by Howard Engel
“I’ve never noticed you salivating when you talk about my father. Daddy has only served to make you interested in the better things of life.”
“Some of them. I hope I’m not beyond learning yet. It seems to me that you’ve played a part in re-educating me, Anna. Don’t blame your father for his role.”
“Benny, I’ve always liked you in spite of your rough edges. I even like some of your rough edges. They’re what make you you.”
“Thanks a lot! I feel like your project of the week.”
“Don’t purposely misunderstand me. I know that trick; it gets you into a better arguing position.”
“Let’s order the coffee.”
“Let’s skip the coffee!”
“If that’s what you want. Sure!” I called to Lije, who quickly saw the storm clouds and kept his usually welcome attentions at a distance. The check arrived and I handed over my credit card without a word. I could feel Anna’s eyes on me as I tried to figure out the tip. What did I do wrong, I wondered. Why were we fighting when we really love each other?
We drove away from the restaurant in silence. When we reached the turn-off to town, she looked at me and I knew that she wanted me to drive her up the escarpment to her father’s house. It was her option. If I guessed wrong, she didn’t correct me. Anna’s only fault, I thought as I manoeuvred the tight curves up the wooded side of the escarpment, was that she was still tied to her father. That’s how I got to know her in the first place. She appeared in my office, like some spoiled brat, accusing me of taking her father for a ride. Just because Jonah Abraham was worth some millions on a good day, she thought I was overcharging him for my services. As a matter of fact, I might have if I’d thought about it. At the time she began hanging on my office door and complaining that I was the latest of a long line of gougers, I hadn’t even made up an expense sheet on the man. I thought Anna was playing truant from high school. She looked like she’d just fallen off a motorcycle, wearing old jeans and a black leather jacket. It came as a shock when I learned that she was a lecturer at Secord.
I looked across at her now, bunched up as far away from me as the Olds would allow her to get without opening the door on the passenger side.
The car crawled up to the top of the escarpment. Below us in the dark lay the lake and the lights of Toronto on the far side. Closer, I could see the lights along the length of the canal. Traffic moving over the Skyway, leaping over the dark waters below. The lights stretched along the highway from Niagara to Hamilton.
I drove around the circular drive that led up to the Abrahams’ designer house. The lamps on either side of the door were bright, harsh, even as I looked across at Anna.
“Well,” I said. She flashed me a look with those salamandrine eyes. I caught it and turned away I never could take the full blast of her displeasure. I cared for her too much for that. She moved her hand to the door handle. “Hey,” I said again and reached over. A moment later we were close and I was taking in her perfume and the smell of her hair and the wool of her coat and her nearness. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“You never say that,” she whispered. “You usually make me say that.” We kissed again and it was a long time before I was aware that there was a figure standing in the open doorway to the house. It was Jonah.
“Your old man’s watching,” I said. She lifted her head.
“Timing was never his thing. Will I see you tomorrow? Or do you want to carry me away with you and leave only a puff of exhaust in Daddy’s face?”
“I’d like nothing better. But I’ve got to go to work. She gets off at ten-thirty and I’ve got to be there when she leaves the station.”
“Some girls have all the luck.”
“And some guys.” I kissed her once more while Jonah moved from one foot to the other. Then she hopped out and was swallowed up in that mausoleum of art. As soon as the door closed, I noticed that the engine had stalled.
I parked along Yates Street where I could get a good look both at the door to the TV station and the parking lot behind it. To my left, behind a wall, stood an old brick coach house with a dovecote on top. As a kid, I dreamed of living in this overgrown shed, which wasn’t much more than a big double garage. Maybe I liked that it was brick. I don’t know.
With the motor and lights turned off, it didn’t take long for the car to cool to the outside temperature. This part of Yates Street stood at the crest of the ravine that ran down to the old canal. This side of the ravine was called Oak Park and there were two goldfish ponds down there in the dark as well as a pipe dripping the mineral water that formed the basis for Grantham’s long-time fame, years ago, as a spa, a summer watering station for wealthy southern Americans who wished to try the healing sulphurous waters.
