A City Called July (3 page)

“So it’s no secret, then?” Pete’s face split into a smile that showed me more of his mouth than I wanted to see just then.

“Oh, the
Beacon
hasn’t tumbled to it yet, but that’ll happen tomorrow or the day after. It’s no secret at Niagara Regional.” He took another messy bite of the cheeseburger. He was looking at me with an indulgent smile drawn over his working jaw. “They get you in to try to keep it quiet? No way, Ben. I know this isn’t going to make anybody look too smart, and nobody wants that kind of publicity. But we aren’t in the publicity business. We don’t get it for you when you want it, and we don’t stop it when it comes looking for you.”

“I’m glad you heard me out, Pete. You know, a lot of guys would have jumped to the conclusion that I’d been retained to hush something up.” I tried to look indignant. Pete took another bite of his cheeseburger. We continued to banter and eat.

“And don’t give me that crap about your even-handed righteousness. When was the last time the sitting member got his name in the paper for driving while impaired?” Pete looked at his plate. “Since you ask,” I said after swallowing, “I’ve been retained to look into this business, not put the cork in it.’

“For the Jewish community?”

“Right.” He smiled like he’d been right all along. “Okay, okay,” I admitted, “naturally they don’t want publicity. Nobody wants to look stupid or have a trusted member of the community exposed as a crook. They’d rather see their money back, but I guess you know the odds on that better than I do. You taking bets?”

“Not on that. Geller’s made the cleanest flit I’ve seen since the carnies stopped coming to town. As closely as we can figure it he got away with two point six million. Money like that can inspire a lot of careful detail work. As far as I can see, he’s free and clear. Unless he does some quarter-baked trick like leaving a trail of credit card receipts, or signing his real name on hotel registers. But he’s not going to do that. Hell, he’s smooth as pus.”

“I’m talking to the right guy, aren’t I?”

“That’s no secret. Yeah, I started the file nine days ago. There’s a lot of this stuff going around, Benny. Your guy isn’t breaking any new ground. There are a couple of cases in Hamilton just like it, and half a dozen in Toronto. The Law Society has hired an ex-Toronto Metro cop to run interference for them. There are so many lawyers with their hands in the till there isn’t room for money. Funds held in trust are the first place hit when the economy takes a downward spiral. Where else is a lawyer going to get his hands on fast free money. For most it’s only a temporary measure, a stop-gap.”

“You sound like they’re all doing it.”

“I just got carried away. There’s always an element. The rotten apple. I mean, look: it’s very tempting. A sweet old widow comes up to you with thirty or forty thousand and asks you to pay off her mortgage. You hand her a phony discharge of mortgage and tell the mortgagee that you’ll be making monthly payments on behalf of your client.”

“So that’s how it’s done.”

“One of the ways. You get to use the money at the cost of the mortgage payments. Now multiply that fifty or sixty times and you quickly come to the point where you’re running around so fast covering yourself that you don’t have any time for the good life you thought you were buying. Pretty soon you have to make the big flit.”

“So off you go to find him in Florida and Nassau?”

“I do my finding here. We’ve got out a Canada-wide warrant for Geller. We’ve got Interpol notified. And I’m sitting near the phone. What more can I do? The world’s his oyster. He’s not going to look up old friends in all the old familiar places. Geller’s smart. He could be at the next table or he could be anywhere in the world where a dollar makes you top dog. Oh, Geller’s cute as a tick.” Pete finished off his cheeseburger, which he had been neglecting, with three massive bites. Coffee had arrived and I spooned in two large helpings of sugar then watched the cream marble the dark surface of my cup.

“Have you seen his family?”

“Wife and a son and daughter. That wasn’t much fun.”

“On the up and up?”

“She reported him missing.”

“All by herself and out of the blue?”

“We were following up a complaint from one of the old-timers about him not making mortgage payments on time. Kaplan, a farmer from out in Louth township. He must be a free-thinker or something, because he didn’t go to the rabbi first. He phoned us as soon as he smelled something funny, and that’s when we started looking for him. At first Geller’s wife just said he wasn’t in. Then I put on my best Department manners and she broke down saying she didn’t know where he was and would be happy to see him again herself.”

“Sounds up and up. You buying it?”

