Archie in the Crosshairs

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.”

“Point taken,” Saul allowed. “You did the humane thing, all right. Now let’s hit the road.”

Ten minutes later, I was steering the Heron sedan north with Saul riding shotgun and Fred in the rear. We drove up Eighth Avenue to Columbus Circle, where the street’s name changes to Central Park West. Another eighteen blocks put us at Seventy-Seventh. I eased the car to the curb on the east side of the street.

“Okay, over there is where we’re supposed to leave the money,” I said, gesturing to a spot about a hundred yards east of us. “That’s the blue spruce. It looks to be just about halfway between Central Park West and that interior road that winds its way through the park.”

Saul scratched his chin. “So the question is, from which direction will our man come?”

“I’d guess from the east,” Durkin said. “The money is supposed to be put at the base of the tree on its east side, right? And that’s the side closest to the park road.”

“You may be right, Fred,” I said, “but we’ve got to be prepared for him — I’m assuming it’s a him — coming from either direction. I’ll put the satchel, or whatever kind of bag our Miss Hutchinson puts the money in, at the base of the tree at nine fifty-eight tonight. Then I’ll walk away slowly, heading east toward the park road.”

“Which means you may run head-on into the guy as he approaches the spruce,” Saul said.

“Maybe so, although I’m guessing that he’ll be in hiding, probably behind another tree, until I move away from the satchel. Of course, both of you will be out of sight as well — one to the northeast, the other to the southeast, well away from the tree.”

“I’ll take the northeast,” Saul said. “We will be armed, of course.”

I nodded. “You will. But remember Mr. Wolfe’s instructions. He is to be taken alive.”

“That may not be so easy,” Fred said. “Chances are ten-to-one he’ll be carrying a piece as well.”

“That poses a challenge, all right,” I conceded. “But if we can get the drop on him before calling to him, he may not be able to level his weapon. After all, he’ll be concentrating on hauling the money away. That kind of a payday has a way of blurring a man’s mind.”

After our brief reconnaissance, I garaged the Heron and the three of us went to the brownstone, once more via the rear entrance. An agitated Fritz let us in.

“Archie, a lady telephoned twice for you. She did not leave her name but said she would call again. She sounded most excited, and she was most unhappy that you were not here. I told her I did not know when you would return.”

“That would be Miss Hutchinson. She’ll call again, probably in the next ten minutes or less,” I told him. “We will be in the office.”

Wolfe was in the midst of his morning communion with the orchids up in the plant rooms as we settled in, me behind my desk, Saul in the red leather chair, and Fred occupying one of the yellow ones. We all were sipping Fritz’s excellent coffee when the phone rang.

“Oh, Archie, I am so glad to hear your voice,” Cordelia said in her usual breathless tone. “I have it.... I have the money, right here, right in front of me. What do we do now? I am so frightened.”

I tried without success to calm her down. “What do you have the currency in?” I asked.

“A black leather attaché case.”

“We can come and get it from you.”

“No, I would rather come to you, Archie.”

“Aren’t you afraid of venturing out with all that dough?”

“No, I am not. I will have our doorman get me a cab and come straight to that spot on Thirty-Fourth Street where you met me before, if that is all right with you and Mr. Wolfe.”

“Okay, but the sooner the better,” I told her. She said she would leave Sutton Place in five minutes.

I filled Saul and Fred in. “We should be there when her cab pulls up,” I said to them.

“She probably can’t wait to be rid of that bundle,” Saul said.

We had been on the sidewalk for no more than ten minutes when a Yellow Cab pulled up and Cordelia stepped out with the attaché case. “Have the cab wait,” I said after introducing Saul and Fred to her as my trusted associates.

“But I thought I would be coming in with you, Archie.”

“Not necessary,” I said, taking the case from her. “We will be handling things for you from here on today. Go home and wait to hear from me.”

“How will you deal with... with tonight?” She chewed on her lower lip and kneaded her hands. At that moment, she had all the poise of a twelve-year-old girl at her first grade-school dance.

“All three of us will be there. You do not have to worry about it.”

“Who is going to give him the money, Archie?”

“I am. Leave the details to us, please.”

“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No one is going to get hurt. Now go home.”

Cordelia did not like the brush-off, but I insisted, telling her again that we had everything planned and in place for tonight. I practically had to push her back into the taxi, and as it pulled away from the curb, she looked out at me from the rear window, almost in tears.

“The young lady is a nervous wreck,” Saul observed. “Can’t say that I blame her; she probably wonders what’s going to happen to those seventy-five G’s she just parted with.”

“I think she’s plenty more worried about her secret getting out than any possibility of losing the money,” I said. “That amount she just coughed up isn’t much more than petty cash to her.”

Back in the office, we opened the leather case on my desk and took out the bundles of fifties and hundreds. “Somehow it seems like seventy-five grand should take up more space than this,” Fred said, handling a few of the stacks of greenbacks.

“Yeah, but it all seems to be here, at least based on a quick eye balling,” Saul put in. “I’ve got to wonder what her bank thought about this.”

“Given the size of her family’s estate, the bank probably does whatever it gets asked to do by any one of the Hutchinson clan,” I said.

“No doubt a prudent response on the part of the financial institution,” Nero Wolfe said as he entered the office, fresh from his time up on the roof with the orchids. He nodded to Saul and Fred, then eyed the open attaché case and its contents.

“Looks to be all here,” I told him. “Want to count it to make sure?”

He sniffed, sat, and rang for beer. “May I offer anyone a drink?”

We all shook our heads, and I filled Wolfe in on our morning venture to Central Park, as well as our strategy for tonight. “Any thoughts?”

He took a deep breath. “I will answer a question with a question: Do any of you have doubts about the success of this operation?”

“I think we’ve figured the angles,” Saul said. “What we don’t know, of course, is how the pickup man will react when he gets called out. And whether he has an accomplice.”

“I suppose he could start shooting,” Fred put in. “Seventy-five big ones is worth fighting for.”

“Indeed it is,” Wolfe said. “Archie, your thoughts?”

“The man probably will be situated where he can see me set the case down next to that spruce tree and begin walking away. I won’t have a gun showing, and I can’t believe he’d risk doing anything that would endanger his getting away with the money.”

“Of course, he very well may not be the blackmailer himself, just the courier,” Saul pointed out.

I nodded. “True, but whoever he is, he figures to come out of the deal with a nice piece of change.”

“Let me briefly review,” Wolfe said. “Archie sets the case of money down at the tree and begins to move away to the east, his gait deliberate but slow. The man is sure to emerge quickly from hiding to retrieve his treasure. At that point, Saul and Fred, guns drawn, will converge upon the scene from opposite directions and, if all goes well, they will seize both man and money, and with a modicum of force. Archie will also have reversed his direction, and the three of you will deliver this individual to me. Does anyone have something to add?”

“I think that pretty well covers it,” I said, turning to Saul and Fred, both of whom nodded.

“Very well,” Wolfe pronounced. “I trust you all will use your intelligence guided by your experience.”

This was a line he had used on me many times. We were soon to learn how effective his advice would be.