by Josh Pachter
Lyon shrugged and cracked open the can I’d placed on the desk. He took a slug and began.
“Mr. Nurls. When was the Van Dusen Prize first presented?”
“Fifteen years ago this fall. It went to—”
“The American Poetical Association was then ten years old?”
“Yes. I don’t see what this has to do with Noah Ward. He wasn’t honored until years later.”
“I will establish relevance presently. I suppose it goes without saying that, before the existence of the ten-thousand-dollar honorarium, the encomium was not referred to as a prize.”
“It does, and yet you said it. A prize without a prize is hardly a prize.”
“Poetically put. How, then, was it referred to?”
“It was called the Golden Muse Award. The plaque still contains an etching in gold of Calliope and Erato, the—”
“Thank you. During our first conversation, you said the man you replaced as executive director had held that position since the A.P.A. was founded, is that correct?”
“Yes. Really, Mr. Lyon—”
This time Stoddard interrupted. “I’m with Poindexter. Connect this to a scam artist who conned the sissies out of a bundle.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. That is not my intention.”
Even Gus took his eyes off his escape route to stare at Lyon. Stoddard and Nurls started talking at once. I gave up trying to get it all down.
A pudgy palm came up for silence; the owner broke it himself when his voice squeaked. “I have been engaged to untangle the mystery that surrounds the elusive Noah Ward. I shall now proceed to do so. Mr. Nurls, when you spoke with your predecessor on the telephone, did he call the Van Dusen Prize by that name?”
Nurls started to speak, then adjusted his glasses and started again. “No. As a matter of fact, he just called it ‘the award.’ I assume he did so out of habit.”
“Not unusual for one long familiar with the original. How did he read off the names of past winners?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he say, ‘The Golden Muse Award in 1988 went to Joe Doakes, the Golden Muse Award in 1989 went to Jane Doe,’ and so on and so forth?”
“Certainly not. The conversation would have been interminable. He provided the year and the name in each instance, and I wrote them down.”
Lyon drank, burped, wiped. “One of my abandoned interests is the history of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. I gave up the study when it became clear that the board at Columbia University would never honor Rex Stout, or more appropriately Archie Goodwin, for his many contributions to American letters. I do recall that in 1940, when the director of the board objected to the others’ choice of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, it was decided that no prize would be issued that year. Are you aware if this ever happened in regard to the Van Dusen Prize or the Golden Muse?”
“It never did. The former executive director read off twenty-four years and twenty-four names. This year’s winner has not yet been determined.”
“I submit that it happened, and that he told you as much when he used the phrase you misunderstood for a man’s name. The three syllables you interpreted as ‘Noah Ward,’ had they been spelled out, would in fact read—”
“No award.” Nurls slumped in his seat. I hadn’t thought his spine had that much play in it.
Stoddard shot to his feet. His tape recorder slid off his knee to the floor. “You took up my precinct’s time and mine over a dumb-ass pun?”
“A homonym, to be precise. A hazard of oral communication.”
“You and Woodbine are both under arrest for obstruction of justice.”
Lyon’s moon face was gray as cardboard, but he held his ground. “Don’t be absurd, Mr. Stoddard. I’ve prevented Mr. Nurls from obstructing justice unwittingly by filing a nuisance complaint. If there never was a Noah Ward, no fraud was perpetrated, and the A.P.A. simply reinvested the money that would have been awarded, assuring the continued existence of the Van Dusen Prize. I have you to thank for a signal accomplishment on my part.”
“Don’t drag me into it, you little blimp.”
“No dragging is necessary, sir. Earlier today in this very room, you referred to the Van Dusen as an award, not a prize, and employed an emphatic ‘No!’ to indicate your rejection of the importance of the affair to the police. You may have noticed that at that point I entered into a reverie.”
“You stuck your finger in your ear.”
“I find the action stimulates the cortex. Granted you hadn’t a notion you were supplying a catalyst for the chemistry of my cognitive function, but that in no way diminishes your role in the outcome. I congratulate you.”
