Take Five Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Jack Batten

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or

  mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information

  storage and retrieval systems—without the prior written permission

  of the publisher, or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic

  copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Batten, Jack, 1932–

  Take five [electronic resource] / Jack Batten.

  (A Crang mystery)

  Electronic monograph. Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-77102-316-0 (epub). — ISBN 978-1-77102-317-7 (mobi)

  I. Title. II. Series: Batten, Jack, 1932– . Crang mystery (Online).

  PS8553.A833T33 2013 C813’.54 C2012-907835-2

  Editor: Janice Zawerbny

  Cover design: Michel Vrana

  Cover image: design56/istockphoto.com

  Published by Thomas Allen Publishers,

  a division of Thomas Allen & Son Limited,

  390 Steelcase Road East,

  Markham, Ontario L3R 1G2 Canada

  www.thomasallen.ca

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of

  The Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which

  last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

  We acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the

  Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada

  through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  Jack Batten, after a brief and unhappy career as a lawyer, has been a very happy Toronto freelance writer for many years. He has written thirty-five books, including four crime novels featuring Crang, the unorthodox criminal lawyer who has a bad habit of stumbling on murders that need his personal attention. Batten reviewed jazz for the Globe and Mail for several years, reviewed movies on CBC Radio for twenty-five-years, and now reviews crime novels for the Toronto Star. Not surprisingly, jazz, movies, and crime turn up frequently in Crang’s life.

  Books of Merit

  For Victor

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  1

  Judge Harry Keough was tearing a strip off me.

  “For crissake, Crang,” Keough said, “how could you lose a client? A guy who’s been around the criminal courts as long as you? Your woman’s supposed to be in court for sentencing this morning, and you lose her? I mean, come on, Crang, this is embarrassing for everybody concerned. Me included.”

  “If you don’t mind, Judge,” I said, “could we think about rephrasing the situation?”

  “Like how?”

  “More nuanced, along the lines of my client keeping me in the dark about her plan not to show up today?”

  “It all comes down to the same damn thing.”

  “Maybe we’re just debating emphasis,” I said. “Mine’s on the client giving me the slip.”

  “You’re not convincing me, Crang,” Keough said.

  “That’s odd,” I said. “It happens to be true she gave me the slip.”

  It was ten-thirty on a June Monday morning. The judge and I were sitting in his chambers on the third floor of Osgoode Hall. We still wore our courtroom costumes, black gown and vest for me with a stiff white collar and a dickey. Keough’s gown came with a slash of scarlet. It made him look like Ruritanian nobility.

  The judge stayed on his rant.

  “All you counsel agreed on the plea, unanimous with everybody,” he said. “Your woman and the guy, her co-accused, the two of them admitted guilt. The Crown lawyers agreed. So no trial’s necessary. Nothing to do in court today except the sentencing, and we’re wrapped up before lunchtime. Everybody signed off on it. What could be simpler? And you can’t keep your end of the bargain.”

  Keough was a tough old bird, more than thirty years on the bench. He had an erect build and a full head of wiry white hair. The lines on his face looked as deep and permanent as the Grand Canyon.

  “With respect, Judge,” I said, though what I was feeling was more like irritation, “my client may have a convincing reason for staying out of touch. Maybe a third party’s responsible in ways we don’t know about. Got her in his clutches.”

  “Damn case is making me grumpier than usual.”

  “Even her cell’s turned off.”

  “Does she have a real phone?” Keough asked. “A land line’s what I’m talking about. Can’t get used to that phrase. Land line, what a ridiculous thing to call an ordinary telephone.”

  “Hers isn’t in service.”

  Keough made a sighing sound and shifted in his chair to face out the window to his right. The view was west over Osgoode’s green and perfect lawns to University Avenue, which wasn’t perfect unless you liked traffic twenty-four hours a day.

  The judge turned back to his desk and shuffled through a stack of court documents. “When did you last see . . . uh . . . what’s her name again? Never laid eyes on the woman myself.”

  “This would have been her first appearance in anything except bail court,” I said. “No reason for you to have seen her before. Anyway, the answer’s Nguyen, Judge. My client’s Grace Nguyen. Her co-accused is George Wu.”

  “Yeah,” he said, checking the names against a court paper in front of him. He looked up, an expression on his face I’d call petulant. “Woman probably just got cold feet. What’d she seem like the last time you talked to her?”

  “Unreadable, same as usual,” I said. “Saw her yesterday afternoon in my office for a preview of today’s events. What was going to happen when she got walked from the courtroom to the clink. Went over all that with her. The prospect didn’t fill her with dread. Nothing seems to.”

  “That’s the Chinese for you. Inscrutable.”

  “Your Honour,” I said, “a lot of people might think what you just said is racist. Besides, she’s Vietnamese. Came here as a little girl.”

