Barney's Version

by Mordecai Richler

  “Oh, I remember now. It’s my father’s. He left it behind one weekend. He was a detective-inspector with the Montreal police force.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re fucken Israel Panofsky’s son.”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes us mishpocheh sort of. Isn’t that what you jokers call family? There’s an empty chamber in the gun.”

  “He never could load a gun properly.”

  “Your dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Just like your dad, I’ve put more than one suspect into the hospital. ‘Resisting arrest,’ you know.”

  “I fired it.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Like recently?”

  “Boogie and I had a lot to drink after my wife drove off.”

  “Sure thing. You must have been furious with him. I know I would have been. Screwing your wife behind your back. Biff bam boom. A guy with your hot temper.”

  “What do you mean my hot temper?”

  “You were brought into Station Ten once, I’ve got the date here somewhere, for fighting in a bar. Another time a waiter in Ruby Foo’s had you charged with assault. I hope you didn’t think I was a goyisher kop. We guys may not own big lakeside properties, but we sure do our homework, eh?”

  “I pleaded with Boogie not to go for a swim in his condition. And when he started down the slope, I fired a warning shot over his head.”

  “You just happened to have the gun in your hands?”

  “We had begun to horse around by that point,” I said, beginning to sweat under my shirt.

  “And you fired a shot over his head for a hee-haw? You fucken liar,” he said, giving me a shove. “Let’s get serious here.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “You’re lying through your teeth, while you’ve still got them. Because it would be fucken embarrassing if you fell and lost some, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t give a damn how it looks. That’s how it happened.”

  “So he went for a swim and then what?”

  “I was feeling a bit woozy myself. So I went to lie down on the sofa, and I woke from a nightmare in what I took to be only a few minutes later. I dreamt I was in an airplane about to crash into the Atlantic.”

  “Oh, you poor dear.”

  “I had actually been asleep for something like three hours. I went off in search of Boogie, but couldn’t find him anywhere in the house. I was afraid he had drowned, so I phoned the police and asked them to come over as soon as possible, which I clearly would not have done had I anything to hide.”

  “Or if you were too smart for your own good. You know something? I’m an Agatha Christie fan. I’ll bet if she wrote this one up she’d call it The Case of the Missing Swimmer. You should have turned in this weapon after your father died.”

  “I forgot it was here.”

  “You forgot it was here, but you had it in your hand, and fired a shot over his head for a laugh?”

  “No, I got him right through the heart, and then I buried him out there in the woods, where those pricks are searching right now.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Are you a total stranger to irony, O’Hearne?”

  “Unless I’m hard of hearing, what you said is, ‘I got him right through the heart, and then I —’ ”

  “Fuck you, O’Hearne. If you’re here to charge me with anything, let’s hear it. If not, the three of you can bugger off right now.”

  “Boy, that’s some temper you’ve got there. I hope you’re not going to hit me. I mean I’m sure glad it wasn’t me you found in the sack with your wife.”

  “Here’s something else for your notebook, but I’m afraid it weakens your case. I wasn’t the least bit upset with Boogie. I was delighted. Happier than I’ve been in ages. Because I wanted a divorce and now I had grounds. Boogie had agreed to be my co-respondent. I needed his testimony. So why should I kill him?”

  “Hold your horses. I never suggested any such thing,” said O’Hearne. Then he wet his tongue and flipped over several pages of his notebook. “According to your wife, just before she drove off, because she had reason to be afraid of your violent temper —”

  “I have not got a violent temper.”

  “I’m only quoting her. She asked, ‘What are you going to do about Boogie?’ and you said, quote, I’m going to kill him, unquote, and went on to threaten her and her recently widowed mother.”

  “It was a figure of speech.”

  “You don’t deny it?”

  “Goddamn it, you idiot. I had no intention of harming Boogie. I needed him.”

  “You’ve got a girl in Toronto?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “A nice piece of ass called Miriam Somebody?”

