A City Called July

EIGHT

“What is it Kogan? For crying out loud, don’t just stand there hanging in the doorway. Come in and sit down.” Kogan didn’t move. Kogan didn’t look like he enjoyed being up on the second floor, twenty-eight steps from the solid comfort of the street. He was still wearing his grey flannels and blazer with his army discharge pin in the lapel. He looked at my door, trying to read something in my sign that would make it easier. “Come in, Kogan. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

“Look, Mr. Cooperman, I don’t want to break into anything. I just thought …” All this from the doorway, like he could smell something unpleasant under my desk, when in fact it was Kogan who smelled like a three-day-old tuna sandwich in August.

“If you’re coming in, let’s get on with it. If you’re not coming in shut the door gently and see you around.” Kogan thought a moment, looked at a space about a foot above my head, then closed the door behind him. I got up, rushed around my desk and caught him halfway down the stairs. “Kogan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got carried away by the impulse to share some of the frustration I’ve been collecting. What’s up? You broke?”

“It ain’t that, Mr. Cooperman. Hell, I’m always broke. Shit, you know that. That’s no secret.” He wedged his way around so that he faced me. The light behind him coming up from St. Andrew Street blanked out his large, leathery face I leaned against the stair railing, then slid into a hunkering position as we talked.

“I know that. You’ve had bad luck for a long time now.”

“You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. That’s a fact. I’ve been down since we got out of the army. Must be twenty years.”

“More like forty. The war was over in forty-five. What can I do for you?” Kogan pulled at the non-existent creases in his trousers and sat down on the steps looking up at me. The light gave his messy hair a halo that needed reblocking. It also picked out highlights on the brass stripping at the top of each step, and the marks on the wall where heavy objects had squeaked by.

“You know Wally? Wally Moore? Me and him’s been buddies since we won the war together over in France. I met him first in the lock-up out Niagara Street one winter. You’ve seen him around. A little guy, with a wide gait and a bamboo cane like Charlie Chaplin?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve seen him around for years. What’s he got up to?”

“Old Wally’s been a good friend of mine for a lot of years. We used to do a lot of drinking together.”

“I’ll bet. What’s he got into?”

“Wally-I call him Wally: his right name’s Bamfylde. How j’ah like that? Bamfylde! Hot shit. Isn’t that sumpin’?”

“What are you worried about, Kogan? You came here to tell me something, didn’t you?” The answer to that question had to wait for one of Dr. Bushmill’s patients to pass us on her way down the stairs. I watched her go, bouncing down each step a little light on her left foot. Corns. Maybe.

“Estelle Kramer,” Kogan announced when the air-brake settled the door back in place.

“What?”

“That was Estelle Kramer. You know Otto Kramer’s wife? Butcher on James Street?”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“Not a thing. Just practising. In my position you have to know people. Can’t depend on looks alone. Otto’s given Wally and me a Christmas bird more than once. Stringy, you know, but tasty.”

“Kogan. Go to hell! You’re never going to come to the point and I’m going back to my office where I can get rid of the cramp in my shin.” I got up and went limping back behind my desk. I didn’t slam the door, but I felt like it. In a minute he was standing like Samson between the pillars in my doorway again.

“Wally’s got a lot more class than you think, Mr. Cooperman.”

“What makes you think I’ve thought about it?” I was doodling the names of the people I’d been talking to up at the Gellers’ place on a block of yellow legal-sized foolscap. I could still see Kogan holding up the doorframe.

“He could be in a lot of trouble. And you don’t even give a damn.”

“Sure I give a damn. But his pal won’t tell me what it’s all about. He’s waiting for me to read all about it in my Christmas stocking or something. His old buddy won’t give me any hints. He wants me to work it out like Sherlock Holmes from the nicks on your Adam’s apple.”

“Okay, I understand. I just had to be sure I came to the right place. I gotta be careful like. Wally’s the only buddy I ever had. The best pal I could want. Now he’s nowhere.”

“How do you mean, ‘nowhere’?”

“We had a shack behind Maple Street. Wally used to have a popcorn wagon back there, but the kids smashed it all to smithereens. But we had a decent kip: blankets and a sleeping-bag. It beat sleeping in doorways. Even sleeping here in the hall along by the bathroom. You should get that toilet fixed. It runs all night.”

“I’ll mention it to the landlord. He’ll appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it. I mean, sure, tell him. By ‘don’t mention it’ I meant ‘you’re welcome.’”

“Kogan, do you think you can stay on the subject of your pal for a minute without a side-trip? Try it. We are talking about your pal Wally Bamfylde Moore. Get on with it.”

“Well, it’s just he ain’t been around for a couple o’ days. He’s gone. Like that Geller guy on Queen Street. Only Wally didn’t have more than maybe twenty-five dollars tops.”

“Maybe he’s found another kip? Maybe he’s found a nice park bench to sleep on during these warm nights. He’ll turn up.

“Cooperman, you’re a shit-heel. You know what that is? You’re a real poop-and-scoop artist, that’s what you are. I told you Wally and me’ve been together. You know what that means? I know Wally, and I know what he’s going to do from Monday to Sunday. He’s a shrewd character, but habit-ridden. You know what I mean? He sometimes sleeps near his pitch, but he tells me first.”