“Bull. Since when is wordplay a signal accomplishment?”
“I must thank you again, for putting the question. In spite of the laws of physics, I have managed to change a tint of paint by adding a small amount of light to dark. In spite of Aristotle’s philosophy, I have proven that someone never existed.”
Nurls produced a checkbook, scribbled, and got up to place the check on Claudius Lyon’s desk. “Two thousand, including a bonus for a job well done. You are a magician.”
Captain Stoddard hovered. I wouldn’t say he drooled, but he was ready to pounce the second Lyon touched the check.
The man behind the desk never looked at it. “Arnie, will you do the honors?”
I said I’d be pleased as punch. Nurls watched, astonished, Stoddard boiling, as I tore the check sideways, lengthwise, and crosswise, and dropped the pieces into the wastebasket by my desk.
Stoddard slammed the door behind him, knocking crooked the picture on the wall. Lyon said good-bye to our client, rose, and straightened it on his way to the elevator.
Julius Katz and the Case of Exploding Wine
by Dave Zeltserman
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It should be obvious from his name that my Julius Katz stories are a tribute to Nero Wolfe. Or to Rex Stout. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure which it is. Like Wolfe, my fictional PI is brilliant and able to solve cases that flummox the police. Also like Wolfe, Julius is rather lazy and would rather spend his time engaging in leisure activities than working, but the bills must be paid! And, also like Wolfe, he has an erstwhile assistant named Archie who will pester him to no end to take a case when his bank account reaches an anemic level. But there are some significant differences between Wolfe and Julius. Julius is in his forties, athletic, holds a fifth-degree black belt in Hung Gar kung fu, is a womanizer (or at least he was before he met Lily Rosten in the first story in the series), and is an expert gambler, with his game of choice being poker. While he might drink a beer occasionally, he collects wines—which I personally know nothing about (like Wolfe, I’m a beer drinker), but having Julius collect expensive wine provides additional motivation for him to take a case.
My Archie, though, is very different than Archie Goodwin. Though he narrates these stories (as Goodwin did with the Nero Wolfe tales) and has the heart and soul of a hard-boiled PI, he’s not flesh and blood. Instead he’s a whiz-bang piece of technology that Julius wears as a tie clip and is twenty years more advanced than anything thought possible outside of the lab that created him. Still, he’s very human in his own way, and it’s his relationship with Julius that drives these stories.
At one thirty-three in the afternoon, Julius had a highly rated Argentinian Malbec decanting that was supposed to have rich cherry and plum flavors with hints of cocoa and black pepper while he hand cut paper-thin slices of Prosciutto Toscano with the skill of a master charcutier. As he did this, I tried to use my time productively by identifying the mysterious fifth murder suspect, but found that I was too peeved to do so. Or maybe I was too miffed. Or too injured. It was such a new experience I wasn’t sure which it was, or understood the nuances that differentiated between feeling miffed or peeved or deeply insulted. All I knew was tha
t I felt as if a thick, almost suffocating heat had built up inside my central processing unit, which kept me from being able to focus on any sort of work.
Let me explain by going back ninety-two days. That was when Julius accepted a retainer from Allen Luther, the dog-food king. When Luther called to make the appointment, he insisted on bringing along with him his prizewinning English bulldog Brutus. As far as I knew, a dog had never before entered Julius’s Beacon Hill townhouse, let alone his office, but I told Luther to go ahead and bring the animal. First, Luther was promising a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer for a possible investigation that might never happen. Second, Luther and Julius were on friendly terms. They were both members of the Belvedere Club, and had sat at the same table together for at least three wine dinners that I knew of, where they discussed wine, cognac, and Boston’s fine dining. Third, Brutus was more than just a prizewinning bulldog—he had won Best in Show at the prestigious Kensington Kennel Club three years running, making him possibly the world’s most famous dog. And fourth, Julius had fallen into a rut since collecting two hundred grand from Pritchard of London, who paid Julius the fee for saving them millions on what turned out to be an insurance scam. I figured he needed some shaking up, so I scheduled the appointment with the world-famous bulldog in tow and conveniently forgot to tell Julius about it. It wasn’t until Allen Luther rang the bell at the scheduled time that I informed Julius about the appointment.