  “You fucking keep her name out of this, you boor. She wasn’t even here. What could she have to do with it?”

  “Okay. Gotcha. Now I will have to take this illegal gun with me, but I will leave you a receipt.”

  “Let me know if you need any help with the spelling.”

  “Hey, you’re a card.”

  “Do you wish to charge me with anything?”

  “Bad manners, maybe.”

  “In parting, then, let me wish you an afternoon of joy on the golf course. May you be hit on the head with somebody else’s drive, not that anybody would be able to tell the difference afterward,” I said, grabbing him by the jacket lapels and beginning to shake him. He didn’t resist. He merely smiled. “Bobbe-myseh. Shabbes goy. Mish-pocheh. Don’t you dare patronize me with your pidgin Yiddish, you functionally illiterate prick. Agatha Christie. The Case of the Missing Swimmer. I’ll bet the last book you read was your Dick and Jane reader, and you’re probably still trying to work out the plot. Where did you learn how to question a suspect? Watching Dragnet? Reading True Detective? No, I would have known. Your lips would still be chapped.”

  Smirking, O’Hearne released himself from my grip with a neat chop of his hand, making me wince again. Then he cupped the back of my neck with his other hand, yanked my head forward, and drove a knee into my groin. My mouth agape, I was bent over double only briefly, because next he raised his joined fists like a sledgehammer and caught me under the chin, sending me sprawling backward to the floor, arms windmilling. “Panofsky, do yourself a favour,” he said. “We know you did it and sooner or later we’ll find wherever you buried the poor bastard. Asparagus bed, my ass. So save us time and effort. Show some rachmones for hard-working officers of the law. That means ‘pity’ in your lingo, which I’m willing to bet I speak better than you. Come clean. Lead us to the body. We give points for that. I’ll swear in court you were a real sweetheart, cooperative, filled with remorse. You hire yourself a smart Jew lawyer and you are charged with manslaughter, or some shit like that, because there was a struggle and the gun went off by accident. Or it was self-defence. Or, good heavens, you didn’t even know it was loaded. Judge and jury will be understanding. Your wife. Your best friend. Holy mackerel, it had to be temporary insanity. Worst case, you get three years and you’re home-free after eighteen months. Hey, you might even get off with a suspended sentence, a poor, deceived husband like you. But if you insist upon that bobbe-myseh you’re spinning us, and I testify in court that you hit me, nobody will believe your story and maybe you get life, which is at least ten years, and while you’re rotting in jail eating dog food, getting the shit beat out of you by bad guys who don’t like Jews, your hot number in Toronto will be spreading her legs for somebody else, eh? I mean, you finally get out you’ll be a broken old man. So what do you say?”

  Nothing is what I said, because I couldn’t stop retching.

  “Jesus, look what you’re doing to your carpet. Where can I find a basin to bring you?”

  O’Hearne leaned over and offered a hand to raise me off the floor, but I shook my head, no, fearful of another pummelling. “The only thing for that carpet now is a shampoo. Well, m
erci beaucoup for the beer.”

  I groaned.

  “And if and when your buddy, the long-distance swimmer, turns up, do be good enough to give us a call, eh?”

  On his way out, O’Hearne managed to step on my hand. “Whoops. Sorry.”

  I lay on the floor for an hour, maybe longer, after O’Hearne and his minions drove off, then I managed to pour myself another Laphroaig, bolting it down, and rang John Hughes-McNoughton. He wasn’t at home or in his office. I found him at Dink’s and told him that the cops had paid me a visit. “Your voice sounds funny,” he said.

  “O’Hearne beat the shit out of me. I want him charged.”

  “I hope you didn’t answer any questions.”

  I thought it was best to tell John everything, including O’Hearne’s discovery of my father’s snub-nosed revolver, and my speaking harshly to him before we parted.

  “You grabbed him by the lapels and shook him?”

