Pharaohs
By
Parhelion
I
Maybe I was stupid because what’s so close to you can be hard to see, just like you need a mirror to check how a new evening jacket lies across your shoulders. Maybe I’d taught myself not to pay attention. Or maybe I was distracted by the L’Argent investigation, a stinker of a case.
Whatever my reason, I didn’t notice that something was wrong with Saul Panzer for weeks. He’s Manhattan’s second best detective, after all, and he knows how to keep his business to himself. But my boss, Nero Wolfe, is Manhattan’s best detective. He spotted Saul’s problem before I did and then chose to hold his observations close to his vest, typical of him but still annoying.
As for me, I was busy being glad that Saul was available. He’d returned from a job in St. Louis only three days before Wolfe roped him in to help us track down whoever was sabotaging L’Argent’s fancy perfume store over on Fifth Avenue. For the rest of September in ‘64, Saul and I followed around elegant employees who turned out to have lots of secrets but no love of sabotage. Most of Saul’s and my conversations were of the terse sort suited to handing off a tail. We hadn’t gone to a ball game or played poker in over a month.
I finally noticed Saul’s problem during Wolfe’s big dinner right after we wrapped up the L’Argent affair. Saul, who has manners, is always welcome at Nero Wolfe’s table. He likes the conversation as much as the food, so he’s usually a light grazer.
Not that night. The way Saul went after his red snapper, you would have thought he was a fisherman who’d spotted thunderclouds rolling over the horizon. And Wolfe, who gets fussy about seeing Fritz Brenner’s cooking bolted without proper commentary, didn’t so much as waggle a finger.
When I accompanied Saul to the front door afterwards, I asked, “Poker game this Wednesday?”
Saul paused in adjusting his old grey cap. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”
This was a Monday. He should’ve made his decision by then. I hiked an eyebrow at him.
“I might be busy.” Saul tilted his head, and his eyes seemed to glint a little in the light from the open doorway. Usually he tries to fade into the background, but sometimes you can see who’s at home behind the big nose and grey eyes.
I keep my own nose out of Saul’s private life, but that evening I felt like pushing, maybe because of the glint. “Company coming?”
“No.”
“You want to be alone.” I grinned. “Sounds like you’ve been taking advanced tutoring from Greta Garbo.”
Just imagine my surprise when Saul’s hands twitched in irritation. He’d joined with Wolfe to teach me such signs years back when I was learning to be a private eye, so he knew better than to give himself away like that. He knew he’d leaked, too. “Let it go, Archie.”
From Saul, such a comment equaled rolling around on the stoop, drumming his heels, and holding his breath until he turned blue. I let it go.
Instead I went back into the office where Wolfe was sitting behind his desk, reading some novel called City of Night and digesting. There, I parked myself at my own desk and studied him for a while. He put up with my gaze for about a minute and a half before he stuck a scrap of paper into his book and politely asked, “Well?” If he didn’t already suspect what I was going to ask, he would have growled.
“What am I missing about Saul?”
He took his turn to study me. “Do you want me to tell you?” Wolfe doesn’t ask rhetorical questions. I wasn’t sure why, but he thought his answer could cause problems.
I considered shrugging and then didn’t. “Yes.”
“His nerves are frayed. Both his scent and the smell of his clothing have changed. There are slight alterations in the usual tints of his skin and nails.”
“He’s stopped smoking.”
“So I assume.”
“Nuts.” I was annoyed enough to keep talking. “I should have caught that on my own.”
“Perhaps not. The two of you have reeked of that scent-mill’s effluvia for the past fortnight, which swamped the most obvious clues.” By scent-mill, he meant the L’Argent store. “As well, he is trying to veil his difficulties. Unlike yourself.” We’d been through a grim time several years back while I’d quit smoking, grim enough that Wolfe had earned a back-handed complaint or three. So I was surprised when he added, “I’m not sure Saul is wise to do so.”
