Apparently the combined efforts of ripping apart Fay and despoiling Hewitt’s mausoleum tired Wolfe’s foe enough that he had to let us enjoy some peace and quiet.  Maybe I should have spent the time untying some knots, but I didn’t.  Instead, I sprawled out on my mattress and snored.  Too many nights of interrupted sleep had finally caught up with me.

I woke up again about three in the morning, got a drink, and then couldn’t get back to sleep.  Some impulse made me decide to grab another anthropology book and bring it up to my bedroom.  After donning my robe and slippers, I padded down the staircase and into the office.  When I turned on the light, there was someone sitting in Wolfe’s chair.  I knew who it was:  Wolfe had left Hewitt’s skull out on his desk.

“Oh, hello,” I said.  My tone was probably unenthusiastic.  In fact, I know darn well it was.

“Archie, it’s good to see you looking so well.”

“Yeah.  I can’t say the same, given the circumstances.  Do you want me to call upstairs for you?”

“No need to wake Nero.”

I’d been afraid of that.  I went and sat down, and we regarded each other.  He wore the same pricy topcoat and gloves, and had the same fancy haircut, as when I’d first seen him at the Manhattan Flower Show this past spring.  But he was somehow more relaxed than he had been that day.  He sat in Wolfe’s custom-made chair as if he felt at home there, a feat few men—even dead men—could have managed.

“I’m sorry to hear about your temple getting wrecked,” I told him.

“It, like I, can be repaired.  The scars and stains will add a touch of authentic romance that’s been sorely lacking in its ambience until now.”  He waved a negligent hand about.  “Enough about me, though.  What about you?  I understand there’s been a change in your life?”

“Or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to a ghost?  Excuse me, a repairable spirit?  That’s right;  I’ve finally joined the large majority of my fellow citizens who report a religious affiliation.  I’m a shaman.  Primitive orthodox, in fact.”

He smiled democratically down his aristocratic nose.  “This is why I’m here, of course.”

“Of course.”

He took a cigarette out of a chaste, sterling silver case, tapped it on the demurely engraved lid, put it in his mouth, and lit it with an impeccable silver lighter.  The smoke curled lazily upwards but I couldn’t smell a thing.  He held up the lighter.  “Nero gave me this for my birthday.  On the rare occasions he deigns to assert himself, his taste is exquisite.” He gave me the appreciative look that had always reduced my enthusiasm for him.  I didn’t say anything, and his smile widened.  “Do you still dislike me for recognizing that?”

I could have come back with some version of ‘it’s not part of my job to audition Wolfe’s friends for him, sir,' but I suddenly felt too old for such malarkey.  I shrugged.  “No.  I know it’s one reason that I still have this job.   Another is the fact that I don’t slurp when I eat my soup.”  He looked surprised, and I grinned.  “I’m old-fashioned, not stupid.”

“I never supposed that you were.”   He seemed to relax a little more and gave me one of the handful of real smiles I’d ever gotten from him.  “I’ve been afraid of you, you know.”

He’d surprised me.  “What? How come?”

“You are of a type that we all learned to admire as children:  very Black Mask, very Dashiell Hammett.  Charming, perfectly charming.  But, you always stand off to one side, evaluating what you see, and then go home and scribble down your most pointed observations for publication.  My name is as nothing against that, nor is my affluence.   Years down the road, do you think they’ll remember my hirelings’ skills at hybridization?  No, but they’ll still be reading about Lewis Hewitt, Nero Wolfe’s financier client, in your old case book.”  He took a long drag and blew smoke out through his nostrils.  I’d learned about his sense of humor in the past couple of months;  the smoking was to give me something annoying to report to Wolfe.  “I appreciate the judiciousness of your editing, really I do.”

I shrugged again.  “Tell on you, tell on Wolfe.  Besides, you never did anything to us but be helpful.”

He smiled, slowly and sardonically, and pinched out his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger.  “Which is also why I’m here, of course.”

“Of course.”

He raised one hand and pulled the flesh off his face, the way you’d pull off a ski mask.  I was grateful that the veins and muscles went with the skin, but it was still hard to watch.  He paused, probably to give me time for my stomach to stop churning, and said, “As a Yale man, I must admit to finding this rather amusing.”  His jawbone dropped to his chest, he reached into the void, and wrenched out a back molar.  “Catch,” said his voice, from no visible source in his skull.  He tossed it to me. 

I caught it.  “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Carry it around with you until you decide it’s needed.”

I snorted.  “Oh, great, more specific instructions.  It seems like I’ve spent the last few days in the dark being fed nothing but ambiguity.”

