Getting Away With Murder (3 page)

“If I take on this case—”

“We’re not talking ‘ifs’ here!”

“Okay. ‘When.’ When it’s over, I’ll know too much. How do I know you’ll let me go?”

“Mr. Cooperman, I’m a businessman, plain and simple; a lot smarter than most of them. I’m just a little impatient, as you may notice, with rules and regulations. I know this about myself. Now, you may not think that the word of someone like me is worth much, but it is. Even in
my
business you gotta build trust. Trust is all I’ve got! I can’t write contracts. I can’t make letters of agreement. I’m the board of directors. Everything is an understanding that is never written down. Never a word on paper. That means that trust means more to me, my
word
means more to me than it has to mean to the president of your bank, in your case the Upper Canadian on St. Andrew Street. Do you understand? I give you my word that you’ll walk away from this when you’ve done your job. The threats against your family and Anna Abraham will become null and void. You’ve got my word on that and my word is my bond.”

“Mr. Wise, that’s all very well for you to say now, but what kind of assurance do I have? How much do your men know about your reason for bringing me here? Whoever is trying to kill you can just as easily start by killing me.”

Wise shrugged. My life was only worth that to him. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something about making omelettes without breaking eggs. My shell was feeling fragile. But my mind had been made up for me. I thought of Anna. Even if all that talk about his word of honour meant nothing at all, or that on second thought I couldn’t be allowed to walk away from Wise with a cheque and a handshake, any way I looked at it, I didn’t have a choice.

“When do you want me to get started?”

“Good! That’s what I wanted to hear!”

At that moment, Mickey came through the door with an old-fashioned tea trolley on rubber wheels. There was a silver tea service, the first I’d seen for years not covered in Saran Wrap, and china cups and saucers. There was a basket of fresh rolls and cinnamon buns. I found that the conversation had awakened in me a sizeable appetite.

“Why don’t you let Mickey do this for you?” I asked, after Mickey had left us alone again. “You don’t seem to be understaffed.” Wise shook his head as he poured the tea.

“My people all know their jobs. I keep them on because they are good at them. When I want an outside view, Mr. Cooperman, I depend on the likes of you. As an outsider, you’ll not make foolish assumptions. That’s important.”

“I suppose I don’t have to tell you that I’m a one-man band? I don’t have operatives standing by waiting for my orders.”

“I know exactly what I’m getting.”

“And that doesn’t include security. I’m no bodyguard. I don’t carry heat. I—”

“I said ‘I know what I’m getting,’ Mr. Cooperman. You find out who’s trying to kill me. That’s your end. Leave the security to me.”

Wise filled his cup and we stopped talking while we took a few sips.

“How are we going to make this work?” I asked, putting my cup down in its saucer noisily. The tea was excellent; a factor I was obliged to take into consideration. Wise looked at me over the rim of his cup.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he said. “I could put you up here and have all your meals sent in to you, but that would tend to put some people on their guard. It would also upset my domestic arrangements. I want to know you’re on the job, Cooperman, but I don’t want to run into you every time I turn around. Besides, you have too many friends at the Niagara Regional Police. Your temporary disappearance would only cause trouble. Pulling you out of your own life would only serve to create unwanted publicity.”

“So, I’m getting a lift back to town after this conversation is over?”

“Did you ever doubt it? But don’t for a minute think I’m taking my eyes off you. I’m putting three shifts of my boys on your tail. Just like the cops do. They’ll keep me posted about your movements and will get very upset if they see you with a suitcase in your hand. If I were you, I would avoid travel agents for the time being. And, don’t forget about Manny and Sophie. Such lovely parents, a son can be proud of! Not that Anna Abraham is someone to be ashamed of. Nobody wants to see them get hurt. That’s your department. As long as you are working for me and not trying to disappear, they got nothing to worry about. You understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded, then shrugged. “I can’t see how I’m going to help you, Mr. Wise.” I tried to look as serious and straightforward as I could. “I told you I don’t have a band of faithful followers who go out and do my jobs for me. That means that everything I do takes time—”

“You don’t have to worry about money. That’s taken care of.”

