A City Called July (14 page)

These speculations were interrupted by the smell of exhaust working its way steadily into my moving coffin. Carbon monoxide! I’d be found cherry red in a ditch without a scratch on me. I tried to sniff my way to the place where the smell was strongest, and stuffed the raincoat into the gap of rusted-away wheel cover. Canadian winters are great eaters of innocent metal. The smell began to settle down. I remembered that carbon monoxide is heavy, so I propped my head as high as I could. That meant that I took an occasional thump on the forehead from every pot-hole or dead skunk the car ran over.

I needed to take my mind, or what was left of it, off the panic that had found nesting ground in every joint of my body. I did a survey of my pockets and came up with a ball-point pen, cigarettes and my penknife. I could see myself chipping away at the trunk lid with it until it broke, like Injun Joe in
Tom Sawyer,
with his cheek against the massive door of the closed cave. Then I thought of that new tire without even a mile on its factory-new treads. I took the knife firmly and with what little leverage I could find worked the blade back and forth along the smooth wall of the tire. I was getting a little light-headed. Would it be better to relax and keep still or should I go down with harness on my back? That was
Macbeth,
I think. I think I felt the presence of an old English teacher. We were talking about an essay I’d got a C-plus on. “It’s not good enough, Benny. It’s just not good enough. I know you can do better. Where’s your stick-to-it-iveness? You’ve got to work like a Trojan if you intend to graduate.” I kept moving the knife against the rubber, the nylon cords and then the backing. It was something to do, something to demonstrate to Mr. McDonald that I was trying to improve. When the tire blew, I thought my ear-drums would roll out of my head and spiral about like two nickels on a table-top. The air that came out was stale, smelling of dust and rubber. But there must have been a little stale oxygen in it somewhere. It made a nice change from the carbon monoxide I’d been breathing. I was glad to see that the English teacher had vanished. My head even felt clearer, until the car lurched sharply and I was thrown against the left-hand side of the trunk. We’d gone off the smooth highway and were now on a bumpy road. My back took a pounding. Every new bump hit where a sore place was hiding. All body secrets were out in the open. I had to clench my teeth or lose them. Rough road, journey’s end. That made sense. Life’s happy journey. Dead and red in a ditch.

About then the car stopped and turned slowly to the right. I was swimming in a rough surf. Breakers ahead with sharp barnacles and limpets on the rocks like Chinese coolie hats to tear at my hands. The car stopped again. I braced for another turn, but there wasn’t one. The motor was shut off and I heard the doors open. I had only enough sense left in me to play dead to the world. I was born for that part. My eyes were closed when I heard the keys go into the lock. The lid sprang up.

I guess I’d thought at one time of leaping out flailing the tire iron in all directions, but I realized that I would have to do this after lying in a cramped posture for the best part of half an hour. I could only have made a mess of it.

“He’s still out.”

“Looks that way. Hey, did you know you got a leak in here?” The second voice came from next to my left ear. “Pee-oo! I bet we finished the bugger with the exhaust.”

“Shake him. See if he groans. Is he breathing any?”

“Hold your flash ready. I can’t see anything.” That was the third voice. It had a trace of Cockney or some other English echo. A true Cockney would have said “torch,” but this guy had been helping himself and making free with Canadian ways and customs.

“He’s heavier than he looks. Easy, Len, don’t blunt him any more than necessary!” I was lifted out by six hands, a very spidery sensation, and carried feet forward along a path that crunched underfoot. The man in front stopped suddenly, and I buckled in the middle.

“Hey!” That was Len.

“I’ve got to get my keys, chum.” I felt my weight shifted, and then heard the scratch of the key making its way into an old-fashioned lock. The knob turned with an audible protest and the safari moved into a room of some kind. They put me down without ceremony on a couch that smelled of mildew.

“What do you think?”

“Well, he’s still breathing.”

“Yes, I know, but …”

“Come off it All he needs is air. I’ll see to him. Why don’t you see if you can get a fire started. It may be July, but I feel cold.”

“Yeah, it’s like my wife’s feet in here. The trees keep the sun off the roof.” In a moment I could hear someone breaking kindling across the room, then the unmistakable sound of a stove lid being shifted.

