High Chicago jg-1

by Howard Shrier

"The caissons? Till you hit bedrock. A hundred and ten feet in this case, maybe one-twenty. Ask the engineer. I just drive 'em in and dump 'em."

  I stepped away from the truck as the driver shifted into first, and almost turned my ankle in a tire rut. Diesel fumes soured the air around me. Maybe it would smell like a park one day but not today, not with dump trucks and transit mixers coming, going and idling as drivers shot the shit with each other.

  I adjusted my hard hat, hefted my clipboard and entered the site. A sign said all visitors had to report to the office, a double-wide trailer standing on four cement posts. I was walking toward it when the door banged open and a red-faced man stormed down the three steps to the ground and stalked out toward the road. He had blond hair and a moustache and wire-rimmed glasses. Another man appeared in the doorway and called after the blond, "Martin. Martin! Don't do this. Come back here and talk to me."

  Neither man had seen me. I eased behind a fenced-in electrical supply unit that had been installed to provide power to the site. From there I got my first look at Rob Cantor, looking every bit as tall, dark and handsome as he had on the cover of Canadian Builder next to Simon Birk, just a touch of grey at the temples and a grey suit with a subtle green weave that gave it a luminous shine.

  "Dammit, Martin!" he called.

  Martin kept going.

  "What about Eric?" Rob yelled. "Have you thought about him?"

  This time Martin turned to face him. His eyes looked like they were tearing up. He unclenched his jaw and said, "I am thinking about him."

  "Not if you're walking away."

  "What would you know about-"

  "I know you should come back and sort this out with me. Thoughtfully, Martin. Carefully."

  But Martin turned away and didn't stop walking when Rob called his name again. Rob looked like he was fishing for something else to say, then gave it up and went back inside. I waited half a minute and then knocked and entered.

  Rob said, "I knew you'd come-" then frowned when he saw I wasn't Martin. He had a set of working drawings spread out on a counter in front of him, his cellphone holding down one side, a hard hat the other. "You from Superior Electric?"

  "No."

  "Swifty didn't send you?

  "No."

  "Then who the hell are you? Swifty was supposed to have his guy here like ten minutes ago." His cellphone trilled and he held up his hand in a stop sign. One side of the drawing rolled when he picked up the phone and he smoothed it back across the table with his other hand. He said, "Yeah?" and then it took all of two seconds for his face to crease into a frown. "What are you talking, six hundred a ton. I can get rolled steel for that price. Charlie, don't mess around with this, you're flirting with the big time and you're blowing it. Excuse me? No, Mr. Birk does not deal directly with suppliers, Charlie. You have to go through me and at that price, I'm telling you, don't bother. Get back to me with a price I can live with or don't get back at all." He hung up the phone and looked at me. "If you're not from Swifty-"

  "Jonah Geller."

  "Who?"

  "Geller. We had an appointment today."

  "You're the guy Marilyn hired? Daniel's brother?"

  "The same."

  "I don't believe this. I told Florence to cancel you."

  "And she told me. But I was passing by so I thought I'd stop in."

  "What do you mean, passing by? No one passes by here." His cellphone trilled and he looked at the caller ID; picked it up and pressed answer before the second ring. The plan started to roll up again and he slapped it flat sharply, then shifted a coffee mug onto it.

  "Douglas?" he said. "Have you looked at the brochure? Yes, it's beautiful. Have you looked closely though? Really carefully? No, I didn't think so, because then you would have noticed that on page three-you have it in front of you? No? Get it…"

  He rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling, his body stiff with tension.

  On top of a file cabinet behind him was a three-dimensional scale model of the final site: two point towers joined by a five-storey podium that mixed retail and professional offices. At fifty-four and fifty-five storeys, they would be the tallest buildings in the port lands-for now. The model featured a lush-looking park at the south end; small plastic children were posed as if playing on swings and a jungle gym.