He nodded and somehow managed to imply sympathy without an expression.  “Ambiguity is often more powerful than precision, I’m afraid, like a Delphic oracle or Schrödinger’s cat.”

“Okay, I get the picture.”  I didn’t entirely, but I didn’t want a lecture on somebody’s pet, either.  I held up the tooth.   “Anything else?”

“Nothing worth the interruption of your much-desired sleep.  Resolve this case successfully, and I’ll see you again soon, Archie.”

“All right, that’ll be fine.”  And it was true, to my surprise.

When I woke up the next morning, I had the molar clutched in my fist.

Wolfe wasn’t surprised, of course.  If anything, I’d call him pleased.  When I told him about my experience as he was renewing my temporary tattoos the next morning, he said, “That was generous of Lewis.  It seems he can be relied upon in a crisis.”

I yawned.  “How nice.  Next time he’s feeling generous, could he please interrupt your beauty sleep instead of mine since he’s your buddy?”

Wolfe said, in the sweet tone that always made me want to kick him, “Archie, may I point out that you are the shaman, not I?  I can not speak with the dead.”

I was too curious to jab him back as hard as he deserved.  “So, he really is dead?”

“Yes he is, even thought Saul’s quick action retrieved his skull from our opponent and made his restoration physically possible.  His death was irregular enough that certain rules can be bent, as you discovered last night.”  Wolfe grimaced.  “The creature that consumed him is not supposed to be hunting ordinary individuals, even ones with peculiar and esoteric educations.”

I was so fascinated by all of this that I forgot to be annoyed with Wolfe.  “That must be why he was so relaxed.  Being dead is pretty quiet, even when it’s only temporary.”

Wolfe’s hands paused on me.  “Archie, if you regret---”

I turned my neck so he could see my profile.  “When it comes to that issue, we have nothing to discuss.  You warned me, you let me decide, and I was dumb enough not to ask for details.  Even so, I’m not sorry I chose the way I did.”

“I feel responsible.  I should have been aware that you were no more capable of comprehending the implications of your decision than I was of understanding the tolls of mortality.”

“I’ll get used to it, eventually.  After all, you started out not knowing how to live and look at you now.  Books, good food, a roof full of orchids, an efficient and witty---”

“Archie, if you continue to strain after pawkiness, you will eventually sprain what is left of your wits.  Perhaps you should devote such mental resources as you have available to our present situation.”

“Or perhaps I shouldn’t.”  I put my fingers up to prod at where his hands rested on my shoulders and then snatched them away.  That was a mistake.  “I have to say, this isn’t getting any weaker.  Does it ever wear off?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Wolfe’s tone was petulant.  “It is the first time I have been careless enough to be placed in a position to find out.”  One finger traced a line across my shoulders.  “Does it still---”

I shuddered, grabbed the hand, and told myself fiercely that it belonged to Wolfe, Nero Wolfe, damn it!  “Hey, cut that out.   It tickles.”

“Bah.”

I turned to aim a cool and level gaze at him.  “We are wandering into my field of expertise.  Do you really want to hash the details of this out with me?”  I let my fingers lace with his and gently rubbed his palm with my thumb.   “We can, if you want to.”

He was disconcerted, but he was also Wolfe, which implies being about three times as stubborn as a normal human being.   “Pfui.  There is nothing that merits discussion.”

“Not this?”  I stroked his palm again.

“No.”

“Or this?”  I raised our joined hands to my cheek and stropped against them.

“No.”

“Or even this?”  I slowly caressed the inside of his wrist with the tip of my tongue.

“No!”  He yanked his hand away and considered marching out, but I would have called it a retreat if he abandoned his own bedroom, and he knew it.  What he didn’t know was that I had surprised myself, too.  “Go away!”  He’d found a solution.

“Fine.  I’ll return with my shield, or on it.”  I picked up my shirt and stalked out.  It wasn’t easy.  I wanted to stay and either kiss or Shanghai-sling him.  I had no expertise that told me how to deal with that mix of reactions.

Maybe that’s why I made the mistake that I did.  I’m not making excuses for myself.  I’ve been retrieving people for Wolfe’s game-bag long enough that experience should have carried me through even the most bizarre set-up without much attention on my part.  But, when I went over to De Blieu’s and asked to be admitted, I completely missed the note of strain in his voice.

The male kicked the door shut behind me.  The female, a sinewy redhead with sharp features, smiled at me unpleasantly.  De Blieu looked up at me from where he was sitting cross-legged in one of the gold circles on the floor and had the good grace to seem embarrassed.

