Lenny shook his head. "No, I mean before you read it in the paper. I did."
"You did what?"
"I knew about it before I read it in the paper."
"I'm happy for you," Ryerson said.
The waiter came over. "Yes, sir?" he said to Lenny.
Ryerson looked up at the waiter. "This gentleman is joining me, I imagine."
Lenny asked, "What kind of spaghetti you got?"
"Here's a menu, sir," the waiter answered, smiling, and gave Lenny a menu.
Lenny looked it over. "What's this ‘vitello tonnato'?" he asked, then hurried on, "No, wait. Why don't you bring me a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Heavy on the mayo. And put it on rye bread."
"Yes, sir," the waiter said to Lenny. He took the menu back and added, "Anything to drink, sir?"
"You got root beer?" Lenny asked.
"No, sir. Coca-Cola."
"No Pepsi?"
"No, sir. Just Coke."
"Pepsi's better. You should get some Pepsi."
Ryerson stood. The waiter looked up at him. "Sir?"
"I'm leaving," Ryerson told him.
"But your gnocchi, sir."
Ryerson nodded at Lenny Baker. "He can have it."
Lenny frowned like a sad pink pumpkin. "Don't leave, Rye," he said. "I'm sorry."
The waiter said to Lenny, "Sir, would you prefer the gnocchi or the ham-and-cheese on rye?"
"Sorry for what?" Ryerson asked Lenny.
"For tricking you the other day."
"Then you admit it?"
"Yes."
The waiter asked Lenny. "Gnocchi and Coca-Cola, then?"
"Yes."
"It was you in that car, wasn't it?" Ryerson asked.
"What car?"
"It will be only a moment, sir," said the waiter. "Sir," he added, turning his attention to Ryerson, "are you still going to be dining with us?"
Ryerson sighed. "Sure. Why not?"
"Oh," Lenny said, "you mean the one that hit the deer, don't you?"
"Yes," Ryerson answered. "And that's how you knew I turned around and came back to Toronto, isn't it?"
"Gnocchi for both of you?" the waiter said. "Fine. And Coca-Cola. I'll bring you more espresso, sir."
"Yes," Lenny said to Ryerson. "And you're right. I did set up that thing on the street."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Lenny. I knew that the moment it happened. You forget—“
"Who you are, Rye? No, I don't. But when I tell you that I'm psychic, too—"
"Yes. I know you are." Ryerson sighed. "But let me reiterate: I work alone. I really don't need your help."
Lenny grinned. "We'll see."
~ * ~
IN AN OFFICE BUILDING ON YONGE STREET, NEAR BLOOR STREET WEST
The red-haired woman stuck her head in through the open doorway. "Rick?"
Rick looked up from the newspaper on his desk. "Yes, Roberta?"
"Three o'clock appointment, Rick. You've got ten minutes. I'm sorry I didn't remind you sooner—"
"Oh, hell!" Rick said peevishly. He ran his hand through his full head of graying dark brown hair. "Who's it with?" he sighed.
"The people from the Ministry of Parks and Recreation," Roberta answered. "You remember, they've wanted to see your final plans for the pavilion at the Science Center—"
"I can never get over that," Rick cut in. He stood and brushed at his gray suit pants to smooth them out. "'The Ministry' of this, and 'the Ministry' of that." He smiled. Roberta, who was a native Canadian and very patriotic, forced herself to smile back. Rick went on, "It's all so . . . stuffy and Victorian. Know what I mean?"
Roberta's smile flattened. "I rather like it, Rick."
Rick nodded. "Yes, of course you do. You're Canadian, after all. But you can understand how it sounds to a guy from the east side of Chicago, right?"
"I think so." She checked her watch. "Eight minutes now. I've called for a taxi. It should be waiting for you downstairs."
Rick sighed again. He came around from behind his desk slowly, as if in thought, stopped midway to the door, and shoved his big hands into his pants pockets. "There's no way I can get out of it, is there?"
Roberta shook her head. "Not this time, Rick.'
"I'd really like to. Tell them the plans aren't ready, why don't you. Tell them I've made some revisions. Tell them there was an error in the load-bearing calculations—"
Roberta looked at her wristwatch. "Five minutes now, Rick." She turned and went back to her desk.
