by Howard Engel
He was a big man by anybody’s scale. His face looked like a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings, with a huge portion of nose in the middle. The rest of him lived up to that start. I could see why I’d taken him for a cop the other night in front of the Yates house. He wore a two-piece blue suit with a wide dark blue tie. A brown paper-bag lunch lay spread out in front of him, and he began collecting the evidence in a napkin quickly as I crossed to his desk.
“What can I do for you, Mr.…?”
“Cooperman. Ben Cooperman.” He smiled an election smile and shook my hand until it was raw meat. I took a chair that looked like a cream-coloured plastic tulip and found that I could sit in it without being whisked off to the land of the little people.
“Well, Mr. Cooperman?”
“I’m a private investigator, Mr. Harrington, and I’m looking into some of the circumstances surrounding Chester Yates’ death. I know you were a friend of his. I need your help.” He smiled, but there was no charm in it. He began to size me up for the first time.
“What kind of circumstances?” He chose his words carefully. “Chester shot himself. What could be clearer than that?”
“Two hours before he killed himself, Chester bought himself a present.”
“How official is this?” He looked worried.
“I was there; I saw him buy it. If you were going to kill yourself, would you buy an expensive gift for yourself that you knew you’d never live to use?”
“Present, what kind of present?”
“A ten-speed bike. He got it at MacLeish’s on St. Andrew Street.”
“This is absurd. A bicycle! What are you trying to make of this, Mr. Cooperman? A man is dead. Isn’t that enough? I spent a couple of hours with Chester’s wife last night and now you insult a fine man’s memory with talk of bicycles.” His face was getting to look rare on the outside. He was a big man, and I didn’t want to picture him angry. He looked like he could do angry far too well.
“Look, Mr. Harrington, the normal assumption is that a purchase is made to be used. People who kill themselves don’t buy cars, rent apartments or reserve plane tickets. They may be killing themselves for the first time, but if you check the books in any insurance office you’ll see that every move is predictable, from the small nicks on the throat of a razor suicide to the clothes left at the top of Lovers’ Leap. It’s all been done before, thousands of times. It’s as unlikely for a man to have bought a bike before knocking himself off as for a woman to hang her self wearing long underwear or jump from a slow-moving passenger train. This thing will have to be looked into.”
“What’s the difference? Think of his family, Cooper-man. Walk away for it. That’s my advice.”
“I hear you talking, but I don’t think a little nosing around will hurt.”
“Cooperman, I’m telling the truth when I say that it would be best to drop this. You don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s disgusting, really. Like playing in your own dirt. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I can see that you aren’t prepared to be reasonable.”
“What you call reasonable, I call looking the other way.” I heard a buzzer sound. His right hand was moving away from a button on his intercom. His face was moving from mauve to purple. I intended to stay out of his reach, as he got up and started around the end of his desk in my direction. The door opened and the girl with the plastic glasses stood between us.
“Miss Keiller, Mr. Cooperman is leaving now. I want you to take a good look at him, because if he ever comes to the office again, I don’t want him to get by your desk. Do you understand?” She nodded, swallowing her explanation. Harrington grabbed a couple of his folders, and strode past me and Miss Keiller through the door and out into the real world of civic politics. Miss Keiller and I stood fixed like we’d been bolted to the broadloom until a door slammed at the far end of the corridor. I tried to flip her a grin as I went by her, but I think I missed.
Just before five o’clock I walked through the double glass doors of the limestone-fronted Caddell Building and punched the elevator for the eight floor. That put me on the floor above Yates’ operation. I decided to try walking to my right as soon as the doors opened in case I looked lost when some receptionist looked up. But there wasn’t a receptionist. The floor was divided into a number of small offices with doors leading off the corridor. I found the Men’s Room and went inside a cubicle for a smoke. At five after five I found the red exit sign and walked down one flight of stairs. Inside the door of “Scarp Enterprises” all was quiet. I found the door with Chester’s name on it in stand-out white plastic letters. It was locked. I fished around in the top drawer of the desk just outside Yates’ office, Martha Tracy’s, I guessed, and found a key in the paperclip box. I couldn’t be sure when Glassock would make his first check, so I had to get in and out quickly. I tried to ignore the geography once I closed to door again. I could take it all in again later. What I needed now was some link with the dead man that might carry me along for another couple of days. The desk top was clear. So were all the other surfaces. I pulled out the first drawer that opened: envelopes, paperclips, and company letterhead. If he had a private address book that had been taken with other obvious stuff by the police. I was looking for sloppy seconds, and found them in a middle drawer. It was a clipboard with the agenda of a board meeting on it. A few words were underlined and there was a feeble attempt at a drawing of Mickey Mouse in one corner. He was no artist. That was something. Elsewhere on the sheet he appeared to be trying to design a logo. The Arabic numeral two and the letter “C” were drawn in three different possible arrangements. There was one attempt with the Roman numeral for two, “II.” I scanned the agenda and couldn’t find anything beginning with “C” or having a “2” or “II” connected in any way. No, the meeting had to do with Scarp Estates, with a sewage contract, with tenders for foundation construction, and others for roofing. I was getting nervous, so I slammed the clipboard back in the drawer and left the room in a middle-sized sweat.
