A City Called July

by Howard Engel

  “But you’ll check it out.” Pete looked at me like I was having trouble seeing red STOP signs.

  “Sure I’ll check it out. We follow up all leads no matter how seemingly idiotic. There’s no guessing the simplicity of some of the bandits I’ve put away. They think that if nobody saw them pinch the money or forge the paper that they’ve escaped detection forever. Even some of these computer operators. They’re supposed to be brainy types, aren’t they? Well, some of them behave like we’re still dazzled by anything that lights up, flickers and moves.”

  “Now you’re going to hark back to the good old days when a pinch was a pinch and the noose and the lash kept us all safe as houses.”

  “You paying for this or me?”

  “You get it, since you’re asking, and I’ve been doing the telling.”

  “Now, Benny, don’t start imagining yourself a source. A case like this doesn’t need information, it needs time like a boil. It’ll come to a head in its own sweet time. If you try to rush it you’ll only get into trouble. I know trouble’s your dinner and supper, but tell that to your clients, not me.” Pete got up. On second thought he hadn’t done such a super job with his razor, and he had toast crumbs at the corner of his lips. But I wasn’t going to tell him about it. A thing like that needs time, like a boil.

  When we hit the pavement he turned east on St. Andrew, leaving me free to return to my place of business as he sometimes described the place I keep my full ashtrays in. But he stalled. “You were seen talking to one of the street operators yesterday.”

  “Is this a warning for me to clean up my act?”

  “Just tell your pal Kogan to watch himself. We’ve got a friend of his at the morgue.”

  “A friend of Kogan’s? Not Wally Moore?”

  “He didn’t have any ID, but I haven’t been in plain clothes long enough to forget the dynamic duo. They used to present themselves at the door of the lock-up as soon as the thermometer dropped below zero, and if we had a drunk that cut up rough after midnight, don’t think we didn’t hear about it in the morning. They did everything but sing out for croissants and cappuccino. Those two, the pair of them, ran on more nerve than …”

  “And you’ve got Kogan’s buddy cold?”

  “Looks that way. Found around midnight in Montecello Park. From the preliminary report it looks like he was stabbed. So tell his buddy to watch himself.”

  “Who’d want to hurt Wally Moore, a little helpless slob like that?”

  “That’s a fair paraphrase of what Priscilla Gesell said when I told her that somebody’d buried a hatchet in her husband’s skull.”

  “Yeah, I know. She put it there. But Wally? His middle name was harmless. I’m not surprised that he’s dead. Hell, he could have frozen to death for the last umpteen winters, or he could have given himself an overdose of battery acid or eaten a can of month-old cat food.”

  “Calm down. I was just telling you he’s dead, that’s all. Don’t get your balls in an uproar.” I saw Mr. McCartle walking back to his store with his lunch in a brown paper bag. He looked older than I remembered him. “Hey, Benny! You’ve gone white. What’s the matter?” Pete had me hard by one elbow and I was flat against the display window of Dunn’s Tailors.

  “I’m okay. I was just talking to Kogan about his pal. He wanted me to try to find him. I wish you hadn’t told me. Why should I know about all the dead panhandlers of St. Andrew Street? Give me a break, Pete.”

  “You want to sit down or something? Christ, Benny, I didn’t think you even knew the guy.”

  “Well, he’s been part of the scenery for so many years. Like old Joe Higgins on his crutches.”

  “Yeah, and the balloons …” Pete said, smiling as he remembered.

  “And the balsa birds. Remember the red-headed hunchback on the bicycle?”

  “Yeah. Worked as a delivery boy. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “And the Mad Scribbler.”

  “He hasn’t been around for a while.”

  “What are you talking about? He eats in the United at least three times a week.”

  “Still at his great work?”

  “Sure,” I said, “he must have covered a ton of paper by this time. And you know how he writes: on the lines, between the lines, across, down the page, diagonally, and always in a great frenzy.”

