Ball Park

by John Farrow

  She wondered how he knew that, and if he was right.

  Ezra did not enjoy hearing about a policeman barging into her life.

  ‘Trust him not,’ he said.

  ‘He seemed OK, for a cop. He’s got this massive honker. Hard to keep your eyes off it.’

  They were seated in his little back room. He poured tea. She was appreciating these gentle tea ceremonies. The radio on quietly. Ezra seemed to have permanently tuned his ears to violins.

  ‘Who is he? Does he have a name?’

  ‘Cinq-Mars.’

  ‘Sank-who?’

  ‘Like the number five in French.’

  ‘His badge number or his name?’

  ‘Cinq then Mars, like the planet. Five Mars. Only you don’t pronounce the “r” a hard way. It’s French. Cinq-Mars.’

  Ezra was staring at her rather oddly. Holding his teacup as high as his chin.

  ‘What?’ she asked him.

  ‘He’s Night Patrol,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A division of tough cops. Honest guys. Can’t be bribed or intimidated. Sometimes they arrest a man. Other times they beat the crap out of a person they’re after, warn him to find a new address in another city. I stay out of their way. Nobody wants to mess with them. Why are you talking to one of those, Quinn? Why are you important to them?’

  ‘I dunno. Cinq-Mars seems to work in the daytime.’

  Ezra sipped more tea then put his cup down. ‘Could be there’s two guys with that name. I’ll check. From you, does he want something?’

  ‘My eyes open and my ears on the ground. He wants me to keep my head up. How I keep my head up with my ears on the ground I haven’t quite figured out.’

  ‘Don’t talk smart. This is serious. He has you for the robbery?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve been printed. Kinda cool. Being fingerprinted.’

  ‘Not, as you say, cool. He has you for the robbery, yet he does not put you in youth protection. Serious, this. Did you forget? Your fingers were in the blood in the car.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘He wants something from you. Think straight in a hurry, young Quinn. A cop like that, his hooks in you, that’s front-of-the-line trouble. He’s in control of you now, do you not know?’

  ‘Ezra, it’s not that bad. Nobody controls me.’

  ‘Not that bad? So bad I don’t want to know you.’

  ‘What? You’re kidding. Why not?’

  ‘You’ll sell me out.’

  ‘I won’t do that.’

  ‘You will. Criminals sell out their best friends.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘They say that always. Not so many keep their word.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Your fingerprints are in the blood. Drink your tea,’ he instructed her. ‘Let me think.’

  She did. They sat in silence in the dark little room, sipping.

  Then Quinn asked, ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Be specific to me, what does he want from you?’

  ‘Dietmar’s old girlfriends. My old boyfriends. A list. In my case, it’ll be short. He’s looking for a jealous lover, maybe.’

  Ezra considered that, nodding. ‘Good. Not so bad. Give the list. Maybe he won’t compare your prints to the ones in blood. Someday, he will ask how you sold your merchandise. What will your answer be not to sell me out?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Say nothing, when he asks. He’ll push. Say nothing again. He’ll push more. Show him you’re afraid of the question. Make him push more. Then give him a name. Not mine. A thug on Notre-Dame West. Works out of a bar called Dino’s. Tough crooks show up in the backlot. He comes out. They call him the Rabbit.’

  ‘The Rabbit.’

  ‘Guy Lappin. Like lapin, the French word for rabbit. An extra “p” in his name because he’s Russian, his origin. He speaks French. English, too. Not Russian. Or speaks Russian in the privacy of his house. Except he’s not the kind of man who has a house. Makes deals in the backlot in the moonlight. Tell your cop you were one of his crooks. He’ll believe you. Know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s credible. How would you know to tell that story or give up that name, if it is not true? Make sure you get your cop to promise he will never tell where he learned the information. He’ll keep you out of it to keep you out of a body bag. He’ll warn you to never go there again. So don’t. Don’t go back to this place where you have never been. Understand?’

