Blood Count, page 22
“Gone with the wind,” he said, “just like David Rowbottom.”
Annie switched to Citytv. Its Queen’s Park man was standing, mike in hand, in a wide hallway inside the legislative building. He had grey hair, looked about a half century older than Wayne Wickin, and radiated the air of a guy who’d inhabited many political back rooms.
“It’s significant,” the man said into the camera, “that while Rowbottom has given up his cabinet post, he’s hanging on to his seat in the legislature. In a conversation I had with Rowbottom an hour ago, he said he had no quarrel with his party or with his treatment at culture and communications. None of us in the press gallery ever thought he did. No, in my view, for the explanation behind this sudden resignation, we have to look to Mr. Rowbottom’s sexual orientation.…”
“Wow,” Annie said softly.
“… It’s little known outside these halls, but David Rowbottom is gay and my guess, for what it’s worth, is that he has decided to leave the cabinet and assess the reaction of the province’s voters, especially those in his own constituency, to his homosexuality. Rowbottom is out of the cabinet and possibly into the hot seat. Back to you in the studio, Peter.”
“Before you go, Avery.” Citytv’s anchor came on screen, a lanky guy with spectacles, in shirt sleeves, top button undone, tie hanging loose. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe I’ve come across anything about Mr. Rowbottom’s sexual preference in the Toronto media until this minute, Avery.”
“Peter, it’s a Citytv exclusive,” Avery intoned, “and we’ll have film at ten on this dramatic story.”
“Thanks, Avery.”
“Do they really say that?” I asked Annie. “‘Film at ten’?”
“They also say, ‘This just in.’”
Annie got up, snapped off the TV set, and turned to face me. She had her hands on her hips.
“Well,” she said, “Rowbottom’s jumped ship as a minister so he doesn’t have to do Paulie Ross’s dirty work inside the cabinet.”
“It looks that way to me.”
“What other way could it look?”
“It might be he quit because he has AIDS,” I said. “But I doubt that’s the reason.”
“Me, too.”
“If he has AIDS, if he’s going to actually die,” I said, “he’d take it public in a big way. Just a guess, but that’s how I size the guy up.”
The buzzer to Annie’s apartment sounded, from the street entrance three floors down.
“You expecting company?” I asked.
“It’s the cocktail hour,” Annie said. “Favourite calling time for Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
She went downstairs. I poured another drink in the kitchen and arrived in the living room as Annie came through the apartment door. She was ushering in David Rowbottom.
“Hey,” I said, “in person, the fourth item on CFTO’s nightly news.”
“I led off on Global,” Rowbottom said. He had a half smile, and his blue eyes were giving plenty of gleam.
I made a show of looking behind Rowbottom into the hall. “Anybody accompanying you?” I asked.
“Entirely on my own, Mr. Crang,” Rowbottom answered. “I’m even driving my own car.”
“No more limo to the Early Bird at the Waterfront Tennis Club?”
“Not in the immediate future.”
Annie shut the apartment door. “Would you care for a glass of wine, Mr. Rowbottom?” she asked.
“Something stronger, if I may,” Rowbottom said. He was on his best behaviour. “Is that vodka Mr. Crang’s drinking?”
“Polish,” I said. “On the rocks.”
“Perfect.”
Annie went out to the kitchen. I pulled up a third wicker chair for Rowbottom.
“How’d you get Annie’s address?” I asked.
“Her name is on the ministry’s mailing list.”
“Let me rephrase the question,” I said. “How’d you know I’d be at the address you got for Annie on the ministry’s mailing list?”
“You weren’t home, and it seemed logical to look for you here.”
“Because sometime over the past couple of weeks, Paulie Ross mentioned I was a twosome with a TV star named Annie B. Cooke?”
“Exactly.”
“Just wondering.”
“I’ve apologized to Ms. Cooke for coming here unannounced,” Rowbottom said to me. “There is some reassurance I’m seeking from you, if you’re inclined to give it.”
“That I’ll keep my mouth shut?” I said. “That I’ll stick to the promise I made to you and Paulie Ross the other day? That I’ll observe the promise even though you’ve bailed out from Paulie? That kind of reassurance?”
“That kind,” Rowbottom said. He sat with his knees together and looked almost prim in the chair. “You see, Mr. Crang, about myself and my alleged AIDS …”
“You want to hold that thought, Rowbottom,” I said. “Annie should hear this, too.”
“Of course.”
We waited in semi-awkward silence. Annie brought Rowbottom’s drink and curled up on her chair.
“Mr. Rowbottom was about to discuss AIDS,” I said to Annie.
She looked at Rowbottom. “The man on Citytv announced you’re gay,” she said. “Did you know that he spoke about it on TV?”
Rowbottom got back his half smile. “Avery, yes, he had the courtesy to advise me earlier this afternoon he intended to break the story. He said someone was bound to, and he wanted it to be him. They’re very scoop-conscious at Citytv.”
“But he didn’t mention AIDS,” Annie said.
