Keeper of the Flame Read online

“If I had a résumé, it’d look good to put a church on there.”

  I told Maury my situation in a short and quick version.

  “Crang,” he said, “when this is done, you’re gonna owe me.”

  Maury hung up.

  The sun had dropped out of the sky. The only illumination in the place came through the two skylights in the church’s main room and another window at the back of Reverend Al’s private quarters. Turning on lights in Reverend Al’s office wouldn’t be a smart move. Neither would anything else that might draw attention to any part of the Heaven’s Philosophers building while I was locked inside.

  In the gloom of the office, I opened the Reverend’s computer. It was shut down. I tried the computer on the conference table. It was still in sleep mode. Whoever regularly used the machine had forgotten to turn it off. Or just didn’t give a damn. I went to Documents. Getting out my iPhone, I typed in the names of the eleven guys who appeared on the Document titles. Robert Fallis, who was the guy nicknamed Squeaky, and the rest of them, William Sizemore and so on. When I finished, I strolled over to the peephole and watched for Maury.

  Twenty minutes later, I caught the faint sound of somebody tinkering with the lock on the door into the auditorium. In no more than ten seconds, the door swung open. Maury’s large but trim figure stepped in. Maury always dressed in tweed jackets and nice pleated slacks from Harry Rosen, and he was attired as usual tonight. He was using a small flashlight to guide his way down the church’s centre aisle.

  “Back here, Maury,” I said, my voice pitched no higher than a conversational level. Sound carried easily in the room. Reverend Al could whisper his sermons, and nobody would miss a word.

  Maury needed ten more seconds to unlock the office door.

  “A blind guy could pick his way into this joint,” Maury said. “Or out of it.”

  “I’m grateful to you, Maury,” I said. “Your friend Sal waiting in the car?”

  “She’s carryin’ out a diversionary tactic downstairs.”

  “The travel agent’s still in the building?”

  “I sent Sal in first,” Maury said. “Keep the guy’s eyes involved on her while I slid past. But I don’t want to leave her with him too long. Sal’s new at this.”

  “Just one more detail I need you to look at,” I said.

  I led Maury to Reverend Al’s desk.

  “You mind opening the top left drawer?” I said.

  Maury handed me his little flashlight.

  I aimed its beam at his fingers while he sorted through a ring holding many picks. He chose a particularly slim one. It fit the lock first try, and Maury slid out the drawer. I ran the flashlight over the contents, which appeared to be a stack of paper for the printer

  “Nobody keeps printer paper under lock and key,” I said.

  “Look some more,” Maury said. “And will you for crissake make it fast.”

  I riffled through the stack, and a third of the way down, sheets covered in typing turned up. Two repeated words stood out on the first page. “Semen” and “blood.”

  “This is what I came for,” I said to Maury. “Among other things.”

  I folded the pages with the song lyrics into my jacket pocket, nine pages in all. Unless there was something wrong with my math, I now had the only two existing versions of Flame’s hateful song lyrics. The copy that the Reverend had given to Jerome was in a file at my office, and this one, the original, from Reverend Al’s drawer, was in my jacket pocket.

  Already, by recovering the Reverend’s nine pages, I’d completed a large part of my assignment for the Flame Group. But the way I saw things unfolding, I could maybe use my possession of the pages to pressure the Reverend into spilling the beans about how he got his mitts on them in the first place. I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

  Maury and I left the Reverend’s office, and eased down one of the curving staircases to the lobby. The travel agent had his back to us. He looked intent on Sal. I’d be intent on Sal if I were him. She had a lot of blonde hair and an outstanding set of knockers. Maury and I crossed the lobby and waited on the sidewalk a half block east of the church’s front door.

  When Sal came out of the building a few minutes later, she was carrying two file folders. She had on a flowery summer dress, the neckline cut low and the hem ending halfway down her thigh.

  “How old is she?” I asked Maury as Sal sashayed up the street toward us.

  “Could be my daughter,” Maury said. “Granddaughter even.”

  “Is this a Viagra situation?”

  “Sal admires my stamina.”

  “That’s not answering the question.”

  “Hey, you guys,” Sal said, holding up the file folders. “Look what I got.”

  Maury introduced me to Sal. Sal’s last name was Banfield.

  “What’ve you got?” I asked her.

  “Jimmy in there’s my new personal travel consultant,” Sal said. She had a surprisingly cultured voice with a tone usually heard in the tonier Toronto neighbourhoods, notably Rosedale. “He drew up two ten-day winter holidays for a couple. One to Naples, Florida, the other to the island of St. Kitts.”

  Sal turned to Maury. “Which one do you like, my friend?”

  “St. Kitts,” Maury said, sounding definitive.

  Years back, Maury and a friend got busted in Columbus, Ohio, on an illegal boondoggle I’ve never understood. Both guys skipped out on their bail. That made Maury a wanted man in the entire United States of America.

  “You want a taste of island life?” Sal said to Maury.

  “Much better than mainland U.S.” I said. “Less confining.”

  Maury looked a dagger at me.

  “Listen you two,” I said. “Can I buy us all a drink before you go back to the shrimp dish? I got an identification parade to run by Maury.”

