Blood Count, page 20
“He’s supposed to have one of those,” I said. “He’s a fiction writer.”
“And he’s prepared to think the worst of Hubert.”
“Yeah, I know, ever since you ditched him in favour of Wax.”
Rowbottom gave me another of his death-ray looks.
“If it means anything to you,” I said, “I don’t share Birks’s view that Wax killed Alex.”
“Of course he didn’t. This person Shumacher is under investigation for the crime.”
“Grant me some credit, Rowbottom. Did you expect I’d fall for the charade in Paulie Ross’s warehouse?”
Rowbottom gave the impression he was thinking very carefully about the wording of his next remark. “Crang, you’re a fool if you don’t accept the evidence against Shumacher.”
“A fool? Is that the best you can come up with?”
“It’s your opportunity to walk away from these events and leave well enough alone.”
“I’ll take a walk when I know who Alex’s murderer is.”
Rowbottom smacked a fist on the arm of his chair. “Goddamn it, Crang, haven’t you the sense to see the position you’re in?”
“Rowbottom,” I said, “you’re a hotshot cabinet minister. You have a ministry full of people working for you, and you dish out money in impressive bundles. That makes you an important guy. But at the moment, you’re not coming close to scaring the living daylights out of me because I know something about you almost nobody else knows.”
“That I’m gay? Don’t be absurd. Everyone knows and no one cares.”
“I know that you’re setting up Paulie Ross to make a big money score in the garbage trade.”
The combination of Ross’s name and the word garbage gave Rowbottom a small jolt. He sat back in his chair, and some of the dazzle went out of his baby blues.
“What garbage?” he said.
“The garbage that’s going to get dumped into the six thousand and thirty-three acres of land Paulie Ross owns in your riding.”
Rowbottom cleared his throat. “There are no laws against an entrepreneur like Mr. Ross accumulating property.”
“I’m talking something tougher to get around than laws,” I said. “Ethics. Sometime very soon, whenever you and your cabinet buddies talk about the problems the folks down east are having with their garbage disposal, you’re going to twist a few arms, whisper in some ears, smooth talk your colleagues into seeing their way clear to settling on your man Paulie Ross’s vacant acreage for the new dump. No laws broken, you’re right. Just some ethics in tatters.”
“Where do you get off —”
“The way I read it, Rowbottom,” I said. I had built up a good head of steam. “I’m positive you’ve already cut corners on Paulie’s behalf. Those six thousand acres of his were zoned farmland when he bought them. That’s what it shows on the title search, agricultural use. After Paulie scooped up the land, eight or nine different farms, the zoning changed like magic to commercial. Any commercial use, not excluding the dumping of garbage. And it wouldn’t surprise me a whit if the moving force behind the switch in zoning was the local member of the provincial legislature. Maybe not illegal, Rowbottom, but your hands don’t look spotless.”
“Crang …”
Rowbottom stopped. There was a door in the left wall of the office. It opened, and a man stepped into the room. Paulie Ross.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I said, “How’s it going, Paulie?”
“Fairly rotten,” he said, “but it’s gonna get worse for you, asshole.”
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Rowbottom said to Ross. “Not with Crang in the room.”
“Shut up,” Ross said to Rowbottom, no rancour in his voice.
Ross had on a double-breasted charcoal-grey suit and a tie with a lot of white in it. He sat on a sofa under the Harold Town and crossed his legs.
“I shoulda done what I thoughta doing when you first stuck your nose in my business,” Ross said to me.
“Which was?”
“Have you clipped.”
“Oh.”
“I still might.”
“Paulie,” Rowbottom said, “please don’t use that street talk in front of me.”
Ross looked slowly over at Rowbottom and back to me. He jerked a thumb in Rowbottom’s direction and said, “It was him that thought up the meeting at my warehouse.”
“And I didn’t buy it,” I said.
“More’s the pity for you,” Rowbottom said. He sounded weary.
I spoke to Rowbottom. “You knew it was a choice between me accepting Shumacher as the murderer and going quietly away or leaving it up to Paulie to deal with me in his inimitable style?”
“I should have known you were beyond understanding a compromise.”
“Nice try, Mr. Minister,” I said, “and thanks. But, deep down, Shumacher murder someone? Give me a break.”
“Christ, Crang, you’re a pain in the ass,” Ross said.
“I’ve heard that refrain before,” I said.
“Right now, my opinion is that I should kill you,” Ross said. He might have been talking about having a mangy dog put down.
“Paulie,” I said, “the garbage scam is what’s got you worried, and it’s something I don’t give a rat’s ass about.”
“For somebody who says that, you’ve made yourself very damned up-to-date on the deal I spent the last year working on.”
“If you were listening in from next door, you know I told your tame cabinet minister all I want is Alex’s killer,” I said. “The thing you have going with the dump, to me it’s only a tool to pry out of you clunks what you know about the murder. And I won’t quit, that’s a guarantee. I’ll keep on prying.”
“Not if you’re dead,” Ross said.
