The Battered Badge

by Robert Goldsborough

  “Let me guess,” I went on. “You sent Saul to talk to this Marchbank. He’s usually the one you use when you don’t feel you can trust me.”

  “Trust has nothing to do with it,” Wolfe replied. “I desired that you give your full concentration to Miss Cordwell.”

  “Uh-huh. And where, just out of curiosity, did Saul’s sit-down with Roland Marchbank take place?”

  “At some restaurant in Midtown. I felt it unwise for both of you to be at the Good Government Group’s offices simultaneously.”

  “I presume you plan to debrief Saul privately,” I grumped.

  “Archie, you are unnecessarily rankled. In fact, I asked Saul to be here tonight at nine to report on his meeting. May I take it you will be present?”

  “Sure, why not? I have nothing else to do.”

  At five to nine, I answered the bell and opened the front door to Saul Panzer.

  “So you get the beauty and I get the beast,” he said, taking off his brown flat cap and flipping it six feet across the hall to the coatrack, where it hung cleanly. To repeat myself, he almost never misses.

  “You know more about my day than I know about yours,” I told him. “Let us compare notes.”

  In the office, Saul settled into the red leather chair after having mixed himself a scotch and soda from the bar cart against the wall. I had a scotch of my own, and Wolfe drank beer.

  “Tell us about Mr. Marchbank,” Wolfe said.

  Saul made a face. “For starters, this character hardly qualifies as Mr. Personality. The biography I read in advance says that he’s forty-three, but he looks at least five years older. He is short, which is no sin—so am I—and his puss seems to be fixed in a permanent scowl. He resented what he seemed to feel was an inquisition on my part, although I felt I was the essence of diplomacy and tact.

  “‘I don’t know why I should even bother talking to you,’ he said as an opening salvo. ‘The police haven’t gotten anywhere, why should a bunch of private gumshoes have any better success? And by the way, who hired your boss Wolfe?’

  “I told him I had no idea as to the client’s identity, that I was only a small cog in the operation. That seemed somehow to please him. I, of course, asked him up front if he had any thoughts about who killed Pierce, and he replied with a sneer: ‘The easy answer is the mob, which is probably what you expected me to say, but I am not so sure.’

  “When I asked him why he had doubts, he said the crime syndicate had little to gain from the killing, that Three-G would push on, presumably with him at the helm. So I pressed him for other possible murderers, and he just threw up his hands. ‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘If Lester had enemies, I can’t imagine who they would be.’

  “I then asked how the folks at the Good Government Group got along with one another. ‘Quite well,’ he said. ‘What did you expect? Are you trying to suggest that one of us might have wanted him dead?’

  “I told him I just wanted to get a sense of the mood in the office and asked if he, Marchbank, expected to be named executive director.

  “‘And just why wouldn’t I?’ he said tartly, looking at me as though I were a simpleton. ‘I was the number-two person in the operation, although I sure as hell would never have wanted to get the top job in this way.’

  “I then asked if Miss Cordwell might be in the running to head the organization. His answer: ‘Laura? Hardly. Oh, she’s bright, no question about that. But she still really is far too inexperienced to run things.’

  “When I asked Marchbank how the young woman got along with Lester Pierce, he shrugged. ‘You will have to ask her that yourself, Mr. Panzer. I don’t want to be accused of spreading stories, if you get my drift.’

  “I said I didn’t get his drift and he laughed, but it wasn’t mirthful laughter, more like a cackle. My next question was about Weldon Dunagan and what it was like having him finance Three-G.

  “His response was delivered yet again with a sneer, which must be his default expression. He said, ‘The guy is so rich that what he gives us must just come out of his petty cash drawer, and it probably gives him a tax deduction to boot. But what the hell, it pays all our salaries and our operating expenses as well, so I’d be a sap to complain, wouldn’t I?’”

  Wolfe finished his beer and set the glass down. “Did Mr. Marchbank say anything further when you asked if he thought he would be named as the organization’s executive director?”

