Crang Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Jack Batten

me with open arms.”

      “Mr. Grimaldi won’t be in until this afternoon.”

      “I’ll catch him at his house.”

      “Sir, I didn’t say he was at home.”

      “Cagey you,” I said and went back down the hall, not sprinting. I’d try Grimaldi’s house. The iron was still hot enough for striking.

      Wally the guard was standing beside the Volks looking aggrieved.

      “You mighta got me in deep shit,” he said to me.

      “You did hold that thought.”

      “It’s true,” Wally said. His security man’s outfit smelled of cigar smoke. “Comin’ out of the office the way you and the kid did, early in the morning, the kid with the stool.”

      “Mr. Grimaldi would be glad to know you spotted me.”

      “That’s the part woulda got me in deep shit.”

      “You mean you haven’t mentioned my visit to anybody?”

      “Hell, no,” Wally said. “Think I want to lose this job? I been scared since Saturday one of the people inside was gonna say something’s stolen from the office. I’d catch some of the blame, sure as I’m standin’ here.”

      “Relax, Wally,” I said. “The coast is clear.”

      “Who the hell are you, mister?”

      “Zorro without the mask.”

      “Fuck off.”

      I took Wally’s advice. I drove up to Dundas Street, stopped at a phone booth to look up Grimaldi’s address, and followed Dundas east until it met Bloor. As Alice Brackley had mentioned, Charles Grimaldi lived in the Kingsway, and Bloor was the route into the neighbourhood. It was a short hop from the Ace offices.

      The Kingsway is the oasis for rich folks in the west end. It lacks the age, tradition, and grandeur of Rosedale, but the money is everywhere in evidence. Most of the houses are products of the overstuffed school of architecture. They’re ponderous and weighty. Stockbroker baronial. Charles Grimaldi’s home sat along the line of mansions backing on a ravine that separated the Kingsway from the rest of the city to the east. The property had a stone wall across the front and a driveway that looped in a semicircle to the front door and returned to the street. The house, a dour mix of Tudor and French château, was set fifty or sixty feet back and was shielded by two towering oak trees that kept the lawn in permanent shade. There were three cars in the driveway, a bright red Porsche with the sporty fin at the rear, a Lincoln Continental in black, and Sol Nash’s pinkmobile. I parked behind the Cadillac and walked up to the front door.

      Sol Nash answered my knock and didn’t blink his charcoal eyes when he found me on the doorstep.

      “Yeah?” he said. A man of few words.

      “I’m a Miss Manners representative,” I said. “We go door to door offering lessons in etiquette.”

      Nash didn’t shut the door. Nor did he open it any wider.

      “Just a little sample of what we provide,” I said, “you might have essayed something more gracious for me in the line of greetings.”

      “Mr. Grimaldi phone you to come out?” Nash asked.

      “I came on my very own initiative. But I have a proposal that ought to fascinate your boss.”

      Nash favoured economy in all things. Few words and decisive actions. He pulled the door inward just enough to allow me to enter and pointed at a chair where I gathered he wanted me to sit.

      “Wait,” he said.

      Nash sat in a chair on the other side of a walnut antique table from my chair. The chairs and table were set against the wall in a long entrance hall that began three steps down from the front door. On the floor of the hall there was a Persian rug that had a lot of greens and purples in it. No pictures hung on the walls and the only natural light came from two slit windows on either side of the front door. It wasn’t a room designed to cheer Grimaldi’s visitors.

      Behind another door at the far end of the hall, voices were raised in louder than conversational tones. The voices were masculine, and after a while, I decided there were a mere two of them. I couldn’t make out the words, but there was no mistaking the emotion. Anger.

      A copy of the Sun lay on the table between me and Sol Nash. I flipped through it. “Heiress Slain in Negligee.” Page three. The headline touched all the bases. Money, murder, and sex. But it wasn’t as catchy as Annie’s version. And it was inaccurate, unless Alice was wearing a negligee under the quilted dressing gown. I didn’t consider discussing the subject with Sol.

      Fifteen minutes went by. I was reading Allan Fotheringham’s column on the Sun’s deep-think page when the door at the end of the hall opened and banged against the wall. Charles Grimaldi was first out of the room. He had on a pair of white flannels and a white V-neck tennis sweater without a shirt. The man behind him had a face that was an older and blurred version of Charles’. His skin was dark and his features coarse. He was wearing a suit that matched the colour of the Lincoln Continental outside. From his looks and style, I took him to be one of the other Grimaldi brothers, Peter the Second or John. Neither he nor Charles appeared to be in the mood for fun.

      Both men gave me the once-over. Peter or John spoke first.

      “This guy one of your people?” he said, nodding in my direction but questioning Charles.

      “He’s a lawyer, Pete,” Charles said.

      Aha, it was the senior member of the second-generation Grimaldis, the brother who ran the laundries in Hamilton.

      “He don’t look like a lawyer to me,” Pete said. “Monday morning and he’s dressed like some guy works in your yard.”

      “I didn’t say he was a lawyer of mine,” Charles said.

      Sol Nash was standing and looking respectful. I stayed in my chair.

      “What’s your name, lawyer?” Pete asked me. He was in a foul mood and my presence wasn’t soothing it.

      “Crang,” I said, “and it’s a thrill to meet another Grimaldi.”

      “Never mind, Pete,” Charles said. “What I got with Crang, it’s private.”

      “Another private,” Pete said, close to a shout. His voice bounced around the entrance hall. “Everything’s private with you. Pop tells me to come over and ask, how come Charles’s living in this big house, drives a fancy little red car a movie star belongs in, throws money around like Rockefeller? I ask and whatta you tell me? Business is good. Shit, you think I’m going back to Pop with that? And this broad at your office, she’s in the papers, dead. I ask, what about it? You say must’ve been some crazy drug-addict burglar. I don’t like all this. Pop won’t like it. And here’s this lawyer coming to your house. What about him? Yeah, I know. Private, you say.”

      My head swivelled from Pete to Charles. Here was a juicy piece of news. Pete and the rest of the Grimaldi clan weren’t privy to Charles’ operations at Ace. They thought he was running the company on the up-and-up as I guess he was expected to. Of the four people in the room—Nash, me, the two Grimaldis—Pete was the only fellow in the dark.

      Charles stayed calm under his brother’s outburst. He put his arm on the sleeve of Pete’s black suit jacket and spoke soft words. Pete was sweating and agitated. He kept swivelling his shoulders. But Charles persisted, and control in the room passed to his side.

      “Go back in the kitchen,” he said to Pete. “Nice new coffee machine back there. Solly’ll make you a cup. I settle with the lawyer here, and you and me talk some more. Quiet, I mean. We’re brothers, Pete. You and me aren’t saying goodbye till I make you happy about everything.”

      Pete was still swivelling the shoulders, but his anger