Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 16

The next morning after an eight-hour sleep in my bedroom at the brownstone and Fritz’s breakfast of Canadian bacon, an apricot omelet, and blueberry muffins, I sat at my desk in the office getting caught up on correspondence and entering orchid germination records on file cards from notes Carl Willis had brought down.

I had just finished going through the morning mail when the phone rang. It was Doc Vollmer. “I am calling to report there has been no change in Theodore Horstmann’s condition,” he said.

“Would you call that good or bad news?”

“Neither,” he sniffed. “On the plus side, his vital signs remain strong. On the minus side, he shows no indication of emerging from the coma.”

“Is there anything that can be done to somehow awaken him?”

“There is not,” Vollmer said, his tone clearly indicating that he was appalled by my lack of medical knowledge.

“I will pass your report along to Mr. Wolfe,” I told the doctor in an icy tone of my own.

I gave Wolfe Vollmer’s report when he came down from the plant rooms at eleven. He made no comment, ringing for beer.

“I still have some of my gear in Theodore’s room at the Elmont,” I told him. “Should I pack it up and come home for good, as you have suggested?”

“I would prefer that you stay there one more night,” Wolfe said. “It is possible you will still be able to learn something.”

When Wolfe says he would “prefer” me to do something, what he really means, is You shall do this. I don’t know what he expected me to find out by staying yet another day, although I suspect that, as sometimes happens, he is currently at a dead end and is giving me something to do to show that he’s working. I was of course damned unhappy having to spend yet another night in that tired old building on Tenth Avenue, but I also long ago had gotten used to going along with orders from the man who signs my paychecks.

But lest you get the idea that I am afraid of going it alone without Wolfe out in the big, bad world, I am my own man and can quit at any time, as I have threatened in the past. In fact, on two occasions, Saul Panzer and I have discussed, if only in the vaguest of terms, starting our own detective agency.

If I am being totally honest with myself, however, one of the factors keeping me in Wolfe’s employ is that were I to leave, I would be depriving myself of Fritz Brenner’s superb meals. Does that make me weak-willed? I leave it to you to decide. Speaking of Fritz’s cuisine, I delayed going back to my home away from home until after I had feasted on one of his specialties: Cape Cod clam cakes, served with a sour sauce.

After lunch, I still wasn’t ready to go back to Tenth Avenue, so I found ways to busy myself by shining two pairs of shoes and dusting my room. When I finally and reluctantly left, Wolfe had already gone up for his two-hour afternoon session with the orchids.

As I entered the Elmont’s tired lobby on that rainy late afternoon, I ran into the building’s super, Erwin Bauer. “Ah, Mr... Horstmann, isn’t it?” he said. “Have you had any success in locating your uncle?”

“Not so far. I will be going back home to Ohio, but I do plan on coming back and keeping 412, at least for a while. Do I owe you any rent?”

“No, as I said before, you are all paid up through next month. Do you think that you will be returning soon?”

“I don’t know. Are you concerned that someone else will want the apartment?”

“Oh, no, no, if I have your promise that you will be here again before the end of next month,” Bauer said, rubbing the stubble on his chin as if deep in thought, which in his case seemed highly improbable.

“You have my promise, Mr. Bauer. Are all of your apartments occupied right now?”

He did that chin rub again. “Well... we have a very high demand because of our excellent location.”

“Pardon my ignorance as an out-of-towner, but what is it that makes this an excellent location? I ask only because as a visitor I don’t know New York City all that well.”

He looked at me through narrowed eyes. “I figure you’ve stayed here long enough to see that for yourself. Look, we’re on a busy street with lots of taxis, close to subway stations, and there are shops and restaurants all over the place,” he said with the sweep of an outstretched arm as if to encompass the whole of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Good point. Maybe that’s why my uncle Ted chose the place. How long have you been the Elmont’s superintendent?”

I could see that Bauer was getting uneasy. “I’ve been here for, let’s see... oh, about seven years now. Sorry, but I have to check the furnace room,” he said, doing an about-face and opening a door which I assume led to the furnaces. With an outside temperature of more than seventy degrees, I had to wonder why the building’s heating system needed checking.

I went upstairs to 412 and packed the few clothes I had hung in the closet and had put in the drawer of a chest. One more night here. Actually, it wasn’t all that bad, but, compared with my room in the brownstone...

I briefly contemplated a trip across the street to McCready’s saloon but vetoed the idea; it was too early to start ingesting anything alcoholic. I seldom take a drink before sunset, and even though the downpour had darkened the sky early for this time of year, I felt that didn’t allow me to alter my principles. Besides, I had not been getting enough exercise lately, so a long walk was in order. Before I had gotten more than a few blocks, however, the rain was back, so I ducked into a steak house and decided on an early dinner. The filet I ordered was decent, although I had enjoyed far better ones in the brownstone — no surprise there.