“There’s enough paper in there already. Give us a match.” I heard the match being struck and almost at once began to smell smoke.

“Did you see to the draft, you clot?”

“What?”

“Christ, he’s trying to make smoked salmon of us. You have to fix the draft so the smoke goes up the chimney. Bloody smoke’s backing up.” I could hear the kindling crackling and snapping in the stove and imagined that I was beginning to feel better. I heard chairs scrape on a wooden floor, and imagined the three of them sitting down at a table near the fire.

“You been here before?”

“Nah, not me.”

“I was,” said the one they called Len. “Last time I worked for this bloke. A couple of years ago. I was here a week that time. All the guy did all day was play cards with himself. Wouldn’t let me take a hand.”

Just then we heard a blast like the sound of a locomotive just as it’s about to run over you.

“What the hell was that?”

“Steamship going through the canal. Going through the twin-flight locks. Sound bounces off the escarpment. You get used to it. It’s scary at first.” The boat gave another tea-cup-rattling hoot. “Can’t tell whether it’s going up or coming down.” Under the lingering echo of the ship’s whistle I could hear another sound, that of an approaching car. I heard it before they did, and counted four breaths before Len said, “That’ll be him. See if you can wake the charmer.”

Footsteps coming in my direction, then three powerful slaps in the face. I thought I was ready for them, but I jumped awake and was almost sitting up when the fourth slap was ready to descend. From where it had fallen off the couch I brought up my right arm, making a fist as I went, and hit one of the hoods in the mouth. My hand rang sharply with the pain, but it made up for that tap behind the ear and the bumpy ride

“Christ, the bugger’s awake!”

“He’s smashed Gordon!” They were on me in a second. Gordon was sprawled under the table holding his face. I was still only half sitting. I couldn’t get up. A fist was raised above me. I closed my eyes for the next shock, feeling both my wrists held fast.

TWELVE

“Stop that, you idiots! What do you think this is?” We all looked towards the door. There was a man standing there with an attaché case in his gloved hand and wearing a light Burberry. Car keys dangled from the other hand as it rested on the doorknob. “Get away from him at once! Are you trying to kill the man!” He took a step into the room, noted the sprawling form of Gordon on the floor, and set down his case on the table.

“Glenn, we …”

“Shut up. Help Gordon off the floor.” He began removing his gloves like he was at a garden party. He put them in his cap and placed the lot next to the attaché case. He kept his eyes on me all the while, watching as I moved to a sitting position. He walked towards me with a friendly smile on his face.

“Geoff, see if there’s a drink about, will you? I think Mr. Cooperman could use one.”

It was Glenn Bagot. I’d seen his slightly puffy handsome face in the paper often enough. It was tanned, and still looked like it could run forward towards chairman of the board or back to footloose beachboy. His wavy dark hair was touched with grey in the usual places. He wore it rather long making him look a little like a public-school boy in mid-term. There was something about those regular features that reminded me of an English garden that’s been rolled every Thursday afternoon for the last five hundred years. But there was a slight droop to his right eyelid. He could have been a banker in the navy-blue pinstripe under his Burberry. I knew now that my execution, if that was what was on the program, would follow from a matter of policy and not from a faulty exhaust system.

“Well, Mr. Cooperman, how are you feeling?”

“A little better, Mr. Bagot, thanks.”

“You know me, then? All the better. No need to beat about the bush.” He pulled a chair close to the couch I was sitting on and sat down on it the wrong way around, so that his arms were folded across the top of the pressed-back chair. He smelled of cologne and talcum.

I tried to scan the room for the first time. It looked like the kitchen of a summer cottage, or hunting lodge. There was a sink with a pump in it, the wood stove which was still smoking, and a round wooden table with turned legs and an oilcloth cover. Oilcloth? I didn’t think they even made it anymore.

“Mr. Cooperman, we are both businessmen in our different ways, so I don’t imagine that it will be very difficult for us to come to an understanding.”

