by Jack Batten
“I suppose, if it didn’t involve Dave,” I said. “He’s had enough trouble coping with the world, he didn’t need that.”
“Maybe,” Gant said. He fiddled with his empty coffee cup. “But the idea worked as an alternative to the film cans. I knew Goddard was going from the Alley Cat to Toronto. Read it in DownBeat. And it was a snap to switch his old case for the new case. Four kilos in the lining, he’d never notice.”
“Then Fenk started screwing up at this end.”
“The man could be irrational,” Gant said. “But I didn’t expect he’d get into some kind of fight with Goddard, and Goddard’d strangle the dumb SOB.”
“Dave didn’t. That’s the message I’m trying to get across.”
“I hear you,” Gant said, not at all irritable, but maybe not believing me either.
With all the chatter, I’d still polished off the fruit dish. Very tasty. Marvellous what money can do. I went for the coffeepot. It was empty. The waiter was over with a fresh pot in a blink.
“All the rest I told you was on the money?” I said to Gant. “The story I just spun?”
“What’d you call me? Ray’s aide ?” Gant looked pained. “Not me, not for a guy like Ray Fenk. I got other irons in the fire, but, yeah, I gave Ray a hand now and then when the job shaped up profitable.”
“Well, this job’s gone kind of awry.”
“Awry?” Gant said. “Man’s been murdered. You call that awry ?”
“The violence may not be over,” I said. “Reason is Trevor’s customer up here is still short the four kilos from Dave Goddard’s case, and he’s not a man to hesitate doing damage to anybody between him and the cocaine.”
“Who you suppose’s got the four kilos?”
“Who else?” I said. “Trevor.”
“Wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“I got ’em.”
That brought me up short, and my face probably showed it.
“Well, now, Mr. Gant,” I said, “you are a crackerjack.”
Gant was doing more hand-flicking for service.
When the waiter came on the fly, Gant said to him, “What I taste right now is a Bloody Mary.”
“That’s a disappointment, sir,” the waiter said. “The bar isn’t open.”
Gant looked at me.
“The law,” I said. “Funny laws up here.”
“Two serious guys like us?” Gant said. “Having a serious discussion? Can’t have a serious drink?”
“Welcome to town,” I said.
Gant asked the waiter again for a Bloody Mary, but, he said, hold the vodka.
“Crang, you’re looking like my idea of a man got some smarts,” Gant said to me. “Listen up to this. Tomorrow night, I’m meeting important folks in Beverly Hills. That means tonight, tomorrow morning latest, I’m gone from here. I need to get this whoo-rah about the four K tidied up quick, as in immediately. You want to help? Expedite? For a fee?”
“What’s the matter with the guy you’ve been using up till now? Trevor?”
“Last Saturday,” Gant said, “I got a message on my answering machine. Ray Fenk called. Said something’s not right with our Toronto contact. Said he was stashing the last four K of coke, Fenk was, and I should phone him back at his hotel. Sunday I called, and I got the cops on the other end. Took a few minutes of fencing, but the cops finally told me Ray’s dead.”
“I hate those things.”
“What? Cops?” Gant said. “Necessary to society’s smooth functioning.”
“Not cops,” I said. “Answering machines I hate.”
Gant got his Virgin Mary.
“Let me get a few things straight,” I said. “How’d you put your hands on the cocaine so fast? You’ve only been here, what, day and a half?”
“Crang, here’s a lesson you should keep in mind on things to hate and not hate,” Gant said. “It was all on the answering machine. Ray said he’d reserve a hotel room for me and leave the package of coke at the desk. Man did me all right on the hotel, give him credit. I like the King Edward just fine.”
“So the coke wasn’t in Fenk’s briefcase?”
“What briefcase?”
“The one whoever killed him probably took out of his hotel room.”
“You just lost me.”
“Never mind. If you’ve got the coke, it may not have much bearing on who did what at the Silverdore.”
Gant was admiring his Virgin Mary.
“Funny thing,” he said. “This tastes like it oughta taste, but later on I’m not gonna feel as good as I oughta feel.”
“Have I got this part right?” I said. “Trevor doesn’t know the four K are in your safekeeping?”
