A City Called July

by Howard Engel

  Martha wasn’t home from work yet, so I boiled two eggs without scorching the bottoms and toasted some bread. I cracked the eggs and mashed them with some bottled mayonnaise, added salt and pepper and I was as good as restored to health. I put the works on a plate, and brought it to the enamel-topped table. I poured a glass of milk from the blue carton in the refrigerator. Meanwhile my mind was guttering on aspects of this Larry Geller business. This was Tuesday. For six days I’d been playing around with the case and not making friends or influencing people while I was doing it. I could have gone down to Daytona Beach on Nathan’s suggestion. I might not have turned up Larry Geller, but I could have got some sun and maybe even some swimming. Everybody I know gets to go to Florida for one reason or another. This time I could have written the whole trip off as a business expense, but some still small voice inside me doesn’t like the way it bounces, so I tell Nathan to shove it, and stay in Martha’s back room. At least in Daytona Beach I’d be able to retire to my own hotel room. Still, small voices should bother other private investigators once in a while.

  Back in my car, I headed down across the old canal instead of across the high-level bridge. I parked near the short bridge and sat in the car looking at the three colours of water running under the span. There was the green water from the creek, brown from the pollution works in Papertown and a white scum that held the two other streams apart. It was like Neapolitan ice-cream designed by a madman with a perverse sense of humour. Above the water-line, the red-brick foundry was belching out dark smoke from the tin smoke-stack. The smoke was blowing under the high-level bridge and getting lost among its dark girders.

  Ruth Geller was not expecting me. In fact I wasn’t sure myself how I got there. I’d been mooning about for over an hour without any clear direction. My mental processes, if they can be called that, were keeping their thoughts to themselves. I was just the driver. I parked the car at this still exclusive address on Burgoyne Boulevard. As far as I could see, property values hadn’t plummeted. There were no “For Sale” signs visible on the surrounding front lawns. No additional windows had been broken at number 222 nor was there an accumulation of rotten fruit on the lawn.

  “Mr. Cooperman! This is a surprise.” Ruth Geller looked honestly taken aback as she saw me standing at her front door. I’d rung the bell twice and was just wondering about a third strike and out when I heard steps approaching the door. “What brings you to this neighbourhood today? Don’t answer that; I just remembered. You never sleep. Will you come in? I was just going to make some tea.” I followed Ruth through the lush hall with the deep-pile broadloom to the immaculate white kitchen. She had more white gadgets than a hardware store. The stove and sink were hard to locate. I finally found them in an island in the middle of the room. The stove was so integrated into the rest of the decor that you practically had to leave a kettle showing just to keep your bearings. Gummed fruit stickers and magnetic letters dotted the refrigerator with spots of colour that the designer hadn’t called for. It was the sort of kitchen where one dirty cup on the counter embarrassed all the clean dishes wherever they were hiding in their knobless cupboards. “I’ll put the kettle on,” Ruth said, and pushed something that looked like it would transport both of us to the command deck of the USS Enterprise. “I hope you don’t mind decaffeinated tea? I’ve had to give the real stuff up because I’m not sleeping very well these days.” I nodded approval and she found a box of cookies and put some on a plate. Her milk was from a carton of two percent just like Martha’s.

  “I should have telephoned first,” I apologized. “The fact is I didn’t know I was coming here. I just ended up parked outside your front door.”

  “You looked a little lost when I opened the door. I thought it was just my surprise.” In spite of the welcome mat and her smile, Ruth was edgy. Her hands trembled.

  “There are a couple of things I remembered I hadn’t cleared up.”

  “Sure. A couple of things. There are more than a couple of things I’d like cleared up. Like ‘What the hell are my kids going to do for a father when they get home?’”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you started. The kettle’s boiling. That’s a fast kettle.” She ignored my diversion but got up to make the tea. I was surprised to see that decaffeinated tea came in bags just like nature’s own. I’d expected a pale blue powder.

