Sucker Punch

by Marc Strange

  “That’s it for the sunshine,” he says. “There’s a Squamish starting to blow.”

  I have a sip of cold ale. It tastes good but reminds me that I haven’t eaten. I snatch one of the bags of peanuts and start thumb-wrestling the packaging.

  “Buznardo was a fool,” Larry says. “One of God’s divine idiots. He didn’t have a clue how the world was run, didn’t particularly give a shit. You want to give away half a billion dollars? Go ahead. Drop in the bucket. Probably get torn to shreds handing it out, but don’t let that stop you. Shit, drop hundred-dollar bills out of a helicopter, stuff them in mailboxes. In a year it’s gone and nobody remembers what they did with the money.” He takes the peanuts from me and rips the top off the bag with a quick zip, spilling them out onto the tabletop. I get my share. “Look, face it, he was wacko.”

  “I never saw him without a smile on his face,” I say through a mouthful of peanuts.

  “He was stoned. And wacko.”

  “People liked him.”

  “Not everybody. Wade Hubble isn’t heartbroken Jake Buznardo won’t be pissing on the broadloom anymore.”

  “Made a few people nervous, I guess.”

  “Nervous? Ha! Hubble was shitting bricks. Just when he thought he was going to be a real player, Buznardo cuts him off at the knees.”

  “I’m sure he’s well compensated.”

  “Oh, sure. Hubble gets more than half a million bucks a year basic, plus bonuses, plus who knows what. He does okay, but he’s not running an empire, which is what he thinks he should be doing. I mean, shit, there he is sitting on that big fat cash cow and he can’t do anything with her. All the profits go to Horizon.”

  “That’s the way the companies were set up.”

  “I think he was making some moves under the radar, amassing a war chest. But then the shit hit the fan.”

  The peanuts are gone. The second bag is under Larry’s elbow.

  “Buzz Buznardo, Wade Hubble’s worst nightmare,” Larry says. He has a big pull on his beer but doesn’t release the peanuts. “The Monday morning of Parker Prescott’s funeral, this long-haired freak shows up at Prescott Holdings with Alvin Neagle, of all people, by his side, and says, ‘You’re all fired.’ Naturally, they threw him out of the building, but the old legal beagle was ready for them. Boom! They’re hit with subpoenas, writs, cease operations, assets frozen until further notice. We’re going to court, baby!”

  He looks expectantly at me, but I’m still working on the top half of my bottle. “Damn, that was a good story! Two big-ass law firms come down on Buznardo like a ton of shit, from all sides — he’s a degenerate, he’s a dope dealer, he’s a homosexual, he’s a cultist, he got Parker Prescott hooked on psychotropic drugs, he fucked with his mind. They dragged it out as long as they could. I got twenty-three pieces out of that court case.”

  He gets up and crosses to the counter. I grab the second bag and look for the magic zipper. Small packages defeat me. Larry returns with two more bottles, no more peanuts.

  “What’s the matter with Prescott Holdings’ books?” I ask.

  “Who says anything’s wrong with Prescott Holdings’ books? Tomorrow morning, it’ll be business as usual. In both camps.”

  “You ever talk to the other camp?”

  Larry snorts and wipes Molson off his upper lip. “Edwin Gowins! Now there’s a smoothie. Starts off appraising furniture for antique auctions, winds up the darling of the preservation set. If he had his way, the city would be upholstered and he’d pick out the fabric. He gets to give the money away. Who knows how much sticks to his fingers?”

  “He wears nice jackets.”

  “You got in to see him, too? Jesus, you’ve been busy. What are you up to?”

  “Just poking around, Larry. Making a nuisance of myself, evidently. I’ve been scorned at least four times today, and it’s not even lunchtime.”

  “You’ve been to Prescott Holdings and you’ve been to Horizon, is that right? And you and Sergeant Weed are tight.”

  “Are you writing this down?”

  “You see me with a pencil?”

  “I’m trying to keep one of my guys from being charged with a murder he says he didn’t do.”

