Ransom Game (15 page)

Ashland shook his head. Instead of imagining Johnny Rosa's body floating out into the lake, I think he pictured five hundred thousand dollars floating out of his reach forever.

“Then there's another thing that's happened: Muriel, Johnny's girl got herself bumped.”

“I didn't hear about that,” he said, shaking his head in an easy sentimental gesture. “Damn shame. She was a gorgeous chick, one gorgeous chick.”

“Besides that, what do you know about her?”

“Nothing.” He said that too fast, then added: “Eddie Milano used to buy her clothes for her before Johnny got released. He used to spend a lot on her. They didn't keep house, or anything like that—there's a Mrs. Milano out in Fort Erie, I think—but they were known as a twosome in the joints, and he used to hang around that apartment of hers, I guess having a closer look at what he'd been paying for. Then, when Johnny got out, she pushed Eddie over again and shacked up with him.”

“Again?”

“What?”

“You said
again.
What did you mean by that?”

“Oh, well, Muriel had seen other men even when she saw Eddie. I've even bought a whisky sour for her on a couple of occasions. She was a nice chick.”

“Yeah, a wonderful human being.”

“You said it. That's her to the life.”

“Tell me, in Eddie's crowd, how does it look when a guy out on parole, working in a foundry, beats the time of a big wheel like Eddie?”

“Well, she ain't going dancing with anybody tonight, is she?”

“Is that the way you figure it?”

“It computes; what more can I say? It's easy to figure, but hard to prove.”

“Why?”

“Eddie never makes a step without being seen somewhere else. The night Muriel got it, Eddie was probably at the policemen's ball winning the raffle and getting his picture taken with the chief's wife. Eddie Milano isn't going to get caught with the elastic in his shorts busted.”

“Your pal Knudsen has disappeared. He was snatched in the middle of the night. Same night Muriel got it. Better look under your bed when you get home tonight.”

“Climb off, Cooperman. None of us knows anything that didn't come out at the trial. If I had a whiff of that money—if any of us did—do you think we'd be sitting around Grantham? By the way, what's in it for you? Who hauls your ashes?”

“You'd be surprised.” I knew that wouldn't hold him, and I could see him looking at me sideways.

He sucked in his breath after a minute and asked: “Where do you think the money is, Cooperman?” I think he really meant it. He was a greedy little man, in spite of his size, and his pride wasn't hurt at all by asking me.

“Well, from all the people who are looking for it, I guess it must still be out there.”

“That doesn't get us anywhere,” he said testily, looking a shady prissy around the corners of his mouth. “I thought you had some information to trade, Cooperman, but all I hear is the same sort of chat I could get in any poolroom in town.”

“You're not getting much joy from the professional you hired?”

“How do you know about Handler?”

“I keep my ears open and my mouth shut for a start. I was tipped. Somebody thought I was your man, and didn't like it.”

“He's costing me enough.” I guess I must have sneered a little. I'd meant it as a smile, but you don't get to check these things after you set them up. Ashland exploded: “I can see you don't think much of me. If you think I'm bitter and angry, well, you're right. I wanted that money bad. I wanted it more than the others, I needed it more and I knew how to spend it better. You think it's easy for somebody like me to take a plunge? You think I found doing that time as easy as Johnny Rosa? You're crazy. Rosa and I come from different planets. I think I'm getting mad, Cooperman, you better watch out.” He got up, scooped up his magazine and coat and struggled into it on his way through the lake by the station door. I watched him leave, then followed him into a turquoise compact with a hatchback. He raced the wheels, trying to get moving, spraying slush ten yards behind him, but not moving forward. He turned his wheel and tried to back up. He rocked the small car backward and forward with violence for a minute, and then by a fluke he got away, heading downtown at a noisy intemperate speed.

