Crang Plays the Ace (10 page)

“Whatever's at stake, Sol,” I said, “could blow over with no concern for anyone, you, my client, your people at Ace. You made a mistake tossing my office the other night, definitely premature, Sol, and you made another mistake coming in here with Tony's fists. Your play right now is to stay calm and let me and my client reach a decision.”

Nash kept his ray-gun stare on me, and Tony hovered at my desk. His arms were at his sides and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. He made heavy-breathing noises with his mouth, the kind a fighter makes before he steps into the ring. The breathing noises were the only sound in the room. Except for my heartbeat. Tony and Nash couldn't hear it, but I could. It was up around one hundred.

Nash stared and Tony heavy-breathed for thirty seconds. It felt like thirty hours. Nash broke the tension with another nod of the head at Tony. Tony gave his fists one more clench and turned back to the door. He opened it, and Nash stood up abruptly and walked toward the open door.

“Besides,” I said as Nash walked through it, “I'd bet me on a TKO over Tony, name the odds.”

Tony slammed the door behind him and Nash, and my framed Matisse poster rattled against the wall. I watched Nash and Tony through the window. Tony pushed aside a skinny kid in American army fatigues who was leaning against the pink Cadillac's front fender. The kid stopped whatever he was going to say when he saw Tony's face. The two men got in the Cadillac and drove away.

As soon as the car had passed out of sight, I went down the stairs and along Queen past the Rivoli to the Horseshoe Tavern. I ordered a double vodka on the rocks at the stand-up bar. What the bartender poured didn't have the hit of Wyborowa and it tasted like perfume. It was made in Alberta, but there was alcohol in there somewhere.

I wouldn't have bet on me against Tony. I hadn't the nerve to fight him. I just had the nerve to bait him. Two different things. I asked the bartender for another double and waited for my heart rate to drop below eighty.

13

A
FTER FIVE-THIRTY
in the afternoon, parts of downtown Toronto turn dulcet. The buildings empty, the bankers, brokers, and their minions head down to the subways and over to the expressways, and the streets are left to the strays. I walked south between the office towers on York Street and watched the setting sun bounce off the glass of the Stock Exchange Building. A good singer named Tommy Ambrose once wrote a song about Toronto. He called it “People City.” Sometimes I like it better without the people.

At King Street, I went east. McIntosh, Brown's offices are in the black and daunting Toronto-Dominion complex, the only Mies van der Rohe buildings in the city, maybe in the country. I signed in with a security guard who sat behind a bank of buttons and TV monitors in the lobby and rode an elevator almost to the top. McIntosh, Brown occupies three floors. Tom Catalano works out of the floor in the middle and he was waiting for me under a Tom Thomson painting in the reception area. On the opposite wall there was a David Milne and a Christopher Pratt. If all the law firms on Bay Street got together and opened a gallery, they'd put my neighbour the Art Gallery of Ontario out of business. Catalano led me down a silent corridor to a small conference room. It had four Harold Town prints.

“Am I supposed to be overwhelmed by the display of good taste?” I said. “Is that why all you big-ticket law firms go crazy for art?”

Catalano shrugged. “I suppose it makes our rich clients feel like they're sitting in their own living rooms.”

Tom Catalano has tight curly black hair and a long melancholy face. He plays squash. Plenty of lawyers in firms like McIntosh, Brown play squash. They can fit it in at seven o'clock in the morning at the Cambridge Club. Back in law school, Catalano was known as a cagey guy around the poker table; now he just works too hard.

“Fix yourself a drink,” he said. “The booze's in the cabinet. Ice too. I'll go and greet our client.”

“I thought juniors attended to the night doorman's duties.”

“I dispatched my juniors to the library,” Catalano said. “If they got a look at you in those jeans, they might be tempted to defect.”

The Scotch in the cabinet was Johnnie Walker Black, the gin was Tanqueray, the vodka was domestic. Some kind of anti-communist conspiracy seemed in operation. I poured two ounces of the vodka into a tall glass, added ice and soda water, and sat down at the conference table. It was polished oak, and at each place there was a small white pad and a sharpened yellow pencil. I sketched two stick men boxing. If the vodka didn't soothe my unease, maybe doodling would.

