Nero Wolfe 16 - Even in the Best Families (16 page)

“What the hell,” I protested, “you’re not offering me a job, you’re just giving me a chance to apply for one I don’t want.”

It was perfectly true at that point, and it was still true ten minutes later, when Max Christy left, that I didn’t want the job, but I did want to apply for it. It wasn’t that I had a hunch that the man in the car who wanted to ask me some questions would be Arnold Zeck, but the way it had been staged gave me the notion that it was just barely possible; and the opportunity, slim as it was, was too good to miss. It would be interesting to have a chat with Zeck; besides, he might give me an excuse to take a poke at him and I might happen to inadvertently break his neck. So I told Christy that I would be walking on Sixty-seventh Street at ten that evening as suggested. I had to break a date to do it, but even if the chance was only one in a million I wanted it.

To get that point settled and out of the way, the
man who wanted to quiz me was not Arnold Zeck. It was not even a long black Cadillac; it was only a ’48 Chevy two-door sedan.

It was a hot August night, and as I walked along that block I was sweating a little myself, especially my left armpit under the holster. There was a solid string of parked cars at the curb, and when the Chevy stopped and its door opened and my name was called, not loud, I had to squeeze between bumpers to get to it. As I climbed in and pulled the door shut the man in the front seat, behind the wheel, swiveled his head for a look at me and then, with no greeting, went back to his chauffeuring, and the car started forward.

My companion on the back seat muttered at me, “Maybe you ought to show me something.”

I got out my display case and handed it to him with the license—detective, not driver’s—uppermost. When we stopped for a light at Second Avenue he inspected it with the help of a street lamp, and returned it. I was already sorry I had wasted an evening. Not only was he not Zeck; he was no one I had ever seen or heard of, though I was fairly well acquainted, at least by sight, with the high brass in the circles that Max Christy moved in. This bird was a complete stranger. With more skin supplied for his face than was needed, it had taken up the slack in pleats and wrinkles, and that may have accounted for his sporting a pointed brown beard, since it must be hard to shave pleats.

As the car crossed the avenue and continued west, I told him, “I came to oblige Max Christy—if suggestions might help any. I’ll only be around till Saturday.”

He said, “My name’s Roeder,” and spelled it.

I thanked him for the confidence. He broadened it. “I’m from the West Coast, in case you wonder how I rate. I followed something here and found it was tied in with certain operations. I’d just as soon leave it to local talent and go back home, but I’m hooked and I have to stick.” Either he preferred talking through his nose or that was the only way he knew. “Christy told you we want a man tailed?”

“Yes. I explained that I’m not available.”

“You have got to be available. There’s too much involved.” He twisted around to face me. “It’ll be harder than ever now, because he’s on guard. It’s been messed up. They say if anyone can do it you can, especially with the help of a couple of men that Nero Wolfe used. You can get them, can’t you?”

“Yeah, I can get them, but I can’t get me. I won’t be here.”

“You’re here now. You can start tomorrow. As Christy told you, five Cs a day. It’s a straight tailing job, where you’re working for a man named Roeder from Los Angeles. The cops might not like it too well if you tied in with a local like Wilts or Brownie Costigan, but what’s wrong with me? You never heard of me before. You’re in business as a private detective. I want to hire you, at a good price, to keep a tail on a man named Rackham and report to me on his movements. That’s all, a perfectly legitimate job.”

We had crossed Park Avenue. The light was dim enough that I didn’t have to be concerned about my face showing a reaction to the name Rackham. The reaction inside me was my affair.

“How long would it last?” I inquired.

“I don’t know. A day, a week, possibly two.”

“What if something hot develops? A detective doesn’t take a tailing job sight unseen. You must
have told me why you were curious about Rackham. What did you tell me?”

Roeder smiled. I could just see the pleats tightening. “That I suspected my business partner had come east to make a deal with him, freezing me out.”

“That could be all right if you’ll fill it in. But why all the mystery? Why didn’t you come to my office instead of fixing it to pick me off the street at night?”

“I don’t want to show in the daytime. I don’t want my partner to know I’m here.” Roeder smiled again. “Incidentally, that’s quite true, that I don’t want to show in the daytime—not any more than I can help.”