  “I think so. But only after he hit me.”

  “I want you to do me a favour, Barney. I’ve still got a few bucks in the bank. It’s yours. But I want you to find another lawyer.”

  “I’m also going to need you for my divorce. But, hey, we no longer need a hooker and a private detective. I caught her in the act. Boogie will be my witness.”

  “Only he’s probably dead.”

  “He’ll turn up. Oh, there’s something else I should mention. She knows about Miriam.”

  “How come?”

  “How would I know? People talk. Maybe we were seen together. She never should have said that about Miriam’s voice.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “I blabbed. Okay, I shouldn’t have. But I did. Look, John, I can’t go to prison. I’m in love.”

  “We never met. I don’t know you. That’s final. Where are you phoning from?”

  “My cottage.”

  “Hang up.”

  “You’re paranoid. That would be illegal.”

  “Hang up right now.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Early the next morning in Montreal I was wakened by the doorbell. It was O’Hearne with a warrant for my arrest for murder. And it was Lemieux who put the cuffs on me.

  6

  The children never tired of stories about my courtship of Miriam, rejoicing in our naughtiness, constantly pressing for more details.

  “You mean he ran from his own wedding and followed you onto the train to Toronto?”

  “He did.”

  “You’re bad, Daddy,” said Kate.

  A solemn Saul looked up from his book and said, “I wasn’t born yet.”

  “What time did the train leave for Toronto?” asked Michael for the umpteenth time.

  “Around ten o’clock,” said Miriam.

  “If the hockey game ended at, say, ten-thirty, and the train left at approximately ten, I don’t see how —”

  “Michael, we’ve been through this before. It must have been a late departure.”

  “And you made him get off at —”

  “I still don’t see how —”

  “I have not yet come to the end of my sentence,” said Kate.

  “Oh, you’re such a pain in the —”

  “You may speak only when I have come to the end of a sentence. And you made him get off at Montreal West. Period.”

  “Actually she was secretly miffed that I didn’t ride all the way to Toronto with her.”

  “It was his wedding night, dear.”

  “He was pissed,” said Saul.

  “Daddy, were you. Question mark.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it, that you couldn’t stop staring at her, comma, even though it was your wedding night. Period.”

  “He never even asked me to dance.”

  “Mummy thought he was just a bit goofy. Period.”

  “If you were staring, tell me what she was wearing at the time.”

  “A layered blue chiffon off-the-shoulder cocktail dress. Ha, ha, ha.”

  “And is it true, comma, that the first time he took you to lunch he was sick all over the place, question mark.”

  “I wasn’t born until three years later.”

  “Yeah, and I’m surprised they didn’t declare it a national holiday. Like Queen Victoria’s birthday.”

  “Children, please.”

  “You went with him to his hotel room on your first date, question mark. Shame on you. Period.”

  “Mummy is Daddy’s third wife,” said Michael, “but we’re the only children.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked.

  “Daddy!” said Kate.

  “I had my hair done and wore a sexy new dress and —”

  “Mummy!”

  “— and he didn’t even say I looked nice.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “They drank champagne.”

  “Daddy’s first wife became famous and —”

  “We know that already.”

  “— and she did that yucky ink drawing he has. Period.”

  “It’s worth a lot of money now,” said Michael.

  “You would think of that,” said Saul.

  “It sure doesn’t sound very romantic,” said Kate, “his puking like that on your first date.”

  “The truth is, I was terrified of making a bad impression on your mother.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “She’ll have to answer that one.”

  “His approach was original. I’ll give your father that much.”

  “So you talked and walked,” said Kate, “and then what?” she asked, big-eyed, the boys now equally attentive.

  “Not everything is your business,” said Miriam, and there was that dimple in her cheek again.

  “Aw, come on. We’re old enough now.”

  “I can remember,” said Kate, “all of us being in the car in Toronto that time —”

  “The Toyota.”

  “It happened to be the Volvo station wagon.”

