by Anna Porter
“You never know.” She felt vaguely sheepish. Her main objective had been to get him to come over. If it didn’t start falling in place now, she might have to invite him.
“You’re sure you can trust me?” he asked innocently.
“Well, yes, but…”
“Look, how would you feel about dinner?”
“Dinner?” Bull’s-eye. “Sure. When?”
“Tonight.” They agreed he would come by at 7:00 for a drink, then they would go on to his neighborhood pub, The Jack Daniel.
There went her visions of his simple dwelling in Don Mills. But there was still room for the longsuffering wife and the 2.5 children. Whose picture did he have on his desk?
She planned her day at the kitchen table. She and Marsha had already decided they would not wait to be contacted. Judith was no longer searching for reasons why George would have killed himself. The question was what happened to the manuscript.
She would go back to the witnesses.
***
Andy Frieze spent Mondays at the Toronto Transit Commission building on Bathurst Street. For the benefit of an extra day off every two weeks, he did the late shift on the line Monday nights.
Judith had no difficulty tracking him down. If anything, he was rather flattered by the journalistic attention and, better yet, he remembered reading a couple of her articles in the now defunct Weekend Magazine. It turned out he’d been first on the scene of the accident a week ago and had talked to the six people on the platform. But he wanted to be sure Judith would honor the unwritten rule that press stories stay away from the gruesome details of subway suicides. If subway deaths were publicized, there might be a whole new spate of demented leapings in front of speeding trains. That would not help the image of the Toronto system, reputed to be the cleanest and best-run in the world.
Once Judith had convinced Frieze that she was not interested in current TTC suicide statistics, he became helpful. He was fascinated by her search for a missing manuscript, and, yes indeed, he remembered that one of the people on that platform had carried a briefcase. A brown executive-type case. It had belonged to the executive-type fellow the police questioned first. No, he had no idea of the man’s name or address.
The black woman had a plastic shopping bag, big enough for a manuscript, and the teacher had a huge handbag.
Only two of the names came to mind: a Miss or Mrs. Hall, the retired schoolteacher who got a ride home with the police. He remembered her because she had remained so unflustered. Very sensible in a British sort of way, lived somewhere on Rosedale Valley Road. And there was a girl, maybe eighteen, long straight hair, name of Marlene. She looked small and scared and Frieze had been amused to find her last name was Little. She was shaking, pale. She hung onto her boyfriend all the time. He seemed like a no-future layabout. Reminded Frieze of his own daughter’s boyfriend. And, like his daughter, Marlene lived in Smithstown.
***
Smithstown had all the trappings of another dream gone sour. It had been designed as a low-rent apartment complex for swinging singles of all ages who could meet and mingle here in comfort and cheerful proximity. But it had become a short-term stopover for transients who neither cared for nor felt comfortable in the surroundings. Paint peeled in the neon-lit lobbies, where the bright colors were only garish. The recreation area had become dangerous at night.
Judith checked in at the rental office and found a Marlene Little registered in No. 2 building, on the fourth floor. She had been there three months and was sharing with a friend, a Scott Bentley.
No. 2 right-angled into No.1. The deep slush of early April mud went through the lobby and turned the carpet in the elevators to sludge. The security system was out of order.
A swift kick on the left side, where other feet had established a pattern, opened the elevator door on the fourth floor.
Marlene Little looked exactly as described. Straight damp brown hair hung limply with a few strands over her forehead; face pulled together into a pink peak by a pointed nose; cheeks flat; eyes round and red.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice as thin as the rest of her.
Judith introduced herself with her quietest, most professional delivery. While the apartment door did open another inch or two at the mention of “journalist,” the face continued to stare without a flash of interest.
“George Harris,” Judith repeated. “He died in a subway accident a week ago today. You were one of the people on the platform.”
“Oh,” Marlene Little said with a sniff.
“I’m talking to everybody who saw him, or talked to him, on the last day of his life. I was hoping you could tell me what you saw that night.”
