“I haven’t gotten to Maria, or anybody else at home,” I said, turning again to the phone. “I’ll try again now.”
“Later, after lunch,” he said, hauling his bulk out of the chair and making for the dining room.
I’m sure Fritz’s potato pancakes were superb, but for the second time in two days, my taste buds were on automatic pilot. When we were back in the office with coffee, I made another call to the Stevens-Radovich apartment. There was an answer this time, but not what I wanted. The maid said Maria wasn’t expected home until late that night, so I left a message for her to call me — whenever she got in. “We can try going directly to Stevens,” I suggested. “He’s probably over at Symphony Hall right now.”
Wolfe slowly set his book down, dog-earing a page. “No, Archie, our commitment is to Miss Radovich, not Mr. Stevens. Any communication with her uncle must be done through her, or with her approval.”
I swiveled around, ready to argue, but the book was open and in front of his face again. After five minutes of thinking dark thoughts, I got up noisily and went to the hall, grabbing my coat from the rack and slamming the front door behind me. A light rain had begun, blending with my mood. I pulled up my collar and headed east, cooling off as I went. I was being unfair to Wolfe, I argued with myself. After all, he had agreed to take the case, although on one condition. And it was obviously going to be up to me to fulfill that condition. I turned north on Eighth Avenue and ducked into a diner where I sometimes stop for coffee. This time I ordered milk from the counterman, who had only one other customer, an old guy about six stools down who was hunched over a bowl of chili.
I took a few sips of the milk and went to the pay phone to look up the number of Maria’s dance troupe, which had its studio on Forty-sixth Street in the theater district. I dialed and got a female voice, along with music in the background.
“Yes, Miss Radovich is here,” the voice said, “but she’s in the middle of a rehearsal right now. They should be taking a break in a few minutes.” I left my name and gave her the pay-phone number. I was on the third glass of milk, with a slice of peach pie thrown in, when the phone rang. “Mr. Goodwin?” Her voice was still breathless, although this time it could have been from the dancing.
After I assured her it was me despite the different phone number, the questions started tumbling out.
“Hold it,” I said. “Now catch your breath and listen while I fill you in. Mr. Wolfe says yes, he’ll take your money and try to solve the problem. But you’ve got to do something for us.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Miss Radovich, you’ve got to persuade your uncle to come to Mr. Wolfe’s house for a talk.”
Several seconds passed, and when she spoke, she sounded desperate. “You know he won’t do that — I couldn’t get him to.”
“Look, Miss Radovich, when you first called, I wouldn’t have given a Canadian dime for our chances of waking up Mr. Wolfe. I’m happy to say I was wrong. Now he’s awake, but he’s also stubborn, very stubborn. He wants to see Milan Stevens in his office. Now, if you don’t think you can pull it off, I’ll be glad to come over, and we can talk to him together.”
“No!” she replied in something between a whisper and a shout. “If you came, he would be horribly angry both with you and with me. I must get back to rehearsal now, and we practice again after dinner, so I won’t be home until late, almost midnight. But then I will ask Uncle Milos. I promise you.” I repeated that I’d be happy to be there for moral support, but that only rattled her more. I gave up and said I’d wait to hear.
The rain had stopped, and I needed exercise, so I walked. By the time I got home, it was a little after four, which put Wolfe in the plant rooms and meant I probably wouldn’t see him again that day: I was taking Lily to the Rangers game after an early supper at Rusterman’s.
If I ever decide to spend the rest of my life with one woman — a less-than-even bet — that woman will be Lily Rowan. That is, if she ever decides to spend the rest of her life with one man, and you’ll have to ask her about the odds on that yourself. All of which may give you some idea about our relationship.
Lily’s late father came over from Ireland and discovered that New York could use some new sewers, so he spent a lifetime building them and getting rich and powerful in the process and determining who should be elected to what office in the city and the state and sometimes Congress. Today, Lily lives in a penthouse just off Park Avenue, and at least one of her French Impressionist paintings has curators at four museums drooling.
This is fine, but more important to me are dark blue eyes and hair just a shade darker than cornsilk and the best-looking legs between Paris and Chicago, legs that are not only great to ogle, but which also move around a dance floor better than any others I’ve ever been with. Not to mention that each of us seems to have the other measured pretty well all the time, so nobody worries about playing parts or faking emotions.
“Escamillo, my love,” Lily said over coffee after dinner, “methinks your mind is a long way from Irish colleens and hockey games. No, don’t try to deny it,” she said, reaching across to squeeze my arm. “Maybe it’s intuition or whatever those women’s magazines have taken to calling it these days, but all the way down to my toes, I have a feeling that Nero Wolfe’s back at work. Or maybe it’s because you’ve scratched your right cheek just below the ear at least four times tonight, which only happens when you’re nervous, and you’re only nervous when you’re on a case. Of course I’d kill to know all about it, but you know damn well I’m not going to ask.”
I grinned and leaned across the booth to kiss Lily’s cheek — just below the right ear. “Now I see why you do so well against me when we play poker,” I said. “I suppose you’re going to tell me I rub my chin when I pair up or that my left eye twitches when I fill a straight?” She answered with a wink.
True to her word, Lily didn’t bring up the subject of Wolfe again, and I made sure my right hand stayed away from my face. The Rangers beat Boston six-five on a short-handed goal with less than three minutes to play. We cheered as loudly as any of the seventeen thousand others in the Garden, but our enthusiasm dissolved into awkward silence as soon as we were outside.
“I’m aware,” Lily said after we’d gotten a cab, “that you’re a million miles away right now. I was planning to ask you in for a brandy, but if you want to take a rain check, that’s fine. It wouldn’t hurt me to get to bed at a decent hour for a change.”
“You know of course that your knack of saying and doing precisely the right thing at the right time makes you totally irresistible to me,” I said.
“Of course I know it. I’ve bought a table for a benefit at the Churchill two weeks from tonight, and I expect you to be my consort.”
“Consider it done,” I said as we pulled up to her building. I went as far as the lobby with her, and we kissed while the hallman tactfully kept his head buried in a paperback. “Take care, Escamillo,” she said, easing out of my grasp and planting the tip of her finger on my nose. “I want to hear all about what you and Wolfe are up to — when you’re ready to talk about it.”
Back in the cab, I gave the driver a Forty-sixth Street address. About halfway through the hockey game, I’d made up my mind to try to catch Maria at her rehearsal and take her home. On the way, I hoped, I could talk her into introducing me to Uncle Milos.
My watch said eleven-fifteen when the cabbie slid to the curb in front of a brick building on a dark stretch a half-block east of Broadway. There was a stationery store at street level, with a doorway on one side with a sign above it that said “Elmar Dance Company, 2nd Floor.” I walked up a long, creaky stairway, moving toward a light at the top and the sounds of what I assumed must be dance music. The stairs ended at a small reception area with a desk and a lumpy couch and dusty photographs of dancers hanging at cockeyed angles on the walls. A hallway led farther back, to where the music was coming from.