Ransom Game (24 page)

“You're killing yourself with those cigarettes, you know that?” Vito said.

“And what about us?” Frank said. “We don't smoke, but we gotta breathe in his fumes. We got just as much chance of hitting the Big C as he has.”

“He's right, it isn't too considerate of your fellow passengers to smoke, pal.” I offered to get out, but that didn't help. “You gotta understand,” Vito continued, “that in public you don't act like you do at home. You see what I mean? Like when I go to show rooms to look at the antiques, I don't spit on nobody's old Persian rug, you get me? Same thing in elevators. You don't smoke. It ain't right.”

“They should have ‘smoking' and ‘non-smoking' elevators,” Frank suggested.

“What are you talking about? They already have
all
elevators as ‘non-smoking,'” Vito said, getting a little hot at his fellow hoodlum. “You want to turn the clock back? Talk when you know what you're talking about.”

“Since when are you so perfect all of a sudden? Since we're on the subject, I don't much care for the way you mash up a roll of Lifesavers when you get offered one. You can louse up a new package faster than a kid of six.”

“How about the way you're crunching them out loud? Vito rejoined. “It gives me the pip the way you do that all the time.”

“Well, at least I'm not spreading cancer cells all over the place.”

“I'm nearly done. Smoking helps remind me I'm still alive. Otherwise I'd begin to doubt it. Why not roll down your window?” I tried to sound pleasant. But my voice sounded false to me. Neither of the boys evidently thought much of half-measures, and the windows remained closed.

It was only a few miles from Grantham to Niagara Falls. Frank came off the highway, rounded the curve between the international bridge and the big hotel, and took the next right, driving up a steep hill away from the Niagara gorge and through a canyon of tourist attractions smelling of hot popcorn and pizza even at this hour. A life-size figure of Blondin, the great French tightrope walker, straddled a wire stretched across the street, and the figure appeared to balance itself with a curving fifteen-foot pole. The signs were gaudy enough with the neon shut off. If you wanted to see it, here was the car that Archduke Ferdinand was driving in when an assassin turned Sarajevo into a household word, the favourite car of Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel, or the trick model-T Ford Mack Sennett used in many of his one-reel comedies.

High on the hill overlooking the Falls stood a series of observation towers. Each was built with a revolving restaurant, bar and arcades for the small types. The newest of these the newspapers had taken to calling the “egg on a stick,” for reasons that were obvious but which just the same angered the group who had it put there. I'd heard about these towers, but for some reason had never been lured up one before. This was the night.

Frank pulled into the empty parking lot behind the “egg on a stick.” Nearby were the silhouettes of the older towers, all dark and deserted at this hour. Vito moved me outside. The air was sharp with the smell of chemicals, and loud with the sound of the Niagara, less than half a mile away. He opened a metal door in the back of the base of the tower, and we went into a storage area with cartons of popcorn containers, display signs, gas cylinders for the soft drinks stands and lockers for the staff. Another key in another door brought us to the elevator. Another key turned the lights on and opened the doors. It was one of those bubble elevators, with plastic windows on all but the side with the door. It was black outside except for the street lights, but they showed me how fast we were going up.

“You'd pay five bucks for this ride in daylight,” Frank said. I wasn't impressed. I hadn't asked to come and my joints protested every step. After a few seconds I could see that part of the blackness outside was the Niagara. The coloured lights had been turned off several hours ago, but the Falls seemed to have a light of its own. If the light in the elevator itself were dimmer, it would have made a bigger impression. But just then I was preoccupied with other matters. I was so distracted that I tried to light a smoke. Vito gave me a dirty look, and Frank crunched a Lifesaver menacingly. The elevator stopped. We got out into a round, broadloom-covered observation room with glass walls.

“Downstairs is the outside deck, and upstairs is the revolving restaurant. You been here before?”

“No. I read somewhere never eat in a place more than a hundred feet off the ground especially if it's moving.”

“Come on. Don't talk smart all the time. The way you smoke, your days are numbered.”

