“Point taken,” Saul allowed. “You did the humane thing, all right. Now let’s hit the road.”
Ten minutes later, I was steering the Heron sedan north with Saul riding shotgun and Fred in the rear. We drove up Eighth Avenue to Columbus Circle, where the street’s name changes to Central Park West. Another eighteen blocks put us at Seventy-Seventh. I eased the car to the curb on the east side of the street.
“Okay, over there is where we’re supposed to leave the money,” I said, gesturing to a spot about a hundred yards east of us. “That’s the blue spruce. It looks to be just about halfway between Central Park West and that interior road that winds its way through the park.”
Saul scratched his chin. “So the question is, from which direction will our man come?”
“I’d guess from the east,” Durkin said. “The money is supposed to be put at the base of the tree on its east side, right? And that’s the side closest to the park road.”
“You may be right, Fred,” I said, “but we’ve got to be prepared for him—I’m assuming it’s a him—coming from either direction. I’ll put the satchel, or whatever kind of bag our Miss Hutchinson puts the money in, at the base of the tree at nine fifty-eight tonight. Then I’ll walk away slowly, heading east toward the park road.”
“Which means you may run head-on into the guy as he approaches the spruce,” Saul said.
“Maybe so, although I’m guessing that he’ll be in hiding, probably behind another tree, until I move away from the satchel. Of course, both of you will be out of sight as well—one to the northeast, the other to the southeast, well away from the tree.”
“I’ll take the northeast,” Saul said. “We will be armed, of course.”
I nodded. “You will. But remember Mr. Wolfe’s instructions. He is to be taken alive.”
“That may not be so easy,” Fred said. “Chances are ten-to-one he’ll be carrying a piece as well.”
“That poses a challenge, all right,” I conceded. “But if we can get the drop on him before calling to him, he may not be able to level his weapon. After all, he’ll be concentrating on hauling the money away. That kind of a payday has a way of blurring a man’s mind.”
After our brief reconnaissance, I garaged the Heron and the three of us went to the brownstone, once more via the rear entrance. An agitated Fritz let us in.
“Archie, a lady telephoned twice for you. She did not leave her name but said she would call again. She sounded most excited, and she was most unhappy that you were not here. I told her I did not know when you would return.”
“That would be Miss Hutchinson. She’ll call again, probably in the next ten minutes or less,” I told him. “We will be in the office.”
Wolfe was in the midst of his morning communion with the orchids up in the plant rooms as we settled in, me behind my desk, Saul in the red leather chair, and Fred occupying one of the yellow ones. We all were sipping Fritz’s excellent coffee when the phone rang.
“Oh, Archie, I am so glad to hear your voice,” Cordelia said in her usual breathless tone. “I have it… . I have the money, right here, right in front of me. What do we do now? I am so frightened.”
I tried without success to calm her down. “What do you have the currency in?” I asked.
“A black leather attaché case.”
“We can come and get it from you.”
“No, I would rather come to you, Archie.”
“Aren’t you afraid of venturing out with all that dough?”
“No, I am not. I will have our doorman get me a cab and come straight to that spot on Thirty-Fourth Street where you met me before, if that is all right with you and Mr. Wolfe.”
“Okay, but the sooner the better,” I told her. She said she would leave Sutton Place in five minutes.
I filled Saul and Fred in. “We should be there when her cab pulls up,” I said to them.
“She probably can’t wait to be rid of that bundle,” Saul said.
We had been on the sidewalk for no more than ten minutes when a Yellow Cab pulled up and Cordelia stepped out with the attaché case. “Have the cab wait,” I said after introducing Saul and Fred to her as my trusted associates.
“But I thought I would be coming in with you, Archie.”
“Not necessary,” I said, taking the case from her. “We will be handling things for you from here on today. Go home and wait to hear from me.”
“How will you deal with … with tonight?” She chewed on her lower lip and kneaded her hands. At that moment, she had all the poise of a twelve-year-old girl at her first grade-school dance.
“All three of us will be there. You do not have to worry about it.”
“Who is going to give him the money, Archie?”
“I am. Leave the details to us, please.”
“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“No one is going to get hurt. Now go home.”
Cordelia did not like the brush-off, but I insisted, telling her again that we had everything planned and in place for tonight. I practically had to push her back into the taxi, and as it pulled away from the curb, she looked out at me from the rear window, almost in tears.
“The young lady is a nervous wreck,” Saul observed. “Can’t say that I blame her; she probably wonders what’s going to happen to those seventy-five G’s she just parted with.”
“I think she’s plenty more worried about her secret getting out than any possibility of losing the money,” I said. “That amount she just coughed up isn’t much more than petty cash to her.”
Back in the office, we opened the leather case on my desk and took out the bundles of fifties and hundreds. “Somehow it seems like seventy-five grand should take up more space than this,” Fred said, handling a few of the stacks of greenbacks.
“Yeah, but it all seems to be here, at least based on a quick eye balling,” Saul put in. “I’ve got to wonder what her bank thought about this.”
“Given the size of her family’s estate, the bank probably does whatever it gets asked to do by any one of the Hutchinson clan,” I said.
