Keeper of the Flame Read online

  Still in the office, I opened the desk drawer where I stored a digital recorder that was good for clandestinely recording conversations with people who didn’t know they were getting caught on tape. The digital thing once belonged to a client of mine. This guy suspected his wife was cheating on him with his best friend. He taped a conversation with the friend who admitted he’d been boffing the wife. My client went home, and played the tape for the wife. Then he killed her. The client was now doing life in Kingston Pen. He had no further use for the digital thing. I fitted it into my shirt pocket, which happened to have a button-down flap. The flap ought to hold it in place while I carried out the plan I had in mind. That done, I got the copies of the Flame song lyrics out of my file cabinet, put them in the Carnale briefcase, and went back to the Mercedes.

  “Now we call on Squeaky,” I said to Lex.

  I drove east on Bloor, across the Don Valley viaduct, and on to Danforth Avenue.

  “What am I supposed to do when we see the guy?” Lex said.

  “You’re the muscle,” I said.

  “I told you, Squeaky’s an animal. No way one person can handle him.”

  “A young and fit guy like you, Lex, you ought to be able to stand up to him long enough for us to get our business done. Besides, consider the odds. Two of us against one of Squeaky.”

  I turned left off the Danforth, and worked my way north on Playter to the number Gloria had given me. Squeaky’s place was a stolid looking detached house, built of stone and brick. It showed no particular flourishes of beauty, and its front garden was home to more invasive weeds than flowers, not to mention a raggedy maple that looked half-dead. But the place was loaded with possibilities, and would probably go for two and a half million if somebody gave it a cosmetic fix up.

  The room at the front on the first floor, probably the living room, was lit up like it was Christmas. I could see one large figure — Squeaky? — walking back and forth at irregular intervals, bending over from time to time, then straightening up.

  “What do you suppose he’s doing in there?” I said to Lex.

  “You mean Squeaky?”

  “I assume that’s him.”

  “He’s shooting pool.”

  I watched a bit more. “Good spotting, Lex.”

  “Remind me again how I’m supposed to handle myself?”

  “Keep your mouth shut. Follow my lead. Be prepared to spring to our mutual defence. You think you can handle the assignment?”

  Lex paused.

  “If you can’t do it,” I said, “the cops aren’t likely to be happy with you.”

  “Yes, sir!” Lex said as smartly as he could manage. “Don’t worry about me! I’ve got your back!”

  Lex was giving me everything except the salute.

  “Very impressive, Lex,” I said.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Lex and I stepped out of the car in front of Squeaky Fallis’s house, Lex carrying the Carnale briefcase. Both of us trotted along the front walk to a half-dozen stone steps leading up to a stone porch. The top step had planted containers at either side. I rang the doorbell. Loud chimes came from inside, followed shortly by the master himself appearing at the door.

  In a black T-shirt and jeans, Squeaky looked even more imposing than I remembered. In one hand, he held a glass with a light-brown liquid in it. It was probably scotch or rye, and the slight sway in Squeaky’s posture might have been evidence he’d consumed a few.

  “Well, shit,” he said in a manner I’d call scornful. “Two dumb fucks on my front steps.”

  I gestured at the plants in the containers. “These aren’t dumb fucks on your steps, Squeaky,” I said. “They’re zinnias.”

  “Nobody calls me Squeaky,” he said, snarling a little.

  “My apologies, Mr. Fallis,” I said. “But you mind if my colleague and I come in for a little conference?”

  “I know who both you guys are,” he said. His expression turned wily. “And I can’t think of any reason why I should talk to a couple of retards.”

  “How about if I said we might discuss matters to our mutual benefit?” I said. “Eight million dollars’ worth of benefit?”

  Squeaky, clearly a man who could change his attitude on a dime, pulled back the door, and ushered us across the threshold. The front entrance led straight into the living room where the pool table took up half the space. It was a room that smelled like I imagined an old-time pool hall did with its reek of ancient cigarette smoke.

