In the Best Families

If you get facts about Rackham and peddle them elsewhere, to Nero Wolfe for example, you would be in a very bad situation. Perhaps you know how bad?

“Sure, I know. If I were standing up my knees would give.

Just for the record, I don't know where Mr Wolfe is, I'm not in touch with him, and I'm in no frame of mind to peddle him anything. If I take this on, tailing

Rackham, it will be chiefly because I've got my share of monkey in me. I doubt if Mr Wolfe, wherever he is, would recognise the name Rackham if he heard it.

The brown pointed beard waggled as Roeder shook his head. “Don't overplay it,

Goodwin.

“I'm not. I won't.

“You are still attached to Wolfe.

“Like hell I am.

“I couldn't pay you enough to tell me where he is-assuming you know.

“Maybe not, I conceded. “But not selling him is one thing, and carrying his picture around is another. I freely admit he had his good points, I have often mentioned them and appreciated them, but as the months go by one fact about him stands out clearer than anything else. He was a pain in the neck.

The driver's head jerked around for a darting glance at me. We had left the park and were back on Fifth Avenue, headed uptown in the Eighties. My remarks about

Wolfe were merely casual, because my mind was on something else. Who was after

Rackham and why? If it was Zeck, or someone in one of Zeck's lines of command, then something drastic had happened since the April day when Zeck had sent Wolfe a package of sausage and phoned him to let Rackham alone. If it wasn't Zeck, then Max Christy and this Roeder were lined up against Zeck, which made them about as safe to play with as an atomic stockpile. Either way, how could I resist it? Besides, I liked the logic of it. Nearly five months ago Mrs Rackham had hired us to do a survey on her husband, and paid in advance, and we had let it slide. Now I could take up where we had left off. If Roeder and his colleagues, whoever they were, wanted to pay me for it, there was no use offending them by refusing.

So, rolling north on the avenue, Roeder and I agreed that we agreed in principle and got down to brass tacks. Since Rackham was on guard it couldn't be an around-the-clock operation with less than a dozen men, and I had three at the most. Or did I? Saul and Fred and Orrie might not be immediately available.