“No doubt a prudent response on the part of the financial institution,” Nero Wolfe said as he entered the office, fresh from his time up on the roof with the orchids. He nodded to Saul and Fred, then eyed the open attaché case and its contents.
“Looks to be all here,” I told him. “Want to count it to make sure?”
He sniffed, sat, and rang for beer. “May I offer anyone a drink?”
We all shook our heads, and I filled Wolfe in on our morning venture to Central Park, as well as our strategy for tonight. “Any thoughts?”
He took a deep breath. “I will answer a question with a question: Do any of you have doubts about the success of this operation?”
“I think we’ve figured the angles,” Saul said. “What we don’t know, of course, is how the pickup man will react when he gets called out. And whether he has an accomplice.”
“I suppose he could start shooting,” Fred put in. “Seventy-five big ones is worth fighting for.”
“Indeed it is,” Wolfe said. “Archie, your thoughts?”
“The man probably will be situated where he can see me set the case down next to that spruce tree and begin walking away. I won’t have a gun showing, and I can’t believe he’d risk doing anything that would endanger his getting away with the money.”
“Of course, he very well may not be the blackmailer himself, just the courier,” Saul pointed out.
I nodded. “True, but whoever he is, he figures to come out of the deal with a nice piece of change.”
“Let me briefly review,” Wolfe said. “Archie sets the case of money down at the tree and begins to move away to the east, his gait deliberate but slow. The man is sure to emerge quickly from hiding to retrieve his treasure. At that point, Saul and Fred, guns drawn, w
ill converge upon the scene from opposite directions and, if all goes well, they will seize both man and money, and with a modicum of force. Archie will also have reversed his direction, and the three of you will deliver this individual to me. Does anyone have something to add?”
“I think that pretty well covers it,” I said, turning to Saul and Fred, both of whom nodded.
“Very well,” Wolfe pronounced. “I trust you all will use your intelligence guided by your experience.”
This was a line he had used on me many times. We were soon to learn how effective his advice would be.
Chapter 12
The predicted heavy rain failed to materialize, with only light showers falling throughout the day. As invariably happens when we are preparing for a critical moment, I found myself on edge, searching for anything that would keep me occupied. I polished three pairs of shoes—two of which did not need it—straightened the neckties in my closet, and dusted the top of my dust-free dresser. In the office, I went back over orchid germination records I had entered onto file cards the day before, thinking I might have made a rare mistake—I hadn’t. I looked at my watch several times each hour, always surprised at how slow its hands were moving. And for most of the day, I totally forgot that somewhere out in the vast reaches of the city there dwelled a man with the stated intent to kill me.
Wolfe, as usual in these situations, appeared totally unconcerned about the evening’s impending drama. At lunch, he held forth on why third parties have been unsuccessful in most American elections, particularly for president, and at dinner, he took the position that television was singularly responsible for lowering the median IQ of the American populace by between ten and twenty points. I mostly nodded and chewed, not fully appreciating the quality of Fritz’s three-star offerings.
Of course, it was somewhat easier for Wolfe to remain calm, given that while Saul, Fred, and I were tramping around in the semi-darkness of the Central Park wilderness, he would be back in the office with a beer and his latest book, or the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, which he invariably finished.
The hours dragged on after dinner. Finally, at nine, I rose from my desk, stretched, took a drink of water from the glass on my desk, and went to the safe for the shoulder holster and the Marley .32. Wolfe looked up from his book as I strapped the holster and gun under my windbreaker. “I sincerely hope that will not be needed,” he said.
“So do I, but tonight I would feel undressed without it. I’m off.” I went out the back way with the attaché case full of dough and yet again retrieved the Heron from the garage, driving it to Saul’s place on Thirty-Eighth, where he and Fred were waiting in front. We headed north in the drizzle and in silence, the tension palpable.
I parked three blocks south of our destination and we split up. Pedestrian traffic was almost non-existent along Central Park West as I walked north on the east side of the street, all too conscious that I was toting more money than many New Yorkers earn in a lifetime. At Seventy-Seventh, I turned east and entered the park, darkened but for the weak light coming from a few streetlamps scattered around.
I made my way along an asphalt walking path toward the blue spruce, aware that Saul and Fred were somewhere nearby, which was comforting. I set the case down at the bottom of the spruce and surveyed the area, seeing and hearing nothing except the chirping of crickets and an occasional car horn. As we had agreed upon, I stepped back and began slowly walking away to the east. I had gotten no more than twenty yards from the tree when a voice from the west called out, “You!”
I turned back toward the sound as a shot and a spark of flame came from the direction of the tree. The pain seared me, and I’m sure I must have cried out. I’d been hit and fell to my knees and then, I think, onto my back. I waited for another shot that was sure to come. It did. I braced for the end, but felt nothing. At that moment, everything got fuzzy, and apparently shock set in. I remember hearing Saul shout, and then Fred. From there on, I was in no state to give a narrative, and almost everything I describe from this point until the next day has been supplied by others, including Saul, Fred, Wolfe, and Doc Vollmer. I am not in a position to quarrel with what they reported about my speech or my actions.
