Death on Deadline

by Robert Goldsborough

  When Wolfe invites Lon Cohen to dinner, it’s usually because he wants information. Lon knows this, of course, but doesn’t mind because through the years he’s gotten as good from us as he’s given in the form of scoops involving Wolfe’s cases. Also, Lon fully appreciates Fritz Brenner’s genius as a chef, not to mention the Remisier brandy that gets hauled out whenever he sits at our table.

  But why Wolfe wanted to see him puzzled me. This time we weren’t working on anything big, unless you count the business with Gershmann—not his real name—a wholesale diamond merchant who had an exceedingly sticky-fingered employee. But Wolfe, with some not-so-incidental help from Saul and me, had already pieced that one together and had delegated me to meet with Gershmann the next day to tell him who on his payroll had deep pockets.

  So why was Lon getting an invite? I figured it must have something to do with MacLaren, since Wolfe wanted to look at some of the bozo’s newspapers. But I was damned if I was going to ask him. Besides, he was now hiding behind a book, The Good War by Studs Terkel, so I swung back to my typewriter and the letter to the Illinois orchid grower.

  After finishing it, I dialed Lon’s number. “Feeling any better this morning?” I asked when he answered.

  “So-so. I’m just trying to get through one day at a time,” he replied. His voice lacked his usual joie de vivre.

  “Glad you’re so peppy. Anyway, I have two items of business. First, Mr. Wolfe wants to know if you can make it for dinner tonight—or if not, tomorrow.”

  “Best offer I’ve had in weeks,” Lon said, perking up. “Tonight would be fine. What’s the occasion?”

  “Beats me. But don’t look cross-eyed at a gift horse. Before I ask you the second question, I have to confess that I told the man who signs my paychecks about a certain Scottish party and his interest in the Gazette. I felt he could be trusted.” I watched Wolfe for a reaction. There was no movement from behind the book.

  “No big thing,” Lon said sourly. “The whole town will know all about this soon enough. The other question?”

  “Can you give me a list of newspapers MacLaren owns—both U.S. and foreign? Mr. Wolfe wishes to peruse a few.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Lon clucked. “I don’t know why he’d waste his time, but that’s his problem—or maybe it’s yours. Anyway, sure, I can name a bunch of the rags for you. Just make sure he takes something for his digestion first.”

  Lon ticked off the titles of papers in England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, plus one each in Detroit, Denver, and L.A. I thanked him and said we looked forward to seeing him.

  “Okay, I’ve got the list of MacLaren’s papers,” I said to the cover of the book that was between me and Wolfe. “I’m off on a safarI to hunt them down. Lon says you should be prepared for a grim experience. Are you up to it?”

  I got no answer, nor did I expect one, so I went to the kitchen, where Fritz was preparing salmon mousse and a mushroom-and-celery omelet for lunch. I told him I’d be back in plenty of time to eat, then walked east to Seventh Avenue in the late-morning sunshine and headed north to Forty-second Street just east of Times Square, where the newsstand is. They had copies of two of MacLaren’s American dailies, the Los Angeles Globe-American and the Detroit Star, and they also carried his London Herald and Toronto Banner. The guy behind the counter said he could special-order the others, but I figured what I had would give Wolfe all he could stomach.

  Except for Toronto, they were tabloids, and their front pages made the Daily News and even the Post look tame. I won’t bore you with details, but here are a few samples: The headline on the L.A. paper, which swallowed most of the front sheet, was “KILLER RAPIST SPOTTED IN LONG BEACH, COPS SAY.” The only other thing on the page was a diagonal red stripe in the upper-right-hand corner with the words “WINNING SWEEPSTAKES NUMBERS—P.5!” The Detroit front page screeched in two-inch capitals: “DO SOVIETS PLAN SECRET AFGHAN NUKE ATTACK?” and under the headline was a photograph of an incredibly buxom blonde in a sweater with a caption revealing that she had courageously run out on the field during a game at Tiger Stadium to kiss the first baseman. And the headline on the London paper, which blanketed page one, read “LET’S TOSS MAGGIE OUT, 10 LABOR MP’S SHOUT!”