Rowbottom sipped his vodka. “There are two reasons Avery said nothing on that subject.”
“For one,” I said, “you’ve managed to keep it a deep dark secret. Even from scoop-conscious guys like Avery.”
“The security I’ve erected,” Rowbottom said, a touch pompous, “has been close to impenetrable.”
“Except Birks Robinson knows whatever there is to know about you and AIDS,” I said. “And Bart the Bulge knows. And Hubert Wax must be privy to everything.”
Rowbottom made a small dismissive gesture with the hand that wasn’t holding his drink. “Well, of course, friends …”
“As long as Malcolm the bartender doesn’t get wind of anything,” I said, “you’re home and dry.”
Annie said, “What’s the second reason, Mr. Rowbottom, that Avery didn’t mention AIDS?”
“Because I don’t have AIDS,” Rowbottom said, his voice emphatic, beams leaping from his eyes. “What I do have, without getting into medical complexities, is rather akin to HIV.”
“The virus that leads to AIDS,” Annie said.
“The condition I have can develop into AIDS,” Rowbottom went on. “I emphasize the can. But the treatments I continue to receive from a remarkable group of doctors in Buffalo are holding it in check.”
“That’s possible?” I asked.
“Firmly in check, Mr. Crang,” Rowbottom said. “Permanently in check. I’m a committed believer in what these people are accomplishing.”
All of us busied ourselves with our drinks and with Rowbottom’s ringing endorsement of the Buffalo clinic.
“But,” I said, “your condition, whatever it is, and the clandestine trips to Buffalo, the possibility of AIDS, even if it is as remote as you say, all of those elements taken together were enough to make you toe the line for Paulie Ross when he came around with his blackmail.”
“I’m ashamed to say so,” Rowbottom said, hanging his head ever so slightly.
“Ross had you in a terrible bind,” Annie said. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Rowbottom took a deep breath. “One point I want to emphasize, I had no idea Ross would do what he did to Alex Corcoran.”
“Kill him,” I said.
“I was horrified.”
“But not sufficiently horrified to confide in the cops?”
“Ross didn’t tell me in so many words his man murdered Alex Corcoran,” Rowbottom said. “I guessed as much, eventually, but was a mere guess something I could take to the authorities?”
Rowbottom looked at me as if he was asking for a pat on the head. I didn’t say anything. And I didn’t pat him on the head.
“But now that you have taken action,” Annie said, “resigned from the cabinet and everything, left Ross in the lurch, without anybody to steer the garbage his way, aren’t you in jeopardy? From Paulie Ross, I mean?”
Rowbottom laughed. “Oddly, it seems not,” he said. “I telephoned Mr. Ross last night to let him know my resignation was coming. He was angry at first, a lot of yelling and cursing. But by the time he hung up, it seemed he’d quite lost interest in me.”
“It figures,” I said.
“It does?” Annie said.
“Think of this,” I said to her, “think of what it is that motivates Paulie Ross.”
“Oh, being mean to people, stealing, killing, pillaging, your ordinary crooked-person pursuits.”
“Besides those,” I said. “More than those.”
“More than those?”
“Business.”
“Oh, yeah, how could I forget?”
“Paulie does what’s best for business,” I said. “As long as Rowbottom here was a cabinet minister, it was good business to blackmail him with the AIDS story. Now that Rowbottom’s out of the cabinet and can’t affect the decision on the dump, it’s no longer good business, bad business, any kind of business to bother with Rowbottom or AIDS or blackmail.”
Annie turned to Rowbottom. “Is that how you read things?”
Rowbottom gave a small nod. “Mr. Crang and I are completely in agreement.”
“Right now,” I said, “Paulie’ll be casting around for a Rowbottom replacement, another minister he can bribe or coerce —”
“Oh, now, just a moment, Mr. Crang.”
“Hold a gun to a guy’s head or dangle a carrot in front of his nose.”
“I definitely do not share your cynicism, Mr. Crang,” Rowbottom said.
I shrugged. “It happened once. Twice shouldn’t shock anyone.”
“Uh, everybody’s drink okay?” Annie said, coming in quickly.
Rowbottom said his was, and I raised my glass to show Annie it was half full.
“What about your political career?” Annie asked Rowbottom. “Is it sort of in disarray?”
“I’ve retained my seat in the legislature, of course,” Rowbottom said.
“Avery on Citytv seemed to find that a big deal,” Annie said. “Significant, I think he called it.”
“Wayne Wickin ought to hang out with Avery,” I said. “Pick up tips on covering the political beat.”
“Maybe I should, too,” Annie said, speaking to Rowbottom, “because I don’t get the significance of it, either, of you not resigning your seat.”
I answered. “It means Mr. Rowbottom can lie low awhile, sit on the back benches until Paulie Ross and the garbage dump are just a memory, and later on, it could be the premier’ll invite him back into the cabinet.”
“If it isn’t immodest of me to blow my own horn,” Rowbottom said, getting a touch smug again, “it’s fair to say I established at culture and communications that I’m capable of administering a cabinet portfolio.”
