Take Five

by Batten, Jack;

  I looked up at Rocky. “How about you, Mr. Galenti?”

  “Rocky’s answer’s the same as mine,” Janetta said.

  There was nothing in Janetta’s voice I could describe as pure menace. That only made everything he said seem to have even more potential for danger.

  “I’m not fond of guys calling on my wife who got no reason,” Janetta said.

  “I agree with your point of view, but I had a reason,” I said. “I’m interested in your house’s design.”

  “That’s what Elizabeth said you said.”

  “I’m glad she confirms my purpose,” I said.

  “She said you want to build a house like mine.”

  “So I did,” I said. “I did, uh, say that.”

  “Crang,” Janetta said, “you and I both know you’ve got as much chance of financing a house like mine as you have of getting appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.”

  “A man can dream.”

  “If you were still married to your first wife, you could afford any house you wanted,” Janetta said.

  The guy had done some research. My first wife, who was my only wife so far, was Pamela, the heiress to a fortune that reached back through generations of her family’s trust business and expanded from there. Heiress was Pamela’s financial situation when she and I were husband and wife. Now we’d been divorced many years, and she was no longer a mere heiress. The inheritance had kicked in. Today Pamela could buy and sell anybody in the Bridle Path.

  “On the other hand,” Janetta said, “now you live with a freelance writer. Crang, with all respect to Ms. Cooke’s skills and maybe yours, you can barely afford the house on Major.”

  What was my best strategy with Janetta? Should I bring up his fleecing of Grace and Wu out of their marijuana profits? Would that give me any leverage in finding out what Janetta’s current business relations were with Grace, if any relations existed? And what was up at 32 Highbury? The posing of the question might offer a pretty good wedge into a deeper investigation of what was going on with Grace. Or was I spinning my wheels, whatever choice I made?

  “Mr. Janetta,” I said, “if I may be so bold, I have some concerns about your property in the west end.”

  “West end’s not where I do business,” Janetta said.

  “Specifically Highbury Road.”

  Janetta, an impatient expression on his face, started to speak, but Rocky’s rumblings interrupted whatever his boss was about to say. Rocky muttered something I couldn’t make out, but there was no mistaking his physical intention. He was coming around Janetta’s chair, moving in my direction. The guy had all the looks of somebody about to bop me with a punch.

  “Rocky, what are you doing . . . ?” Janetta said. He radiated annoyance. I had the feeling that my own face, if anybody besides me cared, showed a high degree of unease.

  Needing to act, counting on surprise tactics, I jumped out of the swivel chair and let fly with a left hook aimed at Rocky’s oncoming head. My punch landed flush, high on Rocky’s right cheek. It left a bright red mark, the beginnings of a bruise. But it didn’t come anywhere close to slowing Rocky’s progress or giving him second thoughts about his plans for me.

  He swung a short right-hand punch at my solar plexus. It was perfectly executed. Rocky’s fist buried in my stomach at a spot just below the rib cage. It knocked every wisp of wind out of me. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were wide open, registering everything that was happening in front of me, but it was as if the events were taking place in a silent movie. I watched Rocky relishing his great punch, Janetta trying to drag him away from me, the closed office door behind them swinging open, Sam Feldman materializing from the hall. I saw all of this, but I couldn’t offer any response, verbal or otherwise. I couldn’t talk or hear. The way I felt at that moment, I wasn’t sure I would ever breathe again.

  In front of me, Sam steamed across the room in impressively quick strides. He grabbed Rocky from behind, his big hands squeezing Rocky’s head just back of the ears. Sam lifted the big guy in the air, his feet off the ground. Rocky’s choices were limited. He flailed his arms and legs, but within a second or two, he went still. Sam seemed to be applying some kind of sophisticated chokehold. He kept Rocky hoisted aloft, swinging him around and aiming him for an exit out the door.

  Janetta looked at this rapid turn of events with an expression of bemusement. He seemed much less a participant in what was going on and much more a member of a surprised but entertained audience.

