Dead & Buried (18 page)

“They sound like dangerous people to know.” I said it as a joke, but Fred pondered it seriously. There was no trace of a smile on his face when he answered.

“I wouldn’t want to cross them. I’ll say that. But they all work like Trojans. They expect as much from the people around them. Still, I see what you mean. Medes and Persians, eh?”

“Pardon?”

“‘According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.’ They, as a family, are rather rigid once they’ve settled on a question.”

“Inflexible?” I asked.

“Well,” he hedged, “a close cousin, I’d say. You know I’ve been with them for many years. I don’t want to bore you on that score, but I know that there will be a pension for me when it’s time for me to go. There’s nothing written down, mind. But, I know. It’s their way of doing business. You can’t find many examples of that these days, Mr. Cooperman. There was a time …” Here he
headed off into one of his sketches of contemporary practices that made business seem knowable even for people like me. I felt like I could pick up the
Report on Business
in the
Globe and Mail
and understand every word. Of course he’d missed things that had been going on during the last twenty years, but it wasn’t my job to put him straight.

“Here’s something I think might interest you, Mr. Cooperman.” He handed me a framed photograph showing a very young Murdo Forbes standing beside a middle-aged, lean man with ones lens of his glasses frosted over. Sandy MacCallum, even in a black-andwhite picture, looked like a man in a brown suit. I could see him getting along with the man at my elbow. The Commander, seen some years before he had earned that rank, looked like a man on the make. He still had hungry lines on his face, which had not widened to the familiar patrician face of the present. His features were as good as a look into his antecedents. You could see from his eyes how much the moment recorded in the photograph meant to him. For MacCallum it was just another photograph. I handed the picture back to Fred. “Nice,” I said, “nice.” After McAuliffe handed me a picture showing the Grantham Hunt, all mounted up wearing hunting pink jackets and drinking stirrup cups in the front yard of the MacCallum house on Church Street, even I thought that it was time to get back to work on the company books.

On the front door of the Phidias office, a marvel in glass and boards stripped from the last of our old barns, I
noticed the little decal that told me that security at Phidias was being handled by my rival in the private investigation business in town, Howard Dover. When I got a chance to call Howard, I did. Since Howard knew that I wasn’t interested in the rent-a-cop business, we got along reasonably well. By the end of our conversation he’d told me several interesting things:

“Working for Phidias, Benny, is like working for Jack Benny. They’re so cheap they’ll skin a mouse to sell its pelt; they’ll have the hide off a cockroach, I’m tellin’ you.” In addition to this, I learned that the man on duty downstairs that night was named Boris Jurik and that he was reasonably dim in spite of having been on the job for a year and a half.

Later in the day, on my way back from the bathroom, a sudden voice behind me made me check to see if I’d forgotten to zip up. “Hey! Cooperman!” It was Ross Forbes. I stopped and turned around as he caught up to me. I got the feeling that this might be the end of my intimate association with Phidias Manufacturing. And just when I was getting used to Fred’s informal course on local history. “Will you come back with me to my office, please?” He didn’t say it like it was really a question. I wondered if I’d ever willingly accepted that tone of voice. I doubted it.

“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?” There was no answer, so I kept a half a step behind Forbes and followed him into one of the big corner offices. Its carpet was deeper, its furniture newer and with a designer’s imprint on the glass
and blond wood. There was also a better view over the city from here. How had he arranged that?

Standing in the deep plush in the middle of the room were the shoes of Norman Caine. The face a little over five feet above them was not smiling, but I recognized it from I’m still not sure where.

“Is this Mr. Cooperman?” He looked at Forbes for his answer. Maybe my word wasn’t good enough. Forbes nodded.

“Mr. Cooperman, Mr. Norman Caine,” he said. “Mr. Caine is in charge of Kinross Disposals, a subsidiary of this company. He wants a word with you.” From the way Caine was looking through me, I was wondering whether I had disappeared without knowing it. His failure to make contact reminded me of somebody. Of course, it was the Commander.