  "You got it?" Cantor said. "Yes? So look at page three. See what it says? 'Only the finest Carrara marble will grace the lobby floor'? Look again, Douglas. You spelled it c-a-r-a-double r-a. No, that's not how it's spelled. It's c-a-double r-a-r-a. Yes, it's a big difference. It's a huge difference. What are we trying to sell people here? What does Mr. Birk stress at every meeting? Quality at every point of contact. We're telling them this is Carrara marble from the same quarries Michelangelo used. Why bother saying it-hell, why bother getting it-if we can't spell it right. Rip 'em up, Doug. You heard me. Rip them the fuck up and start over. And it's coming out of your fee because you're supposed to proof this shit. I don't care who signed off on it here. You're my last line of defence, are you not? Well, you will if you want to get paid!"

  He snapped the phone closed. "Moron," he said. Then to me: "Why are you still here?"

  "Mr. Cantor, your wife hired me to look into your-"

  "First of all," he said, "she's my ex-wife, thank God. Second of all, I've got no time for this. I have a giant hole in the ground where two towers are supposed to be."

  "I'm sorry about your daughter," I said. "I'm sure it must be difficult to talk about. But your ex-wife just needs to know-"

  "She needs. She needs. Well, her needs are not my problem anymore."

  "She's in a lot of pain."

  "You think I'm not? You think this doesn't affect me?" He was running his hand through his hair as he spoke, finger-combing it back.

  "I'm sure it does."

  "I just handle things differently than Marilyn. I'm not the wallowing type. I stay busy. I stay focused. It's taken me twenty-five years to land a deal like this and I'm not taking my eye off the ball."

  "Can't you just give me a few minutes?"

  "To do what?" Still combing his hair back. If he kept it up, he'd have a reverse Mohawk soon.

  "Talk to me about Maya. Tell me why she might have done what she did."

  "You think I know?"

  Everything about the man-the darting of his eyes, the hand running through the hair, the stiffness in his body-suggested he might indeed have a clue.

  "Maya was the last person you'd expect to take her own life," he finally said. "She was never one to mope around or feel sorry for herself. She's-she was-like me. When she was down about something she worked through it, like I'm trying to do now. So if you'll excuse me-"

  "What did you fight about the night she died?"

  He glared at me. "What? Who said we fought about anything?"

  "Marilyn."

  "She wasn't even there so what does she know? Goddammit, I wish that woman would just get on with her life and let me get on with mine."

  "But there was a fight?"

  "Whether there was or wasn't is none of your business. I only agreed to see you because I know your brother."

  "But you didn't keep the appointment. You skipped out."

  "Skip-I didn't skip out. Who the hell do you think you are? My construction director called in sick and I had a problem here I had to deal with. Every minute of every day generates problems on a project like this. I have electricians, architects, engineers, bureaucrats, all with questions that need answers."

  "Which one of those is Martin?" I asked.

  He stiffened like he'd been kicked in the kidneys. "What do you know about Martin?"

  "You didn't seem too pleased with him just now."

  "Join the club," he said. "Now get off my site. If you're still here in thirty seconds, I'll have you thrown out."

  I held my hands up. "It's all right," I said, backing away. "I'm going."

  Maybe I should have felt sorry for the man, for his unthinkable loss, but he hadn't made it
easy to do. Andrew Cantor's taxi pulled up as I was walking to my car. He paid the driver, and walked toward me with the long cardboard cylinder under one arm.

  I said casually, "I could have saved you the cab fare."

  "The company pays," he said.

  "So spare me one minute."

  "About Maya? Why? What business is it of yours?"

  "Your mother is trying to figure out why she killed herself. She asked me to help."

  "What are you, some kind of therapist?"

  I had to laugh at that. When it came to therapy, I probably needed it more than anyone I could counsel. "I'm an investigator," I said.

  "My mom hired an investigator? About Maya?"

  "She needs help."

  "You're telling me." He looked down at the rutted earth around him and scratched absently at his neck, where the old acne scars were. "Look, I have to show my dad these drawings."

