Live Bait (28 page)

"Is that why Willis was tied in with Tony Caporetto? or did Lee set that up?" Fullwell asked, finishing his beer and reaching down for another from the cooler beside the table. "Anybody else?" he asked. I nodded and he looked at Elmer's glass, which was empty. "How about you Elmer, want to switch?"

I watched Elmer but he didn't even hesitate. "Not me." He checked his watch. "I had my last drink three days and eight hours ago, a mouthful of smooth cognac that tasted lousy when the boy scout here came back into the room." He waved his empty glass in my direction. "You did me a favor, Reid."

"You did it yourself, Elmer." I winked at him. "Good luck with the new routine."

He grinned, awkwardly. "Yeah, well so far, no pain. And I've already joined AA so we'll take it one day at a time."

I raised my beer to him and he winked. We went back a long way and it was good to see him on the rails again. He turned to Louise, "How's the juice jug holding out, Louise?"

"Stay right there. I'll bring it out," she said. She turned away and I gave Fullwell the fork, asked him to turn the steaks while I got some water to splash on the coals, and followed her in. I caught up to her in the kitchen, getting the juice. "You've got a fan," I told her.

She looked up and beamed. "I noticed and I'm glad. He's kind of cute. But the real reason I suggested this was to bring his partner over here."

I groaned. "When will you give up? I've told you before, I'll screw up my own life without help, thanks."

She laughed. "I took the trouble to read up on her in the Star. She's a university graduate, master marksperson, if that's the term, and she lives with her widowed mother."

"Never mind lining me up, I have my dog to give me all the devotion I need," I told her. "You just look around for a replacement for that horse's neck who walked out on you."

"Bossy," she said and got more juice concentrate out of the freezer.

I went back out with water in a beer bottle to splash on the blaze that had sprung up around my steaks. Elmer was going on with his tale.

"The way I read it, Willis got antsy. He wanted a piece of the action for himself. They'd given him the big house and all the Chinese boys he could handle, but he wanted the kind of clout he'd had in. Hong Kong. So he got connected with Tony and was going to get into the more legitimate kind of crime—straight, honest-to-God theft from warehouses, he liked that."

"Well why was Tony killed?" Goodman finished his own beer but shook his head when I offered him another. "I've had two already," he said.

Elmer was enjoying himself. Untangling a case is the best part of it. When all the facts are known, you're still not sure how they fit, and finding the connections is often the key to getting the conviction. "They all got tangled up in a web of politics," he said. "Willis advised Lee to do his enforcing with local hoods, to keep the kung fu crowd out of it. He figured that would be something the Hong Kong people couldn't handle. They were dealing with Cy Straight, a Westerner. Their trouble was coming from Westernstyle heavies. They wouldn't know where to put the pressure on to stop the problem. It was a good move."

"Right, so Willis asked Tony to get him some heavies. Which he did. The only thing was, Tony got to think he was important. He started getting greedy for more of the action. So Willis had to put him away. The only question was, how to do it without leaving any mess."

Elmer nodded. "That's why Willis set up the phony investigation. He didn't want the police in on it. And when he heard you had killed a couple of guys barehanded, he figured he could kill Tony and get you suspected of the murder."

Fullwell finished one of his cigarillos and was about to drop it on to the charcoal when he saw me looking alarmed. "Ooops. Sorry about that." He walked to the flower plot and forced the butt out of sight in the dirt. When he came back he said, "It all makes sense. He got Kennie to give you Tony's name, looking reluctant. We chased Tony and there was that fight. It established both contact and some kind of motive for Tony's killing when it happened later."

Elmer nodded, "I think that's right. But before that could happen, Tony got cute. He figured it should be him who was getting paid by the Hong Kong companies. So he got smart, he thought, and told you about Cy Straight."

Dianne Goodman tutted. "I'll see if Louise needs a hand in the kitchen. This is too complicated for me."

She left and Irv immediately helped himself to another beer. "The way I see it, Reid, he figured you would pressure Cy Straight right out of the game and leave a neat little space for him to fit into, collecting those enforcement payments from Hong Kong."

