There were now two customers trying to get Des’s attention. I watched the skill he displayed in not catching their waving hands in either of his eyes. “How big an outfit is Sangallo?” I asked.
“Hell, they’re about the biggest bunch in the restoration business around here. They’ll sandblast your old brick house, or reglaze your windows with wobbly glass made the way they used to make it in the olden days. They can imitate old plaster fancy-work on ceilings, replace the missing spindles in your prize staircase and even make a four-car garage look like it was an old driving shed. Oh, you see that yellow sign of theirs all over town, especially in the old parts where the houses go back a few years.”
At last Des responded to his customers’ requests. He was greeted by them as a long-lost friend. I went back to my sandwich. Soon I could look down into my plate and say, “I’ve really accomplished something today.” I tried to think of the fort, the excavation and the tunnelling under the earthworks, but it was no good. I sipped my drink and waited for Staziak.
The time went quicker than I would have guessed. A collection of familiar faces began to gather in the lobby. I could see them clearly from my seat in the bar. They stood quite close together for the convenience of five or six photographers who were busily snapping their pictures. One of their number, a red-whiskered man in a kilt, escaped into the bar briefly, then rejoined the ever enlarging crowd in front of the main desk. I began to recognize them as celebrities seen on television. There was a famous anchorman, a forthright interviewer, a tall bald-headed historian, towering over the others who stood as close to him as they could. I recognized a recent attorney general, a few newspaper columnists, a clutch of talk-show panellists and a few faces I might have recognized if I’d spent more time in front of the television set. My mother would have been able to name them all. I wondered what brought them to the Prince of Wales. Maybe it was the inauguration of a new fudge franchise on Queen Street. I grabbed Des the next time he passed my table and asked him.
“They’re celebrating some book that’s getting published,” he said. “Don’t they look like they’re having a grand time?” I watched and couldn’t help agreeing with the waiter.
It wasn’t long after the lobby cleared that Pete Staziak paused at the entrance to the bar, spotted me and came over.
“Benny, you amaze me.” He pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. When Des came over, he asked for coffee. He was still a working man. “Now, how the devil did you stumble across that? This better be good.”
“I was just exploring the fort, Pete.”
“Yeah, like I’m having a wonderful time in your company.”
“I was just nosing around,” I said, but Pete wasn’t going to let me off with that. I decided not to try the shipwreck approach either. He glared at me and waited.
Pete and I went all the way back to grade nine together. I’d been in a play with his sister and we traded notes once or twice in five years. He’d been on the football team. I’d been about as athletic as Charles Atlas before he sent away for help. Since then, we had run into one another professionally from time to time. Pete was a good cop and I respected him, even though he was often more of a wall than a door in some of my investigations. I think that deep down he knew I wasn’t out to steal hubcaps or the fillings out of his mother’s teeth, but that didn’t stop him being careful where I was concerned. I tried to return the glare he was giving me, but I never win contests like that. That’s why I stay clear of people who show off with their bone-crushing handshakes.
“Okay, Benny, let’s have it. Nice and simple.”
“I’m working, Pete. I was following a truck into the fort, ran into a fence, so I went under it when it got dark.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “You haven’t confused me yet.”
“I went down into the hole to see what was going on, how it could involve my friend in the truck.”
“Who shall remain nameless?”
“At this stage, Pete, I’d just as soon.” Pete neither nodded agreement or made any comment. He was reserving as many options as he could. I didn’t blame him. In his place, I’d play tough too.
“Go on.”
“I’d just dug a couple of those metal drums out of the dirt. He was behind the fifth one. That’s all. I stopped digging when I saw the foot. That’s when I called you. The only thing I know about him is that he isn’t one of the garrison of the fort from back in 1837. Honest, Pete, I didn’t touch anything and I don’t know anything.”
“What’s your guy in the truck mixed up in?”
“Hauling toxic wastes. There, I’ve said it.”
“Into that, eh? How far?”
“As deep as that hole, anyway, I guess.”
“Benny, you wanna watch yourself. You could end up dead too, you know.” Pete was looking at the drink I’d ordered over an hour ago. To me it looked old and warm, but I wasn’t a couple of hours away from going off duty.
“Do you know who it was?” I asked.
“We’ve got a pretty good idea, but no positive ID yet.” I nodded at that and then Pete nodded and we both sat and thought about naming the dead man. Once you name a dead man, there’s no way to take it back. When you hear the bad news, you may not believe it, but the words have deadly magic in them and you already begin to see the world without the named person.
“Are you telling, or do I have to wait until I read about it in tomorrow’s Beacon?”
“The body was wearing clothes that had this in the pockets.” Pete took a plastic-wrapped wallet out of his coat pocket and put it in the middle of the table. Through the plastic, I could see worn leather, plastic credit-card holders and underneath a ring of keys.
“May I?” I asked looking at Pete, who inclined his head ever so slightly. I opened the plastic bag and took out the wallet. I didn’t want to open it, but I had to know. Chances are that the dead man was someone I’d never met. Hell, I’d only been working the case for a few days. I hadn’t even met the principals yet. The name in the wallet read Alexander Pastor. I’d had a conversation about that name with Alex Pásztory, the guy from …
Then it hit me, just the way I’ve just described. I said it over again to myself: The dead man is Alex Pásztory, the man from Environment Front. The second-last smoker in Grantham, the man who spotted Dr. Carswell at the Turkey Roost, the man who interrupted himself after saying, “I’m off to meet the AV,” was dead. The second date on his tombstone was now available to the carver. I remembered the leather patches on his sleeves and the tobacco burns in his old sweater. I could suddenly see Pásztory’s lopsided grin, like he was making some ironic comment on his own murder.
“You pretty sure it’s Pásztory?” Pete dug into a pocket and handed me a photograph. It looked like a failed likeness of the man I’d talked to at the Turkey Roost, discarded by an apprentice sculptor in wax.
“It’s a Polaroid I had taken. Is this the guy you know?”
“Wish I could say it wasn’t. It’s him, all right. How did he get it?”
“I’m no expert on that, and the lab hasn’t even taken delivery of the remains yet, but, to me, it looked like he had taken a single shot in the pump. I’d say it was from close up too.”
“Poor bugger! He was a nice fellow. You ever run across him?”
“Only in his letters to the editor. And those articles. He was always beating the drum, wasn’t he?”
“Who’s going to beat it now?”
“Aw, come on, Benny. You’ll never survive in this racket if you’re going to be a bleeding heart. You gotta see it as just another file, just another number.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the way they tie tags on the big toes of some of my best clients when they put them in a drawer at the morgue. Different numbers, different filing system.”
“You mind if I sample this drink you’re wasting?”