  My hearing was beginning to kick back in. The first sound I heard was the rasping, coughing racket of somebody struggling for air. It was my own throat giving off the funny noises.

  “Crang,” Janetta said, leaning over me, “you hear me okay?”

  I realized I’d slumped back in the swivel chair.

  “I don’t know why the hell Rocky whacked you,” Janetta said. “But you probably did something to deserve it. All I gotta say, keep in mind what I told you about my wife.”

  I gave a shaky nod of my head and struggled to get upright in the chair.

  “No more turning up at my house when I’m not there,” Janetta said. He started for the door, then stopped and turned back. “I’m gonna rephrase that. No more turning up at my house any time. Doesn’t matter whether I’m home or not.”

  Sam came back through the door. He seemed to have dumped Rocky, and was now looking as if he might have more mayhem on his mind. Janetta put up his hands in a gesture that said Sam would get no trouble from him. Janetta still wore his bemused expression. Sam left him alone, and Janetta disappeared, softly closing the door behind him.

  Sam kneeled beside the swivel chair and put an arm around my shoulder.

  “The big thug must’ve got you in the breadbasket,” Sam said. “Actually, that’s the best place he could’ve landed a punch. Hitting you there isn’t going to break any of your bones.” Sam eased me against the back of the chair. “Just take it slow,” he said. “Your breath’ll start up as good as normal.”

  My hearing had already returned to its regular acuteness. And my breathing grew smoother. There was no more gasping or wheezing. I decided to test my speaking capabilities.

  “You came on like the cavalry, Sam,” I said. My voice felt comfortable again. “Glad you and I are on the same side.”

  “I wondered about those guys when I saw them going into your office,” Sam said. “Especially the big bozo. He looked like bad news.”

  “Where did you deposit Rocky?” I asked. “That’s the big bozo’s name.”

  “On the elevator,” Sam said. “He probably got his consciousness back by the time he reached the ground floor. All I gave him was a squeeze of the windpipe. Cut off enough air to knock him out.”

  I stayed in the chair, waiting for a complete zone of natural functioning to arrive. Sam leaned over me again, and undid my belt. “Let you have more breathing space,” he said.

  Someone knocked on the closed door.

  “Not those guys again, do you think?” Sam said.

  “If they came back,” I said, “I doubt they’d knock.”

  Sam called out, “Enter.” He faced the door, his hands raised in a posture that indicated he was on danger alert. I stayed slumped in the chair, my belt hanging loose.

  The door opened slowly. Two men wearing overalls stood in the open doorway, taking in the scene.

  “Is this not a good time?” the guy on the right said. His eyes kept moving from Sam’s hands to my undone belt.

  “It depends on why you’re here,” I said.

  “Got a delivery,” the same guy said, gesturing toward the hallway behind him. “A small refrigerator.”

  I came out of the chair like a man who’d found new life.

  “Right this way,” I said.

  The two guys unpacked the fridge and plugged it in. I did up my belt and asked the two guys if they’d like to stay for a cup of coffee. They said they had more deliveries. They seemed to be in a hurry to leave. I tipped them twenty bucks, and the
y shut the door behind them.

  “Okay, Sam,” I said. “It’s you and me for the inaugural coffees.”

  “I got a client waiting,” Sam said.

  He left too.

  My renewed energy was beginning to leak away. I made enough coffee for two cups. Four or five minutes went by while the little coffee maker did its duty. I poured the first cup and added a lump of sugar. That was unusual for me, a sweetener of any kind in my coffee, but I thought it’d have therapeutic effects on the shock my system had taken.

  My diagnosis and prescription were pretty much on the money. By the time I finished the second cup, I was feeling close enough to normal to face Annie with the story of my two-punch showdown with Rocky. Annie wasn’t going to be pleased.

  20

  When I got home, Annie had so much of her own news hot off the presses that I didn’t bother steering the conversation straight to the tale of the rumble in my office.

  “Look at all the zeros on this baby,” Annie said, holding up a printout of her account at our Bloor branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia. The account showed an online deposit the day before of a sum I recognized as significantly large, especially for a first-time author.