“Hasn’t got any bulletins on that from me,” Gant said. “And isn’t about to.”
“Trevor must be in a bit of a pet.”
“Man’s very, very angry. Wants his coke. Doesn’t know where to look.”
“See, something you may not be aware of, Mr. Gant,” I said. “Trevor’s already in pocket the money he was fronted by his buyer. That’d be the gentleman with the penchant for violence I mentioned earlier, and what he’s looking for from Trevor is the money back or delivery of the drugs.”
“Way I look at Trevor Dalgleish’s problems,” Gant said, “Ray Fenk’s message told me, where Trevor’s concerned, watch out. Ray didn’t say what went wrong. But I’m taking Ray’s advice, advice of a dead man. I’m watching out for Trevor. Let him look after his own little quarrel with the bad guys.”
“How about yourself?” I said. “You got any hesitation doing your own deal with these people? The bad guys?”
Gant took a moment to twirl the suggestion around his mental apparatus, which I was beginning to assess as formidable.
“Sell the four kilograms direct to Trevor’s customer?” he said. “Let the customer stay on his own to recover the money he’s fronted Trevor?”
I nodded, and felt pleasantly optimistic about the course the conversation was steering.
“And,” Gant said, “a cute incidental, I keep the money Trevor’s already paid Fenk and me for the original purchase.”
“Sell the same goods twice.”
“And hit American Airlines back to L.A. tonight.”
“Well, no, early flight tomorrow.”
Gant showed impatience for the first time.
“The customer’s buying, I’m selling,” he said. “Why not you and I get the goods outa my room upstairs and catch a cab right now wherever this man conducts his trade? Allow me to get on back to civilization and order my Bloodies any hour I please?”
I shook my head.
“Can’t be helped,” I said.
Gant wasn’t ready to give in.
“Explain it,” he said.
“Eleven o’clock tonight,” I said. “You bring the, um, product to a booze can.”
“I hear you clear? A booze can ?”
“It’s a place, people buy drinks all night, dance, sniff coke, that kind of thing.”
“At home,” Gant said, “in Los Angeles, we call that a nightclub. Or a restaurant.”
“Well, you know, different country, different customs, different laws.”
Gant looked at the remains of his Virgin Mary.
“Sunday night,” he said, “not one damn store’d sell me a six-pack.”
“Some laws we got up here,” I said, “I make a living defending people against them.”
“Growth industry, the picture I’m getting.”
“All right,” I said, “we’re on for tonight?”
“Best offer I’ve had,” Gant said. “Who’m I doing trade with? Who’s this mean boss at the booze can?”
“A Vietnamese name of Big Bam.”
“Oh, man, no.” Gant let out a deep laugh that attracted long looks from neighbouring tables. He’d already been drawing a share of glances, especially from a fantastically sultry red-haired woman in a green silk dress.
“Oh, man,” Gant said. “Big Bam? What
TV show these people watch?”
“Face to face,” I said, “on his turf, if I were you, I wouldn’t mock the guy’s name.”
“Touchy, is he?”
“Got a whole gang of henchmen.”
“Well, I got a whole gang of coke I imagine’ll put him in a receptive mood.”
“Just don’t kid around.”
“Eleven tonight, and what else? Run me down.”
I gave Gant the drill. Told him the booze can’s address. Said I’d arrange for someone on the steel door to take him through to Big Bam’s office. And mentioned he could forget about a fee for me.
“What’s this?” Gant said. He looked genuinely puzzled.
I said, “This is all part of the service to my client. And you’re not my client.”
“Lucky for one of us.”
“Dave Goddard’s my client.”
“Sure,” Gant said. “But if he didn’t kill Ray, who did?”
“I think I know,” I said. “But I’m hoping the truth’ll come out in the wash.”
“Out in the wash?” Gant said. “That a legal expression you Canadian lawyers favour?”
“Mostly,” I said, “it’s confined to my practice.”
Gant decided on another Virgin Mary and made circling motions around the top of his empty glass. The waiter noticed.
Gant said, “Ray Fenk wasn’t a guy you’d want to see married to your sister. Not my sister. But let’s say I’d be intrigued to know who murdered him.”
