The Cooperman Variations

by Howard Engel

  When it came to Vanessa’s turn at bat, she described her fall line-up of programs: which of the old ones were coming back and on what terms, what new series were coming and from which production house. “We’ve finally rung the knell on The Newton Street Mob. After three years of decline, I’ve washed my hands of it.”

  “You told Christopher Hodges that he was fired? I don’t believe it!” This from the dark man with a moustache sitting next to Thornhill. He liked to quarrel with everybody.

  “That’s your scenario, Ken, not mine. I made him a low offer and he declined to accept it. There was no blood on the floor. As a newsman, you should get your facts straight.”

  And so it went, on and on. Vanessa kept her mouth shut unless she was addressed by name. One fellow kept chirping up that in cases like this—I forget what “this” was—justice must not simply be done, but it must be seen to be done. I figured him for the idiot son of a wealthy family. Thornhill’s skill in handling a meeting was on a par with Vanessa’s, only, if anything, Vanessa allowed a little more expression. Nobody tested Thornhill’s loyalty to the firm. Nobody was shocked when he referred to a program carried on a rival network. I remembered that at Vanessa’s meeting, one of her underlings saw such a reference as a heresy. After hearing his comments on the reports of several of his vice-presidents, I could see Vanessa’s point about Thornhill being a beancounter and not from show business or broadcasting. His closest approach to greasepaint came from sitting in an aisle seat two rows away from the orchestra pit. When I think about it now, he seemed like a good interim head, but not an enterprising, go-ahead sort of leader. Hamp Fisher could do better than this conservative heavyweight.

  I asked Vanessa in a whisper who the fellow called Ken was. He seemed to be the only one in the room who wasn’t a yes-man.

  “That’s Ken Trebitsch, VP of News. That’s the most powerful job. He pushes the rest of us around. Especially Entertainment. He’s always trying to steal time from us for news specials. Then we never get the time back again. He’s practically the only real broadcaster in the room. No, that’s unfair, I’m forgetting Philip Rankin over there.” She indicated a sloping chin I’d hardly noticed across the table. Philip Rankin wore a dark bird’s nest of a wig, cut to look fashionably silky and shaggy, a conservative grey suit and an unlined, slightly bewildered face.

  “What’s his department?”

  “Music. He’s head of all music heard on the network.”

  “That can’t be a lot,” I offered.

  “More than you think. He’s head of the large recording division of NTC: NTC Music, NTC-CDs. It’s a vital and growing department, Benny, trying to struggle on with a structure that is hopelessly outdated. There will have to be big changes here, but whether Philip is the man to inaugurate them is a matter for debate.”

  “You said he’s an old-timer?”

  “He came here from CBC Radio, where they do a lot of music programming and recording. He built up that whole department. Now he—well, you saw that Christmas show yesterday? He’s ultimately in charge of all of that.”

  “Why didn’t his name come up then?” I asked.

  “Because we were in the studio; Philip never goes near the studio if he can help it. Do you collect CDs, Benny? Philip started NTC in the recording business in a small way about four years ago. Now, we’re right up there with the top labels.” A look from Thornhill ended our conversation.

  I wasn’t getting much out of this meeting. I’m not even reporting on it very well: so much of it flew over my head. Thornhill managed to keep a regal distance from his vice-presidents. The vice-president of Programming, Vanessa’s immediate boss, seemed like a cipher. He had nothing to say and let Vanessa do his talking for him.

  When the meeting broke up, I followed Vanessa and the others into an adjoining room, where plates of yellow and orange cheese were laid out like a corpse on a white tablecloth. Two or three bottles of domestic and Californian wine stood at attention, daring anyone under the rank of vice-president to pour a glass in front of his betters. A few other senior executives, who were not at the meeting, were allowed in to take some light refreshment. Soon the room was crowded with beaming faces and the noise level was raised high enough to endanger good crystal. Luckily, there was none around, just heavy-duty glass that probably had come with the cheese and the toothpicks. Philip Rankin came over to say hello to Vanessa, who introduced me as her assistant. He grinned as though he and Vanessa were sharing a joke about the length of my stay on the payroll. Ken Trebitsch joined us. I noticed grey in his black hair, and the fine moustache sheltered a very youthful smile, spoiled only by dark, hooded eyes.

