Getting Away With Murder

TWENTY-THREE

With Chris Savas back on the job at Niagara Regional, and after a two-week vacation to Cyprus, I suspected that I might find both him and Pete Staziak at the little café run by a cousin of Chris’s. It was on Academy Street near the bus terminal, which was becoming an uninterrupted asphalt wilderness with a few old houses standing like brick icebergs in the sea. One of these was the home of the Spitfire. I don’t know why Chris’s cousin called it that, but that was what it said on the plastic sign, next to the familiar red-and-white Coke symbol.

When I got there, the place was deserted and I felt strange, like I’d walked into the women’s john by mistake. The cousin tried to place me but failed. His welcome was cordial but lacking the warmth I had seen on my earlier visits with Savas. I took a small table near the back and ordered a kebab of chicken. I somehow guessed that they wouldn’t stock my usual chopped-egg sandwiches. I had taken about three bites of the chicken-filled pita, when Chris and Pete walked in. Not only the cousin but the cousin’s wife were all over Chris like a rash inside of ten seconds. The warmth of the greeting spilled over on Pete Staziak. Even in Greek it made him smile. I nibbled my kebab with the bits of salad that had been thrown in with it. Two tables were pushed together and coats were collected. Pete was the first to spot me. He alerted Chris and soon I was included in the bubble of friendliness and moved plate, fork, body and napkin to their table.

At first we quizzed Savas about his holiday. There were no signs of a tan on his big meaty face, but his eyes, usually as cold as steel ball-bearings, danced with the pleasure of recalling it for us. “The island is still divided,” he said, draining a glass of something the proprietor-cousin had pressed on Chris. “There aren’t as many UN blue berets as when I was there last. My village is still lamenting the loss of its orchards on the other side of the mountain. They say that talks are going on, but that things will never get better.” Here Chris laughed. “They’ve been saying that since the Turks came the first time. When the Venetians came. When the English came.” Pete asked a few astute political questions and we all nodded at Chris’s answers.

Without our ordering from the menu, the proprietor brought a feast to the table-soft roast potatoes, hummus, and darkly roasted pieces of chicken, lamb and maybe even goat. As our faces became rosy with contentment and grease, Chris continued to tell stories about his trip, his family, and the adventures he’d had along the way. By the time the coffee came in brass ewers like the ones in the Lebanese restaurant below my apartment, Chris was beginning to sound hoarse. I just sat there listening and chewing on a slice of lamb cooked “in the thieves’ style,” which turns out to be roasted with herbs and potatoes in a sealed container.

It wasn’t really until after we left the café that Pete had anything to say that had a special interest for me. I told him that I had been retained by Dave Rogers and that I was thus still interested in Abe Wise’s murder.

“Just as long as you stay out of my way, Benny. That’s all I ask.” He tried to give me a serious look, but the shine of grease on his face torpedoed the effect. I mentioned it and he went to work with his blue-and-white polka-dotted handkerchief. I told him that I intended to stay as far away from his investigation as possible. Then I gave him an example of the kinds of questions I would not be asking him. Sometimes that worked with Pete. This time it didn’t.

“I knew it! I knew it!” he yelled, blowing me off the curb into Academy Street.

“Stored information’s no use to you, Pete. Information only gets hot when it’s in movement. That’s when things begin to happen. Like when there’s an exchange.”

“Benny, you know what you’re shovelling? Besides, you don’t have anything to trade.”

“Easy on him, Pete,” Chris said, putting a big hand on his partner’s shoulder. “He has to make rent this month. And he never got paid when we put Julian Newby away, remember?”

“Okay, okay. We’ll entertain a few questions.” Chris rolled his eyes and dropped behind us where he could watch this process of reciprocity advance. I guess he didn’t like what he saw because he quickly caught up to us again.

“Hart Wise told me that he’d given his old man some money during their last meeting. Did you find a cheque with his name on it?” Pete looked at me like I was a stranger. He thought a minute, then shook his head.

“Why would the kid lie?” he asked both of us.

Chris shrugged. “Maybe he’s invented the story of a reconciliation just for our benefit. Maybe there was no cheque.”

“What do you know about Julie Long’s boyfriend?”

“Oh, that’s a good one. Didier Santerre is another of your fast operators. Only he does it in black tie. His magazine has been losing money steadily for the last three years. Hart Wise isn’t the only bad paper hanger in town, Benny. Santerre’s face is as well known in local banks as the Queen’s.”

“Hal” I said. “I thought so. Didier made a half-hearted attempt to pick up the check at the Patriot Volunteer the other night. And I’d already been tipped they had a sucker to pay. I thought he was trying to impress Julie. A guy with a bankroll doesn’t have to impress anybody. It’s the poor buggers who have to spend the money.”

“Sure, toilet paper’s cheaper by the case. But who do you know who buys it that way?”

“It’s bad luck to buy it by the case. You might drop dead while you’re still on your first roll.”

“Listen you two comedians, I didn’t come back to this cold climate to hear you bellyache. Besides, your example stinks. It’s a bad analogy if I ever heard one. This is my first day back, you guys, give me a break!”

We walked along in silence down the right-hand side of Academy. Ahead of us we could see the scaffolding around the Folk Arts Festival office at the top of the street. The building, the original “academy” for which the street was named, was the oldest secondary school in Ontario. City Council cherished it and kept property developers at bay. They had recently rejected a plan to have the old place sandblasted after discovering that the process would do serious damage. My reflections were interrupted when Pete slipped on a piece of ice. I caught his arm and we both went down. As we brushed one another off, ignoring Chris’s laughter, I asked:

“Did you ever hear back anything about Neustadt’s death, Pete?”

“You still trying to tie that to what happened to Wise?”

“I’m keeping an open mind, that’s all. Well?”

“There was nothing wrong with the jack, Benny. Somebody had to have turned the valve.”

“Maybe Neustadt hadn’t tightened it before he got under the car?”

“Nope. If the valve’s not turned off, you can’t hoist the car in the first place. The jack can’t suck and blow at the same time. Only it’s not air, it’s hydraulics, Benny. How the hell did you get onto this? You a closet engineer?”

“So, you are saying that you are considering his death murder?”

“Considering, Benny, but not flapping the news around. We’re keeping quiet until the monkey thinks he’s safe.”

“I’ll keep buttoned up too, Pete. By the way, was he lying on a creeper board with casters on it?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’ve been trying to imagine the scene. It got so real, I had to make sure I wasn’t inventing the evidence.”

By now we had come along Church Street to the front door of Niagara Regional. We stood for a while together, blowing hot vapour with a garlicky perfume at each other.

“Yeah,” said Savas, “I was away for that. Jesus! Not a nice way to go.”

“Did you know him well, Chris?” I asked.

“Benny, you don’t want to know about Ed Neustadt. You don’t want to know.”