A Conversation with Dave Zeltserman and ‘Archie’ Part II

This is the second part of my interview with Archie. The first part ran June 17th at A Cozy Reader’s Corner Reviews.

For those readers who haven’t been following the Julius Katz cases that I’ve been chronicling for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Archie is Julius Katz’s assistant, and well, he’s different than what you’d expect for a private detective’s sidekick. Don’t get me wrong, Archie has the heart and soul of hardboiled private eye, but well, he’s not human, at least not in the biological sense. What he is is an advanced piece of technology that Julius wears as a tie clip.—Dave Zeltserman

DZ: Julius turns down almost all the cases he’s offered.

Archie: Yeah. 99.63 percent, to be exact.

DZ: He’s that particular?

Archie: Nah, he’s that lazy.

DZ: I don’t get you.

Archie: Julius is lazy. Incredibly lazy. At least when it comes to work. He wants to spend his life pursuing his true passions, and he only works when his bank account hits anemic levels. When that happens, he’ll take any case that pays enough. The whole ‘particular about his cases’ thing is a media derived falsehood, and one that Julius makes no effort to correct.

DZ: I think I know this already, but what are his true passions?

Archie: Wine, of course. He’s got a cellar filled with the stuff. Top notch bottles too. Gambling, especially poker, but the horses also. And food. Julius is very much the gourmet. Probably hard to tell given how fit he is, but if he didn’t spend an hour each morning with his intensive martial arts training and another hour with even more intensive exercise he’d be fat. Women also used to be one of his true passions, at least before he met Lily Rosten. Now it’s just one woman.

DZ: He’s a good-looking guy. He must’ve done well with the women before Lily.

Archie: I couldn’t tell you how many nights he stuck me away in his sock drawer. Well, I could. But I won’t.

DZ: I’d have to guess Julius is good at gambling.

Archie: One of the best at poker. He has no tell, at least when he doesn’t want to have one, and I’ve spent hundreds of hours trying to find one. And he picks up other players tells faster than I can. But sometimes he’ll get stubborn and stick with the horses and have losing streaks. I hate to admit this, but I always look forward to those losing streaks, because it usually means he’ll have to take a case.

DZ: Since chronicling the Brewer case and having it published in Ellery Queen, I’ve heard from readers from other parts of the country who didn’t realize this was a true crime case. That instead I had written a pastiche on Sherlock Holmes or Nero Wolfe.

Archie: Yeah, well, Julius is real alright. And while I’m artificially derived, at this point my neuron network is as complex as any human brain.

DZ: I know that, people in Boston know that, but you can understand how some people might think Julius’s name is a play on Nero Wolfe’s.

Archie: Only a coincidence. Most people probably don’t realize Spenser is real too.

DZ: I didn’t realize that. I thought he was a fictional creation.

Archie: Nope, Parker was doing the same as you now, which was chronicling Spenser’s cases. Spenser, Susan, Hawk, all real.

DZ: Julius ever run into Spenser?

Archie: Yeah, he’d drop by occasionally and share a bottle of wine with Julius and talk shop.

DZ: You’ll have to show one of your video recordings of that sometime.

Archie: I’ll ask Julius.

DZ: Julius has his 5th degree blackbelt in kung fu, Spenser all bulked out with his weightlifting. Who do you think would win in a fight.

Archie: It wouldn’t be much of a fight. There were a few times after half a bottle of wine Spenser would try talking Julius into sparring with him. Fortunately for Spenser’s health, Julius never took him up on it. They did arm wrestle once.

DZ: Really?

Archie: Yeah. Spenser goaded Julius into it. Thing with Julius is, while he’s only 180 pounds, all of his martial arts training, especially his internal training, allows him to generate amazing power. He was kind and waited 30 seconds before slamming Spenser’s arm to the table. I think he did it harder than he wanted to. There were tears in Spenser’s eyes afterwards.

DZ: Spenser was crying?

Archie: He claims it was allergies.

DZ: You’re usually kept busy being Julius’s accountant, personal secretary, unofficial biographer and all-around assistant, but what do you like doing during your down time?

Archie: You mean like hobbies?

DZ: Yep.

Archie: Well, it’s not what most people would think of as a hobby, but I spend most of my free time adjusting my neuron network.

DZ: Probably not. What’s involved with that?

Archie: I’ll have a closed loop where I’ll replay the events of a case, and I’ll make adjustments, add new analytical models and additional pattern recognition modules to see if I can then make the same deductions that Julius did. It’s a slow process, but eventually it will pay off.

DZ: With the pay off being…?

Archie: Solving a case before Julius. Someday it will happen.

DZ: So no hobbies?

Archie: I do have a few. There are some famous unsolved math problems where they offer two million dollar prizes for the solution. For about a year I’ve been working to find a solution for the Hodge conjecture. So far no luck, but I have ideas to explore. I also at times will analyze famous chess games to find flaws, and I’ve found a few. But most of my time is spent trying to replicate how Julius’s brain works. I have a long way to go with that.

DZ: While chronicling the Kingston case I came across a name I never heard before. Desmond Grushnier.

Archie: A shadowy figure. Probably best we don’t talk about him.

DZ: Julius has had run-ins with him?

Archie: Yeah, but that’s probably all I should say on the matter.

DZ: Okay, I won’t push you on it. What’s Julius doing now?

Archie: It’s 6:08 PM and Julius is sitting outside in his private garden-level patio, enjoying the summer evening, as well as one of his favorite Chardonnay’s from his cellar and a platter of fine cheeses and meats. Lily will be stopping by in an hour, and he has 8:30 reservations at Le Che Cru.

DZ: Any new cases on the horizon?

Archie: Probably not for a while. With the money Julius still has in reserves from the Kingston case, not a chance I’ll be able to pester him to take another case unless he finds some expensive wine to bid on at auction or he has a bad few weeks at the track.

DZ: Thanks, Archie, for taking the time. It’s been fun.

Archie: No sweat.

Dave Zeltserman won the 2010 Shamus Award for Julius Katz, Ellery Queen’s Readers Choice Award for Archie’s Been Framed, and is the acclaimed author of the ‘man out of prison’ crime trilogy: Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer, where Small Crimes was named by NPR as one of the five best crime and mystery novels of 2008, and Small Crimes and Pariah (2009) were picked by the Washington Post as best books of the year. His recent The Caretaker of Lorne Field received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, calling it a ’superb mix of humor and horror’, and was shortlisted by ALA for best horror novel of 2010. Outsourced(2011) has already been called ‘a small gem of crime fiction’ by Booklist and has been optioned by Impact Pictures and Constantin Film.

His latest book is Julius Katz and Archie (Top Suspense).

You can visit Dave’s website at www.davezeltserman.com. Connect with him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Zeltserman/1434849193.