Apart from his slight stature, Norman Caine looked like he could be a formidable antagonist. But had to work hard to make his cherubic face frown. There was a fuzzy, boyish quality about him that his tweedy jacket accentuated. His hands were joined by a length of yellow pencil. “Mr. Cooperman,” he began, “is it true that you are looking up material for Teddie Forbes?” I fielded that question fairly well, I thought. Forbes bobbed his head as I explained. I think I did a better job on Caine than I had done to date. I had mastered the phrases that Jim Colling had given me and to them had added fresh lines of patter from Fred McAuliffe. Caine didn’t look convinced for a minute. I came to the end of the speech:

“Anything wrong with that?” Caine levelled his pencil at me.

“What do you know about a man named Alex Pásztory?” Ah-ha, this was no casual encounter.

“Well, I used to read his stuff in the
Beacon.
But I have a low tolerance for stuff about pollution, so I make a poor advocate for a pure environment. I’m for it, you understand, but I’m no fanatic. I may get to the barricades, but I won’t be among the first, if you know what I mean.”

“Have you ever talked to him, face to face?”

“Sure. Pásztory’s an old drinking friend of mine. I’ve known him for years. I don’t lumber him with my transom gazing and he keeps his acid rain to himself. What’s wrong? Is it wrong to know Alex all of a sudden?” I don’t usually think fast on my feet, but from my memory of the figure sitting opposite me at the Turkey Roost, I thought that I was making a reasonable invention. I was sure that he knew that I had seen him at the restaurant.

“Did you know he was found dead at Fort Mississauga on Thursday night?”

“Sure. I read it in the weekend papers. I’m sorry he’s dead. He was a funny guy. My big brother used to date his sister. So what? Is it a crime to have known him?” I’d thought of showing shock at the news of his death, but decided that I couldn’t play it in the round. As it was, I’m not sure either Caine or Forbes was buying my act.

“He was found murdered, Cooperman,” Caine said. “And I think you know more about it than you’re saying.”

“Great! You think I killed him? I didn’t even know he was found at Fort Mississauga until you said so. That wasn’t in the paper. So right now I’d say you know more about this than I do.” That was a bad move; I’d put Caine on the defensive. I tried to think what I could do about it. “Alex always said it would be our smoking that got us in the end. He said we were the last of a happy breed of men.” What I’d added was irrelevant, but it seemed to oil the troubled waters. For half a second mortality was contemplated in the blond office, then Caine was right back in there reaching for my jugular vein.

“I think you know a lot more about Pastor and the things he was playing around with than you’re letting on. I say you’re lying.”

“Look, I told you, I know—knew—him casually. Since when is that a crime in a town this size? I had coffee the other day with a zoologist. What does that make me? A petunia?”

Caine took his eyes off me and glanced over at Forbes. “I don’t like this, Ross. I say get him out of here.”

“But he’s only—”

“Yeah, that’s what he says. But I say unload him now and forget all about what he’s doing here. Teddie’s not your business any more. I say he’s an inconvenience at best, at worst he could be trouble.” Ross looked at both of us and then at a glass polar bear, which was the only
decoration on a bare bookshelf. He did a thing with his lower lip and moved his jaw from side to side, as though thinking didn’t come easy.

“Cooperman is here for a good reason, Norm. Teddie’s ten percent gives her a lot of clout. She could demand an audit and that could run into big numbers. I don’t want to run afoul of the Business Corporations Act if I can help it. Mr. Cooperman here is a very convenient solution.” It was smoother than I’d heard him talk before, reasoned for a change and calm, which put the wind up Caine who was facing him.

“I still say he’s a pest. Get rid of him! I don’t like this timing.”

“Cooperman’s not going anywhere close to Kinross affairs, Norm. McAuliffe’s got his eye on him. I suggest you leave this to me.”

“McAuliffe? Get serious, Ross.” Caine threw a scornful glance at Forbes and even included me in it. It was nice to be part of the party again after being the thing they were arguing about. “Now, Ross, I’ve talked this over with the Commander and—”

“I don’t care whether you’ve had direct communication from God Almighty! Phidias is my affair. So is Teddie. I think you should spend more time down at the yard and less up here looking over my shoulder!”

“The Commander isn’t going to like this! He
is
Chairman of the Board, you know.”

“Norm, my father can’t order a box of paperclips in this office without my okaying it. I’m in charge here and the sooner you remember that the better!”

