Riviera Blues. Jack Batten

work.”

      “A thing I learned, lemme tell you, Crang, they’re resilient little suckers. There was a hell of a flap two, three weeks back. I’m punching away at my computer, putting in this big deal report to the head guy over in the securities department. My screen all of a sudden goes berserk. Jumping around like a bitch, like a movie out of focus, except sometimes the screen would be absolutely blank for long stretches. This wasn’t just my computer. Same thing all over the entire trust company.”

      “What’d happened?”

      “Some kind of massive short circuit, I don’t know. But never mind that. It isn’t the point of the story.”

      “I’m still listening.”

      “All right, you know the old brick warehouse, looks deserted, right at Spadina and Wellington, far side?”

      “No, but if you say so.”

      “That building, it isn’t empty at all. In there, they got a computer backup system for the C&G computer. It takes over in case the computer at the main office blows. Which it did. Okay, within minutes, the backup over at Spadina and Wellington kicks in.”

      “Trum, I’m astounded, really am. Totally awestruck.”

      “You don’t give a rat’s ass, Crang, I can tell. But to me, it was amazing. One minute, I was running around the hall. The computer’s out, I was saying, my report’s lost, the sky is falling. And next thing, a couple of minutes later, I was back in my office, and everything was normal. Not a syllable got lost. My report to the head securities guy was right there, right in the middle of the sentence I was typing. Fucking-A amazing.”

      Connie reappeared.

      “You going for four, Trum?” she asked.

      Trum wiped chili from the side of his mouth.

      “Not till I’ve called my friend here’s bluff,” he answered.

      Connie went away. I waited for Trum to call my bluff. What bluff? I was guarding a secret about Pamela and Jamie, but I wasn’t trying to blow anything past Trum.

      “I guessed soon as you started in with the Jamie Haddon questions.” Trum looked satisfied with himself. “You’re acting for a client, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not, and the name of the client, the reason you’re having lunch with me, is Archie Cartwright.”

      “You’re wrong.”

      “Okay, confidentiality, I understand. You’re not gonna level with me.”

      Trum’s eyes, I hadn’t realized before, were surprisingly clear and sharp, a minimum of red for a man as dedicated to martinis as he was.

      “But if you expect me to go further,” Trum said, “I want it between us, officially, you heard nothing from me.”

      “About what?”

      “The affair, for chrissake.”

      “The affair?”

      I knew what affair Trum meant. But how did he know about it? And wasn’t Pamela going to blow her stack when I told her Trum knew?

      “Yeah,” Trum said. “The affair.”

      “Pamela and Jamie?”

      “See? I knew you were acting for Archie.”

      “Trum, not that it matters, but I don’t take matrimonial cases.”

      “Sure, you’re criminal. But I’m thinking to myself, maybe Archie found out Pamela’s screwing around, and he wanted someone to do a little preliminary digging before the divorce lawyers come in and the fees hit six figures, and he arrives at you because for reasons of your own, Pamela giving you the brush years ago, you might be willing to throw yourself into the job.”

      “I’m wounded, Trum, hurt to the quick. You’d think that of me?”

      “Must be my lawyer’s training,” Trum said. “Anyhow, I’m with Pamela if the time comes for choosing up who you have to be with.”

      “Archie Cartwright — listen to my every word, Trum — Archie Cartwright has never communicated with me by letter, by telephone, by an intermediary, by telex or fax, or by semaphore.”

      Trum eased his stomach away from the edge of the table. He looked at me from over his swelling nose.

      “Pamela and me,” Trum said, “we go back. I remember, years before you ever came along, I was at UCC, she was at Branksome. We went to the formals, the battalion balls, her father’s house, my father’s house. Same gang of us did all that teenage crap together. That’s why I still got a lot of time for Pamela.”

      “Very touching, Trum,” I said. “Now, how did you find out about the affair?”

      “Jamie told me.”

      “Holy shit.”

      “That’s what I thought too. An affair, you only tell your best buddy about, and I’m not Jamie’s. He’s just a guy I work with on projects at the office. But a while ago, he says, let’s have lunch. First time that happened, believe me. Anyhow, I’m into my second silver bullet, he starts in about him and Pamela. Wouldn’t shut up.”

      “How much did he tell you?”

      “That it’s been going on a year, that Pamela set him up in an apartment, and that, in so many words, she’s a great lay.”

      “Charming.”

      “I would’ve punched him, except I wanted to hear more.”

      Connie took away our empty plates and brought coffee.

      “You holding at three?” she asked Trum.

      “I’m saving number four for my confreres at the bar,” Trum answered, nodding toward the centre of the room.

      “Just another couple of questions,” I said. “Anybody else privy to all this?”

      “Two, maybe three other people at C&G. They found out the same way as me, same general time too. From Jamie, last month. The guy that runs the investment department, he knows, and Jamie’s immediate boss, him as well.”

      “What about Swotty? Any chance of these guys passing it to him?”

      “Are you nuts?” Trum jerked his hand and spilled coffee on his placemat. “Can you see one of us dropping in at Whetherhill’s office. ‘Oh, by the way, Chief, your married daughter’s banging a guy from the trust department. And, hey, you’ll never guess, Chief, the guy’s a relative of yours.’”

      “Yeah,” I said. “Dumb question.”

      Trum lifted his cup and mopped the spilled coffee with a paper napkin.

      “Sure sign,” he said. “When I start dumping coffee all over the place, I need another drink.”

      “This has been a large help, Trum,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it develops.”

      “You won’t need to. If anything hits the fan, it’ll be all over the office.” Trum put his hands on the table and levered himself out of his chair. The table rocked on its legs. “I did all the talking,” he said. “So you get to do the paying. Fair? Not at the bar though. I’ll pick up for what I drink there.”

      “Number four?”

      “All this shit we been talking about, I might feel a fifth coming on.”

      When Trum reached the bar, the guys sitting there opened up a space for him. A martini was waiting on the Formica top.

      CHAPTER NINE

      I got home just after seven, laden with purchases. I had Miles Davis’s autobiography, thick and in paperback. That was for overseas reading. I had two new shirts, a French-English dictionary, and, best of all, a beret in a raffish