My drink was a third of the way down the glass when Catalano returned with Wansborough. He had on another three-piece suit, chocolate brown this time. It was without a crease and his cordovans had a high shine. I'd be willing to wager his undershorts were pressed.

“You know Crang of course, Matthew,” Catalano said.

Wansborough tilted his head in my direction but didn't offer his hand.

“I'm keen to have your report, Mr. Crang,” he said.

Catalano said, “Something from the bar before we start, Matthew?”

Wansborough asked for a Scotch and soda. His eyes didn't leave my face as he spoke. It was my day for being stared at.

“Something's not right at Ace,” I said, “but I can't tell you what it is.”

I described Charles Grimaldi's bloodlines, my discoveries at the Metro dump sites, and the recent visit from Sol Nash. I added the punch-up on Bathurst Street for flavour.

“I didn't expect violence,” Wansborough said. The remark was addressed to Catalano. He put Wansborough's drink in front of him.

Catalano said, “I'm sure Crang knows what he's doing. He usually does.”

“To hit a man as Mr. Crang did,” Wansborough said to Catalano, “I don't wish the family to be associated with such behaviour.”

“Let's call it self-defence in this case, Matthew,” Catalano said.

“Yoo-hoo, fellas,” I said. “Why not discuss my talents after I've left. There are a couple of other points I have for the agenda.”

Wansborough turned his attention back to me. His face was a mix of worry and distaste.

He said, “I would like a guarantee there won't be any further hooliganism.”

“Mr. Wansborough,” I said, “my scuffle with the driver ranks near the bottom of your concerned list.”

Wansborough did an elaborate throat-clearing.

“You say Charles Grimaldi is connected to the, ah, underworld,” he said.

“Intimately,” I said. “Through his dad.”

Wansborough said, “Well, simply because Charles' antecedents are involved in criminal pursuits doesn't establish that Charles himself is party to anything improper. Not as it relates to Ace Disposal at any rate.”

Wansborough didn't sound as though he were convinced of his own logic.

“Let's go with what we're reasonably certain of, Mr. Wansborough,” I said. “There's something at Ace that Sol Nash and by extension his boss Grimaldi are wary about me uncovering.”

“Which is what?” Tom Catalano asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said, “but I'd like to talk to Alice Brackley.”

Wansborough hadn't touched his Scotch.

He said, “What makes you think my cousin would be of any assistance in this deplorable affair?”

“She works at Ace,” I said. “That gives her a head start in the information department. Whatever isn't on the square at the office, she might provide me with leads. It's a cinch nobody else is going to dish out secrets.”

Wansborough took his first taste of Scotch and looked at Catalano. His expression wore a question mark.

“I see no harm in Crang talking to your cousin, Matthew,” Catalano said. “He may not always seem it but he can be discreet.”

Wansborough didn't speak. I held my glass up to Catalano. It was almost empty. He pointed a finger in the direction of the liquor cabinet, and I made another vodka and soda. Catalano was drinking straight tonic water. The non-conversation stretched out in the room. Wansborough brooded. Catalano and I waited. Catalano decided to prime Wansborough's pump.

He said to me, “Have you got a guess about what's going on at these dumps? Why the extra time in handling the Ace trucks? And the visits of this Nash character to the weigh people, what do they mean?”

“Ace has something happening under the table with the weigh-masters,” I said. “That's how it looks to me. But that is, in your word, a guess. I'd like to try out the guess on Alice Brackley.”

“Very well.” Wansborough had done with the brooding. “Go ahead and have your discussion with Alice, Mr. Crang, but I wish confidentiality observed.”

“You mean,” I said, “you don't want me to tell Ms. Brackley I'm acting for you.”

“Exactly,” Wansborough said. The take-charge tone was back in his voice. “There are good and sufficient reasons for secrecy.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“Very privately, gentlemen,” Wansborough said, taking in both Catalano and me, “I've had cause to question the nature of the relationship between my cousin and Charles Grimaldi.”

“Oh-oh,” I said, “they playing footsy around the office?”

