Blood Wine (4 page)

He wanted to help her, but he didn't know where she was hurting.

Was it the horror? That would haunt the strongest of people, waking up beside a corpse with its guts spread over the mattress. Was it terror? That there might be a sequel, that she was a target? It seemed unlikely, not that it could happen but that she would let fear take hold. Was it grief for the death of her lover? He didn't think so. Whatever grief there might have been was subsumed by anger. Was it rage for Philip having used her, even if she did not understand how? Was it revulsion, loathing for Philip or misplaced contempt for herself, for the depraved sexual abuse she had endured?

Miranda sat back in her chair and then projected with a sibilant hush her deepest desire. “The son of a bitch, the one I didn't know, he's the one I want dead.”

“We'll get him.”

“I want him, Morgan.” She leaned forward. “I want him.”

Morgan had never heard Miranda talk this way. She had a cool intelligence that eliminated the emotional and the extraneous. Her mind was precise, and after three years with the RCMP following university and a decade working together on Homicide in Toronto, she knew how to use it with awesome dexterity.

“Dead won't help. We want him caught.”

“Whatever. I want him dead. This is about me, not him.”

She wanted to tell Morgan to let himself go, that she needed the same passion he risked on inanimate things; she needed his ardour and fury, not spoken but felt deep in her heart and the depths of her mind.

“Okay,” he said. “We're in this together.”

“Not quite. I'm the one waiting for the HIV results.”

“You okay?”

“Morgan, will you stop asking if I'm okay. Okay?”

Morgan felt helpless. He explained that the superintendent had given him his head, so that on the books he looked active. As for her suspension, apart from having had to turn in her semi-automatic, a pro forma procedure since it was already being held as material evidence, she was effectively on paid leave. And they were still partners.

“Rufalo's turned us loose,” he said.

“And Spivak?”

“He's good. Spivak will follow up whatever leads he can get. He's promised to keep us informed. He's not a small man, we're not in competition.”

“About 290 pounds of not small. With his new partner, that gives us nearly a quarter of a ton of detective on our side. And what are we up against? I've been fucked and fucked over by phantoms.”

“Don't make it worse —”

“Worse! You don't like the word ‘fucked'? Does it make you squeamish? Jesus, Morgan, that's what — I've been fucked. If ever a word was appropriate, that's it, that's what happened.”

Neither was prone to using vernacular.
Kick ass, let's roll, just do it
wasn't them.
Fuck
was a word they avoided, both feeling contempt for lazy diction, both alive among words too much to lean on stupid expletives.

Miranda got up and walked over to order two more coffees, this time not cappuccino. Often when Morgan was alone he had double-double, but with Miranda he always took black, no sugar. He actually preferred it that way. He could taste the coffee.

“So,” she said when she sat down again, “I've been ruminating for three days, perseverating, cogitating.”

“Which?”

“All three. Going over and over the details. Trying for the larger picture, waiting for something to emerge. So far, nothing but details.”

“Tell me things I don't know.”

“Okay.” She paused. “He could have had an accent?”

“Who? Philip?”

“Yeah, we'll call him Philip until something better comes up. It wasn't so much an accent as an absolute lack of inflection. It was a little unusual. You know how sometimes Europeans speak English better than we do. Germans, especially. Like that. Except he wasn't European.”

“What then? How do you know?”

“He spoke about Europe as an outsider —”

“And about Canada as home?”

“Canada and the States. It was strange. There wasn't a border — Canada and the U.S., it was all the same. None of the usual Canadian edginess — benevolent antipathy — when he talked about Americans. And none of an American's blithe indifference to difference when he talked about us. I remember thinking it seemed like a borderless sensibility and that it was strange, then I got used to it. I kind of liked it. I didn't want to know too much. I didn't want the emotional risk. He could have been either Canadian or American.”

“Or neither.”

“Perhaps. He was very cosmopolitan.”