My reflections, such as they were, were brought to an abrupt end by the appearance of my quarry on the steps of the TV station. She was alone and walked along the sidewalk wrapped in a man-size camel-hair coat and carrying a leather totebag. I kept my hands off the ignition and waited for the headlights to go on. They did, and shortly twin bright beams stung my unprepared eyes.
I watched and tried to see both the make and colour of the car as well as the plate number. I caught a glimpse of red, noticed a luggage rack on top and missed the rest. I let it get a block ahead of me before I started the engine. Ideally, I would have liked to follow with my lights off, but I didn’t want to get pinched by a cop and lose her.
She drove at a steady speed down Yates then took the first convenient route to Church Street. I caught up to her at the stoplight in front of Robertson School, where I’d gone to complete my primary education. One of the oldest buildings in town, it had once been called the Grantham Academy. That was when it was first built in 1829. It was a pre-Victorian classical building with two gables, a tower and alternating round and pointed pediments over the windows. There had been talk of pulling the old building down, or modernizing it, but the city fathers in their wisdom decided to preserve it as it was for the enlightenment of generations to come. She was two blocks ahead of me when I came out of my reverie. I tried to catch up, but she’d turned north up Court Street. It took me a minute of panic and a pint of adrenalin before I found her rounding the corner to Welland Avenue. I managed to suppress my thoughts about the old junction yard of the electric railway system that used to occupy the south side of Welland Avenue. I was rather proud of myself. I had also recorded her licence number and had the year and make of her car. I may have been easily distracted, but at least I was in an occupation where it didn’t amount to a disability. She went north on Geneva, passed Balfour, Maple, Dacotah, Ottawa, Russell Avenue and Junkin. She turned right on St. Patrick and then right again into the driveway of a small house. I kept driving and came to a stop half a block beyond my target.
Walking in the shadows across the street, I arrived just as she had given up ringing the bell at number fifty-two. I took cover behind a privet hedge and watched while she slowly returned to her car and backed into the street again. As soon as she was gone, I ran back to the Olds, which was still warm enough to remind me that mine was an outside job fifty percent of the time. Traffic was light so it was no trick to find her again. She made a left back to Welland Avenue, then, through a series of turns, she was going down into the valley of the old canal off Queenston Road. This was a long, lonesome stretch; I allowed a lot of space between us as we followed the path of the old canal up towards Papertown. She parked in front of a low bungalow opposite the yard of a paper-mill on Oakdale Road. It was a stucco house with a veranda running across the front and around the right side. She let herself in with a key and turned the lights on. From where I’d parked after doing a U-turn I could see her moving around in the front room. There wasn’t much chance of being spotted as long as she kept the lights on.
I didn’t get to stay as long as I wanted to, because a car, travelling slowly with the lights off, bumped into the back of my parked Olds. I shot out of the seat and into the road.
“What the hell
are you doing? Don’t say it’s driving!” I shouted.
“What are you up to? Why are you parked here? What are you fucking doing here?” It was a big black man, with heavy shoulders that might have meant that he pumped iron regularly His face was angry and I was sorry to be messing with him so far from a police call box.
“I was deciding whether to take a chance and empty my ashtray when nobody was looking. Now you come along and spoil it.”
“Don’t joke with me, asshole. You’ll end up picking my fist out of your face!” I wanted to call “time” and get the hell out of there. The last thing I needed was a run-in with this hulk.
He came towards me and I knew there was going to be a fight. I was totally untrained and unprepared. But what was there to do? I blew out my chest and brought up my hands, keeping them flat and straight, like I held a black belt in karate or something. I came on faster than I thought I was moving and he took a step back. I shortened the distance again and brought up my right with what sounded like a kid’s idea of a Ninja’s cry of kill-kill-kill! He backed away, moving around the back of his Accord.