“Nobody could act that befuddled. I mean, she was completely out of it. She needed both kids and her sister-in-law to calm her down. She understands the operations of high finance the way I understand Chinese. I feel sorry for the lot of them. They don’t know where they stand. She couldn’t even tell me whether the house was in her name or in his. I hope he at least left her that much, because they won’t leave a shingle or keyhole if he didn’t.

Creditors are going to settle on that house like locust on ripe corn.”

“Mortgage Hill, I’ll bet.”

“Give the peeper a chocolate mouse; 222 Burgoyne Boulevard. Between an alderman and the president of Secord University. We don’t live right, Benny. You still at the hotel?”

“Sure. They don’t bother me. The sheets are clean, and the music quits at midnight sharp.”

“You’ll settle down one day. There’s a cunning skirt with your name on it heading your way. She’ll get you same as Shelley got me. Don t fight it. I never had it so good.”

“Stop selling. I haven’t got time to settle down yet. How can I support a wife on what I make? A well-fixed private investigator is as rare as a wealthy panhandler.”

“Maybe you’re too honest. Thought of that?”

“Yeah, I’m not sharp enough to be crooked. Take this guy Geller. A scam like his took planning. No smash and grab. Dealing in mortgages, bonds, investments, stuff like that, and not keeping a record in your books. It’s easy to step into your own traps.”

“You don’t give yourself credit, Benny. You’re swifter than you think. Savas and I’ve talked about it.” I was feeling a little warm where my tie was pulled too tight. I put my last sip of coffee in my mouth and let it chill all the way down.

“Well, I’m not fast enough to make a successful villain. I’m not in Geller’s class.”

“I don’t know. A little work and …”

“Go to hell!”

I tried to get the conversation bent back to the subject at hand, but Pete was stubborn sometimes. After all, I wasn’t even offering to pick up his share of the check. But before we even got to the point where I might have arm wrestled him for it, something on his belt had started beeping and that put an end to our conversation.

I walked back to the office slowly thinking about a noisy glad-hander like Geller taking the Jewish community of Grantham for two point six million dollars. Why should a guy like Geller come into money like that, while I pick up nickels and dimes looking through keyholes and tracing people who’ve defaulted on their credit-card debts? How does a guy get the guts to pull off a scam like that? Does he keep up his courage with a vision of himself sipping long cool drinks on some southern marina with white-coated waiters fussing about the tilt of the awning over his table? When was I in Florida last? When was my last long cool drink? Was I going to make enough this month to sustain me through the dog days of summer?

St. Andrew Street was a griddle, frying tires parked along its shadeless curve. Even the awnings in front of the stores seemed to be rationing the amount of shadow they cast. I looked across the road into the window of Cottonland Ltd. to see if I could see Geller’s reflection in the glass laughing at me for getting mixed up in his little gold mine.

THREE

It wasn’t a warm invitation I got from Mrs. Geller, it was more like come if you must, come while the fit is raging and get it over with. Even when I told her that I was acting on a request from the rabbi and the Jewish community, I felt like I was as welcome as an eviction notice. By the time I’d parked the Olds in the circular drive I’d worried the invitation into a “no trespassing” sign and when I heard the sound of chimes exploding on the other side of the uncompromising front door, I was ready for the old heave-ho at the very least. But within five minutes of being admitted and introduced, I had a rye and ginger ale in my hand and was sinking fast into a chintz-covered chair that felt like it had no bottom. There were two Mrs. Gellers in the room, and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out which was the much-abused Mrs. Larry Geller.

This distinction belonged to the frail-looking beauty in a knitted casual suit of burgundy wool. I was able to put a price tag on it and found myself impressed. Those Saturdays helping out in my father’s store had taught me plenty, even if I hardly ever needed to draw upon the lore. She kept nervously brushing a wispy strand of strawberry hair out of her green eyes, and made passes at her drink with a very pretty mouth from time to time. The ice in the glass had melted, and it looked warm and watery in her long curved hand.

“I should explain, Mr. Cooperman, that Debbie is both my sister and my sister-in-law, or I should say former sister-in-law. She was divorced from Larry’s brother Sid … How long is it, Deb? It’s nearly ten years, isn’t it?”

