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To Rex Stout (1886–1975), for reasons which must appear obvious; and to Louise A. Estleman (1918–2002), with eternal thanks; this time, for awakening me to the world of the mystery.
“You are simply too conceited, too eccentric, and too fat to work for!”
—ARCHIE GOODWIN
“Pfui!”
—NERO WOLFE
A LEGACY: AND HOW TO TWIST IT (ALMOST) BEYOND RECOGNITION
Preface by Loren D. Estleman
Back in 1992, an editor at Bantam Books asked me to take part in a reissue of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries with introductions written by other writers in the field, appended to their novels of choice. I jumped at the chance, both because I was in excellent company and because I’ve been a Wolfe buff ever since my mother subscribed to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine when I was a boy. A good month was one that brought a new Wolfe novella into that 1867 farmhouse. The mash-up of old-school cerebral bloodhound (Wolfe) and American-style hardboiled dick (Archie Goodwin) addressed my interest in both forms.
I was given my choice of which book to introduce, so I selected Fer-de-Lance, the first in the series. On the one hand, I was busy at the time, and since I’d reread that one recently, I wouldn’t be required to do extra homework. On the other, more important hand (my right, if it matters; it would to Wolfe), weighing in on the first appearance of Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, his loyal operative, secretary, and all-around dogsbody, gave me the opportunity to comment on life in general in the brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street where for forty years the master of the house tended to his orchids, drank beer, ate (and sometimes prepared) elegant meals three times a day, and nabbed the occasional murderer; where his snarky assistant kept the germination records, mother-henned the bank account, did the legwork, and provided muscle when it was required; where Theodore Horstmann oversaw the floral display on the roof twenty-four hours a day, as opposed to Wolfe’s four; and where Fritz Brenner, a chef who could have written his ticket in any five-star restaurant in the world, bickered with the boss about how to roast songbirds [!] and opened the front door to admit (and sometimes refuse admittance to) clients, cops, doctors, lawyers, and murderers.
As I said in that introduction—which because of the book’s reptilian angle and the then-current popularity of a TV melodrama I wanted to call “Snakes and the Fat Man,” but was overruled—there’s something particularly cozy about that agoraphobic setup, where the routine never changed from 1934 to 1976, and where no one aged. A quarter of a century ago, I saw the advantage, as did Archie, of remaining thirty-three forever.
The life may have been a little too cozy. In And Be a Villain, Goodwin arises moderately early for a stakeout, skips breakfast, and by seven fifteen a.m. is nearly prostrate with hunger. The scene reminded me of one in the Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu series, in which an observer marvels that a man kept in suspended animation for three days hadn’t succumbed to starvation. A woman and daughter sharing the scene in Villain are presented in the same predicament. Stout must have been a great proponent of the “most important meal of the day”; I’m content with coffee and orange juice.
That introduction, by the way, cost me $400.
I was paid $200 to write it, and while laying the groundwork began to obsess about that massive globe in Wolfe’s office, and the knowledge that one like it was available in my favorite rare bookstore, priced at $600. I bought it, and don’t regret it; the thing lights up, casting a warm yellow glow over my study in the evening and fueling my fantasies of being invited to join Wolfe and Archie on one of their adventures; the first’s cerebral, the second’s as action-filled as a Bruce Willis film. (Well, almost; I can picture Archie scorning an umpteenth gallop down flights of fire stairs and absenting himself to report to the boss.)
Some critics have taken Stout to task for foisting tepid, easily guessed perpetrators on his readers, depending overmuch on the vividness of his recurring cast to hold his audience. This may be true; although career mystery writer that I am, I’m frequently at a loss to solve mysteries written by colleagues.
Robert B. Parker, in his own introduction to one of the reprints, made the telling point that while the regulars are sharply defined, the gaggle of temporary guests who convene in Wolfe’s office for the final reveal are often interchangeable and difficult to separate from one another; and with this I agree. It may have something to do with the choice of names: Sorting the Jasper Pines from the Nathan Traubs and the Deborah Koppels from the Helen Grants is challenging, either by similarity of cadence or the faint suspicion that their creator didn’t put much time into the christening.
