A City Called July (9 page)

At school, Alex used to make the announcements for the sports department at the end of the weekly assembly. He spoke in a voice that was down-to-earth, shy and precise all at once. He was one of the people you remembered from school-days. And now I could hear him coming to the door of his bungalow.

He looked sleepy and puffy. His unshaven face looked at me through the screen with suspicion. “Yes? What is it?”

“Alex, I’m Benny Cooperman. I was at the Collegiate with you. I remember you were on the hockey team and played lacrosse for the city.” I could feel that my knowing who he was wasn’t helping him figure out who I was. He let a suggestion of a smile work away at the left side of his mouth. It gave him pleasure to be reminded about those days.

“Come in,” he said, showing me no sign of recognition, but holding the door open so that I could get into the house under his arm. The front room was furnished in a matching wine living-room suite. The rug was a round hooked one and it covered linoleum that imitated the lines of a hardwood floor. The TV set was running. “Make yourself comfortable.” I found the couch. The ancient springs let me slide down through the pillow so that I was sitting scarcely two inches off the floor. With my back to the light I could see Alex better. “I remember you,” he said, pulling out a package of cigarettes and waving them in my direction. I leaned over and took one, lighted it and his, then settled back into the wine-dark couch again. “You used to be in plays. Right? You went on and became a doctor, right?”

“That’s Sam, my brother. But I was in plays too. We both were. Did you see
The Merchant of Venice?”

“Sure. You were Shylock.”

“No, that was Sam. I was Old Gobbo.”

“Who? I don’t …”

“It’s the character part. Some funny lines. An old clown.”

“That’s right, you grabbed the hair on the back of your son’s head and said what a beard he’s grown.”

“I was supposed to be blind. That’s right. You remember.”

Alex had relaxed completely, and soon we were doing “Whatever happened to” games, taking turns and finding out that Mary Taaffe had married Bill Inkle and Fred Cameron was practically running the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa. Finally, I purposely let myself run out of gas so that I could get on with the business of my visit. I told him what I’d been doing since I graduated and that led through my professional snooping to the present snoop.

“So you want to know about the Gellers from me?”

“Could I come to a better source? Your family has been tangled up with the Gellers since we were kids, and from what I hear, your side hasn’t won all of the marbles.”

“I got to think about that.” He got up and looked out the window for a minute. I tried to imagine his father out in the back hoeing. “My old man’s been through the meat-grinder, Benny. I just got him back from Woodgreen two weeks ago. D.r Hodgins said that his system can’t take much more abuse. He’s always been a terrible drinker ever since I was a kid. It probably killed my mother. When he came to Grantham from Noranda he couldn’t speak a word of English, but he could carry a mule on his back without even breathing hard. He was an unskilled construction worker when he met Sid Geller. The two of them started a business that’s got millions of dollars worth of contracts today. You can’t drive a mile in any direction in this town without running into a sign reading “Bolduc.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious of Sid Geller. It may be my old man’s name up there, but the money’s Geller’s. Papa doesn’t own one cent on paper. Sure, he gets handouts. He’ll never starve. There’ll always be a place for him is long as there’s a shack in the Bolduc yard. He helps out. He draws a wage when he’s working. He knows that yard like I know the Ingram Papermill where I work. I know how he feels because I was dangled on waivers for three years by the Buffalo team. They said it was all settled, but I never even got to dress for Buffalo or any other big league team.

“Papa’s a mess today. But I guess he made most of it himself. Geller was the business head of the outfit, and the old man only ran the yard. After he hit the bottle, he didn’t even run that for more than a few days at a time. You couldn’t depend on him.”

“Did Geller get any help from anyone beside your father?”

“Sure. His family had some money. I know that. More than we had anyway. Geller never lived with a Quebec heater in a tar-paper shack.”

“Apart from that?”

“He got backing from Glenn Bagot. You know, he was in cement. Used to make concrete pipe down in one of the locks of the old canal. Bagot had a lot of good connections at Queen’s Park in Toronto. They used to say that everything he touched turned to gold.”

“Glenn Bagot? The name sounds familiar.”

