by Howard Engel
“Deb …!” Ruth Geller said with a whisper of warning in her voice. “It doesn’t make things easier.”
“Sorry, Ruthie. I forgot I was here to lend moral support, not moral outrage. I’ve got my wires crossed. I’m sorry, Mr. Cooperman. This hasn’t been easy for any of us.”
“I understand that. And I’m sorry that I’m here at all. If it helps to blast away at me, feel free. I’m well paid to take verbal abuse.”
Debbie, the sister, was standing with her arms stretched behind her touching an imitation antique table. The light coming through the curtains sent flattering shadows along the topography of her figure. She was taller than her sister, a little fuller, but not so that you missed the sculptured cheekbones or the large dark eyes they set off. “You see, Mr. Cooperman, first we heard that Larry was missing, and then we heard what he is supposed to have done. That’s two shocks for the price of one.”
“Then you know the worst?”
“The worst?” Ruth said with surprise in her voice, and as she said it her hands inexplicably covered her ears.
“I mean, Sergeant Staziak has explained the magnitude of what has happened?”
Debbie abandoned the table and sat in a large wingchair where she could watch both her sister and me. She found a cigarette in a package of Menthols on a coffee-table and flicked it alight with a silver butane lighter. “Please come to the point of your visit, Mr. Cooperman,” she said. “We’ll forgive you a tactful approach. What is it you want to know? I suppose we’d better help if we can, although I don’t like it. We want the bastard’s hide as much as his creditors do.”
“Please, Deb!” It was more than a warning this time. Her voice had hurt in it, and signs that the breaking point wasn’t far over the next hill. I held out my package of Player’s to Ruth. I wanted to do some genuine human act of sympathy before we got to the questions. Ruth shook her head. “We don’t smoke. I mean I don’t. I don’t have to answer for Larry any more.” I put the pack of cigarettes away quickly. I wondered what else I would do that would remind Ruth of her missing husband. “Mr. Cooperman,” she said at length, “you know I’ll be happy to try to help you any way I can.”
Ruth relaxed a little after this speech; her sister pulled menthol-tasting smoke through her cigarette, sending it off towards the sheer curtains, where, according to my mother, it would turn them yellow. I tried reaching for a point of departure, a logical opening question. “Can you give me some idea of the time sequence, Mrs. Geller? When did you see your husband last?”
“Not counting dreams, he means,” said Debbie. “Remember the boy being interrogated in that old story? ‘When did you see your father last?’ That bit?” Ruth didn’t answer her sister’s question; she was trying to answer mine.
“He got up and went to work on Wednesday, two weeks ago today. He didn’t take anything with him at the time, just his usual briefcase. He must have come back or been taking things over a period of time, because when I started looking, he’d taken several of his suits and most of his shirts and socks. He hadn’t said anything about what time he was coming home.” Ruth looked up at me trying to find the solution to the mystery written on my face. She continued, “He came and went as he pleased these last few months. Wednesday wasn’t unusual.”
“Could you go into that, please?”
“Well, Mr. Cooperman, in the old days you could set a clock by my husband. He was never late. He never forgot a birthday or an anniversary. A man of regular habits. For years he used to come at night and I’d make dinner or we’d go out to a show, or we’d just stay home and watch television. He read stories to Sarah and Paul. We were a real family.”
“But that pattern changed? He didn’t come home so often, was less regular in his habits? Could you describe these last few months?”
Ruth was staring at an orange plastic truck under a chair across the room. “I’d get a call in the middle of one of my afternoon soaps: ‘He’s not coming home for dinner. Give his love to the children.’ That would be Rose Craig, his secretary. That’d happen three or four times a week beginning around the end of March. For the last couple of weeks before he disappeared, he didn’t even get her to call, and never called himself. Not once. But I just thought it was business, you know? I knew he was busy.”
“Do you know of any business problems?”
“No. We never talked about the office.”
“Did you ever suspect that he might not be working?”
“A woman, you mean? Sure, I thought about it. I worried a lot about it, but by the middle of June I was so sick and tired of everything that it would have been a relief to know that it was another woman.”