I raised my eyebrows and hiked a thumb over my shoulder at the door.  “If you’re busy, I can come back later.”

“Ah, no.  These are two of my relatives from the old country.  Archie, my cousin Gilles, my cousin Bette.   This is Archie Goodwin.”

“A plaisure to meet you.”  The man had the kind of dark, sulky-boy looks that made me want to reach for a fly swatter.   His lower lip was too big and he was dressed entirely in black, very Aryan chic.  He was also wearing sunglasses indoors.  Fair enough:  I was keeping my hat on.

“ ‘Allo, M’sewer.”  And that’s just how she pronounced it, too.  Her red, sleeveless dress was cut too low for this hour.  She took out one of those skinny Egyptian cigarettes, lit it, and blew acrid smoke in my general direction.  

Gilles took the six-foot electrical cord he had been holding in both hands and, finding nothing else to do with it, draped it around his neck.  Bette smoked and tapped ash onto the marble floor.  De Blieu watched them both with the wary calm of a zookeeper in the tiger pen and didn’t budge from where he sat. 

I strolled over to stand in the circle next to his and let my grin get ripe.  “I came over to see how you were doing after the party Sunday night.”

His eyes shifted.  “Pretty good, I guess.  I drank too much.”

“Too bad.  Do you want to get some late breakfast?”

“Your real name isn’t Archie Goodwin,” Bette said, suddenly.

“No, but I really was born in October.” I cocked my head.  “When were you born?  Are the months named the same in Paris, France?”

“I don’t like you,” Gilles said.

“Charmed, I’m sure.”  I asked De Blieu, “Is it a European thing?”

“No, it’s my family.”

“Nice.  How about breakfast?”

Gilles charged me with the electrical cord, and I ducked, pivoted, and let him have a kidney punch as he overshot.  I straightened to find Bette had pulled a knife, so I drew Wolfe’s gun.  The two of them stopped converging on me and froze.  “Upon consideration, I think we’re going out to eat,” I told them.

Bette slashed her throat.  She was fast enough that there was no time to stop her, but De Blieu whimpered and crouched low in his circle.  Instead of blood, blackness spurted from her neck and spread through the room like ink swirling out through water. 

Light shot through the thickening darkness, but it was a wrong light, a phosphorescence that pulled illumination from the air rather than spreading it.  I turned and the light was coming from Gilles, in great beams from his wide, staring eyes, his gaping mouth, his limp fingers.  He drifted towards me, toes scraping across the floor, like a fox-fired corpse drifting beneath black ice.  His arms flailed languidly with the currents of darkness and the light played across my chest.  Wolfe’s markings on my skin flared, and I felt as if I was being sprayed with acid.  I shot him.   Bette was floating towards me, a darker silhouette in the darkness, and I shot her, too.

The room snapped back into clarity and they were both gone.  I pivoted my head around and then cautiously stepped out of the circle and checked.  No Gilles, no Bette, no bullets, no bullet holes.  All that was left was the electrical cord, lying on the floor with its insulation crisping off in black strips, and De Blieu.  He was still huddled in his own circle, eyes shut tight.

I checked his pulse and breathing.  He was alive but in the cataleptic state that was becoming much too familiar to me.  After a minute I sighed, holstered the gun, and managed to get him over my shoulders in a fireman’s hoist.   It was a nasty trip back down the stairs.

The passers-by were giving me some strange looks outside when the cab pulled up to the curb.  I opened the back door and stuffed De Blieu inside, clambered in myself, and slammed the door.  As I had half expected, it was Fischer.

“Hey, kid, could you have been a little louder?  There’s still one or two of us who don’t know you were in danger.” He chortled at his own wit.

“Gee, I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to the noise.  Danger is my middle name.”

“Funny, I thought it was Vernon.”

“Funny, I thought this route through Central Park was a footpath.  Silly me.”

He started to sing.  Hillbilly music.  Cripes.

About ‘When that Great Ship Went Down’ for the third time, we pulled up in front of the brownstone.  I passed Fischer a five, and he helped me get De Blieu up to the stoop, through the door, and parked on the couch in the front room.   I straightened up.  “Thanks.”

“De Nada,” he said, tugged at his beret, and trotted back out through the front door.  I gazed after him, wondering what kind of folks in the city had dark blue skin. 

Giving it up for a waste of time, I shut the front door and went into the office.  Figuring there was no sense in taking unnecessary chances, I got the spare handcuffs out of my desk drawer and snapped them onto De Blieu’s wrists.  Then I went to the emergency bottle of rye that I store in my bottom desk drawer, and I poured myself a shot.  This case was hell on my keeping promises to myself.