“He doesn’t want to get sloppy. Saul’s no tragedy queen.”
To my surprise, Wolfe unfurled his cheeks slightly at my comment. “No,” he agreed, still being polite. But his finger was resting on the button that rang in the kitchen for Fritz to bring him beer.
For some reason I’d lost any inclination to keep our conversation going. With a shrug, I opened my desk drawer and pulled out a magazine. Live wanted to teach me about an Olympic female swimmer, complete with poolside pictures, and I was willing to learn. After all, Saul always knew what he was doing.
What happened in the next few weeks just goes to show that all rules have their exceptions, even rules that have to do with Saul.
***
On Tuesday, I went dancing with Lily Rowan at the Silver Room. She was leaving for Europe in the morning to spend six weeks enjoying old-world culture, including a visit to the Frankfurt Book Fair. I’d politely ducked my chance to escort her, and our date was intended to show that she didn’t hold the no against me. So I got back late, only to find that Saul had phoned and left me a message while I was out. We were playing poker on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, I went to Saul’s apartment over on Thirty-Eighth where four of us passed around cards until two a.m. Between us, Lon Cohen and I skinned Saul to a depth of thirty-four dollars and twenty-five cents, about as common an occurrence as water flowing uphill. Lon obviously noticed something was wrong but was too happy with his victory to ask what. Some reporter, he. As for me, I maneuvered to be the last one out the door.
Saul looked at me in the kitchen as he rinsed off plates. His eyes were cheerful, which was a first for the evening. “Thanks for the help washing up, Archie. You sure you’re feeling okay?”
I put the pickle dish back up in its top cupboard. “Funny, I might have asked you the same question if I didn’t already have the answer.”
He paused and looked at me. The cheerful look was gone. Then he shook his head and rinsed off the last dish before wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and going back into the living room.
If I hadn’t known that Saul’s not the forgettable cabbie that he tries to make himself out to be, his living room would’ve given him away. The room is huge and contains about as many bookshelves as Wolfe’s office. The shelves on the walls that don’t support books have everything from fossils to a big chunk of lapis lazuli lined up on them, and there’s a grand piano in one corner. Most of the paintings on the walls aren’t reproductions. Once he’s let you inside his apartment, Saul doesn’t mind hinting that he earns the highest hourly rate of any operative in New York.
Walking over to the piano, he sat down and played a couple of bars from a fancy piece I didn’t recognize before he swiveled around on the stool.
I’d parked myself in one of the chairs at the table where we play poker. Squashing an urge to steeple my fingers like Wolfe does, I said instead, “That’s the first time in years you didn’t offer me a drink.”
“It might be a hint.”
“Crap. You’ve always known how to tell me to leave.”
“Sure I have.” He looked at me, visibly decided not to say, “leave,” and settled for sighing instead. Then he asked, “Milk, bourbon, coffee, or what?”
“Milk.” While he was in the kitchen, I cracked opened a couple of windows and went to dump the ashtrays from the table into the knee-high, sand-filled ashtray out in the hall between the elevator and the door to the stairs.
When I came back in, Saul handed me my milk. He’d gotten himself coffee. The spoon clinked once as he stirred in two cubes of sugar, and he glanced at it like it had betrayed him. He said, “I figured he’d spot what was going on. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
That made me shrug. I wasn’t going to admit how slow I’d been if I didn’t have to. “What made you decide to quit? The Surgeon General’s report?”
“No.” He paused and then added, “When I was out in St. Louis, I lost an important tail. The guy had sniffed me out.” Saul smiled before he took a sip of coffee, but this smile wasn’t genuine.
I grimaced. The Egyptian Pharaohs he’d smoked smelled like what they use in Ohio to coax the corn, and enough people were quitting smoking around then to notice such details. Screwing up a job in such a stupid way must have hit him hard, right in the same professional pride that he’d helped cultivate in me. “How long has it been since you stopped?”
“Two weeks, four days, and ten hours.” He didn’t have to check his watch.
