The Whole Megillah Read online

  ‘Are you a collector too, Ms.--I mean, Honour?’

  ‘Not really. But I was interested in Tony’s collection. It’s quite valuable, you know.’

  ‘And the Gerson Soncino Megillah was the jewel in the crown?’

  ‘You might say that. Tony could have got nearly four hundred thou sand for it. You see, he wasn’t at all sentimental about his collection. A good deal always overrode any feeling he might have had for an object. He liked to wheel and deal, if you know what I mean. He wasn’t one of those collectors who gloat over an item and keep it hidden forever.’

  ‘He collected guns too, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, I hated the guns. I warned him that people who keep guns end up getting shot. And you see how right I was!’

  ‘Hmmm. Could Tony--I’m sorry--could your late husband dispose of any part of his collection without sharing the proceeds with you?’

  ‘I suppose not. But I’ve never had a head for that sort of thing. My lawyer says that as long as I was legally his wife, I could rightfully claim up to half of any profit he made. I told him he’d be doing me a favour if he got those guns out of the house. I didn’t want any part of them.’

  ‘But he was willing to share such profits with you?’

  ‘It never came up. And when the megillah was stolen, we both lost out equally.’ She laughed bitterly and lit a cigarette. That was when I first noticed that she was wearing contact lenses. She blew the smoke upwards and the overhead fan caught it and broke it up into a million motes of light. Looking around, I was surprised to see that she was the only smoker in the café. I unwrapped a Hall’s and slipped it in my mouth as secretly as possible.

  ‘I used to help Tony with his collection. Now I’m living very simply, surrounded by other people’s things. Living out of a suitcase, really. I’m beginning to find it restful. No clutter, none of those proprietary anxieties. I quite enjoy it most of the time.’

  ‘People get involved in collections. I’ve known a few collectors in Grantham. This fellow Dalton, now, he’s a collector, isn’t he?’

  ‘He wrote the book. He began with a collection of expulsion notices from all the best private schools in North America. Then he went on to toy banks and lead soldiers--which you’ve probably heard about. He’s got to be a great expert on the American Civil War because he recreated many of the battlefields on tabletops. When he can’t put his hand on something he wants, he becomes quite nasty. I could tell you a lot about that side of him.’

  ‘You had a lead soldier he coveted?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Yes. But I gave it to Tony instead. Wells never forgave either one of us.’

  The sun had come out strongly and was burning into the interior of the cafe. I blinked. Honour found a pair of large sunglasses in her bag. She put them on, making the murky mystery of the woman all the darker. Overhead, the ceiling fan turned and the green tendrils of one of the potted plants reached down towards her from the suspended white container. From where I sat, a bright sunflower caught the light. It was painted on a west-facing wall across the street. I was beginning to feel as though I’d better get moving. If I couldn’t find Lowther to tell him about the terms Kurian outlined, at least I should appear to be looking for him. I put down some money on the table, enough to cover both of our drinks. Honour smiled and made a half-hearted attempt to make me stay. I think I was a little surprised to find myself out in the street again and not looking at the regular appearance and disappearance of the lacy outline under the top of her dress.

  As soon as I got back to Brunswick Avenue, I called Lowther’s office again and left another message. The gerbils, indifferent to my return, continued eating a toilet paper cylinder, but the flowers seemed to enjoy a little company. I told myself that real businessmen do not take time off in the middle of the day to have a nap. That’s when I fell asleep on the burgundy couch, ready by the phone, poised to wake up if Lowther returned my calls.

  When the phone rang, I was running up and down the aisles of Book City, pursued by Mary the bag lady and Honour Griffin. I’d just taken refuge behind the round table when strange shapes began materializing from the antique fireplace behind me. I was glad when the noise that accompanied the shapes became the familiar, if insistent, summons of the phone.

  ‘Yes?’ I tried to read the dial on my watch to see whether I’d slept through the night. I hadn’t. It was still Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Cooperman? Colin Lowther here. You’ve been trying to get hold of me.’

