Archive of Our Own

The cops were gone, and so was Arthur McCray. Our senior client from Offermans and Miller had herded out the other witnesses, leaving behind a check with a lot of zeros on it. Fritz had wheeled the refreshment cart back into the kitchen and gone off to bed. All was quiet in Nero Wolfe's office. Quiet, but not serene.

It took me a while to work myself up to making some noise, right around the time when I should have been doing my usual chores before heading upstairs.

Late as it was, Wolfe was still at his desk reading The Maltese Falcon, a novel he wouldn't have touched with one fat pinky before his recent disappearance. His new taste in literature helped decide me. Rising from my chair, I walked over to his desk and picked up the check we had both ignored for hours. Letting it go to drop back onto his blotter, I told Wolfe, "Write this down."

He didn't bother to look up as he murmured, "I assume you have a reason for your request."

"It's a rare moment, one that might not happen again. You'll want some memento better than a check."

"Not a memento. A sheet of fine paper marred by my handwriting would merely serve as a mnemonic."

I ignored the petty quibble. "Too bad you took this latest job. I'm not sure any amount of money was worth the risk to the general populace if you derail."

Wolfe, who had been turning a page, stopped. He put the book down without marking his place before his gaze rose to meet mine. "Oh?"

I wasn't pleased to have his full attention. In fact, I could have skipped the whole conversation without ruining my evening, but I earn my pay in more ways than rounding up suspects for interrogation and recording the results of his orchid breeding.

"'Oh' is right. If the train keeps traveling this fast around the curves, and I see no sign of brakes being applied, we're going to need a gun and some handcuffs to get Manhattan's latest criminal mastermind out of the locomotive cab and back into the locked portion of the baggage car where he belongs."

The silence was a long one. But Wolfe wasn't boiling. His expression hinted at something closer to gloom, which made me even less eager to have our little chat.

"Archie," was what he said at last.

"Still here."

"Yes, you are. You've never been one for inconsequential moral qualms. I assume you're referring to the evening's interview with Arthur McCray."

"That's the one. Not what you got out of him, but the way you took him apart. True, he deserved it, and you know I don't ride you about fine points of technique. But someone has to say something about what else happened, and I don't see anyone except you in this office who isn't me."

I took a deep breath and let it out. Catching myself stalling, I got mad and told him, "You were enjoying yourself. Having fun in a lively, after-hours kind of way. Too bad for you I have the tastes and experience to spot what was going on."

"Not 'too bad'." His dark brown eyes shifted behind their half-closed lids. "Given the circumstances, your noticing was nothing that resembles bad. I had hoped..."

I admit what happened next was partly my fault. But I blame Doctor John Watson for most of it. Him and Arnold Zeck, the genius gangster who had reprised the role of Moriarty in Manhattan during the late forties.

Once Nero Wolfe had eased back into town and gotten rid of Zeck, I felt I was free to take up my ongoing invitation to admire the Norwegian landscape with my very good friend Miss Lily Rowan. After all, the views of the fjords were said to be striking, so I was sure any vista that included both Lily and a fjord would be something well worth seeing. But, even given the competition from beautiful and dramatic scenery, I still strolled back into Wolfe's brownstone on the exact day I'd said I would. A month was long enough to show I was no Watson, ready to roll over and play dead before coming to heel when Sherlock Holmes whistled without warning.

In fact, my dancing attendance on Wolfe would have struck me as worse than the way Watson acted, considering how little Wolfe resembles the Holmes I grew up admiring at my local picture palace. Nero Wolfe is more like Mycroft Holmes with half the manners and double the annoyance added to the brains. He didn't need obsequiousness. Often he needed a good, swift kick.

As Lily had pointed out while pitching her trip, Wolfe's unexplained vanishing act earlier in the year had left me hanging onto the short end of the stick. I didn't feel like loitering after his return to applaud either his big victory or his shifty tactics, which weren't the ones I later described for publication. For his part, Wolfe had willingly given me my holiday. He seemed entirely taken up with barricading himself back into the brownstone behind all his ten thousand orchids and Fritz Brenner's fancy meals. So there was no way to know that my leaving on vacation, and him letting me go, was a big mistake.

