I stopped in Yonkers at a diner I had patronized before and ordered what I considered to be their special, a corned beef on rye sandwich, along with a glass of milk and a slice of apple pie. “Your corned beef is as good as ever,” I told a waitress who had been there for years.
“I remember you,” she said, grinning. “I’ve got a great memory. I never forget a face, and besides, this isn’t the first time you’ve commented on the sandwich. I’ll send your compliments to Lou back in the kitchen. He likes to get good reviews for his work.”
I had stopped at the diner for two reasons: I was hungry, and when I miss a meal in the brownstone, Wolfe invariably asks on my return, “Have you eaten?”
I garaged the car at Curran’s, and when I got home, Wolfe was sitting at his desk in the office working last Sunday’s New York Times crossword puzzle. I waited until he had filled the very last square—he never likes to be interrupted—and then reported on the Dobbs Ferry expedition.
When I had finished my recitation, Wolfe took a drink of after-lunch coffee and carefully set his cup down. “From your report, young Mr. Pierce sounds somewhat morose.” Ah, there—he had found a better adjective!
“Morose or otherwise, he certainly did not have much to contribute about his father.”
“You are to see his sister this evening?”
“For drinks. Do you think I should vary the line of questioning?”
“Not necessarily, although you may want to mount a frontal attack and ask Miss Pierce if she had knowledge of her father’s liaisons,” Wolfe said. “But it would be advisable to pose this well after you have spent some time with the young woman. If you were to broach the subject at the beginning of the evening, she might very well bolt, and you would be left with nothing but an empty chair at a table for two.”
Wolfe was right, of course, although he did not have to stress to me the importance of asking the tough questions late in a conversation. Such was the lesson our newspaper friend Lon Cohen of the Gazette had drilled into me years ago, and as you will recall, I had also used this “tough question last” approach earlier with Laura Cordwell.
“Archie, in any interview, particularly with someone who’s got something to hide, you must start slowly,” Lon had said. “That is what I tell all our young reporters. Throw out some easy questions at the beginning to relax the subject, loosen him or her up.
“Then gradually, very gradually, start getting tougher with what you’re asking. The worst thing that can happen is that whomever you’re grilling tells you to go to hell and walks away. And by then, maybe you will have already learned a lot and gotten some good quotes. But just don’t blow an interview from the very start. That has happened more than once here, I am sorry to say. Overeager reporters have cost the paper many a good story.”
Chapter 16
With Saul’s words of wisdom in mind, I set off on foot that evening for the bar that sat directly across Seventh Avenue from the towering magazine company building where Marianne Pierce toiled. I’d been in the place a few times over the years at cocktail time and invariably found it to be pleasantly low-key, particularly with its jazz pianist, who I now know was indeed named Herbie. Today was no exception.
I rotated the revolving door into the darkened space at precisely six thirty and was greeted with the pleasant sounds of the piano over the murmur of multiple conversations. From out of the room’s dimness, an attractive woman with shoulder-length blond hair emerged and came toward me. She wore a gray turtleneck sweater and matching skirt.
“The smirk gave you away all right,” Marianne Pierce said, head cocked and with hands on hips.
“Darn, and here I’ve always thought the blue blazer was my true signature look,” I replied.
“That, too, and very natty, I must say. Shall we find a booth, or are you the barstool type?”
“I’ve done both, although I prefer a booth, it’s more intimate.”
“Ah, so we are going to be intimate, is that it?”
“All right, let me rephrase it. A booth is more conversation friendly. How’s that?”
“You’re a glib one, aren’t you? A booth it is.”
We settled in toward the back and ordered drinks, a vodka martini for her and a scotch on the rocks for me. They were delivered quickly by a waitress who seemed to know Marianne.
“So, Archie Goodwin, private eye, I want to know exactly what it’s like working for the great Nero Wolfe,” she said after sampling her drink, nodding, and licking her lips.
“Where to start? The man is many things—irascible, eccentric, inscrutable, immovable, impassive, phlegmatic, and—oh yes—a genius.”
“You sound like you’re reading from Mr. Roget’s Thesaurus,” she said. “I will try to act impressed.”
“Don’t bother. Those probably are all words I have learned from Nero Wolfe over the years. He has quite the vocabulary.”
“Is the man difficult to work for?”
“Sometimes. He rarely leaves home, but he does not hesitate to send me out on a whim, and he never puts off until tomorrow what I can do today.”
“Poor baby,” Marianne said, laughing. “You sound as if you are very put-upon.”
“Not really. I have few complaints.”
“That’s good. I am puzzled about something: Why is it that Nero Wolfe is investigating my father’s murder? Who hired him? And what makes him think, as I do, that the crime syndicate was not behind what happened?”
“First, our client chooses to remain anonymous, and second, an individual Mr. Wolfe and I highly esteem was beaten up because he got curious about your father’s death and started making inquiries. That got my boss extremely angry, and some details of our friend’s beating made it seem that perhaps the mob may not have been behind the killing of your father.”
