A Victim Must Be Found

by Howard Engel

  “What sort of history?”

  “European. Some American. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century.”

  “So, was Napoleon poisoned or not?”

  “I don’t teach that kind of history. Maybe there should be a place for it. If things keep going from bad to worse in the academy, they will add that sort of thing: who killed Napoleon, was Elizabeth I really a man, did Bacon or Walsingham write Shakespeare, who killed Christopher Marlowe and so on.”

  “But you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that sort of thing?”

  “You don’t really want to know.”

  “I really want to know.”

  “Well, history is full of so many important things, the collision of economic, social and political forces. There’s so much to see, so much that is going on. When you settle for what happened to Napoleon after he’d been removed from the stage of history, it’s like settling for warmedover packaged soup when there’s a great broth on the stove. It’s like watching the ball after it’s gone out of play. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “Well, maybe I would too in a sort of way, but knowing what happened wouldn’t change anything. It’s not relevant to anything except getting away with murder.

  We were still talking half an hour later when we got up and left The Snug. She had been demonstrating that such amusements as retrying Richard III before the bar of justice or history was a mug’s game. The results don’t change anything. They titillate but add little to the collection of human knowledge. We walked across the parking lot to my car.

  “… and suppose you did discover that Hamlet was written by Joe Smith from Smithfield, would it change a comma in the play? Would Lear be more or less tragic?”

  “Shit!”

  “You disagree?”

  “No. Somebody’s slashed my tires.”

  “They what?”

  “Some son of a bitch slashed my tires while I was in there drinking with you!” Anna Abraham looked at me like four tires can be replaced for the price of a package of bubblegum. She couldn’t follow my rage any more than I’d been following her talk about the dynamics of world conditions. Everything she mentioned as an example of what was an irrelevant sidelight looked like a good read to me. But, I don’t pretend to be up on that sort of thing. What I do know something about is slashed tires. The Olds was sitting solidly on four rims and the parking attendant was gone for the night. I looked at the surrounding cars; mine was the only victim.

  By now Anna was looking at the tires as well. She walked around the car with me and offered the sort of help you’d expect from a woman who doesn’t care who killed the Little Princes in the Tower. “Don’t worry, Benny. I’ve got my Jeep over there.”

  I didn’t argue with her. I got into the Jeep and told her which direction to point it in. It wasn’t hard for me to read a message into the slashed tires that was more significant than the price of another four tires. I knew whoever did it was trying to tell me something, but I got sidetracked in the related questions of whether my spare in the trunk and two summer tires in my parents’ cellar would make the price any lower. I could just replace the front tires and forget about the back until next winter. The spare was as good as new, with less than a hundred miles on it.

  “Have you any idea who did this, Benny?” Anna Abraham asked. I tried to get my mind working in this new direction.

  “Somebody doesn’t want me looking for Pambos Kiriakis’s list, I offered. “Or maybe it’s some irate husband getting even for some work I did for his now divorced wife. Some of these guys have long memories. Maybe I should go away for a trip or something until all of this blows over.”

  “I love your sense of humour, Benny.” I looked over at her looking through the windshield at the dark streets running by on both sides of us and wondered what I’d said that was so funny.

  “Somebody knows your car. Maybe he’s been following you.”

  “I’ve had it three years. It’s pretty well known around town. I once got shot at in that parking lot. I hope your old man knows what a bargain he’s getting. Turn here.” She’d driven up St. Andrew Street and was about to pass Court when I pointed left. “You can drop me at the corner if you want.”

  “No, I want to see where a real private investigator lives.” She made the turn from the wrong lane and slowed the car to a crawl.

  “Be my guest,” I said, or something like that. When she got to the corner building with the schoolyard all around it on two sides, I told her to stop and I got out “Thanks for the lift,” I said She turned off the motor.

  “I thought we might have a nightcap,” she said, getting out of the Jeep on the driver’s side. Suddenly she was the daughter of the boss again and I felt peculiar.

  “Hey, I just moved in. I’m out of everything.”

  “Which windows up there are yours?” Her dark hair fell back on her jacket as she tilted her head up to see the top floor.

  “Mine are all on the other side. Thanks again for the ride home.”

  “What are you going to do about your car?”

  “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “That’s because tomorrow is another day.”

  “Hey, Benny! Don’t run away like that!” she said coming around the car to my door, where I was trying to distinguish my new keys from one another.

  “It’s kind of late isn’t it?” I don’t know where I was getting the words I was saying to her. The parts were mixed up. When I got the door open, I felt like a kid on a first date. Only I was supposed to be the guy asking to come in and she was supposed to tell me politely to go home to a cold shower. When this became clear, I asked her up and made instant coffee with water freshly boiled on the stove. She tried to make pleasant observations about the place and I thought that after she saw my stuff she would quickly make her excuses. I looked around the room; there wasn’t a single object or picture that would have interested Anna Abraham for six seconds. The ashtrays were full. My dirty shirts were rolled into a ball by the door. The bed was unmade and the flattened boxes were still tied together with string and stacked where Pambos had left them. Now I could feel the memory of Pambos showing off his few rare coins and the folio of sketches by Canadian artists. Where was my pathetic collection?

