Blood Count, page 18
“Waxer?” The bartender’s respect for me may have zipped up a couple of levels. “He expecting you?”
“He’ll be intrigued to see me.”
“That’s Waxer in the card game in the corner.”
I turned in the direction the bartender was pointing. Five men were in the game. All wore short hair, moustaches, and the black gear. But I recognized Hubert Wax. He looked marginally more threatening than anyone else in the room. He was the biggest of the quintet in the card game and he showed a tattoo on his right bicep.
“Vodka on the rocks,” I said to the bartender.
“We only serve two drinks: beer and cognac.”
“That’s novel,” I said. “Okay, cognac.”
The bartender served the cognac in a shot glass filled to the three-ounce level. It cost ten dollars. I paid and wandered over to Hubert Wax’s card game.
The five guys were playing poker. Wax shuffled the cards for a new hand. I stood behind an empty chair opposite Wax. The tattoo on his bicep seemed to be of an erect penis. Wax looked up from the cards. His eyes passed over me and came back. He stopped shuffling.
“Jesus,” he said. His face broke into a smirk.
The four other guys at the table glanced up at me, mildly interested.
“Hubert Wax, correct?” I said to Wax. “We haven’t been formally introduced. Mind if I take a seat? Crang’s the name. Don’t let me hold up your deal.”
I sat down.
“Crang the troublemaker,” Wax said, still smirking. He had tiny front teeth. “The reformed troublemaker.”
“Trouble wasn’t what I’d intended,” I said.
“You’re out of the picture, fella,” Wax said.
The four other guys swung their heads from Wax to me. They were getting more interested.
“David Rowbottom says I’m out of the picture?” I said. I put my shot glass of cognac on the table. “Look, Hubert or Waxer, Wax, whichever you prefer, let me lay my cards on the table.”
I grinned at the four guys.
“Little joke there,” I said. “Cards? On the table? Poker game?”
The four didn’t grin back.
I shrugged. “I’ll be blunt,” I said to Wax, “and invite you to be blunt in return. It’s the only way to get through this in a hurry.”
“Some guy named Shumacher killed your pal,” Wax said. “That’s what I hear.”
“There’s another school of thought,” I said. “This school … rumour is probably more like it, word on the street, it says that you, Waxer, may have some light to shed on Alex’s death. First-hand knowledge, as it were.”
Wax’s smirk vanished. “Are you out of your mind?” he said to me.
“As I say, only a rumour I’m running down.”
“Coming in here, and laying this crap on me.”
“When I say word on the street, I’m referring to one source only.”
“This is my turf, you stunned prick.” Wax’s upper body tightened in his chair.
“Territorial imperative, sure, I appreciate that, but I’m offering you the chance to counter this source. When did you last see Alex Corcoran? Let’s go at it that way.”
Wax pushed himself back from the table. “You’re looking to get your head cracked open, know that?”
The fascination quotient among the other four guys at the table had stepped up several notches. One of them, the guy in the chair next to mine, a smoker, let the ash on his cigarette burn down to his fingers. He shook them and stubbed out the cigarette.
“Here’s an even simpler question, Waxer,” I said. “Where were you a week ago last night?”
“I don’t believe this.” Wax looked like he was getting ready to stand up. “You accusing me of murder?”
“Not accusing. Inquiring.”
“Get this, dick face, I never in my life laid eyes on this Alex Corcoran.”
“What about your reputation?”
“What reputation?” Waxer was on his feet.
“For polishing guys.” I stood up, too. “Polishing them off, I believe I was told.”
“With my fists, you dumb dick.”
“Waxer’s got a wonderful right hand,” the guy next to me, the smoker, said.
“Crang, you’re either the stupidest guy I’ve ever ran into,” Wax said, “or the most offensive.”
“Oh, hey,” I said. “Kettle calling the pot black. You wearing a tattoo like that, you’re telling me I’m offensive?”
“That does it.”
Wax stretched all the way across the table, grabbed my sweater with his left hand and smacked me across the cheek and temple with his open right hand.
I yanked my sweater out of Wax’s grip and fell back into my chair. Wax got tangled in his own chair. I picked up the book of matches the smoker had been using. Wax straightened on the other side of the table. I lit a match. Wax started around the table. I touched the match to the cognac. Flames spurted out of the glass. Wax stopped in his tracks. I tipped the glass at its base, and a narrow line of fire ran across the table. All eyes were on it. I vamoosed out the door.
On the street, I turned right and went pell-mell to the first crossroad. The left side of my face felt numb. I turned the corner and stopped. The smoker hadn’t been kidding about Hubert Wax’s right hand. Even with just an open palm, it was wonderful.
I looked back down the narrow street. The door to Tight Buns stayed shut. I gave it five minutes. No one stuck a head out the door.
One error I’d made leaving the bar, I realized, was the right turn. The Volks was parked on a street to the left, on the opposite side of Tight Buns from where I was now standing and experiencing facial hot flashes. To reach the car, I could take a long route down the street I was on, around the block, and double back. Or I could go the short way, straight past Tight Buns. I opted for the direct line.
The door to the bar opened when I was within ten paces of it. Two guys emerged.