I don’t care, somehow; and somehow, it seems, neither does anyone else. Sherlock Holmes built up his following not so much from his cases and their dramatis personae as from the cozy clutter of the sitting room at 221B, Baker Street, and the fog-choked medieval streets of Victorian London. Many of us are more interested in what exotic concoction Fritz is laying out on the dinner table than in who slew Auntie Roo.
Which explains why the Wolfe novellas tend to leave me cold. The foreshortening demands a greater emphasis on plot and a lesser one on character. The plush surroundings of Wolfe’s office, the intriguing layout of the Manhattan brownstone that constituted his world, and the repartee between master detective and capable assistant and squabbles between homeowner and cook are sketchy at best. I love short fiction, but a man of Wolfe’s girth needs room to swing his elbows.
In any case I find the novella form half-developed at best, like an egg that Wolfe would judge under-poached. With a bit of encouragement, it could aspire to become a novel. With ruthless editing, it could stand as a meaty short story. As it stands, it manages to be both flabby and gaunt.
Wolfe and Goodwin’s thorny relationship—there is no worshipful Dr. Watson here—provides many of the series’ comic moments, and underscores its verisimilitude: After all, who has not worked for a boss who needed a dressing-down from time to time, had the employee the grit to do it? In another genre where I dabble, I patterned the scenes between Page Murdock, deputy U.S. marshal, and his brilliant and egotistical superior, Judge Harlan A. Blackthorne of Montana Territory, on these exchanges. Theirs, too, is a partnership made up of equal parts exasperation and respect.
I’m not sure if the Bantam assignment is when the ghost of the germ of the concept that became Claudius Lyon first materialized; but all the necessary materials were certainly in place, like the various nutrients and whatnot required to grow orchids.
Similar ground had already been broken. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s greatest creation may not have been the first popular character to inspire tributes and parodies, but he must be the most prolific. Disregarding the many affectionate send-ups that appeared while Holmes was still sleuthing, I’ll direct the reader’s attention to August Derleth’s deferential Solar Pons mysteries and Robert L. Fish’s infuriatingly hilarious Schlock Homes burlesques, dripping with inside puns (The Sound of the Basketballs is my favorite) laced with vaudevillian Yiddish. Stout himself entered the fold with numerous sly hints that Wolfe was the illegitimate offspring of Holmes and old flame Irene Adler during the former’s Asian hiatus following his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls.
Nor was I the first to consider abducting Wolfe and Goodwin for my own nef
arious purposes. John Lescroart’s Son of Holmes, featuring a Wolfian household sired by Sherlock’s sluggish obese brother Mycroft, and Robert Goldsborough’s extension of the Wolfe series by commission of the Stout estate—a brief experiment in the dubious tradition of sucking all the remaining blood out of a distinguished career—come to mind.
These were straight-faced pastiches, intended to pay hommage to the originals. To my knowledge, no one yet had attempted the Fish approach, giving thanks for the buggy ride by way of poking affectionate fun at the driver. Mind you, I had some reservations, when “Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe” was published in the June 2008 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, that by the close of summer I’d be chased into the mountains by humorless Wolfe aficionados bearing torches and pitchforks; but when the Wolfe Pack, a national organization founded to honor Stout’s best-known work, invited me to attend its annual convention in New York City (I declined with deep reluctance, being previously engaged), and assured I mustn’t expect a necktie party in my honor—quite the opposite—I sighed in relief.
I shouldn’t have worried. Anyone who’d stick with the series long enough to form an attachment must share Archie Goodwin’s acerbic sense of humor, knowing how much it abraded his employer’s image of himself as the Albert Einstein of detection. Such a loyalist would forgive, perhaps even embrace, the tableau of hero-worshipping nebbish Claudius Lyon, shady leech Arnie Woodbine, and kosher chef Gus, sharing a Brooklyn townhouse with the tomato plants flourishing on the roof despite Lyon’s botanical ineptitude.