“Who’s talking money here? Look, Mr. Wise, I may be suffering from an inflated reputation. I’m only human. I can’t get blood from a stone. I can’t always get milk from the fridge. I’m limited. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“Go on.”

“Apart from your reputation, I don’t know anything about your business. How am I going to discover who your associates are? Where am I going to learn who’s who in your life? None, or very little, of this is on the public record. You see what I mean? If I’m going to get a line on who’s trying to kill you, I’m going to have to get firsthand knowledge of everything you’ve ever done and everything you’re doing right now. Personally, if I were you, I wouldn’t want anybody, even me, knowing that much about my life.”

“I see the stories I’ve heard about you aren’t exaggerated. I like that.”

“Hello? Are you listening? Enough with the congratulations! Let’s be frank with each other. I won’t butter you up and you do me the same favour. The truth is our only friend, Mr. Wise. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to about me, but you’re going to see that I’m the wrong man for this job. That’s my professional opinion, no hype.”

Wise shook his head, as though he wanted to put whatever was in my head out of it. When he spoke, he was reading from a prepared text. “There’s a man in Grantham named Rogers. Dave Rogers. His name used to be Rottman, but he’s been Rogers now for forty years. We’re about the same age. Dave and I went to public school together. We did time at the Collegiate too. Why don’t you start with Dave. He can give you all you want to hear about me in the old days. When you’ve talked to Dave, let me know and we’ll take another step from there.”

He passed me a slip of paper with Rogers’ name, address and telephone number printed out for me. What kind of investigator did he think I was I couldn’t find a Dave Rogers in a town the size of Grantham?

“I’ve got another number for you,” he told me, getting up, indicating that it was time to end the conversation. “This is the number for me when you
need
it. I don’t want it to leave this room. I value my privacy.” He held out another, smaller, piece of paper. I took it from him, glanced at it and put it in my mouth and began to chew. When your head’s on the block, you might as well crack wise.

“Okay, now I can get in touch with you,” I said. “But I’m going to want to talk to people who’ve known you more recently. Rogers knows the older stuff. Who should I see about recent history?”

“I’ll think about that. You’ll probably have to talk to Paulette and Lily. I can’t see how you can avoid it. Yes,” he said, rubbing his large nose, “Paulette and Lily, if they’ll see you, of course. Give me a few hours to talk to them.”

“You want to tell me who they are?”

“My wives, Mr. Cooperman. My two wives. In tandem, of course. My matrimonial life has been a model of propriety, if you overlook the fact that they both ended in divorce. Paulette and Lily will help you to see Hart and Julie, my children. They wouldn’t give you the time of day if I asked them. May I wish you a safe trip home, Mr. Cooperman? Mickey will see that you get back safely. And remember, Mickey Armstrong or another of my associates will be near you at all times. I don’t want you to forget that. Good-morning.”

THREE

I’d awakened for the second time that Monday morning holding to the notion that I’d just escaped from a particularly realistic nightmare. God knows I’ve had enough of them. Usually they have all sorts of personal dangers in them. This one spread the dangers to Anna and my family with me not being able to do much about it. I tested my dream theory by pulling myself out of bed and looking down to the street through my rain-streaked window. No wonder my bare feet felt cold as I recognized the car from the nightmare. It was parked across the street and although I couldn’t see the driver, I was willing to guess that he had old acne scars on the back of his neck.

This time, when I got dressed, I shaved. When the hoods of the early morning thought to discourage my delaying tactics, I thought that they were just being practical: a well-turned-out corpse in a ditch or left in the trunk of an abandoned car doesn’t need a fresh shave. As I stood there looking at my chin in the mirror, I was suddenly aware of the luxury of time that had been given to me.

* * *

Installed in my favourite booth at the Diana Sweets and with breakfast and yesterday’s paper in front of me, I could again believe in the rationality of the world. The coffee was what I needed and the familiar golden surroundings of antique wood bandaged me from the evil that lay in wait for me outside.