“Oh,” said Marlene, looking at her shoes. It was rather like talking to a child, but Judith was not about to give up.
After some consideration, Marlene said, “I didn’t see anything. Didn’t even see the train come. Nor less him.” She added, as if it would explain everything: “I was with Scotty then.”
“Can you tell me anything about what happened?”
“Oh, yeah. I heard a scream or something. A loud thump, like, when he fell. You know. He must’ave hit the thing hard. They come awful fast, you know.” Marlene stopped studying her shoes and gazed up over Judith’s left shoulder.
“You said you were with Scott that night. Perhaps he saw what happened…”
“How’d I know?” Marlene’s voice rose an octave. “You can ask him yourself. If you can find ’im. I ain’t seen ’im in days.”
“I’m sorry,” Judith said, trying to catch the right range of woman-to-woman sympathy. She must have hit the tone because Marlene went on without prompting.
“It was some my fault too, you know. I was pretty shook up that night with that guy jumping in front of that train. Horrible. Really. So we come back here and we get into a little fight. Nothing much. We’d had worse before. But he took on so and got mad and said he’d move out. I never thought he’d do it. Never. But next day I go down to get some milk and stuff—I don’t have a job now and Scotty lost his in October. Anyways I come back and the place is empty. He’s gone. His stuff’s gone too. Everything. Even that new guitar I got ’im with my last lot of wages.” Marlene sniffed again and dug into her sleeve for a scrunched-up Kleenex. She blew her nose with a squeak.
“He hasn’t been back since?”
“Nah. Never even called. Nothing.” Marlene wrapped her pink nylon cardigan tighter around her.
“Any idea where he might have gone?” Judith asked. She didn’t have to fake the sympathy this time.
“Nah.”
“Did he have any friends he might have gone to stay with? Until he comes back?”
“Only friends he had I know of were down at The Café and I went there yesterday. They never saw ’im.” She shook her head slightly. “He won’t come back. He’s never done anything like this before. He was different, you know. Not like the others.” Judith wanted to say there’s bound to be someone else soon enough, but she didn’t. Marlene went on, “He didn’t even care much bein’ outa work an’ that. He had a way of getting a little bit here, a little bit there. Nothing illegal, mind you, but we was never wanting for much, like, and now… I dunno what I’m gonna do. I jus’ dunno.” The pink cardigan went taut around the meager shoulders, as she hugged herself tightly. Then she tilted her head up and looked at Judith. “Sorry to run off like that. An’ sorry I couldn’t help you either. You see he was sorta holding me when the train came. I had my face into his shoulder. That’s why I didn’t see nothin’.”
“Then he must have been facing the train.”
“Guesso.”
Judith told Marlene how she could find her if Scott returned, and asked where The Café was. Maybe they could tell her something. Marlene figured Scott would have left town but gave the address down on the Danforth anyway.
Le Café, as it had been named, was a long, low-ceilinged dining area, with a 1950s jukebox in the back.
The barman was friendly, r
ecently Greek, and, Judith could tell in an instant, fond of attractive women, even if they were nearing forty. He knew Scott Bentley but hadn’t seen him in over two weeks. He said Scott hadn’t been fired last October, he quit and got a new job: selling on commission. A few times he had come in and bought some drinks for the boys, so things must have been going well for him. Perhaps not idyllic, though. It turned out the police had been looking for Scott as well. They were in on Saturday asking questions. Bad for business, police coming in on a Saturday afternoon. Place was packed.
Judith thanked the barman and asked to borrow Le Café’s mangled telephone book. The directory listed only one Hall on Rosedale Valley Road. W.A.—no suggestion of gender.
There was no answer. Undaunted, Judith decided to go and see for herself.
