The Whole Megillah Read online

  ‘Clients aren’t as long lived as they used to be, Mr. Lowther.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me. You find the megillah! You follow me?’

  ‘I read you loud and clear. Over and out, unless you want to arrange another meeting?’

  ‘I’ll catch you when I want you, Cooperman. Find that damned book!’

  I spent the night tossing and turning and running into fragments of dreams in which I was being chased through the Metro Police Black Museum by an assortment of recent acquaintances. I upturned a glass display case of murder weapons, with tags still attached to each item, in order to get away from Dalton. Three booksellers were chasing me through a prison corridor at the end of which a hanging rope dangled. When I turned, Honour Griffin was leering at me over the barrel of a blue steel automatic. The mysterious Aaron Kurian appeared from time to time, wearing a number of faces. Once I took him for Tony Moore, who was carrying Exhibit A for the Crown, a rusty hunting knife. When I woke up, it was in a tangle of sheets and a sweat. I made myself some instant coffee, the only kind I could find, and took a shower.

  Half an hour later, I was drinking some real coffee at the Cinnaroll Gourmet, where three women were independently working on literary projects of some kind. I recognized the proprietor of Book City, who was taking his morning tea with a colleague from the store. A curlybearded man I’d seen on Harbord Street was reading the Globe by himself in a corner, while a big blond man, going grey and dressed as though he had just returned from a safari to Tobora or somewhere west of Mombassa, was drinking café au fait and chatting amiably to a baby in a stroller parked beside him. To the waiter, he referred to the child as ‘the young gentleman.’ I wanted to lean over to him and tell him my good news. I wanted to tell everybody in the place my good news. I had just run into Aaron Kurian on Bloor Street. This was my lucky day!

  It happened like this. I was taking my morning walk, trying to find a new way to get to Bloor Street that I hadn’t tried yet. When I came out at the corner where the Bloor Super Save offers twenty-four hour service in fruit and vegetables, I saw Mary the bag lady across the street in conversation with a lean man with a goatee, who looked not at all out of place next to Mary in her tattered sweater. I crossed Bloor and had almost reached Spadina when it hit me. Richard had described Kurian as an old goat. The man talking to Mary had a goat-like look to him. I decided to put off my need for coffee long enough to check this fellow out. I crossed back to the north side of Bloor and came back to the Super Save, where I had a clear view of the two. They were laughing at something. Then Mary began prodding him with her finger in the chest, bringing home some homily about poverty and godliness, probably. The goateed man nodded gravely and gave her a hug. I’d never seen any body hug a saint before, and Mary looked overwhelmed too. As the old goat moved away from her, she began singing some new complaint and gesticulating and shaking her head in a--for her--good-humoured way. The goat-beard turned and waved to her, then made his way along Bloor Street to the Brunswick House at the end of the block. He went in and disappeared up the stairs. Richard had said that Kurian liked to stay in beat-up hotels. The Brunswick was an old hotel that had retired from the housing side of the business to concentrate on the potables in its various beverage rooms. There were no drinks to be had at this hour, so the man, who might be Kurian, had other business at the Brunswick House. Could he be living there? I thought of the possibilities while I sipped my coffee.

  There was nothing so formal as a registration desk at the Brunswick. I asked a waiter about who I should see and he shrugged ignorance. The pub wasn’t officially open yet, so he was not required to be nice to anyone. I tried the man at the bar, who was polishing draught beer spouts. ‘We don’t rent rooms these days,’ he said. ‘No profit in it.’

  ‘I’m not looking for a room for myself,’ I explained. ‘I’m looking for the man who is renting one of them.’ The polishing stopped for a fraction of a second, which indicated both knowledge and caution to a nose like mine.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, ‘And who might you be?’

  ‘A friend of his,’ I said. ‘A cousin of his mother’s,’ I added. The pol ishing continued, but his raised eyebrow told me that the man I was looking for was on a floor above.

  ‘Top of the stairs?’ I suggested agreeably.

  ‘Second door on your right. Third floor,’ he said, and forgot all about me.

