Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

I called out to Sally, “What happened to Nate Green, Sally? Where did he fit into the frame of things?” Sally looked at me for a good deal longer than I thought necessary to prepare an answer.

“Mr. Green died three months ago, Mr. Cooperman. Cancer of the oesophagus. Very sad.” As soon as she’d said it, I remembered Vanessa telling me on our first official outing together. Meanwhile, Sally had gone back to her reading, once she’d passed on her news. Again I abruptly pulled her attention away from the copy of Billboard she was clipping.

“But Ms. Moss has been here for a year, more or less. What department was Mr. Green moved to?” I was plainly annoying Sally now, and she slapped down the paper on top of a stack of out-of-town newspapers.

“He had several titles: first he was vice-president of Arts and Entertainment for a time, switched to become a senior assistant to Mr. Thornhill, then he was made vicepresident of Arts and Sciences. That was his title at the time of his death.”

“I see. Who’s the vice-president of Arts and Sciences right now, Sally?”

“There isn’t one. I don’t expect there will be.”

“So, it was created for Green and died with him?”

“That’s one opinion, Mr. Cooperman.”

“Do you have another?”

“The charter of the National Television Corporation has always insisted that we have a mandate to keep the arts and sciences within our purview. Some think that we have been lax in this area. Having a vice-president in charge tended to defuse that criticism.”

“So, the ailing Nate Green helped quell the charge of programming for the lowest common denominator.”

“Mr. Cooperman,” she said, colouring just a little, “we program to a wide popular audience, not to the lowest common denominator.”

“You believe that?” I asked, but was destined not to get an answer, for at this moment Vanessa Moss thundered into the room banging down a full briefcase on the broadloom. Once again, she was beautifully turned out, thanks to her friend at Holt’s. This morning she wore a navy pinstripe with a white collar open at the throat and pointing down towards the sort of cleavage that should never be worn by applicants for junior positions at NTC. Boards are notoriously puritanical.

“Where the hell have you been?” There could be no mistake about who she meant.

“I could be dead and buried by now and you wouldn’t know about it until you saw the noon news. Come on, Benny. Get with the program!” I told her that I’d spent the late afternoon with Sykes and his partner, examining the scene of the crime and checking over what measures they had taken to see that no harm comes to her. “And?” she demanded.

“And, yes, the cops have taken steps. They are tailing you day and night. I might have checked in with you, but you didn’t leave me with an address or phone number. They also told me you were in Niagara Falls the day before yesterday, not Niagara-on-the-Lake. Funny how they get these things wrong, isn’t it?” She lowered her guns, and tried to smooth things over.

“I can explain about that. It was a secret meeting with the Shaw Festival artistic director. He suggested we not be seen too close to his present employers.”

“But you failed to tell me the truth, innocent as it appears to be.”

“Coffee?”

I nodded. Sally got up to go fetch. “By the way, Sally, did you get the things I asked you to get for Mr. Cooperman?”

“They were waiting for me on my desk when I got here an hour ago, Vanessa.”

“Good,” Vanessa said through her teeth, without looking up, and Sally stalked out on her morning mission, her trade journals left unattended on her desk. Vanessa began sorting through the newly arrived paper in her IN box. “The daily hell,” she announced. So, after frowning for five minutes, I started telling her about my meetings with Sykes and Boyd. When I stopped talking, she said, “They think I did it. They still think I did it!”

“Not necessarily, Vanessa. Sure, they’re watching you, but that’s at least partly to see that what happened to Renata doesn’t happen to you too. To tell you the truth, I don’t think Sykes himself knows what he thinks happened. All he’s doing is hedging his bets. That’s the best he can do. He’s also making sure that Bob Foley’s suicide is properly gone into. Foley may have been pissed off at the Vic Vernon people, but even Vic Vernon doesn’t drive everybody to suicide. What do you know about him?”

“Vic’s an egomaniacal-”

“Not Vernon. You told me about him already. I mean Foley.”

“Bob? I don’t know. He was a good technician. One of the best, so I understand. I don’t deal directly with the grips, riggers, lighting and sound people, Benny. The job just won’t let me. I know that there are cameramen, and I recognize most of them, but that’s out of my realm. Bob Foley I know by reputation. He was good at what he did. So good that Dermot Keogh got him to do all of his last Canadian recordings. Wouldn’t work with anybody else.”

“Yesterday in the car you mentioned a foundation. Raymond Devlin spoke of it too.”

“Oh, yes. Bob was one of the trustees of Dermot’s foundation. Under Dermot’s will, Raymond set up the Plevna Foundation. Don’t ask me what Plevna means. The foundation basically establishes bursaries for brilliant but poor music scholars, and thinks up new ways to spend Dermot’s posthumous earnings, which are considerable.”

“How did that happen? Dermot was a well-known, world-famous celebrity; Foley a fine, but obscure, technician. Wasn’t there some social and economic distance between them?”

“Dermot was many things, Benny, some of them maddening, but he was not a snob. He and Foley, in the course of their recording work for the last two years of his life, grew close to one another. Dermot attended Foley’s father’s funeral. Foley had keys to Dermot’s downtown studio. He drives Dermot’s old Jaguar. I heard-this is hearsay, because I didn’t get it first-hand- that Foley once complained that working with Dermot included walking his dog, staying up all night and moving furniture from Toronto to Dermot’s summer place. Dermot loved the diamond in the rough, Benny. He introduced me to amateurish ivory carvers with no talent, a virtuoso bubblegum artist and a charming panhandler who made his home at the corner of Bloor and Walmer Road. Outside, on the street.”

“How old was Foley?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Ask the cops,” she said, unbuttoning her jacket. Here I was treated to what every male in my class at Grantham Collegiate Institute and Vocational School would have killed to see: a little more of Stella Seco than Stella noticed was on display. When she saw my expression, she made an adjustment, clucking her tongue. “Benny, won’t you ever grow up?”

“If taking you for granted, Vanessa, is mature behaviour, then I hope to stay in short pants forever.”

“I suppose that’s very sweet, but from over here it’s boring.”

There was something calculated about Vanessa’s sudden unbuttoning of her jacket. She knew the effect it would have on me. Was she trying to change the subject?

“What does Vanessa Moss have planned for today?” She looked at an electronic appointment book and snapped it shut after a few seconds’ study.

“Yesterday, you met the junior executives trying to boot me from my Entertainment throne. This morning, you’ll meet the senior executives equally dedicated to the same noble purpose.”

“How is it you manage to make all these people mad at you?”

“I don’t take shit, Benny. Not from incompetents below me or above me without making damned sure everybody knows about it. I chose to come into broadcasting a long time ago. In my way, I care about it. I’m not going to carry the can for those bastards who can’t see higher than the bottom line. That’s my answer. You’ll have to get Sally drunk some night and pump her for her version. Sally’s separated, by the way. Do you think you can melt such frosty, unmalleable clay? I’d like to see it, but not on my time. You hear?” I loved the way Vanessa could make a subversive suggestion and, a moment later, accuse you of thinking it up on your own.