Crang Plays the Ace (14 page)

“That's your burglar alarm,” James said. His voice had the sound of expertise. “What I'm gonna do is rig in another wire that bypasses the box. That way, it won't ring when I go through the lock on the door.”

“If it rang,” I said, “where would that be? Police station?”

“Ring like hell in the building over there,” James said. “And in two other places. Police station is one, security company's the other. Cars from both'd be here in five, ten minutes.”

“The security company installed the alarm?” I said. “That's what you mean?”

“Put the binoculars on the door,” James said. “Little sticker on the corner, see it? That's the security guys. Alarm rings in their office and at the police station.”

I moved the binoculars over the glass pane in the door and found a sticker in the lower right-hand corner.

“Not worth shit,” James said. He took back the binoculars.

The nurse onstage had divested herself of the white cap and dress. She was wearing high-cut gym shorts and a formidable white brassiere. Not for long. She danced to the heavy thump of the rock and took off the shorts and brassiere. Directly in front of the stage, eight or nine men seated at two tables that had been pushed together were pointing their fingers to one side of the stage and shouting something at the dancer. The shouting solidified into a chant. “Shower,” the men pleaded. There was a shower stall at the rear of the stage closest to the stand-up bar on the right side. It had clear glass walls and an intricate arrangement of nozzles and tubes. The woman stepped into the stall. A cheer went up from the front tables.

“That padlock on the gate, I saw ones like that a hundred times before,” James said. He had the binoculars back on the Ace property.

“Add up the time for me,” I said. “How long will it take you to open the gate and get through the door into the building?”

“The padlock, that's a wire job, twenty seconds,” James said. He was looking through the glasses as he talked. “I go across the path they got there and work on the box over the door. Three, four minutes for it, putting in the bypass wire. So that's only the lock on the door that's left. I don't know, couple more minutes. I can't tell what kind of lock it is.”

Water sprayed over the woman in the shower stall onstage. She held a nozzle in her hand and aimed the shooting water at her breasts. Her face was raised to the ceiling and her expressions let the fans at the front tables know she'd achieved a higher form of ecstasy. Her breasts shone in the water. I estimated her brassiere size at 38C.

“What'd you think?” James asked.

I said, “I think if she performs that shower routine four or five times a night, she keeps squeaky clean.”

“About the job,” James said. He had an annoyed edge to his voice.

“You're talking seven minutes,” I said. “Is that too long to be exposed out there?”

“Won't be exposed to anybody after this joint's closed down and everybody's gone home,” James said. “No reason for traffic at night around here.”

“True,” I said. “What about night patrol cars? Do the security people who put in the burglar alarm check up on their customers' property?”

“How 'bout we stay here and watch?”

“How 'bout we do?”

The woman stepped from her shower and dried herself off with a small blue towel that didn't seem adequate to the task. She retrieved her nurse's whites and left the stage. Her place was taken by a woman in a long diaphanous gown and a panty girdle.

James and I had two more rounds of Coke and vodka, and in the forty-five minutes we sat at the table, no patrol cars cruised past Ace's property. Traffic in and out of the Majestic's parking lot remained brisk. So did the parade of young women on and off the club's stage.

“Nothing's happening,” James said at eleven-thirty. We finished our drinks and walked out the front door.

Outside, away from the pounding music and the thick cigarette smoke, the night was still and sweet. We turned the corner of the club and stepped into the parking lot. One row of cars over, two men were standing beside the white Volks. A tall guy in a jean jacket had his hands in his pockets and was listening to the other man, who was talking and waving his arms. The talker had a thick beard and a bulky build. It was the Ace driver I'd defeated by a TKO on Bathurst Street. I took James' arm and stepped behind a maroon Volvo.

“Those two guys by my car,” I said, “go over and tell them the car's owner is inside on the pay phone.”

James looked across the lot.

“Sure,” he said.

“Tell them something's spooked the guy on the phone and he's calling a cab and wants it fast.”

