said, “Hell, I wouldn’t starve either. I’ve got two families. I don’t live here like Archie, but I like to think this is my
professional
family.”
Saul said, “So do I. I raise. I’ll pay expenses—mine.”
Wolfe said, “Pfui. It’s
my
affair. Archie, five hundred to each of them. There may be occasion to buy some facts. Record it as usual; it may be deductible, at least some of it.”
I went and opened the safe, got the reserve cash box, and made three piles—ten twenties, twenty tens, and twenty fives, all used bills. When I finished, the members of the family were on their feet, including Wolfe. He had shaken hands with them when they arrived, but they didn’t offer now because they knew he didn’t like it. They took the bills and went to the hall for their coats.
When I returned to the office after letting them out and sliding the bolt, Wolfe had the list of names and the conversation with Igoe in his hand. Taking them up to bed with him. “Still half an hour to midnight,” he said. “I’ll sleep, and so will you. Good night.”
I returned it and started collecting glasses and bottles.
Chapter 8
A t a quarter past ten Thursday morning I left the South Room and closed the door, which was no longer honored with the seal of the NYPD. Ralph Kerner, of Town House Services Incorporated, closed his imitation-leather-bound book and said, “I’ll try to get the estimate to you by Monday. Tell Mr. Wolfe to expect the worst. That’s all we get nowadays, the worst, from all directions.”
“Yeah, we expect it and we get it. Isn’t there a discount for a room where a man has just been murdered?”
He laughed. Always laugh at a customer’s joke, even a bum one. “There certainly ought to be. I’ll tell Mr. Ohrbach. So you took him up and left him.” He laughed. “Good thing you left.”
“It sure was. I may be dumb, but not that dumb.”
Following him down the two flights, I would have liked to plant a foot on his fanny and push but controlled it.
The office chores were done, but I had been interrupted on a job of research—a phone call to Nathaniel Parker to ask for a report on the lawyers, Judd and Ackerman, one to our bank for a report on Hahn, thebanker, and one to Lon Cohen about Roman Vilar, security, and Ernest Urquhart, lobbyist. I had enough on Igoe unless there were developments. Huh. Also one of the bottom shelves had seven directories, not counting the telephone books for the five boroughs and Westchester and Washington, and I had the
Directory of Directors
open at N to see if any of them were on the NATELEC list when Wolfe came down.
Three days’ mail was on his desk, and he went at it. First, as usual, a quick once-through, dropping about half in the wastebasket. Of course I had chucked most of the circulars and other junk. He answers nearly all real letters, especially handwritten ones, because he once told me, it is a mandate of civility. Also, I said, all he had to do was talk to me and he loved to talk, and he nodded and said that when he had to write them by hand he hadn’t answered any. I said then he wasn’t civilized, and that started him off on one of his hairsplitting speeches. We answered about twenty letters, three or four from orchid collectors and buffs as usual, with a few interruptions, phone calls from Parker and Lon Cohen and Fred Durkin. When I swiveled to my desk I was surprised to see him go to the shelves for a book—Fitzgerald’s translation of the
Iliad
. In the mail there had been an inscribed copy of Herblock’s new book,
Special Report
, with about a thousand cartoons of Nixon, but apparently he no longer needed to read or look at pictures about it because he was working on it. So he sat and read about a phony horse instead of a phony statesman.
He tasted his lunch all right. First marrow dumplings, and then sweetbreads poached in white wine, dipped in crumbs and eggs, sautéed, and doused with almonds in brown butter. I had had it at
professional
family.”
Saul said, “So do I. I raise. I’ll pay expenses—mine.”
Wolfe said, “Pfui. It’s
my
affair. Archie, five hundred to each of them. There may be occasion to buy some facts. Record it as usual; it may be deductible, at least some of it.”
I went and opened the safe, got the reserve cash box, and made three piles—ten twenties, twenty tens, and twenty fives, all used bills. When I finished, the members of the family were on their feet, including Wolfe. He had shaken hands with them when they arrived, but they didn’t offer now because they knew he didn’t like it. They took the bills and went to the hall for their coats.
When I returned to the office after letting them out and sliding the bolt, Wolfe had the list of names and the conversation with Igoe in his hand. Taking them up to bed with him. “Still half an hour to midnight,” he said. “I’ll sleep, and so will you. Good night.”
I returned it and started collecting glasses and bottles.
Chapter 8
A t a quarter past ten Thursday morning I left the South Room and closed the door, which was no longer honored with the seal of the NYPD. Ralph Kerner, of Town House Services Incorporated, closed his imitation-leather-bound book and said, “I’ll try to get the estimate to you by Monday. Tell Mr. Wolfe to expect the worst. That’s all we get nowadays, the worst, from all directions.”
“Yeah, we expect it and we get it. Isn’t there a discount for a room where a man has just been murdered?”
He laughed. Always laugh at a customer’s joke, even a bum one. “There certainly ought to be. I’ll tell Mr. Ohrbach. So you took him up and left him.” He laughed. “Good thing you left.”
“It sure was. I may be dumb, but not that dumb.”
Following him down the two flights, I would have liked to plant a foot on his fanny and push but controlled it.
The office chores were done, but I had been interrupted on a job of research—a phone call to Nathaniel Parker to ask for a report on the lawyers, Judd and Ackerman, one to our bank for a report on Hahn, thebanker, and one to Lon Cohen about Roman Vilar, security, and Ernest Urquhart, lobbyist. I had enough on Igoe unless there were developments. Huh. Also one of the bottom shelves had seven directories, not counting the telephone books for the five boroughs and Westchester and Washington, and I had the
Directory of Directors
open at N to see if any of them were on the NATELEC list when Wolfe came down.
Three days’ mail was on his desk, and he went at it. First, as usual, a quick once-through, dropping about half in the wastebasket. Of course I had chucked most of the circulars and other junk. He answers nearly all real letters, especially handwritten ones, because he once told me, it is a mandate of civility. Also, I said, all he had to do was talk to me and he loved to talk, and he nodded and said that when he had to write them by hand he hadn’t answered any. I said then he wasn’t civilized, and that started him off on one of his hairsplitting speeches. We answered about twenty letters, three or four from orchid collectors and buffs as usual, with a few interruptions, phone calls from Parker and Lon Cohen and Fred Durkin. When I swiveled to my desk I was surprised to see him go to the shelves for a book—Fitzgerald’s translation of the
Iliad
. In the mail there had been an inscribed copy of Herblock’s new book,
Special Report
, with about a thousand cartoons of Nixon, but apparently he no longer needed to read or look at pictures about it because he was working on it. So he sat and read about a phony horse instead of a phony statesman.
He tasted his lunch all right. First marrow dumplings, and then sweetbreads poached in white wine, dipped in crumbs and eggs, sautéed, and doused with almonds in brown butter. I had had it at
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