The Cooperman Variations

by Howard Engel

  “Benny!”

  “Don’t pull that shocked, innocent look on me, Vanessa. It’s just another kind of smoke-screen. I’m not acting the scorned lover. I just have to know, that’s all. Where did you get it?”

  “George gave it to me.”

  “You know he’s got a record?”

  “Yes, I know. I don’t know where he got it. The gun, I mean. He said I needed it for protection.”

  “You weren’t using it for protection last Thursday night.”

  “Damn it, Benny. That’s private stuff! Nobody has a right to probe that. You certainly didn’t bring it up at the time. I don’t recall your being at all curious about where it came from then. We could have discussed it, only the question never came up.”

  “Okay, okay! I’m only human. My feet of clay are the best in town, rival all others. I didn’t say anything because right then you didn’t need questions. You needed something like a hug, and that is what was going on until it took a turn that had nothing to do with good intentions. I can’t and won’t say I’m sorry it happened, Vanessa. But I sure didn’t want it to complicate things. So all I need from you now are good clear answers to my questions.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know anything more about the gun, except, as you know, I’ve found it exciting.”

  “Okay, tell me … tell me about Bob Foley.”

  “I thought we were having a relaxing, after-work libation. Can’t you forget the office for half an hour? I was telling you about this hotel. It’s crooked, you know. I don’t mean the management; I mean structurally. There’s an underground stream below the street and that gives it a list to starboard. Or maybe to port. Don’t be cross.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I am. I’m just the working stiff trying to keep you alive.” She didn’t say anything for a moment. She was looking at caricatures of local literati in a big frame on the wall. I watched her hands on her glass. She was rubbing a finger around the rim, but it made no sound. She shifted her weight, she pouted, she leaned into her blouse with a full breath, and that didn’t work either. Not tonight.

  “Oh, all right! What do you want to know?”

  “You told me you hardly knew Foley, but that’s not the truth, is it?”

  “I knew him. I’m quite the authority on Bob Foley.”

  “Let’s hear about it.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, mopping her lips with one of those undersized napkins that are useless for almost everything.

  “When I first came to Toronto, I worked at the CBC. I was the gofer in those days. I was trying to learn the ropes. Bob Foley was a technician. One night in Studio L, I was cleaning up some tapes, getting ready to go back upstairs, and Bob Foley groped me. He was all over me like a rash, pulling and—Anyway, I struggled and got away from him. I was terrified, violated, embarrassed. The lot. I didn’t tell anybody. But the next time I was in a studio by myself, Foley was there again. Same thing. After that little adventure, I complained to my supervisor. The upshot was that while I was a recently arrived, untrained, expendable female production assistant, Foley was a highly trained, valuable senior technician whose work was beyond reproach. The Engineering Department decided to ignore my complaint. He represented a bigger investment in corporate resources than I did. They did nothing about him. Bob went on his merry way and the women he ran into kept having to cross their legs whenever they were booked into a late-night studio alone with him. After all, there would always be more of them than there would be trained technical operators. Benny, I once mentioned the experience when talking to a former CBC vice-president. This was years later, and I didn’t mention Foley by name. He knew I was talking about Foley. Everybody knew that about Bob Foley.”

  “Wow!”

  “I left CBC for a while and worked other places. I’ve been with all of the Canadian networks. On the whole, the technicians are a great bunch and we have always got along well, but Bob Foley was the rotten apple, Benny.”

  “That, as shocking as it is, Vanessa, is ancient history. What recent contacts have you had with him?”

  “I’ve checked up on him, Benny. Quietly, and without briefing my informants beforehand. I wanted to be fair.”

  “And?”

  “Foley was up to his old tricks. He never changed. I got the names of four different women that he had … had … importuned.”

  “Fancy word, but it’s the same old groping Bob Foley. Did he know that you were trying to get him fired?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I’m getting to know you, Vanessa, and I’m good at guessing.”

  “He knew. He also knew that he was just as safe from dismissal from his highly skilled job at NTC in this century as he’d been at CBC in the last. So much for all the recent legislation. It doesn’t mean a thing when money’s involved.”

