Archie in the Crosshairs

Chapter 2

The next morning, I took my breakfast at the small table in the kitchen as usual. Fritz dished up wheat cakes, cornbread, bacon, and orange juice, which I consumed as I paged through both the Times and the Gazette. By tacit agreement, no mention was made of the previous night’s activities.

Once I was settled at my desk in the office with a cup of coffee, I opened the morning mail, placed it on Wolfe’s blotter, and then typed up the correspondence he had dictated the day before. I had just finished all of it when I heard the whirr of the elevator just after eleven, signaling Wolfe’s descent from the plant rooms.

“Good morning, Archie, did you sleep well?” he asked, as he does when he enters the office each morning.

“Better than I had any right to,” I said as he settled into the reinforced desk chair — built to support his seventh of a ton — and pushed the button under his desk, the signal for Fritz to bring beer. He raised his eyebrows in response to my comment.

“Shots were fired outside the house late last night,” I told him.

“I heard nothing.”

“It has been said that you can sleep through a hurricane.”

“Confound it, report!”

“Yes, sir.” I proceeded to relate the events as he leaned back, fingers interlaced over his middle mound. When I finished, he came forward and opened the first of two chilled bottles of beer, pouring himself a glass and watching the foam dissipate.

“Do you feel you were the target of the shots?” he asked after his first taste.

“I don’t know. I’m not aware of anyone in particular who has something in for me. I really haven’t any—”

The phone rang, and I swiveled in my chair to answer it. “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“I wish to speak to Mr. Wolfe,” a high-pitched voice, likely male and probably disguised, responded.

“Who is calling?”

“I assure you, Mr. Wolfe will wish to speak to me.”

I cupped the mouthpiece and turned to Wolfe. “Wants to talk to you, won’t give a name.” He nodded and picked up his instrument. I stayed on the line.

“Yes?”

“Nero Wolfe?”

“Correct. And you are?”

“My name is of no consequence. May I assume Mr. Goodwin is listening?”

“You may assume whatever you choose.”

“I hope he is hearing this, because what I have to say relates directly to him. He is going to die.”

“So shall we all, sir. What is your point?”

A snort. “You are being philosophical, Mr. Wolfe.”

“No, realistic.”

“Suit yourself. I repeat that Mr. Goodwin is going to die, and in the not-too-distant future. He could have died last night, but the time has not yet come. The shots, fired just a few feet from him, were off-target by design.”

Wolfe’s jaw tightened. “What is it you are intending to accomplish?” he asked.

“The killing of Mr. Goodwin, of course.”

“Why?”

“As retribution against you.”

“Should I not then be the focus of your animus?”

Another snort. “Easier said than done. It is widely known that you rarely leave your citadel, regrettably making you a most elusive target. Mr. Goodwin, on the other hand, is what might be termed ‘a man about town.’ Besides, removing Mr. Goodwin is a most effective way of neutralizing you. Without him, you are a crippled genius — if in fact you truly possess genius, which remains open to question. Oh, with Mr. Goodwin out of the picture, I suppose you could bring Mr. Panzer on board as your adjutant, although as crafty and clever as he is, I doubt the synergy would be the same. And if he did by chance become as effective as Mr. Goodwin has been, he too would be removed.”

“A pretty speech, sir. Now I want—”

“That is all I have to say for the moment, Mr. Wolfe. We will talk again soon. Good day.” The line went dead.

“He was afraid we’d put a trace on him, probably,” I said. “What do you make of this?”

Before Wolfe could respond, the doorbell rang, and I went down the hall to see who our visitor was. I was not surprised to see the bulky figure of Homicide Inspector Lionel T. Cramer through the one-way glass. I went back and reported to Wolfe, who scowled and dipped his chin — the signal to let the inspector in.

“Good morning,” I said as I pulled the front door open. “We were not expecting you.”

“I’ll just bet that you weren’t,” Cramer growled, barreling by me and heading down the hall to the office uninvited — his modus operandi when he dropped in without advance notice, as was invariably the case.

Some words here about Inspector Cramer: He has been on the New York City police force since before I came to the city, and he has known Nero Wolfe longer than I have. When he comes to the brownstone, it is invariably because he is angry — usually at Wolfe, me, or both of us, and usually because he feels we are impeding the work of the police department.

The two men have a grudging admiration for each other. Cramer, for his part, knows damn well that Wolfe may be his best hope at solving a case; and Wolfe respects Cramer’s toughness, bravery, and honesty — if not his volatile temper.

