Booking In Page 15

  I got there first, ordered a cup of regular Volta, and settled into one of the place’s modest complement of chairs, all of which were placed on the sidewalk out front. Volta Espresso was situated about midway between a home for very old people to the north and a cluster of barbershops catering exclusively to black men to the south. The placement made for interesting pedestrian traffic.

  I sipped my power coffee, watching the passing parade until soon enough I spotted a woman I took to be Acey steaming up the Volta side of Bathurst. This was a medium-sized, fit and intense dark-haired woman of about forty. She looked the way she’d sounded on the phone, which was pissed off. She had on jeans and a lightweight hoodie, not at all chic, but she probably didn’t care about such things.

  When she hesitated in front of the coffee shop, I stood and introduced myself. She gave me a not very sincere smile, sat down, and asked if she could have the same thing I was drinking. I went inside and brought back her order.

  “You’re the lawyer Fletcher hired?” Acey asked, getting right down to business.

  I said yes.

  “Fletcher’s done a lousy job for me so far,” Anita said. “I guess that means you have too.”

  “Give me a chance to ask you some questions,” I said. “Maybe we can figure out a way to square things.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Money ones to start with.”

  Acey didn’t look excited by the idea. I had the impression nothing much excited her these days.

  “This is about the value of your father’s letters, the ones he wrote and the ones he received,” I said. “Pretty much all of them dealing with his boxing match against Norman Mailer.”

  “These letters are all wonderful pieces of literature,” Acey said in an impatient tone. “They represent significant literary history in the opinion of critics who understand these things.”

  “The critics must be right, considering that the value of the letters is set at a million bucks on the low side, but could run as high as two million. Do those numbers hold up?”

  “Two million is the accepted figure.”

  “Who set the price?”

  “Not that son of a bitch Fletcher.”

  “He merely accepted it?”

  “Oh yes,” Acey said. “But all I hired him for was to handle the sale. I chose him because he seemed to have contacts among the people and institutions around the city who would be glad to pay the price.”

  “Set by whom? The price?”

  “The National Archives in Ottawa. One of their people spent most of a year reading the letters and coming to an evaluation. He based his price on the number of letters, the quality of the writing, the prominence of the writers, all kinds of factors like that. He looked at the dollar value of collections like it in other archives in the United States. In the end, putting all this together, he came to two million for the documents.”

  “Where did the earlier price come from? The more modest one million?”

  “From me. It was me doing wishful thinking at the time. I’d thought then that if the letters were worth a million, I’d have enough to keep me going until I finally wrote the great novel I know I’ve got it in me to write. That’s my major intention in life.”

  “It turned out you were dreaming only half big enough.”

  “I was so happy about the two million until that ass Fletcher phoned and said he’d lost my letters. According to him, some jerk of a safecracker stole them.”

  “That’s when your mind turned to the insurance policy to bail you out financially?”

  “I’d had the policy in place from the time the guy at the National Archives arrived at the two-million-dollar evaluation.”

  “Farsighted of you.”

  “Not that it made me happy.”

  Acey looked reluctant to say much more, as though she’d reached a holding-back stage.

  “Then,” I said, “Brent Grantham came calling on you.”

  Acey paused for a deep breath, flashing a glare at me. “How do you know about him?” she said.

  “That’s approximately the same question I’m asking you,” I said. “How did he get into the mix with you and your family’s letters?”

  “Brent’s a guy who was a part of my life from the time we were friends at school. Brent and I went to an arts high school over in Rosedale, though nobody was as serious about things as I was. For sure, Brent didn’t give much of a damn about books and writing.”

  “Then, all these years later, he shows up in your life in a bigger way, wanting to make a deal with the letters?”

  “The guy’s totally got no shame. He wants me to pay him for the return of my letters. Half the price, and god knows how he got his dirty hands on them.”

  “Now you’re talking about striking back.”

  “You mean, am I doing something to get even with Brent the asshole?”

  “Hiring the MacGillivray brothers might be construed as an unorthodox move.”

  “Mr. Crang,” Acey said, looking all of a sudden more aggressive than she had since she arrived at the coffee shop, “who in hell is blabbing all of my secrets to you?”

  “Various contacts, but listen, I intend to use everything I know in a plan that should work to your benefit.”

  “How do you define my benefit?”

  “The Hickey letters are returned to their rightful owner.”

  “To me?”

  “Whom else?”

  “Whom?”

  “You like my correct grammatical usage?”

  “Oh, for chrissake, what’s your plan?” Acey looked fed up. “You’re going to twist Brent’s arm? Something schoolboy stupid like that?”

  “I’ll ask just one favour from you.”

  “What?”

  “Speak to Arnie MacGillivray and tell him and his brother not to bust into Brent’s house until they get the word from me.”

  Acey shook her head, more in sorrow than in anger. “They already took a run at Brent’s place this morning when he was at his gym.”

