Take Five

by Batten, Jack;

  Oh yeah? He’s got me under control? Well, which one of us was currently getting by with only one operational pinky?

  “My opinion,” Lou said, “Rocky gets in the first shot but he’s the one ends up on his ass every time he takes a run at Crang.”

  Well, well, so far I was making out better than Brian Moore’s guy in the cubicle.

  “One more thing,” Lou said, “what’s the girl doing at the party?”

  “Which girl are you talking about, sweetheart?”

  “The one got the gloves on. Shakes hands with her left.”

  “Hugette you mean,” Elizabeth said. “Lou darling, without Hugette, I never would have been successful in this deal with Elvis.”

  Somebody rapped on the library door, then opened it.

  “I’ve been looking high and low for you two.” It was Isabel’s voice. I took advantage of the interruption to roll cautiously over on my back. My left leg had gone numb, thigh to toes. I might never walk again unaided.

  “The Chinese interpreter just told me they have to be out of here with the ceramic stuff inside twenty minutes,” Isabel said. “I just wanted to tell you.”

  “That’ll work fine, Isabel,” Elizabeth said.

  “Let me ask you something, Isabel,” Lou said. “How’d that platter of gravlax get in here?”

  Jesus, I’d left the damn thing in clear view.

  “So that’s where it got to,” Isabel said. Her voice sounded unnaturally high. “I wondered how I’d misplaced it.”

  “Not like you, Isabel, I gotta say,” Lou said. “Forgetting things.”

  “I’ll just take it with me,” Isabel said, still talking in the high voice.

  “Never mind,” Lou said. “Maybe I’ll have some.”

  “I’ll get the catering staff organized,” Isabel said.

  Her voice was followed by silence. Presumably Isabel had left. But Elizabeth and Lou weren’t talking. Had they departed too? I didn’t hear the library door open and close a second time. I was still lying flat on my back. I reached my hand out and risked raising the cloth an inch or two. Right in front of my eyes, almost close enough for me to reach out and touch, were a pair of female legs and a pair of male legs. From my limited view, the arrangement of limbs suggested a couple kissing. I dropped the curtain. There was only so much invading of privacy I could stand.

  I lay back and contemplated my aching left leg. The pain had passed into the extremely intense stage.

  “Let’s get the people ready for the presentation,” Elizabeth said in a low sexy voice.

  “This here right now, you and me,” Lou said, “to be continued in the bedroom.”

  That was a criminal kingpin’s idea of sweet talk? Lou’s line ranked right up there with Jimmy Cagney smacking his girlfriend’s face with a sliced grapefruit.

  “Later on,” Elizabeth said. She appeared not to share my view of Lou’s seducing technique.

  The two of them crossed the floor to the door. I heard it open, and felt a long sigh of relief working its way through my system. The relief didn’t last long.

  “Boss, I been looking for you,” another man’s voice said at the open library door. “This’s serious.”

  I recognized the voice. It belonged to Percy Colombo aka Spike.

  “You go ahead, Elizabeth,” Lou said to his wife.

  “Don’t be long, sweetheart,” she said.

  The library door closed, leaving Lou and Spike still in the library. Damn, I was running short on time. Were these people never going to vacate the friggin’ room?

  “What’s serious?” Lou said. He and Spike stayed over by the door for their chat.

  “Okay, I delivered all the horse to different customers this afternoon,” Spike said. His voice sounded anxious. “Except the two kilos for the Three Amigos. They told me, sorry, their money’s been delayed. They’ll be getting it at eleven tonight. What they wanted to know, could I trust them for the cash until then?”

  “Spikey,” Lou said, the old familiar menace making its way closer to the surface, “tell me you didn’t leave the two kilos with those guys.”

  “No way, boss,” Spike said. “No money, no horse. It’s still in the car.”

  “So far, you’re doing okay. What’re you worried about?”