Wolfe is always well-stocked in the irritation department.  He came down at eleven on the dot, and his first words on spotting De Blieu through the open doors to the front room were, “Did you do that to him?”  He also gave me a glower that a stranger might have thought was because I’d knocked out De Blieu, but I knew was because I’d gone and dumped De Blieu on the front room sofa and he’d have to hike to have a closer look.

“Not guilty, sir.  He had relatives visiting when I arrived.”

Wolfe made a face.  “Hazardous, but potentially informative.”

I watched him consider opening the mail, but he decided, instead, to push himself back onto his feet and undertake the difficult trek.  After raising his brows at the handcuffs, he delicately touched the back of De Blieu’s hand before doubling back on his path.  Then, just to be difficult, he read and answered his letters.  However I’d anticipated this maneuver and had my notebook ready.  He dictated two replies to horticultural correspondents about the never-ending orchid classification debates and a refusal to a request for an interview from a newspaper in San Francisco.

I shook my head over this last letter.  “Are you sure?  It would be a great chance to publicize the fact you don’t want to be bothered by murder and magic when you’re busy worrying about sepal arrange---”

He asked, peevishly, “If you have to cultivate an immutable idiosyncrasy, must it be waggishness?”

“It is not immutable,” I protested, “I’m still trying to hone---”

“Shut up.  Get M. De Blieu and put him in a chair.”

I went into the front room, slung De Blieu over my shoulders, and took him into the office.  He was limp but showed no signs of sliding out of the red leather chair when I arranged him in it.  I took out my key case and reached for the cuffs.

“No.  It was an intelligent precaution.  Take this and put it into his right hand.”

He handed me what seemed to be a pebble.  I examined it.  It was a dull black rock with little shiny grey specks, the kind you can pick up from any heap of gravel.  When I wrapped De Blieu’s fingers around it, they tightened into a fist.

“He’s got it.”

“Good.  Step back.”  I did, and Wolfe whistled a note, long and low.  Nothing happened.  I looked at Wolfe inquiringly, and he frowned before whistling another, higher note.  Again, nothing happened.  Wolfe said a word in Serbo-Croatian that probably violated his taboo against bad language, and added in English, “Archie, the gun.”

I pulled it out.  Wolfe took a deep breath, put both forefingers into his mouth as if he were about to summon a cab, and whistled a note so shrill that it felt as if ice picks were being shoved into my ears.  For a moment, nothing happened, and then the pebble flared a red so bright that you could see it through the flesh of De Blieu’s hand.  The hand unfolded and the stone fell to the carpet with a thud, boring and black once again.

“Safe to holster?”  I asked.

“Yes.  Would you please pick up the stone and return it to me?”

I scooped it up and set it down with a flourish in the middle of his desk blotter.  He put it away in a drawer.

“You may as well return M. de Blieu to the front office couch.  However, you can remove your handcuffs.   He is not dangerous.  His relatives did not occupy his corpus;  they merely removed my token and left.”

“That’s nice to know,” I said, not trying to tone down the sarcasm before I hoisted De Blieu back onto my shoulders.   This time, when I put him on the couch, I took off his shoes since it seemed he might be parked there for a while.   I went back into the office and resumed, “Am I safe assuming that he can’t wake up without this token, whatever it is, so if you want to pump him I’ll have to go and fetch the handle?”

“You are correct.” Wolfe frowned.  “We’ll need to locate his family.  They will have arrived from Europe during the past eighty or ninety days, and are probably residing amidst affluent circumstances somewhere in Manhattan.”

“Same last name?”  I doubted it, but it was worth asking.

“Yes.  It’s a requirement.”  He didn’t explain for what.

I went over to my telephone and called a few local governmental officials that I shouldn’t have been able to sweet-talk but could.  While I was waiting for a particularly slow clerk to go through some file drawers, I glanced up, saw Wolfe was working his lips, and wondered what he was thinking about.  My source came back on the line.  I listened, allowed my eyebrows to climb, and then hung up and reported, “They didn’t even try to hide.  Up in the east seventies, they have an entire penthouse suite.”

“They are unused to being pursued.  Most of those who know of them, avoid them.” He laced his fingers over his victuals warehouse and said, “Telephone Saul.  Ask him if he will accompany you, after lunch, to the De Blieu Household to retrieve a token that belongs to me.”

So, he thought it would be bad enough to need both of us.  This sounded like no fun at all.  I spun around in my chair and lifted the receiver to call Saul.