Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

“Oh,” I said, clearing my throat and swallowing hard.

“Does that shock you?”

“Me? Of course not. There’s a lot of it going … Some of my best …”

“There, I did embarrass you. I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you come from Grantham. Here in Toronto-”

“Look, dear Sally, Grantham’s not that backward. We’ve got the railroad; the bus service is going fine; we’ve got cable TV and even the World Wide Web has come along to show us what we’re missing. There’s not much going on in the world that could shock somebody on St. Andrew Street in Grantham today.”

“What about you? You look a little pink around the ears.”

“Well, I’ll admit, it was a little unexpected. I was unprepared. I mean it hadn’t entered my mind.” Part of my mind, the most primitive and least defensible part, was pondering whether this constituted getting a drink under false pretenses.

“Well, now you know. And now you know why I have to be so careful around that place.”

“Who else knows, and why is it such a big secret? And why are you telling me? Why, only this morning I thought that the sight of my bleeding corpse wouldn’t spoil your day. Now you volunteer this. How come?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got a good face. I hate the way Vanessa orders you around. Maybe it was the sweet way you tried to make peace this afternoon. I don’t know.”

I still wasn’t sure I trusted her, but, at least, she’d put up an unusual defence against the moves I had been plotting for later in the evening. She reminded me of my basically predatory nature, which I try to control, and of Anna, whose absence I was feeling in my bones.

“I assume that Vanessa knows nothing of this?” I asked.

“As far as she’s concerned, I don’t exist except as a source of coffee and treachery. I don’t think she worries much about people’s sexuality. She uses her own charms to manoeuvre men-she’s a past-master at that, as you may know-but apart from that, she’s not very observant about people and where they’re coming from. She divides the world into two groups: those who can help her and those who want help from her.”

“Is there anyone at NTC who knows?”

“Nate, Nate Green knew I was going through hell living with Gordon. He was a dear, sympathetic man, even when his own health started to preoccupy him. Unless he told somebody, then you’re the only one, apart from one or two of the women there that I trust.”

“Why don’t you want it to get out? I can think of several reasons but what are yours?”

“Benny, I just want to get on with my job. From where you sit, it might not look like much, but it’s all I’ve got right now, except Crystal. I don’t need complications.”

“But they can’t fire you for what isn’t any of their business, can they?”

“No, not any more, but it wouldn’t endear me to some of them either. Three years ago, a man got shunted around because it was thought there were too many gays in his department. Because of some idiot’s idea that a ‘quota system’ was needed in Audience Relations, he was sent back to writing local news and weather.” She paused long enough for me to register her point, and then took the first sip of her drink.

The bar was beginning to fill up. It hadn’t looked particularly empty when I came in, but now the contrast showed. Little silver bowls of peanuts, olives and shrimp chips had appeared. The bartender was talking to an elderly man in a string tie at the other end of the bar. I drew a happy face with my finger in the wet ring where my glass had been sitting.

“Did anybody come looking for Vanessa while I was out this afternoon, Sally?”

“Only about three or four hundred came in raising hell.”

“What?”

“I mean it was business as usual around there. You’ve seen it, but you haven’t seen the traffic when it gets bad. Multiply Hy Newman by fifty and you’ll begin to get an idea of my job.”

“You feel sorry for Hy, don’t you?” She stared into her glass. Droplets of moisture forced their way through cloudy condensation on the sides.

“Hy was part of NTC from the beginning. Now he can’t get past Reception most days. Security has his picture and orders not to let him in.”

“Does he run amok? Does he threaten people? What’s the problem?”

“Hy reminds most of them where they were when Hy was the best producer of big shows that the network had ever seen. He hired some of them and promoted others. Hy’s the sort of person who makes up for all the times we fail, or don’t measure up to who we should be.”

“You take this very personally, don’t you, Sally?”

“Benny, somebody has to.” I quite liked Sally then. And I believed her. There must be a lot of people on the payroll who aren’t trying to make the worst programs possible, people who feel a responsibility to the public, who are aware of the lightweights they have been delivering over the years.

“What brings you to NTC, Benny? You’re not a broadcaster.” I considered telling Sally the truth and then I took another sip of my drink.

“I know Vanessa from a long time ago. She’s in a bind and I’m trying to help her. I suggested that she get Hy Newman to sort out some of her production muddles for her.”

“That was a great idea!”

“She didn’t think so.”

“Give her a day or two. I’ve seen her take suggestions of mine a couple of days after she told me to mind my business. It is a good idea, Benny. So, she found you in Grantham at loose ends?” I could see she was pumping me, but I didn’t see the harm. I could use it to reinforce my cover story.

“Yes, I was just waiting around to go on a European holiday. She got me at the right moment. Tell me, Sally, did you know Renata Sartori at all?” I watched the reaction to the question in her eyes. She was suddenly guarded. I’d lost yards by trying to get too much too soon.

“Not … too well, Benny. She’d worked here for a long time, but it’s a busy place. We used to have coffee together occasionally. I liked her. She did my income-tax returns for two or three years until I started doing them myself. She was clever with figures. She could have been a certified accountant if she troubled to take the exam. She did the books for a lot of people around the network.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Well, she was so good at it.”

New people were filling up the empty spaces behind me, crowding the bar and raising the din, so that it was becoming harder to hear Sally without leaning close, which I didn’t mind a bit.

“Getting back to Renata: did she really look all that much like Vanessa?”

“Well, they weren’t dead ringers. From the back they could pass for one another: same height, proportions, hair colour and length, but from the front, Vanessa has finer features. Renata had brown eyes and used heavier makeup. I guess in the dark it might be hard to tell them apart. The papers said she was wearing a dressing gown of Vanessa’s. The murderer would have an expectation of seeing Vanessa answer her own front door.”

“Didn’t she have a man in her life? A lawyer?”

“Renata had been seeing Barry Bosco. He’s with Raymond Devlin’s firm. But I don’t know that it was a burning passionate affair. It may have been. Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t know the details. She didn’t talk about him at all when we had lunch that last time. They went out together; that’s all I know for a fact. He had a sports car as well as other cars and she liked that. I don’t know whether Barry felt as casual about Renata.”

“How do you happen to know Bosco?”

“He’s a fraternity brother of Gordon’s. He was on the fringe of a crowd I used to know better than I do now.” She sipped her drink thoughtfully. “Barry is hard to figure. He has all the charm in the world, but he can’t be pinned down on anything. He’s a strange sort of lawyer, now that I think of it. He hates to sign things. Can you imagine it? A lawyer who hates to put his name on the dotted line. Raymond is just the opposite. He’ll get you to sign a contract just for coming in to keep an appointment. I’ve never seen anyone who was so paper-bound. Well, you saw him in good form yesterday, Benny. He probably gets the kid who cuts his grass to sign a contract. He had kids of his own: they died in a car accident when they were teenagers. But when they were eight and six, Ray made them draw up wills!”