Crang Mysteries 6-Book Bundle. Jack Batten
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me five minutes,” she said. She looked at the title of one of the movies and began flipping through the program. It was the program for the Alternate Film Festival. “Another thing I was wondering,” I said. “All the movies, you see in the credits ‘best boy’, usually right next to ‘grip’ and ‘gaffer’. You got any idea what a best boy does?”
“Five minutes,” Annie said, “of silence.”
I occupied myself with the Dao and the view out the window of Annie’s corner of Cabbagetown. The sky was still overcast. Might rain. A leaf fell from a tree in front of the house across the street. I wasn’t a whiz at marking time.
“Well, I don’t know.” Annie gave the program an impatient shove. “If these’ve got something the same about them, it beats me. Different themes, different producers, sounds like different techniques.”
“You tried, kid. It was just a thought.”
“California, but so what?”
“So what, what? Where’s California come in?”
“That’s where the six movies were made, but so were probably six hundred other movies this year.”
If there’d been wine left in my glass, I would have poured it down my throat in one large, dramatic flourish. The glass was empty, and so was the bottle. I settled for giving Annie my best meaningful look. The gesture was wasted. Annie spoke first.
“I see what you’re going to say, yeah,” she said. “Fenk’s a Los Angeles person.”
“So doesn’t it mean something that Trevor’s booked only movies from California? Trevor who’s been maybe up to fishy business with Fenk of the same state? Must be a tie-in.”
“California.”
“Why didn’t you let me say it first, about the connection between the six movies and Trevor and Fenk?”
“Come on, you were going through all that nonsense about checking the wine and staring into my eyes like you were Sherlock Holmes. What was I supposed to do, sit here and look stupid?”
“Dr. Watson would have.”
Annie smiled. It was her first from the time I arrived and began the story that revealed all. Or almost all. I didn’t get graphic in describing the look of Fenk on the sitting-room floor.
Annie said, “I wouldn’t be mistaken, would I, if I guessed you want me to ask around, see who knows the dirt on the other five movies besides Hell’s Barrio?”
“There must be people at the festival up from California for those. Producers, directors, writers, stars, best boys.”
“Actors in the movies in the Alternate Festival, except for Harp Manley, I think they’re too lowly to be called stars.”
“If they’re here is all that counts. Maybe they’re hooked into Fenk or Trevor or both, some of the California types, and maybe there’s a pattern of links somewhere.”
Annie said, “Well, I’ve got the right cover for a person asking pertinent questions. Impertinent questions too.”
“Everybody’ll say, oh golly, it’s just that adorable Annie B. Cooke doing interviews. Her occupation.”
“Part of my occupation.”
“Chatting up the stars, present stars, future stars, mega stars. Daniel Day-Lewis.”
“Again? You’re bringing up the man again?” Annie said. She made a little gesture of semi-annoyance with her arms. Then, switching manner, she said, coquettish, “Well, just because he’s one of the world’s divine males . . .”
Why had I mentioned Daniel Day-Lewis? I didn’t know his name was on my tongue till I let it roll off. What was this? Incipient green-eyed monster syndrome? Who was the dolt in the Preston Sturges movie? The one where the symphony conductor imagines his wife’s having an affair with another guy? Unfaithfully Yours. Linda Darnell was the wife. Funny movie. Ah, Rex Harrison was the conductor. I was playing Rex Harrison. Not as suave, but as doltish.
Annie was looking at her watch upside down.
“We got half an hour,” she said. “You know what? I’m starved.”
She carried the platter back to the kitchen, and I followed.
“I’ll find out what I can about the five movies.” Annie had her back to me and was mixing canned tuna, Hellman’s mayonnaise, and chopped green onion in a small bowl. “You do what it is you’ve made up your mind to do. But I still don’t get it.”
“Did I leave something out?”
“The part about the dead man and Trevor Dalgleish and the six movies, I’m in it up to there. I understand why you’re poking around them. To see what they’re up to, if anything. But who’s your client? I know who he is. He’s Dave somebody or other the jazz player. But who is he in the story?”
“An innocent bystander.”
“I don’t believe this, I honestly don’t,” Annie said. She kept on making her sandwich.
“Here’s as far as I’ve got,” I said. “Things start with Fenk’s confederate at the jazz club Dave worked in Culver City.”
“Confederate, I like that.”
“He stole Dave’s old saxophone case at the Alley Cat, and next night this guy, a large black guy I gather from the Alley Cat boss, made Dave an anonymous gift of a new case. One difference, the new case had contraband hidden in the lining.”
“First, confederate. Now contraband.”
“In the lining, I’ll give odds, it was cocaine.”
Annie turned around. In her hand she had a plate with one sandwich on it.
“Weirder and weirder,” she said.
She opened the refrigerator door with her free hand, took out a quart bottle of mineral water, and swung her rump at the fridge door. It closed. Annie had a great rump. We went back to the table in the window.
“Cocaine is Fenk’s background,” I said. “Two guilty pleas for possession. And Fenk was the guy who went to all the trouble of relieving Dave Goddard of the case. He knew the cocaine was in there.”
“I never heard so much hypothetical in my life.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I’m crazy about it. It’s just hypothetical.”
When Annie ate her sandwich, she held it with both hands. Women do that. You hardly ever see a man use two hands on a sandwich. I poured mineral water into the two empty wineglasses.
“Thanks,” Annie said.
“Think of what I just said as in the early formative stages. What I’m doing, I’m gathering the elements I’m sure of. I’m sure Fenk has a cocaine record. I’m sure illicit stuff, about the size of a few kilos of cocaine when you think of it, was hidden in the saxophone case’s lining. Why else was it ripped? And another thing I’m sure of, I’m sure Fenk knew the cocaine was in there, in the lining.”
“Which Dave the musician didn’t?”
“Goddard’s the name, and no, in this, from word go, he’s totally in the dark.”
“He better be totally in Muskoka or you got trouble.”
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