  “Will you please both stop interrupting me. And we passed a certain apartment building —”

  “Where Mummy used to live.”

  “— and Daddy gave you one of those looks and your cheeks turned red as tomatoes, and you leaned over and kissed him.”

  “We’re entitled to some secrets,” I said.

  “When Mummy was living in that building Daddy was still married to that fat woman,” said Kate, puffing out her cheeks, sticking out her belly, and struggling across the room.

  “That’s enough. And she wasn’t fat then.”

  “And Mummy says neither were you.”

  “I’m dieting, for Christ’s sake.”

  “We don’t want you to have a heart attack, Daddy.”

  “It’s not the smoked meat, it’s the cigars I’m worried about.”

  “And is it true that Mummy had to pay your bill at the Park Plaza the next morning?”

  “I forgot my credit cards in Montreal and they didn’t know me there in those days. Christ, isn’t anything sacred?”

  “Boy, are you ever lucky she married you.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” said Kate.

  “Period or comma? You didn’t say.”

  “He’s a good dad.”

  “I went to the Park Plaza to meet him for breakfast,” said Miriam, “and there was a commotion at the hotel desk, everybody watching, and of course it was your father. He hadn’t brought his personal chequebook or any identification with him, and naturally that was the desk clerk’s fault. The manager came out, and was gesturing for the security man, when I intervened, offering my credit card. But the clerk was outraged. ‘We will accept your credit card, Miss Greenberg,’ he said, ‘but first Mr. Panofsky must apologize for calling me names too filthy to repeat.’ Your father said, ‘All I did was to call him a typical Toronto prick, but then I’ve always been given to understatement.’ ‘Barney,’ I said, ‘I want you to apologize to this gentleman right now.’ You
r father, as he is wont to do, bit his lip and scratched his head. ‘I will apologize for her sake, but I don’t really mean it.’ The clerk snorted. ‘I will accept Miss Greenberg’s credit card in order not to embarrass her further.’ Your father was about to lunge when I shoved him back from the counter. ‘That’s most understanding of you,’ I said to the clerk, and of course we had to go elsewhere for breakfast, your father growling throughout. Now, if you don’t mind, I must get dressed or I’ll be late.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Blair Hopper is lecturing on ‘The World of Henry James’ at McGill, and he was thoughtful enough to send us two tickets.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going, Daddy?”

  “He most certainly is not. Michael, would you like to come with me?”

  “Daddy said he’d take me to the hockey game.”

  “I’ll go,” said Saul.

  “Oh, great,” said Kate. “I’m staying home alone.”

  “You’re being abandoned,” I said, “because nobody likes you. Miriam, I’ll meet you and Blair for a nightcap at the Maritime Bar afterwards.”

  “Would you now?”

  “I’m sure they can come up with some herbal tea there. Or at least mineral water.”

  “Barney, you don’t care for him. He knows that. But I’ll meet you at the Maritime Bar.”

  “Still better.”

  7

  Blessed (or, rather, cursed) with hindsight, I now realize that Blair was after Miriam from the first day he caught sight of her at our cottage. I can hardly reproach any man for that. Instead, I blame myself for underestimating him. Give the bastard credit. Over the years, he kept turning up, insinuating himself into our family, undermining it, like dry rot nibbling at the beams of a house built to last. When the kids were still young and a handful, and we were once in Toronto for a couple of days en route to visit friends in Georgian Bay, Blair arrived at our hotel with a discreet bunch of freesias for Miriam and a bottle of Macallan for me. He offered to take the kids to the Science Centre, so that Miriam and I could enjoy an afternoon off. Mike, Saul, and Kate returned to the hotel laden with toys. Educational toys, of course, not the warmongering water pistols and cap guns enabling me to play cowboys-and-Indians and other racist games with them. “Bang bang. That’s what you get for scalping nice Jewish widows and orphans, and not doing your homework.”