Read Online Straight No Chaser by Jack Batten - Free Book Online

away from my face.
    â€œI suppose I got to let that young kiddie I got on the piano stretch out some,” he said.
    â€œTake up the solo slack until Dave comes back?”
    â€œAin’t worth shit.”
    â€œWho isn’t?” I said. “You’re not talking about Dave?”
    â€œThe young kiddie on the piano. Plays too many notes.”
    Manley finished the rest of his drink.
    â€œAll right if I ask something private, Harp?” I said. “How much Scotch can you hold when you’re on the job?”
    Manley looked at his empty glass.
    â€œI don’t hardly juice,” he said. “Only time is if the kiddies get to acting bad on me.”
    â€œI’ll alert Abner Chase,” I said. “Get him to lay in an extra stock of Black Label for the rest of the week.”

9
    C OMMUTERS call it the DVP. They say it with affection. It’s the Don Valley Parkway. It’s three lanes wide both ways, five lanes at the collector points, and it carries traffic from the centre of the city to the northern suburbs and beyond. A tractor-trailer passed me, and my car shimmied. A Tinker Toy could pass me and my car would shimmy. I drive a white Volkswagen Beetle convertible. I was on the inside lane of the Parkway and heading north. A grateful bank robber gave me the Beetle. A bonus, he said, for getting him an acquittal. The gift may reveal something about my clientele. If Cam Charles had a client overflowing in gratitude, the Reverend Moon maybe, he’d probably reward Cam with a Lamborghini.
    On either side of the Parkway, tall dark trees stood on hills against the sky. The trees were all that was left of the old valley from the centuries before it was paved for the four lanes each way. Somewhere down below me to the left was the Don River. It had turned as grey and greasy as Mr. Kipling’s Limpopo. I took the off ramp for Don Mills Road North and drove past a junior high school named after Marc Garneau. I had the top up on the Beetle, but the windows were open, and the air, away from the Parkway, felt damp and fresh. Marc Garneau was Canada’s astronaut. Mission Control in Houston fired him into space and brought him back. Good for Marc. Were other schools named after living Canadians of renown? Deanna Durbin Collegiate Institute? Didn’t seem likely.
    On the north side of Eglinton Avenue, past the IBM complex, I took a right and got myself into the fringes of residential suburbia. The streets were laid out in loops and crescents that probably adhered to a master design. The design eluded me. I slowed and circled and watched for street signs. People who live in downtown Toronto look askance at people who live in the suburbs. The suburban dwellers drive into the city, take up parking space, talk noisy in restaurants, and go home to their crooked little streets on a highway they call by a pet name. Maybe it was just an image problem.
    Ralph Goddard lived at 48 Hiawatha Crescent, and I was at the intersection of Tomahawk and Wigwam. Where was John Wayne when you needed him? I found Hiawatha and Number 48 on my own. Ralph’s house was white stucco and two storeys. There was a Pontiac station wagon in the driveway, and the porch light was on. I parked in front of the house and walked up the sidewalk. It was made of rust-coloured bricks that had been fitted together in an intricate pattern. There was a birdbath on the lawn, and a sign by the door, raised black metal lettering on a light-brown plaque, announced “The Goddards”. I didn’t spot any pink flamingos.
    Ralph Goddard answered the door after I pushed the bell a second time. He didn’t look much like Dave.
    â€œYou must be the famous Mr. Crang,” he said.
    Ralph had a grin that would crack most men’s cheeks.
    â€œAny friend of Dave’s,” he said.
    He gripped my elbow in his left fist and shook my hand with his right in a display of great conviviality. Ralph was taller, fatter, and