The Cooperman Variations

by Howard Engel

  I walked down to the end of the dock, which was connected to smaller wooden docks, which in turn created the slips where about fifty or sixty small craft of all kinds were tethered. The yacht seemingly at the end was bigger than any I had ever been aboard, barring one owned by an east-coast brewer. But on that one I’d had to line up, and velvet ropes prevented unimpeded exploration below decks.

  Next to this, but masked by the larger boat, was moored a much more reasonably sized vessel. Across the stern of the white hull, the words SIR EDWARD COKE TORONTO were painted in bold golden capitals. I struggled aboard, feeling, as I always did, heavy and awkward. I tried the key that Devlin had given me, and the hatch opened easily on well-lubricated tracks. I opened it fully, and went backwards down the inside ladder, turned and headed towards the front. Here, as instructed, I found an assortment of boating wear. Most important, I found a pair of soft running shoes that almost fit.

  Back on deck, having brought some of the running tackle with me, I began unbuttoning the boom cover. When I’d removed it and stowed it below, and was wondering what to do next, Ray Devlin appeared with drinks and snacks. “Ahoy!” he shouted, slipping into the mock nautical banter that I had initiated a few minutes earlier. “The wind’s getting stronger. We’re going to have us a real sail, Ben.” Coming aboard, he saw what I’d started and lent a hand to complete things. He opened a hatch forward to let in some light, and began running the sheet lines through the left- and right-hand cleats and then hitching them up to the boom. Meanwhile, I took the sails out of their plastic bags and began slipping the toggles into the slot running up the mast. Devlin clipped a line to the top of the sail and made it ready for hoisting aloft. We managed the foresail in similar fashion, not talking, not getting in each other’s way.

  On a boat I become subservient. It comes naturally to me. I’ve tried at various times to sail by myself, but it is always awkward, like trying to climb stairs in roller blades. I am a natural first mate, never the skipper. It’s as though I hold the craft of seamanship sacred. While I might manage well as altar boy, I wouldn’t attempt to serve the mass myself. I don’t know where I got that comparison. It’s as foreign to my experience as sailing a yacht. The plain fact is that the wind is an abstraction that is beyond my frail brain.

  Finally, we cast off and were on our way out of the slip. Despite my earlier guess, it was necessary to use the auxiliary motor to back away from the dock, turn and make our way out into the channel. While Devlin manned the tiller and the motor, I kept out of the way and sat on one side prepared to be useful. I watched other boats returning to the club, their crews and skippers red in the face from the growing blow moving across the north end of the Island.

  “This is going to be exciting!” Devlin said, nodding in the direction of the nearest returning boat. It looked wet and so did its crew. When we reached the middle of the channel, Devlin raised the mainsail and the one in front, cut the motor and settled down for a good sail. “You know, there are some people, a good part of the active membership, who only come out for races. Now, I like to race too, but I also like to sail without having to round marker buoys. Know what I mean?” I knew and nodded. He had to raise his voice to be heard. “Last year, we sailed across for the Shaw Festival. It was rough going to Niagara, but it was even harder changing into black tie for the opening-night show below decks.”

  The trees along both sides of the channel were getting smaller. Soon they were well behind us. In front, off the port bow, as Conrad might say, the end of the runway of the Island Airport kept us company for a few thousand metres, then dropped away. After that, Oakville and Hamilton beyond lay hidden in the summer-like haze that sat on the lake. We were running with the wind, making good speed. When Devlin told me he was going to come about, we were a good mile west of the Island. The clouds above looked bruised. There were few boats near us and not a gull in sight.

  The sail luffed briefly, then caught the full blast of the wind. The boom slammed across the boat with stunning force, narrowly missing my head. Devlin and I changed sides, as I brought the foresail around and adjusted the sheets. We were launched on a southeasterly tack, which would take us well out into the lake, before coming about again and heading around the east end of the Island.

  “Did you do any sailing last weekend, Ben? On Lake Muskoka?”

