Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 27

That afternoon, when Wolfe was upstairs playing doctor to his orchids, I got a call from Del Bascom. “Hope you haven’t had to dodge any bullets,” I told him.

“Nah, all is well, Archie. Thought you’d like to know I saw your friend Charlie King at the Cabot and Sons dock, and he sends his best. I bought him lunch and we talked about Doug Halliwell.”

“You have my undivided attention.”

“Mr. Halliwell is not the most popular individual along the North River piers. Charlie has several men on his payroll who once worked for Halliwell, and they couldn’t wait to get away from National Export. They had plenty to say about him.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch, for starters. Deckhands who now work for Charlie say he’s abusive to his men and plays favorites. After work when some of the crew head for the bars, Halliwell expects them to buy his beers, and sometimes his meals. Those that don’t get stuck with the crappiest jobs.”

“Is there anything else we should know about him?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve saved the best — or maybe the worst — for last, but it will sure interest you and Wolfe. It seems that Halliwell has a buddy at the National Export dock on the other side of the pond in Hamburg. This, too, comes from one of Halliwell’s former crew members who’s now with Cabot and Sons. The guy in Hamburg, whose name Charlie King’s man does not know, works with Halliwell to smuggle DPs across the Atlantic on National Export cargo ships.”

“I’ll be damned, but not surprised. Is that a lucrative business?”

“King seems to think so. A lot of these poor homeless souls, who can’t get visas because they’re so limited, are desperate to get out of Europe, and they’ll pay whatever they have got. It isn’t hard to see why, given what we’ve been hearing about food and housing shortages over there.

“So, there’s a displaced persons’ smuggling channel, apparently being run by National Export, one or more of whose employees figure to be making dirty money,” Bascom went on. “But there probably are other similar routes in which DPs are being smuggled into the United States as well, wouldn’t you think?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “Where there is a profit to be made, the lowlifes come out from under their rocks and move in for a cut of the action.”

“My question is this, Archie. Wouldn’t all of these DP smugglers want to keep low and peaceful profiles to avoid having their business — as dirty as it is — come to light? Yet it seems like this particular operation is full of violence: Your man Horstmann beaten nearly to death; you coming close to getting finished off yourself; and then that poor fellow Miller, whose body was found in the river.”

“And there’s yet another piece of violence you may not be aware of.” I told Del about what had happened in McCready’s bar. “Maybe it has no connection to these other incidents, or to the National Export Lines, but the dead man, name of Krueger, was a displaced person from Germany.”

“I’m not a believer in coincidences, Archie.”

“Both Wolfe and Cramer have said the same thing in the past, and on more than one occasion.”

“I guess that puts me in good company,” Del said. “The way I look at it, there has to be some other element to this smuggling operation, probably a thing of great value, like maybe gold or diamonds or old paintings by masters — anything that would be seen by some as worth killing for. I know of a case where a man in Westchester County poisoned his aged aunt to get hold of the world-class coin collection that had belonged to her late husband.”

“As Wolfe has often said, ‘Greed knows no boundaries.’ Of the three possibilities you mentioned, I would tend to rule out artwork, which often is too large to be smuggled without being spotted. Gold and diamonds, on the other hand, can be more easily hidden. Maybe Charlie King has some insight.”

“I doubt it, but I’ll ask him,” Del said, and we signed off.

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, I repeated my conversation with Bascom, and after pushing the button for beer, he leaned back, closing his eyes. I thought he was about to go into the routine where he pushes his lips in and out, in and out, which usually means he is in a trance that ends with the solution of a mystery. But I was to be disappointed.

Wolfe opened his eyes and mouthed Bascom’s words, Anything that would be seen by some as worth killing for. And then he mouthed them again.

“Okay, here’s the way I’ve got it figured,” I told him as he popped open the first of two beers Fritz had brought in. “Somebody is using these displaced persons to smuggle goods into this country, probably things like gold and jewelry of all kinds, stuff that likely got seized from people in Europe during and after the war. After all, the DPs are being smuggled in themselves, so what better carriers of other smuggled material? You’ve got to admit that’s one slick way around our customs people.”

