Booking In Page 21

  I made some coffee and got on the telephone. The guy I wanted to speak to was Brent Grantham, but his landline was an unlisted number, and I had no clue about his cell number. Fortunately, I knew someone who must have used one or both numbers recently. Charlie Watson, of course. I had her cell number, and I rang it.

  “You’re at home, Charlie?” I said.

  “The police are keeping the store closed down for another day or two.”

  “It’s a crime scene.”

  “This whole thing, a murdered man and all that, it’s just so horrible.”

  “Murder always feels that way.”

  “Is that why you’re phoning me? About the murder investigation? You want to know where I was when the murder happened?”

  “No,” I said. “But now that you mention it, where were you the night before last? Around 2:30 a.m.?”

  “In bed, the same as most sensible people at that hour.”

  “From around 2:00 a.m. on? You were in bed alone?”

  Charlie paused. “Two o’clock, yeah, I was in bed alone.”

  She might have been shading things a little, not telling me the whole story, but I was phoning her on different business. I chose to stick to that.

  “What I need is Brent Grantham’s phone number. His cell, preferably.”

  “You want to talk to him about the murder?”

  “Not unless he brings it up. I got something else to discuss with good old Brent.”

  “What do you mean ‘good old Brent?’ You loathe the guy.”

  “Doesn’t stop me from offering him a proposition that might add up to a plus for both of us.”

  “Crang, I’m levelling with you,” Charlie said, “Brent can be a very dangerous person.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “You’re not aware of everything about him.”

  “Like what?”

  “He collects guns. I bet you didn’t know about that.”

  “Hunting rifles? That kind of gun? Skeet shooting rifles?”

  “Nothing so harmless. Brent has handguns, all kinds of them. Pistols, revolvers, six-shooters. He’s got the licences to own these damn things. So it must be all legit. I’m telling you Crang, Brent’s a fanatic about guns because he’s so rich and he thinks people may want to kidnap him or something.”

  “That’s fascinating, Charlie, but what about Brent’s cell number? You going to help me with that?”

  There was a pause at the other end.

  “You won’t tell him where you got it?” Charlie said at last. “He’s super fussy about that kind of thing.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Charlie gave me the number. “It should still be good,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He changes his cell number every two or three months.”

  “That’s another thing he’s super fussy about?”

  “The man’s strange, Crang. Rich and good-looking, but strange.”

  Charlie and I hung up, and I punched in the number she’d given me for Brent.

  “How’d you get this number, Crang?” the man himself said when he picked up. “And why in hell are you calling me? I already told you I got no time for a dickhead like you.”

  “I’ll concentrate on answering your second question, Brent,” I said. “I’m led to believe it’s worth your while to learn Cedric Hollyworth’s present whereabouts. Ten million dollars worth of while, to be specific. If we get together for lunch sometime in the next few days, I can point you in Cedric’s direction.”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Brent said. “I’m already paying a guy who still hasn’t found Cedric, and this is a guy who’s supposed to know the Caribbean like the back of his hand.”

  “I have better resources than your man.”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “And all I’m asking in return is a lunch date.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You pick up the tab for lunch.”

  “Listen, Crang, the last time I saw you, you talked to me like I was something stuck to the bottom of your shoe, which I didn’t much appreciate. Now you’re making nice to me. You think I can’t see through your tactics. You must have some dumb trick up your sleeve.”

  “No trick, no sleeve. You take care of lunch. I’ll do the talking.”

  “What about the piano player?”

  “Piano player?”

  “Who I didn’t show respect for, according to you. You’d never forgive me.”

  “Bill Evans. It’s your loss, Brent. But the Bill Evans issue won’t in any way hamper the civilized discourse of our lunch date.”

  “I never said I’d go on a lunch date.”

  “Tomorrow good for you? Or later in the week?”

  “Goddamn it, Crang.”

  “You pick the venue.”

  Brent held back for another few moments. “All right,” he said. “My club.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Which will it be? The York over here on St. George near my office? Best lunches in town, I’m told. Or maybe the Toronto Club? Not bad either on the food.”

  “The Concord. One o’clock on Friday, and this better be good, Crang, or I’ll take some kind of steps.”

  Brent clicked off.

  The damned Concord. My ex-father-in-law had used to take me to lunch there. The father of my first and only wife Pamela was a very rich guy, and he and all the other rich, conservative guys who lunched at the Concord never seemed to mind that the chef specialized in thick sauces that failed to disguise the sins of his kitchen. But that was in the old days. I hadn’t been back to the Concord since Pamela and I had gotten divorced. Maybe they had a new chef with a more civilized approach to sauces.

  I stood up from my desk, left the office, and headed for the TTC on my way to the Plaid Pants tavern in the west end.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Arnie McGillivray was sitting alone at the table under the portrait of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Artie was nowhere to be seen. Out of sight was how I liked Artie.

  When Arnie looked up at me and my black eye, his face broke into a big smile.