  “He once ripped off Grahams. Took a pad of paper. But the old man wouldn’t make a fuss about it. I only heard about it because I was buying a briefcase.” Pete was looking me up and down, probably wondering if I was going to be all right. “A present to myself when I climbed out of uniform.”

  “There sure are a lot of them.”

  “Yeah. Mild crazies like old Joe, the Mad Scribbler and Apple Mary. And where would we be without them? You feeling better?”

  “Sure. I guess I felt the dark angel passing by.” Pete grinned and then looked down, stooped and handed me a black feather. He walked off without saying another word.

  I sat in my office for half an hour after that, waiting for something bad to happen. But nothing did. Not then it didn’t. I cleaned the receipts from my wallet. I do that every so often. Having a thick wallet is bad for my character, even when it isn’t thick with anything more interesting than lunch and taxi receipts. I played at this for a while, hoping that an idea might drop out along with loose change. I could have used an idea.

  I knew I couldn’t keep fiddling with this thing. There comes a time with a case when you either have to throw it out the window or start moving on it. I’d been all over town, talked to people until I was bored by the sight of them. Larry Geller was off getting a suntan. I could get excited about that. But I didn’t believe for a minute that his own brother would try to put me on his trail. Daytona Beach is a big place, not as easy to lose yourself in as Miami, but the possibilities of finding yourself later on are better. What was Nathan playing at? Did he know that his brother was up in Haliburton running a freshwater marina on Eagle Lake, or that he’d enrolled at Carleton University in Ottawa to get a whole new career for himself. Balls! I wasn’t any better off than I was on Wednesday when the rabbi and Mr. Tepperman came to see me. Whenever I hear myself say “Leave it with me, let me nose around for a few days to see what I can find,” I should have myself committed.

  Well, I have nosed around. I’ve talked to people at every corner in the thing and it didn’t lead me home. Time I confessed to the rabbi. I gave it my best shot. Now the time has come to bow out gracefully. In the Toronto paper, there was a story about a guy who’d done exactly what Larry Geller’d done. There was an epidemic. Somewhere down south they must be having a convention and comparing statistics about which of them took the oldest widow to the cleaners for the most money. They might steal a plaque and award it annually.

  I lit a cigarette and tried to think why Geller made me so mad. I thought about what Pete Staziak said about computer hotshots who try to fleece the population without figuring that all the cops have to do to identify them is locate the terminal or examine the bank accounts. I looked up the rabbi’s number and dialled it. Time to get absolution from this thing. Time to get off the hook. The line was busy. It figured. I found where I’d scribbled Rose Craig’s home number. I tried that, hoping to change my luck.

  “Hello?” It was a wary voice, but it was hers.

  “Cooperman. You didn’t go back to the office?”

  “I told you that if I didn’t get paid, that was the end.”

  “Yeah, I know you said it, but I didn’t believe you. I had you pegged for one of those people who will never desert the ship.”

  “I know. That’s me all right. But I have rent to pay. I hate myself, but Mr. Cooperman, I don’t think he’s going to come back now. Even I believe it.”

  “Good. It’s a start. Tell me, Rose, Larry wasn’t in partnership with anybody, was he?”

  “Certainly not. He was known all over town as a lone wolf.”

  “But he used to be in business with other lawyers, in his earl
y days I mean?”

  “You’re going back farther than I do. He was in partnership with Irving Bernstein. But that must be at least ten years ago. The partnership was dissolved.”

  “Into what?”

  “What?”

  “What happened to the pieces?”

  “How should I know? Ask me about something that happened a month ago and I only know about part of that. Mr. Cooperman, the more I think about Mr. Geller and what he did …”

  “I know, Rose. You think you know a guy and then …”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Another thing is you realize that there’s a false wall in his life somewhere.”

  “I like that. Yeah, he had a false wall all right. And what I’m trying to do is tap all the panels until one begins to sound different. Like in the movies. Have you heard anything in your tapping around?”