  She made the tea and we sipped in silence only broken by the munching I was doing on a cookie. It had almonds in it. They had almonds in them, as I found out on further exploration. After a few angels flew by, I picked up the dropped thread again. “Mrs. Geller, do you remember on the telephone last Friday, I asked you about a man named Wally Moore?”

  “I honestly can’t recall that, Mr. Cooperman. But if you say so, I’ll believe you.”

  “Wally was a bum, a vagrant, a panhandler, a regular feature on St. Andrew Street.”

  “I still don’t …”

  “He was a little guy, with a Charlie Chaplin bamboo cane, and he walked with his feet pointed in different directions.”

  “I’m sorry. Wally doesn’t ring any bells. Is it important?”

  “Yeah, it’s important. According to a witness he paid a call on you and you paid him off for information or silence or to keep off your grass. I don’t know why you paid him off, but we know that he came into money. For him, a fortune. And he said that you were the lady bountiful behind it.”

  “Well, this man is just not telling you the truth. I pay a gardener. I paid the man who fixed the front window. Maybe he was trying to pull your leg, Mr. Cooperman. You look very serious just now, but you might be susceptible to the man’s blarney.”

  “Wally isn’t pulling legs any more, Mrs. Geller. He’s on his way to a grave paid for by the city.”

  “You mean he’s …”

  “Yes, Ma’am. He’s dead. That’s why what we know about him is important. He could have made up the story, but he couldn’t have made up the money. Only you can shed light on this.”

  “But I told you. I’ve never seen the man. I don’t know him and I never paid him off. I suppose I’m sorry that he’s dead. I want to be honest, so I shouldn’t pretend that I’m terribly upset.”

  “He didn’t just die, Mrs. Geller. He was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I can’t see what it has to do with Larry’s leaving town.”

  “He might have seen something he shouldn’t.”

  “He might have seen them driving in the direction of the city limits.”

  “Them? Who do you mean, them?”

  “I meant Larry. I don’t know why I said them.”

  “Mrs. Geller, you’ve just made a slip. You know something you haven’t told the police. You’d better tell me before anyone else gets hurt.”

  “I’ve told you all I know. I haven’t any information I didn’t have last week when you came.”

  “You’ve lost a brother-in-law since then.”

  “Nathan? What has his death got to do with Larry? You’ve got me confused. Do you mean that it was a revenge killing by some … some …?”

  “Former client of your husband? Could be. But my money’s on secrets. Nathan knew something about Larry, and it was worth the risk to make sure Nathan didn’t spread the news.”

  “I didn’t think about that.” She was quiet for a minute. She looked at her decaffeinated tea growing chilly on the white counter. Her hands were trembling.

  We were perched on chromium and white leather stools. All we needed was a bartender on the other side wiping out glasses and hanging them up to dry. What kind of secrets would Ruth tell a bartender after a couple of drinks? “It’s secrets that do it, Mrs. Geller. I’ve been telling everybody this week. Secrets lead down the long dark hall.”

  “Are you still harping …? Damn it, Mr. Cooperman, I don’t know this man you’re talking about. I’ve tried to be up-front with the police, and they won’t tell me a thing. I’ve been straight with you, and you couldn’t find beets in a
bowl of borscht.” She was leaning on her arms propped on the counter. Her head was held in the palms of both hands. I couldn’t see if she was crying. I thought that she might be. I felt a nickel worse than somebody who felt like two cents. But I felt like that when I arrived, so I didn’t pack up and leave.

  “Mrs. Geller,” I said, trying to make my voice stand up as tall as a Mountie in a musical, “you know that Larry had plans to leave town. You know that he didn’t plan on leaving without company. Will you tell me now who he went away with?”

