by Howard Engel
“You don’t think Nathan’s death and Larry’s taking off are related?”
“It only happens that way in books. In real life the strangest coincidences are just coincidences. It makes for a tidy world when everything is related to everything else. That’s why people are so frightened of strangers; there’s no chance of coincidence with them.” I didn’t follow what she was saying, but I was of half a mind to ask her to explain, when it hit me it was just talk to keep me from business.
“I don’t know about that. But, maybe you can help me to get unconfused about your name. Who was Morley and where does Pia come from?”
“Pia? It’s Italian. My family’s Italian. At least my father was. Morley comes from Barry Morley, my first husband. 1 married him when I left Alex. Like I told you, I spent the next two years in orbit. I was stoned all the time and when I finally came down I landed on my derrière and a decree nisi. Unless I think about it, I can’t even remember what he looked like. I was not all that discriminating in those days.” She lit a second cigarette with the restored monogrammed lighter and blew smoke at the imitation fireplace. I joined her. “Then, I met Glenn. He helped me straighten up my act. I’ll always love him for that. But I couldn’t live with him. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t live with anybody.” She was watching the smoke drift between us. “I was straight with Glenn. I told him up-front, ‘I’m a mouthy, aggressive, angry woman. Don’t think you’ll change me, because you can’t.’ He married me anyway and found out I was right. Sid’s the only man I’ve ever known with balls. He’s like an old ad in the magazines for piston rings or something: ‘Tough; but oh so gentle.’ That’s Sid. When I moved in with him, I never thought it would last. I gave it three weeks. I said to myself, ‘Live it and see what happens.’ I’m still here and I can’t wait till he gets home.”
“And what about his brother? You got along with Nathan?”
“Sure. I like his stuff. He was totally different from Sid. Like they came from different planets. You have a brother or sister?”
“I’ve got a brother on Mars.”
“I didn’t have a brother or sister. We were a very talked-about Italian family when I was young.”
“You say you admired Nathan’s work?”
“God yes. Didn’t you? Or did you ever see it? He was so wonderfully clear-headed.”
“He tried to pass himself off as a little simple in a social way. Claimed not to notice things. Does that ring true?”
“Nathan noticed what he wanted to notice. You’ve seen his stuff. You can’t do that sort of thing without being an observer all your life. Gosh, I hate to think about Nathan. I mean it’s so bloody depressing. When you think of all the bums without any talent. Without even any talent for living. You know what I mean?” I nodded and she was off again. I’d had a rough beginning with Pia Morley, but now I was on to her. Her natural mode was talking. This time it was about Nathan getting reviewed in American papers before his work was written up in the Canadian papers. Then she was on about prophets in their own country which I didn’t follow. I tried to lead her gently back to my investigation.
“You talked with him on Friday. He called you?”
“What? Oh, yes. Nathan called me. He sounded worried and he usually came to me with his worries. He and a dozen others. I tried to tell him I needed a break, right? That I needed some space, but he sounded so pathetic, and I’m the world’s greatest sucker. So I agreed to drop in at the studio as soon as I could get free. Nathan was practically the only person I ever smoked dope with any more. We used to do that a lot, now we do it for old times and giggle. Would you like to share a joint, Mr. C?” She opened up a box on the table-top and in with the cigarettes were half a dozen expertly rolled joints of marijuana. I shook my head and she closed the lid, like it was jellybeans she’d offered me. I tried to pick up my end of the interview.
“Around when was that?”
“Was what? Oh, when I got free. Well, I was out at the gun club with you until after dark. It must have been around ten or ten thirty when I got back here. Sid was wondering where I’d been and I had to tell him something credible. Then we played gin rummy for an hour. Sid had to go out around 11:30. I had a soak in the tub then went out for cigarettes. When I got to Nathan’s studio it was somewhere between midnight and one. He looked so pitiful lying there, all doubled up. I don’t want to think about it. I won’t sleep.”