  Considering the trouble Kurian went to to hide his identity and keep his tracks covered, I’d been able to find him very easily, I thought to myself as I went up the linoleum-covered stairs to the third floor. Then it hit me that I could be wrong. I was sailing on a hunch. When was the last time I’d seen a hunch introduced as testimony in court? I found the right door anyway, and knocked.

  ‘Yes?’ said the voice on the other side of the door.

  ‘Mr. Kurian?’

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  ‘My name is Bushmill,’ I said, borrowing the name of the chiropodist friend whose office is next door to mine in Grantham. ‘Frank Bushmill. I’d like to talk to you about a rare Hebrew book printed in Italy about the time of Columbus. I’m acting for a collector.’

  ‘Where did you get my name?’

  ‘You underestimate your reputation, Mr. Kurian.’ There was a pause. I thought I saw a shadow pass near the bottom of the door.

  The door was opened with a certain arrogance by the goat-bearded man who might have been in his sixties. He blinked watery blue eyes at me and gave me a nod. He was wearing brown corduroy trousers and an old Irish sweater with a blue knobbly elbow protruding from the left sleeve. He stepped back from the door; I followed him into the room. The air was thick with the smell of pipe tobacco, and there were flecks of it on his ancient sweater. The room was small and chilly for the time of year. If there was no profit in renting rooms, at least they were keeping the expenses down.

  Kurian offered me a chair and sat on the edge of the bed himself His head was large and long, but the lines around his eyes showed that he knew about the funny side of life.

  ‘Well, Mr. Bushmill,’ he said. ‘That’s a good name.’ I must have given him a blank look because he went on to explain that it was his favourite drink. ‘I’ll not say no to a drop of Jameson’s or Paddy either. I enjoy a drop, I’ll say that much for myself.’ I still didn’t follow him, but I pretended that he was a great fellow with a wonderful wit and grinned my appreciation. ‘May I give you a dram of your own this early in the morning?’ I smiled again. He darted off the bed and pulled a bottle from a battered bureau. He dumped the toothbrush into the sink, rinsed the single glass, and handed it to me.

  ‘Slainte,’ said Kurian.

  ‘Le chiam,’ I responded. I sipped and passed the glass to Kurian. We passed it back and forth a few times. The whiskey was a jolt at this hour--or, if I’m honest, at any hour--and I was feeling quite warm when the glass stood empty.

  ‘Bushmill,’ he said, musing. ‘Is that a West Country name at all?’

  ‘Kurian,’ I answered him. ‘That’s not a Dublin name?’ He smiled and showed a blue tooth on the top left.

  ‘Well, you have me there,’ he said. ‘Kurian’s the fellow I bought out. I took his stock and name. I found the stock excellent and have no complaints about the name. I was born Michael Brennan. I suspect that you are as Irish as I’m Armenian, Mr. Bushmill. What’s the game, sir?’

  ‘For the present, Bushmill will do for a name. It belongs to a good friend, who won’t miss it. And as for you, Kurian’s as good a name as Brennan.’

  ‘Exactly, Mr. Bushmill. Will you join me in another?’

  ‘Gladly, when we’ve talked a little business.’

  ‘You say you have a client? How high is he willing to bid? This has become an auction, you see. What’s his high card, sir?’

  ‘You make no bones about having possession, then?’

  ‘Why should I? I should tell you that I’ve been offered three hundred and fifty-thousand, which is a fair price, a fair price.’

/>   ‘May I ask you how you came by the book?’

  ‘Why, from its owner, of course. How else?’

  ‘And when was that?’ I asked, without answering his question.

  ‘Last Wednesday, I think. Yes, it was Wednesday. The day it rained all day.’

  ‘My client doubts whether you can prove title.’

  ‘Prove title? How are you?’ he said scornfully. ‘I wouldn’t waste my time. What I can prove is possession, and that’s as good an argument as I’ll give you. Can the British Museum prove title to the Elgin Marbles? Can the Berlin Museum prove title to the head of Queen Nefertiti? Title be damned!’

  ‘Then the megillah can never officially be brought out of the dark.’

  ‘And why not?’ said Kurian with a twinkle. ‘There’s brass in it, and where there’s brass there’ll be compromise.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘ "May" would be a better word--for more than one reason. And would you know what you’re looking at if you had it sitting in your lap, sir?’