“He knew good wines. I wonder where the Châteauneuf-du-Pape came from? I've never seen a label like that in Ontario — maybe the States. Could he have been Israeli?”

“Because he knew wines? An interesting connection! And no, definitely not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Morgan! A lady knows.”

“Yeah, okay, so, not Jewish.”

“Not Jewish. Let's see, what else? Afghani? No, the Taliban never came up. So who does that leave us?”

“Where did that come from?” asked Morgan.

“What, the Taliban? I don't know, whenever I think of relations between the sexes these days, I think of them. I mean, Morgan, watch the newscasts. Countries in that part of the world treat women like a different species. Crowd scenes, throngs in the streets, and no women. A sea of beards and burnooses, and impotent fists throttling the air — and not a woman in sight unless under a shroud. And don't give me the freedom of religion crap — freedom for whom? The normalization of hatred for women, that's what we're seeing; fear and hatred of women. Even by women themselves. Especially by women themselves.”

“I wasn't going to say a word. We live in parallel realities, get used to it.” He paused, curious about the direction their conversation had taken. “When I think of Afghanistan, I see those giant Buddhas crashing into clouds of dust a few years ago and, you know, it makes me ashamed and I think, God save us from religious zealotry.”

“An interesting prayer for an atheist.”

“Have you seen the pictures, giant hollows in the rock where the statues were, gaping holes spilling rubble? I'm ashamed on behalf of humanity.”

He's more concerned about statuary, about cultural artifacts, than about women in shackles of drapery, in perpetual shadows. Perhaps it's all the same.

“I made a list,” said Miranda abruptly, as if the clash of cultures were not under discussion. “You know, a list of the places we went for dinner or drinks, I gave it to Spivak.”

“He's already checked them out,” Morgan responded. “No one recalls either of you. It's like you were never there, like you didn't exist.”

“That's comforting. We were being unobtrusive, you know, too mature to flaunt our
discretion
.”

“What about the last night, nothing comes back?”

“No, yes.”

“What do you mean, no, yes?”

“Morgan, in the morning, there was a smell of almonds.…”

“And?”

“Hand cream, there must have been hand cream in the women's washroom. I use aloe-based moisturizers at home, this was almond.”

“And this tells us what?”

“That we dined at an upscale restaurant. Large. The little spiffy bistros on the list have modest little bathrooms. I'd say we went to one of the major hotels. The Four Seasons, the Royal York. Almond is very old fashioned. I'd guess the Imperial Room at the Royal York.”

Before their eyes adjusted to the midday June sunshine, they had crossed the street and descended into the glossy underworld that spreads beneath downtown Toronto like an alternate universe, where weather and seasons are residual memories, office workers are on half-hour tethers, and retail is king.

From the Union Station subway stop they had direct access to the grand lobby of the Royal York and immediately found the maître d' of the Imperial Room, who had just come on shift.

“Yes sir,” he said, directing himself to Morgan. “This lady was here a few nights ago.”

“Really,” said Miranda, “how can you be so sure?”

“Well, sir,” said the maître d', still addressing Morgan, “the lady needed assistance in getting up from the table. It does not happen often, our patrons usually, ah, consume with discretion —”

“Hey,” said Miranda, taking him by the arm and swinging him around. “It's me, I'm here. Talk to me.”

“Yes, ma'am, of course.” He turned to look at Morgan. “She was quite drunk, sir. I am sorry.”

“You're gonna be a sorry soprano if you don't focus,” said Miranda.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Where was I sitting? Who was I with?”

“Over there,” he said, nodding to a discreet table against a far wall. “You were alone with a gentleman, and then another gentleman joined you.”

“The bill,” said Morgan. “We need to see the bill.”

“Could I ask what for, sir?”

“You are assisting in a murder investigation.”

“Really? Well, of course.” The maître d' was warming to his role. “If you will please come this way,” he said, and gently pulled his arm free of Miranda's grasp. He led them into a small office and rummaged through a sheaf of receipts.

