by Howard Engel
TWENTY-NINE
When I left the wake, it was nearly eight o’clock. Anna had gone with her father back to the house on the hill. Pia Morley had gone home to her husband and son. I walked back to the Stephenson House to pick up my car. It was a chilly night with the moon in its first quarter, scudding about the back-lit clouds like a picture in a Mother Goose book. I walked around the car once to make sure I couldn’t see any wires attached to it that didn’t belong there. I was getting jumpy and I didn’t care if it showed.
I think we’d done well by Martin’s memory. I think it was a party he would have enjoyed, snuff or no snuff. I had had rather too much to drink at the beginning, but I mellowed towards the end when everybody began telling his favourite Martin stories. Since many of my fellow wakers knew Martin through the book trade, a lot of the detail went over my head. What was “foxing,” for instance? I asked Anna, who stayed close to me until she had to leave.
“You know those liver-spots that old books get, Benny?” She gave me a warm kiss goodbye, which Jonah, standing by, accepted as the lot of every father with a grown daughter. It goes with the territory, whether you’re a millionaire or a pauper.
I turned off Ontario Street into Church, still thinking of the wake and Martin and the Blue Jays training camp down in Florida and losing my arm at the Battle of the Marne and losing my leg in the Nay-vee. I was thinking of the cunning way Anna’s shirt buttoned, when I saw a familiar shape getting out of a car. I slowed the Olds to a walk. It was Fred McAuliffe from the office. I slid into the parking space behind him and turned off the ignition.
“Mr. McAuliffe!” I called out, as soon as I’d achieved the sidewalk. Fred turned around and came slowly over to me. He was dressed with a little more care than I’d seen before. These were his best clothes I was willing to bet, things he had been saving to wear at Sherry’s wedding last Saturday.
“Why, hello, there, Mr. Cooperman. Glad to see you. Are you coming in?”
“‘Coming in?’” ‘Coming in’ where?” McAuliffe smiled at my apparently dumb question and looked over at the big house on the corner.
“Why, to the Forbes’s, I mean. Didn’t you recognize the house?” I examined the scalloped tile shingles on the turret and the round porch and conservatory to one side, all illuminated by a streetlight. “This is where they all grew up,” McAuliffe said.
“Ah, right. I remember it from the picture of the Grantham Hunt, now that you mention it. It looks a little different at night and without the horses.” Fred smiled politely. “Don’t tell me they are entertaining tonight? I shouldn’t have thought there’d be anybody home. Ross is in jail, Mrs. Forbes is in the hospital and Sherry’s on her honeymoon.”
“You’re forgetting the people from out of town. And of course you might not know yet that Mr. Ross was released late this afternoon.”
“They didn’t have enough to lay a charge, I guess. Enough to arrest him, but not enough to make it stick.” I nodded my head, recalling the conversation I’d had with Chris Savas. “Have you been summoned by the family, Mr. McAuliffe?”
“Please, outside the office ‘Fred’ will do,” he said. “In answer to your question, no. There was no general muster or call to assemble. Concerned friends pay calls at times like this. That’s all.”
“I don’t think I qualify there,” I said. “I hardly knew the Commander. I’d be wrong to intrude now.”
“Nonsense, Benny—if I may call you Benny—I’m sure you’ll be welcome. You did have lunch with Mr. Ross quite recently, didn’t you? I’m sure you’ll be welcome.”
“Well, if you think I won’t stand out like a styrofoam cup with a silver tea service, I’d be happy to go in with you.”
Together we walked up the walk and climbed the curved front steps, where the door swung open without our knocking.
“Good-evening, Mr. McAuliffe,” said the man on the other side. “It’s good of you to come.”
“Good-evening, Edward. This is Mr. Cooperman who is working with me at the office.”
“You are very welcome, Mr. Cooperman. Most of the people are in the upstairs sitting-room, Mr. McAuliffe. It’s a little less formal than downstairs, don’t you think?” We climbed the stairs. I counted the shining brass rods holding the carpet runner in place as it cascaded down the curving staircase. As we reached the top, the sound of voices could be heard. We made our way in dignified silence to the sitting-room.
