A City Called July (24 page)

“Were your friends telling you the bad news?” I asked.

“What kind bad news? I don’t need no more bad news. First Mr. Sid’s one brother goes away, den his udder brother gets hisself killed. That’s too much for one small town.”

“And they told you about the panhandler? Wally? From the building site?”

“Oh, dat’s what dat was hall about. Dey say somebody get stab. I been drinkin’ too much, me. Found him in the park. Dat’s bad business. I don’ like.”

“Mr. Bolduc, I had a long talk with Alex earlier. He’s worried about you.”

“Me? Whyfor should he worry ’bout me?”

“Because you’re frightened of something. What is it?”

“I’m not scare of anyt’ing. What you mean, mister?”

“I can tell when a man is frightened, Mr. Bolduc. And you are a frightened man. You’re worried about Alex …”

“Sure, dat’s hit. I’m worry about Alex.” He looked a little relieved. But I spoiled it.

“… but I know that’s not all you’ve got on your mind. I was telling Alex a little while ago that secrets can make deadly company. Look what happened to your friend, Wally. He knew a secret and now he’s going to keep it until the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” I was running away with myself. I think I heard the words on an LP somewhere, something with music, but I could see they were shaking old Luc up a bit. That or the booze.

“Wally saw something happen, he kept it to himself, now he’s dead. You saw something happen. You know something about the footings in that excavation. Don’t deny it. I know you know there’s something in the cement that shouldn’t be there.”

“Stop the car! I gotta walk! I gotta t’ink!” I did what I was told both because I was told and also because we had arrived in front of Alex’s small bungalow on Nelson Street.

“Here we are,” I said, leaning across to open the door for the old man. But he just sat there, like I’d clubbed him with a gunny sack of wet sand.

He didn’t speak for a long time. Finally he looked across at me and in an almost childish voice he asked, “You know about dis t’ing too, mister?” I nodded slowly. Again he didn’t speak for a minute. Finally: “Alex not do this. I know he not do this.”

“I believe you, Mr. Bolduc. But you must tell me why you think people might think Alex did this bad thing.”

“Because on the phone I hear him talk to a very bad man. I know dis man for many years. And I know he only trouble for my family.”

“And you heard Alex talking to this man?” Now it was Bolduc’s turn to nod. And I nodded my understanding. And we sat for a long moment.

“Is this man Tony Pritchett, Mr. Bolduc? The one who talked to your boy?”

There were tears in the old man’s eyes, when he raised his face to look at mine. “Yes,” he said. “That is the man.”

TWENTY

I felt silly eating Martha’s toast and jam the following morning. What was I afraid of? Wasn’t I drinking beer with Pia’s boy-friend last night? What did I have to fear from Pia’s other friends? Then I remembered the ride in the trunk of that car. Martha had a good assortment of jams and marmalades. We had exchanged a silent greeting an hour ago when she stepped out of the bathroom, leaving the mirror steamed up and loose dental floss in the hairbrush. I didn’t mention any of these things, but I began to ruminate about them as I got a slap in the face from the errant leg of a pair of pantyhose thrown over the shower-curtain rod. I had a brisk shower and felt the better for it. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Martha was on her way to work.

I put myself together, even got rid of some of the mud on my shoes, and drove to the office. I still had a feeling that using my regular parking place was a mistake, so I pulled into the lot next to the Diana Sweets, paid for a day’s parking, and went into the Di and ordered coffee. I didn’t know the crowd at the counter here as well as the gang at the United Cigar Store. It was half the legal profession in town on their way to or from the court-house. Ray Thornton smiled at me from the other end of the counter. I hadn’t seen him since that business in Algonquin Park was cleared up last year. The smile told me we were still speaking to one another. That was the first good news of the day. I was thinking of moving my coffee down to see if he had any legitimate work to throw my way, when Joyce See pushed a cup to the spot next to me.

“Hi, there. Good-morning. “She looked fresh and trim, ready to do battle with crown grants, easements and bars of dower rights down at the Registry Office.

“Good-morning,” I said, trying to think of a dozen things I’d forgotten to ask her at our last meeting. She settled in beside me resting a large briefcase next to her feet. She was wearing light leather sandals.

