by Howard Engel
Pambos was setting up Tallon as a bad businessman. I wonder whether he knew what kind of private investigator he was in the process of engaging. I thought of the ratty files in my single, disorganized stack of four filing drawers in the office. Usually I keep everything, new, old, important, sentimental, in an untidy stack in the middle of my desk. Once I start trying to sort things into categories and enter them in different files, that’s when I begin to lose hold of the shape of the universe. If everything’s under my nose, it can’t get lost. The file drawers are good places to hide my lunch in and store my galoshes between winters. I was beginning to get a picture of Tallon in my mind. It was the only substantial thing to come along so far, so I was holding on tight.
“After Tallon died,” Pambos went on, “his assistant, Patrick Miles, couldn’t tell what paintings Tallon had out on loan. Tallon was always lending pictures. You know, ‘Take it home, and give me a call if you decide to keep it.’ That sort of thing. I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of paintings, Benny. I mean, when he started out lending and selling, Tallon didn’t have to trust people very much. A Lamb in those days wouldn’t be worth more than a couple of hundred dollars. Now a single Lamb might be worth twenty or thirty thousand dollars.”
“Tallon seems to have had a special liking for Lamb.”
“Yeah. He discovered Lamb. Not that Lamb would ever admit that anybody discovered him, but you know what I mean. Tallon sold the first Lambs in Canada. When New York wanted to see what Lamb was doing, they had to go through Tallon. And Tallon was always generous with them, even though New York prices were always higher than even Toronto prices. Tallon told me he remembered when he couldn’t get more than fifteen dollars each for a Lamb canvas, not a sketch, mind you, but a full canvas.” I tried to look surprised. I didn’t own a painting or a sketch, and the only genuine oils I saw regularly were the work of my Aunt Dora in my mother’s living-room.
“So, this list is a list of the people that Tallon knew had pictures on loan from his gallery. If the list was written around the time of his death, that makes it a good inventory of his estate not actually under his roof.”
“That’s right. Of the Lambs anyway. He lent other pictures too, of course. Now Paddy Miles and Tallon’s brother are trying to put the estate in order. As it is, a good portion is unaccounted for. Not everybody who has pictures on loan has come forward. Without the list of pictures on loan a lot of people in big houses are going to make unrecorded capital gains.”
I could see the temptation. Only the closest I ever come to that kind of gain is when I get the change from my five-dollar bill and my five-dollar bill handed to me by the distracted cashier at the convenience store. I don’t know much about rich people, but I’ve never met anybody who thought he was rich. Everybody always says he’s just getting by, even when I’m not on the point of asking for the loan of a few hundred. Anyway, I could see people at the top of the local cultural ladder sitting on their masterpieces and waiting to hear from the executors. After all, nobody got rich by volunteering to give back borrowed property before it was asked for.
“Paddy Miles is going crazy trying to locate the missing pictures, Benny. When I told him about the list Tallon gave me, Paddy nearly kissed my feet.”
I was beginning to feel strange getting mixed up in the art world, even the local art world, which might look a little parochial from the outside. Has anybody in Paris or London ever heard of Wallace Lamb, I wondered. By Grantham standards Arthur Tallon was a dealer, but by a real picture dealer, say in New York, was he a dealer? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I felt I was sliding into water well over my head. To my rescue came the recollection that I had taken a few drawing lessons when I was a teenager and that Rembrandt’s “Saskia” has always hung at the turn of the landing on the way to the second floor of my parents’ town house. It was a reproduction glued to canvas of which I was very proud as a kid. I remember how disappointed I was when I examined it through a magnifying glass: all those little printed giveaway dots of colour disillusioned me. We didn’t have the only genuine Rembrandt on the street after all.
“Pambos,” I asked, after I’d put my mind back to more immediately useful work, “tell me this: why are you sitting here worrying about Tallon and not Paddy Miles or Tallon’s brother? What do you get out of this?”
