Street Legal

by William Deverell

  Barnsworth felt his throat constricting, and was barely able to get words out. “They are not tenants of these premises.”

  There were emergency vehicles outside, reporters and police all over: a nightmare beyond imagining.

  He had been told that someone from the custodial staff had found one of the bodies lying across the elevator entrance, the door opening and closing on it in rhythmic intervals.

  “How did they . . . er, meet their demise?”

  “Both looped, Mr. Barnsworth.”

  “Do you mean intoxicated?”

  “Wire loop. Professional job. Could be a robbery — their wallets are gone. More likely they were just rubbed out, though.”

  “I’m sorry —”

  “Underworld hits, Mr. Barnsworth.” The policeman turned to one of his colleagues. “Okay, get some prints and let’s find out what we got here.”

  ***

  Leon had just shooed Carrie from the kitchen, insisting his own hands and his alone would create the special of the evening, poached Atlantic salmon al estragon. Exiled to the living room, she stared outside at the gloomy, tossing waters of the harbour.

  She had arrived two hours earlier after a strenuous hike in a wind-whipped drizzle from the Ward’s Island ferry dock. They had talked pleasantly enough — if one can talk pleasantly about murder — but Leon was by turn contemplative and filled with a manic cheer.

  He’d been clumsy, had spilled wine on his apron. Things were getting to him, Carrie decided. That madman, Orff. Her embarrassing dalliance with Captain Lachance.

  She felt so ashamed of herself. She had gone to bed with Dr. Jekyll and he turned out to be Mr. Hyde.

  The episode hadn’t been mentioned this evening. Having seen how Leon reacted earlier to her stupid blurt that she had slept with Lachance, she was now resolved not to speak of it again. He certainly wouldn’t be interested in the details.

  But even privileged communications may be shared with partners, and she had told Leon about Lachance’s rash quest to right the wrongs that had been done to his wife, Célèste. Leon had insisted: get on the phone to McAnthony.

  But say what? What I tell you now is utter secret.

  She sipped her wine and stared outside into leaden skies that promised an early, black, wet night.

  “Phone him, Carrie.” Leon came into the living room with canapés, a yogurtish dip with multi-grain bread sticks. “You have to tell him this Lachance character is acting on his own and he’s on some kind of vendetta.”

  This Lachance character. A stern note of disapproval.

  “Okay, Leon.”

  He disappeared. So like a hurt puppy. She wondered: did he have feelings for her that were beyond the avuncular? He’d never given a hint, though she remembered, after the crisis with Ted, how he had stayed at her bedside for nine and a half hours. Maybe it was more than just the caring of a good friend.

  She almost wished she could fall in love with Leon. He was such a nice man.

  McAnthony answered after one ring: “Have you put our offer to him?”

  “He’s considering it. Oliver, I want to know about him. All about him — do you have his file?”

  “No, but I insisted on seeing it. I shouldn’t be telling you this: every page is stamped ‘top secret’ in capital letters. But I believe you should know. For starters, he’s a career soldier, went through officer training.”

  “Before that?”

  “Adopted son of a couple up Noranda way, mine foreman and his wife.”

  “His father wasn’t a diplomat? Served in Paris?”

  “What else has he been feeding you?”

  “Célèste — what about her?”

  “Who is she?”

  “His wife . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Did he have a wife?”

  “No record of that. Number of female companions over the years, quite a number. His relationships seem to lack a . . . lasting quality. Apparently some history of abuse.”

  Carrie felt a shiver, then a weariness that permeated all her limbs.

  “Were psychological tests done on him?”

  “Yes. Mitchell should have seen right away he wasn’t the man. Slightly sociopathic, Carrie. Not sick in any medical sense, but lacking a strong conscience. Little appreciation of workaday concepts like right and wrong. Gun collector, military-knife collector. Black belt in karate — he teaches it, of course. Subscribes to Soldier of Fortune — well, it’s the whole package, isn’t it? You know the type. And something odd: he claimed to have some sort of paranormal power. Disastrous choice of candidate for this work.”

