Keeper of the Flame Page 18

  The ring of my cellphone interrupted my ruminating. Did I need to pick up? The phone was in my seersucker’s right hand pocket. The jacket was folded over the chair in the kitchen. I didn’t feel like getting out of my seat, and walking up the five steps to the kitchen. The mood I was in, I wasn’t keen on talking to anybody at that moment. The phone rang on. I didn’t budge. The rings fell silent, but the clicks from the cell told me whoever called had left a message.

  I sat in the dining room until my silver bullet had almost dwindled away. It had certainly eased the tension of the morning’s events. I felt closer to a sense of calm. Should I make another drink? Probably not — it being the middle of the day for one thing. Something to eat and a short snooze seemed more in order.

  I slathered some organic peanut butter on two slices of multi-grain bread, and ate the sandwich, followed by an apple and an oatmeal and cranberry flaxseed cookie from the good people at Voortman’s. All of the nourishment taken care of, I checked the phone message. It was from Sal Banfield. She and her friend Franny wanted to meet me later that afternoon. Sal said the subject to be discussed was the last chance they were offering me at digging into Freddie Chamblis’s private papers in the house where the porn movies were shot. Sal and Franny suggested they meet me that afternoon for a coffee and a discussion of their proposal. I was to choose a place off the beaten track. That was how Sal phrased it.

  I phoned Sal’s number, got her voice mail, and told it I would be at the Sovereign Coffee Bar on Davenport east of Dufferin at four o’clock. That gave me two hours.

  I sat at the computer and Googled the Toronto General Hospital for its ER number. When I got through to ER, the person who answered said nobody named Frederick Chamblis had been brought in.

  I tried Mount Sinai.

  “You’re lucky,” a woman in Mount Sinai’s ER said. “Mr. Chamblis’s papers happen to have been placed in front of me just now. You’re a relative?”

  “Half-brother,” I lied. “Same mum, different dads.”

  “Name?” the ER woman said. “I need it for Mr. Chamblis’s chart.”

  “Crang.”

  “Good news and bad news for you, Mr. Crang. Your half-brother’s right side is intact. His left side is broken up pretty badly.”

  “Is Freddie more or less disabled?”

  “Broken foot, knee, hip, wrist, and shoulder.”

  “All on the left side?”

  “Plus a skull fracture over the left ear.”

  “No internal injuries? No vital organs endangered?”

  “Your half-brother seems to have been spared any of that.”

  “What’s Freddie got to say about his wounds?”

  “Quite a lot,” the ER woman said. “But the doctors can’t understand most of it. The trouble is with Mr. Chamblis’s tongue. When he took the fall, his teeth clamped down on his tongue. Now it’s swollen twice the normal size.”

  “Makes communicating awkward, I imagine.”

  “He’s Mister Mumbles.”

  “How long do you plan to keep Freddie down there?”

  “A week. Maybe more. You can visit any time.”

  The ER woman hung up.

  I put down my cell, and went upstairs for a nap before meeting with the only two porn movie actresses I’d ever met in my entire, excitement-packed life.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I arrived at the Sovereign ahead of my two dates. The place wasn’t large but it was classy. Its location situated the Sovereign in the neighbourhood labelled Little Italy. It had been called that for as long as I could remember and probably a lot longer. Two local young guys had started up the coffee shop a year or so ago, and by my lights, they were doing everything the right way.

  The interior ran to dark wood panelling, with the same shade in the tables and the counters. I sat at a table for four, and while I waited, I admired the movie poster on the wall over the table. It was for a Fellini movie, but not an obvious one, not Dolce Vita or Ginger and Fred. The one in the poster was called Il Bidone. I needed to check it out.

  Sal and Franny came in, making cooing sounds of appreciation for the layout. Both were dressed in T-shirts and jeans, attracting immediate approval from the clientele, which was young, male, and Italian.

  Since I’d never met Franny in person, Sal performed the introductions.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, Crang,” Franny said. “I like it that you’re on our side, you being a lawyer and all.”

  “I’ve seen a little of your work,” I said to Franny. “Very, ah, impressive.”

  The ladies sat down, and all three of us ordered cappuccinos. The barista assembled the coffees with panache. I felt like breaking into applause. The barista had black hair and the looks of a young Mastroianni. He served the cappuccinos from a tray, giving the placing of each cup on the table a small flourish. The girls and I tasted the coffees, and murmured our pleasure.

  “Oh my god,” Franny said, sotto voce, “the coffee guy’s so totally gorgeous.”

  “He should be in movies,” Sal said.

  “Probably is,” I said.

  “You think so?” Franny said.

  “Nobody works in a coffee shop,” I said, “unless they own it or are pausing between roles on stage or screen.”

  “You would know things like that,” Sal said to me.

  “Because I’m so overwhelmingly handsome myself?”

  “No,” Sal said. “Because you’ve been around for a while.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I had just been insulted.

