Booking In Read online

  “Name?” he said.

  “Crang.”

  Mr. Natty punched in a number on the keyboard in front of him, and while he waited for someone to answer, he gave me the once-over. It was probably the black eye. It was healing nicely, but the reception guy might have thought it identified me as a roughneck.

  He spoke softly into his phone, one hand blocking the mouthpiece to ensure I didn’t hear a word.

  “Beth says she’ll meet you in the Blue Room in five minutes,” he said after he hung up. He sounded as if he found the entire transaction with me personally offensive.

  Upstairs in the Blue Room, neither the Bill Evans CDs nor copies of The New Yorker were anywhere to be seen. But the stainless steel coffee canister was sitting in plain sight. I touched it and felt heat radiating through the metal. I poured some coffee into one of the cups on the wooden table and carried the cup with me while I wandered across the room to the small office where Brent Grantham conducted business. The office was empty.

  “I’m pleased to say Brent’s out of town,” Beth said as she came into the Blue Room. She looked both glamorous and efficient, wearing a form-fitting summer dress and carrying a briefcase.

  “You’re definitely not a Brent fan?” I said.

  “Around women, Brent is a man who can’t keep his hands to himself.”

  “MTF, as a lady friend of mine says of such men.”

  “MTF?”

  “Must touch flesh.”

  “That’s Brent. And then some.”

  On another occasion, I might have pressed Beth for more dope on Brent. Had he tried something gross with her? Sexual overtures? But that would have to wait. I had another fish to fry at the moment.

  Beth steered us back in the direction of the deep-blue sofa. She said, “Brent’s in the Bahamas. He flew there in Meg’s plane and took one of our in-house lawyers with him and an accountant of his own.”

  “I know what that’s about,” I said. “He’s on the hunt for Cedric Hollyworth.”

  “Well, more power to him.”

  Beth got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Does that black eye you’re sporting involve Brent in any way?” she asked.

  “So obliquely, it’s not worth explaining,” I said.

  “Obliquely?”

  “The connection isn’t as direct as the favour I’ve come here to ask of you.”

  “Now you’ve got my interest.”

  “I want to buy a bottle of especially rare wine from the collection in the company’s cellar. Maybe two bottles.”

  Beth took a few moments to think about my request. “From the way you’re asking,” she said, “it sounds more like some kind of business operation than something simple like you advancing your status as a oenophile.”

  “You’ll get a hint of what this is about when I explain the business a nice guy named Archie Brewster carries on.”

  I told Beth how Archie had been a top neurosurgeon in the city, how he invented a tiny gizmo that became essential equipment in neurosurgery around the world. The gizmo made Archie a very rich man, and with some of the money, he opened his own clinic in a row of townhouses north of Toronto’s gay village near Church and Wellesley. Archie and his associates, almost all of them young and eager, offered services on the scientific side of every kind of medical area. The more complex or the more adventurous the services, the better they liked it. Archie was a maverick, and he particularly loved cases that criminal lawyers brought to the clinic. For them, Archie’s fee schedule was unique. He wanted bottles of a wine that surprised or otherwise dazzled him.

  “You’ve got a medical puzzle you want this Dr. Brewster to solve?” Beth said when I’d finished telling her Archie’s story.

  I nodded.

  “Which is somehow connected to Meg and her family?” Beth said.

  “I got samples of blood from two different sources,” I said. “I want Archie to tell me if the blood belongs to the same person.”

  “That doesn’t sound complex or adventurous.”

  “Archie’ll say the same thing,” I said. “But I’ll tell him it’s probably the key to solving a murder. That always stirs his interest.”

  “Not to mention you no doubt want the answer fast.”

  “That too.”

  Beth took time out for another thoughtful pause. “One thing I can’t help noticing,” she said, “you haven’t answered my question about whether all of this has a connection to Meg or one of her sons in particular.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Brent’s involved.”

  “It’s his blood you want tested?”

  I shook my head. “It’s the blood of a murder victim.”

  Beth’s pretty face showed a small expression of horror. “I think I’d better stop asking questions. The whole subject is getting a little too close to the bone.”

  “Can we get back to the business of the wine for Archie?”

  Beth stood up. “Follow me,” she said.

  We didn’t go far, just across the Blue Room to the small bar on the west wall, then through a door at the back of the bar. Inside, in the large room behind the door, the temperature was much cooler than in the rest of the building, and the walls were lined with wooden latticework with a bottle of wine in each opening. On the floor there was a small refrigerator with a glass dome; below the dome, I could see several champagne bottles. Dom Perignon, I read on a label, Roederer Cristal on another.

  “This is Meg’s cellar, so to speak,” Beth said.

  “You’ve got how many bottles in here?”

  “A modest number, as cellars go. About six hundred, but that’s enough for what Meg wants when she’s entertaining clients in the building. She’s got another cellar a little bit larger in the Rosedale house.”

  “I take it you know your way around these shelves.”

  Beth smiled happily. “Meg put me in charge of stocking the two cellars, and I read a ton of books about wine. Then she let me loose in France with the corporate credit card.”