“You’re operating on a false premise, Paulie,” I said. “You think I’m the only guy who’s hip to your plan for the garbage? Come on, I couldn’t have put the details together by myself. A senior guy in a big law firm helped me on this. He knows I got myself pointed at you. His student knows. Half the firm probably knows. You intend to kill all of them?”
Ross recrossed his legs and didn’t say anything. Rowbottom sat behind his desk, very still. I sweated in my armpits and wondered how far my exaggerations would carry me.
“What’s the name of this big law firm?” Ross asked me.
“Mcintosh, Brown and Crabtree,” I answered.
Ross looked over at Rowbottom. Rowbottom nodded his head.
“The garbage dump is a fuckin’ gold mine,” Ross said to me.
“Paulie,” I said, “I couldn’t topple the financial universe you’ve constructed if I wanted to, the hotels and the parking places, the linen supply company. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to disturb you and your foray into garbage, either, but I think I could. At least I could make a godawful fuss.”
“Yeah, probably,” Ross said.
“But that’s not my purpose.”
“No shit.”
I switched to Rowbottom. “And I don’t want to blow the whistle on you.”
Rowbottom stirred himself enough to develop an indignant expression. “You’re beneath contempt, Crang,” he said. “I haven’t made any money out of the garbage dump, and I’ll never make a dime out of it in the future.”
“Not the dump,” I said. “I’m talking about your AIDS.”
Rowbottom ran a hand over his forehead. “Oh, dear God.”
“Birks Robinson let me in on that secret, too.”
“Then he must have told you I’m cured.”
“The clinic in Buffalo?” I said. “The point, Rowbottom, whether you had AIDS or still have it, it’s the club Paulie’s holding over your head, am I right?”
Rowbottom stared at me, not speaking, giving off waves of something compounded of fatigue and resignation.
“Maybe you’re cured, maybe not,” I said to him. “Either way, you’re tainted goods, and your fear is if Paulie spreads the word, the premier’ll set speed records kicking you out of the cabinet.”
“My party,” Rowbottom said slowly, “doesn’t have a reputation for turning on its own.”
“But it’s what you’re afraid of, your political career heading into the can. No more grant money to spread around, no more office with the art collection, no more power. It’s the reason you’re bending to Paulie’s blackmail.”
“Okay, Crang,” Ross said, “you’ve proved you’re a smart guy. Now what?”
“Jeez, don’t you guys listen?” I said. “All I’m looking for is Alex Corcoran’s murderer.”
“That’s it?”
I nodded.
“And you’ll quit gettin’ in my hair?”
“Cross my heart.”
Ross stood and straightened his suit jacket.
“Beat it, Crang,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
I waved a hand at Rowbottom. He stared straight ahead, dead-eyed, and I went out to the elevators. Downstairs in the lobby, Albert and Axe were standing beside one of the round columns. When they saw me, they moved purposefully in my direction.
“What a coincidence, guys,” I said. “I was just talking to your head honcho upstairs.”
The two stood on either side of me, not laying a hand on my person but leaving no doubt that I wasn’t going anywhere without their permission. Albert wore a guileless smile. Axe smouldered.
“Welcome back to the big leagues, Axe,” I said.
“I never left.” Axe’s voice was a rolling rumble.
“Just on temporary loan from Paulie to Bart?”
“Why don’t you save the bullshit until we know what we’re gonna do to you.”
“Joey B.’s on the phone over there,” Albert said politely.
Past Albert’s shoulder, I saw Joey B. standing at the information desk. He held a phone to his ear. He was listening and not smiling. The uniformed guy who manned the desk didn’t appear happy about having his telephone pre-empted, but he had the good sense not to challenge a guy with a face like Joey B.’s.
The phone conversation at the desk lasted another thirty seconds. Joey B. hung up and crossed the lobby.
“It’s your lucky morning, Crang,” he said to me.
Joey B. had on his deadpan expression and he was breathing through his mouth. He let a couple of long moments go by before he told me more about my lucky morning. My heart was thumping in a region close to my throat.
“Mr. Ross says to let you go,” Joey B. said.
Axe and Albert moved aside. I stepped smartly between them and walked toward the revolving doors. There might have been a shimmy in my stride.
“Hey, Crang,” Joey B. called.
I stopped and turned.
Joey B. had a small, crooked smile on his face.
“Mr. Ross says to let you go,” he said, “for now.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Coming up Beverley Street that night, about ten o’clock, after dinner at the Bamboo, Annie and I spotted the grey Lincoln at the same moment. It was parked, lights out, in front of my house.
“What should we do?” Annie asked me. “Run?”
“That’d be undignified.”
“Which is better, undignified and still breathing or dignified and maybe a notch in somebody’s weapon?”
“They wouldn’t try anything violent at my own place of residence.”
“Oh, yeah? What about Alex? He probably thought he was safe at home from whoever killed him.”
We were ten yards from the Lincoln. Its back door opened, and Paulie Ross stepped out. He had on the same suit and tie he’d been wearing in David Rowbottom’s office. He slammed the car door and waited for Annie and me to approach. Joey B. sat at the Lincoln’s wheel. No one else was in the car.
“We needa talk,” Ross said to me. “A coupla minutes is all.”
“That’s it? Just talk?”
Ross looked mildly surprised. “What else?”