“Don't be vulgar, Mr. Crang,” Wansborough said. “It's simply that they may be spending more time together socially than is strictly necessary in business. Or so I'm informed by my wife's friends.”

“What are we talking about here?” I said. “Something more than working lunches? That kind of thing?”

My questions were making Wansborough uncomfortable.

“I concede it's hearsay, Mr. Crang,” he said. “But twice, different friends of my wife have reported seeing the two of them, Alice and Grimaldi, dining out around town.”

“Twice isn't much.”

“Alice was observed holding his hand.”

“Well, well, handsy can definitely lead to footsy.”

“Whatever it is,” Wansborough said, “it wouldn't do for you to create an upset within the family by revealing too much to Alice.”

“There might be an upset down the line.”

“Not if all of us handle our tasks with due precaution.”

I swallowed the rest of my drink and ripped the doodle off the small white pad in front of me. As I left, Tom Catalano was talking soothing words to Wansborough. I walked down the hushed corridor and out of the building.

An affair between Alice Brackley and Charles Grimaldi? This was more like it. Not just the suspicion of crime at Ace but the chance of romance, passion, seething emotions.

14

A
LICE BRACKLEY
was one of those women who have a tremor in their voices. She sounded like Loretta Young on the other end of the line. I called her at the Ace offices on Wednesday afternoon. After I'd introduced myself, and told her I was a lawyer and wanted to speak to her on a matter that concerned a client of mine, she added a note of defensiveness to the tremor.

“What is it in relation to?” she asked.

“I'd rather discuss that when we meet.”

“I see,” she said. “I don't know you.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“I'm as cute as the dickens and I promise to be charming, Ms. Brackley.”

“I haven't the time to waste on frivolous conversation.”

“Meet with me and you won't find it unrewarding.”

There was a blank from her end of the line.

“Crang?” she said. “Your name was Crang?”

This time it was a question.

“It's still Crang,” I said.

“Yes, all right.” She seemed to want me off her phone. “But it won't be here at the offices. I'll meet you in the bar on the first floor of the Four Seasons Hotel at six o'clock this evening. Do you know it?”

“The bar's called La Serre.” I wasn't what you could call a regular.

She put down the phone without saying goodbye.

I dressed to match the tasteful opulence of the meeting place. Charcoal-grey trousers, a cream-coloured double-breasted summer jacket, a blue buttoned-down Brooks Brothers shirt that I bought the year I took Annie to the Kools Jazz Festival in New York City, navy blue tie with red polka dots, and shiny black unadorned loafers. I looked in the full-length mirror on the hall door outside my bathroom and whistled. Too much elegance to waste on Alice Brackley. I phoned Annie and got her answering machine. I told it that if its owner wanted to be swept off her feet she should show up in the Four Seasons bar at seven o'clock that evening.

A pianist plays Rodgers and Hart after nine in La Serre. Until then, patrons make do with the decor. It runs to the kind of look that makes me feel comfortable in a bar—dark wood, exposed brick, dim lighting. A forest of ficus benjamina grows out of the planters scattered among the tables. Martinis cost five dollars.

I arrived fifteen minutes early. The hostess perked up when I dropped Alice Brackley's name and showed me to a table in a private corner beside the windows that overlook Yorkville Avenue and a posh antiques store. The hostess had auburn hair and carried herself like a runway model. I ordered one of the five-dollar vodka martinis. It came cold and very dry. The hostess put it down on a square paper coaster done in white and gold. She brought a dish of mixed nuts. I picked out the almonds.

Alice Brackley came fifteen minutes late. She was wearing an avocado-green jacket and skirt and a lot of gold. She had a gold chain made of thick links around her neck, gold earrings shaped like tiny seashells, a clunky gold bracelet on her right wrist, and a small gold Rolex on her left wrist. She had no rings on her fingers, gold or otherwise. She knew where to draw the line.

The hostess pulled out Alice Brackley's chair and Ms. Brackley thanked her. She called the hostess Miriam. Miriam went away without inquiring after Ms. Brackley's preference in beverage.

“You come here often?” I said. It was my customary snappy opener with strange women in bars.