Ransom Game (11 page)

“And Daddy didn't take to him?”

“At first he didn't say anything, and then, I guess when he found out who Rolf was, he did everything he could to see that it remained only a summer romance. Bribes: Europe, an American college, the whole bit. Anyway, in the fall, Rolf left the club and started selling insurance. He made contacts among the younger gang at the club and he knew the campus up at Secord University pretty well too. He has two years towards his degree, you know.”

“Sorry, I didn't. Has he ever spoken to you about the Warren business?”

“Naturally, but what's that got to do with all this? He's paid for that mistake. When are they going to leave him alone?” She was losing control again, and I didn't blame her.

“Look,” I said, “I think you should try to get some sleep. Do you have anything that will help make you sleep?”

“Sleep? Without knowing where Rolf might be? I couldn't, I just couldn't. What do you think they'll do to him?”

“Depends on whether he has any guilty knowledge. Has he? Does he know anything about the missing Warren money? Has he heard from Johnny Rosa?”

“No. He told you the truth. He wouldn't lie, especially about Johnny. Johnny was a crazy sort of god to Rolf, even after what happened.”

“So he would help Johnny if he was in trouble?”

“Yes … but I'm not sure how far he'd go. I know that he doesn't want to risk going back to prison, or have his parole revoked …”

“Never mind. I didn't really expect you could answer that.”

“More coffee?”

“No, I think I'll try to get some sleep. Do you mind if I curl up here on the couch?”

“No sweat. If the pups don't get in your way. I'll bring you a blanket.” She disappeared, and I pulled off my shoes. My socks were damp. When she returned, she was carrying a maroon blanket smelling of mothballs. She told me where I could find the bathroom and where to turn out the light. In spite of the mugs of coffee inside me, I found myself drifting into a deep sleep within seconds.

In my dream I was being chased over a winter landscape by two howling hounds while the tree I knew I could climb to escape them kept disappearing as I reached it, reappearing at the top of the next hill. Somehow, although I could never grasp the tree, the dogs could never quite reach me. It was one of my good nightmares.

I awoke to the sound of sizzling in the kitchen and the peculiar smell of frying fat coming from the same direction. I felt weak and dirty. I found the bathroom, splashed some water around, injured myself on the inside plumbing and cursed the luck that had brought me out in the middle of the night. To clean my teeth, the best I could do was to wet the end of a towel and give them a lick and a promise. In the medicine chest, a piece of home carpentry with a toothpaste-spotted mirror, I found a shelf devoted to Jennifer's contact lenses, wetting solutions, concentrated cleaners, storage solutions and a little plastic container with two tabs, like miniature toilet seats, marked right and left.

Jennifer was in the kitchen, wearing jeans and yesterday's purple T-shirt. She smiled at me and asked how I'd slept. She talked in a formal voice, like she was talking to the neighbour. She was feeling shy about me, and I figured I should take it as a compliment. There were two mugs of tea on the big round table. I sat down behind one and Jennifer sat across from me, sliding a white ironstone plate in front of each of us.

“There'll be toast in a minute,” she said. I looked into my plate and saw the bacon. It was bacon, all right. I'd know it anywhere.

“What s the matter?” she asked.

“Matter?”

“You've gone white. Your face. Are you okay?”

“Sure.” She brought me a piece of buttered toast, and I absent-mindedly began chewing at it while she devoured her three strips of curly bacon. I could see no way out. I closed my eyes and took a bite, seeing in my mind's eye the earth opening up to swallow me. It didn't. Well, it didn't right then.

FOURTEEN

My phone was ringing while I fumbled with my keys trying to unlock the office door. I leaped over a pile of mail and reached the phone just as it stopped. If it was important, they'd call again. The mail was also a disappointment: bills and junk mail. Do I want to own a replica of a rare Dutch clock? What about a hundred and fifty piece set of socket wrenches? A magazine company offered to send me their magazine at a price that undercut the price paid by subscribers, A poor deal for subscribers. And a note from my bank began. “In order to serve you better …” I reminded myself to wince whenever I ran into that phrase. Like a lot of things, it meant the opposite.