  “I hope your experience with Raymond Devlin was less stressful?”

  “I knew him first years ago. He did some legal work for me out of his tiny office off Bay Street. Not too far from where he is today. But that first place was more of a shoebox than an office. Of course, I’ve had to work close to him since the Plevna Foundation was set up. The Dermot Keogh Hall deal has taken a lifetime of work, Benny, not all from me. There are a lot of people working on it.”

  “Do you like him? Do you trust him?”

  “He needs a lot of looking after.”

  “I know; you told me about that. What else?”

  “He’s a good lawyer; he’s thorough, dependable. Solid from a business standpoint.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t dislike him. I have no reason to dislike him. I know, I know. Okay, let’s stick to facts. I have nothing against him but a feeling. Can you deal with a feeling?”

  “It’s a start. Did you ever visit him in Muskoka?”

  “He tried to lure me to his cottage one weekend, but he did that to everybody. Everybody of child-bearing years, that is. Sally narrowly escaped. I ran into him once when I was visiting a publisher on Lake Muskoka. I gather that he enjoyed upsetting some of the old Muskoka traditions: taste, decorum, manners, things like that.” Vanessa had taken my hand in hers. There was no suggestion of intimacy or romance. No, it was just a curious object that was handy, and she thought she wanted a closer look. It didn’t hold her interest long after I pressed her for more information.

  “I do remember hearing that Dermot threw Devlin out one time. I forget what it was about, but he was banned from Dermot’s cottage, forbidden the use of his boats. You know, cut off at the ankles. And Dermot wasn’t hard to get along with.”

  “Well, that’s something. Who would be your source on that?”

  “Probably Philip Rankin. He’d be good on Dermot too, of course.”

  “It’s your bacon I’m trying to keep from frying, Vanessa. It’s too late for Dermot. Although, from what I’ve heard, I would like to have met him.”

  “If you like walking tightropes. He was quirky, Benny. For instance, he couldn’t abide sharp objects: sharp pencils, knitting needles, knives. He’d go crazy if he saw a blade of any kind. You can imagine what it was like trying to edit audio tape around him in the old days. It was all done with razor blades. He would never allow anything sharp in that place of his on Clarence Square. Blades were just one thing. There were lots of them. You could never tell when you were crossing him until he was so peeved at you, you were done for.”

  “Was he peeved with Renata?”

  “Renata Sartori? No! Of course not. He was in love with her. She was with him when he was drowned. She was in the boat, helping Foley manage the rafts and equipment.”

  “Does the name Bowmaker ring any bells with you?”

  “That’s what he used to call Renata: his little bowmaker. I never understood why.”

  “It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s enough to know that it means Renata. Who saw him up in Muskoka last year?”

  “From around here?” I nodded. “Ken Trebitsch, I guess. Ken is addicted to power and mone
y. Dermot had both. I don’t think Dermot liked him much, but he was fascinated by Ken’s hunger for making it. Ken’s a simple sort, really. Deadly, but uncomplicated. I think Dermot wondered how someone like that could climb so high. He didn’t come around often enough to see that there are hundreds just like him.”

  “Did you go to the service for Alma Orchard?”

  “Alma? How do you know about … Oh! From Ed Patel. You do get around, don’t you, Benny? Yes, I was there. The place was thronged. When I’m depressed, I think they were morbidly curious, but usually I remember that she had lots of friends. I hope I have that many when it’s my turn to go. Do you think of dying, Benny?”

  “Only when I’m a passenger. I don’t think about the things I don’t think about.” We finished up our drinks, had another round and went out into the unair-conditioned world below. Vanessa was hungry, so we took a taxi to the Montreal Bistro where she had another Scotch and some roasted eggplant. I didn’t choose very well. I had a salad with goat cheese on top. It looked like an albino hockey puck.

