Stop the Presses!

by Robert Goldsborough

  Beardsley, balding and mustachioed and with elbows resting on the table, cupped his hands on his chin and listened to the woman’s grievances as if she were the only person in the world at that moment. He nodded and occasionally inserted a comforting word. Finally, she ran down like an alarm clock, and he took one of her hands between his, squeezing it.

  “You have a most valid reason for your distress, Mrs. Robinson, and I assure you that I am going to personally look into this. Will you kindly give us your address and telephone number—do you have a telephone?” She nodded. “Give your address and telephone number to April over there, and then I will know how to reach you, which I most assuredly will do.” He indicated the lovely young woman who still was on the telephone.

  “God bless you, Mr. Beardsley,” she said, standing and sniffling. “I just knew that when you heard my story, you would help me. God bless all of your family, too.” The councilman stood and took her hand between his again, kissing it and assuring her that he would do everything he could to see that she got justice. Then he turned to me with raised eyebrows, undoubtedly puzzled as to why a man with my complexion would be at his “I’m Here to Meet My Public” event.

  “My name is Archie Goodwin,” I said. “I work for the private detective Nero Wolfe. He wants to talk to you about the death of Cameron Clay.”

  “I have heard of Mr. Wolfe, of course, but why in the world would he want to speak to me about that … newspaper columnist, Mr. Goodwin?” Beardsley asked, rising. “I did not know the man, and what little I have read about his death points to it being a suicide.”

  “I only know that Mr. Wolfe feels you might be able to provide some information regarding Mr. Clay’s demise.”

  “I could choose to be insulted by that suggestion, sir. I see no reason whatever to discuss anything with Nero Wolfe, although I bear him no animosity whatever.”

  “Cameron Clay had been receiving threatening telephone calls in the weeks before his death, and he suspected they could have been from any one of five individuals. You were one of those he suspected.”

  “That’s it!” the bodyguard barked, coming forward and giving me a shove in the chest with a hand the size of a skillet. “You’ve been bothering Mr. Beardsley long enough.” He took a swing at me, but I dodged it. The man was fullback-size, but also fullback-slow. I slipped under the punch, grabbed one of his arms, and spun him around, getting the arm in a hammerlock. He yelped as I put pressure on, and his knees began to buckle.

  “Stop it, both of you!” Beardsley yelled. “I will not have violence in here. There is enough violence on the streets and in the homes all around us. Now, you two, shake hands.”

  The bodyguard glared at me but didn’t put out a paw. “Charles, shake hands with Mr. Goodwin—now!”

  I didn’t want to bury the hatchet any more than Charles did, but we shook hands, our faces grim, and damned if the others who had been in line behind me actually broke into applause.

  “That is better, much better,” Beardsley said approvingly. “Now Mr. Goodwin, sit down. Let us talk for a few minutes, but only for a few. There are others here who I need to be seeing.” He nodded toward those who were in line behind me.

  In a voice just above a whisper, given the proximity of those in the queue, I told Beardsley that Wolfe already had held discussions with the other four who Clay had been suspicious of.

  “As I said earlier, I have heard of Nero Wolfe before, and I’ve read about him in the papers over the years, too. Who hasn’t? From what I know, he rarely leaves his home.”

  “That is correct.”

  “So if I were to see him, it would be where he lives, is that it?”

  “Yes, sir. I can give you the address.”

  Beardsley bit his lower lip as if weighing his options, then he sighed. “All right, Mr. Goodwin. I will come to see the great Nero Wolfe. When are you suggesting we meet?”

  “He would really like to see you tonight. Say nine o’clock.”

  “You do not believe in dragging things out, do you?”

  “Mr. Wolfe doesn’t. I am only his messenger.”

  “Very well. I will call upon him tonight, but I will not be bullied. Is that understood, Mr. Goodwin?”

  “No one can be bullied who doesn’t want to be,” I said.