When the phone rang again, I was able to reach it before it finished the first ring. After all, I was in business, and my only client was in the morgue.

“Hello”

“Mr. Cooperman?” The voice was cultured male and sugary.

“That's right. Who's speaking?”

“This is Bill Ashland. I got the message you left with Friesen, Sunter, and McLeod. I hope I can help you. What exactly did you have in mind? Something in the stocks line? The market is very active this week.”

“Yeah, I heard that. I wonder if I could talk to you?”

“Thinking of taking the plunge? I have a few hot numbers.”

“Anything as hot as the number where I can reach Johnny Rosa?” There was a sudden hush at his end of the line. I'd expected it. The hot air went out of him like he had the football and the opposing team knew it. My own knuckles were looking white on the phone, so I don't know why I was feeling so smug. If I hated eggs, what was I doing in the poultry business, as my father used to say.

“Who are you and what do you want?” He said this in a flat voice that had lost its carnival manner.

“You've got my name in front of you,” I said, “and I want to talk to you about half a million dollars. My bet is that you'd like to know where it is, and that you think you'd know how to spend it. Problem is, you don't know where to look. That's why I want to see you.”

“Look, I don't want anything to do with you or that damned money. I've paid plenty for it already. I'm not going to lay down any more time.”

“I'm full of sympathy, Ashland. My stony old heart is bleeding for you. The way I see it, there's no harm done in trading a little information. After all, the case is over and done with. I don't want to talk to you about anything you haven't already paid for. And, you never can tell, I might know something you don't know.”

“Talk's cheap, Mr., uh, Cooperman. Where did you trip over such valuable information? Who are you anyway? What's your angle?”

“I'm a private investigator You can look me up in the book. I've already collected a pocketful of information.”

“I don't have a Toronto book handy, but I'll check you out, Cooperman.”

“I'm local, Mr. Ashland. We've got P.I.s here in Grantham too, you know: sidewalks, electric light, and now private investigators. And I've been paid to find Johnny Rosa. I think you know he's away without leave?”

“Who doesn't? But I still don't see why I should talk to you.”

“I'm not bending your arm. I'm only making a suggestion. You could be right. Maybe I shouldn't be talking to you at all. It's not as though you're the only one interested, is it? I've been wrong before. There are other trees I could bark up. I've got a list of them.”

“Okay, okay, I'll talk to you. But I'm a busy man, and I don't want to take too much time. I've got to go down to the CN Station just before five on business. I'll see you there at five. In the waiting room, and no tricks.” He hung up abruptly. I didn't even get to ask what kind of tricks he expected. Maybe he thought I'd have all my assistant operatives disguised as baggagemen and departing passengers. If I had assistant operatives, naturally, that's what I would do with them.

I was beginning to feel like I'd spent the night curled up with a blanket smelling of mothballs on a couch that was shared with a pair of pups of an expanding territorial disposition. My stomach was not the stalwart companion of my youth either. After my first breakfast of bacon, I felt the dark angel both in the pit of my stomach and riding the hot air currents above my head. I went next door to see if I could bother Frank Bushmill for a handful of aspirin, or any other cure that a practising chiropodist is privy to.

There were three old ladies with three shades of gray hair sitting in the bright waiting room. The one that had had a blue rinse was reading
Time
magazine, catching up on the New Deal. The one with the pinkish rinse was deep in a book-sized magazine on ornamental gardens. The third had brought a lending-library book of her own, and was now well along the way to discovering who murdered Roger Ackroyd. Her hair had a yellowish tint under a fine hair-net to protect the manufactured wave. I grinned at the ladies, who took in my old sweater, but I hoped didn't guess at the pajamas I was still wearing underneath. Alter a minute, Frank, demonstrating again that he has the ears of a bat, came out of his surgery and gave me the top of the morning with his smile. The three ladies studied him over their bifocals. He acknowledged them with a curt professional nod apiece.

“Good morning, Benny. I thought I heard you. Isn't it a grand day for the polar bears now? I was hoping you'd drop by, I've got a good book for you. You're killing yourself with that television.”

“Could you spare some aspirin, Frank?”