“Sure it does. Bagot Street off Welland. The Bagot Block on St. Andrew Street. They’re old Grantham; go back to the first settlers in the peninsula. United Empire Loyalists. That sort of thing. Glenn got into highway construction, helped put the new highway through to Fort Erie.”

“When you say he’s well connected at Queen’s Park, you mean he has a fix in with the provincial government?”

“There are a few people in this province that the government doesn’t burp without consulting. Bagot’s one of them. Call him a bagman, call him an influential lobbyist. He has friends in all the right high places.”

“And he took an interest in Geller when he was just getting started?”

“And he’s stayed interested. Even after Bagot’s wife left him and started going around with Sid.”

“Is that Pia Morley? Drives an Audi?”

“Morley’s her first husband’s name. When I knew her she was Pia Antonioni. I always called her Toni.”

“But you’d think that trading wives would have soured the business arrangements, wouldn’t you?”

“Some people have more respect for business than I have. I do my shift at the mill and I’m glad to get back here. My wife’s a nurse over at the General. We mind our business.”

“You seem to know a lot about Glenn Bagot and his connections.”

“It’s the old game of ‘There, but for the grace of God …’”

“Tell me more about Pia Morley. Did she come between Geller and his first wife?”

“Hell, no. That was over years ago. No, Sid was a sitting duck when Pia came along. And she brought connections of her own.”

“Relatives to be supported?”

“Not on your life. Pia has no relatives as far as I know. She’s as close to a self-made woman as I’ve ever met. No. Her connections are with the leading edges of organized crime. She has friends who try to put their money into legitimate businesses.”

“There’s a lot of that going round.”

“Because it works. Pia counts among her pals Tony Pritchett and his English mob.”

“Anthony Horne Pritchett. Our paths have crossed before.”

“Then you know he’s nobody to fool around with.”

“What do you know about Sid’s brother, the lawyer?”

“I thought you’d get around to him. I don’t know him at all. I admire him, though. Taking those people for a ride like that. Incredible. Over two million. And tax free, Benny, tax free.”

We both thought about all of that free money and how it would look on us for a few minutes. I tried to imagine a life away from the City House, with a bedspread without cigarette burns in it and the sound of the rock ’n’ roll band downstairs on Friday and Saturday nights. Alex looked at his watch, one of those big things that tells you the time in six different directions. I pulled myself out of the wine velvet couch and found my legs had turned to synthetic rubber. Alex walked me to the door and held it open for me. The old man had worked his way around to the front. Together we watched him pulling off the dry dead blooms from a bed of petunias. Alex shook my hand and I’d started to turn away when a last question slipped into place.

“By the way, Alex, you said that Pia Morley was as close to a self-made woman as you’d ever met. When would that have been?”

“That I met her? Oh, Benny, that’s sludge under the trestle. We used to go together when I was playing for the Grantham Ospreys. You could say we used to be room-mates.”

EIGHT

“What is it Kogan? For crying out loud, don’t just stand there hanging in the doorway. Come in and sit down.” Kogan didn’t move. Kogan didn’t look like he enjoyed being up on the second floor, twenty-eight steps from the solid comfort of the street. He was still wearing his grey flannels and blazer with his army discharge pin in the lapel. He looked at my door, trying to read something in my sign that would make it easier. “Come in, Kogan. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

“Look, Mr. Cooperman, I don’t want to break into anything. I just thought …” All this from the doorway, like he could smell something unpleasant under my desk, when in fact it was Kogan who smelled like a three-day-old tuna sandwich in August.

“If you’re coming in, let’s get on with it. If you’re not coming in shut the door gently and see you around.” Kogan thought a moment, looked at a space about a foot above my head, then closed the door behind him. I got up, rushed around my desk and caught him halfway down the stairs. “Kogan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got carried away by the impulse to share some of the frustration I’ve been collecting. What’s up? You broke?”

“It ain’t that, Mr. Cooperman. Hell, I’m always broke. Shit, you know that. That’s no secret.” He wedged his way around so that he faced me. The light behind him coming up from St. Andrew Street blanked out his large, leathery face I leaned against the stair railing, then slid into a hunkering position as we talked.

“I know that. You’ve had bad luck for a long time now.”

“You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. That’s a fact. I’ve been down since we got out of the army. Must be twenty years.”

