“What exactly did you tell the cops?” I asked. It seemed a reasonably low-key beginning. I turned into Welland Avenue and headed west. We passed Tarlton Avenue and Albert Street in silence. Somewhere in the block between Woodland and Francis he started opening up.
“I didn’t lie to them. I just said I went to see Nathan. When I found him dead, I got scared and left. That’s all.”
“Why did you say you picked Saturday morning to pay your visit?”
“I told them I was on the company entertainment committee, which is true, and I went to try to talk him into giving a talk at the PPA.”
“The what?”
“Paper Producers’ Association. It’s a joint management-union thing. Arranges Christmas parties and a few cultural events every year.”
“Then they asked if you touched anything and you denied laying hands on anything but the doorknob on your way out.”
“Something like that. I told them how shocked I was, and then, when I heard you coming, I went out the back way as fast as I could.”
“I’d believe you though thousands … Never mind. Now tell me what you took with you.” I kept my eye on the street, but I could feel him staring at my profile.
“I never said I took …”
“Alex, this is me, Benny, you’re talking to. Remember what I told you about secrets.”
“Well, I …”
“Just tell me what you took and why you took it. I don’t need names. Not at this point.”
“Okay. I got a call Saturday morning from a friend of mine. This friend told me that Nathan was dead and that … this friend had left something with initials on it at the scene of the crime.”
“This must be some friend for you to stick your neck out like that for her.”
“I didn’t say it was a woman.”
“You didn’t but all those ‘shes’ you avoided told me plain enough. Besides, I can’t see you going back to cover for a guy. It had to be a woman. What was the object? The one with the initials?”
“It was a lighter. Fancy job. Easily traced, she said.”
“How do you know your friend didn’t ice Nathan herself?”
I felt that look again on the side of my face as I pulled up to the stoplight at Welland Avenue and Ontario. I turned and he suddenly found the white house on the corner, where the rabbi used to live, much more interesting.
“How do you know anything, Benny? You just think you know people, that’s all. People don’t change when you’ve known them, just because other things change.” He was now looking along towards the Hôtel Dieu Hospital, and added, “My mother died in there. Three years ago. My old man’s drinking had a lot to do with it.” He was moving away from the target area. Is it something about cars that makes people ramble in their thoughts? I thought about that myself for a few blocks, sparing a moment to Wally Moore as I passed Montecello Park.
“You knew Pia Morley pretty well. Do you think she’s changed much?” I thought I’d slid her name into the conversation with skill, but Alex’s head spun around like I’d pulled out a fingernail.
“Huh? Pia? She doesn’t have anything … You don’t think I’ve been talking about …? Benny, she doesn’t know anything about this business. Keep her name out of this.”
“I told you I’m not interested in names yet. I meant it. But she does own an initialled Dunhill. Probably just coincidence. Doesn’t matter. When did this unnamed female friend call you?”
“Saturday morning. As soon as she told me, I got dressed and picked it up. It was on the coffee-table. I didn’t like to leave … Nathan like that. But I could see there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“You returned the lighter?”
“Yeah. Must have been nearly noon.”
“Did she explain herself?”
“Didn’t want to talk about it. She thanked me and said she’d call me in a few days. That’s the truth, Benny, I just acted as a messenger boy.”
“For auld lang syne, right?”
“Yeah. For auld lang syne.”
“One more thing, Alex. Why is your father frightened?”
“What do you mean? I haven’t noticed …“ He broke off like he’s just discovered he was talking to himself. His expression shifted and he changed the chewing rate of his jaw on a wad of Spearmint “Come to think of it he has been acting strange. And jumpy, like the last thirty seconds in the penalty box. I wonder what’s got into him.”
“Could it have anything to do with Pia?”
“Naw. He didn’t like me running around with her years ago, but he took that out on me not her. He always liked her. He’s got good taste, the old man.” Alex smiled at me and we started in talking old times again. He remembered the time I played the guard in The Valiant, a one-act play in which I said “Yes, sir” seven or eight times and then went offstage to be ready for my curtain call.
After I dropped Alex, I returned to Martha’s house in the west end. On the way I bought a dozen eggs at Carrol’s grocery store and a few other things including Martha’s favourite brand of instant coffee. She was nowhere in sight when I plunked the two bags of groceries on the counter. I washed out a few dishes and dried them while my eggs bubbled on the stove. I found the toaster and was nearly in business when Martha came in the door with bundles of her own.
“Okay, I always knew you could boil eggs, how are you at making a martini?” She told me what to do, and didn’t complain when she tasted my maiden effort. “I usually make a whole jar of them and keep ’em in the freezer. If they freeze, I know I used too much vermouth.”
I made two sandwiches, toasted on white, and washed them down with coffee. I stayed away from the martinis. In fact, I didn’t really need to eat at all, I was still stuffed from Nathan Geller’s funeral.
When I’d cleaned up the kitchen, including Martha’s discarded coffee mug from the morning and her ashtrays, I went into the bedroom to change out of my good suit. I wore it for funerals and weddings. For bar mitzvahs I had developed a more informal approach. I intended to make a fast visit to my office to see whether anything negotiable had come through the letter slot since I’d last looked. But as I was cruising with the one-way traffic on St. Andrew Street prospecting for a parking spot under a street light, I saw a familiar shape walking along the sidewalk in the same direction as the cars. I was having trouble finding a parking spot anyway, so I didn’t mind the distraction. I think I’d done away with the notion of parking behind my office. Too many dark places and long shadows back there. And there was the alley to negotiate coming and going. No, better to stick with old Luc Bolduc ambling along the south side of the street with a small case of beer in his hand. The light turned red against me so I stopped and watched him move east up St. Andrew.
When the light changed, he was passing the Capitol Theatre. I crept along at less than fifteen miles an hour until the car behind me honked. I let him by and turned down Chestnut Street. I pulled over next to a union headquarters, turned off my lights and locked the car. Bolduc was still in sight when I regained St. Andrew Street on foot. I stayed well to his rear, wondering whether this was one of the cases he had hidden under the front porch of his house on Nelson Street, or whether this was a second lot to be used for some other purpose. He walked past the Presbyterian church and the Lincoln Theatre and continued along towards the point where St. Andrew ends abruptly by sending out three streets like branches from the main trunk. Queenston continued the curve along the canal, while Geneva and Niagara started off in two straight lines that would both finally stop at Lake Ontario.
Between Geneva and Niagara, not far from Etherington’s Carpet Works, lay the site of the new fire hall. It was a triangular piece of land surrounded by a green wooden fence. On the Geneva Street side there was a high gate, hinged on a stout post that rose high enough to attach a wire which supported the swinging end. Bolduc walked directly to the gate and fitted a key into the lock in the chain that held the gate closed. He slipped through, closed the gate again, but did not reattach the chain. As soon as he was out of sight, I crossed the street and approached the gate.