“I gave Tallon over two thousand dollars towards a Lamb painting,” Pambos said, looking down at the black marks on my off-white carpet. Damned movers! “Until the estate is settled, I can’t get my money back or collect my painting. I’m trying to do Miles and George Tallon a favour, but I’m trying to speed things up a bit on my own account. I won’t go broke on this. I may even come out ahead.” I couldn’t figure how he could make any money by hiring me, but maybe he had some money down in bets on how little I could dig up in the week I said I’d give it before we talked again.
Pambos looked at me, expecting me to make some move that would put him out of his misery. I got up and thanked him for helping me get unpacked. I was glad he hadn’t seen the pictures that I’d left on the wall back at the City House. If he had, he would have dropped the whole idea of hiring me. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll call on your three suspects and see what I can dig up in the way of news about your list.” He looked relieved. I looked forward to having a long nap on that newly set up bed.
THREE
Secord University is housed in a single building that sits on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. If the building were less modern, less the middle of the twentieth century, one might say it beetled, but this rectangular structure of glass and cement was centuries from beetling. It was too four-square and artificial. It looked as if the architects were hedging their bets on the university authorities. “If it doesn’t work as a seat of learning,” they seemed to be saying, “it might make out as headquarters for an insurance company or perhaps a new post office.”
I drove up the hairpin turns that lead a zigzag path up the heights of the escarpment and hung a right into the university’s huge parking lot. It was hard to imagine that this one isolated highrise could inspire this much driving. I parked the car at the first vacant space reserved for visitors, about a ten-minute walk from the wing-shaped breezeway which sheltered the front door. There was more than a hint of early spring up here. The sun had come out and the tar and asphalt were beginning to warm up.
The corridors echoed with comings and goings, like a high school. I was surprised that the din of higher education should sound so familiar. The walls were striped and colour-coded to help the sub-normal find the right branch of learning: blue for English, yellow for Modern Languages; red for Geography, and so on. Administration was brown. It figured. I checked my watch. I was on time for my two-thirty appointment with Peter MacCulloch. So I followed the brown line like a trusting undergraduate until it fetched me up in front of the door marked “Office of the Vice-President.” MacCulloch’s name stood out from the wall in uncompromising block letters that made me feel like I’d discovered the vice-president of vicepresidents, the assistant large Stilton of all time. I opened the door and went in.
I told the blonde with big glasses who I was. She checked my name on a list and tried to square the name with my face, like maybe there was another Benny Cooperman who comes in all the time and who doesn’t look the way I look. But I must have passed the test, because in a minute she had returned to eating small sesame-seed wafers and I was standing in front of the desk of the great man himself. Behind him I could see all the prime real estate in the whole Niagara peninsula stretched out to the even shores of Lake Ontario.
“Mr. Cooperman! What can I do for you?’ He got out of his chair and leaned across a desk of impressive dimensions with an outstretched hand. I shook it, and thought I detected a tennis player in his grip. MacCulloch was a tall, lean, sinewy man of middle age. He was the sort that would turn cannibals off missionary stew. His flesh seemed to have been hardened by years of keeping fit. His finely tailored business suit
didn’t contrive to hide a pot belly. I felt that if these were not early days in our acquaintanceship, he might slap his midsection and give a boast or two about the shape he was in. MacCulloch’s face looked almost rosy-pink under his shock of white hair. The lines around his mouth and eyes were deep but friendly. He indicated a chair and I took it. I told him I was checking up on some paintings from the Tallon collection. At first he just smiled and I explained again what I’d already said, but in different words. So, I sat listening to the sound of Peter MacCulloch’s tendons stretch as he flattened his palms on the desk blotter.
“Ah, I own, you know, two Lambs, which I bought from Arthur some years ago. There’s no secret there. And I explained everything to Paddy Miles at the hotel last week.”
“Hotel?” I asked, lifting a curious eyebrow.
“The Stephenson House, on …”
“I know the place.”
“I really don’t see, Mr. Cooperman, what purpose is served in going into this all over again.” I dodged the question with one of my own.
“Did you have any paintings on loan from the collection?”