  For a moment she didn’t move. Her eyes were shining when she looked at me with an expression that I tried to forget in a hurry. Her hand shot out and pulled open a drawer. It fished about among coupons like those in Ma’s kitchen drawer and came up with a photograph. At first I was disappointed. I’d been hoping for a hotel reservation or an airline schedule with a destination circled. I think you can’t improve on neat arrangements like those. But what Ruth was holding out to me was a colour photograph. Smiling Larry was holding his hands over the eyes of a woman. In spite of the covered features, I was sure from what I could see of the smile that the woman was Pia Morley. It was a party photograph and the light in Larry’s eyes was pink. “But Pia didn’t leave town, Ruth,” I said, forgetting to be formal in my inquiry.

  “She went missing the same day Larry did. She doubled back, that’s all.”

  “Did Larry double back with her?”

  “God, don’t you think I’ve been asking myself that? How could she do it? And while living with his brother! What is that woman made of?”

  “Try to stay calm When did she get back to Grantham? How do you know for sure that she went with …”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. There was something else in the photograph that suddenly grabbed me by the tie and shook me around.

  “What is it?” Ruth asked, looking at my sagging jaw, I guess. “Mr. Cooperman? Are you okay?” She was gone for a moment and then came back to the counter “Here,” she said “Drink this.” I took a glass from her and felt the heat as I swallowed something straight and alcoholic. I never asked about the brand name. But it was the right medicine for what ailed me that day. “Is that better?” Ruth asked, the tone of worry in her voice as genuine as I remember hearing from anybody.

  “Mrs. Geller,” I asked as soon as I could locate my tongue, “where did your husband get that ring he’s wearing?”

  “Ring?” She looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean in the photo. Why that’s his ring from Osgoode Hall, the law school. They all have them, all the lawyers who go through Osgoode. The crest is usually in gold, but I had this cut specially for Larry’s birthday three years ago. Why do you ask?”

  I still felt like I’d just taken a beating, like my stomach had been removed and the local anaesthetic was just wearing off. I didn’t know what to tell Ruth Geller. What I heard myself say at length was, “Oh, I’ve always been an admirer of fine rubies.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  I suppose I should have headed straight to Niagara Regional with what I’d just found out. At least I’d have been taking some of the advice I’d been handing out all over town. If everybody passed on his secrets, nobody’d be sent for a post-mortem because he knew too much.

  I hadn’t stayed at Ruth’s for more than another few minutes. I’d not confided my suspicions to her, but I did hit her with one more big question before I left. It was the one that had been bothering me since the day I’d been snatched coming out of Larry Geller’s bolt-hole.

  “Mrs. Geller,” I’d asked, “why won’t you admit that Larry called you on the day he disappeared?” She looked blank, but still managed to smile vaguely, like it was through a fog or mist.

  “You’ve asked me that before. Why is it so important? He didn’t call. I had no contact with him after he left that morning. Nobody here spoke to him. I checked.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not sure why it’s important, but what I have amounts to evidence in a way. It’s the sort of evidence that doesn’t lie.”

  “Well, Mr. Cooperman, maybe it doesn’t, but then maybe you aren’t reading it right. Have you thought of that?”

  Since leaving the Geller place, that’s what I’d been thinking about. The evidence of the phone call. By pushing the redial button I was automatically connected with Ruth. We’d talked about Nathan’s midnight phone call to me about Daytona Beach. At least I wasn’t imagining things. I pushed the button and the phone made the connection. I didn’t dial her number, the memory in the machine dialled the number. Then it hit me. It could have been from the day before or the week before. But she’d told me that he never called. Not for weeks. Who was I going to believe: the redial button or the wife?

  Pete Staziak wasn’t working that night. He was in the middle of his long narrow backyard trying to get a charcoal fire started with his vacuum cleaner. That’s where I found him and he went a little red when he saw me coming over the newly mowed lawn. “Hi! You looking for a chess game with my kids? He’s out. Pull up a lump of charcoal and sit down. Shelley’s inside getting a salad together. You’ll have a hamburger, Benny? When I get this going?”

  “Be careful you don’t electrocute yourself.”

