“Sure, dat’s hit. I’m worry about Alex.” He looked a little relieved. But I spoiled it.
“… but I know that’s not all you’ve got on your mind. I was telling Alex a little while ago that secrets can make deadly company. Look what happened to your friend, Wally. He knew a secret and now he’s going to keep it until the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” I was running away with myself. I think I heard the words on an LP somewhere, something with music, but I could see they were shaking old Luc up a bit. That or the booze.
“Wally saw something happen, he kept it to himself, now he’s dead. You saw something happen. You know something about the footings in that excavation. Don’t deny it. I know you know there’s something in the cement that shouldn’t be there.”
“Stop the car! I gotta walk! I gotta t’ink!” I did what I was told both because I was told and also because we had arrived in front of Alex’s small bungalow on Nelson Street.
“Here we are,” I said, leaning across to open the door for the old man. But he just sat there, like I’d clubbed him with a gunny sack of wet sand.
He didn’t speak for a long time. Finally he looked across at me and in an almost childish voice he asked, “You know about dis t’ing too, mister?” I nodded slowly. Again he didn’t speak for a minute. Finally: “Alex not do this. I know he not do this.”
“I believe you, Mr. Bolduc. But you must tell me why you think people might think Alex did this bad thing.”
“Because on the phone I hear him talk to a very bad man. I know dis man for many years. And I know he only trouble for my family.”
“And you heard Alex talking to this man?” Now it was Bolduc’s turn to nod. And I nodded my understanding. And we sat for a long moment.
“Is this man Tony Pritchett, Mr. Bolduc? The one who talked to your boy?”
There were tears in the old man’s eyes, when he raised his face to look at mine. “Yes,” he said. “That is the man.”
TWENTY
I felt silly eating Martha’s toast and jam the following morning. What was I afraid of? Wasn’t I drinking beer with Pia’s boy-friend last night? What did I have to fear from Pia’s other friends? Then I remembered the ride in the trunk of that car. Martha had a good assortment of jams and marmalades. We had exchanged a silent greeting an hour ago when she stepped out of the bathroom, leaving the mirror steamed up and loose dental floss in the hairbrush. I didn’t mention any of these things, but I began to ruminate about them as I got a slap in the face from the errant leg of a pair of pantyhose thrown over the shower-curtain rod. I had a brisk shower and felt the better for it. By the time I came out of the bathroom, Martha was on her way to work.
I put myself together, even got rid of some of the mud on my shoes, and drove to the office. I still had a feeling that using my regular parking place was a mistake, so I pulled into the lot next to the Diana Sweets, paid for a day’s parking, and went into the Di and ordered coffee. I didn’t know the crowd at the counter here as well as the gang at the United Cigar Store. It was half the legal profession in town on their way to or from the court-house. Ray Thornton smiled at me from the other end of the counter. I hadn’t seen him since that business in Algonquin Park was cleared up last year. The smile told me we were still speaking to one another. That was the first good news of the day. I was thinking of moving my coffee down to see if he had any legitimate work to throw my way, when Joyce See pushed a cup to the spot next to me.
“Hi, there. Good-morning. “She looked fresh and trim, ready to do battle with crown grants, easements and bars of dower rights down at the Registry Office.
“Good-morning,” I said, trying to think of a dozen things I’d forgotten to ask her at our last meeting. She settled in beside me resting a large briefcase next to her feet. She was wearing light leather sandals.
“Is this all you eat for breakfast? You’re courting an early grave, Mr. Cooperman.”
“Please. Call me Benny. But don’t you start on my eating habits, Joyce. I got a lecture from Grantham’s finest yesterday.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude, Benny.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. I take my not taking food seriously seriously. I had toast and jam before I came downtown.”
“I jumped to a conclusion. I’ll make a bad trial lawyer at this rate.”
“Is that what you want to be?”
“Naturally. Conveyancing properties will make an old woman of me if I keep at it. There’s more fun in law than you find in the Registry Office.”
“I want to thank you for the information you gave me on Friday. It helped.”
“Good. I hope you find him.”
“Thanks. Joyce, what kind of check is there on what the provincial government spends on, say, highways and other public works?” Joyce took a sip of her tea then set the cup down in the saucer before she spoke.
“You must be thinking of the Public Accounts Committee of the legislature. Is that what you mean?”
“I don’t know yet. Keep going.”
“The committee plays watchdog on all government spending. Makes sure that there are no crooked deals and that everything is both fair and looks fair on paper.”
“And is that how it works? No corruption in high places?”
“Less than some high places I could name. But the committee operates under rigid guidelines, which are well known. So that a government department, knowing that contracts above a certain amount have to be put up for tendered bids, sometimes divides the contracts up into smaller separate contracts and that way avoids the committee altogether.”
“You mean they pass on small contracts without looking at them?”
“Oh, no. But they are looking for different things. You still can’t let your brother-in-law have a contract and not hear about it. If you’re found out, it hurts you, it hurts the party, and everybody remembers at election time.”
“I see.” I’d finished my coffee, and I could see that Joyce had put down her tea for the last time. “Thanks, Joyce. I’m beginning to understand things.”
“I should start charging you,” she said with a smile as she got up and hefted her briefcase.
“Just think of yourself as part of my vast network of operatives.”
“Will that pay the rent?” she asked as she turned to leave.
Ten minutes later I’d climbed up the twenty-eight steps leading to my office. The toilet was running as usual. Frank Bushmill’s waiting-room was filling up, and Kogan was waiting for me in front of my locked office door.
“No wonder you can’t afford me on your payroll. You can’t call these office hours?”
“Kogan, you’re breaking my back. Cut out the cracks.”
“I just came to report, chief.” If he’d saluted, I would have thrown him downstairs. Instead he looked earnest while I opened the office door and collected the morning mail from the floor. Nothing of interest except the bills my past is measured in. I threw the junk into a pile of older junk and sat down. Kogan sat in the client’s chair, pinching the imaginary creases in his trousers as usual as he settled.
“Well,” I asked, “what have you got?” Kogan leaned over towards me.
“I found that guy Blasko I was telling you about. The Hungarian.”
“Yeah, I remember. They were in the park.”
“The other’s named Frank Secker. The tall one with the beard.”
“And what did they have to say for themselves?”
“Nothing. They wouldn’t say nothing to start with.”
“Come to the bottom line. Forget the subtotals.”
“Well, after I went back a second time, and told them how Wally was my buddy and how we went through the war together and all.
“What did they admit finally, Kogan?”
“Blasko wouldn’t admit anything. He …”
“And Secker?”
“Finally, he admitted that he and Blasko had moved the body outside so that the cops would find it.”
“Outside? Where did they find it?”
“It was in the cellar under the pavilion in Montecello Park. They went in to kip and they found Wally. At first they ignored him, but when he was still lying there when they came back the next night, they found they couldn’t wake him up. They were afraid to get involved with the police, so they waited until around eleven then carried him to the bench where he was found.”