“The coroner says that he died between midnight and two in the morning. If you saw him dead in the hour between midnight and one, that narrows our time for when the murder was committed.”
“That’s great. I mean good for you. But what about me? I found him during the critical time. Doesn’t that make me numero uno? Top suspect?”
“You could have done it, then asked Alex to see what you left behind. The cops like a neat package like that.”
“Shit. All that stuff went through my head when I was standing there in his studio. If I’d called the cops, they would have crucified me.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“I had to see if he was still alive. He was still warm, but I knew he was dead. I mean you don’t recover when you get stabbed with a knife like that. It must have been a yard long.”
“What!”
“Well, I’m exaggerating a little. But it was more than a foot.”
“Are you saying that the knife was lying there?”
“Sure, I’m not a total incompetent at telling a story.”
“But, what I mean is, the knife wasn’t in the studio when I got there. There was no murder weapon found.”
“But it was right there on the floor.”
“Until somebody picked it up and carried it away.”
“I’ve got to have another drink. You want one?” Pia got up and poured a generous belt of Scotch into a tumbler and gulped it down standing there. She didn’t move in the direction of getting me another drink. Maybe she could sense what kind of drinker I was. Holding on to the glass with both hands, she came back to the couch. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then: “Benny, are you saying that the murderer came back for the knife?”
“Not necessarily, Pia. The murderer could have still been in the studio when you came in.”
“Oh, my God! He was there?”
“How long were you in the studio altogether?”
“I came in, closed the door, and called Nathan. He didn’t answer so I went up to his apartment on the second floor. I didn’t like spending time with the statues at night any more than it took to walk by them. At night they were scary. Upstairs I found … You know what I found.”
“How did you happen to leave your lighter? Did you have a cigarette?”
“I’m vague on the details after I found the body. I remember thinking … No, it wasn’t even thinking. It’s what you do instead of thinking when panic sets in. I remember the telephone. Wondering should I use it. I don’t think I had a cigarette. I wasn’t there long enough. I think I just arrived, looked at the body, then got confused and left. I came right home and got into the tub. That’s the only safe place in the world.”
“Then how did you lose your lighter?”
“It must have fallen out of my bag when I put it down to examine Nathan. I don’t know. I only remember that in the morning I didn’t have it, and I knew where I didn’t want to have it found.”
“You didn’t have a cigarette before going to bed? What I mean is why didn’t you notice that the lighter was missing after you got back here?”
“I guess I used the table lighter. When I’ve got both I use either one. I don’t know. And there is such a thing as matches. All I know is that I didn’t really start to worry until morning. And that’s when I called Alex.”
“Did Alex answer the phone himself?”
“Yes. He tried to calm me down. I was next door to going out of my mind.”
“Did he call you by the name he used to call you in the old days?”
“You mean did he call me Toni? Sure. He
always calls me Toni. It’s from Antonioni, my family name.” She looked at me strangely, like I’d just correctly identified the name on the label of her brassiere. “What has this got to do with my lighter?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know yet. Okay, I’ll return to that. You’re sure you have no recollection of putting it down?”
“No.” Pia was sitting holding on to herself. Her right hand was holding on tightly to her left elbow and the left hand was clutching her right upper arm. This resulted in a pucker of breast showing at the V-neck of her housecoat. It was a nice effect. She could tell I liked it.
“Think, now. You didn’t leave the lighter on, say, the coffee-table in Nathan’s apartment?”
“I wasn’t near the coffee … Oh, Benny, I can’t think any more. I can’t remember what I remember. I don’t think I put it down anywhere. But that’s the word of an idiot.”
“Okay. Don’t strain yourself. Is it possible that you didn’t lose the lighter at the studio? Could you have left it someplace else earlier? Don’t answer now. Think about it.”
“What are you going to do now, Benny?”
“I wish I knew. I feel like I’m holding on to a bundle of rope that’s all tangled up. So far I’ve found at least six ends. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it straightened out.”