  ‘I know when it was printed and who printed it. I know about the hand-coloured illuminated initials. I know a little about paper and moveable type.’

  ‘Better and better! But, bejesus, you don’t convince me yet.’

  ‘I don’t have to. You’re right. But what you don’t know is how hot the book has become since you got it. You probably know that Moore is dead. Murdered. People who kill once may kill again. There are plenty of people who want what you say you have.’

  ‘Impressive! Very good. Well, my boy, I’ll tell you, I’d be a fool to keep an item like that under my mattress.’

  ‘That’s exactly where a man like you would keep it!’

  ‘Ha! You are an original, Mr. Bushmill. I’ll say that for you. Let me say that I can find the book when it is needed. Is that clear enough for you?’ He began lighting a pipe he’d been playing with. I’d watched him scrape, ream, fill and pack the thing. At last he was going to put it to the match. He hardly looked as his fingers worked independently on this, as though it were some hobby of their own, which didn’t involve him. ‘You understand, Mr. Bushmill, that I’m an old man. I’m alone in the world. I can’t afford to take chances.’

  I nodded. ‘But how can we do business, Mr. Kurian? You say you have the Gerson Soncino Megillah, but you won’t show it to me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t use the name, Mr. Bushmill, even in this innocent habitation. With death about, one should be careful.’

  ‘The walls have ears, eh?’

  ‘And eyes. I wouldn’t scoff, if I were you, sir. Think of the dead. Let me freshen your drink.’ He got up and brought a bottle with the label ‘Bushmill’ and poured what he called a drop into the glass. ‘On an occasion, I once called myself Woolworth simply because someone asked my name suddenly. I happened to see the name on a department store across the road. I think I brought it off.’

  ‘You’re avoiding my question, Mr. Kurian. How can we do business!’

  ‘Simply enough. You bring your buyer to a place I shall tell you about, at a later date, I might add, and if he is carrying the right kind of money, then I’ll part with the book in question. What could be simpler, sir?’ He began playing with the pipe again. It had gone out. ‘I see that you appreciate a good ball of malt, Mr. Bushmill?’ He laughed. ‘That’s a curious name you’ve taken, sir. It makes talk about drink very difficult. I always tell my friend Father Campbell, who just lives at short walk from here, that the ability to tell good whiskey is the true measure of a man. I can see by the way you are sipping yours a great many things.’ I didn’t offer him the explanation that I sip all strong drink slowly, so as to drink as little of it as possible. But I wasn’t going to throw away his high opinion of me for the price of a little truth telling.

  ‘Is Father Campbell a connoisseur of fine books as well?’ I asked.

  ‘We are rivals in fact,’ he said with a wide smile, lifting a lighted match over the bowl of his pipe as he spoke. ‘Oh, not in a crass commercial way. I don’t mean that. But we talk books over the chessboard day and night when I’m in Toronto. He’s got a billet at what he calls "The Father Fort" over on Spadina, just north of Harbord. It’s run by the Basilians, who are over on Bay Street. He says the Father Fort marks the Basilians’ furthest penetration west--in Toronto at least. Although he’s a Scot, he’s got one of the best minds for Irish writing. A good palate for Joyce especially. Many’s the night we’ve seen the dawn come up over a section of Finnegans Wake and a bottle of Old Bush. He was one of the first churchmen to recognize … Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!’ he shouted, blowing on his thumb and shaking his arm in the air. When he recovered, his pipe was still unlit, so he tried again, but didn’t begin talking until he had taken a few trial puffs. ‘Campbell is a collector too, in a small way. He’s the crafty devil, though! He began collecting Hopkins!’ Another wide grin covered his face here, to share the rich humour of this observation, which missed me by a kilometre or two. ‘Now, the churchmen could hardly object to that, now, could they? Him being one of themselves and all? Of course, nowadays they leave him alone. He has quite a collection of the ungodly Irish as well as the godly. He divides literature into these classes, you see. Joyce he still considers ungodly, but with chance of improvement. He has the first edition of Dubliners, in a dust-jacket, that I covet shamelessly. I tell him not to put any store in earthly things and make a gift of it to me, but he simply tells me that my queen is in danger and to concentrate on the game. Oh, he’s a great fellow.’