“Almost guarantee it,” I said. “Before you leave the country.”
“Glad of that.”
I didn’t know whether Gant meant he’d be glad to learn the killer’s identity or glad to leave the country. He sipped at his new Virgin Mary, and I tried to think of ways to make my departure politely. I had everything I needed from Gant, much more than I expected, and there seemed no need to stick around for social reasons.
“You looking to cut out, Crang?” Gant asked.
“Got an errand to run, now you bring it up.”
“Good,” Gant said. “I might see if that red-headed lady in the nice green dress got anything in mind besides staring.”
I shook Gant’s hand and walked out of the Victoria Room and across the lobby. I could have left by the side door, but I wanted to hear my heels clack on the marble floor one more time.
29
SOMEBODY HAD RECENTLY thrown up on the carpet in the waiting room at the College Park courts. It didn’t make much difference to the carpet. It was already a collage of stains, cigarette burns, and other suspect blemishes. But it made a difference to the air in the immediate vicinity. The air was of a spectacular ripeness, and everybody waiting for business in the courts had beat a retreat to the far end of the corridor. I walked past the crowd and through the waiting room to the bail court. I managed not to inhale the whole way.
By some quirk of custom—or maybe somebody from the Ontario Attorney General’s office actually arranged it this way—all women who are being held in custody in Toronto have their bail hearings at the Provincial Courts in the College Park Building. Men come up for bail in the courts down at Old City Hall. The College Park Building used to be beautiful. It’s at the corner of College and Yonge, and when I was younger, it was the uptown branch of Eaton’s department store, and had a gorgeous auditorium. I once heard Dizzy Gillespie’s big band play there. When Eaton’s sold off the building, various merchants of a cut-rate sort took over part of it, and the provincial government took over the rest for its courts. Now it was a place where people threw up in the waiting rooms.
I sat down at the back of the bail court. The time wasn’t much after ten, and the hearing must have just got under way. Trevor Dalgleish was on his feet and talking to the judge. His voice, forget the tenor pitch and the middling Atlantic accent, had a resonance to it. A good balance of reason and passion. For a guy who dealt cocaine as a sideline, Trevor was an impressive counsel.
Trevor’s client was standing in the prisoners’ box. She was thin, blonde, freckled, and had a defiant look. The judge was a woman, and so was the crown attorney. The crown attorney interrupted Trevor to say something about the blonde being a terrorist. Trevor said that was inflammatory, and the judge agreed with him. Trevor talked for ten uninterrupted minutes, and I began to catch the gist of things. The defiant blonde had been nabbed with a crate of Uzi submachine guns in her apartment. The armament was intended for some Nicaraguans. But one fact nobody mentioned was which Nicaraguans. Sandinistas? Or Contras? Turned out it didn’t much matter. The judge refused to grant bail whichever side the blonde was on. She’d have to stay in the slammer until her trial came up.
Trevor’s back was to me through the twenty minutes of the hearing. But when he walked over to say a few consoling words to his client, he noticed me. I seemed to distract him. He was talking to the client, but his eyes kept wandering to me. The defiant blonde finally turned to see what was behind her. I smiled and waved to her. She smiled back. With the smile, she looked less defiant. I hoped she was on the Sandinista side. Always thought they were the good guys.
Trevor marched down the centre aisle of the courtroom.
He said to me, “You’re either dumber than I thought, Crang, or you’ve got a load of gall.”
“A third alternative, Trev,” I said. “I’m here as a bearer of glad tidings.”
The judge called another bail application, and the lawyers collected themselves to make their arguments.
“If we have to talk,” Trevor said, “let’s do it in the waiting room.”
“Wouldn’t recommend that.”
When we got out of the courtroom and into the ripeness, Trevor said, “This is disgusting.”
“Buy you a coffee downstairs,” I said. “Or you want smelling salts?”
We took a table in a speedy-service place on the ground floor. The seats were bright yellow and made of slippery stuff that made you think you’d slide on to the floor any minute. Probably part of the speedy service. Keep the customers on edge.
Trevor said, “My first call, when I get back to the office, this might interest you to know, Crang, is to the homicide squad.”
