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Authors: Eric Wight

BOOK: The Last Hand
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here to start? Question: why did Lucas's visit Harry Cane in prison? Because the reason given so far, to reaffirm Cane's silence when he got out, did not account for the fact that the meeting seemed to be a sudden decision. Perhaps, if Cane's silence was so important, then Cane was taking the opportunity to get Lucas to
pay
for the silence. No. Salter had not known Lucas, but his impression from others was that he would not have submitted to even a hint of implied blackmail. To have been swindled would make one look foolish, but to have agreed to blackmail to prevent one's foolishness from being made public would make one look worse, if discovered.
So if Lucas had spoken to Cane, it would have been by way of warning him, and, to be fair to Lucas, perhaps he did actually offer Cane a helping hand once he was released. But he still had six months during which to visit Cane. Why choose a time when he had such a full schedule already? Why cancel a fishing trip?
The first question was still the most interesting. What was Lucas doing on the Fraud Squad list in the first place? Salter felt that he had uncovered Lucas's other secret life, and wondered how many more there might be. Thus far, beneath Lucas's armor of integrity he had found a man who spent his Friday nights dallying with hookers, apparently (although Salter still hung onto his own idea about
that
scene). And now (more serious, surely, to some of his clients who would not give a damn about Lucas's sex life), it seemed he was also
a gambler who had sometimes, dangerously, moved beyond poker into risking real money-perhaps some of which was under his trust, on a scheme proposed by Harry Cane. It seemed inconceivable, but such things happened every week.
Now all kinds of possibilities appeared, all the “what if?” scenarios. The chief one, of course, was the possibility that some client whose money Lucas had misappropriated had come looking for an explanation that Friday night. This was crazy, and to dismiss it Salter presented himself to Derek Fury who, he remembered, now had charge of Lucas's affairs, as well as those of Flora.
 
 
Fury's reaction finally justified his name. After a dozen words, Salter felt as if he were facing a a tiny, lethal animal who had the capacity, and will, to tear Salter apart.
“The suggestion you are making is absurd, but it is more than that; it strikes at the heart of Jerry's character and reputation, and if allowed an airing will do at least some of the vile damage that rumors always do. I don't know what the explanation will be, but I am sure what it will
not
be, so I suggest you start making inquiries elsewhere.”
This was a warning, uttered without any movement of the hands or the head, or even much noise, but it was full of intent.
Salter gave himself time to make his response just as firm and clear. “You believe in Mr. Lucas's …” he stopped for the word that he needed.
“Honor.” The word came like a single shot from a pistol.
Salter nodded, nearly bowed. “Honor. But belief is a luxury that cops aren't allowed, sir. Belief is something you need when you don't know. I plan to find out. Then I won't need belief, and I suspect your own will be justified.”
There, he thought. Philosophy 201 (incomplete) to the rescue. True, too.
It was also effective. Fury sat with teeth clenched for a long time, then glanced at his hands and up into Salter's face. “I intend to satisfy you. Today is Friday. I shall consult with a company of forensic accountants, ask them to examine Jerry's affairs as quickly as they
can. It shouldn't take long. They've already glanced at them. Will a couple of days matter?”
“I ought to be be cross-checking in the meantime.”
“In what way?”
“I came to ask you, among other things, to give me a list of those people for whom Lucas held money in trust.”
“You plan to visit them?”
“As a matter of routine. Sir, someone killed your friend.”
“A prostitute.”
“No, sir.” Shit, it was out.
Fury continued to sit still, but his face lost some color as the anger receded. “What happened to the prostitute?”
Salter tried to recover. “We are continuing a twenty-four-hour search for her, because, on the face of it, she is our most likely suspect and I'm obliged to follow the obvious line until it runs out, as I just said. I don't believe she is the one we are looking for, but the evidence says she is and I have to follow the evidence. What's most suspicious about her is that she has disappeared.”
“I should have thought she was bound to, knowing you would be looking for her. But get back to the point, why don't you think she is the killer, and who do you think is?”
“I don't have an answer to your second question, but as to the first … Look, talking to you like this would finish me if it were known, but I need your help, I think. I need to know the list of clients in the same way that I need to find the prostitute, to cross them off the list of those I am investigating.”
“What you need to know is if Jerry misused his clients' funds …”
“And if any of them knew it.”
“First things first. I'll know the answer to the first question when the accountants finish with his books. I will ask them to work through the night until they find it. If the answer turns out to be, as I know it will, that everything is in order, then you won't need to know who his clients were, will you?”
“Apparently not, at this stage, but I don't know what's under the next rock.”
“When you find something, you can come back. But this prostitute?
May I know why you no longer feel she is the one you want?”
“I'm counting on your discretion, sir.”
“I know you are, but you have to trust somebody, don't you? The prostitute?”
“From the beginning, even before I had the case, there was something not quite right about her. My strongest impression of your friend, apart from his continually testamented probity, is of his need for privacy. Now a man like that, living at such a respectable address, is he likely to have dealings, publicly, with a hooker? I know she was wearing a slicker over the major items, but the hair and the boots were on display for all to see. I don't believe it.”
“But she was buzzed up, or whatever the term is, at the apartment building, wasn't she, by name?”
“That means he knew her, and was expecting her. So who was she? On an investigation I was on a few years ago, sir, an actor dressed up as an Italian gangster in order to to kill someone, and I got nowhere until I picked up a clue that he
was
dressed up. So I wondered if the same was true in this case. Was this, in fact, someone who was dressed up as a whore in order to create the story that Lucas was killed by a hooker he had arranged to come to his suite? But in fact, perhaps this woman was nothing of the kind. A whore, I mean. Then who was she? A disappointed lover? What else could she be? People keep saying maybe she was a practical joke, a gag, someone hired by Lucas's pals to ruin his reputation. Possible, but how did she get past the door? Still, presumably, by using the name of someone Lucas knew. And then … but see what I mean, sir? So I'm coming at it in another way. Just possibly, someone who wanted to kill Lucas had hired the prostitute, explaining to her what to say when she heard the buzzer, conning her into believing it was just a gag. But then, the real killer comes along and kills Lucas, leaving us all looking for Pussy-in-Boots. There is some evidence that supports this.” Salter ended. “Evidence which has given us a whole new, urgent reason to find the hooker, if she exists.”
Fury had changed while Salter spoke. He had not moved, but he no longer looked like an executioner. “I appreciate your confidence, Inspector, and I'll respect it. But I would still prefer to learn from the
accountants if there is anything to worry about in the file first. Surely there is time for that.”
“I hope so.” Salter stood up, ready to leave.
Fury added, “And by the way, I don't think you can use ‘testament' as a verb.”
“No? Thank you. I'll be careful.”
 