  “Everything in here is the product of French vineyards?”

  “Meg’s orders. And I know exactly what’ll make you a hero to Dr. Brewster.”

  “You’ve thought it through already?”

  “Côte du Rhône. We’ve got bottles from Bagnols-sur-Cèze. Two dynamite years, 1985 and 2005. I’ll get you one of each.”

  “You’ve personally tasted them?”

  “Tasted is the accurate verb. I spent five days in Avignon, blitzing through Côte du Rhône vineyards with this handsome devil of a French wine consultant. I tasted a little of this, a little of that, and I went nuts over whatever wine the handsome devil told me I should go nuts over. That was a couple of years ago, and I’ve learned a whole lot since then, and one thing I learned was that the two years we chose of Bagnols-sur-Cèze were right on the money.”

  “They came on the handsome devil’s recommendation?”

  Beth nodded. “The man was dreamy.”

  “If I take one of each, it won’t get you in trouble with Meg?”

  “What Meg doesn’t know is cool with Meg.”

  “That sounds like a quote from somebody.”

  “From Meg herself,” Beth said, another big smile on her face. “It was her way of telling me I could have my little secrets as long as I didn’t abuse the privilege.”

  I smiled back. “Our secret,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Not me or Meg or the wine cellar. Consider it our contribution to solving your murder.”

  “If I’m reading things right,” I said, “you wouldn’t object if Archie Brewster’s findings helped lead the way to Brent Grantham.”

  “That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” Beth said. “Meg’s wine cellar helping to nail her no-account son for at least one piece of his criminal behavio
ur.”

  Beth winked at me, but her expression told me the wink hadn’t even a touch of humour to it.

  “Let’s get those two bottles,” she said.

  Chapter Forty-One

  When Beth and I stepped out of the wine cellar, me carrying the two bottles from Bagnols-sur-Cèze, a commotion of loud voices burst from the hall.

  “Damn,” Beth said. “Bloody Brent’s out there.”

  “Sounds like he’s moving with an entourage.”

  “Give me the two bottles,” Beth said, speaking fast.

  “Brent wouldn’t like it if he saw me making off with his mum’s wine?” I said.

  Beth was jamming the two bottles into her briefcase. “Typical Brent, he considers everything in the Grantham building to be his very own personal property.”

  Beth brushed her dress with both hands and made a quick check of her makeup in a Blue Room mirror, presumably deciding whether she was presentable enough to handle Brent. I felt like telling her she was presentable enough to handle George Clooney. Then she lifted the briefcase, which was slightly unwieldy with the two full wine bottles inside.

  “Let’s see if we can get past Brent without a lot of palaver,” Beth said.

  “That suits my schedule.”

  The door into the Blue Room swung open before we reached it. Brent was leading the way. His usual tan seemed deeper than before, and he had on a loose-fitting t-shirt with a v-neck front and a pair of plaid shorts down to his knees. It must have been his Bahamas outfit, but he looked more like the Dude in The Big Lebowski. Two guys in summer suits were right on Brent’s heels. The two were no doubt Meg’s staff lawyer and Brent’s accountant. Two other younger guys I’d seen around the office brought up the rear.

  As soon as Brent spotted Beth, he swept an arm around her shoulders. “Just the woman I need,” he said. “Sweetheart, you like to do me the favour of rounding up a few bottles of champagne from the cellar? We’re celebrating, me and these guys. Get out the good stuff.”

  Brent turned to me. “Crang, I’m not even going to ask what you’re doing in the building,” he said. “Whatever, the celebration includes you too. It was you who gave me the tip. I did the rest, and I got my moolah back.”

  He stepped away from Beth and slung his arm around my shoulders.

  “Ten million back where it belongs?” I said.

  “Not the whole thing, man,” Brent said.

  He turned to the slim, dark guy in the wheat-coloured summer suit, his arm still embracing me. “Crang, I want you to meet my lawyer, Alastair Palmer. This guy, Stairs we all call him …”

  “Only you call me that,” the lawyer interrupted.

  “Stairs swung a sweet little deal with Cedric the thief,” Brent carried on. “Short of the total ten, you understand. Stairs explained the goddamn intricacies of the Bahamian legal system. Highway robbers, those guys are. But we flew back with a certified cheque payable to me for six million.”

  “Congratulations, Brent,” I said.

  “Not too shabby for two days’ work in the islands, am I right, Crang?”

  “Right, so to speak.”

  “I’m priming for major moves, man. Hired Wall Street brains a week ago to roll with every dollar I could put my hands on. Six million’ll count big.”

  While Brent was holding forth, I noticed that Beth had used his moments of loudmouth bragging to slip out of the Blue Room and down the hall.

  Brent looked around, finally taking note that Beth had left the group, abandoning her champagne assignment in the process.

  “Goddamn woman,” he said. “She’s got no appreciation for who calls the shots around here.”

  He turned to the two young guys who trailed at the back of the entourage.

  “Willie, you’re Willie, right?” he said to one of the two. Brent didn’t give the kid time to confirm or deny his name. Instead he pushed on with his orders. “You and your friend there, you get the champagne. In the back of the bar, through the door to the cellar. I want the Veuve Clicquot. Some of it and some Krug.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young guy whose name may or may not have been Willie. “How many bottles?”