“Benny, I want to say how …”
“Forget it.” Pia got up from the couch, and I put down my nearly untouched drink. “Look, Pia, I think I know that you live a fairly complicated life, and that there are parts of it that you don’t want anybody going into. Things you don’t want Sid to find out about. I understand about that. I’m not here to make things difficult for you either domestically or in business. But to find out about Larry’s disappearance and Nathan’s murder, I have to ask tough questions.”
“I think I understand. I’ll try to help, if I can.”
“Well, at least that makes two of us.” We moved towards the door of the penthouse. In a minute I’d be in the elevator on my way back to the street. I wanted to make these last few questions count. “Pia, am I right in thinking that Sid knows nothing about Tony Pritchett’s part in the Niagara-on-the-Lake highway plan?”
“Right now he doesn’t. I don’t think we intended to keep him in the dark indefinitely.”
“Why wasn’t he involved in that part of the planning?”
“Because he’s so up-front, so straightforward. He doesn’t realize that we needed Tony to get the proposal underwritten. Once the tenders are chosen and we have the go-ahead, then it doesn’t matter any more. But Sid wouldn’t have gone along if he suspected that Tony Pritchett and his connections were involved. To Sid, Tony’s a crook, a mobster, a character in a Mafia movie. He doesn’t understand that in his business investments, Pritchett’s as honest as any other investor. He doesn’t need to use pressure tactics or strong-arm methods.”
“That’s why I got an engraved invitation to that meeting at the gun club.” Pia lowered her eyes. I got angry with myself. Here I was trying to score debating points instead of digging out as much information as possible. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take cheap shots,” I said, and she smiled.
“I guess some of Tony’s boys are slow learners. But Glenn tried to make it up to you. Against my advice, remember.”
“Was Larry involved in this business with Pritchett?”
“No. As far as I know he doesn’t even know Tony. And he and Glenn didn’t get along. They were chalk and cheese. No, I think that’s a dead end.”
“Okay. I think I’ve just run dry. If I think of anything else …”
“Just call me.”
For a fairly short visit, I thought as I went down in the elevator, I’d learned quite a lot. Furthermore, I was already looking forward to my next meeting with Pia Morley.
TWENTY-TWO
“Benny, is that you?”
“You were expecting maybe Minerva Pious?” I’d let myself into the town house with my own key. Ma was in the rec room watching TV. Next to reading, it was her favourite occupation.
“You’re too young to remember the Fred Allen show. Who’re you trying to kid? Your father went down to the club to play cards. I hope you’ve eaten?”
“I had a bite downtown,” I lied. Ma hated surprises, especially at mealtimes.
“Was it yesterday I saw you? At the shiva? It’s getting so I can’t keep the days straight in my head any more. She has a nice house that Debbie.”
“Kind of big for one person.”
“It’s all she’s got. No kids, no husband. You want to take away the house too, Benny?” I sat down in the mate to the leather chair Ma was sitting in. I tried to keep my eyes off the TV. When I get hooked, I’ll watch anything that moves. My only defence is total abstinence.
Ma was wearing a green housecoat over her night things. Her day wasn’t properly started yet. Her morning mug of coffee was sitting coldly on the coffee-table.
“Did you talk to anybody at the shiva?” I asked.
“Nobody in particular. It was nice to see Morris Kaufman again. He’s got old since the last time I saw him. He used to be such a handsome man. Funny the way men get littler. Oh, I did talk to that Englishman from the newspaper who was there. He was with The New York Times. Clyde his name was. Or Trevor. Something English like that.”
“Yeah, he was the one who admired Nathan’s sculptures.”
“We didn’t talk about that. He was telling me about growing up in the east end of London and how hard it was to get out of there. He sounded like the autobiography of Charlie Chaplin. I could practically hear that theme from Limelight or was it City Lights where he eats the flower?”
“Who ate the flower? The Times critic?”