“So Nero Wolfe is taking on this case out of the goodness of his heart, is that what you are telling me?”
“I would not go that far. He does very few things out of the goodness of his heart, to use your term. But he is fiercely protective of the very few people he calls his friends, and he also is critical of those who he feels jump to quick conclusions.”
“Like perhaps anyone who immediately assumes the crime syndicate was behind my father’s murder?”
“Yes, that’s a good example. Do you have any thoughts as to why he was gunned down?”
Marianne studied her half-consumed martini, perhaps lost in thought. “I happen to agree with your boss,” she said. “It would be simple to pass off this shooting as just another mob hit, which is the easy way out, particularly for the police. But that just does not make a lot of sense to me.”
“Go on.”
“Well, look, as much as I loved my father, and I did and I miss him very much, he and his small and dedicated band really were not ever much of a threat to organized crime. Oh, they got the newspapers to write editorials and do in-depth reports on the Mafia all right, but where did it get them? What did they accomplish? Nothing, really. That being the case, it seems to me that the best thing Ralph Mars and his boys could do was to leave well enough alone.”
“Perhaps you have a point,” I said as I lit cigarettes for both of us with my Zippo. “If what you are saying is true, it means your father must have had at least one other enemy.”
“I suppose we all make a certain number of enemies throughout our lives, maybe some of them inadvertently or unconsciously,” Marianne said. “I am sure I have, and you probably have as well.”
“I won’t deny that. Let us both for the moment agree that the mob did not kill your father. Can you think of any other candidates, anyone at all?”
“The police asked me that question, and I told them I could not conceive of someone else who would have had that much hatred for him.”
“From what I have read and heard, he must have been extremely well respected,” I said, ordering an
other round of drinks.
Marianne smiled ruefully. “He was, Archie. As you may be aware, a movement was under way to get Daddy to run for governor, which says a lot.”
“It does, all right. Do you think he would have dropped Three-G for a chance to run the Empire State?”
“I really don’t know. He and I never talked about it, although once at a family dinner, he said something like, ‘If they ever put me in charge up in Albany, you are going to see a lot of rats leave the creaky ship that is referred to as the SS New York State.’”
“Can you think of something that might have prevented your father from running for governor?”
“The entrenched interests, I suppose. He would have been a threat to a lot of old-line politicians who have run the state forever.”
“Anything in your father’s past that would have been a liability?”
She fixed me with a look that was less than friendly. “Just what are you trying to say?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh, I think you are, Archie. Let us not get cute here. You took your good old time to bring this up, so we should get things out on the table right now. And don’t play the innocent with me; it won’t wash.”
“I will ask the question again,” I said evenly. “Is there anything in your father’s past that would be a liability?”
“May I assume you have talked to one or the other of my brothers?”
“I have seen both of them.”
“And what have they told you about my father’s private life?”
“Nothing whatever, and I will take an oath to that effect if you want me to, assuming we can find a Bible in this den of depravity.”
She sniffed. “For some reason, I believe you. My brothers, they can be incredibly naive, or else they just close their eyes to the world around them. Mal, bless him, has always been something of a mama’s boy. To him, our mother could never do anything wrong. Maybe it’s something about him being the eldest child. And Mark, well, he is a driven creative type who lives to develop the next great advertising campaign, and the rest of the world be damned.”
“I am not sure what that proves.”
“There you go again, trying to play the innocent. Archie, I’ve been around the block a few times. Three men have proposed to me, and I’ve turned them all down.”
“Their loss.”
“And my gain. I did not bring that up to pat myself on the back. Now, dammit, ask the question you are dying to ask. Go ahead.”
“All right then, what do you know about your father’s private life?”
“See, that wasn’t so hard to do now, was it? My father was drawn to women, and they were drawn to him. Some of his, shall we say … relationships, were not very well-kept secrets, I’m afraid.”
“Including with Laura Cordwell?”
She sighed. “Including with Laura, yes.”
“I have no idea how many women your father was involved with, but might one of them or one of their friends, relatives, or colleagues have planned his killing?”
“You have a typical man’s inflated idea of how strongly a woman is affected by rejection,” Marianne told me. “I mentioned that three men had proposed to me—true. But another man dumped me, there’s no sugarcoating that. Did I respond by ordering his killing? No, I realized how lucky I was to have avoided what would have been an unhappy relationship.”
“I was not necessarily suggesting a woman was behind your father’s murder, at least not directly,” I replied. “One or another of those women your father was involved with may very well have had either a husband or a fiancé or a relative who wanted to exact revenge.”
“Maybe having been a private detective for so long has given you a flair for the dramatic,” Marianne said as she ground out her cigarette in an ashtray. “Your scenario seems awfully far-fetched to me.”
“No more far-fetched than a lot of other situations we’ve come across.”