Wolfe looked at me and blinked, but said nothing. “Am I boring you?” I asked.

“Boring me? Not at all. I am thinking about dinner.”

“Well, that’s all right, then. I felt perhaps you might be interested in the case I thought we were concentrating on. I’m going to skip dinner here and see if Lily wants to go to Rusterman’s and then dancing at the Churchill.”

“But we’re having—”

I interrupted Wolfe. “I know what Fritz is serving tonight, and I will be sad to miss it, but I am in need of some stimulation, which seems to be in short supply here.”

Before Wolfe could respond, I picked up the phone and dialed Lily Rowan’s number. She answered after several rings. “Escamillo, I am glad to hear from you. I have been wondering how you are.”

“Recovering nicely. I realize this is very late notice, but would you care to dine with me this evening at Rusterman’s and then trip the light fantastic on the dance floor at the Churchill?”

“Well, I must say this is late notice indeed, but I would be churlish if I said no to you, Escamillo. After all, it was only three weeks ago that I called you two hours before curtain time and asked you to accompany me to the opera when a lady friend of mine backed out because of a cold.”

“Then that makes us even, and it’s a date. I will pick you up at seven.”

Lily insisted that we first have cocktails in her tenth-floor penthouse on East Sixty-Third Street. While we were consuming Gibsons, I telephoned Rusterman’s and booked a table for two — normally impossible on such short notice for anyone but Nero Wolfe or someone closely associated with him.

A few words here about Rusterman’s, which is on Lexington Avenue between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Streets. Newspaper critics generally consider it to be the city’s finest restaurant, and it is owned by Marko Vukcic, Wolfe’s oldest and best friend. The two grew up together in the Balkans and fought in a resistance movement that Wolfe prefers not to discuss.

Vukcic apparently was not on the premises that night, so we were greeted by Felix, one of the owner’s right-hand men. “Mr. Goodwin, Miss Rowan, so good to see you both this evening,” he said, executing a courtly bow. “I know that Marko will be sad that he missed you, but I will do my best to serve you in his absence.”

Felix’s best, of course, was better than you are likely to find from a gastronomic standpoint anywhere else in Manhattan, with the exception of a certain kitchen in a brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street.

“All right, Escamillo,” Lily said once we were seated at a table tucked away from both foot traffic and the chatter of other diners. “We have known each other for a long time, so there is no need to be anything but frank. Something is troubling you, and I believe it is more than just that concussion you are recovering from.”

“As usual, you read me like a book, my dear. Something is going on that I can’t figure out.” I proceeded for several minutes to tell Lily everything that had transpired in Hell’s Kitchen right up to the present.

“And what does Nero Wolfe think?”

“That’s something else that I can’t figure out. He isn’t reacting in either of the two ways he usually does when he is at a crucial point in an investigation. He normally either—”

“Pardon the interruption,” Lily said, “but I believe I can finish your sentence. Mr. Wolfe either closes his eyes, goes into a trance, and pushes his lips in and out several times and presto! he has a solution, or, if he’s stumped, he goes on an eating binge for several days.”

“You have summed up my boss’s predictable behavior nicely,” I said as we were served our guinea hens, one of the house specialties. “In this case, however, he is doing nothing and seems to either have lost interest or is totally stumped.”

“I find it hard to believe Mr. Wolfe would have lost interest, given what has happened to Theodore Horstmann.”

“I totally agree. Maybe I am misreading him — it would not be the first time — but Inspector Cramer also is behaving strangely. The two of them were in the office, and it seemed to me they were talking in circles, maybe because I was present and they were hiding something.”

“What in the world could they possibly be hiding?” Lily asked. “Do you think you’re getting paranoid?”

“I doubt that, but I suppose anything’s possible. After all, I did take quite a bump on the noggin.”

“You still seem like the same old Archie to me, though,” Lily said, placing a hand over mine. “Are we having dessert?”

“But of course. And then it’s off to the Churchill. I’m in the mood to tango the night away.”

“Ah, you do indeed seem to be the same old Archie, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”