“That I believe. Skipping the comedy, there aren’t many Rackhams. There are none in the Manhattan phone book. Is this the Barry Rackham whose wife got killed last spring?”

“Yes.”

I grunted. “Quite a coincidence. I was there when she was murdered, and now I’m offered the job of tailing him. If he gets murdered too that
would
be a coincidence. I wouldn’t like it. I had a hell of a time getting out from under a bond as a material witness so I could take a vacation. If he got killed while I was on his tail—”

“Why should he?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know why she should either. But it was Max Christy who arranged this date, and while he is not himself a marksman as far as I know, he moves in circles that like direct action.” I waved a hand. “Forget it. If that’s the kind of interest you’ve got in Rackham you wouldn’t tell me anyhow. But another thing: Rackham knows me. It’s twice as hard to tail a guy that knows you. Why hire a man that’s handicapped to begin with? Why not—”

I held it because we had stopped for a red light,
on Fifth Avenue in the Seventies, and our windows were open, and the open window of a car alongside was only arm’s distance away.

When the light changed and we rolled again Roeder spoke. “I’ll tell you, Goodwin, this thing’s touchy. There’ll be some people scattered around that are in on things together, and they trust each other up to a point. As long as their interests all run the same way they can trust each other pretty well. But when something comes up that might help some and hurt others, then it gets touchy. Then each man looks out for himself, or he decides where the strength is and lines up there. That’s where I am, where the strength is. But I’m not trying to line you up; we wouldn’t want to even if we could; how could we trust you? You’re an outsider. All we want you for is an expert tailing job, and you report to me and me only. Where are you going, Bill?”

The driver half-turned his head to answer, “Here in the park it might be cooler.”

“It’s no cooler anywhere. I like straight streets. Get out again, will you?”

The driver said he would, in a hurt tone. Roeder returned to me. “There are three men named Panzer, Cather, and Durkin who worked for Nero Wolfe off and on. That right?”

I said it was.

“They’ll work for you, won’t they?”

I said I thought they would.

“Then you can use them, and you won’t have to show much. I’m told they’re exceptionally good men.”

“Saul Panzer is the best man alive. Cather and Durkin are way above average.”

“That’s all you’ll need. Now I want to ask you
something, but first here’s a remark. It’s a bad thing to mislead a client, I’m sure you realize that, but in this case it would be worse than bad. I don’t have to go into details, do I?”

“No, but you’re going too fast. I haven’t got a client.”

“Oh, yes, you have.” Roeder smiled. “Would I waste my time like this? You were there when Mrs. Rackham was killed, you phoned Nero Wolfe and in six hours he was gone, and you were held as a material witness. Now here I want to hire you to tail Rackham, and you don’t know why. Can you say no? Impossible.”

“It could be,” I suggested, “that I’ve had all I want.”

“Not you, from what I’ve heard. That’s all right, not being able to let go is a good thing in a man, but it brings up this question I mentioned. You’re on your own now apparently, but you were with Nero Wolfe a long time. You’re still living in his house. Of course you’re in touch with him—don’t bother to deny it—but that’s no concern of ours as long as he doesn’t get in the way. Only on this job it has to be extra plain that you’re working for the man who pays you. If you get facts about Rackham and peddle them elsewhere, to Nero Wolfe for example, you would be in a very bad situation. Perhaps you know how bad?”

“Sure, I know. If I were standing up my knees would give. Just for the record, I don’t know where Mr. Wolfe is, I’m not in touch with him, and I’m in no frame of mind to peddle him anything. If I take this on, tailing Rackham, it will be chiefly because I’ve got my share of monkey in me. I doubt if Mr. Wolfe,
wherever he is, would recognize the name Rackham if he heard it.”

The brown pointed beard waggled as Roeder shook his head. “Don’t overplay it, Goodwin.”

“I’m not. I won’t.”

“You are still attached to Wolfe.”

“Like hell I am.”

“I couldn’t pay you enough to tell me where he is—assuming you know.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded. “But not selling him is one thing, and carrying his picture around is another. I freely admit he had his good points, I have often mentioned them and appreciated them, but as the months go by one fact about him stands out clearer than anything else. He was a pain in the ass.”