  ‘No problem. I won’t go back to where I’ve never been.’

  ‘Finish your tea, Quinn. Then go. You make me nervous. You with your cop from the Night Patrol.’

  ‘You said you’d check him out.’

  ‘I’ll check. Now go.’

  The hairs on her forearms crept up as she walked outside. She felt a tingling. Exactly as Ezra had forewarned. A big black Caddy was cruising down the block. The dunce-cap behind the wheel gave her the eye. One wolf whistle out of him and she’d throw a rock. If she could find a rock. Then she’d run. Head for the hills. Funny how his look could instantaneously give a girl the creeps.

  He did a U-ey. This was not a street to do a U-turn on. She feared he might follow her. He still seemed to have his eye on her when she glanced back. She tried not to look again, but when he didn’t pass her right away, she risked a quick scan. She saw him parking. She wanted an excuse to duck into a doorway. She didn’t smoke but she could pretend to light up. Track him out the corner of her eye. Better than having his eye on her.

  Oddly, he leaned against the rear fender of his car. The guy lit up a smoke for real. He seemed to be having a conversation with himself. Or talking to the car. This went on for a while, and because he was facing her Quinn stayed put. Then the man snuffed the smoke under the sole of his shoe and unlocked the trunk. He looked around before raising the lid and Quinn tucked her head out of sight. Then she poked her head out from behind the brick barrier to peek.

  The hairs on her forearms were standing on end now.

  A young man – not at all on the cute side as he closely resembled a sewer-dwelling waif crawling out of a nightmare – stuck a bell-bottomed pantleg out of the trunk. He then stood on the street facing the other man, as if squirming in place. They talked. No recriminations between them. No dispute, no violence, as though the young fellow had hitched a ride and was grateful for the accommodation while in transit. The two appeared to be in agreement. Then the waif walked on, in Quinn’s direction, but crossed to the other side of the street. She was highly curious. Even more so when the driver came down the sidewalk and entered the Knightsbridge pawnshop.

  She crossed the road and followed the boy.

  She found the look of him amusing, the way he hitched his trousers above his skinny hips, jutting his shoulders as if squiggling through a narrow passage.

  She never approached boys who held exactly zero interest for her in the way that boys interest girls. He was the sort she’d cross the street to avoid if she noticed him coming with intentions in his eye. And yet, if she was supposed to have her head up and her ears to the ground, this might be what that meant. A boy squirts out of the trunk of a car as if it was something he did every day. If nothing else, it was worth an expression of surprise.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. She was still behind him but catching up. ‘Hold on.’

  He turned. Noticing a girl with an interesting look, he stopped.

  ‘English or French?’ In Montreal, a necessary determination. ‘Français ou—’

  ‘English,’ he said. ‘Or French. Or Swahili.’

  ‘You don’t speak Swahili.’

  ‘I could learn. For you, I would. I’ll enroll with Berlitz tomorrow.’

  No dummy. Except that he carried himself with the indifference of a crash-test dummy. She could see him in the role.

  ‘Not necessary. What are you doing right now?’ She knew how that sounded.

  ‘Talking to you. Before that, walking. Why? You got a better idea?’

>   ‘You weren’t always walking,’ she said.

  He didn’t respond. A bony shoulder shrugged. He hoisted his patched trousers with the wide flares at the shins. He could use a better belt. Either that or he could add some meat to his bones. He went to adjust his glasses but scrunched his nose instead to shift them higher.

  ‘Why the trunk?’ she asked.

  The jig was up. He decided not to deny it. ‘Don’t you ride in trunks?’

  ‘Neither do you. Why were you in that trunk?’

  The young man pursed his lips, made a face, tried to configure an appropriate reply. ‘Let’s call it a business negotiation. The man driving the car expects me to modify my behavior. Just because. He thinks if I got bumped around for an hour or two, I’ll be more inclined to see things his way.’

  ‘Are you? More inclined?’

