Читать книгу Crang Mysteries 6-Book Bundle - Jack Batten - Страница 46

IF IT WAS SIX-FIFTEEN in my apartment, it was three-fifteen at the Alley Cat Bistro. I got its number from California directory assistance and spoke to a man with an Hispanic accent who said the boss wouldn’t be in for an hour. He called me señor.

The focal point of my living room, I tell myself when I’m thinking decor, is a sofa covered in greyish-brown fabric that has enough of a satiny sheen to make a luxury statement. Jackie O. would willingly sit on my sofa. It faces the front window and is set about ten feet into the room. In the mornings, the early sun hits the sofa. Sometimes, if duty doesn’t summon me to office or court, I carry my breakfast coffee into the sofa and sun, and think of the Côte d’Azur. The fantasy doesn’t work in the evenings. I poured a Wyborowa on the rocks and sat on the sofa in the semi-gloom.

What the hell was so precious about Dave Goddard’s saxophone case? Not the old one. It was out of the picture. The new case. Raymond Fenk couldn’t have been after the tenor saxophone. He didn’t strike me as a guy who wanted to rehearse the John Coltrane songbook. He struck me as someone shifty who knew the saxophone case had value. Someone shifty and violent. Impatient too. And maybe kind of stupid. Couldn’t he have displayed a more subtle touch in relieving Dave of the case? An act of grab and assault, Fenk’s act, was a trifle obvious. Arrogant even. That was a possibility. Combine arrogance and impatience and you might have Raymond Fenk.

I went into the kitchen and phoned Annie’s answering machine to remind it of my dinner date with Annie. The machine was indifferent. I freshened my drink, two ice cubes and the same number of ounces of vodka, and got comfy on the sofa.

The saxophone case couldn’t have value all by itself. The value was whatever was in the case. The saxophone was in the case. Scratch the saxophone. If something else was in there, Dave Goddard would have noticed it. Well, maybe scratch that supposition. Dave, for all his other fine qualities, mostly his honest-to-God musical artistry, might not be the planet’s most observant occupant.

What if something was concealed in the case? Something Dave wouldn’t notice no matter how observant he was. Whatever was concealed, if anything, would have to be light. Otherwise the extra weight would tip off Dave. On the other hand, the case was new and unfamiliar to Dave, and he wouldn’t recognize anything out of sync about the case’s balance.

I reached back of the sofa and turned on the lamp at its least bright level. The lamp sat on a dark wood table that Annie and I discovered on a foray into the antique-shop country up near Shelburne. Beside the lamp I kept a stack of magazines—Vanity Fair, Jazz Monthly, Saturday Night. James Turkin might have fun underlining the Mixed Media guy’s column in Vanity Fair, James Wolcott. He was always good for a “palpable” and a “semiotics”.

Things that could be tucked out of sight in a saxophone case. Not gold bricks. Money, though it’d have to be in bills of very large denomination to make the trouble and effort of concealment worth while. Jewellery, though we’d be thinking small and prized diamonds, rubies, and so forth for the same reasons of effort and trouble.

Or, oh shit, drugs.

“Crang, we know you’re up there.”

It was Ian from downstairs.

“You want to come down for a drinkee?”

I got off the sofa and walked to the top of the stairs. Ian was standing at the foot, a short, compact man, bald, a moustache, wearing white shorts and a Diana Ross T-shirt.

“Ian, how many times have I told you, drinkee’s a dead giveaway.”

“Who cares? It’s Friday. I never watch my language on weekends.”

Ian was the swishier member of Ian and Alex. He sold real estate, Alex was a civil servant. Ian was joking. He didn’t care if he sounded like a queen. People buying houses preferred gay agents. Better taste in realty. Ian told me that, and I believed him.

“Thanks anyway,” I said. “I’m out for dinner, and until then I got to ratiocinate up here.”

“Get you. Ratiocinate.”

“The mental equivalent of weightlifting.”

“If you change your mind, Alex has done something super. It’s got brandy in it and honey and lime and champers. Pitchers of it, I promise.”

“Save me some for breakfast.”

“Oh well, give our love to Anniepoo.”

“Ian, I’ll send someone around to wash out your tongue.”

“Please do.”

It was four-fifteen at the Alley Cat, and the manager was on the premises. He sounded friendly. Why do Americans get into all their wars? Most Americans I run into are too friendly for warmongers. The friendly American at the Alley Cat had practically total recall of the Dave Goddard saxophone episode. A guy came in with the new case early in the evening before Dave arrived for the first set, and said it was a gift of appreciation. He heard Dave lost his old case. Didn’t want to meet Dave. Just a present from an admirer to show Dave not everyone in Culver City was a ratfink thief. I asked the manager what the man bearing gifts looked like. Big, strapping guy, the manager said on the phone. That was Fenk to a T. Claimed he was a fan, but the manager didn’t remember seeing him around the Alley Cat. Still on stream for Fenk. The guy smiled a lot. Well, Fenk could fake it. The guy was black. Oops. Not Fenk. I thanked the manager, who said to come by next time I was out their way.

I gave my glass a small snap of Wyborowa, a dressing drink, and sipped at it in the bedroom while I considered my wardrobe. The black guy who left the case for Dave could have connections with Fenk. He ran the delivery errand, and Fenk completed the arrangement by picking up the case in Toronto. Yanking the case out of Dave’s hands and slamming him with a two-by-four wasn’t precisely synonymous with “picking up”, but it rounded out the enterprise that began at the Alley Cat. Say the black guy snitched Dave’s old case, substituted the new, which had something hidden in it, and Fenk took delivery when the case reached Toronto with Dave.

Should I congratulate myself on this marvel of deduction? Definitely premature. The whole house of cards hinged on the presence of something concealed in the case, and until James and I checked out Fenk’s room at the Silverdore, I wouldn’t know about the case or concealment. If Fenk still had the case. If the concealed goods existed. If they existed and Fenk hadn’t disposed of them. If you were the only girl in the world and I were the only boy. I got out the clothes for my date with Annie and put them on.