The Last Coincidence

Five

Wolfe’s scowl deepened when he learned who our visitor was. “Confound it, show him in,” he sighed, putting on one of his long-suffering expressions. Despite what he has said in the past about the relationship between host and guest being sacred, he has been known to make exceptions — Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department’s Homicide Bureau notable among them. I won’t go so far as to say that Wolfe and Cramer flat out don’t like each other — actually, I think each of them secretly enjoys verbally sniping at the other. Heaven knows they’ve had enough practice through the years. But Cramer’s trips to the brownstone usually end with him storming out, which is upsetting to Wolfe’s sense of order and decorum — never mind that he is almost invariably the cause of the storming.

“Good morning, Inspector,” I said with a smile after swinging open the front door. “To what do we owe the unexpected pleasure?”

That got me a glare and more as Cramer, his broad face a trifle ruddier than usual, stomped into the front hall. “You...” He bit off whatever comment he had prepared, waggled a finger, shook his head, and barreled into the office ahead of me.

As he has so many times before, the inspector beelined to the red leather chair, not waiting for an invitation to be seated. His bulk, which would have been impressive in any context but this, made the cushion wheeze on contact.

“Well?” he spat at Wolfe, taking a cigar from his breast pocket and jamming it unlit into his mouth. Cramer uses stogies the way most people use chewing gum.

“Well indeed?” Wolfe responded. “We have not seen each other for some months, sir. Have you been well?”

“Can the solicitousness!” Cramer snarled. “I think you know why I’m here.”

“Think again, Mr. Cramer. And enlighten us, please, since you went to the trouble of coming. Will you have something to drink?” To Wolfe, anyone voluntarily voyaging into the outside world qualifies as a latter-day Marco Polo — intrepid, fearless, and of questionable mental stability.

Cramer took a deep breath and a nasty bite out of his cigar and leaned forward, palms on knees. “No thanks on the drink,” he said gruffly. “All right, I’ll play this like you don’t know anything, even though I refuse to believe that for a second. Last night, this morning, actually, a kid — if you want to call somebody who’s twenty-six a kid — was murdered in a garage on the Upper East Side. His name was Barton Linville. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

Wolfe nodded for Cramer to go on.

“He was found by an attendant on the floor of the garage next to his car, a Porsche. One side of his head — the left — was pretty well caved in. Cause of death, massive head injuries, from a blow or a series of blows. Time of death, estimated at between midnight and one. His watch crystal was shattered, but the watch was still running, so that’s as close as we can come to an exact time. The body had no bullet wounds or other indications of violence. No weapon has been found.”

Wolfe leaned back in his chair. “And you come here seeking advice?” he asked.

“I’m not done!” Cramer barked. “In the first place, this Linville kid, they called him Sparky, comes from money on both sides — frozen foods and department stores — which means there’s a lot of heat being generated, and which I’m sure you don’t give a fig about. Anyway, we’ve been checking into his activities of last night, and we found something interesting.” Cramer paused to study Wolfe, maybe expecting a reaction, but he didn’t get even raised eyebrows for his theatrics.

“We talked to another kid that Linville had spent a good part of the evening with — a guy named Todd Halliburton, who’s apparently an old friend. Anyway, this Halliburton says that when the two of them were walking out of a nightspot on Second Avenue, a place called Morgana’s, some guy tried to give Linville a hard time out in front on the sidewalk. And who do you suppose that guy was?”

“Mr. Cramer,” Wolfe said, rearranging his bulk, “if you have ventured forth to assault me with guessing games, you risk the immediate loss of an audience. I suggest that you forgo your charade and come to the point.”

Cramer’s face took on a decidedly unhealthy shade of plum. “Charade, eh? You’re damn right I’ll come to the point. The man on the sidewalk who hassled Linville is in this room.”

Wolfe finished his beer and set the empty glass down deliberately, dabbing his lips with one of the fresh handkerchiefs Fritz puts in his center desk drawer every morning. “Really, sir,” he said, “are you suggesting that I have taken to nocturnal wanderings and hostile confrontations on street corners?”