“I’m sorry, Kogan. I didn’t mean to be flip. I apologize.” Kogan made a pass at his nose with his fingers, squeezed the bridge of his nose like a bank president, then blinked trying to pick up the thread of the story again. “Kogan, what’s your first name? I can’t keep calling you Kogan.”

“Give me a minute,” he said, squinting hard. “Victor.”

“The hell it is.”

“I seen it in print that way. Anyway, I been Kogan too long to argue. Just don’t call me Victor, you hear?”

“Where did you see Wally last?”

“We tucked into some 9-Lives on Tuesday night.”

“Did he say anything about going off? Did you have a fight?”

“Certainly not. And I checked the hospitals and the lock-up. Wally didn’t get hit by a milk truck, and he didn’t get pinched.”

“Did he say anything about where he was going or what he intended to do the next day?”

“Well, you finally got down to it. You finally asked. I thought I’d be a fine old bone before you asked that one.” Kogan’s old wallet of a face creased into a map of smiles. “He told me he was going to see the wife of a Queen Street lawyer.”

“He what?”

“I knew that’d get you. He told me he was going to see this woman over on Mortgage Hill. I forgot the name until I saw it in tonight’s paper.”

“Tell me this again slowly.”

“I don’t usually chew my cabbage twice. He said he wanted to see this Mrs. Geller. Said they had business.” Kogan now had all my attention and he knew it. He played the scene like an actor building up the momentum leading to the curtain line. “He said we were havin’ our last can of cat food. And that’s when he showed me the bottle he’d bought. It wasn’t his favourite, Old Sailor, it was Gordon’s gin. Where’d he get that kind of money? That’s what got me scared, Mr. Cooperman. Where’s Wally and is he all right?”

I took Wally’s pal Kogan with me around the corner to the United for a coffee and a square meal. He had the coffee. I had the square meal. I nearly had to bust his arm to get him to accept coffee. He sat on the edge of the stool like he was afraid of breaking it and pretended not to notice the dirty looks I was getting from the waitress, who had “Nicole” stitched on her breast. It wasn’t Nicole. Nicole had left the United a year ago. “Nicole” went with the uniform the way a glass of water went with the menu. For the next twenty minutes I pumped Kogan about his friend: where he did his panhandling, what his habits were, and in that time I picked up about two minutes of valuable information. Wally’s favourite stamping ground was right in front of the Loftus Building at the Queenston Road end of St. Andrew Street, across from the closed-off block where the new fire hall was being built. To me it didn’t look like the best pickings in town, but Kogan put me wise to the stream of workers coming to and from the building site as well as the shifts going to and from Etherington’s Empire Carpet Works. Together we went around to the liquor store where it didn’t take long to locate the guy who’d sold Wally his bottle of gin. The fellow remembered him because Wally’d given him a fifty-dollar bill to change, flicked ashes on his change machine, and asked for a receipt. And all because he’d been on the Liquor Control Board list of those whose money was no good for about twenty years. Then the rules changed.

Kogan had given me the only break I’d had in this case. His pal had been paid by Ruth Geller for something. What was it and did it have anything to do with the fact that he was nowhere to be seen? My stomach told me that there was a strong possibility that his disappearance had directly followed from something that Wally had seen and reported to Ruth. I’d have to question her about that. In the meantime I was happy to be helping the little guy. It made me feel like I was a real taxpayer instead of someone who only had aspirations to be one. Before we separated, I got Kogan to promise to keep his eyes open and to be sure to drop in to see me as soon as he heard from Wally.

When I got back to the office, I found the door standing open. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was in the midst of giving myself a sermon on forgetfulness when I saw that the office had a visitor.

“Mr. Cooperman? I suppose you’re Mr. Cooperman. It’s silly even to ask, isn’t it?” The speaker was a woman in her thirties, about five feet six and not at all hard to look at with her large eyes and pouting mouth. I recognized the brunette hair from the time I’d seen it drive into the Bolduc yard in her silver Audi.

“Well, Mrs. Morley! This is a surprise Do you always let yourself in? If I’d known you were coming I would have left the door off the latch.”

“Please don’t be boring about the door, Mr. C. Those old spring locks wouldn’t keep the cat out. You didn’t actually want me to stand waiting in the hall, did you? With the Water Music from your bathroom? Besides, this old credit card’s expired.” She held up a mangled plastic card and dropped it with a dramatic gesture into the waste-paper basket. I walked around her, feeling that if I could recapture my desk, I could get the interview on a firm footing according to all the rules on the subject. I already had a feeling that Pia Morley didn’t necessarily bend where the rules said “fold.” Once I’d claimed my chair, I waved her to one of the others on the client’s side of the desk. She took it, composing her skirt under her as she sat. I offered her a cigarette and instead of taking out her own, she took one of mine. She wasn’t given to showing her independence in small ways. I leaned across towards her with a lighted match. She steadied my hand and bent to the flame. She was wearing a pink blouse, cut like a man’s shirt, that almost failed to contain her. A dim outline of lace appeared through the broadcloth and gave an electric jab to my innards. She wore her hair tied up at the back of her head, but there was enough left over to frame her face provocatively. Her eyes had been made up lightly and her lips parted in a smile that showed straight white teeth. There was no missing the long curve of her neck or the diamond studs in her earlobes.

