“Pia, calm down.” She leaned into his embrace and began straightening Bagot’s tie. She did everything but purr.
“Glenn, you know you can’t pay him enough to get him to leave this thing alone.”
“He sees things differently now. We had a little chat. I’ll find something else for him to do. We will have rights-of-way to negotiate eventually. He can help out there.” That was all I needed: to end my active life searching titles in the registry office.
Pia Morley came over to me trying to read me like a poster. I got up and used the opportunity to move a few feet closer to the door. I gave her my best smile. She wasn’t buying it. She had a way of moving so that the outfit, while it remained unruffled itself, gave a hint of a great deal of movement within.
“You wouldn’t listen to me, would you, Mr. C?”
“Just doing my job, Mrs. M. Are these boys some of Mr. B’s retainers, or are they borrowed for the occasion?”
“You might ask him yourself, now that you’re on the payroll.”
“Sure, once I’ve found out about my duties. Do you think they’ll include being lent to friends and colleagues, Mrs. Morley?”
“I hate the way you say that. It’s like ‘Mrs. Morley’ was something you were hitting me with”
“The only weapon to hand. Sorry.” She turned back to Glenn Bagot, and I edged another few inches further towards the door. “It’s up to you, Glenn. I’ve said what I think. And you know that Tony doesn’t like loose ends. Of course,” she turned to me for this, “as for me it’s a matter of complete indifference.” I wondered, as I continued my soft shoe towards the out-of-doors, where she’d bought her low opinion of me, and was it always this low or had it been marked down from something higher.
Now Gordon was watching me. I tried to lean into the wall and become part of the decor. It didn’t work. Gordon got up, and breathed a word into Geoff’s ear without taking his eyes off me. Glenn and Pia kept nattering at one another, but now I couldn’t hear them as well. On the whole I think I preferred hearing their hostility. All of this whispering sounded dangerous. I went over to Gordon, deciding to beard the lion in his den.
“Sorry about your nose,” I said, in a voice that came out a little more squeaky than it left my head. “But, in the circumstances, you understand.”
“Sure, I understand.” And to show there were no hard feelings he offered me his pack of cigarettes. They were Rothmans and I didn’t quite see Gordon choosing that brand. Geoff offered matches while Len looked on. I didn’t much like being looked at that way. I felt a bit like a condemned murderer being watched by his death-house guards. Everything I did they found remarkable, from blinking to blowing a cool smoke-ring over the centre of the table
“That’s a nice cigarette,” I said. “Does Tony still smoke Rothmans, Gordon?” I knew I couldn’t make it sound casual, but I couldn’t help trying either. What the hell, I thought, I had the five hundred.
“Sure he does,” said Gordon. “He …”
“Shut up, Gordon. And you get back over to the couch where we can see you.” Before I could get moving, Bagot came over and the boys looked attentive like he was going to make an announcement. I didn’t think it was going to be about sending out for Chinese food.
“Len,” he said with easy authority, ‘we’re going to try to make Mr. Cooperman comfortable for a day or two. See what you can fix up for him in the back room.” With a look that didn’t quite meet my eyes he said, “We can’t let you go back to town just yet. I’ve got to see somebody and then I’ll want to talk to you again. It’ll save your coming out here a second time.” We both smiled at the inadequacy of his explanation, and he shrugged and went on. “I think the boys can make you reasonably cosy in the meantime.” I nodded and returned to the couch showing all signs of an agreeable, easygoing nature. Meanwhile, I was trying to think of ways in which I could have planted a letter in Pete Staziak’s hands to be opened in case of my sudden disappearance or death that might implicate all of these people. In the movies detectives get out of tough spots like that all the time. I’d even seen it work for me once. But that night I don’t think I could have found words a two-year-old would have believed. My getting picked up by this bunch was not something I could have had in my appointment book. Even if I kept an appointment book. To tell the truth I wasn’t up to giving a performance. I could see my desperate face reflected in the eyes that didn’t quite meet mine.
Len came over and with a toss of his head told me to follow. There were two doors at the back of the kitchen. The one on the left led to a small sitting-room with a studio couch that opened up into a sleepless night. There was a rack of shot-guns on the inside wall, which Len removed from the case. I shrugged as if the last thought in my head was of escape. “That window,” Len explained, “drops straight down forty feet into a dry lock in the old canal. I wouldn’t try anything unless you’re good at landing on limestone. You can doss down here comfortable enough. I’ve done it and lived. One of us will be right outside your door in case you want a glass of water. If you need a john, there’s a tin bucket in the cupboard.” I heard the door lock behind him after he’d finished showing me around.
The view from the window didn’t get me any confirmation of Len’s story, but I was inclined to believe him. I found the bucket in a closet that was set in the inside wall of the room. The rest of the furnishings were simple, a couple of shooting trophies on a bureau, a lamp made out of a winebottle with a twisted shade and some framed photographs of hunters, who stood with dangling waterfowl displayed and their shotguns bent to the open position. One group stood in front of what I took to be this building. If it was, Len was right. It looked like it might have been a lock-keeper’s house. It certainly overhung the lock in the picture. Perhaps it had been moved there from a little farther away. From the picture I got an idea of the size of the place. The room I was being kept in represented about half of the space at the back of the lodge. I’d been thinking of it as a shack, but the mounted antlers over the front door made me move it up a notch or two in my architectural hierarchy. The angle of the photograph told me that there was a window that looked over solid ground in the room next to mine. I looked in the closet again. A piece of mock-wood wallboard separated the closet in my room from one in the neighbouring room. Without breaking my penknife I managed to remove the partition about the same time I could hear the motor of one of the cars starting up. Two fists less to contend with at the very least, I thought.
The cupboard on the other side was divided by shelves, so that it wasn’t going to be easy to take possession of this second room. I got the look of the back ends of more shooting trophies. I had the time, so I removed them and set them behind the studio couch. It was awkward insinuating myself through the shelves and I got stuck half-way when one of them decided to come away from the supporting wall brackets. I retreated to the couch, moved the winebottle lamp closer, then lifted off the closet shelves as I should have in the first place.
The other room was about the same size as the one I’d just left and I wouldn’t have insisted on changing for the fun of it. The window was similar to the one in the other room except for the wire grill outside that kept vandals out and me in. There were more hunting and shooting pictures on the wall. One showed a grinning face over a torso so loaded down with lethal hardware I thought he must be inadequate in bed. That’s the first thing I thought of. Silver trophies mounted on plastic bases occupied a series of shelves on the outer wall. I nearly yelled “Bingo” when I found another rack of shotguns, this time with boxes of suitable ammunition. I tried to match shell to bore and picked out a stylish pump-action beast that looked mean enough for my purposes. I set the loaded gun on an overstuffed chair and listened at the door. I tried the knob. It opened. I could see Bagot with his cap on at the front door.