"Shit!" Rick breathed.
~ * ~
"He shoved him under the landing!" Lenny Baker ex-claimed, smiling and holding up the front page of the Toronto Star. He pointed to the article headlined BODY FOUND IN CN TOWER and added, "The maniac wrapped this guy up in plastic and shoved him under the landing." His smile grew crooked. "Isn't that a hoot!"
Ryerson took a bite of his gnocchi piemontese.
"Hey," Lenny observed, "you didn't get your salad, where's your salad?"
"It comes second," Rye answered. "It's better for the digestion that way."
"Oh," Lenny said. "Yeah, sure." He turned the Toronto Star around and started reading it aloud, and loudly, as if he were giving a shrill speech to anyone within earshot:
"According to Detective Inspector Dan Creed, the plastic in which the body was wrapped had started to swell due to the escape of gases from—"
"Shutup!" Ryerson whispered tightly.
"Huh?" Lenny said.
"Good Lord, man, this is a restaurant!"
Lenny shook his head. "No, Rye—it's a ‘Ristorante.'" He grinned at his little joke.
Ryerson sighed. "I've read the article. I know about the swelling plastic, I know the name of the victim, I know what the police have said about the murder. So, please, please, let's not discuss it right now."
"I know more," Lenny announced, and folded the newspaper up and put it in the inside pocket of his wrinkled, cream-colored, cotton suit jacket.
Ryerson looked silently at him with a forkful of gnocchi halfway to his mouth.
Lenny repeated, "I know more," paused and added, "I know this guy's a dancer."
Ryerson popped the forkful of gnocchi into his mouth.
"I'm not talking about the victim, this Jason Granger," Lenny clarified. "I'm talking about the mur-derer."
Ryerson sipped his espresso.
"It came to me in a dream, Rye," Lenny continued. Ryerson smiled noncommittally.
"Last night," Lenny said. "Early this morning, really. That's when I dream. I think it's when most people dream, don't you? And I saw him there—this guy, in my dream, and he was dancing, kind of—I mean, he wasn't mincing around, he was dancing, you know, and I knew that he was this murderer. I knew he was this maniac who wraps people up in plastic. I didn't see his face. It was like he had a stocking over it; it was hazy and I couldn't see his features, so I can't tell you if he was good looking or ugly or whatever—"
"He's not a dancer," Ryerson interrupted.
"Huh?" Lenny said.
"The image you got . . . the dream you had was only partial, it was only a small part of the picture."
Lenny got his ham-and-cheese on rye. He started on it at once. Through a mouthful of shredded lettuce and bread, he said, "You're telling me I'm wrong?"
Ryerson shook his head. "Not wrong, only partly correct."
Lenny swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "What do you know that I don't?"
"Only that he's not a dancer. That he feels he has power. Sometimes. That perhaps the man who's doing these murders is not the man who's responsible for them."
Lenny stopped his mouth in mid-chew. "Huh?"
"Possessed," Ryerson said. "Our murderer is a man possessed. I'm absolutely positive of it."
ELEVEN
Max Tyler looked across his desk at Dan Creed, who was brushing the sugar from a sugar doughnut into his wastebasket. "Dan?" Tyler said. Creed looked up. "Yes?"
"There's a woman named McPhee on the phone. She says
she's got information on the Granger homicide."
"Another loony, you think?"
Tyler shook his head. "I don't think so. Do you want to talk to her?"
Creed nodded and picked up his phone. "Yes, this is Detective Inspector Creed. What can I do for you?"
Loretta McPhee said, with a high nervous squeak at the end of her sentences, "My name is Loretta McPhee. I live in Toronto—in Yorkville, really. And I was at the tower, the CN Tower, on the night this man was killed."
"Go on."
"Yes, certainly." She paused. "I was with a man, a stranger. Not really a stranger, of course. I don't go out with strangers."
"Certainly."
"His name is Harry Lamb, and he lives in Toronto. Downtown somewhere. I'm not sure where. West of Yonge Street. Near Bloor Street, I think. He lives in a hotel near Bloor Street."
"And?"
"And he was my date for the night. Only for the night. We were… computer matched through Datago, and he was my date."
"Miss McPhee, perhaps you could tell me the reason for your call."