“Nothing,” he finally said. “There is no record.”

“There must be a bill,” said Miranda. “Perhaps we paid in cash.” As an aside, she said to Morgan, “He had credit cards, but he always used hard currency, sometimes American.”

“Of course,” said the maître d'. “It happens so seldom. Yes, you are right, Detective, just so. Here we are. Giovanni was your waiter. He will be here shortly. Let me see. You had very good wines; quite memorable, in fact. A bottle of Bordeaux with dinner, very nice, Château Cos d'Estournel, 1986. Excellent choice with your boeuf bourguignon. Myself, I might have preferred a sunny Clos de Vougeot, something a little less sinister, but, well,
chacun à son goût
. And when your other friend arrived, Dom Pérignon. A magnum. Memorable, indeed. Yes, of course. Excellent. Still, I do not understand … unless you drank more than your share, Detective.”

Morgan led her out into the main dining room. “Let's get Spivak on this. He can arrange a sketch, maybe, of the third man, from the waiter.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“The waiter? Okay.”

They stood in the middle of the room, watching people cleaning up from the luncheon crowd, preparing for dinner.

“Does it look familiar?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he said, surprised, “what do you remember?”

“Dancing with my father —”

“What?”

“I remember dancing with my father. We came here, just before my teens, a year before he died.”

“Really.”

“Mart Kenny was playing. I think he played here for years. My dad always wanted to see Mart Kenny and His Western Gentlemen, we heard him on the radio. But my mom wouldn't dance with him. She could dance really well but she didn't think he could, so he danced with me.”

“Was it the same?”

“As now? It feels like it was, but, you know, memory is fickle. No, I don't remember being here with Philip. I don't know, Morgan, it all seems familiar.”

She paused.

“The other man. He came before the Champagne … which is a perfect drink to conceal knock-out drops.”

“You could have been drugged before you got here.”

“Morgan, apparently I didn't come in staggering … and it seems like I made quite a show when I left.”

They saw the maître d' beckoning them from the side of the room. He pointed toward the kitchen.

“He just came in. Giovanni.”

They walked through the kitchen to a staff lounge. A tall, lean man with residual acne glanced at them and away, then again. He recognized them as police. Miranda and Morgan both knew instantly that his name was not Giovanni. There was no one else in the room. The man stood upright, confronting them, not belligerently but not intimidated.

“Where you from?” asked Morgan.

“Sienna.”

“You speak Italian, then? I speak Italian.”

The man's eyes narrowed. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.”

Miranda smiled. Morgan's bluff was being called.

“Go ahead,” said Morgan. “Speak.”

“What do you want?” said the man.

“What's your name?”

“Giovanni.”

“When it's not Giovanni, what's your name?”

The man shrugged. “Malouf. Iqbal.”

“Which?”

“Iqbal Malouf, that's my name.”

“You illegal?” asked Morgan.

“A little.”

“How's that?” said Miranda.

“My visa ran out.”

“Recently?” she asked.

“Eight years ago. I'm married, I've got a kid. He's a Canadian, in school.”

“Your wife?”

“Illegal. Lebanese, same as me. We met here.”

“At the hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever seen me before?” asked Miranda.

“Sure, three-four nights ago, table by the wall. Dom Pérignon. You got drunk.”

“Did you know I was a cop?”

“No. You were some guy's date.”

Miranda flinched. “And the others?”

“The guy who brought you, I don't know. He was smooth, I'd say computers, maybe a stock analyst. Too calm for a broker. A tax lawyer, maybe.”

“Well, thank you,” said Miranda. “And the other one?”

“Never saw him before. Never saw any of you before.”

“What can you tell us about him, the third person?” asked Morgan.

“Nothing.”

“Think.”

“Nothing.”

“We're not with Immigration.”

“Oh, come on, man. I didn't see anything. He was just a guy. Mid-thirties, well dressed. He didn't pay. The other guy paid, the guy who brought her.”