Just then, a light appeared on the veranda and Catherine Bracken came out the storm door and stood under the lamp. “Is that you, McStu?” She came to the edge of the porch steps so that the light was now behind her. McStu, if it was McStu, was looking at her.
“Get back inside, Cath! I can handle this!”
“McStu, you get in here! I don’t want your blood on my street.”
I watched while McStu lowered his guard and walked towards her without looking back at my relieved face. He stopped for half a second at the bottom of the steps, then they both went in. I made a note of the address and the Accord’s licence number and went back to my car. Through the car window, I watched the lights, first on the porch and then in the front room, disappear. I turned on my motor. Home seemed to be the only shot left on the table. So I whispered the word to the Olds and it took me there.
EIGHT
A little checking around in the morning brought me the news that Willard McKenzie Stewart owned the Accord with the noted registration number and also was the owner of the house on St. Patrick Street. Very interesting news to ponder while enjoying a cup of coffee at Diana Sweets at ten-thirty on Tuesday morning.
Cath Bracken drives from work to visit McStu at his house. Meanwhile, McStu is out in his car driving to see Catherine Bracken at her house in Papertown. What meaning could I read into these facts? They know one another well. That went without much thinking. They could practically read one another’s minds, or they tried to. They didn’t make detailed arrangements, kept things casual. His place, her place, it was all the same to them.
On his way out of the Di, Bill Palmer of the Beacon stopped at my table. He was a middle-sized, shaggy man, who looked as though he kept all of his wardrobe in a tangle for the cat to make a nest in on the floor of his single room. He was wearing an overnight beard. I indicated the empty space in the booth and he slid into it. I didn’t say anything and won points for it. I waved to the waitress who brought a fresh cup of coffee and set it down quietly in front of Bill. He placed a paper napkin under the cup, not to sop up spillage but to deaden the noise of moving crockery. The waitress gave me a refill, part of the Di’s bottomless coffee policy. Up the street, at the Venus Art Club, they had a topless policy. What was the language coming to?
“That feels better,” Bill said, replacing his cup and lighting a Player’s. “It always takes three cups. Funny, eh?” I nodded, just to keep the racket down. He noticed and added, “I’m okay now. I’ve climbed over the hump. I’m restored to the human race. How are you, human?”
“Middlin’,” I said, for no good reason.
“Barney and I got in a poker game last night and we ended up driving to Buffalo for cigarettes for some stupid reason. And me with a column to finish.” We let a few dozen angels fly by.
“What do you know about the people who do the news over at the TV station?” I asked. He tilted his head, thankful I wasn’t probing his misspent evening any further.
“There are about six of them. Most double as readers on camera, but they swat their own stuff together. Orv Wishart is the senior man. Remember, he used to do the weather? Now he just keeps the house in order. I don’t know how they do anything; they don’t have room to move in their shop. If they were in a union, the union would grieve on grounds of subnormal working conditions. Frank Hawkins is a bit of a pain: always whining. The sports guy, Larry Singh, knows his stuff. I like Cath. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Nice head, nice shoulders.”
“I agree. What’s her story?”
“You’re too late, Benny. McKenzie Stewart got there first.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“I thought you read detective stories?”
“I do. What’s that got to do with it?”
“Stewart’s the creator of Dudley Dickens. You know, the sleuth who is supposed to live in Hamilton. Dud’s a black, ex-steel company security guard. Stewart’s written half a dozen books: Dudley Earnest is the best known. Haven’t you read him? He’s like a Canadian Walter Mosley. Or aren’t you an Easy Rawlins fan either?”
“Sure, I like his stuff, but Stewart’s new to me. I’m always discovering new people and old ones I should have read years ago. When I get through the last part of War and Peace, I’m going to blitz all the mysteries I’ve been neglecting.”
“Start with Blood on the Floor. That’s a good one.”