"Well, I've told you that, haven't I? I was in the CN Tower with this man, Harry Lamb, on the night that the murder happened, and I think he did it."
"Why do you think that, Miss McPhee?"
She didn't answer.
"Miss McPhee?"
"I don't know, for sure." She hesitated. "Just a feeling. He was very strange—well, not very strange, really. I don't go out with very strange men. Actually, you don't know who's going to be just plain strange, and who's going to be very strange until you do go out with them, do you? But maybe that's not so. I mean, very strange people are usually locked up somewhere, aren't they? Very strange people don't do videotapes for Datago—"
"Miss McPhee, perhaps if you could stick to the subject..."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I'm nervous. I've never gone out with a murderer before."
"That has not been established, Miss McPhee."
"Well, I haven't."
Creed sighed. "Could you give me your address and phone number, Miss McPhee, and could you tell me again where you think this man you went out with lives?"
"Yes," she said, and did.
~ * ~
It was raining heavily when Ryerson left the Gran Festa Ristorante, walked four blocks east to the CN Tower, then went up to the tower's 1,465-foot Space Deck level. Lenny Baker went up with him. Ryerson didn't want to go up in the tower with Lenny. He wanted to go up alone because, as he had already told Lenny, that's the way he worked. Alone.
But the sidewalk, Lenny pointed out, was a public place (and he began to walk several feet behind Ryerson, under his own umbrella, so Ryerson got soaked), and so, too, he proclaimed, was the CN Tower. Lenny took the number-two elevator up to the Skypod level, while Ryerson took elevator number one, although they went through the blood-red doors of the Space Deck elevator together, followed by an old couple who were wearing sheepish grins.
"I don't know, Mother," said the old man, who was dressed in a baggy gray suit. "I'm not sure I like this."
"Oh, of course you do, you old poop," said the woman. "They took the poor man away already. It's not as if we're going to see him. And so what if we did? Would it be any different from seeing one of the calves being slaughtered so people can have veal cutlets with their spaghetti? No, of course it wouldn't."
"Well, you're right of course, Mother. You're always right."
Lenny was smiling to himself, Ryerson noticed. "And you should know better than to suggest that that alone is the reason we are going up here. It is, after all, the tallest building in the world—"
"It's not a building, Mother. It's a freestanding structure."
"Not a building? If it's not a building, then what in the Sam hell is it—a blowfish?"
Lenny hooted.
"And you"—the old woman scolded—"mind your own damn business!"
"Yes, ma'am," Lenny said, forcing down a grin.
The elevator got to the Space Deck level. The doors opened. Lenny let the old couple out first, then he got out, followed by Ryerson.
"Where's your little dog, Rye?" Lenny asked.
"In my hotel room," Ryerson answered. "Sick, nursing a cold."
Lenny guffawed. "How could you tell, Rye—he does so much snorting and belching and growling, anyway."
But Ryerson wasn't listening. He was a couple of feet in front of the elevators; the old couple was going up one of the sets of metal stairs that led to the observation level—"Which landing do you think it was, Mother?" . . . "How, how in the Sam hell would I know? That one, probably. See the chalk?"—and he was dead still. His breathing was very shallow. His arms were stiff at his sides, his head erect, his eyes wide open and unblinking.
"Rye?" Lenny said. "Hey, you okay, buddy?"
Ryerson didn't answer.
"Well, would you look at him!" said the old woman, who had gotten to the top of the metal stairway and had turned her head to look at the opposite landing.
Seeing Ryerson, the old man said to Lenny, "Is your friend okay?"
Lenny grinned dumbly. "Yeah. Sure. I guess he does this now and again, you know. Kind of like a fit, maybe." He put a hand on Ryerson's shoulder. "Hey, c'mon, buddy, snap out of it!"
Ryerson's lips moved slightly.
The old man at the top of the stairway said, "I think you should call a doctor, young fella. There's a phone up here somewhere."
"And I think we should mind our own business, Freddy," said his wife.
"In the name of heaven, Mother, the man's in trouble."
Lenny was growing nervous. "No, no, it's okay. Really. He gets this way sometimes."
Ryerson groaned softly.
The old woman's mouth fell open. "Is he going to vomit?"