“To what do I owe the honour?” I asked. She crossed her legs grandly without bothering to check the horizon of her hemline.

“I’m trying to make up my mind whether or not I’m going to like you,” she said, missing my ashtray by inches and not worrying about it. “You’ve been lifting up a lot of stones in the last two days, Mr. C.”

“Let me remind you now that it was you who spoke of lifting up stones first. Sure I have. I’m working on a case. That’s no secret. I’m trying to find Larry Geller and see if I can get him to give back the money he’s taken.”

“You know the police are doing the same thing?”

“Sure. We’re all in this together. Only they have more patience than I have. They can afford to wait until Geller makes his move and then grab him. By ‘grab him’ they mean get extradition proceedings underway. When I hope to grab somebody, it’s a little more physical than that.”

“You don’t look like a muscle man. You surprise me, Mr. C. I can’t actually imagine you manhandling people. You don’t seem the type.”

“Well, between the two of us, I haven’t had to manhandle too many lately. I may be out of practice. But I do what I have to do. Mostly talk to people. Sometimes it works.”

“You talked to Sid and Nathan.”

“No law against that, Mrs. Morley. I’m entitled.”

“You’ve been asking questions about me. Me and Sid.” I nodded my admission, and she cocked her head to one side and flashed her eyelashes at me. “I don’t like to have questions asked behind my back, Mr. C. I don’t like it. I don’t know anything about Larry Geller you can’t read on the front page of tonight’s Beacon. So, I want out, please. I said ‘please,’ remember. I always start by saying ‘please.’”

“And when that doesn’t work?”

“But it’s going to work, Mr. C. Because you’re one smart detective, aren’t you?”

“Never top of my class.”

“But you’ve learned so much since then.”

“And it’s built all this.” She looked at the hanging fluorescent fixtures and then at the light coming dustily through the Venetian blinds. She inclined her head as though acknowledging a point. I shrugged it off. A tendril of brown hair fell over her forehead and I wondered how she’d managed that. She leaned over my bleached oak desk trying to look tougher than she could in a pink button-down shirt with lace showing through.

“Mr. C. I’m asking you to lay off Sid and me. Sid’s already told you everything he knows. Everything he’s willing to tell, anyway. He’s not going to rat on his brother. You’ve got sense. Would you spill your guts to me about your brother?” I thought of my brother Sam. I could see him in his operating-room greens worrying about a parking ticket.

“You’ve made your point, Mrs. Morley. And you know I’m not lifting stones because I like lifting stones. It’s all part of a job I’m being paid to do. With me around it means the stage isn’t cluttered up with the aggrieved and the hard done by. I’ve got the blessing of the whole community. I’m sanctioned.” She looked at me evenly while taking a pull at the cigarette. She slowly let the smoke out.

“Supposing, just supposing there’s more in it for you to let sleeping stones lie? What then?” I stroked my chin where the beard was beginning to show through at the end of the day. I pushed my swivel chair back from the desk and rocked on the point of equilibrium and thought. She watched me like she had put a bunch of chips down on twenty-two black and the wheel was still going around. And I watched the way the lace came into focus under the broadcloth every time she breathed in.

“Mrs. Morley …”

“Don’t call me that. Call me Pia. My friends call me Pia.”

“Look, you’re not making me an offer to look the other way because of the tricks your boy-friend’s brother has been playing. You have reasons of your own.”

She tried not to let on I’d hit a nerve. That was one way of looking at it. The other way was to admit that I may have been miles from the truth. She extinguished her cigarette butt in the ashtray. Her nails were pink, like her shirt. “You have a wild imagination, Mr. C. I can’t think where you get your notions from. I want you to be my friend, Mr. C. Nobody tells me anything. Whenever I ask Sid, he just grins or chews on his cigar. He never tells me anything. Except that he loves me I mean. I can get him to tell me that, because I’m so back and forth with him about us that it’s a joke. He doesn’t think it’s funny, but what can I do about it? That’s the way I am. That’s the way I’ve always been.” She reached on the floor for the taupe bag she’d brought in with her and began to make signs of leaving. I got up, and started coming round the desk.

“You must pick my lock again sometime.” She ignored that, and pushed herself out of the chair.

“Now, I’ve stayed too long. I don’t want to get a ticket.”

“I’ll bet you have friends who would take care of a little thing like that.”

“Yes, I have friends, Mr. C. I hope that you’ll be a friend. At a time like this friends are very comforting, don’t you think?” She gave me the full force of her pouting smile, held it for a second longer than it took to make its point. She said goodbye and left me standing in the middle of my office wondering where she’d gone. She had that sort of presence that I find confusing. I walked over to the door and shut it, then came slowly back to my desk. Pia Morley had left a lingering fragrance behind her. I hadn’t noticed it when she was two feet away from me. Nice, I thought, very nice.