"Aces" - NW fanfic
New and improved. Partially re-written.
Aces - by humanyouth
Formerly unnamed, tentatively called "the title is the publisher's job anyway isn't it?"
Fandom: Nero Wolfe
Pairing if you care: Archie/Saul
Length: Longish.
Disclaimer: not mine, no money
Summary: Saul's in love, but Archie's flighty.
Rating: Something like PG or PG-13
Author's note: Sorry I keep posting parts and versions and revisions of it, I know that must be annoying. If you want the original, I can direct you to it, but I assure you that this one is not only better-rounded but better in general. It's also more or less completed. Actually, I don't feel like working on it any more, so I'll just say it's completed, whatever level of completedness it actually merits.
***
With Lon and Orrie gone, it was just me and Saul in the front room, and I had pocket aces. Luckily, I’m not half bad at poker, and when the flop showed the third ace, my face was blank as stone.
Reaching for my pocket, I remembered that I was out of bills; Lon had really reamed everyone, taking our life savings away with him. “One hypothetical dollar,” I told Saul. He smirked a little, raised an eyebrow, made an indiscernible face at his cards, and pulled out a real dollar to match my fake one. Then he smiled and pulled out the turn.
It felt nice to be alone with him again. I’m not usually one to choose a single pal over a group of them, but he was the exception. We were really good pals, and you can’t have favoritism when you’re in a group.
It was a four, a club. Bah. I bet the same and he made the same face at his cards, rubbed his chin, and met my second hypothetical dollar.
I started to get excited, in a number of ways. My tie was already over the back of the sofa, but I’d have loosened it if it weren’t. This is what poker is all about, this feeling.
Only you’re not exactly supposed to desire this kind of physical contact with your competition. I’d have been happy just touching shoulders or knees or elbows, though in truthful secrecy, my chin on his shoulder would be ideal. That, and I could see his hand. I beat the thoughts away, violently, and not for the first time that evening.
The river was another four, but if he had two more fours in his hand I’d be damned. He said final bets and I put in five hypotheticals. He raised me one. Fine. Then I discovered he had two more fours in his hand.
I gave the table a sour look. “Well, Panzer, you I guess you really earned those imaginary dollars.”
“I thought you said they were hypothetical,” he said, his voice smooth as always.
“I’ll pay you next week. Or the week after, depending on when a hypothetical client rings the doorbell.”
“One will. One always does.”
I just pulled a wan smile and collected the cards. “Another go? I’m in the hole deep enough, but if you wanna go for pennies, or lint balls, or maybe the rest of the cheese balls on the platter in the refrigerator…”
“It’s late,” Saul said, “I’ll go.”
I stood up with him and when we were in the hall, me retrieving his hat and pulling it onto his head, we laughed a little. It was only 3:00 AM and Friday night; this was home and the place was silent except for us. Private.
His quirky smile wavered as we stood facing each other. We stood there longer than two old friends stand to say goodbye, and I started to shift my weight uneasily. “What are you thinking?” He asked, his smile gone.
I drew in air. “I’m thinking…” It could have been something short, something witty and smart-alecky, but I knew it was the wrong time and place for that. “I’m thinking I wish the world were….more quiet a place.”
He read me right. God damn it. “It’s quiet here,” he said, his eyebrows lifting hopefully. I dropped my gaze and shifted my weight again. “Isn’t it?”
Suddenly I felt strongly about kissing him and so I did, but maybe I did it wrong; you feel strongly about something and you tend to feel too strongly. I caught his lapel and forced it. He didn’t pull back but he started, surprised, and his arm flung out. It was a very short kiss.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Now we stood further apart, watching each other warily, or at least I was watching him warily. It was still quiet. Saul took two tentative steps toward me, slowly, and when he was standing at the suitable distance I did what felt right and put my arms around him. Being the right height for it, he tucked his head against the side of my neck and we stood that way.
I quit shifting my weight and just enjoyed it. Yes, this felt very good. This was a quiet place. I don’t know how long we stood that way. Eventually he looked up at me, his chin square. “Come home with me, Arch.”
I remembered an afternoon two weeks ago, 4:45 or so because Wolfe was upstairs in the plant rooms. Saul was over and I’d made him a drink or two and then things happened in secret behind the peephole and the painting of the waterfall behind Wolfe’s desk. For two weeks, every time Wolfe looked at me I wondered if he knew about it. I’m sure he did. He couldn’t not.
I put my hands on Saul Panzer’s shoulders and moved him backwards, feeling stern. “I can’t live like this, Saul.”
His lips tensed and his jaw worked for a minute. “I…can’t not live like this,” he said. His voice rising, “this isn’t just some passing thing, Archie-“
“This isn’t legal, Saul.”
“You’re going to talk legality now?” The lovey-dovey moment past, we now were now loud enough to risk waking Fritz. It wasn’t as important.
“All right, so the law is just the law. But it can’t be right, in any sense. Morally…Socially….Naturally….” I ran out of wrongs. “It’s not acceptable. Aside from being in jail, there’s social ostracizeation, humiliation, and the fact that a man and a man are just not physically compatible.”
He said nothing, frowning slightly, but his eyes said there was more than a slight problem. I spread my hands. “It has to stop.”
He took a big step or two back from me, his expression not quite stony, just hugely disappointed. “Saul,” I pleaded as he pulled the door open. He shrugged and left.
His shadow, cast by moonlight and street lamps, lingered on the stoop for a moment before walking off. Conceivably, it could have gone worse. My stomach was lead, my face was hot. I was tired as hell, and Saul was gone with my heart and seven of my hypothetical dollars.
“Lovin’ babe,” I said.
***
“Archie...you are, and have been, affected. Why?”
Having just shown out the biggest suspect in our case, the first thing I expected upon returning to the office was not a personal question from Wolfe. I balked for a moment, then decided that if my temperment effected the investigation to the point where Wolfe felt obliged to make inquiry, he deserved an answer from me. But what kind of answer? I thought of the interlude behind the peephole and swallowed before opening my mouth.
“Saul Panzer and I had a fight a few days ago,” I admitted; so much was true. “I’m real sore at him, that’s all.” Having to say it made it harder to ignore, and I got grumpier.