  That brought a tight smile from the councilman, who turned to his sulking bodyguard. “Charles, please go out and hail a taxi for Mr. Goodwin. He is our guest.

  “Now, who is next?” he said, looking at the line. “Ah, Mr. Phillips, so good to see you again. Please sit down and tell me if you were able to settle your insurance claim. I called the company and was very stern with the gentleman I spoke to. I do hope it brought the desired results. I will not have my constituents pushed around by big, impersonal institutions.”

  Chapter 18

  Charles flagged a taxi for me as ordered, but he was not happy about it. Not a word got exchanged between us before I climbed into a yellow cab and gave the hackie the brownstone’s address.

  By the time I got back home, Wolfe had come down from his morning session with his “concubines,” as he refers to those ten thousand orchids thriving three flights above us. He was at his desk with beer and the London Times crossword puzzle when I eased into my chair and told him Councilman Millard Beardsley would be calling on us that night. I half expected another “satisfactory,” but the realist in me knew that he doles out those accolades sparingly, lest they lose their impact.

  Instead, he asked for my impressions of the councilman. “I know, of course, that Cameron Clay had no use for him, but I was impressed with what little I saw of his interaction with his constituents. He seems to have an extremely loyal following in Harlem and the surrounding areas. And he has been reelected several times.”

  “So have numerous other public servants who do not necessarily merit their long tenures,” Wolfe observed.

  “You mean it’s often the case of the devil you know as opposed to the devil you don’t know?”

  “I would not have phrased it in that manner, but the observation will suffice. Once an individual has been elected to office, it becomes very difficult to dislodge him.”

  “There’s plenty of them who ought to be dislodged,” I said. “I’m not sure whether Millard Beardsley is one of those, but I will be interested in your reaction to him.”

  Millard Beardsley rang our doorbell that night at three minutes to nine. I was relieved when I looked through the one-way glass to see that he was alone, although a Lincoln idled at the curb. I had been afraid he might have decided to bring Charles or another bodyguard. One hammerlock a day was plenty, although it had been harder on Charles than on me.

  “Good evening, Mr. Beardsley,” I said, opening the door to him. “Please come in.”

  The councilman seemed neither angry nor pleased. He nodded curtly, doffed his hat, and shucked off his overcoat. I hung up his things and directed him down the hall to the office, where he took the red leather chair without asking.

  “Mr. Wolfe will be in shortly. He is just finishing up some other business,” I said.

  “No, he isn’t,” Beardsley said without apparent resentment as he crossed one leg over the other. “He just wants to make a grand entrance. I do the same thing myself all the time. There is no shame in that, nor do I resent it in someone else.”

  As if on cue, Wolfe walked in. “Good evening, sir,” he said as he detoured around the desk to his chair. “Would you like something to drink? I am having beer.”

  “The best scotch that you have got,” Beardsley replied coolly, “and straight up, please. Adding water to good liquor is a sin.”

  “Archie,” Wolfe said without a pause, “you heard the gentleman.”

  I drink scotch, but I’m no expert about it. However, I do know how much dedicated scotch drinkers swear allegiance to single malts, so that is what I chose from the se
rving cart and poured for our guest.

  “Wonderful,” Beardsley said after taking a sip. He pronounced the brand, although he had not seen the bottle, and I confirmed it to him.

  “Mr. Goodwin has told you of the purpose of this meeting, I believe,” Wolfe said.

  “He did. You apparently believe I had something to do with the death of Cameron Clay.”

  “Did Mr. Goodwin say that?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “I thought not. This is no inquisition, sir, although I believe it is fair to say that you did not like Mr. Clay.”

  Beardsley took a second sip of his scotch and set the glass down carefully. “I never met Cameron Clay, although he certainly chose to consistently excoriate me in his columns.”

  “You have been called the city’s best-known and hardest-working councilman,” Wolfe said, “although not by Mr. Clay.”

  “True, that was said of me in a local magazine sometime back.”