  “Yes, he did, and I apologize for not mentioning it.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” Wolfe said. “Continue.”

  “Marchbank added this: ‘I am committed to Three-G, whether or not I end up running it. Have you got that?’

  “I told him I did, but from his huffy reaction, it seemed to be a case of one who doth protest too much, methinks.”

  “Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2,” Wolfe said, dipping his chin in salute to Saul’s knowledge of Shakespeare. “Overall, Mr. Marchbank seems not to be a happy individual,” he continued. “Would you concur?”

  “Totally,” Saul said. “I am not sure the guy likes anybody, and—” He was interrupted by the phone, which I answered simply “Archie Goodwin” because it was after business hours.

  “I thought you’d want to know about this,” Lon Cohen said. “We just got word that Cramer has been put on permanent leave, which is one step from forced retirement. The morning papers will beat us on this, but we’re still planning a page-one piece summarizing the inspector’s long career.”

  “What about Rowcliff?” I asked, causing both Wolfe and Saul to raise their eyebrows, since they were only getting my end of the conversation.

  “Still acting head of Homicide, so we’re told by that mealymouthed hack who spits out press releases for the department. I’ve gotta believe Rowcliff is licking his chops because the top spot is now so close he can taste it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that’s it for now,” Lon said. “While we are on the line, anything that you would like to tell me?”

  “Just that you are one lucky so-and-so at the poker table.”

  I got a laugh. “Don’t tell me that you’re still sore about that full house of mine that beat your three of a kind?”

  “No comment. See you next Thursday night,” I said, signing off. I swiveled to face Wolfe and Saul to fill them in on Lon’s end of the conversation. Wolfe scowled and Saul slapped a palm against his forehead. “The very idea of Rowcliff heading up Homicide—or any other operation for that matter—is simply too dreadful to contemplate,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “I share your repugnance,” Wolfe said. “The current commissioner, who is manifestly a lackwit, has been looking for ways to get rid of Mr. Cramer for some time, in large measure because he is the lone department head who is a holdover from the previous administration. The lack of progress in the Pierce murder only serves to strengthen Mr. O’Hara’s hand.”

  “Yeah, although O’Hara pulled Cramer off the case before he had any chance to get started,” I argued.

  “True enough, but with the outcry about the killing that came from the newspapers, the civic groups, and the public, it became relatively easy for the commissioner to act in a way that appeared to be decisive, whatever its motivation.”

  “Making Cramer a sacrificial lamb,” Saul observed.

  “Some lamb!” I said. “If anything, I would call him a sacrificial lion. There has never been anything the least bit lamblike about our dear old inspector.”

  That drew a chuckle from Saul and the hint of a smile from Wolfe. “Enough silliness, where do we go from here?” I asked.

  “I am open to suggestions, gentlemen,” Wolfe replied.

  On rare occasions over the years, my boss has delivered that “I am open to suggestions” line, and usually for one of two reasons: Either he’s reached a dead end or he has lost interest. This time, I
think it was the latter. He started out having little enthusiasm for the case, but briefly stirred himself to action because of Saul’s mugging. Now he seemed to have reverted to his original ho-hum attitude.

  I was about to cut loose with a sarcastic comment when Saul piped up. “I think we need to dig more deeply into Lester Pierce’s history,” he said.

  “Go on,” Wolfe replied with what I felt was at least a spark of interest.

  “For instance, I recall that the man had several offspring.”

  “Three, two sons and a daughter, according to Lily Rowan and to the articles about Pierce’s shooting,” I said.

  “Do you know anything about them?” Saul pressed. “Their ages, where they reside, what they do for a living, how they got along with their parents?”

  Wolfe turned to me. “Do you have answers?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well. Your point is well taken, Saul. Archie will learn their whereabouts and interview each of them.”

  “What if one or more of the younger Pierces lives out of town?” I asked.

