A City Called July Page 12

  “But Sid Geller isn’t Larry. He’s not even Sid Geller, he’s something called Bolduc Construction.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “You’re not giving me all the pieces to play with. There has to be another element. A second breath of scandal maybe?” That made him blink.

  “Mr. Cooperman, I’m going to make you a proposition. You have gone to a great deal of trouble in this matter. My associates Geoff, Len and Gordon have not treated you with the degree of politeness that I would have suggested under the circumstances. I don’t know who you are working for, but I would like you to come to work for me. I have here …” and his hand went into his breast pocket and came out with a wallet. He took from it a handful of new bills, “… five hundred dollars for you as a retainer. Treat it as that. Treat it as payment for the insults that you acquired in coming here. What do you say? Is it a bargain?”

  This was one of those offers Mario Puzo used to write about, the kind you can’t refuse. I couldn’t see any way of getting any more out of him. Five hundred was a hell of a lot more than I could expect to get from the rabbi and Mr. Tepperman. I remembered the excuses I tried to give to them, all the reasons why the cops are the right people for digging into matters of this kind. They may not get results fast, but a private operator can’t honestly expect to get results at all. I’d been working on the case since Wednesday. This was Friday. I said I’d kick it around for a few days and I did. I didn’t owe Rabbi Meltzer or Saul Tepperman another hour on this case. I reached out and took the money.

  “Excellent,” said Bagot, and as soon as I’d pocketed it, it felt anything but excellent. I felt like Damon after saying “Pythias who?” Or like I’d just taken Kogan’s last dime from him. But there wasn’t anything about my feeling that I thought I could share with Bagot.

  “Car coming, Glenn.” Geoff went to the window and lifted one side of the green blind. “I can’t see who it is.” He opened the door and went outside. By now I could hear the motor. My hearing was sharper when I wasn’t on the take. If there are ever any Jewish monasteries, at least one will be called Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt.

  “It’s the Audi,” Geoff announced over his shoulder as he returned to the cabin. Bagot let out the breath he’d been holding. He got up and walked to the door. Geoff, moving back to give him room, rejoined Len and the still bleeding Gordon at the table. It was like a film director was rearranging the groupings before bringing new characters on stage. The only new character was Pia Morley. She was wearing a rust-coloured suit that was supposed to add a casual note, but once she’d seen me the grin she’d been offering around to the boys closed its shutters for a moment.

  “Well, hello, Mr. Cooperman.” Then she gave Bagot a pouting look.

  “It’s all right. We’ve had a little talk, Pia, and Mr. Cooperman’s agreed to be cooperative.” Bagot knew the right words to make me wish I had thrown his five hundred into the stove. I wonder whether soldiers who never volunteer for dangerous missions go through life being put off by all sorts of imagined references. Are they embarrassed by every passing birthday? But when you’re bought, you’re bought. You have to take the insults that come with the wages.

  “I still don’t think I like it, Glenn. He’s too cosy with the family,” she said, talking about me like I was a spot on the wall the paint wouldn’t cover. “He could tell them things he doesn’t even know he knows.” Bagot looked from me to her. He reminded me of a judge I’d seen. Was Bagot giving a fair hearing, or was he going to believe his five hundred dollars? Pia went on, “He’s been talking to Alex. He’s been seeing people all over town.”

  “The boys picked him up outside Tom MacIntyre’s and followed him to a place on Woodland Avenue.”

  “You shouldn’t have brought Tom into this, Mr. Cooperman. He plays both sides of the street.” I tried to shrug to show her that I was just a beginner in such things. Bagot had put his arm around Pia’s shoulder.

  “Pia, calm down.” She leaned into his embrace and began straightening Bagot’s tie. She did everything but purr.

  “Glenn, you know you can’t pay him enough to get him to leave this thing alone.”

  “He sees things differently now. We had a little chat. I’ll find something else for him to do. We will have rights-of-way to negotiate eventually. He can help out there.” That was all I needed: to end my active life searching titles in the registry office.

