“Well at least we agree that Nathan’s death is related to his brother’s disappearance. That’s a bond between us.”
“I may think that, but I’ve got to check it all the way around the weather-vane. Who knows, it might be somebody doesn’t like statues kept inside where it’s warm. Benny, there are a lot of strange people out there that never kill anybody. Spare a thought for the ones that do.”
Before I promised I’d behave myself and not get into deep water without an attendant policeman, Chris told me that I could redeem my Olds from the police parking garage by paying towing and storage on it. I asked him to lend me an envelope, thanked him, then borrowed a piece of paper which I used to wrap around the five hundred dollars I was having trouble living with. Savas looked like I hadn’t been listening to him, but I still walked out of the NRP headquarters a free man.
I stood on the broad limestone step, under the shade of a limestone overhang, and looked across at the convent and thought of the girls in black stockings I used to see when I was in high school. Later on at the theatre workshop under Monty Blair or Ned Evans, black stockings were almost the rule. Those convent girls were the first Bohemians in town, even if they never knew it. I addressed and posted the envelope.
“Hey, Mr. Cooperman!” I looked over my shoulder. It was Kogan with his blazer buttoned up and looking very spiffy for Kogan. “I’m glad to see you. I just come from viewing the remains. Poor Wally.” He wiped his eye with the corner of a polka-dotted bandanna. “Well, he’s in a better world I guess. Ain’t that right, Mr. Cooperman?”
“Well, Kogan, I don’t know whether it’s right, but it sure would be fair. How come you just got around to identifying your pal today?” Kogan rolled his head instead of answering quickly. “I couldn’t be reached,” he said. “Hell, I owed it to him. He would have done the same for me and then some.”
“I’m sorry for your trouble, Kogan. He was a nice little guy, Wally. I’ll miss him.”
“Yeah, and he’d just come into money. Like I told Priam this morning, your money’s a thief in your pocket. The only way to survive is to stay broke. I tried it both ways and I know.”
“Priam who?”
“Priam Phelps. We went to school together. We were on the same football team.”
“You’re a friend of Magistrate P.B. Phelps?”
“Yeah and I’m the only one left who remembers what the B stands for. Ain’t tellin’ either. Old Priam didn’t know Wally so good, but we had a few nights together, the three of us. Priam’s an awful one for the drink sometimes. Only thing’ll straighten him up is a nip of Aqua Velva. I’m a drinking man myself, Mr. Cooperman, but poor Priam lets himself go to extremes. It’s steady family life that does it. It ain’t civilized. Hell, if I couldn’t take it, then it’s a wonder anybody can. Just as hard on the women and kids. I’m no reactionary.”
“I didn’t say a thing. Where did you and Phelps play football?”
“Cranmer College, across the creek. I never had the weight for the line, but I was fast. Priam was big and heavy even back then. We goin’ to stand here all day, Mr. Cooperman, or should we walk over to the Harding House?”
“Sure, Kogan. It’s hot enough for a beer.”
We walked along Church Street to James and then up James to the Harding, where I found my old theatrical friends Ned Evans and his pals Jack Ringer and Will Chapman ensconced with a table of amber glasses in front of them, They hailed me loudly, and pulled us over to the two tables they had spread themselves around.
“Ned, you know Kogan, don’t you?” Ned blew air between his teeth and his upper lip to properly evaluate the question.
“Know? Who really knows anybody. You may think you know somebody, and then …” Ned left the phrase hanging in air hoping that one of us would pick it up. Jack and Will didn’t do it and neither did Kogan or me.
“Kogan here’s just come from identifying his best friend in the morgue.”
“God’s blessing be upon you,” said Ned.
Will, who was slipping out of sight in his chair, replied, crossing himself, “And on all Christian souls, I pray God.” They both sounded like they were overdoing it, and they’d climbed into some play script to protect them from something as real as death. I wished I had a page of that script myself.
The room was warm and busy with men wandering towards the john or the potato chips rack. Waiters slid like beefy ballet dancers with their short aprons and full trays between the tables. The air was salty with beer and heavy with opinions. Jack Ringer tugged at Will Chapman and between him and Ned they were able to delay Will’s inevitable sliding off his chair. Jack was Ned’s uncertain stage manager, who listened to Ned plan a new theatrical production every night in the beverage room at the Harding.
“Oh, he had a good life,” said Kogan, redirecting the conversation. In the bidding in the game of life, death is trumps and so the floor was his. A mere projected production of Henry IV-Part I couldn’t compete. “Yes, a gentle soul,” he said drinking the second straight draught since he’d sat down. He had his theme and we were all waiting to hear him expand on it, to eulogize his friend, to erect a monument to him among the emptying glasses. But he didn’t. Kogan was no great talker so Ned wrote an end to the chapter to allow the afternoon and the drinking to proceed.
“God be at your table, and there’s an end.” He banged his fist on the table.
I put down some money and the waiter skirted by, dropping ten glasses and removing the empties. He gave change from his apron without looking and accepted the tip I pushed after him without acknowledgement.
“How did your frien’ die?” asked Jack Ringer, who didn’t always take his cues from Ned.
“Stabbed with a shiv,” said Kogan. “Murdered by person or persons unknown. He was a saint of a man. That’s what Wally was. He got shot at Carpiquet airport, but he wouldn’t let the dressing station send him back to England. Wound the size of a silver dollar through his shoulder. As fine a blighty as you ever saw, but he wouldn’t let them send him down the line. Me, I went right through to the last day without a scratch. I got to be so unlucky nobody’d stand up next to me. Soon as I’d talk to somebody, they was for it. Took Wally longer than most, poor bugger. Poor little bugger.” While he was saying this he brought out a small metal badge. He turned it around and around in his hand as he talked.
“A ruptured duck!” Ned said, “An honest-to-goodness ruptured duck!”
“What is?” I asked.
“Thing Kogan’s holding. Army discharge pin. That’s what the Americans call ’em. I still have mine somewhere, but nobody wears them any more except panhandlers. Funny it should come to that, eh, Benny? Funny. That’s what we used to call ’em when we were on the inside wanting out. I never saw anything as beautiful in my life as the one they handed me. Better than the Victoria Cross.”
“Poor old bugger,” Kogan said.
“They give you that at the police station?” I asked.
“Eh? This? Nope. They wouldn’t let me even see his stuff. Just his face on colour TV.”
“Then where did you get the duck? Is it yours?”
“Please have a little respect, Mr. Cooperman. I’m wearing mine.” We all looked and there it was on the lapel of his blazer. Kogan gave Ned a dirty look for what he’d said about panhandlers. “This was Wally’s. I’d know it anywhere because of the way it’s worn at the bottom. That’s from openin’ beer bottles. I told Wally that’s no way to treat the symbolic tribute of a grateful country, openin’ beer bottles, but Wally just laughs and flips off another cap.”
“Okay, it’s Wally’s duck. Where did you get it? Did he leave it where you were staying?”
“Are you kidding? Wally wouldn’t go out without it. Even if the safety catch was broken. See.” He turned the back of the badge to show the broken catch.