The driver’s head jerked around for a darting glance at me. We had left the park and were back on Fifth Avenue, headed uptown in the Eighties. My remarks about Wolfe were merely casual, because my mind was on something else. Who was after Rackham and why? If it was Zeck, or someone in one of Zeck’s lines of command, then something drastic had happened since the April day when Zeck had sent Wolfe a package of sausage and phoned him to let Rackham alone. If it wasn’t Zeck, then Max Christy and this Roeder were lined up against Zeck, which made them about as safe to play with as an atomic stockpile. Either way, how could I resist it? Besides, I liked the logic of it. Nearly five months ago Mrs. Rackham had hired us to do a survey on her husband, and paid in advance, and we had let it slide. Now I could take up where we had left off. If Roeder and his colleagues, whoever they were, wanted to pay me for it, there was no use offending them by refusing.

So, rolling north on the avenue, Roeder and I agreed that we agreed in principle and got down to brass tacks. Since Rackham was on guard it couldn’t be an around-the-clock operation with less than a dozen men, and I had three at the most. Or did I? Saul and Fred and Orrie might not be immediately available. There was no use discussing an operation until I found out if I had any operators. Having their phone numbers in my head, I suggested that we stop at a drugstore and use a booth, but Roeder didn’t like that. He thought it would be better to go to my office and phone from there, and I had no objection, so he told the driver to go over to Madison and downtown.

At that hour, getting on toward eleven, Madison Avenue was wide open, and so was the curb in front of the office building. Roeder told the driver we would be an hour or more, and we left him parked there. In the brighter light of the elevator the pleats of Roeder’s face were less noticeable, and he didn’t look as old as I would have guessed him in the car, but I could see there was a little gray in his beard. He stood propped in a corner with his shoulder slumped and his eyes closed until the door opened for the tenth floor, and then came to and followed me down the hall to 1019. I unlocked the door and let us in, switched on the light, motioned him to a chair, sat at the desk, pulled the phone to me, and started dialing.

“Wait a minute,” he said gruffly.

I put it back on the cradle, looked at him, got a straight clear view of his eyes for the first time, and felt a tingle in the small of my back. But I didn’t know why.

“This must not be heard,” he said. “I mean you and me. How sure are you?”

“You mean a mike?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, pretty sure.”

“Better take a look.”

I left my chair and did so. The room being small and the walls mostly bare, it wasn’t much of a job, and I made it thorough, even pulling the desk out to inspect behind it. As I straightened up from retrieving a pencil that had rolled off the desk when I pushed it back in place, he spoke to my back.

“I see you have my dictionary here.”

Not through his nose. I whirled and went rigid, gaping at him. The eyes again—and now other items too, especially the forehead and ears. I had every right to stare, but I also had a right to my own opinion of the fitness of things. So while staring at him I got myself under control, and then circled the end of my desk, sat down and leaned back, and told him, “I knew you all—”

“Don’t talk so loud.”

“Very well. I knew you all the time, but with that damn driver there I had to—”

“Pfui. You hadn’t the slightest inkling.”

I shrugged. “That’s one we’ll never settle. As for the dictionary, it’s the one from my room which you gave me for Christmas nineteen thirty-nine. How much do you weigh?”

“I’ve lost a hundred and seventeen pounds.”

“Do you know what you look like?”

He made a face. With the pleats and whiskers, he didn’t really have to make one, but of course it was an old habit which had probably been suppressed for months.

“Yes,” he said, “I do. I look like a sixteenth-century prince of Savoy named Philibert.” He flipped a hand impatiently. “This can wait, surely, until we’re home again?”

“I should think so,” I conceded. “What’s the difference, another year or two? It won’t be as much fun, though, because now I’ll know what I’m waiting for. What I really enjoyed was the suspense. Were you dead or alive or what? A perfect picnic.”

He grunted. “I expected this, of course. It is you, and since I decided long ago to put up with you, I even welcome it. But you, also long ago, decided to put up with me. Are we going to shake hands or not?”

I got up and went halfway. He got up and came halfway. As we shook, our eyes met, and I deliberately focused on his eyes, because otherwise I would have been shaking with a stranger, and one hell of a specimen to boot. We returned to our chairs.