  “Why? Hubble and Gowins would probably kiss his ass if they could. Everybody’s getting rich.”

  “Except the needy.”

  “The needy! Shit, this is a welfare state. The needy have it made. Socialized medicine, homeless shelters, job training, welfare, free needles, free condoms, food banks, hostels. I know panhandlers who make more money than I do. And they don’t pay taxes. There’s a bag lady who makes enough to spend the winter in Hawaii. Fuck the needy. I’m needy. I’m the guy with the mortgage and the two kids in school and the wife working at Wal-Mart and the taxman up my ass.” Larry signals for another beer and then remembers that he brought a backup. He waves the counterman off. “You think Horizon’s money goes to feed the homeless? Check the corporate donor’s list for the symphony, the opera, the galleries, museums. Those are the needy souls Horizon deems worthy of handouts. The homeless don’t give you a private box for Rigofuckingletto.”

  “I’m going to take off, Larry. I’m neglecting my real job.”

  “Yeah, all right. I’m going to sit here and think for a few minutes of what a great story it would be if Wade Hubble and Edwin Gowins got arrested for murder. Jesus, that would be sweet.”

  chapter twenty-one

  Shaughnessy is old money. Heritage House isn’t a palace, exactly, but it’s close enough. It has a turret. There’s a moving van in the driveway. Two movers, a man and a woman, are loading a padded package the dimensions of a queen-size mattress.

  Grace Ingraham stands on the front steps watching the operation. When she spots me approaching, she appears to grow taller, her head lifts, her shoulders pull back, her elegant neck lengthens.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again, Mr. Grundy.”

  “I apologize for dropping by unannounced, Mrs. Ingraham.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Don’t tilt that,” she tells the movers. “Perpendicular, please.”

  She turns and goes inside. The door has been propped open. There’s a protective runner covering the doorstep. I follow her.

  Entrance hall, foyer, vestibule, call it what you will, it’s long enough to bowl in. The grand room to the left has bay windows and Chinese rugs. It looks empty. There are bare spots on the walls. The French doors at the far end are open. They lead me into a garden. Grace Ingraham is moving away from me down a curving flagstone path. She pauses to examine a fading rose. With a precise pinch she amputates the bloom and drops it to the ground.

  “Are you moving, Mrs. Ingraham?”

  She turns to me with a look of annoyance. “Of course not.”

  “What about the movers?”

  “Some things are going into storage. We rotate the collection regularly.”

  “You have a beautiful home.”

  “It’s not mine, Mr. Grundy. It belongs to HAPS.”

  “I’m not familiar with that group.”

  “The Heritage Architectural Preservation Society. I’m the executive director.”

  “But you live here?”

  “I have an apartment, yes. What do you want, Mr. Grundy?”

  “I’m trying to talk to everyone who was at the hotel on Friday night.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “I have no official status, Mrs. Ingraham. I expect Sergeant Weed has already spoken to you.”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps he’s unaware that you were in contact with Mr. Buznardo. I was.”

  “I told you before —”

  “Please, Mrs. Ingraham, I’m not looking to make things difficult for you. I’m sure the police will get around to speaking to you sooner or later. You should maybe call them before they do.”

  She hugs herself as if against a sudden chill and walks past me, heading for the open French doors. “I don’t see how I could possibly help them.”

>   I follow her. “But you can see why they might be interested. You’re connected in some way to the Horizon Foundation, which certainly had a vested interest in what Jacob Buznardo was planning.”

  She stops at the French doors and turns to me. “The room reeked of marijuana smoke.”

  “What time was that?”

  “He was preparing to take a shower. He didn’t have the decency to find a robe.”

  “So that was just before I saw you coming down in the elevator. Say about eight o’clock in the evening?”

  “He didn’t have the common courtesy to give me his attention. And that odious little lawyer of his, bustling about like a tom turkey with his ridiculous hair…”

  Inside the grand room the movers are removing something else.

  “That piece is under-insured,” she tells them. “Be very careful.”