  It was a little before one when I got home. Wolfe was still parked at his desk, with the book in front of his face. He probably hadn’t moved since I’d left, except to ring for beer.

  “Home is the hunter,” I announced, dropping five pounds of newsprint on his blotter in a stack, with Detroit on top, figuring the over-endowed blonde would be a nice way to introduce him to MacLaren-style journalism.

  He set his book down and glowered at the papers without touching them. “After lunch,” he said, and I had to agree. Anyone with a proper appreciation for food knows enough to avoid unpleasantness just before a meal.

  THREE

  There is a rule in the brownstone that business is not to be discussed during meals. I was interested that day, as we consumed the salmon mousse and then the omelet, as to whether Wolfe would consider Ian MacLaren some form of business or simply a topic of curiosity. Twice I brought up his name, and each time I got the answer clearly—MacLaren fell into the business category; Wolfe refused to talk about him, preferring instead to hold forth on contemporary architecture, in particular the trend away from the “less-is-more” school, in favor of more ornamentation on buildings. He clearly favored the latter.

  After we made the omelet disappear and went to the office for coffee, Wolfe started in on the stack on his blotter. I watched his face as he paged each of the four; it was a series of grimaces, pursed lips, slight shakes of the head, and in one case, an outright shudder. “More wretched than I had imagined,” he pronounced, ringing for beer. When Fritz came in with the tray, Wolfe thrust the papers at him. “Take these and destroy them immediately,” he barked.

  “I wish you wouldn’t hold things in,” I said. “Say what you feel.”

  “Pfui. I assume you looked at them?”

  “Yeah, I skimmed a couple as I walked back from the newsstand. Pretty grim.”

  “‘Grim’ hardly covers it. They are abysmal caricatures of journalism. The depth of news coverage is farcical, the editorials simplistic and Neanderthal, the graphics grotesque.” He thumped the blotter with his finger, an unusual show of energy.

  “At a quick glance, I thought the L.A. paper’s sports section was pretty good,” I ventured. “Lots of statistics.”

  “Fodder for the gamblers, no doubt,” Wolfe grumbled.

  “It’s so cheerful here that I’d like nothing more than to while away the afternoon talking about Ian MacLaren’s contributions to the Fourth Estate, but as you may recall, I have a three-thirty appointment with our client the diamond merchant. That should result in a fat check, made out to you, so it would be nice if I showed up on time.”

  “I have noted your unswerving devotion to duty,” Wolfe said, “and I hope you will manage to be home on time for Mr. Cohen’s arrival.” I had an answer ready, but before I could unload it, he was back behind his book.

  I figured the morning walk to Times Square was enough exercise for one day, so I felt no guilt whatever in flagging a cab to midtown for my meeting with Gershmann. He didn’t want me to come to his office on Forty-seventh Street in the diamond market, suggesting instead a back booth in a deli about a block away.

  He was waiting when I got there at exactly three-thirty. It took me about a half-hour to lay the whole thing out, including all the evidence needed to convince him that an employee was taking home a lot more than his salary every week.

  After I finished, Gershmann pumped my hand, thanked me more than he needed to, and pulled out his checkbook. If he was chagrined that he had to go outside the close-knit diamond community for help, he didn’t show it. “Just out of curiosity,” I said, “and although it’s none of my business, how do you plan to deal with the situation?”

  “There are very definite procedures for this kind of thing,” Gersh
mann said in a voice that dropped thirty degrees. I didn’t press the matter further. As we shook hands again, he handed over the check in an amount hefty enough to keep the brownstone running for several weeks. And that’s saying plenty, because not only does Wolfe need to ante up for such incidentals as the four cases of beer he consumes every week, he also has to pay me, his confidential assistant, man of action, and all-round gofer, to say nothing of Fritz, the finest chef in the universe, and Theodore Horstmann, who fusses over the ten thousand orchids in the plant rooms up on the fourth floor.

  And then there are the grocery bills and the books, of course, but you get the idea. Simply put, the place takes a lot of cash to keep it going. And that cash only comes in if Wolfe feels like working, which is seldom before the bank balance slips to five figures. Right now, that balance was well above the danger level, and would be even higher tomorrow with the addition of Mr. Gershmann’s generous draft. We were in for a leisurely spell.