“That may be, but I still don’t think much of your theory. Changing the subject, what was your impression of my brothers now that I’ve told you my analysis of them? I’m just curious.”
“They both seem to be quite serious minded, based on our relatively brief meetings.”
Marianne laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. Mark is far more than serious. I’d call him verging on the melancholy.”
“Now you are using the thesaurus,” I joked.
“Well, I do have a decent vocabulary if I do say so,” she retorted. “After all, I am an editor. What did you think of Mal?”
“Seems a decent sort, and I gather quite successful, but then all three of you appear to have made a mark in your respective fields.”
“That’s so, but then we each had a lot of advantages growing up—the best schools, foreign vacations, internships set up by our father—so we should have done well. Back to Mal, as I said he was a mama’s boy and in many ways still is. But then, maybe that is to be expected of a firstborn. He has always seen himself as her protector.”
“How would you describe your parents’ marriage?”
“They seemed to have lived in separate worlds, particularly in the last few years. My mother always immersed herself in good works for all kinds of charities. It seemed like she was forever hosting a luncheon or a fund drive. Daddy had his own charities and passions, most notably, of course, the Good Government Group. He hated the crime syndicate and was determined to put it out of business.”
“But it appears that he also was politically ambitious.”
“That was a fairly recent phenomenon, though. Years ago, probably when I was in college, I remember him telling me that the last thing he wanted to do was hold any kind of governmental office.”
“What changed his mind?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe he had gotten frustrated with what he saw as a lack of success that Three-G had against the mob. At least that’s my impression.”
“Did your mother encourage his interest in being governor?”
“I’m not sure that she cared one way or the other, although if he had become governor, I know she would have moved with him to that mansion up in Albany. After all, being first lady of New York State would have given her a much bigger platform from which to push her charities.
“And before you ask whether she knew about my father’s amorous activities, the answer is … I don’t know. I’ve assumed she did, but she has always been extremely self-contained, rarely showing much emotion, even to her children. I have heard her described as icy, although I don’t happen to agree with that assessment. I prefer to say she is extremely reserved. She and I have always had a good relationship, although not an overly affectionate one.”
“What is your impression of Weldon Dunagan?” I asked.
“For starters, he puts his money where his mouth is. He hates the crime syndicate as much as my father did, and he insisted on bankrolling the Good Government Group even though I think Daddy might have had more than enough money to finance it himself. As to Dunagan, I personally never have liked the man. I find him to be cold, unfeeling.”
“But he and your father got along well?”
“As far as I could tell. One area where they seemed to differ was that Dunagan was somewhat more critical of the New York Police Department than Daddy.”
“It seems he is out to get Inspector Cramer of Homicide in particular.”
“Yes, I heard or read that, although I’m not sure where. Daddy always had fairly good relations with the police, but then, he also had a much more winning personality than Weldon Dunagan. He wasn’t out to pick fights, although he was critical of the cops sometimes, too.”
“Would you say Dunagan is out to pick fights?”
“That’s how it seems to me, but you have to bear in mind that I am just an observer. I’m not privy to high-level conversations and machinations, nor do I w
ant to be. There, how do you like that word, machinations?”
“I am impressed.”
“As you should be. Well, Archie, I am afraid I do not have any more to tell you, unless you think I’ve left something out or am trying to hide a key piece of information from you.”
“I don’t think anything of the sort,” I said with what Lily Rowan refers to as my winning grin.
“I am happy to hear that,” Marianne said as she slid out of the booth, leaving a half-empty glass. “And thank you so much for the drinks. Unfortunately, I have to go back to work now. We’re closing an edition of the magazine, and it’s going to be a zoo across the street in our offices.”
“Shouldn’t you have something to eat?”
“You are very kind to ask, but one of the few really good things our company does is to bring in some decent foods on the nights we’re putting the book to bed. And don’t worry about my having had two drinks, well, almost two drinks. I hold my liquor extremely well.” With that, she glided smoothly out of the bar and went through the revolving door into the Midtown night.
Chapter 17
By the time I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe had long since finished dining and was at his desk reading with beer as his companion. I started to report, but he insisted that first I go to the kitchen, where Fritz was keeping a plate of tonight’s dinner warm for me, veal birds in casserole. If Wolfe were to have a motto to live by, it would be “Food first, work later.”
Pleasantly full, I returned to the office and began to give Wolfe a verbatim report on my meeting with Marianne Pierce when the phone rang. It was Lon Cohen of the Gazette.
“If you and your boss have a few free minutes right now, I would like to read to you the lead item in Chad Preston’s East Side, West Side, All Around the Town column that will run in tomorrow’s edition.” (A note here: The daily Preston column, probably the best-read feature in the Gazette, is a mixture of gossip, anonymous tips, and cheeky observations about life in New York.) I nodded to Wolfe to pick up his telephone. “We are both on the line,” I told Lon.
The Battered Badge Page 10