“Look,” I put in, just to show I wasn’t a lifelike replica of Benny Cooperman but the man himself, “if I’m in the way …”

“Cooperman, keep out of this!” Ross said and I did that, while the two continued to wrangle. I hoped that some crucial information might fall my way, but they were both too clever for that. The altercation ended with Caine storming out of the room, red in the face and with white knuckles

“You’ve made a bad enemy, Mr. Forbes,” I said at length.

“Caine? Oh, we’ve been at each other’s throats since he arrived. This is nothing new.”

“He could be right, you know.”

“If I unload you, Cooperman, Teddie will have everybody in town talking. I know what I’m doing. It’s business as usual at Phidias Manufacturing.”

“Well, thanks, anyway,” I said.

“Look, my friend, don’t imagine for a moment that you played any part in what just occurred. Caine and I have been jousting like this for the past three years. If he’d suggested that I keep you here, you’d be on your way out of here this minute.”

“He seems to think the Commander—”

“For Christ’s sake, Cooperman, get out here before I change my mind!”

I turned and tried to walk calmly through the open door and down the corridor. I got back to the office just as McAuliffe was putting on his coat. It was about five after five.

“Well, good-night there, Mr. Cooperman,” he said.

“I suppose you heard most of that?” I asked. He would have had to be stone deaf not to have caught at least part of what went on.

“I think you’re a lucky man, Mr. Cooperman. You have been given a very rare privilege to come and go here. I hope you appreciate that?”

“Oh, I do, Mr. McAuliffe, but I didn’t want to become a cause of dissension.” His fingers stopped buttoning.

“I’m sure it was a considered decision, Mr. Cooperman. You know Grantham is in many ways still a village. People from Toronto don’t always remember that. Well, at least for the moment anyway, it seems our acquaintance is not going to be cut short.” McAuliffe looked a little shaken by what he had heard, and I remembered Caine’s sneer at the mention of Fred’s name. I tried to think of something to get him over this rough patch.

“Mr. McAuliffe,” I asked, remembering what Pásztory had said just before we went to look at the parts of an enormous clock behind a shed in the Kinross yard, “have you ever run into the term ‘AV’ in your work? It’s probably a common shortening, but I’ve never heard of it.” The fingers remained motionless on the coat buttons. Fred reflected.

“A business term, you say?”

“I think so. Something like CEO, I think.” McAuliffe let his lower lip droop rather dramatically, but in the end he shook his head.

“It’s not a term I’m familiar with, Mr. Cooperman. Perhaps it’s computer jargon. You might ask one of the younger people tomorrow.” His fingers began to move again. They continued down the front of his coat and then reached for the green Irish tweed cap. “Well,” he said, half-turned towards the half-closed door, “well, well, well, well.” And he was gone.

SEVENTEEN

In the lobby of the City Centre, behind a desk and in uniform sat a security guard making an attempt to look like he was keeping track of comings and goings after the day people had signed out. I picked up the pad from his desk and put my name down and added the time. It was just ten after five. As I did this, I noticed that both Forbes and Caine were still on the premises.

“You’re Boris Jurik, aren’t you?” I asked the guard. He blinked back to being semi-alert.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He checked the book to see who was asking.

“My name’s Cooperman. I’m in the way of being in the same line of work myself. Howard Dover, your boss, and I go back a long way together. He’s been talking to me about you.”

“No kidding?” I got a peek at some complicated dental work under his sparse moustache. “Are you into corporate security?” he asked. I smiled at the term.

“No, I do private investigations. Undercover, surveillance, that sort of thing.”

“Are you looking for a man?” So much for employee loyalty.

“Always on the lookout for the
right
man,” I said. I shot him a confidential glance and added: “Somebody who knows his way around.” Boris hitched his belt a little higher on his hips. “Things seem pretty secure around here,” I said. “Any problems.”

“This job? Naw. Nothin’ to it.”

“I’m a little concerned about the storage room downstairs. How secure are you down there?” Boris’s face emptied. I had obviously hit upon someplace he hadn’t even been told to worry about.

“We’ve had no trouble down there,” he said evasively: I smiled at his answer and let it sink in.