The Higher the Monkey Climbs

by Bruce Geddes

  “A few people have heard of it. Not too many believe it. But it adds up.”

  “There were always rumours about one thing or another. You can’t believe most of them.”

  “This one is true.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. The risk was too big. If Gord fails, he’s ruined.”

  “He never would have failed.”

  “If he succeeds, he loses his best friend and a whole pile of other folks who side with Forzante. Nothing would have been easy after that,” I said. There was also the matter of betrayal, which I was thinking about, but unsure how to articulate.

  “It does make sense. Gord must have seen what Forzante had become. Rotten. Corrupt. It was time for a change. Like with Wally Del Col. Like Frontier Automotive when he let them lay off a hundred guys and the next thing you know they’ve got a bunch of seasonal immigrants in there who they fire before they’ve got enough weeks to get benefits. As long as Forzante gets his pockets lined.”

  “You don’t know what happened. Maybe he had no choice.”

  “He’s like any dictator, Tricky. Maybe he started out with the right intentions. But for a long time now, he’s been in it for himself and anyone who stands up to him gets shoved out.”

  “But only if he knew about that plan,” I said. “If Gord was really behind it, he would have been careful enough to keep it secret. He was good at keeping secrets.” How could I know if that was true? I was reaching now, making arguments only to counter Tony’s insistence.

  “He knew. He knew. I know he knew.” Tony started to knock his cast against the wooden deck rail, pounding out a marching kind of rhythm.

  “He knew. You better believe he knew.” Again he clubbed the railing with his cast. Loose chips of paint bounced off, floating to the grass below.

  “That’s why he did it. That’s why he killed my uncle. We have to get the proof! We need to ruin that fucker.” Even protected by the cast, I thought of the pain in his broken hand. And yet, Tony smashed harder and harder, the same beat, ever more violent. An empty clay pot bounced and fell off, breaking with a clipped ring. Tony stopped. “I have things I could show you.”

  When I looked at his face, he was staring at me. I couldn’t tell if he was pleading or challenging. I must have looked like a tree stump, rooted to the ground, waiting to rot to powder. All I had were half thoughts. Finally, I could admit: A palace coup would certainly give Forzante reason to be angry with Gord. But I was also quick to realize this: Tony still had his own motives for wanting to see Forzante humiliated. These complicated details, running wild, there for the corralling. And the clever saying about bravery and stupidity, the fine line that divides the two.

  Tony sat down on the top step, his energy seemingly spent. He started to rub his cast, looking at it as though he couldn’t figure out what had happened to put him in such pain.

  17

  The next few days passed uneasily. At the office, I worked with little enthusiasm, with less concentration. I doodled a lot. Sailboats and trees, mostly. Some faceless birds flying on the horizon.

  A note from Amanda Lu asked for an update on the Newsys file. I did not respond, thinking that my silence granted me some space to catch up. Even with a light load, I hadn’t made much progress on the Newsys file. Every time I opened it, I thought of the UCF connection and also of my mother’s silvery token of congratulations, now weighing down papers in one of my desk drawers. I thought of all the possibilities and consequences and the forces swirling around me. I found myself unable to think with the linear precision needed to do the top notch legal work now expected of me.

  Sometime after noon, Sagipa called from school.

  “I found Marty Schuller,” he said.

  “Dead or alive?”

  “I’ll get to that. There’s other stuff I found out, too.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Lots. But I want to show you. I’m on my way to your office.”

  “No you’re not. You’ve got school this afternoon. We can talk tonight.”

  “I’m meeting with Manolo tonight.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “He bought a whole set of toy soldiers and a box of Lego bricks. He’s going to re-enact the FFLC’s assault on the Colombian Supreme Court for me. I can be at your office in twenty minutes.”

  “Not here,” I said. “I’ll take off early and meet you in the park.”

  The park was a dozen blocks from the townhouse and at this time of day filled with packs of dogs, multi-coloured leashes wrapped around their necks, chasing each other around walkers strolling in small collectives, stooping periodically to bag fresh turds.

  I arrived before Sagipa and sat on a wooden bench. The mud was fragrant with the beginnings of new growth. There were women in hijabs with small children who watched the dogs ­warily. In return, the dog walkers eyed me with suspicion, like parents who spy a lone man on the fringes of a playground watching their children. I watched traffic pass and named cars—Honda, Chevy, BMW, Ford, Honda again—trying not to look like I had a thing for dogs.

  Good or bad, I thought, Sagipa’s news was going to force more information into my reluctant head and each bit of it was going to require its due consideration, its own chain of corresponding thoughts and difficult questions.

  Sagipa sat down beside me and produced a file of loose papers from his knapsack. “Your old man was a serious big shot,” he said, holding his findings in the air.

  “You ditched school to tell me that?” I was too sharp with him. I sighed and apologized and then, to myself, promised patience.

  “But it explains why things went so badly for the UCF after he was killed,” he said, and then rolled up both sleeves of his hazmat suit.

  “Badly? How? What’s that got to do with Marty Schuller?”