It hadn't just been a few days since I'd seen or heard from Saul; it had actually been a whole week, and it had seemed twice as long, devoid of comfort or relaxation. My sleeping was way under par, to say the least. The past week I had only slept one or two nights, though that was only counting completed 8-hour rests; on other nights I got three or four hours, more if I was lucky. My brain simply wouldn't stop.
Saul was on my mind, not in a bad way, just in a frustrating way. I couldn't do anything without my mind drifting back to him--and there were good thoughts. I hated it and I hated Saul and hated how empty his absence left me. I had no idea he made up such a large part of my life until now: outside of the office, we were together all the time, and frequently in the office, too. But I couldn't miss him. I didn't dare miss him.
The phone rang before Wolfe could press for details, or maybe he wasn't going to; Wolfe and I exchanged a glance before I picked up. “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” I waited.
And waited. “Hello?”
After three seconds there was a click and the line went dead. I hung up angrily and gave the phone a glare; fourth one in two days. I had a suspicion I knew who it was, too. “Unless that is a certain Mr. Jones, and he's waiting for you to pick up, it was nobody,” I told Wolfe. Nobody, I repeated to myself.
“It was obviously somebody,” he pointed out gruffly.
“All right, it was somebody. However, they said nothing.” I was peeved at having to retract my ‘nobody’ statement. “Do you have any orders for me?”
He looked like he was going to give me some, but he shook his head and buzzed Fritz for beer instead. Thoroughly disgusted, I announced that I was taking a walk and would be back for dinner.
Walking to the garage wasn’t enough, so I stretched my legs south and just walked until it looked like it might rain. Dammit, but I was upset.
Why couldn’t we just play cards and go to baseball games as friends again? Couldn’t we just cut out all the. . .the. . .other things. I couldn’t even say it. If I didn’t say it, it didn’t exist. If I didn't think about him, he didn't exist.
On the way back I rationalized that maybe I was part of the problem, too, since I had always been the one to make the move, not him. And I wanted....I missed those other things. They made me sad, because I knew it all had to stop.
But I didn’t really want anything to do with the other things did I? Saul did. Had. Does. He was impossible. I missed him. But I didn't--I didn't want to see him at all--
In the end, maybe the problem was I don’t like keeping secrets like this from Mr. Wolfe, and--
--back at the brownstone, I sighed and stuck in my key, my hat a little wet when I hung it up. I shook my head vigorously to get the thoughts out and marched into the dining room.
Wolfe asked no more personal questions.
***
Though I usually shut down all my facilities during sleep, at two-thirty AM the next morning I heard the clack because I had not yet shut them down. Though it could be that rocks generally hit my window at two-thirty AM and I’m just not there to hear them, I doubted it and rose carefully, not turning on the lamp.
Going to the targeted window would bullseye me if it were a sniper, so I slunk to the door. Another clack sounded off the glass, a little harder this time. It took me maybe five seconds to get to the hall window, and once I saw who it was, I grumbled and went back to my room.
I could have thrown a pillow over my head and let him break the damn window, but we all know that my eight hours were impossible at this point, and with the window broken, I might get hit instead. I tossed up the window and snapped, “What are you, fourteen? Scram, Romeo.”
Saul had his hand back, prepared for another toss. He dropped whatever lay in his hand, along with the additional ammunition in his other hand. “Archie,” He said. It sounded like a complaint.
“I’m trying to sleep up here. Shoo.”
“We need to talk.”
“We talked plenty last week.”
“Arch.”
If I shut the window now, he’d just throw more rocks. “Well, all right, talk.”
I couldn’t see his eyes from this vantage point, but I had them well enough in my mind. He said, “I don’t want you angry at me. Think what you want, but our friendship is more important than all this.”
I waited, but that was all. “That’s it?”
He nodded, a slight movement in the dark.
“I agree, it is more important. And I don’t want to be angry at you, either, and I don’t think I am. But I am angry with myself.”
“Why?”
He asked me why? “Because I pulled the curtain closed, that’s why. Because I was the one who ki. . .” Yeah, Goodwin, yell it to all of New York for God’s sake.
Saul stood in silence, his small oval face no longer staring up at me. “Mr. Wolfe asked me to track down some people for your case,” he said after a long, terse period.
I raised an eyebrow. Well, Wolfe, that was good to know. Thank you for the late-night messaging service. “Great,” I said, trying not to make it too sarcastic. “Listen, Saul, I’m sorry…..just give me time to cool off.”
“I’ll try. I miss you, Ar-“
No. I’d shut the window. I miss you too, Saul.
***
The case had taken off quickly up until then, leaving me with little time for personal thought or trouble, and for that I was thankful. However, the high I’d spent the past three days riding on had been steadily crashing since my early-morning encounter, and as much as I liked keeping busy, Wolfe was only getting started with his suspects. I spent the day chasing down whosis and whatsis and their great-aunts and their toy poodles, Wolfe told me nothing about why I was doing this, and me on three hours of sleep on top of that.
There is no business at dinner, and Wolfe was far away at the other end of the table. I’d have liked to be closer, not because he was especially nice to look at, but because I was craving some closeness with somebody, anybody, and Wolfe was a pretty good friend. I’d have eaten in the kitchen with Fritz, but I had already sat down with Wolfe and it would have been impolite.
“Have you spoken with Saul?” He surprised me.
“Wha?” I felt the guilt rush up to my face and I beat it back down.
“You told me you had argued with Mr. Panzer,” he said lightly, raising his chin. “Has it resolved itself? From your reflexive glare just now, I would surmise it has not.”
“No, it hasn’t,” I said shortly. He got the idea and moved on to discussing the orchids, chiefly the insulting prices proposed by a man uptown who had wanted to purchase a few. Orchids are boring but they aren’t Saul and they don't involve toy poodles or dimwitted clients, so I was all right talking about them.
I had given him an orchid once. Saul, that is. Wolfe had sent him upstairs to look at orchids while our flightly, unnamed client was in the building, and when I was given permission to retrieve him, we took our time coming down.
“That’s Ansellia africana,” I told him about the plant he was admiring when I came up. He shot me a sidewise glance and smiled. “I like the color.” It was yellow.
“I know you like the color,” I teased. “But there’s some pink over here--you like pink, too, right?” He hardly humored me, but he still smiled. It feels great when you can get Saul to smile.