  “This place far enough off the beaten track for you girls?” I asked.

  “That was just Sal being paranoid when she told you about meeting at a sort of secret place,” Franny said.

  “Listen,” Sal said, “the type of guys we’re dealing with, it pays to be cautious when you’re going to make a major move.”

  “What’s the major move?” I asked.

  “Franny and I are quitting porn,” Sal said. “No more movies.”

  I didn’t point out to Sal that, technically, she had never entered the porn industry. She’d done multiple auditions but no movies.

  “What persuaded you to quit at this particular moment?”

  “It’s only these last few days I’ve appreciated how demeaning the business is,” Sal said. “For women, I mean.”

  “Also,” Franny said, “how demeaning one particular man in the business is to the women.”

  “Freddie Chamblis?” I said.

  “You noticed it too?” Franny asked.

  “If you two stay with him long enough,” I said, “his idea is to nudge you into prostitution with him in the role of pimp.”

  Franny gave me a surprised look. “Have you been going undercover or something? I only found out about that slimeball’s operation a couple of days ago. It was from a girl I ran into who I used to make movies with, and now she does escort work. She hates it, naturally. But Freddie won’t let her out. It’s like he’s got a lock on her.”

  “What we want to do before we quit,” Sal said, “is bring Freddie down.”

  The handsome barista reappeared at the table.

  “Would you ladies like some of our homemade biscotti?” he said. “On the house for customers as lovely as yourselves.”

  The girls giggled, and the barista placed a plate on the table. The plate held three biscotti.

  “I’m included in the biscotti giveaway?” I said to the barista.

  “Of course,” he said, shrugging. “The ladies are our guests, and you’re the ladies’ guest.”

  Each of us munched a biscotti and agreed it was delicious.

  “Your idea,” I said to the girls, “is to resurrect the plan involving me on a sneak job at the porn mansion?”

  “Correct,” Sal said. “But it’s got to be during tomorrow afternoon’
s audition, because after that Franny and I are so totally out of there.”

  “One thing,” Franny said to me, “you better be super careful where Freddie Chamblis is concerned. You might not appreciate what a menacing bastard the guy really is.”

  “Freddie won’t be on the premises tomorrow,” I said. “Or any time soon.”

  Sal and Franny looked at one another, then back at me.

  “What do you know that we don’t?” Sal said.

  “Freddie’s in Mount Sinai,” I said. “He took a bad fall this morning and suffered enough damage to make him no physical threat to anybody in the near future.”

  “Wow,” Franny said, “that gives you practically a clear hour to search his office for whatever proof you need that he did what you think he might have done.”

  “Murder for one thing,” Sal said to me. “Maury says you think Chamblis is behind the death of the Reverend at that phony church on St. Clair.”

  “I don’t remember discussing murder suspects with Maury,” I said.

  “Nothing much gets past Maury,” Sal said. “You must have noticed that.”

  “Speaking of his close observations,” I said, “you think the porn auditions have slipped by Maury?”

  “That’s another reason I’m quitting,” Sal said. “I want to get out before he discovers I’ve ever been involved.”

  “From my point of view,” I said, “it’d be better if you were square with Maury right away, no matter what your status is in the business.”

  “I know,” Sal said in a smaller voice. “It’s not fair that you have your normal interactions with Maury, and all the time, you know something private about me that he isn’t aware of.”

  “Annie knows too,” I said.

  “You told her?” Sal said. Her voice rose to mild hysteria.

  “I tell her everything,” I said.

  “That’s so sweet,” Franny said. “I hope I meet a guy who feels that way about me.”

  “To be accurate, I tell Annie everything eventually,” I said. “The moments of major threat to my personal safety I usually withhold until after I survive the threat.”

  “I’ll tell Maury about the porn stuff,” Sal said. “Eventually.”

  I drank a little more cappuccino. It was so good I was trying to make the first cup last. If I ordered another, I’d soar over a healthy caffeine limit.

  “Let’s assume I gain easy access to the Freddie mansion,” I said to Sal and Franny, “what’s the layout in there?”

  “Like I told you,” Sal said, “the living room is converted into the set for the actual shoots. There’s a door between the front hall and the living room, but it’s kept strictly shut and locked while we work. No admittance whatsoever except for people who’ve got business on the set.”

  “Where’s Freddie’s office in relation to the living room and the movie set?” I asked.

  “On the next floor up,” Sal said. “You get to it by way of stairs behind a door at the far left of the front hall. At least, that’s where we always see Freddie and a couple of other people heading after the shoot.”

  “Who are these people you’re talking about?” I said. “The couple of others?”

  “It’s not as if we’ve ever made a close study of who comes and goes upstairs,” Franny said, getting into the conversation.

  “Give me a little taste of what you’re reasonably sure of,” I said.

  “One’s the guy I mentioned to you, the servant-type person,” Sal said. “You know, polite and well-dressed, very tall, that guy. He goes upstairs.”