“Sweet Heart of Jesus, are you dying on my doorstep, Benny? I've got the stuff to fix you up, and no mistake. I'll be right back.” He retreated into his sanctuary for a moment, and was back in front of me in short order holding a frothing noisy drink in a paper cup. “Drink this down, Ben, and it'll have you fit in no time. These good ladies don't mind my taking on an emergency when it comes along. Am I right, Mrs. Dalrymple?” Mrs. Dalrymple, the one with the blue rinse, nodded agreement, and the others bobbed approving heads too. I drank down the mixture, an old fashioned Seidlitz powder, the effervescent bubbles tickling my nose, wishing everybody long life and happiness. Frank brought out the Irish in me. His company put my normal speech in a fine disorder. My stomach ache even began to go away. I guess, when I was feeling Irish, I didn't mind the bacon so much. I could feel violent things beginning to happen in my insides, so I excused myself and retreated to the toilet. I began thinking about poor Frank. He probably had bacon for breakfast three or four times a week and never gave it a second thought. And here I was, four thousand years of dietary laws going up in the fat of the frying pan.

I pulled myself together and returned to the office. Once again the phone was ringing. I had a feeling in my solar plexus to let it go on ringing, but made the mistake of answering it.

“Hello?” I tried not to sound too encouraging. Like I didn't need the favour of anybody's business. I was going crazy.

“Mr. Cooperman?” I'd heard that voice somewhere.

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Jarman would like to see you this afternoon. Could you make it at two?” It was the private secretary.

“Sure, Blackwood, I wouldn't miss it. The little place on the hill, isn't it?”

“Mr. Cooperman, you might save your comic side for those that appreciate such things. May I take it then that you will come?”

“Wouldn't miss it. See you at two. Bye.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Cooperman.” Blackwood must have grown up with her own print of
Rebecca
. She was playing Mrs. Danvers well, but at an absurdly young age.

Before the phone could ring again, I decided to use it myself. The earpiece was still warm against my right ear. I dialed the number of Savas at the Regional Police. I waited while the switchboard shunted me around the wire maze for a minute and then Savas gave me his usual greeting.

“Cooperman? What the hell you want? I thought we had your only paying client in the refrigerator?”

“You know what I want.”

“Okay, okay. Here it is. Muriel Falkirk: apparent age, twenty-eight. Subject well nourished, evidence of good care and attention. Height, five-foot five; weight, one hundred and thirty-eight pounds. Are you still with me, Benny?”

“Sure, I wouldn't want to miss anything.” Savas was in a good mood, for Savas. I was getting more curious. “Keep it coming.”

“Here it comes: ecchymoses under hair at back of head, none in face or anywhere else. No marks of restraint or struggle. Dead between 7:30 and 9:30 P.M., Tuesday, February 12th. Cause of death: drowning while unconscious. Do you want the internal details, Benny? We've got a fracture at the base of the skull, water in the lungs and rye in the stomach. There wasn't much food residue, so she hadn't been taken out to dinner first. Oh, yeah, in case you think you're some kind of smart ass, we checked the water in her lungs: it was the same as in the tub. Just in case you want to say the murderer had fancy dime-novel ideas. Satisfied?”

“What kind of rye was she drinking?”

“Tell you tomorrow. That stuff goes to the Liquor Control Board lab in Toronto. They tell us good, but they take their time about it. Except of course when private investigators ask for favours. Then they bust their ass.”

“You got a report on the blood?” Now I knew why he was beaming on his side of the phone.

“Yup. It just came in. I found out that Rosa's blood type, as noted at Kingston, was Group O Rh positive. The stuff in the envelope, which was blood all right, proved to be Group B. When I was just about to call you up with that piece of damning news, I got a call from the head serologist in Toronto, who said that they'd done more tests and now the blood in your envelope was known to be Group O Rh positive. How much are you paying serologists these days, Benny?” I think he could sense the grin that I was transmitting down the wire. I was suddenly feeling like not such a bad detective after all. “Is there any other work,” Savas was enjoying this, “that an honest cop can do for the private sector this morning? If not, I'll get back to the public. G'bye.”