What went on during the Gibbs affair, right after I got back in October, might have been a coincidence. It was far from the first time Wolfe had coaxed a murderer into sampling handgun tartare for dinner. And the details were still foggy during the work Wolfe had to do in November to plump up the bank balance for Christmas since he had spent the past months on less profitable jobs. Well, less legitimate jobs. But all became clear while we chased down McCray and solved a nifty case of corporate fraud that had hybridized with two murders.

Years ago, Wolfe had hinted around about his work for the Austrians back while they still had an empire. I had thought intelligence agent at first, considering he wasn't larger than a runaway diesel locomotive back in those palmy days of yore. Since his first hints, he had once or twice referred to secret policemen in the manner of one who knows. The comments left me grinning at a wacky image of Nero Wolfe, Lord of Picky-Peevish being one of the boys in black hats who do dirty jobs in back rooms. I figured he was pulling my leg. After all, Wolfe told me four good stories about his past for every truth he condescended to unveil.

I wasn't grinning now. Seemed he hadn't been lying. Something had broken loose in him while he was sneaking around on his own, some hunger I wasn't sure I liked. Since, as Wolfe implied, my standards aren't always the usual ones, this was a problem.

At least Wolfe appeared to agree with me. His lower lip was pushed out a quarter of an inch, which is as close as he ever comes to looking guilty, or even at fault. "I had hoped..." he trailed off again, just as rare for him. "You merely affirm my dread. I'm back to flirting with heinousness."

There wasn't much to say to those words. Wolfe continued, "This situation is insupportable considering my surroundings. I am home, no longer starved for any luxury I value. I've resumed my routines and, with them, my scruples. Or so I thought. Seemingly, there is a breech in the ramparts of my pride."

That freed me to frown at him. "You already think you know why you sprung the leak. And, from the way you're still talking around the problem, you believe the most likely suspect is your personal life."

His grunt was rude.

"Sure, we rarely share girlish confidences, but this is business."

He tried a glare, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Fine. You want me to say the words out loud? As Freud and Hollywood both recommend, observe the primal urge. Do you need an exact diagnosis?"

"No." Wolfe shuddered. " I need to consult your species of expertise rather than mine. There are carnal circumstances more muddled than your promiscuous philandering. Unlike you, I first learned of certain pleasures while outside the civilizing walls of boudoirs. These past few months, I find myself remembering my lessons."

His hand darted across the desktop, with the speed you can never believe until you see it, to seize my own. Large fingers enveloped mine, clenching near to the thin edge of bruising. His thumb tip was resting against a nerve that hurts like hell if pressed hard. We both knew I could have broken his grip with ease. We both knew that wasn't his point.

I kept my words calm with an effort . "It's no way to get me to stop you."

"Indeed." Wolfe's voice was level and cold with fury not aimed at me. His grip tightened a little. "I am a witling to draw you into this. As you once told me, you are not my fire extinguisher. In my case, you are kerosene."

And there it was, yanked into the brownstone from the dark outside at last. I had always wondered how I would react.

How I reacted was by saying, "So light a match. Sir."

"Boji moj! Never."

"Not in the manner you're thinking, although I'm sure you'd do that well if you trusted yourself." I didn't have to fake my sigh. "Look, do you need my species of expertise or not?"

For a moment it hung in the balance. He didn't fling my hand away and storm out of the office, the way I half expected. Or the next chapter might have begun with his thumb tip digging in, agonizing and incendiary. Maybe I would have preferred that, at least for a while, but I wasn't dim enough to push him just to find out. Part of my successful approach to promiscuous philandering includes believing the parties of the second part when they say they have to draw a line.

But those details were my business. Wolfe was the one consulting now. For all his swollen ego, he had noticed when he veered from pain in the ass to public hazard. So I'd wager what he needed was a variation on the usual good swift kick to start him back in the proper direction, nothing new.