“Without the cigarettes, they're numbered,” Frank suggested.

“Go on. Don't scare him. The boss only wants to talk to him, right?”

“Skew!” I said.

“Watch the language. One thing about Vito and me is we don't tolerate bad language. Right, Vito?”

“Yeah, it makes a crummy impression. So watch it.”

“Skew is a four-letter word for ‘oblique or slanting.'”

They didn't answer, they just pushed me through a flush metal door and up a narrow set of stairs. At the top was a door with a judas window in it, like in speakeasies in the movies. Vito pushed a buzzer; another buzzer opened the door. A shove from behind moved me into a large, dimly lit office. The light came from a desk lamp, one of those jointed metal things with springs. The desk was antique pine and enormous. The boss sat in front of the view I'd glimpsed from the elevator, only from here, with the subdued lighting, I could see the mist rising from the Falls and the dark line of the shore of Goat Island on the American side. The boss was a surprise. Somehow I'd assumed that Eddie Milano was a fiftyish hood; on the stocky side with a face that had escaped smallpox only to find worse. In fact, the boss was about my age, and looked down at me from about six inches nearer heaven. He had a broad boyish face under what could have been a crew-cut allowed to grow in. His suit was strictly ivyleague tweed, well-cut and from real sheep. He got up and came across to me with a hand extended in my direction. His clasp was warm and friendly without bonecrushing pressure that suggests the reformed bedwetter. He threw a quarter of a glance at the boys, and they disappeared through the door.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Cooperman. I'm sorry about the hour, but it's easier to find busy people after midnight.” He walked back toward his desk and brought a chair for me to sit in. It was a modern chair, but it didn't clash with the antiques that were scattered throughout the room. I tried to take them in as he returned to his own large executive swivel chair. I let my eyes close for half a second. It felt good. “I won't beat about the bush with you, Mr. Cooperman. I'm being drawn into the murder of Muriel Falkirk and I don't much like it. I didn't kill her, I don't know who did kill her, and I don't like the kind of inquiry the Regional Police have started. I'm not only worried for myself, but I have business associates, as you may know, and none of us can afford to be mixed up in a case like this.” He spread his hands fanlike on the desktop, to show the extent of his candour, I guess. He went on talking. “I understand that you were hired by Muriel a few days ago to try to find Johnny Rosa. No need to play games with me, Mr. Cooperman. Neither of us have time for that. Your client is dead, and yet you haven't abandoned your investigation. Why? Another thing: have you any idea who the real killer of Muriel Falkirk is? Was her death linked with Johnny's disappearance? If you can tell me about that, I may get some sleep tonight after all. And you too, incidentally.” My eyes were actually twinkling. The idea of sleep at the end of this endless tunnel appealed to the optimist in me.

“Well, in answer to your first question, I didn't stop my investigation when Muriel was killed because she'd paid me more money than I'd earned at the time of her death. I owed her another couple of days' digging. As far as knowing who murdered Muriel, I agree that you're a prime suspect. The only thing that saves you is the fact that I think you went to her apartment to see her the night she was killed.”

“How do you know that?”

“She'd been drinking Crown Royal, your well-known favourite brand. She didn't offer any resistance to the killer. You were one of her oldest and dearest.”

“But why does that save me?”

“Your activities are famous, Mr. Milano. You're the man who is always somewhere else. You're the man with the platinum alibi. So why would you drop in to kill Muriel when you could have it done expertly by professionals while you open the charity bazaar. Although you would hardly be able to use that in court, the cops aren't dummies. You've been on their hit parade for a few years, Mr. Milano. They can recognize your label.”

“I see,” he said, not unlike Bob Jarman.

“Before I can help you, Mr. Milano, I want to get a few things straight. They all bear on the ultimate question ‘Who killed Muriel?'”

“Shoot.” He leaned well back in his chair with hands behind his neck: for all the world, the posture of a relaxing man. Only it was after three in the morning on top of an overgrown barber's pole and Eddie Milano was not a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce. Hell, maybe he was.