  “Since you’re sitting here looking unhappy,” I said, “I gather the run was unsuccessful.”

  “Arnie said his brother brought the wrong box of equipment,” Acey said. “Something about not having the right gadget to open the kind of lock Brent has on his back door.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Acey, bear with me,” I said, calling on my most persuasive tone. “I promise a favourable result for you if you call off the MacGillivrays until I give the signal that it’s the right time to make their move.”

  “Listen to me on this, Mr. Crang,” Acey said. “So far I’ve had to come up against Fletcher, Brent, and two wacky brothers who are supposed to be on my side. What have I got to show for it? A big fat zero. So why should I think you’ll be any different from the other clowns?”

  “Because I’m a respectable lawyer, more or less, with a plan.”

  Acey hesitated. “Oh, what the hell,” she said, flapping her hands in a gesture that conveyed an I-give-up signal.

  “What about the McGillivrays?” I said.

  “They say they’re going into Grantham’s house on a morning later this week.”

  “On whatever day Brent’s next gym date happens to fall?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Acey,” I said, “may I point out that mornings are not a traditional time for break-ins among the more successful burglars I’m acquainted with.”

  “The MacGillivrays have part-time jobs in a parking lot.”

  “At night, I assume.”

  Acey nodded. “They check for cars that have parked in the lot without paying.”

  “I imagine Artie’s mode of parking control involves a punch in the mouth.”

  “He’s an excitable man,” Acey
said. “But if I’m to get my letters back, I need people on my side who don’t get frightened off by any kind of opposition.”

  “Granted,” I said. “The MacGillivrays may be a little nuts, but they’re not a problem I can’t work with. All I ask is you restrain them for five or six days, a week tops. In return, I guarantee you’ll come away with your father’s stash of letters.”

  Acey clammed up, as if she were mentally checking my proposal to see if it had flaws. I couldn’t blame her for wondering whether I was to be the next prevaricating jerk to treat her shabbily.

  “When this is all over,” Acey said, “presumably with me getting my own property back, you aren’t going to hit me with a monster lawyer’s bill, are you?”

  “Guaranteed no bill at all,” I said. “Consider this a pro bono job from me.”

  Acey stretched another semi-lengthy silence. “Okay,” she said. “You get six days starting from right now.”

  “You’ll be a happy person when this is all done.”

  “But you can take a warning from me, Mr. Crang. If nothing happens in the six days, I let loose the MacGillivrays.”

  “Understood.”

  Acey stood up, thanked me for the coffee, and headed south to the subway station.

  I sat back in my chair. I had a lot to think about. What was this “plan” I’d told Acey I was putting into motion? I had no plan. I didn’t even have plans to have a plan. It just seemed necessary to feed Acey the notion of some kind of calculated action to keep her from thinking there was no point in sticking with me. At the moment, the plan was non-existent, but the idea of one had wangled six days out of the poor woman. Six days? That should be enough. Shouldn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Annie and I were having dinner on the back patio of Le Paradis. The restaurant was tucked among some townhouses at the top of Bedford Road, about ten blocks from our house but worth the stroll. The patio, overlooking a wide alley used by delivery trucks, wasn’t positioned for elegant dining. But no trucks made deliveries after six thirty, and it turned quiet back there over the dinner hours, fixed in a tranquil evening mood. Le Paradis’s food came as close to real French cuisine as you could ask for in Toronto, and the waitpersons mixed in a few laughs with their efficiency.

  Annie looked like a million bucks in a flowered dress cut tight at the bodice and at every other part of her body that appeared above table level. I had on a light-brown summer jacket over the dark-blue shirt from Banana Republic I’d lately grown fond of.

  “The news is getting around about you gagging on green tea,” Annie said.

  “Hughie spread the word?”

  “According to Meg, he did.”

  “Jesus, the guy told his mother I made an ass of myself at his place?”

  Annie reached across the table and patted my hand. We were both drinking martinis, which was another strong point at Le Paradis. Even though a well-mixed martini hardly rated as a French cocktail, the place’s bartender knew the martini secrets.

  “Don’t worry, big guy,” Annie said. “The green tea thing worked in your favour.”

  “Hughie wasn’t insulted?”

  “Apparently not, and Meg definitely wasn’t either.”

  “She doesn’t think it was bad form on my part?”

  “Au contraire, mon cher ami.”

  “Just because this is a French place …”

  “Meg’s as much green-tea phobic as you are. She thought your gagging was hilarious.”

  “That means I’ve come to her attention with a more or less favourable rating?”

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “This is nice,” I said, “but I hope the subject ranges beyond green tea.”

  Annie gave me one of her sly smiles. “What Meg wants to hash out,” she said, “happens to be the matter of Fletcher’s recent misadventures in the field of precious manuscripts.”

  “Fletcher himself unloaded the news about the heist on her?” I said. “How much of it is now out in the open?”

