Lawrence Block - The Topless Tulip Caper

“Now wait a minute—”

“I will wait for eternity if I must. Having admitted you, I cannot legally order you to leave. In the future you shall not be admitted without a warrant. Since you are inside, you may wait here until hell freezes. Such a course of action would be futile for you, but not inconsistent with your character and mental agility. You will excuse me if I do not offer you refreshment.”

He rang the bell. Wong came in with his tray. There were two cups of coffee on it. Not four. Just two. Wong gave one to Haig and one to me. He always knows.

They didn’t wait for hell to freeze. They tried a couple of questions and bright lines, concentrating on me. “I don’t like it,” Seidenwall said. “Whenever there’s drugs in the picture, this punk turns up.”

Gregorio told me to roll up my sleeves.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “Drugs? Because somebody put strychnine in a fish tank? And what do you mean I turn up when there’s drugs involved? What drugs?”

“That hippie chick who took an overdose a while back.

I stared at him, and I started to say something, and Haig said, “Chip. I don’t think it’s incumbent upon you to play a role in this farce. You need not reply to questions.”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “Do I have to roll up my sleeves?”

“Yes,” Seidenwall said.

“No,” Leo Haig said.

I took Haig’s word for it and sat there sipping coffee. They asked some more questions and got no replies from either of us, so they made some threats and left. I bolted the door after them, and when I got back into the office Haig was already on the phone to Addison Shivers, making arrangements for Tulip’s release from custody. Since Addison Shivers is around a hundred and ten years old, I didn’t figure he would run around from precinct to precinct himself. But he would make sure someone did it and did it right.

When the phone was cradled again Haig leaned back in his chair. I said, “They’re terrific, those two.”

“Mmmmm,” he said. “I wonder what they meant about drugs.”

“Oh, it’s just their way of being playful. The first time I met them they asked me to roll up my sleeves and I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, for Pete’s sake.”

“I wonder.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Everything means something,” Haig said sleepily. He leaned back and put his feet up and closed his eyes. I didn’t object to the gesture now because he was thinking, and a genius is fully entitled to think in whatever position suits him best. He thought for a long time, and when it was questionable whether he was thinking or sleeping I gave up and got some brine shrimp and wheat germ and Tetramin and went around feeding the downstairs fish. I did the other rooms first, then came back to the office. Haig was still leaning back with his feet up and his eyes closed, but at my approach he opened his eyes and fixed them on me.

The unadulterated nerve,” he said. “As if we would willingly shield a murderer. Chip.”

“Sir?”

“Could she have done it?”

“Yes, sir. Easily. She made a point of urging me to watch Cherry go into the finale of her act. She could have had a little blowpipe palmed out of sight, and she could have plinked Cherry’s tit while I wasn’t looking, and Bob’s your uncle. There’s not a chance in hell that that’s what happened, but she could have done it. It would have been a cinch.”

“But then why would she have come here?” He sighed. “No. Impossible. Our client is innocent. Someone else committed the murder.”

“The same person who dosed the fish with strychnine.”

“No. I believe I know who killed the fish. And someone else killed Miss Abramowicz.”

“What? You know who killed the fish?”

“I believe so. It would be premature to offer conjecture at this point in time. Chip.”

“Sir?”

“I never said ‘At this point in time’ before Watergate. It is a cumbersome clich. I don’t like it. Should I use it in the future, please call it to my attention.”

“Sure thing. All part of my job. Feed the fish, clean out the filter traps, change the glass wool and charcoal, chase the murderers, and correct your English. Who killed the fish and how does it tie in with everything?”

He shook his head. “Not now. It would be premature. And we have more pressing concerns. You are going to have to see a great many people and learn as much as you possibly can. Your notebook, please.”

Seven

HASKELL HENDERSON OWNED SIX health food stores, all of them in Manhattan, all located between 72nd Street and Eighth Street. I called one of them and established that he wasn’t there, but that he was most likely at the store on Lexington and 38th. I called that one, and they said he was there, and I hung up before he could come to the phone and went out and got a cab.

The store was called Doctor Ecology, and it was a lot larger than the usual watering holes for health nuts. It was the size of a small supermarket, with about half a dozen aisles and shopping carts that you could wheel up and down them while stocking up on gluten bread and soy flour and raw sugar and jerusalem artichokes and tiger’s milk and other gourmet treats. At the back there was a lunch counter for people who probably weren’t all that hungry in the first place. I hadn’t really eaten anything yet that day, and it was close to noon, so I took a stool at the counter and looked at a menu. If only I’d been a rabbit I could have had a hell of a time. I decided that I didn’t want anything they had, so I settled for a cup of coffee. Only it wasn’t coffee. It was a coffee substitute made by grinding up dandelion roots. The idea was that it wouldn’t keep you awake; and it’s always seemed to me that the only thing coffee really has going for it is that it will keep you awake.

You probably think you can imagine what that dandelion coffee tasted like. Don’t bet on it.

I sipped enough of it to know that it was never going to be one of my all-time favorites. I paid for it and left the waiter a large tip because I felt sorry for him. Then I looked around to see if I could pick Haskell Henderson out of the crowd. When that didn’t work I asked a cashier if he was around, and she told me he was in his office and pointed out the door that led to it I knocked on the door and a voice told me to come in.

I walked into a tiny office. Haskell Henderson was standing behind a desk piled so full of invoices and pamphlets and correspondence that the desk top didn’t show through anywhere. He was talking on the phone, and the conversation seemed to involve just which brand of brown rice was the most yang, which has something important to do with the macrobiotic diet. I was sort of familiar with the macrobiotic diet because there was a time when I lived with some people in the East Village who were very into it. They ate nothing but brown rice. They also did a lot of speed, which I don’t believe is a standard part of the macrobiotic diet, and they talked about all the sensational things they were going to accomplish once they got their heads together. Sure.

While he talked I looked at him. I didn’t see anything marvelous, but the fact that he was Tulip’s current boyfriend probably prejudiced me against him. He was maybe thirty-five, and he had his hair combed to hide the fact that his hairline was ebbing, and he had a scraggly little goatee to hide the fact that he didn’t have much of a chin. He was wearing white jeans and a tee-shirt with “Doctor Ecology” in white letters on a blue background. All the employees wore tee-shirts like that.

He finished his conversation, told the person at the other end of the line to stay healthy, and scuttled out from behind the desk. He thrust out his hand, which I shook, and he gave me a smile designed to show me what great shape his teeth were in.