Other people had problems too, the paper told me on every page. Good! I needed their troubles to buy back my own. I read an account of a hit-and-run case that had been on the front page for three days. The old man who had been tossed by a car through a plate-glass window had finally died and the police were no closer to finding the bastard who did it. A group of former patients of a psychiatrist named Clough were trying to get his licence since he had, they said, taken regular advantage of them in the sanctity of his consulting room over a period of seven years. The patients had all suppressed the memories of these assignations and had tumbled, if that is the word for it, to the fact that this was sex only when they saw similar cases described on television. I tried to imagine the dialogue as they consulted their diaries: “Twelveforty-five is out, I’m afraid, but eleven-fifteen is possible if you can fit me in.”

I
was
in a bad mood! On the bottom of the first page was an account of the accidental death of a former deputy chief of police and a tribute to him. I looked for the name: Neustadt. I remembered him slightly. The picture of the serious frowning face of a man in uniform was so old it was no help to me at all. I must ask Savas and Staziak about him. But I had no patience to read the details of how, where or when he had died.

My second cup of coffee lifted my spirits. So did an ad for McKenzie Stewart’s new book. I was a great fan of his detective, Dud Dickens.
Haste to the Gallows
was a good title. I’d pick up a copy as soon as I could. Elsewhere in the paper, I read a few captions, headings, the odd fragment, but I couldn’t focus on any more of the stories. I found myself staring at the obituaries—so much for the effects of good coffee—letting the names, dates and pieces of lives that had ended fill my head: Suddenly at Grantham General … in his 57th year … after a brave struggle … survived by … fondly remembered by … resting at … donations in lieu of flowers … followed by cremation …”

Back in my office, I punched in Dave Rogers’s number. I missed the trio of bald mannequins, leftovers from my father’s ladies’ ready-to-wear store, that I had finally cleared away to the basement. For years they had supervised my activities, covered indifferently with unbleached factory cotton in all the unnecessary places. Whenever I had a half-hour to kill, I rarely thought of all the stored junk that had accumulated in my office. Why didn’t I give in to the family curse and go into the
shmate
business? I had the window dummies for a start, my clients’ chairs were tubular items from an art deco renovation that my father ordered in the 1940s. There might even be some stock in the basement, where my brother, Sam, and I used to play while waiting for my father to close for the night. The phone kept ringing at the other end.

“Yeah?” I was surprised to hear a human voice. It took me a moment to return from my memories.

“Dave Rogers?”

“Yeah. Who wants him?”

“My name’s Cooperman. I want to talk to you.”

“What makes you think I wanna talk to you, Mr. Cooperman?”

“Abram Wise thinks you will.” That had him. He couldn’t wise-ass me any more. Still, there was a pause.

“Where are you now?”

“Corner of St. Andrew and James. My office is on the second floor of—”

“Meet me at the Chinese restaurant on your left as you come off the high-level bridge. You know the place? Twelve-thirty and don’t bring any friends.”

“There’s an eager beaver from Wise’s operations hugging my shadow. I can’t do much about him.” Again there was a pause at his end. Finally:

“Well, if he’s one of Abe’s boys, he won’t give me any heartburn more than I’ve got already. Twelve-thirty,” he repeated and was gone. I nodded to the instrument in my hand and replaced it.

My watch told me that I had three hours to kill before I had to keep the appointment. I rummaged in a drawer for an old address book that I thought might help me fill the time. The names in it belonged to people who were either dead, moved or vanished into the unknown. Who’s going to throw away a thing like that? Under the “Bs” I found what I was looking for and punched the long-distance number into the phone, trying to imagine the voice I was going to hear at the other end.

“Hello?”

“Ella?”

“Yes, this is Ella Beames.”

“It’s me,” I said. “Benny.”

“Benny Cooperman! Well, as I live and breathe! I hope you don’t mean to pay me a visit. I’ve got the painters in and—”

“I’m calling from Grantham, Ella. I’m not pushing the tourist season. I’m nowhere near Massachusetts. Don’t worry.”

“Well, Benny, you gave me quite a turn. I haven’t heard a word from home since I got a card from the girls at the library. They think my birthday’s in March and it’s not really until November. But they’ve always sent the card in March. I don’t remember how it started.
You’re
the one with the March birthday. I hope you had a good one. How are you, Benny?”