  “Fletcher didn’t unload, sweetie,” Anne said. “It was me. I took the liberty of bringing Meg halfway up to date.”

  “She knows about the safecracking and about me being on the case?”

  Annie nodded emphatically. “The rest,” she said, “I leave to you.”

  The waiter took our orders. Annie asked for rognons de veau. Veal kidneys. Moi, with a less daring palate, I went for poulet avec legumes. Simple chicken with vegetables. I also ordered a litre of the house red.

  “How long will it take Meg to clear me some face time?” I asked Annie.

  “Tomorrow afternoon at three.”

  “This is a result of your lobbying?”

  Annie nodded. “My pleasure. But listen, remember what I said about how she deals with her own people, telling them to round up the views of everybody concerned on whatever issue people bring to her.”

  “I’m primed already,” I said.

  “Do tell.”

  For fifteen minutes, I revealed all to Annie about the results of my interviews with the women at the Fisher, with Christopher Thorne-Wainwright, and Acey Hickey. While I talked, both of us had green salads before the mains. Le Paradis’s kitchen was inventive with salad dressing.

  “None of this is good news from Fletcher’s point of view,” Annie said when I wound up my monologue. “He pays this man Thorne-Wainwright to write a fake Reading Sonnets, and then he peddles it to Meg as the genuine article. If you reveal the whole bag of goods to Meg, it’s going to put Fletcher in the frame as a deceptive creep.”

  “Who seems to be financially in the hole.”

  “That’s the worst kind of deceptive creep, one who’s desperate for funds.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Your employer is not going to be delighted.”

  “You really intend to report events to Meg in the same words you just did to me?”

  “I could finesse the details, but after what you’ve told me about Ms. Grantham’s smarts, I doubt that would be a clever choice.”

  “She’d see through subterfuge, my man,” Annie said.

  “So essentially, yes, I’m going to blow the whistle on Fletcher.”

  “Even though he started out as your client.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but a client who made me an unwitting part of his treachery.”

  The waiter brought our main courses, and the next few minutes were taken up with oohing and ahhing over the pleasures of Le Paradis’s veal and chicken.

  “A couple of moves Fletcher’s made along the way I don’t get,” Annie said.

  “Only a couple?”

  “How come he told you to put the search for the Walter Hickey letters ahead of digging for the supposed Reading Sonnets?”

  “Fletcher was working a psychological gamut on me,” I said. “This is what I figure. He was frantic to get the poems back because that’s where his potential money is supposed to come from. But he reasoned I’d be ornery and put my emphasis on whatever option he didn’t obviously prefer.”

  “He was running a kind of reverse con.”

  “Which I ignored.”

  “Very clever.”

  “Except for one detail when I talk to Meg.”

  “That’s not hard to guess,” Annie said. “If I’m right about Meg wanting to know the whole picture, she’s going to ask you about the Hickey letters.”

  “Which leads Meg and me to a chat about the person who is currently in possession of the letters.”

  “Bloody Brent,” Annie said. She stopped eating and put down her knife and fork. “You’re going to have to tell Meg that her own son is pulling a fast one.”

  “Otherwise known as an illegal act.” I paused in my eating too.

  “And this isn’t just based on somebody’s fib or a network of rumours, is it?” Annie said.


  “Not even close to just either of those,” I said. “I’ve got Acey Hickey’s word for it, and Charlie backs her up.”

  “Charlie having been in on the heist of the letters right alongside Brent.”

  “So the question I’m mulling is this: Do I tell the whole story to Meg?” I said.

  Anne and I resumed the eating of our veal and chicken while we gave a few thoughts to my approach to Meg Grantham.

  “Meg will absolutely freak over all of this,” Annie said. “I’m told that’s not a pretty sight, Meg blowing her top.”

  “I’ll have to play it by ear.”

  “What’s that mean exactly?”

  “It means I might lie a little, vamp somewhat, make stuff up, generally talk through my hat.”

  “Honey,” Annie said, looking her most severe, “that’s just too damned dangerous when you’re in deep with a woman like Meg.”

  I let a beat or two go by, then I said, “No lying then, and no talking through my hat, I promise. But maybe a little harmless vamping.”

  “Whatever that is.”

  “Also known as stalling.”

  “But just to sort of play the devil’s advocate here, why not come totally clean to Meg on everything nasty you know about Brent? What’s the gain in holding back?”

  “For one thing, I have this small reserve of sympathy for Charlie Watson. If I blow the whistle on Brent, then Charlie will probably go down the tubes with him. I’d like to avoid that. Charlie was naïve enough to get played by Brent, but that’s much less than a hanging offence.”

  “Very gallant of you, sweetie. And I sort of approve.”

  Both of us ate quietly for a few moments.

  “I feel sorry for Acey Hickey too. She’s so anxious to write a good novel, and she’s just on the brink of getting the money that’ll finance more than enough time to write the damn book. Then what happens? Brent yanks the rug on her. Acey deserves better.”