Why had he excommunicated the dear old dirty wallpaper that had seen him devotedly through so many completed manuscripts?
He was glaring at the four and a half sentences in his typewriter and making beseeching motions with his hands when his father looked in, said, “Still working?” in a tired voice, and retreated from the sight of that anguished tableau.
Five minutes later, somewhat refreshed and bearing a frosty, green-tinged cocktail, the old man reappeared. Ellery was now smiting himself softly on the temple.
Inspector Queen sank onto Ellery’s sofa, taking a thirsty swallow on the way down. “Why keep beating your brains in?” he demanded. “Knock it off, son. You’ve got less on that page than when I left for downtown this morning.”
“What?” Ellery said, not looking up.
“Call it a day.”
Ellery looked up. “Never. Can’t. Way behind.”
“You’ll make it up.”
He burped a hollow laugh. ‘Dad, I’m trying to work. Mind?”
The Inspector settled himself and held up his cocktail. “How about I make you one of these?”
“What?”
“I said,” the Inspector said patiently, “would you like a Tipperary? It’s a Doc Prouty special.”
“What’s in it?” Ellery asked, making a micrometric adjustment of the sheet in his machine, which was already adjusted to a hundredth of an inch. “I’ve sampled Doc Prouty specials before, and they all taste the way his lab smells. What’s the green stuff?”
“Chartreuse. Mixed with Irish whiskey and sweet vermouth.”
“No creme de menthe? God keep us all from professional Irishmen! If you’re bent on barkeeping, dad, make mine a Johnnie on the rocks.”
His father fetched the Scotch. Ellery surrounded half of it with sedate gratitude, set the glass daintily down beside his typewriter, and flexed his fingers. The old man sat back on the sofa, knees touching like a vicar’s on duty call, sipping his Tipperary and watching. Just as the poised filial fingers were about to descend on the keys, the paterfamilias said, “Yes, sir. Hell of a day.”
The son slowly lowered his hands. He sat back. He reached for his glass. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“No, no, I just happened to think out loud, son. It’s not important. I mean, sorry I interrupted.”
“So am I, but the fact, as de Gaulle would say in translation, is accomplished. I couldn’t compose a printable line now if I were on my deathbed.”
“I said I was sorry,” the Inspector said in a huff. “I see I’d better get out of here.”
“Oh, sit down. You obviously invaded my domain with malice aforeceps, as a show biz lady of my acquaintance liked to say, in contravention of my rights under the. Fourth Amendment.” The old man sat back, rather be-wilderedly mollified. “By the way, how about not talking on an empty stomach? Dinner simmers on the hod. Mrs. Fabrikant left us one of her famous, or to put it more accurately, notorious Irish stews. Fabby had to leave early today-”
“I’m in no hurry to eat,” the Inspector said hurriedly.
“Done! I’ll run down to Sammy’s later for some hot kosher pastrami and Jewish rye and lots of half-sour pickles and stuff, and we can feed Fabby’s stew to the Delehantys’ setter, he’s Irish-”
“Fine, fine.”
“Therefore how about another round?” Ellery struggled to the vertical, revived a few moribund muscles and tendons, shook himself, and then came round the desk with his glass. He took his father’s empty from the slack fingers. “You still traveling that long way?”
“Long way?”
“To Tipperary. Proportions?”
“Three-quarters of an ounce each of Irish, sweet vermouth, and-”
“I know, green chartreuse.” He shuddered (the Inspector snapped, “Very funny!”) and dodged into the living room. When he returned, instead of reoccupying his desk chair Ellery dropped into the overstuffed chair facing the sofa.
“If it’s ambulatory help you need, dad, I can’t lift my duff. That damn deadline’s so close the back of my neck is recommending Listeriiie. But if you can use an armchair opinion… What’s this one about?”
“About a third of a half billion dollars,” Inspector Queen grunted. “And you don’t have to be so darn merry about it.”
“It’s frustrated-writer’s hysteria, dad. Did I hear you correctly? Billion?”
“Right. With a huh.”
“For pity land’s sake. Who’s involved?”
“Importuna Industries. Know anything about the outfit?”
“Only that it’s a conglomerate of a whole slew of industries and companies, great and small, foreign and domestic, the entire shtik owned by three brothers named Importuna.”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Owned by one brother named Importuna. The other two carry the handle Importunato.”
“Full brothers? Or half, or step?”
“Full, far as I know.”
“How come the difference in surnames?”
“Nino, the oldest, is superstitious, has a thing about lucky numbers or something-I had more important things to break my head about. Anyway, he shortened the family name. His brothers didn’t.”
“Noted. Well?”
“Oh, hell,” his father said, and swigged like a desperate man. “Ellery, I warn you… this is wild. I don’t want to be responsible for dragging you into a complicated mess when you’ve your own work to do… “
“You’re absolved, dad, shriven. I’ll put it in writing if you like. Satisfied? Go on!”
“Well, all right,” the Inspector said, with an on-your-head-be-it sigh. “The three brothers live in an apartment house they own on the upper East Side, overlooking the river. It’s an old-timer, 9 stories and penthouse, designed by somebody important in the late ‘90s, and when Nino Importuna bought it, he had it restored to its original condition, modernized the plumbing and heating, installed the latest in air conditioning, and so on-turned it into one of the snootiest buildings in the neighborhood. I understand that prospective tenants have to go through a tougher check than the security men assigned to the President.”
“I gather not quite,” Ellery suggested.
“I’m coming to that. The place is one of I don’t know how many homes the brothers maintain around the world-especially Nino-but 99 East, as Importuna calls it, seems to be the one they run the conglomerate from, at least the American components.”
“Don’t they have offices?”
“Offices? Whole chains of office buildings! But the real dirty work, the high command decisions, that all originates at 99 East.-Okay, Ellery! But before I can get to the murder-”
At the lethal word Ellery’s nose twitched like a Saint Bernard’s. “Can’t you at least tell me who was schlogged? How? Where?”
“If you’ll wait just a minute, son! The setup’s as follows: Nino occupies the penthouse. His brothers Marco and Julio live in the apartments that make up the top floor of the building, the floor directly underneath the penthouse-there are two apartments to a floor except on the roof, and they’re enormous, I don’t know how many rooms to an apartment. You know those swanky old buildings.
“Now the brothers share the services of a confidential secretary, a fellow named Ennis, Peter Ennis, good-looking guy who’s got to be mighty sharp or he wouldn’t be holding down a job like that-”
“Confidential secretary could covei a lot of territory. Just what does Ennis handle for the brothers?”
“Their personal affairs mostly, he says, although of course, with the brothers operating so much from their homes I don’t see how Ennis could fail to get in on some of the business shenanigans, too. Anyway, this morning, early-”