  “So you have received some praise. Mr. Clay, however, criticized your poor attendance record in the City Council, among other things.”

  “If you had ever attended a council meeting, you would know why I so often choose to stay away. Almost nothing gets done in those sessions; they are a waste of time. I can serve my constituents much better by staying in the district and working for them. Your Mr. Goodwin here saw me in action this morning, having one-on-one meetings with people who need practical help. And I can give them help—and hope.”

  “A most handsome speech, sir. But your poor record of attendance at City Council meetings was not the only area in which Mr. Clay found fault with you.”

  Beardsley tilted his head to one side as if digesting Wolfe’s comment; no doubt a practiced gesture. “Mr. Clay had a great deal to say about me in print, most of it innuendo and downright lies. It is very easy for someone with the kind of following he had to write anything he feels like, and people will believe it, particularly if they are racists. And there are a lot of racists around.”

  “Did you ever sue him?” Wolfe asked.

  “What good would it have done?” Beardsley said, turning a palm up. “If there were a trial, it would have turned into a circus, and even were I to win, and I’m sure I would have, it would distract me for days, maybe even weeks, from working on behalf of the people in my district. As you must know, those I serve are among the neediest in the city.”

  “Do you have close ties with those in what is often referred to as the underworld?”

  Beardsley laughed. “Ah yes, yet another of Mr. Cameron Clay’s frequent allegations. In my position, I have come to know people in all walks, and it is indeed possible that some of them may have had ‘ties,’ as you term it, with criminal elements. Bear in mind that I have for years worked with convicted felons to help them reenter society after their prison terms, and so, of course, I’ve come to know many people who have lived much of their lives outside the law.”

  “A facile response,” Wolfe said. “Have any of those who have ‘lived outside the law,’ to use your phrase, ever approached you offering to deal with Cameron Clay on your behalf?”

  Another laugh from the councilman, this one louder than the first. “You just won’t let loose of this bone, will you? What puzzles me is why you are so damned intent on proving that Clay was murdered when the police seem to be convinced that it was suicide.”

  “I have a client who does not happen to agree with the police,” Wolfe said.

  “Yes? And who might that client be?”

  “Come, come, Mr. Beardsley. I would no more divulge that to you than I would tell anyone you had been a visitor here.”

  “Code of honor, huh? Well, all I can tell you is that I had nothing whatever to do with Cameron Clay’s death. Am I sorry that he’s gone? Not in the least. I would be a liar if I stated otherwise.”

  “I appreciate your candor, sir.”

  “And why not be candid? I am on record as saying that Clay was an enemy of the black community. He denied it, of course, but I believe his columns have spoken volumes about his true feelings. Like so many other white men, he resented any black man who had attained a measure of success, as I have. If that sounds arrogant of me, I plead guilty. I do not believe in false modesty.”

  “Nor do I,” Wolfe said. “For purposes of discussion, let us stipulate that Mr. Clay was murdered. Can you suggest a possible candidate as the killer?”

  Yet another laugh, one I would term a guffaw. “Now it is my turn to say ‘come, come,’ Mr. Wolfe. Where to start? Cameron Clay had alienated so many people in so many different areas that I wouldn’t even begin to speculate. And if I did, I certainly would not want to be quoted.”

  “I would not quote you, sir, but I agree that the columnist made a great many enemies, and he appears to have relished doing so.”

  “I am sure that he relished it. At the risk of sounding rude, and I do not mean to do so, I don’t believe I can be of any further use to you in this endeavor.”

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Beardsley,” Wolfe said as the councilman rose, smiled tightly, and left the office with me close behind him.

  “Well, what are your impressions of New York’s best-known and hardest-working councilman?” I posed to Wolfe after seeing Beardsley out.

  “He is one secure in his legacy as a defender of the underdog and the downtrodden. Also, for all of his apparent candor, I would not trust his word on anything of more import than a weather forecast, and even on that, I would also check with another source.”