  I got back to Thirty-fifth Street a few minutes after five, which meant Wolfe was still up playing with his orchids. I unlocked the safe and tucked our latest check in, then wandered out to the kitchen, where Fritz was in high gear for dinner, and poured myself a glass of milk. “What’s the program?” I asked.

  “Breast of chicken in cream with foie gras on noodles,” he said. “I remember how much Mr. Cohen liked the chicken breast another time when he was here.”

  “Nice choice,” I said, and meant it. Fritz is a magician with chicken. But then, he also is a magician with beef, lamb, pork, veal, and any fish you can name. If there’s a Cooperstown for chefs somewhere, he ought to have a spot there, with his puss and his name in capital letters on a brass plaque along with the words “He keeps Nero Wolfe happy—which alone is reason enough to be in the Hall of Fame.”

  Not that Wolfe and Fritz didn’t have their differences over food—and some of their bouts had been dandies. Like the time Fritz used tarragon and saffron to season a platter of starlings and Wolfe went into a pout and refused to eat it because he wanted sage instead. Despite their occasional tussles, Wolfe knows Fritz’s batting average is well over .950, so he picks his fights cautiously—and rarely.

  My stomach already was pondering the chicken breast as I went back to the office and typed a letter to an orchid grower in Pennsylvania who wanted a peek at the plant rooms on a trip he was making to New York next month. Permission granted. Wolfe almost never denies a serious request to see his precious orchids. I call it vanity; he says it’s the sharing of information, although visitors always learn far more than they could ever teach either Wolfe or Theodore.

  After finishing the letter and putting it on Wolfe’s blotter for his signature, I started in on the germination records but was interrupted by the phone.

  “Archie, it’s Lon. I’ll be hung up at the office for a while yet. I’ll tell you why when I get there. It’ll probably be pushing seven.”

  I told him not to worry, that we might even postpone the start of dinner by as much as three minutes if he was late. As I turned again to the germination cards that Theodore brings down daily, I heard the whine of the elevator. My watch said six-oh-two, which meant Wolfe was on his way down from the plant rooms.

  “Lon called—he’ll be a little late. Trouble of some kind at the paper,” I said as Wolfe came in and headed for his desk. “I’ll lay nine to five it has something to do with MacLaren.”

  “Very likely,” Wolfe said, reaching for the Terkel book. “We can delay dinner if necessary.” His tone told me he found the idea extremely distasteful. But he also felt—he’s said so many times—that “a guest is a jewel, resting on a cushion of hospitality.”

  As it turned out, we were able to stay on schedule. Lon rang the doorbell at six-fifty-seven, which meant he had plenty of time for Scotch on the rocks in the office while I worked on bourbon and Wolfe downed his second beer.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Lon told Wolfe, settling into the red leather chair with his drink. He looked beat. “Things are jumping at our place. Turns out the Times is breaking a story in tomorrow’s editions that MacLaren has made a bid for the Gazette. I don’t know how they caught wind of it, but they called our chairman, Harriet Haverhill, and asked her to respond to MacLaren’s statement that he was making an offer for Gazette stock. She gave them a ‘no comment,’ then called the city desk to alert them, and we really had to scramble to get something into tonight’s Final.”

  “Indeed?” Wolfe said. “Mr. Cohen, with your sufferance, I would like to defer the subject of Ian MacLaren until after dinner. I assure you I’m most interested in hearing about him, but—”

  “Say no more,” Lon cut in, laughing and holding up a hand. “I agree completely. I’ve been looking forward to this meal, and the best way to enjoy it is with conversation on more pleasant topics.”

  So twice in one day MacLaren got scrubbed as a mealtime subject. And knowing how both Wolfe and Lon felt about him, I was beginning to be anxious to meet the guy to see whether he had horns, fangs, or maybe a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

  Still, events at the Gazette hadn’t noticeably damaged Lon’s appetite. He managed three helpings of the chicken and went for seconds on the tart. As we ate, Wolfe held forth on why he thought the constitutional amendment limiting a President to two terms should be repealed, while Lon—bless his heart!—took the opposite view. I scored Wolfe the winner, but just barely.