“If it’s the Jewish community you represent, Mr. Cooperman,” Debbie said, butting her cigarette in an ashtray, “you are certainly giving them their money’s worth. Is there a corner of our lives that you are going to skip over, or will you have to await further instructions?”
I tried to ignore the question and Ruth went on as though there had been no interruption. “I tried to organize our lives so that it would work without Larry. I mean, since I couldn’t depend on him, I had to plan without him. I bought a little Honda to run around in. Second hand, but it meant I wasn’t trapped in the house waiting for him all the time. I hadn’t driven since I was in high school, but I kept up my licence. You never forget.”
“Mrs. Geller, has he ever acted like this before? Were there similar but shorter incidents in the past? Maybe a couple of days?”
“No. I told you the way it was,” she said, glancing towards her sister to see if she had anything to add. Debbie shook her head. Ruth looked up at me again. “He was universally liked and respected in this city, Mr. Cooperman. It must be an illness, mustn’t it? I mean a man doesn’t just abandon his family after all these years.”
“I wish I could answer that, Mrs. Geller, but I can’t.”
“Mr. Cooperman’s not in that line of work, Ruthie. He just wants dates and facts. Isn’t that right, Mr. Cooperman?”
“When I can get them, yes, facts are very helpful. Most of the time you have to deal with the shadow of a fact or the footprint where a fact used to be.” She was trying to get my goat for some reason and I couldn’t figure out why. I could tell that they both were nervous. But that wasn’t unexpected. I would have been surprised if they hadn’t been. I felt like I was walking over the grave of some dark family secret and they were holding their breath waiting for me to look down. The trouble is in this business you walk over so many graves that your feet stop noticing shallow depressions after a while. “And what about these recent allegations about fraud? Was that a total surprise?”
“Well, I …”
“Let me try this one, Ruthie. Mr. Cooperman, how would you feel if everything you touched had slime on it? The chair you’re sitting in is probably stolen goods. Ruth doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her. The house, thank God, is in her name, so at least she’ll have a roof over her head. But there’s no telling where Larry’s creditors will stop. And can you blame them? Widows, old people: how can you not feel sorry for them? The trouble is that Ruth has nothing but the house and some insurance in the clear. What’s going to happen to her and the kids is not the question uppermost in their minds. Nor should it be.” Debbie was reddening around the well-defined cheek bones as she spoke. She folded her arms across her chest as though she suddenly felt scantily clad on a public platform. Ruth was nodding agreement behind her sister. “As for the surprise, Ruthie, tell him about that.”
“He’d become very strange in his habits, Mr. Cooperman. He was forgetful and preoccupied in private, although he tried to hide that when we went out. Maybe it didn’t show to anyone but me. I think Sarah—that’s our daughter—sensed something. He just wasn’t the man I married.”
“Did he own property that you know about? Would you object to my having a look at his office?”
“The police have been all over that. I’m not sure whether I could prevent you looking if I wante
d to. Anyway, the police have the keys to the office. What’s his name, Deb?”
“Staziak. Staff Sergeant Staziak.”
“Yes, I know him. I think that’s everything. I want to thank you for being so helpful.” I backed out of that plush living-room and found myself lighting a cigarette in my Olds. I’d come to listen, and I’d heard nothing Pete Staziak couldn’t have told me. But I had that feeling about walking over shallow graves. I never liked that feeling.
* * *
Ten minutes later, the Olds was parked beside my father’s rusting Cadillac in front of my parents’ town house off Ontario Street. A coolish breeze off the lake was playing with the flowers in the flower-beds around the side of the house. Pa was digging in the garden in back. When he saw me, he took his foot from the spade and left it standing in the earth.
“Where are the tomatoes?”
“I’ve got them along the south side of the house. They get the heat from the brick wall that way. I’m just turning over the ground here for some late annuals. I’m glad you came, I’m getting short of breath.”
