The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1 (18 page)

In the office at noon, Wolfe was drinking beer and making random remarks as they occurred to him. He observed that since Inspector Cramer was sufficiently aroused to be willing to insult Nero Wolfe by having his house invaded with a search warrant, it was quite possible that he had also seen fit to proceed to other indefensible measures, such as tapping telephone wires, and that therefore we should take precautions. He stated that it had been a piece of outrageous stupidity on his part to let Mike Walsh go Monday evening before asking him a certain question, since he had then already formed a surmise which, if proven correct, would solve the problem completely. He said he was sorry that there was no telephone at the Lindquist prairie home in Nebraska, since it meant that the old gentleman would have to endure the rigors of a nine-mile trip to a village in order to talk over long distance; and he hoped that the connection with him would be made at one o’clock as arranged. He also hoped that Johnny Keems would be able to find Mike Walsh and escort him to the office without interference, fairly soon, since a few words with Walsh and a talk with Victor Lindquist should put him in a position where he could proceed with arrangements to clean up the whole affair. More beer. And so forth.

I let him rave on, thinking he might fill in a couple of gaps by accident, but he didn’t.

The phone rang. I took it, and heard Keems’ voice. I stopped him before he got started:

“I can’t hear you, Johnny. Don’t talk so close.”

“What?”

“I said, don’t talk so close.”

“Oh. Is this better?”

“Yeah.”

“Well … I’m reporting progress backwards. I found the old lady in good health and took care of her for a couple of hours, and then she got hit by a brown taxi and they took her to the hospital.”

“That’s too bad. Hold the wire a minute.” I covered the transmitter and turned to Wolfe: “Johnny found Mike Walsh and tailed him for two hours, and a dick picked him up and took him to headquarters.”

“Picked up Johnny?”

“No. Walsh.”

Wolfe frowned, and his lips went out and in, and again. He sighed. “The confounded meddlers. Call him in.”

I told the phone, “Come on in, and hurry,” and hung up.

Wolfe leaned back with his eyes shut, and I didn’t bother him. It was a swell situation for a tantrum, and I didn’t feel like a dressing-down. If his observations had been anything at all more than shooting off, this was a bad break, and it might lead to almost anything, since if Mike Walsh emptied the bag for Cramer there was no telling what might be thought necessary for protecting the Marquis of Clivers from a sinister plot. I didn’t talk, but got out the plant records and pretended to go over them.

At a quarter to one the doorbell rang, and I went and admitted Johnny Keems. I was still acting as hallboy, because you never could tell about Cramer. Johnny, looking like a Princeton boy with his face washed, which was about the only thing I had against him, followed me to the office and dropped into a chair without an invitation. He demanded:

“How did I come through on the code? Not so bad, huh?”

I grunted. “Perfectly marvelous. You’re a wonder. Where did you find Walsh?”

He threw one leg over the other. “No trouble at all. Over on East 64th Street, where he boards. Your instructions were not to approach him until I had a line or in case of emergency, so I found out by judicious inquiry that he was in there and then I stuck around. He came out at a quarter to ten and walked to Second Avenue and turned south. West on 58th to Park. South on Park—”

Wolfe put in, “Skip the itinerary.”

Johnny nodded. “We were about there anyhow. At 56th Street he went into the Hotel Portland.”

“Indeed.”

“Yep. And he stayed there over an hour. He used the phone and then took an elevator, but I stayed in the lobby because the house dick knows me and he saw me and I knew he wouldn’t stand for it. I knew Walsh might have got loose because there are two sets of elevators, but all I could do was stick, and at a quarter past eleven he came down and went out. He headed south and turned west on 55th, and across Madison he went in at a door where it’s boarded up for construction. That’s the place you told me to try if I drew a blank at 64th Street, the place where he works as a night watchman. I waited outside, thinking I might get stopped if I went in, and hoping he wouldn’t use another exit. But he didn’t. In
less than ten minutes he came out again, but he wasn’t alone any more. A snoop had him and was hanging onto him. They walked to Park and took a taxi, and I hopped one of my own and followed to Centre Street. They went in at the big doors, and I found a phone.”

Wolfe, leaning back, shut his eyes. Johnny Keems straightened his necktie and looked satisfied with himself. I tossed my notebook to the back of the desk, with his report in it, and tried to think of some brief remark that would describe how I felt. The telephone rang.

