by Howard Engel
“But with you, Caine, they get extras. They get Kinross. You’re the chief executive officer. They’ll say you made all the decisions about the planting and dumping of toxic waste. They’ll be able to draw a line that leads from Dowden and his knowing too much to Norman Caine. They’ll draw another line, this time running from Pásztory to Norman Caine. Dr. Carswell told you I came to see him. That put you on your guard. After more than a year, Jack Dowden was coming back to haunt you. Then Carswell saw me talking to Alex Pásztory. That was breathing too close. I was lighting a match and looking down a gas-filled barrel and you were in there.
“O’Mara will talk, you know. We can get the other witnesses to come back to tell the truth. Carswell is scared. Unreliable.”
“They only know about the yard. They can’t talk about what happened at the fort. So where’s your case?”
“The cops aren’t greedy, Caine. If they can get you for intimidating witnesses, failing to report an accident, leaving the scene of an accident, giving false information. Oh, if they want, they can cut very deeply into the early years of your marriage.”
“Christ, Cooperman! Shut up, damn you!”
“Sore spot, eh? Sorry. I was forgetting that you are on your honeymoon.”
“Look, I’m an ambitious kind of guy, right? I want to get ahead. And I’ve damn well done it! I’ve got Kinross and the holding company right in the palm of my hand. I’ve got the votes I need to get on the board of directors and—”
“You’re forgetting that the death of the Commander spoils those chances. At least you didn’t have a reason for killing him. You’re right there. The cops won’t have too much trouble bringing Ross to court on the evidence they have already. And as for the business, do you think that the city will renew its contract with Kinross after all this?”
“Who else is there?”
“I’ll bet the Environment Front people will have the answer to that one. And of course the city doesn’t have to worry. All blame will be attached to Kinross. That’s in the contract. So Paul Renner in the Sanitation Department can officially say you are beneath contempt, but never quite look you in the eye while saying it. Your bringing him into it won’t help, because legally they’re in the clear and the dioxins and PCBs are all on your head.”
“You’ve really been through this, Cooperman. I apologize. You work for your money. It’s not all bashing around in the petunias with my esteemed father-in-law.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Damn it all Cooperman, what do you want me to say? That Environment Front is doing a grand job? That we in business are grateful for their interest? That’s all bull. I’m in business to stay in business. That’s the bottom line for me. Those people are trying to put me out of work, put my whole payroll out on the street. And damn it, I’m not doing anything new! Everybody’s doing what we are. So why am I the only villain? And as for the people who get so excited about a few buried drums of chemicals and go into orbit at the loss of the rain forests down in South America, tell them they’re going to have to give up their plastic bags and spray cans and packaging. You’ll see those bleeding hearts turn to stone! Oh, you can count on that.”
“What about the kids you and Sherry plan to have? Don’t they mean anything?”
“Come on, Cooperman! Join the real world! I want to give them the best that I can, and that means position and the money to keep it up. They’ll be long gone before your beloved ozone layer disappears.”
“So you’re abandoning your grandchildren and their children? If you don’t see them, they don’t count. Is that it?”
“Look, Cooperman, we could go on like this, back and forth all day, and I still wouldn’t be convinced. From my office, the world is a rough place. You show you’re soft and you’re gone by Thursday! Every fraction of a cent I can pare from expenses is not only legitimate but the difference between sinking or floating. If I clean up Kinross, the city will enter into a deal with Millgate-Falkner or one of the others. They don’t care what we do with the rubbish; they don’t want to know about it. Everybody has a bottom line. I didn’t invent it.”
“Why did you pick O’Mara and me up?”
“That wasn’t exactly my idea. I’ve got partners.”
“Partners? Oh, not with Kinross but with Sangallo Restorations?”
“Yeah. We didn’t have much choice there.”
“That would be my old friend, Anthony Horne Pritchett. Well, well. There aren’t many pies he hasn’t a finger in. What was it he had in mind?”
“He was just going to scare you. He has a boat in the harbour down at Port Richmond. I don’t know. He said he wasn’t going to do away with you in case your records showed that you were working on our street. That would be bad for both of us, Pritchett and me.”