  “Yeah, I concur. On the surface, he seems as earnest as a small-town family doctor, but scratch that surface and you have a used-car salesman or a television-ad pitchman. Well, what’s next?”

  “Three people remain on our list. I leave it to you to pursue them in any order, and the sooner the better. But first, talk to the cab driver Mr. Clay used as his personal chauffeur. Find out if he has any insights as to the columnist’s moods in his last days.”

  “Your wish is my command,” I told him, getting up and going to the kitchen for a glass of milk before turning in.

  Chapter 19

  In the morning after breakfast, I dialed the number Larry McNeil had given me for Clay’s cabbie, Walter Bartlett. I figured he’d be out on the street at this hour, but to my surprise, he answered the phone.

  “Yeah, I’m Bartlett,” he said in a sleepy voice. “What d’ya want?”

  I explained who I was and why I wanted to see him, then asked if we could meet somewhere. “Geez, I … I guess so, although I don’t know that I can be much help to you. But if somebody killed Mr. Clay, I’d like to see the bastard fry for it.” Bartlett lived over in Queens, but he was going to work the noon to midnight shift today and would take the subway to West Seventy-Eighth Street to pick up his hack at the yellow-cab garage there. He suggested we meet at a coffee shop just east of the garage. “I’ll be the guy in a brown flat cap sitting in a booth by the window,” he said.

  When I walked into the café forty-five minutes later, a little, hunched-over guy with a mustache and a flat cap held up a hand. “I figured right off that it was you,” Bartlett said as I slid into the booth opposite him. “This place gets almost all regulars, majority of ’em cabbies, and we don’t see too many suit-and-tie types in here. Not that that ain’t okay,” he added quickly.

  We each ordered coffee, and I went to work. “You must have gotten to know Cameron Clay quite well, driving him to and from the office every day.”

  “Well, at least to the office,” Bartlett said. “Some nights he went to parties and stuff like that, so I didn’t always take him home.”

  “How did he seem, in the days leading up to … what happened? Did you see a change in him?”

  The cabbie shrugged. “I guess. Seems like he’d gotten quieter. When I first started driving him two, three years ago, he was pretty chatty, used to even ask my
opinion on things going on around town.” Bartlett laughed. “Sometimes, he even put something in his column about me, like ‘My hack driver, Walter, thinks New York motorists are ruder than ever.’ Stuff like that. Made me feel like a celebrity.”

  “Did Clay ever talk about people who didn’t like him?”

  “Yeah, once in a while. He’d say things like, ‘Walter, I know damned well there’s lots of folks out there who’d like nothing more than to push me off a cliff or stick a knife in me. Well, screw ’em all.’”

  “He never mentioned anyone in particular?”

  “I can’t recall it, no.”

  “What about his health?”

  Bartlett ran a hand over the stubble on his cheek. “You could tell he wasn’t in good shape. In the last few weeks, he seemed to be wheezing more, and coughing quite a bit.”

  “As you know if you read the papers, the police think Cameron Clay killed himself.”

  “So I been reading. I don’t believe it. No, sir, I don’t. I figure one of those people who didn’t like him did the job.”

  “Did you drive him home the night he died?”

  “Yes, I did. He actually seemed okay, very relaxed and a little peppier than he had been lately. He was in a good mood and laughed about how bad the Knicks had been playing lately. ‘They need a whole new team,’ he said.”

  I thanked Bartlett for his time and paid the check. The cabbie and I walked out together, and he put a hand on my arm. “You should know, Mr. Goodwin, that Mr. Clay was very good to me. Gave me big tips and a Christmas bonus, and when my wife was sick, he gave me extra—a lot extra—to help cover the hospital bills. He was a fine man.”

  By the time I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe was down from the plant room and in the process of opening his first beer of the day. I filled him in on my conversation with Walter Bartlett and he responded by said nothing other than to remind me I had three more “enemies” of Cameron Clay to entice to the brownstone.