A City Called July

TWENTY

I felt silly eating Martha’s toast and jam the following morning. What was I afraid of? Wasn’t I drinking beer with Pia’s boy-friend last night? What did I have to fear from Pia’s other friends? Then I remembered the ride in the trunk of that car. Martha had a good assortment of jams and marmalades. We had exchanged a silent greeting an hour ago when she stepped out of the bathroom, leaving the mirror steamed up and loose dental floss in the hairbrush. I didn’t mention any of these things, but I began to ruminate about them as I got a slap in the face from the errant leg of a pair of pantyhose thrown over the shower-curtain rod. I had a brisk shower and felt the better for it. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Martha was on her way to work.

I put myself together, even got rid of some of the mud on my shoes, and drove to the office. I still had a feeling that using my regular parking place was a mistake, so I pulled into the lot next to the Diana Sweets, paid for a day’s parking, and went into the Di and ordered coffee. I didn’t know the crowd at the counter here as well as the gang at the United Cigar Store. It was half the legal profession in town on their way to or from the court-house. Ray Thornton smiled at me from the other end of the counter. I hadn’t seen him since that business in Algonquin Park was cleared up last year. The smile told me we were still speaking to one another. That was the first good news of the day. I was thinking of moving my coffee down to see if he had any legitimate work to throw my way, when Joyce See pushed a cup to the spot next to me.

“Hi, there. Good-morning. “She looked fresh and trim, ready to do battle with crown grants, easements and bars of dower rights down at the Registry Office.

“Good-morning,” I said, trying to think of a dozen things I’d forgotten to ask her at our last meeting. She settled in beside me resting a large briefcase next to her feet. She was wearing light leather sandals.

“Is this all you eat for breakfast? You’re courting an early grave, Mr. Cooperman.”

“Please. Call me Benny. But don’t you start on my eating habits, Joyce. I got a lecture from Grantham’s finest yesterday.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude, Benny.”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. I take my not taking food seriously seriously. I had toast and jam before I came downtown.”

“I jumped to a conclusion. I’ll make a bad trial lawyer at this rate.”

“Is that what you want to be?”

“Naturally. Conveyancing properties will make an old woman of me if I keep at it. There’s more fun in law than you find in the Registry Office.”

“I want to thank you for the information you gave me on Friday. It helped.”

“Good. I hope you find him.”

“Thanks. Joyce, what kind of check is there on what the provincial government spends on, say, highways and other public works?” Joyce took a sip of her tea then set the cup down in the saucer before she spoke.

“You must be thinking of the Public Accounts Committee of the legislature. Is that what you mean?”

“I don’t know yet. Keep going.”

“The committee plays watchdog on all government spending. Makes sure that there are no crooked deals and that everything is both fair and looks fair on paper.”

“And is that how it works? No corruption in high places?”

“Less than some high places I could name. But the committee operates under rigid guidelines, which are well known. So that a government department, knowing that contracts above a certain amount have to be put up for tendered bids, sometimes divides the contracts up into smaller separate contracts and that way avoids the committee altogether.”

“You mean they pass on small contracts without looking at them?”

“Oh, no. But they are looking for different things. You still can’t let your brother-in-law have a contract and not hear about it. If you’re found out, it hurts you, it hurts the party, and everybody remembers at election time.”

“I see.” I’d finished my coffee, and I could see that Joyce had put down her tea for the last time. “Thanks, Joyce. I’m beginning to understand things.”

“I should start charging you,” she said with a smile as she got up and hefted her briefcase.

“Just think of yourself as part of my vast network of operatives.”

“Will that pay the rent?” she asked as she turned to leave.

Ten minutes later I’d climbed up the twenty-eight steps leading to my office. The toilet was running as usual. Frank Bushmill’s waiting-room was filling up, and Kogan was waiting for me in front of my locked office door.

“No wonder you can’t afford me on your payroll. You can’t call these office hours?”

“Kogan, you’re breaking my back. Cut out the cracks.”

