SEVENTEEN
The road that wound its way up the Escarpment to Secord University was the road I practised on for my driving test many years ago. It was narrow, curving and steep, and, remarkably, totally unchanged in twenty years. There are all sorts of intersections that are carved up regularly by the Department of Public Works, intersections that offer a clear view on all sides. I wasn’t complaining. God knows there’s little enough of my home town left the way it used to be.
That night, this familiar hill was thick with snow, and slush. The evening rush hour hadn’t cleared much of a path; it just made the climb slower. No salt or gravel had been scattered to make our way easier. I could see tracks where a car had applied too much brake coming down. The car could just be seen off to the side in a thicket of saplings. To my right, as I came safely to the top, lay Secord University, named after the heroic wife who brought news of a forthcoming battle to the British officer whose headquarters were not much farther down the road. There was a commemorative plaque attached to the ruins of the house containing the ambiguous information that Laura Secord spent three nights under this roof with Lieutenant (later Colonel) Fitzgibbon.
The university was housed in one huge tower sitting on the edge of the Escarpment, where it beamed the virtues of higher education to the hundreds of thousands of people living on the plain below (to say nothing of those in passing lake boats).
Smart Alex was a watering-hole for undergraduates. The decor and atmosphere, as well as the crowd, spoke loudly of early cynicism and idealistic values twisted around a pretzel. The beer was fairly cheap and available on draught. The circular room was divided into curved areas on two or three levels, with a long bar running along one side for those who were looking for a listener. The space was punctuated with relics from the past: figureheads, anchors, gum machines, penny scales and old-fashioned business signs.
I sat down on a stool and ordered a draught of the local Grindstone lager and waited. It was still about seven minutes to nine. I watched, by way of the mirror behind the bar, three young women with short hair being sandwiched between crew-cut linemen or their look-alikes. They were all having a great time ordering burgers and potato skins. When one of them caught sight of a sign that read “bust developer,” the young woman who least needed this sort of therapy began pounding the nearest male on his chest. They all thought it was very funny. Glasses of beer were emptied as the food was consumed and new glasses appeared to replace them.
“Hi! Come to spy out the talent?” It was Hart Wise and he was right on time. Hart was full of surprises. I moved my gaze away from the pretty sophomores to the expensive leather jacket-black, naturally-and blue jeans of Abram Wise’s son. The stiff, cold wind that came with the snow had reddened his face, so that it borrowed colour from his hair. Hart was wearing a grey sweater under the jacket, which he had taken off and placed on his stool before sitting down. He stuffed a wool cap into the dangling sleeve of the jacket. Wise ordered a draught beer from another small Ontario brewery and we both settled into putting foam moustaches on our upper lips.
“Where do you stand in your father’s will?” I asked when we had placed empty glasses on the deck.
Hart smiled at my forthrightness, I guess, and said: “Go fuck yourself.” He said it smiling, so I ignored the suggestion.
“You know there have been attempts on his life?”
“What else is new? That’s the sort of life he’s led. He’s a first-rate candidate for a closed coffin. He always was.”
“But you’re not trying to put him there?”
“Hey-hey! Let’s keep this friendly. I couldn’t be on worse terms with my father. We hate one another’s guts. There’s too much history between us to change that. But I’ve been trying to find out who’s behind this since my Mom told me. Not a word of this to the old man, you understand?” I nodded in some surprise, more to see if I was still hearing correctly than as a promise of anything.
“What have you found out?”
“This latest crop of hired men are the worst set he has ever had. Apart from Mickey, who isn’t just one of the boys and has always been above suspicion, I wouldn’t trust the rest with delivering handbills.”
“Mickey’s not above suspicion. That’s the first rule. Nobody is above suspicion. It’s the only way to operate.”
“Okay, okay! I hear what you’re saying. But as for the rest of them …!”
“Where did he find them?”
“He picks them up through the jobs they do for him. If they work out, after a while he reels them in a little closer. Finally, they’re working for the house. Phil Green’s been there longest after Mickey. He’s not as dumb as he looks, but not much smarter either. Sidney, he’s the driver, has a record of petty crime going back to the seventies. He’s great as a driver, but he doesn’t know which side of a stamp to lick.”
“That leaves one.”
“Sylvester Ryan’s a punk that fell off a motorcycle and landed where my old man found him, bought him some new clothes and gave him a job. Syl’s loyal, as long as he’s being paid, and tough, but that’s all. Dad thinks he can be pointed against artillery to advantage. He hasn’t been tested yet.” And then he added, “As far as I know.”
“Is that place of your dad’s an arsenal? I haven’t seen much of it?”
“It could hold off the United States Marines for a few hours. The place is well set up and has an escape tunnel that comes out behind the house.”
“I thought I had a headache before I talked to you, now it’s worse. Why do you keep up this feud with your old man?”
“Didn’t my mother tell you?”
“She told me what she thought. That’s not the same as asking you.” He was halfway down his third draught and I was just starting in on my second. He paused to think before speaking. A good precaution.
“We’ve been scrapping since I was a kid. He was the one who sent my mother away. He tried to explain it, but that made things worse. He said she’d always be there for me, but whenever I wanted her, it ‘wasn’t convenient.’ The same thing happened with my dog, Sparky. ‘He’s still your dog, Hart. He just doesn’t live here any more.’ Is it any wonder we fought?”
“So you blame him for your rotten life?”
“I didn’t ask to be born, Cooperman! I didn’t plan on being the son of Abe Wise, the big-shot gangster. Give me a break!”
“Sorry. Just trying to understand. All of the people I’ve talked to are sure that the threat to Abe’s life comes from close to home, not from his business contacts. What do you think?”
“As a crook, he plays it as straight as he can, as straight as anybody. He doesn’t talk to the cops, they don’t ask him any questions. It’s a funny game of cops and robbers. They make the rules up themselves out of I don’t know what, but they all stick by them once they’re there.”
“Isn’t it peculiar that he’s never been caught?”
“He’s clever. He keeps his secrets and pays everybody along the way.”
“Does he pay off the cops?”
“Ha! He’d love to hear you say that. They come in too many flavours for that. Besides even the cops are occasionally hit by bouts of moral correctness. It would be a bad investment.”