The Cooperman Variations (27 page)

“Go on.”

“She got up, said that she’d be back in a minute. Before I could pick up the paper, I heard Renata’s voice. At first it was indistinct and then it built into a scream. I can still hear it in my head. I won’t ever get that sound out of my head. Then I heard the gun go off. Just the two blasts, one right after the other. Almost at the same time. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds after she left me sitting there.”

“You heard the scream and then the gunshots, right?”

“Yes. I thought I’d said that.”

“What did you do?”

“I’m ashamed. I’m so
ashamed!”

“I’m not your priest. Just tell me.”

“I hid behind the couch. I thought he was going to come into the room and get me too.”

“You were sure it was a man?”

“At the time I was. I don’t know why. I guess it could have been a woman.”

“And you forgot that he or she had to reload the gun after firing both barrels?”

“I didn’t see the gun. It could have been a pump action. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I hid, sitting on the floor. Behind the couch.”

“Okay, okay. I probably would have done the same thing. Look, I’m no hero either. What else? Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing until the door closed. I must have stayed there for another five minutes before I realized that the murderer had gone and wasn’t coming back.”

“So you got up to see what had happened?”

“That’s right. What had happened was that Renata … had … You know. Don’t take me through that again. I turned on the hall light. Just for a second. I had to turn it right off again. I couldn’t …”

“Okay, you saw that she was dead—that she was beyond saving, anyway. What else?”

“What do you mean, ‘What else?’”

“Did you think for a moment that you
might
call the cops?”

“I went into the bedroom with that in mind, but before I reached the phone, I saw how bad I’d look. I’d be perfect casting for the murderer. I’d set up an alibi so that I could show I was a hundred miles from the crime scene. Why would I do that if I didn’t have some sinister purpose?”

“But, Mr. Bosco, you
did
make those arrangements.”

“That wasn’t to provide an alibi! I got Roger to spell me off for the evening. He’d do the talk, and I’d see what Renata wanted. It only becomes suspicious in the light of what happened to Renata.”

“You’re lucky Roger’s so ambitious.”

“He’s nearly come unstuck twice. Don’t get me started on
that.”

“Back to the scene of the crime. Besides Renata lying there, what else did you see?”

“Nothing. Nothing but the two spent shells from the gun. The ones they found later in Vanessa Moss’s locker. I can’t figure that one out.”

“The shells were left in the hall by the murderer? Is that what you’re saying?” Bosco nodded. His lank hair was falling over his eyes, and he brushed it back with his hand unsuccessfully. “You could have told the police that it was Renata and not Vanessa who’d been killed. You kept quiet. For a whole week.
Why?”

“I don’t know. I must have been in shock. I tried to think of a way to let them know, but everything I thought of brought the cops to my own front door. They’d have finished me. Ray runs a very tight ship, Mr. Cooperman. There’s no room for second chances.”

“So, instead of doing something useful, you’ve been playing Sherlock Holmes on your own. I hope you have a couple of prime suspects?”

“That fellow George Brenner, the parking guy at the network. He knew where Vanessa lived. They’ve been having an affair. He may have seen me arrive at Vanessa’s house and mistaken Renata for Vanessa.”

“The old jealousy dodge. Who else?”

“Well, Bob Foley was looking good for a while. It might be the reason for his suicide.”

“Why’d Dermot Keogh choose him as one of the trustees of the Plevna Foundation?”

“They were friends. Foley was Keogh’s gofer. He saw to Dermot’s laundry, licence renewals, boat and car maintenance, electric bill, you know, all the stuff a genius hasn’t time to look after.”

“You’re not impressed by genius?”

“It’s all right in its place. But Dermot’s affairs have transformed our firm. It should be renamed Dermot Keogh Enterprises. The whole of his estate is operated out of our office, and the balance between criminal and corporate law, which used to exist, is way out of whack. I haven’t been in a courtroom for six months. That’s a long time, Mr. C. I love trial work and I’m good at it. But the firm’s interest in that end of the business has been distracted.” The waiter dropped two hot, wet washcloths in front of us. I scalded myself in two places before catching on to the operation. Bosco handled his cloth better, but he wasn’t looking well.