EIGHTEEN

The Kit Kat Klub had been closed up by the police a couple of years ago. A dance school had replaced it and when that failed to make a breakthrough, it gave way to a small-time commercial artist with a couple of cute helpers on the silk-screen. It looked like they were confining their art to the T-shirt medium. From the artist I learned the name of the landlord, and a few more calls brought me to a broken-down, pebble-dashed house on Facer Street out near the canal. The land was flat. It had been under cultivation before the war, but had been lost to farming during the post-war housing boom. Looking at Jack Cowan's house, with its weather-worn blue porch lurching toward the right, I could feel something of the hopelessness of living in a row of houses that were slowly rotting. Tarpaper was showing through Cowan's neighbour's house. His own roof looked dodgy, and I could almost smell the oil cloth on the table and the Quebec heater before I knocked on the front door.

Cowan didn't look the sort to run an illegal gambling den and blind pig. He looked more like somebody ran him, and, not satisfied with the mileage, had ditched him. He was a little guy with a big head, which he kept cropped like he might have in the army, if they took men that short. His plastic-framed glasses had been mended with adhesive tape in the middle and the temples were stained with neglect. He wore a surprised ferret-like expression, like I'd awakened him from a bad dream, and a T-shirt which hung big around his small chest and arms.

“You Jack Cowan?”

“Who wants to know?” I guessed that in some circles, friends had to be won.

“The name's Cooperman. I'm a private investigator trying to get a line on Johnny Rosa. I was hired by his girlfriend, who was worried that he may have been killed, just like she has now. I've got a few questions I hope you can help me with.”

“I don't have anything to say to you. I don't know what you're talking about and I don't have to talk to you.”

“Look, Mr. Cowan …”

“Get your foot out of the door.”

“I'll get it out in a minute. Look: one person has been killed and there may be more. You can help stop that. I'm not going to put anything in the paper. I don't have to answer to the cops. I'm in this on my own. If we come to something you don't want to answer, just let me know.”

“Cooperman, you say?”

“Yeah. Ben Cooperman.”

“Any relation to Manny Cooperman?”

“He's my father.”

“Hell, why didn't you say that to begin with. Come on in.” Here he opened the door, easing the pressure on my big toe.

The living-room of Jack's place looked like it had been fixed up nice in 1945 and that the wife who'd done the fixing left forever in 1945 and a half. All of the pieces of that period were still in sight, including some plaster dogs and flights of birds on the wall. Above the couch hung a faded tapestry in velvet, showing a stag at bay with six or seven snarling hounds nipping at his flanks. Even faded it was strong medicine, and I'm glad I missed it when it was new. A floor-model radio stood in one corner, with a small black-and-white television set above it. Cowan turned off the sports news and showed me to an overstuffed chair with a gold thread running through the upholstery, except where the stuffing was coming out.

“So, you're Manny Cooperman's son!” he said, shaking his head. “I've lost more money to Manny than I ever did to the mob. Your father is the best gin rummy player in North America. He has a gift. That's the only word for it, a gift. I call him
The Hammer.
How is he? I was thinking about the old son of a gun just the other day.”

“He's down in Miami. I'll tell him I was talking to you.”

“You do that. Tell him I was asking about him.”

“I'll do that.”

“Manny Cooperman's son! Heh!” He was shaking his head with a wide grin on his large face, which had lost its ferrety look. “You want a beer? I was just going to have one myself.”

“Sure. I'll join you.” He got up and disappeared. I heard the refrigerator open and close, and the uncapping of two bottles. He returned with them and a glass for me.

“I never waste a glass anymore. Less washing up. Here's to Manny.” We both drank in silence for a minute. I was feeling just a little smug about stumbling on one of my dad's haunts. I remember that an hour after dinner he used to make the excuse that he “was just going downtown to check the cash.”

“Well, now, what were you saying with your foot in the door? Is this a survey or something?”

“No, it's about the club on St. Andrew Street.”

“Manny's store was just down the street. He retired?' I nodded, and he joined my nod with a nod of his own. We nodded in deep thought for a moment. Then: “They closed up the Kit Kat a few years back. I've been on unemployment mostly ever since. Can't seem to find nothing. I help out at Mac and Tom's from time to time, but I'm too old to be emptying ashtrays and racking balls in a poolhall. Besides people remember, and it embarrasses hell out of them to see me doing dirty jobs when they know I had my own place once. But I help out at Mac and Tom's. It gets me out on the street, you see.”