While my introduction into Frank Bushmill’s apartment and the wake for Martin Lyster had been unusual, it was still a million miles more relaxed than the sitting-room in the late Murdo Forbes’s house. Both men and women, many of them middle-aged or older, were standing and sitting in the large, high-ceilinged room. While no one was formally dressed, the feeling was one of formality, and in spite of a fire in the grate, I felt an icy draught reaching for the small of my back. The most dominating feature in the room was the Commander himself glowering down at us from his portrait above the fireplace. His bulk and his presence had been captured by the painter. It was quite like him to dominate his own funeral assembly. It wasn’t cheerful enough to be a wake. I didn’t get the feeling that we were here to celebrate the life of the departed. I wasn’t going to hear stories about good old Murdo. Nobody was going to sing “Bless ’em All” or recite memorable lines about losing my leg in the Nay-vee, even though there were a few present who could give an account of themselves at the Battle of the Marne, by the look of them.
“Let me get you something to drink, Benny,” said McAuliffe. He moved away from me before I could open my mouth. At my side he was a bigger comfort to me than ten drinks. I searched the room for a familiar face. My first survey turned up nothing, but panning back to where I started, I did a little better. There was Dr. Carswell with his wife talking to Harold Grier and his wife. Were the women sisters? I tried to remember. No. Grier was married to Carswell’s sister. Carswell’s wife must come from somewhere in the general population. That possibility raised my spirits marginally. Then I caught the eye of Ross Forbes, who was looking over the stooped shoulders of a voluble elderly man with his back to me. In that setting, Forbes was a friend and I grinned foolishly at him, and immediately regretted it. Two weeks ago Forbes was the man who’d bloodied my nose; today he was a familiar quarter in a mess of strange foreign money. As soon as he could free himself, he came across the room. I tried to read what I could from his face.
“I’m sorry for your trouble, Mr. Forbes,” I said as he shook my hand. “If you want me out of here, I’ll understand.”
“I can’t blame this on you, Cooperman. No matter how much I might want to.”
“I didn’t think the police would hold you. I’m glad I was right,” I said.
“I’m still their best bet. I have no illusions that it’s all over. I’ve been warned not to stray from town. They’re doing their best to put me away for good. Would you like a drink?”
“Frank McAuliffe’s getting me one, thanks.” Forbes wasn’t holding a glass and I mentioned it.
“Circumstances are not helping me to stay away from the booze, Mr. Cooperman. For instance, did you know that Teddie is engaged to that lawyer of hers? That was the big news when I got home.”
“Jim Colling and Teddie?”
“Yes, they’ll make a lovely couple. I picked a bad time to go on the wagon.”
“You didn’t try by yourself this time. I’m guessing, but it seems to me you’re getting help.”
“I suppose I won’t be able to keep it a secret,” he said. “Yes, I’ve gone underground, become anonymous. I’m Ross F., Cooperman. Funny, it’s the last thing I told my father. I’ve been pretty shy about mentioning it. Everybody’s ashamed of something.” We traded more small talk and then he was off to refill a glass for a tall woman with shoulder-length grey hair.
“You’ve been talking to Mr. Ross?” McAuliffe said, handing me a cocktail glass with a shot of rye in the bottom. We touched glasses and exchanged suitably sombre smiles. “How did he seem to y
ou?”
“He’s tough,” I said, “tougher than I thought.” Fred was watching Forbes move in and out of groups across the room. He seemed to approve. “Fred, I wonder if you remember hinting to me that there was more to the stories about Ross and the firm’s involvement with toxic fuels than ever appeared in the newspapers. I wonder, now that the Commander is dead, whether you are any freer to talk about it?”
“It was wrong of me to have mentioned that at all.” I steered Fred into a book-lined corner where we were not so conspicuous.
“Were you trying to say that it was the Commander who had acted improperly and not Ross? Was Ross covering up for his father and taking the blame on himself?”