“I needed a month before it got easier. But you’ve already handled a busy case, and this evening you managed to stay in the same room with two other guys who smoked, both good signs.”
“I also spent some time in a bar, the other day. I’ve checked off half my list.” I knew that he meant his list of bad places to be right after you stopped smoking. Looking down, he saw that he was stirring his coffee again and stopped. “The worst is not knowing what to do with my hands.”
“Gum. Toothpicks. Cramer chews cigars. You can take up knitting.”
“All habits that stand out.” Another long sip of coffee, and he said, “That’s okay. I’ll survive.”
“If you don’t, can I have your unexpurgated first edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”
“You’ll have to stand in line. Thanks for emptying out the ashtrays, by the way.”
“You bet. It’s embarrassing to smoke someone else’s butt.”
This time, when he grinned, it stuck. “Tell me you didn’t learn that first hand.”
“I’ll never tell.” I got up, and went to close the windows. While I was reining in a drape that was trying to make a break for it, I said, without turning, “You can always call the brownstone if things get too rough. I wouldn’t mind taking in some boxing.”
He snorted, pretty obvious with that nose of his. “The last thing I need is the Garden.” The cloud of smoke did get thick inside Madison Square Garden, now that he mentioned the matter. Saul beat me to my next suggestion. “I wouldn’t mind a baseball stadium’s version of fresh air.”
“I’ll come by on Saturday to pick you up at eleven.”
“Fine.” Done with his coffee, he put his cup down. “Now, how about you blow before I start sucking my thumb?”
“That, I’d like to see.” Saul’s face, on hearing this, glazed over with a brittle expression of tolerance that made me set down my own empty glass on a coaster. “Don’t say anything. In proof that I know how to take a hint, I’m leaving.”
“Good,” he replied, not meaning much by the crack. I know this for certain because of the way he said, “’Night, Archie,” as I left, with the sort of warmth in his voice that I rarely see on his face. I almost turned back before I got a grip on myself and went over to the door to the stairs instead. All the reminders of what I’d put myself through four years ago were obviously getting on my nerves.
II
The next week or so was quiet, if on edge. Wolfe might have called it “fraught.” Saul and I barely missed out on a fistfight with some noisy neighbors at Shea Stadium. Wolfe invited Saul to meals at the brownstone three times during those days, which was also unusual. Saul accepted all three times, which was downright unique. He continued to march through his food like Sherman through Georgia. Even Fritz paused to examine Saul with pursed lips and raised eyebrows, and then produced Saul’s favorite dessert for his third visit.
Saul’s naturally terse, but that week he was terse and tense. Not that his mood would have mattered much if he’d taken time off, but, as often happens at the brownstone, one case had led to another. A senior employee at L’Argent who we’d recently followed around came to Wolfe to get a blackmailer pried off. Our new client must have rightly figured that we already knew all his little secrets and decided to take this chance to lose the guy who routinely threatened him with them.
Having once pursued the profession on a suitably gargantuan scale, Wolfe resents petty blackmailers. Even though his yearly income was approaching the tax bracket where he stops bothering to pretend that he works, he still accepted the case. He even took the trouble to exercise his genius for a few minutes. The operation he laid out for me afterwards wasn’t complex, but it would be safer with two men involved, and so he told me to rope in Saul to help again. I wasn’t thrilled with the tactics Wolfe proposed, but I had to agree that they’d probably work. Without protest, I made the call.
We checked a few backgrounds and talked to a couple of acquaintances. Saul and I ended up loitering in one of those interesting bars down in the Village, waiting for our client to pay his monthly installment before we scooped up his former friend and took him back to the brownstone where Wolfe could give him the treatment. We’d parked ourselves next to each other in a corner booth with our backs to the wall and were trying to fit in.
In a noble act of professional self-sacrifice, Saul had ordered a grasshopper. His suit wasn’t an item I’d seen on him before: for one thing, it fit him right, and for another, the style was balancing on a certain sharp edge of fashion. He looked good, but the fabric was presuming on his looks. In present company he faded into the background, which I imagined was the point.