  “You’re the lawyer on Spadina,” Squeaky said, pointing a finger at me. “And this other guy drives the rich bastard that manages the singer who’s supposed to be so shit hot.”

  “Crang and Lex,” I said. “At your service for the moment.”

  Squeaky had his eye on the Carnale briefcase Lex was carrying. It was hard to tell from his deadpan expression whether he recognized it. If he didn’t recall it, I might have a problem: how was I going to get a recording of Squeaky admitting to a murder when he couldn’t identify the object he’d used as the murder weapon?

  “You assholes want a rye?” Squeaky said. He stood at a sideboard on which there rested a bottle of Canadian Club, an ice bucket, and a double row of highball glasses. “Help yourself.”

  For me, rye had minimal appeal. I poured an inch of the stuff and drowned it in ice and water. Lex fixed himself a larger drink, and we sat on a brown leather sofa at one side of the pool table.

  Squeaky leaned his bum against the table, and glared down at us. From my angle on the sofa, the guy looked ten feet tall.

  “What eight million dollars?” Squeaky asked, speaking to me.

  “The money that’s up for grabs from Flame’s people.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re the lawyer for the guy willing to pay the eight million to get back some dirty songs the moron singer wrote when he was a kid?”

  “Astute job of condensing, Mr. Fallis.”

  “Why’re you talking to me? I got nothing to do with the songs.”

  “But I do,” I said.

  I motioned Lex to hand me the briefcase. Inside were copies of Flame’s lyrics. Also in the briefcase was something I’d forgotten until that moment. It was Lex’s gun. I opened the briefcase at an angle away from Squeaky’s sightline, took out the sheets, and held them up for Squeaky. He took the song sheets from me, and skimmed the lyrics for a few minutes.

  “Even I can tell these things would piss the public off,” Squeaky said, glancing down at me. “Not that I give a shit. But if your dumbass client thinks these are worth eight million, I’m not gonna argue with him.”

  “I believe we see eye to eye on the situation, Mr. Fallis, sir.”

  “So how come you’re including me in a shot at the big money?”

  “I can’t openly blackmail the Flame people, not in my position as their lawyer.”

  “What about your pal here?”

  “Lex? He hasn’t got the gravitas for the role. We need someone who’s going to be taken seriously.”

  “People take me serious or I yank their heads off,” Squeaky said, sounding snarly again.

  “So I understand.”

  “Something still smells fishy to me, you coming to my house with this deal,” Squeaky said. The wary look had made a return.

  “Number one,” I said, “I expect to walk away with four million. Out of it I pay Lex his share. The other four million is yours. Money talks, right, Mr. Fallis?”

  “What’s number two?”

  “The first time I made a move on the eight million, my front man lost his nerve.”

  “Your front man? You were in the deal with the minister? I don’t believe it.”

  “You met the man, you must have noticed he had a little problem with follow through.”

  “What he had a problem with,” Squeaky said, holding up the sheets of Flame’s lyrics
, “he couldn’t find these goddamn songs when I asked him to gimme a look at them.”

  I propped the briefcase on my knee, a lame prompt maybe, but it might prod Squeaky into recognizing the murder weapon and blundering a frank answer to my next question. “So how did you handle the Reverend’s failure to produce the lyrics?”

  Squeaky took a big swallow of rye and water. He looked at Lex, then back at me. “You haven’t asked Lexie here what I might have done to the Reverend?”

  “As far as I know, Lex has no knowledge of what went on at any meeting you may have had with the Reverend. Unless Lex has been holding out on me.”

  “He hasn’t told you anything about me and the Reverend?”

  “Just that if you had an arrangement with the Reverend, it fell through. That was before the Reverend’s murder ended the whole blackmail plan.”

  “And you’re telling me you were partners with the Reverend?”

  “Now I’m looking to be partners with you.”

