The Cooperman Variation

TWENTY

I had something on my mind and I thought Chuck Pepper was the one to fix it. I called him from the pay phone near the front of the pub.

“Pepper.” His voice on the phone sounded the way a cop’s voice ought to. I trusted that voice.

“Chuck, it’s Cooperman. How’s it going?” I’m sure he could hear and recognize the din behind me. Still, he didn’t say anything. Sykes or Boyd would have.

“The forensic people want you to join up, Benny. Your suggestions on the Foley case paid off. Far too much cigarette ash for the number of butts and packages. They even went further: they say the ash was new; it wasn’t mixed in with floor dust enough for it to have been an accumulation over time. I reckon that makes you a happy camper, Benny?”

“What’s it got to do with me? I was just being helpful. But, while we’re on the subject of forensics, what about the glasses in the kitchen and the yellow rubber gloves?”

“You hit a nerve there too. They aren’t as happy about that; think they should have thought of it themselves. There’s one good print inside the glove. But they don’t have much to compare it with. It wasn’t Foley’s. Not his ex-wife’s either.”

“Could you do me a favour, Chuck?”

“What else have I ever done for you?”

“I need to know-no, wait a minute-you need to know the combination of the lock that Jack and Jim had cut off the locker in Vanessa Moss’s office. I’ve been bugging Jack about it since I first met him a week ago and he still hasn’t found out, or if he has, he hasn’t told me. But then, I’ve been made Out of Bounds by the Chief. You heard about that, I suppose?”

“Yeah, Jack called me. The Chief put his head in the microwave. Nothing he could do about it. But what’s this about locks?”

“I’ve got a half-baked idea, Chuck. But if it turns out to be better than that, it could be important, and I don’t want to be connected with it any more than I have to. You want a clean chain of evidence, and I don’t want to foul it for you.”

“I’ll call Jack about it. I won’t mention your name. I’ll say the half-baked idea was all mine.” I heard a blurred sound. Chuck left the line for a moment. When he came back, he asked if I could meet him for breakfast in the morning. We arranged a spot near my hotel, and we both went back to work.

I got no flack from Security when I returned to NTC. I was whizzed through like I was wearing Commander Dunkery’s own identity card. Vanessa was standing in her office with the door open, looking down onto University Avenue. An amateur gunman could have got off a few rounds at her without stepping far from the elevator.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” I said, closing the doors behind me. “You can’t go on exposing yourself to danger.”

“Benny, you really still believe that I’m in danger?”

“Of course I do.”

“I survived four days in L.A. without getting shot, didn’t I?”

“Renata was killed right here in Toronto. In L.A. you get killed breathing the air. I could have gunned you down from the elevator without getting out, Vanessa. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but-”

“You’re being a mother hen and ridiculous.”

“What are you talking about?” I told her about the 222s I’d taken from her. I wasn’t planning to tell her things that would upset her. A Vanessa innocent of the threats to her life was easier to manage than the one with a loaded gun under her pillow, and, besides, she seemed stronger since she got back from the coast. The buzz of having defeated Ted Thornhill was still with her, adding to the high she was experiencing. She threw a few papers into the wastebasket and handed me the jacket she had been wearing. I held it as she slid into the silky sleeves.

“There! That’s all the damage I can do for today. Tomorrow is another day. God, I hope so! How about taking me out for a drink, Benny? I think I deserve one.”

We left the building, getting not a breath of criticism from the guard at the security desk. He noted our passage in a log as we crossed to the revolving doors. I made a mental note as I stood back while Vanessa’s long legs moved her quickly through the whirling glass. She hailed a taxi and was sliding into the back seat before I could get the door of the cab open. I recognized that I was not good at this, or that I was as good at it as I was going to get.

The top of the Park Plaza never changed, she said as a smiling waiter with silver hair led the way to a table overlooking the city. “It’s not even called the Park Plaza any more, but it’s too much of an institution to change with every change of management. The Park Plaza was the first steel and concrete building this far north. Bloor Street was almost Toronto’s northern boundary when it went up.” I asked Vanessa what she wanted to drink, and when she told me, I placed an order with the waiter for a single malt and a rye and ginger ale. When he returned with the drinks, he referred to Vanessa’s as her “usual.” For a minute I stared at my drink while she looked into the pinpoints of light in the darkness.

“Vanessa, I want you to answer some questions.”

“Benny! Lighten up! Relax for thirty seconds. What kind of questions?”