“More like forty. The war was over in forty-five. What can I do for you?” Kogan pulled at the non-existent creases in his trousers and sat down on the steps looking up at me. The light gave his messy hair a halo that needed reblocking. It also picked out highlights on the brass stripping at the top of each step, and the marks on the wall where heavy objects had squeaked by.

“You know Wally? Wally Moore? Me and him’s been buddies since we won the war together over in France. I met him first in the lock-up out Niagara Street one winter. You’ve seen him around. A little guy, with a wide gait and a bamboo cane like Charlie Chaplin?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve seen him around for years. What’s he got up to?”

“Old Wally’s been a good friend of mine for a lot of years. We used to do a lot of drinking together.”

“I’ll bet. What’s he got into?”

“Wally—I call him Wally: his right name’s Bamfylde. How j’ah like that? Bamfylde! Hot shit. Isn’t that sumpin’?”

“What are you worried about, Kogan? You came here to tell me something, didn’t you?” The answer to that question had to wait for one of Dr. Bushmill’s patients to pass us on her way down the stairs. I watched her go, bouncing down each step a little light on her left foot. Corns. Maybe.

“Estelle Kramer,” Kogan announced when the air-brake settled the door back in place.

“What?”

“That was Estelle Kramer. You know Otto Kramer’s wife? Butcher on James Street?”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“Not a thing. Just practising. In my position you have to know people. Can’t depend on looks alone. Otto’s given Wally and me a Christmas bird more than once. Stringy, you know, but tasty.”

“Kogan. Go to hell! You’re never going to come to the point and I’m going back to my office where I can get rid of the cramp in my shin.” I got up and went limping back behind my desk. I didn’t slam the door, but I felt like it. In a minute he was standing like Samson between the pillars in my doorway again.

“Wally’s got a lot more class than you think, Mr. Cooperman.”

“What makes you think I’ve thought about it?” I was doodling the names of the people I’d been talking to up at the Gellers’ place on a block of yellow legal-sized foolscap. I could still see Kogan holding up the doorframe.

“He could be in a lot of trouble. And you don’t even give a damn.”

“Sure I give a damn. But his pal won’t tell me what it’s all about. He’s waiting for me to read all about it in my Christmas stocking or something. His old buddy won’t give me any hints. He wants me to work it out like Sherlock Holmes from the nicks on your Adam’s apple.”

“Okay, I understand. I just had to be sure I came to the right place. I gotta be careful like. Wally’s the only buddy I ever had. The best pal I could want. Now he’s nowhere.”

“How do you mean, ‘nowhere’?”

“We had a shack behind Maple Street. Wally used to have a popcorn wagon back there, but the kids smashed it all to smithereens. But we had a decent kip: blankets and a sleeping-bag. It beat sleeping in doorways. Even sleeping here in the hall along by the bathroom. You should get that toilet fixed. It runs all night.”

“I’ll mention it to the landlord. He’ll appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it. I mean, sure, tell him. By ‘don’t mention it’ I meant ‘you’re welcome.’”

“Kogan, do you think you can stay on the subject of your pal for a minute without a side-trip? Try it. We are talking about your pal Wally Bamfylde Moore. Get on with it.”

“Well, it’s just he ain’t been around for a couple o’ days. He’s gone. Like that Geller guy on Queen Street. Only Wally didn’t have more than maybe twenty-five dollars tops.”

“Maybe he’s found another kip? Maybe he’s found a nice park bench to sleep on during these warm nights. He’ll turn up.

“Cooperman, you’re a shit-heel. You know what that is? You’re a real poop-and-scoop artist, that’s what you are. I told you Wally and me’ve been together. You know what that means? I know Wally, and I know what he’s going to do from Monday to Sunday. He’s a shrewd character, but habit-ridden. You know what I mean? He sometimes sleeps near his pitch, but he tells me first.”

“I’m sorry, Kogan. I didn’t mean to be flip. I apologize.” Kogan made a pass at his nose with his fingers, squeezed the bridge of his nose like a bank president, then blinked trying to pick up the thread of the story again. “Kogan, what’s your first name? I can’t keep calling you Kogan.”

“Give me a minute,” he said, squinting hard. “Victor.”