  “No, I was out in a canoe and aboard Wanda III.”

  “Took the tour ride, did you?”

  “It amounted to the same thing, but I ran into an old friend who had rented Wanda for a few weeks.”

  “What took you north just at that time?” he asked, looking up at the fluttering streamer that showed the wind direction. Then he made a small adjustment in the sheet he was holding.

  “My boss was out of the country, so I thought I’d check out her cottage. I hadn’t had a holiday since—”

  “You can speak more frankly than that. I know what you do, Ben. Do you take me for a fool?”

  “Well, I may have done some snooping. I did some canoeing, a little hiking, some—”

  “That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? Checking up on your boss?”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t like the idea of working for someone I didn’t entirely trust. The trip made that better.”

  “In what way?”

  “The condition of the cottage seemed compatible with what she said she’d been doing at the time of the murder.”

  “You actually thought that she might have done it?”

  “I didn’t rule it out. Not until I’d been there.”

  With his arm steadying the tiller, Devlin found two stainless-steel cups and poured a healthy dram into each of them. He handed me one. I took it just as the boat heeled over with a sudden blast of wind, and we toasted each other with spray flying about us. I didn’t try my drink until I saw Devlin finish off his in one gulp. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies for my own good.

  There was a good swell now, and the water was thumping the hull under my bum steadily. I handed my cup back to Devlin, who stored both of them in a safe place. The last thing you need on a sailboat is a lot of tin cups rolling around underfoot. With the flask also tidied away, Devlin hunched over the tiller, like a gargoyle sitting on the gallery of a big French church. He wasn’t looking up ahead: he was looking at me.

  “You think you’ve got it all figured out, Ben?”

  “Me? Figured out what?”

  “Let’s have a minimum of pretending, Ben. I know more than you think.” Devlin was staring straight into the weather now, with his eyes narrowed to slits. I decided that being frank was part of what I’d set myself up for.

  “There are still things I don’t get yet. Like Foley’s role.” Devlin was silent for a few seconds, and then he smiled.

  “Foley was in it to begin with. He was closest to Keogh. Without him, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “But he was the least reliable. You didn’t trust him, nor he you.”

  “Yes, I could handle Philip. Philip Rankin. As long as I buttered up his ego regularly, he was a happy camper. Until I overheard him saying that he wanted to talk to you. At the reception yesterday. I couldn’t let that happen. And Foley was happy enough, too, most of the time, as long as his hands were busy. But thinking upset him, made him nervous, made him a poor colleague.”

  “Tell me about the breach with Dermot. That had to be the start of it.”

  “Ever since Foley had introduced me to Dermot, I was in the charmed circle. I was a made man. I was soon doing all of his important legal work. Oh, there were crumbs left for old Ed Patel, but I was doing all of his deals with Sony and the other New York connections. I did the contracts with NTC too. Rankin got me that and much more. The very nature of my practice changed. The firm got bigger. Had to, to keep up.”

  “And you were close with Dermot personally as well?”

  “Sure. He depended on me to listen to his stories late into the night, when Renata or some other girlfriend wasn’t around. I tried to please him. Gave him
stock tips, gave him presents, flattered him. He needed that. Where I went wrong was trying to prepare some biographical material on him. Just for the record, you know. I wasn’t going to publish it. It was just so that it would be there.”

  “You interviewed Dermot’s father.”

  “Yes. That was a big mistake. Nearly finished me. I didn’t know he was all that sick. I didn’t know that I’d broken the unwritten law with Dermot. ‘If you want to know about me,’ he said, ‘ask me! Leave my father and my family out of it!’ I’d never seen him so angry.”

  “That wrecked it?”

  “That’s right. First he became morose, then formal. Soon I couldn’t get near him. He wouldn’t take my calls. I was exiled, banished!”

  “That must have hurt.”