“You phoned me back last Thursday night. Why did you say you didn’t?”

“You don’t know that I did.”

“Let’s try to keep things simple. Nobody but you knew my number. It had to have been you. Why did you call?”

“If you must know, I had a presentiment of how the night would end, and just for a minute, I got cold feet.”

“You’re entitled.”

“I’m glad you came, Benny. I don’t know how I would have got through the night without you. And I did have all the best intentions about your poor eye.”

“Never mind my poor eye. Tell me what you know about the gun you keep under your pillow?”

“Benny!”

“Don’t pull that shocked, innocent look on me, Vanessa. It’s just another kind of smoke-screen. I’m not acting the scorned lover. I just have to know, that’s all. Where did you get it?”

“George gave it to me.”

“You know he’s got a record?”

“Yes, I know. I don’t know where he got it. The gun, I mean. He said I needed it for protection.”

“You weren’t using it for protection last Thursday night.”

“Damn it, Benny. That’s private stuff! Nobody has a right to probe that. You certainly didn’t bring it up at the time. I don’t recall your being at all curious about where it came from then. We could have discussed it, only the question never came up.”

“Okay, okay! I’m only human. My feet of clay are the best in town, rival all others. I didn’t say anything because right then you didn’t need questions. You needed something like a hug, and that is what was going on until it took a turn that had nothing to do with good intentions. I can’t and won’t say I’m sorry it happened, Vanessa. But I sure didn’t want it to complicate things. So all I need from you now are good clear answers to my questions.”

“Honestly, I don’t know anything more about the gun, except, as you know, I’ve found it exciting.”

“Okay, tell me … tell me about Bob Foley.”

“I thought we were having a relaxing, after-work libation. Can’t you forget the office for half an hour? I was telling you about this hotel. It’s crooked, you know. I don’t mean the management; I mean structurally. There’s an underground stream below the street and that gives it a list to starboard. Or maybe to port. Don’t be cross.”

“It doesn’t matter what I am. I’m just the working stiff trying to keep you alive.” She didn’t say anything for a moment. She was looking at caricatures of local literati in a big frame on the wall. I watched her hands on her glass. She was rubbing a finger around the rim, but it made no sound. She shifted her weight, she pouted, she leaned into her blouse with a full breath, and that didn’t work either. Not tonight.

“Oh, all right! What do you want to know?”

“You told me you hardly knew Foley, but that’s not the truth, is it?”

“I knew him. I’m quite the authority on Bob Foley.”

“Let’s hear about it.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, mopping her lips with one of those undersized napkins that are useless for almost everything.

“When I first came to Toronto, I worked at the CBC. I was the gofer in those days. I was trying to learn the ropes. Bob Foley was a technician. One night in Studio L, I was cleaning up some tapes, getting ready to go back upstairs, and Bob Foley groped me. He was all over me like a rash, pulling and-Anyway, I struggled and got away from him. I was terrified, violated, embarrassed. The lot. I didn’t tell anybody. But the next time I was in a studio by myself, Foley was there again. Same thing. After that little adventure, I complained to my supervisor. The upshot was that while I was a recently arrived, untrained, expendable female production assistant, Foley was a highly trained, valuable senior technician whose work was beyond reproach. The Engineering Department decided to ignore my complaint. He represented a bigger investment in corporate resources than I did. They did nothing about him. Bob went on his merry way and the women he ran into kept having to cross their legs whenever they were booked into a late-night studio alone with him. After all, there would always be more of them than there would be trained technical operators. Benny, I once mentioned the experience when talking to a former CBC vice-president. This was years later, and I didn’t mention Foley by name. He knew I was talking about Foley. Everybody knew that about Bob Foley.”

“Wow!”

“I left CBC for a while and worked other places. I’ve been with all of the Canadian networks. On the whole, the technicians are a great bunch and we have always got along well, but Bob Foley was the rotten apple, Benny.”

“That, as shocking as it is, Vanessa, is ancient history. What recent contacts have you had with him?”

“I’ve checked up on him, Benny. Quietly, and without briefing my informants beforehand. I wanted to be fair.”

“And?”

“Foley was up to his old tricks. He never changed. I got the names of four different women that he had … had … importuned.”

“Fancy word, but it’s the same old groping Bob Foley. Did he know that you were trying to get him fired?”

“Who told you that?”

“I’m getting to know you, Vanessa, and I’m good at guessing.”

