“Where are we on this thing?” Boyd wanted to know as he began doodling on a piece of lined paper. “We’ve got two cases that may be linked. And again, they may not be linked. We’ve got Renata Sartori, murdered because she was Renata Sartori. Or, again, she might have been taken for Vanessa Moss. We’ve got a suspicious death, which might be murder, and again it might be what it has always looked like, suicide. Have I left anything out?”
“You don’t have a murder weapon in the Sartori case, but you have shells found in Moss’s office at NTC.” I added this to help rid the air of the notion that I might be biased in favour of my client. Perish the thought.
“What we don’t have is the big picture. What ties Sartori to Foley?” Nobody answered. Boyd watched his ballpoint as it doodled a sketch of a hangman’s noose, Sykes stared at the aquarium of lobster and crab near the front window, Chuck watched the changing patterns in the string of coloured lights. I stole a secret glance at my watch. Even an untrained assassin could have claimed Vanessa six or seven times since I saw her last.
That got me thinking of my client’s tawny hide and I asked Jack if he could have a talk with NTC Security about stationing an extra man outside Vanessa’s office.
“With their system,” Jim said, “it can’t help.”
“It can’t hurt,” I said.
When it came, the food was impressive. Served in wooden and metal steamers or on saucers, the dim sum was an assortment of nearly bite-size items wrapped in noodle, a lotus leaf (I was told) or a steaming bun. I watched the others to see what to do. Sykes and Boyd were moving items from the steamers to the bowls in front of them with chopsticks. Chuck was using a ceramic spoon. I stabbed a noodle-wrapped object, which looked like a small scallop shell, with one of my set of chopsticks and dropped it in my tea. I’d been aiming for my bowl, but it was not to be. I abandoned it there, hoping that nobody saw. Then I tried a pancake-wrapped, halfmoon-like object with a spoon, getting it to the bowl just as a waiter arrived with a fork to help me out. My friends exchanged nods and I tried to ignore them. I mused upon the idea that in thousands of years the Chinese civilization hadn’t stumbled upon the chopped-egg sandwich. I decided to be charitable, and tried something else. It looked hot on the end of my fork, but I had manoeuvring time in case I found it not up my street. Admittedly, it was a far cry from my usual lunch. I grinned and bore it.
Lunch continued, I ate, mostly enjoying the food, and, between mouthfuls, we continued to push the case around the table. But, except for the food, which disappeared rapidly, nothing new developed on the problems at NTC.
Later, about an hour later, I ran the gauntlet through NTC Security, pasted on my pass, and made it, via the no-talking burgundy elevator, to my corner of Vanessa’s office. Sally Jackson was finishing the last crumbs of a paperbag lunch on her desk. She looked up at me, and gave me a smile that showed she was really trying to be the sunbeam that Jesus would have her be.
“They didn’t lock you up?”
“No, they took me to lunch instead.” (In spite of my offer to use my plastic, Sykes had paid the shot at the Kowloon. I could catch it next time, I was told.)
“I should be that lucky,” she said, making a moue, if people still make moues.
“Next time, I’ll invite you along.” I told her where we went and began to describe the food.
“Dim sum may be unknown in Grantham, Mr. Cooperman, but we in Toronto have had it for nearly forty years.”
“How lucky for you.” I paused a second and looked at her. Sally looked as tense as a rock band on their first gig. “Look, Sally,” I said, “for some reason you and I got off on the wrong foot. If it was my fault, I’m sorry. Maybe we can start over. What do you think? Can you take time off to have a cup of coffee with me?”
“Mr. Cooperman, somebody’s got to look after this department. You may not know it, but next to News, Entertainment is the most important department at NTC. Somebody’s got to be here while her ladyship is off buying up the pills in the neighbouring drugstores. Vanessa’s only going to be here for another season, but this is my department. It has been for six years. And I hope it will be for another six. I ran it with Nate Green. Now I run it in spite of Vanessa Moss.”
“Hey! Don’t take it out on me! I’m on your side. Come on! Let’s let the place run itself for five seconds. Show me where the coffee lives and I’ll bring us back two cups. What do you say?”
“The kitchen’s three doors down the corridor to the left. You should … Oh, to hell with it. I’ll show you.” Sally got up and I followed her. She opened a door into a tidy, tiny kitchen, where you could make a Christmas dinner for ten if you watched your elbows. Instead of showing me, Sally banged the cupboard doors herself and soon the coffee was dripping through the filter. As she returned to her place running the department, she gave me a grin that was intended as a peace offering. I accepted it and swore I’d bring the coffee and fixings as soon as the Braun stopped gurgling. True to my word, I did that.
I didn’t expect to find out much from Sally. Our truce was too new to be tested so soon. But I did manage to discover that she was no longer living in Richmond Hill, that she was staying with a girlfriend in the City Park apartments near Maple Leaf Gardens, and that she was free to have a drink after work. She knew a place where the NTC people never went after five. As she said this, she smiled and clicked her coffee mug against mine. What more assurance does a guy need to start living on hope?
NINE
When Vanessa barged in twenty minutes later, she found me at my desk, reading up on the latest pocket biographies of her NTC colleagues supplied by Sally. She stood mutely over me, so that I could, if I was up on such things, identify her perfume, or imagine her wrath, which could be something biblical when she needed it. “Where were you for the last three hours?”
“Doing my duty with the officers investigating Renata’s death.”
“That’s right! And the fact that I’m still standing here, instead of lying dead in the morgue, doesn’t bother you at all, I suppose?”
“Well, if you want to give me credit for it, sure, go ahead, but, Vanessa, even murderers take time out. Maybe our guy has a day job just like you and me.” I could see her eyes darkening and a squall coming, but suddenly it subsided. A lot of her bite was straight histrionics, worked out in advance with the weight of the audience figured into the total effect. It was all calculated to within a centimetre of where she wanted it to be.
“Would you like to tell me where you went after the reception, Vanessa? Through the Khyber Pass and back?”
“Now, Benny, don’t you start. I had a bad enough time with Ted. He wants to split up Entertainment into three independent sections with me at the top.”
“Well?”
“Well, that’s like inviting me to leave. He wants me out of here, Benny. How many times do I have to tell you? He does; they all do.”
“I don’t see …”
“Look, once it’s divided among three hungry underlings, what is there for me to do? All I can do is sit on policy and keep my hands off the all-over good of the department. I won’t let him do this to me.”
“But, Vanessa, aren’t the sections we saw at yesterday’s meeting independent?”
“God no! I keep them all on short leads. They all do exactly what I say or they’re out of here. He wants to tie and gag me. Under Ted’s arrangement, I wouldn’t be able to veto anything. I couldn’t make a suggestion and have it taken seriously. I’d never see a pilot or meet a producer. I’d be making sure that their pension-plan contributions were being deducted properly. Damn it, Benny, I’d rather be shot at than reduced to a cipher. I’d much rather clean out the fridge.”