  Pia Morley came over to me trying to read me like a poster. I got up and used the opportunity to move a few feet closer to the door. I gave her my best smile. She wasn’t buying it. She had a way of moving so that the outfit, while it remained unruffled itself, gave a hint of a great deal of movement within.

  “You wouldn’t listen to me, would you, Mr. C?”

  “Just doing my job, Mrs. M. Are these boys some of Mr. B’s retainers, or are they borrowed for the occasion?”

  “You might ask him yourself, now that you’re on the payroll.”

  “Sure, once I’ve found out about my duties. Do you think they’ll include being lent to friends and colleagues, Mrs. Morley?”

  “I hate the way you say that. It’s like ‘Mrs. Morley’ was something you were hitting me with”

  “The only weapon to hand. Sorry.” She turned back to Glenn Bagot, and I edged another few inches further towards the door. “It’s up to you, Glenn. I’ve said what I think. And you know that Tony doesn’t like loose ends. Of course,” she turned to me for this, “as for me it’s a matter of complete indifference.” I wondered, as I continued my soft shoe towards the out-of-doors, where she’d bought her low opinion of me, and was it always this low or had it been marked down from something higher.

  Now Gordon was watching me. I tried to lean into the wall and become part of the decor. It didn’t work. Gordon got up, and breathed a word into Geoff’s ear without taking his eyes off me. Glenn and Pia kept nattering at one another, but now I couldn’t hear them as well. On the whole I think I preferred hearing their hostility. All of this whispering sounded dangerous. I went over to Gordon, deciding to beard the lion in his den.

  “Sorry about your nose,” I said, in a voice that came out a little more squeaky than it left my head. “But, in the circumstances, you understand.”

  “Sure, I understand.” And to show there were no hard feelings he offered me his pack of cigarettes. They were Rothmans and I didn’t quite see Gordon choosing that brand. Geoff offered matches while Len looked on. I didn’t much like being looked at that way. I felt a bit like a condemned murderer being watched by his death-house guards. Everything I did they found remarkable, from blinking to blowing a cool smoke-ring over the centre of the table

  “That’s a nice cigarette,” I said. “Does Tony still smoke Rothmans, Gordon?” I knew I couldn’t make it sound casual, but I couldn’t help trying either. What the hell, I thought, I had the five hundred.

  “Sure he does,” said Gordon. “He …”

  “Shut up, Gordon. And you get back over to the couch where we can see you.” Before I could get moving, Bagot came over and the boys looked attentive like he was going to make an announcement. I didn’t think it was going to be about sending out for Chinese food.

  “Len,” he said with easy authority, ‘we’re going to try to make Mr. Cooperman comfortable for a day or two. See what you can fix up for him in the back room.” With a look that didn’t quite meet my eyes he said, “We can’t let you go back to town just yet. I’ve got to see somebody and then I’ll want to talk to you again. It’ll save your coming out here a second time.” We both smiled at the inadequacy of his explanation, and he shrugged and went on. “I think the boys can make you reasonably cosy in the meantime.” I nodded and returned to the couch showing all signs of an agreeable, easygoing nature. Meanwhile, I was trying to think of ways in which I could have planted a letter in Pete Staziak’s hands to be opened in case of my sudden disappearance or death that might implicate all of these people. In the movies detectives get out of tough spots like that all
the time. I’d even seen it work for me once. But that night I don’t think I could have found words a two-year-old would have believed. My getting picked up by this bunch was not something I could have had in my appointment book. Even if I kept an appointment book. To tell the truth I wasn’t up to giving a performance. I could see my desperate face reflected in the eyes that didn’t quite meet mine.

  Len came over and with a toss of his head told me to follow. There were two doors at the back of the kitchen. The one on the left led to a small sitting-room with a studio couch that opened up into a sleepless night. There was a rack of shot-guns on the inside wall, which Len removed from the case. I shrugged as if the last thought in my head was of escape. “That window,” Len explained, “drops straight down forty feet into a dry lock in the old canal. I wouldn’t try anything unless you’re good at landing on limestone. You can doss down here comfortable enough. I’ve done it and lived. One of us will be right outside your door in case you want a glass of water. If you need a john, there’s a tin bucket in the cupboard.” I heard the door lock behind him after he’d finished showing me around.

