Death of a Sunday Writer (12 page)

Looking as if she was aware that such questions could be traps, leading to subsequent accusations, Mrs. Denton said, “Because they sent it to us, that's why.”

“But why not to his mother?”

“Here,” Mrs. Denton said, belligerently, triumphantly. It was another letter from the hospital saying that they had made every effort to find the mother and they were now
forwarding the documents to the nearest other relative they could find in care of a Mrs. Tibbles in Longborough who had agreed to deliver them.

“Where is the rest?” Lucy asked. “There's a list of enclosures, his birth certificate, his English identity card, a picture, his wristwatch, a fountain pen and pencil set, and a wallet.”

“They never come.” Mrs. Denton removed any suggestion of accusation against her father. “I remember him saying when I asked myself one time. There was nothing else. Just the letter.”

“Can I take these?”

“Screw that,” Denton said, immediately. “Nora might need those to establish her rights.”

“What rights?”

“We don't know yet.”

“Then can I copy them, and bring them back?” Denton considered this. “Copy them out here, you mean?”

“No. I'll use the machine at the library.”

“Where's it at?”

She explained in which room the copying machine in the library was located.

“Yeah, but where's the
library
at?”

She told him.

“Right. Near the bus station. That new building. You follow her in,” he said to his wife.

Lucy put the papers in her briefcase and clicked it shut.

“Shall I make her a cup of coffee?” Mrs. Denton asked her husband. Denton, in turn, looked at Lucy for an answer, without speaking.

“I'm late already,” Lucy said, and walked to the door. “Thanks for the offer.”

Denton nodded graciously, and swung himself back to the televison set.

Outside, the jointed dog again rolled the skin back from its teeth, but a kick from Mrs. Denton got Lucy to the car safely.

In Longborough, she made copies and took the originals out to the street where Mrs. Denton waited in her truck. Mrs. Denton looked over the papers, and handed one back through the window. “Write down the name of the English laywer, too,” she instructed Lucy. “On the back.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I'm entitled. And the address.”

She looked carefully at the words Lucy had written, and put the documents in the glove compartment.

Lucy waited for her to drive off. Instead, the woman made it clear she wanted to talk, eventually opening the door and climbing out of the truck.

Lucy pointed across the street. “Want that cup of coffee before you go back?”

The woman nodded and they crossed the street. Inside the restaurant, Nora Denton said, “You're some kind of legal aide, aren't you? You know about legal stuff, I mean.”

“What did you want to know? I'm not a lawyer.”

The woman looked around the room. “You married?” she asked.

The sudden query, unconnected with the previous question, told Lucy what the woman's interest was in her. Lucy was a married woman who knew her rights. She sought for a good response. “Technically, yes. But I'm separated and soon I'll be divorced.” She tried to construct
a further opening for the woman. “I left my husband. Walked out.”

“Did he come after you?”

“In a way. At first.”

“Did he beat up on you much?”

“Oh, no. He never touched me.”

The woman was silent, puzzled, and Lucy wondered if she should have lied to encourage her.

“Why did you leave him, then? Was he screwing around?”

“No. I don't think so. I was just unhappy.”

“Is it better now?”

“Yes.” Now Lucy was silent, rendered sensitive by the woman's questions.

Finally, Mrs. Denton asked, “Did you have somewhere to go?”

“I went to a hotel.”

The woman drew back. It was the wrong reply. “Okay for some people. What if you had no money? Hotels cost money. What are you supposed to do if you don't have money?”

Lucy felt wary now. Nora Denton's questions added up to a clear cry for help, but working against the sympathy she felt for the idea of Nora Denton as victim was her disgust at the squalor of the house and especially the kitchen. Now Lucy tried to push aside her own upbringing, telling herself that the fact that Nora Denton was a slattern was irrelevant to the question of whether she was being brutally treated. The one glimpse of the Dentons' life had shaken Lucy. There were various kinds of abuse, she realised. Could she compare her own unhappiness, married to a psychological bully and tyrant, with being married to someone who might at
any time smash his fist into your face or stomach? Kick you? Twist your breast? They say you can get used to anything, Lucy reflected. But not that.