MacCulloch coloured slightly, turning his pink skin a shade or two along the scale to bright red. “No!” he almost shouted, then, evening off and controlling himself better, “not now.” He took a breath and pretended to be sweet reason itself. “I did have one, but it went back some months ago. I took it back to the gallery myself.”
“Did anyone see you, Mr. MacCulloch? Did you get a receipt or discharge or anything like that?”
“I’m not sure I like the inference, Mr. Cooperman. Arthur took the painting from me himself.”
“But you have no record on paper that the picture was returned.” He was glowering at me now and not sorry to let me see it.
“If it comes to that, I have nothing on paper that says the picture was borrowed in the first place. It cuts both ways, Mr. Cooperman. Now, if you have no further questions …?”
I wasn’t finished asking, and I resented the push I was getting, but I never got to tell him that. For a moment I was aware of noise in the outer office: voices and a muted peal of laughter. Then suddenly there was a blonde woman in the room. She swept in wearing a fawncoloured trenchcoat and a denim skirt. Her sweater was pink. I know she saw me sitting there, but she went into her act as though she’d found the room empty except for the man behind the large desk. “Peter, dear, I’m just off to the golf club to meet Nesta and the girls. Can you let me have …” She stopped in order to show that I had now become visible. My ectoplasm had been restored. I’m sure the secretary warned her of my existence, but she made a little red moue and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked at MacCulloch like this was the latest in a long list of minor misdemeanours. “I didn’t know you were busy.”
“That’s all right, my dear. Mr. Cooperman’s just leaving.” The look he gave me was stronger than a stage direction. I got up, not wanting to debate the point in the presence of what might be a tender domestic moment.
The woman looked at me. She had large dark eyes for all her blondeness. “Mr. Cooperman? Mr. Benny Cooperman?” She continued to stare. I tried to recall when I had last zipped myself up. MacCulloch looked embarrassed.
“Why yes,” he said, fingering a brass paperweight. “Mr. Cooperman, my wife, Mary. Mr. Cooperman, I think that concludes our business. Good afternoon.”
MacCulloch’s abrupt dismissal sounded rather schoolteacherish and final. It was the first sign of the academic I’d observed. He liked using power when he needed it, I sensed, but I wondered why he chose this moment.
“Sure,” I said. “Nice to meet you both.”
I walked past the secretary with the big glasses. She didn’t look as blonde as she had when I saw her ten minutes earlier. Her boss’s wife won the contest in blondeness with no also-rans panting at her tidy heels. Outside in the corridors, the academic buzz began again. I found it easy to glamorize the lives of students. I imagined their lives as being updated versions of life in a garret, like in La Bohème before things get complicated. Struggling with books that have to be read, essays that have to be finished, theses that need extensions is the stuff of the academic world of my imagination. I wasn’t planning to hang around Secord University long enough to see how right I was. From where I stood—actually, I was making for the stairs as fast as I could go, bumping past youngsters with briefcases and notebooks—it looked like it would be hard to be a stranger in this community; everybody seemed so intent on his own business.
I headed back to the Olds out in the parking lot, but before I’d even cleared the wings of the marquee over the front door, I heard my name called. I looked back and saw Mrs. MacCulloch running past a table where some sort of balloting was taking place. Signs posted near the ballot boxes made me begin to doubt my command of English. I could read the words, but they conveyed no meaning to the off-campus population.
“Mr. Cooperman! Mr. Cooperman. Just a minute!” She was walking fast, nearly running, which, considering the heels she was wearing, must have been quite a trick. She slowed down when she crossed a patch of new asphalt. For a moment she wallowed like a trapped lawn animal, but then spun free and hurried to catch up like she placed a value on my time that not even I’d suspected. The flying trenchcoat and skirt caught the light as she came nearer. It was one of those outfits women wear to the golf course to change out of. On her it looked good, but then, on her anything including a gunny sack would look good. On balance, I’m glad it was the pink sweater. She slowed down a little when I stopped and waited. It didn’t take her that long to catch up.
“Thanks for waiting, Mr. Cooperman, I wanted to talk to you.” She fell into step with me as we continued the walk to my car.