  “Boat people, right?”

  “Wrong,” I said. “Grace reached Canada years after that.”

  Keough grinned. “You think I’m getting myself in deep with the political correctness monitors?”

  “I’m not going to rat you out, Judge, if that’s what’s on your mind.”

  Keough flapped his hand in my direction. “My problem,” he said, “it’s how do I wrap this case up when one of the two players is somewhere in the wind? Biggest marijuana grow op in Canadian history is what I heard.”

  “Those are police numbers, Your Honour,” I said. “Exaggerated without a doubt.”r />
  My objection was what we criminal lawyers call pro forma. Defence counsel were expected to complain. It was our role in the legal fandango. But this time, my heart wasn’t in the moan about the figures. The cops had nailed Nguyen and Wu for running grow op houses across Metro Toronto that produced forty thousand marijuana plants. That was enough dope to bring in thirty million bucks on the drug market. The numbers were too solid for me to make a dent in. They were the reason for the guilty pleas.

  I glanced around the judge’s chambers. A golf putter was leaning against the wall near the door. On the floor, at the far end of a Persian rug, there was a little plastic contraption with a hole in the middle. I hadn’t swung a golf club in years, but I knew the contraption was for the judge to practice his putting.

  “Got a foursome later this afternoon,” Keough said, noticing me noticing the golf paraphernalia. “But before I leave, we’ll all go back to court first thing after lunch, and set a new sentencing date.”

  “And in the meantime,” I said, “between now and whatever new date you set, you expect me to find my client? Am I reading our little exchange the right way, Judge?”

  “The law doesn’t make a counsel responsible for producing a missing accused person. But in this case, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll put my best efforts to it, Judge.”

  “You know I’m retiring in five months? Seventy-five my next birthday. It’s mandatory.”

  “And you don’t want to leave any messes behind you?”

  The judge nodded. “Not a big deal to most people, but it is to me.”

  “One hot bulletin for you, Judge,” I said, “I’ve already got my investigator beating the bushes for Grace.”

  The judge raised his eyebrows, which were as thick and silvery as his hair. “Get you, Crang. Now you’ve got an investigator.” He stretched each syllable in in-ves-ti-ga-tor.

  “Part-time,” I said. “But he’s a pretty sharp cookie.”

  “What’d this investigator of yours work at before he started investigating?”

  I hesitated before I answered. “A related field.”

  Keough gave me a long look. “What’s this, Crang? Now you’re playing your cards close to the vest? Like you said, we’re just having a little exchange here. What’s your guy’s name?”

  I shrugged. “Maury Samuels. That mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?”

  “Thought it might.”

  “Off the top of my head, the name doesn’t register,” Keough said. He stood up from his swivel chair. “You want coffee, Crang? Got a pretty slick steward looks after this part of the building. He says he gets his coffee in a deal with a foreign outfit. Unique to us judges. You aware of a coffee from Kenya?”

  “Only every time I pass the coffee section in Loblaws.”

  “Loblaws?” The judge looked baffled. “It doesn’t come directly from Nairobi?”

  “Not unless you’re talking about Nairobi Avenue out in the east end.”

  “You’re joking me, Crang.”

  “I am about Nairobi Avenue.”

  “But not about Loblaws?”

  I shook my head. “The steward’s running his little game on you, Judge.”

  “Well, hell,” Keough said. “But it still tastes damn fine.”

  While Keough and I were talking, I’d felt the cell in my pocket vibrate. After the judge left the room, I pulled the cell out, and scrolled down till I found a text timed a few minutes earlier. It was from Maury, telling me to meet him outside Grace Nguyen’s condo building at eleven-fifty. Why was he so specific about the time? A bigger mystery was the last line in the text. Wear your gown. Then he repeated the same thing in capital letters. WEAR YOUR GON.

  The misspelling must have meant Maury was in a rush. Was the rush a favourable sign? Could be.

  The judge came back into his chambers carrying a small silver tray holding two china cups and saucers in an elegant-looking blue-and-white pattern. Both cups were filled close to the brim.

  I sipped some of the coffee from Kenya. The stuff had a nice hit to it.

  “Your guy the steward makes a powerful cup,” I said. “No wonder you judges don’t nod off on the bench the way some used to.”

  Keough frowned at me.

  “I heard from Maury,” I said, rushing before the judge got more freaked over my crack. “Maybe nothing to be excited about, but I’m meeting him at my client’s condo later this morning.”

  “Results count, Crang,” the judge said. He went at his coffee with big slurps. “Keep that in mind.”

  I said I would. I sipped some more Kenyan and resolved to buy a package from Loblaws on my next shopping trip.

  “Let me ask you something,” Keough said.

  The judge put down his coffee cup, stood up and walked over to the putter leaning against the wall. He waggled it three or four times, loosening his wrists.

