Rex Stout - The Father Hunt

"Have you got any? Cousins, uncles, aunts…" "No."

It was getting messy. Or rather, it was getting too damn pure and simple. I knew people who liked to think of themselves as loners, but Amy Denovo really was one; with her it wasn't just thinking. I suggested that we might try the sandwiches, and she agreed and took one, and took

a bite. Naturally, when I am eating with someone, male or female, for the first time, I notice the details of his or her performance, since it tells a lot about the person, but that time I didn't because the way she took a bite, or chewed, or swallowed, or licked her lips, had no bearing on the fix she was in. I did observe that there was nothing wrong with her appetite, and she proved that she liked the egg-and-anchovy combo by taking her full share. She asked if it was on Nero Wolfe's list of favorites, and I said no, he would probably sneer at it. When the platter was empty she said she hadn't thought it would make her hungry, telling someone the secret she had kept bottled up so long, but it had. She gave me a little smile, the dimples coming, and said, "We don't really know ourselves, do we?"

"It depends," I said. "Some of us know too much, and some not enough. I don't want to know why I get out of bed mornings in a fog, I might never sleep again. To hell with it, I always find my way out. As for you, you're not in a fog, you're under a spotlight that you turned on yourself. Why don't you just turn it off?"

"I did not turn it on myself. Other people did it, especially my mother. I can't turn it off."

"Well, then. What's your biggest question? Your mother's real name and so on, or your father?"

"My father, of course. After all, I have lived with my mother all my life, and I suppose my wanting to know her real name and things about her is just… well, curiosity. But I must know about my father. Is he alive? Who is he? What is he? His genes made me!"

I nodded. "Yeah, you went to Smith. You learned too much about genes. Mr. Wolfe said once that scientists should keep their findings strictly to themselves; by spilling it they just complicate things for other people. Would you like some coffee?"

"No, thanks."

"They have good sweet things."

She shook her head. "I admit I could eat anything, it's really amazing, my being so hungry, but I'd rather not. What do you…? You said you might have a suggestion."

"I know I did." I turned a hand over on the table. "You've got a tough one. I'm afraid you need more than

a suggestion, even from the one man you can trust. Sure, I filed that. To get what you want-there's one chance in a million that a week or so of poking around would crack it, but it would probably be a long and very expensive job. How much money have you got?"

"Not much. Of course I would want to pay you."

"Not me. I explained that. But Nero Wolfe has inflated ideas about fees; that's why I would have to know exactly how you are fixed. If you care to tell me."

"Certainly I'll tell you. I have never earned any money, not enough to mention, and anyway I've spent it. I only have what my mother left, after paying the… for the cremation. She left instructions about that. There's a little more than two thousand dollars in the bank, that's all. There are no debts and I don't owe anyone anything."

I had a brow up. "What did your mother do for-no, that's immaterial. She made enough to send you to an expensive college. Unless someone helped?"

"No. She did it all. You were going to ask what she did for a living. She was with a television producer, the same one from as far back as I can remember. I suppose she got fifteen thousand a year, maybe more. She never told me." The quick brown eyes were straight at me. "If I paid Nero Wolfe the two thousand dollars he would have you work on it, wouldn't he?"

I shook my head. "He wouldn't even discuss it. He would know it might take a year, and he thinks nothing of billing a client five grand for a one-week job. You said you know about him, but apparently you don't. He's pigheaded and high-nosed and toplofty, and he thinks he's the best detective in the world, and so do I, or I would have moved out long ago. I think you deserve some help with your problem, and you certainly need it, and I like your dimples, but if I told him about you and suggested an appointment he would just glare at me. He would think I had a hinge loose. I do have one idea that you might want to consider. Miss Rowan likes to do things for people, and she has a stack, and if you-"

"Don't you dare tell her about me!"

"Keep your seat. I wouldn't dream of telling her, or anyone. I merely thought you might tell her yourself, and-"

"I wouldn't tell anybody!"

"Okay, I won't either. Your eyes have a fine flash." I regarded her. "Look, Miss Denovo. I'm shutting the door only because I have to. Myself, I would like to tackle it because it would probably have some interesting angles and twists and it would be nice to have a client it is a pleasure to look at. Besides, there would be the possibility of having to deal with a murder. When you hear about-"

"Murder?"

"Certainly. It's only a bare possibility, but it popped up because when you hear of a hit-and-run death and the driver hasn't been tagged, it does pop up. I mention it only because it's one of the reasons why I would like to tackle it. But there's not a sliver of a chance with Mr. Wolfe, and there you are. I'm sorry, I really am."

She shook her head, with her eyes staying at me. "But Mr. Goodwin. This leaves me helpless." Apparently the murder possibility hadn't fazed her. "What can I do? I can't tell somebody else."

That was that. I wasn't feeling particularly cocky twenty minutes later, as I flagged a taxi headed downtown on Park Avenue and gave the hackie Saul Panzer's address. Working for and with the best detective in the world- which you don't have to swallow-is fine, but when you have been told by a pretty girl that you are the one man in the world she can trust, even if it was pure soap, and you have stiff-armed her, you are not on your high horse. I slouched in the taxi and tried to steer my mind back to baseball and the Mets.

It was six minutes to eight when I got out at the corner of Thirty-eighth and Park. As for what happened to my friends' welfare, not to mention mine, I'll skip it. Sometimes the cards simply will not cooperate.

2

For Friday's program I merely had to follow the script. At a quarter to ten I let myself out of the old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street, went to the garage around the corner on Tenth Avenue for the Heron sedan, which Wolfe owns and I drive, and headed for Long Island, where he had been spending three days as the guest of Lewis Hewitt, who has ten thousand orchids in two 100-foot greenhouses. Driving back to Manhattan, with him in back keeping a hold on the installed-on-order strap as usual because, according to him, no automobile can be trusted for a second, I had to be careful about bumps and jerks. Not on account of Wolfe, since I had a theory that jostles were good for him, but because of the pots of orchid plants in the trunk, which were not crated, and two of them were new Laelia crosses of schroederi and ash-worthiana. They were worth maybe a couple of grand, but the important point was that nobody in the world but Hewitt and now Wolfe had any. As I pulled to the curb in front of the old brownstone I blew the horn, and Theodore Horstmann came out and down, as arranged, and helped me take the pots in and up in the elevator to the plant rooms on the roof. Wolfe took his bag himself. On that I have not a theory but a rule. He needs the exercise. By the time I got down to the office he was behind his desk, in the only chair he considers satisfactory for his weight and spread, looking through the accumulated mail, and Fritz came right behind me to announce lunch.