by Jack Batten
“Too bad you didn’t come earlier, Crang,” he said. “Daniel Day-Lewis just left.”
“That would’ve rounded out my evening just about right,” I said.
Cam said, “Annie and I had a fascinating chat with him.”
Annie was still giving me her worried attention.
“Apart from frazzled,” she said, “you look kind of chunky around the waist.”
“I got three hundred thousand reasons for that,” I said. “Tell you later.”
“You smell funny,” Annie said. “What is that? Rhubarb?”
The waiter came by, and I asked for a double vodka on the rocks.
“I bring good news, Cam,” I said. “And bad news. And really bad news.”
Cam flicked his eyes at Annie.
“Don’t worry about Annie,” I said to him. “She knows all the past history.”
“And I’m discreet,” Annie said.
“But you’re press,” Cam said to her.
“Only way I’ll report on this story,” Annie said, “is if it gets made into a movie.”
“Could happen,” I said.
Cam’s face arranged itself into his stern expression.
“Let’s have your report, Crang,” he said.
“The good news,” I said, “is Trevor won’t stand trial.”
“Thank heaven for that,” Cam said.
“The bad news is he killed a man,” I said. “And the really bad news is someone else killed him.”
It might have been the first moment in his career when words failed to spring to Cam Charles’s lips.
Annie spoke before Cam recovered his wits and vocabulary.
“Who did he kill?” she asked me.
“Fenk.”
“No.” Cam had found a word.
“Yeah,” I said. “Probably nothing premeditated. I think his coke dealing must have been driving him a little crazy, trying to keep the turnover going, earn the money to pay the bills for the grand way he lived. And when Fenk crossed him on the last part of a deal the two of them had going, Trevor’s temper went past the boil. He took everything out on Fenk. Frustration, rage, all the stuff that was knocking his judgment and balance loose.”
“No,” Cam said. He was sticking to the one word he had under control.
“That’s my analysis anyway,” I said. “But I think the homicide people, your mate Stuffy Kernohan, they’ll put it together the same general way.”
“So who killed Trevor?” Annie asked. “And when and how?”
“How, I don’t think you want to hear,” I said. “Trevor’s body isn’t going to be a pretty picture. It happened an hour ago, and the two guys who did it—killed Trevor—are from the cocaine bunch he was selling to. A thug name of Tran, and the coke boss and booze can proprietor, guy who goes by the handle of Big Bam.”
Cam cleared his throat.
“Does Stuffy have the two in custody?” he asked me.
“Cops should have their mitts on Tran any time now,” I said. “But Big Bam is somewhere loose in his Porsche.”
“You mean he’s likely to be leaving the city?” Cam said. “Trying to run from the police?”
“Not immediately,” I said. “Right this minute, he’s hunting for me.”
“You?” Annie said. “Why you?”
I lifted up my sweater and shirt.
“What is the world are those?” Annie said, looking at my waist.
Cam stood out of his chair to see over the table.
“Why are you wearing money belts, Crang?” he asked.
“Big Bam’s idea,” I said. “He’ll have done some serious rethinking on that one in the last hour.”
Cam sat down and retreated into silence. If I knew my Cam, his brain was ticking over, conjuring up ways to put daylight between his law firm and the Trevor Dalgleish fiasco. Or tragedy. I tucked my shirt in with one hand. Just one hand because Annie was holding the other. The waiter with my double vodka arrived at the table.
And so, right behind the waiter, did Big Bam.
“Oh, wow,” I said.
Cam and Annie looked up at Big Bam. They had the same first reaction to him. They started to smile a greeting. Why not? Bam was a presentable guy with his matinee-idol face and his ritzy blue jumpsuit. But the smile on Bam wiped the smiles off Cam and Annie. Bam’s was a cold smile. Menacing. At last, the kind of smile I’d been waiting for.
I took a gulp of vodka.
“Annie and Cam,” I said, “like you to meet Ng Thai. Also known in cocaine and booze can circles as Big Bam.”
Cam’s system must have adjusted to shocks. He wasn’t struck speechless this time.
“You have your nerve,” he said to Big Bam. “At this moment, the police want you for a number of crimes.”
Bam sat down beside Cam. Bam and Cam? What was this? A 1960s folk duo? Or a couple of characters from Sesame Street ? Bam folded his hands matter-of-factly on the tablecloth.
“Do I need to know you?” he asked Cam.
“My name,” Cam said, majestically, “is Cameron Charles.”
“Hey, right on, Trevor’s boss,” Bam said. “Heard good things about you.”
“Crang says you killed Trevor,” Cam said.
“Crang’s a regular little tattletale,” Bam said, looking at me. Then, back to Cam, “But what hasn’t gone down yet, the police haven’t talked to Crang. Heard his fairy story. Maybe they never will.”
“What are you suggesting?” Cam asked.