  “We shall ford that stream when we come to it. Now, if you both will excuse me, I am retiring,” Wolfe said, rising and walking out of the office in the direction of the elevator.

  “So it appears I have my assignment,” I told Saul. “I’ve got to find out where the Pierce siblings are located. I could call Lon Cohen, but that would only start him asking more questions, and I would prefer to get the information some other way.”

  “Let me see what I can learn, Archie,” Saul said. “I can probably get you what you need.”

  “I know you’ve got plenty of sources, but just be aware that if one or more of the Pierce offspring happens to live somewhere well outside the environs of New York City, you will almost surely be the one to make the trip. You know how Wolfe feels about losing my services for more than a day.”

  “I just hope I don’t have to hop a plane and go off to the ends of the continent or beyond. I’ve just gotten myself a new assignment from a jeweler who claims one of his six employees is dipping into the till, and he wants fast work.”

  “I await the results of your research,” I told him, going over to the bar cart against the wall and refilling our scotches. “How about some gin rummy before you head off into the night?”

  “You will be sorry,” Saul said.

  Chapter 14

  It turned out to be bad news and then good news for Saul. The bad news was that I beat him at gin rummy to the tune of nine dollars, a relative rarity for me. The good news was that he would not have to board an airplane. All three of the Pierce offspring lived in the New York area, so they became my babies, so to speak.

  “Okay, here’s the situation, Archie,” Saul reported on the phone the next morning. “Malcolm Pierce—he is the eldest at thirty-three—works at one of the big investment banks on Wall Street, is married with no children, and lives at the Dakota. His wife, Annette, is co-owner of a chichi boutique up on Fifth Avenue, close to the Metropolitan Museum.”

  “We’re talking big bucks,” I remarked, knowing a little about the cost of living in that historic old building on the Upper West Side.

  “I don’t have the impression money is a major concern in the Pierce family,” Saul said. “The middle sibling, Marianne, is thirty-one, single, and apparently something of a looker. She has a place down in the Village. She’s an editor with one of the big women’s fashion magazines, Today’s Styles, so that means she works in the heart of Midtown.

  “The youngest of the three, Mark, is twenty-nine and toils as an art director at the Masters and Price advertising agency on Madison Avenue, where he’s something of a wunderkind, so I’m told. He’s married, commutes by train into the city from their home in Dobbs Ferry up on the Hudson, and has one child, a toddler. His wife, Pamela, is a freelance writer whose office is at home.”

  “Hmm, must be something about the letter ‘M’ that the elder Pierces were partial to when they named their children.”

  “So it would seem,” Saul said. He proceeded to give me work and home telephone numbers for the trio of Pierces.

  “Put me down as impressed,” I told him. “Where did you get that pile of information so quickly?”

  “It is all in who you know, my son,” he replied, “and I just happen to know a certain someone on the society pages of a certain major New York newspaper—not the Gazette, by the way. Both she and her publication must remain nameless.”

  “Of course they must. Now you are free to find out just which of his staff is robbing your jeweler client.”

  “I already have a pretty good idea, but I’ve got to get clicking, because my man is a nervous Nellie, and I’m afraid he’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke if I don’t quickly nail the culprit.”

  “Culprit, is it? Now you’re using words like the world-weary, hard-bitten New York operative I’ve always known you to be.”

  “Aw, shucks, I’m just a country boy adjusting to the ways of the big city.”

  “Country boy, eh? Somehow I’ve never thought of Brooklyn as part of rural America.”

  “Just goes to show how little you know. Now I am off to the rarified world of diamonds and rubies and emeralds while you rub shoulders with members of one of New York’s most well-known and well-heeled families.”

  For no particular reason, I decided to start my Pierce clan interviews with Malcolm, the eldest sibling. I dialed the number Saul had given to me at the investment bank, and to my surprise, Malcolm himself answered on the first ring. I decided on the direct approach.

