Crang Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Jack Batten

      “Crang,” Annie said, “you’re going too fast.”

      Alice said, “One takes the edge where it’s offered. That’s what I’ve learned at Ace.”

      It was Alice’s dance. I’d follow her lead. But as tangos went, it was mighty leisurely. I was sure to step on her toes before we got off the dance floor. Either that or I’d OD on my own metaphors.

      “What else have you learned at Ace?” I asked Alice.

      “The president’s office is the place where you find the only real satisfaction,” she said.

      Where was the woman going with this line of palaver? I knew where I should be going. My watch said eight minutes to ten. Eight minutes until my assignation with James Turkin.

      “What you just said,” I said, “sounds like something they teach at the Harvard Business School.”

      “Mr. Crang, I’m in the business world,” Alice said. “I know where power resides.”

      “And how it’s wielded?”

      “Sometimes a line is crossed,” Alice said.

      Alice may have expected me to understand. Rosy in the candlelight, safe in Annie’s company, comfortable in the Scotch. I couldn’t be sure whether she wanted to spill some beans or was merely high and loose on the ambience and the liquor. It might take another hour to find out. I made a swift weighing of priorities. My meeting with James won out.

      “Let’s get together, Ms. Brackley,” I said. “Take lunch. Have your machine call my machine. Pencil in a date. All those other things you guys do in the executive suite.”

      “Don’t pay attention to the flip stuff, Alice,” Annie said to Ms. Brackley. “You can rely on Crang.”

      “I’ll be in contact,” Alice said to me.

      “But will we touch base?”

      Annie went to the door with me.

      “You shouldn’t tease the woman,” she said in the hall. She was whispering again. “I think Alice might be on the verge of saying something important.”

      “She’s treating it like the Geneva arms talks,” I said. “We don’t have the space for prolonged negotiations and other tap dances.”

      “Well,” Annie said, looking back into the apartment, “she’s welcome to stay here and talk for as long as she wants.”

      “Keep her mainlining the Cutty.”

      “Crang, I’m not going to pump the woman. Just lend an ear to someone who’s got problems.”

      “Come up with deep-throat material,” I said, “and I’ll stick the bottle of Scotch on my expense account.”

      “That’s my guy. All heart.”

      I kissed Annie on both cheeks, went down to the Volks, and drove around the corner to Sackville and Gerrard. James was waiting in front of a variety store. He had on a long-sleeved black shirt and black jeans.

      I said, “I like a man who dresses for the occasion. Except, James, tonight isn’t the occasion.”

      “I know what I’m doing,” James said.

      He was carrying a cloth whisky bag. I hesitated to ask what was in it. It wouldn’t be whisky.

      I went out the Queen Elizabeth Way with the top down on the Volks, cut north at Kipling Avenue, and drove past the muffler outlets and body shops to Ace Disposal’s quarters. A bright spotlight illuminated the sign at the front, and all the lights inside the one-storey office building had been left on. There wasn’t an indication of human activity on the premises. I pulled into the parking lot on the south side of the bar and restaurant across the street. The lot was three-quarters full, and sounds of happy revelry came from inside the club. The exotic dancers who were its advertised feature must have been in full terpsichorean flight. Or maybe the food was just awfully good.

      “That the place over there?” James said. He was twisting around in the front seat looking at the Ace building. “Can’t see much from here.”

      Two cars came up the street and parked in the lot. Three young guys in T-shirts that read “University of Toronto Engineering” piled out of one car and a man in a business suit got out of the other. They went into the club. It was called the Majestic. “No G-Strings,” a hand-painted sign over the door proclaimed.

      “We’ll get a table inside that looks out on the street,” I said. “Less conspicuous than the parking lot.”

      We entered the Majestic. It was crowded and smoky and dark. Loud rock music came from two speakers mounted on the stage that ran along most of the back wall. There were stand-up bars on either side of the stage, and tables with customers at them spread across the floor in front of it. Pink lights were directed at the stage. A young woman danced in the lights. She wasn’t wearing a G-string or anything else.

      Two or three of the tables at the back of the room were empty, and James and I sat at one that was up against a window. A waitress asked what it’d be. She was wearing high heels and a shortie jacket that proper girls put on only at bedtime. James asked for a Coke and I ordered vodka. When the waitress turned away, she flounced her jacket and offered a flash of pale buttock.

      James reached into the whisky bag in his lap and took out a pair of small binoculars. He turned the focusing dial and raised the binoculars to his eyes. They were pointed through the louvred window blinds at the Ace building. The kid was all business.

      There was a break in the thump of the music, and the young woman on the stage gathered up a small pile of discarded clothes she’d left at one corner of the stage. She held them in front of her as she descended the stage’s stairs. She managed to look decorous.

      “Alarm box’s over the door,” James said. He was leaning forward and pressing the binoculars against the window.

      The waitress brought James’ Coke and my vodka. I gave her a ten-dollar bill and got back a handful of change. The waitress paid no attention to James and the binoculars.

      “Take me maybe five minutes on that box,” James said.

      The rock music thudded back to life, and a well-built woman climbed up the stairs to the stage. She was dressed in a nurse’s uniform: white dress, white cap, white shoes with laces and low heels.

      “You want to see what I mean?” James said.

      He handed me the binoculars. Above the metal and glass door in the brick wall of the Ace building, beside an overhead light, there was a square box with wires leading from both sides. The wires ran down the edges of the door and disappeared into the brick.

      “That’s your burglar alarm,” James said. His voice had the sound of expertise. “What I’m gonna do is rig in another wire that bypasses the box. That way, it won’t ring when I go through the lock on the door.”

      “If it rang,” I said, “where would that be? Police station?”

      “Ring like hell in the building over there,” James said. “And in two other places. Police station is one, security company’s the other. Cars from both’d be here in five, ten minutes.”

      “The security company installed the alarm?” I said. “That’s what you mean?”

      “Put the binoculars on the door,” James said. “Little sticker on the corner, see it? That’s the security guys. Alarm rings in their office and at the police station.”

      I moved the binoculars over the glass pane in the door and found a sticker in the lower right-hand corner.

      “Not worth shit,” James said. He took back the binoculars.

      The nurse onstage had divested herself of the white cap and dress. She was wearing high-cut gym shorts and a formidable white brassiere. Not for long. She danced