Blood Count. Jack Batten

door.

      I had a cherry cobbler for dessert, and while I was eating it, the third waiter came by my table.

      “Ian Argyll,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

      “Word is spreading.”

      “Ask at the bar,” the waiter said. He had café au lait skin and the clean good looks of the young Harry Belafonte. His speaking style was matter-of-fact.

      “There’s a bar?” I said.

      “Downstairs.”

      I drank an espresso and paid the bill with my American Express card. The first waiter, the polite one, showed me the route to the downstairs bar.

      Whatever serene soul designed the dining room had turned the bar over to someone more hard edged. It looked like the interior of a Star Wars spaceship, all chrome and glass and black leather. It had room for six or seven tables, and there was a bar along one side with a dozen high stools standing in a row. Some silver-framed David Hockney posters supplied the room’s one dash of colour.

      I climbed onto the stool at the near end of the bar. The bartender was right with me. I didn’t have much competition for his services, three men at one table and another guy, solo, halfway down the bar.

      “Quiet night,” I said to the bartender.

      He looked at his watch. “Give it another hour, and the place’ll be abuzz.”

      “Abuzz?”

      “We get the latish crowd,” the bartender said. He was working hard on his smile. “But I bet you don’t want to wait that long.”

      “Maybe something to sit gently on a full stomach?” I said, trying for a match to the bartender’s joviality.

      “An eau de vie?”

      “I can almost taste a Poire Williams.”

      “In a snifter?”

      “You read my mind.”

      The bartender reached up and slid a glass out of a horizontal metal rack over his head. He had on a long-sleeved purple shirt. His face was handsome in a squared-off way. The only trouble was his eyes. They were too close together and gave his face a faintly wily cast.

      “One Poire Williams,” he said, setting the snifter on a plain white coaster. “Love the flavour, myself.”

      “Any rule against you joining me?”

      “No rules, maybe some fuddy-duddy law.” The bartender gave me one of his practised smiles. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”

      “My lips are sealed.”

      The bartender reached for another snifter and poured from the Poire Williams bottle. He took a sip and made a yum sound. When he put the glass down, he kept it on the silver counter below the bar.

      “My name’s Malcolm,” he said.

      “Crang.”

      We shook hands.

      “Nice place,” I said. I leaned my forearms on the bar and did my imitation of a regular fella out on the town.

      “We get a fun crowd in here,” Malcolm said.

      “A friend recommended the food upstairs.” I gave Malcolm a grin that was as aw-shucks as his own. “And the drinks down here.”

      “A regular? I probably know him.”

      “Stocky little guy, barrel of laughs. Ian Argyll.”

      Malcolm took the name in stride. “Sure. Ian’s famous.”

      “How does a guy who sells real estate get famous, apart maybe from selling one hell of a lot of real estate?”

      “Famous around here. Anybody who dies of AIDS is famous around here.”

      “You know about that?”

      “Wait till Lesbian and Gay Pride Day next month. Ian Argyll’s name’ll be on the memorial they put up in the park on Church Street. Cawthra Square, y’know?”

      Malcolm left to pour another drink for the customer further along the bar. He put a silver dish of nuts in front of the man and came back to me and his eau de vie.

      “You in real estate, too?” he asked.

      “Ian lived in a house I own.”

      “Really.”

      “He came here often? Was I right about that?”

      “He used to drop by two or three times a week. Around ten thirty, eleven, for a nightcap.”

      “Alone?”

      “Alone, yeah.” Malcolm had eliminated the smile. Without it, he looked as devious as Snidely Whiplash.

      “He meet anybody here?”

      “Might’ve.”

      “Hang out with a particular crowd?”

      “Possible.”

      I reached into my pants pocket. In a money clip, there were five tens and four twenties. Malcolm didn’t strike me as a ten-dollar kind of guy. I fanned the four twenties on the bar beside my glass.

      “The person or persons Ian had drinks with,” I said to Malcolm, “you happen to catch a name or names?”

      “Two of them’re famous.”

      “Jeez, not so famous their names might be on the memorial next month at Cawthra Square?”

      Malcolm shook his head. “Famous, famous, in the world at large.”

      I put a finger on one of the twenties and moved it to a spot halfway across the bar.

      “Daryl Snelgrove,” Malcolm said.

      I hesitated. “Let me work on that one a second.”

      “Snellie.”

      “Ah, baseball. The Blue Jays. A major league ball player hung out in here?”

      Malcolm nodded. “For a while.” At the same time, Malcolm took the twenty off the bar. His hand wasn’t as fast as a mongoose’s, but it might rate a close second.

      “That brings us to famous person number two,” I said. I slid another twenty into position.

      “Bart.”

      “First name or last?”

      “That’s all. Everybody calls him just Bart.”

      “Not I, Malcolm old pal.”

      “He’s in the movies.”

      “Give me a title.”

      “Porno movies,” Malcolm said. “Bart the Bulge.”

      “You wouldn’t make something like that up, would you Malcolm?”

      “Hardly.” He scooped away the second twenty, and waited. None of the other customers in the room needed his attentions.

      “Two more twenties,” I said.

      “I noticed.”

      “You got two more names?”

      “David.”

      I positioned a third bill in the middle of the bar.

      “Okay, the guy isn’t famous or anything that I know of, ” Malcolm said. He was talking faster. “I never heard his last name. But this David, Ian Argyll had drinks with him a lot of times last summer and fall, enough that I remember them together. A tall, skinny guy, weird build on him, kind of nothing as far as looks go. Very good dresser, though, always sharp suits and silk ties and shoes that somebody’s put some polish on.”

      “David?”

      “How