Thirteen
After Herb dropped me at the brownstone and drove away forty-five dollars healthier, I briefed Wolfe on the funeral, then set about tackling the rest of his instructions from the night before, which were that I pay visits to Noreen’s roommate, Polly Mars; her sometime boyfriend, Douglas Rojek; and Todd Halliburton, the stubby garbage-mouth I had the misfortune to have met on the last night of Sparky Linville’s life.
I called Noreen at her mother’s place again, informing her I wanted to see her roommate, and she said I could usually find Polly in their apartment during the day on weekends unless she went home to see her family in Bronxville. On weekdays, I was told the best time to find her in was around six at night. “That’s usually when she gets done with whatever modeling job she has and before she goes out for the evening — and Polly goes out a lot,” Noreen said. She didn’t sound very excited about my wanting to see Rojek, but she gave me his phone number and address over in Brooklyn. And she couldn’t feed me any more about Halliburton than she did before, having met him only twice. She repeated that he lived down in the Village and worked for one of the big insurance companies, or so she thought.
I checked the Manhattan directory and found a Halliburton, T.C., on King Street in the Village, then leaned back and contemplated my course of action, glancing occasionally at Wolfe, who remained motionless and noiseless behind his book. I decided after due reflection that I would call on each of the three at home rather than phoning first, opting for the element of surprise — if indeed there was anything to surprise them with. But because it now was almost two-forty-five, there wasn’t time to do much of anything other than sneak out to the kitchen for a quick snack before Lily’s arrival at three. I might be able to see one of them, no more, in the late afternoon, leaving two of the visits for Sunday.
So much for the Mets and Cardinals. I had originally asked Saul to go with me, but now I called and inquired as to whether he could use both tickets. He said his friend, the same one who helped pick me clean at the poker table the night before, had decided to stay in town an extra day, so this all worked out very well — for everybody but yours truly. Saul offered to reimburse me, but I told him to consider this as one warm, gregarious New Yorker’s gift to an out-of-town visitor. Saul made a choking sound and said he’d be by later to collect the tickets.
Because Wolfe hadn’t expressed any preference as to whom I should see first, I decided I would favor Miss Mars with my presence at the earliest opportunity, probably later in the afternoon. I didn’t bother sharing my plan with him, however, knowing that he didn’t care what order I saw them in.
I’m not sure why Wolfe wanted to see Lily, other than because she is one of the few women he feels comfortable with. This may have something to do with her interest in his orchids, which she has asked to see at least a couple of dozen times through the years, and to my knowledge, she has yet to get a turndown.
Anyway, Wolfe’s conversation with Lily did little other than reinforce what he already had learned from Noreen and from what I had reported to him: namely, that both Noreen and Michael James were upstanding, moral, clean-cut, and essentially decent young specimens, although Michael was prone both to stuffiness and to bursts of temper; and that Sparky Linville was crude, boorish, and generally disagreeable.
Wolfe managed to stretch the conversation for an hour, and I knew why: He fully expected Lily to ask to visit the orchids, which she hadn’t seen for a while, and she didn’t disappoint him. So when he left the office at four to go to the plant rooms, he wasn’t alone.
“You two kids have a great time with the posies,” I told Wolfe and Lily as the elevator door started to close. I got a glower from him and a wink from her, then went to the kitchen to inform Fritz that I likely would be gone until dinnertime.
The Noreen James — Polly Mars apartment in the West Eighties was in a four-story building that had known better times. My watch told me it was four-thirty-three when I got out of a cab, walked up the stone steps into the small vestibule, and rang the bell next to the nameplate that said MARS — JAMES 3-W. I waited fifteen seconds, cursed in a whisper, and rang again. This time I was rewarded with a static-riddled “Yes?”
“Archie Goodwin — I’m a friend of your roommate, Noreen,” I said, leaning close to the speaker and talking both slowly and loudly. A lady passing by on the sidewalk with a white poodle stopped and stared at me.
“I don’t know you,” came the crisp response, to which I suggested she call Noreen at her mother’s apartment, hoping I was understood through the archaic intercom.
I waited two minutes, three, five, and then I heard something that sounded like “Okay” rasp through the speaker, followed by a click that released the door. The walk up two dark, narrow flights that smelled of disinfectant confirmed my initial impression of the building. At 3-W I knocked and identified myself, getting another muffled “Okay” from within. The door opened as far as the chain would allow, and I saw one slice of what looked to be a well-arranged face.
“You’re Archie Goodwin?” the slice asked. “May I see identification?” I pulled out my laminated private investigator’s license, which has my picture on it, and held it close. “All right, you’re you,” Polly Mars said, swinging the door open and revealing that the whole face was well-arranged indeed. Noreen hadn’t exaggerated her roommate’s beauty. “I’m sorry to have taken so long, but, well, you have to be careful, you know. Also, I just finished washing my hair when you rang,” she said, gesturing toward the white towel coiled atop her head that hid all but a few strands of very blond hair. “Please come in. And sit down.”
The living room wasn’t overly large, but it was nicely furnished — a pleasant surprise after the front of the building and the hallway. Music — it sounded like something from an opera — was playing softly. I parked on a comfortable-looking beige sofa while Polly Mars, wearing blue jeans, a loose white blouse, and sneakers, sat in a wing chair at my right. “I just phoned Noreen, like you said,” she told me. “She said you wanted to talk about Sparky and everything, and she also said that it was okay to answer whatever you asked. Isn’t it terrible about her brother being arrested and all?” She talked with her long manicured fingers, moving them with each syllable.
“Yes, it is, Miss Mars. When did you find out about the arrest?”
More hand fluttering. “Oh, just now, from Noreen. She’s really upset. I suppose it’s been in the papers and all, but I never seem to get around to reading them, although I know I should. She told me you and Nero Wolfe are trying to prove Michael didn’t... do it.”
“That’s right. First off, I’d like your thoughts on why Michael James would want to kill Mr. Linville.”
Polly sucked on her lower lip and let her eyes move around the room, as if she were thinking. She had some stagy mannerisms, for sure, but you could probably chalk that up to her modeling. It was easy to imagine her peddling toothpaste on TV. “Well, I... I don’t know.”
“Remember Noreen’s words — that it is okay to answer any question I ask,” I said with a smile.
She tucked one leg under her and frowned, as if responding to a cue. “Well, I guess you know that Noreen went out with Sparky, don’t you?” I nodded. “Something went wrong, it was on their second date. She didn’t talk to me about it, but I could tell,” she said.
“How?”
“She got really withdrawn, you know? She didn’t talk hardly at all for days. I was visiting my parents that weekend — they live up in Bronxville — and when I came back here, she was like a different person. Quieter — a lot quieter. And one thing was for sure — she didn’t want to see Sparky anymore.”