  Carrie couldn’t find words.

  “Carrie?”

  “Yes . . . I’m just thinking.”

  “If you’re wondering why I’m so eagerly telling you this, it’s perhaps to hint that you should be a little wary of him — especially if he has not been, as it appears, open with you.”

  Carrie was silent again for a long while, then she bit the bullet. “Oliver, he’s going ahead with it. He has a body-pack recorder and he intends to meet Billy Sweet tonight.”

  “My God. Where?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know. He’s going to phone me at midnight and I need you to be up and alert. And, Oliver?”

  “Yes, Carrington.”

  “I didn’t tell you what I just told you.”

  “Do you feel you need any protection?”

  She thought about that. “Maybe you could have a car sit outside my house tonight. But I’m above the fray. I’m just the lawyer. They don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “I’ll send a car.”

  She hung up, fuming to herself. She’d been an unmitigated fool to have gone to bed with that man. And now he was hung up on her — or was he just using her? He seemed more possessive than caring. Frightening, in any event. Sociopathic, the tests said, so he was incapable of love of others. But convincing in his lies, that fit the profile.

  Yes, an unmarked cruiser in front of her house seemed not a bad idea.

  ***

  It’s not like Speeder screwed anything up. Deeley and Izzie maybe could of, though, and it sounded like they did.

  Nervous about breaking the news to Billy, Speeder had dropped by the chemists to get some of the new mix he’d ordered, then called in, hinting Billy should meet him at a convenient location. So here was the boss making another rare appearance outside the Kremlin walls, with Shadow and Vinnie Eng sheltering him, and Tommy Bogue at the controls of one of the luxomobiles — the little Rolls, not the Phantom.

  Speeder got in the front and explained the problem, which was he sent Deeley and Izzie up there to the lawyers’ offices to snuff the Frenchman in his sleep, and half an hour went by and no sign of them, so Speeder decided not to hang around in case there was heat, in case they’d got theirselves busted.

  “I don’t think I am hearing very coherently,” Billy Sweet said. “You tell me you sent Deeley and Izzie into that building. Why didn’t you go instead, Speeder? They’re too brainless to go somewhere on their own.”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary. You heard the tape, Billy, the Frenchman was gonna be asleep.”

  Billy wasn’t giving clues about how he was feeling over the disappearance of the two guys. Speeder couldn’t figure out if Billy was furious at him or what. It seemed like he was in control of himself, all coifed and neat in a three-piece suit.

  “They just never came back out,” Speeder said.

  “They just never came back out.” Billy mimicked Speeder’s voice, squeakier than it really sounded.

  Speeder nervously slid a Dubble Bubble into his mouth. He should do one of them whizbangs now, get on top of things. “Maybe they turned chicken, and went out the back way or something.”

  “Or is Deeley our informer? Or Izzie. Have you ever thought of that, Spee
d?” His voice cracked, the old terrors finally showing through, and he started yelling. “When you want to do something right, you fucking do it yourself!”

  He sat there red and glaring. Eng finally broke the silence. “Did this Cristal guy ever come out?”

  “Not through the front door, anyways.”

  “What about the lawyer dame?” Eng asked.

  “Got into a cab. Maybe went home, I don’t know.”

  Billy got himself composed, like he was earlier, and Speeder could tell he was trying to get his head around the problem.

  “We go for the lawyer. Right now.”

  ***

  Leon had tried to create a cosy mood with candlelight and Bolivian flute music, but the flickering flames and the haunting, reedy melodies only made Carrie feel jumpy. Outside, across the harbour, the buildings of Toronto seemed ghostly pillars, white-lit behind a rain that had begun to pelt the roof.

  Leon was looking solemnly at Carrie’s plate now. He had finished his meal, but hers was only lightly picked over — she had had to force each forkful down her throat.

  “I’m sorry, I . . . just don’t have a great appetite.”

  “You can’t do this to me. I have a fruit compote for dessert.”