“Ten years, on the nail. Is all of this information important, Mr. Cooperman? Would you like us both to give you a character sketch, or do you pick up that sort of thing from the neighbours?”

“When I can’t get it from the servants,” I said, not much liking the sister.

“Servants?” the sister snorted. “He must mean Bessie. She’s the cleaning woman, Mr. Cooperman, and she comes every Thursday at nine in the morning. Ruth’ll give you her address and phone number so you won’t cut into time she’s being paid for.”

“Deb …!” Ruth Geller said with a whisper of warning in her voice. “It doesn’t make things easier.”

“Sorry, Ruthie. I forgot I was here to lend moral support, not moral outrage. I’ve got my wires crossed. I’m sorry, Mr. Cooperman. This hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

“I understand that. And I’m sorry that I’m here at all. If it helps to blast away at me, feel free. I’m well paid to take verbal abuse.”

Debbie, the sister, was standing with her arms stretched behind her touching an imitation antique table. The light coming through the curtains sent flattering shadows along the topography of her figure. She was taller than her sister, a little fuller, but not so that you missed the sculptured cheekbones or the large dark eyes they set off. “You see, Mr. Cooperman, first we heard that Larry was missing, and then we heard what he is supposed to have done. That’s two shocks for the price of one.”

“Then you know the worst?”

“The worst?” Ruth said with surprise in her voice, and as she said it her hands inexplicably covered her ears.

“I mean, Sergeant Staziak has explained the magnitude of what has happened?”

Debbie abandoned the table and sat in a large wingchair where she could watch both her sister and me. She found a cigarette in a package of Menthols on a coffee-table and flicked it alight with a silver butane lighter. “Please come to the point of your visit, Mr. Cooperman,” she said. “We’ll forgive you a tactful approach. What is it you want to know? I suppose we’d better help if we can, although I don’t like it. We want the bastard’s hide as much as his creditors do.”

“Please, Deb!” It was more than a warning this time. Her voice had hurt in it, and signs that the breaking point wasn’t far over the next hill. I held out my package of Player’s to Ruth. I wanted to do some genuine human act of sympathy before we got to the questions. Ruth shook her head. “We don’t smoke. I mean I don’t. I don’t have to answer for Larry any more.” I put the pack of cigarettes away quickly. I wondered what else I would do that would remind Ruth of her missing husband. “Mr. Cooperman,” she said at length, “you know I’ll be happy to try to help you any way I can.”

Ruth relaxed a little after this speech; her sister pulled menthol-tasting smoke through her cigarette, sending it off towards the sheer curtains, where, according to my mother, it would turn them yellow. I tried reaching for a point of departure, a logical opening question. “Can you give me some idea of the time sequence, Mrs. Geller? When did you see your husband last?”

“Not counting dreams, he means,” said Debbie. “Remember the boy being interrogated in that old story? ‘When did you see your father last?’ That bit?” Ruth didn’t answer her sister’s question; she was trying to answer mine.

“He got up and went to work on Wednesday, two weeks ago today. He didn’t take anything with him at the time, just his usual briefcase. He must have come back or been taking things over a period of time, because when I started looking, he’d taken several of his suits and most of his shirts and socks. He hadn’t said anything about what time he was coming home.” Ruth looked up at me trying to find the solution to the mystery written on my face. She continued, “He came and went as he pleased these last few months. Wednesday wasn’t unusual.”

“Could you go into that, please?”

“Well, Mr. Cooperman, in the old days you could set a clock by my husband. He was never late. He never forgot a birthday or an anniversary. A man of regular habits. For years he used to come at night and I’d make dinner or we’d go out to a show, or we’d just stay home and watch television. He read stories to Sarah and Paul. We were a real family.”

“But that pattern changed? He didn’t come home so often, was less regular in his habits? Could you describe these last few months?”

Ruth was staring at an orange plastic truck under a chair across the room. “I’d get a call in the middle of one of my afternoon soaps: ‘He’s not coming home for dinner. Give his love to the children.’ That would be Rose Craig, his secretary. That’d happen three or four times a week beginning around the end of March. For the last couple of weeks before he disappeared, he didn’t even get her to call, and never called himself. Not once. But I just thought it was business, you know? I knew he was busy.”