“Good for you. Decent chap. Tell me, did Elizabeth Blake ever talk about her sister?”
“Seems to me she mentioned she had one. I don’t know. Yes, there was a sister who was always imitating her, couldn’t grow up fast enough. She was supposed to look a lot like Elizabeth, but I never met her.”
“That sister, Hilda Blake, is still alive. I’ve seen her name. She was one of Zekerman’s patients. I can’t guess what the good doctor was holding over her head. Can you?”
“Of course not.”
“Could it be about Corso?”
“She couldn’t know anything about that. Her sister was dead. She didn’t know us.”
“What might she have known?”
“I told you: nothing. Corso got frightened. It was too much for him. Then he missed getting a scholarship.”
“How very convenient.”
“Cooperman, I hope you’re not suggesting that I …”
“I’ll say it plainer. I’m telling you. Chester and you arranged for his taking that fall. You were both in on it. Only you as usual led the way. You went up to the lab where he was working. You got him to come out on the balcony to see something. It was then easy for you both to grab his legs and push him over the rail. I’ll bet you were back in the elevator before he hit the ground. But I don’t mean to suggest anything.”
“You can’t prove that. You haven’t a shred of evidence.”
“Right now I’m not interested in evidence. I’m just trying to focus on this. Now tell me, how did you keep Chester quiet after that? Was he trouble?”
“Chester always believed what I said and did what I told him. He was always like that, from riding school on. I was always looking out for him, one way or another. After Corso’s death, things quietened down. We took our degrees, started in business. Chester went into his father’s factory. I did some business courses in the States. We both got married. It was years ago.”
“And you all lived happily ever after until Dr. Zekerman began to show an interest.”
“I could handle him.”
“Somebody certainly has handled him.”
“Well, guess again, if you think that was me.”
“Zekerman didn’t think Chester was depressed. How did you know that Chester was on his list too?” Ward blinked his electric blue eyes.
“Andrew told me,” he said. The air was slowly leaking out of him like he was a forgotten beach ball.
“He was on the take from Harrington too. I caught up on a lot of reading at the potting shed down by the creek just before arson struck.”
“At least all the filth is gone.” He was staring at the blond fuzz on the back of his right hand.
“I suspect that I’m not the first with the news.”
“So, what? I don’t think you are going to turn me in for that.”
“Not even for trying to scare Zekerman before I ran into him the first time. Your boys did a first-rate job of frightening him, but he was so scared he decided to trust a cheap peeper like me. He needed an ally, and he couldn’t be choosy.”
“You won’t get far in his shoes, Cooperman. Not without Andrew’s files.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Look, my name’s Cooperman, not Zekerman. Maybe from your side of the table there’s not much difference in the sound. If you think all cats are alike in the dark, you’re crazy. To me, Mr. Ward, you are not the centre of the universe. I used to be able to live for hours on end without hearing your name. I liked it that way. I look forward to going back to that.”
A couple of minutes passed. Ward had got up and was facing the black window, running his fingers through his pallid hair. He went to the sort of barber who gave an English cut: no sign of clippers on the side. At length he turned to me. “Some people might not like your mixing in, Cooperman, however pure you claim your motives are. Some people might try to protect their legitimate interests. People have accidents all the time.”
“I thought you might get around to that.” I tried to muster an agreeable expression.
“Nobody knows you’re here.”
“You don’t have to convince me. But accidents can be insured. I’m a great believer in life insurance.”
“You didn’t arrange this meeting. I did.”
“Are you a card-playing man, Mr. Ward? If you are, you know that there are times when you have to put your money where your mouth is. You’re right; I didn’t expect this meeting tonight. But I expected it. When you expect something in my business, you take out insurance.”
“What kind of insurance?”
“A letter to be opened in case of my sudden death or disappearance, placed in the hands that will not ignore it.”
“I say you’re bluffing.”
“Good. It takes more opinions than one to make a poker game.”
“Supposing you walk out of here?”
“You know I’m working for Myrna Yates. If you killed Chester, watch out. I’m after you.” Ward looked like he was weighing the proposition. Far off a phone was ringing. I could hear the deep voice of one of the boys taking the call. Ward looked in the direction of the closed door. One of the other torpedoes had taken over the call. I couldn’t make out any words. There was silence for a moment, then a soft rap at the door. Ward opened it, pinning me to my chair with a look first. Whispering at the door, then Ward’s voice on the phone, affable, reasonable, a friend to all. Further whispers at the door. The eyes of his two hoods on me.
“That was a lucky call for you, Mr. Cooperman. I’m going to have to break off this discussion. I’ve got business to attend to in town.” I nodded. It seemed reasonable enough: he was going to give me a stay of execution because he had other fish to fry. But I think he’d bought my insurance story. “I’ll have one of the boys drop you at your office.” He was climbing into a Burberry raincoat while he was talking. One of the boys, the one with the acne scars, moved in my direction.
“You’re all heart, Mr. Ward,” I said. “You know what I mean? By the way, since we’re both laying our cards on the table, I have a message that Chester was writing just before he was killed. The message is in code.”
“Unless it has my name on it,” Ward said, smiling, calmly adjusting the belt of the trenchcoat, “I’m not interested. Besides, Chester and I have been exchanging ciphers since we were kids. You detectives always trip over the ordinary looking for the unusual.”
I got up and walked past Ward toward the door I’d come in. By this time the letter I called my insurance was looking pretty real, even to me.
TWENTY-THREE
I woke up and it was Friday. The first thought that came to me was Friday night dinner with my mother and father. Then, when my eyes were well and truly open, I remembered how close they’d come to being closed permanently. Ward wasn’t the fellow to change his game plan because of a little guy like me.
There were a few things I wanted to clean up before the weekend settled in on me, so I kept after myself until I was washed, shaved, breakfasted-a bran muffin at Bagels-and on the road to Toronto. It was an hour and a half drive at the best of times, and I didn’t want to get stuck in weekend traffic. It was going to be a warm couple of days, I only wished that I could afford to take a few off.
The highway was busy but not in a snarl. I headed arrow-like towards the head of the lake, through orchards and vineyards with the escarpment following my every move through my left window. Up and over a windy bridge, that managed to rise at least a mile and a half higher than anything that might conceivably run under it and I was on the second half of the journey, this time through mile after mile of one-storey factories and assembly plants. The highway added a couple of lanes as we approached the blue silhouette of the Toronto skyline, and, when traffic slowed to the thickness of warmed-over stew, I began to get my old hay-seed feelings about the big city. I never arrived in Toronto without feeling like I was some rube off the farm come to sell my goats at the market. I let the phallic CN Tower lead me into town, wondering as I drove up Spadina Avenue, how it was that most cities are female except Toronto. Chicago, New York, Paris are the experienced old whores who know all about breaking in a new stud. Toronto somehow missed that cue, and doesn’t know where to get a sex change at this late date.