Rex Stout: The Cop Killer

I looked at them, with my lips pressed together. The morning was shot now anyway, with Wolfe sore and my chores not done. I swiveled to my desk and picked up the phone. Any one of three or four city employees would probably find out for me what kind of errand had taken a dick named Wallen to the Goldenrod Barber Shop, unless it was something very special. But with my finger in the dial hole I hesitated and then replaced the phone. If it was something hot I would be starting PD cars for our address, and Wolfe and I both have a prejudice against cops yanking people out of his office, no matter who they are, unless we ourselves have got them ready for delivery. So I swiveled again. Carl was frowning at me, his head moving from side to side. Tina was standing tense, the money clutched in her fist.

“This is silly,” I said. “If they’re really after you, you’d be throwing your money away on carfare to Ohio or anywhere else. Save it for a lawyer. I’ll have to go up there and see what it’s all about.” I got up, crossed to the soundproof door to the front room, and opened it. “You can wait here. In here, please.”

“We’ll go,” Tina said, back to her gasping whisper again. “We won’t bother you any more. Come, Carl—”

“Skip it,” I said curtly. “If this amounts to anything more than petty larceny you’d be nabbed sure as hell. This is my day for breaking a rule, and I’ll be back soon. Come on, I’ll put you in here, and I advise you to stay put.”

They looked at each other.

“I like him,” Carl said.

Tina moved. She came and passed through into the front room, and Carl was right behind her.

I told them to sit down and relax and not get restless, shut the door, went to the kitchen, where Wolfe was seated at the far end of the long table, drinking beer, and told him, “The check from Pendexter came and has been deposited. That pair of foreigners have got themselves in a mess. I put them in the front room and told them to stay there until I get back.”

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“A little detective work, not in your class. I won’t be gone long. You can dock me.”

I left.

The Goldenrod Barber Shop was in the basement of an office building on Lexington Avenue in the upper Thirties. I had been patronizing one of the staff, named Ed, for several years. Formerly, from away back, Wolfe had gone to an artist in a shop on Twenty-eighth Street, named Fletcher. When Fletcher had retired a couple of years ago Wolfe had switched to Goldenrod and tried my man, Ed, hadn’t liked him, had experimented with the rest of the Goldenrod staff, and had settled on Jimmie. His position now, after two years, was that Jimmie was no Fletcher, especially with a shampoo, but that he was some better than tolerable.

Goldenrod, with only six chairs and usually only four of them manned, and two manicures, was no Framinelli’s, but it was well equipped and clean, and anyhow it had Ed, who was a little rough at tilting a head maybe but knew exactly how to handle my hair and had a razor so sharp and slick you never knew it was on you.

I hadn’t shaved that morning and as, at noon, I paid the taxi driver, entered the building, and descended the stairs to the basement, my plan of campaign was simple. I would get in Ed’s chair, waiting if necessary, and ask him to give me a once-over, and the rest would be easy.

But it was neither simple nor easy. A medium-sized mob of white-collar workers, buzzing and chattering, was ranged three deep along the wall of the corridor facing the door of the shop. Others, passing by in both directions, were stopping to try to look in, and a flatfoot, posted in the doorway, was telling them to keep moving. That did not look promising, or else it did, if that’s how you like things. I swerved aside and halted for a survey through the open door and the glass. Joel Fickler, the boss, was at the rack where Carl usually presided, taking a man’s coat to put on a hanger. A man with his hat on was backed up to the cashier’s counter, with his elbows on it, facing the whole shop. Two other men with their hats on were seated near the middle of the row of chairs for waiting customers, one of them next to the little table for magazines. They were discussing something without much enthusiasm. Two of the barbers’ chairs, Ed’s and Tom’s, were occupied. The other two barbers, Jimmie and Philip, were on their stools against the wall. Janet, the other manicure, was not in sight.

I stepped to the doorway and was going on in. The flatfoot blocked me.

I lifted my brows at him. “What’s all the excitement?”

“Accident in here. No one allowed in.”

“How did the customers in the chairs get in? I’m a customer.”

“Only customers with appointments. You got one?”

“Certainly.” I stuck my head through the doorway and yelled, “Ed! How soon?”

The man leaning on the counter straightened up and turned for a look. At sight of me he grunted. “I’ll be damned. Who whistled for you?”

The presence of my old friend and enemy Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide gave the thing an entirely different flavor. Up to then I had just been mildly curious, floating along. Now all my nerves and muscles snapped to attention. Sergeant Stebbins is not interested in petty larceny. I didn’t care for the possibility of having shown a pair of murderers to chairs in our front room.

“Good God,” Purley grumbled, “is this going to turn into one of them Nero Wolfe babies?”

“Not unless you turn it.” I grinned at him. “Whatever it is, I dropped in for a shave, that’s all, and here you boys are, to my surprise.” The flatfoot had given me leeway, and I had crossed the sill. “I’m a regular customer here.” I turned to Fickler, who had trotted over to us. “How long have I been leaving my hair here, Joel?”

None of Fickler’s bones were anywhere near the surface except on his bald head. He was six inches shorter than me, which may have been one reason why I had never got a straight look into his narrow black eyes. He had never liked me much since the day he had forgotten to list an appointment with Ed I had made on the phone, and I, under provocation, had made a few pointed remarks. Now he looked as if he had been annoyed by something much worse than remarks.

“Over six years, Mr. Goodwin,” he said. “This,” he told Purley, “is the famous detective, Mr. Archie Goodwin. Mr. Nero Wolfe comes here too.”

“The hell he does.” Purley, scowling at me, said in a certain tone, “Famous.”

I shrugged. “Just a burden. A damn nuisance.”

“Yeah. Don’t let it get you down. You just dropped in for a shave?”

“Yes, sir. Write it down, and I’ll sign it.”

“Who’s your barber?”

“Ed.”

“That’s Graboff. He’s busy.”

“So I see. I’m not pressed. I’ll chat with you or read a magazine or get a manicure.”

“I don’t feel like chatting.” Purley had not relaxed the scowl. “You know a guy that works here named Carl Vardas? And his wife, Tina, a manicure?”

“I know Carl well enough to pay him a dime for my hat and coat and tie. I can’t say I know Tina, but of course I’ve seen her here. Why?”

“I’m just asking. There’s no law against your coming here for a shave, since you need one and this is where you come, but the sight of either you or Wolfe makes me want to scratch. No wonder, huh? So to have it on the record in case it’s needed, have you seen Vardas or his wife this morning?”

“Sure I have.” I stretched my neck to get closer to his ear and whispered, “I put them in our front room and told them to wait, and beat it up here to tell you, and if you’ll step on it—”

“I don’t care for gags,” he growled. “Not right now. They killed a cop, or one of them did. You know how much we like that.”