The Cooperman Variations (13 page)

I made a copy in my notebook and pocketed it. I could hear the cruiser at the curb gunning its motor with impatience. I closed up the shed, locked the kitchen door and made sure I heard the front door click behind me as I pulled it shut. Sykes kept revving the motor.

The Kowloon restaurant is nestled in a block of stores and restaurants on the south side of Baldwin Street, near where it ends at McCaul. A woman with a shiny broad face grinned a greeting to the three cops and showed us to a table in the “no smoking” zone, under some flashing Christmas lights that had been left blazing to see in the spring and summer months. A waiter, who looked like a Chinese Charles Bronson, gave Sykes a printed order form, which he began to fill in with the provided pencil without looking back at us or asking questions. The order form was separated by the waiter into its component sheets, one of which was left with us, while the other made its way to the kitchen. We could hear aggressive cooking sounds: bangs and crashes, interrupted by the regular tinkling of a bell. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess a Chinese mass was being celebrated back there; the accompanying incense was delectable, sensual, not inspirational.

“Where are we on this thing?” Boyd wanted to know as he began doodling on a piece of lined paper. “We’ve got two cases that may be linked. And again, they may not be linked. We’ve got Renata Sartori, murdered because she was Renata Sartori. Or, again, she might have been taken for Vanessa Moss. We’ve got a suspicious death, which might be murder, and again it might be what it has always looked like, suicide. Have I left anything out?”

“You don’t have a murder weapon in the Sartori case, but you have shells found in Moss’s office at NTC.” I added this to help rid the air of the notion that I might be biased in favour of my client. Perish the thought.

“What we don’t have is the big picture. What ties Sartori to Foley?” Nobody answered. Boyd watched his ballpoint as it doodled a sketch of a hangman’s noose, Sykes stared at the aquarium of lobster and crab near the front window, Chuck watched the changing patterns in the string of coloured lights. I stole a secret glance at my watch. Even an untrained assassin could have claimed Vanessa six or seven times since I saw her last.

That got me thinking of my client’s tawny hide and I asked Jack if he could have a talk with NTC Security about stationing an extra man outside Vanessa’s office.

“With their system,” Jim said, “it can’t help.”

“It can’t hurt,” I said.

When it came, the food was impressive. Served in wooden and metal steamers or on saucers, the dim sum was an assortment of nearly bite-size items wrapped in noodle, a lotus leaf (I was told) or a steaming bun. I watched the others to see what to do. Sykes and Boyd were moving items from the steamers to the bowls in front of them with chopsticks. Chuck was using a ceramic spoon. I stabbed a noodle-wrapped object, which looked like a small scallop shell, with one of my set of chopsticks and dropped it in my tea. I’d been aiming for my bowl, but it was not to be. I abandoned it there, hoping that nobody saw. Then I tried a pancake-wrapped, halfmoon-like object with a spoon, getting it to the bowl just as a waiter arrived with a fork to help me out. My friends exchanged nods and I tried to ignore them. I mused upon the idea that in thousands of years the Chinese civilization hadn’t stumbled upon the chopped-egg sandwich. I decided to be charitable, and tried something else. It looked hot on the end of my fork, but I had manoeuvring time in case I found it not up my street. Admittedly, it was a far cry from my usual lunch. I grinned and bore it.

Lunch continued, I ate, mostly enjoying the food, and, between mouthfuls, we continued to push the case around the table. But, except for the food, which disappeared rapidly, nothing new developed on the problems at NTC.

Later, about an hour later, I ran the gauntlet through NTC Security, pasted on my pass, and made it, via the no-talking burgundy elevator, to my corner of Vanessa’s office. Sally Jackson was finishing the last crumbs of a paperbag lunch on her desk. She looked up at me, and gave me a smile that showed she was really trying to be the sunbeam that Jesus would have her be.

“They didn’t lock you up?”

“No, they took me to lunch instead.” (In spite of my offer to use my plastic, Sykes had paid the shot at the Kowloon. I could catch it next time, I was told.)

“I should be that lucky,” she said, making a moue, if people still make moues.

“Next time, I’ll invite you along.” I told her where we went and began to describe the food.

“Dim sum may be unknown in Grantham, Mr. Cooperman, but we in Toronto have had it for nearly forty years.”

