by Marc Strange
“Arnie? You at Horseshoe Bay or Tsawwassen?”
He hangs up.
I shower, shave, put on a fresh shirt and my comfortable shoes, and head out for the lobby.
Raymond D’Aquino glances up from what he’s doing. “Mr. Grundy, how are you feeling?”
“I’m good, Raymond. Thanks. I thought you’d get the night off.”
“I stayed until ten this morning and then I went home. I came on at eleven.”
“Thanks for last night, Raymond. I appreciate what you did.”
“The whole thing was pretty intense, what with that woman screaming, you unconscious…”
“You handled it well. Credit to the establishment.”
“It was really Arnie?”
“Looks like it was Arnie who took the money. I’m hoping that’s the worst thing he did. Anything I should know about?”
“Not a thing. Everyone’s on their best behaviour tonight.”
“I’m going down to Olive’s. Call me there if you need me. I won’t be long.”
Olive is sitting in with the California trio when I walk in. She nods at me over the top of her Steinway and smiles as the sax player does something sweet over her left-hand chords. She answers him with a right-hand run that makes him smile in return. The place isn’t full, but the patrons are paying attention to the music, which is fitting because the music is good. Olive is making the California trio sound like the full Basie band.
My favourite corner bar stool is unoccupied.
“What’ll it be, champ?” Barney asks.
“Coffee fresh?”
“You bet. Anything in it?”
“Just coffee, Barney. I just woke up.”
“Long day, I guess.” He puts a mug of straight Colombian in front of me, gives the already clean bar a reflex wipe. “That’s harsh about Arnie. What was he thinking?”
“I don’t think he was thinking. I think it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Couldn’t resist the impulse.”
“But shooting the guy. That was really stupid.”
“Well, the jury’s still out on that one,” I say.
Barney goes down to the other end of the bar to fix a few drinks. I take a second sip of black coffee and feel the thump of Gritch grabbing the stool beside me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him. “You get any sleep?”
“Sure, sure, I rolled into the house at six-thirty. The wife was out partying with the Tupperware set or something. I turned on the ball game and crashed on the couch until she got home. Had a good nap. I’m fresh as a daisy.”
“Who was playing?”
“Couldn’t tell you, except the sun was shining when it started, and then the shadows got longer, and somebody got beaned. Pitcher got tossed. It was baseball. It’s as good as a sleeping pill.”
Barney comes back to refill my cup and give one to Gritch. He supplies Gritch with sugar and cream and watches while Gritch scatters grains and droplets all over his gleaming oak surface. By the time the mug reaches Gritch’s lips, Barney has wiped the bar, added extra napkins, and disposed of Gritch’s cigar stub.
“I was smoking that,” Gritch says.
“He called me again,” I say.
“Who?”
“Arnie. Twenty minutes ago.”
“Son of a bitch,” Gritch says. “He say where he was?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. I think he was getting on a ferry, or getting off. I heard a whistle. I heard a PA address, but I couldn’t make out what it said.”
“What does he expect you to do?”
“He sounded excited.”
“Scared witless.”
“No, his mind’s working on something. Like he still thinks he can get away with it somehow.”
“Oh, he’s a genius all right,” Gritch says. “Old Arnie boy is just full of bright ideas.” Olive finishes her set with the California trio and steps off the stand to a generous round of applause. The sax player is clapping, too. He enjoyed himself. Olive acknowledges it all like the queen she is — regal, generous, and fully deserving. Barney has her rum and Coke ready when she slides into her booth with her back to the room like she’s disappeared into a dressing room backstage. No one bothers her unless she invites them. She gives me a head shift that says, “Come on over.” I pick up my coffee.
“Go visit Madam Queen,” Gritch says. “I’ll go sit in the lobby.”
He rolls out of the place, and Barney tidies up after him with dispatch as I slide into the booth opposite Olive May, who is lighting a Winston from a fresh pack.
