Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 21

It would have been unrealistic of me to expect that evening’s Gazette to carry anything related to the Elmont or the man with a bullet in his leg. But the next morning, just before Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven, I was out on the stoop when the carrier on his battered bicycle delivered our copy of the paper’s early edition.

“Nice to see you, Mr. Goodwin,” he said.

“Good to see you, too, Eddie. Right on time as usual.”

“Hey, I’ve gotta be on time. My real job is driving a scrap metal truck over in Brooklyn, and it begins at twelve thirty.” He cycled off along Thirty-Fifth Street, slinging papers with the accuracy of a relief pitcher onto the stoops of the shoulder-to-shoulder brownstones that line the block.

I opened our copy of the Gazette on the steps and found what I was looking for at the bottom of page seven, under the headline Homicide Cops Find Wounded Man in Hotel Who May Be Murder Suspect. The article identified the guy I had shot as William Hartz, fifty-eight, calling him “a displaced person from the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia who apparently entered the United States on a falsified visa.”

The piece went on to say that Hartz had not reported his injury and that he had a .38 revolver in his apartment, the same caliber weapon that was used to kill Chester Miller, according to the autopsy. The last sentence read, “The police refused to divulge how they learned of Hartz and his location.”

I went inside and laid the paper on Wolfe’s desk blotter. I knew Inspector Cramer was kept apprised of any newspaper coverage involving the Homicide Squad, so it figured to be a matter of minutes before we received a call from him.

Wolfe came down from his morning visit with the orchids and scanned the Gazette article as he rang for beer. “You realize who is about to (a) telephone us or (b) ring the doorbell,” I told him, receiving a glare for my trouble. Just as Fritz brought in the beer, option (b) came to pass.

“Good morning,” I said to Cramer, swinging open the door to admit him. I received a glare in return and he stormed by, heading down the hall to the office with me in close pursuit.

As I got to the door, I watched the inspector zero in on the red leather chair and land with a thump.

“Good morning sir,” Wolfe said calmly.

“And exactly what is good about it?” Cramer fired back. “Sometimes I feel like my department is being run by remote control from this goddamned office.”

“Judging by this article,” Wolfe said, picking up the Gazette, “it would appear that your minions have made some progress in the investigation of Mr. Miller’s death.”

“Maybe, but we seem to be operating in a goldfish bowl, thanks to you and your friend Cohen. My men had just got to that Tenth Avenue flop house and began their sweep when three — count ’em three — Gazette reporters show up, along with a photographer.”

“The article contained no pictures,” Wolfe said.

“You are damned right, it didn’t. At least we shagged the photog off, but the reporters were harder to discourage, like barnacles on the hull of a ship.”

“Do you feel you have your killer, sir?”

“Hell, I wouldn’t swear to it, but he’s being grilled right now. Goodwin, I want you to come downtown and look at this character through the one-way glass and make a definite identification.”

“I don’t know why you need me. As Mr. Wolfe told you, I’m the one who shot him in the leg or ankle, so it’s got to be the same guy.”

“Calf, just above the ankle. But we need to make it official so we can at least charge him with assault before we work toward a murder rap.”

I looked at Wolfe, who blinked twice, giving the okay for me to go to headquarters. “I look like hell,” I told Cramer.

He resisted a smile. “Who’s going to care?” he said.

“Thanks for the sympathy. When do you want me down there?”

“How about this afternoon, say three o’clock.”

“Okay, but remember it was dark when I got mugged, so I didn’t get a really good look at either guy. I just saw one in a silhouetted profile.”

“We’ll take our chances. Do you want a cruiser to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll grab a cab. Nothing personal, Inspector, but riding in squad cars always gives me a complex.”

“Suit yourself. And before I go, Wolfe, I’m not happy with the way you sicced those reporters on my men.”

“I have always felt you and your officers are capable of dealing with newspaper people. Besides, I know you value a free and unfettered press.”

Cramer glowered at Wolfe but rose and walked out without uttering a word. I followed him to the door and let the silence continue.

“He usually yells and throws a cigar at the wastebasket when he leaves. I do hope he isn’t ill,” I said to Wolfe.

“The inspector has a lot on his mind, and I believe what has been transpiring in Hell’s Kitchen troubles him greatly, as it does me.”

I started to ask Wolfe what he meant but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. It was Lily Rowan.