Cam had regained his regular take-charge self. While he talked and kept Big Bam’s attention, I held the vodka in my left hand, disengaged my right from Annie, and let it slide down my backside. Everything about my moves said Mr. Casual. Or I hoped that was how Bam would see it. I dipped the hand into the small of my back and eased Tran’s little pistol out of my belt. Annie didn’t notice. She was intent on Big Bam. And Bam was listening to Cam Charles’s pontifications. I leaned forward, and held the gun under the table.
“Let me check you into this piece of info,” Bam interrupted Cam. “Crang over there’s carrying three hundred thousand dollars. What’s that say about him? Anybody going to believe a man with three hundred thousand that’s not his own when he accuses another man of murder?”
“Is that what’s in those money belts, Crang?” Cam asked, turning the hard look on me. “Three hundred thousand dollars?”
Annie’s head swivelled to me.
“Straighten these guys out, sweetie,” she said.
“What’s your play, Bam?” I said. “You want your money back? Or you think you can leave it around my waist, and that’ll discredit me when I tell the cops how you and Tran let Trevor drop four storeys? Or maybe you got a plan to have it both ways?”
Did I sound tough? Well, maybe not Humphrey Bogart, but I was giving Bam stuff to chew on. Keep him occupied.
“Dropped him four storeys?” Annie said. “They can’t get away with that.”
“Tran already hasn’t,” I said. “I’ve sort of taken him out of commission.”
“Some kind of troublemaker, Crang,” Bam said.
“I’ll agree to that much,” Cam said.
“Nice, Cam,” I said. “Really appreciate your support.”
“I’ve lost track of the truth,” Cam said. “That’s the long and the short of it.”
“The long of it is Trevor went face first from the top of a building,” I said. “The short of it is the guy sitting beside you orchestrated the fall.”
“Where you at, Crang?” Bam said. Could eyes look menacing? Bam’s seemed to. Must have caught it from his smile. Bam said, “You about to hand over the money and me to the cops?”
“You got it, Big Bam,” I said. “Catch my drift?”
“Catch this, asshole,” Bam said. “I still got that gun in my pocket, and it says you and those money belts are gonna walk out the door of this restaurant with me.”
“Surprise, surprise, Bam,” I said. “You got a gun in your pocket, but I got one in my hand, and right this minute it’s un
der the table pointed at the middle of that jumpsuit of yours.”
“A gun?” Annie said.
“Just a minute, Crang,” Cam said.
“Don’t fuck with me, Crang,” Bam said. He had the tough sound down pat, less Humphrey Bogart and more somebody from The Godfather. “You were clean when you came into my booze can tonight, and there’s no place since then you could’ve picked up a weapon.”
“Tran’s gun,” I said. “You don’t believe me, phone the cops at 52 Division. They’ll tell you they took in Tran minus his gun.”
Nobody spoke for five seconds.
“Great idea now that it occurs to me,” I said. “Phoning the cops. Why not you do it, Cam?”
Cam stayed put in his chair.
Bam said, “Okay, maybe you got Tran’s gun under there. But no way you got the nerve to shoot me.”
Big Bam was closer to the truth than he knew. Or maybe he did know. I’d never fired a gun in my life, not even an itsy-bitsy handgun like Tran’s. But there was always a first time.
“Try me,” I said to Bam. My voice still didn’t exactly ring with authority, not even like the guy who played the weakling in The Godfather. John Cazale?
But it was apparently enough to make Big Bam shift gears. When he spoke again, he turned smooth and oily.
“Listen, Crang, my man,” he said. “You just relax up now. What I’m gonna do, I’m gonna remove the piece from my pocket at the front here. Keep it below the tablecloth. No fuss or muss for anyone. And you’re gonna slip me the money belts under the table, you with me?”
I didn’t answer.
“And after that,” Bam went on, slick as grease, “I’ll take my leave of you folks. Let you enjoy the evening. Drink your aperitifs. Sit tight. All that. You hear what I’m saying?”
What should I say? “No dice” would be dramatic. But did I want drama? Something neutral would be better. Delay for a time. Somebody might come to my rescue.
Big Bam showed signs he didn’t have time and wasn’t inclined to delay. He unfolded his hands on top of the table, and dropped the right one into his lap. I knew what that meant. He was going into the jumpsuit for his gun.
I’d run out of choices.
I was down to one.
I shot Big Bam.
The noise I made, the noise of Tran’s gun, wasn’t louder than the squibby pop of a small firecracker, and the hubbub of the packed room cancelled out the tiny sound. Bam may not have heard the shot, but the evidence seemed to be he felt it. He went over the left side of his chair toward Cam’s lap. He didn’t topple out of the chair. It looked more like he’d dropped to grab at something down below.
“What happened?” Annie asked me.
“Shot the bad guy,” I said.
Bam, bent over and out of my sight, was muttering in Vietnamese, and sprinkling the mutters with little whimpers.
“Where’d I get him, Cam?” I said.
Cam wore an expression of horrified distaste. He was pushing at Bam, whose slumped weight was dislodging Cam from his own chair.
“I think he’s been hit in the foot,” Cam said.