Right away I jettisoned homicide from the template, both to keep it light and because word problems and logistical conundrums seemed more suitable to a puzzle fan pretending to be a world-class detective. In place of the danger inherent in attempting to outsmart a murderer, I ramped up the threat factor represented by Inspector Cramer in the Wolfes, fashioning Captain Stoddard of the Brooklyn Bunco Squad into a vindictive bully determined to catch Lyon and Woodbine in the act of accepting payment for investigative services rendered without a license. Hardly the impervious rock of the Stout series, Lyon’s mortal dread of thuggish authority figures, and Woodbine’s criminal record, disinclines him to pursue Goodwin’s favorite hobby of goading the local fuzz. Most of us can identify and sympathize with a character who has a healthy fear of men with badges and guns.
Whether our fitness-challenged hero is nuts or merely an admirer emulating his hero is open to question. Woodbine inclines toward the former, but if that’s the case his affliction hasn’t restricted his ability to reason. Despite his absurdity, he’s the smartest man in any room—as long as that room doesn’t contain Wolfe. He’d be pretty hard to take if he just kept blundering, Three Stooges fashion, into success in spite of himself. I hope readers agree when I say that when he pulls off a coup, astonishing his detractors, we feel as proud as if he were our own awkward child.
Who can question his motives? What’s wrong with maintaining the same comfortable schedule five days a week, dining like a prince three times a day, puttering in a sunlit room mornings and afternoons, and exercising one’s cognitive abilities solving the occasional mystery, especially when one has an Archie/Arnie to dispatch to face the hazards inherent? Such a life must be almost as enjoyable to lead as to write about.
“Wolfe Whistle,” the tenth story following this preface, was written especially for this collection. It appears here for the first time. It may be the last to feature Lyon, as I’m running out of punny titles based on the word wolf. (Without exception, they have provided springboards to the plots.) I welcome suggestions, and if any appeals, I will give due credit to the source, unless the muse in question should prefer to remain anonymous.
Perhaps I sell myself short. Rex Stout seemed never at a loss for the tag most appropriate to the problem at hand. (My all-time favorite? Trio for Blunt Instruments.) But as long as I get to play make-believe, like Claudius Lyon, and walk in the footsteps of the master, maybe I’ll keep finding them.
WHO’S AFRAID OF NERO WOLFE?
“Are you familiar with the work of a writer named Rex Stout?”
There were a hundred good reasons not to answer the Help Wanted notice in the Habitual Handicapper, and only one to answer it; but answer it I did, because I’d been canned for gambling on company time and I was on parole.
The text was brief:
Nimble-witted man needed for multitudinous duties.
Salary commensurate with skill. Room and meals
included. Apply at 700 Avenue J, Flatbush.
Seven hundred was a townhouse, one of those anonymous sandstone jobs standing in a row like widows at a singles club. It ran to three stories and a half-submerged basement, with glass partitions on the roof for a garden or something. A balding party in a cutaway coat someone had forgotten to return to the rental place answered the doorbell. “Who are you, I should ask?”
I took a header on the accent and replied in Yiddish. “Arnie Woodbine, nimble of wit.” I held up the sheet folded to the advertisement.
“Mr. Lyon is in the plant rooms ten minutes more,” he said, in Yiddish also. “In the office you can wait.”
I followed him down a hall and through the door he opened, into a big room furnished as both office and parlor, with a big desk that looked as if it had been carved out of a solid slab of mahogany, rows of oak file cabinets, scattered armchairs, a big green sofa, and a huge globe in a cradle in one corner, plastered all over with countries that hadn’t existed since they gassed all the pet rocks.