Lenny's grin grew broader. "No, I don't think so. I think he's going to talk." He turned to Ryerson. "Isn't that right, pal?"
"I . . ." Ryerson moaned.
The old man at the top of the stairs started back down. His wife called after him, "And where in the Sam hell do you think you're going, Freddy?"
"To help this man, if I can," Freddy answered.
"I can dance," Ryerson moaned. He tilted his angular, handsome head toward Lenny. "I can dance," he repeated.
"Sure you can, Rye. I bet you're a great dancer."
"I have power. I can dance." He grinned a strange, lopsided grin.
The old woman at the top of the stairs said, "That man's positively spooky." She paused. "Freddy, you come back here!"
Freddy stopped halfway down the stairs. "Uh, yeah," he said, betraying his heavy Maine accent.
"Come back here!" the old woman bellowed.
"I have power. I can dance," Ryerson repeated, and took a slow, lurching step forward.
The old man backed quickly, if clumsily, up the stairs. "Now, Freddy!" screeched the old woman.
"What are you doin', Rye?" Lenny asked. "You're scaring me!"
Ryerson took another step forward, not quite so slow and lurching as his first.
The old man on the stairway was only a few steps from his wife, now.
Lenny said, "Rye, I don't like this."
"I have power," Ryerson crooned. "I can dance."
And with exquisite grace, he ran up the stairway, past the old man, whose mouth was hanging open, and whose eyes were wide with fear, past the old woman—who swung futilely at him with her purse, and squawked, "Don't you dare, don't you dare!"—and out onto the observation deck.
Lenny waddled up the stairs after him.
At this level, the observation deck was fully enclosed. There was a cement wall to waist level, and an outward-jutting V of thick, unbreakable glass beyond it. Ryerson, the earth 1,465 feet below, was standing on that V of glass when Lenny found him. He had his hands and face pressed hard into it. He was weeping.
And Lenny, watching him, felt crowded. He felt as if there were people pushing him on all sides.
~ * ~
Dan Creed had his shield out when Harr
y Lamb answered his door at the Brownstone Hotel. "Police. I'm Detective Inspector Creed. This is Detective Max Tyler. Your name is Harry Lamb?"
Lamb tilted his head in confusion. "Is something wrong? Is this about those parking tickets from last year? I'm going to pay them. All I need is a little time."
"No, sir," Creed said, and pocketed his shield. "It's not about parking tickets. You are Harry Lamb?" he repeated.
"Yeah, that's me. If it's not about parking tickets, then what's it about?"
"Could we talk to you inside, Mr. Lamb?"
"About what?" Harry insisted.
"About murder," Max Tyler said.
Harry's mouth fell open. "Murder? Whose murder? I didn't murder anyone!"
"We'd simply like to talk to you about anything you may have seen in the CN Tower three nights ago," Creed told him.
Harry smiled coyly. "It was her, wasn't it? Loretta McPhee? Tight-assed bitch!"
"May we come in and talk to you, Mr. Lamb?" Creed interrupted. "Or shall we have a talk downtown?"
"You know what you guys remind me of? That old TV series, the one with Jack Webb. Dragnet. But, let me tell you something—I know my rights, and I know I don't have to talk to you unless you get a warrant."
"No, Mr. Lamb," Creed said. "We don't have a warrant. We don't need one simply to talk to you. Now, either we come into your room, or you come downtown. Which is it going to be?"
Harry slammed his door.
Creed reacted instantly. He kicked the door hard below the knob and burst into the room with his .38 police special drawn and ready.
Max followed him, his .38 also drawn.
Lamb threw up his hands. Behind him, on the table beneath an open window, a whitish substance wafted into the air in a gentle breeze. Harry grinned nervously. "It's okay, guys. Just a little coke, that's all. Just a little nose candy."
Creed snapped, "On the floor. Spread 'em!"
Harry fell to the floor, facedown, and spread his legs and arms. He continued to protest, "Hey, guys, it's just a little coke. Where's the harm?"
Creed ordered, "Close the window, Max, and get that stuff secured."
Max went to the window, closed it, and scooped what remained of the cocaine into a Baggie on the table.
Creed leaned over Harry Lamb and patted him down for weapons.
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