***
W.A. Hall lived in a large, Georgian-style mansion three stories high. A couple of fir trees in front of the bay windows, carefully plotted garden, low wrought-iron gate. Pink latticework stones paved the path that had been elevated above the garden so as to let the slush run off. The slate roof shingles, the green wooden shutters, the hand-carved brass door knocker, all said expensive. Certainly more money than a retired schoolteacher would normally scrape together, no matter how dedicated and abstemious. Either W.A. had landed in the honey pot, or it was old money, or both.
This was the kind of house Judith’s mother had wanted all her life, but never got. It had taken most of her energies to keep the one she had inherited herself. It wasn’t that she had married foolishly—the pedigree was faultless—yet, as it turned out, Judith’s father had proffered more charm and promise than substance. He had no feel for money and perhaps it was to remedy this that he had got himself a job at the bank. Once he’d graduated to mortgage specialist, however, he had settled down to pursue the one interest he had: the business of writing poetry. They were short poems, intended to commemorate shared moments, poems to make you gasp in recognition. So he told Judith. Her mother’s gasps were in frustration at the waste of time. He had started hiding them from her when Judith was not yet ten. He hadn’t shown her the two slim volumes that were published the year before his death.
Would a house like this have kept him alive?
There was no response to the doorbell or to Judith’s persistent hammering with the brass knocker. On the off-chance, Judith went next door.
A woman wrapped in beige mink appeared almost before the bell rang.
“Well?” she said in a tone of overt disapproval. Clearly she didn’t like persistent visitors.
“I was looking for Mrs. Hall,” Judith said. “I’m a relative of hers from Vancouver. It’s very important that I see her. Family trouble,” she confided.
“You’ve come in vain then,” said the pink face over the mink. “She’s on holidays. Said she was going to the Bahamas, or Jamaica, or one of those islands. They’re all the same to me.”
“Dear me,” Judith said with a great display of grief, not altogether feigned. “Did she say when she’d be back?”
“Not to me, she didn’t. Why don’t you ask Adrian.”
“Adrian?”
“Adrian,” the woman said impatiently. “In Ottawa. Didn’t you say you’re a relative?”
“Oh yes…yes…” Judith mumbled: “Adrian Hall. Of course. Thank you.” She knew of an Adrian Hall in Ottawa, a senior civil servant, very proper. She’d phoned him once to verify the Canadian government’s apparent ignorance of the American invasion of Grenada.
“He’s still in External?” she asked, fishing.
“Far as I know.”
“Thanks.” Judith stopped halfway down the path, the woman still stood in her doorway. Watching.
“Do you happen to remember when she left?” Judith asked, as an afterthought.
“Last Monday night, I think it was. Maybe early Tuesday.”
“Right,” Judith said as she climbed back into her car. Six witnesses; one down, two out, three to go.
She did the grocery shopping on the way home, and picked up a large can of macaroni with meatballs as an extra. Mamma’s, for the kids’ dinner tonight.
The answering service reported messages from Alice Roy and Marsha Hillier. Alice had been waiting for Judith to phone.
“Shit’s hit the fan,” she announced when she heard Judith’s voice. “Francis, the superwimp, has reverted to form. No more fairy tales about reorganizing, refinancing, and all of us guys sticking together to see this thing through. He’s been on the phone most of the day. Gladys says he’s trying to make a deal with anyone who’ll listen. On any terms. The only person he’ll talk to around here is the comptroller and nobody ever talks to him unless it’s big trouble.” Alice sighed. “If there was a deal with Axel it must have fallen through with Max.”
“Did Francis tell you it was Axel?”
“No. I’m assuming.”
“It would be some coincidence if George was selling both the company and a major-league manuscript to Max at the same time.”
There was a long silence at Alice’s end.
“Alice? You still there?”
“How do you know about the manuscript?”
“The police were here asking questions.”
“What makes you think it went to Axel?”
“Francis told the police. Has it turned up?”
“Not a sign. The wimp has had the place turned upside down and inside out. Nothing here that could deliver a measly thousand copies in sales. Another thing: no agreement of any kind in the contracts department, or among George’s papers.”
“Any luck at Axel?”
