Riviera Blues

by Jack Batten

  Trum was serious.

  “That’s great,” I said. “What do you do with the extra half-hour?”

  “Get out to the golf course a half-hour earlier.”

  Trum was still serious.

  “What about Jamie?”

  “Never played golf with him. He looks more of a squash type to me.”

  “Come on, Trum, you know what I mean. Jamie and computers.”

  “Now you mention it, he’s pretty sharp. He talks all the time about ways we can use computers I never thought of. The truth is I don’t frankly understand it when Jamie gets on one of his kicks. ‘Your programming’s out of date, Trum.’ Shit, gimme a break, I’m only sending memos to my secretary. But, you know, to each his own. Jamie knows computers. I know law.”

  “Don’t undersell yourself, Trum. You’re sitting next to one of them all day, you must have a notion about the machines, how computers work.”

  “A thing I learned, lemme tell you, Crang, they’re resilient little suckers. There was a hell of a flap two, three weeks back. I’m punching away at my computer, putting in this big deal report to the head guy over in the securities department. My screen all of a sudden goes berserk. Jumping around like a bitch, like a movie out of focus, except sometimes the screen would be absolutely blank for long stretches. This wasn’t just my computer. Same thing all over the entire trust company.”

  “What’d happened?”

  “Some kind of massive short circuit, I don’t know. But never mind that. It isn’t the point of the story.”

  “I’m still listening.”

  “All right, you know the old brick warehouse, looks deserted, right at Spadina and Wellington, far side?”

  “No, but if you say so.”

  “That building, it isn’t empty at all. In there, they got a computer backup system for the C&G computer. It takes over in case the computer at the main office blows. Which it did. Okay, within minutes, the backup over at Spadina and Wellington kicks in.”

  “Trum, I’m astounded, really am. Totally awestruck.”

  “You don’t give a rat’s ass, Crang, I can tell. But to me, it was amazing. One minute, I was running around the hall. The computer’s out, I was saying, my report’s lost, the sky is falling. And next thing, a couple of minutes later, I was back in my office, and everything was normal. Not a syllable got lost. My report to the head securities guy was right there, right in the middle of the sentence I was typing. Fucking-A amazing.”

  Connie reappeared.

  “You going for four, Trum?” she asked.

  Trum wiped chili from the side of his mouth.

  “Not till I’ve called my friend here’s bluff,” he answered.

  Connie went away. I waited for Trum to call my bluff. What bluff? I was guarding a secret about Pamela and Jamie, but I wasn’t trying to blow anything past Trum.

  “I guessed soon as you started in with the Jamie Haddon questions.” Trum looked satisfied with himself. “You’re acting for a client, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not, and the name of the client, the reason you’re having lunch with me, is Archie Cartwright.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Okay, confidentiality, I understand. You’re not gonna level with me.”

  Trum’s eyes, I hadn’t realized before, were surprisingly clear and sharp, a minimum of red for a man as dedicated to martinis as he was.

  “But if you expect me to go further,” Trum said, “I want it between us, officially, you heard nothing from me.”

  “About what?”

  “The affair, for chrissake.”

  “The affair?”

  I knew what affair Trum meant. But how did he know about it? And wasn’t Pamela going to blow her stack when I told her Trum knew?

  “Yeah,” Trum said. “The affair.”

  “Pamela and Jamie?”

  “See? I knew you were acting for Archie.”

  “Trum, not that it matters, but I don’t take matrimonial cases.”

  “Sure, you’re criminal. But I’m thinking to myself, maybe Archie found out Pamela’s screwing around, and he wanted someone to do a little preliminary digging before the divorce lawyers come in and the fees hit six figures, and he arrives at you because for reasons of your own, Pamela giving you the brush years ago, you might be willing to throw yourself into the job.”

  “I’m wounded, Trum, hurt to the quick. You’d think that of me?”

  “Must be my lawyer’s training,” Trum said. “Anyhow, I’m with Pamela if the time comes for choosing up who you have to be with.”

  “Archie Cartwright — listen to my every word, Trum — Archie Cartwright has never communicated with me by letter, by telephone, by an intermediary, by telex or fax, or by semaphore.”

  Trum eased his stomach away from the edge of the table. He looked at me from over his swelling nose.

  “Pamela and me,” Trum said, “we go back. I remember, years before you ever came along, I was at UCC, she was at Branksome. We went to the formals, the battalion balls, her father’s house, my father’s house. Same gang of us did all that teenage crap together. That’s why I still got a lot of time for Pamela.”

  “Very touching, Trum,” I said. “Now, how did you find out about the affair?”

  “Jamie told me.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “That’s what I thought too. An affair, you only tell your best buddy about, and I’m not Jamie’s. He’s just a guy I work with on projects at the office. But a while ago, he says, let’s have lunch. First time that happened, believe me. Anyhow, I’m into my second silver bullet, he starts in about him and Pamela. Wouldn’t shut up.”

  “How much did he tell you?”

  “That it’s been going on a year, that Pamela set him up in an apartment, and that, in so many words, she’s a great lay.”

  “Charming.”

  “I would’ve punched him, except I wanted to hear more.”