I took it. A voice informed me that Inspector Cramer wished to speak to Mr. Goodwin, and I said to put him on and signalled to Wolfe to take his line.

The sturdy inspector spoke: “Goodwin? Inspector Cramer. How about doing me a favor?”

“Surest thing you know.” I made it hearty. “I’m flattered.”

“Yeah? It’s an easy one. Jump in your wagon and come down to my office.”

I shot a glance at Wolfe, who had his receiver to his ear, but he made no sign. I said, “Maybe I could, except for one thing. I’m needed here to inspect cards of admission at the door. Like search warrants, for instance. You have no idea how they pile in on us.”

Cramer laughed. “All right, you can have that one. There’ll be no search warrants while you’re gone. I need you down here for something. Tell Wolfe you’ll be back in an hour.”

“Okay. Coming.”

I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “Why not? It’s better than sitting here crossing my fingers. Fred and Johnny are here, and together they’re a fifth as good as me. Maybe he wants me to help him embroider Mike Walsh. I’d be glad to.”

Wolfe nodded. “I like this. There’s something about it I like. I may be wrong. Go, by all means.”

I shook my pants legs down, put the notebook and plant record away in the drawers, and got going. Johnny came to bolt the door behind me.

I hadn’t been on the sidewalk for nearly twenty hours, and it smelled good. I filled the chest, waved at Tony with a cart of coal across the street, and opened up my knees on the way to the garage. The roadster whinnied as I went up to it, and I circled down the ramp, scared the daylights out of a truck as I emerged, and headed downtown with my good humor coming in again at every pore. I doubt if anything could ever get me so low that it wouldn’t perk me up to get
out and enjoy nature, anywhere between the two rivers from the Battery to 110th Street, but preferably below 59th.

I parked at the triangle and went in and took an elevator. They sent me right in to Cramer’s little inside room, but it was empty except for a clerk in uniform, and I sat down to wait. In a minute Cramer entered. I was thinking he might have the decency to act a little embarrassed, but he didn’t; he was chewing a cigar and he appeared hearty. He didn’t go to his desk, but stood there. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to rub it in, so I asked him:

“Have you found Clara Fox yet?”

He shook his head. “Nope. No Clara Fox. But we will. We’ve got Mike Walsh.”

I lifted the brows. “You don’t say. Congratulations. Where’d you find him?”

He frowned down at me. “I’m not going to try to bluff you, Goodwin. It’s a waste of time. That’s what I asked you to come down here for, this Mike Walsh. You and Wolfe have been cutting it pretty thin up there, but if you help me out on this we’ll call it square. I want you to pick this Mike Walsh out for me. You won’t have to appear, you can look through the panel.”

“I don’t get you. I thought you said you had him.”

“Him hell.” Cramer bit his cigar. “I’ve got eight of ’em.”

“Oh,” I grinned at him sympathetically. “Think of that, eight Mike Walshes! It’s a good thing it wasn’t Bill Smith or Abe Cohen.”

“Will you pick him out?”

“I don’t like to.” I pulled a hesitation. “Why can’t the boys grind it out themselves?”

“Well, they can’t. We’ve got nothing at all to go on except that Harlan Scovil had his name on a piece of paper and he was at your place last night. We couldn’t use a hose on all eight of them even if we were inclined that way. The last one was brought in less than an hour ago, and he’s worse than any of the others. He’s a night watchman and he’s seventy if he’s a day, and he says who he knows or doesn’t know is none of our damn business, and I’m inclined to believe him. Look here, Goodwin. This Walsh isn’t a client of Wolfe’s. You don’t owe him anything, and anyway we’re not going to hurt him unless he needs it. Come on and take a look and tell me if we’ve got him.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. It wouldn’t go with the program. I’d like to, but I can’t.”

Cramer took his cigar from his mouth and pointed it at me. “Once more I’m asking you. Will you do it?”

I just shook my head.

He walked around the desk to his chair and sat down. He looked at me as if he regretted something. Finally he said, “It’s too much, Goodwin. This time it’s too much. I’m going to have to put it on to you and Wolfe both for obstructing justice. It’s all set for a charge. Even if I hated to worse than I do, I’ve got upstairs to answer to.”

He pushed a button on his desk. I said, “Go ahead. Then, pretty soon, go ahead and regret it for a year or two and maybe longer.”