“How lucky for you.” I paused a second and looked at her. Sally looked as tense as a rock band on their first gig. “Look, Sally,” I said, “for some reason you and I got off on the wrong foot. If it was my fault, I’m sorry. Maybe we can start over. What do you think? Can you take time off to have a cup of coffee with me?”

“Mr. Cooperman, somebody’s got to look after this department. You may not know it, but next to News, Entertainment is the most important department at NTC. Somebody’s got to be here while her ladyship is off buying up the pills in the neighbouring drugstores. Vanessa’s only going to be here for another season, but this is
my
department. It has been for six years. And I hope it will be for another six. I ran it with Nate Green. Now I run it in spite of Vanessa Moss.”

“Hey! Don’t take it out on me! I’m on your side. Come on! Let’s let the place run itself for five seconds. Show me where the coffee lives and I’ll bring us back two cups. What do you say?”

“The kitchen’s three doors down the corridor to the left. You should … Oh, to hell with it. I’ll show you.” Sally got up and I followed her. She opened a door into a tidy, tiny kitchen, where you could make a Christmas dinner for ten if you watched your elbows. Instead of showing me, Sally banged the cupboard doors herself and soon the coffee was dripping through the filter. As she returned to her place running the department, she gave me a grin that was intended as a peace offering. I accepted it and swore I’d bring the coffee and fixings as soon as the Braun stopped gurgling. True to my word, I did that.

I didn’t expect to find out much from Sally. Our truce was too new to be tested so soon. But I did manage to discover that she was no longer living in Richmond Hill, that she was staying with a girlfriend in the City Park apartments near Maple Leaf Gardens, and that she was free to have a drink after work. She knew a place where the NTC people never went after five. As she said this, she smiled and clicked her coffee mug against mine. What more assurance does a guy need to start living on hope?

NINE

When Vanessa barged in twenty minutes later, she found me at my desk, reading up on the latest pocket biographies of her NTC colleagues supplied by Sally. She stood mutely over me, so that I could, if I was up on such things, identify her perfume, or imagine her wrath, which could be something biblical when she needed it. “Where were you for the last three hours?”

“Doing my duty with the officers investigating Renata’s death.”

“That’s right! And the fact that I’m still standing here, instead of lying dead in the morgue, doesn’t bother you at all, I suppose?”

“Well, if you want to give me credit for it, sure, go ahead, but, Vanessa, even murderers take time out. Maybe our guy has a day job just like you and me.” I could see her eyes darkening and a squall coming, but suddenly it subsided. A lot of her bite was straight histrionics, worked out in advance with the weight of the audience figured into the total effect. It was all calculated to within a centimetre of where she wanted it to be.

“Would you like to tell me where you went after the reception, Vanessa? Through the Khyber Pass and back?”

“Now, Benny, don’t
you
start. I had a bad enough time with Ted. He wants to split up Entertainment into three independent sections with me at the top.”

“Well?”

“Well, that’s like inviting me to leave. He wants me out of here, Benny. How many times do I have to tell you? He does; they all do.”

“I don’t see …”

“Look, once it’s divided among three hungry underlings, what is there for me to do? All I can do is sit on policy and keep my hands off the all-over good of the department. I won’t let him do this to me.”

“But, Vanessa, aren’t the sections we saw at yesterday’s meeting independent?”

“God no! I keep them all on short leads. They all do exactly what I say or they’re out of here. He wants to tie and gag me. Under Ted’s arrangement, I wouldn’t be able to veto anything. I couldn’t make a suggestion and have it taken seriously. I’d never see a pilot or meet a producer. I’d be making sure that their pension-plan contributions were being deducted properly. Damn it, Benny, I’d rather be shot at than reduced to a cipher. I’d much rather clean out the fridge.”

“Okay, okay. Simmer down. Catch your breath. Let’s take things one at a time. What do you have to do for the rest of this afternoon?”

“Let me think. Oh, yes, I’ve got to go over to Studio Three where they’re shooting a pilot I’m interested in. Then I should send another thunderbolt to Eric Carter. You remember, the Christmas show you saw in production yesterday? I just saw what that butterball turkey he’s cooking is going to cost. I’ll have to stop there again on my way home.”

“Vanessa, remember that fellow who was here that first day? Hy Newman?”

