“Maybe. Anyway, I just looked around the room — what else was there to do? — when Sid walked in, wearing a dazed expression. I suggested to him that we go somewhere else to talk, anywhere else. He knew of another bar, a place about three blocks away, and he suggested calling Harvey, the other bridge player. He got hold of him at home, and the upshot was the three of us met in a quiet corner of a quiet saloon on Eleventh Avenue.
“It was like a wake. Those two guys and Chester had gotten really close over the years. They didn’t just play bridge together, they also went as a group to baseball and basketball games.”
“Did they have any ideas about what happened to Chester?”
“It was kind of hard getting them to talk because they were pretty broken up. I finally let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and told them who I really was.”
“An intrepid and tireless private investigator?”
“In so many words, smart guy.”
“How did they react to that?”
“At first, I felt a little hostility, or at least strong reserve, from each of them. But then they softened when I told them how ‘Ted’ was someone I knew and was concerned about, and that I joined their bridge game to try to learn what might have befallen him. I did not, however, tell them who Theodore really was, or that he’s in a hospital. They still seem to think he is missing.”
“Fine to let them think so, even though it seems clear both of them probably figure it’s likely that he is dead.”
“I suppose so,” Saul said, sipping on the cup of coffee that had just been set before him. “It’s clear these two guys are scared, and who wouldn’t be in their situation? One from their bridge foursome is killed, another has disappeared.”
“I know these guys had been edgy around the longshoremen,” I said. “Theodore had been quoted as saying they acted like they were ‘up to no good,’ whatever that means, and Chester also said they ‘seemed to be hiding something.’ It’s all pretty vague.”
Saul nodded. “I pressed Sid and Harvey, trying to get the pair to be specific about what made them uneasy about the patrons in McCready’s, and neither one seems able to put a finger on specifically what made them nervous in that back room. The best I could get was when Harvey said, ‘It was like they all’ — he meant the pool players — ‘were hiding something, or had some sort of secret.’”
“Did either of them notice any kind of change in the makeup of the other customers at the bar?”
“I asked that,” Saul said, “and they didn’t seem aware of a shift, although Sid did mention that he thought a few of the people who sat at the bar had what he called ‘a foreign feeling about them, not necessarily bad, just foreign.’”
“Similar to the residents I’ve been running into at the Elmont, that five-story pile of bricks I’ve been staying at across the street from McCready’s.”
“Some people get to have all the fun,” Saul observed.
“Yeah, how’d you like to bunk there in my place? I’m willing to share the fun.”
“No thanks. So, assuming there are more ‘foreigners’ both in that apartment building and McCready’s salon, where are they coming from?”
“I may have at least a partial answer,” I said, proceeding to tell Saul about what Charlie King from the North River docks told me about a group of men who had been seen getting off a National Export Lines freighter just in from Europe.
“It sounds like they could be displaced persons who, for whatever reasons, didn’t qualify for residence here and are getting smuggled in,” Saul said. “And maybe that’s also the explanation for all those others in the Elmont and at McCready’s.”
“Okay, I will give you that. But how does it explain the violence against Theodore and the murder of Chester Miller, both events which seem to be related to the secretive nature in McCready’s and possibly at the Elmont as well? If anything, you would think these DPs who get smuggled in would try above all to avoid attention.”
“Good point,” Saul said. “What if it’s not the DPs who are behind the violence?”
“You’re suggesting the longshoremen?”
“I am not sure what I’m suggesting. But if I were you, I would watch my back while you’re staying at the Elmont and hanging around that saloon. Things are going on that we don’t fully understand.”
“I will keep that advice in mind,” I told him. And as it turned out, it was a good thing I did.
Chapter 14
After leaving Saul, I went back to the Elmont and turned in, wedging a chair under the knob of my door to the hall as a precaution against prowlers, something I should have done earlier. I’m a sound sleeper, and especially after my discussion with Saul, I began to feel somewhat paranoid.
The next morning, I returned to the coffee shop down the street for ham, eggs, and hash browns, resisting the temptation to show up at the brownstone for some of Fritz’s first-rate breakfast fare. At the crowded counter as I was polishing off my second cup of coffee, I considered my options. I could either go back to the Elmont and try to draw out some of my fellow roomers or go poke around the National Export docks to see if any more “passengers” were debarking from the company’s ships. I didn’t like either option, so I headed for the brownstone, where I could make myself useful by catching up on Wolfe’s correspondence.
I hit the buzzer with my usual combination of long-and-short buzzes, and Fritz pulled the door open with what I took to be a relieved smile. “I worry about you when you are not here, Archie,” he said.
“I appreciate that. Have you heard anything about Theodore?”
“Dr. Vollmer telephoned yesterday afternoon and told Mr. Wolfe that his condition has not changed. The doctor said he was neither surprised nor discouraged.”
“Is anything else happening around here?”
“I do not think Mr. Wolfe is pleased with his new gardener, Mr. Willis. It has made him more difficult than usual in the kitchen. I cannot seem to please him. We had a fight last night over whether to use shallots in baked scallops. I have done it the same way for years and have never had any complaints, and now he is unhappy with me.”
“Your lot is not an easy one,” I told him. “But it’s been that way for years, isn’t that true?”
Fritz nodded, his expression woeful. “I work very hard to please him, Archie.”
“I know you do. And if I am allowed to have a vote in this discussion, I think you are a marvel in the kitchen, and always have been.”
He mumbled a thank-you and turned back to the kitchen, while I went into the office. Fritz had neatly stacked the morning mail on my desk. I slit all the envelopes and pulled out the only bill to be paid, from Murger’s, where Wolfe buys his books. On my desk were several letters I had previously typed, signed by Wolfe and ready to be mailed. I set to work.
I had finished my chores when the boss came down from the plant rooms after his morning session with the orchids. He settled in at his desk, rang for beer, asked if I had slept well, and gave me a look that indicated I should report.
“Yes, I slept well, although I would rather have been in my own room upstairs. I understand Vollmer called and told Fritz there has been no change in Theodore’s condition.”
“Yes, although the doctor remains optimistic. What have you learned since last we spoke?”
“Not a lot.” I filled Wolfe in on my conversation with Liam McCready and Saul’s meeting with Sid and Harvey. “We are both stumped about what’s really going on in what I’m going to call the ‘Mysterious Triangle’ — the National Export dock, McCready’s saloon, and the Elmont. It seems clear that people are getting smuggled into the country. I’m sure it’s because more people want to come here than the law allows.”