  “Well, it’s not the food.” It was Lachance, his lies, her shame — a deceitful seduction it now seemed. Earlier, Leon had listened with sad-dog eyes as she recounted what McAnthony had told her about this undercover commando.

  “Leon, thank you for this evening. It’s been rough. I needed your company.”

  “It makes me happy to have you here.” And he added: “Would you like to camp here tonight?”

  She should. It was beginning to storm outside — she’d be like a wet rat by the time she made the ferry. But there would be a police car outside. And she had to be at the phone when Lachance called at midnight.

  “Thanks, Leon, but I think I’ll be safe.”

  “I’ll put some coffee on.”

  As Leon disappeared into the kitchen, the phone rang, and Carrie picked it up.

  A contralto whisky voice: “Mr. Robinovitch, is he there?”

  “May I tell him who’s calling?” Carrie would protect Leon; clients call at the damnedest hours.

  “Pinkerton, Mabel Pinkerton. Hymie, he’s one of my customers, a regular, and he’s being kind of difficult. He insists on seeing his lawyer. Tell him he better get his ass down here right away. We don’t want no trouble.”

  “Just hang on a sec.”

  Leon answered her shout and came back and grabbed the phone. Carrie watched his eyes widen as the woman repeated her concerns.

  “Mrs. Pinkerton, ah, what do you mean, a customer?”

  He slumped into a chair.

  “I see.”

  He wrote down an address, and disconnected. “A brothel on Parliament Street. She says he’s freaking out. She didn’t explain how. I can imagine. No, I can’t. I have to get down there. I’ll call a water taxi.”

  “I’ll phone you at home,” Leon said, and as he was about to alight from the taxi cab, Carrie leaned over and kissed him on the lips. He climbed out and watched the car accelerate away.

  Standing in a wash of rain, Leon could still taste those soft lips, a touch of velvet. He shuddered, overcome by the moment.

  Then he turned and examined a dilapidated brick building. This was the address he’d been given. That was the number on the upstairs doorway: a big apartment above a used-clothing store.

  Orff — Hymie, to be exact — had been making regular attendances upon a woman named Dottie at the house of pleasure. No wonder Mrs. Pinkerton wasn’t in the phone book, at least by that name.

  Leon rang the bell as he’d been told, three shorts and a long, and in half a minute a thick-waisted woman wearing a pair of ornately framed spectacles met him at the door.

  “I’m Leon Robinovitch.”

  “Hymie’s up in one of the rooms,” said Mrs. Pinkerton. “Only he’s not Hymie, he claims he’s someone else. Anyway, he’s under a bed and he won’t come out. I mean, there he was oompa-pa’ing around the room, and suddenly the guy freaks out.”

  “Oompa-pa’ing?” Very little of this was making sense. He followed her up the stairs. “Does Hymie come here often?”

  “Sometimes twice a week. Dottie’s the one he drops by to see. Has this thing about her. He’s been coming for . . . oh, hell, I don’t know, five years. He never does anything with her, just plays his funny games mostly, so we don’t really charge him the full rate. He’s one of the strange ones.”

  “Just how strange?”

  “Well, sometimes he carries on, eh? Goose-steps around the place, comes on with this funny German accent, and he . . . well, we keep some extra clothes for him here.”

  “Extra clothes?”

  Nothing about the many renditions of Herbert Orff was very surprising to Leon any more.

  From an open doorway, he peered into a rather frilly room, curtained with lace. Stuck beneath the bed was Herbert Orff. He hadn’t been able to squeeze all the way under, and his head and shoulders were poking out. Squatting on the floor, talking to him, was a thin young woman wearing just underclothes and an over-sized military cap.

  “Come on, Hymie,” she said. “It’s me, Dottie.”

  “Go away. I want my lawyer. I am going to sue everybody here.”

  This was Orff’s normal voice, Leon realized, thin and timid. He was staring at Dottie fearfully.

  Leon studied his client a little more critically. He was . . . yes, Leon’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, Orff was wearing a dress, a frock with a flower pattern.