“I’ve been back from visiting my cousin in St. Louis for three days now, and have not heard a single word out of you, my dear Escamillo. I was concerned that you had grown tired of my company or had found someone else in my absence.”

I mentioned Lily earlier, and I should add to that she is beautiful, rich through inheritance, and, by her own definition, lazy, although I don’t agree with the lazy part. She gives scads of money and lots of time to needy causes. She and I go out often — to plays, the opera, hockey games, dinner, and dancing. And just so you don’t get any ideas, I always pay.

“Me, grow tired of your company? Surely you jest. And no, I definitely haven’t found someone else. I have no reason to go looking.”

“Then why haven’t I heard from you?”

“Well... something has come up that—”

“Archie Goodwin — level with me!”

When Lily calls me by my full name, I know she demands an answer. “Okay, I ran into some trouble the other night, and I’m, well, a little bit banged up.”

“A little banged up! I am coming over right now!”

“No, we’re about to have lunch, and—”

“Put Nero Wolfe on the line, this instant.”

“Lily wishes to speak to you,” I said. Wolfe normally is not comfortable around women, but he has always made an exception for Lily, probably because the first time they met, which was years ago, she asked to see all those orchids up on the roof. To this day, he sends her orchids on her birthday.

“Yes, Miss Rowan,” he said into the mouthpiece. “By all means you are welcome. We are having sweetbreads in béchamel sauce with truffle and chervil, beet and watercress salad, and strawberries Romanoff. Yes, one fifteen.” Wolfe nodded to me to pick up as he cradled his receiver.

“So, you up and invited yourself to lunch?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, my dear,” she said.

“Well, be prepared to see a wreck of a man,” I complained.

“I am sure that I will be able to stand it. Besides, no matter how bad you look, Fritz’s cuisine will more than make up for whatever shock I incur.”

“Just don’t say later that you had not been warned.”

At one o’clock, the front bell chimed; Lily was prompt, as usual. I could have sent Fritz to answer the door, but I thought it was best that she got a good look at me at the start of her visit, so she would have adjusted to my appearance before sitting down to eat.

“Oh, Escamillo, I was expecting to find you swathed in bandages from head to foot, like a walking mummy. As it is, you are... well, more or less bearable to the eye,” she said as she stepped in and gave me a hug and a kiss.

“Aw, shucks, little lady, you say the nicest things to a feller,” I told her. “And in return, I have to say you look terrific, as you always do.”

I knew she was dying to ask me how I came to look this way, but that would have to come later. She knew from past dining experiences in the brownstone that Wolfe never allows business to infringe upon the conversation at the table. And as usual today, he set the topic for the meal, which was the westward movement in the United States. “This trend has been discussed for decades, ever since the newspaper editor Horace Greeley is supposed to have written, ‘Go West, young man,’ in the 1860s,” Wolfe said. “Transportation challenges stifled the move west until this century, and it now appears to be occurring with alacrity. California was our fifth-most-populous state in 1940, and it surely will surpass Archie’s very own Ohio when last year’s final census numbers get released.”

“I have been to California twice, Mr. Wolfe,” Lily said, “and I can see its attraction. It would not surprise me if someday more people live there than in any other state.”

“I agree,” Wolfe responded, and we were off on a discussion of the effects of weather and the local culture on population swings. I did not have a lot to add, other than to mention that I had been to California once and did not have a burning desire to return.

After we had finished our strawberries Romanoff, Wolfe rose, saying “Pardon me, but I must excuse myself to consult with Fritz on a number of culinary matters.” That was his way of saying that he knew Lily wanted to learn more about what had happened to me, so the two of us went into the office with cups of coffee.

“Don’t go to your desk,” she said, “but come and sit with me over here.” She patted the cushions of the sofa against one wall. I followed orders and we parked side by side.

“All right, Escamillo, tell me exactly how you have come to look as you do. I want to know everything, and I do mean everything.”

I unloaded the works, starting with Theodore’s suspicions and his subsequent mugging and continuing through the bridge games at McCready’s, my stay at the Elmont, questionable activities on the docks, the shooting of Chester Miller, my own mugging and concussion, and my gunshot that crippled the man being identified as William Hartz.

Lily remained silent throughout my recitation. When I finished, she shook her head in wonder. “What about Theodore Horstmann?”

“He’s still in a coma, and Doc Vollmer is closely monitoring his condition. My boss has a substitute gardener working with him on the orchids.”

“Does the doctor have a prognosis?”