Shaking my head, I said, "If I heard you right, all those irritating self-indulgences over the years also served to get between you and bad behavior. Except you skipped something. No wonder you're leaking. Avoiding carnal maintenance for the sake of your dignity only worked when nothing weighty was penned up behind the dam. You need to find indulgences that plug the new gap." I shrugged, but not in the usual style I employ while in the brownstone. "Something different, safer. I'm flexible."

Wolfe narrowed his eyes at me. His lips twisted a little and his hand twisted a lot, turning the interestingly painful grip back into the sort of handshake that was all the touch he normally tolerated. Now I knew why.

He kept his clasp firm for a second before letting loose. "This is no part of your paid duties," he told me.

And it wasn't. But the conversation had already gone better than my worst three scenarios, so I was inclined to be generous. "Flexible doesn't mean I short my own amusement. The last couple of hours have been slow. You might even find me a new memento for my scrapbook."

I met his gaze. We spent some time trading stares before Wolfe snorted and I raised an eyebrow, our gestures admitting that there are some words we won't offer each other even though we both know what they are, even if we half-believe them, even when they might help us move matters along.

I still felt free to stroll a few steps and sit on the left-hand corner of his desk. It was a handy place to wait while Wolfe lowered his chin and considered me at point-blank range, for once not complaining about liking eyes at a level. When I saw him shift back in his oversized chair and squeeze shut his eyelids, the sure signs of him starting up his genius, I felt myself relax. It was like the strain coming off a muscle that hadn't known it was trembling.

Watching Wolfe's lips work in and out while he shifts into a higher mental gear is always interesting. Turned out, when I knew he was considering me, the show was even better. I felt it in my stomach, sharp and strong. When I noticed I was stroking the same skin on my far hand that his thumb had endangered, I kept going. Even if I didn't want to dwell on why Wolfe could get to me, he had for years. I might as well enjoy the results. At least the feeling, when combined with the unusual view, made my wait interesting.

When Wolfe opened his eyes, he said, "Very well. Take off your coat."

"Plain or fancy?" I inquired, rising to my feet.

"Either. Both have their merits, and you are skilled enough to choose what's appropriate."

I nodded approval, undoing buttons. "There, you see? Well-judged compliments will get you a good long way. Soon we'll have you cribbing hints out of that unexpurgated set of Casanova's Memoirs you keep upstairs in your bedroom."

His lips twitched in the way that meant annoyance was duking it out with amusement. But the look in his eyes told me I still had his entire attention, even if all he said was, "The shirt as well."

Given that he had evidently enjoyed plain, I gave him fancy for a chaser. To be fair, I put some extra effort into the cufflinks since they had been his birthday present to me two years back. When I was stripped down enough, I removed my undershirt without prompting before parking on his desk again. "Do you feel a draft in here?"

He reached out to lay an assessing hand against my chest, fingers spread wide, his thumb grazing a nipple. We both watched the gooseflesh rise, but I was busy swallowing, so Wolfe was the one who observed politely, "You do seem a little chilled."

Okay, it got a rise out of me, if not of the verbal sort. In my defense, after he'd spoken was the first time I truly believed, right down into my guts, that we were going to do this at last.

Wolfe's snort was ironic. His gaze was darkly amused. Removing the hand from my chest, he reached out to open the upper right hand drawer on his desk. That's the one where he keeps office supplies, including the knife he uses to slit envelopes. I made myself not moisten dry lips with my tongue, just as well. When Wolfe reached into the desk, he came out with a bottle of ink remover.

After setting down the bottle some distance to the right of me, he told me, "It's yours."

"Thanks. Wait 'til you see what I got you for Christmas."

"At least you'll have the time for second guesses," he said, and "Your left arm first," in an entirely different tone, which is when I caught up with him at last.

I stared at the skin on my forearm as he got my wrist in a relentless grip, as he held the arm perfectly still, as he reached for his fountain pen with his free hand. The first touch of the nib on my arm, almost sharp enough to scratch, too finely crafted to break the skin, had me sucking in a little air. His lips parted slightly at the soft noise; I saw them.