  “From Columbia University,” Annie said. “My advance against royalties for the Edward Everett Horton biography, and no fooling.”

  Annie gave me an enthusiastic hug. “Things are on pace,” she said. “Maybe ahead of pace if I move fast.”

  The hug shot a jolt of pain through my sore stomach muscles. For a moment, I could just barely keep myself upright. Annie didn’t notice any of the struggles because she was occupied with the happy business of rushing for the refrigerator to get out a celebratory bottle of white wine.

  I knew from Annie that Edward Everett Horton had been a native New Yorker and a Columbia alumnus. About four weeks earlier, the university had reacted to her proposal of a Horton biography with what anybody would call alacrity. The sum that had just arrived as an advance against royalties was marginally higher than the figure she suggested in her pitch. Annie said that was unheard of in the publishing world.

  While she dashed around the kitchen, I sat in the dining room looking into the garden, surreptitiously stroking my tender stomach.

  “You got indigestion, sweetie?” Annie asked when she came back to the table. My rubbing hadn’t been as surreptitious as I thought.

  “Probably too much coffee today,” I said.

  Annie was carrying the wine bottle, a corkscrew and two wineglasses. She performed the opening duties and filled each glass to the halfway mark.

  “Here’s to a bestseller,” I said, raising my glass in the air.

  Annie shook her head at the extravagance of the toast. “Let’s not go completely overboard,” she said. “Just getting a contract is fabulous enough. Never mind sales.” She sat back in her chair and hiked her bare feet up on the edge of the chair I was occupying. “You know how I feel right now?” she said.

  “Overjoyed?” I said. “Oh, wait, inspired? Determined?”

  Annie made a waving-off motion with the hand that wasn’t holding her wineglass. “What I feel is terrified.”

  “Well, a new venture and all, I guess terror is a natural reaction.”

  “It’s the size of the thing. I mean, a whole book? The longest piece I’ve written until now is a ten-thousand-word magazine article. For Premiere a few years ago, the profile of Heath Ledger.”

  “How long is your long book supposed to be?”

  “Eighty thousand words.”

  “That works out to what in book pages?”

  “More than three hundred.”

  “Now I’m impressed,” I said. “How long’s it take to write three hundred pages?”

  “It better take one year,” Annie said. “What the contract calls for is a year till I hand in the manuscript. Time started running on June first.”

  “Makes your deadline closer to eleven months than twelve.”

  “Which is the reason, my love,” Annie said, “I’m leaving for New York on Sunday.”

  “Sunday? The Sunday only two days away?”

  Annie said yes, and explained that Columbia had an Edward Everett Horton archive. She was invited to put the archive to whatever research use she wanted. Columbia would even make a small suite on campus available for her to live and work in. No charge, but the offer expired at the end of June when summer students would be moving in. Annie needed to work fast. She’d already booked her flight to New York, leaving on Sunday and returning at noon a week from the following Monday.

  “All the wheels in motion,” I said.

  “They are,” Annie said. “Now let’s talk about what you’ll be up to while I’m away.”

  “Meaning you want to hear about Grace and my seventy-five grand.”

  “Let’s have it,” Annie said.

  I told her about Lou Janetta calling on me that afternoon. I included a description of Rocky’s assault, but downplayed its ferocity, and wound up with Sam Feldman’s deed of heroism. Sam was another of Annie’s favourites. Practically everybody in my circles were her favourites except Maury Samuels. She thought Maury was a bad influence. I thought not.

  “Whole thing sounds weird,” Annie said. “What I’d like to know, sweetie pie, did you learn anything helpful from these rude people?”

  “I get the impression Lou Janetta knows absolutely nothing about the Highbury house or the fooling around with ceramics.”

  “But the big bully sure knows what’s up,” Annie said.

  “Rocky you mean?”

  “What other big bully you met lately?” Annie said. “A crime baron like Janetta might be a bully by definition. But from what you say, he’s kind of Mr. Neutral. What’s that all about?”

