LITMIR.BIZ

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to rob the taxi driver,” she said to Judge Ormsby. “I submit the sentence should be commensurate with the violence of the act.”

      “Your Honour,” I said, “there’s been restitution of the money by my client.”

      The crown snapped, “A term in reformatory is called for.”

      “May I suggest, with Your Honour’s indulgence,” I said, “that jail would work to the detriment of my client’s prospects. He has behind him an excellent scholastic record and I submit it promises a positive future.”

      Judge Ormsby aimed a grandfatherly smile at Turkin in the prisoners’ box.

      “Have you considered community college, young man?” he asked.

      My kid turned his sullen face in my direction.

      I said, “My understanding, Your Honour, is that the accused has ambitious career plans.”

      Judge Ormsby beamed another smile and said reformatory seemed inappropriate in the circumstances. The crown attorney’s frown deepened into a scowl and she made a display of tossing her file on the counsel table. Judge Ormsby put Turkin on probation for two years. He told Turkin to report to his probation officer every month, find a job, avoid evil companions, and stay out of underground garages. Fifteen minutes later, after Turkin had signed some papers and arranged his first probation meeting, he and I sat on a bench on Old City Hall’s front lawn.

      “Thanks,” the kid said. The word seemed to give him serious pain.

      I said, “I trust I won’t see you in court again.”

      “Fucking right.”

      “Does this mean you’re going to tread the straight and narrow?”

      “It means I’m not going to get caught.”

      “That’s what Murph the Surf said.”

      “Who’s he?”

      “Infamous jewel thief and convict before your time.”

      “So laugh at me,” Turkin said. Something earnest was struggling to break through his sullen expression. “I can already do any lock on the market. Shutting down alarm systems, shit, that’s a touch. And I met this old geezer when I was in the West End, guy about forty, he told me the real professional stuff about checking out a place before you go in.”

      “What was this forty-year-old geezer doing in the West End?”

      “He made a little mistake.”

      “James, isn’t that a lesson?”

      “Yeah, he told me his mistake. I won’t make it.”

      The kid shook my hand and walked away until he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers crossing Queen Street to Simpsons. He was probably right. He wouldn’t make that mistake.

      12

      I RODE UP AND DOWN the elevators in City Hall, the new skyscraper version, until I found an office that gave out the addresses of the Metro dump sites. Most were in the suburbs, and I drove around to four of them with my watch and notebook. At five-thirty, I knocked off the tour until next day, when I visited four more dumps. The story was the same at all eight. The guys inside the weigh offices took longer to do their operations with Ace trucks, between twenty and forty seconds longer per truck. That piece of information was confirmed and reconfirmed for whatever it was worth. At a dump in the east end, I came across the two men in the pink Cadillac: Solly the Snozz Nash and his boxer sidekick in the straw hat. I took my notebook back to the office and let it sit on the desk. Rereading my notes inspired unease but no deep thoughts.

      Mrs. Reid had been in and left a memo. Matthew Wansborough had called three times, Tom Catalano twice. My client was getting antsy. It was four o’clock. I dialled the number at McIntosh, Brown and asked for Catalano.

      “Wansborough wants a meeting,” he said as soon as he came on the line.

      “What happened to hello?” I said.

      “Hello,” Catalano said. “It has to be in a couple of hours.”

      “Is that his timetable or yours?”

      “His,” Catalano said. “He’s at a political meeting at the Albany Club and he can slide over here at six before he goes to a cocktail party at the Toronto Club.”

      “So just like that you squeeze him into the appointment book,” I said. “He must be a big-money client.”

      “Not that big, but old,” Catalano said. “The firm started doing his family’s business right after the first McIntosh was called to the bar, 1880 or something.”

      Outside my office, fresh developments were shaping up. I watched a pink Caddie stop and double-park.

      “What’re you going to have for us, Crang?” Catalano said on the phone. “You’ve been on this thing for a week.”

      “Six days.”

      The man in the straw hat got out of the driver’s side, and Sol Nash climbed from the passenger side. He had on a light grey suit that looked shantung from my distance. His tan was deep and his nose was in the Jimmy Durante class. The guy with the straw hat was built like a ring post.

      “So what have you got?” Catalano asked.

      “Nothing conclusive so far,” I said, “but enough to keep Wansborough interested.”

      The two men down below crossed the sidewalk and disappeared from sight. I could hear them opening the door off the street and starting up the stairs.

      Catalano said, “I know you’re not the kind of lawyer who’d stall around just to pull in a big fee and then produce nothing.”

      “Big fee?” I said. “That’s the first time anyone has mentioned the magic words. Now I’ll go into my major-league stall.”

      Nash and his driver had reached the top of the stairs and were coming down the hall.

      “Just be here at six,” Catalano said and hung up.

      The man with the straw hat opened the door to my office. He was wearing a white-on-white shirt with the top three buttons undone and grey sharkskin trousers. His nose was flattened at the tip and he had scar tissue over his eyes. He wasn’t tall, about five nine, but he was wide all the way down. The straw hat looked out of place on his head. Every man to his affectations. He glanced around my office, stepped inside, and held the door back for Sol Nash. Nash seemed about fifty years old. His black hair had grey at the temples, and even against the tan I could see deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He sat in a chair across from me. The guy with the straw hat closed the door and stood in front of it with his arms crossed.

      “You know me, Crang?” Nash said.

      “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Snozz.”

      The guy at the door uncrossed his arms.

      “Never mind, Tony,” Nash said without taking his eyes off me.

      I said, “And Tony’s your interior decorator.”

      “What’s he talking about?” Tony said. His voice had a thick rasp. Too many punches to the throat.

      “Offices are his specialty,” I said to Nash. “He rearranges the decor.”

      “Oh yeah, I get it,” Tony said. He seemed to take my little joke as a compliment.

      “Far as I know, Crang,” Nash said, “you got no beef with me personally and you got none with the company I work for.”

      “Lovable me? I’m without enemies.”

      “So I want to know how come your face keeps coming up in my business.”

      “I’m thinking of a change of career,” I said. “Garbage strikes me as a field with infinite possibilities.”

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