  “Of course, personally it was a great blow. It was like being thrust back into black-and-white after a summer of Technicolor. In business, it was more than a great blow. More like a catastrophe. I’d rebuilt my law firm on the expectation of a continuing relationship with Dermot. He tried to ruin me. I was haemorrhaging. I was overextended. You saw our offices. That sort of thing costs money.”

  “Where did the actual plan come from?”

  “Dermot suggested it himself. Before he dropped me, I mean. He’d told me of his plan to dive the wreck of Waome with Hampton Fisher. That was the perfect time, and Bob Foley would be there. He hadn’t been shut out. All I had to do was stay away.”

  “I see.”

  “But you wouldn’t stay away, would you, Ben? All Vanessa wanted was a bodyguard. That wasn’t good enough. You had to nose around, compete with the authorities, stir things up.”

  “It’s my nature, Raymond. I can’t help it.”

  “I suppose not. Makes things rather awkward, though.”

  “I think I see what you mean.”

  “You see the position you put me in?”

  “Oh, I’ve seen that right along.”

  “But you came along anyway?”

  “I wanted to hear it all from you. I wanted to understand whether it was just about the money.”

  “Of course, the money was a big part of it. But not all. He shouldn’t have treated me like that. I was his friend. He was peeved with me. That’s his word, not mine. And he cut me off as casually as though he were deadheading roses. I couldn’t stand that. I wouldn’t put up with it.”

  “But the scheme wasn’t foolproof. From the beginning there were flaws. Other people knew and had to be hit.”

  “You make me sound like a common gangster!”

  “Oh, there’s nothing common about you, Raymond. You’re memorable. You’re a keeper. You won’t slip into obscurity again. I can promise you that.”

  “So many loose ends that had to be taken care of. The ones I foresaw and the ones I didn’t. Foley, now. I always knew that he wouldn’t go the distance, but I couldn’t tell exactly where along the line I’d have to deal with him. He followed me to Vanessa’s that night. Thought he’d spoil things for me and implicate Vanessa. It was muddled thinking, you see. He didn’t have the head for it. Neither did Rankin. He only wanted the glory of the association with the great man. He’d always let me look after the practical things.”

  “And you did very well. The police up north never suspected; the ones down here are still confused. Killing Renata at Vanessa’s was a master-stroke. It muddied so many waters at once.”

  “A lot of that was luck. And timing. I didn’t know about Renata’s going to Vanessa’s until the day before I had to act.”

  “But you had the rest planned?”

  “Not really. As soon as Vanessa’s house came into it, I remembered Ed Patel’s gun over his fireplace. It was a lucky stroke. Like the wonderful things that come to you when you’re summing up a case and staring into the faces of a jury. Only the one last detail to put in place now.”

  “Me, you mean?”

  “Naturally. As they say in the movies, ‘You know too much.’”

  “So you planned this little trip in the Sir Edward Coke.” Devlin was sitting upright now. He looked like an insect about to strike, except that he was carrying too much weight to be any insect I could think of.

  “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Cooperman. But you see the necessity.” By his moving from “Ben” to “Mr. Cooperman,” I could feel that he was getting ready to make his move. It’s easier to kill someone with whom you are on rather formal terms.

  “You may have forgotten a thing or two, Raymond.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m not a complete fool. Do you think I’d have accepted your kind invitation without taking out insurance?” I could hear the wind whistling around the mast as Devlin weighed what I’d said.

  “You can’t bluff your way out of this. All the cards are face up. There are no more surprises on the table.” He was sneering slightly. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “What if Ed Patel comes home from the hospital? That would be another complication.”

  “Ed Patel isn’t getting out of there except to go to the funeral home across the street. Even he knows that.” The boat was heeling over again, the sails were bellied out. The sheets were squeaking in their cleats.

  “Are you sure he hasn’t contacted anyone? Friends, visitors?”

  “Who’ll believe him? He’s wandering in his mind. When he’s not going on about Lawrence of Arabia, he’s telling you who owned which cottage on the lake at the turn of the last century. He’s a colossal bore. He can’t spoil things. Only you can.”

  “The police know I’m here.”