The door opened and a gumshoe came in. Cramer turned to him. “You’ll have to turn ’em loose, Nick. Put shadows on all of them except the kid that goes to N. Y. U. and the radio singer. They’re out. Take good men. If one of them gets lost you’ve got addresses to pick him up again. Any more they pick up, I’ll see them after you’ve got a record down.”

“Yes, sir. The one from Brooklyn, the McGrue Club guy, is raising hell.”

“All right. Let him out. I’ll phone McGrue later.”

The gumshoe departed. Cramer tried to get his cigar lit. I said: “And as far as upstairs is concerned, to hell with the Commissioner. How does he know whether or not it’s justice that Wolfe’s obstructing? How about that cripple Paul Chapin and that bird Bowen? Did he obstruct justice that time? If you ask me, I think you had a nerve to ask me to come down here. Are we interfering with your legal right to look for these babies? You even looked for one of them under Wolfe’s bed and under my bed. Do Wolfe and I wear badges, and do we line up on the first and fifteenth for a city check? We do not.”

Cramer puffed. “I ought to charge you.”

I lifted the shoulders and let them drop. “Sure. You’re just sore. That’s one way cops and newspaper reporters are all alike, they can’t bear to have anyone know anything they won’t tell.” I looked at my wrist watch and saw it was nearly two o’clock. “I’m hungry. Where do I eat, inside or out?”

Cramer said, “I don’t give a damn if you never eat. Beat it.”

I floated up and out, down the hall, down in the elevator, and back to the roadster. I looked around comprehensively, reflecting that within a radius of a few blocks eight Mike Walshes were scattering in all directions, six of them with tails, and that I would give at least two bits to know where one of
them was headed for. But even if he had gone by my elbow that second I wouldn’t have dared to take it up, since that would have spotted him for them, so I hopped in the roadster and swung north.

When I got back to the house Wolfe and Clara Fox were in the dining-room, sitting with their coffee. They were so busy they only had time to toss me a nod, and I sat down at my end of the table and Fritz brought me a plate. She had on my dressing-gown, with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of Fritz’s slippers with her ankles bare. Wolfe was reciting Hungarian poetry to her, a line at a time, and she was repeating it after him; and he was trying not to look pleased as she leaned forward with an ear cocked at him and her eyes on his lips, asking as if she was really interested, “Say it again, slower, please do.”

The yellow dressing-gown wasn’t bad on her, at that, but I was hungry. I waded through a plate of minced lamb kidneys with green peppers, and a dish of endive, and as Fritz took the plate away and presented me with a hunk of pie I observed to the room:

“If you’ve finished with your coffee and have any time to spare, you might like to hear a report.”

Wolfe sighed. “I suppose so. But not here.” He arose. “If Fritz could serve your coffee in the office? And you, Miss Fox … upstairs.”

“Oh, my lord. Must I dig in again?”

“Of course. Until dinnertime.” He bowed, meaning that he inclined his head two inches, and went off.

Clara Fox got up and walked to my end. “I’ll pour your coffee.”

“All right. Black and two lumps.”

She screwed up her face. “With all this grand cream here? Very well. You know, Mr. Goodwin, this house represents the most insolent denial of female rights the mind of man has ever conceived. No woman in it from top to bottom, but the routine is faultless, the food is perfect, and the sweeping and dusting are impeccable. I have never been a housewife, but I can’t overlook this challenge. I’m going to marry Mr. Wolfe, and I know a girl that will be just the thing for you, and of course our friends will be in and out a good deal. This place needs some upsetting.”

I looked at her. The hem of the yellow gown was trailing the floor. The throat of it was spreading open, and it was interesting to see where her shoulders came to and how the yellow made her hair look. I said:

“You’ve already upset enough. Go upstairs and behave yourself. Wolfe has three wives and nineteen children in Turkey.”

“I don’t believe it. He has always hated women until he saw how nicely they pack in osmundine.”

I grinned at her and got up. “Thanks for the coffee. I may be able to persuade Wolfe to let you come down for dinner.”

I balanced my cup and saucer in one hand while I opened the door for her with the other, and then went to the office and got seated at my desk and started to sip. Wolfe had his middle drawer open and was counting bottle caps to see how much beer he had drunk since Sunday morning. Finally he closed it and grunted.