“I just don’t like red. You can write that in your book.”
I remember my thought clearly, and the fact that I didn’t let it slip: I don’t have to, I knew it already.
I used some scissors from Wolfe’s workbench and snipped off a blossom of Ansellia africana and inserted it into Saul’s breast pocket. He examined it, gave me a blank look, then smiled again.
"Mr. Wolfe need me?"
"Not you, not me, not anybody but Fritz, who brings the beer."
He held up a hand to itch his nose and "Orrie and I were going to get some beers, you want to come?"
"Certainly."
***
The only time I think a case is going badly is when nothing is happening. When none of the people invovled offer up names or happenings, when background checks offer up nothing, or when Wolfe suddenly up and decides that no case is going to get in the way of his food or orchid appreciation, no matter what his plant-room hours are.
None of these things had happened to that case, the James Conway case. Still, being shot at before 6:00 P.M. did not make it a walk in the park. I got the plate numbers for the car that had peeled off, darted to the nearest phone booth and dialed Wolfe.
"What?" he answered the phone.
"I was almost to the Harmon apartments to rifle Conway's apartment, see, and somebody leaned out of a blue sedan and fired a handgun at me. Two shots."
"Are you hurt?"
"No, they went wide. Lousy shot."
"Archie," he said, voice grave, "Get back here. I know who the murderer is. Hurry."
If the police wanted me for something, they could come and find me. I beat it home and was hanging up my hat in twenty minutes.
In the office, Wolfe was bent over a paper, scrutinizting the type. That was the first thing I noticed. Second was Saul Panzer, standing alert behind the red leather chair, hands behind his back. I gave him a look and he returned it. "Who's the killer?" I asked Wolfe without too much hesitation.
"Mayor," Wolfe said without looking up. "It could have been either man but the shooting confirmed it. I have phoned Inspector Cramer, but you must go to Miss Hoyle's apartment immediately. He may suspect her association with us." No client meant to paycheck. I nodded and moved toward my desk drawer.
"Saul will go with you in case you should run into him," he added.
I gave Saul another look, but he didn't return it.
***
"Don't be mad at me, Archie."
"Saul, I'm not mad, I'm just avoiding conversation."
"You're angry." He paused. "I'm angry."
I looked. "You're angry?"
He gave me a cold stare, not smiling like he ususally does. "I'm angry, Arch. You won't talk to me. Not even like a friend. You're my best friend. We haven't talked in a week. Now if you don't like me the way I like you, Archie, I understand that. But I think you do. You've shown me that you do, and when you push me out like this, that hurts. So I'm angry."
Gripping the wheel, I replied, "I don't."
"You mean 'you shouldn't.' It's not about that, Archie. There's more to the world than you or Wolfe or anybody can explain as easily as 'that's bad' and 'that's good.'"
My mouth worked, I clenched the wheel, and then I swerved to the side of the road and stopped the engine. "Quit making things complicated!" I yelled at him. "Quit doing this to me! Just be my friend, all right?"
"Complicated?" His voice got sharper and he didn't yell like me. "I'm complicated?" When I didn't comment he continued, "I'm simple. I'm satisfied. I know what I want. Can you say that?"
"Yes! I want to be with--" I cut myself off. "I want to...I don't not want to be...goddammit!"
Saul grabbed my lapel with no amount of suavity or grace and yanked me forward to kiss me, beating off my defensive arm and, as we progressed, putting his arm around my waist. I resisted for a long time, in retrospect, but I couldn't for too long. It was too much. He gave off a kind of heat, and I went from stiff and stoic to reactive and passionate, I put my hand under his coat and let him wrap a leg around my leg, and I moaned but tried to cut it off.
My thoughts? Unclear. Panic through and through, anger, lonliness....mad passion. Affection.
I would have gone on forever, but he broke it off, smiling a little and breathing heavier than normal.
Now that we were seperate, everything was wrong. I was cold instead of warm, my passion was unsatisfied, and when I stepped back from myself all I saw was a man who had just been tonguing it with another man in the front seat of Nero Wolfe's roadster.
"We should go," he pointed out. I put my head back and moaned again, but the bad way. I covered my eyes.
"Don't worry, Archie," he said quietly. He held my hand.
I told him it felt wrong being away from him and he said he was right there, and I said maybe he'd better drive, since I was obviously wrong in the head. I didn't talk to him for the rest of the ride, though.
***
Miss Hoyle was dead when we arrived; shot. When we were let in, a small cloud of feathers was disturbed by the door; the bastard had fired through a pillow to muffle the sound. She was still warm.
The kid downstairs said a tall young man with brown hair had left in a hurry not five minutes ago, but five minutes is enough time to pick up a taxi. Our murderer, however, had waited to see if I would make an appearance, so he could shoot me, too.
Again, his shot was wide. Saul and I ducked on instinct, but the pasty white face and the hand toting the gun took off around the nearest corner.
I didn't have to shout anything. Saul was on the ball, cutting the nearest corner to head him off before I could even think of snapping an order in his direction. I pelted on straight down the sidewalk, somewhat upset that I didn't get the chance to snap something at him.
By the time I hit my corner of the street I figured Mayor would have passed me if he'd turned my way, but I was wrong; he was right on top of me. I glanced right and saw Saul make his turn toward us, twenty or thirty meters off. I followed after the skinny guy myself since I was closer.
Mayor was wild-eyed and kept looking over his shoulder at me, and I was gaining. I watched him pass around another corner the next block up, but it was his mistake: it was a dead end. I kept on.
The corner kept me blind until the last possible second, and when I made the turn at full tilt, there way no way of stopping in time. He had his gun on me when I appeared and he fired two times before I could do more than lift my brows and begin the braking process.
I am keen at listening to gunshots, since it is part of my occupation. I heard one of them, but I had to guess about the other one. Of course, firing two shots at me earlier today, one at Miss Hoyle, and one at me and Saul, that left two bullets. I felt both of them. One high and one low. He'd been a terrible shot from far off, but his aim got much better close-up.
Doc Volmer told me the specifics later, and I blocked them out well enough. The pain in the two spots was white-hot, but I felt my head hitting the cement with more clarity than I felt either of them. My vision failed for a second or two, and when I looked again, Mayor was not in my field of vision. Saul was.