  “I see you’re a chess-player,” she said, noticing my board and the wooden box of pieces.

  “Yeah, I like a game. But mostly I work out problems from the weekend papers. Do you play?”

  She nodded. “Daddy taught me. I don’t think I’m very good.” I set up the board and brought in the mugs of instant. That was when the phone rang. I put the coffee down and lifted the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Cooperman?”

  “That’s right. Who is this?”

  “Cooperman, you’re finished. You’re dead meat unless you get out of town fast!”

  “Who is this?”

  “Never mind that. I know where you are and I know who’s with you. If you don’t want to see her hurt, you better drop this fucking investigation. I’m not shittin’ you. You could both just disappear.”

  I tried to stall him, to get some clue to what he knew and how much of it pointed in a traceable direction. “Which investigation are you talking about? I’ve got a bunch of files I’m working on?” The answer was a click in my ear as he broke the connection.

  Anna could see from my face that we were in trouble. “It was him, wasn’t it? The slasher?” I nodded.

  “He knows you’re here. He’s watching out there. He knew we were at the hotel and that we came back here. How long have we been here?”

  “Not ten minutes. What are we going to do? Do you have a gun?”

  “Anna, this is serious. It’s not the movies. I have to get you home.” All of the escape routes running through my head began at the City House, where there was a convenient back stairway. I hadn’t been here at Tacos Heaven long enough to have
done any research. I felt as trapped as a fish on a line and about half as smart. Then I remembered that from the bathroom there was access to a fire escape. From there, unless the slasher had been busy again, we could get away in the Jeep. I explained this to Anna, who looked game to try. Sitting on the edge of my bed, she looked about half as tall as she had three minutes ago. She was playing with the black knight without realizing that she was holding it. I told her to collect her things, then opened the bathroom window.

  EIGHTEEN

  The noise of our feet on the steel slats of the fire escape echoed on the landing below and off the brick walls. A light over the locked garage box behind the restaurant sent slashes of light and shadow across us as we headed down the steps. Anna had slipped her hand in mine. I was glad it was there because it saved me from looking behind to see if she was keeping up. When in danger, I tend to save myself, yelling “Women and children first!” all the way to the nearest lifeboat.

  When we got to the bottom, we were in a narrow alley between the main building and a low garage. Behind us stood the high wire fence of the schoolyard. The wire caught the light, cutting off all hope of seeing through into the yard. As a kid I’d tried climbing wire-mesh fences. I remembered that it wasn’t easy. Then I thought of Anna. No, we had to avoid a climb. I told her to stand pat and wait for me to get back. As soon as I did it, I regretted the decision. Anna’s heavy breathing beside me as we came out the window and down the steel stairs had been reassuring. A presence, a companion in adversity, something like that. But as I worked my way along the shadow of the wall of the building, I felt abandoned. I might as well be wearing a target on my chest, I thought, as I made my way towards the front of Tacos Heaven and the Jeep.

  I could hear voices around the corner. I came closer to the angle of the building and looked around. It was like coming out of a movie and into the light. A party of four, two men and two women, were standing under the bright sign of the restaurant. Two well-to-do couples, the men in business suits, the women in dark dresses. They looked as though they were trying to make an occasion of it. The men were talking about where they’d left their cars, the women about Beatrice, who, they agreed, was not pulling her weight on the committee. Had they ever had to get out of their homes because of a threatening call? Had they ever had their tires slashed? I was feeling like a black-and-white movie that had blundered into one in Technicolor. What did I have to do with their world with its committees and Beatrices, or what did they have to do with me? I was watching them going into the humdrum pleasures of a leisurely leave-taking between old friends, when I felt a warm breath on the back of my neck. I pictured all of the major figures involved in this investigation, including Pambos Kiriakis, as I slowly turned to see the one face I’d forgotten all about.

  “I told you to stay there!” I said in a stage whisper, my voice going hoarse from stress. She shook her head.

  “A cat frightened me, so I followed you. Shall I go and get the car?”

  “Ah, sure. I don’t think he’ll try anything with people outside the restaurant. Come on. We’ll go together.”

  We walked out into the light arm in arm. The four under the sign didn’t interrupt their conversations. During the time it took Anna to cross to her side of the Jeep and get the door open, the foursome under the Tacos Heaven sign said their “good-nights” and departed two by two. A second later the sign was switched off by someone anxious himself to be going home. Anna’s car did not start on the first turn of the key. She shot me a look; I was glad it was her car and not mine. The motor caught the second time and we were heading down Court Street at the speed limit. I let myself relax into the leathery seat and watched Anna handle the stick shift with expert timing.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I thought home. I mean Daddy’s.”

  “The little place on the hill. It’s after midnight. What kind of reception will we get?”

  “We’ll be all right. Don’t worry. Daddy’s not the bear you imagine.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of him but of his hired hands.”

  “Don’t worry. They know the car and there are electronic things that a real burglar wouldn’t know about. You’re safe.”