I wore one of my usual suits and was drinking a martini. There are limits to the sacrifices I’ll make to keep a cover. “You’ll have to tell me later how you found that drink. They must have missed it after it oozed off of the Nevada Test Site.” His grasshopper was tinted a vivid green.
“You should talk. It’s mostly milk.” An on-looker would believe he was gazing only at me, but I knew that, if asked later, he’d be able to describe every other patron in the place.
“Cream with bad mint and chocolate booze, to be precise. The mix will grow hair on your tongue instead of on your chest. Or elsewhere.”
“I hope that crack wasn’t supposed to be as raw as it sounded.” Saul tilted his head towards me and smiled. If he used that smile when he visited the buildings he owned out in Brooklyn, he was cutting a swath through the neighborhood ladies. I knew that the way his hand was creeping towards mine along the tabletop was also intended for the onlookers.
Grinning, I said, “Oh, sir, this is ever so sudden.”
His eyes narrowed. “And now you’re hilarious.”
“Alas, I would not quaff strong spirits in this establishment with a man such as you, were it not for the mortgage on the family farm.”
“Keep your mind on business, Archie.” The words were quiet but flat. Saul was still tense. He hadn’t yanked me like that during a case for years. But he also hadn’t broken his cover when he called me down for risking mine. His hand went still on the table but hadn’t moved away.
I’d considered, and rejected, irritation at the unneeded reminder when I spotted something more important. “Here comes Junior.” With his dark hair carefully combed back, the cheap leather jacket, and the brooding expression, our blackmailer was what I’d expected. In my opinion, his eyes were too close together and his blue jeans were too tight, but there’s no accounting for taste.
“No problem, except maybe a knife,” Saul said, tone dulcet.
“Three to two on a switchblade,” said I, as I smiled back at Saul. This time, in the interests of better detection, I used the kind of smile I employ for decorative receptionists. He visibly didn’t roll his eyes.
Our client had lots of practice at being victimized. Just five minutes later Junior was out the door with a plump envelope in his pocket, and we were following. He was strolling away from us down a busy sidewalk at a fast clip, but Saul knew how to retrieve him. The wolf-whistle he let out could have ripped through concrete. A cool chick I wouldn’t have minded meeting in other circumstances turned to give Saul a scowl, but I was more interested in another result of Saul’s signal. Junior stopped, turned slowly, and examined us with care.
We sauntered towards him. “Got a match?” Saul asked when we were in range.
Close up, I could also see that Junior’s lips were too full for my tastes. They stretched into a smile, and he pulled out a gold lighter that I’d bet came from a satisfied customer.
Saul’s hand went towards his suit’s breast coat pocket and then paused. He’d forgotten that he didn’t carry the proper equipment for this little ritual anymore. As a former cub scout, though, I was prepared. I pulled out a sterling cigarette case I’d kept only because it was a gift from Lily Rowen, opened it, and offered its recently loaded contents to Junior.
“Thanks,” he said. He took a cigarette, rolled it into the corner of his mouth, and made free with his lighter. From the way he let the smoke droop, he’d spent a lot of hours staring at James Dean in the dark.
I stuck my own smoke between my lips, and he moved the flame over. The drag I needed to get the cigarette going made me want to cough. I choked back the urge, and my head whirled in a way that I hadn’t felt since I was thirteen and trying out a new sin behind the corn crib. At least I was able to get the cigarette out of my mouth when I flourished it around while giving Junior a nice smile. I was grateful that Saul was supposed to do the talking.
We convinced him that he wanted to come along and visit our charming brownstone without a single lie. All it took was a few more fancy gestures on my part and Saul using six words where he’d normally use one. I stuck to removing some lint from Saul’s lapel while he talked about variety being the spice of our life-long friendship. If Junior drew the wrong conclusions from all the chatter, that wasn’t our fault. He agreed to a visit, Saul hailed a cab, and I left my cigarette crushed out in the gutter behind us. My mouth tasted like an empty ashcan. Somehow the taste suited the scene.