  “I was thinking of you yesterday, Ken,” Vanessa said. We all tried to look intrigued. “I saw on the news that our one-time CBC colleague, Bert Russell, has set up a digital communications empire in Pasadena.”

  “I heard about that. He was always a whirlwind. Of course, Bert was treated miserably by the CBC when they got rid of him. Remember, Philip?”

  “Yes, axed from above. He didn’t suspect a thing until his keys wouldn’t open his door. And after all he’d done for the Corp. He must have reduced staffing there by thirty-five per cent during the years of budget cuts.”

  “He was the best salesman for public broadcasting they ever had,” Ken observed.

  “NTC invited him to take on just about any department he wanted five, six years ago, but he wouldn’t have it.”

  “That’s how loyalty gets paid off.” They went around again, Ken and Philip Rankin exchanging comments on the ill-done-by Bert Russell. When it looked like he was about to run out of steam, Ken turned to Vanessa in a teacher-like way. “Did you ever know Bert Russell, Vanessa?”

  “I introduced his name into this conversation not five minutes ago, Ken. Are you losing your memory?” There was an attempt at laughter, then Trebitsch wandered into another conversation group. Vanessa held on to me and engaged Philip Rankin in further chit-chat. “Philip, what’s Bob Foley’s death going to mean to your Plevna Foundation?”

  “Why, nothing, dear girl. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t thought about it much. There were three trustees, now there are two. That’s all.”

  “Philip’s on that Dermot Keogh foundation I was telling you about, Benny.”

  “Oh, yes. The cellist. From what I hear, he was a remarkable man.”

  “Understatement, Mr. Cooperman.” He grinned at me with the misty eyes of a true believer. “Everything about Dermot is an understatement. Apart from the two books about him that have already appeared, I know of three distinguished writers who are working separately on biographies. There are more of his CDs out now, since his death, than there were last year or the year before. Cutout limbo doesn’t exist for Dermot Keogh. People can’t get enough of him. Not since the death of the great Glenn Gould has there been such a musical phenomenon.”

  “And you knew him well?”

  “What? Goodness, did I know him? I brought him here to NTC. Oh, yes! We recorded a series of half a dozen shows and were committed to do another six. I met him at the CBC originally. In the Old Building. He was just twenty, but already reorganizing the music department there from the inside. A year later he made his break-out recording of the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. That sold a million copies worldwide in the first six weeks on the shelves. It went platinum within the next month. Oh, I could go on and on about Dermot, who was, along with his genius, a wonderful human being. I keep having to remind myself that I was privileged to be counted as one of his friends.”

  “You must be excited about the building of Dermot Keogh Hall.”

  “Indeed, I am. It will be a memorial worthy of its subject, Mr. Cooperman. And glory enough in it for all concerned.” It seemed to me I’d heard that phrase before.

  “Were you around at the time of his death?”

  “Me? Oh, not me. I detest swimming in cold water, and when I do swim, I stay on top. I could never understand these snorkellers and scuba-diving typ
es. Seems unnatural somehow. Know what I mean?”

  “I think I do. I stay away from most vigorous exercise. I want my body well rested when the crisis comes and I need all my physical resources at short notice.”

  “Good man! That’s the spirit.” Philip Rankin grinned at me, showing a mouthful of teeth in need of urgent attention. It was the face of an adenoidal carp. The smile seemed warm enough, but I wasn’t quite buying his “Good man!” and his “wonderful human being.” I was going to have to pick up a little more about Keogh as I went on with my body-guarding responsibilities. It would help me bear the tedium, like a side bet made to keep an edge on my interest.

  Meanwhile, the body I was supposed to be guarding was talking to Ted Thornhill himself, while the CEO of NTC chewed on a handful of crackers and cheddar.