  In the back of my mind was an idea that maybe we should have dropped in at Niagara Regional first to report the adventures of the night, but, when you got down to making a list, there wasn’t much to put on it, unless you could put down each of my snow tires as separate items. Slashed tires and a threatening phone call don’t add up to much more than misdemeanours. My tires were worth more than fifty dollars, so at least it wasn’t a summary conviction offence. It was wilful destruction of property. I had him—whoever “he” might be—on that, whatever else turned up.

  Anna drove up the hairpin turns of the escarpment that led to that museum of modern art that Anna called home. We’d covered the distance remarkably fast. I guess it was the lack of traffic at the late hour, but I had to give Anna high marks for her skill behind the wheel. Of course, she probably drove the same route three or four times a day. I was somehow trying to attribute virtues to Anna, whether she wanted them or not. I’d have to take a minute to figure all this out. In the meantime, coming here made sense: it was safe, it got Anna out of trouble and it was a well-defended citadel. I added to that, it wasn’t within a clear view of any other building. The most frightening thing about that phone call was the caller’s up-to-date information. He had seen Anna and me come back to Court Street. He had seen my car in the parking lot outside the Beaumont Hotel. He was keeping an eye on me and I didn’t like that at all.

  She slipped a card into an upright stand, the sort of thing you see outside automated parking lots in Toronto, and the big double gates swung open. Instead of driving up to the front door, she took a branch that led around to the rear of the mansion.

  “We’re here,” she announced, removing the keys from the ignition and putting them into a leather handbag.

  “I’ll cone in and phone for a taxi,” I said.

  “No you won’t. You’re spending the night. What’s the use of having a place this size if you can’t cope with unexpected guests.”

  “But, officially I’m not a guest. I work for the firm, remember.”

  “Don’t be silly. Come on.” She got out and led the way through the dark to an illuminated doorbell. She put a key into the nearby lock and we were in an unfamiliar hallway that was much more the family side of the house, without the monumental and artistic touches of the front rooms. Here the guided tours never penetrated. In five minutes I had a bedroom assigned, pyjamas laid out for me, my own bathroom, and a toothbrush still in its plastic wrapper. Anna brought me another shot of Black Bush and she led the way to a small study with a fireplace and a wall of books. The fire wasn’t lit. That gave me the feeling that I was in a real house and not a movie set. Little things like unlit fires and coffee stains on the kitchen table give me the reassuring notion that even rich people live according to the same natural laws as the rest of us. A coffee stain is the same for everybody, rich and poor alike, and it will stay on the table top until a hand with a rag in it washes it away.

  “Are you tired?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m pretty beat.” I sipped on the Irish and so did she. I watched her and remembered the way she’d looked in my office earlier. She’d been so suspicious of me and the investigation. “Do you really think your old man took that list?”

  “What happened to your devious and subtle method, Benny?”

  “You may call me ‘Mr. Cooperman.’ Did he take it?”

  “I don’t know. I worry that he did. But it wouldn’t have been like Daddy to do such a thing. What I want to know is if he didn’t take it, who did, and what does he mean to do with it.”

  “If it’s blackmail, the people whose names are on the list won’t have to wait very long to hear from the thief. It’s unlikely that he’ll sit on it. There seems to have been a brisk trade going on in Tallon’s uncatalogued paintings
. I know who’s behind that now, but it still is a different answer to the question you raise.”

  “I suppose you can’t tell me about that.”

  “It’s your old man who’s paying me. He should be the first to know. But I’m not even sure I’ll tell him until I know the whole story. When you start handing out parcels of information you give them a life of their own. The approved practice is to give a full report when you have all the facts and not give briefings from time to time along the way.”

  “And you always go by the book?” she asked, throwing back her head in that way women have.

  “No. If I went by the book I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be back in town looking for the guy who slashed my tires and made that threatening call. I’d probably have reported it to Niagara Regional.”

  “Will you?”

  “In the morning.” Ever since the incident of the phone call and our flight from my place, Anna Abraham had become quiet and rather withdrawn. In the bar she had been friendly and curious. Now she only seemed to be going through the motions of being the polite hostess. I’d had to bank the coals of some very unprofessional feelings. They probably didn’t go with sharing the boss’s roof anyway. As we got up and she walked me back to my room, we started talking about her job again. She told me about her classes and the number of essays she wasn’t looking forward to marking.

  “Starting next Wednesday, I’ve got to unscramble thirty papers on the American Civil War. It’s hard charting a course through those long-dead battles, trying to find trends in leadership and trust, the politics of generalship and so on.” She was leaning against the door-frame. “You know the one about Lincoln offering to send all his generals a case of whatever it was that Grant was drinking.”

  “No, I missed that. What I always wanted to know was did the people investigating the Lincoln murder ever discover whether there was a second gun.”

  Anna laughed. “See you in the morning,” she said. It had been an awkward moment for both of us, but I’d managed to get through it without betraying my boss or embarrassing either Anna or me. I was dead tired anyway. I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy the luxury of my surroundings. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the fancy pillow.