“No. But I have come across something.”
Judith held her breath.
Alice asked: “Are you still working on the story?”
“There doesn’t seem to be much to work on,” Judith said weakly.
“So, you are. Well, this might interest you. It could be part of George’s calculations, maybe the basis for an agreement he was going to draft. Perhaps you’d like to see it.”
Judith felt the blood pumping in her armpits.
“Yes, please. I’ll come and pick it up?”
“That wouldn’t be smart. I doubt if Francis wants to see you again. And certainly not with me. I’ll bring it over to you, on one condition: you let me see the final version of the story before you file it.”
“Absolutely,” Judith lied. On an occasion like this, there was no harm in a touch of dishonesty.
Marsha was at lunch, so she called Allan Goodman in Ottawa. He was frankly nonplussed by her sudden interest in Adrian Hall.
“You’re not doing another piece on Foreign Affairs, are you?”
“Not exactly. I’m still working on that George Harris story.”
“Harris, the publisher?”
“The ex-publisher. He’s dead.”
“Right. So what did he have in common with our Adrian? Far as I know they’d never clapped eyes on each other. He hasn’t been working on his memoirs, has he?”
“I can’t explain now. Much too complicated.” It was, too.
“Try me. I’ve been known to wade through one or two fairly byzantine matters before. Our foreign policy for one.”
“OK, when I see you next. Right now, though, I haven’t the time. Couldn’t you tell me something about Adrian Hall?”
“His vital statistics are average. He’s a Columbia grad. Not Harvard like the rest of us. Background: good. Some inherited dollars when his father died. Married. Two kids. Has a small black mustache…”
“Do you know his mother?”
“His mother?” Allan shrieked. “Why in the world would I know his mother?”
“Oh, hell.” Judith gave up without further struggle, but not before Allan had inquired whether she didn’t think it was too early in the day to start drinking. Sun wasn’t over the yardarm. He’d be in town the end of the week. He had some vacation coming. Maybe she should consider taking one too? How about a few days in the Bahamas?
***
&
nbsp; Alice arrived in less than fifteen minutes. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She handed Judith a sheet of paper, neatly folded in the center.
“Narrow enough to fit into an inside pocket. That’s where George used to keep his notes for meetings,” she said.
It was headed: “The Dealer.” That was followed by a question mark and a series of numbers:
Canada: 100,000. U.S. 1,000,000 Axel
U.K. 500,000 H.Th? Germany, France, Italy, etc: 200,000
Japan:? Serial: $500,000?
Try for buy-out:?$1,000,000. Pay 1/2 & 1/2. No royalty.
Pub 6 wks from m.s. Legals. Sooner if can do.
At the foot of the page there was a date: April 8. Last Monday, the day George died. There was a check next to Axel.
“The numbers could be dollars,” Alice said.
“Ever seen one of these before?” Judith asked. The woman at Schwarz’s had said $1.2 million, and that George had tried to hedge his bets.
“Yes. He used to work out his offers on paper before he met the author or agent. The numbers are different though. Rather inflated.”
“Has Francis seen this?”
“Not yet. I found it in George’s old legals file. It’s where he kept documents about libel suits. Gladys gave me the file to weed out.”
“Any idea what this could be?” Judith pointed at the words “The Dealer.”
“Sounds like a title.” Alice stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray. “Would George have killed himself with a property like this in the works?”
“What’s H.Th.?”
Alice shook her head. “Don’t know. Of course, this could be a gigantic hoax,” she said. “A con game. Remember the guy who had the Howard Hughes story?”
“Clifford Irving?”
“Right. I was thinking after I found George’s note: what if he gave someone a million bucks for a manuscript called The Dealer, and then discovered he’d been taken? That might explain it.”
“It might. What do you suppose ‘legals’ means?”
“Drawing up a contract, maybe, I don’t know. It would be quite a thing though,” she mused, “having a manuscript on the premises worth a million bucks. Would do wonders for morale…”