  “Well, are you still having fun with it, Vanessa?” he was saying through a fine mist of expelled cracker crumbs. Vanessa was holding a glass of white wine, which she tasted and abandoned on the edge of a table as she spoke.

  “I love the pressure, Ted. I get off on the problems, and crow over the rewards. That doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to getting away as soon as I can put a normal long weekend together.”

  “Yes, you should, you know. What’s happened to you wasn’t in your contract. This murder thing is killing us in the papers. Naturally, they delight in all of our difficulties. Particularly that Turnbull woman at the Star, and of course our old friend Carver at the Globe. Are the police coming up with results, Vanessa? The sooner the murderer’s put away, the sooner we can read the papers again without wincing, eh?”

  I heard my name being whispered a few inches away from my ear. It was Sally, the usually glum receptionist. Only now she was almost smiling. “You’re wanted, Mr. Cooperman,” she said.

  “I am? Who wants me?” I tried not to look startled. Nobody knew I was here.

  “The police,” she said, looking me straight in the eye for the first time.

  EIGHT

  The police, announced so dramatically by Sally Jackson, turned out to be Jack Sykes and Jim Boyd, as I should have guessed. They were waiting for me in that part of Vanessa’s office that was sacred to me. Since I had seen them so recently, I wondered what brought them up to the twentieth floor this close to lunchtime. Could they be buying, I wondered?

  “We gotta car downstairs,” Sykes said simply. From his tone, I decided that they hadn’t come all the way up to tell me this without my going down with them to see it for myself. So we did that. When I started questioning them in the elevator, they shushed me, like Vanessa had warned them about talking in the elevator. On the way out the cops had to hand in their paste-on VISITOR passes to the SWAT team at the security desk. “This way,” Boyd prompted, as though I didn’t know my way through a revolving door. Outside, with its lights flashing but without the noise, stood a cruiser with someone sitting in the back seat. I glanced through the window, while I tried to open the back door.

  “Hello, Benny. How have you been keeping yourself?” Damned if it wasn’t Detective Sergeant Chuck R. Pepper, the cop who worked on that rare-book murder investigation I did six or seven years ago. It’s a story I haven’t told many people about yet, but I might one day. Chuck looked about the same, with a military look to his short-cropped iron-grey hair. There were red mousetracks on his cheeks that spoke of the good things of life. Underneath, he was grinning in a controlled way. Chuck never went overboard while on duty. Behind me, Sykes and Boyd were taking it all in.

  “Chuck! How are you? Damn it, it’s good to see you!” We shook hands after I managed to get the door to open. Out of habit, Boyd clapped me on the head as I ducked under the door frame.

  “Much better now I’ve seen you. I might make it to my pension after all.” The other two piled into the front seat, and with a squeak of rubber Sykes moved the car away from the ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING signs and into traffic on University Avenue. Sykes turned around, smiling.

  “I should have brought my camera; I wanted to catch this reunion for posterity, but I forgot. Still, I thought that you might want to know that Chuck’s now in charge of the questionable death at 518 Sackville Street.”

  “Bob Foley?” I asked, and counted three nods. “Is it still questionable, or has it been downgraded to a tropical storm?”

  “It’s only the circumstances that are suspicious. The suicide part looks real enough,” said Chuck. “But I reckon it won’t hurt to have another look around. Would you like to come along? We were thinking of going for dim sum afterwards. You haven’t eaten, I hope?”

  “No, I haven’t eaten. They’re serving plastic cheese up on the twenty-first floor. My client never eats and I could starve to death on this job. What’s dim sum? And thanks, I’d like to tag along.” Boyd explained about the Chinese tea lunch and Chuck warned me that I should say little and keep my hands in my pockets on the far side of the yellow plastic tape. Good old Chuck Pepper: he hadn’t changed a bit.

  The late Bob Foley’s house at 518 Sackville Street looked like its neighbouring houses, 520 and 516. It wasn’t much different from lots of rowhouses and semidetached houses in that part of town: a rather narrow, three-storey brick structure with a bay window and a gable roof. From what Sykes said, I gather that the neighbourhood had sunk to the status of a genteel slum between the wars, but was now up again, showing off big brass house numbers on sand-blasted brick. Sykes parked on the “no parking” side of the street. He seemed to have a built-in contempt for traffic signs.