  “What did you want to see him about?”

  “I was hoping Mr. Buznardo would give me reassurances that HAPS could continue its operation the way Parker established it.”

  “You knew Mr. Prescott?”

  “Of course I knew him!”

  I’ve hurt her feelings, but she recovers quickly.

  “He took a personal interest in the society. It was our creation. We built it together.”

  “I understand he became very reclusive. Did you see much of him in the years before he died?”

  “I hadn’t seen him in … a number of years. He stopped seeing anyone. We … we remained in touch.”

  She walks across the room to reassure herself the movers are taking proper precautions. I turn to look back at the garden. There are no new roses.

  Grace Ingraham follows the movers out of the room, and

  I trail them down the bowling alley and onto the front porch.

  “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Ingraham. I apologize if I’ve complicated your schedule. You had a busy morning.”

  “I believe things will get back to normal before long.”

  “When you saw Jake Buznardo that night, did he reassure you about the future of the society? Did you think it would be looked after?”

  “He was a fool! Parker Prescott didn’t build a fortune to have it dissipated by an infantile sociopath.”

  “Why didn’t Mr. Prescott make provision for the society in his will?”

  “He did. I’m certain he did. Before that filthy drug addict destroyed his mind.”

  “You think that’s what happened?”

  “I know that’s what happened. I knew what was going on in Harrison. That degenerate cut him off from everyone he knew, from everyone who cared about him. Marijuana, poisoned mushrooms — God knows what he put in the man’s body. Park was always such a fastidious man, a temperate man.”

  “Maybe they just became friends. A lonely old man without long to live…”

  “It didn’t have to be that way.” Her voice betrays her need to wail and the rigid control required to hold the pain and loss inside. “There were people who cared about him. He didn’t have to spend his last years associating with … that.” She stands aside to let the movers return for another item.

  “It must have been difficult for you to ask someone you despise so much for money.”

  She doesn’t wish me a good day.

  chapter twenty-two

  “I get back to the Lord Douglas after three. I order a sandwich from the kitchen and tell them to deliver it to my office. It won’t be pastrami — hard to get good pastrami in this town — but the kitchen makes a fair steak sandwich. I’m really hungry, so it should keep me going for a few hours.

  “You’re fired,” Margo says when I walk into Lloyd Gruber’s office.

  “I am?”

  “Or you can retire, I guess. Who needs you? Rachel Golden really is gold. She’s calm, efficient —” Margo looks at me “— she’s here.”

  “We’re lucky to get her,” I say.

  “What’s happening with Arnie?”

  “Still no word,” I say. “Before I forget, can you cash these paycheques for me? I’ve endorsed them.”

  She glances at the cheques. “One of these is from last April.”

  “Is it still good?”

  “Sure.” She shakes her head. “When do you need it?”

  “I should have done this yesterday.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You buying a car or something?”

  “Making payments on a Ferrari.”

  She gives me a look. “Sure you are. This is for Dan, isn’t it?”

  “Just a loan.”

  She opens the desk drawer to put the cheques away and grabs a brown envelope. “Oh, somebody left this for you.”

  It has my name on it but is otherwise unmarked, sealed with both glue and Scotch tape. “No name?”

  “Just yours. Melanie found it on top of her computer an hour ago.” She hands me Lloyd Gruber’s personal Jensen silver letter opener.

  “Sure I’m authorized to use this?”

  “Probably not. Lloyd called ship-to-shore from somewhere around Nevis. Wants to know if he should fly back. I told him we have things under control.” She stands. “We do have things under control, don’t we?”

  “You bet.” I open the envelope and pull out a cardboard sandwich, roughly five by eight, inside of which is a 35-mm black-and-white print of two men sitting in the stern of a sailboat. On the reverse side is written: “June 14, Nanaimo.” I hold out the picture so Margo can see. “Recognize either one?”

  “Wouldn’t know them if I found them in my soup.”

  “The big one with the sunglasses and the Tilly hat, that’s Wade Hubble. I recognize the Roman nose.”