“I’m still not thinking straight, Mr. C. Give me a break, please? I can’t talk any more. I touched the hall light switch. I must have left a print. Since that night I’ve been jumping every time the phone rings. I have heard the voices of the cops asking if I could come downtown to clear up a few things.”

“Just one more minute, Mr. Bosco: how did you leave the house? The body and the shells were in the hall. Was the door open?”

“I think it was closed. Yes, it was closed. But when I left, I know that I left it open. I had an instinct to go back and close it, but I couldn’t make myself. I fled. That’s the only word for it.” He looked at me with his eyes watering, searching my face for the answers to questions I hadn’t the skill to ask. They were washed-out blue eyes now, like the colour of a chalk drawing on a rainy sidewalk.

Most of the vegetables and meat had grown cold over half an hour ago. Neither of us had eaten much. The tea was cold. Bosco paid the bill and left, miming a parting word. I cracked open one of the two fortune cookies. It read: “Your problems will vanish if you have patience.” I never found out what Bosco’s said. He didn’t open it.

EIGHTEEN

After Bosco left, I sat with the green tea until it was bitter as well as cold. I couldn’t think of anything witty enough to write on the wall. I was asked if I wanted more tea. I did, but I thought a walk through Chinatown would be even better. There were some things on my mind that had been rattling around without my having time to see if any of them stuck together. The walk along Dundas Street to University Avenue wasn’t a long one, but just the right length to get my thoughts straighter than they’d been. I reminded myself of a visit from my Uncle Nathan from New York. He took one look at my father’s dress store and complained, “Manny, you’ve got inventory all over the place. You must be crazy overloading the shop like this. A man can’t live on inventory alone.” He was right. And an investigator can get facts so stuck in his head that he can’t read them any more.

There was a big grey truck backed up to the entrance of NTC’s main entrance. The back doors were open, and a wheeled ramp led from the truck-bed to the top step of the entrance. As I approached, I saw a security guard holding visitors back from the dismantled revolving door. Three men in grey shopcoats were running a pair of digital editing machines through the lobby in the direction of the truck. Another mover was holding a padded blanket to help ease the hardware through the tight squeeze of the glass doorway. I waited my turn. They looked like professionals. The man in charge, with a redoubtable beer belly, supervised the manoeuvres without putting his hands on metal. When the first two machines had been loaded, I saw that a second pair was waiting just inside the door, with a security guard keeping visitors well away from adding their fingerprints to the shiny blue-grey metal surfaces. How did I know that they were digital editing machines? To be honest, right then, I didn’t. They could have been egg hatchers or baby incubators as far as I was concerned. The only thing I thought about them then was the fact that I was coming and they were going. I was between a dismantled revolving door and a hard place to get into.

A couple of familiar technicians I recognized from the pub around the corner were watching the loading procedure. They looked at one another, wearing curious, lighthearted, knowing expressions. It took me a while to learn how to read them. When I looked for them a few moments later, they were gone. The usual crowd of smokers hovered in a group, like exiles, just beyond the door.

“How long is the door going to be blocked?”

“You can get through in five minutes,” one security guard said, sizing me up. “Or you can go around to the side door or you could come back later. They’ll be through here in ten minutes at the outside.” I was about to follow the latter advice when I saw an opening between the first two pieces, and grabbed it. I could feel the weight of the machine pressing against me as I sucked in my breath and forced my way between the quilting and the doorway.

Once inside, I found myself in the midst of another break in the routine. A bandstand had been assembled in front of a huge map of Canada cut into a massive screen of illuminated glass, and a jazz band was playing its heart out while NTC regulars went about their business without giving them more than a shrug of notice. The lobby hadn’t been designed to encourage music, and the glass entranceway and marble interior offended it with a hostile bounce, repelling the Dixieland riffs as though they were an embarrassment. Whoever organized this noon-hour concert had forgotten the plugged doorway. The boys in the band were playing for the converted. There were no strangers within the gates. The musicians paid that no mind; they were in a groove and enjoying themselves. The lead guitar was pushing a modern version of an old prison work song:

It’s a long John,

He’s a long gone,

Like a turkey through the corn

Through the long corn.