  Connie took away our empty plates and brought coffee.

  “You holding at three?” she asked Trum.

  “I’m saving number four for my confreres at the bar,” Trum answered, nodding toward the centre of the room.

  “Just another couple of questions,” I said. “Anybody else privy to all this?”

  “Two, maybe three other people at C&G. They found out the same way as me, same general time too. From Jamie, last month. The guy that runs the investment department, he knows, and Jamie’s immediate boss, him as well.”

  “What about Swotty? Any chance of these guys passing it to him?”

  “Are you nuts?” Trum jerked his hand and spilled coffee on his placemat. “Can you see one of us dropping in at Whetherhill’s office. ‘Oh, by the way, Chief, your married daughter’s banging a guy from the trust department. And, hey, you’ll never guess, Chief, the guy’s a relative of yours.’”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Dumb question.”

  Trum lifted his cup and mopped the spilled coffee with a paper napkin.

  “Sure sign,” he said. “When I start dumping coffee all over the place, I need another drink.”

  “This has been a large help, Trum,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it develops.”

  “You won’t need to. If anything hits the fan, it’ll be all over the office.” Trum put his hands on the table and levered himself out of his chair. The table rocked on its legs. “I did all the talking,” he said. “So you get to do the paying. Fair? Not at the bar though. I’ll pick up for what I drink there.”

  “Number four?”

  “All this shit we been talking about, I might feel a fifth coming on.”

  When Trum reached the bar, the guys sitting there opened up a space for him. A martini was waiting on the Formica top.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I got home just after seven, laden with purchases. I had Mi
les Davis’s autobiography, thick and in paperback. That was for overseas reading. I had two new shirts, a French-English dictionary, and, best of all, a beret in a raffish black model. I tried it on in front of the bathroom mirror. Someone resembling the young Maurice Chevalier stared back at me. Ah, France. Ah, Gigi. Ah, thank heaven for leetle girls.

  “Yo, Crang.” Alex of the downstairs duo of Alex and Ian called up the stairs. “You all alone up there?”

  I went out to the landing. “Annie’s working tonight.”

  “Poor you. Had dinner yet?”

  “I was planning on something from the kitchens of Campbell’s.”

  “Well, Ian’s cooked pots of ragoût d’agneau. We’d adore it if you came down and made us green about your big trip.”

  “What did you call the meal?”

  “Lamb stew, numb nuts.”

  I got two bottles of Côtes du Rhône out of the cupboard over the refrigerator. Alex and Ian and I ate, drank, talked, and laughed until almost midnight, and when I arrived back upstairs, I was feeling no particular pain.

  In the bedroom, I turned on the lamp beside the bed. A little breeze was floating through the open window. I walked over to the window and got closer to the breeze. It felt soft and sweet. I stood there and wondered, idly, vaguely, why a soft, sweet breeze was coming into the room. As far as I remembered, before I joined the guys downstairs, the bedroom window had been shut tight.

  “Be cool, my man.”

  The voice was a relaxed tenor, and it seemed to be emanating from somewhere over by the closet.

  “Stay steady, man,” the voice said. “Three things I don’t need you be doin’.”

  I turned around.

  “Ah, now, man, that there’s one of the things I didn’t need you be doin’.”

  The guy might have been Patrick Ewing, except I knew Patrick Ewing was playing for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden that night. The guy looked about as big as Patrick Ewing though, close to seven feet and two hundred and fifty pounds, and he was just as black. He had a ski mask pulled over his face, but his hands were the hands of a black man. There wasn’t a weapon in either hand. A guy built like Patrick Ewing doesn’t need a weapon.

  “Other two things,” the giant said, “don’t go talkin’ loud and don’t go doin’ any brave shit.”

  “No problem.” My voice hadn’t progressed past the croak level.

  “Long’s we got an understanding.”

  “Urn, would you perhaps care for a drink? Vodka?”

  “Not on the job, man.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think this was a social call.”

  “Workin’.”

  “You want me to raise my hands or anything?”

  “Want you be tellin’ me where the disk’s at.”

  “You too?” The surprise in my voice lifted it a notch in volume.

  “Man, what’d I tell you ‘bout no loud talkin’?”

  “You said there was an interdiction against it. Sorry.”

  “Don’t give me no interdiction shit. Just don’t be shoutin’ or nothin’ along those lines.”

  My heart felt like it was pounding someplace close to my throat, but the terror was receding, and I was beginning to feel a trifle silly standing in my own bedroom chatting with a large visitor who was apparently bent on burglary.

  “What do you think?” I said. “Could we adjourn to the kitchen? You know, pull up a chair. Talk over issues.”

  “Ah, man, you one of those discussers!”

  The guy sounded disgusted, but he didn’t object when I stepped past him and led the way out to the kitchen. My kitchen is a roomy space, large enough to accommodate a wooden table and four chairs in the centre. The giant and I sat across from one another at the table. His size had the effect of cutting down the room’s dimensions.

  “Well, look, um, friend,” I said, attempting a hearty line, “my name’s Crang.”

  “Already know that, man. How you think I got here?”

  “Right, yeah. And your name would be?”

