Sucker Punch

by Marc Strange

  “It’s a track suit,” I say, feeling defensive. I’m wearing expensive running shoes and I’m carrying a water bottle.

  “Very fancy.”

  “Leo Alexander. I made the mistake of complimenting him on his.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Fit as a fiddle. We’ve got a gym set up for him in the penthouse. He’s walking a treadmill every day.”

  We find a bench with a panoramic view of freighters at anchor and gulls wheeling overhead. Weed lowers himself carefully, hiking his creases and giving me a glimpse of his socks. They are dark blue with orange clocks.

  “His kids still cruising like sharks?” he asks.

  “Not showing their fins if they are. Leo made some business moves too complicated for me to understand, but he pulled an end run somewhere that severely limited their ability to wheel and deal.” I hold on to the back of the bench and start some careful stretching, trying not to make too many moaning noises as the joints pop and the muscles protest. “Leo picked up a controlling interest in the vacant lot next door, which means Lenny has to either sell his piece or sit on his thumb waiting to see what the old man wants to do. I think Leo grabbed a piece of the parking garage across Carrall, too. Theo and Lenny had to pull in their horns.”

  “You know, Grundy, just because you have the fancy running outfit, doesn’t mean you have to run in it.”

  “The way I do it doesn’t look much like running.” I stand up straight and begin twisting the torso, swinging the arms.

  Weed watches me quizzically. “You thinking about making a comeback?”

  “Oh, yeah, what the world needs now. I’m just trying to make my knee work again.”

  “How’s the hand?”

  “Better than the knee.”

  “Reading the papers these days?” he asks.

  “I’m kind of hooked on Get Fuzzy.”

  “Looks like Molly MacKay’s going to win her case.”

  “Will there be much left?”

  “Enough,” he says. “Even those two gonifs couldn’t steal it all. Has she dropped her suit against the hotel?”

  “Weeks ago. According to Leo’s lawyers, a case could have been made that Dan was actually working for Axe Axelrode at the time of the murder, and Axelrode was working for Neagle or Hubble or both. It made more sense for Molly’s legal team to stay on target and go after the big boys.”

  “Aw,” he says. “I’d have thought she’d drop it out of gratitude.”

  “Well, maybe, but she has bigger fish to fry.”

  “Hubble and Gowins are back to blaming each other for the missing dough. Too bad they bought that property in Bermuda together.”

  “What about Grace Ingraham?” I ask. “She involved?”

  “Separate case. The Heritage Architectural Preservation Society tried to go after her for selling off their assets, but they were hers all along. Things she got when she and Prescott were together. She’s in the clear.”

  “That’s nice. I felt for her.”

  “I’m sure she cares. She cleared over two million at the auction house and went to live in Tuscany. Maybe she’ll find another lonely rich guy.”

  “I don’t think it was like that,” I say. “I think she loved him. I think he broke her heart.”

  “Throwing her over for a hippie?”

  “Because he didn’t want to die in her arms.”

  I’ve done as much of a warm-up as I can justify. Any more and it’ll become the actual workout, and I need to save myself for the jog around the seawall. With any luck I’ll make the full seven klicks today.

  “Tell Olive I’ll be in soon,” he says. “To listen to the music this time. If you see me, just nod.”

  I leave him sitting in the sun in his brown suit and blue socks and purple tie. He adds to the glow of the morning. I start to jog, trying not to pound, straight up and down, arms pumping smoothly. At least that’s what I’m striving for. Roadwork was never my favourite thing. Six miles before breakfast, rain or shine, wearing army boots. This is better somehow, a more reasonable hour, no goal save to keep the machine in some kind of shape, and there’s the trim little dark-haired woman just ahead, wearing very becoming red shorts and a floppy T-shirt, moving along at a good clip, no-nonsense stride, good runner, takes a hundred yards to reel her in.

  “I heard you coming a mile away,” Connie says.

  “The red shorts had me hypnotized.”

  “How’s the knee?”

  “Better than yesterday.”

  We run in silence for a while, synchronized, with whitecaps to our left and great cedars to our right allowing shafts of rising sunlight to bless the seawall. The air is salted oxygen, as bracing as a love affair.

  “This a good pace for you?” she asks.

  I let her get a few yards ahead, just so I can watch her move. “Perfect,” I say.