"Hang on, Archie."
"Get him, Saul!" Yelling it made my chest hurt very much. "Goddammit he's getting away! His witnesses are dead! He'll go for Wolfe or skip town!"
Even as I was talking, the pain was fading, except for my head. Saul was bundling up his jacket and pressing it down onto me, forcing me to hold it in place, and then he was gone, hopefully after the perp. I waited and tried to think; now that he was going, I'd have to find some kind of help.
He came back way too soon. "Saul!"
"I called the hospital and Mr. Wolfe," he told me, pressing on my chest himself because I was doing a bad job; I couldn't see blood but I could feel it all over my hands and arms. I couldn't hear my own voice, but I was yelling about catching Mayor and how fine I was doing without his help, and would he just beat it?
He put his hand over my mouth and brought his face right up over mine. "Shut up, Arch, you've--"
I couldn't hear his voice, now, either, but I didn't need to. When I was twenty years old, he'd been teaching me how to break and enter, and I'd started loudly complaining about legality while he played with the lock on the apartment door in front of us, and he'd turned around and given me that same look and told me to shut up because what did I know? And I couldn't reply and I never learned how to reply to that voice and that stare.
I kept my eyes wide on him while he told me something, probably "don't yell and don't pass out" from the context, and his eyes did the rest. I stopped yelling. He took his hand from my mouth and leaned on my wounds.
They hurt. My head hurt. I vocalized the latter but still couldn't hear my voice, so I added that I couldn't hear my voice. I was trembling and when Saul put his hand on the back of my head to feel for bumps, or something, I felt his hand trembling, too.
When I realised that I couldn't feel my fingertips or feet, that I had no idea if I could actually speak any more or if I was just thinking the words, and my vision was fading, I started thinking about death. Was I prepared for it? What awaited me on the other side? Would the devil appreciate my choice of witty commentary as much as Wolfe? Had I made good use of my time on the Earth? What would Wolfe think when he heard the news? Fritz? My parents?
What would Saul think?
When the calm was interrupted, when I felt my body moving and my head throbbing a little more, when he had hoisted me up so he could hold me better--hold me closer to him--I knew what Saul would think.
I'm sorry, Saul.
I miss you and I'm sorry and I love you back. I'm so sorry.
It was a convienient time for everything to fade to black. I didn't know if I had said it or thought it, but I didn't want to hear an answer.
***
I woke up in a bright place, staring down the length of my body and legs past a set of blanket-covered feet to meet the grumpy and pensive and slightly relieved glare of Nero Wolfe, sitting very uncomfortably on a stool or chair that was engulfed by his size. I deducted that I was in a hospital, using my detective skills even though I supposed I was on medical leave.
When he noticed I was looking at him, he squinted and frowned a little but nodded to me, and I nodded back, but it wasn't a very successful nod. He looked scruffy, not to mention he was in a hospital far from his home and sitting in a chair smaller than himself. It made me smile.
I was, in fact, not dead. Somewhat unimpressed that my final series of flashbacks and contemplations had served no purpose, I licked my lips and tested my voice. "What are you sitting on?" It worked fine.
"I don't want to think about it," Wolfe snapped. "How do you feel?"
"Alive. Somewhat."
He squinted again, nodded belatedly and gave me a "satisfactory." I didn't feel like watching him struggle to his feet from the stool, or whatever it was, so I closed my eyes as he arranged himself into a more vertical positon. "Mr. Mayor is in police custody and Miss Hoyle has mailed her check. Come home as soon as you're able. I will alert the doctor that you are finally awake." He nodded to me again before leaving the room.
When the doctor came, Wolfe wasn't with him; I hoped he had gone home and that someone who could drive had driven him. I asked the doc how long I'd been here, he said two days, and I half-nodded again, remembering how scruffy Wolfe had looked.
I didn't want to know what had happened to me, or how close I came to the point of no return, or how many stitches I had or what kind of pills I was going to have to take. That would just be morbid; you either die or you don't. I asked the doctor if I'd make a full recovery, he said yes if did it right, and I promised to do it right.
I took the pills, and I went to sleep, and I woke up to the voice of a middle-aged nurse who was peeking through the door.
"Mr. Goodwin," she said, her voice not soft, "you have a visitor. Your brother, Saul."
She glared at me like she expected me to say, "What brother Saul?" But I just sighed and told her great, I haven't seen 'ol Saul since the war. She frowned and moved and Saul came in, and we watched her until she left.
"Brother, ey? You should have said uncle. You're too old and you look nothing like me."
He sat and crossed his legs, playing with his hat in his lap. "It didn't matter. I gave her fifty bucks to let me in in the first place."
We watched each other for a while, and I breathed a lot, enjoying the distraction. It was a lot of work. Meanwhile, I watched his face, the way his hands worked on the hat, the lines of his legs. He looked at least as rumpled as Wolfe, and though there was no blood on him and his shirt looked fresh, his brown coat was missing. It was his favorite coat, and I guess it was up to me to replace it. I sighed.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I know, you told me."
"Did I? I don't remember."
"You should take it easy."
"Yeah."
He looked at the door and back again, not impatient. I spoke first.
"I knew you'd be here somewhere. I can count on you to be here, just like I can count on Wolfe being here, though Hell knows why."
He nodded, locking my eyes. There were a lot of things we didn't have to say to each other. I took a breath and reached out over to him, gentle this time, and I took his neck and brought him down to where I was and he obliged me, like always. I felt better; Saul smiled.
He held my hand and it made me feel better still, and I told him I was about to make a promise, but I couldn't put it down because I had no idea where my notebook was, and could he use his? He shook his head and grinned, and I took his hand in both of mine and promised that I wouldn't lock him out again, ever, and if I did he could point at these new scars and tell me I could bleed to death next time.
We sat and smiled at each other in a familliar way and after a while his head turned slightly, attentive to the smallest noises, and he quickly kissed my hand and set it down and stood up. The nurse entered and made him scoot, and we waved goodbye, but it wasn't hard to do--not as hard as moving apart in the roadster, before. I wouldn't be in the hospital for long.
The nurse fed me some pills and I slipped out again, but I was thinking about going home and hearing Wolfe tell me "satisfactory" and playing poker with the guys and kissing Saul, and everything was aces.