  We went into a bar another half block up the street. It was called Faith and Begorra. Inside, the decor ran to paintings of maidens with harps, signed photographs of the Chieftains, and arrangements of crossed hurling sticks. Everything was painted in shades of green.

  A waiter wearing a light green shirt and dark green pants pointed us to a table and took orders. Double Stoli on the rocks for me, beer for Maury, white wine for Sal.

  “Does the white wine come in green?” Sal asked with a teasing smile.

  “For you, darlin’,” the waiter said, addressing Sal’s chest, “anything’s possible.”

  The waiter went away, and I pulled out my iPhone.

  “I got ten guys in different photos on here,” I told Maury. “Tell me if anybody looks familiar. These people are all connected to the church back there. I also got eleven names, but I don’t know how the names go with the photos.”

  I showed Maury the list of names on my iPhone. Sal watched the name parade over Maury’s shoulder.

  “So one guy on your names list, you don’t got a picture to go with him?” Maury said.

  “No photo for one out of the eleven, yeah,” I said.

  “Let’s stick with just the photos,” Maury said. “Show them to me.”

  “You’re on.”

  I started from the beginning with the picture of Squeaky Fallis and the investment consultant I knew as Willie Sizemore. I wasn’t counting the guy blocked out by my jacket.

  “That’s your friend Fox’s old client on there, Squeaky,” Maury said. “Don’t remember his last name.”

  “Fallis,” I said. “His buddy’s named Sizemore. You know him?”

  “No idea who he is,” Maury said. “Listen, Crang, why don’t you run through the whole collection you got, and I’ll tell you at the end who I know? Be faster.”

  The waiter distributed the drinks. Sal’s wine was green.

  “That’s cute,” Sal said.

  The waiter thanked Sal’s chest, and left.

 
I flipped slowly through the rest of my photos. Maury was silent.

  “You don’t know any of these guys?” I said to him.

  “Go back four pictures,” Maury said.

  When I flipped back, the photo on the screen included the John Candy look-alike in the white suit.

  “That’s Jackie Gabriel’s kid,” Maury said.

  The guy didn’t look like anybody’s “kid.” He was middle thirties at least.

  “Who’s Jackie Gabriel?” I said.

  “Five, six years ago, you wouldn’t have had to ask,” Maury said. “He was the king of poker games in the city. A little blackjack too. Jackie ruled the card games.”

  “An ace card player is what you’re telling me?” I said.

  “You’re not getting the concept,” Maury said, impatient again. “Jackie was the guy that set up the games. He’d work out of somebody’s basement, a vacant apartment over a store, a bunch of places like that. Guys came and played. Hundred or more players scattered around these different places every weekend, not so many during the week. Very systematic operation. Jackie took a piece of the action, and with him, the house never lost.”

  “Isn’t that why people go to casinos?” I said. “To lose their money at gambling games?”

  “Casinos grabbed a chunk out of Jackie’s business,” Maury said. “But he still has a nitch. The serious card players prefer Jackie’s games.”

  “Niche,” I said.

  “Like I said,” Maury said.

  “So Jackie’s son is George Gabriel, correct?”

  “Georgie,” Maury said. “You know him already?”

  “I saw his name on some documents belonging to Heaven’s Philosophers.”

  “That’s Jackie’s beef right there, this Heaven’s Philosophers,” Maury said. “He wants Georgie to get back in the family business. He thinks the religious thing, whatever Georgie and the other guys are runnin’ in there, it’s too big and risky. Jackie says outfits like that attract the cops sooner or later.”

  “Jackie knows what Heaven’s Philosophers are all about?”

  “He hates their guts, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You think Jackie would talk to me?”

  “He approves of anybody who might throw a wrench in the church bunch,” Maury said. “I’m assuming that’s what you got in mind.”

  I turned to Sal. “You have a view on any of this, Sal?”

  Sal said, “You mean, as a contributor to this evening’s break-in, my opinion now counts for something?”

  “What do you do with yourself when you’re not facilitating illegal entries?”

  “I work on my Ph.D.,” she said.

  “Really?” I said, not quite sure whether she was joking. “What school?”

  “English Department, University of Toronto,” Sal said. “I’m writing my thesis on the novels of an American writer named Richard Russo.”

  “Nobody’s Fool,” I said. “I loved it.”

  “That’s the same as Maury,” Sal said, a big smile on her face. “All you guys did was see the movie because Paul Newman was in it.”

  “Yeah, but I read the novel, too,” I said. “And a couple of his other books. Straight Man, The Old Cape Magic.”

  “You read those?” Sal said.

  “Empire Falls.”

  “Crang, wow, I salute you.”

  “You want any tips for your thesis,” I said, “keep me in mind.”

  Sal turned to Maury. “Give this man whatever he wants.”

  “I’ll phone Jackie soon as I get back to my place,” Maury said to me. “Ask him about having a meet with you.”

  We finished the drinks and walked back to our cars. Maury was parked on the same street as I was. He opened his passenger door and ushered Sal into her seat. After he closed the door, Maury gripped my arm and steered me a few steps up the street.

  “No,” he said with great emphasis, “I don’t need fuckin’ Viagra.”