The coals were cooling and I gave the steaks a final flip.

"Could be. I think that was why he sent me the Triad payment. He was trying to involve the Chinese everywhere."

Now Elmer Svensen laughed. "Right on, that's what we saw.

And because we were already working on the Chinese angle, we naturally got interested when you appeared, Reid. That's how come we started chasing you around."

At that moment, Louise came out, carrying a tray of juice and some cans of soda water. "I figured your juice might be more interesting with a splash of soda," she said, and Elmer agreed it might and they spent a friendly minute mixing him a new drink. I looked at him and hoped, seriously, that orange juice would stay satisfying enough to keep him off the booze. I didn't want my sister in any more emotional jackpots.

Fullwell took over the musing. "It all makes sense to me. Willis was acting just like you say, from the beginning. Wanting to investigate that first beating internally. Then when he heard your reputation, he figured he could find a way to fix Tony's murder on you, because Tony was for the high jump as soon as he started getting big ideas."

"Right." Elmer lifted his glass to Louise, they exchanged smiles and he sipped and went on. "I figured you were set up that night at Tony's apartment. If he'd wanted to, that kung fu kid could have taken your head right off the hook."

"Tell me about it." I rolled my head loosely on my neck and we all laughed. "So I guess they were covering their tracks when they iced Cy Straight and went after me. We were the only witnesses who had any information that could harm them in the investigation of Tony's murder. Sure there was lots of suspicion, but nothing solid except for Straight and me who could testify we had seen Lee with Willis in that kerfuffle at the Eaton Centre.

"Exactly." Elmer said. "That's why your welfare is very important to us for the next little while, until the case comes to court." He glanced up, over my shoulder and then called out, "Hey, come on in, Beryl." He waved and we all turned to see his partner coming in, carrying a bunch of carnations. She handed them to Louise and then came and took a beer from Fullwell and I took the steaks off the fire and we all settled down to eat, with Sam under my feet trying to look as if he was too well trained to lust for a scrap of meat.

By some magic it worked out that Elmer and his partner were at one table with Louise and me, while the others were in the other group. We talked about the case some more. Beryl had the details from Yin Su about how she had tried to get me killed, once I was released without being suspected in Tony's killing. She had set me up with finding Wing Lok. He would have taken me but I got lucky. Then she had arranged for me to find Kennie at the truck hiding place. She figured I was so angry about the alleged rape that I would rush right in and get myself killed.

Beryl was careful how she told me about the rape but the truth was, the story was all phony. Beryl had followed through at the hospital. The nurse there said Su had taken, a cab straight home. The bruises on her arms were self-inflicted. The blood came from a piece of meat in the fridge. She had thought it wouldn't matter, by the time she came back from the hospital, I would be dead, up there in the body shop where Kennie was waiting. But I had kept on surviving and at last she had decided to kill me herself, to please Lee Hop who was angry at me both for getting close to his organization and getting next to his woman.

The upshot was, I felt mildly foolish and said very little, but after a while the talk about the case dwindled and Beryl asked me what I was going to do next.

"I'm going home on Monday. Then I'll take the canoe and head into Algonquin Park. By the time you've portaged in about two lakes from the road you won't see another person for days at a time."

"That sounds so nice," she said wistfully.

"It will be." I was too empty inside to follow up the implicit invitation in her tone. Maybe one weekend in winter when I came into Toronto with a prisoner or just to see Louise and buy books, I could call Policewoman Harris. But for the next week I had some healing to do and it would happen faster in the open air with the mist on the lakes at first light and the sky blazing with sympathetic stars all night. A week alone would enable me to bury the memories of Yin Su in the same graveyard that covered Soon Li. It had to be done before I could look another woman in the face. But when I did, I would like it to be this one.

"I'll be back in Toronto to give evidence at the trial," I said. "Maybe we could meet then."

She looked at me, nodded slowly, and said, "I don't see why not."