“What about Avery’s scoop?” Annie asked. “You being gay? How’ll that go over?”
“The premier has assured me my homosexuality won’t affect his continuing support,” Rowbottom answered.
“You’ve spoken to him already?” Annie said. “The premier himself?”
“As soon as Avery spoke to me,” Rowbottom said. “The president of my riding association pledged his backing as well.”
“Lovely,” I said, and swallowed most of the rest of my drink.
Rowbottom was close to buoyant. “Before I left the legislature to drive here, four of my fellow cabinet ministers — pardon, former fellow ministers — called to say they were one hundred percent with me.”
“Swell.”
“And the phone messages were running in my favour.”
I sat and smiled.
“What’s the joke?” Annie asked me.
“Politics,” I said.
“Yes?”
“They make strange bedfellows.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
After David Rowbottom left, taking with him the reassurance he’d come looking for, that I’d stay mum on all the past transgressions by all parties, I went out to the kitchen and organized another vodka on the rocks. In the living room, Annie sat with her elbows on her knees, her hands under her chin, a frown across her forehead.
“It’s a depressing situation,” she said.
“What?”
“I don’t mind Rowbottom coming out more or less unscathed,” she said. “Not really. He’s been through a load of grief, and he did an honourable thing in the end.”
“He probably has more grief to come.”
“If those Buffalo doctors are quacks.”
“What do you mind?” I asked. “What’s depressing?”
“Paulie Ross walking around loose, the baddest guy of all.”
“It’d take a lot to bring down a man like that, all the years he’s been in operation, all the money and muscle.”
“I realize that. Doesn’t make me feel any better realizing it, though.”
“Come on, kiddo,” I said. “We made a few yards. We got Alex’s killer and kicked a dent in Paulie Ross’s machine.”
Annie stood up and walked over to the front window.
“What about Ian?” she said. “We’ll never know who gave him AIDS. In one sense, it doesn’t matter. Ian’s dead regardless of who infected him. Still …”
“I was discussing that very topic this afternoon.”
“Who with?” Annie asked. She had her back to me, looking out at the trees and the street.
“Cleve Shumacher. He thinks he might’ve been the one who passed the AIDS to Ian.”
“But he isn’t sure?”
“Not under the circumstances of Ian’s apparent promiscuity,” I said. “It could be the other way around, that Ian infected Shumacher.”
Annie was silent for a moment. “Poor Cleve Shumacher,” she said after a while.
“That was your line once before.”
“I mean it. Poor Cleve Shumacher.”
“You’ve never met the guy.”
“With everything that’s happened,” Annie said, still at the window, looking out, “I feel like I know him.”
I got up from my chair, the drink in my hand.
“Cleve’s showing new spunk these days,” I said.
Annie turned around. “A man’s dying and he’s showing spunk?”
“Grace under pressure or whatever the quote is.”
“What’s he got, a strong support system, family rallying around?”
“His old mum’s dead, and there isn’t anyone else in the family sense.”
“Friends?”
“Didn’t get the idea there’s much going on there, either,” I said. “I suggested to Cleve he should look into an AIDS therapy group.”
“And?”
“He didn’t precisely rush out of my office and sign up.”
“Where the heck’s the spunk coming from?”
I shrugged. “Spunk. Well, by that, I mean he wants me to fight his fraud case in court. I’d call that spunky given the alternative, and in general, he just transmits more in the nerve line than he did the first time I dealt with him.”
“Doing it all alone?”
“That’s my impression.”
“Crang.” Annie took a few steps into the centre of the room. She hooked one hand on her hip and ran a finger on the other hand across her chin.
“Yeah?”
“Listen, what I’m thinking isn’t as crazy as it may sound at first,” she said.
“Give me your definition of crazy.”
“You’ve got an empty downstairs apartment.”
“Hey …”
Annie held a hand up. “You’ll charge rent, of course.”
“Cleve Shumacher?” I put my glass on the table and moved closer to Annie.
“It’s eerie down there with nobody in the apartment,” she said.
“Yeah, but —”
“You don’t have to be best buddies with the man,” Annie said, her voice coming alive. “Just be there, and he won’t be alone with his AIDS, and you’ll have him at close hand to consult about the fraud case, and now and then I’ll cook something for the three of us, or maybe he’s got some dish he specializes in, or we can just have cocktails.”
“Well, yeah, Cleve likes his Harvey’s Shooting Sherry.”
“It could be a wonderful arrangement for everyone.”
“This is assuming Cleve’s open to the wonderful arrangement.”
Annie spread her arms. “All you have to do is ask.”
“Ha, hm, sure, that’s easy enough.”
“I bet he says yes,” Annie said. She was smiling.
I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll give Cleve a ring tonight.”
“Do that,” Annie said.
She wrapped her arms around me, and we hugged for a long time.
Copyright © Jack Batten, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover image: istock.com/simon edwards
