Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 7

After breakfast the next day, I sat in the office with coffee, slitting open the morning mail, stacking it on Wolfe’s desk blotter, and filing the orchid germination records that our new man in the plant rooms, Willis, had left on my desk while I was in the kitchen devouring Fritz’s wheat cakes, sausage, and eggs. Willis may not be as good with the orchids as Theodore, but his handwriting is a damn sight better.

Just as I rose to get a java refill in the kitchen, the phone rang, and I was greeted by the voice of Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette. “I fondly remember the good old days,” he said with what was meant to be a heart-rending sigh.

“Meaning what, oh, ink-stained wretch?”

“Meaning that I never hear from you anymore, other than at our weekly poker games, from which I invariably walk away with more shekels than you do.”

“Where is all this gibberish leading?”

“Gibberish, is it? I’m just thinking back to the good old days when you would phone me if you had something newsworthy.”

“I don’t believe I’m aware of anything newsworthy at present, my noble scrivener.”

“You don’t consider the orchid-tender to a world-famous detective lingering in a coma in a hospital to be newsworthy?”

“You seem to have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“Damn right,” said Cohen, who has no title I’m aware of at America’s fifth-largest newspaper, although he has the ear of the publisher and, based on what I have seen and heard, he issues orders to the Gazette’s editor and also has a big part in deciding what each day’s headline story will be.

“Okay, so your intrepid snoops have found out about Theodore Horstmann. So what?”

“So what?” Lon fired back. “We have also learned that he was mugged — hell, more than mugged; he was beaten almost to death. Everybody knows that Nero Wolfe has enemies — lots of them — and some of the lowlifes that he’s nailed, often with the help of the police of course, would do anything to get revenge on him, including hurting those close to him. What do you know about this, Archie? You can’t hold out on me.”

“Right now, I know very little, other than what you already seem to know. Theodore, who moved out of the brownstone a few months ago, has been living in a building on Tenth Avenue but is still working for Wolfe, helping tend the orchids a good part of each day, just like before. We have no idea why he was beaten. He showed up at our door the other night and collapsed, saying nothing. He’s been in the hospital in a coma ever since.”

“I’ve gotta believe, Archie, that you and Wolfe and every other operative you can get your hands on, Panzer included, are working on this.”

“Okay, I will concede you that. But here’s the situation: As far as we’ve been able to tell, no one, including whoever beat him, knows whether he’s even alive or not, and we plan to keep it that way. Our investigation — and yes, Saul’s in on it, as well as Durkin and Cather — is proceeding as if we believe Theodore is missing. The last thing we need right now is for the Gazette, or any other paper or radio or a TV station, to report that he’s in the hospital.”

“That’s asking a lot, Archie.”

“Maybe so. But we’ve always played straight with each other, and I can speak for Nero Wolfe when I tell you that if you sit on this now, you’ll get an exclusive later. We’ve delivered in the past, you can’t deny that.”

I could hear exhaling on the other end of the line. “All right,” Lon said, “we’ll back off — for now. But I’m counting on you and Wolfe to give the Gazette whatever you’ve got before anybody else.”

“Do you want to add up the times we’ve given you an exclusive?” I barked into the phone. “I’ve got the records on file if you’ve got the time to hear me out.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,” Lon said. “I have to go, there’s a big fire over in Long Island City that looks like it could burn down a city block and maybe a lot more.” Before I could respond, he hung up, as he had done so often in the past. Lon has three telephones on his desk, so even though he is at least ten floors above the Gazette’s newsroom near the publisher’s office, he probably is better plugged into the events of the day than most of the paper’s reporters. I had got him off our backs — at least for the present.

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven and rang for beer, I swiveled to face him and reported my conversation with our newspaper friend.

“Pfui! That was to be expected,” he said. “Mr. Cohen can be most persistent, sometimes to an irritating degree, although he also has been helpful to us many times in the past, supplying us with information possessed only by newspapers and their employees.”

“You might call Lon a mixed bag,” I said.

“I would not,” Wolfe sniffed.

“Okay, Boss,” I said, getting back at him by using the b-word, which he hates. “Where do we go from here?”

“It would be helpful to learn more about Theodore’s neighbors. From what Orrie was able to learn, there seems to be a great deal of secrecy pervading the building, although he has a tendency to picture situations as more dramatic than they are.”

“That’s true,” I said, “but as Saul pointed out, New Yorkers are suspicious by nature, so the reactions Orrie got seem predictable to me. Bear in mind that you have never had to ring doorbells and get cold shoulders from people who don’t want to be disturbed, for whatever reasons.”

Wolfe grunted but said nothing. He dislikes being lectured to, even when he realizes the lecturer has made a point, as was the case here. Then a frown dominated in his face, and I sensed that trouble was coming my way. I was correct.

“Archie, call Mr. Cohen back. Tell him we need a favor.”

“Lon may not want to speak to me right now. He felt I was being uncooperative.”

“Use your powers of persuasion,” Wolfe went on as the frown deepened. “See what our newspaperman — and his Gazette’s files — can tell us about Theodore’s apartment building. And also find out if there have been untoward activities on the docks and in that bar.”

I reluctantly redialed Lon’s number, and when he heard it was me, he said, “So, the prodigal son comes crawling back. Okay, welcome back... I guess. What have you got to tell me about Theodore Horstmann?”

“It’s what I hope we can learn from you. We would like to know what your files contain about the building Theodore has been living in. It’s five stories and has merchants on the street level, a dry cleaner, a deli, and a barbershop.” I gave him the address on Tenth Avenue.

“Archie, this may surprise you, but I have got far more pressing things to do than to drop everything and serve as your research assistant.” I knew I was going to get grief from Lon, so I let him ramble on.

“You know that fire in Long Island City that I mentioned before? Well, it’s still going on, and even spreading because of the wind. And do you know what people phoning in to us are worried about? Not that families or businesses could get displaced, but that the big Pepsi-Cola sign facing the East River and Manhattan might be threatened. How’s that for getting your priorities turned upside down?”

“Yeah, it’s pathetic, all right.”

“Glad that we agree on something today,” Lon said. “I’ll call down to the morgue and see what we’ve got, if anything, on that Tenth Avenue address and check with our guy who covers the Hell’s Kitchen area, all the way to the piers.”

“Speaking of the piers, we’d also like to know if there’s been any funny business along the docks.”

“It that so? Does this also relate to your man Horstmann?”

“Could be. And while you’re at it, has there been any trouble your guys have heard about at McCready’s Bar, also on Tenth Avenue?”

“Let me get this straight, Archie. You want to know anything out of the ordinary that we can discover about: one) that Tenth Avenue apartment building; two) the North River docks; and three) McCready’s Bar? By the way, just what do the docks and that saloon have to do with Horstmann?”

“That has yet to be determined.”

“Ever the man of mystery. It sounds like you want us to do your work for you,” Lon grumped. “Whatever would you and Wolfe do without the Gazette?”

“I’ve often asked myself the same question, along with another one: Whatever would the Gazette do without Wolfe’s brain and my brawn?”

The reply I got was a snort, which was followed by a click. The line had gone dead.