  “Matter of his style,” I said. “He’s powerful and successful and untouchable. Cops haven’t laid a glove on him. He can afford to act like he’s the coolest bad guy in town.”

  “And so?”

  “And so Janetta is an incidental figure for my purposes. That’s my current view anyway. He’s a big-time mob guy, but he’s a sideshow to the real plot I’m looking into.”

  “I just wish you wouldn’t call it a plot,” Annie said. “Makes it sound dangerous. I mean, all you really need to do is collect your fee from Grace.”

  I poured each of us enough wine to bring the level in the glasses back to halfway up. The wine, I noticed, was Sancerre. Annie had got out the really good stuff for the occasion.

  “Janetta didn’t appear to react at all when I mentioned Highbury,” I said. “Like you say, Rocky is deep into whatever’s going on with the ceramics. I think he threw the punch at me to deflect the conversation from getting any deeper into the general subject of the Highbury house.”

  “Janetta’s got nothing to do with Highbury, but you think Janetta’s beautiful missus is in it up to her neck? Words to that effect?”

  “My hunch.”

  “She and Rocky?” Annie said.

  “From all signs to date.”

  “Makes for an odd team. The chatelaine of the Bridle Path house and the thuggy bodyguard,” Annie said. “A little D. H. Lawrenceish.”

  “I completely doubt there’s any sex going on. Rocky’s no more than the obedient servant carrying out Elizabeth Janetta’s orders.”

  “Even though Rocky’s first responsibility is probably to the mister of the house?”

  “Complicated, isn’t it?”

  Annie appeared to think about what I’d just told her. “I may not have everybody in focus,” she said. “But it’s obvious where Grace fits into all of this. She’s the one who works with porcelain.”

  “I get the shivers when somebody says a thing is obvious.”

  “Your lawyer’s training.”

  “What appears to be obvious,” I said, “is Grace working for Ms. Janetta.”

  “Yeah, because whatever she’s doing with porcelain is happening in a house owned by the allegedly stunning Janetta woman.”

  “Yeah
, hypothetically,” I said. “The part about Elizabeth Janetta’s looks is for sure. The rest is conjecture.”

  “Geez, Crang.” Annie sounded impatient. “I’ll tell you one part that isn’t hypothetical or conjecture or anything else that comes with a trace of doubt attached to it. Actually I can tell you seventy-five thousand parts.”

  I sipped some of my Sancerre and couldn’t help noticing how mellow I was beginning to feel. Even my stomach muscles seemed not so bothersome.

  “I think it’s time to have a face-to-face talk with Grace,” I said to Annie. “See about the cash and ceramics and whatever else she cares to let me in on. I’m still her lawyer. It’s my obligation to advise her.”

  Annie leaned over and patted me on the knee.

  “Good thinking, my man,” she said. “At last.”

  “First step is to follow her from Highbury to wherever her home is when Rocky drops her off.”

  “Great,” Annie said. Her voice had a ring of decisiveness that made me nervous. “Let’s the two of us do the tail job tonight. Maybe actually converse with her.”

  “Tonight? I had next Monday night in mind. And what’s this ‘us’ stuff?”

  “I’m the perfect cover in the tail car,” Annie said. “None of the black Navigator people would expect to be followed by a car with both a man and a woman in it. We could act lovey-dovey in the front seat. Grace and Rocky and whoever else is in the car will think it’s just a couple who can’t wait to make out.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s nice thinking. But the idea is for them not to notice us at all.”

  “See!” Annie said, sounding as if she’d scored a major point. “Now you’re referring to ‘us.’”

  “Noticed that,” I said.

  I got out of my chair, and stared some more at the backyard, the plot of land soon to be rescued from the doo-doo category. I was staring, but I wasn’t thinking about gardening. I was thinking about the logistics of following Grace, Rocky and company.

  “Something else about the stakeout,” I said.

  “Love this,” Annie interrupted. “First a tail job, now a stakeout. Technically, unless I’m mistaken, the stakeout precedes the tail job.”