“You and Muriel set up Johnny. You let her move in with him in order for her to find out where he put the ransom money …”

“I'm not going to admit to anything, Mr. Cooperman. You may interpret my occasional nods not as affirmation, but simply as a sign that I'm awake and following your argument.”

“Fine. Okay. You and Muriel were going to split the take and throw Johnny to the Mounties or whoever else would take him. Muriel wasn't visiting some friend in Kingston the day Johnny got out, you sent her on purpose to meet him. “They'd known one another down south, so it would be an easy job for a good-looking girl like Muriel to catch Johnny's attention. She was attractive enough to play that game on a man who hadn't been locked up for six years. With Johnny, she couldn't miss. They set up house together and you sat back and waited. Right?”

“Keep talking.”

“Now comes the part that's not so pleasant. Muriel decides that if she has to pick between the two of you, she prefers Rosa. With Johnny, she can count on at least half of the money and if she plays her hand right she can do better. With you, half is the best deal she can make. Besides, with you, the prospects are limited, you being a family man. Not that she'd say you stiffed her, or treated her badly. She had no regrets. I think I can say that for her. She was looking after her future, that's all.”

“It was a business arrangement. I get your drift, Mr. Cooperman. She'd seen me make lots of business arrangements.” I had to hand to him. I couldn't see any cracks in his face. It continued to nod and smile, like I was talking about sow-belly futures or something.

“Okay. That meant she had to get you off her back. She and Johnny concocted his disappearance. And knowing you, she was sure her life depended on bringing it off well. This was no time for the amateur hour. So, she filled up the closet with new clothes for Johnny to disappear without. She ditched her car with Johnny's blood on the seat, handy to the canal and the kinds of constructions the cops place upon things like that. The next step was the clincher. I think that this is the one that really took you in. She hired a private detective to find Johnny. Now, he wasn't from Pinkerton's or one of the big agencies, but he would do. You had Vito and Frank check me out; I was earning my money. If I was legitimate, then it followed that Muriel was: Johnny really did disappear the way she told you. Sorry I missed that scene. It must have been a very affecting end to the first act.”

“It sounds plausible. But it's just a yarn. Your wind is the only thing holding it together.”

“You think it will fall apart if you blow hard enough? You don't have that much breath. How do you explain Muriel dropping you for a guy on parole, working in a foundry? How do you explain the fact that you didn't send Vito and Frank to repossess the fur coat and other expensive objects? No, Muriel was a better actor than you were. Her show had some nice touches. I was almost taken in too. So don't think that you re the only one with egg yolk on your chin. I performed like a trained bear. I reported everything I discovered to my pals at the Regional Police, and they started looking for person or persons unknown who executed poor Johnny in classic gangland style.”

“So Johnny's not dead,” he said, swinging his chair around so that I could see his fingers interlocking at the back of his neck. “Well, well. Your story is holding my attention very well, Mr. Cooperman, in spite of the hour. Go on, please.”

“Something happened and the plan to double-cross you fell off the table. Johnny set out to pick up the money. That had to be part of the plot. But maybe it wasn't there. The double-crosser double-crossed. It was almost too perfect. He gets in touch with Muriel. I'm guessing, now. She gets in touch with you. Just a friendly call to see if she can detect you gloating from your end of the wire. She thinks you've been playing with her all the time, and that now there is no escape. She sees what a spot she's in. You don't understand any of this, but you don't like the way she sounds on the phone, so you make a mental note to drop in for a friendly chat. How'm I doing?” Eddie was still staring out into the black patch where the Falls were. When I stopped talking, he swivelled himself around to face me.

“Supposing I did get this call. Just supposing. And supposing I made this visit. And supposing I'd found that I'd been set up on a serving platter for the police. What would you do then?”

“What you did. I'd remove the single most incriminating piece of evidence. I'd slip the bottle of Crown Royal in my pocket and let myself out of the apartment without touching anything else.”

“Then that would be a pretty good thing to do when you are faced with a shock like that?”