Howard Engel - Dead and Buried

“They’ve got a lot to answer for. Especially if they did their building locally.”

“Today, they’re all over. You can’t blame the look of James Street on Phidias completely. You have to share the blame around. It’s the modern style, Benny.”

“Yeah, pull down something worth saving, and put up something you’ve already seen enough of.” Teddie was well into her third martini by now. I was still working away at the edges of drink number one. “Teddie, somebody at Kinross-I say it’s somebody, maybe it’s everybody ; I don’t know-may be up to dirty tricks. It could be overweight trucking on Sundays, it could be the illegal dumping of toxic wastes. It could be smuggling or dope or-I don’t know exactly what, but I’m sure that it’s being kept quiet. A year ago, according to what I’ve learned, a trucker was killed. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn’t. I’m keeping an open mind. It could be that this guy knew too much. Maybe he threatened to blow the whistle on the whole shebang, whatever it was.” Teddie was watching me closely while I tried to put one word in front of the next. I lost my place. It was Teddie’s interest that did it. She was leaning towards me across the table, her eyes on mine and reacting to all the turns in my story. It was just her interest, but I got it confused with her abundantly female presence. You’d think, with Anna in my life, things like Teddie’s perfumed nearness would melt into the background so that I could get on with business, but no, I had to try looking not into those blue eyes of hers but at the bridge of her nose. That was safe, and I tried to get the story back on the rails. Teddie could see me struggling. She helped me to get started again.

“You think Ross is at the bottom of whatever it is?”

“I don’t know. Either he knows all about it and ordered what happened, or he has been compromised by the people working under him. This Caine fellow, most likely. You know anything about him? Anything at all?”

“Well, I told you about the wedding. That’s the big news. It’s a week Saturday. That’s why I’m in town.”

“And the Commander’s all for it, I’ll bet. The wedding, I mean.”

“Sure. And Biddy’s giving silent support in the rear. Biddy’s the tall, silent type. Clark Gable in skirts. She keeps out of the spotlight, but nobody makes a move she doesn’t know about.”

An old school friend came into The Snug and grinned at me over Teddie’s shoulder. It was a nasty, conspiratorial grin that made me want to get up and set him straight, but before I could, he’d been claimed by three men our age at the bar, who made more noise than absolutely necessary. Teddie had been thinking meanwhile and finally let me know what it was. “All his life, Ross has known that control of Phidias-and that means control of a big industrial empire, Benny-was coming to him. When the Commander stepped down, Ross stepped in with the support of the board. But after the provincial inquiry was set up, he’s been in a lot of trouble about environmental matters. The board isn’t happy. Ross hasn’t handled things the way the Commander would have.”

“Caine, coming up fast on the outside, is looking better and better,” I suggested.

“Sure, and after next Saturday, well, then it’s the clash of dynasties, isn’t it?”

“But, when all bets are on the table, the old man will have to back his own son, won’t he?”

“We aren’t talking about the same Murdo Forbes, Benny. Sherry’s his granddaughter, after all. He got where he is by marrying the boss’s daughter. I’d say he’ll back his granddaughter’s husband against her father. Don’t you wish this were on television so you could watch it happen?”

I shifted myself in my seat. I felt like I wasn’t asking the best questions again. It was an occupational bugbear and I was usually able to ignore it. “Teddie,” I asked, trying to rescue the last minutes of our conversation, “is there any legal way that you can think of for me to walk through the front doors of Phidias’s head office on James Street and not get kicked out on my ear?” Teddie smiled at what I imagined was a picture of me picking myself out of the gutter. She folded the corner of the scalloped placemat under her glass. I was about to tell her not to worry about it, when she came back at me with a vague but optimistic suggestion:

“I can’t think of anything right now, Benny, but let me sleep on it. I get all my really good ideas in the morning.” She set down her glass with a note of finality. She played with the stem. I wondered whether it would be her last drink of the day. Maybe these three martinis were just for old times’ sake. Her appearance didn’t hint at any problems with alcohol. I was glad of that. I’d always liked Teddie. Even at the worst of our dealings with Ross, I’d always felt that she was holding me back, holding her lawyer back, too, for that matter. She was always softening the blow.

“Well, Teddie, I appreciate your giving me all this.” I put some money where the waiter could see it near the nearly empty saucer of salted peanuts. She watched me return my wallet to my pocket. Was she holding on to me? I could feel it as surely as if she had me by the sleeve. She fiddled in her purse, looking for a photograph of her Flagstaff home to show me. She found several of a pale ranch-style place with a mountain view. Behind the last of these I found a creased photo of a man in riding boots. I smiled as I turned it around: my old sparring partner. She took it from me and examined it as though for the first time.

“I still have a tender spot for him, when I’m in the mood.” She laughed suddenly. “I know what you’re thinking! I’m a mass of contradictions, right? Don’t tell me. Two analysts have got there before you. I’m not looking forward to seeing him again, but I can’t throw his picture away. I don’t trust the guy, I don’t even like him, but I wouldn’t want to see him dead. He’s a son of a bitch, but he can charm the pants off me if I’m not careful. Benny, you try to be careful.”

“Teddie, I’m planning to stay as far away from him as the job allows. And I don’t imagine for a minute that I’ll ever see the charming side of his character. I’m ready for the worst.”

I gave Teddie the two numbers where she could reach me and we left The Snug. I was only half-prepared for the good-night kiss she planted on me. By the time I recovered, she was getting into her white Corvette. She was gone when I reached my battered Olds.

Before calling it a day, I thought I’d drop around to see my client again. She wouldn’t be expecting me at this hour and I didn’t mind, under the circumstances, giving her a moment’s anxiety. A scare, even. By me it was still early, but by Irma Dowden it might be getting close to the middle of the night. Irma lived on Glen Avenue, just across the tracks from the street where I was born. This was a part of town described on maps as West Grantham, but everybody still called it Western Hill, an expression that went back to a time in the last century when this was a canal town. In those days a winding road curved down to a canal bridge and up the hill on the other side. Nowadays a high-level bridge joined both parts of town a hundred feet above the water of the abandoned canal.

The house wearing the number Mrs. Dowden had given me was a bungalow going back to the 1950s, sandwiched between two older houses with the 1930s written all over them. I parked the car a little beyond my target, more out of habit than because I was worried about being watched. The sidewalk looked treacherous under the streetlight’s slanted glow, as I walked up the length of my shadow to the aluminum screen door. I knocked and waited.