“I hope you’re not overdoing it.” He looked at me with that mocking look that reflected all the terrible things that could be hinted at by shortness of breath. On Judgement Day, whatever else happens, I know he’ll be there with his hair combed. We both sat down at the weather-beaten table that had been abandoned to the elements some years ago. I remember when it was carefully stored in the cellar of the old house. Here the cellar was a small room behind the rec room, and to get things to it you had to drag them through the living-room. The table surface was battered by frost and sun and scarred by neglected cigarettes and peeling paint. Pa pulled at the knees of his old tweed trousers as he sat down on the bench. We talked about the weather for a minute and let that hang out to dry. My health and his joined it there on the line after a short, worried cross-examination about breathlessness. Pa’s retired and I worry about retired people who have only gin rummy to fall back on.
“Pa, you know Larry Geller?”
“Who doesn’t? He’s treasurer of the shul, on the executive at B’nai Brith. I don’t know him well. He doesn’t go to the club any more. I don’t play cards with him. Not at his stakes. But I’ve played golf with him. Your mother knows his wife, Ruth. Her father was a friend of your grandfather. Two sewing-machine jockeys on Spadina Avenue years ago. Morris Kaufman and his two girls. Lives alone in Toronto since his wife, Pearl, died.”
“When was that?”
“It must have been after Ruth and Larry’s first kid was born, because they didn’t name her after Pearl. They named the boy Paul. That was after her.” Pa took a cigar from his pocket. It had been smoked down about a quarter of its length. He looked at it, then neatly trimmed the burnt end with rose shears. He surveyed the job, lit the result and tried it. He was wearing a red wool sweater which showed elbows through vents in the arms. On his head he wore an old yachting cap that made him look like a commodore at the very least. After three or four puffs of the cigar, he held it for a moment at arm’s length then threw it into the garden with an underhand shot that spoke of disdain and slight regard. He pulled an aluminum tube from another pocket and lit a fresh cigar.
“What do you know about the girls?”
“What’s to know? The older one, that’s Debbie, married Sid Geller before she’d finished high school and left him in less than no time. She made a good settlement and she still gets along with Sid’s family.”
“I guess that made things easier, with her sister marrying the other brother?”
“Well, I’m telling you they all got along pretty good. I don’t hear any complaints.”
“Oh, so this is where you’ve got to.” It was my mother coming out the French windows with a wide-brimmed hat on and a pair of gardening shears in her hand. She looked like a leading actress making her first entrance in a Coward play, only there was no applause. “Benny, what are you doing here?” She looked critically at Pa, then began to collect a bunch of irises for the living-room. “Is something wrong, Benny? I’m not used to seeing you without a warning any more. And as for your father, I thought he’d gone to the club.”
“I’m trying to find out about the Gellers. Pa said that Grandpa knew Ruth’s father.”
“Morris? Oh, yes, they were great friends on Spadina before you were born. He was a pallbearer at your grandfather’s funeral.”
“And the girls?’
“They stick together. I’ll say that for them. Debbie’s always looked out for Ruth. And Ruth has always stood up for Debbie even after the divorce. Do you know Sid Geller? He looks like a Mafia hood. I don’t know why she married him in the first place. They say that Larry has left Ruth. Is that why you’re asking? He never seemed to be the type to settle down.”
“Larry’s a lawyer. What does Sid do?”
“You know the new bridge over the canal? Well, his company built that. Bolduc Construction, that’s Sid Geller. You see their signs everywhere. They’re building the new fire hall uptown.”
“Where does Bolduc come into it?”
“Oh, he wasn’t ever in it, was he, Manny?”
“Bolduc was a French Canadian with a wheelbarrow. Sid taught him to call himself a contractor. Soon Sid had the wheelbarrow and a contract to build seventy-five sewers in the north end. That was the beginning. I think Bolduc still hangs around the yard out Facer Street. Drinks all the time. Useless.”
“Are you saying that Sid Geller cheated this guy?”
“He didn’t have a nickel, so what was there to cheat? He had a licence, that’s all. The only thing he knew was how much sand and water go into a cement mix. Sid didn’t even know that much, but he knew the angles and soon he could hire people who knew all about making cement. They left the name, that’s all. At least the old man won’t ever die thirsty, not while Sid’s around. If it weren’t for Sid, Bolduc would have finished in the poorhouse a long time ago.”