  "Your dad said Maya wasn't the type to mope about things."

  "He spoke to you?"

  "Sure," I said. "Just now. So help me out here. Help your mom. Two minutes, Andrew. Come on."

  "You said one minute before. And there isn't much I can tell you," he said. "We weren't that close lately. We used to be when we were little. When we were going to the same schools and summer camps. When we were living in the same house. But we grew apart once I got into the business."

  "When was that?"

  "After university. I worked summers for my dad while I did my business degree-straight construction jobs, nothing fancy, so I could learn everything from the ground up. Like he did. But Maya never had the slightest interest in business. Not Dad's, or any kind."

  "She wanted to be an actress?"

  "Always. And she was good. I always went to see her plays. But she was into other things lately that seemed to get between us."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. All this environmental stuff, I guess. She used to look up to me when we were younger. The older brother, right? Now all of a sudden I couldn't do anything right. She'd bug me if I was having coffee in a Styrofoam cup instead of a mug. Or because I drive instead of cycling-like I could do that in a suit-or that I don't take public transit, which I can't do with all the places I have to be every day. I mean, I don't care what other people do. I don't bug them about it. But she was getting obsessive about it lately-like she wanted to impose a carbon tax on everyone."

  "The night she died, Andrew."

  His face darkened and his shoulders stiffened inside his coat. "I have to-"

  "Just tell me what she and your dad were arguing about."

  "I don't think so. Dad says what happens in the family, stays in the family."

  "And look where it got Maya."

  "That's not fair. You make it sound like it was Dad's fault she killed herself, and it wasn't. It's not like they had a big screaming match."

  "But they did argue."

  "Everyone argued. A little."

  "What about?"

  "I don't even know you. And you're prying into things…"

  "That hurt?"

  "That are none of your business."

  "Doesn't your mom have a right to know?"

  He glared at me for playing the mom card then sighed deeply. "Maya was just being Maya. Getting on Dad's case about this project."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know exactly. It started in the den. First she got into it with Nina. Don't ask me what about. Then with Dad. I didn't hear everything. Maya was afraid this project would have a big impact on the environment. Maybe a few ducks would lose their habitat or something. Which is bullshit."

  He pointed to the southern expanse of the job site, where a lone Canada goose was drinking from a small stream that had formed in ruts left by giant tires. "All that is going to be parkland," he said. "Twelve per cent of the land. And we were only required to allocate ten. There will be grass and trees and ponds." He swallowed hard a couple of times. "It's all going to be beautiful. The park, the marina, the residences, the shops. All of it. And we're the ones building it."

  A tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it with the back of his hand. "I just wish my sister was here to see it," he said.

  CHAPTER 6

  I slipped through a curtain into a room that had been painted entirely black. Walls, ceiling, floor, stage, all the same flat black. A square the size of a small bedroom had been taped off on the stage. The tape glowed lightly as if radioactive.

  About twenty people were watching a young man who was sitting at a desk, reading a thick blue book, pencilling notes in its margins. A pretty blonde with dishevelled hair stood behind a line of tape and knocked on an invisible door, stamping her foot twice to provide the sound. The man looked up from his book, his face darkening, as though he'd been expecting-dreading-this visitor. He closed the book and walked to where the woman stood. He mimed opening the door and stepped aside as the woman entered. Before either of them could say anything, an older man sitting in the front row called, "Stop."

  He was in his forties, muscular, bald with a wispy hairline of implants combed back from his crown. Theo Harris, who had been Maya Cantor's drama teacher.

  The actor looked at him with a petulant frown. "Why'd you stop us so soon? I didn't think we got far enough to screw up."

  "Don't jump to conclusions, James," Harris said. "I just want to try something here."

  He climbed up onto the stage and took the actress aside. He whispered briefly in her ear, then went into the darkened wings and returned with something held behind his back. He slipped the object into the pocket of her coat and then climbed down and took his seat. "Once more, please."