  Leon drew Mrs. Pinkerton down the hallway a little.

  “The dress. Explain that, please.”

  “Well, um, he likes to play, like I said. Sometimes he gets into this kind of other character with a German accent, marching around, giving orders. Only he likes to wear a dress when he does that. Sort of your tranny type.”

  Tranny. So this was Hymie’s big embarrassing secret about Franz. A Nazi cross-dresser.

  “Has he ever been violent?”

  “Not Hymie. He’s real charming. Funny little fat Jew, but I’m not prejudiced, you understand. My attitude is it takes all kinds.”

  “And when he’s being this German character?”

  “Oh, we have to tell him not to shout so much. He rants.”

  Leon peeked through the doorway again.

  “Come on, Hymie,” the skinny hooker pleaded.

  “I told you, I’m not Hymie. This is a case of mistaken identity.”

  Leon cleared his throat. “Herbert, what seems to be the problem here?” That sounded pompous to his own ears: here he was in a brothel talking to a guy in a dress.

  Orff looked up. “At last. I want you to see what they did to me. I want to sue them to the ground.”

  “Exactly what have they done to you?”

  “They kidnapped me and made me dress up like this.”

  “But that’s your dress,” said Dottie.

  “It’s not my dress. They’re holding me hostage, Mr. Robinovitch. They want two hundred dollars.”

  Leon wished he had more of a sense of humour and could properly enjoy this. “Why do you say you were kidnapped?”

  “Well, how did I get here then? They drugged me.”

  “You’ve never been here before?”

  “Never once in my life.”

  “Two hundred dollars is a little steep, Mrs. Pinkerton.”

  “He’s been here two hours. Just get him out of here. It’s free.”

  “Free?” said Orff. “This is going to cost. I want to know exactly who these people work for, Mr. Robinovitch. I want to know who runs this operation. And I want my clothes and I don’t want anyone watching while I change.”

  While his clothing was being retrie
ved from a closet, Leon lifted the bed up, allowing Orff to crawl out. The floral frock came down to his knees.

  “It’s part of the effort to silence me, isn’t it? They’ll stop at nothing, Mr. Robinovitch.”

  While he dressed in private, Leon talked in the hallway to Dottie, who was confused and in some distress.

  “He’s just not himself.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, we were marching, like we usually do — I have to salute him, too, and everything — anyways, he just stopped in his tracks and he started blinking and looking around, and then he screamed, and crawled under the bed.”

  “He’s never done anything like that before?”

  “No. I thought it was pretty odd behaviour.”

  “Was he taking any pills earlier?”

  “A whole lot of them.”

  “Dottie, when was he here last?”

  “Um . . . I remember, Wednesday night. It was funny, he sort of goose-stepped right into the closet where I was hiding — we have this game, okay? — and he collapsed all over me, and he’s kind of heavy, you know, almost broke my leg, so I bit him on the hand to get him off of me.”

  “Wednesday night . . . you’re sure?”

  “Yeah, pretty close to midnight.”

  For some reason, Leon felt relieved. He guessed it was because he was hoping Orff was really not the Midnight Strangler. In an odd, unsettling way, he had grown fond of him.

  Orff came from the room, still indignant. “Typical communist trick. Tell this girl if she thinks she can make a fool of Herbert Orff, she should think twice. This is obviously some kind of sin palace. Look at her, she’s barely dressed.”

  “Hymie, how could you?”

  “Don’t call me Hymie.”

  “I’ll take you home, Herbert.”

  “I want this whole thing exposed.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “I’m hungry. Can we stop at a 7-Eleven?”

  ***

  Lachance twice walked around the inner perimeter of Horizons, a cocktail lounge revolving high above the city in the CN Tower. No sign of the enemy, but he didn’t really expect them.

  He wondered if he had sent too brutal a message in eliminating the men assigned to kill him. Two useless morviats with revolvers and silencers. Very quietly, he’d taken out the thin one as he poked his head inside an office door. The other man was exploring elsewhere when Lachance crept behind him. It was so easy.