“Is this all you eat for breakfast? You’re courting an early grave, Mr. Cooperman.”

“Please. Call me Benny. But don’t you start on my eating habits, Joyce. I got a lecture from Grantham’s finest yesterday.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude, Benny.”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. I take my not taking food seriously seriously. I had toast and jam before I came downtown.”

“I jumped to a conclusion. I’ll make a bad trial lawyer at this rate.”

“Is that what you want to be?”

“Naturally. Conveyancing properties will make an old woman of me if I keep at it. There’s more fun in law than you find in the Registry Office.”

“I want to thank you for the information you gave me on Friday. It helped.”

“Good. I hope you find him.”

“Thanks. Joyce, what kind of check is there on what the provincial government spends on, say, highways and other public works?” Joyce took a sip of her tea then set the cup down in the saucer before she spoke.

“You must be thinking of the Public Accounts Committee of the legislature. Is that what you mean?”

“I don’t know yet. Keep going.”

“The committee plays watchdog on all government spending. Makes sure that there are no crooked deals and that everything is both fair and looks fair on paper.”

“And is that how it works? No corruption in high places?”

“Less than some high places I could name. But the committee operates under rigid guidelines, which are well known. So that a government department, knowing that contracts above a certain amount have to be put up for tendered bids, sometimes divides the contracts up into smaller separate contracts and that way avoids the committee altogether.”

“You mean they pass on small contracts without looking at them?”

“Oh, no. But they are looking for different things. You still can’t let your brother-in-law have a contract and not hear about it. If you’re found out, it hurts you, it hurts the party, and everybody remembers at election time.”

“I see.” I’d finished my coffee, and I could see that Joyce had put down her tea for the last time. “Thanks, Joyce. I’m beginning to understand things.”

“I should start charging you,” she said with a smile as she got up and hefted her briefcase.

“Just think of yourself as part of my vast network of operatives.”

“Will that pay the rent?” she asked as she turned to leave.

Ten minutes later I’d climbed up the twenty-eight steps leading to my office. The toilet was running as usual. Frank Bushmill’s waiting-room was filling up, and Kogan was waiting for me in front of my locked office door.

“No wonder you can’t afford me on your payroll. You can’t call these office hours?”

“Kogan, you’re breaking my back. Cut out the cracks.”

“I just came to report, chief.” If he’d saluted, I would have thrown him downstairs. Instead he looked earnest while I opened the office door and collected the morning mail from the floor. Nothing of interest except the bills my past is measured in. I threw the junk into a pile of older junk and sat down. Kogan sat in the client’s chair, pinching the imaginary creases in his trousers as usual as he settled.

“Well,” I asked, “what have you got?” Kogan leaned over towards me.

“I found that guy Blasko I was telling you about. The Hungarian.”

“Yeah, I remember. They were in the park.”

“The other’s named Frank Secker. The tall one with the beard.”

“And what did they have to say for themselves?”

“Nothing. They wouldn’t say nothing to start with.”

“Come to the bottom line. Forget the subtotals.”

“Well, after I went back a second time, and told them how Wally was my buddy and how we went through the war together and all.

“What did they admit finally, Kogan?”

“Blasko wouldn’t admit anything. He …”

“And Secker?”

“Finally, he admitted that he and Blasko had moved the body outside so that the cops would find it.”

“Outside? Where did they find it?”

“It was in the cellar under the pavilion in Montecello Park. They went in to kip and they found Wally. At first they ignored him, but when he was still lying there when they came back the next night, they found they couldn’t wake him up. They were afraid to get involved with the police, so they waited until around eleven then carried him to the bench where he was found.”

“Cops were on the job. They found him an hour later.”

“Probably thought he was sleeping.”

“You’re a cynic, Kogan. Tell me, when did Secker say he and his pal first came across Wally?”

“They don’t know the exact time. Neither carries a watch. But they think it was between nine and ten on Wednesday night.”

“So they didn’t suspect anything when he was still there in the morning, but when they came back the second time and he hadn’t moved, they investigated.”

“I just said that.”