  We left the table strewn with polished plates for Fritz to clear and crossed the hall to the office. Lon settled back in the red leather chair, with a snifter of the long-awaited Remisier at his elbow. It looked so good I treated myself to some, too, instead of Scotch. Wolfe, of course, had beer.

  “Mr. Cohen, you know from Archie that I’ve become very curious about Ian MacLaren,” he began, switching to business.

  “So I gathered when he phoned and said you wanted to see some of his papers. Naturally I’m curious as to why you’re curious. By the way, did you read any of the rags?”

  “Enough to confirm my opinion of the man’s journalistic standards. I have several questions about him, sir, but you proceed, please. You said earlier that his bid for the Gazette is now public knowledge?”

  “Well, not quite yet,” Lon replied, looking at his watch. “We learned that the Times will break a piece in tomorrow’s editions, so our management finally got up off their collective duffs and decided to run something, if just to keep from getting scooped on our own story. But it’ll only make the Late City Edition, which is less than ten percent of our circulation. It will be on the street in about half an hour.”

  “How serious is MacLaren’s bid?”

  “Damn serious,” Lon said. “The Gazette is very closely held. Private ownership. And that ownership is in the hands of a small number of people, most of them members of the Haverhill family. All MacLaren has to do is win a few of them over.”

  “I want to get to the family later,” Wolfe said. “First, what is your own opinion of Mr. MacLaren?”

  Lon savored the Remisier. He might have been too beat to notice all this curiosity on Wolfe’s part was out of the ordinary, but I wasn’t. Something unusual was afoot, so I paid close attention. “As far as I’m concerned, MacLaren is the worst thing that’s happened to journalism in decades. You’ve seen his papers. He’s in the business for the cash. Rather, I should say the cash and the power.”

  “Has he ever started a newspaper?”

  “Nope, in every case he grabbed an existing one by throwing money around. He’s made a profit on just about all of them, so you can’t knock his business success. But what he does when he gets a paper . . .” Lon scowled. “He gives it his stamp—if you want to call it that. He usually turns them into tabloids, fills the front page with shrill headlines, slices stories in half, throws in girlie pictures, and cuts loose with an editorial policy that’s about twenty degrees to the right of Jesse Helms. As far as I’m concerned, he combines the worst of the original William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murd
och.”

  “How long has he owned his papers, at least the ones in this country?”

  “I happen to know the answer to that one,” Lon said, “if only because I’ve been reading up on the guy. He bought the L.A. paper in ‘74, that was his first one. Then he swallowed Detroit in ‘75 and Denver a year later. You might be interested to know that in all those years, none of the three papers has ever endorsed any Democrat for President, the Senate, or the House. They’ve always backed the Republican candidate.”

  Wolfe shuddered. “What does he want with the Gazette?”

  “One of his goals—he’s been quoted on this several times—is to control a paper in the largest city in every English-speaking country. He’s already done that in Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, even South Africa. That leaves only the U.S.— New York. The Gazette just happens to be the only possible target here. The other dailies in town all are held by big media companies that aren’t about to sell.” Lon drained his snifter and I gave him a refill.

  “And the owners of the Gazette are prepared to sell?”

  “That’s a Question,” Lon said, turning to salute me for keeping the Remisier flowing. “A few apparently are, from the talk I hear around the building, but whether or not MacLaren can finagle a majority of the stock remains to be seen.”

  “How many owners does the Gazette have?” Wolfe demanded. “And how hard would it be for this man to buy them out?”

  “Okay, here’s the picture. First, there’s Harriet Haverhill, whom I mentioned. She’s chairman of the board, the widow of Wilkins Haverhill, who bought it back in the thirties. It wasn’t much then—sort of a pseudo-populist tabloid with pretensions to compete with the Times and the Herald Trib. Haverhill made it into a broadsheet, beefed up the metropolitan coverage, and built a strong home-delivery network. And his editorials got tough with city government—so much so that La Guardia nicknamed him ‘the Bulldog,’ not to mention a few other unprintable names. All in all, he built the