Getting Away With Murder

FIVE

“What the fuck’s going on?” It was Mickey Armstrong. He had come around behind me as I watched Dave Rogers add his weight to the springs under the front seat of his Cadillac.

“What do you mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean! What kind of deal did you cut with Wise? I don’t want some hick snoop walking on my grass, Cooperman! Stay clear! You understand?”

“I hear what you’re saying. You don’t have to shout. I didn’t apply for this job, Mickey; you pulled me out of bed. If you can get me off the hook, I’ll owe you. But in the meantime, Wise is giving the orders. He didn’t present me with alternatives. It’s march or die. And I know he’s not bluffing. Hell, you know him better than I do. Can we talk?” He took the car keys from my hand and opened the door on the driver’s side.

“Get in!” he said loudly, but softened it by handing me back my keys.

“I don’t like this, Cooperman,” he said.

Once inside, I leaned over to unlock the door on the passenger’s side. Through the window I could see Dave Rogers driving away, without so much as a backward glance. Mickey climbed in and glared at me: “Well?” he said.

“Mickey-do you mind me calling you that?”

“It’s my name. What the hell are you going to call me? Michael? Only my grandmother calls me that. Everybody calls me Mickey.”

“Look, Mickey, I’m in a situation. I’ve been hired by your boss.”

“You gotta do better than that.”

“I want to trust you, Mickey, but I’m still trying to find the boundaries. You know what I mean? Dave Rogers says I can trust you, and I mean to, but not yet. I don’t know enough.”

“You going to do a course or something?”

“Look, Mickey, we both work for Mr. Wise, right? We’re going to get to know one another, we’ll work towards an understanding. In the meantime, he’s got a different deal with each of us.”

“I thought you’d say that. Keep going.”

Mickey still kept my first impression of him alive. He looked like an RCMP old boy. He was even wearing a Mountie winter hat with great fur flaps tied on top like a deerstalker. But it was more than the hat. There was something in his size, his rock-steadiness that did it. His clean-shaven face added a chapter too. The rest of the book, beyond the vague military feel I got from his carriage and grooming was an air of competence in a crisis. True, at the moment he was trying to frighten me into telling more than I was ready to tell. His manner to me spoke of loyalty to Wise. He was hurt that Wise had sent for me instead of trusting the matter to him and the boys. Seeing that this hadn’t happened, he wondered about the status of himself and his crew of early risers. Obviously, Mickey was a man to stay on the right side of.

“I’ve said just about all I can say, Mickey, until I’ve heard and seen more. What else can I tell you for nothing? Whatever I’m doing has nothing to do with you or your men. You can forget that angle. I’m not an efficiency expert about to tell you how to do your job better. I’m a private investigator. I’m trying to find out one piece of information and then I’m through. If Wise ever lets anybody say he’s through, that is. If you’ve been giving him full weights, you’ve got nothing to fear from me. Even if you’ve been nicking him a little, creaming off the top, that’s none of my business unless it comes between me and finding out what I’m being paid for. I want to learn one thing and one thing only. But to get there, I’m going to have to ask a lot of questions. As you see,” I said, inclining my head in, the direction of the Chinese restaurant, “I’ve already started.”

“You think I’m going to answer your questions?” He said this with almost a sneer. He was pretty sure of himself.

“When the time comes, Mickey, yes, I do. I’ll ask Mr. Wise to have a word with you. I think that’ll do wonders, don’t you? We’ll talk down the road a few days. You pick the time. I think you’re going to be a big help to me, Mickey. A big help when the time comes.”

“I been reading up on you.”

“Yeah? Where?”

“He got me to do a rundown on all the PIs in the area. I even checked out a couple of guys in Niagara Falls and Buffalo. Mr. Wise was impressed by the job you did when that old lady starved to death last year.”

“I didn’t make a dime on that case. Don’t remind me. A few more like that and I’ll have to start searching titles for a living again. I’ve got a cousin always after me to go to work for him. He’s a lawyer.”

“That would be Melvyn Cooper, right?” I grinned at his knowing my cousin’s name.

“You should go into my business, Mickey. You’re good at it.”

“Now you’re buttering me up. You want to rub my belly, Cooperman?”

“Hey!”

“Let’s get this straight. I work for Wise and whatever he says goes. But that doesn’t mean I gotta like it. As a matter of fact I don’t like this whole thing beginning with you. So don’t mess with me!”

“I hear you. You get top marks for putting on a gaudy show, but it doesn’t change anything. I’m still going to have some questions for you and you better have some answers for me. You understand?” I tried to give my best imitation of my friend Chris Savas’s tone when he was running out of patience with me, when the balance of the things that I’d told him and the things I was withholding was still tipping in my favour. Savas was almost always angry at me in a professional way, but we remained friends apart from that. Why couldn’t Mickey see things that way?

“Thanks for the high-school pep talk,” Mickey said, opening the car door and stepping out into the chilly weather. I got out my door too, just to see if there was life after high school. For a moment he stared at me over the roof of the Olds, as though he was questioning my right to breathe the air in West Grantham.

“I was born a couple of blocks from here,” I told him at last, when he made no move towards his own car.

“Yeah? I opened my eyes on Dexter Street. You know where that is?”

“We could crawl there from here on our hands and knees if we had to.” He didn’t quite grin, but I could see the battle to suppress it in his face.

“Can you tell me who it was who met us at the door this morning?”

“Where?”

“At Wise’s place. Good-looking woman. He called her Victoria. Does she live with Wise?”

“That was my wife, Mr. Cooperman.” I could see I’d lost yards again just when I thought there was a chance of a first down. “We live in the house with Mr. Wise. Is there a problem?”