  ‘I’m sure he is, but what exactly do you want me to tell the man I represent?’

  ‘Damn it all, man! Tell him what you like! Barring this address. I hold you to your honour on that one point, sir. You are the middleman. Arrange things to suit yourself and I promise you that when I have the money, you will quickly have the book.’ He gave me a straight, perhaps even honest, look in the eye and rose like a head of state concluding an interview with a foreign ambassador. I got to my feet automatically. In a moment, he had generously shaken me by the hand and delivered me to the corridor with hardly another word. The corridor looked as though it had been refurbished while I’d been in Kurian’s room. Perhaps it had taken on a glow from his amazing personality. I walked down the stairs with this thought, such as it was, in mind.

  Chapter Eight

  I bought myself a good lunch at Dooney’s and tried one of those frothy coffees afterwards. Around me on the walls the works of a local painter were hung, but I didn’t see anyone admiring them. The main focus in the café was a chess game, which was under way at a table near the front. A bearded man in sunglasses and a yellow straw hat was beating a skinny fellow in torn blue jeans, who was getting useless help from friends to the right and left of him. He seemed to know that he was losing, but didn’t understand how.

  I’d forgotten it was Saturday until I ran into Lowther’s office answering machine. I left a message on it and, with another quarter and a whim, called Honour Griffin. I thought that she might be interested in the good news about the megillah I had for her boyfriend. For five minutes she quizzed me about why I was telling her. Did she think she and Lowther could keep a secret on Bloor Street? She seemed excited by the news, anyway, and it served to make up for her surprise at my knowing about her and Lowther. I could tell that that aspect bothered her. I won dered if Pepper had found out about Lowther. Maybe he wouldn’t care. A separated woman’s life is her own.

  Honour wanted to meet me. I told her that I was just about ready to leave the cafe and that I had things to do, but she talked me into waiting to have coffee with her. I hadn’t properly licked the cinnamon off the top of the frothy milk when she walked in, looking around. When she finally spotted me, I was surprised. I hadn’t thought she’d taken much interest in me when I met her the first time. Maybe I had the look of a man waiting for the appearance of a beautiful woman.

  Honour was that in spades. She had wrapped her long hair around the back of her head in a loose bun, which gave her a fresh,
homespun look that went well with the crisp pink cotton dress she was wearing.

  ‘Hello!’ she said with a bright smile.

  I shuffled to my feet and nearly blundered into her as she pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘You have had a lucky morning, Mr. Cooperman!’

  ‘Benny, please. Everybody calls me Benny.’

  ‘Well, Benny, you’ve certainly won your spurs. Where on earth did you find it?’

  ‘That’s the part I can’t talk about. It wasn’t all that hard once I’d figured it out.’

  ‘You spoke to Mr. Kurian, then?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s all fixed. All I have to do is play honest broker between Mr. Lowther and Kurian.’

  ‘But you’re working for Mr. Lowther.’

  ‘In an imperfect world, we have to take what we can get, Mrs. Moore.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that. Even when I was living with Tony, I went by my own name.’

  ‘You want me to call you Ms. Griffin?’

  ‘My friends call me Honour, Benny.’

  No sooner had the coffee come than she began pulling a strand of hair out of the bun and twirling it around her fingers. In her cool cotton dress, which showed just a suggestion of the underwear beneath, Honour Griffin was stunning. Even the chess players turned away from the game to watch her sip coffee. I tried to keep a clear head.

  ‘I left a message for Mr. Lowther at his office,’ I said.

  She nodded and asked, ‘How much does Kurian want for the book?’

  ‘It’s to be negotiated. But really, I shouldn’t be talking about this to you. Even though you are a friend of my client, you’re not my client.’

  She gave a shrug and began worrying the fallen strand of hair unmercifully. ‘What I can’t understand is how on earth you were able to find Mr. Kurian.’

  There didn’t seem to be an answer I could give to that, so I said some thing about telling all when the time was right. This didn’t satisfy her, but she knew that it was the best she was going to get out of me.