SOMEBODY HAD RECENTLY thrown up on the carpet in the waiting room at the College Park courts. It didn’t make much difference to the carpet. It was already a collage of stains, cigarette burns, and other suspect blemishes. But it made a difference to the air in the immediate vicinity. The air was of a spectacular ripeness, and everybody waiting for business in the courts had beat a retreat to the far end of the corridor. I walked past the crowd and through the waiting room to the bail court. I managed not to inhale the whole way.
By some quirk of custom—or maybe somebody from the Ontario Attorney General’s office actually arranged it this way—all women who are being held in custody in Toronto have their bail hearings at the Provincial Courts in the College Park Building. Men come up for bail in the courts down at Old City Hall. The College Park Building used to be beautiful. It’s at the corner of College and Yonge, and when I was younger, it was the uptown branch of Eaton’s department store, and had a gorgeous auditorium. I once heard Dizzy Gillespie’s big band play there. When Eaton’s sold off the building, various merchants of a cut-rate sort took over part of it, and the provincial government took over the rest for its courts. Now it was a place where people threw up in the waiting rooms.
I sat down at the back of the bail court. The time wasn’t much after ten, and the hearing must have just got under way. Trevor Dalgleish was on his feet and talking to the judge. His voice, forget the tenor pitch and the middling Atlantic accent, had a resonance to it. A good balance of reason and passion. For a guy who dealt cocaine as a sideline, Trevor was an impressive counsel.
Trevor’s client was standing in the prisoners’ box. She was thin, blonde, freckled, and had a defiant look. The judge was a woman, and so was the crown attorney. The crown attorney interrupted Trevor to say something about the blonde being a terrorist. Trevor said that was inflammatory, and the judge agreed with him. Trevor talked for ten uninterrupted minutes, and I began to catch the gist of things. The defiant blonde had been nabbed with a crate of Uzi submachine guns in her apartment. The armament was intended for some Nicaraguans. But one fact nobody mentioned was which Nicaraguans. Sandinistas? Or Contras? Turned out it didn’t much matter. The judge refused to grant bail whichever side the blonde was on. She’d have to stay in the slammer until her trial came up.
Trevor’s back was to me through the twenty minutes of the hearing. But when he walked over to say a few consoling words to his client, he noticed me. I seemed to distract him. He was talking to the client, but his eyes kept wandering to me. The defiant blonde finally turned to see what was behind her. I smiled and waved to her. She smiled back. With the smile, she looked less defiant. I hoped she was on the Sandinista side. Always thought they were the good guys.
Trevor marched down the centre aisle of the courtroom.
He said to me, “You’re either dumber than I thought, Crang, or you’ve got a load of gall.”
“A third alternative, Trev,” I said. “I’m here as a bearer of glad tidings.”
The judge called another bail application, and the lawyers collected themselves to make their arguments.
“If we have to talk,” Trevor said, “let’s do it in the waiting room.”
“Wouldn’t recommend that.”
When we got out of the courtroom and into the ripeness, Trevor said, “This is disgusting.”
“Buy you a coffee downstairs,” I said. “Or you want smelling salts?”
We took a table in a speedy-service place on the ground floor. The seats were bright yellow and made of slippery stuff that made you think you’d slide on to the floor any minute. Probably part of the speedy service. Keep the customers on edge.
Trevor said, “My first call, when I get back to the office, this might interest you to know, Crang, is to the homicide squad.”
“Might have trouble there, Trev,” I said. “Stuffy Kernohan’s tied up today.”
“What’re you talking about?”
I skated past the question.
“The real subject we got to talk about,” I said, “is your troubles with Big Bam.”
“No, you don’t, Crang.” Trevor looked like he was about to huff and puff. “The real subject is you, Ray Fenk, and some Dixieland musician named Goddard.”
“Get it off your chest, Trev,” I said. “But one clarification. Dave plays bebop. Not Dixieland. Yechh.”
“Ray Fenk was strangled with this musician’s saxophone strap,” Trevor said. “His name was stamped on it. Stuffy told us that, Cam and me. What I don’t believe Stuffy is aware of yet, but what I made it my business to find out, is how intimately you’re connected to Goddard.”
“Big deal, Trev. I practically told you at the Eglinton Theatre the other night Dave Goddard was my client.”
“He’s more than your client.”