“You must be in the middle of something really hot,” the inspector snapped as he dropped into the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe’s desk, plugging an unlit cigar into his mouth as he so often does in his visits to us.

“After all these years, I should be used to your surprise visits and cryptic comments, but you continue to outdo yourself,” Wolfe remarked dryly. “What brings you here today?”

“Hah! Playing dumb, eh? It doesn’t suit you and never has. Care to comment on last night’s activities on the street just outside your door?”

Wolfe drank his beer and dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief. “I don’t have enough information to comment. Perhaps you can elucidate.”

“You’re damned right I can elucidate,” Cramer said. “As if you weren’t aware of it, at approximately twelve fifty-five this morning, a neighbor of yours, a spinster named Edith Baxter, heard shots. Do you happen to know her?”

“I do not.”

“What was I thinking?” Cramer said, slapping his forehead. “Of course you wouldn’t know her. You’ve only lived here since New York was a small Dutch village, but I doubt if you could name a single neighbor other than your own Doctor Vollmer, since you almost never step outside. Anyway, Miss Baxter — the woman made very sure we knew she was a miss — said she heard two gunshots in the street and went to her bedroom window. She says a car screeched away — I’m using her word, screeched — and she saw a man prone on the sidewalk.”

“Fascinating,” Wolfe said, steepling his hands.

“Yeah, isn’t it? And wait — it gets even more fascinating. Miss Baxter said the man on the sidewalk, who was wearing a suit and hat, got up as the car drove away and went into one of the houses along the block. This house, so she says. And from her description of the man, it could very well have been Goodwin here.”

Wolfe turned to me. “Archie, do you have a comment?”

I knew what he wanted me to say. “Yes, sir, Mr. Cramer is correct. That was me, all right. I was walking home from my weekly poker game at Saul’s when somebody in a car fired a couple of shots and then drove away fast. As the woman correctly stated, I dropped down onto the sidewalk. I was about to tell you about it when the inspector arrived.”

“Do you believe you were the target of the shots?” Wolfe asked.

“I can’t think why. It was probably some drunken kids out tearing up on a beautiful night,” I said.

Cramer scowled. “And you didn’t think to report it?”

“There was nothing to report, Inspector. I couldn’t identify the car, it all happened so fast. As your Miss Baxter so correctly reported, I was prone and in no position to see the license plate — if the car even had one. About all I can say is that it probably was a prewar Dodge or a Plymouth, and I’m not even positive about that — or even about its color.”

“And I suppose you both are going to tell me this had nothing to do with a case you’re working on?” Cramer said.

“I have no commissions at the present time, nor have I had any recently,” Wolfe said. “I am curious as to why you are investigating this, sir. There has been no homicide.”

“As you very well know, we also investigate attempted homicides, and from where I’m sitting, this sure as my Aunt Betsy looks like an attempt on Goodwin. By the way, you may be interested to know that both slugs were recovered from the outside wall of one of your neighboring brownstones, the one just to the east. Thirty-two caliber, both of them, and they were embedded in the stone about eight feet above the sidewalk. Whoever fired was a lousy shot.”

“Assuming the target really was Mr. Goodwin,” Wolfe put in.

“Yeah, and until I learn differently, I’m going to stay with that assumption, thank you very much,” Cramer said, gesturing toward me with his gnawed stogie. “This is not exactly a block where gunfire is common. The main thing that differentiates it from lots of similar blocks in this part of town is that you just happen to live here. And I’m not a great believer in coincidences.”

“Nor am I, sir,” Wolfe replied. “Although this occurrence may be one.”

“Nuts. And I suppose that you’re going to stick with your story that you’re not working on anything right now?”

“It is not a story, sir, it is a fact. I have not undertaken a case in weeks, and I have no prospects for one at present.”

Wolfe was telling the truth, as I knew only too well, since I maintain the checkbook, among my other duties. The current balance was at its lowest level in almost three years.

“As usual, I find myself wasting my time in this room,” Cramer said with a snort, getting to his feet and jamming his battered fedora onto his head. “By God, I know I’ve said this before, Wolfe, but it bears repeating: One of these days, you’re going to get too clever for your own good. I know something’s going on here, but getting information from you is like trying to wring blood out of a turnip.” Having delivered his speech, the homicide inspector glared at each of us in turn and stormed down the hall to the front door, with me trailing in his wake and locking the door behind him.