  “This morning,” Keough said, “my wife dropped me off down here close to nine-thirty. That’s awfully damn late for me. So I took a shortcut through the courthouse instead of going all the way around to the Osgoode entrance. Happened to see you over by that snack counter on the first floor where they serve the watery coffee. You were talking to a tall man in a very nice tweed sports coat.”

  He took a golf ball out of his pants pocket and dropped it on the rug about four feet from the plastic contraption.

  “You with me so far?” the judge asked.

  “If you’re wondering about the guy in the very nice tweed jacket, yeah, it was Maury.”

  Keough lined up his ball and stroked it. The ball went in the contraption’s hole.

  “Nice putt, Judge,” I said. “Ms. Nguyen was supposed to meet me at the snack counter at eight forty-five. When she didn’t show by nine-fifteen, I called Maury. Got him to go looking for the lady.”

  “I’ve seen Mr. Samuels someplace before,” the judge said. “Terrible at names, but I don’t forget a face.”

  “Even twenty years back, give or take?”

  “Twenty years is nothing at my age.”

  The judge lined up his ball for another putt. This one was from about eight feet.

  “A longish putt there, Your Honour,” I said.

  “It’s a game I play against myself. Double the length of the putt until I miss. Then I have to start over.”

  The judge putted. His eight-footer fell into the cup.

  “So tell me where I saw Maury Samuels twenty years ago, give or take,” he said. “I’m thinking it must have been in court.”

  “The jury had convicted Maury,” I said. “You were handing out the sentence.”

  “Aha.”

  “Aha?”

  The judge’s aha sounded more triumphant than mine.

  “What’d I give Mr. Samuels?” he asked me.

  “Two and a half years.”

  The judge stood over the ball for his next putt, a sixteen-footer.

  “Two and a half?” he said. “That meant penitentiary time, but not too much of it.”

  He stepped away from his putt but kept his back to me. I was still sipping the Kenyan.

  “I can’t imagine you acted for Mr. Samuels at the trial,” the judge said. “You’re not that old.”

  “Didn’t get my call until a couple of years after that,” I said. “So, no, I didn’t act for Maury. Never have. He’s just a guy I got to know pretty well around the courthouse.”

  “What did I give him the two and a half for?”

  I let a beat go by before I answered. “Break and enter, Your Honour.”

  The judge’s back stiffened just a little. If he was bothered about Maury’s past and his current role in the Nguyen case, and I felt sure he was, the stiffened back was the only giveaway he allowed himself. He moved away from the ball again.

  “Can I assume Mr. Samuels isn’t currently in difficulties?” Keough asked me. “With the law, I’m talking about? Not still doing break and enters?”

  “The time you put Maury away,” I s
aid, “it’s the only sentence he ever served, the only time he went through a trial. His record’s clean as a whistle since then.”

  Keough concentrated again on his sixteen-foot putt. The damn putting was getting on my nerves, but I wasn’t about to tell him to knock it off. The guy was a judge. He could give me the time to find Grace before the cops got into the hunt or he could cut me off at the pass. He stroked the sixteen-footer. It went in the hole. He set up his next putt. This one was in the neighbourhood of thirty-two feet.

  Still with his back to me, the judge said, “I need to make one thing clear.”

  “Name it, Judge.”

  “If Mr. Samuels is successful in his search for Ms. Nguyen, there’s no need in law for you to inform the court how he carried out his responsibilities.”

  I couldn’t blame Keough for his caution. The man was about to retire, and he didn’t want somebody like Maury smudging his lifetime reputation as a straight shooter when he was so close to stepping down.

  “Rest assured, Judge,” I said.

  “You know, Mr. Crang,” the judge said, tilting his head in my direction, “you’re somewhat known for impetuous action.”

  “Not really warranted, if I may say so, Your Honour,” I said. “I only have the interests of my clients at heart.”

  Jesus, I thought, where had the homilies come from? If I wasn’t careful, the next words out of my mouth would be something about calling them like I see them.

  “Okay, Mr. Crang,” Keough said, his attention back over the golf ball, “I’ll delay sentencing for three weeks. I’ll even continue her bail, and you see what you can do about bringing Ms. Nguyen to court.”

  “We’re in business, Judge.”

  Keough tapped the thirty-two-footer. It lipped out to the right.

  “Hell and damnation,” he said.

  2

  Toronto’s early summer was out in full force. Clear blue sky, brilliant sun, young women wearing bright dresses with sandals revealing toenails painted in colours not known to nature. In this summer parade, I played the role of the horse’s ass in the lawyer’s gown. Gowns weren’t meant for wearing beyond the doors of courtrooms. On the street, I felt like a kid decked out in a Halloween costume on a day that wasn’t October 31.