“Nice shooting, sweetie,” Annie said. “Put the guy on the disabled list.”
“There’s no blood down there,” Cam said.
I said, “Beats me the damned bullet even got through his shoe.”
Bam groaned something in Vietnamese from under the table.
“Cameron,” a deep voice broke in.
None of us saw the man approach our table. He was tall and slim, and had wavy grey hair and a spiffy three-piece brown suit.
“Why, Stuffy,” Cam said, coming out of his chair. He moved so abruptly that the moaning Bam slumped against Cam’s thighs.
Stuffy? This gentleman was Detective Stuffy Kernohan? But he was supposed to be short, round, and red-faced. At least in my mind. In real life, he looked like a brain surgeon.
“I’ve a painful duty, Cam,” Kernohan said.
“It’s all right, Stuffy.” Cam put a hand on Kernohan’s shoulder. “I already know. Trevor’s dead.”
“That sad news travelled quickly,” Kernohan said. He had two men behind him who looked like real cops. Lumpy guys with no necks and polyester suits.
“This man here may be responsible for Trevor’s death,” Cam said, trying to pry Big Bam off his legs.
“Who is he?” Kernohan asked.
Cam turned to me, and Kernohan followed his glance.
“Ng Thai,” I said. “But you’ll recognize him as Big Bam, the master of revels at the booze can you raided tonight.”
The two lumpy guys squeezed past their boss and pulled Big Bam up by his shoulders. Bam let out another groan.
“Don’t be a baby, Bam,” I said. “It’s only your foot.”
“And where did you belong in all of this?” Kernohan asked me.
“He’s the lawyer I told you about,” Cam answered.
“Crang?” Kernohan said.
“In person,” I said.
“We expected to meet you inside the booze can.”
“Well, something came up, and I had to stay undercover. Underground too, come to that.”
Our waiter pushed between Kernohan and the other two cops.
“Will you gentlemen be ordering?” he asked.
“I’ll have another double vodka,” I said. “What’re you drinking, Annie?”
“Crang,” Cam said, reproving.
“White wine, please,” Annie spoke up.
Bam whimpered.
“What’s the matter with him?” Kernohan asked.
I brought my right hand from under the table, and dropped Tran’s gun on the cloth. The two lumpy cops made quick moves inside their suit jackets.
“Never mind,” Kernohan told them.
“I had to wing Bam with this thing,” I said. “Or, wait, you call it wing when you get a guy in the foot?”
“Never mind, Crang,” Cam said.
“Anyway,” I said, “the popgun belongs to a guy named Nghiep Tran. He works for Bam. If you check, you should find Tran’s already been nabbed by your fellas at the subway station down the street from here.”
One of the lumps took a handkerchief out of his pocket and picked up Tran’s gun with it.
“You guys want a real mean six-shooter,” I said, “unzip the front pocket on Big Bam’s jumpsuit.”
The second lump went into the handkerchief number and took charge of Bam’s gun.
“You seem to know a great deal about all of this,” Kernohan said to me.
“Happy to share it with you,” I said. “But maybe your first order of business is getting Bam out of here and patched up.”
Bam moaned on cue.
“Stop acting like a wimp, Bam,” I said. “It’s just a little ping in the foot.”
“You come too, Crang,” Kernohan said. “I want to hear how this man killed Trevor Dalgleish.”
“Ten minutes, Stuffy,” I said. “Annie and I’ve got drinks on the way.”
Kernohan stiffened, and the two cops in polyester looked like they were itching to cuff me or something else fierce.
Cam stepped in.
“Perhaps we can leave Crang for the moment, Stuffy,” he said. “You and I might profitably exchange a few thoughts.”
“Before the press gets wind of tonight’s events,” I said.
“I’ll speak to you about silence later,” Cam said to me.
“And about a fee?” I said.
Cam latched on to Kernohan’s elbow, and steered him between the tables toward the door. Kernohan didn’t seem to object. The two cops hoisted Big Bam under the arms, and escorted him in the same direction. Bam was hopping on one foot.
The waiter returned with our drinks.
“Are these charged to the Charles party?” he asked.
“And give yourself a generous tip,” I said. “Twenty-five per cent.”
The waiter gushed his thanks and left.
“What a hero,” Annie said to me.
“Har
d part’s up ahead,” I said, going for a modest tone. “Stuffy’ll keep me explaining all night.”
“Poor baby.”
“Do this for me, honeybun,” I said. “Guy in the phone book named Ralph Goddard. Call him and get his summer cottage number. That’s where Dave Goddard is. Phone Dave and tell him it’s all clear to come home.”
“The jazz musician,” Annie said. “Everything that’s happened tonight, I forgot he was the point of the whole exercise.”
“Dave’s not enraptured with the ornithology up where he is.”
I took a long, comforting pull on my vodka.
“That was incredible marksmanship,” Annie said. “Shooting blind like that, under the table, and you got the man in the foot.”
“Not so incredible,” I said. “I was aiming at his knee.”