  I actually understood what the two guys were talking about. It seems Spike was distributing Lou’s heroin around town, and the Three Amigos, which was a Mexican restaurant on Dundas near Shaw, was one of their customers. The Amigos were buying two kilos from Lou, then presumably peddling the heroin to their clientele of addicts in gram lots. A thousand grams in a kilo . . . That could add up to a tidy sum depending on what they charged per gram. I hadn’t a clue about prices.

  “They buy from us at three hundred and thirty bucks a gram,” Lou said. “Probably sell for four hundred.”

  Thanks, Lou. Nice to know exactly the current prices in his heroin business. But would he please stop with the financial seminar and get back to his guests.

  “So what am I missing here, Spike?” Lou was saying. “What’s happening that’s serious, apart from you won’t get the money from those guys until eleven?”

  “Well, see, boss,” Spike was almost stumbling over his words, “I stepped on the gas to get back here from the Amigos because you said it was important I should be on duty with the other guys at the party.”

  “And the car’s out front with the horse in it even though you know it’s a strict rule drugs are never to be in the vicinity of my house?”

  Lou sounded like he needed all his steely resolve to avoid flying off the handle.

  “Boss,” Spike said, a little quake in his voice, “I hadda make a decision.”

  “What car you using?” Lou asked after a short delay. From the changing sound levels of his voice, he must have been walking around the room, probably thinking through the heroin delivery problem.

  “The Volvo,” Spike said.

  “Horse’s under the matting in the back?”

  “Just like you want.”

  “You think the Amigos are square about having the money at eleven?”

  “In all the time I been delivering to them,” Spike said, “two years, something like that, this’s the first time a delay or anything else I didn’t like has come up.”

  “I know,” Lou said. “They’ve been reliable.”

  All right already, would the man just make a decision. My left leg was aching, my patience was running low, I needed to plug in my setup to Charles and Melissa. If I didn’t start shooting digital awfully damn soon, my plan was down the crapper.

  “Here’s what you do,” Lou said to Spike. “Stick around here another hour till the ceremony ends, whatever the hell it is, and people clear out. Then take the Volvo to your place. Leave it in the garage for a couple hours, and at eleven, you drive to Three Amigos for the payoff. Soon as you got the money, phone my cell.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Spike said in a warm tone.

  A few moments of silence followed Spike’s heartfelt piece of gratitude. What the hell were the two guys doing now? Giving one another the secret drug dealer handshake?

  Then the door opened and closed. I waited, and I concentrated on listening for the continuing presence of human beings still in the room, apart from myself. I didn’t hear a thing, not an intake of breath, not a rustle of clothing. At last, finally, I was alone, all by myself in the big old library.

  The process of getting out from under the table was labour intensive. My leg was killing me. But I had no time to attend to ailments. I put together the iPhone setup, plugged in the mic and the tiny earphones. Once the parts seemed in place, I tapped in Charles’s number.

  He came on the line instantly.

  “Crang, old chap,” he said, “we’ve been terribly worried. You’re in place, are you?”

  “Time is of the essence, Charles.”

  “All set at this end,” Charles said. “We’re in Melissa’s office. Six of us, Melissa, four members of the Levin board a
nd myself. Ready when you are, old bean. You’re on speakerphone.”

  “This is Melissa Novak, Mr. Crang.” She had a deep and breathy voice, like a younger Lauren Bacall. “We’re so grateful to you.”

  “Nothing to it,” I said.

  There was a pause until I said, “I’ve got the camera going. I think. Receiving now, Charles?”

  “You need to press the on button, Crang old lad.”

  “Sorry.” I pressed the button.

  “Now we’re receiving, Crang,” Charles said. “But the shot we’re getting on the screen is of your foot, I believe. Raise the iPhone a notch, would you?”

  I did as Charles instructed.

  “Trifle too high,” Charles said. “We’ve getting an impressive view of the ceiling.”

  I made more adjustments, and was rewarded with a chorus of shocked ohhhs and ahhhs at the other end.

  “I’m showing Company of Fools now?” I said.

  “Jolly right, old boy,” Charles said. “But we would benefit from some tighter focusing.”

  I made scrolling movements with my thumb, and at the same time I adjusted the angle of the iPhone. I hadn’t the faintest idea whether I was helping or harming the receiving process in Melissa’s office.