The outer office was still bright and silent. No sign of elevator noise. I could sit on my hands and wait, I thought, or I could see what useful information might lie out in the open. First I noted down Martha Tracy’s home telephone number from a typed list of names and numbers inside the lid of a metal desk-top file. I also found a glossy brochure describing Scarp Estates, a new subdivision planned for the top of the escarpment that runs through the peninsula like a spine, with Niagara Falls which tumbles over it supplying hydroelectric power for the expanding industries of the area. From the brochure it was plain that Scarp Enterprises was dabbling in some of that industrial expansion along with the real estate development. Nice going, I thought. But the brochure didn’t say anything about somebody dying in order to keep it running so smoothly.
I could hear the security man let himself into the outer office, and so I leaned back and lit a cigarette.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, putting his time clock down on the edge of a white metal desk.
“I’m Behan of the Beacon. You’re Glassock?”
“Yeah.”
“You found the body?” He just stood there like someone had given him the prize in the box of Cracker-jacks.
“Yeah.”
“My editor thinks that there’s a lot of this story that didn’t get in today’s paper. He wants me to try a new angle, human interest stuff: TOM GREENOCK FINDS CORPSE. How’s that for a headline?”
“Glassock.”
“Even better. HARDWORKING TOM GLASSOCK STUMBLES ON BODY OF CORPORATE GIANT. How’m I doing?” I hated to take advantage of the poor geezer, but everybody’s got to make a living. So, I strung him a little. I wasn’t stealing his watch. “What I want you to give me is the whole story in your own words.” I picked up a green pad with a spiral binding from Martha Tracy’s “Pending” basket and licked the end of my pencil.
“You going to write down what I say? Put it in the paper?”
“That’s right,” I said giving him
my Pulitzer Prize smile.
“Well, now, I don’t know about that. I got a family to think of. It’s as good as my job if I blab to everybody.”
“Well, Tom, the Beacon isn’t everybody.”
“True, but …”
“Tell you what. Anything you say is off the record, I’ll forget I ever heard it. You’ve got my word on that.”
“Well, I guess it’s all right, or they wouldn’t have sent you. What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you just walk through it and show me the way it was?”
“Right. Well, I came in that door over there,” he indicated the main door leading from the two elevators.
“That was about this time yesterday? A little after five?” He bent his head and studied his leather-bound clock for a minute. I could see the pink of his scalp through his gray hair.
“Later than that. I was on my first round, but this is a big building. I have to answer for the whole twelve floors, keeps me hopping. It must have been same time as usual, that’s five forty-five.”
“Is that the time on yesterday’s card?”
“Well, yesterday, it was a little later. It was five fifty-seven, they told me. That’s a little off my regular time but not by much.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No. These places are built with thick concrete floors. I couldn’t have heard anything unless I was on this floor somewheres. Well, sir, I came through this aisle as usual and saw that Mr. Yates’ door was open.”
“Were the other office doors open?”
“Most of ’em. And I saw that Mr. Yates’ door was open.”
“But you just said …”
“I know. Well, it was open, that’s all. And I looked in and there he was.”
“Could you show me?”
“Sure.” He brought out a bunch of keys and studied them closely. “This should be it,” he said and it was.
Chester Yates’ office, which I now took in for the first time in detail, told the world what Chester wanted it to know about him. He had a corner office with light coming in through windows on two walls. Through the sheer floor-length curtains I could see north to the lake and follow the coast around in a gentle arc until it disappeared in the haze. His desk was a wide expanse of immaculate white, without a paper on it to suggest that these surroundings had a hold on whoever sat behind it. The walls were industrial wallboard, whose covering suggested wood panelling. The wall that Chester faced as he signed his name on the dotted line all day was a busy place. He had one of those credenza things which covered his files, over which a three-tiered bookshelf caught my eye. The chair behind the desk was the same sort of orange that the green broadloom was. The kind of colour that doesn’t exist outside an interior decorator’s mind. I took a closer look at this handsome object. It was a swivel chair, and from now on when it swivelled would swivel over a dark brown stain on the rug.
“They’ll never get that out,” Glassock muttered, shaking his head. “They’ll just have to junk it. That’s where I found him, right there in that chair. Sitting up he was, with his head bent over the top, like he expected the dentist to look at his teeth. The gun was on the floor where he’d dropped it.”
“Was everything in the room the way it is now, except for the body?”
“Yes, I think so.” I saw Glassock’s eye go to the book cases. “Yes, it was just like this.”
“Why did you look over there? Is something different?”
“Well, yes, there is,” he smirked. “It’s the bar.”
“Bar? All I see is a bookcase.” Glassock’s smirk opened up to reveal a mouthful of teeth that were aggressively false. He went over to the bookshelves and transformed them.
“He had it specially made. It’s got a sink and fridge, and like you see, it’s well-stocked.”
“And you say it was open last night?”
“Yeah. I could smell it too. There was the odour of drink in the air. That’s one of those off-the-record things we agreed about.”
