Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

“I introduced his name into this conversation not five minutes ago, Ken. Are you losing your memory?” There was an attempt at laughter, then Trebitsch wandered into another conversation group. Vanessa held on to me and engaged Philip Rankin in further chit-chat. “Philip, what’s Bob Foley’s death going to mean to your Plevna Foundation?”

“Why, nothing, dear girl. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t thought about it much. There were three trustees, now there are two. That’s all.”

“Philip’s on that Dermot Keogh foundation I was telling you about, Benny.”

“Oh, yes. The cellist. From what I hear, he was a remarkable man.”

“Understatement, Mr. Cooperman.” He grinned at me with the misty eyes of a true believer. “Everything about Dermot is an understatement. Apart from the two books about him that have already appeared, I know of three distinguished writers who are working separately on biographies. There are more of his CDs out now, since his death, than there were last year or the year before. Cutout limbo doesn’t exist for Dermot Keogh. People can’t get enough of him. Not since the death of the great Glenn Gould has there been such a musical phenomenon.”

“And you knew him well?”

“What? Goodness, did I know him? I brought him here to NTC. Oh, yes! We recorded a series of half a dozen shows and were committed to do another six. I met him at the CBC originally. In the Old Building. He was just twenty, but already reorganizing the music department there from the inside. A year later he made his break-out recording of the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello . That sold a million copies worldwide in the first six weeks on the shelves. It went platinum within the next month. Oh, I could go on and on about Dermot, who was, along with his genius, a wonderful human being. I keep having to remind myself that I was privileged to be counted as one of his friends.”

“You must be excited about the building of Dermot Keogh Hall.”

“Indeed, I am. It will be a memorial worthy of its subject, Mr. Cooperman. And glory enough in it for all concerned.” It seemed to me I’d heard that phrase before.

“Were you around at the time of his death?”

“Me? Oh, not me. I detest swimming in cold water, and when I do swim, I stay on top. I could never understand these snorkellers and scuba-diving types. Seems unnatural somehow. Know what I mean?”

“I think I do. I stay away from most vigorous exercise. I want my body well rested when the crisis comes and I need all my physical resources at short notice.”

“Good man! That’s the spirit.” Philip Rankin grinned at me, showing a mouthful of teeth in need of urgent attention. It was the face of an adenoidal carp. The smile seemed warm enough, but I wasn’t quite buying his “Good man!” and his “wonderful human being.” I was going to have to pick up a little more about Keogh as I went on with my body-guarding responsibilities. It would help me bear the tedium, like a side bet made to keep an edge on my interest.

Meanwhile, the body I was supposed to be guarding was talking to Ted Thornhill himself, while the CEO of NTC chewed on a handful of crackers and cheddar.

“Well, are you still having fun with it, Vanessa?” he was saying through a fine mist of expelled cracker crumbs. Vanessa was holding a glass of white wine, which she tasted and abandoned on the edge of a table as she spoke.

“I love the pressure, Ted. I get off on the problems, and crow over the rewards. That doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to getting away as soon as I can put a normal long weekend together.”

“Yes, you should, you know. What’s happened to you wasn’t in your contract. This murder thing is killing us in the papers. Naturally, they delight in all of our difficulties. Particularly that Turnbull woman at the Star , and of course our old friend Carver at the Globe . Are the police coming up with results, Vanessa? The sooner the murderer’s put away, the sooner we can read the papers again without wincing, eh?”

I heard my name being whispered a few inches away from my ear. It was Sally, the usually glum receptionist. Only now she was almost smiling. “You’re wanted, Mr. Cooperman,” she said.

“I am? Who wants me?” I tried not to look startled. Nobody knew I was here.

“The police,” she said, looking me straight in the eye for the first time.

The police, announced so dramatically by Sally Jackson, turned out to be Jack Sykes and Jim Boyd, as I should have guessed. They were waiting for me in that part of Vanessa’s office that was sacred to me. Since I had seen them so recently, I wondered what brought them up to the twentieth floor this close to lunchtime. Could they be buying, I wondered?

“We gotta car downstairs,” Sykes said simply. From his tone, I decided that they hadn’t come all the way up to tell me this without my going down with them to see it for myself. So we did that. When I started questioning them in the elevator, they shushed me, like Vanessa had warned them about talking in the elevator. On the way out the cops had to hand in their paste-on VISITOR passes to the SWAT team at the security desk. “This way,” Boyd prompted, as though I didn’t know my way through a revolving door. Outside, with its lights flashing but without the noise, stood a cruiser with someone sitting in the back seat. I glanced through the window, while I tried to open the back door.

“Hello, Benny. How have you been keeping yourself?” Damned if it wasn’t Detective Sergeant Chuck R. Pepper, the cop who worked on that rare-book murder investigation I did six or seven years ago. It’s a story I haven’t told many people about yet, but I might one day. Chuck looked about the same, with a military look to his short-cropped iron-grey hair. There were red mousetracks on his cheeks that spoke of the good things of life. Underneath, he was grinning in a controlled way. Chuck never went overboard while on duty. Behind me, Sykes and Boyd were taking it all in.

“Chuck! How are you? Damn it, it’s good to see you!” We shook hands after I managed to get the door to open. Out of habit, Boyd clapped me on the head as I ducked under the door frame.

“Much better now I’ve seen you. I might make it to my pension after all.” The other two piled into the front seat, and with a squeak of rubber Sykes moved the car away from the ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING signs and into traffic on University Avenue. Sykes turned around, smiling.

“I should have brought my camera; I wanted to catch this reunion for posterity, but I forgot. Still, I thought that you might want to know that Chuck’s now in charge of the questionable death at 518 Sackville Street.”

“Bob Foley?” I asked, and counted three nods. “Is it still questionable, or has it been downgraded to a tropical storm?”

“It’s only the circumstances that are suspicious. The suicide part looks real enough,” said Chuck. “But I reckon it won’t hurt to have another look around. Would you like to come along? We were thinking of going for dim sum afterwards. You haven’t eaten, I hope?”

“No, I haven’t eaten. They’re serving plastic cheese up on the twenty-first floor. My client never eats and I could starve to death on this job. What’s dim sum? And thanks, I’d like to tag along.” Boyd explained about the Chinese tea lunch and Chuck warned me that I should say little and keep my hands in my pockets on the far side of the yellow plastic tape. Good old Chuck Pepper: he hadn’t changed a bit.

The late Bob Foley’s house at 518 Sackville Street looked like its neighbouring houses, 520 and 516. It wasn’t much different from lots of rowhouses and semidetached houses in that part of town: a rather narrow, three-storey brick structure with a bay window and a gable roof. From what Sykes said, I gather that the neighbourhood had sunk to the status of a genteel slum between the wars, but was now up again, showing off big brass house numbers on sand-blasted brick. Sykes parked on the “no parking” side of the street. He seemed to have a built-in contempt for traffic signs.