  “The other one?”

  “Not sure,” I say. “He’s got his shoulders turned, but … could be.”

  “Could be?”

  I check inside the envelope, front and back of the cardboard sandwich. No note, no phone number, just a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of two men sitting in the sunshine, sipping something expensive, no doubt.

  “I’ve got a sandwich waiting,” I say.

  “If Arnie calls this afternoon, tell him he’s fired.”

  “He probably knows that.”

  “I just want it to be my last official act before Lloyd cans my butt.”

  “That won’t happen. Leo Alexander likes you. He says you remind him of his first wife.”

  “Do we know what happened to her?” she asks.

  When I get to my office, Gritch and Rachel Golden are there. Rachel is at the desk, working on what looks like an improved shift assignment chart. I always meant to do that. Gritch sits on the leather couch with his coat open and an unlit cigar between his teeth.

  “No matches?” I say.

  “I insisted,” Rachel says. “No more five-cent cigars on my watch.”

  “I’m chewing this in the interest of office harmony,” Gritch says.

  “Margo says you handle the job better than I do, Rachel. She tried to fire me.”

  “She can’t do that,” Gritch says. “You’re a made man.”

  “I’m enjoying myself,” Rachel says.

  “I have to change this shirt. Anything I need to handle?”

  “Everything’s under control, boss,” Gritch says.

  I look at Rachel.

  She tilts the new chart so I can see how it all fits together. “I’ve hired those two boys from Moonlight Security. They’re solid. They wear plain suits. They’ll be around all night.”

  “The Mormons,” Gritch says.

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  When I come back from my shower wearing a fresh shirt, a blue one this time, my sandwich is waiting for me.

  “That blue looks good on you,” Rachel says. “Don’t dribble steak juice on it.”

  I take a careful bite of rare steak and horseradish sauce, leaning over the plate and keeping a napkin handy.

  “That reporter Gormé called again,” Gritch says.

  “I saw hi
m,” I say.

  “Yeah, he said that. He called just now. He’s downstairs. Has some other stuff he wants to talk about.”

  “He say what?”

  “Nah. Being very coy. Sounds a bit squiffy.”

  The phone rings, and Rachel answers it.

  “He had more than a couple,” Gritch says. “Take it from an old piss-tank.”

  “You back, Joe?” Rachel has put the caller on hold. She’s pointing downward.

  “He still in Olive’s?”

  She nods. “Want to talk to him?”

  “Tell him I’ll be down as soon as I finish my lunch. All he ever eats is peanuts.”

  “The boozehound’s staple diet,” Gritch says.

  Olive’s is almost empty when I walk in. Kyra is alone behind the bar. The sound system has Errol Garner turned down low. In the far corner Larry Gormé sits across from a woman wearing scarves, pins, pearls, rings, and a hat that would decoy exotic birds. She is short and stumpy, has disobedient hair and no natural eyebrows. She looks like an Easter basket.

  “Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” she says as I approach the table.

  “What’s that?” I say.

  “A building in a suit.”

  “Moira Eddowes,” Larry Gormé says, “Joe Grundy.”

  “Sit down. Please,” she says. “I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

  “You want a beer, Joe?” Larry asks. He’s finishing a pint of domestic.

  “If I have a beer, I’ll want a nap.”

  “Coffee it is.” Larry goes to the bar for drinks.

  “Where do you like to nap?” Moira asks.

  “Here at the Lord Douglas.”

  “How convenient.” She twinkles at me and tugs at a few yards of florid silk held in place by a brooch of amethyst grapes.

  Kyra follows Larry back to the table with a tray bearing coffee, beer, gin and tonic. Her hair is pulled back with a black velvet ribbon and braided like a rope down the length of her spine.

  “Hi, Joe,” she says. “Cream and sugar?”

  “Black this time,” I say.

  “There’ll be no napping today,” Moira says.

  “Probably not,” I say. “Thanks, Kyra. How’s Laurel’s wrist?”