  Squeaky pushed away from the pool table, and walked across the room to get himself another rye. I took a modest sip of my own, and thought about how things had gone so far with Squeaky. In general, not well. I’d wrapped myself in a network of lies that were supposed to coax Squeaky into an admission I’d catch on the digital recorder. That hadn’t worked, and the main threat at the moment was that I’d get tangled in my own lies and give away the whole game.

  Squeaky came back from the sideboard with his fresh drink.

  “You want me to be the one that goes to the Carnale guy and tells him he better cough up the eight million?” Squeaky said. “Right so far?”

  “I know you can carry it off.”

  “For that, I get half the payout?”

  I hesitated.

  “Hold off a minute, Mr. Fallis,” I said. “I might have been hasty with my sum. Let’s say three million for a half hour’s work. That’s all it’ll take with Carnale.”

  “You welching on me?”

  “Three million is more than reasonable.”

  “Four million is what you said. You came into my house, and practically the first words out of your mouth were ‘four’ and ‘million.’”

  Squeaky’s face had turned flush red.

  “Let’s negotiate, Squeaky,” I said.

  Squeaky pushed off the pool table, and stood over me. At that moment, from where I sat on the brown leather couch, he looked like ten towering feet of fury.

  “Never fucking call me that name!” he said, spitting as he talked.

  “What’s the matter with Squeaky?” I said. “It’s a distinctive name. Makes you stand out.”

  Squeaky’s rage was mounting. “You remember what I said I’d do to your head?” he said.

  “Something unpleasant. But not nearly in a class with what happened to the Reverend.”

  “What happened? Nothing just happened to the fucking Reverend.”

  “It’s still three million bucks, Squeaky.”

  Squeaky’s face had gone such a deep red that it was beginning to resemble a giant plum.

  “The Reverend pissed me off just like you’re doing, Crang.”

  “And how did you react?”

  “I made him pay, the dumb fuck!”

  “What did he pay with, Squeaky? A flood of tears? You frightened him into weeping?”

  “One fucking smack with that briefcase you brought in here. That’s all it took. One smack, and the useless prick was gone. You want the same treatment? I can take you out the same way, Crang. Just like the Reverend.”

  I didn’t say anything, and in the silence, a light seemed to come on in Squeaky’s eyes. He had caught on. Squeaky was brutal but not entirely dumb, and in that moment, he realized something was wrong. He knew, and I knew he knew.

  “On rethinking, Mr. Fallis,” I said, “maybe we can go with the four million as your share.”

  I made moves to get up from the sofa. Squeaky reached out one meaty hand, and shoved my forehead. I sat back down.

  “You gonna unbutton your shirt, Crang?” Squeaky said. “Or you want me to rip it off?”

  “This old thing?” I said, fingering my shirt collar. “I got it on sale at Banana Republic last year. But it’s kind of stylish, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t dick with me, Crang,” Suqeaky said.

  “You’re right, Mr. Fallis,” I said. “Time to call it a night. I don’t think we’ll reach an agreement on our little deal just yet. But there’s always another time. Maybe in a day or two?”

  Squeaky put his glass on the edge of the pool table without taking his eyes off me. From the furious look on his face, I knew he was going to take a swing at me. I stood up, and got ready for him, raising my fists to waist level, prepared to block whatever kind of punch Squeaky threw. When the punch came, it was a looping left hook aimed at my chin. I caught Squeaky’s punching hand on my right forearm, and steered it away from any danger to me or my chin. Squeaky followed with a straight-ahead right hand, I ducked and deflected the punch over my head. Another miss for Squeaky.

  Two punches and I was still unscathed. But I knew this kind of stuff could go on for no more than another punch or two, me fending off Squeaky. His power was bound to trump my speed. Each of us in the room must have recognized the inevitable reality. Squeaky, Lex, and me for sure.

  “Everybody freeze!” Lex shouted.

  Both Squeaky and I turned in Lex’s direction. He held his pistol in both hands, leaning forward, feet planted, shaking a little but aiming more or less at Squeaky.

