“She get that from her last husband? Glenn Bagot?” Sid took the bottle between his thumb and forefinger and finished it off. He reached into Luc Bolduc’s carton and fished out another. He had the top off before I could lodge a protest with my embassy and he gave me first swig. You can’t be fairer than that. I took a sip and passed the beer to him. He gulped down a third of what was left. He looked like he was trying to let the answer to my question bubble up to the surface.
“Glenn’s got a lot of class, but he’s a prissy son of a bitch. He doesn’t like you. I’ll tell you that for nothing. He gets his guts from his family connections. I mean he’ll go anywhere, walk into board meetings, visit cabinet ministers without writing or phoning.” He paused for the length of a thought, then added, “She’s a lot like that. Nothing scares her. I saw her light into a guy on her street once for hitting his own kid. Now I got a lot of brass, but I probably would have kept on going. She’s got the right stuff. With Glenn, now, he’s more a back-stairs type. He gets in there, if you know what I mean, but he doesn’t make as much noise doing it as Pia does.”
“She sounds like she would get along with Tony Pritchett.” I threw in the name Alex Bolduc had mentioned to see what would happen. I’d already been thrown out of a house by Sid. This might be my chance to get thrown out of a shed.
“Pritchett? We both keep as far away from him as we can. He may be trying to look like a modern businessman these days, but he’s got some nasty habits that die hard. I wouldn’t want to bump into him or his boys after dark.”
“Yeah, Gordon and Geoff can cut up rough when they want to.”
“Sure, and they’re the tame ones. No, we steer clear of that bunch. I got enough problems just coping with the games City Hall thinks up for me. Look at those plans up there on the table. It took weeks to get each of those signatures. Nobody’ll just let me get on with the projects. That’s the only thing I’m good at.”
“How well known is it that you and Glenn Bagot have put in a bid on that Niagara-on-the-Lake highway project?”
“Nobody knows about that, Cooperman. You don’t and I don’t. It’s up to Queen’s Park in Toronto. I’m holding my breath until I hear who’s been awarded the contract. I think we made the best offer, but you never know. This stuff about my brother Label isn’t helping. Believe me it isn’t helping.”
“But this isn’t your first government contract? There’ve been others.”
“Sure. But that was small-time stuff compared to this. A lot of those jobs were so small they didn’t even ask for tenders. We got them because we were closest and didn’t have to learn how to read blueprints.” Sid was quiet for a minute, looking at me like he was trying to read my thoughts. Then he changed the subject. “I wonder where the son of a bitch went?”
“Nathan said he was down in Daytona Beach.”
“Not him. I mean Luc. You think he was drunk when he left?”
“He looked like he could take care of himself. What was he doing here anyway?”
“He promised me he was through with booze, so I told him to keep an eye on our sites here in town. He does his rounds like a watchman. It takes him hours to do it, because he doesn’t drive a car any more.”
I began to get the feeling that as I was running out of questions, Sid Geller was beginning to think of some, like how did I happen to pay this social call at this time of night. I declined his offer of a third beer, and I got up and brushed myself off. We made our courteous farewells and I headed back towards my car. Waiting for me under my windshield-wiper was a bright yellow parking ticket.
As I got into the car and started it up, I thought, when I considered what might be waiting for me, I wasn’t so unlucky after all. Sure, I had returned five hundred dollars of Glenn Bagot’s money. It might have distracted me from the affairs of the Geller family. I was even saved from searching titles for properties along the right-of-way of the new highway. Maybe I should be getting into the act and begin to look out for my old age. Information about that right of-way must be worth something on the Rialto. I thought about that as I drove along Geneva to Church and then down Church as far as Ontario Street. With me thoughts like that don’t get very far. I have an instinct about making money that keeps me poor. It goes against the grain of my nature even to seek out the gas stations where there’s a gas war going on. I can’t remember saving a nickel on a coupon or taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime money-saving ground-floor offer in the tons of junk mail I get every day. If I wasn’t going to take on a deal where I could get, at a fraction of the cost in stores, a genuine reproduction of a Shaker night-table, how was I going to get involved speculating in farm property. I sometimes think you have to have brains to be a crook. In my line of work, I just get by on what I have.
Coming around the corner of Montecello Park for the second time in not so many hours, I saw three familiar faces and what went with them sitting on a park bench not far from the bandstand. It was dark, but I was sure of the faces. I made an illegal U-turn and parked the Olds. I got out and started walking towards the bench. The two bums, Blasko and his gangling friend, took off when they heard me. Luc Bolduc slumped down on the bench.
“Mr. Bolduc, are you all right?”
“Eh? All right? Sure I’m all right. Havin’ little talk dat’s all. Breakin’ no law I know, mister.” He said this trying to straighten up and open one or other of his eyes. He got the left one to open half-way and then both eyes were looking at me, watery, washed out, but wide awake. “Oh, it’s you. I got nothin’ to say to you and dat’s fer sure.”
“Come on. I’ll give you a lift the rest of the way home.”
“Some udder time. I don’t trust nobody. Wanna stay alive, me.”
“I was just talking to Mr. Geller. He’s mad at you for drinking. But he’s had a few of your beers and he’s not so hot at you any more. I’m not hot at you at all. If you want the lift, the car’s leaving.” I started back to the Olds, hoping that he’d follow. I didn’t have a plan for what I’d do if his independence was made of sterner stuff than I was prepared for. For a long time, I heard nothing coming from behind me. I had my hand on the door when he called out: “Okay, hey, you wid the Oldsmobile. You’ll drive me to Nelson Street?”
I got in on my side and leaned over to unlock the door on the passenger’s side. I tried to remember who was the last passenger I’d had in the car. I sometimes go for months without unlocking that door. Then I remembered that it was Alex, Luc’s own son.
Luc Bolduc got in and sat as close to the door as he could. I felt like I was driving home my brother’s baby-sitter instead of an old goat who was my father’s age. “You take me straight to Nelson Street, hokay?” I nodded as I again passed the intersection of Ontario and Welland. I headed north out of the area of old mansions turned into doctors’ offices to the industrial north end.
“Were your friends telling you the bad news?” I asked.
“What kind bad news? I don’t need no more bad news. First Mr. Sid’s one brother goes away, den his udder brother gets hisself killed. That’s too much for one small town.”
“And they told you about the panhandler? Wally? From the building site?”
“Oh, dat’s what dat was hall about. Dey say somebody get stab. I been drinkin’ too much, me. Found him in the park. Dat’s bad business. I don’ like.”
“Mr. Bolduc, I had a long talk with Alex earlier. He’s worried about you.”
“Me? Whyfor should he worry ’bout me?”
“Because you’re frightened of something. What is it?”
“I’m not scare of anyt’ing. What you mean, mister?”
“I can tell when a man is frightened, Mr. Bolduc. And you are a frightened man. You’re worried about Alex …”