“There are agencies that can help.” She pointed to the library. “Ask them over there. They'll tell you where to find the family agency.”

“I know where that is. I went there once and the next day some woman came out to the house to talk to my husband. After she left he beat me up.”

“You have any friends nearby?”

“Not nearby, nor far away.”

Lucy was cornered. She wrote two numbers on a sheet in her diary and gave the sheet to the woman. “Here's my home, and here's the office number. Call me anytime,” she said.

“That seems pretty final,” Jack Brighton said, scanning the copies Lucy had made. “I'll send them off. Got your expenses?”

“Just the hours. Three would be fair, I think. I don't have any other expenses. I had to be in Longborough, anyway.”

Brighton put a sheet of notepaper in front of him and picked up a pen. “How long does it take to drive to Longborough?”

“About an hour and a half.”

“So. We're not charging them for a hotel. We'll make it six hours of your time plus twenty dollars for lunch and thirty for gas. They're still getting us cheap. I'll pay you when they pay me, okay? Now, how's the rest of it going?”

Lucy told him about her project to write a memoir of her cousin. “I want to talk to the bookmaker he bets with. If I'm going to write about him, I have to talk to as many people who knew him as I can find.”

“He could be someone not very nice. You know?”

“I just want to ask him a question.”

“I know some people. I'll ask around. What happened with that surveillance case of yours?”

Lucy told him how she had spent Thursday evening.

“He want you to carry on?”

“Yes. He says she's agreed to go out every Thursday.”

Brighton straightened out a paper-clip. “Where do you pick her up?”

“At the Pleasant Boulevard parking lot.”

“It still sounds a little phoney to me.”

“Why?”

“I think you're being set up.”

The idea was fatuous. “How?” Lucy asked. “What for?”

“I don't know. He may just be using you as a fishing float. You know, you follow her, he watches you, so the fish can't see him, but he can see you. Like putting a bug on a car. You're the bug.”

“But why?”

“Christ knows. Anyway, I'll see if I can find you the bookie.”

Before Brighton called back, as Lucy was coming back to her office with some coffee, a client appeared — a small fat, middle-aged man in a dark suit, a dark tie, and a white shirt. His scalp gleamed through his thin grey hair.

“Mrs. Brenner?”

She nodded, unlocked the door, and he followed her in.

“I'm sorry about Dave,” he said when they were both sitting down. “I liked Dave very, very much. I didn't know him too well, though.”

“Nobody knew him well, apparently, but everybody liked him.”

“That's the kind of guy he was. Warm, but private. My name's Fruitman.” He smiled at her suddenly. “How's it going?”

This was such a specious attempt to be agreeable that Lucy felt safe in ignoring it. “Can I help you, Mr. Fruitman?”

He shrugged, spread his hands, lowered them, smiled again, became serious, then leaned forward. “I'm a little worried, Mrs. Brenner. I don't want any problems. Did Dave leave behind some kind of records?”

“Yes, He did. I haven't decided what to do about them yet.”

“Burn them, lady. Burn them. They'll only get you into trouble.”

“Do you think you are in them?”

“Me? Why would I be in them? Who's interested in Elmer Fruitman? You seen my name anywhere?”

“I haven't read them all yet. Might I find it?”

“Why would you find my name?”

Lucy thought of something. “As a matter of fact, I think I have. Hang on.” She turned to the computer and called up the ledger. Fruitman waited restlessly.

“There,” Lucy said. “500, Blue Jays, Fruitman.”

“It's a very, very common name, Mrs. Brenner. Very, very common.”

“Did the Blue Jays win?”

“What?” Fruitman looked at her as if she was not making sense. “Did they win? Did you win? Did you pay up?”

“What are you talking about? They lost. Sure I paid up. Doesn't that fucking thing say so?”