“So, if he was all that concerned about me and O’Mara, both potential witnesses in a case against you, why did he ice Pásztory, who could have given him just as much trouble?”
“How should I know? Do you think Pritchett phones me and keeps me informed? He’s always been a monolith. There are no handholds on him. I pass that along for nothing.”
“Yeah, I always found him lubricious in my dealings with him in the past.” I was glad that I could work that word in. Maybe it was the rye giving me courage.
“The cops think that Pásztory was finished by a professional. What’s your opinion?”
“Look, Cooperman, opinions are chicken-shit. They won’t buy paper to wrap fish in.”
“I haven’t taken your little billet-doux to the cops yet. They might take it seriously,” I said. He looked at his watch, like I was boring him. “Go placidly amid the noise and haste,” I quoted. “Do you think they’ll buy that as Pritchett’s style, Mr. Caine?”
“Shove it, Cooperman!”
“Doesn’t sound like him, does it? I never did get the pronunciation of Desiderata right. My tongue keeps tripping over the Latin. Or is it Greek?”
“Okay, you’ve had your little joke. Now get off my back.”
“Remarkable things they’re doing with lasers these days in Toronto at the Forensic Centre. They can find fingerprints just about everywhere. There are lots of tricks they can do with a bit of paper like the one we’re talking about.”
“Don’t push too hard, Cooperman. I’ve already told you plenty. The note? You say it’s a threat. I say it’s calligraphy. You won’t ride far on that whatever the forensic people say.”
“Still no comment on Pásztory?”
“I’m expected upstairs. I can’t waste any more time shooting the breeze with you.” Were we running out of gas in our conversation or was he avoiding that particular question? My money was on the latter. The latter is always a good bet. That’s why I’m still working for a living.
Norman Caine finished his Campari in a gulp, which didn’t look right with that kind of drink, and then he was on his feet. “Before you go, Mr. Caine, will you tell me this: Is there still a dimension in this I haven’t discovered yet? I’m only asking.”
“In a word, yes. Good-afternoon, Mr. Cooperman.” And he walked out of the bar towards the elevator and pushed the button.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I walked out of the hotel trying to recall where I’d left the car. Parked in front of the door was a black limousine with its back door open and a heavy-set man sitting in the back seat. While I was wondering which local moneybags looked like a hood from a Warner Brothers gangster movie, a voice in my ear brought me back to earth:
“Mr. Cooperman?” The voice belonged to a beanpole wearing a brown leather jerkin and cavalry twills. He was smiling like I was an old friend. I tried to place him as I admitted that I was indeed the man he was looking for. As soon as I said that, he caught me under the arm and scooped me into the car. It took less than a second, it seemed. He got in after me and no sooner was the door slammed shut than the car took off with a lurch. I hadn’t seen the driver in the front seat.
“Hey! I don’t want a ride!”
“Don’t worry
, it’s not far,” said the big fellow to my left. Somehow, that didn’t assure me. The car had turned down Yates Street. It was still going at the speed limit or faster. I could feel my back pressing into the car seat.
“But I brought my car with me to the hotel! Let me out, I’ll be right back.” This seemed to strike them as funny, although nobody used it as a moment to crack wise at my expense. When I looked out the windows again, I was lost. I knew we were somewhere west of Ontario Street, but I couldn’t say exactly where. “Look, you guys, I know your boss. I just got through talking to him. You better check with him about this.” It was as if they were deaf, all three of them. I tried to gauge whether I’d be able to get over the beanpole’s knees to reach the door. I’d have to wait for a traffic light. That was the trouble with a town this size; I couldn’t remember a single light this side of Ontario Street. I kept thinking how stupid I’d been to walk out of the hotel without taking even simple precautions. I could have used the side door, or come out the back way through the kitchen. Damn it, give me a chance to replay the scene!