“Might have trouble there, Trev,” I said. “Stuffy Kernohan’s tied up today.”
“What’re you talking about?”
I skated past the question.
“The real subject we got to talk about,” I said, “is your troubles with Big Bam.”
“No, you don’t, Crang.” Trevor looked like he was about to huff and puff. “The real subject is you, Ray Fenk, and some Dixieland musician named Goddard.”
“Get it off your chest, Trev,” I said. “But one clarification. Dave plays bebop. Not Dixieland. Yechh.”
“Ray Fenk was strangled with this musician’s saxophone strap,” Trevor said. “His name was stamped on it. Stuffy told us that, Cam and me. What I don’t believe Stuffy is aware of yet, but what I made it my business to find out, is how intimately you’re connected to Goddard.”
“Big deal, Trev. I practically told you at the Eglinton Theatre the other night Dave Goddard was my client.”
“He’s more than your client.”
“Well, let’s see. At a guess, I’d say you’ve been working the phones. Talked to Abner Chase, and, who else, Dave’s brother Ralph?”
“And Harp Manley,” Trevor said. “And my conclusion from adding up all the bits and pieces about your clearly close relationship with Goddard is that you know what he’s guilty of and where he’s presently hiding himself.”
“Accessory after the fact?” I said. “That’s the charge you think the cops should arrest me on? Accessory after the fact of Fenk’s murder?”
“As a lawyer, an officer of the court,” Trevor said, “it’s my duty to report knowledge I hold concerning a crime. Particularly murder.”
Trevor’s palaver was fretting at my nerves. He was breaking new frontiers in pomposity. But I had to let him unload before he’d settle down long enough for me to get in my innin
gs.
“Want to hear something funny, Trev?” I said. “In court upstairs, you sounded good. Convincing. Very controlled. Down here, out in the real world, you got a tendency to bluster.”
“Enough,” Trevor said and started to stand up. He had trouble with the slippery seat.
I said, “You heard the name I invoked at the beginning of this conflab? Big Bam?”
“An associate of some clients of mine,” Trevor said. He was still riding on the pomposity.
“Here’s another name for you,” I said. “Darnell Gant.”
Trevor said, “If you’re trying to make things seem more than they are, Crang, you can just forget it. Darnell Gant was a friend of Ray Fenk’s from Los Angeles. Naturally he’s grieved by his friend’s murder.”
“Cutting through the bull,” I said, “Big Bam is a cocaine retailer in Toronto. Fenk, with occasional assistance from Darnell Gant, was a cocaine wholesaler in California. And you’re the entrepreneur who played both sides to your own nifty profit. How much profit, I don’t know. Two thousand bucks per kilo maybe?”
Trevor held a steady gaze on me. He was probably balancing a pair of conflicting inclinations. Should he carry his righteous innocence all the way? Or give in to curiosity about what I might really know?
I said, “Just like you, Trev, I’ve done some homework. One difference though.”
Trevor waited a bit before he asked, “What’s the difference?”
I said, “I’m not running off to Stuffy Kernohan and the other cops with my parcel of information.”
“It’s all preposterous,” Trevor said. His voice had tailed off in the pomposity content.
“Here’s the good news, Trev, the glad tidings,” I said. “I got a handle on the missing four kilograms you’re so worried about.”
Trevor kept his silence. It must have been driving him nuts.
“The four K that were supposed to be in one of the film cans for Hell’s Barrio but weren’t,” I said. “Want me to keep going?”
“As long as you’re talking hypothetically,” Trevor said.
“Okay,” I said. “You made a deal to sell twenty-four kilos of cocaine to Big Bam. We’ll call it hypothetical for the moment. That’s on your selling side. On your buying side, you struck an arrangement with Raymond Fenk in California to take twenty-four K off his hands. Now comes the shipment part. Twenty kilos were tucked in the cans of five of the movies Fenk sent up to the Alternate Film Festival. Probably for each movie, Fenk added an extra can and stuffed it with coke instead of film. It was all done just like Fenk told you it’d be. Except the Hell’s Barrio film cans were empty. You know why? ’Course you don’t. Because Fenk and Gant switched the four K from the film cans to Dave Goddard’s saxophone case. The lining in the case.”