“How you doing, Joey?”
“I’m okay, Olive. You sounded good.”
“Cuban drummer. Can he drive or what?”
“The sax player’s in love with you.”
“Instrumental infatuation. He’s got six kids and lives in
L.A.” She offers me a Winston, which I accept. It’s a ritual. “All quiet upstairs?”
“Everything’s pretty much back to normal. Except the Governor’s Suite’s still closed. It needs a new rug.”
“I don’t know this Arnie guy. He never came in here.”
“I don’t think he likes music.”
“Well, there now,” she says, “that should tell you something about the man.”
“Gritch always wanted me to fire him.”
“I hear Gritch got knocked out.”
“No, that was me. Gritch got sleeping pills in his coffee.”
“Sounds like the better deal. You okay, sugar?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“So what’s the matter, Joey? Your forehead is all fisted up and you’re actually smoking that thing.”
“Arnie says he didn’t shoot anyone.”
“What about you? You think somebody else did it?”
“It’s making me a little crazy. It doesn’t add up. Too many loose ends.”
“Let the police figure it out. It’s not your problem anymore, is it, sugar?”
“Well, yeah, it is,” I say. “It happened in the hotel.”
chapter sixteen
It’s a clear and bright morning. The rain has moved inland. Vancouver has a scrubbed and shiny face. It’s a day for getting things done. I put on a white shirt, a paisley tie, the good grey suit, my polished black shoes, and the Burberry trench coat. It’s in the back of the closet in a dry cleaner’s bag, a gift from Mr. Alexander many Christmases ago that I rarely get to wear. I look okay. A Clydesdale with shiny hooves.
Wallace Gritchfield grabbed a few hours’ sleep on the office couch and wants to know where his overnight bag is, with his spare stuff inside.
“I don’t know,” I say. “The bottom drawer of the filing cabinet is where you usually stash it.”
“Drawer’s full of files.”
“How inconvenient,” I say. “Check under the desk in the private space.”
“You going courting?”
“I have a date for breakfast.”
“You need a boutonniere.”
“After that I’m going to see some people. I’ll be gone most of the morning.”
“I’ll notify the media,” Gritch says.
“Rachel will be on the job at nine sharp. Dan has the day off. I’ve got the cell with me if anything comes up.”
“The house will survive without you,” Gritch says, checking me out. “Nice topcoat.”
“It’s a Burberry,” says the fashion plate.
“Take the safety pin out.”
Connie Gagliardi has oatmeal for breakfast, with butter and salt. “It’s a family thing. I know it’s odd.”
“It’s unusual,” I say.
“My grandfather swore by it. He lived to ninety-three.”
“Maybe I’ll switch.”
“It’s an acquired taste, I think.”
She isn’t wearing makeup, and her hair is becomingly tousled. Channel 20 has a department ready to attend to such details before she goes on camera. She looks younger, and tinier, if that’s possible. I loomed over her when we
met on the street ten minutes earlier.
“You used to be a fighter, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Were you any good?”
“White heavyweights who can stay alive for five or six rounds can make a living. I fought a couple of premier guys. Mixed results, but I didn’t stink up the joint.”
“Did you ever fight for a title?”
“Never got that far.”
“I’m not a fight fan. Sorry. Did you get in with anyone I might know? Who’s that brute who keeps getting in trouble? Tyson?”
“Never had that privilege. Fought Evander Holyfield on his way up. Gave him a good lick, second round, woke him right up, unfortunately. Anyway, that’s how I earned a living until I got too old for it and once or twice caught myself hearing things that weren’t there.”
“I guess security work would be a logical next step.”
“For someone with few marketable skills? Yes.”
“How did you make the transition?”
“Along the way I met some people, good and bad, and one of the good ones, an old PI named Louis Schurr, started giving me odd jobs, surveillance, protection. He got me a licence, got me bonded, gave me an alternative to getting my brain scrambled. He’s the guy who introduced me to Leo Alexander, who owns, among other things, the Lord Douglas Hotel. Mr. Alexander was in need of a bodyguard and hired me to keep him alive.”