  “Jesus, Lex,” I said. “Not the gun.”

  Lex switched his attention to me. His turn in stance meant the gun was pointed at my mid-section.

  I reached out to push the gun’s direction at another target, but Squeaky beat me to it. He swatted the gun out of Lex’s hands. It flipped through the air, landing in the middle of the pool table.

  Squeaky’s ferocity seemed to have stepped up a notch. He threw another punch at me. This one had no loops that I could block. It came straight at my head. I made enough of a duck that the punch glanced off my noggin, and carried most of its power into my shoulder.

  “The briefcase, Lex!” I shouted. “Use the briefcase!”

  Squeaky moved in closer to me, within his best punching range. He set his feet and hands in position to fire another right cross. I raised my arms, all set to defend against Squeaky’s best shot but not loaded with confidence about my success. Squeaky had a large rictus of a smile on his face. Confidence wasn’t a problem for him.

  Before Squeaky could land a punch that might polish me off, the room was filled with a sound like the crack of a baseball bat hitting a ball. The rictus slid off Squeaky’s face. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed forward. I was the only thing in his path, and both of us hit the floor, Squeaky’s formidable bulk on top of me.

  “The briefcase hit him square!” Lex said in great excitement. “Is he dead?”

  “No such luck.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can feel his heart beating,” I said, gathering myself to push out from under Squeaky. “And he’s breathing regularly. I’m taking his breath right up my nose. Jesus, it’s foul.”

  “It would’ve been weird if I’d killed him the same way he killed the Reverend.”

  “Ironic, yeah,” I said, my hands just barely lifting Squeaky’s left side. “Quit with the chatter, please, Lex. Go find something we can use to tie Squeaky up.”

  While Lex was gone, I shoved mightily at Squeaky until he rolled off me and on to the floor next to the sofa. He landed on his back with a heavy thud. Squeaky’s breathing had grown loud enough to qualify as a snore.

  I sat on the sofa, waiting to catch my own breath. When Squeaky tumbled on me, he had caught me in the diaphragm.

  “There’s no rope in the kitchen or th
e storage room,” Lex said. He’d been gone only a couple of minutes. “Nothing that’ll make knots.”

  I stood up, feeling not as shaky as I expected.

  “Give Squeaky another hit with the briefcase if he comes to,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Making as much speed as I could, I went up the stairs to the second floor. The master bedroom was at the front. Two doors led off it. The first was a bathroom. The second was what I was looking for, Squeaky’s clothes closet. On the inside of the door, there was a tie rack holding a couple of dozen ties. The one with the lollipops stood out in all its pink and yellow glory. Every piece of neckwear belonged to the gaudy school of design. I scooped up an armful of the ties and galloped back downstairs.

  “Tie his feet up really tight,” I said to Lex. Squeaky was still out cold, but the snorts from his nose might indicate he was getting closer to consciousness. “Some of these neckties are silk and slippery.”

  “You mean the guy might be able to slide loose of them.”

  “Not if we make them extra secure.”

  I tied Squeaky’s hands, Lex did the legs, and when we were done, I went into the hall, got out my iPhone, and called Wally Crawford.

  “You better have a hell of a convincing story, Crang,” he said when he picked up. Wherever Wally was, it seemed absent of background noise.

  “You in a hospital room, Wally? It’s dead quiet at your end.”

  “I’m doing the search of that guy Lex’s bedroom.”

  “The man himself is with me.”

  “Lex? You two are where?”

  “In the home of the guy who killed the Reverend.”

  Wally went quiet for a moment. “Dear god, Crang,” he said, “what in hell have you got yourself up to?”

  “How about some congratulations, Wally? I’ve got the Reverend’s killer on a recorder describing his crime. I got the only witness to the murder, my man, Lex, as it happens, waiting to sing for you. And if you take the killer’s prints and compare them with the prints Archie Brewster took off the briefcase yesterday, you’ll get a match.”