“Do you remember Johnny Rosa?”

“Do I remember him? Sure I do. He was a very funny man. I never saw him have a bad word for anybody. He paid up when he lost. Manny beat him every time they sat down at the table. Your father. He was quite a fellow.”

“A truly remarkable human being.”

“That's right. That's right. You sure have the right words to describe him. Well, now, what do you want to know about Johnny?”

“Did he come to the club alone?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes not. It depended on whether there were other people with him.”

“I see what you mean.” At last, a careful witness. “Do you remember any of the people he brought to the club, people who came on their own maybe later on?”

“Let me think. There was the Swede. I don't remember his name. Might not have been a Swede, but that's what some of the fellows called him. Tall thin fellow. Used to drink beer like it was soda pop and never laugh much.”

“Rolf Knudsen?”

“Could be. Never had any trouble with him. He could look after himself. Yes, I guess that's the Swede. Never had to cut him off. Not like that rich kid Johnny used to waste time with. He was always three drinks past his limit. Trouble, you know what I mean? And then there were the girls he brought. He liked them young.”

“Rich kid? Which rich kid?”

“The Warren kid. Young moneybags himself. Only he didn't live to spend it, did he? I always say that …”

“Did he come to the club often?”

“He was a regular for a few years. He dropped a lot of money on the tables. Used to bring these girls up, and everybody'd look at me like the club was a Sunday school. I couldn't make rules in a blind pig, none I could enforce. I never kept no bouncer.”

“So Johnny and Russ Warren knew one another.”

“Like I know your old man.”

“Do you remember any of the girls?”

“Nope, I never had a head for remembering women at all. Not that I don't like them—even though they make a mess in the toilet that you gotta see to believe—I like women fine, but I can't hang on to their faces much. Johnny's girls and Russ's were always good looking. I'll give them that. But I can't …” He stopped and tore his beer label for a moment. “You know who you should talk to? You remember Kate Rodman? Even I remember her. Kate was the daughter of a Baptist minister out west some place, and he was killed over in Europe in an accident, so Kate was brought up here by her uncle, another minister. I guess he wasn't as broad-minded as her father, because he had her jumping through hoops she never heard of until she came here. He had to take her out of the high school after a term and put her in a private girls school. St. Audrey's up on the hill. She was smart as new paint, but she couldn't stand the discipline. I used to see her smoking stogies on St. Andrew Street before she was fifteen. I remember one time hearing her trying to talk a bunch of girls from the business college on James Street to come with her to watch a murder trial at the court house. Now, she was a woman to remember! She went with Johnny for a while, during the time you're talking about, then she went off to Toronto like most people around here. Now Kate would be able to tell you names. Leastwise if there wasn't any trouble for anybody.”

“Do you know where I'd reach her in Toronto?”

“Hell. Toronto packed her up and sent her back years ago. She's been teaching school here for years. Her name's O'Neil now. Married Willy O'Neil, you remember him? Your father would.” I put down my half-empty glass of beer and thanked Jack Cowan for all his help. He stood at the door with his skinny arms protruding from his short sleeves, waving after me as I retreated down the walk. “Don't forget to remember me to Manny!”

“I promise.”

It was after seven, nearly seven-thirty. I went into the Diana Sweets for a fast sandwich and a glass of milk with some ice cream. With that disposed of I tried the phone book. After two wrong numbers, I had Kate O'Neil on the line.

“My name's Cooperman, you may remember my father from the Kit Kat Klub. He was a gin rummy player.”

“I'm sorry, it's been years since … I don't remember any of the people … I mean, I was a different person in those days.”

“Do you remember Johnny Rosa?”

“Sure. Hey, what's this all about? Are you, what are you?” Her voice was like black coffee with brandy in it. Her words weren't up to much, but her voice made up for it.