“What if they ask how come I'm telling them this stuff?”

“Say you've got a beef with the guy,” I said. “And tell the bearded guy you know it's him the guy on the phone's trying to steer clear of.”

James walked across the parking lot to the two men by the Volks. My former adversary stared at James. He heard James out, and as he listened, his jaws began to work. Froth at the mouth and drool in his beard ought to follow any minute. The guy was aching for a return bout with me. He turned away from James and took a step in the direction of the club. The guy in the jean jacket grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Jean-jacket did the talking. He held the floor and the bearded guy listened. Jean-jacket switched his line of patter to James. He was firing questions. James answered. He looked assured. Nothing moved except his lips. No fidgets, no nervous body language. James stood his ground. The tall guy in the jean jacket and the fat man with the beard looked at one another and walked away from James. They broke into a run and cut behind the back of the Majestic.

“Nice,” I said to James when I reached the Volks. “Lot of finesse, James.”

“The tall guy didn't go for it at the first,” James said.

“He went for it at the last,” I said.

I turned the key in the ignition, switched on the headlights, and backed the car out of the parking slot.

James said, “Those guys are pissed off at you.”

I drove down the row of cars to the front of the lot and stopped to let two cars go by on the street.

“Not both guys,” I said. “The guy with the beard.”

I turned right. The front door of the Majestic banged open. I had the Volks in low gear. Someone was running from the Majestic toward the street. I pressed the accelerator.

“Here comes the tall guy,” James said.

I said, “Didn't fool him long enough.”

The tall man in the jean jacket was going full tilt. At the rate he was covering the ground, he'd reach the road before I was past the Majestic. I had two options, stop or step on the accelerator and risk smacking into the tall guy. He slid into the street and threw up his arms in front of the Volks. There went option number two. I stopped.

“You see the other guy?” I said to James. “The fat one with the beard?”

“Just coming out the front door,” James said.

The tall man stood in the lights of the car and looked back toward the Majestic. He was waiting for his friend. I couldn't wait. One guy I might have a chance of handling if James pitched in. Not two.

The top was still down on the car and I shouted at the tall man over the windshield.

“Hey you, stringbean,” I said, “you want some of what I gave your fat pal the other day?”

With my left hand I turned the handle on the door and opened it a crack.

“You're asking for a broken head, asshole,” the tall man said. He walked out of the headlights toward my side of the car.

I said to James, “Where's fatso now?”

“Halfway to us.”

The tall man reached my door. His hands were set to grab me. I swung the door open fast. It caught the tall man in the right kneecap and just below his ribs. He fell on the road. I slammed the door shut.

“Fat guy's coming quick,” James said.

The tall man rolled over on the pavement. He didn't know whether to grab his kneecap or his stomach. He was moaning.

I pushed the accelerator and the rear tires squealed.

“Fat guy's gone crazy,” James said. His voice was louder.

I glanced to my right and saw the guy with the beard launch himself at the car. His arms were stretched in front of him as if he were diving, and his feet had left the ground. I pulled the steering wheel hard to the left. The man with the beard thudded into the door on James' side. I straightened the steering wheel and the car kept moving.

“Bet he left a dent,” James said.

I looked back. The bearded man was on his knees watching the Volks drive away down the street. He had his hands on his hips. The tall man was still rolling on the pavement.

“Now,” I said to James, “both guys are pissed off at me.”

18

I
DROVE ANNIE
out to the airport Friday morning. Her appointment with Vincent Canby for the CBC radio item on movie critics was set for Canby's office at the
New York Times
that afternoon. Annie was excited but a shade weary. Alice Brackley hadn't left her place until almost two.

“You may be right about a romance between Alice and Mr. Grim-aldi,” Annie said in the car.

“It was Wansborough who raised the possibility,” I said. “Actually Wansborough's wife. No, scratch that, it was Wansborough's wife's friends. Two of them. Separate occasions.”