THE END BEYOTCH.
Aces - by humanyouth
Formerly unnamed, tentatively called "the title is the publisher's job anyway isn't it?"
Fandom: Nero Wolfe
Pairing if you care: Archie/Saul
Length: Longish.
Disclaimer: not mine, no money
Summary: Saul's in love, but Archie's flighty.
Rating: Something like PG or PG-13
Author's note: Sorry I keep posting parts and versions and revisions of it, I know that must be annoying. If you want the original, I can direct you to it, but I assure you that this one is not only better-rounded but better in general. It's also more or less completed. Actually, I don't feel like working on it any more, so I'll just say it's completed, whatever level of completedness it actually merits.
***
With Lon and Orrie gone, it was just me and Saul in the front room, and I had pocket aces. Luckily, I’m not half bad at poker, and when the flop showed the third ace, my face was blank as stone.
Reaching for my pocket, I remembered that I was out of bills; Lon had really reamed everyone, taking our life savings away with him. “One hypothetical dollar,” I told Saul. He smirked a little, raised an eyebrow, made an indiscernible face at his cards, and pulled out a real dollar to match my fake one. Then he smiled and pulled out the turn.
It felt nice to be alone with him again. I’m not usually one to choose a single pal over a group of them, but he was the exception. We were really good pals, and you can’t have favoritism when you’re in a group.
It was a four, a club. Bah. I bet the same and he made the same face at his cards, rubbed his chin, and met my second hypothetical dollar.
I started to get excited, in a number of ways. My tie was already over the back of the sofa, but I’d have loosened it if it weren’t. This is what poker is all about, this feeling.
Only you’re not exactly supposed to desire this kind of physical contact with your competition. I’d have been happy just touching shoulders or knees or elbows, though in truthful secrecy, my chin on his shoulder would be ideal. That, and I could see his hand. I beat the thoughts away, violently, and not for the first time that evening.
The river was another four, but if he had two more fours in his hand I’d be damned. He said final bets and I put in five hypotheticals. He raised me one. Fine. Then I discovered he had two more fours in his hand.
I gave the table a sour look. “Well, Panzer, you I guess you really earned those imaginary dollars.”
“I thought you said they were hypothetical,” he said, his voice smooth as always.
“I’ll pay you next week. Or the week after, depending on when a hypothetical client rings the doorbell.”
“One will. One always does.”
I just pulled a wan smile and collected the cards. “Another go? I’m in the hole deep enough, but if you wanna go for pennies, or lint balls, or maybe the rest of the cheese balls on the platter in the refrigerator…”
“It’s late,” Saul said, “I’ll go.”
I stood up with him and when we were in the hall, me retrieving his hat and pulling it onto his head, we laughed a little. It was only 3:00 AM and Friday night; this was home and the place was silent except for us. Private.
His quirky smile wavered as we stood facing each other. We stood there longer than two old friends stand to say goodbye, and I started to shift my weight uneasily. “What are you thinking?” He asked, his smile gone.
I drew in air. “I’m thinking…” It could have been something short, something witty and smart-alecky, but I knew it was the wrong time and place for that. “I’m thinking I wish the world were….more quiet a place.”
He read me right. God damn it. “It’s quiet here,” he said, his eyebrows lifting hopefully. I dropped my gaze and shifted my weight again. “Isn’t it?”
Suddenly I felt strongly about kissing him and so I did, but maybe I did it wrong; you feel strongly about something and you tend to feel too strongly. I caught his lapel and forced it. He didn’t pull back but he started, surprised, and his arm flung out. It was a very short kiss.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Now we stood further apart, watching each other warily, or at least I was watching him warily. It was still quiet. Saul took two tentative steps toward me, slowly, and when he was standing at the suitable distance I did what felt right and put my arms around him. Being the right height for it, he tucked his head against the side of my neck and we stood that way.
I quit shifting my weight and just enjoyed it. Yes, this felt very good. This was a quiet place. I don’t know how long we stood that way. Eventually he looked up at me, his chin square. “Come home with me, Arch.”
I remembered an afternoon two weeks ago, 4:45 or so because Wolfe was upstairs in the plant rooms. Saul was over and I’d made him a drink or two and then things happened in secret behind the peephole and the painting of the waterfall behind Wolfe’s desk. For two weeks, every time Wolfe looked at me I wondered if he knew about it. I’m sure he did. He couldn’t not.
I put my hands on Saul Panzer’s shoulders and moved him backwards, feeling stern. “I can’t live like this, Saul.”
His lips tensed and his jaw worked for a minute. “I…can’t not live like this,” he said. His voice rising, “this isn’t just some passing thing, Archie-“
“This isn’t legal, Saul.”
“You’re going to talk legality now?” The lovey-dovey moment past, we now were now loud enough to risk waking Fritz. It wasn’t as important.
“All right, so the law is just the law. But it can’t be right, in any sense. Morally…Socially….Naturally….” I ran out of wrongs. “It’s not acceptable. Aside from being in jail, there’s social ostracizeation, humiliation, and the fact that a man and a man are just not physically compatible.”
He said nothing, frowning slightly, but his eyes said there was more than a slight problem. I spread my hands. “It has to stop.”
He took a big step or two back from me, his expression not quite stony, just hugely disappointed. “Saul,” I pleaded as he pulled the door open. He shrugged and left.
His shadow, cast by moonlight and street lamps, lingered on the stoop for a moment before walking off. Conceivably, it could have gone worse. My stomach was lead, my face was hot. I was tired as hell, and Saul was gone with my heart and seven of my hypothetical dollars.
“Lovin’ babe,” I said.
***
“Archie...you are, and have been, affected. Why?”
Having just shown out the biggest suspect in our case, the first thing I expected upon returning to the office was not a personal question from Wolfe. I balked for a moment, then decided that if my temperment effected the investigation to the point where Wolfe felt obliged to make inquiry, he deserved an answer from me. But what kind of answer? I thought of the interlude behind the peephole and swallowed before opening my mouth.
“Saul Panzer and I had a fight a few days ago,” I admitted; so much was true. “I’m real sore at him, that’s all.” Having to say it made it harder to ignore, and I got grumpier.