By the time I walked outside, the rain had stopped, but the clouds hadn’t cleared, so it was unnaturally dark on what was one of the longest days of the year. I risked a stroll without an umbrella, enjoying one of those refreshing times following a rain that cleanse the air. There was almost no pedestrian traffic, perhaps because people expected more rain. With no destination in mind, I headed south on Tenth Avenue. After going a little more than a block, I sensed I had acquired a shadow.

As one who has done a good bit of tailing myself, I am sensitive to pedestrian traffic, and, without turning to look behind me, I was all but positive I was being followed. I stopped to glance into the window of an Automat, as if watching customers dine on plain food at plain tables, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a silhouette freeze and press against the wall of a building some fifty yards behind me. I stepped up my pace and turned west into a side street that ran toward the Hudson.

Halfway down the block, I eased into the recessed doorway of an automobile garage that looked to be closed. After what seemed like a minute but probably was less, I heard footfalls that made squishy sounds because of puddles in the sidewalk.

The sounds grew louder as I pushed back into the alcove. A figure holding what appeared to be a yard-long metal bar passed within a foot of me but never turned in my direction. I silently stepped out behind him and put a hammerlock on his right arm, the one holding the bar, which clanked onto the sidewalk. He groaned as his knees buckled and he spit out words I didn’t understand.

“All right, what gives with the tail?” I barked in his ear as I kept the pressure on that arm. “Talk, dammit!”

While I waited for an answer from this guy and thought about what a lousy shadower he made, there was a noise behind me. It was the last thing I heard.

The pain was the worst in my head. Or was it the worst in my shoulders, which were being stretched? I had trouble breathing, too. I got dragged along with my feet feeling like they had lead weights strapped on. I wanted to go to sleep but couldn’t seem to talk to whoever or whatever was making me move forward. I finally got the idea that someone was on either side of me, hands under my armpits, with the one on my right smelling like sauerkraut.

“Hey... hey,” I think I said, getting a slap on the side of my head from Sauerkraut Breath. I tried getting out of his grip, but I got another slap for my effort, this one harder. Next, I tried going limp, which wasn’t hard, because my legs were like rubber. That worked a little better, because I got dropped onto the sidewalk as my “escorts” made guttural mocking sounds. I groaned and rolled over on my side, slowly remembering I was not alone — the Marley .38 nestled snugly in the shoulder holster inside my sports coat.

I lay on the concrete, trying to buy time, and I got kicked in the legs for my trouble. I groaned again, this time partly for effect, and I got up slowly. These guys might be tough, but they were amateurs who apparently never thought to frisk me while I was out.

I rose to a knee as they stood over me, preparing to strike, and I slipped my hand inside my jacket. One of the pair suddenly realized what was happening, but he was a beat too slow. I have never considered myself particularly quick on the draw, but I was fast enough for these two, who found themselves suddenly gaping at the business end of a roscoe in a surprisingly steady hand. One of them lunged at me, and I hit him on the head with the butt of the Marley, sending him backward as I turned the gun on his partner, who tried to grab it from my hand.

As we struggled, the one I had coshed threw his shoulder against me and knocked me down, but I managed to get to my feet as they ran down the deserted street. I fired once, aiming at their legs, and I knew I had made a hit when I heard a scream from one of them, who began limping as his partner put an arm around him and tugged him along. I was in no condition to chase after them, though, as whatever adrenaline that had kicked in during the fray rapidly deserted me, to be replaced by stabbing pain in several places.

I was limping, myself, as I headed back to Tenth Avenue and the Elmont. The rain had started again, but I barely felt it with all of my other aches and also my chagrin. Years ago, when I was new to the detective trade, if our work can be termed a trade, Saul Panzer gave me several pieces of advice. One of them was this: “If someone is following you and you’re able to catch him in the act, don’t let down your guard, because there’s a good chance that he has a ‘trailer’.”

My trailer had hit me on the noggin with something hard enough that a ringing sound seemed to be bouncing around in my head, using it as a pinball machine. I didn’t run into anyone as I entered the Elmont and stumbled up to the fourth floor, where I grabbed the bag containing my clothes and said good-bye to the place that had been, for, thankfully, a brief time, my second home.

On my way out the door of 412 for the last time, I paused in front of a mirror and did not like what I saw: My face was bruised in about three places, and my left cheek was the color of one of the fresh eggplants Fritz brings home from the market.