Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

“You’re not impressed by genius?”

“It’s all right in its place. But Dermot’s affairs have transformed our firm. It should be renamed Dermot Keogh Enterprises. The whole of his estate is operated out of our office, and the balance between criminal and corporate law, which used to exist, is way out of whack. I haven’t been in a courtroom for six months. That’s a long time, Mr. C. I love trial work and I’m good at it. But the firm’s interest in that end of the business has been distracted.” The waiter dropped two hot, wet washcloths in front of us. I scalded myself in two places before catching on to the operation. Bosco handled his cloth better, but he wasn’t looking well.

“I’m still not thinking straight, Mr. C. Give me a break, please? I can’t talk any more. I touched the hall light switch. I must have left a print. Since that night I’ve been jumping every time the phone rings. I have heard the voices of the cops asking if I could come downtown to clear up a few things.”

“Just one more minute, Mr. Bosco: how did you leave the house? The body and the shells were in the hall. Was the door open?”

“I think it was closed. Yes, it was closed. But when I left, I know that I left it open. I had an instinct to go back and close it, but I couldn’t make myself. I fled. That’s the only word for it.” He looked at me with his eyes watering, searching my face for the answers to questions I hadn’t the skill to ask. They were washed-out blue eyes now, like the colour of a chalk drawing on a rainy sidewalk.

Most of the vegetables and meat had grown cold over half an hour ago. Neither of us had eaten much. The tea was cold. Bosco paid the bill and left, miming a parting word. I cracked open one of the two fortune cookies. It read: “Your problems will vanish if you have patience.” I never found out what Bosco’s said. He didn’t open it.

After Bosco left, I sat with the green tea until it was bitter as well as cold. I couldn’t think of anything witty enough to write on the wall. I was asked if I wanted more tea. I did, but I thought a walk through Chinatown would be even better. There were some things on my mind that had been rattling around without my having time to see if any of them stuck together. The walk along Dundas Street to University Avenue wasn’t a long one, but just the right length to get my thoughts straighter than they’d been. I reminded myself of a visit from my Uncle Nathan from New York. He took one look at my father’s dress store and complained, “Manny, you’ve got inventory all over the place. You must be crazy overloading the shop like this. A man can’t live on inventory alone.” He was right. And an investigator can get facts so stuck in his head that he can’t read them any more.

There was a big grey truck backed up to the entrance of NTC’s main entrance. The back doors were open, and a wheeled ramp led from the truck-bed to the top step of the entrance. As I approached, I saw a security guard holding visitors back from the dismantled revolving door. Three men in grey shopcoats were running a pair of digital editing machines through the lobby in the direction of the truck. Another mover was holding a padded blanket to help ease the hardware through the tight squeeze of the glass doorway. I waited my turn. They looked like professionals. The man in charge, with a redoubtable beer belly, supervised the manoeuvres without putting his hands on metal. When the first two machines had been loaded, I saw that a second pair was waiting just inside the door, with a security guard keeping visitors well away from adding their fingerprints to the shiny blue-grey metal surfaces. How did I know that they were digital editing machines? To be honest, right then, I didn’t. They could have been egg hatchers or baby incubators as far as I was concerned. The only thing I thought about them then was the fact that I was coming and they were going. I was between a dismantled revolving door and a hard place to get into.

A couple of familiar technicians I recognized from the pub around the corner were watching the loading procedure. They looked at one another, wearing curious, lighthearted, knowing expressions. It took me a while to learn how to read them. When I looked for them a few moments later, they were gone. The usual crowd of smokers hovered in a group, like exiles, just beyond the door.

“How long is the door going to be blocked?”

“You can get through in five minutes,” one security guard said, sizing me up. “Or you can go around to the side door or you could come back later. They’ll be through here in ten minutes at the outside.” I was about to follow the latter advice when I saw an opening between the first two pieces, and grabbed it. I could feel the weight of the machine pressing against me as I sucked in my breath and forced my way between the quilting and the doorway.

Once inside, I found myself in the midst of another break in the routine. A bandstand had been assembled in front of a huge map of Canada cut into a massive screen of illuminated glass, and a jazz band was playing its heart out while NTC regulars went about their business without giving them more than a shrug of notice. The lobby hadn’t been designed to encourage music, and the glass entranceway and marble interior offended it with a hostile bounce, repelling the Dixieland riffs as though they were an embarrassment. Whoever organized this noon-hour concert had forgotten the plugged doorway. The boys in the band were playing for the converted. There were no strangers within the gates. The musicians paid that no mind; they were in a groove and enjoying themselves. The lead guitar was pushing a modern version of an old prison work song: It’s a long John,He’s a long gone,Like a turkey through the cornThrough the long corn.

The few trapped visitors or regulars who noticed were impressed. In a corner were huddled the forms of a few more unreformed smokers, taking advantage of the circumstances to steal a few puffs in the lobby, buttressed by one another against the momentarily divided attention of the guards. I paused to listen for a minute or more, waiting for the courage to run the gauntlet of Security. The other guitarist and the bass now joined in the chorus: Mister John, John,Old Big-eye John,Oh John, JohnIt’s a long John.

You could hear the work-song origins pulsating through the lines. You could hear axe blades or railroad hammers striking with a rattle of prison chains as they finished up their take on this old jazz classic.

“Ruth Pierson! Hey, baby, what are you doing here?” It was one of the musicians. He was addressing an attractively turned-out woman, who looked as though she was enjoying the music.

“Hi, Josh! They won’t let me out of here. I’m trapped until they clear the doorway.” Ruth went over to the bandstand and began talking to the drummer in a quieter voice.

I wandered through the lobby watching the people. Are there types who frequent TV network offices? Are there shy geniuses with bright ideas? Hucksters looking for a sucker? I wandered and eavesdropped. Two attractive young women with the glitter of metal in their ears and noses were talking about a party. “… It was billed as this terrific event . But there weren’t any real movie stars there. Not even real actors.”

“Apart from the drinks, it was hardly-”

“Oh, there was that female midget from Total Recall . She was there, but she’s not anybody.”

“She did some guest spots on Seinfeld . She was on a few times.”

“We thought that they’d have people from the movie or some production people or at least those robots …” I left them with their disenchantment and disappointment.