“Oh, more than blame, Benny!” McAuliffe was looking up at the oil painting of the old man frowning down at his family and friends. “There have been formal charges. And more will be made when the present provincial inquiry is made public.” McAuliffe shook his head. “The Commander was not keeping up with the changes in business, you know. He came from an old free-wheeling school where there were few rules and no supervision. Mr. Ross tried to make him see that times had changed. But Murdo always knew better. He knew people in the federal cabinet, he had friends in the provincial government. He wined and dined judges and senators. He was used to having his own way.”
“This came out in the book of minutes you removed from the boardroom?”
“Why yes, but I put it back later. It didn’t seem right to alter history. I couldn’t sleep until I put the pages back.”
“You’re an honest man, Fred.”
“Yes. You know, I’ve been hearing that all my life. It haunts me. Well, it’s too late to change now, I suppose. Too late to start dealing in old books and maps. I’d have liked to run a little second-hand bookstore. Isn’t that funny? That’s a little joke I’ve only shared with Miss Biddy.”
“How is she?”
“I just left her. Not much change, I’m afraid. She can’t talk or move. It’s terrible. She was trying to will me to understand her moaning. It was very upsetting. The poor woman can’t speak. What a horrible thing for a literate and sensitive woman.”
“I hope she rallies, Fred. I know you’re very fond of her.”
“For more years that I care to remember,” he said, turning away from me. I didn’t try to follow him.
I looked up at the portrait, shifting my haunches so that a highlight moved from the large disapproving face. Here was a face that might have been valanced with whiskers from the last century. Unsmiling, it judged all of us. Had the Commander ever known a moment’s doubt? Only Biddy would know that and she was unlikely to tell us.
“Getting acquainted with the Commander, are you?” It was Ross again. Some of the tension of the times was showing on his face. What would the painter see there? Nothing to hang on a panelled wall above a fireplace.
“I was also looking at some of your books,” I lied. “Your mother’s collection?”
“About half, I’d say. The rest are mine. Does that surprise you?” he asked.
“I have a low opinion of businessmen, is that what you want me to say? To be honest I shouldn’t have thought that books would mean a lot to a man like Norman Caine.”
“Cooperman, book people aren’t the doers and moulders any more. The game has moved on from books.”
“To people like Caine? To the bottom-line people?”
“It’s too late for books, Cooperman. They were a good idea, but they didn’t work.”
“I’m still working my way through the Russian writers, Mr. Forbes, slowly. Maybe I’ll never finish. I’ve got a friend who’s always pointing me in the direction of new books. Seems to me there are a lot of questions and answers out there, if I don’t lose my library card. Maybe your printout doesn’t include all the available data. Maybe you need a reinterpretation. Maybe there’s something going on that your computer isn’t fast enough to catch?”
“Every year they keep coming out with a new generation of computer, Cooperman. In the end, they’ll get it right.”
“And in the meantime?” Forbes pulled the corner of his mouth higher. It could almost pass for a smile. Not one of his usual cynical inverted scowls, but an honest beginner’s smile. Five out of ten.
“Mr. Forbes, to change the subject if I may …”
“Be my guest.”
“You told me a few minutes ago that you’d joined AA.” The scowl was back. “You hinted as much the other day at lunch.”
“So?”
“And you told the Commander in the sauna? Is that right?”
“Sure, I told him. So what?”
“This is important: Who else knew?” Forbes looked at me and then began to scan the faces in the sitting-room.
“There’s no one else,” he said at last. “I planned not to tell anyone. Then I mustered courage to tell Dad before the wedding. Thought it might make a difference. Things haven’t been—”
“Never mind about that. Who else did you tell? Did your wife know? Or your old drinking pals?”
“I didn’t tell anybody else. I’m sure.”
“Why did you tell me, then? I’m nobody special to you. In fact we aren’t even friends. You don’t like me really. Why did you tell me?”
