'I knew him all my life, most of it, we were at college together. He was three years older than me. I was a prodigy. Huh. No more. I took physics, and he took business. He made a billion dollars more or less, but up to the day he died he couldn't tell an electron from a kilovolt. Also he was unbalanced. He had obsessions. He had one about Richard Nixon. That was why he had us there. He made the equipment for electronic recording, or rather that was one of the things we made and he sold, and he thought Nixon had debased it. Polluted it. He wanted to do something about it but didn't know what. So he had us-' He bit it off and looked at his watch. 'Goddam it, twelve minutes.'
He jumped up, more like twenty-four than sixty-four. He moved, but I grabbed his arm and said firmly, 'Goddam it, the names.'
'Oh. Did I say I would?'
He crossed to the desk, sat, got a pad of paper and a pen, and wrote, fast, so fast that I knew it wouldn't be legible. But it was. I had stepped over, and he tore it off and handed it to me, and a glance was enough. All five of them.
'Mr. Wolfe will be grateful,' I said, and meant it. 'Damn grateful. He never leaves his house, and al – most certainly he will want to tell you so and have a talk. Is there any chance you would drop in on him, perhaps on your way home?'
'I doubt it. I suppose I might. My kind of work, I never know what I'm going to do. Huh. You get out of here.'
Turning, I said, 'Huh.'
I didn't really say it, it just came out. And I walked out.
Also I walked the ten blocks down to Thirty-fifth Street and across town to the old brownstone. As I mounted the stoop it was half past four and Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms, and I hung up my coat and went to the office, sat, and looked at the list. He had written not only the names, but also what they did. If my time hadn't been up, he might have included ages and addresses. I tossed it on the desk and sat and looked at the picture. It was now an entirely new ballgame. By tossing Richard Nixon into that dinner party he had put a completely new face on it. Knowing Wolfe as I did, that was obvious. It was so obvious that it took me only ten minutes to decide what to do first, and I did it. I got at the phone and dialed a number.
It took more than half an hour to get all three of them. Actually I only got Fred; for Saul and Orrie I had to leave urgent messages. Then I pulled the typewriter around and made five copies of the list of names. I don't have to type it here for you because I already have. Then I typed the conversation with Igoe, verbatim, one carbon. I usually don't read things over, but I did that, and was on the second page when the elevator rattled coming down and clanked at the bottom, and Wolfe came.
He went to his desk and sat and said, 'You're back.'
He rarely says things that are obvious, but he says that fairly often because it's a miracle that I'm not limping or bleeding after spending hours out in the concrete jungle.
'Yes, sir. I'll try to cover it all before dinner. I saw Felix and Lon Cohen and Miss Rowan and Felix again and one of the guests at that dinner named Benjamin Igoe, an electronics engineer with NATELEC, Bassett's company, and you'll want it all, but I prefer to give you the last one first. Igoe. I've typed my talk with him for the record.'
I swiveled to get it from my desk, swiveled again, and got up and handed it to him.
Three pages. He read the last page twice, looked at me with his eyes half shut and said, 'By God.'
I stared at him. I may have gaped. He never says by god, and he said it with a capital G. So I didn't say anything.
He did. 'Was he gibbering? Was it flummery?'
'No, sir. It was straight.'
'He gave you their names.'
'Right.'
It was in my hand, the one he had written, not a typed copy, and I passed it to him. He read it twice too. He put it down on his desk and then picked it up for another look. 'I am not easily overwhelmed,' he said. 'If I could have them here now, all of them, I would pretermit dinner. I have occasionally asked you to bring people when I knew no one else could, but this-these six-not even you.'
'I agree. So before I typed that conversation I did something. I used the telephone. More than once. And got results. You may have one guess.'
He looked at me, straight, then closed his eyes. In about a minute, maybe a little more, he opened them and asked, 'When will they come?'
'Nine o'clock. Fred sure, and Saul and Orrie probable. As you know, they like doing errands for you.'
'Satisfactory,' he said. 'I'll taste my dinner. I haven't tasted food for two days.'
I forget who once called them the Three Musketeers. Saul was in the red leather chair, and Fred and Orrie were in the two yellow ones I had moved up to face Wolfe's desk. Saul had brandy, Orrie had vodka and tonic, Fred had bourbon, I had milk, and Wolfe had beer.
Saul Panzer was two inches shorter, much less presentable with his big ears and unpressed pants, and in some ways smarter than me. Fred Durkin was one inch shorter, two inches broader, heavier-bearded, and in some ways a little more gullible. Orrie Gather was half an inch taller, a lot handsomer, and a little vainer. He was still sure he should have my job and thought it was conceivable that someday he would. He also thought he was twice as attractive to all women under forty, and I guess he was. He could say let's look at the record.
I had been doing most of the talking for more than an hour, and their notebooks were more than half full. I had given them the crop, saving nothing, with a little help from Wolfe in spots, but of course omitting irrelevant items such as the luncheon menu at Lily Rowan's. That had also been skipped when reporting to Wolfe