***
Part of what I’m paid for is being the brownstone’s bouncer, so I was the one who got to shift Junior from the office onto the front stoop when Wolfe was done working him over. By that time the guy wanted to go, but the fine points of ejecting him still took a few minutes. I was out of the office long enough for Wolfe and Saul to have some sort of words without my being there to watch.
What clued me in was the way that Saul brushed by me on his way out the front door without even a glance. Then, when I entered the office, Wolfe was reading his book as if he’d done nothing else the entire evening.
Exasperated, I said, “You always claim that I’m the one who can’t resist pouring oil on troubled fires.”
“Saul is aware his temper is strained just now. He will continue our discussion later if he feels that to be necessary.”
“Nuts. How did you get on his nerves in the first place?” One of Saul’s few weaknesses is his opinion of Wolfe. After watching them together, you’d think that Wolfe had a long beard and was toting around a pair of stone tablets with the ten commandments of detection engraved on them. For Wolfe’s part, after he finishes eating himself to death, he expects Saul will then lead the rest of us into the promised land of perfect investigation. I’d seen them quarrel – hell, disagree – exactly twice.
“I didn’t start the debate. He objected to one of my estimations.”
That blocked me for a moment. Watson would sooner critique Holmes than Saul, Wolfe. But I recover fast. “Your opinion must have been a doozy.”
“Ours wasn’t a new disagreement. We’ve discussed the matter in question before this evening.”
“Then you picked a great time to start whatever it is up again.”
“The timing was Saul’s choice.”
“Great. He has an issue.” Catching myself running my hand through my hair, I stopped. “Now what am I missing about Saul?”
He put his book down. He tapped his right forefinger on the arm of his chair. But he sounded calm when he asked, “Do you want me to tell you?”
The way those two questions echoed our conversation of weeks past stopped me cold. I glared at him, but the word that came out of my mouth turned out to be, “No.”
“Given your answer, you may cease bedeviling me.” He picked his book back up and returned to reading.
I wasn’t done yet. “To be fair, verbally airing differences is healthy between adults. That’s what the headshrinkers say.”
Wolfe had proclaimed the topic closed. He pretended to ignore me.
“You and I prove this all the time. And I heard what Fritz had to say about the basil last week.” The basil had been a sore point between them. Wolfe’s eyes stopped moving down the page for a fraction of a second before he got himself back under control. “So I guess it makes sense for you to have a fight with another of the handful of guys who you’ll bother to ask for a favor. After all, you’ve been in a mood for days.”
He turned the page.
“I’m sure Saul didn’t mind risking weeks of work dumping a habit that you detest because you thought this would be a great time for discussion.”
There was a pause. A good, long pause. “Archie,” he said, without looking up from his new page, “go to a movie.”
A lot of years had passed since he’d last given me that order. A lot of years had passed since that order had worked. It didn’t work this time.
Even though I did get up, walk out the door to the office, and get my coat off the rack in the hall, I didn’t go to a theater, or a nightclub, or even to look up one of my female friends. I went after Saul.
***
I had a long wait between my ringing the bell and Saul’s answer. Once he finally did undo the locks and crack open his front door, he eyed me through the gap with no great favor. But he turned away with the door still open a little, leaving me to decide whether or not to come in. I did, and then pushed the door shut behind me with my heel.
He’d taken off the too, too daring suit coat but still had on the shirt that he’d worn underneath. He’d probably gotten this shirt for when he had to fade into a crowd some place like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or the lobby at the Waldorf-Astoria: its cut was good enough to show that he had broad shoulders, chest expansion, and a waist. The cuffs were undone and rolled up far enough to prove that he had forearm muscles, too.
I walked across the living room towards the table we used for poker rather than taking a seat. I hadn’t been invited to sit down.