“Was he in danger?”
“He never told me exactly what he was worried about, only that he needed protection. One night at a fundraiser somebody fired five shots at him. I managed to stop three of them. The other two missed by a mile.”
“Were you badly hurt?”
“There was hospital time involved. I came out of it more or less intact. I don’t do many one-armed push-ups anymore and my collarbone has a knot in it, but that’s about it.”
“Mr. Alexander must have been grateful.”
“He’s an honourable man.”
“He gave you a reward?”
“Sort of.”
She finishes her oatmeal to the bottom of the bowl, drains a glass of grapefruit juice, and turns her attention to tea, with honey and lemon. I watch her with some fascination. She reminds me of a wild creature grabbing a quick bite at the edge of the woods, all senses alert, no wasted motion. I’m still working on my first piece of toast.
“I didn’t see the interview,” I say. “Somebody at the hotel said your piece with Buzz was on the news last night. There any way I can have a look at it?”
“Oh, sure, come out to Channel 20 after ten-thirty, say eleven o’clock, I’ll be free. I’ll run it for you.”
“Thank you.”
“How much time did you spend with him?” she asks.
“I talked to him for five minutes after he checked in, then for a little while when they were listening to music in the other suite.”
“What did you think?”
“Good music,” I say, “folk rock, I guess you’d call it.”
She smiles. “Of him.”
“He was pleasant, open, cheerful.”
“You think he had a Jesus complex?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Some people are so serene they seem remote, on a cloud just out of earshot. I’m not sure I made much contact.”
“He was surprisingly articulate during the interview. I was expecting him to be all spacey, peace-love-togetherness, but he made a cogent case for what he was planning to do. It made sense. Not sense in a practical way, but sense on some real level, like he was trying to do something.”
“Confound the prevailing paradigm,” I say.
“Exactly.”
“His sister said he was too good for this world.”
“We do tend to chew up our saints. What do you think of the sister?”
“I’ve got a weakness for red hair,” I say. “I think I had a crush on someone in grade two.”
“That’ll do it.” She touches her own dark curls.
“I got the feeling Molly MacKay has a garden and a dog and enjoys sex, food, music, and going barefoot.”
“Earth mother type.” Connie sips her tea. “I couldn’t get to her after it happened. How was she?”
“Very quiet, very tired, very sad.”
“And maybe very rich. I’m trying to set something up. I’ll go to Roberts Creek if she’ll talk to me. Can’t get her on the phone. I don’t know where she is.”
“Avoiding reporters.”
She looks up at me and shrugs. “We just do our jobs, right? You stop bullets for people and I chase people who don’t want to talk to me.”
“Did you ever meet this Parker Prescott?” I ask.
“Nope. Now there was a serious recluse. He dropped completely out of sight. For five or six years no one saw him.”
“Except Jake Buznardo, evidently.”
“You can imagine what it looked like when Buzz came out of the woods. You remember that guy after Howard Hughes died? Some guy shows up, says he picked Hughes up one night hitchhiking. Claimed Hughes left him all his money.”
“Vaguely.”
She puts down her cup and tilts her head as if examining the damage to a front bumper. “You’ve never seen my show, have you?”
“I’ve seen your picture on the side of a bus.”
She laughs. “I shouldn’t even talk to you.”
“If it doesn’t happen inside the hotel, it’s not really part of my life.”
She shakes her head. “Okay. How much do you know about the Prescott fortune?”
“It’s six hundred and eighty-eight million dollars.”
“At the very least. There should be more once they add it all up.” She picks up the salt and pepper shakers and holds them apart. “Okay, Parker Prescott formed two corporations. Prescott Holdings —” she waggles the salt “— takes in all the money. Horizon Foundation —” she jiggles the pepper “— hands it out. It’s a neat set-up. All Prescott Holdings can do is make money. It can’t spend it, can’t buy anything, can’t sell anything. The only thing it exists for is to make cash available to Horizon which, conversely, isn’t allowed to earn money, only to spend it.”
