A Family Affair: A Nero Wolfe Novel by Rex Stout

Author:Rex Stout [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780670306114
Google: PuwfAQAAIAAJ
Publisher: Viking Press
Published: 1975-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven o'clock Friday morning, Roman Vilar was sitting in the red leather chair. It had been a busy morning-for me-starting with the routine phone calls from the hired hands. I told them about the party we had had-that nothing had been learned to change the program, they were to carry on, Saul on Judd and Fred on Vilar. Orrie's day at Rusterman's had been a blank; no one had seen a stranger in the dump room Monday, day or night. Having been instructed by Wolfe-summoned on the house phone when I went to the kitchen for breakfast-I sicked Orrie on Benjamin Igoe.

There had been three phone calls. From Lon Cohen to say that they had been sorry not to get my usual contribution at the poker game-which was libel, since I win as often as he does and nearly as often as Saul Panzer-and to ask when I would spill a bean. From Bill Wengert of the Times to insinuate that he might let me have a short paragraph on page 84 if I would bring it gift-packaged, addressed to him personally. From Francis Ackerman in his Washington office to say that if Wolfe wanted to see him again, tell him a day in advance, and to warn us that our phone might be tapped or our office bugged. Watergate had certainly got on lawyers' nerves.

Not a peep from Cramer or the DA's office. I had got Roman Vilar the third try, a little before ten, and he said he would have to cancel two appointments to come at eleven, and he would.

I had also done the chores, including drawing a check for three grand for Wolfe to sign because the fifteen hundred had about cleaned out the reserve cash box, and clipping November 1 coupons from some municipal bonds-in the tidy pile in the upper compartment of the safe with its own lock. I made a face as I clipped, because the rate on those bonds was 5.2 per cent, and high-grade tax-exempt municipals then being issued returned close to 8 per cent. Life is no joke if you're in or above the 50-percent bracket, as Wolfe was. Equal to 15 per cent on your money, and you only have to clip coupons-or have Archie Goodwin do it if you're busy nursing orchids.

Roman Vilar was not Just a security errand boy. Fred had told me that Vilar Associates was maybe the biggest and best-known outfit in industrial security, and on the phone I had to go through two secretaries to get him. And he didn't start the conversation by inviting questions, far from it. He offered Wolfe a job, and me too.

"Before we get onto Harvey Bassett and your problem," he said, "I'd like to make a suggestion. One of my associates suggested it when I told him I was coming here, and three of us discussed it. We have some good investigators on our staff-two of them are absolutely

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