The car turned sharp left just as I could glimpse Montecello Park under the trees. We were behind an apartment building, heading down a ramp with a metal door at the bottom. The driver pointed a black box at the windshield and the grey metal door began to slide open. Without altering its speed, the car moved smoothly under the opening door without scratching the roof. The car looped around the underground garage while the driver looked for a free space. That was a good sign; it seemed to mean parlay of some kind and not summary execution. The car came to a stop with the same lurch that it had started up with. I felt it in my neck.
“Okay, here we are,” said the beanpole as he got out. I would have tried to run, but I could feel the breath of the big fellow on my neck. We had come to a stop beside an elevator door. The driver had already summoned the car by the time we caught up to him. The driver was a short man with blond hair and a full set of exploded blood vessels on the end of his nose. He was wrapped in a cheap raincoat that smelled mouldy when he stood beside me. The beanpole pressed the button marked “PH” and up we went. There was a chance that a stop at the main floor might save me; but we shot past it. Residents wouldn’t be visiting back and forth, so I couldn’t hope for a stop before we reached PH. When the car stopped and the doors opened, the shortish guy got out and pointed the way. The other two were right behind me. The leader rang the bell and we all waited. In about twenty seconds, the slowest third of a minute I’ve ever known, the door of the penthouse opened and pressure on my shoulder invited me to step in.
The man who opened the door had a sallowness that was almost green. He was wearing a dirty Irish sweater. “Glad you could come,” he said, as though I didn’t know about irony for God’s sake.
“Okay,” I said, shaking off my friends from the car, “this has gone far enough! I want to talk to whoever’s in charge!” I was buttressed by the kind of anger that goes with the idea of selling your life as dearly as possible. I was going to make a lovely fuss before I was finished.
“That would be me,” said a familiar voice. I looked up from the Adam’s apple of the green-faced acting-butler into the face of my friend and neighbour Frank Bushmill.
“Frank! What are you doing here?”
“Such as it is, Benny, this is my home. And you are right welcome.”
“What? I don’t get it.” I was led, still confused, from the hall, relieved of my coat, into a large front room which was full of people talking and drinking. “What the hell’s going on here?” I said to Frank as I recognized faces in the crowd. There was Bill Palmer from the Beacon. There were Anna and her picture-collecting father. Anna was sitting in a big overstuffed chair next to Eric Mailer, my friend from Secord, fresh from his herbarium and old newspapers. Pia Morley, a woman I once suspected of killing a few people, gave me a peck on the cheek. I repeated my question to her and was ignored. Talk continued uninterrupted. Glasses clinked and bottles were lifted. I wasn’t even the guest of honour. Nobody even looked at me. In the middle of the room was an enlarged photograph of my friend Martin Lyster. Then, of course, it hit me. How stupid of me not to guess. Like that writer fellow in The Third Man played by Joseph Cotton, I’d been kidnapped all right, but not to be bumped off. I’d been snatched so that I wouldn’t miss the wake for poor Martin! I wasn’t going to die after all. I wasn’t going to have to take as many of them as I could with me.
“Here, Benny, take this glass. There’s plonk enough in this room, but I’ve got some of the real stuff left in the kitchen.”
In the movie, Joseph Cotton ended up on a platform facing a room full of earnest Austrian readers thirsty for fresh blood asking questions like: “And where would you put Mister James Joyce?” I felt my knees beginning to desert me for the kitchen where the real stuff was hidden. Frank was talking at me again.
“Let go of me, will you,” meaning my grip on his arm that was spilling some of the real stuff on his broadloom. I couldn’t get over it. The wake was for Martin. It wasn’t my funeral. I emptied the glass in my hand without tasting anything. Frank looked on, marvelling. He’d never seen me drink anything so fast in all the years he’d known me. Including water.
“I didn’t bring any snuff, Frank,” I said, when I got my breath again. “What’s a wake without snuff?”
“Ah, there’s no lack of it, Benny. Rest assured. Wally Lamb has some, for one.” I looked across the room now that I had a name to go with the familiar face. Lamb was a local painter. The room was full of semi-strangers. We’d all been pals of Martin’s, but we hardly knew one another at all, unless those factors that tend to throw people together in a small town surfaced. For instance, I recognized a couple of professors from Secord. I didn’t know their names. One was telling the other about a happy working sabbatical in Texas. When he finished, the other began telling a long story about interviewing the head of the Greek Orthodox Church at a dinner in Istanbul. A third learned head, this one with a red beard, moved into the group and began asking questions about movies on videotape.
