‘Right now, Larry, I’m watching these two, and waiting for Old Bill.’
‘Do you play yourself, Mr . . . ?’
‘Salter, Charlie Salter.’
‘Do you play, Charlie?’
Salter continued to be offended by this boy with dark ringlets cascading down his back, how putting himself on first name terms without permission, but the pro’s easy manner, like that of a new wave priest, disconcerted him.
‘No. I’ve never even seen the game until today.’
‘Like me to explain it?’
No. Why? ‘Yes,’ he said.
Larry outlined the objectives of the game, the elementary strategies employed, and then supplied a brief commentary on the game in progress. Salter was intrigued. The pro said, ‘Like to have a go?’
‘Now?’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not dressed for it.’
‘I can fix that. We have cupboards full of stuff that’s been left behind in the washing machines. All clean. Shoes, too. I’ll find you a racquet.’
‘No. Some other time maybe.’
‘Tomorrow? Come down in the afternoon. I’ll give you a lesson. Show you around.’
‘Why?’
‘If you like it you might become a member. I get a commission on everyone I sign up.’
‘No secrets with you, are there, Larry? What does it cost?’
‘I won’t charge you anything for tomorrow.’
‘I know that. I mean this place, a year.’
‘Three hundred the first year. Two hundred after that.’
‘And the cost of each game?’
‘The courts are free except between eleven-thirty and one-thirty, and after four. If you played during the day it wouldn’t cost you anything.’
‘Who would I play?’
‘No problem. Lots of people looking for a game.’
‘My age?’ Salter asked shyly.
‘Our oldest member is seventy-two. We have lots of members in their fifties and sixties.’
‘I’m forty-six.’
‘No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, about three.’
‘What? I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. All right. I’ll let you know if I can’t come. By the way—’ Salter looked at the clock; he still had five minutes—’did you know Mr Summers well?’
Larry looked pious. ‘Yes. He was a good friend of Bill’s, of course, that’s how you would know him. Terrible thing to happen.’
Salter let this pass. ‘Did he play much?’ he asked.
‘Every day. He and Bill used to get into a battle royal every day. Bill is going to be lost without him.’
‘A battle royal?’
‘They played hard. Not terrifically good, but they went at it like a couple of one-armed rug-beaters. The loser paid.’
‘Paid what?’
‘They always played for beer. The loser paid for the beer. Hey, Susie,’ he called to a waitress. ‘This is Mr Salter, a friend of Dave Summers. I was just telling him about the great games he used to have with Bill Bailey.’
The waitress struck a sad attitude. ‘Oh, those guys used to really beat up a storm, you know? And you always knew who was going to pay, like. Real kids they were. I mean, you know, for men, like, mature men, it was funny to see how bad it was for the one who lost. Especially Mr Bailey.’ She raised her eyebrows, shook her head, pursed her lips, looked around stagily to see if she were being overheard, all to indicate that Bailey was a poor loser. ‘They were at it every night,’ she concluded.
‘Did they play last week.’
‘Oh, sure. They played Thursday night before Mr Summers went to Montreal.’
‘Who won?’ Salter fixed an expression of warm, sad, piety on his face. He calculated that he had about two more questions before the waitress or the pro asked him why he was asking.
‘Oh, gee, I don’t know. Wait a minute. Yes, I do. Mr Summers must have won, because he was teasing Mr Bailey, you know, pretending to explain the game to him. Wait a minute, though, he couldn’t have won because he paid for the drinks. I think. No. Oh, gee, I don’t know. I guess Mr Bailey must have paid, because he was the loser all right.’ All this was delivered in the form of a passionate argument with herself.
‘I see you’re ahead of me, Inspector.’ Bailey stood by the table. As the meaning of his words got through to the others, the waitress scuttled, terrified, back to the bar, where she locked herself in conversation with the barman. The pro, however, looked quizically at him. ‘Toronto’s finest, eh? Here on official business? I guess you don’t want a lesson after all. You might have let me know, Inspector.’
‘I’d still like a lesson. Do you let coppers join?’
‘This is a club for the downtown professional man. That would include you.’
‘Then I’ll be here tomorrow, at three.’
The pro ducked his curls in a graceful bow, and left, looking like a Restoration beau about to sneak the immortal ‘Anyone-for-tennis?’ line into the wrong century.
Bailey sat down. ‘Thinking of joining the club, Inspector?’ he said, too cheerily.
No one is comfortable with the police, Salter thought.
‘I don’t know. He asked me to give it a try. I might.’
Bailey affected a hearty look. ‘If you want some practice, I’ll give you a game.’
‘I guess you need a new partner. You used to play Summers all the time, you say.’
‘We played a lot. We joined together a couple of years ago and we’ve been kind of seesawing back and forth. Did, I mean. It’s hard to start thinking in the past.’
‘Did you play him last week?’
‘Oh, sure. Every day until he left.’
‘Who won on Thursday? The waitress said you had quite a game.’
Bailey thought for a moment. Then, ‘He did, I think. Yes, he did. Why?’
‘No real reason,
