Howard Engel - A City Called July

“Yeah, he seems to have come into deadly information late in the game. I told Pete that he called me the day before he was murdered.”

“Yeah, with a song and dance about hearing from his brother down in Florida. He was playing games with you, Benny. You should know better.”

“Thanks, Chris. Maybe I shouldn’t have booked that flight. I could have saved a bundle if we’d had this talk last week.”

“Go to hell. Sometimes, Cooperman, you’re as touchy as — ”

“As you are. It must be the company I keep.”

“Okay, so who did all the icing in the Geller clan? I know for a fact that you’re holding out on me. You always do. I’ve got pressure on me from every direction to bring about a speedy and tidy solution to this investigation. My ass is in the wringer. You’ve been doing a local snoop while we’ve been waiting by the phone. I gotta know what you got.”

“Well, you got my theory that Geller was running away with somebody, right?”

“Check. Next?”

“Well, you know that this woman was a smoker.”

“How do we know that?”

“The ticket cover requests a window seat in the smoking section.”

“So what?”

“So Geller was a non-smoker. But being a perfect gentleman he arranged for a smoking seat for him and his girl-friend. What you gotta find out is who she was. Check car rental agencies in Hamilton for a car rented in the name of Gosnold. Check the travel people for the name of the other person travelling with Gosnold. When you’ve got her name you can get her picture from the passport division of External Affairs.”

“You’re not half-bad when I get you kicking over, Cooperman. As a matter of fact we are checking out some of that, but we missed some.”

“You aren’t going to tell me until I get down on my knees and ask, are you Chris?”

“Ask what?”

“You know damn well I want to know what killed Larry Geller.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. I got the post-mortem results right here.” He waved a sheet of foolscap at me, but didn’t hand it over.

“Well?”

“Larry Geller was stabbed once through the heart. Very neat.” Savas’s hand went over his eyes like he was going to wipe away his scowl. When he brought his hand away, his expression was unchanged, except that now I felt one too many in Savas’s office.

“Were they able to compare Larry’s wound with the ones that killed Wally Moore and Geller’s brother?”

“Cooperman, they can’t get Larry Geller to lay down yet like a decent stiff should. How the hell are they going to probe a wound in a corpse that’s stuck in the fetal position?” I tried to imagine the problem, then decided to take Savas’s word for it. I got out of there as fast as I could.

I came out of the police station with a blank empty feeling. I’d just given the case away. The rabbi and Mr. Tepperman had asked me to find Larry Geller. Tonight everybody in town would know where he was. I knew I owed the rabbi a phone call at least, so I walked up James Street without even the interest in life to see whether there were any bagels at Bagels Deli. The weather was spoiling to break the record for this day. The sun cut right through the back of my shirt. I tried to walk in the shade of the stores kind enough to have lowered their awnings. American tourists were walking down St. Andrew Street in short sleeves and seersucker. At first I thought they were pushing the season, but this was the season. Maybe, I thought, I should take a bus tour to see the ruins of the neighbourhood. When was the last time I’d seen Brock’s Monument? The only time I ever climbed to the top I came down to talk to an old custodian who’d been gassed at Ypres. At the time I didn’t know what he was talking about. I somehow got World War I confused with the War of 1812, when General Brock led his famous last fatal charge. I could skip the rabbi and hear about it all over again. Or I could drive to the Falls and watch the not overrated splendour of the great cataracts. Nuts, thought. You’ve seen the falls.

I crossed St. Andrew Street. My haunches reacted stiffly to climbing the twenty-eight steps to the office door with its peeling gold-lettering.

I lit a cigarette and called the rabbi. I told him the news and he thanked me for being a big help. He said that in spite of the fact that Larry Geller was now in no shape to undertake the restitution of his ill-gotten gains, I was to be commended for the work I’d put in. He said that I could expect payment of my bill as soon as they had my invoice.

After I hung up, I felt worse. I’d found what they wanted, the cops were sorting out the last parts of the puzzle, and now I had to bill the Jewish community in order to get some money. I knew that I was incapable of writing up the invoice, and so I would never see a dime. I felt sunburned top and bottom; there was no comfortable way to sit. I let a second smoke from the first. I could tell this was going to be a great day.

And suddenly there was Kogan standing in the doorway. Just when you think your life is brimful of headaches, it overflows. “Kogan,” I yelled across the room. “I’ve got no time for you today. I’m a busy man. Go haunt some other citizen. Go see Dr. Bushmill.” Kogan was very good at looking hurt. He did that best. I caught him with only one foot on the stairs and watched him consider my apology. “I didn’t sleep well, Kogan. I’m in a lousy mood. I would have yelled at anybody. My own mother even.” Slowly Kogan shifted his weight back to the leg that was on the top step, and he followed me back through the open door.

“That’s no way to do business, Mr. Cooperman.”

“I know that, Kogan. I’m sorry.” I sat down behind the desk and watched while Kogan rounded one of the chairs, like a dog trampling the vanished grass in his dreams, and finally settled and pulled the chair closer to the desk.

“What’s the report, Mr. Cooperman.”

“Report on what?”

“Do you know who killed Wally yet?” He looked at me as though I had forgotten the date of the discovery of America.

“Oh, Wally,” I bluffed. “No, I haven’t forgotten him.”

“You say that, but what news have you got?” I stirred uneasily in my chair. Kogan must have taken lessons from Savas, or I was more than normally vulnerable that morning.

“I know a few things, Kogan. But they don’t add up to who killed your friend. I know that he used to hang around that building site where you found the discharge pin.”

“Holy Christ, I told you that when I talked to you!”

“You want to talk or listen, Kogan?”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“He had a private kip arranged down below between piles of lumber. The watchman knew him and didn’t make a fuss. One night your pal witnessed a murder. He didn’t show himself, but when he saw the victim’s picture and name in the paper, saying that he was missing, that’s when he blew his cover. He told the wrong person about it, and that’s how he was murdered.”

“Are you telling me he told the wife that he saw the murder? He didn’t even tell me what he saw.”

“That’s what it looks like, Kogan.”

“She must of done it, right?”

“She denies any knowledge of Wally.”

“You can’t trust a bloody murderer! Why would she tell you the truth?” This was going to be one of those days when everybody knew more about my business than I did.

“Take it easy, Kogan. I didn’t say I believed her. But with Wally unavailable to make an accusation, what he told you is hearsay and about as useful in court as a movie ticket stub. To build a case you need evidence. And evidence is what we have least of.”

“So nothing Wally told me is any good?”