I was going mad, of course. It was all in my imagination. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t I being taken for a ride by Tony Pritchett’s boys? This couldn’t be a real wake for Martin Lyster. Maybe I’d passed out. Maybe this was all I was going to get of my life passing before my eyes as I slowly bled to death in a ditch. It was the pressure of Anna’s hand on my arm that brought me back to the world of acid rain, skinheads and unleaded gas.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look like you’ve had a shock.”
“I’m fine,” I said and she could read the lie on my face.
“Here, drink a little of this Irish whiskey. Frank has a private supply in the kitchen.” She handed me the glass and I killed most of it. The three professors had stopped whirling around in my head. Now they were just three friends of the departed Martin and not figures from a personal allegory. I thought that perhaps I should sit down. It seemed like a good idea. But before I could move, a grey cat skipped between my legs and disappeared in the curtains. He was followed a second or two later by another, this time a greyish tabby with an orange nose. At the same time, a song was beginning in another part of the room. Bill Palmer was leading, with the painter Wally Lamb chiming in with his arm around Bill’s shoulders.
They say there’s a troopship just leaving Bombay,
Bound for Old Blighty shore,
Heavily laden with time expired men …
“That’s right,” said Frank Bushmill, “let’s give ’em a song! ‘Bless ’em All’” Frank wasn’t my idea of a singsong kind of person, nor do I think he thought of himself that way, but here he was joining in with his own version of the lyrics. Even Jonah Abraham added his voice. I found a chair and sank into it, feeling a little more weight than I thought I was carrying. Was the drink getting to me? Couldn’t be. Shock would have carried off the sting of twice what I’d had. Anna came over to me again. She was lovely as ever. She had a way of surprising me with sides of her t
hat I’d never seen before. She was wearing a long pearly linen jacket over a skirt with a floral print. Under the jacket was a shirt that buttoned up the front, but she was only partly buttoned, as though it was a crime against nature to button the rest of the way.
“Any better?”
“Sitting works better than standing up. I took your drink, I guess. Is the real stuff in short supply?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get us both one when you want it.” She sat down on the arm of my chair and we watched the wake in progress for a few minutes without talking.
In the middle of the room a song had ended. Now Bill Palmer, who must have been among the earliest arrivals at Frank’s apartment by the look and sound of him, began reciting a mock epic of some kind. With his right hand thrust into his jacket and with a Napoleonic intensity, he declaimed something like the following:
I lost my arm at the Battle of the Marne,
I lost my leg in the Navy,
I lost my biscuit in the soup
And I lost my spoon in the gravy!
The verse was so bad, they made him say it again, this time those close to him recited along with him, lengthening out the syllables Nay-vee and gray-vee with delight. They went through it a third time and we all joined in. This time the last words in each line were exaggerated even more. The words Nayyy-veee and grayyy-veee stuck in my head.
Pia Morley came over to us. She was holding a glass of soda water, by the look of it. She looked terrific in a simple dress that probably cost the earth in Toronto or New York. I asked her how she was after making appropriate introductions.
“Me? Hell, Benny, haven’t you heard? I’m a momma. A real downright, up-all-night momma. And my kid’s the baby from hell. He’s six months old and chewing the paint off his windowsill. If he can’t get into the New York Marathon in a few months, he’s going to be very frustrated. You want pictures? I got pictures.” She dipped into a large leather bag and pulled out several pictures of a baby with most of Pia’s own features but the smile of his father, Sid Geller. I didn’t have to ask about the paternity. I went through the pictures a second time, with Pia adding comments from the arm of the chair. The names of baby playthings filled the room. I heard Anna ask about Jolly-Jumpers and Kanga-rock-eroos. I felt the walls closing in on me and I wanted to get out of there.