“I’m just getting things straight in my head. What else did you learn from Secker?”

“They described you hanging around in the park yesterday.”

“What else that is useful, I mean.”

“I told you everything.”

“Try again.”

“Okay, they took forty bucks off him before they carried him outside. They’re entitled. Even if I was Wally’s sole heir, I figure they had it coming. Wally didn’t need it.”

“Did you know that Wally knew about the cellar under the pavilion?”

“Come on, Mr. Cooperman. Everybody in town knows about that place. It’s shelter, dry and away from the wind. If it gets a little high in the summer, it’s only because the school kids use it as a bathroom. None of the guys sleeping rough use it as a john.”

“Are you surprised to hear that Wally was probably killed in there?”

“First of all, I ask myself, who’d want to kill old Wally in the first place.”

“Kogan, I know. Try to answer the question.” I was losing patience again, and Kogan was squirming because he had trouble doing anything in a straight line. He thought a minute.

“I never went there with him. I never heard of Wally going there. Wally didn’t like the smell and I don’t blame him.”

“And you knew nothing about the forty dollars.”

“Hell no. And he had fifty the day before. He hadn’t had a wad like that in ten years. Not since we found a bunch of arrowheads and told a guy up at Secord University. He gave us a hundred dollars to split. Found them at the bottom of the escarpment near DeCew Falls, framed and mounted in a glass case, but we took ’em out and …”

“Never mind about that. Do you remember telling me about Wally getting that fifty from Ruth Geller? Wally told you on Tuesday.”

“Yeah, we’d just cut into a can of …”

“Forget the cat food. Try to remember what Wally said.”

“He said … Hell, Mr. Cooperman, I told you once. I don’t remember any more. Just that we were coming into money. He mentioned this Queen Street lawyer’s wife. The one who’s disappeared. Not the wife, I mean the lawyer.”

“Kogan, you’ve been a lot of help.”

“And I don’t care about the forty bucks those guys ripped off. I mean, they found it, didn’t they?”

“Kogan, you’ve got the heart of a capitalist under that necktie somewhere.”

“Of course I have. You think I’m some sort of Commie bum?”

“Get out of here, if you want me to hold on to my sanity.”

Kogan got up and walked to the door. Here he turned and asked, “You got any more assignments for me, chief?” I threw an outdated copy of the Pocket Criminal Code at him but missed.

TWENTY-ONE

Pia Morley’s apartment was in a high-rise at the north end of James Street. In Grantham, a high-rise is anything over five storeys. This had eight and I pushed the button that carried me up to the penthouse. If the word penthouse once meant something special, I couldn’t read it in the layout of Pia’s place. It looked like every other apartment I’ve ever seen in Grantham: the usual low ceilings and galley kitchen. I suspected that there wasn’t much room to entertain in the bathroom. There were compensations however: the balcony space looked generous and I counted lots of doors leading somewhere. Even if half of them were closets, it was a bargain. As soon as I saw the furniture in the living-room, I knew it was going to be tough going back to either one of my rented rooms.

Pia let me in when I rang from below and got the door when the elevator deposited me. She was wearing a velvet housecoat that looked tied with a belt but probably wasn’t. She motioned me to the chair that had flowers embroidered on a blue background. It was like sitting on a work of art. She settled into a generous couch with a large floral pattern. Behind her on the wall were framed pictures of classical building façades. There were three on each side of the fake fireplace, one above the other. The gilt mirror with an eagle on top gave the final blow. This was a very interior-decorated room. And when I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine Pia giving the required time to swatches of fabric and patches of paint. I wondered whether she could even give me the name of the chocolate-bar colour of the walls. I’d seen brown walls in a garage once, but never in a fancy apartment.

No sooner had she sat down than she was up again getting me a rye and water, weak on the rye and heavy on the water. She poured a mineral water for herself and sipped a Grand Marnier on the side. She sat down again and lit a cigarette with the piece of evidence Alex said he had removed from the scene of the crime. I didn’t know where to start, but I was getting used to that. I never seemed to have a list of questions percolating in my head. I knew that a couple of hot tap-water questions would hit me as the interview got going. I hoped.