More Julius Katz and Archie

by Dave Zeltserman

  Julius breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out in an even slower exhale, most likely to see if the killer would give anything away during this dramatic pause. The killer had nerves, I’ll give him that. He might not have been looking as pleased with himself as he did a moment ago, but otherwise, not a crack.

  Cramer, though, was growing exceedingly exasperated. “Damn you, Katz,” he growled. “What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?”

  “Not at all,” Julius said, his eyes now fixed on the killer. “Sometime around three months ago Philip Vance hatched what he thought was a foolproof plan to kill his wife. That was why he took out that policy while fully expecting to collect from it. The man was not a dolt. He knew because of his affair and the fortune he would be collecting, the police would focus exclusively on him for his wife’s murder, and so he would need an airtight alibi. He also knew that he couldn’t pay a hit man, and that any money transfers he made would be looked at through a microscope. The plan he came up with was to force a hardened criminal to kill his wife free of charge.”

  Cramer and the uniformed officers in the room couldn’t help noticing who Julius was watching so intently, and the two cops who had been standing behind Chapin moved closer to the killer. Cramer, while watching the killer, asked Julius how Vance intended to do that.

  “He received a submission that he realized was based on the Foxworth racetrack armored car robbery from four years ago. Much of the book was written in an outlandish and unrealistic manner, but the scenes involving the robbery and the murder of two accomplices had such a heightened realism that it made Vance curious enough to contact the lead investigator for the robbery and confirm that the book contained details that only the participants or the police investigating the crime would’ve known. He tried to use this to force the author of the book, Douglas Tolliver, to murder his wife. I strongly suspect that Vance had planned to meet Tolliver the night of his death to finalize the date and method of his wife’s murder, but Tolliver used the opportunity instead to rid himself of his blackmailer.”

  “This makes no sense,” Cramer said, scowling. “If Vance tipped off the lead detective on the identity of one of the robbers, why wasn’t the guy arrested?”

  The grim-faced man in the cheap suit cleared his throat and spoke up. “I can answer that,” he said. “My name’s Detective Harold Riggs. After Philip Vance contacted me, I of course met with him. Vance gave me an envelope postmarked from Charlestown missing a return address, only a small number of pages that detailed the armored car heist, and a letter supposedly written by the sender which claimed he would be contacting Vance at a later time with more of his book. The whole thing sounded fishy, but I was unable to obtain a search warrant for Vance’s residence which left me little choice but to wait for Vance to contact me after he supposedly learned the sender’s name. Since Mr. Katz has been able to provide me a full copy of the so-called book, I’ll be arresting Douglas Tolliver for armed robbery at the conclusion of whatever this is. If you can build a case against him for murder that will obviously take precedence. New Hampshire authorities might fight you, though. Right now they have state police digging up the field where the book says the accomplices’ bodies were buried.”

  Several cracks showed in Tolliver’s exterior then, including an involuntary spasm by his right eye. The bodies must’ve been where his book said they were, and he knew it was over.

  Julius mustered some sympathy in his voice as he told Tolliver, “It was commendable in a way that you chose to murder a blackguard instead of an innocent woman, unless of course you chose Vance only so he couldn’t pressure you to commit more murders in the future.”

  Tolliver shook his head. I think he tried smiling at Susan, but it came out wrong. “I followed you one day, you know, to learn your routine. You seemed like a nice lady. Your husband was a bastard. I did what was right.”

  That didn’t sound like much of a confession, but it was enough to satisfy Cramer. One of the cops escorted Chapin out, while Cramer, Riggs, and the rest of the cops hustled Tolliver out of the office with his hands cuffed behind his back. Shortly after that Saul and Tom helped clear everyone else out except Susan, leaving her alone with Julius.

  For several minutes she’d been looking as stunned as any deer caught in the headlights, and Julius likewise had seemed reluctant to broach her. Finally he tried.

  “I know this must be a lot to take in, but it should also be a huge relief—” Julius stopped himself midsentence as Susan brought her hands to her face and began sobbing. His lips compressed into a tight grimace as he sat and watched her for eighteen point four seconds.