“There he is,” one of them hollered.
I went into reverse in a hurry. The noises from the rear suggested a stampede of guys was pouring out of the bar and into the street.
I hotfooted it around the corner, up one street, juked down an alley, and pointed myself east, the direction I figured would put the most distance between me and the posse from Tight Buns.
Somewhere, reasonably far enough back, assorted shouts and the gunning of motorcycles broke the general calm. I slowed and made a three-hundred-sixty-degree surveillance of the area. No one was hot on my trail. On the other hand, guys riding bikes could overhaul me in swift order. What I needed was a secure hiding place, a safe spot to wait out the search parties.
I found it in an alley across the street. A metal fire escape ran down the side of a four-storey building. I hoped it wouldn’t occur to my pursuers to check above ground. The fire escape ended about seven feet up from the dirt of the alley. The first time I jumped for it, I banged the back of my hands on the bottom rung. The second time, my fingers grabbed metal, and I hauled myself up. I clambered to the second level and sat down.
A couple of minutes later, two guys on foot stopped at the mouth of the alley.
“We couldn’t have missed him,” one guy said. I recognized the voice of the smoker at Hubert Wax’s table.
“Listen, Allan,” the second guy said, “what are we doing out here?”
“What are you talking about? We’re supposed to, you know, put the boots to that man.”
“Oh, really. What is he, a pyromaniac or something?”
“He insulted Waxer.”
“Hubert Wax, God,” the second guy said. “Whenever there’s an upset at the club, why is it always Hubert Wax?”
“Well, he likes to, you know, kick ass.”
“Allan, look at me,” the second guy said. “What are we, the two of us? Think about it, we’re two queens from Scarborough who like to drive our motorcycles out into the country and have a picnic. Am I right? We do not, ever, kick ass.”
“I guess so.”
“You know so,” the second guy said. “Then what are we doing out here in the middle of the night on some lunatic mission for Hubert Wax, whom I can’t abide, anyway?”
“When you put it that way …”
“Allan, both of us have to work in the morning,” the second guy said. “Let’s walk back to the club, drink one more beer, and go home.”
The two guys turned away from the alley.
“Perhaps we should split the one beer,” the second guy said.
I waited another quarter hour. Now and then, the backfire of a bike’s motor erupted in the empty streets. But soon enough the quiet returned. If there were searchers in the neighbourhood, they were on little cat feet.
I dropped from my perch and landed on the ground flat-footed. It was all clear in every direction. I picked my way through the streets, sticking to the shadows. I was also limping. The balls of my feet felt tender from the flat landing in the alley.
I reached the Volks.
Hubert the Waxer Wax was leaning against the front fender.
“Hey, Hubert, just the guy,” I said. “Where had we got in our little discussion?”
The Waxer pushed off the fender and let fly a sweeping roundhouse right at my head. I ducked and raised both arms. Wax’s fist hit muscle somewhere close to my left elbow.
“Is dialogue out of the question, Waxer?” I said. The feeling had fled from the lower half of my arm.
Wax shot a left hook. It caught me on the skull. My vision took on a red tinge. Wax pulled back his right hand to shoulder level. He drove it into my chest. I staggered backward and plunked down on a line of garbage pails against the brick wall of a building.
“Get up,” Wax said, an order.
I got up and brought a garbage pail lid with me. Wax cranked up another straight-ahead right. It was on course for my chin. I stuck the garbage pail lid into its path. Wax’s clenched fist plowed into the centre of the lid.
For a fraction of a second, I read surprise in Wax’s wide open eyes. Then he screamed.
“I’d get that hand looked at, Waxer,” I said.
Wax bent way over, his hand clenched to his chest, his feet dancing a little cha-cha-cha of pain.
I stepped around him and walked to the car. My progress was none too steady. I drove to the light at Eastern Avenue and Parliament. My eyes were going through bizarre changes. I couldn’t distinguish red from green. A car behind me honked. The light must have been green. I drove through the intersection and kept to a slow and stately pace all the way home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
My eyelids hurt.
So I didn’t open my eyes.
I knew it was morning because I could hear the rush of cars picking up on Beverley Street. But looking at the day was a prospect I could do without. Every region and tributary of my body was undergoing its own personal ache — every bone, muscle, tissue, fibre, cell, nail, and hair.
I reached my hand for the phone on the table beside my bed. My eyes stayed closed. I found the phone, fumbled, lost my grip. The phone bounced off the floor. The clatter sent new spasms of pain careening to my brain, which announced the onslaught of fresh suffering to the rest of the body.
I tried again for the phone, got it, and dialed Annie. The dialing required open eyes. My pupils hurt, too. I asked Annie what time it was.
“Eight twenty-two exactly,” she said.
“What day?”
“Friday,” Annie answered. “Was it that bad at Hard Buttocks?”
“Tight Buns,” I said. “It was worse than bad.”
I described my injuries, and Annie said to soak in a hot bath and she’d come over later to play nurse.
The floor wavered when I stood, and I needed assistance from walls, furniture, and other objects I leaned on getting to the bathroom. The splash of water filling the bathtub rattled the interior of my head. But when I climbed into the tub, the heat dulled some of the body’s soreness. I submerged to chin level, and for maybe forty-five minutes, I let my mind drift to memories of when I felt whole.