“Yesterday. What about him?”

“Why don’t you get him to do a lot of your running around for you? He’s an experienced producer. You could make him your personal emissary or something. Eric Carter wouldn’t be able to fool him about his wasteful ways.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Benny! Newman went out with the A-line, the cha-cha-cha and canasta.”

“Yes, but he’s been in this business since geese first went barefoot.”

“You let me look after Entertainment, you look after
me!
You hear?”

“Yup. You want me tagging along with you?”

“That’s what I’m paying you for.” While she was talking, she was winnowing the phone messages and faxes with a deft hand. “Oh, by the way, thanks for the 222s.”

“The what?” Here she lifted up a fresh package I’d never seen before.

“The Frosst 222s. You know how I depend on those things.”

“Vanessa, I bought you some
aspirin
yesterday. I didn’t get you any 222s.”

“Well, I wonder …? They were on my desk. Funny. Oh, never mind. The main thing is that I’ve got them.”

I jumped up and grabbed at her arm. A blue telephone message slip floated to the carpet. “Vanessa, let me see them!”

“What? The 222s? Whatever for?”

“You don’t know where they came from. That’s reason enough. Get them and put them in—in—” Here I reached for a big manila envelope. “—in here.”

“Benny! what sort of melodrama are you acting out?”

“Trust me, Vanessa. I just want to be on the safe side.”

Instead of accompanying my client on her lateafternoon rounds, I took a taxi to 52 Division with my manila envelope of questionable medicine. The driver didn’t seem to understand the need for speed, and I lacked the courage to tell him to hurry.

Boyd was sitting in Sykes’s chair wearing a bright yellow straw hat. He was reading a computer monitor. He looked up and gave me a friendly grin, then returned to the screen for another two minutes. I moved my weight from shoe to shoe. At last he squeaked his chair away from the screen. I explained what I had found and he said that he’d see that somebody had a look at the vial. “Who touched it besides Ms. Moss?”

“Nobody that I know of,” I said. “Not me, anyway.”

“Well, that’s a good start.” He loaded the envelope and its contents into a plastic freezer bag, typed information on a stick-on label and attached it. He did this carefully and without comment. Then he made a note on his calendar.

“Jack taking the rest of the day off?” I asked, to fill in the silence.

“Naw, he got a call from College Street, the Chief’s office. Probably has to explain his expenses. It happens. What can I say?”

“Well, I hope they don’t deduct it from his take-home pay. You want to talk about this now?” I asked. Boyd looked at the freezer bag.

“Naw, it’ll keep. No sense talking until we find out whether there’s anything to talk about. It may end up being the usual aspirin-caffeine-codeine concoction. If it is, we can talk about old movies or how the Jays are shaping up.”

I could see Boyd was right. Cops in Toronto are bound to remain calm in every situation. Grantham cops tend to be less worn down by the rigours of the work. The result is that they get excited on one occasion and are oystercalm on the next. It’s harder to figure. So, I made my retreat past the desk sergeant and the glass-brick walls to the outside world, where the warm spring day continued to give delight to all who stopped to notice it. Not many.

As I decided what to do next, one of those new Volkswagens pulled away from the curb. Its green matched the young leaves on the trees in a playground across the street, where swings, slides, climbers and sandpiles waited for the ringing of a bell. The Volkswagen was still in sight as I rounded the corner on University Avenue and headed south.

When I got within sight of the big NTC owl, I began to hunch down mentally, ready for the renewed onslaught of Security. I was wondering whether Vanessa might let me do my business from the New Beijing Inn and thus avoid running the gauntlet here every time I wanted in or out. I had just nerved myself to the ordeal, when two men in wool jackets moved in on me. “Mr. Cooperman?” It was the tall, curly-headed one who spoke. “Mr.
Benny
Cooperman?”

“That’s right.” I tried to feel in my pockets for anything that might, in a pinch, be used as a weapon.

“My name’s Alder. Jesse Alder. I’m one of the techs here at NTC. So’s Ross.”

“Yeah, Ross Totton, Mr. Cooperman. Glad to meet you.” They both fumbled to take my hand, which I delivered as soon as I could drop my car keys back in my pocket.

“We heard that you were here, sort of working for Ms. Moss and all. And we just wanted to buy you a beer and tell you what’s going down around here.”