Blood Count, page 9
“The aluminum-siding salesman.”
“Cleve Shumacher, I seem to have to keep reminding you, sweetie, is a stockbroker.”
“Far worse.”
Annie took off her sunglasses and put them on the table.
“Ever hear of MPS Technology?” she asked.
“What’s it got to do with our immediate problems?”
“Nothing,” Annie said. “But as long as I’m getting my rocks off about what’s upsetting me, I may as well throw in this sordid episode, too. Years ago, long before I met you, I dated a stockbroker. He said I should let him ‘goose my capital.’ His exact phrase. I handed over my humble savings, and he put them in a ‘hot new venture’ he had the ‘inside track on.’ Those were more of his phrases. The hot venture was MPS Technology, and overnight, it and my savings vanished down a deep, black hole.”
“And this is why you’ve had a hate on for stockbrokers ever since?”
“There’s more. Can you believe it, the unprincipled prick I’m talking about actually charged me his usual commission for investing me in this MPS Technology. While I’m losing, he’s earning, and that’s what’s called business as usual.”
“Stockbrokers wouldn’t be aces with you, I can understand.”
“Putting it mildly.”
“Well, at the moment, all we know about Cleve Shumacher is he’s charged with fraud and may be the AIDS carrier who infected Ian Argyll.”
“A prince among men compared to the guy I once dated.”
The waiter came. I ordered pad Thai. Annie asked for the special hamburger, the one made from meat guaranteed free of chemicals and other poisons.
“James Turkin and I had discussions of a practical nature before you got here,” I said.
Annie shook her head and looked disbelieving. “Love your style, fella,” she said.
“Is that a heckle I hear?”
“Three days ago now, Wednesday morning, you had a perfectly timed occasion to point two homicide officers in the direction of all the complications in Alex’s life. But, no, you pass, and today you place your trust in a guy barely out of adolescence who makes a living from stealing other people’s property.”
“If you’d been there Wednesday,” I said, “you’d have gone for the same choice.”
“Just because you got sore with one of the detectives.”
“His mind was made up, Mullen, the fat guy. I might’ve tried out my ideas on the other guy, but telling one is telling both. They’re a unit, and anyway, I wasn’t really sure about how far I bought Polaski’s act.”
“You haven’t mentioned anything about an act.”
“Just out of the seminary, that act.”
“Give the man a break. It was probably genuine. Cops can be nice people, too, you know, honey bun.”
The food arrived. Annie stacked slices of tomato and onion on top of the hamburger, added a splash of mustard, and bit into the whole pile.
“Comfort food,” she said when she’d cleared her mouth.
“Yeah.”
“Not yours,” Annie said. “The Thai stuff you’re eating is for the taste. A hamburger, even a healthy hamburger, that’s for comfort.”
Her teeth went back into the burger.
“I can come up with another rationale for excluding the two detectives,” I said.
“Excluding them from all we’ve learned about Ian and Alex?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I would’ve had to explain to them why I think the person killed Alex, the reason for the killing, and the reason doesn’t reflect well on Alex.”
“On Alex’s memory, now that he’s dead,” Annie said. “What’s the reason?”
“The guy killed Alex because Alex intended to kill the guy.”
“You think that’s what happened?”
“It’s as solid an explanation as any right now, and I didn’t feel up to revealing it to a cop like Jerry Mullen. He already has enough ammunition for his gay bashing.”
“Have I got this straight?” Annie said. “Your theory is the man Alex was searching for, the man who infected Ian with AIDS, was the one who stabbed Alex?”
“Found Alex before Alex found him.”
“Or perhaps knew Alex had uncovered his identity because he’d threatened the guy.”
“It could’ve been one of the men in the bunch we were talking about, Bart, Rowbottom, any of that lot.”
“I don’t like it,” Annie said.
“Seems neat and tidy to me, no loose ends.”
“I don’t like where it leads,” Annie said. “If you’re right, if you go chasing after the man Alex was hunting, you’re not just getting close to someone who gives people AIDS, you’re up against an authentic, certified, grade-A murderer.”
“I don’t plan to get that close.”
“You better not.”
“Just close enough that when I explain things to the cops, it’ll be so solid Jerry Mullen won’t keep yakking about kid hustlers and Alex cruising.”
“Don’t ask me to embrace your plan with both arms.”
“The first part’s already laid on,” I said. “James Turkin and an associate of his are escorting me into David Rowbottom’s condo on a little look-see operation.”
“Rowbottom? A few nights ago, it was Bart the Bulge you targeted for the break-in.”
“Rowbottom strikes me as a better first choice. A cabinet minister, guy of that stature, he must have a bit of sophistication to him. More the kind of guy Ian was likely to have socialized with in a heavy way, if you follow me.”
“I do,” Annie said. “Unfortunately.”
She had polished off almost all of her hamburger. I had a long way to go with my plate.
“Why can’t what I’m eating be comfort food?” I asked.
“Because, silly, to be comfort food, it has to be big and juicy and filling and North American and no exotic elements.”
“Like a hamburger.”