  James sat down at the desk and resumed reading. I moved quietly to the back row of chairs and eased into one.

  The actress stamped her foot again. James closed the book as he had before and went to the door with the same dark look on his face. He opened the invisible door but before he could look away, the actress pulled a small black revolver from her pocket and jammed it against his chest.

  James jumped back with a startled look. "What are you doing? That's not in the scene."

  Harris stood again. "You weren't in the scene, James. You knew before the knock who was going to be there and why she was there. Didn't you?"

  James stared sullenly at the black floor.

  "Joe Clay doesn't know who's there, does he?" Harris asked.

  "No."

  "If he did, would he open the door? Think of what Kirsten represents to him now. To you. You've finally achieved sobriety. You're finally on the road back to your self. And she is dangerous to you, isn't she?"

  James's jaw was set so tightly, the word "Yes" barely escaped.

  "I pulled that little stunt with Alicia because I wanted to see surprise on your face. I wanted to see the look of a man who can lose everything he has in a split second if he isn't careful. That's where Joe is right now, isn't he? That's where you are if you are Joe."

  "I guess."

  "Don't guess, James. Know. Know that you are on a tight-rope with no net. All you have is the little bit of strength you've discovered since you started going to AA. So if it takes a gun to find it in yourself, next time she knocks on the door I want you to see that gun whether it's in her hand or not." "We were devastated when we heard about Maya. Devastated. This sort of thing happens so often with actors-they're hardly the most stable beings on the planet-but Maya Cantor? No one saw it coming."

  We were sitting in Theo Harris's office one flight up from the theatre, drinking coffee. He was also wolfing down an egg salad sandwich, for which he apologized. "If I don't eat before my next class, I'll be tripping from hypoglycemia."

  "What sort of student was she?" I asked.

  He mulled it over for a moment before answering. "Capable, I would say. She certainly had talent. I wouldn't say she was gifted, not in the sense that Alicia Hastings is. If you'd seen more of Alicia's work in that scene today, you'd know what I mean. I never should have paired her up with James. He is so
mannered, so constipated emotionally. She blows him away without even speaking."

  "And Maya?"

  "An attractive girl. An attractive person. Open to her emotions and her instrument. Some students come by it naturally and others have to work at it. Maya was more in the second category and she did work at it-more last year than this, I have to say."

  "Why do you think that was?"

  "My impression? Something else had captured her imagination. Maybe a boy. Maybe another career idea. A lot of kids come in here thinking they're going to be the next Seth Rogen, the next Ellen Page, but they realize pretty quickly how tough it is out there. Competition for parts in our productions is fierce and to be honest, the U of T program isn't considered among the elite. The really talented kids go to New York or to Yale or skip school entirely and get right to work."

  "You think Maya had come to that realization?"

  "It's possible. She auditioned well enough and acquitted herself honourably in the parts she did get, but like I said, that hardly paves the way for a career in the theatre."

  "Did she ever seem depressed to you? Despondent about her prospects?"

  "Let me tell you something, Mr. Geller. I have seen some pretty high-maintenance people in my time. Not just as a teacher, but as a director, which I was for many years in the outside world." He pointed at the wall behind him, where posters of his professional productions of The Threepenny Opera, Twelfth Night, Fifth of July and others had been framed. "I've seen actors threaten to kill themselves when they weren't cast at Stratford or the Shaw Festival. I've had students who've dropped out-not just out of school but their very lives-when they didn't get parts they wanted. I've had the drunken midnight phone calls, the sob sessions right in this office, even threats… all the histrionics they couldn't deliver in their work. But Maya Cantor conducted herself quite professionally in everything she did. Last year, she directed Trojan Women, and she handled the cast beautifully, which was no easy task. She had a boatload of drama queens in that one and never lost her cool."

  "What about the last month or two?"

  "She wasn't as focused on her work. A few weeks before she died, we held auditions for a production of Women in Transit and she didn't sign up."