It hadn't just been a few days since I'd seen or heard from Saul; it had actually been a whole week, and it had seemed twice as long, devoid of comfort or relaxation. My sleeping was way under par, to say the least. The past week I had only slept one or two nights, though that was only counting completed 8-hour rests; on other nights I got three or four hours, more if I was lucky. My brain simply wouldn't stop.
Saul was on my mind, not in a bad way, just in a frustrating way. I couldn't do anything without my mind drifting back to him--and there were good thoughts. I hated it and I hated Saul and hated how empty his absence left me. I had no idea he made up such a large part of my life until now: outside of the office, we were together all the time, and frequently in the office, too. But I couldn't miss him. I didn't dare miss him.
The phone rang before Wolfe could press for details, or maybe he wasn't going to; Wolfe and I exchanged a glance before I picked up. “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” I waited.
And waited. “Hello?”
After three seconds there was a click and the line went dead. I hung up angrily and gave the phone a glare; fourth one in two days. I had a suspicion I knew who it was, too. “Unless that is a certain Mr. Jones, and he's waiting for you to pick up, it was nobody,” I told Wolfe. Nobody, I repeated to myself.
“It was obviously somebody,” he pointed out gruffly.
“All right, it was somebody. However, they said nothing.” I was peeved at having to retract my ‘nobody’ statement. “Do you have any orders for me?”
He looked like he was going to give me some, but he shook his head and buzzed Fritz for beer instead. Thoroughly disgusted, I announced that I was taking a walk and would be back for dinner.
Walking to the garage wasn’t enough, so I stretched my legs south and just walked until it looked like it might rain. Dammit, but I was upset.
Why couldn’t we just play cards and go to baseball games as friends again? Couldn’t we just cut out all the. . .the. . .other things. I couldn’t even say it. If I didn’t say it, it didn’t exist. If I didn't think about him, he didn't exist.
On the way back I rationalized that maybe I was part of the problem, too, since I had always been the one to make the move, not him. And I wanted....I missed those other things. They made me sad, because I knew it all had to stop.
But I didn’t really want anything to do with the other things did I? Saul did. Had. Does. He was impossible. I missed him. But I didn't--I didn't want to see him at all--
In the end, maybe the problem was I don’t like keeping secrets like this from Mr. Wolfe, and--
--back at the brownstone, I sighed and stuck in my key, my hat a little wet when I hung it up. I shook my head vigorously to get the thoughts out and marched into the dining room.
Wolfe asked no more personal questions.
***
Though I usually shut down all my facilities during sleep, at two-thirty AM the next morning I heard the clack because I had not yet shut them down. Though it could be that rocks generally hit my window at two-thirty AM and I’m just not there to hear them, I doubted it and rose carefully, not turning on the lamp.
Going to the targeted window would bullseye me if it were a sniper, so I slunk to the door. Another clack sounded off the glass, a little harder this time. It took me maybe five seconds to get to the hall window, and once I saw who it was, I grumbled and went back to my room.
I could have thrown a pillow over my head and let him break the damn window, but we all know that my eight hours were impossible at this point, and with the window broken, I might get hit instead. I tossed up the window and snapped, “What are you, fourteen? Scram, Romeo.”
Saul had his hand back, prepared for another toss. He dropped whatever lay in his hand, along with the additional ammunition in his other hand. “Archie,” He said. It sounded like a complaint.
“I’m trying to sleep up here. Shoo.”
“We need to talk.”
“We talked plenty last week.”
“Arch.”
If I shut the window now, he’d just throw more rocks. “Well, all right, talk.”
I couldn’t see his eyes from this vantage point, but I had them well enough in my mind. He said, “I don’t want you angry at me. Think what you want, but our friendship is more important than all this.”
I waited, but that was all. “That’s it?”
He nodded, a slight movement in the dark.
“I agree, it is more important. And I don’t want to be angry at you, either, and I don’t think I am. But I am angry with myself.”
“Why?”
He asked me why? “Because I pulled the curtain closed, that’s why. Because I was the one who ki. . .” Yeah, Goodwin, yell it to all of New York for God’s sake.
Saul stood in silence, his small oval face no longer staring up at me. “Mr. Wolfe asked me to track down some people for your case,” he said after a long, terse period.
I raised an eyebrow. Well, Wolfe, that was good to know. Thank you for the late-night messaging service. “Great,” I said, trying not to make it too sarcastic. “Listen, Saul, I’m sorry…..just give me time to cool off.”
“I’ll try. I miss you, Ar-“
No. I’d shut the window. I miss you too, Saul.
***
The case had taken off quickly up until then, leaving me with little time for personal thought or trouble, and for that I was thankful. However, the high I’d spent the past three days riding on had been steadily crashing since my early-morning encounter, and as much as I liked keeping busy, Wolfe was only getting started with his suspects. I spent the day chasing down whosis and whatsis and their great-aunts and their toy poodles, Wolfe told me nothing about why I was doing this, and me on three hours of sleep on top of that.
There is no business at dinner, and Wolfe was far away at the other end of the table. I’d have liked to be closer, not because he was especially nice to look at, but because I was craving some closeness with somebody, anybody, and Wolfe was a pretty good friend. I’d have eaten in the kitchen with Fritz, but I had already sat down with Wolfe and it would have been impolite.
“Have you spoken with Saul?” He surprised me.
“Wha?” I felt the guilt rush up to my face and I beat it back down.
“You told me you had argued with Mr. Panzer,” he said lightly, raising his chin. “Has it resolved itself? From your reflexive glare just now, I would surmise it has not.”
“No, it hasn’t,” I said shortly. He got the idea and moved on to discussing the orchids, chiefly the insulting prices proposed by a man uptown who had wanted to purchase a few. Orchids are boring but they aren’t Saul and they don't involve toy poodles or dimwitted clients, so I was all right talking about them.
I had given him an orchid once. Saul, that is. Wolfe had sent him upstairs to look at orchids while our flightly, unnamed client was in the building, and when I was given permission to retrieve him, we took our time coming down.
“That’s Ansellia africana,” I told him about the plant he was admiring when I came up. He shot me a sidewise glance and smiled. “I like the color.” It was yellow.
“I know you like the color,” I teased. “But there’s some pink over here--you like pink, too, right?” He hardly humored me, but he still smiled. It feels great when you can get Saul to smile.