“What do you want?” His tone was milder than his words.
“Wolfe won’t say what you two quarreled about.”
“And why do you think I will?”
“I don’t. But you already looked like you were having a bad day before—” I didn’t have to keep going because I’d just spotted something that would neatly sum up why I was butting in. Sitting in the middle of the table was a pack of cigarettes. The cellophane wrapping caught the light from the lamps, making the pack shine against the dark walnut of the table top.
Letting him see me eye the smokes, I started the conversation back up with, “Even given the Egyptian decorations on the label, you still hate Camels.”
“I wanted a fair shot at keeping clean.”
“Oh?” I hiked an eyebrow at him. “That’s not a fair shot. This is a fair shot.” I picked up the Camels, went to the open window, and tossed the pack out.
With plenty of time available, he didn’t stop me. He only said, his tone even milder than earlier, “It was a stupid idea anyhow.”
“I’m not arguing.”
“Good, because I’m finished with debate for the evening.” He studied me, and then he smiled slow and sweet. “Thanks again, Archie.”
The words were my cue to leave. After all, I’d done what I came for. At least, I’d done what I thought I came for right up until Saul let me into his apartment.
Instead of leaving I walked towards where he stood by the table.
Maybe I was stupid because what’s so close to you can be hard to see, just like I’d needed a good tailor to check how a suit jacket lies across Saul’s shoulders. Maybe I’d taught myself not to pay attention. Or maybe I was distracted by all the Pharaohs, those stinkers of a diversion.
Whatever my reason, I’d noticed Saul now. No, I’d let myself consciously notice him for the first time since I was a hero-worshipping, would-be detective fresh from the sticks, faintly aware that I was much too impressed by anyone with a big brain. Back then I’d studied his every move. Right now I was studying Saul himself. But I could only ponder the options for so long before I had to place my bet.
I squelched my need to take a deep breath. Then I reached out and grabbed both of his hands between mine before I asked, “In St. Louis, was it really a tail who noticed the way the Pharaohs made you smell?”
III
Saul had resisted my grip, of course, but there was no force behind his yank. I held on and waited him out. A lot hung in the balance while he considered, so I couldn’t tell you how long his silence lasted. In the end, his gaze on my hands, he said, “Yes. But I heard about the Pharaohs again from a kid I met in a bar. An interesting bar.” Looking up to see how I’d take his next words, he added, “The kid resembled you.”
“If he was a kid, he didn’t resemble me.”
His mouth didn’t laugh, his eyes did. “Maybe I was nostalgic.”
“Maybe you’re trying to shake me.”
“Not shake you. Just shaken. You know what we’re talking about.”
“Yeah. At first hand, if you still need the hint.”
“And here I’d figured you for a classic lady’s man.”
I shrugged. Every so often, men are the easier choice. You can’t take them dancing, though, at least not where the cops won’t cut in. So I’m careful when I dabble. On the very rare occasions that I don’t dabble, I pass careful and go on to discrete. Feeling as if I owed Saul more than a shrug, I said, “You’re the one who trained me how not to stand out from the crowd.”
“I thought you’d ignored the lesson.” All at once he smiled again. “Although I didn’t teach you that version of the fade. I could have, though. If the quitting wasn’t getting to me, I’d have done better than this.” Now his tone heckled, but his smile stayed sweet. “Given the way you bluff, I don’t know how you hid your detours for so long.”
“I avoid places where I might pick up habits that are give-aways. What with my warm and wonderful friendship with the N.Y.P.D., both bars and baths are ruled out.”
“Sure. I’m careful that way myself.”
“Which provides a reason for you to accept all those jobs that took you out of town. I never could figure out why you’d bother with Cleveland, no matter how good the money was.”
“I enjoyed Wolfe’s sending me to Argentina for a day or two.” He’d shifted his hands and squeezed my own for a moment before he pulled loose. “What do you want to drink?” He was already heading into the kitchen.