  Bob Foley had had a comfortable life, judging from the downstairs rooms. One wall in the living-room had been stripped down to the brick, which set off a couple of good-looking watercolours of barns, farmhouses and other farm buildings. There was a woman’s touch in the furniture and curtains, but the general messiness of all the flat surfaces suggested that she was no longer in residence. A half-eaten box of pretzels stood near the TV set. Two old sweaters were draped around the backs of chairs. A smelly sleeping bag covered half of the couch, doubling as a blanket. The basement was a fully outfitted recording studio. Fancy recording and editing equipment, giant speakers, controlboards with dozens of sliding keys all looked ready to go to work. Racks of used and unused magnetic tapes stood handy, as did a dusty computer under a plastic cover. Much of this stuff was new to me.

  On the second floor Chuck led the way to the bedroom. The bed had been stripped. Six empty bottles of Molson’s Export beer were sitting in a cardboard carton. An equal number of empties were lined up on a bedside table. A bottle that had once held Cutty Sark stood behind them. Pepper turned to me.

  “There was an empty vial of sleeping pills on the table with the bottles, Benny. That’s gone to the lab. Dr. Melton, who took a look, gave me to understand they were the sort that are not recommended to be taken with booze. I’m not talking about him not driving or moving heavy equipment, I’m saying that mixing alcohol and that stuff was dangerous for him even if he was only lying there watching Seinfeld reruns. He even had a last cigarette. There was a long ash and a stain in the bottom of an ashtray, also taken from the bedside table.”

  “May I speak?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Chuck said the word so that it carried its own warning.

  “I saw a package of Nicorettes downstairs. Had he given up smoking?”

  “He had. It was too much hassle at work, I was told, so he gave it up with a prolonged struggle two years ago, about the time Jean left him.”

  “That Mrs. Foley?”

  Chuck nodded.

  “So, he revived the habit as a last defiant gesture? Is that how you see it?”

  “Unless the three of you can see some element that isn’t consistent with suicide.”

  “Don’t use that word. ‘Consistent’ makes me want to have a smoke myself. Where’s the pack the cigarette came from?”

  “It had fallen under the bed. A throwaway lighter was there too. They’re both downtown.”

  “Supposing Foley had had a visitor. The visitor could
have got Foley drinking and then slipped the pills into his drink when he was nearly drunk.”

  “Yes, I thought that as well,” Chuck said. “But we found only one dirty glass on the bedside table. It had Foley’s prints on it.”

  “Did you check out the glasses on the drainboard in the kitchen? There may be prints on them. Or inside the yellow rubber gloves by the sink.”

  Chuck turned his mouth down, to indicate the remote possibility that I was right. He looked like Robert de Niro playing an older man. “I’ll try it. I’ll try anything that looks the least bit phoney.”

  Then I thought of something. “Your gang has kept this place secure since it was labelled a suspicious death, right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, look at the floor over by the bed, and over by that chair. It seems to me there’s a lot of cigarette ash around. How many smokes were gone from the pack you sent to Forensics?”

  “Just the one.”

  “And you say the ash from that was nearly intact?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, either we have a dead cigarette package in the garbage, or somebody took the rest of the deck away with him when he left Foley unconscious in his bed. The prints on the glasses or rubber gloves, if they exist, will help tell us who did the dirty deed.”

  “There’s half a grapefruit peel, coffee grounds and eggshells in the garbage. No paper, no cigarette package.”

  “I think we just got lucky,” Boyd said.

  “Not until Forensics tells us we have. But, we have got some hope, and that might be worth something.”

  “If our suspicions here are supported by Forensics,” I said, trying not to sound fatuous, “might I suggest that you let Foley’s death remain on a low level of suspicion. As far as the media are concerned, I mean. I don’t think it will help with the Renata Sartori case if we insist that there is a thread linking the two cases.”