  “And the other?”

  “He’s sort of a weird dude,” Franny said. “Also tall, in good shape. He’s always hanging around, hoping to get cast in a video.”

  “Really?” Sal said, turning to look at Franny. “I know the guy you mean. Watching most of the time, that guy was, but he didn’t do any audition I was part of.”

  “He was in one of my actual movies.” Franny said. “Very eager guy. And so totally serious. You’d think his role was out of a Shakespeare play. I’d look at his face when he was getting himself ready to, you know, go down on me, and I’d get the impression he thought he was playing Hamlet. And I was Ophelia, except with no clothes on.”

  “How was his, ah, performance?” I said.

  “Adequate,” Franny said.

  “This thespian you’re talking about, the Hamlet guy, he has access to the mansion’s upper floor?”

  “He hangs with Freddie and the servant guy,” Fanny said. “Which means he goes where they go.”

  “So they’re on the set during the filming,” I said, finishing the last of my cappuccino. “And then afterwards, they drift upstairs. Okay, I get that.”

  “Keep in mind tomorrow’s an audition, not a shoot,” Sal said. “That means we’ll only be on the set an hour and a half at most.”

  “That ought to be long enough for me to check out the upstairs quarters,” I said, standing up. “All in all, I think we got a plan.”

  Neither Sal nor Franny made a move that suggested they were thinking of leaving in my company. They seemed to have mutually agreed to stick around without saying anything to one another in front of me.

  “You ladies are having another cappuccino?” I said.

  “We’re mostly curious about the barista’s social attachments,” Sal said. “Like, if he has one that’s serious.”

  “If you mean sizing him up as boyfriend material, you’ve already got a boyfriend, Sal.”

  “Franny hasn’t,” Sal said.

  “Good point.”

  Franny said to me, “It’s too forward of me, that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “What I think,” I said to Franny, “the barista may be about to become a very lucky man.”

  The two girls smiled at one another.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was mid-afternoon on Sunday, and Sal was at the wheel of her Volvo with Franny riding shotgun up front. I had the back seat all to myself. We were on Kingston Road east of Woodbine Avenue in the part of the east end known as the Beach, still a few blocks from the neighbourhood identified by the girls as the location of Freddie Chamblis’s home of impressive luxury.

  “You and the barista make a connection yesterday?” I asked Franny.

  “I hardly slept ten minutes last night,” Franny said.

  “The way I’m supposed to interpret that, you were carrying on all night with the barista?”

  Franny turned in the front seat to look at me. “It was the caffeine that kept me awake, Crang,” she said, sounding indignant. “I drank three cappuccinos yesterday afternoon.”

  “You weren’t carrying on?”

  “I don’t sleep with people on a first date, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  For a moment, I was at a loss about how to answer Franny on that one.

  Franny said, “Just because a girl makes porn movies doesn’t mean she has loose morals in her real life.”

  “Of course,” I said, “but are you going to be stepping out with the barista any time soon?”

  “Well, he hasn’t got a girlfriend, and he invited me back to the Sovereign for another cappuccino.”

  It seemed best to drop the subject. “That sounds like progress,” I said to Franny before I went silent.

  Sunday afternoon traffic on Kingston Road was heavy and noisy, but two blocks further along, after Sal turned right and steered down a street just past a store with a big Häagen-Dazs sign out front, a calm seemed to come over that part of town. It felt tranquil, a neighbourhood that promised peace and quiet. Soon, the houses grew larger, and the land began a long slope down to Lake Ontario. Our view of the lake was blocked by the neighbourhood’s heavy forest of trees, but we could feel the fresh breeze off the water. The street we were on became twisty and winding, and the houses on the hills
ide lots escalated in size to a category that rated mansion status.

  “See the place down the block on the right, Crang?” Sal said. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  The house was sprawling, the largest residence on the street, occupying the biggest parcel of land. Judging from the glimpses I got of tall fencing at the back, the house came with a swimming pool, no doubt Olympic-sized. The house itself was only two storeys, but it covered so much horizontal area that it probably had five or six bedrooms, maybe even a bathroom for each.

  “This has got to be a seven- or eight-million-dollar spread,” I said.

  “Did we exaggerate?” Franny said to me.

  “If anything,” I said, “you understated.”

  Sal was coasting, taking her time to let me size up the layout at my leisure. The house was made of stone and had a large porch across the front. As we got closer, I could see two men talking on the porch.

  Sweet Jesus! I recognized both guys. If they spotted me, they’d know who I was. Neither of them would send any love in my direction.

  “Drive past the house, Sal,” I said, speaking as authoritatively as I could manage while at the same time ducking below the car’s window level.

  “There’s a space in front of Freddie’s place, Crang,” Sal said. “What’s wrong with parking there?”

  “Keep going!” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Hey, Ernie and Lex are on the porch,” Franny said.