  “Oh, Mr. Cooperman, he’d never leave anything in the office that could give him away. That would be like having the false wall behind a bookcase. You know, the first place the movie detective would look.”

  “Where does this Irving Bernstein hang out these days?”

  “He’s the senior partner in Bernstein, Carley, Grella and See.”

  “See? See what?”

  “That’s her name, Joyce See. Smart girl. She’s in charge of their properties, conveyancing and things like that.”

  “Is she Chinese?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I’ve seen her down at the registry office when I’ve been doing some title-searching for my cousin. I sometimes try to turn an honest dollar. Thanks for your help, Rose. Speaking of my cousin, why don’t you call Melvyn Cooperman and tell him all about yourself.”

  “Do you think that maybe …”

  “Just call him. I’m not a crystal-ball gazer. Goodbye.”

  I left word at Bernstein, Carley, Grella and See that I wanted a word with both Mr. Bernstein and Ms. See. The rabbi’s line was still busy when I tried it, but waiting for the two lawyers to call me back didn’t make me feel as idle as I had been feeling. When I hung up I was almost glad. But it didn’t last long enough to spoil my day. Irving Bernstein was on the line, his secretary announced. Once she was certain I had no plans to leave town, she put Irving on.

  “Melvyn, I hope you aren’t going to break our racket-ball date. With me, Mel, three times and out …” I let him rattle on, mistaking me for my cousin. I didn’t interrupt until I thought I had the hook of embarrassment in as far as it would go.

  “Oh, Benny Cooperman. Of course. Yes, I’m sure I’ve seen you around. What can I do for you?” I told him that I was looking into the Geller business for the Jewish community and that I had interviewed Larry’s family and was now starting on his old friends. “Yes, Larry Geller. That was a damn shame. Not only does it look terrible for the community, it gives every lawyer in town a black eye.”

  “You used to be partners?”

  “That’s right, we were, just after we came back to Grantham from Toronto. We did law in Toronto. I’d stayed on and worked as a junior in a big Toronto firm, and he’d just stuck around the law library for most of a year.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He told me, let me see, what was it? Oh, yes, he was working on a paper about pleading. Very technical, or so I understood. I never read it. I don’t even know if he ever finished it.”

  “Was it part of some course work he was doing?”

  “Not after graduation. He was just a bit backward about getting his feet wet, I think. Or, to give him credit, he was very serious in those days. When we set up together, I leaned on Larry a lot. He knew a lot of law.”

  “So he was bright and serious. Doesn’t sound like the Larry I knew: Larry the glad-hander, Larry with the three funny stories?”

  “That came along later. I guess practical law got him down. Not enough intellectual challenge. When you’ve winnowed away the theoretical law that you study from the law as she is practised in a small town, there’s not much to write academic papers about.”

  “Why did the partnership break up?”

  “That’s no secret. You’ve talked to Sergeant Pete Staziak, haven’t you?”

  “Sure, we just had breakfast.”

  “Well, Larry and I worked well together for a few years. We both made our mistakes and cried about them in each other’s offices. We were a young firm in a town full of established WASP firms. It was hard getting a foot in the door in those days, but we did get a start. The good old community threw us some business, couldn’t see home-town boys starve. And then we started getting a mixed range of business, not just from our Jewish relations and friends. I think that’s where the split came. I tended to play the field, ethnically speaking, and Larry tended to stay with the known and the true. His business got to be at least ninety percent Jewish. Mine was never more than, say, fifty-fifty.”

  “Is that what did it?”