“I came to listen,” I said. Mr. Bagot didn’t have a sense of humour. He merely nodded like I’d answered an engraved invitation. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’ll be frank with you. We all deplore what Larry Geller has done. He was a man in a privileged position. A man who went back on a trust. In every civilized society that man stands condemned. Before any bar of justice he would be branded guilty. We have no dispute so far?” He didn’t even look at my face to see if I was still awake. He enjoyed language and he seemed to find the words written about a foot above my head on the rafters at the back of the cabin. Gordon was sitting at the table with a wadded tissue pressed to his red nose. I guess Geoff had given up looking for booze. My host didn’t press him. “Further,” he went on in his grand court-room manner, still hugging the top of the chair, “we all regret the difficulties that Larry’s conduct has forced upon his family. No amount of reparation will ever let them regain their place in the community.” I could feel him warming to a “but” and it didn’t take long. “But, as they say, life must go on, Mr. Cooperman. Life and business must go on.” I thought business would come into it. In fact I had the feeling that if we changed places I would be able to read his lines without looking at his script. He wasn’t ready to run down anyway. “You may know that I’m president of a cement company. It’s a fairly large company, perhaps the largest in the Niagara district. From time to time I’ve done business with Sid Geller’s company. Recently we have joined forces to tackle jobs that separately would have been too big for us to handle. Some of these have been government contracts. Together we’ve been able to give satisfaction. We’ve recently bid on a very big job. One which will give a lot of employment to local labour. We know that the tenders are all in and that an announcement of the winning bid will be announced next week.” He took a breath and wiped his forehead with a clean handkerchief. His words sounded calm, and I knew that he intended to present himself as a rational man talking to another rational man. But he didn’t get the breathing right. I could feel the panic underneath. I had to give him credit, though. He came very close.

“All of this investigation into Larry Geller’s past is bad for us. I can’t prevent the usual routine investigation by Niagara Regional Police; we have to be willing to accept whatever they turn up. If Geller is found, he will be extradited and put in the dock. We are powerless to do anything about that. But we will do whatever we can to delay matters. We only need a week. By that time the bids will …” He stopped. “I’ve told you this already. You see, I can’t predict you, Mr. Cooperman A man like you might turn up a great deal in a week.”

He had apparently ended his argument. He sat back in the chair as though my lines came next and his next cue was several pages off. I didn’t say anything. I was still trying to take in what I’d just heard. When I didn’t fill the silence, Bagot tried again. “Mr. Cooperman, I’ve been told you are a reasonable man.” He paused to see if I would deny it.

“Look, Mr. Bagot, I don’t want to stand in the way of progress. Everybody has to live. You, me, even Larry Geller. I don’t have any quarrel with you. But I can’t see how my digging into Geller’s affairs drops bird-lime on your hat.”

“It’s too complicated to go into.”

“Isn’t it always. Let’s see. Your company and Sid’s are up for a government job. Provincial or federal?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, if you said federal, I might think it had something to do with that canal-widening scheme they’ve been talking about in the papers. If it’s provincial, then my guess is that it has something to do with highways. But whatever it is, I can’t see how Geller’s game can hurt you. You’re not letting me in on the whole story.”

“Cooperman, I see that the reports I’ve heard about you are correct. I’ve underestimated you. But hear me out. You must see that the very name Geller will be enough to put the wind up the ministry involved. Our tender may be the best in the box, but no government can afford to get mixed up in a scandal. The opposition parties will jump at a mistake like that. The Geller name could be the axe to topple this government.”

“But Sid Geller isn’t Larry. He’s not even Sid Geller, he’s something called Bolduc Construction.”

“Nevertheless.”

“You’re not giving me all the pieces to play with. There has to be another element. A second breath of scandal maybe?” That made him blink.

“Mr. Cooperman, I’m going to make you a proposition. You have gone to a great deal of trouble in this matter. My associates Geoff, Len and Gordon have not treated you with the degree of politeness that I would have suggested under the circumstances. I don’t know who you are working for, but I would like you to come to work for me. I have here …” and his hand went into his breast pocket and came out with a wallet. He took from it a handful of new bills, “… five hundred dollars for you as a retainer. Treat it as that. Treat it as payment for the insults that you acquired in coming here. What do you say? Is it a bargain?”