  The view from the window didn’t get me any confirmation of Len’s story, but I was inclined to believe him. I found the bucket in a closet that was set in the inside wall of the room. The rest of the furnishings were simple, a couple of shooting trophies on a bureau, a lamp made out of a winebottle with a twisted shade and some framed photographs of hunters, who stood with dangling waterfowl displayed and their shotguns bent to the open position. One group stood in front of what I took to be this building. If it was, Len was right. It looked like it might have been a lock-keeper’s house. It certainly overhung the lock in the picture. Perhaps it had been moved there from a little farther away. From the picture I got an idea of the size of the place. The room I was being kept in represented about half of the space at the back of the lodge. I’d been thinking of it as a shack, but the mounted antlers over the front door made me move it up a notch or two in my architectural hierarchy. The angle of the photograph told me that there was a window that looked over solid ground in the room next to mine. I looked in the closet again. A piece of mock-wood wallboard separated the closet in my room from one in the neighbouring room. Without breaking my penknife I managed to remove the partition about the same time I could hear the motor of one of the cars starting up. Two fists less to contend with at the very least, I thought.

  The cupboard on the other side was divided by shelves, so that it wasn’t going to be easy to take possession of this second room. I got the look of the back ends of more shooting trophies. I had the time, so I removed them and set them behind the studio couch. It was awkward insinuating myself through the shelves and I got stuck half-way when one of them decided to come away from the supporting wall brackets. I retreated to the couch, moved the winebottle lamp closer, then lifted off the closet shelves as I should have in the first place.

  The other room was about the same size as the one I’d just left and I wouldn’t have insisted on changing for the fun of it. The window was similar to the one in the other room except for the wire grill outside that kept vandals out and me in. There were more hunting and shooting pictures on the wall. One showed a grinning face over a torso so loaded down with lethal hardware I thought he must be inadequate in bed. That’s the first thing I thought of. Silver trophies mounted on plastic bases occupied a series of shelves on the outer wall. I nearly yelled “Bingo” when I found another rack of shotguns, this time with boxes of suitable ammunition. I tried to match shell to bore and picked out a stylish pump-action beast that looked mean enough for my purposes. I set the loaded gun on an overstuffed chair and listened at the door. I tried the knob. It opened. I could see Bagot with his cap on at the front door.

  I worked my way back through the closet to my room. I was wondering why I was identifying with this prison cell when I heard Bagot’s car start up. For the plot that was distilling in my head, I thought that the window with the forty-foot view (straight down) had better be open. I ran the window-sash up as far as it could go. Good, it jammed and stayed open. I listened with my head out the window to the sound of Bagot’s car growing fainter on the night air. The engine noise blended with the night noises like a black cat vanishes under a fire escape.

  I knew that my way out of the lodge led through the closet, to the next room then out the front door. But how was I supposed to get by my guards? I didn’t like the shot-gun in the next room. I didn’t trust myself with it, and I didn’t know how I could stop three men with two shells. I knew one of them at least was armed, but I couldn’t remember whether it was Geoff or Len. If I could make some kind of noise, I could get the three of them to come into my room. That would be tidy. I liked that.

  I went through all the drawers in the room looking for an idea. I came up with a sewing basket, three paperclips and a rubber band. A little more looking brought me a dirty toothpick. Then it hit me. It might just work. I placed the tin bucket upside-down close to the bureau with the lamp on it. I put a piece of lath normally used to prop open the window on top of the bucket. It reached within an inch of the bureau top. I raised the bucket with a few lurid paperbacks. There were four spools of thread in the sewing basket, the strongest looked like black linen, the kind my brother Sam used to manipulate his marionettes when he was twelve. I tied one end to the lath, and balanced the lamp so that it teetered over the bucket but was held up by my strut of lath. When I pulled the thread, I thought, the lamp would crash down noisily on the bucket. I ran the thread behind the couch so that it wouldn’t be the first thing the boys saw when they heard the noise and came in to investigate. I led the thread into the cupboard and into the adjoining room. Then I put the wallboard back in place and took a minute to catch my breath, get used to the dark and prepare myself for whatever was going to happen next.