“He knew. He also knew that he was just as safe from dismissal from his highly skilled job at NTC in this century as he’d been at CBC in the last. So much for all the recent legislation. It doesn’t mean a thing when money’s involved.”

“I hope your experience with Raymond Devlin was less stressful?”

“I knew him first years ago. He did some legal work for me out of his tiny office off Bay Street. Not too far from where he is today. But that first place was more of a shoebox than an office. Of course, I’ve had to work close to him since the Plevna Foundation was set up. The Dermot Keogh Hall deal has taken a lifetime of work, Benny, not all from me. There are a lot of people working on it.”

“Do you like him? Do you trust him?”

“He needs a lot of looking after.”

“I know; you told me about that. What else?”

“He’s a good lawyer; he’s thorough, dependable. Solid from a business standpoint.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I don’t dislike him. I have no reason to dislike him. I know, I know. Okay, let’s stick to facts. I have nothing against him but a feeling. Can you deal with a feeling?”

“It’s a start. Did you ever visit him in Muskoka?”

“He tried to lure me to his cottage one weekend, but he did that to everybody. Everybody of child-bearing years, that is. Sally narrowly escaped. I ran into him once when I was visiting a publisher on Lake Muskoka. I gather that he enjoyed upsetting some of the old Muskoka traditions: taste, decorum, manners, things like that.” Vanessa had taken my hand in hers. There was no suggestion of intimacy or romance. No, it was just a curious object that was handy, and she thought she wanted a closer look. It didn’t hold her interest long after I pressed her for more information.

“I do remember hearing that Dermot threw Devlin out one time. I forget what it was about, but he was banned from Dermot’s cottage, forbidden the use of his boats. You know, cut off at the ankles. And Dermot wasn’t hard to get along with.”

“Well, that’s something. Who would be your source on that?”

“Probably Philip Rankin. He’d be good on Dermot too, of course.”

“It’s your bacon I’m trying to keep from frying, Vanessa. It’s too late for Dermot. Although, from what I’ve heard, I would like to have met him.”

“If you like walking tightropes. He was quirky, Benny. For instance, he couldn’t abide sharp objects: sharp pencils, knitting needles, knives. He’d go crazy if he saw a blade of any kind. You can imagine what it was like trying to edit audio tape around him in the old days. It was all done with razor blades. He would never allow anything sharp in that place of his on Clarence Square. Blades were just one thing. There were lots of them. You could never tell when you were crossing him until he was so peeved at you, you were done for.”

“Was he peeved with Renata?”

“Renata Sartori? No! Of course not. He was in love with her. She was with him when he was drowned. She was in the boat, helping Foley manage the rafts and equipment.”

“Does the name Bowmaker ring any bells with you?”

“That’s what he used to call Renata: his little bowmaker. I never understood why.”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s enough to know that it means Renata. Who saw him up in Muskoka last year?”

“From around here?” I nodded. “Ken Trebitsch, I guess. Ken is addicted to power and money. Dermot had both. I don’t think Dermot liked him much, but he was fascinated by Ken’s hunger for making it. Ken’s a simple sort, really. Deadly, but uncomplicated. I think Dermot wondered how someone like that could climb so high. He didn’t come around often enough to see that there are hundreds just like him.”

“Did you go to the service for Alma Orchard?”

“Alma? How do you know about … Oh! From Ed Patel. You do get around, don’t you, Benny? Yes, I was there. The place was thronged. When I’m depressed, I think they were morbidly curious, but usually I remember that she had lots of friends. I hope I have that many when it’s my turn to go. Do you think of dying, Benny?”

“Only when I’m a passenger. I don’t think about the things I don’t think about.” We finished up our drinks, had another round and went out into the unair-conditioned world below. Vanessa was hungry, so we took a taxi to the Montreal Bistro where she had another Scotch and some roasted eggplant. I didn’t choose very well. I had a salad with goat cheese on top. It looked like an albino hockey puck.

The bistro was located in an old building on Sherbourne Street. The brick walls inside were supported by huge foot-thick wooden beams. Music was supplied by a quartet of jazzmen from Cuba. The piano player, Hilario Duran, was great; a blend, as Vanessa whispered to me, of Art Tatum and Rachmaninov. As soon as we were seated, the waiter reminded us that while the musicians were playing, there was a no-talking policy in place. Even whispering was frowned upon. No wonder Vanessa chose this place. If sitting with Vanessa hadn’t so many other redeeming features, I could have become peeved with this woman.