“How about upstairs?”
“Sure.”
Ross glanced at Annie.
“She sits in on the talk,” I said. “She already knows everything I know.”
Ross shrugged.
The three of us went up to my apartment. I turned on the lamp on the pine table and the floor lamp beside the wing chair.
“A drink?” I asked Ross.
“Don’t use the stuff.”
“Mineral water? Coffee?”
“Coffee’s good.”
“I’ll make it,” Annie said.
“Black and strong if you don’t mind,” Ross said to her.
He sat on the wing chair and eyed me up and down.
“Your jacket don’t hang right,” he said.
I was wearing the last of the outfits Annie had picked. Its focal point was a one-button double-breasted dark-grey tweed jacket. The button met the buttonhole at my waist.
“This might be a trifle avant-garde for a man with conservative tastes,” I said, “such as yourself.”
“You want my opinion, it drapes on you like a blanket.”
I sat down on the sofa.
“Now that you bring it up,” I said, “my clothes haven’t been winning rave notices lately.”
Annie carried in a cup and saucer, steam rising out of the cup. She handed it to Ross and went back to the kitchen for two glasses of white wine. She sat beside me on the sofa.
Ross drank some coffee. His face, bent over the cup, was enveloped in the steam. He was quick about the drinking.
“Just how I like it,” he said to Annie.
“You’re welcome,” she said. Her voice sounded tentative.
“Okay, this is all business, you understand,” Ross said to me.
“What about the suggestion earlier today that I might be clipped?” I asked.
“That’s off.”
“I was taking it personally for a while there.”
“Listen to this, Crang,” Ross said. “If it’s smart business to kill a guy, the guy is killed. If it’s smarter business to deal with a guy, the deal is made. You following me?”
“I’m off the hit list and on to the deal list?”
“That’s what I’m tellin’ ya.”
Ross finished his coffee and put the cup and saucer on the side table next to the wing chair. He took a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and touched it to his lips.
“I gave Albert to the cops,” he said.
Annie and I looked at one another, she wrinkled her forehead, and we turned to Ross.
“I must’ve missed a step,” I said. “You’ve given Albert to the police? For what reason?”
“Him and the knife both,” Ross said. “Albert’s the one that killed the Corcoran guy.”
Annie sucked in her breath. I groped for a comment and couldn’t find it.
“That’s my part of the deal,” Ross went on. “Your part, you lay off Rowbottom. Nothing gets out concerning the arrangement I got with him on the dump or concerning him and AIDS. A deal?”
I raised my hand slowly. “Paulie, Paulie, I realize this isn’t a board meeting where Robert’s Rules apply, but could you take it from where we left off in Rowbottom’s office this morning?”
Ross spoke to Annie. “Any more of that coffee?”
Annie picked up the cup and saucer, filled the cup in the kitchen, and brought it to the living room. She didn’t say a word. Her concentration, if I could judge, was on not rattling the cup in the saucer.
This time, Ross sipped the coffee, a little at a time, looking at me over the rim of the cup as he sipped. I had the idea he was working at controlling his impatience.
“Since noon,” he said, “my lawyers been going round with the guys at the crown prosecutor’s office. Eight thirty tonight, they put it on paper. Albert pleads guilty to second degree, and the prosecutors tell the judge their recommendation is Albert only gets ten years. Like I said, we handed them the whole package: Albert, Albert’s statement, the knife he done it with. Albert’s out at West End Detention right now. He goes to court tomorrow. It’s all clean, all wrapped up, and everybody loves it, the cops, the prosecutors, me.”
“What about Albert?” I asked.
“Albert?” Ross seemed authentically puzzled. Then it passed. “Hell, Albert’s a young guy. He comes outta the slam, he knows he’s gonna be permanent with me. I owe him for life. Plus, I’m payin’ his mother three thousand a month all the time Albert’s gone, and she gets it bumped up seven and a half percent a year on account of inflation. Albert’s solid.”
Annie shifted on the sofa. “To a businessman like you, Mr. Ross,” she said, “this may be a technical detail, but did Albert actually kill Alex Corcoran?”
Ross studied Annie as if he was trying to decide whether she had insulted him. Annie met his gaze with one of her wide-eyed expressions.
“I’ll give it to you from the top,” Ross said, addressing Annie and me.
“You can omit the final parts,” Annie said, letting the acid creep into her tone, “the parts where our friend Alex dies.”
Ross didn’t blink. “Keep it straight in your heads,” he said, “we’re still talkin’ deal. On your side of it, the two of you, you don’t mess up nothin’ we got arranged with the prosecutors. What I tell you now’s confidential.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Ross checked with Annie.
“Agreed,” she said.
“The Corcoran guy phoned Rowbottom two weeks ago tonight,” Ross began. “This was long distance. Corcoran was away somewheres.”
“Key West.”
“And he said he was gonna kill Rowbottom.” Ross interrupted himself. “Corcoran really had a hair up his ass, wouldn’t ya say?” he asked me.
“He’d come unhinged,” I said. “Wanted to avenge his boyfriend’s death.”
“I’ll give the guy this, he shook up Rowbottom.”