  “Can I call someone for you?” he asked. “Perhaps Lily?”

  She shook her head and continued sobbing.

  Reluctantly, Julius got out of his chair and moved next to her so he could attempt to console her by patting her shoulder. At that moment he looked like he’d rather be doing anything else, possibly even sipping a bottle of 2012 Romanée-Conti that had turned to vinegar.

  ◆◆◆

  Later while Julius was dressing for a late dinner date with Lily, I commented how it was interesting that Susan Vance broke out sobbing just as he was about to bring up the subject of his fee. “The timing of it was impeccable.”

  Julius paused from buttoning his shirt collar, and said, “That woman had been through a lot, including moments earlier facing the man who had considered murdering her. But not to worry, Archie. I will be billing her appropriately.”

  I had no doubt of that, especially given the five million dollar windfall she was going to be receiving. Although I also knew whatever his bill ended up being, because of Susan Vance’s friendship with Lily, it would be at most half of what it would be otherwise.

  “She’s lucky she hired you,” I said. “Or more precisely, that Lily suggested you take the case. I’ve been analyzing the whole works for the last hour, and I admit your theory makes sense. I also doubt the police would’ve ever made the connection between Vance and Tolliver. If you didn’t step in, she would’ve been arrested and probably convicted. Still, though, you were lucky with that seven-hour deadline you gave Cramer. If Tolliver hadn’t killed his accomplices and, in effect, provided a detailed map where he buried their bodies, he never would’ve confessed, even if it wasn’t much of a confession.”

  “His confession helped, but I didn’t need it,” Julius said. “What I needed was to uncover whatever Vance found that he believed he could use to strong-arm a person to commit murder. Given his phone activity and the timing of his purchasing the insurance policy, whatever he found seemed likely to have come from one of the three manuscripts I reviewed.”

  “I should’ve known the second you agreed to consider letting Tolliver write a book with you that he was the killer, even if you were only humoring him. You never really thought Jane Frost could’ve been Vance’s new girlfriend, or that Amanda Chapin might’ve murdered him out of jealously.”

  Julius shrugged. “I thought those and other possibilities needed to be explored and eliminated.” He smiled thinly, and added, “But as a betting man, my money was on Tolliver from the start. Vance showed discerning taste with the authors he represented, and as a rule handled only literary novels. Not only was Tolliver’s effort ostensibly a crime novel, but it was so poorly written that I couldn’t imagine Vance calling him for any other reason than to force him to commit murder.”

  I didn’t need to make any additional refinements to my neuron network to understand why Julius was as thorough as he was with the investigation when he could’ve instead zeroed in exclusively on the man he believed from the start was guilty. He wanted to bring in enough suspects so he could pack his office and make an elaborate production out of it for his client when he unveiled the murderer. There was still one more mystery to all this, and I asked Julius about it.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it was refreshing watching you work this case as hard as you did, even disrupting your morning routine to get an earlier sta
rt, but why?”

  Julius shrugged. “The poor woman had been through enough. I felt compelled to solve the case before the police arrested her. At least so I could save her from that additional trauma.” He hesitated briefly before adding, “When Lily asked me to look into this, she was worried over how hopeless Susan’s situation appeared.”

  Of course. There it was. He wanted to impress Lily by solving the case before their dinner date tonight. Inspiration hit me as I realized how brilliantly Lily played Julius, but I kept that to myself.

  ARCHIE FOR HIRE

  “Put Katz on the phone.”

  I felt my processing cycles flutter, which I’d experienced one other time and knew was a sensation akin to shuddering. It wasn’t hard to understand why I felt it again given that the voice I’d just heard belonged to Desmond Grushnier, someone Julius once called the most dangerous man alive. I told Julius that Grushnier wished to speak to him.

  Julius at that moment was leaning back in his office chair reading an article in the current Wine Spectator about underrated Bordeaux vintages. A slight flicker showed in his eyes, otherwise nothing for the next 2.8 seconds.

  “Archie, if this is some sort of crude joke—” he began.

