. They didn’t shake hands when I pronounced names. The driver was new to me—a stocky, middle-aged number with black hair and squinty black eyes. He had nothing whatever to say to anyone, and for that matter neither did anybody else, all the way to our destination. Once on the Taconic State Parkway a car passed and cut in ahead of us so short that it damn near grazed our bumper, and the driver muttered something, and I went so far as to glance at him but ventured no words. Anyway my mind was occupied.
Evidently Rackham had been there before with his eyes open, for there was no suggestion that he should take to the floor, and of course I was now a B. We left the parkway a couple miles south of Millwood, to the right, followed a curving secondary road a while, turned onto another main route, soon left it for another secondary road, and after some more curves hit concrete again. The garage was at a four-corners a little out of Mount Kisco, and I never did know what the idea was of that roundabout way of getting there. In front it looked like any other garage, with gas-pumps and a graveled plaza, and cars and miscellaneous objects around, except that it seemed a little large for its location. Two men were there in front, one dressed like a mechanic and the other in a summer suit, even a necktie, and they exchanged nods with our driver as we headed in.
The big room we drove into was normal too, like a thousand others anywhere, but a variation was coming. Our car rolled across, past pillars, to the far end, and stopped just in front of a big closed door, and our driver stuck his head out, but said nothing. Nothing happened for thirty seconds; then the big door slowly opened, rising; the driver pulled his head in, and the car went forward. As we cleared the entrance the door started back down, and by the time we had eased across to a stop the door was shut again, and our reception committee was right there—two on one side and one on the other. I had seen two of them before, but one was a stranger. The stranger was in shirt sleeves, with his gun in a belt holster.
Stepping out, I announced, “I’ve got that same gun under my armpit.”
“Okay, Goodwin,” the tenor said. “We’ll take care of it.”
They did. I may have been a B, but there was no discernible difference between inspection of a B and of an unknown. In fact, it seemed to me that they were slightly more thorough than they had been on Sunday, which may have been because there were three of us. They did us one at a time, with me first, then Rackham, then Roeder. With Roeder they were a little more superficial. They went over him, but not so enthusiastically, and all they did with the brief case was open it and glance inside and let Roeder himself shut it again.
One change from Sunday was that two of them, not one, accompanied us to the door in the rear wall, and through, across the vestibule, and down the fourteen steps to the first metal door. The sentinel who opened and let us in was the same pasty-faced bird with a pointed chin—Schwartz. This time the other sentinel did not stay at the table with his book work. He was right there with Schwartz, and interested in the callers, especially Rackham.
“We’re a little early,” Roeder said, “but they sent us on in.”
“That’s all right,” Schwartz rumbled. “He’s ahead of schedule today. One didn’t come.”
He went to the big metal door at the other end, pulled it open, and jerked
his head. “On in.”
Entering, Roeder took the lead, then Rackham, then me. Schwartz brought up the rear. He came in three paces and stood. Arnold Zeck, from behind his desk, told him, in the cold precise tone that he used for everything, “All right, Schwartz.”
Schwartz left us. As the door closed I hoped to heaven it was as soundproof as it was supposed to be.
Zeck spoke. “The last time you were here, Rackham, you lost control of yourself and you know what happened.”
Rackham did not reply. He stood with his hands behind him like a man ready to begin a speech, but his trap stayed shut, and from the expression of his face it was a good guess that his hands, out of sight, were making a tight knot.
“Sit down,” Zeck told him.
Since the seating was an important item of the staging, I had stepped up ahead after we entered and made for the chair farthest front, a little to the left of Zeck’s desk and about even with it, and Roeder had taken the one nearest me, to my right. That left, for Rackham, of the chairs near the desk, the one on the other side, and he went to it. He was about twelve feet from Zeck, Roeder about the same, and I was slightly closer.
Zeck asked Roeder, “Have you had a talk?”
Roeder shook his head. “Since Mr. Rackham had never met me before, I thought it might be better for you to explain the proposal to him. Naturally he will want to know exactly how it is to be handled before deciding whether to help with it.” He reached to get his brief case from the floor, put it on his lap, and opened it.
“I think,” Zeck said, “that you should describe the operation, since you conceived it and will manage it. But you were right to wait.” He turned to Rackham. “You remember our last talk some time ago.”
Rackham said nothing.
“You remember it?” Zeck demanded. He made it a demand by the faintest possible sharpening of his tone.
“I remember it,” Rackham stated, not much above a whisper.
“You know the position you took. Ordinarily that course is not permitted to any man who has been given a place in my organization, and I made an exception of you only because the death of your wife had changed your circumstances. I thought it better to await an opportunity to take advantage of that change, and now it has come—through Roeder here. We want your help and we are prepared to insist on getting it. How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know.” Rackham licked his lips. “I’d have to know more about what you want.”
Zeck nodded. “But first your attitude. You will need to recognize the existence of mutual interests—yours and mine.”
Rackham said nothing.
“Well?” The faint sharpening.
“Damn it, of course I recognize them!”
“Good. Go ahead, Roeder.”
Roeder had got some papers from his brief case. One of them fluttered away from him, and I left my chair to retrieve it for him. I believe he did that on purpose. I believe he knew that now that the moment had come every nerve and muscle in me was on a hair trigger, and he was giving me an excuse to loosen them up.