  Much louder ohhhs came over the line, plus one female voice saying, “I never trusted that Janetta woman.” I gathered I’d done something right.

  “Getting the good stuff, Charles?” I said.

  “Very nice indeed,” Charles said. “Now see if you can give us a close-up of the giraffe’s face, old boyo. That’ll clinch the case. Ultimate proof it’s the original Company at the Janetta mansion.”

  Now that I was getting the hang of the gizmos, it wasn’t much trouble to zoom in on Mr. Giraffe.

  I heard Charles’s voice through my earphones, but he wasn’t speaking to me. “Melissa, my dear,” he said, “do we have what Crang calls the smoking gun?”

  “I should think so,” Melissa said in her smoky tones. Then she spoke more loudly for my benefit. “Mr. Crang, we’re coming out to the Janetta house, all of us here in the office. It’s time to reclaim the Levin’s treasure.”

  “The sooner the better,” I said. “Wang and his people are speeding up the climax to the deal.”

  “Over and out for the moment, Crang old friend,” Charles said.

  I was sweating. It felt like a mighty strain to handle the filming and all the other technological stuff. My left leg wasn’t helping the efforts. It ached like crazy.

  I was folding up the mic and earphones, getting things tidied, when I heard once again the infernal sound of a key being inserted in the library lock.

  Even with the left leg threatening to crumple under me, I took a half-dozen bounds across the library toward a chair against the wall on my left. It was an armchair done in crimson and gold fabric, an ugly damn thing. I jammed the equipment, iPhone and all, under the chair’s seat pillow.

  That done, the incriminating stuff out of sight, I picked up the platter of gravlax, put on my bland server’s smile and turned to face the opening door.

  37

  Isabel was the first person through the door, moving under a good head of steam. Following her was the catering staff, five fresh and shiny young people, three men, two women.

  “You there,” Isabel barked at me, “you work on the champagne with Becky.”

  Becky turned out to be the blonde who’d given me the raised eyebrow in the kitchen. She reached out to shake my hand and flashed another arch of the eyebrow.

  “How long’ve you been passing around that gravlax?” Becky asked. “Looks like it’s getting, you know, gamey.”

  “You think it might poison the guests?”

  “One guy here I wouldn’t mind poisoning.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “A man with his arm in a sling?”

  Becky smiled. “He’s been trying to feel me up all afternoon. With his functioning hand.”

  “Say no more,” I said. “He’s as good as eliminated.”

  Becky laughed, and we got down to the business of popping champagne corks.

  “There something wrong with your leg?” Becky said.

  “Combat wound.”

  “I’m beginning to get the idea you’re a dangerous guy,” Becky said.

  The room was filling in a hurry, led by the Chinese contingent. Elvis Wang was a different type than I expected. Younger, late thirties at the most, and handsome with a movie-star flash. His wife, Trixi, was the same, young and attractive. She had a cute smile and a tidy figure.

  There were six other Chinese guys. The only one whose role seemed obvious was the interpreter. He was a busy little bee, buzzing around Elvis and Trixi who seemed to need his services nonstop. Lou’s personal guests were doing a lot of nodding and smiling at the Wangs and the interpreter. The Lou friends, wearing lightweight summer suits in conservative shades, were smiley but hard, the wives looking almost as sleek and tough as the men. The bodyguards, four guys including Spike and three others from the same mould, ranged around the room, mostly to my right. Rocky in his sling was there too, the only heavy to my left. He was standing with Hugette who once again included gloves as part of her dress ensemble. These ones were white leather, fitting loosely. I concentrated on staying to Becky’s right side, using her to block Rocky’s view of me. He was bound to spot me sometime in the afternoon. All I wanted was to delay the inevitable till a point in the proceedings when I wouldn’t care whether he recognized me or not.

  Elizabeth and Lou were last into the room. Lou wore a summery sports jacket and trousers in two different hues of light and dark blue, no tie included in the ensemble. Elizabeth had on a simple white dress, form-fitting and ending just above her knees. Great fit, great form.

