Howard Engel - Getting Away With Murder

“Very funny!”

“Maybe it isn’t business at all. Let me think about that. The blonde hasn’t arrived to displace me, has she?” Anna has always been kidding me about my falling for a blonde bombshell with no brain and a full bra. I know it is just a joke, but she brings it out whenever she’s feeling peculiar about our arrangements. We have been seriously not living together off and on for nearly three years. I could go on like this forever, but Anna and Anna’s father would like some resolution to the informality. My own parents are noisily silent on the subject. I get looks across the table when Anna’s name is mentioned. I catch exchanged glances and sense the undercurrent in the room. I once was kicked under the table when Pa got close to the subject of rabbis and invitations. I didn’t know how to pass along the warning from Ma, but my father got the idea from my cry of pain.

“The blonde is in the closet under my laundry,” I said. Anna looked over at the closet door then back at me.

“She’s very quiet.”

“She’s well brought up. Breeding does it every time.”

“Is that a reproach to my father’s new money?” she said, brushing a lock of hair back where it belonged.

“You know I’m indifferent to your old man’s millions. It’s your body I’m mad about.”

“What about the blonde under the laundry? Doesn’t she have a body? Maybe she can’t pull herself away from your smalls.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Dirty shorts are a very big kick. Maybe not my kick, but a kick nevertheless. Come over here.”

“Aren’t you saving yourself for her?” I answered the question by getting up and walking around the table. The next half-hour has no place in the report about Abe Wise’s call on my professional services. Although I hadn’t answered Anna’s questions, I had forgotten that she had asked them. Maybe she had too. It was a long time before I thought of Abe Wise or of his minions stationed across the street.

The light was gone when I rolled over. The candles had guttered out in silence while I caught thirty winks in Anna’s warm arms.

“She isn’t making much noise in there,” Anna said at length.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was, but I was feeling sorry for the woman with your smalls.”

“I told you; she likes it in there.”

“Until I’m gone and then she jumps out to behave in the most abandoned manner.”

“You’ve been looking in my window.”

“I’ve been reading your mind. Why don’t you give the poor dear a break while I sit in a hot tub. I’ll only give you ten minutes. I call that generous, I do,” Anna said, wrapping the top sheet around her. She made no move to abandon me.

“Why not make it a shower? There’s room for two.”

“I’m talking about cleanliness and all you can think of is more sex. No wonder you keep the blonde in there. If she wasn’t a figment of your warped imagination, I’d call the cops on you. And there are a few women’s groups that should be informed too. I think you should be seeing somebody about this. If Freud were alive …” Anna delayed her tub for several minutes with a dissertation on my mind and what the world of psychiatry was missing. I thought again about making things more permanent with Anna. There was a natural male reluctance in me. Anna had pointed it out a few times. She said I was addicted to having the blonde in the closet. As a figure of speech for my wild bachelor years, the blonde was carrying a lot of dark meaning, most of it Anna’s. But who am I to interfere with her illusions about me? I decided that this was a bad time to talk about the blonde coming out of the closet and leaving town. Abram Wise and his boys had a lot to answer for. Was I just turning to Wise as an excuse for continuing in the old established, make-it-up-as-we-goalong ways, or was I really worried about Wise and what he might do to Anna? I was worried.

“Before you head for the bathtub, Anna, will you scratch my back?” Anna moved around and pulled herself up on the pillows. She caught me in a straight look.

“Can’t get her to do it, eh?” she said. “It figures. Roll over.”

I called the Upper Canadian Bank and got nowhere trying to talk to the Bill MacLeod who was dealing with Hart Wise’s antique-car problems. By pretending that I knew more than I did, I fooled him into letting slip a few names, and details new to me. Crumbs from head table, really; but that’s what my job is: picking up crumbs and trying to get them to say something.

I telephoned the secret number that Wise had given me, partly to show him that I was on the job and also to show him that I was penetrating beneath the skin of his family life. Maybe he would have second thoughts about our early-morning meeting. Maybe he’d tell me to go to hell. I was hoping he would, as a matter of fact. I was getting tired of running into Mickey Armstrong every time I looked up from my coffee cup.

“Who the hell gave you this number?” he shouted at me. Good, I thought, now I’ll be cut loose and returned to civilian life.

“You did, Mr. Wise. Yesterday morning. This is Benny. Benny Cooperman. Remember in the very early morning?”

“All right. All right! What’s your problem? This better be good.”

“What can you tell me about Hart and his antique Triumph?”

“Are you telling me that Hart’s behind this plot to kill me? I don’t believe it!”

“I’m not saying anything of the kind. I’m just trying to find my way in a family I’d scarcely heard of when I went to bed last night. Are you having second thoughts?”

“No, damn it! I’ve got too much riding on this. You want to know about Hart’s car?”

“The antique Triumph-”

“The TR2. I know the machine. It’s the 1954 model. A peach of a car. Reminds me of the Morgan I once wanted and couldn’t afford. What do you want to know about it?”

“I want to know how the car became a headache. The bank won’t tell me anything. They are bothering Paulette about it. How has it soured things between you and your son?”

“Hart fell in love with the car and bought it from a dealer without checking on his bank balance. He wrote a bad cheque. The dealer went to his lawyer, the lawyer saw that this was a chance to involve me, so he served a writ on Hart. I have friends in this town, Mr. Cooperman. That’s how I found out about it. Knowledge is my armour. Of course Hart was furious. He didn’t want me to know anything about the business. He wanted to handle it himself. It was a stupid mistake, but the lawyer’s trying to make a federal case of it. They’re getting at me through Hart, but the boy thinks I’m interfering in his life again. As a father, I can’t do anything right. I tried to give him the money to cover the overdraft, but that only made things worse. He won’t make himself admit that he’s being used as a pawn to get at me.”

“Are you and Hart on speaking terms?” He thought a moment before answering.

“I try to remain on cordial terms with both my children.”

“But that’s easier said than done.”

“Some day, Mr. Cooperman, you’ll have children.”

“These children-not mine, but yours-are well into their thirties, Mr. Wise. They have left home, have formed attachments, I suppose, and even bounce the occasional cheque. Maybe it’s time you stopped treating them like children?”

“I hired you as an investigator, Cooperman, not a sob-sister! When I want your advice about matters other than my life and death, I’ll send Mickey around to tell you. In the meantime, stick to your damned job!”

“Speaking of Mickey, I want to talk to him. I’m not having an easy time getting his ear.”

“I’m beginning to wonder whether your services weren’t over-sold, Mr. Cooperman. But, I’ll have a word with Mickey. I trust him as I trust few others. He’s a good man, and more enterprising than most. Is that all?”