“In the movie: Charlie and the blind girl. Aren’t you listening? I was telling you Clyde or Trevor had a terrible time getting out of the east end. His father wanted him to run a barrow in Petticoat Lane. But he couldn’t wait to escape the smell of cooked cabbage and post-war rationing. At first he was talking down his nose at me like I was a housewife from the sticks, the next minute he’s telling me he eats smoked salmon in private, like it’s against the law or something. What is it, Benny, you can’t be a critic and Jewish too? Anyway, I thought he was kind of cute. Especially when I told him I’d never heard of him. He thought I was trying to pull his leg. But why should I? Have you ever heard of him?”
“Me? I’ve never heard of anybody. Just Mrs. Nussbaum and Minerva Pious.”
“Well, I think he kind of liked me. The way he opened up like that. Once he got started, there was no shutting him up.”
“Who else did you talk to?”
“I didn’t hear where Larry Geller is hiding, if that’s what you mean. I heard that the kids are living in Toronto with a relative. They should all pack up and make a new start someplace.”
“You’ve known those girls all their lives practically, haven’t you?”
“The Kaufman girls? Sure. I remember their birthday parties and their first long dresses. I remember the way they used to scrap when they were teenagers. You wouldn’t believe two pretty kids could quarrel like that. At each other’s throats over boys or records or clothes. Honestly. You boys didn’t fight like that. And they say girls are easier than boys. I don’t believe it.”
“You mean they disliked one another?”
“I mean their father, Morris, was a good furrier but a lousy social worker. He made trouble between the girls without even trying. Morris is a sweet man, but he doesn’t have your father’s sense. Morris never had sense, so he had a noisy house. And when his wife died, that Pearl from Chicago, I think, it didn’t help. He needed a resident psychologist to sort the three of them out. Sigmund Freud would have thrown up his hands.”
“Sam and I used to fight, and we turned out all right.”
“So who’s saying the Kaufman girls didn’t turn out? I just said they used to fight a lot. Like you and your brother.”
“Somebody should write a book on how to be a sibling. I
think Sam and I needed lessons.”
“You? You’d never read it anyway. Mysteries is all you ever read.”
“I’m working on Dostoyevsky. I’m coming along.”
“You started Crime and Punishment when I started Anthony Adverse, ten, fifteen years ago.”
“I get interrupted. I have to make a living, Ma.”
“Let’s not get into that on a nice day like this.”
I gave my mother a peck on the cheek and went up to the room my mother still called “the boys’ room” to get some summer clothes from a bottom drawer. I put them in a shopping bag, gave Ma another peck on leaving, then beetled back to Martha’s place. It was decidedly hot out. I could feel the sun burning through my shirt warming my shoulders. The backs of my knees began to itch with the heat. The sun stood out on the hood of the Olds in spite of the accumulated grime of the city. As I walked up to Martha’s front door I saw ants busy with their hills between the cracks in the sidewalk. A whole safari of them was making its way from the smudge that used to be another insect. I thought of a wasp I’d killed on the screen of my hotel room a year ago. The buzz annoyed me, so I killed it. My mind is a whole graveyard of tombstones like that: the lake trout I caught but didn’t eat, the bugs on the windshield of the car, the snake on the railway tracks when I was a kid. I don’t know what it is. Sometimes I think I’m too sentimental to be in this business. Take Kogan, for instance, and his pal Wally. To most people in this town they’re no better than the wasp or the snake. They walk around demonstrating to people that you don’t have to work for a living; just hold out your hand and the Lord will provide. Granted that He supplies infrequently and when He does it is either Old Sailor or 9-Lives. Kogan and Geller have a lot in common. Both are on the take, but Kogan at least waits for the hand-out. You have the option of ignoring his outstretched hand. Geller doesn’t take chances. He doesn’t put out his hand at all. It’s in your pocket without your knowing about it. It’s easy to think that the difference between them is one of imagination, with Geller getting higher marks for having thought up the bigger scam. But I don’t keep score like that. Kogan never hurt people, never picked up a quarter that hadn’t been abandoned or offered without strings attached. Besides, I liked Kogan.