  “Hello, Mr. Pierce, my name is Archie Goodwin, from Nero Wolfe’s office, and I would like to talk to you about your father’s death.”

  “I don’t know you, Mr. Goodwin,” Malcolm said in an amiable tone, “although I most certainly have heard of Nero Wolfe. How does he happen to be interested in … in what happened to my father?”

  “Mr. Wolfe has been engaged to learn who was responsible for the killing.”

  “Really? Who is paying your boss?” Pierce said, sounding surprised.

  “The person who hired Mr. Wolfe chooses not to be identified at this time.”

  “Well, the police surely haven’t gotten very far, have they? Maybe that’s because they realize that it’s fruitless to try tackling the Mafia. Have you spoken to my mother? You really should.”

  “No, not yet. We felt it was too soon for that,” I improvised.

  “Mm. Do you want to discuss this with me on the telephone?”

  “I would prefer it to be in person, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do not mind one bit, Mr. Goodwin, although I would rather not have any conversation take place in my office. It tends not to be a very private setting.”

  “I understand.”

  “Let me suggest that you come to our home in the Dakota. I trust you know where that is,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “Everybody knows where the Dakota is,” I said with a chuckle of my own. “When is convenient for you?”

  “Actually, I happen to have a very light workload today and I was thinking of leaving the office early. What about three o’clock this afternoon?”

  I told him that would be fine with me. When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven, I filled him in and he nodded, turning to the mail I had stacked neatly on his desk blotter.

  “Any instructions?”

  “Nothing specific. I trust you will ferret out any information you deem useful.”

  After lunch I flagged a yellow cab on Eighth Avenue and rode north on the artery as it changed its name to Central Park West. The taxi dropped me at Seventy-Second Street, where I hopped out and gazed up at one of the city’s most identifiable structures. The Dakota is not tall by Manhattan standards, around ten stories at the outside, but it looms large in its setting like some grand castle plu
cked from another era, with curved bay windows, dormers, balconies, ironwork, gingerbread touches, and a multigabled roof. I had never set foot in the building, although Lily Rowan told me about a soiree she had once attended in a lavish apartment with a guest list including a famous opera diva, three ambassadors, a former American president, and two Pulitzer Prize–winning authors.

  I adjusted my tie and nodded to a ramrod-straight doorman who wore a peaked cap and a long coat, both of which boldly bore the words The Dakota in letters easy to read from a distance. After someone determined that I was expected at the Malcolm Pierce residence, I rode up in an elevator to the sixth floor. As the operator watched from his car, I pressed the buzzer and was admitted to the apartment by a perky maid wearing a crisp gray uniform and a lacy cap like someone out of a 1940s movie.

  I found myself in a vaulted, circular foyer with a multicolored marble floor and a ten-foot coffered ceiling. This round room was big enough to accommodate a six-piece dance band fronted by a girl singer. As I took in the scene, a voice said, “Quite a space, isn’t it, Mr. Goodwin?”

  Malcolm Pierce had stepped in without a sound. Tall, sandy-haired, and clad in brown slacks, a camel hair sport coat, and an open-collared shirt, he looked like he had just stepped out of a full-page advertisement in a men’s fashion magazine.

  “I was just admiring the setup,” I responded. “I have never been in the Dakota before.”

  “It is a marvelous place, dates back to the 1880s,” he said. “They sure don’t build ’em like this anymore. Let’s talk in the library.”

  “First, Mr. Wolfe and I want to extend our condolences about your loss.”

  “That is very kind of you, Mr. Goodwin,” Malcolm Pierce said. If he was still grieving, he held it in well.

  I followed my host down a long hall that made me think the apartment went on forever. We entered a dark-paneled room with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, an elaborate chandelier, and a fireplace with a painting above it that looked to be a Matisse, and almost surely was an original. My host gestured me to an easy chair while he nodded toward a bar in one corner. “Can I get you anything to drink?”