When Wolfe referenced my work as a guard on the docks, he was diplomatic enough not to bring up what an inauspicious start it was for me in New York. On patrol one night, I had spotted two thieves trying to board one of the ships. They shot at me and I returned fire, killing them both. I wasn’t charged, but I got fired from my job anyway.[2]
An upshot of that unfortunate experience on the Hudson pier was that I got to know a guy who had run a docking operation for years. In a case we worked on, where we found that whole shipments of Swiss watches and expensive clocks were disappearing, I met Charlie King of Cabot & Sons Importers, who managed the company’s crews on their pier. With the help of Saul Panzer’s savvy and Wolfe’s brain, we nailed two of the company’s sticky-fingered longshoremen, and King has been grateful ever since, as his own job had been on the line until those bad apples got smoked out.
The next afternoon, I found myself on the Cabot & Sons pier. King was at the desk in his cramped office going over a stack of paperwork as I stepped inside and cleared my throat.
“Well, as I live and breathe, it’s none other than Archie Goodwin, the boy detective, in person!” he said with a grin, standing and sticking out a hand. “What brings you to this humble corner of the mighty metropolis, shamus? Are you slumming?”
“It seems to me your so-called ‘humble corner’ is pretty pleasant on this summer day,” I replied. “A gentle breeze wafting off the great river and a cloudless sky. What more could a man want out of life?”
“Let me count the ways,” King shot back. “For starters, the Giants are at the Polo Grounds this fine afternoon, and I could be in a front-row box seat with a beer and a frank. How’s that for starters?”
“Point taken, Charlie. Still, you can’t call this a bad existence.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” he said with a grin. “Who am I to complain? But I’m guessing you didn’t come all the way out here to talk about the weather.”
“You’ve found me out. I’m wondering if you have heard about any funny business along the North River docks lately.”
“I haven’t, I’m happy to tell you, and I have damned good contacts up and down this stretch of the river. Oh, some months back there was a ruckus three piers south of here over a longshoreman who was caught rifling the coat pockets of other members of his crew in the locker room. He got sacked and that was that, though. Do you know something I don’t?”
“Not really. We’re looking into the disappearance of a man who had spent time in McCready’s bar over on Tenth Avenue.”
Charlie scowled. “I’m also happy to say that most of my crew here are family men and don’t hang out in that place. Some of the roughest customers working on the docks are regulars there, though. Is the guy who disappeared a dockworker?”
“No, just an ordinary joe who played cards at McCready’s,” I told him, avoiding any further detail.
“Well, if I hear anything suspicious, I will give you a call. I’ve still got your card somewhere in this messy desk, and I assume you’re still working with Nero Wolfe over on West Thirty-Fifth?”
“Yep, some things never change, Charlie. Hope you get to a Giants game soon. They’re looking pretty good this year.”
“Unfortunately, so are those damned Dodgers,” he said ruefully, turning back to his paperwork.
Chapter 6
By the time I returned to the brownstone, Wolfe was upstairs indulging himself in the afternoon session with the orchids. When he came down at six and rang for beer, I looked up from typing some of his correspondence. “Want a report on my visit to the docks? Not much to tell.”
“It can wait until later, when the others arrive,” he said, signing the letters I had already typed and stacked on his desk blotter.
“How is Carl Willis working out in the plant rooms? Any improvement?” I asked.
“Still adequate,” Wolfe replied. “He follows orders, although he could hardly be termed a self-starter. He needs a great deal of direction.”
“You probably are intimidating to the poor fellow.”
“Me, intimidating?” Wolfe raised his eyebrows and assumed an expression of shocked innocence. I thought of several responses but passed on all of them. My mind already was focused on dinner, which was to be curried beef roll with celery and cantaloupe salad, followed by blueberry pie à la mode, and at that point, I was not about to point out my boss’s irascibilities to him.
All three of our regular operatives were prompt, arriving at the brownstone by eight forty-five. Like veteran cast members in a play, they all knew their places: Saul settled into the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe’s desk, while Fred and Orrie took the yellow chairs in front of the desk.
I played bartender, serving scotch on the rocks to Saul and Orrie and beer to Fred, who felt that by drinking what our host did, he honored him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him Wolfe did not care one way or the other. Even among longtime associates, Wolfe liked to make his entrance after everyone was seated. Besides, I knew where he was: in the kitchen with Fritz, planning — and probably arguing over — the lunches and dinners for the next several days.
At nine on the button, Wolfe walked in and sat, with Fritz trailing him with beer for him and Fred and chilled glasses on a tray. “Gentleman, thank you all for coming,” he said as he popped the cap off one of the bottles and poured. “Saul, what have you learned?”
“Not a lot, Mr. Wolfe,” Panzer said. “As instructed, I walked up to Sid, Harvey, and Chester as they were playing pinochle, and they wanted to know if I played bridge. I said I did, and they were glad to see me. I asked who was normally their fourth, and they mentioned Theodore — or rather, ‘Ted.’
“I casually asked where he was, and they said they didn’t know, that they were puzzled about his absence. I then told them I occasionally played in some pick-up bridge games in that general neighborhood, and I remembered meeting Ted at one of those games. I went on to describe Theodore, and they all told me that was him, all right.
“‘Seems like a pleasant fellow, well-mannered,’ I said, to which I got unanimous agreement. ‘The last couple times he played with us, though, he seemed to be distracted,’ Sid commented. ‘It was as if for some reason he was nervous around the longshoremen who hang out in McCready’s. I happen to think they’re a bunch of rough customers, but I have no idea what they might have against Ted.’
“They didn’t seem to bother us when we were playing,” Saul went on, “although they — at least the ones playing pool — made a few snide remarks to us as they passed by on their way to and from the bar.”
“Such as?” Wolfe posed.
“‘Why don’t you try a man’s game?’ and ‘What a damned waste of time!’ We all ignored them, of course, which took a lot of the wind out of their sails,” Saul said. “I brought up Theodore one more time during the evening, but none of the three had anything else to add except to hope that his absence didn’t mean something bad had happened to him. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come up with anything more.”
“You did as well as you possibly could,” said Wolfe, who has always felt that Saul can do no wrong. “What about you, Fred?”
Durkin, who is always uneasy around the boss, cleared his throat. “I sat at the bar for more than two hours, and I nursed my beers. Over that time, four... no, five guys sat next to me, on one side or the other, and they all seemed to be dockworkers.
“I mentioned that I hadn’t been in McCready’s recently, and I was surprised to see that a card game was going on in the back room. ‘Aw, I don’t know why Mac allows it,’ one on a barstool said, referring to the bartender, who I figure must be McCready himself. ‘If they just got rid of that damned card table, they’d have room for another pocket billiard table in there. There’s always a waiting list to shoot pool.’