  “It would be none of your business, man, but it might be Curtis.”

  “Okay, Curtis, feel free to take off the mask. Must be kind of warmish, and, you want the truth, it has the effect of restricting conversation. Like a barrier between the two of us.”

  “You ’bout finished, man?”

  “I take it you’re going to leave the mask on.”

  “Part of the costume, man. You see the way I got myself duded up?”

  Curtis had on black-topped Nikes, black jeans, a navy blue turtleneck, and the forbidding ski mask, which was dark blue wool with large holes for the eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

  “Very authentic, Curtis,” I said.

  “This here disk, it ain’t in the living room and it ain’t in the kitchen, ’less you got a real smart place you concealin’ it. And the bedroom, I just started, you come in.”

  “You were as quiet as a mouse in your searchings, Curtis. Congratulations.”

  “All that gigglin’ and laugh’n downstairs, nobody’s gonna hear nothin’ no way anyway, man.”

  “Good point.”

  “You gonna save both us wastin’ whole lotta more time and tell me where the disk’s at?”

  “Am I right, you don’t want it for personal reasons of your own?”

  “Come on, man.”

  “You’re present in my home on a contract basis?”

  “Man, you are a trial.”

  “Had any second thoughts about that drink?”

  “I can see this gonna be a long night.”

  “In that case, mind if I help myself?”

  I didn’t wait for Curtis’s approval. There was a full bottle of Wyborowa in the freezer. I reached in and brought it out by the neck. It felt cold and heavy. In one motion, gripping the neck of the bottle, I whirled around and slammed the bottle at Curtis.

  Before the bottle got within two feet of my target, Curtis’s head, he stuck up his left hand, which looked like it had a span big enough to palm a basketball, and plucked the bottle out of the air. The gesture struck me as remarkably casual, as if Curtis was used to intercepting hard objects that were aimed at his skull. He remained in his chair holding the vodka bottle. I stood in front of him experiencing a new spasm of terror.

  “Urn, Curtis,” I said, “I hope you’re going to accept that in the nature of a necessary gesture.”

  “Sit back down, man.”

  “Under the present circumstances, you know, a guy’s expected to make a stand. The manly thing and all that.”

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  I sat.

  Curtis got up and went straight to the cupboard that held the glasses. He chose an old fashioned glass and poured two inches from the Wyborowa bottle into it. He handed the drink to me.

  “Thanks, Curtis,” I said, “but I generally have my vodka on the rocks.”

  “Man, you really tryin’ my patience.”

  I drank some of the Wyborowa. “Very smooth this way. Sure you won’t change your mind?”

  Curtis shook his head.

  I took another swig. It seemed to be soothing the most recent onslaught of fear.

  “The kind of dude you are, man,” Curtis said, “it probably be a long time before you tell me where you got the disk hid.”

  “A French or Italian guy named Michel Rolland hired you, correct?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about, man. You shoot the shit, ask questions, drag ass, you never get round to tellin’ me the facts.”

  “Curtis, perhaps I could propose a meeting of minds here.”

  “Man, keep this shit up, I meet your mind with my fist.”

  Curtis took two long and limber strides across the kitchen to the big drawer beside the stove. He moved like he was loose all over, loose in the limbs,
loose in the joints. His hand went into the drawer and came out with a roll of thick twine. He seemed to approve of it, and reached back in the drawer for some tape.

  “Really know your way around the old homestead, Curtis,” I said.

  “Been familiarizin’ myself, man.”

  “About the twine, I use it for tying the newspapers into bundles. You know, for recycling?”

  “Wanna finish your juicin’, man?”

  “Curtis, I have an inkling you’re not intending to bundle up my Stars and Globes.”

  “Drink, man.”

  The rest of the vodka burned its pleasant way to my stomach. I set the empty glass on the table.

  “Your nose, man,” Curtis said.

  “Huh?”

  “Breathe through it.” Curtis ripped off a piece of tape and slapped it over my mouth.

  I said, “Argghh.”

  “Man, don’t you ever shut up?”

  “Grrrrr,” I said, and tried to rip the tape off with my hands.

  Curtis swatted my hands and gave me a glare I interpreted as menacing. I left both hands in my lap.

  “Round behind you, man,” Curtis said.

  I swung my hands to the back of the chair, and felt Curtis go to work with the twine. He looped it around my wrists three or four times and did something intricate with a knot that tied the wrists to the rungs of the chair. He gave my ankles and the chair’s legs the same treatment. If I’d been able to make myself understood, I would have complimented Curtis on his efficiency.

  “Don’t go ’way, man,” Curtis said.

  “Sssssrrrrr.”

  Curtis left the kitchen in the direction of the bedroom. I took a couple of exploratory tugs at the twine around my wrists. Nothing yielded. Ditto with my ankles. I pushed my tongue against the tape. It stayed in place. I decided I wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. Maybe it was better that way. Going some place with Curtis could be dangerous, especially if he rethought the episode of the vodka bottle and elected to take it personally. I waited. The second hand on the kitchen clock dragged around three times. Nothing except silence came from the bedroom. The second hand completed another sweep, and Curtis reappeared in the kitchen.