“What business is Prescott Holdings in?”
“Initially, Prescott made his money in the lumber business, plywood or something. Then he got into mining and transportation, good West Coast industries. Six, seven years ago, he started consolidating, liquidating. It’s like he wasn’t interested in growing anymore. He just wanted to make sure there was fifty million, sometimes a hundred million a year to funnel into Horizon to keep his favourite charities funded.”
“So the whole Prescott empire exists to give money away.”
“That’s it.”
“No wonder he and Jake Buznardo got along.”
“But you can understand why the rest of the players freaked. A whole lot of charities and foundations rely on the Horizon Foundation for a big chunk, in some cases the entire chunk, of their budgets. Then up pops this gypsy with a stranglehold on the entire Prescott empire, and he looks flaky enough to upset all their cushy apple carts. Prescott Holdings fought it as long and as hard as they could, but the old man had foxed them at every turn. He’d adopted Jake Buznardo as his legal son and heir, he had psychiatric reports from unassailable institutions attesting to his soundness of mind, and he made it virtually impossible for Prescott Holdings to use their own funds to fight the will. In the end, Wade Hubble was spending his own money.”
“What about the other arm, this Horizon Foundation?”
“Horizon always has its nose in the air. They like to give the impression they’re above such sordidness. But let’s face it, Edwin Gowins was every bit as vulnerable.” She checks her watch. It’s almost eight-thirty. “I have to get to the shop.”
“Who’s Gowins?”
Connie gets up, starts to collect her gear. “Edwin Gowins runs the Horizon Foundation. If you ever read a newspaper, you’d have seen him. He loves cutting ribbons.”
“Very popular,” she says.
chapter seventeen
The Horizon Foundation exists to dole out money to deserving charities. From the look of its office building, I figure some of that money must go to window washers. It’s the Crystal Cathedral without the pews. Embracing the reception area is a curving trophy wall bedecked with plaques, scrolls, honours, and framed colour photographs of Edwin Gowins being embraced by dignified cultural panhandlers. Not for him the anonymous donation. He likes having his picture taken. Every penny he hands out comes with an oversize cheque and a photo op, and the documented thanks of a grateful, and preferably high-profile, worthy cause. Edwin Gowins has expensive teeth and exquisite taste in haberdashery.
In the middle of the trophy wall, slightly out of place, is a handsome oil portrait in a massive gilt frame. Parker Prescott, philanthropist, humanitarian, benefactor. It’s my first good look at the man who started all this. The artist has given him the elevated gaze of a visionary. Made him look taller, too. By all accounts, Prescott was a bantamweight. In the painting he looks like a welter.
Edwin Gowins, the managing director of the Horizon Foundation, has his chancel in what should have been the apse of the high altar. Before I can get in to see him I have to dance my way past a series of politely hostile buffers, all of whom wear nice shoes and wrinkled noses. I don’t think I look that bad, what with my Burberry fresh out of the dry cleaner’s bag, but when I finally get in to see Edwin Gowins it’s obvious there’s a higher level of sartorial splendour in the world. I was unaware there were pink alpacas in Peru, but then I’ve never been to South America.
“Mr. Gowins,” I say. “It’s good of you to see me, sir.”
“Why am I seeing you, exactly? Mr. Gundy, is it?”
“Grundy. Joe Grundy. I work for the Lord Douglas Hotel, where Mr. Buznardo was shot two nights ago.”
“I prefer the Park Royal.”
“Yes, sir, that’s a nice place, I’m told.”
“But you still haven’t answered my initial question. Why am I seeing you?”
“I’m unofficially looking into Mr. Buznardo’s murder. On behalf of the hotel.”