“To save your hide,” I said. Even to me, the line rang of insincerity, but I hadn’t dreamed up a more convincing script. “You’re up to your ear in fraud. Could be there’s no way out of that. But the murder, it’s where we might make room for negotiation.”
“The fuck you talkin’ about?” Tony said.
It was barely possible to get a reading among the collection of scar tissue, unhealed bruises, and broken veins that made up Tony’s face, but he seemed to be registering disbelief that was genuine.
“What murder?” he said. “I don’t do murder.”
“Alice Brackley’s.”
“She’s dead? I seen her Friday walkin’ around.”
“I saw her this morning lying down. Someone swatted her out with one punch.”
“You sayin’ it was me?” Tony said. “I never punched a lady in my life. It goes against my religion. Not hard anyways.”
“The blow Alice took broke her neck.”
Tony said, “Jesus, that’s tough. Nice broad, Mrs. Brackley. I used to run into her a little around the office out there.”
“How much else do you run into, Tony?” I said. “Payoffs to the weigh-masters at the city dumps? You want to talk about that?”
“What do I know?” Tony made himself busy with the black-bean soup. A thick island of sour cream floated on its surface. “Mr. Nash says drive the dumps, drive the office, drive downtown, I drive. Rest of the time, I sit in the car waitin’.”
“Mister innocence.”
Tony stopped slurping his soup.
“What is it they call you guys?” He said. “Shylocks?”
“Shysters.”
“Yeah, right, shylock’s a guy puts money on the street.”
“Shyster puts words in people’s mouths.”
“That’s what I’m gettin’ at,” Tony said. “You’re lookin’ for me to say somethin’ bad about Mr. Nash. Stick his nuts in the wringer for you.”
Tony might have been headed some place interesting. I kept my mouth shut.
“Listen, what I’ll tell you, you ought to watch your ass as far as Mr. Nash goes,” Tony said. “Kind of guy he is, he carries this big fuckin’ cannon in his belt. Colt Mag or somethin’, I don’t know the name. Blow a guy’s brains all over the wall. He tells me stories sometimes we’re drivin’ around the dumps. It’s what Mr. Nash does, scare people, shit like that.”
I asked, “Would he kill Alice Brackley?”
“For what? They was both at the garbage company.”
“Business associates have been known to fall out, especially when it’s monkey business.”
Tony tried out an expression that passed for disgusted.
“You back to that?” he said. “You’re a friend of Papa’s, all right, I’m sittin’ here talkin’ to you. It’s a favour. Thing about the dumps, I drive the car. Do what Mr. Nash tells me. Murder, that’s news to me. Fraud, also.”
Tony waited for a moment, not paying attention to his soup, thinking hard.
“You want somethin’,” he said, “you should ask about the bikers.”
“The guys who drive Ace’s trucks?”
“Them.”
Tony’s thought processes were diverted by the arrival of his tamales. He soaked them in salsa sauce and ordered a piña colada to wash down the hot stuff. It came in a glass the size of the Seven Dwarfs’ bathtub.
I said, “What about the drivers?”
“Huh?”
“Why did Ace hire a squadron of Hells Angels to man the trucks?”
“Yeah, see, thing is the drivers do other stuff. Collections, for instance. Customer’s slow payin’ his bill, okay, one of the bikers gets sent around, asks for the money, customer shakes in his pants, and, shit, he’ll pay double to get that big sucker out of his office.”
“Unpleasant all right,” I said, “but nothing illegal.”
“Well, it’s muscle,” Tony said, disappointed. “Thought that was the kinda thing you were lookin’ for.”
“You want to tell me about the hustling?” I said. “Deals the drivers make on the side?”
“You caught on, right, the day you followed the fat guy around in that wiener car you got,” Tony said. “Jesus, that stuff ’s no sweat. Mr. Nash knows what’s happening, he laughs. He lets those guys do their deals.”
I said, “The driver picks up a load and takes it to a gypsy dump.”
“Yeah, a little load, from a house or somethin’. The contractor, guy building the house, he pays the driver.”
“Cash.”
“Eighty bucks is as high as it goes, a hundred maybe, and the driver has to pay the guy who owns the dump half.”
“The transaction never shows up in Ace’s books.”
“Mr. Nash says forty bucks, the drivers are entitled. Like tippin’ a waiter, Mr. Nash says.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Forty-buck tip for a collection, something more impressive for a murder.”
Tony gave me his stormy look, the one calculated to strike terror into the hearts of the comers in the Maritimes.
He said, “You get out of my face about this murder shit, Mr. Lawyer, or you go drink with them cowboys at the bar.”
“Think of this as practice, Tony,” I said. “Alice Brackley’s dead. The police are going to come around wondering why. Tell me what you know and when the cops ask the same questions, you’ll have the answers down pat.”
“What’s the question?” Tony said. “You talk so much bull, I forget.”
“A driver as Alice’s murderer,” I said, “does that fit?”
“You’re asking, did a biker do it for sure, I don’t know,” Tony said. “But those guys, their morals is all up their ass, y’know what I mean.”
I took Tony’s splendid metaphor to indicate that murder wasn’t unknown as one of the Ace drivers’ talents.
“What about Charles Grimaldi?” I asked. “Your boss?”
“Not my boss,” Tony said quickly. “I work for Mr. Nash personal. Mr. Grimaldi, he’s around, I walk away.”
“You don’t like the gentleman?”
“Nuthin’ to do with it, like or not like,” Tony said. “Mr. Nash’s a hard guy, that’s what he’s supposed to be, the way he earns his living. Mr. Grimaldi’s a hard guy, he does it ’cause he likes it. There’s fighters, certain kind of fighter, hits guys that are already fallin’ through the ropes. Weirdos. Mr. Grimaldi’s that kinda person. I told Mr. Nash once. I said Mr. Grimaldi’s weird, and Mr. Nash told me never mind. That’s it, I never mind.”
Tony had fibbed when he said he knew nothing about Ace Disposal’s wheeling and dealing at the Metro dumps. I’d bet my house on it. I’d make the same wager he was straight with me on the other items. He didn’t kill Alice Brackley and he had no first-hand information on who handled the deed. But in his own assessment, he wouldn’t rule out Sol Nash, worship the man as he did, or one of the drivers, maybe on a contract job. And there was more. Tony’s pigeonholing of Charles Grimaldi’s character seemed to make him, in Tony’s mind,