The few trapped visitors or regulars who noticed were impressed. In a corner were huddled the forms of a few more unreformed smokers, taking advantage of the circumstances to steal a few puffs in the lobby, buttressed by one another against the momentarily divided attention of the guards. I paused to listen for a minute or more, waiting for the courage to run the gauntlet of Security. The other guitarist and the bass now joined in the chorus:

Mister John, John,

Old Big-eye John,

Oh John, John

It’s a long John.

You could hear the work-song origins pulsating through the lines. You could hear axe blades or railroad hammers striking with a rattle of prison chains as they finished up their take on this old jazz classic.

“Ruth Pierson! Hey, baby, what are you doing here?” It was one of the musicians. He was addressing an attractively turned-out woman, who looked as though she was enjoying the music.

“Hi, Josh! They won’t let me out of here. I’m trapped until they clear the doorway.” Ruth went over to the bandstand and began talking to the drummer in a quieter voice.

I wandered through the lobby watching the people. Are there types who frequent TV network offices? Are there shy geniuses with bright ideas? Hucksters looking for a sucker? I wandered and eavesdropped. Two attractive young women with the glitter of metal in their ears and noses were talking about a party. “… It was billed as this terrific
event
. But there weren’t any
real
movie stars there. Not even
real actors.”

“Apart from the drinks, it was hardly—”

“Oh, there
was
that female midget from
Total Recall
. She was there, but she’s not anybody.”

“She did some guest spots on
Seinfeld
. She was on a few times.”

“We thought that they’d have people from the
movie
or some production people or at least those robots …” I left them with their disenchantment and disappointment.

Security this afternoon was a bored face with rimless glasses. She examined my pass, made me sign in and instructed me to go directly to my assigned floor without stopping to gossip in the halls. When she caught my expression, which I’m afraid echoed my heart, she turned on me with a stony look. “Commander Dunkery knows about you, Mr. Cooperman. I’d be on my best behaviour if I were you.”

“Who’s your Mr. Dunkery?”

“What? You don’t know
Commander
Dunkery? That is a surprise. I suspect you’re having me on.”

“I suppose I can look it up. If I remember.”

“You should get your picture on that pass, you know. It’s as good as my job if I let you through here after a week. You see to it, now.”

I found the burgundy elevator and let NTC in all its corporate ugliness settle down around me again.

Sally put down some complicated-looking schedules she was working on. Television requires a lot of work to keep it as bad as it is. Armies of talented people work their hearts out about whether to broadcast a series about a Martian who has imprinted on a gas pump earlier or later in prime time than a series about a straight guy pretending that he is gay in order to continue living with four scrumptious college girls. I’d seen them all, adults, every one of them, get depressed because a series had slipped from sixth to seventh place in the ratings game. And what was the series about? A show about an analyst who’s trying not to fall in love with two of her patients and who’s allergic to a third.

“Benny!
She’s
been asking for you.”

“You mean, she’s
back?”

“She just called from the airport.”

“Good. I thought she was yelling for me here.” That gave me a little time.

I must have looked fretful or indecisive, because soon Sally asked, “Where are you going now?”

“How did you know I was going anywhere?”

“You get this
look
when you’ve been in one place too long.”

“But I just got here!”

“Doesn’t matter. Gordon used to get it. It’s a
man
thing, maybe.”

“I’ll try to watch out for it. I was thinking of going over to News, to bother Ken Trebitsch for a change.”

“Watch your back.”

* * *

The News Department fairly vibrated with activity. There was a sense of purpose in the air as three dozen people moved like a human tangle of multicoloured wires about their business in the large newsroom from computer monitor to chalkboard, from chalkboard to duty desk and from duty desk back to monitor. There were enough clocks on the wall to tell you the time anywhere on the globe: Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Rome, Moscow, Beijing, Washington. There was something self-important and comic about the bustle and the serious faces that managed to avoid eye contact as I came through the door. Trebitsch, in shirtsleeves, was leaning over a huddle of backs at one computer monitor. Obviously, he was a manager who stayed close to the action, not a dull administrator. “We haven’t got a story if we can’t get film on it.”