  ‘If you’re still interested in buying the book we were talking about, I’ve located it. But it’s going to cost you a bundle, as they say on TV.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news! I take it that you were able to locate Mr. Kurian?’

  ‘What’s the difference? If you have enough money, the thing will be turned over to you. It’s as simple as that. How high are you willing to go?’

  ‘Kurian knows that everybody bidding is aware of the book’s value. No bargains are going to be made, I’m afraid. Tell him I’ll pay three fifty.’

  ‘That’s three hundred and fifty thousand dollars? He calls that "a fair price.’’ I don’t suppose he’ll take a cheque.’

  ‘Tell him that I have the money in cash. Or that I can get it. Tell him to bring the book to any place where there are lots of people milling around. Get him to name the place or you pick it.’

  ‘What about Book City on Bloor Street? On the second floor?’

  ‘Sure, that’ll suit me. Just as long as he brings the book with him. I don’t want to follow a paper trail from the bookstore to some locker at the bus terminal. You tell him that. When I get a look at the book, he can begin counting the money.’

  ‘Sounds simple from here. But what if he’s suspicious?’

  ‘Tell him to bring the book. There won’t be any tricks from my side.’

  ‘Are you promising me that, Mr. Lowther?’

  ‘Hell, Cooperman, you’re on my payroll, not Kurian’s! What are you worried about?’

  ‘It’s no deal unless you’re on the up and up, Mr. Lowther. I don’t have much of a reputation in this business, but I don’t want to get it any more soiled than it is. I’d just as soon be making corned beef sandwiches down at Switzer’s as standing between two fighters who make up the rules as they go along. It’s the only sure way to get maimed, and that’s a word I hate the sound of.’

  ‘Okay, okay! There won’t be any rough stuff. Not in the store. I promise you that.’

  ‘I don’t want any trouble outside either. Think of my reputation.’

  ‘Damn your reputation! You don’t have to pay a cent for the book!’

  ‘If you play some trick on Kurian, you’ll never be able to enjoy quiet possession of the book, Mr. Lowther. It’ll be cheaper in the end to pay up.’

  ‘When I want your counsel, Mr. Cooperman, I’ll ask for it. Now I want you to carry my message to Kurian and set a time for the exchange. The store’s open until ten, I think.’ He hung up without another uncivil word and I started looking for my shoes.

  Chapter Nine

  There was a large ambulance parked in front of the Brunswick House when I crossed Bloor Street. The word was printed backwards on the front so that it could be read by anyone who happened to be looking in a mirror at the time. The double doors at the back stood open, but nobody was hanging around except for a panhandler with a brush cut. He looked like he’d been driven out of an officer’s training camp. He even had a knapsack slung over one shoulder. I didn’t check to see if there was a swagger stick inside.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked him, dropping a loonie into his hand.

  ‘Guy got beat up in the hotel,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, Fergie, one of the waiters, just told me. They’re bringing him down the stairs.’

  ‘Was it a fight in the beverage room?’

  ‘Nobody says "beverage room’’ any more, fellah. Get with it.’

  ‘Who got hurt?’

 
; ‘An old Irish gaffer on the third floor. I seen him around, you know. I know the guy Fergie means. I seen him here before.’

  ‘What happened? What did Fergie say?’ I asked, feeling ice in my stomach.

  ‘He just got himself beat up, that’s what happened. Can you imagine beating up a guy like that? I remember when they blew up a gambler down Bay Street one time. Now I could see that. But this guy? What’s the world coming to?’

  Inside the pub, I got the same information again from Fergie, the waiter, without the philosophical reflections. Then as I moved close to the newel post, I caught a glimpse of the stretcher being carried downstairs. Kurian’s head was uncovered. That was the first thing I looked for. The face was deathly white, with blood on his forehead, but it was him all right. There was no doubt about that. I caught the coattail of the third man in white, the one who wasn’t carrying the stretcher. When he looked around, I fired about five questions at him all at once. I wasn’t as calm as I like to think I am in emergencies. All I found out was that he was unconscious from being battered about the head. Nobody saw what happened. He’d been found by the housekeeper.