  “So Artie wasn’t bullshitting,” Arnie said. “He really punched you a good one.”

  “He suckered me in the dark.”

  “That’s not the way he put it.”

  “Tell me, Arnie, has it ever occurred to you that Artie has issues with the truth?”

  “He says the two of you got into it, man to man, and he caught you square with a fair punch. That’s when he turned away to leave you in peace, and you smacked him from behind.”

  “Arnie, I’m not the person who caught Artie on the nose.”

  “No?”

  “I’m not even of the same gender as that person.”

  “You’re saying a broad punched Artie?”

  “Someone you met in this very saloon.”

  “The hot looker Artie’s nuts over?”

  I nodded. “She’s the one with the great left jab that nailed your brother.”

  Arnie thought about what I’d said for a moment. “I suppose,” he said, “this means Artie’s blown his chances for a date with the dame?”

  “Less than nil, Arnie.”

  The red-headed waitress arrived at the table.

  “Good to see you again, Missy,” I said.

  “Thanks for the nice tip last time,” Missy said. “What you left would cover a year’s worth of what I get from the skinflints around here.”

  I ordered an Old Kilt for myself and another for Arnie.

  “What are you doing in here, Crang?” Arnie asked. “This is nowhere near your neighbourhood.”

  “I want you to go into Brent Grantham’s house on Friday and finish up the assignment from Acey Hickey.”

  “Oh man, we’ve
wasted so much time on that guy, me and Artie, I’m losing my taste for the job.”

  “Your problem, as I understand it, is the break-in has to be done during the daytime, and Brent rarely leaves the house except at night.”

  “Morning or afternoon, he only walks to stores down on Yonge Street, then he’s back before it seems like we’ve taken a step.”

  “Go in Brent’s place Friday at one o’clock, and I guarantee you’ll have a couple of hours to locate the boxes of Hickey letters and lug them out of there.”

  “Where’ll Grantham be at?”

  “Having lunch with me miles away.”

  Missy brought the beers, two glasses, and a bowl of pretzels to the table. “The pretzels are a treat,” she said. “On the house.”

  She left.

  “She never gives me and Artie free pretzels,” Arnie said.

  “Try tipping more than one percent.”

  I sipped some beer. As before, it wasn’t bad.

  “I assume you’ll have no trouble getting into Grantham’s house?” I said to Arnie.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Fine. Here’s what you do to find the boxes of letters without a lot of horsing around.”

  I described for Arnie the inner office beyond the clothes closet as Charlie had reported it to me.

  Arnie absorbed all of this and then appeared to go into deep contemplation, his eyes focused across the room, his fingers tapping quietly on the table.

  “One thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “When do Artie and me get paid?”

  “Bring the boxes of letters straight to my office,” I said. “I’ll have Acey Hickey waiting there to hand over your fee.”

  “You promise?”

  “I guarantee payment by Acey on completion of your assign­ment.”

  “Then okay, me and Artie’ll do the job, noon Friday.”

  “Just one thing.”

  “I knew there’d be a catch.”

  “When you report to my office, leave Artie downstairs in your car.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Arnie, that is more than just ‘all.’ That is a deal-breaker. I don’t want your maniac brother anyplace within punching range of me.”

  “I guess that’s best for everybody.”

  “Tell Artie if he doesn’t keep his distance, I’ll bring in my beautiful and muscular friend to polish him off.”

  Arnie thought about what I’d said. “You don’t suppose Artie gets a kick out of that? Beautiful women beating him up?”

  “Not from the look of his nose last night.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Just get the letters tomorrow, and we’ll be done with one another.”

  “Know what I’m gonna do after that?”

  “What?”

  “Move back to Peterborough.”

  “Nice idea,” I said. “Be sure to take Artie with you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Concord Club was on the south side of Gerrard Street across from Allan Gardens in a downtown neighbourhood that had once been grand, then fallen on hard times, but had been making a comeback over the last decade. Through all the social, financial, and cultural upheavals, the Concord had persisted for a century and a half in the same building. Inside, it looked like its furnishings had never changed. More than anything, it would pass for what I thought a pricey Victorian brothel might resemble. All the chairs and sofas were plush, the kind you sank into so deeply, you were afraid you’d never hoist yourself upright again. The colours of the walls and carpeting ran to scarlet and gold, and the paintings hanging throughout the club were of women showing a lot of bosom and gentlemen dressed for a bit of sport. Concord employees wore getups that would look perfect on the extras in episodes of Downton Abbey.

  I asked for Brent Grantham at the front desk, and one of the Downton Abbey guys steered me into the dining room on the first floor. It was two storeys high and covered enough space to accommodate a game of touch football. But only a quarter of the tables in the entire place were occupied. Maybe the food was still lousy, and that was keeping the current and perhaps more demanding generation of members out of the dining room.