  Like the old nursery rhyme, I set things in motion. The thread began to pull the strut, the strut began to upset the lamp, the lamp began to make a racket, the racket began to worry the boys, the boys began to search the house … I heard them open the bolt on my door. And as soon as the three of them were in there, I slipped out and slid the bolt on the door behind them. I was running out the front door with a shot-gun under my arm before I heard them yell for the first time.

  THIRTEEN

  When I got into the bush that ran along the side of the canal, I tried to orient myself. I had never been totally familiar with the territory, but my teenage memory gave me some encouragement. The black mass ahead of me was the shadow of the Niagara Escarpment. At the top I could see a light in what must have been a watchman’s hut at the quarry at the rim of the cliff face. Below I thought I could make out the metal girders that formed a railroad bridge. I knew the bridge, and seeing it, or even imagining I saw it, made me feel better. Somewhere out to my right, I guessed I was facing south, ran two rights-of-way, two generations’ ideas of where the canal should run. They crossed like a double cross a mile below where I was standing. If I wanted to get back to the city, I was going to have to find a way across the old canal and the new one.

  I didn’t hear the door being broken down, but it couldn’t have taken the boys very long. The night was still noisy with my own breathing, and a feeling that somewhere out there great ships were moving heavily through dark waters. I tried to think. Well, to be honest it wasn’t thinking. At times like this I get more intuitive than thoughtful. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference. I knew that I couldn’t cross the steel bridge. They would be waiting for me there. At least they would if they knew the territory half as well as I did. I stopped and listened. Nothing. Through the dark, looming up at me was the grey form of a discarded lock on the old canal. It looked like a dry bone, with all the wooden and metal works removed from it. I headed south, towards the escarpment and the railway line. There wasn’t much cover, but at least there wasn’t a moon to give me away. On the top of the first lock I came to I sat on an ancient bollard and could make out the rope burns along the limestone f
acing at the edge of the lock. The lock gates had disappeared years ago, so there was no way across the canal here. I pushed on, keeping the canal to my right.

  Faintly, I could hear a car motor. That would be them, heading to cut me off. Once they got to the tracks they could cover a fair stretch. I’d have to cross where the bridge crossed the canal or head east until I was out of sight. I could see the criss-crossing girders closer now, and for a moment they were swept by headlights. Then to my right the deep whistle of a lake boat nearly lifted me by my belt into a stunted sumach that had grown between blocks of limestone. I could see the slow progress of the ship’s riding lights as it moved into position at the bottom step of the twin-lift locks. The old canal took twenty-five locks to lift boats in the 1870s up the escarpment. The present canal did the same job for ships three times as big, in eight huge cement steps.

  I could now see the railway embankment. There was no way I could slip by under the bridge without being seen. And the embankment was high enough so that I’d be seen clambering up the slope. I kept to a fringe of sumachs that began in a depression that ran east, parallel to the railway. It suited me, so I went along with it. From the edge I could still see the bridge, and now I could make out a flashlight beam running up and down the rails. My comfortable, well-shaded depression turned towards the tracks, and just as I thought that we might have come to the parting of the ways, I could see that it was running straight for a culvert that ran under the tracks. It was made to order. It was even dry until I was within fifty feet of the entrance, then I felt both feet go wet at the same moment.

  It was a narrow squeak through the culvert. Ahead of me something scampered close to the ground. Things brushed across my face, and my head banged into the overhead arch every time I tried to give my aching back a break. As I eased through, it sounded like a pipe-band rehearsal; the sloshing of my feet through the muck between the stretches of water nearly deafened me. I was glad when I came out the other side. By now I was very close to the base of the escarpment. If I had to escape to the south, that meant I’d have to go straight up.