“You finished?”

“Run with it.”

“Okay, Alice didn't give names, not Grimaldi's anyway,” Annie said. “But she made it clear she was involved with a man no one she knew would consider appropriate. Certainly not her family.”

“Don't see Alice making a guy like Grimaldi the centrepiece at a Wansborough-Brackley gathering.”

“I thought Wasp families were supposed to be loosening up these days.”

“From my small intercourse with clan Wansborough,” I said, “I'd judge a pound of gelignite wouldn't loosen them up.”

“Well, she's obviously troubled by the relationship.”

“What'd Alice want from you?” I asked. “Just a sympathetic ear?”

“Seemed so,” Annie said. “I guess she doesn't feel her friends would understand the situation and I made a safe alternative.”

“Yet she stopped short of telling you that Grimaldi is the forbidden love she holds in her breast?”

“My, aren't we poetic,” Annie said. “No, she didn't say Grimaldi was her beau, but I think it's possible to read between the lines. The whole time she was talking, God knows it was hours and hours, I automatically read the name Grimaldi into the script.”

“Alice make a pretty deep dent in the Cutty Sark?”

“Drank half the bottle.”

“Half doesn't look right on the expense account.”

“The whole thing?”

“Call it twenty bucks.”

“Good golly, what a prince you are.”

“What was this other line of chatter Alice was pursuing?” I said. “The one about trusting me?”

“That was the early part of the evening, before you came by,” Annie said. “Alice wondered about legal advice, something she said she needed before she made a decision that had to do with her work.”

“Elliptical talker, that Alice.”

“She's feeling her way.”

“Slowly.”

“Well, I sympathize,” Annie said. “She's got a romantic crisis, a business crisis, maybe a drinking crisis. Lot to balance at one time.”

“Did you draw the conclusion the crises were linked?”

“Wouldn't surprise me,” Annie said. “The talk about the love affair seemed to flow naturally from the talk about the job decision.”

“Doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to say that Grimaldi might be common to both.”

“And he could drive a girl to drink.”

Annie had the Nagra tape recorder on her lap, and a stuffed shoulder bag sat on the floor of the Volks. She planned to stay overnight in New York and come back on the noon plane Saturday.

“You keeping out of trouble tonight, buster?” she said.

“There's a nurse I wouldn't mind looking up.”

“Not that kind of trouble,” Annie said. “You haven't mentioned what you're up to on the Ace front.”

“Loose lips sink ships,” I said.

“You're holding out on me, Crang.”

“Just waiting until fresh developments turn up,” I said. There was no sense in alarming Annie with my plans for that evening at the moment when she was leaving town. Crang, the fount of wisdom and cowardice.

I was going to the airport by way of Highway 427. I turned off it onto the crisscross of roads that led to the two airport terminals. Annie was flying American Airlines. Terminal One.

Annie said she'd be higher than a kite when she got back next day. Manhattan did that to her.

“The air must be thinner down there,” she said.

“Rarefied,” I said.

I pulled the car into a gap between two taxis in front of the American Airlines entrance. Annie kissed me on the lips, got out of the car, and swung down the sidewalk, the Nagra in her right hand and the bag over her left shoulder. I watched until she disappeared through the pneumatic doors. Lady had a great ass.

Back downtown, I laid on arrangements for the evening. Harry Hein was a trifle sticky. I told him on the phone I'd pick him up at his office at twelve-thirty. The nighttime twelve-thirty, I said. He wanted to know how he should explain the nocturnal absence to his wife. An all-night poker game, I suggested. Harry said he didn't play poker. I told him to invent. Harry fretted on the phone. Chartered accountants aren't accustomed to inventing.

James Turkin took my call with aplomb. I bet he didn't know he possessed aplomb. He was speaking from the Home Hardware store where he worked and looted. Twelve-fifteen at the corner of Gerrard and Sackville, I said, and he said he'd see me. Brevity and aplomb, that was my James.