They rushed toward me and lifted me upright on wobbly legs. Fred was holding the attaché case, still closed. “The one who shot you, he’s a goner,” Saul said, motioning to a still, prone figure next to the tree. “Where are you hit?”
“Up there, I think—oh, God, yes.” I touched my left shoulder and winced, the dampness from the wound soaking through my windbreaker.
“We’ll get you to a hospital—fast,” Saul barked.
“No—home!” I said. “Doc Vollmer.” I think we three argued, maybe even shouted at one another. But I must have out-yelled Saul and Fred, because I vaguely remember lying on the backseat of the car, with Fred driving and Saul next to him, keeping watch over me. They pulled up in front of the brownstone. “Screw going in the back way,” Fred said. “Whoever was after you ain’t going to be doing any more shooting now, that’s for damned sure.”
With one on each side, Fred and Saul got me up the steps to the front door, which was opened by a stunned Fritz. “Mon Dieu, Archie!”
I was later told that I was lying on the sofa in the office with Wolfe looking down at me, eyes wide. “Great hounds and Cerberus!” he roared. “What has happened? Saul? Fred?”
“Archie was hit as he walked away after he put the case down next to the tree,” Saul said. “We got the money back, and the one who shot him is dead.”
I was told that I looked up at the three of them, still dazed. “Okay,” I said to Wolfe, “I know you didn’t save my life, which means that one of these two guys did. Fred, did you save my bacon again?”
“Not me, Archie, although you know that I would have,” Fred said, flustered. “I … damn it, I never even had time to get my automatic out. Everything happened so fast.”
“So, Saul, it was you. Thank you. I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Archie. Like Fred, I never fired, not once. I had my revolver ready, all right, but before I could pull the trigger, somebody else did, and the man who shot you caught it.”
“But who?”
“Good question,” Saul said. “But I think right now you should—” He was interrupted by Doc Vollmer, our neighbor and family doctor, who barged into the office. “I came as soon as I got your call, Mr. Wolfe,” he panted, carrying his medical bag. “You said it was an emergency, and …” He looked down at me. “Archie! You are the emergency?”
“He is indeed,” Wolfe barked. “He has been shot. And he needs immediate attention.”
“A bullet wound?” Vollmer said, running a hand over his long, lean jaw. “You know, of course, that I must report it, Mr. Wolfe.”
“It means nothing of the kind, Doctor,” Wolfe said. “This is strictly among those of us in this room.”
The lanky Vollmer drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. “I am sorry, Mr. Wolfe, but it must be reported.”
“No, sir. I seem to remember that over the years, we—and I include Archie—have performed numerous favors for you, including that time when you had found out that you—”
“I remember all too well,” the doctor said stiffly, holding up a hand and shaking his head. “All right, where is the wound, Archie?”
“Left shoulder,” I said, trying without success to avoid groaning.
“I will need a nurse to help me. Call Carol Francis,” Vollmer said to Saul, giving him the number. “She should be home.”
“Now, it seems to me your room is the best place to operate,” he said to me. “Can you get yourself upstairs?”
“Damned right I can, Doc,” I told him. “It’s my shoulder, not a leg.”
“But you are clearly in pain.”
“Yeah, but I can make it. And I sense that you’re going
to give me something for said pain—or at least I hope so.”
As I said earlier, I could give you a play-by-play of the next few hours, but it would be in the words of others, because I don’t remember a damned thing. Suffice it to say that Vollmer and his most attractive brunette nurse, Carol, somehow got me fixed up, and they later told me I was given painkillers that sent me on a trip into another world, one in which smiling barefoot maidens with flowing hair and flimsy, transparent gowns hovered over me and stroked my cheeks, feeding me apples and grapes and wine in goblets while playing soft music on golden harps. I recall almost nothing from the time I was shot until nine thirty the next morning, when Fritz knocked gently on my bedroom door and eased in carrying a breakfast tray.
“You do not look the least bit like how I expected a guardian angel to look, but what the hell, you’ll do until one comes along,” I said.
My feeble attempt at humor did nothing whatever to erase the look of concern on Fritz’s face. “Archie, I was so worried when they brought you in last night. Do you think you might be able to eat something?”
“I may have taken a bullet, as apparently happened to me, but it has no appreciable effect on my appetite that I can tell so far. And I like what I’m seeing, and smelling, on that tray. Bring it on.”
Never have pork sausage links, scrambled eggs, and cornbread muffins tasted as good as they did that morning, maybe because less than twelve hours earlier on the dank ground of Central Park, it looked like I might not live to see another day.
“Did I get any calls this morning?” I asked.
“None, Archie. I would have told you.”
As I ate, Fritz fussed around in the room like a mother hen, sneaking looks at me every so often, maybe to make sure I was still breathing. When he finally took the tray away, I was left with a steaming mug of coffee and a note in an envelope addressed to me. It was from Vollmer, who had surprisingly good handwriting for a doctor. It read:
Archie in the Crosshairs Page 8