“Don't talk like that.” Lucy checked the rest of the entries in the ledger. “Not a thing. Forget about it.”

“It isn't the money, lady. Not that bet. I know you can't stick me with that. It's a very common name. I made a bet. I lost. I paid. Okay.” All pretense was gone now. “It's those fucking records. Excuse me. Look, I'm an undertaker. Business is good. I can handle five hundred, no problem.” He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and started counting.

“Stop it, Mr Fruitman. I believe you. You don't have to pay me anything. I'm not going to send a collector round to knee-cap you. David's gone. This betting business is all finished.”

“Knee-cap me?” Fruitman's voice went shrill. “What are you talking about, knee-cap me? Jesus, lady, I'm not worried about stuff like that. What kind of business you think Trimble was in? He was a respectable drop. He worked for a bookie with a respectable clientele, like me. Knee-cap me. Jesus. You're in the wrong end of town. You're in the wrong town. You know what would really happen if I don't pay up?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely the bookmaker doesn't just forget it?”

“I'm not saying that some bookies don't send round a collector. Not the bookie, the shark, the guy the bookie sells the bet to. It could happen. But not David, not Cowan.”

“But if you don't pay...”

“All he'd do is cut me off. No pay, no play.”

“And that's all?”

“You don't understand. That's the big threat. Then I've got to find another bookie, and he'd be a little rougher. Cowan's a gentleman.”

“Another bookie might knee-cap you?”

“Will you stop talking about knee-capping? What the next guy would do is threaten me.”

“With what?”

“With telling my wife. Then I'm finished.”

“Why don't you tell her yourself?”

Fruitman looked around the room, finding himself suddenly locked in with a madwoman. “I swore to her the last time I'd never touch it again. And my son. He's a lawyer, God help me. He could have opened his own funeral home — this business is depression proof — but he's a lawyer. The last time I was short a few thousand — I'd been betting the Leafs to win — my son, the lawyer, called a family conference. No more betting, they said, or my son would go to the cops.”

“He would bring charges against you? Your son?”

“No, lady, he would go to the gambling squad and he would complain, see. They'd listen to him and my wife, too. Then you know what would happen? They'd close me down, tight.”

“The police? They would order you not to bet?”

“You don't know anything, do you? Where can I start?” Fruitman reamed out his ear with a finger. “See, betting, gambling, is illegal. But it happens. The squad know all the bookmakers and now and then they drop in on them. But the bookies build the fine into their odds so who's getting hurt? Gambling's legal at the track, but off the track there's nowhere to bet. So take me. I can't go to the track. Someone sees me, tells my wife and I'm finished. She figures I'm taking bread out of her mouth.
Me. I've got a house worth a million and a half, a good business, and if I lost all that I'd still be okay with some other property she doesn't know about. I can afford to bet. She's also afraid I'll be arrested and get in the papers and it'll hurt the business. Hardly likely is it? She doesn't like the business, anyway. She says it restricts our social life. She won't go to any more undertakers' conventions, she says.”

“Can you afford to bet five hundred dollars in one go?”

“Sure. I don't waste my money on golf. But she doesn't see it that way. So, I can't bet legally, I bet illegally. You follow? In England I could bet, legally, on who wrote the best fucking novel last year, but here...” He raised his hands in disgust. “So what the cops do, they close me down. They put the word out to the bookies — see, the cops don't like my son — he's a lawyer — implying they are on the take. So now I can't get a bet on anywhere. Nowhere.”

“Apparently all you have to do now, though, is find another bookmaker. Not even that. You paid your bill with David, so your credit's good with Mr. Cowan. Isn't that right?”

“Maybe you don't believe I paid. Maybe David didn't pay Cowan. Okay. I'll pay you again.” Fruitman reached for his money.

“Mr. Fruitman, why are you trying to bribe me?”

“Five hundred?”

“But what for?”

“Take my name out of that fucking machine. That way I know. It's easy. You just type in, ‘Delete Fruitman, wherever,' and the machine wipes me out.”