“Uh, no. I see. Does he have a female companion of any kind?”

“Who the hell …!”

“Cool it, Mickey, I’m just doing my job.”

“Well, I’m not the World Almanac. Answer your own damned questions.”

“You can at least put names to our companions on the drive. Come on! I’m asking small potatoes.” He returned my look but said nothing, as though he really didn’t know how to answer questions. At the same time, I could see he found my persistence funny.

“Never mind, Mickey. I’ll ask your boss. You’ll be hearing from him about cooperation. Cooperation with Cooperman is a big theme with him these days.”

“I haven’t heard a stop order on last night yet. Until I do you can call them Moe, Larry and Curly for all I care.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself. And does Mickey get the odd custard pie in the face?”

“Mickey learned a long time ago you never feel sorry for things you don’t say.”

“Well, we all learn to eat our words, Mickey. See you around.”

From where I stood, I watched him cross the street and get into his car. He didn’t look back either. If he had, he would have seen me staring in a concentrated way at the bare, thick twigs and branches of the chestnut tree silhouetted against the horizon where Henrietta Street ran downhill away from me and my growling stomach. What does my stomach know from egg rolls? I got back in the car and drove across the high-level bridge.

On my way back to the office, I tried to think of a practical way to yell “help!” Mickey was in my rear-view mirror, of course. Where else would he be? The panic I felt was not for the moment, but for down the road. How long was I going to be able to stand the face of Mickey or one of his boys being reflected in my soup. They could give me a lot of aggravation if I wasn’t careful. This was also no time to think of using my off-and-on contacts with the local cop shop. I could bring them into it later, if there was one.

My answering service told me that a Mr. Dave Oddjers had called and I wrote down the phone numbers and the names that my egg-roll-eating friend had promised. I started with Paulette. The first Mrs. Wise seemed safest, next to Rogers the best contact I’d been given. I dialled the number and waited.

“Yes?” The voice sounded as if it was coming up from thirty fathoms.

“Paulette Wise?” I asked.

“Who is this? I’ve no use for the name Wise. I’ve been Staples again for I don’t know how long. Who is this?”’

“My name’s Cooperman. I’m a private investigator here in Grantham. I’d like to talk to you.”

“If this is about the Triumph, that’s all been cleared up. The bank agreed not to press charges. Have you talked to Mr. MacLeod?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wi-Staples, this has nothing to do with that.”

“Hart told me that it was all tidied up. If it’s not the Triumph, what is it, Mr. Cooper?”

“Cooperman,” I corrected. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“What is this all about? Are you giving hints, or do you want me to guess?” She was sounding more like what I imagined was her usual self, although I had no way of knowing for sure.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make a mystery out of it: I want to talk to you about your ex-husband, Abram Wise.”

“Ha! You’ve got a lot of nerve! I wouldn’t talk to the Mounties and I wouldn’t talk to the local police. Why on earth should I talk to you?”

“I can’t make you talk to me.”

“You’re damned right! I bet you don’t even have any paper.”

“Right, again. No warrants, no subpoenas. Not even a note from the teacher. I wish I had something to catch your attention, but I haven’t. The only thing I know for sure is that somebody is trying to kill your ex-husband.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” She laughed at her joke and I tried to go along with it. I wasn’t handling this at all well and I had a feeling that it was going to get worse. I held on to the pause that followed for as long as I could. “Are you still there, Mr. Cooperman?”

“I’m here, but it isn’t doing me any good, is it?”

“You give up too easy. What do I get out of this? And where are you coming from?”

“Mr. Wise hired me. I never met him until a few hours ago, when he sent some people to get me out of bed. He-”

“Well, at least I know you aren’t shitting me. That’s Abe all over. He’d never think of writing you a letter or calling you on the phone. So, he’s put you on the payroll. Good for you. Now, what’s my end?”

“What can I tell you, Mrs.-”

“Call me Paulette, for Christ’s sake! What does your mother call you?”

“Benny. I don’t have any money to give away, Paulette, not money that you’d call money. But I might be able to look into that Triumph business on the side. I know a few people in town. I can’t promise anything.”

“Hart’s not a bundle of joy to me these days, Benny. He’s more damned trouble than he’s worth. But, he’s mine. What am I going to do? I can’t let them send him to jail!”

“I’ll see what I can do. When can I see you?”

“Give me an hour to put my face on. You know where I live?”

“I’ve only got your telephone number. I heard that you used to live over the river in the States. When did you move back here?”

“Six months ago. I still don’t know what you’re after, Mr. Cooperman. I came back because after a lot of moving around, this is where I want to be. Besides, I’m getting to be of an age when it’s good to know where your doctor is when you want him and whether or not he can get you a hospital bed if you need one.”

“Are you in bad health, Paulette?”

“You’ve met Abe, haven’t you? Well, Abe has been bad for my nerves for forty years. And I was older than him when we met. I’m not getting any younger, Mr. Cooperman. But of course, you don’t mean to pry, do you?”

“I’m in a prying business, Paulette.” She laughed at that then gave me an address on Duke Street, not far from Montecello Park. I could walk there from my office in five minutes, if I didn’t run into too many people. I glanced at the clock. Why was it two hours earlier than I thought it should be? I should try to schedule a nap into my calendar for today.

I picked up the telephone again and did the same number I’d just done on Paulette with Wise’s second wife, Lily. She was more polite and cultured in her conversation, but she turned me down flat. She did it so well that it took me a moment to realize it. Lily had dealt with a lot of Fuller Brush people in her day. I had to hand it to her.