  ‘But he’s still breathing?’

  ‘Oh sure. Unless he’s in a coma from skull damage, he’ll come out all right. You should have seen the guy we picked up this morning in High Park! Now, he won’t be on the street again.’

  I watched them put Kurian into the ambulance and close the double doors before driving off in the direction of Toronto Western Hospital. It was like the Late Nite News on a Buffalo station.

  I phoned Sergeant Pepper from a pay booth at the corner and left a message about Kurian. On balance, I figured that he should know. Then I walked along Bloor to Spadina, trying to think what my next step should be. Something must have been prodding my brain from the inside, because it made my body walk south on Spadina without giving me a hint what it had in mind. Then I remembered: Father Campbell of the Basilian Fathers.

  The Father Fort, as Kurian had said Father Campbell referred to his refuge, was a grey, stucco building set back from the street a few doors north of Harbord. It looked like an orphanage in a children’s book, with its great length stretching from the steps right to the end of the lot. Its many small windows assisted the impression of gruel and potatoes eaten at long bare tables. As I walked up to the door, a squirrel ran up my leg looking for a handout. I was apologizing to him and almost turning out my pockets when a priest in an old-fashioned cassock got off his bicycle ahead of me. The hem of the black skirt was caught in the bicycle chain. From him, for a little help, I got some information and a palm covered in three-in-one oil.

  ‘Come in,’ said the voice behind the door I found at the end of my instructions. The stairs were dark and the corridors dull and grey with doors so uniform they looked stamped out of a mould. ‘Come in!’ The tone suggested that he already knew who I was and wanted to get the interview over with as quickly as possible. I walked into a simple, celllike room with a desk, a chair and a narrow bed. In the bed lay an old man.

  ‘Are you Father Campbell?’

  ‘I am. And who might you be? I was expecting Father Quinlan with my tea. There’s a chair,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t get up.’ I pulled the chair over towards the bed and tried to sum up the old man in the bed. He looked like that Irish actor with the testy, expressive mouth, who plays bishops and parish priests in the movies. He was wearing striped pyjamas of a secular design with no distinguishing collar, Roman or otherwise. He looked hot and uncomfortable, with creases in the sheets under him. It was a round, unlined, almost un-lived-in face, surrounded by wisps of white hair that spread out on the pillows he was propped up on.

  ‘To what do I owe this visit?’ he said with a guarded smile.

  ‘My name is Cooperman,’ I said, and told him I was a friend of his friend Kurian. He nodded to show he was weighing all I said. He reached for a yellow tin of tobacco and a package of papers. Slowly he rolled himself a cigarette without taking his eyes off my face. I watched until he had lighted up with a wooden kitchen match that seemed to go with the whole kit. I put a Hall’s in my mouth when he blew smoke at the brown spot above his bed on the ceiling. I tried to figure out how sick he was from the bottles on the small bedside table. I didn’t want to upset an already dying man with news of the accident that had just befallen his friend. He was studying me at the same time; I felt like I had holes in my knees. He had a fleck of tobacco stuck to his dry upper lip.

  ‘The old goat said he’d come to play chess with me this week. But he forgot. Forgot an old man confined to his bed, and who’s to know if I’ll ever get out of it? Are you a chess player by any chance, Mr. Cooperman? He shouldn’t have given his promise, if he wasn’t going to keep it,’ he added as an afterthought. I told him that I could move the pieces around the board. He liked that. He thought it was modesty hiding the cunning of a master, whereas it was a simple statement of fact. Father Campbell lifted himself up on his elbows and pointed to a cupboard where I found a battered wooden board and a basswood box of pieces shiny with finger-wax. I set up both sides on the table, sweeping away the bottles and glasses of the sickroom.

  ‘Are you sure that you should be playing?’

  ‘What? Afraid I’ll die on your hands? Think no more about it. We’ve all got so long and not a moment longer. So don’t waste any of it.’ He said this with the cigarette dangling from his lips, looking for all the world like a dealer in a gin-mill. He held out two knobbly fists: I picked the one with the white pawn, which gave me the advantage of the first move. To make a long story short, he took me two games in a row. I didn’t want to gang up on the poor old geezer since he was laid low and all.