In the mirror, I inspected myself. A bruise just coming to purple above my left elbow. Raw patches on the backs of both hands. A small swelling where the outside of my right thigh climbed toward the hip. And the soles of my feet stung, but there was nothing down there except calluses, scales, and the normal ugly stuff.
I tottered back to bed and lay on my stomach listening to the radio. On Morningside, the weekly medical panel came on, and the program’s host introduced the topic for this morning’s deep thinking: AIDS.
“Oh, jeez.”
I turned off the radio, dozed, and at noon Annie arrived with a container of chicken soup.
“Homemade,” she said.
“Whose home?”
“Nice Polish lady runs a takeout shop around the corner from me.”
Annie poured the soup into a bowl and served it to me in bed.
“The bikers did this to you?” she asked. “Laid you low?”
“Not exactly.”
“Bikers, the way I hear it, gay or straight, they don’t trifle with strangers on their turf.”
“Not exactly that, either,” I said. “Most of the Tight Buns crowd, probably all of them except Hubert Wax, seem to be in it mainly for the image. Wear the leather, go vroom-vroom on the bikes, fundamentally harmless stuff. On the violence end, I don’t see them mixing it up over anything except maybe the poker table.”
“Sounds like a bowling league or something.”
“About on that level.”
“Except for Hubert Wax?”
I took in some more soup and wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. “Yeah, well, there has to be a bully in every group, I suppose. In this case, it’s the Waxer, and I got to say he packs a wallop.”
“So I noticed, you poor thing.”
“Waxer may be the genuine article. A real biker type, I mean, sold on the macho thing.”
“The rest of the Tight Buns guys ought to pool resources. Toss Hubert out of the club.”
“The timing’d be right,” I said. “Waxer’s flying on one wing at the moment.”
Annie carried my soup bowl to the kitchen and brought back a refill.
“On the subject of Hubert Wax,” she said, “how do you size him up in the murder sweepstakes?”
“He denies everything. Says he never met Alex.”
“What did you expect from the man? A confession?”
“Wax could have killed Alex. I mean in the sense that he’s probably capable of killing a person. On the other hand, I didn’t get the impression that Wax is as scary a guy as Birks Robinson seems to think.”
“You sound like someone who’s waffling.”
“Might have something to do with my physical state.”
“Try it from another angle,” Annie said. “What motivation would Wax have for murdering Alex?”
“He’s pals with David Rowbottom.…”
“More than pals.”
“Okay, Rowbottom’s lover. He could have killed Alex to protect Rowbottom from something. Protect him from Alex who decided Rowbottom was the one who infected Ian and, ah …”
“That’s not bad,” Annie said, “that theory.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But all returns aren’t in yet.”
Annie stroked my forehead.
“Get more rest, honey,” she said.
Annie left, and I slept off and on until she came back at six thirty. She was carrying a bulky package under each arm. I could identify one package as Chinese food by the smells it gave off. The second package was a large plain white envelope.
“You owe me five dollars and forty cents,” Annie said. She tossed the white package on my bed. “The cabbie was in the act of delivering this. I paid him.”
I slit open the envelope, and stacks of photocopies and computer printouts spilled around me.
“Hey, action stations,” I said. “This is the stuff on Paulie Ross, the stuff Tom Catalano assigned his student to round up.”
“Fast service,” Annie said. “Where’s the five forty?”
“On the dresser.”
Annie collected her money and took the Chinese food to the kitchen. I got out of bed, going at it with much regard for my delicate condition. The material about Paulie Ross could wait until my brain started ticking over. I put on the maroon dressing gown Annie had given me one Christmas and shuffled into the living room.
“You want wine with this?” Annie called from the kitchen. “Or shall I brew some tea?”
“Tea.”
“That confirms it,” Annie said. “You’re definitely under the weather.”
I turned on the CD player and slid in a set of tunes written by Billy Strayhorn. Duke Ellington sidemen played on all the tracks. The first tune was “Intimacy of the Blues.”
Annie carried food and implements from kitchen to living room in relays, containers of moo shu pork, Kung Pao chicken, bean curd, rice soup, tea, plates, cups, and napkins.
“That’s lovely,” she said, “the music.”
“The tune on right now is ‘Lotus Blossom.’”
“I sort of recognized it,” Annie said. “All the songs are so romantic and gentle and sweet.”
“That was the nickname of the guy who wrote them, Swee’ Pea.”
“What was the rest of his name?”
“Billy Strayhorn,” I said. “He was gay.”
“No kidding. A gay jazz person.”
“Takes all kinds,” I said, “as someone was remarking recently.”
“Malcolm the bartender.”
“Yeah.”
We ate the food, listened to the CD, and by eight thirty, Annie was on her way home and I was back in bed.
Next morning, feeling about eighty percent human, up from Friday’s fifty percent, I spread the thick wad of documentation on Paulie Ross across the kitchen table and began the process of making sense out of it. It turned out to be not a particularly taxing chore. By the time Annie arrived at noon, I had the papers organized into one tidy pile.