Each letter might as well have been shaped from fire, rather than written in high-quality ink, as far as I could tell from my reactions. For such simple words, it seemed to take him years to write them, every curve and line another first-rate torment. By the time he was done, I couldn't have hid my response if I had wanted to. I didn't want to.

"I work for Nero Wolfe," was what the letters read.

Wolfe cleared his throat before he said, "You'll have to shift in front of me so that I can reach the other arm. Sit well back." As he spoke, he pushed his chair away from the desk to give me room

Without a word, I followed his instructions, even though the desk blotter and scratch pad were lumpy, and I needed to reach behind me to shift the paperweight of petrified wood that was once used to bust a guy's skull. Later I found I had sat on the check. None of that mattered when I felt Wolfe get to work again, while I waited to see what else he had to say.

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories," the words noted.

At the poker game where I floated the words past Saul Panzer, he told me they came from Montaigne's Essays. He didn't have to explain them to me. I already understood.

Once Wolfe had finished writing at last, his voice was low and hoarse when he commanded, "Now undo your belt buckle. The rest of this is mine."

My hands got busy while he put down the pen over by the bottle of ink remover, well out of my way. Then I leaned back on my palms to watch. That fun didn't last for long. As Wolfe parted his lips, I had to close my eyes or conclude the business before he had decided he was done.

When he really was done, I worked on my breathing for a while. Wolfe pushed his chair a little farther back and studied me some more, his mouth looking bruised and his eyes dangerous. Almost idly, his hand drifted toward the drawer with his knife, the knife sharp enough to cut much more than paper.

I didn't think before I spread my arms wide, the forearms turned to face him. For a few seconds everything seemed to freeze. Wolfe's nostrils flared minutely. His gaze shifted to the left and to the right. Then he gave the tiniest of nods. "Satisfactory."

Even after the workout my heart had just had, it found a couple of extra thumps to deploy at his praise.

"Yeah," I managed to say.

"Finish it, instead."

For once, I didn't bother with a snappy reply. I knew I'd need the oxygen I was saving soon enough. I also didn't bother cleaning up from his treatment since the question hadn't arisen. Something else had.

I looked at his tailored wool trousers, grinned, and got down onto my knees to fix yet another detail Wolfe was too lazy to fix for himself.

 The results were first-rate, even if not truly surprising except for the fact that he could swear like a sailor when the circumstances were appropriate. Wolfe has always had an annoying habit of being good at hobbies that rightly fall within my sphere of influence.

Once I had worked my mouth and tongue around to cope with another memento, I shifted enough to look up at him. But I played fair. Not until I saw he was able to talk did I ask, "Well?"

"Very satisfactory." Two of the folds in Wolfe's cheeks unfurled a little into what he considers a smile. Then the twitch disappeared and he continued, "As to the rest, we'll need to see. Likely, this was a palliative, not a solution." He almost sounded normal when he observed, "If such acts were somehow magically healing, hypochondria would be even more popular than it already is."

I got up onto my feet and shrugged. "If all the fine meals, yellow silk, and orchids divert you, no reason more of this wouldn't."

He caught the last four words but didn't make any sort of fuss. Instead he nodded toward the bottle of ink remover and said, "Don't forget that."

My look was questioning. At least, I think my look was questioning. In any case, Wolfe grunted before he said, in a tone that should have made me want to poke him with a sharp stick, "It's certainly not my place to inquire as to whether or not you use it."

And there it was: one big reason I was wearing his writing on my skin tonight. But I already mentioned words we won't offer each other earlier in this account. At the time, I stuck to saying brightly, "Depends on whether I'm a memento or merely a mnemonic, given that I have my pride. Funny, I don't feel marred by your handwriting."

If I needed any conformation that this sort of treatment might help his problem, I got it right then and there. Instead of a growl, or even a glare, he only remarked mildly, "Next time I must try harder."