“Well, let’s see. At a guess, I’d say you’ve been working the phones. Talked to Abner Chase, and, who else, Dave’s brother Ralph?”
“And Harp Manley,” Trevor said. “And my conclusion from adding up all the bits and pieces about your clearly close relationship with Goddard is that you know what he’s guilty of and where he’s presently hiding himself.”
“Accessory after the fact?” I said. “That’s the charge you think the cops should arrest me on? Accessory after the fact of Fenk’s murder?”
“As a lawyer, an officer of the court,” Trevor said, “it’s my duty to report knowledge I hold concerning a crime. Particularly murder.”
Trevor’s palaver was fretting at my nerves. He was breaking new frontiers in pomposity. But I had to let him unload before he’d settle down long enough for me to get in my innings.
“Want to hear something funny, Trev?” I said. “In court upstairs, you sounded good. Convincing. Very controlled. Down here, out in the real world, you got a tendency to bluster.”
“Enough,” Trevor said and started to stand up. He had trouble with the slippery seat.
I said, “You heard the name I invoked at the beginning of this conflab? Big Bam?”
“An associate of some clients of mine,” Trevor said. He was still riding on the pomposity.
“Here’s another name for you,” I said. “Darnell Gant.”
Trevor said, “If you’re trying to make things seem more than they are, Crang, you can just forget it. Darnell Gant was a friend of Ray Fenk’s from Los Angeles. Naturally he’s grieved by his friend’s murder.”
“Cutting through the bull,” I said, “Big Bam is a cocaine retailer in Toronto. Fenk, with occasional assistance from Darnell Gant, was a cocaine wholesaler in California. And you’re the entrepreneur who played both sides to your own nifty profit. How much profit, I don’t know. Two thousand bucks per kilo maybe?”
Trevor held a steady gaze on me. He was probably balancing a pair of conflicting inclinations. Should he carry his righteous innocence all the way? Or give in to curiosity about what I might really know?
I said, “Just like you, Trev, I’ve done some homework. One difference though.”
Trevor waited a bit before he asked, “What’s the difference?”
I said, “I’m not running off to Stuffy Kernohan and the other cops with my parcel of information.”
“It’s all preposterous,” Trevor said. His voice had tailed off in the pomposity content.
“Here’s the good news, Trev, the glad tidings,” I said. “I got a handle on the missing four kilograms you’re so worried about.”
Trevor kept his silence. It must have been driving him nuts.
“The four K that were supposed to be in one of the film cans for Hell’s Barrio but weren’t,” I said. “Want me to keep going?”
“As long as you’re talking hypothetically,” Trevor said.
“Okay,” I said. “You made a deal to sell twenty-four kilos of cocaine to Big Bam. We’ll call it hypothetical for the moment. That’s on your selling side. On your buying side, you struck an arrangement with Raymond Fenk in California to take twenty-four K off his hands. Now comes the shipment part. Twenty kilos were tucked in the cans of five of the movies Fenk sent up to the Alternate Film Festival. Probably for each movie, Fenk added an extra can and stuffed it with coke instead of film. It was all done just like Fenk told you it’d be. Except the Hell’s Barrio film cans were empty. You know why? ’Course you don’t. Because Fenk and Gant switched the four K from the film cans to Dave Goddard’s saxophone case. The lining in the case.”
Trevor’s face flushed medium red.
“Light starting to go on, Trev?” I said.
“You and this Goddard’ve got the cocaine,” Trevor said. His voice had gone raspy.
“I thought we were talking hypothetically.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I’m a son of a bitch?” I said. “You’re the guy who was talking a minute ago about having me locked up. Accessory after the fact and all.”
“How much do you want?” Trevor asked.
“Money? Now I know we’ve left hypothetical behind.”
Trevor’s hands were making clenching movements.
I said, “What I don’t get, Trev, is why you haven’t made peace with Big Bam the easy way. Just give him back the money he paid you up front for the missing four K. Apologize. Tell him it was a deal that happened not to pan out. He seems to be an understanding guy. Potentially anyway. How come you’re annoying him this way? Not returning Truong’s calls? Avoiding the guys?”
Trevor said, still raspy, “The money had been spent. This is none of your business, Crang, but I apparently have to deal with you. The money I earned from the deal, all the money, was on the way out the instant I received it. I have very heavy financial obligations.”