 
“The thing to do is to put in one of those drop ceilings—you know, those sheets of foam plastic you drop inside metal frames. I helped Joan Binder's da put one up a couple of years ago.”
“Who is Joan Binder, Seth?” Tatti asked from across the basement where she was trying to scrape off seventy-five-year-old paint which was sealing the frame of the one small window that might let in some natural light.
“The one before you,” Seth said.
“The one we met the other day, with the thick ankles?”
Seth walked over to her. “This is not a very economical use of time,” he said. “You know that? When you get it unstuck you are going to have to clean it and repaint it and oil the hinges—all for what?”
“So that I can lie in bed when I am dying of consumption and watch the shadows of the night creep into the room past my one tiny window, and on my last morning I will feel a breeze of fresh air as I watch the sparrow who always comes to eat the breadcrumbs you put on the—whatdoyoucallit—windowsill.”
“Ah, fuck,” Seth said, coming up behind her and putting his arms round her, burying his face in her neck and feeling for her breasts.
“I'm still here,” Salter said from the top of the stairs where he was sitting drinking a beer. “You won't …”
“Don't say it!” Seth yelled.
“What? Don't say what?”
“Don't say ‘You won't get any work done like that.' No, but it helps to pass the time. Mom called, by the way. I forgot to tell you. She sounded concerned. Wanted you to call her back.”
“What are you doing about dinner? Pizza?”
“Tatti wants to make dinner.”
“What do you have in mind, Tatti?” Salter, in the fatness of his pleasure at watching these children play, risked a bit of ethnic stereotyping. “Pea soup? Tortière? Poutine? No, not poutine.”
“I thought I would make a big cheese omelette and salad and bread. Is that all right? I could make porridge or boil you some sausages, if you would prefer.”
“An omelette would be fine. When?”
“Half an hour.”
“I'll be there.”
Salter finished his beer and turned to climb back up to the kitchen to phone his wife.
She was waiting for his call, and sounded anxious. He eased off his shoes as he reassured her about Seth and Tatti, and asked her how far he should go in lending Seth furniture. “Some of it is his, sort of, from when he lived here,” he pointed out.
“Lend him what he wants. I'll sort it out when I get home.”
“When will that be? It's nice having Seth and Tatti in the basement, but I'm getting lonely above ground.”
“Early next week, I think. Now, Charlie, listen.”
“Yes, Annie. That's what I'm doing. What ‘listen' really means is, ‘You won't like this.' Right?”
“Let me tell you what's happening. The main thing is that I can't get the problem of Angus's baby sorted out. No one here wants to give her a home.”
“I thought we'd agreed on that. Angus will have to hire a nanny. Don't they have Filipino nannies on the Island? This street's full of them.”
“There's been a bit of a complication with that. Angus is not getting along with his uncles. They're treating him too young for his age. Maybe people grow up more slowly here, but his uncles are at him all day, mostly without realizing it. Constantly making sure he isn't doing something stupid, like driving to Charlottetown without any gas. I mention that because yesterday he
did
run out of gas on the way to Charlottetown, and one of the neighbors rescued him on the highway and took him to a gas station. By the time he came home his uncles already
had the story from the neighbor. They kidded him, and he lost his temper.”
“He doesn't have to stay. It was their idea to offer him a job. It was his idea to take it.”
“I've said that to him.”
“So tell him to come home. You, too. Bring the baby. All of you, come home. I'll retire and we can all babysit while Angus makes a potful of money on Bay Street.”
And then, by the thread in her voice Salter guessed how much running back and forth, literally and metaphorically, Annie had done to keep her family relationships intact. “You mean it, Charlie? Not about retiring, silly, but bringing Angus and the baby home?”
“I'd come and get you but I'm in the middle of an investigation.”
“You think you'll be all right with the baby?”
“Christ, what am I? Billy-Goat Fucking Gruff? We had babies of our own once, remember? Did I eat any of them?”

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