“As I understand it,” he said, “we’re going to give Rackham a cut, and before I tell him about it I wish you’d take a look at this revised list of percentages. Yours is of course fixed, and I don’t like to reduce mine unless it’s absolutely unavoidable …”
He had a sheet of paper in his hand. With his brief case on his lap, and loose papers, it was awkward for him to get up, so I obliged. I reached, and he handed me the paper, and I had to leave my chair to get it to Zeck. On my way I took a glance at the paper because I thought it was in character to do that, and if I ever needed my character to stay put for another four seconds I did right then. When I extended my hand to Zeck I released the paper an instant too soon and it started to drop. I grabbed at it and missed, and that made me take another step and bend over, which put me in exactly the right position to take him away from there before he could possibly get a toe on one of the buttons under his desk.
Not wanting to knock his chair over, I used my left knee to push him back, chair and all, my right knee to land on his thighs and keep him there, and my hands for his throat. There was only one thing in my mind at that precise instant, the instant I had him away from the desk, and that was the fear that I would break his neck. Since I was in front of him I had to make absolutely sure, not only that he didn’t yap, but also that he was too uncomfortable to try things like jabbing his thumbs in my eyes, but God knows I didn’t want to overdo it, and bones and tendons are by no means all alike. What will be merely an inconvenience for one man will finish another one for good.
His mouth was open wide and his shark eyes were popping. With my knee on him he couldn’t kick, and his arms were just flopping around. And Roeder was there by me, with a wadded handkerchief in one hand and a piece of cord in the other. As soon as he had the handkerchief stuffed tight in the open mouth he moved to the rear of the chair, taking Zeck’s right hand with him, and reached around for the left hand. I tried to elude him, and I increased the pressure of my fingers a little, and then he got it.
“Hurry up,” I growled, “or I’ll kill him sure as hell.”
It took him a year. It took him forever. But finally he straightened up, came around to take another look at the handkerchief and poke it in a little tighter, backed up, and muttered, “All right, Archie.”
When I took my hands away my fingers ached like the devil, but that was nerves, not muscles. I leaned over to get my ear an inch away from his nose; there was no question about his breathing.
“His pulse is all right,” Roeder said, not through his nose.
“You’re crazy,” Rackham said hoarsely. “Good God! You’re crazy!”
He was out of his chair, standing there in front of it, trembling all over. Roeder’s hand went to his side pocket for the Carson Snub Thirty, which he had got from the brief case along with the piece of cord. I took it and aimed it at Rackham.
“Sit down,” I said, “and stay.”
He sank down into the chair. I moved to the end of the desk so as to have him in a corner of my eye while looking at Zeck. Roeder, at my left elbow, spoke rapidly but distinctly.
“Mr. Zeck,” he said, “you told me on the telephone two years ago that you had great admiration for me. I hope that what has just happened here has increased it. I’m Nero Wolfe, of course. There are many things it would give me satisfaction to say to you, and perhaps I shall someday, but not now. It is true that if one of your men suddenly opened the door Mr. Goodwin would kill you first, but I’m afraid you’d have company. So I’ll get on. Having by your admission matched you in intellect, it’s a question of will, and mine has not failed me, as you thought. Confound it, I wish you could speak.”
The expression of Zeck’s eyes, no longer popping, indicated that Wolfe had nothing on him there.
“Here’s the situation,” Wolfe went on. “During the two months I’ve been here in this outlandish guise I have collected enough evidence to get you charged on thirty counts under Federal law. I assure you that the evidence is sound and sufficient, and is in the hands of a man whom you cannot stop or deflect. You’ll have to take my word for it that if that evidence is produced and used you are done for, and that it will be immediately produced and used if anything untoward happens to Mr. Goodwin or me. I fancy you will take my word since you admit that I match you in intellect, and to climax these five frightful months with such a bluff as this, if it were one, would be witless. However, if you think I’m bluffing there’s no point in going on. If you think I’m bluffing, please shake your head no, meaning you don’t believe me.”
No shake.
“If you think I have the evidence as described, please nod your head.”
No nod.
“I warn you,” Wolfe said sharply, “that Mr. Goodwin and I are both ready for anything whatever.”
Zeck nodded. Nothing violent, but a nod.
“You assume my possession of the evidence?”
Zeck nod
ded again.
“Good. Then we can bargain. While I have great respect for the Federal laws, I am under no obligation to catch violators of them. Without compunction I can leave that to others. But I am under an obligation to a certain individual which I feel strongly and which I must discharge. Mrs. Rackham paid me a large sum to serve her interest, and the next day she was murdered. It was clearly my duty to expose her murderer—not only my duty to her but to my own self-respect—and I have failed. With an obligation of that nature I have never accepted failure and do not intend to. Mr. Goodwin, working in my behalf, has been a party to that failure, and he too will not accept it.”
Zeck nodded again, or I thought he did, probably to signify approval of our high moral standards.
“So we can bargain,” Wolfe told him. “You said day before yesterday that you have evidence, or can easily get it, that will convict Rackham of the murder of his wife. Was that true?”
Zeck nodded. The shark eyes were intent on Wolfe.
“Very well. I believe you because I know what you are capable of. I offer a trade. I’ll trade you the evidence I have collected against you for the evidence that will convict Rackham. Will you make the trade?”
Zeck nodded.
“It will have to be more or less on my terms. I can be trusted; you cannot. You will have to deliver first. But I realize that the details of anything as vital as this is to you cannot be settled without discussion, and it must be discussed and settled now. We are going to release your hands and take that handkerchief from your mouth, but before we do so, one more warning. You are to stay where you are until we’re finished. If you move toward the floor signals under your desk, or try to summon your men in any other manner, you will die before anyone else does.
Also, of course, there is the evidence that exists against you. You understand the situation?”
Zeck nodded.
“Are you ready to discuss the matter?”
Zeck nodded.
“Release him, Archie,” Wolfe snapped.