“I just don’t like red. You can write that in your book.”
I remember my thought clearly, and the fact that I didn’t let it slip: I don’t have to, I knew it already.
I used some scissors from Wolfe’s workbench and snipped off a blossom of Ansellia africana and inserted it into Saul’s breast pocket. He examined it, gave me a blank look, then smiled again.
"Mr. Wolfe need me?"
"Not you, not me, not anybody but Fritz, who brings the beer."
He held up a hand to itch his nose and "Orrie and I were going to get some beers, you want to come?"
"Certainly."
***
The only time I think a case is going badly is when nothing is happening. When none of the people invovled offer up names or happenings, when background checks offer up nothing, or when Wolfe suddenly up and decides that no case is going to get in the way of his food or orchid appreciation, no matter what his plant-room hours are.
None of these things had happened to that case, the James Conway case. Still, being shot at before 6:00 P.M. did not make it a walk in the park. I got the plate numbers for the car that had peeled off, darted to the nearest phone booth and dialed Wolfe.
"What?" he answered the phone.
"I was almost to the Harmon apartments to rifle Conway's apartment, see, and somebody leaned out of a blue sedan and fired a handgun at me. Two shots."
"Are you hurt?"
"No, they went wide. Lousy shot."
"Archie," he said, voice grave, "Get back here. I know who the murderer is. Hurry."
If the police wanted me for something, they could come and find me. I beat it home and was hanging up my hat in twenty minutes.
In the office, Wolfe was bent over a paper, scrutinizting the type. That was the first thing I noticed. Second was Saul Panzer, standing alert behind the red leather chair, hands behind his back. I gave him a look and he returned it. "Who's the killer?" I asked Wolfe without too much hesitation.
"Mayor," Wolfe said without looking up. "It could have been either man but the shooting confirmed it. I have phoned Inspector Cramer, but you must go to Miss Hoyle's apartment immediately. He may suspect her association with us." No client meant to paycheck. I nodded and moved toward my desk drawer.
"Saul will go with you in case you should run into him," he added.
I gave Saul another look, but he didn't return it.
***
"Don't be mad at me, Archie."
"Saul, I'm not mad, I'm just avoiding conversation."
"You're angry." He paused. "I'm angry."
I looked. "You're angry?"
He gave me a cold stare, not smiling like he ususally does. "I'm angry, Arch. You won't talk to me. Not even like a friend. You're my best friend. We haven't talked in a week. Now if you don't like me the way I like you, Archie, I understand that. But I think you do. You've shown me that you do, and when you push me out like this, that hurts. So I'm angry."
Gripping the wheel, I replied, "I don't."
"You mean 'you shouldn't.' It's not about that, Archie. There's more to the world than you or Wolfe or anybody can explain as easily as 'that's bad' and 'that's good.'"
My mouth worked, I clenched the wheel, and then I swerved to the side of the road and stopped the engine. "Quit making things complicated!" I yelled at him. "Quit doing this to me! Just be my friend, all right?"
"Complicated?" His voice got sharper and he didn't yell like me. "I'm complicated?" When I didn't comment he continued, "I'm simple. I'm satisfied. I know what I want. Can you say that?"
"Yes! I want to be with--" I cut myself off. "I want to...I don't not want to be...goddammit!"
Saul grabbed my lapel with no amount of suavity or grace and yanked me forward to kiss me, beating off my defensive arm and, as we progressed, putting his arm around my waist. I resisted for a long time, in retrospect, but I couldn't for too long. It was too much. He gave off a kind of heat, and I went from stiff and stoic to reactive and passionate, I put my hand under his coat and let him wrap a leg around my leg, and I moaned but tried to cut it off.
My thoughts? Unclear. Panic through and through, anger, lonliness....mad passion. Affection.
I would have gone on forever, but he broke it off, smiling a little and breathing heavier than normal.
Now that we were seperate, everything was wrong. I was cold instead of warm, my passion was unsatisfied, and when I stepped back from myself all I saw was a man who had just been tonguing it with another man in the front seat of Nero Wolfe's roadster.
"We should go," he pointed out. I put my head back and moaned again, but the bad way. I covered my eyes.
"Don't worry, Archie," he said quietly. He held my hand.
I told him it felt wrong being away from him and he said he was right there, and I said maybe he'd better drive, since I was obviously wrong in the head. I didn't talk to him for the rest of the ride, though.
***
Miss Hoyle was dead when we arrived; shot. When we were let in, a small cloud of feathers was disturbed by the door; the bastard had fired through a pillow to muffle the sound. She was still warm.
The kid downstairs said a tall young man with brown hair had left in a hurry not five minutes ago, but five minutes is enough time to pick up a taxi. Our murderer, however, had waited to see if I would make an appearance, so he could shoot me, too.
Again, his shot was wide. Saul and I ducked on instinct, but the pasty white face and the hand toting the gun took off around the nearest corner.
I didn't have to shout anything. Saul was on the ball, cutting the nearest corner to head him off before I could even think of snapping an order in his direction. I pelted on straight down the sidewalk, somewhat upset that I didn't get the chance to snap something at him.
By the time I hit my corner of the street I figured Mayor would have passed me if he'd turned my way, but I was wrong; he was right on top of me. I glanced right and saw Saul make his turn toward us, twenty or thirty meters off. I followed after the skinny guy myself since I was closer.
Mayor was wild-eyed and kept looking over his shoulder at me, and I was gaining. I watched him pass around another corner the next block up, but it was his mistake: it was a dead end. I kept on.
The corner kept me blind until the last possible second, and when I made the turn at full tilt, there way no way of stopping in time. He had his gun on me when I appeared and he fired two times before I could do more than lift my brows and begin the braking process.
I am keen at listening to gunshots, since it is part of my occupation. I heard one of them, but I had to guess about the other one. Of course, firing two shots at me earlier today, one at Miss Hoyle, and one at me and Saul, that left two bullets. I felt both of them. One high and one low. He'd been a terrible shot from far off, but his aim got much better close-up.
Doc Volmer told me the specifics later, and I blocked them out well enough. The pain in the two spots was white-hot, but I felt my head hitting the cement with more clarity than I felt either of them. My vision failed for a second or two, and when I looked again, Mayor was not in my field of vision. Saul was.
"Hang on, Archie."