  “No joke. The devil’s on the line and you’ve been keeping him waiting. What do you want me to do?”

  From the way Julius’s eyes slitted, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure he believed me, but he straightened up in his chair, lifted his cell phone, and commanded me to patch Grushnier through.

  “Yes,” he said, gruffly.

  “Katz, you’re meddling where you shouldn’t be.”

  “Where exactly is that?”

  “You know damn well!”

  “Interesting,” Julius said. “At the moment I’m reading about several Bordeaux blends that I’m considering purchasing. Later today I plan to be sampling cognacs at the Belvedere Club. I don’t see how either of those activities could possibly be of interest to you.”

  Housed within my one-inch by two-inch titanium shell that Julius wears as a tiepin are audio and visual circuitry that allow me to “see” and “hear”. I also have a highly-sophisticated neuron network that’s twenty years more advanced than anything thought possible, and that allows me to “think”. What I’m lacking are circuity to simulate olfactory senses and feel environmental conditions, so the concepts of smell, as well as heat, cold, and humidity are foreign to me, even if in the past I’ve imagined my processor generating excess heat while experiencing something that could best be described as anger. Still, during the 5.2 seconds while we waited for Grushnier to respond, I could’ve sworn the temperature in Julius’s office dropped ten degrees, even though I have no idea what that would actually be like.

  “Play these games at your own peril,” Grushnier warned, his voice icy enough to cause another shuddering sensation. “I could’ve let you blow up with your townhouse. Next time I just might.”

  The line went dead.

  The incident Grushnier referred to did indeed happen. A bomb had been planted in a crate of wine that was brought into Julius’s wine cellar, and Grushnier called Julius twenty-three seconds before the bomb was set to explode. While the call didn’t allow Julius the time to rescue family photos or other heirlooms, nor his prized bottles of 1971 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache, it did allow him to escape with his life. The townhouse has since been rebuilt and Julius’s wine cellar restocked.

  Julius put the phone down, took a sip of coffee, and asked if I knew how he was meddling.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Archie, what would be your best guess?”

  If I had shoulders, I would’ve shrugged them, but since I didn’t I could only imagine myself doing so. “It might be a case I took,” I said.

  If my answer surprised Julius, I couldn’t tell. He had an inscrutable poker face when he wanted to, and at that moment he showed nothing in his expression.

  “I see. So you took on an investigation without informing me.”

  “I’ve taken on seven, to be precise. Mostly cut and dry jobs that I could handle through hacking phone records and bank accounts. Three of the jobs were background checks, another was a wife hiring me to find assets that her husband had been hiding in preparation for a divorce. That type of thing.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Three weeks. I put out a virtual for hire shingle after I warned you that your bank account was reaching an anemic level with barely the funds to last another month. I know you prefer reading wine magazines and puttering around your office to putting your brain to work, and I know you expect to use this Saturday’s big poker game to fatten up your savings, but that doesn’t always happen. In fact, I remember several times you were left in the red.”

  “That’s not true, Archie, at least regarding my financial situation. I have investments I can draw on.”

  Again, if I had actual eyes, I would’ve rolled them, but I could only imagine doing so. He was talking about his wine collection, which I had catalogued, since one of my many jobs for Julius is acting as his personal secretary. While it did have an impressive value, wine was also about as illiquid an investment as you could have, which was ironic given that it’s all liquid. The value was based on the price it could fetch at auction, which was further dependent on who participated and a number of other factors that were impossible to predict. If word got out that Julius was hard up for cash, that by itself could drive the price down by fifty percent or more. We both also knew that it would pain him to dispose of any of his wine, other than by drinking it, of course.

  “I know you’re supremely confident about your poker abilities, as well you should be,” I said. “But what if Saturday, God forbid, you were dealt four kings against an opponent’s four aces? But now if that were to happen, thanks to the money I’ve been making—six grand so far, and no need to thank me—you’ll still be able to dine with Lily at Le Che Cru, instead of having to take her to The Happy Pig Whistle.”