“Milk,” I said.
“Not bourbon. Still the tough guy,” he called back. I heard the refrigerator open. “My nerves are shot. I’m having a brandy.”
I sat down on the small sofa and looked around. Even knowing the truth, I still couldn’t tell from the way Saul kept his place. That made me feel better because a few years after we’d met I’d decided that I’d mistaken reserve with females for indifference towards females. Since then I’d often wondered if Saul’s silence on the issue was because he liked his women illegal, exotic, or married. This evening had killed an interesting topic for contemplation. I hoped I was getting something in exchange.
He came back in, handed me my glass, and parked himself in the armchair at right angles to my end of the couch. A neutral choice. He still wasn’t sure of me.
With a grin, I said, “So you never noticed that pass I made when I was eighteen, back during the Murphy job.”
“That was a pass?”
“An incomplete one, given the way you dropped the ball.”
“That was a pass. I thought you had a stone in your shoe.” I gave him a friendly acknowledgment with my right hand, and he added, “At least you knew enough to be indirect.”
“Growing up in Ohio’s good for something.” After a toast in his direction, I drank my milk.
Saul said, “All the times with women helped hike up your slip, too. Lucky you. I’ve often wished I had your options.”
I looked modest and worked on finishing my milk. Saul rolled his eyes and took a sip of his own drink. I could tell he was starting to relax, so after I’d put the glass down, I kept talking. “By the way, now that our cards are on the table, why the quarrel with our favorite elephant? Did you steal his peanuts?”
“Usually you’re not this nosy.”
“Call me curious. Wolfe said you started it.”
“He’s right. I didn’t like him throwing us together where I might get sloppy. He’s always claimed you wouldn’t care if I slipped. I wasn’t sure.”
“He figured you out?”
“We met a long time ago. He has reason to know.” With a frown, he added, “I hope he’s okay with your coming over here.”
I have to tell you, this affair sure proved that nothing gets past me. I gaped at him while the last pieces fell into place, and then straightened out my expression. When I was certain my face was showing what I wanted, I said, “Five bucks against a c-note that Wolfe will never mention where I went. Who else do you think came up with the idea of using me as a fire blanket to keep your smokes from flaring up again?” He blinked at that. I added, “He doesn’t complain much about cigarettes. For him. But you know he hates the scent of tobacco, especially the smell of those Pharaohs you smoked.”
“Yeah. One of the reasons I never had your job. On his side, at least.”
“He’d have been sneaking upstairs to empty out the ashtrays in your bedroom all the time.”
“The smell would have been harder to take if I slept over,” he agreed amiably.
There wasn’t much of a pause before I said, “Don’t give me any more hints about the dear, departed past. If I have to put them together, I’ll pass out.”
He let me kill the topic. “I suppose I’ll be another one annoyed by other guys’ smokes soon.”
“By the end of the year, they’ll all start stinking like the brands you hate.”
“There’s a cheering thought. I already had to send the curtains to the cleaners. Guess I better plan on the carpets, too.” Saul took a long sip from his snifter, set the glass down, and said, “Look, Archie. Enough chatter. You bet, so I’ll raise and call.”
“Go ahead.”
All he did was lean forward and put one hand on my knee. Describing his action makes it sound cheap. I can’t convey with words how smoothly he moved, the knowing half-smile on his lips, the brightness in his eyes, the way the muscles in his arms shifted under his skin, how firm his grip seemed even through the wool of my trousers. You probably won’t even understand why my heart gave an extra thump and then started racing.
“Royal flush,” I told him. “You take the hand.”
“More than the hand.”
We were on our feet and closing the range before he finished the sentence. Then both our mouths were busy for a while, but a few minutes later Saul got preoccupied with my tailoring long enough for me to catch my breath. I said, “I’m glad you moved first. I wasn’t sure where I’d find a stone to put in my shoe this time of night.”
