The Missing Heiress

Chapter 6

Saul Panzer had described the YMCA well. In the hundreds of times I had passed it, I never paid much attention, but this was one big, impressive structure, especially for a place that was essentially a poor man’s hotel — although by no means, as Saul had stressed, a flophouse.

That afternoon, after Wolfe had gone up to the plant rooms to play with his “concubines,” as he refers to the orchids, I took a short walk to the Thirty-Fourth Street entrance of the Y. It was fronted by a green canopy, which lent a further degree of dignity to the building.

I stood near the door and stopped a sixtyish and slightly stooped man as he came out. “Pardon me, sir, but I’m looking for someone who—”

“I got no time, no time at all,” he cut me off, walking east.

Next, I approached a stocky chap of about forty who wore a battered fedora and a windbreaker and was about to enter the building. “Pardon me, sir, but I have a question.”

“Yeah?” He looked me up and down and shrugged. “Well-dressed guy like you panhandling? Well, I haven’t got a red cent on me, so just forget it.”

“That’s not my question, sir. I wonder if you know an Everett Carr who might live here?”

He shrugged again and frowned. “You know him?”

“No, but a friend told me to look him up when I came to town. Said he might be able to show me around.”

“You sure that he lives here?”

“My friend thought so, but he wasn’t positive.”

“Well... there is an Everett down the hall from me, but I’ve never known his last name. That might be him. Everett’s not a very common moniker, you know.”

“Maybe you can introduce us,” I said.

“Not likely, Mac. I heard at lunch earlier this week that he hasn’t been seen for days. The guy who said that lives next door to him. He was damned puzzled and told me that Everett never said anything about going away.”

“What kind of fellow is Everett?”

“Sounds to me like you don’t know a lot about him.”

“I really don’t.”

“Well, he’s... unusual, I guess you would say. I really can’t say I know Everett all that well, but—”

“Say, how about I buy you a cup of coffee or a beer — your choice?”

His square face broke into a grin. “I wouldn’t say no to a glass of beer.”

“Is there a good saloon nearby?” I asked, playing dumb as would befit a visitor to the city.

“Just around the corner on Ninth Avenue,” he said, and in less time that it takes to hail a taxi at Grand Central, we were on stools in Gabby’s, a watering hole I had passed many times.

“I’m Alf,” my new friend said, pumping my hand vigorously as the bartender placed two frosty glasses of Rheingold in front of us. “I’m really Alfred, a name I’ve never liked, but after that poor sap Alf Landon got steamrolled by FDR in the election some years back, I got tagged with the name by my Democratic friends, who thought that I had voted for Landon. I hadn’t.”

“I’m Archie,” I replied, trying to look like I was enjoying the beer, which has never been my drink of choice.

“Where you from, Archie?” Alf asked.

“Small town in Ohio,” I said, which technically was not a lie, if you go back a bunch of years. “Tell me about Everett Carr.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. As I said before, I really didn’t know him well. He was a hard guy to get close to.”

“How so?”

Alf screwed up his face. “Often, several of us would gather downstairs in the coffee shop and shoot the breeze, you know? A lot of the bunch I hang around with at the Y have led, well... somewhat bumpy lives, and we talked about our experiences. Good for the soul, they say. Anyway, Everett never, not even once, has said anything about his past, or anything else to do with him. Whenever somebody asked him a question about himself, he changed the subject. I can’t tell if it’s shyness, or what. Didn’t your friend say anything to you about Everett?”

“No, just that I should look him up. He wasn’t even positive Everett Carr lived at the Y, so maybe he really is a man of mystery.”

“He sure is as far as I’m concerned. The only thing I can tell you about him is that he must like to play the ponies, because more than once I’ve seen him carrying the Daily Racing Form.”

“Maybe the reason he doesn’t say much around your bunch is that he’s embarrassed about his gambling.”

“Hah!” Alf said, dismissing my idea with the wave of a hand. “Archie, compared to some of the things we have told one another about our lives and what we’ve done, gambling on the horses is kid stuff.”

“Do you know anything else about him, anything at all?”

“Not really,” Alf said as he drank beer and licked his lips. “Except that one time at our lunch counter, he was paying the cashier for his sandwich and I was right behind him getting ready to pay myself. I happened to notice that when he opened his wallet, it looked like he had a stack of double sawbucks in there.”

“Maybe he’d had a good day at the track, or with a bookie,” I ventured.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Alf said. “You don’t often see that kind of dough in the Y. Hey!” he said, looking up at the clock behind the bar. “The time sort of got away from me. I’ve got me a stint at one of the Broadway theaters as an usher. Puts some walking-around money in my pocket, you know? I got to get up to my room and change into a white shirt and tie so I look good to the swells who’re spending all that big money on their seats down near the stage. ’Course, I get to see the show, too, from in the back. After a few nights, though, it gets pretty boring.”

“Well, I appreciate your time, Alf,” I said.

“Hey, it’s me who should be doing the appreciating,” he said. “Thanks again for the beer, Archie. And I’m sure sorry I couldn’t tell you more about Everett. Nobody can figure out where he could have gone.”

“Maybe he hit it really big at the races and decided to move to a place up on Park Avenue.”

Alf laughed. “Somehow, I doubt it. Them racetracks, they got the odds stacked against you. Say, if I run into Everett, I’ll tell him you came by to see him. Is there some place I can get hold of you?”

“No, because I’ll be going back home to Ohio tomorrow. Thanks anyway, Alf.”