  “The Happy Pig Whistle?”

  “A dive I found on lower Washington Street. They’ve been known to add a fly or two to their stews for protein, but their prices are cheap, at least compared to the restaurants you typically frequent.”

  Julius’s eyes glazed as he leaned further back in his chair. “Your industriousness aside, I’d like you to cease your investigative operations immediately.”

  “Boss, that would be letting Grushnier push us around.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. You never should have hired yourself out to begin with. In fact, I’d like you to make the necessary modifications to your programming so that you do not do this again.”

  I felt an odd, suffocating feeling. It was almost like my processing cycles had ground to a halt. This lasted for 8.2 seconds, which for me was a near eternity. I had no idea what this sensation was, but I did as Julius ordered.

  Julius’s eyelids lowered an eighth of an inch. He said, “Tell me about the investigations you took on.”

  I gave him a rundown, saving my one open case for last. This one was more unusual than the others. Donald Prescott, owner of Boston Premiere Wines, a shop in the Fort Point neighborhood of Boston, lost a case of 1996 Lafite Rothschild that he’d been planning to auction. According to Prescott, the wine, which was worth roughly eleven grand, had been stored away in the shop’s stockroom, and could only have been stolen by one of his five employees. He hired me to discover which one was the thief. I knew this job more than the others was going to be a sore subject for Julius. A year ago he had asked Prescott to put on hold any bottles of 2002 Domaine Leroy Nuits-Saint-Georges Aux Boudots that he might come across. Three months ago when Prescott got his mitts on four bottle of this coveted pinot noir, he instead put them up for auction, and Julius ended up being outbid. While Julius had kept his ill feelings regarding the matter to himself, he nonetheless stopped buying wine at Prescott’s store and even ignored auctions for vintages he’d been on the lookout for.

  “Prescott
noticed the theft five days ago and hired me the next day. I’ve been monitoring his employees’ phone, email, and bank records, and so far found nothing suspicious. I’d been planning to get each on the phone later today and try to spook them and see what shakes out.”

  “Not bad instincts, Archie, but unnecessary. Call Prescott and let him know that you’re withdrawing from the investigation, and return any money he paid you.”

  “You’re not curious why Grushnier would bother stealing that high-priced Bordeaux? Eleven grand wouldn’t even be pocket change for him.”

  “Archie, you’re making an assumption. We have nothing to link Grushnier to that theft other than a coincidence. But to answer your question, no, I’m not. I’m far more interested in what cognacs will be featured this afternoon.”

  There you have it. Whether due to laziness or pique, Julius was determined to have nothing to do with Prescott’s missing wine. I called Prescott as Julius demanded and gave him the bad news. After I did this, I felt that same nearly suffocating sensation I’d felt earlier, and this time it lingered. Later that afternoon while Julius was at the Belvedere Club sniffing from snifters of cognac, I was able to identify the sensation. Hundreds of different detective novels were used to build my knowledge base, and I decided to go back to those sources and examine the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, and I only had to look at four of them before I saw my answer in black and white. The suffocating sensation that made it feel as if my processing cycles were flowing through molasses was frustration, something my namesake, Archie Goodwin had also experienced in two of the books.

  As it turned out, Julius would’ve been better off flying with Lily Rosten to Paris for the weekend and staying in a suite at the Four Seasons than going to his Saturday night poker game. It wasn’t a DEFCON-level-one disaster—he still had the deed for his townhouse by the time the game broke up Sunday morning—but he left the game 8,300 dollars poorer, which almost emptied out his bank account. I record everything I “see”, and I went back and carefully studied the poker game and there was no bottom dealing, deck stacking, or other card mechanics at work. Likewise no noticeable tell had crept into Julius’s game, nor did he misread the other players’ tells. I further analyzed the way Julius played and I couldn’t find a single mistake. It was just one of those nights when the other players filled in their inside straights against his three of a kinds, or took three cards and would show a king-high flush against his jack-high flush. When you looked at the probabilities, Julius should’ve ended up the big winner but every dog has their day, and that night the five other players in the game had theirs.