  ‘Less so. Shook some dirt out of my clothes, though. Kind of like being in a washing machine. Less inclined to think like him, more inclined to do what he says. Which is probably the point. Look, we got to keep moving.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to piss. You would, too, if you’d been knocked around in the trunk of a car after a couple of beers. I can’t hold it in.’

  A short distance on, they entered a construction site and the young man relieved himself behind a stack of plywood. Quinn stood guard, to warn if anyone came by.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as he reemerged, zipping up.

  ‘Quinn. Yours?’

  ‘Leonard. If we become lovers and have six kids, still call me Leonard. Not Len. Or Lenny. I think Lenny is for accountants.’

  ‘You’re not an accountant and we’re not going to be lovers.’

  ‘All the girls say that before they change their minds.’

  ‘I hope that happens for you once in your lifetime. What’s the other guy’s name?’

  ‘Who?’

  Quinn waited for him to figure it out. They were still standing on the construction site, the world of traffic and pedestrians visible through a gap in the fence.

  ‘Arturo? Forget about him. You can’t be attracted to Arturo. He’s not worth your time.’

  She stared at him, more dumbfounded now than when he crawled from the trunk. She turned and slipped through the gap onto the street. Her strides were long. He quickened his walk to catch up.

  When he did, she asked, ‘What’s his last name?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Is it Maletti?’

  This time, he was the one who slowed down. He had to bolt forward to be in step again.

  ‘Why was he going into Ezra’s place?’

  ‘Why do you walk so fast?’

  She stopped cold and he nearly bumped into her. ‘I asked first,’ she said.

  ‘No idea. You know Ezra? Stupid question. If you know his name, you know Ezra. Are you a thief?’

  Quinn was shocked. ‘What? Why ask me that?’

  He shrugged. ‘You know Ezra. Ezra knows thieves. Doesn’t it follow that you’re a thief?’

  She supposed it did. She also understood she had things to learn.

  ‘Arturo interrupted my afternoon brew,’ Leonard said. ‘Want to join me?’

  ‘You want to drink with a thief?’

  ‘You want to drink with a drug dealer?’

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Who else gets to ride around in the trunk of a car? Drug dealers and kidnap victims. That’s about it and I’m not a kidnap victim.’

  ‘I’m underage.’

  ‘Not at my place.’

  He was decidedly the runt of the litter. If he believed he could take her on he’d be in for a comeuppance. In any case, he didn’t seem bent that way. He seemed, under the mess of his outward appearance and insecurity, sincere.

  ‘OK,’ she said. Then added, ‘Tell me about Maletti.’

  ‘Is that how this goes down to the ground? We’re about Maletti?’

  ‘That’s how it goes down,’ she said.

  She might not be a raving beauty, but she was closer to being one than any girl he’d ever invited home. As close to a raving beauty as he had allocated for himself in his wistful dreams. And yet, this could be dicey on any number of levels.

  ‘Leonard, you said you’d learn Swahili for me. If that’s true, you can sure tell me everything you know about Arturo Maletti.’

  ‘Who are you? Where do you come from?’ he asked as if she might mention another planet.

  She stabbed a finger on his chest. ‘Don’t think that way, Leonard. Do what you’re told. I’m telling you to talk to me about Maletti. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. Thinking otherwise had been lame. ‘Sure thing.’

  Mother-of-Pearl Inlay

  (Condolences)

  ‘Ezra, turn off the damn violins. We’re not at the fucking opera.’

  ‘A difference there is,’ Knightsbridge informed his visitor, ‘between an opera and the symphony. You, an Italian, should know this before you crawl out from your crib for a cannoli.’

  ‘Right. I should be a flipping tenor.’

  ‘Beats breaking legs.’

  ‘I don’t break legs. Punched a guy in the gut today. He went down like a—’

  ‘Don’t say this.’

  ‘Like a ton of bricks.’

  Ezra sighed and sat down. ‘Clichés like that, I hate so much.’