  “I’ll get to that,” he said and pulled out some photocopied pages. I recognized the Wanstead Echo’s old layout. “I was looking for stuff about Schuller and the UCF and then I started noticing that the WAW was getting all this great publicity in the Echo. They have these annual campaigns to raise funds for medical research. One year hepatitis, river blindness the next. This year they’re targeting imperforate anus in newborns.”

  “And?”

  “They’re expecting new breakthroughs any day now.”

  “I remember collecting pop can tabs to raise money to fight polio in Africa.”

  “Well it wasn’t reported in the Echo.”

  “The Echo’s WAW now.”

  “That was smart of them. All this good press for free, right? I have to tell you, your father’s old union looks backwards by comparison. I looked at some Labour Relations Board records. There was a lot of raiding.”

  “There always was.”

  “But after Gord was killed, the WAW started winning their raids. First a furniture maker, then the techies at CLPN. Allistair Forzante complained. He said that his supporters had not been told about the meeting. His case was tossed out and the WAW kept on raiding.” Sagipa turned pages over in his hand. “The baggage handlers at the airport and then the red caps at the train station. Forzante said the ballot boxes were stuffed. Maybe they were? Then the WAW claimed UCF goons tried to break up the meeting.”

  “Who do you believe?”

  “What does it matter? The UCF come off like thugs.”

  “I wish I could adopt your formula for telling truth from lie.”

  A German shepherd lumbered over to our bench. Sagipa scratched the dog’s head. I had lived some of the stuff Sagipa was describing. I remember laughing at unreal WAW ads picturing workers who looked more like models than working people, their backs straight, their bellies flat, their shirts ironed and tucked in, their hardhats unblemished, their orthodontically corrected teeth. I wondered if my father recognized what was happening, how the WAW, with its media smarts, was slowly eating away at the
prominence of the UCF, and that it would eventually render Al Forzante a historical curiosity.

  It seemed reasonable to think that he had.

  A voice called for Nico and the shepherd ran off.

  “What about Marty Schuller?” I said. “What did you find out about him?”

  “I’ll get to that,” Sagipa said. “Did you know about the RCMP investigation?”

  “Schuller was investigated?”

  “Not Schuller. The UCF. Specifically? Gord McKitrick and Al Forzante. Did you know about that?”

  “Investigated for what?” I felt my face scrunch, my lips rising to meet my sinking brow. It felt like I felt when I’d first met with Tony. Ready to deny.

  “Criminal fraud. Taking kickbacks in exchange for easy negotiations. Didn’t you ever hear of it? It’s all here. The Mounties said the kickbacks were in the millions. You must have heard about it.”

  I hadn’t. I don’t know how.

  “Where did you read this?” I asked.

  “Here.” He passed me several photocopied stories from Toronto newspapers. That none of the clips came from Wanstead helped explain why I had never heard about the investigation.

  “I guess they kept it out of the Echo,” I said, flipping through the pages.

  The case against Forzante and Gord was based on an undercover operation at Webster Tool and Die, a medium-sized plant. The story alleged that Forzante and Gord had promised labour peace in exchange for three hundred thousand dollars. According to the crown, this was the way the UCF worked and over the years the two union leaders had pocketed millions at the expense of a better deal for the workers they were meant to be representing. The undercover operation was blown after someone leaked a letter from the RCMP to Swiss banking authorities seeking information on secret accounts. Editorials focused on Forzante, which was only natural. He was the president, the more prominent figure. It gave me the illusion that Gord wasn’t involved which, if any of this was true, was impossible. I stopped reading, once again halted by my aversion to learning more. Nico the shepherd returned to sniff at Sagipa’s knees. “What happened with the investigation?” I asked.

  “It was dropped. The police couldn’t prove anything. One of the cops changed his story. Evidence was lost. Forzante said he would sue them to hell and then he changed his mind. There’s a quote here. ‘When asked to explain why he had elected not to bring action, Mr. Forzante replied, ‘The higher the monkey climbs.’ When pressed to expand, Mr. Forzante declined.’”

  “The higher the monkey climbs,” I said, finding myself at the intersection of memory and understanding.

  “What’s that mean?” Sagipa asked.

  “Something Gord used to say. It’s a proverb: ‘The higher the monkey climbs, the better you see his ass.’”

  A man with half a beard and a Buffalo Bison’s cap came over with a leash to corral Nico.

  I stood up. “I better get back to work.”

  “Don’t you want to hear about Marty Schuller?”

  I sat down again.

  Sagipa turned to another sheet of paper. He really was remarkably well organized. I would have been proud of him, praised his future prospects, if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t like anything he had been telling me.

  “Well, he’s still alive,” Sagipa said. “Why do you look so surprised?”

  “He must be over a hundred by now.”

  “Not quite. Mid-eighties. Here. I had to send away for it.” He handed me a pamphlet, full colour on heavy glossy stock. There was Marty Schuller, going by ‘Martin’ now, hair gone, ear lobes drooping, teeth too white and too straight behind a strenuous smile. In the lower corner, a stock photo of an elderly ­couple, their greedy old hands clutching fans of American currency, finally free of financial uncertainty, thanks to Martin Schuller, Tempe, Arizona’s most trusted name in reverse mortgages.