“Sure, Mrs. MacCulloch. Anything I can do?”
“My husband and I have no secrets from one another …” This was an interesting prelude, but I didn’t at once see where it was leading.
“Uh-huh?”
“I, well, I frankly want to know why you saw him today?” She tidied off her question with a cock of her head and a little smile. It made her look about seven and begging for seconds from a rather starchy head mistress. At least that’s the effect it had on me. After all, where had she been all my life up to this afternoon? I couldn’t really take her sudden offer of friendliness seriously. But I didn’t want to frighten her away either.
“I suggest, Mrs. MacCulloch, that you take that up with him.” Her eyes entangled with mine. She was looking for a fellow spirit, reckless like herself. She pouted.
“Yes, but he’s so busy.” Again she cocked her head. She was good at it. She knew her way around and how to get what she wanted. I kept on in the direction of the Olds.
The day had grown warmer. Up here on the escarpment, the parking lot was like a huge mirror. It felt more like July than March. It was clear that for the moment Mary MacCulloch had nothing better to do than tag after me. Maybe I should have taken the car in for a wash. I hadn’t been expecting company like this. “You don’t mind if I walk along with you, do you, Mr. Cooperman?”
“Be my guest.” She moved a little closer to my right side and we continued in silence for a second or two. I could feel her marshalling arguments about why I should tell her the reason for my visit to her husband. But I try not to let more people than necessary into the circle of knowing parties in a simple investigation. In a complex one, sometimes your life depends on keeping as little to yourself as you can. Secrets can be deadly treasures. The best defence is to pass them around.
“Mr. Cooperman, my car is in the garage today, I wonder if you’d be very put out if I asked you to drive me up the road to the Otterpool Golf Club. It’s only a mile or so.” I looked doubtful. She went on talking to stifle my questions:
“It’s always breaking down. It has to have its transmission out. Is that serious?”
“Is a triple bypass?” We had arrived at the car. I unlocked the door on the passenger side. The key moved like a stranger in the lock, but the do
or finally opened. She gave me a toothy smile as she ducked her head under the door-frame.
“You’re a peach,” she said. I walked around the car wondering what I was letting myself in for. Far off, over the edge of the escarpment, a black silhouette hung in the air. Through the windshield I watched it play with the wind currents as I got the motor going and found the reverse gear. I tried to remember my last passenger without coming up with either a name or a face.
“It’s just a little way up the road, honestly.”
“I was there once.” I remembered that night. Eight years ago. It seemed like more. I’d been taken there against my will by a few people who aren’t around any more. Mary MacCulloch interrupted my reverie:
“You know, Mr. Cooperman, I lead a pretty raffish life, for a university vice-president’s wife. But I’d never dream of leaving Peter.”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t know why I was getting this blast of confidences from my right. Maybe it was my good, plain honest face. Maybe it was something she thought her old man was hiring me to do. I played dumb and kept my eye on the road as it crossed over the reservoir bridge. “Sorry it’s so warm in here,” I said, by way of getting her off her topic long enough for me to figure out what was going on. “Very unseasonal.”
“Like a moderate oven. I guess you don’t have air conditioning” She was looking at a button that said “air conditioning” on it in neat capitals, but the function had vanished some time before I traded in my old Olds for this not-so-old old Olds. “The least I can do, when we get to the club, is buy you a drink.” She looked across at me. I kept my attention on the transport truck pulling off a minor road at slow speed. I’d learned to expect that from the local farmers going down the road a piece, but usually the trucks were more considerate. I braked hard and fell in behind the transport at a comfortable distance.
I made the turn up Otterpool Creek Road and watched for the two pillars that formed the gateway into the club. I didn’t have to wait long. They loomed on my right and I slowed to turn up the lane into the parking lot. At night you can smell sulphur from the paper mills in the air. That afternoon a few golfers, with sweaters tied around their necks just in case the weather returned to the normal temperature for the time of year, pulled their carts after them to the fairway and the first tee. The wind in the bare trees reminded us that it was still March. Mary Mac-Culloch was looking across at me, studying my face. I could feel it without turning.