“Sure, I get it, the high lifestyle,” I said. “But, jeez, how long’d you think you could steer clear of Big Bam and his minions?”
“I don’t need to discuss this, Crang.”
“Just wondering.”
“As long as it took to get together enough money to repay him. Or to find that damned four kilograms.”
“And now here I am with the four K.”
“Here you are,” Trevor said. His voice had lost most of the rasp, and his skin colour was closer to normal. No more fist-clenching either. Trevor was a guy with a temper that’s usually called hair-trigger.
He said, “Let me repeat my question, Crang. How much do you and Goddard want for the cocaine?”
“Not a sou, Trev.”
Trevor took a moment to adjust to the answer.
“What,” he said, “is your intention?”
“My game? My angle? My edge? My—”
Trevor interrupted.
“Get the fuck to the answer,” he said. His temper was making a return engagement.
“All you have to do,” I said, “is show up at Big Bam’s place around eleven tonight, the booze can over by Western Hospital, and I’ll make sure the four kilograms are on the premises.”
“Just like that.”
“I’ll be there too.”
“How wonderful of you.” Trevor was displaying his talent for sarcasm. “You’re telling me I should walk into the place of business of a man who has reason to be angry with me, all on your word you’ll rectify the situation. Your word.”
“I already told Big Bam you’d be coming.”
“Lord, Crang.” Trevor wasn’t showing anger or sarcasm any more. Closer to helpless resignation. “You really have invited yourself into my life, haven’t you.”
“Circumstances invited me,” I said. “But, coast on this, Trev, I’m the only guy can ease your woes.”
“If you’re telling the truth about the four kilograms.”
“Check out the reasoning,” I said. “How else would I know about the stuff being hidden in the lining of Dave’s saxophone case? You didn’t have that information, right? If Fenk’d told you, you wouldn’t be in your current pickle. And Darnell Gant arrived up here after the fact, after the four kilos were gone from the saxophone case.”
Trevor went into a deep-think look. Maybe I’d fed him too much. The part about Gant might be skimming close to the danger zone. I couldn’t be absolutely sure big Darnell hadn’t told Trevor anything about the shipment arrangements for the four kilos. Was I getting too risky? Probably not. No, definitely not. Trevor had been genuinely surprised when I told him about the coke in the saxophone case, and Gant seemed to be giving me the straight goods when he said he didn’t trust Trevor and hadn’t uttered a word to him about the coke in the case.
I said, “I’m not just your best bet, Trev. I’m your only bet.”
“What do you get out of this?” Trevor’s question was in the spirit of a tough cross-examiner.
“You don’t believe it’s the generosity of my spirit?”
“Look at my face, Crang. I’m not laughing.”
“In the long run,” I said, “what I’m doing ought to help save my client. In the short run, too, with any luck.”
“And perhaps there’s more,” Trevor said. “In exchange for returning the four kilos, you expect me to keep silent about your connections with this musician.”
“Hadn’t crossed my mind, Trev,” I said. “Anyway, the master of homicide you and Cam keep talking about, the Stuffer, he should be able to put me and Dave together. Eventually he should, if it matters.”
Trevor let that one lie.
I said, “What is it, Trev? In or out on the gathering at Big Bam’s?”
“As you say, my range of options is limited.”
“Let’s call it eleven o’clock.”
Trevor nodded in an abstract kind of way, and his teeth were clenched. Not his hands this time, his teeth.
“At the booze can,” I said.
Another of the same nods. Also the same clench of teeth. I couldn’t tell whether Trevor was working toward another release of temper or just woolgathering.
I said, “You don’t have other pressing engagements tonight?”
“Crang,” Trevor said, “if you’re horsing around with me, if you don’t deliver the four kilograms, if you put me in a worse jam with Big Bam, if anything goes wrong, I’m going to come down on you from a great height.”
“Incredible, Trev,” I said. “The way you said all that without unclenching your teeth.”
Trevor stood up. The slippery seat didn’t hamper him this time.
“The first thing,” he said, “I’ll rip out your tongue.”
Trevor started to walk away. I stopped him.
“That client of yours upstairs,” I said, “the blonde with the freckles and the Uzis, she doing it for the Sandinistas or the Contras?”
“Neither,” Trevor said. “There’s a third force building down there.”
Trevor left the speedy-service place.
A third force? Did Ollie North know about this?