  I opted to walk back to the office. On the way I noticed a message on a mailbox, written in frantic white paint: ‘OHMH kiLLs PatiENTs!’ it read, OHMH being the Ontario Hospital for Mental Health. I saw the same protest on a lamppost and a third time soon after on the hood of a city garbage bin. I wondered about the author, probably an unsatisfied customer, and the inevitable frustration of his campaign. Sure, the OHMH might very well be killing patients, sacrificing them in elaborate, oil-lamp lit ceremonies for all we knew. But who would ever believe the testimony of someone who had been a patient there?

  Thinking I would be useless back in the office, I detoured, bought four newspapers from four different cities and spent the rest of the afternoon at a back table in The Barrington, using reports on an apartment fire in Winnipeg and another embarrassing loss for England’s cricketers to force a moderate pace to my drinking. I ordered a club sandwich, pulled out the tomatoes, left most of the fries uneaten. On the wall, orbs of black stained the white paint above candle holders. From behind the bar, Lena caught me looking at them.

  “Doesn’t matter how much I scrub,” she said. “Those stains are here to stay.”

  19

  Dark rumblings at work the next day. Before I could sit, Lydia was in my office, fretting.

  “I told them you had the flu again,” she said. “In case they ask.”

  “You’re terrific. Thanks, Lydia.”

  I tugged at my ear lobe while Lydia peered critically. “You look too healthy,” she said. “Loosen your tie and put your coat back on. Try and get a sweat going. Think warm thoughts.”

  “I’ll tell them I took a pill,” I said.

  “Good thinking,” Lydia said and turned to leave. “Hello, Ms. Lu.”

  Amanda shut the door, sat in one of my two client chairs, pulled on her wool jacket sleeves and began to complain about her kids.

  “We finally got the youngest one sleeping through the night,” she said. “But now the middle one is up at strange hours and the oldest one insists on sleeping with us. If it wasn’t for the nanny, Julia wouldn’t get any rest at all. All the books say it’s normal, whatever that means, but I don’t know. They have to learn to be on their own. I guess those days are over for you.”

  “Water under the bridge,” I said.

  “How about Sagipa? He doing okay? Still on that thing about China?”

  “China. Crooked union leaders. Who knows with that kid?”

  Amanda drifted over to the wall and examined my law school composite. “What about the hazmat suits?” she asked. “You ever figure out what’s up with that?” She pointed to one of the oval photographs, the name too far for me to read.

  “I know this guy,” she said. “He was on Drabinsky’s defence team. Good lawyer.” She sat down again. She fiddled with her wrist watch. “Listen, Richard,” she began, “I wanted to let you know. There’s been some talk.”

  “What sort of talk?” I asked.

  “It’s about the Newsys file. The senior guys are getting ­concerned.”

  “And they asked you to speak with me?”

  “Normally? No big deal. We’d ride it out. But what with the economy and all. We really want to hold on to this client.”

  “It’s just that I’ve had this other case that’s taking more time than I thought it would,” I said.

  “The Wanstead thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  I leaned back in my chair and used my index finger to pick at the dry cuticles of my thumbnail.

  “Nothing’s going on with it. I’m going to drop it,” I said. “I’ll be able to concentrate on Newsys from now on.”

  Hearing what she’d hoped to, Amanda rose to leave. Her leather shoes squeaked as she walked to the door.

  “Oh hey, listen,” she said. “You remember the file you passed to me? The Manolo Palacios case? Turns out the guy used to be a top guy with the FFLC out of Colombia. But listen to this: Now he’s here and writing a book for small business
based on Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare.”

  “Is that right?”

  “What a great idea,” Amanda said, leaving. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

  I picked up the telephone, thinking I’d call Tony and tell him that I was sorry, but I could not do anything to help him find proof that my father’s death was anything but an accident. No matter what evidence he had, no matter how compelling it might be. Because I had other, more tangible things to focus on and he needed to understand. My job, for one. Of late, my routine performance had probably put me on a list of expendable associates and if I wasn’t careful, I would be expended.

  Tony needed to understand.

  And that’s without mentioning my marriage, which seemed to have become unsettled in recent weeks. Yes, I needed to concentrate on these things, on work and on home, and then, once the cheques from Newsys were in my account, once Inés and I were okay again, once the detachment had passed, then maybe I could return to Tony and be better able to listen more earnestly to his cloudy theories of murder.

  I picked up the phone, held a rigid finger over the 1, and put it down again.

  And maybe I would take what Sagipa had found about the investigation into the UCF and maybe I would confront my mother and find out what she knew about anything. And maybe even look into the details of the accident, but for now, for this moment what I had were priorities.

  When I called, there was no answer at Tony’s house. Not yet ready to return to working, I phoned the townhouse. Inés answered, exacerbated.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get someone’s name changed in this country?” she said.

  “I guess I never thought about it.”

  “It takes years, for one. And a million forms, each one of them more complicated than the next. We’re just trying to correct a mistake of history. It should be a simple process.”

  “Listen, Inés, I was thinking it might be nice to go away this weekend.”

  “This weekend?”

  “I’d like to make up for behaving so badly the other night.”