“You’re getting as bad as Goodwin with the smart remarks,” Cramer shot back. “When we talked to Halliburton, and that was only an hour ago, he said Goodwin came up to them outside Morgana’s and seemed like he was looking for a scrap with Linville. Halliburton said he recognized Goodwin from pictures he’d seen of him in the papers. Heaven knows you’ve both had your mugs in print often enough. Care to comment?” Cramer looked at me and back at Wolfe, then glared at his cigar as if wondering how it had traveled from his mouth to his hand.

“Sir, are you in the habit of accepting identifications like Mr. Halliburton’s without attempting to verify them?” Wolfe asked dryly.

Cramer leaned forward, sticking his chin out. “Of course not, and you know it. But since you asked, we pulled some glossy eight-by-tens of about five of our lieutenants, in civilian clothes, along with a similar shot of Goodwin from my file on him — it’s a dupe of the one he turned in with his last license renewal. Anyway, we showed them all to Halliburton and he pointed to Goodwin instantly. He was emphatic about it.”

“Inspector, I’m touched that you have a file on me,” I said, grinning.

“Yeah. It’s mainly filled with press clippings about you and Wolfe, most of them due to your personal publicist, Cohen. I keep them around to read when I need inspiration.”

I thought for sure Wolfe would use that line as an opening to zing Cramer, but he just scowled. “Mr. Cramer, are you suggesting that Mr. Goodwin is in some way implicated in this young man’s demise?”

“You’re damn right I am! And what you once referred to as my native cynicism forces me to ask three questions: One, was that in fact Goodwin trading words with Linville in front of the fleshpot? Two, if yes, why? And three, where was he between midnight and dawn?”

“Well, Archie, do you care to respond?” Wolfe asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Sure, why not? Answer to number one — yes. To number two — I’m not at liberty to say at this time, maybe never. And to number three — upstairs in my room dreaming about a World Series between the Mets and Yankees that the Mets sweep in four straight, all shutouts, including a no-hitter by Gooden. By the way, Fritz let me in at precisely seventeen minutes after the witching hour. If Mr. Wolfe doesn’t have any objections, you can check with him.”

“Just what I need — a disinterested party like your pal Brenner supplying your alibi.”

“Take it or leave it; I was just trying to be helpful.”

“Balls!” Cramer bellowed. “If you’re so damn helpful, what’s to hide about your connection with Linville?”

“Sir, I think we have been more than indulgent,” Wolfe injected. “You show no connection between their conflux on the sidewalk and Mr. Linville’s violent death a few hours later — and indeed, there is none.”

“So I should chalk all this up to coincidence, is that it?” Cramer had done a number on the poor stogie and looked like he was about to start chewing the corner of Wolfe’s desk.

Wolfe raised his shoulders and let them drop. “How you respond is your business.”

“Why is it that whenever there’s a big case in this town, particularly one that generates publicity, you two are somehow hip-deep in it?” Cramer rasped, pushing himself to his feet.

“Just lucky, I guess,” I remarked.

“Listen,” Cramer roared, jabbing a thick index finger in Wolfe’s direction, “with what’s happened, we can make things hot for Goodwin, as in blast-furnace hot. You’re so goddamn smug, both of you — well, let’s see who ends up laughing.” He flung what was left of the cigar at the wastebasket, missing as usual. I used to think his aim was lousy, but in the last few years I think I’ve finally figured it out: He’s always so mad and so frustrated after a visit to the brownstone that cigar-littering is his endearing way of getting some revenge.

By the time I got to my feet, Cramer, who moves remarkably well for a big man, already was in the hall. I was a full three paces behind him when he pulled open the front door, turning to me with a final salvo.

“One way or another, Goodwin, there’s a good chance you could find yourself getting bloodied on this one — and Wolfe too. And if that should happen, by God, I can’t say it will bother me one bit.” Before I could reach the door, Cramer had slammed it behind him so hard that the small picture of the windmill next to the coatrack rattled and slipped to a cockeyed angle. I straightened it and went back to the office. “The man seemed a touch out of sorts,” I said to Wolfe.

“Archie, you enjoy quoting odds,” he said quietly as he reached for his book. “This time, however, I cast myself in the role of bookmaker. I shall give fifteen-to-one that we have not heard the last of this affair.”

“Funny, that’s essentially what Cramer communicated as he left, although in somewhat less genteel terms,” I replied. “Anyway, it’s no bet. Right now, I wouldn’t take twenty-five-to-one, and you know how much I enjoy betting on long shots.”