“He called three days ago while you were engaged in your daily two-hour kung fu workout,” I said. “I apologize for not telling you earlier. It must’ve slipped my mind. But since Luther is willing to pay you twenty thousand dollars to do nothing, and you’ve gotten so adept at doing exactly that since Pritchard of London paid you the fee they owed, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
While the world knows me as Julius’s assistant, unofficial biographer, and all-around man Friday, I’m a little different than how most people picture me. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not exactly human. What I am is a two-inch rectangular piece of highly advanced computer technology that Julius wears as a tiepin. But that’s not how I imagine myself. When I do picture myself, it’s as a stocky man in his thirties with thinning brown hair and a tough bulldog countenance, and that image is probably due to Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op works, which were among the books used to program my knowledge base. At that moment, when I checked the outdoor webcam and saw what Luther was carrying, the image that flashed vividly in my neuron network was of myself as that heavyset man grinning as widely as any jack-o’-lantern.
I told Julius in a deadpan voice, “You might like to know that Luther has brought with him a bottle of 1996 Château La Mondotte Saint-Emilion.”
That mix of Merlot and Cabernet went for over six hundred bucks a bottle, and I knew Julius coveted it. Although Julius liked Luther enough to discuss fine wines and cognacs, and liked even more the idea of earning twenty grand for doing nothing, if it wasn’t for that wine he might very well have had me cancel the appointment, simply to teach me a lesson. But because of the Château La Mondotte Saint-Emilion, Julius conceded to ask, with his annoyance mostly in check, “What’s this about?”
“I don’t know. Only that there’s a twenty-grand retainer involved for a job you might never have to do.”
There was only a slight hesitation before Julius pushed himself out of his chair and left his office so he could answer the door. Luther, on seeing the way Julius eyed Brutus and being no fool himself, handed Julius the six-hundred-dollar bottle of wine before Julius could utter a word.
“The last time we talked, you mentioned you’ve been wanting to try this vintage,” Luther said gruffly.
Allen Luther at sixty-three was a large man, both in height and girth. According to his driver’s license, he was six foot three and two hundred and eighty pounds, although I judged his weight at closer to three hundred and twenty. Not only was he the undisputed dog-food king, but, with a massive sheepskin coat draped around him and his large round head fringed with short red hair and the bottom half of his face covered with a carefully cropped red beard, he had an air of nobility that made me think of someone who could’ve been an English king in the eighteenth century.
I knew Julius was expecting the two hundred grand Pritchard of London had paid him to allow him to live idly for another six months, even given his expensive tastes—which had gotten more expensive since he met Lily—but under the circumstances he had little choice but to lead the way to his office while Allen Luther and Brutus plodded along behind him. I haven’t mentioned anything about Brutus yet, and I don’t know what to say other than he had a squat muscular body with brown-and-white fur and a thick jowly face. What it was that made him Best in Show three years running, I had no clue, but then again the only dog breed I’d ever researched was greyhounds, and that was only to build a race-simulation model that could beat Julius at the track, which I had failed at.
Luther took the chair across from Julius, while Brutus plopped down on the floor next to his owner. After declining Julius’s offer of refreshments, Luther got down to business. “I have two items I need to discuss with you,” he said, grim-faced. “The first involves Brutus.” Luther’s lips momentarily compressed into a harsh, bloodless line. Then he continued, saying, “Since Brutus’s third win at Kensington, I’ve been besieged with offers for him, some of which have bordered on outright threats of stealing him if I don’t agree to sell him. The nerve of these bastards! I need to make sure Brutus isn’t dognapped.”
