The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) Read Free Page B

discovering these treasures. I’d now been luxuriating in the world and characters he’d created long enough to know that if I couldn’t have Archie Goodwin, I wanted to be him. I’d even considered a fedora. Maybe two-toned shoes.
    I took a glance out the splendid windows of the conservatory at the snow-dusted Van Alst property. Picture perfect.
    “Nero Wolfe book, you mean,” Vera sputtered. “Archie Goodwin is merely an adjunct, a sidekick, an also-ran.”
    I raised an eyebrow provocatively and took my place at the table.
    “The hired help,” she added with a hint of a sneer.
    I grinned, the same way that Archie used to when he teased Wolfe. “Where would Wolfe be without Archie? Who would keep the cops from the door, drive the Cadillac or escort the suspects, strong-arm difficult clients and pull a gun on the villain? The great detective wouldn’t be able to function without him. All Wolfe does really is obsess over those flowers.”
    Vera scowled. “Orchids. Hardly just flowers.”
    Vera reminded me a lot of Nero Wolfe, without the charm. I did have the brains not to mention this. People can admire and even venerate the man, but did any of them want to be him? Of course, with Vera you never knew.
    I said, “Right. Thousands of orchids. But without Archie that detective business would go down the tubes. Archie is absolutely necessary.”
    “He’s absolutely replaceable,” she snapped. “Men like him were a dime a dozen in New York in the thirties and forties.”
    “Unlike me,” I said with a straight face.
    You could feel the temperature drop a good ten degrees. The signora’s eyes widened. Uncle Kev’s fork paused in midair. I smiled and accepted a Dutch baby pancake from the signora. It was puffy and delicious and loaded with pancetta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.
    “Even you, Miss Bingham, can be replaced.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, as if I didn’t believe a word of it. To tell the truth, I don’t know what had gotten into me. Maybe I was channeling Archie, picking up his glib speech patterns and cocky attitude. Come to think of it, I did have trouble leaving the garret without a fedora that morning. Whatever it was, poking this particular Nero Wolfe in a wheelchair was a death sport and I needed my job.
    “Yes. You, whether you have enough wit to realize it or not,” she said, waving the signora and the Dutch baby away.
    “I suppose,” I said, digging in. Again, I put my reaction down to the Archie factor. He probably needed his job too. Come to think of it, Archie also had his comfortable live-in digs and at least three of Fritz’s fabulous meals a day in the brownstone as part of his compensation. But he didn’t let Wolfe bully him. He stood his ground. He made his points. He wasn’t afraid to argue. Sometimes he had a little hissy fit, but in a manly way. Archie was definitely a good influence on me. And Wolfe was definitely a bad influence on Vera. Not that she needed any bad influences. She was already too much like the eccentric detective: wealthy, irascible, difficult, demanding, obsessive. I could go on, but I believe the point has been made.
    In fairness, she wasn’t much like Nero Wolfe in appearance; she was bony and angular, as opposed to Wolfe’s bulky person. Of course, she used a wheelchair and he was mobile. But there the difference ended. Neither one of them ever left the house if they could help it. The homes they lived in were large and imposing, although Vera’s was in a small town in upstate New York. They both had cooks, although a bird feeder would probably have done for Vera. Wolfe had fine clothing. I grinned thinking about those vast yellow silk pajamas that Archie described in almost every book. Conversely, no one knew where Vera got her drab moth-eaten sweaters. Today’s was the color of old vomit, with fraying cuffs and a missing button.
    Despite their having intelligence, self-focus, conceit and snobbery in common, I think even Wolfe would have trouble