  Maury got in his car and drove away.

  Chapter Ten

  When I arrived home a little after ten, Annie was in her office on the first floor writing in longhand on a yellow legal pad.

  “Wouldn’t it go faster if you went straight to your computer?” I said. “Type whatever it is you’re writing there?”

  Annie held her left hand in the air while she continued to write with her right, meaning I should wait till she finished. I waited.

  In a couple of minutes, Annie stopped writing.

  “Have you heard,” she said, “that writing something by hand facilitates the memorizing process?”

  “I learned that for myself at exam time in high school,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Annie said. “Write out stuff about the hard subjects and memorize it long enough to pass the exams.”

  “Physics and chemistry for me.”

  “What I’m doing here,” Annie said, nodding at the pad, “I’m memorizing the speech I’ll give at the book launch.”

  “Reading the speech to the audience might be easier.”

  “Yeah,” Annie said, “but then they’d see my shaking hands, and that’s probably all they’d remember — the nervous woman from Toronto with the rustling pages. They’d forget everything else about me.”

  “Including the subject of the book you’re promoting.”

  “I’m going to look the Columbia people right in the eye,” Annie said, “and sell them on Edward Everett Horton.”

  I gave Annie a pat on the back and a kiss on the lips.

  “You’ve had a bite to eat already?” I said.

  “At this hour, of course I have,” Annie said. “But consider yourself welcome to yesterday’s leftover salads in the fridge.”

  Out in the kitchen, I made myself a martini and arranged a selection of the salads on the dining room table.

  My iPhone rang. I looked at the screen.

  “Fast work, Maury,” I said on the phone.

  “Jackie’ll see you Saturday morning around ten-thirty,” Maury said. “He wants you to know he’s very keen.”

  “But not keen enough to see me tomorrow?”

  “He’ll be at the hospital, which is one of the things I should brief you concerning.”

  “Brief me concerning?”

  “Jackie had a stroke last year.”

  “The poor guy,” I said. “He’s not disabled?”

  “His left side doesn’t operate so good,” Maury said. “And his speech gets kinda shaky. But nothing’s wrong with Jackie’s brain.”

  “Or memory?”

  “That either.”

  “What about this hospital visit tomorrow?”

  “He has one of those every three months, just in case,” Maury said. “Saturday morning, I’ll pick you up at Kennedy subway station, ten o’clock. You wait out front.”

  “That’s the far east end of the Bloor line, right?” I said. “Jackie lives in Scarborough?”

  “North York.”

  “I can never figure out the damn suburbs.”

  “Why else do you think I’m driving?”

  Maury hung up.

  I took my time over the martini, and still hadn’t started on the salads when Annie came out to the kitchen. She poured a glass of Chardonnay, and sat down across from me.

  “What trouble did you get into today?” Annie asked.

  “I met a girl who’s writing her Ph.D. thesis on Richard Russo’s novels,” I said.

  “Truly?” Annie was smiling, “That’s not the kind of person a criminal lawyer encounters every day.”

  “Practically never.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “She’s Maury’s girlfriend.”

  Annie registered a moment of authentic surprise, but recovered in a hurry.

  “For one thing,�
� she said, “that must mean the girl has attributes other than intellectual.”

  “Remarkable knockers.”

  Annie smiled a different smile, one of the rueful sort. She shook her head.

  “My conclusion, you meeting the girlfriend and so on,” Annie said, “is that good old Maury is already involved in the Flame case, if I can call it that.”

  “I think of it as a file.”

  “In the past, “Annie said, “whenever you’ve gotten yourself into a piece of illegal behaviour, your buddy Maury was somewhere on the scene.”

  “You know what we should do?” I said. “You and I should go out on a double date with Maury and his girlfriend. Sal’s her name.”

  “‘Double date?’” Annie said. “Honest to God, Crang, where are you? Back in high school?”

  “This girl, she’s different. From the sound of her voice, she must’ve grown up in Rosedale. But speaking of high school, Sal probably went to Branksome Hall.”

  “Got the Rosedale honk, has she?”

  I nodded. “So there’s the Rosedale background and the Richard Russo thesis,” I said. “You’ll find her interesting and kind of amusing. We all go out together, you might get a more balanced slant on Maury.”

  “Nice try, fella,” Annie said, She got up and refilled her wine glass from the Chardonnay in the fridge.

  She sat down again. “Tell me how far you got with the Reverend on St. Clair.”

  “You’re going to think about the double date?”

  Annie hesitated for a minute. “If you’re really serious, I promise I’ll think about it,” she said. “Now, what about the Reverend?”

  I patted my jacket pocket. “I obtained irrefutable evidence that Reverend Alton Douglas was in possession of the blackmail document.”

  “‘Obtained?’ That’s a weasel verb if I ever heard one.”

  “Further,” I said, plowing ahead, “I have an appointment on Saturday morning with a man who has contacts inside the Reverend’s operation that he wishes to share with me.”

  “More weasel words. ‘Inside contacts’? That must mean the guy with the contacts has his own criminal status.”

  “That was before his stroke.”

  “I bet this guy’s a friend of Maury’s.”