“I will, I will. What else does he do?” Doing my research in the Di has always been the best part of my job. And usually my informants bought their own coffee.
“He teaches up at Secord. Finds time to write magazine articles in Harper’s and The Atlantic. He used to review crime novels in The Toronto Star, but he gave it up.”
“Making too many enemies, I bet.”
“Could be. I don’t think he’s rich by any means, but he’s not on the dole either. Maybe he’s got the Canada Council and all the other arts councils funding his activities. Who knows?”
“Since when have mysteries counted as fundable art, Bill? Next you’ll be telling me they give grants to pet barbers.”
“Listen, Benny, I know a reformed bank robber who hasn’t hit a steel box since he discovered the Canada Council and the word processor.”
“Bill, I’ve lived too long. I’m out of my time. What’s happening to the world?”
“Read my column in tomorrow’s paper. Tell you all about it. If I live to finish it, Benny. Thanks for the company. Here, let me get your coffee,” he said scooping up my check. “See you later.”
There was a cold wind blowing up St. Andrew Street when I came out of the Di. I let it decide my next move. By turning my back to it, I let myself be blown along towards the corner at Queen Street. Once in the lee of the bank, I was able to make decisions again for myself. I went into the bookstore across the street from the Beacon.
“Benny! It’s a long time since I’ve seen you!” It was Susan Torres, who ran the place. It was her reminders of my long absences that kept me away, I think. She always made me feel guilty I wasn’t reading four or five books a week.
“I got a message that you had the book I ordered,” I said, using this gambit as a club to beat her back. She reached under the counter and opened a bag with my name on it, after blowing the dust off rather theatrically. It was a feminist book I’d heard Anna talking about; so I’d ordered it. Susan looked at me suspiciously, as though my sudden interest contaminated the whole movement. She rang up the sale and I handed her my plastic.
“Do you have any of McKenzie Stewart’s crime novels?” I asked as an afterthought.
“Are you kidding? McStu is never out of stock in this store. He’s a dear, even if he does rearrange the shelves near his books when he comes in. We’re going to have a big signing for him when his next one comes out.”
“When’s that?”
“Here’s your personal invitation,” she said, handin
g me an orange piece of paper with a date that was less than two weeks away. “We’d hoped to have the book sooner, but I guess the printers were held up.”
“What have you got of his that I would like?”
“Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see.” She was sucking or chewing on the temple of her half-moon glasses, which hung around her neck on a black cord. After a moment, she pulled two paperbacks from the shelf. “He’s really very naughty, you know. I straightened these shelves on Saturday. Now look at them! All of his covers are showing and only the spines of his competitors’ books. Poor Kit Small and Heather Sigworth. And they have such nice covers too!” As a sample she showed me a cover with a picture of a woman in a nightgown dangling by the neck from a curtain rope. “Benny, I think you might like these.” I looked at the titles: Dead Letter, which had a bloody hand peeking out of an envelope, and Dudley Earnest, which showed a pair of scissors sticking out of a mass of blonde hair tied up in a ribbon. I picked up Blood on the Floor as well. “I think you’ll love these, Benny. If you do, I’ve got more.”
“You sound like you know him quite well. What’s he like?”
“Oh, he’s a real charmer, Benny. Not that he tries to be. He’s as little aware of his effect on one as a good dinner. When he tries to turn on the charm, it’s really quite funny. He’s shy too: he’d never dream of asking to have his books put in the window, but it gives him great pleasure to see them there. I think you’d like him. You’ve probably seen him around town.”
“He doesn’t sit at the counter in Diana Sweets, does he? Scribbling?”
“No. That’s Malcolm Binny. He’s another story.”
“I call him the Mad Scribbler.”
“Bit of an understatement, if you ask me,” she muttered, smiling, with her glasses dangling from the corner of her mouth. “No, McStu looks like a school teacher: tweeds and corduroys, you know. He never wears a winter coat, but has a long woollen scarf that he can’t be separated from.”