As I sat, in an orange leather chair that barely let my feet touch the floor, I came down with a dose of déjà vu. There was something familiar about the setup, but it was as tough to pin down as a dream. Whatever it was it put my freakometer in the red zone. I was set to fly the coop when something started humming, the walls shook, a paneled section slid open, and I got my first look at Claudius Lyon.
He was the best-tailored beach ball I’d ever met: five feet from top to bottom and from side to side in a mauve three-piece with a green silk necktie and pocket square, soft cordovans on his tiny feet. His face was as round as a baby’s, with no more sign of everyday wear-and-tear than a baby’s had. He was carrying something in a clay pot. I was pretty sure it was a tomato plant.
On his way from the elevator he reached up without pausing to straighten a picture that had been knocked crooked by the vibration in the shaft. So far I didn’t exist, but when he finished arranging the pot on the corner of his desk and with a little hop mounted the nearest thing I’d ever seen to a La-Z-Boy on a swivel, he fixed me with bright eyes and introduced himself. He didn’t offer to shake hands.
When I told him my name, he grinned from ear to ear, a considerable expanse. “Indeed,” he squeaked.
I didn’t know why at the time, but I was dead sure I already had the job.
He asked about my work experience. I gave him an honest answer. I’m always honest about my dishonesty when I’m not actually practicing it. “I’m a good confidence man in the second class and a first-class forger. I’ve got diplomas from two institutions to prove it. I don’t have them on me, but you can confirm it by calling my parole officer.”
He dug a finger inside his left ear, a gesture I would get to know as a sign his brain was in overdrive. The faster and more industriously he dug, the more energy his gray cells were putting out.
When he finished he offered me refreshment. “This is the time of day for my first cream soda.”
I declined, not adding that there’s no time of day when I’d ever consent to join him in one, or anyone else. He startled me then by turning his head and shouting, “Gus!” I’d assumed he’d tug on a bell rope or something. The balding gent in the rusty tailcoat entered a minute later carrying a tray with a can on it and a Bamm-Bamm glass. He took the tray away empty and Lyon poured, drank, and belched discreetly into his green pocket square. He folded and tucked it back in place.
“I admire candor, up to a point.” With a show of fastidiousness, he twisted
the pop-top loose from the can, placed it inside his desk drawer, and pushed the drawer shut with his belly. “Yours falls just to the left of that. As it happens, a man who can sell another man a bill of goods would be valuable to this agency. I can also foresee a time when an aptitude with a pen would toe the mark.”
“What agency’s that?”
He lifted the place where eyebrows belonged. “Why, a detective agency, of course. What did you think the job was?”
The coin dropped into the pan; I knew what it was about the situation at 700 Avenue J, from the layout to the funny business with the pop-top, that sent centipedes marching up my spine. Claudius Lyon clinched it with his next question.
“Are you familiar with the work of a writer named Rex Stout?”
That was three years ago. My debt to the State of New York is square, so thank God I don’t have to keep convincing my PO that my association with a screwball like Lyon is legit.
The sticking point was my felon status, and the impossibility of ever qualifying for a license as a private investigator. Lyon hasn’t one, either, lacking as he does the professional experience. He gets around it by not charging for his services.
It’s no hardship, because he’s as rich as the dame who writes the Harry Potter books. His old man had made certain improvements to the gasket that sealed the Cass-O-Matic pressure cooker, which is no longer in manufacture, but NASA has adapted the improvements to the space shuttle, and since the inventor is also no longer in circulation, the royalties come in to Lyon regular as the water bill.
I know what I’m talking about, because it’s my job to deposit the checks in his account. I ordered a deposit only stamp and charged it to household expenses, but I never use it. Lyon’s signature is childlike, absurdly easy to duplicate on the endorsement, and I round the amount deposited to the nearest thousand and pocket the difference. It can be as little as a few bucks or as much as a couple of hundred, and if we ever decide to go our separate ways I can afford to coast for a year or so before I have to turn again to the Help Wanted section.
Nearly Nero Page 1