“He is taking what I would call a wait-and-see attitude. He claims there’s been a slight improvement in Theodore’s condition, and he also says he has known of cases in which a person in a coma can fully recover even after a long period of being unconscious.”

“How about you, Escamillo? What does the doctor say regarding your concussion?”

“I’m supposed to take it easy for at least a week, meaning no physical exertion, and I can eat normally and drink plenty of liquids.”

“Do you think you will be able to ‘take it easy’ for a whole week?” Lily asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, it might help if you came over every day and provided me with some personal care.”

“Is that so? I suppose you also want me to wear a nurse’s uniform.”

“Well... since you mentioned it, I think that would look very, very—”

“Never mind! It is clear to me you have a concussion that causes you to live in a fantasy world.”

“I really expected more sympathy from you. After all, look at all that I have been through.”

“Poor baby,” she said, placing a slender, manicured hand on my forehead. “You don’t seem to be at all feverish.”

“Must be that it comes and goes.”

“Maybe, and speaking of going, I have to be off, my dear. I have a meeting of the board at the women’s shelter in Brooklyn.”

“I will try my best to survive in your absence,” I told her.

“I have no doubt that you will, my darling Escamillo,” she replied, planting a kiss on my forehead and striding out, high heels clicking on the hall floor.

After Lily had gone, I put in a call to the folks at Yellow Cab, asking for my favorite driver, Herb Aronson, and giving my name. I was told by an efficient female voice with a New Jersey accent that “We will attempt to reach Mr. Aronson, Mr. Goodwin.” Within ten minutes, the telephone jangled. “Hi, Archie, long time, no hear from you.”

“Yes, it’s been a while. Where are you, Herb?”

“Call box on Eighteenth Street. If you need me to ferry you someplace, I can be at your place before your watch makes fifteen rotations.”

“Fine. I’ll be waiting out in front.”

Herb was good for his word. Fourteen minutes later by my watch, he pulled up at the curb and stuck his head out the window. “Looks like you’ve had some trouble lately,” he observed.

“I’ll tell you about it as we go to police headquarters,” I said.

Herb Aronson is chatty but not nosy, and he silently listened to my edited tale of woe as we drove south to 24 °Centre Street, where the nerve center of the New York City police department stood majestically, looking like a state capitol, complete with an elaborate dome.

“That’s quite a story, Archie,” Herb said as I climbed out of his taxi. “I’ll be right here when they get through with you. Good luck.”

I knew the way to Inspector Cramer’s office, having been there too many times for my taste. I waited in his anteroom, my only company being his grim-faced secretary, who was clattering away on her ancient Smith-Corona.

After ten minutes, the door to the inner sanctum swung open and the man himself came out, coatless and with sleeves rolled up. “All right, Goodwin, follow me,” he said. “We’ll take a look at our man through the one-way glass.”

We went into an unadorned room that had one wall of glass, which looked on another plain room with a steel table and two chairs. “That’s Hartz,” Cramer said, indicating a man in prison garb seated on one side of the table, facing another man who turned out to be a plainclothes cop I didn’t recognize.

Cramer pushed a button. This alerted the cop in the next room, who told his charge to “Stand up, walk once around the table, stop, face left, face right, face that way.” I was able to view Hartz head on and in two profiles. It was the first guy who had been tailing me, all right. I had gotten that quick look at him in profile just before his trailing partner gave me the concussion. I told Cramer.

“A tough nut,” the inspector said. “We can’t get one damned word out of him, even with threats of him being charged with murder.”

“You figure he’s the one who plugged Chester Miller?”

“Yeah, but we can’t prove it. We got his .38 when we searched his room, all right, but we’ve got no shell to compare it to, although the autopsy said the wound was almost surely caused by a .38. And as you probably read, the bullet that killed Miller exited his head and is God-knows-where now. We don’t even know where the poor sap was shot before his body was dumped in the Hudson.”

“So now what?”

“Based on you identifying him, we can hold him on a battery charge, as well as his being in this country without a legal visa.”

“Has he got a lawyer?”

“Oddly, no. He knows he’s entitled to one, a public defender at the very least; he understands English, although he doesn’t speak it very well. But he seems content to sit in his cell with his lips sealed. And nobody has come forward to help him. The guy has been hung out to dry by his friends, if you want to call them friends.”

“You need me for anything else?”

“No, go home and rest. You still don’t look all that great.”

“Thanks for your candor,” I told him, glad to be leaving the building.