  The bistro was located in an old building on Sherbourne Street. The brick walls inside were supported by huge foot-thick wooden beams. Music was supplied by a quartet of jazzmen from Cuba. The piano player, Hilario Duran, was great; a blend, as Vanessa whispered to me, of Art Tatum and Rachmaninov. As soon as we were seated, the waiter reminded us that while the musicians were playing, there was a no-talking policy in place. Even whispering was frowned upon. No wonder Vanessa chose this place. If sitting with Vanessa hadn’t so many other redeeming features, I could have become peeved with this woman.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Wednesday

  I was up not long after the sun, also after a night of diving a sunken wreck in cold waters, to a day that looked like it was going to be a burner. This spring was turning into midsummer without a murmur from the weatherman or the man on the street. Most of my stay in Toronto had been in air-conditioned comfort. I’d been spoiled. My few excursions outside had been brief exposures to the frying elements. I try to keep track of my blessings when I remember.

  After showering and getting dressed, I looked fairly presentable in the mirror over the bathroom sink, while I did my duty by my whiskers and teeth. My trousers had won back an echo of a crease under my mattress overnight. The shirt I was wearing represented the last of the clean clothes I’d brought from Grantham. If this case lingered on much longer, I was going to have to do some shopping, my least favourite activity. In returning my wallet, pen and handkerchief to my pockets, I came across the name and phone number of Vanessa’s sister out west. I called the number and left a message on her machine about where to find me.

  Outside the front door, the heat I’d guessed at through my window made good on its threats. I found Chuck Pepper at a table at the back of the Open Kitchen just a few doors north of my hotel. He was dressed for the heat in a short-sleeved shirt and a tan hat with a wide brim. It sat at the edge of the table on top of a newspaper.

  “Good morning!” he said, shaking hands rather formally. I could see he had already finished at least one cup of coffee. Soon we both had cups in front of us. It was fresh and only slightly bitter when I tasted it.

  “What luck did you have with the lock?” Chuck grinned and shook his head.

  “I wasn’t able to fool Jack and Jim,” he said. “They knew what I was on about.”

  “So you took a ribbing on my behalf. I’ll owe you for that. But did you get the numbers?”

  “In the end Jim gave them to me.” Here he reached into his breast pocket and brought out a slip of pink paper.

  “Just a minute!” I said, reaching into my own back pocket and retrieving from my wallet my own slip of paper. “I don’t know how to organize this, but let me try.” I flagged down a waiter, who came to the table at once. I told him that I wanted him to watch and listen to what happened next. He looked puzzled, but folded his arms and nodded to show that the entertainment could begin. “Chuck, give your paper to the waiter.” Pepper did so. I handed Chuck the paper I’d taken from my wallet. Chuck’s eyebrows shot up. “Read the numbers on your paper,” I said to the waiter. He did so, while Chuck’s eyes followed an invisible bouncing ball on the paper he held.

  “Right 2 turns to 25, left 1 turn to 11, right to 39.”

  “It’s the same combination!” Chuck said. The waiter leaned in to see the paper Chuck was holding. He nodded agreement. Later, I got the waiter’s name, in case any of this should end up in a courtroom.

  “Okay, Benny, what does all this mean? You used to feed rabbits for Blackstone the Magician when you were little, right? What’s going on?”

  “Your paper has the number from Vanessa Moss’s locker, right?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Fine. This is the number I wrote down in the shed behind Bob Foley’s place. You know, the one with the motorcycles inside?”

  “Yeah. So Foley …?”

  “Foley put his own lock on Vanessa Moss’s locker. It makes it more than a little probable that Foley picked up the shells at the scene of the Renata Sartori murder and took them to the NTC building where he put them in the locker. First, he had to cut off Vanessa’s own lock.”

  “Does that mean that he killed Renata Sartori?”

  “It makes him a damned good suspect. It also makes sense: he was a professional electronics technician. He had access to tools, including bolt cutters, and keys to offices.”

  “But what’s the point? Why would he do it?”

  “Foley and Vanessa go back a long way together. He attempted to rape her years ago at the CBC, and at the time, Vanessa tried to get him fired. She was trying again three weeks ago. He hated her guts.”