  “More bluff. But not good enough to save you.” Here, Devlin swung the tiller hard over, ducking his head down as he went. I ducked as well, just as the boom slammed over hard, parting my hair as it went. But Devlin had a second part to his plan. He was up on his feet now, and I could see that there was a gun in his right hand. It looked like a toy. It was the circumstances that told me it was real. He made a start for me, silhouetted against the light, as I cowered in the cockpit. He added the support of his left hand to his right as he took aim. I closed my eyes just as the boom crashed back to where it had been. The boat had refused to come about. Devlin was struck full in the chest and knocked off balance. He went over the side without my being able to either see him properly or get to him. The gun went off as he fell, and I heard the zing of the bullet as it hit the aluminum mast. By the time I got to his side of the boat, there wasn’t even a ripple showing where he’d gone down. Then, I saw his head come up and saw his yellow slicker as he thrashed around.

  I was surprised how quickly the yacht was moving away from him. He was becoming smaller, vanishing under the swell. I looked for a life preserver and tossed it overboard. I tried to turn the boat to get back to the place where he’d disappeared. But, as I said, I’m no skipper. I’ve felt helpless before, but this was a new issue, nothing like any earlier experience. I attempted to come about, but by the time I managed it, I was half a mile from where I’d last seen Devlin. I tried again, got closer, but could see nothing.

  Then I remembered the motor. I turned the key and pushed the button; it caught the first time. I tried the throttle, moving it back and then forward to get the hang of it, and then sped back where he’d last been seen. I passed the empty life preserver, made another turn and came around again. I wanted to criss-cross my path as well as I could, but the sails had their own plans. At last I had to admit that we were totally out of control. The boom had come loose and was under water on the side away from the wind. I tried to straighten it, but by the time I’d got the sheet firmly caught in the cleat, I couldn’t tell where I was. I’d lost sight of the life preserver and, with it, all chance of finding Devlin. That’s when I gave up the search. By now I was sailing a piece of the lake that had not witnessed any of this. Innocent water. That’s when I turned my mind to getting Sir Edward back to the Island.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I arrived back at the ROYC main dock, towed by a police launch that had been alerted by
the duty commodore of the club. My erratic thrashing around, my many attempts to sail directly against the wind, finally attracted attention. If ever a fine boat hung its head, Sir Edward did. The police corporal at the controls of the launch that towed me back to the club had never heard of Sykes or Boyd. Later, Jack Sykes told me that they had had a helicopter circling above the Sir Edward Coke all the time. I never heard it. It’s one of those stories you’d like to believe.

  They never found Devlin’s body. He was gone. Maybe he got to the life preserver and made it to the American side of the lake. Maybe he is now searching titles in a Rochester registry office. In a pig’s eye. He was gone in another way: gone not meaning simply not here. And I couldn’t make myself feel good about it.

  Someone rescued my street clothes from the cabin of the yacht. I remember glimpses of ROYC members fussing over me as though I were Robinson Crusoe thrown up on Centre Island. A woman with blue hair gave me half a sandwich. A shot of rye was administered; I never found out who paid for it. I recall trying to explain that I was unharmed, that it was the other guy who could use some help. But by now it was dark and far too late to launch a search-and-rescue operation. So all of this unsolicited energy for good deeds centred on me. I fell asleep on the ferry, and the taxi left me at the New Beijing Inn without my being fully aware of the fact. The rest of the night was divided equally between unruffled sleep and nightmares of a nautical nature that I don’t want to go into right now.

  Friday

  When I awoke, the sun was stealing the colours from my bedclothes, and the bed was not quite fixed firmly to the floor. The phone was ringing. I don’t know when the ringing started. It was Vanessa. “Benny, Sergeant Sykes just called me and told me all about it. What a narrow escape!”

  “Thanks. What time is it?”

  “Time you started looking for another job, Benny. I don’t need protecting any more. You’re fired!” I thought that there would be more, but she’d left the line. I was fired, and she’d hung up.