Rex Stout
Before I Die
I
That Monday afternoon in October, life indoors was getting to be more than I cared to take. Meaning, by indoors, the office of Nero Wolfe, where I worked, on the ground floor of the house he owned on West Thirty-fifth Street not far from North River. Relief was due soon, since he spent two hours every afternoon, from four to six, with the orchids up in the plant rooms on the roof, but it was still thirty minutes short of four o’clock and I had had all of him I could stand for a while.
I wasn’t blaming him; I was merely fed up with him. It was smack in the middle of the Great Meat Shortage, when millions of pigs and steers, much to the regret of the growers and slaughterers, had sneaked off and hid in order to sell their lives dear, and to Nero Wolfe a meal without meat was an insult. His temper had got so bad that I had offered to let him eat me, and it would be best to skip his retort. By that Monday afternoon he had got so desperate that he had started taking long walks, as, for instance, back and forth between his chair and the bookshelves, and sometimes even through the door into the front room, which faced on Thirty-fifth Street.
So at three-thirty I told him I was going out for an errand down the street, and he was sunk so far in misery and malice that he didn’t even demand to know what the errand was. Then, just as I was reaching for my hat on the rack in the hall, the doorbell rang. I let the hat wait, stepped to the door and opened it, and what I saw jerked my mind loose from the fastenings where it had got glued onto Wolfe’s huff. Standing there on the stoop was one of the most obvious articles I had ever looked at. Though the sun had been shining all day and still was, he had on a raincoat, belted tight. His hat, a glossy black felt number, was too small for him, and it looked out of place for the lids of his light gray eyes to be open because his face was embalmed — or, at least, after he had breathed his last and had been embalmed, his face would look exactly the way it looked now.
“Your name’s Goodwin,” he told me impolitely, without overexerting any muscles.
“Thanks,” I thanked him. “How much do I weigh?”
But he was serious-minded. “Come on out.” He jerked a thumb backwards. “Guy here in a car wants to see you.”
I pause for character identification, wanting to make it clear that I neither scream with fear nor start pulling the trigger every time I see a stranger with an embalmed face reach in his pocket for a cigarette. But in his long career as a private detective Nero Wolfe has aroused many emotions in many people, some of them tenacious, and since I have been employed by him for over ten years my name is undoubtedly on a few lists along with his. So I told the face to hold it a minute, stepped back inside and swung the door shut, went to the office and across to my desk, opened a drawer and took a gun, and put it in my side coat-pocket, leaving my hand there.
As I was heading back for the hall Wolfe demanded peevishly, “What is it? A mouse?”
“No, sir,” I said coldly. “I was asked to descend to the sidewalk to approach a man in a car. The car is at the curb. I recognized the man in it as Dazy Perrit. Since he is one of our most famous citizens I suppose you have heard of him. His latest title is King of the Black Market. He may have formed an opinion, contrary to yours, that I would be good broiled.”
I went. Outdoors on the stoop, after shutting the door and hearing the lock click, I took my hand from my pocket to show the face what was in it, put it back in the pocket, descended the steps to the sidewalk, and crossed to the car, a big black sedan. The man inside cranked the window down.
From behind my right shoulder a voice was saying, “He’s got his hand on a gun in his pocket.”
“Then he’s damn silly,” the man in the car said through the window, “to let you behind him.”
“Huh-uh.” I looked through at Dazy Perrit. It all depended on the conversation. “Mr. Wolfe knows you’re here. What do you want?”
“I want to see Wolfe.”
I shook my head. “Nope.” I was ignoring the hired man. This was the closest I had ever been to Dazy Perrit. To most people he would have seemed a big fat man, but to me, used as I was to the magnitude of Nero Wolfe, he was merely rounded out. His face, smooth and shaved to the pink, was too big for his nose and mouth, but that was unimportant on account of the eyes. Everything he had done and might do was in his black eyes.
“Nope,” I said. “I told you on the phone this morning that Mr. Wolfe is too busy to see you. He’s got more work than he can handle now.”
“I intend to see him. Go in and tell him.”
“Lookit, mister.” I put an elbow on the window sill and leaned in to him. “Don’t think I’m laughing you off. People who laugh you off are apt to show up soon at a funeral, playing the lead. Okay. But neither am I asking any favors. Whatever you have in mind, and you’re being pretty damn stubborn about it, Mr. Wolfe wants no part of it. That may make you sore, which would be a pity and should be avoided if possible, but not half as sore as you would be if you rolled something out in front of him and let him look and then he didn’t like it. That would be really bad, either for him or for you, and don’t be too sure—”
“Archie!”
It was a bellow from my right rear. I straightened and wheeled, and saw the upper half of Wolfe filling the space left by a window he had opened — the rear window of the front room.
He bellowed again, “What does Mr. Perrit want?”
“Nothing,” I called. “He just stopped by—”
“He wants to see you,” the face put in.
“Then confound it, Archie, bring him in here!”
“But I—”
“Bring him in!”
The window banged shut and Wolfe was gone. The face looked searchingly up and down the street, and across, then reached past me to open the door of the car, and Dazy Perrit climbed out.
II
I decided I didn’t know as much about underworld royalty as I thought I did. Surely the thing would have been for the hired man to come along, watching for treachery in all directions at once, but Dazy Perrit told him to stay by the car and entered the house alone with me. Two paces inside the office he stopped to make a survey, probably merely through force of habit, like a veteran general playing golf on a strange course automatically picking out the best spots to place artillery units or hide his tanks. I walked on past him and sat down at my desk, warning myself not to underestimate his potentialities just because he was six inches shorter than me. I was too sore at Wolfe to speak.
“Be seated, sir,” Wolfe said graciously.
Perrit had finished surveying the premises and was surveying Wolfe. After five seconds he spoke as if he were a little irritated. “I don’t like it in here. I’ve got something private for you. Come out and sit in my car.”
I was really on edge because I was sure Wolfe would make himself obnoxious, and getting obnoxious with Dazy Perrit simply had no percentage. But Wolfe said, “My dear sir,” and chuckled in a friendly manner. “I rarely leave my house. I do like it here. I would be an idiot to leave this chair, made to fit me—”
“I know, I know,” Perrit said impatiently. He aimed the black eyes at me. “You go out and sit in my car.”
“No, sir,” Wolfe said emphatically. “Do be seated. That red leather chair is the best one. I do nothing without Mr. Goodwin. If you confided in me, no matter what, under a pledge of confidence, I would tell it all to him as soon as you left.”
“You might make exceptions. I might be a good exception to start with.”