Anyway, Morgana’s was hardly hopping, unless, contrary to Fred’s observation, there was indeed a back door through which hordes of eager visitors were funneling. Finally a cab delivered one young couple, then another, and a third twosome, not quite as young, departed and the doorman listlessly flagged a taxi for them. I yawned, half-wishing I still smoked, and leaned back, trying to find a way to get comfortable with a metal grille as a vertical mattress. The luminous dial on my watch told me it was ten-twenty. Was it possible that Sparky Linville had found a reason to spend the whole night in Morgana’s?
Just when I was beginning to seriously consider packing it in, the chrome doors swung open and out popped the subject himself, along with his sidekick. Before I continue, honesty compels me to report that when, the next morning, I filled Wolfe in on the events at Morgana’s, he was understandably less than impressed. “Archie,” he said, “as I have stated often, your impetuosity constitutes both a signal strength and a glaring liability. This episode manifestly demonstrates the latter. You were without a feasible plan.”
Okay, so Wolfe had it right. I hadn’t used those so-called reflective moments back in the office to plan anything remotely resembling a strategy. Anyway, these two guys were out on the sidewalk in front of Morgana’s talking to the doorman as I hustled across the street, dodging a car and a Korean delivery boy on his bike. The doorman had his lips puckered to use his cab whistle when I joined the threesome. “Sparky Linville?” I said to the taller one, who had slicked-back dark hair and deep-set, brooding eyes that made him seem as if he’d just stepped out of a Giorgio Armani magazine ad.
Linville turned toward me and gave a tense Kirk Douglas smile, showing a perfect set of pearlies. “Could be. What’s it to ya, Jack?” So far, he seemed to be in character.
“I want to talk to you for a few minutes — alone.” I looked meaningfully at his sawed-off, white-headed friend and then at the doorman. The latter seemed to be exceedingly interested in the buttons on his powder-blue coat.
“And just what have we got here, yet another newspaperman?” Linville folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head to one side, chin up. “I haven’t seen you before, have I now, old chap?” he said. I know Lexington Avenue hot-dog vendors who can do a better English accent.
“No, I’m not with a paper, I—”
Linville’s pipsqueak friend cut in with a word I’m not going to repeat on these pages, but which got my attention. “Listen, you pygmy weasel, how’d you like to be used as a street sweeper?” I said, pivoting toward him. He repeated the word, and reflexively I cocked my right arm, but it was halted by the doorman before I could start its arc, which was just as well. At that moment, a well-dressed yuppie couple emerged from Morgana’s, and the woman, wearing a white fur jacket that was superfluous given the weather, let out a squeal. “Oh, Josh, they’re fighting,” she keened in a liquor-laced tone. “How awful!”
“How stupid, you mean,” Josh huffed in a voice that showed one member of the pair to be sober, even if he didn’t know how to match a sport coat and slacks. “This place started going downhill months ago. Damned if we’ll be back. Come on, we can find our own cab.”
“Please, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to move on. I know you don’t want any trouble,” the doorman said quietly, his hand gripping my wrist. He was probably pushing sixty, with white hair, a red face, and blue eyes that matched his silly coat, and he looked at me with a long-suffering expression, as if he’d seen it all right out here in front of Morgana’s and it had stopped holding his interest a generation ago.
“Yeah, listen to the man and stir the dust, Jack,” young Linville said, shedding his lamentable English accent, “or I’ll lose my patience and turn Hallie here loose on you.”
The shrimps both guffawed, and the doorman, whom I could easily have brushed aside and who knew it, gradually released his hold on my wrist. “Please, sir,” he repeated, “I’ll have to ask you to leave these gentlemen alone.”
“You need to work on your terminology,” I said evenly, but we all knew I had lost the skirmish. As I turned and stalked off, the laughter of the two followed me, along with the shrill of the doorman’s cab whistle.
Four
I’ve never been much for saloon drinking, particularly when I’m alone, but I made an exception that night. After leaving the trio in front of Morgana’s, I walked south on Second Avenue for about six blocks. I was still steaming when I decided to drop into a small Irish bar that wasn’t doing much business. Two Scotch-and-waters later, I was still plenty mad, but at least I was beginning to unwind and not think about the satisfaction it would give me to drop-kick both Linville and his gutter-mouthed little buddy off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into the East River.
Even with the relaxed feeling the drinks gave me, I felt my system could benefit from more exercise, so I tipped the bartender and walked the rest of the way home, arriving on the front stoop of the brownstone at twelve-seventeen. Because the door was double-locked, I had to ring for Fritz to let me in, which didn’t make me feel guilty because he always stays up reading till well past midnight. Wolfe had turned in, though, I noticed as I peeked into the dark office on my way up to bed.
Despite the turmoil of the evening, I slept hard, getting my quota, and was in the kitchen at the usual time the next morning with the Times, coffee, wheatcakes delivered to me one at a time hot off the griddle by Fritz, and all the other wonderful things he shovels my way for breakfast. While I read, one corner of my mind kept gnawing away at a strategy for tackling Linville again. As far as I was concerned, one round does not a fight make.
I was still thinking about Round Two in the office at a quarter to nine when the phone rang.
“Archie!” It was Lily, in a voice that sounded like she wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
“What is it — you all right?”
“Archie, did you see... him last night?”
“Linville? Yeah, but the less said about that, the better. I’m afraid that I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory, although—”
“Archie — he’s dead!”
“Wha-a-a-t? Are you talking about Sparky Linville?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper. “Dead. Killed. In a parking garage. Last night. I...”
“Hey, stay with me on this,” I said. “First, it wasn’t me, if that’s on your mind. Although I confess that the idea isn’t exactly a repugnant one, particularly after having met him. Tell me what you know.”
“I just heard it on the radio. I had the news on and... he’s dead.”
“How?”
“They said he was found early this morning in the garage where he keeps his car. He was... hit over the head with something, I don’t think they said what.”
“And this was on the radio?”
“Yes, one of the all-news stations. I usually listen while I do my hair. God, Archie, what happened, did you—?”
“Hey, easy. I told you it wasn’t me. I saw him, yes, in front of Morgana’s, along with a foul-mouthed pal he called Hallie. Words got exchanged, that’s all, and damn few of them at that. Was there any more in the radio report?”
“Not much,” Lily said. Her voice was gradually returning to normal. “A garage attendant found him lying on the concrete next to his car. Apparently it was well into the wee hours.”
“Which would explain why it wasn’t in the Times. All right, I’ve got some calls to make; I’ll keep you posted. But before I go, it would be nice to know that you believe me.”
“Oh, of course I do.” She didn’t hesitate for a second, bless her. “It’s just that it seems so strange that the day after we talked about this...”