  Brent had a table for four in a distant corner. Only two of the four settings had knives and forks in place. The ushering guy held out a chair for me. Brent didn’t get up. He didn’t offer to shake hands either. He had a blue blazer with a button-down white shirt and a tie that looked like it came from a private school.

  “I love it, Crang,” Brent said after he let out a guffaw. “Some jealous husband caught you in bed with his little woman?”

  “You’re referring to the colouring around my eye?”

  “It’s what people would call a real shiner.”

  “They’ve been calling it that for a couple of days,” I said. “Why should you be an exception?”

  Brent stared at me, probably trying to think of something freshly insulting to say about my eye. It didn’t look like he was coming up with anything new.

  “Myself,” I said, “I think the blue colour is fading around the eye. Just a little mauvish at the moment, on the way to normal pinko grey.”

  A waiter stopped at the table.

  “You want a drink, Crang?” Brent said.

  “The Concord started carrying Russian vodka yet?” I said. “Or Polish?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “The kind of weird right-wingers who belong to this place, they’re still fighting the Cold War.”

  Brent turned to the waiter. “What brand of vodka you got on the shelves?”

  “White Mischief, sir. Very agreeable, I’m told.”

  “There you go, Crang,” Brent said. “What could be more subversive and Russki than something with a name like that.”

  “White Mischief is made in India,” I said to Brent.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I think cursing is banned in here too.”

  I looked up at the waiter. “A glass of white wine, please,” I said. “Pinot Grigio.”

  “I’ll have my usual,” Brent said.

  The waiter headed for the bar at the front of the room next to the entrance.

  “Seriously, Crang, you walked into a door? Or what is it with the eye?”

  “You really care?”

  “Maybe I’d just like to shake the hand of the guy who laid the punch on your eye.”

  “If I told you the whole story, we’d soon be into a discussion about the missing Hickey letters.”

  “Case closed on that subject,” Brent said in an abrupt tone. “As you damned well know, I already got a deal worked out with Acey.”

  The waiter returned with the drinks. Brent’s regular appeared to be a rye and ginger ale. He took a deep swig from the glass. Judging from the dark colour of the drink, it was probably a double rye and ginger.

  “You know what you want to eat, Crang?” Brent said.

  The waiter was still standing at the table.

  “I’ll have the salmon, please,” I said. “But would you mind asking the chef to hold the sauce.”

  The waiter nodded.

  “My usual,” Brent said. “Well done.”

  “You’re an easy man to satisfy,” I said.

  “Not always.”

  “I was kidding,” I said. “I’d call you a hard guy for anyone except waiters to deal with.”

  Brent swallowed some more rye and ginger, almost emptying the glass in the process. He waved at a waiter with the hand holding his almost empty glass, pointing at the glass with the other. The waiter nodded.

  “Before I get totally fed up with your smart mouth, Crang,” Brent said, “tell me what you know about Cedric Hollyworth.”

  “My pleasure,” I said. “But first, suppose you fill m
e in on old Cedric’s early history. I know where he is right now and roughly what he’s up to. It’s his background where I come up short.”

  In truth, I didn’t much care to learn more about Cedric. But if I could get Brent talking on the subject, it would go a long way toward keeping him at the Concord while the MacGillivray brothers looted his home office. Discussing Cedric and using the inside dope I’d learned from Meg Grantham seemed the best bet for a lengthy chat. Meg hadn’t sworn me to secrecy on Cedric, and I didn’t figure that leaking his current whereabouts to Brent was betraying anybody’s trust. It was in all parties’ long-term best interests to keep Brent talking. In the really long run, it might even help me deduce the identity of Biscuit’s killer.

  Brent hesitated then got into a description, blessedly lengthy, about meeting Cedric at a gambling club on Lyford Cay, one thing leading to another, and Cedric ultimately strolling off with most of Brent’s ten million.

  “My weakness, Crang,” Brent said, “I’m just too much of a trusting guy.”

  I almost choked on my wine at the remark. Brent was about as trusting as the average rattlesnake, but if that was the image he thought he was projecting, Brent the trusting businessman, who was I to question his perception of himself?

  The waiter arrived with our main courses. My salmon came with the sauce I hadn’t asked for, but at least it was dumped on the plate at the side of the rest of the food.

  “Chef thought you’d care for a hint of the sauce,” the waiter said to me.

  “To show me what I’d be missing,” I said. “Yeah, I get it.”

  Brent’s steak swam in brown gunk. He seemed to expect it.

  “So, Crang,” Brent said, “Cedric fucking Hollyworth was as crooked as they come, but I have to hand it to him, he was slick. He deked me into trusting him when I shouldn’t have. But that happens to me a lot, getting swindled by people I trust.”

  “A cautionary tale,” I said.

  “Now it’s your turn.”

  “You want me to tell you where he’s got to since he conned you?”

  “That’s the deal.”

  I wiped my mouth with the starched linen napkin.

  “Rum Isle.”

  “Rum Island?”