“I’m sorry, Allen, but that’s not the kind of work I’m willing to take on.”
“I know it isn’t.” Luther brusquely waved off Julius’s comment, his face folding into a frown that would’ve made the bulldog proud. “But I’m hoping you can refer me to someone who’s capable of handling the job. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let someone steal him!”
“I can give you the name of a private investigator who’s done work for me,” Julius said. “Your second item?”
Allen Luther cleared his throat. A glint showed in his eyes as he met Julius’s gaze. “If someone murders me, I want you to catch the bastard,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly clear given how raspy he had just sounded.
Julius arched an eyebrow. “Are you expecting to be murdered?”
“I hope not. But there have been a couple of troublesome incidents.” Luther shook his head, scowling. “Four days ago, someone almost ran me down while I was crossing the street. It was a near miracle that I scooped up Brutus and dove out of the way.” He lowered his gaze and bit down on his thumbnail as he replayed the incident in his head. “It could’ve just been a careless Boston driver,” he said. “Some nitwit texting and not watching the road. But my gut is telling me that the driver intentionally aimed at me, or possibly even Brutus. And you don’t build the dog-food empire I’ve built without trusting your gut.”
Luther grew silent after that. Julius sat patiently waiting for the dog-food king to continue talking, and he didn’t have to wait long. Eighteen point four seconds later, Luther’s round, heavy face began to blush red with either anger or embarrassment, I wasn’t sure which. “I should’ve seen who was driving, or at least noticed what type of car it was,” he said. “But it was dark, and it all happened so fast that I can’t tell you anything about the car or the driver.”
“Any witnesses?”
“None. And don’t bother asking about video surveillance cameras. I asked my security chief to look into that, and there were none in the area.” Once again, Luther lowered his gaze from Julius’s, his jowls sagging as much as Brutus’s. “If that was the only incident, I would’ve chalked it up to bad luck, but it wasn’t. Three weeks ago, I was dining at Bellemonds when I detected a whiff of bitter almond from a glass of thirty-year Talisker that was brought to me. At least, I’m fairly certain I did.”
“Cyanide,” Julius said.
Luther nodded, hi
s scowl deepening. “I wish I’d had the presence of mind to have saved the scotch so I could’ve had it analyzed. But I didn’t. Instead, I sent it back.” His voice lowered into a raspy growl as he added, “I hope no one in the kitchen drank it. At least if there really was cyanide in it.”
I did some quick hacking and checked the local hospitals for any reported cyanide poisonings from three weeks ago, and there weren’t any. If someone had tried slipping Luther a mickey, the drink most likely ended up poured down the sink, although it could’ve been drunk by a member of Bellemonds’s kitchen staff with the individual either holed up sick afterwards, or dying without an autopsy revealing the cause. I told Julius this. Since I communicate to Julius through an earpiece he wears, Luther was none the wiser.
“Thomas Pike has been dead for fifteen years,” Julius said, “but Andrew Nevin is still alive. Anyone else you know of who might want you dead?”
It always surprises me what Julius comes up with, and, from Allen Luther’s reaction, this surprised him also.
“You know about Pike and Nevin, huh?” he said. “I didn’t ask Pike to embezzle from me. I don’t care what his reasons were, I had every right to have him arrested, and it’s not my fault he committed suicide!”
Luther’s outburst caused Brutus to lift his head. The dog-food king noticed this and continued, his voice lowering to a softer growl: “With Nevin, it was only business. I won and he lost. Too bad if he has hurt feelings about it. As far as anyone else out there, I don’t know. This dog-food business can be a dog-eat-dog world. You make enemies you never even know about.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Maybe my son-in-law. Forget I said that.”
Julius leaned farther back in his chair, his fingers interlaced as he rested his hands on his stomach. Sighing, he said, “Your money would be better spent keeping you alive. My advice is that you hire security personnel to protect you. If you insist on hiring me as well, I recommend that I instead look into whether there’s a real threat against you, and, if there is, who’s behind it.”
