Howard Engel - A City Called July

“By the way, Alex, you said that Pia Morley was as close to a self-made woman as you’d ever met. When would that have been?”

“That I met her? Oh, Benny, that’s sludge under the trestle. We used to go together when I was playing for the Grantham Ospreys. You could say we used to be room-mates.”

“What is it Kogan? For crying out loud, don’t just stand there hanging in the doorway. Come in and sit down.” Kogan didn’t move. Kogan didn’t look like he enjoyed being up on the second floor, twenty-eight steps from the solid comfort of the street. He was still wearing his grey flannels and blazer with his army discharge pin in the lapel. He looked at my door, trying to read something in my sign that would make it easier. “Come in, Kogan. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

“Look, Mr. Cooperman, I don’t want to break into anything. I just thought …” All this from the doorway, like he could smell something unpleasant under my desk, when in fact it was Kogan who smelled like a three-day-old tuna sandwich in August.

“If you’re coming in, let’s get on with it. If you’re not coming in shut the door gently and see you around.” Kogan thought a moment, looked at a space about a foot above my head, then closed the door behind him. I got up, rushed around my desk and caught him halfway down the stairs. “Kogan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got carried away by the impulse to share some of the frustration I’ve been collecting. What’s up? You broke?”

“It ain’t that, Mr. Cooperman. Hell, I’m always broke. Shit, you know that. That’s no secret.” He wedged his way around so that he faced me. The light behind him coming up from St. Andrew Street blanked out his large, leathery face I leaned against the stair railing, then slid into a hunkering position as we talked.

“I know that. You’ve had bad luck for a long time now.”

“You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. That’s a fact. I’ve been down since we got out of the army. Must be twenty years.”

“More like forty. The war was over in forty-five. What can I do for you?” Kogan pulled at the non-existent creases in his trousers and sat down on the steps looking up at me. The light gave his messy hair a halo that needed reblocking. It also picked out highlights on the brass stripping at the top of each step, and the marks on the wall where heavy objects had squeaked by.

“You know Wally? Wally Moore? Me and him’s been buddies since we won the war together over in France. I met him first in the lock-up out Niagara Street one winter. You’ve seen him around. A little guy, with a wide gait and a bamboo cane like Charlie Chaplin?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve seen him around for years. What’s he got up to?”

“Old Wally’s been a good friend of mine for a lot of years. We used to do a lot of drinking together.”

“I’ll bet. What’s he got into?”

“Wally-I call him Wally: his right name’s Bamfylde. How j’ah like that? Bamfylde! Hot shit. Isn’t that sumpin’?”

“What are you worried about, Kogan? You came here to tell me something, didn’t you?” The answer to that question had to wait for one of Dr. Bushmill’s patients to pass us on her way down the stairs. I watched her go, bouncing down each step a little light on her left foot. Corns. Maybe.

“Estelle Kramer,” Kogan announced when the air-brake settled the door back in place.

“What?”

“That was Estelle Kramer. You know Otto Kramer’s wife? Butcher on James Street?”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“Not a thing. Just practising. In my position you have to know people. Can’t depend on looks alone. Otto’s given Wally and me a Christmas bird more than once. Stringy, you know, but tasty.”

“Kogan. Go to hell! You’re never going to come to the point and I’m going back to my office where I can get rid of the cramp in my shin.” I got up and went limping back behind my desk. I didn’t slam the door, but I felt like it. In a minute he was standing like Samson between the pillars in my doorway again.

“Wally’s got a lot more class than you think, Mr. Cooperman.”

“What makes you think I’ve thought about it?” I was doodling the names of the people I’d been talking to up at the Gellers’ place on a block of yellow legal-sized foolscap. I could still see Kogan holding up the doorframe.

“He could be in a lot of trouble. And you don’t even give a damn.”

“Sure I give a damn. But his pal won’t tell me what it’s all about. He’s waiting for me to read all about it in my Christmas stocking or something. His old buddy won’t give me any hints. He wants me to work it out like Sherlock Holmes from the nicks on your Adam’s apple.”

“Okay, I understand. I just had to be sure I came to the right place. I gotta be careful like. Wally’s the only buddy I ever had. The best pal I could want. Now he’s nowhere.”

“How do you mean, ‘nowhere’?”

“We had a shack behind Maple Street. Wally used to have a popcorn wagon back there, but the kids smashed it all to smithereens. But we had a decent kip: blankets and a sleeping-bag. It beat sleeping in doorways. Even sleeping here in the hall along by the bathroom. You should get that toilet fixed. It runs all night.”

“I’ll mention it to the landlord. He’ll appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it. I mean, sure, tell him. By ‘don’t mention it’ I meant ‘you’re welcome.’”

“Kogan, do you think you can stay on the subject of your pal for a minute without a side-trip? Try it. We are talking about your pal Wally Bamfylde Moore. Get on with it.”

“Well, it’s just he ain’t been around for a couple o’ days. He’s gone. Like that Geller guy on Queen Street. Only Wally didn’t have more than maybe twenty-five dollars tops.”

“Maybe he’s found another kip? Maybe he’s found a nice park bench to sleep on during these warm nights. He’ll turn up.

“Cooperman, you’re a shit-heel. You know what that is? You’re a real poop-and-scoop artist, that’s what you are. I told you Wally and me’ve been together. You know what that means? I know Wally, and I know what he’s going to do from Monday to Sunday. He’s a shrewd character, but habit-ridden. You know what I mean? He sometimes sleeps near his pitch, but he tells me first.”

“I’m sorry, Kogan. I didn’t mean to be flip. I apologize.” Kogan made a pass at his nose with his fingers, squeezed the bridge of his nose like a bank president, then blinked trying to pick up the thread of the story again. “Kogan, what’s your first name? I can’t keep calling you Kogan.”

“Give me a minute,” he said, squinting hard. “Victor.”

“The hell it is.”

“I seen it in print that way. Anyway, I been Kogan too long to argue. Just don’t call me Victor, you hear?”

“Where did you see Wally last?”

“We tucked into some 9-Lives on Tuesday night.”

“Did he say anything about going off? Did you have a fight?”

“Certainly not. And I checked the hospitals and the lock-up. Wally didn’t get hit by a milk truck, and he didn’t get pinched.”

“Did he say anything about where he was going or what he intended to do the next day?”

“Well, you finally got down to it. You finally asked. I thought I’d be a fine old bone before you asked that one.” Kogan’s old wallet of a face creased into a map of smiles. “He told me he was going to see the wife of a Queen Street lawyer.”

“He what?”

“I knew that’d get you. He told me he was going to see this woman over on Mortgage Hill. I forgot the name until I saw it in tonight’s paper.”

“Tell me this again slowly.”

“I don’t usually chew my cabbage twice. He said he wanted to see this Mrs. Geller. Said they had business.” Kogan now had all my attention and he knew it. He played the scene like an actor building up the momentum leading to the curtain line. “He said we were havin’ our last can of cat food. And that’s when he showed me the bottle he’d bought. It wasn’t his favourite, Old Sailor, it was Gordon’s gin. Where’d he get that kind of money? That’s what got me scared, Mr. Cooperman. Where’s Wally and is he all right?”