  “Not exactly. We just started thinking differently, wanting different things. He changed a lot too from the pal from law school.” He thought about that one for a minute. I could hear the hum of the thought on the silent phone line. “When we split up, Larry wanted to make a lot of money. That’s what he wanted more than anything else. Now, don’t tell my wife, but I’m not in law primarily for the money, after all the jokes of course, and after I freely confess that I like being comfortable and being able to afford to belong to the club where I regularly beat the bejesus out of your cousin at racket-ball, after all of that shit, I have to tell you that I’m in law because of law. I’m hooked on it. I’m no intellectual the way Larry was when we graduated, but I’m learning. It’s getting to be my second skin. I enjoy trying to translate it to bewildered people who don’t know a writ from a tort. Law can be brutal, especially to people who didn’t grow up under English law. It’s complicated and it’s a lot more than just complicated. Hell, I could do twenty minutes on the law in a night-club. You should catch my act up at Secord, where we’re just starting a law program.” Another pause. “What else do you want to know, Mr. Cooperman?”

  “The partnership was dissolved?”

  “That’s right. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

  “What happened to the ashes and dust?”

  “We split it up the middle, according to our accounts. It was a fair enough split. I kept the building and the office, so he got a little more cash.”

  “I see.”

  “Your cousin should take a few lessons, Mr. Cooperman. He’ll never be good, but it will give me a better game. Is there anything else?”

  “Not on the order paper, Mr. Bernstein. But I’d appreciate being able to call you back when and if I get stuck.”

  “Any time. Any time. The least I can do.”

  I filed what Bernstein had told me along with all the other stuff and sat there liking Geller a fraction of a scruple more. He wasn’t a cardboard figure any more. I could begin to see some weight and shading. I thought of calling his wife again, but I thought better and didn’t. Ruth might be keeping something back. Hell, she was. She’d seen Wally Moore. But I didn’t want to strip all the masks away at once. I thought of the murder case that Pete was talking about. Ruth Geller said she’d told me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and it still didn’t amount to anything. I wondered how Priscilla Gesell felt when she discovered she didn’t have any little white lies left to tell.

  TEN

  Joyce See was shorter than I was which made me like her right off the bat. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress with small flowers on it. Her black hair gleamed and so did something in her bright brown eyes. We were walking under shade trees on King Street from the registry office. She swung her attaché case as she walked, making it seem all the more out of place with that dress which should have been completed by a picnic hamper or a wide-brimmed straw hat with a fat ribbon on it. She’d called and we’d arranged to meet at three-thirty, at the corner of King and Ontario. In the summer, the registry office is the coolest place
in town. And it doesn’t have air-conditioning. It must have to do with the thickness of those old walls and the rationed windows.

  “Did you know Larry Geller?” I asked.

  “No. But I’ve been hearing a lot about him. It’s hard to turn on the television for the local news without seeing that picture of him. As you may know I’m the newest partner in B.C.G. and S. This is a town of four-partner firms and they needed me so they could get on with business. I was like the second shoe dropping, the resolving chord on a piano. Why do legal partnerships in Grantham come in fours, just as in English almost everything comes in threes?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, like lock, stock and barrel, like win, lose or draw, like the long, the short and the tall.”

  “Like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?”

  “Same thing. I read it all the time. Maybe it has something to do with trinity. I’ll have to look it up.”

  “What about The Sound and the Fury and The Bad and the Beautiful?”

  “Exceptions that prove the rule. Are you hungry? I usually stop for a cup of tea in a little place by the market.”

  “Fine,” I said, and we crossed King Street’s one-way traffic and went into a restaurant with a soda fountain on one side and an out-of-town paper rack on the other. Further back there were booths, one of which was not overloaded with teenagers half-way home from the Collegiate. One head of hair was dyed purple, and another was streaked blonde on black. At least there wasn’t a juke-box. They were trading a pair of earphones and gyrating to the unheard beat of a rock band.

  “You’re doing this for the Jewish community?”

  “Who told you?”

  “The senior partner. I told him I was going to be seeing you. You feel responsible to the community?”

  “In a way, I guess. It’s the weak spot in my armour. There’s nothing in the book about how to get out of talking to the rabbi and the president of the synagogue when they come to you with their hats in their hands.” I thought a second. “And I guess I owe it somehow.”

  “You’re not just involved in mankind, but in certain specific strands of it. Is that right?”