  “Nuts, I do this all the time. It’s the quickest way. It’s a little more bulky than using Shelley’s hair dryer, but I cracked that. This works very well, when you hook it up backwards so that it blows instead of sucks.” I walked closer and showed an interest in the arrangements. I hoped he was using grounded wires, that’s all. He turned the vacuum on again and the sparks shot out of the middle of the bed of coals. In the centre they were red going on yellow. It looked as hot as a blacksmith’s forge and smelled about the same. Pete added another load of charcoal from the sooty blue and white bag. Once this lot began to burn, Pete made himself busy handing me the blackened racks to the hibachi and a wire brush. He didn’t try talking over the racket made by the vacuum cleaner. At first I thought that working the brush over the racks would be very satisfying, turning the soiled, carbonized grease-covered metal grates into silvery gridirons, but it was hard work and unrewarding. There was no transformation even after I’d gone over them twice. So, I gave up at about the same time Pete turned off the vacuum cleaner. I handed the grates to him and he fitted them into the black holders. He unplugged the vacuum and reeled in the cord. “Don’t let me leave it out here all night. That’s the sort of thing that brings on a midnight downpour. Will you have a beer, Benny?”

  “Sure.” Pete went into the house to explain the unexpected visitor and returned with a tray with four bottles and one glass.

  We didn’t speak until we were a quarter-way into our first beer. It was Pete who broke the silence: “Well, you might as well tell me now. Let’s get it over with. I want to eat with a clear head.” I gave Pete a fast rundown of what I’d been doing since Nathan’s funeral. The highlight was the ring in the fire-hall footing.

  “Unless I miss my guess we just located Larry Geller.”

  “You’re sure about the ring?”

  “Ruth says it’s a class ring from Osgoode Hall, only she had the crest engraved on a fair-sized ruby. Can’t be too many of those around.”

  “So, you figure, if it’s Larry’s ring, it’s Geller’s finger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Seems a reasonable assumption. Unless he lost it in a crap game to our John Doe in the column. But that’s looking for complications. Let’s see what the forensic boys tell us.”

  “You tell Ruth?”

  “Give me some credit. I’m not a half-wit.”

  “Let’s not quibble over fractions, Benny.” Pete gulped down the last of his first beer and opened another. He tried to make it as a steel-edged cop through and through, but I could see that it was at least partly an act. Pete looked at the hibachi and not at me. He was figuring out whether the coals were ripe yet. He decided that we could talk for another five minutes or so before he had to tie on his apron. “I’ll phone in a call to the station and they can get cra
cking on the job of removing the body overnight. They’ll have to get an engineer to judge about what it does to the structure. That means Sid Geller will have to know about it soon, I mean before we have an identification that we can go to court with.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “So, Geller didn’t run away after all?”

  “Looks possible.”

  “Who gets rich out of that?” Pete was looking at me, and I shrugged the fact that it was anyone’s guess. Who’s to benefit is the time-honoured question we’re supposed to ask ourselves in an investigation. Who’s to benefit? Who in a town with a population of fifty thousand could possibly make use of two million dollars and change? The faint shadow of suspicion settled on everybody from Papertown to Port Robertson, from Louth to Niagara Falls.

  Pete went into the house through the aluminum door with a floppy screen and returned in five minutes with a platter of fat generous hamburgers ready for the fire. He hadn’t put on an apron, probably because I was there, or maybe he never used one. He put the burgers on the grill; they began to sizzle and snap at once. Pete let them alone for a minute, then turned them over. “That seals them,” he said, then added: “I talked to Chris. He’ll look after things at the fire hall.”

  We both watched the hamburgers turn from pink to brown, saw the juices run into the fire and ignite a lump of charcoal. The dripping sizzled like the tick of a slow clock.

  In a few minutes Pete’s wife, Shelley, appeared at the back door with a friendly greeting and a basket of buns. By now the backyard was pungent with smoke. Shelley split the buns and placed them around the darkening meat. As soon as they were cooked on one side, Pete turned the patties over, and meanwhile we practised small talk without showing much aptitude for it.

  * * *