He paused in unbuttoning my shirt. The noise he made was half snort, half laugh. “Since it’s you, my mineral collection’s available.”
I could hear the words that went along with the ones he spoke. “I’m honored,” I said, not trying to be funny. He bowed his head a little in acknowledgment, and then went to work on two buttons lower than my shirt. That turned my attention back to the business at hand.
After getting rid of my second cuff link, I parked them both on the arm of the couch. I’d spend ten minutes hunting for them later that night, which gives you some idea of how all this was working on me. Right then, I didn’t care. I was much too interested in finding out the way Saul had decorated his bedroom. But apparently the affair L’Saul hadn’t taught me much about the need to pay attention. If you’d asked me thirty minutes later, I still couldn’t have described anything except his bed.
Even though the hour wasn’t late when we were done with the first round, we still dozed for a while. Saul woke me a few hours later when he stretched out an arm towards the nightstand and felt around. After a bit he repeated the gesture, as if he wasn’t sure what he was trying to do with his hand. Finally he settled for turning on the bedside table lamp. Noticing that my eyes were open, he said, “This is the last item on my list of where I always had a smoke.”
“Be grateful this one’s gone. Smoking in bed will get you cremated before your time.”
His eyes seemed to glint a little in the light from the lamp. “True. Good thing I don’t need a cigarette in my mouth to heat the sheets anymore.” Leaning over me, he smiled. With easy grace, he yanked down the blanket draped over me. Yanked it very far down. Then he proceeded to prove his point.
***
Although the time was well past midnight, Wolfe was up reading. He occasionally indulges himself by staying up to finish a book on Friday nights. When I came in, he glanced at me and then went back to his novel. This recent inattention of his was a habit that needed to be nipped in the bud.
Once more I crossed over to my desk. There I sat down, spun my chair, cleared my throat, and announced brightly, “I’ll need two weeks off starting tomorrow. Saul Panzer and I are running away together to Niagara Falls.”
Without looking up, he said, “I was about to congratulate you on an unusual outbreak of good taste until you announced your destination.”
“Fine.” I nodded firmly to show that I respected his good taste, too. “How about time off for fall fishing up in Maine? If we catch any trout the last morning, I’ll bring them back to Fritz for dinner.”
“No need to distract yourself from your primary recreation.”
“Of course, you’d be welcome to come along. After all, given the way that Saul broke out three different kinds of cheese for you the time you holed up in his apartment, I doubt he’d mind. You could scramble eggs for our breakfast again.”
At last he looked up. One wrinkle at the corner of his lips had unfolded. On him, that was a smile. “Pfui.” He marked his place in his book. “I’m going to bed.” Using both hands, he levered himself up out of his chair. “Good night, Archie.”
“Good night.” True, only his back exiting through the office doorway got the kind of smile he’d earned in return for his evening’s work. But me going soft on him is the last thing that the bank account needs. He’s hard enough to goad as is.
When I heard the sound of the elevator laboring, I picked up the telephone receiver on my desk and dialed. Saul answered, and I said, “You owe me five bucks.”
“Deduct it from your poker tab.” Even over the phone I could sense the shift in his tone. Friends or not, he’d always kept a wall up between us. But now there was a window. I’ve always been good at climbing in through windows.
“We’re on for Maine.”
“Good. I won’t be able to find any smokes out in the woods.”
“I hope you like black flies and mosquitoes as a substitute.”
“You think we’re spending much time on the water?”
“Being a generous soul, I yield that point to you. Which train do you want to take?”
“Depends on where we meet.”
I glanced around the office. Emptying the trash, tidying my desk, and writing out a note for Fritz and another for Wolfe reminding him of the number for the clerical service would take about fifteen minutes. If I added in twenty minutes to pack...“Let’s leave from your place and catch the noon train. Can I come back over and spend the rest of the night?”
“Sure.” He sounded surprised. He even repeated himself. “Sure, Archie.” This time he sounded certain.
“After all, you were looking for something else to do with your hands.”