“I wasn’t trying to build an alibi, if that’s what you mean. I told Dad because he and it were on my mind. And you’re the sort of ingratiating son of a bitch who gets people to say more than they mean to say.”
“I wasn’t asking about your boozing.”
“Well,” he was twisting his mouth again, “maybe I thought it might get back to Teddie through you. Hell, I don’t know why I told you!”
“Who else knew you’d stopped drinking?”
“Damn it, Cooperman, I told you. Nobody except me, you and dad. Unless you count the people down at AA. But they don’t talk about things like that to outsiders. Why is this so important? Am I going to get an answer?” He was doing his best to glower down at me like his father. By my guess it would take him another eighty years.
“Not right now, but you will. I promise.” I left him standing in the alcove with the books and made myself free of the staircase and then the front room. Edward had my coat ready for me seconds before I hit the bottom step.
THIRTY
After the upper-class wake on Church Street, I went back to the one still going on in Frank Bushmill’s apartment. I felt a need to touch the earth. There were still enough people there to keep Martin Lyster’s memory green. Bill Palmer from the Beacon, for instance, was still in good form. I was surprised to see Chris Savas sitting in a corner. I knew that he’d known Martin, but I didn’t know he’d known him well. When I went over to where he was sitting, he explained:
“Martin got me the books I needed to get my stripes, Benny. A cop has to be educated these days and Martin got me through it.”
After the drink ran out, Chris and I went looking for Anna up at her father’s house on the escarpment. She was surprised to see us again, since she’d said good-night to me less than three hours earlier. Jonah Abraham, Anna’s father, was both surprised and amused at our late visit and insisted on pouring a round of drinks and showing us a new painting by Wally Lamb he’d just purchased for his collection. “Old Wally hasn’t lost his touch,” I said, looking at a platter of beautifully rendered green apples.
Anna had changed from the linen jacket and flowered skirt to a sweater and dark green cords. When we finished our drinks, she kissed Jonah affectionately and the three of us got into my Olds.
“Anna, don’t let these fellows keep you up all night,” Jonah called from the front door. “Remember you’ve got school in the morning.” The effect of this was to turn Anna into a thumb-sucking teenager as we drove out from under the porte-cochère. Jonah quickly went back into the house as we made for the highway.
It had been some time since I’d ended an evening at Lije Swift’s place outside St. David’s on the road to Queenston. Savas had introduced me to it maybe ten years ago and I’d
been back a few times, but not for the last year at least. Lije, which was short of Elijah, used to run a boat above Niagara Falls packed with illegal Canadian booze during Prohibition. He now owned a roadhouse that ignored all federal, provincial and local laws regarding strong drink and licensed hours. I don’t know whether he paid off the authorities or whether they left him alone as a kind of living human monument to a colourful bygone age. Whatever the reason, Lije carefully screened his customers through a slot in the door before welcoming them out of the night. He was known as the provider of good food as well as teller of bootlegging tales from along the Niagara. Since the last time I was at Lije’s place, his son and daughter had taken charge of the practical management, leaving Lije, who was getting on in years, free to bother the customers with his stories.
The place was about half-full. I recognized a few of our most distinguished citizens sitting at some of the tables, which Don and Maggy attended to. Lije insisted on looking after Chris, Anna and me, himself. He plied us with illicit drinks, while Savas went to make a phonecall. He never served booze in teapots. Lije was used to living dangerously. After the drinks he brought a large platter of hors d’oeuvres to the table. It was plain that this was going to be a memorable night. About twenty after twelve, Pete Staziak walked into the room. He’d just come off duty in town and had taken all of the short cuts to get there. More baked beet salad, tapénade and chorizo in cider were brought to the table. In Lije’s short arms, the platter looked huge.
“You both missed the best part of the wake,” Chris said, looking at Anna and me, after Pete had settled in. “Frank Bushmill recited a very funny piece about sucking-stones. You should have heard it.”
“That’s right, Chris, rub it in,” Pete said, chewing on a piece of celery filled with Stilton. “Remember I had to miss the whole show trying to make sense of a couple of murders.”