"Get him, Saul!" Yelling it made my chest hurt very much. "Goddammit he's getting away! His witnesses are dead! He'll go for Wolfe or skip town!"
Even as I was talking, the pain was fading, except for my head. Saul was bundling up his jacket and pressing it down onto me, forcing me to hold it in place, and then he was gone, hopefully after the perp. I waited and tried to think; now that he was going, I'd have to find some kind of help.
He came back way too soon. "Saul!"
"I called the hospital and Mr. Wolfe," he told me, pressing on my chest himself because I was doing a bad job; I couldn't see blood but I could feel it all over my hands and arms. I couldn't hear my own voice, but I was yelling about catching Mayor and how fine I was doing without his help, and would he just beat it?
He put his hand over my mouth and brought his face right up over mine. "Shut up, Arch, you've--"
I couldn't hear his voice, now, either, but I didn't need to. When I was twenty years old, he'd been teaching me how to break and enter, and I'd started loudly complaining about legality while he played with the lock on the apartment door in front of us, and he'd turned around and given me that same look and told me to shut up because what did I know? And I couldn't reply and I never learned how to reply to that voice and that stare.
I kept my eyes wide on him while he told me something, probably "don't yell and don't pass out" from the context, and his eyes did the rest. I stopped yelling. He took his hand from my mouth and leaned on my wounds.
They hurt. My head hurt. I vocalized the latter but still couldn't hear my voice, so I added that I couldn't hear my voice. I was trembling and when Saul put his hand on the back of my head to feel for bumps, or something, I felt his hand trembling, too.
When I realised that I couldn't feel my fingertips or feet, that I had no idea if I could actually speak any more or if I was just thinking the words, and my vision was fading, I started thinking about death. Was I prepared for it? What awaited me on the other side? Would the devil appreciate my choice of witty commentary as much as Wolfe? Had I made good use of my time on the Earth? What would Wolfe think when he heard the news? Fritz? My parents?
What would Saul think?
When the calm was interrupted, when I felt my body moving and my head throbbing a little more, when he had hoisted me up so he could hold me better--hold me closer to him--I knew what Saul would think.
I'm sorry, Saul.
I miss you and I'm sorry and I love you back. I'm so sorry.
It was a convienient time for everything to fade to black. I didn't know if I had said it or thought it, but I didn't want to hear an answer.
***
I woke up in a bright place, staring down the length of my body and legs past a set of blanket-covered feet to meet the grumpy and pensive and slightly relieved glare of Nero Wolfe, sitting very uncomfortably on a stool or chair that was engulfed by his size. I deducted that I was in a hospital, using my detective skills even though I supposed I was on medical leave.
When he noticed I was looking at him, he squinted and frowned a little but nodded to me, and I nodded back, but it wasn't a very successful nod. He looked scruffy, not to mention he was in a hospital far from his home and sitting in a chair smaller than himself. It made me smile.
I was, in fact, not dead. Somewhat unimpressed that my final series of flashbacks and contemplations had served no purpose, I licked my lips and tested my voice. "What are you sitting on?" It worked fine.
"I don't want to think about it," Wolfe snapped. "How do you feel?"
"Alive. Somewhat."
He squinted again, nodded belatedly and gave me a "satisfactory." I didn't feel like watching him struggle to his feet from the stool, or whatever it was, so I closed my eyes as he arranged himself into a more vertical positon. "Mr. Mayor is in police custody and Miss Hoyle has mailed her check. Come home as soon as you're able. I will alert the doctor that you are finally awake." He nodded to me again before leaving the room.
When the doctor came, Wolfe wasn't with him; I hoped he had gone home and that someone who could drive had driven him. I asked the doc how long I'd been here, he said two days, and I half-nodded again, remembering how scruffy Wolfe had looked.
I didn't want to know what had happened to me, or how close I came to the point of no return, or how many stitches I had or what kind of pills I was going to have to take. That would just be morbid; you either die or you don't. I asked the doctor if I'd make a full recovery, he said yes if did it right, and I promised to do it right.
I took the pills, and I went to sleep, and I woke up to the voice of a middle-aged nurse who was peeking through the door.
"Mr. Goodwin," she said, her voice not soft, "you have a visitor. Your brother, Saul."
She glared at me like she expected me to say, "What brother Saul?" But I just sighed and told her great, I haven't seen 'ol Saul since the war. She frowned and moved and Saul came in, and we watched her until she left.
"Brother, ey? You should have said uncle. You're too old and you look nothing like me."
He sat and crossed his legs, playing with his hat in his lap. "It didn't matter. I gave her fifty bucks to let me in in the first place."
We watched each other for a while, and I breathed a lot, enjoying the distraction. It was a lot of work. Meanwhile, I watched his face, the way his hands worked on the hat, the lines of his legs. He looked at least as rumpled as Wolfe, and though there was no blood on him and his shirt looked fresh, his brown coat was missing. It was his favorite coat, and I guess it was up to me to replace it. I sighed.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I know, you told me."
"Did I? I don't remember."
"You should take it easy."
"Yeah."
He looked at the door and back again, not impatient. I spoke first.
"I knew you'd be here somewhere. I can count on you to be here, just like I can count on Wolfe being here, though Hell knows why."
He nodded, locking my eyes. There were a lot of things we didn't have to say to each other. I took a breath and reached out over to him, gentle this time, and I took his neck and brought him down to where I was and he obliged me, like always. I felt better; Saul smiled.
He held my hand and it made me feel better still, and I told him I was about to make a promise, but I couldn't put it down because I had no idea where my notebook was, and could he use his? He shook his head and grinned, and I took his hand in both of mine and promised that I wouldn't lock him out again, ever, and if I did he could point at these new scars and tell me I could bleed to death next time.
We sat and smiled at each other in a familliar way and after a while his head turned slightly, attentive to the smallest noises, and he quickly kissed my hand and set it down and stood up. The nurse entered and made him scoot, and we waved goodbye, but it wasn't hard to do--not as hard as moving apart in the roadster, before. I wouldn't be in the hospital for long.
The nurse fed me some pills and I slipped out again, but I was thinking about going home and hearing Wolfe tell me "satisfactory" and playing poker with the guys and kissing Saul, and everything was aces.
THE END BEYOTCH.