  “For starters,” Brent said, “a pair of each.”

  The two guys set off for the cellar.

  “You boys make yourself at home,” Brent said to the lawyer and the accountant. “I got a word to say to my pal here.”

  His arm still around my shoulders, he led us on a stroll to the corner of the room next to his office.

  “We got off on the wrong foot when we first met, Crang,” Brent said. Enthusiasm and celebration poured off him in waves. He was a happy camper. To me, he seemed even more odious in his upbeat mode than he did in his normal cranky state. As far as I was concerned, Brent Grantham was a mean-spirited jackass. And maybe a killer.

  “Come on, man, help me a little here,” Brent said, unable to ignore my reluctance to make like I was his good buddy.

  “Nice work getting the money, Brent,” I said. “Does this mean you figure to give the Hickey letters back to Acey?”

  “For chrissake, Crang, what’s one thing got to do with the other?”

  “You’re no longer desperate for money,” I said. “You can afford a little generosity. Return the letters. Share the bounty. Make Acey feel good.”

  “You want to stay my mate, Crang, then lay off it. Acey and I made a business deal, and her eyes were wide open all the way.”

  “So this is a definite no? No returning of the letters?”

  “It’d be bad business,” Brent said.

  “In that case, let me be the first to tell you, Acey’s got the letters back anyway. They’re under her own lock and key.”

  Brent’s eyes made a little pivot. He looked like a guy who wasn’t sure whether to blast off at me or be cool about the situation.

  “How the fuck do you know a thing like that?” Brent said, apparently choosing the blast-off mode.

  “I keep my ear to the ground.”

  Willie and his comrade returned to the room, Willie carrying four bottles, two each of Veuve Clicquot and Krug, the other kid precariously balancing a tray holding six champagne glasses.

  “Take the corks out of the Krug,” Brent said. “I need some sustenance here.”

  The group stood around without speaking, watching the two young guys open the bottles and pour champagne into the flutes. Not even Brent broke the silence. When the six glasses were filled, Brent moved back to the centre of the room, tugging me along. He raised his flute and proposed a toast, “Here’s to a couple days of smart business from all you guys who backed me up.”

  The rest of us took sips from our flutes. The guys in the suits muttered something I didn’t catch, but neither of them answered Brent’s toast. Nobody even acknowledged it. Brent seemed too full of himself to notice the lack of enthusiasm.

  Brent grabbed me by the elbow and once again edged me a little farther away from the rest of the group.

  “If Acey’s got the goddamn Hickey letters,” he said, “it means somebody lifted them from my place.”

  “Nice deducing, Brent.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “This Krug’s delicious,” I said. “Slips down like a dream.”

  “Forget the goddamn champagne.”

  “What you might consider, Brent old chum,” I said. “You may have lost your hold on the Hickey letters, but the Reading Sonnets might still be in play. You ever think of taking a run at them?”

  “You ever think you might be getting on my nerves?”

  “Never entered my mind, Brent.”

  “The frigging Reading Sonnets belong to my mother.”

  “True, they do,” I said. “So how come nobody seems to know exactly where they are?”

  “Just tell me what in hell you’re hinting around at?
You think I’ve got the poems? How about answering a simple question: right this minute, what’s on your suspicious goddamn mind about that these bloody poems?”

  I looked at my empty champagne flute. “This minute? A refill of the gorgeous Brut would be number one in my thoughts.”

  Brent gave me his hard stare. It lasted a couple of beats.

  “Get out of here, Crang,” Brent said. “Out of the whole damn building. Next time I see you, I might smack you silly. So my advice to you, keep the fuck away from my home, my place of business, my club, and any other place I hang out.”

  “A little more Krug before I go is not a possibility?”

  “You listening to me? Get out of this goddamn building!”

  I left the Blue Room, made a detour to pick up the two bottles of Côte du Rhône from Beth, then hailed a cab to drive me to Archie Brewster’s lab. I was feeling pumped for action. A couple of sips of champagne and a temper tantrum from Brent were bound to have that effect.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The way I read the expression on Archie Brewster’s face, he was probably bemused more than anything else. Archie was a portly man in his early sixties. He had a languid way of speaking, as if nothing much he faced in his work or the rest of his life fazed him. He’d deal with it, no question.

  “This is a homely collection of items you two have brought me,” he said, speaking to Maury and me.

  We were in Archie’s office. It was a pleasant room that had nothing to identify him as a medical man. No diplomas on the wall, no scientific degrees. A blowup of a photograph of Billie Holiday hanging on the wall behind him was currently the only visual decor. Archie loved singers from sixty years earlier.

  On Archie’s desk, Maury and I had laid out the blood-spattered page from the fake Reading Sonnets plus the items Maury picked up from Biscuit’s apartment. All of them were in plastic bags. The two bottles of Bagnols-sur-Cèze I left in a cloth bag Beth had given me. The bag was on the floor beside my chair out of Archie’s sight.