  She stood beside the table displaying Company of Fools and began to speak to the assembled guests.

  “I’m going to talk slowly enough for the interpreter to pass on my little jokes to our honoured guests, Elvis and Trixi.”

  That drew light laughter from the crowd. Elizabeth beamed at her guests, her eyes turning left to right, taking in the whole room. The eyes passed me, then returned. Elizabeth paused, and examined my face. She frowned. She seemed to recognize the face but wasn’t sure where she’d seen it before. She got back to her speech.

  “What you see before you on the table,” Elizabeth went on, “is one of the most precious pieces in the history of ceramic arts.”

  She didn’t speak as slowly as she’d promised. Maybe it was the excitement of the moment. The interpreter speeded up his murmuring, matching Elizabeth’s pace, directing his translation at Elvis and Trixi. The other Chinese guys were left to fend for themselves, languagewise.

  “Elvis and I are engaged in a deal today that nobody else in ceramics has ever realized,” Elizabeth was saying.

  She sounded confident and spunky, just hitting her stride. But before she got any further, another voice invaded the room.

  “Are you receiving? Come in, please, old bean. . . .”

  The voice was coming from the crimson-and-gold chair over by the left wall, and it sounded just like my neighbour Charles.

  “Over to you,” the voice from the chair said. “Update time, old chap. . . .”

  Elizabeth had stopped talking. She and everybody else in the room had eyes only for the ugly chair.

  Rocky, to my left, reached his left hand under his jacket and into his belt at the back, the place where guys like him keep their pistols. Was the idiot going for his gat? What’d Rocky have in mind? Shooting the chair dead?

  “Attention, old bean,” the chair went on, “we’re just clearing St. Clair Avenue . . .”

  People in the room were whispering to one another, pointing at the chair, probably wondering how the talking piece of furniture figured into Elizabeth’s presentation.

  I was the only one in the room who knew what was going on. I’d left the damn iPhone on. Now my worry was how the hell I could turn it off before Charles broadcast my name to Eliz
abeth and Rocky and the whole crowd.

  Rocky had already drawn his gun. He was holding it close to his leg. Nobody except Becky and me could see the thing. It was a lethal-looking bit of weaponry, and it had a silencer attached to the barrel. Rocky definitely had the demeanour of a guy prepared to let bullets fly.

  Isabel, standing closer to the chair than anyone in the room, got herself in gear before Rocky made his move.

  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth and everyone,” Isabel said, her voice at the unnaturally high pitch I’d heard earlier. She hurried up to the ugly chair in quick little steps. “My young nephew was over last week. Left his toys in the oddest places. I do apologize for the interruption.”

  She lifted the pillow and pulled out the iPhone, the mic and the earphones. Her hands felt around for the buttons to deactivate the apparatus.

  Charles’s voice hadn’t finished.

  “. . . ETA, ten minutes from now. Signing off, Crang old sport.”

  Isabel flicked off the buttons a second too late.

  I looked over at Elizabeth. One glance told me the penny had dropped. She realized where she’d seen me before and who I was. Her eyes looked for mine and found them. For an instant, we stared at one another. What would her next move be? Summon her husband to some kind of action? Signal Rocky to polish me off? Neither Lou nor Rocky had yet registered my presence.

  Elizabeth didn’t turn to either guy, not her husband nor Rocky. Her eyes left mine and beamed a smile at the crowd. She seemed to have chosen to push on with the presentation. Get it over with, I guessed, secure the fourteen million bucks in her own hands. Then she’d pass on to the punishment phase. The punishing of the Nosy Parker lawyer.

  “What was that all about?” Becky whispered to me.

  “Nothing good where I’m concerned,” I whispered back.

  “Really?” Becky said. “A person here got it in for you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Don’t worry,” Becky said, the plucky little warrior. “I got your back.”

  Up at the front of the room, beside the table holding Company of Fools, Elizabeth was talking faster.

  “So it’s with great honour and greater privilege that I turn the renowned Company of Fools to the stewardship of our friends Elvis and Trixi.”