“Especially a hamburger.” Annie used the paper napkin to give her mouth a delicate wiping. “You know,” she said, “the sun’s shining, food’s good, the wine, we should do something this afternoon that’s fun and celebratory and different and happy.”
“As opposed to funerals and discussions of murder?”
“I’ve got it,” Annie said, brightening. “We’ll shop for clothes.”
“What, I stand around and watch you run in and out of changing rooms?”
“No, for you,” Annie said. She had on her biggest smile of the lunch. “We’ll make it a male shopping excursion.”
I had on a dark-blue crewneck sweater, blue work shirt, jeans, and Rockport Walkers on my feet.
“Right now,” Annie said, “you look like a superannuated preppie.”
“These are my regular Saturday duds. Other days, too.”
“Who’s your model? George Bush?”
“This is hurting a guy.”
“All I ask,” Annie said, “let me nudge you in the direction of the 1990s.” She waved her arms to encompass the street. “In walking distance from right here, in spitting distance, there’s Le Château and a half dozen other stores we can choose shirts and things for you of slightly more advanced fashion.”
“I don’t want somebody’s name on my clothes, in big letters across the front or anything.”
“Only on the label alongside the cleaning instructions.”
“In small print?”
“I promise.”
I asked the waiter for the bill.
Chapter Fourteen
I modelled one of the new outfits Annie chose in the long mirror on the back of my bathroom door — a brown single-breasted four-button wool suit with red pinstripes and buttons. I wore it with a white button-down shirt, no tie, and brown suede shoes.
“Fred Astaire, circa 1952,” I said to my reflection.
I was alone in the apartment, Sunday afternoon.
The doorbell rang. I answered it, debating how many of the four buttons I should do up. I settled on the middle two.
“Mr. Ross wants to see you,” the young guy at the front door said.
“Tell Mr. Ross office hours start nine thirty weekdays.”
“You Crang?” The young guy had a formidable nose and a long scar along his jawline.
“Correct. So, your turn, who’s Mr. Ross apart from somebody who doesn’t know my office hours?”
“The person who’s gonna talk to you in ’bout a half hour, he’s Mr. Ross.”
The young guy stepped to the side of my front porch and gestured behind him. A metal-grey Lincoln Town Car waited at the curb. Another guy sat in the driver’s seat, and a woman was giving me an inconclusive little wave from behind the closed window of the back seat. The woman was Annie.
“A half hour happens to build into my schedule just about right,” I said to the young guy. He had on a blue satin windbreaker and billowy white pants. He held open the Lincoln’s back door for me. I got in. He sat up front. The man in the driver’s seat was bald and had on a jacket and tie.
“The suit fits like a dream,” Annie said.
“Wasn’t sure how many buttons to do up,” I said. “You okay?”
“Well, I had other plans for my Sunday, but the gentlemen were persuasive.”
“A Mr. Ross, apparently.”
“Yes.” Annie paused. “All four on the jacket, I think.”
I did up the top and bottom buttons. The Lincoln went west on Queen and turned north at Spadina. Inside, the car smelled new and felt plush. There was a little bar behind a glass panel in the rear of the front seats, and cellular phones were fitted into the armrests on either side in back.
Annie nodded to the two guys up front. “This sort of has the feel of blackened palms, know what I mean?” she said in a low voice.
“Try pig Latin, why not?” I whispered. “Atchcay my iftdray?”
“Crang, black from the tar paper, catch my drift.”
“You want to elaborate? In a code of your own choosing?”
“Their hands got stained black by the tar paper they wrapped the bodies in.”
“Oh.” My voice rose to conversational level. “Black Hand. You think Cosa Nostra?”
The bald guy behind the wheel turned his head sideways. “Quit it with that insulting crap back there.”
Annie and I sat in silence. The car cut off Spadina at Eglinton and headed north again through the Jewish community on Bathurst. Men on the sidewalk wore black suits, stringy black beards, and black hats as flat as Frisbees.
“Is that true about the Black Hand?” I whispered to Annie. “The tar paper and so on?”
“I read it in the research before my interview with Al Pacino last year.”
“The Godfather Part III, right.”
The bald guy turned sideways again. “What I tell you two before?”
“Only movie talk,” I said. “We were just discussing how family-conscious the Corleones were, the kind of closeness you hardly see enough of these days.”
“Don’t dick with me,” the bald guy said. “That crap’s crap.”
“Family closeness is?”
“A guy gets whacked in the movies, bet on it, Christ, the guy doing the whacking is of Italian descent.”
“Not a whole lot of Icelandic mob people in film. Norwegian, Swedish … you’ve got a point.”
“It’s a liable.”
Annie raised her eyebrows at me.
“As in liable and slander,” I said.
The Lincoln was still pointed north on Bathurst, past Highway 7, in the exurbs. A shopping plaza the size of Luxembourg came up on the right.
“Don’t do no Al Pacino talk around Mr. Ross,” the bald guy said.
“What would Mr. Ross’s line of endeavour be?” I asked. “Law-abiding, it goes without saying, but specifically?”
The young guy with the scar spoke up. “Lotta businesses. Garbage dumps is gonna be big.”