“I think I knew his son in school. He played lacrosse and hockey. Alex Bolduc. Sure.”
“I hope you’ve had your lunch, Benny. Your father hasn’t been to the store yet. I’m down to two eggs and I’ve had them since April.”
“I ate in town, Ma, but I’m coming to dinner on Friday night.”
“That’s right. Rain or shine every Friday night,” she said. “And here it is Wednesday already. No sooner do the Friday candles burn down but you have to light them again.” Pa tried to catch me with a subversive glance; I avoided it.
“Tell me, both of you: do you like the Gellers? Are they likeable people?”
“Well, the old man Geller died such a long time ago, I guess the boys went a little wild. Sid was always a hard man in business. Not that I ever had anything to do with him.” Here Pa stopped as though he was thinking over the relevancy of what he had in mind to say next. I tried to encourage him with a look. “One time they were putting asphalt on Hillbrow Avenue and I tried to get Sid to have them run the machine up my driveway. He wouldn’t do it. I would have paid for it.”
“And Larry’s so smooth,” my mother said, “you have to watch your step around him so you don’t slip and fall.”
“This town should have asked you a month ago.”
“And there’s Nathan,” added my father.
“Who’s Nathan?”
“He’s the other brother. He’s the youngest, some sort of artist making statues. He has a workshop or studio you call it, someplace near the Bolduc yard on Facer Street.”
“He took Doris Feinberg all over it,” Ma added, “but she didn’t see anything she liked. She tried to give him a tip for just looking. Doris says he’s expensive.”
“Is that the whole family, then? Sid, Larry and Nathan?”
“What is this, Benny: Twenty Questions?” Ma asked.
“He’s on a case,” Pa shrugged, like he was in on it from the beginning. “Being tight-lipped,” he explained.
“Sid Geller’s in with a bad bunch, I hear,” said Ma, looking at the irises.
<
br /> “What bunch is that?”
“I’m just repeating gossip. That’s the sum total of what I know. So, I can’t help you there. Is it Sid you’re investigating, Benny?”
“Wait, wasn’t there something in the Beacon about Larry?” Pa was the quiet member of the family, but he didn’t miss much.
“I’m doing a job for Rabbi Meltzer and Saul Tepperman. It’s hush-hush right now, but I’ll be able to take you into my confidence by the end of the week.”
“Benny,” Ma said. “You look so serious when you say that.”
“I’m only your father. Do you think you’re adopted?”
“Maybe before the end of the week.”
“As if we have to wait, Benny. Everybody knows that Larry Geller’s a crook. His teeth are so real they look false.”
“Ma, I don’t know why I try to keep things from you”
“That’s right. I always find out, don’t I? I’m just a little juvenile delinquent that’s what I am.” Pa looked at my mother like he was about to move out. I beat a hasty retreat after reminding them I’d see them as usual on Friday night.
FOUR
The Bolduc Yard began about a quarter of a mile before a gate made a break in the chain-link fence. Inside I could see heavy, earth-moving equipment, trucks looking massive on great wheels, sheds made of corrugated iron, hangars sheltering mountains of sand, wooden frames, steel scaffolding and a range of cement in bags piled higher than the largest of the yellow earth disturbers. Everything bore the stencil: BOLDUC. The gate itself was built so that it would admit vehicles twice as high as the fence. It stood open first thing on Thursday morning as I steered the car into a clearing and parked in front of what looked like the main office. The car was dotted with mustard-coloured stains from the puddles I’d splashed through. I walked around two more on my way to a boardwalk leading to the door.
The outside suggested that I might find a dozen barrels of assorted nails on the other side of the door, but I was wrong. It was a modern office inside with coloured plastic IN and OUT trays, banks of cabinets and files, desks with pretty girls behind them. Any roughness implied by the exterior had been smoothed away with wallboard streaked to look like real wood, but unable to fool a four-year-old.