  ‘Sure you do. Keeps me awake at night, what you care about. Hey, that long-legged thing walking down the street just now. The blondie. Like she was carried on a breeze. Was she in here?’

  Ezra Knightsbridge worked the edges of truth throughout his days. For him, lying was a practiced art that required both purpose and strategy. Life and death could be at stake. One should never lie out of fear, or from a posture of weakness. That was a game for the segment of society collectively identified as losers. He could lie to Arturo Maletti, claim that the young woman had not been in his shop. Except it broke a cardinal rule. He did not know what the other man knew. Had he seen her emerge from his shop? No one should lie when the quizzical party might know more than he let on. A lie should only fill a vacuum of ignorance and not be combative with the truth.

  ‘She dropped by. Why ask?’

  ‘Why did she drop by?’

  ‘This is your business? How?’

  ‘One of your thieves, Ezra? A girl like that, I could be interested.’

  ‘You hop from the bed of the boss’s daughter to raping a juvenile delinquent, this is your scheme?’

  ‘Then she is one of yours.’

  ‘She’s not. She is a student of music. She came by to visit her accordion, play tunes. She misses her accordion. She works to raise the money back I lent her. The instrument here, her collateral.’

  Arturo Maletti gazed at the accordion with the mother-of-pearl inlay. A prop gave a story its presence, its focal point. Always advantageous. That the instrument belonged to a ‘crazy Hungarian’ who played weddings, who was frustrated that people wanted only ‘The rock and the roll, no more the polka,’ he’d keep to himself.

  ‘Let me buy it for her, Ezra. She’ll date me then. She might adore me.’

  ‘How do I sell what is not mine? Also, do I assist an idiot with his idiot plan to defile an angel underage? You are filth, Arturo. She is silk. Get her out of your head or I will be done with you. You know what means that.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘The father of the daughter of the boss has it confirmed who does the doggie style with his married little girl. The slow torture, Arturo. The miserable death. The body parts missing. Find them in the river.’

  ‘You can shut up now.’

  ‘Keep your filthy mind off my customers. Why are you here? Something wrong you did?’

  ‘Always so suspicious. I need your help. I’ve done nothing to interest the cops. Still, a couple of detectives came after me.’

  ‘Then what? After they came after?’

  ‘I ran away. I gave them the slip.’

  ‘You know why they c
ame after?’

  ‘Can you help me find out?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘What I said. Do you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What do you mean “of course”?’

  ‘You didn’t talk to your girlfriend today?’

  ‘Which one, hey?’

  ‘You think this is funny? Your girlfriend’s husband is shot dead in his own house, and who is the suspect? The one who is laughing.’

  ‘Her husband’s dead? Savina’s! When did this happen?’

  ‘When? Last night it happened. You weren’t there?’

  ‘Get off it. I wasn’t there. If I was there, I’d know.’

  ‘If you were there, you would say you were not. Same difference.’

  ‘It’s not the same difference. There’s a big difference.’

  ‘For you, maybe. For the police? Not so much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If Savina didn’t do it, her lover did. You’re the lover.’

  ‘You’re the only one who knows that, Ezra.’

  ‘Maybe I was the only one, once. Me and Savina, we knew. That was before the fingerprints.’

  ‘What fingerprints?’

  ‘You left yours behind in the car of the dead boy. Remember telling me?’

  ‘I smeared them.’

  ‘Not so well, my connections say. Also, fingerprints are inside Savina’s house. Yours. Why are you here when you should be running? You bring trouble on my house, on my business. Why?’

  ‘Ezra—’

  ‘Who has called me? Who wants to talk?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Figure it out.’

  ‘Tell me who.’

  ‘Tell me who you think.’

  ‘Savina?’

  ‘Not Savina. Are you an idiot, or only stupid?’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘The police don’t tell me they’re coming. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know who!’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Ezra informed him. ‘You do know who.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The husband is killed in the house of the daughter. Who is interested in the lover now?’

  Very quietly, Maletti said, ‘Not Joe Ciampini?’