“Listen, Cooperman! You don’t get to this office without building a network of trust. There isn’t anybody here who doesn’t owe me. I’ve been a useful fellow to know for the last ten years. I’m owed favours on the twentieth floor. If they don’t start flowing by themselves, all I have to do is rattle their chains. Do you follow me?”
“And you’d call in all these favours just to get rid of me?”
“I have broken better men than you, Cooperman. You make me sick. I’ve got a good system going here, and it works as long as everybody plays the game. You and your sort never play the game, do you? Not in my experience. Can’t stay in line. So, my advice to you-”
“Before you break some important blood vessel inside your head, Commander, I’d like to report a breach in your system.”
“What are you talking about? My system?”
“Yeah. A couple of thieves have just driven off with a truckload of recording equipment belonging to NTC, if I’m not mistaken. Looked brand new. But what do I know? That comes under your responsibility, doesn’t it? Your people were holding the doors open for them when I came in here half an hour ago. The crooks were wearing shopcoats, and the truck was unmarked, except for the licence. Do you let that happen often, Commander? All part of the system? A man could get wealthy on that sort of thing with just one or two truckloads a month. Of course, there might be criminal charges if anyone was caught in the act. There were at least two witnesses besides me. Maybe they got the truck’s licence number too.”
“Why you …!” He stood up at his desk. It was the first time I’d seen him standing. He was right to place his desk on a riser. He was shorter than I am by two inches. I would have got up myself just then, only I had never been asked to sit down. I turned and walked out of the office of the head of Security and caught an elevator back to my office on the twentieth floor. I left the Commander sputtering behind me.
NINETEEN
I could tell that Vanessa was back. There was a crackle of static electricity as I rounded the corner to her office. She did something to the way people moved by her door. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw Sally: trade papers and draft schedules in sight, no coffee mug sitting near her.
“Who’s with her?” I asked.
“Thornhill was waiting for her. They’ve been in there ever since she arrived.”
“Is she going then?”
“Benny, she hasn’t had a second to tell me anything. It’s been non-stop since she walked in the door. Philip Rankin’s there, of course. He’s always been ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary.’ He watches to see how his garden grows and grows. Wants Music to become NTC Recordings, Benny. A whole division under him. Oh, and Ken Trebitsch is in there now. Wouldn’t you guess? He’ll come out with pie all over his face even if he gets only another thirty minutes of prime.”
The thought that Vanessa had been dumped opened a leak in my system. I could feel myself deflating like a party balloon that has been lost behind some furniture. I hadn’t realized the extent of my partiality for Vanessa’s empire. Maybe last Thursday night meant more to me than I suspected. In spite of the obvious ways in which I’d seen her manipulate people, ways that seemed crude as well as self-serving, I’d been pulled in with the other suckers. I was a consumer of Vanessa’s magnetism, and I hadn’t suspected it until that moment.
Suddenly she was there. With Trebitsch, Rankin and Thornhill. She was radiant; Ken Trebitsch was glum. Like he’d been run over by a campaign bus. Even the three flunkies he travelled the corridors with were glum. Stella had beaten them! Rankin sputtered like a beached flounder. Thornhill looked confused. His little eyes strained to find focus. No wonder: he couldn’t figure out what had just happened to him. I wouldn’t hear the details until later, but their faces couldn’t have told me more.
“Thank you, Ted. I appreciate your help on this. Good morning, Mr. Cooperman. So nice of you to drop by.”
Her face was tanned, and Armani was keeping his side of the bargain. She looked younger, more poised and healthier than when I last saw her only four days ago. Thornhill and Trebitsch shook my hand without emotion when Vanessa reintroduced us, then headed off in other directions, neither daring to speak to the other as they went. She was secure enough of her position to wave the visitors on their way, as though it was she who’d called the meeting. After they’d gone, she collected some message slips from Sally on her way back into her private office.
“Benny,” Sally said, breaking in on my sudden infatuation with my client’s presence, even in her absence. “Here’s a copy of that will you were asking about.” I must have had a stupid look on my face as I stared at the closed door to Vanessa’s private office, because Sally repeated what she’d just said. I said some calming words to myself and cleared my throat.
“Thanks, Sally, I won’t keep it long.” I retreated to an unoccupied corner and sat in the mock shade of one of those indoor trees with trunks that look as if they’ve been woven from the trunks of three or four smaller trees. The leaves were narrow and pointed and didn’t really give any shade. The lighting in the office banished shadows of all kinds. I sat down on the edge of the window ledge.
The will was long and complicated. It had been drawn up by Raymond Devlin on the kind of paper that is made from royal bedsheets. After a number of small bequests, including the gift of his cello to the University of Toronto’s Hart House collection of stringed instruments, the bulk of the estate was divided among several trusts. There were sections on the setting up of the Plevna Foundation. Both Bob Foley and Philip Rankin were named to it. Its direction and the direction of the rest of the will were left in the capable hands of the sole executor, Raymond Devlin. The will was dated March second, three years ago. It was witnessed by two women, whose names appeared again with affidavits that they had indeed witnessed the signing of the will I was holding. I looked at the scrawled signature of Dermot Keogh in all the places where his signature was supposed to appear. The bottom of each page was initialled. It looked as legal as hell. I couldn’t argue with it. But, there was nothing about a palliative care unit on any of its fifteen pages. Nor had he disposed of his collection of motorcycles. That left me something to chew on.
It was nearly five when Vanessa finally sent for me. She was seated behind her desk, but got up and walked around the desk to greet me with a double bussing until my cheeks shone with gratitude and pleasure. “Benny, you know, I often thought of you during the weekend. You mustn’t let it go to your head, but you were missed.” She sat on one of the couches that flanked a glass-topped coffee table and indicated that I was to join her. I did. “Now, tell me what you’ve been doing while I was on the coast.”
I gave a fair rendering of my activities as far as seemed best. I held back a few things that I thought she shouldn’t know about just then. I didn’t want to hamper my own investigation by having too many people know as much as I did.
“You’ve been busy,” she acknowledged.
“So have you, Vanessa. I’m all admiration.”
“I was playing dirty pool in L.A., Benny. I got Warners and the others to sign contracts with a clause that lets them off the hook if I’m suddenly no longer head of Entertainment. They didn’t like it, but they could see that that would give them the power to go on dealing with me for a while. Nobody down there wants to break in a new head right now.”
“Is that legal?”
“They signed it, so it’s legal. Irregular but solid enough to put them off trying to break it.”
“What’s next?”
“I need to clean off this desk. It’ll take me a few minutes.”
“So, you don’t need me for the next half-hour?”
“Benny, I’m Vanessa Moss, and I don’t need anyone. I survived a coup right here in this office ten minutes ago, and I was terrific! You should have seen me! Oh, Benny, I was good!”