  “That’s interesting, but what does it explain about the murder? Was Foley out to kill Moss but killed Sartori by mistake? Or does it mean that Sartori was the intended victim all along and that Moss engineered it all?”

  “Who’s Moss?” asked the waiter.

  “Could you find us some cinnamon toast?” Chuck asked through his teeth. The waiter, hurt, moved back to the kitchen.

  “It means that Foley’s lock was on Vanessa’s locker. That’s all we have that we know for sure.”

  “Okay. But on that premise, what may we build?”

  “Let’s see. It means that if Foley wasn’t at Moss’s house for the shooting, he arrived later and took the spent shells. It means that he saw the body and that he probably took it to be Vanessa’s unless he knew for sure that Vanessa was still up north.”

  “So, you think that Foley may not have been the principal bad guy here?”

  “Could be.”

  “There’s stuff missing. You know something you haven’t said. What is it?”

  “I know—and I don’t want to say how I know right now—that Sartori’s murderer left the scene with the spent shells lying next to the body. I have a witness who will come forward, if we need him.”

  “So that makes Foley the clean-up man for the real killer.”

  “Fits him, doesn’t it? He was the gofer for Dermot Keogh. He was the boat wrangler, the buyer of arrowroot biscuits for the cello player.”

  “Huh? Arrowroot biscuits?”

  “What are you having to eat?” The waiter was hovering near again. If it wasn’t for more games, it could be that he was waiting to get on with his job. He placed some cinnamon toast between Chuck and me. I told him I now wanted some dry brown toast, a fried egg, orange juice and more coffee. With the addition of some back bacon, Chuck Pepper ordered the same. We didn’t talk again until the breakfast was partly demolished. And, even then, it didn’t prove very interesting.

  When I arrived at the twentieth floor, twenty minutes later, Sally was at her desk, wearing a broad pink hair band. “Benny! There are two men in Vanessa’s office waiting for you!” She paused and added in a whisper: “I think they’re policemen.” I don’t know whether the last bit was to give me a chance to make a run for it or what. I squared my shoulders, gave Sally my
best “damn the torpedoes” look and vanished into Vanessa’s sanctum. The cops were Jack Sykes and Jim Boyd, as I’d expected. Both were wearing the same clothes I’d seen them in last time. They looked the same, anyway. Maybe they had whole closets full of these mass-market outfits, designed to show off every overweight ounce they were carrying. Boyd was wearing that silly straw summer hat in his lap, like it was the only thing handy to protect his otherwise naked body.

  I gave each of them a friendly grin and the opening for some wisecracks. They were not in the mood. “Benny,” Sykes said, “I gotta know when your boss is coming down here. I can’t get anything from the girl out there.”

  “‘Girl’ usually means pigtails and freckles, Jack. You know: sugar and spice, skipping ropes and hopscotch, barrettes and—”

  “I didn’t come here for a lecture on political correctness, Cooperman. You know goddamned well who I mean: the receptionist, secretary thingy, whatever she is. I know Moss is back from Los Angeles.”

  “Back from the coast, you mean? That’s how we say it around here.”

  “Save it, Ben,” Boyd said, showing that he was in a sober mood. He crossed his long legs, hiding most of the hat.

  “She got back yesterday.”

  “We know that. We know what plane she was on and where she went from the airport. We know what she did last night and who she was with until two-thirty this morning. What we don’t know is when she’s going to walk in that door.” I blinked at the efficiency of the local cops. I didn’t give them enough credit. I had been planning to skip the end of Tuesday, since it didn’t seem to advance the story any. But, perhaps I owe a word or two to the unsatisfied. From the Montreal Bistro we went back to Vanessa’s temporary residence. I would like to flatter myself that it was my company that recommended me to my employer, but I have to be honest. Any company would have done as well. We went through the motions, without the handgun this time, and I let myself out into the quiet street at the time noted by the stake-out guys, wherever they were hiding. On the way back to the hotel, I thought of Anna and groused inwardly about what a low-life I can be on occasions. The thought of Tuscany and the Californian mushroom king salved only twenty per cent of my conscience. I spent the remainder of the night sweating out the rest.