“You mean you didn’t mention this yesterday?”
“Bad enough him killing himself like that. No sense adding insult to injury I always say.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. Tell me, was there a glass on the desk, or on the credenza? A glass with a half-finished drink in it?”
“Let me see …” He walked over to the bar, stroked his chin and pulled at his earlobe. “He always kept his empty glasses on this tray. Kept them lined up in two rows the way they are now.” I counted six highball glasses. They were dry and clean. I backed up and pulled at my earlobe too. Glassock watched me as I looked from the desk to the bar, from the bar to the door, and from the door to Glassock.
“Did you ever talk to Mr. Yates?”
“Sure.” He stretched the syllable out making Chester sound like a regular democrat.
“And you’d seen the bookshelf open before last night?”
“Mr. Yates used to tell me things. He’d invite me in here and we’d chew the fat, you might say.” He looked over to me like I should hand out little gold stars. “Many’s the night we’d have a noggin and he’d stand looking out the window at the lake, sort of far away in his thoughts, and jangling his keys in his pocket with his free hand.” Glassock showed me exactly what a far-away look was and tried to imitate Chester rattling his keys. On a cliff-top, it would have made quite a picture. Under the fluorescent lights, it lost something.
“Where does that door lead?” I asked him, shattering his reverie.
“Just a cupboard.”
“May I …?”
“Help yourself.” Inside the door was sports wear for all occasions: a track suit, three different kinds of brand-name running shoes, a squash racket, and something that looked like headphones for a stereo set. I picked them up. There were no wires attached. “Them’s ear-plugs for the firing-range. He was a crack shot, they say. Used to practise with the police shooting team sometimes.” Near the ear-plugs hung a black leather holster. It was empty.
“He was quite a sportsman,” I said.
“He could afford to be.” Glassock was beginning to shift from haunch to haunch.
“Tell me one more thing: did Mr. Yates like a good time?”
“Same as most, I guess. Never told me anything personal. He mostly went on about the opportunities in this country for people like me from the old country. He’d get a few drinks under his belt. He liked to drink, he did. But he wasn’t the sort to … play around, you know. But then, you never know.” He let his words hang in the air for a second or two, then I broke his beautiful moment again by crossing the room with my hand outstretched. I thanked him for his help. He asked me not to print anything that might get him in trouble and to be sure to let him know when the article was coming out. I backed my way into the elevator while he discussed the best time to get pictures of himself with Violet, his wife, and Alfred and Edward, the twins. When I hold him that he had been very helpful, I wasn’t telling a word of a lie, as Dr. Bushmill would have said.
FIVE
It was nearly six o’clock when I got back to my room at the hotel. I stripped off my clothes like a snake sloughing last year’s skin, and slipped into the shower. I let the water run at full pressure first as hot as I could take it and then slowly I turned the tap around to cold. I stepped onto the white bathmat feeling somehow like I’d deserved the good feeling building up in me. Then I remembered that I was going to my mother’s for dinner.
I drove up Ontario Street past the drive-ins on both sides of the road, and finally parked a quarter of a mile beyond in one of the guest parking spots at the condominium.
“It’s you!” my mother said, as though she was Stanley looking for Livingstone. I didn’t try to figure it out. I was so surprised to see her up, dressed and in the kitchen. “I wasn’t really expecting you,” she said.
“I told you yesterday I was coming.”
“What?” She made the vowel so you could slide it under the door.
“Ma,
you knew I was coming. I told you last week, and I told you last night.” She frowned and looked hopelessly in the direction of the refrigerator.
“You’re going to kill your mother one day with these surprises. You hear? Well, I guess I could put a couple of frozen steaks on. Your father’s downstairs. You’ll eat a steak, Benny?”
“Sure, Ma, but try not to broil the hell out of it, please.”
“So look who’s telling me how to cook. Go talk to your father and leave me to be the Mystery Chef if you please.” I found the unopened Beacon on the tangerine loveseat and took it with me downstairs into the rec room. Pa was sitting in front of the television. My parents spell one another off like that. Between the two of them they don’t miss much.
“She said you weren’t coming.” He was looking older tonight; his gray-black hair, his brow, like onion skin, and the purple ant-tracks on his cheekbones made me go over and give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. He smelled of talcum. He’d been in the sauna at his club. “Are you working hard?”
“A little.”
“Melvyn. I saw Melvyn your cousin today. He said that you haven’t been to see him like you promised. He could throw some work your way, Benny. He’s got contacts. You shouldn’t end up like your father a poor man at the end of your life.”
“Pa, what are you talking about? You’re comfortable, aren’t you. So what if you’re not a millionaire.”
“Leave my brother Harry out of this. Believe me, Benny, if I had wanted to make money, I would have made it. There’s nothing easier. Like the poet says, ‘Does a rich man sleep as soundly as a poor man? Is he happier?’ Still, don’t put me off what I was saying. You’ll promise me to go in and talk to Melvyn on Monday. Okay? Tomorrow, he and Doreen are going to the Seligman bar mitzvah in Toronto at Temple Sholom.”
“Good for them. I’ve got the paper. You want to see it?” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.
