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.”
I leaned back in my swivel chair and hoisted my Rockports on to a corner of the desk. That’d show Nash what a cool customer he was dealing with. Unless he thought Rockports looked wimpy. Mine were light brown canvas and leather. Maybe I should have left them on the floor.
“You assaulted one of my drivers,” Nash said.
“Hey, that’s a fancy word for what happened,” I said. “Your driver and I went a couple of rounds. But I’ll tell you straight, Sol, Tony here ought to give the guy a couple of pointers on style.”
Nash stared at me. The colour of his eyes was as close to black as eyes get.
“On the other hand,” I said, “Tony may not be the man for the job. From the look of his kisser, style isn’t his long suit in the ring.”
Tony made rumbling noises from his post at the door.
Nash said, “You’re beginning to piss me off, Crang.”
“Just when I thought we were getting along famously.”
“You been hanging around the dumps,” Nash said. “Tony and me spotted you twice and a couple weigh-masters said they seen that fag car of yours.”
“What is it with you Ace guys?” I said. “All of you scorn my convertible’s sexual orientation.”
For the first time since he had sat down in the office, Nash looked somewhere besides at me. He turned to Tony and nodded his head. Tony stepped up to the desk. He stood within left-jab distance of my head.
“Here’s your choice, Crang,” Nash said. His eyes were back on mine. “Tell me what you got on with Ace or Tony’s gonna punch your lights out.”
I slid my Rockports off the desk.
“What makes you think Tony can accomplish your objective?” I said.
“He’s younger’n you by twenty years,” Nash said.
“Ah, but youth is only one attribute,” I said. “I have a quicker brain and a nature that’s wily.”
“Make up your mind, Crang,” Nash said. “I’m getting tired of this crappy office.”
Crappy? Modest, okay, but crappy was harsh.
“You’ve made your move too fast, Sol,” I said, “and I think you know it. If I’m interested in Ace, it’s on behalf of a client. You want to find out who the client is. Sic Tony on me and I won’t tell you. I guarantee. Let me alone and maybe you’ll learn the client’s identity in due and natural course.”
I felt sweat dampening the armpits of my shirt. Peddling a line of patter to Judge Bert Ormsby took one skill. Trying out evasive verbal tactics on Sol Nash was a dicier proposition. Nash wasn’t restricted by court decorum or a warm heart. He also possessed a more acute bullshit detector.
“Whatever’s
