Digging Deep: A Nero Wolfe Fic Dedicated to Mr. Morgan Freeman
Title: Digging Deep
Author: nynine
Fandom: Wolfe_Office
Characters: Wolfe, Archie
Rating: gen
Word Count: 423
Summary: Serious times call for serious measures, like Mr. Morgan Freeman’s donation to President Obama’s campaign.
Digging Deep
Wolfe laid his current part of the Times his desk and smoothed it thoughtfully. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Mr. Morgan Freeman is, in my opinion, a fine actor and a gentleman.”
I shot a glance at him. Ah ha. The patriotism bug had bit, or, more accurately, the partisan bug. Morgan Freeman had just coughed up a cool million for the Obama campaign, and Wolfe was wondering if he could upstage the wonderful old man. Or maybe, since Wolfe had sent in his million early in the campaign, he was wondering whether he could boxcar his own contribution. Maybe he saw things as being rather dire in the Obama camp if Hollywood was already bringing out its big guns.
“Yes, sir? Did somebody give you a hard time about that?”
Wolfe whuffed. “No. Of course not.” There was a pause, but just as I was about to segue all this into a work session on our current paying concern, the disappearance of Ashton Larkin, Wolfe gave forth another mutterance.
“He was in that movie I liked. With Robert Redford, and that lovely woman. J.Lo. And the little girl and the bear.”
Nothing fazed me any more. “Yes, sir. Jennifer Lopez. 'An Unfinished Life.' It isn’t a very recent movie, but it was certainly a good one.”
“The maximum legal contribution which a private citizen can make to a Presidential campaign is still only a million dollars, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
Wolfe didn’t answer. He looked carefully at the spray of Renanthera imschootiana in the vase on the corner of his desk. I wanted to say, I’m sorry. I wanted to say, Here I am, me, Archie Goodwin, with feet that move like Astaire’s, okay, and with fists that can hit hard and deep, but with a mind just about like a taxicab, quick, okay, even fast, reliable, it’ll get you there, but not like quicksilver, not like yours. But here I am, born in this country, and I could run for President any old year I wanted. And here you are, and you will never be able to, because you were born in Montenegro, and you are a naturalized citizen. A citizen, yes, but not a born citizen. A naturalized one.
But I didn’t say I was sorry, because I knew it would anger him. He was proud to be what he was, a Montenegrin by birth and a naturalized citizen of the United States. He didn’t want to be President.
He just wanted to help elect one.