“Well, what do you think of our young suspect?” I asked Wolfe back in the office.
“Pah. The man is as diaphane as a pane of plate glass,” he huffed.
“Uh-huh. If he ever set foot in that garage, then I’m a nuclear physicist.”
Wolfe made a face at my phrasing and opened his new book, A Brief History of Time, by Stephen W. Hawking. For him, the working day, such as it was, had ended, and I was in no mood to badger him any further. After all, I already had my assignments for tomorrow, and he was just perverse enough to cancel them if I became what he terms an insufferable nuisance.
Fifteen
On Sundays, the brownstone’s by-the-numbers schedule gets a breather. For Fritz, it’s a free day, although sometimes he stays around and he and Wolfe whip up something together for lunch. More often, though, he takes off, leaving His Largeness free to run amok in the kitchen, where he actually prepares his own meals on what is for him a haphazard timetable. The plant-room schedule also flies out the window. Theodore usually visits his sister in New Jersey for the day, and Wolfe may make one or even two random voyages to the roof to putter. But he spends most of the day lazing in the chair at his desk, wrestling with the Sunday Times, particularly the “Week in Review” section and the magazine, whose crossword puzzle is no match for him.
My day is likewise generally unstructured. I also do a bit of improvising in the kitchen, at least in the morning, and after plowing through my own copy of the Times, I’ve been known to amble over to Lily’s penthouse. Sometimes the two of us have lunch at her place and dinner out, other times we reverse the procedure or maybe go to a concert or a ballgame. And when Lily isn’t available, I wing it, as I thought I was doing by taking in the Mets double-header with Saul. But you already know what happened to that plan.
Actually, I’m not averse to working Sundays because, whatever faults I find with Wolfe, he is flexible regarding time off, and he has mellowed to where he feels a Sunday spent toiling is worth two days of freedom at another time. All of which helps make it possible for me to occasionally escape with Lily to her not-so-humble country place up near Katonah for extra-long weekends without eating into my vacation time.
I decided to tackle Douglas Rojek first on that overcast Sabbath morning. It was just past eleven when, after having consumed scrambled eggs, link sausage, whole-wheat toast, orange juice, two cups of coffee, and all I wanted of the Times, I stood up from my desk, stretched, and announced to Wolfe that I was about to venture forth on behalf of the Family James. He grunted an acknowledgment but did not look up from the paper, so I made a witty remark about not being appreciated and slipped on my suit coat, reminding him to bolt the door behind me. After all, Wolfe has made enough enemies through the years to fill Madison Square Garden, and a goodly number undoubtedly know our address.
The day was pleasantly cool for late July in New York, and it looked like rain again. I briefly considered getting the Mercedes from the garage for the trip across the East River, but decided in favor of a cab, which I hailed on Eighth Avenue. The driver balked at going to Brooklyn Heights, but when I asked his name and started writing his license number in my notebook, he growled for me to get in, and we drove through the nearly empty streets in silence, which suited me fine.
Twenty-two minutes and one bridge later, I found myself on a hilly tree-lined block that could be termed gentrified, which is real-estate shorthand for expensive. The buildings on both sides were three- and four-story brownstones, and they all looked as if they had been given a face lift in the last few years. There were no children in sight, hardly a surprise considering the neighborhood’s prices.
Rojek’s building was a three-story number, every bit as nice as any on the block, and judging by the name on the mailbox in the foyer, he lived alone, in 2-N. The young man either came from money or was doing very well indeed across the river in Wall Street’s canyons. I rang his bell and got another squawky “Yes?” through the speaker. When I told the voice I was a friend of Noreen James, I was promptly buzzed in. I climbed the wallpapered stairwell to the third floor, where a thin face wearing a quizzical expression peered from behind a partly open door. “What do you want?” it asked.
“Are you Douglas Rojek?” I said with what I hoped was a friendly, nonthreatening voice to go with my most earnest smile.
“Yes. Who are you?” The door came open a little farther and I could see earnestness, although without a smile, looking back at me in the form of a long face with prominent cheekbones topped by sandy hair that spilled over one side of a high forehead. He wore khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt open at the collar. A college ring with a dark blue stone gleamed from his finger.
“My name is Archie Goodwin, and I am in the employ of Nero Wolfe, of whom you may have heard. Mr. Wolfe is investigating the death of Barton Linville, and his client is Noreen—”
“Noreen?” he cut in, shaking his head. “I... Oh, come in, come in. I can’t get over what’s happened.” He directed me into a good-sized, light living room furnished with some pricey contemporary pieces. The Sunday Times was stacked in two neat piles on the floor. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa and moving his angular frame to a chair. Douglas Rojek was all of six-three, but if he weighed one-sixty, it would have to be with all his clothes on, including a fur-lined overcoat and thick-soled boots.
“All right, Mr.... Goodwin, isn’t it?” Rojek hunched his shoulders and shifted nervously as he sat with his legs wide apart. “Tell me what’s happening. I’ve seen the papers and watched the TV news, of course, and I’ve tried to phone Noreen, but her mother answers and says she can’t be disturbed. And Michael — he’s, what, out on bond? God, I just can’t believe any of this is happening. It’s incredible. A nightmare.” He shook his head and yanked a cigarette pack from his pocket, lighting up with a match and offering me one, which I declined.
“It certainly seems like a nightmare to all the Jameses,” I agreed. “You know Michael well, very well from what I gather. Do you think he’s capable of murder? Specifically, of murdering Sparky Linville?”
“Well... the papers are saying he did it because of... well, something that happened between him — Linville, I mean — and Noreen.” Rojek kept his eyes on the stack of business magazines on the glass coffee table.
“I know what the papers are saying. I want to know what you think.”
Rojek ground out his cigarette in the ashtray although it was barely a third smoked, then ran a long-fingered hand over his face and chin. “I don’t know what to think. At this point, the whole thing is more than I can understand.”
“How would you describe your relationship with Noreen James?”
He went through the cigarette-lighting ritual again. “A terrific person,” he said. “But then, I don’t have to tell you that; you know her.”
“I do indeed. Right now, though, we’re talking about you and her.”
He took a long drag and watched the smoke waft toward the ceiling. He was apparently one of those who’d seen too many Bogart movies, which was all right — so was I. I waited, knowing the pressure was building; I was prepared to give him thirty seconds, but as it turned out, twenty was enough.