Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

Back on the street, I found a second-hand bookstore, where I saw a clutch of Perry Masons. For five dollars, the clerk agreed to send them on for me. Before I’d quite got back to the street, I returned to change the instructions I’d given: I’d written Ed Patel’s address as “care of Croft’s Funeral Home.”

Next, I headed for the newspaper office on Colborne Street and found it in the block between Peter and West. This was a busy block, containing the fire hall, the police station and a Tim Hortons restaurant.

The office of the Orillia Packet amp; Times was busy that noon hour. A man in an old-fashioned straw hat, carrying a tuba in a case, was filling in a subscription form. A woman in pink shorts and a sweatshirt reading “It’s not ale if it isn’t Charles Wells” was waiting for him to finish. Was Charles Wells beer and ale taking over the Canadian market, I wondered, or were two sightings of advertisements on clothing just a coincidence? I’d have to be on the lookout for another appearance.

The capable woman behind the counter had sculptured jet-black hair with a shock of white at the front. She was trying not to nibble the temple of the glasses she was holding near her mouth. She was short and buxom and was grinning at something interesting going on inside her head that had nothing to do with the Orillia Packet amp; Times . A photograph of what I guessed were her grandchildren stood on the desk to which she returned from time to time. When I came to her notice, I explained that I wanted to see copies of the paper going back several weeks, to May, in fact. I was looking for the write-up of a talk given on the evening of the fifteenth of May.

“Aren’t you on-line?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon?” I looked around to see if there was anyone in line who might claim to be ahead of me.

“The information is obtainable on the Internet.” She said this as though explaining quantum theory to a six-year-old.

“Oh!” I stuttered. “I don’t have my laptop in the car.”

“You’d better come around and let me set you up. Clarence won’t be back until after lunch. If I hadn’t packed a lunch this morning, I’d close up this place for an hour. And just let anybody complain.” She lifted a flap in the countertop and showed me into an office that sported a framed poster of an old-fashioned reporter hollering into a telephone: “Make it snappy, sweetheart, and get me Rewrite!” I thought of Vanessa’s description of Ken Trebitsch, the hot-shot head of News at NTC.

I was sorry not to meet Clarence, but I did find the story I was looking for as I flipped from screen to screen.The Junior Chamber of Commerce, meeting jointly with the Orillia Bar Association, was treated last night to the keen wit and interesting comments of Barry Bosco, a lawyer with the Toronto firm of Devlin and Devlin. Meeting in the library of the Leacock Museum on Brewery Bay, and introduced by Cam Millar, the curator of the museum, Mr. Bosco thanked the audience for coming out on a rainy evening. Reading from a prepared text, but illustrating his points with anecdotes, he kept the room with its 24 listeners enthralled for almost an hour. He talked about five of his interesting cases, which had caused a stir in legal quarters in the Ontario capital. Most interesting was his account of the baby deaths at Rose of Sharon Hospital. In thanking him afterwards, and in the act of presenting him with a T-shirt commemorating the incorporation of the town of Orillia as a city, Ernie Moffatt expressed the sentiments of most of those in attendance when he said, “Hopefully, we hope that you’ll come back and see us again before too long.” The deputy mayor, Harry J. Torgov, seconded the motion to adjourn to the next stage of the evening’s entertainment. Tea and cookies were served, with special thanks to Mrs. Halpern and her committee. The speaker informally chatted with his audience afterwards.

When I pulled myself away from the back issues of the Orillia Packet amp; Times , I saw the woman with the shock of white in her black hair explaining to a newcomer that she couldn’t guarantee anyone the size of a photograph that would mark the winning of Sunday’s regatta. “It’s expensive to run a picture more than two or three columns, Carla. Besides, pictures is another department. Talk to Clarence when he’s finished drinking his lunch over at the Rendezvous.” Carla went out in a hurry. My friend behind the counter knew how to get Clarence back to work when she wanted him. Before I left, I asked her if any pictures were taken at the time of the Junior Chamber and Orillia Bar meeting at the museum. She opened a drawer on her side of the counter and came up with a grey manila envelope.

“Clarence took these, but as you know, we didn’t run any of them. These are hard times in the world of print journalism.” She said this last in a sad, breathy voice that showed how much recent economies had hurt her personally. I took four glossy pictures out and looked through them. There was Barry Bosco being introduced, there he was giving his talk, there he was accepting the T-shirt, and there he was posing with some of the others, “informally chatting with his audience.” The only trouble was that Barry Bosco wasn’t Barry Bosco. The man in the photograph was Roger Cavanaugh, the man Raymond Devlin brought with him last Wednesday to sign the contracts for Dermot Keogh Hall. Roger Cavanaugh may not have had the most prepossessing of faces, but here on these glossies, he cut quite a dash. I could almost hear the sound of an exploding alibi as I grinned idiotically at the prints. The first thing I learned when I started in this business was to check everything. This was one of those times when it paid off.

I paid for one of these photographs, collected a receipt and found, on locating the Olds, that my parking meter had expired, but that no parking ticket had yet been placed under my windshield wiper. I was at least half an hour over-parked and within spitting distance of the police station. After that, I won’t say a bad word about Orillia again, ever.

Tuesday

Once more, I was installed at the New Beijing Inn on Bay Street, not far from Toronto’s Old City Hall. Although the floor was different-they’d moved me up to the ninth-the view from the window was unaltered. After showering and sorting my laundry, I called Sally at the office.

“Benny! Did you have a good weekend?”

“From the sound of your voice, I take it that Vanessa’s not back yet from sunny California?”

“You’ve got it. Rumour has it she’ll be home late today. But I’d put my money on Wednesday. She has to be here on Wednesday.”

“You know her pretty well, don’t you?”

“Benny, I’m just guessing. She’s never here when Ken, Mr. Rankin or Mr. Thornhill are on the phone every ten minutes. All three of them have called at least twice. They’re still after her head. After all she’s been through.”

“And all she’s put you through.”

“Well, that’s show business. Are you coming in?”

“I’ll be there in about half an hour, Sally. You want me to bring you a Danish?”

“Why didn’t I meet you years ago, Benny? I like the gloopy kind. Bring napkins and-oops! I’ve got another line flashing. ’Bye.”

Last night, as soon as I had got back into the steaming city and applied calamine lotion to the few itchy places on my legs, I got dressed in my remaining clean clothes and found a bite to eat at a deli called Yitz’s on Eglinton Avenue West. Here the service was crisp and speedy. Here I could afford to branch out from my diet of chopped-egg sandwiches and try a little chopped liver and a corned beef sandwich with sweet lemon tea. Just the way I like it. Still, I missed Orillia’s Bert and Ernie, or whatever their names were. I thought of Orillia again as I removed a parking ticket from my windshield. With the threat of starvation once more in check, I drove down to 52 Division on Dundas Street. Kids were climbing into the holes in a gigantic bronze sculpture at the corner outside the art gallery. They were having a wonderful time, while their parents looked as though they thought the holes might be better employed if they were filled with useful, necessary clocks.