As I stood at the podium, Antonio gestured in my direction as the man who had the note peered at me, finally rising and walking in my direction. “What is the meaning of this?” he snarled, waving the sheet and looking up at me. He was probably five foot six.
“You are Miles Hirsch?”
“I am.”
“Then the meaning should be obvious. My name is Archie Goodwin, and I work for the private investigator Nero Wolfe.”
“Wolfe, huh? I’ve heard of him. Fat guy, isn’t he? What do you — or he — want with me, for God’s sake?”
“Mr. Wolfe would like you to visit him in his office and discuss the name on that piece of paper you’re holding.”
Hirsch continued glowering at me with icy blue eyes. “You can go straight to hell.”
“That is where I may end up, all right. But for the present, I plan to go to the newspapers and tell them about a recent dinner you had at a roadhouse on Route 378 north of Albany.” I turned on my heel and started to leave the Italian restaurant as Antonio looked on, wearing a puzzled expression.
“Wait a minute, Goodwin,” Hirsch said. “Why does Wolfe want to see me?”
“There’s one way to find out. Go to his residence. I have got a taxi running a tab right outside.”
“Why doesn’t he come here — or to my place on Park Avenue, if he wants to talk?”
“He does not leave home on business or for almost any other reason.”
“Look, you’ve already interrupted my dinner, and that of my friends. I am not leaving here with you, so forget it, goddamn it!”
“Have it your way. But once you have finished what I’m sure is a fine meal, you’re welcome to come to Mr. Wolfe’s residence on Thirty-Fifth Street.” I gave him the address.
He still was angry, but his glower had lost some of its intensity, probably because he was assessing his options. “All right, I will be there... later.”
“We will be expecting you,” I told him.
When I got back to the brownstone, Wolfe was in the office with beer, reading that week’s New York Times Magazine. “I saw Mr. Hirsch in the restaurant and tried to get him to leave with me, but he wasn’t having it. He says he will come to see us, but only after he finishes dinner.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Let’s put it this way: I have piqued his curiosity to the degree that I’m giving three-to-one odds he will show up.”
“And just how did you pique the man’s curiosity?”
I told Wolfe what I had printed on that sheet of paper that was handed to Hirsch. No sooner did I finish than the doorbell sounded.
Through the one-way glass, I could see a dour Hirsch and his male dinner companion, a beefy lug with a buzz cut who also wore a grim expression.
I went back to the office and said, “Hirsch brought a large friend, probably a bodyguard. Do I let him in?”
“Do you have Fred stashed in the front room again?” Wolfe was still slightly miffed about that little episode.
“Not tonight,” I said.
“Do you think you are capable of handling the larger individual, should it become necessary?”
“Affirmative.” I was a little riled myself, and I let Wolfe know it. As added protection, I had the Marley .38 in a shoulder holster hidden under my well-tailored suitcoat.
“Very well.” He huffed out a breath. “Have them come in.”
I swung open the front door. “Welcome, gentlemen. I will hang up your coats, and then it’s down the hall to Mr. Wolfe’s office.” Hirsch let me take his coat, but his colleague did the job himself and then I led the way.
Wolfe looked up as we entered. “You are Mr. Hirsch,” he stated, looking at the smaller man. “And your associate?”
“This is Harley Everts. He goes everywhere with me,” Hirsch said, dropping into the red leather chair while Everts parked his bulk in one of the yellow ones.
“Will either of you like something to drink? I am having beer.”
“We did not come here to drink,” Hirsch snapped, settling into the chair that dwarfed him, “but... I will have a scotch and water. What about you?” he asked Everts.
“Sounds good,” came the gruff reply. I mixed the drinks at the cart against the wall and passed them out.
“Okay, Wolfe, I have heard of you and know a little about your reputation, so I was curious when your man here invited me to see you,” Hirsch said, taking a sip of scotch and nodding his approval. “Now just what’s on your mind?”
“I would have thought that was obvious, given the note you received from Mr. Goodwin.”
“You call that a note? It was just a name!”
“Indeed. And what does that name mean to you, Mr. Hirsch?”
“She is someone I happen to know, not that it is any of your business.”
“You had a meal with Maureen Carr at a roadhouse north of Albany.” Wolfe added the date and the approximate time.
“Who says so?” demanded Hirsch, folding his arms over his concave chest.
“Come, sir, this is an established fact. Do you deny its occurrence?”
“I do not have to admit or deny anything. I am not on trial.”
“Not yet anyway. Are you aware Miss Carr has dropped out of sight, and that none of her friends have seen her in weeks?”
“Maybe that is by intent,” Hirsch said.
“What did you discuss at your meal?”
“Again, I say, none of your business.”
“A missing person report has been filed for Miss Carr,” Wolfe improvised. “I am sure the authorities would be interested in learning that you may well be the only individual who has seen her in the last several weeks.”
“Are you trying to blackmail me?” Hirsch said, lifting off the chair and leaning forward, jaw out.
“I do not indulge in blackmail, sir. But I am commissioned with learning the whereabouts of Miss Carr.”
“Yeah, just who commissioned you?”
“That is irrelevant at present. Do you know where the lady is?”
“I do not.”
“Have you seen her since your meeting in the Albany area?”
“No.”
“I repeat my question: Do you know where she is?”
“Also, no, I haven’t any idea.”
“How do you happen to know Miss Carr, or do you claim that also is none of my business?”
“You have said it,” Hirsch answered with a scowl.
“What about you, Mr. Everts?” Wolfe asked. “What role to you play in the affairs of Mr. Hirsch?”
The question took Everts by surprise, and he jerked upright. “I’m, I... help him wherever I can.”
“Leave Harley out of this, Wolfe,” Hirsch barked. “I find it helpful to have a protector, someone who can keep people from pestering me.”
“Do you get pestered often?”
“I feel that I am being pestered right now!”
“I would hardly call my questions pestering. You split your time between residences in New York City and Saratoga Springs.”
“That is no secret.”
“I understand you are well known in the horse racing world.”
“I have done all right at the tracks over the years,” he replied, settling back and crossing one leg over the other.
“And you have your own stable of horses?”
“Say, you have done a lot of research on me, Wolfe. I suppose I should be flattered.”
“Such was not my intent, sir. Jonathan Swift wrote that ‘flattery’s the food of fools,’ and you are by no means a fool, so it would be futile to flatter you. Back to the horses, are you a gambler on the races?”
“I’ve been known to put a few dollars on certain ponies over the years.”
“Would you say you have been successful?”
“Overall, I have done all right.”