  ‘You don’t get much practice, Mr. Cooperman, but I admire the way you fianchettoed your bishop in the last game. It’s coming back to you. All it takes is practice.’

  While we were at play, a lean priest brought in a tea tray for Father Campbell. He looked confused when he saw me, but then promptly fetched another cup and saucer. At the Father Fort, they believed in cups and saucers for tea, not mugs. When he got back, the priest was introduced as Father Tom Quinlan, and the game continued along the path to fresh disasters. Father Campbell’s moves were deft and abrupt. Beneath heavy eyebrows there was a wicked twinkle in his bright blue eyes. Then he crossed his arms over his narrow chest and waited for me to step into the quicksands he had been uncovering. While I pondered the board, he ate seven of the nine digestive biscuits on the glass plate. I was getting more and more curious about what ailed the old man.

  At the end of the third game--a game in which he gave me move and pawn--I began to see him weakening. He beat me handily as usual, but he’d lost the killer instinct. His attention was wandering.

  ‘Well, now, that sweeps the cobwebs off the mind, does it not? You have the makings of an excellent player, Mr. Cooperman, but I can see that your mind isn’t on chess, now, is it? Is there something about our friend that you want to tell me? Dear me, I know he’s used to being in scrapes. What’s happened?’

  ‘Your friend Kurian--or Michael, as I suppose you know him--gave you a package for safe-keeping. I’ve come to get it from you.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Mr. Cooperman, that you are wasting your time. Even if what you say is true, I should never...’

  ‘Father, Michael was beaten up a short time ago by men who want that package. He’s in hospital. I don’t know whether they made him talk before he lost consciousness. If he told them, they will be on their way here. Father, Michael can no longer protect you. By holding on to the package, you are running a risk that wasn’t part of the bargain he made with you. I won’t pretend that Michael wanted me to have the parcel; I’d be lying if I did. The only way to save the thing for Michael is to give it to me. I’ll promise it won’t fall into the hands of those who beat up your friend. You’ll be taking a flyer giving it to me, but it’s the only way to keep to the spirit of what he asked you to do.’

  ‘Unconscious, you say? Which hospital? I kne
w it would come to this.’

  ‘When I’ve hidden the package, I’ve got to see him. I’ll tell him what I’ve made you do. I think he will approve, but that’s my opinion. I don’t think he’d want you to hazard your health on his account. Especially now.’

  ‘Now? Now? Oh, you mean this bout of fever? Hoots! It’s nothing. I forgot to take my pills again, that’s all. It’s the revenge of a long-dead anopheles mosquito. I remember slapping her under the netting, just after she’s jabbed her nasty proboscis between the cells of my forearm. Uganda, 1971. But that’s another matter. Have you any idea how badly Mike was beaten?’

  ‘Bad enough. I don’t think they were trying to kill him. Their object was to locate the book. So in case he was forced to tell, and he did give your name--under duress, as you understand--I’d better take the thing away from here as quickly as possible.’

  ‘How do I know you aren’t one of them?’

  ‘You don’t. That’s a chance you’ll have to take.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, pulling at his chin and then prying cookie crumbs from his front teeth with the longest fingernail I’d ever seen outside a rug auction. ‘I see. Well, I suppose you’d better take it then. But I don’t see how that protects me, if that is your concern really. They could make me give them your name.’

  ‘But that’s just what I want you to do. I want them to know I’ve got it. That’s the only way to bring them out into the open. As for the heat, I’m getting used to that. I don’t think they’ll try any more muscle. They’ll be diplomatic. Under the circumstances, it’s their only move.’

  ‘Well, take the damned thing then and be off with you. I don’t want to know where you’re going. I’ll make my own inquiries about Mike. Don’t try to get information back to me. I have the numbers of all hospitals of all kinds in my book, unfortunately. Well, what are you waiting for? You’d better go!’

  ‘You haven’t told me were it is yet.’