“I just came to report, chief.” If he’d saluted, I would have thrown him downstairs. Instead he looked earnest while I opened the office door and collected the morning mail from the floor. Nothing of interest except the bills my past is measured in. I threw the junk into a pile of older junk and sat down. Kogan sat in the client’s chair, pinching the imaginary creases in his trousers as usual as he settled.

“Well,” I asked, “what have you got?” Kogan leaned over towards me.

“I found that guy Blasko I was telling you about. The Hungarian.”

“Yeah, I remember. They were in the park.”

“The other’s named Frank Secker. The tall one with the beard.”

“And what did they have to say for themselves?”

“Nothing. They wouldn’t say nothing to start with.”

“Come to the bottom line. Forget the subtotals.”

“Well, after I went back a second time, and told them how Wally was my buddy and how we went through the war together and all.

“What did they admit finally, Kogan?”

“Blasko wouldn’t admit anything. He …”

“And Secker?”

“Finally, he admitted that he and Blasko had moved the body outside so that the cops would find it.”

“Outside? Where did they find it?”

“It was in the cellar under the pavilion in Montecello Park. They went in to kip and they found Wally. At first they ignored him, but when he was still lying there when they came back the next night, they found they couldn’t wake him up. They were afraid to get involved with the police, so they waited until around eleven then carried him to the bench where he was found.”

“Cops were on the job. They found him an hour later.”

“Probably thought he was sleeping.”

“You’re a cynic, Kogan. Tell me, when did Secker say he and his pal first came across Wally?”

“They don’t know the exact time. Neither carries a watch. But they think it was between nine and ten on Wednesday night.”

“So they didn’t suspect anything when he was still there in the morning, but when they came back the second time and he hadn’t moved, they investigated.”

“I just said that.”

“I’m just getting things straight in my head. What else did you learn from Secker?”

“They described you hanging around in the park yesterday.”

“What else that is useful, I mean.”

“I told you everything.”

“Try again.”

“Okay, they took forty bucks off him before they carried him outside. They’re entitled. Even if I was Wally’s sole heir, I figure they had it coming. Wally didn’t need it.”

“Did you know that Wally knew about the cellar under the pavilion?”

“Come on, Mr. Cooperman. Everybody in town knows about that place. It’s shelter, dry and away from the wind. If it gets a little high in the summer, it’s only because the school kids use it as a bathroom. None of the guys sleeping rough use it as a john.”

“Are you surprised to hear that Wally was probably killed in there?”

“First of all, I ask myself, who’d want to kill old Wally in the first place.”

“Kogan, I know. Try to answer the question.” I was losing patience again, and Kogan was squirming because he had trouble doing anything in a straight line. He thought a minute.

“I never went there with him. I never heard of Wally going there. Wally didn’t like the smell and I don’t blame him.”

“And you knew nothing about the forty dollars.”

“Hell no. And he had fifty the day before. He hadn’t had a wad like that in ten years. Not since we found a bunch of arrowheads and told a guy up at Secord University. He gave us a hundred dollars to split. Found them at the bottom of the escarpment near DeCew Falls, framed and mounted in a glass case, but we took ’em out and …”

“Never mind about that. Do you remember telling me about Wally getting that fifty from Ruth Geller? Wally told you on Tuesday.”

“Yeah, we’d just cut into a can of …”

“Forget the cat food. Try to remember what Wally said.”

“He said … Hell, Mr. Cooperman, I told you once. I don’t remember any more. Just that we were coming into money. He mentioned this Queen Street lawyer’s wife. The one who’s disappeared. Not the wife, I mean the lawyer.”

“Kogan, you’ve been a lot of help.”

“And I don’t care about the forty bucks those guys ripped off. I mean, they found it, didn’t they?”

“Kogan, you’ve got the heart of a capitalist under that necktie somewhere.”

“Of course I have. You think I’m some sort of Commie bum?”

“Get out of here, if you want me to hold on to my sanity.”

Kogan got up and walked to the door. Here he turned and asked, “You got any more assignments for me, chief?” I threw an outdated copy of the Pocket Criminal Code at him but missed.