“Recycling depots,” the bald guy said.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Recycling depots.”
Forty kilometres north of the city, the new subdivisions were divided into two-acre lots. But size was relative. The monster houses on the lots reached within a yard of the sidelines, and the trees that had covered the area when it was recently wilderness had been dispensed with. If the houses’ owners had come looking for land, lots of land under starry skies above, they’d moved to the wrong prairie.
The bald guy picked up the phone in front and punched in a number.
“Tell Mr. Ross three minutes,” he told the person on the other end.
The Lincoln turned right onto a road that looked like an expressway ramp. It wound up and down some low hills straight toward the only house on the property — a mansion built of cut stone and enormous slabs of dark wood.
“Your basic Sheraton probably has more rooms,” I said, “but I bet not a bunch more.”
“What I told you,” the bald guy said, “no lip inside with Mr. Ross.”
Baldy parked the car in the driveway outside a garage that had entrances for five vehicles. The house’s front door stood open, held open by an Asian man in a white butler’s jacket. Annie and I followed him across the entrance hall. It went up two storeys and had a deep-blue marble floor. Baldy and the young guy had dropped out of the picture, and Annie and I stuck behind the butler, down a broad carpeted stairway and around a couple of turns in a wide hall. We finished up at a room that had a bar Arthur 2: On the Rocks would envy, a lot of low-slung Italian furniture, and a man standing up from one of the chairs who looked like Cesar Romero.
“Paulie Ross,” the guy said. It came out abruptly. The guy shook my hand and nodded at Annie. “Okay,” he said, “we’re gonna sit down, talk, but you want a drink first? I got anything you name, and also, before the talk, there’re a couple rooms I needa show you.”
I gathered Paulie Ross wasn’t inclined to go in for much in the way of elaborate ceremony. He looked Annie’s way.
“White wine, please,” she said.
“Crang?”
“Tahitian Lady.”
“Huh?”
“Just testing. White wine’s fine.”
Paulie Ross was a little over six feet and fit, though he might have had to put some effort into holding in his stomach. He had a long face, tanned, a full head of silver hair, and very white teeth. He was probably sixty, and he had on a perfectly pressed grey pinstripe suit with white pinstripes.
“Like your suit,” I said.
“That right?” Ross gave me a funny look. “Got a good tailor.”
“Red pinstripes are in this season, your tailor may not know.”
“Yeah?”
“And the four buttons.”
The butler handed around a silver tray holding two glasses of white wine.
“Okay,” Ross said, “we’re goin’ this way.”
He slid back a door and indicated a lighted tunnel that was about twenty-five yards long. Ross stepped in front and headed down the tunnel at a quick pace.
“Shut up about the suit,” Annie hissed at me.
“First time I’ve been on the cutting edge of fashion. It’s a chance to show off a little.”
“Well, don’t make the situation dicier than it already is.”
The tunnel ended at a workout room done on the grand scale that seemed to be the norm chez Ross. I noted a climbing machine, rower, pair of stationary bicycles, treadmill, and line of weight machines.
“Whaddaya see, Crang?” Paulie Ross asked.
“It’s a cut above the stuff Charles Atlas erected his empire on.”
“Yeah. What else?”
I gave more scrutiny to the gleaming equipment.
“Looks brand new from the factory,” I said. “Waiting for its first customer.”
“Not bad,” Ross said. “None of it’s been touched, nuthin’ in this whole friggin’ room.”
He wheeled around and set off down the tunnel, across the room we started from, and through a door next to the bar. We were in a movie theatre with a slanted floor, a screen worthy of a Cineplex, and seats for three dozen viewers. Annie made an um sound.
Ross opened a door at the rear of the theatre. “Wait’ll you take a gander at back here,” he said to Annie.
In the room at the back were two movie projectors and a long table that held a small computer and other machines I couldn’t identify.
Annie did more umming. “The editing machine,” she said, “as far as I can judge, is state of the art.”
“That’s what the guy said who sold it to me,” Ross said.
“Looks like the stuff down the tunnel,” I said. “Unused.”
In the main room, the butler refilled our glasses. Two rows of framed photographs hung on the wall behind the bar. Paulie Ross and an attractive dark-haired woman were featured in all of them, decked out in tennis clothes, sitting in a cabana, leaning on a ship’s railing. A teenage boy appeared in some of the photos. He looked chunky, dark, sullen, and familiar.
The three of us, Ross, Annie, and me, settled into the leather furniture.
“So you wanta know why I gave you the tour?” Ross said.
“To talk about the guy who isn’t availing himself of the equipment,” I said.
“What?” Ross said, surprised. “Albert and Joey B. run off at the mouth on the way up?”
“He’s in the pictures over there,” I said. “Behind the bar.”
“Who?” Annie asked.
“Bart the Bulge.”
“Tell ya this once, Crang, that’s all,” Paulie Ross said. “Around here, I don’t care where you heard the kid gettin’ called by some other name, he’s Bartley. Especially when his mother happens to be present, which she won’t, but you understand what I’m sayin’.”
