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Nero Wolfe Mystery. By Marv???

 I have more fiction to offer in addition to the beginning of my Chicago detective novel. A while back, I wrote a short story that uses Rex Stout’s cast of characters and style from a  Nero Wolfe mystery, although I could not help letting my personality slip in. And I admit, to impertinence in stealing from Grand Master Stout.  If I did my job well, the readers will enjoy the story, although I would be gobsmacked if anyone mistook it for the real thing. Read it here.

Readers with a sharp ear will hear more than a little Rex Stout Nero Wolfe mystery in my Fenton Herzman and Reggie Haskell.

The Nero Wolfe Mystery

A little background for those who are interested. Rex Stout started writing the Nero Wolfe mysteries in the 1930s and he continued until he died in 1975. He created a repertoire of characters that appear in most of the novels: Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, of course, but also NPYD Homicide Division Inspector Fergus Cramer, chef Fritz Brenner, freelance operative Saul Panzer, tomboy femme fatale and ballroom dancer Lily Rowan, and more. Part of Stout’s charm is the comfortable familiarity of the setting and characters.

An old brownstone in midtown Manhattan is a much a part of the stories as any of the characters. The building has a penthouse greenhouse where Wolfe retreats morning and afternoon on a schedule that is not to be changed or interrupted. The globe in Wolfe’s office is the largest anyone has ever seen. Wolfe knows the precise location of every volume on his floor to ceiling book shelves and a peephole is hidden behind a trick painting.

I like to think of Stout’s characters as deep caricatures—more realistic than burlesques, but magnified beyond life; often comic, but facing profoundly serious issues. The putative main character, Nero Wolfe, is a genius detective who prefers eating and raising orchids to detecting. Archie Goodwin’s real job is to goad Wolfe into action. Archie is the true center of the stories, a wise-cracking innocent whom some critics compare to Huckleberry Finn. He does Wolfe’s leg work, and more.

A&E produced a Nero Wolfe television series in 2001 and 2002 starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin. There have been several radio, movie, and television productions based on Nero Wolfe, but I like the A&E series best. It’s as faithful as television ever is to an original and the sets are lavish chiaroscura that remind me of a Merchant Ivory film. I recommend seeing it if you have a chance. I have a DVD set of the entire series.

There was a Canadian CBC radio series that is good listening, but it is hard to find. The voice characterizations are superb, and, if you have the right kind of imagination, the sets are more vivid than A & E. Try here.

Like almost every Nero Wolfe mystery, my story begins with a potential client at the door. It’s close to lunch time. Archie tries to send him away, but the client is insistent and, in some way, disturbing. Archie relents and parks him into the front room to wait, locking the door so he can’t wander. Wolfe, of course, won’t see him. While Wolfe is on the phone, Archie checks on the client and finds him dead. Wolfe is annoyed but, uncharacteristically, he allows Archie to call 911 after a ten minute head-start on lunch instead of insisting on delaying until the meal is over. Archie gets a hunch that Wolfe has something up his sleeve. He’s right.

I wrote my Nero Wolfe mystery over five years ago for a few self-indulgent laughs. I reread it the other day. I had forgotten the story entirely. I was surprised that I enjoyed reading it, so maybe a few folks will enjoy it too. Wolfe’s lunch is heavy but the story is light.

I called it  Lunchus Interuptus.

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Northeaster! Frasier Arctic Outflow

When I was a kid, Northeasters were exciting. If we were lucky enough to have a real rip-snorter, school closed and the kids would have a day or two to slide on the ice, sled, build snow forts, snow men, and throw snowballs.

If we were really lucky, when the thaw came, the county engineer would close most roads to heavy vehicles. No school buses! Another day off or at least a chance to walk a mile to heavy duty pavement.

Adults don’t understand the pleasure of a few days of disruption. They shake their heads. It’s cold. Brruuhhh! The wind is a danger: trees blow down, power goes out. Water pipes freeze.

But for a kid, it’s fun. Our grandson, Dario, came over to visit this afternoon, wound up like a top, excited by the Northeaster, delighted to be knocked over and blown away by the wind, and exulted to experience a day unlike any other.

This morning, I was up at five. Good thing I was. The northeast wind was howling and the windchill readout from our backyard weather station was only five degrees. I can’t count the number of mornings I have got up to the roar of the Northeaster to discover frozen pipes or and frozen pumps.

First thing, I turned on the water in the kitchen sink. All I got was a trickle. But I kept the valve open. Within ten minutes, the ice dam dissolved, and the water ran freely. Crisis averted. For a while.

I don’t know why, but one of my cherished moments was a Northeaster in the 1980s. Rebecca and I were living in a house that shared a well and pump with my cousin Steve.

I woke up around five, the usual for me, discovered that we had no water, and went out to the pumphouse: a damp, half underground chamber. Sure enough. The pump had froze up tight. I took a minute to figure out what to do.

Before half an idea hatched, my cousin Steve came down the steps and entered the pump chamber. My cousin was a big man, both in spirit and girth. He was puffing on his pipe and he brought a propane torch.

The pumphouse filled with the sweet Cherry Blend pipe tobacco smoke Steve favored as he lit his torch and began to play the blue flame over the pump. It wasn’t long before the pump started up and we could return to our respective houses and resume normal lives before our wives woke.

What am I supposed to say about that moment? Steve and I faced the Northeaster and brought our families back to their accustomed normal. Spontaneously, each driven by our responsibilities, we worked together.

Why this makes me profoundly happy, I do not know. But I shake my head and hold back tears when I think of it. Steve died a few years ago.

In my dad’s day, keeping the dairy herd supplied with water was paramount. Milk is mostly water. Dairy cows who can’t drink their fill, don’t give their full share of milk, and milk in the tank kept the farm solvent.

Dairy farmers get to know their water supply. When the Northeaster hits the water pipes, a farmer soon learns what has to be done to keep the water flowing. I well remember holding a flashlight for Dad as he warmed the pipes with a propane torch to get the water moving into the drinking cups in the milking barn before the cows noticed they were getting thirsty.

Tedious stuff, holding a flashlight. Not a bit of romance or excitement in it for me. But I’ll bet that was not what my dad thought. My dad was not one to be scared or threatened by anything, but I think those early morning struggles against the Northeaster were for him, high drama, not tedium.

Back to reality. Never mind the drama. I neglected to keep a trickle of water flowing and somewhere between ten and twelve in the morning, while the sun shined and the Northeaster blew, our water line froze solid.

I’m working on it. Our son is working on it. Dario is having fun with it.